Bonkers Advisor to Scottish Government Warns of “Stream of Incoming Infections From England and Wales”
Apologies for being late on this one. Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, had a piece in the New York Times on Saturday in which she warned of “a stream of incoming infections from England and Wales” and urged Nicola Sturgeon and other European leaders to impose a new quarantine policy whereby all visitors should be tested on arrival, quarantined for five days, and then tested again before being allowed out. “There has to be enforced isolation until two negative tests at least five days apart,” she wrote.
Yes, this will probably interfere with plans to enjoy the beaches of Marbella. But the summer, while infection rates still remain relatively low, is the only time to make this work.
Going into winter with hundreds of cases per day means risking a steep rise once temperatures cool, schools reopen and people head back indoors. It means risking a second round of national lockdowns, which would be catastrophic for mental health and for economies. (And let’s leave aside the question of whether or not it will actually be possible to get people to comply the second time around.)
This is un-evidenced nonsense, even by Prof Sridhar’s standards. She cites rising infections in Spain as a reason English visitors to Scotland could pose a threat, which is odd because any English holidaymakers returning from Spain have to quarantine for 14 days. And how many English people are planning to travel to Scotland for a second summer break, having just returned from a European holiday? She also takes it for granted that if the people of the United Kingdom don’t eliminate the virus in the remaining weeks of summer we face a catastrophic second wave this winter, ignoring the evidence that the virus has largely burnt itself out (and no thanks to the lockdown).
Prof Sridhar’s comments have been condemned by Willie Rennie, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, for “feeding a divisive nationalist narrative without scientific evidence to back it up”.
“It’s news to me that people from England and Wales were responsible for the outbreaks we’ve seen in Aberdeen, Orkney, Lanarkshire and Glasgow,” he said.
Alan Cochrane in today’s Telegraph also has a pop.
Now as an epidemiologist we must take her view seriously but we are entitled to ask (a) is she right in her assessment if the risk and (b) is she wise in her use of language?
These are fractious times politically and the professor’s last suggestion that English visitors might be quarantined in Scotland led to several SNP demonstrators staging a stupid anti-English stunt at the border after it was backed by Nicola Sturgeon.
The professor has ‘form’ for inflaming feelings and landed in trouble when she said that Unionists were anti-Scottish. She later withdrew that assertion, saying that she had “misspoke” – whatever that means.
Then there was the occasion the professor appeared to be opposing the SNP government over the timing of schools reopening only to fall into line within 24 hours.
Perhaps it’s time to dial in that ego and retreat from the public stage, Prof Sridhar?
What Does the Hydroxychloroquine Controversy Tell Us About Medical Science?
There’s an excellent essay in the Tablet about the politics of hydroxychloroquine by Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and published author. It doesn’t take sides on the issue of whether HCQ is an effective prophylactic or treatment for COVID-19, but explores the question of why the issue has been so controversial and what that tells us about the state of medical science.
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of the world’s frontline physicians showed hydroxychloroquine to be the drug they considered the most effective at treating COVID-19 patients. That was in early April, shortly after a French study showed it was safe and effective in lowering the virus count, at times in combination with azithromycin. Next we were told hydroxychloroquine was likely ineffective, and also dangerous, and that that French study was flawed and the scientist behind it worthy of mockery. More studies followed, with contradictory results, and then out came what was hailed by some as a definitive study of 96,000 patients showing the drug was most certainly dangerous and ineffective, and indeed that it killed 30% more people than those who didn’t take it. Within days, that study was retracted, with the editor of one of the two most respected medical journals in the Western world conceding it was “a monumental fraud.” And on it went.
Not only are lay people confused; professionals are. All that seems certain is that there is something disturbing going on in our science, and that if and when the “perfect study” were to ever come along, many won’t know what to believe.
We live in a culture that has uncritically accepted that every domain of life is political, and that even things we think are not political are so, that all human enterprises are merely power struggles, that even the idea of “truth” is a fantasy, and really a matter of imposing one’s view on others. For a while, some held out hope that science remained an exception to this. That scientists would not bring their personal political biases into their science, and they would not be mobbed if what they said was unwelcome to one faction or another. But the sordid 2020 drama of hydroxychloroquine—which saw scientists routinely attacked for critically evaluating evidence and coming to politically inconvenient conclusions—has, for many, killed those hopes.
Phase 1 of the pandemic saw the near collapse of the credible authority of much of our public health officialdom at the highest levels, led by the exposure of the corruption of the World Health Organization. The crisis was deepened by the numerous reversals on recommendations, which led to the growing belief that too many officials were interpreting, bending, or speaking about the science relevant to the pandemic in a politicized way. Phase 2 is equally dangerous, for it shows that politicization has started to penetrate the peer review process, and how studies are reported in scientific journals, and of course in the press.
Worth reading in full.
Postcard From St Tropez
The reader who reported on life at a campsite in France, has a follow-up about staying at another campsite in St Tropez. Doesn’t sound too bad.
Moving on from rural France where life seemed more relaxed and the mood just so, we’ve moved onto a campsite near St Tropez.
We spent the morning at the beach – no masks. The afternoon in the pool – mask free. We popped to a supermarket – masks obligatory. We were refused entry to a small shop because our small child wasn’t wearing a mask (not against the law in France), we walked out in disgust.
We went to see the evening entertainment in the campsite, laughably bad – a Johnny Hallyday impersonator, but that wasn’t the funniest part (although awful, irony lost on the French), the audience in the open air amphitheater were forced to wear masks, yet sitting metres apart. The bar and restaurant area although 20 metres away, no masks required.
The ultra obedient French Poodles had obeyed the rules and we had been sent to Coventry.
To summarise the day:
Beach – no masks
Pool – no masks (yet in close proximity)
Bar and restaurant – no masks
Open air amphitheater – mask up everyone, inc Poodles.My understanding of the French understanding of the virus seems to be that it avoids beaches, swimming pools and bars but not open air theatres.
It’s one hell of a clever virus.
Melbourne’s Descent into Hellish Dystopia
There’s a good piece in Spiked by James Bolt, a resident of Melbourne about the city’s slide into totalitarianism.
A couple are watching their child play in a playground. They are fined by the police. They are further than five kilometres from their home.
A man leaves his home at 9.30pm to buy some cigarettes. He too is fined: $1,652. He has left his house during the city-wide curfew, which comes in at 8pm.
On Facebook, two men plan a protest against Victoria’s restrictions. Police execute a search warrant and seize their mobile phones and a computer. One is charged with incitement because he wanted to organise a protest – public gatherings are limited to two people and only for exercise (physical, not of our basic rights).
This is the situation in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, right now. In a supposedly liberal democracy.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Jeffrey Tucker, Editorial Director of the American Institute for Economic Research, has written a good article on the “tyranny without limit” in Melbourne.
Is This the World’s Best Broadcaster?
Why don’t we have a British version of Alan Jones on Sky News? The Sky News Australia commentator has been speaking truth to power throughout the pandemic. Here’s his latest jeremiad. Gold, as usual.
Meanwhile, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has suggested face masks should be mandatory every year to prevent people catching seasonal flu. The Mail has the story.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton indicated on Tuesday elements of the restrictive lockdown protocols could be here to stay well after the state defeats COVID-19.
“The flu isn’t as severe as COVID-19, but it is still deadly because millions and millions of people get infected,” he explained.
About 3,000 Australians usually die every year from the seasonal flu, but infection rates have been trending down since April.
“With all the restrictions put in place because of COVID, it has absolutely brought the flu in check,” Sutton said.
This is what happens if you don’t stand up to the tyrants, folks.
Seafood Restaurant in Whitstable Bans 12-Year-Olds Due to Covid Risk
A reader has written in to tell me about a nasty experience in Whitstable. Sounds completely insane.
Sad scenes in Whitstable, Kent today after my two small kids were turned away from a popular local restaurant.
I don’t usually go in for public shamings, but I was so staggered by this abject idiocy that I felt compelled to write in. I’d booked a table for my father and two children (aged six and four) at Crab & Winkle, a popular seafood restaurant overlooking Whitstable harbour. On arrival, I discovered the previously normal entrance had been converted into the kind of arrangement you might expect to find in a nuclear power station, complete with reinforced door, tiny window and alert buzzer.
After pressing said buzzer, a lady in a face visor swiftly appeared and proceeded to talk to me through the two defensive shields that now separated us. Unfortunately, rather than extending us a warm welcome, she was only able to inform me that children under 12 were not allowed in the restaurant due to the risk of them spreading the virus.
Somewhat taken aback, I asked a) why this rule wasn’t mentioned to me when I’d made my booking on the phone, and b) why it only applies to under 12s, given all the evidence pointing to younger kids being the least likely transmitters.
Her explanation was that children under 12 are often unable to remain seated during a meal, and that they can’t risk having kids running amok, passing on their deadly germs to other diners.
There was little point in me highlighting the absurdity of this policy, so we turned on our heels and took a gamble on another distinguished Whitstable eatery, The Lobster Shack, which I’m pleased to report had a far more relaxed (i.e. not utterly insane) approach to hospitality.
Postcard From Carcassonne
A reader tells me he had a good experience in the medieval town of Carcassonne in France.
We arrived back from Carcassonne yesterday, after an excellent few days pottering around the medieval city, as well as shopping and dining out in the (often overlooked) attractive city of Carcassonne itself. We stayed at the Ibis Styles hotel, which was great. There were masks everywhere – even when getting up from the table to get a fresh croissant – but that was the only irritation. The French public seem to have a much more sane attitude than we do. Yes, they wear masks, but social distancing is completely ignored: the restaurants and streets are rammed; the swimming pool at our hotel was open as normal; nobody veers out of the way to avoid you; there are no ludicrous perspex screens between tables, nor enforced hand-sanitisations. After our visit, we spent a lovely few days at a friend’s house a few hours away, with 20 or so others, at an anniversary celebration. The quarantine announcement came and nobody fled to the border. We simply opened another beer.
I am now deeply irritated to be under house arrest due to an arbitrary diktat of a government that is clearly out of control. I will obviously use my common sense in that regard – but it is worrying that the great British people are still not up in arms.
News From Tanzania
Interesting tidbit from Tanzania from a regular reader.
My wife and I have friends in Tanzania, one of whom is a headteacher at a large city school and who sent the message below, which might interest you. Bear in mind that the classes there are very large, with over 70 children per class, sometimes more than 100, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Facilities at the schools are very basic. Much of the local housing is even more basic and crowded. And Tanzania is one of the few African countries to shun lockdowns. Yet our friend reports not a single Covid case in his school…
Sceptical Covid Painting
This painting, ‘Sanity, Her Son and the Credulous’, was done by Jordan Henderson (not the Liverpool midfielder). Jordan is an artist from Washington State in the United States. He works in oil on canvas and charcoal on paper. A portfolio of his works can be viewed at jordanhendersonfineart.com.
Round-Up
- ‘Return under house arrest? Non! We’re staying in France‘ – Richard Madeley says he and wife Judy Finegan are “tired of being herded around like sheep by a bunch of useless shepherds who haven’t got a clue what they’re doing”
- ‘Covid Rebellion‘ – According to sceptical blogger Omar Khan, opposition to lockdown policies is beginning to build
- ‘China partygoers cram into Wuhan water park‘ – Looks like the Chinese authorities have concluded the epidemic is over in Wuhan
- ‘Art Museum Curator Resigns After Petition Accuses Him of Racism for Not Excluding White Artists‘ – Gary Garrels, a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern ARt, is the latest victim of cancel culture
- ‘New York Governor Cuomo calls coronavirus the “European virus”‘ – Andrew Cuomo proves he’s a useful idiot of the Chinese Communist Party
- ‘MN Governor Quietly Reverses Course on Hydroxychloroquine‘ – The Governor of Minnesota has changed his mind about HCQ and reversed the ban
- ‘Never mind scrapping PHE, shouldn’t Hancock scrap himself?‘ – Will Jones poses a good question in the Conservative Woman
- ‘Has the world gone mad? 10 bizarre Covid rules (all in the name of science)‘ – The Telegraph‘s Digital Travel Editor Oliver Smith on some of the more bizarre Covid rules around the world, such as the ban on flip flops in South African shops
- ‘Kenya dismisses exposé on looting of Covid funds‘ – Coronavirus aid is been looted in Kenya
- ‘The scientists and the government relationship: it’s not you, it’s me‘ – Hard hitting piece by Sean Walsh in the Article
- ‘North Korea bans owning pet dogs with pooches sent to restaurants to be eaten‘ – Communism in action, folks
- ‘Marks & Spencer to cut 7,000 jobs after “material shift” in trading‘ – The economic devastation caused by the lockdown continues to wreak havoc
- ‘Holiday at home? Irish tourism boss resigns after getting caught on vacation in Italy‘ – Head of Ireland’s tourism development authority (Fáilte), Michael Cawley, has resigned after ignoring his own agency’s advice to opt for domestic “staycations” and heading off on holiday to Italy instead
- ‘Government confusion aggravates Covid despair‘ – Good column in the Times by Libby Purves
- ‘Tony Blair warns another national lockdown is “impossible” and blasts 14 day quarantine rules as too long – as he claims ministers have been over relying on experts during coronavirus crisis‘ – Crikey Moses! Has Blair become a lockdown sceptic? Fortune makes for strange bedfellows
- ‘Good News: Fauci’s Out and Common Sense Might Be Returning‘ – Ron Paul welcomes Trump’s sidelining of Anthony Fauci
- ‘Professor Sunetra Gupta at the Plan B Conference‘ – Watch Sunetra Gupta’s contribution to the Plan B policy symposium in New Zealand
- ‘Italy’s PM is now officially under investigation for enforcing a nationwide lockdown in Italy against the advice of Italy’s scientific committee‘ – Interesting development in Italy
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Two today: “Blind Leading the Blind” by Mumford and Sons and “Sleepwalking Past Hope” by HIM
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.
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.
“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 2nd to Oct 12th). 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 that mask-wearing fever in Malvern hasn’t yet reached epidemic proportions.
My wife and I had our first experience of a hotel since lockdown when we visited Malvern and failed to realise that muzzles are compulsory in the communal areas of the hotel. We were told by reception on entering that masks were compulsory and were handed a Ziploc bag with two disposable baby blue face nappies (which remained undisturbed in the Ziploc throughout our stay). The General Manager was a lovely chap and when my wife apologised for forgetting her face mask responded that the whole thing was utterly preposterous.
In the hotel lobby there was a couple having a drink (un-muzzled) and nearby a couple standing up who weren’t having a drink (muzzled). The virus is very clever and only punishes unmuzzled drinkers. We went for a drink at Wetherspoon’s where lip service was being paid to the rules and only one of the serving staff was muzzled (presumably by choice).
Generally, in the street the usual leapers were wearing face coverings but the majority of people were not although there seem to be general obeisance in the shops.
Bedwetters of the week had to be an Anglo-French couple in their early 30s who arrived both with face coverings in the dining room and asked the Romanian waiter (whose muzzle had slipped below his nose) for two kettles of boiling water so that they could sterilise the cutlery…
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is a lot of work (although I have help from several people, including one indefatigable techie who doesn’t want to be named). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
In our latest London Calling podcast, James Delingpole and I have our usual moan about the Government’s mishandling of the crisis, focusing on the French quarantine rules this week. Also, we discuss our summer reading and what we’ve been watching recently. Scintillating stuff! You can listen here and subscribe on iTunes here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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https://www.lockdowntruth.org/post/world-economic-forum
Hail the Great Reset!
Yep, been on their website for quite a while but becoming more and more in the open and in your face now.
Read some of the speeches from the central banker’s meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in June 2019 – Carney’s speech in particular – great reset a common theme.
They’re doing two things:
Divide and conquer. People need to come together against this fascism.
And she’s bankrolled by? You guessed it! Bill Gates.
Really? Where’d you find that out?
Gates also pumps money into Ferguson’s Imperial College, the BBC, the Guardian and provides big spends for a whole host of other bedwetting outfits.
She’s also good friends with Chelsea Clinton.
On the bright side, the country can’t afford another lockdown. That was a one-shot and they’ve fired it.
The people of Manchester and Leicester might beg to differ.
The idea seems to be to bankrupt the country and most of its people. This will further the progress of Agenda 21, with its highly questionable aims of “sustainable development” through strict controls and of course very substantial depopulation.
Very true , the tide is turning covid is on it’s way out but the government dare not admit it!
Covid-19, whatever it was or wasn’t, has clearly packed up and gone, to much dismay in Whitehall. The government must have promised Bill, that they would be able to keep the fear going so as to increase the uptake of his hardly tested guaranteed genocidal brew of a vaccine. The current dearth of Covid deaths will be a real bummer for Johnson and Hancock, so it’s look like time for another wheeze and a lot more creative accounting, at the ONS.
I wish I was as optimistic. With a captive media, they’ve been very successful at manufacturing fictional narratives. Do you think the odd fact will change that?
The country can afford anything available in Sterling for as long as we like. We can keep going as long as the “key workers” are prepared to keep working full weeks while the rest of us idle.
Lockdown cannot be defeated with the “afford” argument or trying to suggest “bankruptcy”. That clearly has no traction any more on the other side, because they have read “The Deficit Myth”, watched Japan for 30 years and know that the notion of bankruptcy for a sovereign nation is preposterous. We would just be laughed at as nutters.
Lockdown has to be defeated by appealing to freedom of choice. Economic arguments just sound like we value money more than people.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DSvhPnUgyz8
Meet Bill Gates
http://www.physiciansforlife.org/bill-gates-father-head-of-planned-parenthood-inspired-his-abortion-population-control-views/
Population Control
Bill Gates’ Father, ‘Head’ of Planned Parenthood, Inspired His Abortion, Population Control
by APFLI | May 9, 2003
Can you imagine Sly News UK allowing an Alan Jones outpouring of common sense? No, nor can Ethelred
Sky UK not owned by Rupert Murdoch, Sky Australia is.
Sky in the UK is owned by Comcast. That’s the mob which also owns and broadcasts MSNBC, CNBC and the like. See the problem? So you won’t see any of the Sky Australia faces on that lot. If you want news, then stream Sky Australia or at least pick-up its online segments.
This advert was on my Facebook homepage. The nerve!
It probably popped up from one of my new friends. I decided to allow anyone who posted on my page requesting to become a friend to do so and now I have hundreds of people that I don’t know and will probably never meet using me as a conduit for their own purposes. Here’s one:
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Climate-and-energy?preview&Climate-SU=1&&WT.mc_id=20200801000000_TGNICA_BG-PDM-PF-ClInl3pcT1-Clim2_pl-Facebook_Right_Column_ag_id6200592599959_ad_id6200594300359&WT.tsrc=BGPDM-PF&fbclid=IwAR2UT23LhCaYhHFLcB2xINC008SQcQiCi3YtGBMKTlidpn-mCE8IPO1p6vY
Bill’s at it again. Ooh ooh ooh, what a little money can do ooh ooh.
He’s a vile psychopath.
Good to see you’ve got your own professorial nut jobs in the UK. In Australia we have a wide variety of professors, assistant professors and associate professors doing the same thing.
Who knew we needed all these people giving us unsubstantiated incorrect information masquerading as medical science
If they’re anything like the crowd we’ve got here, they’ve not been outside an educational building since they were five years old. They can give you the thrust vector to get a rocket into space, but no clue where the “launch rocket” button might be found.
Indeed
Never again believe anything any scientist say
All those professors sounds terribly north American. I thought they were Senior Lecturers, lecturers and tutors. Professors hold chairs.
Government: People are dying. Everyone must wear masks.
Skeptics: People have been dying during the flu season too and there was no need for masks.
Government: Ok. Everyone now wears masks during the flu season too. Checkmate.
People have been dying since the human race began. Net Zero Obsessive.
I don’t believe there is a single verified case of immortality yet.
Jesus?
Zarathustra.
https://authenticgathazoroastrianism.org/2016/04/04/zarathustra-and-the-promise-of-an-eternal-spring-of-the-immortals/
No, he died and rose again.
Died. Resurrected.
aka ‘walking dead’?
Another myth
Highlander isn’t a true story?
Course not! A scotch James Bond pretending to be ‘Spaniard’…
Schpanyard…
Now you tell me!
We’re all immortal till we die.
Only because not everyone has been wearing masks.
Matt Le Tissier
Right, must be because we haven’t been wearing masks till now, they are a sign of moral probity and they’re the solution to Covid, flu, slow high street recovery, and death.
Bill will be working on it.
People have been warning about this from the beginning. It was entirely predictable and obvious.
Covid, like Flu, kills thousands of old people, we “need” these restrictions to protect old people from Covid, therefore we “need” these restrictions permanently to protect old people from Flu.
The gates to hell have been opened and we will never get to close them again. Lockdown is now the official strategy for dealing with infectious diseases, and we are going to see it again, and again, and again.
I doubt it. We cannot afford another lockdown.
We couldn’t afford the first one. Anyway, we’re still in lockdown. It has morphed slightly, will morph again, but lockdown as in the continued imposition of public health emergency measures to micromanage private and business life, free of opposition and free of evidence for their effectiveness, will continue forever. I suppose what we have today is in some ways better than March 23rd, but not much. Still in lockdown as far as I am concerned, until all the SIs and guidance are gone. So that’ll be forever.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I consider myself still in lockdown when I must wear a mask to come in and out of my condo building and to buy basic necessities. I’m sure I’d feel like I was still in lockdown if I owned a business that had to follow the inane rules and I was losing money every day. For all the maskholes who claim that if we just do what “the science” tells us we can get back to normal, I say, THIS IS NOT NORMAL!
How can we have a second lockdown? With the antisocial-distancing measures largely still in place, it can hardly be claimed we’re out of the first one.
I guess by lockdown one could mean the kind of far-reaching restrictions on movement we had from 23rd March for a few weeks. But agree, the lockdown never finished.
The local mockdowns in the N.West only said you couldn’t visit your friends or family at their homes. Still referred to as lockdown. Psy-op!
Of course we can. Universal basic income replaces furlough.
We can’t afford this lockdown!
I really hope so.
“We cannot afford another lockdown.”
The question is ‘Who’s “We”.”
The economy rapists probably can.
Not just infectious diseases. Climate change lockdowns will be a thing in no time.
A couple of months ago, on Good Morning Britain, Dr Hillary asserted that “We are all going to have to behave like we have OCD.” I expected this to elicit howls of protest. If it did, the media were completely quiet about it. However, it seems Dr Hillary was prophetic. Now, everyone is expected to behave as though they have obsessive compulsive disorder and this is apparently intended to last for as long as infectious diseases exist.
The government is suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
The government is committing the crime of coercive control, according its own definition.
Obsessive compulsive orderingusabout!
I was in the U.S. Army. Obsessive compulsive meatheads were orderingusabout 24 hours a day. Feels like déja vu all over again!
And the tragedy is that we will raise a new generation of children to literally *have* OCD because of all the fear that they are being spoon-fed by the government and media.
According to the judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal, pushing fear-mongering propaganda constitutes crimes against humanity.
I think people with OCD usually know they are behaving irrationally so behaving like this and believing that it is normal behaviour is probably more like a personality disorder than a phobia.
What’s this slime ball up to?
“Tony Blair warns another national lockdown is ‘impossible’ and blasts 14 day quarantine rules as too long – as he claims ministers have been over relying on experts during coronavirus crisis”
So that people go for his test passport scheme instead. A forerunner to the vaccination passport scheme. No vaccine = you can’t participate in normal life.
I said this to my wife a few months ago. She said I sounded like a ‘Sun reader’. Think she believes me now….!
Get her to watch Dave Cullen’s (Computing Forever) videos : Joining the Dots.
There are three of those videos, among several others, that predicted all of this, not because he’s a clairvoyant, but because he reads what the elite have been saying and planning.
Dave Cullen has done some very good videos, quite a few which have been censored by YouTube.
Sadly, many of us could see what was being rolled out for us back in March, it was never hidden we were even told back them it was a ‘new normal’ (permanent). Surprised people still can’t see that the establishment have clearly decided ‘not to let a good crisis go to waste’ and will introduce lots of controls and restrictions over the population they wouldn’t have stood a chance of implementing in normal times. I guess the public now love an overbearing nanny state to keep them ‘safe’.
Dave Cullen’s Bitchute channel:
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/hybM74uIHJKf/
Making a vaccine mandatory instead? Digital passports to allow people to rejoin the New Normal life, i.e. work, travel, join crowds, etc…..
When international law changes to allow this, I might have more sympathy for the view.
Laws have been changing very quickly recently, in unexpected ways. Who would have thought we would be restricted as to who could visit us in our homes? I’m taking nothing for granted. Nothing.
Besides, international law is largely unenforceable and useless. There are international laws forbidding slavery but that is still practiced in many parts of the world.
Breaking international law isn’t likely to get you much more than a ticking off by the UN and maybe some economic sanctions, if anyone else cares enough. And with the UN solidly behind the lockdown agenda, you can be sure that even these mild consequences aren’t going to happen.
There was no international law that sanctioned the lockdown of billions of people, but it happened anyway. In Canada, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of movement between provinces and yet my daughter is going back to her university town on Friday and will be under house arrest for two weeks. I have to pay local people to bring her groceries so she doesn’t starve. So if our brilliant politicians decide among themselves that countries will only allow free movement of people who take the vaccine and have digital passports, I’m not sure how we stop it.
It will be too late when that happens!
He’s right on the first point, whatever his endgame might be.
We are not following a Social Contract, we are following a Social Construct.
Western Liberal democracies? Where? They appear to have vanished from the face of the Earth.
Matt HanCockUp.
He has the look of a man who enjoys putting Christmas decorations up himself…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/18/face-masks-deter-supermarket-shoppers-says-kantar/ (paywall) -comments backing that up. One comment “Quelle suprise eh…Another of Hancocks blinders..They all thought muzzles on, massive fines to back it up, would get the bed wetters back in the shops and spending. Truth is they havent and a lot of the spenders are aggravated by the muzzles and they won
t come now. This should have been very obvious to anyone who understands people and isnt blinded byscience…Hancock doesnt and is!!I’m no big spender but I know more abput the habits of big spenders than hancock. He really is the useful idiot pushed out be the back stage mob.
I am happy to boycott all but very essential shopping until this farce collapses entirely. Nothing I can do to stop the actions of the thoughtless, the damage is done by policy. But I can do what I can. Myself and the big spenders, how very singular!
Same here. Have done so since the 15th of June and will carry on boycotting so long as this insanity is with us.
Very sorry about the shops that are going under but they should direct their ire at the government plus they should have fought hard to stop the introduction of anti-social distancing and mandatory muzzle wearing if they wanted to save their business.
We were big spenders but I am also buying nothing that isn’t absolutely necessary. I’ve been donating money to those fighting this nonsense instead (Del Bigtree, James Corbett, etc.). Money much better spent.
I suspect the death of the highstreet is the agenda. They were already talking about demolition.
Shopping online can’t be done with cash, I suspect that’s the endgame.
Refusing to use shops actually plays right into their hands.
Loads of shops won;t take cash though
They could have added that because of masks people won’t use public transport. Who wants to sit on a bus or in a train carriage with people wearing masks, that are little more than snotty handkerchiefs?
I saw 3 buses go past me tonight as I ate some fish n chips, every one of them bar one was EMPTY
The poll “Since face coverings became mandatory are you shopping less or more” has 80% of votes for “less”, and most of the comments are scathingly critical of the policy.
On the other hand, the comment from Kantar “That suggests the public may need time to adjust to the new regulations, and they now have to plan ahead for every shopping trip.” – it’s hard to work out what they’re actually saying there, or how it in any way relates to the requirement to wear a mask! – it sounds like they’re trying desperately to avoid actually saying, or even implying, that the mask policy is deterring rather than encouraging shoppers.
The latest poll results in that article are encouraging, as are the comments, which are almost universally along the lines of ‘masks are dystopian and make me feel angrier, not safer’.
[Poll attached]
We now shop online even for groceries. We refuse to be masked for what is a scamdemic against humanity.
It’s as if they knew that masks would deter shoppers, isn’t it? MW :-/
Although their argument at the time was that the mask-erade would put a spring in the step of the economy, as we’d all feel safe to go and spend like drunken sailors, gawd-elp-us!
Quite so, BTL-N! At least we LSs had a suspicion that this argument just might have been the utter bollox it has proved to be. Shopping is now a horrible experience – how can anyone enjoy it? MW
Yer just why would ANYBODY go shopping for FUN now???
There is no fun anymore these political morons have destroyed it.
Is this just at my end, or have comments completely disappeared from Spiked articles? I would have put this down to straightforward technical trouble but Brendan O’Neill seems to have made his Instagram private at around the same time. It all seems a bit odd.
I noticed that this morning.
I had the same problem when I went to Spiked yesterday.
There seems to have been a noticeable increase in troll activity in the comments section of Spiked. I guess they have probably closed the comments due to the hassle of policing the comments section. I think as they and OffGuardian are pretty much the only sceptical media organisations and don’t follow the consensus on many topics (and don’t have government advertising) they are actively being targeted – the authorities aren’t so keen on free speech in their own country only abroad.
77th brigade…
Can confirm. I actually block the Spiked comments section with UBlock because it seems to contain nothing but brigading by anti-Spiked trolls.
Even his Facebook page has disappeared and he used to have good posts there. I suspect its because he’s increasingly being trolled.
it’s because he keeps getting it wrong and doesn’t like the comments
I e-mailed the managing editor Viv Regan and I’m sure he won’t mind me quoting his reply:
“Unfortunately, we’ve stopped the comments section. We’ve tried but we’re a small team and it’s just me trying to get rid of the thousands of spams and trolls. It is now taking up hours of my time a day and I just cannot justify it.
We tried Disqus before but you have to sign up to their ads – so even more ads – and it is expensive so that’s no good to us.
I know it is going to disappoint some people but I had to prioritise.”
Good investigative work, Graham, thanks for getting to the bottom of that.
Tony Blair is pushing hard for every UK citizen to be tested every 2 weeks with their results tracked in a Health Passport App. A clear test would be required for travel and entering public buildings such as shops and cinemas. Having lost the debate on National ID cards, this is his way to get them through the back door.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/16/report-calls-digital-coronavirus-passports-help-open-economy/
how much do these tests cost each? wouldn’t it be cheaper to just ask if someone has any symptoms? If they do then they might have covid. If they don’t then they might have covid.
I read (I think in private eye) it’s around £120 per test. Nice earner for companies involved
So if £120 per test and each person needs testing every 2 weeks (26x a year) = £3,120 pp per year.
Say 60 million people need testing = £187,200,000,000 per year ….a big number but around £187 Billion.
Ain’t gonna happen!!
My thoughts exactly. Where is all the money for all these unnecessary and useless tests coming from. Why aren’t people up in arms about it? about any of it?
The majority are asleep to what is happening. They trust the government!
His article in the Mail doesn’t make him a sceptic, it’s actually pushing the above agenda.
Stop this man (Tony Blair) he is pushing the Bill Gates agenda
Send him recordings of canned laughter. He’s just another clown.
Let him. Quickest way of killing it. The man is pure poison and people don’t believe a word he says.
That might just be a good idea. I can’t imagine Tony Blair’s endorsement (of anything) would encourage many people in the UK nowadays!
We need a reliable, credible and trusted spokesman to push forward what will be an upopular narrative…I know Tony Blair supported by Alastair Campbell.
First WMD … now VMD.
That promises well, doesn’t it?
I suggest this push is more about the adoption of tracking than the testing policy.
Don’t forget the massive amount of dosh to be creamed off through testing, however.
Yes. Secondary. Blair wouldn’t be on tv etc. whispering answers to his self posed questions for an extra million or 100. His pleasure comes from his globalist maneuvering.
From a practical viewpoint testing every person in the UK every two weeks is simply impossible.
No one is testing me ever!
Let him stand and shout for it. The man is so poisonous now, that anything he stands up and says we should do, most people instinctively veer away and do the opposite.
I don’t think corinavirus wants to even know Tony BlAir
A question: does the coronavirus act already allow them to impose this, or would it need another SI?
Further questions: Are the region lockdowns a way of gradually introducing this via the back door? Because a lot of door-knocking and encouragement to get tested is happening..
Is the plan to gradually impose compulsory two-weekly testing of the population area by area, with it being sold as ‘the only way’ for the lockdown to be lifted?
“Health Passports Will Set You Free”
Arbeit macht frei.
God how I loathe that piece of excrement! If there was any justice in the world he’d be dead.
March on Holyrood
September 5th.
THE tweet says-
“We are marching in Scotland & will have many playing bagpipes amoungst us.Nicola Sturgeon tried to ban them. We also have carers, nurses & lawyers willing to speak outside Holyrood.”
There is a leaflet visual on the link too.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DonnacKbf/status/1295311236318605312
Holyrood already has extra fences around the Main Entrance side! Spotted today.
BS? Probably? But truth is sometimes strange.
https://beforeitsnews.com/blogging-citizen-journalism/2020/08/trump-issues-sealed-indictment-on-dr-anthony-fauci-breaking-2649063.html
Interesting. It may sound a bit OTT but it is something I had been considering within the last week. Certainly what is happening on the edge of treason. Whether he could be prosecuted as an actual traitor is another matter but there is certainly some legal basis to the charge.
I would love this to be true, though this article is 2 days ago and surely something like this would be more widely reported by now. It does seem like he’s been “sidelined” at least though.
“Is This the World’s Best Broadcaster?”
Given that the other decent broadcaster of note has been Fox News I think we have to ask the question: where do Murdoch and his clan actually stand on the coronapanic?
Seems clear they are at least willing to use scepticism as a political tool, and it’s legitimate to speculate that they might themselves tend to the sceptical.
I thought Fox News had been reasonably good (but the competition have been outright crazy) then they had a doctor on saying that unvaccinated children should wear a yellow star, why would you even air such a suggestion?
What happened to gold and silver stars?
That is so repulsive I find it incredible he wasn’t thrown off the set!
So, just run through that again:
I can see why you’re scared of this deadly virus.
Well put, Nick.
The “at home” deaths are sky high though, these are the deaths being caused by the lockdown. Without these deaths you would be looking at around 800-1000 below the 5 years average per week.
I just checked the data;
Since March deaths at home are 42% up on 5 year average. 71,000 rather than 48,000!
During the 1st week of August only 0.5% of home deaths were covid related.
Since March only 2% of home deaths were covid related.
How many of these people might have lived on if they didn’t think they were saving the NHS by staying at home.
You can guarantee that a lot of these people are like the two people who died that I wrote about a few days back whose cancer monitoring and treatment had been stopped. Then you have all these people too scared to go hospital with heart attacks and strokes, which is still happening.
I found out this afternoon that the guy I know whose ex-wife died because of not receiving cancer treatment, that his current wife is now in hospital. It was thought that she had had a stroke, but this proved negative, and it now looks like the bowel cancer she had years ago has returned, and once again this is because she has not been having regular testing during lockdown.
I don’t know how this murdering government can get away with this. They are deliberately withholding lifesaving treatment from patients. When people talked about population replacement I thought them crazy but I’m no longer convinced they are now. The boats keep arriving no one is ever removed and our own people are deprived of medical assistance.
the NHS must be colluding with the government in this scam! People are dying from all sorts of illnesses because the NHS isn’t functioning as it should be.
Devi Sridah – a little back ground to put to those warm, no, those cold eyes. Taken from wikipedia, she deserves nothing better.
Rhodes Scholar. Selected person.
She turned her PHD studies into malnutirition in India into her first book, The Battle Against Hunger, was selected by Foreign Affairs as a must read book in aid policy. The book investigated the World Bank funded nutrition programme based in India, which became a blueprint for aid programmes despite lack of evidence for its effectiveness.Sridhar was concerned that the programme did not address the social conditions that cause undernutrition in India.
In 2011 (age 27) Sridhar was appointed to Wolfson College, Oxford, as an Associate Professor in global health politics. She serves on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Health Industry. She started to research the rise of public–private partnerships in global health governance, and how, whilst they are crucial to combat infectious disease, their non-transparent accountability and effectiveness should be investigated.
She established ten essential reforms to prevent and respond to the next pandemic. In 2014, at the age of thirty, Sridhar was promoted to full Professor and Chair at the University of Edinburgh and became the founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme.
Her 2nd book is panned on Amazon was co authored with Chelsea Clinton.
It becoming a badge of honour to be blocked by the bisum on twitter so I believe.
Devi Sridah
‘. . . as winter comes temperatures fall and people head back indoors . . .’
She presumably was not one of those Experts who in Spring denied that sunshine, vitamin D, warm temperatures and outdoor ventilation would cause Covid to decline of its own volition ?
My mum was a proper nurse, trained at the Brompton during the war, anytime I came home with a sniff and snuffel she chucked me in the garden “Get out in the sun and fresh air”.
She comes from Miami. I like to think the Scottish weather irritates her.
There’s a lot to be said for the simple ways – if a limb hurts when you move it, move it more! This is effective.
Unless it’s broken.
Great! Direct link to Clinton and all his buddies including Gates, WHO etc
As mentioned in earlier episodes of groundhog day B Blinton was to be speaking at Efinburgh University this Autumn. No idea if cancelled. I believe the connection may have been part of the arrangement.
Something dreadful about these nonscience qualifications.
Looks like Dan Andrews in Australia is aiming to call for a permanent state of emergency.
(via Bill Muehlenberg’s blog);
also
http://www.news.com.au/national/vic-premier-moves-to-extend-state-of-emergency-capabilities-indefinitely/video/33c6bc50e2176e504d3e738c9309b696
They are in real trouble down there….as we all are, of course.
Chilling!
Indefinitely? WTF! Time to remove this maniac from his cushy leather chair.
I don’t know why people are unable to spot a psychopath they don’t all walk around waving dangerous weapons and a crazed look in the eye, many wear a suit and are in politics!
Re. Sridhar : “Now as an epidemiologist we must take her view seriously”
Quite the opposite. I hate to traduce the really good specialists in Public Health and Epidemiology (e.g. Carl Heneghan, Kurt Wittowski) – but the record of these specialisms has been abysmal as a totality (ably assisted by out-of-depth virologists). Many like Srihar have postured about in the limelight whilst displaying a profound lack of ability in basic scientific method. Obviously the opportunity to pose has been the driver, not ‘The Science’.
Sridhar is not an epidemiologist, doctor, or scientist. She has an undergraduate degree in Biology from a low-profile US university, and an MPhil and DPhil from University of Oxford in social policy. She is aligned to some well-known globalists at Oxford, such as Ngaire Woods, and is best mates with Chelsea Clinton. It is obvious when she is interviewed that she presents a series of ‘alternative facts’, to quote Kellyanne Conway, and is rarely, if ever, challenged.
social policy
That’s the key word. Social Engineering degree.
Went to a Joseph Holt pub last night. Saw eldest son’s teacher which could turn out to be noteworthy come September. Anyway, they put your food on a nearby table – shared by other nearby tables who also have their food plonked down. The result; lots of people up and down every two minutes. Bizarre and irrational ‘safety’ measure, even by today’s standards. No face nappies however. Overall, would go again – it was very close to normal minus the strange service technique.
Actually, is it worth it to start snapping teachers in the pub?
It would be a gross invasion of privacy but on the flip side, isn’t child abuse.
It’s a public place, why not. Aim for an elbow to elbow shot ( no social distancing).
If you substitute the words “English’ and ‘Welsh’ in her article with ‘Jew’ and ‘Zionist’ you get a flavour of what this hate filled woman is about.
Same poison just different victims
Zionist isn’t a race or religion – it’s a nationalist ideological movement – but I get your point.
And reading what she has to say makes me more determined to continue my boycott of Scotland and everything Scottish while the hate filled Sturgeon is in charge. I don’t care if Scotland votes for independence, btw.
Wife just been to the hairdressers.
Not too pleasant from what I understand but a few things have really set her anger off this afternoon:
So not a happy experience so my job this evening is to look for a hairdresser who will come to the house as she’s vowed never to go to the hairdressers again until all this crap is gone.
We’ll see if she says these are after I help with the colour and she’s let her hair grow for 6 months and I’ve got a pair of scissors and an instruction book in my hands.
I had a similar experience at my first hairdresser visit and I will not go back. Toying with the idea of buying barbers clippers and going for the East German Lesbian look. I’m neither East German nor lesbian but desperate times call for desperate measures.
If you are, as my wife delicately puts it, “a woman of a certain age”, (your nom de plume doesn’t give much info on being male/female but saying lesbian I’d guess female – a man would probably say skinhead look) you could always claim you are going retro as the Sinead O’Connor look is back in fashion.
If the wife sticks to her guns and gives me a go at her hair there may be 2 of you with the skinhead look (suits me, had one for years to hide the grey and bald spots, low maintenance and cheap on shampoo once you get used to looking like a ruffian) as I’ve a set of clippers for when she does mine ready for her to give me the go ahead.
Easy.
Just had a visit from a mobile hairdresser. No mask, thinks it’s all bonkers and is worried for her son, and fortunately had left a salon just in time to escape the nonsense salons have been subjected to.
