A central feature of the cultural hegemony of our ‘new elite’ is that it is sustained by pharisaical levels of hypocrisy. We’re currently being treated to an example of this in the form of the Suella Braverman non-crisis that is dominating the airwaves, and which provides what it is nowadays fashionable to call a ‘teachable moment’.
To briefly explain for overseas readers: Suella Braverman was until today the Home Secretary here in the U.K. On Wednesday last week, she wrote a piece for the Times (available behind the paywall here) in which she expressed some fairly mild criticism of the way in which protests in London were being policed. Her accusation, which almost anybody will notice to be true, was that the Metropolitan Police simply don’t treat all protests on the streets of London in the same way. If it’s BLM it’s kid gloves. But when it’s anti-lockdown protestors, it’s truncheons and tear gas. Braverman then reminded the police that it was important to enforce the law properly when it comes to pro-Palestinian marches (a large one of which having been planned for, and since carried out, last Saturday).
The wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed was truly extraordinary. Braverman, it seemed, was violating an ironclad principle of the English constitution, which is that it is never acceptable for a member of the Government to say anything whatsoever that might be interpreted as havig anything to do with police ‘operational matters’. Braverman’s article, it was hinted darkly, was setting us on the slippery slope towards a police state, in which the Government orders the police who to arrest and directs the force to silence political enemies. This was categorically something up with which we could not put. And today Braverman has duly been dismissed from the Cabinet.
Of course, there is no such ironclad principle of the English constitution – or, if there is, it is one which is routinely ignored by everybody. British readers will cast their minds back a mere nine years, and recall the then-Home Secretary Theresa May turning up at a police conference in Bournemouth to accuse them of having “contempt for the public” and to call them out for their racism – particularly in reference to ‘stop and search’ tactics – and sexism. Or they might cast their minds back a bit further to remind themselves of then-Home Secretary Jack Straw’s comments expressing concern about “wide variation” around the country in the way in which police were using “out of court” penalties. Fresher faced readers might recall Matt Hancock when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care “backing the police” who fined two innocent Derbyshire women for daring to go for a walk together around a lake during the winter lockdown of 2020-21 (one of many, many, many, many, many interventions by Government ministers in what would properly have been called ‘operational matters’ during the lockdown era, a large proportion of which seemed to concern whether somebody should be arrested for eating a scotch egg in a pub, or something). In none of these cases was the politician in question sacked from the Government, and in none of these cases did the columnists at the Guardian unite in mass fits of pearl-clutching. There was a bit of mild finger-wagging directed at Hancock regarding the Derbyshire incident, but he suffered absolutely no political consequences for his comments. I don’t recall there being anything said about Theresa May’s comments about stop-and-search in 2014 other than praise for her ”bravery“.
It is difficult to express in polite terms, then, what utter bollocks it is to claim that there is some supreme constitutional norm holding that it is illegitimate for an elected politician, or even a member of the Government, to remind the police that their job is to evenhandedly enforce the law. If anything, the truth is the opposite: this is among the job of elected politicians, and rightly so. The separation of powers is violated when a member of the executive directs the police to arrest an individual, or intervenes in a criminal prosecution. But Braverman’s article did nothing even approaching that. The people complaining about it are by implication either not thinking things through properly or being disingenuous – or both.
But then, enforcing constitutional principle, as anyone sensible can see, is the last thing on anyone’s minds here. This is plainly not about the rules: it is about Braverman. And Braverman is rapidly becoming the most interesting political figure in the country – one of those rare individuals, like Boris Johnson or Donald Trump, who so enrages members of the new elite as to give rise to a unique ‘derangement syndrome’ of their own. She has achieved this by daring to give voice to a significant chunk of the electorate, who are a bit socially conservative, and also by being a Right-wing woman who is a member of an ethnic minority. Being a bit socially conservative in itself enrages the new elite, and her being a conservative non-white woman dangerously discombobulates their asinine and simplistic view of the moral and political universe. They therefore necessarily visit their ire upon Braverman as the avatar of everything they hate and fear in public life.
So much I think is fairly obvious. There is, though, something deeper going on in this story. A while back, I wrote a piece for the Daily Sceptic in which I drew readers’ attention to the important concept of artificial negativity. The essence of this concept is that hegemony can only really secure its position through a plausible narrative of necessity. If the hegemon acknowledges that it is in fact the hegemon and that its victory is total, it will deflate like a sad hot air balloon. Instead, it must present the situation as being one in which the forces of truth and justice, which it embodies, are permanently engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a rotating cast of various powerful and dangerous baddies. This is how the members of a cultural elite motivate themselves and get themselves up in the morning, and how they strengthen their cultural dominance. “What the country needs is yet more of what we represent,” the message must go. “Because without us, dangerous fascists like Suella Braverman are poised to take charge.”
Ritualised episodes of confected crisis like this one are therefore entirely characteristic of a society that is in the grip of a cultural hegemony. And, when we look at the subject from this perspective, things begin to make a lot more sense. Our new elite hates Suella Braverman, but if she didn’t exist, it would have been necessary for them to invent her. To get the juices flowing, threats need to be imagined, and dangers manufactured. One of these dangers, absurdly, is a Tory Government sweeping to power and installing authoritarian rule. That the Tories have been in Government since 2010 and done absolutely nothing of the kind shows us just how absurd this fear actually is. But it is important to remember that it isn’t a genuine fear – it is a kind of cosplay which the new elite participates in to work itself up for yet more entrenchment of its own position. The shrillness and outrage is palpable, but it is really within the same category as a Violet Elizabeth tantrum – it is theatrics for a particular purpose, which is cementing power. Rishi Sunak, in giving in to this tendency, is therefore exhibiting nothing but the rubber spine of a weak parent unable to resist acceding to his child’s demands so as to secure an easy life; but then I suppose that’s hardly surprising in a conservative politician in the U.K. in 2023.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. He is the author of the News From Uncibal Substack.
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King for a day.
In a leather thong!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j53hFzwrYcg
https://www.lockdowntruth.org/post/they-wouldn-t-would-they
Please no.
But going by the pattern of Government decisions during this fiasco, you may be spot on with your prediction
Where I drink (which shall remain anonymous) less and less staff are wearing masks (although they are required to) saying it’s all bulshit
Cheers!
Of course they will!
Please stop fear-mongering! MW
As someone who has to wear a face covering at work, luckily “only for about 5h30min, I really hope not.
I come home exhausted, with a numb lower face, have developed a sore throat and sore stomach as I breath in too much CO2. I am afraid for the long term effect on my health, and am considering quitting my job for my healths’ sake.
I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone what to do, but I know I could not tolerate it for one hour let alone 5+ hours per day. I’m so sad for all of you who are being forced to decide between your job and your health. It’s diabolical what they’re doing.
Wear it just under your nose.
Or, just cut holes in it for your mouth and nostrils.
Most people don’t notice, and if they do, they don’t really give shite.
It is not worth making yourself sick.
Time for creative passive aggression.
Can you not use the same exemptions that the public can use to avoid wearing a mask in shops or on transport? Your employer has a duty of care to you.
You may want to consult a solicitor if your employer won’t honour their duty of care. I’m not trained in the law by any stretch of the imagination, but if your employer forces you to do something that harms you, and you feel forced to leave your job, it sounds like constructive dismissal.
I’m just after reading a post in Linkedin, some guy had stuck a post on with a tick box ‘masks in shops, agree/disagree. Its got 21k likes or positive thumbs up things and 2500+ comments. This ain’t going away any time soon, and the general consensus seemed to be in the agree camp. – and I quote one loonies comments , ‘If you disagree, you’re basically a prick’… I’m flabbergasted at people..!
That’s social media for you. Army, be the bestest.
LinkedIn is a 100% virtue signalling platform. Everyone wants to impress everyone else as money and reputation are at stake. So it’s groupthink all the way or just plain fear of letting people know how you feel.
Hi all
I’ve asked this before and I’m still unclear.
If I tested 1,000 people who didn’t have “Covid 19” with the current PCR test how many false positives would I get on average?
5 ish would be 0.5% false positives
Really? SAGE mention PHE verification showed 95% specificity. EQAs showed median 2.3% false positive range (IQR 0.8–4%). But that was back when SAGE was attempting to do science properly (3rd June 2020).
Here’s their document: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gos-impact-of-false-positives-and-negatives-3-june-2020
Their reasoning starts getting faulty and they engage in post hoc ergo propter hoc to argue a slightly lower rate (they basically argue if you flip a coin 10 times and 7 out of those are heads, then obviously the probabily of tails can never exceed 3/10).
50ish out of 1000 would be 5%. The real number of false positives must be much lower than that based on the ONS fortnightly infection survey (the one that’s about to be expanded up to 150,000 tests a fortnight, above).
The raw result from the last release on August 14th was 17 positive tests out of 30,522. If all of those were false positives that would only be 0.056%.
Therefore specificity better than 99.944%.
Trouble is that the *actual* positives don’t indicate an infective virus. The whole process is flawed beyond belief.
If you believe that all of this is a whole lotta bull then I would call Matt H’s latest announcement stalling for time, i.e., vaccines still not ready.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.The only statistic that matters is deaths and they are non existent.
Where is the fight back?
Yep
I think the answer is nobody knows, because the PCR test has never been tested.
Yep – should only be used to narrow down the infectious agent if a subject has symptoms, does not indicate infection in the absence of symptoms and should always be calibrated/backed up by a gold standard test as it’s only a proxy test.
And the gold standard test for C-19 – the PCR test!
So of course our lamestream media let this one pass without challenge. On re-opening schools our associate chief medical officer of health said the following when asked about routinely testing teachers:
“If you test somebody today, you only know if they are infected today,” she explains. “In fact, if you’re testing in a population that doesn’t have much COVID, you’ll get false positives almost half the time. That is, the person actually doesn’t have COVID, they have something else, they may have nothing. It will just complicate the picture.”
A high-ranking medical office of health actually quoted as saying testing will yield false positives almost half the time and nobody says boo. So let’s ramp up testing in a population that does’t have much Covid so we can keep the casedemic going, keep people scared, and maintain a “state of emergency” so that our politicians can continue taking advantage of their emergency powers. Makes perfect sense…if you’re a psychopath.
That’s what I’m worried about.
Who in the world actually knows this stuff for real?
Do you have names e.g. Nobel laureates who aren’t in bed with WHO etc?
We need to establish exactly what is being tested here because the ramifications are ridiculous. We are going to have another “lockdown”for NO REASON at all!
We have had local ones for no reason.
We have people being quarantined for no reason.
Just say they test us all – and we have nothing – 10 % show positive falsely then they will probably lock up that 10%, their family and their recent contacts – probably half the country – under house arrest or if NZ are anything to go by it’ll be relocation to camps…
The Nobel laureates, doctors and scientists who know the truth are being censored. It’s widely known that the creator of the PCR test had said it ought not be used as a diagnostic tool. All it measures is fragments of RNA that are, generally, non-infectious and are most often the remnants of this or another coronavirus. The test is rubbish and everyone knows it, and yet all we hear is more testing, more testing! The bloody governor of Ohio tested positive with no symptoms and then tested negative, but he still calls for more testing. Do you think the average person gets a follow-up test when they test positive? I suspect they’re put under house arrest immediately. Do not pass go…
Who is the creator of the PCR test?
was it kary mullis?
“casedemic”
Love it!
Lamestream media was also a good one.
Americanism.
I like today’s Heath Robinson reinterpretation! Here’s the original: https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/illustration/heath-robinson-rare-illustrations/#6
Further to yesterday’s article about cases of covid trickling across the border into Scotland. If we are being infected by Angleterrible people you would expect the regions bordering England to have the highest number of new cases. In fact, the two health boards comprising 200,000 people have 6 cases. For August! Grampian on the other hand has 400 this month so far, and Grampian is strikingly unadjacent to the English border, indeed we’re more distant than around 85% of Scotland’s population. So I’m afraid the Prof is speaking unmitigated bollox, this is a home grown “surge”
The prof specialises in unmitigated bollox. Unfortunately, the MSM never call her out on it.
Perhaps she thinks Longshanks’ Warwolf is catapulting them in!
Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
English bugs will strike ye dead.
Pay ye heed to Krankie’s order,
Keep the English from the border.
English accents tire our lugs,
And we prefer our Scottish bugs.
Possibly using a trebuchet when necessary.
How about this as a motto for the Old Normal Club? “We’re only human.”
only human ?
Nah.
We’re the only humans.
From 2015:
A POSITIVE PCR TEST MAY NOT MEAN POSITIVELY SICK
https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/shows.php?shows=0_8pwxdv0o
I see Wancock has announced they are going to test “150,000” every fornight for a ONS survey, but I wonder if that target will actually be (and what the point of this survey actually is).
I had a letter through the post last week from the NHS inviting me to take part in a similar survery on behalf of Imperial College and Ipsos MORI which went straight through the shredder. I imagine a lot of people who recieved the invitation also ignored it, so will they find 150,000 willing volunteers to stick a swab up there nose and down their throat every 2 weeks?
No way is Wanksock going to shove anything up my nose!
Cockhanwanker.
I am reliably informed by YouTube, that the politically-correct phrase is “shitweasel”. It has a most pleasing ring to it.
Why on earth would anyone risk being quarantined for no reason at all?
Another winner from our boy.
I genuinely think there are a whole lot of very dim people out there who would like to volunteer and feel their moment of ‘fame’ for a day without fully understanding what the outcome would be – and indeed quite like to be ‘quarantined’. I have been stunned at the general lack of curiousity around these ridiculous rules and chaotic actions. The young really have reason to kick against it – and those still in employment whose employers might have a sense of humour failure about the deliberate risk to take the test. But the older generations (and I’m heading that way) seem to welcome it. Utterly bizarre. Utterly bonkers.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the vaccine that is going to save us all from certain death pops up just before the festive season. I bet all the eager masked morons will be queuing up down the street with their sleeves rolled up begging to be pumped with poison….
I’d be inclined to ‘Return to Sender’ with some choice remarks added.
Perhaps a possible little cash incentive could be on the table? I did hear that other countries could/would be offering this. In fact did I hear that this WAS being considered in the UK? Plenty of takers then.
As the conspiracy realists keep telling us, government assistance in the form of a universal basic income (or some such) will be contingent on doing what the government tells you. Part of the bigger plan is to keep people dependent on the government as dependency gives them the ultimate control. Call me crazy, but does anyone here think that receiving benefits WON’T at some point mean submitting to testing and taking the vaccine?
Or travelling. Or attending school. Or entering any public premises.
I mean no one is forcing you to take the vaccine but…
Exactly. I said that to my wife months ago. She said I sounded like a ‘Sun reader’. She likes her foreign holidays so she’s getting a tad worried now!
I’ve been saying it since the beginning. Travel was supposed to be a huge part of our lives upon my husband’s retirement and being empty nesters. I could cry thinking about not being able to travel again.
likewise – i could cry just thinking of staying on this miserable grey island called UK with all the sanctimonious, nappy-wearing cretins watching the bbc mantra!! (sorry having a bad/grumpy day).
Thinking of going to greece in a couple of weeks to escape!
Good luck with that Sue. What ever you do don’t go to Spain, they’re desperate for a 2nd wave!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwlkumcRf6w
So we were in Spain from mid-February to mid-March to get away from our Canadian winter. We’ve been to Spain so many times and I have a real affinity for the people and the country. We were having such an amazing time, but when Italy locked down the whole country we got nervous and decided to get out of Spain ASAP at huge cost. Spain locked down the day after we left. I can’t believe that at one point I thought it wouldn’t be too bad to be “stuck” in beautiful Spain a little bit longer. OMG, we’d still be there and it would have been torturous. Now that Spain is flirting with fascism again, I can’t imagine ever wanting to go back. The bloom is off the rose. Not sure where we’d even go next — nowhere so long as masking on planes is mandatory. Most of the world has lost its lustre for me now. I really hope that changes at some point, but the longer this nonsense persists the more pessimistic I become.
Honestly, that’s the bit that upsets me the most.
It’s taken years to finally persuade MOH to go on a cruise. We’re both retired now, spent the first several years running around between our parents, all of whom became ill at the same time. We spent almost as much time in hospitals as we did when working in the NHS.
We lost three parents, and my mother is in a care home with advanced Alzheimer’s.
Last year we finally went on two cruises, and loved them. We booked up two more for this year, and both were cancelled, including a rebooked cruise under the cruise line reassurance programme. So we’ve been nowhere this year.
I don’t know how much time either of us have left, and I don’t want to spend the time we do have left, and are still well enough to travel, stuck at home, or forced to wear a muzzle if we venture outside, or coerced into having a vaccination which hasn’t been properly tested, with side effects unknown.
Plus: I don’t trust the basta*** who are pushing us into this. They are known and provable liars and not the philanthropists we’re told they are.
They’re psychopaths! I feel for you, of course. I know of many older people (I’m solidly middle-aged) who are becoming more and more resentful of how much time is being taken away from them. Many do not want to live like this, and they surely don’t want to die like this. As I heard Dr. Sunetra Gupta say, “This life has a pulse but no soul.” Frankly, it’s barely got a pulse now.
We had a trip booked in April with our kids and their families to celebrate her 60th….gone. We’ve booked Turkey next month instead but now that looks as though it’s about to be flushed. If bodies were piling up, I wouldn’t sound so selfish but……
Good point no doubt.
I’m thinking I’ve made my last trip out of Canada if this vaxx to freedom thing becomes reality.
Yep! Just announced this week, in Massachusetts, that children must get flu vaccine to return to school. Even in school systems doing remote learning, the children must have the vax. I’ll bet this will just increase the number of parents who decide to home-school, further endangering the very existence of public schools. Of course working parents have fewer options .So guess whose kids get to have the jab, and any side effects or subsequent consequences. Plus, poor families suffer most from the school madness.
A new variation on the Means Test?
A friend of mind gets £25 every couple of weeks to get his nose and mouth swabbed. The irony is, he doesn’t need the cash!
Kidnap him!
Bribery would be a clear sign of desperation.
The point? If people don’t test positive the spin will be we haven’t reached ‘herd immunity’, brace ourselves for 2nd wave. If they do test positive the spin will be a ‘surge’ in cases. No matter what, we’ll be living in this pantomime for a very long time.
Anyone getting one should film themselves sticking the swab into a banana and returning it.
As President of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Bananas I must register a protest at this point.
Remember how much of your DNA. you have in common with bananas, and show some respect to your little yellow relatives.
Mellow Yellow.
from the World Health Organisation Website
“Older people and younger people can be infected by the COVID-19 virus. Older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and heart disease appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus.”
Only ‘appear to be’? Proved beyond doubt back in March I would have thought
They are doing that lying thing again. Trying to imply that normal people, albeit with medical conditions like asthma and diabetes, are affected. In reality 25% of fatalities had dementia or alzheimer’s. Think about that: 25%! Then include terminal cancer, advanced heart disease, incapacity through stroke and all the other things the terminally ill die of. And these are people in hospitals and care homes. What are they in a hospital or a care home for? A bit of a break from doing the washing up at home??
People taking prescription drugs appear to be more vulnerable?
http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2020/04/more-on-sars-cov-to-ace2-binding-and-true-covid-19-that-discredits-uk-governments-pretext-for-creating-economic-disaster/
I wondered right at the beginning what medications the younger badly affected people might have been taking.
The Spanish interview Toby refers to above is well worth a watch. Made my day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFa9JHMFO9s&feature=youtu.be
Definitely, I really hope we see more of this sort of thing from doctors/medical personnel (maybe even in the UK).
He did undermine himself a bit at the end, though, by saying the media “didn’t talk about the pandemic” back in the spring – if the Spanish media is anything like the UK media, they surely were talking about little else!
Isn’t strange how the media seem to take it personally when it’s suggested it’s not as bad as they think. Challenge is fine but they actually get angry about it. How is that conducive to finding the truth?
Did that male journo actually say he saw dead bodies and sick people on the streets??!!!
Couldn’t agree more, and I’ve downloaded it in case it gets pulled. I found it a bit difficult to follow the subtitles at the same time as watching the good doctors face – this was as revealing as anything he said!
the doctor should have Toby’s award … Best Foreign sceptic.. You could see in his attitude that he knew he was talking to an imbecile and that it was all he could do to keep calm.
Apologies for posting again (above) but wasn’t it jaw dropping how the interviewer was just desperate to twist the truth!
yes!
Brilliant! The statement re no discussion of the pandemic was obviously a confusing formulation, but the journos jumped on it to discredit everything else that Dr. Benito said. The presented themselves as knowing more than he. Instead of a follow-up question on misinterpretation of the data, they attacked him. The guy attacked him. Funny how the guy took over from the gal. Benito was obviously getting the better of the dialogue. Enter guy with guilt-tripping messageing and distraction over “pandemic reporting” issue to cancel out the refreshing effect of hearing The Truth!
I often find Chinese articles confusing and difficult to follow
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219423/
A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers
“During the quarantine, seven patients plus one family member appeared new respiratory symptoms, where fever was the most common one. The blood counts in most contacts were within a normal range. All CT images showed no sign of COVID-19 infection. No severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections was detected in 455 contacts by nucleic acid test.
Conclusion
In summary, all the 455 contacts were excluded from SARS-CoV-2 infection and we conclude that the infectivity of some asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers might be weak.”
This article is supposed to say that an asymptomatic patient did not transmit. But there were 8 with symptoms which might not be extraordinary 8/455 in the winter season but there is no discussion if alternate URI agents were tested. But then they say that their blood counts were normal (supposedly lymphocytes) and CT lungs were normal thus they didn’t have severe acute respiratory syndromes coronavirus 2.
In the earlier part of the pandemic when they didn’t have PCR test yet, they used mass CT lung investigations and this was included in severe cases definition if they had abnormal CT lung scan. But why not say directly that all these symptomatic cases in contact with the asymptomatic case were PCR test neg?
You can never trust abstracts as I found out. I read the article giving me headache and some laughs
The article is appalling poorly written. You have no date when the PCR was pos until later on in the text. Although she was asymptomatic, she was treated with interferon and antivirals without going into which drugs and how long etc Then suddenly we see that she had PCR pos 11th Feb .
“Due to only laboratory-confirmed positive, case A was diagnosed as an asymptomatic carrier, manifested by Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (GCDC).”
“Amounting to 455 contacts – 224 hospital staffs, 196 family members and 35 patients – who had been exposed to case A in EDOU or circulated area of it became the subjects of study.” Quite a large family considering we are in the one child family land
“Meanwhile, we obtained imaging and laboratory data from hospital staffs and patients, which of family members were not noted” I suppose it means no records of the big family
“For laboratory test, a complete blood count was focus of attention.” No distractions
“Nasopharyngeal swab specimens had been collected at least one time in whole people.” Fine at least we know it was not in half people.
“All samples were processed at clinical laboratory of hospital and sent to GCDC simultaneously.” That was quick.
“Patients and family members were quarantined for medical observation and hospital staffs were not quarantined because of standard protection, in principle.” Good to have principles, broken?
Then they go into patients who were in contact. The conclusion was that seven of them had respiratory symptoms including fever. But reading all patients in contacts many more had fevers but it was said to be of known non-viral causes. In have read the paragraph three times and cannot still figure how they came to seven cases.
“In total, 196 family members were enrolled. The situation on wearing masks was the same as that in patients. Local CDC took charge of following up 172 among them, who were ruled out SARS-CoV-2 infection after 14-days medical isolation, as far as we know.” My eyes almost popped out. What does this mean? Where they or where they not PCR screened? As far as we know, give you not much confidence. But 24 (rest of family contacts) are now called escorts where these authors seem to have control of results.
But only 2 PCR tested and were negative and after 5 days quarantine they all didn’t have fever and everybody assumed neg for disease.
Finally, one family member had symptoms and 4 neg PCRs and was thought to have had tonsillitis.
Then we have hospital staff. They were presumably tested PCR all neg. All had CT except
“A pregnant nurse failed to accept a CT scan”. I hope she didn’t end up in a rehabilitation camp
“All the 455 contacts were excluded from SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Part 2
This is a false conclusion as not all were PCR tested. They have not showed any proof of it. This, in the conclusion, should send this paper into the dustbin let alone be published in Respiratory Medicine.
I then realized that the same authors have published with the same populations, also a paper on the effectiveness of face masks. That article was appalling and almost laughable that it was accepted as a serious reference in the famous meta-analysis of face masks commissioned by WHO. Quite important as all the mask nonsense in based upon this meta-analysis reportedly.
This paper is useless and can’t be taken seriously and unfortunately, can’t be an evidence of non-transmission from an asymptomatic.
i always find that after i have read a chinese article i feel that i need to read another soon after
A hidden/ignored contamination positive rate of 0.17% would lead to authorities declaring (on average) a minimum of 17 ‘cases’ per 100,000 tests. Curiously, this is exactly the kind of rate that is being declared in many regions, and is very close to the level at which travel quarantines kick in.
From todays post, I’m pretty sure this is incorrect.
We are (still ridiculously, dont get me wrong) kicking in travel quarantines at ~20 cases per 100,000 people in the population, NOT tests…
For every 100,000 tests we’re doing in the UK I think we’re currently ‘finding’ roughly 300-500 positives, so as many as 50% of the positives could be false if it is only 0.17% false positives rate… I would’ve thought, from what I read previously though, that 0.17% is being generous to the test…
Note: I think .17% of 100,000 is 170, not 17 – just a missed 0 typo I assume, or maybe my maths is off.
Your math is correct. 20 cases per 100,000 is 0.02%. Not sure of the generosity of 0.17% but all 20 cases per 100,000 could easily be false positives.
Phew, glad you cleared that up – I was thinking I must be mathematically illiterate!
Yes, the convincing evidence presented of a 0.17% false positive rate equates to 170/100,000 (not 17/100,000). I note the error is corrected in the main article. So as you say, on that basis, half of the ‘cases’ in typical reported prevalence rates in UK are erroneous. And that does not consider those remaining ‘true’ positives that were infected more than 7-10 days before being tested, as they will carry detectable virus fragments but not be infectious. So almost no-one is walking around today in an infectious state.
Told you! There it is! Their excuse for a new lockdown. As i said, they will lock us down from September-October until June.
Until June which year? If the government get away with a second lockdown, I predict it will to all intents and purposes be permanent. Multiple generations will know no other way of living.
You’re just going to let it happen?
Over my dead body! And I mean that literally.
OK, good stuff. But I don’t think it will come to that. UK Government is actually very weak. See comment below.
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/08/19/latest-news-108/#comment-94843
Never!
They might legislate – or issue ministerial diktats. That’s not quite the same thing.
Everyone and their dog will ignore them.
No they won’t because the population won’t stand for it and without consent the policy will be unenforceable, especially if the MSM starts to become more sceptical which, slowly, appears to be happening.
We are still locked down – most people are consenting
UK Government has found a level that a lot of people are ok with. This can, and will change.
I just can’t see a popular rebellion in anything like the numbers required to overthrow this government. Regardless, we only have a couple of months before finding out the answer.
I don’t think a popular rebellion in the pitchforks/arson sense – more going to the pub, the seaside and countryside, and to see friends/family whenever people want to.
Absolutely. UK Government must become irrelevant. Deny money, votes and access.
http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2018/05/so-the-british-government-is-entirely-corrupt-what-happens-next/
Don’t pay the fines.
I’m a believer in avoiding the fines in the first place.
Will use the money saved to buy more weapons.
The government doesn’t need to be overthrown – not immediately any way. People can deny it the things it needs. Money, votes, and access – and openly disobey, of course
http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2018/05/so-the-british-government-is-entirely-corrupt-what-happens-next/
Absolutely, non-violent non-compliance is the simplest and most effective approach. The battlefield in 21st century warfare is primarily digital, not physical. For my part I am trying to sow seeds of doubt in every single interaction I have with family, friends and colleagues. Many of them bitterly resent me for it, and constantly complain, but I will not stop.
Good man! That is a very effective form of resistance.
Need some first class hackers.
Here, here. I’m doing the same and it is clear that everyone is fed up. As soon as schools go back and the rain starts lashing down, everything will go back to normal, as the guidance is ridiculously impractical and parents are at breaking point.
Yes, I keep saying to the wife since we saw that stupid Quisling advert on TV showing the idiots queueing up with their trolleys in a supermarket car park 6 feet apart. I took one look and said “Just wait till there’s two inches of snow on the ground. Then we’ll see how many shops try to keep customers outside in the cold snow and rain.” It’s a case of letting them all in, or having them all go home.
Some people have been saying that the supermarkets will try to keep people in their cars with a sort of “remote queueing” system, but the way things are going, the “browsing” element of female shopping will be completely gone. How much money did that previously put through the tills? Now I just buy exactly what I need. No impulse purchases, you know, the ones that pay for the electric lights to be on…
Remember that (theoretically) we’ve got to wait nearly 4 years before that option exists. And if – God forbid – it takes this long, all that will happen is very few votes get cast and this shower (or the other lot) will STILL get in, with a tiny proportion of the country having actually approved. Until there’s a change in the law requiring “None Of The Above” to be put on all ballot papers, and those votes to be taken into account, I fear nothing will change…
We can’t wait for a pointless election. Time is running out.
There was an interesting discussion on the radio this morning, where it was suggested that even with an 80 seat majority, the government could still become destabilized, if enough MPs think they won’t get voted in again at the next election. They’ll turn on Boris if they think the public’s turned against them.
For that to happen, they have to be bombarded with messages, emails, etc, from the public saying that they have no confidence in Boris or his government.
That would be the only way to get them to change. And any such public campaign has to be sufficient to drown out the noise from Twitter.
Need a 21st Century non-violent, social media blitzkrieg.
Write to your MP (a paper letter is said to be more effective). Say something along the lines of: if he/she doesn’t grow a backbone and start holding the government to account you will (a) never vote again or (b), probably better, vote next time for his/her nearest rival. So, incumbent Tory, Libdem runner up last time, vote Libdem. Etc. Frankly my big toe would make a better MP than the drooling idiot I’ve got, so it hardly matters who wins the seat.
All these creeps care about is getting back in, so this is quite a good way of exerting pressure.
Edit — just seen what Lms2 says below; excellent point!
I think they will follow public opinion. But public opinion has to change. We desperately need a massively well funded media campaign, that will need to last many months or maybe years. I think it will take £millions and professionals to make a difference, because that is what the other side have had – free or paid for publicity from national and global media, “health” organisations, Big tech, Behavioural insights etc.
We have truth on our side, but it needs a nudge. I’m happy to chuck in some of my savings and I am sure others are, but it needs some benefactors from business to underwrite it
Anyone with any ideas how to make this happen, I really think it’s the only way forward unless we want this campaign to last decades
“ the population won’t stand for it”
Have you been away in isolation for a long time?
So when you ask the ONS to be more honest, this is what I got: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/separationofu071andu072codesforcovid19deaths
So this is supposedly the most dangerous pandemic since Spanish Flu, on which trillions have been wasted and lives wrecked, and it’s too difficult to say what people are actually dying of?
I don’t have the time to dig around in their guide yet, but I suspect their “suspected” COVID-19 might actually mean that the person wasn’t diagnosed with COVID-19 prior to the issue of the death certificate… Otherwise why bother differentiating it from U07.2?
Another stalling tactic.
To be fair – I think you are asking too much of the ONS at this stage. They were landed with the mess made by the confusion of death registration. There is, in reality, no way of unpicking this mess except by going through each certification within a new framework, – and even then, I doubt the damage can be undone.
You’re partially right, but as statisticians why on Earth did they actually record things this way in the first place?! It’s a very very very daft move, epidemiologially speaking…
A week or so ago, I asked them to split COVID-19 into part I and part II on the death certificate mentions, I have a feeling they’re going to come back with a similar response because why bother keeping proper account of “pandemic”?..
I take your point – but I reckon they have a practical one, too.
All I’m really saying is that the ONS is as much a victim in all this, rather than an agent of deception.
I’m not saying they’re an agent of deception, I’m just saying their doing an inept job… But then again, so do seem many: I asked the local police what the counts were for criminal damage, and criminal damage by fire, and other offences against property in the whole of their area and they came back with “we haven’t a clue because we will need to look at each crime report”… Actually knowing their data seems to be an optional extra in the various state-run “institutions,” which might explain why the various actions are so abysmally idiotic.
Keep finding and highlight gaps/failures is a valuable tool in fighting back.
Currently I’m burying myself into the blackhole of PCR. The more I get in it, the more I ask what is it testing for…
matt hancock’s interview on BBC radio 4, this morning, left me alarmed. In his waffle he said that there will be, soon, at saliva test which will deliver results in 10 mins.
If PCR testing is highly dubious, a saliva test?
I void my rheum on it.
I imagine you’re right. My comment was more directed at governments, and various national and international bodies who chat a lot about what a grave situation we are in but do f all to gather meaningful data to understand it better because they haven’t the interest in doing so – they are too busy pushing their agendas.
What has the government or SAGE or any of those other “experts” told us about the virus since it started, that they have learned about it? Nothing that I’ve seen. They just waffle about “we have to be careful”.
I think they (both SAGE and the State) have learned plenty, just don’t have the balls to admit to a massive inept over-reaction!
Because analysing the death certificate and coding the ‘underlying cause’ of death is a process that takes time. The full figures for a complete year are published in the summer of the following year.
2019 figures published 1 July 2020:
DatasetDeaths registered in England and Wales
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdrreferencetables
. That will show a full breakdown of causes. These are not normally shown at all on the weekly releases, the COVID19 and Respiratory figures have only been added in since March.
There is are several interesting articles on these problems from the ONS
Measuring pre-existing health conditions in death certification – deaths involving COVID-19: March 2020
A method for deciding which pre-existing condition mentioned on death certificates is the main pre-existing condition.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/measuringpreexistinghealthconditionsindeathcertificationdeathsinvolvingcovid19march2020
Analysis of death registrations not involving coronavirus (COVID-19), England and Wales: 28 December 2019 to 1 May 2020https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/analysisofdeathregistrationsnotinvolvingcoronaviruscovid19englandandwales28december2019to1may2020/technicalannex
and the process of certifying cause of death:
Completing a medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD)Guidance notes for doctors covering issues doctors often ask about, and clarifying best practice under current legislation, including the Coronavirus Act 2020.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-notes-for-completing-a-medical-certificate-of-cause-of-death
I think you’re misunderstanding what they’ve replied with: they’ve coded COVID-19 already, and they are not going to re-code it using proper ICD-10 codes—otherwise what you’re suggesting is they will be doing the same task task twice—if they’ve already processed that data and they don’t have the breakdown, they are not going to have that at the end of the year—the data is already processed.
I think you’re also mistaken in that you think that COVID-19 is only mentioned in part I (underlying cause of death), the way I’ve read the ONS statistics guidance is that they count both mentions in part I and part II (contributing factors).
They were clear about this from the beginning. It was done “for transparency”.
Actually, I thought they were also count third part mentions (unsure whether it’s IIb or 3) – “also known to be present”.
Yes, they were clear about it from the begining, I stressed it when the first lot of data came out. The problem is: there is a difference between the actual data and presenting the data for public/media consumption. It seems the ONS have taken a deliberate step to remove clarity and lump everything together rendering the data not worth the bits that are used to store it… and that’s a real problem.
It could actually mean going through a patient’s medical notes to really determine cause of death
(not all of them, just a representative number, to get an idea). I’ve read too many anecdotes of GPs recording the death as being from or with CV19, where the relatives have said the person had no symptoms of CV19….
Thank you for asking the question on our behalf.
Over a fifth of these deaths (23.0%) involved the coronavirus (COVID-19) (50,335 deaths)……In the majority of cases (46,736 deaths, 92.8%)
I thought covid related deaths were ~41000.
I not a statistician: it took me days to figure out how the NHS were reporting their deaths and I eventually made sense of it when I started matching them to the reported ones in Health Service Journal.
At the beginning I was interested in the reports of the ACE2 receptor site allegedly found in SARS Cov2, so I got really sidetracked.
Hubby and I were keeping eye on areas (BRICKS) known to have higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.
For weeks I kept a tally from worldometer in particular for Italy and the UK (Istituto della sanita’ superiore -equivalent to PHE- was very easy to follow in the early days as they were keeping records of comorbidities prevalence in covid related deaths)
The ONS way of reporting was beyond my comprehension.
They count all mentions of COVID-19 on death certificates, so I suspect that includes both Part I and Part II mentions (don’t worry—I’ve already asked them for a breakdown of the two, doubt they kept those stats though)!
Am sure a few of the postcards recently have contained this sort of thing:
The only negative is that you have to pop a mask on in the shops and if you go into a restaurant to pay the bill. But even we have decided that it’s a small price to pay to be treated like a human being again and to have our sanity back.
Feels like _they’re_ winning and successfully grinding people down into accepting the imposition of masks in order to achieve ‘sanity’ or being treated ‘normally’ – whereas I’d say it’s not a small price to pay, and you’re not being treated normally if you’re being forced to stick a mask over your face just to go pay for a meal or go into a shop, there’s nothing normal about it.
Agree
I agree, and will continue to boycott everywhere until such time as every single one of the regulations are abolished. If that means forever, then so be it. I cannot be around anyone wearing a mask.
Agreed, it’s nauseating.
It is taking a lot for me to keep my frustration under control when surrounded by the muzzled collective,I just cannot bear the sight of them,I don’t think I can find strong enough words anymore to describe the contempt I have for most of them.
Absolutely. Mask-wearing can never be normalised if you’re a sceptic.
