15 Million People Vaccinated. Time to Re-open?
Yesterday the Prime Minister formally confirmed that 15 million people had received the first dose of the vaccine.
That’s two days ahead of schedule. So now what? The announcement of a ‘road map’ out of lockdown is expected next Monday, with restrictions set to be eased from March 8th. Hints of what this easing might look like continue to be reported. The Telegraph highlights the prospect that Grandparents will be allowed to hug their grandchildren.
Grandparents would be able to see their grandchildren again from as early as March under plans to ease lockdown being considered by the Government…
“If grandparents had had the vaccine, that would be likely to be okay. Given that people will have immunity, that would be a fair assumption, but nothing has been decided,” said a Government source.
MailOnline suggests high street shops may reopen and some limited self-catering holidays at Easter my be allowed.
It is thought that this could mean the re-opening of High Street shops within weeks as well as the easing of restrictions on outdoor exercise and socialising.
Ministers are also said to be considering plans to allow for families of a single household to travel across the UK for an Easter holiday in self-catered accommodation.
However, there remains a fair degree of official nervousness about the prospect of reopening leading to increased infections, according to MailOnline.
It is thought that due to the vaccine rollout success ministers are currently looking at plans that would allow families that live in the same household to go away for self-catered staycations as soon as the Easter holidays.
This has raised fears that letting people travel long distances to their destinations could lead to “big movements” across the UK – potentially leading to a spike in coronavirus cases once again…
But the Prime Minister said: “Thanks to the efforts of the British people, the lockdown, plus possibly the effect of the vaccine, we’re going to see the rates coming down more sharply.
“They’re falling at the moment, we want to be in a position where we can begin to open up.”
In the interview with US television network CBS, Mr Johnson continued: “What people want to see is clarity about the way forward, and taking steps to unlock, which you don’t then have to reverse.”
Readers will well remember his cautiousness in his announcement of Lockdown 3.0 on January 4th.
If we succeed in vaccinating all those groups, we will have removed huge numbers of people from the path of the virus.
And of course, that will eventually enable us to lift many of the restrictions we have endured for so long.
I must stress that even if we achieve this goal, there remains a time lag of two to three weeks from getting a jab to receiving immunity.
And there will be a further time lag before the pressure on the NHS is lifted.
Come on Boris. Screw your courage to the sticking place!
Stop Press: St Austell Brewery and other industry leaders have written a strong letter to the Prime Minister urging him to allow pubs to reopen.
We must be allowed to reopen in an economically viable manner – not with ill conceived, unworkable restrictions that confuse the public, limit our financial viability and are questionable in terms of mitigating public health risk.
Stop Press 2: The Telegraph points out that the vaccine data is not quite so clear cut. Fifteen million doses have been administered, but out-of-date figures and blind spots in the publicly available statistics make it difficult to assess who has had the jab with complete certainty.
Hotel Quarantine Opens for Business
Today is the day the new rules for entry in the United Kingdom come into force. Unsurprisingly, chaos is expected at ports of entry. The Telegraph has more.
Heathrow has warned of quarantine chaos that could lead to passengers queueing for up to five hours and flights being suspended as the Government’s new border controls come into force on Monday.
The airport warned ministers the extra checks needed on arrivals and shortages of Border Force staff could “compromise” the safety of up to 8,000 passengers a day flying into Heathrow to quarantine either in Government-approved hotels or at home.
Border Force officials estimate the checks on whether passengers have come from one of the 33 red list countries and paid for their quarantine hotels and Covid tests could double the time taken to 15 minutes per arrival. E-gates have been shut because of the need for face-to-face checks….
A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Our key concern remains the ability of Border Force to cope. Queues at the border in recent days of almost five hours are totally unacceptable.”
From today, anyone heading for England must now undergo at least three tests. The first in the three days prior to travel, and the second and third during their 10-day quarantine. These latter two tests must be purchased at a cost of £210 as a “Covid Testing Package”.
That’s just for those arriving from a country that isn’t one of the 33 that have been red-listed. Anyone arriving in England from one of those must book a 10 day (11 night) “Managed Quarantine Package” which includes hotel stay, food and beverages, transfers, security and two COVID-19 tests at a total cost of £1,750. Failure to do so may mean a fine of £10,000 or 10 years in jail – or possibly both. Heathrow, according to the Telegraph report, is pleading for some leniency.
Heathrow is also urging the Government not to issue £4,000 fines to red list passengers who have failed to book their hotels in recognition of the technical problems that crashed the official booking website for 24 hours last week. The airport has offered facilities for them to make the bookings.
The booking portal is here should any overseas readers really want to come to England at the moment. CityAM reports that contracts have been secured with 16 hotels close to airports and sea ports, a total of 4,600 rooms. Grant Shapps estimates that the number coming in from the relevant countries “probably comes to less than 1,000 a day”. Better hope so, or he will be needing more rooms. Some fear that these hotels might turn into infection hotspots, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Ahead of the new rules being introduced at midnight, Meher Nawab, chief executive of the London Hotel Group, warned that many airport hotels rely on central air flow systems.
Pointing to Australia’s system – which is currently under review amid an outbreak linked to quarantine hotels – he warned such systems could increase the risk of the virus spreading between guests and hotel staff.
Mr Nawab also warned that airport hotels often use central air conditioning systems – rather than individual units – and sometimes have windows that cannot be opened.
The warning comes as passengers were seen making a desperate dash to return to the UK before the rules come into force.
Union chiefs meanwhile warned that the quarantine measures were not enough to prevent Covid variants spreading in the UK.
The GMB union also raised concerns about its members interacting with arrivals from ‘red listed’ countries which are included in the quarantine hotel scheme.
Who Decided Which Countries Should be on the ‘Red List’ and Why?
How do they choose which country’s visitors should go into quarantine? Lockdown Sceptics contributor Jonny Peppiatt has taken a close look at the ‘red list’ and can’t see the logic.
With hotel quarantine coming into effect on Monday, I think it’s time we did some armchair sleuthing into the countries on our red list, because when I saw the list it struck me, on first impression, as a broadly random selection of countries that, if anything, seemed more anti-African and anti-South American than anything else.
Of course, South Africa and Brazil feature in there because of the two now world-renowned “Variants of Concern” (VOC) named after those countries – 501Y.V2 (of which, the UK has more cases than all other countries combined bar South Africa) and P.1, respectively. Other than these two “VOCs”, it is difficult to see what explanation could be offered for adding other countries to the red list (seeing as there are no other major nationally branded “VOCs”), other than their case rates rising rapidly, or staying at a very high level.
The explanation often cited is that we are defending our borders against unknown variants. But if that is the case, why highlight individual countries and not just shut our borders to everyone? Are some countries more likely to create “VOCs” than others? If so, why? I’m not sure that’s a line of questioning anyone on SAGE would be happy to be taken down…
Perhaps it’s a case of restricting travel from countries around SA and Brazil. There’s an argument to be made here, with every country on mainland South America on the red list, along with Panama. But if Panama is on the list, why not Trinidad and Tobago, or Curacao, or Aruba, or Grenada, and so on and so on.
Of course, you also have all countries south of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the list. But why would you add Mauritius but not Madagascar? Or the Seychelles, or Cape Verde? These seem more like holiday destinations the Government is seeking to dissuade travel to than genuine threats.
So, other than broadly being countries near SA or Brazil, the infection rate must be a factor. So, let’s take a look at that. But, before we do, maybe it would be helpful to have the list of 33 countries to hand:
Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores), Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Let’s start with the ludicrous: four of these countries (French Guiana, Mauritius, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe) recorded no cases on February 11th. None. It’s worth worth noting that Tanzania hasn’t recorded a single case since May 8th when their Matt Hancock was sacked after a positive test being obtained from a papaya.
