Je Suis Samuel
Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in the Place de la Reublique yesterday to pay tribute to Samuel Paty, the history teacher who was brutally murdered on Friday. The Mail has more.
The French Prime Minister joined thousands of demonstrators rallying in tribute to a history teacher who was brutally beheaded at a school near Paris for showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to his class.
Samuel Paty, 47, was brutally stabbed to death and beheaded by Aboulakh Anzorov, 18, in a northern suburb of the French capital on Friday afternoon.
In Paris, thousands including French Prime Minister Jean Castex gathered to pay tribute to the slain teacher in a defiant show of solidarity at the Place de la Republique.
Some held placards reading ‘I am Samuel’ that echoed the ‘I am Charlie’ rallying cry after the 2015 attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of Mohammed.
A moment’s silence was observed across the square, broken by applause and a rendition of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Others recited: ‘Freedom of expression, freedom to teach.’
Demonstrators also gathered in major cities including Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nantes, Marseille, Lille and Bordeaux.
Worth reading in full.
Twitter Censors Scott Atlas
Twitter capped off a week of aggressive censorship of right-of-centre publications and views by deleting tweets by Scott Atlas, a member of the White House’s scientific team battling coronavirus. The Federalist has more.
Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, not only had his tweets removed, he was banned from tweeting until he deleted the tweets that Twitter for unclear reasons objects to. Here are the tweets in question:
In an email to the Federalist, Atlas outlined the evidence behind his tweet.
In the deleted tweet, I cited the following evidence against general population masks:
1) Cases exploded even with mandates: Los Angeles County, Miami-Dade County, Hawaii, Alabama, the Philippines, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Israel.
2) Dr. Carl Heneghan, University of Oxford, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and editor in chief of British Medical Journal Evidence-Based Medicine: ‘It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks.’
(https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/)
3) The WHO: ‘The widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider’ (http://bitly.ws/afUm)
4) The CDC: ‘Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.’ (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article).
I also cited an article giving detailed explanation of the reasons why masks might not prevent spread: https://t.co/1hRFHsxe59Notwithstanding this evidence regarding arguably the most important and contentious debate raging in American society — the constant mandate of masks — it appears some 20-something with his pronouns in his Twitter bio just pushed a button and erased scientifically accurate information. For some reason, which hopefully Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey can explain when he is dragged before the Senate, Atlas was silenced by the tech giant.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Jordan Schachtel has more on the same story in his substack blog.
Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist No-Platformed by Lockdown Zealots
Michael Levitt, joint winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford, has been no-platformed by the organisers of a conference on biosystems design and synthetic biology, even though these fields both owe a huge debt to his work. He took to Twitter yesterday to break the news.
This is an absolute disgrace. Scientists aren’t supposed to no-platform other scientists because they disagree with their scientific views. That’s completely antithetical to the spirit of scientific inquiry. The scientists who threatened to pull out if Michael Levitt was allowed to participate should be ashamed of themselves.
Sounds like a job for the Free Speech Union…
Is Greater Manchester Running Out of Hospital Beds?
The Guardian has splashed on a “leaked document” that supposedly reveals hospitals in Greater Manchester are set to run out of beds to treat people seriously ill with COVID-19.
It showed that by last Friday the resurgence of the disease had left hospitals in Salford, Stockport and Bolton at maximum capacity, with no spare beds to help with the growing influx. The picture it paints ratchets up the pressure on ministers to reach a deal with local leaders over the region’s planned move to the top level of coronavirus restrictions.
It suggested that Greater Manchester’s hospitals are quickly heading towards being overwhelmed by the sheer number of people with Covid needing emergency care to save their lives, in the same way that those in Liverpool have become in recent weeks. By Friday 211 of the 257 critical care beds in Greater Manchester – 82% of the total supply – were already being used for either those with Covid or people who were critically ill because of another illness.
But how accurate is this “leaked document”? Not very, judging from the assessment of Prof Carl Heneghan and his colleagues in the Sunday Telegraph. Readers will recall that they point out the number of daily cases in the Manchester area are falling.
They peaked on the September 30th with 596 cases and a seven-day average of 461. As of October 9th, the seven-day average has fallen from the peak by nearly 20% to an average of 374.
More importantly, the data for respiratory condition admissions shows that they’re below the four year average.
Looking at all respiratory episodes at Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust we see that until week 15 the 2020 admissions matched closely with the four year average for the corresponding week: average monthly activity was 96% of the four year average.
However, this began to diverge significantly after week 16, when the monthly activity became only 57% of the four year average. Looking at emergency episodes alone shows a similar pattern: from week 17 they were at 60% of the four year average.
As for the Guardian‘s breathless revelation that 82% of critical care beds in Greater Manchester are occupied, so what? That sounds about normal for this time of year, possibly even below average.
It’s a non-story. The document was probably leaked by a member of the Government trying to increase pressure on Andy Burnham.
Stop Press: I was right about 82% being normal for this time of year. Occupancy of adult critical care beds in Greater Manchester at the end of October 2019 was 83.6%. Data here.
Scotland’s Dodgy Data
An academic at Edinburgh University has got in touch to point out there’s some jiggery pokery going on with the daily case data north of the border.
