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UK’s Covid death toll rises by ONE

In spite of all the hysterical talk of a ‘second wave’ this Winter and rising cases in England, the number of people who died in Britain on Sunday was precisely one. The Mail has more.

The country’s death toll is remaining low as just one person died after testing positive for the disease bringing the UK’s total fatalities during the pandemic to 41,499.

Figures on Sunday are usually smaller due to a delay in processing over the weekend.

There were no new deaths in Scotland for the fourth consecutive day. Wales and Northern Ireland each had no new fatalities for the third straight day.

Scotland reported 123 new cases, taking the total number of positive infections to 20,318.

The Mail says that 1,715 people tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, the biggest daily rise in 12 weeks.

But the death toll continues to fall.

And 40 B&H Please

A reader has an amusing story.

A surreal scene, recounted to me by my elderly neighbour as he queued to pay for his groceries at the local store.

The chap ahead of him (fully masked up) got to the till and said to the girl at the checkout “and 40 B&H please…”

It’s a strange world we live in!

Perhaps the chap had heard that smokers are at a lower risk of ending up in hospital with COVID-19 than non-smokers.

Humiliation for Kim-Jong Dan

Nic Sturge-On’s Australian twin brother

A few days ago, an Australian reader cautioned me not to treat the 18-month extension of emergency powers being sought by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews as a done deal – and he was right. After trying and failing to get an 18-month extension, Andrews had to settle for six. The Mail has the story.

Daniel Andrews has sensationally backed down on his plans to extend Victoria’s state of emergency by 12 months, after top doctors branded his government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis a ‘slow car crash’.

A state of emergency – which gives police extraordinary powers to search, arrest and detain – was first declared in Victoria on March 16 and is due to expire on September 13 after several extensions.

Mr Andrews wanted to change legislation so it could be extended for a further 12 months, but was met with furious backlash from the public, civil rights groups and his political friends and foes.

As a compromise with upper house independents and minor parties, who vowed to vote with the Coalition next week and oppose his plan, Mr Andrews has now offered to accept a six-month extension instead of 12.

The premier is also willing to compromise on the terms of the extension and the powers the state of emergency would give police and health authorities, according to the Age.

Let’s hope the mad dictator can’t even get a six-month extension through the Victorian legislature.

Largest Academic Trade Union in UK Uses Covid as Excuse to Down Tools

Socially distanced study at Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The University and College Union (UCU), Britain’s largest academic trade union, has advised its members against returning to work because it’s “too dangerous”. The Guardian has the story.

Plans to reopen universities have been thrown into serious doubt as the UK’s largest academic union warns today that it is “too dangerous” for face-to-face teaching to resume, and calls on the government and vice-chancellors to prevent students returning to campuses this autumn.

Around one million students are expected to move around the UK as they head back to universities over the next month, which union leaders and public health experts fear could lead to a dramatic increase in outbreaks of Covid-19.

The University and College Union (UCU), which represents over 120,000 academics, lecturers and university workers, accused the government of “encouraging a public health crisis”, warning that British universities are just “weeks away” from “sleepwalking into a disaster”.

“A million young people are being encouraged to travel all around the UK, move into halls of residence and congregate in large numbers. This could lead to universities being the care homes of any second wave of Covid,” general secretary Jo Grady said in an interview with the Observer.

Jo Grady must know that the chances of the Covid death toll in Britain’s universities matching that in care homes are vanishing to zero. Readers of Lockdown Sceptics won’t need reminding that under-65 year-olds with no co-morbidities are more likely to die in a road traffic accident than succumb to COVID-19. So what is she up to?

The answer, I’m afraid, is that the UCU, like the teaching unions, is trying to exploit the crisis to score political points against the Government – and to hell with the welfare of young people.

Unforgivable.

Eye-Witness Accounts of Saturday’s Rally

A reader has emailed us to tell us about her experience at Saturday’s anti-lockdown rally. She describes it as “crushingly depressing”, I’m afraid.

I had umm’d and ahh’d about whether to attend, because I believe that all the conspiracy theorists are counterproductive to the immediate problem of getting the Coronavirus Act repealed/stopped. But I am also so worried that the governments behaviour during this very strange time is going to continue unless something big makes them change. I guess I looked at a lot of the sites with my rose tinted specs, and although I already knew that Piers Corbyn was going to be speaking tripe, Delores Cahill gave a good speech in Dublin, so I thought we’d make up another couple of bodies and get up there.

The rally was crushingly depressing. The main organisers were SORUK I think, their FB page certainly seemed to have the most sensible pre rally information regarding what NOT to put on your placards..

PLEASE think carefully about what you put on your placards, tshirts, etc…

ON TOPIC, YES MESSAGE SUGGESTIONS ARE:

*No Covid Vax
*Tell the Truth
*We want a real democracy
*Save Our Rights
*Stop New Normal
*Anything related to statistics & cover ups of the truth
*Anything highlighting the devastating effects of the lockdown (eg. cancer deaths increase, domestic violence, suicide rate increase, etc…)

OFF TOPIC, NO TO MESSAGES ARE ANYTHING MENTIONING OR ALLUDING TO:

*Bill Gates
*5G
*anti-vax (in general)
*New World Order (NWO)

Needless to say, there were plenty of placards highlighting the ‘Plandemic’ ‘5G’ ‘Bill gates, evil mastermind’ ‘NWO’. Probably 50/50 conspiracy theorist placards to those with a more reasonable message. There were no masks and no social distancing.