And she cuts really well.
So folks ask around in your community for a mobile hairdresser.
One hears there are many of them around.
And there’ll be more in the future when all the salons go bust. Haircut in your own home, able to have a coffee with the stylist, sitting in comfort and for the stylist; much less overheads, looser tax regime as self-employed, more flexible working hours, etc, etc.
Yes, our hairdresser is doing a job on both of us at once at home. I think mobile hairdressing may well be the future. MW
Less overhead.
For many it will be the way to go. Yet more business premises up for rent.
I’ve been using a mobile hairdresser fir a while. It’s so much more convenient and cheaper too. However the lockdown changed all that. She now works from her garage you have to arrive with washed hair which she dampens prior to cutting. She wore a visor which she found uncomfortable but I wasnt masked. I explained what a scam it all was but she feared she’d be reported if she didn’t abide by the new rules. It’s not something I would want to continue with but I’m hoping once her child is back at school she’ll be working mobile once again.
I now do my own zero cut.
Rechargeable clipper and a paddle mirror.
Success.
Me and my wife had a weekend in Whitby and Robin Hoods Bay. Unmasked as always in shops. We have exemption cards but never produced them, and with one exception (below), were never asked about being unmasked. In the hotel it was mentioned but we informed the hotel manager we were exempt – after that no problem at all.
Only real upset was one shop – Berties, in Robin Hoods Bay. Shop staff told wife to leave the shop as they have a policy of ‘no exemption to mask wearing’ and exemption cards are not accepted. So I went in told him he was breaking the law (Cornavirus Act and Equality Act). He refused to accept he was breaking any law as it was his stores policy. I made it crystal clear he was and left the store.
Obviously an ignoramous who doesn’t need the sales.
Another one to add to the list. I’m not that far from Robin Hoods Bay so it’s good to know.
> He refused to accept he was breaking any law as it was his stores policy.
You should have asked him if he thought it would be legal to have a “No blacks or Jews” sign as part of his “store policy”. Because it’s exactly the same if you refuse to allow people with genuine disabilities into your shop.
Do Berties have a Twitter, FB account or website? Maytime time for some negative feedback..
He will change his tune when the bills come in and there’s no money to pay for them. I find this to be the quickest way around this farce; go to the owner (not a member of staff) and tell them why you won’t be back. I have just done this with the local cinema. It concentrates their minds wonderfully.
A person quoted me £4000 to do some digging on my smallholding before the lockdown. I said I’ll think about it. During lockdown, a small business owner had a digger/dozer in his yard, so I asked him if he wanted a bit of business. Three days later, he was a happy bunny, and so was I; the final bill was £850.
He is legally entitled to refuse you entry.
Clearly an idiot though! Doesn’t deserve your custom. I hope you found somewhere more worthy.
He’s legally entitled to refuse anyone entry. And he’s also entitled to be sued under the 2010 Equality Act for discrimination.
That’s a big problem people believe they must all be masked.
My first visit (after lockdown) to my hairdresser was depressingly similar. Because I wouldn’t wear a mask, my hairdresser did, “to protect herself”…
I then saw on their website that they will now not allow anyone in their salon unless they are wearing a mask, so I cancelled my next appointment (which was for to-day). Quite sad, as she’s been my hairdresser for over 25 years.
Luckily I found a salon where customers are not required to wear masks so I’m going there on Thursday. I dearly hope it’s a better experience!
But did you explain to the previous salon owner why you were cancelling your appointment? It is essential to both cancel and to tell the owner why. One action must be accompanied by the other, or the point won’t go home.
I used to spend $200+ for a cut and colour but I won’t do so under these conditions. Went to a lady in a small town near our country place, she used a spray bottle to wet my hair, cut done in 10 or so minutes, no mask (though there’s a mask edict there now) and all for $35. Box dye for $15 and a bit of help from my daughter, and my hair looks exactly the same. Mobile hair stylists are a thing here as well, so it’s definitely something to look into. I feel badly for these small businesses, but I won’t pay a higher price for a miserable experience.
It’s never too late for an old git to learn a new trade… argos sell starter kits … you are welcome!
Getting bored now so going back on the wagons part-time to keep myself out of trouble.
Probably safer than shaving all the wife’s hair off I think – discretion is the better part of valour in this instance.
Mr Bart and I bought a hair cutting kit after cutting our own hair using bog standard scissors back in May. We’ve decided just to go DIY from now on, if it means avoiding this insanity and saving money. If my hair is a bit wonky so what?
I’m sporting an impressively scary mane of grey medusa locks at the moment.
I’m hoping my recent order of some bendy rollers will help me stay away from the hairdresser for a bit longer.
You might be in for a pleasant surprise.
Mr Bart tried using the hair cutting kit that we bought and he’s very happy with the result. Have to say that he did it better than the hairdresser.
My haircut used to be a biannual treat (I have long undyed hair so I can get away with it) at a top salon in our local city on a Saturday morning, husband taking care of kids. We’d reunite for a fabulous family lunch at a very good restaurant. Restaurant has since gone bust & with salon restrictions I now go to the mother-in-law’s to use her mobile hairdresser. Father-in-law cooks.
Sad that your treat is no more but looks like you got the next best thing
Oh happy days! Like going to the dentist.
“Why don’t we have a British version of Alan Jones on Sky News? The Sky News Australia commentator has been speaking truth to power throughout the pandemic. Here’s his latest jeremiad. Gold, as usual.”
Very true, except that since Toby wrote that, he has posted another one today. Here it is reposted from where it was just posted on yesterday’s LS:
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.
Had absolutely NO response from anyone (politicians, civil servants, blogs, TV shows, newspapers or TV news) in the UK about the open letter except for e-mail auto-replies so I’ve sent ti to Fox News, Sky news Australia and thenewsaccess.com just for the hell of it.
Excellent idea
The story might be in the failure to respond. Though I do suspect Fox and SNA’s response will be governed by the direct politics, rather than any institutional or Murdoch family personal scepticism or otherwise.
A cursory search doesn’t bring up any gossip about what the Murdoch clan’s personal views might be, other than stuff by their ideological enemies criticising their association with Trump, mostly, such as:
Why the Murdochs backed Donald Trump’s COVID-19 denialism
and
Whether a ratings chase or ideological war, News Corp’s coronavirus coverage is dangerous
Massively wealthy, powerful people who don’t care who they upset may save the world yet, aided of course by those of the masses who have remained sane
In the case of the Murdochs I think it depends on whether things turn enough that hounding the (mostly leftist, in the US) political coronapanickers seems likely to further their political objectives (reelecting a Republican president, atm).
If the Murdoch clan are sceptical, I doubt it’s an overriding motivation for them.
I don’t know much about them. I always assumed Murdoch didn’t have any particular ideology other than what was good for him. The Federal Government in Australia is the Right rather than the Left wing party isn’t it? At least in name. So not sure why criticism of the panic in Australia would help them much.
He’s pretty conservative I think, but clearly pretty pragmatic. The Federal government in Australia is probably about as conservative as ours is (ie not at all, but nominally to the right of the opposition) but the Victoria regime is on the left and I imagine pretty disliked in the Murdoch household.
But I think US politics is what they are most concerned about..
“… mostly leftist…”
I’m afraid this simplistic resort to political sectariansm as a means of comfort over the Panicdemic doesn’t work. It’s a comfort blanket. This scam cuts right across the political board, with opportunists all making up self-serving narratives.
In the UK, it’s clearly a monster born of the right (to suggest anything else is patent counter-factual denial), but utilised by some of the left where the opportunity occurs to score points about rectitude, efficacy etc. etc. The reverse can be the case in some situations.
The worst aspect is the lack of any notable coherent opposition to the scam.
“In the UK, it’s clearly a monster born of the right (to suggest anything else is patent counter-factual denial)”
Explain please? For preference, please take into account the fact that the current government is not by any measure especially right wing and the fact that the great majority of governments reacting most severely are at leas nominally left wing.
In summary, other than the fact that our current government wears blue rosettes, what evidence is there for describing the current situation as “of the right”?
I could dig out my extended version of the same question, posted for you a couple of days ago shortly before page-change, but it may take a while.
Is the trademark pink tie a subtle hint?
you’re idiotic left wing assessment is always good for a laugh. I bet you even believe the shite you post
You should have left this at “This scam cuts right across the political board ..”. Personally, I think this is way beyond left and right. This is about the 0.001 percent v the rest of us.
Yes, he should. But he couldn’t, apparently.
We’ve been back and forth on this one repeatedly and I’ve pointed out at length how objectively left wing this government is, taking the proper perspective of a full lifetime (a century or so).
The reality is that, as many point out, this panic does cut across political party lines in this country. It’s almost willfully blind to try to portray it as either “far right” or as emerging from within the “Conservative” Party in this country. I would argue that the panic is inherently leftist because the panic and lockdown response is collectivist and it is radical, and it was justified and rationalised as “protecting the NHS” and as “putting lives ahead of money”. No doubt you could point to aspects of it that are inherently rightist (presumably the corporate and billionaire involvements, though I’d say that many billionaires and corporate bosses and cultures are objectively left wing these days as well, though admittedly many are not).
But my point above was in relation specifically to the political position in the US, where it absolutely is (broadly, albeit not absolutely) a Democrat coronapanicker versus Trump/Republican sceptic issue.
“The worst aspect is the lack of any notable coherent opposition to the scam.”
We absolutely agree on that point.
Alan Jones is a legend, one of Australias top radio/tv presenters and an amazing man, if only Sky in the UK had someone like him, he speaks common sense and a he is a man of great integrity. I miss listening to him on the radio, as he retired from his long running show recently. More from him here https://www.facebook.com/alanjonesaustralia/
Would have been interesting had Murdoch still owned Sky News UK. Would we have even had the footage from the Bergamo hospitals??
But aren’t people still dying of the summer flu? The Spectator ran an article the other day claiming that 5 times as many people have died of summer flu in the UK than Covid since June.
And if they are still dying of the flu (in fact the numbers are similar to the yearly average), then doesn’t it make a mockery of the mask mandates? Doesn’t it clearly show that the decrease in Covid deaths has nothing to do with social distancing and the wearing of face nappies? The virus has subsided on its own.
Masks are not made mandatory for health reasons. It’s 100% political.
HCQ is a fire in the arsenal for the Democratic Party. If Trump is vindicated on that, as he was on the ‘inevitable’ recession of 2017, and as he was on North Korea, the Dems are finished and the Never Trumpers with them.
The Dems’ covid strategy is to sanitise by burning down their cities.
What happened to Mr. Clean?
I think what should be ringing more alarm bells is that many, if not all, of our tormentors are unelected “advisors”. And as such, can’t be got rid of by democratic means.
True, though the people we elected choose to listen to them
Undemocratic means then, if needs must.
From Australia, standing up to the thought police:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=26&v=vwj3w_0j9H0&feature=emb_logo
That was posted the other day. It’s NZ rather than Aus, I think.
At least it’s somewhere in the Antipodes.
My friend who lives outside Melbourne is getting very downhearted and despondent so thought it might cheer him up that someone down thats ay is fighting back even on a small scale.
Unfortunately, Australians are almost the only, people who can reliably tell the difference between an Aussie and a Kiwi accent!
From the St Tropez postcard: “The ultra obedient French Poodles had obeyed the rules and we had been sent to Coventry.”
I’m far from convinced, given the events of the past few months, that we are in any position to criticise the French on this one.
I’ve been thinking about all this scaremongering of a second spike…whilst I don’t think that easing of lockdown measures, reopening schools etc will trigger one, I can’t help thinking it’s inevitable that it’s going to *seem* like we’re having one.
In a normal winter, I think we can all agree that we get more respiratory viruses than in the summer? And that the NHS always has “Winter Pressures” aka elderly and infirm people dying of ‘flu.
Prior to now, I don’t think there’s ever been any precedent in the UK for testing people for respiratory viruses, unless perhaps you’re hospitalised with pneumonia. The actual NHS standard for whether you might have a bacterial infection rather than a viral one (and hence might need antibiotics) is whether you have green phlegm or not?! A few years ago I had suspected whooping cough…GP said there was “no point” in testing me for it. It’s just not part of NHS culture to test until you absolutely have to.
Anyway, my point is we’re all going to be expected to be tested/isolating every time we have the slightest hint of symptoms this winter. Obviously I don’t trust the sensitivity/reliability of the PCR test…but I do have contact with a few people who are vulnerable (not just old) and as much as I’m skeptical about all of this nonsense I wouldn’t want to risk passing it onto them. I know you won’t all feel the same though and that’s fine.
Bottom line is though it’s inevitable that we’re going to have cold weather, more viruses circulating, more testing, hence more “cases”, more people will die as usual and these will go down as covid deaths. The stage is already set for the illusion of a second spike so it doesn’t matter if it actually happens or not. It doesn’t even seem to make any difference to people that a certain week(s) deaths might be below the five year average.
Question is…how can we make people see that it’s not an actual second spike and it’s just the UK in Winter?
Everything you say there has been my worry too. Given how dodgy the tests are, plus the need to keep this running for as long as possible to justify the government’s destruction opf the economy, whatever cold-flu bugs come along this winter will be re-branded as the second wave.
All sadly true
“Question is…how can we make people see that it’s not an actual second spike and it’s just the UK in Winter?” One by one
Improve your immune system that will keep the sniffles at bay or a fleeting experience
I think that it is quite likely that you will see every opportunity used , from the common cold onwards, to keep the vaccine, tracking, distance communication and testing etc. tills ‘kerrrchingg – ing’.
I think you’re right, they have already decided there will be a second spike, and NHS staff have been told they cannot take annual leave in October due to an expected second wave, so look out for a crazy October. Also by then many people will have been wearing masks for a long time which is likely to cause all kinds of respiratory issues. These will of course be classed as Covid-19.
Thanks for another cracking update Toby.
And yet another one that has a death wish – Crab & Winkle restaurant.
Perhaps the good folk of Whistable should grant this restaurant their heart’s desire and put them out of their misery by voting with their feet and wallets.
Does that restaurant have a Twitter account? Or website? If so maybe we should write some negative messages on it…
Here’s their Twitter page:
https://twitter.com/Crab_Winkle
And their website:
https://crabandwinklerestaurant.co.uk/
I have a slight feeling of hope today (against my wife’s hairdressing despondency).
Good to see so many anti-government anti-narrative comments on nearly every “story” in today’s online Daily Wail – PHE, Dildo Harding, testing, Bliar, coronavirus numbers now lower than flu and so on.
On collecting the wife from the local 1 street local market town earlier the only person walking the street wearing a mask was one of the sanctimonious wanker usual suspects and 1 who put his on to use an outside cash machine (but no gloves though so the keyboard must be safe). Everyone tore their mask off the instant they left a shop.
No children masked up either.
CPSO ignored me when I walked past them and went into a shop without a muzzle and kept on gossiping to her friend who worked there.
2 other unmasked (which is a first) in the local B+M who got passed these secret nod and smile.
Encouraging, AG! We saw someone masking up to use a cash machine the other day too. It sort-of did our heads in. MW
Toby included in his round up the story of Wuhan returning to something like normal. It’s also reported, surprisingly, on the BBC news website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53816511
Someone somewhere has suggested maybe the Chinese were extracting the urine from the rest of the world all the time and there never was a virus. All they had to do was say there was and then watch the rest of the world destroy itself. Not sure about that!
My reason for posting is to point out that Wuhan got back to “normal” (I hesitated before puting inverted commas there: maybe they’ve just got back to normal) without the need for a vaccine.
I like the painting. Perhaps this sort of thing is what should be on sceptics’ T-shirts. It gives a poignant message. A person with a soul will understand it. A bedwetter may understand it, but only if they first acknowledge to themselves what it means. If they have a go at you for wearing it, you can ask them to describe what it shows and what it means. They may end up having to admit that the New Normal is pretty sh*t, even though they are aggressively defending it.
The painting’s great.
As long as we’re living in colour, even though all around is grey, we’ll get through this.
I agree but they’ll probably just design a counter T-shirt with a picture of a granny on a ventilator and the slogan “Is it too much to mask?”, or some such tosh.
Maybe, but that would be a completely negative message – unlike the painting. It would leave room to ask “But does granny want to live in grey dystopia peopled by zombies in masks, anyway?”
Anything positive is it good. The problem is now the fear conditioning is so deep a lot of people would probably see the mother and child in the picture as deadly virus bombs. I mean they’re banning children in restaurants now aren’t they?! Depressing.
I absolutely love that painting!
I think describing Devi Sridhar as “bonkers” is rather charitable. That’s not the first word that springs to my mind.
At least she’s a pleasant face staring at us from the top of the page, unlike yesterday’s pic.
She might be another graduate of the casting couch …
I was more thinking of evil.
Sorry, took that for granted.
Teeth for cold eyes – little improvement.
Trump kicks Fauci to the curb. You’re fired! Glory Halleleujah! A short read from Ron Paul:
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/august/17/good-news-fauci-s-out-and-common-sense-might-be-returning/
Best news of the month!
Yes brilliant news. The little slime weasel gone. Can Birx follow him out, indeed any of that AIDS research cabal could disappear without issue.
Genuine question where is the US/WHO relationship?
PHEW! It really true? No more Fauci???
It might be too late considering all the misinformation that he disseminated over the past five months or so.
The most depressing picture I’ve seen for a while (from The Telegraph).
Jesus wept. That’s just over the top.
In normal times everyone would be laughing at this person for being neurotic.
If I find myself laughing at this person for being neurotic does this mean that I’m normal and the times are abnormal?
Nah, it’s handy when the utter loons self-identify …
Yes and she? only popped in for a loaf and a bottle of milk.
Does he work for a bomb disposal unit?
Met up with a friend yesterday for lunch so took her to a place not far from the London Coliseum.
Staff were mostly masked but apart from a plastic screen further down the restaurant and tables spaced out a bit, it was fairly normal.
However when they asked details for the NHS T&T, I refused and waitress tried to tell me it was required and was shocked when I told her that people had the right to refuse. Before I could ask for their GDPR policy, my friend gave hers. The waitress took her details and told me that she wasn’t aware of the right to refuse. I told her to check out the gov.uk website.
Even my friend was amazed at my spiel and said that she wasn’t aware of it either.
Makes you wonder how many employers have not properly trained their staff regarding track and trace as well as exemptions for muzzle wearing and the likes of GDPR and the Equality Act superseding any government guidelines.
Well done for refusing to give your details and for explaining the regulations.
Well done for knowing the regulations.
One pub we visited a pub at the weekend – staff member sat collecting details at the door. Sadly we’d paid a deposit for the table and he was very insistent on having my phone number despite my best efforts to educate him. To avoid scene (and not lose my money) I gave him my phone number but with the numbers in the wrong order
Worryingly one other pub had everyone’s details on clear display – via an open book by the front door. A stalkers paradise. We declined on that one with no bother
Use your MP’s phone number
We had this – a grubby notepad left open by the door on open display. Astonishing we’ve been warned consistently over the years to guard our personal data yet now we’re expected to entrust it to pretty much anyone who asks for it.
All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.
Did you ask to see their GDPR policy ?
That’s actually against GDPR. I’m really amazed how pubs and restaurants have been slapdash with all this. No wonder there have been rumours about information collected for test and trace being sold to third parties or even stolen.
Well done you for standing up for yourself. It is astonishing how many retail/hospitality employees are unaware of not only the voluntary nature of T&T but also mask exemptions. I have a friend whose mother is mask exempt and she walked into Joules whereupon her mask was demanded. She explained she was exempt and the employee demanded to see some medical proof for this. Showing a medical certificate etc to prove exemption is not required in law as we know but it’s shocking that the Joules employee was unaware of this as they could be liable for discrimination under the Equality Act.
Thanks. Its shocking how many retail and hospitality staff are very ignorant and unaware that their ignorance and heavy handedness could cost them dear. Not only in terms of money but also reputation. The latter is especially harmful as once the shop or restaurant’s reputation is damaged its hard to rebuild it.
I’m not at all surprised by your experience. I think many many retail outlets have not bothered to check the actual legal requirements but have slavishly followed “the guidelines” and then even added their own Covid nonsense to it. It’s been a real eye opener for us as we’ve been trotting around various cities on a bit of a staycation tour. Some are smart and have discreet Covid precautions – Covid-lite we call it – and others like Waterstone’s bookshop (at least the branch my husband visited) are quite heavy handed. A cathedral we visited yesterday, insisted on hand sanitation as I entered the toilet and as I left it (even though I’d just washed my hands) … literally, God give me strength. Let’s hope a few read this site and educate themselves!
Well said. Apart from the lack of training and not giving staff all they need to know such as exemptons, GDPR, Equalities Act; many establishments do over egg the pudding by adding stuff they made up or going OTT over existing “safety” precautions.” It does make you wonder if many of these establishments have a death wish and with regards to that Cathedral, if that was me, I would have asked them about Jesus and his attitude towards lepers and point out that treating us like lepers is very un-Christian and goes against what Jesus himself said and did.
Had 6 EOHE meals the last week or so courtesy of the UK tax payer. Been asked for details three times – politely declined each time and no bother.
This was the second time I was asked. First time was in a cafe and didn’t have any problems with that as the staff in that cafe were aware that it was voluntary and people have the right to refuse.
Letter: Tyranny of the Minority
…An ABC/Ipsos poll from June 25 showed 89% of Americans wore a mask that week. A Gallup poll from the same time showed 86%.
But 11% said they have not even considered it. Approximately 32 million Americans won’t wear a face covering — anywhere, ever. And the virus stays alive. A small albeit vocal minority given cover by the president prevents us from resuming our rightful activities safely. Democracies respect voices from the minority but rule favoring the majority. It’s now past time to assert the majority’s will.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/letter-tyranny-of-the-minority/ar-BB185EBi
“The Founding Fathers knew their history well, so they knew better than to establish the U.S. as a democracy.”
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/preventing-the-tyranny-the-majority
Weren’t most of them high ranking Masons?
Sure I’ve read that more than once.
They certainly were. Not sure if you’re making a point here, AG ?
Anyone, Masons, Stonecutters, or Blue Peter Club members, who could come up with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are ok by me.
But isn’t the USA still “owned” by the Virginia Company?
The Bill of Rights was a way of trying to get out of City of London’s control? That ultimately failed?
Weren’t a couple of the Amendments to the Constitution not ratified properly and agreed in court cases this is so?
Why are “Masons” so prominent in the history of US politics?
Don’t they still pay reparations to the UK for the war of independence? I think there is still a Federal form they fill in every year – will have to dig out the research.
Doesn’t the American Bar Association still swear allegiance to Temple Bar in the City of London?
Don’t the flags with gold hassle edgings still mean that the court is under “maritime law”?
All interesting reading on a cold, dark, quiet night that’s for sure.
1) Maybe, dunno.
2) (a) No. (b) Bit soon to say either way.
3) I’ve heard that too.
4) Best and brightest of their time needed a way to get together and discuss/plan/act ?
5) Interesting – a new one on me.
6) I believe so.
7) Yep.
Now we have our own ‘challenge’ to face of course.
Apart from the fact that this attitude is a good example of “tyranny of the majority“, it’s yet another example of the fallacy that if everyone wore masks, all the time, the virus would magically disappear and we could all get back to normal.
David Levine caricatures of Winston Churchill:
More Winston C and others by David Levine, New York Review of Books:
&ia=images
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/covid_and_climate_policy_following_the_same_playbook.html
COVID and Climate Policy Following the Same Playbook
“Academic and social media scorn is heaped on those who dare question the agenda of the elites. On the Wuhan flu side, legitimate board-certified physicians are ridiculed or fired from their jobs for questioning establishment dogma. A recent video from “America’s Frontline Doctors” featured Dr. Stella Immanuel speaking of the benefits of hydroxychloroquine for COVID and she was immediately ridiculed and dismissed. She is also an immigrant woman of color and the same media gushing over Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams lost their notions of intersectionality when attacking Dr. Immanuel.
Another doctor in that group, Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency medicine physician, was fired over her support of hydroxy. Just as climate change skeptic Nicholas Drapela, a professor at Oregon State University, was fired for his audacity to challenge the left-wing establishment. As was prominent Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer for disagreeing with non-scientist Al Gore.
Question the dogma of either the virus or climate movement and prepare to have your life, if not disrupted, then ruined. There is only one politically correct viewpoint on both issues.
Both global warming and the Wuhan flu rely on models. Many climate models predicted rising sea levels and flooded cities, along with catastrophic storms, none of which has materialized. Virus models predicted 2.2 million U.S. deaths, only to be scaled down as reality was nowhere close to the predictions. Both relied on flawed models and failed to adjust their prognostications accordingly.
Climate and COVID share the commonality of government control.”……
Toby: do you still think there’s no conspiracy over CV19 as there is over the climate change agenda?
If it really was as dangerous to the population as they’d have us believe, as someone else here said, it wouldn’t need its own publicity campaign.
Can’t imagine any journalist working in MSM acknowledging any of the ‘Great Reset’ agenda or ‘New World Order’ other than to criticise it and write off those who suggest it (which probably gives it added validity as the media is now effectively establishment propaganda). Career suicide is a certainty if you mention certain topics.
Wonder if Prof. Pantsdown was involved in any climate change models? Sure seems well qualified for anyone needing an alarming prediction.
How about this fearmongering, from The Guardian live feed:
Cases of type 1 diabetes among children in a small UK study almost doubled during the peak of Britain’s Covid-19 epidemic, suggesting a possible link between the two diseases that needs more investigation, scientists said on Tuesday.
While the study is based on only a handful of cases, it is the first to link Covid-19 and new-onset type 1 diabetes in children, and doctors should be on the lookout, the Imperial College London researchers said.
“Our analysis shows that during the peak of the pandemic the number of new cases of type 1 diabetes in children was unusually high in two of the hospitals [we studied] compared to previous years,” said Karen Logan, who co-led the study.
Alternatively, might it be the case that children, not being in school, had too much time on their hands and spent some of it stuffing their faces with cakes and sweets – parents leaving them to their own devices and so on? And the “study” by “experts” is based on “only a handful of cases”.
Based on a handful of cases is my guess is a statistical anomaly.
Type 1 diabetes isn’t caused by sugar intake.
It’s an interesting observation and undoubtedly worthy of further study. But this is the problem with modern science – that anecdotal observation gets splashed across the MSM and becomes an accepted fact; if any subsequent, properly structured, peer-reviewed study fails to find a causative link, the MSM aren’t interested.
Thanks. Didn’t realise that. When you see the word “diabetes” I guess most people, including me, think “sugar”. I just read up on it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_1_diabetes
Another thought – might the affected children be ingesting hand poison? Maybe paranoid parents are insisting they use it in shops.
“Cases of type 1 diabetes among children in a small UK study almost doubled during the peak of Britain’s Covid-19 epidemic, suggesting a possible link between the two diseases that needs more investigation, scientists said on Tuesday.”
Translation:
Here’s an interesting statistical anomaly that’s almost certainly happenstance, but which can be milked for grants and status.
PHE are on the case at this very moment.
My limited understanding is that type 1 diabetes tends to be hereditary whereas type 2 tends to be lifestyle/diet related.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the body starts to attack itself. Rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto hypothyroidism and lupus are other examples.
Type 2 has a large genetic/epigenetic factor to it, it isn’t just lifestyle or diet, although the latter can have an impact if high in carbohydrates such as sucrose or simple starches. Not everyone who is overweight is diabetic and not everyone who is type 2 is overweight.
With regards to the perceived increase in type 1 in children, this may NOT be a statistical anomaly.
As I’ve said it is an autoimmune disease, we know that young children are protected by their innate immune system whilst older children have an adaptive immune system as well.
In some of the older patients who have had a serious illness from SARS-COV-2 there has been an overreaction of their immune system which hasn’t been dampened as it should have been, leading to blood clotting problems for example.
This COULD be happening in children, but manifesting itself as an autoimmune disease.
Just a hypothesis.
Look up what squalene is that is put into vaccines then ask why the body attacks itself.
Or alternatively, the highly active immune systems of children, which are naturally geared up for constant assault, could be turning on themselves when the child is locked up inside and exposed to far fewer pathogens than would ordinarily expected?
Yes, it is possible. But the Guardian report is just fake news. Scary headline, no citation, and they admit it’s a subset of a “handful of cases” in two hospitals. And we’ve just had a king-size epidemic of SARS2 with millions of infections. If it was doing anything that weird we probably would have noticed by now.
Someone was telling me this today in RL and I said the same thing: yes it might be possible because autoimmune etc. but check the source and see what they actually found because the Guardian is pretty irresponsible…
That’s interesting because Type 1 diabetes is very rare in older people. If you’ve not been found to have it by the time you’re say 30 or 40 you’re unlikely to ever get or ever had it but you can get Type 2 in a much larger age range.
“the Imperial College London researchers said.”
Now why is my bullshit alarm going off madly?
No idea (sarcastic snort).
Never give up, do they? Well funded by Bill Gates. So…
I thought Type 1 was thought to be caused by an immune system overreaction to viruses (usually the coxsackie virus is postulated)
so I guess it is possible. But meh. Nobody’s caused a stink about coxsackie.
Guardian talking about France: “…growing scientific consensus that the coronavirus is transmitted not only in large drops projected when a person coughs or sneezes, but also in smaller ones that can remain suspended in air breathed out by infected people…”
So why is the testing so invasive? We could just wander past some device and it could confirm everyone’s negative?
Because it’s all bollocks, the deadliest virus known to man, that can lay waste to whole communities can be defeated with a bit of daisy print t-print material. Fuck off (not you Kf99
)
This is the logic:
Masks work because they stop droplets. Everyone must wear masks.
But there’s still transmission.
There must be something else other than droplets, maybe aerosols. Masks still work though. Let’s increase restrictions.
But there’s still transmission.
There must be something else other than droplets and aerosols…let’s increase restrictions…
There must be something else other than droplets and aerosols…let’s increase restrictions…
That’s their favourite conclusion.
“growing scientific consensus” = politicised scientists, pseudoscientists and pundits keep repeating BS = consensus!
It’s FLOGISTEN IN THE MIASMA…Emerging new science can reveal….
So it turns out after speaking with a friend high up in the Thai tourism industry that 30% of hotels in the country are up for sale – who, I said would be buying them in the current circumstances? The Chinese it turns out at knockdown prices.
It suddenly clicks
Good way to replace the US as the dominant world power eh?
Just as they have done in large swathes of Africa.
Oh, gosh yes! I was just about to point that out! The Chinese have gone all over Africa, buying up every single mine they could get their hands on.
I’m told the conversation goes something like this: “Mr Mine Owner? Have a look at this Mercedes catalogue. Pick one, and one for the wife while you’re at it. Sign here, and we’ll give you ten percent of the profits as well (instead of buying the ore at market rates). Then they bring in the Chinese Army to “ensure” security, Chinese workforce to do the actual mining (so no jobs for the locals) and the Chinese government buy the finished product.
The Western buyers get the surplus after all the Chinese buyers have had their fill.
The United Nations is also rife with corruption. I remember 1984. The year of ‘We are the World, We are the Children’. Plus lots of Coca-Cola adverts.
Asked the question before: Has the Chinese economy take as bad a knock as that of the UK and US?
My thinking is not. Our inept Government has decimated our economy and as a result we are ‘ripe’ for a takeover of some sort.
Well they only really closed down Hubei province (58.5M population) leaving 1.34B people free to go about their business. Everyone else decided it would be a good idea to shut down whole countries.
True, but remember the size of a “province”, and recall that they welded people into their flats. I understand the point that you are making, but the comparison is not too apt.
They didn’t weld the doors of everyone in the whole province only certain areas of Wuhan (population 11M).
Given that most honest folk would admit (as many here have done at one time or another) that they are genuinely shocked and surprised by what our and other western governments have done in response to this panic, I think its pretty unrealistic to hypothesize the kind of evil Chinese geniuses that would have to have been at work to foresee and manipulate us into this situation.
Beijing planning room, 2015: “The plan is to release a slightly jumped up new cold virus into the world, and then entire world will go into a panic and shut down their own economies.”
If they really are that brilliant, it would probably make sense to surrender now and get it over with.
I agree that the level of strategic genius and insight required would be as terrifying as it is unlikely.
Planned or not, though, China was always going to be the big winner out of this. Firstly, they only locked down a single province (as Nobody points out above) and secondly, they had first mover advantage, coming out of the whole thing as everybody else was going into it.
Lucky for us, Johnson et al seem to be determined to test a brilliant new theory called “last mover advantage.” I bet you’re as excited as I am to find out how well that works!
Indeed. Though I’d prefer least loser to big winner, in the circumstances. Ends up much the same if you are in a zero sum game, of course.
If we’d been able to resist the tabooisation of herd immunity in Feb/March, we could have come out of this with little or no significant long term losses, though.
As is often the case, we tinfoil-hat wearers have been left out. I hope I’m reasonably honest, but for decades Icke, Rappoport, and others have pictured our current situation, and the morals of those who’ve put us here, quite clearly.
So not shocked, not surprised.
Mark (in June 2019): Hey JohnB I’ve got a top level NWO leak about their plans. They are going to let out a new cold virus, not noticeably more dangerous than what we are used to, and they will be able to use that to make the vast majority of people so scared that they will give up all resistance to authority, accept mass home arrest, mass compulsory mask wearing, the effective suspension of rights of political demonstration except for manipulative authorised “causes”. They won’t even need to use the police much because people will be so scared of the new cold that they’ll just do whatever they are told, and we’ll all sit and watch while our government ruins our economy (I mean, even more than is usual).
Response:
A JohnB (in June 2019): Yep, that sounds pretty likely actually. Those colds are pretty damned scary. But the reds will win the league anyway.
B JohnB (in June 2019): F*** off, Mark, you’ve been at the drinks cabinet again.
C JohnB (in June 2019): …?
The likelihood of the bad guys using a bogus medical scare has always been high, due to the quite draconian measures in most places’ emergency powers legislation.
Also, media control of the population, and the use of peer pressure, have been regularly occurring items of discussion.
(You missed the capital letter in Reds, Mark.
).
“The likelihood of the bad guys using a bogus medical scare“
But surely they should have needed to come up with something scarier than a cold?
Fake’s fake, I suppose, so fair enough, but this is rather getting away fro the original context, which was a Chinese plot against a supposedly independent west, not a NWO inside job.
“(You missed the capital letter in Reds, Mark.
).”
I grew up in Manchester. You have no idea how hard I had to work to keep it that polite….
You forgot about the pandemic war game organised at the end of 2019.
Very convenient and nothing to do with the Chinese.
I wasn’t the one hypothesising about Chinese master-planning being behind the whole thing.
In general, I tend to regard the current “blame China” stuff as mostly just part of the superpower rivalry between our US patrons and their big rival, and while much of the criticism of China is surely true, the prospect of tripping into a hot war is far worse than the rise of China atm. Whatever they are, they aren’t the Third Reich. So you won’t find me endorsing it with any enthusiasm.
For the best, probably, given the (most amusing) performances of the Manchester giants last week.
Didn’t want their poxy corrupt trophy anyway…. Now don’t mention football again until next year.
Would it be unbearable if I did ?
Only because I’ll have to stick my fingers in my ears and shout “lalalala I can’t hear you”. And that’s pretty undignified at my age….
D JohnB (in June 2020) “Sorry, Mark, I owe you a beer. I was really, really wrong about that one…
When this lot is finally over, we (and the MSM in particular) will owe Mr Icke one heck of an apology. He has already wiped the floor with Wogan.
The Australians and New Zealanders wouldn’t let Mr Icke into their country the last time; now I know why, Australia and NZ are the biggest bed-wetter countries on earth, and that’s something I NEVER thought I would say.
James Delingpole’s brother Dick made a logo of a stained yellow mattress with a Swastika on it.
yep
I agree,that’s what I have thought since day one.
This theory also ties into the Twitter-bot campaign described here: https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1270925788389486593
We’ve cancelled our trip to France in a couple of weeks time. Not because we’re frightened of COVID, or because we don’t want to face quarantine (although we don’t) but because our travel insurance won’t be valid as our trip won’t be essential! Foreign Office guidance.
We could risk just going with reciprocal health insurance but that’s no help if you need picking up off the motorway by ambulance. All the way down to the south is not worth the risk.
There must be an essential reason you c̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶a̶b̶r̶i̶c̶a̶t̶e̶ hadn’t already considered?
Ha ha! Actually I find I can’t really be bothered now. Been going toFrance for years and even if the French are more relaxed it won’t be the same. It won’t hurt to miss a year. Must cancel my annual travel insurance now too!
https://www.campbellirvinedirect.com/CIDirect/ offer insurance even against FCO advice.
We use them for client travelling to the likes of Iraq and Iran.
Probably easier to holiday there now!
Citizens who have no knowledge of medicine should not be asking other citizens if they are suffering from any symptoms whenever we enter a bar, café, shop etc. This is illegal and the government should be censured for introducing this intrusion on our privacy.
It’s practicing medicine without a licence. Same with the bullshit temperature checks. Same with politicians forcing masking — a medical intervention that constricts oxygen flow.
My preferred answer to “do you have any symptoms?” is “of what?”
Only been able to use it once, but the baffled look was worth it and I hope to have another opportunity.
List them some menopausal ones!
I was thinking of asking this person if he was a doctor.
This is worth sharing with the muzzled hordes.
It shows conclusively that the COVID season is over. I guess the winter flu graph looks similar – obviously the peak displaced to the left, and maybe a faster decline, but by and large the same. So if we’re not worrying about winter flu why are we (they) worrying about Wuhan Lab flu?
Winter flu peak is lower and lasts longer. Otherwise, yes.
I’m going to hazard it would not be lower if deaths were recorded “with” flu rather than “of” flu
Thanks, this is great. Will distribute
Thanks, the graph is very interesting. I would love to share with some mask wearing fanatics. Is there a link to the source webpage as it isn’t so clear when I copy and paste?
I did a print screen – double click on it first
Just seen this thread on Twitter : https://twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1295080660923801600 re PHE being disbanded – guy writing says PHE are well aware the pandemic is over but the government want to keep everyone afraid – hence why Hancock is scrapping PHE..
That graphic is extra proof of what we and PHE know..
John Stuart Mill on Tyranny of the Majority:
In Mill’s view, tyranny of the majority is worse than tyranny of government because it is not limited to a political function. Where one can be protected from a tyrant, it is much harder to be protected “against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.”[12] The prevailing opinions within society will be the basis of all rules of conduct within society; thus there can be no safeguard in law against the tyranny of the majority. Mill’s proof goes as follows: the majority opinion may not be the correct opinion. The only justification for a person’s preference for a particular moral belief is that it is that person’s preference. On a particular issue, people will align themselves either for or against that issue; the side of greatest volume will prevail, but is not necessarily correct.[14] In conclusion to this analysis of past governments, Mill proposes a single standard for which a person’s liberty may be restricted:
Clearly the Tavistock spent many years perfecting this fascist coup.
This is a real zinger! Happy to report that it got completely slaughtered in the comments, but it’s an intriguing insight into how far off the deep end modern “academics” have gone in the current hysteria.
https://theconversation.com/morality-pills-may-be-the-uss-best-shot-at-ending-the-coronavirus-pandemic-according-to-one-ethicist-142601
“My research in bioethics focuses on questions like how to induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good. To me, it seems the problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior. Could a psychoactive pill be the solution to the pandemic?“
“Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral. The psychoactive substances act on your ability to reason about what the right thing to do is, or your ability to be empathetic or altruistic or cooperative.“
Presumably they assume that they are the last word on what is morally acceptable.
Unfortunately, too many people who assume that position usually are the last word. That is what’s so worrying about this mess.
Good grief!! Is that a joke? Without wishing to sound like John McEnroe, you cannot be serious?
Regrettably it’s no joke. The article made it onto OffGuardian (some good commentary and comments) a few days ago. It really is chilling stuff.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/14/the-new-normal-covert-moral-enhancement-for-coronavirus-defectors/
It’s very worrying that there are academics who see this as a reasonable proposition and even more worrying, I think, that such views are published. At least the comments seem to treat it as the nonsense it is.
Toby linked it here, maybe yesterday.
I had to read it twice to convince myself it wasn’t a spoof. The author is Parker Crutchfield, Associate Professor of Medical Ethics, Humanities and Law, Western Michigan University, and he seems to be bona fide.
https://med.wmich.edu/node/1371
WTF?
What on earth does ‘engendering moral post-persons’ mean?
This bizarre entry is listed on Barking Leftfield’s publications page.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
As to the use of psychoactive substances ‘to make you more moral’: brainwashing pure and simple.
For moral read compliant, tractable. No use for independent freedom of thought here folks, we’re headed for the pharmacological gulag.
Remember what happened to dissidents in the former USSR; whisked off to state asylums to be forcibly mind scrambled by approved psychiatrists.
In my mind this kind of oppression is a cast-iron certainty.