You should take a look at the Scottish Covid daily update for an example of how the authorities are abusing statistics for presumably political ends.
Their daily update always includes a top statement along the lines that “1,167 new cases of COVID-19 reported; this is 17.6%* of newly tested individuals” (numbers for October 18th).
Scary indeed, given the percentage of positive tests in the UK as a whole is currently between 5 to 7%. However, the asterisk leads to an explanation of how this is calculated. In short, they have counted the positive tests out of 15,089 performed (this figure is given further down the page), and then divided it by a totally unrelated number – the number of people who have never been tested before (calculating back, around 6,630 people). The actual percentage of positive tests is 7.7%; still high, but much less alarming.
The metric is said to be “under review”, but has been so for at least a week. It is hard to imagine how they decided to use it in the first place, let alone continue to do so.
Local Lockdown Protests
A reader has written in to tell us about his experience organising a local lockdown protest in Croydon. Sounds like it was quite successful.
I staged, with some success, I think, a very small-scale anti-lockdown event in Croydon earlier today. I consider it to have been reasonably successful and I have written the following report in the belief that it may be of interest to your readers.
Through the Lockdown Sceptics and Keep Britain Free forums, I have managed to create a small but expanding network of sceptics across Surrey. Many of us want to play a part in swaying public opinion towards Covid dissent, but not everyone feels comfortable with the way the big protests are conducted and, for my own part, work commitments prevent me from making it to London.
Accordingly, we have started to organise very small-scale gatherings in our local town centres, the first of which took place this Sunday. We had one group in Guildford, while I and another member set ourselves up in Croydon for a couple of hours. Since neither of us had ever attempted anything of the sort before, we were somewhat self-conscious at first and I couldn’t help feeling like I was in the Tooting Popular Front. Still, several other groups and individuals had set themselves up in the town centre with different axes to grind, and compared to them we looked positively discreet.
We didn’t have any tables and chairs set up, so we had to promote ourselves a bit by speaking to passers-by. Nerves had to be overcome, but it all seemed to go very well. Some members of the public were interested in what we were doing. My honourable comrade diverted his attentions towards unmasked people on the basis that they were more likely to be receptive to us, while I approached masked people whom I supposed might only be wearing masks under duress. My comrade’s approach seemed to be more successful.
Rather than trying to drag people into conversation, we just asked them if they’d like to take a leaflet asking people such questions as “What do you think the psychological effects of masks and social distancing are on children?” and “How would you feel if you or a relative had a treatable illness which became terminal because you were refused access to the NHS?” We also pointed out a few inconvenient truths, such as the average age of Covid deaths and the rate of false positives. I cannot take full credit for the leaflet as I merely modified a template which had been prepared by another member (thanks, Comrade TW). I added a list of useful websites such as Lockdown Sceptics (crawl, grovel, &c.) in case people should be interested in looking further into Covid scepticism. We started with 30 leaflets and managed to give away around half of them.
While 15 leaflets distributed over two hours doesn’t sound hugely impressive, since it was the first time either of us had attempted such a stunt, I’m inclined to regard it as successful. I had begun with some considerable apprehension that public reception would be hostile or someone in a hi-vis would try to move us on, but I’m pleased to say those fears did not come to anything. Moreover, my conscience is quite satisfied that I have done my bit to overturn the present chaos.
I hope to be able to repeat these events in the near future in more locations around Surrey. If anyone wants to stage a similar event of their own accord I would heartily encourage it. As not everyone here feels comfortable with the tune of the larger events, this local approach allows you to protest entirely on your own terms, and without the inconvenience of having to go all the way into London. All the same, I would advise trying to do it at least in pairs. Even though today’s event was entirely peaceful, people may be vulnerable on their own.
For more on the Surrey group, see ‘Meet Fellow Sceptics’ in the LS forums.
Stop Press: Dr Kevin Corbett, a former nurse and anti-lockdown activist, has written to tell me of a very successful rally in Hull on Saturday.
I think the Wake Up Hull rally went very well. I stayed for the whole rally, and also the march, which proceeded in a very orderly fashion, gaining lots of interest and support from shopkeepers and shoppers. It was a superbly well organised event by Wake Up Hull who had an effective sound system and had posted volunteers to help protect attendees and speakers. The success of this Saturday’s rally was truly a testament to the forward planning and level headedness of those organising, who are working to help local people and businesses survive and thrive. The range of speakers (and topics) covered on Saturday were diverse, and included Professor Roger Watson, Mark Steele, Kate Shemirani (via link) plus myself and several other less known speakers notable for their own health and spiritual knowledge, expertise and local links. The Hull police assisted the organisers and took out several masked troublemakers who were spoiling for a fight. As you can imagine this police action was hugely applauded by the rally goers as was the calm demeanor of the police throughout. It also made those of us who’d personally witnessed the atrocious behaviour of the Metropolitan Police at similar events to note how relatively better the Hull police seemed at doing their job without hurting people (unlike their London colleagues). Overall, it was an incredible event attended by four hundred rally goers. The police acted as though they knew that this year’s government COVID-19 ‘diktats’ were just that. Common sense prevailed and because of the tenor of the rally due to the organisers, and their successful police liaison, it really felt for all of us involved, as though we were now living in a democracy once more. People felt hopeful and optimistic for the future and it showed in their actions and behaviour. So well done all at Wake Up Hull for showing the UK exactly how to do it.
