- “Need we fear a third wave after lockdown ends?” – “Even with a genuine abolition of restrictions after June 21st, (including social distancing), the ‘third wave’ of infections should be minimal,” writes Bristol University Academic Philip Thomas in the Spectator
- “Damn these ludicrous and cruel Covid rules that condemned the Queen to grieve alone while her subjects packed shops” – Writing in MailOnline, Dan Wootton rails against the nonsensical rules that apply to funerals
- “Britain can beat Indian double mutant Covid variant” – Professor Adam Finn of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation think it unlikely that the Indian variant will scupper the roadmap out of lockdown, according to MailOnline
- “Crumbling faith in No 10’s lockdown strategy is turning the public into conspiracy theorists” – “There is now a real sense that frightening the population into obedience is more important than telling the truth,” writes Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph, “and that faith in the Government’s promises – even in a crisis – is for mugs”
- “Allow all students to return to university at the start of the Summer term” – A parliamentary petition asking that students be allowed back to their campuses for the Summer term after more than a year of disruption
- “Landmark UK department stores at risk as Covid changes city centres” – A feature in the Observer about the historic department store buildings which are at risk of redevelopment as town centres reinvent themselves following the lockdowns
- “Only eight countries would make green list for safe travel from May 17th, industry modelling suggests” – The ‘green list’ for safe travel from May 17th will probably be quite short, the Telegraph reports, and two of the permitted countries, Australia and New Zealand, are closed to foreign tourists
- “Is the Astra-Zeneca vaccine killing people?” – In his latest blog, Sebastian Rushworth gets in to the weeds of what’s happened with the AstraZeneca jab
- “Vaccine risks versus rewards – what your GP won’t tell you” – “The hardest thing to remember is that your fear does not alter the risk,” writes Suzie Halewood for the Conservative Woman, with COVID-19 and vaccines, as with everything else
- “Disturb the balance of nature at our peril” – “The more we shift ourselves away from nature,” says Dr. Mark Shaw in the Conservative Woman, “the more we disturb the very equilibrium that holds us together as individuals”
- “Covid confusion, faulty figures and accidental racism” – In the 15th episode of The Week in Review from Bournbrook magazine, the contributors discuss the Government’s vaccine backtrack, the inflated Coronavirus statistics and more
- “Whisper it quietly: Europe’s vaccination programme is taking off – and could catch the UK” – The EU’s vaccine rollout is finally gathering pace, the Telegraph reports, and it may finish vaccinating its entire adult population before the UK
- “Canadian police refuse provincial order to make random stops amid COVID-19 surge” – The police forces of Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor and at least 19 other municipal police forces in Ontario have said they will not be conducting vehicle checks or individual stops in spite of being ordered by the government to do so
- “Michigan Moving To Make ‘Emergency’ COVID-19 Mandates Permanent” – Michigan has had and continues to have some of the most severe restrictions in the US, and the state bureaucrats are moving to make them permanent, according to Jarrett Skorup in Reason
- “Reopened states with low Covid case counts show that lockdowns are a farce” – It’s worth observing that in states that have reopened faster, cases seem to go down, says Nicole Russell in the Post Millennial. “It’s absurd to suggest strict lockdowns should remain anywhere”
- “Next-generation COVID-19 vaccines are supposed to be better. Some experts worry they could be worse” – Writing for Stat, Helen Branswell reports the concerns of some scientists that the immune system’s reaction to the vaccines could leave an indelible imprint, and that future jabs, updated in response to emerging variants, won’t confer as much protection
- “China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine 67% effective in preventing symptomatic infection – Chile govt report” – The Government in Chile is claiming that the jab is 85% effective in preventing hospitalisations and 67% effective in preventing symptomatic infection
- “Brazil asks women to delay pregnancy over new coronavirus variant fears” – The Brazilian health authority has warned women not to get pregnant while a new variant is still at large
- “NSW Covid quarantine: viral sequence suggests coronavirus jumped between hotel rooms” – New South Wales Health has identified seven Covid cases in people who just arrived in the quarantine centre from different countries, but it looks like the infections were locally acquired, according to the Australian Associated Press
- “Bill Maher rips into Covid ‘fear porn’ on his show” – “Don’t spin me when it comes to my health,” says Bill Maher on Real Time. “Give it to me straight, doc'”
- “Exchange between Rep. Jim Jordan and Dr. Anthony Fauci” – Watch Congressman Jim Jordan’s fiery exchange with Dr Anthony Fauci
- “If you get a vaccine… you’re immune. So act immune” – “If it’s not going to change anything, then what’s the point of going through it,” says Ron DeSantis
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To start on a lighter note. Yesterday LS reader TheFacistCoronaFraud took exception to a video claiming to ‘factcheck’ Mike Yeadon.
