Tiers of a Clown
Andy Burnham accused the Prime Minister of playing a “game of poker with people’s lives” after he imposed a Tier 3 lockdown on Greater Manchester without agreeing a support package.
Talks between the Government and political leaders in Greater Manchester broke down yesterday afternoon, with Andy Burnham and co holding out for £65 million and Boris and his ministers only being prepared to offer £60 million. The upshot is that Greater Manchester is now only going to get £22 million.
At the 5pm presser where Boris tried to spin this to his advantage, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam – or JVT, as Boris insisted on calling him – produced a series of charts appearing to show that, in his own words: “Pretty much everywhere in England is now heating up to some extent.”
But his slide deck told a different story.
For instance, the slide illustrating the geographical spread of positive cases (wrongly described as the spread of “COVID-19”) showed the rate of infection falling in many parts of the country.
Van-Tam made much of the fact that hospitals were admitting more and more Covid patients, particularly in the North West, as shown in the slide below.
But what this chart doesn’t show – and which no journalist asked about, unfortunately – is that Covid admissions in the North West are no higher than admissions would be for other respiratory illnesses in a normal year. Yes, Covid admissions are up, but admissions for pneumonia are down. Indeed, hospital admissions for all respiratory illnesses in the North West were about half the five-year average at the end of September. What looks to be happening is that elderly patients who would normally be admitted for flu and pneumonia are being admitted for COVID-19 instead. Which means that hospitals in the North West are nowhere close to being overwhelmed. If that’s the rationale for placing Greater Manchester in Tier 3 – protect the NHS – it doesn’t stack up.
The feebleness of this justification for the local lockdown was exposed by Jennifer Williams in the Manchester Evening News, who tried – and failed – to obtain the figures. The paper sent an identical list of questions to all the key players in Greater Manchester’s healthcare system, wanting to know trust-by-trust Covid admissions numbers as a proportion of overall capacity, compared to the April peak, and the same figures broken down for intensive care and high dependency beds, plus ventilator beds, including non-invasive ventilation. And it asked for equivalent bed occupancy figures for this time last year, so it could compare them with the start of a normal winter.
Our request was sent to NHS England, Greater Manchester’s Health and Social Care Partnership, each individual hospital trust in the conurbation, the Department of Health and Social Care, the mayor’s office and Downing Street. We gave a 4pm deadline.
Six out of seven relevant NHS trusts did not respond. Wigan, Wrightington and Leigh said that “we are unable to provide figures – these will be issued at national level”, while none of the others have replied.
The M.E.N. understands trusts have been told by both regional NHS England and the Greater Manchester system specifically not to issue their own figures to the media today.
Greater Manchester’s Health and Social Care Partnership responded this afternoon to say that Dr Jane Eddleston would be doing a pooled interview with the Press Association about the hospital picture here. But the M.E.N’s specific questions weren’t addressed.
The mayor’s office has not responded.
The Department of Health and Social Care replied almost immediately this morning, to say NHS England holds the data.
NHS England did respond with some links to data.
But most of the relevant information it offered was only broken down to North West level, which matters.
Government’s argument is about Greater Manchester specifically, so North West numbers are no good – they are skewed by the situation in Liverpool in particular.
Clearly, the reason the data is being withheld is because it shows Greater Manchester’s hospitals are very far from being overwhelmed by Covid patients.
Which begs the question, why are the people of Greater Manchester being needlessly punished in this way?
Stop Press: The always dependable Ross Clark wrote a piece in the Telegraph yesterday headlined: “Don’t believe the scare stories about hospitals running out of ICU beds“. And Sarah Knapton, the Telegraph‘s Science Editor, has written a piece pointing out that ICU beds in Manchester are no fuller than they were this time last year.
Lockdown’s Lethal Toll
Award-winning investigative journalist David Rose wrote a sensational front page story for the Mail yesterday, documenting the scale of the collateral damage to public health caused by the lockdown and the continuing restrictions. Bringing together more than 130 studies, as well as testimony from readers who have contacted him via Lockdown Sceptics, the article documented the impact of this disastrous policy on every sphere of health, including cancer, heart disease, addiction, the welfare of children, domestic violence and mental illness.
Among the revelations are:
- Delays in treatment are set to cause a 20% rise in deaths among newly diagnosed cancer patients in England – 6,270 excess deaths this year
- Treatment for strokes fell by 45% during lockdown and there were more than 2,000 excess deaths in from heart disease
- More than 50,000 operations for children were cancelled
- Organ transplants fell by two thirds, with the number of those who died on the transplant waiting list almost doubling
- Total waiting lists for routine orthopaedic and eye operations are at record levels
- Calls to child abuse helplines rocketed
- As rates of depression and anxiety doubled, thousands of recovering alcoholics have relapsed
David lined up an impressive array of experts to comment on these horrendous figures.
Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist and head of Buckingham Medical School, said the findings of the Mail’s audit were a “stunning demonstration of lockdowns’ harmful effects across society”.
He added: “If lockdown were a drug, you’d need to consider the side effects, and yet we’re not – even though we seem to be diving headlong into another one.
“People sometimes claim it’s a question of health versus the economy, but it’s not – it’s health versus health.” Professor Sikora supports last week’s Great Barrington Declaration, now signed by more than 10,700 scientists and 29,700 doctors worldwide, calling on governments to adopt an approach of ‘focused protection’, shielding the vulnerable while opening up the economy.
Sunetra Gupta, one of the Declaration’s authors and an Oxford University epidemiologist, said: “These papers and data are starting to build the evidence to show that the collateral damage has been immense – and will continue with extreme measures such as lockdowns. The time has surely come to take their full costs measures into account.”
Congratulations to David on a fantastic story – and thanks to those readers who helped him with it.
Worth reading in full.
No ID, No Drinkie
The Metropolitan Police have told pub landlords to ask for names, addresses and photo IDs of customers before serving them to ensure people from different households aren’t mixing. The Mail has more.
Scotland Yard has been writing to struggling traders in London to say they should ask for names, addresses and even photo ID.
Officers said the procedures would stop households mixing – in keeping with Tier Two curbs introduced last weekend.
However business chiefs said this placed “completely unacceptable” demands on staff and would cost venues bookings if customers could not prove they were following the COVID-19 restrictions.
The Night Time Industries Association has taken legal advice over the “unlawful and misleading advice”.
Police forces around the country are checking on Facebook and other social media sites to see whether landlords are letting customers flout social distancing rules.
This new development follows the news that Sadiq Khan wants the 10pm curfew lifted in London to help struggling publicans and restaurateurs. According to the Evening Standard:
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for the 10pm curfew to be scrapped now the capital is under Tier 2 coronavirus restrictions.
Mr Khan said allowing restaurants to remain open beyond 10pm would support businesses by allowing them to increase bookings even with indoor mixing of households banned.
His intervention comes after leading West End bar and restaurant operators warned they will not survive the winter after the “horrendous” first weekend of the new Tier 2 clampdown triggered tens of thousands of cancellations.
