It’s Official: UK Plunges into Recession
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed this morning what we already knew: the UK economy suffered its largest contraction in Q2 since records began. (Caveat: the ONS only started keeping records in 1955.) GDP shrank by a whopping 20.4% and, since it’s the second quarter of negative growth in succession, that means the economy is officially in recession. Overall, the British economy has shrunk by 22% since the beginning of the year, reducing output back to the level it was in 2003.
The Government will blame the virus, of course, but that excuse only goes so far because the UK has suffered the worst recession in the G7. GDP shrank by 13.8% in France, 12.4% in Italy, 12% in Canada, 10.1% in Germany, 9.5% in the US and is forecast to shrink by 7.6% in Japan. Lockdown zealots will claim our economic woes have been exacerbated by Boris’s failure to place the country under virtual house arrest even earlier, but one of those countries – Japan, which has fared the best in the G7 if the forecast is accurate – never imposed a full lockdown and Sweden’s economy performed better than most in Europe, only shrinking by 8.6% in Q2.
The truth is that if Boris had stuck to his guns and not imposed a full lockdown Britain’s Covid death toll would be no higher, the collateral death toll would be lower and the economy would be in better shape.
Government by Chaos
One explanation for why Britain has fared the worst in the G7 is that our Government has been so chaotic, destroying what the economist Paul Krugman calls the “confidence fairy”. First we were going to “take in on the chin”, then we weren’t. Testing was scaled back because it was unreliable, then it was scaled back up because it was our best hope of containing new outbreaks. Masks outside healthcare setting weren’t recommended, then they were. Schools would re-open before the summer holidays, then they wouldn’t. The lockdown is over, unless you live in Leicester, Manchester, Bradford, Preston, etc., in which case it isn’t. You can go on holiday to Spain without having to quarantine on your return – oh no you can’t. But Portugal’s off the list, right? Maybe not. France? Who knows.
In his latest essay for Lockdown Sceptics, longstanding contributor Guy de la Bédoyère asks the six million dollar question. Is there any method in the Government’s madness – some diabolical plot orchestrated by Dominic Cummings – or is it just one cock-up after another?
There are plenty of people who think this Government, indeed almost any government, is hell-bent on a systematic plan to destroy individual liberty, force people to be vaccinated, inject them with chips, monitor social media accounts, use algorithms as a mechanism of control and to do it all with the cynical efficiency of a Bond villain.
Others think governments are exercises in accidental chaos, masked by spin, staggering from one crisis to another, fuelled by individual self-interest, opportunism and chronic disorganization.
I’m firmly in the latter camp, but Guy is more ambivalent. This is one of his best essays yet and worth reading in full.
A Musician Writes…
I got a message from a musician who spent some time in mainland Europe recently. Not as awful as she was expecting.
I just read the Postcard from Belgium you published a few days ago. I was in Belgium from July 30th – August 1st, as a musician performing at an event in Brussels. When I arrived – off a train from the airport – I was dismayed to find people wearing masks even in the streets, and signs saying that masks were mandatory outdoors. I thought Belgium had gone mask-mad. However, this impression soon dissipated. We went to rehearse at a studio – no masks in sight. Then at the outdoor event the next day, despite the sign saying masks were mandatory, the organisers were scathing about the public wearing masks and told us we only had to wear them when the audience arrived so we didn’t appear to be breaking the law. Even then, audience members were only required to wear them when moving around and not when at their seats (which were spaced out somewhat but people were free to join each other at different tables). After the gig, another musician was telling me about how lockdown scepticism was growing in Belgium and the Netherlands and starting to get organised, though he emphasised it was still a minority of people.
Next we drove to Zurich, rehearsed, and went to a cafe – only the staff wore masks. Then to a gig in France. Despite a new law being locally introduced that masks are compulsory even on the streets, very few people are following this, though everyone is wearing them in shops, and staff in cafes and kitchens wear them. People are concerned about the virus – they are not “corona deniers” – but they are just using common sense.
I’m from Scotland and was talking to people from Catalonia where the rules are also strict. They, like me, were thrilled to be part of an event where people can mingle freely, play music together, even sit next to each other to eat. I was very worried about travelling in this current super-safety-fear climate but actually it’s been like a coronavirus holiday. I’ve been given handshakes, hugs, even a kiss on the cheek, Belgian-style. I don’t mention this too much to people back home because they tend to react with horror but for me this trip has been a massive relief. The countries of the UK might still be quite fear-ridden (though there have always been the pragmatic folk throughout) but mainland Europe feels like a sensible place. People haven’t forgotten their humanity and want to live what I call the ‘true normal’ not the ‘new normal’.
If only I didn’t have to come home…
Anti-Mask Protests Planned For This Weekend
The anti-lockdown movement is gathering momentum. According to the Mail, anti-mask protests are planned for this weekend in London, Liverpool and Hull. And yesterday, a group calling itself StandUp X invaded a Morrison’s in London and told shoppers to remove their masks.
Worryingly for the Government trying to promote the wearing of masks, the protest group’s public Facebook page shows it is converting other people to its views and cause.
One mother called Gemma Munro told them: “I really want to thank this group for giving me the strength and courage to stop wearing that stupid mask!”
StandUp X is not just opposed to masks. It’s also against vaccinations and 5G masts, which will make some lockdown sceptics understandably wary.
Can’t this movement find a better leader than Piers Corbyn?
Postcard From Brazil
A reader in Brazil – a Canadian married to a Brazilian – has written a corking postcard from the South American country. It’s not the usual griping about how an irresponsible populist leader has ignored the advice of his own scientists and let the virus cut a swathe through the favelas. On the contrary, he thinks Bolsonaro has got it broadly right. He points out that Brazil’s per capita death toll is lower than it is in Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, the UK, Sweden, and the United States.
Despite high national case numbers, Brazilian cities that were struck hard early on have now seen new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths fall off a cliff around the 20% infected mark, just like clockwork. Of course, we all know that herd immunity cannot be reached and would result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold suffering blah blah blah. So what explains these drops? Will we hear the English language media discussing this? Will pigs fly?
With the numbers now falling in my state as well, I shake my head daily at the bizarro world pronouncements of the state Governor proclaiming that beaches and hiking trails, to which people have been flocking for months, are now open. Restaurants are now allowed to operate until 6pm, despite the swanky spot down the block having been open until 2am every night since the beginning of the pandemic, pumping loud music. I suspect bribery.
