Herd Immunity May Be Closer Than Thought
The idea that more people may have immunity to coronavirus than show up in standard antibody surveys is getting more oxygen by the day. It is what may explain why the epidemic often goes into decline when 10-20% of the population has antibodies, why the epidemic is now considered over in Sweden and why countries that are lifting restrictions are seeing no second waves, only the occasional ripple.
This week the British Medical Journal added its voice to those arguing that population immunity may be closer than was originally thought. The Times reports:
Tests for antibodies may be dramatically underestimating the proportion of people who have been infected with the coronavirus, scientists said. The claim, made in the BMJ, implies that it is possible some parts of the country are far closer to herd immunity than had been thought.
The original misdiagnosis, the authors explain, is because we’ve been testing not for the full range of human immune responses but for just one or two types of antibodies.
Dr [Stephen] Burgess [from the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University] said that calibrating tests using people who had been more severely ill may mean that a lot of asymptomatic infections are being missed. “This might explain why, in cities such as London, we have seen the breakdown of widespread social distancing but infection rates have still not increased sharply,” he said.
Public Health England estimated London’s antibody prevalence at the start of May to be around 17.5%, not far from New York City’s 20%. Neither city has seen a rise in hospital admissions or deaths as restrictions have eased.
Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology at Edinburgh University, has some wise words on the subject which our politicians ought to heed:
“We need to think of the seroprevalence data as indicating that at least that proportion of people have been infected and it is likely higher. How much higher is difficult to estimate,” she said.
She added that it was important to consider who was susceptible to being ill as well as who was susceptible to infection: “We are learning that many people have pre-existing immunity which is likely due to prior infection with other coronaviruses.”
Dr Burgess said that he did not understand why more scientists were not questioning the seroprevalence data, as the extent to which it undercounts is critical.
“We’ve been asking ourselves the question of why this has not got more attention. It is clearly very important to our understanding of the disease,” he said. “I think scientists are cautious, and would prefer to say nothing if they are not sure, even when saying nothing also has consequences.”
Unfortunately, not all scientists are so timid with their views. Could it be the silence of too many sceptical scientists that has allowed more confident scientists like Neil Ferguson to become so influential? As Dr Burgess notes, saying nothing also has consequences. The BMJ deserves credit for publishing this paper, particularly as herd immunity is still being treated by some as politically toxic.
Kim-Jong Dan Versus Nic Sturge-on – Who’s Winning in the Authoritarian Olympics?
An Australian blogger called David Robertson has written an interesting post comparing Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Our political leaders, Dan and Nicola [Sturgeon] have the best interests of the ‘common good’ at heart. They are ‘moral’ people seeking to do their best. But the trouble is that because they have lost their moral anchor, their moral compass has gone astray. They confuse ‘the good’ with their will. And they have little time for heretics or those who would dare to blaspheme their absolutist certainties. That’s why they have to crack down on the poor souls who dare to question or challenge their absolute authority. Like all authoritarians they believe that if they get their way then we are on our way to a Better World – a Brave New World. But if they don’t get their way then we are descending into the Abyss. That explains why they feel they have to crack down so strongly. It’s not just a power grab. It’s a necessary power grab – done for the common good. That’s for as long as they remain true believers. When that ceases (more likely for their acolytes), they still use the same weapons. They come to see that it’s all an unworkable fantasy – but they continue to peddle the illusion – because they have invested too much in it. Their sense of worth – personal, financial, emotional and social; all depend on it.
The solution is more humility, less hubris:
I suspect that the virus of authoritarianism that is so infecting much of our Western democracies (all in the name of doing good – or at least preventing evil) will end up having a longer and more dangerous legacy than any left by COVID-19. Our only solution is the road of humility, not the highway to hell of hubris. But Chairman Dan and Queen Nicola seem to prefer the latter.
Worth reading in full.
“We Touched Masks Together in Defiance”: A Lockdown Wedding in Melbourne
An Englishwoman married her Australian boyfriend in Melbourne yesterday and has written to tell us what it was like:
Weddings in the next-door state (New South Wales) can have 150 guests to mark the occasion. Yet in Victoria, we are allowed just two. As my family are all in England it narrowed down the gold dust places to Matt’s parents. But there was to be no celebration with them. They picked us up on their way to the registry office, all of us in masks. There would be no fancy bridal car for me. At least we got a parking space right outside – the city was deserted.
On entry, we hand sanitised and first met the woman who was going to bond us for the rest of our lives. A Zoom call was thankfully allowed so that my family could watch the moment – no WiFi available though, so thank God my phone was up to the hot spot challenge.
The ceremony lasted around 12 minutes, with Matt’s parents sitting two metres apart in a room that could seat 50. We were allowed to hold hands for the duration, but no kiss. The key moment of any ceremony, a sort of rite of passage for husband and wife, was omitted for us. Our ‘you may now kiss the bride’ was replaced with a generic ‘congratulations’. But when our registrar’s back was turned, we touched masks together in defiance.