But hang on. Didn’t Sadiq Khan insist on putting London in a Tier 2 lockdown? And if he’s so worried about people staying away from pubs, why’s he asking the Metropolitan Police to enforce the “no mixing” rule?
What kind of fools d’you take us for, Mr Mayor?
“No Sign of a Second Wave” – Prof Carl Heneghan
Prof Carl Heneghan has told the Telegraph that the ONS data for the week ending October 9th – published yesterday – indicate that there are no excess deaths.
“There is no sign of a second wave up to October 9th. In week 41, the number of deaths registered was 1.5% above the five-year average.
“We consider the current data normal variation, and only consider it an excess when it gets to two standard deviations, which is about 1,200 excess deaths compared to the five-year average.”
Sarah Knapton, the Telegraph‘s Science Editor, has more.
Although Covid deaths rose to 438 for the week ending October 9th – an increase of 36% from the previous week, when the figure stood at 321 – overall deaths rose just 143 above the five-year average. There were also 19 fewer overall deaths than in the same week last year.
Experts at Oxford University said the number would have to get to 1,200 deaths above the norm before it would usually be considered “excess” above the expected variation in the data.
Researchers also found there would usually be around 1,600 weekly deaths from flu and pneumonia for the same week. Deaths from coronavirus, flu and pneumonia are currently running at 1,621, suggesting there is virtually no increase in expected respiratory deaths.
The ONS figures also do not factor in the UK’s growing and ageing population, which would be expected to increase the number of deaths over time and which are likely to cancel out at least some of the increase.
For example, between 2010 and 2019 the number of deaths for the week ending October 9th rose from 9,281 to 9,973 – about 70 extra deaths a year.
Dr Jason Oke, Carl Heneghan’s colleague at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, thinks that’s what’s happening is that older people who would normally be dying of flu and pneumonia at this time of year are dying of Covid instead.
“Total deaths are tracking at the top but not over,” said Dr Oke. “Is it because we have nearly an identical deficit of flu and pneumonia deaths for this time of year?
“COVID-19 plus influenza/pneumonia deaths are at 1,621 this week, while five-year average flu and pneumonia for this week is 1,600.”
Worth reading in full.
Lionel Shriver Takes No Prisoners
Arch-sceptic Lionel Shriver is refreshingly forthright about the mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis in an interview in CapX to promote her 14th novel, The Motion of the Body Through Space.
Shriver, a committed lockdown skeptic, is a fierce critic of the way the virus outbreak has been handled by governments around the world, and deplores the effect the imposed restrictions, such as social distancing (‘the elevation of suffering’?) and face masks (‘narcissistic’?), have had on everyday life.
“It’s filmic, but it’s one of those movies that never ends. It’s not even that interesting. It’s just awful. I hate the way it (wearing masks) changes my interactions with people. I find myself smiling anyway; the impulse is still there. But they don’t get it; they do not receive it. It makes all commercial interchanges dry and almost hostile. I refuse to wear a mask out of doors, because it’s epidemiologically ridiculous.”
It’s not clear whether Shriver is more incensed by the new rules, or by people’s unthinking, uncritical, irrational acceptance of them.
“I was one of the earliest lockdown skeptics. From the get-go I just thought the numbers didn’t justify the response. There were not enough people dying. And what we have exposed is widespread statistical ignorance. Even in the US people think 170,000 people dying is huge, like a massacre; but 3 million people die in the US every year, and a large proportion of those 170,000 would have died this year anyway. But, of course, that sounds callous, and gets you into terrible trouble, but it’s true.”
I wonder how Shriver, who spent the lockdown in London, felt about the almost compulsory NHS worship.
“I found the ‘Clap for Carers’ stuff’ nauseating, and it won’t surprise you to learn I was not out there on the kerb banging my pots. Partly it’s an aversion to group activities of any kind, but it’s also an aversion to the idea that we should worship an institution. I find that baffling. It’s said all the time that the British worship the NHS, that it’s a religion. But why would you worship a healthcare system?
“Other European nations, with much more functional healthcare systems, don’t worship them. It’s peculiar, and I think there’s insecurity at the base of it. The British are all too aware of the shortcomings of the NHS and want to cover them up, they don’t want to admit those shortcomings to themselves.”
It’s exhilarating to hear a prize-winning literary novelist talk so bluntly – and so honestly – about the idiocies of the past six months. Hearing their own feelings articulated so clearly will be music to the ears of many lockdown sceptics.
Worth reading in full.
Scott Atlas Talks to Freddie Sayers
Freddie Sayers, the editor of UnHerd, interviewed Scott Atlas yesterday and the member of the White House’s coronavirus task force made a powerful case for “Focused Protection”, as set out in the Great Barrington Declaration (see below).
Among his key quotes were:
What is his policy?
My advice is exactly this. It’s a three-pronged strategy. Number one: aggressive protection of high risk individuals and the vulnerable (typically the elderly and those with co-morbidities). Number two: allocate resources so that we prevent hospital overcrowding, so that people can be treated for this virus and get the other serious medical care that is needed. Number three: open schools, society and businesses because keeping them closed is enormously harmful – in fact it kills people.
Effect of lockdowns
We must open up because we’re killing people. In the US, 46% of the six most common cancers were not diagnosed during the shutdown… These are people who will present to the hospital or their doctor with later stage disease – many of these people will die. 650,000 Americans are on chemotherapy – half of them didn’t come in for their chemo because they were afraid. Two-thirds of screenings for cancer were not done; half of childhood immunisations did not get done; 85% of living organ transplants did not get done. And then we see the other harms: 200,000 cases plus of child abuse in the US during the two months of spring school closures were not reported because schools are the number one agency where abuse is noticed; we have one out of four American young adults, college age, who thought of killing themselves in the month of June…
All of these harms are massive for the working class and the lower socioeconomic groups. The people who are upper class, who can work from home, the people who can sip their latte and complain that their children are underfoot or that they have to come up with extra money to hire a tutor privately – these are people who are not impacted by the lockdowns.
This is the topic, this is why you open up. A secondary gain might be population immunity, but this is the reason to open up.
Climate of fear
This is one of the biggest failures of the voices of public health in the United States and in the world – they specifically instilled fear with their proclamations and statements… And the models that were put forward that were worst case scenarios and were just hideously wrong, and the media that has hyped up these rare exceptions like multi-system inflammation in children even though we know the overwhelming evidence is that this disease is absolutely not high risk for children. All the hyperbole, the sensationalising and the failure of public health officials to articulate what we know instead of what we don’t know… The fear is due to what was said by the so-called experts, by the media and by a failure to understand or care that they were instilling hear… I just heard a famous epidemiologist from Harvard the other day say that to have the idea of herd immunity even being discussed is ‘mass murder’ – these kinds of statements are hideously outrageous.
It’s never appropriate to have fear. There is no such thing as a government leader who is competent who instils fear.
Worth watching in full.
Consultation About HMG’s Coronavirus Dashboard
A reader has got in touch to point out that the Government is currently carrying out a consultation about the data displayed in its coronavirus dashboard. He has responded himself and urges Lockdown Sceptics readers to do the same.
