Past the Peak?!? That Was Weeks Ago
Chief Medical Adviser Professor Chris Whitty told the Downing Street coronavirus press conference yesterday that the UK is “past the peak” of the current wave. The BBC has the details.
The UK is “past the peak” of the current wave of the pandemic but infection rates are still high, England’s Chief Medical Officer says.
Prof Chris Whitty said the number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths were on a “downward slope” but that did not mean there would not be another peak.
Boris Johnson praised the “colossal” effort to vaccinate 10 million people, including 90% of those aged over 75. But he said the NHS was still under “huge pressure”.
Speaking at a Downing Street briefing, Prof Whitty said while the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 had reduced “quite noticeably”, it was still above that of the first peak in April 2020. “So this is still a very major problem, but it is one that is heading the right way,” he said.
Prof Whitty said infection rates were “coming down but they are still incredibly high”. If the rate was to increase again “from the very high levels we are at the moment the NHS will get back into trouble extraordinarily fast”, he added.
Chris Whitty seems a little late to the party here. Data from the ZOE Covid Symptom App show infections in the UK peaked over three weeks ago, on January 12th, and are now well on the way down.
New daily infections peaked in the first few days of January.
In London, it was the end of December.
The decline continues apace, headed down towards levels not seen since September.
111 Covid triage data agrees.
The peak in the triage data is December 28th. As of February 4th, then, we’re a long way “past the peak”.
Yet despite this clear evidence that the peak and decline in infections kicked in well before the start of the January lockdown, the Government and its advisers continue to assert that it is only the restrictions keeping infections down. This explains why Boris continues to take the go-slow approach to opening up, despite the immense and permanent harm restrictions cause to children, jobs, mental health and so on.
Despite coming under pressure to join Scotland and Wales in opening schools sooner than March, the Prime Minister yesterday reiterated his original schedule, saying he “hoped” schools in England would be able to “begin” reopening from March 8th, and that the Government would outline a “route map” out of lockdown on February 22nd.
Yet the idea that it is Government restrictions that are keeping the virus at bay grows more implausible by the day.
Take a look at the graph below, which shows that the decline in infections from around January 12th kicked in not just in the UK but right across the world, regardless of what non-pharmaceutical interventions governments made or the stage of their vaccination programmes.
While not every country in the world conforms to this pattern, enough do for it to be seen as a global phenomenon. There is no indication here that the UK and South African variants are prolonging the crisis in those countries.
Why the winter (and in some places like South Africa, summer) epidemic went into decline around the same point in mid-January in countries all round the world is not entirely clear, though is likely to be linked to the progress of immunity in the population.
Yet more evidence that it is not primarily human interventions that drive the ebb and flow of this virus.
Stop Press: The Mail has picked up on the global drop, asking “Why ARE coronavirus cases plummeting? New infections have fallen 44% in the US and 30% globally in the past three weeks and experts say vaccine is NOT the main driver because only 8% of Americans and 13% people worldwide have received their first dose“. The main explanation offered by “officials” is population immunity. Another suggestion is the end of the so-called Christmas surge – though even the BBC has pointed out there is no evidence for this idea.
Why Hand Sanitisers Do More Harm Than Good
We’re publishing today a new piece by regular contributor and medical historian Dr Irina Metzler questioning the public health wisdom of all this obsessive germ blitzing. Here’s a taster.
Hand sanitisers, or hand satanisers as I prefer to dyslexise, are as ubiquitous a part of the pandemic as the masks. Unlike the masks, which will cause mainly individual problems (if you wear a mask, you’re restricting your own breathing, not someone else’s), hand sanitiser use at the level we’ve been seeing for the past 10 months is going to become one helluva headache in the none too distant future. That’s because apart from destroying your own, personal microbiome we’ve got a bigger picture to consider.
Antimicrobial resistance across the board had been getting worse already before the pandemic hit. Already in 2018 it was noted that alcohol-based hand sanitisers in particular were turning bacteria into the next level of ‘superbug’, namely VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococci), one of the leading causes of infections in hospitals.
“We have to be careful about this new trend towards heavy reliance on alcohol-based hand sanitisers. Soap and water should be our number-one protection” – both in hospitals and for personal use. The next question is whether the bacteria will continue to evolve and tolerate higher and higher doses of alcohol – or even stop responding entirely. “Is it possible for these organisms to develop complete resistance to alcohol?” These questions were also raised by researchers years before the advent of SARS-CoV-2 and the ubiquitous little bottles of hand gels.
It has a permanent place on our right-hand menu. Worth reading in full.
The Government is Gambling With People’s Lives
In a new piece that we’re publishing today, philosopher Ben Hawkins takes a look at lockdown through the lens of the “trolley problem”. What should you do when faced with a peril for which you are not personally responsible – what is it acceptable for you to sacrifice to try to avert it? Ben explains:
Imagine you are walking across a bridge over a rail line. Suddenly you hear screams coming from under the bridge. You look down and see that four people are tied to the tracks. What’s worse, you look up and see what looks like a runaway train carriage hurtling towards them. The carriage doesn’t look that big – if you could push a large object over the bridge in front of the carriage, you figure that it would be enough to stop the carriage and save the four people tied to the line. Looking around for such an object, you see an incredibly fat man stood at the edge of the bridge. He looks big enough to stop the carriage. Do you push him, knowing that falling from such a height and being hit by the carriage will almost certainly kill him? Do you sacrifice one life, to save four others?
This is an example of a trolley problem, a hypothetical scenario designed by ethicists to examine how we should behave in different situations. The above example is tricky, because whilst we would usually agree that four lives are more important than one life, the positive act of killing someone goes against many of our moral intuitions. Most people, when asked what they would do in this scenario, say they wouldn’t push the fat man.
