Month: February 2021

by Tim Ireland Bezgranichana vusmojnost (unlimited possibilities) I’ve been coming and going from Bulgaria for 20 years – which is to say my knowledge of the country doesn’t reach back to the fall of the Iron Curtain, but it started in the heady days of pseudo mafia rule in the years that followed. Most of the people I know here were teenagers of young adults when the wall fell. Some were actively involved… they all remember what life was like before. The somewhat depressing refrain I’ve heard from many – especially those with international exposure and who know how pervasive and demoralising the lockdown has been in the UK – goes roughly like “I thought we threw this junk out, dealt with the joblessness, disenfranchisement, and community decline of the transition to capitalism so we didn’t have to live like this. The reward for that price was supposed to have been liberty”. A high school best friend – still a very good mate and sardonic at the best of times – shrugs his shoulders and proclaims as if narrating the history of the human species from a pulpit “That’s it. Those that have lived, have lived. Those that have travelled, have travelled. The end.” He’s actually among the more chipper of his countrymen, has worked hard to build a career, ...

Today’s update on Lockdown Sceptics is here. We hear why doctors shouldn't be forced to get a vaccine, a mathematician exposes the Government's dodgy use of numbers, and we ask, is Boris going for Zero Covid after all?

by Suzie Halewood On January 27th 2021, the cover of most daily newspapers showed a picture of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, head hung in shame as the number of Coronavirus deaths in the UK passed the 100,000 mark. Johnson appeared to mourn every loss, knowing some must surely be down to his action – or inaction. Taking full responsibility, he looked beaten. “A grim total”, announced the newscasters. But is it an accurate one? The figure demands closer scrutiny not just because it is the number being used to justify extended periods of lockdown and the vaccine rollout, but because with big numbers come huge anxieties, with many too afraid to leave their homes for fear of catching or transmitting the virus. These anxieties are compounded by NHS ads in broadsheets and on TV which demand that you “look them in the eyes and tell them you're doing all you can to stop the spread of COVID-19”. The BBC, ITV and Channel Four are all on board, spoon-feeding the dystopian narrative to a nightly captive audience who feast their eyeballs on flickering images of overstretched morgues, coffin shortages and eye-watering fatalities as they work their way through another case of wine in their new dressing gowns. We’ve been here before. “Britain Faces Worst Flu Epidemic in 50 Years” is how ...

Today’s update on Lockdown Sceptics is here. As lockdowns begin to lift worldwide we look at the coronavirus endgame, discover the most chilling sentence in Boris's Roadmap, and think we've finally found our theme tune.

In my previous piece for this site, I floated what I called “the flu hypothesis”. My idea was to treat COVID-19 like the flu to predict how it might behave. From here, we could get a sense of how Government policy might respond. This was based on the assumption that the Government policies did not really have any impact on the trajectory of the disease. So, whether the Government response ended up looking like a success or failure all depended on how the virus behaved on its own terms. What I found was that there were two types of flu season. One was more ‘gradual’. It tended to rise slowly at the start of the year, through January and February and into March. The other type was sharper and more ‘aggressive’. This type of flu season tended to spike early, around the first week of January and burn out quicker. Since the Government launched its lockdown policy at the start of January, I pointed out that if COVID-19 behaved like a ‘gradual’ flu season the policy would look like a failure. If, on the other hand, COVID-19 behaved like a more ‘aggressive’ flu season then it would look like it was the Government causing the decline due to their policy How did things turn out? The best data to look ...

Today's update on Lockdown Sceptics is here. Includes more on Boris's transformation into an elderly snail, another email exchange between a reader and Professor Neil Ferguson and a Postcard From the Philippines.

by Rosie Langridge Sunday being warm and sunny, we set off for the park. Not sure if that was a reasonable excuse or if we were indulging in a criminal activity. There were crowds of people looking relaxed. Lulled – almost – into a parallel universe where life is as it should be. I wandered through a wide open door into a spacious café and looked around at the piled up tables and chairs, the barricaded display of artwork for sale, and the paintings on the wall. I just ignored the ‘people’ lined up in their masks. The ethical case for expecting me to overcome my aversion is slim. They choose to do it, not me. I’d entirely forgotten about the one-way system business, and was unaware that I’d come in at the ‘wrong door’. I made my way backwards up the queue until a big burly man moved to block my way and towered over me saying, “There’s a one-way system for a reason,” and then blamed me for having "forced" him to speak to me. His muzzle was bizarrely emblazoned with “Lest we forget”. I nearly managed to remain polite. But standing there I realised what we lockdown sceptics need to be doing now – our civic duty is to go into public places and behave in an ...

By Kyle Helke In January of 2020 I took a job in Manila, Philippines, where I now live as an expat with my family. Originally we were supposed to relocate in July of last year, but when the so-called pandemic began the Philippines initiated a hard lockdown and closed its borders in March, which have remained so to foreigners ever since, save those with special permission. It took my employer four months of lobbying the immigration bureau before we were granted a special visa and allowed into the country in October.  We spent most of last year in flux between jobs and moving house again and again, a five month state of limbo waiting for my visa to come through. Having lived in both New York and Italy during this time, I thought I had seen it all when it came to lockdown absurdity, but the Philippines are on a whole different level. Upon arrival, you are subjected to a PCR test and then sent to a hotel to quarantine (both at your expense). When we arrived, you were able to leave the hotel and go home to do your mandatory two-week quarantine after receiving your negative test result, but now they don't even let you do that anymore; you have to remain at the hotel for the two-week duration. We were lucky ...

Today's update on Lockdown Sceptics is here. Includes the lowdown on Boris's 'roadmap', a Postcard from Bali and a further exchange of emails between an angry reader and Professor Neil Ferguson.

A reader sent Derek Winton’s article in Lockdown Sceptics criticising Imperial College's modelling to Professor Neil Ferguson. His remarkable response in turn prompted a lot of responses from our readers. One, a regular contributor to the site, produced a line-by-line analysis which we're publishing below. I was interested to see Professor Neil Ferguson’s reply to one of your readers. I was surprised he had replied, but no less surprised that anyone had bothered to write to him. Now, I think it’s a bit unfair to write to someone and then publish that person’s reply, especially if it hadn’t been made clear the reply would be published. However, it has been, and I suppose anyone in public life would have to be naïve to believe that anything they say is immune to being disseminated more widely. I thought it would be interesting therefore to analyse the reply. I presume you sent me this because you feel upset, angry, that no-one is listening, want to hurt me or change my mind. Or all of the above. Here we have an assumption of motive. The writer, who is a woman, is depicted as having become emotional ("angry, upset"), seeing herself as a frustrated victim ("no-one is listening"), aggressive ("want to hurt me") and manipulative ("want… to change my mind"). Therefore, the original email is ...