We will all finally get to meet each other in the new psychiatric institutions set up for enemies of the state. Assuming communication is allowed between our individual exercise pens when we are allowed outside for 1 hour per day.
Whereabouts will this be located I wonder? Will an existing institution be repurposed or will something new be built?
We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness.
Amen to that!
In my current state of rage, I probably need to be sectioned. Not because I am an enemy of the state but due to the psychological torture we are being subjected to.
Recently, a strange noise has been escaping from my mouth (usually when reading about the latest mad sanction). It is close the sound my cat makes when she sees another cat in the garden, a growl maybe. Never before have I been known to growl.
Anyway, soon we will be locked into those gulags of dissenters, maybe we could put those Nightingale hospitals to good use.
See you in the exercise yard, I’ll be the one digging in the corner with a collar on.
An Associate Professor of Medical Ethics thinks this may be a good idea? What is going on?
Could this fucking “psychoactive pill” (sorry, it needs a swearword), be called Soma by any chance?
What happened to Prozac?
Not strong enough.
This guy is a prime example of the thinking of the new Public Health Mafia presently running the world. Ethics? Humanities? Law? Surely he jests?
You’ll have to shout louder than that to sound like John McEnroe.
I find a couple of gins have roughly similar results.
I would need a couple of bottles.
Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral.
Again, it’s fascinating to get an insight into the feeble-minded majority’s thoughts. He thinks that nonconformists know they’re being ‘immoral’ but they’re doing it anyway. No, you idiot! If they don’t wear a mask, it’s because they think it’s the moral thing to do. If you give them such a pill, they’ll just avoid wearing masks even more.
What a moron.
Moron, maybe. I would choose a different word to describe someone who publicly advocates such things.
Monster?
This is downright terrifying (though I doubt it has any chance of becoming reality), not least because of the assumption that it’s correct and justifiable to impose a single form of “morality” (read: herdlike conformity) on people, a morality decided on by “experts” who of course are infallible, all-knowing, unbiased and incorruptible (not).
Not to mention the assumption that this pandemic is serious enough that controlling it justifies what is, effectively, pharmaceutical mind-control of the population!
The irony is that most of us here are motivated by moral feelings at least as much as by valuing individual liberty. I’m sick of the damage that’s being done to people’s lives, minds, health and livelihood and the knowledge that the politicans and scientists doing this are at best, incompetent and trying to avoid the consequences of admitting their mistakes; at worst, monumentally corrupt.
Before this year I would have dismissed this kind of article as nonsense. Now we are through the looking glass in every conceivable way, anything is possible.
Things have become so twisted that simply observing the devastation caused by the policies is considered immoral and antisocial, and a far worse transgression than their actual implementation in the first place. The weaker the virus becomes, the more vitriolic are the attacks against anyone who makes these observations.
We live in a profoundly sick society, and I for one am proud to be an outcast and a heretic.
https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Heretic-Updated-Walter-Kaufmann/dp/0691165483
I read this book in 1968. Plus most of Nietzsche and Thoreau. A heretic for life.
They were clearly on a psychoactive drug to suggest such garbage
Now now – psychoactive drugs don’t normally take one to this level of insanity.
We must all become dependant on technology and medication. With out this the force 4th industrial revolution – which is what the Great Reset aims to bring about – the globalists will not be successful.
A comment above asks is this a joke. Understandable, it’s lunacy. But this is what is planned. This is what we are up against. The good news is, it’s very stupid. The bad news is no one takes it seriously because it is so stupid.
Technocracy is an ideological system of governance in which a decision-maker or makers are elected by the population or appointed on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge.
Was it predicted to be this way by books such as Z Brzezinski’s Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era?
That’s a classic, and well worth re-reading in our current predicament.
The World Economic Forum website is a treasure trove of information on the vision the world leaders have for us, especially the COVID-19 Strategic Intelligence Dashboard.
https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G0X000006O6EHUA0?tab=publications
Given the monumental level of effort that has gone into creating this plan, I suggest we need to take it very seriously indeed.
I am in agreement. These are critical times. The breadth and depth that good alternative researchers have reached over decades of tracking this is incredible.
There for people to see, in plain sight. But, hidden partly by the clear insanity of their plans and goals.
It’s a start just thinking how the world leaders actions differ from our own ideas if we were in a position of such responsibility. What is motivating their decisions day in day out month by month year after year.
Serious days. We can beat them, we may be even winning already as some of the signs suggest wheels falling off.
I think I’ll stick to alcohol and weed. The results are less paranoid.
Maybe they could further punish me with some live music to accompany the mushies. To heighten to effect on my morality of course.
The writer of the article is a bioethicist – you’d think he/she would be pretty busy with all manner of ethics issues in drugs testing/vaccine trials without writing this unbelievably sinister article. You’re right though, at least the comments are pretty much full on against this so there is hope!
It’s also very worrying that he sees Covid-19 as a huge threat to mankind. The whole thing is very worrying.
Woke bullshit of the week, from The Telegraph live feed:
Women leaders acted “more quickly and decisively” to save lives by locking down their nations to slow the spread of coronavirus, according to a study.
Their actions in the early days of the pandemic resulted in “systematically and significantly better” outcomes for their citizens than in countries led by men, the research suggested.
The scientists said there is a “definite and consistent pattern” showing a lower number of Covid-19 deaths in women-led nations when accounting for a variety of factors.
But the scientists in the research published by the World Economic Forum tried to ascertain whether having a woman in charge was beneficial in the first quarter of the pandemic so far.
Men such as Prime Minister Boris Johnson have come under criticism for not enforcing harsh restrictions to control the virus soon enough
Men such as Prime Minister Boris Johnson have come under criticism for not enforcing harsh restrictions to control the virus soon enough Credit: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe
The University of Liverpool’s Professor Supriya Garikipati wrote: “Our results above clearly indicate that women leaders reacted more quickly and decisively in the face of potential fatalities.
“In almost all cases, they locked down earlier than male leaders in similar circumstances.”
The researchers noted “several incidents of risky behaviour” by men, including Boris Johnson’s claim he was shaking hands with “everybody” in a hospital with coronavirus patients weeks before he became perilously ill with Covid-19.
But the research should not be interpreted as playing into the stereotype of women supposedly being risk averse, with Prof Garikipati saying the reality is far more complex.
She argued that “women were less willing to take risks with lives but were more willing to accept risks in relation to the early lockdown of economies”.
Correlation doesn’t prove causation.
Cf. the classic correlation of the increase in global temperatures and the decline of swashbuckling pirates. No discernible causation at all!
Anyway what’s “woke” about using phony research to promote gender stereotypes? They’re effectively saying women leaders are great because they’re all like Nurse Ratchet. Prejudiced sexist rubbish.
This is funny. A slang version of ratchet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_(slang)
Not sure why any scientists are wasting time (and presumably) money looking into the gender bias of world leaders in relation to their decisions on going into lockdown, as if it is in the slightest bit relevant what their gender is.
The whole thing is written as though it’s accepted it was a good thing for any leader to go rushing headfirst into lockdown, again…. as it always their hot fucking take on this nonsense – lockdown sooner, faster, harder and nothing else.
I would have thought rushing into a decision, without carefully considering the long-term consequences, would be considered stereotypical “reckless male” behaviour!
Anyway I thought there was another survey a while ago which pretty much debunked the claim that women leaders have done a better job of preventing deaths.
“I would have thought rushing into a decision, without carefully considering the long-term consequences, would be considered stereotypical “reckless male” behaviour!”
I’m sure we haven’t forgotten, but I keep reminding people that locking down was NOT the safe option, it was the risky option, because it had never been done before.
Aren’t they skating on thin ice suggesting that gender makes any difference to anything at all, rather than just being an oppressive social construct?
Who pays for this research??
You do.
Did nobody consider China in this narrative? Suggest the propensity to lockdown – both in terms of speed and extent – correlates with Marxist or authoritarian tendencies!
Plus the WHO head is a known Communist.
Whatever this is it ain’t science. Almost entirely a collection of value judgements hugely susceptible to the bias of the researcher. Hence generic phrases such as “in similar circumstances”, “risky behaviour”, “risk averse”, “quickly and decisively”.
Not going well for St Jacinda then is it??
Bad scientists = Bad science
Oh, get screwed Prof Garikipati!
From the mail:
My hospital has become a medical Mary Celeste: As NHS waiting lists rocket while appointments are limited, one doctor tells of his frustration
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8636343/As-NHS-waiting-lists-rocket-appointments-limited-one-doctor-tells-frustration.html
And the comments section is full of people complaining about the lack of treatment. Some are also saying that private treatment isn’t available since the NHS has that all sewed up.
Private treatment: over the phone or online.
A 2 minute snippet from James Corbett about the Great Reset and what it is. Many who think that we are seeing a catalogue of hapless errors will continue to do so. Others who are seeing there may be more to these strange days might look into Corbett report for more – there the brilliantly researched evidence is gone into in some detail over years. For each to decide.
The tweet says:
‘There is no more time to waste.. This is it.. This is what the Great Reset is all about’ https://twitter.com/G3MM420/status/1295331670439219202?s=20
Ross Clark on great form in The Telegraph, regarding Dido Harding:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/18/dido-hardings-unstoppable-upward-rise-egregious-example-chumocracy/
Some very good comments below the article too.
Of course, he has the follow-up, in the Hon Kate Bingham as vaccine tsar (wife of Jesse Norman MP)
Here is one of the great comments under the article:
“We are run by graduates of Oxford University’s Media Studies course (aka PPE). A total of 72 weeks at university, including freshers week and exams, to learn all about economics, philosophy and political history. Pull the other one.
“The course produces people who think that they know an awful lot more than they do know. A superficial overview of everything that leads to incredible mistakes. Cameron, Osbourne, Hunt, all former products of this course who couldn’t manage a p*** up in a brewery. But they do make lots of contacts with other incompetents and the next one up is Dido.”
That PPE at Oxford is a souped-up version of a Media Studies course is worth remembering. Note that there are other politicians of varying qualities who are PPE graduates. One example is Yvette Cooper MP, who was nearly the Labour Leader in 2015. No doubt others can be identified. Unfortunately there will be more in future unless Constituency Party Selection Panels weed them out.”
This has been the problem with politicians for years,University,work as a researcher for a MP or some other non job in the political bubble.Years of networking until finally a safe seat.Net result equals zero experience of real life.Applies to all parties.
Yes, was quite surprised to read Gavin Williamson’s ‘CV’ on Simon Dolan’s Twitter feed last night:
‘Before becoming an MP, he ran a small fireplace firm, then worked in a pottery firm (now gone bust), then in a small design firm.
He also achieved an A level in politics.
And was sacked as Defence Secretary in 2019′
His work record is a bit more ‘colourful’ than that!
What about his woke record?
That is just a bit better than my CV, which is easily THE WORST CV IN THE WORLD
What, have you never read Grant Shapps’s, Minister for Transport?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Shapps
The Milibands and Matt Hancock, other notable examples. Gideon (Osborne) studied Modern History at the alma mater of Lord Sumption! Many others went into the media prior to entering politics (Mr Cooper-Balls), with some of the higher achievers in the E bit of PPE (and many effectively dropped the E bit after first year exams because it was a bit too difficult!) went into The City.
Justin Rowlatt – the BBCs chief environment reporter also has a PPE. Which says a lot …
Note also of the other BBC environment reporters Matt McGrath has journalism degree and Roger Harrabin has an English degree. (but he has an honorary science degree so thats ok !!) Claire Marshall has Law
But there again all they do is promote climate change reports from elsewhere verbatim so no science knowledge required
Big protests in Madrid on Sunday:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1295229329035726848
Hot Blooded I would imagine
https://twitter.com/SHomburg/status/1294161244908331014
Not good news for mask fanatics. In this picture from Germany the rhinoviruses have doubled during this summer 2020. See the blue lines. Rhinovirus transmit similar to coronaviruses. Perhaps masks increase the risk of spread? So much fiddling with the mask? Glad we have had not much C-19 spread otherwise we would end up like Argentina and Philippines, the golden league of mask wearing countries.
Protest in Ireland (Custom House, Dublin) on August 22nd
Freedom Of Choice
https://healthfreedomireland.com/time-to-speak-up-join-our-next-protest/
This chart plots daily reported positive tests v deaths. To illustrate the point we’ve converted the deaths into negative numbers, which in a way a death is. Still, it powerfully makes the point that we may be looking at a ‘casedemic’ not a ‘pandemic’, or is it a ‘panicdemic’?
Definitely not a pandemic.
It’s a PLANDEMIC
Joshua Weitz,Prof. in Georgia,US produced this article in May
“Heterogeneity in susceptibility dictates the order of epidemiological models”
https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.04704
He now has produced this twitter thread about herd immunity for the mathematical minded to follow. In short he describes reduced herd immunity compared to previous models.20-50 % could be enough
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1283838810728488960.html
“This thread is on C-19 heterogeneity, herd immunity, and the roots of SIR models; why mathematical choices we often take for granted have profound effects on interpreting unfolding epidemics.”
https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1295685320550293507/photo/1
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31604-4/fulltext
Can someone explain why any young healthy person should take this Oxford vaccine as even taking Paracetamol together with vaccine result in quite many side effects? Cure worse than disease for this healthy age group?
Money? I wonder what the fee is?
Years ago a friend’s dad signed up for medical and drug research.
He was paid in 1990(ish) £300 a day for the drug trials and was taken to a nice place that was like a 5 star hotel (food, booze, private rooms, spa etc) he said and given whatever they gave him – he never knew if it was the drug, an alternative or a placebo.
He had pretty horrendous side-effects and was paid in full for the month he had agreed to do after 4 days and sent home.
He never did found out what they gave him and luckily once he stopped taking whatever it was the effects went away.
He also never agreed to do it again.
Remember elephant man a few years ago
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2917810/elephant-man-drug-testing-trial-tgn1412/
Be afraid, be very afraid
Refer to above Lancet article. The only way to properly test a new drug is to use a inert substance for the control group; i.e saline injection for vaccine trials. `However in this trial:
1) they used a meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY) for the control group – both vaccines would therefore result in side effects, and the real side effects for this new experimental vaccine can then be positioned as not that serious.
2) At 2 of the 5 sites ‘subjects’ were given paracetamol prior to receiving the vaccine. Paracetamol is effective in reducing fever, pain etc — therefore the side effects noted would be reduced.
It’s not so much the positioning as making it a blind trial. If you use saline then that group know (or suspect) they got the saline because they didn’t get any side-effects.
‘chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored’ …How much chimpanzee material is being injected into people and what effect does this have?
It’s not really chimpanzee material but a virus that normally infects chimpanzees. The reason they use a chimp one is because people aren’t immune to it. It won’t replicate but will invade cells (that’s how the vaccine is delivered).
The Russian version does use a human adenovirus instead.
WOW FrankenScience…
More Monkey Business.
I wouldn’t be overly worried about the side-effects. They gave them the biggest dose (calibrated on the similar MERS vaccine) to get a decent level of antibodies and make good headlines. A bigger dose will get a better immune response and probably (although nobody knows) a lower risk of disease enhancement.
My wife had an odd encounter when shopping yesterday.There was a young lad,perhaps 5 or 6 years old in the shop with his (masked) mum.He was happily going along the shelves in his own world until he came up to my,unmasked,wife.She said he froze,looked worried and rushed back to his mum,as he was telling her something he was pointing at my wife,the mum looked at my wife who smiled at her but couldn’t detect the response due to the muzzle.She then knelt down and said something to the little boy and kept glancing at my wife and then they moved away.
Now,being charitable,I could imagine she was explaining to him that some people can’t wear masks due to medical reasons and it’s nothing to worry about and to be nice to everyone.However,it is my wife’s feeling and mine too that the conversation was probably more like,’yes you have done right,you must keep away from those dirty,dirty people who don’t cover their faces,they are bad people and they will make you poorly’.
Perhaps we are being over sensitive and reading the wrong message from the encounter,but based on some of the reactions we get from not being muzzled it seems possible.
I fear that your interpretation might be right.
My wife and I were horrified (this was way back when there might really have been a bit of justification) at the initial shrinking away of our grandchildren when we unilaterally abolished the Tory government antisocial rules.
The good news is that they soon adjusted to normality and proper behaviour.
People being funny about me patting their dogs in case of covids if they came up to me I found pretty hard to take.
I think that the thing that started me getting really angry was the people in the park treating my do (the happiest, friendliest dog in the world) like he _was_ the virus.
I had to change the car insurance. Mask obligatoire. How I hate that word. I pull my crumpled, dirty mask out of my handbag and put it on as I go into the office. I state my business to the insurance agent, masked behind a plastic screen.The photocopier’s churning out documents, I’m yelling, the girl’s yelling, nobody can hear a word. Despite this, she asks me apologetically to push my mask up over my nose. She had one colleague, also masked behind plastic, who might have told on her if she hadn’t enforced the rules. Or maybe she really was terrified I might kill her. I am beginning to see the funny side. It was a sketch.
Why not do it online?
Getting easier and better all the time and some greta bargains – managed to half the wife’s premium with better terms with the same insurer by going online.
I needed to get my son’s name put onto my existing policy. It had to be done in the office. And as I say it was a sketch. Wouldn’t have missed it. I laughed all the way home.
Get an exemption card (e.g. the etsy(dot)com one): problem solved.
Abstract of an address to the Royal Society by its President, April 1st, being All Fools’ Day:
President he say dirty strip of cloth on face get big ju-ju, he stop plenty debbil-debbil no go down nose to belly make you sick. Yes sir.
Thank you for making me laugh. But really, it makes as much sense as what is going on at the moment.
He roller coaster
He got early warning
He got Muddy Water
He one Mojo filter
He say. “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good looking ’cause he so hard to see
https://institute.global/policy/taking-uk-testing-strategy-next-level?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch
Tony Blair, the great Public Health policymaker has discovered the T cells. He thinks new innovative tests for these (he calls them moon shot) will soon be in practice. Quotes from his Public Health Manifest co-sponsored by two eminent public health scholars Jeremy Hunt and William Hague
“We define a mass-testing regime as one that includes regular, ongoing Covid-19 testing of all citizens. The purpose of such a regime is to identify asymptomatic cases and break the chains of infection.” Brilliant.I wonder what they are going to with the poor bastard in Italy who had 17 weeks of pos PCR tests and isolated. Bad luck if you were screened going to a football match
“This testing would be conducted in a variety of settings: at home, at work, at transport hubs and at a diverse range of other testing sites. The testing regime would make use of rapid point-of-use tests – both antigen and antibody”.
“These results would eventually feed into a health passport that would provide evidence of an individual’s Covid-19 status at any given time.”
“As yet there is no way we can eradicate the disease; therefore we have to contain it and live with it.” Such humility (but with a price)
“Many businesses and organisations cannot function effectively unless people can be regularly tested.”
“Overall, as moonshot approaches, new developments such as rapid protective antibody and rapid T-cell testing can be another key pillar.”
“the UK should allocate a specific fund for advance purchase of mass tests. This could be done in partnership with other countries, or the UK could take this approach alone” Forward thinking
“Sir Ronald Cohen calls for the tests to be funded by government-created Covid-19 Innovation Impact Bonds. These bonds would be guaranteed by the government(s) at the time they sign a purchase contract for the delivery of tests. The approach has the added benefit of providing economic stimulus as young and established companies engage deeply in efforts to solve the crisis”Type of a War Bond? Guaranteed by the brilliant UK economy post lock down?
“Given that lockdown is estimated to cost the UK economy £2.4 billon per day, the Covid-19 Innovation Impact Bonds would actually save the country money by expediting the speed at which we can return to and remain in an active economy” Big Pharma salivating
“Even if it saved just two days of lockdown, the bonds could cover the costs of every single person being tested with both a rapid antigen and antibody test priced at £30 each.” That is £ 4.8 billon paid back to his friends in Big Pharma and a bit to Blair,Hunt and Hague for promoting such nonsense.
What an evil bastard that man is. Desperate to get back into the limelight.
I have to admit that during the dark days of the end of last year I was looking back with nostalgia at the calibre of former prime ministers such as Blair. I take it all back. Fortunately nobody listens to him any more.
If they do do “mass testing” I’m sure one option will be the home testing kit. In which case I will be providing samples of random contents of my fridge.
Good idea. Just cannot wait for that old lump or cheddar, contents of salad drawer, random leftover tub of hummus, to test positive.
lol, I bet that green cheese that went under your fridge last Xmas WILL have covids on it!
This is the most revealing sentence from that interview: “These results would eventually feed into a health passport that would provide evidence of an individual’s Covid-19 status at any given time.” he’s just promoting the Covipass, which is a big part of the whole agenda and likely requires the taking of everyone’s DNA.
Note that ancestry.com has been bought by Blackstone for billions… Why would a bank want to buy a genealogy website? Answer: for its DNA database..
Or because it’s profitable and has significant potential to grow and become a worthwhile investment. Also note Blackstone Group is a PE and Asset Management firm, every bit as much as it is a bank (probably more).
pah, conspiracy theorist
Some positive news that has emerged from this Covid scam.
For the future we now have two treatments that have the potential to be successful against all viruses, not just Cooronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine with zinc and Ivermectin.
As viruses have always been held to be untreatable, unlike bacteria, this has to be a major plus. Viruses cause some of the most horrible diseases – meningitis, ebola, rabies, hepatitis, shingles, smallpox, polio etc.
Might be jumping the gun a bit here and I’m sure some proper, independent trials (not funded by Bill Gates) will be needed but huge potential.
All we need now are governments and health service that will use them when appropriate.
We have had antivirals before. They’re used very successfully against HIV. Remdesivir was designed for Ebola. The cold sore cream you can buy over the counter is also an antiviral that works in a similar way to Remdesivir. But yes I agree this area has moved on a lot recently and this is a good thing.
I haven’t had a virus for years….Nothing
I eat pretty well, lots of fresh organic home grown veg usually not too stressed, plenty of exercise and fresh air, dont smoke, don’t drink…yer who needs vaccines..
I’m going to lower the tone by describing the men’s toilets in Allestree Park, Derby. (Ladies, look away now). There’s a row of nine urinals, the old-fashioned sort with curved recesses discharging into a common channel along the bottom. For social distancing only the two outermost urinals are to be used, with access to the other seven blocked by temporary metal barriers. However these are up close against the urinals, so it would be easy to use the forbidden seven by peeing through the gaps.
Thanks for the tip!
Reminds me of viz top tips
you could play the old school game that boys play by trying to pee as high up as you can, straight over the top of the barriers.
You mean you don’t do that any more?!
At my primary school the boys’ urinals were against a wall in an unroofed space, and there were stories about people managing to pee right over the wall, though I never saw it (or tried it) myself. Actually I don’t recall that there were urinals, I think it was just the wall with a channel at the bottom.
Quick, someone fit cloth masks around the barriers!
{Or, electrocute the grills!?}
At least the toilets are open!
Has the dogging restarted at Allestree Park yet?
I thought that was Markeaton Park?
Or over them!
Vaccine Update: 100 Million Doses Soon Despite Huge Red Flags
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/08/18/covid-19-vaccine.aspx
“It’s possible for the development of a vaccine to take 10 years. There has never been a successful vaccine for a coronavirus, otherwise they’d be pushing us to take a yearly “cold vaccine” along with a flu vaccine… how often have we heard that “there is no cure for the common cold”? A vaccine based on mRNA technology is experimental; it turns your own DNA into something of a “vaccine factory,” producing its own viral proteins to which we then mount an immune response. Anything that tinkers with your body on that level would have to be tested for years to learn the inevitable long-term consequences of such “scientific” hubris.
With these few points as prelude, we are now supposed to believe that scientists miraculously and heroically operated at “warp speed” to do the impossible and save humanity? As I see it, they’ve either already had their intended vaccine product completed and waiting for its moment, in which case this warp speed thing is just more pandemic theater, or else—if they really have concocted something at warp speed—it would be nothing that any sane person would want injected into their bodies.
Now we learn that the FDA’s stellar standards aim for 50% effectiveness. Is there any product of any kind that is attractive at 50% effectiveness, let alone one that plays with your DNA? For this, they’ve sidelined many workable therapies and many principled scientists, doctors and healthcare workers, shut down the world economy, locked people into their homes, ruined businesses & lives, imposed bizarre new social mores such as distancing and mask wearing, and issued a parade of contradictory, dictatorial orders. I have people in my neighborhood who don’t want to hear any of this “anti-vax nonsense.” They are putting signs in the front yards saying “Respect Science,” or “Science is Real”; I’d rather they wake up, but with their politics and signs being a kind of consent—even if not “informed”—they are welcome to my share.”
— Darzoum —
One word- Orwellian. Or 3 – inversion of rationality.
If the virus was manufactured, then they had likely been working on a vaccine at the same time..
The willingness of the masses to queue up for the vaccine will buy critical time for those of us who wish to avoid it. I would expect voluntary uptake in the USA to be around 90%, perhaps nearer 75% in the UK (I don’t trust the various polls recently published which suggest lower figures).
Those in your neighbourhood with their delinquent yard signs are going to find out just how real bad science is. It will cost them their health and their freedom, and in some cases their life.
RNA vaccines as are being trialled for Covid do not play with or rewrite your DNA or in any way. They do use enzymes in the cytosol to make antigens. But so do viruses. It isn’t scientific hubris but good science and medical technology that will save lives.
Nobody should take it before it has been tested properly, against their will, or without having both the risks of the vaccine and the risks of the actual disease explained to them properly. Neither should be distorted or exaggerated.
That’s re-assuring
… signs in the front yards saying “Respect Science,” or “Science is Real”
WTF?!
“Science is Real” has to be one of the worst examples of doublespeak around at the moment. You want to reply “then why the !$%& aren’t you paying attention to it?”
“It has absolutely brought the flu in check”
Or maybe there are a lot of flu deaths that have gone down as covid deaths.
Australia really is terrifying. I am not saying that there ever would be an armed insurrection in the US if that sort of thing was attempted here – the past several months make me think that we’re far too cowardly. But I will point out that this is the whole reason for the right to bear arms. It is less likely that a government would attempt to subjugate an armed populace in this manner – so for all those who love to point out the great “success story” of Australia’s gun-ban, we now have a case-in-point for why that is so wrong.
As an American, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an armed insurrection. In fact, I’m surprised there hasn’t been one yet. And I’m pro-gun control. But there are limits to anything.
Limits to gun control would be a good start.
We’ll have to work on you w/ the gun control thing, then.
Perhaps you need someone to take you shooting?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8639223/Coronavirus-deaths-fall-low-Flu-pneumonia-killing-six-times-people.html
Six times as many flu deaths now!
Obviously cloth masks are impermeable to covids, but flu can go straight through.
The comments are clearly changing dramatically too.
The penny seems to have finally dropped for the masses.
Noticed that too lady.
Long may it last.
Yep. Reading some of the comments on the Mail article was almost like reading the comments on here (well, obviously not as articulate!). A few “second wave, batten down, we’re all gonna die” comments, but big majority for ending all this nonsense. A little glimmer of hope.
Yes, it’s really much more fun adding to the dog pile of comments when a Believer chimes in with some words like “selfish” or “it’s just for a little while.” The overwhelmingly majority of commenters are angry about the restrictions.
I listened to a tiny bit of BBC radio 4 last night. I noticed a total lack of covid bollocks. Perhaps they are unwinding the fear valve a little bit….Perhaps those comments are not being censored so much or perhaps 77th have been re-tasked….
Every day millions of persons are carrying Pneumococci, Streptococci and Meningococci bacteria in their mouths and every day there are millions of encounters where these bacteria are transmitted to new persons. Rarely they can result in deadly disease for hundred thousand of persons around the world.Think if we wanted to stop this horrible chain of infections by proactively screening on mass?Meningococci. There are always deaths in Universities occasionally, and why not institute a regular screening of university students every week with a swab? We could then isolate and treat them with medicines before allowed back?Pneumococci. Some serotypes can give very severe disease also in elderly. Why not on a weekly basis start taking swabs form each child in day care and school and isolate those with potential serious serotypes?Anybody seriously wanting to introduce such schemes would be called a lunatic.But not with C-19. Blair, Hunt, Hagues C-19 testing scheme which seems to be the direction of the government.
True about the meningococci; within several days of starting 6th form way back in 1987, my sister’s best friend got meningitis and sadly died. As a precaution the whole class (maybe even year group?) was then tested, but no one else fell ill. Should they have all been tested *before* term started, in case anyone was carrying bacteria? No, it would have been disproportionate. These things happen and the fact that no one else was found to be infected means that the girl likely did not pick up the infection at school. Interesting too that she had infected no one else at the school, despite being in close proximity to so many others for several days before she fell ill.
which is no doubt why teens are routinely vaccinated against common meningitis strains in UK before uni:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/men-acwy-vaccine/
Everyone who ever lived has at some point been part of a transmission chain that eventually ended in someone’s death. This can no more be stopped than the sun can be ordered to rise in the West.
They’ll be trying that soon.
Because it’s nothing to do with a virus!
Don’t give them ideas
All they have to do is transpose the points of the compass overnight and the next day the masses will be believing that East is actually West.
I think a transition has occurred.
On the day that masks became compulsory it was a novelty. The person who didn’t wear a mask was just doing what everyone else had been doing a few days before. He was a harmless eccentric not making any difference to anything.
But a few weeks later, the conformers have forgotten that they were going maskless until a few weeks ago. The person without the mask is now a dangerous criminal: keeping the virus alive; stopping everything from getting back to normal. By not wearing a mask, they are causing everyone else to have keep wearing the mask, stopping the schools from opening, causing people to lose their jobs, killing grannies. I think things are going to get tougher for non-mask wearers.
On the Anna Brees channel she recently featured a couple of very impressive people who both said they’d “rather take a bullet” than wear a mask. I suspect they are pretty soon going to be unable to leave their houses without being attacked (or “shamed” as the Met commissioner would put it) and within months (I don’t think I’m exaggerating) find themselves in prison, or some sort of special camp where unclean people are forced to live.
But at least in the camp will be like the islands in Brave New World
Thanks Barney, not.
Grow a backbone, that sort of defeatist attitude didn’t win any wars man.
Stand by me and say loudly, “Fuck ’em”
Sorry, I’m feeling a bit glass half empty today.
Fill the empty bit with alcohol so it’s now at least half-full then work out who you can annoy – works wonders for me, stops me getting too bored a then I get into real trouble.
Chin up son, it will get better!
I hope it’s temporary!!
There’s also a bunch of people who just hate you because they think you’re getting away with something they can’t (or think they can’t).
I don’t give a fuck what any mask wearers think of me. I think far worse of them. In my experience thusfar simply carrying yourself with this attitude when out and about repels potential conflicts. These people are already signalling that they are weak and submissive. Don’t give them an inch. I love it when the weakest specimens do the Covid shuffle on the pavement and I walk straight past them without even acknowledging their existence, exhaling my tobacco smoke forcefully in their direction as I reach the point of maximum proximity.
Well said, Richard. No giving in!
Nil illegitimi carborundum!
Totally agree. Apart from the tobacco smoke (yuck – I’m an ex-smoker!). But I’ll fight for your right to exhale on people if you want to.
Trust me, I am ordinarily the most considerate of smokers. I am acutely aware of how acrid and pungent tobacco smoke is and repeatedly go out of my way to smoke as far away from anyone else as I can.
In the bizarre social warfare conditions we now find ourselves in however, I reserve the right to temporarily suspend these concerns in order to deploy my habit as an offensive weapon against selected individuals.
Well, maybe, but I see absolutely no change in how I have been treated and dealt with by anyone.
I find this chilling:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/letter-tyranny-of-the-minority/ar-BB185EBi
Palm Springs. Wealthy older people.
I’m riding the bus every day with my exemption card on a lanyard around my neck. At first it seemed like people were taking notice of it. Now they just sit there with their heads down. I think some mask wearers feel defeated and depressed.
I bought petrol today without a mask. Nobody even stared at me. Heavily tattooed man in a mask coming in as I was going out held the door for me. I said ‘thank you’ politely. All just like normal. I would suggest having the courage to just go about as usual. Calmly tell anyone who challenges that you’re exempt. In my neck of the woods (south east England) I think we’re on the brink of returning to normal. We’re looking for a new house. Agents no longer wear any PPE and we stand and chat at normal distance. I think we’re living in two realities: the government making laws, and the main stream media exaggerating everything, and the real world where police and authorities and even supermarkets now are not really enforcing it and most people, whether wearing masks or not, are not really bothered either way. There’ll always be fanatics but they’re the kind of people who jump on any bandwagon and can probably be dealt with easily. I think if we all begin to push back in our daily lives we can speed up this trend back to normality.
Good for you. That’s what I find where I am, also South-east. No mask – not bothered in over three weeks by anyone in shops, staff or customers.
Yep, sage advise indeed, and that’s what I do my best to do. I try and act as though no one’s wearing a mask, just to connect with people. So far, I’ve had a pretty good success rate – it’s almost as though I surprise them into remembering that they’re human again.
I almost… almost… had my first zero-mask supermarket experience today (in Wales) – spoiled by two be-masked gits. Both were men in their twenties – one had a mask that made him look like Hannibal Lector – his girlfriend was maskless (does he not care that she’s killing us!). But anyway, only 4% mask wearers today, so I count that as a small victory.
And yes, I’d rather take a bullet than wear a mask too.
Sad thing is, my 20-year old stepson has an exemption card (for when he goes shopping in England – we’re right on the border), but when push comes to shove he doesn’t use it as he feels not wearing a mask attracts unwelcome attention from other shoppers and staff. He says it’s easier to wear a mask.
My 18 year old daughter is the same – too much hassle not to wear a mask.
They’ve both said they dislike wearing masks, but will get used to it.
Whoever had the idea to use social disapproval to police this needs to be taken out and shot – the amount of harm it’s doing to people’s confidence, especially young people, is criminal.
That was Cressida Dick, who lest we forget was in charge of the operation in which an innocent man was shot.
I can only disagree, Barney. I’ve only noticed a sight increase of non-mask wearers, and no additional grief at all.
https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1270925788389486593
This is really quite weird and disturbing. Not sure if it has been posted/discussed here before.
It looks like China employed a legion of social-media bots around February/March to stir up panic and, especially, agitate for lockdown/harsher measures – “China are having to do all this, why are we just asked to wash our hands?”
I was concerned, back then, how so many people were willing to support China’s extreme authoritarian measures in the name of safety. It didn’t occur to me that some of those people could have been bots! See the collage of screenshots with tweets from many nations all commenting on handwashing.
What is clear is that some people wanted fear and lockdown among Western nations. Didn’t have to be China.
Agreed. I quote from the NYT article:
‘It is far from clear that the Chinese government is behind the swarms of accounts helping to spread its gospel on Twitter.’
Those people have been primed for this moment for the past twenty years. It’s another form of grooming. They are truly pathetic examples of the human race. And their avidity to embrace these measures is an obstruction to those of us who have higher ideals for human civilization. They are mediocre. My aunt and uncle referred to them as point ones.
Woah! Talk about going down the rabbit hole:
“Sweden—partly due to its own COVID-19 response—has been a prime target of a Chinese campaign portraying Western democracies as weak against the threat. Sweden is one of few countries that ordered no lockdown and put its faith in herd immunity.”
In CCP interview, Editor-in-Chief of Lancet praises CCP’s lockdowns:
“17/ In CCP interview, Editor-in-Chief of Lancet praises CCP’s lockdowns:
not only the right thing to do, but it also showed other countries how they should respond in the face of such an acute threat. So, I think we have a great deal to thank China for”
18/ @WHO was instrumental in pushing world leaders to adopt China’s lockdowns and insisting lockdowns not be lifted until strict tracing criteria were met.
Bruce Aylward is the same WHO leader who disconnected a live interview when asked about Taiwan.
19/ South Dakota Governor @govkristinoem famously refused to issue a state lockdown.
Her decision didn’t sit well with Beijing. CCP’s army of fake accounts began filling her Twitter feed with abuse to punish her disobedience and pressure her to shut down her state.”
Here’s the best one, which totally explosive what’s happening in Victoria, Australia:
“20/ By contrast, the accounts heap praise on governors who tighten lockdowns, like Dan Andrews, gov of Victoria, AUS.
Andrews’ long-time staffer attended a high-level CCP academy. An MP leading Andrews’ Belt & Road negotiations with Beijing lauded China’s handling of COVID.”
The Victorian PM is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party. He’s imposed a Communist-style lockdown, and the sheep of his state are going along with it.
Vote for a Communist sympathiser, end up like North Korea.
“21/ @BorisJohnson
initially opted for herd immunity. But on Mar 13, four days after Italy’s lockdown, CCP began storming his feed, likening his plan to genocide. These words almost never appear in his feed before Mar 12.
Tragically, the abuse worked, and UK locked down Mar 23.”
Politicians around the world have believed Twitter reflects public opinion, and never realised that a) it reflected the views of the CCP and b) Twitter doesn’t reflect general public opinion or real life.
I wish we were back in a world where a tweet was still only the sound a sparrow makes.
I wish! I wish!
Twitter is a cesspit.
Don’t forget ‘Rockin’ Robin’ by Bobby Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LklFP1IG9KY
Who here actually uses twitter? I barely know anyone in real life who uses it.
I find it impossible to follow. I follow my children’s school and that’s it. I have never tweeted.
Just find something pertinent and copy/paste it to Twitter. On second thought, they might come after your daughter.
Yer bots for sure have been doing their thing. I would think that the are bots EVERYWHERE 77th bots, twitter bots, facebook bots, governments bots, dischord bots, steam bots, world of warcraft bots…actually they were amazing…. pumping out crap 24/7 Couple a bot with AI and it will be very hard to tell if its a bot or a real person. I bet people are having relationships with bots and don’t even know it.
Getting confused about vaccines and inoculations as they seem to be making it up as they go along.
I’m finally getting my mojo back in bits and pieces and been asked to put bids in for going back to work and building up my company/career again.
Part of the bid is to confirm that I’ve all my travel jabs required for going to the wilds of interior Africa so contacted the GPs travel clinic.
After getting jabs galore over the years every 3-10 years I’m now told that I’ve had that many boosters whoever is in charge of deciding what has to be given when has now decided 2 of the jabs I get are now lifetime coverage as opposed to 3 or 10 years, 2 more are not required as I’m fit and healthy and 2 more may or may not be changing from 3 years to lifetime coverage as I’ve had that many boosters it looks like I’m now “immune” forever and forever but the nurse will confirm.
If they cannot agree this for jabs that have been around for 50 years than what chance do we have of getting anythings sensible about a vaccine or jab that they haven’t even tested yet?
I think a common name should be being used by everyone when asked for contact details. I suggest everyone when asked what their name is, a man should say Willie Nelson and a woman should say Barbra Woodhouse. Most of the young whippersnappers won’t know and older people will laugh nervously when you insist that’s your name.
I always sign in as Mutt Wankock.
However, if a verbal response is required, I rather like your Barbara Woodhouse idea …..
Or Spartacus?
Fetida Dickhead.
Spartacus is a good idea.
I.M. Spartacus.
Indeed!!!
Stealing this one. Hope you don’t mind.
With a bit of luck my wife can be there as well and I can write “so is my wife”.
(Yes, I know I’m mixing films up)
Brilliant. Two I.M. Spartacus in one household!
I put Boris Johnson down a dozen times and nobody batted an eye.
hit him harder and he won’t get back up
Eric or Erica Blair
Miranda (allegedly)
Mary Whitehouse (yes, that dates me!)
I like the Mary Whitehouse idea, she was the original Karen
My OH is George Osborne
Not had to sign yet, and will probably never have to as I’d rather avoid places that mandate this, but my moniker when required will be Bela Lugosi.
Found this among the DT comments.
Suggest watching at increased speed and use the subtitles function as the sound isn’t too clear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn0V5uItsVc&app=desktop
“640 doctors: CV19 is a global scam”
Wow, good find. We need more medical professionals willing to stand up and tell the truth.
PETITION: Prevent any restrictions on those who refuse a Covid-19 vaccination
Important petition that you might want to sign to protect your rights regarding the new vaccine.
At the time of writing this message to you the petition has over 79,000 signatures and needs to get to over 100,000 to be considered for debate in Parliament.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/323442
“The good news is you do have a choice about whether you have the vaccine or not, nobody can make you take it.
The not so good news is if you choose not to have the vaccine then your movements such as travel, concerts, sports events etc. can be restricted.
The purpose of the petition is to remove these restrictions. Just to be clear there were changes to the Control of Disease Act 1984 that came into force on 27th April 2020.
You cannot be forced to have a vaccination, but the act does give the government powers for you to have to undergo screening and testing and if you are found to be infected then to be quarantined and enable contact tracing. Which is all reasonable enough.
The Act makes explicitly clear that the power to make such regulations does not include mandatory treatment or vaccination.
45E Medical treatment
It is clear that mandatory medical treatment and vaccination are explicitly prohibited by the Act.
With a vaccine, scientists need to know whether the vaccine can prevent you from catching the virus or lessen the symptoms if you do get it.
