Lockdown 3.0
Yesterday evening Boris rang in from self-isolation to give his much-awaited briefing on the winter Covid plan. The MailOnline has the details:
Boris Johnson tonight warned against “over-optimism” as he said many areas face going into tougher Tiers after December 2nd than they were in before the blanket lockdown… He braced the public in England for difficult months before the ‘cavalry’ of science comes to the rescue and finally ends the crisis. And he said that although the national lockdown will finish next Wednesday, large sections of the country will still be under harsher measures than before it began on November 5th. Mr Johnson said “things will look and feel very different after Easter, with a vaccine and mass testing”. But he cautioned that the months ahead “will be hard, they will be cold, they include January and February when the NHS is under its greatest pressure”. He added: “Tis the season to be jolly, but it is also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives.”
The new tier system is jolly careful indeed. The Telegraph as more on its implications for pubs, shops and services.
For church services
The Prime Minister confirmed on Monday that church services including Christingles and midnight mass will be able to take place in all three tiers. The number of people permitted to attend church together is also set to be determined by the level of restrictions on household mixing.
For hospitality
Pubs and restaurants in tier three areas will be limited to takeaway and delivery services only from next month as part of a tightening of regional restrictions… Diners and pub-goers will be given more time to finish their meals and drinks under the new system. Venues in tiers one and two will have to abide by a new closing time of 11pm, with last orders called at 10pm.
For sport
Outdoor sports such as golf and tennis will restart in all tiers, as will amateur team sports such as Sunday-league football…
For non-essential retail
Christmas shopping will be given the greenlight this year as the Government attempts to give hard-up highstreets across the country a major boost. Non-essential retail, including fashion, toys and gadget stores will reopen their doors when the second lockdown ends on December 2nd.
For socialising
Restrictions on household mixing will stay largely the same. Under the original tiered system, people living in tier one areas were required to comply with the rule of six both indoors and outdoors. However, Government sources suggested last week that tier one could be brought closer in line with tiers two and three due to concerns among scientists that measures in the lowest level are proving ineffective.
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph has also helpfully whittled it all down to a handy graphic.
It is hard not to refer back Ross Clark’s piece which we flagged in yesteday’s round-up. This is…
a rebadged lockdown. While it will be described as a return to tiers, those tiers will be made tougher and more of us will find ourselves shunted into the top tiers. The result is that most people will be forbidden from mixing with family and friends until Easter – save for a brief truce over Christmas.
It is exactly, in other words, as I predicted. A semi-free Christmas is being used as the thin, dangling carrot which is supposedly going to help us resign ourselves to many months of isolation.
As always, Ross Clark is worth reading in full, if you haven’t already.
Stop Press: The Government is still working with devolved administrations on the plans for a “semi-free Christmas”, but we learnt from Nicola Sturgeon’s daily press conference yesterday that they will not in Scotland include Hogmany. Who would have thought we’d see an SNP First Minister axing a Scottish tradition? Best pass over to Alan Cochrane on this in the Telegraph.
Stop Press 2: MailOnline reports that fans may soon be able to return to stadiums, albeit in limited numbers. Manchester United v PSG will likely be the first match to welcome them back but there could still be rules to be followed on singing, shouting and drinking
Stop Press 3: Worth taking a look at how total deaths in England and Wales in 2020 compare with previous years. Second wave struggling to gather any momentum.
Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine
Lockdowns and Government Restrictions Make no Difference to Mortality Outcomes.
It is timely that in the run-up to the next gear change in the Government’s endless drive to “defeat the virus”, Frontiers in Public Health has published a peer-reviewed study of Covid mortality outcomes.
First the Context
We aimed at characterizing the non-viral parameters that were most associated with death rate.
The Methods
We tested major indices from five domains (demography, public health, economy, politics, environment) and their potential associations with COVID-19 mortality during the first eight months of 2020, through a Principal Component Analysis and a correlation matrix with a Pearson correlation test. Data of all countries, or states in federal countries, showing at least 10 fatality cases, were retrieved from official public sites. For countries that have not yet finished the first epidemic phase, a prospective model has been computed to provide options of death rates evolution.
The Studied Countries
From the 188 countries that have declared at least one case, only those counting a minimum of 10 deaths due to COVID-19 up to the study end point (August 31st 2020) were included. China and the United States were also analysed by states or regions, when each of them reached the 10 deaths threshold.
And the Conclusion (our emphasis)
Countries that already experienced a stagnation or regression of life expectancy, with high income and NCD rates, had the highest price to pay. This burden was not alleviated by more stringent public decisions. Inherent factors have predetermined the COVID-19 mortality: understanding them may improve prevention strategies by increasing population resilience through better physical fitness and immunity.
Worth reading in full.
This study focused on the first eight months of 2020. We doubt that anything from the later months of the year, which saw the rule of six, lockdown 2.0, the first and now the second tier system in the UK alone, will substantially challenge the analysis.
Barry Norris Unimpressed by AstraZeneca Announcement
The fund manager Barry Norris, who’s been tracking the vaccine trials very closely, wasn’t impressed by yesterday’s announcement by AstraZeneca. This is the note he sent to his clients.
We are amazed at the spin on the Astra vaccine. This was always designed as a two equal dose trial – 0.5 followed by 0.5 – and this population group has only achieved 62% efficacy (compared to a claim of 95% for the mRNA vaccines).
Now in breach of trial protocol they tell us there’s an improved “90% efficacy” in a small initial 0.25 dose followed by a bigger 0.5 dose, in an unofficial population sub-set which is probably so small as to be statistically insignificant. Moreover, they claim to have stumbled across this better recipe purely by accident, and somewhat embarrassingly claim this sub-set consisted of the volunteers who were systematically but “accidentally” given a smaller than intended dose, as reported here. (The Guardian has more details on this “accident” here.)
So riddle me this: the main dose trial shows only 62% efficacy in healthy adults (almost certainly less in the old and already sick) but a smaller sub-set shows efficacy with a lower dose? Lower doses usually lower side effects but they don’t usually result in higher efficacy. So there’s something bogus going on.
Moreover, if the vaccine really does work better with a smaller first dose then what does that say about the antibody response? Is the immune system producing antibodies to the second dose after a similarly-sized first dose? Is this why counterintuitively it works better on a small first dose? Does the volunteer develop immunity to the second vaccine after a bigger first dose?
If so, at best this is a one shot and one season vaccine.
At worst, if the first full dose does raise antibodies to the second full dose then you have the potential for auto-immune side effects, meaning that the vaccine ultimately inhibits the natural antibody response to the virus which would be disastrous in otherwise healthy adults.
Based on this data, the FDA is unlikely to approve the Astra vaccine (though undoubtedly the UK Government will) as:
* The trial protocol has been violated to data mine a more positive outcome.
* The duration of the efficacy is questionable.
* The overall efficacy is much lower than peers and it likely won’t work at all in the vulnerable (82 year-olds with comorbidities.) The US has mRNA.
* There’s no claim that it prevents virus transmission.
