One of the most surprising things to emerge from the pandemic, at least from a lockdown sceptic’s point of view, is how overwhelmingly the British public has backed the lockdowns. For example, a YouGov poll taken in March of 2020 found that 93% of people supported the first lockdown. Another poll taken in January of 2021 found that 85% of people supported the third lockdown.
While some lockdown sceptics claim these polls can’t be trusted, I suspect they’re not too far off the mark. And even if they do overstate support for lockdowns (due to unrepresentative samples or social desirability bias) the true number is unlikely to be more than 10 or 20 percentage points lower.
The high level of public support for lockdowns may explain why they’ve lasted as long as they have. Politics is notoriously short-sighted, so why would the Conservatives ease up on a policy that’s kept them ahead in the polls for most of the last 14 months?
Aside from the public’s longstanding reverence for the NHS, an obvious reason why support for lockdown is so high is that millions of people have been paid 80% of their wages to stay at home. In the absence of the Government’s unprecedented furlough scheme, many of these people would be out of work, and presumably much less supportive of lockdowns.
However, there might be a more important reason why support for lockdown is so high: the public overestimates the risks of COVID-19, especially the risks to young people. Let’s review the evidence.
In July of 2020, the consultancy Kekst CNC ran a poll asking Britons what percentage of the population has died of COVID-19. The correct answer at the time was around 0.1%. However, the median answer among respondents was 1%, and of those who ventured a guess (rather than saying “don’t know”) one in five said at least 6% of the population had died.
Last year, Gallup ran a poll for Franklin Templeton in which they asked Americans what percentage of people who’ve been infected with COVID-19 need to be hospitalised. Less than 20% of respondents gave the correct answer of “1–5%”. And a staggering 35% said at least half of those infected need to be hospitalised. Interestingly, Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to overestimate the risk of hospitalisation, as this chart reveals:
It should be noted that the poll also revealed some underestimation of risks on the part of Republicans. For example, 41% incorrectly stated that flu causes more deaths than COVID-19. This shows that results can vary depending on exactly which question you ask. (Notice that Republicans did overestimate the risk of hospitalisation; just to a lesser extent than Democrats.)
Likewise, a survey carried out by Ipsos MORI for Kings College London asked Britons what are the chances of needing hospital treatment if you catch coronavirus. The median answer among respondents was 30%, and of those who ventured a guess, one in four said the chances are at least 50%.
In March and April of last year, the economist Arthur Attema and colleagues carried out two surveys of the French population: one two weeks after the first lockdown began, and the other two weeks before it ended. They asked respondents, “Out of 100 people who are infected with the Coronavirus, how many of them die from the disease?”
In both surveys, the average answer was 16 (whereas the correct answer for Western populations is less than 1). The fact that the average in the second survey was no lower than the average in the first indicates that people’s understanding of the risks did not improve over time, despite more evidence accumulating that the IFR is less than 1%.
Members of the public seem to have a particularly skewed perception of the risk COVID-19 poses to younger people. The aforementioned Gallup poll asked Americans what percentage of those who’ve died were aged 24 and under. The correct answer at the time was around 0.1%, yet the average answer among Republicans was 8%, while the average among Democrats was 9%.
Likewise, a poll taken by Ipsos MRBI for The Irish Times asked people what percentage of those who’ve died were under the age of 35. The correct answer was around 1%, yet the average among respondents was 12%.
In November of 2020, Savanta ComRes ran a poll on behalf of The Conservative Woman and asked Britons to guess the average age of people who’ve died after testing positive for COVID-19. The correct answer is around 82. However, the median answer among respondents was 65.
Incidentally, one problem with asking people to estimate very small quantities (like the percentage of people who’ve died from COVID-19) is that humans have a tendency to revise small percentages upwards when they’re not sure. This “uncertainty-based rescaling” probably accounts for some of the overestimation in the surveys mentioned above.
However, taking all the evidence together, people – particularly in Britain – do seem to overestimate the risks of COVID-19. And this may help to explain their high level of support for lockdowns.
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I’m no Rachel Riley fan but I believe she may be right about this! Any war erupting in the middle is something no one should be celebrating, its a very dangerous situation with far reaching implications !
