Stuart Kirk, a leader in HSBC’s responsible investing team, has been suspended for casting doubt on some of the more hysterical claims made by climate alarmists at a speech he made last week. BBC News has more.
HSBC has reportedly suspended a senior executive who accused central bankers and other officials of exaggerating the financial risks of climate change.
Last week, Stuart Kirk, a leader in the bank’s responsible investing team, said: “There’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world.”
At the weekend, HSBC’s boss Noel Quinn posted on social media that he did not agree “at all” with the comments.
The firm declined to comment on reports that Mr Kirk has been suspended.
Mr. Kirk, who is global head of responsible investing at the bank’s asset management division, was suspended pending an investigation into a speech he made at an event last week, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the story.
His role, which is based in London, involves considering the impact of investments on environmental, social and governance issues.
HSBC came under pressure to sack Mr. Kirk after he gave the presentation entitled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk” at a conference on Thursday.
In the address he made light of the risks of major floods and said that he had to spend his time “looking at something that’s going to happen in 20 or 30 years”.
During the 15-minute address at the FT Moral Money Summit, Mr Kirk said “Climate change is not a financial risk that we need to worry about.”
“Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong,” a slide shown as part of the presentation said.
Later in the presentation, he said: “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”
Mr. Kirk did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.
Worth reading in full.
If any readers have a copy of Stuart Kirk’s presentation or know how to get hold of it, please get in touch. We’d like to publish it on the Daily Sceptic.
Stop Press: Here is Stuart Kirk’s talk entitled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk“.
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Today’s Twitter trawl has found this group -it seems to be trying to hold American media to account:
https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Also, got chatting to my neighbour in the garden, and after dropping a few tentative comments about Lockdown Scepticism it was good to find out that he has the same views!
I listened to Dr Wodarg ‘s latest interview and although not agreeing with all of his points I do think he makes two very valid observations. Firstly in answer to why no Covid19 in Beijing and elsewhere in China he said they didn’t test for it apart from in Wuhan and cases would have been treated in Shanghai like any other respiratory virus . He also raises questions as to why some western European countries had a surge in mortality and some obviously not . eg Republic of Ireland where it was not noticeable and Northen Ireland where there was a bell curve . Maybe it was because of different treatments ? Answers please !
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
and here is a link to Dr Wodarg’s interview on You tube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrBuv6kq6Rc&t=3380s
The surge in mortality appears to be largely a matter of statistics and how they are arrived at:
‘In the majority of cases (3,372 deaths, 86%) when COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it was found to be the underlying cause of death.’
‘We define a pre-existing condition as any health condition mentioned on the death certificate that either came before the coronavirus (COVID-19) or was an independent contributory factor in the death. Where only COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, or COVID-19 and subsequent conditions caused by COVID-19 were recorded, we refer to these deaths as having “No pre-existing conditions”.
Of the 3,912 deaths that occurred in March 2020 involving COVID-19, 3,563 (91%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 349 (9%) had none. The mean number of pre-existing conditions was 2.7.’
So, in England, a very broad interpretation of Covid 19 mortality, occasioned by it becoming a ‘notifiable disease’ in March despite being removed from the High Consequence Infectious Disease list on 19 March!
The figure in Italy?
‘Ricciardi (scientific advisor to Italy’s health minister) further said that hospitals in Italy have been “very generous” in how they record coronavirus-related fatalities.
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity — many had two or three,” Ricciardi said.’
There are some other strange things going on, statistically. England had, in April, a ‘surge’ in all causes mortality for age group 15-64 not seen anywhere else in Europe; so either the all causes numbers have been ‘stuffed’ by speeding up registrations to deliberately produce a spike, or England had, by a substantial margin, for one week in April, the worst health outcomes in Europe for age group 15-64.
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/england_special_28Apr.html
Ho hum………
Apologies. Links:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/latest
https://theprint.in/world/how-italys-ageing-population-overburdened-health-system-spiked-its-covid-19-death-rate/395369/
The other option of course is that the lockdown was extremely dangerous the rest of the population! Cancelled operations, acute wards cleared of patients, no one attending A&E. we know there is a large delay in Italy on registrations, but surely they should be filtering through already
In the same report, the recorded deaths in the 4 other ‘top 5’ categories (including ischemic heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease) for March 2020 are lower than the 5 year average. That would make sense if the Covid ‘diagnosis’ is hoovering up other statistics.
Yes they are pretty obviously fiddling the numbers to produce the appearance of a worse outcome.
What I don’t understand is that while most non-covid deaths were being recorded as covid deaths, those in care homes which probably WERE covid weren’t being counted. Well until they suddenly released them all at once to produce a dangerous spike last week in order to justify three more weeks of lockdown. IMO any discussion about backing off will be after the next three weeks. I may be wrong (has been known to happen) but I suspect that will be Boris’ announcement on Sunday
It’a called “escalation of commitment.” Wikipedia has a very good explanation of how it works: “Escalation of commitment is a human behaviour pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from a decision, action, or investment nevertheless continues the behaviour instead of altering course. The actor maintains behaviours that are irrational, but align with previous decisions and actions.”
Economists and behavioural scientists use a related term, sunk-cost fallacy, to describe the justification of increased investment of money or effort in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment (“sunk cost”) despite new evidence suggesting that the future cost of continuing the behaviour outweighs the expected benefit.
Both of these terms, escalation of commitment & the sunk-cost fallacy, can succinctly be explained in three (type-written) characters: HS2
Or F35, that one’s a sunk cost fallacy that has screwed over both British, American, and several European and Asian nations’ budgets.
Hehehe
Effectively the sunk costs fallacy. Just what we’re seeing with an idiot government which terrorises the herd with nonsense slogans to stay at home, then finds its lead architect had badly coded models and couldn’t stick to the guidance himself. Then the Uni of East Anglia publishes a study proving that lockdown did not work. And still the idiots renew it. I wish I could get the stupid bosses who hold the keys to my workplace to be as rational as we are on this site.
Do you have a link to that study?
https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/new-study-reveals-blueprint-for-getting-out-of-covid-19-lockdown
read the whole text carefully, not just the headline. It goes on to review all the different strategy elements tried and say which seemed to work. Lockdowns and stay at home orders did not work, closure of pibs/gyms worked a bit, closure of shops and offices did not work at all, banning huge gatherings worked, effect of facemasks was unclear.
Definitely happening. People dying of heart disease, cancer, natural causes, and even other respiratory diseases/pneumonia have all been hoovered up into the C-19 figures. Well, not all. But a good proportion. There are enough stories by now from people who’ve noticed C-19 on their relative’s death certificate who know it shouldn’t be there as cause of death.
I would like to see a full investigation into how deaths from Covid 19 have been compiled and are figures for covid 19 being falsified. I have raised the question in another post if the coronavirus is a deadly killer, is the modern equivalent of bubonic plague and is such a major threat as to justify a draconian lockdown, why do the authorities need to resort to fiddling the figures on coronavirus deaths?
If it was that bad why would draconian restrictions be needed at all, everyone would see the dangers for themselves and wouldn’t need to be told to hide from it.
If coronavirus is so widespread why do I keep reading on the internet people saying they don’t know anyone I’ll with coronavirus.
“There are some other strange things going on, statistically. England had, in April, a ‘surge’ in all causes mortality for age group 15-64 not seen anywhere else in Europe; so either the all causes numbers have been ‘stuffed’ by speeding up registrations to deliberately produce a spike, or England had, by a substantial margin, for one week in April, the worst health outcomes in Europe for age group 15-64.”
Could be summed up by this:
https://www.iceagenow.info/man-eaten-by-shark-dies-from-coronavirus/
Man Eaten By Shark Dies From Corona virus.
Bizarre isn’t it? I mean, people 15 – 64 DO die, just not from coronavirus. They are doing distinctly weird things with the mortality rates which they wouldn’t need to do if covid actually WAS that bad.
If it is found the government has been fiddling the coronavirus death statistics, could legal action be taken against the government as they have used false pretenses to justify the lockdown.
I think so. Especially when the actual figures about lockdown deaths come out. Lol if they EVER come out. I have a feeling there will be inquiry upon inquiry about this – and the first inquiry will be just trying to get the raw, unredacted information out of the gvt
Just clicked on the new petition link and it says,
“We need to check it meets the petition standards before we publish it.
Please try again in a few days.”
I thought it had got past the gatekeepers?
Mmm. Meantime, this one is still running…https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300316
Parliament petitions require 5 initial signatures to prove there is someone out there interested in them, then they go to the gatekeepers. Hence Toby was one of the first 5 signatories, and like his earlier petition, this one too has now got caught in the bureaucrtaic bullsh*t.
There are these 3 petitions all operational:
https://www.change.org/p/uk-prime-minister-end-the-covid-19-lockdown-in-the-uk-by-may-15th
https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-oppose-the-lockdown-save-lives
https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-uk-parliament-reverse-the-dangerous-coronavirus-bill-hc-bill-122-rushed
They have, respectively, 3.1K, 63 and 13.6K signatories on them.
change.org isn’t having the same suspiciously slow bureaucracy as the parliament website.
The petition is now in the ‘please try again in a few days’ status.
The first one had been like that for weeks, looking very suspicious because the petitions about Capt. Tom’s knighthood have gone through blazingly fast despite being surely posted at around the same time as Toby’s first petition.
One of the strangest things is that one part of the UN is now predicting millions of deaths in Africa because of the lockdown, while another part of UN, WHO, is implementing a one size fit all pandemic approach to all countries. That is a high technology approach with testing, expensive protective equipment and isolation with the infamous lockdown on top of it as the final nail in the coffin for poor African countries. You would think that with an age pyramid just opposite Italy, with many young and few elderly, Covid-19 might not be their highest public health priority. The few protective equipment they have would perhaps be more useful for diseases they have like Lassa fever or Ebola. Also the same with surgical masks and N95 masks for multi resistant tuberculosis which they have in abundance. You would expect a total public health response to a pandemic and more so in Africa.
The instinct for left wingers should be to scream about this callous imperialism. Instead they have become the biggest fans of the lockdown and the biggest cheerleaders for the Big Pharma/ Bill Gates approach to the pandemic.
Population reduction?
We’ve been sceptical about the 16th March 2020 IC paper, ever since the select committee hearing on 25th March 2020, where assumptions were all over the place. The key assumptions behind 510,000 deaths in unmitigated pandemic (81% infection) and 0.9% (actually 0.945%) infection fatality ratio (IFR) were not well explained or supported by evidence – actually they contradicted evidence available from Diamond Princess. We sent those findings to officialdom (honestly) in early April but didn’t get traction as we are not experts in this field, but can recognise weak assumptions and a patchy track record when we see it. We spoke to some epidemiologists and put up a PPT and video on thinkingslow site which goes through assumptions one by one.
