In what may be a sign of things to come, arch-lockdown fanatic Michael Gove has begun to pivot, contradicting Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi by refusing to rule out the end of free lateral flow tests and saying the pressure on the NHS is “abating”. “We are moving to a situation where it is possible to say that we can live with Covid,” the Housing Secretary said. Sky News has the story.
But when asked by Kay Burley on Monday for how long the [lateral flow] devices will remain free for all, Mr Gove said: “It is the case that in this country lateral flows are free – unlike in many other jurisdictions – they are a vital tool in making sure that we can curb the spread of the infection and also that people who need to isolate do so.
“But, as you pointed out right at the beginning of our conversation, we are moving to a situation – we are not there yet – but we are moving to a situation where it is possible to say that we can live with Covid and that the pressure on the NHS and on vital public services is abating.
“But, it is absolutely vital to recognise that we are not there yet. And as the health secretary has reminded us there will be some difficult weeks ahead and that is why we all need to continue to test, continue – if we are positive – to isolate, and continue broadly to support the NHS as it goes through a challenging period but one in which the frontline professionals are doing an amazing job.”
Pressed once more on whether the Government is considering phasing out lateral flow tests but not for the coming weeks, Mr Gove replied: “As the Prime Minister and others have said, we will do whatever it takes.”
Sounds like he may be preparing the ground for the wind-down – and it is being reported that Boris is indeed drawing up plans for “living with Covid”. Let’s hope so. Mass testing has long outlived any usefulness it might have had.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Boris says he’s looking at cutting the self-isolation period to five days, according to MailOnline.
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These are US sanctions and have been without effect on the situation in Ukraine since they were started in 2014. In addition to being useless, they’re not even remotely practical in Europe, hence, it’s good to see that real-world happenstance works towards disabling them.
Let me be the first one to say that it’s funny, isn’t it, that these ‘accidental’ self-inflicted wounds continue several covid-1984 themes; namely, the evisceration of western economies; the ‘cost of living crisis’, inflation and general government-directed mass formation. almost like the next phase of something organised..
Yep. It’s almost looking as if the present circumstances would need to be interpreted as the new final phase of something preconceived as being in existence whose last final phase went past without the predictions attached to it becoming true. We must always remain at the brink of something terribly dangerous which – for some strange reason – never actually happens.
What I dislike most about these polit-muricans of all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours is that only their colours, shapes and size are different. At the core, they’re indistinguishable and all common people get to chose is by whom they’ll end up being ripped off. We urgently need a None of the above! moment in this respect.
I don’t doubt for one minute that many of our current and forthcoming problems have been planned. I also don’t doubt that the Davos Deviants think they have things under control. The problem is that in war situations rarely turn out as planned and indeed frequently take a turn for the worse for those believing themselves in charge. The ensuing months will verify this one way or another but what is absolutely certain is that the DD’s will DEFINITELY NOT have things all their own way.
A lot of people will be facing sleepless nights.
That’s half right.
The first part is certainly right. Not only are many of them stupid, but they are the worst kind of stupid – they are arrogant as well.
As for the second part, many of them are crazy. If you consider psychopathy a form of craziness.They see things primarily in terms of their power games and what they need to do to win and impose themselves. They don’t care who or what they damage on the way -whatever it takes to pursue their own personal objectives.
I encourage the author to embrace reality fully, go the whole way, and accept that our “leaders” simply cannot be relied on to make things right. They need to be stripped of their power and people have to be left freer to get on with their lives.
We don’t need state protection from idiots and psychopaths thanks very much.
Britain seems unlikely to face crippling energy shortages this winter, despite the best efforts of all the ‘net zero’ crackpots.
The tragedy is that it has taken Putin’s inhuman and barbaric invasion of Ukraine to identify as idiocies so many of the policies of so many hopelessly incompetent Western governments.
The UK has very little gas storage capability…..according to Statista as of July we have stored 9.11 TWh, (as a comparison Germany has149.28 TWh)
Apparently the UK Government have been ‘in talks’ with Centrica, about reopening its gas storage facility in Yorkshire …for months…
If we can’t store it, we have no choice but to sell it to others who can…
As Russian gas is rationed over the next few months, the gas that the UK buys from Norway will also become more expensive, as will any LNG, it’s also likely to be less freely available, as others countries will have to buy it also.
All of this will cause higher fuel prices for both the home, for industry and for vehicles…this will all have a knock-on effect in food prices and the cost of living….and it’s going to get a lot worse as winter approaches.
Is anyone aware of the Government making any statements whatsoever about turning away from the net zero agenda? Fracking? Anything?
It really is no laughing matter, but watching the entirety of Europe inflict this pain on themselves and us is indeed tragic…..and to what end? What on earth is it supposed to achieve? And moreover is it achieving anything? Like Convid…no one is asking or answering these questions before inflicting it on all of us….
As of now Russia’s account surplus which usually shrinks in the summer months….(between 2007-2021 the June account averaged at zero) is currently a record $70 billion…..a surplus gifted to them by sanctions!
https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/soaring-energy-prices-help-russia-push-its-current-account-surplus-to-a-record-70-1-billion-in-the-second-quarter-despite-sanctions/articleshow/92811610.cms
Meanwhile people across the Uk received the first part of their ‘cost of living’ payments today….and Bristol’s Mayor has said they will be setting up ‘warm rooms’ where people can go to keep warm in the winter months!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/councils-plan-food-bank-style-warm-banks-help-residents-survive/
A good point about the limited storage. Several years ago, I worked with someone who had been involved with modernisation of the distribution arrangements for the firm that runs the gas network (can’t remember what it was called then), around the time that they abolished the old storage tanks that had emerged from the old coal/oil “town gas” systems. The main thing that was novel to me was that what they now do is to use extra high pressure for distribution, and also to exploit the pipelines as a storage mechanism. They reduce the pressure for local distribution at certain locations, of course, but the long distance ones can go up and down quite a lot. At times of peak demand, they can drop the pressure a bit to meet it.
The other issue is that it is not easy to do the gas equivalent of “power cuts” without various risks caused by interrupted supplies. I suppose they could exploit the advent of “smart” metering to vary the prices quite a lot though, which would have a backdoor effect of influencing demand.
We have a senile old fool in the White House who (after the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan) needs to demonstrate that he has both the ability and commitment to support Ukraine against Russia.
And for the past 15 years, we had/have a generation of European Leaders who don’t live in the real world: won’t pay for their own defence and have deliberately destroyed their national energy independence on the say-so of the EU and green lunatics.
What could possibly go wrong?
And now they’re doing the same to food security.
I’m sure the UN, Klaus Schwab and the WEF are rubbing their hands in glee at the “creative destruction” they’ve instigated.