At the moment, it is thought that the COVID-19 vaccine will only offer partial protection reducing the severity of the infection rather than preventing it completely.
Even if you have had the infection and show a positive antibody reaction, immunity to re-infection is unknown. In some cases, it has been shown that the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies in your blood can decline within months of the infection.
The vaccine being tested now requires two doses to trigger a measurable immune response.
The next phase is to test it on over 10,000 UK volunteers and around the world, but this could take up to a year to complete. Instead, it has been suggested that a ‘human challenge test’ be implemented where a group of healthy young volunteers are given the vaccination and then exposed to the virus.
There are ethical questions around this as no one knows the long-term effects of the virus as there has been some organ damage from it.
Also, if only young volunteers are used then it does not give information about the effectiveness of the vaccine for older people who are the most vulnerable if they get the virus.
A person’s immune system reduces with age and does not respond so well to vaccinations and that would mean that no one would know what protection it would give to an older person.
With so much uncertainty around the vaccination at the moment then it would be wise to be cautious and consider carefully whether to have it at this early stage in its development or to wait until at least more thorough clinical trials have proved its safety and effectiveness.
This petition then is not about whether or not you want to have the coronavirus vaccine – that’s your legal right – but whether if you choose not to have it, you shouldn’t feel coerced into having it because you would be restricted in where you can go and what you could do e.g. travel, concerts, sports events etc.”
Yes, a very important petition, both in general principle and in specific practice. I was an early signer so, sadly, I cannot sign again!
Thank you
Thank you Victoria, signed!
Signed.
A good number of signatures
Signed, over 80,000 now. Heading for parliament – if that’s worth anything now it’s full of poodles.
Annie, that’s far too polite!
My apologies to poodles everywhere.
Mongrels.
Thanks and signed too.
Signed
Thank you, I have signed
I am pretty sure that in the human rights act and Geneva convention and some other big bits of law say that you cannot be prevented to have access to things essential to life and being part of society on the basis of your vaccination status or whether you MIGHT be carrying a disease. I have read stuff that says something like this. I can’t remember what the acts were and how it was worded.
Have signed it.
Signed. Though I’m now bitterly resigned to the fact that these things are pointless.
https://twitter.com/Covid19Crusher/status/1295703316845006848/photo/1
Second wave EU, where are the deaths?
Quercetin, Inflammation and Immunity 2016
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808895/
Department of oddities
Quotes“A lot of physician friends are getting around the HCQ issue by prescribing Zn with Z pack and Quercetin”“HCQ and Quercetin are both zinc ionophores (they help zinc get inside cells, zinc alone doesn’t work). Quercetin no prescription needed.”
Quotes from article“They are found in a variety of foods including apples, berries, Brassica vegetables, capers, grapes, onions, shallots, tea, and tomatoes, as well as many seeds, nuts, flowers, barks, and leaves. Quercetin is also found in medicinal botanicals, including Ginkgo biloba, Hypericum perforatum, and Sambucus canadensis”“In Japan,quercetin was mainly ingested from onions and green tea, both in summer and in winter. Vegetables, such as asparagus, green pepper, tomatoes, and red leaf lettuce, were good sources of quercetin in summer. In Australia, black and green teas were the dominant sources of quercetin. Other sources included onion, broccoli, apple, grape, and beans . In Spain, the average daily intake of quercetin is 18.48 mg/day, which is significantly higher than that in the United States (9.75 mg/day), based on sources like tea, citrus fruits and juice, beers and ales, wines, melon, apples, onions, berries and bananas”“In a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial, 1002 subjects took 500 or 1000 mg/day quercetin or a placebo for 12 weeks. For the group as a whole, quercetin supplementation had no significant influence on rates of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) compared to placebo. In a subgroup of subjects age 40 or older who self-rated themselves as physically fit, 1000 mg/day quercetin resulted in a statistically significant reduction in total sick days and symptom severity associated with URTI.”“The literature is supportive of the anti-pathogenic capacities of quercetin when it is cultured with target cells and a broad spectrum of pathogens including URTI-related rhinoviruses, adenoviruses and coronaviruses.”
But take it with a pinch of salt. Spain had a pretty bad C-19 outbreak despite high intake. But in Tenerife papayas(papaw) are sold as cure against corona. They probably have quercetin. Or perhaps corona in a low dose considering the Tanzanian president had them tested pos with the WHO PCR tests.
Tea and grapes (suitably fermented) sounds like a winner.
By happy coincidence those, plus a zinc supplement, have turned out to be my accidental but highly effective prophylactic.
That Alan Jones Sky clip is brilliant!
On every issue much of the mainstream media has failed to ask fundamental questions, such as whether our public policy responses are proportional or effective.
So angry today (so what else is new?). Daughter #1 is in her last year of teacher’s college and is supposed to be in the classroom 2 days per week. She’s heard nothing official about whether her practicum will be in person or online, but unofficially she heard that to opt out of the in-person practicum a doctor’s note would be required. I do not think this is legal, but will have to check. While she is not afraid of the virus, she’s terrified of being quarantined if a child in her class tests positive. She just moved into her own place yesterday and the idea of being alone for 2 weeks and under house arrest is giving her huge amounts of anxiety. I’m rarely in the city now so hubby would have to come back and forth to take care of both our needs or I’d have to stay in the city and be miserable. And what if this happens multiple times during the school year? She is not being paid, so she sees no upside to masking up and going into the classroom. Daughter #2 is leaving on Friday and returning to her university town. We had to pay local people to set up the apartment for us as our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee to freely move between provinces has been suspended. Lovely people who have done a great job, but we will have to continue to pay them while our daughter is under house arrest for 2 weeks so she doesn’t starve to death. This bloody insanity is getting to me even more than usual today!
Can only sympathise.
Your revenge will come. Never doubt it. Meanwhile, be strong, and remember we are with you.
xxxxxxAnnie
Thank you! Will stay strong for my kids (even when they don’t always appreciate it!).
‘Huge amounts of anxiety’ doesn’t sound a good fit with a teaching career to me, Lisa.
Re Melbourne especially, where are the voices of the Human Rights organisations like Amnesty International? Maybe not quite within their area of work, but …come on!
They don’t do injustice on this scale. Only little, politically correct fusses.
T&T:
So if you have a positive test result, you get called asking for a handover of the personal information of anyone you have been in contact with? Then some beurocrat rings up your friends informing them they must isolate.
It feels wrong to me to volunteer a friend’s personal details to some government organisation. I think it is wrong to hand over contact someone’s details to someone they don’t know without their permission.
However I was ill with an infectious disease, I would tell friends I had seen directly out of courtesy.
Is there any legal basis to any of this?
If this was Ebola I could see the point. But this is a mild illness and it’s gone so all this is complete BS. Don’t cost your friends two weeks of their lives and possibly two weeks pay.
I would never have a test, the point is moot.
I thought the government’s original scheme was found to breach GDPR rules, hence why they are trying to get people to volunteer for testing (to the extent of now bribing them with payments for being tested). Also why they are trying to ‘harvest’ people’s details via pubs etc?
I don’t think pubs, restaurants, even museums and heritage sites are aware that T&T breach GDPR and should never have been introduced. That said many of them are doing the bare minimum and leave the customer to volunteer to give their details or not.
The sight of serried ranks of britons, shoulders slumped, shuffling about like a pack of whipped curs in absurd, futile, face coverings is profoundly dispiriting. It must be the view they see of themselves in the mirror that has recently increased the figures for depression.
This whole debacle has been political for some time, no respite until the U.S. Presidential election is over. The partisan and now unwatchable sky news makes this abundantly clear every day. ‘The covid’ is very much over, but so, now, are our country’s prospects of at least near term prosperity
This country is trapped, powerless, between an European imperial project that sees Trump’s America as a threat to their ambitions and a scorched earth Democratic Party Presidential campaign hellbent on torching the U.S. economy if that is what it takes to defeat President Trump. And Chinese imperial power projection burgeons swiftly now.
There is a way forward for this country and it is here:
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/rebooting-britain-2019
But, realistically, is that ever going to happen in a country whose mission statement is ‘Save our NHS’, the economy a necessary evil required only, on sufferance, to pay for healthcare; Britain: a self licking lollipop!
The union is gone, over, and with it will go the facilities required for the nuclear deterrent. Once the nuclear deterrent has gone, a seat at the security council table appears pointless, risible. We have two aircraft carriers to provide air cover for what? At best, we can put a weak brigade in the field for a very limited period of time. Our sabre rattling these days is reduced to announcements that we are sending 30 more troops to Estonia.
As a consequence of this weakness, we have appeased Russia over its expansionism in Georgia and the Crimea, we have appeased China regarding Hong Kong, Syria, dangerously, regarding breaches of the chemical weapons convention and, most recently, Iran regarding an extension of the U.N. arms embargo, despite, or because, Iran holds British hostages.
And the worst of it is that the population of this country thinks that all of that is a really good idea, forgetting the destination at which we arrived several times in the last century as a direct consequence of such short sighted weakness, lack of national resolve.
This recent silliness now forces us to confront our predicament.
Our lack of appetite for any major role on the world stage is readily apparent as is our inability to perform such a role in any case.
Far reaching constitutional reform at home is immediately required, at the very least to resolve the festering West Lothian question.
If this government is to have any chance of restoring its shattered reputation, it must set out, forthwith, a far reaching plan for national renewal, the vision thing.
‘Save Our NHS’ is an empty slogan without the vibrant economy and buoyant tax take required to give the citizens of this country not just the healthcare but the way of life of a developed nation, a winning ticket in the lottery of life.
And the status of developed nation may very well now be what is at stake in this country.
Developed nation? Nation of human beings would be a start.
Great analysis. Don’t worry, masks will be made mandatory everywhere soon and this will fix all our problems.
Mad free trade and globalisation has destroyed the fabric of this nation.It is only advantageous if you have anything to trade and you can provide it cheaper and more efficiently than someone else.Qualities that we have been lacking for over a hundred years.
As for appeasing larger nations it’s exactly the right thing to do if it doesn’t impact our interests,please explain why we even have troops in Estonia.How does it serve British interests to provoke Russia,a country who we have very little trade with or conflicting interests.
The reason that we have troops in Estonia is because of our appeasement of Russia regarding Crimea. We signed the Budapest memorandum guaranteeing Ukrainian territorial integrity in 1994. Estonian territorial integrity may very well be the next to suffer. Why does that matter? Why is Gibraltar still British? Why did we recapture the Falklands? Why did we liberate Kuwait?
‘If you tolerate this, then your children will be next….’
Nick Jones, James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore
Appeasement always costs more in blood and treasure in the long run.
By the way, Ukraine is, so far, the only nation in Europe to have given up nuclear weapons……..
The economy of this country was built on free trade, globalisation. London’s position as one of the world’s three most important financial centres derives from globalisation. We have plenty to trade but not all of it is, or has to be, tangible.
All major developed countries have seen their manufacturing base decline over the same period…..which has enhanced the prosperity of developing nations whilst developed countries have become ever more prosperous as well…..the economic law of comparative advantage applies.
Anyone who is against poverty should be pro free trade:
https://www.piie.com/publications/chapters_preview/379/5iie3659.pdf
The economy of this country was also built on free enterprise.
Anyone who is against poverty should also be pro free enterprise:
https://mises.org/library/data-clear-free-markets-reduce-poverty
Anyone who wants to ‘Save Our NHS’……and so on and so forth….
But you will have many who agree with you…though, at the moment, their brains could be slightly starved of oxygen……
You have swallowed the American line over Russia wholesale.The presence of our troops in Estonia is pointless,similar to the polish guarantee in 1939.We have no interests in Eastern Europe and no business interfering there.Have you forgotten that Russia is a nuclear power.
As for free trade we did have an advantage in the Victorian age but that was because we were the first to industrialise.When the USA and Germany caught up they did so by protecting their own industry.The problems with the world now are due to America trading freely with a mercantilist China.Their industrial base is hollowed out and as a result they are losing their hegemonic position
John Major signed the Budapest Memorandum. He is not an American.
What about the presence of our troops in The Falklands, Gibraltar, Kuwait, Mali, Sierra Leone, Kenya……..?
Have you forgotten that Britain is a nuclear power?
Why do you think the U.S.A. and the whole of the developed world have traded freely with China, Mercedes factories built in China……comparative advantage…everyone prospers.
Protectionism is the enemy of prosperity for all, leads to trade wars, cold wars then hot wars and poverty for all…….classic example: USSR: cold war: invades Afghanistan: collapse: increased poverty: food aid required……
https://apnews.com/591d4a292dfb57efc114680a40c80618
But you don’t read these links. Your mind is closed.
you’re right we should be taking the advice of Misses and Rothbard. Though i would say that Britain lost the war since the “americans” landed in Europe to “help us win the war” but in reality they took over our nation and now we and Europe are locked into a system as far removed from Austrian Economics as you could wish for. Same goes for America because the America that invaded us and left it’s standing army here for 70 years is not the America of free enterprise it once was. It too was taken over back in the 20’s when they decided to take the wealth and business from the men who made them and make them the business of government. We’ve been living with the fallout of this for 100 years.
“Is only advantageous if you have anything to trade and you can provide it cheaper and more efficiently than someone else.Qualities that we have been lacking for over a hundred years.”
Not true. We may not make very much anymore, but a lot of what we do make has added value because of its quality and has been successful. More importantly (to the economy) we have exported services like nobody’s business. Chiefly financial and legal, but not only.
Anything to trade would include services but they are not enough.
We actually have our first balance of payments surplus in years due to Covid but before that I think you have to go back to the Major years .
We have allowed foreign firms to buy so much of our infrastructure and manufacturing to make up for this.
The point I was trying to make was that free trade on its own will not be beneficial to this nation if it’s all one way.
Well, that last point I agree with. You have to admit that your post I replied to was a little pessimistic.
There are things we excel at and things we are never going to be able to compete at. Assuming we’re not all living in caves next year, we’re going to have to learn to maximise the former.
Excuse my pessimism.21 weeks without work will do that to a man.
When you look at the things we excel at,Drugs,Oil Aero engines and the City they all have had some sort of protection or inbuilt advantage.
My original post was in reply to someone extolling the merits of free trade.Even in the Victorian era it worked to our disadvantage as our main competitors protected their industries behind tariffs.
Be careful what you wish for:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/06/30/protectionism-100-years-ago-helped-ignite-a-world-war-could-it-happen-again/
If i can buy what i want cheaply and it suits me from any nation on earth how will it not help me? You or the government or anyone getting in the way of the deal i want to make isn’t helping.
Not so much the article itself, linked by Toby, but the cynicism of the author caught my attention. (Many of the comments were corkers too!)
Let’s hope this is a sign of things to come in the MSM.
Has the world gone mad? 10 bizarre Covid rules (all in the name of science).
1. …. Last week the Canary islands, as well as the region of Galicia, effectively banned smoking in public places over concerns it increases the risk of Covid-19 transmission. …. Why? The President of the Canary Islands, Angel Victor Torres, said a ban was needed because “infected smokers could blow droplets carrying the virus when they exhale.” How he thinks non-smokers breathe was not explained. ….
2. The main worry about flying during a pandemic? It’s not the close proximity of 200 other travellers, or the probability of Boris Johnson forcing you to unexpectedly quarantine when you get home, but the pillows. Of course. That’s why Brazil, whose president has been pretty relaxed about most things during the Covid crisis, has decided to wage war on these soft and fluffy Vectors of Disease. ….
3. Witnessing the UK’s shambolic travel policy makes one wonder whether they even want any tourists to visit this year. Keep your money, you big spending globetrotters, our economy is doing fine! But even more bizarre was Cambodia’s recent attempt to start luring visitors back. It hasn’t officially lowered the drawbridge just yet, but when it does not only will you need to provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 test, but you’ll also have to hand over a $3,000 deposit to cover the cost of various coronavirus “services”. ….
4. (Kosovo) …… In those municipalities, individuals over 65 years of age, or with chronic illnesses, are only permitted to leave their place of residence between the hours of 5am to 10am and 6pm to 9pm.”
Over 65s can’t be trusted to pop to the shops during normal business hours, apparently. Because Covid only comes out in the daytime.
5. So absurd is New York’s embrace of the face mask that the city’s Health Department recently encouraged residents to wear them while having sex. “Make it a little kinky,” the guidelines said. “Be creative with sexual positions and physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face-to-face contact.” Shagging through a wall. You couldn’t make it up.
Apparently impressed with the idea, health officials in Canada have since issued their own, even more explicit, tips: “Use barriers, like walls (e.g. glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.”….
6. FCO advice for Ukraine states: “When in public places, including when travelling on public transport and in taxis, you must maintain a minimum distance of 1.5m, wear protective masks and gloves.” Yes, that’s social distancing, masks AND gloves in a country of 42 million that has seen just 2,089 Covid-related deaths. …. So surely we won’t be asked to wear them in Britain? Don’t count on it. Remember when the World Health Organisation (WHO) told us masks were a bad idea?
7. Spain: king of the mask rules
Ah yes, masks. It’s easy to forget that just a few months ago the WHO said there was little or no benefit to wearing masks outside of a clinical setting. A bit of lobbying from European governments and suddenly it changed its tune. Now, it seems that only a selfish granny killer would dream of walking around in public without covering their face. That’s science for you.
…. So has the mask wearing done Spain any good? It appears not. Its infection rate is among the highest in Europe
8. (South Africa) Shops were told they could only sell shoes if they are “closed toe,” while short-sleeved shirts were only allowed if they were promoted or displayed to be worn under jackets or jerseys. Quite how many cases of coronavirus have been traced back to a super-spreading big toe is not clear. But, you know, whatever it takes.
9. Australian MP Zali Steggall likened the rules to North Korea. She said: “It puts us on par with North Korea, in terms of, are we now a prison state, that unless you can justify yourself to the department, you cannot leave the country? Even in times of war, we don’t have that kind of restriction so it does seem a little extreme.”
10. New Zealand is permitting its residents to leave the country – so long as they pay to be quarantined on their return. The isolation stays cost NZ$3,100 ($2,050) for the first adult in each hotel room, $950 for each additional adult and $475 for each child sharing the room.
I’m amazed – amazed – that they haven’t included the state of Wisconsin for mandating masks on Zoom calls.
a blow job with a mask won’t be very good
Is this where the western world is heading?
https://youtu.be/1NHGQTDMTI4
They can all move to an island of their own for all I care. Just stay out of my life.
Is it me or does France sound every bit as dystopian as the UK, if not worse? All the accounts of the French being ‘relaxed’ and avoiding social distancing seem to be undermined by the fact that masks seem to be worn everywhere including outside and that you have to keep taking them off and on even in a restaurant. Is there any part of France that is not like this? Crap as things are in the UK we don’t actually have to wear them outside or in restaurants yet! The French sound just as brainwashed and compliant as the British. MW
They are. In many ways I would say it is probably worse. No such thing as lanyards! Masks in shops, masks in offices, masks in restaurants, masks on busy streets. Obligatoire. The campsite I stayed at recently was fairly relaxed, but every other wash hand basin was taped off and the owners were masked. Now the authorities are plugging the increase in the number of people under the age of 44 in hospital with covid. Since the beginning of the summer there have even been 55 young people in intensive care, out of a total of 506. The first point is, ICUs are hardly being overwhelmed either with the young or less young. The other point is: who are these young people? Have they been partying too hard, woken up feeling ill, panicked and rushed to hospital? Were some of them already in hospital for something else and tested positive for covid? I found an article about flu in France in 2018 – over 400 severe cases under the age of 60 and 31 deaths. No masks in the street. So yes, pretty dystopian in many ways.
Thanks for the clarification, Jane. Our daughter and family have gone to France, camping, today, and we hope they manage to enjoy themselves. We think they’re travelling around so I’m not sure which parts they’ll be visiting.
Those figures sound really dodgy and I feel sure your analysis is correct; almost anything will be spun as CV19 to justify the ‘measures’. I’ve heard that there are many more flu cases in the UK than CV19 now. MW
Are these young people maybe ill due to wearing masks???
I’d say and believe that the claims of any young people in intensive care are all fake. I don’t believe any of their lies. I don’t believe they test anyone, no one has it, there aren’t 40,000 dead of this and it’s all a mass delusion. You can feel it in your bones when you’re in real danger and this bullshit makes me feel nothing except the fakeness of it all.
i just heard on radio that france will be mandating masks in open plan offices etc…
I work for a large french company for my sins who are very hierarchical, policy orientated and full of jobsworth types. I just hope they don’t endorse that policy for uk office also as i for one will not be going in to sit at a desk wearing a mask!! I went in today and there were 3 people in which was nice and relaxed and quiet – nice to have a change of scenery from my house! Apparently from sept they will be encouraging people to return to the office as there are so few people going in average 3ish a day.
“a large french company for my sins who are very hierarchical, policy orientated and full of jobsworth type”
You could have just written “a large French company for my sins”. From experience, everything after that was tautological.
A father of five in Montpellier, where you have to wear a mask in the streets in the town centre, is taking the prefecture (Hérault) that passed the law to court. He says he lives on the social minimum and two masks a day every day for all these people in his family is far too expensive. It’s a first in France, apparently. As Toby Young would say, all power to his elbow.
The money being made from all those disposable muzzles must be mind-boggling. Nothing to do with the mandates, surely. All power to him, indeed! MW
Actually they are just as authoritarian.
Whatever your view on climate change, this has tremendous similarities in terms of the psychology and behaviour of the media, the activists and the politicians. You might almost think there was something in common.
a) Public funding of research and of activists b) misrepresentation and selective reporting c) twitbook mob behaviour d) politician advocates e) large corporates on board – too risky to do otherwise f) most politicians go along with it – too risky to do otherwise g) a disinclination to debate alternative hypothesis and an inclination to ostracise people who disagree h) celebrity endorsement i) manipulation of data to suit argument j) coercion to comply k) disregard for financial consequences l) free pass for China, Iran and other oppressive anti-Western regimes m) something close to a dislike for “the ordinary working man” and the ordinary way of life n) a claim for massive public funding through debt.
I am at n) and I am sure there are more. Whether or not the virus is a real danger to public health, the response seems to have the characteristics of guardian intolerance.
There is no similarity between climate change and COVID-19. Climate change Models have been developed over the last 30 years or so, refined and – most importantly – the observed changes are in good agreement with the models. There is also no similarity in the response of governments globally. Covid has been characterised by a panic-stricken knee jerk set of illogical and uncoordinated reactions which are of absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Governmental responses to climate change have been, by and large, apathetic and zero. Happily, corporate action is ahead of the game. It is now realised that there are no viable alternatives to the fact that it is humans who are causing global warming; there are plenty of alternatives to the notion that C19 is a global killer. The financial consequences of responding to climate change are wholly favourable, both from a preventative and an investment POV. As we have seen there are no positives attached to government response to C19.
i don’t see how you can begin to compare the two: they are completely different problems, one justified and the other manufactured.
Which of the n) similarities do you disagree with, specifically?
So far as a response to climate change is concerned, there has been no move towards mitigation through increased public debt. If anything, debt has increased through subsidies to declining coal, though not so much here as in the USA and China. As I said, governments have ignored climate change other than paying lip service. It is private industry that has driven down the cost of renewables so that they now outcompete coal and, increasingly, oil and gas. Which is as it should be.
The thing is, the topic can be something you agree with or something you disagree with. The modus operandi can be the same.
It can be, but it isn’t in this case. Governments have made no significant move towards mitigating anthropogenic climate change – and they’ve had 30 years notice with sound and increasing evidence. Compare with the complete and utter wreckage wrought in six months on no evidence for C19.
If you believe we can change the climate and the evidence just seems to be more dodgy computer modelling then Britain is quite insignificant.Less than 2% of global emissions and to make any difference we would have to have something like the economic damage the government has just caused,permanently.
I agree with your final sentence but not the first. That’s just sloppy and poorly thought out.
10 years to save the planet,what was that, 20 years ago.They even changed the name to climate change when the earth didn’t warm up like the models predicted.I can’t believe you can’t see the similarities between this situation and the climate scam.
CONTROL
No, that slogan was invented after the last COP meeting in 2018 or 19 iirc. If anything, the models under predicted the warming, especially in the Arctic.
What did Theresa May commit to???? And Johnson did not repeal????
Theresa May didn’t say “Carbon neutral by 2050” 20 years ago, did she?
and talking of Covid, have you noticed that given the world has been in economic shut down for 6 months (as the climate change fanatics want) there has been virtually no change in CO2 levels and in temperatures.
The government has hardly ignored climate change.Expensive windmills everywhere.Coal fired power stations blown up.Massive green taxes on fuel.Expensive tolls and parking on diesel vehicles.
They have just found/created a better scam to control the population.
Expensive windmills introduced and put in place by private enterprise. Not so expensive or they wouldn’t do it. Coal fired power stations shut down because they are now uneconomic. Ask sadiqKhan about tolls on diesel. Nothing todo with climate change and he’s not in government, thankfully.
Have you heard of subsidies? Do you understand the bidding process on onshore and offshore wind projects? Or are you Greta?
Yes, Yes, No.
Quite
Subsidised by the government.unviable without the subsidy,what happens when the wind doesn’t blow or is too strong.It has to be backed up by gas.As for coal power stations China and Germany 2 of the foremost industrial powers are busy building more.Seeing as I had to buy a German car again as we don’t make them anymore they must be doing something right.
And, by they way, environmentally destructive windmills. All of those sea-based wind farms turn out to have a far shorter life than anticipated, so have to have significant parts replaced. The manufacturing process is very carbon-heavy.
CF also all of those shiny new electric cars and their batteries.
What does this have to do with the reality of anthropogenic global warming?
The “reality of anthropogenic global warming”? What reality? The earth has been under a long period of increased insolation the warming that might have been measured is a result of this, we are in fact heading for a colder period now. It’s called the Milankovitch cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Solar heat is absorbed by the oceans and the lag time is huge, hundreds of years before we can measure it. Its a bit like heating up a huge water tank with a candle.
Can’t you see the contradiction? There is no evidence for increased insolation. The solar constant is just that :1780 watts/sq m, iirc. And if it is supposed to be growing colder, why is it warming up?
are all lockdownsceptics climate change deniers?
Like I say the lag in the heating of the oceans is enormous on the scale of things. It takes a lot of sun to warm it up. This warming will cause currents in the ocean to move a little so changing the climate.
Nope. Heating the ocean surface lags by a year. In any case, you destroy your own point. One reason Arctic ice is reducing is because the Arctic Ocean must cool down to freezing at summers ending. It takes longer because more heat is input, so the a,punt of time available to grow winter ice is reduced.
.
Better than any of Phoneutria’s comments
No, are you?
We look at evidence and can spot bullshit a mile off
I’m afraid climate change deniers don’t look at evidence. You cherry pick it.
I suggest that you go debate Piers Corbyn. He might clarify a few details for you.
Why talk to a communist idiot?
Your rants grow more illogical and I’ll thought out. Wind can be backed up by gas, or nuclear or solar or something else. So what?
So what? You need a reliable source to generate electricity.Remember the massive blackout last year a day after the government boasted about generating all our electricity by renewables.
I’m not ranting, global warming is the last of my worries at the moment but just think if the government and scientists can lie about Covid don’t you think they might tell the odd porkie when it comes to climate change.
Perhaps in six months, but not in 30 years. Too much evidence has accumulated.
i thought my period of “debating” with climate change deniers was over. It’s like talking to anti-evolution religious fundamentalists. A waste of time.
CYA, it’s been great.
I think it’s interesting, actually. 6 months ago I wouldn’t have questioned the narrative at all. But having seen in the last few months 1) the catastrophic errors made by ‘qualified’ people using computer models and 2) the way that the media can and does manipulate reality to suit an agenda, it has got me thinking. I’m by no means a convinced “denier”, but I am wondering just how much rubbish I’ve unquestioningly swallowed along the way.
I’ve always been sceptical about government ecological policy interventions though and any critical thinker should be too. A story absolutely littered with failure and unintended consequences and almost nothing else.
The clue is in the time period. Six months of dodgy data for C19 versus 30 years of sound data plus analysis for climate change. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
You are not recognising the point. A twitter mob may be right or it may be wrong. It is still a mob. In fact, it justifies itself that it may, sometimes be right. They burn witches and, who knows, maybe it was a witch. Can’t be too careful.
So you allow the mob to burn witches in case one is a witch?? Really following the evidence there, aren’t you?
Sound?
Lies and massaging data and controlling the MSM narrative just like Covid.
You can’t deny that the Covid narrative and the Great Reset are all to do with foisting HUGE F***ING changes on the whole world like a never ending lockdown.
Admit that’s what the powers that be want. Go on! Many actual individual governments have been wary and have tried to kick the can down the road but all this shit is happening now.
Maybe we are similar in that we are skeptical of what the government and bought and paid for scientists tell us.
This whole Covid scam has enlightened me to how they perpetrated the climate change one.
How genuine scientists are ignored and sidelined and tame,pet scientists are promoted and funded.
And by the way 30 years ago wasn’t the science settled and they all thought we were due a new ice age
No, that’s another Daily Mail myth. There was an analysis done by a climate scientist (and I remember it) along the lines of a what if. But it was rapidly overtaken by actual data which no proper science can ignore. That’s why, unfortunately, climate science demonstrates the reality of AGW and Governments interpretations of Covid science is so much piffle.
All through the 70’s there was a global cooling narrative. Don’t deny that!
Whether it was true or not is a different matter. No doubt they were trying to trick us with that too.
Narrative? You mean what Journos wrote? In reality, there was a release of excess SO2 from coal fired power stations which is highly reflective and caused some slight cooling.
Lol
Good. Go away.
Did you learn your superb debating skills from Wittgenstein?
I love you because like all global warming nutters your smugness stretches round the world like a fucking virus
Ah, the reasoned reply of the seasoned scientist. How eagerly we await your next valuable essay on the topic!
piss off faggot
Wow, how do you get through the day with that weighty intellect on your shoulders?
coal is only uneconomic because governments slap huge costs on them to “help the environment”. if we dug it out the ground and burned it it would be the cheapest fuel we’ve got.
Nope. The USA govt provides huge subsidies to coal, as does China. It costs money to dig deep and pull it out. Renewables are cheap and getting cheaper. Try reading some facts.
Ummm, how about the energy cost of digging out the rare metals that lithium batteries need? I would think that the amount of lithium needed in one EV battery would require more energy to make the battery than a car driver doing their usual 7-10000 miles a year in a small car would burn in 20 years….
Ummmm, give me an instance of any govt subsidising a mining company to extract rate earths (not “rare metals”). Mining companies do it because they make a profit. I have shares in some of them.
At the expense of the ordinary people in the country. Not very PC or socially responsible are you?
Where’s the expense to the ordinary people? The company employs them and they make a living. You’re not a Corbyn supporter, are you?
you don’t have shares, you have blue hair, are a flaming faggot who has fantasies that are the revolution. You read the guardian and believe every word.
Such insight. What a towering intellectual giant!
Renewables are NOT cheap. You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about!
Aren’t they? Try looking up some facts.
see people who say things like “try reading some facts” like you, well they think they’re being smart but in reality you’re a condescending prick. Coal is and always has been cheap as chips, most mines never had a penny from the government. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about and instead sit there imagining how fucking clever you are.
look at the facts yourself. No-one digs deep for coal.. Today it is all open cast. mines. Coal is extracted on a huge scale and is very cheap
no – they only do it because of the massive subsidies by way of extortionate strike prices whereby they are guaranteed to be paid for generating (and not generating) at prices way in excess of the market value. For them it is money for old rope. For us it is bigger bills. If it was really free market no one would build a windmill as the electricity produced would not be saleable. And as to coal, why are the chinese (and the Indians and others) building 100s of new coal power stations if they are uneconomic, And do you even understand the concept of baseload?
My guess is that these windmills will be similar to solar panels. The profit is made by installing them at huge expense but there won’t be quite so many takers when you need them maintained.
Wrong. Renewables only compete against other fuels because of massive subsidies which add £££s to everyone’s bills and are inherently unreliable and necessitate back up gas generation at additional cost.. Unless it is like california last week where they had power cuts because there wasnt enough back up when the sun went down and the wind stopped blowing
The source data for climate models is the temperature data, taken from ship buckets, inlets and Stevenson screens. All with an inherent precision of +/- 1 degree C. Precision as in reliability in the real world.
Certain assumptions about the data including that the uncertainties follow a Gaussian (A majot assumption). With this the data can then be averaged under the statistical model of the Standard Deviation of the Mean which has the Central Limit Theorem underpinning it.
Critical to this theorem is not just independent samples but identical distributions of each sample i.e. they are all Gaussian or they are all Lorentzian etc. However because of the original precision of the source data the error (and this is the real world error, the +/- 1 degree range, rather than an offset that is the technical term used in statistics), there is no hope in hell of ever finding the distribution that will match the variation put forward by the supposition of Man Made Global Warming. Which is variations of 0.1 or 0.2 degrees per decade.
But as you can still use this for hypothetical science on it goes.
Now the problem is when you take the results of models applied to this data and say look we get a good fit, thsi means something? Well even with the models they don’t get as good a fit as you think. They also average loads of runs which all have different parameterisations thinking that the average of these will somehow be realistic of anything. Bit like when you mix all the colours – you don’t get white you get brown.
But more fundamentally you made a massive assumption that is not sustainable in reality – you could not and cannot tell instrument from measurement to the precision your hypothesis requires.
This is th ethical line you do not cross. What do they do?
Recommend real world action – so yes this is precisely the same dangerous and criminal thinking that we see with Covid.
IF I were to measure the ppm levels of contaminants in your water and say my system was precise to +/- 100 ppm but I take loads of measurements and average them without really characterising and calibrating my process to the precision needed (say +/- 1 ppm) but I told you that it was all good and safe, would you drink that water?
If you do well I’d say good luck for the week. You might need to go to hospital.
There is a reason what science, academic science, does not produce anything useful in the real world. Because that’s not its job.
Have you actually done a course in statistics or is this a bad cut and paste reduced to gibberish? Not even wrong.
See g) above
It’s not surprising you don’t understand because you didn’t even pick up on the CLT. I’ll say it more simply:
You use the correct tools for the job. Temperature sensors were not designed to measure with precision to 0.01 degrees C (not many in the world can) which is what is needed for good signal to noise to test your hypothesis.
Also when applying said results to the real world they would need to be safely audited hence going through the underlying assumptions.
You can go read the papers on temperature anomaly reconstruction or the bucket adjustments of SST, it’s all there – assume a Gaussian with low precision data.
But then it’s not like my career is about validation and verification and the scientific method. Apparently I need to use statistics and I’m not even wrong.
As Rutherford would say:
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment”
We’ve gone beyond 0.01 degrees C. AGW has caused something like an increase of 1.1 degree above the 1800 level. The amount of precision you imagine required just isn’t necessary. The sheer volume of global measurements provide sufficient data points.
i Rutherford, if he said that, was talking about his own field of nuclear physics. You can’t do without stats in most observational sciences, including climate research.
I am very surprised to hear you say this. Consider listening to Bjorn Lomberg on the topic. He recently appeared on “the good fellows” podcast, which can be found at ricochet.com (same place that publishes london calling), and he has been interviewed by Russ Roberts on the always fantastic Econ Talk podcast.
Bjorn Lomberg is a well known climate change denier. Try reading the papers published by climate scientists. See http://www.realclimate.org.
Climate change denier, seriously, there is no difference between this and calling us all covid deniers. All part of the same psy-op
I don’t think any of us deny the reality of COVID-19. It’s the wholly inappropriate response which we object to.
Here we go. Proving the comparison correct while vehemently denying it. Doesn’t that sound familiar!
aha . the “denier” word.. A insult that gets used when anybody even tries to make a reasoned argument about AGW.
Anyway nobody actually denies climate change.. The climate is changing all the time. We are coming out of the Maunder minimum – ie. the little ice age that caused lower temperatures in the middle ages – remember when the Thames used to freeze over every winter. Prior to that the climate was warmer than now. Why do you think Greenland was called Greenland, Why are glaciers that are receding now revealing remains of trees that grew 1000 years ago. Because 1000 years ago they were smaller than now . This current warming started before the industrial revolution – so nothing to do with man
I don’t have a problem with reasoned argument… I’m just not seeing any.
the climate changes all the time, but within narrow bounds of around half a degree. This has now been exceeded in a very short space of time. We came out of the Maunder Minimum around 1830. The little ice age was from 1650-1830 or so. The medieval period saw some warming. All within a variation of a degree or so.
ive seen several glaciers in retreat but none of them have revealed tree stumps. Perhaps I’m looking at the wrong glaciers, or maybe you made it up.
Do you know the impact Sun spots and solar activity have on the climate and warming?
No,you don’t because no one does which is why the computer models are wrong.
That is why there are similarities with the Covid scam.If you enter incorrect or incomplete data you will get a wrong answer.
No one knows all the variables that create the climate.
Over the 22 year solar cycle, sunspot activity has hardly any effect. Over longer periods the melankovitch cycles are a powerful driver. There should now be a longterm (20k years) cooling trend as this interglacial period comes to an end. But it’s warming up thanks to extra CO2.
no – i leave making stuff up to the meteorological office.
https://frontierscientists.com/2013/09/forest-revealed-under-glacial-ice/
From the article you just referenced:
Understanding that glaciers have advanced and retreated historically is not a reason to set aside concern about anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change today. We have a history of ice ages, and small alterations in the Earth’s orbit do, over the span of tens or hundreds of thousands of years, slightly alter the energy balance by changing how much sunlight reaches different latitudes, but those are slow processes. The changes happening now are occurring at lightning speed compared to climate shifts of the past. Warming is escalating: Earth has warmed twice as fast in the last 50 years as in the 50 years prior.
try reading things first.
The Climate Change HOAX was brought to us by the same lying bastards that brought us The Corona Project. 0.041% of the Earth’s atmosphere is Carbon Dioxide. The proportion of that CO2 which is man made is even smaller. The idea that CO2 can have any effect on the heating of the earth is ludicrous. The idea that man can have any effect on the climate is bollocks. The climate models are just as broken as the COVID models. All total bollocks.
Quite right.
not even wrong. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, proved in the 1890s. Without it, Earth would be 15 degrees colder. Humans have added another 30% to the natural amount since 1880. Try reading some science.
CO2 is heavier than air. How can it be a greenhouse gas?
What has the density of CO2 got to do with it? Failed gcse physics and chemistry as well.
SO since 1890, we have more Co2, ok, well how about the increase of sunlight due to insolation causing more growth of plants, this would account for a rise in Co2, way more than mankind has ever managed to produce
there hasn’t been any increase in insolation. More plant growth would reduce CO2, not increase it. Did you pass gcse biology?
Actually I got an O level, a B and it was way harder than retard GCSE’s
There is a CO2 drought on the planet. If the level falls much more that’s how life could actually become extinct. Not a poxy few degrees well within normal variation in the last thousand years. Look at the IPCC 1990 report before they “lost” the Medieval Warming Period!
The IPCC didn’t “lose” anything MWP was about half a degree warmer than average. We’ve now exceeded that and the temps are way above anything encountered in the last millennium.
I assume you’re one of those people who ignore water vapour…
Nope. But a water molecule has an atmospheric half life of 10 days or so; CO2 about half a million years. CO2 drives water concentration
Well put!
Bollocks! Perfect logo. On anything.
Thanks. You have amply demonstrated the point.
They are the same thing. Covid is being used to foist the “Great Reset” on us and the reset is zero carbon and total central control of everything we do in our lives. Lockdown for ever.
realclimatescience.com
yep
The dissenters in academic life were removed in the early 2000s, when leaders, such as Mr Blair, declared ‘the science is settled’. That is why 97% of ‘scientists’ sign up to the ACC narrative. It has since been hijacked by a Marxist cabal with the objective of destroying western-style capitalism having gained control of the energy economy. Those behind the ICL modelling, in the widest sense, are the same as those behind the climate change nonsense. Boris and Trump fell for it, hook, line and sinker.
Account for the thinning ice cap and shrinking ice cover in the Arctic Ocean. Account for the release of carbon from sub arctic tundra owing to increased rate of peat decomposition. Account for the record temperatures seen in the Arctic, sub Arctic and Antarctic. Do not appeal to “Marxist plot” nonsense in so doing as you merely show your adherence to a straw man and lack of intellectual rigour.
There isn’t shrinking ice cover in the Arctic Ocean because it’s never the same from one year to the next. There has been times when there was virtually no ice and times when there is huge amounts. Who knows why but one thing is for certain it’s fuck all to do with me.
Try checking the sites which monitor ice coverage in real time. NOAA, unless Trumps canned it. I never blamed you personally.
I’d don’t believe what NOAA say, i don’t believe a word any government says, nor do i believe a word of any of their fake organisations. Climate change isn’t real, it’s purpose is to destroy humanity, enslave us back into feudal times and cunts like you are sleepwalking into the fucking gas chamber trying to drag me along with you. I despise folk like you more than the people doing the lying.