So, I’m beginning to view RDawg, Mimi and Swedenborg as my new friends. Hello!! Thank you to Toby and all the contributors to this site – it’s the only thing that has been allowing me to sleep easy over the last few weeks. Knowing I’m not the only one thinking this whole thing is a pile of crap, has brought some comfort.
I wrote to my MP (using your great template RDawg). Got a reply today saying I had raised some ‘interesting points’, but essentially not much else of any use.
Meanwhile, as I’m in Scotland, the lovely Nicola has indicated another 3 weeks of this. I have to ask myself, are they seeing data we are not? Genuinely, is there something we are not being told? I’m at an utter loss.
I keep asking myself that, are they seeing data and keeping it from us, but when you look at the data from all over the world its pretty much the same, median age is around 80, I think 90% or there abouts have pre-existing conditions.
It’ll have to be a worldwide effort to hide data from us.
Hello Fifi and a very warm welcome to you. Well done for writing to your MP. Mine has not bothered to reply to me or even acknowledge my email. So glad I voted for her. I also wrote to the four “Tory rebels” and sadly none of them have responded either.
I heard through the grapevine there is a protest being organised in Hyde Park on Saturday 16th May. However it is also rumoured to have a strong presence of far-right extremists so I’m not sure it will be great publicity for the anti-lockdown cause. As we know from Extinction Rebellion’s antics, poorly perceived protests can do a lot more harm than good.
Interestingly today I googled the definition of “dictatorship”. Here’s what it came up with: “A dictatorship is a form of government where one person or political party has the power to do whatever they want. The ruler is called a dictator. In a dictatorship, the individuals rights are generally speaking, suppressed.” How is this any different to how our current government are running things, I wonder? Sad but true. With our weekly state workship of the NHS, I wonder if this is what life is like in North Korea. Feels like we are heading that way…
*worship (autocorrect)
Would hope to hear of protests outside London, ones scattered across the towns and cities of the UK would do good. Help to show that opposing the lockdown isn’t just a thing for “out of touch Londoners” but that it has broad support spread across all the usual political divides. Remember what Boris really cares about is the way that “T’ North” and “the Red Wall” view him, those are the people who put him in power, they are the people he knows can pull him out of power. If anti-lockdown protests happened in the north they might make him think a lot more sensibly.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
Interesting
Hello and thank you for this site and to everyone who comments. Just want to say that the rumours of the presence of ‘far right extremists’ is probably just that – a rumour put about by those who want to put off people attending. I very much doubt there is much of a ‘far right’ in this country, and perhaps those who circulate rumours are only referring to those who would demonstrate against mass and illegal immigration. We are probably thought of as ‘far right’ for even posting on or just reading this site.
If people think that contributors to this sire are ‘far right’ then they have a really warped sense of reality. As far as I’m concerned this site is about liberty. Patrick Henry’s speech of 1775 at the Virginia convention comes to mind: summat about liberty or death.
GET A BACKBONE!
As picked up by another sceptic, david davis mp has sent another tweet about dr strangelove and his modelling of the virus:
“Everybody who is concerned about the Imperial College model must read this immediately. If true, it is scandalous.”
https://twitter.com/DavidDavisMP/status/1258143326764761088
My response is GET A BACKBONE and start requesting interviews, etc. with the mainstream media to better expose this full lockdown farse.
I cannot survive another three weeks listening to the likes of nicola sturgeon telling everyone this is a matter of life and death as if the 500,000+ individuals that die every year in the uk never was and never will be again.
In fact, now I think about, shakespeare could have made a wonderful play about the last 6 weeks. A british tragic farse with all the key characters from boris to neil ferguson.
Hi everyone. I’ve been looking at this website for the past few days and finally plucked up the courage to post. Words can not describe how I feel about this lockdown. I live in Scotland so have to see and hear Nicola Sturgeon playing party politics now. I have so many concerns about this lockdown but one of my main ones is schools. I have a 10 year old son who hasn’t seen any mates since March. I’ve had to deal with another night of tears before bed time because of this lockdown. I am fascinated with the way they say schools are a breeding ground for this virus. Well why then have they kept schools open for children whose parents are key workers. These children surely have a higher risk of exposure to the virus because of the job their parents do. I have written to both my MSP and John Swinney who is the Scottish Education Minister asking for data relating to this. I have asked for either Scottish or UK wide figures for these key worker children testing positive for coronavirus, and also how may other children and adults have they passed it onto through these schools. I haven’t heard anything back yet except a routine reply saying they are extremely busy but someone will get back to me in due course.
Sheltielass, I am so sorry for you and especially your son! This lockdown is inhumane. It is hard for everyone, but it is unconscionable to inflict it on children. They are suffering genuine losses that cannot be made up. You can’t redo three months of the year you were ten – you can only move forward. I have no words of comfort to offer except that you are not alone – there are many of us out there who think this lockdown is absolutely insane and incredibly destructive.
Thank you Mimi. Hes aware of why we are doing it. Which I dont know if that’s good or bad. I count ourselves lucky we have a house and a garden and a bit of green space around for us to do our daily walk!! I really feel for parents who are stuck in a tower block with no green space nearby. How is an hour of walking on pavements then back inside good for anybody’s mental wellbeing. I just cant wait for all this to be over and the public enquiries to begin.
I feel really angry on your behalf. Two months must seem endless to a little boy of ten. As an expatriate Scot who thinks that Scottish independence isn’t a bad idea in principle (mainly for the sake of domestic harmony, since I have an independence-supporting husband) I am horrified by the way well-known independence bloggers have gone into full stay at home to save lives mode. It seems extraordinary to me that people who think the “unionist press” is not to be trusted on any subject relating to Scottish independence believe every word it says about this virus and conclude with a leap of logic that since Boris Johnson did not follow Neil Ferguston’s advice soon enough, Scotland should no longer be ruled by Westminster. Gordie Broon has been dusted off to tell the Scots that they should come out of lockdown when London says so. That was a bad idea. Gordie Broon is like a red rag to a bull to independence supporters. “We’ll stay at home till Nicola tells us to come out and let that Boris try and stop us!” It’s depressing.
Thanks for setting up this much-needed website. Most of this country has indeed gone mad.
Indeed, and what a relief that it was server overload which prevented me getting in yesterday and not the machinations of the 77th Brigade
Lockdown Skeptics has been one of the few online sources that have kept me sane over the last couple of weeks, however, I really don’t think political left/right point scoring is helpful right now. The comments on this blog appear to have attracted a broad church of political leanings, brought together by their belief that lockdown is unnecessary, and an intellect to discern fact from fiction.
I’d really rather this united front not break down into boring leave/remain, left/right divisions. Can we all remain civil and focus on the real enemy?
Agreed. To lift our spirits we could all eat a mint. It’s the only Imperial worth having.
minor point but it’s github, not reddit
Professor John Loannidis and Stanford University’s nationwide antibody study with the help from Major League Baseball should be out any day now
https://youtu.be/uLuNbcvT1mI
Pleased to report no clapping nor wielding of kitchen utensils here.
A text from a pal, who’s locked up with her daughter and 2 grand daughters: ‘this lockdown is doing my head in!’.
She’s a retired primary school teacher and is now exhausted, having been tutoring the grand children for several weeks.
As Sheltielass and FifiTrixabelle have commented, we’ll now have to endure another 3 weeks in the slammer, thanks to FM Sturgeon’s announcement.
She’s playing politics again: wants unity but won’t be pressurised as early release could be catastrophic.
As the justification for the brutal lockdown is to prevent the spread of an infectious disease, a critical question is how exactly coronavirus is spread and how infectious it is. We are told coronavirus is spread if someone coughs or sneezes, droplets are spread and if the droplets hit someone in the eyes, mouth or nose, the person is infected. In addition if droplets land on a surface and someone touches a surface with their hands and then touch their eyes, mouth or nose they can be infected. This raises questions. If coronavirus is a new disease have studies been done which provide conclusive answers how coronavirus is spread. How far do droplets travel? If droplets land on surfaces outdoors, does this affect how long the virus lasts compared with surfaces indoors? If the virus lands on a surface, does temperature affect how long the virus lasts? If a virus gets on hands, how long does the virus lasts. Can droplets be spread by breathing and talking?
They do not really have the answers, but it is mazing how successful it is to plant ideas and make people scared. It does not really matter, iIf you have a good functioning immune system, your chances of getting it is small and if so you will recover quickly. We need to learn to live with this virus as it is not going away and will continue to mutate. Keep in mind that last year the flu vaccine was 17% effective (unknown how this was calculated) and up to now they have failed to eradicate the flu virus.
I think there are quite a few doctors and scientists now that they think it’s more contact spread than airborne/transmission spread. This would explain the massive difference in severity between a care worker who gets it and a rando who does. – How does this explain that health care workers only seem to be dying at the same rate as the rest of the population?
They always acknowledged the importance of viral load though, didn’t they – and the vast vast majority of people will only receive a tiny dose via contact with a passing stranger, especially if social distancing rules are observed.
A tiny dose is er…. kinda like a vaccine, is it not? I find it absolutely hilarious that nobody is making this comparison in their heads. We can immunise OURSELVES by simply getting out and mixing with each other.
Here’s another song we might like, John Denver’s “Country Roads” rewritten for our times of panic-demic. Anyone with a band, good microphone and good singing voice is very welcome to record an audio version for YouTube:
What an error, what damn pillocks
tossing all our country down the shitter
Getting old here, just want to be free
If your vaccine can’t be ready yet
I’ll chance the damn disease
Empty roads, take me home
Where the lockdown, isn’t known
Social Distance
but don’t prolong this
Take me home, empty roads
Civil liberties all torn down and
Nanny state gone crazy,
lets stick to soap and water
Some form of PPE
worn across the face
Enough to slow the spread so
re-open my workplace
Empty roads, take me home
Where the cops, don’t use drones
for harassing, and
Stasi neighbours
Take me home, empty roads
Who hears a voice as solitude tortures them
Bank balance as reminder, staying home doesn’t pay
And despite Ferguson’s code, most of the folks
survive this crappy virus anyway
anyway
Empty roads, take me home
Where businesses, aren’t all blown
NHS heroes
economoies fund them
Take me home, empty roads
Empty roads, take me home
Where risks I choose, are my own
Our rights they steal, they
won’t return them
Take me home, empty roads
Sweden’s shown, say “Lockdown? NO!”
Sweden’s shown, say “Lockdown? NO!”