In checking the link the video was overwhelmingly downvoted (most unusual for YouTube) and the comments are universally in support of Mike.
Several other readers expressed an interest in making the factcheckers day worse so attached is an update before it sinks into oblivion.
He’s quite articulate but just makes sweeping generalisations which fail to refute Mike Yeadons work.
(To be fair the main subtitle errors “Mikey Eden” are not his fault, that’s YouTube’s effort).
Winston Smith was a fact checker in 1984
Fascists’ predictions prove totally wrong. Lying Fascist tyrants contradict themselves every couple of weeks. Nobody notices. Good work, Ministry of Truth.
For globalists. The past is fluid, but the future is fixed.
Pointless trivial question, but I wonder if there is anybody actually called Winston Smith?
I really must try and get a life.
Oh, sorry, I forgot, the government won’t let me!
Any zombie would do just that
‘Home visits for essential carers’
I was initially confused by this rather good but sad Guardian article until I realised ‘essential carer’ = loving relative coming to visit.
So it has come to pass that a petition (signed by 225k to date) needs to be raised so that limited visiting rights by a single relative has to be enshrined in law.
In many cases it will be that relative who is using their life savings or home equity to pay the bills and wages of the little Hitlers running some of these ‘care homes’.
£50,000 a year to be kept in solitary confinement.
Get your elderly relative into jail. It’s free, and prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners is illegal.
Covid Anxiety Syndrome, Telegraph.
Don’t expect sympathy from me; stay home, wear you face panties, jump out of my way in the shop but don’t use it as an excuse to throw an extended sickie when told to go back to the office.
The Telegraph is giving this nonsense a veneer of respectability by quoting a couple of professors who originally identified and named Covid 19 Anxiety Syndrome, no doubt eyeing a lucrative lecture series and a few books in the future.
I do have sympathy for the children of CAS ‘sufferers’ however.
You underestimate the induced mental illness. Don’t let Covid make you blind about the reality of it – it’s serious.
Agreed RickH, Lockdown induced Repetative Behaviour Syndrome, a form of Autism would not be much fun.
Another crime for bozo, ferguson and the rest to answer for.
The profs are just ensuring the grants continue to roll in. They are just making sure the research-granters know they’ll publish any facts they pay for.
‘Other countries are restarting travel, so should we.’ Daily Mail.
Downvoted commenter Oldlandtory might have hit the nail on the head without realising it.
“All international travel should be banned on environmental grounds. The mass population of the world should only be allowed to move within their own country or region for work”
Whoops, millions on the move,encouraged by the UN
‘The absurd cost of testing for holidaymakers’ Telegraph.
We have all read tales of woe from returning travellers stuck in limbo because the results of their overpriced tests have not arrived and then being refused a refund.
How some of these cowboy companies got to be on the governments approved list will come to rival the Cash For Curtains imbroglio.
The Telegraph reports that Grant Shapps has been ‘cracking down’ to reduce the price of these tests from £300 to sixty quid.
Dippy Doo, a week or so ago when some MP was complaining about the expense of universal twice weekly testing he guestimated that these would each cost the government a tenner.
Why anyone should ever believe a word perpetually-smirking one-time get-rich-quick scheme merchant Michael Green, aka Sebastian Fox, aka Grant Shapps says is a mystery.
