Parents to Test England’s Three Million Secondary Schoolchildren for Covid Twice a Week
When secondary school pupils in England return to class they will be tested by their school at the start of each term and parents will be expected to test their children twice every week, the Telegraph reports.
Parents will be asked to test their children twice a week under plans for a phased return to the classroom, the Telegraph can disclose.
Families of secondary school pupils will be asked to administer lateral flow tests at home during term time under plans being drawn up by the Government.
It is understood that schools will only oversee the mass testing of secondary students once, at the start of term, after education unions struck a deal with ministers.
All schools in England are expected to open on March 8th, but secondary schools will be allowed to stagger the return of some year groups so every pupil can be tested on arrival.
Large secondary schools may take up to two weeks to get all pupils back to the classroom, education sources said.
Face masks will also be made compulsory for pupils in English secondary schools where social distancing is not possible outside classroom bubbles, it is reported.
It’s not clear what will happen if parents or children do not wish to comply with the continual testing regime, but presumably the children will not be permitted to attend school in person. Needless to say, this is an outrageous imposition on children and parents. The healthy should not have to be constantly subjected to screening for a disease for which they have no symptoms and from which they are not sick. There is scant evidence that asymptomatic individuals drive more than a tiny fraction of transmission. The risk of false positives (rarer but not unknown with lateral flow tests), and hence needless self-isolation for the whole family, class, teachers and any contacts, is hugely elevated by such a constant stream of testing. And isn’t the risk of false positives increased if the tests are being administered by people with no training or medical qualifications?
The rollout of mass testing as part of a “new normal” to try to keep infection rates low is hard to square with the vaccine exit strategy that was driving Government policy until a few weeks ago.
Dominic Raab told Sky News that rapid testing is a “key part” of the Government’s strategy to end lockdown, saying the aim is to do it “at scale and at pace so that when you do have upticks of the virus, we can come down on it like a ton of bricks”. This is not a vaccine exit strategy. This is a Zero Covid strategy. Is the Government aware that it is switching tracks to a highly contentious and extreme position here, or has it just allowed itself to be softly led into it by various advisers and interest groups? Is this just Operation Moonshine following through, not being shelved despite the vaccines arriving? How will cases ever drop below 1,000 a day with testing being ramped up on such a scale?
Meanwhile, some ministers are exerting pressure to ease restrictions more quickly, says the Telegraph.
Boris Johnson faces pressure from his own ministers to relax social distancing restrictions in shops and pubs as vaccines are rolled out. The Prime Minister will set out his roadmap to ending Covid restrictions on February 22nd.
Whitehall sources said a major study showing the impact of vaccines on transmission, due next month, will be key to decisions about how far the hospitality industry can “get back to normal” as the lockdown eases…
A rapid reopening of the economy after the return of schools is also being considered in Whitehall, internal documents seen by Sky News suggest. The plans imply that hospitality venues could reopen by late April.
But yesterday the Prime Minister said that bars and restaurants were set to be “one of the last things” to reopen, as the Government prepared to publish a roadmap out of lockdown.
Ministers have warned that many pubs will struggle to survive unless blanket rules on social distancing are eased. ...
On Monday, Mr Johnson is expected to announce that schools will start to return from March 8th in a plan setting out the order for other sectors to reopen depending on rates of infection, hospitalisation, deaths and vaccine uptake.
Worth reading in full.
Somehow the Government has allowed itself to drift into de facto membership of the Zero Covid cult. It needs to snap out of it and remember the plan. The one where we discover a vaccine then go back to normal. Actual normal. Not new abnormal.
Stop Press: Professor John Bell has said people want a “normal way of life” back after getting Covid jabs and it’s “not plausible” to expect Britons to comply with major curbs once they’ve had both doses.
“Could Somebody in a Position of Political Power Tell Us What is an Acceptable Number of Infections?”
Professor Dame Angela McLean, the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence and co-chair of the SPI-M SAGE sub-group, told MPs yesterday that SAGE scientists have been “crying out” for politicians to determine the acceptable level of Covid risk so it is clear when the crisis can be deemed over. The Telegraph has the details.
The Government must decide what is an “acceptable” number of coronavirus infections so Britain can finally move on from the pandemic, scientists have said.
Prof Dame Angela McLean, the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence, said experts were “crying out” for some clarity on when the crisis would be deemed to be over. Next week, Boris Johnson will set out his vision for easing the country out of lockdown and reopening various sectors of society – but it is still unclear what measures the Government is using to determine when the country has succeeded in fighting the virus.
Speaking at the Science and Technology Select Committee, Dame Angela said: “I think it’s reasonable to say ‘let’s not have Covid winters that are any worse than bad flu winters’. But actually, bad flu winters could be quite bad.
“It’s one of the things we’ve cried out for again and again – could somebody in a position of political power tell us what is an acceptable number of infections?”
Dame Angela, a member of the Government’s scientific advisory group SAGE and also co-chairs the SPI-M Sage sub-group, added: “We do need to decide what level is acceptable, and then we can manage our lives with that in mind.”Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said it would be wrong to attempt to get Covid cases to zero.
“If you take the view that no Covid death is acceptable or something of that order, you are writing a blank cheque to do any amount of harm by the measures you have implemented to try and control it,” he said, but added that the current data was pointing to “earlier unlocking”.
“I completely agree that we don’t want to be overly focused on dates – not at all,” he said. “We want to be focused on data. But the point I’d make about that is the data is going really well.
“The vaccination rollout is, I think, exceeding most people’s expectations. The transmission blocking potential is key. But so, of course, is its actual ability to protect against death and disease, and to keep people out of hospital, and those numbers are looking really good.
“My conclusion from that is if you’re driven by the data and not by dates, right now you should be looking at earlier unlocking.”
It comes as latest data shows that current death rates and hospitalisations are far lower than was projected by the Government’s scientific advisers.
Papers released by the Scientific Advisory Group on Medical Emergencies, dated last month, project around 800 deaths a day in England by mid-February, with 2,200 hospital admissions daily. In fact, hospital admissions for the country have now reached a seven-day average of 1,497 – around one-third lower.
Deaths are around 40% lower than the modelling by Sage’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), with a seven-day average of 482.
On Wednesday, scientists suggested that the progress against the measures – previously seen as key to getting Britain out of lockdown – might explain a shift towards a focus on case numbers. It came after Whitehall sources said any significant easing of restrictions, such as the reopening of pubs, is unlikely until case numbers reduce to less than 1,000 a day.
Prof Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “We need the Government to be much more explicit about the criteria they are using, and upfront about the decisions being made.
“It’s right that decisions about easing lockdown should be data driven, but this modelling is so far out that it is worrying, and it makes you wonder if they have shifted to focusing on case numbers because the data on other areas is showing such improvements.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Even lockdowner David Aaronovitch is calling for the date to be set when all restrictions will end, worrying that “Ministers won’t give up Covid powers easily”. He writes in the Times:
Right now we are talking about (but not debating) what discriminatory restrictions we can impose so that we can lift lockdown. Might nightclubs, theatres, cinemas and bars be allowed to reopen later in the year on the production of evidence (presumably app-based) of each guest’s negative PCR test? At the moment most of us would happily go along with that, whether we should or not.
Should employers be able to demand proof of vaccination as a condition of employment? Think about it. In the context of health employment this makes immediate sense. But what about the non-healthcare company that simply wants to boast to the public “We don’t employ Covid-vulnerable staff”?
A pre-entry PCR test is one thing, a demand that you are immunised for your job is another. I don’t believe the Government can say that it is up to individual companies to decide. It must tell them not to do it.
The time has come to start discussing in earnest where we want to go with all this in the event of another emergency once this pandemic war is over.