Such abstract scenarios may seem irrelevant to real life. We certainly never expect to find ourselves in situations like the one described above – we don’t live in a world where people are frequently tied to train tracks, or where runaway train carriages can be stopped by pushing fat men off bridges. But the point isn’t to understand how we would behave in this particular situation, but to understand how we should behave when analogous situations arise in real life. And, in fact, we have such a real life situation to which such considerations can be applied. Lockdown.
Worth reading in full.
Why Face Masks Don’t Protect the Wearer
“Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review of Their Inadequacies” is the title, not as you might think of a recent article by a lockdown sceptic, but a piece written in 2016 by dentist John Hardie in Oral Health magazine. He begins:
For at least three decades a face mask has been deemed an essential component of the personal protective equipment worn by dental personnel. A current article, “Face Mask Performance: Are You Protected” gives the impression that masks are capable of providing an acceptable level of protection from airborne pathogens. Studies of recent diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Ebola Crisis combined with those of seasonal influenza and drug resistant tuberculosis have promoted a better understanding of how respiratory diseases are transmitted. Concurrently, with this appreciation, there have been a number of clinical investigations into the efficacy of protective devices such as face masks. This article will describe how the findings of such studies lead to a rethinking of the benefits of wearing a mask during the practice of dentistry. It will begin by describing new concepts relating to infection control especially personal protective equipment (PPE).
Hardie concludes:
The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection. Unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, national and provincial dental associations and regulatory agencies publicly admit this fact, they will be guilty of perpetuating a myth which will be a disservice to the dental profession and its patients.
It would be beneficial if, as a consequence of the review, all present infection control recommendations were subjected to the same rigorous testing as any new clinical intervention. Professional associations and governing bodies must ensure the clinical efficacy of quality improvement procedures prior to them being mandated. It is heartening to know that such a trend is gaining a momentum which might reveal the inadequacies of other long held dental infection control assumptions.
Prescient, you might think, and depressing that these lessons, of the need for rigorous testing of infection control measures and of the ineffectiveness of masks, were not learned.
Too prescient, it seems. For this article has been taken down from the publisher’s website, with just a note left in its place.
If you are looking for “Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review” by John Hardie, BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC, it has been removed. The content was published in 2016 and is no longer relevant in our current climate.
Please note that the content from Oral Health Group is primarily intended to educate and inform dental professionals.
Censorship and erasure of the past to try to shore up the flimsy case for face masks. Not exactly a sign of confidence in the evidence.
Lockdown Sceptics is pleased to make the article available to the public again. You can find it here.
SAGE Admits Masks Do Little to Help
SAGE quietly released a document on January 13th which admits that masks are no protection for the wearer, and though intended to protect others aren’t even very good at that. An independent researcher has taken a closer look for Lockdown Sceptics and explains further.
SAGE released a document in January prepared by a sub-committee, which it endorsed, saying that masks were primarily a source control (cloth and surgical masks are thought to offer the wearer little protection) and citing an estimate for their typical impact on transmission of 6-15% (possibly as high as 45%).
That document says in relation to source control: “Analysis of regional level data in several countries suggest this impact is typically around 6 – 15% (Cowling and Leung, 2020, Public Health England 2021) but could be as high as 45% (Mitze et al., 2020).”
A 6 – 15% reduction seems to be a lot lower than NERVTAG, SAGE and the Government have previously suggested – barely relevant. Moreover, the Cowling & Leung paper says: “While most research on face masks has involved surgical type face masks, it should be presumed that reusable cloth masks could provide similar benefits if they have a sufficient number of layers and preferably a filter.” So the 6 – 15% estimate seems to be for surgical masks. Cloth masks in reality usually have few layers (maybe only one) and no filter. So their effect is likely smaller still.
The Cowling & Leung paper is here. It is an editorial not a research paper in its own right.
The 6 – 15% estimate actually comes from a December 2020 review paper by Brainard et al.
They say: “Conclusion: Wearing face masks may reduce primary respiratory infection risk, probably by 6-15%. It is important to balance evidence from RCTs and observational studies when their conclusions widely differ and both are at risk of significant bias. COVID-19-specific studies are required.” They also say “The environmental and economic costs of regularly using face masks are notable, and only partly abated by reuse.”
Not exactly strong support for wearing masks!
Round-up
- “Capt Tom donations: What was the £33m spent on?” – BBC report explaining it went on snacks, tea breaks and a “well-being wing” for hospital staff. Perhaps some more ICU nurses might have been a better buy…
- “What the latest vaccine news means for lifting lockdown” – Kate Andrews in the Spectator writes that Government worries over ICU occupancy among the under-65s are keeping the brakes on the lockdown easing
- “Rishi Sunak concerned scientists are ‘moving goalposts’ on Covid lockdown” – Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph on the battle within Government to prioritise opening up over eliminating all risk
- “COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning?” – Nature feature by Dyani Lewis querying another Covid myth
- “No Hugging, No Kissing” – Latest episode of the GoodFellows podcast from the Hoover Institute where GBD co-author Professor Jay Bhattacharya joins John H. Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster and Bill Whalen to talk Covid and the future
- “Immunity & COVID-19” – New briefing note from the British Society for Immunology that is worth bookmarking
- “The Pandemic That Changed Nothing” – Left wing criticism of lockdown policy by Leila Mechoui and Alexander Davidson on the Bellows for how it penalises workers and benefits the wealthy
- “Move over, Dictator Dan: Marshal Mark is the new laughable Lord of the Lockdown” – Rocco Loiacono in Spectator Australia on the new tyrant in town
- “Coronavirus: no going back to normal” – Disturbing report from the Institute for Government by Bronwen Maddox arguing that “life after coronavirus will not feel like life before. It is best that Governments acknowledge that and start planning now… while not raising expectations that life will suddenly snap back to an almost forgotten normal”
- “Gab Lockdown Sceptics” – Join the new group here
- “Covid-19 pandemic causes a global democracy slump” – The 2020 edition of the Economist‘s Democracy Index finds the average global score fell from 5.44 to 5.37 – the worst score since the index began in 2006. And still pretty generous I would say
- “HS2 contractors to use social distancing hard hats” – Report from Construction Enquirer that a contractor on the project is to issue workers with hard hats that sound an alarm if they get too near each other
- “Understanding the drivers of transmission of SARS-CoV-2” – Comment piece in the Lancet by Laura Cornelissen and Emmanuel André expounding a study that confirms infectiousness is predicted by viral load and thus asymptomatic infection is not a major driver of transmission. They also note (with a hint of embarrassment) that mask-wearing has no relationship to risk of transmission
- “Californians Disapprove of Gov. Lockdown” – James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal on a new survey that indicates why Governor Gavin Newsom is now trying to reopen fast
- “Northern Ireland NHS cancels 4,000+ red flag cancer patients” – BBC reports on yet more collateral damage from the anti-Covid measures
- “No evidence of change in symptoms from new coronavirus variant” – Report from King’s College London drawing on ZOE app data confirming there are no significant differences in symptoms, severity or duration of disease from the Kentish variant
- “Dear Captain Tom: Rest in peace – not applause” – Emily Hill says he deserves more respect than this virtue signalling festival
- “UK seeing a ‘lack of appetite’ for regaining freedoms” – Brendan O’Neill tells Sky News Australia host Chris Kenny he’s worried about the “unwillingness of society to say ‘listen freedom is important and we need an actual date for when it’s going to be returned to us’”
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Eight today: “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac, “Strange Days” by the Doors, “Strange Town” by the Jam, “Ghost Town” by The Specials, “Enough is enough” by Donna Summer/Barbara Streisand, “What a fool believes” by Doobie brothers, “Know Your Rights” by The Clash and “Where Did All The Good Times Go” by Donnie Osmond.