Anyone who wants a stick stuck up their noses and mouth’s weekly and for travel (and pay for the privilege) must be mentally ill, deranged and totally brainwashed. I’m off in my private jet with none of this hassle to a secret island.
‘£322m on adverts till 2022’
Hugo Talks (YouTube) is always spot on. No surprise they took down his previous channel.
We may not like YouTube (except for the orangutan vids) but it does have way more reach than other video platforms.
I completely missed this Hugo Talks Some More shoutout to Lockdown Sceptics last week
‘China Weibo mocks India Covid ‘crisis’ BBC
Apparently showing a Chinese rocket launch alongside Indian workers in Hazmat suits burning bodies is mocking and offensive. I hold no view on that.
Has anyone yet told the great British public that burning bodies in al fresco cremation is normal in India, it’s what Hindus do with their dead, covid or otherwise.
Gates divorce ? Do tell, I’m not generally into celebrity gossip but would make an exception for those two.
Ed, just seen it on Hugo Talks Some More YouTube.
the comments below the Mail article were hilarious
‘has she tried turning him off and on again’ etc
I can’t see a link to that Mail article but will seek it out later.
They don’t count as mere celebrities, they are politicians.
Plenty of people are speaking out against lockdown and coerced vaccinations – especially of children
…but it hasn’t made it into the narrative yet. The narrative is driven by the government and the media of which the BBC is the most important
How do we get the narrative changed? He who pays the piper calls the tune. Its time for the oil companies to get off their arses, get their wallets out and start doing what they’ve always been accused of. Who’s the boss here? Big Pharma or Big Oil? Only one way to find out…
Big oil is over, they are well invested in renewables and the Great Reset. In fact, they are the primary drivers of carbon neutral. Trump was the last gasp of any such (outmoded) movement. Any counter movement will come from a faction of the tech industries, software, retail or from the people and political class itself. Oh, and possibly the military or services.
The first question is who is the more evil one of the two?!
David Thunder sums it up eloquently and precisely.
The only wird I would delete is ‘harsh’ – any flu season will do, I firmly expect a repeat of Fall/Winter 20/21, each year until the money has run out completely, aka the currencies been reset and government debts been eliminated through hyperinflation.
Someone also suggested to remove ‘peacefully’.
I won’t endorse that, yet, but doubt it can be achieved without doing so.
The relative liberty in the UK masks what is going on in other countries like Germany or the USA.
Wonder if Sterling will survive
“aka the currencies been reset and government debts been eliminated through hyperinflation.”
Belief in that is like belief in masks and lockdowns. A mistake in thinking.
Government debt is a Gilt. A Gilt is a saving instrument – held largely by pension funds. Therefore all that is happening is people are saving a lot, paying back their private debts and generally improving their balance sheets.
The hyperinflation you are looking for will not happen because all government is doing is offsetting saving and debt repayment. When people are saving, not spending, it’s very difficult for prices to go up.
It all becomes clear if you think of it as private saving, not government borrowing. Just as you do with a bank where the bank is borrowing from you when you save with them. Yet you never hear about the terrible levels of bank borrowing causing hyperinflation.
So you think people REALLY are over-saving and that’s pushing interest rates below the lending risk level?!?
They’re dividing assets. That’s all. It isn’t very exciting. At a certain point, joint wealth is more of a liability than individual. It’s just sound business.
That’s the interesting thing in itself. You don’t normally divide assets unless you feel there are potential threats.
The distance from your head to your elbow is a lot less than from your head to your hand. Just sayin…
“Rosa Silverman investigates why some cling fearfully to the isolation of lockdown for the Telegraph”
You don’t have to agree with everything in that article to see a vivid illustration of how the Goebbels and Mengele Memorial Brigade (SPI-B) has induced a wave of illness far worse than actual Covid.
It cites some extreme examples – but ask yourself how familiar are the basic symptoms.
Was in a queue this morning, outdoors, standing as I’d normally stand. Woman, about 40, in front turns round and demands that I retreat because she ‘doesn’t feel comfortable’. I say, in that case she can go and stand behind me. She doesn’t. Apparently, the risk of death from my polluted proximity is less terrifying than the risk of losing her place in the queue.