More outstanding analysis. How lucky we are. I bet they hung onto your every word in the Oxford Union debates.
wow you really are a dick mate
Such intellectual rigour! What have you done since your wonderful o levels? Crayoning books?
Obviously your brilliant education hasn’t helped with your levels of brainwashing.
https://twitter.com/Specsavers/status/1294906743378423808
This, surely, represents all that is wrong with the world today.
jesus wept
Think it backfired, lots stated they will no longer use them
Looks like Specsavers is putting the nails in its coffin.
Good riddance.
Miss Conception doing sterling work in the comments!
I scrolled for a bit. Other than one person swimming against the tide and posting a photo with their glasses steamed up and one person uselessly saying “educate yourselves!” absolutely everybody was opposed. Wonderful stuff. A good way to brighten up a Tuesday evening.
If i were Specsavers during this bullshit i’d advertise my new line in glasses and that’s it. i wouldn’t mention this nonsense. I don’t get campaigns that jump on the latest story to try and flog their crap. Look at all the woke campaigns from the likes of Gillette. I used their blades thirty years and now haven’t bought one since they did their man hating advert and as far as those using them cunts black lives matter i won’t be doing business with them. Won’t be renewing my F1 pass because of that wanker Lewis and his race baiting lies either. If you flog a product stay away from politics because you’ll just piss off half your customers. I’m hardly buying a thing any more because i won’t do business with them. Also all these campaigns and celebrities who spout the bullshit are exposed as agents of the dark state, they’ve all been made to stand up and lead the rest of us into the abyss. Each one of us must not wear a mask and stand up loudly to anyone spouting this nonsense. it’s hardly the Normandy beach landings but we fight the war in front of us.
I stopped watching F1 after almost 60 years. Disgusted. Eff Mercedes too!
Lewis H just tried to persuade Jean Todt to oblige everybody to take the knee and he refused. Well done Jean! Hope you haven’t changed your mind.
Sunday’s race was the dullest race in the history of F1. Hamilton is sooooooo boring, he’s the antithesis of a racing driver. None of these drivers should be taking a knee including Hamilton. Thank the lord the Moto GP is still death defying and exciting because i’m a life long motorsport fan, shit i’d watch kids race down hill on home made bogeys i love racing so much and what’s happening to F1 is like a death in the family to me. I’ve been to the Grand Prix a number of times, the Moto GP too, many many motocross races, Rally’s, you name it i’ve watched it race. I’ve even been to the Boat Race a couple of times (posh birds, mmmmmm) i digress. Own yeah how can you be F1 champ and be universally despised? How could this happen?
Time for some ‘muzzle-sharking ’ perchance?
I’d rather “jump a real shark” than go along with this.
Alex Cochrane remarks that we should take Devi Sridhar’s views seriously, since she is an epidemiologist. I suggest that we should consider the specific expertise of any expert commentator. Looking at her research profile (link below), it appears to be in the management of public health programmes rather than in the biological details of how viruses spread. This probably still makes her pretty good at assessing the significance of virological work, and maybe she does have specific virological expertise. But that is not confirmed so far as I can see.
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=e10B1SEAAAAJ&hl=en
Think we all have very little to zero trust in epidemiologists
I think epidemiology is a cod science anyway
Having considered her views, I find her to be full of BS. Happy to consider people’s professional expertise, but expertise alone is no guarantee that someone is speaking the truth. SAGE is full of experts, who appear to me to have played a major part in the biggest blunder in the history of this country, and the biggest lie.
What the government has done has been net detrimental to public health.
She’s for zero-covid. I might be missing something, but think that destroys any credibility anyone might otherwise have.
They all seem to have looked at the random spread of results between countries and decided that the best result is possible everywhere.
It would be akin to looking at the weekend football results and saying it’s possible for every team not to concede the next week.
Indeed
In any case, to an extent the time for looking at credentials was a few months ago. Isn’t the result largely in, now? Can’t we choose our favourite epidemiologist on the basis of actual results, rather than models and predictions?
She knows marginally more about science than Greta. She did 2 years of Biology as an undergraduate in a minor US university, before completing an MPhil and DPhil at Oxford in social policy. It is pretty obvious when she is interviewed that she knows very little science, but for some reason, I have yet to hear an interviewer challenge her ‘alternative facts’. Of course, that is nothing to do with her friendship with Chelsea Clinton. Scotland has one of the finest scientific minds in the UK – Hugh Pennington – but he doesn’t get a look in.
Does she wear the tartan of the ancient and venerable clan of Sridhar?
She’s an administrator, like Debra Arnott.
Sounds similar to Park Geun-hye in South Korea who had the spiritual advisor.
Update from the High Peak: Nice walk to a local small town and back. On the way, I dropped a lanyard and a badge off to an elderly friend who’s off to Spain. She’s a regular bus-user here; not sure whether they’ll work in Spain though. She has breathing problems but didn’t know how to get an exemption. She has every intention of breaking quarantine when she returns in 2 weeks. My husband was having a blood sample taken for his telephone leukaemia ‘screening’ in September (postponed from a face-to-face full physical in March). No mask!
I called in to the optician for some contact lens stuff. I had to wait at the locked door while a woman waiting (masked) was turfed out onto the pavement so I could go in and pay. Honestly! The receptionist was wearing a black neoprene mask behind a screen and she told me it’s giving her a sore throat and she hates it. I told her she may have a bacterial infection brewing and she was shocked. I have an unmasked appointment with Karen – I jest not – the optician next week and I’ll find a way to have a word about the dangers of masks. She seemed to be sensible a couple of months ago but it sounds like she’s now living up to her name!
Very few people in the Coop. One other unmasked – a young man. We were greeted by huge smiles from the unmasked woman behind the till.
Then, two foolish old women standing 10 feet apart at a bus stop (there’s no shelter) in the hot sun, both masked, one in a horrible neoprene black one. My OH got slightly in the way of another old lady who promptly looked like she was going to have a nervous breakdown. She was absolutely terrified. More evidence of mental illness and quite disturbing. Also, on our walk, we encountered at least 5 young women who not only didn’t want to greet us but actually looked the other way to avoid eye-contact. Some people seem to be really losing it round here.
On the way home, a friendly elderly couple stopped us to ask us what a plant was (Himalayan Balsam). We had a nice chat despite being regularly ‘buzzed’ by a weird runner who continued to sprint up and down the footpath, practically knocking anyone in his way over. Frankly, he looked bonkers too. While we were talking, an old couple came along so all four of us stood apart to let them through. I said ‘It’s a guard of honour!’ and the woman laughed but her husband scowled at us, shaking his head and waving his hands around. Oh boy, another one! The couple, who were from Bristol, were totally relaxed and seemed completely bemused at these behaviours, as well they might.
The plus side: On my way to meet the OH, I had to cross a very narrow bridge and a man bounded up the other side and very happily passed about 4″ from me. Hooray! And, apart from the above nutters, everyone else was smiley, unmasked and presented much as normal. Oh and I got a big fuss from a narrow-boat cat but that’s another story. . . . . MW
Hello Miriam. We wore our lanyards in Spain and had no problems getting through the airport, past the border police and into a taxi. We managed to avoid wearing masks for most of the holiday for the simple reason that on many occasions, we were the only people around within fifty yards but I must admit that we carried them on our arms in the street or let them dangle from one ear and kept a sharp lookout for the police.
We did approach a policia local in the market to ask him if our lanyards and cards were acceptable. He asked us if we had a Spanish translation, which we didn’t and he told us that the market was muy peligroso- very dangerous. Can’t think why-again very few people there, whereas normally it is very crowded.
I think the advice for your friend is to play it by ear. We had no problems in the hotel once we showed them the card and of course no problems in restaurants and bars. Our friends out there have all sorts of health problems including breathing problems but they say there are too many hoops to jump through to get an exemption letter from a doctor.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Margaret and Bart, below. I think she mostly needs exemption for the UK, that’s what she asked me for. She is getting the bus to the airport and back and uses the bus a lot normally. She’s flying to Gib and she’s been told things are a bit calmer there so she may get away without a mask at least some of the time. MW
Which airport ? I was at Gatwick yesterday, no mask, no problem at all.
Manchester – hopefully it will be OK for her there, too! MW
Why not get the sunflower lanyard and have a Spanish translation on hand? A friend of mine has one and has found them useful when traveling abroad.
Just heard a mask-related rage aimed at a passenger by a bus-driver. “Take your mask off,” he yelled. “I can’t hear you.”
(It was one of those bondage tie on masks, so she wouldn’t. After a bit more bellowing from the driver, she typed her destination on her phone and held it up for him).
Saw this on facebook site “Stand Up and Unite UK” which is against lockdown, masks etc so much aligned with this site.
Poster for the end August event in london if anyone in the area and available.
(interesting at bottom of poster says Gov is voting for 2 year extension of their emergency covid powers in Sept … ominous!!!)
Only 2 years? How very modest of them. I’ve no doubt they fully intend to preserve them forever. Why wouldnt they?
29th is my birthday. I will be there.
I wrote to Tesco’s CEO copy to my MP on mask-day, along the lines of ‘this is wholly unnecessary and bad for business’ [more properly phrased, though].
I’ve just had the MP’s reply (my emphasis). He’s following the party line, but depressingly I can’t see a glimmer of hope that they may be changing their thinking:
Thank you for copying me your email to Tesco’s Chief Executive – my apologies that, given the huge volume of correspondence I have received in recent months from constituents, my response is slightly delayed.
I read your email carefully, and can appreciate the strength of your views, however, as the Health Secretary set out in the Commons last month, the Government brought in legal Regulations requiring the wearing of face coverings in shops from 24th July, based upon the evolving scientific and medical advice on how to reduce the risk of transmission in enclosed indoor spaces like shops, and on the basis of that scientific advice, I support them in that.
It is important to note that it is not, as I understand it, masks that are required but face coverings, hence I do not think people would likely be unable to shop, as most people would have access to a scarf or similar, if they did not have a mask. Similarly, I understand that the approach set out by the Health Secretary does not create a situation where people who suffer from severe anxiety attacks, or health conditions that would mean wearing a mask would have a negative health impact on them, then there are medical exemptions included within this approach, so the situation you describe would not arise.
More broadly, I believe that in these circumstances our individual rights and liberties must be set against the rights and needs of broader society in prevented the spread of this disease, and that therefore a balance must be struck in the context of this pandemic.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to write to me.
Kind regards,
Simon Dolan’s legal team might find some of this Government spin useful – so typical they can swing this mask thing any way they want.
Yes, who is the MP that wrote this? The claim that a scarf is suitable virus protection should be challenged in court!
Hi Carrie
It’s Edward Argar, Minister if State for Health, so I expected nothing less.
Do you need to send your MP the compilation video of Handjob, Whitty, Valance, Harries, Tams, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, putting the case against mask wearing back in March/April to remind him of what was said? I’m sure someone here will have the link for it. There is also one of Bozo interviewing Harries where she says they are useless.
Why should any of us here make the effort to point out to big shops and supermarkets where they are going wrong? It was the British Retail Consortium who wanted masks. They have shot themselves in the foot, so let them bleed to death. It’s their staff for whom I feel most sorry especially in those shops like Curry’s and Matalan who have to spend all day muzzled.
In supermarkets, I expect that many staff will have to take jobs as order pickers-there are about twice as many now than before lockdown in the supermarkets that I use.
Agree. Like I’ve said here in the past, I won’t shed any tears if any shop, restaurant, museum, cafe, cinema, hairdressers, leisure centre go bust now. They have shot themselves in the foot by being supine and cravenly implementing all the stupidity that has been imposed on them and more. All they did was to jump on bandwagons and didn’t care about our civil rights being assaulted..
It’s the staff I feel sorry for.
I’ve been doing Click and Collect for weeks. Tesco staff are friendly and efficient.
No zombies, brilliant!
Where’s that compilation video? Any links?. Sounds like just what I need, for another purpose.
I can think of no reason why the government would ever abandon masks, unless there was a huge shift in public opinion which seems unlikely currently. Perhaps if other governments in rich countries who have more integrity than ours abandon them, the pressure will increase though with the news blackout and reduced travelling it will be less apparent. Maybe if they feel it would buy them some votes if they are in danger of losing to Labour in 4 years time.
I can think of lots of reasons for them to carry on forever, not the least of which is how on earth would they explain that they are now not needed?
So what he has effectively claimed is that their scientific experts say that a ‘scarf or similar’ is suitable protection from Covid 19?! I would reply and ask for a copy of the randomised controlled trial done to prove that….
My wife (a passive contrarian, who wears a mask when the law requires, though she doesn’t credit it, but wants a quiet life) has come to the realisation today that it’s important that people “like me” refuse, so that people remember that this isn’t normal. I’ll take it as a small victory.
I’ve made this observation before.
If you can not shop unless you cover your face how will you buy food? The ability to buy food is a fundamental “individual right” I would have thought. By extention what is being curtailed is the right to life if you don’t wear a face covering.
We only have the rights we will fight for. Hence the 2nd Amendment.
Our stores claim they can refuse us entry without a face covering because they offer alternative ways to shop. If it’s a small store, you can call ahead and they’ll assemble your order for pickup, or you can book a time slot with the big chains for curb side pickup, or you can order for delivery. My husband prefers to go into the store so he’s the one doing all the shopping as I refuse. So long as the store offers an alternative they will argue they are not discriminating against us. Since I didn’t particularly enjoy grocery shopping anyway, I’m happy to let hubby do it.
A tiny success this evening. Went to our excellent mobile fish and chip van here in the south west. Got talking about holidays to the lady serving. I said we’d cancelled our imminent holiday to Menorca. She said “oh yes, the risk on the plane”. I said “no, the masks by the pool”. She gave me a funny look and asked “aren’t you scared”. I said I used to be, but not now. Gave her a few basic facts re risks and prevalence. Told her about the behavioural psychology advice to the government to scare the public. “Oh, it all makes sense now”, she said. Directed her to this site. Hello, Mobile Fish and Chip Lady.
Well done.
Hope the f and c were good.
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1295542689308512258/photo/1
This is the interesting curve from US dividing the country in a northern temperate 30 degree early peak and a northern tropical later peak(O-29 degree) as suggested by Hope Simpson for influenza and a seasonal pattern
https://twitter.com/Rick82Ramirez/status/1279863677806505984/photo/1
“Viruses act differently vis-à-vis their location from the equator. Steeper curves in colder climates, softer hills closer to. Also the months when viruses are active roll around the global in seasonalities. SARS-CoV-2 had a summer wave, then died out.”
More explanation on this short video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8D7Gnq0TE
This is the US first C-19 wave just following seasonality with the first wave in the north and later summer peak in the South. There is an interesting anomaly which can be explained. Louisiana and New Orleans had an early peak which just was the result of influx of New Yorkers for the Mardi Gras in Feb March.
Then why the cases in Europe this summer? They are either distorted figures because of mass testing finding asymptomatic and many cases infected earlier now with PCR pos tests due to non-viable RNA fragments. Then also true false positive. But there is still genuine increase in cases.
Most likely the last part of the first wave just going through uninfected younger population not affected in certain geographic areas. Time will tell. Below a graph suggesting that and no increase, so far, in deaths which are low. No second wave
https://twitter.com/Covid19Crusher/status/1295703316845006848/photo/1
Cummins (need to start listening to the audio, because his face still gets on my nerves) made this point strongly a few weeks ago comparing the tropics (Brazil, Mexico, Texas, Florida) with the northern hempisphere (Europe, New York, WA…) and comparing to the Hope-Simpson curves. Good to see it confirmed though. His predictions about AU and NZ seem to be coming true as well.
Face masks deter supermarket shoppers, says KantarTwo million fewer visits were made to grocery retailers than expected in the last week of July after masks became compulsory
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/18/face-masks-deter-supermarket-shoppers-says-kantar/ (Paywall)
Who didn’t see that one coming (other than Hancock)? Commnets are quite apt too!
Fantastic news
Suuuuuuurprise.
It’s hardly rocket science isn’t it?
If that’s 2 million fewer visits to grocery retailers — a necessary service — you can imagine how many fewer visits that translates to for businesses and retailers that are not essential. It’s never been clear whether people are staying away because they’re afraid no matter what “safety” measures are put in place, or how many are like us and boycotting because of mandatory masking. This is the first positive indication I’ve seen that we are not as small a minority as we think. I wish I could say it’s the case in Canada; our mask compliance is 100%, although that doesn’t mean there aren’t people like me who are simply staying away.
I know lots of people who aren’t afraid and know it’s all bullshit and it should stop but will wear the mask to go to the supermarket. They tell me that they’ve stopped going to any other shop. I fear this is a very common. Wee need to open up and tell those who feel scared that they can wear mask and stay in but the rest of us can start living again. This now isn’t living
I just worry that the plan was to make shopping so awful that the destruction of the high street is rapidly brought about. They have already mentioned bulldozing to us. Online shopping precludes cash. It’s exactly what they want.
I agree… also smaller online retailers will struggle to match the prices of giants like Amazon..
Cards also mean all your purchases are tracked…no privacy anymore..
Sorry as ever this board moves on so quickly this may have been covered already but I have been out on conservation work again today and not kept up.
Once again and for the 8th week running ONS weekly registered death figures are below the 5 year average; total 8945 against 5 year average 9102.
Taking 2020 as a whole there have now been 52771 registered deaths above the 5 year average, this is a not an unusual figure for a bad flu year, especially following a few winters with low winter deaths which meant that there were many older people who were quite likely to succumb to any flu/respiratory problem.
I seem recall there were some recent reports on current hospital usage but I cannot find them? but I think they indicated that hospitals were not unduly busy? can anyone confirm this?
In essence; if the house was on fire, the fire alarm went off, the fire brigade arrived & sprayed water & the fire was extinguished, we would turn off the fire alarm, thank the fire brigade and sort out the mess.
However with Covid, the fire has been extinguished and the alarm is still ringing but instead of turning the alarm off we continue pouring water onto a fire that is well and truly dead.
On the news they are wittering on about a second wave, whoever invented this idea? In ancient Greece the story is that a tortoise fell on the head of Aeschylus and killed him however, that does not mean we all go around wearing a helmet in case the same fate should befall us.
This second wave nonsense is not the spirit of Churchill, Boadicea and Nelson, Boris shame on you.
It’s on its way out deaths worldwide are falling ,many people dont even know they have it , but unfortunately the government cant admit they are wrong
Remember in Animal Farm, whenever the animals started to question one of the pigs’ decisions, the pigs always said that if their latest bit of tyranny wasn’t accepted, Mr Jones would come back? And the animals grovelled?
The second wave is our pigs’ Mr Jones.
^^^^THIS^^^^
And we are in this mess, at least partly, because nobody reads things like “Animal Farm” anymore. Young people (I mean, younger, as I’m 38) wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about… if they did, they would be thinking differently.
I’m in my early twenties and works such as Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 541, A Clockwork Orange and Animal Farm are some of my favourite novels (now looking increasingly like non-fiction books). I am a big fan of dystopian fiction and what it can tell us about society, culture, humanity, the future, and the self. You are right, not enough young people read these works anymore (or pay attention to history) and take their freedom for granted as a result.
Nor of Hereward the Wake, Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and Francis Drake.
In morrisons keighley this evening only about 40% in masks, IM NOT WEARING one just say I’m.exempt if asked and nobody challenged anyone, maybe people are getting sick of this BS
That’s good news. Keep bringing us such cherished reports everybody. Lifts the spirits.
Our Waitrose in Sussex today, I saw a couple of other customers without masks. Best so far.
That’s good to hear,I wish it was so at our Morrisons in Lincolnshire,mask wearing in there must be around 99%.
I like 99%, makes me feel special
Just received a scaremail from the local council warning of risk of local lockdown due to 24 ‘cases’ being found in a week (Telford & Wrekin). Presumably this will trigger a flurry of worried well presenting themselves for testing, virtually guaranteeing that outcome. Feeling utterly despondent having lost my livelihood and not having touched another human being in 5 months. LS has helped me keep hold of some shreds of sanity until now (thanks everyone), but feel I’m really staring into the abyss tonight. I really want to stay positive but just can’t fathom how Boris & co can possibly back out of the corner they have trapped us all in. Arghh!!
Hang on in there! We are reaching out to you.
Ignore any bloody local lockdowns, Bugger them.
It’s Boris and his gang that have backed themselves into the corner. Waiting to be torn to bits.
They will be in the end.
Hang in there, Charlie. The madness will stop.
Jesus wept. How many people live in Telford and Wrekin?
Oh, 116,800. PANIC!!!!!!!!!
Grit your teeth Charlie, this is the bad time.
Just remember Charlie, in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. You’re better than them.
Try to carry on as normal Charlie. Pretty much as people are in Leicester, Manchester, Bradford, etc
Thanks, everyone. A local lockdown wouldn’t make any difference to my daily existence now but it would just be another reminder of the hysteria that seems unlikely to burn out. Conspiracy theories have never held any appeal for me, however I am unable to conceive of what this government’s end game (or that of many governments) could possibly be. How are so many people happy to accept all this without any indication being given about what it is supposed to achieve? Blind obedience is terrifying to me.
Hey we know Covie is clever but apparently he has powerful negotiating skills too!
How Covid convinced M&S to cut another 7,000 staff ….
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/18/covid-convinced-ms-cut-another-7000-staff/
https://jordanschachtel.substack.com/p/the-worlds-toughest-lockdown-has
Peru’s horror lockdown nobody comments in MSM
“Whether it was lockdown, face shields, masks, military curfews, and countless other human interventions, none of it is working. Similar to nations on its equatorial plane, Peru is facing a new surge in cases, and a resulting jump in COVID-19 deaths. Peru’s excess deaths this calendar year is now among the highest worldwide.”
“Instead of learning from their mistakes, and admitting that the lockdown failed and the several suppression measures undertaken were a catastrophic error, Peru is doubling down on the madness. Last week, the country reimposed and tightened nationwide curfews. The new curfew prevents any citizen from leaving their home on Sundays.”
A horror story of lockdown masks and everything else and the virus don’t care. Don’t let politicians handle pandemics it leads to disaster. Public health and epidemiologists might not be up to the challenge but can never reach the utter fiasco letting politicians be in charge.
You mean destroying the economy of a desperately poor and unstable country with millions of people living on the edge of existence has had some adverse outcomes? Well I’m stunned, absolutely flabbergasted.
Either the resrictions don’t work or they’re not being strict enough.
I’ll leave you to decide which is most likely.
i hope tae fuck Paddington Bear is ok, darkest Peru sounds like it might be bad
What about Aunt Lucy……
Funny how the media don’t seem to mention Peru all that much, whereas they are continually predicting a catastrophe in Brazil due to that nasty Bolsonaro.
The lynch pin holding the entire (phony) narrative together at this point is “Cases.” The threat of “cases”, the rumors of “cases”, the impending uptick of “cases” and on and on.
Most here already know the fraud of what a “case” is and is not. Many others do not.
I’m asking readers here to put forth one or two bullet points- no more than two sentences per bullet point- on the subject of a “Covid case.”
These bullet points will be compiled and will then go on flyers that will then be distributed en masse to American Universities with the target audience being mainly, but not exclusively, students.
3 words: ivor Cummings: casedemic
https://mobile.twitter.com/fatemperor/status/1293553170568937474
– If you’re not sick, you’re not sick
– your mum told you this every time you tried to stay home from school for no reason
A Covid “case” is often a healthy person who had a test that picked up non-infectious remnants of this or a past coronavirus.
They’re not ‘cases’, they are ‘positive tests. (Oh, and the tests themselves are bogus).
A test can help to confirm a diagnosis in order to declare a case. A test result on its own is just a test result, it may give an indication but is not definitive.
We no longer have “cases”. Positive test results have been promoted to “infections”.
I don’t know about you but to me an infection conjures up pictures of suppurating sores and snotty noses, not asymptomatic healthy people.
Your description just says ‘zombie’ to me.
Covid case
The PCR covid 19 detection test will detect a virus long after that virus has ceased to be infectious.
Despite increased PCR testing identifying infections on a regular basis, overall mortality in Britain has now been below the five year average for eight consecutive weeks.
Good news: Public Health Embarrassment (PHE) to be disbanded, Bad news: the replacement is to be led by Dido ‘where’s your data?’ Harding….
Bad news is that a key part of the mission for the new agency is dealing with coronavirus. Sign that the govt has no interest in moving on.
Knives are already out. Scapegoat being lined up:
Matt Hancock has admitted that the UK was not adequately prepared for the coronavirus pandemic, pointing to the failure of Public Health England (PHE) to ramp up private sector testing.
This is the face nappy he wore to the meeting this morning.
Protect the NHS indeed!!!
He looks like a first class plonker!
He mustn’t wear a mask! If he does, I won’t know to punch him in the face if I meet him on the street!
Just punch all of them
He looks like a first class rapist actually, should be arrested on suspicion of anything bad that’s happened within a 200 mile radius!
Eff off Matt!
Some good news.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53817206
Nothing to do with keeping the deadliest virus ever at bay then.
Masks? How come singing is still banned in churches – presume that footie fans will not be expected to sit in silence when a goal is scored?
Amazing news. Remember this will be mostly cash at turnstile, standing terrrace arrangements so all the “rules” are out the window.
It’s as if they’ve thought – oh they only get 200 fans – that’s ok. Without realising that thousands of fans of the big clubs will be desperate to see a game, any game.
Here’s a letter I sent to my MP. It’s slightly out of date (I sent it last month) but thought you’d enjoy. Copy/share and amend as you please.
I know there’s a very small chance *** may see this – but here goes…
Today I cancelled my membership of the Conservative party. I’ve been a member for almost 3 years and believed as a 36 year old in ***, I was a rare beast.
Even rarer now.
My joy over the election result of November has been extinguished by the resulting actions of the current Party – now in power with a majority and mandate to make this country better.
CV19 has undoubtedly played a part in my decision.
At the start of the ‘pandemic’ I was fearful. Worried about lives and the economy.
I vote my politicians in to make difficult decisions.
Undoubtedly the decision to impose the lockdown was a difficult one. But more data has been released and our understanding of the disease has developed from one of complete fear (5% death rates/500,000 deaths) to one of relief (0.1% rate in all probability) Below average weekly death rates, the tiny amount of CV deaths now occurring, the desperate groping for more patients having died ‘with covid’ in the first place.
However the leadership has remained tied to the figures of 4 months ago – the PM still triumphally quoting the (already proven false) figures of Dr Ferguson – the first sign of the party’s wrongheadedness.
It’s now I’d have expected my politicians to see the same figures we all see – and make a difficult decision once more – to admit they made a mistake. To admit they overreacted. To admit the ‘pandemic’ is over. To point to other open countries, lockdown lifted months ago, to the fact that there will not be a ‘second spike’.
But alas, all I’ve seen from the Party is fear of the media. Fear of being caught out. Fear of being blamed. Fear of protesters. It’s turned into a vapid, spineless cabal of career politicians. Lurching from one controlling soundbite pointless policy to another. More concerned with their jobs (secure for 4 years anyway), and difficult questions from a journalist – than actually doing what’s right for this country.
This morning you imposed the use of masks in shops throughout the country (in two weeks time for some reason) – even though we know the pandemic is over and that they do little to stop the spread of an already rare CV19. Condemning the high street and many businesses to the damaging prospect of dwindling footfall and closure.
Amazon and Ocado must be overjoyed.
The economy and my vote is not.
Many thanks
***
I sent a similar letter to my mp. Got a load of twaddle back.
There was an episode of The Avengers titled The Fear Merchants.
Well.
I’ve got a clutch of health problems – in descending order of victimhood medals …. and I’m in my seventies : so I’m in the firing line for Covid bullets – as far as it actually exists.
But there’s limits to my ability to grovel in eternal fearfulness.
So – I’d just like to say to those appallingly bad scientists, brain dead politicians, crap journalists, assorted sundry bandwagoning wankers, Bagdhad Bombers (all seeking the limelight) – plus the simply gullible – who all pretend to wish to protect life (but are often just shit scared) – at the expense of real LIFE :
Just Fuck Off.
(And get a life, you sad and evil people)
Aaahh! That’s better!
Rick, you old geezer that was just excellent!!
Hear, hear!!!! The abovementioned should indeed “GET a life!”
And so say all of us!
That made my day! We all just need to let off some steam every once in a while.
He’s spot on – doesn’t sounds “conspiracy theory” to me (a phrase conjured up to ridicule those who question the official narrative by the way), sounds like a perfectly reasonable appraisal of what is going on.
He sounds very similar to my favourite garage owner !.The last bit doesn’t sound like a conspiracy theory anymore,almost everyone I speak to is voicing the same opinion,there must be something behind all of this,too much seems to fit together.
Every day I see things reported in the media that we’ve been talking about for months.
It’s really odd because media used to be where I learned about developments.
I think calling it the “news” can now be considered false advertising.
The Guardian: Germany to extend coronavirus furlough to 24 months.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/germany-to-extend-coronavirus-furlough-to-24-months
Wow!!!!
We are in this for the long haul
We are on the brink of the abyss!
wowzers! … seems you get to the point where Germany runs out of money. And, while I know very little about Europe, I seemed to be under the impression that Germany was a pretty big bankroll for the EU as well. How exactly is all of this funded, then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory though I think you have MMT sceptics !
MMT is right that we can have money without paying private banks to create it from nothing.
Everything else about it is infantile.
Germany was already doling out many billions per annum dealing with the fallout from Merkel’s Million Migrants of 2015.
Germany’s furlough payout is probably a lot less than the UK’s but even so no European country can afford to pay out such vast amounts per annum to keep people idle.
Might this be because they have realised that people won’t accept a vaccine that has been produced at speed, so they need to buy more time to convince us that all CV19 vaccines have been properly tested – as well as to wear people down with frustration so they will be more likely to accept it?
Possibly. I can’t see ze German’s tolerating this nonsense much longer though.
Neither can I. I think the Germans have had enough of this nonsense.
They won’t. Germans have a mortal terror of inflation. They know where it led them to last time.
I think that’s what most of HMGs prevarication is about too.
That’s a real worry. The Kurtzarbeit scheme was nothing like as generous as our furlough scheme, but Germany extending when their death rate has been nothing like ours) sets a worrying precedent. I have (had) friends in Germany and they seem to be universally terrified, for no obvious reason. For all that there’s a sceptic movement more vocal than our own, I do wonder what the media is saying.
I was talking to a client in Germany the other day who had been to visit a friend near Zurich for a few days. She told me they’d gone to a shopping centre and nobody was wearing masks. “Oh, that’s good” I said (before thinking). “No! I was really scared! It was quite busy!” She said.
I had to bite my tongue so hard, I nearly took the tip off.
Germany is buying people’s silence hoping they will not go and protest against the restrictions.
Who is going to pay back all the debt
Call it furlough payments or Universal Credit, it amounts to the same thing.
Universal basic income
Mail Online has been all over the place since it was taken over by globalist interests. But it’s noticeable that in the last few days it has been highlighting “sceptical” (ie true and realistic) news items about Covid. It’s still running with scare stories at the same time. Confused and confusing – but there may be fractures within the sceptical camp.
after a couple of weeks of this bollocks i gave up on the Mail because it became apparent it was gonna run with the maximum scar stories it could. I wonder if they thought at the start if they should go down the opposing route but bottled it.
Nah. The Mail has always been the worst inciter of the “Isn’t It Dreadful?!” brigade.
Sometimes it is.
not right at the start it wasn’t. it sat on the fence for a few days but jumped the wrong way
Sceptical camp should have read globalist camp.
The reader comments are great though – many super sceptical today, cheered me a little
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8639223/Coronavirus-deaths-fall-low-Flu-pneumonia-killing-six-times-people.html#comments
I’m sure someone posted about this earlier…but everything is a bit of a blur these days
More witty cynicism from the Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/18/gavin-williamson-brink-has-just-pulled-strategic-masterstroke/
After his humiliating U-turn on A-levels, Gavin Williamson was all over the airwaves, defending himself. At least, I think that’s what he was doing. It was hard to be sure. Because almost everything he said was utterly incomprehensible.
…. “If there is an unfairness,” Mr Williamson told Sky, “there is nothing that I will do to in order to address that unfairness.” Moments later, he was informing BBC Breakfast that Ofqual, the exams watchdog, “came to us about the concerns that they had as a result of totally unexpected result of how this was had impacted on some young people as well as external experts.”
Both of those remarks are transcribed exactly as they were spoken.
…. After all, Mr Williamson is under severe pressure. In his position, we too might be reduced to helpless babbling. ….. Yet this is the curious thing. Mr Williamson didn’t sound remotely nervous. On the contrary, he spoke this nonsense so calmly, he might as well have been reading it from an autocue.
It was very strange. But then it hit me. Maybe he was talking nonsense on purpose.
For politicians, argued George Orwell, speaking in plain English is risky. “When you make a stupid remark,” he explained, “its stupidity will be obvious.”
If, however, your remarks are difficult to follow, many listeners will simply give up trying to make sense of them. In which case, there’s a decent chance that they’ll either give you the benefit of the doubt, or lose interest altogether, and change channel.
Both of which are excellent outcomes, for a minister in trouble.
It appears no minister is accountable any more.
Him and Hancock must get on like a house on fire…or maybe a house sinking into the mire,
Jacked up to the eyeballs on the best pharmaceuticals. Not usually this obvious, but the signs are often there.
Does anybody _not_ think this is a bait and switch? They couldn’t go with the teachers predictions because there would be an outcry about the unfrairness, so someone wrote “an algorithm” that caused an outcry, so they could just go with teachers’ predictions.
Months to plan it and it’s still a total fucking shambles (excuse my French). In his defence, Williamson has had to spend a lot of the last 5 months failing to stand up to the teaching unions.
Another thing nobody seems to have noticed is that almost all these grades have been dished out to candidates who have failed to cover about a quarter of the course content, and have done no revision whatsoever. Not a good basis for starting an A level course after GCSE, or a university course after A levels. At least, it wouldn’t have been considered so when real education was going on.
I think I managed to RED PILL my local garage guy back in late April. i wrote down loads of links for him to have a look at and he was really interested in what I had to say.
Anyone watched the “Plandmic indoctornation” from @londonrealtv at https://freedomplatform.tv/ yet? Is it worth watching?
A glance suggests it covers the usual “event 201” pandemic planning exercise last year, Gates connections etc, but equally might be a bit farfetched.
Yes, just watched it
https://freedomplatform.tv/plandemic-indoctornation-world-premiere/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwsuP5BRCoARIsAPtX_wFKfu4Jx4O23rcaTUl5b8wfmETE7vMe3KPJ4dAxkd6D7pLSwhaYyfsaAnj7EALw_wcB
I’d love nothing more than this to be far fetched…..however…..
Thanks Kath… Damn; I’ll have to give it an hour of tomorrow then. I suspect it isn’t a last-thing-in-the-evening-video!
Until a few months ago I would never have given this sort of thing time of day, but until a few months ago I listened to radio 4: how sheltered and deluded (Toby writing about this site in the telegraph at the start of lockdwon was the first person to make me think start to look for info elsewhere)
Never watched a conspiracy theorist in my life. But I’m now troubled that labels of ‘conspiracy theorists’ are alarmingly given to folk who make more sense than MSM, and what with the govt’s nasty adverts on the radio advising of fake news trickery, I’m all the more inclined to give these things time of day. As I just spotted that Brian Rose interviewed Mike Graham of (talk radio) who I respect, I guess I’ve concluded I’ll give it a watch.
Every day the faithful tune in to hear the latest pearls of wisdom from Kim-Jong Nik. Today they must have been reassured that she didn’t want to alarm us:
‘So when I give updates like today’s – providing details of cases and clusters in different parts of the country, and particular when some cases involving schools – I don’t do that to alarm you. Partly, I do it to try to reassure that the appropriate steps are being taken and appropriate interventions are in place. But although I don’t want to alarm anybody, I do want people to take notice, in fact I need people to take notice’.
Unfortunately, by the next sentence, she’d decided that it might be better to alarm us after all…
‘These clusters show us that this virus continues to pose a serious risk. It is present in our communities, and that’s why I keep saying where ever you are, assume it is right next to you and capable, if you don’t do the right things, of being transmitted to you, and perhaps from you to somebody else. We know, and the evidence coming from recent clusters is underlining this point, this is a highly infectious virus, and once it takes hold, it can spread rapidly’.
She doesn’t mention that these ‘clusters’ are positive test results, rather than actual cases.
Just when it looked as though the MSM, in this case The Telegraph, had turned a corner and were perhaps becoming a bit more sceptical, this pops up on the front page of tomorrow’s Telegraph (looks like it’s not behind the paywall):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/new-research-suggests-should-prepare-resurgence-covid-19-across/
Here’s the article to which it refers:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tbed.13766
BTW – the referenced article was published two weeks ago, so it looks as though The Telegraph doom-mongers have only just come across it, probably after a trawl for bad news articles.
Well surely if we’re huddled inside in winter, it will be WARM dry air.
We don’t tend to have “crisp” winters any more, so outside, in a typical UK winter, it will be cold, DAMP air.
No problemo!
Warm and damp. We’re back to the Belarussian saunas again.
This whole seasonal-not-seasonal thing is starting to get on my nerves. Back in the spring it definitely wasn’t seasonal, so we needed to keep being scared and social distancing all summer because it wasn’t going to go away just because the weather was nice. Now we’re heading towards the autumn, it is of course seasonal again and we’re all going to die in the second wave this winter. Etc, etc, etc….
Thank you for the link to the article which was interesting. It will become seasonal and humidity a very important factor for indoor transmission in winter. I think all countries in Europe whether in lockdown or not have made a catastrophic blunder of keeping social distance policy. Clearly, as in previous flu pandemic all countries should have opened up completely two months ago when the pandemic ended and there was no total death excess any more. The summertime should have been used for a limited spread among younger people and sunny weather would have slowed somewhat the spread. Hospitals well prepared and better treatment and the risks anyhow low for that age group. This is not social Darwinism but common sense. Much better with a quickly immune younger population to protect the elderly with their immunity during the winter. The political idiots in charge have just made it even worse now complaining of young spreading the disease. If US approaches now herd immunity with 17000 cases per million Europe is in for trouble. Worst Greece with 800 case per million then Finland, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, and then in the middle group Italy, UK, France, Belgium and best Spain, Sweden still only around 8000 per million but long gap to US.
So, a question – if Sweden hasn’t hit meaningful herd immunity, how could any European country have done so? Genuine question.
They have hedimmunity in Stockholm, perhaps Gothenburg.But they have social distancing and pockets of country have not reached herdimmunity due to this delay with social distancing.They should also have used summer to open up
Ah, makes sense.
Of course you cannot say that you must have 15000 or 20000 per million to reach herd immunity as you never know how many undetected cases you had during the peak of infection. Sweden discouraged mild cases to come forward during the peak so they could have more undetected cases giving herd immunity. But you can’t be sure. And from serology studies there are pockets in the North of Sweden with lower serological immunity. They should have used the summer to open up completely. You have to take a chance with a limited spread now instead of surprises in the winter.
Great post as usual….re -post after Toby’s update today as lots of people will miss it?
It appears that after seeing the effect compulsory muzzles has had on shopping footfall, the bedwetters want to worsen the depression by forcing muzzles on all workplaces.
They have succeeded in getting the French to shoot theselves in the foot, now they will see if the Tories can be persuaded to machine gun both legs off.
https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov-China/documentos/Actualizacion_187_COVID-19.pdf
The figures from Spain today is very difficult to understand fully. They have included in all diagnostic cases both PCR+ and serolgy + which is absurd. So I have extracted 33 769 diagnosed cases during the last 7 days to 4678 case with symptoms during the last 7 days. 1096 of them were admitted to hospital during the last 7 days and there has been 65 of them admitted to ICU and 63 deaths during the last 7 days.
Roughly still looking that Aragon, Andalucia, Galicia, Canaries and Baleares more affected in line with that they were relatively spared last time. The islands might have had lots of internal tourists now spreading the disease as the virus tries to finish in the previously less affected parts of Spain. But it seems more a real outbreak in Spain than in other European countries where I think deaths and hospitalizations are very low. But the severe military style of lockdown seems to have just delayed the epidemic curve now creeping up with opening up of the country.
Very surprised that ECDC does not publish relevant data from all European countries to really go into details whether we have real hospitalization, ICU use and deaths.
Once more an example that lockdown is just flattening the curve and the total amount of cases will not change in the opening up. Greece must look at this possibility with horror having almost being spared a severe epidemic in March April.
My partners a nurse staying with Doctors in Galicia. Currently Galicia has 30 covid patients and 3 in ICU. In a region of 3million people. If you extrapolate those numbers to the rest of Spain it suggests something not out of the ordinary.
The state of medical science would appear to be that medical science does not exist. The people involved are not scientists, they are theorists – many plausible theories are being produced, but nobody seems to be capable of, nor even interested in, testing them.