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 as well as post comments below the line, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email Lockdown Sceptics 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.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And 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.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know 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. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
Stop Press: The US Federal Government is stepping up its mask requirements with new, stricter rules on public transport – which in America includes giving someone a lift. Breitbart News has the details.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest order, requiring individuals to wear masks when using public transportation or residing in transportation hubs, will be “further enforced by other federal authorities”, the agency announced in its order, which went into effect this week.
Under the order, individuals are required to wear masks while using public transportation, which includes “awaiting, boarding, disembarking, or traveling on airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares as they are traveling into, within, or out of the United States and U.S. territories”, per the CDC.
There are exemptions, but they are not generous, and notably children of three and up do not escape.
The order exempts those under the age of two, as well as individuals with certain disabilities. Individuals are also not required to wear a mask while eating or drinking “for brief periods of time” or communicating “for brief periods of time” with someone who is hearing impaired.
The CDC also specifies that individuals do not have to wear a mask if unconscious “for reasons other than sleeping”, or if they are “incapacitated, unable to be awakened, or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance”.
The order also permits those who are “experiencing difficulty breathing or shortness of breath or are feeling winded” to remove the mask “temporarily until able to resume normal breathing with the mask”.
“Persons who are vomiting should remove the mask until vomiting ceases,” the order states.
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 in October 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 over three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD 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”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road. The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. 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 and Runnymede Trust’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.
Scottish Church leaders from a range of Christian denominations have launched legal action, supported by the Christian Legal Centre against the Scottish Government’s attempt to close churches in Scotland for the first time since the the Stuart kings in the 17th century. The church leaders emphasised it is a disproportionate step, and one which has serious implications for freedom of religion.” Further information available here.
There’s the class action lawsuit being brought by Dr Reiner Fuellmich and his team in various countries against “the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product, PCR tests”. Dr Fuellmich explains the lawsuit in this video. Dr Fuellmich has also served cease and desist papers on Professor Christian Drosten, co-author of the Corman-Drosten paper which was the first and WHO-recommended PCR protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2. That paper, which was pivotal to the roll out of mass PCR testing, was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance on January 21st and accepted following peer review on January 22nd. The paper has been critically reviewed here by Pieter Borger and colleagues, who have also submitted a retraction request.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
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.)
And Finally…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Just had a guard at my usually friendly Sainsbury’s tell me I should wear the badge I flashed him around my neck.
Suffice to say he won’t now be doing that again.
This is encouraging
!
Stable and exponential are diametrically opposed. I can only assume this is the product of the kind of shoddy journalism we have come to expect from such not-so-venerable institutions as RTE (Ireland’s BBC). Shame on the writers, and the credulous readers, of such unutterable garbage.
Well, Friday has arrived and tonight I shall be going on a killing spree (as the government would have us believe). My favourite speakeasy is open for business, so naturally, I shall be putting on my glad rags & gathering with a few chums to have a drink or two. I shall raise a glass to my comrades here. Cheers, everyone. .
Oh, and before I forget: “FUCK YOU, BORIS!”
Have one for me!
I will 🙂
Have a good time, cheers. I just hope you don’t kill too many people in the process, I’m sure though that it won’t be any more than the vaccine has already done!.
Friday is the evening when I tend to leave my flat door accidentally unlocked and some local friends bust their way in with wine in hand to eat all the steak that I’ve prepared.
This is totally unacceptable! I wish I could get this to stop – it can’t be COVID secure and I’m sure we’ll all be dead soon.
I’ll be sure to have a Covid Marshal come round to seal up your door against those pesky visitors!
So selfish. I for one follow ALL the rules as they keep us safe. Currently I am in a supermarket alternating between screaming in terror, coughing at people, and laying very still on the floor…. Remember, act like you’ve got it.
Have fun and have a drink for me! I’m jealous…nothing here is open for business.
we live in a time when meeting a friend for a drink is a revolutionary act, an act of resistance, dealing a blow to tyranny
🤢🤮
Really is a big killer:
WOW!!
That’s out of 135 who died within 28 days of a positive PCR test for the same period.
Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/02/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-4-February-2021.xlsx
Or 148 whose death was ‘associated with Covid19’ since the start of the outbreak.
Today Plymouth.gov.uk.