Agreed – compulsory mask wearing was the Rubicon that should never haven crossed. Mandatory masks take us into the world of compulsory medicine, re-education camps, thought crime and persecution of the non-compliant.
In Germany, you must have a medical certificate if you want to shop maskless.
The absurdity is, that many shops won’t let you in regardless, claiming their Hausrecht to prevent you from entering in that case.
Unfortunately, you cannot even sue them for discrimination under the disability act.
sounds awful!
Absolutely right Mark,those type of comments have struck me too,any price,however small,is too high to pay for our right to live life as we did before this madness,a small compromise soon becomes a bigger and bigger one,boiling frog syndrome again.
This is Lockdown Sceptics. No surrender.
This is Sparta!!
Couldn’t agree more…given an inch and they’ll take a mile. I was supposed to go out for dinner with a friend on a patio the other night but the weather was looking iffy. I’ve discovered that if there’s no indoor seating option they’ll pack up your uneaten food and send you on your way. She thought there was an indoor seating option, but I said no way am I going to wear a mask to walk to my table or to go to the bathroom. Restaurants are also putting time limits on diners. So no, I will not pay full price to have my dinner packed up in the rain, to walk into the restaurant with a mask, and to be told I have to leave after 1.5 hours. In the end, she came to my place and we ordered food in. Had a 4-hour catch-up instead of 1.5 hours and spent time on my patio with no restrictions.
I have asked a few people at work about mask wearing, and whilst they do not agree with them , it is just easier to go along with it. I fear many have this attitude, it is just easier.
When I remind them that the freedoms of their children and in some cases grandchildren are being taken away they do not seem to understand.
Look at it this way. When the mass starvation starts…. we eat these people first.
Zombie Vindaloo. Now that I would enjoy.
There’d be no taste to them even vindalood.
Or what about Zombie au vin? Or Zombie Adobo? The latter is a popular dish from my native country (the adobo that is).
Hancock au vin.
I suppose Hancock au vin would taste better than Zombie au vin
Nubbly, as the ‘stute fish said,
Enough to turn you vegetarian
That man should be cooked like a lobster, boiled alive.
Would be interested in the recipe, minus zombie.
You can do adobo with chicken or pork. Here’s a recipe:
https://www.kawalingpinoy.com/chicken-adobo/
Pork version:
https://panlasangpinoy.com/filipino-food-pork-adobo-recipe/
And you can even combine both:
https://www.kawalingpinoy.com/chicken-pork-adobo/
Will they taste good?
Google “Long Pig”.
Fortunately, since DDT was made illegal, we are now fit for human consumption – except the brain, which can give you Kuru. Must keep ourselves healthy.
I’ve managed to get at my sister by pointing out the mental torture all this garbage is inflicted on her two young daughters. Since then I think she’s certainly making an effort to question things a lot more.
Yes, that’s exactly what I thought. Just ‘pop a mask on, nothing to see here, it’s just a bit of cloth.’ No it is not normal and must be resisted! Just because you’re on a nice foreign holiday does not entitle you to try to get us to go along with other countries’ oppression and tyranny just because the weather is nicer, and it’s in a different language!
Or are we ‘Lockdown-only-slightly-sceptics’ now? MW
Just “pop it on” as if pressing your face into a filthy face-rag is a mild inconvenience, instead of a major health hazard. Fortunately, I saw a minister taking off his muzzle and putting it into his pocket for future use; here’s hoping the illness is a severe one.
Yes, I thought that when I read it.
It’s not only not normal, it’s dangerous because there is no good reason for it. Agreeing to do things that make no sense in the knowledge that they make no sense is extremely corrosive to our mental health and to the health of our society in general. It makes other stupid and irrational behaviour acceptable and more likely.
Agreed.
Someone asked a few weeks ago whether people would be so compliant if they were told by the government to go around with dog poo on their head because “Covid!”
They would do it.
And require us to do it.
Well said. That’s why I’m still boycotting – I’ve realised I don’t really need non-essential shops, as for bookshops, well, Amazon does offer free previews as well for browsing so its not been a problem.
The museums have been a bit of a challenge but I was born and spent the first 27-28 years of my life in a country that is sadly a cultural desert but I managed. I can do so again.
Yup, Edinburgh is pretty bad with the masks. On the plus side, I never wear one on the bus or train, in the supermarket or in high street shops, and have had no hassle from anyone at all. There are a few others who don’t. And, entertainingly, on the late trains all the people who have had a few drinks start taking them off. Maybe we need to aim for getting people drunk on the way into the supermarket.
Although not the man in charge of the Swedish response it’s good to remind ourselves of the thinking behind their approach. No wild claims, just a simple message (my emphasis below):
The invisible pandemic – Johan Giesecke
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext
It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect.
Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK’s experience with that of other European countries.
Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future —it will not prevent them. Admittedly, countries have managed to slow down spread so as not to overburden health-care systems, and, yes, effective drugs that save lives might soon be developed, but this pandemic is swift, and those drugs have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly. Much hope is put in vaccines, but they will take time, and with the unclear protective immunological response to infection, it is not certain that vaccines will be very effective.
In summary, COVID-19 is a disease that is highly infectious and spreads rapidly through society. It is often quite symptomless and might pass unnoticed, but it also causes severe disease, and even death, in a proportion of the population, and our most important task is not to stop spread, which is all but futile, but to concentrate on giving the unfortunate victims optimal care.
In a nutshell!
I pointed out in April the lack of a government strategy to get the country fully operational again post-lockdown, thinking at the time that it would be when, rather than if, a strategy was introduced.
Four months later and there is no coherent strategy in place – the government is still putting in arbitrary obstacles preventing the return to normality for people and businesses.
However, it’s become too easy for the government to introduce random knee-jerk measures without any kind of responsibility for the outcomes. These seem to be based on a “something-must-be-done” policy.
So, my suggestion is this:
From now on the default position has to be an immediate return to the “old normal” for people and businesses. If the government decides that it wants to bring in a particular restriction, be that geographic, or a business sector, or behavioural, or age-based, then a named government minister has to set out in writing specific reasoning for that measure.
This will state what facts are being used to justify why such a restriction is being put in place, for how long, (suggest a maximum of two weeks) and what the measurable benefits are. That document has to be signed by that minister who takes personal responsibility for the action.
As that initial period comes to an end that minister has to report on the success or otherwise of his action and justify the continuation, if any, of that restriction with data and analysis to support it.
This should also apply to every measure currently in place, such as social distancing, travel quarantine and mask wearing.
Without this change in direction we are subject to continual, arbitrary controls and restrictions, with no quantifiable measures of success, or government accountability.
That’s what should have happened from the start
The idea that locking down was the safe or standard response is the opposite of truth – it was the risky approach as it had never been done before
Hopefully Simon Dolan’s Judicial Review appeal will put an end to this nonsense.
The problem is that a judicial review can only judge whether an action is unlawful. Whether it is functionally reasonable is another issue.
Don’t count on it. The judiciary is becoming more and more unreliable at upholding human rights.
It is a coherent strategy if the objectives are a frightened confused populace and a global reset.
They aren’t going to reset me. Too late.
Absolutely; “never take away too much from someone, otherwise you will leave them with nothing to lose.”
Don’t be ridiculous Clarence! That’s far too sensible approach for this government to take. What on earth are you thinking??? !!! Ministers having to justify their actions and take personal responsibility? Never!
Wish you were Prime Minister!
Are we completely sure the government is in any hurry to return to normality?
I realise there may be a big overlap between Brexit supporters and sceptics and so may be sticking my neck out a bit here, but it could be that economic damage from this epidemic conveniently covers up any possible economic side effect of Brexit?
In the US it is being suggested quite openly that Democrat governors and mayors are unnecessarily extending lockdowns because a bad economic situation reduces Trump’s chances of reelection.
It is certainly not beyond politicians to put their personal interests before that of the population they are supposed to serve.
For Boris Johnson the calculation is simple. Politicians around the world are finding that there is little price to pay for being overcautious with the pretext of saving lives. But the responsibility for economic fall out from Brexit is entirely on him. If I was a self-serving politician, I know what I would do.
The government is not only not in a hurry to return to normality, they have no interest in doing so. Why on earth would they? They have almost limitless power, attention, lack of scrutiny and it’s all in the name of saving lives. What’s not to like, if you’re a power-hungry politician.
They will care about winning the next election, when it comes, and having enough money to buy the votes they need, but to think they have any interest in moving on or getting us back to normal flies in the face of all the evidence from their actions.
I have been offered to join the ONS survey, they’re offering £50 for the first test, and £25 for any subsequent tests.
Great. Another way to f*ck the poor. Those with money won’t bother; those in dire need will be happy of the extra cash.
Poor but not daft. I foresee many pets/fruits/vegetables being phoned up and told to isolate.
Won’t be surprised if someone takes the piss and tests a book say the Bible and it turns up positive as well.
Why would you want to take the test?
Too many false positives.
Paying you to take a test. It’s you the taxpayer who is paying with your hard earned cash. No such thing as a free lunch.
Don’t do anything they want. Ignore them. Make them cry and throw tantrums.
Take the money and test any pet, fruit or vegetables you may have nearby at the time.
My cactus has Covid,
My cactus is sick.
And if you’ll believe that
By God, you are thick.
The silliest sight
That I’ve ever een
Is my poor little cactus
Now in quarantine.
Possibly your best yet…
A cactus is for life not just covid
During the 2008 U.S. election campaign there was a woman who called herself suzycolorado. She was an expert at creating limericks about Sarah Palin. They were hilarious. You remind me of her. Keep up the good work!
Is that being paid for with magic money?
If it was the ONS I would cooperate and I don’t think they will quarantine you.
If it’s the government or Hancock’s new Waffen SS or whatever his new PPE replacement is called they’re getting swabs of cheese from the fridge.
Give them some Stilton.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a ………
If you do not have a temperature, or a cough, or an aching body then you don’t have covid
Anyone ever heard of asymptomatic flu? No? Why not do you think?
(a) Symptoms….positive test… symptoms ….hospital?…..treatment?…..recovery or death?
(b) No symptoms…..positive test,,,, no symptoms
(a) make sense
(b) makes no sense at all
Occam would require that it’s proved that the tests are accurate before it’s possible to move on to any other theory
You can have an asymptomatic infection with an influenza virus.
It’s not flu. It’s an asymptomatic infection. The same with SARS-COV2. You can be infected without having Covid.
This is true. I researched it when I heard how many people allegedly got flu each year and wondered why, in my late 40s, I’d managed to avoid it given its prevalence every year. And everyone always says “oh you KNOW when it’s flu. If you can pick up £20 it’s not flu” and I have never been THAT ill.
Reality is I have probably had it but asymptomatically. Or with very mild symptoms. Which was self-diagnosed as a cold.
So I propose we treat COVID like flu. If you’re well enough to pick up £20, then it’s just a cold. Otherwise it’s flu or COVID and you can PCR that if you are desperate. But otherwise just stay home with a lemsip.
Yes I learnt this from you the other day about the ~75% asymptomatic for flu. As you say it explains a lot.
i can’t find the Lancet link now, but this NHS link describes the study
https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/
That’s the one yes.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(14)70034-7/fulltext
I’ve saved the pdf now before I lose it again
Occam was a clever lad. The shmucks in the Johnson government are not.
This is getting surreal.
Old Normal: I feel ill so I go to see a Doctor. The doctor diagnoses me and recommends a cure. Or the doctor needs a test to help them diagnose me and then recommends a cure. If I might be infectious then I am also recommended not to go out so as not to spread the virus. Sensible.
New Normal: I feel fine. But I must wear a mask just in case I have the illness, even if a mask has zero demonstrated impact. Matt Hancock also tests me anyway just in case I have the virus too. The test then finds a fragment of a virus or potentially falsely diagnoses it. There is no “cure” needed because I am not ill but I must quarantine anyway. Based on multiple test results of this type and as a “precaution” the government then decides to close down whole cities. This is based on the possibility that all these well people with positive test results may pass on whatever has been found to other people, who might then become unwell.
At the same time, no one has been able to show with any sensible evidence that any of these government measures actually do anything to reduce the prevalence of the disease, even if it is still in circulation. We also know that these poorly thought through policies are all creating unwanted consequences that will cause death too.
This is sheer genius. Like something out of Kafka. It will never end until a little child notices that The Emperor is wearing no clothes. We have a test, fear and case pandemic.
Not “will cause death too” they are causing death.
Death merchants.
Meanwhile, if you feel ill you’re probably not going to be able to see a doctor …..
I have never experienced an Old Normal like that in the UK…usually it’s take paracetamol, stay hydrated, try honey & lemon etc. GPs basically play the odds and take a punt that you’re almost certainly not seriously ill. If it turns out you are and end up at A&E then you might get tested.
The only time I have ever been given any recommendations to stay isolated not to spread anything before now was norovirus.
This graph, produced by the Govt , shows the overstated deaths they have now accounted for. The red bits are the overstated ones. This is just another, unbelievable piece of manipulation they have been caught out on. https://t.co/yUIPWnt1l8
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1296093298331918336?s=09
Send it back to them and tell them to try harder next time.
It is so obvious what is happening. The health professionals don’t understand the virus and can’t account for the data. They have now become engaged in a quest to understand the virus, in a real world live experiment that coopts the entire population into the test. They have completely lost sight of the original objective.
We now have a £300 billion bill for something that, on the face it, happens normally with flu every few years.
If this were a business venture, the whole operation would have been shut down. As it is, they will probably all get knighthoods for services to public health.
There’s a good chance that £300 billion would have achieved a great deal more in terms of public health if spent on diabetes, obesity, cancer, education etc. This is pursuing a medical chimera for the sake of it, now.
I don’t think the medical chimera is being pursued for the sake of it, it is being pursued as part of a deeply cynical exercise to cover up the utter folly of the lockdown policy and to claim credit for “victory” over the second wave which doesn’t exist.
Rather more than a “good chance”, a dead cert.
Most doctors don’t understand how shit comes out of their own assholes. Hence why they perpetually have their heads rammed up there trying to figure it out.
Seriously though, there is a tiny handful of absolutely brilliant physicians in the world. The rest are excellent students who otherwise couldn’t figure out how to screw in a light bulb if a textbook didn’t break it down into 12 steps.
A question about PCR tests.
I’ve read that the tests-and they are legion, cannot differentiate between a fragment of dead virus, the result of someone being ill several weeks ago, and a living virus capable of reproducing and causing health problems.
If a positive test picks up a dead fragment of Coronavirus and that person is tested again in a couple of weeks, won’t there still be traces of the dead virus inside them and won’t they still test positive?
I’m trying to get my head around this.
The designer of the PCR test never thought it should be used for daignosis due to its limitations, but it still gets used anyway.
According to OffGuardian, fact checkers dispute this because he was talking about a test for HIV, even though it works in principle the same way for any virus.
The trouble is Handcock and Co are basing policy on a pretty rubbish test. Kary Mullis who invented the PCR reaction said it was never intended or suitable as a diagnostic test. An unknown false positive and false negative rate, picking up viral fragments as well as active viruses, no gold standard test to calibrate it with are just a few of the problems!
Does that mean it’s possible to keep on and on testing positive because they will keep on finding dead fragments of virus?
I think swedenborg linked to a study that found a maximum 83 days between symptoms and a positive test – because fragments were hanging around in the person’s nose.
Here it is: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.25.20162107v2
Maximum duration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding reported in URT, LRT, stool and serum was 83, 59, 35 and 60 days, respectively.
Nostrilitis?
Possible but unlikely. Very few tests are perfect. It’s all about probabilities.
The PCR test is about 70% sensitive and 99% specific. This makes it very useful in some circumstances but you have to be careful to interpret the results properly in the light of prior probabilities.
Fussing over asymptomatic positives when prevalence is very low at the end of an epidemic is meaningless and pointless. You get too many false positives.
The test is also no good for keeping covid out of a country that didn’t have it (like the NZ of Ardern’s imagination) because of the. 30% false negative rate.
Using the test as part of diagnosing covid in someone who had symptoms however could be very useful.
Essentially, a PCR test makes assumptions about the relationship of an RNA fragment and a live, infective virus.
The flaw is in not recognising that this is an assumption – that may not be correct in many cases.
Good point Margaret and something I’ve thought about too. It’s clear that there is something to be found otherwise countries showing low or no positive cases would be expected to return higher and non-zero numbers.
We should remain objective and not simply dismiss it as the test being useless.
The way I see it is that somebody testing positive today (usually younger and healthier) is not the same as somebody testing positive in March (older and ill enough to be hospitalised). However the government are acting as if they are the same.
That only applies if those countries that are returning low/ zero numbers are actually testing people in any sort of number.
If a country is sensible, such as Denmark or Finland, and requires the most rigorous proof of a covid death so they respectively and miraculously, end up with comparable or greater excess deaths than Sweden, which has much looser death certification protocols, whilst having fewer covid deaths, do you really think they would be so naive as to test the bollocks out of a perfectly healthy population? Sorry but I cannot see it. I think the Italians are being fairly cute as well.
Handcock is ramping up testing to try and “prove” the existence of a virus that has disappeared so he and his pig headed boss can claim credit for “beating” said virus.
It is extremely unlikely that there are no real infections in England.
My estimate is that out of the 600 or so positives they find per day around 40 are true positives (but the total number of people actually positive if you tested everyone is probably around 30,000, with 3000 new infections per day and about 3000 recoveries.)
So there are many more infections than they’re finding, but most of what they’re finding aren’t real infections.
It’s like looking for quite a lot of needles spread through a very large haystack. What you find is mostly straw but there are still a lot of needles in there.
So the argument is a little nuanced. They get all excited about the 600 which is both an overestimate (because only 40 are real) and an underestimate because the real number is more like 3000 (because they would need to test everybody to find them all).
And if you tested everyone, you’d find 45,000
I reckon they’d find about 300k if it was the government “Pillar 2” tests as it looks like they probably have about a 0.5% false positive rate. But we can’t estimate this very accurately as they don’t report important information like the asymptomatic ratio.
But that would be 30k new “cases” per day which is about the same as your 45k so yes that sounds about right.
300k? Jesus. They need to lock us down NOW – that’s more than in March!
You are quite right, unfortunately this could go on for weeks. I read about an old man in Wuhan, back in March or so, who had a positive test, showed no symptoms. He tested positive for several weeks, and unfortunately his whole block of flats therefor had to isolate, and he of course, too.
Yes but the longer you wait the less less and likely it becomes that you will test positive.
When you’re actually properly infected, a week or after catching the virus, you will have a 70% chance of testing positive. A couple of weeks after you’re better that drops to probably less than 1% and then continues to drop after that. Eventually, after several months, the chance will be almost zero. Everything’s getting gradually washed out of your body all the time.
Something really stood out to me in this piece. Worldwide devastation and…430 Australians. He, like most leaders, talk as if the only option was to self destruct in the process of avoiding this virus (not even attempting to manage it):
Global report: Australian PM backtracks on plan to make coronavirus vaccine mandatory
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/19/global-report-australian-pm-plans-to-make-coronavirus-vaccine-mandatory
With governments around the world anticipating resistance to compulsory inoculation from anti-vaxx groups and a sceptical public, Scott Morrison said on Wednesday morning in Sydney the aim was to get 95% of the population to have the jab and that he was “expecting” that it would be compulsory except on medical grounds.
“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make,” Morrison said in a radio interview. “We’re talking about a pandemic that has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world, and over 430 Australians. So, you know, we need the most extensive and comprehensive response to this to get Australia back to normal.”
Australia will never be back to normal at that rate.
Unless ‘normal’ means totally devoid of meaningful human rights.
They mean normal in Australia circa 1790.
Before the convicts first arrival?
They never have been normal, they’ve been winging it for hundreds of years.
Translation: we need to justify acting like shit-flinging morons. Better to risk severely damaging the population with barely tested vaccine than admit they fucked up. These people need to be skinned alive in a public forum.
over 430 Australians
Out of 26 million. Geez!
“Some people do not display symptoms when they are infected so the daily totals are an underestimate of the amount of infection that is around.”
See, this looks to be all wrong. I am currently working on a piece (to appear here: http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/ ) using an academic source that states that more than 90% of symptomatic cases show viral pneumonitis. Basically, if you’re infected with SARS-COV, as rare as that might be, you know about it.
If 90% of symptomatic infections had pneumonia I would expect the IFR to be much higher. This was a recent study in Iceland (where they did some of the most testing during the actual epidemic) reporting on the spectrum of symptoms:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.09.20171249v1.article-metrics
But whatever happens in 90% of symptomatic cases is not relevant to whether you would know you had it. That depends on how many cases are asymptomatic.
I’m interested in the rehearsal of this olsd chestnut :
“There are few among our political elite and the supporting Senior Civil Service who have STEM degrees “
… as an explanation of governmental incompetence.
It doesn’t stack up. Those with STEM degrees have been prominent in constructing the mythology leading to the Covid political measures.
There are plenty of ‘scientists’ who seem incapable of grasping the basics of scientific inquiry – a necessary precursor to judging ‘The Science’ in all its contradictory aspects. In short : remember masks; remember PCR testing.
For an illustration of the distinction, have a look at this illuminating argument :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7167&v=_1u_yworTco&feature=emb_logo
The BBC was constantly rolling out Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Adviser and Emeritus Professor in physical chemistry at the University of Cambridge, to argue that the lockdown should be sooner, harder and longer.
And the man responsible for incinerating millions of healthy animals on the basis of a, back of a fag packet, model supplied by another CU next Tuesday, Neil Ferguson….
You’re both spot on.
One of the real eye-openers of this Panicdemic has been the number of (obviously) technically accomplished holders of STEM degrees and doctorates who stumble around blindfolded in what should be the precursor : the nature of scientific method, examination of data, basic probability and logical analysis.
The most obvious example is that of Ferguson and Co. who played around with a black box computer model without validating at the most basic level either input or output.
You are missing the point. It is the job of the decision makers in receipt of the model output – ultimately the PM and Cabinet – to interrogate the model, dataset and output before making a decision. The ‘scientists’ often have an agenda – they are political animals – as do the funding bodies. It’s a bit like a City analyst with a ‘buy’ recommendation on a company whose investment bank employer is the main adviser to the company. As an investment institution do you take the analyst’s word without questioning whether his recommendation is tainted by the corporate relationship? Google Henry Blodget/Merrill Lynch.
It is just not realistic to expect a politician to evaluate conflicting scientific advice and reach an independent judgement. That’s what the senior civil servants should do. They should be able to provide two or more solid well-researched options, with simple decision criteria.
If you are being asked to make a decision of the magnitude of the one Johnson faced in March, I absolutely would expect any worthwhile leader to require considerably more persuasion than Johnson evidently needed.
What was the cost side of the cost/benefit analysis for lockdown?
Why was he unable to recognise at once that Ferguson’s bullshit failed to pass the most casual of sniff tests? Why was he unable to go outside the groupthink bubble of scientists and find credible voices to warn him how nonsensical it was?
You don’t need to check every step of a scientist’s calculations to raise questions and seek answers to them from independent sources.I’m not Mrs Thatcher’s hagiographer, but I don’t believe for a second that she would have allowed herself to be led by the nose by these second raters. I don’t think even Blair or Brown would have, either, unless they saw opportunities for personal and political profit in it. Wilson certainly wouldn’t. Not going to commit on Cameron, Major, Callaghan or Heath – they were all pretty half-witted themselves.
Thatcher would be too busy molesting kids with Savile and Dominic Lawson.
I think that Ferguson was used to give cover for the lockdown as the decision had already been made.
You cannot get a free pass on evaluating conflicting advice on something so fundamental to the future of the nation. A total abdication of responsibility, in my view.
Like a Data science or business analysis degree?
While it is clearly not the case that only STEM-based graduates are capable of holding the ‘scientists’ to account, it is almost certainly the case that those responsible for making decisions (Boris & Co) were lacking in the basic analytical skills and experience that tend to follow from a STEM-based background. In my view it is highly unlikely that Margaret Thatcher would have allowed the ICL ‘model’ to have been adopted without interrogating both the model and the dataset herself, and certainly would not have entrusted that task to someone such as Dominic Cummings’ interpretation of it.
“ the basic analytical skills and experience that tend to follow from a STEM-based background.”
Clearly such skills do not necessarily ‘tend to follow’. That has been comprehensively shown in this disaster (I’ll leave aside comments on Thatcher’s limited thinking skills
)
Which Government ministers, charged with the task of making political decisions, have STEM backgrounds and what examples are you using to cast Thatcher’s thinking skills as ‘limited’?
Yes. As discussed before you can have STEM or any other degrees and still be a muppet.
Perhaps the best example is Devi Sridhar. She is really a challenge to Hanlon’s Razor. Can she really be that stupid? Or perhaps just drunk on power now that she gets to be witch doctor in chief of Scotland.
I agree, but would also question Devi Sridhar’s STEM credentials (2 years of Biology between the ages of 16 and 18) before migrating to social policy.
Social Policy=Social Engineering.
Retail Report
Happy to report that a visit to my local filling station only resulted in one person masking up before entering the mini supermarket area to pay for fuel.
You would have thought someone driving a LandRover Defender would have been a bit more anti-mask, but obviously not, even the Waitrose driver paid for his fuel completely bare faced.
use a ‘pay at pump’ filling station – maybe the larger supermarket ones – i use tesco pay at pump to avoid having to go into the shop…
I’ve got no problem with anyone who wants to wear a mask, wearing a mask. They are just not for me, besides the people who run the cash registers at the fuel station will be out of work if we all go down the pay at till route.
Twitter has been used by the government to cause needless panic and slavish adherence to a futile and profoundly illiberal set of measures designed entirely for propaganda purposes.
How it works:
The government pushes out messages via ‘GDS’, the government digital service. Grovelling secret agent stool pigeon tweets tweet away across the land, racing each other to be the most obsequiously oleaginous in retweeting the ‘GDS’ propaganda and, hey presto, 17 million other tweets leap to the government’s every command
This secret society of government stool pigeons is secretly known by all the very secret people as the SSS (Soshlmija Stockholm Syndrome) but is really just a bunch of silly old tweets.
An early stool pigeon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPi76KvQF1g
We have to find a way to intercept the GDS messages and insert our own. Time for a new codebreaking initiative, like Enigma in WWII. Any Turing-like geniuses out there?
Out having a meal at a local restaurant here in a London last night because we were meeting with friends…arranged a long time ago and not because of Rishi’s so called incentive. Place packed, social distancing ignored, people queuing and waiting outside to get a table, no social distancing and no bedwetters. Celebs and media personalities there too also ignoring regulations enjoying life as it should be lived. The people are speaking.
Same in our pub, except no C.A.M.P
PS. How can you bear to be in the same room as ‘celebs and media personalities’ (whatever they are). I would not be able to stop vomiting
Always interesting to see their other persona.
Was drinking in Bloomsbury last week, total opposite experience. Zealots manning the doors, getting aggressive when you tell them you are opting out of track and trace, and their hand de-moisturiser. Got shouted at for standing around 3m away from an empty bar to see what beer they had. Was much worse than most places in the Midlands. In fact every place I went to claimed to have never had anyone opt out of track and trace, FFS Londoners, come on, sort it.
Most of population of Bloomsbury live in densely packed properties.
Well, they evidently are dense.
Bloomsbury is mostly a ghost town anyway. Hardly anyone lives there.
Just the ghosts from a hundred years ago.
Charles Mingus playing Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5PKZdR6w3Y
I love Mingus!
(Face) Rag Waltz would seem appropriate too?
“Midtown Manhattan, the center of business in NYC, is empty. Even though people can go back to work, famous office buildings like the Time-Life skyscraper are still 90% empty. Businesses have realized that they don’t need their employees at the office.
In fact, they’ve realized they are even more productive with everyone at home. The Time-Life Building can handle 8,000 workers. Now it maybe has 500 workers back.
….
NYC has never been locked down for five months. Not in any pandemic, war, financial crisis, never. In the middle of the polio epidemic, when little kids (including my mother) were becoming paralyzed or dying (my mother ended up with a bad leg), NYC didn’t go through this.
….
Summary: Businesses are remote and they aren’t returning to the office. And it’s a death spiral — the longer offices remain empty, the longer they will remain empty.
In 2005, a hedge fund manager was visiting my office and said, “In Manhattan you practically trip over opportunities in the street.”
Now the streets are empty. ”
This is similar to the conclusions drawn in discussions here about London. These two centres are perhaps going to be among the worst hit, because they are the places where the numbers and rents paid are among the highest. That’s going to take the stuffing out of some of the most highly valued property markets in the world, and it’s going to affect investment funds, insurance companies, pensions and many other businesses dependent on property management and office occupation.
We’ve barely seen the beginning of the consequences of the panic response to covid.
“This is not to say what should have been done or should not have been done. That part is over. Now we have to deal with what IS. “
All very well to say “time to move on and not argue about past mistakes”, but some of us might prefer not to let the perpetrators escape unpunished, and the lessons go unlearned, ready for the next potential health panic.
On the contrary, let’s absolutely talk about what should have been done, what should not, by whom, and why. Let’s first, not forget, and second, not forgive. Otherwise it will all happen again.
Exactly. We should say it again and again, loud and clear:
NEVER AGAIN
In mid March I was in my local (now closed and gone forever). It was after most companies had started at least trialing having all of their people working from home, but before everyone had been told to go home. At the bar was one of the regular barflies and we had a brief conversation. He worked (works?) on one of the trading floors of an investment bank and his whole floor was working from home.
Slight side-story, but relevant: an acquaintance of mine made an absolute fortune in the 00s. He had been a BT engineer and he had worked out how to shave nearly 2 seconds off the speed of an electronic trade. He then sold this improvement to the banks in succession at a fraction of a second each time. Goldman got 0.1 seconds, then Morgan Stanley got 0.2 seconds then Barclays got 0.3 seconds… and so on. He never needed to work again and I doubt his grandchildren will ever have to work because of how valuable those little 10th of a second parcels were to the investment banks. Faster trades are more profitable trades.
Anyway, I was surprised that a trading floor could possibly work from home and I said this. Nope. Not a problem. Everything was working just fine.
Another story. Up to only a very few years ago, it would be a regular occurrence to have to go into a client office, potentially to sit on my own in one of their meeting rooms, just so I could have a video conference with people who worked for that client in other parts of the world. Video conferencing systems just weren’t inter-compatible, you see. Today I had 3 video conferences with 3 different client organisations involving individuals in 7 different time zones and I did it on my laptop in my study at home.
I suppose that my point is that our domestic infrastructure- in major cities at least – seems to have got to the point where there are no technological bars to working from home. This has mostly happened without me noticing – until the last few months.
I’ve gone into the ins and outs and the implications of what’s happening with London here before and I hate it both on a practical and an emotional level, but I’ve become resigned to it.
The death of the major corporate office was always going to happen one day. What we’ve seen is an acceleration of the process by about 10 years in 5 months. I gather New York is pretty similar I gather Paris is not – La Défence, I’m told is nearly as bustling as it used to be (well, not right now, but was before the holidays and is expected to be again after la rentrée) Milan I haven’t had a chance to ask about yet. Madrid’s dead – but Madrid’s always dead in August. Why is Paris (ghastly hell-hole that it is) surviving while London is dying?
While it is surely possible – from a basic technical perspective – that traders, salesmen and analysts can all work from home (although high frequency trading depends on physical closeness to the server), I cannot see it being a sustainable proposition. Husband was a commodities trader and shares this view. I’m not sure how compliance works and then there is the inevitable need for interaction between sales and trading, between different bits of trading (cash and derivatives). It’s a good idea for analysts to be separate from sales and trading – Morgan Stanley put the analysts in their own rooms when it moved to Cabot Square in the early 1990s – as trading floor noise can be a distraction and impromptu interactions with investment bankers might be better in ‘private’. I had coffee yesterday with a friend whose husband is CEO of a bank, and he is on the verge of ordering everyone back to the office due to lack of communication (those bits that matter, but which cannot be communicated on Zoom calls etc). Knowing salesmen and traders, my bet will be on the desire to be back in the office by September – the run up to bonus time will focus the mind!
Proximity to the server is certainly an advantage, in the same way that physical proximity to the exchange used to be an advantage when communication relied on runners, but I wonder whether massively increased connection speeds are limiting that advantage.
You make a good point about compliance – it must, surely be a worry. But what you say is encouraging. I walked from Blackfriars to Aldgate a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday. I probably saw about 200 people – and almost all of them were standing outside pubs. I gather Lloyds has one floor operating. All of the offices looked empty.
Trading floor politics heats up on the run-up to Christmas – out of sight, out of mind – they will be heading back soon, fear not!
Ex analyst here. Compliance is a big issue, but the bigger one in what is essentially a gussied up sales job, is that client interaction is now all virtual. And though you can sustain existing relationships remotely, it’s incredibly hard to build new ones. Or train juniors. This will be the death of what is, at the end of the day, a relationship driven business.
Agree. I was also an analyst, and team lead. Terrible for the next generation. Internal ‘chatter’ for sales and trading is important for capturing the other side of trades etc. Yes, also, how do you get new business.
My role is sales focused and I completely agree. Luckily for me, most of my relationships are established, so it’s not the biggest worry, but people move roles and it is next to impossible to really build a relationship with someone you’ve never met face to face.
Remote working is great for mid-career and upwards, but you can’t train people remotely. I can see many jobs turning into two or three days a week in the office having meetings, mentoring junior colleagues and team building, with the remainder wherever you wish, be that in the office or at home. How this will be staggered across the working week and across organisations is the interesting bit. I can see busier than old normal on Tues, Wed, Thurs due to everyone wanting to avoid commutes near the weekend. This may then even out over time as public transport gets more crowded mid-week. It will also be interesting to see how easy it is to stagger days in the office between working parents. Oh, and the train companies will resist 2-days-per-week season tickets, as it will hit them hard.
Funnily enough, this is what I suggested to my team today, from September. We have new starters who are struggling (how do you learn an organisation remotely?! You can’t), juniors who need to watch and learn, but most of all I need my external contacts to be able to meet face to face again. Ridiculously we can only meet in bars and restaurants now. Hard to discuss sensitive corporate matters in those settings.
Good points, and an interesting discussion from all the contributors in this sub-thread. Bandwidth is clearly a key (as indeed the writer quoted, James Altucher points out) but how the issues raised concerning limits to home working for finance workers will be dealt with will determine how quickly things go downhill I suppose. A lot of jobs are going to be AI’d anyway, I suspect, mid-term, as we move towards the mooted “singularity”..
The thing is that there is a huge difference between a slow shift allowing new interests to emerge, and the crash change we have just seen as a result of the coronapanic. Altucher points out the loss of so many of the other attractions of living in NY, all the cultural and social highlights. With those in place, it would be much easier to attract new people in and to sustain the city economy, but with such an abrupt crash, and if a lot of those are unable to reestablish themselves, it seems likely there might be real depressions in store for these cities.
Good question as to how Paris, Milan, Madrid will go. Frankfurt also.
Perhaps the cities that are also seats of government rather than just business and cultural centres will fare better? So London, Paris, Madrid, better than NYC, Frankfurt, Milan?
Pfft to Frankfurt. I lived there for 4 years – it’s a village by comparison with the others. Population of 650,000 and it’s a cultural desert, with nothing to recommend in its architecture either (the alte Oper is quite nice, but that’s about it). Most of its 2M working population live in the villages of the Taunus hills surrounding it.
London is unusual on that list because there’s such a stark divide between City, West End and Westminster. I assume that the West End will revive at some point, but I suspect it will be slow. If Tigress is right, there’s hope for the city because once the banks go back, it will force life back. Actually, if the banks start standing up and saying “bollocks to social distancing, you’ll all be at your desks by 8 and you will like it” that could make a very quick difference.
Speaking to a client at a… er… major tech manufacturing firm the other day, they’ve been told that white collar jobs won’t be expected back in the office until at least June of next year. Globally. I’ve had no indication that my company is opening any of its UK offices, well, ever, actually, but I assume it will happen at some point.
Met a chap last week who had been working from home as IT Support for provincial police HQ. He’d just been promoted to the single role that required his actual presence on site, not a happy bunny.
The Mayor of New York is a criminal.
Not going to contest that one…
I will never forgive the bahaviour of the various authorities responsible for this. Northamptonshire police threatening to search your trolley. Derbyshire police screaming at people to go back home instead of walking in the fresh air. Council staff in the Wirral trying to forbid people from walking round a seaside pool.
And where on earth do I begin with the reasoning behind stopping people from using indoor swimming pools! FFS, they are bathing in disinfectant!
Boris reminds me of another favourite story of mine. The General Election win must have made him feel like a god, but he bleeds like any man:
The Man Who Would Be King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_King_(film)
Both sides take him to be a god, though in fact the missile was stopped by his leather bandolier. Victory follows victory, with the defeated added to the ranks of the swelling army. Finally, nobody is left to stand in their way and they are summoned to the holy city of Sikandergul by the high priest of the region. He sets up a re-enactment of the arrow incident, to determine whether Dravot is a man or a god by seeing whether or not he bleeds. When his shirt is torn open, they are amazed to see the masonic tag around his neck. It contains the sacred symbol left by Sikander (their name for Alexander the Great), who had promised to send a son to rule over them.
