Saint Jacinda Postpones General Election
Remember the outrage on the liberal left last month after Trump raised the possibility of postponing the November election? This was treated as the last word in undemocratic, populist demagoguery. How dare he?!? Well, Jacinda Arden has done precisely that – postponed the New Zealand General Election from September 19th to October 17th. The BBC has more.
Ms Ardern said on Monday that the new date would allow parties “to plan around the range of circumstances we will be campaigning under”.
Earlier this week, the country’s largest city went back into lockdown.
“This decision gives all parties time over the next nine weeks to campaign and the Electoral Commission enough time to ensure an election can go ahead,” Ms Ardern said, adding that she had “absolutely no intention” of allowing any further delays to the vote.
The opposition National Party has argued the election should be delayed as restrictions on campaigning mean Ms Ardern had an unfair advantage.
Restrictions were imposed on Auckland on Wednesday after a number of new infections were identified in the city.
Nine new coronavirus cases were confirmed on Monday, bringing the number of active cases linked to the Auckland cluster to 58.
The outbreak was initially traced back to members of one family, although Ms Ardern later said that subsequent contact-tracing had found an earlier case involving a shop worker who became sick on July 31st.
A health official who knew the family told the New Zealand Herald that the family were “shell-shocked” and “a little embarrassed that it had happened to them”.
The announcement that new cases had been discovered shocked the country, which had recorded no locally transmitted cases for more than three months.
In normal times, this would be greeted with outrage. The Toothy Tyrant is imprisoning New Zealand citizens in secure facilities if they test positive for the virus, along with every member of their household – and in addition to this grotesque violation of civil liberties, she has now postponed the General Election and is planning to remain in office after her three-year term has expired.
But as was pointed out in the recent “Postcard From New Zealand“, she’ll almost certainly win in October in a landslide.
France to Make Face Masks Compulsory at Work
Bad news from across the Channel. According to today’s Telegraph, France is considering whether to make face-masks compulsory in shared workplaces such as open-plan offices, factories and conference rooms.
Elisabeth Borne, the employment minister, is to discuss the proposal with employers and union leaders on Tuesday.
She said scientists unanimously recommended wearing masks “when several people are in a confined space.” They will only be compulsory in individual offices when more than one person is present.
The government is also considering strengthening other workplace precautions such as plastic dividers for open-plan offices. “Taking into account what we have observed in workplace clusters, additional precautions are sometimes worth taking,” Ms Borne said.
She said employers who place seasonal workers such as hotel staff or fruit pickers in shared accommodation may be asked to do more to ensure that social distancing is maintained and masks are worn.
Face-masks are already compulsory in indoor public spaces, but doctors and the government’s scientific advisors have lobbied for the rule to be extended to private companies. Many French cities have made them mandatory in crowded areas.
So what public health “emergency” is this draconian policy based on? You guessed it: a rise in cases with no corresponding rise in hospitalisations or deaths. France reported 3,310 new cases on Saturday, but only 29 new hospital admissions and just nine ICU patients. You read that right: nine. As the Telegraph reports, many of the new cases are younger people under 45 who tend not to have symptoms.
A Lockdown Sceptics Saint?
A reader has sent me the above quote from St Anthony the Great. Sounds like he’s the Lockdown Sceptics saint we’ve been looking for.
Covid No More Deadly Than Seasonal Flu in Ireland
Yesterday, I wrote about a Twitter thread by financial analyst Graham Neary showing that Neil Ferguson’s estimate of Covid’s IFR was based on an analysis of just six flights out of Wuhan from January 30th to February 1st.
Gordon Hughes, a Professor of Economics at Edinburgh University, has been in touch to point out that Neary produced another thread on August 11th in which he analysed the excess death data for Ireland and concludes that the excess deaths in April 2020, assumed to be partly caused by COVID-19, were no greater than they were in January 2017 and January 2018 (assumed to be partly caused by seasonal flu) and excess deaths in May 2020 were no higher than in a typical April or May. You can see the Twitter thread here and read the unrolled version here.
Here is Professor Hughes’s summary.
In effect he argues, using methods that are pretty robust, that the effect of COVID-19 in Ireland has been no worse than – and probably less bad than – an average flu season. After adjustments for the timing of death registrations, population, etc the cumulative sum of deaths in Ireland from Jan to May 2020 was less than in 3 out of the preceding 5 years. The winter of 2019-20 was a relatively mild flu season so that what COVID-19 has done is to offset the lower number of deaths from flu. On a monthly basis April 2020 was almost the exactly the same as January in two bad flu seasons (2016-17 and 2017-18).
Clearly the situation in the UK has been worse, almost certainly because of a more dense population and larger cities – and possibly because of more people in care homes. If you strip out the care home element I would expect that the figures for most of the UK outside London has been similar to that for Ireland.
To go back to the IFR, nobody really knows what the IFR is for flu because estimates of the number of flu cases is about as unreliable as for the number of COVID-19 cases. It is possible that the IFR for COVID-19 is somewhat higher than than for flu because fewer people in Ireland contracted it but no-one can be confident of that while there is so much uncertainty about the true incidence of either flu or COVID-19 in the population. Even so it is certainly not an order of magnitude higher.
The true lesson of this whole sorry episode is the enormous cost of failing to monitor the incidence of pandemic or other diseases properly in the population. The ONS sample should be far bigger – perhaps 100,000 per week – and should be systematically carried out on a long term basis to monitor other respiratory diseases at short notice, since most widespread pandemics will be respiratory diseases now that we have reasonable control of water-borne diseases.
Professor Hughes made a further point, which I thought was very good.
There is a more general and separate point that I have been thinking about. At the outset COVID-19 was treated as an area for specialists (epidemiologists) but it has become clear that there is a whole group of competent data analysts who have provided new information and better analysis that goes way beyond the stuff produced by insiders. Not only Neary but Nic Lewis and many others from outside epidemiology. In part this is due to the heavy weight of academic convention, so that insiders want to satisfy their peers, whereas outsiders are more likely to be looking for illumination and answers. In part it reflects the fact that epidemiology doesn’t use methods or data that go significantly beyond what economists, statisticians, etc., are used to. There is, for example, nothing in the pandemic models of Ferguson et al that is really different from economic models that I and others have used in the past, while their statistical skills appear to be limited (to put it politely).
The corollary is that a setup by which governments only consult insiders has proved woefully inefficient because it is trapped by the prior assumptions and restricted data and analyses within a small group. This might be forgiven when the crisis first arose but it is inexcusable to persist in that behaviour once the implications and costs of the pandemic became clear. It is easy to recognise the bureaucratic reasons for resisting some kind of open source approach. However, since it has become clear to everyone that the Westminster political/administrative/media elite has failed badly – though there are wide differences on why or how – I would hope that the lesson is learned that things must be handled differently in future. This is nothing to do with conventional politics, since the devolved administrations have performed no better.
He’s not wrong. Many independent researchers, particularly financial analysts, have produced better risk assessments of COVID-19 than the Government’s scientific advisors. Indeed, if SAGE was replaced with a group of independent researchers the Government would probably have been better advised.
Don’t Go to Dubai
A reader who wrote to me before about the difficulty of obtaining a birth certificate and passport for her newborn has written again, this time about the ludicrous expense of complying with Dubai’s Covid travel guidance.
My brother and his fiancée live in Dubai. My parents regularly visit them and we have had plans for months (pre-Covid) to go and visit them in October half term this year. We had naively assumed that by October things should be getting back to normal travel wise. However, I spoke with my mum and brother yesterday and they had been doing some research into travelling there – my parents are due to go out in mid September.
So… as it currently stands you have to have a COVID-19 test 96 hours before you fly. This must come with a certificate and so an NHS test is not accepted – you need to pay £200 for a private one. For us as a family of five (assuming children need the test also) that’s £1,000 on top of the cost of the holiday. Then, 96 hours before you leave Dubai you need another test to enable you to be allowed to fly home. These tests are £300 per person plus £300 for a doctors fee to give you the test – so £3,000 for us in total. You also need to wait in a room until you have your test results – so on a six-day holiday we would potentially be spending a day sitting in a doctor’s waiting room.
Then, if you test positive you are moved to government accommodation and I guess not allowed to fly home although that’s not clear from what I’ve read. If you are negative and can fly home you then must self-isolate/quarantine for 14 days once back in England – not sure why if you have the proof to say you don’t have Covid from the test, but then nothing makes any logical sense anymore does it?
So at an additional cost of £4K it is safe to say we will now cancel our visit to see my brother. I am not bothered about another cancelled holiday – that is now then norm in these times. It is just so worrying and frustrating how incompetent the people are in these positions of authority making the rules (up as they go along).
Postcard From Dartmouth
A reader has sent an account of her recent holiday in Dartmouth. Sounds pretty good.
We were a little nervous for what was our first major stay away since March 20th. This was partly because we had stayed before, fallen in love with the place and did not want to be disappointed. We stayed at the Dart Marina Hotel, right next to the Higher Ferry, a source of endless entertainment for us, as we can see it from our terrace. The hotel is wonderful. The staff there always give top-notch service, and the attention to detail is marvellous. It was a relief to see that most of their excellent staff have weathered the lockdown.
The town was busy, this being the hottest weekend of the year. We walked up to town with the intention of partaking in some retail therapy, and we realised that we had left our exemption lanyards in the boot of the car. We both thought, “stuff it, let’s blag it”, which we did. We visited a lingerie store (no mask, no problem), a men’s outfitters (no mask, no problem), a newsagent (challenged, but no problem when the magic word “exempt” was said) and a liquor store (same as the newsagent). At the latter, the lady customer right behind us, perhaps having heard us, claimed exemption as well.
On Saturday, we dined at Mitch Tonks’ Seahorse Al Mare. Mitch has had to move his operation from his fixed premises, not because of the virus, but because he was flooded out, courtesy of a burst water-main. Very creatively, he got permission for a covered venue right on the waterfront, and it was wonderful. No muzzles, no hassle, just good food and happy people.
We spent an amusing weekend observing the behaviour of other visitors. I imagine that many of them would have gone to Magaluf or Benidorm in more normal times, but the virus has driven them here. We saw numerous people wearing masks on the street (not required) but reassuringly, as the weekend wore on, we saw fewer instances of this.
Round-Up
- ‘Cultural Maskism: Social Class and Morality in the COVID-19 Regime‘ – Niall McCrae with another hard-hitting piece in the Gateway Pundit. Cultural Maskism is good
- ‘Britons quarantining after holidays to France are allowed one supermarket trip on way home‘ – That’s generous of the authorities. Returning holidaymakers could also be faced with a £1,000 for walking the dog
- ‘Two police forces are slammed after refusing job applications from candidates who believe people cannot change biological sex‘ – Being in touch with reality is now a disqualification for joining the police force
- ‘Oldham is on the verge of lockdown – but its bars and pubs tell a different story‘ – A Sky News team was embedded with Greater Manchester Police as they tried to enforce social distancing rules in Oldham
- ‘COVID-19 Hospital Activity‘ – Data release from NHS England showing that on April 2nd only 50,871 hospital beds in England were occupied out of a total of 141,000, not including the Nightingales. Crisis? What crisis?
- ‘The tragedy of grades based on predictions‘ – Excellent piece by education blogger Andrew Old about the A level results story
- ‘The five biggest coronavirus myths BUSTED! Exposing the fear mongering, propaganda and outright lies that are plaguing the world‘ – I don’t usually link to pieces in RT because it’s a propaganda arm of the Russian state. But this piece by Peter Andrews, an Irish science journalist, is good
- ‘Spectator Out Loud‘ – Listen to Douglas Murray and me reading our latest Spectator pieces
- ‘GREECE FRIGHTENING Fears for Greece holidays as coronavirus spike sparks concerns country could be added to UK quarantine list‘ – Greece could be added to the quarantine list according to the Sun
- ‘History will judge the hysteria‘ – Sceptical Israeli Professor Udi Qimron has given an interview to Arutz Sheva and he doesn’t pull his punches: “The ongoing destruction due to the inability to admit this mistake, despite the epidemic’s small mortality numbers, is outrageous. History will judge the hysteria.”
- ‘Doctors Pen Open Letter To Fauci Regarding The Use Of Hydroxychloroquine for Treating COVID-19‘ – Three doctors have written an open letter to Anthony Fauci asking him why he isn’t recommending the use of hydroxychloroquine
- ‘Why is Boris Johnson taking us back to the Seventies?‘ – Good piece in the Express by John Longworth
- ‘Public response to the reopening of schools to “all children” in September‘ – Laughably biased survey aimed at parents, clearly intended to produce a negative response to re-opening schools. It’s been compiled by the World Socialist Website. Why are lefties opposed to schools re-opening? Don’t they care about disadvantaged kids being left behind?
- ‘Early spread of COVID-19 appears far greater than initially reported‘ – Report about a new paper in the Lancet by epidemiological researchers from The University of Texas at Austin estimating that COVID-19 was far more widespread in Wuhan, China, and Seattle, Washington, weeks ahead of lockdown measures in each city
- ‘Britain’s appetite for the new normal will leave us all with a stomach ache‘ – Good piece by Kate Andrews in the Telegraph
- ‘The broadcast media has disgraced itself‘ – Hard to disagree with anything in this piece by Scottish blogger Effie Deans
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A few 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.
A reader has put forward a good suggestion.
I was wondering if your map of businesses who have opened could be expanded to businesses who display “No mask? We won’t ask” sign? That would allow us mask-refusers to know where we are safe to visit without risking a drama with a Covid loon, and also reward those plucky businesses with our custom. It’s been interesting to see how the Covid terror only seems to last as long as financial necessity allows (note previously hysterical pub landlords get much less worried when they are allowed to re-open) so I’d be interested to see if a line of mask free customers outside one shop tempted its neighbours to risk the plague.
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 attention (including this piece on Fox News). 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.
“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 Oct 1st to Oct 10th). 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 or 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 29,000). The Government responded to this petition today. Usual balls. You can read the response here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
A reader reports on a trip to Alton Towers to celebrate his wife’s birthday. Obtaining a “Mask Exempt” card so face covering didn’t have to be worn on the rides was surprisingly easy.
We arrived at the Towers carpark just about 9.45am. The first thing I noticed was the semi-socially distanced snake of theme park guests walking the mile from the carpark to the park entrance. Previous visitors will know that a series of monorail trains convey guests between these to locations in better times. I assumed that the need to deep-clean and fumigate each 6-person compartment on the monorail after a live human had used it, meant it impractical to run the service. No worry; the wife wants to loose weight so an extra 3,000 steps wouldn’t do any harm. We parked up and joined the throng. What was most disappointing at this point was the number of people already fully muzzled; around 40 to 50% I’d say.
Entry to the park involved having an IR thermometer pointed at your forehead to take your temperature. Saturday morning was blessedly quite cool and my family all passed that test. Given UK obesity levels, I wonder how many guests were rejected for elevated temperatures because they’d just been made to walk a mile for the first time in how long? Particularly earlier in the week when the ambient temperatures were much higher.
Once in, I made my way swiftly to guest services. I joined the shortest queue of the day and soon found myself served. I had the page from .gov.uk that explains the reasons for possible muzzle exemption loaded on my phonee and had it centred on ‘severe distress’. I presented my phone…
“Hi, can I have a face mask exemption card please? I have severe distress.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The happy staff member grabbed one from the pile, wrote my name in the space on the back and and handed it to me. Simplest transaction of the day.
The first few rides we went on I was asked to muzzle up but each time, I just flashed my card and it worked a treat. No further questions, hassles, comments, etc. By the second half of the day, I wasn’t even being asked.
Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
Encouraging graphic in yesterday’s Sunday Times. Still a long way to go, but the British public is becoming less sheep-like.
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Me!
Congratulations! You win a year’s supply of facemasks!
Admittedly, that is none for most of us here!
Not the Govt. approved that do not protect against COVID 19
None of them does.
Give the lass a bunker!
Damn! Only second!
I have just sent this email to my MP, a junior minister in our pathetic gov:
Dear
I am writing to you to ask if you are aware of the latest data from the UK and indeed other European countries showing that although there are spikes in Covid-19 the numbers of ITU admissions and deaths have remained low and indeed are still decreasing? This is also true for the areas England which are still in partial lockdown. For example, Leicester went into local lockdown at the end of June. The Leicester Mercury (the local newspaper) reported on 13th August that no one had died of Covid in any of the Leicester hospitals for over 2 weeks despite the infection rates remaining several times higher than the national average.
What is the reason for this? It seems that the Covid-19 epidemic has behaved like all viral epidemics in history and spread widely in the population. Those who were susceptible mostly had a mild illness but sadly many elderly people, particularly those with co-morbidities, died (as they do each year of influenza or other respiratory viruses). There is very good evidence from the data that we have reached population immunity and that the spike in infections is a function of hugely increased testing. I know that antibody testing has been claimed to show only low levels of immunity but it’s clear that there are other immune mechanisms involved, T-lymphocytes for example. Studies have found that up to 60% of the population have T-cells, presumable developed in response to previous coronavirus infections (remember a third of common colds are caused by coronaviruses), which react against Covid. 72% of the passengers and crew on The Diamond Princess cruise ship had no symptoms of the disease despite being exposed to the infection; this gives another indication of the fact that many individuals are not susceptible due to pre-existing (innate) immunity. It is also likely that the Covid-19 virus has become attenuated (less virulent). We then have the problem of the PCR test, whose inventor said was never intended or suitable as a diagnostic tool, with unknown percentages of false positives (it picks up people with viral debris, not active infection) and false negatives.
All this is, or should be, good news. I don’t therefore understand why the message put out by the Government is not more positive. We have introduced measures at the tail end of the epidemic which might have made sense at the beginning; in March flights from Wuhan and Northern Italy continued into UK airports with no checks or quarantine for passengers but now we have the absurd 14 day quarantine for people returning from Spain and France (where I repeat there may be “spikes” in cases but as in the UK there has been no uptick in hospital, ITU admissions or deaths). We have local lockdowns in Leicester and parts of the North-West of England but there is not a shred of evidence that lockdowns do anything other than shift infections or deaths into the future (flatten the curve). Face coverings have been made mandatory first on public transport and then in shops but there is absolutely no evidence for their efficacy in non-healthcare settings. See this short (only 2 mins 30 secs) video by Professor Carl Heneghan of the Oxford University Centre for Evidence Based Medicine.
https://youtu.be/QNI2ocgosgA
If the UK economy is to recover and we are not to have 3 or 4 million unemployed when the furlough scheme ends in October, The Government need to change the message which has scared the general population half to death. People need to be reassured that the epidemic is over and that we can return to normal. Children must return to school in September and the teaching unions faced down. If some people want to continue wearing face coverings voluntarily then of course they can but the compulsion should be removed -if the intention was to encourage people to return to the high street then it has failed as the shops are deserted and businesses are failing. Central London is a ghost town.The elderly and vulnerable should be informed of their personalised risk and could choose to self-isolate or not. Life is for living, for meeting friends and family, for Grandparents to hug their grandchildren, for socialising in pubs and restaurants. Since when have we needed Ministers to make these sort of decisions for us?
i hope you will consider the points I have made and encourage your ministerial colleagues to stop the fear-mongering and get the Country back to work, school and play!
Kind regards,
Not holding my breath for a sensible response!
An excellent well-argued and evidenced email. For these reasons you will not get a response. Or, if you do, it will not address any of the points that you make.
Indeed.
Yes the junior minister may just thank you for your interest. He might just go on to confirm that the government is following the best possible scientific advice that is currently available in the continuing battle against the Black Death, also known as Covid-19. Without some very firm resistance, to the government, we will be stuffed like turkeys.
You will get a standard govt response. I emailed my mp saying I would be cancelling my membership because of the face mask policy they forced on us. I got a standard email taken from the govt website I would think, reiterating the govt policy pretty much word for word. Not a word about losing a paid up member. Never again will I become a member or vote for him.
Can I copy and paste this and send it to my MP?
of course!
and me please.
sure
And me please?!
sure
Can I copy and paste this too to send to my MP?!
You would do well to replace the word ‘cases’ (“…there may be spikes in cases”) with ‘not-very-accurate positive test results’ for the sake of accuracy!
Couple of thoughts from that:
All that is to say that this prolonged lockdown is bad on so many levels.
We don’t know enough about the ‘fading immunity theory’ because not all immune responses are measurable in tests available. The tests we have give false positives because stretches of other coronaviruses are detected; these may well represent previous exposure to the common cold.
You will never get a PCR false positive from another cold. The test doesn’t work like that.
The antibody tests are designed to be as specific as possible for SARS2 as well which is probably one reason why they’re underreporting: people might indeed be clearing the virus mainly with antibodies that were originally adapted to other common colds.
These are interesting points to discuss here but I think will only confuse an MP.
DocRC’s letter was perfect because it sticks to the important points and the ones that are known with the most certainty. This makes the strongest argument without distractions.
Perfect comment; you must always stick to a few solid points and leave out any slightly weak arguments. If you add in all the things you can think of, they will sieze on the single weakest point you have made and use that as a way of dismissing your entire argument.
The argument is so clear and rational that you have to wonder why it is not accepted.
My guess is that the politicians know that the media are ready and waiting to accuse them of killing people by releasing the lockdown. Joe Biden said that his experts tell him that not wearing a mask will kill an extra 40,000 people. You just need a few photos of BAME doctors or children with cancer and the media will be all over it.
Far better (politically) to wait it out until the public are demanding an end. It is going to be an awkward conversation in October when furlough is supposed to end. People are already claiming that furlough will have to continue in industries that cannot return to work. And, of course, the public sector will continue on full pay.
The government could just say that it is no longer affordable to continue the lockdown, and if they tried, there would be mass starvation in the country before spring. They could ask the MSM if they could live with such a result on their conscience, if they feel that the lockdown ought to continue. The government might also point out that Prof Ferguson has produced a model that says 62 million people will die from hunger before next June.
And it will be the MSM wot done it!!
The foul Prof Ferguson doesn’t need any more publicity. A broken nose would be far more correct payment for the evil he has perpetrated over the years. I am not encouraging the use of violence, but he is a shit.
Gaol in perpetuity would be a more apt punishment.
A broken skull would be even better.
Superb. Well done.
Well done. I wrote to my local MP and MP for my local Town about 10 days ago. I’ve yet to hear back. I think a campaign to turn up the heat on our MP’s is needed and fast.
Are you talking about flamethrowers?
Asking for a friend.
Depends how thick their hides are.
I’d pick you up on one point :
“although there are spikes in Covid-19″
No. These ‘spikes’ are largely artifacts of testing.
Nice!! couple of typos I hope you don;t mind me pointing out for those that are copy pasting / This is also true for the areas (in) England which are still in / have T-cells, presumabl(y) developed in respo – I skipped the last paragraph so dyor
Thank you very much!
I’ve sent a slightly shorter version, emphasising effects on his voters more, will report back on response:
Dear XXX,
COVID 19 – THE NEXT 100 DAYS
The latest COVID 19 data from the UK shows that ITU admissions and deaths remain low and are decreasing, because the epidemic has behaved like all viral epidemics in history, which spread widely in the population, with or without lockdowns. It has burned its way through the susceptible population and we have reached ‘population immunity’ – see the death rates, now below the 5 year rolling average for the last 5 weeks (8 weeks in London, affected earliest). (The absolute rise in the number of positive tests is a function of increased testing – the ratio of positives to total tests is constant or falling).
All this is good news – but you are not acting on it.
Government now needs to act, very swiftly indeed, to mitigate the already dire effects on our economy, education, and health. People need to be reassured that the epidemic is over and that we can return to normal. The social distancing restrictions, (notably, based on the WHO 1 metre recommendation!) have to be lifted. Then children can return to school in September without all the extraordinary measures being proposed, and theatres, cinemas, sporting events, music festivals etc, can resume.
The elderly and vulnerable must be informed about their personal risks, and may choose to take extra precautions. You will probably find that your older constituents, particularly of the immediate post war generation like me, are made of sterner stuff: they have seen a world where polio and measles were rife; in 1968/9 they were oblivious to the fact that Hong Kong flu was killing more than this virus has, or ever will; and they believe that life is for living, for meeting friends and family, for grandparents to hug their grandchildren, and for socialising in pubs and restaurants.
Please show your mettle, and campaign with your ministerial colleagues to stop the fear-mongering. Get the country back to normal and insist – Never Again! It may not be too late – but your constituents will not forget who acted courageously, and who did not.
Kind regards,
Excellent. We will all wait with eager anticipation to see what cobblers we get in reply!
Good one!
The anti social distancing malarkey is NOT law. Hasn’t been for a while now
http://www.laworfiction.com/blog/
Link tweeted by simon Dolan’s QC
Excellent letter!!!
Excellent. I’ll use that on my MP, too. Assume you don’t mind
please do!
Brilliant summation! Sadly, the average MP is unlikely to have the intellect to even follow those well founded arguments.
Why did you write a letter like this if you are not expecting a sensible response? Did you write it so that you could tell yourself that you are doing something?
The quote from St Anthony the Great reminds me of something George Orwell said:
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it
Remarkable – Rowan Dean on Skye News Australia
https://www.thetruthbarrier.com/2020/08/17/mark-crispin-miller-sweden-and-switzerland-prove-lockdowns-catastrophic-and-so-is-not-using-hcq/
Coronavirus Scotland: Study shows face coverings block almost 100% of COVID droplets
The research has shown those without a face mask could be 10,000 times more at risk
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/coronavirus-scotland-study-shows-face-18780907
“The findings – published on a non-peer reviewed preprint server – could have implications for social distancing measures, the team says.”
The report author says cotton masks can make a tremendous difference with the larger droplet which are the most dangerous – according to him. School of Engineering.
Apologies for three part post.
Engineers test perfectly still dummies which apply masks perfectly, never touch them and are in an enclosed lab. This ain’t human. So it can be ignored.
Do these dummies stand up and move around? What happens to the droplets when they do? They get bounced. Like Eeyore.
A cotton mask will obviously stop large droplets. But if you are spitting said large droplets, for whatever reason, you shouldn’t, and likely wouldn’t, be near anybody, with or with out mask.
Doesn’t the droplet dry up, while the virus sails happily on its way?
This link below takes you to the proper science on the effectiveness of face masks for infectious respiratory influenza outside of a healthcare setting. In short we are firmly told that face masks provide no measurable benefit and that the same applies for hygiene measures, such as hand washing and/or gloves. There is no good reason to assume that this would not apply for Covid-19, where the virus transmits in the same manner as influenza.
Everything else suddenly popping up and telling us that masks now actually work is simply cobbled together, bought and paid for junk science and carries no weight.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0995_article
Be interesting (and damning for those of us who argue they are useless) if it stands up to any scrutiny. Several things stand out to my sceptical mind though:
It also grates that this non peer reviewed study can get straight into the news
Imagine, for a moment, a study was done that showed cloth masks were utterly utterly worthless and in fact increased infections, but it wasn’t peer reviewed or checked or anything. Do we think it’d be immediately picked up in by news outlets, or would it be (rightly) ignored?
we have plenty of those very studies
That’s what got me, straight to news. Therefore anything can be said and presented as news without foundation.
Not anything,only those that support the establishment narrative
A good point.
It seems to be focused on large droplets from coughing. What about if you carry on as normal but cough into your sleeve or hanky – would that do the same job?
The vast majority of mask wearing takes place for people who are just breathing normally (no large droplets) so how effective is it in this situation?.
you’re supposed to be staying at home if you have a new cough anyway.
It says nothing about the harm masks do to the wearer, by re-breathing our respiratory excretions in a moist rag. Nor does it address the “jets” as they go out of the edges of the mask. But, after all, this researcher’s speciality is yacht sails!
Maybe someone could unscramble this?
Sub headline:
The research has shown those without a face mask could be 10,000 times more at risk.
Text in article:
Someone standing two metres from a coughing person who has no mask is exposed to 10,000 times more droplets than someone half a metre from a coughing person who is wearing one, the researchers found.
So who is, and who isn’t, wearing a mask in this scenario? The cougher or the inhaler?
The study was carried out by someone in an Engineering faculty. WTF do they know about the relationship between viruses and droplets?
The whole lot is epic bunkum.
Is that the only way that viruses are transferred? Data of virus spread for a population doesn’t seem to follow. Typical Fallcy of Composition
First year student? Ivor Cummings (a real engineer) would eat them for breakfast.
Two contradictory statements right there! It is a shame even peer reviewed papers may not have been scrutinised fully, let alone those that are not.
The relationship between fluid droplets and a cloth membrane is ‘engineering’ for sure. The relationship between droplets and viruses is not.
Wonder how they counted the 10,000 (times)?
Oh no – wait – the verb is ‘could’…
This is utter bollocks. Please stop spreading it. Droplets may be stopped but as soon as they dry on a surface (within seconds) the teeny-weeny viruses remaining will go through the mask, assisted by breathing of course, like an aphid through chicken wire.
Whatever viruses are around now that Covid 19 has gone that is.
I think it stands as an important news article. This is the groundless basis with which our lives are changed. Yes my comment should have voiced criticism but as event happen I had difficulties as my three part mess of a post shows.
They whole study is nonsense, but this is the kind of rubbish they are going to make mask wearing compulsory for the future. Who knows their might be a suitable peer who discovers the article and sets to with a review. If no one is made aware how can anyone counter?
Just more madness.
The government admits that masks don’t protect the user, they protect others from the user.
Now a bullshit study insists it helps the user, even though the mask producers won’t guarantee it, obviously.
We are completely screwed. This is never going to end.
What a load of shite. 10,000 times more at risk’ ???? Than what? – 0 risk x 10,000 ? = zero.
You don’t need to look any further to identify a piece of crap.
Also worth saying that if all those studies and meta-studies couldn’t identify a 10,000 time decreased risk – then it’s this study that’s up the spout!
10,000 times? Another Ferguson Model calculation?
Yes, but it’s designed for crap readers, not for us.
100% of a particular size is what the article shows. Just like a door would stop 100% of human sized viruses out.
I nailed a mask on the outside of my front door in the hallway. I’m fully protected as long as I stay indoors. I can almost hear them tapping on my door, screaming to get in. Scratch that, it was just my neighbor upstairs, hammering away on the walls of her apartment. This has been going on for twelve years.
i don’t care if my breath causes someone to get ill because it’s not my fault. The idea i’ve to worry about people catching something from me is insane. Fuck masks.
Yep, masks work really well:
Obviously VERY effective.
Sorry, failed pic post.
What gets me is that this is used to justify the use of masks at ALL times. No one has ever disputed the fact that if someone is sneezing and coughing a covering over their nose and mouth may prevent viral or bacterial spread. The issue is the suggestion that a mask is beneficial in non infectious or asymptomatic individuals that aren’t coughing or sneezing etc. This is why throughout this period healthcare workers have been able to provide personal care to covid patients with a simple face mask on. I just dispute that I need one in a sodding shop.
Absolutely right and this is worst thing about it – it has cemented into the popular mindset the idea that even a TINY risk MUST be avoided at the cost of covering our faces for the rest of eternity
I mean do people usually cough and sneeze in random strangers faces! ? Or share lingering kisses with checkout staff!? Or lick all the bags of pasta before they select the one they want!? Do they!?