Keeping Schools Open in Sweden Resulted in Zero Deaths
Dennis Prager, the founder of PragerU, has written a piece in the Epoch Times pointing out that Sweden’s decision not to close schools for under-16 year-olds had no impact on mortality.
The world should have followed Sweden’s example. That country never locked down and has even kept children under 16 in school the entire time. As Reuters reported on July 15th, the number of Swedish children between one and 19 years of age who have died of COVID-19 is zero. And the percentage of children who contracted the illness was the exact same in Sweden as it was in Finland, which locked down its schools.
As regards teachers, Sweden’s Public Health Agency reported that “a comparison of the incidence of COVID-19 in different professions suggested no increased risk for teachers”. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, teachers in Los Angeles and elsewhere refuse to enter a classroom that has students in it. Their disdain for their profession has been superseded only by that of the Los Angeles teachers union, which announced that teachers will not resume teaching until the police are defunded.
People who defend lockdowns and closing schools point out that Sweden has the eighth-highest death rate per million in the Western world. But, needless to say, this has no bearing at all on the issue of whether Sweden was right to keep schools open or whether our country was wrong to close them, let alone keep them closed now. The overwhelming majority of deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden were among people over 70 years of age, and most of those were people over 80 and with compromised immune systems.
Reuters reported that three separate studies, including one by UNICEF, “showed that Swedish children fared better than children in other countries during the pandemic, both in terms of education and mental health”.
For more than a month, Sweden has had almost no deaths from COVID-19 while the entire society remains open and almost no one wears masks. (In Holland, too, almost no one wears masks.) For all intents and purposes, the virus is over in Sweden.
Worth reading in full.
What’s Killing Americans?
Inspired by the news from the US that only six per cent of reported COVID-19 deaths mention no other contributing causes, Willis Eschenbach on Watts Up With That took a closer look and made the above graph. He explains:
The light blue area is all of the deaths that did not involve Covid.
The dark blue area at the bottom represents the deaths of people with one or more other diseases or conditions who had Covid as a co-morbidity. It goes from 0.2% of all deaths for infants, and steadily increases with age to stabilize at about nine per cent of all deaths for all ages over 65. Some of these diseases and conditions are the result of Covid, and some are unrelated to Covid.
Fun fact. A total of 4,758 of the deaths in the dark blue area are from “Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events” with Covid as a co-morbidity. So this includes e.g. the guy in Florida who died from a motorcycle accident and tested positive for Covid… clearly the category shown in dark blue includes both deaths with Covid as well as deaths from Covid.
The thin red area at the top, scarcely wider than a line?
That’s all of the deaths from Covid by itself. It’s tiny because most of the time Covid either causes other diseases, as when someone presents with Covid and then gets pneumonia as well, or because Covid is often non-causally associated with other diseases and conditions.
The takeaway message? Even with the old and ill, deaths with Covid plus deaths from Covid are less than ten percent of all deaths. For those under 14 years old, it’s less than one percent of all deaths. For infants, 0.2%.
Worth reading in full.
Some Hope…
A Scottish reader has emailed to tell us of an unexpectedly good experience he had at his local gym.
I finally got back to my gym yesterday, Nicola finally having condescended to open them. It was very heartening to see that whilst they had bought lots of new gear they had made hardly any other covid changes and it all felt much like pre-lockdown. I fear they are breaking many rules, especially in the world of mad Nicola, but in the meantime all for the good. One thing they did urge was lots of hand washing which I accept as sound advice.
There was also a large sign asking folk to try not to use the changing rooms or showers, but to arrive in their gym kit and then shower at home. I was very pleased to see that lots of people simply ignored this and used the facilities as usual. None of the staff seemed even the least bit concerned and even asked every arrival whether they wanted a locker key.
Then, while I was in the changing room, several truly amazing things happened. First some chap arrived and, apropos of nothing at all apart from five months frustration I guess, starting describing, in very colourful terms, his views on lockdown. Clearly not a fan. Whereupon every other person in the changing room, six people, agreed with him. And they all started throwing statistics around in a very learned fashion proving the idiocy of all lockdown theory.
Finally, and I am still not sure whether to be appalled or pleased by this, a young lad entered wearing a mask. Whereupon all the lockdown antagonists begun questioning him about why he was wearing one. Again, they had all the data to hand and strove to prove, at some length, why he was deluded. On balance it was slightly intimidating but I was probably a bit pleased. Perhaps he learned something. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t seem inclined to argue.
I thought I must have just happened upon a rare caucus of Scottish lockdown deniers, but when I was chatting to one of them later he told me that all his friends feel exactly the same way.
