Lockdown Sceptics‘ readers have had their fill of Dominic Cummings stories in the last 24 hours. However, his claim, repeated yesterday in front of MPs, that without a lockdown last March “the NHS is going to be smashed in weeks” cannot go unanswered.
These are the words that, according to Cummings, data analyst Ben Warner said to Boris Johnson when he confronted him with “evidence” on Friday March 13th 2020 that a lockdown was necessary to prevent the NHS being imminently overwhelmed.
March 12th and 13th 2020 are notable for being the days when various Government advisers did the media rounds to sell to the public the idea of “building up some kind of herd immunity“, as Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance put it on Radio 4’s Today programme. Prior to this, the Government had been sticking to the script of their action plan and pandemic preparedness strategy that did not talk about herd immunity (even if it implied it) but about mitigation of the impact of the disease.
Whose idea it was to start talking about building up herd immunity by infection is not clear, and, despite pontificating for seven hours yesterday, Dominic Cummings did not enlighten us on that point. The move was, however, disastrous for Government public relations, as the concept jarred with the public. Worse, it was criticised by scientists and health care professionals, who argued that herd immunity through infection was not a sound policy aim even if it would be the inevitable result of the mitigation strategy. Dr Adam Kucharski from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine put the matter succinctly on Twitter:
I am deeply uncomfortable with the message that U.K. is actively pursuing ‘herd immunity’ as the main COVID-19 strategy. Our group’s scenario modelling has focused on reducing two main things: peak healthcare demand and deaths.
For me, herd immunity has never been the outright aim, it’s been a tragic consequence of having a virus that – based on current evidence – is unlikely to be fully controllable in long term in the U.K.
Sadly, even large-scale changes (like those other European countries are making, and we may very soon) may not control Covid for long. We must flatten the curve as much as possible, but there could still be many infections (and hence immunity).
The communication about Covid science has generally been clear in the U.K., but talk of “herd immunity as the aim” is totally wide of the mark. Having large numbers infected isn’t the aim here, even if it may be the outcome.
A lot of modellers around the world are working flat out to find best way to minimise impact on population and healthcare. A side effect may end up being herd immunity, but this is merely a consequence of a very tough option – albeit one that may help prevent another outbreak.
Clearly we cannot finely tune the path of this outbreak. The best we can do is identify actions that have highest chance of effectively and sustainably reducing impact on the population and burden on NHS.
No wonder ministers are now trying to paper over the brief herd immunity period of Government messaging (it lasted two days) by arguing it wasn’t actually policy, just what they were saying to the public to help them understand how it would all pan out.
Perhaps the bigger mistake, though, was not just talking about herd immunity, but putting a figure on it: 60% would need to be infected to bring the virus under control, they said. This allowed any mathematically half-literate armchair data analyst to plug the numbers into a pocket calculator – if the IFR is 0.9% then if 60% of the UK gets infected, given a population of 67 million, that means around 360,000 will die. It didn’t take people long to conclude that a public health catastrophe was about to hit.
Combine that with the reports of a hospital capacity crisis in parts of Italy and panic quickly set in.
This is not so far away from what Ben Warner did when he did his sums based on the new idea the Government was throwing around – infect 60% to end the pandemic – and concluded a drastic change of course was required.
In hindsight, the confidence these data analysts (armchair or otherwise) were putting in these figures was misplaced. They didn’t really know that 60% of the population would need to be infected to end the pandemic. That was a guess based on the mistaken notion that everyone was equally susceptible, rather than the truth which is that people have varying degrees of prior immunity to COVID-19 through the interaction of the many parts of their immune system. The estimate of the infection fatality rate at that time was also way too high.
To not know this at the time is perhaps forgivable – though actually the truth about the virus was known since at least February 2020, when there was an outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The virus circulated freely for two weeks in the confined environment of the ship and its infection curve among passengers peaked and declined at least two days before quarantine was imposed (see graph below – the graph assumes a mean incubation period of four days but the current estimate is five to six days, which would shift the infection peak earlier). The infection curve for the crew peaked after the quarantine was imposed because crew members continued to interact. In both cases, the quarantine was evidently immaterial to the peak and decline of the outbreak. 19.2% of those on board (712 out of 3,711) tested PCR positive at some point (around 18% of those without symptoms). Fourteen passengers died out of 567 infected for an infection fatality rate of 2.5%, though the median age of the passengers was 69 so a higher fatality rate than in the general population was to be expected.
Thus it was known since at least mid-February that a COVID-19 epidemic would decline naturally well before 60% of people were infected even though all or almost all were exposed, presumably owing to varying degrees of susceptibility in the population.
But let us allow that this data had not made it to No. 10, and refrain from further criticism of what was done then. What really is unforgivable is not knowing now the truth about COVID-19 and sitting before MPs still spouting the misapprehensions and mistakes of March 2020, as though nothing has been learned since then.
It has, for example, long been known that infections in England peaked and began to decline well ahead of the lockdown on March 23rd, with Professor Carl Heneghan pointing this out in the Daily Mail as early as April 20th 2020. In fact, new daily infections were peaking around March 16th, as Professor Simon Wood has shown (see below). The peak in London was a couple of days earlier, putting it around March 13th or 14th – the exact time that Cummings and Warner were pushing the panic button over the need to lock down to save the NHS.
The same then happened for the next two lockdowns: new daily infections peaked and began to decline ahead of the start of the restrictions. The ONS Infection Survey also shows new infections in England peaking in the week ending December 26th, well ahead of the lockdown on January 6th. How this is not by now common knowledge among ministers, MPs and journalists is baffling.