* They will want to monitor possible auto-immune side effects.
Could it be that UK Government has backed the wrong horse? To date, it has ordered 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a cost of £3 to £4 per dose.
Stop Press: AstraZeneca’s share price has fallen in the US following doubts about the likelihood of it receiving FDA approval.
Stop Press 2: Ross Clark in the Telegraph notes that “A vaccine exit strategy is curiously absent from the PM’s baffling Covid Winter Plan“
Dr Roger Hodkinson Was a Lockdown Sceptic Back in April
Readers will recall the marvellous speech delivered by Dr Roger Hodkinson, ex-Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Examination Committee in General Pathology in Ottawa and a former Assistant Professor, to some health officials working for the Government of Alberta last week, telling them their strategy was all wrong. It’s now gone from YouTube, of course, but you can still catch it at Bitchute. Worth listening to again (it’s short and punchy).
Some speculated about whether the speech was real or a hoax, but we can confirm it was 100% genuine. Indeed, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons has seen fit to issue a statement disassociating itself from Dr Hodkinson in light of his remarks and, for the record, has slavishly regurgitated Covid orthodoxy.
Lockdown Sceptics has made contact with Dr Hodkinson and we are publishing a four-part series by him on the pandemic, with the first part published today. The first three were originally written for the University of Regina School of Public Policy in April and May, but he was told they couldn’t be published unless he toned them down which, naturally, he wasn’t prepared to do. Consequently, they are being published on Lockdown Sceptics for the first time. We will publish parts two and three on Wednesday and Thursday and part four when he’s completed it, which should be in a couple of weeks.
Part one is a scene-setter called “Who Failed and Why?” in which Dr Hodkinson discusses the origins of the virus in China and the disastrous initial reaction by public health authorities. Here is an extract in which he homes in on the WHO:
Statistically speaking, given the probable origin of SARS and COVID-19 in China, the next pandemic is likely to originate there also. That’s a problem. China was secretive about the start of its local COVID-19 epidemic (and still is), wasting valuable weeks before alerting the WHO of its existence which then downplayed its significance for the rest of the world. An early warning system is a vital starting point for effective international response to future pandemics. Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the WHO cannot be trusted to act any differently in the future.
Furthermore, the (current) head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, is not a physician as have been all his predecessors, and has questionable credentials to effectively lead such a vital international resource at a critical moment in world history. He has, at times, acted as China’s apologist in this whole fiasco, compounding the problem by disseminating China’s misinformation under the imprimatur of the WHO early in the pandemic.
A senior WHO official responsible for the global response to this pandemic, Dr. Michael Ryan, has actually stated that “we may have to enter homes and remove family members” if they are COVID-19 positive – but in a “dignified manner”. It would seem he thinks COVID-19 is as lethal as ebola or smallpox, which it most emphatically is not. Do we want ‘officials’ knocking at our doors in the middle of the night taking away our kids to control future pandemics? I think not, and to attempt such an assault on personal liberty would cause civil revolt. But that was exactly what the WHO recommended!
I believe a personal anecdote is also relevant here. Right in the middle of the SARS epidemic in 2003, I met with the team of WHO officials ‘managing’ the outbreak right in their war room at WHO headquarters in Geneva. There wasn’t a virologist in the room, and of the eight or so people present about half were nurses from obscure African countries doing an obligatory WHO secondment. To say it was a gong show is an understatement. The world was left to its own devices, and so it was initially with COVID-19.
The most rational explanation for the origin of the epidemic in China is not the Wuhan wet food market as the WHO immediately and confidently stated, but rather one of the virology labs in Wuhan doing environmental surveillance of bat corona viruses. There was almost certainly an accidental escape due to poor compliance with laboratory bio-safety procedures for which there have been many examples in China in recent years. COVID-19 was not a genetically engineered virus for use in biological warfare – the corona virus isn’t anywhere near lethal enough for that nefarious use, judging from the number who’ve died in China, unless the entire Chinese population had already been vaccinated against it!
I believe I have made my case that the WHO cannot be trusted, is politically compromised, and is actually incompetent in the discharge of its expected leadership role. But more importantly, the WHO is advocating extreme containment policies that cut to the very heart of personal freedom.
The article continues in the same trenchant, take-no-prisoners tone and is very much worth reading in full.
Vaccination Before Travel
It is happening! Qantas, Australia’s largest airline, is planning to make proof of having had vaccination a condition of travel. From ABC:
Speaking on Channel Nine’s A Current Affair on Monday night, Qantas boss Alan Joyce said he believed it would be a necessity for passengers to be vaccinated once a vaccine is available. And he said the company was looking into the possibility of requiring passengers to have a vaccination passport which would allow them to travel.
“We are looking at changing our terms and conditions, to say for international, that we will ask people to have a vaccination before getting on the aircraft,” Mr Joyce confirmed.
“We think for international visitors coming out, and people leaving the country, we think that’s a necessity.” The Qantas CEO said the company would consider the same requirements for domestic flights.
He said he had talked to the chief executives of other international carriers who were also considering making vaccination mandatory for travel.
A vaccination passport is being touted as a method of proving passengers have been vaccinated.
“What we’re looking at is how you can have a vaccination passport, an electronic version of it that certifies what the vaccine is,” Mr Joyce said.
“There’s a lot of logistics, a lot of technology to make this happen, but the airlines and the government are working on this as we speak.”
Worth reading in full.
Isn’t this is a little rash of Qantas? The big pharmaceutical companies are exempt from liability if a vaccine turns out to have harmful side effects, but not airlines. What if someone only gets vaccinated in order to fly on Qantas and then suffers serious harm? Won’t they be able to sue Qantas? Perhaps the Australian Government, which had to bail out the airline back in April and has probably ordered the CEO to make this announcement, has indemnified it.
They’ve Deprived Us of Our Freedom
A letter printed in the Camden New Journal on the real reason young people go to illegal raves is worth reproducing here in full. Hard to argue with.
Further to your report in March this year various governments decided to close the world down!
Nothing like this had ever happened before, although there had been lots of different viruses over the years. Anyone would think there was a deadly plague.
According to the BBC website, recently there had been 51,766 deaths from COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. But people die all the time.
An alternative heading for your story could have been: “Police drive clubbers to desperation.”
What has actually happened is that in March all venues were closed down and haven’t been allowed to reopen except under lots of restrictions, including social distancing.
Now they’re all closed again. This means there have been no clubs or gigs that people could go to. This is the real reason for the raves in Primrose Hill and on Hampstead Heath.
The police have been rigorously enforcing these regulations by telling venues that they must stay closed and that they will be fined if they open and run proper nights out, but the police ignore any laws they don’t like.
I’m very pleased to hear that there aren’t enough police to do much about these raves. I now plan to go there as soon as possible and join in.
It’s a pity that residents in Primrose Hill claim that they can’t get to sleep. But there are some simple things they can do about this. The obvious solution is just to wear earplugs or earmuffs.