We should set out one overriding principle: that some time this year we agree a date for Victory over Virus Day, when excess deaths have fallen or infection rates reach a pre-pandemic level, after which we expect all emergency measures, restrictions, mandatory tracking apps and special discretionary powers to end.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press 2: SPI-M member Dr Michael Tildesley, an epidemiologist from the University of Warwick, has told Freddie Sayers on UnHerd that we “want the old normal back”.
We should really want the old normal back so that we can see our loved ones and have that level of social interaction because we’re a social species. A lot of the dystopian discussion of a new normal actually really scares me, because I think we lose that level of social interaction that actually keeps us going. We don’t talk enough about mental health. And actually, one of the big challenges in the last 12 months has been people who have suffered more from mental health challenges before the pandemic, but also an awful lot of people who have suffered as a result of the pandemic.
Watch it here.
What are We to Make of the 40.5% Hospital Acquired Covid Infection?
We’re publishing an original piece today by Dr Ann Bradshaw, a Lockdown Sceptics contributor and retired senior lecturer in adult nursing at Oxford Brookes. Dr Bradshaw wonders whether lessons on how to minimise infection in hospital will ever be learned.
Hospital spread infection is not a new problem. In 2008 the King’s Fund published a Briefing Paper on Health Care Associated Infections in hospitals, subtitled, “Stemming the Rise of the Superbug”. MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) had increased dramatically: from fewer than 100 in 1990, to more than 5,000 in 2001. Although part of the increase was probably the result of better identification and reporting, there were nearly 50,000 cases of clostridium difficile in 2007 reported in acute trusts in patients aged 65 years and over. Between 2004 and 2006, the number of cases of C difficile rose steadily from 44,563 to 55,634.
The King’s Fund recommendations were for hand hygiene, a ‘clean your hands’ campaign and a ‘bare-below-the-elbows’ dress code for health care staff aimed at facilitating effective hand decontamination. Both these were implemented in 2004 and 2007 by Government. Isolation of infected patients was also recommended. Although the King’s Fund recognised that a hospital’s capacity to isolate patients depends on the design of the building, particularly the number of single rooms, as well as an ability to move patients around, which could be affected by levels of bed occupancy.
These two issues of isolation and hospital hygiene are extremely relevant to the Covid situation today. The importance of isolating contagious patients was suggested by Jefferson and Heneghan but apparently this suggestion has been ignored by Government planners. And it is hard to see why Nightingale hospitals and some imagination with staffing were not used for this purpose (as I have written previously).
The second issue is that of hospital hygiene. When I trained as a nurse from 1968-1971, hospital hygiene was drilled into us student nurses. Doing a dressing for a patient, for example, meant washing down a dressing trolley in the clinical room twice, first with a soap and water substance then with an antiseptic – Hibitane – and laying out the trolley. Dressings were only carried out in the afternoon when any dust created by the ward work in the morning had settled. Dressing a patient followed a procedure. It started by explaining to the patient and making him or her comfortable. Where the dressing pack was placed on the trolley, how the pack was opened, were prescribed. So too were the steps needed to perform the dressing and to dispose of contaminated material. Before each step hand washing was required.
However, this was abandoned in the 1980s as too “routinised, task orientated, ritualised and unnecessary” – with predictable and tragic results.
Worth reading in full.
The Coddling of the Political Mind
We’re publishing another original piece today, this one by James Moreton Wakeley, a former parliamentary researcher who has a PhD in History from Oxford. He recalls the three ‘Great Untruths’ from Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure. They are the “Untruth of Fragility” (‘what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker’), the “Untruth of Emotional Reasoning” (‘always trust your feelings’), and the “Untruth of Us vs Them” (‘life is a battle between good people and evil people’). He sees these “cognitive distortions” working overdrive during the pandemic, pumping up the over-reaction.
Worryingly, governmental adherence to the Untruth of Fragility appears only to be growing. Hopes that vaccinating those most at risk from critical symptoms would lead to a loosening of lockdown look to be disappointed as the Government and its advisers find ever more excuses for caution. The goalposts have moved: the Prime Minister now seems more concerned about case numbers than alleged pressure on the NHS or fatalities. Virus variants risk becoming a gift that keeps on giving to the lockdown lobby. The seeming desire of ministers to destroy risk entirely is not only unbalanced and delusional, but it also fails to recognise the clear medical fact that younger demographics can deal with Covid, and that the NHS should be expected to cope with the tiny fraction of those demographics who unfortunately suffer serious symptoms.
Reaching such a conclusion, however, risks violating the second Great Untruth: the “Untruth of Emotional Reasoning”. How can I talk about Covid so academically, a critic may say, when we are shown heart-rending footage of hospitals almost every night on television, and hear stories of death every day? And surely, they may continue, does not lockdown, by keeping people apart to stop the spread of the disease, not simply feel like a good idea?
We are certainly emotionally-induced by what we see to panic about Covid, to catastrophise, to focus on the negatives, to assume that lack of capacity at some NHS hospitals speaks to a more general crisis. The sheer repetition of death statistics and warnings makes it worse: the more often something is said, the truer it becomes. Yet around 1,700 people die in the UK every day, every year. Death is always ugly, and winter always brings respiratory-disease pressures to the NHS. Just because you never used to see it on your telescreen does not mean that it was not real. The fact that modern society now habitually segregates its elderly in care homes has probably contributed to the power of obsessively-morbid media coverage as death is now something that happens beyond the home, not a process that families grow-up observing around them.
It is all too easy for politicians to play to this Covid gallery of doom, but they are elected in part to look beyond the drowning man in front of them to the sinking ship on the horizon. Emotionally, we respond to the Covid patient on the six o’clock news, but rationally we are led to consider the huge costs we cannot yet see so easily: the costs of lockdown. As to lockdown feeling like the right thing to do, standing back and looking at the evidence reveals that panic-induced feeling is no substitute for empirical observation. Covid is overwhelmingly transmitted to vulnerable demographics in places that simply cannot be locked-down – hospitals, sustained contact in households, and care homes – and viruses do not respond to pettifogging Government guidance on exercise regimes, distances driven to parks, substantial meals, or group sizes.
Worth reading in full.
Legal Challenge to Hotel Quarantine
Law firm PGMBM are seeking to bring a legal challenge against the mandatory hotel quarantine measures imposed by the Government on UK and Irish citizens and residents returning home to England. They explain:
We believe that the Government, by forcing UK and Irish citizens and residents returning home to quarantine in a hotel at their own cost, regardless of whether they are showing any symptoms of COVID-19, or whether they have tested positive for COVID-19, has unlawfully and disproportionately violated their fundamental right to liberty and right to respect for private and family life.
Whilst we acknowledge the importance of safeguarding public health in these unprecedented times, and understand that any public policy decision aiming to prevent the spread of the virus is by its nature difficult, the Government should in no way use this as an excuse to disproportionately deprive its citizens and residents of their fundamental human rights. Under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, no one shall be unduly deprived of their liberty. Article 8 further protects everyone’s right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence from any undue interference by public authorities. …
Citizens and residents paying for the privilege of staying in their own country
We believe that it is utterly disproportionate for the Government to require its citizens and residents to pay at their own expense – an astonishing total of £1,750 – for the privilege of staying in their own country where they already have a place of residence. It is unreasonable for the Government to assume the ineffectiveness of home quarantine without first considering viable, but more human rights friendly, alternatives which have been successfully implemented in many other countries across the world.
Disregarding international obligations
The United Kingdom, as a Member State of the World Health Organization which has committed itself to abiding by the International Health Regulations, has disregarded its international obligations under Article 40 of the Regulations, which expressly prohibits Member States from imposing a charge to travellers who are subject to quarantine requirements.
Find more information and support the crowd funder here.
Farewell to the Lamb & Flag
Responding to our request yesterday for laments for lost high street favourites, Lockdown Sceptics reader Sebastian Lees has sent us this tribute to the Lamb & Flag in Oxford.