Another 14 countries have case rates per million in double figures. These are Angola, Burundi, DR of Congo, Lesotho, Rwanda, Malawi, Venezuela, Mozambique, Namibia, Suriname, Eswatini, Guyana, Zambia and South Africa – yes, South Africa, that terrifying country that is rife with mutant variants. The highest of these is 56 cases per million.
For reference, the UK, despite having fallen by 80% since the peak of daily reported cases on the 8th January, has 199 cases per million.
And sure enough, another nine of our 33 red listed countries, while having triple-figure case rates, still have lower case rates than us. These nine are Cape Verde, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Panama, and Chile. Have we missed any South American or southern African countries?
Oh yes, of course, Brazil, home to VOC P.1, Peru, Botswana and the Seychelles.
Let’s look at these in more detail.
Peru
- Cases reported: 11th February: 6,724
- Case rate per million: 204
- Trend: Seems to be reaching a peak, but the cases curve looks different to any other I’ve seen.
- Variants of concern: Indeterminable from my armchair.
- Conclusion: If you’re applying the precautionary principle, including Peru on the red list seems fairly reasonable, I suppose.
Botswana
- Cases reported: 11th February: 491
- Case rate per million: 209
- Trend: Nothing has really changed since the middle of October.
- Conclusion: What on earth is happening in Botswana? Why has nothing changed for four months? That seems very weird. Yes, let’s keep them out. Thanks.
Brazil
- Cases reported: 11th February: 54,742
- Cases per million: 258
- Trend: Broadly unchanged since early January.
- Trend of neighbouring countries: Argentina has fallen 47% since peak on 12th January; Panama has fallen 84% since peak on 6th January; Colombia has fallen 63% since peak on 14th January; Bolivia has fallen 53% since peak on 27th January; Suriname has fallen 77% since peak on 12th January; Uruguay down 63% since peak 14th January; Venezuela has been low since mid-October; Paraguay has been broadly unchanged since September; Guyana low since August; Ecuador hasn’t really changed since April.
- Conclusion: There just doesn’t appear to be a hugely concerning variant of concern ripping through South America right now…
The Seychelles
- Cases reported: 11th February: 73
- Cases per million: 745
- Trend: Cases appear to be growing.
- Conclusion: Surely, having a sample size of less than 100,000 (i.e. their entire population) means that cases per million will just be distorted. I’m not sure a comparison here is worthwhile at all.
We have two countries left on our list: Portugal and UAE – the only two countries on the list not in Africa or South America. With cases per million of 341 and 356 respectively, you could almost accept these two being on the red list, but Portugal has seen a decline of 79% daily cases reported since its peak on January 28th, and UAE appears to have peaked on January 29th, although it isn’t coming down as quickly as some other countries on this list.
If I were to speculate as to how the Government had come up with this list, I would say that Grant Shapps has drawn a big circle around Brazil and South Africa on a big map, and thrown any countries that appear in those circles on to the list without bothering to look at individual case rates in any of these countries.
However, they forgot to include all the little countries around the north coast of Venezuela. They also forgot Madagascar.
Then, they did a quick google search for high cases per million which spat out Seychelles, Portugal, and UAE, so they added them to the list without even bothering to look at the fact that Portugal’s cases are plummeting at the same rate as ours, UAE’s cases are coming down fairly quickly, and Seychelles’ cases per million are simply an artefact of having such a small population.
All in all, I would struggle to conclude that this red list has been carefully thought out, carefully planned, or carefully investigated. But then, I’m just an armchair epidemiologist, aren’t I?
Stop Press: New Scientist is similarly unimpressed by the new quarantine rules.
“In the case of Australia, the goal is to eliminate the risk of international travellers bringing COVID-19 into an environment where we have no community spread,” says Nancy Baxter at the University of Melbourne. “But when your country has one of the world’s biggest outbreaks, I’m not really sure what you’re gaining by having hotel quarantine – other than being ready for when you do get your numbers to the point where international travellers pose a greater risk to your community than just going to the grocery store,” she says.
“I think it might very well be too late,” says Beverley Paterson at the University of Newcastle in Australia.
Hancock has said that the border rules are needed to “secure the nation against new variants of coronavirus”.
However, given that the new quarantine rules will be enforced only for passengers returning from red-listed countries, many researchers think they are unlikely to be effective. “Clearly there are political reasons that countries are or aren’t on that list. It’s not a risk-based plan,” says Baxter.
For instance, the US isn’t on the red list, despite the rapid spread of a new virus variant in California. “The likelihood of something being introduced from America is just enormous,” says Paterson. There is a huge number of cases in the US, and it is probable that many more new variants will arise there, she adds.
Stop Press 2: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wants all international travellers to be herded into quarantine hotels, while the Scottish Government has put that rule in place. This has given rise to the prospect of checks on the Scottish-English border.
Stop Press 3: In case anybody believes rigid border controls are a guarantee of Zero Covid, there’s been an outbreak of three local cases in Auckland, New Zealand, plunging the city into a ‘level 3’ lockdown for three days. The Guardian has more.
People should work from home where possible, and schools will be open only to the children of essential workers. Public venues such as libraries, museums, cinemas, food courts, gyms, pools, playgrounds and markets will close, as will businesses that cannot ensure physical distancing.
The rest of the country is in ‘level 2’. Travellers to New Zealand from any country must complete a 14-day stay in managed isolation or quarantine.
The Shocking Backlog of Cancer Patients
An increase in deaths from cancer is a well known side-effect of the lockdowns, with screening programmes and treatments being delayed by hospitals and people being reluctant to turn up for appointments for fear of catching the virus. Turns out, 2020 was the worst year on record when it comes to the number of people being diagnosed with cancer, i.e. fewer were diagnosed than at any time since records began. Euronews has the details.
In December 2020, there were 200,940 urgent cancer referrals made by doctors in England, compared with 187,811 the year prior – something believed to be caused in part by
lockdowncoronavirus.“We had the initial first wave of the pandemic and at that point a lot of the routine work was actually paused while we tried to cope with the first wave of COVID-19,” said Dr Julian Elford, a clinical radiologist.
“We can’t get patients through the pathway as quickly as we’d like. There are lots of different reasons for that, but it is frustrating and that is leading to some delays in diagnosis and treatment.”
According to Elford, that backlog is also due to patients’ fears of catching COVID-19 in the hospital setting. Plus, fewer clinicians are able to refer patients as they are helping to fight COVID-19 themselves.
Meanwhile, England’s National Health Service has said 350,000 patients in England had been waiting for more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test in December 2020.
They added a total of 345,664 patients were waiting for one of 15 standard tests, including an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy.
In December 2019, the equivalent figure was 41,906.
“There’s a long backlog, a large backlog of cases waiting for CT and MRI scans as the first part of their diagnostic pathway, at the moment there are more than 72,000 patients waiting longer than six weeks for a CT or MRI scan,” Elford said.
The Telegraph says that the backlog of cancer patients waiting more than 100 days has doubled since last year.
NHS England data show the staggering challenge hospitals have to save the lives of cancer patients.
At the start of February, the backlog of cases already at more than 15 weeks had hit 6,109, compared to 3,000 at the same point in 2020. National targets state cancer patients should be treated within 62 days of being referred…
In the North West, the backlog has nearly tripled over the same time period, from 289 to 831.
It adds:
In a statement, NHS England said Covid has put the services under huge pressure, but the vast majority of cancer care is continuing and more people were treated and referred in Dec 2020 compared to the same month in 2019.