What was most refreshing was that despite the lack of patronising bilge every person at the gym just worked out what made sense and took sane precautions. For example, one area got quite busy for a time but folk just saw that was so and went off somewhere else until the zone they were after had cleared somewhat.
Perhaps there is hope yet.
Round-Up
- ‘The Covid trap: will society ever open up again?‘ – Jonah Norberg in the Spectator points out that a ‘temporary’ expansion of government power is hard to reverse
- ‘How a lie becomes truth‘ – Rod Liddle in the Spectator on COVID-19, BLM and our dystopian post-truth society
- ‘The science behind masks is as flimsy as my see-through scarf‘ – ‘The Red Wall Rebel’ in Conservative Woman shows once more how empty the scientific case is for face nappies
- ‘Expert says coronavirus “as dangerous as having a bath” after calculating risk of dying‘ – Economist Tim Harford crunches the numbers in the Mirror to put the fear into perspective. (Harford assumed an IFR of one per cent so has over-estimated the risk of someone catching Covid and dying from it by four. It’s not one in two million, it’s one in eight).
- ‘To Destroy America‘ – Mike Gonzalez in City Journal investigates the radical neo-Marxist ideas driving the BLM movement and its offshoots
- ‘Young People Should Organize Against COVID Lockdowns‘ – Jason Garshfield on Real Clear Politics says younger people have been failed by the lockdown policies of the older generation
- ‘We have lost sight of what a positive COVID case means‘ – With the death and hospitalisation rate right down, a ‘case’ no longer means the same thing as it did in the spring. Are we now counting and panicking about tickly throats, asks Dr Waqar Rashid in the Spectator
- ‘Dentists could face “oral health horror show” as practices reopen, poll suggests‘ – The lockdown bares its teeth
- ‘Has the post-Covid future already been decided?‘ – Simon Marcus in spiked on the dubious ideology of the ‘Great Reset’ that appears to be the latest fad to enchant the minds of the clueless Davos elite
- ‘Coffee in the Time of a Pregdemic‘ – Jen Swann Downey imagines what if we treated pregnancy risk like we treated COVID-19, would you have to walk round with a bag on your head?
- ‘Hydrocortisone proven to save lives‘ – A cheap steroid that cuts mortality among the seriously ill by up to 20%. Great, can we go back to normal now?
- ‘Nicola Sturgeon Covid strategy “not going well”, expert warns as school transmission confirmed‘ – Turns out, “not going well” means “a small number of cases in school settings”
- ‘Downing Street denies existence of back-to-work campaign as office staff stay home‘ – It was merely a “press partnership campaign with regional and local media on a variety of topics to do with the coronavirus response,” said a spokesman. Not a U-turn, then. Nothing to see here. Honest, guv
- ‘Lockdown decisions should be made on numbers of hospital patients NOT “volatile” counts of new cases alone, Graham Brady says because flooding at-risk areas with tests inflates their infection rates‘ – If only Brady had won the Tory leadership contest…
- ‘Routine mass coronavirus testing hailed as path to greater freedoms‘ – Government splashes another £500m it doesn’t have trying to create a comprehensive testing regime for millions of healthy people everyday. The invasive, expensive, wasteful new normal
- ‘Portugal remains on England’s “travel corridors” list, despite rising cases‘ – Crikey! Boris must have missed Portugal in their Thursday night game of “Quarantine” when he and Matt Hancock take turns to try and hit a random country on a map of Europe with a set of darts
- ‘Matt Hancock is the Government’s doughtiest defender – but this time even he struggled‘ – The Telegraph‘s Michael Deacon writes about Handy Cock’s car crash interview with Kay Burley on Sky News yesterday morning
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
“Stay Home” by Activirus, “Ban Everything” by Woodbine, “My Life Is On Hold” by Southern Sound, “We Are All Prisoners” by A Bit Member Of The World, “No Talking” by Jay Cartier, “Suspended From Class” by Camera Obscura.
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
We’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 8th to Oct 17th). 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).
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 we 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 we should include in future updates, email me here. If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code, i.e. a link.
And Finally…
My colleague Toby Young has written about The Wake Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It in his Spectator column this week. The book – by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge – argues that the reaction of most Western governments to the pandemic has revealed them to be inverted pyramids of incompetence, although disappointingly that’s not because the authors are lockdown sceptics.
There’s a good deal in the book to disagree with. The authors make no attempt to re-evaluate the threat of COVID-19 in light of evidence that it’s no more deadly than a bad flu. Instead, they regurgitate the WHO’s doom-mongering and chastise Boris and other populist leaders for not locking down earlier. This ‘failure’ to heed the apocalyptic warnings of public health panjandrums is one way the West ‘flunked the test’. The book even claims Britain’s death toll (which they overestimate by at least 10%) might have been two-thirds lower if we’d locked down a week earlier.