If that doesn’t work then they could just sleep at a different time of the day because it probably doesn’t matter what time of day they sleep, due to the lockdown.
Another solution would be for the police to claim that it’s not their responsibility to stop venues from opening; it’s “a civil matter”, or to use their famous “discretionary powers” to get out of doing it.
As for people like Councillor Pat Callaghan, Holborn and St Pancras MP Sir Keir Starmer, and the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, I think they should all be locked up and deprived of their freedom, because that’s what they’ve been doing to the rest of us.
The first lockdown didn’t achieve anything except depriving people of their normal way of life and this one won’t either.
It’s sad when people die, but the rest of us must get on with our lives. I’m violently opposed to the COVID-19 propaganda and lockdown. I plan to help smash the lockdown by breaking all the restrictions.
I demand my life back. I want it back now!
Paul Brown
The CNJ‘s reports on the rave is available here. (Includes footage.)
More on Protest Pots and Pans
Facts about the pots and pans protest in Denmark and the change in the proposed epidemic law remain hard to verify, as one reader notes:
It is so strange that there is hardly any coverage on main stream news regarding the protests in Denmark. In the Twitter stream there are a few people saying it is not true. Hardly anyone backs up their story with a link to anything official, it all comes back to Twitter and The Local
He has found a story on a local news site, Jyllands-Posten, which does suggest that the story might be true and that the law may be redrafted: (Extracts courtesy of Google Translate)
There has been widespread criticism of the Government’s draft of a new and very far-reaching epidemic law that gives the incumbent Health Minister extensive powers… Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen promised that the Government will look at the bill together with the parliamentary parties. “We will look at the epidemic law again, we take the criticism seriously and a better balance must be found,” she said to the North Jutland radio channel ANR and thus warns of changes in the bill.
Since November 4th, a group of protesters has filled the square in front of Christiansborg with the noise of pots in an attempt to get the politicians’ attention. They want to stop the passage of the epidemic law because they fear that far-reaching powers will be implemented.
The article is available here.
Meanwhile, the idea of a pots-and-pans protest continues to capture our readers’ imagination. We had this in from one yesterday:
Why not go for this on Thursday at 7pm. Get people to flood social media with this protest. Maybe they might sit up and listen like in Denmark
And from another, suggesting an alternative target:
Maybe the pots and pans protest would work better staged outside local and national media stations and offices. Parked vehicles which then sound their horns for two minutes at a designated time would highlight to the purveyors of the scare stories that they cannot have everything their own way. Six o’clock every weekday evening say?
Lockdown: The Right Side of History
YouTuber Kate Wand’s latest video is on the morality of lockdowns, the suffering they cause and the price paid by those who oppose them. It is a reading/visualisation of Stacy Rudin’s article on the American Institute of Economic Research blog.
In the Covid debate, there is a mainstream, “popular” narrative, and a competing, “unpopular” narrative – a “fringe”. The former exploits the common, mediocre desire to be “popular”. Joining the movement is easy. It results in back-pats, validation, and requires no uncomfortable confrontations. This narrative states that it is impossible for humanity to survive the COVID-19 pandemic without a vaccine, lockdowns, and masks, some combination of which will be required into the indefinite future. The narrative supports blaming others for “infecting you” with diseases, rather than encouraging personal responsibility for immune and general health.
Proponents of the competing narrative, on the other hand, must stand up to massive social forces simply to make their arguments, which are not radical: they support a return to classic pandemic management tools, the same ones used by Sweden and other states and countries which did not lock down for COVID-19, which resulted in average mortality for 2020. They do not believe this pandemic warrants a complete overhaul of the economic, social, and educational systems. They believe that every human being should be empowered with truthful information about risk and how to best care for personal health, and to make his or her own choices.
Faced with these competing narratives, we must consider motives and costs. The force of social pressure to conform with the mainstream narrative is large, so we know from the outset that the people willing to argue against it are either insane, or extremely driven, courageous, and strong. It is easy to eliminate the possibility that they are crazy many of them, – such as Elon Musk and the scientists who drafted the Great Barrington Declaration – are giants in their fields. They risk everything, weathering exhausting personal attacks from all sides, in order to battle the crowd.
Both the article and the video are great and very much worth reading in full or watching in full.
Round-Up
- “COVID-19: Merthyr sees 977 mass-tested for coronavirus” – A dramatic headline on BBC Wales leading into a less dramatic story: Only nine were found to be positive
- “Lockdown is part of the grand, green, global design” – says John Mortimer in the Conservative Woman
- “The gloom is lifting, now let’s get going!” – Professor Karol Sikora celebrates the good news about vaccines in the Daily Mail
- “The Left’s obsession with subjectivity” – David Goodhart in UnHerd on the Left’s habit of prioritising lived experience over data and logic
- “We cannot continue to live in this childlike cycle of repeated, damaging lockdowns” – Conservative MP Nus Ghani in the Telegraph, signalling her opposition to further restrictions and demanding a fresh strategy from the Government
- “The greatest scandal of our lifetime” – “Instead of following the science, governments are doing the opposite,” says R. J. Quinn in the American Conservative
- “Conservatism or pragmatism: that is the question” – Watch the inaugural edition of a new podcast Nurtural Disaster with Professors Bo and Ben Winegard discussing the merits of conservatism
- “We’re on the fast track to fascism” – Kathy Gyngell rails against ‘freedom passes’ in the Conservative Woman
- “Buffalo, New York business owners stand up to Cuomo” – Watch as a group of business owners in Buffalo chase out the Sheriff and Health Department officials who tried to shut down a meeting
- “Pay £120 to reduce quarantine to FIVE days” – Another scheme to make travel freedom contingent on a medical test. From MailOnline
- “No more quarantine for travellers returning to North Rhine-Westphalia” – Court in Münster overturns the German state’s quarantine regulation (in German)
- “Doctors ask people vulnerable to Covid to sign ‘do not resuscitate’ orders in bid to ease pressure on Swiss intensive care units” – Grim move that includes people over 60 and those with heart disease or diabetes. From the MailOnline
- “Stanford Condemns Atlas” – Article from John H. Cochrane on the Stanford Faculty Senate’s decision to condemn Scott Atlas, advisor to President Trump. From his blog the Grumpy Economist
- “Shop owner refuses to close over ‘complete injustice’ of Covid rules” – Mike Graham on talkRADIO speaks to Lydia Walker-Cox, a business owner who refuses to shut her shop
- “Laure Perrins returns to the Delingpod” – The co-founder of the Conservative Woman gives it both barrels on the subject of the lockdown
- “Will there be enough Christmas trees this year?” – Possible shortage of Nordmann Fir Christmas trees this year, as imports from Denmark are restricted
- “Was Covid beginning to peak before the second lockdown?” – Matt Ridley examines the data for the Spectator
- “FALSE ALARM: the corona-critic raid was staged” – The video in yesterday’s round-up, showing German sceptic Dr Andreas Noack was in fact an elaborate piece of creativity – fake news – and not helpful. Thanks to a reader for pointing this out
- Twitter thread by Telegraph cartoonist Bob Moran, setting out his opposition to masks using his own cartoons as illustrations
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Two today: “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)” by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand and “The Great Escape – Main Title Music” by Elmer Bernstein.
