SAGE member and Director of the Wellcome Trust Sir Jeremy Farrar says lockdowns are “awful” – citing their effects on mental health, education and job opportunities, to name a few – and that Brits must learn to live with Covid without restrictions. Sir Jeremy is “optimistic” that lockdown will end on June 21st, however, he believes that guidelines on restrictive measures such as mask-wearing should remain past this date. The Mail has the story.
Sir Jeremy… said the measures had had “very profound consequences” on the nation’s mental health, education and jobs.
But he was hopeful that the Government would be able to open up on June 21st based on the data so far – but stressed the next few weeks would be “crucial”.
He pointed out that more than eight in 10 adults would be vaccinated by then, adding that he was “very confident” the jabs were working.
“There is a danger of not opening up and this infection is now a human endemic infection. It’s not going away,” he said. “Humanity will live with this virus now forever. And there will be new variants. This year, next year, the year after, there will be new variants – and we will have to learn to cope with that.
“Lockdowns are awful. They are a mark that you haven’t been able to control the virus in other ways. They have very profound consequences on mental health, on education, on job opportunities particularly affecting people on lower incomes.
“Societies can’t stay in that mode forever.”
Earlier this week Boris Johnson said that while there was nothing in the data to suggest the June 21st ending of lockdown could not go ahead, the numbers were “still ambiguous”.
But Sir Jeremy said he was hopeful the jabs had “separated” the inevitable rise of infections which comes with easing restrictions and the subsequent increase in hospitalisations.
Asked whether he thought the country would be able to open up on June 21st, he added: “If you really push me today, I would say I’m more optimistic because I think that the vaccines have been so incredibly successful.”
He added that based on current data, although he would lift restrictions, sensible advice such as wearing a mask indoors should still be in place.
Sir Jeremy also said: “If hospitalisations have remained low and deaths have remained low, I would accept a degree of transmission and I would open up.
“I think this is the hardest decision, frankly, of the last 18 months actually. I am optimistic in the sense that I do believe that vaccines are incredibly safe and very effective.”
Worth reading in full.
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Too late, Loughborough University is switching to online learning from Wednesday, others likely to follow.
It’s all part of the rolling demolition of legacy systems John….
More smart, erudite and honest medics spell it out re the dangers of these micro clotting genocidal lethal jabs:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/aAqQKA8WFxiF
https://rumble.com/vogxan-scientist-shows-vaccine-effects-in-autopsies.-dont-believe-it-see-for-yours.html
This is not a fiction:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.03.21256520v1.full
Meanwhile this new mutant scariant is a non-event in South Africa apart from devastating its tourism and travel industry:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-stunning-data-from-south-africa/comments
Yet your caring, and your very best interests at heart UK Govt tomorrow is going to push through for mandating these toxic immune suppressing experimental products for the greater good…kids babies and all.
Why so? Because it no longer feels tied down in any way by the old normal rules of law Assange’s ongoing treatment confirms that.
The reality is among hospitals worldwide the majority in them with Covid have been jabbed at least once with many having all three doses, and this Omicron scariant though mild and benign throughout Europe, the UK and USA new special measures are deemed necessary to combat it. Go figure?
Three weeks to flatten the curve… Two years to flatten the economy… and by 2030 you’ll own nothing and be happy.
We need to stop this insanity now!
Loughborough was always a tech led institution, nothing traditional about it at all so it will be no surprise to see them ditch much of their physical infrastructure. Only problem is that there will be nothing else for Loughborough, as a town, to do.
Many students throughout the UK were pre Covid avoiding live lectures as they could easily catch up online through their university’s intraweb or indeed find better courses from the hundreds of institutions worldwide that offer their services on YouTube.
Going online was a work in progress that lockdown simply stepped up a few gears.
Soon only bespoke courses at Oxbridge, Durham and a few others will be available to the wealthy, much like the late 19th century in fact.
The university I work for (not Loughborough) is about to annouce they’re switching too.
Because 100 students have got a cold.