This means that Cummings cannot be correct. There was no imminent catastrophe looming that only lockdown averted, and infections were declining anyway so locking down a bit sooner wouldn’t have helped. Confirming this observation, an international comparison study in the Lancet found that there was no association between the timing or severity of lockdown measures and Covid deaths: “Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people.” There is also the evidence from America, where states which didn’t impose lockdown restrictions, such as South Dakota and Florida (over the winter), fared no worse and often better than the states which imposed the strictest measures. Sweden also shows how a country imposing much lighter restrictions does not suffer any worse. Boris was right: he should have behaved like the mayor in Jaws last March.
Perhaps the most depressing thing of all, though, is that it’s not just Dominic Cummings who still believes in these long-debunked lockdown myths. Most of the MPs he was speaking to and the journalists reporting on it do too. Almost none of them is challenging the lockdown orthodoxy with evidence and facts.
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Good summary, beautifully and succinctly put.
I still think it’s unforgivable that the Diamond Princess data were ignored so comprehensively though. They were available mid March on the internet and made the perfect experiment to determine susceptibility, and IFR in a somewhat vulnerable population. I remember looking at them then and sending them to everyone I knew, to be met with crickets and then spending the next month silently screaming until I found this place.
Yes, but the Princess also had a ‘cohort’ of people which turned out to be even more vulnerable than the majority on land (based on age groups, in the main). All the more reason that it was a crass idea to assume that it was necessary to take measures that inflicted the whole lot.
The inevitable consequence of asking scientific illiterates to make decisions
I’m not sure that’s the real problem
SAGE are not all scientific illiterates
SAGE knew exactly what they where doing
and why
They’re not illiterate per se, they have an agenda and are following it. They still believe in Ferguson and no data since has overturned their model.
I know that feeling
Good summary, beautifully and succinctly put.
Yes, Will writes very well.
Yes some old people died (cruise liners are equipped with morgues as cruise passengers tend to be elderly), however, the young fit crew none were unaffected and none died. Although the passengers and crew shared the same air conditioning system and interacted with one another without antisocial distancing or face nappies.
You couldn’t get a better petri dish than the Diamond Princess.
I remember reading Michael Levitt’s analysis of the Diamond Princess and his predictions of how the virus would pan out, nobody listened and they’re not listening still. Sadly I am still screaming silently but at least, like you, we have LS
I’ve never been convinced that a cruise liner could be good evidence of anything. There are examples on cruise liners of 90% of passengers falling ill with salmonella. That will never reflect the reality regarding salmonella infections in the general population. As John K notes, the population on cruise liners is totally different from the commnity at large.
Salmonella is a totally different thing. If 100% of people eat the infected food, pretty much 100% of people will get infected. That has never been true for respiratory viruses and even then it has never been true that people get similalry ill.
Having sailed on the Diamond Princess, in spite of the fact that OH and I are pretty anti-social when on holiday, there are times that you just can’t avoid being in close contact with loads of people on board:using the lifts, for example, ship to shore tenders, even on a table for two in the dining rooms, you are practically sitting on someone else’s lap they are so close! In spite of this and after a two week cruise, 80% of passengers and crew did not “test” positive.
Back in May 2020 – by when we actually knew a great deal about the disease – I was astounded and deeply frustrated that ministers and the SAGE type commentators appeared to have learnt nothing about the virus since its arrival in Europe, and appeared to be stuck in a time warp of the narrative current two months earlier, when much was understandably a blur.
What absolutely blows my mind is that here we are a full year after even that and they still appear to have learnt absolutely nothing, nor evolved their thoughts one jot.
This isn’t just me scoring points or pointing ridicule at them. There is something serious and deeply worrying going on here which should be studied in depth. How can our policy makers be so impervious to evidence, so incapable of allowing their thoughts to evolve, and be so utterly susceptible to group think?
But it’s not just our policy makers – every country in Europe except Sweden is still doing the same. Merckel wants to prolong the state of emergency in Germany and wants all of Europe to follow the same strategy (her’s, no doubt). Here in Spain everything might be open but we still have to wear fucking face masks outside.
Germany has not had a functioning democracy for 10 years since they have a “Grand Coalition” of left and right which means no opposition, which means no democracy. I think the politicians have realised that people either don’t want democracy or just don’t care and they’re taking their chance worldwide to grab power. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what has been planned and discussed at Davos, G7 and all the other jamborees that world leaders have enjoyed over the last decade or so.
The tools they have been using are the useless PCR tests and the emasculated media. We can only hope that Reiner Fullmich has success somewhere in proving the PCR test is being illegally and maliciously used and that Michael O’Bernicia has some success in his fraud action against Handcock, Witty et al.
Germany are the biggest vaccine manufacturer in Europe.
I suspect it’s because they’re in denial. Their policy is such a an enormous catastrophe, that they cannot turn around and say “Yeah sorry, made a bit of a mistake there. It was only a moderately bad flu like illness that’s now become endemic.”
Yes, I do think this could be another aspect of what is going on. The mistake is simply too huge, and the wounds too raw, for most people to consciously face it yet.
and the jabs – I think are now a bit like the banks, which were considered “too big to be allowed to fail”, so possibly even because they have harmed people [or, worse, killed them] will have to go on because to do otherwise – to cancel them and say “sorry, people, we shouldn’t have made you have these – bit dangerous to be honest” would be to tell the 35 million UK citizens and counting that their experimental jab has been harmful.
The answer is simple, it’s a conspiracy to take complete control of several countries & we’re in the vanguard. Sorry about that.
It’s extremely concerning what is going on. Do you think that WEF plays a key role in all this.?
It’s such a crazy world I wouldn’t rule anything out. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I do see problems with this hypothesis.
First, it would require a level of organisation and skill which is surely far, far beyond the likes of Hancock, Johnson et al. So someone must be controlling them, and the senior echelons of our government. Is that credible?
Second, the American states which are fully opening up surely give the lie to continuing restrictions in other countries. I don’t see how the lockdown narrative can be maintained much longer here, for example, while America is opening up. Even Israel appears to have backtracked.