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 so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today we bring you an angsty piece from Teen Vogue, written in the aftermath of the elections across the pond: “Biden’s Call for ‘Unity’ doesn’t square with United States History“.
While it might seem that the country is uniquely divided right now, the United Sates is rooted in contradiction and divisiveness. It was founded through the genocide of Indigenous peoples and flourished through the enslavement of Africans. At its core, America’s values are white supremacy and capitalism. That is true no matter who has been in office.
Biden’s call for a “united America” boils down to nationalist propaganda. Americans have never been united and have been kept apart and pitted against one another by the state. From geographic segregation to immigration bans and racist policing, the United States has privileged the lives and security of some residents at the expense of others. Why should people who have been systematically oppressed, and who have struggled against the government for true freedom, be asked to hold hands with their oppressors?
When it looked for a moment on election night that Trump might take crucial swing states, I sunk into despair and fell asleep. When I woke up and it had become clearer that Biden was going to pull through, I didn’t feel excitement or even safety. I felt exhausted. The next four years will be very different from the Trump era, but they will still be a battle.
Read in full here, or if woke gobbledegook leaves you too exhausted to carry on, read this summary in Breitbart.
Stop Press: It is also worth reading about Senator Tom Cotton’s comments on the erasing of the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival at Cape Cod. From MEAWW.
“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.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know that you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Stop Press: Telegraph cartoonist Bob Moran has produced an illustrated thread on masks. It’s a must-read
Stop Press: Shakespeare was an anti-masker! A literary reader has sent us this verse from Venus and Adonis:
Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!
Venus and Adonis, 526 – 31
O, never let their crimson liveries wear!
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year!
That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.
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 month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – 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 approaching 700,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”.
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.
Stop Press: The GoodLawProject has announced that it is filing for Judicial Review over the Government’s recruitment of friends and acquaintances to lead key public health bodies. Read more 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.
Quotation Corner
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Charles Mackay
They who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.
Sir Winston Churchill
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.
Richard Feynman
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
Albert Camus
We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Necessity is the plea for every restriction of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Younger
Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
In the latest episode of London Calling, Toby’s weekly podcast with James Delingpole, the two old friends get into quite a heated discussion about the recent US Presidential election result. James still insists that Trump won, while Toby is a little more sceptical. It’s one thing to take the views of CNN and MSNBC with a pinch of salt, but Trump’s legal team haven’t made any headway in the courts either. James gets so cross he calls Toby a “cuck” and says he wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with him. The podcast was recorded before Trump effectively conceded yesterday, but Toby promises not to gloat next week.
You can listen to the podcast here and subscribe to it on iTunes here. Please recommend it to your friends – last week’s podcast was downloaded 13,052 times, the highest seven-day download the podcast has ever had.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Welcome back kh. I’ve missed your wonderful posts.
Advice please! Some time ago we had a strange letter through the door. It basically said that they’d (a neighbour we don’t know) started a neighbourhood scrap book about our ‘Covid-19’ experiences and it would come through the door soon. Warning bells rang when the writer said that certain numbers of the road should NOT receive this book as they had ‘made negative remarks’. Today it arrived. I could cry. Virtue signalling at its very finest. Some ADULTS have even spelt out their names in Scrabble pieces! Photos of cats and dogs and stories of heroic deeds etc. I could vomit. All ‘when we return to normal’, ‘bless the angels in the NHS’, scorn spewed out about ‘Covidiots’ and worse. It is vile. Just vile. My husband is pleading with me NOT to write in it and say what I feel but it’s a crisis of conscience for me because I’d hate myself for saying nothing. I thought I’d managed to get through life without a war in the UK but it appears I’m wrong.
What would you do? Obviously, I’d like to burn it. I had thought of writing a short note explaining why I cannot be supportive… Read more »
OMG I’d stick it in a bin liner and put it in a corner of a room in case it proves useful at any time in the future. Then find the people who agree with you, here for example
Four ways to meet up with local people close to you
Freedom Network
The Freedom Network is a non-political movement founded with the purpose of reclaiming freedoms taken away by the Coronavirus Act. The Network has established a series of ‘Freedom Hubs’ around the country which provide like-minded lockdown sceptics with an opportunity to make contact with one another.
http://www.thefreedomnetwork.co.uk
Back to Normal
Back to Normal is a leafleting campaign aimed at changing the public’s attitude about lockdowns. Back to Normal leaflets are designed for door-to-door distribution and are currently being distributed all over the country. E-mail [email protected] or visit my-sgf.co.uk for more information.
Unlock (Oxford)
Unlock is a student-led campaign begun at Oxford University. The movement brands lockdowns as ‘irrational and inherently unfair’ and aims raise awareness about the damage they’re doing.
Unlock has a website, http://www.unlock-gb.co.uk, and a social media presence:
@unlockgb on Twitter and @GBUnlock on Facebook
Unlock Surrey
Unlock Surrey is a group of like-minded individuals from across Surrey and… Read more »
Average age of death from COVID-19 is higher than the average age of death.
https://twitter.com/ToniaBuxton/status/1331370799480115203?s=20
That doesn’t surprise me. How many of us bothered reading about deaths from flu or pneumonia statistics before C. O. V. I. D.? Certificate of Vaccination ID. (get it?) They’ve be plotting this man made scamdemic for a number of years.
What happened to Simon Dolan’s court case?
They tagged a bit on for LD2 and it continues
Just had a somewhat unnerving encounter with a very nasty individual who was driving a van around my block of flats looking for someone. When he looked at me I could see straight away the cold, dead eyes of a hardcore psychopath. If he finds the man he was looking for I have no doubt that he will kill him. That being said, these are the kind of people who will be totally ignoring all the regulations and not giving a fuck about it. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, even if they themselves are evil.
NEWSNIGHT REVIEW
The “bronzed strumpet” was showing that, when it comes to vaccines, she’s anybody’s.
She makes four erroneous assumptions:
1. We will all welcome the vaccine.
I don’t. I hope they all fail. A successful vaccine will be a step on the road to compulsory medication and to replacing natural immunity developed over billions of years with Big Pharma prescriptions. It will also create opportunities for yet more novel pathogens or condemn very old people to die from septicaemia, Alzheimer’s, disabling strokes, Parkinson’s or cancer.
2. The vaccines have already been shown to be effective.
Similar claims were made about flu vaccines which we can now see have significantly underperformed.
3. The vaccines have already been shown to be safe.
Not true. Many health risks only become apparent when vaccines are approved for general application.
4. The vaccines will “solve” the Covid problem.
If you are healthy and under 70 there really isn’t a problem requiring a £200 billion solution.
But if you are in your mid 80s and your immune system is packing up, then the vaccine is not going to necessarily resolve your Covid problem just as v elderly people… Read more »
Yes, I watched some of it. Agrre with you.