Astonishing – or maybe not. Where did you get this? I’m in the area so have an especial interest.
A friend sent it to me.
Ok, many thanks. I’ll put in my own FoI request so I can cite it independently.
There has never been much covid around here, but that figure is still surprisingly low.
“This is the most fun we’ve had in weeks”
FFS!!!!!
Excuse my ignorance but lately I’m seeing lots of comments refering to ATL and BTL but as of yet I’ve yet to work out what those Acronyms are?
Above the line, below the line
Thanks, bugging me for days that!
You are not alone, it took me a while to work this one out. BTL is better than ATL, but would not exist without it, so we owe TY a debt of gratitude for creating this space in the first place.
Technically masks may work if they prevent you from putting your infected finger up your nose.
“If you’re healthy, then there is no need to wear a mask” – Prof John Nicholls, Hong Kong University – YouTube
You want to avoid an infected finger if you can ideally. Get a spike in your finger – take it out immediately. That’s what they tell me anyway.
Reminds me of the fable about the girl who was killed by a tiger. It seems a seer prophesied when she was born that she would die from a tiger. So her parents in a panic “wrapped her in cotton wool”, kept her away from any possible threat of tigers. They would not let her ever go outside her house where she might be attacked by a tiger, but t tried to make things as pleasant as possible at home, with lots of nice toys to play with, and lots of nice pictures on the wall.
Now one of those pictures was of a tiger. And one day, the picture fell from the wall, shattering glass, on which the girl cut herself. The wound thus caused got infected and eventually killed her. And thus she “died from a tiger”.
Such is life sometimes. And remember, keep that finger uninfected (but not with alcohol based sanitisers).
It may be painful for us to observe this obscene pantomime, but it will be far more painful for these idiots when they realise the following:
a) The restrictions are never going to be lifted, and will instead be progressively tightened.
b) They will be required to have multiple vaccinations every year for the rest of their lives.
c) Their health will steeply decline with each successive pharmaceutical intervention.
d) They will be living in crushing poverty for the rest of their lives.
On the upside, once the software and hardware updates are fully installed, they will no longer be human and will only have thoughts implanted by the A.I. hive mind. Human 2.0 is permanently happy, because this is its inserted algorithm.
Their pain will only be short lived. The post-human world awaits them. We will all be long gone by the time this manifests.
Less than 40 seconds in and the ‘lead nurse’ is pawing her mask, while it’s on her face.
I was struck by how “large” many of them are. Even the “slim” ones are actually quite chunky.
We are living through dark times. Why the sheer relentless propaganda? It’s so blatant.
I feel that over the past two weeks things have gotten even more sinister. Something is in the air.
We are in darkness yes – but the spring is coming. Here’s a genuine invite – come over to my place when the light returns – we are lucky to have space, the birds and trees. Bottom of Co Sligo – you are welcome and your family.
Indeed – my father in law has the same – I hope he hangs on a bit longer because, right now, there’s no way I will travel to the UK.
Families will be irrelevant in the new society. In time the vaccinated will not remember that they ever had any relatives or friends, or that they were organic biological beings with a natural birth and death.
Your view is too bleak to take on board. If you are right then there isn’t much left to hang onto is there?
On the contrary, there is everything to hang onto. Namely, our humanity and (if you believe in the metaphysical) our souls and a connection to a way out of here.
I am dissolving all attachments to this temporary place. If you zoom out far enough there’s really nothing substantial worth clinging onto. What we learn from this experience is more important than anything else.
This does not mean that I will shirk my moral obligation to fight the diabolical evil that has descended upon us. If anything this viewpoint energises me to be as combative and disruptive as I possibly can in all my interactions. I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by doing so.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
~ David Whyte ~
Oh come on Richard, sometimes you steer way too far off the rational path.
I readily admit that I occasionally indulge myself, particularly on the night shift. But is it really so strange given how far from the rational path our society has strayed?
I hear you, sir. Things are so crazy that the temptation to go all in is very strong…. but I’ve read your posts since last April and I know you’re not off the deep end, even if now and again you’re tempted to swim out into the endless deep.
This has revealed a lot about ourselves, to ourselves. I had no idea that recourse to metaphysical interpretations of the world was so prominent in my mind. I know it makes many on here seriously twitchy, because it sticks two fingers up at all the advances we have made since The Enlightenment. Faced with chaos, irrationality and insanity, the human mind grasps for extra-rational, extra-sensory explanations beyond that which can be physically observed. Pre-historic cave paintings in France – which would sell for millions as surrealist classics in any art gallery today by the way – show that little has changed in this regard since antiquity.
I’d love to have a drink with you one day and shoot the shit!
Well I am drinking right now so we’re half way there. If we ever get out of this, I think a gathering under a clear rural Canadian summer night sky round your gaff would be a ceremony of great importance.
We’ve got the fire pit and I’ll supply the food and booze!
Correct.
The controllers are trying to breakdown and atomize the current society so the can recollectivize it to their ideal.
Don’t internalise the propaganda. That’s how it works. Do whatever you want.
wtf are you paying any attention to their stupid rules? Go where you want. The only barriers are in your mind.
Sligo is beautiful!
Nearly all my relatives and friends are going merrily like sheep to the slaughter. I wouldn’t mind if I thought they’d given it some consideration and actually THOUGHT about it and what it might mean.
As you say – they seem to believe that it’ll bring freedom (”when this is all over”) when they have been TOLD that it doesn’t give protection in any way.
Like you, I am thoroughly depressed about it.
Those words, “when this is all over”. Ha bloody ha.
if only they knew – it hasn’t even got started yet. we’ve only seen the overture.
Do we pay Danegeld to the pharmaceutical industry these days?
I’m confused about how Capt. Tom died. Did he die of or with corona or of pneumonia? It sounds like he had pneumonia, went to hospital, then tested “positive” for corona then passed away. However, all the media, and even Johnson, are saying he died of corona.