This is my feedback:
Please, please:
1) Don’t show positive PCR tests as “cases”. They are not cases; they are “positive PCR tests”.
2) Don’t show absolute numbers of positive PCR tests. That’s meaningless and depends entirely on the number of tests performed; show the number of positive PCR tests per 1,000 tests.
3) Don’t imply a positive PCR test is equivalent to an infection. There are many reasons why a positive PCR test does not mean an actual infection not least because of false positives; show the likelihood that a positive test is an infection (For example, if the infection rate in the UK is 0.2% and the false positive rate is 2.4% then the likelihood that a positive PCR test indicates actual infection is 7.7%). In fact, it may be better to display the statistically likely infections per 1,000 tests.
Would it be good for many of us to provide this sort of feedback?
Labour Party Resignation Letter
A reader of Lockdown Sceptics, has shared the resignation latter she’s just sent to Keir Starmer. I daresay he’s had quite a few like this since calling for a two-week ‘circuit breaker’, ignoring the devastating impact that any additional restrictions will have – are having – on the least well off.
Dear Keir Starmer
I write in sadness and some desperation to explain to you why after having been a member for most of my adult life, I wish to leave the Labour Party.
The situation regarding the response to Covid 19 is destroying this country. Yes at the start the actions the government took may have been explicable but for many months that has ceased to be the case. What upsets me as a party member has been that lack of opposition my party has shown to this disastrous curb on our freedoms. Please just consider a few easily verifiable facts:
* The tens of thousands of deaths caused as a direct result of the response to Covid – the cure should never be worse than the disease.
* The number of essential health checks missed – heart screening, cancer screening etc.
* The effect on mental health of the restrictions and the horrific economic fallout to come, the increased suicide rates, including heartbreakingly amongst children
* In the wider world the effect on the poorest people some of whom were being lifted out of poverty but who now will not be helped. Unicef say 1.2 million children and 56700 mothers could die due to disruptions in basic interventions caused by the response to Covid.
* The lies that are being told even now about the strain on intensive care beds in places like Manchester and Liverpool. Yes there is a strain but it is pretty much the same as every year because we don’t have enough intensive care beds.
* The number of people (including the elderly) who are asymptomatic – yet we have committed the crime of denying those in care homes access to their families for months and months. What does that do to people with dementia?
* Why is Sweden on course to have an annual mortality rate in line with the yearly average when they did not lockdown?
* Ask yourself why the Great Barrington Declaration (well thought out views of many respected scientists) was taken off Google?Frankly this is utter wickedness being perpetrated on the people of this country and the wider world. It won’t be good enough to look back in 20 years and see what we should have done. People of integrity and bravery need to stand up and be counted now.
But you, and my party, have not done that. Instead you have looked for a bigger lockdown. You have looked to score forensic points against Boris Johnson at PMQs. You have not acted to try and protect people. For this reason in all conscience I cannot stay as a member of this party as in my view it no longer acts to protect ordinary people.
I urge you in all humanity to change your course of action.
Yours sincerely
XXXX XXXXXX
Dr Reiner Fuellmich’s Video Censored by YouTube
It won’t surprise readers to learn that YouTube has taken down the video of Dr Reiner Fuellmich talking about his class action suit against various public health agencies. A reader has drawn my attention to this:
You may already be aware that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich’s video on preparation for a class action against the Robert Koch Institute (Drosten and Wieler) and the WHO has been removed from YouTube – at least the English version. The German version is, presumably temporarily, still there.
Stop Press: Read this article in the Times of Oman about Dr Fuellmich’s law suit.
Covid Marie Celestes
A reader has very kindly adapted one of Dr Mike Yeadon’s twitter threads into a stand-alone piece. The subject is the utter wrong-headedness of the SAGE advice regarding the “second wave” and the need to protect NHS hospitals from being overwhelmed. Here are the first three paragraphs:
A source just gave me the following information. A hospital in Wales, Nevill Hall in Abergavenny, has 250 beds. 200 beds are empty. The surgeons are bored and pass much time on the nearby golf course. I think this might be one answer to why UK doctors are not investigating to find out why hospitals have no patients in them! Apparently all Covid cases are currently being sent to this hospital. This story tallies with the original evidence which drew me into this ghastly mess we’ve made of our country. I’ve not mentioned this for quite a while but you all should be incandescent about it.
A good friend who’s a Professor of Cell Biology was playing hockey many miles from home. He fell into conversation with one of the opposing team. This person is a fairly senior manger in NHS England and has daily sight of bed disposition across the service. He was upset to have realised that, as intensive care beds emptied because the many COVID-19 patients either recovered or sadly died, they were not being replaced by elective surgical patients. To the best of my recollection, this was late June. I was put in touch with the NHSE staffer by my friend, because he knew I was, by then, telling him all the time that “something is seriously wrong”. I met up with the NHSE manager who, by good fortune, lives less than 10 miles from me. He told me that the utilisation of the ICU beds was at a far lower % than ever in his whole career. Worse, he told me the reason, showing me part of a management briefing he’d recently attended. To my surprise, in the section entitled “NHS Priorities”, the top one wasn’t what I expected to see – to get the NHS back to normal service ASAP. No, that was there, but it was second.
The top priority was entirely contradictory to the second and essentially said “Run the NHS as lightly loaded as possible in order to be prepared to cope with the second wave”. Just so we’re clear, it’s not an accident that it’s hard to get access to the NHS at present. No, it’s a strategic choice: they’re not seeing you, doing fewer elective surgeries, to protect the NHS. Kafka would probably have rejected this as a plot line on grounds that it’s absurd. While there has recently need an increase in utilisation of ITU beds, I don’t know about you, but to me it’s completely unacceptable that someone’s decided it’s ok not to replace your heart valve and certain other elective surgeries. Why? To cope with an expected “second wave”.
We’ve given it pride of place on the right-hand side in the section entitled: “How Many Non-Covid Patients Are Being Neglected?”
Worth reading in full.
I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But…
I got a good email from a retired scientist and lockdown sceptic who’s been asking the question, Cui Bono?
I’ve been trying to follow the money.
It seems labyrinthine, but the EU – for example – has put EUR 15.9 billion into tests, treatments and vaccines and EUR 1 billion into research and innovation to ‘tackle’ Covid. UK Research and Innovation has already awarded GBP 422 million each in research and innovation grants in response to or ‘related to’ COVID-19 – mainly to private organisations, but some to Universities. ‘Related to’ is a pretty broad term judging by the titles in the spreadsheet – “Dinosaurs and Robots: COVID-19 continuity” (Natural History Museum) is one of my favourites.
The EU also support the WHO ACT-Accelerator, as do the United Kingdom and other states, Bill & Melinda Gates, Gavi (the vaccine alliance), The Wellcome Trust (Sir Jeremy et al.) and others – including, as it happens, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – remember that was Chelsea Clinton’s MPhil topic, completed at Oxford about the same time as co-author Devi Sridhar’s graduate work, and the organisation Tedros came to the WHO from. The WHO ACT-Accelerator has a diagnostics pillar that aims to invest USD 6 billion in testing alone and USD 18.1 billion in vaccines.