Normally you use C or C++ if you need performance. They are common in fields like finance or physics that deal with very large data sets and/or where execution speed is important. C++ is a complex language that takes a while to learn. Bad C++ code can be horrific and often contains subtle or not-so-subtle bugs.
Ferguson has a physics background so that may have been a factor in his choice of language. I haven’t looked at the code, but the lack of comments (in the code) is a red flag. It does seem a bit overkill to use C++ for epidemiology, though it does allow for faster and more complex simulations. It is, of course, unclear if “more complex” is a good thing.
I am not surprised the code is a mess. In academia you write your program, generate some data, publish a paper and move on. Peer reviewers will almost never look at the code, and there is no incentive to clean it up, share it, or make it easy to use by other people. There are some exceptions e.g. in bioinformatics if you write a tool that you hope other people will use (and cite your paper).
All this being said… the headline figure of 500,000 dead with no intervention doesn’t really depend on the compexity of the model. For example, 66,000,000 (UK population) x 80% (infection rate) x 1% (fatality rate) equals 528,000. Pretty crude, but also reasonably robust. Could easily be off by an order of magnitude, and in my opinion both the infection and fatality rates are too high. But it did seem within the realm of the possible in mid March, given what the Wuhan/Italy numbers were like at the time.
The real question in March was not full lockdown vs. nothing; it was full lockdown vs. something lighter. The Imperial model helped nudge towards full lockdown, and I agree the evidence was flimsy.
Yes exactly. The model is coded like crap (and we only saw the “polished” version). No doubt it’s full of bugs but such a complex model with so many parameters is likely to be a waste of time anyway because noone will be bother or be able to calculate how the uncertainty in all those parameters propagates to the result.
But your point is absolutely right that the number dead doesn’t depend on the model. Whether you’re dead or immune doesn’t change the progression of the epidemic and the model doesn’t care. The total dead is just a simple function of the average herd immunity threshold (which is a simple function of R0), population size and IFR.
Robust decisions are insensitive to precise assumptions. Any back of an envelope calculation for a flu-like infection with no immunity and no treatment options leads to the same conclusion. By the time the lockdown decision was made, there was little time to deliberate over soft or hard. A conservative 100k deaths have been prevented, the cost is another debate.
You don’t know that 100K deaths have been prevented. You can’t know that, though other evidence surrounding COVID suggest that this is not a true statement.
That evidence includes now-numerous serological studies finding that millions of people have already been infected with and recovered from COVID, many without knowing it; studies finding that COVID was sickening people in December, which means the epidemic was rampaging freely long before anyone considered lockdown; the much lower calculations of ifr from these studies; the several studies showing that lockdown hasn’t helped and has likely hurt COVID death rates; AND, last but not least, the fact that most COVID deaths are occurring in people who are already old, sick, and likely near the end of their lifespans anyway. We could stay home til 2025, and it could not prevent old, sick people from dying.
There is always time to deliberate, especially when considering measures that take so much from so many. Responsible leadership does cost-benefit analysis, and revisits it regularly. The benefit should be clearly defined and quantified, not some vague “saving lives.” Lockdown, if ever implemented, should be as short and targeted as possible so as to do the least collateral damage.
“!We could stay home til 2025, and it could not prevent old, sick people from dying.”
Sacrilege! What are you saying???
Seriously though it’s plausible the lockdown may have prevented some covid deaths, I doubt that many, but on the other hand it is causing more non-covid deaths. We will simply never know one way or the other while the numbers are being fudged.
No chance, or we’d have seen those numbers in countries that didn’t coercively lock down.
The evidence seems to be pointing towards this coronavirus being like other coronaviruses, in being self limiting (probably due to variations in susceptibility for various reasons) at quite low levels of prevalence (far from the ridiculous 70-80% herd immunity threshold assumed by some early on).
We wouldn’t though, especially in the winter. It would have just been written down as flu.
This virus has supposedly just unleashed a terrifying wave of death on the UK but official ONS figures show that for most of the country only about a quarter of the deaths recorded between 1st March and 17 April were with Covid. For example, in Sheffield, 164 deaths with Covid out of 761 total in a population of over half a million in an area with several hospitals. If those 164 deaths had happened in January before we were testing for this nobody would have noticed it was a thing.
There was a study published recently that found a medical sample in France from December 2019 for someone presenting with pneumonia like symptoms that tested positive for SARS2. He had not been out of the country since August.
Maybe that was a false positive. But it really could have started that early and we would not have noticed.
This is a plausible explanation for why none of the death curves in any European country show exponential growth. We’re only looking at the ends of them.
I also thought Mimi couldn’t be right when she first suggested this because I thought we would have noticed the deaths starting sooner. But we wouldn’t have. It is an entirely plausible theory consistent with the French finding.
Do you mean ‘prevented’ or ‘deferred’?
Don’t forget though that the population of the U.K. is in reality a lot more than the official 66 million. Ask any postman or delivery man! If you take into account illegals, those not registered etc it is estimated to be nearer 80 million. So the fatality rate is even smaller! Professor Giesecke of Sweden reckons it is less than 0.01%.
Sorry that should say less than 0.1%.
“My own view is that the public health experts advising governments around the world are acting in good faith.”
The Gríma Wormtongues (LOTR) are frequently much further embedded within institutions than one realises.
To quote Disraeli, “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
This is another interesting study on the side-effects of lockdown:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/07/anxiety-from-reactions-to-covid-19-will-destroy-at-least-seven-times-more-years-of-life-than-can-be-saved-by-lockdowns/
Interesting read.
“We Mapped How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World”
https://link.medium.com/UONHskU2h6
I can’t open the link, tried a few times…another muffled voice? I’ll keep trying.
Update: If you can’t get it via Medium, you can currently get it via:
https://flipboard.com/@tech/the-pandemic-is-a-trojan-horse-for-surveillance-programs-around-the-world/a-s8N6QyaZRgCfD9RAhXqm7g%3Aa%3A142275117-4257d8373e%2Fmedium.com
Actually No you can’t, it redirects you to Medium and you can’t access it
As many have said before, finding and visiting this website keeps me sane. I am really starting to feel quite depressed, when I am not too angry!
The contact tracing apps will not work for many reasons which are listed in this paper:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-corona-virus-mitigation-apps-impact-spread-de-gentile-williams/
The main problem is that relying on bluetooth technology will generate too many false positives (for proximity) and fail to track too many people who actually were within infectious proximity.
So your phone tells you you have been near an infected person. You don’t catch it but you have to self isolate anyway, if you leave your house do they then send the police round?
You don’t have it but the phone then informs everyone you have been in contact with that you do and they all have to self isolate, and so on.
Absolutely no consideration that you and the people you come across may already be immune.
Needs more work.
Mary Waugh’s ‘official’ petition challenging the gubmint’s lockdown policy has met with the same fate as the previous attempt and been taken offline PDQ by TPTB: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/319613/moderation-info
Frit they are, and rightly so.
Something weird occurring with the site….I didn’t post this comment!
The Telegraph has quoted the words of Prof Robert Dingwall, a government adviser, from this podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/choppers-brexit-podcast/id1213415786
Since the Telegraph is behind a paywall (but well worth taking out a free subscription at the moment – it is increasingly critical of the government), I will cut and paste:
Prof Dingwall is based at Nottingham Trent University and sits on the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), which feeds into its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
Speaking in a personal capacity, he said: “We have this very strong message which has effectively terrorised the population into believing that this is a disease that is going to kill you. And mostly it isn’t.
“Eighty per cent of the people who get this infection will never need to go near a hospital. The ones who do go to hospital because they are quite seriously ill most of them will come out alive – even those who go into intensive care.
“We have completely lost sight of that in the obsession with deaths, the human interest stories about deaths, the international comparisons about death rates, the opportunities for intrepid television journalists to put on lots of PPE and go into high tech where people are acutely ill. ”
Re the 2 metre social distancing rule: “Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that “we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side”.
“we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was”. Wow
Should have been a yard for the target audience
complete with a simple measuring ad on the telly
I sent the template letter regarding lifting the lockdown & the damage being done to the economy by it, that was posted on this website to my local MP on Monday.
I received his reply back last night, NOT good at all.
Here it is (I have left out his Name & My Name)
“Thanks for your email
Whilst I appreciate your concerns and view, I have to admit that I think the lockdown is a necessary condition.
Sweden has admitted that it got it wrong and is the worst of the Scandinavian countries with regard to both cases and deaths. Most countries, which went into lockdown very quickly have had less cases and deaths than here in the UK.
I agree that many of the other issues regarding mental health, unemployment and delayed diagnosis could rise and create problems after Covid.
Whilst it’s an unknown disease, we appear to be on the same track as those countries which were affected before us. In these unprecedented times, I believe, we are taking the appropriate actions and whilst it is challenging I believe it is in our best interests.
I accept you appear to have a different view and respect that, however, I am no medical expert and follow the guidance we have.”
So, there we have it, from an official MP.
This makes me sad
I think you’re MP must have selective perception. Sweden hasn’t admitted it has made a mistake at all, at any stage. Where on earth do they get this from. It says it all really.
That’s the ‘they say it and you have to believe it’ theory in action regarding Sweden. What your MP is assuming is that you have very few brain cells and can’t do the research yourself. I find that infuriatingly patronising. Total cases per million in Sweden 2,000 +, UK 3,000 + (Iceland 5,000 +!).
Deaths per million; Sweden 301, UK 451 (Iceland 29!) from the worldometer site as of 12.03pm and took two minutes research.
The MP is either dishonest, ignorant or stupid. Possibly some combination of those factors. Tegnell has said Sweden made mistakes, but only in relation to protecting care homes, which is something our government has manifestly failed utterly at as well, lockdown regardless. Sweden absolutely has not ever suggested its route of not pursuing a blanket coercive lockdown was an error, as the MP implies.
The evidence is also the opposite to what he suggests about lockdown reducing deaths, as the graph here shows: http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/
Depressing response, but pretty much typical of our political representatives.
You could try pointing the above facts out, more politely than I’ve put it. It’s likely you will be ignored, but it all helps to make them start to realise there are actually two sides to the issue.
Well, you know what Churchill said about prospective Parliamentary candidates: they are asked to stand, hope to sit and are expected to lie!
Does anyone here think that these supine MPs are being whipped to fall in behind the official advice/message/propaganda?
I know whipping is used for voting but it seems that these anodyne replies are indicators of a ‘fall into line’ directive.
Is this tin hat fantasising?
Suggestions welcome
I don’t think whipping is necessary yet. They are all pious paternalists getting that nice warm feeling from working for the Greater Good. Either they are ignorant, they are stupid, or they are dishonest. In the later case, they probably genuinely believe they are doing the responsible thing in deceiving people.