It added: “The NHS message is clear, people should continue to come forward for routine screening or get checked if they have a worrying symptom.”
Professor Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said the growing backlogs were “very worrying”, adding: “Life-saving, emergency surgery has continued through the pandemic, however, as hospital beds have filled up with COVID-19 patients, many thousands of patients have been forced to wait for cancer and other types of NHS treatment
Not every case of cancer is fatal, of course, but prompt diagnosis improves the chances of survival. According to Cancer Research, there are more than 166,000 cancer deaths every year.
Stop Press: A Lockdown Sceptics reader has flagged up a paper published by the Nuffield Department of Health which investigated the impact on colorectal cancer specifically.
As compared to the monthly average in 2019, in April, 2020, there was a 63% reduction (from 36,274 to 13,440) in the monthly number of two-week referrals for suspected cancer and a 92% reduction in the number of colonoscopies (from 46,441 to 3,484)…
By October, 2020, the monthly rate had returned to 2019 levels but did not exceed it, suggesting that, from April to October, 2020, over 3,500 fewer people had been diagnosed and treated for colorectal cancer in England than would have been expected.
Imperial’s Prediction of a June-July Spike is Implausible, says Prof
There follows a guest post from David Livermore, Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of East Anglia, responding to Glen Bishop’s article on February 12th and the contributions of others since.
I read with great interest and some astonishment Glen Bishop’s article and subsequent correspondence on Lockdown Sceptics, indicating that the Imperial group has omitted seasonality effects in its modelling of COVID-19 trajectories.
Seasonality is a feature of respiratory viruses in general, at least in the northern and southern temperate zones, including Europe. This is well illustrated in the review and meta analysis by Li and colleagues of Edinburgh University, published last July in Journal of Infectious Diseases
This has easily-understood heat maps illustrating how seasonal (i.e. non-Covid) coronaviruses, respiratory syncytial virus and influenza virus all peak in December to February in the Northern hemisphere and in July to August in New Zealand. Their patterns are erratic in the tropics. The only exception is China, where ‘seasonal’ coronaviruses seemed to be less seasonal. Maybe that, and patterns of arising cross-immunity, contribute to the different trajectories of SARS-CoV-2 in China and elsewhere?
That, though, is a topic for another day.
What matters now is the recent (January) modelling by Imperial (which is likely influencing Government policy). This seeks to predict COVID-19’s trajectory as vaccine is deployed and non-pharmaceutical interventions are eased up to July. All its models show a spike in hospitalisations in June and July (see its figure 5). The height of this varies according to the speed of vaccine roll out and the R number, but it is widely projected to exceed hospital capacity.
Imperial writes:
Our results highlight the importance of speeding-up vaccine roll-out, and suggest that a more cautious approach to gradually lifting NPIs may need to be considered than the ones modelled in this report.
Yet if we accept the obvious seasonality of coronaviruses, a June-July spike is simply implausible. We know this not only from Li et al.’s review of other respiratory viruses but also from experience with SARS-CoV-2 itself. COVID-19 became infrequent in summer 2020 in unrestricted Sweden. It did not rise swiftly in the UK summer despite mass summer protests and ‘Eat out to Help Out’. In the Czech Republic, which largely evaded the spring pandemic and then relaxed completely, even a Covid-naïve population was not seriously hit until the Autumn.
In short, Imperial’s January modelling is deeply flawed by ignoring seasonality and should not be used as an excuse to delay releasing lockdown. The test of vaccines will, in reality, come next winter, not in the summer.
Have the Young Really Suffered More than the Old?
Today we are publishing a new piece by Lockdown Sceptics regular, Guy de la Bédoyère. Written in response to Dr Alberto Giublini’s article, which we published on Saturday, Guy argues that everyone in lockdown is in this together. Everyone has been damaged somehow, and we must now act together in our collective interest of coming to terms with the disease and return to a manageable normality. Here are the opening paragraphs:
I wonder how helpful at this stage Dr Alberto Giubilini’s article really is. It belongs to a range of claims that one group or another has suffered more or less than others either from lockdowns or other Covid-suppression measures. In this case, he argues that the young have been hit more than anyone else in the Government’s quest to make us all pay the price for Covid in the interests of ideological moralism.
Some of what he says is true. I certainly agree with him that the media’s obsession with trying to find unrepresentative stories about younger people dying from Covid in an attempt to make a false extrapolation that “we’re all in it together” is grossly misleading. The data, as he says, speaks for itself and only in this last week we have learned the sad fact that 60% of Covid-related deaths in the last year in the UK have occurred to the disabled, confirmed by the ONS. And it is absolutely correct that young people’s lives and prospects are being devastated for the sake of something that barely affects them. With four adult children of my own, all in their thirties, I am painfully aware of the impact of lockdowns and other restrictions on their lives and those of their own children.
But it is not that simple.
In the most recent edition of New Statesman, the resident medic Dr. Phil Whitaker, paints in his weekly column a sentimental and self-regarding picture of elderly ‘survivors’ coming for their vaccines and drowning him and his colleagues in effusive thanks. Reinforcing the notion that there is an unfair conflict of interest at play, he says of his elderly patients who have arrived to be vaccinated:
They must be all too aware of the strand of opinion that bemoans what society has borne in order to protect them. The vaccine offers the chance to leave such commentary behind. They have survived a year of Covid – unlike the 110,000 who have, to date, succumbed.
The disparaging tone in the reference to “the strand of opinion” is all too obvious. We should all have willingly sacrificed everything.
What both Whitaker and Giubilini overlook is that it will be a long time, especially with the young, before we can really assess the relative impact of all the measures. It would be more constructive at this point, especially with our concerns about the impact of Government measures, to consider how lockdowns have affected everyone but in very different ways, including – crucially – the elderly.
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “Coronavirus may not have emerged In China, WHO scientists says” – The Huffington Post reports on the recent comments of Professor John Watson that SARS-CoV-2 may not have originated in China. Just how keen is the WHO to exonerate China of any blame for the pandemic?
- “Economic burden of COVID-19, China, January-March, 2020” – The Bulletin of the World Health Organisation reports on the economic cost of the virus to China
- “How ‘killer’ T cells could boost COVID immunity in face of new variants” – Concerns that variants may be partially resistant to antibodies has sparked new interest in other immune responses, especially T Cells, reports Nature
- “Tory newlyweds Esther McVey and Philip Davies urge Boris to back Covid-secure weddings from March 8th” – The Mail On Sunday reports further backbench pressure on the Government
- “Andrew Lloyd Webber Says Lockdowns Push London Theatre to Abyss“– The famous composer is worried about London’s theatreland, Bloomberg reports
- “All the coronavirus in the world could fit inside a Coke can, with plenty of room to spare” – A tremendous piece of mathematical reasoning by Christian Yates in the Conversation. It helps to explain why mask wearing is ineffective
- “Vaccine passports for internal use are ‘under consideration,’ says Raab” – The Spectator‘s Steerpike comments on Blair’s input into the vaccine passport discussions
- “Do not rollout COVID-19 vaccine passports” – A petition worth signing on parliament.uk
- “Christians unite against this lockdown madness” – A rallying call to Christians from Ben Mildred in the Conservative Woman. Christians have no business supporting lockdowns, he says, because prioritise the rich over the poor, and destroy church and family life
- “Retirement home removed door handles to residents’ rooms during Covid outbreak” – The Toronto Sun reports on the inhumane treatment of care home residents
- “Balkans turn to Russia and China for Covid vaccines” – The Times reports on vaccine diplomacy in the East
- “‘It’s as if there’s no Covid’: Nepal defies pandemic amid a broken economy” – The Guardian reports on the strange situation in Nepal. “It’s as if nothing has happened… It doesn’t seem like there is any Covid,” says Sameer Mani Dixit, a public health specialist. “It defies logic”
- “COVID-19: Behind the PCR Curtain” – Dr Sam Bailey from New Zealand digs deep into PCR testing
- “South Africa Covid cases plummeting with very few lockdown restrictions. What is happening here?” – Professor Wasim Hanif looks at the graphs and asks an excellent question on Twitter
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Twenty-one today: “Something Better Change” by The Stranglers, “Trapped in a Box” by No Doubt, “Somebody to Love” by Dicepeople, “We’ve Heard It All Before” by Freak Kitchen, “I Can’t Get Next To You” by the Temptations, “We Live as We Dream, Alone” by Gang of Four, “Rules And Regulations” by Public Image Limited, “Breaking the Rules” by the Fall, “Shake The Disease” by Depeche Mode, “Day In Day Out” by XTC, “Change The World” by Eric Clapton, “Mad World” by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules, “Do They Owe us a Living” by Crass, “Police On My Back” by the Clash, “It’s In Our Hands” by Björk, “Road to Nowhere” by Talking Heads, “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths, “This Mess We’re In” by P. J. Harvey, “We’re In This Together” by Nine Inch Nails, “Nappy Love” by the Goodies and “Rock the Boat” by Hues Corporation.
