Local health chiefs have criticised the Government for advising people against travelling to and from Indian Covid variant “hotspots” without making a formal announcement about the change in guidance. Leaders are particularly irked that the change has been made without a proper risk assessment and without local consultation. The Guardian has the story.
As news spread of the guidance on Tuesday, four days after it was quietly published on a Government website, Dominic Harrison, the Director of Public Health for Blackburn with Darwen council, said local councils had still had no notification from Westminster about it.
Harrison said he was “astonished” that public health chiefs had not been told about the latest advice, which affects millions of people, and that it was “very difficult” to support the advice without seeing the Government’s risk assessment.
He added: “This advice has massive implications for school trips, for hospitality, for people playing football matches, for footfall for small businesses, and for the economic recovery for town centres. The fact that the Government’s just announced it without consultation or evidence is astonishing.
“It does reflect the fact that in relation to our management of surges in areas that have variants, we simply have no strategy at the moment. What we seem to be subject to is random policy announcements.”
…
Wendy Burke, North Tyneside’s Director of Public Health, said there had been no indication of any additional restrictions when an announcement about extra testing was made last week.
According to the guidance, which appears to have been updated on May 21st and is not law, journeys to and from the affected areas – Bedford, Blackburn and Darwen, Bolton, Burnley, Kirklees, Leicester, Hounslow, and North Tyneside – should be avoided “unless essential”. Exemptions include travel for work, where working from home is not possible, and education.
The guidance affects not only the 1.97 million people in the eight areas but also the millions of people who enter and leave those boroughs every day to go to work, school or for leisure.
The update did not seem to have been accompanied by an official announcement. On Tuesday, Harrison and Burke confirmed local public health directors were unaware of it.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Government has done a U-turn on this guidance in the face of complaints by Conservative MPs and a spokesman for the Prime Minister now says the guidance was never intended to be statutory and people must exercise their own judgment about whether to visit the hotspot areas.
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And I was sooo looking forward to my holiday in Bolton.
The thing is , some of these northern towns, though run down, have some great old Victorian galleries and museums, which obviously now have been f;d over by this period, also Bolton has some bleak but lovely walking country.
Just let it ‘rip’. Everyone will be fine.
I know what I’d like to rip!!!!!
They are doing that thing Behavioural Scientists think is clever, keeping people in a state of unrest to control, despite the fact that most of us can’t be naffed now to even listen to them
We know the bastards are lying and one day soon the people will be coming for them.
I DO HOPE SO WITH ALL MY HEART!!!
me too!!
Get real. ‘The People’ – if there is any such entity – is Mr Toad’s best friend.
There is a covid test center near where I live (big white tent thing) which was set up months ago in a car park – it is always empty .. in fact the people working at this covid test center look absolutely bored when you walk past – they either look awkward and don’t know what to do with themselves or they’re just standing there with their masks on staring into their iPhones.
Same here, from the 1st large one at the out of town Park & Ride to several supplementary ones erected later.
The only one ever to have a queue was at the university when students were more or less obliged to get tested just before going home last Xmas (6 positives out of 14k students).
6 false positives then if the prevalence was that low!
As people wake up to the fact that they are still supposed to isolate after coming into contact with Covid with loss of earnings, looking after children sent home from school and the rest, even though they have been doubled vaxxed the government fear the game might be up.
The confusion caused by ‘can go but shouldn’t’ to Amber countries has not caused sufficient diversion so now they chuck in ‘can go but shouldn’t’ to particular towns; perhaps cities and Regions next.
Last spring/summer all over again
Government by decree. Sometime over the last 15 months we stepped through the portal back to feudal times, now enforced by biotech.
neo-feudalism is the goal since Schedule-a tax was abolished
High taxes on workers to fund subsidies for title holders.
Found the risk assessment…”The risk of death for the living has been found to be as high as 100%. We therefore recommend against any form of life, so as to minimise deaths and our accountability for them”
Ah, well done. Send it to Johnson ASAP
Meanwhile the Indian Government is sick of people & social media companies spreading false information!
there is “no such variant” scientifically cited as the ‘Indian variant’.
Yep. apparently someone is now trying to sue Donald Trump on the grounds that the statement ‘Chinese virus’ is racist – but South African variant, Indian variant, oh that’s perfectly acceptable!
What our government and press call the now disappeared Kent variant is known a ‘British’ in the rest of the world. Let’s sue them too.
SAGE is a bunch of Kents.
The word “kowtow” is very appropriate given that it originally referred to prostration before the Chinese Emperor!
I’m guessing the only reason why Macartney wasn’t killed for refusing to kowtow was because the Chinese presumably feared what killing an ambassador might mean: think “Genghis Khan”!
Incidentally I wonder if any Muslims refused to kowtow, on the grounds that only Allah is worthy of prostration, not any human being?