The historic Oxford pub, operating continuously for over 450 years has ceased trading, the latest casualty of lockdown.
Established in 1566, and moved to its current site in 1613, the Lamb & Flag was an institution for generations of Oxford residents and students, including myself. It’s panelled walls, wonky layout, and stone floors offered a soothing antidote to the modern, sometimes soulless gastropub chains. To quote Evelyn Waugh, the pub “exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth”.
It was home to The Inklings (although the pub across the road gets all the credit), a writing group consisting of Tolkein and C.S. Lewis amongst others, who would meet regularly to read and discuss chapters from their latest books. More recently it saw Tony Blair pulling pints behind the bar in his student days.
It was a pub you could feel good drinking in for reasons beyond historical aesthetic – profits were used to fund scholarships at a nearby Oxford college.
My favourite memory of the place was slipping away at midday, to partake in the now lost ritual of the lunchtime pint. What I loved about the place was how egalitarian it was. A brotherhood of lunchtime drinkers would convene at the bar to discuss the day’s events. Members included Oxford dons, security guards, students, lawyers, and of course the barman. It was Moe’s Tavern – Oxford Style.
I will miss the Lamb & Flag terribly. Its future now looks uncertain, but with such an historical pedigree and central location, I hope it will live on through new owners.
CORRECTION: Yesterday’s lament for Barnsbury Stores appears to have been somewhat belated. Two readers wrote to tell us it was already closed by July 2019. One explained:
The closure of Barnsbury Stores, the shop you showed in today’s edition, had nothing to do with lockdown. It closed well before Covid was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. It was a rather expensive local off-licence, and it closed when the much more competitive corner shop fifty yards away started selling alcohol much more cheaply.
Round-up
- “Test and Trace was an expensive failure” – Ross Clark in the Spectator on the new evaluation by the Department of Health and Social Care that finds the £22 billion contact tracing scheme reduced the R number by just 2-5%
- “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Takes ‘Anti-Vax’ Stance in Violation of His Own Platform’s New Policy” – Watch a leaked clip of Zuckerberg from July saying he wanted caution on vaccines because “we just don’t know the long term side-effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA”. Saying that on Facebook today is verboten
- “Britain should follow France and Spain’s lead on school closures” – Joanna Rossiter in the Spectator on the topsy-turvy spectacle of British unions outdoing the French and keeping schools closed this winter
- “How neutral is ‘Full Fact’?” – David Scullion in the Critic points out that the self-appointed (and Big Tech funded) oracle of infallible truth has at least one error on its website: there is no Conservative Party member on its board of trustees, despite claiming to have one. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be anyone with a background in the conservative press working for it at all
- “Tice Talk” – Episode 4 is out, with Richard Tice and Dr David Bull talking about the Roadmap, the homeless who have been forgotten and what’s causing the low uptake of vaccines among ethnic minorities
- “The Pandemic: A Year of Mistakes?” – Get the first book in Bite-Sized Books’ Pandemic Series by John Mair
- “Prof Mark Woolhouse tells MPs there was not a single virus outbreak linked to crowded UK beaches last summer” – Tweet from the BBC’s Hugh Pym on the comments of the SAGE scientist. Spiked comment in an editorial: “Beach-going ‘Covidiots’ did nothing wrong“
- “UK to infect up to 90 healthy volunteers with Covid in world first trial” – News in the Guardian of the first Covid challenge trial, designed to produce fast, high quality data on treatments and vaccines. It has been approved by the ethics body for participants aged 18-30 because there is not “any appreciable risk” to them. Er, isn’t that what sceptics say?
- “Anatomy of the Nursing Home Death Warrants” – Jordan Schachtel in AIER on the role of Bill Gates and the modelling outfit he bankrolled, IHME, in the calamitous political decisions last spring
- “Results of Initial Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 Lateral Flow Antigen Test with Clinical Samples” – Avacta group has received the first data for its rapid antigen test from clinical studies in Europe and the UK. They confirm that the lateral flow test is reliable in identifying infectious virus at PCR Ct values of 26 and below
- “We do not need lockdown to keep Covid under control” – Professor David Paton in spiked explains five reasons that lockdowns aren’t necessary or effective
- “We want to hear your views on the Scottish Government’s emergency powers to respond to COVID-19” – Respond to the Scottish parliamentary consultation ahead of the March 31st expiry of the powers here
- “Dominic Cummings wanted Boris Johnson to scrap SAGE after raging at leaks by pro-lockdown scientists” – Despite the rumours that Dom was a bit of a zealot for the restrictions, the Mail reports that he was none too impressed by SAGE members using their access to privileged Government information to pop up in the media and pressure the Government to tighten lockdowns
- “Epidemiologist Tim Spector has said the UK has focused all its attention on Covid deaths and now needs to ‘change the discussion’” – Watch the ZOE Covid Symptom Study App founder talk to Julia Hartley-Brewer on talkRADIO about the need to widen our focus as a society so we can move on
- “How deadly is COVID-19?” – Dr Malcolm Kendrick revisits the vexed question of the mortality rate of this highly variable virus
- “Dear Mr Bradshaw…” – Sam Hartshorn, a first year Economics student at the University of Exeter, has penned a stonking letter to his MP Ben Bradshaw about the unjustifiably slow lifting of lockdown. To be fair to the MP, he retweeted it
- Steve Baker MP was on Peston yesterday calling for the reopening of the hospitality industry
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Eight today: “Pick Up The Pieces” by the Average White Band, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “Day After Day” by Badfinger, “How Many More Years” by Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts, “Enough Is Enough” by Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, “Promises” by Eric Clapton and “We Make It Up As We Go Along” by Kevin Duncan.
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.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, Nigel Farage is feeling vindicated in the Telegraph as the tide begins to turn against the highly political, far Left BLM movement.
The blinkered excitement that surrounded last year’s Black Lives Matter marches at last appears to be fading. At the recent England versus Scotland rugby international many players, including Billy Vunipola, refused to ‘take the knee’. The Crystal Palace striker Wilfried Zaha has also dismissed this gesture as “degrading”. And now, at last, the Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she would never take the knee either. It has taken much longer than it should have done, but the truth is beginning to circulate widely: BLM isn’t just a loose group of well meaning social activists who enjoy a protest – it’s a political organisation which would like to see Western capitalism brought down.
Those of us who have tried to explain this since last summer can begin to breathe a sigh of relief. But there is one man who should now be worried: the Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer.
Last June, Sir Keir ‘took the knee’ in his parliamentary office and then posted a picture of himself in the pose on his Twitter account. Jumping on this bandwagon was a huge error. Internal Labour Party research, backed up by Lord Ashcroft, shows that voters in so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats believe that the London-led Labour Party is completely out of touch with them. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why. Most people’s priorities relate to a good education for their children plus home and job security for themselves, so they don’t take particularly well to an MP genuflecting in support of a hardline left-wing group.
The Labour Party will only regain many of these Red Wall seats – and will only have a chance of winning the next general election – if it dumps the metropolitan woke act and reconnects with the vast majority of voters in this country. I think Sir Keir understands this, which is why, after years of deriding national flags (who can forget Emily Thornberry’s 2014 tweet from Rochester of a white van driver’s house draped in the cross of St George) Labour has suddenly decided that the flag is acceptable. All Islingtonians have been put on notice: patriotism is the name of the game from now on. This approach may work for Starmer, but it is clear that he still has a major battle to fight with one man in his party, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London.
The BLM protests were chaotic, to put it mildly. The Cenotaph was desecrated and Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square was daubed with graffiti, among other outrageous acts. In the confusion, the law-abiding majority was silenced, while those who peddled lies shouted loudest, informing us that our past was to be cleansed.