The “models” being a prime example, they essentially come down to “this is how we believe a pandemic may develop”, which is a perfectly respectable field of study. They are then either untested, or tested against past data and found to produce incorrect results and thus do not reflect reality to a degree which would allow us to predict what may happen in the future. More theories are then constructed on top of these – it’s a bit like constructing a mathematical proof on the basis that 2-5=38 and then wondering why it seems not to match up with the rest of mathematics.
We are being told to act on these theories just in case they are true, no matter how unlikely that is.
Superspreaders and superspreading events.
We’re led to believe that the majority of transmission is via one of the above. This in itself would imply that the vast majority of people do not infect others.
If everyone was equally susceptible and equally likely to infect another we would expect to see a more even spread of infection.
All the evidence points towards some level of resistance/immunity. Statistically superspreading is exactly what we would expect to see in the presence of immunity.
Yet we are told to act as if we’re all infected and equally likely to spread the virus.
Is anyone else a bit disturbed by this?:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-53828588
Yes. Especially because, reading between the lines the owner – the only person allowed to enter the property – is not the person who lives there.
Wow three months is harsh! Setting an example. Is Manchester becoming the UK version of Oz?
Yes its disturbing. However the state has used this Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to shut down loads of houses before. Our local council also used it to shut down a carp park in the woods, apparently used for nefarious acts at night…Say no more.
Mushroom picking?
those carp fishermen are very enthusiastic – almost fanatical – about staying out all night chasing their favourite fish.
Glad to see the police have solved all the murders, rapes and burglaries in Manchester. They must have done so, otherwise they wouldn’t have had the time and resources to put up a helicopter (£800 per hour, is it?) to monitor a party.
It occurs to me that this is the first virus to demonstrate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (you know – the cat in the box).
You might have the virus. You might not. The only way to find out is to have a test. But the act of having a test influences whether or not you have the virus.
It’s a quantum virus. Or a cat.
Spot on.
Surely it should be callled Ferguson’s Uncertainty Principle?
It is certainly FU something. Whether it is a principle I am not sure. It could be a Criterion for Knowledge.
Unusually Persistent.
Certainly Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle but I believe it was a thought experiment by Schrodinger – Schrodinger’s cat.
DavidC
Which was to demonstrate Heisenberg’s principle, I believe.
Schrodinger’s cat would be having kittens over this fiasco!
Local Lidl tonight 8:30pm, counted 19 people without masks!
2 where holding large lanyards around neck keen to flash they with pride.
4 looked like people not to mess with……
1 policeman snack shopping…..
Rest where late teen’s/20s something enjoying life and buy party food etc.
Simple thing to see some many people face stop’s me feeling depressed going shopping!!
The direction of travel in Ireland is not looking good for freedom.
“We are not close to the level and pace of the spread of the virus from earlier this year, but we are at a point where we need to re-commit ourselves to key behaviours and accept additional controls,” he [the Taoiseach] said.
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0818/1159742-cabinet-covid/
New powers for gardaí to enforce Covid restrictions.
Outdoor gathering cut to 15 people from 200. Indoor cut to 6 people from 50. No one to use public transport unless absolutely necessary.
Are we going to see more of this arbitrary restricting in more countries?
https://www.wddty.com/news/2020/08/doctor-silenced-over-successful-covid-therapy.html
A doctor who has successfully treated over a hundred Covid-19 patients has been ordered to stop advertising his methods.
Dr David Brownstein, who runs the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, MI, has had to remove details of his treatment protocols from his website and blog, even though they are explained in a scientific paper published last month.
He says he is looking at the possibilities of fighting the ban, which was initiatedby the US’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) because it claims his protocols are not supported by “competent and reliable scientific evidence”.
However, a month after the FTC’s ban, Dr Brownstein’s protocols for Covid-19 were published in a scientific journal. In the paper, he outlines how he successfully treated 107 Covid patients between February and May. In each case, the patient made a full recovery. In a separate report, Dr Brownstein says none of his Covid patients have died.
The study explains that his Center’s protocols include oral iodine supplements (25 mg a day), vitamin A (100,000 IU/day), Vitamin C (1000 mg per hour until bowel intolerance), and Vitamin D3 (50,000 IUs/day). If symptoms worsen, Dr Brownstein gives intravenous injections of vitamin C and hydrogen peroxide and ozone.
While I have much sympathy for Dr Brownstein it may be his patients recovered because “flu”. Treat the flu as we do all the time and it runs its course and goes away. However I’m not sure injecting hydrogen peroxide is a good thing.
Depends on the dilution, one suspects.
No, if you read the documents he published it is not flu
Are you sure this isn’t a spoof? Hydrogen peroxide is literally bleach (perhaps a reference to Donald Trump’s much-hyped misspeak) and medical uses of ozone have been banned by the FDA since 2003.
As its name suggests, it’s an oxidizing agent. One doesn’t need to be super-smart to see that supplying oxygen, in the right amount and in the right place. could be highly useful.
We have seen so often that treatments that could save lives are repressed by the Authorities. Doctors that save people are threatened and banned.
Below are Dr Browntein’s scientific papers that were published in a scientific journal in July 2020
A Novel Approach to Treating COVID-19 Using Nutritional and Oxidative Therapies
https://cf5e727d-d02d-4d71-89ff-9fe2d3ad957f.filesusr.com/ugd/adf864_70a18d9a200f48d8ac5ebe2a703340a3.pdf
New Clinical and Translational Research Section of “Science, Public Health Policy & The Law”
https://cf5e727d-d02d-4d71-89ff-9fe2d3ad957f.filesusr.com/ugd/adf864_cc5004cfa84a46d3b1a0338d4308c42c.pdf
She later withdrew that assertion, saying that she had “misspoke” – whatever that means.
That’s what you say when you’re caught out telling lie.
It used to be called ‘being economical with the truth’, but when there is no truth there at all…
Didn’t Hillary invent that one?
Please watch the latest in the Plandemic series of films, Plandemic Indoctrination. I was drifting into the doldrums and this reinvigorated me. I went to London last week. Beautiful new trains. Masks everywhere. Not me. Think it was the masks, the lack of incidental conversations and the weird emptiness of London that collectively made me feel very, very sad. I like our way of living and will fight to get it back.
https://freedomplatform.tv/plandemic-indoctornation-world-premiere/
Just watched. I’m going to London on 29th August (Trafalgar Square for a walk with some like minded types) going on my own (friends are a bit wary). I am apprehensive though about going – the only reason being seeing a different London to the one I remember
Hope to see you there Kath. (Might be tricky if 2-3 million turn up.
).
I’ll look out for you!!!
You will not be alone
As I’ve said below, I will be there too. I will also be alone. It will be my birthday.
If I bump into any of you, I expect cake.
Many advance happy returns for your birthday
If I was local – I would probably rustle up a cake on the off chance – but my journey is going to be a ‘mare – public transport from sunny SE Wales and unmuzzled to boot
Tray bake is acceptable
Noted
hi kath – i’m in bristol – thinking of coming over the bridge to newport/cardiff at weekend to go shopping unmuzzled.
Are you in this part of wales – if want to meet up sometime let me know.
Repeating a posting from another thread, in case it’s useful for you all.
Go to these pages on the government’s website. Two useful links there:
Exemption from face covering badge (for mobile phone)
Exemption from face covering badge (to print)
I would recommend the printed exemption if you have access to a printer. I’ve got a printed and laminated exemption card with a lanyard and I’ve had no problems whatsoever.
I just watched it. I highly recommend it, and I have to say it was more understated than I expected it to be. I get it — if it came off as too “conspiracy theory” crazy then it wouldn’t have credibility or appeal to people on the fence. Very powerful nonetheless. If I could be in London on the 29th I would definitely join the protest.
Good piece just appeared on OffGuardian:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/18/bait-switch-how-theyve-changed-the-covid-conversation/
Very interesting comment on that thread discussing a further paper published Sep 2019:
Preparedness For A High- Impact Respiratory Pathogen Pandemic.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/18/bait-switch-how-theyve-changed-the-covid-conversation/#comment-223974
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
So let’s begin.
I will be there if I can get on a train without a mask
Exemption…I have an exemption card, but haven’t used it yet. Have reported a bus driver to the police for illegally ‘policing’ me not wearing a mask. Reported this to the police, the officer dealing with this did explain that he can go out and arrest there said bus driver, bus company seem to be taking my complaint seriously (got the driver’s photo, bus reg etc) – if you don’t wear a mask, you are acting within the law, anyone who challenges you for not wearing one is breaking the law. The law is on your side
Go to these pages on the government’s website. Two useful links there:
Exemption from face covering badge (for mobile phone)
Exemption from face covering badge (to print)
I would recommend the printed exemption if you have access to a printer. I’ve got a printed and laminated exemption card with a lanyard and I’ve had no problems whatsoever.
I would use a non government provider, that one will get you on the list for requiring ‘help & support’.
Free sunflower one from Sainsbury’s, or I got the Amazon one back in June – which I’ve never used and don’t expect I ever will.
I got on two trains last week and did not ever put on a mask. My exemption card stayed in my bag. An attendant at St Pancras told me to put my mask on. I said no. He looked tad baffled, asked me why didn’t I have a mask. I told him I didn’t think he was authorised to question me about it. He stepped back and politely asked me to carry on my way. Now that’s what I call a result for the little lady! Felt good. Fear not and go forth without the rag.
You can!
Great to see a group of organisations working together!
Had a long discussion with a family paramedic worker last night. She is open to free discussion on the subject of Covid-19 but certainly thinks a second wave is guaranteed and masks work (yeah, the irony wasn’t missed). I can see her coming around however. Especially as I discussed the costs of lockdowns with her which she was largely surprised to hear the extent of the fatalities through missed treatments and diagnosis.
However two things were revealed to me that I wondered if anyone here could confirm.
First, paramedics at least, have been told that if they test positive they are sent home to self isolate for 5 days only. They then return to work. Resources are tight and needs must.
Second, she suggested that they have seen some very good results treating people with dexamethasone and this why the cases/deaths ratio has not been the same as in April. Or even why those admitted to hospital don’t reach ICU.
Just to add to the lunacy of it all, I am from Northern Ireland where there are zero CV-19 ICU patients. In fact their are only 4 official CV-19 inpatients in any NI hospital.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZGYxNjYzNmUtOTlmZS00ODAxLWE1YTEtMjA0NjZhMzlmN2JmIiwidCI6IjljOWEzMGRlLWQ4ZDctNGFhNC05NjAwLTRiZTc2MjVmZjZjNSIsImMiOjh9
Someone clever will turn up in a minute to disagree with me, but…
1) a 5 day isolation seems pointless in theory. I’ve seen a week quoted as the infectious period (from start of symptoms). I would guess that means 5 days may be fine for many, but also suggests that it’s not actually being taken seriously
2) as I understand it, dexamethozone is fairly effective. Doesn’t explain the through the floor hospitalisation/ICU/death rates though. What explains that is the fact that the virus has virtually disappeared and it’s now only really affecting younger healthy people and hypochondriacs who are tuning up as false positives
They put people into hospital unecisarrily to bump up the numbers and thus have a story to sell.
So true
I think a “second wave” is pretty much guaranteed. It’s a novel pathogen. The likelihood is it will return to cull the weak and elderly who escaped last time when we are at our most vulnerable (in winter). But the numbers taken might be only 10% of the fatalities in the first half of 2020… of course that is to leave to one side the debate about what counts as a “Covid kill”.
It won’t be a Second Wave but the seasonal reappearance as with any virus.
It will be called SW and blamed on us for lack of Covid Compliance thus enabling them to impose their next set of inane restrictions.
I suspect that any “second wave” in the UK will be minimal because we didn’t lock down too early, thus allowing a good spread of the virus in the general population enabling a significant degree of herd immunity. Ironically events like Cheltenham and football facilitated that spread.
Countries that are (wrongly) lauded as having been successful such as Greece could get hit much harder and that might be enough for the bed wetters to head back behind the sofa and then, surprise, surprise claim the further lockdown stopped the “second wave” in the
UK. Ferguson will probably fire up the boiler and then Johnson can have his Churchill moment replete with V for victory signs.
The phone war in which we are now engaged is a purely political exercise, the virus has disappeared in the UK.
True,the virus had already peaked before we locked down.Even Whitty has admitted this.The government scientists know all this so why the continued restrictions?
Politics!
The problem for us will be that countries like Greece will “prove” the spectre of the coming 2nd wave and we’ll be kept in suspended animation for yet more months.
Story reported in the DT today saying the virus thrives in cold dry environments hence the ‘second wave’ panic. The experts however, seem to be forgetting that winter in the UK is mild and wet!
Hence the spikes in food processing plants which have cold dry environments all year round.
Damning words about the Scottish Government response to covid19 by conservative MSP.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18659471.officials-instructed-reveal-many-covid-positive-patients-moved-care-homes/
“PUBLIC health officials have been ordered to reveal how many patients were transferred from hospitals to care homes after testing positive for Covid-19.
“The First Minister has a broadcast every day and she did not mention it.
“We only heard about these appalling mistakes, mistakes that possibly caused lives, because of a newspaper investigation and one that didn’t even include responses from every health board in Scotland.”
When you stand at a pulpit in front of a nation everyday and dictate to your people. What you haven’t been saying is going to get noticed. A lie by omission is as dysfuctional as any other lie.
i wish she’d stop it. I’ve not watched her even once but just the thought of such a fevered ego, too fucking stupid too know how stupid she is, standing there preaching her lies to the average moronic scot makes my Haggis shake. She thinks she’s a leader, i think she’s exploiting the deaths of very old people to scare others and make her look good. She is vile and has proven without a shadow of a doubt to be the most incompetent leader of Scotland since Bonnie prince Charlie
Very short and direct clip of Jenny Harries and Boris Johnson discussing face masks are a bad idea including why. Shareable.
https://twitter.com/richardwjones/status/1295610974435672065?s=20
Hasn’t Jenny Harries been sent down the memory hole as a result?
This makes me so angry. I have forwarded information to Vistaprint UK demonstrating that there is no evidence that children pass on or become ill from Covid. Masks aren’t even mandatory for under 11s. My first email they referred me to a generic NHS site which didn’t refute my comment. Now they are thanking me for the information and promising to refer it to the team responsible but still the ad is on their site. They are clearly profiting from parental paranoia.
Note the small print “not a medical device; not to be worn as PPE”. So just a virtue signalling fashion statement that will psychologically damage your child.
Horrific! Well done for taking them to task for their vile, exploitative propaganda.
Burn them.
Sure but they’re all at it now, I keep getting adverts popping up for various masks for all ages and types… Companies see huge profits in them, and that’s the only thing that drives 99% of businesses, they couldn’t care less that they’re contributing to a needless climate of fear.
So glad I don’t watch telly
That’s why I installed an ad blocker because of them – it was getting annoying and you can see that many companies are profiteering from all this.
Are the ads coming via press sites? Those under the Reach umbrella are big culprits.
I always make sure all cookies are refused before I’ll stay on a new site. I promptly exit any site that doesn’t have a refuse all button, or where they are all off unless you accept them.
I don’t have an ad blocker (as far as I’m aware!) but I don’t get popup ads.
They suck
In an investigation you have to ask the right question. So here’s my question…
– Why are we told that we have to achieve a 60% infection rate to secure “herd immunity”? In a country like the UK that would mean out of a population of 70 million, you would have 28 million non-infected who are constantly interacting with each other on buses and trains, in supermarkets, in hospitals, in households etc etc. Surely with a very infectious disease it will just pass through the other 28 million just as it did through the 42 million.
I smell BS with this herd immunity theory.
I think by now everyone who has not been strictly isolating in their own homes – so probably 97% of the population – has been exposed to the virus in varying degrees. Probably 50% of those suffer no symptoms at all, seeing it off with first line defences in the nose and throat. Maybe 40% see it off with T cells and other immune responses. The remaining 10% are infected with varying degrees of seriousness and will mostly produce antibodies but maybe the sickest can’t.
Local lockdowns are put in place for, supposed, local spikes in cases. But that is precisely what is needed to produce herd immunity in the natural way of things, young people engaging in normal social activities (Risky Behaviour).
You might almost think the government doesn’t want us to achieve herd immunity because Vaccine?
A number of people here have been speculating about what explains the weird behaviour of governments across the world.
On the face of it, it seems absurd that governments have been prepared to sacrifice their national economy, their children’s education, the health service and their cultural life to deal with a low-grade emergency, similar to a bad flu year. I tried posting some lengthy comments on this earlier but failed. Will try breaking those down in replies…
1. US China trade war.
I think the Chinese were extremely concerned that the Covid outbreak would be used by Trump to clamp down further on trade with China. They therefore resorted to extreme measures to suppress the virus. They also exerted pressure on WHO to campaign for similar measures across the globe. From China’s point of view it was a damage limitation exercise, which also involved exporting damage to other nations.
If the virus actually escaped from their Wuhan bio lab, then China’s motivation and fear would be even greater.
2. Political opportunism.
Originally the US Democrats and the Left across the globe were sceptical about the virus and actually encouraged people to “hug a Chinese person “regardless of any transmission fears. Gradually however they realised the potential for political gain. It became apparent that Trump could be weakened in the forthcoming presidential campaign. We saw the US media and the Democrats latch onto this issue as a way of weakening Trump. They adopted mask wearing as a badge of honour. I tend to agree with those who say that if Biden wins then that will be the end of the Covid crisis.
3. Mass media hysteria.
There are numerous examples in the history of mass hysteria sometimes affecting millions of people which have caused huge misery and suffering. There is no reason to suppose that our global society is immune to such outbreaks of mass hysteria. It is pretty clear the mainstream media, rather than adopting a responsible approach preferred to stoke fear rather than set out facts. Weak governments across Europe followed the lead of the media and let them set the agenda. Opposition parties latched onto this opportunity and supported the hysteria.
4. Financial interests.
In all walks of life we understand that financial interests can affect the way people behave. For some reason when it comes to discussion of our reaction to the Covidvvirus, if you mention such a vested interest you are in danger of being condemned as a “conspiracist.”
We now know that Ferguson was receiving funds from various vaccine lobbies including the Gates foundation. But it is also clear that Big Pharma have had a huge financial interest in the crisis.
We should recognise that there are lots of financial interests of involved here.
WHO has its own financial interests and we know China like many countries will use bribes and subventions to secure their policy objectives.
Academics NHS managers and a host of others also have their financial interest.
and 5. but actually the real cause,globalists pushing for a new world agenda, where muzzled, depressed, freedom deprived and disoriented people snitch on each other instead of working together against the common enemy. I am afraid (and happy) we’re all in this together, Europeans, Chinese, Russians,Indians and the rest. How shall we fight back? It’s simple, watch what the media (the globalists’ activist arm) accuses us of, and do just that. They are accusing us of ignoring rules when we swarm the beaches, then let’s swarm the beaches. They are accusing us of living normally when we should be wetting our beds, then let’s live normally. They are telling us to be afraid, so let’s not be afraid. They want us to hate each other (white vs black, left vs right, men vs women, masked vs maskless) so let’s try to meet each other half way. The mask zealots are not the root cause but the consequence. They will see the light, especially when it comes to bite them in the behind.
Civil disobedience will bring the end to the madness, because the virus is long gone. I am not a hero, and I understand that some acquiescence has to happen. But let’s do the little bits, do not dodge people coming at you on the street, do not disinfect your hands 100 times a day, calmly explain to any zealot that this is just a minor disease, try not to wear a mask where possible, and do not support shops that enforce it. And most importantly DO NOT BE AFRAID. We will win this, simply because the truth (and human nature) is on our side.
Hear hear.
I really hope so.
The press and government have been feeding off each other, the media enthusiastically endorsing lockdown policies and urging more stringent ones because made up Covid horror stories hoping thereby to sell more copies/get more views.
Government reward the MSM by waves of lucrative advertising, it is not in the interest of the media to downplay the Covid anytime soon as this income would cease.
The population have been completely hoodwinked and the longer this goes on the more difficult it will be for each individual to realise this and to admit to themselves what foolish retards they have been for falling for it in the first place.
Probably needs someone with knowledge of Coercive Cult behaviour to figure a way out of this one. 60million people with Waco fever.
But newspapers and TV channels have mostly been damaged by the downturn and closure of shopping chains.
I bet on this one.
Can’t disagree with any of the below. Good analysis.
Good analysis. I think as well that the MSM has latched onto this because their circulation and viewing figures are going down and by printing and pushing apocalyptic stories all day everyday they hope that the readers and viewers will return but its backfired as even the likes of the Guardian, Daily Mirror and the BBC are having to make redundancies. Its the alternative media such as the likes of Anna Brees, Mahyar Tousi and New Culture Forum who seem to be getting most of the viewers now.
The mystery however is why the retail, hospitality, heritage and cultural sectors have cravenly kowtowed to these insane “safety” regulations while at the same time over egging the pudding by making up their own nonsense or going over the top with the existing ones. And now even the MSM are reporting that the mandatory muzzles have even decreased footfall in supermarkets!
That’s why they will get no sympathy from me when they go bust. Their cowardice and refusal to fight for their businesses and sectors will prove to be their undoing.
I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes in terms of lobbying by major chains in both sectors, but I wouldn’t assume the answer is nothing. I think the big players are as much in the dark as we are in terms of what proportion of the population are genuinely terrified and what proportion are just tolerating the nonsense (or even, just not thinking about it) and I suspect that, as a result, they’re erring on the side of caution and going overboard trying to make customers feel safe enough to go shopping. My personal observation is that smaller independents (pubs, more so than shops) are basically forgetting the measures they’ve put in place. The sanitizer is still there, but mostly ignored, the sign up sheet is still there and people scribble any old rubbish on it and occasionally you might get your temperature checked by someone who doesn’t know what your temperature should be anyway, but it’s just theatre really.
The big players would do well to go outside and try their own shopping experience and see how they like it.
We have a new trend which is definitely in an uptick stage – hanging your muzzle/face nappy/mask on the rearview mirror of your car while you drive. Better than seeing a human being wearing one while driving I guess but still this is getting too trendy by my count.
I noticed that…
It’s started.
Australia
Scott Morrison says a coronavirus vaccine would be ‘as mandatory as you can possibly make it’
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scott-morrison-says-a-coronavirus-vaccine-would-be-as-mandatory-as-you-can-possibly-make-it
Very frightening. It’s my worst nightmare — and based on the footage coming out of Melbourne, is there any doubt these psychopaths wouldn’t hesitate to send in the military to force vaccinate? It is my fervent hope that these vaccine trials are a complete catastrophe. While I’d normally never wish ill on anyone, for the sake of self-preservation I find myself hoping for a very bad outcome so that even our moronic, despotic “leaders” wouldn’t dare force an unsafe vaccine.
Presumably it would be the most fervent lockdown supporters that would be first in line to take it
And their families as well.
It’s my worst nightmare
Just curious why that is. In itself, it’s not my worst nightmare. What it represents, however, is in true nightmare territory i.e. non-democratic ‘permanent emergency’ government able to dictate every aspect of our lives, with wider society’s full approval.
Wow. All of 450 people dead? And the coronavirus didn’t cause the economy to tank, that was the lockdown. But, forget all of that and just take this jab.
Aus pop 25 million, cost of lockdown so far A$360 billion.
The Rockefeller Foundation_White Paper_Covid19_4_22_2020
https://www.docdroid.net/xG0r9OA/therockefellerfoundation-whitepaper-covid19-4-22-2020-pdf
…in the coming weeks the country could have the tools needed to allow governors and other officials to lift the most severe lockdowns and begin a phased reopening of some businesses. The goal is to allow enough economic activity to forestall a full-blown depression while keeping Covid-19 infection rates low enough to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed and thereby causing a wider and more deadly health crisis. This will be a delicate balancing act. Adjustment inevitably will need to be made based on close monitoring of the pandemic.
Written at a time when the main, naive concern was the swamping of hospitals. And also containing the assertion that we have the power to modulate the epidemic through testing and lockdowns. As far as I am aware, this idea is completely unproven.
Ironically for a government who derided ‘Project Fear’ this government has taken project fear to a much higher level. On the Government twitter feed they have recently posted;
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1295721677024825345
By saying these are rules they are trying to imply it is the law, when they are simply suggestions and guidelines, there is no law on this(apart from local lockdown areas).
Similarly with this one;
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1295664959196667904
They say you if you feel ill ‘must get a test’ again implying it is a mandatory requirement when there is no such requirement.
Having once derided ‘project fear’ this Government could now write a book on the subject!
As one elderly lady in the village said to me the other day with surprising passion, ‘this virus has brought all the little hitlers out of the woodwork’.
https://twitter.com/CourtsofNZ/status/1295934209777795072?s=20
Unlawful clearly means something different in NZ. “Justified but unlawful” – wtf does THAT mean?? If it’s unlawful, the government shouldn’t do it. Or of it’s ok for them to do it, it’s ok for us to do it.
Sensible article in the Spectator. This, I think, is exactly right:
…it will not be long before the wider winter virus season is upon us. There is likely to be a significant increase in Covid-like symptoms, coupled with a PCR-test about which there is increasing concern about its false positive rate. You can see where this could head, with new case clusters and more possible infections. Nothing it appears is off the table, including further lockdowns, rules and regulations. Perspective and proportionality are needed, but there has been precious little evidence of it recently.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-st-john-ambulance-right-to-change-its-cpr-advice-
Now, the government must know this, surely. So why do we have no faith that they will act sensibly? It’s rather the opposite: we are simply waiting for the inevitable hysteria, misuse of statistics and further ruination of our lives.
Yep, anyone with half a brain will see where this is heading. Hopefully we’ll see blood on the streets.
I’d rather see people without masks.
The one statistic it is hard to misuse is the ONS figure on total registered deaths from all causes. This has been running at below average for the last 8 weeks, when I mention this to people they say ah but there is a second wave coming. But if death rates continue as present and there is no second wave in deaths and hospital do OK then the argument for all this will get increasingly threadbare.
The cynic in me says that this is why they are desperate for vaccine before the lockdown argument falls apart, as otherwise the money spent on vaccine development will look ridiculous. Once they get a vaccine up and running it will be hard to tell if Covid has just gone or controlled by the vaccine.
See Hector Drummond blog charts updated weekly, one shows combined deaths pw split between covid/non Covid with a line to indicate 5 year average. Total has been below that line for 8 (?) weeks, it’s on my phone to show anyone that wants to see.
Raigmore NHS Scotland hospital at Inverness appears to be triaging admissions by mixing patients before Covid19 testing. With the nosocomial aspect this seems unusual. The twitter thread shows this is happening more than once.
https://twitter.com/RespectIsVital/status/1295798137446178822?s=20
My mother has been taken to Raigmore Hospital following a fall.
As she has a temperature, (infection), she’s been put in a room with EVERYONE with a COVID-19 symptom until their test comes back clear.
How is that sensible
@NHSHighland
?
I mean, who thought that up?
2/ Thanks for the messages of support for my mother. It’s really kind of you all.
Her COVID test is negative and she’s been moved to a new room and is receiving treatment. She’s comfortable.
The nurses at Raigmore are being very good.
Never forget how amazing the NHS is.
A reply:
So stupid these ppl are! If it’s any comfort – myself and my little girl ended up in the majors ward with actual covid patients! We were in there for about 20 mins before I went mad and banged on the consultants door and told them to get us the hell out.
A reply:
This isn’t nice to hear but I have to share. My Grandma contracted COVID-19 in hospital at the end of June. She tested negative twice then about a week later tested positive and died 2 days later after contracting pneumonia. The inquest recorded her death as accidental.
Nothing new I’m afraid, my mum went in for hip replacement, while recovering someone came down with Hospital Disease, instead of checking the others they were all locked in the ward until they either died or survived (2 months). Mum survived but she was never the same.
The Peer Review process has been broken for decades. Quite why it is held up as the last great bastion of rationality I have no idea. It’s clearly been broken in several spheres of science for a long time – particularly the humanities. However the whole debacle with the Lipid Hypothesis should have shown it is broken in medicine as well.
https://risk-monger.com/2020/07/31/why-i-dont-publish-in-peer-reviewed-journals/
This is a guy who sums up exactly what I feel!
https://twitter.com/Scifiscreen/status/1295775936684621824
The sands of time are running out. Finally.
Good article from Off Guardian telling it like it us
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/18/bait-switch-how-theyve-changed-the-covid-conversation/
The major problem, and in my opinion this bears repetition, is that there are 17 million or so of the population already organised, networked, and pretty much of one mind; the most powerful lobby in the land.
They cannot be reasoned with.
They are not on our side.
And they are all wearing masks.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/01/jeremy-corbyn-labour-twitter-primary/604690/
Piece on GMB just now. Asking members of the public then the studio what people are and are not “allowed” to do. ‘Great’, I think. ‘You’re allowed to do whatever you want’. Also an opportunity for a bit of mythbusting for the masses. I should’ve known better.
One member of the public thinks you can have 20 people around your house. Presenter later chortles at the thought – “even I knew you can’t have 20 people around for dinner”. No follow-up clarification. Appalling.
We went to lunch yesterday met a friend we hadn’t seen since last year. Hes 83 and refuses to wear a mask. His local pub which is his lifeline has all staff masked up The pub was very busy, all retirees by the looks of it and a few came in wearing masks until they sat at the tables. I spoke with one of the bar staff pointing out that the mask could harm her own health because she was inhaling bacteria. She said she knew that but the clientele felt safe with the staff wearing them!!!
Once they get a chest infection and are struggling to shift it they may feel different, bit late then.
At which point they might have infected the customers……
This is no doubt a dense question on my part. It seems to be an article of faith (apt term perhaps) by those in charge of this country and those prominent in the media that there is going to be another ‘spike’ (dread word) come the autumn and beyond. So my question is:-
What’s ‘the science’ behind this assumption?
They will use winter colds and flu as a springboard to even more dystopian regs.
The 1918 Flu Pandemic. Not that Covid is flu of course. So it will be worse.
According to HMG anyway.
As an aside, to the best of my knowledge, there was no second wave in later flu pandemics, the new strains just settled into endemic status. This coronavirus is likely no different.
Yes, it’s all based on 1918 – and not on any of the other many pandemics that never saw a second wave…
Yes – CEBM has done an analysis of ‘second wave’ theory, and it is certainly not a predictable or regular phenomenon.
Of course, the 1918 ‘Spanish’ ‘flu happened before there was any sophisticated monitoring available. In that context, there is some question over whether the second ‘wave’ was in fact of the same agent.
They predicted it got May and then June, maybe thought July and August would be too warm and sunny so now it will be any flu like symptoms that come along every year.
July and August have been mostly overcast up here on my Pennine ridge.Talk about a non-summer!
They know there will be a second wave because they will manufacture one by any means necessary, of sufficient size to keep us simmering without boiling over, and trying to leave some money in the coffers for the next election.
I think their “science” hasn’t change since the start – it’s highly contagious, there’s no prior immunity and the Herd Immunity Threshold is 80%isn and we are at most at 15-20. But it really doesn’t matter much what their science is because they are not being asked to explain it.
There is no “science” behind the second wave assumption. I presume it is based on the Spanish flu which first appeared in Spring 1918 and flared up again in 1919. It is not clear whether it was the same virus or a mutation. There have been no second waves since. The doom-mongers are still clinging to the first wave despite all the evidence in front of their eyes -positive tests (“cases”) due to increased testing but no commensurate rise in hospital admissions or deaths. Like others here I fear Hancock and Co are so deep in the hole of their own creation and are still frantically digging!
It is happening in Ireland too were I now be. More restrictions coming up because the number of cases are zooming – since they introduced the masking. The number of people now dying is now the lowest since the lockdown.
https://youtu.be/FU3OibcindQ
Anyone who questions your scepticism should be able to counter the arguments here.
Then of course we’ve Leo admitting we are creating a crisis out of thin air and killing people with the measures to address it
https://mobile.twitter.com/leovaradkar/status/1278995351169613824
See Toby’s roundup last week, FT 2 charts one of New Cases, second Covid deaths, no correlation.
It is political science, they need to keep project covid fear going until a vaccine comes along. They want a vaccine, not to save the people but to save their political backsides. Once they have a vaccine they can back down on lockdown and claim it as a triumph for this glorious government. If the lockdown falls apart before they get a vaccine it will be like a repeat of the exam fiasco. The mythical second spike is a political survival tactic for Boris and Cummings.
On the plus side if they do get a vaccine they will want it out very fast and they know most people will queue up to be voluntarily vaccinated. So I think they will avoid any possible delays and complications and keep it voluntary. Once the majority are vaccinated they can pronounce a great victory for Boris who saved the day and ended the lockdown.
A. good analysis – thanks.
I agree. A vaccine does appear to be the only exit strategy to this because all the data is there now that there is no need for lockdown but it’s simply being ignored or deliberately misunderstood. So part of me is hoping they rush through something and as long as it’s not dangerous (big if) dole it out to the masses voluntarily and then roll back the restrictions. Obviously I won’t be taking it and don’t care one jot if it has the slightest effect but I can’t see us getting out of this any other way.
A vaccine was always the only exit strategy. The government’s own roadmap document made that clear, months ago.
I wouldn’t expect the vaccine to change much. They may use the opportunity to tweak some of the restrictions that relate more directly to economic activity as they will want some tax money in the coffers to buy votes before the next election, but as far as removing all the SIs and guidance and declaring it over and getting back to normal – that will never happen. They are not interested in our quality of life or freedom, because the rules don’t apply to/affect them.
Agree
They will then try to push everyone to get the vaccine, twice per year forever UNLESS we stand up and fight. Obviously Dicks will berate the unvaccinated and urge the unwashed to put pressure on them (same as the masks debacle)
Yes I expect much of the “emergency” legislation will stay in force or be tweaked “so we can guard against the next pandemic”, blah, blah. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you have to fight for your freedom every day because if you don’t someone will take it.
Does that mean they will present a vaccine even if they know its rubbish ?
If they thought they could get away with it. I guess they’ll try not to kill too many people with it, because that would be awkward. No vaccine will work 100% anyway, and given that the infection rates are so low, it will be hard to tell how effective it is, or rather it will be easy to be vague about it. It would be quite hard to release something that is 100% placebo because of the number of people who’d need to be involved in the process, but I suppose it’s possible.
The vaccine won’t be the end of it. It will never end unless the people decide it must, and then it won’t be given up without a fight.
Why would you doubt it?
A vaccine is just ONE of the things they wanted, the state’s participation in The Corona Project was the all encompassing driver of “The Government’s” actions. The Corona Project has been in the proving oven for a long time and the oven was switched on in October. Non participation meant international pariah status. No loans for your smashed economy as the new normal is rolled out.
So now we all in prison. Boris and Cummins are just prison wardens in the global panopticon.
Cockmatthandjob was talking “second spike” early this morning – guess that becomes the science by early afternoon.
According to the BBC, the ONS is ramping up its testing survey, aiming to send home tests to 150,000 households a fortnight.
So… second wave, here we come.
Self fulfilling prophecy….
So the word needs to get out that if you do one of those tests, you guarantee a lockdown for your town.
More worryingly, as it’s ONS, this will be the national prevalence survey, meaning that an increase in positives will suggest higher prevalence across the country… meaning national lockdown.
I’ve just received the letter to invite me to take a best. Obviously, straight in the bin! However, Mrs Snarly has just taken the antibody test which was negative. She did have a nasty cold/flu thing in January and wondered if it was covid. Possibly she did and the antibodies have faded away since then.
It was interesting hearing how Radio Four reported the latest Covid figures last night.
To give them their due they did report there was 12 deaths yesterday.
But that figure is too comforting so they gave the running total. Something like 42,000.
But even that was too comforting. It was qualified with the words – “who died within 28 days of being tested positive” – and then it was added
– there’s been something like 57,000 people who’ve died that have had Covid mentioned on their birth certificate.
If they are going to do this sort of thing – why not give the figure for what’s termed “excess deaths” – and the estimate for early deaths due to the consequence of the lockdown?
Good God, they caught it at birth? (grin).
I doubt if they have ever mentioned early deaths due to the consequences of the lockdown and that, come the final reckoning, they might outnumber deaths from Covid itself.
Or even the deaths of those who died without any known co-morbidities to at least try to be impartial!
No more BBC radio in our house. Absolute Radio is great!
The BBC is a putrid cess-pool of toxic lying bastard and useful arrogant idiots pumping out their mind bending filth 24/7 across the globe. Brainwashing millions and millions of people everyday with their evil bullshit. Apart from that, it’s something to listen too innit. The shipping forcast is nice to nod off to.
OK, so you’ve listed the good parts. Surely there’s something bad about them?
“To give them their due they did report there was 12 deaths yesterday.”
Actually – this statement is to be treated with due suspicion, given that the verified ONS figures that the CEBM tracks in detail at a slightly later date are at the moment lower than that (a moving average of 5-8 per day)
I wrote to my MP (the chief whip, Mark Spencer) when the facemask madness began – partially because I could see that, even for those who were exempt, there would be social pressure to comply. I eventually got a reply, which did nothing more than claim to “understand the concerns” whilst simply repeating what the policy was. I was tempted to give up at that point, but decided this morning to pursue the issue and send my own response.
***
Dear Sir,
I recently received your reply to my initial message about facemasks. I am grateful that you took the time to reply, but the reply itself is deeply unsatisfying in that you are simply parroting the party line. It is this lack of independent thought that has led us into this mess in the first place, blindly accepting Neil Ferguson’s model as reality, not even realizing that the way we were counting deaths was fundamentally flawed until Carl Heneghan pursued the issue – and you’re still following Boris’ game of “whack-a-mole”, pursuing a random game of beggar thy neighbour on the basis of a PCR test which doesn’t have a high enough specificity to be used as a diagnostic tool (see https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-cases-in-england-arent-rising-heres-why/).
Where facemasks are concerned, it is clear that you are equally unquestioning. The initial impetus was allegedly psychological – to reassure people in order to get them to go shopping – rather than medical. The evidence for the medical efficacy of masks hasn’t changed from when your own website advised against them, despite the best efforts of some people to promote them. Now the evidence for their psychological efficacy is coming in and it’s not good – far from making people feel safe to go out and spend, it’s discouraging people from doing so, partially because for those who actually enjoy shopping it’s draining that enjoyment and partially because, by promoting them as virtuous, you create a hostile environment for anyone who doesn’t wear one – even if they do have an exemption. People are being berated both online and in person for failing to wear a mask, even if they are exempted; companies and woke celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon of promoting masks – even for young children who, as you point out, are exempt. The net result is that anyone who can’t wear a mask or who feels uncomfortable or distressed wearing one is avoiding any kind of activity where they are mandated and the people who you’ve scared into thinking they’re at imminent risk of death are still unconvinced that things are any safer for them. You just have to look at the relative success of eat out to help out (where masks aren’t mandated) to retail sales (where they are) to see the impact of this, and even with restaurants I know people who won’t go until the staff cease to wear masks and they can go back to normal.
The most distressing element of all of this is that it’s unclear that it’s ever going to end. Graham Brady was apparently told that you don’t even have a policy on under what conditions you will unwind the lockdown measures, which is simply unacceptable. Until you understand the importance of false positives as you pursue the chimera of endlessly increasing testing you will still be finding “cases” and thus still restricting people’s freedoms, either through local lockdowns or so-called social distancing measures on the basis of numbers which don’t mean anything. Even if a vaccine emerges (and it’s far from clear that’s going to happen) and you can persuade sufficient of the population to accept something which has been rushed through without anything like the usual level of testing, it still won’t be 100% effective (vaccines never are) and the testing regime will still throw up positive results. I don’t know the motives of your “experts” – I know from the SAGE minutes that they were against lockdown before it happened, so I find it highly suspicious how their position has changed subsequently. For the sake of our economy and, indeed, our society, it is vital that you stop simply following blindly, look beyond the SAGE group to other experts (Carl Heneghan would be a good start) and think for yourself.
Yours,
Andrew Fish
***
Thoughts?
A very good letter. Measured, factually correct, and not giving him much room for manoeuvre if he deigns to reply. If he is anything like his predecessor as chief whip – Gavin Williamson – I am not hopeful he will have the intellect to even understand your letter, however!
I do despair at the stupidity of our MPs, but then I’ve felt like that for decades. It just hasn’t been this damaging before.
Superb, but ‘MP’ and ‘think for yourself’ belong in different universes.
Your presentation of the negative effects of mask wearing is very well put. It is helping to create a very nasty society.
Plus, I would have added it helps create a climate of fear. Within two weeks the government is going to run up against that climate of fear they have created as they try to get children going back to school.
Totally agree on the climate of fear thing. Hopefully there’s enough there to make him think at least.
Excellent.
Superb. The tone and content are spot-on. If you fail to get a response, I would send a follow-up. This demands a reply.
They have 100K+ a year salary to think about loosing so he won’t say anything that goes against party policy. These MP’s all all spineless useless ignorant fools. Every single one of them regardless of their political stripes. Absolutely DESPICABLE.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainer-52634739
Remember this? Has anyone any idea of which level we are at now please? Is it still 3 or have we moved into 2 now?