This is one of the best postcards we’ve published so far. Well worth reading in full.
Did Re-Opening Schools in Israel Really Cause a Spike in Cases?
Yesterday, I published a series of graphs showing that re-opening schools in most parts of the world hadn’t caused a rise in cases – with one exception, Israel. Indeed, the apparent link between the decision to re-open schools in Israel and the subsequent rise in cases is one of the most common arguments against re-opening schools in full in England next month.
However, a reader has pointed out that this is a case of correlation not causation.
I would like to comment regarding the graph showing an increase in cases for Israel after school re-opening.
The point is that the event (i.e. schools re-opened) is as relevant as “Full Moon”.Israel became an anarchy in the sense that the Orthodox population disregard and disobey the guidelines set for social distancing and mask-wearing.
The result is that a huge portion (over 50%) of the cases are in this group, with an order of magnitude lower rates elsewhere.
However, due to the political situation (PM on trial), the law enforcement authorities do nothing at all.
It would be a mistake to link the cases to “schools re-opened”.
Round-Up
- ‘Stricken Intu’s Trafford Centre shops for £1.3bn buyer‘ – Sky News reports that the Trafford Centre, Britain’s fourth-biggest shopping centre, is up for sale
- ‘Why schools must open in September‘ – Clare Wagner, head teacher of the West London Free School, says the effect of not re-opening schools in September will be catastrophic
- ‘Terrified teacher writes her own obituary saying it’s too soon for schools to re-open‘ – For a contrasting view…
- ‘Summer flu is now more deadly than Covid‘ – Ross Clark in the Spectator points out that more people have been dying of flu than COVID-19 since the middle of June
- ‘No, Europe isn’t being engulfed by a deadly second wave‘ – And here’s Ross Clark in the Telegraph with another great piece
- ‘The Health Passport — A Green Light for Tyranny?‘ – Insider’s account of the proposed new health passport
- ‘Russia Registers World’s First COVID-19 Vaccine Despite Safety Concerns‘ – Something tells me Brits won’t be queuing up to take this
- ‘After Chicago Looting and Coronavirus, Businesses Consider Closing Shop‘ – Black Lives Matter, but the lives of shopkeepers don’t, apparently
- ‘Dan the Dictator locks six million Australians in his pandemic prison‘ – Excellent polemic by Eleni Arapoglou in the Conservative Woman against Kim-Jong Dan, the tyrant of Victoria
- ‘Beauty therapists being forced to work illegally while waiting for the government’s green light‘ – Eye-opening piece in the Telegraph about an unlikely group of lawbreakers
- ‘How The Pandemic Revealed Britain’s National Illness‘ – Well-reported piece by Tom McTague for the Atlantic. Gets quite a lot right, but hampered by uncritically embracing the idea that Boris should have locked down earlier
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A couple of months 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 (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of publicity. Indeed, I’ve written about it for the Daily Express today. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Meanwhile, if you want to get a sense of what it would be like to embark on a relationship with a bedwetter, the Terrence Higgins Trust has issued some “safe sex” advice for people worried about catching the virus. You should wash your hands before and after each sexual encounter, avoid kissing and wear a face mask during intercourse. I’m not making that up. The Telegraph & Argus has the story.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I’ve created a permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Sept 25th to Oct 5th). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from eBay here and an “exempt” card that looks like as if it’s been issued by the NHS for just £2.79 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here (now over 28,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. If you feel like donating, however small the sum, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
I have a regular correspondent who suggests theme tunes for this site, but his latest is such a good spot I thought I’d stick it down here rather than throw it away in “Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers”. It’s “Absolute Panic” by Bedwetters Anonymous. Well worth a listen.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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I’ve not been taking much notice of the stupid and confusing limits on how many households can meet in a tent on a Tuesday, or alternatively in a shed on a Friday. But I’ve just had a look because a friend was insisting that we can’t meet in multi-household groups even outside. But the regs seem to imply that we can have as many as 30 people inside a house but only 6 people from two households can meet outdoors? Or have I got that wrong? If not, it’s nonsensical!
Not sure even Wankock would know the details if questioned.
https://www.gponline.com/biggest-overhaul-gp-vaccination-payments-30-years-new-gp-contract/article/1673383 Nice earner for the average practice
I’ve just returned from University College hospital ( for weekly blood tests). Their new system – which seeks to make everyone book in advance on line – ‘ to minimise people from coming to hospital’ , as part of the ‘new future’ ( words actually used) has ended up creating chaos. Hospitals have become a hostile environment as far as patients are concerned. You get accosted at the entrance by full PPE clothed security – ‘what are you here for? Do you have an appointment?’. If, like me, you’re there on a standard order for weekly bloods, it’s a hassle each time just to get through the door. Then a temperature test and mandatory mask and waiting in two separate areas before being allowed to proceed to the blood clinic. This bit was utterly farcical as, Carry on style, one nurse shouted at another nurse at the other end of the corridor’ How many waiting’ ,’9.’, ‘OK – sending another 2 through‘. Then another wait outside the phlebotomists area as the nurses struggled to manage a combination of the new online pre booked appointments and ad hoc patients like me and anyone else who was coming direct from any of… Read more »
Excellent essay by Guy de la Bédoyère. I’ve copied and pasted it into a Word document and emailed to several friends and a couple of relatives. Hope they take the time to read it. Might also share on my FB page, though I have noticed most FB followers only seem to manage to read 3 consecutive sentences at most!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8617293/Fauci-says-new-study-key-dies-COVID-19.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus
Fauci has discovered the T cells
This is the article he is ref.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/08/04/science.abd3871/tab-pdf
Bit behind the times isn’t he? Perhaps he has been wearing his mask over his eyes?
**New page is up**
So was it just bad management?
And I see they’ve further scuppered the chances of our young people. I knew this would happen, I don’t even know why they cancelled exams!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/13/level-results-day-grades-contest-mock-exam-ucas-university-clearing/
Interesting that the BBC actually completely removes comments; not just ‘This comment has been removed because it broke … blah blah’. I commented about the 77th Brigade being out in force on some article about Australian covid, and although my comment is still in my BBC account, it is nowhere to be found in the actual comments.