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.
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Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, it is the Labour party, from whom two stories of wokery have emerged over the weekend. First, from the Mail On Sunday, the shadow minister who wants to see ‘Mx’ being used more widely.
‘Mx’ should be used as a gender-neutral alternative to titles such as Mr and Mrs on forms, a member of Keir Starmer’s team has suggested.
Alex Sobel, a shadow Culture, Media and Sport Minister, wants the Government to tell public bodies and private companies to start using ‘Mx’ on forms and documents.
Mr Sobel has also supported contentious trans-rights reforms including the abolition of single-sex changing rooms, toilets and prisons.
Women who object are bigots who should not vote Labour, the MP declared.
But some Labour MPs worry that issues such as this show that Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, is unable to connect with the many working-class voters the party lost in the last Election.
Labour HQ has already embraced ‘Mx’. A form used for job applicants since last year offers titles including ‘Mx’, ‘Ind’ and ‘Misc’.
However, Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch indicated that the Government had no plans to push for the compulsory use of ‘Mx’.
Second, according to the Express, the party has released a report calling on Britain to make financial reparations to countries pillaged by the British Empire.
The 234-page document, titled ‘Remaking Of The British State: For The Many, Not The Few’, lays out a programme for Government should Labour win a general election…
The report stated: “In recognition of the past wrongdoings of the British state, the new constitution should make an unreserved apology to all of the countries of the world that the Empire invaded and negatively impacted.
“In addition, the British state should set up a reparations fund as part of the constitution, which offers financial assistance to communities across the world that can show loss and detriment as a result of the actions of the British state.”
Financial payments should be made from taxpayers’ money if “the British state owed the claimants in question a duty of care” according to the document.
Stop Press: Rod Liddle says taking the knee is a divisive, pantomime act that has run its course.
Stop Press 2: Satirical news site the Babylon Bee reports that Gina Carano, recently fired from The Mandalorian for being a Trump supporter, has been rehired by Disney after she identified as an abusive male director.
“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 Winsford and Middlewich Guardian has a story about a man being banned from his local branch of Asda for a year for refusing to wear a mask in spite of being exempt.
Mr Martin said he entered the store at around 12.30 and after being asked by a member of staff at the entrance if he had a mask, replied that he was exempt from having to wear one…
“At approximately 12.45 I vacated the store and upon exiting was approached by the security guards who pulled me up in front of other customers to ask what my issue was.”
Upon returning home, Mr Martin went on to explain how he made a call to Customer Services to make a complaint about his ordeal, but said how he was kept on hold for around 20 minutes before the call was ended.
“I phoned again and upon speaking to the next contact was told that I had now been banned from the store for a year for apparently abusing workers, yet this event never happened,” he said
Stop Press 2: Business Today reports that scientist are working on a new kind of face mask with an antiviral coating that will kill coronavirus in just one hour.
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. In February, Facebook deleted the GBD’s page because it “goes against our community standards”. 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.
Stop Press: France24 has a video report from the German City of Tübingen which has implemented something approaching Focussed Protection to avoid another lockdown and it appears to be working.
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, although that case, too, has been refused permission to proceed. There’s still one more thing that can be tried. 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 also submitted a retraction request, which was rejected in February.
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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Lockdown Sceptics has kept me and I suspect a lot of us sane durning this absurd political pandemic — I would like to thank Toby Young, his team and – well just everyone who has contributed to the site whether with articles or comments — It is simply wonderful to know there are others out there who can see past the fear/scare mongering, misleading statistics and non stop attempts to remove our civil liberties all under the pretence of “keeping us safe”. It is a wonderful site full of people who are just not prepared to sit and be brainwashed — and I thank you all.
If nothing else, I think this site has brought together a formidable array of expertise to keep us all informed, both atl and btl. However, the recurring race for “first”, for example, and other such banter can be just as important for keeping people’s spirits up (and don’t we need it at this time).
This place increasingly feels like the last redoubt of humanity. There is only one person I know in all the people I have ever directly encountered in my life – amongst family, friends, acquaintances or colleagues – who shares my position. I have battled for nearly a year to try and rescue others from the brainwashing but I am sad to report that as of today all my efforts have failed. The people around me are all lost, and it will not be long before I have to sever all ties with everyone in order to prevent them from turning me in to the authorities.
My conclusion is that we are going all the way into the worst totalitarian system that has ever existed in human history. Anyone who lives to see this will briefly regret that they did so, until their minds have been wiped clean and they no longer remember anything about how the world used to be.
The Last Homely House?
Don’t worry, our people (for one) don’t forget these things and will resist to the end.
Really, the world has been going to hell in a handcart for years. At least it is out in the open now.
“People could need negative Covid test to go to theatre or club” (The Telegraph).
How long will this last then? And should I get a test to avoid being a second class citizen (or whatever they’ll call it)?
I take it they don’t have much confidence in their vaccines then.
Still, I worry how much harder the hard sell is going to get. I seem to remember being assured that vaccine passports were definitely not going to happen.
I’ll post this tomorrow at an earlier time, but I’ve made a new video about the effects of lockdown. Let me know what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADuGSMB9Fp0
Thanks John, very powerful. My only feedback would be please can you increase the time on each headline, I struggled to read them through. And more time on the children’s drawings too. Maybe feature them again at the end? I will definitely share. Thank you
The first good news from the USA in a while. A group of concerned citizens is getting together to sue the ass off the election fraud conspirators, claiming $160 billion in damages. Zuckerberg will be among the defendants. Dominion has been using billion dollar lawsuits as a method of intimidation, so it’s good to see this weapon being turned round and used on them .
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/group-vote-matters-suing-facebook-dominion-mark-zuckerberg-certain-state-officials-others-infringing-upon-right-vote-assemble-speak-freely-can-join/
And how far do you think they’ll get?
Not very far. The Supreme Court wouldn’t even hear the claim from Texas and six other states, so I don’t have huge faith in the court system. But it shows spirit and spirit will be required to restore the constitution in the USA.
I’m going to post this again tomorrow but, in case you’re still awake, I have to share now.
I’m angry because we have been wasting our time. Nothing we’ve said or done has had any impact on what is being planned. This was never about a virus, it was about upending life as we knew it. It was about ultimate control over us all.
