- “Covid deaths just one sixteenth of level seen in previous waves” – Despite the rise in case numbers, the seven-day rolling daily death rate stands at only 40 compared to 654 on Dec 26th, reports Sarah Knapton, the Telegraph’s Science Editor
- “Pressure mounts on PM Boris Johnson to end self-isolation crisis” – It is estimated around 1.7million people are still self-isolating after being pinged by the NHS Covid app or contacted by Test and Trace, MailOnline reports
- “Pingdemic chaos continues as rail services and tourist sites are hit” – MailOnline reports that the “Pingdemic” has hit Marks and Spencer, National Trust sites and Shakespeare’s Globe, where a performance of The Tempest had to be cancelled
- “UK Covid cases could hit 200,000 a day, says scientist behind lockdown strategy” – Professor Lockdown has warned that it is “almost inevitable” that there will be 100,000 cases and about 1,000 hospitalisations a day, the Guardian reports, and he thinks it could be twice that
- “How Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak took just two hours 20 minutes to back down on self-isolation” – The Telegraph reports how the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to be spending Freedom Day in self isolation
- “Nightclubs throw open their doors as Freedom Day arrives” – Thousands have eagerly piled onto dance floors for the first time since March last year, MailOnline reports, but as many as 73% of clubbers say they don’t want to return quite yet
- “Athletics-Britain’s Butchart gets suspended ban in ‘faked’ Covid test row” – U.K. Athletics handed 5,000 metres runner Andrew Butchart a suspension after he admitted to changing the date on a Covid test result to get back into the U.K. He will be able to compete in the Olympics, Reuters reports
- “Church of England vicar, 52, faces the sack for breaking Covid rules” – The Reverend Charlie Boyle may be sacked from his job and forced out of the vicarage where he and his family have lived for eight years, according to the Mail On Sunday, for hugging a mourner and singing a hymn without a mask
- “Vitamin D supplementation and COVID-19 risk: a population-based, cohort study” – A new study carried out in Barcelona and published in the National Library of Medicine has confirmed that Vitamin D supplements are associated with better Covid outcomes
- “The freedom divide: Why are politicians able to side-step their own rules?” – Kate Andrews examines the “double standards that exist for those inside Whitehall” in the Spectator. “To be furious is one thing, but to be surprised is another”
- “The art of selling vaccines” – In the Spectator, Laura Dodsworth takes aim at the use of places of worship, shops, sport venues, and art galleries as vaccine centres. It makes the public health service “more like a creepy cult”, she says
- “Narrow and unbalanced SAGE leaves the Government in a lockdown bind” – Steve Baker argues in the Telegraph that membership of SAGE ought to be decided on by Parliament
- “It makes NO sense for the vaccinated to be kept isolating ” – “Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated,” says Tony Blair in the Daily Mail
- “Eight decades on from Churchill’s V for Victory, Boris Johnson’s freedom rhetoric rings hollow” – “Churchill understood instinctively that people needed to hear straight talking,” writes James Holland in the Telegraph. “From this Government, we have mixed messaging, floundering, shifting goalposts and empty catchphrases”
- “COVID-19 vaccine: EU overtakes US in first jabs injections” – 55.7% of EU citizens have had a first dose of a Covid vaccine, Euronews says, compared with 55.5% of Americans
- “Mike Yeadon, a vilified prophet of our times” – The Conservative Woman’s Kathy Gyngell celebrates the moral courage of the former Pfizer research scientist who has been “subjected to a campaign of vilification and smears”
- “Masks, lockdowns, vaccines – the comfort blankets of Generation Woke” – “Adults tend to cling to ingrained bad habits in place of their soft toys or blankets,” writes Nicholas Orlando in the Conservative Woman
- “The Endgame” – Bournbrook contributors S.D. Wickett and Luke Perry discuss the culmination of a global crisis; mandatory vaccinations, civil unrest and internet freedom in the latest episode of Week in Review
- “Over one hundred thousand rally against ‘COVID-19 tyranny’ in France” – RT highlights footage of the 114,000-strong protest in France against Covid passports and vaccine mandates
- “France tempts teens with chance to shoot-’em-up” – Authorities in Avignon in southern France are trying to tempt 12- to 30-year-olds to get jabbed by with a chance to win tickets to a concert and a chance to try out military helicopter and target-shooting simulations, the Sunday Times reports
- “Dogs debut on Cannes red carpet to detect COVID-19” – The Cannes Film Festival is only admitting the fully vaccinated and those with a negative COVID-19 test, the Telegraph says, but as an additional precaution there will be specially trained dogs at the event to sniff out Covid
- “French self-isolation rule does not apply to Indian Ocean territory – despite being Beta variant hotspot” – The requirement to quarantine upon return from France, whether vaccinated or not, does not apply to Réunion and Mayotte, the Telegraph says, where the Beta strain is believed to be dominant