Did I imagine it, or has there been something mentioned about the wearing of surgical muzzles? I hope I just misheard.
That idiot Kahn, pushing for surgical nappies in transport in London.
What a complete cunt. It seems he has lost his battle (for now at least) to secure outdoor mask mandates, so now has to proselytise for yet another Covid Cult imposition.
He might be Mayor of London indefinitely once the May 2021 elections are postponed (again). London will never recover from this. It is now officially a dead city, having been an empty, soulless corporate globalist shithole for years.
Germany is mandating N95 masks, and there have been Covid Extremists clamouring for a similar mandate here.
My mother’s recent hospitalisation (she is now back home and well thank fuck) forced me to consider what I might have to do in extreme circumstances. At a push I would have to consider wearing a bandana in order to do something absolutely necessary e.g. identify a relative’s dead body, although there have been commenters on here who have completed hospital appointments without wearing a mask at all.
But as soon as I have as much as touched one of those evil surgical masks, let alone put one on my face, my soul is destroyed, and I can never comment here again without being a fraud.
I never wear one. Sometimes in our small village shop I pull up a light cotton scarf over my mouth, because otherwise some elderly cringers try to climb the fixtures.
If ever there is a mandate that I can’t avoid I intend to punch large holes all over the muzzle around my mouth.
I can never comment here again without being a fraud.
Likewise.
Richard, sometimes we have to do what we have to do. It’s not a fraud if you value family and need to so something for your mom. If my husband or one of my kids were in hospital and needed me to advocate I would, under protest and great duress, be there for them. You could do as I have done — buy a “protest” mask so that if you do need to comply for a higher purpose you can do so while making it very clear you are not on board. I have a mask that says I Am Being Forced to Wear This and one that says This Sucks. I don’t remember the last time I had to pull one of them out of my purse since I never go anywhere anymore, but they are there in an emergency. Many on this site have had to decide between wearing the mask and feeding their families and I don’t judge if they choose the former and nobody would judge you.
Looking for something in Amazon Prime video, my eye was caught by a documentary made in 2005 called The Coming Pandemic.
Check out the trailer, 1.5 minutes. You won’t need Prime for that.
The documentary itself starts with the Spanish Flu in 1919, so I won’t probably won’t bother watching the rest. The trailer is very relevant to today though!
Youtube memory holed my comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_kbXYxiKE&feature=youtu.be
“Oops the wrong question, what about deaths in care homes after the jab…no no shut it down!! Look at these fools waving their hands about, “don’t give a platform to scaremongering” PAH!..Scare mongering! That’s a bit rich coming from these psychopaths who have spent the last year scaring everybody witless. Shame on you all! What about all those post jab deaths? OFF THE CHARTS AREN’T THEY! You bunch of evil lying gits. You people have BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!!!!!”
A vision of hell painted by the israeli Whitty :
https://www.timesofisrael.com/vaccinated-now-what-an-expert-offers-answers-for-israels-dosed-and-confused/
Are Dr Lee Merrit and others correct – is it possible that mRNA jabs may bring the risk of Antibody Dependent Enhanced Infections? We need to know
That risk is not confined to mRNA vaccines; it could be associated with any of the vaccines for this virus. It’s too soon to say. Because the trials prior to authorisation were so short we just don’t know. Most people are unaware of this risk and most of those who are aware don’t seem to care.
Big Pharma has been trying to produce vaccines for coronavirus infections for many years. In the animal trials all goes quite well, until the wild virus strain is introduced to the animal. The vaccinated animals then become badly afflicted with an enhanced infection reaction, as Dr Merritt outlines. Subsequently a large proportion of the animals will die.
Hard to believe that this huge drawback has now been solved and so perhaps the globalist depopulators have instead decided to turn it to their own advantage. Maybe in a year or so, when the Covid vaccine programmes are complete they will introduce an appropriate wild virus strain, which will mean that vaccinated persons will be in desperate trouble. Notice how the animal trials were dispensed with for these new vaccines.
The corollary to the above scenario, is that immense pressure will be placed on those who initially refuse vaccination. Too many unvaccinated people would obviously give the game away.
yes see here for more: https://www.bitchute.com/video/XKkLs0IYlGWf/
This Q&A addressed to the Israeli Whitty speaks volumes (my emphasis):
What about family gatherings?
We need to avoid mass gatherings as much as we can, especially in closed places. Outdoor meetings for family are still best, though if all people are vaccinated and can meet together in a house with windows open, that could be okay.
FFS! Are these people for real? What in the name of fuck is the purpose of the vaccine if you still have to do this!?
These people are pure fucking evil.
He even says that only a very small number of people – he says the vaccine is likely to be 92% effective, so he means something much smaller than 8% – won’t get any protection from the vaccine at all. The rest will either be fully protected against symptoms or will at least be protected against severe illness and hospitalisation. What the hell is required for some kind of normal life?
Yes. Reads like a nightmare!
Thoroughly depressing and frustrating to be so blatantly lied to.
Anyone who has taken the “vaccine,” especially in the last month or so, has been told masks and social distancing will still be required even for the “vaccinated.” They weren’t really lied to; they went along even after being told there will be no normal.
exactly! they heard what they wanted to hear, rather than listened to what was actually said [or not said]
Completely depressing.
I have escaped to my cabin in the woods of northern Scotland.
From here, it looks a far off, merry dance.
The trees, the birds, could not care less.
I feel that I am among my friends
The nonsense will end.
Best
Yes it’s good to connect with nature and gain perspective. But will this end? Bill Gates is talking enthusiastically about “the next pandemic”. If Covid and flu vaccines are successful we will be paying the ground for more novel pathogens to get a hold in old people’s lungs.
You talk as if Bill Gates is invincible. He’s not.
It’s not just Gates, the UK government is clearly up to its armpits in the corona scam. It is the government which is the main enemy.
,
I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say people like this are a danger to the human race. This virus is about the level of an unvaccinated flu. That is the benchmark that is being set for this kind of talk (my emphasis):
Dr Gabriel Scally
@GabrielScally
This scally is a particularly vile piece of work.