Into this nightmarish scene stepped Khan to announce he was setting up a Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. This month, he unveiled the members of this sinister-sounding enterprise. Its aim is clear: to remove statues, change street names and alter the imagery of London so that it can reflect the ‘diverse’ city as it is now. Khan believes that it is for him, as a here-today-gone-tomorrow local politician, to eradicate London’s Victorian history if it comes to it.
Farage goes on to list some of the extreme views and behaviours of those Khan has appointed for his Year Zero commission.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Gateway Pundit reports that the principal of a New York school “sent a list of white identities to white parents so that they could try to convert themselves from white supremacists to white abolitionists”. See where you fit…
“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.
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.
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
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And Finally…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Funniest thing ive seen https://youtu.be/bi2_2ogPMvo
Just heard Classic FM news, first time in weeks that I’ve not hit the off button 4 mins before the hour at the start of the atrocious Covid ads. Anyhoo, apparently – we’ve just landed on Mars, Boris is going to donate excess vaccines to poorer countries and a study out found that boys that play video games from a young age are less likely to suffer depression when they’re older.
🙄 No words.
“a study out found that boys that play video games from a young age are less likely to suffer depression when they’re older.”
At first sight sounds like a bad case of indigestion from intervening variables.
Hardly any comments allowed on articles related to Covid, Blair or the LD in the DT – they must be getting upset at the mainly sceptical, outright critical comments. One strangely states no comments allowed until 6am – is this when 77th are back on duty lol.
You old cynic, Hattie. 😉
Seriously, though. Can you imagine what the comments on the Blair nonsense are going to be like when they do open up? The final paragraph alone will get hammered:
Containment infrastucture? Digital health passes?
Same old Blair.
I note also Johnson recommending aiming from 300 days ( why days not months, probably makes it sound longer) for any new vaccine to 100 days. So, didnt take long for the slippery slope to get more slippery- a one off temporary emergency approval of a vaccine now morphs into new vaccines, previously taking years before approval, now rolled out in 3 months. Well at least guinea pigs can sigh in relief as they will no longer be needed.
Wonder what the intended incentives for isolation are – if you don’t adhere, threats of cutting off your power supply, access to food, or just gaol or a bullet.
Quite possibly. The whole article is full of rubbish. This caught my eye:
Now, I was under the impression that “the virus took off again” when the Regime started mass testing students at the start of September. Yep, just checked the Gov’s own numbers and the mass testing of students resulting in thousands of postive PCR results ended the totally flat numbers over the Summer.
Nice try, Tony. 😉
Attempts to perform Kochs Postulate failed Virologist Examines 1,500 “Covid positive” Tests to find Influenza A and B: Unable to find any trace of “Covid-19”!
The first step in the development of a vaccine is the isolation of the causative agent: in this case the novel coronavirus. We are daily told about vaccines against this disease, but no one has isolated the virus.
Yup, dunno who this chap is, trying to find out if he’s credible. This video won’t last long because he’s asserting Covid-19 doesn’t exist.
The assertion that the virus has not been isolated is uncontroversial. The developers of the so called vaccines used the genetic code provided by China to create their products, as did the developers of the tests.
It’s uncontroversial for you & me perhaps, but google, facebook etc don’t seem to agree. He’s asserting CDC have lied, covid is a fiction.
I’ve never seen TY on LS say its fake 😉
The CDC has publicly acknowledged that the virus has not been isolated.
I have no idea why anyone would go to the tech corporations for scientific information.
Just checked the CDC website. They are now claiming that they have the isolated virus and have cultured it and that they are prepared to provide to anyone who has the appropriate expertise and facilities. This is not what they were saying only a couple of months ago. The page is dated 29 December 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/grows-virus-cell-culture.html
Isn’t this the 1500 tests that Delores Cahill was talking about back in December. ?
Before Christmas this site regularly had over 2000 comments a day.
Now it seems to struggle to get over 1800.
The LS editorial line that “vaccines will make us free” is somewhat to blame I feel.
This month the comments count has been around two thousand half the time (and the comment count invariably drops at weekends).
A nation brainwashed
A nation lobotomised?
What are We to Make of the 40.5% Hospital Acquired Covid Infection?
The slogan should have been ‘Save us from the NHS’
I don’t even think those working in the NHS will be aware of this news. Too busy patting themselves on the back. The brainwashing is so deeply ingrained at this stage
I’d expect sceptics to look beyond this anti NHS propaganda and give the figures the same scrutiny we do all the other data. The timescale of the testing doesn’t support contracting the covids in hospital, and the false positives will still make up a proportion of them. And as we know masks and other precautions don’t work so you’re as likely to catch it in any place where people congregate- hospital, supermarket etc, the NHS doesnt have a magic wand that can stop viruses travelling.
The 40.5% nosocomial figure is NOT propaganda; it’s the numbers that SAGE are reporting.
Catch what?
A friend, who works as a phlebotomist at the local hospital, told me they were shoving non-covid patients into wards which had covid patients. Basically, wherever they could fit them in, with no segregation. My neighbour’s elderly mother had a fall just before Christmas. She was taken to hospital against her wishes, caught the bloody virus there and died.
My city is one of only 16 areas with a recent increase in ‘cases’, virtually all of them are within HMP.
Where do they count? Hardly community cases.
The very good show Basta Berlin, Russian funded news programme, today listed 25 care homes with significant outbreaks after vaccination.
All reported in newspapers, at least they are not brushing it under the carpet. of course they all had covid before they got vaccinated, just did not test + then.
Oh look! It’s just another one of those coincidences the authorities keep telling us about.
Is it strange that mass vaccination for care staff mainly result in 30% of them being sick with side effects?
Always 30%?1? Or maybe 33, but the extra 3 do not get reported.
The jellyfish in the state of Michigan continue to sit there and take it as restaurant restrictions are ‘quietly’ extended to the end of March:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/18/gretchen-whitmer-quietly-extended-restaurant-restrictions-march-29/
I was expecting some real jellyfish then. Disappointed!
Film for just had Valkyrie on and next alone and Berlin. Are they trying to tell us something? 😂
Aldi trip earlier tonight. Only four or five other customers besides me. One of them with a scarf worn more-or-less over his mouth. Another with hand poised ready to pull her mask up when she thought she might be spotted and then pushed it back under her chin.
Ironically, I’d already asked an unmuzzled member off staff to help me locate something, no problem.
A muzzled staff member out on the floor acknowledged me cheerfully with the standard “You OK?” Another, muzzled as she made her way to the staffroom, announced “Hiya! Y’allright?!” when she saw me. And no covid-safe announcements. Felt good!
Am currently watching Zorro with my Granddaughter. We could do with a Zorro or two!
I had a LIDL trip tonight. 100% mask compliance as always. Masks will never end until government says so, therefore they will never end.
Didn’t Lidl say they weren’t going to question people coming in without masks? I will be checking them out soon. I’ve never been in a large supermarket where mask compliance was 100% – not even a small one as I am the non-compliant person!
That’s true 100% bar me tonight. I had no queries but I deliberately go late at night as seems to be less hassle.
I go late so I don’t have to queue. I’m usually in and out in 20 mins.
It’s just after 11.00pm, barely a car on the road, yet the fucking ambulance sirens keep wailing. I can barely stick my head out of the back door these days without having to listen to them. Am I being neurotic to think that it’s all done to ramp up the fear factor, and hammer home some more propaganda?
Never hear any ambulances round here. Can’t remember when I last saw one either!
They shouldn’t need sirens at this time of night. Psy-Op!
I’m sure it is psy-op, Cheezilla. I first noticed the increase at the start of the first lockdown, and there was an easing off in the summer. They starting wailing again with more frequency at the start of each new lockdown and have continued that way ever since. As you say, no need whatsoever for sirens at this time of night. The town is deserted.