An evil group of tyrants decided that they would hook the entire human race up to a digital server, issue us with ID cards that carried our health data, including our annual vaccinations, denying us our basic rights if we did not comply. They set about concocting a vile plan, unleashing a tsunami of torture on us all by using a new respiratory virus to give the impression there was an imminent and deadly threat. They took away everything. Our right to see those we love, our careers, our entertainment, our passions, our leisure, our gyms, our pools, our restaurants, our education, our health care, our privacy, our rights, even our identities (by forcing us to hide our faces). They made us abandon our elderly and sick relatives. They issued DNRs to the frail… Read more »
Basically agree with all you say.
I’ll think about the answers for tomorrow.
They castrated every male on the planet to stop us fighting back!
First fake equality, then identity bollocks, followed by trans nonsense & racism fiction & finally the panic-demic. How many people walked around with head held high providing for their families for all of it to be snatched away reducing adults to infantilized zombies!
They literally emasculated us by grabbing hold & crushing our spirit away.
Well they’ve tried.
Succeeded with some.
Yes this is part of the story. I saw a TV ad the other day showing how the modern male in his twenties is supposed to spend his free time – sitting on the sofa playing juvenile computer games with his partner.
While few of us would wish to return to restrictive gender roles of the mid 20th century, I couldn’t help thinking about what their forebears were doing 80 years ago in their 20s…
We’ve reached a stage where many men are being denied any ability to express their biological selves.
As a female, I blame women’s lib for that. Along with various woke causes such as the “me too” nonsense, and years of being stifled by political correctness.
I suspect about as good a name as “Granny’s lib” is for the mass vaccination programme.
Express their biological selves.
Strewth, in the place I work, there’s been no woman working there in the fifteen-odd years that I know about.
For all the talk of gender interchangeability, there’s still certain areas of life where you barely get women. And others where you barely get men…
I seem to remember reading some years ago about the rate of suicide among women in Sweden being particularly high, and have ever since rejected the idea that Sweden is some sort of vindication of ultra-liberal politics. Still, at least they didn’t lock down.
Too tired to think of the answers right now. I don’t intend to surrender anything. Every day I engage in as many acts of ‘disobedience’ as I can. I shall be voicing my dissent at the next protest in London, as I have done at the previous rallies. Other than that, it’s a case of seeing how things unfold as summer approaches. As long as the sheep keep complying and refuse to rise up, it’s a tough and uphill battle. I am battle-weary but have no intention of giving up.
And a happy Tuesday to you too!
In terms of a Nuremberg (or more likely Hillsborough) mark II, I think the real culprits could prove very slippery (and largely foreign based ie non-UK), but I’d be looking at people within Big Pharma and connected to the CCP.
As for stopping them, we’d need a serious political movement. And a serious propaganda machine that can make the most of limited resources, think outside the box, and shift the narrative from “Covid-19″ caused it”. And “it” could get quite a lot worse than it is already, so there will be something to go on.
If we hadn’t been wasting our time here, we’d have been wasting it somewhere else. At least we can endeavour to be well-informed. Think of the story of the man throwing jellyfish from the beach back into the sea. When asked what difference he thought he could make with so many stranded on the beach, he threw another back and said “it made a heck of a lot of difference to that one”.
Keep chipping away, and above all, keep the old normal going however and wherever you can.
Hugh, thank you. I needed this. I needed to remember Hillsborough. It’s very close to my heart. I’m so scared at the moment. More scared than I’ve been since day one. In fact the fear has gone to a whole new level. I’m more scared than I think I’ve ever been in my life. Trying to fight it as I know part of the horrific Psy Op is to make us fearful, but tonight I simply collapsed…
30 years, and not much to show in the end, but they never gave in, because they never walked alone. There’s a lot to be said for being on the right side of history, even when it’s an uphill struggle.
Absolutely right.
LS used to regularly get over 2000 comments by midnight. Now struggling to get over 1700.
Either 77th are on their hols or LS’s “vaccine makes you free” editorial line is having a negative effect.
Everyone’s given up, Toby Young et al got spooked by winter deaths (no need it was predictably going to be worse in a longer winter season). Yeaden miscalculated a little & people lost faith & Ivor didn’t predict enough deaths so he melted away.
Vaccine propaganda took hold, everyone just lost moral after Christmas lockdown & no one saw or had any energy to fight the present 6 month lockdown we are in.
Yes, some or a lot of truth in that.
Of course we don’t really know what we have seen this winter. It looks like Covid has supplanted flu. We haven’t see the huge rise in excess deaths that we saw in March-June in the UK. So to that extent Yeadon was perhaps not as wrong as he appears. People who die of respiratory disease normally have an average of 14 pathogens in their lungs. Everyone’s being tested for Covid but hardly anything else, so Covid is getting all the “credit” for the deaths.
Newsnight had three extreme vaxo-propagandists on tonight – Tildesley, Pagel and Begum. The usual balanced panel you find on Newsnight .
Pagel’s comments really are stupid. She noted that flu had disappeared this winter…but made no connection with Covid or did not even note that would mean excess respiratory deaths through Covid were being greatly ameliorated by the absence of flu deaths (that would have detracted from her egotistical virtue-signalling). She then compared Covid to measles, indicating we could virtually eradicate Covid. Measles is essentially a childhood disease. Respiratory viral infections are typically a serious disease in the elderly. Trying to control respiratory viruses is… Read more »
14 pathogens? Blimey, no wonder all those hospital deaths were “with” Covid! Let the BBC put that in its fear mongering reports!
I take it lockdowns will be more or less permanent as long as these sorts of people are setting the agenda?
It partly depends what time of day the post appears.
Thee were a couple of big comments threads last week.
I think it’s more or less holding steady on average.
As far as I know it comes out pretty much 2-4am UK time nearly every day.
Vaccine macht frei.
You can probably trace a direct line back to that lot as well/
Woman pays shit loads of money – to go to shit hotel – and decides it’s shit. Britain 16/2/21
You know, this mass vaccination business could quite easily be about depopulation in some way. Whether on a massive scale I don’t know, but I have suspected for some time that sooner or later they would try and “deal” with the elderly because of the demographic crisis of an aging population (which threatens economic crisis over the coming years, and is the inevitable result of eugenicist policies over several decades).
Likely they have more than one strategy of course, but several things have been suspicious. The “do not resuscitate” orders that were appearing in care homes last year, the insufficient effort to explain the risks of the vaccines and the efforts to portray it as “saving Granny” (such deceptions will be familiar to those of us opposed to eugenics and the neo-Malthusian agenda). Worrying as well that pharmaceutical companies are exempt from liability for these experimental treatments. Worrying too is the involvement of Bill Gates, whose views are well known. And of course if these sorts of stressful lockdown and related restrictions can be made a more or less permanent feature of life ( – say every winter?), then “voluntary” euthanasia could be used to hurry them on their way.… Read more »
Well I don’t trust them either but I don’t think this is about depopulation. The UK’s population is tiny in comparison to the rest of the world.
I’ve described this before as a perfect storm, something that has grown out of global conflicts including US v China and globalism v populism.
Without the underlying US-China conflict in play in 2019, it is unlikely we would have seen the response to this pandemic follow the course it did.
Oh I think it’s cull!
Who’s being culled and why?
I think it’s far more to do with resetting the monetary system, depopulation is just a bonus for them.
Nonetheless, UK demographics are pretty poor, and care for the elderly, so far as I can tell, has been heading towards crisis for some time. And China’s demographics, of course, are absolutely terrible, with a falling working age population. And we know that they will do whatever it takes to maintain China’s geo-political and economic position – and thus the CCP grip on power.