- “Is the Delta variant spreading only in highly vaccinated countries? No” – The Swiss Doctor challenges the analysis from Corona Realism which maintains it is the vaccinated populations that are seeing surges while the least vaccinated are not facing any problems
- “Entrance of vaccinated to Israel postponed again amid outbreak” – Double-jabbed tourists will not be permitted to enter Israel from August 1st, as was planned, the Jerusalem Post reports. A new date has not yet been set
- “No need for mandatory vaccinations or vaccine passports” – “Vaccine passports will be needed for international travel as countries demand to know who is coming across their borders,” says Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun. “That is vastly different from being forced to show your vaccine status to a waiter before ordering dinner on a night out”
- “Is the State Your Single Source of Truth?” – Writing for the AIER, David McGrogan, a Lockdown Sceptics regular, responds to Prime Minister Jacinda Adern’s recent statement that her Government will continue to be “the single source of truth” for the people of New Zealand
- “The Panic Pandemic” – “Fearmongering from journalists, scientists, and politicians did more harm than the virus,” says John Tierney in City Journal
- “S. Korea to expand curbs on private gatherings beyond Seoul” – The Government in South Korea is to expand its ban on gatherings of more than four to cover the whole country, Reuters reports. Until today, it had only applied in Seoul
- “South Korea to bring home sailors aboard virus-hit destroyer” – South Korea on Sunday is replacing the entire 301-member crew of a navy destroyer on an anti-piracy mission off East Africa, AP News reports, after nearly 70 of them tested positive for Covid
- “‘I’m very pleased she’ll be leaving’: Australian Government cancels Katie Hopkins’ visa” – Katie Hopkins is to be kicked out of Australia as soon as possible, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, after she joked on Instagram about breaching the country’s hotel quarantine rules
- “Victoria records 12 new cases of COVID-19 as lockdown likely to extend” – Victoria has recorded a whopping 12 new cases of COVID-19, and, according to 9News, the snap lockdown is likely to be extended
- “Let’s not forget when Boris Johnson spelled out this roadmap, the fourth step was intended to be irreversible” – “At some point the Government has got to say, ‘Look, this is enough and we’ve got to trust people to take their own risks’,” says Paul Embery on GB News, “And I think we’re probably at that point”
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“previous waves” – how do we know there were previous waves? April – there was the moving of infectious people out of hospitals into care homes (and the do not resuscitate orders, and the nonsense isolation and distancing which caused horrendous problems in hospitals and care homes). Then autumn/winter – was it much more than seasonal deaths – plus vaccines, depressed immunity as a result of forced isolation of the healthy in the summer months. And as for now – we’re worse off than this time last year (according to official figures) – why should I believe that NPI’s and “vaccinations” have been a good thing? sky-rocketing child hospitalisations in zero Covid New Zealand apparently – these measures come at a price.
It seems to me that we would have had a single wave if lockdown measures hadn’t intervened. The second wave was the continuance of the first, exacerbated, as you say, by winter deaths for all reasons, and mainly misattributed. The third wave is essentially catching up on the young who, in the main, are being detected through mass testing and who would otherwise have put it down to a sniffle.
Why on earth is Piffle continuing with track and trace, and isolation of the healthy? There’s been plenty of time for people to get natural immunity or take those injections if they want them. If not now, then when can this madness end?
Assuming this is a serious question, the answer is that it will go on while Davos imposes the Social Credit Score apps gradually, to allow for scaling up and ironing out teething troubles with obliging every single person to prove our compliance and beg for (revocable) permission every time we travel, recreate, work, transact and interact.
France has jumped the gun a little, but we’ll follow along shortly.
“vicar faces sack for hugging mourner and singing without mask”
My translation – “charity and compassion banned by mad totalitarian government, supported by church hierarchy”.
Makes you wonder if any institution is worth supporting these days. When a community founded on A Jesus who touched lepers and the bleeding treats the mourning as untouchable, the whole institution is rotten and needs a massive overhaul.
This isn’t remotely surprising – the CofE is an extremely unpleasant organisation with policies so vague as to let the leadership do pretty much what they want. This might not even be about the issue claimed anyway (which is utterly petty and ridiculous) – it’s entirely possible that he’s annoyed someone higher up the tree and they have been looking for something to use against him. The petty vindictivenss of many in this organisation knows no bounds.