Sweden has admitted it dropped the ball on care homes. As did we all.
Other than that, they stand by their approach. And they have already been proven right as far as I’m concerned.
According to today’s FT the NHS has been told to start developing a contact tracing app based on the Google and Apple system. Yet another NHS IT failure it would seem. I wonder if they should be included in the mindless weekly clap?
Based on past history of IT and the NHS, this was obviously going to be a roaring success….
The Thursday night clap – when are the seals Finally going to spot that no fish are being thrown to them?
In TheMailOnline this morning, I see an image of the Prime Minister, clasping a lit candle, his head reverentially bowed.
Sickening cant.
We need a leader, not a bloody vicar.
Yes – it has truly become a right Carrie On.
We’re being told that the R0 is creeping up and apparently that’s why the lockdown conditions cannot be eased on Sunday. Were also told that this R0 increase is due to the woeful situation in care homes and to a lesser extent hospitals. I’m confused though. Can anyone shed light as to why that is s danger to the other 60 odd million of us? Are the elderly and vulnerable leaving their care homes like rabid zombies to infect us during the night? I would have thought those in care homes are sadly trapped and incapable of moving more than a few feet. Therefore, how the hell does a high R0 in care homes become relevant to society as a whole, I’m struggling to see how it does.
Unless care home workers themselves are somehow super spreaders (they should be tested regularly anyway) and are emitting disease to the rest of us by some magical transmission route how the do care homes dictate lockdown policy? They should be a separate entity entirely.
I know those in care homes have to go to hospital, but can this risk of transit time transmission be relevant? Government have even stated the R0 for those outside care homes/hospitals is approx 0.5/0.6.
Why the hell then are the general population still locked down?
Sounds a lot like ‘today’s justification (excuse) not to relax the lockdown’ doesn’t it? I live on the Dorset coast, the natives are more than restless here, particularly in the sunshine, we have pretty much unlocked ourselves – good!
They do not have the guts to lift the lockdown and are using flimsy excuses. The care home industry has been a disgrace for years.
Who was telling you that then, that those in care homes have to go to hospital? The opposite seems to be true. According to Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP in Cheshire, hospitals “discharge the elderly unwell patients with COVID directly back into the community, and care homes. Where they can spread the virus widely amongst the most vulnerable.
“This, believe it or not, is NHS policy. Still.
“Yes, you did just read that. COVID-19 patients, even those with symptoms, are still to be discharged back home, or into care homes – unless unwell enough to require hospital care e.g. oxygen, fluids and suchlike. If this is not national policy, then the managers are telling me lies.”
So much for crocodile tears about protecting the vulnerable.
The reason they go is for other ailments, they probably get the infection in hospital and take it back to the care home, and repeat the cycle as well as the policy to get them out of hospital anyway. Its a form of mass man slaughter, or worse depending on whether its intentional or not
PROTECT THE NHS FROM OLD PEOPLE!!
A couple of points……
Petitions to MPs. Good to do, but I’m not sure if they will have much effect. They assume that our politicians are actually in charge of this fiasco; I’m increasingly convinced that they are not.
As the late comedian/philosopher George Carlin said, “forget politicians – they’re only put there to make you think you have a choice. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE! You have OWNERS. You are OWNED!”
IOW governments today are, to all intents and purposes, wholly-owned subsidiaries of a global corporatocracy – banksters, Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Oil etc. The REAL power-players of this world. They buy and sell politicians who have to dance to their tune first, before they can give any consideration to the people they are supposed to be serving – i.e. us. And I think all this dragging out of lockdown, fiddling the death toll etc. is a sign that our Govt are serving their Owners, who want a huge extension of their powers and profits. And compulsory vaccines are the key to this.
Again and again we hear the mantra “without a vaccine we cannot return to normal” which is risible BS and should be shot down in flames by every microbiologist and immunologist across the world. (Unfortunately a lot of them are EMPLOYED by vaccine manufacturers so they have to keep quiet!) The achievement of natural herd immunity – the way humanity has conquered pandemics throughout history – is not merely being downplayed but almost totally ignored in the narrative; quite deliberately I believe.
The second point is the Orwellian tracking device. This can only come about on the back of the aforesaid agenda – ignore natural immunity; hold out for the Miracle Vaccine; keep the Brave New Normal going until this wondrous product is ready for compulsory sale to 7.5 billion customers. If we all achieve natural herd immunity quickly in the next few weeks/months, these two plans fail – no need for the Big Brother tracker or the forced vaccinations.
Gotta keep people frightened. Gotta keep that lockdown going, or at least keep people’s lives disrupted for long enough that they will BEG for the vaccine and the tracking app.
Dear me, I’m more cynical than ever this morning.
I wonder in my more cynical moments,whether we’ll all be issued with Home Office ankle monitors. Luddites like me, whose elderly mobile won’t accommodate the wondrous all singing all dancing tracking app,will be undetectable unless they come up with a new means of herding us.
So this is possible, but it requires the existence of a somewhat organised conspiracy to be true.
Isn’t it more likely that what we’re seeing is less rational, more instinctive behaviour like the way a herd of sheep all run like crazy when one of them says he thought he saw a dog?
People still behave like that and although we sort of do believe in science you can always find a rational justification for what you want to believe.
There is enough uncertainty about the IFR, infection rates and the effects of lockdowns to convince yourself that the deaths we’ve seen are only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t agree with it (in fact I’m increasingly thinking we’re only looking at the very tail end of the epidemic and wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it had all been in the winter and not in the news). But plenty of smart people on Twitter who can do math and stuff do think that and they surely aren’t all part of a conspiracy. I even have friends who think this way and we often discuss the data.
If you really believe that story then lockdown followed by vaccine does seem like the only way out.
Then we get to governments who are capable of seeing the evidence either way as well but also have other things to think about like domestic and international politics.
In the UK I think there’s fairly good evidence to imply that our lockdown was just to be popular. So who stoked everyone up to be so scared of this thing in the first place? Mostly the free press who just know that fear sells. And it isn’t hard because there is an innate human fear of “contagion” (just as there is of climate change) that can be seen in our religions and ways of life dating back to long before we had much idea of how to do science. There is also a powerful instinct to want to copy what everyone else is doing.
Once the thing gains momentum people watching how it plays out will look for opportunities. Maybe this is our chance to kill air travel, think the greens. Maybe we get Germany to give us more money, think Spain and Italy. But it’s like a chess game. Life is too complicated to think more than a couple of moves ahead. So I don’t think one can say that however it all turns out it was planned by anyone.
Throughout this crisis, I have questioned my own “dot-joining” process (one such thread of course being Ferguson>Imperial>Gates>Pharma>Compulsory vaccination) and I have held in mind Hanlon’s Razor: “never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.”
So I sincerely hope I am wrong; that this is NOT a colossal power-and-control grab by globalists who are exploiting the pandemic for their own ends, but is simply a series of governmental gaffes, bungles and miscalculations on an epic scale.
That is a totally plausible explanation and for me, would be the best possible outcome: it was nothing more than a colossal cock-up (sorry, Professor Ferguson!)
Your comment about “opportunities” at the end of this, is something I resonate with strongly. The old Chinese word for disease – “dangerous opportunity” – is never more appropriate than now, facing down the outcome of this disease from China!
There is indeed much we can learn from what has happened. Once again, I recommend readers to the truly wonderful essay “The Coronation” by Charles Eisenstein, available from his website or narrated by the author on YouTube. A powerful and moving exploration of the life-enhancing opportunities that await us in the aftermath of this crisis, if we are willing to take them.
The place where that row of dots breaks I think is the idea that Fergie ever had any influence over the government. Maybe he (and his dodgy girlfriend) even thought they did, but I think it’s highly unlikely, especially given how this particular government is run, which is very centrally and by people like Cummings who look at numbers and data for themselves. They have plenty of experts telling them both sides of the story and always did. In any case, estimating how many people will die in a pandemic is just basic math, it’s not really “science”.
Science would be working out what social distancing measures might actually work based on understanding how the virus spreads. We could have done with some of that during that epidemic we just had actually.
I think Gates is well-intentioned and vaccines are generally a good thing. In this situation however it will be harder because you’re weighing the risks of a somewhat rushed-through and novel vaccine against those of a low-criticality disease. If the vaccine causes issues in just 1 out of 10000 people it could already be worse than the disease. I am expecting it to be added to the set of vaccines to give people who get flu jabs, but if it was ready now that would not be the case. By the time it is ready hopefully the hysteria will have died down.
‘The Coronation’ is terrific. And I know a few people who have been thinking similarly. This is a huge opportunity if we can but see it, but it needs people of vision to take it on. There’s a load of humbug being thrown around about the ‘new normal’ like permanent social distancing and all that bs. But what if this is heralding massive change? What if it is the gift that humanity needs to step up collective consciousness? I’m hesitant to quote metaphysical sources on a website designated to more practical day-to-day sceptical affairs, but they are out there.
Well, Nigel, I absolutely agree about the metaphysics.
When I had recovered from cancer back in 2004, I was offered a counselling session funded by the NHS. I agreed because I was confused as to what direction to take in my post-cancer life, and thought the sessions would help. (They did; the counsellor was wonderful.)
The very first question the counsellor asked me was “what do you think about having had cancer?”
And the very first words out of my mouth were, “I think it’s a gift from God.”
The counsellor looked as surprised as I was!
And indeed my life thereafter changed for the better in countless ways.
Today, struggling through this lockdown and its potential effects on everyone’s lives, I have turned yet again to my favourite spiritual text, the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.
(At this point I must apologise to both atheists and “orthodox” believers; I am neither.)
In this “sayings Gospel”, the words of Yeshua ben Yosef (‘Jesus’) – that great “Teacher of the Transformation of Consciousness” (in the memorable description by theologian Cynthia Bourgeault) are recorded in enigmatic, koan-like aphorisms.
At this time, my favourite of these sayings has assumed new significance.
I would like to quote it here, and then say no more. This site is not for discussing metaphysics, but we could all benefit from meditating on this particular saying.
Here we go. This is my own loose translation:
Disciples: “Hey Rabbi, clear this up for us, will you? You keep banging on about this “Kingdom of Heaven” – but where the f*ck is it?”
Yeshua: (Sighing in frustration, then spreading his arms to metaphorically encompass the whole world):
“You just don’t get it, do you guys? The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t ‘over here’ or ‘over there’. The Kingdom of Heaven is right here – right now – spread across the earth, but nobody can see it!”
What was he saying? Earlier in the Gospel he said that “the Kingdom is inside of you and outside of you”, and “when you make the inside like the outside, then you will enter the Kingdom”.
