My grandfather was a decorated WWI veteran. He was lucky and got back home minus a hand. My dad participated in the Battle of Britain, North African and Italian campaigns. He got home apparently unscathed. However, both had one thing in common: they would not speak of what they had done and seen. What they had been through was too terrible to describe, and people were not interested; it was all in the past. That is one of the reasons why we have wars: few people have any idea what it’s like.
It’s going that way with the most traumatic experience in this lifetime: lockdowns.
Looking at the media, you would think nothing extraordinary has happened since 2020.
Well, let me remind you.
Our civil liberties were severely curtailed, drones were sent after lone runners on deserted moorland, children could see but not touch toys in stores (if they were let in at all), our elders died abandoned in nursing homes or their own homes, governments spurted gibberish on the advice of modellers and overnight experts. The media ran a wall-to-wall campaign to get the populace to toe the line. Crooks were allowed to run away with billions of public money while massive amounts were spent on useless tests. That is why the Chancellor has a large hole in his books. While patients likely to be infected were moved around hospitals, in some cases separation consisted of taped bin bags stretched across walls, GPs were not accessible, and the police were checking people’s movements and compliance with Government policies. Children were confined to home; people stopped exercising and took to drinking. People with serious illnesses did not get treated, partly because they were rightly scared of catching the plague when in hospital. Few people questioned what was going on.
Data, real data on which momentous decisions were made, were absent. We do not know how many real infectious cases or deaths attributable to SARS-CoV-2 there were. Even deceased who tested negative were wrapped up in the Covid death tally. So we cannot separate the impact of the agent from the self-inflicted devastation.
The current economic crisis has its genesis in the demented and wasteful response to an unknown, unquantified threat; then came the war in Ukraine, but the lockdown came first. Remember how many businesses stopped paying taxes because they had gone bust or could not trade?
Parliament had little say in what went on while large swathes of politicians were trying to outdo each other in demanding more restrictions and closures.
Scientific evidence, when available, was used as a political weapon regardless of its quality and credibility.
So now that I have refreshed your memory and now we know that no one will ever be held responsible for the greatest catastrophe in our generation, I ask you, when will the next round be? There is ample precedent, so it’s only a matter of time.
The Government is now bending over backwards it seems to address four problems: cancer, obesity, addiction and mental health, throwing more money at four problems which its policy magnified and worsened. I will save you the effort of searching. In the glossy press release, I failed to find any mention of restrictions, isolation or lockdown.
Perhaps my grandfather and father should have spoken about the war and reminded those who wanted to forget that oblivion is the road to perdition – for our democracy, our society and our families.
Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Carl Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack page, which you can subscribe to here.
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The principal fault line in public life is between those who believe in individual freedom and those who believe in collectivist coercion. Lockdown was a full scale assault by the collectivists on the individualists. The war is ongoing.
Agreed. All it’s done to me, finding myself on the individualist side, is drive me away from wider society. I don’t bother going out much nowadays: I can’t stand being around people anymore. I thought I lived in a country that believed in freedom and the rights of the individual, even if politicians clearly didn’t. After seeing the compliant and judgemental behaviour of the public, the media, the institutions and even churches, the lack of scepticism, I’m so disgusted at the majority of Britons that I can’t bear to walk among them.
I know I’ll have to address that issue at some point and start going out more, but I’m too angry and disappointed right now. I’d rather work in the garden, watch pre-2000s TV shows and movies and read old books to remind myself that there was a time when people weren’t smartphone obsessed zombies who filmed and photographed their fellow Britons, then shopped them to the police and allowed themselves to be tracked and traced on their phones. I binned my smartphone when all that started. Even stuck at home, I feel more free for that!
Don’t let them get you down.
There are over 20 million of us (unjabbed and uncorrupted) despite what the MSM may say.
And, we’re going to stay that way.
We’ve survived nearly three years of Government/MSM bullshit and we ain’t going to change.
They know that.
I wonder what’s next…
I know exactly how you feel and there are still people who think we should be locked down wearing masks I see them everywhere very depressing. If I start talking about freedoms (of speech, expression or association/assembly) my “friends” and family look at me as if to say “what’s wrong with you” or give you an accusing look of derision reserved for us “conspiracy theorists”. It’s a hard nut to crack. Have you tried going to your local SITP? Did me the power of good every Sunday 10am like going to church very therapeutic.
I saw this article a few days ago The Current Protests In China Are A Pivotal Moment in History (substack.com). It introduced the concept of “Economic Feudalism” which the author claims has replaced the original feudal system to control us. I also came across the phrase “Digital gulag” to describe our present situation. Certainly our freedoms are being taken away, but many seem to like the empty promises of safety offered by government.