Mike Yeadon may be in a better position than me to judge the financial scale and probity of all this. As a sometime professional programmer, I can’t understand how the NHS contact tracing app may cost GBP 35 million. I think it is simple enough for an undergraduate dissertation project. Once international treaties or contracts have been signed, and money has been promised, it’s no wonder Boris can’t back out, is it? Wouldn’t he be a marked man – or at any rate, trapped by treaties or contracts – or both? And aren’t most of his key advisers invested in this Tulip mania? Which of the public health people are free of conflicts of interest here? Is this regular in health policy?
I think Devi and Chelsea’s book would be well worth a read and Devi’s knowledge of the politics must be far better than her knowledge of the science – which doesn’t seem great. It’s a pity, though, that she is not a dispassionate and independent observer, but a well-embedded ‘actor’ in the politics, given her pivotal role in shaping the Scottish Government’s response.
But who in power is going to wake up one morning and say ‘nothing to see here’? The costs are sunk or promised. Ships are sailing for Darien and no-one is going to call them back.
Finally, I am not a ‘conspiracy theorist’, but… I do believe there are wrongs arising out of false statements of (scientific and other) fact being made knowingly or recklessly, causing millions of people to suffer damage in pursuit of the above Coronatopia, and that this may amount to agreement arising in a tort, if not a crime, and therefore a statutory conspiracy or conspiracy to defraud in law (a further part of which is the consistent false statements used to justify ongoing lockdown measures – necessary to perpetuate a deception). I think that German lawyer may be on to something…
Stop Press: Annabel Fenwick Elliott in the Telegraph also thinks there might be something to the conspiracy theories after all.
Eight months on, my burning question remains unanswered. What is really going on? About 50 million people die each year worldwide. Some deaths are preventable, others not. Over the course of 2020, this pandemic has claimed 1.1 million lives; most of whom were elderly or already ill. Heart disease kills 17 million annually; cancer 9.6 million. Respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema take 2.5 million lives a year.
Why then, are we still playing this ridiculously destructive game with healthy peoples’ lives – a risky experiment that, as is starting to emerge, will very likely kill more people than it saves in the long run?
Worth reading in full.
Statistician’s Letter to the Telegraph
Brian Gedalla, a retired statistician, has written a good letter to the Telegraph that he’s shared with us. Let’s hope it’s published.
Sir,
Two weeks ago, I suggested to an eminent doctor (a personal friend) that we were moving from a situation where we were suffering from a pandemic to one where Covid-19 was endemic in the population. He scoffed and accused me of playing games with words.
Yet, yesterday, Sir Patrick Vallance suggested precisely the same thing and added that “the notion of eliminating Covid is not right”, adding that people “would have to learn to live with the virus”.
That, of course, is what so many of us have been saying for months only to have our views dismissed by experts like Vallance as dangerous nonsense.
Surely, Vallance’s belated conversion to the blindingly obvious calls for a radical rethink of the whole approach to dealing with this disease and an end to the endless cycle of lockdowns, economic destruction and denial of basic civil liberties?
Brian Gedalla,
Chartered Statistician
Postcard From Albania
A reader has sent us a postcard about his recent weekend break in Albania. Sounds like a winner.
“Take care during your trip to that badly lit old fashioned country and bad drivers and roads.”
This is what my Grandmother texted to me before I headed on a spontaneous weekend trip to Tirana, the capital of Albania. Nowadays, you would have thought we would all cringe at such a prejudicial statement as this. However, almost all Brits would agree with the sentiment. We have been raised to assume the worst about any country ending in ‘nia’.
However, the fact is the state of the roads in Hallam, where she lives, is awful – maybe Nick Clegg had bigger worries during his tenure as MP for the constituency? Moreover, it wasn’t in Albania that my bike of two days was stolen on its first outing. No, that was by Catford Bridge station.
Albania, compared to these places is brilliant, and I’m not just saying that out of relief that I wasn’t killed. The people are tremendously kind. It is normally the case that a foreign accent is a giveaway, and activates the ‘tourism surcharge’. However, in Albania it was quite the opposite. Whilst everyone kept to their lane, they would go out of their way to ensure great service, especially to us westerners. It turns out that decades of fascist and communist rule made them appreciate the freedoms of enlightened societies.
This meant we fired guns, played blackjack and even saw a macaw in a slightly dingy pet shop. Not bad for a Islamic country. Further, Alabania is the northern neighbour to Greece. That means a Mediterranean climate, cuisine and culture, that instantly gives you a holiday buzz. Sure, half the architecture is 20th century breezeblock with an ostentatious façade, but that just makes one appreciate the difference between Albania and our (currently not so) green and pleasant land.
Of course, you get the feel that they have bigger problems. But this is essentially what makes Albania great. The police may ask you to put your mask on, even outdoors. But all this means is you have to cover your chin. There are also rules against loud music and drugs – despite it being the marijuana production capital of Europe. The enforcement of these laws, however, is ridiculously laissez-faire. Having gone through what Albanians have, the police are onto bigger, real issues than virtue signalling. Though they are abundant, their presence is barely felt.
Ultimately, every nation likes to think their way of doing things is best. Of course, we occasionally give concessions to countries we think are on our level – we will let the French cook for us and the Germans build. However, in the UK we have never given a moment’s notice to 90% of the world for they are just ‘backwards’. After decades of decline in British achievement, expansion, trade, culture, bravery and strength, maybe we should?
Round-Up
- “There’s a financial incentive for councils to lock down” – Laura Dodsworth in Spiked says councils are being bribed to lock down
- “Lockdown Is a Big Mistake: What Top Israeli Doctors Really Think About COVID-19” – Good piece in Haaretz about in which a group of concerned doctors argue that the cure has been worse than the disease
- “Sadiq Khan urges immediate scrapping of 10pm curfew” – London Mayor says 10pm curfew is hurting the hospitality business – after placing London under a Tier 2 lockdown!
- “Left-wing calls for a shielding strategy are a political breakthrough” – Tom Harris welcomes Sir Richard Leese’s advocacy of the GBD strategy
- “Climate experts fly more often than other scientists” – According to a study by Cardiff University, scientists who specialise in climate change fly more than other researchers
- “My poor Wales – this ‘firebreak’ is a pyre on which the futures of her people will be incinerated” – Allison Pearson laments the destruction unleashed on her beloved Wales by its half-witted First Minister
- “‘Scarred for life’: SAGE experts warn of impact of Covid policies on the young” – Hang on. SAGE experts are warning of the collateral damage caused by the policies SAGE experts recommended? Talk about covering your arse!