The senior managers are certain we’ll be in lockdown by January, and if we’re not, they’ll enact one themselves.
At the sixth form where I work I was teaching a 2 hour catch up session for students who had fallen behind during lockdown, last week. The students were full of what the PM’s latest announcement would be. One said, if there was another lockdown, she would quit college.
I expect the one I work for to do the same. I’m just waiting until they demand so-called vaccination in order for faculty to be able to do their jobs. That is a line I won’t cross. Ever.
Students need to get decent sized refunds on any course/institution that switches – after all, the Open University offers on line courses for a fraction of the price.
The Student’s Unions ought to be really making an issue of this (after opposing the whole concept of ‘remote learning’). Wokery seems to be more of a priority though, particularly at some universities.
Since the 1970s it’s been an extremely exceptional thing in Britain for a students’ union to try to exert any influence at all over the main service that the students are supposed to be buying from the university – to wit, education. They mainly concern themselves with entertainment (“ents”), a bit of junior common room management, some occasional ironing things out between students as tenants and the institution as landlord, and giving future politicians some training in public speaking, how to make and use “contacts”, and backstabbing.
Growing up in the era of ‘Revolting Students’ it came as surprise to find, thirty years ago, that they had become completely self absorbed be that, as you say, Ents, or the provision of certain social services like disability access, taxis to hospital and the likes.
The only time I have known local students to be interested in politics came with the introduction of enhance student loans.
At the time I asked some post grads why they were not in London joining the protests, one responded
“Why should we? They will be getting a better deal than we had”.
I never did understand how the Libdems let themselves come a cropper over that issue.
Everything at Loughborough university is aimed at the “student experience”. It isn’t the lack of face to face lectures they’re concerned about but a poor “experience”.
Some? I should think all of them. There are very few, if any, universities that aren’t insufferably woke
It’s not just university SUs that are inert. I got a dusty response when I suggested to someone rather younger than me, that we were sleepwalking into slavery or bondage. People of all ages now seem unable to think for themselves, with everything precooked, predigested and pap-fed to them by computer, and “smartphones”. Just keep on with the social media, the indoctrination with others’ ideas, leavened with computer games.
Trying to get a refund for any reason will be like seeking to get blood from a stone.
The Open University was a great idea, and there is nothing wrong with watching lectures on a screen if a student has good motivation, which most “mature” students do. This is assuming they are good lectures.
The Open University got whacked a few years ago – I think it was under Tony Blair but don’t recall exactly – when in one fell swoop
That was a f***ing outrage, but needless to say there was hardly any opposition.
Incidentally, London University’s provision for external students was also cut MASSIVELY in the 20th century.
Imagine an alternative history in which lecture courses by top professors could be downloaded for free or for a very small charge, and good tutoring was available too. (There are quite a few people capable of giving good tutoring if it was worth their while.)
The reason it didn’t happen was to do with the real functions of most undergraduate “provision” by most British universities – namely so that money can be made out of rent and especially debt.
Last I heard, from staff, the OU were thriving pre-covid as some students realised that the lectures/Hall of Residence lifestyle was completely unnecessary and that what used to be called Tutorials are a thing of the past.
Getting a one-to-one with ‘your tutor’ is probably as unlikely as getting to see ‘your GP’.
I find “it’s all about the rent” to be a good way to examine most state policies of the last 50 years.
Well, yes, they do need decent refunds – chances of which are probably even less than the chance of seeing ‘our’ cabinet flying past our windows.
p.s. Apologies to pigs for using that comparison!
Surprise surprise the first omicron death has been reported on the news. Cue much hysteria and threats of more restrictions unless we be good citizens and get more jabs. Fuckin knew as night follows day this country would record the first omicron death.
A 90yo with prior heart disease?
“At least one”. Well was it one or 10? He thinks there may have been some “confirmation” that he doesn’t know about? Remind me where the buck is supposed to stop again.
Everything’s public relations for whoever’s doing his job.
If something harmless accelerates through the population, that’s not something to worry about. If something extremely harmful does, it is.