Postcard From Bulgaria
A reader has sent us a “Postcard From Bulgaria” that we’ve added to the postcard roster on the right-hand side. Sounds like a good place to visit (although it’s not currently in the UK travel corridor).
The early morning mini-bus from Yambol trundles into the village, and drinking a coffee outside the bar the village mayor from a few years back calls out jovially to those of us waiting to board: “Mask!” Unaffronted (you’ll see why in a moment), the majority of us pull from our pocket a crumpled, grubby-ish scrap of ear-looped linen and don it, at least until we reach our seat. “Losho!” laughs the ex-mayor, rocking merrily back and forth on his seat (maybe it was a rakia he was drinking, not coffee), and nobody disagrees. ‘Losho’ can mean anything from ‘bad’ to ‘useless’ to ‘barmy’ which I would say is the majority view now in Bulgaria with regard to mask-wearing.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- “Peru has the toughest lockdown in the world and still ended up with the worst fatality rate” – Daniel Hannan wonders what has gone wrong in his native Peru
- “Powerful voices now argue for a more nuanced and less painful way of learning to live with the virus… We urge the PM to listen” – Very sceptical editorial in the Mail on Sunday
- “I’m yet to meet a single person who plans to obey the ban on meeting friends and family indoors… why on earth should they?” – Lord Sumption endorses the Great Barrington Declaration
- “Britons are being sentenced to a slow, agonising death… by No 10’s panic squad” – Peter Hitchens’s latest column
- “Lockdown cycles” – Prof Carl Heghan and Tom Jefferson in the Spectator argue that an endless cycle of intermittent lockdowns won’t work
- “The end of the SAGE supremacy” – Dr Waqar Rashid in the Spectator detects a waning of SAGE’s authority
- “No real evidence for 10pm curfew, claims expert in briefing for Manchester MPs” – At a meeting with Manchester MPs on Thursday, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam admitted there was no scientific reason for thinking the 10pm curfew would have any impact on the spread of coronavirus
- “The crisis in mental health: ‘We were left on suicide watch over our daughter all week’” – With services being cut while demand surges, two families tell the Telegraph of the trauma of dealing with mental health issues during the pandemic
- “The lockdown ghost towns: More than a MILLION hospitality and retail jobs may vanish by end of the year” – 11,120 stores and 125,000 jobs were lost following initial lockdown. With the new restrictions, many more will follow
- “Northern Tory MPs hit back at southern colleagues over coronavirus lockdown letter” – Northern Tory MPs hit back at their Southern colleagues after their ill-advised letter urging Andy Burnham to accept a Tier 3 lockdown
- “Lockdowns aren’t the solution, we should be able to live our lives” – Esther McVey sides with the lockdown sceptics in a powerful comment piece for the Express
- “Rishi Sunak is fighting hard to hold the line against a circuit-breaker lockdown” – John Rentoul in the Independent says Rishi is just about managing to hold off the lockdown zealots in Cabinet
- “Millions for Manchester to buy off revolt over coronavirus restrictions” – Boris is going to try and buy himself out of trouble to the tune of £100m, according to the Times
- “Time to stop the coronavirus gravy train” – Clare Foges in the Times decries the fact that lots of useless consultants are getting rich during this crisis
- “Boris Johnson refusal to back circuit breaker lockdown ‘will cost the economy £110billion’” – The Labour Party’s internal analysis shows that not having a circuit breaker will cost £110 billion. Who did Keir Starmer get to model that? Neil Ferguson?
- “As physicians, mothers and daughters, we have concerns with COVID-19 rules” – Powerful piece in the Vancouver Sun
- “Ontario Physician’s Case Against Lockdowns” – Excellent Facebook post by a Canadian doctor about why he’s opposed to lockdowns
- “Britain should not resort to a new national lockdown” – Leader in the Economist saying the cost of a second national lockdown in the UK would outweigh the benefits
- “‘I appeal to you’: Merkel asks Germans to stay home as she focuses on individual responsibility” – The German Chancellor is experiencing similar problems to Boris, having failed to persuade local leaders to introduce tougher restrictions last week
- Interesting Twitter thread by Kyle Lamb on the disappearance of seasonal flu this year
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Special Andy Burnham edition today: “North South Divide” by Tim Patterson, “North vs South” by El Axel and “Divided Nation” by Manic Depression.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. 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.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today it’s the turn of the San Diego School District which has decided to abolish grading on the grounds that awarding grades to students is racist. Libby Emmons from the Post Millennial has more.
California’s second largest school district has decided that since minority students cannot make the grade, grades should be dispensed with altogether.
“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” San Diego’s schools VP Richard Barerra said. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”
Those practices, apparently, include expectations and assessments as to how well students are meeting those expectations. Using an outcome based assessment approach, it was determined that teachers are failing minority students by grading them not based on their academic achievement, but on their skin colour.
This determination was made based on data which revealed that minority students received 30% of all failing or near failing grades.