It’s like handwashing. I don’t use sanitiser in shops. If I am ever challenged I say I washed my hands before I came out, which is true. Does everyone wash their hands before they leave the house? Surely not. And they probably should. But do I want to live in a world where people are forced to wash their hands every 5 minutes because of a few people with questionable hygiene? NO! I’ve said this before, we need to divide the planet in two, half for the germophobe safetyists (who won’t be that safe, actually) and half for what I used to think of as normal people. And see who does better.
They should go back to licking their own windows, then we’d know who to ignore safely
And of course implemented and mandated with absolutely no idea what the negative health effects could be.
Coughing or sneezing into a tissue or hankie will provide just as much protection. Even better from the producer’s point of view too!
The old “catch it, bin it, kill it” adverts were much more scientifically accurate than this mandatory muzzling. Coughing or sneezing into a tissue is healthier because you chuck away the tissue and you don’t have a damp material clinging onto your face which can cause major issues.
Plus there’s no guarantee with a muzzle that the droplets won’t escape.
One of the problems with this is that it is assuming that somebody ill with Covid has a productive (phlegmy) cough. This only appears in the later stages. Somebody who is in the early stages has a non productive cough. Anybody who is asymptomatic won’t have a cough at all!!
From the study….
“Results obtained from a manikin, one might argue, are only indicative due to the wide variability in the expiration parameters for speech and coughing in humans [16,17]. Accordingly, we performed experiments using four male and two female volunteers (aged between 30 and 45) to either read a sample script for three minutes or cough for one minute. For each test, a glass slide was placed vertically, 5 cm in front of the individual’s mouth.”
5cm in front of the test subjects,jut like real life, we all stand 2 inches from people whenever we speak or cough, don’t we?
Do Nicola’s handlers wipe down her microphone after she has finished spitting on it during her press conferences?
EUGH!
Horse shit!
Oh dear!
More risk if you have no nappy?
Then why does the packaging always say that the nappy affords no protection to the wearer?
Well we have an interesting practical experiment going on here in Wales. Masks are not compulsory except on public transport, and are little worn. My estimate is that in the local supermarkets roughly one in four wears a mask, mostly English tourists. I have not yet worn a mask. If we are really 10,000 times more at risk then we should expect to see rapid divergence between the Welsh death rates and the rest of the U.K.
Absolutely no sign of it so far.
Toby says: I don’t usually link to pieces in RT because it’s a propaganda arm of the Russian state. But this piece by Peter Andrews, an Irish science journalist, is good.
If that’s the case, what’s the BBC?
or any of the ‘mainstream’ media in the uk?
RT only came into existence because Putin was unimpressed by the BBC’s efforts as the Russian state’s propaganda wing.
Astonishing condemnation of UK Covid policy and praise for Swedish and Swiss approaches, complete with clear graphs, astonishing because it’s on Australian Sky News! By implication, also highly critical of Australia’s government. How did this slip under Rupert Murdoch’s radar? If this was broadcast on UK Sky News it might have a major impact.
Nothing we don’t already know here, but I highly recommend watching it as it gives us hope that the media are turning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXmwt_8tdNY
I think Australian Sky News is still under Murdoch control, British is not. I assume that accounts for the considerable difference in the output of the two channels.
Sky in UK is now wholly owned by US media giant Comcast. No Murdoch involvement at all. So it’s now ultra-woke. The sports channels in particular have totally embraced the BLM narrative displaying rhe logo across all sports coverage and encouraging presenters to do likewise. Little surprise therefore that Sky News parrots WHO and govt Covid propoganda unflinchingly.
And take a look at the top recipients of Comcast affiliate political donations:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary?id=d000000461
Wow! Globalism at work. But not for the benefit of humankind.
Vomit!
Sky News Australia is always delightfully sceptical. Very anti woke.
British Sky News, like CNN, is the sort of thing you would only watch at the airport when your flight is delayed.
i’d rather watch the aircraft… or the ceiling, or paint drying … than sky news .
Yes, the Arrivals/Departures board is more interesting and far more accurate.
Fox News in the US, owned by Murdoch, is the only sceptical news source in MSM there. Tucker Carlson is excellent.
That’s what Kindles are for!!
Sky OZ is uber sceptic on lockdown, climate change, identity politics etc. It’s nothing like Sky UK
That and Fox News are the only news channels that I know of that are not fully on-board the Woke train.
Never mind the Woke Train, here are the Cramps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQEjURkYFC0
Sky News Australia has been consistently putting out extremely coronasceptic opinion and reporting, with numerous clips linked here over the past few weeks.
Because I only see the clips that make Youtube and don’t watch the overall coverage, I don’t know if they put out pro-panic stuff as well, but what is absolutely clear is that this piece is absolutely not something that “slipped under Rupert Murdoch’s radar”.
In fact, it makes me wonder how sceptical Murdoch himself might be.
Superb.
750,000 people have died worldwide, 6 months into a pandemic. I assume in 90% of cases covid is just a complicating factor in a death of old age. That leaves about 70,000 whose lives ‘have been tragically cut short’. Considering in the same timescale 1 million children have died of diarrhea, is the lockdown not an overreaction? Consider also that the world food program predicts 130 million people will die of starvation ‘due to the lockdown’ by Christmas. I feel that instead of a measured reaction to a mild disease, worldwide governments have marched to war against their own citizens. Who thought WW3 would start like this and rack up more casualties by Christmas than WW1 and WW2 combined?
CDC reckon each “covid” death had 2.6 co-morbidities so were pretty ill at the time anyway.
“ComorbiditiesTable 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups. “
In Australia, the average age of those dying “of” Covid is 83. The average life expectancy is also 83.
Now they tell us. A bit late.
I agree completely. it`s bonkers.
Politically correct ‘compassion’ is always selective. Do you remember the Yes Minister episode on ‘The Compassionate Society’?
WW3 has been evolving since the end of WW2.
First caller on Vanessa Feltz bloody brilliant! 89 yr old woman, not so much sceptic or anti- just too old and too sensible to bother.
I know – her no nonsense approach a breath of fresh air. But didn’t you find the academic after her explaining the contortion of rules absolutely hilarious. Almost pythonesque in its absurdity . If you didn’t know it was supposed to be serious you’d have said it was a spoof
Non-leftie populist Trump vilified for mentioning postponing an election.
Rampant leftie from same school as Blair, macron, Obama, Trudeau and many others actually postpones an election – praised for decisive action.
What more does it take to get the sheeple to wake up?
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/5011-the-great-reset-davos-the-plot-to-cancel-trump
This video posted on the earlier page really clarifies a lot of points for me.
25 min long but you don’t need to sit and watch – just let it play, no need for the pictures.
Horrifying really and would be a good video to show the sheeple but they wouldn’t believe it!
That is an exceptionally good video that even those with short attention spans should be able to get their heads around. It certainly fills a few gaps in my understanding of the C19 geopolitics, especially after having watched Millennium Millie’s documentary on the deep state.
I must admit I felt a little helpless when it came to an end as it seems the fate of the normal way of life lies in the hands of patriotic Americans to dig us out this hole in November, and I’m not convinced there are sufficient numbers to make a difference!
This is the first time in my life that I have considered war could be justified as a way to derail the globalist plans. It will be interesting to see if this becomes an option should it become clear Trump will not get a second term in November.
All we can do is hope 2021 is the year all this bs ends!
I agree. The humble American has the fate of the world in their hands. Jeez!
I thought that this video just showed how many layers there are to this whole agenda and down at the bottom, slightly above us, is Johnson and his team. Mere puppets.
It will certainly make for interesting viewing when the results come in and personally I have not given a stuff in past years who is the president but this year I think I may take a bit more notice.
Yes, politicians in every country are mere puppets in this show and are doing as they are told, some with more vigour than the rest.
It seems pointless ranting on about our compromised politicians here as the real target of our anger should be the globalists – the Davos crowd, WEF, UN, IMF, etc. from whence all shit emanates.
Unfortunately the only path open to us to push back at them is to rid ourselves of our own self-serving political classes.
This is where the real challenge lies but unfortunately time is not on our side which is why the outcome of the American elections are so crucial to all freedom loving people of the world.
Does it mean that the Royal family is part of it too?
Up to their necks – always have been.
Very clear overview. Thanks.
I watched at 1.75 speed – no problem!
A must watch.
Answer : anti-coma medication.
This is all a bit like the madness of WWI when generals and politicians couldn’t admit that sending soldiers charging at guns didn’t achieve anything except carnage.
It’s a similar situation – with less blood admittedly – where politicians and their “scientists” insist on containing a virus that has spread around the world to tens of millions and doesn’t actually cause much harm.
The situation feels truly desperate
Our biggest problem is there is no vocal opposition outside of us plebs. The TV Media are all in and the print Media are only providing the odd puff piece amongst a tidal wave of propaganda. I don’t think any MP’s are willing to break ranks either and even if they did would any Media give them coverage ?
A fellow sceptic shared a brilliant short story yesterday by E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops, written over 100 years ago. I thought it was incredibly insightful. Basically, society has become too dependent on the state (“the machine” in the short story) and is just too feeble to do anything.
https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf
I would encourage reading it as it could be a good prediction of what is coming.
That is an excellent story. Read it last night
Yes, I saw a television version (very) many years ago. I seem to recall that the Machine’s self-repair functions were failing : right now, our government seems to be totally lacking in ability to detect the need for self-repair, let alone having satisfactory self-repair capability!
WW1? Less blood? See steve_w’s comment 4 minutes before yours!
“Trying to ramp up contact tracing in August goes beyond locking the barn door after the horse has bolted. This horse bolted so long ago that now herds of its descendants roam the countryside. Meanwhile, the farmer ruins his homestead in order to pour his resources into increasingly elaborate and expensive door locking contraptions.”
this, from the Peter Andrews piece recommended by Toby, is just excellent
Calling lockdownistas “Branch Covidians” is marvellous too. (The Waco cult was called Branch Davidians, if any readers don’t get the reference).
waco was another massive lie if you look into it
bit of a precursor you might say
Ruby Ridge was another interesting one from that period.
Ruby Ridge was straight up state murder.
Seth Rich
I’m aware there was a lot of distortion around Waco but the reference was still a good one IMHO.
Brilliant.
Words from Scotlands CMO at press briefing now – “Schools are in the next normal, not the new normal,” says Jason Leitch.
The measures will change on an ongoing basis.
The Next New Normal. Four legs good, two legs better. Obedience better still.
Very Orwellian!
Yesterday the news broke after work done by the Sunday Post that at least 5 local authority arwas had seen patients moved from hospitals to carehimes afters testing positive for Covid19. This was during the phase of clearing hospitals for the supposed corona pandemic as modelled by Fergusson. People died. Each life is due respect and dignity.
Today Sturgeon was asked about this in the daily briefing. Her answer did not answer the question asked.
Will we ever know the number of deaths linked to care homes, after patients were discharged from hospital [at the start of the pandemic]?
Sturgeon: “While I think it’s really important given the nature of what we have been dealing with here, and the knowledge and understanding of this virus we have had at different stages, that we are not defensive about that. We are dealing with a difficult, challenging and unprecedented situation. We have sought to ensure that at every stage there was appropriate guidance in place.
“Scotland is not unique in some of these challenges in which we faced.”
Sounds like a case of buck passing.
Theres more to come on this across the world. It was surprising to see the ovbious attempt to deflect in her answer. Also today the timing of an covid inquiry was brought up – no date set merely that the civil servants need to focus on the task at hand not an inquiry. I guess the pressure starts to build on the decision makers – their conduct is on record.
“We are dealing with a difficult, challenging and unprecedented situation.”
Arse-covering nonsense.
The situation – at its worst was no more challenging that a high spike in annual ‘flu.
And it wasn’t at all ‘unprecedented’ : mortality was only eight in the league table of years since 1993/4.
Humans have never needed to deal with this sort of thing before.
Well, not with Covid fascism, no, nor with the abrupt conversion of most of the population into gibbering zombies.
Indeed, it is only the response that is uprecedented.
The clearing of beds and morgues for that matrer is standard fare.
And it wasn’t at all ‘unprecedented’ : mortality was only eight in the league table of years since 1993/4.
But they will always be able to say “That’s only because of the lockdown…”
And they have thoroughly discredited Sweden. One annoyance is that Sweden’s economy will be dragged down by the rest of the world’s, so in the end it will look worse than it should.
Bring back Saab automobiles.
A solid first campaign for Covid FC – we’ll soon see what the second seas…er…second wave means for Covid FC. A surge to the top or a downtick to the relegation zone.
What we need to see then is the evidence or information used to make any judgements. Clearly if actions taken could cause harm or even death then there will be plenty of documentary evidence to show any considerations made.
I look forward to seeing the CYA documents.
Someone posted yesterday about the refusal of a Melbourne Hospital to admit care-home patients:
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6181525402001?ref=Net-Header-News-Home
It appears that Melbourne is doing what almost every other country has done i.e. culling the old. Even Sweden did it, although they did at least apologise.
(posted by MiriamW!)
That was me, earlier this morning.
New York, Michigan did the same, though I haven’t yet heard that they were deliberately trying to kill the elderly with morphine and a refusal to transfer them to hospital if they were ill.
But the morphine treatment has now apparently happened twice, on both sides of the globe, so if it’s not happened elsewhere, I’d be very surprised.
I don’t imagine anyone’s actually doing a Shipman on the ancients, but palliative care (which would include morphine), prescribed instead of actual medical treatment/hospitalization as here in the UK (where it was combined with do-not-attempt-resuscitation notices) would see plenty of them off quite efficiently – and (as here) boost the CFR.
(posted by AlanG)
“Her answer did not answer the question asked.”
Tucker Carlson: if they don’t answer the question they’re asked, but answer a completely different question that you didn’t ask, they’re lying to you. That’s how you tell.
Is there anything that she wouldn’t be able to deflect? How about
“First Minister, what is the point of these briefings if you’re not going to directly answer the question that’s asked?”
This is why I commented with it. It is how you tell.
Word salad. Hey, Wee Jimmy, here’s a lesson in communication – Fuck off. You understood that, didn’t you?
Obviously it was a steady stream of wicked English old people being decanted into virtuous Scottish care homes.
Without bringing their tax money with them…
I don’t think discharging vulnerable adults with unknown status into facilities that had neither the facility to isolate the symptomatic or PPE can be considered unprecedented. We discharge patients all the time, we don’t do it without regard for their safety or without consideration of the receiving institutions ability to keep them and other patients safe. In reality NORMAL standards and protocols were abandoned in a panic and there have been consequences. This is a failure to remain calm objective and prioritise the vulnerable.
That woman is a psychotic obfuscator. I am listening to a Richie Allen broadcast from February 6, 2020 this very minute. The second subject was about pathological liars. Coincidence! .
Very slippery!
Sticky Nurgeon
Had an interesting discussion with a driving test examiner over the weekend. They have a policy where if someone refuses to wear a mask (no matter what their exemption) the examiner has to volunteer to conduct the test – all of the examiners in their test center won’t volunteer so most people have been forced to wear one as there is a 5-6 month wait to book a re-test (not helped by only doing 5 tests per day rather than the normal 7 in order to decontaminate the car after each use.)
In the face of such pressure it is not surprising that most people give in – but there were a handful over the last couple of weeks who still refused and have basically been put to the back of the queue. I just hope that one of them decides to take some kind of legal action.
I asked whether any small amount of leeway was being given to allow for the additional stress of wearing a mask especially in the recent hot weather – the answer – NO WAY!!
Bastards!
Feels like there is discrimination there against those with exemption from wearing masks.
It would be an interesting risk assessment the examiners have carried out to implement such practices. Are masks a distraction, etc?
given what is happening with schools and exams, maybe they should scrap tests and allow people to have a licence if their instructor says they are good enough …
It would probably cause fewer deaths than lockdown – like Corona virus.
I find my field of vision compromised by wearing a mask. Cannot be safe to drive like that, surely?
Saw a car drive by yesterday. A woman in the passnger seat was wearing a mask and her window was rolled up to the top. Maybe they had the air con on. Wouldn’t that distribute the germs inside the car?
“‘Why is Boris Johnson taking us back to the Seventies?”
More nonsense from the propaganda press.
Were he only doing that – the seventies – far from the image were a far better time time than this!
Yes I agree he’s taking us back to the Seventies. The 1670s.
Or even earlier – the 470s – the decade the Western Roman empire collapsed.
3-day week; power cuts; rubbish piled up in the streets; extreme discontent among the populace ….
Not all of the seventies was good.
I didn’t say it was ‘all good’ – but it certainly wasn’t all bad like the last six months. The much-mythologysed three-day-week and the ‘rubbish in the streets’ were short-lived incidents – not all-embracing limitations on civil liberties.
I remember being a kid is the 70’s and fun was definitely allowed. Except for Sundays on which nothing EVER happened.
My father was on a three-day week for some time before he was made redundant in 1974. Just before that (must have been 1972), there were blackouts, and I recall him being away on a work trip and my mother having to manage with the three of us – I was 8 and my brother was 3 – with candles. It got much worse for our family during the mid-1970s, when my father lost a succession of jobs as firms started to fall over. Food was not plentiful, and we nearly lost the house. He finally got a more permanent job in the local authority at a much lower salary, and my mother worked in the school kitchens then as a temporary clerk once my grandmother had retired and could cover after school. While I agree there has been an all-embracing attack on civil liberty, I also think that being hungry tends to have a more immediate effect on your perception of how bad things are/have been in your life.
Remember the miner’s strike of 1973-74 and everybody coming round to our house to cook. The electric power went off at 5pm and we had a gas cooker. My dad was lucky, he kept his job until he retired in 1999, but things were touch and go when Harold Wilson went cap-in-hand to the IMF. That was when the “cuts” started, of course they like to blame Thatcher for those, but the deepest cuts in public spending came before, under Callaghan and Healey. Which triggered the Winter of Discontent…
And the rest is all history now.
Yes. They didn’t go on for months adn we weren’t living in a dystopia..
Listening to Genesis while smoking hashish.
A postcard from the New Forest:
I went camping with a group of car-enthusiast friends from Saturday to Sunday. There were eight of us, all firmly opposed to the lockdown. On Saturday we visited a motorcycle museum. When we made a group booking over the phone, the receptionist said the she disagreed with the mask rule but had no choice but to see the museum adhered to it.
When we went in, I wasn’t given any trouble for my masklessness and my friends, who had just pulled bandanas over their faces, quickly pulled them down again, and we proceeded to have some friendly conversations with the staff about cars and bikes. However, the museum did have a card-only policy in place, which counts against it.
Later, the owner of the museum, an 86-year-old former motorcycle racer, came in and had a chat with us. He wore no mask and he wasn’t bothered to see us unmasked either. After a life spent taking risks in motorcycle competition, he probably can’t get too excited over a flu.
Sadly, I couldn’t help but feel extremely uncomfortable while we were talking on account of my being unmasked. It was odd, and even though the owner didn’t care that I was unmasked, I sort of felt embarrassed that he’d caught me breaking the rules, if you can understand that.
The campsite was fairly normal (except that the men’s urinal was a bale of hay, the showers had no doors and there were sheep roaming freely – are campsites often like that?). I was surprised that it wasn’t busier. Maybe the bad weather put paid to that.
On Sunday morning, we cruised out to attend a car show at Beaulieu. It was difficult to judge how much lockdown restrictions had affected show turnout considering the torrential rain was doing its best to keep people at home, but there were only about 200 cars there of a maximum of 750 permitted. Stupidly, all the cars were parked two metres away from each other, so the disease I haven’t got couldn’t magically jump across from my car to the next car and infect all its occupants on their return. With all this extra distancing, I couldn’t envisage how they could ever have fit 750 cars on the site. It looked to me to be capable of holding a maximum of 350.
I flashed my exemption card at the guards on the door of the motor museum and later I was ‘reminded’ by some jobsworth inside that masks were required, so I had to remind him that I was exempt. Once inside, there was a stupid one-way system to follow and, even though everyone conformed to maskism religiously, they didn’t care a jot about distancing. There was no advantage to the one-way system; it just made it harder to get out of other people’s way.
We were lucky to have the Beaulieu show because lots of smaller businesses, clubs and charities are unable to qualify for event permits at the moment. I will be writing a report on the event for a magazine later. As it’s a car magazine, there won’t be much room for scepticism but I do intend to draw attention to Peter Openshaw’s reluctant admission in May that the risk of transmitting the virus in the open air is virtually nil, so there’s no reason why other events shouldn’t be allowed to take place, and without all the hand-washy, distance-keepy poncing.
“Stupidly, all the cars were parked two metres away from each other, so the disease I haven’t got couldn’t magically jump across from my car to the next car and infect all its occupants on their return. ”
When left to their own devices, people will try to park with a reasonable distance away from another car, just to allow themselves enough good room to get in and out, and avoid the damage to car doors that happens when they’re normally forced to park too close together.
Plus, some people (me, I confess) are rubbish at parking.
Thanks for the report and it seems that you had an enjoyable weekend overall. I’m in a car club and all the shows in my area (north east) have been cancelled apart from one which we went to two weeks ago. I have no idea how the organisers managed to get this one on when all the others have been called off.
There were about 300 cars and the event felt pretty much as it would have done last year which was a bit of a surprise. We are trying to return to normal and this weekend we will be doing our Cobweb Run which was postponed from March. Maybe we should call it the Covid Run?
There’s a ‘keep your distance’ notice on a fast bypass road near my town.
Presumably the sheeples will interpret this to mean that cars should be six feet apart – at 60 mph.
New Zealand, the acceptable face of a 2020 concentration camp.
Apparently it’s what they want.
Anybody know a sane Kiwi? I only know one and she’d almost certainly be in favour of quarantine dodgers being shot on sight.
It seems the roots of liberty and democracy are very shallow after all; all it takes to overthrow them, to cow the population, is to use the ‘fear’ of something, in this case, a not particularly dangerous disease.
Who would have thought it was that easy, or maybe it’s just the times we live in; the problem is, how to overcome this sense of fear in so many and regain our freedom?
I had a chat with a relative whose son lives in New Zealand. I asked if her son liked Ms Ardern, she said that they really like her.
I said “Don’t they realise they are losing their freedom?” She said “They don’t think like that”. People don’t even realise it!
“…everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
“Saint Jacinda Postpones General Election”
Of course she has.
“But as was pointed out in the recent “Postcard From New Zealand“, she’ll almost certainly win in October in a landslide.”
And Hillary Clinton was predicted to have a 98% chance of winning the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
When the media is in its own tightly-controlled bubble, when the pundits all listen to the noise on Twitter where anyone with any dissenting voice is likely to be kicked off, and where the electorate are dishonest in their voting intentions with pollsters because they don’t trust the media, government or institutions, maybe there’ll be a surprise in this election.
I don’t know enough about NZ politics to know one way or another, but Biden’s in a strong lead against Trump, just as Hillary was, because the opinion-makers are too busy listening to themselves and each other to know what the real mood is amongst the public any more. They’re too busy censoring wrong-think to hear.
I hope you’re right about Trump. I think he’s been pretty terrible, but he kept out something worse and needs to do the same this time round. If he loses, the struggle against coronafascism/communism will get a lot harder. Trouble is, either way the issue is now highly politicised – saw some posts the other day about T-Cell immunity being a “right wing” theory and justification from I think someone in Denmark for mandatory masks that even Trump has been seen wearing one so Denmark finds itself to the right of Trump.
Sad whenever we get the chance to vote these days we have to choose between the least worst option. We never seem to get the choice of less government interference in our lives just the choice of slowing the pace.
I agree. Each of us is governed by up to 5 layers: EU, national, devolved, regional, local, with all the attendant bureaucracy and kick backs and interference in our lives. I have never understood why the population would stand for it, but doubt there will be a revolution any time soon.
Can probably add at least another level the UN (and its many bodies such as the WHO). We also have other organisations which manage national policies such as the World Bank (funds for complying with WHO strict lockdown strategy) and World Economic Forum (the ‘Great Reset’).
Absolutely, and the countless quangos or whatever they’re called. But I thought as you wrote ‘government’ you were talking about the levels of government we can vote for, if we chose to. Depressing eh?
Very depressing, bureaucrats keep on increasing bureaucracy. The quangos never seem to disappear despite the promises, they simply rename and reform.
In his later years the late Christopher Booker was pointing out the rise of these global orgamisations.
Would have been interesting to read Christopher Booker’s opinion of current events. Unfortunately we now have the likes of Celia Walden instead adding to the hysteria.
Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as “the act by which a (natural or legal) person separates other persons on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds *without an objective and reasonable justification, in conformity with the proposed definition of discrimination.
*the out clause that makes it worthless as the paper it is written on.
Trump odds were at about 2.74 about two weeks ago. He is now in to 2.5. Small movement, but he has been moving gradually each day. Interestingly Jeffrey Gundlach, the ‘bond king’, called it for Trump last week, on the basis that there was a silent majority in his favour. Kamala Harris is not popular. I agree with what you say about Trump, but he is our best chance to get out of this mess.
Tulsi Gabbard pulled Harris to pieces in one of the presidential candidate debates, Harris subsequently withdrawing. And now, via a back route, she could end up being the President (can anyone see ‘groping’ Biden’s obvious dementia surviving his first term if he gets in).
Martin Armstrong has said on anumber of occasions he worries less about Trump than what will follow him. I agree.
Kamala looks as though she shares the same pantsuit designer as her handler!
MA called the top in Covid, amongst a load of other things.
Do you mean that woman of colour, Kamala? I think my East African friends would be falling about laughing at the thought that Kamala was anything but white.
Is Kamala Harris a subtle example of cultural appropriation? Black on the outside, white on the inside.
Known as ‘Hillary in Blackface’ on one or more of the blog sites!
Robert Barnes too and he made a lot of money last time betting on Trump.
It very much depends on where y ou get your news from.
Watching the BBC with that condescending twat Sopel giving it nightly orange man bad will make you think trump is terrible.
There is a long history pattern of selective reporting and editing that nakes me doubt a lot of the agenda driven reporting from the states.
The US media in general subscribes to the BBC / woke vision of the world so there is a lot of dissonance.
He’s nowhere near as bad as the media and his opposition portray him.
He’s boorish and can be rude, he’s a New Yorker, but he’s kept most of his election promises, where he hasn’t been blocked by Democrats and some Republicans, or they’ve sat on their hands and done nothing to help.
In a worse version of the quiet Tory in the UK, there are a lot of quiet Trump supporters in the US.
In many parts of the country, putting up posters on your house, bumper sticker, expressing support at work etc will result in your house being vandalised, car scratched or losing your job.
Os it any wonder a lot of people will not take the risk and leave it till the privacy of the voting booth.
Note the violence is nearly all one way.
As Lionel Shriver expressed it in a slightly different context, “That shows where the intolerance lies”.
I’ve come to the conclusion that people lie to pollsters – possibly because they never know where the information about their views/votes will end up.
Posted by Laura earlier just before page change so most people will have missed it.
Deserves a reboot.
100% Organic, Biodegradable and Vegan Facemasks – picture is hilarious https://www.facebook.com/lukepaulscottofficial/posts/10100874897527872
Would add that each county could have their own.. Italians have calabrese. chinese have pak choi. – so we dont have cultural appropriation in these testing times
Will have to see if I can fashion a piece of steak that way.
A good sized piece of tripe could work well.
Tripe, indeed.
Well, last week the BBC was seriously advocating nappies made of bamboo – cooler in hot weather.
Beware of panda cars.
I have some bath towels that include bamboo fibers.
Amusing until you look a little harder and see one of millions of developing world residents condemned to life as collateral damage from the groundless anxieties of 1st worlders. His wife probably cooks over an open fire and his children struggled to study by kerosene lamp light. Yet he bears all that with a lot more dignity than the pathetic wimps that surround us.
So is this the one where Sauron actually gets the ring seeing as it’s New Zealand?
Were there any protests over the weekend?
Madrid, London, Birmingham are the biggest ones I know of.
Thanks. I’ll have a look.
Querdenken, the opposition organisations in Germany, had protests in Hamburg (major inner city road was closed for this, thanks authorities in HH) about 900 attending, Kiel, capital of Schleswig Holstein in the North, 600 attending. Probably more cities in Germany who regularly have protests.
Another planned in Berlin on 29th August, with international participation.
News reports on NDR.de (MSM tv station), or search for Querdenken on YouTube.
Just read Effie Deans blog and yes a lot to agree with, I would definitely add Piers Morgan to the list of criminals in my view who both made this lockdown inevitable and fuelled the terror that has kept it going so tragically and absurdly long
Piers Morgan can be blamed for everything bad really.
He should also be in the dock for crimes against humanity together with Johnson, Hancock, Ferguson, Whitty and Vallance.
The Lord HAW HAW of our time
They hanged Haw Haw.
Precedents.
Piers Morgan is hogging the conch and won’t give it back.
Tip him over the cliff.
I may have posted this before – but it was prompted by Wee Krankie’s use of the word ‘unprecedented’.
The facts are, as said, that there have been eight years of higher mortality since 1993. Which means that, in my lifetime of nigh on three quarters of a century, I guess I must have lift through about two-dozen ‘precedents!
‘lift’? = ‘lived’
That’s the core of it. Unprecedented measures for a threat that is demonstrably nothing of the sort.
Their point is that without the lockdown it would have been unprecedented.
The ONS published something a couple of weeks ago saying 450,000 deaths were avoided at 10 years life lost each
They have to be convinced that
1 – Fergusons model is not the conterfactual
2 – the best actual real world data is sweden and that should be our counterfactual – same deaths as our lockdown give or take – ie lockdown here didnt do much
3 – no way is it 10 years per person life lost. The only paper I read on this assumed that anyone that died actually had the life expectancy of the average from that cohort. ie 70 year old with diabetes had the number of life years lost as the average 70 year old with diabetes rather than the sensilbe assumption that they were the sickest in that group. first author was a student rather than a doctorate
“Their point is that without the lockdown it would have been unprecedented.”
Which is supported by absolutely no evidence at all. Clearly,peak infection had taken place before lock-up – and a multitude of data illustrates the lack of connection between the stringency of government measures and the infection’s course. Viruses do what viruses do.
I don’t think those so heavily invested in their own poor decisions and lack of basic knowledge will be convinced. The time has passed when, at the fork in the road, they could have said :
“We know more now, and you can relax a bit – sufficient data is in, and it isn’t as serious as was first portrayed”
But that’s the opposite of ‘stupid’ – recognising a (justifiable) mistake, and correcting for it (see ‘Ferguson’ and other Mengele’s in the scientific field).
“Which is supported by absolutely no evidence at all.”
I absolutely agree. It was clear to me in March and ever more clear since, that lockdown will kill more than covid – especially when you use qalys. I just wonder what will convince them? The truth will out eventually – just how many have to be slaughtered by lockdown first?
Depends which “them” you are talking about. If it’s Fergie et al, nothing short of torture or threats of prison would make them admit it.
https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-08-16
Someone posted this yesterday but it deserves another airing.
Saint Jacinda, the only world leader able to eat an apple through a tennis racket
New Zealand. Land of the Long White Teeth.
Very good.
Whenuanganihoroa hasn’t got quite the same poetry as aotearoa though!
May it soon become an endangered species.
Surely all Jacinda needs to do to fix this is to cast the virus in to the burning fires of Mount Doom?
With herself as Gollum.
He had big fangs too.
In the maps at the bottom of the page, does ‘Insufficient data’ mean ‘Why are you asking me this? F*ck off’?
Daily Mail running a story today about a 27-year-old woman whose cancer recurred during lockdown. The main symptom was a cough that her GP put down to COVID. She died.