Having said that, I do find it credible that the ‘globalists – for want of a better term – have jumped on the back of the corona panic (and done their utmost to incite it) and used it to pursue a power grab. I also think it likely that they have been planning to piggy back off a ‘pandemic’ for some time.
My great concern now is the vaccines. What will be the medium- and long-term side effects? And where will that leave us? Trying to look through the fog, I don’t know if the dog won’t bark and all this will fade away leaving us to move on with our society placed on a surer footing than before, or whether a gaping abyss awaits us.
If the vaccines do indeed cause serious and widespread medium- and long-term side effects, where will that leave us as a society? Will it not be irretrievably broken? Could our society cope with, say, 5% serious adverse reactions coming through in the next few years? Is 5% plausible? Or maybe 1%, or 10 or 20? I simple have no idea, and I’m not sure anyone else does either.
Yes, while I agree with nearly everything Mike Yeadon has said here and in the many interviews he has done, I do not accept that there is some global conspiracy going on here. Having interviewed many politicians over the years, I can say that most are thick as shit and would struggle to organise the proverbial in a brewery. Furthermore, as much as I dislike them, I don’t believe that most politicians would knowingly go along with a deliberate plan to harm most of their own citizens with the ‘vaccines’ and then enslave them with a universal ID that would quickly evolve into a Chinese-style social credit scheme.
I actually think that what is happening is far worse than a Great Reset-style conspiracy. What we are seeing is the erosion of our liberal democratic institutions and culture. This is what worried me most in March 2020 and it still worries me. There is evidence from before the Rona showing that people in a number of democracies are less and less supportive of liberal democracy, particularly the ‘liberal’ part of it (freedom and the legal protection of it, along with rule of law and limits on government). So, when the Rona came along and people so willingly gave up their freedom, I was shocked by the extent of it but not entirely surprised because this was showing up in the academic literature over the last few years.
Therefore, while I do not see hard evidence for a widespread conspiracy, I do believe that ‘bad actors’ are taking advantage of the current situation (I recall Dr Yeadon talking about ‘convergent opportunism’ in the past and agree with this) in order to advance their own agendas, which are potentially very harmful and must be fought. I do see signs of the false narrative breaking down and take comfort from what’s happening in so many American states, so I think we should more optimistic about things. However, this is only one episode and the bigger problem, in my view, is the decline of liberal democracy, whose lack of resilience will have been noted by autocrats everywhere. We are moving towards the end of just one battle in what will be a longer war.
A measured and astute post, which echoes many of my own thoughts.
On your last sentence, I do wonder if this is the battle, which if won will pave the way for a useful and much needed ‘reset’, or re-evaluation of our values; and if lost we are done for. I still think we will win btw, although with Heaven Knows what collateral damage.
Thanks. I think this current Rona episode is a battle in what is a larger struggle between those who want liberal democracy and those who want something else. I don’t think there is a global, elite conspiracy, but I do think there are ‘bad actors’ who will take advantage of whatever opportunities arise to expand their power and wealth. My worry is that many people living in liberal democracies do not value freedom and would be fine with a big mummy or daddy figure telling them what to do, how to think, what to wear, etc. We’ve seen this throughout history and many people living in authoritarian countries, like Russia, prefer having a strong man (or woman) leading them. Liberal democracy is the outlier and is clearly lacking in resilience. This has been noted, I’m sure, by authoritarians, both here and abroad. This is my big worry. There’s more to come, even if the current episode breaks down in the coming months, which I think is happening.
Because Ferguson’s behaviour, in this epidemic and in the swine flu one, along with a group of WHO related scientists across the world, shows that they were waiting for a pandemic of any kind to be dressed up as apocalypse so they could hang a pre arranged plan on it.
To sell vaccines off it.
To impose extreme control systems – see Foot and Mouth for earlier evidence of that approach.
The data were immaterial.
Lies, especially the Big Lie that natural immunity wouldn’t work, were essential.
… they were waiting for a pandemic of any kind to be dressed up as apocalypse so they could hang a pre arranged plan on it.
To sell vaccines off it.
I do find that highly credible, as well as your suggestion about the imposition of control systems.
They know what they are doing. The real problem is the ignorance of the general public. They want SAGE to do this to them.
Because they went in to the first lockdown with far too much certainty and far too much reliance on a model that could not be right – how could a model requiring tens if not 100s of assumptions that were not then known have been right? The trouble is this is the way government works. Adopt a policy and defend it all costs and in the face of all evidence. That such behaviour is utterly nonsensical for something like Covid is neither here nor there.
”How this is not by now common knowledge among ministers MPs and journalists is baffling”
My own MP told me last November that I knew far more about Covid than he did. He was not even aware that it had already been taken off the High Consequence Infectious Disease list on March 19th, a week before the first lockdown, by all the public health bodies and the advisory committee on dangerous pathogens because mortality rates were low. He had done no research of his own and relied on what came out of the Department of Health.
To misquote Manuel from Fawlty Towers “”They know no-o-o-thing”
They don’t want to know
They all read the Guardian and believe what they read. They watch BBC and believe what is pumped out. MPs have been a total disgrace, not really one consistent exception to that.
Same with my MP. I told him yesterday that by having the vaccine (and becoming extremely unwell for over a week) after he’d had covid, he’s trashed his covid-acquired full immunity and replaced it with a merely partial immunity for which he’ll require ‘boosters’. Foolish man.
Infuriatingly, the fact of Boris receiving a jab post-covid has persuaded many people that we MUST get jabbed regardless, like Boris did. It puts enormous and unfair pressure on folks like me, who refuse the vaccine after covid, and I don’t seem able to get through to them how acquired immunity works. Typical of this was my former lifelong friend, who ended our friendship with “just get a vaccine you f***ing moron!. I know who the f***ing moron is, and it isn’t me.