Kids who are English learners, or have disabilities, had lower grades, as did Native Americans, Hispanics, and black American students. Only seven percent of failing marks were distributed to white students. The San Diego school district believes that this is because teachers are racist, otherwise why would they seek to address grading rather than underlying issues?
It was as a result of these numbers that the San Diego school board decided to dispense with grading standards. Kids are now permitted to turn in the work at any time that appeals to them, and still have it graded as though they’d turned it on deadline. Teachers will not be permitted to use testing to determine grades, but are meant to grade per a “mastery of the material”, although it’s unclear as to how a teacher is meant to figure out a student’s “mastery”.
Classroom behaviour doesn’t count either, so probably no more points for participation. It’s only a student’s working knowledge, apparently, that will affect how they do in school. Although again, it’s unclear as to how that presence of that knowledge will be determined.
Junior at University City High School and Student School Board Member Zachary Patterson said: “I know students all across the school district are really happy with the idea that these other accountability measures are no longer going to be defining their understanding of knowledge.”
It was Patterson who brought up concerns that some students might be unfairly penalized for cheating. The school board intends, this week, to review their zero-tolerance policy on cheating, with perhaps an eye toward allowing cheating, since to not do so might be racist.
Surely, isn’t it a little bit racist to say you’re no longer going to penalise kids for not doing their homework on time, being naughty or cheating because that’s not fair on minority students? Wouldn’t it be fairer to have the same high expectations of all students, regardless of their skin colour?
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop 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 (takes a while to arrive). 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 £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops 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).
Stop Press: Readers will recall that a large, randomised control trial to test the efficacy of masks was carried out in Denmark earlier this year – the only large RCT that’s ever been done on masks. So why haven’t the results been published yet? According to one of the lead investigators on the study, it will be published “as soon as a journal is brave enough”. Which suggests the results are not what the pro-maskers want to hear. Alex Berenson has been tweeting about it.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last week and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it. If you Google it, the top hits you get are two smear pieces from the obscure Leftist conspiracy website Byline Times, and one from the Guardian headlined: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this hit job the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now shows up in the search results – and my Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is the top hit – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over half-a-million signatures.
Stop Press: Lockdown Sceptics contributor Omar S. Khan has written a blog post defending the GBD from its critics.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s awarding of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
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 hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us 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 us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
Special thanks to graphic designer and Lockdown Sceptics reader Claire Whitten for designing our new logo. We think it’s ace. Find her work here.
And Finally…
In my latest column for Spectator US, I’ve written about the migration of the paranoid style in politics from the right to the left.
It is widely accepted as fact in contemporary politics that all the biggest conspiracy theories originate on the far right, whether it’s QAnon, birtherism or the belief that Sandy Hook was staged by actors. The notion was popularized by the political scientist Richard Hofstadter in his famous essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’. Hofstadter saw a golden thread linking the scapegoating of Jews and Catholics by 19th-century populists to the fever dreams of Joseph McCarthy, who believed a fifth column had embedded itself in America’s most powerful institutions. According to Hofstadter, these theories appeal to the white working class because they feel marginalized and dispossessed. ‘America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion,’ he wrote.
It is this piece of conventional wisdom — that conspiracy theories are inextricably bound up with a toxic white nationalism and can, if they’re allowed to run wild, lead to the eruption of racial violence — that has persuaded the custodians of social media that they have a public duty to ban their proponents from spreading them.
But the reality is that conspiracy theories are now more ubiquitous on the left than they are on the right. We saw this after Trump’s victory in 2016, with numerous pundits in the mainstream media blaming it on the insidious influence of Russian bots and troll farms, as well as Steve Bannon’s fiendish use of Facebook to worm his way into the heads of blue-collar voters.
It was now the turn of America’s bicoastal overlords to feel that their country had been taken away from them and, like Hofstadter’s paranoid losers, they convinced themselves that a malignant, invisible group of subversives was responsible and it was their duty to expose them.
A British journalist called Carole Cadwalladr, who saw Trump’s victory as just one facet of a vast right-wing conspiracy that encompassed Boris Johnson, Brexit and Cambridge Analytica, was even shortlisted for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000nl7r
Just head Dame Helena Morrissey on BBC World at One, at 27 minutes in. Thought I was listening to a rather more media practised Sunetra Gupta for a minute! HM is a Conservative member of the House of Lords and sounded a valuable note of scepticism which I was surprised to hear on BBC , who let her have her say. Could be a useful voice of influence.
I’m struggling to get my head around what this article means when it says 10% of people are responsible for 80% of transmission.
They try to explain it here:
Simply put, overdispersion means that a minority of infected individuals are responsible for an unexpectedly high percentage of transmission. Overdispersion is often reported as the proportion of infected individuals who cause 80% of transmission. For Sars-CoV-2, this value may be 10% or lower. So, while on average a group of 10 infected individuals might cause 25 secondary infections, just one of those originally infected might infect 20 people, while the remaining nine combine to infect only five.
So for all infections the ratio must be the same or similar in order to preserve the overall ratio. That would mean all secondary infections would follow the same pattern of transmission right? In the example above, 10% of the 25 secondary infections, lets round up to 3, would be superspreaders infecting 60 more people whilst the 22 remaining people only go on to infect 15 and so on. I know that the numbers would be based on some sort of average but if I try to visualise this happening across a population it… Read more »
Morning has broken, Tuesdays page is up.