Hailing Dravot as king as well as god, they show him the royal treasury, which is full of unimaginable amounts of gold and jewels that are now all his. Carnehan suggests that they leave with as much loot as they can carry as soon as the snows have melted on the mountain passes. Dravot, however, is beginning to enjoy the adulation of the locals, settling their disputes and issuing laws, and even dreams of visiting Queen Victoria as an equal. He is also struck by the beauty of a girl called Roxana, the name of Alexander’s wife, and cancels their pact to avoid women, saying he will marry her in order to leave the people an heir. When she is reluctantly brought to him, he tries to kiss her, but she, terrified that the touch of a god means death to a mortal, bites his cheek. Seeing him bleed, the people realise he is only human and try to grab the English impostors.
Got the DVD, second hand.
A few weeks back I mentioned the shop & post office at Ranworth Staithe, in Norfolk. I paid another visit today and was rather concerned to see 2 metre distancing stickers and a couple of handwritten notices asking people to wear a mask. I walked straight in, bought an ice cream and asked the owner if he had been “Got At” since my last visit – his reply: “Yes”. He then told me someone from the council had turned up and proceeded to lecture him for several minutes about all the things he needed to do, before the owner pointed out to said “official” that he was NOT wearing a mask! Apparently that was the end of the visit, and he’s just complied to keep them off his back. He doesn’t, however, give a damn whether customers follow “The Rules”…
One of the bosses that I once worked for explained to me, as a youth, that “Rule are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men”
North Norfolk District Council officials have been doing the same to publicans and shop keepers around Stalham and North Walsham.
I have been saying this for the last two years; we are gradually reducing our compliance with all laws/rules/official advice. Since the EU really got going, we have become more and more like France; the centre makes laws/rules/gives “advice” and the French ignore the lot.
The UK, once a place of almost complete probity as far as police, customs & excise, taxes, consumer law, is gradually losing all of this. Watch out for the HMRC being caught letting drugs through for a kickback. That will be the beginning of the end.
Whether you feel this is a good or bad thing, of course…
Presumably you’ve seen the bemused Spanish doctor trying to explain to the news anchor that they might be blowing things out of proportion a tad
https://youtu.be/SwlkumcRf6w
This clip has made my day. It is quite brilliant. I imagine the poor doctor has probably lost his job for speaking the truth…
Loved the way the female presenter had to bring in a colleague to help out. The doctor just ploughs on bless him.
Male interviewer: “We’ve lost control, haven’t we?”
I loved that moment. Don’t know about Spain, maybe it happens more there, but here our TV pundits are not used to articulate people with balls to stand up for themselves – they simply don’t know how to handle it. It reminds of the moment on Question Time when Hitchens said Cameron hated his own supporters (which was obviously true). The look on Justine Greening’s face is priceless.
It’s the moment casinos change the dealer when a punter is winning too much.
Bless him…..he just destroyed those two news anchors.
The best of only having access to only the first part of articles is a blessing as it could stop reading more of the nonsense. There were two references today by Toby to Spectator Ross Clark about why we were not wearing face masks during the height of epidemic and why now.
But it is not that he is against face masks. He is lauding several countries in Europe which made face masks compulsory early and suddenly couple them with low mortality. He has no idea what he is writing about. There are much more appropriate examples just now of enormous outbreaks despite facemasks in Peru, Argentina etc. Also, the European countries he quoted are many, ironically, experiencing quite more cases now like Greece and Czechia. This apart from the blind admiring of Asian countries having success with facemasks is utter nonsense as they have been hit with influenza like everybody else. This apart from Ross Clark’s complete ignorance that there is no evidence that face mask work for protecting against virus or stopping transmission.
These journalists, late comers to lockdown sceptic having fun of the inconsistency with the UK advice about masks doesn’t impress me, if it is based on such bad judgements.
The other article by Chis Snowdown about PHE seems also rather cheap and shallow. That is probably a much more complex issue. Naturally the leaders of PHE have done mistakes like the death data but PHE was correct in not advising masks which Snowdown now thinks is a good idea. There are rumours that PHE was a scapegoat convenient now because of the death data but there could be more interesting disagreements. PHE is a bureaucratic organisation with bureaucrats at the top but down under there are still may able bodied persons well versed in communicable disease control. It was absolute correct to stop contact tracing when the numbers went up fast. The same thing was done in the swine flu pandemic abandoning contact tracing when the numbers explode. It is impossible to do, in such a situation, whatever this professional journalist’s opinion. People in the know further down in the organization might not have agreed to the government mad mass testing scheme and there are multiple rumours about this. It is convenient now for the government to scrap the only body which might have dissenters.
I loathe this government, but what do you expect them to do? PHE failed abysmally. They seem to be run by the same sort of people that run the National Trust now. Woke, interfering, overpaid agitators for controlling and improving the pleb’s lifestyle, rather than protection and preservation which is their remit.
But below in PHE there is a big group of experts in communicable disease control
which seem to have not agreed with mass testing and that could be a hidden excuse to get rid of it.But otherwise agree that the top is abysmal but the worst thing was that persons in communicable disease control was not in control of PHE
There was a very interesting link posted yesterday by Carrie about PHE:
https://twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1295080660923801600
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/08/18/latest-news-107/#comment-93595
Supports the purge of dissenters idea.
If you haven’t you must watch the interview with the Spanish doctor linked to by Toby. A priceless take down of the hysteria-generating newscasters.
Muy bien. Although I feel the good doctor might not get invited back, and the YTS assistant that put him forward may be before The Inquisition as we speak. And NOBODY expects ….
He was brilliant,and a bit of honest speaking really annoyed the make journalist, didn’t it?
Toby also linked this blog yesterday. Well worth the read if you didn’t catch it. Sums up the mass hysteria whipped up by MSM brilliantly.
https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/08/the-broadcast-media-has-disgraced-itself.html?m=1
No excuse? How about working in a hellish dystopia of his creation surrounded by undead order followers in face nappies?
Assuming masks are permanent, I for one will never be setting foot in a corporate office again.
Face nappy zombies. Ugh!
I’m interested in the piece by the Covid Civil Servant. The amazing thing is that it is normal in the higher echelons of the Civil Service for people to move departments fairly regularly. Thus Sally Collier has been Chief Regulator of Ofqual since 2016. Her previous roles include:
She showed her mettle in the A level algorithm debacle and she’s had 3 years in the current job to acclimatise. Imagine how effective she’d have been if the music had stopped just before the Covid effluent hit the fan rather than in 2016 and she’d just moved to Ofqual!
It got me thinking about applying this principle of musical departmental chairs to other walks of life. I was an NHS GP for 35 years. I now work as a Racecourse Medical Officer, providing pre-hospital trauma care to Jockeys- I previously combined the two roles. But to be a GP involves 3 years of training on top of the 6 years at Medical School plus 1 year of “house jobs” and the trauma care requires attending a specialised course accredited by The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. How would it be if I were to be moved to cardiac surgery or neurosurgery next week? Not convinced the patients would benefit.
Can you imagine James Dyson hiring someone who’d studied PPE to engineer his vacuum cleaner, or JLR to take on a Modern Languages graduate to design a new electric drive chain? No me neither!
But it’s apparently OK for Civil Servants and indeed Ministers to move around from one Department to another at neither of which they have any clue what they are doing. Hancock is demonstrating this very well as is Gavin Williamson. They are both clearly out of their depth and almost certainly being advised by career civil servants who are in a similar state of (un)grace!
I bet you could wing it as the CMO in Scotland though – he’s a dentist!
Don’t know the Scottish chap but don’t suppose I could do a worse job than Chris Whitty- I don’t live in an Ivory Tower and I’m not a mate of Ferguson’s!
The writer says “It is fashionable for civil servants to claim that you do not need specialist knowledge to solve a complex problem”, but in truth my impression is that this was always the philosophy in the top levels of the civil service through the halcyon years of the mid-C20th. Elite and classically educated high performers were expected to be able to turn their hands to whatever task was required, and expertise was available in the lower ranks when needed.
I’m sure you are right. However but be able to take advice from someone in the lower ranks you have to be able to grasp the subject matter. Not convinced that the senior civil servants at the DoH with their Greats or PPE degrees from Oxford who are advising Hancock & Co have any clue about science (otherwise Ministers wouldn’t be talking about The Science as if there were such a thing)!
Traditionally, civil servants came from Cambridge. The politicians came from Oxford.
Perfect synergy. The Fen Polytechnic and The Eton Middle Common Room!
This is the heart of the problem, and we really need to get to the bottom of this. It creates a breed of people who manage problems, not solve them.
Prime example is NHS Digital. Have a look at the bios of the leadership. Extraordinary!
Yes, but the Chief Exec Sarah Wilkinson was Head Girl of her school and was a member of the advisory board of The Computing Department at Imperial College……
Report from South of France. It’s good news and bad really.
Good news is that in France anti-social distancing is totally ignored. There are 1m markers on the floor but everyone completely ignores them. Saw one outdoor restaurant with screens between tables but that was the exception. In most French towns, muzzles are mandatory everywhere, but perhaps 30-40% ignore this (but it varies at different times, almost like a chain reaction of non-compliance). The town I am in introduced muzzles shortly before I arrived, and for the first day or two the busy bodies kept telling you that you needed a muzzle, but they don’t bother now as it is a lost cause.
Sit down at a restaurant or bar, indoors or out and the muzzles can come off – Covi knows not to attack. Public transport has no distancing, trains are packed with Parisians heading south for the holidays.
Bad news is that in shops, indoor attractions and public transport you have to wear your muzzle. Wearing it below the nose doesn’t seem a problem though. Also market areas mandate muzzles. Saw some police politely asking a market shopper to wear their mask, it’s not agressively enforced as far as I can see, so long as you have a muzzle with you.
We did go to one little town on the coast and that seemed far more rebellious. There, hardly anyone wore muzzles, even some of the shop keepers. The authorities shut businesses down for non compliance so these people are really defiant.
It feels as though the French are more aware of the nonsense than the British. Their government isn’t as weak and pathetic as ours, for example they have no muzzle exceptions, where in the UK the government have made it possible for pretty much anyone to be exempt. The French are compliant for now but it feels more likely to swing to disorder than the UK. Superior BBC brainwashing seems to have paid off.
Funniest covid madness moment was a woman removing her muzzle to saturate it in her alcohol gel. Wonder how long before a smoker manages to self-immolate via this accellerant strapped to their snout. Again, there is going to be some contention to win a Darwin award this year, so many applicants.
Overall I would still recommend a holiday in the south of France, even though the madness is here, the lack of anti-social distancing is a pleasant experience.
The French have access to the videos of Professor Didier Raoult, of hydroxychloroquine fame. Some of these get over a million views. I don’t think in the Anglo Saxon world there is any medical doctor with the stature of Professor Raoult who is actually involved in treating patients. I believe it was Professor Raoult who advised Macron to insist that French children went back to school for two weeks before the summer holidays. He has to be careful though and not advocate any actual law-breaking because the other members of the horrible scientific council would like nothing better than to bring him down.
Wonder how long before a smoker manages to self-immolate via this accellerant strapped to their snout.
That is just a ridiculous suggestion. And entirely possible.
I shall not sympathise.
You may also get rather drunk from the alcohol fumes if you do that.
Maybe that was the intent?
I see that an entire primary school class in Glasgow along with their teacher is to self-isolate for fourteen days after a pupil tested positive for covid. The kids are to be issued with iPads for remote learning. And Nicola Sturgeon has decided to extend the Aberdeen lockdown for a week against the wishes of the council leaders. Amid all this, support for independence has risen to 54 per cent. Comments in The National all take the view that the Aberdonians have nobody but themselves to blame. They shouldn’t have gone to the pub while the killer virus was raging.
Expect this in every school, come September. I think in England, 2 tests will equal an ‘outbreak’ and bingo! Oh, the hapless fools, eh? MW
Many of those pub-goers will have been teachers. I missed my chance on Monday but am highly recommending anyone who does see a teacher in a pub in the next few weeks, to takes a picture.
Just Say No.
Sheep Report
Went to do my weekly shop. Central Shopping centre.. Very disappointed to see so many people wearing masks – not just in the shop but between shops. Aldi no problems being unmasked.
Also visited building society. Had to wait by the entrance. There was hand sanitiser and posters but no suggestion i needed to use it. Told to go stand on the marker inside to wait for cashier. Staff all unmasked. I was unmasked. no problem.
The Horrendous Damage of Lockdown
https://www.patreon.com/posts/horrendous-of-40392196?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=postshare&fbclid=IwAR03Cyt4Yn72M3JItfQfT0Oc9kWcyvJqFWEvWZn1GaKWVTQkA8NHv9HqdyQ
A telling piece with links to the effects of LD on health, education, poverty and abuse.
We’re often told that prevention is better than the cure. How does that square with the destruction of economies around the world?
If the economy wasn’t important in the first place then why are they trying to rescusitate it now?
If it is important then why did they wreck it?
We’re also often lectured about the “precautionary principle”, but somehow that didn’t apply to an unprecedented global gamble with the economy and the societies that all our lives and well-being depend upon, in the face of a disease we already knew from experience in China and elsewhere was nothing more than a bad flu epidemic at worst..
All I can see is further destruction.I.e.
Arbitrary quarantines and face masks in shops.2 decisions that look like purposeful destruction of whole sectors
A good start
You make it seem like he doesn’t know what he is doing. He does. He’s got used to bossing people around and doesn’t want to stop.
Reminder to sign petition (already 81,182 signatures)
Prevent any restrictions on those who refuse a Covid-19 vaccination
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/323442
Thanks for re-posting. I’ve signed, but the link needs to be put in front of the readers here as often as possible.
Expect you’ve already done this but if you could contact Hitchens, Dolan, Luke Johnson, Hugh Osmond, Peter Ebdon, Matt le Tissier on Twitter, they all have lots of followers and could re-tweet
I’ve heard that mask exempt badges and lanyards are being handed out, for free, at Morrisons in Huddersfield. I will try and check out this story tomorrow.
They’re following in the footsteps of Tesco and Sainsbury’s who have been handing out the sunflower lanyards for hidden disabilities.
Likely they were losing business to Tesco and Sainsbury’s, hence this move..
Very likely as well given the amount of social media shaming that Morrisons were subjected to after horror stories of unmuzzled customers being turned away or being asked for a doctor’s note.
they should hand them out to all their floor staff too.
poor buggers
I’ve spoken to a lot of staff in supermarkets they are in the main hugely ignorant and misinformed (media I guess)
younger ones in my experience don’t even seem or appear to be able to contemplate the idea of NOT wearing a muzzle
Shops beginning to cotton on that mask wearing is not in their best interest?
On line grocery shopping since the face nappy rules, is a revelation. I have two weeks to refine selections to the absolute essentials which has reduced the spend by nearly twenty percent which I spend in the butchers, fishmongers and small greengrocers. Tesco’s loss is the independent shops gain.
I had a customer yday, female with her son(?), wearing sunflower lanyards, and the boy had a sign attached to it, she not. I was about to ask if they are “exempt lanyards”, but she was wearing a muzzle. Confused…
‘Morality pills’ may be the US’s best shot at ending the coronavirus pandemic, according to one ethicist
http://archive.is/xLDLG
This idea would backfire in a hilarious way.
Let’s imagine a world in which opponents of restrictions were indeed given this selflessness-maximising psychoactive substance to “correct” their behaviour. And we’re not going to use the weak, vague suggestions given in the article, but instead an absolutely flawless substance that only maximises selflessness and has no other effects.
Well… you’ve made a few million people perfectly selfless, but you’ve not made them rewrite their views of the restrictions.
There is indeed a tragedy of the commons issue, except the political campaigning one matters here. All “supporters” of some position wants that outcome but they don’t individually want to do the heavy lifting to achieve it. Time commitment, financial commitment, and in the case of culture war charged issues, willingness to lose family, friends, jobs etc. Giving a few million anti-restriction people the maximum selflessness pill, the only thing you would ensure is their inevitable political domination when they all sell their house and start pulling 22 hour days to bring an end to whatever issues they think are the greatest causes of human suffering, which is quite likely to be the coronavirus-related restrictions.
Any ‘ethicist’ promoting the idea of something like that has no idea what ethics are.
DavidC
I haven’t seen this posted already on here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53820225
It claims this is one example of misinformation being shared online:
“2.4 million views for an article claiming quarantine harmed public health”
Lots of reputable sources including mental health charities would say otherwise and claim that is a very true statement.
But dont you realise that what the BBC says is like the Koran. Every word is true and cannot be contradicted
Posting the Plan B videos again because they’re great and aren’t getting much press. https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/videos/
So have I got this right? Boris, in order to save his own sorry arse, is planning two more years of emergency powers.
The Nazis needed a fire at the Reichstag as a pretext for suspending their democratic institutions indefinitely.
Johnson only needed a cold.
Yes – but that’s just for starters of course!
Sorry, has that been announced officially? If so I have missed it..
It’s in Toby’s content. “And finally…”
More loony bollocks from my bf’s university.
He’s just received more details of his accommodation’s Covid policy and his ‘social bubble’ of 15 people. If anyone in that bubble tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 (regardless of whether they have symptoms, so it would be a ‘positive’ case only and not an actual infection, like we’re seeing with all these bloody ‘spikes’ around the country) then the entire bubble has to isolate for 14 days. They are not allowed to leave their rooms for any reason, not even food shopping or exercise, and because he’s in catered accommodation, food will be brought up to him. He knows of another accommodation block which is self-catered and they have been told that the university will not bring them food, instead they have to stock up like a nuclear bunker if one member of the bubble tests positive and they have to isolate.
My bf is paying over £7000 (yes, that’s how much his accommodation costs for the year) for the privilege of potentially being in a fucking prison. This is just utterly insane. I can’t even begin to imagine how physically and mentally unhealthy it is for young people not to get any exercise for or even fresh air for two weeks. This is one of the things which has really pissed me off about this whole ‘pandemic’ – rather than focusing on individual risk and how the individual can reduce that risk by eating healthily, exercising and getting enough sleep, thereby strengthening their immune system, the focus has all been on draconian measures which have been dreamt up by an OCD sufferer which are actually detrimental to health, such as locking healthy people away. Total madness.
It’s called fascism.
Just say no
I hear you! My daughters are in the same boat. One is going back to her university town on Friday and will be under house arrest for 2 weeks. We’re paying local folks to keep her in groceries so she doesn’t starve (she’s in her own apartment). The other is a teacher candidate who is supposed to be back in the classroom 2 days a week. She just moved and lives alone and is terrified — not of the virus — of being under house arrest if a kid tests positive. We’d have to come back to the city from our country place and take care of her food needs for 2 weeks. She’s a student teacher, so no pay if she can’t do her paid work as a tutor. I hate being here but we only have 1 car so I can’t be left alone in the country with no car. She’s hoping she can do her practicum online, but we’ll have to wait and see what her university says. Meanwhile, the government, school boards and teachers’ unions are still fighting about how to open schools in a few weeks so we’re not sure if/when kids will even be back in the classroom. Oh, and it’s mandatory masks for all! Just another reason I don’t want her in a classroom. I feel for your bf — this is total lunacy.
How awful, it’s just a total mess isn’t it? All these restrictions cause everyone so much grief and inconvenience for no good reason. My bf reckons universities are introducing these fascist restrictions in order to stay marketable to international students (big cash cows for unis) who may have come from countries with draconian measures, such as China, and be expecting the same restrictions here. Since when did a Western democracy model itself on a communist dictatorship?
Since 23rd March in U.K.
Since when were British universities staffed by bedwetting morons?
Since the Soviets infiltrated the HE institutions in the 60’s…….
Since they were turned into businesses rather than centres of academic excellence.
Who is going to check they are not leaving accomodation?
Nobody checks if people quarantine after coming from Spain.
Yes, I can see a lot of Googling SAS sneaky-beaky videos on how to exfiltrate your accommodation and then infiltrate back in afterwards. Extra points for getting a carry-home pizza back without anyone smelling it.
AND NO, it’s not irresponsible; a face-mask will protect all other people perfectly, the government says so!
Since about March. I honestly can’t see these mental measures lasting for very long. When I was of university age, (late 80’s) these rules would have lasted about half a day with a lot of the students I met and the idea they could be enforced would have been just silly.
These days…hummm I heard from a lady I know who has kids in a school, aged about 11 or so, her child got detention FOR WEARING THE WRONG COLOUR SOCKS…perhaps this is why they know students will follow the rules, especially if they come from China or somewhere else that is very authoritarian.
A nasty situation for sure. I don’t know what I would do. If it was my first year, a no brainer, defer until madness goes away but if it was my last year I would feel compelled to stick it out. WOW, this really is just madness, the idiots really are in charge now.
I’ve been shocked at the draconian detentions that were handed out to my (very well-behaved) granddaughter once she started secondary school.
Presumably they’re not allowed to do lines any more, so they are kept after school, which means the parents who picked up younger siblings 90 minutes earlier, have to trail back to collect the 11 year-olds – or ask Grandma to do a detention taxi run.
The silly thing is that surely writing out “I must remember my PE kit” 100 times would be more effective than just getting your homework done in school.
Since it ceased to be a democracy.
If I were him I would withdraw from the university course with immediate effect. It’ll only serve to saddle him with unrepayable debt and whatever qualification he is aiming for will be worthless in a dystopia. Plus by the sound of it he is seriously endangering his physical and mental health purely by virtue of attending.
Fortunately it is his final year in the hellhole. His parents have paid for part of it so he isn’t in as much debt as the average student. He feels the need to struggle through until the end but I have begged him to consider living at home or with me and then commuting given how most of the course is online now.
Ultimately it’s his call. Thinking back to my student days I cannot imagine having to face a nightmare like this at such a young age.
If we can somehow get through this and come out the other side with our humanity, I think your generation may end up being considerably tougher than all its predecessors going back as far as WW2.
I was at boarding school in the 1970s and believe you me we found a way of getting out of the building at night. Subversion and escapism might not be the best way to tackle this, but I cant imagine all those healthy athletic students actually staying put.
No CCTV in the 70s though.
For his mental health I think he would be better off living at home or with you!
He’s probably better getting out of that hall or residence, errrr, prison.
Sadly the university imposes a hefty fine for backing out of its accommodation. Still if I were him I’d pay that fine to dodge this dreadful fascist bullet and live at home but I think he’s worried about running up cost in train tickets to uni for his (few) contact hours, plus he lives quite a way away from the uni so it’s not terribly practical unfortunately.
You and your boyfriend have my sympathy. Unfortunately he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. If money were no object, I’d happily help out.
Tell him to use Open University or another online degree instead.
Cheaper and more respected way of doing it.
Plus he can still work and earn money to pay the fees.
Yet another unintended consequence. If everything is now online, then why not? I can see an enormous destruction of the better Universities, as the only reason to go there was to “sit at the feet” of a master in your subject. If you can’t do that, you might as well do the whole thing online at infinitely less expense.
Agree the OU is just as good, if not better, Studied with them myself.
I worked in the HR department of a University, a six week temp position that was extended to over a year covering different desks.
In recruitment once, we had an application from a gentleman with 11 GCSEs at A, 4 A Levels at A and a First from Oxford in Classical Studies. I knew such people existed (Morse, anybody?), but never saw the paper proof before. He had applied for an associate lecturer position (you go on the books but may never be called).
I knew from the start he had zero chance at an interview, let alone a cruddy zero hours job.
If you want an eye opener, check out the academic achievements of the lecturers. 2nd class degrees and strings of BCD grades.
Ostensibly, this is so lecturers can identify with students who struggle with the subject. In reality, the staff can be cowed.
Universities have gone the way of big business. It’s mostly about turnover.
As an undergraduate, you don’t sit at the feet of the master, you get nudged along by academic mediocrity.
A cast-iron reason to drop out.
Start over. Study with the Open University instead.
They can’t imprison you. And they have years of experience in distance learning. And their tutors are brilliant. I used to be one, which proves it!
I think if he were starting uni now he would do this, but he’s in his final year now so he reckons that he may as well tough it out until the end. He got a First in his second year results and is doing a valued degree at a top UK institution, so it should be worth it, but what degree is going to be worth the paper it’s printed on in the economic armageddon that approaches us?
If he found himself in the situation where he was supposed to quarantine, he could go straight home or to you and work from there, as it would make no difference to his classes.
The people in his bubble need to set up an early warning system between themselves.
Is this his first year at uni? If so, I really feel sorry for him, and the other students who are forced to accept this, and all the other garbage, that’s being thrown at them, including so-called “virtual freshers’ week” – FFS. If I were a student hoping to start uni this year I’d be taking a gap year, without a doubt.
Sorry, I see from other posts it’s his final year. Best bet is to ignore the “rules”, and don’t agree to any testing.
Boycott.
The idea of locking you up indoors, is to ensure that you reduce your vitamin D3 levels to a dangerous level, so that the mild flu-like disease will kill you instead, or cripple you for life.
So Australia will be amongst the first to get the vaccine and the Prime Minister wants to make it mandatory. We’ve had so few deaths and cases so the harsh restrictions so it would make more sense to give it to a hard hit country. It’s a catch-22 for the sheep because they don’t want to get a rushed, mandatory vaccine but what the f did they think the end game was. The Premier of Victoria has hinted that lockdowns will be extended because not enough people aren’t getting tested so goal post no. 57 has been shifted. Maybe the reason for less testing is because you restricted people’s movements and closed everything and an increase in cases is an excuse for them to lock us down further.
It is easier to travel between countries in Europe than it is to travel between states in Australia because of the border closures.
Two questions today. Is the tear supposedly shed by St Jacinda because she broke the NZ constitution, or is it because she got found out?
And secondly where is Boris? Has he slipped across the border for a holiday in Scotland and been incarcerated by the Scottish fishwife in the dungeons of Edinburgh castle in some belated reprisal for what happened to the young Mary? Or has the strain of presiding over the most monumental breach of human rights in England since the Normans harrying of the north, finally caused him to lose what sanity he had left and now the country is being run by Gloss Footballs? (think opposites).
Either way I wouldn’t shed a tear.
The brain replacement has led to rejection symptoms as Bozo’s body is not used to any (even evil) thought processes.
We rebellious Northerners had at least given the bastard Normans cause to quell us by salting our fields.
De Piffle, on the other hand has no such excuse – unless this is his idea of levelling up.
Another hard to swallow Chinese article used to say that asymptomatic transmission possible
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11427-020-1661-4.pdf
They describe 24 patients but in the discussion “These asymptomatic cases were mildly ill”.Another startling contradiction “None of the 24 cases developed severe pneumonia as of Feb18, 2020, and only 5 cases showed typical symptoms during hospitalization” Also these 24 patients were all treated with antiviral medication many with side effects. Doubts that anyone really was an asymptomatic. They then describe the transmission. Not convinced they can prove that (Case 13) really was transmitting the disease to his wife during a hospital visit. There is no discussing of an alternative route of infection as a plausible explanation. A serious author would have gone in to much more detail to exclude that.
In short very thin data to say that asymptomatic (they all were still mildly ill!) really proved that they transmitted.
I was amused to see this article today: https://www.metro.news/quack-and-trace-as-pub-bars-donald-duck-locals/2116636/
Annoyingly, I can’t find an e-mail address for the pub. My good friend, Jethro Q. Walrustitty, would like to give them a piece of his mind.
Well, it is reassuring that there is a little resistance.
They are on Facebook if you want to send them a message or comment…
Did you see the picture under it? As I was scrolling down, I was trying to work out what it was supposed to be. Could it be a young man pretending he’s not peeing down his leg?
The explanatory headline is disgraceful!
A couple of things – first, they say that it’s a legal requirement but I’m pretty sure it isn’t. Or perhaps it is in Wales? Second, the assertion that they have people with health issues who need protecting. I assume they mean staff and customers, in which case track and trace surely won’t protect them because it identifies an infectious person and their contacts after the event? By which time anyone in the pub at the time will have been exposed.
Even in Spain the MSM don’t want to report the truth. 7 minute must watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwlkumcRf6w
Yes, Toby linked to it above and several others have here today. It cheered me up no end.
Yes, especially when you see this which is seriously scary…
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1296059067954352130
‘No jab, no pay’
(Posted on yesterday’s thread a couple of hours ago, just before today’s came up, but thinking a lot of people might have missed it)
Wow, didn’t David Icke say this would happen about 3 months ago?
Watch his interview on the London Real site from mid-March. It’s prescient.
https://londonreal.tv/the-truth-behind-the-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-lockdown-the-economic-crash-david-icke/
You know the world is fucked when David Icke is taking sense
Ha, ha, very true!
He said this would happen 20 years ago.
But I didn’t believe him!
He said a lot of things 20 years ago of which a very great percentage have been way off the mark. One I recall was traffic wardens having the authority to come into your home without needing a warrant when the police were outnumbered in the ensuing social unrest. Traffic wardens ffs!
I wouldn’t count this out.
Go on then, that’s one so far.
Many years ago Laura. He quite likely repeated it about 3 months ago.
This isn’t new, the draconian “No jab, no pay” has been law since 2015! It was passed into law in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (No Jab, No Pay) Bill 2015
Yes, but that would have been for well established vaccines (still don’t agree with it). This will be for a very rushed and inadequately tested vaccine that no one could possibly know the long term side effects of.
That law does not have any statement about “well established vaccines”. If the COVID-19 vaccination is added to the “vaccination schedule”, then children need to have it otherwise their parents will lose benefits.
The “No jab, no pay” only applies to children too, not adults, and mainly children from poor backgrounds as the “No pay” relates to those receiving benefits payments, not payment from employment.
Even worse then.
What do you make of this, also from Australia today? https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6182527315001 Seems like Dan Andrews’ lockdown is on very shaky ground because he lied about the reason for it and has now been caught out on the figures…
Throw Dan to the crocodiles! Chomp!
That doctor was brilliant!!! He explained facts in a clear and concise manner, not to mention his facial expressions were priceless.
Hilarious. Doesn’t matter how she spins it the doctor has got her number
Posted from earlier – sent the complete thing to Toby among others and he has answered.
Just got my last FOI request back from the DHSC about the PCR tests they are using
Some really interesting comments in it such as:
– do the tests you are using detect only “covid-19” as stated in the Coronavirus legislation:
“coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)?
The test is for SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
– or does it show positive to all the coronavirus family of viruses?
Just SARS-CoV-2 RNA.
– supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). my highlighting so no justification provided for isolating people regardless if their test is positive.
Patients can have SARS-CoV-2 RNA before onset of illness, during the illness and after resolution of symptoms (all variable periods). The result has to be taken into context of symptoms present.
They also provide a link to a document by Health Technology Wales which in answer to this question:
– the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy. I can confirm that the Department holds information relevant to your request. As the information held by the Department is in the public domain, we will under Section 21 of the FOI Act (information accessible to the applicant by other means) refer you to the published source, a summary of evidence on the accuracy of the test,
https://www.healthtechnology.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAR025-COVID19-diagnostics-report-v2.6.pdf
It does include a few gems such as:
At least they have answered truthfully and reading between the lines I come up with “it’s all bollocks and we cannot accurately test for it to tell if anyone has it”.
Nice work AG!
Something wrong here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8643313/Britain-records-15-coronavirus-deaths-preliminary-toll.html but no use of word “terrifying” despite there being 812 infections. What would St Jacinda or Kim Jong Dan do with numbers like these?
Shopping trip:
Went to buy some bathroom flooring today.
Roadworks everywhere – laying cables ready for 5G. Saw one muzzled person outside, woman late 50s early 60s. Everyone else behaving perfectly normally.
At the carpet shop, the owner was out on the forecourt cutting carpet lengths. I waved and set off towards the vinyl section.
“Have you got a mask?” he shouted over, conversationally.
My mind blanked. Mask, what mask? Oh yes!
“I’m er (what’s the word?) exempt” I replied.
“That’s fine” he said and went back to his carpet cutting.
He joined me, equally muzzle-free, in the vinyl section, which is essentially a narrow corridor. We were literally shoulder to shoulder having a perfectly normal conversation.
Aldi tonight ……
Isn’t it amazing that this behaviour is now classed as subversive. Stop the world I want to get off.
Don’t. Stay on, subvert, carry on the fight.
I’ve got an hour to wait in my car dealer service reception tomorrow, been told I’ll need a mask or wait outside.
Subversion awaits (lawnotfiction pdf at the ready)
Think I may have won a small victory for us sceptics but hard to tell.
My wife has a friend who runs a small fish and chip shop. A few months ago we visited just after they had reopened and she said that the council had visited an given her a verbal OK to reopen as she met the guidance.
At the time I did explain that guidance is not law nor enforceable etc etc – you all know it on here as it’s been covered lots of times – but she wouldn’t believe me as she is one of those who always knows better regardless but as the wife has known her longer than me and it’s our 23rd wedding anniversary on Saturday (29 years in total) I thought discretion is the better part of valour so leave it and keep the peace.
Today we were in town and popped in for lunch.
Got chatting and the wife’s friend asked what I had been up to as she knows how I get when I get bored and start to get myself into trouble.
Told her I’ve been in legal wrangling with councils including her local council, FOIs etc and sort of winning and getting really interesting answers and so on most of which have been on here.
Anyway she said that the council EHO and been round and had a few issues with her not enforcing masks, social distancing etc so she asked for the written notice signed by a JP as per Public Health legislation and where does she claim the compensation as per the law? – as I told her 2 months ago she should do.
Council nazi said it’s under health and safety legislation, not public health, and the council could only advice, not enforce as this was not under their remit and left.
She let slip that she remembered what we had discussed before and quoted it the best she could remember.
She knows I’ve done lots of risk assessments and so on so she asked if I could write her one to cover the guidance from government.
Told her NO, I couldn’t as the government has no science to back up their guidance or if they have it they refuse to issue it, what I can find rips their arguments to pieces and so on but I could give her a “cover note” on why a risk assessment could not be written based on evidence available.
She said thanks but not necessary, she will tell the council this if they ever turn up again and then give me a call if needed.
I enjoyed today anyway.
Good work!
Nice.
https://covidplanningtools.com/whats-driving-excess-deaths-for-25-to-44-year-olds/
This is important news published US data
“It appears that the excess death count during the COVID-19 outbreak in the 25-44 age bracket cannot be wholly attributed to the virus. Less than half can be accounted for by current COVID-19 numbers from the CDC (which may be lagging). It is unlikely that deaths in this age bracket are related to other common COVID-19 comorbidity conditions. It is likely that these are deaths related to suicide, despair, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence; collateral effects of various public policy mitigation measures. One can reasonably conclude that the lock-downs and stay at home orders may have had significant negative effects. This is a cursory analysis and will be refined as data becomes more complete.”
8000 died of C-19 10 000 died of lockdown.And calculate quality of year lost!
“Collateral effects”. I knew that one day that would come back to bite us. How many of us sat apathetically through foreign wars whilst our governments tore the shit out of countries and called it “collateral damage”.
The same happened in England (not Scotland, nor NI) : z-score of 7.87 in Week 12, when all EuroMOMO countries had normal z-scores of 2–4 (scroll down to z-score and select age group 15–44, then shift the time frame to 2020): https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
According to this reuter report China does not count asymptomatic cases as confirmed cases
https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1296119335279382529/photo/1
How inscrutable.
What appears to have been forgotten about Peru and Argentina is that they are in the Southern Hemisphere and the infection rate is following a trajectory commensurate with their geographical location. Peru following a more tropical trajectory and parts of Argentina following a trajectory associated with higher latitudes. The same applies to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Partial reason for below average deaths: just looked at EuroMOMO database for the UK (E+Sc+NI (don’t know why Wales isn’t there)), and the z-score for 65+ is below average, 45–65 “normal”, but 15–44 on the rise again approaching “substantial increase.” Gessing the pool of vulnerable elderly has been exhausted!
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
I was going to ask the same question about Wales.
In fact I was going to bring up the same point concerning the 15-44 bracket in England. You beat me to it! They’re not Covid related deaths – so evidence of the murderous policies of this poor excuse for a government?
15-44 back out killing each other with knives and in cars I assume.
Someone has posted on here today that Morrisons in Huddersfield (a town close to my heart but not to my home) is giving out free lanyards. Two questions:
Are these lanyards, as I understand the word, just the things you hang a badge on, or do these have words on which say “mask exempt” or some such, or do they include the badge?
Does anyone know if other branches of Morrisons, esp here in the south west, are doing the same?
I believe they’re handing out the sunflower lanyards which is bright green with sunflowers all over it.
https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/shop/sunflower-lanyards.html plus https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/hidden-disabilities-face-covering.html
I understand that Sainsbury’s have been doing the same.
I’ve just copied this clip from Prof Michael Levitt demolishing some guy from Imperial, very much worth watching…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7167&v=_1u_yworTco&feature=emb_logo
It’s over 2 hours long and with the best will in the world I’m not going to find the time. Any chance you could point me to the best bit(s)?
Its at about the 2 hour mark
Found it in NickR’s post above. Very good stuff.
Toby has a transcript of this interview on this site somewhere.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.16.20035691v1.full.pdf
Death by ventilator Remember April? Ventilator,ventilators.
“Our finding that IMV itself is significantly associated with ICU mortality (pOR 16.46, 95% CI 4.37-61.96) coupled with subgroup analyses showing regions with higher ICU mortalities coincide with regions with higher IMV rates (USA, UK, Italy) are notable because it questions the benefits of IMV as well as the wisdom of public policies emphasizing ventilator availability in coping with the pandemic.”