Thanks
I try to avoid news but as far as I know it hasn’t changed.
We will never move back to level 2.
Boris’s Nandos scale of bullshit meter?
When it was first revealed level 1 had a proviso that normal life wouldn’t be possible without a vaccine.Since then any versions I’ve seen have had this removed
Oh really? That’s interesting…So what do they say now? Untill there are better treatments available?
If you google covid uk what level are we at?
This is what you get: https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/eprr/uk-threat-level/
All other links are dated June 20th.
At the beginning of the “pandemic” in March, there was a great hoo-ha about a volunteers’ army being set up to help the vulnerable, and the shielding, at home. If I recall correctly, this was a government initiative to be organised on a local basis. Did this ever happen and what has become of it? Very little has been heard about it. I remember at the time thinking that it was a good idea but hoped that it would work alongside, and not lord it over, all the existing volunteer efforts, such as the RVS.
It was basically a publicity stunt, probably orchestrated by nudge, to give people those good smug feelings and like everything was a collective effort. Last I read of it basically no one had been used.
Our village started one and it immediately became a mechanism for disseminating fascist terror propaganda and enforcing lockdown coercion.
My little town still has a group, the county council every now and then bungs them £500. They deliver supplies from an unofficial food bank, do shopping, collect medications etc for those who remain behind closed doors and do not have family to support them.
Great memory Gillian! I busily got on with ignoring the claptrap and helping folk around here. Totally forgot their were initiatives by governments. What a silence that has become! No one has ever spoken about it outside of the meeja.
In an earlier post BTLnewbie quoted from a letter he received from his MP:-
>>>our individual rights and liberties must be set against the rights and needs of broader society in preventing the spread of this disease, and that therefore a balance must be struck in the context of this pandemic.<<<
I’ve been thinking about that ‘balance’.
In their own minds the government must surely think they are risking lives by allowing public attendance at low key football matches.
The individual can’t decide what risks should be taken – but the government can.
Probably trying to set off local spikes so local government Officers can impose local lockdowns.
“In their own minds the government must surely think they are risking lives by allowing public attendance at low key football matches.”
Nothing I have seen from the government suggests to me they are motivated by genuine public health concerns. It’s all just politics.
Been reflecting on the fact that every single organisation I belonged to and used to respect, from the Covid Church of England to the National Unworthy of Trust, has turned out to be staffed by, and full of, grovelling zombie morons.
And, d’you know, it’s strangely liberating. Clean slate. From now on, I’ll trust those who remain human.
I trust Peter Hitchens. And Lord Sumption. And Carl Heneghan. And other truth-speakers. And all of you.
Pretty good start.
You can trust me Annie
I do!
It’s very depressing, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about how the entire arts sector has just capitulated to the completely unreasonable demands of the government, with no end in sight, and is obviously relying on being able to suckle at the Arts Council teat in perpetuity.
I’ll continue to pay the subscriptions to my two favourite opera festivals (both privately funded), but at some point, even they are going to have to get their collective heads out of their arses and state categorically that there is no future in performing to half-full theatres.
My local church, not two minutes away, STILL remains firmly shut, although a notice does helpfully point out that the Holy Sacrement is still being venerated, should you wish to genuflect at a safe distance and from behind several sets of locked doors.
And as for the NT – my membership’s up for renewal in October. Let’s see if there is any access to their properties before then without being muzzled and herded around like germ-infested rats. If not, that’ll be another subscription that won’t be renewed.
Only talking about NT renewal this morning. Unless the pre-booking time slot (our nearest property is 3,800 acres) etc. goes we’re another that won’t be renewing
Having to book a limited place in order to wander around a huge country park is pushing it a tad too far.
Unfortunately the mandatory muzzling is also in effect in historic properties and I suspect they will have the usual “safety” bollocks.
Mr Bart and I went to Blenheim last year and as a result we can avail of a free re-entry this year. But we’ve decided not to for as long as this madness is with us.
I can help with that…. two-six@twang.co.uk Drop me a line if you want one.
I wear mine with pride.
Did you get the last batch OK?
I did, now armed at all points!
YAY!
I gave one to my gardener and he was thrillied to bits with it – pinned it on his jacket straight away.
Have Covid safe soaps started on telly yet? I don’t have one so wouldn’t know.
Almost every charity that I believed was there to help those in need has also drunk the ‘kool – aid’ and used every opportunity to virtue signal instead of giving support to people they claim to care about.
They will get no more of my money.
Don’t forgot the Nobel Laureate, wonderful Professor Michael Levitt of Stanford.
Here he is losing it with one of Nutter Ferguson’s Imperial henchmen, Samir Bhatt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7167&v=_1u_yworTco&feature=emb_logo
Plandemic II, the successor to the widely banned and MSM-derided first edition from May, came out today. “The information [in the first] presented by scientist Judy Mikovits was instantly deemed to be false by the information captains of the web, and within hours of it hitting social media it was being banned for violating community guidelines.”
“Released today, Plandemic II Indoctornation, covers this censorship and the all out media assault on information about Covid-19.”
You can watch below!
https://ise.media/video/plandemic-ii-indoctornation-23.html
Ta! I’ll watch it now.
No doubt I’ll see you at the
re-education campquarantine hotel …I’ve tried to follow the link given early on in the documentery:
http://www.plandemic2.com
Comes up with “This page isn’t working” every time I try.
Could you check whether you’re having problems with this too?
That link does not work. Did the link I posted work?
Yes. Watching/listening now.
The link above is the one displayed on the film itself.
Is there another link to the Plandemic website? I’m looking for his full interview with the whistleblowing doctor.
Here is part 1:
https://ise.media/video/plandemic-part-1-20.html
Lovely! That works. Cheers!
Conversation with a masked lady that I know slightly.
She had told me previously that she dislikes wearing masks as it makes it difficult to breath and hear people.
I replied that she need not wear it for my sake so she lowered it.
Remember that you don’t have to wear in a shop because your XYZ condition means you are exempt.
“Well that’s just uout opinion, not what everyone else says”
I told her it is not my opinion it is the Law.
“How do you know what the law is ?”
Because I know how to read an Act of Parliament, I have it on my phone would you like to see it ?*
“Oh I don’t know about all that…” as she wandered off down the road pulling up her mask.
* actually the lawnotfiction pdf but hehe
And that is what we are dealing with
Crazy innit? Even if you give people enough data and fact which clerly prooves masks don’t work, people can be exempt, that covid19 is not really that much of a threat and STILL they want to believe the bullshit. People are heavily invested in the corona bollocks now they really don’t want to give it up. It has cost them too much and it would seem like a waste of thought capital or something.
Sunk cost fallacy
yes
I actually don’t care what other people do. They’re stupid and unquestioning about most things in their life. They deserve to be manipulated and controlled, in fact they like it. All I want is to be allowed to choose something else, like I do with most things. For me this is the crux of the issue.
Unfortunately it’s a lot easier to fool someone than convince them they’ve been fooled.
I’m seeing this every day. It’s like talking to your dog. You know they can hear you but they’re not really listening to a word your saying in reality.
This part of the HCQ article was interesting:
“Phase 2 is equally dangerous, for it shows that politicization has started to penetrate the peer review process, and how studies are reported in scientific journals, and of course in the press.”
For anyone sceptical of the climate alarmism movement, this is nothing new. The fellation and uncritical acceptance of “the science” and the doubling down in light of new evidence… it’s like the last 15-20 years compressed into six months.
Seeing how that turned out, it makes me entirely unconvinced that we’ll ever see a way out of this Covid bedwettery.
Will post again when today’s page goes live.
Just got my last FOI request back from the DHSC about the PCR tests they are using
Some really interesting comments in it such as:
– do the tests you are using detect only “covid-19” as stated in the Coronavirus legislation:
“coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)?
The test is for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
– or does it show positive to all the coronavirus family of viruses?
Just SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
– supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). my highlighting so no justification provided for isolating people regardless if their test is positive.
Patients can have SARS-CoV-2 RNA before onset of illness, during the illness and after resolution of symptoms (all variable periods). The result has to be taken into context of symptoms present.
They also provide a link to a document by Health Technology Wales which in answer to this question:
– the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy. I can confirm that the Department holds information relevant to your request. As the information held by the Department is in the public domain, we will under Section 21 of the FOI Act (information accessible to the applicant by other means) refer you to the published source, a summary of evidence on the accuracy of the test,
https://www.healthtechnology.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAR025-COVID19-diagnostics-report-v2.6.pdf
It does include a few gems such as:
At least they have answered truthfully and reading between the lines I come up with “it’s all bollocks and we cannot accurately test for it to tell if anyone has it”.
– supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). my highlighting so no justification provided for isolating people regardless if their test is positive.
I’ve long not understood why, when people are testing positive but display no symptoms nor ever get any symptoms, that they are not, actually, immune. Although reading this morning’s Mercola missive, I can quite understand whyt the authorities would think not.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/08/19/covid-19-reckless-gain-of-function-experiments.aspx?cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art2HL&cid=20200819Z2&mid=DM627874&rid=943553285
That’s extraordinary. So the FOI request elicits that:
It is absolutely amazing that journalism has sunk to such an abysmally low level of propagandized functioning that what you have outlined (known in essence to many of us who have simply got off our metaphorical arses) isn’t a major story.
Imagine what would have happened if the Sunday Times under Harry Evans had functioned at such an abysmal investigative level at the time of the Thalidomide exposure.
Yet this is what is now being dished (or not served, should I say) to the public day after day after day.
The whole pack of cards is founded on supposition.
AN – I know he often reads the comments, but can I suggest you mail that response on to Toby (with your commentary)? Hitchens as well, probably. It deserves to be publicised
We should all put in freedom of information requests to flood their system with queries. The problem is what to ask of whom and how. Perhaps Toby could do an article on this.
Hello long time lurker here. First post as I’ve finally reached the end of tether with the nonsense going on all around me.
Mum and dad received their flu jab invite from the GP today. The list of rules and regs that need to be followed to take up the offer is so enraging that you have to laugh. No seats to be provided so the jab will be given standing up(infection control you see). They also, very kindly I thought, advise you to bring an umbrella in case of rain and once again remind you that all waiting will be outside the surgery again with no seating provided. Don’t even think about asking the nurse about any other issue you may be experiencing because the letter makes it clear the nurse is only there to administer the jab and unable provide advice on anything else. Finally, I think this is the one that really takes the biscuit, a mask must be worn at all times and if you are exempt … you must provide proof of this!
Dad is in his late 80s.
God I despair.
Welcome. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum haven’t they.
If only it was just the asylum – they could quarantine themselves inside and not bother the rest of us.
Thanks to all for the welcome and opportunity to vent.
It is all a load of old cobblers, I just don’t get why so many accept it without question.
It’s frightening to find out just how many people appear to be brain dead and can’t think for themselves..
Our GP surgery says that mask exemptions don’t count in there as does our local hospital,as far as I can find out this is not true and is against the 2010 discrimination and equalities act,our surgery doesn’t appear to care though.
Hopefully people will refuse to comply and the docs will find their bonuses very short this year.
Yes, how nice that they send an invitation. I read that the invitation is to be broadened to include some of us younger folk (I’m 64). Sadly, I will not be able to attend.
As a former lurker welcome.
My gp practice has only texted me to say the flu jab will be given in what is actually the cattle market, a big shed so easy livestock control and far enough away to inconvenience their elderly patients.
My sister had the pleasure of a blood pressure check that the Nurse took in the car park behind the surgery. Totally nuts. Where I live we are at least “lucky” enough to have Taj Mahal size brand spanking new health centre – (mostly now empty of those pesky patients of course)
If you are exempt you are. Doctors think the law doesn’t apply to them. That’s been the problem since all this started. I’d call the police if they insist. Publicly, at the surgery, standing up. They won’t come, don’t worry, but the quack might worry.
So, they need to provide evidence of exemption and getting that evidence will come from, let’s think………… welcome to the kafkeresque nightmare we inhabit
“You mean there’s a catch?”
“Sure there’s a catch,” Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
Yes, indeedy. Catch-22 has been one of my basic touchstones for half a century.
I remember it’s relevance being brought home when I was facing the bureaucracy of rail travel in 1970’s Poland.
We needed to travel on a train that departed in the morning before the ticket office opened. It was an offence to travel before buying a ticket. However – you could not buy a ticket for the train on the previous day.
Interesting how Poland moved on, and we’ve moved back to be a simulated eastern bloc country.
Interesting though because GPs get bonuses for all the jabs they manage to administer so it’s weird that they’re making it so difficult for people.
Welcome to sanity corner. We lose our rags sometimes, but we haven’t lost the plot… yet!
Another long time lurker here too. Just waiting for the details of how our flu jabs will be done this year. No way are they going to use the village hall and have tea and biscuits and time for a chat.
Where on earth are you supposed to get “proof” of an exemption? I think it was posted here that GPs have been instructed not to give out exemption letters because they are not needed?
How do supposed medical professionals justify this kind of petty authoritarianism, holding access to supposedly necessary healthcare hostage to compliance?
They have no shame, no professional integrity, and no decency.
Disgusting. Do you know how many people faint when given an injection? Are they going to be given a chair? Or just allowed to face plant? Also implied in that ‘advice’ is an acknowledgement that people will want to ask about other things because they have had zero access to medical advice for so long. An admission of neglect is what I’m hearing. My advice as a nurse is not to attend. Fuck ’em.
100% agree.
My parents will probably be forced to go private in the hope of sourcing a seat.
This is what seems to be happening. My senior colleagues are only seeing PPs face to face. All NHS patients get Zoom and phone calls. I think this may be the start of a two tier service. The ‘virus’ is being used to implement significant change in healthcare provision and access. The ‘old’ model will only be available to the privately insured. My NHS trust has made a commitment to moving 70% of consultations to remote platforms. This is their vision. As I said, the only people being seen face to face are paying in cash.
Welcome to this little oasis of sanity and rational thinking amidst the desert of insanity.
There were some studies about flu vaccines making coronaviruses worse. They used to be on rfk junior’s webpage but it’s now gotten too hard to find them using a google search. (I’m sure they are still there I just don’t have the patience). Talk with your parents about weighing up the risks of flu vaccine this year when social distancing is likely going to be in place. Maybe this year they just forgo it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkJU8t4gCk
New Amazon UK advert showing 2 idiots in the street with masks not being able to hear each other.
German school children protest against mandatory coronavirus masks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke_xQqcUILU&list=TLGGPwrUi5x3PcExOTA4MjAyMA
Another one with their snout in the trough
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/alun-cairns-bbi-expenses-claims-18789935?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
The amount of corruption going on behind the scenes at the moment is staggering.
I suspect that most MP’s have been bought up by someone or other
At least Marie Antoinette chucked some cake about, this lot wouldn’t give you the steam off their p*ss
French Scientist: Corona ‘Danger is No Longer Present Yet We Continue to Spread an Irrational Fear’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_r-T3w3MEQ
https://www.spectator.co.uk/illustration/covid-psychiatrist?fbclid=IwAR2G-lE0gub0Wgscc8LqyBMuZbmnRgtjVnEpc6tMokrFvuENxMdeKDCQvQQ
That raised a smile
Just had my THIRD response from the D of T regarding health and safety risk assessments on mask wearing. It is virtually a carbon copy of the previous two-government rules and advice blah blah blah.
I wrote straight back to my MP to let him know my displeasure.
” I am taking it as read that NEITHER the government NOR the D of T has looked into the dangers of mask wearing-bacterial infections and the like and haven’t produced any risk assessment for this. This is extremely remiss of them.“
I pointed my MP in the direction of various videos of Profs. Whitty, Tams, Vallance, and Dr Jenny Harries saying that masks are useless.
Heh ho; yes, it is just like the proverbial assault on brick walls with one’s head!
Looking forward to my second day in a row coffee with friends – science-educated mothers who are all massive sceptics. Wonder whether there is a correlation with whether you have sons or daughters – we all know each other because our boys are mates, and they are all sceptics too? On my way out yesterday I almost cried when I saw a middle class woman masking her two little girls, aged about 6 and 8, prior to walking through the outside shopping centre. It’s definitely the climate change, yummy mummy types that are keeping this show on the road. Probably fewer of them out today due to the weather!
I have never seen groups of teenage boys masked up, they probably take the piss out of (US ‘mock mercilessly’) those who do.
Unfortunately I have seen some,nearly always decked in matching black neoprene type muzzles.
Are they the fireproof ones racing drivers wear?? Or the ones that you get out of a supply crate in in “Player Unknows Battlegrounds”?
God knows,they seem to think they look very cool with them on,I think they look like twats.
That’s because they are twats.
Correct! MW
racing drivers dont wear mask – they wear full fireproof balaclavas…. except of course when they are virtue signalling before and after the race
me too. I think they think they look badass
Same round here, sadly. Always the black jockstraps or the blue ocean-cloggers. MW
Perhaps our local lads are ‘arder than those round your way.
Interesting thought, a bit like the Brexit/Remain divide. I think I must be unusual… I voted Remain (in a not-that-fussed sort of way, admittedly), I believe that man-made climate change is a thing (how bad it will become is a different issue), and I have a young daughter. But I’m 100% lockdown and mask sceptic…
Definitely not a yummy mummy though, so perhaps that’s the deciding factor
The mum I know who is the most pro-lockdown (wouldn’t even go for walks for several weeks, the poor kids, and famously posted on Facebook on Easter weekend ordering everyone else to stay inside too) is also extremely pro-climate change. Or rather, pro-ordering everyone else to mend their ways – perhaps that’s the difference. On her daughter’s last birthday (6th), she smugly posted to say that little Jane had decided she didn’t want any birthday presents this year, because of the environment and because of the poor starving children in Wherever. And you must NEVER have balloons at your birthday party ever again, you’re evil if you do, because of the turtles thinking they’re jellyfish, etc etc.
Wonder what she thinks about all the mask and glove pollution these days… Strangely quiet on that one.
Oh God, what a truly awful person. I feel for you.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her since early March when she flew off into a rant at me during a “discussion” about the cost of lockdown (“Tell that to the families of the millions who will die” etc etc).
Little point in talking to people who say such infantile things like that. It’s like something my teenager would say! When did adults become so child like!?
One of the biggest bedwetters I know got out of London in time to her enormous country home; fortunately she wasn’t stuck in her Caribbean house!?!? She is forever banging on about plastic (after getting off her latest flight) and was adamant that she wasn’t coming out of the cellar (well stocked with wine) but the daughter put a spanner in the virtue signalling work as she simply had to compete in a showjumping competition…. “socially distanced” of course!?!?
Honestly you couldn’t make up the hypocrisy.
I am with you on Brexit and global warming, btw
That whole thing when someone says “socially distanced of course”, Where’s the nearest window.
A work colleague who took it upon herself to write a daily lockdown blog to the entire team came up with a new one recently. She said she refrains from using the term “mandatory masks” as she feels it should be done anyway out of love and doesn’t want it to sound like she sees it as some kind of limitation on her freedom. She suggested we all use the term “reduction in spontaneity” instead.
So instead of just popping into the shop on a whim, the New Normal means a “reduction in spontaneity” as you need to be mask prepped.
Utterly depressing. Her blogs are a lacking in any critical thought as could be, one huge effort in virue signalling. She’s also the boss, or one of them at least.
I feel better now after that rant.
You could suggest another word instead of “mandatory” or “reduction in spontaneity”: i.e. “coercion.”
Some of the worst bangers-on about climate change that I know are those that seem to be jetting off to the other side of the world every 5 minutes or so… And yet according to one, because I have a child I’ve been “bad” for the environment (i.e. worse than him) despite the fact I haven’t got on a plane since approximately 2003…
Hmmmm… I have never ever met a 6 year old who does not want presents.
The parents of any six year old that doesn’t want presents are guilty of child abuse.
Well yes, exactly what I thought. The post should have read, “I have indoctrinated my 6-year-old and persuaded her to think that she doesn’t want any birthday presents.” This same 6-year-old has apparently “loved” the last 5 months of complete social isolation that her parents have forced upon her…
“I believe that man-made climate change is a thing (how bad it will become is a different issue)”
This is to some extent my position, which is why I tend to describe myself as agnostic on the climate change front even though I am strongly opposed to climate panickers. And in some ways it’s the same as my position on the covid issue – I don’t particularly doubt its existence, what bothers me is the hysterical exaggeration, dismissal of dissent and fearmongering surrounding it and the consequent panic measures.
Both driven by modelling, both providing pretexts for authoritarian interfering types to tell other people how to live and to feel sanctimoniously self-satisfied about doing so.
Precisely my thoughts. Even though I think we should all try to minimise our impact on the planet, within reason, nothing irritates me more than other people telling me what to do under the guise of being a “better” person than I am!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXxktLAsBPo
Dr. Patrick Moore – A Dearth of Carbon?
The climate always changes, luckily, or we might be stuck in Snowball Earth, under 3 miles of ice, and try growing tomatoes or anything else in those conditions.
Man made contribution to CO2 output is a very small portion of atmospheric CO2,most of it coming from natural sources.
Co2 is not the main driver of climate, and if you watch the video above, you’ll note that during the last ice age, the Earth came dangerously close to the limit at which plants, and all other life, dies.
I’m not worried about man made climate change. I am concerned about the environmental damage that we’re causing, including all those discarded, germ-ridden masks.
And I voted for Brexit, because I always felt that giving over our nation to another body to run us, and tell us what to do was inherently wrong. I’ve read quite a bit about English history, and have a strong sense of our own nationhood. We come at law and freedom from a completely different angle to those on the continent. It was never going to be a good fit.
Just so you don’t think you’re alone, I would have voted Remain, had I been in the UK at the time. Also no doubt to me that man-made climate change is a thing. Also, 100% lockdown and mask sceptic.
I voted remain too.
I am climate agnostic – I am fairly sure we are impacting the climate to a degree, but I don’t think it matters because we will run out of oil before we do any permanent damage and it will get overridden by the normal climate change that just happens over the millennia, regardless of any human activity, anyway.
That would make you a “denier” by most standards not an agnostic
Never mind that you’re probably right, that has nothing to do with it.
We’ve established before here that there are a lot of remain voters here, though some of them say they’ve changed their position for one reason or another since the vote. That said, I think the prevalence of Brexit voters is in this group significantly higher than 50%, probably because it’s biased by Toby’s personal politics on most issues.
I will admit that my initial presumption was that sceptics would generally be skewed quite heavily towards brexiters, but after discussion here and doing some research looking at polling info, it looks as though there might be a correlation in that direction but if so it’s very slight.
Back in the 60’s 70’s we recycled glass, newsprint, metallic bottle tops, tin cans, everything else of any conceivable resale value went to the Jumble Sale in support of Cameron’s latterly discovered
Civic Society. Nobody asked us if we wanted plastic bags or tetrapaks.
“Any old iron . . . ?”
Grew up with New Ice Age mania which, living within a glacial morain seemed feasible.
Voted to Remain in 197(?) as frequently moving freely around Europe at the time. Later I realised that the EU was so undemocratic it would refuse to admit itself as a new member.
Confirmed Covid Skeptic after 2 weeks of lockdown when I knew they were lying to us about so many things.
She doesn’t call her daughter Greta by any chance …..?
Thank you, made me laugh on a tough day (non Covid related).
“It’s definitely the climate change, yummy mummy types that are keeping this show on the road.”
No it’s not. That’s just a comfort blanket of a stereotype.
No it isn’t, I have deleted Facebook because the yummy mummies who are our friends cannot stop bossing people about. There are plenty of other dicks as well but the yummy mummies are, without doubt, the most hypocritical and desperate to signal their virtue…
I live in an uber middle class, pseudo lefty area. 100% furloughed, mask wearing, NHS clapping morons. Of course they’re happy to march along, they’re wealthy, un-touched and will remain so. It is most definitely being perpetuated by this ‘class’ of people. Y’know the ones that thought 17.4 million people just didn’t understand what they’d voted for because none of them had been to ooniversity!
Sounds like you live in my town!
Maybe we do!
The basic problem with your position there is that, in general (ie usually but not always), stereotypes exist because they are broadly true a significant proportion of the time. As such they are useful shortcuts when you have very limited information. They are not the evil falsehoods that they are routinely demonised as.
Stereotypes exist for a reason. People stereotype themselves, because they behave in certain ways and adhere to certain beliefs.
It doesn’t mean everyone fits into that stereotype, and there are obviously exceptions, e.g. yourself.
They are pretty bad. I got banned on Mumsnet for my sceptical comments. And for calling someone out for mask bullying.
I respect your right to think and live as you wish, just as long as it’s the same as me.
Do you think people with a science based education are more likely to be sceptical? I would like to think so (I am somewhat ashamed to admit now, but I am an IC graduate).
However, some of my doctor friends have been the WORST kind of virtue signalling bed wetting nutters imaginable. I had thought they were rational people. Clearly I was mistaken.
I work with scientists now as well, some of whom are very highly respected, globally. And they are not as sceptical as me.
I think at the end of the day it comes down to personality as well – if you are very risk averse, your emotional response outweighs the data and the resulting cognitive dissonance means you just refuse to even look at/acknowledge the data, because to do so would make your head explode or something.
I think you’re right. As a nurse I can tell you my medical colleagues aren’t all clever people. Those with PHDs tend to be, but many of them are deeply narrow minded, conventional and uninterested in innovation or progress. I always assumed they would be intelligent and thoughtful but alas, not so.
My dentist was great, as he looked at the local Covid statistics and decided the risk was low. His place is always so clean you could do open heart surgery there. So he got back to work quickly. I think GPs have to deal with the great unwashed, as they see them, and would rather stay closed.
A few morsels from South America. Argentina had its worst day of Covid deaths five days ago. That’s 145 days into lockdown (the strictest in Latin America) According to globalism central (Bloomberg), ‘The worsening outbreak stands at odds with a government that seemed to do everything right.’. Have these people no sense of shame, or even irony?
Then there’s Peru, which had one of the world’s earliest lockdowns – they’ve been living in this hell since March 16 – “right on time” according to the whizz kids at the Grauniad. Of course, it now has the highest death rate in Latin America, and will probably claim the world title from Belgium shortly.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/19/we-cant-lock-down-forever/
Lockdowns cause people to die. If they just so happen to test positive or merely have symptoms then they’ll go into the COVID total.
It’s so bloody obvious and the signs have been there for months.
Yesterday, I had a visit to my workplace by our insurance broker. Nothing odd, just a routine annual visit to look at our insurance needs prior to market testing etc.
I was expecting him to arrive all masked up, and if so I was prepared to ask him to remove it.
But oh, joy, he marched in maskless, and with a big smile on his face. We had our meeting, and when he got up to go he said how much he had enjoyed being able to get out and about with his job. It seems that I was the first client to agree to a face to face meeting since all this nonsense began. Everyone else has apparently declined to meet, citing concerns about safety! He had been stuck working from home since the end of March, and had been longing just to get out.
I question the mentality of people who see danger in a visitor to an office, for a one to one meeting across a wide desk. I suspect my visitor is a sceptic, but as other people were about as he left, I decided not to ask. But he clearly was not worried, and neither was I.
There are some miserable bastards out there as some lockdown restrictions are lifted.
2 cases from Local Live Online (actually local !).
Restaurants getting hate messages and bad reviews because they are full and unable to fit everyone in wanting 50% free nosh.
Nearby old folks home organized a singer to entertain in the large garden, first time they had been together and outside in 5 months. Neighbour complained
“Can’t you keep the noise down!”
Mid afternoon, no amps
All this mayhem is looking very much like dealing with an addict.
The government is the addict and those in the population acquiescing are the enablers.
Problem is addicts can ruin all those around you.
The 12 step program needs to be initiated – First step – admit you have a problem
Oh, they know they have a problem. They’re not that stupid.
It’s just step 2 they’re stuck at.
They know, but they aren’t admitting it.
A very good analogy.
Mine is a one-step programme: machine gun the addict.
Strangely, they never regress.
From the DT:
Testing travellers for coronavirus is set to replace the imposition of blanket quarantines…..
Ministers are due to meet on Monday to consider options including testing passengers between five and 10 days after their arrival to enable them to shorten their 14-day self-isolation if the results are negative.
On Tuesday, Heathrow announced that an airside Covid-19 testing centre in Terminal Two was ready to swab its first passengers, for £150 a time
!!
What can you say but :
“Kerrrchiiinnng!” – the background sound to all this.
Kerching, indeed, and collection of DNA, control, perpetuating the lies
I think I would rather risk a fine for breaking the quarantine than get tested, though I suppose it might help tourism and travel
At least it is targeted rather than blanket, though as we know the tests are flawed and don’t mean you’re ill
Having to isolate on your return from holiday is bad enough, but may be tolerable for some, especially as it is so had to enforce, but isolating at the start of your holiday – I’d rather stay at home thanks
Especially when you realise the NHS are paying 6-7 times more for an ordinary 7p mask than they used to, and are using them like there’s no tomorrow.
Probability that you have Covid if you have no symptoms and no test: 0.05%
Probability that you have Covid if you have no symptoms and a negative test: 0.02%
I can think of better things to spend the £150 on.
A 50p mask is all the protection one needs against this deadly virus.
Exactly, who needs a test if they wear a face nappy…
Although unfortunately you could have had it for 7p in February.
That’s mad that they make the traveller pay. The government should pay. Actually it’s all just insane. Beyond freekin crazy.
The government get their money from us, so either way we pay.
Nice work if you can get it!?!? I won’t be leaving the country anytime soon anyway as I categorically refuse to submit to testing.
You can probably just say no problem I’ll self-quarantine instead and then go home. It’s basically a bribe for anyone who wants to get out of quarantining.
If we had eradicated Covid (ROTFLMAO) and risked reintroducing it, a test that lets 30% of infected people through would not be a very sensible way of keeping it out anyway.
If I leave the country I won’t be coming back. Sweden’s looking good.
Indeed, or maybe a Red US state, if Trump wins the election
I think the Governor of South Dakota is a sceptic. Plenty of space there.
Housing’s inexpensive there: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Rapid-City_SD
But the winters!
True about the winters but I like to ski and ice skate…
Housing is inexpensive in most of the US outside certain cities
Getting a green card is probably impossible
Just don’t make it Ohio:
The asymptomatic governor of Ohio didn’t like the results of the test (positive) he took before meeting the Orange One on August 6 so he got a ‘more accurate’ one (negative) some hours later:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/06/ohio-governor-tests-negative-after-positive-result-at-trump-visit/
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/08/ohio-gov-mike-dewine-tests-positive-for-coronavirus.html
This sparkler is 73 and has imposed the full Coronapanic on Ohio, despite being a Republican. He has been hiding out on his ranch (!) and apparently keeps away from people. Wouldn’t you think that this experience would, perhaps, have woken him up to a slight problem with the accuracy of PCR testing? No?
Come on, Miriam, wake up, tests are for little people – go and get one, take one for the team, lockdown! lockdown! lockdown! MW
Not Ohio. It would need to be a state that had been solidly anti-lockdown.
They have good coffee and cake. I am very tempted.
How many of our MP’s will be ‘paid advisors’ to the testing companies? If they took out the backhanders they have to bung our MP’s they could most probably do it for less than ten quid a throw
When mask wearing started to be talked about (2 months ago?) I posted on an individual blog I’ve followed for years that was intended to be a lightly amusing piece ending with.
” we will all have become so annoyed wearing masks in a long hot summer that we will welcome being released from them by the arrival of a vaccine but the NHS is skint so £99.90 each”
An advert has just popped up on Facebook…………..from an organisation called ” CrowdSafe”. It seems I can obtain a lovely green badge that says ” I’m high risk! 2m please!”
WT actual F is that all about? I despair, really I do.
How big is the badge? Please tell me that it’s too small to be read from 2m away!
It can be seen from two miles away
This could be a possible antidote…
are you selling them Two-six?
Nope, it’s in the design stage. Do you like it? I have a few more designs ready to go and Mrs 2-6 has made a few too. I might put them up here and if enough of you like a particular design I could get them made into real badges. Probably not for a week or two.
Actually I could make this into a badge BUT it would be of the sort of DIY kind of badge, a plastic cover that you put over a picture of choice and click it down over the top. They are a bit cheap and flippy but they do the job. I need to talk to mrs 2-6 about them. You can buy these from ebay and then you can make as many badges of your own design as you want.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50-Pack-Acrylic-Design-Button-Badge-Clear-Button-Pin-Badges-Kit-for-Craft-DIY/283911084517?hash=item421a6b59e5:g:jrMAAOSwR39e-fB5
I’ve seen this in workplaces. A card system where a blue card next to your desk means “I’m scared outta of my wits so don’t come too close”
To avoid any awkwardness you know.
Remember they put badges on a certain group in Germany in the 30s I think. Mark them as unclean. Just can’t remember much more.
I’m thinking of colouring my exemption badge yellow. Maybe even drawing a star shape around it, just to be clear.
Do they do badges that say ” I dont give a fook.”?
if only Ferguson’s modelling and the A Level algorithm had been swapped over we might have had a better outcome
Does anyone remember the Southpark episode with the underpants gnomes? In it, Cartman’s underwear (I think it was Cartman) kept going missing. The kids eventually discovered that the culprits were a group of gnomes who had a plan that read
Step 1 – steal underpants
Step 2 – ???
Step 3 – Profit!
Well, it strikes me that the government’s plan is similar, except it reads:
Step 1: place the country under house arrest, trash the economy and destroy all culture
Step 2: ???
Step 3: ???
It wasn’t Cartman, I think it was the little nerdy guy Tweek. I have it on video tape but it would take some time to find it. Anyway you’ve correctly stated the business plan.
Just seen this comment on a YouTube video
Patient – ‘How long do you think this pandemic will last?
Doctor – ‘I don’t know, I’m not a politician’.
US-Doctor: Until November 4th.
Attention Oldies!
Your country needs you!
We should rely on the younger generation to defeat the governments masketeers, but they are so taken up with stuff that doesn’t exist and stuff that they can’t change, that they are no longer any use to anyone, so it is now up to us.
We need to reinvigorate the spirit of the 60’s! No, not Woodstock and the summer of love, more Brighton beach and the mods and rockers, except this time both on the same side against the common enemy of covidism.
In order to facilitate this I have just started a new organisation – WAM – or wrinklies against masks. To join me, and I hope you will, all you have to do is to send me a photocopy of your bus pass or pension book and by return you will receive your WAM badge and membership card together with secret details of our first day of action, a march (or maybe that should be a shuffle) on Downing Street and the BBC.
In preparation for this I have invented a new secret weapon the Panzimmer ™. This awesome creation is formed from two zimmer frames bolted on top of one another and covered with kevlar panels to the front and sides. Walking sticks can be attached to each side so that the Panzimmer ™ acts as both a shield against the worst the fascists can throw at us as well as a battering ram to break down the walls of oppression. Inside the Panzimmer ™ is a handy shelf for stowing spectacles, hearing aids, dosettes and inhalers and it can also be fitted with either a male or female portable urinal so that you never need miss a single minute of the upcoming battle. Plans for creating your own Panzimmer ™ will be sent with your membership card.
Once we are near enough to our objective we will attack them by throwing old dentures and used incontinence pads at them, lets see how well their masks protect them from that fusillade! Start making you ammunition now, don’t bin your used incontinence pads, wrap them in an old cardigan, and on the day of action these can be whirled around your head by the sleeve and launched at the enemy in the manner of a hammer thrower.
Imagine the terror we will strike into the hearts of the bedwetters when a thousand Panzimmers ™ descend on those organs of misinformation No10 the beeb! Further regional action will be announced in due course.
So don’t hesitate, join WAM now and put an end to maskochism.
Genius! Thank you, we all need a good laugh at the moment (and probably a long time into the future….)
Wonderful bit of fantasy anarchy Thanks for the laugh!
WLT to join WAM but sadly live so far below the radar I posses neither Pension Book nor Bus Pass. On the rare occasion I have to validate myself to The Man my online bank provides me with a paper statement. Will this suffice ?
I’m in my twenties but over the last few months my wife has noticed that I’m beginning to go grey! No pension book or bus pass though, can I join as an honorary member?
Good laugh! But what about those of us who are female, over sixty, thought we’d be pensioners but aren’t till be are 66. Can we be honorary members?
Hmm, I might have underestimated the attraction of my new group, perhaps I will have to add a WAM juniors section – you can throw your potties at them.
And cheezilla, how dare you suggest this is fantasy! Just wait until our first attack is reported on the BB….Oh wait a minute, damn.
Completely off subject. I am trying to recover my cancelled flight money from a budget airline. Won’t go into the boring detail as I am sure many of you have had the same experiences.
Their ‘customer service’ provisions are a deliberately constructed exercise in deceit and dishonesty
Needless to say I failed
Then a thought crossed my mind. It is sensible to fly in an airplane the maintenance and safety of which is entrusted to such people?
When one drops out of the sky remember where you heard it first
How long ago now?
We’re waiting for a refund for a flight that was cancelled back in April, from Ryanair. Filled in all their forms – twice in fact, as after filling it in and it being ‘confirmed’ on screen, I got another email prompting me to claim a week later.
I’m no longer holding my breath, we’re £300 out of pocket (2 return flights) and imagine many others in same boat.
Michael Ryan,,, your life in his hands
Initiate a chargeback on your credit card, assuming that’s how you paid. They have no right to hold onto your funds for so long for a service they did not provide. The reason being Covid-19 is no excuse
Said I wasn’t going to be boring… but you’ve asked for it. Must be more than 100 quid per person, per flight (each way) . Owed 400 plus, but fails on the 100 quid rule
Pity
Checking thins online the minimum amount does seem lower than this but you do need to claim within 120 days
120 days from booking or 120 days from cancellation?
To quote Barclaycard “from the time the transaction went wrong”. Whatever that means. If I were you I’d contact your card issuer and see if they can help. If you manage your card online I’d just try and initiate a dispute and see what happens.
I’m no expert on this but in your shoes I’d give it a try.
That won’t be the case unless it is paid in separate transactions. It’s the size of the credit card transaction that matters. If it is one entry more than £100 you’re covered.
To put it in legal terms: “Whether something is one or several items is a question of fact”. Is it one trip, or several tickets.
if the flights were booked as return flights then it is the total cost of the return price per person.
i had a number of return flights to Innsbruck when Monarch went bust, £102 pp rtn. I got a full refund for all flights from my credit card.
I wouldn’t go to hard on the budget airlines, we like their prices but we also love a moan….
I hope they are still around after this fiasco (remember its not their fault either) – because I like flying regularly to Europe for as little money as possible!
I’m sure there are some who would like rid of budget airlines and just keep flying available for the ‘elite’
It was that that wot took Flybe down just before lockdown. The credit card companies would not hand over the cash until the flight had actually been delivered.
Yes. If you paid by Credit Card, look into a Section 75 refund. If debit card, look into Chargeback (less heard of, but it exists) Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert site is a good start.
Section 75 claim against the credit card company (assuming over £100).
One of the reasons to alway pay for things on credit cards. You get payment insurance for free.
See below
Cecil B, which airline? I work in travel and may have contacts that can help. If they cancelled the flights, they are breaking the law. I have successfully reported several to the CAA.
I must say, in our case, easyJet have been excellent. Even changing for free an error that I made for which they could’ve easily made an extra £800.
We’re out $700 for cancelled flights and our government has said it’s perfectly OK for the airlines to issue “credits” for future travel in lieu of refunding our money, so we can’t even try to reverse the credit card charge. The airline who has our money keeps pushing out their date to resume flying, so we had to book a new ticket on another airline to get our daughter back to university. I’m livid. If I’d booked with Air Canada we’d have been able to use the credit for our daughter’s flights, but there’s a good chance Porter Airlines will declare bankruptcy and we’ll lose our money.
Any chance of an update postcard from Leicester? They’ve had nearly 2 months of their ‘pilot’ local lockdown and I note that more towns are now threatened with them. MW
Leicester has just been loosened slightly.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/18/coronavirus-government-eases-leicester-lockdown-again
For many in Leicester, it felt like the latest in a long line of confusing messages from the government. “I can’t understand why sitting in a garden is more dangerous than going into a beauty salon,” said Rachel Jackson, 55, who lives with her husband and 16-year-old daughter. “It’s just completely confusing. I feel like the messages are really mixed.
Oldham firmly in the sights now ……
The messages are so confusing, patronising and oppressive I am sure people will stop bothering to listen to them. I can report that not one person that I know in the Northern lockdown area are sticking to any rules, 79 year old mother in law included, who went for lunch with a friend and lied on the track and trace form. If she is dodging and lying then more people will do this and we will end up with an underground or dissident culture.
It’s not more dangerous, it just doesn’t make the government any money.
There’s confusion in the city, but people are moving around, traffic has increased. Groups of people have been gathering on on of the main roads to take advantage of the reduction in the price of takeaways, the city council has now imposed a local order preventing gatherings which will be controlled by the police and local security.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/government-reveals-review-leicester-lockdown-4437754
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-lockdown-another-government-review-4431100
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/warning-restaurants-shut-down-after-4437038
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-mayor-peter-soulsbys-warning-4436793
Is it really two months? Time passes so quickly unlike the first few weeks of lockdown when days of turgid BBC Covid crap dragged on forever.