Interesting comment (not mine): “Lockdown supporters have blood on their hands. Don’t kill granny? How about you don’t kill her grandchildren by denying them health care?” Over 400 upvotes, about 20 downvotes.
Another commenter also mentioned “blood on their hands” so may be a useful phrase.
along with Guilty Men
“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty_Men”
I posted on the article on the earlier thread. She leaves behind a 5 year old son. God bless him and curse those responsible for her death – a very long list of useless, evil, lying bastards. There is only one thing as bad as a child suffering from cancer and needing chemotherapy, and that is a child watching their mother or father dying from it.
Killers.,They will pay. Pay for every drop of blood.
Bear witness.
It is. I use blood on hands once in this posting on the Guido Fawkes website late last week:
Send Boris, Matt and the whole rotten crew tweets and emails denouncing them as ‘Granny Killers’.
Just thought I’d have a look at the website for The Who. That’s the band, not the evil empire. The link I happened to land on went straight to the USA merchandise page, and guess what was front and centre?
Yep – ‘The Who Target Logo Face Covering $15’.
If I meet a supposed Who fan wearing one of those, I’ll need an exemption for murder…
I’ll hold your coat
Boo! Shame The Who!
I hope they die before they get old.
Wait till the inevitable “Corona Aid”concert when all the old fag end musos trot out their olde rock to unite the sheeple.
My bf is very into photography – almost to the point of obsession. It’s his main hobby and he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of cameras. In the few months before lockdown, he poured all his time and energy while at university into renovating a forgotten darkroom housed in one of the university-owned accommodation blocks, so that students could develop their own photos. He was looking forward to developing this project further during his final year of uni.
This morning, he received an email from the uni saying that he would not be allowed to use the darkroom this year because it can only be used by those who live in the accommodation in which the darkroom is housed – and my bf doesn’t live in said accommodation. This is due to the uni’s Covid policy. He is utterly devastated and I am devastated for him – he channelled so much time and energy into that darkroom, and for someone who lives and breathes photography like him, it’s a real blow. He now feels like he has no reason to return to uni – most of his contact hours are online; he’s being forced to live in a ‘social bubble’ with 15 other people he doesn’t know because all his friends are living in private rented accommodation whereas he is in uni accommodation; all the big events and balls will undoubtedly be cancelled due to restrictions on gatherings (if not drastically curtailed to the point of having all the fun and spontaneity sucked out of them); having his summer internships cancelled so now he feels like he has no opportunities; and now not being allowed to carry out his main side project that he loves so dearly.
It really made me think of the human and cultural cost of lockdowns and Covid restrictions. How barren our ‘brave new normal’ is. No singing, no theatre performances, no social gatherings, no photography, no art. The totality of human spirit and expression, the very things that make life worth living, reduced to a pixellated ‘virtual exhibition’ or just cancelled altogether. It is through expression that we dissent, so is it any wonder that it’s being shut down?
I feel really quite frightened at the dystopia we are sliding into, and I’m frightened of the people leading us. They’re sub-human in their psychopathic cowardice. I have always been deeply disturbed at distortions of the human self, whether physical or mental, so the inhuman behaviour we are seeing from those tasked with protecting our best interests really scares me. However I refuse to be led by fear, for being led by fear is what got us trapped here in the first place. I will always stay strong enough to ensure I see those who have done this be brought to justice.
“I feel really quite frightened at the dystopia we are sliding into”
You are quite rightly so, Poppy. I have never experienced anything as near dystopian as this, nor a population so cowed by propaganda and deliberate psy-ops from the evil PS-B creeps.
Over the years, I’ve had – like most – some really good ‘ups’ and some pretty big ‘downs’. But I’ve never felt quite so objectively pessimistic as I do at the present time.
It happened slowly but surely. Insidiously. Too many people fell for the narrative too easily. But I think that we have been harping so much on HEALTH for so many years now that the reaction was to be expected. Neurotic Hypochondriacs. More worried about their calorie count than learning about the sciences. Superstitions are alive and well. I guess they never go away.
Totally agree. The sight of a sea of masked zombies is uniquely dispiriting.
Churchill, when asked about defunding the arts to support the war effort, supposedly replied ” Then what are we fighting for?” Another fail for Bumble.
We are fighting for Net Zero.
I feel exactly the same way Poppy and I don’t know about you , but it’s the attempts in the media to laugh the whole thing off or at least make light of the disaster – the jokey adverts, humorous mask designs ans so on ad nauseaum that really gets to me. Our nation has sleepwalked like a plague of terror stricken zombies in to a cataclysm and hardly any of us can see it, I too hope that some day those responsible will rot in Jail.
I’m getting sick and tired of various half-arsed attempts to “adjust” to the “new normal”. I don’t want to get on public transport, whether it’s a “quiet” time or not. And the reason for that is emphatically not because I’m worried I might contract F***ING Covid. It’s because I can’t bear to travel with a rag plastered over my face. Same with shopping, going to a gallery, theatre, etc. I just want to get back on with my normal daily life, as has been possible since early April.
I traveled on buses, tube and overground in London without a mask. No problems anywhere, I didn’t even need to say I am exempt.
What I hate is looking at the muzzled faces, it is depressing.
I cannot wait for the life to get to normal, but we will have to fight to that. I will go to the next protest in London.
I did my first supermarket shop in the U.K. since masks were introduced today. I didn’t wear one. Quite possibly I was the only person in there aged over 10 not wearing one though. I wore mirrored shades to give a “fuck off don’t mess” vibe and it worked well enough. Nobody said anything. Staff were helpful as usual.
My children are aghast at my rule breaking. How do teach them to understand the importance of independence of thought, principles and critical thinking as well as discipline and getting on in society? I am going with “you cannot make things change if you are not willing to make a stand for what you believe to be right”
I so would have been burned at the stake in earlier times though.
Good job soldier.
There are no exemptions from masks in shops here in France, so I just don’t go to any (thank goodness for click&collect and Amazon).
Footfall in local shops – even supermarkets – is substantially lower.
Although there are fewer tourists here than usual in summer, supermarket car parks are much emptier than in the (normal) winter months. Turnover must be down to a fraction.
Despite that, there seems to be very little backlash from retailers – all shops are dutifully displaying “Masque obligatoire” signs, with the €135 fine warning.
Indeed. The cheery ads with kids waving to their gran on a screen and playing an instrument/baking a cake etc leave me choking with murderous rage.
Especially as they’re just bullshit. Like it’s just a fun time with Enid Blyton. I don’t ever recall reading “Five Get Locked Down in Devon”.
My sister posted a photo of her 5 year old daughter going to school in front of a computer screen on her antisocial media account. I don’t know why but it made me want to slit my wrists when I saw it because I thought, that’s not how its supposed to be and my niece won’t thank her elders if she ever realises how her early life was screwed over for a virus.
That said, at least she’s not muzzled unlike those poor kids in Thailand.
Have you noticed they put a few adverts in where everything is normal ?,shops as they used to be,happy unmasked families going on holiday on a plane etc..This seems like a deliberate act of rubbing our noses in it,some kind of psy-ops,I’m not sure what they are trying to get across but it seems like another form of demoralisation.
Demoralisation is a big element of the long term psy-op.
Programs like: Can’t pay take it away, neighbours from hell, benefit street, that program about millionairs and how much they spend on dinner, that other one made in Chelsea, all the cop shows,….all of them designed to make people jelous, breed resentment, set us against each other, systematic demonisation of diffrent parts of society. Its been going on for the last 20 years.
To get us to where we are now.
Just as bad is the Let’s Get Back advert the government put out at the end of July. “You can have the real normal back if you just get tested” (so we can lock down various parts of the country). It was plastered with negative comments until they realised they’d screwed up by leaving the comments section open.
I’m being Mrs Awkward here (no relation) but who holds all the keys to the dark room, the outside door etc? What’s to stop bf using it anyway if he’s not bothered about returning to uni? I love the idea of guerrilla photographers creeping through the night, ducking under lighted windows and behind trees.
I think the accommodation receptionist/porter holds them. Totally ludicrous as the darkroom is so small that only one person can use it at a time anyway!
If a University can’t supply equipment that the average person doesn’t have, what is the point. We can all learn via youtube for an annual fee of £0.00.
I love your sense of adventure…
Reminds me of my time as a high school boarder I would gain access to all parts of the school using a piece of wire to fish out clasroom keys deposited in a key box outside the headmaster’s office. Over the years I really got to know what my teachers thought of my (lack of) potential, but at least proved them wrong on exam mark predictions.
Ah, bring back the 70’s
Exam mark predictions?? Were they ignored, as has just happened/not happened/reinstated, I’ve lost track.
Stories like this remind us Covid is nothing but a fascist coup. Until the incompetence brigade address this we are doomed.
Well said Poppy, its really depressing. All that work your boyfriend has done gone down the drain. Society is pretty much sleepwalking into disaster and everything that has made life worth living is being chipped away and becoming so unbearable that people are forgetting what it means to be human.
Yes Poppy it’s terrible. The only thing is, your boyf is not alone. There are thousands of other people who have had everything totally mashed up by the covid scam. If that helps any.
I think of it in terms of live music. In my 20s, I followed the Grateful Dead all over the US. 25,000 sweating fans singing (and sharing germs) in an arena. We used to joke about the tour colds some people would get.
Some people called following the Dead “the last great adventure” in America. Little did we know that that was right. Now people can’t gather together to enjoy music – whatever type floats your boat. Tragic.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics according to the phrase popularised by Mark Twain, but perhaps we should now add an addendum to this:there are now damned lies about statistics too.
I went past my old school this afternoon. It had been one of the top two grammar schools in my city and its honours boards were plastered with bygone achievements. It became a comprehensive school in 1965 and the beautiful old building has since been demolished and replaced by a Co-op “ academy” which looks more like a space ship than a school.
One of the banners outside proudly announced that there has been a 400% increase in university admissions from the school (I didn’t spot over what period of time, 1 year, 5 years?) It sounds so impressive but not when it could mean that one pupil went to university in 2018 and four people went in 2019, an increase of three.
This has always been the problem with using statistics to quantify Covid. Most people are blinded by numbers-they are absolutely mesmerised by statistics. You tell them anything using them and they will believe it.
You misinterpret the term ‘statistics’ – which is the mathematical framework that actually safeguards against the abuse of data – which is what you cite. Mark Twain – a favourite of mine – was wrong on this one.
Sorry to be pedantic – but when you slave over hot spreadsheets in this game of rooting out misused and misleading data, you get a bit picky over clarity..
In real-life terms, it’s actually the lack of understanding of the statistical nature of probability and risk that is currently allowing so many to be brainwashed. It’s the medicine – not the disease.
You put it so much better than I could have done, Rick. “It’s the lack of understanding of the statistical nature of probability and risk that is currently allowing so many to be brainwashed” Exactly what I was trying to say really. I should have left Mark Twain out if it!
Similarly, I get very peeved at the lack of understanding in medical reporting of relative vs. absolute risk. Scary headline: “People who eat _____ are 20% more likely to die of _______”. If your odds of dying of _________ are 1% then you might as well eat _______ and enjoy your life because your absolute risk is so low to begin with. Lots of similar lack of understanding with everything Covid, from risk of dying to the IFR.
Percentage vs percentage point vs percentage of percentage…
Yes Lisa, we are “blinded by science” too.
Not to mention which, if your odds of dying of x because you eat y are 1% then it leaves several questions of which the most telling are (1) how much do you have to eat it and (2) at what age do these 1% of people generally die? If you have to eat a cow and a half a day in order to be in the 1% who die at age 75, it’s probably not a problem to pop out for a steak one every few weeks.
And most are based on correlation not causation, so pointless anyway.
meat being a prime example.
From the massively dodgy data of private food diaries.
Using epidemiology, cigarettes had a correlation of 35 – very strong.
To normally study an issue, a score of 3 is needed. Most of the time at that level, it is proved as coincidence.
With red meat, the panel (two vegans at least) cherry picked a minute number of studies, all with their criticisms (something like 5 from 70) and produced a score of 1.3.
There are studies to show that red meat is protective to health, enjoy your steak rare, with a creamy, buttery sauce and live long!
My wife’s great grandmother spent her last years in a care home. She was in her mid-nineties when she died. The nurses tried to get her to stop putting salt on her food because she would “live longer.” Needless to say, she gave the idiots short shrift.
Maybe the food was bland. In that case, they might have been more responsible for her eventual demise than the teaspoon of salt.
Always with a liberal peppering of ‘might’ and ‘could’ – and/or a question mark at the end of the headline.
Remember when outside a school it simply stated “Borsetshire County Council Little Snoring High School” or whatever, in neat Helvetica. Now we are bombarded with multicoloured logos, mission statements, slogan and bogus stats. Plus a giant thankyou rainbow.
And weird banners of kids wearing facemasks
Good comment. I studied mathematics to degree level but statistics was never my strongest topic. I have to put in a bit of effort where things like Bayes` Theorem for conditional probability are concerned, and it’s essential to understand that concept in order to grasp what the data is telling us, for example in relation to false positives and false negatives from tests.
One-in-a-million chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Terry Pratchett.
How about a few weeks when a news article announced that there was a 66% spike in cases, from 2 cases one week to 6 new cases the following week? Feeble.
From 2 to 6 is a rise of 200%. A 66% rise would be from 2 to 3.32. But newspaper journalists don’t understand percentages. I think we’ve had this conversation before.
Could anyone tell me where to find the quarantine legislation for return from a red list country please? (Not the .gov.uk site, but the actual piece of legislation or statutory instrument).
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/129/regulation/4/made
This?
Interesting: “aircraft, ship or train”
So the super rich on their Yachts are exempt
When the lockdown deaths are finally counted, Imperial college should be razed to the ground and a world ‘peace garden’ put in its place. Ferguson will have killed more than Pol Pot could have dreamed of.
Yet he still doesn’t get it. Here’s a recent sycophantic interview with him. https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/07/covid-modeller
Agree. In fact we should start a new campaign and get it trending:
Defund Imperial College
F*ck me but that horse Jacinda could eat an apple through a tennis racquet
Yes, it’s S-O-O-O sexy!
I’m so tired of reading men on here making jibes at this woman’s appearance. She’s too thin, her teeth are too big etc. She’s a Prime Minister, and yet still being judged on her appearance. Can’t you raise the quality of the debate a bit by criticising her policies instead please?
In the name of equality, I do see plenty of comments online calling out Trump for being orange or Boris for his wild hair.
It’s a cheap insult but does go both ways for politicians who have something distinctive about their appearance.
It’s not really any different from people talking about Johnson’s hair or weight is it? People tend to sling personal abuse at politicians they don’t like.
Believe it or not, I wasn’t making a jibe although I was being a bit facetious in my response to Chris! I agree 100% with you about judging people by appearance, I have some serious problems with my perception of my own (look up BDD).
DavidC
Nice tits on her if you like them small.
All the hallmarks of being a tranny like Stasi Sturgeon.
Just a silly joke because she’s got big chompers. Plenty of other comments about her policies to be found. Move along.
I reckon she slept her way to the top …
In both senses of the word?
Oh yes.
She’s a piranha.
lol
There was an excellent symposium yesterday with some epidemiologists which many of you will now be aware of as well as discussions around economic and cost of lockdowns. Hope that it gains some traction. Plan B was set up in New Zealand months ago and are opposed to harsh lockdowns and of course aren’t pleased with Ms Ardern’s new lockdown.
https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mXnWFHi_hdnOIhTIPxBtw
The Webinar is now available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf_zWtdKKKQ
Ms Ardern certainly is ardent.
Steerpike.
This is a fairly good summary comparing Sweden and New York to show the effect of immunity:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1295152579941249024.html
“If it wasn’t for Sweden, people could say the 15-20% is just a universal coincidence, and that it’s the government’s intervention which saved the day.”
“The problem though is that Sweden does exist. And it blows that theory out of the water.”
Sweden, the statistical gift that keeps on giving.
I can see them becoming a pariah state by making everyone else look bad. I suspect they will come under immense pressure from the US, EU and other major powers to change tack and comply with the lies, or else be cut out of every trade deal going.
So the Premier of Victoria, Australia unfortunately has a lot of support for the notoriously harsh lockdowns. The sheep feel rather sorry for him and there are Facebook events and posts about how he should get more rest. They are more worried about him getting rest than what the lockdown is causing.
He needs a nice long rest – 100 years sounds about right.
I’m curious as to whether anyone else has had a similar experience to mine. I know lots have the same feelings of despair and anxiety over masking, and that loads of us are avoiding shops, restaurants, and even friends and family who are not on the same page. I have left the city I love to live in our country place where I don’t need to see other masked humans, which is a huge trigger for me. So here’s my question: Has anyone else here had friends or family suggest that we “talk to someone” or “get help” coping with our feelings around all of this? That our retreat from life is unhealthy and maladaptive? Here’s my answer my well-meaning friends and family: There is nothing wrong with ME. I do not consider this normal and I will never consider this normal and it would be a waste of time and money to listen to someone trying to convince me I need to adjust to this. For me, adjusting to this is a form of tacit acceptance. My post-graduate work is in the history of psychology so I know a lot about involuntary confinement of so-called “mad” people who were, often, merely non-conformists. I was reminded by Toby’s St. Anthony The Great quote today. I’m not religious but this one really spoke to me! WE ARE NOT THE CRAZY ONES! I will continue to resist and will never normalize or “adapt” to this dystopian nightmare.
We’re not crazy, we just have a natural immunity to irrationality.
A healthy scepticism born of long experience.
It’s getting worse for me as well. Family and friends who were somewhat sympathetic with my position a few months ago are now tired of me repeating my arguments. They have been ground into total submission by the relentless propaganda.
It hasn’t yet reached the point of them suggesting that I seek treatment. This is the next phase, where the people that know us actually become a direct threat to our personal liberty (insofar as this still exists). This is a common tactic in totalitarian systems, where opposition to the state is reclassified as mental illness, and all dissidents are forcibly institutionalised for treatment. See Solzhenitsyn.
Save for one hardy soul in the USA who I still keep in contact with, I have basically lost all my friends and family as a result of this. I have no option other than to shut down all communications. None of them can be trusted.
I obviously feel for you. I guess I’m sort of lucky in that my husband is on the same page, though he has little tolerance for me talking about it all the time, my best friend is fine and my family is as well. My kids get it, but also don’t want to hear about it and just do what they need to do to get on with their lives. I’ve only had to stop seeing one friend because her “safety” protocols make me insane, though we still communicate and will hopefully remain friends. I wish I could have you over for dinner and drinks Richard!
Just the thought of enjoying a social occasion with a group of people who are still sane has made my day, so many thanks for the boost to my flagging morale.
As things stand I can’t imagine myself ever flying again – I will not submit to the full suite of violations that are in store for air travellers henceforth – so sadly this will have to stay in the realm of the imaginary.
Same here. Won’t fly under these conditions and as someone who traveled extensively and was looking to do even more traveling since hubby retired, it’s quite depressing. I’m there with you in spirit!
The modern way of achieving the same result is ‘social credits’.
Been talking to a dissident? Travel ban for you!
Staging a protest? Don’t bother trying to buy food this week.
Don’t like wearing a mask? Just take this tiny prick…
Feeling the same here – no enthusiasm for shops, restaurants, holidays etc. if any mask/distancing/sanitiser “hygiene theatre” is involved, depressed about going into autumn/winter with no end to this madness in sight and dreading the possibility of (a) mandatory masks outside (not beyond possibility given Joe Biden’s bizarre “save 400,000 lives” pronoucement on this in the US) or (b) another full lockdown based on a minor rise in hospital cases/deaths in winter flu season (though the latter might be the last straw for many people).
The lack of hope, and the knowledge that most people are still completely in thrall to the relentless propaganda of fear and/or virtuous compliance, is far more wearing to my mental health than the actual pandemic back in March/April was. Back then I still had the naive idea that once we knew more about the virus we would be able to take a more proportionate response, but from late June onwards it has felt like the UK government and media are inhabiting an alternative reality which diverges further from the real one with every day.
However I’m very lucky myself in that most friends + family are more or less of the same opinion as me and are happy to discuss the situation. We do have some family friends in Wales who are much more cautious and pessimistic, but as they are in their late 70s with health conditions (asthma etc.) this is understandable.
I guess I’m lucky in that, though I live alone, my closest relatives (father and sister) are just as sceptical as I am. Also, several of my friends are highly sceptical. Work colleagues are a problem however, as they seem to have bought entirely into the official narrative. Though I’m currently working from home, I often have to stop myself from going into a rant everytime one of them starts “talking” about a “second wave” or how upset they are that not everyone is muzzled up in shops.
Yes – a member of my family said exactly that to me a couple of weeks ago – ‘You need help – I thought you were sensible’. I haven’t contacted her since, which does make me feel bad as we are her only family and she lives alone and a couple of hours away. I haven’t at any time made her feel bad about wearing her mask – it was her decision and helped make her feel safe – that’s up to her. But my aversion to them is unacceptable apparently. What does it take for people to wake up and realise what has been done to them? And why is it that the brainwashing hasn’t worked on us?
Then that member of your family will have to learn that they will have a lonely life until they get their mind straight. Decisions have consequences, evil people need boundaries.
You are the sensible one.
I’ve not had that thankfully. My husband and closest friend are both sceptics thankfully, while there are a few people at work who are roughly in the same page as me while some others we might disagree but we respect each other’s POV. I’ve avoided the hypochondriacs for my peace of mind.
As for my family, I have more or less not really spoken to them about this. We live in different countries and from the last conversation I had with them they seem to agree what the government in their country is doing – their lockdown and mandatory muzzling is even more draconian and they didn’t like it when I pointed out that lockdown was actually damaging the economy and life more than the virus. Because of that I’ve made the conscious decision not to be really in touch with them for the duration of this madness.
Like you I have made the conscious decision to resist this madness and try my best to show others that I will not bow down to this tyranny.
Toby’s Professor Hughes piece above and the following comment struck a chord with me.He’s not wrong.
“Many independent researchers, particularly financial analysts, have produced better risk assessments of COVID-19 than the Government’s scientific advisors.”
As some of you who regularly post here might know, I have a degree in Microbiology (and did work in microbial pathology for a time after my degree). I didn’t want to continue in academia for several reasons, two of them being getting to know more and more about less and less and the feeling the any study would be reliant on funding which would entail doing research dependent on who was funding rather than for the research itself.
Coming up against ‘the believers’ (particularly on social media!), a declaration of my degree has been met with complete denial (“On what planet on earth (sic) could you possibly have a degree whan you obviously know nothing.”) or other such dismissive statements (“Your degree isn’t from Stanford or any of the world renowned universities so what do you know?” “How long ago is it since you got your degree so you can’t be up to date with it?”) as well as various others.
I’ve made various comments such the fact that I don’t work at a funded institution means that I am free of any bias, the fact that I have a science degree (and directly applicable one at that) means that I am, by nature, more inclined to question and seek out information instead of believing what I am told (by people with no knowledge or background in the subject), the fact that I’ve actually researched this disease a far as I’ve been able to, has been met with denial, disbelief or derision.
While Professor Hughes (and Carl Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta and John Lees and Michael Levitt and…and…!) are all presenting rational and thoughtful insights, it’s very difficult against ‘the believers’ – it IS a modern (and global) hysteria.
DavidC
They do their typical thing: go after the man, not the ball.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said:
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
So right Barney.
DavidC
Small minds discuss people makes me think of snitches.
Depressing report from down here in Deepest Devon: when I go to supermarkets I’m still the only unmuzzled customer. No sign of things breaking down here, at least around where I am.
Anyone else got any reports from Devon and Cornwall?
It’s not breaking down here in Lincolnshire either,if anything compliance must be almost 100% now,excepting my wife and I !.At a retail park this morning that has Currys,TK Maxx,Matalan and Home bargains the only unmuzzled were us and one other lady and the shops were pretty busy too.People of every age group from the quite elderly down to under tens masked up,it was incredibly depressing,an absolute sea of zombies.Not only in the shops,quite a few out on the street and some in cars,everyone on the buses as well.
I am sticking to my principles,I will never be muzzled but today I have felt very uncomfortable indeed,no-one has said anything but the overwhelming sight of someone at every turn with no mouth or expression is deeply sinister.I just wanted to stand in the middle of the car park and shout ‘what the f**king hell is wrong with you people !’.
Depressing! We find it varies round here; some days it feels like it’s everyone, others we see quite a few without. I avoid retail parks at the best of times as they have always been depressing to me. Soul-less purveyors of mass-produced crap in the main so I guess all those zombies will fit in well. Stay strong, you are not alone, even when it feels like it. MW
It’s a about time we did just that.
Sea of zombies, indeed. Well put.
What do zombies see?Have they utterly forgotten what it us to be human?
Just stay away, us my advice.
Same in Herts. It’s the most depressing place ever. Today’s sightings: several young kids in masks, masked-up mum with kids in playground, Grandad wearing mask as bracelet round his wrist, presumably for easy access. Lots of masks in cars. And those bloody rainbows and Thank You Superhero NHS signs still up in lots of windows.
The only positive is that no one really bothers to social distance on the pavements any more. At the beginning it was hellish, people leaping into the road or pressing themselves face first into the fence to escape the oncoming danger…
Did those leapers onto fences consider the possibility that the fence was covered with droplets from sneezing passersby?
No, ‘cos the government hadn’t told them to keep their distance from fences, so they must be safe…
Please, Cornwall is a separate nation, not to be lumped in with Devon (although it so often is)!
Kernow bys vyken!
Well I was thinking of Dumnonia, as it used to be known, back in the good old days.
And the Tamar as boundary is a somewhat recent concept – cultural Cornwall probably ended at Dartmoor until a couple of centuries or so ago.
I am part Cornish by the way!
Oh, and given how the devolved Wales and Scotland have handled the scam, were I a few miles west I don’t think I’d be voting for independence just yet!
Then again, perhaps a re-creation of Dumnonia wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe I’ll start a campaign. The capital could be Tintagel, and we could make the Tamar crossings free to residents.
Ah the Tamar! At the beginning of lockdown the bridge was briefly barred against traffic. Then the ‘Welcome to Cornwall’ sign was obscured. I didn’t think it was a bad idea at the time actually.
Love the idea of Tintagel being the capital, which it was intended to be centuries ago I think – those cliffs covered with Trelawney’s descendants. I’m getting carried away by it all.
Of course I love Cornwall – the Land of the Saints and legend. But I’m conscious that the vast majority of people living and making a living in Cornwall face a whole host of difficulties about which most visitors are completely oblivious.
Holiday makers (and second home owners) usually see only the attractions, the cliffs and beaches, the tourist spots.
But every time I cross the Tamar westwards I’m struck by a change in the landscape, to something bleaker and harder, where people have struggled and are struggling. To pass through those old mining towns, or to walk through the coastal villages in winter always makes me think what the people have endured. Yes, St Ives, Newquay or Polzeath are all very lively in summer, with a nice choice of restaurants for those who can afford it. But not all that long ago the inhabitants had to scrape a living from the land and sea through the other nine months of the year as well. When standing in one of those little harbours I always think of what it must have been like to have to put to sea in a fishing boat or coastal trader through the dark winter months – that or starve. Or spend every day down a tin mine, breathing in arsenic. Or even latterly picking winter daffodils (which I’ve never done but am told is very hard).
Nowadays Cornwall needs all the help it can get, and in my view that should start with policy-makers having a realistic view of the place and the problems it faces. For me, the covid-19 episode has demonstrated that they don’t have a clue.
You are correct of course, yet very few people – residents and visitors – are able to look beyond the fish and chips and beaches. A lot of Cornwall is a sort of Disneyland to many.
Your assertion ‘they don’t have a clue’ is not entirely accurate in that Cornwall Council are clued up enough to grab all the EU money (past) and UK Govt money (present) they could for short term gain. So much so that Dorset and Devon Council complained that Cornwall got more than they did! This to prop up tourist businesses during lockdown. Now the buzz words are carbon neutral and £1.5 million (I think) drops into the bank account.
Yes, the Disneyfication has been sad. The older members of my family (gone now) used to say how lovely places like Newquay used to be decades ago. I still like those places of course, but they have been tarnished.
It really does bother me that the Celts and locals down here (in Dumnonia!) don’t seem willing to rebel more against the muzzle nonsense.
Off up northwards for a couple of days now, so it will be interesting to see the difference.
Yes, I was expecting more resistance to the muzzles given the ornery nature of the Celts. But then it dawned on me, during the clapping malarkey, that many citizens are employed in the health care industry and so just bought into the whole keep safe rainbow nonsense. It was coupled with the latent xenophobia against incomers, now buried of course behind the smiles of welcome.
Have a good time ‘northwards’ and keep your eyes open for sceptic signs.
Coincidence! I’ve just seen on local FB page a notice from Cornwall Council –
Heading: ‘The Cornwall we want for future generations.’
Text begins: ‘Only one in ten of Cornwall’s residents want things to go back to the way they were before the Coronavirus pandemic’
Excuse me while I go to the CC website and put them straight about a few things.
I think many people who aren’t from Cornwall, in that they don’t actually have to earn a living there, or spend the winters there, have a very unrealistic idea of what actually trying to make your way there entails. I do sometimes that this misconception extends to the councils as well.
I speak as someone who’s done some crappy seasonal jobs in a past life.
I have been asked quite a few times by visitors ‘what’s it like living here?’ I’ve always said, same as anywhere else but with better scenery. It’s tough to get work unless you work in the health care industry.
No, it’s the Cornwall that the Cornwall Council wants for future generations. Where did these people come from? Get rid of them!
Yes, I’m in the south west (I don’t want to be too specific on the worldwide web). I had a report from a trusted relative that when she was in Plymouth Sainsburys at Marsh Mills on Saturday afternoon she counted about 20 unmasked people. She is firmly signed up to the This-Is-All-Bollox school, but she wears a mask when shopping just for a quiet life, but she got so hot in Sainsburys that she took it off half way round and got no grief from anyone.
I’ve just got back from my local tip (oops, recycling centre). Staff all milling around unmasked and huddled (yay!), some customers masked up. The most demoralising part was that we were in a queue to use the tip for about half an hour and I saw at least two cars with people fully muzzled in their cars whilst queueing for that length of time, and it’s a very humid day. They must have been so uncomfortable, and so frightened.
Most people I know think it’s all bollox and are simply paying lip-service to the masks etc (oops, pun!). One or two neighbours have asked me what I’m getting so upset about: “just ignore it all”, to which I say “I wish I could, but it’s hard to watch our whole social structure being destroyed”. They give me a funny look and just get on. I’m jealous. It’s not that they are afraid of the virus etc – they are sensible – but all these restrictions don’t bother them.
Others I know are completely twitched. Here’s the frustrating thing (which someone else has mentioned on here): I find some people don’t want to be “un-frightened”. I’ve given my elderly neighbour umpteen pieces of information about why she needn’t worry, but it’s water off a duck’s back. She continues to be afraid. Today’s attempt: I thought she may be too old to have had the BCG, but she has had it, so I told her about the research suggesting that those countries with a BCG programme are 6 times less likely to have high death rates from covid (that’s the gist). She changed the subject.