Oh I never forget for a few days in April in lockdown 1 watching police cars with sirens on drive around London (watched from a high rise) – it was mad. Totally to scare people!
Is that you, Grannyslayer?
🙂
Seems to be pretty much how it is here.
Seem to be driving around my small town all the time. Don’t seem to be in a rush but the sirens go on when around residential areas. Maybe it’s always been that way, not something I would have registered.
You’ll probably notice them all of the time now!
yup same round my way too – always sirens full blast!
It drives me nuts.
They’ve been doing this round here since March last year. I’d love to hear anonymously from any ambulance driver who can explain why they have been told to do this.
I’d be very interested to know why, although I can guess.
..desperate to get home to see Boris & Hancock’s latest appearance on the small screen?!
That, and reminding the plebs that we are still in the midst of a ‘pandemic’
I think it was confirmed they were asked to have their lights flashing at all times when on the move, during the first lockdown, to help heighten the sense of crisis. There have been no confirmed reports I know of telling them to use their sirens. If traffic levels are generally lower at night (quite likely given the death of the night time economy) the usual sirens in built up conurbations will be perceieved as being louder.
I used to live near our local hospital and we very rarely heard sirens at night – though their radios used to cause our old freeview box to change channels!
Sirens are only necessary when there’s traffic to clear. At night they can just drive on the wrong side of the road if necessary.
It’s not just a case of clearing traffic – they use sirens at hazardous crossroads as well. There are plenty of those in places like central London. Whether they use sirens close to a hospital entrance will depend on the local road layout.
Hmmm…I don’t know. I’m not hearing any sirens here.
Count yourself lucky then. It drives me to distraction.
They are probably really busy dealing with attempted suicides, heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, terminally ill and elderly people having difficulties at home, people going crazy, people assaulting each other, people hurting themselves when drunk, self harming, calling an ambulance for medical attention because they can’t see a doctor or get into A&E, all kinds of things.
Hardly any covid calls, I looked at 999 and 111 daily triage calls in West Berks the numbers are two and ten.
https://www.berkshirepublichealth.co.uk/covid-19-dashboard?view=cases&location=West+Berkshire
THIS IS FOR THE WHOLE OF WEST BERKSHIRE!!!!
They did that around here in the first few weeks of lockdown 1, haven’t heard them since though
22 year old son was born with a heart murmur. Never been an issue but just been invited for vaccination. Lengthy discussions tonight and will be ongoing. Family are not quite in the same boat as me.
Good luck!
I hope you prevail. I dread getting a letter for my son who has 2 auto immune conditions. We need to know relative risks. Good luck.
Of course he shouldn’t have it. Insist on speaking to your GP and ask for exemption or their (recorded) assurance that he will be alright. Say you will of course hold them responsible if he isn’t.
Don’t worry. I’d dress up as him with a big mask on and go myself if it comes to it.
Horrible situation, this kind of family division. Another piece of nastiness to blame the panickers for.
I’ve taken the view that since my offspring are all adults, they will ultimately have to make their own decisions, and while they all know my views I’m not going to get bent out of shape if they choose differently. I have no reason to suppose either taking the vaccine or not taking it involves particularly significant risks, even for most of the theoretically “vulnerable” people, though the uncertainty is much greater with the vaccine.
I’m not aware of any close family members who have taken it or plan to, yet, though it’s quite possible they wouldn’t have mentioned it (bearing in mind we have four adult children living in four different cities, in three countries).
Have been searching desperately around for dissenting voices and journalism academia and have been struck by the utter hypocrisy.
For example, I read quite a bit of Chomsky as a student. He practically wrote the book on media manipulation and illusions of consent. One look on amazon today and his best seller “manufacturing consent” is still highly rated.
I am traditionally left wing and I know that many right wingers hate him, but it would be ridiculous to deny his intellectual status and body of work, whatever your personal politics.
Anyway, I had imagined that he would be vociferous in his condemnation of current events.
How wrong I was…..
This is taken from a recent University speech.
“I mean, do you have an individual right to take an assault rifle and go to the supermarket or mall and start shooting randomly?” he questioned. “That’s what it means not to wear a mask. It’s a strange kind of individualism.”
What I struggle with is the constant double standards. Free speech is vital…. unless you denounce lockdowns.
Imprisonment is wrong…. unless it is related to Covid.
Bodily autonomy is sacrosanct…. until it relates to compulsory vaccines.
Simply because they agree with the… Read more »
He´s just afraid of death.
Weird that the author of “Manufacturing Consent” would fall for this scam!
I tried to order the book in the early 1990s. It had been taken off the list, the bookshop chain weren’t allowed to sell it!
I know! It’s like the author of a series of books entitled “don’t panic. Your government and media are trying to scare you” is now shouting at everyone to panic.
Political affiliations aside, I don’t see how somebody this intrinsically linked to the power of propaganda has just accepted propaganda.
Chomsky failed the 911 litmus test. Conspiracy? Not interested. He has been called a gatekeeper by many and i wouldnt disagree with that. Been earning a crust from the system he purports to critique all his life.
I used to think Chomsky was the man for rebellious academia. Then I found Michael Parenti.
Sadly not with us anymore
https://youtu.be/_aJArigViMU
Like all of these activist academics that plague us to this day.
Oh dear. Of course 911 was a conspiracy. An Islamic terrorist conspiracy.
Debate that. Anytime. Anywhere. Trained pilots for 45 years. Believe me someone with minimal skills simply couldn’t do that.
Suspect irony.
Nope. I choose my conspiracies wisely.
They weren’t untrained, fool. They’d all been on training courses.
I pointed out to somebody the other day- it might have been on another site- that Chomsky has either lost the plot in extreme old age (he recently opined that Donald Trump is (“Literally the worst criminal in history”), or else he has always been merely anti-American. (And the theories of linguistics which originally propelled him to fame have now been refuted.)
Chomsky has always been a chancer and he came very close to denying the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He was certainly a Khmer Rouge apologist.
I had thought this about Chomsky.
But the paper released on mass hysteria postedon here regularly over tbe last week is excellent in dissection of this. I wonder does he read such papers and think they are mad rantings. Anyway here is Chomsky defending free speech back in the day.
https://youtu.be/ydtEp2xTeJs
If a politician was this committed to freedom right now, they would never countenance the coercion with vaccines going on right now.
We cannot attribute universal wisdom to those whose words we may admire. All are subject to individual or selective preference. Being ‘left’ does not need an apology. Chomsky has wisdom but not a monopoly. We must realise that to be fiercely LS does not mean a requirement to be right wing. There are those of us who actually care for our fellow man. This fulfilling both the LS and the non extreme agenda.
Why state he is far smarter than yourself – obviously he isn’t. Some of the thickest people I have met have PhDs and having studies applied linguistic, Chomsky made little impression on me in that field.
“I am traditionally left wing and I know that many right wingers hate him, but it would be ridiculous to deny his intellectual status and body of work, whatever your personal politics.”
I’m of the right, but also antiwar and I have respected Chomsky’s work in the latter areas while disagreeing vehemently with most of his political opinions.
On the other hand, probably by some distance the most intellectually gifted politician we ever had in Britain was Enoch Powell (check out his academic record if you question this), but his intellect is automatically disregarded by his critics (and by the ignorant mainstream, who have swallowed the dishonest smearing of him as a racist thug).
We all carelessly sling terms like “idiot” around (most of us do anyway, and I certainly do myself) for people we disagree with, but Chomsky is one of the best examples, for me of how inapt that term really is. The reality is that the world is a sufficiently complex place that no amount of wisdom or intellect (nor education, either) is any guarantee of reaching the “correct” conclusion on anything.