To be fair to the authors, they based their UK death toll figures on PHE’s original estimate and there wasn’t time to correct it before publication.
In spite of the fact that Micklethwait and Wooldridge are unsound on the big issue, many of their arrows find their targets.
It’s hard to dispute the authors’ central hypothesis: that the virus has exposed the governments of most western democracies to be dysfunctional and sclerotic. They were caught off guard, even though they’ve had decades to prepare for a flu-like pandemic, and proved un-able to source protective equipment for health workers. Their attempts to roll out test-and-trace programmes have been hampered by bureaucratic incompetence — even Germany bungled its contact-tracing app. And the death toll is higher than it should be thanks to a series of unforced errors, such as failing to protect care-home residents. If the Chinese Communist party had manufactured Sars-CoV-2 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology to test the resilience of our system of government, they’d be starting up the tanks about now.
Both the book and Toby’s column are worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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In the few social media forums I occasionally feel triggered to vent my rage (and usually get pilloried for it) people are now starting to ask me for more information and stats about my views. I sense a great disturbance in The Force
Chatting to a cafe worker during his break,
he’s as big a sceptic as me. I was telling him about the ambulance sirens that he would have heard while on furlough lockdown with this place closed.
“I wasn’t lockedown , I was working with me mate in (small town 20 miles away) and saw the same thing, some days they would drive around for an hour or so and then go…”
Ambulances do not stand by in small towns, that means they must have been sent there deliberately to ramp up the fear before moving on to the next town just like bloody Ice Cream Van.
Piss taking bastards.
SATURDAY PAGE just arrived keeping a safe 2 metres away from this page
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/09/05/latest-news-125/#respond
.
They will fight tooth and nail, they will never ever admit to what they did
But who did what?
This MASSIVE miscalculation was done by a range of people in many countries.
This isn’t just Ferguson getting it wrong.
Which makes it odd that so many got the calculation wrong…..
How could that be?
Move along, move along, nothing to see here.
How could that be? Indeed.
The World Health Organisation, and many other countries, relied on the Ferguson model.
‘“The Imperial College model, as we’ve been following this for weeks, was the best, most accurate model.” Andrew Cuomo Governor of New York State
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/198737/the-global-impact-imperials-covid-19-response/
There is one decision, one moment upon which we should focus: the political decision, made in advance of ‘the science,’ to go for lockdown. In the UK at least, everything follows from that, and it is plainly culpable.
Civil Service Unions are moaning about having to go back to work.
What part are they objecting to?
1. having to go back
1. having to work
One of the major frustrations regarding this debacle is how little control the British electorate has over its own fate.
This matter will be addressed obliquely at the end of this month in the courts:
‘The hearing will decide on whether the case should progress to a full Appeal which would see the Government once again pressed to defend the introduction of measures which were described by the court as “possibly the most restrictive regime on the public life of persons and businesses ever.”
Lord Justice Hickinbottom said that the legal challenge “potentially raises fundamental issues concerning the proper spheres for democratically-accountable Ministers of the Government and judges.”
crowdjustice.com
But whatever is decided in English courts will not affect the more fundamental problem of unaccountable undemocratic international organisations, often extensively funded by the British taxpayer, taking decisions that materially affect individual liberty in this country.
The World Health Organisation should be shut down for its incompetence.
‘A death due to COVID-19 may not be attributed to another disease (e.g. cancer) and should be counted independently of preexisting conditions that are suspected of triggering a severe course of COVID-19.’
‘COVID-19 should be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death… Read more »
My local major hospital went further than Who’s instruction.
Staff were told that any patient that came Into Contact with a Covid case and who subsequently died, for whatever reason, were to be recorded as a Covid death.
True, but we could have resisted. If public opinion had been strongly supportive of the herd immunity approach, it’s possible we’d have taken that line. I think the govt are very driven but what they think people think of them, for better or worse.
The point is that ‘resistance is futile’ unless the international organisations responsible for the global shambles are made very strictly accountable to their paymasters, or dissolved.
We could have resisted in Britain but this has been a process arguably started by the First World War…..then WW2….then the Attlee government…..and on to Blair’s Britain, which we now inhabit…and yes, you are correct, the silly country voted for all of this nightmare…but over decades, centuries even, of big state brainwashing……
And, to return to my original point, even if we had resisted, international pressure would have forced the British government to cave……Suez and so on…….
That is why we had to leave the eu….It’s a start on a long row back to liberty…and, importantly, shows a lead to the rest of the international community……
Don’t know about futile. There are pressures, but there always have been. I wanted to leave the EU but in this case it hasn’t made much difference one way or the other. It’s the quality of leadership that has counted, across the world.
Futile in the sense that it will have zero effect on the major perpetrators of this debacle… superpowers like the U.S. federal government, Chinese communist party, international organisations all in cahoots…supranational organisations like the eu (bidden by Merkel, Macron), who, imf, world bank, un, all very much complicit; invulnerable to national protest.