Hi all
I need to produce a leaflet for our first public display on Thursday.
I have lots of ideas but if there were three top “facts” that we would like to get across to newly doubting people what would they be?
Cases not real
Virus not as deadly as thought
False positives
Lockdowns don’t work
Etc
Etc
Please give me your top three. Ideally provide some text as well.
Thanks
LT
You need to get this to the new thread while we’re at the top.
False positives probably too complicated.
I might go for two questions
1. Do you know anybody who has died from Covid
2. Do you know anybody who has lost their job or been denied access to the NHS because of lockdown?
I’m all for locking down Wales, anything that can be done to make Tom Jones stay in his house so he doesn’t sing is just fine with me.
And his secret love child Aled.
A BBC robust dealing with the granny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wgM1jarA-A
Why Billy Boy decided not to vaccinate his own kids
https://www.uspoliticsandnews.com/why-didnt-bill-gates-vaccinate-his-own-children/
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-bill-gates-vaccinate-childr/false-claim-bill-gates-refused-to-vaccinate-his-children-idUSKBN22B26Z
This is a devastating takedown of everything we are witnessing. Even goes as far to say the Big Pharma takeover is under way.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-members-parliament-brian-cattle/
Dead link – but if it’s that extremely long letter by a science graduate who became an airline pilot, it’s a great effort.
I don’t engage with too much mainstream media, it’s bad for my health. Though I wondered, have their been any public service announcements about how to safely use a mask that I may of missed?
One would think that should a government be concerned with the health of the public, they would be instructing a nation of mask wearing novices how to do so safely. Anyone seen anything?
Actually, I’ve no official evidence of any Covid measures, since we don’t listen or watch the news, and no-one has communicated with us.
So – life goes on without hindrance at Level 0, although no doubt we shall come across people doing funny things.
That thought has crossed my mind previously. Surely they would want to offer advice e.g. “don’t stuff it in your pocket or handbag where it will get contaminated” , “don’t constantly fiddle with your mask as that destroys the whole point of the exercise” and “please read the manufacturers’ instructions which make clear masks do not protect against viral infections”.
If we are breathing a highly dangerous and contagious virus into masks, why are they not treated as bio hazards. Why don’t we see special bins to dispose of them. Why are they not tested to see if there is a virus on them.
People declare wars and they end up doing things they never thought they would. So it is with Andy Burnham. Having declared war on Boris he is now using a potent weapon against the enemy: honesty about the pressure on ICU capacity ie telling the world there is no real pressure and hospitals are coping well.
Interesting times. It’s like Andy’s becoming a sceptic against his will.
He will cave in but the people have seen a chink of light and a weakness to exploit.
Burnham is in bed with this lot – https://www.metropolis.org/
Not to be trusted at all.
Never said I trusted him. An obvious snake. But happy for him to insert some venom into the Lockdown Lunacy camp.
Yes Burnham is like a worm that is turning for more cash. Apologies to worms.
At lest he’s asking for cash – nobody knows whether there’ll be any cash for workers laid off from Friday. Drakeford’s too stupid to have even thought about that.
Pretty sure the state propaganda outlets will up their game tomorrow and Manchester will be in Tier 3. The Establishment obviously want a nationwide half term lockdown and they control the narrative via the fake news media – people are sadly falling for the 2 weeks to protect the NHS again. How long before the Thursday night clap and all the rainbow propaganda starts again?
Why are you trying to talk down the gains scepticism has made in the last few weeks. Can’t understand why you feel the need to…
Darryl only seems to be telling it, as it is.
Nice you’re mates with Darryl but putting Manchester in Tier 3 after Burnham has made clear there is no pressure on the NHS is a clear win for scepticism.
To those capable of rational consideration of evidence -yes.
Unfortunately……
Events not arguments change peoples’ minds.
Economic and financial collapse will be the game changer.
We are right at the beginning of this crisis.
Well yes I agree to that extent but first scepticism had to win the intellectual argument. I think that has been achieved. Few people without skin in the game now believe that lockdowns, masks or even social distancing really “work” in the sense of takingdown the virus permanently. At the same time all thinking people are now very aware of the horrendous damage being done by lockdowns to our health, our family life, our children’s education, our cultural life, the economy and the lives and hopes of young people,
The intellectual argument has been won. And now we are in the process of winning the political argument.
I can’t see any gains.N Ireland,Wales Republic of Ireland all in lockdown again.
Burnham s comment will be forgotten amid a blitz of propaganda by tomorrow.The man is a snake and just wants more money.It looks like we are going to have to go through something akin to the Great Depression to wake people up and even then people are so brainwashed they will probably think it was worth it.
Well Republic of Ireland has nothing to do with us so not sure why you are mentioning them. You seem to be part of a strange group of posters who while putting up seemingly sceptical content are far more interested in delivering a punchline of negativity.
I agree there is more scepticism in the medical profession and parts of the media occasionally. But whenever I am out in central London I see more masked people and fear. I am just staggered the public particularly in London are so passive and can’t be bothered to speak out or protest.
