South Africa has ramped up its restrictions again in response to the recent reported rise in infections associated with new subvariants Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 as the southerly country heads into winter.
South Africa never lifted its mask mandate and, though the mandate was due to end this week, has now extended it. It never lifted it despite the country skipping the Omicron BA.2 wave and having low infection levels for months, its original Omicron wave being much smaller than in other countries (see below) and the variant anyway being considerably milder and posing no threat.
Worse, when the country lifted the ‘state of disaster’ in April it did not say goodbye to its emergency Covid laws but codified them into permanent, ordinary law. Thus it is now a matter of ordinary law in South Africa to wear face-coverings in any indoor public setting or building and on public transport.
In addition, South Africa has used its new “Regulations Relating to the Surveillance and the Control of Notifiable Medical Condition 2022” to re-impose 50% capacity limits on gatherings over 100 people and require vaccination or a negative test to attend.
The Government has issued a statement saying it is still treating COVID-19 as a “life-threatening disease”.
However, researcher Dr. Ridhwaan Suliman points out that the new ‘wave’ is already running out of steam as “positivity has stabilised/levelled off over [the] past few days”.
Test % positivity starting to stabilise in South Africa
— Ridhwaan Suliman (@rid1tweets) May 4, 2022
Whilst #COVID19 testing remains low, partly public holidays but mostly fewer people seeking testing, it's skewed data on confirmed cases. But % positivity has stabilised/levelled off over past few days=good news for nowpic.twitter.com/89LSK1Qfvl
Certainly there is currently no sign of a big new wave, though that could perhaps change.
Either way, though, there are no indications the disease is anything serious or socially critical. The most worrying thing, of course, is that the South African Government still thinks Covid warrants imposing restrictions on society, and worse, has created permanent new laws to make this a normal part of public health management. It leaves us asking: if a disease this mild can be used as a reason to suspend basic rights, how do human rights and freedom mean anything at all?
Stop Press: Professor Carl Heneghan has told Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV: “South Africa is bringing back vaccine passports, travel restrictions and masks. My concern is we go into winter and see a domino effect of these policies.”
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The Arts Council provides funding to the “decolonise Shakespeare” RSC.
I’m happy to say that our local library, Frome, has never had any of this crap. Great book stock, librarians are excellent (I worked on library systems for 25 years, and chat to the staff and the systems librarian by email about problems.
It’s “Libraries West” a consortium of Somerset, Dorset, South Glocs, Bristol and Bath.
Sadly they gave to go to tender very five years – and it’s always the cheapest; the new one is dreadful – the last one is fine.
NO ILL function, which I used all the time, for such as academic books.
Can’t pay online
Horribly bug ridden (though I worked out why one was happening the other day, emailed the systems librarian who is passing it on to the suppliers
Can’t get the coders any more.
This needs seen to be believed. An open letter to Parliament, with a very long list of demands from some very disgruntled trans people indeed. And going by the names of ‘the aggrieved’ at the bottom, I’m wondering how many of them are ‘women’ of the bepenised variety. Between this lot and the Muslims it’s like a contest to see who can whinge loudest and longest to attain the ‘UK’s Biggest Perma-Victim Group’ status;
”Dear Members of Parliament,
We are writing to you with the hope that you will see the injustices being done and finally take a stand against the removal of the rights that trans people in the UK currently have access to. Silence and inaction is no longer an option, and will be taken as an indication of hostility towards the transgender community.
The illegitimate Hodge Ruling from the Supreme Court last week was the final step too far. A ruling conducted by a judge with a known anti-LGBT history fuelled by his religious beliefs, who flatly denied trans people a voice in the hearing with the deliberate intention of overstepping his judicial boundaries, a ruling that blatantly lied about the application of how ‘sex’ was defined in EA2010, and was done so in the service of a corrupt establishment intent on destroying the lives of transgender people in the UK.
The whole ruling is beyond corrupt, and represents a gross miscarriage of justice that needs to be independently investigated by the international courts.
We will state plainly – this ruling effectively means transgender people cannot live our lives in the UK at all, and illegitimately overrides the ECHR court ruling of Goodwin vs UK which forced the then Labour UK Government to enact the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
This, and previous governments already have a long and sordid history of abusing transgender people while claiming we ‘deserve dignity and respect’, while your policies and refusal to act actively harm and kill us.
The previous status quo was a compromise we tolerated out of fear. That ends now. Since even those meager protections are now being stripped away by a handful of people who hate us beyond reason, as a community we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action:”
https://archive.ph/2025.04.24-182121/https://transrightsnow.uk/?s=09
The […] Ruling from the Supreme Court last week was the final step too far.
Presumably, the aggrieved is now not just aggrieveder anymore and not even aggrievederest but aggrievederester and heading for aggrievederesterest. Kopfrechnen schwach, Religion sehr gut¹, as the German saying goes.
¹ Numeracy poor, religious theory excellent.
we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action
Among a host of others, these non-negotiable demands include the immediate legal abolishment of human sex in every aspect in all of the UK, from toilets to prisons to passports and marriage documents. What must not exist must not be mentioned anymore so that the undersigned can live their lives. Insofar there are people who hate them, I’m wondering if it ever occurred to them that acting like an alien invasion force with legitimate, absolute control of the lives of all other people could have played a part here.