- “The tyranny of data has put us at the mercy of a new Covid priesthood” – Philip Johnston in the Telegraph says politicians have shown themselves incapable of interrogating statistics or those who wield them
- “Dr Maria Van Kerkhove: ‘There are no inevitable subsequent peaks or waves of coronavirus’” – The epidemiologist leading the WHO’s Covid response says countries must be “vigilant but optimistic”
- “Dear Members of Parliament” – Excellent letter by Brian Cattle, an epidemiologist turned airline pilot
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “I’m a Sceptic” by Modern Saints, “Scepticism is Just the Start” by the Forbidden, “There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner” by Noel Coward and “I Predict a Riot” by the Kaiser Chiefs. Are you listening, Boris?
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
For those of us trying to hold back the tsunami of woke nonsense it can sometimes feel like a pointless exercise – there’s just so much of it. So it was heartwarming today to hear the Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch, the Equalities Minister, making it clear exactly where she stands. If she’s a candidate in the next leadership contest (won’t be long, surely?) I’ll be campaigning for her.
“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 an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
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 on October 5th and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Google it, one of the top hits you get is a smear piece from the obscure Leftist conspiracy website Byline Times – written by a journalist Christopher Hitchens described as “risible” – 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 among the top hits – although the three featured hits at the top of the results page are all Guardian smear jobs and 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 hit job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over half-a-million signatures and closing in on 600,000.
Stop Press: Jay Bhattacharya has written a good piece for the Telegraph rebutting some of the arguments that have been made against “Focused Protection” and Martin Kulldorff has given an interview in two parts in which he defends the strategy here and here.
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 award 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…
James Delingpole and I rant and rave about Boris’s imposition of a Tier 3 lockdown on Greater Manchester, as well as the Government’s other shortcomings, in the latest episode of London Calling. Worth listening to while you walk the dog, always making sure to keep your mask on and not talk to anyone in another household. Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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I wrote the Postcard from Albania and am hoping to write for the greaats such as the Speccy one day. Please give me any of your thoughts about the piece if you would like?
Van Morrison (for tis he) tweeted that the Northern Ireland executive has published its scientific evidence for lockdown. This government document, produced by ‘experts’ includes the word ‘anectodoatal’. Boy, are they clever…
https://twitter.com/vanmorrison/status/1318906142987255810
New page.
The great lockdown of Wales is to arrive on Friday
I have a cunning plan to win back our freedom and save the economy
South Wales Police are currently issuing one 30 quid covid fixed penalty ticket a month
The population of South Wales is 299,229
That is .00000334192% of a ticket per person per day
If they crowd fund to pay the fine(s) at current rates it will cost each of them 0.0001002576 pence per day
Although I don’t agree with paying, it is a small price price to pay for a get out of jail free card
Yes 0.0001002576 pence per day to have your freedom back and save the economy
Just think of it as a covid tax
All we need now is a volunteer
I’ll pay monthly by direct debit
Among many things which the response to the coronavirus has revealed is the degree of institutional decline in the UK.
Has any institution – the NHS, ‘Science’, the medical profession, the BBC, the professoriat, universities, the civil service, Big Tech, and so on – emerged with its standing in society enhanced as a result of how it has responded to the virus?
The historian Keith Middlemas made a distinction between “governing institutions” on the one hand and “self-interested, single-issue bodies, lobbies or pressure groups” on the other. “Governing institutions” aspired to, and were capable of, operating at “the altruistic level of the national interest.” As a consequence of the Second World War, some institutions were transformed into “governing institutions.”
In contrast there are “self-interested, single-issue bodies, lobbies or pressure groups.” (Ann(ie) has mentioned on here before the rise of the “single issue fanatic”).
Many of our institutions seem to be capable of operating at this level only: “self-interested, single-issue bodies, lobbies or pressure groups.”
This institutional declines happens, IMHO, when truth ceases to be the primary institutional virtue.
Lockdowns ‘kill more Britons than they save’: Leading economists warn that Government’s coronavirus strategy is coming with a heavy price
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8866079/Lockdowns-kill-Britons-save.html
Decent coverage, but who is this Tony Yates buffoon and where does he get his ideas from?
“Tony Yates, of think-tank the Resolution Foundation, was cautious of relaxing restrictions too speedily but said the first lockdown should probably have ended sooner.
…
Mr Yates pointed out that global data simply did not apply to the UK, where Covid-19 seems to have caused proportionally many more deaths.
…
He said: ‘To me there is no alternative except for stumbling through these lockdown measures, hoping that test and trace improves, hoping that a vaccine comes. The only alternative is a regular harvest of about 0.6 per cent of the population.‘”
So somehow he believes that this disease will “harvest” a percentage of people greater than the known ifr, or at best comparable to it if you assume we have a particularly vulnerable elderly population rather than making the more plausible assumption to explain higher UK death rates which is that the UK government killed vulnerable people by prioritising “protecting the NHS”, basically forever? Is he an idiot?
This goes beyond just the usual taking of worst case scenarios and assuming they will definitely happen if we don’t panic respond.
“Regular harvest“.
What a disgusting way to describe death. To defeat these monsters, we have to start thinking at their level.
Me too. It ain’t rocket science, as they say….
I did an economics module as part of my engineering degree twenty years ago. Bored me rigid. I felt at the time economics had unnecessary maths shoe horned into it to make it appear more mathsy and sciencey than it needed to be. It seems I may have been right:
https://fee.org/articles/the-overuse-of-mathematics-in-economics/
What would be interesting would be the age profile of contributors to this website, split into decades.
1980s
My money would be very few under the age of 40, with the majority being 60+.
I am thirties, a lecturer.
We have a number of students on this board.
That is my suspicion as well, which is ironic as that age range is the most at risk (relatively speaking).
My impression is that we are a thoroughly diverse bunch by all metrics.
60+
I’m 28.
Another striking feature (to me) is the number of contributors who mention health problems, physical and mental, for which they need routine hospital or GP visits, blood tests, medication. Might this reflect more elderly contributors, or is chronic illness more common throughout the population than I had previously realised? (self – 8th decade, no illness/ medication).
Judging by my late mother, we are over medicated. Spider to swallow a fly. I’m 61 and will go nowhere near a doctor unless I really have to. Bear in mind all the incentives they get and it’s no wonder everyone over a certain age is nagged into being on statins. They can’t spot cancer or infection in many cases though.
BTW my son is a doctor. I believe he worked hard in ICU during the spring phase of the pandemic and I know many did. Don’t get me started on the lazy incompetents who treated my mother in the last months of her life, though.
I am a greenland shark. I am 457.
Needs reposting Thursday’s pagr
Railway services in Wales are set to be nationalised because the company running the franchise has gone bust. Well, who would have thought that asking people not to travel would bankrupt a transport company? I think this was one of the issues highlighted by Toby early on in this plague year.
I worry that public transport has been well and truly buggered. It is not just that the government has advised people not to travel – they’ve made people fearful of travelling. That fear is going to take a long time to wane – and by the time it does they’ll be no public transport left.
I haven’t been on a train since gags were mandated. I used to travel by train to work, now I use the car. I love train travel but I can’t bear to sit amongst masked zombies and I will not bow to the insane Covid orthodoxy and wear one myself. That’s the reason most people aren’t on them.