The guy with the specs and the graphs caught my interest. I went back and forth on the rewind a couple of times.
The graph showing falling numbers of Infections/Cases (positive tests) was given about 500 millisecs of airtime. Other Graphs mislabeled, dodgy y-axes, usual stuff.
However, the graph of total deaths 2020 was particulary warped. I even sent a note to Toby and the gang – as below.
Seems like a great example of the kind of material which looks innoucuous but is actually spun to perfection….
Views ?
william.k.Tue, 24 Nov, 23:55 (30 minutes ago)
to lockdownsceptics
Hello Toby and co.
Great job so far . Keep it up.
Graph towards the end of prog. 10.45. Title as above. Absolutely no sign of March / April covid spike. Totally at odds with Karl H. Florence Nightingale charts. Source claimed as ONS.GOV.UK.
Narrative was about danger of contributing now to future Jan spike.
However the evidence of what actually happened over the March/April period this year has been changed. There was no sign of the real deaths March – April !
Worth a quick check and follow up. (maybe send it… Read more »
I missed that part – sounds as dodgy as a Vallance-Whitty chart presentation!
Right. Who was the bronzed strumpet please?
DavidC
Can’t argue with any of that, the tanning bed must have rearranged her braincells.
Or we can give our elderly Vitamin C and D. Isolating them weakens their immune systems even more!
What it’s like trying to explain to people that a disease that kills fewer than 1% of those who get it, with an average age of death above 80 years old, whose most common effect is that you don’t realise you’ve got it, isn’t going to kill us all:
https://youtu.be/GFD2ggNxR1g
I always think that saying ‘fewer than 1%’ makes it seem like quite a few.
I always say 0.1 to 0.14% max. – ie much less than 1%
One of our greatest burdens is the innumeracy of so many people.
Even those numbers are fabricated of course, because they include all of those who merely produced a positive PCR before death, and sometimes not even that.
Isn’t it better the other way round – over 99.8% of us haven’t died from the disease and the vast majority are already immune to the disease.
I think it’s even better if you just present Covid deaths as proportion of all deaths in the period. That contextualises it.
I’m not sure. If you say 10% for that figure a lot of people will assume you are talking about 10% ofvthe population!
I think use the Domestos approach – kills 99% of all germs dead! But switch it to over 99% not dead from Covid and add in the vast majority who do die are very old or already very sick people.
Just say less than one person in a thousand has died. Globally fewer than one on five thousand. These are the official figures!!
It’s not easy. Some people of few talents and few interests, with few friends are clearly wallowing in it all. I’m not just referring to Archbishop Welby when I say that.
That’s too much like rationality and factual information Mark.
DavidC
G
I think that was a mistake. Either that or GCHQ have hacked into my computer.
Glad you’re ok and GCHQ haven’t visited.
I was worried G was a strangulated version of Gggghhhhrgh!
It might as well be!
…Or GRRRRR!
DavidC
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/confidence_trickster.html
I read some SAGE papers earlier today. This is not to defend them, but there is more there than the media want to publish and it can be compelling to read what our Government has already been told….
For example there is a clearly written paper on the PRC-T that estimates a median false positive rate of 2.3%. Which dates from June.
A key line within “ Unless we understand the operational false positive rate of the UK’s RT-PCR testing system we risk overestimating the COVID-19 incidence, the demand on track and trace, and the extent of asymptomatic infection”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf
They are clear that the less widespread the disease is the more important false results either way are.
But surely this paper is the smoking? If the Government was warned 6 months ago about the risks of not knowing the false positive rate, how can everything that’s followed have been allowed to build the way it has ? The whole thing is a construction based on lies.
I might be over stating this or missing the bleeding obvious, but surely every MP who has gone on about the “case numbers” leading to a need for lockdown… Read more »
Yep. In a nutshell.
It doesn’t help though when members of sage and imperial make random statements in the press that seem to intentionally spread fear and concern to the public that in turn forces some kind of response from the government. Sage, their members and methodology are definitely not off the hook.
Not looking to get SAGE off a hook, far from it, but this is important in regards to pushing back. If the “cases” were never as high, and we can prove that the “Science” already warned of the false rates etc then we do have much more to
Throw back at the community who deny the false reading rate. I think Hancock was on some interview saying he did not know what it was ? Well frankly. He had a very very very good idea.
I’d hope it would make a difference but as the news that Chris Whitty said himself that the R number was reducing before we locked down (by implication meaning that full lockdown was not necessary) didn’t even cause a ripple in the media or make any practical difference to policy it’s hard to believe any other revelations can make much difference. Shouldn’t stop us trying of course.
Bad optics, one has to admit, for the Constabulary to spreadeagle an old lady and shoehorn her into the back of a police van, all in the presence of an MP.
So what does he do? Goes off and rants in coruscating rage to a near-empty House.
They don’t get it, do they? Parliament, emasculated and spaced-out, has become irrelevant. Boris has moved on.
Yes, exactly.
In the space of a few months parliament has become a quaint relic, with no more importance than a discussion around a provincial kitchen table.
Agreed. The political system is dead, and is not a vehicle for change.
The police have been absolutely brutal to anti lockdown protestors since May, including making one pass out after kneeling on him for too long. This is the first time the police brutality has actually attracted any attention by an MP – so positive.
If Charles Walker hadn’t been there the lady would have been reported on as ‘protestors clash with police’ which is the usual media headline when we get arrested for no reason.
Boris sadly only answers to Davos now not Parliament. The New World Order arrived in March, most just haven’t accepted it yet.
He may not even be aware that this happened, but if he is I’m sure Johnson found it hilarious. Oppressing and humiliating people is jolly good fun.
I don’t think Johnson and Hancock will be the slightest bit bothered unless it get media coverage. Other than Daily Mail online I can’t see any other coverage, so I think the media have let them off again. Just imagine if the police did this to an elderly black women at a BLM protest there would be outrage for weeks in the left wing London media (and rightly so). Anti-lockdown protestors are hated like Jews in 1930s Germany.
We’ve quite a way to go before we get to those levels. But the psychological foundations of this kind of apartheid have been laid. The one thing that will I think stop this from manifesting is that both the creators and supporters of the policies are extremely weak individuals.
The psychological foundations haver certainly been laid by the behavioural insights team and media – I think we are much further down the line than you believe.
Going by social media and newspaper comments there are hundreds of thousands who would happily man concentration camps for non-mask wearers and lockdown sceptics. I think anyone deemed to be anti-vaxx would certainly be sent straight for death with majority parliamentary support.
The world has been brainwashed.
“If Charles Walker hadn’t been there the lady would have been reported on as ‘protestors clash with police’ which is the usual media headline when we get arrested for no reason.”
Just another far right, antivaxxer nut throwing herself aggressively at the police….
But we don’t have to accept the NWO do we?
Resist Resist Resist!
“Why make this whole “pandemic” such a “scamdemic”? There are so many obvious, blatant holes; we’ve been noticing them for a long time, and millions have too. It seems too easy. The central planners themselves are giving us all the figures and the information we need to realize this “virus” is a nothing burger.