For example, the UK lockdown came about through pressure from Macron, backed by Merkel and the eu…….
But, again, you are spot on correct. A powerful national leader, as we know from relatively recent history, can make a big difference but they are a vanishingly rare breed….none in evidence anywhere on any horizon…….
Please will someone confirm, is the PCR test the one forensic scientists use to detect minute fragments of DNA at crime scenes? If it is, repudiating it’s efficacy in layman’s terms is an absolute doddle.
No, PCR is used to amplify a small section of DNA. The larger the size the more inaccurate this can become. I’m not sure of the size of SARS-cov2, but only a small, unique, section of this will be amplified for verification (max 1kb for PCR and maybe 200-300bp for QPCR)
At crime scenes, one wants to know a specific individual was there and thus whole genetic analysis of a DNA source is required. This technique is called DNA fingerprinting.
‘Following collection of biological material from a crime scene or paternity investigation, the DNA is first extracted from its biological source material and then measured to evaluate the quantity of DNA recovered. After isolating the DNA from its cells, specific regions are copied with a technique known as the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. PCR produces millions of copies for each DNA segment of interest and thus permits very minute amounts of DNA to be examined.’
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/dna-evidence-basics-analyzing
‘In criminal investigations, the amount of DNA available for analysis is limited to whatever can be isolated from a few strands of hair, skin cells, blood or other bodily fluids left behind at the scene. It can be tedious to isolate sufficient amounts of intact DNA from such material, thus impeding the application of modern DNA technologies to identify perpetrators and ultimately solve crimes. PCR represents a fast, cost-effective, and relatively easy solution to this problem, in that it can rapidly amplify specific sequences from the isolated DNA, increasing the amount of material and paving the way for further analysis.
PCR is therefore a prerequisite to many modern DNA technologies and is an essential component of genetic fingerprinting.’
https://bitesizebio.com/19816/how-are-crimes-solved-by-pcr/
Slightly off topic but Kary Mullis, who had the idea of using PCR amplification for DNA was a surfer, LSD user and winner of a Nobel prize. A man who thought outside the box, although his views on HIV do not stand up
POSTED BY SOMEONE IN THE EXPRESS
When a local Subway reopened as takeaway only they had to remove the outside furniture in case the Covid got me there but I was safe because sitting on the surrounding was was alright.
Trust me it knows
The Heneghan article on the BBC is fantastic news!!!
That is the first time I’ve seen his name on that site. Like waking up in a parallel universe. Refreshing to say the least. Onwards and upwards!
When we see Sunetra Gupta and Michael Levitt’s names on the BBC news page we will know the game is nearly up…
On the losing side, the heroes after the war have always been the dissenters and resistance fighters.
Plus ca change…
It seems to be the highest read article on BBC website as well! I think I’ve woken up in a parallel universe.
I can communicate with my firms office in person, discouraged because the Covid, by phone or by a messaging system.
I got asked to undertake a task but txtd
“Sorry that needs me to wear a mask medically exempt”.
Office ‘no worries’
“I did tell office a while back”
O ‘I’m just back from furlough, i know nooothing!’
“Who are you ?”
O ‘it’s ‘mandy’, hope you are well’
“Fine thanks ‘mandy’, welcome back. I worked all the way through and think Covid is a wet blanket”
O ‘me too, I wish everything would just get back to normal !’
OBSERVATIONS
https://facts4eu.org/news/2020_aug_covid_ex_crisis
As the first major alternative news outlet to express scepticism about the disproportionate reaction to the Coronavirus, (starting 04 Mar 2020), we must now say:
“Enough is enough”
It’s time to resume normality and do away with the mass hysteria and rolling doom from the BBC, Sky News and ITN.
Case numbers are almost irrelevant given that testing has increased dramatically, together with the fact that most people are asymptomatic or only mildly inconvenienced even if they have the virus. The ‘R’ number is at best a guess by the ‘experts’.
It is hospitalisations and deaths which should determine policy, and these are now so small as to be insignificant from a policy-making perspective.
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2020
The supposed ‘science’ which has led to the extreme Coronavirus measures has bordered on the ridiculous. There have been continuous revisions, corrections, and about-turns, from the now-discredited ‘half-a-million deaths’ mathematical modelling of Professor Ferguson and friends which started the lockdown, to the efficacy of wearing face masks (for which there is no compelling evidence), to the grossly exaggerated morbidity rate for the virus. Few of these were reported properly, objectively, and critically in the mainstream media. Almost every facet… Read more »
Continuing all these Covid measures is a disaster.
In August deaths with COVID 19 were under 1.5% of all deaths in the UK according to the Government’s own statistics.