They way positives are reported changed October 15th:
https://twitter.com/KenGibs1/status/1319176156839632896
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-methodology/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-methodology
Looks like a very sneaky way of artificially inflating the number of ‘cases’. Might be quite material in terms of impact?
Alex Belfield on YouTube reports that test and trace contractors (from your URL) are using untrained personal to conduct tests
“That’s like going to your doctor and the cleaner puts her finger up your ares”
Just finishing breakfast in a small Spoons,
Pleasant masked waitress took my order
‘Cash or card?’
“Card please”
‘If you can pop your mask on to pay at the till’
“I’m exempt, thanks”
‘Oh that’s fine’.
As we approach the till a sleight young hippy woman approaches the waitress
‘You need to wear a mask’
“I’m exempt actually” she replied
‘I’ll need to see your card’
“Oh I’m so sorry, here it is”
Waitress did not ask to see my card, probably because I’m 6’1 and wear DMs.
I’m off to my local Spoons where I’ll ask to watch my breakfast being cooked, in case the 2m rule is not being followed, and to make sure the Chef is wearing a mask.
Or, I’ll just be a normal human being and show my lanyard.
Feeling the need to wear a lanyard is not normal.
“If someone in NZ really did get infected after just 3 mins contact then looks like we’re going to need to be isolating all casual contacts as well as close, or redefining what we mean by close.”Life is getting more complicated for the Kiwis and the zero policy.All protocols define close contact 15 min,which is of course an arbitrary time.3 min makes highly likely an aerosol transmission. There will be an awful lot of persons to be isolated in their corona camps. NZ also reported that they had information that the airport screening pre departure from Moscow(the fishing crew flown into NZ) was completely adequate and that screening does not pick up incubating diseases. 11 now infected of the crew.A devastating blow to airport screening.
And independent SAGE,Blair,Hague,Hunt want a zero policy!
Outrageous. Either no self awareness or openly taking the piss.
Wancock said out loud a few weeks ago that he’d had a tough year
Here is what happens when you get together and resist government diktat:
https://twitter.com/davidkurten/status/1319182584761503746
“We support a harder lockdown,save the NHS,some people are not following the rules ad infinitum”
Stock answers and remarks given by the over 65’s when interviewed by ALL national broadcasters, not just the BBC.
Surely, there must be plenty of 70 plus year olds and older sceptics they could interview who would say the total opposite; anyone would think that these broadcasters are selective.
They can interview us anytime, we’ll tell ’em 🙂 (67 and 71) MW
72 in December, wife in November.
Wow,I’m a toyboy!
They just bin any interview of a sceptic.
Yes,and the odd sceptic they do interview are portrayed as thick/stupid/selfish,etc.
Film editing must be a growth sector in national broadcasting.
Yes. They are going to need a bigger bin if 65+ opinions round here are anything to go by. MW
There’s a clip of a Yorkshire lady in her 80s doing the rounds right now that hits the nail on the head. It even made it on to the BBC.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I wanted to understand the R number a little more and whilst reading, I noticed it had a similar problem to another well known equation..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Criticism related to the Drake equation focuses not on the equation itself, but on the fact that the estimated values for several of its factors are highly conjectural, the combined multiplicative effect being that the uncertainty associated with any derived value is so large that the equation cannot be used to draw firm conclusions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number#Limitations_of_%7F‘”
UNIQ--postMath-0000004A-QINU“‘%7Fhttps://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/4b0bfb3769bf24d80e15374dc37b0441e2616e33 depends on many factors, many of which need to be estimated. Each of these factors adds to uncertainty in estimates of https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/4b0bfb3769bf24d80e15374dc37b0441e2616e33 . Many of these factors are not important for informing public policy.
Wow, screwy link!
Don’t worry about it, ‘R’ actually stands for random.
Not many people know that.
Drumroll!
I’m here all week!
Unfortunately not for weddings funerals or barmitzvahs at the present.
Cowards most of them sat at home. Total dereliction of duty sitting home behind a computer, pretending to work.
Thank you, Toby, for another brilliant round up.
Everyone wants to rule the world (T
eaiers for fears)Labour MP little girl Olivia Blake talking about need for lockdown because of R rate.. we are fucked.
Why doesn’t any decent journalist (ha) ask one of these talking head cretins to forensically explain the mythical R rate and not just the press release scripted crap – well if the r rate is x that means y number of people will be infected blah blah…
Silly me…..they are all either useful idiots or in on the scam. Too stupid to question it themselves.
Check out the lady from Barnsley on the Daily Mail today. She has just made my day. A brisk dose of Yorkshire common sense.
Link?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8864895/I-dont-sod-Barnsley-pensioner-83-slams-new-Tier-3-lockdown-South-Yorkshire.html
This should be played on a loop outside Parliament. My eighty year old mum feels exactly the same
Mine passed away at 83 but would also be like that at this stage.
My Mum has just turned 70, fit as a fiddle, exact same thoughts.
Good on her, we need more of that spirit
Love her! Some of the comments are horrible to her though. There are a lot that agree with her thankfully.
Very few negative – highest voted all very much in favour.
Is there any glimmer that Boris et al are losing this mad reset today? I need a sign from Marbas.. from Paimon.. from Casper the friendly ghost.. Philip K Dick.. Jesus.. from my mum.. from you.. anyone.
I have pondered these questions all night, with no sleep, and much alcohol.
It seems to me that the further from truth an individual strays, the weaker they become. The physical appearance of many of the public figures attempting to suppress us betrays this. They have deteriorated rapidly, and continue to do so, at a rate far exceeding ordinary people around me that I have observed. In short, they are dying. Make of this what you will.
You’re remarkably coherent, Richard. If it were me, I’d be incomprehensible by now.
I have never known energy levels like it. It has both physiological and psychological elements. A day of tedious work conference calls awaits, I shall dismiss these with great ease whilst checking in here regularly.
Good on yer!
Most died long ago and their rotting corpses were taken over by devils.
This has occurred to when I have seen Professor John Edmunds from LSHTM on television (or heard him on the radio).
That is indeed quite a Philip K Dickian observation: as they drift away from, and lose access to, the “Ubik” of underlying truth and the structural integrity that it brings , their link to our shared stabilising reality fades; they rapidly degrade.
https://thequietus.com/articles/27389-philip-k-dick-ubik-anniversary-review
Safe when used as directed.
I thoroughly enjoyed this gruesome selection of celebrities endorsing government policies. Lockdown has clearly not gone at all well for them. Cadavers, animated solely by pecuniary gain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YyqLE_9nsE
Thank God for Carl.
Yes, he is one of the real heroes. Excoriating demolition of state orthodoxy with a dash of cynical humour. Almost every day.
Excellent video from Carl. Who the feck are some of those people?
Some of them are unrecognisable, and clearly very unwell indeed. See how gaunt they are without the adulation (and the adrenochrome).
I wonder if they are deliberately filming without makeup and with home lighting to make them look more like normal people, part of the WFH crowd, ” one of us”.