With all due respect, that’s one massive assumption that he was actually given a genuine jab. As thick-as-shit as they appear to be, there is no way on this planet that the PM was unaware of the fate of the ferrets in previous trials, nor would they take a chance that he’d suffer an ADR and regrettably die. Would have been a PR disaster – the one thing Cummings is actually qualified in.
of course he got one from the saline only VIP batch – same as Royal family and Hancock
not if you read the article posted in the roundup above which shows that if you have had mild covid you will have antibodies which will protect you for life and which are far superior to anything a jab could give you – the problem is persuading the dimwits who have had the jab that you don’t need it. It isn’t easy.
You managed to get a response from your MP?
I haven’t even had an acknowledgement to my numerous attempts to communicate with mine over the last year about the ‘Pandemic’or Lockdowns, or anything to do with COVID in the last year or so, including via several emails, 1st class Royal Mail and Special Delivery postage. … Ian Liddell-Grainger, Conservative MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset seems to suffer, along with numerous others of his ilk, from Selective Attentive Deficiency or similar.
I take my hat off you.
I did get a response from mine a while back. He was betting on the ‘vaccine’ in his reply, just before the ‘race’ began.
All this talk over a bit of Who-flu
Why is here a very sad looking flying saucer in the lower left section of the white board and why is it a different colour?
The thick plottens
The flight trajectory of the flying saucer suggests it’s going to fly over some hills before landing
I have searched that hill pattern on google earth and the only place where it occurs is due south of Barnard Castle
Just saying, most probably nothing in it
The mad monk, not only wrong but wrong for the wrong reasons
Cummings’ data geek clearly wasn’t very good, was he?
Indeed. An important point.
Who appointed him? Who reviewed his work? Who challenged him?
I think I can guess. Cummings.
An echo chamber. Exactly the kind of thing Cummings used to complain about.
How close was Cummings to Ferguson?
Good point. On the same theme Cummings berates himself for not having a red team look at the pandemic plan, of which he is now so critical, but doesn’t seem to have wondered if he should have had a red team checking Ferguson’s modelling (or indeed his CV!). An echo chamber, closed minds, groupthink.
I think Cummings’ 7 hour verbiage can be neatly summed up as: We should have made a catastrophic decision even sooner.
Could have all been over by late breakfast. His piling-on of Hancock was quite entertaining though.
I was in Central London 11th March. China Town was deserted, with the only sole being a completely demoralised restaurant owner sitting on a box of deliveries. The tubes were at most at 30%. A few pockets of activity here and there, but it was quiet. By then, the fear campaign was well under way and much of the country had moved into a slow down.
The people were responsible for slowing it down, as has been shown in Sweden.
yes, I was travelling into the city until lockdown, it was deserted – the media had certainly done their job well selling the “we’re all going to die” line.
Little wonder the spineless, popularity chasing twats in Westminster buckled.
Me too I was in London a lot leading up to lockdown and trains and tubes were really rather pleasant. I also had an almighty cough in Feb 2020 and at that point it was supposedly still a China problem so I went about my daily business as normal. I would like an antibody test but can’t bring myself to pay £50 for one.
Too late to test for antibodies, a T cell test is what is required but those aren’t on offer.
You can pay for one privately
Yes, but look at the fees + transport costs etc. Not much chance of suing for damages to claim it back, although that would be nice, as a method of taking them to the cleaners.
I don’t think it was the herd-immunity –> lockdown strategy that only changed. It came with a raft of other bewildering narrative shifts shortly after which were not associated with NPIs alone.
These were just three of the initial queries which never sat well with me. A series of Orwellian actions clicked in, in March, that had no run up to nor any evidentiary data to support them. The agenda of Evil. A larger, dystopian pantomine started its run. That’s what shits me the most, not lockdowns, but the shift towards this fucked up state we’re currently rallying against!
Quite right Dave. Because it’s never really been about public health at all. Follow the money. Follow the power. Totalitarianism is raising its ugly head. We seem to be the only ones aware.
Agreed. Following the money and the power leads back to Jekyll Island. That’s where the soil was changed. Seeds and piss galore since then.
Spot on. Suppression of ambulatory therapies of any kind, as now very actively promulgated by Dr Peter McCullough & the website of the Am Assoc Phys & Surg website tells you everything you need to know.
There was never any need for vaccines, and all of the fraudulent EUA vaccines should be pulled right now. They’re horribly unsafe, by design. It’s much worse than I ever thought.
Yes, it’s a conspiracy, right around the world, mostly Europe & the Anglophone countries. Nothing theoretical about it.
One document that doesn’t get enough mention is the Council of Europe’s report on the reaction to Swine ‘Flu.
Its understated but devastating analysis, in retrospect, calmly exposes a clear blueprint for what happened in 2020.
Plus the U.K. report in 2010 by Dame Deidre Hinds which recommends that any actions taken should always be in proportion to the dangers, that people should be aware that there are always a whole range of different opinions in science and this fact should be made clear to the electorate and finally if the data put out by a government does not tally with what people are seeing on the ground, then this reduces the government’s credibility.
I’ve read stuff on the website of the Vaccine Centre based at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggesting they want to replace natural immunity with hundreds of vaccines, to be administered orally once they have the technology. So is Big Pharma behind this? Or is it multiple players?
Not that I believe Cummings on anything, but by his own admission he was influenced by “former CDC officials” and “doctors” coming to him and saying that America was getting it wrong and that he should be really aggressive and go into lockdown. I mean, talk about influenced by shadowy figures aiming to change UK policy.
And to get one over on Trump
Puppets controlled by Gates, WEF etc
as we can see from Florida and Texas the CDC was the one in the wrong.
No doubt Blair and his institute were lurking in the shadows, too, with ‘advice’.
We have an obsession wit data without understanding the impact of quality and context. Amateurs in government departments were/are making decisions way outside their expertise. Hubris at best and we all know where that leads us to!