I think they are hated because they are whiney and fucking annoying not to mention aggressive at times.
Yes nothing says, “Look how vulnerable/marginalised/oppressed I am” like a big bloke in a dress with bad hair and a ‘gender affirming’ moob job, threatening women who don’t submit to his ideology and getting his nob out to piss on a statue which symbolises women’s rights.
These men aren’t satisfied with the equality and rights they always had under the law. They wish to supersede women’s sex-based rights. And I knew this Supreme Court ruling wouldn’t be the end of it because their ideology, need to dominate and cult-like mentality coupled with their go-to reliance on claiming victimhood means that, like Terminators, they’re relentless and won’t ever give up. Also, if they’re that obsessed with being accepted and referred to as ‘women’, they’d all have their willies chopped off and a fauxgina instead, but the majority don’t. Now why is that? Why not go the whole hog and have the courage of their convictions?
The silly, narcissistic buggers think they’ve got a chance at getting a Supreme Court ruling overturned. Maximum delusion;
https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/fighting-fund-for-trans-rights/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=transfund_crowdfunder_transfund&utm_medium=social_media&utm_content=24-04-2025
“we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action”
Not that I don’t believe Kneel will overstep the mark and F. this up but just what “negotiating” powers do these people believe they have? Bring the country to a standstill? A national strike for trannies, yes that should do it.
FFS !!
As they cannot live their lives anymore, mass suicide in front to the palace of Westminster would suggest itself. Could become a BBC special moderated by Chris Packham who’ll certainly find a way to involve climate change.
When we are faced with real problems. Lack of affordable energy, food shortages and fewer jobs, social breakdown, all this wokey cokey nonsense will just disappear. The strong and well prepared will survive and the weak will go to the wall.
I wonder if we would have suffered all this nonsense if schools were single sex as they should be.
First, I doubt it. Sex education is taught in all schools today, so there’s no reason to suppose single sex schools would escape the marxist edicts of LGBTQ+ being handed down from above.
And I would strongly disagree with your proscribing of co-education. I myself look back on my school days with great pleasure. I was fortunate enough to attend a quality grammar school in a leafy London suburb, which was co-educational. Very strong academically, with good discipline and a happy school all round.
The presence of boys and girls together is a natural state of affairs, and we all got along very nicely, with a few romances blossoming and early learning of how to deal with the opposite sex part of our growing experience. My first girlfriend was a lovely girl who I went out with when I was in the lower sixth and she in the 4th. It lasted well over two years, and is a delightful memory to this day.
Some say girls do better in science in single-sex schools; maybe they do, but they also miss out on a lot.
I should add that this was the early Sixties, she came from a nice Catholic family, so it was a classic romance, although we did get pretty steamed up at times.
Today you may have a point, given that young girls in certain cities share their school with predatory Muslim youths.
Breaking.
https://truthsummit.substack.com/p/live-reiner-sentenced-3-years-9-months?triedRedirect=true
Reiner Fuellmich sentenced:
“Reiner has been sentenced to 3 years and 9 months, minus one year and one month of time already spent in prison, with 5 months of the time spent in prison not to be counted as the court held that the trial had been deliberately and needlessly prolonged. So prison time is to be 2 years and 8 months. Plus Reiner is to pay back the 700,000 Euros that were not put into his account – which is the reason he could not pay back.”
Talk about injustice. That poor man.
The Global Satanic cabal hunts down and tries to destroy lovers of Truth. And today we also learn that one of Satan’s earthly buddies, Klaus Schwab, is being found out too, so the evil is certainly starting to crack, what with Trump and Farage on the rampage too. Only the European Union is able to sustain a fascistic grip on its subject peoples, but who knows how things will turn out there?
The Speaker is beginning to show he is not up to the job of giving balanced leadership to back benchers in the HoC. He appears to have become a poodle of HMG.
Bad news.
“appears to have become a poodle”
It’s been bloody obvious for over six months.
Till my tongue stiffens will any of this make any sense to me!
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/remember-you-are-english/
One for the News Round-up.
“Remember you are English.”
Painful yet moving and inspiring.
Yes, it dammed well is worth reading in full.
Seeding the sky is a conspiracy theory!
It’s impossible to trust a politician who openly bases his beliefs about basic matters, like what a woman is, exclusively on court rulings. If a court ever rules differently in the future, Sir Keir’s entire reality will immediately shift again.
Does President Xi spend vast amounts of time discussing with his ministers what a woman is?
Sir K has said that he isn’t a man of faith. Yet when he believed that a man could become a woman he was expressing faith in transubstantiation; a Catholic doctrine.
Just scrap the Arts Council.
The people who presently sit on the Arts Council will find a way to continue what they’re doing now. This is really just a mirror image of the inane knives cause crime assertion. The problem is not that public institutions exist but that the wrong people are in control of them. And these people won’t go away just because public infrastructure is demolished.