It doesn’t work, we all know they are milking their remnants of “sleb” status. Plus they are really bad actors.
On the contrary, it exposes them for the undead ghouls that they are. Take a close look at their eyes. A gateway to the void.
I agree about the dead eyes. I thought they looked a bit like brainwashed hostages, or at least they totally didn’t believe what they were saying.
yes – Harry Redknapp wants to get back to ripping off charities
And Simon Cowell desperately needs another facelift
When he smiles his ears waggle.
Harry redknapp – tax dodger, Simon cowell – tax dodger, Gordon Ramsay – liar who was swindled out of money by his fil and probably a tax dodger. Stupid fat cow from towie who is as thick as dog shit. Olly Murs…cruise ship singer. Chris Evans well past his sell by date.
Real captains of industry and fantastic role models.
Scraping the barrel barely does it justice. This is scraping the slime left by overnight slugs around the external base of the rotting, unusable barrel.
Correct, portrayed as a cheeky cockney.
We are watching a series called Utopia, all about releasing a virus, a vaccine cure that doesn’t, etc. Full of psychopaths and weirdos but there is one sequence we found hilarious. It was an advert with celebrities supporting the government propaganda and just like the celebrity adverts we’ve had this year. Life imitates art. The series was made in 2013.
I enjoyed this series. Predictive programming par excellence.
Me and the OH watched the marvel film Venom the other night. Very spooky – a psychopathic billionaire who wants to wipe out half the population, shielded by his PR people, a virus found on a faraway planet found and captured by said billionaire, spaceship crashes to earth in Asia, infects a paramedic who is at the crash site, She then wanders to a ‘wet’ market, infects an elderly lady, who then gets on a flight to America………we both looked at each other..WTF….
Crumbs!!!
Maybe that’s where Billybot gets his ideas.
All those years stuck in his bedroom playing with himself and reading comics
Boots photo frame model brilliant – see what you mean lol
If you look at this SAGE document is specifically mentions the need to recruit celebs to endorse lockdowns and other such interbalistic hyper corona measures, like scarves on faces.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-b-consensus-on-reintroduction-of-measures-and-their-impact-on-rate-of-infection-22-june-2020
Recruiting corpses must be tricky. How will they perform once reanimated for public consumption?
John Lanchester in “Whoops” also nicely explains how mathematical “geniuses” came up with models of risk that were completely divorced from any kind of reality, contributing hugely to the financial crash. Not that there’s any parallel to what has happened here of course, no I’d never suggest that.
Tricky topic this one but i gather there is an update to the work on Covid and its more severe effect on the BAME community.
https://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/national-news/18812620.new-report-health-disparities-among-ethnic-minority-groups-caused-covid-19/
They seem very dismissive of possible vitamin D effects and I rather feel that some political games are being played with this one. African countries themselves have not really had a particularly rough ride with Covid and so I am puzzled by all this, any thoughts on this one?
Re Africa, populations in almost every country are extremely young, in some cases over half the population is under 20. This is the key factor.
This, higher rates of diabetes, and this https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3
I spoke to a friend in Dubai and he said deaths there have been lowish due to the somewhat younger population too
African countries tend to have younger populations and if vitamin D does play a part, they are sunny and people are outdoors a lot.
Okay, but there are still in absolute terms a fair few old people. If they had all died without the aid of Western wisdom and intubation, I think we would have heard about it in mawkish detail.
I doubt they are spending millions on testing anyone who will stay still long enough. No positive result, no impact on statistics.
Doubt it. The BLM mob don’t give a f..k for real black people.
They are too thick to see they are being played by a Hungarian born Nazi
https://summit.news/2020/09/18/princeton-study-black-lives-matter-responsible-for-91-of-riots-over-last-3-months/
Hydroxychloroquine is in widespread use in many parts of Africa as a preventative for Malaria.
The worst places for vitamin D deficiency in Europe are northern Italy and Spain, as people tend to stay out of the sun, and which areas were badly hit? Sweden fortifies its food with vitamin D, as do most of the very Northern European countries. There is a widespread issue of vitamin D deficiency in the south Asian population in Leicester. When this was first raised back in April and then with the alleged outbreaks in parts of Leicester that have a high south Asian population I suspected vitamin D deficiency.
I suspect getting absolute proof of the efficacy of vitamin D is tricky but on the other hand it would not be expensive or dangerous to provide vitamin supplements and may well do a lot of good.
It does strike me that some are rather keen to play down vitamin D and play up the economic and social deprivation issues.
Nor the West Indian countries. Maybe more stats massaged to set another identity agenda? I would be surprised if the wwc elderly have not had a more severe effect either, than white middle class..
Brilliant !
Yorkshire Granny Rails Against Lockdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjIdkCkRMr4&ab_channel=ChristianCalgie
Morning sceptics! My week so far, Tuesday dentist and they were all kitted up as you would expect but once the dentist and nurse started chatting they were both highly sceptical and thought we should crack on.
Also on Tuesday I had a locksmith out, no gloves or mask or any of that rubbish, cracked on and as sceptical as me.
Last night a lengthy taxi journey home after a small work meal, taxi driver didn’t have a mask nor did I, had a nice chat and he thought it was utter rubbish as well.
Chap sat next to me on the train this morning no mask and train has plenty of people with colds just like normal.
Guess the message is just that there are plenty sceptics out there, it’s just the morons running the government that are too scared to see sense and benefitting from keeping the fear factor going.
This is nice to hear. I have just been eaten alive on twitter by some horrible doctors and it weirdly hurts, even though it’s just social media bollocks…
Funny things, doctors. My mother (a GP) completely agrees with me, though I think she’s a bit bored of hearing me talking about it. My sister (an obstetric anaesthetist) is a full blown zealot. Then again, she’s always been all for telling people what to do, so I suspect it’s just her inner authoritarian coming out.
Yes, almost all of our obs Anaesthetists are quietly sceptical but the odd bossy one is not (although they ignore the reality in front of our eyes so there’s no helping them). GP colleagues very mixed and many general Anaesthetists at our hospital are lockdown lovers… they all ignore the fact that the majority of us spent hours not locked up as we were all at work… and yet very few of us got sick – even when colleagues became unwell (generally mildly).
Doctors are odd in general though. It’s the training I think. Twitter definitely makes them worse.
I’m pretty sure twitter makes absolutely everyone worse.
This is how it ends. The cumulative actions of citizens going about their daily business paying no heed to state decrees. One by one, the dominoes will fall.
Unless the police demand your business close.
Put the Liverpool gym story on Peter Hitchens’s blog comments yesterday, but so far “no show”
He doesn’t accept links in comments, maybe that’s the issue.
Wasn’t a link, Liam, just a comment.
I for one am sick of being branded a conspiracy theorist for not swallowing the government propaganda. It’s not conspiracy theory if all this IS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US. In the last 7 months, we have lost almost everything that makes life worth living. When are people going to wake up to the fact that these freedoms will not be given back without a fight?