As a state funded operation the BBC should be tightly controlled as to what they can censor in terms of public comments. It should be restricted by statute somehow to prevent it using censorship for manipulative political (broadly defined) purposes. It should be an overriding stated principle that being “offended” is not grounds for censorship, obscenity aside.
But obviously that is directly against the spirit of he times, in which censorship “for the Greater Good” is seen as acceptable and normal, and we pretend it’s somehow not a suppression of freedom of speech.
Jeopardy needs to be created for people who seek to deprive others of their free speech rights. It should be a punishable criminal offence.
Sky news two talking heads live. Both discussing telegraph article, ‘In Sweden’. One lady has just said exactly what we all know massive scare mongering by government causes death and killing of economy. Not cut off… very different tone. Gave a robust voicing of the culpability of the government and it’s ‘experts dimwits evils’.
Segment called The View. Sky news.
Can’t find it, any chance of a link?
Sorry no. Was on live came in half way through. 10.30am Im guessing it started for 15 mins. Catch on plus one?
OK, thanks. Sorry I didn’t realise it was live.
If you watch Sky News live on YouTube you should be able to rewind the feed. It was within the last half hour (11:12am now as I type)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300081511/coronavirus-government-will-send-all-confirmed-covid19-community-cases-to-quarantine-facilities
All confirmed community cases to be sent to special facilities and not as during previous lockdown staying in their homes.
Evil fascism
From a US tweet (still some sharp-witted left there)
“One of liberalism’s biggest triumphs was convincing courts that individual liberties-including sex and lifestyle choices-are more important than public health concerns, whether imagined or real (and there are both) Weird to see today’s “Liberals” take the side of masks/lockdowns”
Remember beginning of AIDs epidemic? Right wing and religious zealots wanted to quarantine them.
And now the liberals are applauding NZ and Melbourne forceful respone.
Anybody would think that this is a serious infection like Ebola, rather than one that just scrapes into the CDC category 2
March them off to camp :/ These are countries in the supposedly Free World…
FEMA camps in the US getting ready to accept all the homeless due to evictions for non-payment of mortgages and rent is the rumour now.
All our homeless are in hotels like the asylum seekers.
Covid clutters our streets and councils waste our money.
As mentioned previously Edinburgh council has being carrying out a campaign of large white stickers to areas around pedestrian crossings. The message is don’t press the button between 9pm and 7am – the crossings are on automatic timers. Thoughtfully the council have introduced corrugated plastic and zip ties by repeating the message at finger tip level as well.
Today I spotted the reason – Covid19. The finger tip level signs have a black covid19 of doom logo tucked in one corner.
Covids have now been fully trained to use pedestrian crossing, you can see them crossing like a family of ducklings.
For those thinking this was a greta of arc measure. It isn’t!
Have COVIDS evolved to be able to have a sense of time now too? This is truly a worrying development.
I cannot post pictures. But wish i could.
You need to log in proper to post a picture, up at the top
Good clue! Thanks. Thought I was logged in!
Also handy to know the virus knocks off at 9pm. After a 14 hour shift that little guy needs a break.
Also in Edinburgh, they are rushing through extensive street modifications – closing some roads, widening pavements, and so on – without proper consultation and declaration, claiming they are to allow people to better adhere to social distancing (they do evasively word it as “this will allow” rather than “we’re doing this because of”). In fact, these rapid programmes are a mix of things that they wanted to do anyway, to work around other developments and also for local implementation of the global “active streets” programme to make us all UN-sustainability-healthy and suchlike.
Now, I actually quite approve of some of the changes personally, but I hate that ad-hoc, ever-evolving, opportunistic “say anything that comes to mind to get people to go along with something or at least not object” approach to things.
This has been the hallmark of government and corporate communication over this whole period, of course, where the same measures are subject to ever-shifting justifications to maintain them (“save the NHS”, “flatten the curve”, “death numbers”, “R numbers”, “case numbers”, “covid zero”… “good citizen?”). In fact, you could completely ignore the statistical digging around and, just by the way the communications were handled, tell that something was… Read more »
Lesley Mcinnes does not act for the people. She dances to a different drum.
The choking of streets is long planned. The covid socially distanced pavements are a clear joke, no one is stepping out into the coned road space to civid shuffle. Lunacy in broad daylight.
It is actually extremely embarrassing, the coned-off area thing. As you say, everyone is just walking about as normal now, and the “Spaces for People” signs zip-tied to the lampposts are just reminders of how ridiculous the councils are and have been.
https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1293802703097864192
“PCR tests pick up virus remnants and fragments of an infection recovered-from long ago: Two Chinese Patients Test Positive Months After Virus Recovery”
One patient had recovered from C-19 six months earlier.
Interesting the spin in BloomBergNews(MSM) is the possibility of reactivation of infection (Project fear part 2)
The above suggestion more likely or false positive. But why is not virus isolation done in the case to give us the solution? The Koreans did it with over 300 cases when they produced the report that fragments could be found in PCR tests up to 8 weeks.
Yep. PCR test not a diagnostic tool. But it comes up with the results ( if you want to give the Scary Fairy a treat)
Disappointing to hear Margaret MacDonald* just now on a rubbish beeb R4 programme about post Covid leadership.
She is normally sound on most things but ended with “when we come out of the Pandemic crisis we will enter a financial crisis and then of course there is the climate crisis….”
Boy child presenter saying “Johnson did…”
I don’t think much of him either sonny but I’m not a BBC presenter, he is The Prime Minister respect the office.
* Toronto Uni, History.
.
Noticed a change in MSM today.Some change to climate alarmism as the fear factor of Covid fades
Covid could be our chance to win the climate battle. Dodgy models and scientists, no evidence, complicit MSM, the mantra of the supranationals looking for collectivist solutions, banning dissent. It’s the exact same.
Show the person on the street the similarities and it could turn opinion.
It IS the same thing. It IS the Same people behind both things. The World Economic Forum and others.
So true.The climate scam wasn’t working so they found a new one
It’s been suggested that the uptake of vaccines wasn’t working out for these globalists and so this Covid reaction was a desperate measure to get better uptake and adoption among the peasants. Rememeber GAVI mission to ensure healthy markets for vaccines. While I have no evidence to support this I do like the thinking that what we are encountering is desperation on behalf of the globalists, their plans going awry.