I’ve checked that and this is the link to the advisory –
https://www.meity.gov.in/content/advisory-remove-false-information-corona-variant
Total idiocy by self-seeking morons is the nature of government in the UK.
This is the bio-security state in action.
Apparently random announcements of restrictions to humans’ lives from unaccountable ‘scientists’ triggered by their plaything algorithms churning out statistical ‘data’, all working on idiot politicians desperate to keep their jobs and a supine public willing to obey in the interests of their ‘safety’. No doubt more of this and worse to come.
Ever more important to use instincts and intelligence.
We’re told the average UK family currently has 1.89 children. An entirely automated factory managed by Chris Whitty etc. would probaly produce a percentage of one-legged baby rompers.
Meanwhile back in the world of empirical data, positive tests and “deaths with COVID” are down in the levels of statistical noise.
Who gives a t0ss about “variants of concern”? They should be of no concern to anyone.
Deaths
Looking at that, you’d almost think it was a seasonal respiratory infection and that lockdowns, masks and anti social distancing make no difference. Bizarre isn’t it?
It doesn’t look like lockdowns made much difference in Europe, given that the infection curve of Spain (harshest lockdown in the EU) doesn’t look that different from that of Sweden (mildest measures in the EU).
What made East Asian countries so different, even one like Japan which didn’t go for lockdown or even for a South Korean style surveillance state?
Sorry just seen this. IMO widespread natural immunity in the Asia Pacific region (from previous exposure to SARS) is the most likely explanation.
Hong Kong’s people seem immunised against government propaganda.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-hong-kong-bin-millions-unused.html
Hong Kong could soon bin millions of unused vaccine doses
very vaccine hesitant
Just sent off for a lanyard. Feel a bit depressed at this surrender but it’s for a specific purpose. Till now I’ve just point blank refused to wear a mask – I don’t own one and never will – and have refused the concession of a lanyard. However I’m having my first brief holiday without my kids in years, visiting an old friend. There’ll be new people and a pub has been booked (how I loathe that concept).
My mask refusal is absolute and I don’t care if I’m denied entry anywhere, but I love my friend dearly and don’t want her left standing in the pub doorway being turned away with me, hence the lanyard to spare her.
I feel like I’ve conceded ground to the cult though
I’ve worn a lanyard from time to time for the same reason. I don’t think you have any reason to scold yourself.
Sartorial advice from a scarecrow (me) –
Lanyards seem a bit institutional / look-I’m-disabled to my mind. For the rare confrontation a badge suffices – and it can stay in your pocket.
Agreed, though – conceding to the cult leaves me with self-guilt.
Good advice, I’ll just keep the badge in my pocket.
I have had one since early last year ,carried in pocket on a train once, never worn it, never showed it..
My OH enjoys wearing his. He practices a special maniacal grin for extreme covididians as he advances towards them at speed, scattering them like leaves before a blower. Otherwise he is charming and polite and the lanyard conveys a cloak of invisibility. We are currently on a mini break in York and staff in the eateries and pubs have been excellent.
Best £1.5 I’ve spent this year on a lanyard. I’ve never been asked to wear a mask (in a shop).
Don’t beat yourself up over it.I’m a Nurse and refuse to comply with all the Bullshit. I resigned twice today and still I sit in my shitty office.
Every day is a grinding battle.I have shamed and confronted complicit Nurses by their defening silence and they have no fucking answer to known facts.Cheer up my friend victory is in sight!Do what you have to do.
Thanks Teddy, I always pay attention to your posts, you’re dealing with this hell up close every day, much respect.
Yes, the lack of answers to known facts is worrying. Especially in a medical establishment
Join the https://www.workersofengland.co.uk
No need to wear a lanyard! If you are asked, and it’s quite possible that you won’t be, just say ‘I’m exempt.’ Stay confident. I’ve got an exemption card in one of those plastic travel wallets you get at train stations. I’ve shown two, three times at most all this time. Flash it at them like you are on police business and keep walking. Bet you won’t be the only free-breather in the pub.
Thanks William but I’ve always just walked into places maskless and faced down any challenge. It’s just the fact that I’ll be in a completely different part of the country seeing an old friend for the first time in years and while I don’t care if I’m refused entry i don’t want to spoil the experience for her.
Very considerate, don’t worry about it.
Don’t be downhearted. The bumf on the government site advises you can claim exemption if wearing a mask would cause you extreme distress (paraphrasing). We downloaded the sign and printed that off for our lanyards. Nowhere on the sign does it mention having a medical reason for not wearing a mask. We specifically didn’t want to lie about that, and for sure, wearing a mask would cause me extreme distress! I am therefore not lying. My soul is intact.
You have to find the best way through any situation and you are not ‘conceding ground’, just finding the best way through, plus you’re doing it for the best of reasons.