High on the list
A right fucking scallywag
Unless the bodies arrive at 2 AM in a dinghy or rubber raft, which is just dandy.
A very strange man. Does he have no happiness in his own life? If not, no need to take it out on the rest of us.
Scally is the peak of the club of insanity.
It’s a highly overpopulated club right now.
Now is about 15 months too late – and he must know that!
Besides, we can’t afford to self-isolate as an island. We’re not exactly self-sufficient.
“Fear of long-term consequences – many healthcare workers do not want to be vaccinated against Corona”
Only between 40 and 60 percent of healthcare workers in nursing homes want to be vaccinated. One reason: the uncertainty of the long-term consequences. Many employees in retirement and nursing homes do not want to be vaccinated against Corona. Although the vaccination would protect them, many are hesitant.
According to a survey by “10v10”, the willingness of nursing staff in retirement and nursing homes to be vaccinated varies between 40 and 60 percent nationwide, in some homes it is only 10 percent.
Stephanie Wiederkehr, head of nursing at the Solina retirement and nursing home in Steffisburg (BE), was also very reluctant about the Corona vaccination for a long time: “I was skeptical about the vaccine, because you always talk about long-term consequences that you don’t know yet..“
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/angst-vor-langzeitfolgen-viele-pflegende-wollen-sich-nicht-gegen-corona-impfen-lassen
And of course, they don’t know that the vaccine will protect them. Many of them already know that the vaccines will kill some people in the short term. For others the effects will take a while longer, but the second shots and boosters for the so called new variants will be a daunting prospect for care home staff. Similar problems arise for those working in hospitals.
Staff in these mandated vaccine hell holes need to get out, nothing good will come from their staying on.
The rate they’re culling the residents, the staff will soon be redundant anyway.
I do wonder how long it will be before this site takes the plunge and looks at adverse effects. It’s a line in the sand fast approaching I feel.
I am finding it increasingly disturbing how those who respond to these incidents with “it doesn’t mean they died because of the vaccine”. Sure, but as a starting position these are adverse reaction database and so what is their purpose if not to take it that they are related, then investigate.
Otherwise this could be actually leading to abortions
Whether such incidents/deaths are coincidences or not is merely a matter of probability theory, once one has a certain amount of data.
The government have reported no deaths due to the vaccine so far.That is impossible.If a site like this doesn’t raise it then who will.
One death in a care home soon after being treated us a coincidence, five within a short space of time should raise concerns. Two dozen dead, and the plod should be round there in a flash to investigate whether foul play is afoot, not dishing out bits of paper to friends sharing a cup of tea.
I stumbled on some on twitter earlier but I can’t relocate them. If I do, I’ll post them here. (Don’t have a twitter account, so not sure where I found the link, presumably from another link, internet rabbit hole scenario!)
Significant number of miscarriages. High number of women reported averse effects, suggesting this is health and care workers.
For anyone who sees this, that’s 8 miscarriages (I ciuhh oh for make it out). . In the US. I don’t know if they’re vaccinating pregnant women in the UK. But wow!
.
Just wondering if there’s any other country in the world worried about the totalitarian state we’re currently living under or has the same thing happened everywhere? Is it worse here than other developed countries? Do other countries think we’re stupid for just putting up with it?
It has been spoken of on Sky News Australia and they’ve been quite scathing of Johnson and his policies.
But of course he’s selling us as the plague pit of the world.
That’s because he has sold his own country down the river!
As far as I can tell the whole planet is an insane asylum, with a handful of islands of sanity that will in time be swallowed up. I have friends and colleagues in various other countries who have been subjected to all manner of indignities far in excess of anything we’ve experienced here.
The US MSM have ramped up their Soviet smear campaign against Governor Noem in South Dakota.
They probably figure it’s good practice for when they go after DeSantis in Florida.
If politics was real, she should be positioning herself to run as the Republican candidate for President in 2024. But it isn’t, so she won’t. I have a mate who lives in Iowa right on the border with South Dakota. He often drives there just to experience a bit of old fashioned American freedom. According to him the difference in atmosphere is palpable, even between two rural Midwest states, as far as he can tell almost singlehandedly due to the heroic resistance of Kristi Noem.
I am quite jealous of your mate.
I am looking at property in SD to escape my gulag state.
Gov. Noem is a gem. Expect the MSM to run the Palin playbook on her x100.
For a variety of reasons, Iowa has become extremely Soviet in recent years.
From what he’s told me Iowa varies wildly from county to county depending on whether local officials are Democrats or Republicans. State wide mask mandates were resisted by its Republican governor for longer than most, but eventually she was pressured into compliance. There have not yet been any shelter in place and very few closure orders.
The nightmare scenario of course would be to move to South Dakota only to have Noem deposed and replaced by a liberal (in the narrow American political sense) creature of hell preaching Covid Cult totalitarianism.
I can tell you that it’s just as bad here in Canada. There are groups pushing back and lawsuits waiting to be heard, but we are still very much in the minority. I don’t know if or when the masses will wake up. We are living in a police state and most citizens are begging for more. Some days I really do despair.
Ridiculous story of an old lady being literally held hostage in a Vancouver hospital because she wouldn’t have a covid test. Fortunately they did treat her UTI but they wouldn’t let her be discharged without having a test, even though her doctor said there was no medical reason she couldn’t go home. The whole family turned out to try to rescue her and about ten cops were guarding the doors and refusing them entry. They released her after 24 hours, a sort of quarantine period I suppose.
Truly disturbing stuff.
Hadn’t heard that story, but I’m sorry to say it doesn’t surprise me. My one goal in life now is to stay healthy and avoid doctors and hospitals at all costs.
Check out this video of a woman at Calgary airport in tears after being separated from her son by the Covid police state:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpIwg4EIepM
She comes across as a really nice person, but hopelessly naïve. This is her wake up call to the evil of the system that she has believed in all her life. We desperately need, and will be getting, much more of this kind of thing in order to open up more minds.