My understanding is that the standard of care was to bypass the usual cpap/bcpap and jump straight to the ventilators
IMV? Intubated Mechanical Ventilation?
intermittent mandatory ventilation
Invasive Mechanical Ventilation. But means the same
Thank you
Increased Mortality Vehicle
Another one for the hall of fame:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/19/pensioner-four-holidays-booked-refuses-quarantine-13148667/
Having fun with sheeple on Daily Fail comments.
My first comment on the story about how many positive tests were found:
From a FOI answer I received today – “- supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated? “SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). ” Exactly as us sceptics have been saying for months now, positive test means absolutely nothing. Pass it on.
Then my follow-up comment:
Why the thumbs down? This is from Government under a Freedom of Information Request so it’s the TRUTH – positive test means zero, nada, zilch, nothing so ask yourself why the pretence in MSM and from authority it does? 77th/13th/paid trolls earning overtime?
Time to put down the wine and relax, job done for today, trolls and sheeple annoyed.
Nice.
You’ve had a good day AG!
How do I make a FOI request and whom shall I annoy first?
I am still waiting for an answer to min. Asked for the breakdown of expenditure for the £10billion spent on track and trace.
Most Gov. departments have a FOI section.
Oh! Share that one if/when you get an answer, please. I still can’t find a way to believe that number. Would love to see a pathetic attempt to justify it.
Good for you Git!
DavidC
Dido Harding reminds me of Alan Yentob – has a catalogue of failures in the BBC which if he was in ITV or Channel 5 or any other commercial station would get him sacked but no, the Beeb keep moving him around to the point of even creating a post just for him – “Creative Director”
Harding is the same. She presided over that fiasco where TalkTalk’s customer data was severely compromised and the company had to pay a massive fine to the Information Commission. Then she’s involved with the test & trace scheme that is found to have violated GDPR as well as there are rumours that the data collected has been sold to third parties or even stolen. Now she’s in charge of this new body and I won’t be surprised if she’s proven to be crap at it yet again.
No wonder we’re so screwed if we keep having incompetent nincompoops like Harding running the show.
Also don’t forget her husband is on the 1828 advisory board which calls for the NHS to be replaced by an insurance system and for Public Health England to be scrapped. The latter has already happened.
DavidC
It may already have been mentioned but this is a survey which will feed into House of Lord’s commitee on life post covid. Takes 15 minutes to fill in.Its on Simon Dolans Twitter feed.
wh.snapsurveys.com/s.asp?k=159774
Done. Most enjoyable, obviously many answers quite scathing.
Yes, lots of heavy banging of the keyboard.
Done today , made me feel better getting it on paper where it might be useful . I quite enjoyed it
Me too.
done
Rather tone deaf Lieutenant Gruber is (sorry have turned all Yoda here)
He says that there’s no excuse for people not to return to work. Then why make it difficult to do so?
Has he not realised that he’s responsible for huge swathes of Central London and the City being a ghost town?
If he wants people to return to their desks then abolish all antisocial distancing, get rid of all the pointless “Covid safety” theatre and stop all talk of “bubbles” or rather gulags and let people get on with life.
It’s not rocket science.
Sorry, my earlier post highlighting Levitt taking an Imperial guy apart doesn’t always open at the right point, go to 1hr 59 to see the top stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7167&v=_1u_yworTco&feature=emb_logo
…Open at 1:59
Watched it all and realised what the problem is. The premise is wrong, a “case” is not as dangerous as thought. And there they sit, the boys from Imperial and play with models, pretty much like the climate change boys. It is a computer game. Destroy real lives while modeling with selected factors. Real life is not an issue even. The only high IQ guy there was Michael Levitt.
Michael Levitt -very high IQ plus common sense plus articulate. The Imperial guy, none of either! No contest.
Agreed and judging by the room he usually zooms from, he looks as if he might lead quite a normal sort of life rather than just live in academia.
The imperial plonkers think computer games are real life.
I remember watching a BBC doc on young people addicted to comuter video games. They didn’t mention the people from Imperial College and other computer driven modeling centres..
I bet Ferguson was an annoying WOW stat nerd who everybody hated and couldn’t play his character properly.
One things I took from it was that those apart from Levitt were definitely the “common purpose” type.
They also have started from a position of 100% susceptibility in the population.
Levitt, TCells, spot on
Thanks Nick, when I saw the duration of the video I didn’t pursue it – now you’ve given the relevant start point I’m definitely going to take a look.
I think you mean 1:59:00 though!
DavidC
I’m glad to read about the event in Trafalgar Square, however it’s a little difficult to get to for some of us, and I was wondering if there is anything else planned more locally for those of us in the North. Also is anything being planned next Monday the 24th to mark the first month? If it was up to me I would like to see a stand being made every month until this nonsense is over. To be clear – the nonsense of compulsory face coverings to access basic necessities etc.). I understand they had a weekly event for some organisation or other earlier this year!
There are local sections on the KBF forum and some are getting regular meetings organised.
It’s not an ideal way to communicate at first because it’s up to people to keep checking out their local section.
We have a daytime meeting planned in W Yorks for the 26th.
Thanks!
If you set up a kbf private forum, email notifications for each post are available.
Our local paper always carries a “wanted” section which shows photos of local criminals who have been shoplifting, selling drugs etc and asks for help in their capture. The only problem is that most of the offenders are now masked!
Haha.
Had lunch today with another friend (thanks Rishi!). The rain meant that there were less people eating out however the restaurants had more people than the shops.
Hardly anyone was going in to the likes of Primark, H&M, Zara, Sports Direct, etc.
If supermarkets are seeing a dramatic decrease in footfall as Toby mentions above, it seems like the “nonessential” shops are even in worse shape.
What are the odds that huge swathes of Oxford and Regent Streets will have loads of “to let” signs before the end of this year?
The world is going to hell in a handcart ! We must make a stand !!
Fewer, ffs.
Sorry to do another petition to you but this is another one of merit!
Vote of no confidence in Sturgeon.
https://www.change.org/p/petition-vote-of-no-confidence-in-nicola-sturgeon-and-the-scottish-government-resignsturgeon?recruiter=927020026&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=d9a11580-11bb-11e9-95ac-8dc8f93ea226
Are non-Scots allowed to vote?
Give it a go. In the past i have heard that political petitions are stripped on all those not on electoral roll but I don’t know if true. I think it’s about numbers primarily.
15k is equal to last summers final Independence march on Holyrood. Police figures suggested slightly less.
I’m working on some data from the NHS bed occupancy data, all public domain stuff and other data on deaths in care homes, at home & hospitals.
When you boil it down it looks like 90% of fatalities caught the virus in either hospitals or care homes!
Then think about that, is it really surprising? The average age of the dead is over 80, 95% had at least one co-morbidity, but it also means that probably only something like 4,000 people died after catching the virus outside of the health care system.
We now know a lot more how to avoid it and treat it. It’s quite hard to get this data but I do think that this is a fundamental question we should be asking, just how many people actually died of this thing who weren’t already in the health care system. I think not many.
You’re quite right. Covid is a nosocomial infection so avoid hospitals and nursing homes; in fact don’t get banged up anywhere, especially on return from Spain and France!
You’re entirely correct—it seems that all State “epidemiologists” were busy with computer models and it didn’t occur to any of them that hospitals would be a transmission vector. As for the second, I think the Lord Advocate in Scotland is investigating deaths in care homes there…
Also the system of care for the elderly was just terrible before covid.
With underpaid overworked mobile carers popping to do the bare necessities as fast as possible because they had to rush of to do another person after 15 mins.
There was almost no care easily accessible for people who are almost well enough to go back home after being in hospital so they stay in hospital.
All the old council run care homes and sheltered accommodation facilities was shut down.
Well established communities of old folk and their old folk houses were allowed to fade away.
Care cost everything that the cared for ever owned in a very short time.
Care homes have become a cash cow for off-shore investment companies to systematically strip assets of everybody in the UK.
Many care homes operate by moving all the old folk into day rooms to manage them, stuffy over heated, falling asleep in front of the telly all day.
The Police and Ambulance crew were becoming the primary care givers for many elderly people in the UK.
Yer lets protect the old people shall we. FFS. Such bollocks.
At the very start I said in my blog that some civil servant, somewhere, must be rubbing his or her hands with glee as s/he totted up the number of frail old people whose expensive care would now be unnecessary, as they were being conveniently removed.
It’s quite certain that s/he exists.
Thanks. Great work. The powers that be know this, but are just hoping they can fool enough of the people for enough of the time to keep this going. Paying them to remain ignorant, of course, helps perpetuate the myths. We really need the hospital doctors and nurses to speak out on mass in the public interest, and NOW.
Yes. I don’t think it is a cover up, in the literal sense. I think it is an unwillingness to see the obvious, leading to increasingly complicated ways of making it appear less obvious.
So, to summarise, the NHS and care industry killed most of them.
National HEALTH Service?
CARE industry?
That should be the No Health Service (courtesy of someone from Twitter)!
Nebulous Health Service.
yes
No. Don’t overstate.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Do they treat that?
Also notable that Singapore got its Nosocomial infection rate down to statistical zero in March, by mostly ignoring the mask bollocks & being absolutely rabid about handwashing in their hospitals.
Basically they assumed in hospitals it is primarily contact transferred like Norovirus or Polio.
We are slowly coming round to that view in the west, just a pity thousands have to die while the experts catch up.
https://market-ticker.org/cgi-mt/akcs-www
Nick – this is great stuff. When you’ve finished the analysis, please share widely!
This is the heart of the matter. It is not “with comorbidities”. It is “terminally ill”. 25% of all Covid deaths had dementia or alzheimer’s. And they were ill enough (with dementia or alzheimer’s) to be in hospital, where they caught the infection.
This is the health service shutting down normal society to try to stop the spread of infection in… the health service.
This is the point. A large proportion died because they were at the end of their lives for a range of the normal causes. And many of those had lived for a year beyond expectation.
And there’s a reasonable case for arguing that shutting down the health service has saved lives.
It has; look at the number of Sudden Infant Deaths in the USA. The drop in deaths is absolutely stunning and is due to the far lower numbers of children being vaccinated.
Definitely not overall.
Avoid the nosocomial (easier said than done) infections & you have a mild flu season death toll!
We won’t end up with a better health service by bankrupting the country.
So I would like to say sorry to everyone here, especially those who took the time to respond when I was seeking advice a week ago. I gave in.
Unfortunately the difference between taking home £1000 per month or not is just too vast so I have had to start wearing a mask in work now. To counter act having to wear a mask I will now be truthful as sin when speaking to customers, with my new favourite to reply when asked by people if they can come in (work still has signs, more now big boss is back) say I don’t have an SIA licence and they can come in if they want. FYI – because yes, it works, yes, it has been done in my work, yes, it was suggested, yes, you could argue… – I do not wish to claim disability or health issues, morally have and want to right now. I felt terrible when caught by surprise in a Glasgow McDonalds I responded ‘I’m exempt’ to the question ‘do you have a mask?’ yesterday, made the decision for me. Things may change though, very angry and lots of health issues stem from prolonged time in such mental states, gotta be a study somewhere… I made my stand. The midge net resulted in me getting sent out the shop, now wearing a black Buff. Want to name and shame, but see above, need my income and scared of reprisals. Was not quiet about any of the events of the previous week to anyone, customer or not.
To people have taken to create a community here, you have given me hope that, regardless of the end result of this latest global panic, there will be individuals of sound mind willing to resist. To those who replied a week back, I truly do appreciate the time took to get back to me. You have given me so many ideas, and I will implement some. I think you all will be glad to know I now have a new machine, it gets very hot, creates loads of nasty smoke, and is the start of a business, run on my terms. Investigated public liability insurance, qualifications, sole trader status, have secured funding, traded some work for a practice space, written plans, got expenses records going, finalised a price structure, bullshit free, my industry. Pissing off my current employer can take second fiddle, the energy I have is now being put into something for me. Plan for two decades time is an electric arc furnace, time to see what I can really make of myself.
There is no way that YOU should be apologising ibaraki. None of this is your fault. You cannot help the fact that we have an incompetent government who make decisions based on how popular they think it will make them, who have no concept of what a positive test actually means and who think that wearing a germ riddled muzzle on our faces will get us back to work and to get shop.
None of us will judge you here.
Ta.
It is obscene how much that view pervades life. Came out my manager’s mouth last week, ‘it is the image we project’, or some such. Today was less civil.. You’d think with me ignoring all rules since March that the customers would very quickly make up their minds if they wanted to deal with me, by my count 100% were willing. Seems like my city isn’t the village I think it is or the shop doesn’t have a ‘negative’ image. Now telling customers that come in without a mask and fumble to put it on to leave it off if they want, that there is no need, completely up to them.
What if we all write to your shop manager and tell him what a charlie he is? I will write to him no problem.
He is probably illiterate. Cretins are hard to offend.
Yes, doesn’t understand some basics that’s for sure. When I had the misfortune of dealing with him today his most used reasons were ‘I was only told x time ago’, ‘I was given the incorrect information’ and ‘[reading from law and trying to apply it selectively]’.
Well, if I remember, I may name drop here when I get my final pay.
I admire your honesty. You were forced into an impossibly difficult position by the spineless cowards around you. These are the unseen effects of such appalling and unnecessary policies. I just hope that you get to have the last laugh.
Great idea to start building for future self-employment. What greater incentive could there be to make a success of your endeavour than freedom from idiots?
Thanks.
I will when I get to hand in my notice. Should probably put a deadline on that one..
Yup, liking the incentive!
Don’t beat yourself up. Maslow’s first step always takes priority. Everything else builds from there.
Good luck with your venture.
Cheers.
Interesting hierarchy, seems to like there is a systematic removal or threatening of the foundation blocks.. Might add myself to the map when everything is in full swing.
I think everyone has their entry points to push back on this, it doesn’t have to be hero stuff. Small actions matter to help your own state of mind too, whether you feel forces to follow measures in other areas.
I was thinking today a small thing to say to friends who are distancing or wearing masks, offer a hug/embrace when saying goodbye. Say something like “Hugs Not Masks” as you do. Let them know your view is coming from one of positivity. Even say it to your customers as they ask you about mask wearing policy. Maybe leave the hug out. That’d be plain weird. Lol
A friend of mine and I ostentatiously shake hands in front of other members of the public.
Chin up and don’t beat yourself up. Your first duty is to yourself (unless you have kids) and paying for food and keeping a roof over your head and having the self-respect that comes from employment trumps pretty much anything else.
We’ll beat them in the end and things will get better – never despair.
Ta.
No kids so just got myself. It does give a sense of worth, I get to channel that money into my own venture. Things will get better, will endeavour to help make that so.
Good luck with your plans for the future.
Re the rest, it’s hard to criticise anyone for being flexible in the face of a loss of livelihood, as long as they give in grudgingly. Discretion can be the better part of valour, and it can be better to live to fight another day from the stronger position of being employed and earning.
Thanks.
Having my job threatened in that way really did give things perspective. Feel I have a better understanding of those who end up in these situations, doing what is necessary to get money.
No judgements from anyone here for doing what you have to do to survive! I think that’s why some here feel it’s important we fight the good fight because we know not everyone can. I have no job to protect, I’m not an influencer, and I have zero social media presence so I can “afford” to buck the system, and yet even I am finding it very difficult because where I am there’s 100% compliance. You have no need to apologize, it’s the tyrants who have brought this upon us who should but won’t.
Cheers.
I’ll just have to adjust to life, for a short while, as a sleeper agent, ha! Usually the obvious one, this monkey got tricks though. Gonna be hard to accomplish but had the thought to never allow myself to be in this position again, need to always have what I need to survive and be able to fight for it. Then I can help good causes fully.
You have my full support.
Ta.
Agree with all the replies here. You fought the good fight and you lost a battle but not the war.
He who runs lives to fight another day and hope that your ideas become the start of something big.
Cheers.
Wrote the above reply before seen your comment. Sigh.. But yes, fully agree! Will get on it, Ikaraki Industries could have a vocational school for sceptic’s kids. They’ll be ‘working like slaves’, yet somehow always on a lunch break. Ideas time of the evening..
This is what ‘they’ are relying on, that eventually people will have to give in and wear a mask, in order to put food on the table and survive. It is a war of attrition…eventually they wear us down. Next it will be the vaccination – either have it or have no job, just like was announced in Australia today – ‘no jab – no pay’…
Did not see that news story yet, will look into it, thanks.
Yup, I am aware, the Coronavirus Act 2020 and all that comes with it needs repealed. I tried as much as I could in my work and friends to spread the view, my sphere of influence is small, but have lost the battle, shame ‘they’ seems to be most people. The next will be after I start my own business and someone calls me up over how I run it, the war is not over.
Didn’t even see the law, in 2015.
You’ll do wonderfully with your new machine I’m sure! Go it! Good for you!
A truly shocking article in the express yesterday – SNP Government instructed the Scottish tourist cabal not to attract English tourists.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1324446/scotland-news-snp-visitscotland-tourism-england-campaign-holyrood-latest-nicola-sturgeon
Pointing this out as Covid has been used as a paltry political opportunity by Sturgeon to hit out at the English nation, and seems not to have an indifferent regard for Welsh or Northern Irish. It is disgusting and many, many here think so too.
Boycott Sturgeon’s Scotland. – the Salmond inquiry looks like it will do a good bit of damage to the cult. There is a split already with Joanna Cherry being kept out of her favoured role. SNP is turning upon itself – as you do mid black death, never mind the people.
A week in Wales is sounding very tempting. Was hoping to return to NW Scotland, but maybe the Bank of England pound is not wanted by the Scottish Government.
Wales is fantastic. So is the NW, good luck to you whichever you do. You’ll find respect and decency up there in Locharber – Sutherland, it’s a long way from Holyrood.
The tattie bogle was going to replace the filthy pound at one stage not sure where the fantasy is now – it is tiresome to keep track of the latest demands. I am ready to dance up and down on graves as required that’s all I know.
Yep, it’s not too bad here. Plenty of people coming her on holiday at the moment. No masks in shops. First minister said recently ‘nothing wrong with lots of people on the beaches.’ Bit drizzly here but we have castles and wilderness which look atmospheric in the rain, and the pubs are open again to help you dry out. Also noticed an article today saying bus drivers in cardiff told not to challenge unmasked passengers. Tourism here doing great at the moment I think.
Hi Mr Dee, would you please give me a link re: bus drivers in Cardiff told not to challenge unmasked passengers – I put in a major complaint (still ongoing) against a bus company in Cardiff – NOT Cardiff Bus – who have been great (for unlawfully challenging) me for not wearing a mask – reported this to the police also – police were very supportive.
Found it – Wales Online….the piece was the usual nonsense bollocks, but the headline is great “Cardiff bus drivers told not to challenge passengers who don’t wear face masks”
Good Job there soldier!
Here in Pembs, the nappy notice on our bus stop says that ‘out of consideration for other passengers, you are asked to wear a face covering’. Not exactly draconian.
..to helpfully add Scotland entered recession officially today.
I hope you are right.
Keep an eye on the inquiry. It may be survivable by niknak because tge comittee is a SNP activist – chosen goon. But there’s a direct fracture between Salmond and Sturgeon followers. SNP supporters are sick of trans, woke, hate bill, etc.angendas – they’ve realised it’s a weird ideology they are being asked to believe. It is happening in the more thoughtful support. Not at the truely intellectual level because the SNP does not possess that. Also keep a check on haggard appearance sturgeon seems to be having personal difficulties sleeping.
What is going on? Some answers:
On yesterday’s entry I posted my take on how and why our leaders have brought us to this point, and a number of people were kind enough to comment and raise some challenging questions. Here are my attempts to answer.
1) Edward rightly pointed out that it is pretty naff (my words, not his) to offer a national petty political explanation for what is patently a global phenomenon. He asked what I thought explained the phenomenon beyond the UK. I think there may be no single explanation, except that in every case it is driven by the most vacuous and unprincipled tactical politics. In America, for example, Covid like BLM has become a form of voter intimidation on behalf of the Democrats. That is not to dismiss the possibility of some deeper conspiracy but, as I do not have any information about such I could not discern between clay and the proverbial in that field. All I suggest is that it is possible to explain the phenomenon in terms of national politics, albeit that political elites and situations undoubtedly interact.
2) I also read that Macron had threatened Bojo. But lockdown kills 200, 000, tanks the whole economy and wrecks the basis of our social contract. What was the threat? Nuclear war? Don’t we have a deterrent, at that rate?
3) I certainly do not pity the poor Tories or see them as victims of Labour, the media etc. I think a vote for them at any time in the future from this point is an act of voluntary complicity.
4) Wendy asked why the Tories would alienate their own supporters in this way. To that I think the answer is simple. We have nowhere else to go. They can ape Labour for free; anyone who dislikes it will still have to reward the Tories, in effect, with their votes. It’s genius. The smart money would bet on Toby himself playing Judas goat and leading us back into the fold at election time. That said, the smart money can be wrong.
5) Miriam, I did find the article interesting even though, as you correctly divined, I am a right-bleating sheep. The implication that Corbyn was a real alternative is questionable though, given that many Tory voters well in advance of lockdown felt they had voted Conservative and got Corbyn. That in itself smells bad, without any recourse to the lizard people. It is curious that non-bullshitters across the political spectrum feel homeless, and willing within limits to set up home with each other.
“Wendy asked why the Tories would alienate their own supporters in this way. To that I think the answer is simple. We have nowhere else to go. They can ape Labour for free; anyone who dislikes it will still have to reward the Tories, in effect, with their votes. It’s genius. The smart money would bet on Toby himself playing Judas goat and leading us back into the fold at election time. That said, the smart money can be wrong.”
Can’t guess where Toby might go, obviously, but it is certainly the case that the “Conservative” Party is run by Blairites who assume that conservative voters have nowhere else to go and that they therefore are mostly safe to continue the politically correct, collectivist NHS-worshipping leftward drift that has served them well for so long.
They are vulnerable to a challenge from the right, as brexit single issue parties showed in the past couple of elections, which is why in the end they caved on that issue (though there were tactical issues there as well, such as the blundering Cameron’s mammoth, hubristic blunder in calling a referendum because he could not imagine actually losing it)..
The solution can only be to set up a new more genuinely conservative party to replace them.
Trad leftists face the same issue with the Blairites who have taken over their own party. They thought they could retake their party, but the Blairites were not purged and simply sabotaged it from within, in collaboration with the Blairites embedded throughout our establishment after 23 years of unbroken Blairite rule.
There is a tactical parallel between the situations on each side, though it isn’t simplistically symmetrical, because there can be no real dispute that this country has been shifted dramatically to the left over the course of the past century or so.
I feel a single new party will not work for everyone, because contrary to the oft-stated mantra here, left and right are not meaningless, they do have real force, and in the end people from each side will not be able to work together for long.
At the moment, I’m mostly just waiting for the new party/parties to manifest. The BBC must be dismantled as well.
“Cameron’s mammoth, hubristic blunder in calling a referendum because he could not imagine actually losing it“
Minor point, but you have the sequence slightly wrong. Cameron called the referendum because his manifesto said he would. He included it in the manifesto because he could not imagine actually winning a general election and assumed he would have to drop the referendum as part of a new coalition agreement with the Lib Dems.
Fair point. I recall considerable debate about motivations at the time. Either way, the central point stands – Cameron being one of the toweringly incompetent PMs of modern times, now obviously totally outclassed in that regard by Johnson of course.
Yes. Thought his record would stand a bit longer actually. Live and learn.
May took over him,Johnson has done them both,Blair in his sights and he hasn’t had a year yet
Can’t say May really impinged much on the radar in any sense. Blair wasn’t incompetent. Evil and personally morally corrupt, but that’s a different matter.
Whatever you made of Thatcher (I am not a fan), she definitely had gravitas, purpose and vision. In other words, genuine leadership qualities. The Tories never recovered from ditching her.
All the incumbents since then have been markedly inferior, and in Johnson we have reached the absolute nadir.
The Nadir of Inferiority. What an epithet!
May wasn’t incompetent. She was uncharismatic and didn’t really believe in the job she’d been given. Under other circumstances she would have been roughly fine. Pointless, not incompetent. Incompetence is also not something you could accuse Blair of. I have a long list of things you could accuse Blair of, but that’s not on it.
It wasn’t incompetence I was referring to.It was the unfitness for the post of Prime Minister and the damage they wrought.
We have been badly governed for over a hundred years by the way, it just seems to have got worse in the last 20.
I think you are right. They are vulnerable to challenge from the right, if such a thing can be got off the ground without immediately being hijacked or destroyed by the meedja.
But UKIP c2011-2016 was interesting. It brought lefties and righties together on the basis of supporting democracy, and enabled really productive conversations with each other rather than past each other. It left me with the sense that we have rather a lot in common. I think there is some mileage in us not mindlessly slaying each other. (I know you were not proposing that ).
Yes, UKIP was able to do that because the single issue united both sides, a bit like fighting the coronapanic does here, but that is unlikely to be the case for a future party. Vague notions of restoring liberty won’t last long in the heat of real politics.
Personally, I think you’ve more-or-less nailed it. Read the blog post though (I think Toby linked it yesterday, but someone has linked again below) on the role of the media in constraining the government on this. I would imagine it applies in spades around the world – and having watched the Spanish doctor link, it looks like it almost certainly applies to Spain.
Thanks for the name check and responding to my point. Maybe what we are seeing is different “flavours” of the same phenomena across different nations, with national politics having an effect but not the sole consideration. In the USA the presidential election even in normal times overshadows things for at least a year before it takes place.
Not at all. Thankyou. Same question to you though. Do you think there is a single uber-explanation? If so, what is it and how does it work?
An over-arching and grand alternative explanation is relatively straightforward to construct, and virtually any action or event can be easily woven into its fabric with little or no modification. I have followed many practitioners of this work for years, and will continue to do so with great interest, but not to the exclusion of all other possibilities.
Something extraordinary is clearly happening in our society. The sum total of our individual actions will produce a collective result, and in our case too many individuals over generations have shunned principles that should guide us for wealth, power, comfort, expediency and so on.
All civilisations eventually suffer this fate and collapse, so I propose this is what we are witnessing. Ours seems infinitely more complex, and in need of Byzantine explanations, by virtue of mass electronic and digital media. Otherwise this is nothing new.
The appeal of the conspiracy theory (and I’m not using that phrase to taunt or upset anyone, just as a convenient shorthand that everyone understands) is that it makes sense out of unconnected events that don’t seem to make sense. We like things to make sense. And the amount of information available to us nowadays makes it very easy to tie facts together. So yes, you’re right.
And you’re definitely right that this is a staggering crisis for “western civilization”. I would prefer to believe that it’s not collapsing, but we’re certainly doing our best to make sure it does.
Our requirement to make sense of the world with a coherent narrative has existed ever since we first gathered around fires in prehistory. You could argue that this is what defines us as human beings. All belief systems, from the first cave paintings to science today, are ultimately founded on this need. Bloody fascinating stuff when you take a step back from the mayhem.
‘anyone who dislikes it will still have to reward the Tories, in effect, with their votes.’ – you’re presuming we will be allowed to vote again – as things stand, I am beginning to doubt there will ever be another election ‘allowed’…
By then we should be on our 5th or 6th wave.Nice excuse to suspend a general election
Exactly!
There’s a comedy sketch in there somewhere. Will it be Covid-19 Wave 6 or Covid-24 Wave 2?
I’m not sure it will work next time. The only reason people like me voted Tory last time was because the Brexit Party wasn’t running in my constituency.
I won’t be voting LibLabConGreen again. Either back to a small party like UKIP, or a spoiled ballot paper.
Does Macron have some dirt on Boris? Eh?
Oh dear. Received this with my email so looks like no concerts or talks in this venue for the foreseeable future:
https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/your-visit/coronavirus-advice/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2008AW-Aut2020andbeyond(V2)&utm_content=version_A&sourceNumber=4665
De-densify?!
The mind boggles as to what they meant by that!!!
Fancy the circus then? https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/coronavirus-fears-circus-blaydon-18794064 -no audience muzzles.
Looks like it will be spoiled by that person who didn’t feel “safe”
He should have just stayed at home then.
You have to keep in mind that that building also houses the centre of lockdown zealotry, The Guardian…
That did cross my mind……
Will this madness ever end? It seem like the dream ticket for overzealous H&S types.
For years we have tried cram more & more people into buses, trains, planes, bars, restaurants, nightclubs & shops.
All of a sudden we do not need to do this we can space people so far apart that we cannot enjoy normal human interaction.
Exactly. And they keep banging on and on about making art and culture accessible for all hence the cheap tickets (that cost far less than to go to a cinema) and now with antisocial distancing, the tickets will be so expensive that no bugger would be able to afford them.
They cynic in me would say that’s what they want – keep the riff-raff out by spacing people so far apart that the audience will be forced to shell out more money, all in the name of “safety”
Weekly Aldi trip. Busier than normal for 8pm-ish on a damp Wednesday. I’d say about a third of customers were unmuzzled – usually it’s only me. No frantic checkout spraying either!
At the meat section, no anti-social distancing was observed between me and a guy who was wearing his face nappy under his chin while we were both rummaged through the same bit. Just normal polite behaviour.
Before Aldi, I’d dropped off a return parcel at my local post office – yes we have one of those precious things and it’s open till 10pm every night because most of the shop is a grocers. It was busy and only a couple of customers were masked – two older white people. All the S.Asians were unmuzzled, plus me and a young white woman.
Interaction with both the postmaster and the Aldi checkout girl was smiley and perfectly normal.
Yesterday, I went to the park. It was busy and, as usual, there wasn’t a muzzle in sight.
I wish I could say the same about my local Aldi in Silsden. I went in on Friday and I was the only one bare faced (I prefer to say normal)! It was busy.
This has been noted by others – The (commie) BBC reported that Handjob said UK ‘not considering’ compulsory face masks in workplaces….which means it’s likely to happen (I will never wear one though, regardless) – just wanted to say that it’s accounts of normality like this that I find so helpful, thank you.
To put my comment in context, bad day, face masks in work really bloody worries me
Not that I will EVER wear one.
The right priorities
https://nypost.com/2020/08/18/russia-races-to-develop-worlds-first-covid-19-vaccine-for-cats/
It’s the cat’s meow!
Re “had for making policy decisions around coronavirus because it helped it understand how the disease was spreading.”
Positive test results do NOT mean “the disease is spreading.” Can’t these idiots get it into their tiny heads that SARS-CoV-2 is not the disease covid-19?.
The virus is not the disease.
The virus is not the disease.
The virus is not the disease.
Write it down one hundred times before you leave this classroom. Oh, nobody in the classroom . . .
Dammit, the higher the number of positive tests, the BETTER. Why doesn’t someone call these idiots on this? We are trying to achieve herd immunity, right? It is the same in the USA. “Spike of positives” is pretext to go into stricter lockdown and jack up the masking, to . . . what? What is left? Going to the loo with nappy on? Having sex with nappy on? Oh, already went there. Pretty soon everyone will have to wear full latex in order to do anything at all.
I’m sure some of our esteemed MPs would relish mandatory latex.
They invented it
Bet they would, dirty buggers!
A spate of new fetish clubs opening up could become a boost for the economy.
That was one of the eye openers for me around April time. The way it was being reported I just assumed CV-19 was like a common name for the disease, like flowers and their Latin names. Even that small clarification took me to some places that revealed just how much of a mess the response to this has been.
People don’t go further than headlines for the main unfortunately. I tried to share Carl Henegens article on false positives on a “progressive” local polticial forum where the opening post was a BBC item on measures being reintroduced here in Northern Ireland tomorrow. We have 2 people in hospital with CV-19, none in ICU.
The posts got immediately removed. This is what we are dealing with. I’ve been a member of the forum for years and it’s the first time I’ve seen that. This is what we are dealing with.
Now your talkin
Incidentally, one of the researchers’ findings, duplicated numerous times in other studies, is that the secondary attack rate was highest in household settings. Does this mean that locking people down in their homes, making transmission within households much more likely, may not have been such a good idea? Who would’ve thunk it!
Matt Hancock apparently didn’t thunk it.
At the start of all this people coming into hospitals became infected, they got tested and the numbers just kept adding up.
Then as more people came into hospitals, they too became infected, they were also tested and the numbers kept adding up.
The most ill people were put on ventilators that ended up killing them faster.
As people came to hospital, they got infected, became ill and died on ventilators.
And the numbers kept adding up…
He doesn’t seem to be able to think at all.
Sure,ply explains the situation in e.g. Peru. Crowded apartment blocks, poor ventilation, large extended families locked in together…
One for the resident LS Risk Assessment Spotters Club.
“East Lothian headteacher ‘sorry’ for forcing pupils to eat lunch in the rain
Pupils at the school were forced to stay outside in ‘torrential’ rain due to social distancing rules”
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/east-lothian-headteacher-sorry-forcing-18793803
The shameless head teacher even uses those favourite primary school excuses, “everyone else was doing it” and “we just got carried away”. Cruel, thoughtless, idiotic, brain dead educator.
I always thought Family Fortunes was representative of the general level of intelligence in regular people. I’m beginning to think they were actually the brighter people selected for TV.
Lol. But then Guardian readers are supposed to be better educated than the average citizen and they are way more in favour of disease-causing masks and death-inducing lockdowns!
These are the same See You Next Tuesdays who wouldn’t protect the kids if the enemy soldiers came to shoot them all. They’d run for the hills. I despise them.
Yes, yes it was very wet. All over the central belt, east to west, drove through it all.
Absolute scum.
LOOK HERE, CORRELATION WORTHY OF NOTE, SAME COMPANY TWO PLACES
Bit of a sinister finding here:
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/19/facebook_medical_misinformation/
Avaaz, that company where the girlfriend ofDr Lockdown/ Prof Pantsdown works is now filing complainnts to faecesbook about how, among the usual crap the sucker-borg’s platform shows, it has been showing medical quackery. No doubt there is plenty of quackery advertised on the book of faeces, but given the involvement of that “global activist org” in reporting this I fear it is trying to make us lockdown sceptics look like disinformation too. The lockdown abuse of our rights looks more and more conspiratorial each passing day.
Oh NO!
buried in the text:-
The Table is quite interesting as well.
— CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (14th Aug 2020)
.
But…
Why are effectively not children dying or ending up in hospital in the US OR ANYWHERE ELSE?
Precisely, I think the CDC is stretching facts… just a bit…
In these times, serious questions need to be asked about “Science” and “Scientists” as it seems that for the majority of people just hearing these two words is enough to accept everything said in their names as 100% gospel. (This belief in “Science” as the sole and most authentic source of truth is called “Scientism”).
Joe Rappoport as usual does ask these questions:
“In the realm of so-called science, there is a veritable army of self-styled experts in charge, who say, “Of course we know what we’re doing when we discover a new virus.” And that, they think, is enough.
It isn’t.
It especially isn’t, when the issue is a claim of a global viral pandemic; and repressive containment measures are being imposed, which are destroying countless jobs and businesses and lives. All because of a story about a new virus.
We’ve heard the phrase, “the science is settled.” But settled for whom? Time and again, it turns out the purveyors of pseudoscience have a political or commercial agenda that is driving their assertions. They posture, they scoff at critics. They refuse to step forward and engage in honest and prolonged debate. They censor counter-arguments.”
Full article definitely worth reading:
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/08/17/actually-discovered-new-coronavirus-question-wont-go-away/
Whenever the phrase “the science is settled” is used, you can bet your bottom dollar there is a political agenda at work. The phrase is the exact opposite of what science actually represents.
There used to be a classic phrase used on Horizon programmes: ‘Scientists used to think …….. but now we know’. Always made me annoyed because the science is never settled. I am a scientist by the way.
‘Why weren’t we wearing masks at the start of the crisis?‘ – And here’s Ross Clark in the Spectator posing a question to which he knows the answer
Not a very good article, though. He cherry-picks just a few countries in order to suggest that early mask adoption would have been advisable, and he very much implies that compulsory masking is a good idea. If you’re going to do the comparison game, why not include all places that either did or did not mask? When broaden your search, he effect of masks diminishes almost entirely. Even if you can show a modest improvement in outcomes, I don’t think it comes anywhere close to justifying compulsory masking, and that is something I’d like to see more widely discussed.
Yes – I think Toby is being too kind to a colleague linking this one n
Agreed!
The whole things is premised on the nonsense idea that if it saves one life, it is without question worth it.
As you say, even if you could guarantee me that the entire population being forced to wear masks could ‘save’ 100 lives (how anyone could prove that is unknown) I’d still not agree that compulsory masking is desirable or acceptable. Regardless of numerous individuals not finding them an imposition, they without question have negative impacts beyond just ‘reduces my oxygen’ in the wider context of society & the environment etc that are just never talked about or considered, for some reason.
Here is a thought experiment for your mask-wearing friends. Assume that masks work. Now, we also know that if masks do work, they work better on clean faces. So, we’ve established that the slight increase in protection that masks offer (if they work) is worth government edict and criminal offenses for non-compliance. By that logic, so does virtually any marginal increase in protection. So, do you support compulsory shaving? A ban on beards?
I’ve gotten 2 responses to this. 1) no response. Ignore the question. 2) the lie: “Of course I would support that if it means we could open up” (to which I replied: “why haven’t you shaved your beard, then?”)
People say that mandated masks is no different from mandated pants… ok, let’s accept that ridiculous comparison. What is the limiting principle? Where do we stop?
Haha mandated pants and other terrible attempts to compare other things with masks.