Also an obsession with using data without questioning its quality or appropriateness. For example the use of “number of cases” as a proxy for the progress of the epidemic, when “percentage of tests which are positive” or “hospital admissions” or “excess mortality adjusted for population demographics” are much better measures.
There is nowhere to hide for this government, or Mr Cummings.
5 minutes on the internet mid March 2020 provided the following:
‘The fatality rate is probably only 0.8%-1%. There’s a vast underreporting of cases in China. Compared to Sars and Mers we are talking about a coronavirus that has a mortality rate of 8 to 10 times less deadly to Sars to Mers. So a correct comparison is not Sars or Mers but a severe cold. Basically this is a severe form of the cold.’
06 Feb 2020: Prof John Nicholls, University of Hong Kong, leading global coronavirus expert, in China on the ground during the outbreak.
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’
‘Rhinovirus (a common cold virus) infection in the adults was associated with significantly higher mortality and longer hospitalization when compared with influenza virus infection. Institutionalized older adults were particularly at risk. More stringent infection control among health care workers in elderly homes could lower the infection rate before an effective vaccine and antiviral become available.’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343795/
Mr Cummings has admitted that many lives were lost unnecessarily by NHS hospital clearances……that was the pandemic right there, highly infectious panic…far more deadly than almost all the viruses out there.
Remove this cull of the elderly in the spring and there isn’t much left.
Why was Ferguson not questioned over “Do Nothing” in his original model? When would doing nothing ever be part of a response?
Where did “Let it rip” originate?
Let it rip was a politically motivated response.
For all supporters of lockdowns, including Mr Cummings:
‘We can see this divergence after May 16 when many states lifted their stay-at-home orders and saw increases in mobility. During major spikes in transmission and deaths, people voluntarily reduced mobility to parity with states that issued lockdowns. This is most observable during the past Winter season.’
https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-need-to-be-intellectually-discredited-once-and-for-all/
Chart for 50 States attached.
So, even if the testing and resultant silly confected ‘case’ numbers were correct, which they manifestly were not, mandated lockdowns were completely pointless, as we have been shouting on this site for well over a year now.
And, to add further to the indictment of panic, chaos and incompetence at the head of government, where was the cost benefit analysis to enable a balanced assessment of the merits of a lockdown policy?
And why, even now, was that question regarding the lack of any cost/benefit study of a lockdown policy not asked by the parliamentary committee yesterday?
Why? because it’s just another scripted scene in the Covid pantomime. There are lots of questions that should have been asked but were not.
Quite. The wrong questions are being asked of the wrong people.
The final paragraphs of this article are the most important, I was thrilled to see Dom taking down his coworkers, but incredibly disappointed in his firm belief that lockdown should have been implemented sooner. Study after study, including experts such as Carl Heneghan and others pointed out cases were already decreasing prior to lockdown. Every single time.
Wondering why no mention of origin of COVID19. No mention of significant number of post vaccine adverse events, deaths and surge in COVID cases. Although Dom was gone before the next debacle started.
“Dom” was part of the problem, not the solution
We should take no pleasure in seeing him “take down” his coworkers (reprehensible as they are) because it’s all about “we should have locked down harder, faster, better”
This is a distraction from the real battle
He is not an ally, he’s the enemy
Well said. One of the oldest diversionary tricks in the book – a plastic lightning conductor.
If the intent was to minimise hospitalisation and death, then you would expect the model that was used for DC’s forecast of doom to include a variable risk factor for those two outcomes based on age and health of the population. It was clear at the outset that old age, weight and co-morbidities were key, yet the model seems to have adopted a blanket approach to the entire population.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that there is a sweet spot between locking down an entire population and protecting the ones at higher risk of hospitalisation and death that would achieve the health aims and minimise the economic impact and non-Covid health risks.
Yet it would appear that that was too difficult to incorporate, so we were left with the blunt instrument of universal lock-down versus some more precise, well-targeted intervention.
Lockdown has no impact whatsoever on epidemic spreading. This is because of another lie, that of asymptomatic transmission. This is so rare as to be safety disregarded. Even in the intimacy of the domestic environment it rarely occurs, so call it zero outside home.
Now, only symptomatic people are significant sources of infection. These people are always unwell. Even if a few stepped outside, we automatically notice and step around them.
Bottom line, transmission was mostly in institutions which were unaffected by lockdowns.
>Bottom line, transmission was mostly in institutions which were unaffected by lockdowns.
Probably spread by po lice.. High visits to vulnerable, high users of public transport, high staff density in older buildings.
Officers stopped from early vaccination, minimal “WFH” and “odd” decisions about conduct during lockdown.
5 minutes listening to this man and its obvious that he’s sole purpose is to shore up the covid scam and that he is in the pockets of big pharma just like the rest of them
Boris has an excellent opportunity now to rise above all these Dumbos and bring all this data and reasoning to the fore. Be bold Boris, it may be scary but it is the right thing to do!
He’s one of the crooks, as is a Starmer. There will be no help from Westminster.
Agreed, Mike.
The PM is part of the problem, not the solution
The PM is part of the problem inasmuch that he is weak man who is easily led. However, it is clear from Cumming’s testimony that Johnson’s instincts were right. The broadcast media and left-wing papers are out to get him for causing “tens-of-thousands of needless deaths”. He will need all the help he can get from the lockdown-sceptic scientists (people like Carl Heneghan and John Ioannidis) when the public inquiry finally comes.
He should have listened to them right from the start and brought them in to a balanced committee of advisors instead of putting Witty and Vallance on a pedestal.
I imagine, compliant or not, he wasn’t given much of a choice. Head on a plate, please.
He may well be weak and easily led. Not really something you can use in your defence if you’re in charge though.
As to his instincts, the evidence is unclear. What is clear is that he has with his actions enthusiastically embraced the evil, insane narrative and presided over a government that is waging war on its own people, using their money.