But no, everyone should be an obedient little moron, unwilling to form their own opinion, and rush to get their mRNA spiking, even if they managed to get Astrazenecaed before. Pfizer loves you. And he’s the prime minister – he approves Pfizer’s message.
Maybe they did everything to save the moronic victim by administering a lethal dose of HCQ, again. Or maybe it was a DNR for autism, again. Or maybe it was a midazolam/morphine cocktail, again. Who knows what our brave souls at the NHS did to provide the narrative this time.
Confirmation then that omicron is lethal in the highly vaccinated UK, but harmless in largely unvaccinated South Africa.
Johnson said someone died with omicron. He hasn’t yet said that anybody has died of or because of omicron, although that’s what many will hear him as saying.
Was watching TV news in my neighbours place just now as they reported Omnicon reaching India.
I’m sure they used old footage to demonstrate a ‘shortage of oxygen’ and it was obvious that they had speeded up the film of nurses rushing around the theatre to create a worse vision of panic.
I salute you for being able to watch the news without putting your foot through the television screen. Although I’m doubting your neighbour would have been very impressed.
Apparently Savij Jabbid is due to make an “urgent” announcement today at 3.30pm. The only urgency is for them to get as much bullshit in place before Christmas. Sounds like he’s coming in for the schools again. The Christmas party scandal already seems many moons ago and nothing seems to have stuck. One resignation, then back to business in destroying the UK society.
I hope the 60 Tory MPs and their colleagues in the “opposition” parties turn up tomorrow to vote against the government without minding that the press have stopped talking about them. Just do it.
Those who attend University from 2021 onwards are paying to quarantine themselves. Enjoy your free wifi and student debt. So stunning and brave.
Remote “learning” is much safer for the students, less chance of been exposed to danderous and racist opinions from the likes of Rod Liddle.
An unintended consequence of covid and moving to remote learning is that a lot of parents are waking up to the fact that they’re really just sending their kids to be indoctrinated
I note the Scottish government has adverts out saying Act like you’ve got it
So stay at home in bed then?
Sounds like a plan…wake me up in 2 years time, something might have changed by then
Norman Fenton, Professor of risk analysis says the data shows vaccines don’t work
The government and their pharma-background advisers say they do
They can’t both be right so it comes down to a question of trust.
Or, more accurately, to a question of ACTUALLY LOOKING at the data; passe though that may be!
Really it comes down to whether you need the drugs or not, regardless of their efficacy.
As a 60-year-old who’s survived two years of this virus without a hint of illness, it’s a question of whether or not I should submit to a pharmaceutical I clearly don’t need. As taking a pharmaceutical you don’t need is one of the most stupidly dangerous things a person can do, the answer to the question is clearly no, for me..
Other people’s circumstances may be different, but that’s precisely why compulsory injections of these drugs is so wrong.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study
This works better than the jabs and has a longer history of use and safety profile…
Odd hey?
That is a TV debate I’d love to see!!
Wow, students sure make themselves up with lashings of make-up nowadays!
You’ll find once they have your money they will go to online teaching.
A few years back whilst at work (UK university) I overheard a managerial meeting where the course managers were saying how student numbers had fell and they were struggling. The head of school then says, ” I don’t care what you have to fucking do or say but get those Vickers signed up!”
I’ve also sat in meetings where lecturers openly laugh at students and how little they can allocate for 3rd year evidence projects. A 3rdyear students final year project as of 4 years ago would be allocated £30 and this is in biology.
TBH if I were a student I would rather look at lectures online than sit in a room full of panty-faced zombies. I imagine most campuses already have mask fascism in place, probably many never actually got rid of it.
Good point Julian but I think, for some students anyway, the lectures are an opportunity to become acquainted with other students in their cohort who they would not meet in their own small group setting.
Yes, my daughter actually liked lectures, partly for this reason.
So they will do just that. Because online learning ends covid, just like it did last time.
You very much CAN learn everything by sitting in front of the screen. The question to ask is whether you HAVE TO.