Yep the people in charge of us are psychopaths, but i doubt they care much about suffering, what they do care about is keeping order.
Population won’t affect them, they won’t live in overcrowded conditions, go hungry, not receive top-notch health care etc. It’s all about control to maintain power.
Poor demographics? The population has been increasing at an astonishing rate! Where have you been for the last 20 years?
There’s also no crisis in care for the elderly. The population in care homes – around 400k – has been stable for some time. I was surprised when I found that out. Of course, older people are generally much healthier now thanks to better nutrition, more exercise, fewer debilitating industrial illnesses, reduced air pollution and improved housing conditions.
I understand that many councils are struggling to pay for the poorer elderly population that needs care. Of course, part of the cost falls on those that can afford to pay for care. Perhaps it’s not entirely surprising if the care home population has not increased. And of course, with the current shambles, more will be trying to avoid them.
The white British population is now decreasing (I seem to remember checking after the 2011 census). Of course, the UK has been importing quite a lot of people. Outsourcing child rearing, it’s been called. That may be a more expensive solution though, and of course it only works as long as people want to come to this wonderful island. If we ever did have EU style freedom of movement with Oz, NZ, Canada and the US, I suspect quite a lot of people would leave.
Whose lives have improved as a result of any aspect of the response to Covid? And whose lives have been degraded?
Strangely, the vast majority of those suffering the degradation are fanatical, zealous supporters of the tiny minority who are benefitting.
Surely one of the sorriest episodes in human history. It most certainly is time for a great reset.
Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Cuomo NY govenor given his emmy award for his tv performances as state govenor during the 2021 scamdemic.
Hollywood A list hasbeens are wheeled out to give speeches of sichophantic praise. Truly awful viewing. 2mins.
https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1361210190335467521?s=20
What is it about robert de niro that makes him unwatchably unpleasant in everything he does? Always bad, here actually not as bad as Rosie ‘baring my teeth’ perez.
Emmy award give to state govenor for his tv announcements during lockdowns. Something is wrong.
Mockery of the highest order. The washed up nobodies singing his praises in this video must have had to do multiple takes before they could stop laughing at the absurdity.
I often wonder if this whole thing has been one massive, sick joke on all of us. Given the amount of people who have swallowed it whole, and are begging for more, I have to conclude that collectively we deserve it.
I have always believed that we get what we deserve. Collectively and individually. This belief never fails to lift my mood.
Excellent point. There is no limit to the amount of pain to be endured in the learning of this lesson, collectively and individually.
You want mockery?! Try this globalist fire side chat. 2 mins to watch a lifetime to forget.
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1361416432362213377?s=20
Awful.
I’d like to say that it’s genuinely liberating to shop mask-free in my city. So strange that it can make me genuinely happy. I found people friendly. And did I detect a longing for freedom in some of the half-faced shoppers? Maybe.
My parents suggested today that they want to come from Spain to see us this summer. That would be twelve months since they’ve seen their only grandchild. I don’t see it happening myself. Even based on the official garbage statistics this “problem” has passed but the doom continues. In fact it’s increasing. The new lockdowns in NZ show that this style of government is here to stay. So sad.
Good comments on today’s latest frog-cooking move.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/todays-talking-point-45/
I’ve been reading about Ivermectin. If it really is so effective, then it’s disgraceful that the government hasn’t acted urgently. If ”vaccines” can be produced so quickly, then a simple, cheap, effective, proven and SAFE drug could have been investigated. Especially when you see that the PM was sent this letter on 9 January and other studies had already been done.
https://www.healthrising.org/forums/threads/a-letter-to-mr-boris-johnson-from-uk-scientist-dr-tess-lawrie-calling-on-him-to-start-saving-lives-with-ivermectin.6481/
And this:
”Belgian Virologist Proposes Plan to Eradicate COVID-19 in 6 Weeks Using Ivermectin”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLL5FEpRtEA
It’s not about health..
”Belgian Virologist Proposes Plan to Eradicate COVID-19 in 6 Weeks Using Ivermectin”
unfortunately there’s no money in that life saving shit think $$$$$$
Does anyone think that Nut Nuts & Melarky might be deep state plants to influence Bojo & Harry ??
I didn’t… but now I do! 🙂
For a long time
It certainly crossed my mind about Johnson.
One of these friends commented on the Six Nations broadcast which I refuse to watch even though I’m a fan because without the supporters it’s a waste of time. A formerly compliant friend of his had complained that it was ridiculous that 49 men (including subs and officials) can run around the field gobbing all over each other while up in the stands the coaches are required to be muzzled up and even give interviews masked – to push the narrative presumably.. His friend said it was a joke and had had enough and had thrown his mask (or masks) in the bin.
tell them to watch the cricket currently in india – people in the stands sitting next to each other without masks – shock horror!! Good to see a bit of normality.
My thoughtscexactly !
Half asleep , excuse spelling
7/10
I watched it. That Eddie Jones bloke was wearing a muzzle now and then, on/off on/off. What on earth is the point of THAT? It just shows what a mockery it is.
Biggest joke is they all line up socially distanced for the anthems, and within minutes, sixteen of them are all huddled together in a scrum. Then when they get substituted they immediately slap a nappy on despite being outdoors still and nowherenear anyone. Sheer stupidity
This.
Caught a minute of tennis this afternoon. The players must hate the recorded applause, it is mockery.
Result!
A very insightful and accurate article from Jonathan Sumption in the Telegraph tonight.
“Liberal democracy will be the biggest casualty of this pandemic”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/15/liberal-democracy-will-biggest-casualty-pandemic/
Don’t know about insightful, conspiracy theorists have been saying that for over a decade.
Yes. The relationship between individuals and the state has been fundamentally altered by this. We think for the worse, unfortunately it seems the majority do not. At least not yet.
Liberal democracy is already a casualty. It no longer exists. The quicker people like Sumption realise this the better.
It’s society at large that needs to appreciate the risk, not him. He gets it, and despite his background, his direct influence in this matter is limited.
I agree. People assumed back in 2016 that we could collectively make decisions about our society. We now know better. There are dark malevolent forces at work prepared to crush democratic action.
I actually believe democracy is finished in the USA. What you are seeing is a kind of pantomime acting out old themes, while in reality American society is being taken over by a tyranny. It’s going to get much, much worse in the USA in the coming months and years. There will never be another Republican or non-Democrat President again, not unless there is a second revolution.
In the UK, it is touch and go. Our electoral system is less susceptible to fraud and corruption. But in terms of creating a totalitarian culture that promotes a single view of what is good and abolishes free speech we are far in advance of the Americans. No book will be put on sale by a major publisher, no film or TV programme can be made now in the UK unless it supports PC ideology. Our MSM are virtually as one also in promoting PC ideology.
Monbiot is on twittering about how sorely mistaken Gates is if he thinks he can muscle in on top of all grass roots activists and crush them in order to save the climate* billionaire style. It has begun.
*or whatever.
Monbiot has lost his mind. He talks grass roots but what’s a ministry of truth? He was once a fringe thinker but he’s now decided to pull the ladder up
I don’t know if its from where I’m sitting, I’m just imagining it or it’s actually happening, but I can sense a shift in the air. Discussed this with a couple of sceptical friends and they said much the same without me prompting them. We conceded that it might be that we’re just coming to the end of a dismal winter one way or another but each one of us said we sensed that more and more people are waking up to the bulshit, even those immune to the mildest conspiracy theories. Because once even a modest conspiracy turns out to be true then the dam starts leaking. It’ll only take something like a Timbuctoo variant which necessitates locking us all up over summer to tip the balance. Bring it on!