I suppose you could argue that if the wind changes direction he may be ready to switch sides, but I wouldn’t set much store by it.
I’m amazed that anyone thinks that Johnson will do ‘the right thing’ after a political lifetime of doing the opposite!
I share your scepticism, though as I’ve posted above if it’s true he’s a closet sceptic or at least not dogmatically pro-lockdown, which is vaguely plausible, then if the wind changes direction he will switch sides, something that some of his possible replacements may not do.
I think people want hope, and while hoping the PM will see sense does seem quite mad, the problem is that there’s no other plausible scenario that’s better – indeed a lot of them are worse. Sunak seems not to have chirped too much bullshit about covid I suppose, but who knows what he’d do if in power.
But the PM is unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon.
can’t even manage to do the right thing by his own offspring so not much hope for the wider public
Throw out all conventional wisdom. Everything you and I once believed with regard to governments and institutions having our best interests at heart is dreamy, mythical horse-shit.
On the other hand, take one for the team, marry the lying charlatan and screw him to death.
(I genuinely mean no offence).
Here is a link to video I downloaded from the Parlaimentlivetv website of CMO Whitty stating:
“If you look at the R, and the behaviours, quite a lot of the change that led to the R going below one occurred well before, or to some extent before, the 23rd, when the full lockdown started.”
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiSmT-rY5ChSI9LV-
It’s 23 MB.
You can download it yourself on their website – set the start time at 10:58:00 and end time as 11:01 – their instructions are easy to follow.
I have had no reply from the chair of the Health and Social Care Committee Jeremy Hunt about this issue when I sent it to the Committee asking:
Why was he not challenged on this at the time by anyone on the Committee?
Why is this statement not being reported by ANY media outlet?
This one comment totally undermines and destroys the whole narrative of “following the science” to justify population lockdown and proves Sweden, Tanzania and Belarus among a very few others followed the correct course and 2000 years of medical experience dealing with these types of illnesses was the correct “treatment protocol”.
This, in effect, means that “the virus” infection rate was dropping drastically BEFORE the incarceration of the population started and that the existing precautions – wash hands properly, coughing etiquette, stay at home if you feel ill – were effectively controlling the spread of “the virus”.
It also means that the peak of the infections occurred PRIOR to the population incarceration commenced and as the average time from catching “the virus” to death has been widely stated as 23 days with the peak numbers of deaths occurring approximately 10-14 days from commencement of the incarceration it means that the imprisonment of the population and destruction of the economy has had NO effect whatsoever.
At the same Committee hearing the Chair, MP Jeremy Hunt stated “We all know that voluntary social distancing was introduced on 16 March, and it was made compulsory a week later on 23 March.”
It is ‘guidance” which has NO force of law nor is enforceable in England as confirmed in writing in a FOI from the Government Legal Department.
Again, no reply from the chair of the Health and Social Care Committee Jeremy Hunt about this issue when I sent it to the Committee asking:
As the Chair of the relevant Committee and a Member of Parliament surely he knows that social distancing has never been law in England? If not, why not?
And why did no Committee member or witness challenge him on this statement?
It’s unaccountable & surely has one or both of two explanations:
1. They’re genuinely too stupid to appreciate how absolutely momentous those observations are. I wouldn’t dismiss this. I briefed dozens of MPs last autumn & I was astonished at how thick most of them are.
2. They know full well what it meant but are either being threatened or bribed to remain silent.
I’ve written before about about my experience of the way in which an imperfect Commons has been hollowed out to be replaced by an assemblage largely of nodding dogs. The decline steepened pin the Blair era, when compliant PPEs from Oxford, and the equivalent, began to overtake any life experience.
Don’t mistake – ’twas never perfect – but there has been a definite decline.
Correspondence with our current neophyte MP displays a total incomprehension rather than evil intent.
I’m a politics lecturer and have interviewed many politicians over the years. They really are stupid and this should not be underestimated. While many know how to manipulate people (and get elected and/or remain in the good graces of their party), they struggle with day-to-day matters and rely on ‘experts’ and other sources of information, rather than doing any research themselves and using critical thinking. This facilitates groupthink and takeover by those with an agenda, which I think is what we are seeing.
Washing was having no effect. There is a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of getting Covid through touch. That under 1 chance might be from emptying bed pans etc.
Hands, face space was and is another big lie.
Yet it is still being repeated.
A lot of comments frustrated that our political leaders haven’t learned. I don’t think it’s widely appreciated that the elected government hasn’t been running the country since Mar 23 2020. Instead, a small, criminal subset of SAGE directs covid19 policy & there’s precious little else going on in Westminster.
It’s not an accident & it’s not incompetence. The entire central narrative about the virus consists exclusively of lies, the same lies as are being told almost everywhere else. The policy decisions that flow from these lies are deliberately harmful. In my view, they have as objectives to vaccinate everyone (even though it’s now clear that all the vaccines are way too dangerous for use as a universal public health prophylactic & in any case there is substantial natural immunity (either recently acquired or from previous infection by related pathogens). The reason for universal vaccination is to introduce the farcical vaccine passports system. This adds absolutely nothing to public safety, but will represent the worlds first, common format, interoperable digital ID with an editable health related flag. Whoever controls that database & associated algorithms has totalitarian tyranny over the people. They can be compelled to or prevented from doing anything others decide.
Where it goes after that, who knows, but it’s not good. It’s certainly the permanent end of freedom & democracy.
There is no benign interpretation of what has happened and continues to happen.
By pretending that elected politicians are in charge, the criminals have succeeded in drawing attention away from them, and the media have played their part well also, Total control of messaging & successful censorship of people like me, easily as qualified as any of the SAGE members, has meant a relentless movement towards their objectives, something I’m resigned to accept I’m powerless to influence. The cowardly behaviour of scientists & doctors in this country, not to mention every institution disgusts me.