Why is that exactly?”
…..
“They know a big change is necessarily happening because the money system is unsustainable. It will be the greatest economic catastrophe in the history of money. They built a tower of debt over generations, and it has already been patched up beyond repair; rather than let it fall freely, its inevitable destruction must be controlled. They’ve been preparing for it for a long time.”
……
“If there is one revolutionary factor we can consider to try and predict the future, it is the Internet. Like the printing press or writing itself, it drastically reduces the cost of accessing ideas. But new ideas are built from old ideas, so the digital age actually reduces the cost of producing ideas, by several orders of magnitude. And more interaction of ideas favors the emergence of beauty and truth, as dictated by nature.”
….
“And… Read more »
I often wonder if 2020 is in fact their Samson Option playing out. They know they are defeated and want to take as many of us with them into hell as they possibly can.
That was Hitlers end game for Germany out of revenge for having failed him.
He achieved his most important aim which was not to surrender.
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2020/11/denmark-citizens-refuse-law-mandating-forced-covid-19-vaccine/
But aren’t the politician just going to back to the drawing board to force it through a different way in December? they need to keep the pressure on, the evil politicians won’t give up.
The people are many, and that is our strength. We could if we organise ourselves, overthrow these tyrants which is why they are petrified of resistance spreading, so they have particularly targeted our pubs clubs restaurants churches sports stadiums, anywhere where people congregate. They are scared of us! Just bear that in mind.
NHS …. Good News, over the last 7 days the total number of ‘covid’ patients in English NHS hospitals has gone up a bit, down a bit but overall has flat-lined, going from 13,626, – 7 days ago to 13587 today. This is despite the fact that over 1000 covid patients per day are admitted to hospital, if that number are being admitted but the total in hospital is staying the same then it must mean that apart from deaths a huge number of patients are being treated getting well and being discharged, which is sort of ‘what they invented hospital for’, all is well and the NHS is doing fine.
Today we had ONS total death figures, yes they are above the 5 year norm but well below the weekly totals we were getting in the bad flu season in 2018, so a reason to take note but not major concern.
And yet despite all this later this week our MPs will be asked to vote on the next batch of tiered lock-down measures. These will presumably be along the same lines as the current regs and will be made as Statutory Instruments issued under the Public Health Act… Read more »
No but if your MP is like mine, they are wilfully missing it.
I recalculated the deaths per year, as a percentage of the population, since 1950 based on today’s ONS data projected to the end of the year, it’s still at number 53 out of the last 70 years. There’s no mass death.
DavidC
Also – request – has anyone been analysing the CPR data and lateral flow test data?
Here’s the take a friend is working on and would welcome input from others
“The PCR test is just a case generator meaning there must have been a manipulation of the stats by fudging of a normal flu season ..the key may lie in child respiratory illness hospitalisations and mortalities “
it was commented earlier about BBC web featuring the black lady who was assaulted by police. Newsnight now doing a major feature about this incident. Still seen nothing on BBC about the guy at Liverpool protest or indeed any reaction about such activities at any other lockdown protests.
Now, what is the difference ?
Super-woke BBC. That’s the difference.
The BBC news editor said they wouldn’t give any coverage to causes they (the metropolitan elite) didn’t believe in. We don’t stand a chance of getting any positive coverage from the BBC they absolutely despise the anti-lockdown movement as it brings people of different ages, races and religions together for a common cause. The BBC seeks to divide society not unite.
Considering the Belarus situation, how much is in the brown envelope to the UK?
Just from the kindness of their hearts.
I hope everyone saw Captain Beefheart’s front page of The Guardian, posted late yesterday. Absolutely brilliant.
Here’s a project the Captain might enjoy, creating a nice range of Christmas cards for us, per this request:
I’d love to send a load of “more interesting” cards to people shortly. If I can’t buy something, I might have to make them myself.
The ones I have in mind start with sheep on the front…
There’s a new episode in here today if you have a hunt 🙂
Boris attacking the dreams of women.
My daughter produced an adorable child called Rosie with her loving partner 2 years ago. They had both wanted and planned for another child by now but political decisions, lies, greed, fear and interference got in the way of their happy plans. I hope it only pushed them back a few months.
Until March 2019 her loving partner was flying planes, mainly around Europe, something he had dreamed about since he was a boy. Things were looking great.
Her loving partner has not been able to fly since March 2020.
He lost his job in October 2020, like many others.
He is now doing odd jobs fitting windows and conservatories. He hates it but will persevere. He hopes to fly again.
My daughter is spending a few hours a week cleaning our house for money.
She also sells Body Shop products as a side line (not a bad one with shops shut again).
Great to see how people can react to adversity but crap that they have to suffer for the 0.001% who want to control us. Boris keeps doing things that make women suffer like limiting social contact, pushing back or prohibiting plans… Read more »
Women are easy prey for cowards. Keep your head up Sir. We win.
Men have been under attack for years why do we have to solve all the problems???
Women want and need their menfolk to be stronger and protective no matter what the feministas say.
We need every single person who has been grossly violated like this to stand up and resist the regulations. Their lives have already been ruined, but they need to raise their understanding to a new level – that this has been done to them deliberately by a criminal government of occupation that is waging war against its own people.
I do feel that, now this has gone on for 9 months, it is challenging some of our rights under the UN Charter of Human Rights;
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
What we can do about this? I have no idea but I think it is worthy of consideration.
Gym owners got angry and got concessions very easily. Open in all 3 tiers.
Shops kicked up a tiny fuss and they also will be open in all 3 tiers.
Maybe if people kicked up more of a fuss it would help their situation? Masks don’t make this easier as they trick us into thinking it is about others. It is not.
Gyms and shops don’t have to wear masks. People do and it makes them feel like shit. They avoid community like shops and churches. Avoid groups. The government has banned groups for a reason. It is obvious that people need to start standing up for themselves.
Another petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/331430
that has grown suspiciously slowly.
And regrouping!
One thing we shouldn’t be doing is accepting this crap.
Nothing, it is no use appealing to the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights due to Article 29, (2) in particular:
This can and is being used to negate all the previous articles. Though one might argue that Article 30 is relevant or that we are no longer a democratic society. To me and I’m not a Lawyer, my interpretation would be that the whole thing is legal double speak and a sham.
Thank you!
There are the delayed weddings, the sundered relationships at unis, the romantic holidays that never happened, the blind dates that should have happened, the dances that never took place…it’s horrific really. The fun suckers have hoovered up all the joys of life just so that 85 year olds can live to 85 and a quarter…maybe – but probably NOT when we get to the end of the story.
French ski resorts not to open before January. Another nail in my coffin and another £100k + in lost revenue.
Sorry to read that. I wish the people who made the rules had any humanity.
They’re sociopaths that’s why. These people are not normal human beings they are mentally deranged. I read that at least 30% of the political class are sociopaths, the only thing surprising about this is I would have put it higher than that!