There’s a lot of anger there in Wales. Some might still ee going along with it, but they are mainly in the public sector. And you can find plenty there who think this 17 day frioebreak is utter bollocks.
Just theatre isn’t it?
Well there’s theatre that helps the sceptic cause and theatre that doesn’t. Burnham’s latest theatre is good for the sceptic cause.
Struggling to find NHS discharge numbers. If anyone has a link to relevant pages of data please can they add.
It may be my unskilled search technique that is preventing me from finding them.
Was referenced here before. Running at a much higher rate than in Spring for Covid cases.
Not sure if you can find what you need by sifting through this site.
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-tools-and-services/data-services/hospital-episode-statistics
While you are looking, have a look at these figures on here: Provisional Monthly Hospital Episode Statistics for Admitted Patient Care and Outpatients Dashboard
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNjYzNjJmNmMtMmQ0Zi00MDAyLTkzNjEtMTFhYTI2YWQ4MDFlIiwidCI6IjUwZjYwNzFmLWJiZmUtNDAxYS04ODAzLTY3Mzc0OGU2MjllMiIsImMiOjh9
The graphs and numbers for 2020 will disgust you.
‘NHS discharge numbers’?
Graduates from their synchronized dancing classes presumably.
A reminder:
https://www.uspoliticsandnews.com/why-didnt-bill-gates-vaccinate-his-own-children/
Not the slightest bit surprised. The hypocrisy of the social engineering elite knows no bounds.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-bill-gates-vaccinate-childr/false-claim-bill-gates-refused-to-vaccinate-his-children-idUSKBN22B26Z
Piers Corbyn’s test cast for the Hyde Park protest arrests on May 16th & 30th is being held at Westminster Magistrates Court this Friday morning. Going up against the current UK regime is similar to going up against any dictatorship and I am sure it will be a show trial for the state controlled media.
Perhaps he should use the coverage from this YouTube video taken at the ‘mostly peaceful’ BLM protest 2 weeks later where the police officer openly admits that the rules aren’t being enforced that day because they support the cause and due to orders from above. ‘English police say they were told not to enforce Coronavirus laws for Black Lives Matter’ – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy4LaGD_V6k&feature=youtu.be
The difference between genuine dissent, which gets no favours from the regime and establishment, and a mob preaching Official Truth dogma and encouraged in order to intimidate dissenters from that dogma.
Everybody Dies!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54605293
Apologies if already posted – UsforThem are discussing legal action if a ‘circuit breaker’ is enacted in England.
Great news. Any legal challenge is worth supporting. After a letter from Essex County Council earlier I am aiming to use their own “policies” against them legally by way of asking for their risk assessments, which have led to mandating children into wearing masks.
The information ban hammer is definitely coming down hard. Not by coincidence I am sure a number of local politics orientated social media groups I am part of issued admin messages warning about the ‘Covid deniers’, ‘Anti maskers’ and ‘Facebook scientists’.
I’d say the platform gods have warned them that their precious little group will be removed if they don’t enforce the new law
Apparently Fauci needs a security detail now because of potential threats to his safety. US media calling it a disgrace and blaming Trump of course.
Slightly hypocritical since they among other media esablishments globally are responsible for death threats to Anders Tegnell in their portrayal of the Swedish approach.
Being given a security detail is a hell of a lot different from “needing” a security detail. Notice that conservatives are never given security details in spite of actual violence being regularly perpetrated by Antifa, et. al. Ultimately, the problem here is the extreme dishonesty and biased agenda of our media, which is disgraceful. It is propaganda, pure and simple. I suspect that the outcome of the upcoming election may come as a shock to a lot of people, if it turns in Trump’s favor, as looking at any newspaper or television show paints the picture of a Biden administration as foregone conclusion.
Re: Fauci, though… his terrible advice has been extremely damaging. I don’t know what to think about the man, personally. He seemed pretty sound early on, but kind of like your Boris, something got to him. The media suggests that telling the truth now amounts to incitements of violence. That’s a pretty huge problem.
His sponsors probably.
Hello,
today I was talking to someone who told me his brother had recently died from a heart attack. Prior to his brother’s heart attack he felt unwell contacted his doctor who told him to get a covid test.
On the way he had a massive heart attack and died sadly. I told him that my dad had an heart attack in 1992 but fortunately there was no covid so he got admitted to hospital recovered and lived a further 26 year. We’ll never know if this person’s brother had been admitted to hospital if he would have recovered but he should have been given the chance instead of travelling the country for a covid test. This is why we should oppose lockdown and all the covid nonsense and why I take issue with anyone who says we need a proper lockdown.
Powerful testimony.
I have written an email response to my MP in light of my (many) complaints about all the BS. She is a healthcare worker so I have laid it on pretty heavy.
Hello [poor parliamentary assistant],
Thank you for your reply. I have some comments I would like to express to Rachael in reply to this email if you could pass them on.
Firstly, I note that your email states, “it is now clear that we are seeing a steep rise in cases over the last few weeks.” As an MP and as former healthcare worker, Rachael will no doubt be aware that the ‘cases’ being referred to in the daily statistics are, in fact, the number of positive PCR tests. As Eurosurveillance states, these tests are unable to distinguish between infectious and non-infectious virus particles. Furthermore, Carl Henegan, Director at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, states that a positive PCR test does not equal having COVID-19 itself. Therefore, it is inaccurate to label these as COVID cases.