No one is coming to save us, there are no Allies this time & nowhere neutral to run to.
It’s down to those who’ve realised we’ve been fooled to step up. I regret to say that while I can usually demonstrate to any intelligent person what I’ve summarised above, almost no one is willing to get involved. It’s as if we’re suffering from a mass psychosis.
I quite agree.
As an aside, to date I have not been able to thank you personally for everything you have done in the last year to speak up for what is right. Given the nature of the people involved in what is going on I can only imagine the risk this has involved to your safety and security.
Thank you very much for all you have done. This is a battle of attrition but I firmly believe we will win it in the end. I hope this Saturday’s demonstrations will be a turning point.
Thank you. I’m getting perhaps surprising traction from the devout Christians in the US, most recently DayStar, who have a huge subscriber base, larger than our population. Why? They think this is Revelation, and while I’m not overtly religious, I can’t say they’re entirely wrong.
Yes, there is something quite Biblical going on, an epic struggle of Good versus Evil…
The Evil ones are in power in most places but the Good hugely outnumber them. I hope we will see a Ceaușescu moment soon.
As a Christian I told my wife very early in this fake pandemic that it was evil.. one just has to consider the damage done here, the poorer countries and particularly to children. This does not come from a loving God as Laura Perrins has stated repeatedly.
Dr Simone Gold did this with a big US evangelical church and seemed to have a good reception. I think much of the opposition to the dystopian nightmare we are facing will take the form of a social movement, and the evangelicals would be an excellent facilitator of this. I suspect that Dr Gold understands this (indeed, she more or less came out and said so in the interview on the America’s Frontline Doctors website).
That’s good to know, for I am in regular contact with Simone (helped her craft the documents supporting the injunction against use of these gene based vaccines in kids, along with other fantastic campaigners like Dr Ros Jones).
In U.K. as far as I can tell, I’m the only one with the gloves right off & calling governments narrative lies.
I’m embarrassed to realise I’m perhaps the only former senior R&D person ex pharma speaking out. I’ve been written to by several former colleagues. What I’d like you to know is this: in response to the “I’m distressed that you’re speaking this way….”, I send them a standard two page document with lots of references, inviting a call for discussion if they think i have interpreted things wrongly.
Not one person has come back.
We’re talking worldwide research heads, senior research scientists, two biotech CEOs and my favourite, a former colleague who I always thought a solid thinker. That person sent a short note, along these lines: “Mike, we’ll disagree about inferred motives, but I regret to say I have to concur completely on the lies part”.
The motives get people often.
The two most common objections when there’s nothing to rebut are:
1. “No one would be that evil.”
2. It’s too complicated to be a plot.
To the first, I sigh & remind them of twentieth century history,
To the second, I show them this documentary. It soon becomes clear that it’s not China, but USA & U.K. running this.
Not good to realise this, I can tell you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WUv5SV5Hg
Yes, I agree that the small number of ‘real’ experts coming forward during this nightmare is really disappointing, and while I can understand (as a university lecturer) the problems that could result – grants, reputation, promotion, etc – I would have thought that if several people got together across many institutions (ideally across several countries), they could make a real difference and minimise the damage to themselves. Who knows. I would have expected, at a minimum, more who are retired or independent to have come forward by now.
I certainly do appreciate what you have done here and I’m sure many other people feel the same way.
But what I don’t understand is that they must have children, grandchildren, families FFS.
Yeah, I managed to keep food in your mouths. Sorry about the not so free air.
These cowards are as bad as the perpetrators.
I wish to echo realarthurdent’s comments above, and say thank you Mike.
Great post realarthurdent.
Mike has been brilliant. Of course it must have been very difficult at times, but achieving anything worthwhile usually is. I remain confident that we’ll come through this in time, and people like Mike who stood out against it will be hailed for their efforts. And many on the other side, who we’ve heard so much from, will slink away to oblivion (or, hopefully in many cases, prison).
Me too! Though I’m less certain that we will win.
Thank you for all your efforts – please keep up the good fight – however sole destroying it must be
Hello Mike, again I would like to thank you for your hard work countering the official narrative. Your position has been a very useful ground anchor to rely upon when arguing with the brainwashed. Rather early on I began to suspect this was about more than a digital ID. I crossed swords with the Home Office just after Y2K and we, as a family, experienced how much those in power care about ordinary people. They despise anyone who gets in the way of their plans. From my own experiences, the clues in the extreme side effects of the “vaccines” and their absolute desperation that as many people as possible should receive the jab, I am certain that the intention is population reduction as a means to “save the planet.”
My advice is to remain stoic. Be as uncooperative as you can be. Our best hope is that by overwhelming them with awkward people they inadvertently reveal their nefarious intentions. Keep battling on.
Yes, this is very much as I see it. The government essentially lost control to a subset of SAGE members who clearly have their own political agenda.
Mike Y – thanks for this entirely plausible summary in particular, and all that you have done to date. I’m not sure the criminals will continue to get an easy run. While there are large numbers of devout Christians in the US whose views are aligned with Revelations there are larger numbers of independent minded citizens wholly sceptical of the criminal elite. And this sector are heavily armed. There are a small but growing number of citizens in the UK waking up to this too.
“It’s as if we’re suffering from a mass psychosis”
Not ‘as if’ and not ‘we’. But the majority of the population is, without doubt.
I still think your analysis of overlapping opportunistic motivations and circumstance still holds good, but I reckon deliberation (aka ‘conspiracy’) has a larger part to play than I initially thought.
Yep. It’s illuminating to look at T Bliar’s policy papers on his global change institute website to see the future envisaged for us except it’s rapidly becoming the present. Vaccinate the whole world over the age of 5 by 2023 but sooner if he has his way. No real loosening of NPIs until then. A lifetime of testing, boosters, variant sequencing all coordinated internationally with our individual data being shared internationally. Getting vaccinated is part of your identity because ya know, variants. Digital ID passes will be “essential” because of the digital revolution so digital id for everything, voting, banking, proving your status everywhere. Sounds suffocating. Also he participated in the WEF’s cyber pandemic conference last year and so watch this space for a global cyber attack that is used to cement us in the new normal.