Being both strongly conservative and strongly opposed to wars of choice, I’ve always been aware… Read more »
Apparently there’s talk of a link between the Astrazenica poison and the new “deadly” mutants. We’ve had the Kent, Brazil and South Africa mutants and apparently these were the regions where the poison trials happend , is this true? Does anybody have a link to where they did the trials?
UK column raised the issue but there is no hard evidence,but an interesting coincidence none the less.
https://www.hartgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/HART-Mutants-and-Borders.pdf
“There is also a theory that the new variants being identified are a direct result of a vaccine-stimulated response. It is worth noting that many of these new variants emerged in countries that had already conducted vaccine trials, ie. South Africa, Brazil and the UK. Given the reported clusters of sudden outbreaks of COVID-19 in care home residents and staff in the days following the vaccination programme, this observation would benefit from further investigation.1 2”
Ahh exactly the trials
Apparently ( according to the Daily Mail) experts are confused as to why covid is falling so fast all around the world because wait for it……
It’s to early for it to be as a result of the vaccines! I’ d love to be in a room with these twats as they desperately try to come up with a reason any reason other than the bloody obvious. Herd immunity and seasonality.
Dickheads!!!!!!
Along with the reduced PCR cycle parameters.
And the inauguration of Joe Biden. Inauguration and reduced PCR cycles happened at the same time. Coincidence?
Indeed, yet another coincidence!
It’s as if they can’t quite force themselves to accept the obvious – it’s a seasonal, now endemic, respiratory virus that does whatever other similar organisms do.
Maybe they’ve got SO used to being ever SO important and revered by MSM, and don’t want to go back to everyday life
Yes, the now minted Imperials, don’t want to go back to life as before when epidemiolgists had about as much sexiness about them as chartered accountants.
I watched a bit of Ch4 news. John Snow said Lockdown is working as cases are going down.
Spontanously burst out laughing, hadn’t heard such a good joke in a long time.
As usual their other reporting was misleading – deaths in 24hrs etc.
Has been reported on all MSM TV channels and in the MSM press. Correlation being assumed as causation as numbers fall but when numbers were rising correlation was NOT assumed to be causation!
Curiously enough, I happened to collide with the BBC News earlier (for the first time in months) and they were playing exactly the same tune: cases/deaths falling proves that lockdown is working. BUT, more cases occuring in the young so don’t think about relaxing. Then some indistinct graphs to prove both assertions. Then: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate; perfectly safe because we say so. I suspect that if I’d turned over to ITN or Sky, there would have been no difference whatsoever.
Too soon? They are running cover there. The average time from symptoms to death for fatal Covid cases is around 7 days. There should have been a much earlier dropping off of Covid deaths as the vulnerable population were vaccinated since they make up something like 90% of Covid deaths. It didn’t happen and if you aren’t a vaxomaniac you will have been able to tell from the MSM and medico-academical establishment response that they were puzzled by this. In Israel even the head of the vaccine programme admitted his disappointment.
I believe we are seeing a very mixed picture:
Seasonal decline after a late Dec/early Jan peak in a coronavirus. Protective effect of the vaccines (probably far less than claimed but real nonetheless) Deaths from the vaccine especially among the very elderly and frail who cannot cope with the artificially generated immune response (recorded as Covid deaths because the vaccine process produces positive Covid test results).. I think these are the three main variables affecting the Covid death rates. 1&2 explain why we are now seeing a steep fall and 3 explains why there was a delay of a couple of weeks in the steep fall.There was a… Read more »
Sir Desmond Swayne: There’s an urgency for Boris Johnson to lift lockdown | 18-Feb-21
The sad fact is that there are STILL people, LOTS OF THEM, who believe everything that the government says. I met one of them today. And he thinks that there are FEWER people who believe like me, i.e. I am in a diminishing number. What can you say to people like that??
I wish she’d let her guests talk, instead of lecturing them at length about the subject!
Sir Desmond has clearly grasped the point of herd immunity attenuating the viral mutations while lockdown makes them more virulent. He seems to have a good grasp of the stats too.
At some point, the focus has to shift from the virus to the birth rate.
People from different households must be allowed to meet, socialise and ultimately reproduce. This has to happen win lose or draw with the virus, it’s just a matter of when.
Lockdown, face masks, social distancing and vaccine passports have to go, in the long run it’s about the birth rate.
There are many reasons why lock down should end, but when you’re my age fornicating isn’t a priority.
I thought that was the point to de-populate
I think that’s all part of the plan. young people don’t need an education, because they’re not going to have jobs. they don’t need to meet each other because they’re never going to fall in love, marry or have children.
Trump had Atlas, Biden has Slavitt. Oh he’s a real good one this guy
https://mobile.twitter.com/OBusybody/status/1362241057300316163
Slavitt is a knob, isn’t he?
Ron DeSantis listened to every word Martin Kulldorff said to him. Result… Florida is doing fine.
He’s not got much to offer but loyalty to the narrative and that’s why Biden picked the numpty
Just endured the ‘celebrity’ vax ad. Apart from several untruths (eg the vax is the only way to boost your immune system against covid) it leaves viewers with absolutely no doubt that taking the vax is the way out of restrictions. Shame on those appearing in it, and those who commissioned it.
Does it say there are no other immunity remedies right enough? Blatant lies. They’ve no shame.
Says herd immunity not a solution as too many would get infected ? !
It’s dreadful, more state sponsored emotional blackmail and coercion.
However it goes on for so long, I’m sure it’s way beyond holding the attention of its intended audience.
i think i got some message from dr s office weesk ago i ignored it also because is too much trouble the password stuff, now from reading comments here i wonder if it was to get a vaccine . well they can forget about that ! will keep ignoring . will not be getting any vaccine . ever .
Thursday 8pm. Another vibrant evening in the capital.
How long can this persist.Running empty trains,tubes and buses.Outside of the builders rush in the morning they are deserted.
Madness. I hadn’t even noticed when I took it, but look at the three signs in that picture – one telling you to wash your hands, one telling you to wear a mask, and one telling you to keep your distance. What the hell have we been reduced to?
I’ve travelled all over the country with my new lockdown job.Its the same everywhere.Empty buses and trains.
Empty trains, running on an empty underground, in an empty city…
…ran by a man with an empty head.
I am a bus driver, and it’s soul destroying running around empty most of the day.
Buses serve one purpose, to get folk from A to B
Studies already proved there’s virtually no chance of catching Covid on public transport so why are folk still so terrified of using it????
I don’t feel at risk driving my bus, I just wish the passengers would feel the same.
@IvanDp, No where to go? Muzzle mandate.
Happy to get on a bus, but where is there to go?
just spoke to an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in years. As is sadly the case with most people, [it seems] she has never questioned the official narrative for an instant, and I was listening to myself through her ears, and I could feel her shocked response, and read her thinking: ‘she’s clearly completely unhinged.’ [ the usual ‘why’ questions: ‘but why? why would they do something like this? why would they lie about a pandemic? why would they give everybody a lethal injection?’ – the ‘why’ question that as another contributor pointed out earlier, should not precede the ‘factual’ question, ‘ARE they doing it?’] – the sad thing about this kind of conversation, which I now have fairly regularly, is that I don’t find them annoying, frustrating, or upsetting: on the contrary, I find some strange sense of relief in seeing myself for a while as a complete nutcase, with an overactive imagination, that has dreamed up this horrific nightmare, I can believe fleetingly that the old familiar world is still somehow there, it will soon come back, and perhaps my children do still have a future. for a short while it is like some dreadful weight has… Read more »
Yes – I know what you mean. Even though you absolutely know that everything you have seen over the last few months makes complete sense and nothing of what is happening makes any sense at all, when you speak to someone like this you come away feeling like you have to question it all over again.
I wish I could get past the annoyance and frustration they make me feel.