CCP’s-China mocking cremation in India is horrible. But the backlash misses the point. Most of the cremation were not alleged covid19 victims. India has suffered due to lockdowns and excess deaths are due to lockdowns.
Epidemic in India has passed (it reached heard immunity at which point epidemic began to slow down and then it finally stopped in January, 2021 if not before). Made-up stories of new variants that are way more deadly and can bypass acquired natural immunity are (sorry) just crap. If people cared about India they would care about several hundred children dying each day (and every year) of diarrhea and tuberculosis (mainly children and younger people) and a lot more people dying in 2020. and 2021. because of the lockdowns.
Another point that is missed about China is not so much that it hid the information about the virus in the beginning (the virus probably was all over he world in Q4 of 2019), the point is that China intensly propagandized lockdowns at home and all over the world.
Just listening to the World at One on Radio 4 (I don’t know why I do it to myself – I really don’t.) And I quote… “India has reached 20 million cases – the only country other than the United States to do so…” Failing entirely to mention that their population is more than 4 times that of The States.
Apparently it’s the same in US.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1389556856419405826
ps. interesting article in Indian newspaper (from the above tweet): “30% of beds occupied with people with mild symptoms who don’t need them. they are using political connections to get the medical care.”
So the people whose health has been severely damaged over the 2020. by lockdowns and who suffer now from various causes including any number of respiratory pathogens (also possibly including now endemic covid19) and/or high pollution in Indian mega-cities – there’s no room for them in the Indian health system that was never able to provide good care for everyone in the first place (otherwise there would not be so many deaths due to diarrhea, tuberculosis, etc.)
*the same in US regarding media hysteria about India.
The link third from the bottom should not be buried.
Think about the findings of this poll. If you can, try to picture how massive these numbers really are, how vast the levels of misery the lockdowns caused really is ….And lockdown skeptics are considered “cruel” and “selfish.” Excerpts from poll findings:
“U.S.-based polling company Gallup, which surveyed 300,000 people across 117 countries, found that half of those with jobs earned less because of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions. This translated to 1.6 billion adults globally, it said.
“Worldwide, these percentages ranged from a high of 76% in Thailand to a low of 10% in Switzerland,” said researchers in a statement.
The poll also showed that one in three people surveyed lost their job or business due to the pandemic – translating into just over one billion people globally.
My comment: 1-in-3 people! Over ONE BILLION people globally.
“…. The COVID-19 crisis has hit workers across the world, particularly women, who are over-represented in low-paid precarious sectors such as retail, tourism and food services.
“A study by the international charity Oxfam on Thursday said the pandemic had cost women around the world $800 billion in lost income.
“These figures also varied across nations with lower income countries such as the Philippines, Kenya and Zimbabwe showing more than 60% of respondents lost their jobs or businesses, compared to ….13% in the United States.”
My Comment: So “only” 13 percent of Americans lost their jobs or businesses …. which is “only” 43 million (!) Americans
Important point: It wasn’t the virus, which poses significant health risks only to a small percentage of the population (those who have largely already lived a full life), it was the response to the virus that cause this mind-boggling scale of economic misery and carnage. Where’s the compassion for these 43 million Americans … and BILLIONS of people around the globe?
The political and bureaucratic “leaders” who mandated the lockdowns that produced this economic devastation are celebrated as enlightened, as more caring and and “compassionate” than those who questioned all these “lockdown” measures. But who really has more “blood on their hands?”
“First do no harm” is the main tenet of the Hippocratic Oath.
Who can plausibly argue that these lockdowns didn’t create massive harm to massive numbers of world inhabitants? And this harm is still being inflicted on people today.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-global-workers/one-in-two-people-globally-lost-income-due-to-the-pandemic-gallup-idUSKBN2CK0BX
Has she caught him with something he shouldn’t have, like “missing” kids on his trans-legal private moving island AKA “yacht”?