My favourite being: You wear a seat belt don’t you? Er yes, when I’m driving a car… not when I’m just walking around minding my own business (which is the same as walking around whilst uninfected with a mask on). How that one took off is beyond me, deliberate stupidity I can only assume.
I’ve heard that one a lot. I just can’t get through to some people that I know, what my objection to wearing a mask is.
Its not just the fact that they are ineffective, its the compulsion and the shaming aspect. Also, there is absolutely something degrading about covering ones mouth.
I don’t know if you’ve watched the Handmaid’s Tale (spoiler alert) but in series 3 the heroine goes to another city where the handmaids not only wear the sort of nun’s habit but a mouth covering too. Underneath the gag their mouths were stapled with metal rings – it was horrific.
The point is the women were to be silenced.
I think masks are my biggest bugbear in all this. They are degrading and humiliating and a symbol of compliance. Plus, you cannot see how someone is reacting to you. I made a joke to the GM of my local hotel the other night because I’d paid my bill (to him) but the next day the staff wanted to charge me again as there was no record of me paying. I had the receipt so there was no issue and the staff just nodded knowingly that xxxx had done it again, he doesn’t get the till, he’s the GM. When I came to pay him the for that session I made a gentle joke about not charging me twice again and because of his mask I had no idea whether he was offended, amused or indifferent. I had to ask: fortunately he was amused but ffs how are we supposed to read nuance if we can’t see people’s faces?
Exactly.
A friend of mine has Aspergers and already struggles to communicate with people when their faces are uncovered, with faces covered it is a problem, as you describe.
Having to ask what someone what their reaction is not easy or comfortable.
Newborns seeing their mum in a masks on the regular as well, that must have an impact on their development as its all about facial communication. You only get one shot at that during that time in their life
Aye Bella, It’s like I’m surrounded by mannequins. I rely on fine observation and reading people’s body language and all that is just POOF! gone when I look upon a masked human being. Eyes without a face, such a sad state of affairs.
My go to response to the seat belt analogy these days is this:
If they told you seatbelts are only mandatory in certain parts of town or on certain roads would you question if they were really necessary in the first place?
From that idiot who suddenly popped up from the Royal Society when face nappies were first threatened.
Do they mandate pants?
There are laws that oblige you to cover your private parts in public, but they don’t say how you should do it. I never thought the face would ever be included on the list of “naughty bits”.
I’ve never actually been able to have a proper debate about masks in person with anybody, because everyone I’ve spoken to immediately agrees that it’s stupid.
And then the next day, they put a mask on to go into Sainsbury’s.
The point, anyway, has nothing to do with convenience and nothing to do with equivalence to any other item of clothing. The point is – the government does not tell me what to wear (or what not to wear). And if the government wants to tell me what to wear, it needs as a minimum to be able to show some pretty irrefutable evidence that what they’re requiring is vital. And I still wouldn’t like it.
A friend told me her paramedic colleague has been ordered to shave his beard so that the masks they have supplied will fit. The beard prevents a snug fit.
He’s digging in his heels apparently and refused.
Exactly. Mandatory masks takes us into a whole new territory – Tyrannyland. Thousands of people die early deaths from drug and alcohol abuse. Why not have compulsory weekly blood tests if it “saves lives”? There is no logical objection if you accept compulsory mask wearing.
Obesity causes high blood pressure, diabetes, joint problems etc. Why not a compulsory weekly weigh in, or fridge check?
Or a mandatory time locked mask for fatties?
This business of “if it saves one life” is absolute bunkum. The repost is to state that reducing the speed limit in built-up areas to 15 mph would obviously save a significant number of lives, but we don’t do that – why not?
Not driving at all would save lives. Anyone proposed that?
Exactly! But it is also clear that the very rushed introduction of driverless cars will have more “safety” as one of its biggest justifications.
Removing humans from many spheres of (previously human) activities is clearly on the “agenda”….according to some (i..e multizillionaires and their controlled corporations) humans are bad for the planet…
Indeed. An abomination that has blighted our lives and deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history if humanity is to survive.
Exactly. We could save thousands of lives by requiring state funded trained driving advisors to accompany each of us when we drive our cars. Would that be justified? Of course not but it would probably be cheaper than wrecking your country’s economy to “vanquish the virus” and probably on a par with mandatory masks in terms of destroying our civil liberties.
I agree it was disappointing. Ross has had a good war overall but this was not his best outing by a long shot.
It is the classic conservative cop-out by bargaining for your own freedoms that never should have been taken to begin with. Just let me out and I’ll put on the mask!
At the risk of hyperbole, these seem like the sorts of bargains that history has taught us to avoid at all costs.
Clark sounds like a complete twat. If he’s not going to use rational argument, I don’t see why I should!
I’d say that given that the article bashes the lockdown concept as stupid it is still good. masks might not be much to our liking, and they don’t plausibly seem that effective, but if the coronanist panicking morons can be made to think a mask is the magic cure rather than a lockdown then that must be progress.
I get the Spectator regularly and read mostly of it avidly. I always skip Ross Clark. Presumably I discovered his twattishness long before Covid was more than s twinkle in Bill Gates’ eye.
Yes, I thought that was a dodgy article for Toby to have cited.
The properly useless Devi Sridhar strikes again. Can she do anything but up-chuck stupidity? Remember Scotland cunning Covid Zero plan – well architect in chief of the plan, the dimly witted Devi only comes out with the truth of the matter, and the immediately follows through by telling us it’s about ‘reducing risk of cases’. Okay, gotcha now what do you mean?
To emphasis: Devi says – “There will never be no risk- it’s about reducing risk of cases emerging in school.”
There will NEVER be NO RISK. So whos for a pointless vaccine then?
Devi Sridhar
@devisridhar
·
9h
Parents keep asking me about schools: look at what’s happening where you live, local community transmission, local new daily cases & testing positivity. Based on that, make an informed judgement. There will never be no risk- it’s about reducing risk of cases emerging in school
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1296039966892527618?s=20
Testing positivity = professor speak for ‘positive tests’. Was it Slow black, Sloe black fishing boat bobbing sea Dylan who suggested its a fool who adds words where less will do?
Make an informed judgrment yet we are told not to make informed judgements about so much how could anyone guess on this point we are to make an informed judgement. If we judge the school isn’t safe do we keep our children away? No, we are not allowed to do that by law. So in actual fact Devi is producing brain scramble risable junk as public health messaging..
She does not have to cognitive capacity to focus upon public messaging – her brain is too full of itself. Truly immature messaging – perhaps thats why the cult tend to like her for now. It will be good to see her suffer when the ego stops being fed.
This is so disingenuous it makes me want to vomit. The Scottish administration and the government in general have gone out of their way to remove and distort the ability of the populace to assess risk for themselves and now she’s asking them to do just that?
Basics,
“She does not have to cognitive capacity to focus upon public messaging – her brain is too full of itself. Truly immature messaging”.
Amen to that.
DavidC
Can anyone tell me what the testing endgame is? The ultimate official testing wet dream appears to be to test everyone every day. But why? The nearest thing I’ve heard as an explanation is from the deranged Hancock who said that it was so we can “introduce the right measures”. Like what? Can anyone think of one measure that our cowardly government has introduced that has had a clear objective or benefit (to be kind, preventing the NHS being overwhelmed might have been one – but we know now it wouldn’t have happened anyway).
As with everything that has occurred since the desperate hunt for ‘cases’ is designed to sustain the sense of fear in the public and maintain the impression that the government is ‘controlling’ something.
To me the virus is like a Tsunami. You can try to hold it back, but it will surge through every country with no respect for boundaries. It’s going to come and it’s going to go. So the best thing is to manage its passage. Floridian Keys dwellers have learnt that the best defence against hurricane-driven tides is to build your house on stilts. The water will come and it will go. At about the time of UK lockdown wise old scientists like Michael Levitt, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford were saying: “Protect the vulnerable but encourage the spread of the virus by children, let it run its course throughout the population”. The best policy must be to manage the passage of the virus. Don’t encourage it, but don’t try to completely stop it either.
Perhaps our deluded leaders think that they might just be able to eliminate the virus through all this maniacal testing, tracing and documenting. But as the most ardent proponents of this control-freakery in Victoria state in Australia and New Zealand find, they might destroy freedom, democracy and their economy in their efforts. But they won’t stop the virus.
In a village near to me there is an old red telephone box that for years has been used as a small lending library where you can leave and borrow books,not now you can’t,it’s been closed ‘to prevent the spread of covid’,even though it remained open over the past few months.
Covid Madness
Local government Officers trying to be important.
As Toby is sharing his smoked salmon supplier I would like to recommend Bradley’s Fish and Kittows Quality Meats to those who are choosing to shop on line instead of at the supermarket.
Would recommend this butcher as well for those boycotting physical shops:
https://www.donaldrussell.com/
Currently has loads of good offers.
Clever beggar, the Covid. We go for a walk regularly in a local village here in the south west. One pub has only had its garden open since the great re-opening. But tonight, it’s persisting down, so customers can go inside. The Covid will not strike if it’s raining, so the customers are safe.
I went to Sainsbury’s today and saw the biggest number of non masked people. A lady in her late 30s with kids in tow who had a lanyard and with whom I exchanged a conspiratorial smile, a girl in her 20s shopping with a masked friend and a grungy looking teenage girl of about 18. Also a lot of Sainsbury’s middle aged and older women workers were also maskless. I was surprised as women are often the most zealous (I’m a woman btw). Clearly mask novelty is wearing thin in Derbyshire.
In another piece of good news, I’m happy to see our Pizza Express is one of the few to have survived the cull.
Ah, another in Derbyshire. We do seem to be a fulcrum of sanity.
I too am in Derbyshire
There are a lot more women sceptics than I would have expected – they may even be in the majority. It gives me hope!
Indeed, my wife is a staunch sceptic and just goes about her business unmuzzled without letting the general situation get her down, despite being at risk of redundancy. She doesn’t even talk about ‘lockdown’ etc very much, just ignores it. I admire her for being able to put it to the back of her mind whilst being non-compliant!
I’m annoyed by the situation 24/7, and am in a continual state of stress, despite also ignoring all government diktats. Perhaps the female brain can cope better with this SAGE psy-op!
Not my female mind, sadly. I am more like you: in a state of constant distress at the loss of my liberty
Is being a Woman Lockdown Skeptic a bit like being a WPC?!
Surely their emotional, irrational brains would be the first to be bamboozled by the Corona Cult…. It’s almost as though there’s not actually such as a thing as a male mind and a female mind….
Mind you, maybe we could recruit some Trans Activists to our side if we told them that in addition to making it less likely you’ll die of covid, being a woman also means you’re more likely to be a skeptic!
Not sure I follow, but possibly you have assumed something that wasn’t being meant? What I was thinking was that ‘conspiracy theorists’ are usually men – and easy to write off as such in our misandrist culture. In contrast, if women are equally aghast at the world’s reaction to Covid, then at least it makes it a more obviously-respectable point of view that can’t be dismissed as easily. If women are thinking it, too, then maybe I’m not a tinfoil hat-wearing saddo after all.
Well done!! I wish I can say the same in my neck of the woods but perversely, there has been more unmuzzled people in the underground, at least from my local station.
Good start!
Another useful ally. I think people have mentioned John Ward before (The Slog) but this is the first time I’ve seen his sister site
http://covidisinfectant.com/news-blog/clearly-frontline-medical-staff-do-not-support-major-elements-of-the-state-narrative-on-covid-19
I’m a big fan of John Ward. A staunch libertarian and freedom advocate. Always on my weekly checklist.
Just saw in the telegraph, on the subject of Mandatory Vaccines:
“It would be unenforceable and not appropriate,” said Fauci.
Funny that, he’s against mandating something which might work, vaccines are the only reliable tool aganst viruses, but was happy to mandate an utterly useless and terribly damaging lockdown. Making anything mandatory is bad, but a mandatory prick in the arm (hopefully they’d have the sense to make this a patch not needle vaccine anyway and hence be able to post it to africa without need for a cold chain supply route) is of no significance compared to the crime of making it mandatoryto: stay at home, lose your job or business, lose contact with your friends and family… Fauci is such a hypocrite, if he can recognise that vaccines are better not being mandatory (but definitely a good thing to have avilable free to all who want), why can’t he see that locking everyone down against their consent was wrong?
There has been some discussion about the possibility that there will be a local lockdown in Oldham even though it is agreed that the death rate is low and there are few if any Covid cases in hospital. So, presumably the whole hoo-haa is based on dodgy pillar 2 test results (so called cases)? Which begs the question who is getting tested and why?
Is there any element of compulsion with people getting tested as part of their work?
Otherwise voluntarily getting tested seems like an invitation to dig your own grave. Wild horses would not drag me anywhere near an NHS test/trace centre.
Why are people getting tested?
I guess if we started a ‘don’t get tested’ campaign it would be ruled out by twitter/facebook etc.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-oldham-shouldnt-go-into-lockdown/
Yet another common sense article from CEBM.
It might not have much to do with the numbers but all people die to have more serious hospital treatment, cancer, operations, must have a test 3 days before treatment. These people have no choice. Could they be boosting the false positives. Also care home staff and residents are being compulsorily tested and home carers. Could these be boosting false positives? Perhaps some employers are insisting on tests so these might boost false positives. The more tests the more false positives. I heard people are going door to door in places like Blackburn and Bradford asking people to get a test. Not sure if that is true.
other than that I think people will be getting the message to not volunteer for a test and to be more devious and lie more.
die should read due … sorry too late to edit
Handy Cock’s Brilliant Solution to Ending the Covid Crisis ???
Dunno why Toby didn’t just have a picture of a syringe and needle !!!
I think that once the Govt gets an extension on the upcoming sunset clause we’re all for it. I think that’s all that’s preventing these jokers from turning the screw right now. They’re just buying time for the kill shot, is full on surveillance state with annual mandatory vaccines.
It’s alright writing puff pieces for the DT but it’s getting us nowhere fast. Giving us 10-20 links of covid sceptical articles for 4 months is all well and good but if there’s no political power to back it up it’s a pointless exercise. Toby obviously has links but I see nothing to suggest he’s on the case and using them.
As much as I like the site, it’s just feeling like Groundhog day each time I visit now, yet more evidence reinforcing what we’ve all known for months. I’ve subbed the site several times in the past but I don’t feel it’s getting us anywhere.
Expect I might need a tin hat for the above but I’m more interested to now if there’s any MP’s or Media Organisations close to breaking ranks? If there’s not we’re all well and truly fucked, sceptical website or not
I totally agree. But I don’t see any way out of this.
I was in a pub tonight. Not too bad – it could have been a lot worse. But I saw people in masks who didn’t need to be. And I saw one bloke physically leap backwards when he realised there was already someone in the gents’.
I never knew that I was brave or anything like that, but my fear of the ‘virus’ is zero. My contempt for these cu*ts is total.
To the phantom downmarker: tell us your definition of a “case”, what constitutes a “spike”, and give your estimate for the PCR false positive rate, and we can have a discussion about what that means. We could then move onto the elementary mistakes in Neil Ferguson’s models.
I see an upmark. Suspect the site is playing up.
It was -1 for a while…
May I ask you have you always had no fear of the virus or did you just become more cynical as more facts emerged? I’ve never been afraid of it for myself just for elderly and vulnerable people.
Your inference is correct. To start with, I was very scared of this new plague – ironic, because no one else seemed to be worried by it in January. But by March, I knew the basics, and I had put it into context: it wasn’t much worse than flu, and in some ways it was better because it didn’t seem to be affecting younger people.
I’m approaching ‘elderly’, but I’ve never feared the virus even for a split second. I didn’t worry about SARS either, or mad cow disease. I know panic-mongering rubbish when I meet it.
Yesterday we watched a Timewatch documentary on the Black Death, which examined the interesting theory that the Death was not bubonic plague but an unknown viral, haemorrhagic disease that eventually just disappeared. In 1346-60 (about) it’s estimated to have killed a third of the world’s population.
And it didn’t just pick on the elderly.
Sense of proportion…
Same. Utter contempt for the mask wearing idiots.
Agreed. Been thinking similar. I do think it is forming though. At present it feels a bit like howling at the moon, but pressure is building, and when the inevitable happens and large numbers of people start feeling real pain, and start asking the necessary questions, we will have the momentum. Who will form and lead a coherent political movement is not clear as yet, but there are enough smart and politically savvy people on our side to make it happen. Reason always triumphs in the end. It is the human condition.
The vast majority of people I attempt to engage with invariably respond with a combination of the following:
Given this level of brainwashing and the resultant intransigence, we are currently fighting a losing battle. How can we possibly effect political change if all the people around us, including people we have known for years, are unchangeable?
The economic fallout, and when tough questions start to be asked – I kind of think it will be the start of a wave, then there will be no place to hide.
THe govt won’t admit the mistakes, but they won’t have to. It will be plain to see.
Or it could be wishful thinking. I have had a couple of whiskeys
Lockdown Sceptics + Beer = Medicine. Even if nothing ever really gets accomplished by any of us, that is reason enough for me to keep coming back.
Indeed. It’s nice to know there are other sane people about.
The masses won’t blame the government; they’ll turn on the ‘Covidiots’.
Nope.
A ‘covidiot’ fights back!
Man knocked unconscious at London railway station amid row over face masks
William is heard saying “you’re not wearing one either”…
In response, the man turns around and walks away from his pram shouting “don’t f****** start on me” and punches William, knocking him to the floor unconscious.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/man-knocked-unconscious-london-railway-202607876.html
Agreed. It’s still a couple of months to the end of the furlough scheme (though there’s some talk of extending it), but already the job losses are piling up, such as the 7000 at M&S. There will be lots more.
Precisely. The UK economy is heavily oriented to services and that is exactly the sector the government are attacking with their “Feel the Fear” policies. We are about to enter an economic death zone. The latest figures on inflation are also v worrying but to be expected – we have money chasing lower output.
Talking to someone from Rolls Royce yesterday, he was saying they’ve laid off or are in the process of laying off 6,000 staff. Also, I asked if they were back working in the offices, he told me that staff have been told to work from home for the rest of the year.
My aunties neighbour lost his job last week.
By the time unemployment hits in a big way we’ll in a full on surveillance state unless the Govt loses the 1st sunset clause vote in September.
Like we’re not already! Lol You think the government aren’t monitoring this site?
I wonder if 77th Brigade even exists. This might in itself be a propaganda phantom to sow seeds of discord in places like this.
I think playing 3D chess is difficult enough as it is without introducing a fourth dimension!
They do exist. They are very real.
Are you suggesting that those awful bigots who post BTL in the Torygraph are real?!
I agree Klein – that is exactly how things change. Neville Chamberlain never said “That Adolf pulled the wool over my eyes” but he began rearmament in earnest.
Exactly that mate which is why I’m saying it’s getting us nowhere. Anyone who is reachable is already on the same page. The rest (sheep) will only follow if some notable MP or Media Organization splits from the heard. Without that we’ve all had it. The Govt gets past that 1st sunset clause it’s game over.
The government can do whatever the fuck it wants, we are already in an authoritarian system, and it was game over on 23rd March. This feels like a coordinated global attack on humanity itself, and on an incredibly aggressive timeline like nothing we have ever seen. The odds of overturning it are slim to non-existent. Which is part of the attraction actually. Remember how we Brits used to favour the underdog, even though they invariably got pulverised? Well right now we are an ant trying to defeat the Death Star. Or maybe Keith Deller vs Eric Bristow in 1983.
OK, well no point on continuing to keep posting here then is there- unless you are trying to demoralise people.
I was adding to the demoralisation until 20 minutes ago!
I haven’t seen any comments from you trashing this site. That’s what so called Noncompliant is doing.
This site is a lifeline. Let us for a second imagine an LS Post-Covid conference, with Toby Young as the master of ceremonies.
The conference will be held in Nuremberg. Appropriate eyewear will be provided for the accused.
“Tony Hall, you are accused of leading a criminal propaganda outfit that was used to criminalise law abiding citizens, devastate the economy and shut down children’s education. How do you plead? “
“On the counts of the indictment, of which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by mask, goggles, gloves and visor.”
And you’ll have to subsist entirely on food parcels comprised of biscuits, spam and UHT milk.
And yet, and yet…
The Covid Train must hit the buffers of reality. I think it already has but it’s a slow motion crash.
It took a good 5 years before the British public gave up on interwar Appeasement.
Hoping this won’t take as long, given the full breaking wave of economic disaster is not far off.
They will change their tune once they’re directly affected via the following:
Those people you described above are in denial not only because they’ve been brainwashed but because this current crisis isn’t really affecting them. Sure its a bit of an inconvenience but its not really a problem because they live in nice areas, have big houses and gardens and have the wealth and means to cushion them from the hard times for now.
Good point. For such people the quality of their lives might have actually improved in the last 5 months, particularly for senior directors who have got to know their spouse and children for the first time (and have found them to be agreeable).
I know it feels like there is not much impact from this site but we are all looking at articles and research we wouldn’t have found on our own and each day I tell someone about some thing, perhaps about Carl Heneghan etc. It must be having a small effect in other ways, support fro each other, sharing links, more people reading and telling others. More confidence to break laws. A sense that we are not on our own. Small things but beginnings of a shift.
Absolutely spot on Wendy.
DavidC
Double tick. We sceptics are not just contrarians. We examine the evidence. If someone shows me the evidence I am wrong, I change my mind. That’s how we learn.
The great thing about scepticism is that we are open to the evidence. The more we share, the more we learn, the stronger the case.
Exactly… back in January I was quite open in considering what it was we were facing. As a matter of principle I didn’t trust anything the the Chinese Government were telling us but I was prepared at that point to accept we might be facing a novel pathogen on a Spanish Flu scale – a devastating virus that might cut s swathe through healthy people.
As the crisis unfolded I became more and more sceptical as I read up on coronaviruses and pandemics while tracking what was happening in real time. Most sceptics here ignore the narratives and follow the evidence.
I was prepared to give the official narrative that covid was dangerous for about two weeks back in February. It became clear that is wasn’t that dangerous to most people. I was also aware of “THE AGENDA”. I was calling out the corona hoax back then.
well said
Exactly Wendy – big or small, the effect is positive. Why gripe about that unless you are actually trying to undermine lockdown scepticism?
Farage started his political career in 1992 after the Maastricht Treaty was signed. It took him 22 years until the European Elections of 2014 to have any significant impact on the political landscape, and he started out with a base support of millions of naturally Eurosceptic British citizens.
We are starting from nothing, with a minuscule fraction of 1% of the population, and are only 5 months in.
As I have suggested here many times we need a new political party that will represent the interests of UK citizens as they understand them. A key priority of such a party would be to dismantle the Covid State.
I think I came up with a good coinage there: the Covid State – an illiberal coercive apparatus representing the interests of the medical mafia, Big Pharma, tech billionaires, control freak academics, the Far Left and regimes that bear us ill will.
I have, for the last twenty years, advocated that people should vote for any party other than from the mainstream. But who should you vote for? ANY new party will immediately face the whole might of the establishment against it in order to discredit it. And as we know, people fall for the propaganda.
Beware defeatist trolling.
I am sure the vast majority of people here understand what we are up against. But Toby’s site is a beacon in a dark landscape. Why would any lockdown sceptic talk it down unless their real purpose was, shall we say, unfriendly?
Well said.
I feel defeatist multiple times every day, so I wouldn’t blame anyone for expressing that openly here. I have already done so on multiple occasions. As long as we hold the line and make our contribution, we are having an effect. My mood has changed from 10 minutes ago, see my other posts in this exchange. It’s nuts.
If someone offered me the chance to return to the Old Normal right now, with no memory of 2020 ever having happened, in all honesty I would have to think about it. Something really special is happening that is intoxicating and addictive. I’ve never had more energy or been more alive than in the last 5 months.
The old Chinese curse was: “May you live in interesting times.”
Very much so. And it’s also a blessing.
“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” also springs to mind. Anyone over 40 (as I am) will know this, viscerally. I used to hate commuting, but what I wouldn’t give now for getting on a lousy, packed, delayed Southern service to anywhere. Or standing at a sweaty, uncomfortable easyJet departure gate, desperately needing a piss, wondering if the 3 hour delay displayed on the app is estimated or actual.
Lol! I am sure we would all love to go back to complaining about the dearth of sunbeds around the pool!
Moral: never throw in the towel!
Wow your last paragraph is an eye opener, ringing true to me as well. I have this feeling deep inside that for once in my life I will soon be making a stand that is final and non-negotiable. Right now I’m really enjoying my everyday life until that time comes.
I’m deadly serious as well, it really is that intense. I only need a maximum of 3-4 hours sleep a night. My ability to absorb, process and recall information has increased a hundredfold. It feels like brain capacity that has lain dormant for decades is being reactivated. What a trip.
Lockdown sceptics,Peter Hitchens,UK column and off guardian have provided what has been severely lacking in the MSM.
By holding the government to account and providing evidence based rebuttals they have kept the flame of truth alive.
Indeed and so shame on much lauded so called journalists like Tim Shipman who have stoked the fear-fire. They have been active players in this drama. They can’t shrug off responsibility for their part in causing the breakdown of our economy, education system, health service and cultural life.
Agreed.
What to do?
I keep pushing the Anti Lockdown Rally next Saturday, but don’t have much info about it.
That article at
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/19/we-cant-lock-down-forever/
is a very good one. We are now seeing that all the countries which locked down as tight as the coronanists begged for are getting second waves of pandemic, and second waves of panic. Those which didn’t lock down, or locked down in a way which was thankfully ineffective, are seeing only minor and rare local spikes (the main differences between non-lockeddown and ineffectively-lockeddown being not in regards to viral spread but in that only the former have any economy or human rights left). The message is that if you lock down hard, you lock down FOREVER. I’m sure that north of the border the Stasi Nannying Party have realised this, they’re terrified about English cases arriving because they realise, but won’t admit, that by abusing their people worse than the (already unforgivable) crooks running England did they’re going to be in fear of a second wave forever*.
*even after a vaccine is ready, if there ever is one, should the evil Nicola get her way
If it doesn’t work, lock down harder.
If it still doesn’t work, lock down even harder.
Got guilted into going the chemist attached to the GP this morning to get a prescription for my wife. Straight in maskless, no questions. Felt good.
This evening I went out with her without the kids for the first time since the new year. Walked through Cabot Circus in Bristol to get to the restaurant. They had a small sign at each entrance ‘must wear a face covering’ but this is an open air shopping center with a suspended roof – there’s no way it was the ‘law’. Seems everyone else agreed as didn’t see 1 person with a mask. Loads of young people walking around being normal. Great to see. Was a pleasure to go to a full restaurant with no rules explained upon entrance, just nicely spaced tables with a card and a biro to fill in T&T but completely optional.
Just a quick thought on a bit of minor civil disobedience to disrupt t+t, but if biros are left on tables to fill in the form, why not ‘borrow’ the biro. That way the next group to use the table won’t find it easy to fill the form. And the establishment won’t be able to afford to replace ‘lost’ byros.
Bit mean to the establishment who are being as lax as possible!
Better the biro and its empty cards simply lie there all day untouched.
Saw the deputy leader of Aberdeen City Council on BBC Scotland “The Nine” tonight. Brave woman indeed. The council are very unhappy about Sturgeon’s decision to extend the Aberdeen city lockdown for another (I think) 2 weeks. The council are trying to communicate sensibly with the SG to get the latter’s plan for an exit strategy from the lockdown (what infection figures will “satisfy” SG enough to end lockdown?) but getting nowhere. Dissent at an official local level definitely in the air. The council woman from Aberdeen got a very hard time from the pert young madam questioner in BBC Scotland studios in Glasgow (a right-on Sturgeon supporter and pro lockdown fanatic, as befits BBC Scotland) but held her ground admirably. Is the mood turning against Sturgeon and SG?
Aberdeen is Unionist country I believe.
In Norfolk this week, and have to say it is generally worse than the Lake District. Lots of masked up people. Been to Lidl, Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s in Hunstanton and was the only unmasked shopper each time. Been to the Co-Op in Snettisham, as our ‘local’ a few times and had an interesting altercation today. Went into buy some baked beans to go with breakfast and saw a guy, late 50’s, maybe early 60’s with a ridiculous bandana on up to just below his eyes. I saw him give me a bit of a ‘look’ as I got the goods. He queued up before me, and started doing a bit of a dance as the person in front of him moved to put their things in a bag. I kept to the ‘respectful’ distance, but as he was at the till he looked at me and shook his head. I let that go. But then he looked at me again and let out an audible and quite deliberate sigh. I then said loudly enough for him and everybody else to hear ‘Have you got a problem?’ He replied ‘Why aren’t you wearing a mask?’ I said, ‘I’m exempt, have you got a problem with that?’ I think he was surprised by my directness and mumbled something about ‘that’s ok, I don’t have a problem’. I said, ‘Good, although if you don’t have a problem, why did you say it in the first place?’ He moves off and I put my beans on the counter. The (unmasked guy) serving me just smiled at me and shook his head. The young woman behind me in a mask smiled with her eyes and I felt immediately better. The point is though that this is all totally unnecessary. I don’t give a fuck, and actually enjoy it to an extent, (although I still feel a bit nervous each time I go into a shop) but the way they are turning people against each other is horrific. I’m not angry with the guy in the shop today, he is probably genuinely fearful. I’m angry with the lying bastards who have made him like that.
Great point you made there Chris. I too don’t blame the people for being whipped up in this frenzy. Gov’t and mainstream Media are the enemy
Led by Fetida Dickhead. That creep was doing exactly what she told them all to do.
Why is a senior police officer inciting violence and law-breaking still in a job? Oh. . . . . . MW
I flit between not being angry with people because they have been whipped into a frenzy of fear by the government/media, to being annoyed that they can be so stupid to believe that something like a bandana can eradicate respiratory illness.
Well done Chris
I enjoy shopping in supermarkets maskless, more than before.
I am however, angry with that guy, and anyone like him. They are perpetuating this whole clown show, he would be the first person to cast the first stone, shout ‘SHE’S A WITCH’ or imform on Anne Frank. I have a problem with that.
I wish I was where to witness you taking him down a peg or two.
I can’t let him off either. He’s not only a collaborator, he has chosen to act like an unpaid goon. And doing all this while wearing a bloody bandanna! MW
Quote: “but the way they are turning people against each other is horrific.”
Exactly what the foul Cresida Dickless said she hoped would happen. “We intend that people will police each other…” or similar words.
Why do I torture myself? I made the mistake of replying to a thread on the New York Times web site. While I provide reference after reference to studies on the uselessness of masks (BMJ, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine, etc.) and challenge the posters to find me ONE RCT demonstrating the efficacy of face masks in preventing the spread of viruses, what do I get? I’m a Karen who belongs to QAnon! I said to that brilliant mind, “I didn’t know the British Medical Journal and New England Journal of Medicine were arms of QAnon! Thanks for that brilliant insight.” I keep going back and replying, “I’m still waiting for that RCT on how face masks will save us.” Still more vitriol — I should be ashamed of myself, etc., etc. Please remind me not to waste my time with these maskholes!
People who say masks work don’t even know what they are saying. Ask them, in what way do masks work exactly?
The best that anybody can say is that masks have an effect. How much of an effect is unproven in the context of disease control.
To say they work is basically meaningless and as useful as saying trousers work.
I know there are ZERO randomized controlled trials that demonstrate face masks works so I know they cannot meet my challenge. They don’t even try. It’s “the science” says, doctors smarter than you say, there are all kinds of studies (where?), and then they resort to personal attacks. We’ve got our work cut out for us…
Don’t bother with the Yanks, Lisa. Their lifelong exposure to propaganda is the heaviest in all the free world. The Empire creates its own reality and their citizens just gobble it up.
Well, not all of us.
Tish. In the US of A, you can shoot someone who tries to jab you without consent.
There was such a thing, back in the day, as the flying pickets – mobile pickets who used to travel to join a group who were picketing (during the Miner’s strike I think). Maybe we need to form a flying picket type group – all descending on the same comments page and flooding it with LS type comments. The psychology of it would be interesting to observe because as you’ve demonstrated here, it can be quite dispiriting to stand alone against a group even when you are 100 per cent sure you’re in the right.
Maybe people can suggest a few suitable sites we can focus on?
But they are wearing the mask to save You Nobody2020 !
The battlefield of WW3 is digital, and you are on the front lines.
Consider that many of the people you are debating with are political operatives. Their job is to demoralise you. On the balance of probability CCP, 77th Brigade and NSA are responsible for a significant proportion of the hostile reactions to anything you post, especially on mainstream forums like the New York Times.
Sure there will be genuine haters out there, but Peter Hitchens summed these up perfectly: “I assume that these assailants are the sort of people who spend their lives in basements quietly converting sugary, fizzy drinks into human lard.”
I wish that I could fly to London for the 29th of August, 2020.
I wish you could too.
Same! Won’t fly with a mask so it’s a non-starter.
Ditto here. One day I will return to the UK and it may be via boat
Just do as I have done and eat/drink throughout the flight, problem solved, no mask required!
Is alcohol still being served on flights? Many a long haul journey has been comfortably endured courtesy of beers and wines.
Yes. Flew back from Barbados on Monday. I ate and drank while awake and nobody pestered me to put a mask on while asleep (damned if I were going to wear one all night). So really it’s just getting on and off.
There is still booze but the catering on BA has gone to ratshit. Why does COVID mean plastic glasses? And an inability to heat meals? suspect BA trying to claw back money wherever they can.
That might work on a short flight, but I’d be sick if I ate my way from Toronto to London!
Pretend… empty bottle and rice paper snacks.
Chocolate peanuts or raisins. Just chew one when someone walks past ….
No need for a mask. I flew to Iceland and back last month barefaced, wearing an exemption badge, and had no trouble. Out on BA, back on Icelandair.
Ooooohhh… that’s good to hear. Love Iceland. Maybe another trip is in the offing in that case. Is everything normal there? (normal from an Icelandic perspective – I mean they have an officially sanctioned pagan temple and a penis museum in Reykjavik). ).
Rona is outta control love this tune
https://www.facebook.com/105729974465112/posts/154682979569811/?extid=0lHznxAzaPidGFuc&d=null&vh=e
I think Swedenborg may have already posted this study but somebody made a nice visual for it:
Contact Settings and Risk for Transmission in 3410 Close Contacts of Patients With COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2671
Nice to see studies confirm what you already know through … proper science! I think SAGE should try some of the latter…
https://player.fm/series/the-richie-allen-show/the-richie-allen-radio-show-thursday-april-23rd-2020
an interview with Zeb Phoenix. At minute 28 Zeb announces that Chris Whitty had received a 31 million pound donation from the Gates Foundation. As well, he was soon to become a member of the executive board of the W.H.O. It goes on for many minutes. Vallance’s name is also mentionned.
Confirmed my suspicions.So the UK is doing what Gates wants us to do
8 minutes into the interview, starting at minute 28, still going strong. 37 people make up the committee advising the government and 35 of them have ties, monetary or otherwise, with the Gates Foundation. No conspiracy here.
Wow. I’m not surprised but I am surprised, if that makes sense!
DavidC
The only two people on the 34 strong SAGE committee that haven’t been paid directly by Gates are Vallance, (GSK) and that woman who is paid by Microsoft.
I urge all of you to listen to this April 23, 2020 interview of Zeb Phoenix on the Richie Allen Show.
It’s Zed, not Zeb.
Zed’s dead baby, Zed’s dead!
The crisis we are in was made principally by politicians. The route out of the crisis is a political one. We need a broad alliance party that will challenge the maskist-lockdownist movement on every point.
Toby Young is well placed to bring such s party into being.
Maskist-Lockdownist. Marxist-Leninist updated for the 21st century.
Apologies if this has been posted earlier but overall result of this straw poll may be indicative if widely shared?https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1296056136756531201?s=20
We want our rights and liberties back.
Also to weed out all the corrupt politicians and civil servants that receive backhanders (money, jobs, etc)
Anti lockdown rally 19 Aug 2020
29th?
The following text just arrived from my GP Practice.
‘You are now eligible for the pneumococcal vaccination, we have the vaccine in stock…”
WTF is that?
I had a recent telephone appointment with my doctor over something else (a skin tag that had changed sensitivity and colour but was diagnosed, from photos, as being benign) and I was offered the same thing.
Indeed, WTF. And what for? It’s not the flu season, we are not into what will become, inevitably, the ‘second wave’ (purely because we have a flu season EVERY YEAR!) and there is not, as far as I’m aware, a pneumococcal infection doiung the rounds, so WHY?
Suffice it to say, my response was a polite ‘No’.
DavidC
“You’re going to get the Covid-19 vaccine come what may. We’ll call it something else if we have to. Hell we’ll even pay you for it. Just take the vaccine. It’s just a little prick….”
Isn’t it a vaccine for the type of Strep that causes “common” pneumonia?
Been hearing about a lot of cases of this due to mask wearing. So people are depriving themselves of oxygen in order to protect themselves from something they will later be injected with.
Today’s virtue signalling maskholes will be tomorrow’s Big Pharma bottom line. Pin cushions for any and all vaccines, followed by the drugs required to ameliorate their side effects.
Action – reaction. Lockdowns and stress depress the immune system, so as people feel sicker and sicker they look to traditional medicine for “treatments.” The vaccine uptake will be better if people are scared, immuno-supressed, and feeling crappy.
Happily Lisa I am neither scared nor feeling crappy. They usually invite me to take Winter Flu jab which I decline, likewise this pneumococcal thing.
No idea, that’s why I’m asking you lot.