The BBC constantly shows us photos of teenagers all masked up. I’m pleased to report that locally I haven’t seen any teenagers masked in the streets other than those about to get on buses. It’s the middle-aged and elderly. I’m now embarrasssed to say that I voted Tory in the election, and it was demoralising in the lead up to the election to hear how well Labour was doing. Here’s my point: the media live in a parallel universe. What we discovered from the surprise Tory landslide was that Mr and Mrs and Ms and Mx Average are very different to the people who use, and are portrayed on, Twttr and FB. We must take comfort from that. It’s demoralising to see the masked people on the streets, but remember that we pay selective attention to them and ignore the many who are going about their business as normally as they can. Most people I talk to think it’s all government bullshit, but they don’t get worked up about it like we do on here.
I do wonder if Plymouth has evolved a bit, as it were, and that the muzzle rebellion will start in the cities and spread outwards – hence Sainsburys at March Mills.
I really hope so.
Thanks for all the replies. I’m always interested to read about people’s experiences both here and elsewhere in the country. Maybe a forum on this site where can give the latest muzzle/anti-social distancing/other nonsense in their areas might be an idea – so we can monitor progress (or lack of), might be an idea.
Here in France, everyone is muzzled in the shops. But there are maybe only a quarter to a third of the usual numbers of shoppers in supermarkets.
I would feel sorry for the retailers if they weren’t collaborating so enthusiastically.
Street changes update.
Just ventured around the city centre. George IV Bridge has had some full on treatment. It was the target of festival overcrowding for a few years but now the council has covid to wrestle the carriageway into an uban space with through-traffic (if you absolutely must).
There used to be a bus lane and a regular traffic lane in both directions, Handy for stopping buses. The footpaths are typicaly three or four people wide (wider in places) and raised from the roadway by a kerb.
Now the bus lanes are gone – all vehicles to use one lane in either direction. The old bus lane has a white line painted down its’ middle – half for bikes, half for pedestrians as indicated by stickmen (no skirt) and cycles.
Now, here is the tangle. The buses now stop in the roadway blocking all traffic. That’s fine – you have to choke traffic somehow so what better than by a bus. What once was the old bus lane, now cycle path has to be crossed between the bus stop and the bus. The cycle lane runs on the left (doorside) of the buses. So to slow bikes down and stop them hitting those alighting from buses there are new sleeping policemen. Elongated raised tar the length of a bus. These sleeping policemen cleverly act as peirs from the bus stop shelter to the bus door. Handy if you are in a wheel chair or have a pram, no getting up and down a kerb stone.
With the new tar in the gutter creating the policeman it does mean that there would be a blockage to water. However this has been cleverly avoided by a very small (2inch) pipe running in the gutter under the new tar. In winter when there is snow this will be a problem. Cleverly it isn’t winter now.
It’s hard to describe, but seeing these street changes and knowing this is globalist life changes being put into action is aggravating to the point where there’s no pleasure in walking around the streets.
In the rain today no pedestrians had stepped down onto the old roadway. People simply are not social distancing as they walk about. Mask or no mask, people do not walk in the road to avoid each other – .. anymore.
The changes sound dangerous but it’s at least good to hear that people are not social distancing even though some are not wearing masks.
MW
The Express gleefully said the second wave was coming https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1323663/Coronavirus-latest-second-wave-covid-19-deaths-UK-Boris-Johnson-update with 1012 cases on Saturday, 1040 on Sunday following 1441 on Friday. Today cases rise by 713 with more deaths in a car accident in Wiltshire than the three today.Headline “Second wave not coming!”-not holding breath.
The media are getting close to the classic “shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre”. Is there any point at which they are legally liable for the consequences of their actions?
Oh, if only.
Comments basically tell them to shut the F up.
And lots of them. Seeing this more and more everywhere that’s not behind a paywall (except for the Guardian).
Gosh how disappointed they must be.
Where can the government target next? Got to get those numbers up.
If you Google the weather forecast, the Express’ pages will appear with whichever type of weather you desire. One page will be rain and cold, another will be hot and dry. Clickbait.
This website is supposed to give hope but I see mostly defeatist posts here. Let me add some positives: I live in Holland and in most days, I don’t see any muzzled face (not required outside public transport). I spot more and more elderly and wheelchair-bound people not bothering with social distancing, pressing the green-light crossing buttons with their fingers instead of the “correct way” using their elbows, pubs and bars are full, no registration required, people shake hands. At work, we are having meetings with 8-10 people in a conference room of 6×6 m and nobody bats an eyelid.Nobody talks about “it” as if it didn’t exist. I have the same impression (from online videos) of Belarus, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Serbia or even Russia, and likely there are many countries not in a spotlight where they have quietly returned to the old normal, like baltic countries, African countries, Nicaragua, Seychelles – that’s a destination for you! etc etc). Many US states (republican run) have reverted back to normal. And most surprising of them all, masks are recommended (i.e. not required!) in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan!
Obviously the deceiving efforts of the globalists are concentrated on countries like US, UK, Germany, France etc, where they are most successful in brainwashing the population. The majority of the world population doesn’t buy their crap any more, they are common sense people living in a world with real dangers. To conclude, I think the fact that they are pushing the unbelievably thin “spike in cases” narrative reeks of desperation, knowing that the time is running out before the penny drops even for the clueless westerners.
Thanks! Speaking personally I have not given up fighting but feel the struggle will be a long one – but you make a good case for more optimism.
Good positive post! I like the thought behind this being an act of desperation by those that be. Any thoughts about the senario for the collapse or climb down or whatever comes? How do you seeing their end playing out?
Thanks very much for this very welcome comment! I agree that some people link to negative news but I don’t think it’s fair to say that most of the comments are defeatist. You rightly observe that it’s much worse in the UK, France, ‘Blue’ US states, Germany and I would include Spain and Portugal in the list. Our media is so programmed to pile on the fear and keep us down that any good news from elsewhere is either lied about or not reported at all. This adds to our feeling of hopelessness and isolation.
This blog is a place for people to sound-off, often in colourful language (I am guilty of this!) Many are reduced to despair by the continuing psy-op and ever-increasing loss of our freedoms. Some live alone and/or have no friends or family with similar views. I have been amazed and relieved by the almost complete lack of back-biting, trolling etc on here and the heartwarming, supportive comments people send to those who are struggling.
Also, you are probably aware of the British sense of humour; it tends to the ironic, mordant, self-deprecatory, gallows and, dare I say it, black!!
MW
I don’t think most people on here are being defeatist,it’s just that in the UK we seem to be vastly outnumbered,it seems the population of Holland have not been comprehensively brainwashed for years as the British people have been,the Dutch appear able to appraise things for themselves.
I think a lot of us are extremely frustrated by the situation and our fellow citizens and are finding it very difficult to find any constructive ways to change anything.
Czech republic takes a backward step https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-czech/czechs-must-wear-face-masks-again-in-many-places-from-sept-1-expect-tough-autumn-idUKKCN25D1HE (sad face if I had any idea how to do one)
Italy extending them to outdoors, but only between 6pm and 6am, another twist on the smart virus theme
Wow, what a smart virus, it acknowledges a curfew.
Defeated by a curfew. Can tell time. The Italian government appears to believe in vampires.
They’ll mandate people carrying a crucifix and a bunch of garlic next.
I really can’t understand the obsession with masks, even in countries that are doing perfectly fine without them. The other thing that seems usual and doesn’t make sense is mask mandates which are announced weeks before they are to take effect.
Yes, a very good Scottish friend out in Denmark says they went back to normal months ago and is flabbergasted at the destruction being wrought on the British economy. He thinks it’s punishment for Brexit.
Super point Peter.
DavidC
Eh? By who? A Brexit government?????
By those who own the world and have lied to us about everything since we were born. Not our dumbfuck government who are nothing more than overpaid actors.
Most likely a phony Brexit government. Saved by the Covid-19 bell.
To be honest that just makes me feel even more depressed, thinking about how other countries have gone more or less back to normal while the good old UK flounders on.
I don’t see any cause for optimism.The entire political,media ,institutional class are arrayed against us.Even if all restrictions due to Covid were abolished today we still face a terrible recession.
I see many people ignoring the absurdity of the petty restrictions and the weight of evidence is on our side but this nonsense goes on and on.
You may call it defeatism,I would call it realism.
Call it whatever you like, if it has a negative effect it should be re-worded or avoided.
I’m more optimistic now than I was in March. Just disappointed that more haven’t turned against the nonsense yet.
I read the comment sections and find cause for optimism there. The vast majority of commenters espouse various forms of anti-hysteria and the numbers seem to be increasing.
Well said indeed.
Let’s not be defeatist, let’s not despair.THEY. will. not, win.
The “Postcard from Brazil” article last week was definitely encouraging. It sounds like Brazilians have much more of a sense of proportion and couldn’t wait to get back to normal once the most severe phase of the epidemic had passed. I liked the reference to crowds of bar-goers singing ““We aren’t going away” to police attempting to disperse them! Kind of a contrast to the situation in the UK (as depicted in the Sky News article on Oldham today)
https://dailysceptic.org/a-postcard-from-brazil/
Good to hear some positive experiences- can’t speak for France or USA but here it’s the efforts of the fragrant BBC ably assisted by sky and c4. We seem to have the least journalistic journalism on the planet.
Great post. THANK YOU!
Grat post, thanks for that. However it just makes me even more…..arrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh when here we are in the UK and we are STILL having to live through all the SHIT they are piling on us day in and day out. When will these people leave us alone!
This is not the UK I grew up in. Not by a long chalk.
Fear is a Viral Monster:
https://www.aier.org/article/fear-is-a-viral-monster/
Fear is alos an immune system suppressant.
DavidC
… as is the rocketing anxiety and depression.
Good reason to work on any anxiety and depression we may be feeling. I play my favourite loud, aggressive music to counter it in myself.
According to the Evening Standard, since yesterday there have been two more deaths of people with Corona virus-both in England. None in Scotland, Wales or NI.
They were 81 and 86 respectively and both had underlying illnesses.
My mother died aged 82 and my father aged 85. They didn’t have underlying illnesses. I thought you would all like to know,
How is this disease so selective?? It is uncanny. It always seems to pick people who were about to die of other causes. I wonder how much of it is just what the doctor chooses to put on the death certificate.
Margaret, I’m sorry about your parents; my Dad went at 62 and my Mother at 88, both with all sorts of things wrong with them, all some time ago. Am I right in thinking your parents’ deaths were pre-CV19? MW
Thank you Miriam. Yes many years pre Covid. I’m afraid it was my poor attempt at humour-making a comparison between the dramatic pronouncements we get every day now and how it used to be when old people just “died”.
I thought that’s what you meant, Margaret, knowing your posts, but it occurred to me to make sure! Best wishes, Miriam
A friend’s mother died a fortnight ago. 85 and in a wheelchair for 20 years after a brain hemorrhage. My friend quite seriously thought of telling people that their Mum had genuinely “just died” and would not be counted as a statistic
I found it humorous, but I am ex- paediatric critical care nurse, dark sense of humour goes with the territory..
Exactly. I’m currently on borrowed time, dodging bullets well with the help of superb professionals, who have been buggered by this nonsense.
I wouldn’t want any extra infection – but this depressing palaver is making everything more difficult – like a scan and review that was three months late.
Blame where blame belongs – at the door of this government. No excuses or diversions. That’s responsibility.
Awww it makes me sad to hear you say that Rick. In a way, aren’t we all
On borrowed time?
I hope you get the heath care that you need but moreover I hope that you can continue to live a full life every day and not in fear. X
Yes. There are now very few deaths and a small number of hospitalizations related to this virus. The whole country should be out celebrating, all lockdown restrictions and pathetic regulations done with. Partying in the streets. The plague has gone!! But no…all we get is further restrictions, fearmongering about spurious ‘cases’ and threats of second waves. Have Leicester hospitals opened up now since nobody has actually died of this virus in them for weeks and virtually nobody is in hospital with it? No – now they say they are ‘preparing’ for the winter months !!?? My brother, who has mild dementia, is recovering from an operation and no-one is allowed to visit him. I shall probably die of rage at this rate.
Also bear in mind that although the government has adjusted the cut off period to 28 days, these could have been due to positive test results a month ago and death from (or WITH!) Covid-19 or death by something unrelated (such as cancer, being run over by a bus, etc).
The ONLY way to ascertain exactly is to look at each death certifcate, look at co-morbidites, look at how the attribution was done (remotely or physically) and, ultimately, a blood serology test.
It ain’t going to happen. The data is now so compromised and dirty that any true and acucurate analysis is impossible.
DavidC
what a scam
I do wonder how many advocates of the lockdown are either on full pay, or on a pension.
I can well imagine that on full pay, say in a government department, there would be no point whatsoever in accepting the risk and discomfort of going back to work. What possible reason could you have to want to do that?
I also find it strange that the media are not asking this question. Their attitude seems to be twofold:
What we don’t hear is 3. Look at the immense harm caused to the less secure, by the comfortable complacency of those in a secure job on full pay.
Agree. I’m retired, financially ok and am only detrimentally affected by the small restrictions on my freedoms. But I am furious at everyone, the government, the media, the fools who question nothing and blindly obey, the damage that is being done everywhere.
Not retired but otherwise ditto, and feel the same. Angry for my kids, and for others, but above all else angry that lies are winning. Not religious, but God will be angry.
It’s truly appalling what is happening to the kids who have just done A levels and GCSEs. The Govt have had months to work out how to handle this and have still made an utter mess of it. I’m so thankful my two are older and more realistic about what life Can throw at you.
I have one who has been part of the A Level experiment, and an older one who is part of the university experiment that is remote learning but still paying £9k of fees for the privilege. Are they cross!
Am religious.
God hates a coward.
God hates a liar.
God hates those who oppress His people.
God is angry.
No evidence of such, I’m afraid. At best, Nigel sits back with folded arms when not devising othe plagues and persecutions
With you 100%.
It is a mistake to harness the quotidian resentment normally drummed up by the bog-paper press like the SunMailExploit. It’s divisive, and no better than the Groan self-righteous fabrications.
Me too.
I’m on furlough until the end of this month and am chomping at the bit to return. Been against this nonsense from the very start, back in January. Then watched the panic and insanity fill those surrounding me.
You’ve lost your company and your house, your elderly mother died of neglect in a care home, your son can’t find a job, your sister has an untreated cancer, but hey! it’s all worth it if it saves one life from the dreaded Covid.
Hear hear. I’m in the same boat. Civil Servant and Fervant Skeptic.
I think you’d have to be an incredibly self-serving and selfish individual to base your approval/disapproval of the lockdown on your own personal circumstances. I think you can be a critical thinker regardless.
Even about vaccines ?
I know someone who has been struggling to see a doctor or specialist since this lockdown, yet is still full of hosannas for the NHS and wholeheartedly believes in all this nonsense. Nice bloke though but he’s well off and is sitting atop substantial savings and a pension pot that younger people can only dream of.
If his current health woes is not making him realise how screwed up we all are then I suspect there is no hope. Unless the Treasury imposes a tax on his pensions and abolish the triple lock, that might wake him up.
It’s obvious that personal benefit isn’t relevant to your perspective. I’m semi-retired, worked from home from years. My online work has actually increased because of the crisis. I’m also ardently anti-lockdown. Just because I’m better off personally doesn’t mean that I enjoy seeing our world being crushed under the weight of these restrictions.
Has anyone seen this about 100,000 people volunterring for vaccine trials?
Coronavirus: 100,000 Britons volunteer for vaccine trials – but thousands more needed
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-100-000-britons-volunteer-for-vaccine-trials-but-thousands-more-needed-12050849
This Kate Bingham who is the chair of the UK’s vaccine taskforce says “What I think we’ll get is a vaccine that reduces the severity of symptoms so that people will stop dying and it will turn into something like flu.”
This makes no sense to me as it doesn’t sound like a vaccine that is working at all. We’ve got shed loads of people who do not have any symptoms with COVID-19, but now we are going to give them a Flu like illness instead. Thousands die of Flu each year, so I really do not understand the logic being used with this vaccine.
Agree. This sounds like a placebo injection with many toxic adjuvants and many scary side effects (the medium and long term side effects are unknown especially as these vaccine are rushed through in a short period of time)
Probably just a placebo and will have no effect at all.
That is all it needs to be to deal with a virus that has burnt itself out naturally.
Read the fine print, part two – Nearly 400 adverse reactions listed in vaccine package inserts
Great information with the illnesses and side effects linked to each vaccine (brand name) and the manufacturer, also link to package inserts
https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-08-16-400-adverse-reactions-listed-in-vaccine-inserts.html
I don’t know anyone that has died of covid. I wonder how many I will know once compulsory mass vaccinations starts?….
Nobody knows anyone who’s died, off course some people will say one of two things, they know someone who’s grannie/ cousin/ hairdresser died of it or my favourite, i know someone who works in an ICU and they say it’s really bad you should see it. It’s all lies.
My sister-in-law works as a cancer specialist nurse, but obviously has been covering for Covid. She’s worked for the NHS since 1982 and says she’s never known the hospital be so quiet. Never.
… because if you concentrate on Covid, and exclude the rest, you get rid of the majority of the most seriously ill people.
My wife’s friend said her nan who was in a Care Home had just died of COVID-19. This was my conversation with her:
“Did she test positive for COVID-19?”, reply “No”.
“Did she see a Doctor?”, reply “No”.
I then asked “Was she ill?”, she said “Yes, she had severe dementia and was only expected to last a few months”.
I then said, “Don’t you think it was the dementia then as that ties in with what you were expecting?”, she said “No, the death certificate says COVID-19 so that killed her”.
Doesn’t mean much. Ever seen the list of possible side effects from taking aspirin?
WARNING: COVID-19 vaccine may cause shedding (like other vaccines), WORSENING the pandemic by spreading what would have been obsolete strains of coronavirus
Beware of Herd Infection: COVID-19 vaccine will infect those surrounding the vaccinated for two weeks or more, further spreading the disease by shedding
Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, has stated the following:
“Health officials should require a two-week quarantine of all children and adults who receive vaccinations,”… “This is the minimum amount of time required to prevent transmission of infectious diseases to the rest of the population, including individuals who have been previously vaccinated.” Weston A. Price Foundation is a nutrition education foundation functioning out of Washington D.C. that relies on science-based information for diet and health advice.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-08-16-covid-19-vaccine-causes-shedding-worsen-the-pandemic.html
Funny how that works — now the crazies will be endangering us!
That is possible with a “live vaccine”, but I don’t know of any Covid vaccine that is like that.
That’s re-assuring.
I am sure this happens, I often used to get a cold or a does of something around the time when people started getting the flu jab. I really noticed it and often used to joke that I have “Government Flu”….Oh how we laughed…
Quackery pure and simple. I wish the anti-vaxxers would stop aligning themselves with us. It’s not doing our message of common sense any good.
Get outta here. I have been a vaccine opponent for decades, and I’m certainly not aligning with you.
“It will turn into something like flu” after the vaccine of course because we can start saying it is more like flu or perhaps we could start to call it man flu or even a nasty cold like we used to…
Some of the participants may sincerely believe they are assisting in addressing a public health emergency. I don’t think the people pulling the strings do. The sensible approach with a disease like this would be to be cautious about a vaccine.
They’re just stupid virtue signalers, who will be forever able to claim that “I saved the world!”
That’s if they survive the vaccine….
Then their families will be able to virtue signal as well and say “They were selfless, and died so that they could save others from this dreadful virus”. The MSM will lap that up big time.
Saw on FB that Andrew Lloyd Webber had signed up for the trial – there was even a photo of him being vaccinated (he could well have been pretending of course..)
Her husband sat on the Cobra panel that sanctioned lockdown. Small world!
Shame he didn’t sit on a real Cobra!
https://svhealthinvestors.com/people/kate-bingham
Why even bother with these trials? The vaccine manufacturers have complete indemnity already guaranteed internationally, so have absolutely nothing to be worried about.
Another reason I won’t take them!
I don’t think she’s claiming she’s actually going to give them a flu like illness (although the vaccine will actually do that to a lot of people for a few days). She’s saying it means when you get Covid it will be just like flu. Which it basically already is.
It isn’t though, 90%+ are asymptomatic or have a very mild cold. Even the people dying with it on the death certificate aren’t dying from it, they’re dying from their many underlying illnesses not COVID-19.
Same with flu. About 75% are asymptomatic. It’s just that we don’t call it “flu’ unless it’s severe. But we’ve all probably been infected with the same influenza viruses a few times and had very mild or no symptoms.
Studies have shown that Influenza is around 15% asymptomatic. Are you thinking of the common cold instead?
I’m thinking of this one:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(14)70034-7/fulltext
I know many doubt Mr Mason Mills but he does come out with some interesting stuff and certainly before it becomes mainstream. This was from July 30th (emphasis mine):
Wish he’d get a shift on then, we’re nearly halfway through August now…
Rushed vaccine coming our way soon. All that remains is to change a bit of legislation. WHO will probably lead the way.
I wonder if the sacking of PHE had something to do with this. Maybe they weren’t fully on board with the plan.
I would be interested to know of stuff he has predicted that hasn’t come true – i.e. what is his prediction rate?
Only thing I can remember Mason Mills getting wrong was that he predicted Rebecca Long Bailey would be the new Labour leader. He got Angela Rayner as deputy right though.
Everything else he has said about government policy has been right, as far as I remember anyway. I do not have Twitter so cannot see his tweets any more, because his account is now locked. And I cannot afford to pay for Patreon…
Oh do f*ck off with this Mr Mason Mills bullshit. Like his profile says”Modern Day Nostradamus”, which means predict as many things as you can and some of them will eventually appear to be correct.
Anyone who quotes Mr Mason MIlls on here should be banned.
Not sure about banning, believing in free speech and all, but I agree it’s getting a bit tiresome
Either he’s a hoaxer, or some insider having a laugh
Either way I don’t think he should be given house room
I like the phrase “he does come out with some interesting stuff and certainly before it becomes mainstream”, so does the tramp in my home town if you sit and listen to him whilst he’s drinking his meths!
Interesting… does this mean the government are just pretending to ‘play along’ with other people’s agendas??? But why is Boris meeting Bill Gates? Why is he allowing Hancock to do so too??? Is it something to do with being aware of the Democrat agenda to topple Trump by means of exploiting the virus and using the BLM movement?
Still does not explain or excuse them wrecking the UK economy and the whole net zero agenda..
Has MM said anything more recent about the migrant boat crossings by the way?
Stop believing the Mr Mason Mills bullshit, it’s more than likely a 14 year old kid winding up a loads of idiots who believe he’s Cummings!
This ‘illness’ is perfectly manageable with therapeutics, administered in various known timeframes as the ‘illness’ develops. A ‘safe’ vaccine is not going to emerge any time soon, by which time the virus will have effectively died out. The Hon Kate knows this, I know this, and we all know this. Sorry Bill and Melinda!
It’ll be back every few years like the other coronaviruses. So the vaccine won’t be completely wasted. But it not be quite the payday for Big Pharma they were hoping for.
Agree. Better to use the time wisely, with full and proper R&D undertaken in the normal timeframes for vaccine and drug development (4-5 years?), for when SARS 3 or 4 emerges.
Precisely.
Where’s the f.ing emergency? The more I look at the data, the less I see.
I think it will be SARS2 that comes back every few years. SARS3 and 4 will be along too but perhaps not for about 20 years. But they will probably have different vaccines.
As RickH pointed out before you really need to wait a few years with a phase 3 trial to see what happens down the road. I think this is good advice with this vaccine. It’s too late to do much for the initial pandemic anyway unless NZ can really keep up what they’re doing.
There is definitely more research they could have done with this vaccine but they probably won’t bother because there usually isn’t that much money in vaccines.
Well – it will be if governments continue handing over piles of dosh from the magic money tree for snake oil.
Yes they’ll probably make more $$$ from those upfront sales they’ve already made to panicking and clueless governments. Who will then want to jab us all mainly to save themselves embarrassment.
Definitely. I think – not for the first time – pharma execs are going to be kicking themselves for spending money buying into vaccines where they have no experience (it’s very specialised – looking at you AZ here) or investing in vaccines and therapeutics for what will ultimately be a $4-5bn per annum market targeting the vulnerable elderly. Nobody else needs a vaccine.
If one company is the winner here, that’s a payday for them and everyone else fails. A market of that size can support 4 vaccines max perhaps and make a return for those companies. All the other 170 vaccines and umpteen therapeutics will be money down the drain.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. There is just a lot of groupthink in companies and executives under political And media pressure to play their part along with everyone else.
OK, but why won’t it become like NL63, after loads of people get it and recover naturally as children?I mean, we will no longer have a naive population, cross immunity also kicks in, we don’t currently immunise (ize for the Oxford/US guys) old people against the common cold?
I think it will become just like NL63 for exactly those reasons. OC43 (another human coronavirus) was quite likely the “Russian Flu” of 1890, which was a big pandemic then, but now is just a common cold. As you say the hosts have immune memory, so it’s likely much milder on subsequent iterations, and, after a human lifetime, you reach a point where most people first had it as a child, when their immune system is at its most adaptive. It’s also likely the virus evolves to become less severe.
But NL63 and OC43 still kill a few old people every year and we could immunize against them. It’s not clear that influenza viruses are much worse. You can be affected only very mildly or quite severely by either.
Influenza historically had better PR probably because of the 1918 pandemic. But the coronavirus brand has recently caught up in a big way. We will probably start testing for the the other HCoVs more and vaccinating for them. Maybe they will make a single HCoV vaccine that works for them all.
For most, it’s a lot less serious than ‘flu.
The statement shows the degree of distortion that’s going on.
It’s deliberate fabrication to pretend otherwise.
That is brilliant, a “vaccine” that turns the flu like symptoms of COVID into the actual symptoms of flu.
Suddenly, no COVID just a flu epidemic, so no problem anymore..
MAGIC!
Better to use HCQ, zinc and azithromycin…
U-turns on algorithms. One of the themes of 2020. But the model to end all models – the ferguson special remains. Who is allowing this?
Which part of the media, the government or the sadow government are allowing this but not that? Who is dictating this stuff?
The Davos gang
Yep, lobby groups…very creepy
https://masks4all.org/
https://www.masks4all.org.uk/
I see they are still going after Tegnell in Sweden:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/17/swedens-covid-19-strategist-under-fire-over-herd-immunity-emails
It seems like they aren’t going to give up until Sweden falls in line with the large number of covid failed states.
What utter scum. It’s blindingly obvious they are much better placed than everyone else and that he got it right, and, unable to sell criticising him on the facts, they choose ad hominem attacks and pathetic emotionalism.
The way it’s reported is despicable. We’re all supposedly arguing over whether herd immunity was a “goal” or a side-effect of a “strategy”. But it’s completely moot! That’s the best they can find in his emails.
And then this ridiculous claim that herd immunity is “nowhere in sight” after showing us a graph proving it’s happened… What planet are these people on?
They’re journalists, not scientists. Sadly, they aren’t even thinking journalists. Modern education at its best.
It’s standard guardianista behaviour though.
They are like this with anyone not part of the coterie, whether its wokeness, warble gloamong, identifying as one of 57 genders or whatever.
You can see the same behaviour in the sly insinuations of wokepedia types with their not a reliable source or not an unbiased source when what they mean is displays independence of thought or not paid by Soros.
Look at how the Guardian has memory holed its support for slavery to see how ethical it really is.
Don’t hang other obsessions on the obsessions of the Groan.
It’s much simpler … the paper was captured by the establishment when the Scott Trust became a limited company and joined the D-Notice committee – after the Snowden affair.
It has since then become the pipeline for establishment propaganda stories, aimed at the section of the population that don’t buy the even more right-wing corporate press.
Actually earlier than that. Ask Sarah Tisdall and Clive Ponting how they got screwed by The Guardian in the 1980s. ( I lived next door to the editor at the time and was horrified.)
The Guardian has been utterly compromised as an independent news organisation by its involvement with the Open philanthropy project.
Wot other obsessions, its part of a consistent behavioural pattern from the same group of people whatever organisation they are infesting.
Either way, the MSM abounds with lazy thinking and ignorant reporting. Especially where Sweden is concerned, the only beacon of hope in Western Europe.
All this shows is that it was discussed and questions asked. If they were able to show that such discussions were not had throughout the world then that would make this stand out as extraordinary.
More proof that Sweden got it right – to the shame of all the lying bastards that we are surrounded by.
Any chance of us getting sight of Hangcock’s emails?
I was in a supermarket here (Uppsala, Sweden) earlier this afternoon and at the tills, none of the newspaper headlines were about the virus, nor about Tegnell…
Today’s stats in Sweden were a bit disappointing, 8 more people in hospital with CV-19 than last Thursday (bit of a spike in the Malmö area), but nonetheless big drops in some regions, eg 10 fewer in hospital in the Gothenburg region. Currently 13 of Sweden’s 21 regions have no one in intensive care with CV19, 16 regions have 10 or fewer hospitalised patients and 14 of these actually have 6 or fewer people in hospital with the virus.
Awww. She looks like such a nice smiley lady (says every deranged liberal in the world)… Fancy a mask?
This one is quality too:
https://www.redbubble.com/i/mask/SARCASM-by-Birxy/54149545.9G0D8
Some genius ones:
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/funny+masks
Are you serious Mark?! I’m NOT wearing a mask, not even one that states 100% ineffective! And over £12 as well (presumably before P&P)?! Forget it!
DavidC
I quite like the “Let’s pretend this mask is useful “ one, but then again, I don’t like wasting money.
I like the “this mask is as useless as the government” or a t-shirt that says “if you can pretend your mask works, you can pretend I’m wearing one!”
Thats good that is
Oh, the irony! Main picture on BBC News just now is three young ladies all masked up (outside) protesting about the exam results fiasco. One is holding a placard which reads “Trust Teachers Not Classist Tories”, and yet they don’t realise they are doing a nice job for Boris by wearing their masks. I’m guessing most of the virtue signalling mask-wearers would not be seen dead voting Tory, and yet they cannot have realised that their masks are exactly what Boris wants to prove there is still a danger (so he was therefore right to fuck the economy) or to keep us dumb and frightened until Big Pharma can unleash a vaccine on us all (and presumably give a nice back-hander to the governments of the world). How does that sit with your virtue signalling, young lady?
This government is Conservative in name only, so these protesters aren’t even bashing ‘real’ Tories.
Poor girl, she’s certainly upset you hasn’t she! Perhaps she’s got a condition that makes her vulnerable, perhaps the BBC made her…point is if we don’t want to expect others to hassle us about choosing not to wear a mask then I don’t think we ought to give grief to those who do.
And she’s got a pretty good point that it seems a bit unfair to inflate the grades of students that are privately educated.
Most maskers are foolishly encouraging and normalising tyranny.
From a post in Forums,-Medicine:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti … 9-vaccine/
“Aside from questions of safety that attend any vaccine, there are good reasons to be especially cautious for COVID-19. Some vaccines worsen the consequences of infection rather than protect, a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). ADE has been observed in previous attempts to develop coronavirus vaccines. To add to the concern, antibodies typical of ADE are present in the blood of some COVID-19 patients. Such concerns are real. As recently as 2016, Dengavxia, intended to protect children from the dengue virus, increased hospitalizations for children who received the vaccine.”
The mechanism probably isn’t ADE but yes enhancement is the biggest risk with coronavirus vaccines (all the SARS1 attempts had this problem and so did many of the MERS candidates)
Let’s face it: if you’ve got all your marbles (which, of course, have given up), you wouldn’t touch one of these rushed vaccines in the next 2-3 years.