IOW when we transform our “inside” (consciousness) into love, compassion, forgiveness and gratitude, then our “outside” (the planet, the environment) will become a heaven on earth.
A message echoed in Eisenstein’s “The Coronation”.
Right, that’s quite enough; I’m done. Let’s get back to challenging lockdown!
Gracie, nigebaldwin@gmail.com if you want to discuss the metaphysical side of this. (It’s nige, not nigel)
I think you’ve covered a lot of the mechanisms there pretty well, tbh.
You could add the tendency of blame-fearing politicians to prefer to be seen to act rather than to not act. This was explicitly a motive in the original “Swine Flu SNAFU” in the US in 1967 (and is often on display with political action):
https://www.irememberjfk.com/swine-flu-scare-the-1976-version/
And another important mechanism to consider is the built in tendency to paternalism in our mainstream media (and in authority figures including medical experts), especially the BBC but on this kind of issue probably most mainstream media managers and news editors. Once fear of the disease is established, the paternalists feel they have a duty to suppress news that might make people less afraid and play up news that might make them more afraid, so as to encourage “responsible” behaviour. See for instance this disgraceful piece of deceptive fear-mongering by the BBC a few days ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52473524
I looked through COVID-SIM code, and it’s a giant SIM City with people, households, places all interlinked to create a virtual world. Seed the infection, give an R0 value. Let rip. That’s the unmitigated scenario. Then you can instigate lockdowns of various households, places, etc. and see the effect.
There doesn’t seem any human behavior modeled into it. Individually, we’re pretty keen to survive and protect our family. At what point will people voluntarily narrow their network of places/households, and to what extent?
The only case I could see for modeling behavior was what percentage of people wouldn’t obey a household quarantine!
I think it’s the mindset you referred to in you’re the Critic article that produces such a model!
“Can I go shopping?”
“Can I go and feed a stray cat?”
“Can I still move house?”
“Can I go out in my car at night?”
“Can I wash my horse?”
“Can I go out in my garden?”
“Can I go and buy ink cartridges to print my daughter’s school work?”
Read More
Coronavirus latest
Calls received by Gwent police : the great British IQ is alive and well….
It’s time for us to act rather than keep debating. There are enough of us on here to change public opinion, and I’d imagine all in influential positions in our communities. Simple message below to text preferably (tweet if really necessary) to all. It’s time to start the revolution.
“Friends, we’ve been brainwashed by the government and media. There were 50,100 excess deaths in the UK in 2018 caused by a bad flu (Source: ONS). This is no worse than a bad flu but more targeted to the old and vulnerable, who we must protect. The young are suffering. The world is opening up. The UK is not. The lockdown failed. The lockdown and devastating effects on lives and the economy must end. Send to all.”
I would make the message a bit less trenchant so that more people can agree with it. Even if is worse than a bad flu it’s not nearly as bad as a lockdown. Concentrate on how harmful the lockdown is first not on how relatively non-harmful the virus is. Leave that to the end and gotta be tactful because many people will have a friend of a friend or two who had a severe illness or even died.
Okay, recommendation. Don’t do it. The people don’t want to know. Sorry.
Get people to go out. Mingle (okay, keep your distance if you feel that way.) Make the streets busier. If people are not working then go out. Make yourselves visible, the weather’s on our side. .
This is the best tactic. Just live as freely as you can, as close to how you did before. And be visible doing it.
Today my VE celebration is going to involve going out and sitting in a local park in a deckchair for several hours. Let’s see what the police do with me. — My guess is nothing, unless Stasi neighbours report me to them.
Sadly, so many people just won’t hear the truth: you can try but noone I have spoken has changed their view one iota.
I’ve managed to chip away at a few friends and my parents I think. But only to the point of “well we’ll see won’t we”.
Trouble is they won’t see as they are retired and already own their houses, or are un very comfortable well paid public sector jobs which….. Well yeah, but we’ll see how long they last.
Everyone who’s worried seems to rely on actually working for a living. Funny that.
There’s a very funny poem from Crawford Howard called “The Diagonal Steam Trap” in which a cleaner at Harland & Wolff in Belfast manages to con everyone into adding a device to make a ship engine work. When in fact it was an oily rag stuck in the exhaust.
I’ve been reading up on the PCR test and testing and what strikes me is the inversion of the Null Hypothesis, something that happens a lot in climate science. So say you have 80% of people who test positive but are “asymptomatic” and yet can “pass it on”.
Okay so if you test positive for something and you never get ill, then the issue is with the test not you. Saying you can pass it on is also ludicrous. It’s like saying you test positive for “Hydrogenated Tissue Syndrome” – my God, quick. Lock down!!!!
The PCR test looks for piece of RNA supposedly from the “virus” yet common to many viruses that we walk around with in our systems everyday. There is no gold standard test, no way to isolate and hence anyone and anything (pets included) test positive. In Tanzania, the president got his people to place animal blood in the samples but didn’t tell anyone. They tested positive.
So if your test is really sampling the noise of Nature – the tea leaves of the everyday – then all we are doing is seeing shapes in clouds. Exactly like I said with climate science.
Signal to noise ratio should be the chant everyday.
It also makes a mockery of social distancing – how can you pass on something that isn’t actually there
Good morning!
For years I’ve wondered why this country hasn’t had a public holiday for VE day and for VJ day and I was really looking forward to celebrating and commemorating this day today. However, now I have mixed emotions: pride at what our forebears did for the sake of our freedom, sadness and shame to see that freedom so easily compromised and abandoned through an exaggerated threat and excessive fear mongering. Yet, I’m thankful that this government, which doesn’t appear able to fight its way out of a wet brown paper bag, wasn’t in power back then. I will struggle with the rhetoric that will no doubt come from Downing Street today about it all.
On another note, I’ve compiled a letter to the leader of the opposition. It contains questions that I wish they’d ask, e.g. why did the government follow the advice of Neil Ferguson?, etc. Anyway, even though I don’t know any of you, I’m gonna go ahead and ask whether you think it’s worth sending? It’s just that it seems to me that the opposition really is no opposition at all.
Thanks.
Kevin
I think it would be a good idea to send the letter.
Absolutely…do send!
Please do send it
Unfortunately the opposition (as of this crisis I am a lapsed leftie) have more authoritarian instincts than the government. The voices that are banging on about civil liberties are coming almost exclusively from the right which I find disappointing. (No that the right are speaking up for liberty but that the left aren’t.) But Kevin send the letter anyway. I remember campaigning massively against the illiberal Blair government in the noughties. We lost on Iraq but we won on i.d. cards. Every little bit helps. My sentiments on VE day match yours. .I was born after the war but I had relatives die for that freedom you mention and would have been horrified to see this capitulation.
Send it of course and thanks for writing it.
The VE day stuff is making me feel ill. I have no grandparents left but I know for certain what their reaction to all this would have been. What did we fight for?
Interestingly yesterday the BBC in its VE segment interviewed some veterans who seemed to say this explicitly. “We fought for freedom” one of them said. I got the distinct feeling his full interview was pretty damning of the current situation but they only included the most tame soundbite of course. They shoehorned the veterans in right at the beginning, skimming over the actual people, but they had to have them there as tokens of virtue of course. They appeared for all of two minutes before the beeb was back onto its Coronysteria – with a distinct patriotic flavour of course.
Ok, I’ve sent it off!
Is it true New Zealand are going to ask overseas travellers to quarantine for 14 days, how are they going to sell that to the tourists.
“Come visit New Zealand, where you won’t see any of it for 14 days”
Sounds tempting…..
Their loon of a PM has still got them in lockdown despite something like 15 !! Deaths, most from prexisting conditions, and no cases. How in holy hell are the Maoris not rioting on the streets right now???
It’s simple : Fear.
The whole world has been infected by it
All true – sanctimonious New Zealand, now headed by a sanctimonious, slightly more attractive version of Wee Krankie!
I’ve been a committed sceptic since the start, but am starting to realise that there is nothing practical or tangible that I, or fellow sceptics, can do against the situation except sit it out and wait.
This site was initially a great release, to realise I was not alone in my thinking and to provide hope that there could be a way to influence change. But it now provides me little comfort as depite all our protestations to each other, and our endless lists of supporting reporting, analysis, literary quotations and supporting data we are having zero impact.
The UK situation remains firmly in the hands of a government few, who it seems do not even discuss with the wider government let alone parliament – according to The Telegraph today anyway.
The hope offered by the efforts of Simon Dolan were dashed yesterday as the government will not respond now until 12th/14th May – and who knows what they will say then. Most likely that by the time they do respond they have begun to release the lockdown.
MPs are writing back to those (who elected them) who complain effectively giving the ” your story touched my heart but now feck off and stop bothering me” response.
Any amount of comment, discussion, or representation we launch via social media, e-mail, text etc. to associates is met with at least the same, or often more opposing view – and truth is neither side can evidence real proof, only belief.
We are in the most bizarre situation where no one possesses data to validate argument – we all predict, but it is a waiting game until time has elapsed and data proves one way or another. The 2nd peak argument is the best current example of this – I and many others don’t believe it will happen, but many see it as a real risk, but how can that be proved until several months have passed by and the data shows this?
As the weeks tick by, the data strongly appears to line up with our views as sceptics, and maybe in a couple of months time it will be unquestionable, but at that stage we will be just left with “I told you so” and the issues we all predict. And the government will simply say that they took action to protect the population, which is what any responsible government should have done. Our desires to have someone/many in government held to account will be futile – I can think of no time in modern history when this has been the case.
I no longer feel we are able to do anything about this as sceptics, save for complaining to, and seeking comfort from others who feel the same in online communities. We are not able to come together in some kind of protest whilst sitting home bashing our keyboards.
The hard truth appears to be that for very many people being paid to sit at home in a warm sunny spring-time, re-engaging with their families, avoiding daily commutes, saving money, having time to develop /pursue hobbies and pastimes must be an abolute godsend. I cannot understand, and have said so here before, why there could have been so much anger and civil unrest in the past over miners strikes, poll taxes, disenfrachised youth, Brexit and more that we don’t see the same happening now.
So many column inches have been dedicated to the UKs gang and drug culture, and associated murders and crimes, which apparently was everywhere – so where are all these gangs now and what are they doing ? Baking fucking banana bread or clapping for carers ? Makes me wonder which was the fake news.
Sadly, and despite battling against control and coercion since being a schoolboy, I feel beaten down and unable to do anything against the situation. In my career I was once counselled that “you can’t beat the machine” and must sometimes conceed that despite (probably) being right, a change in direction will not happen just because I felt it should.
I am ground down to a point where I reluctantly need to accept defeat for my own sanity, or become an “Excess Death” statistic myself. It makes me feel ill to write it down, but the act of doing so will help me move on mentally. I need to redirect my energy, or risk causing damage within my own family.