I see a global bifurcation.
On the one hand we have the heavily indebted and highly taxed welfare states of the Anglosphere and the EU and a few dependent fiefdoms elsewhere. This is where the measures are most authoritarian and getting more so. In these countries lockdowns are being maintained with SD and masks. Treatments such as HCQ are difficult to access or even banned and the emphasis is on mRNA vaccines.
Outside of this in the developing and non-western world there are increasingly few if any lockdowns and no SD, although symbolic masl-wearing remains.
In these countries the emphasis is on traditional Russian or Chinese vaccines and the use of HCQ and invermectin is common.
In this second group I’m thinking particularly of Eurasia, including Russia, Belarus and so on – even China, but also India and Brazil.
For me this strengthens the idea that there is a Financial Reset coming, during which welfare states collapse, savings in the West are destroyed and living standards in the West have to be managed downwards.
This would neatly explain why in these countries restrictions are being consolidated. To my mind the restrictions on movement in time and space, as well as… Read more »
Basically the Algeria model.
The oligarchs there have a very fine sense of giving their people just enough to be content while keeping them mostly in penury.
Yes.
I don’t think it will work, mind you.
You can only game these scenarios so far, before unintended cascades of events begin to kick in. Eventually sometthing really big will happen which nobody had any idea was coming.
The best laid plans of mice and men.
In my opinion we are still very much in the preparation stage,
Agreed. This could still turn very quickly in a cascade of unexpected events. Or it could take generations. I hope for the former, although the result could be chaotic rather than a restoration.
A cry from the heart from Dave Cullen …. like many of us, he can see the darkness falling.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/gTHPeNv3EJBN/
He’s been great throughout. I particularly enjoyed his angle on the “opening up” of the Isle of Man. Not organic at all, but egregious propaganda to stigmatise rule breakers and reinforce never ending lockdowns – unless we shut the UK border in perpetuity.
I used to travel regularly, but have detached from society to such an extent that overseas travel is now inconceivable. No threats or coercion to do anything will work, because there is nothing to be rewarded with for obeying. Society has literally ceased to exist.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I was so upset at the idea of never going overseas again, but now I couldn’t care less. No desire to travel to places that are as bad or worse than here, and I will never wear a mask on a plane. My only hope for travel is if the Canada/US border opens up to car travel and I can escape to Florida or one of the other open states. This latest piece from Dave Cullen is very powerful. My Covid terrified friends have a daughter in medical school in Dublin and I’m not sure they know yet that they may not see her again until 2022. She was here visiting over the holidays but things have changed dramatically since she returned to Ireland. From the sounds of Dave’s video, she’s probably stuck in Ireland indefinitely.
Even the so-called “open” states will be chock full of mask wearers, regardless of whether it is mandated or not. If I see one person wearing that hideous symbol of the fall of humanity, the place is instantly invalidated, and not worth being in.
My standards have sunk so low I’d be satisfied if the zombification becomes voluntary again. I find it disturbing to see as well, so high compliance may be a non-starter for me as well. You’re right that mask compliance is high even in states like Florida, but at least there are no fines associated with non-compliance. I’m hoping by the time the border re-opens, if it ever does, mask compliance in those states will have declined dramatically. A girl can dream…
I feel that way too, Richard. Our holiday to Japan was cancelled in March last year; I’m desperate to go there again, as well as other places too. But, I’m not willing to visit anywhere under these current dire circumstances. I want to be free when I travel.
Regrettably i agree with you. I love travel and have travelled widely for work and leisure and I’m now almost a recluse working at home, living on my own. Travel this year isn’t going to happen regardless of the snippets of hope/optimism the politburo throw to the masses. I hope they will wake up but lacking any backbone in society i doubt it.
Great as usual but has depressed me immensely.i can’t see what will wake enough people up
Francis Hoar has an article in the Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/legal-travel-companies-force-staff-get-vaccinated/
I haven’t read it (paywall), but the subject seems interesting.
http://web.archive.org/web/20210204214417/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/legal-travel-companies-force-staff-get-vaccinated/
Thank you very much! It doesn’t sound very encouraging – “there are no clear answers”…
Not at all.
I bit and commented 😠
Bad news for the McKernan group wanting Eurosurveillance to withdraw the Drosten PCR paper(the one peer reviewed in 30 hours). After 2 months considerations with five unnamed experts they haved decided not to retract it. The original PCR test have been modified and rectified over the world.
https://twitter.com/Bobby_Network/status/1357394895112175619
Perhaps this is not bad news. It serves to demonstrate more clearly than ever that much of what masquerades as “science” is nothing more than a corporate circle jerk.
All of our institutions are rotten to the core and irredeemably corrupted. If we build a new society on these foundations it will fail spectacularly and horribly.
is there a possibility that all of our politicians , doctors, scientists are being set up and exposed as lying corrupted criminals by an unknown power but the masses are still too thick to see it?
I have been pondering this possibility for some time. The unknown power you refer to could be beyond anything that we can comprehend. Maybe we are not meant to. But its message is getting through loud and clear to many on here. No attempt at a cover up is being made. Everything is being revealed. Judging by the response of the masses, it will take many more levels of absurdity before critical mass is reached.
Recommend “That Hideous Strength” by C.S. Lewis.
I’m not very religious, but to me it really feels as though there is a cosmic evil force at work in the world, something far larger than just mankind.
Massive astrological stuff is ongoing right now. Not evil but certainly revealing uncomfortable truths and forcing people to evaluate their priorities.
The planets have all been clustered together at one side of the chart. A unique phenomenon.
A shift is underway and a reset can clearly be seen in the charts. What kind of reset will depend on our level of consciousness. Fear of course lowers consciousness dramatically. That’s partly what the merciless propaganda campaign is about.