I’m concerned that they’ll make so many things dependent on having the vaccine, like foreign travel
I just don’t get it. If we have not been able to develop reliable vaccines for influenza, rhinoviruses, HIV etc. why would you suddenly believe that one is just around the corner for SARS-2??
You wouldn’t. And shouldn’t.
DavidC
I think they know there isn’t going to be one but that doesn’t matter, the new normal is what they wanted all along. They won’t let that go.
These viruses are all different and making vaccines for them is difficult for different reasons. And there are a few new ways of making vaccines that have only come along recently.
So I’m optimistic that the first coronavirus vaccines will actually work pretty well. But there are risks and it would be crazy to rush the trials.
The vast majority of people don’t need a vaccine in the same vein as the vast majority don’t need to wear a face mask.
The only argument they have is that you must have a vaccine and wear a mask to protect somebody else. If people are willing to go down that path so easily then they deserve everything that follows.
It’s just FREAKISH really
Interesting. I saw an article in the Grad this morning headlined that more BAME volunteers were needed for the vaccine trials. It mentioned people who don’t speak English.
It seems to have been replaced by this more PC version from the PA: https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/national-news/18655130.call-volunteers-100-000-register-future-vaccine-trials/
I’d find this bit worrying: Elderly people, who typically have weaker immune systems, are highly likely to receive a different vaccine from young people if treatments are found, Ms Bingham added.
Here’s the DT’s version:
Pensioners and people from Bame communities urged to sign up for Covid-19 vaccine trials. The call from ministers come as figures show the government risks failing to meet its recruitment target.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/16/pensioners-people-bame-communities-urged-sign-covid-19-vaccine/
….Officials last night voiced concern that future treatments might not work for people most vulnerable to the virus unless more from those groups sign up.
More than 100,000 people have volunteered for future clinical trials for a Covid vaccine since the scheme was launched on July 20.
… the pace of recruitment will have to improve if the Government is to meet its target of half a million volunteers by the start of October.In particular, scientists need to test candidate vaccines on people aged over 65 and those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (Bame) backgrounds.
…. Most experts agree that in the absence of a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine it will not be possible to ease all restrictions without losing control of the outbreak.
…. Trials in the UK have been hampered by the relatively low amount of coronavirus circulating in the community, making it impossible for scientists to judge whether the drug is effective.
My emphasis. Very sinister!
Looks like pensioners and BAME people have a stong sense of self-preservation. We just need to get them to stop volunteering for testing!
“I’d find this bit worrying: Elderly people, who typically have weaker immune systems, are highly likely to receive a different vaccine from young people if treatments are found, Ms Bingham added.”
Nothing sinister at all, the flu vaccine given to older people (over 65) is different to that given to 65 and under.
Thanks for that info.
The country was in such a terrible state,
Parliament rose for a covid debate,
It was quite a few moments before Boris spoke
Then he said ‘you must all wear masks, it’s no joke”.
Whether you’re short, tall, slim or fat
Young and old you’ll don a face mat.
Moggy jumped up “now Boris, look here,
Will the mask be needed for all those we hold dear?”
Daisy flowers, striped or plain,
A mask on your face shall remain
Else risk the plod slapping a 100 quid fine
Adding to the coffers of the covid goldmine.
The Chancellor arose and looked quite glum
“will I be exempt coz I do the sums?”
Boris replied and sounded quite airy
“you’ll bloody well pay double as you’re being contrary”.
Up got Grant Shappy to tremendous applause
He grabbed our Pritti and whipped off her mask
He threw the face nappy and laughed at will
Then shouted at Boris “put that on your bill”.
Govey shouted “I think I’ll resign”
I’m looking for a bird that looks real fine,
How do I search for such a lush
When wearing a muzzle it’s too bloody much.
The debate carried on, oh what a night
Boris was shouting and being quite a fright
The whole house was fighting, the speaker was too
And in the excitement, the dumb bill got through.
So now in the streets of Britain each day
There’s many a person sealed up good n’ tight
A fearful eye, but rarely a smile
As we venture forth mile after mile.
No matter that they’re good or bad
Hide your features and make you go mad,
A mask it is to dilute your humanity
But I pray dear Britons to keep your sanity.
If 100 quid a time is the price we must pay
It’s now with ourselves to fight another day.
Not to worry that the economy will tank
For the state of our country, we have Boris to thank!!
We’ll stay sane, never fear,
And Boris will go down the sewers, my dear.
Bravo!
https://institute.global/policy/taking-uk-testing-strategy-next-level?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch
“Up to 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases are likely asymptomatic.1 The UK, along with much of the world, faces the prospect of a second wave of the virus.
These facts urgently require an evolution in the UK’s testing strategy from one that focuses testing on those with symptoms to a system that tests as many people as possible, as often as possible. We call this mass testing.
Taking the UK’s testing strategy to the next level through a move to mass testing is critical if we’re to live alongside the virus. It is no understatement to say that the future of our health-care infrastructure, of our primary, secondary and tertiary education systems, and of our businesses depends on this evolution in testing taking place.”
Above you have the link to this new document posted 17th Aug. Signatories Tony Blair,Jeremy Hunt,William Hague
PS Don’t expect detailed analysis of false positives and false negatives
Couldn’t someone send the three of them to Antarctica? or the moon? Or, even better, Mars?
The Sun perhaps… Just to be sure.
Much better idea!
Yes, and give them the full benefit. Don’t go at night.
Another “think” tank with the best interests of the people at heart.
Obviously the DNA database is looking a bit thin now that people are beginning to realise that more testing equals more lockdowns. Nobody is shoving that shit deep into my brain.
Yes, given that the Covipass is already in development, so tracing is more likely to happen (though hopefully not), the *only* reason for wanting more testing now is to get DNA…
Thanks for sharing this link. This should keep up the fear factor until a vaccine is available.
If you read this document it will be very difficult not to believe that this pandemic response has been dictated by Big Pharma from day 1. We all know there is a straight forward alternative to all this.
It is quite incredible that within the space of a couple sentences they can go from
Up to 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases are likely asymptomatic
to
These facts urgently require an evolution in the UK’s testing strategy from one that focuses testing on those with symptoms to a system that tests as many people as possible, as often as possible.
This is the opposite of the logical conclusion to arrive at from the stat on asymptomatic infections. That the media then parrot it is the next failure in the line.
—-
It’s also ignored that we have long since moved on from only testing those with symptoms already – hence testing over 100,000 mugs every day.
Yes. Aren’t most people tested now NOT for symptoms but because they need an operation, or for their job, or to travel?
why on earth would anybody sane get tested otherwise? for shits and giggles?
Sadly, yes. And for kudos.
I’m still not buying that you can be a ‘case’ and yet have no symptoms – what other coronavirus is asymptomatic? To my mind, if you are ill, you know about it – you don’t need a test to tell you!
Carrie,
In ‘the old days’ that was true! A case generally meant ill and a hospitalisation.Now that the deaths have gone down the shift has been to positive TESTS, which have been called CASES to keep the fear factor up. And even then, the tests test for protein fragments which are amplified, not for the whole virus. So, in a sense, a positivetest doesn’t mean ANYTHING other than those fragments have been found!
DavidC
They won’t implement a health card for access to health and other public services, because it would be discriminatory. But they will advocate compulsory collection of medical data. How about that?
Hence testing to get your DNA. Which carries huge implications that I think a lot of people have not thought of..
Dodgy DNA and you want help to get pregnant? Forget it…your child is likely to be a drain on society
Dodgy DNA and you want travel insurance? Only if you pay a huge premium.
Dodgy DNA and you have a serious illness or need a transplant? Sorry – not worth treating you…
And so on…
Not once does it even assess the risk covid poses, just jumps straight to everything we can do to prevent anyone ever getting it to hell with anything else. Give me strength….
This is a key part of the current narrative. Nobody cares to discuss how dangerous it actually is. Pfft. Yesterday’s news. Everyone knows it’s instantly deadly for everyone. Move on – you’re like a stuck record.
This is part of project fear. Now with the pandemic ending they need face masks, mass testing to stop this deadly virus and a sudden interest in long term consequences of C-19. All, in the attempt for us to wait for the vaccine. There will not be a return to normality in all aspects. Big profit for Big Pharma also for testing. In a flu pandemic or severe seasonal flu epidemic everything would have returned to normal yesterday. No social distancing.No mass screening. No quarantine. No travel restrictions. Only investigating clinical cases. Build up surveillance system to detect a second wave in the autumn.
But Big Pharma control the media, politicians, enormous influence in the scientific world. Too much money invested in the vaccine to let this go. Last time in SARS 1 they wasted their money. Not this time
Disappointing. I thought better of William Hague (not the other two though)
Hague the Vague. High point of his life was his speech to the Conservative Party conference in 1977. Been downhill ever since.
Even then he was the Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy in persona
He fought Tony Blair when everyone was in love with him.I think he just gave up and found that swimming with the tide was easier and far more rewarding
A man who contracted an insincere marriage in order to conceal his homosexuality.
His wife wrote a good book about David Lloyd George and of course part of the narrative is the love triangle between Lloyd George, his wife Margaret and his mistress and second wife Frances. Makes you wonder now if that’s a mirror of her own personal life.
Or even of any real science. Second wave, my arse.
The best response to this nonsense mass testing and the inevitable false pos rate is this twitter thread from Francois Balloux
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1295048695466151938
Why do we need testing???
Do you get tested for the flu?
Why test at the end of a virus season when there are so few cases that false positives skew the data?
All total rubbish.
I might be wrong but I don’t think this is some big global conspiracy to implement a new world order. I think it’s just utter incompetence, panic, very short term thinking and now self preservation from the people running a lot of countries.
I think it’s been a case of follow the leader, oh that country has done a lockdown, we’ll do one. That country has implemented masks, we’ll do that etc etc. You see this in society, most people stick with the crowd. It’s the same with governments. They think it’s safer to stick with what the majority are doing.
They have all snookered themselves now though. You can’t implement all the rubbish they have over the last 5 months and then quickly scrap it.
Our government know that the majority of people in this country get their news from the MSM or social media. Both would be heavily critical if we went back to normal and the government think that would cost them the next election.
They are wrong with that. What will cost them the election is how pissed off people will be over the next 4 years when they wake up from their covid comas and realise the country has been run into the abyss for no reason.
All this has been pretty predictable since March. As soon as lockdown was implemented it was hard to see an easy way out.
The best leaders are prepared, pragmatic, decisive, take risks, don’t care if they get criticised and take full responsibility for any failure.
Agree 100%.
We have the worst leaders ever, or so it feels.
I also think they and their kind have opened a channel for the distribution of pure evil.
Effie Deans summed it up here:
….. if the Government had done anything at all to lessen the economic impact of lockdown in March and one person had died as a result the minister responsible would have been forced to resign if he was lucky, because the broadcast media would have demanded his toe nails pulled out one by one while he was hanging upside down.
The fatuous slogan: “If it saves one life….” wasn’t supposed to refer to politician’s political lives.
Someone did die. Huge numbers of people with cancer were not diagnosed or treated. Huge numbers of heart disease patients stayed at home. Lockdown saved some lives, but it cost others and it will go on costing them for years not least because deaths increase in a recession. But the broadcast media was uninterested in these deaths, because they were mere statistics rather than human interest stories.
The MSM are every bit as culpable as the government. The opposition and back-bench MPs too. They are NOT doing their job.
They should all be sacked
Spot on
Spot on.
Totally agree. My bf is also a big proponent of this theory and he was just saying how all of this is the endpoint of a social media society – virtue signalling short-termism that has resulted in cowardly politicians and the biggest policy overreaction in history.
Your bf is definitely a keeper, I’d say.
It’s quite a thing to be a proper leader. Not for the faint-hearted. Challenging and demanding. Needs a “certain” type of character. Britain doesn’t seem to have any (or that many, at least).
None in politics.
Even if it isn’t the new world order there is certainly a sinister side to the sadistic control many in authority seem to be enjoying – such as the policeman in Melbourne choking and manhandling the young lady (who had a mask exemption) last week.
Many officials and advisors seem to like their increase importance and power and I would imagine will be very reluctant to give it up. I can’t see many of the new state and local government powers being reversed, if anything I would imagine they will get stricter.
Honest governments would admit they overestimated the severity of the problem and try to return to normal as soon as possible. Why was the term ‘new normal’ constantly used from March? and is still being used.
Because the man in charge is totally incapable of admitting that he got something wrong, so keeps on doubling down on it. Power corrupts, but where the hell is parliament? They’re supposed to hold the executive to account. The checks and balances have failed, for whatever reason.
Agreed, not one politician is prepared to be blamed , even at the risk of a shitshow policy that has killed more than it saved. Not one of them in any Party has seen fir to challenge this bollockfest.
There are tons of governments around the world guilty of the same thing.
It’s not incompetence or “follow my leader”, the global lockdown was the PRIMARY OBJECTIVE all the rest is propaganda.
It’s too coordinated to be incompetence. If it was incompetence, you would have loads of peoples speaking out, look at Brexit, MP were speaking out and quitting every day, MSM was trying to do their best to overturn, the constant bringing up of the so called “Peoples Vote”, but with this there is nothing,but absolute silence.
That’s why I don’t think it’s pre planned. I don’t think there is any coordination at all. It’s all over the place and has been from day 1. It’s a complete shambles. Contradiction after contradiction. You can pick the whole thing apart in 15 mins, which you wouldn’t be able to do if it was a thought out, pre planned agenda. Well maybe you could but it would be a shit plan from the governments globally.
The reason there is no opposition for this is because for some reason now politicians and the media take the opinions of the vocal minority of virtue signallers on social media as what the silent majority think. The celebrities jump on and then you’re stuck with the false narrative of that is what everybody thinks/wants.
Yes. We have an unfortunate confluence of a number of trends that have been going on for a long time. Why is the media all on board? Because nobody’s buying papers or consuming TV news anymore and fear sells more papers and attracts more viewers. Why are no MPs standing up? Because they’re overwhelmingly careerists with no experience to their name outside politics who can no more be bothered to look into reality and do their own research than can the average man on the street. And in the case of the conservatives they have a powerful prime minister with a strong majority who has shown that he’s not afraid to sack people. And in the case of Labour and the rest, they’re captives of wokeist social media and they’re toeing the asinine line of celebrity-generated safetyist nonsense that’s being vomited out of the US. Starmer is no more likely to disagree with lockdown than he is to refuse to take the knee for BLM. Why is the government perpetuating the idiocy. Because they’re hopelessly out of their depth and desperate to save their careers. Why are other governments following similar agendas? Because they’re similarly moronic and similarly unfit for office. Why is it happening in the US? Many of the same reasons as above, plus the blue state governors have spotted an opportunity to trash the economy, trash Trump’s reputation and make everybody miserable in the run up to an election.
I think it’s a consequence of the Everything Bubble, that governments and central banks just think solutions come from borrowing from the future. Never paying the piper and hoping that the troubles will go away.
“If we can buckle down now then there should be no issues later”, that kind of thing.
Social media and debt has been sliced so thinly now that everything is leveraged. And as long as you can ride that wave of leverage you are good. But because it is so thin the smallest deviation, the individualist risk is amplified if it goes wrong. Career destroying and all that. So it is also a trap.
This is all a consequence of not letting the system reset after 2008. In fact it’s been argued it’s even back to 2000 with Greenspan at the Fed.
Incompetence has to be the default position, because it’s the default position of the history of human governance. I’ve no doubt that there is lobbying involved and that there are groups and corporations trying to exploit the situation for their own gain, but it still fundamentally comes down to incompetence in government. Nothing like this could possibly be planned on this scale, because human beings simply aren’t that good at planning and execution. Among the things human beings are typically good at are: panic in the face of adversity; doing the things that other people do because they want people to like them; making bad decisions with unintended consequences for their own perceived benefit; lying to cover their own arses; doubling down on the lies when they think they’re going to be caught.
That sums up my thoughts on it perfectly
Says it all.
It was cowardice in not sticking to flockimmunitet. Cummings told BJ that was a mistake (end May), BJ classic public schoolboy response, double down (better to win an argument than admit you’re wrong in a hierarchical set up). NO opposition from his own side, he’d made them all swear allegiance on Brexit. NO opposition from Labour etc, when your enemy’s digging his own grave, don’t stop him. Voila.
I suppose it depends if you think the government are just dancing to a tune being played by others, or not.
Having worked in Local Government for a few years, with respect to the politicians,I agree. However my experience is that politicians tend to do what they are told is “best” by their full time senior officers, without much deep thought. It is quite possible that those are the people with the hidden agenda and no elections will change their status and position.
The best relationships and outcomes are forged from a constructive critical interaction between the two perspectives. And yes – it does happen.
I might change my mind by tomorrow, but at this minute I could believe that the populist upsurge (e.g. Brexit, Trump) had to be stopped, and this has been an unbelievably effective way of doing it.
No, his is just a very minor populism, and mostly benevolent. His demeanour on the other hand is nothing to celebrate.
What do you make of the World Economic Forum’s website where they openly talk about Global Reset?
They talk about a lot on there. Equality for all, end poverty, sort the climate out, end racism. Like the BBC on steroids. That website seem all over the place to be honest. I can imagine a meeting with the members involves a lot of talking and no end result because they wouldn’t know where to start with it.
Have they given any details of what they mean when they say global reset?
Yes. They are very open about what they want to do. Listen to Mark Windows’s last show. It was on last night. He covered a talk given by somebody Claus Schwabb who founded the world economic forum he also wrote “The Forth Industrial Revolution”. He did the opening speech at Davos this year which Mark covers.
The show is well worth a listen for a detailed examination of the global reset.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/markwindows/rats-that-rule-the-world
The amount of government debt is now mathematically unrepayable. Deutche Bank, Santander, Natwest, RBS, Credit Agricole, are accidents waiting to happen. The only way they can avoid going bust is to inflate the entire lot away, or write the lot off. Either way, that means all pensions and savings vanishing or being used for bail-ins.
It might not happen, but there is a school of thought amongst the “elites” that this would be the best way out, as it would give them a massive chance to take all the assets pledged as collateral (i.e. your homes and small businesses).
When you see the “Big Reset” being mentioned or advocated, that’s exactly what they know is coming, or what they want to encourage as an outcome. Both the Chinese and the Russians have been buying gold and silver hand-over-fist as protection from what the “elites” in the West intend. They are standing well back from this, as they don’t want this to affect their own peoples as far as can be avoided.
I agree with all of that. However I do think there is a way out for the government but it would involve chucking Cummings and his friend Ferguson under a bus, along with the WHO and China. I don’t think Boris dare do any of those things and would rather perpetuate this nonsense, no matter what the collateral damage may be, in the hope that they can claim credit for “beating “ the disease and enough sheeple will swallow the line.
“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots”- Albert Einstein
How to get out of Australia:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53793450?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020200817%20%20House%20ads%20cool%20bag%20non-subs%20%20SM+CID_9f344f5632a733cd31d776f42173c576
BBC wokeness at its best. So she’s swum the Channel more times than any man. So?
The Unmutuals.
Anybody know if the proposed mask demo in London on the 29th is still on?
12pm at Trafalgar Square. Definitely still on – hopefully it will have a good attendance.
I notice in the news Morrison’s are now offering free sunflower lanyards which, I think, is a sign non-compliance is working.
Handy to know, thanks. I will go along and take a look. May be marketing works on me.
Excellent work you are doing here, Toby Young, thank you.
What can we do to raise awareness?
I’m thinking a film – various scientists/ data people explaining the risks relative to other risks we face, the deaths caused by lockdown vs the virus (especially on a quality adjusted life years basis), public sector workers on the damage to society (kids especially), something on economics, and a bit about the dangers of totalitarianism… you must have enough connected media pals to pull something like that off, surely?
I believe we need a massive media campaign along the lines of Vote Leave, hopefully seed funded by a cabal of rich sceptics. It probably needs to last months if not years, to counteract the brainwashing from govt and MSM
Would be prepared to contribute.
Many would, but it needs kick start. I’ve been trying to drum up some interest but don’t know enough (any) rich people.
yes!
Good idea to harness the anger of the younger generation who appear to be getting more restive about the never-ending restrictions and the impact they are having on their lives and future aspirations?. U-turn today by government on A level results was surely down to a degree of political fear of losing their votes? Where the young people go, their parents will surely follow?
Stage 1 of this would need to be to explain to them (as many do not seem to have made the link) why they should *not* get tested, and that they should refuse a test if offered!
Keep repeating, ‘Want a lockdown? – Get a test’…
“perhaps Brexit voters or free speech campaigners are less likely to wear masks, but that’s because they are critical thinkers, not because they are ‘far right’. Stop Cultural Maskism now.”
From the Gateway Pundit article. Well put.
But it is not just Brexit voters or free speech campaigners who aren’t wearing masks of course. Although both the above apply to me, as well as others intended as insults, I do recognise that those of other persuasions are with us on the sceptic front.
It’s wishful sectarian thinking. Not helpful or constructive. The opposite case could just as easily be made.
I’ve been wondering if people who attempt moderately challenging mountain paths or other endeavours with a genuine element of risk and risk assessment are more likely to be lockdown sceptics. I took a wrong turn on the Old Man of Coniston the other week – now there’s a genuine risk!
Cultural Maskism. The latest Ism.
I don’t think the divide is like that. There are both Remainers and Brexiteers who weighed up staying or leaving and decided after some rumination. The differences were nuanced. I think this common group – people who look at bit deeper and think and/or decide on level of risk – is who are not wearing masks.
A little restaurant tip for fellow skeptics that live in north west London. I had lunch at the Orange Tree in Totteridge, Barnet. No masks on any staff, no delivering the food from a distance, no insistence of using hand gel (although it was available) and no request for track and trace details. A one-way system, (anti)social distancing stickers on the floor and half the sinks and toilets not in use but these gave the impression of being artefacts from an earlier time. All in all a very nice atmosphere with great food and service with a very visible smile. As near normal as you can get these days. Recommended.
Things I haven’t missed during lockdown because I’ve refused to watch the BBC or Sky News:
Beff Rigby’s lipstick
Adam Boulton’s scowl
Laura Kuenssberg’s twisted vowels
Andrew Marr’s interruptions
Kay Burley’s cockiness
Please feel free to add to the list.
Naga bloody Munchetty’s self-satisfied sanctimoniousness
And her nasal whine!
And her plastic face. Is she Lego?
Louise Minchams trousers just below the knee. There must be a permanent flood where she lives or she doesn’t bother with a mirror. Hideous dress sense and the gruesome Munchetty may even be worse.
If the length of a woman’s trousers is the main thing that annoys you about the TV news then you have nothing to worry about!
i only know of Andrew Marr, the rest of these people i’ve no idea who they are.
Kirsty Warks warking
Peter Hitchens and Mike Graham on TalkRadio today.
Peter Hitchens: ‘MPs should not be paid given their complete failure to hold government to account’
Hitchens:
“I do grieve for the country. You sit down, you read George Orwell’s thoughts about the English people…This is a country where people say “you can’t run me in for that”, “you can’t do that here”, and these statements were true. It simply was the case, until quite recently… it really was different here. The government did have more limited powers over us than practically anywhere else in the world. It’s vanishing before our eyes and nobody cares. I have to be upset by that, surely? If I weren’t upset by that there’d be something wrong with me.”
Yes, he’s genuinely struggling
He’s also putting out some hard truths.
Also Hitchens:
“If you ever wondered how you would have reacted, what position you would have taken, during all the great crises and controversies of the last hundred or so years, now you know. Most people conform.”
It’s all the more unfathomable when you see the genuine bravery displayed by the lady in Belarus – a young woman who has had to go into hiding with her children, and whose husband has already put his life on the line in a fight for freedom from totalitarianism. Where have our backbench Tory MPs been, or were they just waiting for something less controversial before they raised their ugly heads – an Education SoS making a complete fool of himself and the country?
That is an absolute cracker. Surely it will get through to quite a few intelligent reflective people ? Surely …
We can hope…
Do you think we can start a petition to put Hitchens in the House of Lords, where he belongs?
When was the last time a PM came from the Lords?
Hitchens and Sumption have been the most convincing speakers on the political and moral aspects of this, for me
Douglas-Home, also (briefly) PM while in neither house.
‘We were only obeying orders’!!
That has been Jordan Peterson’s view from his Maps of Meaning course. He has a lecture (on YouTube) about how you would have most probably been a Nazi.
The irony is I’ve spent most of my adult life being accused of being a Fascist or a Nazi as a result of having decidedly non-Woke political opinions.
And see also this recent similar point:
https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/1278529694355292161?s=20
It’s interesting that Hitchens and Mike Graham did not agree on things when these weekly debates first started, but now there seems to be very little they disagree about! Mike has become more and more sceptic as time has gone on
Good for him for being open (from the start) to debating Hitchens, and for continuing to give him a weekly platform.. Long may these discussions continue to be broadcast!
Yes, it’s been a great credit to both of them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/
This is an important article in an influential magazine.This was recommended by the other Fergusson (Nial) the historian now in the US. But beware.Although you could agree with parts of the criticism, this article is more aligned with Blair,Hague,Hunt handling of the pandemic. The author of the article claims to have spoken with many persons involved in British establishment. It can’t be a surprise that such a “well informed” journalist publish this article just a few days before Blair/Hague/Hunt document about mass testing(posted before today)
How about because the figures were fiddled, overstating the death toll?
Also, I believe that we have more obese people like Bozo!
In many ways I think we actually got off relatively lightly in the UK. We massacred the care home population but so did Spain, NY, Italy, and most of Western Europe. I don’t think our hospitals did any worse than anywhere else in how they treated people (and certainly not as bad as Elmhurst NY).
On the plus side our lockdown was never enforced much and neither is mask wearing. And they never banned going out for a walk or a bike ride as they did in France, Spain and probably Italy. I work from home anyway and nothing much changed for me personally although I am worried about the economic and health effects generally.
Obviously the argument that we should have locked down sooner is illogical nonsense, substantiated by nothing except repetition.
I’m not saying what happened here was not and is not completely unacceptable. But it could have been worse.
Derek,
Today I woke up and realised why I oppose face masks. First I would like to tell you a bit about myself I am in good health but most years I have a asthma attack once a year due to pollution and high pollen levels. As a consequence for a couple of days once a year I feel I can’t breath but with an inhaler I recover and fine for another year. Since face masks were made compulsory I’ve used my inhaler to avoid wearing them when shopping as a way of rebelling while also feeling guilty. This is because I work for the nhs and must wear face masks, anyway last night I began sneezing and by the morning I was wheezing and struggling to breath. I rang my doctor who told me that wearing face masks all day will cause a asthma attack and that’s why don’t have to wear face masks when shopping. So I will not feel guilty when shopping but I wonder how the nhs will react to me not wearing a face mask.
I’ve had asthma since I was 5 years old (I’m 64 now). I’ve had almost no attacks in at least 20 years. I don’t even carry a rescue inhaler. But then I tried riding the bus with a face covering and the asthma came back. So I got an exemption card. And I’m still getting occasional mild attacks when I ride the bus maskfree. I realised that it’s because of the “deep cleaning” they’re doing with horrible chemicals which I am allergic to.
But Derek, if the face mask you have to wear at work gives you asthma attacks, you are disabled, and it seems like the NHS must accommodate your disability. That seems like the angle you need to use. But perhaps others will chime in with more informed suggestions.
You’re exempt. If the NHS won’t let you go mask free or tries to get rid of you if you refuse to wear one I would hvae thought that that is disability discrimination.
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1295255907488526336/photo/1
Wuhan today.People in swimming pool watching a performance.Social distancing? Masks?
Wow, just wow. I guess this means they’ve reached herd immunity.
I’d be very surprised if they hadn’t. The epidemic lasts a few months and they had it first (or maybe second, it could have started in Vietnam).
It is never too late to resist Tyranny.
Not until you are ‘late’ anyway!
tell that to Frank Malone
Never heard of him either.
Never heard of him either.
Gupta doing some myth-busting:
https://youtu.be/0M9VvGMxkOE
Also watch myths 1 and 2 (the videos are all there).
Also the last one:
Sunetra Gupta – Overestimated IFR – T-cell immunity is fantastic news and brings it all together
Excellent stuff, and Gupta has produced some good sceptic stuff during this panic. But it does seem to me we were talking about these issues weeks, perhaps months ago.
Also, didn’t someone post a link here the other day to some bumblebrain Trumpophobe insisting “T-cell immunity is a far-right conspiracy” or some such?
Should someone let Sunetra know, before she gets cancelled?
Yes, I can’t recall where it was, that’s what they were saying
And some people in Denmark want masks made mandatory becuase otherwise Denmark is to the right of Trump
What a way to run your country, or your life
All this time I thought most people were the same as me, more or less
Never realised how many bat-shit crazy people there are in this world who have missed the point of being alive – something I get the impression unites a lot of the people who post here, who have diverse opinions on many things
Just dug this out of my messages to a friend back on 7th May, an interview with Dr Wolfgang Wodarg:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/07/watch-corona-crisis-what-really-happened-and-how-to-learn-from-it/
I quoted the following from it:
39:14 Wodarg: “Mr Wittkowski, he was speaking about this “herd immunity”… you know the coronavirus never gets in herd immunity more that 20, perhaps 30%. Never…. In the whole history in Africa and everywhere the coronavirus doesn’t need this.”
And I connected it to a recently released study, which I think I’d seen posted here, quite likely by either you or Swedenborg):
Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold
(It says “posted May 21”, but that must have been a repost)
Just think if the government’s “expert” epidemiologists had been doing their jobs properly…..
https://twitter.com/AnyTechnology/status/1294696441621950465?s=20
Zed Phoenix: ‘A medical dictatorship’.
See the Christopher Bowyer charts on hectordrummond.com
Thanks
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-13-August-2020-weekly-file.xlsx
Thanks
I do not think this has already been on here? I picked it up from the Mr Peter Hitchens page;
https://twitter.com/FrancescoLari/status/1295096441619316736
The death rate has not just dropped, the UK is now resurrecting people!
You could not make it up !
I prayed for a miracle to our holy patron, Saint Anthony. He’s answered my prayers! Hallelujah!
I’m afraid that’s just the zombie stage of the virus. Happens after 28 days.
What 28 days later?
It’s a Danny Boyle film. About a bioweapon virus thing that kills everyone but our hero and the merrimen. The film is set… 28 days later. Danny boyle directed trainspotting and the 2012 Olympics.
I’ll get me tin foil hat.
Great
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-potential-abuses-of-a-coronavirus-health-passport-are-downright-frightening-2020-08-03
It’s the Gates plan. I’m sure his money is behind this and it wouldn’t even be well hidden. I think we all know on this forum what our social credit score would look like! See you all at the re-education camp.
There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
Another link, big protest in Spain, is this for real?
https://twitter.com/Scottty87/status/1295229329035726848
Yeah, half of whom are wearing masks
When they called the demonstration all were invited with or without masks.It was a demonstration against mandatory masks but more against the whole pandemic response and mass testing and the inept government response.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1295389778414833664/photo/1
And BBC is not reporting on demonstration in South Korea against lockdown(but protests in Belarus)
Then again, BBC nor anyone else could cover all the street protest in Seoul, especially on a weekend. S Koreans are enthusiastic protesters and demonstrators about loads of things, all the time. But usually very orderly.