No need for even that mean motivation. The CofE hierarchy is rotten with cowardice, wokeism and unbelief. If anything directly contradicts the words, life, and redeeming death of Jesus, you can rely on the Jellybaby crew to support and enforce it.
“vitamin D associated with bettert Covid outcomes” (Barcelona study)
Heck, if they wen the whole hog and did what the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service recommended, they might even have to withdraw emergency authorisation for “vaccines” and that would never do, would it?
orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n04.shtml
Maybe a silly question, but when are our clueless (or worse) politicians going to do something about it? I really don’t see how their actions (and inactions) can’t be costing lives.
The proof of the pudding… How are believers in orthomolecular medicine getting on? Are there trials against Covid-19?
“places of worship used as ‘vaccine’ centres”.
It’ll be a cold day in hell when they use our place of worship as a vaccine centre. Are the “vaccine” crooks by any chance getting desperate?
One of our local Methodist churches is currently a vaccination centre and our own church applied to be one (turned down, as there is already a huge one in the town). On my London walk last week I found a couple of portacabins outside Stratford church labelled ‘covid test centre’ but locked up and deserted. Whether it was for the congregation to get tested before going in I don’t know….. These things are seen by the churches as ‘doing their thing for the community’ – when I voted against the proposals I was seen as an outsider.
Almost like its the “new” religion…or so they would like us to believe.
That’s exactly what it is, and has been since March 2020. There is no god but Covid, and the NHS gets its profit.
“Yeadon subjected to vilification and smears”.
When reasoned argument doesn’t work…
“Manual Chevron’s France tempts 12 year olds with shooting and military helicopter simulations [in ‘vaccine’ drive]”.
Yes, they are desperate. And despicable. And craven. When the reckoning comes… “Aux armes, citoyens”.
” Jacinda’s government to remain ‘single source of truth’ for NZ”.
Blimey, it really is a cult isn’t it? I wonder if that truth will include sky rocketing child hospitalisations as a result of their NPI’s?
She, Macron, Biden, Merkel&co clearly demonstrate that they have all gone mad now- they are currently in the Nero decree stage.
Whom the God’s want to destroy….
Freedom Day!!!
My arse
“and he thinks it could be twice that”
And when inevitably it isn’t will this doom monger be sidelined.
Of course not. Because the media loves their new Mystic Meg.
I think he could give a prediction for each star sign…
Tauran’s face a particular risk from the bull variant.
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated”
Why? The adult population has all been offered the vaccine now. All the vulnerable population has had the option of a 2nd jab. Therefore anybody unvaccinated has chosen that approach and that choice should be respected.
We have done as much as we can. Time to get back to normal.
If the NHS doesn’t have capacity now, it needs more capacity.
ITEM: Victoria has recorded a whopping 12 new cases of COVID-19, and, according to 9News, the snap lockdown is likely to be extended“
Victoria’s madness is being seriously challenged by South Australia. We have just been ordered into a semi-lockdown (bans on indoor dining, the closure of non-essential retail, hairdressers and gyms, the cancellation of contact sports, indoor venue capacity limits, private gatherings capped at ten, masks everywhere, etc. etc.) after two (two!!) positive tests, one of them a ‘weak positive’ (i.e. traces of a long-ago virus infection, or, in other words, a false negative).
I fear that nearly everyone will obey the new edicts but I’ll be catching a bus and going to the supermarket sans any face rag like the last time we had this quasi-lockdown spasm. I am so over this now (never into it, to be honest).
In no other place is the sunk cost fallacy on display as it is in Australia and New Zealand.
The political price of admitting isolation is a failed long term strategy is too high for any politician or public official to bear.
As evidence now demonstrates beyond any doubt that these new vaccines do not stop infection at all, there is no way out for you.
You guys are stuck with that lunacy for a long long time.
Good on yer, mate!
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should NOT treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated,”
“And if we did so regardless of thereby engaging in and normalising arbitrary discrimination again, we would have to test only the vaccinated, as only they can be asymptomatically infectious.”
Fixed that for the war criminal turned eugenicist and sadistic discrimination advocate.
The City Journal article is the must read of the day! To see so many instances where those who questioned (not even disagreed) with the SAGE/WHO/Fauci orthodoxy on Covid banned from publication and silenced…it killed people. And it will kill people for years to come. The gatekeepers are unelected and unaccountable, and their power must be broken. No one wants a complete huckster like the one in the movie Contagion to sell fake cures to the needy, but you don’t shut up science to fight a few frauds and quacks. This is why a full and independent inquiry is needed, so the costs of lockdown become known, so the failed modelers are shamed, so the censors are revealed and reviled and so we can actually learn from this. I know I’ve been wrong and read some research that in greater review ended up missing the mark. That is how we humans advance, by learning, testing and changing to match reality. That was denied us! A must read!