“Cummings told MPs that by the end of February he was so worried about the impending crisis he had started panic buying, believing the country was about to lock down.”
A little comment that shows Cummins up as a total duggie – as he has always been.
“he had started panic buying”
… as so many duggies did.
I remember the period well – laughing with the guy on the supermarket checkout at the brainless buying warehouse-loads of bog rolls. This was, of course, the period of maximum infection when life carried on much as normal; when shops carried on as normal without provoking any identifiable ‘surges’ etc.
Like a periodic ‘flu season.
The April peak came and went.
P.S. Just an afterthought : Was the ridiculous bog-paper panic an experiment in artificially-induced fear?
maybe – but there was an artificial salt shortage panic in the early 80s which cleared the shelves in supermarkets in Crewe, Northwich etc. Many of the panic buyers were driving past British Salt’s sheds in Middlewich where tens of thousands of tonnes were visible from the roadside piled 20m high….!
The basic problem here is the general population are a bunch of scared infantalised shells. To explain to them that viruses spread and some people might die is too much. To say to them that in the long run we will save more lives by protecting the vulnerable but allowing the healthy to continue as normal will mean this is over quicker and with less death, well it just doesn’t have enough sprinkles and stars for their minds to handle. Every life must be saved.
The government are lying on the efficacy of lockdowns because the people need them to. They have to think it was worth it. So, despite the fact that we know herd immunity kicked in anyway, we have to dress it up in this layer of virtuous language to ensure people feel good about what they sacrificed.
It’s all just a continuation of the psychological management of the people through spin and misdirection
“we will save more lives by protecting the vulnerable”
‘We’ have to do very little beyondexercising age-old reason and care. Except for the mentally or physically incapable, the ‘vulnerable’ are quite able to use their judgment of risk.
My 29 yo daughter was to meet up with an old school friend she’s not seen since the fraud started.
She’s been asked to take a LFT.
She’s said no. To let her know when she’s regained her sanity.
Hi all, I think Will has inadvertently confused Case Fatality Rate with Infection Fatality Rate when he quotes the figure 2.5% as the IFR. That WOULD have panicked No 10 and all who sail in her.
Based on the figures 3,711 crew & passengers and the figure of 14 deaths, the IFR should be 0.37.
However, the number of deaths seem to vary depending on where you look. Fourteen is quoted in Wikipedia. This study from August 2020 quotes 9 and estimates the CFR at 1.3%. Based on this figure, the IFR would be 0.24%.
I am heartily sick of hearing this cockroach trying to shaft his former accomplices. But it is at least amusing to listen to the woke gobshites who have spent the last year calling Cummings a despicable liar now hanging on his every word.
The NHS is smashed now. Waiting lists are 3 years or more. Not just in hospitals, but dentistry too.
A cynical person might think that this was always the plan. It’s quite an ingenious one really. Tell the public you’re doing everything you can to save the NHS, while hospitals are kept empty and the waiting lists pile up. It’s now farcically unworkable and won’t be long before it’s “re-imagined” along with the rest of our society.
Yes there’s no point saving the NHS if you don’t actually use it to treat sick people
but it is such a “wonderful” institution, the envy of the world [hope you got the deep sarcasm there]
I’d hope the NHS is smashed, but I’d guess what would replace it would be even more useless than the current extortion-funded bureaucrat rationed treatment where the healthy are fined to subsidise poor health choices.
It’s worse than that, the healthy are actually told to eat diets that make them ill, then take statins, BP meds, PPIs etc. all of which have side effects and cost money but are profitable. I don’t see anything that might replace the NHS being any different.
If the NHS was going to collapse, that shows that the NHS had failed to prepare for a pandemic, because that’s exactly what a pandemic looks like – 10s of thousands needing urgent treatment. That is a total failure on the part of the NHS but cowardly Cummings and his idiot inquisitors dare not say that because it is blasphemy against the national religion. But it’s as plain as a pikestaff, as the saying used to go.
A document suggesting that: the nhs was was going to be ‘smashed in weeks’, also said: ‘Dom Cummings’ could kick ass and take names’. There was also another errant missive, claiming that: Boris could prepare and eat his own breakfast !!.. Am I right to doubt the veracity of these ‘leaked memos’, or what ??!
Clearly his moral compass rejected him at birth.
This may be an amusing pantomime, but the only outcome of significance will be that the trope of ‘should have locked-down earlier’ gets to grow stronger in the public mind.
Not good, because it means implementing the next lockdown in October is even more likely to be be met with a predictably woeful lack of resistance.
Well Cummings’ data geek was right in a way. The NHS did get smashed – just not by COVID.
It got smashed because it stopped treating any other illness and it now faces the mother of all backlogs of ill health to deal with. It was also smashed because the GP service was effectively withdrawn during the pandemic and looks unlikely to ever recover. NHS dentistry has been smashed. Confidence in the NHS has been smashed. People have become accustomed to self-medicating or risking sadlidying at home rather than seek hospital treatment or waste hours trying to get a GP appointment.
Ironically, all of the fears which the NHS lobby voice every winter about the NHS being in crisis and facing imminent shutdown – by right-leaning politicians – are coming to fruition, not at the hands of the hated Tory government but by the NHS itself, thanks to its hysterical over-reaction to a not very deadly virus, egged on by the many people who love to use the NHS as a political weapon against the government of the day.
As David Clews says this is all just a circus distraction. The media used to hate Cummins but now he’s a Lockdown Nazi they love him. Instead of exposing the truth about how destructive Lockdowns are they are advocating they should be used for everything with the state assuming all responsibility for its citizens.