Hamas and Iran are celebrating as are quite a few here in the UK. And yes, that is ‘celebrating’.
Yes it is terrible what has happened in Israel but I am sorry but I cannot stomach Riley’s pontificating.
She is happy to support and be part of Imran Ahmed’s hate organisation the disgraceful Center for Digital Hate’s efforts to stir up hate against the Vaccine Aware and make them the new jews of the 21st Century.
For her it seems to me it is OK to scapegoat them. Shame, shame, shame on Riley.
Naturally this is my view and she is welcome to disagree with it.
Here is more about Ahmed’s Center for Digital Hate:
Who Ghostwrites Reports for the Center for Countering Digital Hate?
Imran Ahmed’s dark money nonprofit pumps out reports with sparkly graphics and questionable conclusions that conceal the names of “researchers.”
PAUL D. THACKER
Rachel Riley Awarded MBE in New Year Honours
It’s amazing what you can learn on here,
I know she’s had some dodgy veiws in the past but I didn’t know some of them when that far! Thanks for the link.
No way on earth did Israeli intelligence not know about this attack in advance. This beggars belief.
More damned bloodshed, misery and death. No surprise Biden’s mob are behind it which also means we are involved.
Well done Fishy. Next Tuesday.
Totally agree. It is unfathomable that Israeli (and US intelligence) did not know about it. The speed at which claims came that Hezbollah would be joining in, the Taliban is ready to move – this was an event many months in the making, nonsense to think they did not have a clue. And it isn’t just that they may not have known the exact how and when – they left one of their most sensitive flanks completely open? An army post was taken over, an entire police station? No Israeli counterforce available for hours? Normally, wouldn’t missiles have been launched on Gaza within less than an hour?
There are now claims circulating that they are using weapons kindly left behind by Sleepy Joe in Afghanistan, but more importantly, weapons kindly donated by the US taxpayer to Ukraine (of which, until late, there was a never-ending supply) which were then sold on the black market. I believe Finland, Austria and Germany had been putting in border controls because of concerns about black market weapons coming from Ukraine – this was months and months ago. No doubt in my mind that a great number of the weapons being used now originated from the US – where Congress, both Republican and Democrats, refused to establish an oversight committee to keep track of what was happening with those weapons. Now we know.
As the war in Ukraine put an end to a corona ‘crisis’ that was running out of steam, the conflict in Israel has just pretty much put the last nail in the coffin of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, which has also been running out of steam. The plans to start off WWIII have just been switched from the Russia scenario to the much more fertile and easier to light powder keg of the Middle East. With the blessing of a White House that is owned by foreign powers, a White House that has seen fit to deplete its strategic oil reserves, while curtailing US options for being self-sufficient in energy, has depleted its arms supplies to the detriment of its own protection – this is intentional sabotage of the country from within.
As usual, the people on the ground just trying to live their lives, on all sides, will be the ones paying the price, while the rich are counting the billions that will be coming from increased arms sales and increased energy prices.
Fair play Jane – an excellent analysis.
They’re calling it Israel’s 9/11. I think that’s true on many levels.
It serves Hamas, the Israeli state, the MIC, distracts from Ukraine and the busting economies of the West, stirs up hatred, leftist and rightist. Meanwhile the grift goes on.
I agree.
Ultimately what this does is derail the substantial progress made in the Middle East, where the nations there are trying to sort things out peacefully.
The principal beneficiaries of returning to a destabilised Middle East are the western world order. And the method is the same as always. Sow division and hope that they all fight amongst themselves permanently.
Inorgurated and encouraged by president Trump over 4 years, ripped up by Biden in a matter of days!
That is a point mentioned on Mark Steyn’s blog:https://www.steynonline.com/13818/proportionate-about-gang-rape
Thanks for the link. Mark Steyn bang on as usual.
Efrat Fenigson in Israel sharing her thoughts and details in this 7min video ( with transcript ) from yesterday. She too feels that this was planned. No way could a world-renowned military be taken by a ”surprise attack”, and zero intelligence that this wasn’t being planned. It’s nonsense and people aren’t stupid.
https://efrat.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-war-an-update
The reputation of the IDF is based on performance decades ago.