Putting aside these issues, though the number of positive tests have increased in the last few months, the number of tests being carried out daily is much… Read more »
Following some persuasion from a friend, I am now off to Stockholm for 5 nights from the 5th of November! Not going to lie, I’ve never been more excited to leave the country…
I’ve racked up 26 countries over the past seven years, but was put off not so much by the virus but by all the virus-related rules across Europe.
I’m exempt from wearing from facemasks, so wearing one on the plane won’t be much fun, but I plan to spend as much of the flight eating and drinking as I can.
Looking forward to seeing what life is actually like in Sweden right now and, sorry, but also have a good laugh at the state that so many Britons have allowed ourselves to slip into.
Surely you would be exempt on the plane too?
You’d think so, but rules re international travel seem to be different. I will query it though…
If you’re flying on BA they will accept that you are exempt. Not sure about other airlines that are flying to UK-Stockholm though, some seem more mask happy than others.
Stockholm’s one of my favourite cities, even before this. I hope you have a great time
Thanks! I’m certainly looking forward to it, and it does look like a beautiful city!
I have been to Stockholm and I agree it is a great city.
Me too! I have literally just booked for the missus and I but we’ll be back before you arrive. Keeping everything crossed for no intervening spanners in the works – I’d highly recommend the Boots sandwich/drink/snack combo at the airport for extended consumption on board.
All being well I’ll be in Stockholm on the 6th, it’s a mass exodus!
Just get a few flexible plastic straws cut down so you can breathe normaly with a mask on while you’re on the plane. If only a tiny bit of the straw opening is visible out the side of the mask you’ll be good to go.
What do you do, stick one up each nostril and put a pair of pants on your head?
Yay! Swedish winter tourism must be booming. Any sceptic who has the means and the time should get out there to boost the Swedish economy and thus poke the eye of the Lockdownists.
Protest in London (today I think) by the hospitality trade and all the OUTDOOR protestors were mandated to wear masks by the police as part of the “terms and conditions” of being allowed to protest.
And they all seem to have complied. Idiotic.
Shows the true purpose of the gimp gag.
This is the same met police who let hundreds of Shia Muslims march up and down park lane last week with no masks and no social distancing.
In complete fairness I did see most of the Muslim protestors wearing masks too, same question. What’s the point ?
Go back to March and look at the video with Jenny Harris and Johnson talking specifically about Masks. Since March almost everything has worked out better than most people would pray for (accepting that some would pass from the virus) and yet more and more bullshit rules and regulations have been passed down from above. It’s such a provocative way to govern.
We must be talking about something else.They were not protesters,they were celebrating something and they all walked by me and not one was wearing a mask.My point is the hypocrisy of the police.
Wasn’t leemc23’s remark aimed at the plod ?
BS – very few had them over mouth and nose and, in any case, they weren’t social distancing.
Looked like more than a thousand. There have been other politically approved protests going on around London – funnily enough none receive any media coverage or condemnation – could the government possibly be controlling the media narrative by any chance?! This video at 15 minutes shows the double standards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqOzdNNmXE&t=820s
Best way to protest is never go to Westminster. Wait until a Friday and go to your MP’s constituent office and protest there. It’s the only way it will be effective. In Westminster there are so many protests so often that no one takes much notice at a senior level. Always baffled me when the mobs would arrive on a Friday to show their MP’s that they care, unaware parliament does not sit on a Friday most of the time.
Agree with that point on most Saturdays there is some sort of demonstration or March.This week it was Nigerians marching about something or other.
The only protest that would get the government to take notice would be something along the lines of the poll tax riots.
Whitehall and Westminster have been pretty much empty all week since March – amazed at the complete lack of activity. You might be right about peaceful protests at MP’s constituent offices.
But at the end of the day these people serve the Davos elites agenda and couldn’t give a damn about constituents.
I had to recently leave a pro-arts group on FB, they’re are in the majority engaged with any new normal. Any dissent in the group was increasingly subject to ridicule, belittlement and venom. Their protests will be the new acceptable protests. I’m expecting to see the Met dancing in solidarity soon.
Go shopping twice a week and have never worn a mask or been challenged. Get an odd look now and again but I just look back. Mask compliance now seems generally high and recently I’ve spotted several hikers in masks out in the middle of nowhere. Pretty depressing stuff.
A good article to share with people who think the PCR tests are accurate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
An absolute belter of an article. Should be a mandatory cautionary tale for the current scumbags in residence.
China reports horrific stories from the UK It says that hundreds of young students have been imprisoned by the UK government. More to follow.
Did it mention they had to pay for the privilege?
LOL! Tit for tat, I suppose.
I prefer the Trump pronunciation: Chi-yi-nuuh.
You’ve godda larff.
Oh God just listening Nigel Farage latest video on youtube called State of the nation .first half about covid .I say this as someone who is not a farage fan ,he has just come out with the most full on scepticism i have heard from him so far .He has a massive following so its great .Please everyone go and watch .