Yep this is what I’ve heard too. ‘Revealing uncomfortable truths.’ Yep, the light is illuminating some hitherto very dark corners where shit has lurked for centuries. All the metaphysics points to this being the last ‘hurrah’ of the dark energy. When it turns itcould happen very quickly.
“Revealing uncomfortable truths.”
Love him or not, this may be the Donald’s number one achievement during his time as President of the United States.
I know what you mean. In early 2016 I had this overwhelming feeling that something was going to happen, though I couldn’t tell if it was going to be good or bad. This feeling has been with me ever since. It truly seems like the Devil is out in the world.
Not so sure it’ll take that long. .I think it’s speeding up. People are tiring of ‘variants’ and other bulshit. I really don’t think TPTB are going to be able to sustain this through the summer. Without inventing another ‘challenge’ and then more people will see through it. I think we have the momentum now.
It really is about waking up.
Vox Day has been on the case of scientism for years now. The peer review process is broken, the funding streams and incentives preclude any efforts to reproduce sketchy results or challenge a null hypothesis.
If Vox isn’t to your tastes, perhaps you can tolerate Tom Chivers from a year ago: https://unherd.com/2018/02/flawed-science-concern-us/
Science corrupts.
And absolute science corrupts absolutely.
Why is it that in the late evening utter bollocks gains traction?
Voices in your head again?
Lawyers wrote that short yet distracting response – I’m in with McKernan for the long haul.
[email protected]
Email your disapproval here. You have to think that some legal redress is an option and they will have to defend their decision. However, such a process will be dragged out to very long grass.
This is extremely disappointing. I felt like it needed something like this for some pushback. A big blow.
I would like to gauge the feeling in the scientific community as it looks like a gaping would in the whole process. This site will report on it so I’ll be interested to see the responses.
Retraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/tony-holohan-offers-sympathy-but-no-apology-to-women-affected-by-cervicalcheck-controversy-40053817.html
Deviating slightly off topic here – Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer, who is leading the lockdown calls in Ireland, has scandal in his past in relation to a failed cervical smear scandal in Ireland, for which he refuses to apologise.
What strikes me is the cognitive dissonance that people cannot see the arrogance and fuck up of Cervical Check (the name of the failed program) and figure out that what he is currently doing in relation to COVID is also a failure.
Potater O’Whereareyer is a gifted politician indeed.
https://youtu.be/tdn4zgJ6408
Carl Vernon. Interesting short video which encompasses several aspects of lockdown. Britain is having a lie in.
Sturgeon attacks children’s minds. Sturgeon has said today that schooling ay continue through the summer holiday period. Placing children with uncertainty about their summer.
If this sounds petty and insignificant relative to people dying and childrens lost schooling consider how much school holidays (freedom) meant to you.
It will take 12 years to work out the lockdown from the education system. By placing uncertainty into minds of children sturgeon has made an attack on children imo.
I think you underestimate how much children live in the moment and for most of them, anything is better than being at school.
I also think you overestimate the benefit that being at school gives them.
The truth is, the kids need to be in the day-prison so that mummy and daddy can go to work like good little tax cattle – especially given the credit card bill Nic has just had for last year.
“for most of them, anything is better than being at school.”
For a while, maybe. For most of a year? I don’t think so. Especially as the alternative to school is: Not going anywhere, not seeing your mates, parents tetchy, stuck indoors.
In any case, school is about socialisation as much as it is about education, and they are not getting socialised anywhere else either because everything is illegal.
And even if they think being at home is better than school, that doesn’t mean that it is
I do wish you wouldn’t temper my hyperbolic rants with your criminally reasonable points, Julian. It messes with my rhythm.
Ah sorry; nothing personal
😀
I cannot see why nobody is suggesting extending the school leaving age to 17 to compensate for all the lost time of the past year.
It would certainly save a few million additional dole claimers each year, since those leaving in the next three to four years willl struggle to catch up.
Isn’t the school-leaving age 18 now anyway?
👍✅
Yes, of course school is vitally important – I am surprised it is taken i am arguing for no school. I am not. If you recall back to your own childhood having a holiday was a highlight. The pay off, something to look forward to. Exploring local areas with friends doing things that were different, things in the family.
These are not arbitrary things that pale next to double maths and history. These freedoms give purpose to learning, they are hugely educational and give each of us experiences that we treasure.
Putting a doubt on that light at the end of the tunnel is no different to the attack of continuously extending lockdown without identifying when it will be released.
It is inhuman, the cruelty of maybe taking away children’s summer. Come with the plan, how it will be. Not a maybe.
You make a very good point about the importance of structure and certainty, but it’s a matter of guidance rather than a cast iron rule. Adverse events can toughen kids up. Burst some of that bubblewrap, so to speak.
When I started at secondary school, there were massive teachers strikes on… we lost getting on for half a year of lessons… during the same period, my family was homeless for about 4 months. The whole family lived in one room of a relative’s house. We kids bounced back damned quickly in the grand scheme of things.
A couple of years later, having changed schools, one of the lads who was always top of the class was absent half the time due to his cerebral palsy, but he did extremely well.
I’m with you here! I don’t even use schools as my child is Home Ed, but fit those children not enduring bullying, violence, grooming, or various other less savoury aspects of schooling, it is the one guaranteed place they can see others around the same age as themselves.
I’m going spare having to keep my child socialised remotely. I feel like a Pioneer, with just the one child, crossing the prairie of lockdown. And the visible degeneration in the welfare of the younger kids that walk past my windows every day on their way to wherever with their parents, is marked. They have very little emotion left in them at all. I don’t miss the screaming tantrums. But I do miss the joyous laughter.
I don’t think I under estimate anything here.
“for most of them, anything is better than being at school“
Not at all for most.
… which doesn’t mean that they love it unreservedly all the time – but not being at school is … well … a psychological lockup.
Extending schooling over the summer holiday period has the advantage (for the lockdownistas) of making it impossible for families to have a summer holiday and preventing any return to ‘normality’ in that sense.