We can take comfort that while MI5 were describing ‘Incels’, young men who have been incapable of forming relationships with women as the greatest threat to UK security, we have hotels up and down the country full of young Muslim men who have nothing to do but pray in the mosque five times a day and become embittered towards us. A couple of years ago, I read we had 48,000 suspected jihaddists in the country and presumably many, many more today. Hurrah for diversity.! Come, bring your families.
Following the Islamist attack at London Bridge the BBC asserted that we needed to look out for White Supremacy.
‘Young Muslim men’ will never kill more UK citizens than successive UK governments, either with false flags (7/7 Ripple Effect), needless wars or poisonous jabs. We, the taxpayer, enable the wars as all our taxes and fines (all 230 of them) go to the Parliamentary Consolidated Fund which takes off 5-10% for foreign wars – most of which are illegal. No taxes = no wars, no money printing by the bankers = no £50BN annual interest footed by the taxpayer – and no inflation. We have to get out of the FIAT system and bankrupt the bankers overnight so organisations such as the IMF and World bank can’t coerce countries into colonization. No fiscal colonozation (as is happening in Ukraine) = no economic migration.
Good point….I refer anyone that has not seen Ivor Cummings video: Are All Wars Bankers Wars.
“…and at least one dead Israeli soldier within Gaza was shown being dragged and trampled by a crowd screaming “God is great”.
In the Bible is does say, beware of false prophets. Who is likely to be happy with the actions described above – God, or the Devil?
Both even though neither exist per se.
It should be clear from the behaviour of Daesh, the Taliban and any Islamic Fundamentalist that evil does exist. Anyone repeatedly proclaiming ‘God is Great’ while committing an atrocity is not with any kind of life affirming god.
Evil is within men and women, it’s the inevitable opposite of good.
I came across this comment (translated from Arabic) on one of the many Arabic YouTubes covering the Hamas attack on Israel. It should be clear that the ideology is nihilistic and much like a death cult.
“What the West does not understand is that we Muslims are not afraid of death in war, and we consider it a testimony and the reason for our entry into Paradise, and this is what made a small group of resistance destabilize a large army. Israelis, Americans, and Europeans fear death in a very, very terrifying way, and it is their nightmare. So they will find resistance waiting for them. The death of one Israeli or American soldier is considered the death of a thousand soldiers. Greetings to Palestine, the heroes from Morocco. As for us, the world is worth nothing, and the evidence is the Egyptian soldier and policeman who killed the Israelis and the soldier’s martyrdom. The evidence is that the Palestinians enter among the Israeli tanks without fear. If I had found a way to join the resistance and fight for the sake of God, I would have gone with all joy and happiness.”
If life is worthless and the world is nothing then there really is no hope for the Palestinians to make the world a better place for themselves. The fact that Islamists wear black shows they are against the light and wish to bring darkness.
But isn’t Nihillism about nothingness, yet this is a death cult thar believes in the cult.
This is a somewhat naiive opinion.
If you recall, God commanded what today might be called “jihad” to be visited on all the Canaanite settlements in the Promised Land.
To suggest that He is not “life-affirming” then, gets you into rather deeper waters than I suspect you are able to swim in.
You might like to ask yourself whether imposing a death sentence on a murderer is a righteous judgement, or an “atrocity,” as you put it.
Turns out she was a German tourist named Shani louk, not an Israeli soldier but, hey ho, any poor sod will do for these low lifes !
Dual national I read, not sure if that’s correct or not.
Shani Louk doesn’t strike me as a German name.
Possibly not, but we have all sorts of names spread around these days so I couldn’t be certain based on purely a name.
The Muslim Jihad. It is indeed Barbaric and has been since 622 A.D.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Palestinians celebrating in London remind me of the singing and dancing Israeli’s watching and celebrating 9/11.
i thought it was palestinians doing that, not Israelis .