I like the thinking but they are patient and have so much power! Any thoughts on my comment a few up from here about ‘climate change’?
I have taken the link and will give it some thought. The climate varies from covid in that the ingrainedprogramming is decades old with the climate. It is the same bamboozle of science and the censoring of critical thinking debate.
The resource you have written is excellent in it’s place. How to get people to find and read. I would work on sign posting to it with a few sharp points. Or another alternative would be to use one topic and present that as a flyer. Call to action would be to visit your page, request PDF etc.
Sort of narrowing the wedge to meet people in their own life.
QR codes can be useful.
You could send your link with a covering paragraph to independent content providers – they may well bd greatful to cover you and your pamphlet as content for their own work.
Many thanks. I’ve come up with a three-point summary and will put that on at the top. I’ve tried a few independents and not heard back, or only minimally. Need to do stuff for an hour then hopefully continue the conversation. I’m hampered by poor IT skills and lack artistic skills as well.
OK, I’ve put up the three-point summary, on the top of the home page. The whole thing is written to avoid the ‘Conspiracy Theory’ accusation (no mean feat).
Global corporates are just looking for money, not ‘collectivism’.
Think Covid. Think ‘Kerchinggg’.
Hi Lockdown Truth. The climate battle ‘ought’ to be easier to win because the absence of science, logic and reason is still easier to prove, and because it ought to be in the realm of rational debate and not ‘you’re a Granny killer if you don’t wear a mask’. So I wrote a booklet along these lines, but I’ve no idea how to promote the booklet or put it to work. If you (or anyone) can advise I’d certainly like to hear. It’s here both as text and as a PDF https://www.beautyandthebeastlytruth.com/
More Greta?
Johnson deserves no respect – he demeans the human race, let alone the office.
Agree, but the BBC ought to be putting in the formalities.
It’s not for that boy to demean The Prime Minister in a job like his
Oops Margaret Macmillan, knew I’d messed it up but got distracted by work stuff for a while.
Yale University study underway to identify most effective messaging – advertising campaign for the Vaccine
The idea that the vaccine promotion might be more “overwhelming” than what we’re used to is further supported by a clinical study5 on ClinicalTrials.gov, the aim of which is to identify the most “persuasive messages for COVID-19 vaccine uptake.”
1)Personal freedom message — A message about how COVID-19 is limiting people’s personal freedom, and how society, by working together to get enough people vaccinated, can preserve its personal freedom.
2)Economic freedom message — A message about how COVID-19 is limiting people’s economic freedom, and how society, by working together to get enough people vaccinated, can preserve its economic freedom.
3)Self-interest message — A message that COVID-19 presents a real danger to one’s health, even if one is young and healthy, and how getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is the best way to prevent oneself from getting sick.
4)Community interest message — A message about the dangers of COVID-19 to the health of loved ones: The more people who get vaccinated against COVID-19, the lower the risk that one’s loved ones will get sick. Society must work together and all get vaccinated.
5)Economic benefit message — A message about how COVID-19 is wreaking… Read more »
i think it reads so much better and makes more sense if “lockdown” is substituted for “COVID-19” in paragraphs 1-8 and then ignore paras 9 and 10 and lose any reference to vaccination
Virtue signalling is the new ‘whatever’, clap for the NHS, bad if you dont, wear a muzzle for the other people, bad if you dont, eat out to ‘help out’, bad if you refuse to etc etc.
So medicine and ethics are being reduced to advertising, and Yale enhances it’s academic credibility by measuring the effectiveness of lies to help Big Pharma?
This is just horrible. They have got ALL the bases covered haven’t they.
This is beyond evil. The level of psychological manipulation is staggering. When are people going to wake up to this and switch off??
As long as the antithesises to these messages and the thesises they are based upon are just ignored, censored or diffamated, rather than being discussed to find synthesises, I pass on each of them, in particular on 9/because it can then by definition not be valid, rather, it’s opposite is and will remain true.
a test question asks the participant to imagine the guilt they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and then spread the disease.
Little snippets like this are an interesting insight into the ‘aggressive conformant’ mindset. It’s the same as the reported trolling on Toby’s dating site where it is assumed that lockdown sceptics know they are more likely to be diseased than everyone else.
The aggressive conformant doesn’t understand that people in the independent-minded half of the “four quadrants of conformity” are not just playing a contrarian game or indulging in slogan-based politics. They aren’t so shallow that they are going to feel ‘guilt’ for the consequences of not rushing into a vaccination that will have been developed by people on the same, stupid continuum as Neil “two pounds eleven” Ferguson.
Turn every one of those upside down would be more like it
When possibly the commonsense message would be Corona virus parties for the under 5s, music festivals for the teens and twenties with plenty of mingling of body fluids, normal life for the healthy under 65s, take your choice if you want any promising looking vaccine for us oldies, like we do at the moment with flu. But then we’re not in the US.
I’m surprised that “My Body My Choice” hasn’t been more popular. You are sacrificing your health and wellbeing for others.
The same argument is used for abortion, where the health and wellbeing of a woman is her choice not yours.
Doesn’t matter that critics of widespread abortion (200,000 + cases a year in the UK) state that the systematic effects (less children) has an impact on society.
No, My Body My Choice.
I’m not against abortion. But there’s a society level conversation that isn’t being made but for some reason is being made for Covid.
Thank you Victoria. A brilliant find and a timely post. This is the direction of the battle for the coming season.
How futile each of the ten treatments are – each undone by pointing out it is the response that cause all the issues not the virus.
Really good to share these explanations when dressed up for presentation.
People really value having adverts and messaging unpicked for them.
Is it a Global ‘exercise/pandemic’? which David Speigelhalter has said will take years to analyse and did it follow on from Event 201 which was a virtual exercise. What is happening now has been vigorously disputed as the ‘reality’ event. Also Agenda 21 which is already happening, a Global sustainability plan which already is national around the world and then down to regional. How far your region takes it is entirely up to those who run the region, as we can see already. What is ‘sustainable’ in your area too, do they mean the people too?
Excellent article by Guy de la Bédoyère.
Fully agree that the role of government is meant to be about reducing uncertainty through a consistent legal / policy framework, not adding to it.