What were the major causes of death %s ?
https://facts4eu.org/news/2020_aug_covid_ex_crisis
Thanks Stephen, interesting read. Deaths WITH Covid less than 1.5% yet still the nonsense continues.
As far as I can see the “sceptical community” here been right just about everything.
The general thrust here has been:
1. This isn’t the effing plague. Dont believe that Effer Ferguson. It’s more like a bad flu year.
2. Theres no need to shut down schools.
3. Sweden’s strategy makes sense.
We are being proved right as time passes.
Bang on. It’s nice to see that ALL the evidence is going our way( as we knew it would) but we can’t let the bastards get away with spinning their way out of it. We need to hold every single one of the lying bastards to account. Ferguson is number one in my book, but there are countless others! The good news is, they have committed their lies in plain sight and we all know who they are. Yes, we are looking at you, Morgan, Hancock, Rigby et al. They will get desperate as the tide turns and try and ramp up the narrative, but as they do, they will look ever more ridiculous. Most of their fellow riders will quietly jump ship and deny ever being part of the idiocy. See Germany 1945 and Soviet Union 1990 for examples. Enjoy the victory, but never forget the perpetrators.
And for those who think they can run and hide, remember Eichmann.
Indeed!
Some can. Remember Mengele.
I don’t think we have Mossad on our side though…
Can you hire Mossad for a fee?
Let’s put them on Covid Criminal Track and Trace.
And Punish.
They certainly did that with Munich Olympics terrorists, Track’n’Traced every last one if them.
Funnily enough, the Johnson is in quite a strong position to shaft a load of people and escape, relatively, unscathed. The mantra about “following the science” has been consistent and gives him rather a handy get out clause. The left are determined to push the nonsensical narrative that an earlier lockdown would have made all the difference; the Johnson can refute that by saying it is now clear that any form of lockdown was a mistake and “the science” was wrong. The only issue is that the Johnson has got to chuck Cummings under a bus and I am not sure he is brave enough to do that.
Could have added
4. Herd immunity was the way to go all along.
I reckon the evidence points to it being about twice as bad as flu in terms of deaths. Injuries is more difficult to pin down as we are so blasé about flu. My mother never really recovered from being hospitalised during the 2018 flu outbreak.
Sorry to hear about your mother. This is why I hate how the MSM is weaponising ‘long Covid’ to ramp up the fear, conveniently staying silent about the fact that flu can have after-effects which are just as devastating and can linger for months or even years. Not to mention that it wrongly exploits those who were unlucky enough to suffer badly from Covid.
Was it the flu, or the hospital?
My mum never recovered from the hospital disease they gave her when going for a hip replacement. They have form for cross contamination the NHS.
Exactly – but nobody seems to remember the ‘killer bug ate my arm’ headlines. Hospitals have form, as you say.
Some flus were far more deadly than Covid.
All of them had and have a far worse mortality age distribution than Covid- Covid basically matches the normal mortality profile.
Even if you were right, the responses to Covid have resulted
in far more damages, incl. deaths, than any flu bar the Spanish one.
There is some joy in being able to say ‘told you so’, but I’d rather not have that pleasure and this shitstorm hadn’t happened in first place. By shitstorm I encompass every coronavirus related legislation/guidance/Covid porn/witch hunts after the retreat from herd immunity after 18th March.
What on earth?! This is the top story on the BBC News website. Someone’s clearly messed up here. Give it an hour or so and they’ll probably remove it or change the headline.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54000629
Got a screenshot- here’s the study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.04.20167932v3
04.15 still there, someone is going to get a slap as you suggest Chicot. Screenshots taken to aid The Conversation.
06.03 Still There!
8.01 still there!!!! heads will roll
Maybe the new guy is serious about changing them?
Suggest you repost this as soon as tomorrows page is opened, or could someone do so on your behalf ?
(Not me, I lack the skill from Android).
‘Cometh the hour cometh the man’ Prof Carl Heneghan slowly methodically professionally and diplomatically chipping away at the huge iceberg that is Covid-nonsense, every bit you chip away the next bit goes a bit easier until the media and the public wake up smell the coffee and it starts to melt away more quickly.
The Government have now invested huge amounts of money and political capital in testing and vaccines, there are increasing signs that the final act of this virus will be to slip away and leave the Government with a huge amount of egg on its face.
What we need is for a few MPs to break ranks and have the courage and vision to call this out, I think we are nearly ready for that bandwagon to start to roll.
Icebergs smell of coffee if you chip away at them?
Can you get tea-flavoured ones?
Heneghan deserves a statue!!!
https://digital.nhs.uk/coronavirus/coronavirus-data-services-updates/trusted-research-environment-service-for-england
Interesting to note that the list of research questions currently underway in UK (click on the ‘active partners’ button), most of which were apparently generated in April, includes the ‘collateral damage’ questions (missed cancer and heart disease treatments etc) so often asked about here.
https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/genomics-england-genomicc-nhs-covid-19/
And this study aiming to recruit all patients who have been in ICU and compare their genome with those with mild symptoms, should be interesting too.