I read about this in 180 degrees. It was Israeli’s dancing in the street apparently. Links to Mossad was mentioned. That is why, in the book, he is suspicious of Alex Jones because he mentioned Palestinians dancing in the streets.
So a sovereign state has been invaded.
I’ll be interested to see if this argument is presented by the media cartel and whether the western establishment will respond in the same way
Or is it one rule for Russia and one rule for the Palestine?
Israel has supported Azerbaijan in its conquest of Georgian territory, which is being followed by the ethnic cleansing of the Christian inhabitants and the likely murder of their leaders.
War is a dirty business…
given the preponderance of those admitted in the past years why would anyone be surprised at their support for Palestinian aggression.
we were worried about disruption by and through the Germany sympathisers in the ROI government in WWII but in any future conflict (before Muslims formally gain control of HMG) we will need more people to police internal opposition than overseas.
The identity of that poor young woman who was killed, stripped then paraded around on the back of the psychopaths’ truck has been confirmed by her mother who, tragically, had to see that footage and noticed the tattoo on her leg. She was a German tourist attending a music festival. Her name was Shani Louk.
”Following the massive terror and on-ground assault on Israel, the streets of Sderot and several border towns of the Jewish-majority nation witnessed blood-curdling scenes on 7th October. Among one such disturbing visual was the naked and battered dead body of an unidentified woman who was being paraded by the Hamas terrorists in a pickup truck.
The terrorists could be heard shouting the Islamic slogan ‘Allah Hu Akbar’ in these gruesome videos of the incident. In some videos that surfaced on social media, a murderous crowd of Hamas terrorists could be seen surrounding the vehicle, chanting slogans and spitting on the woman’s body.”
https://www.opindia.com/2023/10/dead-woman-paraded-naked-by-hamas-terrorists-identified-as-german-tourist/
Unpleasant, but so typical of people who appear to possess little humanity or the ability to identify a person’s origins.
I have two daughters of a similar looking age and to say this had rattled me is an understatement. They follow no God, they follow the devil. Pure evil, plain and simple.
Fu#king knuckle draggers!
Typically focus on what’s been presented by the msm…
But never on the countless children shot dead by the IDF.
I’m not supporting either here, just making the point that we must understand this from both sides
Try this
https://fb.watch/nyO7vyOwRK/
Who’s the “psychopaths”…..
The Zionists are..
One gets suspicious of the possibility of international involvement in any geopolitical event now. What strikes me is how the Western press, which has become so anti-Israel and pro-Palestine over the last decades, has apparently turned on a sixpence to take Israel’s part straight away and condemn the barbarity of Hamas. Once again the lockstep is obvious, whereas one would at least have expected some of the MSM to say, “Israel had it coming.”
The condemnation of the attack is fully justified if it weren’t such a sudden volte face from condemning Israel as an Apartheid State. I find myself wondering if fomenting a middle east war doesn’t serve the West’s interest in distracting attention from the debacle in Ukraine… and from other issues our governments have got us into.
But commenters here are right in saying that any conflict in that part of the world has global implications: those who fund it have much to answer for.
When you treat a people like the Israelis have treated the Palestinians then what do you expect…
The barbaric war against the Palestinians more like…
If you don’t believe the narrative that is…
I wonder how many Israeli lives have been lost due to this attack and how many Israeli lives have been lost due to their own government’s imposition of experimental toxic jabs?
I know who will get blamed the most, regardless of the numbers they have killed.
I wanted to make the point that the Israeli military had been forced to have the jabs as part of the Pfizer deal with the israeli government and that myocarditis had been flagged up by the IDF very early on. The Palestinians by contrast were probably spared the jabs or knew not to take them.
2022 went on to become one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since at least 2005, with some 153 Palestinians, including dozens of children, killed by Israeli forces, mostly in the context of increased military raids and arrest operations
Try reading another side to the story…
IDF shoot dead your children… But that’s alright isn’t it…
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-cruel-system-domination-and-crime-against-humanity-enar
Without having done any reading into recent events is this territory, one does have to think why such barbaric scenes, albeit edited, are being released and pushed by MSM to a Western public? Why haven’t we seen such scenes, and I suspect exist, of similar atrocities happening in Ukraine (committed by either side)? Why did we not see the devastation western bombs caused to civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. These scenes are tragic, Human beings, young and old, men a women, adults and children, killed by, for the most part, weapons,manufactured and sold by Western governments and corporations.