I would guess so. Isn’t that treatable with antibiotics when necessary?
Theoretically, but you also get complications which is what causes pneumonic deaths
They phoned me with that one.
I hung up.
I had that last year. It is a one-off jab given to over 70s to reduce the dangers from pneumonia. I did wonder earlier in the year whether it would help if I were unfortunately to get COVID. You should get it – along with the shingles one that you will also qualify for.
I’ll look out for shingles one thanks.
Zostavax? It’s about 50pct efficacious and lasts about 3 years. Worth it probably because chances of getting shingles are so high.
I would also get the pneumococcal one if I were eligible: it’s been around for several years. Not heard anything dodgy about it. And if everyone is going to panic every time somebody gets a respiratory infection this winter, because of COVID, I would want to reduce my chances of getting drawn into that shit show.
Thank also for that, starting to change my mind.
Thanks for that, I’m 62, never even thought of shingles.
I may be wrong about the age they start offering the pneumonia shot – I was offered it last year when I had the flu jab – I am 71. Shingles is always given during your 70th year so you don’t qualify for that yet. Both had no side effects.
Perhaps it’s because I have COPD and legacy asthma.
Which, as an o/t aside, was supposed to have made vulnerable to the Covid but statistically did nòt.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/shingles-vaccine-side-effects/
I was offered and had this last year (29th August), one-off and very effective from all I read. I didn’t bother with the offered flu vaccine and shan’t this year either. Worth doing your own research on pneumonia jab, I decided it was worth it. Some family history including youngsters, I’m still alive and no pneumonia.
The flu jab has been around for some years. Each year the vaccine is adjusted based on the previous years’ virus variation. It usually gives no problems – I have had no reactions. If it is available now, I would get it – at least you know it cannot have had any anti-Covid elements added.
Finally dug up what I was long looking for, but from the oncology field “The benefits and harms of breast cancer screening: an independent review”:-
— https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693450/
Now translate that into the overdiagnosis of COVID-19 and the collosal damage that that is causing!
IMoz,
Super reference and ‘WOW’.
DavidC
So right! That’s why I only see a doctor if I’m ill and have refused all screening tests despite the pressure. Third leading cause of death in the US is medical error! I can only surmise it’s an issue everywhere.
I am the same Lisa. No screening for me. Acute medical care excellent in uk I think but longer term care/rehab and community support very poor with an over reliance on medical and pharmaceutical interventions.
Toby’s lead story about Wankcock ramping up random testing.
South Korea did that the week before our lockdown.
They randomly tested X,000s and found that a large proportion of them, primarily young, had already had the Covid and not noticed.
S. Koreas death rate went from horrible to not very much. It was this that originally inclined me towards Skepticism.
Sweden wins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0Se_zVZw0
Guardian shouting today
“Sweden had worst 6 month death toll for 150 years”.
So would we all had we not been in WWs 1 & 2, which Sweden wasn’t.
According to Max Planck Institute Sweden’s all cause cumulative deaths (adjusted for population) from week 40 (2019) to week 23 (2020) were below the 2007-19 average. More fake news from the tax-dodging, slavery-supporting Graun.
https://twitter.com/HaraldofW/status/1295466871328845826/photo/1
This is typical manipulation of data in Project fear. There were 55000 deaths in 1869 in Sweden due to one of the last European famine. The population was 4 million today 10 million.In fact there was more deaths in 2015, 60000 as you can see above. In the age group < 65 there has been no pandemic in Sweden as the total death is even a bit lower compared to last 5 years. This fake or distorted data was published in a Swedish paper, picked up by Project fear and circled around the world by Guardian. As idiotic as Piers Morgan’s Blitz deaths but Big Pharma more or less control MSM.
Unless they can show what would have happened in Sweden had they locked down then any such comparisons are irrelevant.
Propaganda, pure and simple.
If you set out to run a sub 4hr marathon and achieve it then it’s a success.
Just because somebody comes along and says you failed because somebody else ran a sub 3hr marathon does not make you a failure.
Sweden set out to flatten the curve and achieved it, it was a success. Just because somebody comes along and says they failed because some other country got less deaths does not make them a failure.
no we wouldnt – we are still short of the death tolls for the big flu years .. But yes – Sweden has had a remarkably safe history
A few days ago I proposed that this sheep vs sceptics thing is a chess game between emotion on one side and logic on the other and that the game is lost to the emotional side. I went further and suggested that the only way out of this is that the the world as we know it reaches rock bottom before a recovery can happen (just like recovery from a drug addiction).
Perhaps we do need a ‘new normal’ but not the one which involves face coverings, distancing, sex in masks, or child abuse in schools, nor the WEF or Gates’ version.
But do we want the ‘old normal’ back again?
The ‘old normal’ of the past 50 years has allowed the banks and corporations to become way more powerful than the people or the governments who represent them. Wealth has been concentrated into the hands of a few while the ordinary folk have had their working lives reduced to effective slavery. Many people are on minimum wage or the new fangled zero hours contracts and others are employed by huge service industry corporations in tedious, boring, meaningless jobs with little or no opportunity for improving their lot.
In the ‘old normal’ education standards have been brought down to the lowest common denominator. The harder working and smarter students have to put themselves in debt for a large portion of their lives to pay for their education unless of course they are lucky enough to be the offspring of the 1%.
In the ‘old normal’ the burden of government regulation has stifled innovation so that our young people cannot start their own business without begging financial support from ‘angel’ investors (the Devil’s assistants) who will eventually screw the young entrepeneur, further concentrating the wealth in the hand of the already rich.
In the ‘old normal’ the UK has more surveillance cameras than any country in the world. The state imposes large fines or imprisonment for what used to be minor offences. There are privatised traffic wardens given powers by the state to collect fines and make money. The government contracts many services to a few large companies who pay their staff subsistence wages hence further increasing the wealth inequality.
In the ‘old normal’ the UK has destroyed its own industrial base in favour of cheap imported goods leaving the country vulnerable to global shocks and predation.
In the ‘old normal’ people who work in cities sometimes spend a quarter of their waking lives on trains, buses or sitting in traffic jams.
In the ‘old normal’, rights and freedoms have been slowly eroded, from having to wear a crash helmet on a motorcycle or a seat belt in a car to not being allowed to smoke a cigar. Drinkers are now pariahs, heavyweight people are shamed, the elderly are packed off to care homes because their family cannot be arsed to look after them.
I could go on, but the ‘old normal’ is not as good as it may seem and I do see an opportunity to forge a new one.
I don’t disagree that there were problems with the “old normal.” But none of those can be redressed by draconian lockdowns, denying people without Covid medical care, trashing the economy and throwing millions of people out of work, mandating intrusive treatments like tests and vaccines, pitting citizens against each other, censoring opposing viewpoints, etc. Fascism will not make any one of those very real problem you’ve laid out better. Like you, I’d like to see something better than the “old normal” but not at the expense of freedom. On that I’m sure you would agree!
Absolutely.
I want the old normal back. It wasn’t paradise, but it was paradise compared with what we’ve got now,
Agree. The old normal had become increasingly pernicious over the last couple of decades. However, I like the direction the new normal is taking us even less.
My Old Normal would go back to red phone and letter boxes, coppers with helmets, corner shops, Concorde and a proper Conservative Party; but we can keep the computers, smart phones and nicer cars
No no no! Get rid of smart phones. Bane of society – and one of the reasons why we’re in this mess, in my opinion. I smashed my old one with a lumphammer because it was taking over my life. Not missed it at all.
My old normal will include trying to arrange a meeting with a friend, them being two hours late, me having no way of contacting them because mobile phones weren’t invented yet, and standing round Piccadilly Circus in a snow storm watching the world bustle by.
Being the only punctual person in the world was even more of a pain before the mobile phone.
Hold on there… Nicer cars??? What planet are you on? Give me a Ford Zephyr dripping with chrome, sensuous curves and dynamic fins over a modern box of crap any day. Better yet, take me back further in time to the days of the coachbuilder’s art! A Rolls-Royce torpedo by Barker, a Bentley sportsman’s coupé by Gurney Nutting, a Talbot-Lago ‘teardrop’ coupé by Figoni et Falaschi, a Lancia cabriolet by Bocca, a Delage skiff by Labourdette, a Hispano-Suiza landaulet by Chapron, a Minerva sedanca de ville by Hibbard & Darrin! Make Beauty for Beauty’s sake the aim for society!
I want something designed by an artist’s hand, not by computers. I want something to be designed with beauty as its ultimate goal, not strangled by meddling safety legislations. I want something built by skilled craftsman, not by indifferent robots. I want an engine and running gear I can maintain myself with an annual service and basic tools, not a system of unhelpful computerised gimmicks that only a main dealer can repair (for an extortionate fee) when they go wrong.
The Devil take your modern cars (and your smartphones)! Other than that, all the best to you…
If we’re going back to an old normal I’ll pick&mix which bits I like. You, of course, may do likewise.
Perhaps I should have said more reliable cars.
My mate inherited his dads Zephyf, used to go in it for Teddy Boy reunion nights at Crocs nitespot Rayleigh Essex late 70s
Fair enough. In a properly libertarian state, i.e. without health and safety legislation, it would be perfectly possible to revert to old-fashioned styling attitudes while still using modern technology for the running gear.
I’m with you there, I much prefer driving older cars. I always thought I was born too late.
However, modern motorcycles are great.
I used to find the old normal pretty depressing for many reasons. I have opted out of the world almost totally at least 10 years ago. I felt like an alien before covid. Alienated. I have often thought that we need a new normal, Obviously without the EVIL elements. A kinder more equitable one that respects people, pays them properly, doesn’t grind people down under relentless pressure. A new normal that will have quite a few elements of this new normal. Working from home, less commuting, more cycling, a 3 day week, a proper work/life balance, better housing, even the Universal basic income.
I long for a government that makes me feel like they care and are kind. A government that makes me feel like I can genuinely get meaningful help from. A government that isn’t just totally EVIL.
However I am stunned at how they have done this to us. With such malice and cruelty. I am surprised but then I was aware that the people who are running the show are some of the most evil people on the planet.
My Google news feed includes
ancien-origins.net
Todays seems to be declaring that melting tundra (mmgw) will release locked up Plague and Anthrax which is gonna kill us all. In fact the article is dismissive of several such claims in the past decade.
But it goes on to decry the “dangerous experiments” which involve blowing up tons of the stuff in the open desert.
If they do manage to ‘accidentally’ release Plague and Anthrax who thinks a little panty mask will help?
@ Ashleigh Cowie 19th Aug 2020
There have been a lot of references to ‘Animal Farm’ on this site.
But I think the Teletubbies series was a great deal more prescient.
It’s all there:
‘Tinky-Winky, Dipsy and Laa-Laa march on a Hill counting to 3 then they run away. The Teletubbies watch some children learn about the number three.’
‘Po plays with the levers and buttons on the control panel inside the Tubbytronic Superdome.’
‘Laa Laa decides to dance a secret dance after receiving a naughty sausage transmission. Every time the others return, Laa Laa pretends to be asleep.’
‘The Teletubbies try to make some Tubby Custard but the Tubby Custard Machine doesn’t work’
‘Po rides on her scooter in circles before the Magic Windmill spins and the Teletubbies watch a mother who is a doctor and Po has too much Tubby Custard and she gets Tubby Custard tummy.’
‘Inside the House the Teletubbies crawl through the Arch one by one. Then they watch some Children going for a long Walk.’
‘Tinky Winky has fun jumping on a hill. The Teletubbies watch some children going for a walk to look for dandelion clocks to blow.’
‘The Teletubbies have fun creeping round the column in the Tubbytronic Superdome before watching some children doing gymnastics.’
‘The Teletubbies join in a game when a Voice Trumpet sings “The Grand Old Duke of York”. ‘
And it turns out that the Teletubbies are running the United States as well!
https://www.ctinsider.com/local/greenwichtime/article/The-Mother-Lode-Conspiracy-theories-COVID-19-15380464.php
Brilliant, could you do one for the Magic Roundabout please?
There seems to be a bit of desperation creeping in with some Covid politicians, they need to keep this circus going until they get a vaccine so they can then claim a great victory for themselves. With death rates low and hospitals below capacity, the only way they can do this is with testing. There is now huge pressure on people to get tested and many are obliged to as part of their employment or to get medical treatment.
In Pendle they are now going door to door and to shopping centres to push testing
https://twitter.com/BBCNWT/status/1296164450026901504
In Australia they are threatening to continue the lockdown because too few people are getting tested.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/lockdown-won-t-ease-if-testing-rate-continues-to-drop-premier-warns-20200818-p55mwo.html?fbclid=IwAR3NJnuBrqnuuyBtgCfwZpqEZg3kJXq8UzZB9GIJElp2i4u4nad-7zL-FaA
There now seems to be plenty of evidence that even when your immune system has ‘zapped’ the virus, the test can pick up RNA fragments and declare you +ve many weeks later. This plays right into the hands of the politicians who want this thing to continue until the magic vaccine arrives.
https://twitter.com/stephencrews/status/1296200267776524288
I expect the politicians would love to make testing mandatory but so far nobody has, although some are coming close to this approach. Unless people have been following sites like this they will probably just think oh well if it keeps them happy I’ll get tested, what harm can it do?
I think we need to do all we can to spread the word, do not get tested, it will only cause problems and prolong this Covid circus, getting tested is like digging your own grave.
And if more people get tested they’ll find more cases and use that as a reason to continue lockdown. Heads they win, tails we lose.
They are wearing us down with stupid restrictions and rules, in order to make people so desperate that they eventually agree to regular testing and tracking – which is what the government wanted to achieve in the first place,,
Apologies if anyone posted this already but this is a very good video of a Spanish doctor on TV telling the truth and the studio team try to refute what he is saying.
https://youtu.be/SwlkumcRf6w
It has subtitles and I don’t speak Spanish so I can’t confirm the subtitles are correct.
He sums up the mass hysteria very well
Great interview. The hysterical journo at the end could only refute his claim that the media weren’t all over it at the outset by screaming that they have been all over it then and ever since. Nothing about the entire rest of the interview. Priceless
Scorchio
‘Struth. All those terrifying images been shown at the same time – like a disaster ‘movie’. All new to me as I rarely watch T.V. The only disaster I see about me s people wearing face masks.
My apologies to you rabbit, I just posted this after you. He is an impressive and articulate Doctor.
No problem, the more that see this the better, already shared link with sceptical and non-sceptical family members!
I will repeat what I have said here on numerous occasions. There is only one game in town; the infections in hospitals and care homes and the disastrous practice of shifting infected patients into care homes
The government and the NHS are responsible for many unnecessary deaths
This from an article today by the BBC about relatives complaining about the neglect and deaths of their loved ones in care homes
“The prime minister has said there will be an independent inquiry but now is not the time.
The Welsh Government has said there should be an independent inquiry into its handling of the pandemic, but as part of a UK-wide probe.
A spokesman said: “The first minister has already indicated his support for a future public inquiry.
“For now, our focus remains on ensuring everything is done to protect people in Wales through the pandemic.”
So there we have it. Keep the sham pandemic narrative going for as long as possible to distract attention from what really happened
Track and trace, face masks, quarantine, PHE, second wave, etc, all flim flam to keep the fake narrative going and avoid scrutiny
Spot on. That is EXACTLY what has been/is/will continue happening. We need to get people in a position to do so, to start asking for numbers of deaths from Covid 19, picked up by the general public from day to day activity in settings other than care homes and hospitals. The numbers will be very low. All this social distancing, masking, ‘household bubbles’ nonsense is designed to get people to think that this is a uniquely contagious and deadly disease. It was only the wise actions of Government that prevented it from running amok and slaughtering millions. Those of us who already see through all the charades and nonsense are being portrayed as the ‘enemy within’ who are selfishly undoing much of the good work and complicit in murdering people by failing to comply with simple ‘good manners’ like wearing a mask.
It occurred to me overnight that the problem with demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of transmissions occurred in institutions, is that it gives ammunition to the argument that lockdown works to stop transmission in the community.
They (and prisons) are the most ‘locked down’ places in the country at all times. Full of really sick people, and in care homes, sick, old frail people. At the height of the ‘spread’there were still ‘mass gatherings’, people were still crowded into trains, and in offices and factories. People were still going to the pub. Nobody was wearing cloth over their faces. If it’s so deadly and so virulent in normal settings and amongst healthy people as to justify all these outrageous ‘measures’ where were the mass hospitalisations and deaths? It is all nonsense and they know it.
I know it and I know they know it. You seem to think that mere “facts” are important in justifying lockdown. If it can be conclusively shown that most deaths were caused by infections picked up in hospitals and care homes, it would seem obvious to me that this meant that you need a heavy viral load to pick up an infection strong enough to cause a significant problem, meaning that community transmission is either very rare or, more likely, rarely a problem. I’m just pointing out that those particular numbers can be spun by the other side of the argument.
C dif, UTI’s. Nora virus, etc, previously where have the epi centres of these infections been?
Hospitals and care homes.
So when a new one turns up was it really a good idea to shuffle the deck of the infected and contagious?
I agree absolutely.
For completeness the pulpit troll pencil topper that is sturgeon spoke out last week to declare now is not the time for an inquiry. We are mid pandemic and so the civil servants haven’t yet burnt all the records.
I cannot recall the order of her pulpit speech and the Sunday Post’s(?) breaking of the carehome manslaughter details.
NHS data distinguishes between hospital admissions where the patient is admitted because they are I’ll with covid symptoms and those who while an in-patient is diagnosed as covid. It seems likely that nearly all of this 2nd lot have acquired the infection in the hospital. Currently people admitted with a pre-existing diagnosis constitute 14% of covid patients. What’s more a big chunk of these patients admitted with a covid diagnosis appear to have come from a care home!
I would be interested to know how many people, if any, contract the infection in the community, get I’ll, go to hospital, die/discharged? I suspect it’s a vanishingly small number.
Track and trace is to ‘soften us up’ for the regular testing that will be part of the China-like app deciding who we are ‘allowed’ to meet and where we are ‘allowed’ go in the future..
The worrying evidence that local lockdowns in England have not worked well
The evidence in some places does not look good
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/local-lockdown-coroanvirus-covid-virus-18794330
There is no denying the effectiveness of the UK’s first lockdown.
In achieving what exactly?
The Coronavirus Control Plan the Welsh Government will use to bring in local lockdowns in Wales
A new control plan has been published – this is how it works
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/five-key-point-plan-welsh-18790119
They’ve slipped in mention of face coverings there as a tool, which is disappointing given Wales has at least avoided pretending they’re of any purpose so far.
Either way — further talk of local lockdowns etc for a non existent threat, all it takes to trigger is an increase in cases, they never once suggest it would take an increase in actual healthcare requirements and they throw in the lingering threat of a return to full lockdown.
Collection of scumbags running the show, they’re gonna hold this threat of lockdown and restrictions over us for ever now, they’ll be the new <100ml liquid into the airport.
Which was a great excuse to take a 50p bottle of water off us so we could replace it with an identical one for £2.
Australia: Authorities Give Themselves Power to Remove Children From Parents to Ensure COVID Compliance
https://summit.news/2020/08/19/australia-authorities-give-themselves-power-to-remove-children-from-parents-to-ensure-covid-compliance/
The same is true in the UK. They can also demolish your house.
Let’s get these and the other draconian laws erased from the statues.
Next month they want to extend their powers for two more years.
I wonder if Toby still really believes it is a cock-up?
Have you got more details on what they need to do to extend their powers next month? Ta!
Sorry, no. They will no doubt find some excuse for doing so.
The Anti-Lockdown Rally on the 29th August needs to be much more widely advertised. And we need to let the MPs know what we want them to do.
The emergency laws in the UK were published a week before the Lockdown. I read them then. It was the Sunday before the lockdown – I woke up at 2am, and couldn’t get back to sleep so read the different news sites. There was a new article in the Guardian referencing the Coronavirus Act and its powers, and I went to the link to skim through the act. Horrified! The next morning, I looked for that Guardian article – no trace of it. Removed from the Guardian website. News of the Act had been buried. That’s the moment I became a Lockdown Sceptic.
And don’t tell me this Act has been rushed through. It was perfectly formed a week before the Lockdown. How long before that had it been drafted?
Rushed through the paliament, as no one bothered to read.
One of a long sequences of documents that had been readed long before use, such as the patriot act.
Well, Paul Joseph Watson, the author of the piece, is considered a conspiracy theorist by his detractors, but he gives examples of the legislation. It’s Section 25 of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020.
Check it out for yourself:
https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/2020-11/
As others have said, it is true here…..all part of the master plan…..who am I kidding, they don’t have a plan, they’re making it up as they go along! httpp://www.laworfiction.com/2020/08/test-trace-and-detain/
First raised by the WHO spokesman in a press briefing back in April so been part of the plan all along.
UK is now ruled by diktat via twatter under an Enabling Act of which Hitler would have been proud.
Quick question, is the ONS fortnightly swab test the same as the PCR test used for pillar 2 testing?
No. The ONS find 0.05% positive out of random testing, so their specificity must be at least 99.95%. They also report a roughly constant asymptomatic ratio of about 60% implying specificity is even better.
Pillar 2 find more like 0.5% positive, keep changing the rules about who is supposed to have a test, the tests are done by private companies, they don’t publish the data properly (or might not even ask who is symptomatic).
Most likely their test is about 99.5% specific. But there may also be selection bias in who’s going for tests. If only symptomatic people were going for tests they would find more like 10% positive though. So why not tell us the asymptomatic ratio? It would give us so much more information.
The ONS know what they’re doing and publish their results properly. Pillar 2 are essentially useless. Their main purpose seems to be to justify government narrative (local lockdowns etc, the T&T charade) and to hit asinine targets for numbers of tests ministers have set for themselves so they can say they’re “doing more testing”.
Thanks, this is useful.
This cheered me up this morning
https://twitter.com/Winston71299746/status/1296341124106326016?cxt=HHwWgMC0ocrYw_0jAAAA
I’d certainly not normally be amused by this, but quite frankly the 2 dickheads pestering station staff and being tragic enough to film it, deserved that. A shame that the guy doing it will end up being charged no doubt, for snapping and having a serious punch on him, I highly doubt he expected the guy to get knocked out immediately tho given the way he casually strolled away kind of doesn’t come across as the sort of person who cares. Hopefully the video gives others pause for thought before pestering people about masks – such a stupid thing to get in a fight over
Got what he deserved for being an obnoxious busybody.
A genuine case of provocation.
The government needs to see where this mask nonsense is leading and put a stop to it by getting back to the path of sanity. People will get killed (when someone punches a man like that it’s a lottery whether he suffers a bloody nose, a concussion, or even dies, any of those can result and there’s no real control of the outcome).
And while the tossers badgering people about wearing masks are to blame for that particular incident, it’s the government and Johnson personally who are responsible for the situation they have created.
Spanish Doctor on mainstream news puts the entire situation across in TV news interview. The tv news producers scramble male news presenter to smear the doctor. You can see the how the propaganda machine operates – it is far from impressive. Their illusion is only millimetres (16ths) thick.
The doctors facial expressions are priceless. “We need to vaccinate against fear”.
https://youtu.be/SwlkumcRf6w
I am convinced that there is a similar sentiment amongst many of the UK medical profession but they daren’t say it.
They ***ing need to say it.
Agreed, you would hope if enough highly respected doctors and consultants came forward it might trigger others speaking up. They can’t sack all of them!
And the fact that they haven’t makes them equally complicit alongside the government and the media.
Quite – you know what they say about good men doing nothing!
it’s a great interview. The dude that pops up shouting at the Doctor is a right wanker. He’s the kind of media dude that doesn’t think for himself and believes every word given to him to read out. He’ll be lunching with ministers where he’ll be told what to say. Everyone in the media that isn’t criticised by them is a bought and paid for shill. The likes of Toby and Peter Hitchens and not many more who are in the media not selling the new world order are only there because so far they’ve not stared killing journalists but that could change, easily.
Sad, but so true.
Yes, a total wanker, a complete gilipollas. Loved the doctor’s expression at the end.
Thats an awesome interview, thanks for posting. That media shrill at the end actually having the temerity to argue with a doctor who was serving on the ‘front line’ says it all. ‘We’ve lost control..’ – yes you have. Bout time too.
What a brilliant excerpt : the one telling about the Emporer’s new clothes, and the uninvestigative journalist fraternity getting would up when they are called out.
Love it.
“You’ve lost control!”
He’s not kidding, LOL.
That’s a great slogan!
Of all the people on this forum, he picked the wrong one to call a c**t!!!
A positive test result shows you may have antibodies from an infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. However, there is a chance a positive result means that you have antibodies from an infection with a virus from the same family of viruses (called coronaviruses), such as the one that causes the common cold.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/serology-overview.html?fbclid=IwAR04AzisMWtrpLzJ6j4pAQhBxzcN2Jpt-bt7W9FnqcUZBa1Eg2-GueD9SpU
And those other common cold antibodies can actually protect you from Covid, and might even be there in response to an actual SARS2 infection.
Basically your body is going to start by rummaging around in the tool drawer for anything that works. If it finds a 3/4 inch spanner left over from the last common cold when it really needs a 19mm never mind, that will do the job.
If the infection goes on a bit longer it’s more like to actually go out and buy the 19mm as well. But there’s no guarantee that if you don’t find the 19 the person didn’t have Covid.
Good analogy, thanks.
Apparently the immune system is now useless and should be disregarded because it doesn’t stop everyone from dying.
Vaccines use the immune system to do their job for them.
Just do the best you can to fortify your immune system.
“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.”
You did that.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/gary-d-barnett/virus-insanity-the-obvious-absurdity-of-it-all/
“But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day”
Joni Mitchell
We may suffer now for the truth we’ve spoken, but what’s the point of joining the resistance after the war is over, anyone can do that
I was only thinking yesterday there are a lot of people who in a few years will claim they always thought lockdown was a bad idea and that they never wore masks. We will be like the SAS: 10 times as many people claim to have been in the regiment than ever actually were! They will steal our valour!
Yep, that’s bang on. Been thinking that for a very long time.
Even the ones who wore muzzles will say they did so only because it was the ‘law’, but that they never believed in it themselves.
Months ago now on this site, in my parody of Toby’s Shed (where he writes his posts) which I said would be a site of pilgrimage in decades to come, I concluded:
‘And people will like to think that had they been lockdown, back in 2020, they too would have had the wit and gumption to see through the fraud for what it was, and that they too would have made their stand. The vast majority wouldn’t, of course: they would have followed the herd, like almost everyone else.’
I do often wonder if there is much worth saving. Then again, ’twas ever thus. There always has been the herd and the free-thinkers. Of course, the latter will always be in the small minority, and perhaps evolution had to design it that way.
Much as I have issues with the work of Kahneman (like many psychologists he appears to be working out his issues by projecting them onto the populace at large) there is something in his system 1/system 2 brain theory. Basically, because reason is slow, evolution has led us to favour quick decisions based on pattern-matching (if it looks like it might be a sabre-toothed tiger, run) and a degree of post-rationalisation to cover our intellectual modesty. Thus, most people will simply follow the herd on the assumption that somebody else has made the judgement for them and convince themselves they made a rational choice. It’s a reasonable model and mostly fits observed behaviour.
Where Kahneman makes his mistake (well, one of them at least), however, is that he entirely precludes the possibility of learning. In his world, if every time you followed the herd half of them died it wouldn’t change your behaviour – you’d still follow them next time. Perhaps he would, I don’t know, but I don’t think most people are like that. I think that experience shapes our interpretation of patterns such that, when a small boy cries wolf for the third time (why is it always three times?) with no wolf in evidence, we view the matter with more scepticism. For Kahneman, of course, this story doesn’t scan – our aversion to risk means we would still believe the boy – but I’m not so sure.
Free-thinkers are perhaps, in a large part, those who have seen wolf cried once too often and learned to ignore the call (perhaps taking modest precautions in the event of a positive result), but in an era where wolves and sabre-toothed tigers aren’t a constant threat there will also be a contingent who manage to learn without the bloody experience of past failure and have thus educated their pattern matching from a position of relative safety.
I’m not a psychologist at all, so can’t really comment on findings such as this.
But I do think that most people are intellectually lazy and are comfortable only when in the herd.
As Jonathan Swift remarked, ‘credulity is a more peaceful possession of the mind than curiosity’.
Funny the things you learn on this excellent blog. I never knew until today that Chris Whitty was on the Executive Board of the WHO. It is on the WHO website, but not on his .Gov biography, which is surprising as you would think in that profession, that would be the pinnacle of your career. I must have been living in a cave when that happened! I’m surprised there was no media coverage of this. Or maybe there was, and I was living in a cave at that point too! But in any case, I guess it shows to some extent who is making the decisions in the UK.
Pam Popper – reports on a twitter account that circulated, for a person who never existed – the tweets charted that fictional person’s death from Covid.
The fictitious person’s twitter account received condolences from academics who claimed to have known her… what!?
It’s easy to create fear from fiction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QnVfelJwJw
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/clapham-junction-face-masks-row-man-knocked-out-a4528986.html
The papers only report on incidents were the mask wearer is the victim. I’m not advocating violence but the man and his friend were harassing a rail employee who was exempt and demanding to know why. I don’t blame her for snapping at them. They then started on a random stranger who belted one of them. I can understand why the guy snapped tbh. I don’t start yelling at random people when I see them fiddling with their masks and then fondling the goods in the supermarket. I don’t question the decisions of parents who have masked their tiny children. So why do some mask wearers feel the need to confront me?
Interesting story from my husband who is anti mask but also asthmatic and with a broken nose which surgery failed to resolve that means he can barely breathe through it. Him and another trucker were queuing to pay in a petrol station yesterday. A woman in the queue with a small masked child said “mummy why aren’t those men wearing masks!”. Mother (a skinny late 20s) says “because they are selfish”. My husband responds that he’s exempt but they are ineffectual and unsupported by the evidence anyway. Woman “starts muttering then the child turns round and says “are we going to die?” The other driver leans over and gently says “Yes m’duck. We are all going to die. Eventually.”
‘The papers only report on incidents were the mask wearer is the victim. ‘
To be fair, the BBC recently did report on a woman victimised for not wearing a mask: (which surprised me to be honest):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-53827911
I think though that was because her sister made a huge fuss and she was clearly disabled. Attacks on and harassment of dissenters and those with non visible issues are ignored if not outright encouraged. This is the doing of Cressida Dick and Hancock who have encouraged the public to police mask compliance. This guy has now earned himself a punch in the gob for sticking his oar in. It’s no wonder people who can’t wear masks are increasingly avoiding shops. What on Earth right did this man think he had to aggressively harass a rail employee? That should be the real story but if he hadn’t been punched we’d never know about that part. 2 men shouting at a woman (who clearly would be exempt as her employer wouldn’t have allowed it). In any other circumstances the media would portray them as the bad guys but now he gets to play the victim.
Cressida Dick is possibly the most disgraceful creature ever to sully public office in this country.
Considering she’s chief of police yes I agree. The fact this stupid creature is still in office doesn’t improve my opinion of this government.
I’ve read numerous reports in various places of people being victimised for not wearing a mask. My mother who is anti-mask won’t go anywhere that she’s required to wear one as she fears she’s going to be attacked or abused. I must confess rather than being pleasantly surprised that the BBC is covering this sort of thing, I just see it as an extension of the fearmongering.
My stepson wears a mask whens he goes into England to do shopping because he feels intimidated by both other shoppers and shopkeepers.
“That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.”
I’m a life-long Tory voter. Never again, as far as I’m concerned…
The guy who was knocked out and complaining wasn’t wearing a mask!
Are you sure? I thought the photo was the attacker?
In the video, he clearly wasn’t wearing a mask. To be fair, I’d really appreciate another angle to see the punch in more detail.
Also, the guy filming it saying “I’m not moving him, I know what to do”, whilst demonstrating clearly that he doesn’t know what to do.
In the good old days your friends would come to your aid in such situations. These days they stand around filming it for posterity.
In this video it’s clear that he had a mask on but it gets knocked clean off by the punch (you can see it in the background).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8644853/Man-haranguing-rail-staff-not-wearing-masks-knocked-unconscious.html
To be fair, I’m interested in the strike the itself. You don’t actually see the impact, where did it land? It’s just off camera.
“victim” bleeds from the mouth and it seemed to be a good right hook to the jaw. serves him right, it is amazing how something like this, with legitimacy seemingly bestowed by authority, turns arseholes into little hitlers who think they have the right, authority and superiority to enforce rules (sorry .. guidelines!)
Nice one. Glad I didn’t call you a C*&t. I think your right Biker. We are in big trouble.
Big Trouble In Little Britain
I had a similar encounter with a woman in Sainsbury’s over social distancing, pre masks. I put myself in her way all round the store having first given her a lecture on social distancing facts and figures. I think some people see a woman in their fifties and think they can bully them but It’s not advisable to judge this book by its cover. In my younger days at work my nickname was Strongbow because if you annoyed me 2 arrows immediately embedded themselves in your desk in the form of barbed comments!
haha me too! i’m in my 50s, built like a brick shithouse (do they still use that expression??) and have been known as ‘bruiser’ in my younger days!!
If someone had a dig at me in the supermarket i’d hate to see my reaction as may not be able to control myself, though my inner voice would be saying ignore the tosser and walk on…:-)
And me! No outdoor gigs this year so I have repurposed my Docs as supermarket wear; a great boost to my confidence and added height, although I am already taller than most. It works, no one has confronted me but if they do I shalll say in my very best Lady Bracknell tones ‘I presume you are aware that some people are exempt’ and walk away.
Don’t walk away – let them do that!
it was said that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. The human condition means we yearn for something beyond the existential, something intangible to believe in. Something bigger and beyond us. And for 2000 years we had Christianity.
Then it died.
But the need remained. Anything would do. Anything bigger than us, that we couldn’t see, smell or touch. A belief. We have to have beliefs, and we have to believe as a group. It gives comfort and strength if there’s a whole bunch of us that believe in the same thing. First there was Christianity, now there is Covid. And my, are there devotees! The real Christian outliers, the true believers, those just that bit better at believing than the others had to have a sign to show the rest how believing they were. Virtue signalling we call it now. With Christianity it was stigmata – essentially self harming to produce the bloody signs of the cross or crown of thorns on the body. Now it’s masks. Same mental shit, different times. Rest assured, just mask wearing won’t be enough soon. There will have to be bodily injuries to prove how the worship of the Covid God is done better by some than others. And as for the non-believers …. crucifixion will be too good for them. There will be inquisitions ….. Islam will start to look like a good idea.
Nietzsche was right, when God is dead we have to become our own god. We dont make a very good job of it, apart from the bossiness and smiting.
Bondage S&M suppliers doing a roaring trade in whips yet ?
Ask Gavin Williamson:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/18/exams-gavin-williamson-and-the-lash-whip-photo-causes-twitter-intrigue
Toby reports above about the new restrictions the Irish government has brought in this week due to an increase in ‘cases’. He writes:-
“As of Noon (Tuesday) the total number of cases in Ireland is 27,499 and the total number of deaths 1,775.”
Focusing on the month of August perhaps gives a better idea of the present disparity between cases and mortality.
There have been 1,482 cases so far this month.
And so far this month 8 deaths. (This is my tally following the government’s daily website bulletins)
Up to the 17th there were 30 hospital admissions (again my tally).
Since the masking edict on the 15th July “cases” have soared (most likely due to testing as Toby say) – but the mortality rate appears to have declined.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293523/
Excess Cardiac Arrest in the Community During the COVID-19 PandemicNow these articles are coming.
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1296351055538802689
Just look at the graph cardiac arrests.Seems like an epidemic?
Lockdown casualties.
“The number of people in Denver who died of cardiac arrests at home in the two weeks following the statewide stay-at-home order was greater than the total number of people who died of COVID in the city during that time.”
Must’ve be unique to Denver and nobody saw it happening. Oh wait…
http://www.ptca.org/news/2020/0408_INCREASED_DEATHS_NYC.html
Never give up! Fuck ’em all!
I liked your reaction, silence is powerful, I’ve used that before with positive results.
I would have asked to repeat himself, but louder.
Cheers fellah
Been away for a couple of days, up to the Midlands. It was only on the trip that it occurred to me that this was the TJN family’s first venture of the deep South West since before lockdown – anything much worth leaving here for was closed anyway, and we can quite happily keep ourselves occupied here in isolation.
On the M5 we stopped, as we usually do, at Gloucester Services – the Farmshop place that sells some nice stuff (at premium prices). Not recommended right now. Just about everyone not eating (in a separate area) was muzzled. Including staff, many of whom seemed very unhappy indeed. Maybe it’s because we were unmuzzled and spreading disease. I don’t know. When I insisted on paying cash for a couple of small items the assistant put on a latex glove to take the plaque-ridden note.
Usually, as service stations go, these two on either side of the motorway are reasonably pleasant. Not now. Only call in if you absolutely have to, want a laugh, or just enjoy the ghoulishly surreal.
To see all those muzzles made me feel almost physically sick, literally.
Funnily enough Gloucester services was my first experience of a masked environment, a couple of days after the ghastly edict came down from on high. A similarly nauseating experience, saw two other people without them.
that’s a shame as i make a point of stopping at gloucester services if heading that way – they have a great butchery section and those hot sausage rolls in the takeout coffee place are pretty good too (though expensive!!)