How desperately sad to end up this way.
FFS! Get a grip man!
Steve Austin, not a helpful comment mate for someone who has just poured their heart out.
Brian can decide the context in which it was intended, not you.
OK. Fair enough.
Brian, we are at a critical point and now is not the time to give up. I work from home (always have, self-employed) but I’ve diverted myself from my proper work to engage more fully with this (these) issue(s). I went walkabout yesterday and ran into a barman from my local drinking hole (a rather pleasant hotel) and we got chatting. (Sat on the same bench, don’t think it was six foot long). He lives in the hotel and because he’s idle has been doing a lot of research. I’d never take him for a conspiracy advocate but he’s now saying there is something deeply, deeply wrong about all this. He’s determined not to have the tracing app on his phone and won’t succumb to any hurried vaccine and he’s not the rebellious type. He’s saying all the other staff locked in the hotel are feeling much the same. I think the damn is about to if not burst then start to leak. Every day more and more evidence appears that this isn’t what it seems. You have to become a beacon to shine light into darkness. To use a cliche, it’s always darkest before the dawn. You can’t beat the machine? Yes you can. It only needs critical mass. Now is precisely not the time to ease the pressure. Over the years we have been lied to and lied to and lied to and now, slowly, I think people are waking up. We may look back on this time and say : that was the reason the world changed. OR, if we take the pressure off now: that was the time they got us in chains for good. Binary choice I think.
China has been criticised for trying intially to cover up the outbreak of coronavirus as it was then called. Yet the South China Morning Post, based in Hong Kong but generally favourable to the PRC, put out a three minute video on January 4th, five days before the first confirmed death from this new virus on January 9th, highlighting “A mystery illness in China” and an “unknown virus in Wuhan.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtA0-qoHOg Li Wenliang, the whistleblowing doctor (actually ophthalmologist) had been arrested for “rumour-mongering” just one day earlier, on January 3rd, after looking at a report on December 30th about a patient who seemed to be affected with a SARS-type virus. The report came from Ai Fen, the head of the emergency department at the Central Hospital of Wuhan, who at that point had seen only two infected people, but had apparently heard about the admission of multiple patients by the owner of a clinic near the seafood market. (What was actually wrong with these patients? Wikipedia doesn’t say whether it was the same “mystery illness” or not.) Far from trying to cover up the “mystery,” it seems to me that the Chinese authorities were on the contrary very keen to draw attention to it. Just a few days after they apparently first heard about it, they allow the SCMP to make a video that is like the start of a horror film complete with people in masks and creepy music. Many more such atmospheric videos follow, including one showing hospital staff in chemical warfare suits and nurses crying because they can’t visit their families. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7llqJcvkxM
From the start Ai Fen, the doctor who has since become a national hero and is to have a street in Wuhan named after her, described this illness as a SARS-type virus. In 2002, the original SARS resulted in 774 deaths and research has shown that chloroquine is effective in its treatment. In 2017 there were 217,062 deaths in China from influenza and pneumonia. Why did the Chinese panic so quickly about another SARS-type virus and insist on its “mysterious” nature when the original SARS had proved to be a lot less deadly than “normal” flu and pneumonia and a treatment was available? Why the sinister video? Am I the only one who has the impression it is like the opening scene of a screenplay that has already been written?
I would suggest because some higher up somewhere already knew that this was an existing disease that they had actually encountered before (and were already researching…… ).
The tricky balancing act in being a dissident is when it’s still very much a small minority thing. It’s dangerous – if you push too hard you will face real costs, lost friends, lost business, aggression and even violence. So you need to be tactful and careful, and only push when you’ve given it careful thought and are prepared to accept consequences. And it does often feel hopeless.
But it isn’t really hopeless. Every little helps and if truth is on our side (as I’m confident it is on this issue), it’s likely recognition will slowly grow, until it reaches a critical mass and a kind of dam breaks.
You can’t always win, and we all have to be able to accept that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead
Great sentiment but VERY rarely effected. At the very least, one needs a charismatic leader who can talk to and engage a good proportion of the masses (e.g. Farage – who, sadly, appears to go along with the Lockdown).
Does he? That’s disappointing. It also makes him another bloody hypocrite since he’s been caught going out for political reasons himself.
As a die-hard anti-EUer, I’d have hoped for better from Farage (as in, I’d like to think he would have seen through the fearmongering bullshit about this disease).
Oh well, feet of clay and all that.
I feel the same way. The attitude of Scottish independence bloggers in particular sends my heart rate into a danger zone. I’m going into the garden now to see if the contemplation of greenery will calm me down.
You’re not alone in feeling that way, at the very least, I feel similarly. Acceptance of the situation will no doubt help with moving on from the frustration and desperation (which is what I’ve felt at times), but swallowing that will surely be a day-by-day process.
Personally, I’ve struggled with mental health issues for years and as a result of them, crippling loneliness, even though I still live with my parents. I happily found myself in a relationship 3 years ago, and there’ve been some tricky times given my situation, but we were able to spend more and more time together last year and this year – it was really helping my health. Now, my girlfriend is in Austria, her home country, where she went for a visit at the beginning of March and where she’ll be until who-knows-when. Sure, there’s video calling, but it’s never the same. I feel pretty rubbish most of the time.
Do help yourself however you can, so that you and your family can stay connected as much as possible. Hopefully things will improve; and it would be a cruel irony if they did, but you or I or anyone found themselves in a place where they couldn’t witness that.
Take care.
I understand how you feel Sam – I’ve been struggling with mental health issues now for almost a decade, and I have a very poor relationship with my mother who made my life very difficult for me throughout my adolescence. I grabbed the new-found independence that came with going to university and getting my first job and I met a wonderful boyfriend who, like with your girlfriend, really made my life a lot brighter. I felt as if I was finally in a position to forge my own path in the world and I was ready to soar.
However, coronavirus (or rather the lockdown) struck and I lost my job and had to return home to isolate with my parents and sadly, my mother. My boyfriend and I are still very young (barely in our twenties) and he is in the middle of his university education (now curtailed due to nationwide university closures, I feel desperately sorry that he will not be able to enjoy any post-exam celebrations) so we don’t live together and have found ourselves torn asunder by this calamitous lockdown, having not seen each other for 8 weeks now. Like you, we video call every night but it is just no substitute for face-to-face contact and human touch. It is utterly horrendous being ripped away from those you love when you need them the most.
The only thing keeping me going right now is the fact I have a formal graduate job lined up for next year but I worry this will soon disappear as the economic reality bites.
Given your phrasing it doesn’t sound like things have improved with your mother, so not least for that, I wish all the best to you with your situation.
Yourself, your boyfriend and my girlfriend are around a similar age, I’m mid-twenties. My health has been such that I’ve been unable to work: a phobia of sickness that’s kept me so often inside, cleaning things, staying away from people. For so long, few people seemed to understand what that must be like. Oh, the bittersweet irony!
I hope you and your boyfriend may be reunited soon, even though soon seems intolerably distant amidst the cloud of forlorn love. Even if that graduate job disappears, you’ve gotten through a lot before and you can get through this. I believe in you!
Your comment resonated with me for a number of reasons. It’s hard to counter the conclusions you have drawn, particularly about the state machine and the politicians and civil servants in charge of its operation. Cheered on by their supporters in the British press. This period merely reinforces my view, building for years and sealed in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU, that we can’t trust our elected representatives as much as we can’t trust those unelected but who are allowed to bring considerable influence to bear on how the country is run.
Many of us struggle to comprehend how the UK (and many other countries around the World) took these lockdown steps with serous repercussions to the economy and many other unintended outcomes. Total Madness!!
However it is good to know that there are many people that fundamentally disagree with the lockdown and many of them provide great information. Keep reading, keep contributing and do not give up.
I agree to the most part in that it does appear futile. However, I don’t think it is in the long-term and to ensure we do not allow this to be a regular occurrence by becoming part of the silent majority.
Sure, an overwhelming number of people either won’t listen, or don’t want to listen. I think the majority of people are still doing this in the belief that it is ‘saving lives’ rather than to cheat the system, but the allure of a paid holiday will wear off shortly as summer approaches and beer gardens call out.
I have been trying my best to take emotion out of it completely and reply with fact. There’s always the ‘what about’ argument, I don’t think that can dealt with but apply critical thinking with and reason based on evidence, not hearsay and estimates and slowly, more and more people will realise that this is something we need to learn to live with, not hide away from. It’s probably too late for this one, but maybe not the next time.
The trouble is, of course, that in the long term we are all dead – the direction in which the economy (here and in most countries) is heading precipitously.
Yes – we are the modern day Cassandras and noone in power gives a toss.
Never ever ever ever ever give up. Did the Brits give up fighting the Nazis? No. It took six years of suffering and immense loss but eventually they won us our freedom. I say that with great irony on the 75th anniversary of VE day.
The moment you stop fighting, stop caring, stop challenging, stop believing, stop questioning, you just become another one of the sheeple. What are your instincts telling you? Mine are telling me this lockdown is absolutely wrong. I will not give up fighting until our hard fought freedom is 100% returned and we can legally ensure something like this never ever happens again.
We owe it to our ourselves and future generations to keep going. To keep fighting until the message gets through. Boris Jong Un might believe he is right, but we ALL know this lockdown is unequivocally, morally and catastrophically wrong.
Never ever ever ever give up.
#WeWillBeFree
We would like to have our grandchildren over for a sleepover. Partly because we are missing them, but mostly because they are driving my daughter and her husband round the bend. Being cooped up with a 9 and 7 year old for six weeks can’t be good for the sanity.
BTW … my previous message has disappeared. Is there some censorship going on?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/leading-german-virologist-covid-19-less-deadly-we-thought
Important article as the IFR(Infection fatality rate) is 0,24 %. Ferguson lockdown model had IFR 1%.For many this could seem a small difference but the article explains the enormous difference. Others like Giesecke/Ionnadis guess is IFR more likely in the region 0,1%.
The brilliant mathematician Professor Levitt from Israel/Stanford Univ has also made prediction of mortality for the over 65(not the total population IFR above) and calculate for that agegroup IFR 0,41% which is 4 times more deadly than the flu in US 2017/18. (The IFR for the total population would be substantially lower than this)
https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/1258331626062446598/photo/1
Prof Levitt says that “Diamond Princess” was an unintended test case for the pandemic with a distinct subgroup over 65 with cases and deaths and a younger crew with fewer cases and no fatalities.
https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/1258472413244915714
Finally this study in the above twitter
“New study estimating that nearly 75% of SARS-CoV-2 infections on the Diamond Princess were asymptomatic, half were never detected and asymptomatic infections may have contributed substantially to transmission.”