The “governments” in the UK (plus many others) see themselves in the role of King Canute. They want to hold back the waves. But the virus will do what it does. Just like the waves do. Their inability to control the waves has then led to the constant changes of direction as they flail around rather than just admit that this is an impossible task. They then grasp at the mirage of miracle solutions such as Track and Trace (this seems to work properly nowhere), apps (a classic 21st Century thing) and a vaccine (without discussing that proper tests inevitably take years because that is how long side effects may take to show up).
As it becomes more apparent that they have lost control then we will see a ratcheting up of the petty rules (masks, local lock downs etc.) and possibly even more draconian enforcement efforts. Governments that have no real control tend to be the most violent ones in history. Governments that have… Read more »
Remember Canute was actually *making* point that there are some things you can’t control. Would Mr Toad had the same wisdom.
Canute is a prime example of the wrong message being taken as most people haven’t re-read the story.
Same as Uncle Tom, who’s the hero that strives through adversity and never loses his morals
Agree wholeheartedly, Stephen
https://twitter.com/HowardSteen4/status/1293008648344612864/photo/1
“The three headed monster of my Covid cartoon is real and represents a major threat to our lives and human society as we knew it. This very insightful and detailed analysis helps us appreciate what is going on.”
Great cartoon again.Splendid.
’For my family it is over 5 months and we are still not able to see my 87 year old father except through locked double glazed patio doors’
Every time I read something like the above, every time I see or listen to really good music being played to a full concert hall, every time I see replays of the Stokes heroics last year to the sound of full stadiums, then I want to kill, literally kill all the venal incompetent politicians and all the useless self appointed ‘scientific’ experts who are making us linger in this purgatory in an attempt to save their own useless arses. Why do we put up with this? What is WRONG with us? There is only one solution, or we are theirs forever.
I have emailed a few health journalists at the BBC. (It’s their name, with . between first and second name, @ bbc.co.uk). Perhaps we should all do this (or someone here will know of more influential people), and rather than bombard with the usual papers, a Swiss doctor etc, we should quote Speigelhalter directly, on the flagship Today programme and say that there is a reckoning coming and they are part of the problem (or substitute your own diatribe)
Good idea. Do you know any of their names?
Look on the health bit of bbc website. Nick Triggle, Noel Titheradge, but a trawl should reveal much more senior news people. I’m going to post later, one Toby has done today’s posting, to get maximum number of readers, verbatim what Speigelhalter said
Triggle has been one of the less bad ones. Deborah Cohen, who has done some good stuff on Newsnight, is not staff I think but freelance. If you google her, you’ll find her website and a contact email address, which she does look at (at least she answered the email I sent her). She was the one that broke the story on the WHO mask decision being political, and also did a very good piece on Leicester which basically showed the whole thing was a sham. She’s also active on Twitter and does reach out with questions about stuff.
So let me get this straight, if you look at the graph in this article for daily cases and deaths in France, cases are up and deaths have flatlined. Surely that shows that things aren’t that bad doesn’t it?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53747852
More cases and fewer deaths would mean the virus is less lethal.
Or that testing has increased and that the increased cases are false positives.
If you believe (as governments around the world seem to) that every positive test is a genuine infection and the deaths don’t increase as recorded infections do, then the infection fatality rate can only go down.
Yes this is the irony. If we take Pillar 2 positive rate at face value (as a random sample) we get an IFR of about 0.04%. So which is it? Either T&T is junk or the virus is nothing to worry about, by the government’s own data.
The truth is T&T is junk and the IFR is probably about 0.1% as we know from other sources (it’s probably about half or lower of what seroprevalence estimates give you).
Some of them (probably about 10% or so very rough estimate) might be real positives as well of course. There obviously are going to be some real positives in France. Since they’re plotting absolute numbers not ratio of positive to number of tests it’s completely meaningless and doesn’t tell us if there has been an increase or not.
If that’s 10% of the overall positive tests, then – depending on the increase in testing and prevalence of the disease – it’s entirely possible for the increased cases to be all false positives. As you say, without measuring positive results against total tests we have no way of knowing.
They all act (as do the UK gov) like the absolute number of positive infections is the total number of cases, because they want to pretend like they’re in control of everything.
But of course in reality it’s a sample– the ONS estimate of 3000 infections a day in UK is reasonable. But T&T is finding about 600 (of which probably only about 40 are real positives anyway, but this is impossible to know, partly because their methodology is so bad and they don’t tell us obvious things like the asymptomatic ratio).
WITCHCRAFT!!
The other factor is that ‘cases’ don’t equate to actual infection and illness ( see the stuff on PCR testing)
Yes they should stop calling all positive tests “cases”.
Or that people have developed ‘community immunity’ due to repeated low level exposure to low doses that have produced minimal symptoms.
BBC was making out that newer cases affecting younger people was a bad thing as though they were gonna die like the oldies did. Probably the same in France.
Sigh, it already happened when Italy announced it was finding 38 year olds with the virus, shock, horror, via increased testing. The correct response should be “oh goody, they’ll be gaining immunity” . I’m wondering if CV19 is like human syncytial virus, another respiratory one, where everybody gets it before the age of 5 and recovers, mostly undamaged, and it’s not much trouble in the population thereafter? Views, any medics here?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_orthopneumovirus
Yes, come to think of it, why aren’t people drawing the comparison with this sort of virus? I realise that CV19 is having the nasty new blood clotting effects in lungs in some older frail subjects, but then you get bad things in old people with other respiratory viruses. Once this sort of thing has run wild through children, you don’t have a naive population and everyone stops panicking?
There’s also the consideration of the baseline levels. Flu happens all year round but the impact is manageable.
Seeing numbers go up has to be considered in absolute terms rather than relative terms. Sadly perspective appears only to be something learned in Art History
See what happens in three weeks. If deaths go up following infections then it’s real. If not then it’s just increased testing (my money is on the latter but I haven’t looked at France in detail).
We’ve had something of a heatwave across Europe and excess mortality is often driven up by heatwaves. The US have had extreme heatwaves in southern states, many with climbing “Covid” death rates. Will the same happen in France? Hope not, but I wouldn’t bank on anything right now.
Exactly. It is impossible to genuinely unpick Covid deaths from any other kind of deaths at the moment and that will continue in to the winter flu season. The Covid agenda will not be dismantled by data unfortunately, it will run as long as people want it to, consciously or subconsciously (through confirmation bias).