Hope you’re right. Sometimes I feel that – then I plunge down again. Perhaps the spring will help the spirits stay high.
I felt this way on Friday but have sensed a huge darkening today. My mood is wildly erratic from day to day.
Getting out for a stretch of your legs would help moods ordinarily. I know you are not keen and understand why. 3 am walks might avoid most people and all masks? Just a suggestion.
I’ve listened to the Ben Shapiro Show right the way through and today was the first really anti-lockdown opinion piece. The enormous scandal in NY might become a really big story. De Santis is the best politician in the world right now IMO. Most countries with bad numbers kicked thousands of sick old people out of hospital, including here. Could break through if it’s not ignored by the media. Unfortunately it’s likely to be.
A coronavirus model that ignores seasonality is about as much use as a climate model that ignores clouds. Oh wait.
It’s very useful for some. Not for reality though.
it is reality
good shout Guy
I don’t know who posted this because I lost trace, but at the 32:30 mark regarding California we learn just how sick and demonic those who planned this are:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Dccv1kgGBBLl/
https://thenewamerican.com/cdc-declares-itself-landlord-of-all-rental-property-in-america/
Herald Scotland Headline –
Coronavirus: Scots vaccine hubs set to cut hours as jag supply halves
They ppre produced billions of doses during the months of the search and first trial phases. This was done from pure golden hearted goodness by the fantastical pharma companies. Not a drop of profit and a complete gamble that a) the vaccines worked b) the vaccine was safe and c) the independent pure gold hearts at the MHRA approved the pioneering technology for population mass roll out.
Today the UK Column reported a 20% return expected by one pure gold pharma company for the past year, 15 billion £or$.
So, Scotland is struggling for supply of its first dose. Feels to me much like the pattern from Israel where vaccination numbers have dropped off a cliff and they are discussing financial bribery to get people to agree to this hearts of gold potion. We cannot have reports and videos of medical staff and poor uncle Rab rattling around inside vaccination centres bereft of queues and pandemic panic gravitas.
Reduce hours condense the numbers pure hearts of gold.
Another conspiracy theorist Catherine Austin Fitts Dec 2020 Full Interview Planet Lockdown not heard from before.
As if!
The interesting point about the notion of conspiracy theory is that this past year can only really be three things.
1) mass incompetence and global panic,
2) despicable opportunism run wild, or
3) all part of a conspiracy theory.
To begin I went with option 1. But the longer this evil continues the less likely this becomes. The collective powers that be may be a lot of things, but stupid (long term) is not one of them.
Still have my reservations about conspiracy theories in general, as the conspiracy of silence needed in todays media access world makes it near impossible, which leaves option 2. Ditching cash and the high street, along with a general reigning in of political populism is an enormous, financially profitable achievement and shouldn’t be dismissed as pie in the sky.
Removing the most powerful man in the world is not something to be ignored, and in 100 years time might appear blindingly obvious in a history book.
Follow the money, is the usual strategy.
Someone calls you a conspiracy theorist just response “Yep. Now what”
My opinion really is a combination of 1 and 2. The second option being blatent opportunism by a lot of people, some using coronavirus as a trojan horse. I do however think option 2 can morph into a bit of 3 where the opportunism becomes a far more detailed plan, to which those planning it never thought the populations of countries would be gullible to go along with it. Prof Pantsdown even said about lockdowns, I believe, the UK population would never accept it.
The further you go down the rabbit hole & the more research you do the more evident what’s going on now has been in the planning for a very long time. I’m talking decades perhaps 80, 90 years. I don’t believe in secret societies, or complex conspiracies. It’s highly likely a combination of all 3, successive generations opportunistically picking up the batten, like an inheritance. But there are to many coincidences for it to be coincidence!
If Covid-19 was an opportunity to forward an agenda I believe it was, (I’m not saying covid doesn’t exist or even man made) then the deep state is involved, so it has to be a conspiracy. You couldn’t get away with it without security agencies knowledge, that doesn’t mean it’s a widespread conspiracy. People just don’t want to accept what’s happening in front of their eyes.
Very well said. My main issue with centrally planned is where are the whistleblowers? Surely one contractor somewhere would out some info? Trump himself would have seen all the secret service stuff surely, so why not announce the biggest fraud in history now he’s out of power? After saying all this, the direction of travel is barely concealed. You could replace the term covid measures with health fascism and get to the meaning. Perhaps My point is that it’s not a conspiracy if the powers explain exactly what they want to do, all the time. Only the motive is concealed.
People just do their job without question, the plan doesn’t need to be widely disseminated. I doubt the likes of Johnson or trump etc are fully aware of why they’re doing what they’re doing. The system of governance of western nations is a huge machine with millions of cogs all working independently unaware of what each other are doing or that they even connect. Civil servants have to sign official secrets act & are easily bought with a good pension. Each person only knows a tiny part of the puzzle anyway.
But your right its being hidden in plain sight that’s part of its genius. WEF, UN, IMF, WORLD BANK haven’t hidden agenda21/30 they don’t dispute their desire to de-carbon the economy or dismiss population issues!
It appeared to be mass panic but as the published German emails show,the German government actively sought out scientific models to exaggerate the danger of Covid 19,similar to our government.Within 3 weeks the government would have been aware that this wasn’t a society threatening plague.
At every point the government has exaggerated he threat;it has paid the media to continue the scaremongering.
This has been replicated across the world.When given the chance to roll back the repression it has instead doubled down.
The only logical rationale is a world wide coup for reasons unclear at the moment.
Things should get interesting in the next few weeks as an expectation is building that we should begin to emerge,finally l,from lockdown:How the government can manage this is the key.
She used to work for Dubya, she’s no fly-by-night.
Simon Jenkins hitting the nail on the head again.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/11/ten-years-in-jail-matt-hancocks-threat-is-the-distress-call-of-a-minister-losing-his-grip
Couldn’t agree more with Simon. Hancock is abusing his position and Johnson is equally as bad for allowing him to do this. As Simon said Labour have been quiet on this but you could bet your last penny that if they have commented it would never been to say that 10 years in jail is not enough and that these people should be automatically locked up for 25 years with no trial!
I thought it might be the thin end of a very nasty wedge. Ten years for telling a fib about travelling – to be followed by ten years for telling a fib about having had the jab, perhaps.
I was looking this evening about arriving flighrs and did a search for available flights tomortow from Dubai to London. Two such options were travel via either Bahrain or Istambul to LUTON on separate one way tickets for each leg.
Wonder how immigration in Luton (not a permitted airport for red zone arrivals) will deal with a passenger arrining from Turkey.
He alternates between abusing his position and abusing himself.
Breaking news!!! People who die die of dying… they die of death. Not covid or cancer or vaccines or whatever… they die of DEATH. Death is lethal. If death gets you, I’m afraid you DIE. Dying is what happens to you when you die. Death is not optional, there are no exemptions, death is mandatory. When you die, you die, and you WILL die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day, and then you’ll be dead for the rest of your death. Given this INDISPUTABLE fact, it would be pretty bloody stupid to spend every single minute until you die imitating being dead, acting dead, avoiding all other living things, suspended in a state of total stupor, paralysed by hysterical fear OF DEATH… that thing that WILL happen, guaranteed. LET’S LIVE BEFORE WE DIE, SHALL WE?!
But what if we die whilst living?
Many already have.
Great! I want to print that off and hand it out to the zombies!
Oh no! I will die! But I thought if I did everything the government told me they would protect me from all bad things and that I will live forever.