The powers that be must be getting worried if they are wheeling Farage out again.He is the lightening rod for protest.He has been silent for 6 months and been more intrested in illegal immigrants than the greatest attack on freedom this country has ever seen.Although having said that I would take any skeptical voice at the moment
He fell out with Killroy silk when he wanted to make UKIP more than a single issue party.He resigned straight after the referendum when anyone should have realised that was the start of the battle.He got involved to sabotage AnnMarie Waters bid to lead UKIP.
He formed the Brexit party then withdrew all his candidates when it looked like they would do well and we ended up with this shit storm.
Not a man to be trusted
I don’t know about wheeling anyone out .He has been sceptical for a while now but this latest statement seems (to me) to up the anti a bit .I know there are people who are not so keen on him but as my main aim is ending the lockdown i welcome the fact that he will bring a large following to our side . I would also be over the moon if we could get people of his calibre to speak at anti lockdown rallies .Whatever makes the movement grow and moves us out of the ghetto i’m all for .
Getting out of lockdown is not enough.This crisis has revealed the rotten state of our establishment,from Parliament to our institutions,everyone is up for sale.Nothing short of a revolution will change things
Yes good but he let us down big time in the summer obsessing about a few more bogus asylum seekers crossing the channel rather than taking on the outrageous assault on our ancient liberties.
As far as i can make out he supported the government back then but has sinced changed course .As i said above i’m not even a fan of his but i welcome the support .The way i see it is better late than never .
He’ll be back, got some business to finish in the US with the election over there!
A thoroughly depressing day.Wales follows N Ireland into full lockdown.Ireland in lockdown in all but name.
How can this go on and how can people still believe this is all down to incompetence.
I’m suspicious of posters who come on here to talk down the mood. On any objective analysis lockdown scepticism is winning the arguments and more importantly changing the political weather. We have Sir Graham Brady on board. Andy Burnham is now using sceptic arguments. The enthusiasm of support for lockdowns in the public that we saw in the Spring has evaporated.
Suspicious of what.The mood on here doesn’t change a thing.The evidence is overwhelming that the pandemic is over.Lockdowns are a terrible mistake yet the shitstorm still marches on.
Wales,Northern Ireland and the republic are all in lockdown.Essex where I live and London where I work are in Tier 2.
This is not about a virus that’s why our arguments,even though they are correct gain no traction.
Just watched mahyar tousi on youtube Rally outside parliament about pub restrictions called PUBS RISE UP AGAINST LOCKDOWN . Don’t be put off they’re all wearing masks apparently the police only allowed it if they wore them . Not a massive crowd but glad to see others stirring .
Paul Joseph Watson on the state of the UK and US today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF6yyuJGspM&feature=emb_logo
Brilliant, but horrifying.
And for those who saw my post earlier about a Russian man on holiday with his family in the Russian Altai in September:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-0dzKwUEQ
Makes you weep. Begin to wonder if they’ve even heard of covid there. Better get practising my Russian language skills. (Subtitles are a bit crap, but you’ll get the point).
Watch this and you may begin to realise why we only get anti-Russian propaganda here!
John – if you’re going to create grand pronouncement threads, get involved in the responses. If you’re not going to get involved in the responses, don’t create grand pronouncement threads. Either is fine.
The fraudulent PCR-test pandemic and concomitant NHS shutdown is a social atrocity which has now occasioned the Welsh Firebreak Lockdown; a genocidal crime against humanity under the Nuremburg Principles.
Local online propaganda rag writes:
“Staff at Edinburgh University say their health is at risk as they ‘tackle illegal COVID parties’
Workers claim there has been a 400% increase in students deliberately setting off the fire alarm to get outside.”
The student hostages seem to have developed what appears to be an attitude of fuck you Edinburgh University.
Great !
Also
“Edinburgh University staff say they have been tackling non-stop illegal parties at halls of residence and ‘absolutely shocking’ vandalism as bored students act out due to be being ‘locked up’.
“Staff say the situation is at at ‘breaking point’ as they deal with a 400% increase in deliberate fire alarm activations and ‘violent disruptions’, reports the i newspaper.”
Apparently every day parties of 30 to 50 inmates are having to be broken up. Not a day has passed without a party say staff.
Love it.
It’s almost unimaginable that people in their late teens would prefer to break the rules than be locked in solitary isolation. Unimaginable, I say.
So they’ve set it off four times then?
Four today, Eight tomorrow, in a few weeks it could be 50,000 times a day
‘Exponential growth’ indeed!
Clever! 👍
Good for them. There is hope for this generation after all..
“Workers claim there has been a 400% increase in students deliberately setting off the fire alarm to get outside.”
Nice to have something to celebrate. Keep it up, folks!
Takes me back to school when a few of us would set the fire alarms off to get out of lessons
Excellent. Treat people like prisoners and they act like prisoners
And what normal person can blame them?
Please, please, please, please could we have someone from the criminology department say that criminal damage is wrong, that those perpetrating it have agency and are responsible for their actions, and that locking them up works? I just want to hear them say those words.
Czech government reintroduced compulsory masking in the open air today.
Themadness is not just in the UK.
Why don’t people stop breathing ? It’s more likely to be affective than a fucking mask.