I had a message conversation with an old friend earlier too. I said that I thought the country and the world was getting more vile every day, that there was no intention for this to end. She said that was a sad outlook and she wouldn’t ever agree with it. I asked her what evidence she had for thinking it would end – she had none, just had to believe it would. That’s what I thought – I just don’t share that optimism.
Just tell them everything. So they’ve at least heard it. Then, perhaps by Summer they will suddenly click and it will all make sense.
And, don’t give up, I believe if enough people fought back this whole thing could be turned around.
If it wasn’t now, we’d have to fight it thirty years from now. Let’s get it over with.
Something else: Is there a ‘crash course’ in the coming ( they think ) technocratic tyranny? I was thinking there needs to be so that people are at least loosely on the same sheet.
I’ve tried with all of them before – I was on FB for months posting things they could have looked at. They simply aren’t interested. They won’t look at anything. This particular one said tonight ‘I don’t have any enthusiasm to debate it’ – she won’t even engage.
Facebook was exhausting. I did the same and shared truth as lovingly as possible, but in the end I had to step away for my own sanity.
Me too
And me. Facebook is poisonous.
Well, I am really surprised more hasn’t been made of the Zuckerberg leaked video.
Edit: I mean made of on here. He is an insider. I wonder what is going on there.
It’s the same everywhere I think. All levels people must be questioning what are we at here? His masked slipped for sure.
Imagine working in some HR department right now for a large corporate say. Having to write up the company propaganda to ensure you are addressing VACCINE HESITANCY. And ensuring your BAME employees get both barrells.
All the while you’re a raging sceptic. Shitting yourself. Biting the tongue. Crying at shifts end in the car park. People must be breaking inside.
More could be going on under the surface with people. And sometimes they take in more than they let on. I just know that with me things brew underneath and then suddenly come to the surface in realisation.
This is in real time, so sooner or later stuff is going to happen. I don’t think there is any point in getting frustrated over it, except when it comes to, say, persuading someone to at least hold off the vaccine.
I’m not going to bother trying anymore. They’ll just have to deal with the horror when/if they ever wake up. The apathy, and lack of interest in the loss of freedom just astounds me. Maybe we should just concentrate on saving ourselves now.
Thank you for posting this advice. I think this is so true.
I know of some people who have said to me, “people said this, or that, would happen, and I thought it ridiculous… then it did happen, and then another thing happened, and I thought, ‘you know what, these people are not mad, they’re telling me the truth, and they’ve been telling the truth the whole time'”.
Vaccine + passport + digital currency.That much is certain.
Very little private car use.Power cuts.They are coming too.
The rest is speculation but you can add no foreign travel.Massive censorship of the internet.
Are the power cuts because of the plans to run everything by electricity?
Green energy cannot sustain the grid.We are in trouble anyway because our nuclear power stations are nearing the end of life.Coal is being phased out.Wind is too unreliable because the supply is intermittent and cannot be stored safely.
Unless you live in Scotland, then it’s just a pain in the ass.
I saw some article today talking about pumping water up mountains to store potential energy from renewables (i.e. gravitational batteries). It sounds like an interesting idea, but I am thinking it possibly unworkable due to the energy loss in all the conversion. Power the pumps – lose energy, convert back via dynamos – lose energy, transport electricity from the nearest mountains to London – lose energy. In the end you only get a fraction back of what you put in. All these schemes just gloss over the problems.
The real solution is fewer people. Unfortunately no one will take a long-term humane decision (two children max), because the sheep will vote them out (because of procreation instincts). So now we are resorting to the plans of mad bond-villains like Gates. And just to clarify, CO2 is not an issue,the real problems are resource depletion, soil fertility, ocean pollution, deforestation, antibiotic resistance etc. Such a stupid species.
We already do it.
Cruachan from the 1950’s and Dinorwig later are pumped storage, to balance out demand.
They need a s*** load of concrete to build the dams up mountains and seriously in the UK there aren’t that many places you can do it.
It makes sense when you have conventional/ nuclear running best at steady load to store for the surge when half the country switches the kettle and telly and oven on at 5 pm or whatever.
Or not. Nothing is given.
Purely anecdotally I’ve heard that the level of electric car adoption in a neighborhood that requires a complete grid rebuild is 6-8%.
They don’t expect many of us driving going forward.
Sometimes I feel like I’m playing a part. When I speak to frightened friends and family I don’t dare mention what I really think. I have tried before and I know that I will lose their relationship if I persevere. I value those friendships and so I keep quiet and pray for them. They are blind and will not see what we see. Only God can open blind eyes. I do really struggle in these conversations, when the elephant in the room remains undiscussed. When will they feel safe enough to see us? I miss these people, my dad, my sister, my friends, my in laws, all lost to fear.
I agree Liberty. Family and friends are more important than getting them to admit they are totally deluded and wrong! 🙂 I don’t bother going down that route either – unless they directly challenge me on something…as it were launch an unprovoked attack, then I am happy to set out the facts. There are of course some friends I can argue with freely with because they are prepared to debate the issues with evidence and logic…that’s no problem. It’s interesting how often they don’t know even the basics e.g.total ignorance of T cell immunity. People outside my personal circle, I don’t usually launch into arguments with them. I am still waiting for someone to take me to task for not wearing a mask. The worst I’ve had was a muttered “put an effing mask on” to which I muttered back “eff off”. Not exactly a reasoned debate!
I’ll keep off the subject with family but when people I once thought of as friends turn out to be on the other side in this cold war then they are no longer friends. My mistake for not seeing them as they really were sooner but, now that I know, I can’t un-know.
This is me too. I think my family are comfortable with mixing as usual in our homes and that’s a life line. But they can’t see the overall picture. They don’t really want to believe anything until the BBC let’s them think it
I’m glad you’ve got that lifeline. I have a couple of friends who volunteer on our smallholding, chatting with them keeps me sane.
This whole situation seems to have been contrived to ”divide” in order to rule. Some of my closest and dearest are woefully uninformed and determinedly deaf to any criticism of their prison warders. So I’ve stopped telling them my point of view, or asking about theirs.
It strikes me the only way we can beat those evil swines who are causing all this is to keep our cool, and remain united despite our differences, until perhaps we can see a way out. Our nearest and dearest are deluded – but I desperately want my loved ones to remain my loved ones.
I keep reminding myself of the old adage: ‘‘Least said, soonest mended”.
Banjones, if there was a ❤️ Button for your comment I would use it. This is the approach I try and take, but oh my I sometimes get soo frustrated!!
Thanks, Liberty. I’ve got a few little tears right now. It’s really not easy.
Have you asked them gently what it is they’re afraid of? It seems to me that people don’t know any more. They can SEE that the virus isn’t around them – yet they believe the figures and the actors in the ventilator garb. They wear muzzles – do they know why? They’re told 99.7 per cent of people are not at risk – yet they clamour for a ”vaccine” with less effectiveness than their own immune system. And they want the ”vaccine” because they really believe that ”we can get back to normal” even though the government has said they won’t. So why are they afraid?
Is this what’s known as ”cognitive dissonance”?
They won’t admit their fear though. They take pride is stating they are not afraid. They are convinced they are helping the country, doing their bit and protecting the NHS. I just can’t make any headway with them.
I do believe that cognitive dissonance is exactly what we are seeing.
What we are seeing is the effect of twelve months of very skillful brainwashing.
Yes – I’m sure that some truly believe they’re being noble. And that makes me hate our evil ‘leaders’ even more – that they should betray people’s (even though deluded) loyalty and goodwill like this.
I’m blessed that two of my closest rellies are sceptics too, so we can discuss it freely and support one another. One is an experienced nurse and her opinions are very valuable. We tend to choose our words carefully when speaking to all the others.
For the first time in my life I am glad I don’t have my parents any more. To have seen their confusion and pain over all this would have been hard to bear – so I do sympathise.
