- “Now free us from this crazy Covid dogma” – “Government policy is now being driven by nothing more sophisticated than a deranged dogma,” writes Professor Angus Dalgleish in the Daily Mail, and it is “shaped by political cowardice and burnished by discredited scientific advisers”
- “Pubs and restaurants reopen outdoors in Wales” – Pubs and restaurants in Wales opened to the public yesterday for the first time in almost five months, the BBC reports
- “As outrage over ‘imprisoned’ residents grows, how will Covid shape the future of care homes?” – Continued lockdown measures in care homes may be eroding trust in the sector, the Telegraph reports
- “MPs demand review of tens of thousands of ‘muddled, discriminatory and unfair’ Covid fines” – The Joint Committee on Human Rights say the system risks “criminalising the poor over the better-off” and are calling on ministers to ensure that no Penalty Charge Notice results in a criminal record, according to the Daily Mail
- “Covid passports for overseas travel could arrive by late June” – Under plans being considered by ministers, vaccine passports could be in place by June 28th for travel to the US, France, Italy and Germany, the Telegraph reports
- “Should we give vaccines to India?” – The Government is wrestling with “a vaccine ethics conundrum”, writes Kate Andrews in the Spectator, “aware it could do more to save lives abroad but stuck in political decisions that make it very difficult to do so”
- “A Summer ‘third wave’?” – “COVID-19 deaths fell last spring to near-zero,” writes Richard Lyon. “So why should there be a Summer ‘third wave’?”
- “Spare us the selective outrage on the lockdown protests” – Amy Jones, an anonymous doctor who writes in UnHerd, noted something odd about the Twitter outrage of NHS employees on Saturday: “Strangely, it only seems to flare up when protests are related to lockdowns, vaccine passports, and masks”
- “The march that showed we will not be bullied over Covid” – Anthony Webber reports on Saturday’s march against lockdown for the Conservative Woman
- “Ten Covid-sceptic memes to get you through the day” – Kim Usbourne has compiled 10 of the best Covid memes for Off-Guardian
- “Are Lockdowns Effective? Ten published peer-reviewed medical papers discussed” – A new video from the Sceptic Nurse YouTube channel looking at 10 scientific and medical papers that cast doubt on the effectiveness of lockdowns
- “Are Corona patients ‘getting younger’?” – The Swiss Doctor is sceptical of claims that Covid hospitalisations are getting younger thanks to the British variant
- “Why Sweden and Norway are more different than you think” – “Media commentators are quick to point out the differences in policy,” writes Norwegian Lars Bungum in UnHerd. “But it’s worth taking geographical differences into account too”
- “Lawyers, officials condemn ‘Orwellian’ Covid pass” – The Government in Cyprus intends to introduce a Covid pass after May 9th, according to the Cyprus Mail, but prominent lawyers have come out “guns blazing”
- “Turkey announces strictest coronavirus lockdown so far amid surge of infections” – Euronews reports that Turkey is heading for lockdown on Thursday, closing businesses, limiting travel and moving schools online
- “Israel poised to lift limits on attendance for vaccinated at events” – In a further relaxation its Covid rules, the Israeli health ministry is preparing to lift some of the restrictions at sports stadiums and cultural venues, as well as open gyms, swimming pools, and other attractions to the unvaccinated, the Times of Israel reports
- “U.S. to share AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses with world” – The White House has announced the U.S. is to share as many as 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with the rest of the world, according to the Wall Street Journal
- “Government ‘Discrimination’ and the Age Profile of COVID-19 Fatalities” – Writing for AIER, Donald J. Boudreaux pleads for governments to “recognise the steep age-gradient of Covid’s victims and make policy accordingly”
- “Restitution for systemic Covidism” – “The time is late for liberty lovers on both sides of the political spectrum to regain control and send the clear message that nothing like 2020 will ever happen again,” writes Robert E. Wright at AIER
- “Follow the science and abandon the cult of Clorox” – “There is a light at the end of this tunnel,” says this op-ed in the Washington Examiner “if only you are willing to listen to science and ignore the doomers, gloomers, and anti-vaccine activists in the Biden administration”
- “‘Wear masks even inside your own home’: Government tells citizens amid Covid surge” – The state government of New Delhi is urging people not to panic, to only go to hospital on the advice of a doctor and to wear masks even when at home, the Times of India reports
- “Twitter admits to censoring criticism of the Indian Government” – Jonathan Turley highlights the admission of a Twitter spokesman that the company prevented people in India from seeing tweets critical of the Government’s handling of the pandemic
- “Perth’s post-Covid lockdown rules explained, from mask-wearing to weddings” – The snap lockdown in Perth, Australia is over, but citizens still have many rules to follow, ABC reports
- “There was not even a mention on the BBC website” – Beverly Turner reckoned she saw at least 280,000 at the protest on Saturday, but saw no mention of it on the BBC
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Lies, Damned Lies and the ONS
The Office of National Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
This CEO left the tech world to help CONSERVATIVES find jobs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hgfxs5sE5g
Employees throughout the nation now are having to grapple with one of the toughest decisions their career may ever face: lose a job or lose freedom. Andrew Crapuchettes knows this decision all too well. But his situation led to new project that now helps freedom-loving Americans find employment that won’t discriminate based on political beliefs OR vaccination status: RedBalloon. It’s a job board website that ‘connects employers who value freedom with employees who value it too.’ Conservatives no longer must fear losing a job based on their political beliefs, he says. ‘It’s an opportunity to just be unapologetic about who you are and what you believe.’ Glenn Beck
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ONS have no business ‘making claims’, that is the job of Public Relations people.