Thank you everyone for the updates. All best wishes and commiserations to everyone in Leicester (and the other places being targeted.). It feels as if it’s the same psy-op as everywhere else only on acid.
Soulsby is a credit to Nu-Nu-Labour isn’t he? Oh, and the irony of people being threatened for going out to get their Sunak snacks! And whatever happened to Fatty’s war on the fatties? More psy-ops, I think. MW
Hancock has just been on the news admitting that the new testing is all about finding people that are absolutely free of symptoms and LOCKING THEM AWAY. With a test that is, at best, unreliable. They are actively trying to stop immunity happening, and allowing further pointless oppression.
He apparently doesn’t know that asymptomatic people pass on IMMUNITY to each other. That’s how natural defences have always worked, and are trying to work now. He’s trying to stop this happening and then enforce an artificial immunity via a vaccine which, at best, can only be a poor imitation of the real thing. But a vast cost and consequent huge remuneration for some. Logically that amounts to corporate manslaughter, or malfeasance, or malsomething.
There seems to be some kind of forgetting that we have evolved with an immune system. I wonder if some of it is about the way we have sort of removed human beings from our environment.
Obviously they are ignoring close on 3 billion years of evolution! Our innate immune system has analogues in insects, other invertebrates and other vertebrates. On top of this there’s the adaptive immune system which is there as a further level of protection.
Assuming that we have been around for just 1 million years and that novel viruses (alright Virii) arrive about once a decade, that means we are the genetic survivors of (got your calculators out?)
100,000 such viral arrivals.*
*’viral arrival’, think I’ll brandname that.
Viral arrival survival !
It amounts to wilful evil
mentioned that earlier, locking down areas with ‘supposed’ local spikes when in reality it is young people going out having fun, maybe even working, infecting each other at no great cost but building the herd immunity that is the only real defence against a not particularly dangerous disease
And nobody is getting ill and dying. When will the lockdown nutters get it?
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/letters-health-care-providers/risk-inaccurate-results-thermo-fisher-scientific-taqpath-covid-19-combo-kit-letter-clinical
Just out from FDA.One of the testing kits used in the US inaccurate results. No idea how big this thing is. Just a reminder with an enormous amount of testing kits on the market this is bound to happen in the future.
Thank you. Yes if more testing is done more false positives skew the numbers.
I haven’t seen this link posted here, so I hope this isn’t a duplicate! A survey from the Keep Britain Free campaign:
https://wh.snapsurveys.com/s.asp?k=159774516489
Heh, just came to post that, Edna. Thanks.
Someone recommended this video. A must watch!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IXmwt_8tdNY&noapp=1
Expect mandatory face masks in the workplace in the UK:
Coronavirus: UK ‘not considering’ compulsory face masks in workplaces
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53833204
They are trying to deepen the depression by duplicating the catastrophic effects muzzles have had on shopping footfall.
And here’s an example of someone not going to the shops because of the abuse she has suffered from being unmuzzled:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-53827911
Surely a hate crime…
Yes the Government makes it clear that this is illegal but the BBC doesn’t mention that bit, just peddles the idea that people without masks get bullied, I wonder why?
http://www.laworfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Face-Covering-Exemption-Notice-with-Law-Explained-24-July-2020.pdf
This is pure BBC fear porn. I can feel an email coming on! MW
I have just emailed the BBC:
Dear BBC North East,
Your piece on the Whitley Bay woman being bullied for not wearing a mask in shops amounts to little more than fear-mongering.
[link to report]
You do at least make it clear that some people, including the woman in question, are legally exempt from wearing a mask but your piece emphasises how masks are mandatory for everyone. In case you haven’t seen them this is what the Government guidelines actually say:
[Link to government guidelines]
The BBC has always claimed to provide ‘balanced’ reporting. Yet, this piece of ‘journalism’ reads as if it is the usual BBC parroting of the Government’s policy of using behavioural science to force people into compliance with their agenda. If not, it would have been written very differently. You would have pointed out that it is actually illegal to challenge people for not wearing masks and people risk a fine for doing so:
[link to Law or Fiction]
Instead, you choose to normalise criminal behaviour by failing to provide any context in a situation where the law is being broken and someone is being victimised. You know very well that anyone reading this will almost certainly feel more intimidated into wearing a mask, when exempt, rather than less. This is irresponsible and shameful, promotes discrimination and, in my view, contravenes the BBC’s own editorial guidelines:
Under Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code, material may constitute hate speech if it is likely to encourage criminal activity or lead to disorder. It includes all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, gender, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or sexual orientation.
Please amend this piece immediately to make it clear that people not wearing a mask should not by law be challenged, let alone bullied.
Yours sincerely, MW
I actually think they might not do this (although then again of course, they might). They are having a hard enough time getting people back into offices and masks would be the final nail in the coffin. In France they’ve already managed to get 80-odd% back to work I think. Here it’s only 20 or 30%.
Allison Pearson on top form in the Telegraph. I think the Telegraph is getting very close to coming out as full sceptic, calling out all the nonsense and challenging the latest “consensus” around increased testing. Well I hope so anyway.
that’s good to hear!
Thanks for the tip I’l read it now.
Hope you’re right. I’m a subscriber and while there has been some dissent for a while in the odd opinion piece they post as many pro Gov crap too.
It still publishes bed wetter nonsense, but even one of the principle bedwetters, Zoe Strimpel I think her name is, accepted that her holiday in Denmark was a refreshing exercise in risk calculation/ mitigation. Like I said, hopefully the Telegraph is about to come out as full sceptical!!
I expect Alison has been chomping at the bit but I haven’t bought the Telegraph since March when it went Covid Terror crazy.
Was it here @LS that I read earlier DT had won 5 prizes at the MSM press awards yesterday? Every single one of of them for intersectionality wokeness.
Might win them prizes, won’t bring their former loyal readers back.
Do they still publish twee little instructions on how to make a twee little face nappy?
That’s what we have desperately needed all along – at least one mainstream outlet that sets itself firmly in the sceptical camp and consequently gives the elite bullshit the kind of scrutiny it should have been getting all along.
Telegraph has always seemed likely to be the first one to break ranks. Probably shouldn’t discount the likely influence of Hitchens, Young and Delingpole there, because they have a lot of contacts and are in the same broad political boat as most of the Telegraph people.
It is MSM that have got us here. Dependence on them of any sort is the problem. How can you be grateful to a media outlet for trying to salve the hysteria they created, perpetuated and ensured. Stop engaging with them all together, then they have no power!
Well yes but the Telegraph has featured sceptical stuff from the beginning, as has the Spectator, who have the same owners. Very little sceptical stuff elsewhere at the start, and not that much now. And the brainwashed engage with them, so any MSM that moves over to “our” side is needed. Otherwise how else can the relentless brainwashing of the last 6 months begin to be countered?
People are NOT going to turn without a lot of pushing, because of the sunk cost fallacy tendency, and they are NOT going to turn because the truth is revealed from sources they don’t trust.
Their “Covid conspiracy theory” article today is slightly less encouraging. Most of the “theories” mentioned, both virus-related and otherwise, are definitely in wacko territory (the virus is an alien weapon to destroy humanity?! If so the aliens will have to try harder next time) but the overall tone is the usual “this virus is deadly serious and if you don’t wear a mask you’ll infect people”
It’s not a matter of gratitude or dependence, personally. It’s a matter of how things will develop from now on. We desperately need at least a few mainstream journalists to actually start to do their job, to begin to undo the damage all the unchallenged bullshit has done.
It’s a very good article.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2671
“Contact Settings and Risk for Transmission in 3410 Close Contacts of Patients With COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China”
“Study: Asymptomatic index cases infected 1 out of 305 close contacts in Hubei. (This might be why China no longer counts asymptomatic infections as cases.)”
https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1295820414669795329
Heard rumours before that the Chinese no longer counts asymptomatic.Is this true? If it is, they must be laughing behind our backs what we are doing now in Europe and US.
That seems to me like quite an important study. One that should shape policy.
THe sicker the patient, the more they spread the virus. Most likely to those they live with.
So lockdowns, why? Masks for the healthy..why?
Why? To cover up the initial blunders, and they now like the control they have.
We’ve got to riot and soon!
Soon as furlough ends, that much is guaranteed .
These things seem so obvious but our government has lost touch and I don’t know why.
So my reading is as follows (and apologies for any errors!)
391 infected people infected 127/3410 of their close contacts (3%)
8 / 127 were asymptomatic
20 / 127 had mild symptoms
87 / 127 had moderate symptoms
12 /127 had critical symptoms
Most likely re-infection setting:
100 Household : 10 Hospital : 1 Transport (ratios not numbers)
Likeliness to cause infection:
3/1000 for asymptomatic :33/1000 for mild : 56/1000 for moderate 62/1000 for critical
Chances of re-infecting If infected with:
no coughing and sneezing 30/1000 | coughing and sneezing 136/1000
Here’s a novel thought, why don’t we quarantine the sick?
I think the easiest is to go for Appendix Table 3 in the lower link
3 striking figures.The extreme low transmission from asymptomatic as highlighted but also the enormous difference from transmission of contacts often versus occasional and moderate. On paper that if you lock in people in their home this is going to be “often “contact and they’ll get sick. Best argument has the Chinese now against lockdown.
Then Hubei exposure seems to be signficantly more dangerous for transmission. Virus less transmissible after Hubei?
https://accadandkoka.com/episodes/episode140/
“Our guest is Gabriela Gomes, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Strathclyde. She specializes in population dynamics and the modeling of herd immunity and her recent work suggests COVID-19 herd immunity may be at hand. We discuss how herd immunity thresholds are estimated and why she thinks classic models are flawed and must incorporate a measure of variation in individual susceptibility.”
Long radio interview.This is the scientist now having difficult to publish.
She will be having difficulty publishing. She doesn’t fit with Nicola so is a direct challenge. I hope she can link up with Sunetra Gupta
She was the lead author in the study we discussed here back in May:
Gomes et al. (May 2020 paper): Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold
That’s excellent. Many thanks.
i’m glad that Toby linked Prof. Sunetra Gupta’s interview. Please tweet about the Plan B interviews or donate if you can. They’re doing good work and don’t get much press. https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/videos/
What’s going on? There have been several attempts to answer this btl, and here’s my attempt.
The government response started well, with a sane recognition that basically the epidemic would run its course whatever we did, so damage limitation and mitigation was the name of the game. Then they changed course, going for lockdown. This is known to have been a political decision. It was made in advance of SAGE advice, which only fell into line afterwards. It was given cover by Ferguson’s model, but that could and should have been scrutinised if there was a political will to do so – it was clearly just cover for a preceding political decision. Why was that decision made? Obviously we will never be told, and it makes no sense in the terms declared, and that invites conspiracy theory.
But I think the most obvious explanation is that the Tories’ sole priority has been preventing Labour from making political capital from covid deaths. Labour has been openly salivating for deaths that can be pinned on the heartless Tories, and the way for the Tories to counter this has been to ape Labour policy. Whatever Labour says, the Tories do, so no policy space opens up no matter how stupid Labour’s demands. In a context in which other countries were locking down and Labour and the media demanding it, that is probably an adequate explanation for Bojo’s decision to kill 200, 000, destroy individual freedom and tank the economy. Once in lockdown there was no way out, not only because any death afterwards will be leapt on by a salivating Starmer, but more because this cannot be ended without inviting scrutiny of the damage done by lockdown for no benefit.
Politically, the only way forward for the Tories, and Labour, and the media, all of whom are complicit, is to keep on ramping up panic and division no matter what it costs, until the vaccine. And the vaccine has to be compulsory, to ensure that enough of us have it to make it at least credible that the end of covid can be attributed to it. There must be no hole in the narrative that ends in the glorious victory brought by our new Churchill. Any hole in that narrative shows that our entire ruling caste is complicit in theft and manslaughter on a grand scale.
But it was all done, I suspect, for no better reason than preventing one political party that stands for nothing from gaining a tactical advantage over an identically pointless political party.
That’s a good analysis but it’s UK-specific. What are your thoughts on the way things are going in other countries?
Agree a good analysis from Ovis – a lot of truth in it, especially the cultish obsession with the NHS. I smell Cummings in that. Equally good question from Edward. The ground that would have allowed Labour to attack the government for every Covid death exists in many places, has partly been brewing for years (safetyism) and now consolidated by the panic.
I thought right from the beginning that a huge motivating factor for lockdown was the Tories being (a) terrified of being blamed for the NHS being overwhelmed/unable to cope – which would likely tarnish their reputation and electability for generations – and (b) seeing the massive political capital in, conversely, setting themselves up as the valiant protectors of the NHS, perhaps permanently banishing their image as the “nasty party” who want to privatise or abolish it entirely.
Making the NHS such a big part of the messaging/propaganda also ensured support from the large section of the public who would never vote for or support the current government.
I definitely agree Cummings has to have been behind some of this at least, I don’t think Boris could manage anything this Macchiavellian even if he tried!
The response to this fake virus hysteria is a global one. Governments of different hues responding in the same way and with identical imagery and propaganda. I do believe we need to look beyond party political motives…
David Starkey suggested the lockdown came as one hospital in NW London surged towards its capacity and Boris panicked about the potential optics of the holy NHS suffering on the Tories’ watch.
Add in vested interests, scientific illiteracy amongst politicians and the civil service, group think, media hysteria and pressure to be seen to be doing what other governments had done and it’s probably about there.
Still unforgivable though and a complete abdication of true leadership.
Starkey also said the French threatened to close the boarder to U.K. if we didn’t lockdown.
Indeed
And alignment with the Dear Leader in Scotland may well have resulted in mandatory face masks in England!
Weak, weak leadership.
It the face masks that really did it for me, I thought Boris had more guts and would tell the truth. Oddly we have wales not imposing them!!
Agreed. I could put up with all the other crap, if I had to, but face nappies really are the limit.
That’s what did it for me too. Hate the lining up and the distancing, but the masking put me over the edge and created a huge amount of anxiety. I also believed that mandatory masking would be a slippery slope toward mandatory vaccination because I could see that the same argument — gotta do it to protect others — would be trotted out to force us to be victims of medical experimentation. If not enough people take the vaccine…you know how the argument goes.
That’s because Offa’s Dyke stops Covids from crossing it.
The Science ™
It’s ironic because Sturgeon hates the Tories and Boris, if England didn’t deploy mandatory masks it would have destroyed the SNP. Instead Stasi Sturgeon gets to carry on grandstanding and imposing fascist rule over Scotland.
We know Sturgeon hates the Tories because she says so, and the msm repeat it ?!?
Imho, the truth is more that they’re all in it together, the differences being the roles they play, and the positions they pretend to hold.
Scotland departing would, in some estimations, leave the rUK with little possibility of a change of government party for a long while. This view is openly expressed on the Guido comments and presumably discussed in private by Tory strategists
“a complete abdication of true leadership.”
It should be followed by a true abdication of the complete leadership. Not holding my breath.
Abdication is too good for them!
If there was any justice, there would be a reckoning.
Sadly…
That’s a very astute analysis. Seems far more likely this whole thing is just driven by cynical political calculations rather than any grand conspiracy. Pretty sure Bojo et al couldn’t conspire their way out of a paper bag. But at the end of the day, if they take away our freedom, destroy our livelihoods and way of life then the true motivations for it are really just academic at this point.
I think the impetus for lockdown came from elsewhere.I was told by someone in the home office that they were preparing for a 12 week lockdown 2 weeks before we went in.
Why would Governments around the world destroy their economies,this all doesn’t make sense even on its own terms.
Bill Gates,WEF great reset,USA election,USA/China conflict take your pick of conspiracy theories, all unprovable at the moment but for me this is not about a virus.
Short term pain for maximum gain. Position your business, ready for the brave new world. Atomise the population with various strategies that make people completely inward facing and unable to organise some sort of resistance.
Then hit the “crash” switch. Kill the economies just enough to finish off the already terminally ill and/or smaller businesses. And miraculously, your home working/conferencing software, online consultations/pharmacies, online deliveries and so on are ready to step in…
Oh, and keep postponing elections…
What I am failing to grasp though is that in going with what left seemed to be advocating Boris must have pissed off his own party members, likely many businesses, his red wall voters. I cannot see how him not saying stop, let’s look at Sweden, we must get a grip of the fear, wouldn’t now help him. To continue down the route he is going surely he is only causing himself more injury? Perhaps people who are closer to the Conservative party might know what they are thinking about him?
I agree. I think that the Conservatives might be just waiting for evidence of a change in public sentiment and in the opinions of the health professionals. They only need to be ahead of Starmer, they don’t need to be optimal.
For as long as the health professionals are saying that people will die, there’s only political risk for them in relaxing the lockdown.
Not ALL health professionals are saying that people will die (if by that we mean in the hundreds of thousands predicted)
For what it’s worth, here is another UK-specific take which I think may compliment your analysis; you may or may not agree! It’s from an article by ex-Guardian journalist, Jonathan Cook, so anti-lefties, please don’t dismiss it out of hand. It’s really about the leaked Labour report but I think what he says about the state of politics in the UK is insightful (even if Cook himself has, disappointingly, been silent on the politics of CV19. Note the hints, though, which I’ve emboldened):
‘In his latest column, [Jonathan] Freedland writes: “The guiding principle [of the Johnson government] seems to be brazen cronyism, coupled with the arrogance of those who believe they are untouchable and that rules are for little people.”
Why should the Tories under Johnson be so “arrogant”, so sure they are “untouchable”, that “rules are for little people”, and that there is no political price to be paid for “cronyism”?
Might it not have much to do with seeing Freedland and the Guardian assist so willingly in the corporate media’s efforts to destroy the only political alternative to “rule by the rich” Toryism? Might the Johnson government have grown more confident knowing that the ostensibly liberal-left media were just as determined as the rightwing media to undermine the only politician on offer who stood for precisely the opposite political values they did?
Might it not reflect an understanding by Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, that Freedland and the Guardian have played a hugely significant part in ensuring that Britain effectively has a one-party state – and that when it returns to being a formal two-party state, as it seems to be doing once again now that Starmer is running the Labour party, both those parties will offer the same establishment-worshipping agenda, even if in two mildly different flavours?
The Guardian, like the rest of the corporate media, has derided and vilified as “populism” the emergence of any real political alternative.
The leaked report offered a brief peek behind the curtain at how politics in Britain – and elsewhere – really works. It showed that, during Corbyn’s time as leader, the political battle lines became intensely real. They were no longer the charade of a phoney fight between left and right, between Labour and Conservative.
Instead, the battle shifted to where it mattered, to where it might finally make change possible: for control of the Labour party so that it might really represent the poor and vulnerable against rule by the rich. Labour became the battleground, and the Guardian made all too clear where its true loyalties lie.’
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-08-10/how-the-guardian-betrayed-not-only-corbyn-but-the-last-vestiges-of-british-democracy/
The only thing missing from your analysis is why almost every government is doing exactly the same thing. MW
I dislike Corbyn and his student socialism but I agree that he offered an alternative. The situation we have now is that those with busybody and bossyboots tendencies (and a desire to get rich) regard the Conservative party as the most likely vehicle for them to pursue their aims. In the Blair years New Labour was the more likely option (remember Mandelson’s remark about being comfortable with people becoming “filthy rich”). At some future time Labour could again be preferred but it would be largely the same establishment in power.
“ the Tories’ sole priority has been preventing Labour from making political capital from covid deaths.”
Ahhh … Poor ickle Borry Baby : victimized by Starmer.
Johnson and Starmer are of the same ilk – the latter engineered into place to ensure that the establishment interests have a back-up when Mr Toad gets his just deserts. Had the boot been on the other foot, the same tactics would have applied. But Cummjohnson and the Tory spivs are up to their necks in creating this situation with no elecytion on the horizon. No excuses – they have form.
There has been no opposition on the grounds of the ridiculous nature of the Covid narrative and the outrageous deprivation of civil liberties. There is no choice on the horizon.
Note to self – must not read BBC HYS. The most depressing 2 minutes of my life yet re the ‘UK not considering masks at work’ article. We will be masking up at work before we know it if they’re saying they’re not considering it. A u-turn will be imminent, and the maskholes will have pushed us down one more level of this madness. I won’t be wearing one – I told my employers a few weeks ago that if that comes into force here, I will be working at home permanently. The commentors on here are what is currently keeping me sane – so good to know there are rational people out there somewhere.
Too right.
I’m thanking my past self for the decision to work from home years ago. Good on you for sticking to your principles.
Yes, I usually avoid the BBC , but went on to check something that someone flagged up here – and encountered a world of insanity and grief. Best avoided to remain sane.
My employer already mandated masks at the office (no exemptions) – IF you turn up (work from home is still an option for now). Of course, nobody I know is interested in going back at the moment.
How could they even think of it?
They have hollow heads, so “thinking” doesn’t enter into it.
I’ve thought about what I would do if masks became mandatory at work (when we go back). I think I’d try to work from home but if that was not allowed, I’d probably quit and try and move somewhere more sane, Sweden maybe.
You’re right, remember on the Sunday Gove said masks won’t be mandatory, on the Tuesday they were mandatory. There’s a quote by someone that if a politician says something then believe the opposite!
Gove just said it was “politeness” to wear a mask but he didn’t think they should be mandatory. He fell into line a couple of days later. Even so, I think he was deliberately taking up a slightly different position to Johnson and still has the top job in his sights.
me too – i’ll continue to WFH with the millions of others that are able to. Imagine sitting for 8 hours at a desk wearing a mask – the thought fills me with horror. I do sympathise those workers that have to do this today in other work situations.
If they want people to go back to offices mandating masks is a backwards step, not forwards.
When will this madness stop …???
A very good new article on the Hector Drummond site :
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/08/19/oliver-watson-is-there-science-or-fiction-behind-the-governments-covid-19-decisions/#comment-25110
One of the responses also contains a really telling argument between Michael Levitt and one of the mock scientists from Imperial :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7167&v=_1u_yworTco&feature=emb_logo
The world’s toughest lockdown has resulted in the world’s highest COVID-19 death toll
https://jordanschachtel.substack.com/p/the-worlds-toughest-lockdown-has
When will someone even consider the link – that lockdowns might, just might actually kill people?
Thought the government already admitted that in the PHE report published the other day – they did expect people to die from the lockdown effects (from cancelling other healthcare treatment, depression etc). Seems the government is still convinced that if they didn’t lockdown 500,000 would have died – based on Prof. Pantsdown’s original, now discredited, model.
So real deaths count for less than imaginary ones.
I’m sure the MSM will be chomping at the bit to report this one …
Our immune systems need social interaction to function properly, isolating only makes them weaker. It’s beginning to seem as if they want to deliberately make us sicker.
Gotta prime people to beg for the vaccine.
We really need to be challenging the data. The inconsistency is so great that there must be some health professionals that can attempt an answer.
1) Flu deaths are now running at five times Covid deaths. Why/how is the lockdown suppressing Covid but not flu and pneumonia?
2) The normal protective measures for flu in hospitals and care homes are nil. Why is that? Why do we have a lockdown to suppress one virus, and not others?
3) If a health worker is unwell, but test negative for Covid, do they still go into quarantine, are all their contacts traced, and do those people also go into quarantine?
4) What proportion of Covid deaths were not just “with comorbidities” but with terminal dementia, alzheimer’s, heart disease, stroke, cancer? How many Covid deaths were NOT terminally ill?
Questions 1 and 2 are particularly pertinent I feel, Why are Covid virus deaths privileged over flu deaths? It makes no sense…not even the beginning of sense. But where are all the medical experts, the epidemiologists, the MPs calling out this nonsense? Nowhere to be seen. We have a few non-conforming columnists and that’s it.
The epidemiologists virologists and all doctors taking a contrary view to that of Bill Gates are deplatformed from all media sites. If this doesn’t make people see what a scam this virus is then there is no hope for the human race. We deserve to die out!
Right, and a related question is how the government actually evaluates the effectiveness (or not) of their policies. What result was expected after introducing mandatory masks? Lower infection rate? How does that compare to what has actually happened? Has it actually made any difference to anything, if not, then clearly the conculsion is that the policy is not effective and should be scrapped.
All the right questions. Numbers 2 and 3 scare me because there’s already a movement afoot to treat flu in the same way we are now treating Covid — which means social distancing and masks every winter (the new abnormal). Rather than realizing Covid will soon become just another strain of flu, the thinking is that we now have to treat every day viruses as virulent killers that must be eradicated at all costs.
We all need to come together and resist! Together we are stronger. We must not let them drive a wedge between us.
People Power!
https://player.fm/series/the-richie-allen-show/the-richie-allen-radio-show-thursday-april-30th-2020
Richie is joined by Dr. Rima Laibow MD Rima is the Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation. She got her degree from The Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1970. Follow her at http://drrimatruthreports.com/ Rima tells Richie why she believes that covid-19 was developed in a US bio-weapons facility five years ago. She claims that dark actors in the US, took the virus to China under the guise of research. There is a money trail and it implicates Dr. Anthony Fauci. Rima believes the virus is potent but not lethal in people with healthy immune systems. She believes the virus is being used to get people to consent to a global vaccine programme which will be used to cause infertility in men and women.
She’s been reading the Handmaid’s Tale. Well, I shit you not, I ain’t having it, so they can use me for breeding purposes.
If you want to stop population growth, there is a proven way of doing it. Sink money into educating women. And you don’t even have to destroy the world to do that.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.25.20162107v2
Sorry if this has been posted before but some interesting things
“SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV viral load dynamics, duration of viral shedding and infectiousness: a living systematic review and meta-analysis”
“Conclusion: Although SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding in respiratory and stool can be prolonged, duration of viable virus is relatively short-lived. Thus, detection of viral RNA cannot be used to infer infectiousness. High SARS-CoV-2 titres are detectable in the first week of illness with an early peak observed at symptom onset to day 5 of illness”.
Not read the article yet, but from what you say, this idea of testing sewage outflows would be pointless?
The only interesting thing about testing of sewage was that they discovered the virus had been around longer than we thought. I think there’s a good chance I had it in early December, which back in March seemed impossible. The sewage testing made me think it was, indeed, possible.
Wasn’t it detected in Spain in March 2019?
Does anyone else keep getting blocked on Twitter?
.
I don’t use it. However if I did I am sure I’d be banned within an hour or so.
They’re speedier than that, Bella.
In that case I won’t last longer than my first twitter.
I didn’t.
I wouldn’t touch Twitter with a used piece of bog paper. Even when I look at a Twitter link posted on this site I need to wash my hands before doing anything else.
Abandoned it a couple of years back. I never got banned but I observed other higher profile users expressing views like mine who were banned – I was going to write left, right and centre – but actually mainly right. I recently joined Parler but don’t participate much since it’s an echo chamber of banned high profile twitter users…. However, it’s more tolerant of heterodoxy and so far, better manners.
This from the State of Wisconsin:
Joining the recent edict of the Governor or Virginia that students must mask during ON LINE CLASSES (!!!) a Wisconsin state agency has required employees to wear masks while teleconferencing from home, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
A July 31 email sent to employees by the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reportedly reminded them that Gov. Tony Evers’s (D)
mask mandate went into effect the next day.
Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole said in the email that staff has to wear masks in DNR buildings and in virtual meetings, according to the Journal Sentinel.
“Also, wear your mask, even if you are home, to participate in a virtual meeting that involves being seen — such as on Zoom or another video-conferencing platform — by non-DNR staff,” Cole reportedly wrote. “Set the safety example which shows you as a DNR public service employee care about the safety and health of others.” [Emphasis added]
Preston Cole stakes claim in the ‘who can be the biggest twat ?’ competition.
I read about this and thought it had to be a joke. The joke is on us. How do they plan to enforce this? Obviously the masking at home is merely a virtue-signally suggestion, but the workplace is a whole other story. It reads like satire…the world has truly gone mad.
Surely someone can design a filter that fakes a mask on your face? I mean, if they can do rabbit ears and shit, it should be easy, no?
If anybody needs to be convinced of the madness of the situation, surely this is the best fact to do it with?
Agreed, I’ve been gleefully recounting this to everyone I meet.
Had a web chat with a WDNR call centre operative. Suggested the world was laughing at them. She was of course at work, but made no attempt to defend this policy.
Has this in Wisconsin last week.
Morons of the world unite.
WTF! You are alone in your own home participating in a Zoom conference and you should mask? You have to show you care about the health and safety of others, what others?
This virus is so clever it can transmit through the internet now?
The world has truly gone mad.
On travel quarantines:
Transport secretary Grant Shapps confirmed the government is “working” on airport testing but appeared to rule out a single test, saying: “If you test somebody who is asymptomatic on day one [of infection] at the airport, it’s likely to pick up only 7% of people who have coronavirus, so isn’t useful on its own. You need to test after seven or eight days and ask people to quarantine in the meantime.”
Why would they need to if masks stop you infecting others? Surely just wearing a mask will suffice?
Er, hold on, is Shapps saying that if you test 100 people WITH the virus, only 7% will be positive? Sorry if I have missed the point.
I think what he is saying is that if early stage of infection, the tests will only pick up 7% of them correctly. Incubation period is required to give better results. If people come home and feel ill, they will stay at home. If they don’t feel ill, they could wear a mask (or say they are) which is the same as any asyptomatic person now.
Interesting. Doesn’t that mean that everyone everywhere must be tested daily, before leaving the house, forever?
Probably
has he got shares in the test kit company? If it hasn’t occurred to anyone yet thus is linked to the Green Blob. Holidays abroad will be made to be so uncomfortable with constant tests and travel restrictions you won’t bother. It’s the same with shopping or anything else you used to enjoy. These people should be hanging from lampposts not elected to government!
So what is this telling us about their view of the effectiveness of tests and masks? They don’t believe their own b*ll*cks
Excellent KBF Sussex 2nd meeting last night. 25 people came, a 92.30769% increase on our initial meeting.
Organic coffee / beer / wine/ cake. Comfy chairs, loads of space, and a sympathetic proprietor.
10-15K mask info leaflets distributed. (This was our agreed focus from previous meeting).
Next focus to be schools/children.
Many intending to be in London 29th Aug.
KBF Surrey group will be kicking off on Sunday 23rd.
Onwards !
Fantastic. That’s a start.
Excellent! Well done all of you!
Ooh. Where? How do I find out where and when next meeting? I live in Sussex.
All the best people do, Libby.
https://www.keepbritainfree.com/forum
Click on Community then Forum then South then Sussex (I think !). If you think it’s for you, there is also a Sussex private messaging forum. Paul sorts all that out.
Thank you
That’s awesome!
4 of us meeting up in West Yorkshire next week. Small but a start. Join us if you can!
https://www.keepbritainfree.com/forum/kbf-north/west-yorkshire
You were lucky. We used to dream of meeting up…
Another cracking Covid-sceptic article by Jeremy Warner in the DT. As someone said elsewhere on this forum The Telegraph is becoming more sceptical by the day….
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/18/fiscal-ruin-beckons-ship-fools-does-not-even-seem-know/
Opening para:
“In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates describes a ship on which the sailors mutiny and try to pilot the vessel with no knowledge of “the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his [a pilot’s] art”. Success on this “Ship of Fools” is defined not by having the skills to navigate the vessel but only by the ability to persuade others that such skills aren’t actually necessary and that the job can be done regardless.
The story is intended as an allegory on the downsides of democracy, of the danger that in such a system of government, ignorant fools elect persuasive fools and are then led to ruin. After the Government’s latest shambolic, Covid-related failing, it seems an appropriate description of today’s political leadership.”
Someone said something along the lines of: Democracy fails when the electorate realise they can vote themselves gifts.
Gifts that turn out to be rather empty in the long run
There’s a book by Samuel Brittan “The Economic Consequences of Democracy”, published in 1977. I have a copy but have never got round to reading it. However I think the general idea is as stated in your sentence.
https://player.fm/series/the-richie-allen-show/the-richie-allen-radio-show-tuesday-may-5th-2020
Around minute 20 Richie Allen called Health Minister Matt Hancock an amoeba. In the interview that followed you will discover that this man doesn’t even know what’s going on in his department on an hourly, daily basis.
Insult to amoebas everywhere.
Oh ah ee oo
There’s absolutely no strife
Living the timeless life, I don’t need a wife
Living the timeless life
If I need a friend I just give a wriggle
Split right down the middle
And when I look there’s two of me
Both as handsome as can be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvblmN1hEw
Some of my best friends are amoebas!
So, they are ‘not considering’ compulsory face masks in workplaces, says Hancock. Expect pics of Boris wearing a mask by about Friday, then? And the announcement about next Tuesday, followed by law from Saturday.
R2 news this morning had item about increasing infection survey numbers from 28000 to 150000. It was followed by a clip of Wancock saying “We are going to expand it, essentially by almost ten times…”
So, we know we count on him, then…
Guaranteed, next week, masks in workplaces “because science”. Everything they say turns out to be the opposite within a few weeks. And as in 1984, they always considered it, it was always on the table, in fact we should have always been wearing them. We have always been wearing them!
You lot, things are bad enough – please stop stoking up the fear! MW
Should have said Boris *in the workplace*.
Sorry Sam, but you are missing something here. Boris and ‘workplace’ or ‘work’ do not sit comfortably in the same sentence!
He hasn’t finished his bridge of sand yet.
Have you all seen this. Just filled it in. https://wh.snapsurveys.com/s.asp?k=159774516489
Me too!
And me.
Preaching to the converted..?
Me too. Annie, probably, but it’s ammunition for the case against the government.
Have you sent the link to Toby? lockdownsceptics@gmail.com
Just got a typical non committal reply to a long, evidence and data based snail where I gave all the ONS stats about risks to students at university, and the wider public. First line back from physics prof “I am not an epidemiologist so am not qualified to answer your questions”. I wanted to go to my subject because I know if I email epidemiologists they will simply come back with the usual scare story mumbo jumbo! And then the other cracking line of “the broader approach to protect not only student body, but the university and wider community” albeit the risk is “statistically small”. I am hoping this is a standard response and that if any lecturers actually put in writing heaven forbid differing views to the government, they might be sacked. I hope.
Keep Toby Young trending on Twitter
https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/1295745557617680387
Found this updated edition of a well known book.
“We Are Legend”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(novel)
Robert NevilleLockdown Sceptics appear to be the sole survivors of a pandemic thathashasn’t killed most of the human population and turned the remainder into“vampires”“Sheeple” that largely conform to their stereotypes in fiction and folklore: they areblood-suckingsupine, pale-skinned, andnocturnalmaskbound, though otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans. Implicitly set in Los Angeles, the novel detailsNeville’sSceptic’s life in the months and eventually years after the outbreak ashethey attempt to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease.Swarms of vampires surround his house nightly daily and try to find ways to get inside, which includes the females exposing themselves and his vampire neighbor relentlessly shouting for him to come out.NevilleSceptics survive bybarricading himself inside his house every nightliving as normally as possible;hetheyisare further protected by the traditionalvampiresheeple repellents ofgarlic, mirrors, and crucifixeslogic and reasoning and the use of their brains.Apologies if discussed before; I’m just a dim Northerner, I mean, we don’t even know how to follow ‘the rules’…
Anyway, what happens (or has happened) if a person, about 80 yrs of age, with an existing condition, goes for a test and it’s positive? Are they treated as high risk and hospitalised, or just sent home as usual?
Sam, a friends grandmother 94 years, recently tested positive after one of her carers had a positive test. No symptoms at all. She was sent home to isolate and looked after by her family who tested negative. The 94 year old never developed any symptoms and is fine now.
The ONS did a survey of care home residents and of those they found positive 80% had no symptoms! Vivaldi study.
So, the ‘treatment’ for a seriously at-risk victim of The Deadly Virus(tm) is the same as for say, an otherwise healthy person in the least vulnerable demographic, is that it?
Gosh it really is deadly.
Sam, if you’re interested enough in what’s been going on to have come to LS and contribute as much as you have comment wise, I’d hardly describe you as a dim Northerner!
DavidC
Spanish ICU Doctor dropping some truth bombs on Spanish TVE -with English sub-titles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFa9JHMFO9s&feature=youtu.be
Good, to have people speaking out, because have you seen this? Seriously scary…
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1296059067954352130
‘No jab, no pay’
This is really terrible. But it would be challenged in the courts …. wouldn’t it?????
No jab – no pay. If they introduce this here, I’ll have to go on the streets (or into the wild…).
He was visibly shitting himself saying that.
The Australian PM has back tracked on the compulsory jab line because he knows it contravenes international law and anything beyond persuasion will be challenged in the courts which will put the whole vaccination plan on hold.
And that’s “a reasonable interpretation” of what the PM said?!
No wonder he looked so uncomfortable.
Amazing! He seriously rattled them.
He did. That was the best bit. She looked very uncomfortable saying “your words are very reassuring”
What heartened me was when he implied that he is far from alone, amongst Spanish doctors, in his opinions. Hopefully some British medics will be brave enough to break cover and tell everyone the emperor hasn’t got any clothes on.
Very good. We really don’t need a vaccine
Whilst great to see – it really is sickening to see the TV presenter continuing to try and push the fear agenda throughout and not being the slightest bit interested in what he was saying
Yeah. When the presenter was saying words to the effect of “I’ve been out in the streets and seen bodies” and the doc responds “The streets, eh? Have you signed any death certificates?”
Phil,
Many thanks for that, absolutely brilliant! And, once more, people who know nothing about a subject not believing, in this case, a DOCTOR working at the front end of it all! I loved the bit where he spoke about the prevelance of Heliobacter pylori (that would CERTAINLY go over their heads!). Priceless!
DavidC
My wife has just started reading a new book, it’s opening sentence is,
““The truth is still the truth, even if no one believes it. A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it.” -Author Unknown” (from “Anatomy of a Crime” by Sibel Hodge)
How true!
Indeed. Hold to that.
Sanity us not statistical.
Something has nagged at me since I read Toby’s post yesterday and then I realised what it was: Richard bloody Madeley and Judy Bloody Finnigan bleating about quarantine from their nice pad in lovely France. They can comfortably sit out quarantine there as long as they want and probably have ‘people’ to do their shopping in masks for them.
People like our kids, trying to have a precious 2 weeks camping holiday there after being key workers and enduring 5 months of lockdown will not have that luxury, (Sorry if this sounds a little bitter!) MW
After working 12 hours per day on reduced salary for the last 5 months, doing his own job plus covering for those on
furloughpaid holiday, my son has just lost his holiday mountain biking in the Alps, booked last year.You’re right to feel bitter. I thought the Richard and Judy article was vomit-inducingly smug.
I just found this. Very, Very interesting, and the source looks legit, although I must admit I have not followed through to investigate exactly who they are. Please read as it includes new information from recent sewage testing, not just the Spanish findings that most of us know about:
https://www.darkdaily.com/studies-finding-remnants-of-sars-cov-2-in-sewage-suggest-covid-19-may-not-have-originated-at-wuhan-market-some-scientists-dispute-the-findings/
That is interesting. It makes any lockdown look more likely to have been the causes of deaths than the virus!!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/matt-cartoons-august-2020/
A lot more naked shoppers in Asda today and many more wearing them sub proboscis. People are beginning to catch on that others are not wearing masks, so why should they?
Off for a few days to the south coast next week. We stayed in the same hotel last year-it’s a very nice 4 star with spa facilities. We were just looking through all the Covid blurb and found out, to our dismay, that our rooms will not be cleaned/made up at all during our stay and we will have to make our own beds, ask for clean towels etc.
Don’t want anyone to think I’m so precious that I can’t make my own bed but it’s the principle that annoys me. OH rang to ask if this would be reflected in the price of the room. No, was the response, so we are going to be paying for a service which we will not be getting. It appears that I’m also going to have to clean the loo every day myself too-not exactly my favourite holiday occupation. I do hope that they will be supplying me with Marigolds.
We were told that it is the policy for most hotels now but I’ve looked at a few and none of them say that your room will not be serviced during your stay. There were no problems with this in Spain. It seems strange that the spa and indoor pool will be open where germs will be lurking around every corner but staff can’t clean our room.
Is there anyone out there working in the hotel industry who could clarify this please? I’m seriously thinking of changing my booking.
That’s a put off then. If you’re renting a holiday flat that’s different you don’t expect room service but hotel rooms I would expect a service!
If you’re going to have to clean the loo every day can I recommend the Boris Johnson toilet brush.
I’ve already heard of of cases where people have received a result of a Covid test they never had.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/matt-cartoons-august-2020/
Oh my!
Latest LS Update now available —–>>>
The restaurant in Whitstable story made riveting reading! I hope he put a message on Trust Pilot or equivalent Web page. It would be good to know beforehand which places to avoid.
just a reminder for those still loitering here…
WEDNESDAY has arrived
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/08/19/latest-news-108/#comments
say goodbye and move along
Aw no, I’ve been enjoying it here…! Oh, OK then!
DavidC