We arrived just before 12 and most of the protestors were in the fountain area of the square, with the speakers shouting from the base of Nelson’s Column. There was some problem with the PA system, something about the police confiscating their video screen because they hadn’t applied for the right license I think, so for the first 50 minutes we could barely hear the female voice shouting. But then they got some big speakers working and we were able to hear better, although the police helicopter that continued to circle the square for the rest of the rally did make all but the most able speakers hard to hear properly. But that is probably just as well.

It is hard to estimate the numbers of protestors, but I would suggest the numbers were more like 5,000 than 35,000.

The loons were there in number. I had no idea people were linking so many things to the virus. If you believe what they are all saying the outcome is truly apocalyptic. And worse… David Icke spoke. He didn’t actually say anything controversial, thank goodness, but he is the front man of monster raving loonies and his presence there was manna to the theorists and flattening for the rest of us.

I was unable to identify any of the other speakers apart from the three mentioned, so cannot attribute announcements to individuals I’m afraid, but we heard claims that the vaccinations would change us at a genetic level, and once changed we would no longer be considered human and could therefore be killed. We heard that the swabs used for PCR testing contained nano particles that would roam around our bodies for some reason (I didn’t hear why). We heard that something in fluoride was doing something to us (I didn’t hear what). There was chanting including ‘Choose your side’ – great unity message then.

I was tempted to leave on several occasions, but stuck it out because I felt I should try and listen to what was being said. It was a long 3 hours.

It is the first protest that we’ve attended. It was interesting to see the policing of the event. A couple of community support officers walked by, masked up, and I caught their eye and commented that I couldn’t see their lovely smiles. They engaged in a little small talk, bless ‘em, and actually posed for a photograph with me. I had a gilet jaune on with the message ‘REPEAL THE CORONAVIRUS ACT 2020. RESTORE OUR FREEDOM. ACT NOW TO STOP THE ACT. CONTACT YOUR M.P. A.S.A.P.’ A young lady saw us chatting and came and asked if she could take a photo of our backs, 2 yellow met police vests and one protestor vest. The officers agreed. The officers made sure they were facing front so they couldn’t be identified, (even though they were masked up) but I made a point of looking up and smiling at the officer next to me. I wonder if I’ll ever see that photo? The officers then started to walk off before remembering they were supposed to be doing a job, and came back to tell us that we were participating in an unlawful act by being at a gathering of so many people. We said we knew, and understood that they were just doing their job. And off they strolled. Apart from the police helicopter drowning out (thankfully) most of the speakers, we weren’t aware of much of a police presence until we had had enough, and started to stroll down towards Parliament Square.

But another reader emailed with a much more positive account.

I travelled two hours by train to the protest yesterday (no issues using the ‘exemption’ badge printed from your page – thanks) and wanted to add a couple of things to the report you published yesterday.

Firstly it’s worth people of all sorts getting out and joining these kinds of rallies. Even if you don’t agree with the 5G conspiracy, etc., the issues at stake here are far greater than that. Going by the signs held aloft and from speaking to a few people, the vast majority there were not conspiracy theorists. They were advocates for freedom pure and simple. Freedom not to be forced to take a vaccine. Freedom to question the authorities without losing your job (as happened to several speakers from the medical profession). Freedom to send your children to school without a mask. Freedom to see your family especially on their deathbeds.

Secondly it’s necessary to break the law when your basic rights, such as that of free assembly, are being suppressed. If you do so in enough numbers, the police cannot act and so the suppression will end. The entire gathering was of course illegal given its size. Almost nobody wore a mask (illegal given our proximity?). During the rally we were encouraged to hug and shake hands (illegal?) with the people next to us. It felt good, having not done that with a stranger since March. The police did try to stop the rally in a couple of ways: firstly by confiscating the organisers’ amplification and video equipment, then by trying to drown out the speakers by means of a constantly circling helicopter. We waved or made other gestures to the flying cops in a show of defiance. Even so it was slightly intimidating.

Thirdly, in amongst the nonsense of Bill Gates being behind it all, there were some really interesting ideas discussed. For example:

*’peoplescourt.org‘ intends to defend whistleblowers in the courts and hold officials promoting unagreed DNRs accountable
*apparently ‘notice of liability’ letters can be sent to teachers opening them up to charges of malfeasance if your child is adversely affected by anti-covid measures taken in school
*most interesting was a proposal to depoliticise the NHS and return hospitals and surgeries to the local institutions they once were, accountable to the patients in their areas. This would be accompanied by disbanding the GMC and other politicised medical bodies.

I left part-way through David Icke’s speech in order to catch a train but from what I heard, I noticed that even if he has some mad ideas, he had to appeal to the loss of freedom and the need to fight facism so as to get the crowd on board. I conclude from this that there is a massive body of sensible opinion out there waiting to be led by someone rational. If such a person or group would appear it could be the start of a new political group that many people traditionally from the Left and Right would join.

Stop Press: Piers Corbyn, who was arrested at Saturday’s rally, has been fined £10,000. The Standard has more.

Round-Up

Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers

Five today: “Living in Fear” by the Power Station, “Scaremonger” by Total Science, “Nothing is Safe” by Grannysmith, “Make It Up As We Go” by Jason Derulo and “We Are Led By Fools” by Jayo From Cpt.

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. We’ve also just introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. 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 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! If they’ve made that clear to customers with a sign in the window or similar, so much the better. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.

“Mask Exempt” Lanyards

This bejewelled face mask from Jacob Arabo will cost you $250,000

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 with lanyard for just £3.99 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 31,000).

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).

Stop Press: King David High School in Manchester is insisting that children aged 12 and above wear masks in classrooms.

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 lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending me stories and links). 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. (If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code).

And Finally…

Andy Davey’s cartoon in yesterday’s Telegraph

By Toby Young  /  31 August 2020 • 00.49
 
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