I see from the article it has been used to justify bringing in more masks in Paris. Also Brussels has gone Aussie/US style crazy on the masks now too – all outdoor places it reads like.
None of these bellends in charge, nor the media reporting on it, pointing out that masks _weren’t_ widespread when the cases & deaths plummeted after April, of course. Now though, despite the continued lack of any clinical evidence, masks are just accepted (my media, the sheep) as an ‘essential’ tool for everyone to use.
That’s the great puzzle (the puzzle of the muzzle) why this mania to put people in mask when cases and deaths were plummeting?
If it has any health benefits there is certainly a great ‘dis-benefit’ – it breeds paranoia.
I’ll answer my own question. It is intended to make the populace feel secure and go about living normally.
The opening of schools is going to be an acid test as to whether it creates security or insecurity.
Unbelievable- Today on Radio 4 actually interviewed an academic on risk from Cambridge University who was scathing in his criticism of both PHE and the BBC’s and MSM’s reporting of death figures – all of which he said had resulted in unreasonable fear. He called PHE’s reporting ‘ridiculous‘. Of course we all know this already but very, very slowly the BBC can no longer ignore the reality of the figures and is having to allow more critical voices. Of course no real ‘meal culpa’ moment but nick Robinson did end the piece with the words ‘could do better’. That’s an understatement! Listen to it on iPlayer just after 8am news item this morning.
The full interview was at 7.37am
When the BBC realise that they can now show Boris killed about as many people as possible by going into lockdown, most of the excess deaths being non-covid, and that the virus isn’t the black death and we over reacted; it will give them a big stick to hit the government with.
But some of us will remember who stoked the overreaction. MSM have as much blood on their hands as government, politicians in general, and the failed public institutions behind them.
You’d hope so. But having been the biggest cheerleader for the panic themselves such a big turnaround would take some chutzpah even for them.
I have a nasty feeling that when the BBC changes their tune (along with the rest), there will be a total failure to acknowledge it was ever different. We are at war with government tyranny and the erosion of liberty. We have always been at war with government tyranny and the erosion of liberty.
We have always been at war with Eurasia
And carried on trading with them. It’s what men do.
I can’t see the BBC changing their tune on covid, unless they really get backed into a corner. I think it suits their agenda too well.
We’ll see. Personally, I think they’ll trot out whatever message is going to pull the viewers in as long as it can be spun to suit the woke agenda. I can see the story “the government lied to us, manipulated us and turns out not to have been able to manage a piss up in a brewery” being quite an exciting story for a few days, until it turns out that someone, somewhere has been saying that “trans women” are not actually women.
My experience of the BBC and the enemy class in general inclines me to believe that matt has the right of it here. They absolutely will turn on a dime and shamelessly reverse their own position (so long as it doesn’t adversely affect any woke agenda issues), if it makes for an exciting story that they can attack a Conservative” government with. They will push the “didn’t execute well enough” line until it becomes impossible to sustain and then they will probably transition to just “uncaring, incompetent Tories sacrificed millions of jobs” line when the big issue is the economy.
Things will look as different in a year’s time as they did a year ago. Neither the BBC’s siding with Blairites against Corbynites in the official left’s civil war for control of the “Labour” Party, nor the BBC’s tactical alignment with the government of the day to push coronapanic changes the underlying truth that the BBC institutionally (the vast majority of people who are employed there as managers, editors, journallsts) vote Labour or LibDem and hate the “Conservatives” with a vicious passion. Always have and presumably always will, because the BBC will have to be effectively ended before those Augean… Read more »
Yeah but you must admit, it would be terminally boring if it were stuffed instead with the journalistic equivalent of Grayling. And would be the death of comedy.
Beeb getting brickbats from rail industry about yesterday’s accident. The train was heading back North, for example, not continuing its journey. All we got on the news was clueless speculation. People are making the connection: “what else can we believe”
I’d absolutely take boring over systematically politically biased.
In fact, I’d make the case that state-funded news and analysis should be required to be boring. All the flashy and emotive stuff is basically manipulation.
As for comedy, BBC/lefty comedy has been dead for some time now. Conformist dogma isn’t a good basis for comedy.
Well I liked ‘This Country’. And the Detectorists.
https://thefrontierpost.com/new-zealand-mulls-extending-lockdown-as-covid-19-spreads/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-zealand-mulls-extending-lockdown-as-covid-19-spreads
AUCKLAND:NZ is mulling to extend the coronavirus lockdown in Auckland after health officials said the coronavirus cluster in the city had grown.
National health director-general Ashley Bloomfield said a high school student in Auckland had tested positive, taking the number of confirmed infections to five, with another four probable cases.
Professor David Speigelhalter on the Today programme at 7.35ish, rubbishing PHE’S daily death toll (75 and it was actually 11) and then rounded on the BBC as having reported atrociously on the whole affair. Worth a listen
Aye, it were refreshing to hear. In truth the total adjustment,10%, bain’t be that much – but it seems to be having a great impact on the margin. What will register with the great British public is that the figures are dodgy. Or will it?
If you look at Carl Heneghan’s follow-up in the Spectator there’s a graph which shows how the figures diverge over time. At the peak of the disease there was very little difference between the reported deaths and the deaths post-adjustment; now, however, the difference is stark. In other words, the death rate has fallen much faster than reported. If that message becomes more widespread, the public may understand that the danger such as it was has passed.
Whilst the chart makes it easy to see how much BS there is in the figures, the only reason you can’t call BS back in May/April is that the deaths fell within the arbitrary 28 cut off, there’ll still be a huge over count going on in the earlier months as Covid was slapped on every death certificate regardless of real cause then too. When you couple that with the huge reduction in medical care & social care (as well as isolation from family etc) back at the beginning of the farce, it is no wonder a huge number of old people started dropping dead – that they may have tested positive for Covid within 28 days of their death doesnt make the figures any more accurate.
Unfortunately it’ll be impossible to prove that one, so suspect Carl & his colleagues wise to focus on forcing a cut off for now.
I agree, the figures remain at best problematic. At least now, however, they are a great deal lower (75% reduction of Covid deaths in the last week) which means it’s much easier to persuade people that getting back to normal won’t be a death sentence. That should tilt public opinion and – assuming the polls aren’t completely stitched up – give the Government an incentive to start unwinding the restrictions.