Dido Harding has recently stepped down from this company to take up her new role. Current CEO, Chris Wrigley, has spent time with FO, Counter Terrorism unit.
We need to do as Dr Kendrick has outlined and change “cases” to “positive swab” each and every time the hysterics refer to case numbers.
It will eventually penetrate if there is a concerted effort
Can we get these two articles up and talked about:
Covid-19: the problems with case counting
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374
And this study just came out from Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson:
Viral cultures for COVID-19 infectivity assessment. Systematic review
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.04.20167932v3
Slightly disturbing conversation with a friend yesterday evening. First time we had met since lockdown, in a pub. He, quite unprompted, came out with a strongly sceptical analysis of the last six months. Great, I thought. Off I went to the gents, thinking this would be the direction of conversation.
On my return, he started talking about ‘safety’ and how the various pubs he has been in have put him more or less ‘at risk.’ I took a double take. Clearly, people can believe one thing in theory, and something totally different in the minutiae of practical living.
In this case, I have a suspicion of what makes the difference: it’s the damned mask. For whatever reason, he wears it, and we believe what we do. Religions have always understood this, they use and cultivate habit, because what we do configures our beliefs. As most of us recognise, compliance rags were mandated for psychological reasons – to enforce the impression of an ongoing crisis. But it is disturbing how effective they are in that capacity. People may put them on only out of fear of the law, or getting pepper sprayed. But they slip into believing in their… Read more »
Fascinating Ovis, I had never considered this vein of thought. In the space of a couple weeks here in BC, Canada, mask use has gone from like 40% and now up to 80% from my observations…all voluntary (cringe)
Quintessential doublethink: holding two notions in one’s mind simultaneously, knowing them to be contradictory and believing both of them.
There is much about the public reaction to this hoo-haa that indicates that as a society we are not as far away from the dark ages, witch-hunts, sorcery and and soothsaying as we might have liked to think.
Face-masks and ‘getting Tested’ are like medieval religious practices to ward off the cunning and evil ju-ju beelzebub virus.
It sometimes feels as if the renaissance and the age of enlightenment and reason never happened!
Muzzles can be seen by many (unconsciously or otherwise) as talismans – the constant touching and fiddling with them reminds me of the patting and stroking of an object carried on the body or in a pocket for protection and reassurance
A lot of it is the effect of the sunk cost fallacy I think. Also I think people subconsciously avoid confronting the madness because they don’t want to face the fact that things are terrible, because it’s upsetting.
Shared the Safety Mask song with lots of people – a great way of getting the message across.
Have a great weekend, and keep up up the fight
No doubt, it is pure gold!!
Edinburgh No New Normal demonstration. Local paper suggests 600 say they will attend.
Its an ugly report by Edinburghlive. But nothing more than expected.
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/hundreds-anti-maskers-plan-attend-18880782
I’m so sick of the use of ANTI to generalize certain groups into simplistic categories. It’s pathetic when the argument is framed in black or white / this or that / right or wrong usually by the powers that be. People can wear their masks until Halloween for all I care!
Remember all those videos of people in China dying in the street and being removed by men in haz mat suits?
Remember when that happened here? Me neither
Videos shared on TikTok…
You keep mentionning Sweden but neglect to check out the Czechs. I don’t know all the details but they did better than any other European country:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/czech-republic/
Czech it out!
Caerphilly County Borough in Wales looks to be about to introduce a lockdown based on a rise in positive tests. The morons at the council can’t distinguish between a test and an actual illness. The first victims are the residents of care homes. All visits banned, so the torture of isolation continues. this seems like, “destroy a village in order to save the village.”
There are 2 high-speed ribs operating out of Padstow, no doubt great fun, riding over the waves, seaspray all over, engines roaring. I watched amazed, all the passengers, all forward sitting, all in the open, all totally windblown, all masked!
I mentioned yesterday the girl who went to Weston Super Mare who had to wear a mask walking up and down the pier, one way system in force, natch.
It’s ‘public transport’. Same daftness reported in Wales a few weeks ago.
It ensures you don’t infect the seabirds.
Had a somewhat dystopian lunch with a friend today. She’d sneaked over illegally from a local mockdown and we were looking forward to a change of scenery. We went to our favourite tiny cafe in a local village but it was full so, we tried a new place.
Book to sign in. Gave false name etc of course. Distancing signs everywhere. Pleasant waiter behind visor, otherwise seemed normal enough. Didn’t fancy anything on the menu so moved on again.
Next cafe – we’d been before mockdown and weren’t very impressed so it was a last resort.