Agree. A very good piece.
It won’t change anything, but it can and will be used as evidence by the prosecution eventually.
Steve Baker once again showing his stupidity by suggestion that Parliament should decide SAGE membership. The Parliament voting 650 versus 0 for introducing LD in the first place, a beacon of enlightenment? The best judge of membership? Idiotic. What was needed was an overarching Public Health Group taking into account ALL aspects of the pandemic due to resource allocation and following NICE guidelines for money allocation for diseases. SAGE would be a subgroup to that group and only sending suggestions upwards which could be vetoed by this group. All SAGE members would be bound to no personal interviews at all or personal opinions expressed and thrown out of SAGE if that happened.
Better that it’s parliament than some unelected bureocrat – yes, this parliament is awful but I can’t see any better way to appoint to roles like this.
The government would take the responsibility if they followed this overarching public health group or not and be accountable to the Parliament.Most MP have not even the slightest idea what a virus is,how on earth can they assess competence in this matter? You can’t avoid technocrts giving advice but as the ultimate advice would have a cost implication,then it would be up to the gov to decide.
People can be judged on their past experience, academic roles, etc – this is a standard HR issue.
I can’t see how anyone, whoever they are, could have appointed a worse panel of ‘experts’ than we currently have!
Parliament is for making laws not running the bureaucracy.
Given that they have effectively given SAGE lawmaking powers (or as good as) for the past year, it’s not unreasonable that its members should be appointed directly by the government. By delegating it to one person they end up with near-guaranteed groupthink.
More fundamentally, we need a constitutional block on government’s ability to oppress us. Otherwise, a government can declare a “medical emergency” any time it wants and seize totalitarian control.
We also need to put an end to brainwashing units, such as SPI-B. It’s rather moot whether we can enjoy democratic rights, when our thoughts and feelings are being determined for us.
The countries that had it found out that it wasn’t worth the paper it’s written upon.
And in their and the UK’s case, they are all now officially signing away their sovereignty anyway, to the WHO in November.
“Dogs debut on Cannes red carpet to detect covid 19”
Are sniffer dogs the new “gold standard” for covid? I guess they can’t be any less reliable than the pcr test, and probably a damn sight cheaper too!
Probably damned more reliable! Far less painful than having that stick rammed up your nose!
Every morning my dog tests me for everything. I am negative for everything except a tendency to be mean with the dog treats.
Perhaps the canines can also make some impression on the backlog of cancer screenings.
Yes that’s been done. Cats too. Cat scans and lab tests . . .
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated,” says Tony Blair in the Daily Mail.
Oh really? Then you should have been in favour of focussed protection and the Great Barrington Declaration, Mr Blair, if you really believed in different treatment based on risk. The true risk divide is between the sick elderly and everyone else and always has been.
Why is anyone still giving that sage cunt any credibility?
Tony Blair is a f@#king monster.
Following my comments on Reunion , a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean being the hot spot of French ‘Beta variant’ , it transpires that Reunion is not on the UK’s amber plus list, just mainland France.
This is either an indication of complete idiocy or political motives.
We are following ‘the science’ my arse!
Comment on Swiss Doctor article. Its too early to make sweeping generalisations about low incidence of ‘cases’ ( positive test results) in eastern europe.
Then it conflates this with a graph of deaths with covid in the FarEast/S East Asia.
I refer to Thailand where there were hardly any deaths during the original Wuhan or subsequent variations. Now we are expected to believe that the milder dalta variant is responsible for a far more deaths? No I think its the fact that vaccinations have been pushed on the population and there are far more people now exposed to risk.
From today’s Ministry of Truth website.
There have been a further 39,950 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK and 19 deaths within 28 days of a positive test
One would be forgiven for assuming that this means lab cultured samples rather than the discredited PCR tests, which also require a lab. Women w I doubt it. It’s a misleading change of terminology to try and validate a useless testing process.
From September, only the ‘fully’ double injected can enter night clubs and large events.
Injected with that shite in a syringe that doesn’t stop anyone from getting the ‘virus’ or passing it on. Yes, that one.
Seems the gloves are off now.
One stupid cow, (Scientist/consultant/expert) just said on BBC news: “I don’t want to go on to a train or bus with people who are not wearing masks”.
WELL, LOVE, DON’T BLEEDIN GO ON THEM, THEN!!
PATHETIC!!!