There’s, like the Met Office, is to collate vast quantities of raw data ‘Statistics’ boil then down into a manageable presentation to be picked over by other experts who may or may not have axes to grind.
The Office of Narrative (driven) Statistics?
Orafice of Narcisstic Semantics?
Office of Notional Statistics?
An important thing to note is that, until 2020, the ONS could be largely trusted. This creeping politicization of institutions has intensified as liars and fakes etc. have taken over at the top. A Rubicon was crossed when the head of the service started venturing speculation – a clear contravention of what might be expected.
Of course, due scepticism is an asset – but not the blanket cynicism that this sort of dishonesty is provoking. Society cannot function without a degree of trust – and this is one of the crucial things that is being undermined.
This is not simply a case of ‘Twas always thus’. This government are the festering puke of the worst in society – corrupting everything.
Great summary/conclusion: “Society cannot function without a degree of trust – and this is one of the crucial things that is being undermined.”
Indeed. I can remember regarding the ONS as a beacon of truth in the early days of this pandemic of propaganda
A level of trust never achieved by the BBC World Service even at the height of its vital role of communicating with the rest of the world during Britains darkest hours.
(Everyone knew that the beeb told little porkies to help destroy hitler).
More exactly until mid to late 2020 they could be trusted but then bozo & Co realised the ONS had let the cat out of the bag 2nd or 3rd week June of that year
The Covid blag was a busted flush thanks to Hector Drummond blog. and others as noted here at lockdownsceptics and elsewhere but ignored or failed to be understood by the MSM which is when the barrowboy spindoctors were wheeled in to corrupt the previously uncorrupted ONS and turned it into another PR tentacle of central government.
Oh, what a tangled web,eh? None of these public bodies will ever be able to put out consistent info.
It appears that a particular time series has been selected to get a specific result concerning the risk for vaxxed vs. unvaxxed from covid?
And why would anyone want to do that unless their motives were completely corrupt.
‘Mr. Humpherson, Director of the Office for Statistics Regulation (ORS)’
This was the working title of a Monty Python sketch, the script was lost and had to be replaced with one called ‘The Ministry of Silly Walks’, generally agreed to be not such an effective way of portraying the absurd working practices of the British Civil Service.
It’s just on this occasion the effort was so egregious and prominent that it couldn’t be ignored.
That’s exactly the point.
And I’d say it’s impossible for a statistician to make this sort of mistake accidentally.
I’ve pretty much stopped reading the ONS reports because of the extreme bias to the Government narrative and have gone straight to the data first.
Even there I suspect there is strong selection on what is published especially for the reports that aren’t regular reports with an established pre-March 2020 pattern.
Next step will be doctoring the raw data itself. I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet. But that’s the next logical step for the ONS, the way things are going.
They are doing that, have been for well over a year. Their standing samples were becoming inadequate in numbers for analysis, so they started ‘modelling’ and used that instead. Made up numbers for made up stats.
I am reassured that you don’t think they are doctoring the raw data, yet.
Peyrole makes a good point about modelling, but in relation to unmodelled data that’s so far been a step too far for them. Just in my view.
Remember the data gets ‘doctored’ (literally) by covid being placed on the death certificate for the unvaccinated or for the majority dying of other conditions with a positive test for SARS-C0V-2, but that happens before it gets to the ONS.
They routinely change definitions. The definitions determine what data is reported or not reported.
One strongly suspects they change definitions or reporting criteria to change the data.
Look at the way the U.S. Department of Labor has changed definitions or how inflation or unemployment are reported (or not reported).
I’m inclined to revise my previous personal credo of “Believe Nothing, Trust Nobody” to “Believe the Precise Opposite, Trust Nobody”.
We’ve come to an odd pass when in a supposedly civilised country, reliant on accurate data and their interpretation, for critical decisions in health, commerce and myriad other things, the data are twisted, suborned and become no more than a tissue of lies, useful only as propaganda.
This rottenness is just about everywhere one looks.
And oddly, it appears that a minority (small or large, whatever your view, but astonishing either way) of Britons are mesmerised by the pervasive lies and bullshit. The nation at large has been in some type of hypnotic state – oblivious to the lies, the irrationality, the contradictions, the immorality, for nearly two bloody years now. The regime’s propaganda machine did its job. And it was so easy. They now know that they can lie and contradict themselves left and right, openly, with apparent impunity.
They must sit in the Commons bar looking at one another almost incredulously, saying, ‘I can’t believe we got away with that.’