“Government an incentive to start unwinding the restrictions.” – They already have a huge incentive – to stop tanking the country, but they appear to have a bigger incentive to continue this nonsense, we’re just not aware of exactly what it is. There are lots of theories on here, of course, and I guess we’ll find out which one is right when it’s too late.
Perhaps give them cover would have been a better term. As long as they believe (whether genuinely or erroneously) that the populace approve of the distancing measures they won’t change them. I think they’re doing a bit of a Jim Hacker with the opinion polls: “I am their leader – I must follow them.”
Define “real cause”. In the over 70 cohort where the deaths occur.
The thing that actually killed them, you’ve tried this before Sylvie – it’s not a hard concept to grasp.
It seems however really hard for you to grasp that respiratory viruses routinely finish off old people with on average 2-4 co morbidities.
The figures were really dodgy. To be getting 75 deaths a day when infections are so low would have meant the IFR was around 2.5% or that we hadn’t quite done burning through care homes yet.
12 deaths per day is still too many. I would expect it to be about 3 based on 3000 infections per day. I think we do still have some care home deaths biasing things. Will be interesting to see what PHE say with the new methodology.
It’s an interesting point. They’ve been regularly blanket testing in care homes – staff and residents – although I think I saw that they’d stopped now. They’ve also been finding a lot of asymptomatic infections among the over 80s as a result. One fact of life is that people die in care homes. As a result, whatever the cut off date you apply to counting a positive test subject who dies as a Covid death, you will inevitably end up with a not insignificant amount of over counting.
Especially if you keep blanket testing old people for it, and especially in care homes.
I’ve just had a quick look at the data
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathregistrationssummarytablesenglandandwalesdeathsbysingleyearofagetables
It shows that in 2018 144,652 people aged 80+ died… which works out at 392 per day. So sure, if you can get enough of them to show as having tested positive for Covid, it’ll give you a nice steady drip of people dropping dead within 28 days of that test, regardless of what killed them.
I don’t think we’ll ever have genuine figures. What we will have, however, is a shift in the narrative – newspapers are now picking up on Heneghan’s work on PCR accuracy – which is what we need to get out of this mess.
I think people need to be careful about that though. The problem with the PCR test is just that, even though the specificity is very good, you need near-perfect specificity when the prevalence is so low.
I don’t think the case is helped by people quoting Mullis and saying it’s a “meaningless” test, can’t be used for diagnosis, implying that it will regularly detect virus fragments in recovered patients. It makes them sounds like cranks.
It’s a good test, with limitations like any other, but right now is the wrong tool for the job. If your wood-chisel breaks because you’re trying to open a tin of paint with it it’s not the chisel’s fault.
That was rather Heneghan’s point. The false positive rate becomes more of a problem the less prevalent the disease becomes.
Yes Heneghan obviously knows what he’s talking about. The risk is that the argument gets characterised by the opposition as “PCR tests are NBG” which is an extreme view and easy to debunk.
Define “genuine figures”. There’s nothing false about loads of old people dying in care homes with CV 19 positive swabs. Just goes to demonstrate how contagious it is, how little was done to prevent it getting into care homes because that wasn’t understood at the time, and indeed how hard it still is to prevent its spread via lockdowns. Which we do need to know.
I don’t think you can define genuine figures, which is why people are still complaining after yesterday’s announcement that the numbers are still bunk. Unfortunately, like so many things in life, there’s no simple answer and you’re left with what Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen call “lies to children” – simplified representations for consumption by people who can’t take a nuanced argument.
“There’s nothing false about loads of old people dying in care homes with CV 19 positive swabs.”
Care to unpack that with details?
Is it that contagious? Is it that deadly?
What are the actual figures, I’m not sure anybody really knows?
Loosening the restrictions for signing the death certificates, no post mortem and mandatory cremations suggest that some people don’t want the truth to get out.
Contagious, yes. Deadly – only to a certain group. Mandatory cremation?? Where?
I fear not on the basis of experience. The gullibility seems endless, backed by the most egregious propaganda that I’ve ever seen.
Journalism in the real sense is almost dead.
I did write:-
“What will register with the great British public is that the figures are dodgy. Or will it?”
I added the last three word in because as I wrote the sentence before I recalled an even worse debacle with the figures in Ireland. See:-
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-s-official-coronavirus-death-toll-likely-to-have-been-overstated-report-finds-1.4295324
The discrepancy did nothing though to undermine the population’s confidence in the country’s doomsayers. No doubt because it was hard to fathom – I still haven’t fathomed it!
It’s worth noting that Carl Heneghan published a paper a few weeks back about the problem with false positives. This was pretty dense and would have gone over the heads of the lay public. Since then he was distilled the sense of it into much more intelligible pieces in the Spectator and this has been picked up by the Telegraph, who have further simplified it. If this pattern continues then we will get to the point where the Daily Star has an easy to follow graphic which explains the problem and the public will understand.
Since we have a somewhat different press culture than Ireland, this may explain why the same hasn’t happened there.
I’ve copies of the Spectator going back four or six weeks – will I find what Mr. Hensingham has said in one of those issues? Much thanks.
The original piece was on the CEBM (https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/infectious-positive-pcr-test-result-covid-19/) and the follow-up article is on the Spectator website (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/could-mass-testing-for-covid-19-do-more-harm-than-good-).
Yes young Robbo was a little non-plussed. The professor did rather bail out when Robbo gave him the chance at the end of the interview to tell us the real picture now.
Sorry Marie – just seen your post and listened to this too. It was just after 8am news. Almost cheered when he criticises the BBC reporting too! Nick Robinson’s ‘ could do better’ really doesn’t cut it. Carl Heneghan was also on More or Less yesterday – the voice of sanity as always…it’s beginning to look a little more hopeful?
Perhaps the 8am bit was a precis of what was said at 7.37…listen to it in full
Let me get this straight. Hancock, during one of his half hours, said that shop workers are 75% more at risk from dying with Covid-19 than other workers. Yes, yes, we know that his figures were completely wrong, even Mr Big of M and S said so.
Why is it then, that In virtually every shop I’ve been to so far, the shop workers are not wearing masks? Admittedly, when some of them first reopened, there were quite a few with masks or visors but this has gone by the board.