And protests in Belgium but also quite big ones in Montreal never reported in the government’s propaganda arm BBC
It might just be me but I’ve noticed that being unmuzzled I seem to attract positive reactions from those working in shops and food outlets which I reciprocate. Its dispiriting that there are times that I’m the only one in the supermarket unmuzzled but definitely in public transport I’m noticing that I’m not the only one.
Agree. I get friendly looks from the staff – but it does feel lonely. Never seem to see any one else without a mask… but one today in the Post Office!
Well said about feeling lonely as I do feel that but I try to shrug it off. If I get friendly looks and positive reactions then it makes my day.
I know it’s almost like human beings are hardwired to smile , chat and interact with each other. It’s what makes us .. er human lol
Exactly. I’m always reminded of what Jack Straw said when he triggered that debate about the niqab – its a barrier to communication. Sadly the muzzle is a barrier to communication in more ways than one.
I smile at everyone all the time while I’m wearing my lanyard, just to remind them what sort of friendly interactions they’re missing. Am I being too cynical to imagine this is part of their plan?
It certainly is part of my plan!
I’ve just realised quite how smart this virus is! Apparently, if you don’t know that you have it, a mask will magically protect others from the virus you have, whereas if you know you have it, the virus just goes through and around the mask to infect others! And if you return from somewhere on the quarantine list you are in a Schrödinger’s state of infected/uninfected, thereby confusing the virus and possibly making it both more and less dangerous when wearing a mask, surely?? Such a weird virus…..
What an intelligent and discerning virus it must be. Obviously, very virulent but not detectable without a test.
Funny thing – I keep saying things like “but that was studied pretty widely after 2009 when the swine flu…” “BUT THIS ISN’T THE FLU!!” … oh, yes, I forgot. It’s covid, so we throw out everything we know about viruses and virus transmission and respiratory illnesses and so forth, because this isn’t exactly the same as all of the other viruses we know about. We’re following “the science,” therefore, we ignore previously accumulated wisdom and knowledge… because … um …
[… but he says he’s lying, but he’s telling the truth, but if he tells the truth he is lying, but if … bzz fizz pop sizzle]
I saw two chaps this morning,20 feet up in the air (outside) in a cherry-picker looking at a factory unit roof,both muzzled and standing as far apart as they could in the 8 foot wide basket.
Madness
Perhaps they both just had bad breath! It’s mental though isn’t it?’
Maybe they were trying to get Anoxia, fall out of the basket and sue for Compo?
Just laugh.
I’m trying to book trains from Manchester to Bournemouth and back next month.
Everything‘s coming up not available. Anyone else had similar problems?
Any suggestions?
Never, ever use public transport. Works for me….
I share Hitchens’ affection for trains and public transport in general. Or I did until this shite started. Have bought a car now.
Enjoy it, in the brief period we have left before they ban human drivers and mandate computer-driven cars ferrying human shaped blobs around.
Which will be right after they pry my cold dead hands off the gearstick.
Molon labe!
I was driven to Google it – and me a Greats man too
I learn so much from this site – thanks
Welcome. It goes with the “cold dead hands” quote, for US politics afficionados
(I took maths/physics at university, but I do have an A at Ancient Greek O level which occasionally comes in handy ….)
I drive a 3.5l SLK and Julia is picking up her 4.2l supercharged Range Rover Sport on Saturday. My next car will a 5.5l AMG SLK.
Fuck ’em and fuck the virtual signaling lot of them.
Shudder.
I usually avoid like the plague but it’s a very long drive for me – I have ME and fatigue could be dangerous ……
Don’t mention the plague!!!
I just tried Manchester to Bournemouth and back next month on LNER’s website and only one really expensive ticket came up,not very helpful I know,but several people have mentioned to me that it is quite difficult to book tickets at the moment,perhaps they don’t want us plebs moving around too much ?.
Maybe the government are requisitioning trains ready for transporting people to the quarantine internment camps in the Autumn.
MiriamW reported similar issues yesterday, I think she gave in an said they are going to rent a car.
Trainline app doesn’t allow you to book direct, but will let you book via London
Thanks. Helpful! I was trying to avoid London – too much trekking about on the tube but could be easier than driving.
Just finished C4 news.Big feature on the exams debacle.Jon Snow,his usual sneering self,emoting self.
His main point that their lives have been ruined by a computer algorithm.
No joining of the dots in his unquestioning brain.
The whole world has been ruined by Ferguson’s computer model.
”The whole world has been ruined by Ferguson’s computer model.”
Nada; it was the politicians and the political parties that gone along.
Ferguson is a politician, not a scientist. So you’re both right
Agree with that. He is the ‘gatekeeper’ on funding too.
Yep, that is spot on, and goes to the heart it. He’s not a scientist; he’s a networking, self-serving, manipulating, opportunistic careerist, and shameless.
Anyone who’s been involved with science will know the type, but he’s literally a world-beater.
My point was that Jon Snow couldn’t see the connection.There are many guilty for this disaster.
No. Ferguson’s crap model couldn’t have done it on it’s own. It had to be used.
Great comment from Hitchens that the most common symptom of Covid19 is that you feel fine.
If any of these people really believed in Human Rights, they would not give any of these freedom destroying ideas a second thought.
Louise Creffield is a founding member of “Save Our Rights UK – A Real Democracy.” The group states that it “is a group for people who are concerned about the infringements upon our human rights, liberties and freedoms.
She has done a great job over the past few months. I remember her marching with a handful of people along Brighton and Hove seafront to protest against the lockdown back in April / May.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60862-8/fulltext
Moral panic and pandemics. A very good article from 2010
“A pandemic or an epidemic is actually not only how widespread a disease actually is, as Chan implied, but rather how it is perceived.”
Just read that article that Toby linked above by Niall McCrae and he’s right that there seems to be a pattern when it comes to mask fanaticism. Where I work, the visitor demographic (outside foreign tourists) is heavily skewed towards the upper middle class and middle class – lives in the nice areas of London or in the shires, possibly those who love a bit of virtue signalling, get their news from the MSM, have cushy well paying jobs or generous savings and pensions and for whom lockdown is a bit of a jolly. I’ve noticed how they parade their muzzles even before they became mandatory in museums and art galleries with some trying to act like martyrs despite being in distress or discomfort. I seriously struggle to see how this lot will wake up if ever but perhaps the threat of joining the ranks of the nouveau poor might give them some food for thought.
Bang on the money. This shit storm won’t touch them. They will never accept they have validated and perpetuated an assault on this country and so will continue to go along with whatever pantomime move Boris comes up with next if it legitimises their lazy arsed, economy destroying holiday.
And they will never admit that they were played and were complicit in the assault on our liberties so long as they keep their homes and cushy lifestyles.
Apologies if this was posted a few days ago and I missed it, but I see the government has responded with predictable opaqueness to a petition against wearing masks in shops. A user called LivvyB on the Keep Britain Free forum has posted a very good template e-mail to be sent to the Petitions Committee. Both the government’s response and Livvy’s e-mail may be read in the post below.
We’ve seen, this afternoon, what the young can achieve in 48 hours of concerted action against the exam results fiasco.
How can we recruit youth to this cause, which will have far greater impact on their lives? My children, late 20’s/early 30’s, are intelligently interested but not yet incandescent.
I’ll bet that the average age of contributors to this site is 55**. 30 or 40 years too old at least.
**[Any takers – I’ll start the ball rolling – I’m 70]
I am 62
I am 58
Oh, I’m ready to march to Downing Street any day! You are probably right about the age of those who post here.
I think it’s easier for the young to mobilise large numbers quickly because they are all on social media.
Do you think there are young people organising on social media? It would be good to think so but I am not sure.
I may be wrong – I imagined that the protest about A-levels was organised on social media.
Sorry Alice, I meant organising against the Covid restrictions
The A Levels protest only worked because it got so much air time on BBC/Sky News, print media etc.
Now I doubt that lot give a crap about the kids, but it was too easy to mullah the govt with it. Media is the key!
38
29th
I would have thought they would be more interested given how much it has impacted on them from school to university and social life. It’s young people who have missed out on festivals and parties and are now being blamed for spread and told they are killing grannie which is an abhorrent phrase. I wonder why they are not angry?
We’re used to being shafted that’s why. Not overtly like the generations stuffed into the trenches etc. But just by having no recourse to change the state of play and by having all the things you lot thought were yours by right, if you worked hard removed as an option. Like a house, or a free education, a decent pension and the prospect of a supported old age. You’re pissed because you believe these things are your legacy, we know that they won’t be ours AND there is fuck all we can do about it. It is called apathy and it can be easier than to fight the power.
For me it’s more the terrible personal damage and sad stories, the increases in suicides, the illnesses not being treated, people dying at home because of fear. And of course the economy and the increased difficulties the damage will bring for working age people, as you say getting a home, an education and a decent job.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn has a possible answer. From The Gulag Archipelago:
I believe that the young have suffered from the twin assault of bad education and poor parenting. As a result they lack even the most basic of knowledge and the skills to think critically and question everything. Their parents have basically neglected them and have not really become proper parents to them – they tried to pander to their every whim and be their best friend. Many parents have forgotten that they are there to be parents and not be their kid’s friends so as a result, the young are lacking in values not helped by what they see in the media where bad deeds never get punished, instead its applauded. No wonder they’re so apathetic even despite their life now slipping away – a time that they will never get back.
Without meaning to sound negative of any effort to move against lockdown/crushing the economy and so on, my opinion of the exams is the outcome was as intended. I didn’t see mass anger or protesting. I saw an inevitable problem and the simple u turn. Realistically was any other outcome likely after the decisi9n to cancel the academic year? Williamson takes one for the team, identical to Swinney. The algorithm stood no chance of standing before it was ever calculated. Easy for me to say after the fact of course. Would the country have swallowed straight mock/teacher graded results? No. But given out in this way it’s seen as the better of two bad options. Politics.
Having said all that, I think its a great idea to team up with all the different demographs that are not okay with what is being done to us and our nation.
Having just had a good look over all the images of the A level protests those in the photos are all wearing masks. Why they are outdoors? Perhaps young people are fine with the mask wearing. Perhaps they don’t feel the impacts on their freedoms. Maybe many of us are here because of the sadnesses and losses in relationships, not able to attend family funerals, see family in care homes, hear about other separations.
Could it be possible young people are not as affected or moved by these personal stories. Could it be they don’t realise the impact on their future jobs, prospects?
I believe the protest was organised by a teaching / student union and they would be very keen on the virtual signalling aspect of mask wearing and would have told participants they had to wear a mask (as do the BLM protests). I suspect they would have all been and still are lockdown fanatics. The young have been brainwashed by the social media celebrities (who are in many cases being paid by the authorities).
What a shame. Yes I am seeing it might be more difficult for them to be a sceptic as they will want to mostly identify with the left and be against the government. I know some people are here from the left and I don’t feel this is a left right issue but it is being portrayed as such.
I guess I’m the average at 55! My 19 and 23-year-olds are not nearly as fussed about the goings on as I think they ought to be (not the exam fiasco as we are Canadian). Their friends are even worse as they don’t have a sceptic like me nattering at them all the time. Most of their friends still live with their parents and are forced to abide by their incoherent rules, so that’s a factor in why they aren’t protesting and raising hell. The young people have also been raised in the age of helicopter parenting and “safety-ism” and I’d also argue that the under 25s haven’t really lived freely like we older folks. They’re either living at home still under parents’ rules or are living on campus in some in-between state — not really on their own but not being monitored all the time. Add to that toxic brew the whole “woke,” virtue-signalling, cancel culture nonsense and they’re literally afraid to buck the system. Some days I wonder why I’m more anxious about their futures than they are.
That is interesting Lisa. Perhaps young people can’t see the damage the restrictions are doing now and to their futures. Also from what you say I see they may be more in line with some left views about eliminating the virus and celebrating Jacinda in NZ. They might also be going along with the left trying to bring the Government down. Perhaps it is harder for folks around 18 years to think about how we have accepted illnesses in the past and to see the damage and sadnesses for people’s lives.
If social media says it, it must be true. Sadly so many live their lives by it and are robbed of individual thinking.
I have long though social media is the scourge of the planet.
(45 btw)
Amen brother!
54!
I’m 65 but my sons, 42 and 37 are both sceptics. The younger one comes to this site often but has to tread a careful line with his wife, although I have to say, even she has become more relaxed about things of late.
I’m 65.
38, but I live in the US.
There isn’t any concerted action by the young. There is concerted action by the media to generate displays of action by the young. Quite a different thing. The “protests” I have seen have all been organised by an amateur Socialist Worker.
Yeah, the socialist parties are a natural home for young folk looking for a cause. Young conservatives are downright weird or rich and feel a need to defend the family jewels.
The socialist groups are heavy on the mask virtue signaling. And demanding teachers strike to stay safe, and factory workers picket to stay safe. Join a union, wear a mask, save lives.
Zero self accountability, it’s everyone else’s fault.
Well past the mid life crisis at 45 years old!
53
I’m 28, bringing the average down ever so slightly!
Odd, isn’t it. The vast majority of sceptics are of the age which is supposed to put them most at risk.
On second thoughts, it isn’t odd at all. We were not brought up
under a toxic blanket of ‘safety’ that prevented us from making sensible decisions and learning from our mistakes and misadventures. And we didn’t undergo a tick-box education that made us incapable of examining or understanding anything in the real world.
That being said, of course there are swarms of elderly zombies out there, and, thank God, there’s Poppy!
Yes I will always be a sceptic!
I really want to be able to mobilise my generation in some significant way to put an end to this madness but I am still in a minority. I am astounded that most young people seem to be just lying down and taking it, not even questioning it, despite the fact it’s our future which is being thrown on the pyre.
I’ve been wondering why not more young people are sceptics and I suspect it’s to do with social media. We’ve grown up surrounded by this vast source of information and powerful communicative tool in a way no other humans have in history. It’s all we’ve ever known. There has always been a powerful need for young impressionable minds to fit in (with some exceptions of course) and social media magnifies this. Virtue signalling also creates an addictive dopamine rush. So, given the prevailing pro-lockdown stance fed to us by the MSM, it’s no surprise that young people might not be supportive of lockdown scepticism.
I know that young people are angry at this government, but in my opinion it’s for the wrong reasons. Instead of getting angry over the results algorithm, they should be getting angry about schools shutting in the first place when they didn’t need to and denying them the chance to sit the exams.
I’m 43!
52
53, and 23 year old son is a complete skeptic.
I feel like 21
Maybe they “won” as it’s part of the narrative an not anything that they have done to affiliate this?
Is it part of the “make the Government/Tories look stupid/incompetent/twats etc” plan then force them out, bring in Labour and really screw us into a totalitarian state a smart of the new green utopia great reset that WEF says is planned for Jan 2021?
The students will now all lose interest very quickly.
Our lockdown sceptic views does not meet with the plan so no matter what we say or do it’s going nowhere.
Look at the Countryside Alliance and Anti-Gulf War marches during Bliar’s tenure, claimed to be 1 000 000 strong, both completely ignored. March in Berlin last week, claimed to be 1.3 million strong, hardly reported at all outside of this website.
Send this response to:petitionscommittee@parliament.uk
Dear Petitions Committee
I have received this unsatisfactory response to petition 331430. I would be grateful if you could further respond to my comments in bold:
The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Repeal the decision to implement compulsory face coverings in English shops.”.
Government responded: People must play their part to reduce the spread of the virus. Wearing a face covering helps this, giving people the confidence to return to shops safely, and better protects those who work in retail.
I dispute your assertion that wearing a face covering gives people confidence to return to shops safely. There was no difference in the numbers of people in shops on July 23rd when face coverings were not mandatory and on July 24th when they were. Please inform me of the evidence which support this claim.
The government is telling the public to play their part and wear face coverings in order to help fight the spread of the virus, enabling further easing of national restrictions. Coronavirus (COVID-19) usually spreads by droplets from coughs, sneezes and speaking. These droplets can also be picked up from surfaces, if you touch a surface and then your face without washing your hands first. This is why social distancing, regular hand hygiene, and covering coughs and sneezes is so important in controlling the spread of the virus.
Please note if people are asymptomatic, they are unlikely to spread droplets from coughs and sneezes. Symptomatic people with coughs and sneezes should, in any event, be staying at home. Furthermore. trapping infected droplets from coughs and sneezing in face coverings is detrimental to health. Observations of people wearing masks suggests 90% of people re-use ‘dirty’ face coverings. Touching coverings with unwashed hands is commonplace – people wearing face coverings touch their faces many times more than they would without a covering.
There is evidence to suggest that, when used correctly, face coverings may reduce the likelihood of someone with the infection passing it on to others, particularly if they are asymptomatic.
Could you inform me where this evidence is published. I note it is not conclusive and merely SUGGESTS face coverings MAY reduce the likelihood of someone transmitting the infection and ONLY WHEN the covering is ‘used correctly’. The research therefore also suggests face coverings may not be effective at all.
I understand the Government is relying on research from the UK Royal Society’s Delve review of the evidence:
https://rs-delve.github.io/addenda/2020/07/07/masks-update.html
I invite you to consult this paper and apply the principles of ‘Levels of Evidence’ (eg Sackett et al) which dictates the quality of research in order to ascertain whether the findings are ‘gold standard’, strong or weak recommendations or merely opinion.
Having consulted the findings, it is clear this study is not quality research and falls far short of the ‘gold standards’ required for strong recommendations.
The Delve review relies on Observation and Modelling studies, which are considered inferior to Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) or the systematic review of RCTs. I include excerpts from the paper to support this:
Evidence continues to accrue that masks, including cloth masks, prevent onward transmission of infection. This is based on observational and modeling data in humans, on the effectiveness of masks in intercepting droplets and aerosols and on controlled studies of experimental animals. Evidence is also accumulating that masks may additionally protect the wearer.
There are no human controlled trials on the efficacy of universal mask use in stemming SARS-CoV2 transmission. It is inherently problematic to conduct such a trial on a practice that all must adhere to for it to be efficacious. Nevertheless, the cumulative multifaceted evidence on mask efficacy provides strong support for their use. Several accepted medical and public health practices to reduce the transmission of other infections are based on similar types of evidence and not on the results of randomized clinical trials.
I refer you to references commenting on the validity of Observational and Modelling studies:
Observational Studies – worthwhile or worthless?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6302806/
Reporting guidelines for modelling studies
https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2288-12-168
I further refer you to Level 1 research, which finds masks and respirators do not prevent the transmission of viruses and asks serious questions regarding the negative effects:
https://www.sott.net/article/434796-The-Science-is-Conclusive-Masks-and-Respirators-do-NOT-Prevent-Transmission-of-Viruses?fbclid=IwAR06QiUKhsOAlfzQZJ6ZxUgXXEAV7rDrKOvYL3SQW8qFAp_yDuBPpzCF7Ao
Pt. II
Clearly an evaluation of the evidence is important. If any face covering is ineffective, then there is no point in wearing it.
Because face coverings are mainly intended to protect others, not the wearer, from coronavirus (COVID-19) they are not a replacement for social distancing and regular hand washing.
I have seen no quality scientific evidence that finds face coverings protect others from the virus. Furthermore, there is evidence face coverings may be detrimental to the health of wearers.
Since 11 May, the Government has been advising people to wear face coverings in enclosed indoor spaces, where they cannot easily social distance, and where they come into contact with people they do not normally meet. The wearing of face coverings has been required on public transport since 15 June. In recent weeks, some lockdown restrictions have been eased and the retail sector has reopened.
I am aware of the regulations.
As footfall increases, we want to give people more confidence to shop safely, and enhance protections for those who work in shops. The British Retail Consortium has said that together with other social distancing measures, face coverings can make shoppers feel even more confident about returning to the high street.
What evidence does the British Retail Consortium base their assertion that face coverings can make shoppers feel more confident about returning to shops? How many people were surveyed and what methodology was used to gain this information? I would be grateful if you could supply me with this information.
The Government has published guidance online which sets out when the public need to wear one and how they can make their own. There are exemptions for those who are unable to wear a face covering due to age, health, disability, and other reasons.
I am aware of the guidance and regulations.
There has been an ongoing assessment as to the impacts of the Government’s policy, including on groups with protected characteristics, that has informed decision making.
Please inform me of any ongoing assessments that have been carried out, that has informed decision making.
The Government is running a proactive communications campaign on face coverings to alert the public where they are now required to wear a face covering, who is exempt from wearing one, and how to wear one correctly. We are actively engaging with stakeholders including disability charities to communicate new guidance to their members as well as highlighting this message to the general public on social media and via broadcasting opportunities. On 31 July the Prime Minister announced that the face covering regulations will be extended to cover further indoor settings such as places of worship from 8 August. We will keep advice on the use of face coverings under review, in line with the latest scientific evidence. Department of Health and Social Care
I am aware of the Governments advice regarding the wearing of face coverings and exemptions. I note you will keep advice on the use of face coverings under review in line with the latest scientific evidence. Could you please inform me of any gold standard, Level 1 or quality research that has found face coverings to be effective in preventing the transmission of viruses. I have seen no such evidence and unless such evidence exists the wearing of face-coverings or masks is not worthwhile.
I look forward to receiving your further considered response regarding the petition to repeal the decision to to implement compulsory face coverings in English shops.
Yours sincerely
xxx
Hi, was there an anti mask and lockdown protest in Birmingham this weekend?
On Saturday I think
Thanks. Not on the news then!
Anyone over there in the UK have the numbers of how many from nursing homes/care centers died in the UK? And what percentage of “Covid deaths” does that represent?
I think you can find it on the ONS website. It’s quite a large percentage.
It’s about 40%, but quite a few hospital deaths were also care home residents. What’s interesting is that we also had lots of other excess deaths in care homes too. In fact 42% of excess care home deaths were of residents without covid, this was far higher in the early weeks. There are 2 schools of thought, did lots of the non-covid fatalities actually have covid (government position) or did lots of the covid fatalities die of what killed so many others?
Thanks for that.
I suspect the ongoing excess deaths’ are being caused by the brutal regime of isolation and neglect now being inflicted in what-the-hell-do-we-care homes.Give us this day our daily dead.
Hector Drummond blog in graphs updated weekly, currently week 31.
Contributor Christopher Bowyer.
Had a couple of hours in the pub earlier. Most of the blokes who go in my local are working class grafters, good lads. Brickies, drivers, plasterers etc.
Massive level of scepticism. I’m a known sceptic in there and I’ve been hammering people with stats, info and anti-masking messages. Hugely cheered and encouraged tonight. Keep going everyone!
Fantastic report Liam!
Unlike in my younger days I’m not much of a pub goer, smoking ban was the final nail.
I’ve been to my local 3 times since reopening, quiet lunchtimes, they don’t do food.
Each time the dozen or so customers were all sat at 3 or 4 tables as close together as social distancing allowed as though they were all one group but in fact they were mostly solo like myself.
It would have been churlish to sit on my own so sat alongside them and soon joined in the conversation which was, unsurprisingly
Covid, nah it’s all bollocks, including the visored landlord.
Yes, I’m sure that a large majority of shopkeepers, landlords etc. are only going along with the Covid bollox because of the massive fines for non-compliance.
And don’t always believe them if they talk zombie. Our local butcher has been talking sceptic with me for weeks, but the other day I heard him talking fluent zombie with another customer, ending with the loathsome ‘Stay safe’. I know he’s not a zombie himself: you can fake that, but a zombie can’t fake sceptic.
Business is business and zombies are customers, in his view. And I bet it’s a common one.
Decision tree
This is one subject that disturbs me very much. It has to do with children’s education and so-called government run Children Protection Services. This interview with Louise Creffield took place on July 21st 2020. The discussion begins around minute 26 on this subject.
The Richie Allen Show Tuesday July 21st 2020 27 days ago 1:48:43
This is a video really worth watching – a great bunch of brave lockdown sceptics! I’m only surprised it hasn’t been removed!
https://www.teapartypatriots.org/live-broadcasts/americas-frontline-doctors-summit/
Love the quote from the doctor introducing this, which she attributes to Henry Thereau:
”Think for yourself, or others will think for you, without thinking of you”
Thoreau, sorry.
Chin up Steven.
https://theconversation.com/morality-pills-may-be-the-uss-best-shot-at-ending-the-coronavirus-pandemic-according-to-one-ethicist-142601
A pill for lockdown sceptic from this US Assoc Professor
“COVID-19 is a collective risk. It threatens everyone, and we all must cooperate to lower the chance that the coronavirus harms any one individual. Among other things, that means keeping safe social distances and wearing masks. But many people choose not to do these things, making spread of infection more likely.”
“For example, oxytocin, the chemical that, among other things, can induce labor or increase the bond between mother and child, may cause a person to be more empathetic and altruistic, more giving and generous. The same goes for psilocybin, the active component of “magic mushrooms.” These substances have been shown to lower aggressive behavior in those with antisocial personality disorder and to improve the ability of sociopaths to recognize emotion in others
Astonishing article, I’m actually blown away by the disingenuity of it. Drugging people to manipulate their behaviour? Shades of ‘Brave New World’ and ‘Equilibrium’ here. I know the author says the science for this hasn’t caught up yet but ludicrously totalitarian ideas like this shouldn’t even be countenanced because God help us all if the technology does catch up and some megalomaniacal policymaker gets hold of this loony idea. Furthermore, such a ‘morality pill’, if it ever did exist, might make people realise how badly people are affected by lockdown and destructive social distancing policies, thereby they may make a ‘collective effort’ to get back to normal and help these people…! It’s pretty horrendous how the author just ignores all the tremendous suffering caused by lockdown and restriction policies alone and focuses on the virus’ much smaller effect.
Not only is the article just plain dishonest – ‘The scale of the pandemic is simply too great for any of this to be possible’ (still one of the smallest and least severe ‘pandemics’ humanity has had to deal with) but I just cannot stand all the lockdown/social distancing etc supporters always relying on this argument of collective risk. No. It’s this insidious shift from individualism to collectivism that wrongly invalidates the perfectly legitimate act of weighing up individual risk, which is what we do subconsciously every single day. You could just as easily argue that enough people die from car accidents and that enough people are on the roads that preventing such accidents is a matter of ‘collective risk’ – so everyone should stop driving their cars, or be severely restricted in journey lengths. Never before – at least in my (short) time – has an infectious disease been portrayed so vehemently as a matter of collective risk, guilt-tripping those who dare to assess the risk for themselves, while also taking sensible precautions towards others. Beyond not deliberately coughing on people when infected and staying home when ill, what else can one individual do? We are not responsible for other people’s health outcomes in this way.
US has their share of lunatics but sometimes they work at Universities
More than their fair share working at universities based on last 20-30 years.
Nicely put, and to go further, if people *were* considering the ‘collective risk’ properly, perhaps they should spare a thought for the tremendous harm lockdown has caused to the most vulnerable in our society – and I am thinking particularly today of those adults & children who could not escape their abusive partners/family members during lockdown. I was shocked by the apparently dismissive attitude of the so-called Minister for Safeguarding when interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire for the Panorama programme on domestic violence during lockdown, who denied that the government was slow to respond….. Hmmm, quick to take away our civil liberties though for a nasty cold.
I am still looking for a hypothesis that fits the data. Here’s one.
An unfamiliar virus spread rapidly across Europe starting in maybe January. The virus caused fatality mainly in hospitals and care homes, among those already at end of life with dementia, heart disease, advanced cancer and the other usual causes of death. The virus caused high fatality in these environments because of poor hygiene, same as it normally does with flu. The test of this is whether most people who contracted the virus were already in hospital.
Health professionals were afraid of mass fatality among the elderly in hospitals and care homes. They tried to increase basic hygiene with hand washing and PPE. But the most effective way to prevent the spread of infection in hospitals is to stop the staff becoming infected. Most staff travel by public transport, and have their children in school. Therefore the only way to prevent hospital and care home staff from getting infected – and killing the elderly – is to get other people off public transport, other children out of school, and other people out of shops. That means people have to stop going to work. The test of this is the test rate of infection among hospital staff.
Therefore lockdown is introduced, alongside better hygiene, to prevent the spread of infection in hospitals and care homes. But now they are in a trap. How can you possibly stop hospital and care home staff from spreading the virus unless you stop all normal activity. You can’t. We are now in a position where all death, even of the incurably ill, is a reason to continue the lockdown.
The solution, I think, is to publish data about the deaths: what age, what morbidities, where they were when they contracted the infection. We also need the data about test results among hospital and care home staff. Then we may have a more realistic discussion about how you care for the terminally ill.
I estimated that with about 11 million continuing working during the “lockdown” and then mixing with their households, probably 25 million were never in any sort of real lockdown and those 25 million were mixing with probably 90% of the rest of the population in supermarkets and other shops. Lockdown could only have a very marginal effect I think.
The idea a lockdown as leaky as the one in the UK stopped transmission of the virus is utterly ludicrous. 30% admit, anonymously, to breaking it and I suspect that is an underestimation. The virus has died out because the UK has achieved herd immunity.
Most of that data is there. For example, the NHS hospitals data I was looking at today. Only 4 people under 40 have died with a positive test in All Hospitals in the last 2 months – n that basis it almost seems the C19 is protecting some lives!
Whenever I get the opportunity I tell people of the ONS figures (ie not from twatter, facebok or 5g phobes) showing currently less deaths in UK than the 5 year average. Sometimes I show them a screenshot of the chart (Hector Drummond blog updated weekly).
Their reaction is firstly astonishment followed by
“why are we not being told of this ?”
Why not indeed.
My thoughts when I heard that care homes were forbidding visitors was that the inmates partners probably already lived fairly isolated lives and if anything it would be the staff who brought the disease in as they are often young mums whose children run around spreading all sorts of things.
That was before we learned of the hospitals shipping untested patients back into the care homes more or less guaranteeing to spread the disease among the most vulnerable.
“Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
Don’t give in without a fight”
Just heard this song pop on the radio just now. Indeed, the light is definitely being buried and we mustn’t allow it to fade out forever
We won’t.
And it won’t.
But it was only fantasy
The wall was too high
As you can see
No matter how he tried
He could not break free
And the worms ate into his brain
Why not a pitchfork logo on your clothing?
Any government that only exists to acquire more power is not a government worth supporting. Only dismantling.
You are indeed lucky to have such wonderful parents. I’ve had to break ties with my father and step-mother, they believe I’m insane for not going along with the ‘narrative’; no other family left after them. Sorry, I sound bitter – I am! But genuinely glad that you have your parents.
Oh my Kath, I’m sad to read of this split with your family. You’ve always got your online family here for support. We all suffer as one.
Thank you so much, it was a really difficult, too much explain, but it was getting so toxic and horrible. I broke ties as much for them as for me. Thank you.
Kath – really sorry to read this. I suspect a number of us are facing calls from family and friends of being ‘conspiracy theorists ‘, leading to fractured and broken relationships. Hope it can mend.
As I replied to Eddie and thank you for your kind comment, it means so much.
That’s very sad to hear. Reminds me of my own parents, for the sake of my sanity I’ve decided to not to communicate with them for the duration of this insanity.
I’m sorry to hear that, but I do empathise.
Just read that the UK has not recognised the election result in Belarus.Ironic as the people of Belarus are freer than us at the moment.
Coincidentally Belarus also refused to be bought by the IMF with their demands to implement strict lockdowns ala Italy in return for monetary support.
Essay on Civil Disobedience
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
I was on YouTube earlier, for the first time an ad popped up extolling the benefits of visiting Dubai, not something on my bucket list.