So why are we seeing this?
“why are we seeing this”… Because they want you to see this..
All those virtue signalling with the Ukrainian flag can now fly the Israeli flag,and support the political narrative and yet another favorable conflict for the MIC.
Have you ever seen footage of the IDF shoot dead Palestinian children…no you never have and never will..
The US are now to send in Aircraft carriers and support to Israel, as if they need it, this is a paradox of David and Goliath…
Get real folks…… Some facts they don’t want you to see…
https://fb.watch/nyO7vyOwRK/
I see mostly AK47s and RPGs. along with Iranian made drones. There is an alliance between all the totalitarian regimes, which probably explains the recent joint military exercise involving Russia, China, Pakistan, Myanmar and Iran. Russia and China have been pushing the US/Jewish banker bad narrative form the Bolshevik Revolution and it keeps being pumped out unchanged. It’s called projection.
“To speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit, a luxury of worry-free and aimless people. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie’s aim”
Lenin
“There are poor peasants and rich peasants, and we stirred up the poor peasants against the rich peasants and they soon hanged them from the nearest tree (Lenin laughs).
“Then the poor peasants rebelled against the state and were starved to death by Stalin (Lenin laughs again).
Lenin From a conversation with Bertrand Russell
When Israel kills it’s self defence, when Palestinians retaliate it’s terrorism…
Zelensky good, Putin bad
Israel good, Palestinians bad……..F me
https://twitter.com/marcfriedrich7/status/1710752764039397487/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1710752764039397487¤tTweetUser=marcfriedrich7&mode=profile
an interesting perspective…
How did Hamas manage to get into Israel?
Israeli security normally knows when a cockroach crosses the border?
Perhaps they did know.
Maybe it is the excuse they want to hammer Hamas?
Well history is full of false flags!
Perhaps it is because they are relying on AI and AI can have “hallucinations” and “autophargy” according to article by Andrew Orlowski Everyone needs to calm down about AI – spiked (spiked-online.com). The Maginot line was thought to be effective until it was not (or so we were taught).
Hamas was set up by Mossad as a counter to the PLO.
They do what Mossad tells them to do.
In this case; to give Israel a licence to kill.
The CIA are usually somewhere in the background.
What doesn’t help is the divisions fueled by the pro-X or pro-Y factions vying for political office & social standing. Those in influential positions who are not directly affected by this decades old conflict, should surely be the voices of reason dialling down the rhetoric before any more with varying interests from the west to Ian and Turkey with the biggest standing army in Europe join the conflict. Ukraine wasn’t dry tinder enough. The Arab-Israeli war has always been that.
The writer,of course, purveys the “Standard Narrative.”
Weighing against it are two posts / video clips on the Gab w/s.
The first one is from a jewish woman who 25 years ago was employed by the Israeli Intelligence service.
She expressed the belief that an unheralded / undetected assault by Hamas against the state of Israel was, in her view, impossible, and so “there is something wrong here.”
The second clip is from this morning; it shows an Israeli film crew setting up a scene in which a young boy is laid out on the pavement.
The crew moves his arms and legs so as to make it appear that he is a victim of some sort of – presumably – Hamas-inspired violence.
Hamas, as is well known, was/is a product of Israeli security services; originally established as a counterweight to the PLO; and thus, fully infiltrated by Israel.
We should remember that both 9-11 and Pearl Harbor were false flag events set up by the USG so as to legitimize violent assaults on various perceived enemies of the US; one must therefore ask exactly the same questions about this present situation.
The banking cartels are getting nervous, the system has collapsed and they need an exit strategy. As with all confrontations (and this has some false flag elements to it even if the main actions have Q-Brigade origins – IDF ‘surprised’, slow to act and the BBC’s constant ‘unprecedented’ and ‘Iran’. Ukraine didn’t provide the dry tinder needed, Israel-Palestine conflict will.