To my dismay, I suspect that the Emily Oster Declaration will gain more support from the UK general public (as opposed to DS subscribers) than did the Great Barrington Declaration. If my immediate circle of acquaintances is a reasonable guide to the rest of the public, then the majority still believe that The Lockdown and all its trapping, together with vaccinations, triumphed over the latest pestilence and that it would have been so much worse without the step taken. Now that we have all returned to normal life none of my friends wants to talk about the horrors of 2020, let alone lift any heavy stones, for fear of what might crawl out. They just go on parroting the WEF/BBC official line. Doubtless there will be the obligatory whitewash from a suitably configured “investigating” team.
Now is not the time to give up!
Too many people want to pretend they didn’t behave disgracefully and judgementally in the last two disgusting years. They have so little self-esteem that they need a report to forgive them and allow them to go back to their drone-like ways!
I think it’s a story they tell themselves in order to justify their cowardice, and they end up believing it after all of this time. These are the traitors in our midst..the apathetic, the ‘go along to get along’ crew. I’m sure they’d jump into compliant mode without a second thought should another lockdown come along, so well primed they are. Sickening, the lack of backbone or dignity. They may as well be lobotomized, the amount of brain-power they use to question or challenge anything.
That’s the purpose of the public inquiry. To find that no individual was to blame, there was a systemic failure due to lack of knowledge, but never mind;’LESSONS WILL BE LEARNED’
The lockdowns demonstrated how easy it is to tear down centuries of hard-won liberty overnight: just give people something of which to be afraid: Hitler used fantastical Jewish conspiracies and Johnson and co used fantastical models about a flu-like virus. Either way, society was swiftly divided, the police turned into paramilitary thugs and people were willing to stab their own neighbours in the back. The media enjoyed every second of it.
Correct. It certainly demonstrated how Hitler got away with it. I remember thinking about that in 2020, when “lockdown” occurred. We are all at risk of dictatorship, by the look of it.
Propaganda rules OK
“our elders died abandoned in nursing homes”
Or in many cases, their end was hastened with the use of combined sedatives. This followed the reintroduction of the Liverpool Care Pathway in the form of NHS Covid End of Life Guidelines, still available from various NHS trust websites.
Administration was recommended in cases of anxiety and distress without need for appropriate clinical evidence. Invasive ventilation was also used indiscriminately, causing lung damage and ventilator induced pneumonia.
Right at the top of the list of questions the government and Public Health England officials need to answer are:
We already know poor decisions were made by officials during the early waves of the pandemic, including large scale transfer of elderly patients to care homes. It seems these decisions were made in an atmosphere of extreme stress for medical professionals, most likely to be conducive to groupthink, where deference to authority was more likely to overwhelm common sense.
Without analysis of the potential for bad decisions resulting from nebulous end-of-life guidelines, it’s not only certain that the same mistakes will be made again, but more likely to be made with increased vigour. History tells us that when people know on some level that their decisions have been made with poor judgement, with catastrophic results, they will often double down rather than take responsibility for them.
This seems to be evident in what little critical analysis has been done. The BMJ Support and Palliative Care Journal surveys decisions made by medics and care staff during the pandemic in the article ‘Anticipatory prescribing in community end-of-life care in the UK and Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic: online survey‘ (available online).
This study indicates, without any concern, that clinical decisions were routinely made without clinical evidence. It raises general concerns that administration of ‘end of life’ care isn’t easy enough, or available to a wider range of unqualified staff:
Two hundred and sixty-one replies were received between 9 and 19 April 2020 from clinicians in community, hospice and hospital settings across all areas of the UK and Ireland. Changes to AP local guidance and practice were reported: route of administration (47%), drugs prescribed (38%), total quantities prescribed (35%), doses and ranges (29%). Concerns over shortages of nurses and doctors to administer subcutaneous injections led 37% to consider drug administration by family or social caregivers, often by buccal, sublingual and transdermal routes. Clinical contact and patient assessment were more often remote via telephone or video (63%). Recommendations for regulatory changes to permit drug repurposing and easier community access were made.
In the one sentence in the entire study that mentions the possibility of clinical error in administering end-of-life care, the issue is not only handwaved away, but treated with what appears to be annoyance:
“Pharmaceutical regulations and policies pertaining to AP in care homes arise from legitimate needs to protect residents from drug errors, particularly with controlled drugs like morphine and midazolam. The presence of suitable medications already in the homes, prescribed for one resident but then urgently needed for another, is frustrating for care home staff and visiting clinicians, as until recently they have been unable to repurpose drugs. Recent UK guidance, issued on 28 April 2020, now permits repurposing in care homes and hospices: this welcome development, called for by many participants, was introduced after data collection was complete.”
There are no doubt good arguments for compassionate end of life care involving administration of sedatives. However it seems government policy during the pandemic was not only a recipe for disaster, but might have resulted in disaster. If these questions are not asked and answered, it will happen again on a far larger scale.
This is a great comment which would merit an item on DS above and beyond being in the comment section.
Yes indeed. I often wonder what my father (fought in WW2, captured and imprisoned there and in Italy, hence my username) would have made of Clown World.
I’ve a pretty good idea though.