They still haven’t figured that out. Remember all those breaking news stories of people around the world who had died with covid back in February? Breaking news, somebody in their 80s and 90s died. But it’s callous to dare suggest that they were already on their way out.
Computer translation of Newsletter from Reiner Fuellmich:
https://tinyurl.com/4essaq6e
(You may have to employ Google Translate or equivalent to translate from German if your device isn’t set to do it automatically.)
Oh dear! Google Translate renders his name as “Dr Fill Me” 🙂 I hope the rest of it is better.
Oh it is. We should be grateful we can get it.
The people need to fight back against the establishment – stop paying tax and general strike until all restrictions are removed and freedoms restored.
Does getting sacked for refusing the vaccine count? I’ll be depriving the state of income tax and effectively going on strike later this year as a result of this.
Same. My work had their fishing survey out today asking if people would take a vaccine. I responded that I would prefer not to say, but I am preparing to be sent for training very soon and then job loss.
As soon as the announcement is made I will immediately refuse. I’m sick to death of listening to undead colleagues parroting the state propaganda bullshit and will be glad to see the back of the bloody lot of them.
Then will I have a straight choice: use my savings to try and build a better life for myself, or drink myself to death as quickly as I can.
This is a bit long so I’ll break it up. Agree with every word.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241510
They will never drop their mandates and demands. Ever. That is what you heard. If you allow this to continue for as little as one more day both you and your kids are ****ed. President Biden does not care, Fauci does not care, your Governor does not care and your mayor does not care. They’ve been running bull**** on you continually since last March.
Get that through your thick head right now.
They know damn well that what they’re jabbing you with does not stop the virus. They also know the masks don’t stop the virus either because they have proof in the numbers on top of 40 years of hard science and dozens of years of physics that made clear the claim was flatly impossible. The CDC’s director said under oath that if we just wore masks for six or eight weeks in September that the virus would be and remain under control.
Redfield and the CDC lied; the big spike came after the eight+ weeks he prescribed during which damn near the entire nation was under a mask mandate. He knew what he claimed would work couldn’t. He lied and your Grandmother died.
This is a coronavirus. It is not the first coronavirus to circulate. Another, likely one of the four that is… Read more »
I self-administered a complex vaccine today. It involved cereal with toast and marmite and lots of fresh orange juice this morning, chicken soup at lunchtime, a couple of satsumas and some olives, a slow-cooked beef stew with lots of onion and greens this evening, a couple of pints of water and a Vitamin D supplement, and about an hour’s total walking time outside in the sun. Now augmenting it with beer and red wine.
No money in it but I feel pretty good regardless.
That’s an amazing vaccine. It doesn’t interfere with your natural immunity…as long as your alcohol intake remains within the weekly limit…on a daily basis.
These people seem to be confusing the recommended weekly alcohol intake with what I like to call “lunch.”
That would cure pretty well anything. Particularly with marmite.
Your vaccine sounds healthier than mine. Let’s just say mine included copious amounts of gin and an entire tub of M and S chocolate cornflake bites.
Oh I’ve been known to do stuff like that too, don’t you worry.
also a very useful DIY covid-test. Take sip of gin. see if you retain sense of taste. if so no covid, fantastic. feel free to celebrate & repeat… Pick up some chocolate. see if you retain sense of smell. if so no covid, feel free to celebrate & repeat… 🙂
Mine numbed the pain of lockdown too, a bottle of vodka.
That’s a lie, I’m a sad dullard, I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t gamble, don’t do drugs, don’t fornicate (much any more) don’t do anything fun much at all LOL.
You should do a sceptics recipe of the day!
Sun, there is no sun in the UK. You conspiracy theorist
I’ve just invited myself for tea, Jo
I’m off to self-administer my complex vaccine. It says “Aberlour” and “12” on the vial.
Just a thought, and I’m sure it’s not original, but does anyone know how many people have died within 28 days of having the vaccine or even where they have been suspected of having the vaccine?
Nobody dies after receiving the jab, even if they are only suspected of having done so. It is impossible.
I think it’s possible to die after the jab but it is scientifically impossible to die from the jab.
Yes, like someone posted recently – a guy in NY had a vaccine, and unfortunately 25 minutes later died, related to something completely different entirely.
The number of dead after taking the vaccine must be massive 10k over 80s die each week at the moment and the MSM cheering that they have now all been vaccinated.
They’ve investigated all claims of vax related deaths. Basically unless you die within the 15 minute recovery pod at the vax centre, it doesn’t count.
In the first UK data that they released they didn’t even count the symptom “death” as being fatal. This shows how they can’t even be bothered to make the fraud look convincing anymore.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coronavirus-travel-lockdown-five-miles-18385151?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=organic
Drakeford says 5 mile travel limit likely to stay until summer even if holiday homes allowed to open.
Just what the fuck does this incompetent think he is doing. Average “cases” in most areas are below 100 per 100,000. Deaths are no higher than any other year and he thinks he can keep everyone still locked up during the summer.
FUCK HIM. I’ll go where I fucking well want.
He loves power, like all leftist totalitarians do. We shouldn’t be surprised.
Also, from the UK Column from a few weeks ago.
I am a worker in transport and nobody I kniw has received that, which suggests it is a scam.
I’d much rather politicians were more honest about not opening up like this. Beats Johnson’s mumbling indecisive irrelevance any day of the week. This is why I enjoyed Hancock and Shapps going off on one last week. It really ruffled a few feathers.
Honest?HONEST?
Anything closer to the truth (that restrictions will be in place forever) is better than weasel words designed to string people along with completely false hope.
Restrictions won’t be in place forever because they will lose. Whose going to police it?
Report is June 2020
Thanks Houdini. I had missed that (see above)
So you can travel to your holiday home, but then stay within five miles of it? Or your holiday home will be open, but you won’t be able to go within five miles of it?
And the wrinkly little swine just LUSTS to ruin Wales’s tourism industry???
Assassination is a virtue.
Apologies. The date of the article has just been pointed out as being from last summer. In my defence it was associated to the article about the deaths post vaccine in the Holyhead care home. Why, I can only speculate.
I hope the authors of Lockdown Sceptics have been keeping a list of all the pro-lockdown scientists/doctors/mathematicians/statisticians etc along with a list of their professional bodies and regulators, with the intent to report them for misconduct. If not, can I request that they put such a list together and also retain counsel to establish if criminal changes can be brought. For example, against Neil Ferguson and his team at ICL for misfeasance of public funds in relation to the unusable programme he created at vast public expense, and against ICL itself for aiding and abetting or being an accessory.
Are there any lawyers here? Is there anything we can do to bring someone like say Ferguson or Hancock to court rather than waiting for someone else to do it?
In short NO!
Long answer, the function of judicial review is intended to stop you taking government to court. If you’re looking for another avenue to hold Handjob accountable check out The Bernician Hancock, Whitty, Vallance & Ferguson Stand Accused of Pandemic Fraud
NHS practitioners certainly are accountable to the GMC. If they are derelict in their duty & not providing full unbiased information (thereby making informed consent difficult if not impossible) questions will be asked of them and/or their GP surgery.
ICL is funded by a Saudi billionaire
Boris Johnson says Britons WON’T need to show a Covid vaccine passport to go to the pub – but admits you might need one to go on holiday
Who believes a word that little slimeball mutters?
You’d be surprised! a great many of them I’ve no doubt, probably took part in protests in Dec ’19 shouting ‘not my Prime Minister’ before having a miraculous change of heart..! 🙂
So that means it’s on way then
None of the drinkers I know are going to have the vaccine so that’s lot of customers lost to the pub trade