Spookily Toby chose today to include an item describing the cost of being Covid compliant there. Not mentioned in ad.
In the round up there is a link to an article about the early undetected spread of the Covid in Oregon and Washington State. This is not new.
Shortly after UK lockdown it was noted that there was a wide disparity in the spread and severity of the disease between California and New York.
Victor Davis Hanson suggested that because virtually all flights from China land on the West Coast and most of the tens of thousands of Chinese tourists remain in that region California already had a degree of herd immunity by having already been exposed to an earlier more benign Covid.
New Yorks infection rate (really ill, not just positive) was 10 times higher and the effects much worse. This Professor Hanson suggested was because NY had no such herd immunity when a more virulent form of the disease arrived having mutated en route via Europe.
http://thinkscotland.org/todays-thinking/articles.html?read_full=14238&article=www.thinkscotland.org
A very good article for sceptics languishing here in Sturgeon land.
My latest reflection on the draconian lunacy which prevailsfollows here :
finally , an appointment with my excellent dentist yesterday, following exchange of calls with the practice.
He replaced the crown with no difficulty and he and the nurse were wearing NHS standard PPE: plastic space helmet,mask, gloves and apron for nurse.
My dentist has a backlog of some 40 patients to see. NHS standard PPE does not provide adequate cover for normal practice, hence no drilling,use of 3 way syringe, aspirator, mouthwash,standard check ups or routine cleaning.
Sturgeon announces that rules for dentists have been relaxed but dentists only get to hear via the media. Adequate PPE still not available for NHS practice,even though normal dental procedures were suspended in March.
These procedures have to be paid for privately.
Only one surgery has the requisite ventilation to cover private work and must be left empty for one hour following each session; cleaning then ensues.
The practice radio must be kept in the practice corridor, as it could pose a health risk if allowed, as formerly ,in the treatment rooms!
The list of questions which dentists are obliged to ask patients is surreal and open to creative answering, for example: are you suffering from dementia? Do you weigh more than 18.5 stone?
Imagine a demented individual being able to answer the first question, and as to the weight assessment-a sad reflection of our obese times.
Apparently, the chairs at the urgent treatment hubs can only support patients weighing less than the magic 18.5 stone: my dentist had to treat a large person who weighed more when on duty at the local hub.
He told me,as reported in the press, that dentists are furious: Holyrood has imposed arbitrary rules, which are compromising standard NHS treatment and creating, once more, a two-tier system.
Decay cannot be identified as check ups are confined to examination of the oral cavity and gums: no teeth allowed!
Patients are desperate, unable to get the treatment needed without paying private charges, dental practices are losing income and incurring extra costs, staff are exhausted and still the Holyrood Heidbangers refuse to engage.
Meanwhile, the Sturgeon cult continues.
The asylum has been taken over with the compliance of the faithful, who are now gagged in the open air.
Recently, I’ve spotted some eating in the streets: masks down, ingest the snack, mask up again.
Pavements and roads littered .
Sturgeon is a moron, most Scottish people are morons. Freedom For Fife. Picts demand Independence from them. Don’t underestimate the level of utter moron that thinks Sturgeon is doing a great job. She will destroy this country and then blame the english and the fuckers that vote for her will believe her. She can’t lose.
Gotta wonder if some future yes vote will lead not to nice neat “independence”, but partition. Self-determination and all that. Imagine Edinburgh as Cold War Berlin: “You are now entering the British sector”
Checkpoint Numpty springs to mind-for the Sturgeonauts.
Some say The Orkneys would rather rejoin Norway than indy Scotland.
Not sure if this has been mentioned already? But a poultry processing plant in Scotland is shutting due to Covid;
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/eggs-and-poultry/2-sisters-closes-coupar-angus-site-after-coronavirus-outbreak/647480.article
It does seem that the conditions in food processing plants are very conducive to Covid spread.
This had me thinking about Lord Sumption’s article at the weekend where he states that Covid is now ‘endemic’ which as I understand it would mean it is in the same state as something like Chicken Pox, which just pops out at various times when the conditions are right. Is that the correct way of now thinking about covid? the outbreaks at food processing plants would lead you to think in that way.
This could be seen as simply playing with words but I think it is important, if a disease is endemic then Government policy would (or should) be quite different than for a pandemic. I wonder if some countries like NZ and Australia still believe they can eradicate it whilst other countries realise they cannot but do not want to be the first one to admit it!
Food processing plants are ideal for the spread of the Covid because they are permanently cold for which reason they are sealed units so little ventilation.
The virus is most likely endemic now yes. Outbreaks crop up everywhere, so it is the most logical conclusion. What’s happening in Japan and NZ and Oz merely serve to underline that the only way to eradicate a virus is to prevent it arriving in the first place. Which is pretty much impossible.
See FT link on round up mid last week, 2 graphs,
.1) worrying increases in cases
.2) no correlating increase in deaths.
https://youtu.be/FU3OibcindQ
Ivor Cummings on the ‘casedemic ‘
M&S to cot 7000 jobs. 10% roughly of it’s workforce. 500 jobs being created in it’s online business.
Doesn’t surprise me. They’ve been in trouble for awhile now – its only food that’s keeping them afloat now.
W.H.Smith not fare behind, lost their way ages ago.
Just like Woolies, why would you go there. Put out of its misery by lockdown probably.
Ditto Debenhams. Retail in general is well and truly stuffed and not helped by their adaptations of these so-called “Covid safety” practices.
The only thing they have done is to turn people off who don’t like to be treated like lepers and so are voting with their feet and wallets.
I watched Stephen Dixon on Sky the other day unconvincingly saying all these outcomes are coming as a bit of a surprise. He didn’t look at the camera and touched his face as he read it (I presume he read it as it didn’t come across as natural). This was during a morning papers roundup.
The furlough scheme has shown that job losses are not an issue economically.
The concept that businesses create jobs, and even that people need to do jobs, is no longer tenable after the last six months, when it is clear that we can keep the country ticking over with very few people actually working.
And that the majority actually quite like that, which means that they will support anybody who puts in place policies to allow it to continue.
And it can continue for as long as those continuing to do the work are prepared to work full weeks while others stay at home.
Well, I don’t know about you, but for me living in a country that is “ticking over” hasn’t been a very enjoyable experience. Having a significant proportion of the workforce paid out of my tax money to sit at home watching Netflix while a skeleton crew keeps the lights on and the shelves stocked looks like a pretty awful way to run a society to me. It removes purpose and vibrancy from the individuals who make up the nation, quite apart from anything else.
Indeed. I am not “prepared” to pay more tax to fund this madness, however I have little option unless I want to harm myself or my family.
Anyway, it’s not financially sustainable in the long term – it’s only working in the short term because we have a sophisticated economy and have stored up some “credit” for the bad times, but once we have eaten all the stored grain, someone is going to have to plant, tend and harvest again.
Stored up credit?
The Bank of England just printed the money they have been spending.
But unless you believe that we live in a world in which resources can really be created out of nothing, for free, you have to accept that the something for nothing aspect of “just printing money” has to be illusory.
Totally agree (or is that ‘totes?’
If they got rid of the mental facemasks and social distancing they would do a lot better. However their clothes are still pretty crap on the whole. Good underwear but their men’s wear ranges are just too “old man” for me.
2 Scottish primary school children have tested positive. Result – 41 contacts told to isolate. It’s a very high rate of attrition for workforces and schools so many to go missing. Unsustainable.
The official line at the moment is there’s no evidence to suggest there was any transmission within the school. Will they manage to pin it on a pub?
Demonstrations about exam grades because pupils futures are at stake, but everyone wearing masks clearly demonstrating that a killer virus is on the loose so there is no future….?
Where does all this idiocy come from?
It comes from ‘tweets’, and, of course, many tweeters are trade union members, because a communication media largely inhabited by paranoid narcissists is a perfect recruiting and organising platform. And tweeters are maskers, paranoia rarely amenable to logical argument, persuasion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/01/jeremy-corbyn-labour-twitter-primary/604690/
The government is supposed to govern for all, not just for 17 million or so tweeters.
But this interesting article, linked by the estimable Swedenborg yesterday, gives us many clues as to why this government, and those that came immediately before it, have been so hopelessly incompetent.
I by no means agree with the author on some of the points that he makes but it does offer some interesting explanations for this laughing stock ‘government by hopeless numpties’ complete and total shambles:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/
Very interesting- why britain failed coronavirus article. Even before covid, the calibre of politicians had sunk pretty low, probably due to the EU doing most of the work and also it would be interesting to discover how many would have died if the hospitals hadnt been cleared to make room for the expected rush of covid patients. Also, my MP claimed that the regular inflights were ‘repatriations’.
This is a very good and well written article and thoroughly researched. You might not agree with some of his conclusions and clearly MSM is now driving mass testing as one of its agenda. Sorry to hurt national feelings but the best journalists are now in the US. Paid by the highest bidder i.e.MSM. That journalist could probably write the same but different article lambasting lockdown. To the highest bidder. Just like Toshiro Mifune in the film “Yojimbo” by Kurosawa.
It’s certainly a very well researched – up to a point – and well written article, but it is not imo a “very good” article, because it fails to question the core groupthink assumptions that are responsible for the failures it purports to be examining. Thus it is ultimately worthless as far as understanding the big picture is concerned, though it makes good detail points along the way.
I don’t find that article convincing. It is descriptive rather than analytical. Poor decisions were made because decision making was poor. That kind of thing. Actually the article is an example of the problem. Clever people can see the right solution in hindsight, but have no plausible solution for the future except to reorganise.
My opinion is that a large part of it is attributable to poor education. All those PPE, social sciences and journalism degrees lead to a confident, arrogant, incompetence.
The Curate’s Egg
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/
Some good hard hitting stuff:
‘The second request was more unusual. During the pandemic, Britain was the only major country in the world to make protecting its National Health Service a central goal.’
‘It did not protect its oldest and most vulnerable, who died in nursing homes in appalling numbers.’
‘The British government as a whole made poorer decisions, based on poorer advice, founded on poorer evidence..’
‘It failed in its preparation, its diagnosis, and its treatment.’
‘The country itself seemed divided and angry, unable to agree on a unifying national story.’
‘“We’ve had our arse handed to us recently.”
‘“It’s a f**king disgrace.”
‘“The reality is, there has been a major systemic failure.”
‘The majority of those I spoke with—even those close to Johnson and the government’s effort to contain the pandemic—agreed that, in hindsight, the prime minister and his most senior health and scientific advisers made serious missteps.’
‘…the Cabinet Office—the department that coordinates with all others for the prime minister—went through multiple organizational restructures during the pandemic, signaling its lack of readiness.’
‘“We need a complete revamp of our government structure because it’s not fit for purpose anymore’
‘Britain’s performance in this crisis has been so bad, it is damaging the country’s reputation, both at home and abroad.’
And (some of it intentionally) hilarious stuff:
‘The nagging worry among even Johnson’s supporters in Parliament is that although he may campaign as a Ronald Reagan, he might govern as a Silvio Berlusconi’
‘As Blair and others pointed out to me, it is not just in the big calls that Johnson, his scientific advisers, and the system have been found wanting, but in day-to-day governance as well…..’ (!)
But, as you say, no real answers.
In fact the answers are simple and straightforward and, at least outside government, well understood:
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/rebooting-britain-2019
But, as the article suggests, the concern is that Johnson, like Blair before him, is simply not up to it despite the mandate given to them both.
The only hope is that he has picked some good people who are up to it, or Bob Hope……
Everyone seen wearing a mask in public fails every science A-level they sat ?
From Albion Rover – David Scott, UKColumn – on twitter:
Over a month ago, I asked
@scotgov for their risk assessment for their policy on masking the population. They promised me an answer on 5th August, no answer came.
@NicolaSturgeon and @JeaneF1MSP have not assessed the risk of restricting the airways of five million Scots.
Still awaiting my response too, but from the Department of Transport. Had two replies but only about government policy and the efficacy of masks. Went back to my MP, through whom the exchange of emails had taken place and asked him to ask them:
I posted this a couple of weeks ago.
You don’t think that they haven’t actually done a risk assessment do you, Basics???
Perish the thought.
Two options it’s done and we are not going to like it very much or it is not done.
I would wager the latter, but there’s a possibility the former could now be drafted to divert from the latter.
Risk assessment obfuscation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122479855/coronavirus-the-day-nzs-second-outbreak-became-a-whole-lot-more-complicated
St Jacinda has trouble. Spread from one of the isolation facility. The virus doesn’t follow her script
“The analysis also revealed that the second case matched a separate strain found at the central Auckland Rydges Hotel managed isolation facility, where the case works in maintenanceThe man wore full protective equipment and followed full infection prevention procedures while doing maintenance tasks in rooms between bookings.”
Genome sequencing indicate a relation between this case and one of isolated at the hotel previously
Jacinda “Sisyphus” Arden
This seems to reinforce the reply in a post a couple of hours ago, that the virus is now endemic and we should have policies that are designed to live with this for the long haul, it is not going away but it is no longer exploding.
The fact that some of our politicians e.g. Jacinda & Nicola still seem to think they can drive this virus from their shores means nobody else seems to be willing to come real on this. Hence we are are all stuck with incredibly damaging policies whilst we engage in the futile task of trying to sweep the beach free of sand
I think it’s reasonable to suppose that the virus is not yet endemic in NZ, but is in the foothills of a (stalled) epidemic curve. I would think that there are a lot of infections and a few deaths to be seen in NZ between now and the point at which herd immunity is reached and the virus starts bumping along at the bottom with a few people being infected at any given time.
Do you know the legend of Jan Tregeagle?Trying to empty a bottomless pool with a very small spoon.
The biggest problem I see with an eradication strategy is that there is no reasonable way out unless that implausible goal is achieved.
Even once a vaccine comes people are still likely to die. What do they say then? Ah when we said nobody should die what we meant was that it’s ok for some to die as long as we have a vaccine.
Even once a vaccine comes people are still likely to die. What do they say then?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they stop testing at that point… Or stop publishing test results, anyway. From then on, respiratory illnesses will revert to being flu or whatever.
Round 2 will begin when the next ‘novel’ virus is identified…
It would be good if they did, but why would they? They have a taste for easy, unquestioned power and attention now. What politician would give that up if they didn’t have to? One with a very strong sense of doing the right thing. Ah……
So why would they introduce a vaccine at all?
If they just want to keep things as they are, they can. I could see that as a possibility.
To look like they are doing something, because they promised it, to help Big Pharma – but why not combine that with indefinite state of emergency. We have always been at war with the virus, and we always will be. I just don’t see any reason for the government to want out, unless and until the public start to get sick of it, and even then you’d need a major party to break ranks and stand for an alternative approach, and I can’t see that happening. Possibly if the Tories are down in the polls nearer the next election because sceptics, the unemployed and people who are just sick of it are planning to vote for some sceptic fringe party or not vote at all, it might push them towards a more sceptic POV to differentiate themselves from Labour, but it would take a massive shift in opinion and there are a lot of natural supporters like pensioners who may well never shift their views as they are not too badly affected, directly.
I don’t get it. Big pharma might make a lot of ‘money’, but it would be money to be spent in a Mad Max world, wrecked by the Covid measures.
And the wrecking of the economy, and the losing of freedom, affects everyone, even the politicians. Sure, they might have slightly better living conditions under their personal house arrest than we do, but just like us, I’m sure they would want to – one day – go back to how things used to be..? After all, they were a ‘success’ in the old world, not necessarily in the new, Mad Max one.
The elites in the Soviet Union did OK while the masses starved, ditto most poor countries in the world.
OK, I could believe that some people want a socialist, green future for ideological reasons, and this is a superb way to get it, bypassing democracy completely. But I don’t know what’s in it for Big Pharma – I suspect they rather enjoy the fruits of capitalism.
Maybe. It’s a balance – the world needs to be productive, but also controlled so they buy your expensive products.
And Big Pharma is not a whole. There are many competing companies. They can’t all make money from a vaccine.
And the money available for all other forms of medicine will be reduced as there will be fewer taxpayer receipts and fewer employees with employer provided healthcare in the US (where the big profits are to be found)
Take the flu vaccine for instance. There are only about 3 sizeable players in that market. And it’s not especially profitable compared eg cancer drugs.
2017/18 around 28,000 people died because ‘they picked wrong vaccine’,
The walrus and the carpenter…
Silly man obviously wasn’t wearing a cloth mask blazoned with his team colours.
There are always more infections than you think. The only reason NZ and AU strategies are “working” at all is in conjunction with harsh lockdowns. They never put the fire out, they’re just damping it down again every time it starts.
In theory if you can keep it out you should be able to enjoy free and normal life in your country just with closed borders which might seem like a reasonable compromise. But that isn’t what they’re doing.
The policy ought to be border controls and quarantine but rule out lockdowns (and then switch to “protect the vulnerable”). It’s OK for herd immunity to happen so long as you never say it was your aim even in private emails
Just remembered, the link to the whole Gupta presentation from Covid NZ plan B turned up in the comments from those clips I posted yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByZbGkPr2kI&t=14s
I haven’t watched it yet but will later.
you should be able to enjoy free and normal life in your country just with closed borders
Somebody linked to a paper the other day that suggested that of the order of a billion viruses attached to droplets of water and dust are deposited every day on every square metre of land, having been carried by global air currents.
Here it is. Am I interpreting it correctly?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-017-0042-4
It’s awful to wish trouble on a country, and I’m trying not to, but I’m honestly finding it really hard not to hope for a significant rise in infections (not deaths!) in NZ. She was just so intolerably smug about it all when she announced the Great Eradication…
She really is the most annoying person…
March on Holyrood. 1st September.
https://twitter.com/DonnacKbf/status/1295311236318605312?s=20
The tweet reads: “We are marching in Scotland & will have many playing bagpipes amongst us.Nicola Sturgeon tried to ban them. We also have carers,nurses & lawyers willing to speak outside Holyrood. ”
There is an interesting graphic of a flyer along with the tweet that those who cannot make the march may like to see and read.
5th of September
Thank you JulieR. My mistake.
Good news! Real dissent mounting.
Go it, our thoughts are hovering overhead!
I wish they’d drop the 5G crankery. It really isn’t helping us.
Nothing gets the virus so active as bagpipes !
Stirring stuff!
5th 5th 5th!
As julieR points out. 5th September. Remember remember the 5th of September!
My apologies for my earlier mistake. The date is 5th Sept.
https://www.facebook.com/publichealthagency/posts/3523795364321740/
Yet another public health FB post which is massively shot down with sceptic criticism. Why do they bother? Also allegations of posts being removed
That’s cheered me up
Sorry to hear this. And yet many people are still asleep.
Has anyone seen this…. https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6181809171001?fbclid=IwAR2NN2rcwPKMImsXltjH9O78EFGheQyoCpP7o7gQtZeMTyqvNBHz625JPz8
Why haven’t we got that in the UK?
Wow! If only British media would broadcast/print things like that.
Love him or hate him, I think you’ve got to thank Murdoch for that, and for Fox News in the US. He’s presumably too rich, old and stubborn to worry too much who he upsets. I guess the only thing that could come close here would be the Barclay Brothers who own the Telegraph and the Spectator.
I knew they (the Barclay Brothers) owned the Telegraph but I didn’t know they owned the Spectator. I’ve seen people complaining that the DT was too supportive of the government’s handling of the virus outbreak but it seems to have changed tack recently and has quite a few pieces that are against the government. The Spectator, too, seems to have quite a few virus-sceptic pieces.
thanks for the link. new to oz so I don’t know his history, but he speaks the truth.
This here exam results debacle – it won’t perchance shake people’s confidence in the government will it?
It’s appalling, isn’t it? We joke about the dumbed down education system, but nonetheless there still are a lot of bright intelligent youngsters out there, looking for building their futures. This fiasco kicks them in the teeth. I’m glad I’m not a parent of one of them right now, I’d be ripping my hair out.
It must be an awful time for eighteen year olds and their parents right now. The only good thing to come from it allis that it must surely undermine people’s willingness to trust in anything thing the government tells them.
I am surprised nobody is pointed out that the kids not only lost half a year of schooling, have not had a chance to do any exams, and are now having their grades made by pulling numbers out of a hat. If I were an employer I would simply not accept the ‘qualifications’.
Most employers will look on the class of 2020 with benevolence. It is not the kids’ fault that their teachers are a load of idle, entitled layabouts and their government is utterly spineless.
Given that most have behaved very well despite not being directly affected by the Covid while being adversely affected by lockdown they deserve to be treated with generosity including getting the benefit of the doubt in their exam grades.
Unfortunately, the majority of them are brainwashed by social media and wear their masks with pride.
I know 18-year old who is going to study medicine in Oxford and is scared to use public transport because “the virus is so dangerous”.
‘Dumbed down education system”
I agree – the public school > Oxbridge route that has been followed by so many in the current politcal elite has really shown itself up for what it is : a promotion stream for incompetent narcissism.
It will do, but I don’t think it will shake people’s belief in the virus. I think the two things are separate. The lockdown and mask zealots in my experience trust SAGE and the WHO, not the government. They only support those government measures that reinforce their faith in the virus.
The key difference? The media are slating them for this but supporting them in the lockdown. The kids were successful because they got huge media support. Our views don’t and without that you can’t change peoples minds or force the government to change course.
Indeed. We need to change people’s minds, and the government will possibly follow, a bit…
By the way and have I missed this, what ever happened to the 750,000 or so who volunteered to help the NHS in its hour of need back in April?
Have they been stood down or they still sitting by their phones awaiting an urgent call from their local hospital?
I don’t think any of them got any call or any kind of communication from the Government
Having registered, I waited in vain for a request for help, and took myself “off duty” about a month ago.
The latest update I can remember receiving was that “we” 750k had performed almost 600k tasks.
In the meantime, Mrs BTL had joined the village volunteers group and was out on a weekly run delivering meds locally (now stood down as local pharmacy can cope).
I felt the centrally controlled national effort was a bit pathetic really, compared to the local one – I suspect there’s a lesson there if I was smart enough to find it
I didn’t realise that the chap who dropped my prescriptions off unexpected a while back was one of these ‘volunteers’. As it happens I was perfectly capable to go to the pharmacy and collect them myself, maybe they assumed that since I was over 70 I would be self isolating (no chance….).
What constitutes a task?
Wasn’t there a suggestion of volunteers helping to enforce mask wearing on the railways… the Unions weren’t happy, I assume the idea was dropped.
Maybe I should think reapply for that job and subvert things from the inside
It was. The Govt wasted yet more of our money setting up this scheme, including special websites, liaising with all sorts of volunteer schemes and charities including Red Cross and getting the volunteer purple ‘Journey Maker’ tabards printed. The unions went bonkers on ‘safety grounds’ and the scheme was quietly dropped.
https://www.union-news.co.uk/rmt-claims-victory-as-controversial-journey-makers-scheme-is-shelved/
https://volunteeringmatters.org.uk/project/journey-makers/
MW
Cunningly crafted hearts-and-minds bollocks. Even harder for those poor sods to admit they’ve been had after getting involved to that extent.
Drove through Axminster a while back. Lots of posters for Axminster Community Care (or similar)
‘If you are having problems at this time call us we Will help you.”
Something like that ?
I’m one of the volunteers.There has not been any alert received in my area since the 1st of April when I was verified and could start using the Responder App.
Funny thing is last thing I remember hearing about it is that the government were disappointed because they didn’t get as many as they wanted.
I was one of them. I never got called upon in any way and I uninstalled the app a month or so after the epidemic was over.
I’m delighted to report that Ted, 92 year old across the road has, throughout the nonsense, driven from Warwickshire to Harpenden every fortnight to see a daughter and drives 20 miles at least once a week to Fladbury to buy pies for himself & neighbours (us included). He walks at least 2 miles a day & never wears a mask. It’s very handy having old people like Ted helping out us youngsters!
Very well done Ted. Please pass on to him how very proud of him we are here at LS.
Mrs Ozzie was a volunteer- she was on duty until about six weeks ago, when she decided to make herself unavailable. Never had a request.
I was one of them too. Did it so I could go out on my motorcycle more. Never got a call at all. Took it off my phone a month ago. Still went out on the bike tho…
BBC R4 news 08.38
Someone, not a journalist just said
“Public Health England are pain in the arse who don’t share data…”
Call me prissy but it’s not the sort of language one expects from ther flagship news programme.
Oops wrong thread
Thanks Mumkin, what a ‘fun’ set of data and graphics, and it does look like a decision making tool.
US former congressman Ron Paul seems to have his head screwed on concerning the Covid hysteria. Worth checking out his website:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/
Where’s our British equivalent?
This article is especially interesting:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/august/17/good-news-fauci-s-out-and-common-sense-might-be-returning/
He’s not a fan of Fauci:
“Fauci’s advice, forecasts, and assessments proved to be wildly wrong, contradictory, and just plain bizarre: Don’t wear a mask! You must wear a mask. Masks are important as symbols. Put on goggles. Stay home! Churches must be severely restricted but Black Lives Matter marches and encounters with strangers met over the Internet are perfectly fine.”
According to Mr Paul, Trump’s hired Dr Scott Atlas onto his coronavirus task force.
“On April 22, Dr. Atlas wrote an op-ed in The Hill titled, “The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation.” In the article he made five main points that are as true today as when he wrote them: an overwhelming majority of people are at no risk of dying from Covid; protecting older people prevents hospital overcrowding; locking down a population actually prevents the herd immunity necessary to defeat the virus; people are dying because they are not being treated for non-Covid illnesses; we know what part of the population is at risk and we can protect them.”
I’m seeing Dr Atlas’s appointment as a ray of good news.
Have put those 5 points on my phone to show people.
Excellent!
Atlas is good news yes.
I can’t think of a British Ron Paul that’s in Parliament.
We’ve had some more independent minded MPs in the past, but they seemed to have all been cleared out at the last election.
Has Dan Hannan had anything to say ?
Looking at his Tweets he seems moderately sceptical, but he’s not an MP any more
Here is a video talking about Fauci out, Atlas in
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=saved&v=363121408424368
Sorry for the farcebook url – but it does include Del Bigtree
Ron Paul is the business.
I had a ‘Ron Paul for President’ sticker on my car in 2012. Widely admired in rural Sussex, that was.
The Climate Change Lobby appear to have the upper hand in this, convincing mediocre politicians everywhere that controls are needed to save the planet. What politician could resist the opportunity to dictate to the people. They are disgusting and it wont be forgotten
Oh the arrogance of these funny little human creatures – the planet will look after itself. Our entire history is just a minor blip in its long, long life.
And yet a lot of the so-called “Covid safety” practices have harmed the planet more than what we were doing before March. The decimation of wildlife tourism has led to a resurgence of poaching, anti-malaria and locust control projects are suffering because of lockdown. Unnecessary waste generated by takeaway containers. Plus of course, the worst of all – discarded masks and gloves that are a bigger hazard than single use plastics!
The wakamole quarantine routine will persuade us to make decision to empty the skies ourselves.
No need for new air taxes, no actual ban rationing or other restrictions, Greta will be thrilled.
Do stop confusing issues to suit. This is entirely different from climate change.
There is at least one key, and crucial, similarity – both hysterias are driven by modelling, and there’s absolutely no reason not to presume that the modelling that drives the climate panic is as questionable as the modelling that drives the coronapanic, and for similar reasons – motivated gigo.
No – the situations and the science is very, very different.
This current issue is far too important to be confused with other debates such as the climate issue and Brexit to suit generalised agendas.
The details are obviously different but the same basic process worked in both – modeling creates a terrifying scenario that suits a lot of people’s prejudices and policy agendas, then lots of massively funded people go out to hunt for corroborative details, while dissent is suppressed because it’s “dangerous” or “conspiracist”.
Whether you think it’s unhelpful to draw attention to this clear parallel probably depends on your opinion on the two panics. It does give a broader perspective and therefore understanding of the cultural and political issues driving the problems we face, imo.
Note that this process – create a scare, hype it, search endlessly for and therefore find supporting evidence, suppress dissent – can only be used when it is working with the grain of elite ideology. You couldn’t do it for an issue that is politically incorrect.
“ It does give a broader perspective”
… or a cloud of selective personal prejudice and predeliction that detracts from the essentials needed to create wider opposition.
Such selectivity is fine in political debate – it’s what it’s all about. Of course, reference to other issues will be made at times, but this issue requires focus, and trying to bundle every personal opinion and predeliction around it isn’t useful in keeping that focus and creating consensus.
I could easily erect a set of totally different connections – but they are beside the point to the key issue about which there is agreement.
But as always in these debates, the distraction is created by the attempt to silence the disliked opinion,. You could have just tolerated and ignored the opinion you disliked or debated it, but instead you chose to try to say that it ought not to be expressed.
“I could easily erect a set of totally different connections”
In fact you’ve spent quite a lot of time doing exactly that, with your personal fantasy of this being driven by a “far right” faction in the government. I could have responded to that in the way you do here, by saying “stop distracting from the needed focus”, but mostly I’ve tried instead to respond by refuting it – pointing out the real political nature of the “Conservative” Party and highlighting the hugely significant coronapanic driving forces on the political left – Guardian, trade unions, BBC, academics.
Alternatively if I felt disinclined to engage, I could just ignore your comments, just as you could ignore comments you disagree with in relation to climate change.
And the other point is that, just as with BLM whn the mobs were defying coronapanic restrictions while claiming to support them for other issues, it’s not actually a separate issue, politically, because the climate fanatics are openly using the coronapanic as an opportunity and pretext to advance their own agendas, from vehicular traffic-hindering measures to trying to sneak legislation and policy changes in while people are distracted.
I doubt you could point to any more compelling evidence that a majority of BLM protesters were in favour of corona restrictions than I could that Brexiters are. I won’t start on climate change, or we’ll be here all day. Or we could do blockchain enthusiasm, just for fun?
” I won’t start on climate change, or we’ll be here all day.”
Engage, or ignore and tolerate. That’s my point. Don’t try to silence people (unless what they are doing is clearly intentionally and very substantively disruptive).
‘Engaging’ with an issue does not mean dragging into it every other issue on which you have an opinion, be it BLM or Brexit or climate change. Unless you think there’s a world wide conspiracy to suppress all your views. Perhaps you do. If so it has been spectacularly unsuccessful thus far.
You misinterpreted what I wrote, willfully or otherwise.
DanClarke made a perfectly legitimate point which one can agree or disagree with. My point was that it’s fine for you or Rick H to either engage with that point. or to ignore and tolerate it’s expression. What is not fine, imo, is for you or him to try to suppress the expression of the opinion in question by claiming it’s “distracting from the real issue” etc.
As I pointed put, the attempt to suppress it creates more actual distraction than the original point itself ever could.
The basic premise is the same.We must endure loss of freedom to save mankind/earth.
Both are based on flawed computer modelling and increase power of globalist politicians.
The end result seems pretty much the same to me.
It is clearly linked as the climate change crowd are using covid/lockdown as a shield advancing their agenda.
In my small city as soon as the road gangs got back to work instead of completing works left abandoned, they implemented several bus & cycle lanes (cars excluded) in the name of Covid safety but all those schemes had been on the books for years as part of “greening the city”.
I have no problem with that but I don’t like being lied to.
(Introduced as temporary no surprise to hear calls to make them permanent).