I hope you have a lovely time with your friend.
OH is a bit sad he hasn’t been challenged, he has a whole routine worked out starting with “I’m glad you asked, it’s a long story” but so far no-one has.
3 people died with it yesterday, shall I bother to stock up on toilet paper?
Always. Guaranteed defence against Covid, but only if you have at least 60 rolls in the house…
Why?! Have you let your stock dwindle? How very foolish!
This isn’t going to simply stop on so-called ‘freedom day’, the powers that be are hellbent on stopping us sliding back into the old normal. Just look at what the WEF were saying back in January:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/stakeholder-capitalism-persist-after-vaccines/
These WEF types do write some rubbish don’t they?
For me, the first truly suspicious thing about this whole COVID “situation” was when I started hearing and reading people saying things like “This will change the world forever”, and “We can’t go back to the way things were.”
All I could think at the time was – of course we can! The virus will disappear and we’ll go back to normal. I couldn’t figure out where this bizarre notion was coming from. Then I stumbled upon Bond-Villain-wannbe Klaus Schwab and his Great Reset nonsense. Then it all started to make sense.
They certainly do talk/write a load of rubbish, but I would be as ignorant of them as I would be of a fire spreading from the corner of my room.
It makes sense, but it amazes me that it is actually happening and that people are oblivious
Old Schwab reminds me of the Borg, ‘resistance is futile’, little did they know!
Adam Smith was VASTLY against rent-seeking it’s like they deliberately chose an economist who would most directly disagree with everything these globalist parasites vomit out!
It would be pretty obvious to him to extend taxing “ground rents” to other forms of title (which is charging for the products of the state) such as patents and copyrights.
The number of “cases” is rising in Bolton. As a resident of the town, can I share with you the PCR test numbers and positives (in each case for the 7 day period leading up to the given date):
19th May 21 950 pcr tests 5.9% positive
16th May 14 077 pcr tests 7.3% positive
11th May 9 257 pcr tests 8.1% positive
and fwiw:
1st Feb 7 222 pcr tests 12.1% positive
I must apologise for letting the facts get in the way of the government narrative! Surge testing finds more “cases” – who would have guessed? If there was a local spike, it was over a fortnight ago. There is no pandemic.
Hate facts! So the infection rate in Bolton is actually declining, and is about half the figure in February…
The govt told us a while back that the estimated False Positive Rate for the PCR test was between 0.8% and 4%.
An encounter at school home-time just now. The usual swarm doing what schoolkids do but nearly all of ’em muzzled. Actually asked a nice kid if her school was still “forcing them to wear them” and was told they were, “cos of the Indian Variant”.
Is a return to forced muzzling up to the brainwashing-academies themselves or has Fat Pig slipped this in on the quiet?
They’ve effectively pulled the guidelines.
Must have been down to some over-excited spotty youth trying to climb the greasy pole.
Not sure I understand what the fuss is about. So the government put some GUIDELINES which everyone ignores anyway, onto a website. They obviously know it is bullshit, but need to be seen to do something.
It’s so they can claim the Indian variant is now a problem elsewhere to pave way for a lockdown in October/November.
Yesterday was not a good day. For some reason, this nonsense was the straw that broke this camel’s back. After all the u-turns, lies, obfuscations, psychological warfare and data manipulation that we’ve endured, discovering by chance that this had been mooted just hit me. Managing the messaging at work, having a colleague freaking out that our customers should disclose their vaccination status (so much for medical records being confidential), hearing friends in other sectors not knowing whether to cancel bookings and appointments for their businesses, schools wondering whether to close (again), our elderly neighbours reversing their plans to come out of shielding and seeing our local politicians and councillors up in arms as no-one consulted them took energy I currently don’t have. The really sceptical part of me wonders if this is how the powers that be want us to feel – confused, beaten down, and in that exhaustion, compliant. PS: funnily enough when I look out of my office window in this hotspot, they’ve done a lovely job of clearing away the bodies on the streets. Oh no, hang on, there aren’t any.
Sadly these people have lost their minds….
Reminder that joining the Workers of England Union assisting employees in the workplace especially with vaccination and mask issues
https://www.workersofengland.co.uk
The biggest nonsense is that if someone’s been v@xxed, it shouldn’t matter whether or not the person they are with is or isn’t – cos they “work”, right?
And as Dr Mike Yeadon said, the variants don’t make any difference anyway as there are literally thousands of them.
It’s pretty obvious that all this is about getting as many people jabbed as possible,especially the black and asian population in these areas.
“The fact that the Government’s just announced it without consultation or evidence is astonishing …..”.
I would have thought that it is not in the slightest surprising. Have we learned nothing about our dictatorship?
….and you may as well ask for a trip to the Moon than ask for a government risk assessment.