Disgraceful. How can a ski resort not be ‘covid safe’?
Sorry about this – they really are awful. The irony is that everyone who is devoted to skiing is probably already immune. Ski resorts were blamed for the spread but will now be the safest places on the planet. Total herd immunity. Feel free to publish your business if allowed and I will try and be a customer one day. We’ve booked in France for 9th Jan and will hold on for a couple of weeks and see what they say. If restaurants and bars are still shut we will probably be forced to go somewhere else.
We used to go skiing every year, usually to the French Alps. It was our only holiday and we absolutely loved it but as we got older our knees let us down and so we swapped the snow for the beach instead.
Charles Walker, more please!
https://youtu.be/-rXtxOvH3pg
Sorry if already posted, hard to keep up.
He is visibly shaking with rage.
You can tell he’s angry, very angry, by the way he missteps a few times during the speech. That only happens if you’re very angry or very drunk!
He’d just witnessed the incident on the way into Parliament. So pretty incandescent I would say.
Apparently the woman was 78!
What a wonderful man, he may be the only hope of salvation now Steve Baker has gone to the dark side and realises he needs to appease his paymaster Bozo.
Charles Walker and Desmond Swayne have been the best.
I hope against hope that Walker or some of his colleagues will get so angry that they resign the whip.
Ah, forgot Sir Desmond. I think some of the older MPs (without wishing to cause them offence) will walk away soon when they realise they cannot affect change and are (through no fault of their own) unable to look after their constituents. Sadly many are too in love with annual pay rises, subsidised food and booze, allowances for seemingly everything and the seeming absence of a requirement to do any actual work to resign. Far too cushy a lifestyle who walk away from.
And how’s that SNP MP who travelled with Covid doing ?
Remarkably quiet, maybe doing chores for that pyscho Krankie somewhere in the depths of Holyrood, doubtless preparing for the large Christmas she will be celebrating
Are those the same cops that were running away at the BLM demo?
The very same, but don’t forget they took the knee in solidarity with the people who want to end their existence first. It’s hard to know what is the greater national shame, the police or the NHS
Who knew?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html
Ssshhhhhh! The vaccine stock price is just about holding.
With long term, widespread immunity now becoming clear, this is the answer to it all:
How To End The Covid-19 Threat, Right Now in [Market-Ticker] (market-ticker.org)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03217-0
Coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic virus discovered in Japan and Cambodia
Remember zerocovid fanatics always lauding Thailand,Vietnam,SK ,Taiwan and Japan having such effective C+19 policy? (The avoid naming China for obvious reasons)
This was a suspicion for a long time that similar virus been circulating in these countries giving them partial immunity. China is a big country but many parts in the South cold also have pre immunity to C-19.
Yes always suspected this of course the media have always said its cos of mask wearing and track and trace which iv always thought was bull
Japan never went big on T&T or mass testing, for instance.
This is an interesting finding but it seems unlikely to me that any predecessors of SARS2 wouldn’t have already gone around the world in less than a year as SARS2 di meaning the cross immunity situation was similar everywhere.
It’s speculative, of course, but it’s surely possible that a closely related virus might have sufficiently different characteristics simply not to spread as efficiently human to human? And it would be a good explanation for the present mystery of why east Asian countries have been so much less hit despite first world age profiles.
Yes it could be less infectious, but if it spread through those Asian countries why not the world?
Maybe only prevalent within the ranges of its bat hosts? Seems like there could be lots of possible reasons.
The fact that we end up with nonsense policy cults like ZeroCovid and “lets do what New Zealand did”. The Jon Ashworth school of “We should have locked down 2 weeks earlier and we’d be just like South Korea”.
We end up going to such awful rabbit holes thinking we understand the situation when we are far from it. The cost of such blinkered policy makers is extreme. We could lose years.
There are always going to be new viruses. Let’s just stay locked up away from the world and from life forever. Stay safe. Stop living to stay alive.
What is the consensus on what happens in March/April/whenever they are happy with the number of people they have forced the “vaccine” on. Can’t help but feel they’ll trot out a line of “we have made so many sacrifices, let’s have another 6 months of these restrictions, just to check the vaccine works properly, then you can go back to normal. Promise”
The said thing is the morons that make up the vast majority of the population will clap like the performing seals they are keep posting memes about how righteous they are on social media.
I think a lot more people are deeply uncomfortable about the vaccine than is being reported (as they should be). I haven’t yet spoken to a single person who has said they will be taking it voluntarily.
Good to know. By contrast I am sick of people telling me how excited they are and that they hope they don’t have to wait long to have it. Plus incredulity that I could think differently.
Their excitement will not last long. We have to let these people go I’m afraid. There will be no happy endings for them.
Agreed but the Govt are effectively putting folk over a barrel and dictating that you can’t have any semblance of a life unless you do. It is a lot like the fines system that has been in place, they know their rules make no sense and people don’t respect them, but have made the fallout from not following them life changing to ensure people do.
They are only threatening this at the moment and hoping that enough people simply assume it is mandatory when in fact it is not.
Much like how people think the “2 metre rule” is mandatory and actually a law. I don’t think you can trust the majority of the British people to make rational judgements and more. The infantilisation of society is coming on a pace and so many people seem delighted to have the burden of choice taken away from them in exchange for the perception they are a good global citizen
And another petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/323442
with a reply from the government at 10,000 signatures, which is the usual patronising blather – but also quite sinister when you look closely at their weasel words.
Like the muzzles
You have to assume that the 40% who said they would only take it after confirmation that all the MPs and their families have had it is probably a fair starting point for numbers against.
I reckon we are at about 50/50 right now, from a starting position of around 80/20 in favour a few months back. Like everything else, the momentum in our direction is painstakingly gradual. Sadly nowhere near fast enough to prevent serious and irreparable damage right across the board.
The test comes when the NHS staff are coerced into taking one or other of Pfizer or Oxford Vaccine/AstraZeneca next month. How many senior consultants will consent, or will you start to get mass resignations? If some come out publicly, it could be a game changer.
The opposition group is quite big and active.
Hope it will grow, and be confident to take on the management.
Agree. thing is, the rumours of gagging orders (and even threats & blackmail) are far and wide, a few have been documented by Toby on here. They may simply extend these orders, and force NHS staff to either stay silent, or alternatively, lie, and say they have had the vax even if they may not have done. Morally, yes, absolutely, if only a small number came out then it will get serious attention.
They are under enormous pressure. They have to dig deep though, as individuals, and collectively on behalf of more junior staff. The public have little trust in anyone apart from doctors and nurses, and they are now in the position where they must ‘publish and be damned’.
They’ll have to. Otherwise I feel many will take it as good to go.
There is a petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/550598
growing suspiciously slowly!
Plus the unexpected SM backlashes over small scale hints have shown there is at least some resistance. Someone earlier posted that even a mild supporter of all this is concerned.
Yeah my partner, who is a very mild sceptic who hates breaking rules, told me today she would be prepared to join violent protests if that happened. Which for her is extraordinary – she’s incredibly well behaved socially and hates making a fuss. If she thinks that then a hell of a lot of people must think the same.