I haven’t been since maskmadness has set in – will try and avoid…
Yes, good produce, sourced locally if the adverts are to be believed. Premium price, but that’s ok to break up a journey. To tell the truth, normally I don’t mind being the only unmuzzled person, and it wasn’t that that I was bothered about this time. I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something unusually miserable and even sinister about the place.
There appeared to me to be far fewer people than usual, especially in the shops bit. So I guess their business model will be in need of revision, and all those local suppliers will need additional outlets.
Some of the staff we really quite unpleasant though. Perhaps it’s the enforced muzzle wearing. One (not an unpleasant one) was making a point of talking really loudly and slowly through his muzzle, so I guess he was fed up with having to repeat himself. A girl at the food checkout (also not one of the unpleasant ones) actually pulled her muzzle down when talking to us, and she look very hot and flustered underneath.
Our society is sick, and it isn’t with covid.
It REALLY IS A SICK SOCIETY. It’s been like this for a long time. I was acutely aware of this a long time ago. I have found myself walking about in Tescos with mysterious tears in my eyes long before COVID hit. I put it down to the cold wind or something….
Maybe a bit of serious economic adversity will jolt it out of its stupor.
i think it’ll get worse when the shit really hits the economy and jobs in the weeks to come, coupled with colder weather and the constant misery and propaganda from the msm and government. Dreading it!
yer, however it’s just beyond bad now so a little more bad won’t make that much difference….It’s beyond f*£$ed already.
“We are so outnumbered there’s only one thing to do. We must attack.”
Sir Andrew Cunningham, First Sea Lord, 1943-46
Does Mrs Dick need to make a statement about the risks associated with ‘over shaming’
Perhaps she could point out that all ‘shaming’ should be proportionate.
How about a government agency to issue ‘shaming’ guidelines?
Or perhaps her and the dictator should issue face nappy wearers with tasers
The guy who got knocked out needs to say a huge thank you to Mrs Dick
I’m thinking about starting a “Dick Out!” campaign but it might be misinterpreted.
It’s nice out…
Johnson Out! Hancock Out! Dick Out!
Has a certain ring to it does it not? The escalation of explictness is quite poetical
Why not just reduce it to “All dicks out”?
As a sentiment 100% yes, although I do like the scansion of the longer version
“Tits” out works fine as well of course. Let’s keep it inclusive.
“All public officials whose name incorporates one or more slang terms (whether English or American) for a penis should be removed from office now!”
Yeah, needs work…
Doesn’t bode well for Members of Parliament.
Lockdown Sceptics – working to get the dicks out of our government.
12 more and they could start a PEN15 club.
I’ll get my coat…
A good chant for the 29th !
Perhaps Dido Harding could become head of the Shaming Standards Agency?
I read that the Acronym Research and Standards Executive suggested Agency for Shaming Standards
The truth according to the Guardian:
Sweden records highest death tally in 150 years in first half of 2020
Reality:
https://twitter.com/HaraldofW/status/1295466871328845826/photo/1
(per karenovirus and Swedenborg, below)
Is it any wonder people who get their ideas about the world straight from the mainstream media are so delusional?
The title of ‘MI6 House Journal’ is very apt for The Groan – i.e a channel for government – Cabinet Office propaganda into one part of the public domain.
6 ? Or 5 ?
That Guardian headline is particularly ugly because, barring deaths caused by war (which obviously will distort things) and depending on how badly they were hit by Spanish/Hong Kong/Asian flu the same thing is probably true of virtually any country significantly affected by covid 19. But they don’t mention any other country.
It is entirely possible to accept that covid 19 has a burden of death which is undoubtedly greater than an average year, and probably in most countries greater than a typical bad flu year, and still view the measures taken to combat it as grossly and criminally disproportionate.
In reality the death numbers for covid probably aren’t historically significant in the vast majority of countries, when you account for population increase. I bet there’s almost no country where, population adjusted, you would have to go back more than a few years, a decade at most, to find a higher death year, and certainly the calculations in that tweet about Sweden suggest that’s the case there, if they are correct.
But of course, as the Guardian knows full well, most people just glance at the headlines.
Indeed, I deliberately didn’t deal with the fact that they hadn’t populated adjusted either! Even on their unadjusted terms the headline is grossly misleading.
I’m not sure it helps our case, however, not to acknowledge that the burden of death from COVID19 is, broadly speaking, as bad as or a little worse than a bad flu year (particularly in countries which, for whatever complex reasons, have been more badly affected); it’s just not the orders of magnitude worse that would be needed to justify the policy decisions made in response to it.
Much of the burden of death has been caused by lockdown and government policy with regard to the frail elderly.
It’s the sheer consistency and persistence that is the problem. I do get the impression the BBC and Guardian have been the worst, but there have been no UK outlets that have been outright sceptical, though some have been a little more open to occasional dissent..
Woke up feeling arsey today so e-maild to hand jobs and !unt the Chair of the DHSC parliamentary select committee cc’d to Boris and my MP.
Don’t expect much back from any of the twats but makes me feel a bit better:
Matthew John David Hancock
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt
Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee
I have received and answer to a FOI request back from your department, the DHSC, about the PCR tests they are using and what the results mean.
One of my questions and the most important:
-supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
The answer:
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Patients can have SARS-CoV-2 RNA before onset of illness, during the illness and after resolution of symptoms (all variable periods). The result has to be taken into context of symptoms present.
So my question to you both in your positions as Secretary of State for Health and as the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Social Care is:
SO A POSITIVE TEST MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE CONTEXT OF “SUFFERING” FROM THE PIECES OF VIRAL MATERIAL DETECTED IN THE TEST SAMPLE SO WHY THE CONTINUING ADHERENCE TO INSISTING THAT A PERSON WHO TESTS POSITIVE MUST BE ISOLATED FOR 14 DAYS AND AREAS ARE TO BE PLACED INTO FURTHER LOCAL LOCKDOWNS BASED ON THE SAME MEANINGLESS TEST RESULT?
They also provided a link to a document by Health Technology Wales which in answer to this question:
– the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy. I can confirm that the Department holds information relevant to your request. As the information held by the Department is in the public domain, we will under Section 21 of the FOI Act (information accessible to the applicant by other means) refer you to the published source, a summary of evidence on the accuracy of the test,
https://www.healthtechnology.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAR025-COVID19-diagnostics-report-v2.6.pdf
It does include a few notable gems such as (the paper’s original comments in blue with their updates in umber and with my notes in red):
So basically as admitted by the DHSC you are using tests that are “unreliable” to say the least, have no reference standard to double check the accuracy against and that have results that means nothing medically?
And yet you still pump out the continuous propaganda that whole swathes of the population have to be put into isolation and incarceration based on these tests and results.
An explanation would be very much appreciated by myself and many other people as there has been absolutely nothing coming from Government for months now that makes any kind of sense.
Yours in growing exasperation and disgust.
Well done!
Excellent. It’s the false positive figure that is important when the proportion of positive tests is so low. If they give figures (mean, and maybe maximum for any particular test house..?), they are going to be similar to the number of positive test results anyway, thus discrediting their results; if they can’t give figures then that also discredits their results.
It is also important that we force them to acknowledge that the raw number of “cases” does not mean there is a ‘spike’ if the number of tests is rising at the same time.
One of the Socialist parties in Northern Ireland are calling on increased lockdown measures today due to a “spike” in deaths. Their exact language.
There has been one death in about 3 weeks. Its either extremely lazy, awful understanding of statistics or downright fear mongering to gain political capital. It is no doubt the third. They are relentlessly pursuing the fear agenda, calling for all sorts of restrictions when nothing is happening. There are 4 people in hospital with CV-19, none in ICU.
Warp speed insanity. Lockdown measures announced this afternoon
I am distanced from it and so “spike in deaths” is an absolute hoot of insane lunacy. Masterful!
It sounds like the title of a death metal B side.
And then that ‘spike’ = one soul.
These are dangerous people. Dangerously contemptful.
As said – well done. Confirmation of the speculative nature of any connection between ‘identified’ RNA strands and an actual viral infection.
It would be a case of ‘I couldn’t get my breath’ if it was a new revelation, rather than a confirmation of what we actually know.
Any bets on the number of headlines that will contain this information for the public?
AG, Would you be able to copy to the Mayors of Leicester, Oldham and other towns in the frame, and their Health Chiefs, so they can mount a defence against lockdowns? You or someone had a pic of the Public Health woman for one of these councils recently? Well done!
Just been into Aldi with my five year old grandson.
Apart from the faceless zombies, two things depressed me:
They are still announcing special shopping hours and support for the NHS. Sorry but that should no longer be applicable, even IF it should ever have been sanctioned in the first place.
A young mum walking round with two young girls, both under eleven, with one of them muzzled. I looked first at the young muzzled one then gave her mum my most disapproving look (I have a collection of these) When they reached the checkout, the muzzle had been removed.
It is so sad.
My six year old has taken to questioning loudly as to why other children are masked when out and about.
It is surprisingly effective. She has caused more than one “unmasking” too!
Maybe we all have something to learn from the power of a simple “Why?”.
Give that girl a gold star – or several!
What do you say? “Because HER mummy is overcome with irrational fears” or similar? Or just shake your head sadly and say “I really don’t know….poor girl”
Margaret, I pointed out something similar on yesterday’s thread, and suggested that this bandwagon is being kept alive by a certain type of mum intent on muzzling their little girls, entirely unnecessarily. As a mother of boys, and with a circle of female friends who nearly all have sons, this scares me. At school, all of our sons suffered from the woke, snowflake, Greta-loving, teacher-endorsed ‘feminisation’. I class myself as a feminist, and supporter of equality of opportunity. If young girls are conditioned to consider matters such as muzzling as somehow ’empowering’ in the same way that saving the planet secures them virtue bragging rights that gets them to a seat of power, I have spent a lifetime struggling to establish my rights and to get what I deserve for absolutely nothing.
I’ve had to practise my disapproving looks a lot. My wife tells me I’m not allowed to punch people …
My husband tells me the same!
Good for you! Sometimes I wonder if the young kids want to be like their mums and older siblings though.
I saw a mum with two under-11 boys, all masked, outside a children’s school uniform shop – I think they were waiting to be allowed in. Anyway I gave the mum a dirty look. Mind you, some say that’s my normal expression!
Complaint to the ASA.
OFCOM want an individual complaint sent to each broadcaster individually and a reference number from them before they will deal with it.
From a FOI to the DHSC about tests they are using. Q : supply the justification that a positive test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated. A: SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Any broadcast, TV show, news show, advert says a positive test is the same as having the virus is a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth.
Go, AG, go!
Brian Gerrish on UK Column often refers to this traitorous regime as a government of occupation. Peter Hitchens pointed out the other day that anyone who wondered how they might have behaved in totalitarian systems now have the answer. With complete subservience and active collaboration.
Without the compliance of the masses, there is no government authority. In my mind the order follower has always had more moral culpability for evil than the order giver. So getting in this guy’s face and sticking it to him is exactly how this war needs to be waged.
“…for we are many, and they are few…”
We all know where this medical dictatorship is headed and time is not on our side. We ought to therefore project our voices beyond this echo chamber and the discussions over the idiotic rules and regulations, the casedemic, latest medical research, etc., as it is just wasting precious time when we should be looking at the bigger international dynamic we face.
Our struggle to be heard could benefit greatly by adopting the peaceful protest strategies of the French Yellow Vest movement i.e. the use of decentralised local protests focused on a common goal, or goals, under a unifying banner or symbol such as the yellow vest. Heck, why not just hijack their idea. No need for a national or international grand plan or leadership, just a feet-on-the-ground grassroots effort that will be hard to shut down.
Imagine the collective impact we could make nationally and internationally if every sceptic here found one or two like minded people and began protesting with placards, for example at their local shopping center every Saturday. I am convinced it would not be long before frightened sceptics are drawn to the cause by our public defiance, swelling our numbers and reach, something the media and politicians would not be able to ignore for too long.
All we need is a public forum – such as the one on LS – to bring all of us together until a single umbrella where we can discuss peaceful protest ideas, share success stories in our respective locales/countries, and draw on the inspiration of others for support and motivation.
In my 50+++ years on planet earth I have never felt to urge to protest, even when I lived in a tinpot banana republic, so this is a new experience for me. Nevertheless, the current dilemma we face is so dire that to do nothing now would be akin to rolling over and accepting the new normal like the faceless drones have done. I for one do not want to live my remaining years like that, and as it is only going to get worse I would rather go down fighting than live in hell like the plebs in the movie ‘Snowpiercer‘ (spoiler: it does have a David vs Goliath ending).
We literally have under a handful of months to make a difference, so what do you all think – fight, or flight to acquiescence and the promised land of new normal?
You / we need to decide soon.
In themselves, protests have very little effect on whatever the current establishment decides to do. I go back to the CND marches, anti nuclear demos, give peace a chance sit ins, take back the night marches, anti Vietnam war demos – none of which had the slightest effect on policy. Then I became a cynic.
What they do do, however, with sufficient MSM coverage, is wake up the general population to the idea that there’s something wrong in the air. And if they see that, without direct coercion or challenge, then there’s a chance they could take on board a new way of thinking…..
“Then I became a cynic.“
I started out a cynic. Then I finally decided to give demonstrating a chance and went on the one against the Iraq War – one of the biggest history. Result? Ignored.
Pretty much confirmed that my cynicism about demonstrating had been correct.
Though as you suggest, there might be a case for them now. Because rather than trying to force policy in the face of disagreement on a widely discussed issue, it’s a matter of trying to break through an elite consensus that is effectively smothering any dissent.
Demonstrations in themselves are not going to do the job, but as you say they may get the issue more noticed.
I know I keep harping on about this but I think we need a privately funded, professionally run information campaign to start to turn public opinion round. It may get shut down, but I feel it’s the only hope of getting out of this in months/small number of years rather than decades. Otherwise we’ll have to emigrate.
I agree, obviously. I suspect there’s been a general assumption that this is for a limited period and so there’s no point in making significant or long term investments to fight it. Also, wealthy individuals are human too and as subject to the effects of fear propaganda as the rest.
The longer things look like going on the more likelihood there is that things of the kind you suggest will materialise.
Hopefully.
I wish I moved in those circles. I’ve contacted Luke Johnson and Simon Dolan but not had much of a positive response. It’s awkward because one is asking someone to put a lot of their own hard-earned money into something that may well fail and make them a pariah. It’s easy for us to say what we’d do in their shoes. I am sure a lot of people on here would happily devote what spare time and money they have to help, but it’s different to organising it yourself. KBF seems to be the most organised, but needs to do a lot more. A lot of people, people I always thought of as intelligent, seem happy to ignore this in order to stay sane, and assume it will go away. I keep telling them they are wrong and why I think that, but they usually just shut down. It’s partly self-preservation.
“A lot of people, people I always thought of as intelligent, seem happy to ignore this in order to stay sane, and assume it will go away.”
This is my experience also. Even to the extent of being willing to accept a rushed vaccine – simply on the basis that it will just allow things to get back to normal.
These are people who are on the sceptical part of the spectrum, and who will question why what was a limited short-term strategy to prevent the health services becoming overwhelmed is still continuing. But they just want it to all go away : anger about the blatant infringement of civil rights doesn’t (sadly) figure very high in the priority list.
I have also reflected on the Iraq demonstration – which was a pretty impressive event if you were there, which also united a lot of people of varying views. There is nowhere near that current level of active protest, I’m afraid – let alone any chance of it working.
The ‘not in my name’ march had me in tears, despite my cynicism. I wasn’t able to attend but was moved by the obvious strength of feeling especially in the young. And we all know what happened then.
You’re right that protests aren’t likely to make the government/establishment change their minds if said minds are already made up (e.g. Iraq War).
However, as bluemoon above says, they might influence the general public. Some might just become more entrenched in their views, but those who were already feeling resentful or doubtful about the situation, just might be encouraged to see that many other people feel the same way, and be willing to join them.
In my opinion demonstrations should stick to the facts/statistics vs. government/media misinformation angle, and avoid any “conspiracy” angle (Bill Gates, 5G, NWO etc.) , The latter will not only turn off many people who might otherwise be persuaded, but also give the media plenty of ammunition to dismiss all sceptics as “libertarian conspiracy theorists” or “far-right”, as happened with the Berlin protests where the media deliberately focused their attention on the fringe political groups taking part in the protest.
The difference is that the Iraq War did not need the compliance of the public in order for it to take place. In this case, many of the measures like mask-wearing and social distancing simply will not work if the public refuse to comply. If we can persuade enough of the undecided to come over to our side and start refusing to obey these nonsensical edicts, we can begin to unravel this thing.
Did the riots help kill off the Poll Tax? Or was it mass non compliance? Or something else. We can maybe learn from this
It was the confluence of a number of factors – but the key one was political self-protection. It was a vote loser.
We are too far from a GE for that to be significant.
Not only that but all the other major parties are fully on board with the lockdown. Their only disagreement is with the details, not with the policy itself. With the poll tax there was at least some opposition in the Houses of Parliament and another party to vote for if you disagreed with it. What party can we vote for to end the lockdown even if there was an election tomorrow?
I was thinking along similar lines.
There is no saving those who have bought the lies. Given that this is such an overwhelming majority of the population, by extension there is no saving our society. Perhaps our job is simply to survive this onslaught with our consciousness intact so that we can transcend this place when our time comes.
Dismiss this as metaphysical/spiritual nonsense at your peril. The forces that brought us Covid-19 and are now implementing the technocratic slave state solution are the same that have pushed the materialist/reductionist world view since the mid-19th century.
“There is no saving those who have bought the lies.” You may be right, but I think it’s worth a try. People were easily persuaded of this, and I know a lot of “normal” people (by which I mean people who don’t have political agendas) who have bought the lies but would be much happier to put all this behind them if only they could be persuaded it’s all a load of BS.
Don’t get me wrong, I try every day. As you say, there is definitely a significant minority of people left who are going along to get along. Convert these people and we have a large enough group to make a difference. Don’t waste time with the rest who really believe in the masks etc.
The problem is time. I get the feeling it’s shit or bust in 2020.
Agreed on not wasting time with the hard core fanatics
Not sure about the time frames
Humans do adapt to things, but they also have a strong social instinct
A lot of people ar expecting this to be over soon, the key thing is when they realise it isn’t, which way will they jump
Like-minded people are already getting together but we need to be careful not to have lots of disparate groups, as numbers mean strength.
StandupX has local meetings every weekend in some areas.
Keep Britain Free has a section on its forum where people can join together locally. One group is already large and very active, including successfully distributing thousands of leaflets.
https://www.keepbritainfree.com/forum/kbf-local
The West Yorkshire group is embryonic but growing. Join your local group – or start one if necessary.
Well fight of course. But you’re going to have expect to combat totalitarian tactics like they’re employing in Victoria, Australia. Who wants to be the first under the bus? It’s lonely out in the front.
Despite the exceptionally bleak outlook, if I thought that there was absolutely no chance of turning this around then I would gladly throw myself under a bus today. Death is infinitely preferable to lifelong total enslavement. Even if it means total annihilation (which I am also perfectly willing to accept despite my comment above).
Like others here I have always had deep reservations about the efficacy of physical protests. I think we will be forced into such action, and into direct confrontation with agents of the state, simply by virtue of being on the run to avoid the vaccine at all costs.
I engage on the subject of covid/lockdown as often as possible, quite gently but have charts to hand on my phone. Most agree that the masks/lockdown are stupid but carry on regardless.
I expect that was the reaction to ant-appeasers in the late 30s.
Talking of the 30s brings to mind the Jarrow march. That was effective.
Come on, follow the Geordie boys, they’re marching for our freedom now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=198t_7lOjpg
Now, yes now is the hour!
I think you’re right to want to get our ideas out to the general public as it’s the only way forward and we must leave the ghetto. I know that where I live in the south west there are people out quite often with placards at the weekend .The only proplem I have with joining them is there placards are all about G 5 and bill gates and I’m against the lockdown because I believe it a disproportionate attack on our liberties and verging on a dictatorship locking people in their homes and telling us when we can go out and who we can visit and what we must wear on our faces. I believe if we are going to connect with thousands if not millions we should stick to the civil liberties route as it’s the only way to get everyone on board . In arguing with people I follow hitchens train of thought on the lockdown and on covid it’s self I stick to the ideas of Henaghan and Dr Lee . I believe are ideas are breaking through (although much too slow for me) . Mike Graham on talk radio is giving a great platform to hitchens and Karol sakoria each week . I speak to people all the time I believe many people are now realising that the threat from covid is now more or less over . There are probably a hell of a lot more on our side than we realise .All the opinion polls are just online and in no way represent the views of society .we can get out of this we just need to get our tactics right .
I agree it will not help to adopt issues, whilst factually correct, may be deemed extreme to those with a nervous disposition.
Focusing on arbitrary diktats such as masks etc and the introduction of conditional / mandatory vaccinations will probably be good enough to drag the masses with us.
I think the return of schools combined with the rain will force a lot of families to go back to normal. When you’re trying to live life and herd children in wet weather, OCD hygienic behaviour goes out of the window. I can see a lot of potential for conflict when expectations collide and just hope that old normal politeness wins the day.
A couple of slightly optimistic encounters today as straws in the wind.
Had a good natter with the window cleaner, who obviously comes across a lot of different people by virtue of his job. He has become very critical and aware of the mental impact on many of his older clients, and is sick of his mother being too afraid to make physical contact.
Then with my daughter-in-law’s father, who has every reason to be extremely cautious, as a sufferer with COPD, and has been sheltering – quite wisely during the real epidemic. But is now heartily sick of the deprivation of real life, and is venturing out more widely.
Perhaps it’s these gradual shifts, and the reinforcement of the idea that all this imposed deprivation is pointless that will win the day as the message gets spread.I expect many of you do exactly the same – just gently feed in scepticism (rather than go on a full-scale rant) whenever the opportunity arises.
‘We can discuss his assessment of me‘, I bloody love that phrase Biker,polite but full of intended menace !.I hate those cowardly shits like him,very brave running off to customer services like a little girl (no offence to little girls meant,they’ve usually got more about them that that wanker).Every time my wife has had hassle or abuse from other customers it has always been when she is on her own,it has never happened when I am with her,the complete spineless cowardice of these arseholes makes me sick.
BBC back onto European stats this morning, highest numbers since April and so on.
Can anyone explain this to me?
If the virus has “gone” how can this still be the case?
Our narrative to non-sceptics falls down if we see rises doesn’t it?
Does it? It just means that herd immunity hasn’t been reached in most places. Lockdowns, if they do anything, delay and prolong this process. The prolonged process of achieving herd immunity and the prolonging of mitigation measures also prolongs and increases all the collateral economic and social damage. It possibly even increases the total number of virus-related deaths, because the vulnerable members of the population are exposed to risk for much longer before herd immunity is reached. I don’t see how it undermines the skeptic argument at all.
Cases are going up because more testing is being done seemingly. Seek and ye shall find. Mortality rates tell a different story. (c.f. what I’ve been after saying below)
.
Are you sure? I am a woman and know some like-minded sceptical women. I for one certainly do not relish all this nonsense. enough already.
I am one too but I was actually referring to the news presenters.
They’re paid to be airheads.
I would suggest the news readers are highly skilled in various dark arts. No morals, obviously, but evil rather than stupid.
I think we just have to be careful with terminology. Herd immunity doesn’t mean the virus is “gone” it just means it can’t spread in an exponential way and can now just be classed with the other viruses that circulate around. So when Toby says it’s gone that can be misleading. People will still die from it and there will probably be seasonality fluctuation like the flu but it’s no longer an uncontrollable or out of the ordinary threat to public health. As Sally says the suppression strategy also means you can expect some larger regional variations and spikes of deaths (caveated by counting methodology) where herd immunity has not been established yet.
In statistical terms it has gone.More people dying of flu now.
It’s just desperate governments around the world trying to maintain fear and control.
It never was a uncontrollable or out of the ordinary threat to the public.
I agree with all that but if you say it’s gone and there are figures saying people are still dying from it then you leave yourself open to criticism from people not looking at it from a statistical viewpoint (which has been the whole problem all along really). It’s probably better to say the threat has gone.
See ivor Cummings on “casedemic ”
https://youtu.be/FU3OibcindQ
Also, carl heneghan on radio 4, Today programme, 7.40 this morning saying false positives could be as high as 50%. Unfortunately Martha Carney didn’t go on to ask what could be driving increased positive tests- not ill people- in Leicester, other countries etc. Plus increased testing
I doubt if anyone has died of Covid in Leicester since their lockdown. They found a spike of cases there by bumping up the number of testing stations from 1 in early June to 8 come July.
16 deaths in the whole of the UK yesterday.
28 new “cases” in Leicester.
Highest numbers of what and relative to what. The best graph I have seen is the excellent Heneghan one showing the rate of “infections” asa percentage of tests taken.
What they are not reporting because it doesnt quite fit the narrative is that world ‘cases’ for the last 3 weeks are currently at a bumpy plateau, today a slight downard tick. World daily deaths are also ticking down and may also hit a plateau. I am keeping my fingers crossed that despite the fact that such big population countries such as India still have rising cases, this could be the beginning of the end. See Worldometer for the 7 day averages.
India, 50,000 deaths as gleefully reported by the beeb, no mention of Indias 1.3 billion population.
25,000 people die every day in India
Over 30,000 people died by drowning in India in 2018. They should fill in all rivers and lakes, and wall off the coast.
https://www.indiaspend.com/83-people-died-every-day-from-drowning-in-2018-yet-no-prevention-plan/
Don’t suggest it, they will get the concrete mixers ready….
See Toby’s link in round up last week, FT, 2 graphs showing large rise in cases, no rise in deaths. Simple.
Majority of “cases” in 20-40 age bracket.As societies have opened up more people have become “infected”
The reality is they are ramping up the testing and finding people with no symptoms,who are not ill and have traces of something in their system,also using a dodgy test and the death rate is non existent.
3 points:
1) Stop watching the BBC.
2) “Cases” doesn’t really mean anything. The person could be asymptomatic, have a mild case, a severe case, had a case but is now fully recovered, or could even be a false positive.
3) Just presenting the case numbers (as the BBC does) without telling us how many were tested is absolutely meaningless. If you test 1000 people 1 week and then 100,000 people the next week, guess which week will show more “cases”. The case number by itself tells you absolutely nothing about whether the number of infections is going up or down.
If you look at Europe wide data the same trend can be seen. Daily deaths are bumping along around 500, yet cases are going up in line with testing.
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
There’s a decent graph there. You can see the EU counties and the rest of Europe converging to the current rate. Deaths have been in and around current rates since May.
So when they say deaths are spiking in Eastern Europe, that’s fine, but the virus is just progressing from a lower base as it seems to have taken hold at a later stage.
If course, comparing counties or summary stats for regions comes with huge caveats. They are certainly overestimated
Not seeing much of a second peak in the data myself.
Good one Biker. I’m still waiting my first confrontation like that. I will just laugh, then sneer. Just carry an air that I know something which they don’t and I’m not about to tell them. Which is true.
‘Claustrophobia, there’s too much paranoia
There’s too many closets, so when will be fall?’
I recall either Jones or Lydon explaining that ‘closets’ were dumb people.
It’s amazing how little grief you get. I’ve had a dude at the garage let the door swing in my face but he could just have done that because he wasn’t paying attention i don’t know. You do get the eyes though. I’ve had a few eyes with a frown too. Wankers the lot of them.
Anyone with a muzzle I make a point of not even looking at them. So I’ve no idea if I get eyes or not. If they want to debase their humanity that’s their affair.
People with original thoughts and ideas interest me, not automatons.
“Bovine animals being transported to the slaughterhouse. You can see it in their eyes.”
A perfect description. Several other commenters have also noted how mask uptake and zombie behaviour has markedly increased this week. I think the culling is about to begin very soon.
For me, these people are already dead. Their bodies do not contain a human consciousness. Empty vessels, fully evacuated.
Yes they are already DEAD. I felt this ages ago.
Slow acting poison from the MSM and especially the beeb.
So far this month 8 people in the Republic of Ireland have been registered as dying from Covid. When did they become infected? (Sin é an ceist – That’s the question.)
There were in Ireland at the end of June more than 25,000 ‘confirmed’ Covoid cases. Of which, less than 30 could have died in July.
In the natural course of events it might be expected a dozen or so people out of 25,000 will come to the end of their days every month. Are these the ones now being counted?
Does anyone know?
I had an appointment at a new hairdressing salon this morning, at 9 a.m. At 8.40 a.m. they rang to say that as a friend of one of the stylists had tested positive for Covid, they would have to reschedule my appointment
I expressed my disappointment and she said that they had to let everyone know and yes, it was a shame. I said that I would have happily gone anyway but that I understood. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing in the conversation, it turned out that if I was happy to, they were happy for me to go in! I said I would have been happy even if it had been the stylist doing my hair that had tested positive!
So off I went on a lovely sunny morning to the salon. Haven’t really been out around shopping areas much recently and I was dismayed to see quite a few masked people walking around. Got to the salon and walked in. It was empty and the owner asked me if I had a mask (I’d said when I made the appointment that I was exempt) and my heart sank a bit. I blithely said I was exempt and showed him the lanyard so he said OK, come and sit down. Another client came in and I gathered from the conversation between her and the owner that the salon had cancelled all appointments for to-day because they all had to go for a test. The other person was there because she had said she wasn’t bothered (but she did wear a mask). Both the owner and the stylist who did my hair had face shields and masks (even though it’s not yet law that they have to wear a mask).
The stylist who did my hair was very relaxed and at one point lowered her mask because I said I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I did mention that she needn’t wear it on my account but I think she said that the boss wanted them to. She also cut my hair very well, I was very pleased.
And, they don’t take cards, only cash or cheque! A vastly more pleasant experience than at my previous hairdresser’s. So I made another appointment with her and I can’t see that I’ll go back to my previous hairdresser.
Great find! I suppose they’ll have to be seen all masked up to keep the local dragons off their backs.
That’s what I thought too (about the masks). I feel so sorry for them though; the girl cutting my hair had to keep fiddling with her mask because it didn’t fit very well.
Oh dear, dear, more ‘unintended consequences’ of wearing masks have come to light:
https://www.everydayhealth.com/coronavirus/your-mask-may-be-causing-candida-growth-in-your-mouth/
https://www.everydayhealth.com/acne/maskne-is-the-latest-skin-problem-here-s-how-to-prevent-or-get-rid-of-it/
But don’t worry, if this happens to you it should not stop you wearin’ a damn mask. Jessica has answers for you so you can go right on making yourself sick. Just look at her outstanding credentials. Jessica, a hero of our time!:
Jessica Migala is a freelance writer in the Chicago area. She focuses on lifestyle, health, fitness, and nutrition, and has written for O, The Oprah Magazine, Women’s Health, Health, Eating Well, Runner’s World, and more. Jessica and her husband recently traded city living for the ‘burbs, giving their two young boys and beagle, Millie, more space to run around. To her, a healthy lifestyle means having cookies in the morning and balancing that with vegetables later in the day. She graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism. Find her at JessicaMigala.com.
Yuk.
Mummm candida….In your mouth. Lovely. BRING IT ON!
Here’s how to vet rid of the bloody acne.
Burn your bloody mask.
As you are of course a moron, I will add that it is advisable to take the mask off before you burn it.
Made me spurt my coffee – thanks Annie.
The media are trying to kick off the 2nd wave agenda, they won’t be happy until they do.
Had a very interesting conversation with a friend who is a Doctor last night, who a few weeks before the lockdown was on the front line fighting the COVID-19 infection. at the time what he told me really scared me and made me exteremely anxious about what was to come. What he told me then was as follows which comes from a post I put on a forum back then:
“Trying to fight COVID-19 is like flying a plane whilst still trying to build the plane” He also said that “anyone over the age of 55 is f*cked!”, he gave me an example that yesterday day he was treating a 56 year old with no underlying illness who was admitted with COVID-19 and he has no chance of survival. All the media is reporting that you are only at risk of death is you have underlying illness, he says this is not true at all as it is severely affecting both the healthy and those with underlying conditions. One of the things that shocked me the most was that he said that “his father is 81 years old and that from what he has seen that he believes if he catches it he is as good as dead.”
Now I met up with him for the first time yesterday since then and what he had to tell me was completely different to back then. He was saying that back in March when people were admitted to the wards and ICU, nothing they did to treat them would work to save the patients. He says now though this has completely changed and that when patients are admitted the treatments work such as Oxygen therapy which had no effect whatsoever back in March, and that they don’t actually understand what has caused this change.
He used to be an Army doctor and had been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he said that back in March & April that the hospital was like a battleground with them being helpless in helping patients who would just die, and that a lot of the Doctors and Nurses were suffering PTSD, but the NHS has nothing in place to help staff cope with PTSD unlike in the Army where they provide support for people. He said fortunately he’s been able to take a few weeks leave now to recover as they’re so slack now, and he said they’re hardly treating anyone at the moment at the hospital he works at
So, from what he’s saying the original virus seems to have gone, or it has mutated and changed into a much milder form.
Well I think it’s also safe to say that he was maybe guilty of being somewhat hysterical back in march. his claim that anyone over 55 is fucked, whether with or without underlying issues, is simply not borne out in the data showing who died _with_ it, let alone of it.
I can understand the hysterical reaction back then when nothing you did would save a patient.
The main point is that this now isn’t the same virus as back then, and we do not seem to be hearing anyone else telling us this, it seems to be being hidden from us and instead we are being led to believe it is still as potent as back in March & April.
And that a second wave is coming ….
Yeah, spot on.
Well, except the problem is front-line clinical staff don’t make good witnesses. By definition they only see the worst cases so they do not have a good overall picture.
Sadly they make great TV fodder…
But they know what treatment works and what doesn’t as they’re the ones administering it.
In the early days they did not know what treatments worked, hence the shift from mechanical intubation in favour of oxygen saturation plus dexamethasone. Moreover, the stay put advice was exactly the wrong advice for a meaningful number of people who did not improve by day 7/8 (Boris, for example). If the doctors who have spoken out in the US and France are correct, it is possible to stop most, if not all, potentially serious cases at day 5/6 by a simple and cheap cocktail of HCQ, azithromycin and zinc. How many of our doctors were considering this at the time?
Came across this article from Carl Heneghan’s department. Back in May they were saying there was very weak/ no evidence for efficacy of HCQ….
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/chloroquine-and-hydroxychloroquine/
Thanks. The US doctors were saying there were no peer-reviewed studies with the full cocktail, and in an outpatient setting (ie. prior to being at death’s door/in full cytokine storm mode).
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/doctors-pen-open-letter-fauci-regarding-use-hydroxychloroquine-treating-covid-19
Fascinating
Yes – remember Farr’s statement about everything but death being merely inference – and the analysis of overall deaths certainly do not bear out that uniformly grim picture from March as one that applied generally (see the CEBM historical data). Deaths actually peaked in April (8th) – and it was clear that the gradient of mortality rose steeply from about 70-75, not 55.
It’s a classic illustration of the problems of observing a very biased population and translating it into general terms.
Or of just making stuff up.
That sort of thing was all over the media at the time. Dead victims covered in bolis and ulcers, dying by drowning with lungs full of putrid puss.
Straight out of a medieval plague manual.
A few words of caution regarding the friend, and his perceptions of things in March. As an army doctor in a war zone, his experience is particular types of battlefield injuries, which are of course, highly visible/obvious. Yes, soldiers die of other things in war zones, such as accidents and illness, but again, largely obvious and known. Soldiers are generally fit, young and active. A 55 year-old in ICU suffering from the virus in March/April, might not have been obviously suffering from no underlying health conditions, but that is not the same as not suffering from either an undiagnosed health condition (early onset diabetes, heart condition) or indeed, a lack of fitness and obesity.
I get the hysterical stuff, it was all new back then, so very understandable.
The main thing is the difference between the virus then and now, and that it seems to be completely different with treatments working now for it that didn’t at the beginning. This is a big reason why death rates are so low, and we’re not being told anything about this. Also, we’re still having the vaccine pushed at us, when it looks like the virus can be treated by therapeutics now.
Agree. Difficult to distinguish between ‘the virus has mutated to something less deadly’, and ‘all the vulnerable have already died so the virus is less deadly’. You would have hoped ‘the scientists’ would be running their discriminant analysis models of big datasets to determine which. Of course, if the end game is the vaccine – and that is my view – then perhaps better to not find out!
I’m not sure the virus is that different though. People are sequencing it all the time so we should know. I’ll see what I can find.
That’s interesting and reflects what some other doctors said a month or so ago. Reports from Italy, the UK and US I think.
And ties in with how it seems to blow itself out after about 2-3 months in every country.
That’s just herd immunity.
I guess this Glasgow Herald reader won’t be buying a lottery ticket: Thanks Colin, it’s good to know that Corona is not lethal. I wish I could write on here what I think of you and your idiotic statement.
I had Corona for 8 weeks, my cousin was in intensive care for 12 days.
My brothers father in law and his sister died from Corona in the same ward 4 days apart.
My uncle and two cousins died of it, yet none of them lived anywhere near each other.
As I said its good to know that in your opinion Corona is not lethal. Maybe it needs to devastate your family to change your mind.
No way is that person telling the truth
Ignore shills.
All my friends, dogs and cats, neighbors and passers-by died of corona. Even the pigeons were falling off the sky. Sorry but your story sounds phony. Most of us here, at my work and all my friends do not know anyone that knows anyone that died of (or had) corona flu.