Let us hope evidence based medicine makes a comeback after its 3 year hiatus and that the BBC/Guardian start telling the truth. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time though because both are known for their fearless investigative reporting….
If they ever look at excess deaths, all will be blamed on the infamous covid spike protein – as opposed to the bad copy mRNA one.
Nothing whatsoever to do with lockdowns or the jabs.
Oh, and the 500 billion plus debt is all the fault of measures which had to be taken to save lives, and of course Putin.
Forget/forgive the bastards behind all this, never and Bigpharma has been at it for over 40 years. May they all get what they deserve, both in this world and the next.
As a Christian (one of 46.2% of us apparently) I want all souls to be saved (though for those Christians who believe in the purgation of souls after death there could of course still be “what they deserve” in the next life as well as salvation). However, that should not be confused with an amnesty. Take as a case study the crook Fauci. If there is enough evidence for example, that through reckless greed he pursued his gain of function research agenda, that he was a driver of lockdowns and related measures that he knew to be unnecessary, and even lethal, he should absolutely be brought to trial and if appropriate convicted and sentenced. Should he happen to show genuine remorse and dedicate the rest of his life to exposing the groups and people who made this possible, this should of course be taken into account though not to the extent of evading punishment altogether. Ideally he would die a repentant sinner in the arms of Our Lord, and there are some quite famous penitents who became saints (e.g. St. Paul). Yes, we thirst for justice for the crimes committed against so many of us, but if we cannot eventually forgive, we are hurting ourselves as well. Unforgiveness has been compared to holding the knife in your back that someone has put there rather than pulling it out.
Certainly I would make a blistering attack on the actions of our politicians, and certainly we should support those campaigning for justice and to stop this happening again., but I would not want unforgiveness and hatred to dominate my life. Let not the sun set on your anger is an old adage and a good one.
I will never forgive or forget them but I do not want revenge. He who seeks revenge must first dig two graves.
I do though want them to face justice – although sadly it seems they will not face it in this world.
FWIW I don’t believe in capital punishment, although that belief is becoming rather stretched at the moment.
What a sight to behold though, someone like Fauci repenting!
It would indeed be wonderful (though perhaps unlikely).
I suspect that there are more believers in capital punishment among people who have had family members murdered.
” The Government is now bending over backwards it seems to address four problems:”
Yes.
It doesn’t give a 4X about people’s health
PS I will never forget and never forgive them. I would be quite happy to see them swinging.
Perhaps 10,000 re-instated Twitter accounts and 100,000 re-instated Tweets will help people to remember?
And isn’t exactly the same thing happening now with Net Zero and the running down of our energy supply industry to be able to supply?
Where is the clamour?
Not forgetting Jeremy
CHunt’s 75 per cent windfall tax on drilling firms in the North Sea. Many of these firms are not giant corporations and are facing bankruptcy!I have been both disappointed and bewildered by the favourable comments from some people, regarding Hancock, and his stint in the jungle. Of course I didn’t/wouldn’t/couldn’t watch the asshole, but I know people did.
An article in the Telegraph brought comments from me and others about the foul loathsome creature and his actions during Covid…but the majority were favourable…
so, there we have it….many of us know what went on, and our eyes have been forever opened wide….…others, those still going for their fifth, didn’t have a clue, and still don’t…
I think all we can do is plod on..it’s a long war….and in my own personal experience just not letting anyone say something like it’s a fact, when I know it isn’t….
As Bob Morans latest cartoon says, “be everything they don’t want us to be.”
At this rate, Matt Hancock will become a TV celebrity. They’ll replace Gary Lineker on Match of the Day with him before long. Remember: there was only one real Hancock and his name was Tony. Tony was funny, Matt is a bad joke.
I will forever look at Matt Hancock as being on the same level as a member of Hitler’s inner circle. I’ll never forgive or forget. I’m a few years older than Hancock, but I intend to be alive in the late 2060s and raise a glass to congratulate Hell on its latest acquisition the day he pops his clogs.
If ever there was an example of what a creep the man is, it was the way he ran up to his mistress at the end of his TV appearance, hugged her and told her how much he loved her. All I could think was how that must have made his abandoned wife and children feel.
…and how those he ‘oversaw’ the culling and degrading of…they’ll never get to say or do that with their loved ones….to say I’ll never forget or forgive..or vote for the shysters…is the best and only printable version I can come up with!!
That man is both the spawn of the devil and a scumbag to boot
The people who want to forget are those who made the atrocious decisions and those who complied with them.
I find it pretty hard, after covid, not to believe that there is a concerted effort by elite groups, including bankers and MSM, to reduce the wealth, growth and influence of people living in western countries. The goal is to increase the size and control of governments and those working for and dependant on it. Everything these activists groups do seems to be to stop growth and reduce people’s wealth and their ability to consume. And they are winning.
I saw this a few days ago. “Oblivion is the road to perdition – for our democracy, our society and our families” says it all.