Prof Levitt says that if we had done all these calculations already in Feb with the data from the “Diamond Princess” we would have much safer figures to base how we could have responded in March.
Ferguson’s model which drag us into the lockdown was completely unnecessary already with information we had.
Two young people whom I’ve spoken to in the past few days are content with matters as they are: one is worried about possible resurgence of the dreaded covid in the event of the lockdown being lifted:(she is a dental nurse but also runs a local shop with her parents); the other hates her part time job and is enjoying the leisure which furlough affords her.
She has a second job which she loves and which she hope will eventually offer more hours.
The staff in the local pharmacy are all swathed in masks,despite having glass barriers in place and distancing signs on the floor.
Others are bored and frustrated,but there doesn’t seem to be any widespread discontent at present.
We’ve unfurloughed one staff member this week (until then, just MD and two sceptical stalwarts helping us to limp along on 10% turnover). He’s our data boffin, does all the web back end, but he’s been with us a long time so knows how to pick and pack, answer the phone, deal with returns etc so if he wants to stay employed, he’s on man friday duties for the forseeable. The problem is, he’s hysterically terrified of dying. He’s also probably the brightest member of our team. So we’re now doubly inefficient, as he won’t touch doorhandles, the phone, the computer or the toilet until it’s been disinfected, and keeps shouting about distance. Over half of our staff are going to have to go once furlough is over, as there simply isn’t enough work to justify keeping the jobs, however we are now fretting our major issue is going to be getting anyone to do any actual work if they do come back.
I should also point out he’s about 32, and fit as a flea.
So basically zero death risk from this disease.
If he’s intelligent, can he not be persuaded of that by the clear evidence available to that effect, or is there some psychological impediment to hos taking the info on board?
Psychological impediment: frequenting the bbc
As Professor Dingwall was said to the Telegraph:
“the public authorities face a real challenge in managing the British people out of the levels of fear and anxiety that the authorities themselves have induced”
“we’ve had this very strong message about which has effectively terrorised the British population into believing that this is a disease that’s going to kill you, and mostly it isn’t”
This is big news… I have noticed a subtle change in MSM since that article about Brits being the most fearful in the world… Now you are seeing ‘numbers recovered no symptoms’ on some articles. Do the maths… Basically
Still doesn’t explain rest of the world though.. I mean wtf? But it will change when this fucking thing dies down everywhere
And I don’t believe people will accept mass vaccinations or bill gates micro chip shit either. I do cling to some faith that once revealed that the fear emperor has no clothes, even the bedwetters won’t be fooled again
I don’t envy you BecJT; seems that he might need CBT or similar. I don’t know how such a deep seated neurosis could be overcome.
Intelligence and irrational fear is a heavy combination.
What a headache.
My pal the retired teacher has just told me that her other daughter has reported from Canada that law suits are now multiplying as folk who missed out on cancer treatment are now in some cases, terminally ill.
Lawyers will profit as usual, while businesses like yours pay the price.
What a crazy messed up world .
Crackers isn’t it? We’re calling it the ‘mind virus’. Or as the saying goes, fear is like a mushroom, it grows in the dark fed on bullsh*t. If he can’t get it, and he crunches numbers all day, we’re doomed.
Is he addicted to Dr Google?
Is he using Dr Strangelove’s coronacode?
Ms Waaugh’s petition appears to have disappeared into the ether also. Should we be reading anything into this? I cannot believe it hasn’t received 10,000 signatures. I would have signed yesterday had I had time to read today’s LS post.
The most possible scenario is that it was removed by special order of the Government using the Coronavirus Bill. The previous petition ‘reverse the Dangerous Coronavirus Bill: rushed through parliament’ (think that is the one that Toby mentioned) had more than 180,000 signatures and just disappeared one night. Change.org’s T&Cs stated that they will notify signatories once it reached 200,000 signatures, but in this instance disappearance and sadly NO notification from them.
It looks like Mary’s petition is at the same stage as mine – its waiting for a parliamentary committee to approve it. I think Toby you may have just supported it to get to that stage (they need 5 supporters to get to the committee). Mine was at that stage over a week ago and I guess is ahead of Mary’s in the queue. Its interesting that petitions should normally be approved within a week but mine is already taking longer than that – I wonder why?
Being kind, it could be that all petitions are going slow as the 100% fully-paid public ‘servants’ may be all off having a hoiday/self-isolating/unable to work because of limited PPE!
No – I’m not that kind either!
Article: Vitamin D level is directly correlated to COVID-19 outcome. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/08/vitamin-d-level-correlated-to-covid19-outcomes.aspx
“Vitamin D deficiency has been found to contribute to acute respiratory distress syndrome; and … case-fatality rates increase with age and with chronic disease comorbidity, both of which are associated with lower 25(OH)D concentration.
To reduce the risk of infection, it is recommended that people at risk of influenza and/or COVID-19 consider taking 10,000 IU/d of vitamin D3 for a few weeks to rapidly raise 25(OH)D concentrations, followed by 5000 IU/d. The goal should be to raise 25(OH)D concentrations above 40–60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L). For treatment of people who become infected with COVID-19, higher vitamin D3 doses might be useful.”
IE. Get yourselves out from under your duvet and get outside. The exact opposite of a fucking lockdown. It’s been obvious from the start, just have normal functioning immune system and the risk is miniscule.
Protect and shield the vulnerable
Here’s another.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/28/covid-update-focus-on-vitamin-d/
Remember (from the words of our state broadcaster) lockdown continues to be a so called ‘holiday’ for many! Liberty and the biggest economic crash of my lifetime versus a few weeks off work as ‘the science’ (big brother) knows all – yes please, the latter!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52539794
Oh dear…
Quotes of the day, from a government adviser, no less, excellent for highlighting in discussions with the fearful majority:
“the public authorities face a real challenge in managing the British people out of the levels of fear and anxiety that the authorities themselves have induced”
“we’ve had this very strong message about which has effectively terrorised the British population into believing that this is a disease that’s going to kill you, and mostly it isn’t”
“Prof Dingwall said he had been told by a senior public health specialist that “we knew it was one metre but we doubled it to two because we did not think the British population would understand what one metre was and we could not trust them to observe it so we doubled it to be on the safe side”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/07/government-has-terrorised-britons-believing-coronavirus-will/
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fear-freedom-and-fishing/id1213415786?i=1000473899714
I can only imagine Toby will be making highly effective and entertaining use of these particularly devastating quotes in his next piece. Can’t wait…
Interesting that he says “Eighty per cent of the people who get this infection will never need to go near a hospital. The ones who do go to hospital because they are quite seriously ill most of them will come out alive – even those who go into intensive care.”
Far fewer than 20% of those infected will need to go to hospital, at least ten times fewer than that. In fact 80% may not even know they had it all. But if you do go into intensive care, assuming you aren’t a prime minister, your chances of coming out of it in a box are about 50/50.
Still far more significant than whether he gets his factoids wrong is seeing a bit of gentle deprogramming in the Telegraph which is a good sign.
I suspected he was just talking a little loosely (as one does when speaking rather than writing), and meant 80% of those who suffer symptoms, which is the kind of figure I’ve seen suggested for those who don’t get badly ill.
Heart-sinking article on YouGov – most Britons think they could cope with the current lockdown restrictions until JULY.
Lord give me strength.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/health/articles-reports/2020/05/07/most-britons-think-they-could-cope-current-lockdow
Well, dear people, it is NOT the lockdown that will really hurt, it is the aftermath!
That’s YouGov though who are in the government’s pockets. Their sampling is biased towards those who agree with the establishment point of view
75 years since people gave their lives to defend our democratic freedom. How they would turn in their graves to see us now living under illegal rule of Government.
https://twitter.com/wewillbefree82/status/1258720789794357249?s=21
Silly Thought for the Day: when ,in the future, a well meaning astronomer publishes a study of the sun’s corona will there be an outbreak of mass panic? Stock piling of sun hats,sun screen and shades? Plus mega doses of Vitamin D to counteract the terror of the outdoors and sunlight?
The virus comes form outer space! Cue online persecution of astronomers.
Daft I know, but still attempting to find some humour and whimsy in all this.
Allegedly, Americans have been avoiding Corona beer.
Nice one!
And of course, every human skull has a coronal suture, which separates the parietal bones from the frontal bone…….o dear!
There’s a very good fake CNN headline that reads:
“Man Eaten By Shark Dies From Corona virus.
Pelosi Blames Trump.”
Jaws! Carcharodon coronavirus: Trump accused of neglecting virus threat posed by great whites in coastal waters.
Democrats call for investigation into funding cuts
You can add this to the antibody testing – it’s hidden away in this NYT article. They tested people who thought they had had it, but were never tested. Results was 38% tested positive!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/health/coronavirus-antibody-prevalence.html?campaign_id=51&emc=edit_MBE_p_20200508&instance_id=18312&nl=morning-briefing®i_id=124209132§ion=topNews&segment_id=26884&te=1&user_id=062bd030210b474408ff48cca3345fba
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN …… ATTENTION PLEASE!
I have noticed despair creeping in to many of these comments. I have experienced it myself. But one thing you need to know about is:
THE 3.5% RULE!
That is, research has shown that it only needs 3.5% of the population to non-violently challenge a government or its policies, for that government to fall or for its policies to change.
Watch this TED talk on the subject – you can find more online about this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w
IOW keep on keeping on! What happens in this country does NOT depend on the 95% of the population who are incapable of independent thought – it depends on the 5% of thinkers; and in fact not even that – 3.5%!
Once the narrative begins to change, the 95% will AUTOMATICALLY fall in line with whatever “newthink” they are told to think by the Govt. and mainstream media.
We may be nearing a tipping point so it important to press on!
Gracie Knoll, couldn’t agree more. That’s what I ‘feel’, not what I ‘know’.
Greetings, friends!
My husband has been graphing COVID stats from U.S. states for several weeks, sucking down the daily data from the states to see the trends. And he has discovered the most remarkable thing.
Case fatality rates are higher in blue states (Democratic governors) than they are in red states (Republican governors). This holds true even running the graph without blue New York, which has the lion’s share of COVID deaths.
Even comparing states that are basically twins, the pattern is present. Blue Vermont has a much higher cfr than red New Hampshire, and New Hampshire has twice the population of Vermont.
I tried to copy and paste a graph but it doesn’t seem to appear.
He adds that cases per capita are 2x higher and deaths per capita are 3x higher in blue states, not counting New York.