Exactly- no one wants to feel this isolated with the realisation that we’re in an insane and evil world and I try to unthink it but the evidence is staring us in the face. I realised it the day lockdown started almost a year ago and have lived with that since then but can hardly dare to talk about it now because to question the vaccine seems cruel when so many of my friends and family have had it. It’s too late.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s knowing that our loved ones MAY have been allowed by our evil ”leaders” to put themselves in danger is appalling. I feel desperately worried – and I should love to be proved wrong about this ‘jab’.
I just make people aware of some facts, tell them about IFR, many don’t believe when I tell them, I point them to Ioannidis published report on the WHO website, It’s official I say. Those that take that on board become less frightened.
I then try and explain about the PCR test, Almost all didn’t even know what this test is. Oh that’s why there’s so many asymptomatic people because the test says it’s wrong.
Then I scare them about facemasks, saying how it causes lung cancer and fungal pneumonia and that every time you touch your mask you should immediately dispose it and wash your hands otherwise you’ll catch it.
I can’t be bothered now with the fact it’s all a scam. If the elite want to depopulate the planet maybe it’s best to start with those who haven’t asked a single question yet!! Probably best for mankind.
I was thinking like this just a few minutes ago, how nice it would be to be a sheep. To just go along with this and trust everything will be ok.
Especially here in Britain, where it gets more draconian every day.
But as someone said the sheep lives in fear of the wolf and in the end is betrayed by the shepherd .
Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
The UK Government has released the 3rd report on adverse reactions to the covid vaccines. Here is The Daily Expose’s breakdown of adverse reactions to the Pfizer jab. SHARE EVERYWHERE
https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/02/18/think-the-pfizer-jabs-safe/
1st report had 107 deaths*
2nd report had 143 deaths*
3rd report has 173 deaths*
*These are cumulative.
The list of different reactions is also getting bigger.
How can MHRA still say there are no deaths from the vaccines when the Regime’s figures are saying there are?
These figures are deaths reported post-vaccination. Unless we are told otherwise in due course, we can’t assume that the vaccine caused or contributed to any of the deaths. So there you have it….”no deaths from the vaccines”. We’ve been told what they want us to believe and I can see that it will be difficult to prove otherwise. There is no limit to the mendacity.
Unless I’m misunderstanding your point, I can’t agree with that statement. These are the Gov’s own numbers; they state that this, or that, reaction occurred as a result of the vaccine and that, in some cases, the reaction was fatal.
Got vaccinated > reacted as follows > some reactions led to death!
It’s there in black and white.
The intro to the article states that the data is an analysis of MHRA Yellow card submissions. It is the authors of the article who are interpreting the data as definitive evidence of reactions to the vaccine and I think there is little doubt that a large number of them are. Hence my scepticism that the government would ever feel it necessary to admit otherwise.
Another point to note also is that notification by means of the Yellow Card system is optional. Post-vaccine medical occurrences do not have to be reported via the system. So actual figures will undoubtedly be far higher than those published.
Agreed, many people will say nothing. My daughter had an absence seizure after her Men B vaccine, I told the nurse at the GPs about it, but as she got better I didn’t think to report it. I wonder if I can do it a year later? There must be many others who don’t say anything.
Yes, likewise, I know someone with a number of ailments (heart, kidney and blood pressure problems primarily) who had side effects from her first ‘covid’ vaccine which she got over after a couple of days. Doctors had even taken time to assess her records and consider whether she should even be given the vaccine.
I asked her husband if he had reported the side effects and (a) he wasn’t aware of the Yellow Card system and (b) he “didn’t want to bother her GP as they had enough to do”. I dread to think what might happen after the second jab but unfortunately they don’t pay any attention to my cautionary words.
Also agreed. 100%
Many people don’t know about the yellow card scheme.
Also, they’ve just done the very elderly and if reporting is online, that might be impossible for them.
Agreed! There certainly is little doubt that a large number of them are.
There’s one hell of a lot of reactions on that list that can only have been diagnosed by a medically qualified person. In fact, everything on that list, other than ‘general disorders’, e.g. headaches, fatigue, can’t possibly be self-diagnosed.
Just my opinion, but if these reports are being sent in by Doctors, Consultants, GPs and nurses, and they mention the patient died, then they died because of the vaccine.
I concur with all you say.
Died of anything within 28 days of positive Covid test-Covid.
Died of anything within a week of the vaccine-definitely unrelated to vaccine.
Ridiculous!!
Covert Operations / Hugo Talks #lockdown – YouTube
God, isn’t he right about being sick of seeing Bill Gates all the time.
Indeed he is. As am I.
Even though this is completely vomit-inducing, it gave me a good chuckle.
Fauci even looks like central casting for a murdering doctor. More and more I think that it is possible to judge people’s character by their appearance, their face.
Contrast Mullis with Fauci. Contrast Gupta with that stupid Edinburgh bitch professor. Contrast Cummins with shifty Ferguson. And so on, And so on. It really is all in the face.
That’s what I don’t get. How anyone can look at the protagonists and believe a single word they say.
I still have to wonder whether thus entire mess is down to Fauci and his mates at NiH, manipulating Coronavirus before they got caught and shipped the entire operation to Wohan.
Sorry, don’t see anything funny about that whatsoever. Especially not the fking rainbow coloured hearts coming out of the syringe.
Makes me want to take a hammer to that glass.
The governments are in complete control of the virus – many matches to be played at neutral venues due to covid restrictions including those played below.
Manchester united played Real Sociedad in Italy
Arsenal play Benfica in Italy
Liverpool played RB Leipzig in Hungary
Tottenham played RZ Pelletts WAC (Austrian) in Hungary
and Molde played Hoffenheim at Villareal, Spain. At the Estadio de la Ceramica. Must have been in the cup .. boom boom
That’s booming amazing!
FB link, but more excellent analysis of latest PCR data by adaptation.
I guess we all know the conclusions, but it’s very informative nonetheless. I’d highly recommend following their updates.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=747892482505032&id=155577158403237
I see in LS news that David Aaronovitch has finally awoken with some concerns about where all this is going.
This is the same David Aaronovitch who was a cheerleader for the Iraq war, until realising that he’d been completely lied to and it led to hundreds of thousands of innocent people dying, as many of us had predicted.
This is supposed to be a serious commentator yet he supported the UK’s two most catastrophic political decisions in living memory.
The definition of a useful idiot? David Aaronovitch.
Good evening Draper,
Couldn’t agree more!
“…If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.”
https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,945381,00.html
Peter Hitchens by his own admission seems destined to be the UK media’s ‘Cassandra’ yet again.
Best regards
Simon
I think Cassandra had the courage to throw herself off a barricade or something, while Hitchens has shrunk from assuming a leadershhip role in marches against Lockdown ,and prefers to pettifog on twitter with obscure journos and to post photos from his wanker walks about Oxford.
I just listened to this Monday’s chat with Mike GRAHAM.Hitchens was asked what he thought about vaccine passports.He stumbled then waffled like a politician.He has either been got at or is self censoring.I have never heard Hitchens reply to a question in that manner before.They are not a theory;they are being openly discussed at Cabinet level and Johnson has already admitted they will be required for international travel.
Aaronovitch was also a cheerleader for ID cards. I bet he’s itching to get his vaccine passport.
Hear, hear. Politically- an idiot. Personally- an exceptionally nasty piece of work. Yet another piece of detritus who has made the journey from left-wing authoritarianism to right-wing authoritarianism and thinks himself the only person ever to have done so.
Pleased to see we’ve independently reached much the same conclusion on Aaronovitch.
Aaronovitch belongs in the same category as Dan Hodges. Same kind of personally poisonous, dishonest, power-worshipping establishment bootlicker. Rather more profoundly nasty even than Hodges, though.
He’s a journalist. The ones with integrity are a vanishing breed.
Indeed.