I had a rant with a friend, referencing Lord Sumption’s warnings and the Qantas decision, that freedoms are being risked big time.
He said I sounded like a MAGA supporter and he can’t wait for the vaccine.
Some people are so lost.
Doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me. If anyone who claimed to be my friend reacted in such a way, they would never see or speak to me again.
Consign them to oblivion. They will soon realisee the truth.
I think this is the most significant issue we face. Whatever people think of it, the government is committed to the route of rolling out “The Vaccine” and they will not deviate from this. Vaccination will certainly take until at least April and no amount of debating facts and figures will deflect from the ‘killing granny’ and ‘we can’t stop now after all our sacrifices’ arguments that will continue to be promoted by the MSM.
The really big question is to what extent the restrictions will continue to apply after Easter 2021 (and remember we need time for the immune response to kick in post vaccination, so that timeline will inevitably move to early Summer). My fear is that there will be mainstream support (and relentless propaganda) for social distancing, mask wearing and endless testing to be carried on indefinitely, even in the post-vaccine world.
I can’t help but feel mask wearing, being forced to give details every time you go for a meal or a drink and restrictions on the numbers of people who can meet will never go away.
I grew up in pubs and love them as part of what made this country great and took advantage of being able to work from them most afternoons throughout the summer. What saddened me the most was every time you tried to simply walk in some masked goon shot up from the table where they were checking their Instagram and demanded to know what you wanted before you came in. I told one of these simpletons I was there to buy cat food and they “barred” me for “being rude and aggressive” towards a member of staff. A number of these places simply don’t deserve to survive, especially as they are all becoming unbearably woke about climate change, BLM etc.
The vaccines have not had to reach any bar in relation to transmission so, unless i’ve misunderstood, all we have at present is something that “may” reduce symptoms a bit.
So if the virus can still be transmitted, based on the official narrative that reducing the spread is key, what actually is the point of the vaccine?
The point of it is all the money it’s going to make for a few self-interested souls.
Yes – we’re back to the wise words of Orwell:
‘We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.’
They will define “herd immunity” (you know, the thing we already had by June) as them having vaccinated 80% of people. Since the take up will be more like 40% they’ll have no reason to stop the restrictions based on The Schience.
The only thing that will end it will be political pressure and this has been true pretty much since it started.
Just reading your comment exposes the insanity and the lies… What’s the Government going to do? Not waiting to see what the so called virus is going to do. We’re waiting instead on the decisions of conflicted interest ministers who seemingly have the power of gods and who can dictate how we live on a whim
Hack the Zoom!
The MEDIA pump the lies 24/7 THEY ARE TO BLAME.
STOP them and we WIN
Didn’t XR already try that?
Anybody know how the mass testing in liverpool is going it’s gone quiet as regards how it is progressing
Apparently the scousers nicked all the wheels off the army trucks.
They’re having no truck with this test mania.
.
There was a Newsnight item yesterday making pretty clear it had been a total flop and the good folk of Liverpool were having nothing to do with it. They were trying to blame it on socio-economic factors ie poverty but that was bull. Contrary to the view from BBC-Guardian land the people of Liverpool are not going round in rags begging pennies on street corners. The housing stock is good and people there probably have far more disposable income than in most parts of London. No, the Scousers just don’t trust the government – especially Boris who insulted their City. They had a public health rep on who made clear mass testing was a stupid waste of money and funds should be put into a targeted approach.
hoorah for liverpool – you’ll never walk alone! this is precisely what every city should do when they enforce the mass testing – ignore it!
I seriously think this government have lost the plot on all this!
It’s just to keep people distracted and off balance until the Magic Potion can be rolled out. Anyway – figures can be manipulated easily. How are we to know which are genuine?
Good to hear thought it had gone quiet
The team of Dan Walker and Munjetty were reporting this morning that it was such a success and it bodes well that the new tier system will be great because it means more testing around the country.
North Korean tv airs less propaganda.
Boris stated that it had brought down cases in Liverpool apparently. Well, not according to your own graphs which show a big fall before the Army even arrived.
I think it would be a great idea if the army mass tested BBC television centre. All those who test positive should self isolate for two weeks. Hopefully all of them.. Defund the BBC
Simon Dolan said today that the military were packing sites up.
Whilst there are criminals roaming free, elderly protestors are being arrested
https://twitter.com/Tridg98/status/1331236485748678657?s=20
Charles Walker shines once again
JANET STREET-PORTER: Who cares if The Crown twists history? I just want a regal soap opera, gorgeous clothes and an escape from lockdown misery. If I want the facts, I’ll Google them
JANET STREET-PORTER (inset): Thank God for the arrival of series four of The Crown, TV’s most over the top quality soap opera which has stopped millions of us going bonkers during these dreary days of lockdown. So does it matter whether The Crown is a true picture of everyday life in the world’s snootiest dysfunctional family? To be frank, the last thing I care about is truth or fact checking, or asking questions like ‘would the Queen really be indulging in polite chit chat with a man who had broken into her home (twice) and had the cheek to sit at the end of her bed and drone on about the failure of his career as a painter and decorator’.
Well, Janet, if our mass media’s representation of supposed reality is systematically twisted in certain directions by virtue of the kinds of opinions generally held by those who commission, broadcast and create drama, then that is likely to twist the popular idea of how reality was and therefore… Read more »
I’m sure there are many people who actually WANT to disregard the ‘roolz’ but they are afraid- not just afraid of confrontation, but fearful of the fines that they could face.
If a fine were incurred, how would it be presented? Would the person be arrested? What would happen if the fine weren’t paid?
Until now, people who had a record of arrest (for whatever reason) couldn’t enter the US (possibly Canada) and this would have a HUGE impact on many people’s lives – if ever we’re ”allowed” to travel again.
Perhaps all these answers are out there, and I’m just not well-informed.
To my mind the legal side of all this is questionable, most of the Lockdown rules are Statutory Instruments made under the Public Health Act 1984. As I understand it this Act does not create any arrestable offences, it was written to allow for a summons to be issued if, for example, rats were found in a hotel kitchen. You can only be arrested if you refuse to provide the requisite details to facilitate a summons being issued. It would need someone with a better knowledge of the law than me to expain how any arrests are being justified? It would also need a lawyer to say whether or not an offence committed under the Public Health Act amounts to a civil or a criminal matter? and thus whether that offence would appear on any criminal records?
Many are dearrested. Whatever that means.
Thank you, Mr M. I do think that many are afraid of a confrontation, no matter how unlikely it is, and therefore they go along with ‘the rules’ even though they’re resentful. But of course that’s what the PTB are counting on. Now it sometimes appears that the police have been weaponised, just the threat of confrontation worries many people.
Years ago I worked in the Complaints & Discipline Department of a police HQ. I’ve been wondering recently how such a department functions now! It used to be ”discourtesy” that was one of the main complaints! Ah – happy days!