Agreed. But I think the conspiracy theorist slur is losing its power. The DT is chock full of sceptical articles this morning and having felt that I was marooned on a sceptical island in real life since March I am now hearing so much more anger and doubt from acquaintances and friends. Sticks and stones. Name calling is the oldest trick in the book and we will continue to rise above the playground tactics.
I hope you are right Charlie, I’m going to buy a print copy today for the first time since the end of March.
As frequently happens now I couldn’t sleep last night but for the first time it was because I had a sliver of hope. A number of the papers that really get under the politicians’ skins (Telegraph, Mail, Sun) are showing more prominent sceptic articles.
The icing on the cake was that admirable elderly woman from Yorkshire. She was articulate, independent and determined and I feel sure she was echoing what a lot of 80 year olds and older would say if only someone had the courtesy to ask them. Brilliant stuff and out there in the MSM now.
There was no last night for me. Today is a 48 hour day.
Reluctant to uptick that because it seemed callous but I will because I do sympathise.
I finally tuned the light out for my third attempt at sleep at 3:30 am. Tossed and turned some more then dropped off and woke at 6:30. Was subject to a nightmare to pay me back for my optimism – a chanting and stomping mob in black masks outside my door. I guess it’s my subconscious telling me there’s a long way to go.
The elite of masks have breached your subconscious, you have my deepest sympathy. I discussed this here earlier today/yesterday saying it was the one place they have yet to encroach.
Work on achieving the lucid dream state. There you can do whatever you like to your tormentors.
I considered sleep at 5.00am, but was not in the mood. Now it is already today/tomorrow. Who cares!
Nearly forgot the the Liverpool gyms. That was a great piece of news too
Hopeful insomnia definitely preferable to the usual type. I too feel sure that countless senior folk would be declaring “not in my name” if asked for their opinion. I have been infuriated by the infantilisation of citizens with the most life experience, and often a great deal of wisdom
Extraordinary that people are calling each each other out for talking, but not because they are spouting rubbish. Because they are expelling air from their lungs at a greater velocity and with greater pressure than merely exhaling.
A tax on breathing used to be a regular topic for pub mockery of state overreach. We are not that far away folks.
We keep a supply of nappies in our tourist attraction, because once a woman got nearly hysterical when she realised that she’d lost her nappy. Needless to say, we don’t give a mosquito’s fart for nappies, but we do have to appear to follow the rules.
The nappies cost us £7.50 for fifty, and of course they are made in China. They don’t claim to protect anybody against anything, but the packet is blazoned ‘Happy breathing’.
I’d love to show you round, barefaced friends, but from tomorrow evening we will of course be closed for the duration. See you after that. Free passes for all sceptics. Our entire crew is on board.
I talk to the dog a lot. And to the horse. The horse has a very sceptical attitude, except towards carrots, in which she is a fervent believer.
So long as you don’t talk to trees like jug ears
My heart lept with joy when I saw that clip – well done her, telling how it is.
My father-in-law turned 80 this year and is fed up with the lockdown and the insanity emanating from the Dear Leader of the People’s Democratic Republic of Scotland. He’s unable to go to concerts, can’t do his research and no thanks to the abysmal public transport in his area, can’t really go anywhere else.
It’s criminal what they’re doing to the old and to everyone actually.
Exactly. I think many people aren’t really aware that what we’re experiencing is an attack on our humanity.
I am deeply troubled of the prospect of young people being unable to form meaningful relationships and children’s neurolingustic development retarded to the point that they will find it difficult to communicate face to face and get nuance.
Paradoxically our cause is being massively assisted by the new wave of lockdowns. Such a fine line. The harsher the state gets, the more people wake up, but simultaneously the closer we get to the void.
Yes. It’s a dangerous thing if you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
Guilty as charged. I was at best comparatively satisfied with my life until 2020. I want to go back and shake my former self out of his decadent slumber to appreciate every single moment of freedom. What a humbling lesson this has been.
Do not concern yourself with such empty mantras. The people saying this to you have totally relinquished their sovereignty to the state, and are in no position to cast aspersions.
Know that we are in a war, and that you are on the front lines. Things will get ugly, and there will be casualties.
I think I know where you got that idea Steve
Chamberlain feebly threatened the Third Reich with “A final note“.
Johnson is far weaker than Chamberlain.
Mine from 3 or 4 days ago ended
“I have in my hand a letter signed by Mr Vallence. . . as a consequence this country is now in a state of war with its own people.”
Chamberlain had principles.
And he did declare war on Germany when it was plain that nothing else could check the evil.
He didn’t make war on his own people to make sure that evil would flourish.
It’s such an interesting question. I denounced that specific phrase in his declaration of war broadcast as feeble (which it was), but not the man himself.
I believe that he fully realised in 1938 that war was inevitable, but had to play for time because he knew that British forces were in no position to oppose to German war machine for at least two years.
Previous to Munich, he was able to stand up to Hitler in a face to face encounter, with clarity and dignity.
And to be quite honest, I fear that I might have hailed the news if Munich with relief. Peace in our time. It would be as if Boris waved a piece of paper and said ‘return to normal’. Would we immediately rush to look that gift horse in the mouth?
I have heard it said, and it seems to me to be quite credible, that Chamberlain’s first words to Cabinet after Munich were ‘Gentlemen, prepare for war’.
United Kingdom/China/BRI
WHAT WILL THE 14TH FIVE YEAR PLAN MEAN FOR CHINA’S OFFSHORE WIND INDUSTRY?
13 October 2020
Offshore Wind
Offshore Wind Energy Catapult announce that heavy investment will be injected into the growth of offshore wind energy production in a bid to meet the UK’s Net Zero 2050 goal. Investment between now and 2030 will total £40 billion, he adds. This provides an interesting opportunity for Chinese companies, including developers, investors, OEMs and supply chain engagement.
https://focus.cbbc.org/energy-wind/
The UK, a.k.a. Chow Mein Province.
Easy fucking pickings for the Communists. They are far superior to us.
Rather be Americas aircraft carrier rather than a Chinese wind farm prison.
Me too.
Damn straight. Even a Biden/Harris Woke BLM Antifa American colonial master would be better.
We dished this shit out to these and many other nations in spades for centuries. For China, this is absolutely justifiable payback for the Opium Wars. I hope they flood this place with heroin, I’d gladly get strung out on that shit for the rest of my days.
A senior mental health practitioner was on holiday in Cambodia* when the evil global Pandemic struck. She witnessed Chinese officials imposing Social Credit system there and said it ‘wasn’t pretty’.
*should have listened to the Dead Kennedys.
I visited Cambodia in 2016. A beautiful country, and such a graceful and gentle people. They should know better than to submit once again to totalitarian oppression. There are piles of skulls meticulously arranged at the sites of Killing Fields in honour of the suffering they endured under such a nightmare.
Well China needs the people of the UK to plug into so called carbon neutral wind power to facilitate E purchases of Chinese imports (when the wind’s blowing) as part of Agenda 2030 so called sustainable economy.