I always liked Reagan’s comment ‘the nine most terrifying words in the English language are’ I’m from the government and I’m here to help’
Yup, plus “it’s for your own good”, usually a good indicator that it’s not.
new analysis shows covid hit a minimum on 30 June, everything since is noise
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/08/18/daniel-curtis-brief-analysis-of-uk-covid-test-positive-rates/
Yes – an interesting piece of analysis, confirming ICU and hospital death data.
… which leaves open the question of what the real infection ratio is (i.e that of actual infective illness in the population – as opposed to PCR fairy dust).
It’s important in the sense that the actual major infection, as we’ve seen, is in the fantastic and ludicrous exaggeration of risk that floats around in the average mask-wearer’s head.
This, of course, is at the core of the indictment that can be placed at the door of the shell that proper journalism has become.
Do people have to wear masks when shopping in Wales? Has that come in yet?
I’ve just been checking the figures for Wales on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk.
Everything declining – even “cases”. Are they not doing so much testing in the Principality?
No
England and Scotland complusory masks “cases increasing”
Wales no masks “cases” decreasing
Almost like masks don’t work
In the Republic of Ireland cases have been on the up since mandatory mask wearing was introduced! But I suspect much of the increase is due to where they’ve target testing. Numbers dying – as in the rest of these islands – look to be declining.
Partly true but they can’t admit that the increased “cases” is solely due to increased testing can they?
And every single European country that has introduced forced mask wearing has seen a rise in cases. How much longer can they keep up the fallacy that mask will save us?
In the Republic of Ireland they appear to have hit the jackpot with cases last week when they discovered a Covid case in a food processing factory in the Midlands.
The case was a migrant worker as were most other workers in the plant. theretofore they began testing all of them.
I own what I’m relating here is all based on hearsay. Though I be in Ireland I don’t watch or listen to the the news on RTE. Occasionally I do if it is in Irish – but apart from catching the word “19” in Irish, I have to confess there’s not a lot I understand.
No, not at all. Transport – yes (and some extra weird transport rules like no singing and no reading newspapers).
From what I’ve seen over the last few weeks, about 10% voluntary mask wearing in shops, very, very few outside. This is my personal view of North Wales from the north coast, to south Snowdonia, to Wrexham. Lots of tourists too. I think they see the lack of masks as a respite from the rules in England.
This is what the 1st Minister has said about masks in Wales:
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/welsh-government-gives-update-whether-18750628
“Face masks may have to be worn more widely if coronavirus cases rise in Wales.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said the Welsh Government would consider making people wear coverings more widely if there was a spike in cases across the country.
At the moment, face masks are only mandatory on public transport such as buses, trains and in taxis.
There has been pressure for Wales to follow England and Scotland in making masks mandatory inside shops, but so far the Welsh Government has argued that it would be disproportionate.”
We had a local spike in meat packing plant in Wrexham. Had this been in England, we’d have had a local lockdown, for sure. Instead, the workers were isolated, and guess what – nothing happened.
After my initial misgivings, the Welsh Senedd seems to be acting the more sensibly at last (I’m not saying I agree with their actions during the Lockdown – I’d have preferred they went down the Swedish route).
Concerning testing, this today (note the Health Minister is delivering his speech wearing a mask – which I hope is just virtue signalling, and not a bad sign of things to come).
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-coronavirus-updates-vaughan-gething-18786215
No, not at all. Transport – yes (and some extra weird transport rules like no singing and no reading newspapers).
From what I’ve seen over the last few weeks, about 10% voluntary mask wearing in shops, very, very few outside. This is my personal view of North Wales from the north coast, to south Snowdonia, to Wrexham. Lots of tourists too. I think they see the lack of masks as a respite from the rules in England.
This is what the 1st Minister has said about masks in Wales:
“Face masks may have to be worn more widely if cases rise in Wales.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said the Welsh Government would consider making people wear coverings more widely if there was a spike in cases across the country.
There has been pressure for Wales to follow England and Scotland in making masks mandatory inside shops, but so far the Welsh Government has argued that it would be disproportionate.”
We had a local spike in meat packing plant in Wrexham. Had this been in England, we’d have had a local lockdown, for sure. Instead, the workers were isolated, and guess what – nothing happened.
After my initial misgivings, the Welsh Senedd seems to be acting the more sensibly at last (I’m not saying I agree with their actions during the Lockdown – I’d have preferred they went down the Swedish route).
First minister has said a few weeks ago that as the chances of catching it in Wales is 1/10000 he is not intending to introduce compulsory masks – yet… Sadly still seeing a lot of people masking up locally, but have been hypothesising with my OH that maybe they are all English lockdown zealots bringing their indoctrinated views on holiday with them to Wales?
Best thing to do, Nicky, (and I have done this), is ask the tourists if they realise the Welsh rules are different. Many are grateful that you’ve told them – I usually tell them “Welcome to the Land of the Free” – (though be prepared to deal with a few mask zealots – through they are a minority).
Good idea. Will try this. Have been confining ourselves to a few good Welsh, socially distanced, stares and ‘tut tutting’.
Out of interest, which part of Wales are you from? Here in the North East, everyone I come across seems to have forgotten the rules. It’s quite rural here, with pockets of old mining villages orbiting Wrexham – a working class demographic mostly. Tough, no-nonsense people.
Lots of tourists (some foreign too) visiting places like Llangollen – which has bloomed again back to normal after the desolation of the Lockdown (it was sad to wander its empty streets a few months ago in such beautiful Spring weather).
I’m mid Wales Powys. Also rural and locals phlegmatic and sceptical but also not wanting to put heads over parapets. Quite close to the border though so sometimes hard to distinguish visitors from home grown so to speak. Do gave a fair number of caravanners and holiday home visitors
Not while shopping, but do on public transport. Which includes open rigid inflatable boats, apparently.
Right, I’ve had enough!
Everybody here needs to swear and oath that we will not wear a mask in any circumstances*.
I will not wear a mask in any circumstances*.
* This means walking about in normal circumstances, not using a belt sander, my airbrush, my ecsrima sticks etc
Seeing children wearing masks ISN’T FUCKING NORMAL!!!!!
I am at my wits end with people.
It’s probably a good thing that I’m working from home at the moment.
Done
Absolutely with you on this one.
I’ve already made that oath to myself. But I’ll happily do it again – I will not wear a mask in any circumstance (except at Halloween, or if, for some reason, I am forced to perform a role in Japanese Noh theatre).
‘I am at my wits end with people’,I couldn’t agree with that more strongly Winston,the complete spinelessness,subservience and total cowardice of most of the people in this country has almost rendered me speechless.
done in Sydney. Masks are recommended here. Buses have signs that say “Please wear a mask”.
My kid goes to school 4th grade-no masks, no social distancing-although today they changed school band to have no wind instruments.
Walking around Sydney, about 50% are wearing masks. And some kids.
Mask-off! don’t be a mask-hole.
I won’t wear one either. I feel sorry for the band instructors, Dept of Ed seems to be changing its mind numero times a day! Hazzardous health minister is another matter. Fall on your sword Bradley, you are the only one responsible for the Ruby Princess debacle!
Tim, Nicky, Mr Dee, Paul, covid and Steven; I salute you all.
I unfortunately walked past a primary school this morning at going in time. What an upsetting saga. Children crying. Parents with child queued up the street like they were waiting for Noah and his ark. Some fuss going on at the school door, fumigation, delousing or something. The whole scene was not right. Admiration to the parents who are trapped in that doing the best they can. 50/50 mask wearing in the queue. The poor children looked completely out of place.
“The World Bank forecasts the deepest global recession since the Second World War and estimates that up to 100 million people across the world will be pushed into extreme poverty (WB 2020). For households in fragile contexts, the pandemic is particularly troubling, as it exacerbates existing vulnerabilities, driving communities deeper into hunger and destitution.”
well done lockdown fanatics, Stalin and Mao would be jealous!
That proves depopulation theory as lots of people will die of poverty
…but if it saves just one life…
Meanwhile, in Wuhan…LOL
https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1295401608331878400
Fantastic. I’ve booked my holiday…
Has this been just one big Communist Party practical joke – us Capitalistic Pigs really fell for it.
I think you could be right! I wondered the same thing when I was just out walking my dog. Some Chinese bureaucrat is probably trying to take the credit for something that may have happened by accident. Who needs an arms race when the west is so fearful, gullible and suggestible that it can basically destroy itself over a relatively mild virus?
Compare GDP growth for western nations against China. China’s economy is still growing despite the virus.
So, according to the ONS, deaths for week 32 of 2020:-
Total: 8945 (down from 8946 prev. week, down from 5 year average of 9102)
‘flu/pneumonia: 1013 (up from 928 prev. week)
COVID-19: 152 (down from 193 prev. week)
‘flu/pneumonia:COVID-19 ratio is over 6.66:1, COVID-19 deaths as a proportion of all-cause deaths: 1.70%, ‘flu/pneumonia: 11.32% (guess we’re going to be self-isolating due to ‘flu soon!)
Need even stricter COVID-19 infection prevention mesures, damn it!
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending7august2020
It was 9319 in the same week in 2018.
I believe this is the eighth straight week where deaths have been below the five-year average. Any coverage of this in the MSM or any comment (let alone an apology) from Hancock and his pals? Not that I can see.
It’s covered in the Grad live section, see my recent post.
Not sure they could make a panic measure stick for flu.
They are talking about “coronavirus” for a while now…
I hope you’re right
Months ago I would have been saying the same about the measures we now have
So why don’t lockdown and masks stop flu?? Anyone would think they are not effective against viruses.
rhetorical question, right?
All these “outbreaks” in food processing plants.
Don’t they generally, you know, wear masks in these places?
Yes – a telling question.
As has been pointed out, in these sort of facilities, environmental issues dominate that are very different from the outside world.
But, of course, finding out the real variables has never been a major issue in setting policy.
I wonder how things work out in these factories. Does one person develop a cough, gets tested, comes out as positive so everyone else has to be tested and they find some more “cases”?
Someone has posted below here about the Hector Drummond site. I took a look and one of the comments was very interesting:
”When the number of tests increases by more than an order of magnitude, it suggests that the population being tested is moving from a susceptible sub-group to a more representative sample of the population as a whole.
It maybe that the real prevalence of Covid-19 in the general U.K. population has all along been about 6 in 1000 and the apparent decline from the initial ~200 per 1000 people has been mainly down to increased testing.
Of course this interpretation would imply that Covid-19 has been endemic in the U.K. population for a long time etc”
I remember Dr Wolfgang Wodarg was saying way back in March, that if you test the sickest people, ie those in hospitals, clinics, waiting rooms etc, you will get more positive results but if you test the whole population, you won’t.
As Prof Guptra was also saying, again as early as March.
I suspect one employee gets tracked from a test somewhere out in the community, maybe someone who’s actually ill. All the factory staff will then have to be tested, their families etc and off you go……..
Almost the whole of Wuhan was wearing masks when this thing first kicked off……
Graph to show the second wave of cases in UK since start of July. Hold up, what second wave?
You know that the argument will be that face rags have prevented it.
The first email I opened this morning said:
“Know what is in front of your face.”
A very apt quote from the Gospel of Thomas.
Don’t know what all the fuss is about, Hitler suspended elections and that worked out fine
In case Jonathan Ashworth hadn’t already succeeded in demonstrating what a complete tosser he is, have a look at his twitter page. That’s some profile pic!
https://twitter.com/JonAshworth?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1295623536560799749%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2Flive%2F2020%2Faug%2F18%2Fuk-coronavirus-live-gavin-williamson-criticised-over-exam-results-u-turn
What a sausage! He’s always struck me as someone that is far too easily irritated.
One of the biggest irony you can see with the PC governments in charge of lockdowns (only a few exceptions Hungary, Philippines are not PC) is that they have the problems with “dirty” minorities infected with this deadly germ. They can be Romanian fruit pickers in Catalonia, Eastern European meat plant workers in Germany, Cook Islanders in NZ and religious nutters in South Korea.
But there is a solution for this germ. The ultimate solution. Adolf Hitler was a hypochondriac and always was meticulous with handwashing. He was almost the best example of the national clean German. It is striking that in his writings he refers to Jews more like germs than parasites. He was a big fan of Robert Koch and Goebbels had a great film biography made of this German hero (The current German CDC is named after him). Jews were essentially disease carrying persons with degenerate spreading influence just like germs and must be dealt with in this way. This was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy when they rounded up the Jews in ghettos and they really become infected with typhus, dysentery etc. Anyone fleeing from the ghetto was gunned down which seemed to be an adequate response from the local population for these terrible disease carrying persons. The bureaucrats in charge of the death camps, those without real blood on their hands, often spoke of Jews in the terms of disease and germs. Quarantine in concentration camps was a logical consequence of this thinking. Fumigation and disinfection are the ultimate destruction of the germ which was the final solution.
The upshot – never trust a hygiene obsessive germophobe.
Or a hygiene obsessive Germanophile
Our Dictator is also meticulous about his handwashing
Only when on camera.
The connection between authoritarians and their need for a ‘virus’ image has always struck me.
Good point. But in this case, non-PC, non-woke people in general are identifying themselves as unclean. The people who don’t wear a mask, read this web site, watch subversive Youtube videos. For the public good, they will need to be shipped off to those special camps they’re building…
Sajid Javid has taken a new job as an adviser at the multinational investment bank JPMorgan.
The former Chancellor, whose career before politics was in banking, will join the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Advisory Council as a senior adviser.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/17/former-chancellor-sajid-javid-takes-new-job-adviser-jpmorgan/
Considering he’s drawing £90Kof public money to serve his constituents (hahaha) this should be illegal – for him and any other MP.
That’s a big should, unfortunately!
Were it something unusual or new.
The “should” has always stood!
He went to Davos in January. That cost you and me £6,000.
Never ceases to be a cause of much anger and frustration that these ‘full time’ MPs are able to fit in extremely well paid jobs on the side.
Considering the good job Javid and his fellow back-benchers have done at holding the Dictatorship.. sorry, Government to account since the beginning of this rule by Statutory Instrument, perhaps it’s time to give them a pay rise!!
not sure I should have put a comma between sorry and Government!
Fron the Grad, re the new National Institute for Health Protection:
Harding will be named as the interim chair of the new institute – a merger between PHE and test and trace – and will steer it through its first few months as it seeks to improve the testing and tracing of people who may have coronavirus. Speaking in central London on Tuesday, Hancock will laud it as a combination of PHE’s expertise and test and trace’s capacity to track down large numbers of carriers and their contacts.
Hahahahahaha!
It beggars belief! (I think that’s the correct saying for this type of stupidity).
Bad news for us. Makes it crystal clear there is no intention to try and exit from this. They are planning to run this show forever.
Good job the PCR test is so useless otherwise there’d be no-one to test, trace or contact soon. My suggestion is that we stop all testing and then the problem would literally go away!
A total of 8,945 deaths were registered in England and Wales in the week ending August 7, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – 157 fewer than the five-year average of 9,102.
This is the eighth week in a row that deaths have been below the five-year average.
Dido seems to be failing upwards, given that Test and Trace has been a disaster.” That was the verdict of one NHS official on the impending appointment of Lady Harding, a Conservative peer, as the chair of the government’s new National Institute for Health Protection.
…. Dr Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University, is equally unimpressed. Her new role “makes about as much sense as Chris Whitty being appointed the Vodafone head of branding and corporate image”, he said.
Posted late yesterday of somewhere transferred from Track’n’Trace to phoning recent returnees to check that they are quarantined.
Asked what if they lie ?
“You can tell from their voice and put it in the report” FFS !
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.14.20174490v1 “Detection, prevalence, and duration of humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 under conditions of limited population exposure.”
Just published from Arizona
A seroprevalence study from Arizona shows that • All PCR positive cases seroconvert, including asymptomatics. • Antibody levels mostly depend on disease severity. • Antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N) glycoprotein wane more quickly, increasing chance of false negatives.
Well that, at least, makes it seem quite straightforward. Almost as though the ‘mysteriousness’ of this virus is a myth, partly put about by ‘scientists’ who, it appears, just don’t know their own business.
I’m serious: throughout this whole thing, amateurs seem to have had more idea about it than the scientists themselves.
The Guardian: UK coronavirus live: Matt Hancock makes statement on axing Public Health England.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2020/aug/18/uk-coronavirus-live-gavin-williamson-criticised-over-exam-results-u-turn
The problem with Matt is that he doesn’t know he’s insane
Not sure about his sanity, but anyone who’s met him will confirm he is stupid!
He reminds me of the parrot from The Flintstones Movie that can only mimick / repeat what has already been said but ultimately undoes the baddy.
Musical chairs with the management, just like Connecting for Health = NHS Digital.
I assume its England-only? But “National”. We could have 4 bodies all called “National” in that case.
Have you seen the bios of the execs of NHS digital? Remarkable! Not exactly the qualifications and experience you would expect to see in a technology business.
I’ve seen them come and go in various mutations ever since John Prescott promised to put them on Bonfire Of The Quangos at the start of Blairs’ first administration.
Wankock: “”I have no doubt that under Baroness Harding we will found the NIHP as a thriving, mission-driven organisation”.
“Mission driven”. I haven’t come across that particular piece of business bollocks before. Still, at least he’s not claiming it will be “world beating”.
What I want to know is whether she is passionate about health. Going forward, of course.
Is Dildo Harding allowed or is too rude or sexist given our large female contingent?
Well considering a “dildo” is tends to be a derogatory comment about a man, no.
Dildo Wankock appoints Dildo Harding….
It could be passed off as an autocorrection.
Will she be delivering ‘at pace’
“The World Bank forecasts the deepest global recession since the Second World War and estimates that up to 100 million people across the world will be pushed into extreme poverty (WB 2020). For households in fragile contexts, the pandemic is particularly troubling, as it exacerbates existing vulnerabilities, driving communities deeper into hunger and destitution.”
As lockdowns save old white people but kill young black people, you’d have thought the guardian would be against them?
Where are BLM when you need them?
As lockdowns save old white people but kill young black people, you’d have thought the guardian would be against them?
Unfortunately, the Guardian treats the lockdown as a fait accompli, but then seeks to find racism in how the lockdown is being implemented. No doubt it will wail about the people with darker skin being plunged into poverty, but it won’t blame the lockdown for it.
The “system” will be blamed and a “reset” demanded!
A cynic might say they’ve ensured plenty of stuff for them to write and complain about for the foreseeable future, having complained plenty about lockdown not being hard enough for the past 5 months.
And that’s coming from someone who is still waiting for their subscription to expire next month.
Lockdown killed old white people as well. It ‘saved’ nobody. That is why we are playing charades with Social Distancing, masks and testing.
Imagine what they’d have done for something more deadly.
A couple of posts last week questioned whether the media were backing off on their coverage of covid/lockdown..
This mornings BBC R2 hourly news bulletins have been almost entirely free of Covid except at midday a third billed story about the number of people with depression doubling.
I think that’s right. Certainly over the last few days BBC News has relegated bat flu stories almost to the bottom of the pile.
That could be because they are so rare.
It’s not necessarily a good thing, though, is it? They may simply be making the (inevitable) ‘second wave’ narrative more unambiguous.
I tend to think it’s a bad thing because it establishes the virus panic as normal background to life
Most probably
The worm really is on the turn in the media. Funnily enough, I think the situation in NZ is leading to an understanding that eradication is impossible and we have to learn to live with the disease. Now we just need the penny to drop making the connection between testing volume and quarantine/ local lockdown.
I think the journalists are looking to see which way it swings. It could be: why did we cause such damage for this minor bug; or why is the government killing people by relaxing the lockdown? Either will do.
You could well be right.
The cynic in me says that this backing off is because the main emerging real news is showing up the lack of reason for panic.and the stupidity of the official narrative.
The cynic in me says that the reduced coverage is to normalise the established narrative so far and effectively freeze their narrative “gains” in place.
Bearing in mind the financial control the government has over the media (as their main source of income at the moment) and involvement from the 77th I wonder if we’ll ever see any significant critical coverage in the MSM.
I agree and I think we won’t unless perhaps some of the owners of independently owned newspapers like the Telegraph decide this crap has gone on long enough. I can’t see the BBC ever admitting it’s all been a mistake. If the government radically alters course, they will criticise it for doing so, unless they are threatened with defunding. But the govt won’t take on the BBC unless they are sure they have public opinion on their side.
Julian – the government indirectly do control the BBC, although it is more accurately labelled ‘establishment’ controlled..
To some extent ’twas always thus (see Tom Mills : The BBC – Myth of a Public Service) – but the direct political interference has intensified over recent decades.
The threat of defunding has been in constant use recently as part of that mechanism of control. The government are certainly not the victim of the BBC, which, for instance did a sterling job of telling a great big porky narrative about Corbyn on behalf of establishment interests. They are now doing the same with Covid; it was the similarities of the propaganda techniques that led me originally to dig into the actual data.
“ effectively freeze their narrative “gains” in place.”
More or less what I’m saying, too.
Yes. The Grad has dropped its coronavirus section from the menu headers. DT still hanging onto theirs though.
Grad covering depression (ie the effects of lockdown!) and the A-levels are creating a welcome diversion from covid planic but which also points to lockdown harm. Maybe people will start to wake up at last.
We received a flyer through the door today for the NHS distance counselling service. Who knew that a lockdown, restrictions on family, community and religion, economic disaster and constant fear porn akin to propaganda warfare would have negative effects on the mental well being of the populace?
Apparently everyone but the (official) experts, the politicians and the corporate media.
Could be related to the Government trying to get children back to school. They can’t give the end-game away by stating that the virus is gone, so they have gone for the ‘no news’ approach – MSM paid off to stop publishing Covid-19.
Nicked from Going Postal
Didn’t the ‘Painting’ chap used to be in Kraftwerk?
Says it all – in the Telegraph is a section on Supermarkets who find footfall has gone down since 24th July! Comments are 90% spot on.
A link would have been useful …..
Was it this?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/18/face-masks-deter-supermarket-shoppers-says-kantar/
Didn’t take a genius to predict that and I’m certainly no genius.
Were they expecting people to suddenly flock to the supermarket because they’d all been holding back and starving themselves for the previous months?
Supermarkets had even been seeing record profits.
We’re being ruled by a bunch of muppets.
Eee, and all this mask wearin’ were meant to put it up!
This from The Telegraph coronavirus live feed (my emphasis):
Israeli scientists develop ‘one second’ gargle coronavirus test
Israeli scientists claim to have developed a one-second gargle test for coronavirus with an accuracy rate of 95 per cent, reports James Rothwell.
Users of the test gargle and then spit out a liquid which can be immediately analysed for the illness using a small computer device roughly the size of an ashtray.
A trial of 400 patients is currently underway at Sheba Medical Centre, and if the results prove promising then the test should be cleared for mass usage by the end of the year.
“This system is very rapid, cheap, and is looking reliable,” Prof Eli Schwartz, the head of the trial, told English-language newspaper The Times of Israel.
“It’s suitable for mass screening, as well as airport screening, screening at nursing homes, and even screening at home.”
The test would replace swab testing as a mass screening tool, though people who test negative [as 99.999% of them will] from the gargle would then need to undergo a swab test for full confirmation of the virus.
Israeli scientists have also developed a 60-second coronavirus sniff test, where the user breathes in and out of an electronic device the size of a pen.
The inventors were also hoping to spare Israelis the uncomfortable sensation of a swab being placed down their nasal cavity or throat, as demanded by many coronavirus testing kits.
Eh! Is this for real? What the hell is the point of it?
So if you test negative from the gargle test your not actually a negative case you need to have a swab test ? Sounds a bit like Ye Olde Ducking Stool theory to me
Just keep testing, it will false positive eventually.
The only reliable test is a blood test.
That doesn’t make any sense. Surely it should read “though people who test POSITIVE from the gargle would then need to undergo a swab test for full confirmation of the virus”
Yes, now you mention it. It could just be a copyediting mistake – surely it must be?
I think you’re right. This is from The Times of Israel:
“This system is very rapid, cheap, and is looking reliable,” Prof. Eli Schwartz, head of the trial and of Sheba’s Center for Geographic Medicine, told The Times of Israel. “It’s suitable for mass screening, as well as airport screening, screening at nursing homes, and even screening at home.”
He added: “The idea is to mostly replace PCR tests, especially in places where you need mass screening.” Schwartz said that the system will give highly accurate positive-negative results, and PCR testing will only be needed if results are borderline, or if medical professionals need detailed information on the viral load, which his test will not provide.
Full article here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-trial-israeli-gargle-test-gives-covid-results-in-1-second-at-95-accuracy/
“Mass screening”. Not sure I like the sound of that. Where do we think “screening” is acceptable/useful/desirable? Healthcare settings, and settings with vulnerable people e.g. care home? Anywhere else?
I wondered if that should read positive – but then the 99.999% won’t make sense. Either way, the test sounds redundant.
So a 95% accuracy rate is described as “highly accurate”. So you test 100,000 people and 5,000 will be wrong? Not to mention that the PCR test was probably used as the benchmark to calculate that accuracy level. A test that is already inaccurate. Science.
Some might care to contact Gatwick’s CEO about this new COVID-19 world he tells me of today:
‘Update from Gatwick Airport:
I wrote to you in the middle of June to share an update on the impact of COVID-19 on our business and to signal the re-start of airline operations. Much has happened since then as we all continue to grapple with the challenges of living and working through the ongoing pandemic. My priorities as CEO continue to be protecting the health and safety of all our staff and our passengers as well as protecting the business. Following the restart of easyJet flights in June we have worked alongside our airline partners to support rebuilding of their operations. This means that we have now also resumed our normal 24- hour operations. We have fourteen airlines flying from Gatwick to 98 destinations in 39 countries, including many popular short haul summer holiday destinations. We were delighted to see British Airways re-start their long-haul routes to the Caribbean, with Air Transat and WestJet adding flights to Canada. We expect to see more airlines and destinations to be added in the coming weeks and months. We have worked closely with Government to secure the introduction of travel corridors so that passengers can travel without having to self-isolate on return to the UK. The travel corridors are reviewed weekly and therefore we recommend anyone planning to travel checks https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors
for the latest government advice. The removal of Spain from the Government travel corridor list has also been a huge blow for Gatwick as a business. Even though we are starting to see the beginning of small green shoots of recovery demand is still down considerably compared to this time last year and we want to preserve jobs alongside offering a first-rate passenger experience in this new COVID-19 world. With all the health measures we have put in place across the airport we believe consumer confidence will continue to grow in the coming months. We continue to liaise closely with the Local Authorities and other stakeholders in the local community to ensure that we all pull together to rebuild operations at Gatwick, kick-start the local economy and protect jobs across the region. I will continue to provide updates on Gatwick’s operations in the coming months. In the meantime, if you have any questions please contact community@gatwickairport.com.
Your faithfully Stewart Wingate Chief Executive Officer, Gatwick Airport
More sterling stuff from Sky News Australia today:
‘Arbitrary’ nature of COVID-19 response will be revealed: Creighton
“Sky News host Alan Jones says it is clear now Sweden and Taiwan got it right in their coronavirus response, by looking after the vulnerable and elderly, practicing good hygiene but at the same time “letting the rest get on with their lives”.
Mr Jones said prestigious academics have suggested COVID-19 would have made little difference in the world had it not been noticed in the first place according to Sky News host Alan Jones.
Mr Jones noted the words of Stanford Professor John Ioannidis who wrote, “If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza like illness” would not seem unusual this year.”
Mr Jones spoke with the Australian’s Adam Creighton about the matter.
“Sadly I think it’s going to be many years before the conventional wisdom is that this was a grotesque policy failure, because the government of many countries is just so invested in it,” Mr Creighton said.
“I think the truth will eventually come out … the arbitrary nature of the response will be seen.””
It’s very noticeable that a lot of the best (almost only) mainstream TV coronascepticism has been on Murdoch’s channels – Sky News Australia and Fox News, where Tucker Carlson has been excellent.
I’ve not seen any direct opinion from close Murdoch clan sources, but the evidence is clear that at the least they are open to using coronascepticism as a political weapon, and mos likely they are themselves at least moderate sceptics.
Little bit naughty quoting Ioannidis without mentioning the date. That quote was published on March 17th, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t say quite the same today. For the purpose of that scenario, he made what looks like a decent guess at the ifr – 0.3% – but drastically underestimated the number who would get infected.
A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data
No. Even at that early date, Ioannides was spot on – as was Wittkowski. This year has been absolutely within the normal range of mortality. The only distinctive feature was the timescale of the curve.
He predicted 10,000 US deaths with only 1% catching the disease. That’s clearly a huge underestimate, even allowing for plausible amounts of exaggeration in the figures..
Maybe he would still write the exact same thing with the actual numbers, but I rather doubt it. I think he’d word it rather differently.
P.S. Note that both have been censored for the accuracy of their analyses.
Does anyone think the chaos caused by additional students now being entitled to take up university places that were withdrawn and given to others last week will cause universities ( and the government) to revisit some of the ludicrous social distancing restrictions and bubbles they were advocating just a week ago. My student daughter has become increasingly depressed reading the countless rules for meeting others. Basically, any form of socialising outside a defined bubble is banned. Jesus- what are we doing to our young? I’m really not surprised to hear them ask’ what’s the point of going to university?’ The people advocating these draconian rules have clearly never had friends or fun. A colleague yesterday told me with tears in her eyes how her 11 year old daughter now has ‘a darkness’ about her and nothing her mum can say or do can lift it. Heartbreaking when the same girl lived for sport and was full of vitality just 6 months ago. I am so angry.
Disturbing info!
“Jesus- what are we doing to our young?”
This is a marker of the Evil that is abroad. I would hope that the young can re-capture a spirit of defiance en masse – and stick up two fingers .But the brainwashing and imposition of totalitarian control is so much greater than for previous generations.
Talking to one of my family who is close to the issues regarding university admissions, as well as trying to run a research team, I gather that – against my expectations, applications are reasonably high this year.
But the restrictions and stupidities that are being imposed on both students and staff are essentially being handed down from on high – with lack of rhyme ore reason; the presence of this monstrous virus is just taken for granted, with no balancing examination of costs. It seems incredible that leading academic institutions should be behaving like this – but they are. Critical thinking? Pshaw!
This top-down imposition is reflected throughout society. The deference is immense. So medical professionals are threatened with discipline if they tell the truth or use the knowlwdge and skill that they are employed for. Employers dictate whether masks should be worn by employees. The government intrudes into private life. All in the name of an illusory ‘safety’.
Well said!
Thanks Rick. I’m relieved that others feel the same sense of outrage. I’m minded to write to Chris Patten, VC of my daughter’s university asking why he so ably speaks for the civil liberties of the HK protesters but is willing to reign over such an authoritarian regime at home and one that’s the antithesis of a vibrant, open seat of learning.
New Update available —— >>>>>
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-st-john-ambulance-right-to-change-its-cpr-advice-
Interesting – basically states that mouth-to-mouth has very little impact on resuscitation success and was phased out long ago, because of infection risk from other bugs. But as Covid trumps all, this is why the St John Ambulance advice has changed.
I was horrified by their new CPR advice initially, but perhaps I was wrong. Or is this just yet more misinformation?
I have a friend who was a lifeguard for years. He always told me CPR doesn’t work, at least not like you see on TV where people suddenly wake up after a bout of CPR. Unconscious people may not be able to breath or their heart may have stopped.
I’m not an expert on the subject but I believe the whole point of it is to keep the person alive long enough till the pros arrive with equipment that does the job.