‘…it appears that a minority…’
Majority. That should read majority.
Hear! Hear! You echo what I have been posting for years. I call it the “Law of Opposite Effects.” What the officials say will happen, we can be sure the opposite will in fact happen.
As for official pronouncements, it is important to note what officials say is true. This helps us indetify what is almost certainly a lie.
Too late. The purpose of the statement has been fulfilled. You can’t turn that back.
A bit like a yellow card for a foul to stop a dangerous fast break. Ultimately the damage cannot be undone.
You must surely win “ analogy of the day “ for that.
top stuff !!
back of the net
Yes, I said that on a post here yesterday. The original misleading post had been shared widely by many people including Hamza Yousaf. It’s just like when NOTW used to lose a libel case for a front page headline and print the retraction in a tiny little box on page 20 a year later.
I trust nothing & no-one who earns a living or who in any way benefits from the covid plandemic, including any proxy government shill, i’m even sceptical of daily sceptic, which i’m sure they’ll understand & appreciate.
FREEDOM!
“I trust nothing & no-one who earns a living or who in any way benefits from the covid plandemic …”
I trust nothing and no-one.
In fact, I’m sceptical of your scepticism of the Daily Sceptic.
and so ad infinitum.
Good on ya
In a recent blog post the ONS claim that only 9 deaths have occurred as a result of the vaccines in the UK.
9 from 2,000 possibles in Yellow Card.
1991 deaths were just coincidences.
To be fair the ONS were just bleating out the governments own numbers on officially recognised deaths. However, they are quite clearly part of the machine.
‘The fabulous statistics continued to pour from the telescreen…’
What is so frightening is that a year 10 statistics class would have called this data out in about 30 seconds, yet so many members of the general republic believe it.
and there never seems to be any real apology or balancing statement.
Orwellian times, but at least the statistics office seems to be doing something to keep the lies in check.
“a year 10 statistics class would have called this data out“
This is one of the frightening aspects of the shit-show. I can’t be alone in having conversations where the other person almost physically turns away from the bald, simple, numerical facts – let alone more complex inferential statistics.
Now that is psychological trauma – aka ‘brainwashing‘.
Emma Rourke ONS
Context please Emerald?
It is worth watching Professor Norman Fenton’s presentation here. Meanwhile, I did some ultra simple calculations for the 10-59 age mortality and the age standardised mortality. This, of course, assume that ONS data was reliable.
The all-cause standardised mortality rate for ‘vaccinated’ people is 4.5 times that of unvaccinated people. The covid-19 standardised mortality rates is identical. So all disadvantages and no advantages.
For ages 10-59, the covid-19 mortality rate in the unvaccinated is currently 2 times that of the ‘vaccinated’ – a statistic heralded by the government, no doubt. But the non-covid deaths in the ‘vaccinated’ are 3.3 times higher!
Therefore, in the last week of data, about 21 covid deaths have been supposedly ‘saved’ by the ‘vaccines’, but 340 non-covid deaths have been caused! The net result of these ‘vaccines’ is a loss of over 300 lives per week!
The personal stories are actually quite sad, although only unjabbed ones are allowed to be reported in the MSM. But my elderly uncle and aunt went off obediently to be jabbed, and then jabbed again, my uncle was 96, died 2 weeks after his 2nd one, what were they doing jabbing a man of that age!.. My aunt who then got her booster, has been very ill with a cold she can’t get rid of. She doesnt make the link and its cruel to suggest it, so no doubt when another jab comes along, she’ll take it up.
MSM is trying to make fun of people wanting to protect themselves with cheap and proven drugs. Ivermectin has been FDA approved for human use since 1996. It also beats Pfizer’s new wonder drug hands down, and costs next to nothing. Ivermectin doesn’t make tons of money. So they know the Covid shot is on its final gasp, so they take it add something different to it, rebrand under another name and charge 20 times what they would for ivermectin. I cannot wrap my head around this nonsense. When I explain this to my relatives they label me as crazy and ask me if I know better than science. I don’t make up these information out of my ass. All this information is true and proven. For some people it is near impossible for them to wake up. They are comfortable in their clown world life. If you want to get Ivermectin you can visit https://ivmpharmacy.com
Never trust statisticiONS!
The worst thing about this is that a lot of vaccine induced deaths in the ederly would have been used as unvaccinated deaths. We have all seen the curves on the excess death charts; the first was in April/May 2020 when thousands of infected oldies were decanted from the NHS into the care homes without being tested. The second curve rose in line with vaccines given to the oldies in December 2020 and January 2021.
The government has been very clever about this. Anyone dying within 14 days of vaccinatin is deemed unvaccinated, yet we know that those who die from the jab tend to die almost immediately or within 2-3 days.
When the NHS (and Jeremy VIne) then distort reality by going back to January 2021 it is more than simple distortion, it is including dead people who died as a direct result of the jab, who are then used as examples of unvaccinated deaths.
Anyone who still thinks there is no sinisiter agenda behind all of this is so stupid that no words exist to realistically describe them.