Be interesting to add in the demographics there, as well, because I’d have thought the age spread would be tilted towards older (and therefore much more vulnerable) in the Republican states. Don’t know if that’s factually true or not, just my feeling.
Put the graph in a Google Doc / Sheet and share the link
He promises links to the notebook itself later in the day, and then everyone can run their own custom graphs. Microsoft is cleaning up the code….
Mimi, this says much the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIF0vZTZaA
Maybe the population density is higher in blue states. These tend to be the nerdier more metropolitan places on the coasts.
Here is Dominic Raab’s email address:
dominic.raab.mp@parliament.uk
Let him know what you think of this lockdown. If EVERYONE on this site sends this to him, it WILL have an impact. Here is my MP template letter below (with a few tweaks):
I am writing this joint letter to express my deep concerns regarding the continuation of the restrictions on our freedom of movement and forced closure of businesses, otherwise known as “lockdown”. These actions were based on nothing less than science fiction, which originated from Imperial College’s false modelling and the predictions led by Professor Neil Ferguson’s non peer-reviewed unpublished paper, produced on 16th March 2020. His model was based on false assumptions, and relied on assuming a virus mortality rate which we now know was 10 times higher than has found to be the actual IFR.
Prof. Ferguson’s history of pandemic modelling, has been nothing less than disastrous, overblown nonsense. To remind you of Neil Ferguson’s estimates on the impact of previous viral outbreaks – which have been embarrassingly inaccurate: He was previously instrumental in modelling that led to the cull of more than 6 million animals during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which left rural Britain economically devastated. In 2002, he predicted that mad cow disease could kill up to 50,000 people. It ended up killing less than 200. In 2005, he told The Guardian that up to 200 million people could die from bird flu. The final death toll from avian flu strain A/H5N1 was 440. And in 2009, a Government estimate based on one of Ferguson’s models estimated the likely death toll from swine flu at 65,000. In fact, it was 457.
I now move to my second point, which is that there is no scientific evidence lockdowns prevent deaths, whatsoever. The devastating restrictions, which have been severely challenged by leading and renowned epidemiologists and scientists such as Dr. Knut Wittkowski, Dr Johan Giesecke, Professor Michael Levitt and Professor John Ioannidis, suggest that locking down is completely the wrong approach and will cause more economic damage and non-direct deaths than the virus itself. These include:
– Crashing the economy, causing more than two million people to lose their employment and multiple businesses to collapse
– A severe period of missed education through the blanket closure of schools and cancellation of exams.
– Creating an unprecedented mental health and domestic violence and child abuse crisis by forcing people to stay at home. Suicides as a consequence of lockdown have reached an unforgivable spike in numbers, including the recent reports of 13, 15, 17 and a 22 year old taking their lives as a direct result of being overwhelmed by the lockdown measures.
– Predictions of circa 60,000 cancer related deaths due to cancelled screenings and treatments, as predicted by leading oncologist Professor. Karol Sikora.
– Excess deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other serious diseases, where people have been too scared to seek treatment at A&E for fear of catching coronavirus, due to the Government’s ubiquitous “Stay at home. Protect the NHS” message.
– GPs seeing their urgent referrals not taking place due to hospitals disproportionately diverting all attention on Covid-19, to the detriment of all other life-saving treatments.
– We are now seeing around 3,000 excess deaths per week as a direct result of locking down. This is more than are dying with Covid-19.
It is a false argument that we are “protecting the NHS” by enforcing such strict measures. If we crash our economy and create rising unemployment and government debt, this will cause a huge reduction in income tax, which of course will mean funding cuts for the NHS further down the line and therefore poorer healthcare. How will we sustain future funding for the NHS if we have no money to pay for it? Austerity, unemployment, poverty and economic depression all cost lives. Additionally, why have we now seen the decommissioning of the newly built Nightingale hospitals, if this disease is as deadly as we are being led to believe? A disease which was declassified by Public Health England on 19th March 2020 as “no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID).”
The government could have chosen to manage this “crisis” with a sensible, balanced and proportionate response that would have saved people’s livelihoods, children’s education, people’s mental health and the economy from crashing to a level not seen since the Great Frost of 1709. We need look no further than Sweden, who only this week was described as “a model of how to respond to a pandemic” by the World Health Organisation. Instead our Government is choosing to enforce an extreme, never-seen-before approach that has stifled people’s liberty, wellbeing, physical and mental health, and effectively written off an entire year of people’s lives. This approach has stemmed from panic and fear, in response to a virus which leading epidemiologists, virologists, microbiologists and epidemiological statisticians have said presents a relative background mortality risk no greater than a potent influenza season. Despite the plethora of evidence that lockdowns cause more deaths than the virus itself, still our Government is continuing on this self-destructive path, with seemingly no end in sight.
I am genuinely terrified that if we do not open up the economy soon, we risk causing irreparable damage which will scar our lives, economy and way of living for many decades to come. We are damaging the nation for ourselves, our children and future generations, which is unforgivable and totally avoidable. I implore you as a matter of urgency to challenge the Government on this draconian and unlawful shutdown of the economy, and police-state mass enforced quarantining of the nation.
I await your timely response with great interest. Thank you.
My email sent.
Also Matt Hancock – matt.hancock.mp@parliament.uk
Consider it done. Great letter and the facts are shocking but true.
Is it possible to get this in a newspaper and/or Magazine such as the Spectator?
My concern is that they clearly know all of this, but are choosing to ignore it. But why?
Political expediency.
Sent to Raab and Hancock. Doesn’t matter if they already know this. Flood their inboxes so that they know we know it too. Thanks for the template RDawg
Sent just now. I hereby appoint RDawg as the Lockdown Sceptics writer in chief.
Likewise. Thank you RDawg
Done
It is clear that Covid-19 affects people differently. Some will not even notice a period of infection, and some will die. The range of outcomes could not be further apart, so why is it that the virus is so deadly for some?
To understand that, one has to understand what’s going on during such an infection. The condition that leads to death is severe respiratory distress. This isn’t caused by the virus, but by an excessive immune system response called a Cytokine Storm. The Alveoli, which are the little lung sacks that transfer oxygen from the air we breathe into the blood, fill with fluid which hampers the oxygen transfer and forced ventilation doesn’t improve this, in fact it can cause more damage to these sacks, which is why so many people die once this stage is reached. It’s simple physics. Limited space, fluid enters, pressure increases, pump air in and it increases even more. At some point the alveoli often suffers permanent damage, followed by death. By often I mean considerably more than half the people on forced ventilation die.
Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert in the immune system, makes this point forcefully. He recommends high dosage vitamin C at this stage as the best and most appropriate treatment.
This excessive immune system response is, ironically, brought on by a weakened immune system; one that cannot cope with the pathogen and, in a layman’s parlance, it panics and goes into overdrive.
Those with a healthy immune system will cope with the virus, those with compromised immune systems will experience a more severe bout of illness. The worse the immune system, the more severe the illness.
Typically, our immune system deteriorates with age. Smoking, drug abuse, obesity, unhealthy lifestyles, and other underlying illnesses can also severely compromise our most natural and most effective defences. This is why most people who die are in the older age range and already quite ill.
We’ve had a few years without a major epidemic. Of course, every year the most vulnerable succumb to respiratory infections because that’s the nature of life. We are born, we live, and we die, we always die. Often such death is caused by severe respiratory distress, often pneumonia, it’s normal and happens all the time. Each flu season, or winter period, more people die from respiratory infections than in the summer, but not everyone does. Over the years when the flu, or other prevailing infection is moderate some people live who would have died had the infection been more severe. Over a period of relatively mild flu seasons we’ll naturally increase the numbers of people who are at risk, but haven’t yet succumbed, because the conditions have been benign.
Then, as happens periodically, we encounter a more severe infection for those in the vulnerable category and we then experience a double whammy. Not only is the infection more prevalent, more infectious, and more dangerous to older people, but we have a much greater number of those vulnerable people when it does hit. This is one very practical reason why mortality peaks so noticeably.
Because only the most vulnerable will die, and the fact that they cannot die twice means that we would see a spike in mortality, followed by an almost complete collapse. There are always new people entering the vulnerable stage as we all get older and some get sicker, but this doesn’t happen in sufficient numbers to keep the mortality rate high. Once the most vulnerable have died, the remainder won’t die, and it will take a number of years for the ‘new vulnerable’ to match the numbers of vulnerable people we started with when this particular pathogen turned up. Therefore, the much-vaunted mortality curve will collapse, as we are seeing now, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with any government actions. It would have happened anyway.
The decline in mortality was and is inevitable. It is being portrayed, however, as the work of government, when it most certainly is not.
Has everyone seen the Oxford Study? Same dept but looks like different team to CEBM? “Risk factors for COVID-19 death revealed in world’s largest analysis of patient records to date”
Largest study to date, analysing NHS health data from 17.4 million UK adults between 01 February 2020 and 25 April 2020, has given the strongest evidence to date on risk factors associated with COVID-19 death.
Among the 17.4 million adults in the sample, there were 5,707 deaths in hospitals attributed to COVID-19.
I’m rubbish at Maths, but even I can see just shy of 6k deaths out of 17.4 MILLION people is quite worthy of mention.
https://opensafely.org/press-releases/2020/05/covid-risk-factors/
0.034482759% mortality rate. Somewhat less than benign
It looks like an interesting study. The 17m were just 17m people, they weren’t necessarily infected with SARS-COV2. So the proportion of them who died doesn’t tell us anything, except perhaps as a bad estimate of the population fatality rate, but we already know that from other sources (about 0.05% in the UK currently).
This means they’re sampling the risk of dying of Covid-19 for different age and ethnic groups etc. and they’re including in that the risk of catching it in the first place.
Until I found this website I had no idea so many people felt the same way about this seemingly endless lockdown. I had some hope that restrictions would be eased from Monday onwards, particularly now that Ferguson has publicly disgraced himself, but alas it seems there is no end in sight.
I am in disbelief at the latest polls which suggest that the British would be happy to see this insanity continue until July, it’s sad testament to the fear mongering that has been ramped up by government and media alike.
Thank you for speaking on behalf of those of us who are increasingly worried about the impact this undemocratic lockdown will have for years to come.
https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/oestrogen-covid
Interesting new research by King’s College and NHS England on possible protective effects of oestrogen.
I’ve just done my daily report and answered the extra questions
As an aside, I spoke to a hospital anaesthetist who is currently covering for ICU, she said it’s started getting unexpectedly busy. Not with Covid patients, but all the people who’ve not managed to see a doctor for one reason or the other.
The Telegraph estimates an extra 2,000 extra non covid deaths a week, week 17 was 3,300, I suspect that will continue to rise.
When will ‘extra’ non covid deaths overtake the covid deaths?!