Greeted by young girl in face nappy behind a perspex screen. She offered me a pad of small sheets for contact details. I said I wasn’t obliged to give them. She assured me I was, for T&T. I said I was entitled to withold my consent. She informed me in that case they would refuse me entry. I was so impressed with her balls that I decided to stay. Left false id of course. At least they don’t have you display your details in a book for all to see.
Service pretty poor (like last time). My friend had a great time playing the… Read more »
Re Enoch’s Hammer – I fear we may be seen as the Luddites come the final reckoning, standing in the way of the Great Reset.
Depressing!
And so to bed.
Ok, ok, ok, shoot me down.
But does anyone feel the same as me…..
I can’t wait for Covid to be proved to be the fraud it is, because I can’t wait to see the demise of Piers Morgan.
Ok, life these days has sent me a bit insane, but I long for these small victories; they keep me going !
Funny thing is I’ve seen Piers on other things – the Life Stories interviews generally I find OK , some of his things he has done in the US, regarding crime, gun control, have been really interesting and well argued documentaries.. Not all bad. Last few months though he’s gone into total clown mode – oh yes, this could turn out to be his demise.
…unless on the other hand, come November you realise Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the entire Chinese Olympic Swimming squad and the ascendants of Shergar all apparently voted for Biden in the mail, in which case it’s covid-mark II…
Yes I too want to see piers Morgan fall flat on his face, or much worse and soon.
He is a smarmy bastard for sure. The way he shouted at Piers Corbyn was despicable. An insignificant Bully.
Probably thinks only one man in the world should be called Piers.
2019 stop Corbyn 2020 stop Corbyn-plus ca change!
Funny, I’ve been musing on this for a few weeks now and realised with a jolt only over the last day or so that the absolute best thing which would result, if suddenly (wet dream, I know) this was all exposed in the media as the sham we know it is, would be to watch Piers Morgan’s public apology and recantation on Good Morning Britain, along with Dr Hilary doing the same. God, if only!
I see Piers on the street most days. I can assure you he doesn’t act the same way he does on tv…
“Are you not entertained!”
Bozo has kept Portugal off the quarentine list and made Abbott part of the trade team, going against the MSM and the wee Krankee. Has someone stapled a pair of bollocks on the clown?
Are we about to see a new improved Boris? Fcuk I’m ever the optimist…
He’ll sack Abbott tomorrow morning.
Do hope so for all our sakes
Tiny mouse bollocks?
That Malcolm Kendrick blog, wow.
Can we get this onto the home page tomorrow and can Malcolm do the MSM interviews on Sunday morning?
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/
Just wow!
Seconded
Yep he is right about the numbers. It’s a massive “mistake”. The thing is this was pretty obvious all along, right from the start that the figures were just ludicrous. Anybody who said this was censored of the face of the planet.
I don’t buy the mistake theory. This is fraud. A monumental scam.
I believe he too mentioned the positive aspects to HcQ a while ago, and attempted to get a mini stockpile for his trust/NHS area. Blocked, I think.
The fear mongers have caused so much misery, deaths and sadness if it is a fraud or scam they are murderers.
I have started to feel our only way our is for Trump to win the election. I think he would call this all out but no one else will
thingers and thumbs
And it is backed up by Carl Heneghans recent estimations of the infection fatality rate of 0.49 to 0.3. It will fall further to 0.1 as dr Kendrick says. It’s what we have all been saying on here for so long.
The ‘case’ lie is classic Newspeak: the systematic perversion of the English language in order to maintain terror and make thoughtcrime literally impossible. The best example is the Newspeak meaning of the word ‘safe’, but ‘case’ runs it very close.
Imposing Covidspeak is not a difficult task, seeing that zombies find thought of any kind impossible anyway.
I don’t want to sound like an arse, but the most depressing thing I’ve read on here today is at the end of the text about the Australian wedding.
“We touched masks in defiance.”
Really? What were you defying? You’re allowed to touch masks so you were defying nothing. An act of defiance would have been ripping your masks off and kissing. What would they have done if you had? Were there policemen there to see that all rules were stringently obeyed?
I know it’s a difficult situation for all of us, but you’re wedding is only the time when you become joined by holy rites to the person you love more than anything in the world, and you’re prepared to mark the occasion by brushing one person’s strip of soggy plastic against the other’s? The mental image makes my stomach turn. I could not get married under such circumstances. I would ordain myself as a priest, consecrate my own home and conduct my own ceremony on my terms.
Can’t work that one out.You are not legally allowed to kiss your spouse.What do they expect you to do on the wedding night.? How on earth can anyone stand for this crap I don’t know.
You wear masks on your wedding night, ensuring that they cover any area of the body that touches the other spouse.
You touched masks so you might as well have touched lips since you’ve been incubating all those pathogens in your masks.
Your marriage on those terms would be a truer marriage that the horrid perversions now on offer.
As for priests, cucullus non facit monachum.