Do they have suicidal tendencies or have they had a lightbulb moment? I’d be interested to know.
How long will it be before customers have their own lightbulb moment?
Sure you know this, Margaret, but the law exempts shop workers from wearing masks. You see, The Deadly Virus ™ is a clever little blighter that knows if you are staff or not.
You would think there would be a light bulb there for the cattle, but seemingly not…
Margaret, his figures were completely right, the male shopworker rate was 175% of that of all males. The trouble was, he was only talking about 43 male shop worker deaths in total, at the time! That’s what happens when you’re dealing with very small numbers, a jump from 1 death to 2 is a 100% rise, sounds scary – but are you scared? Me neither. Ben Goldacre used to write entertainingly about this in relation to medicine.
It’s even worse! When you go from 1 death to 2, you then have 200% of the original deaths. When modelled, that means 134 million people in this country will die!
Yep. You can play around with this a lot if you want to mislead. E.g. show relative risk reduction to exaggerate the apparent benefits of a treatment: if four people out of 1,000 will have a heart attack within the year, but on statins only two will, that is a 50 percent reduction if expressed as relative risk reduction. But if expressed as absolute risk reduction, it is a reduction of just 0.2 percent. That’s one of Ben’s. He’s at the CEBM now, I cannot understand why he isn’t writing furiously about this every day. But he was appointed head of some body to examine all UK NHS data by Matt Hancock not that long ago, so maybe a case of establishment capture?
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
This book, first published some 60 years ago, should be required reading, possibly as part of the GCSE Maths course. All the nefarious trickery he exposes and explains is in daily use by the media, and not absent from a worrying number of scientific papers.
I have a copy of that book. I first came across it at school where we had an excellent mathematics teacher who would go outside the syllabus on occasion.
I have been using the same small Tesco and large co op most days since lockdown, not one new face has replaced a Covid Fallen because there have been none.
Because wearing a mask for 20m while you do your shopping is a PITA. But wearing one all day if you work there is really going to get old fast. I don’t think the shops are buying into this. Most of them have probably told their staff it’s optional.
It’s also a reassuring signal to unmasked customers that they aren’t going to be told off at least not by the shop staff.
Yes you’re right it’s obviously all completely illogical of course.
Must confess Nick that I had to look up your acronym PITA-a bit slow on the uptake this morning. IMHO (I’m into acronyms in a big way now!) masks are certainly intended to cover the government’s arse, big time.
What is it?
Do off duty police wear masks in shops and anywhere else the rest of us are supposed to?
I’ve seen some do and some don’t.
I’ve only seen not. But they are exempt anyway.
True that.
Off duty still exempt?
No. They are subject to the law the same as everybody else. We cut the head off a king to show nobody was above the law. Seems to me that the lesson needs relearning :o))
How’s your average covid going to work out on or off the meter?
Woops, missed the off duty bit. It was a quick post before going shopping – and I forgot my mask too…
Possibly, depends if the exemption works the same way as an Orange Badge, as these can often be assigned to the person who shops for the recipient, who can then use it to do their own shopping. A lip reader may be exempt at all times if the rules are applied in the same way.
Andy Burnham has dynamite proof that there has been an increase in testing:
https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/1291071702907211777
Check out the replies, depressing.
Oh, yeah. A few sceptics, but lots of sheep.
Best reply to that “what should it be at for us to feel/be safe”?
TELL US WHEN WE’RE ALLOWED TO BE SAFE!
I have come to loath Andy Burnham.
I loathed him FIRST!
“Wear face coverings when out and about” AND *Praying hands” what a Charlie
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.03.20167395v1 Viable SARS-CoV-2 in the air of a hospital room with COVID-19 patients
“Findings – Viable virus was isolated from air samples collected 2 to 4.8m away from the patients. The genome sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 strain isolated from the material collected by the air samplers was identical to that isolated from the NP swab from the patient with an active infection”
Not good news for mask fanatics
Woo big deal eh? A viral particle in the air….one of 100Brazillian that are around us everywhere all the time.
Just one more argument that this respiratory virus can not be stopped and we must learn to live with it i.e .normalize life as we have done after all flu pandemics
I’m up and about (and bored) at this time because I’ve had to come into hospital.
What fascinates me, sitting here observing is the mindless way in which this now absent virus is dictating so much – utilisation of space, wearing of masks, sticking pointless swabs in orifices etc.
Those responsible for such crass perversions and waste of resources need to be made to pay.
It is incredible how mass delusion is dictating things.
Rick, are you seeing the ’empty wards, idle staff’ that we hear about?
Rick see’s things alright, through his commie glasses
Ooh, Mr. Biker, you are awful – but I like you.
I can read the MSM if I want nonsense.
as a socialist you’re too fucking stupid to know how stupid you are. Fuck off
Get a room guys
No – not that, although the effect of the reduction of capacity ( not down to ward staff) is probably having an effect still. I’m in an assessment ward that has reduced from 4-2 beds.
I was at another hospital yesterday, and the same applies – although the idiocy of cancelled appointments has eased.
I feel for the staff having to wear masks all the time – especially in yesterday’s temperatures.
Are the porters wearing masks ? Ours don’t.
I think so – but there aren’t many around at the moment.
It’s a vitally important point that we as a society tend not to properly take on board. All that wasteful theatre, wasted space, wasted effort, it all represents a colossal drop in productivity, in pursuit of a delusion, a fear fantasy.
A big drop in productivity means a big drop in wealth, ultimately. Where we are doing things for the state, it costs more to get them done. Where we are doing things for business, they are more expensive, and worst of all where we are competing with other countries that don’t engage in the same suicidal nonsense, we will flat out lose business.
Coronapanickers especially on the left (and believe it or not Rick I am not saying this as a snide dig at you here, you are as obviously not a coronapanicker as you are of the left) will argue that questioning this is “putting money ahead of lives”, but as we all here know, ultimately money is lives.
“Where we are competing with other countries that don’t engage in the same suicidal nonsense.. ” That’ll be our notable competitors Sweden and Belarus then. Or were you maybe thinking that US will come out of its health trance shortly?
New national lockdown ruled out in Poland despite rising COVID-19 cases
“There is no talk today, with the rising number of infected people or very high number of those who are still infected, of coming back to closing the economy,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-poland-idUSKCN25313C