So either you are unbelievably unlucky to have incurred all those casualties around you (and I’m really sorry for you if that’s the case), or you have made things up knowing that you don’t need to prove it here.I strongly suspect the latter.
To lose one family member, Mr Hammer Onats, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose five looks like carelessness
Five out of how many? – a hundred extended family members perhaps.
When the national the mortality figure is less than 1 in a thousand Hammer’s family has been astonishingly misfortunate.
And who is Colin? and why this reference to the Glasgow Herald? Looks like a post originally drafted for elsewhere.
Looks like a standard bot response. Probably being posted all over Facebook, Twitter, Parler, etc.
So WHAT ELSE WAS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? How OLD WERE THEY? Come on, lets us know that at least.
Don’t waste your time, it’s not a real person.
Their main underlying illness was that they were fictional.
It looks to me as though Hammer Onats has just copied a comment that he saw in the Glasgow Herald, and the comment was presumably in reply to something posted by ‘Colin’ in that paper. So nothing to do with Hammer Onats and his family and shared with us because it doesn’t quite ring true?
Hammer gonads would seen to be the answer here.
That is what I thought also.
The comment is on this article. Hammer Onats was just sharing:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18663751.coronavirus-scotland-face-coverings-become-law-schools-workplaces/#comments-anchor
Lol
You’re either the unluckiest man in the land or downright full of it.
It’s not example of the idiocy that appears in newspaper forums – don’t shoot the messenger!
Your spoof was a little too successful Hammer Onats do you really see such outlandish claims on social media ?
Karen, it was a genuine comment I copied from The Herald. I should have made it clears I was mocking the poster. Cheers.
That’s awesome, Hammer. We should all have stories like that for these posters, no?
(I don’t doubt the guy knew someone with covid, though. A friend told me of a coworker whose wife got sick and recovered, and who now walks around in a shirt that says “my wife died of covid-19.”)
Don’t get excited guys, I’m simply posting an example of the lying idiots that post on newspaper forums.
They’re more than likely CCP or CybernNat bots just trying to play on the emotions and sucker more people in.
Spoke to a chap today, just back to work (mental health) after shielding (diabetes).
He told me his dad had died of Covid. I asked how old ?
82, so I outlined the age profile of the dead.
I further asked ‘any underlying conditions?
No not really, just dementia.
Nobody had told him that dementia is one of the prime co-morbidities for death by Covid.
That’s horrible! But masks are just as bad. I had a cousin whose ears fell off due to lost circulation from the elastic of his mask. The prosthetic ears he got were made of a material that his body rejected, which caused a horrible infection. That infection gave my cousin vertigo, and while he was quarantining in his home, he stumbled backward, crushing the knee of his pet pitbull, who, in it’s agony, lashed out at my poor aunt, ripping a gash in her throat. The ambulance arrived too late, and in his hurry, the EMT slipped on the pool of my dear aunt’s blood, smashing his head against a recently stuffed elk head that my uncle had just that day retrieved from the taxidermist. The horn impaled his scull and he was killed instantly. My uncle, in his grief over my aunt, shot himself with the very rifle he had used on the elk. The bullet was a full metal jacket and passed right through my uncle’s heart, out his back, through the window and into the head of a priest who was two houses down, performing an exorcism. Unfortunately, the demon had not yet been banished from the neighbor girl, but was emboldened. It caused her to arise from bed, and then to grasp her pet cat with both arms, and with it’s demonic strength, rip the cat in half! In the throes of it’s demonic laughter, the demon failed to notice the window now shattered by my uncle’s bullet. Tripping over the dead priest, the demon possessed girl fell from the window and onto the pavement below, snapping her neck.
But I suppose that guy still advocates mandatory masking.
I wonder if football might help. I can’t see either the rich clubs nor the fans putting up with empty stadiums for much longer. Fans might start asking “Why?”.
Football clubs and sport in general, at the elite level, seems to have been taken over by virtue signalling folk. They may not believe what they come out with, but I think they wouldn’t want to be seen as being horrid or money-grabbing.
The fans are undoubtedly pissed off, at least some of them, but they don’t really have a voice, and they can watch it on the telly. Elite sport behind closed doors on TV is all about making life appear normal when it isn’t. Opium for the masses.
I suspect elite-level sport get most of their money from TV and advertising, rather than fan tickets, though this is just a guess. So, much like online shopping giants vs. high street shops and small businesses, it’s the medium- and small-scale sports clubs that lose out the most.
It definitely feels like there’s a strong element of “bread and circuses” in the push to get TV sport back up and running as soon as possible.
If you look at a stadium with a 60,000 capacity in the premier league. If the average ticket costs £50, then clubs are losing £3 million straight away, and that doesn’t include drinks, food, programmes, etc. Then their in the loss on hospitality at the stadium. You also, have the knock on affect for business in the local area, no one is going the pub after the match, no one popping in for fish and chips or a takeaway pre or post game, and then there is the local businesses that help to maintain the stadium.
The financial impact on a town or city is massive.
Look at my club for example spent best part of a billion quid building a new stadium and investing in the local infrastructure can’t see Daniel Levy waiting much longer without revenue, mind you I haven’t watched a game since the restart bending the knee for BLM done it for me and I’m not the only one
Agreed, not going to watch any more football until that nonsense stops
Surely the only way to stop that is to attend and boo the kneetakers or at least turn your back.
I honestly believe after talking to match going fans of different teams if those games had been played in front of the fans instead of behind closed doors it would of been a one off gesture
It’s the only way they have got away with it.
Same here.The sight of Graeme Souness grovelling when the plane flew over Man City was enough for me.It is bad enough when the women footballers are on
the panel.Sky sports subscription cancelled.
Same here, although I think some of the women footballer like Alex Scott are good pundits as they don’t have history with a team like Souness, Carragher or Neville, so aren’t biased.
Agreed, yet clubs do not protest (publicly). Protest from business has been minimal – the odd individual, BA, Ryanair, but little else I have seen. Have the bosses bought into the narrative, or are they just afraid to look greedy and heartless? Either way, it doesn’t help us much.
I think it’s because all these clubs and companies are so woke now, and afraid to go outside of the wokeists, otherwise the media jump on them.
Ian Holloway of Grimsby Town (Football League 2) said that about 40% of their income is from gate receipts and a further 10% from hiring out the function suite. So they need to get the crowds back to have any long-term future. In the top divisions gate receipts are less significant as they get a lot from TV and sponsorships. I think it was announced recently that levels below National Leagues North & South (the sixth tier) are regarded as recreational sport and public attendance will be allowed. So it might be Matlock Town or Ilkeston Town for me in the new season!
Is this sound?
WHO Coronavirus PCR Test Primer Sequence is Found in All Human DNA
https://pieceofmindful.com/2020/04/06/bombshell-who-coronavirus-pcr-test-primer-sequence-is-found-in-all-human-dna/
The short article links throught to
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/NC_000008.11?report=genbank&log%24=nuclalign&from=63648346&to=63648363
It certainly does match– that is one of the primers they’re looking for and it is in chromosome 8 like he says!
One of the comments on there pointed out that since the test is RT-PCR it’s only looking for RNA, not DNA. But if that gene happened to be being transcribed the test might find it… idk what that gene is actually for.
Also most of the tests are looking for a couple of matches not just one. So it could be a rare source of false positives.
Thanks for answering guy. It’s helpful to get a knowledgeable opinion. It’s quite a finding in thst case then.
Someone told me yesterday Boris was in Scotland. However I’ve just heard his father Stanley was holding a birthday bash in Greece. We’ll be waiting to see if he sports a tan on his next photo shoot op.
they keep mentioning that greece is next in line for quarantine (aka house arrest). they announced croatia today i think – if boris is in greece maybe they are waiting for him to return before introducing the quarantine…??? Just a thought!!
I’m keep a close eye on greece as i may book last minute hol to a quiet spot early sept – but not sure of the travel hassle with masks etc and likely quarantine on returning which as i work at home is not really too much of an issue.
But two weeks away from this nasty little island to swim in turquoise seas and bit of windsurfing and red wine could be a winner!!
Greece looks like it will make the cut this week as cases have dropped below the ridiculous 20 per 100,000. Most ‘cases’ are in Mykonos so one would hope for a non-blanket ban if they do add Greece. Perhaps some common sense but we know there is none of that. Croatia looks set to be added to the list later today. I have clients flying out on Saturday but they are going any way if the flights don’t cancel.
Depends i Stanley is in Mykonos….
thanks offlands – greece is so spread out between all the islands etc but if there is a quarantine you know it’ll apply to the whole country regardless as rationality or common sense doesn’t enter into the equation by our controllers.
Sounds in greece they’ve imposed some restrictions on some islands but not too onerous e.g. restaurants/bars having to close by midnight – may piss off some younger folks but not too restrictive. We’ll see will have to make a decision in next week or so…
I’ve just got home from Marks and Spencer. Everybody looked so miserable there except for the one other unmasked customer I saw. Fortunately, there were no dirty looks or snide comments to report this time, though.
This is definitely a recurring theme today. The masked looking totally dejected and miserable.
Reckon this is one of the psychological effects of prolonged wearing that the government were banking on to demoralise the population. Evil genius.
there is NO OTHER REASON to force mask wearing. It is to demoralise people. It’s psychological torture. We are in Guantanamo bay.
Is it time for my Masks & Spenders joke? No? OK then.
Argh you beat men to it!!
I just got back fro click and collecting at Sainsburies, a little blond woman in a 4X4 was loading in her shopping from the C+C and she was wearing a mask and gloves..what the fuck is wrong with people??????????
this is a very good question
Well, two kinds if people use CandC, or rather, one type of person and one type of zombie.
The person is so nauseated by the faceless zombie ghouls in the store that s/he opts for CandC.
The zombie thinks that every other zombie in the store will be breathing instant death on him/ her, so opts for CandC with mask and gloves.
I’m the one chatting to the CandC staff while I load up – nice set of youngsters at my Tesco’s.
Gov’t: “Masks have a slight effect in protecting others.”
Sheep: “Gov’t say we will die if we don’t wear masks, it must have got worse…”
On a slightly more positive note, I visited my local general store/mini supermarket (independent) this morning and saw two other non-masked shoppers for the first time (no badges or lanyards either).
Also been to an M&S today, no staff wearing muzzles, a couple with visors and the obligatory screens. Saw a couple of other bare faced adults but, more worryingly, young children masked up
Surely that should be ‘Masks and Spencer’ ARF!
Good, I hope they get depression
Aldi this morning, all customers masked except for me and a young Asian woman. Most staff masked though some just below the nose. I went to a checkout being opened for use, nice lady on the checkout started with mask, pulled it down below nose, then maybe noticing me unmasked she pulled it down below her mouth. Small victory, two humans interacting normally.
Masks and Spencer ;-D
My SiL has just posted on her fb page:
Should the Scottish Government pandemic briefings continue?
Silly SiL voted yes.
Here’s what her friend posted:
Definitely yes – they are the only ones where you get clear directions and answers.
God help us all!
Pretty sure I persuaded 3 people today that the government are lying to us in collusion with the press.
Keep up the good work. SiL is a lost cause.
In OZ apparently children need to be vaccinated to have childcare etc. So vaccination verification to live your life seems to be what they are leading to, how can the Pharma industry ie Gates etc have got such a hold on lives.
Far too many of the Worlds leaders have their “price” it would seem, plus they clearly have zero humanity/soul. Now I like being as comfortably off as the next person but could not imagine selling out my own Countrymen (imperfect as they may be) for ANY price. Maybe that’s why I’m not a politician?
There are huge stakes involved here. Trillions are passing hands. People murder each other for a tenner. I wouldn’t be surprised if very nasty threats are being issued regarding families etc.
I know somebody who had his children’s lives threatened over a business deal. I also know somebody else who threatened somebody’s children’s lives for a ransom. He went to jail. (He’s not a friend or anything. I did business with him once and then somebody told me what he did!)
These were for relatively small sums of money. What would go on for trillions?
Maybe this is why a lot of media focus has been shifted to Australia – they’ve decided it will be easier to enforce the CV vaccine there, since other vaccinations in order to obtain certain services are already mandatory. Once it is mandatory in one major country – especially an English-speaking one- it will be easier to ram it through elsewhere – or maybe that is Gates’ reasoning anyway…?
Shopping in Lidl yesterday (Dublin) and other than children, was the only non-mask wearer in the entire store
I also felt like the only grown up!
On the work front, the company I work for has pushed back our return to the office date from 1st September to 5th October.
A visit to the swimming pool in 2020: Drive to pool. Mask off. Enter reception. Mask on. Get changed. Mask off. Swim. Pop out for a wee. Mask on/off?! Swim. Mask off. Get changed. Mask on. Sit down in swimming pool cafe. Mask off. Get up to order food. Mask on. Eat food. Mask off. Leave through reception. Mask on. Step outside. Mask off. Go home. Cry.
That just sums up the ludicrousness of it all, does’t it? Hope you enjoyed your swim though
I’m afraid it was purely imaginary as I won’t be going swimming until the madness is over!
Ah, I see! I don’t blame you at all!
Was thinking of starting swimming again (local leisure centre). Are all sports facilities mask-mandatory now, except while doing sports?
I don’t know but of course what we’ve found here is that different establishments seem to take wildly different approaches to the same guidelines, often exceeding them, so I think you can only know by contacting the leisure centre.
Doesn’t matter. Just go in without a mask.
I’ve really missed the swimming, especially taking the kids along. The best time and easiest parenting.
They are trying to drive us mad! Because they are mad.
The mask thing is a total joke, so IMO the best thing to do is just treat it like a joke.
Which you seem to be doing.
Please don’t let the mask madness keep you away from swimming. One of the best things you can do for both mind and body, IMO. Don’t let them win! At least the pool and the cafe are open! That is something!
I’m not so sure that’s the best approach. I don’t want to support the “new normal” because then it will become permanent. I’d rather stay away from places that enforce the masks etc and go to places where it is not required/enforced (like my local cafe instead of Greggs) – as harsh as it is, I think the only way to make things change back is to ensure the “new normal” does not work.
I agree. Other than for absolute essentials, I won’t participate in Covid theatre. I won’t eat inside a restaurant when you must wear a mask to walk to your table and then can take it off. Mask back on again if you need the washroom and back off again at the table. And then back on again to leave the restaurant. This virus is far more clever than the idiots who make the rules it seems.
It’s important to be seen without a mask whenever possible. Triggers others to copy you.
What an obedient virus. It’s so intelligent – knowing at what points to leave you alone.
my kids swimming classes started 3 weeks ago. week 1. wait outside in masks, teacher comes out, file in 1 by 1 etc
week 3 – no masks, no waiting, everything back to absolute normal. the leisure centre is a haven of sanity.
A woman told me of taking her child swimming, among ther things she said no showers allowed.
Last time I went to a public pool you Had to take a shower or no entry because of The Germs. Has Covid seen The Germs off too ?
Covid is the king (or queen!) of all germs! We bow to Covid. Apparently hospitals don’t acknowledge any other germs either — unless you have Covid, you’re on your own.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2020/08/coronavirus-millions-of-bees-starve-to-death-as-beekeepers-held-up-at-covid-19-checkpoints.html
Coronavirus: Millions of bees starve to death as beekeepers held up at COVID-19 checkpoints
“Kang said after the new lockdown was first announced he assumed that beekeepers would be treated as essential workers and allowed to travel freely to do their jobs as they had during alert level 4 earlier this year.
However, beekeepers currently need a letter from the Ministry of Health to prove they have been granted permission to travel.”
Bees pollinate our food supply.
Another front in the total war against humanity. Fuck me these guys are serious.
The utter stupidity of this regulation is really beyond belief. If the people of NZ applaud the NZ government in doing this, then they all deserve what happens to them (possibly no food next year).
Only it won’t be them who suffer. New Zealand is relatively rich, so no doubt they’ll import food, pushing up global prices and leading poorer nations to take the pain.
Very true. Another casualty of the First World’s obsession with this damned virus.
Apparently this is a related article:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2020/06/200-000-pots-of-honey-to-be-given-to-kiwi-families-struggling-in-wake-of-covid-19.html
Liquid sugar. Definitely a treat but hardly an essential food item.
I’ve just seen this tweet of a young child who has taped his face up.
https://twitter.com/jcefidel/status/1296223175651590144
I find this extremely disturbing, and everybody should be ashamed for allowing our children to become this paranoid that they are now doing this.
6 months ago, you would be very concerned if a child was doing this, now it is normal.
When he tries to pull the tape of…he will only do this ONCE
Gonna end up with a whole heap of mental health issues in a few years time.
He’ll probably join the LibDems.
Used to do that as a dare at school usually on the arms, sometimes more sensitive places but never once the face.
That is horrible. It has been really hard to educate my son that, whatever the MSM say, there is nothing to worry about. Luckily, we are now at the stage of joking about it all. We shared a laugh at the “return to school” handbook emailed to us today. I am not blaming the school – they have to be seen to impose this long and paranoid list of precautions. However, it is heartening to know that my son and his friends are already texting each other about the best ways to get round any restrictions and are exchanging views on who might be a “wettie” and actually take things seriously.
I’m guessing that masks are not mandated at your son’s school? They are in my province for grades 4 and up, but there’s a fair bit of pressure to extend the mandate to all children. I’d be keeping my kids out of school if I still had young ones. My university child will have to mask up but at least her classes are only 1 hour long and only 2 of the professors are even coming back to teach in person. My eldest is a student teacher and is supposed to be in the classroom 2 days a week. I’m hoping she does her practicum online as I hate the idea of her having to wear one all day and policing kids who ought not be wearing one. Makes my blood boil.
Good for them. Children’s peer pressure knows no bounds. I remember doing what parents and teachers told me to, usually, but only because I had to.
The only people whose Approval I saught were my schoolmates.
Trying to copy his mum?
On the bright side, lunchtime visit to the convenience store.
Let an unmasked (=um) woman out of the door, um guy at the counter, 2 um ladies in the post office area, 2 staff likewise. I caused an unrelated delay and when I turned to go there 3 um people calmly waiting.
We looked at each other in some confusion.
100% non compliance YAY !
I want to shop there!
In my town today it was market day, so fairly busy. Also sunny but that didn’t seem to bother those going muzzled (a fairly large percentage I would say)
I was the only one unmuzzled in pet shop and card shop, which had a flock of muzzled ones in. No one asked, except in library, was pleased to tell library lady (not muzzled) that I was exempt. Lots of people giving me and my 3 unmuzzled young ones a very wide berth. Only encountered 4 pavement jumpers though. Maybe slightly down on last week?
Huge smiles all round I hope!
Passed a bus while stopping at lights. All passengers masked apart from young mother with her baby. Good for her. A child needs to see its mother’s smile.
She wasn’t glued to her phone I hope
No not at all – the opposite – interacting and playing with her child.
Another anecdote reflecting the sheer Blue-Peterish craziness which prevails up here,thanks to the latest diktat from Holyrood: I’ve just spoken to a local beautician who runs what was until March ,a very successful, long established salon, with many loyal customers.
All facial treatments which require access to the mouth, cheeks,chin and neck have been suspended, masks now being mandatory. Consequently, 60-70% of her business has vanished, and the therapist who works with her is now on a 3 day week.
The trainee who was longing to come back on a part time basis cannot do so for the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, these rules do not apply to beauty salons in England.
Added to the farcical constraints placed on dental practices, which I wrote about recently, this indicates the depths to which normal business life has now sunk, all thanks to She Who Must Be Obeyed and the Holyrood Heidbangers.
How will we ever escape from this ?
The gauleiters in Holyrood on their protected salaries ned to do some serious thinking. What a hope!!
I’m disgusted.
Feeling really arsey after reading what the WTTC has written to Governments so sent them an e-mail, some of which you’ve seen:
part 1
“I have just read your letter to governments and I must say what a lot of unmitigated, unsubstantiated, unfounded twaddle to put it mildly and you are not representing your member’s best interests.
The letter by Gloria Guevara, WTTC President & CEO https://wttc.org/COVID-19/Government-Hub/Global-coordination-to-save-the-sector
I travel extensively for business and pleasure, or I used to until March 2020 anyway, spending up to 10 months away from home a year and during my enforced time at home have followed “government science” very closely and the longer this farce goes on the more out of step with reality most Government’s actions and their “science” are becoming.
Your measures will not entice me to travel unless I absolutely must as they go against any sort of enjoyable experience that we all like to have on vacation.
Your first 3 lines and my rebuttals:
Wearing a mask: This should be mandatory on all modes of transport throughout the entire traveller journey, as well as when visiting any interior venue and in locations where there is restricted movement which results in close personal contact and required physical distancing cannot be maintained. According to medical evidence, such measures can reduce the risk of the spread by up to 92%.
To date there have been zero Randomised Control Trials that I can find that show mask wearing has anything other than either a negligible effect or zero effect in stopping any virus but there is mounting evidence that shows an increased risk of detrimental effects on the wearer.
The Government of the UK cannot supply any scientific evidence to support their mask wearing legislation and neither can any other authority including by FOI requests.
Here are 15 different studies over 40 years that show the ineffectiveness of masks in a medical setting:
Neil Orr’s study, published in 1981 in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Their conclusion: “It would appear that minimum contamination can best be achieved by not wearing a mask at all” and that wearing a mask during surgery “is a standard procedure that could be abandoned.””
Here is the original study published on the NIH website so it’s official:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493952/pdf/annrcse01509-0009.pdf
Also there are these studies:
part 2 to follow
Part 2:
If they do not work in a controlled medical environment used by trained personnel how will their use by the general public work?
There are plenty more studies that can be read and recently the world’s leading epidemiologists issued a statement challenging Governments on this issue and said that masks were not effective for stopping the spread of viruses.
Please explain the rising numbers of bacterial lung infections, mouth infections and what US dentists have nicknamed “mask mouth” that are appearing since the start of the worldwide drive to get populations to wear masks plus the increasing psychological feelings of detachment from society that mask wearers feel. I look forward to your explanation.
Please explain why countries that have been wearing masks for longer than the UK and in more places than the UK still have rising numbers of “positive tests”. Surely if masks worked as you claim then cases should drop to zero and stay there within weeks of the commencement of general mask wearing?
Where did you get the 92% figure from?
Quote from the 2019 WHO publication that has never been superseded, in the section about mask wearing:
“there is no evidence that this is effective in reducing transmission”
Mask wearing is purely political decision making and has no basis is published scientific fact as of date.
Testing and contact tracing: We need governments to invest and agree on extensive, rapid, and reliable testing, ideally with results available in as quick as 90 minutes, and at a low cost, before departure and/ or after arrival (symptomatic and asymptomatic would-be travellers), supported by effective and agreed contact tracing tools. The application of one or multiple tests, with the second after five days, will help to isolate infected people.
Again, from the 2019 WHO publication that has never been superseded: “Active contact tracing is not recommended in general because there is no obvious rationale for it in most Member States. Quality fo evidence very low”
Quarantine for positive tests only: Quarantine for healthy travellers, which only serves to damage the economy, should not be necessary if testing is in place before departure and/or on arrival, and effective containment measures are taken five days later. This can replace blanket quarantine in a more targeted and effective way significantly reducing the negative impact on jobs and the economy.
Recently I received a FOI request back from the UK Department of Health and Social care about this very subject so here is what they told me:
My question:
-supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
The answer:
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Patients can have SARS-CoV-2 RNA before onset of illness, during the illness and after resolution of symptoms (all variable periods). The result has to be taken into context of symptoms present.
SO A POSITIVE TEST MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE CONTEXT OF “SUFFERING” FROM THE PIECES OF VIRAL MATERIAL DETECTED IN THE TEST SAMPLE SO WHY THE CONTINUING ADHERENCE TO INSISTING THAT A PERSON WHO TESTS POSITIVE MUST BE ISOLATED FOR 14 DAYS AND AREAS ARE TO BE PLACED INTO FURTHER LOCAL LOCKDOWNS BASED ON THE SAME MEANINGLESS TEST RESULT?
Part 3 to follow
A couple of things…first, what most people don’t know about masks in hospital settings, particularly in the OR, is that there is more oxygen being pumped into the air to compensate for the masks. Second, I made the mistake of trying to present facts on a New York Times thread yesterday and cited the only RCT on medical vs. cloth masks that was published in the BMJ in 2015 (cloth masks are rubbish) and one of the mask zealots linked to a recent “opinion” piece in said journal by the original authors who have now come out and said the public should wear masks. Their own study was very clear that neither type of mask prevented the spread of viruses (though medical masks were better than cloth) among HCW who use PPE properly, and yet now they are clearly politicizing the issue or have been pressured to contradict their own work. This is really scary.
I know I’m pissing in the wind but I’m feeling really belligerent today, it keeps me away from the TV plus it’s my way of fighting back as at the moment going out and doing violence is not the right thing to do.
It may come to it in coming weeks/months but not at present.
It wasn’t a mistake trying to present facts, it made you feel better so its therapy or something similar.
You never know, one person may read your comment and research further.
I found out a long time ago you cannot change a person’s mind by facts or force or browbeating but you can lead them to information that they then may read and inquire further and change their own minds.
Trying to change people’s opinions is like pushing a balloon through wet cement, most times you will just burst the balloon trying but just occasionally you can make a small impression that lasts once the cement goes hard and just before the balloon pops.
Don’t fight with logic – fight first with emotion.
If you are supporter of having everyone wear masks you:
I’m sure you can think of others.
Use that first and then use logic when there’s a chink. You must engage the limbic brain before anything. Don’t feel bad that you have to resort to such tactics – you did not initiate engagement
Are happy to allow the needless deaths of cancer sufferers.
Are happy to banish every kind of collective celebration from society.
Are happy to turn human beings into faceless ghouls.
Want to see an end to trust and co-operation among human beings.
Part 3:
They also provided a link to a document by Health Technology Wales which in answer to this question:
– the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy. I can confirm that the Department holds information relevant to your request. As the information held by the Department is in the public domain, we will under Section 21 of the FOI Act (information accessible to the applicant by other means) refer you to the published source, a summary of evidence on the accuracy of the test,
https://www.healthtechnology.wales/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAR025-COVID19-diagnostics-report-v2.6.pdf
It does include a few notable gems such as (the paper’s original comments in blue with their updates in umber and with my notes in red):
So basically as admitted by the DHSC they are using tests that are “unreliable” to say the least, have no reference standard to double check the accuracy against and that have results that means nothing medically?
And yet the Governments of the world still pump out the continuous propaganda that whole swathes of the population have to be put into isolation and incarceration based on these tests and results.
An explanation would be very much appreciated by myself and many other people as to why you think a “positive test” requires quarantine of that person and possibly persons they have been in contact with as there has been absolutely nothing coming from Government for months now that makes any kind of sense.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/nobody-dying-talk-birmingham-lockdown-18795463
Considering our apalling local rag has pushed the fear porn line continually since the start this is actually a reasonably well-balanced piece. I’ve noticed that most of their recent doomster articles have generally been met with widespread derision online so maybe they’re adopting a more nuanced approach.
Also interesting to read the total disconnect between front line medical personnel and the unelected public health quangocracy. For the PHE goons and local authority gauleiters the “second wave” is now their sole reason to exist and is thus presented as fact regardless. This no longer about public health but just a massive arse- covering excercise.
Sadly there is a high level meeting between these morons and Hancock taking place today to discuss which naughty step measures can be put in place to avoid a local lockdown here. Seems as though this time they’re going to get all their ducks in a row to prevent the backlash they got from Leicester and Greater Manchester.
Dr Ron Daniels, an Intensive care consultant at Birmingham Hospital:
“The amount of testing is going up, so there are more cases. The positivity rate is also going up (the proportion of people testing positive, proportionate to the number of tests). But there are no deaths, and very few people becoming critically ill, even five weeks after lockdown measures were eased,” he said.
“There may be more cases in the community, but people are not getting sick.”
Let’s hope the MSM are starting to post more stuff like this!
On my fairly regular visits to local Morrison’s-no alternative here-I’m the only bare faced customer.
A few of the till ladies aren’t gagged either, but everyone else looks utterly miserable.
No eye contact, facial expressions impossible to interpret,so low level distrust and anxiety, compounded by discomfort.
Another acquaintance told me yesterday about her mounting skin problems; mask induced dermatitis.
Is this conducive to normality ,trust and optimal mental and physical well being? No, it isn’t!!
No it isn’t it’s just sick. Depraved. It’s evil. It’s destructive to humanity. It’s corrosive. It’s toxic.
Seriously. If my behaviour caused so much harm to others around me I would rightly so be judged to be worthy of widespread shunning and ostracisation.
Evil. Diabolical.
If anybody still doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as pure evil, they only need to go round one of these zombie shops. Antechambers to Hell. Like the schools described in another post. At least the old Catholic doctrine offered infants a gentler non-life in limbo.
NOT Normal. I will never be convinced that this is “new” normal or any kind of normal. It’s dehumanizing and humiliating, but I guess that’s the point. I hate to say it, but we need for huge numbers of people to develop health problems from constant mask wearing.
I’d call it psychological warfare being conducted upon the public, all in the name of protecting them.
“I’m beating you for your own good. No, I’m not enjoying it.” (Much).
Have just been to their local branch myself.
Bad News : Every other customer was masked as were 50% of the staff
Good News : No one way system, no one seemed bothered about distancing, no one dodged me, no dirty looks and a happy moment when a member of staff mopping up around the perpetually leaking fridges removed his mask, smiled and gave me a thumbs up.
off topic a bit but Bill gates getting flustered:
HA HA HA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=It2IFcc2oY0&feature=emb_logo
We’re getting to him now.
Oh, he’s a real piece of work that one. If you want to get to know him even better, watch Who is Bill Gates? on the Corbett Report web site or Plandemic 2 on the London Real web site.
He’s a real nasty piece of shit.
If I met him in the street I’d risk life in jail just to wipe that smug smirk of his fucking face – along with some others if I met them – I feel that belligerent today.
Grrrr!
https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/services/mediarender/THISLIFE/024035699373/media/1675561547202753/small/1597940079/enhance
Alleged picture of Gates as a child. Quite probably a victim of generational abuse.
This was from a couple of weeks ago, I wonder if the news anchor still has her job.
Nora O’Donnell is a pretty big name so she’s still got her job. Pretty impressive for the MSM.
The future…
“crackle..we’re now arriving at Glasgow Sturgeon Street..”
“Mummy, why is it called that?”
“In honour of our first president all those years ago. Do you know what she was famous for?”
“Oh – was it for getting rid of that nasty virus that was killing everyone?”
“Yes, that’s right. We can go and look at her statue if you like…”
Perhaps a glimmer of hope. Just emailed my local hairdresser re their mask policy. My previous hairdresser interpreted all the rules to the nth degree and it terrified me. Abuse, I call it.
The new hairdresser said me not being masked will be fine. I’ll take a peek in later and make an appointment.
My dentist also said it was fine me not being masked!
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-to-join-national-coronavirus-18801205
And here we have it. The largest metrpolitan area in the country is now on the naughty step thanks to about 300 “cases” in a population of 2.6m. No obvious hopitalisations or deaths but we have to be saved from ourselves. Please Toby can’t you and some of your like-minded colleagues get across this before it’s too late. I genuinely believe there’s enough scepticism locally to put a stop to rhis.
Sent my letter to Hancock and Hunt about testing to the Lord Mayors of Oldham, Birmingham, Leicester and Stoke-on-Trent.
They may actually read it and have some true facts to try and counter the stupidity coming from central Government and their Public Health Departments.
AG, can I suggest you include Andy ‘Shut the pubs’ Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester? He’s a right killjoy.
Done just for the hell of it.
The mayor of the west midlands combined authority gets contacted via local councils it says on his website so that is done already.
Great stuff.
Sent to the Aberdeen City Council as well to stir up shit in Sturgeon Land.
Those 300 cases are the heroes creating the hard immunity need to protect the vulnerable.
Yeah internment sounds good.
Was this a local or central government decision?
Let’s hear it for the car and cycle enthusiasts. Just been into Halfords. Almost half of the customers were unmasked and most of the staff too. I’m hoping the more people see us coming and going normally without being challenged, the less they will end up wearing muzzles.
Well just had the arrangements for my daughters school this year. No contact sports, no assemblies, no singing, no group playing of musical instruments, no lunchtime or after school clubs, no overnight trips, no mixing with children from other years. 2 metre zone for teacher or teacher can wear a visor, one-way system, track & trace system.
Boris, Whitty, Ferguson, BBC et al. Just so you know, and for the removal of any doubt, you are scum.
I am very rarely speechless.
I’d put money on schools not reopening. Unions have Borista by the balls and are squeezing hard.
I think ours will re-open and then promptly go to online as “cases” are reported. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Teachers will say how important it is that children are educated. Working hard with government to get the schools open. At the last minute it will be that unfortunately due to a very small but vital issue, they have to further extend their summer holidays on 100% pay.
You are not being fair to teachers. My relative is a teacher she is very distressed by being forced to teach online, she wants to be in the classroom with her pupils.
They need to vote in some more moderate union leaders.
Exactly. Stick the blame where it belongs – with this Tory government and its once darling narcissistic liar – intent on inculcating this incontinent fear in the whole population
No, it’s not ‘The Tories’, that pisses me off. It’s all of them, every colour, every stripe, they are all to blame. Incompetent, lazy, corrupt and in some cases, downright evil!
Don’t be a child, they stopped caring about values years ago. I would vote for anyone who had any integrity no matter the political party.
Hmmmm! FWIW I’ve always voted Tory as the least worst option (I actually support the “Leave Me the Fuck Alone” party). Not any more – my ballot paper will be spoiled from now on. But to claim the “evil Tories” are any different from the parties on the left – who demanded faster, harder and more draconian lockdowns in the style of Melbourne and New Zealand is somewhat disingenuous.
I understand that that’s what will happen here in the UK. Two ‘positive’ PCR tests and it will be called an outbreak and the school will be closed. BTW, this is not actually to do with unions, stupid as they are. MW
What he should do is sack all those unwilling to go back to school and behave as normal, i.e. pre-covidmania.
But he’s Boris, so he won’t.
Cant have him by the balls if he’s no where to be found.
Or, his balls have been removed
Can only register my disgust at what that school and others are choosing to do.
Not at all the point I know, but theres’s a lot of cost saving going on in removing that lot. I mention because we are all hearing how covid is causing public service debts to increase.
Another not the point but – what are teachers to do when physical intervention becomes required to prevent injury say. Children do have accidents, some of which can be prevented as soon as noticed.
Hopefully they’ll revert to their natural human instincts and forget about antisocial-distancing in the moment.
We’ve got all that and mandatory masks too! Sounds more like prison than school, but since we’re all in prison now why leave the kids out? Let’s call it what it is: child abuse.
Unfortunately, aided and abetted by too many willing parents.
I completely agree — parents of young kids seem to be the biggest bedwetters of them all. No amount of “safety” seems to satisfy them. Between them and the teachers I don’t think there will be much school happening in person this year. And I’m not bashing teachers — many would go back in a heartbeat and some I know won’t go back because of mandatory masking. If I were a teacher I wouldn’t go back because of masking — for myself it’s a non-starter, and I wouldn’t take part in child abuse by policing the masking of children.
I never thought a Pink Floyd video would become reality but it looks like this coming school year will resemble this joyless classroom (but sitting farther apart)
&f=1&nofb=1
Eddie, brilliant!
We don’t need no thought control!
Very apt.
Beyond bleak. I also understand that in many areas children’s professionals such as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists counsellors and psychologists will not be allowed in school this coming term. 2 friends have told me their employers forbid them going on site because it is not safe. Safe for whom? Apparently they can do their jobs via video. My friends disagree and feel they will be letting children down.
I wonder how much of that is compulsory, I.e. a rule from government and how much of it is guidance?
As per my comment regarding masks: Its psychological warfare against the population.
I’m not surprised, and had anticipated that it might be worse after reading the new school normal in Quebec.
All the provinces are caving in to the maskholes. Child abuse on a mass scale. Quebec and BC I thought might have bucked the trend, but alas they are seeming to capitulate as well.
Utter utter scum – meanwhile private schools press on with minimal fuss and changes (my daughter attends one). What they are doing to state kids is just terrible
Completely agree. Son also at private school. Minimal fuss and changes – enough to, presumably, keep the insurers happy. What they are doing to most state school children is beyond cruel.
So, nothing that may make the learning experience more enjoyable then.
We got the “return to school handbook” through as well. In all fairness they have obviously done as little as they can get away with and I am impressed. They have also warned us that this is a boys’ prep school which is predominantly boarding so perfection cannot be expected – excellent! Son and his friends have been frantically texting each other on (a) how to break the rules; (b) who will be a “wettie” and want to stick to the rules; and (c) how to wind up those identified as “wetties” by terrifying them with fake coughing etc. I know I should take him to task for (a)-(c) but, instead, I am bursting with pride!
Well done to your sons and his mates – fighting the good fight… There’ll be medals waiting for them after it’s all over, and they’ll have pride of place in the victory parade.
I’ll come and line the streets.
I suppose there is a tiny cherry in there if the kids don’t have to wear muzzles.
Went for a drink in MK. Partner signed herself honestly. They then explain one way system in pub.
order drinks from bar lad. Go to sit down. “Can’t sit there, too close to other people”. Where can we sit. Landlady looks around, “there is no-where free inside but you can drink outside in the rain.”. Can’t we just drink at the bar? that wasn’t allowed. Choice, In front of pub or garden. We chose the garden.. We then had to hand our drinks back to be poured into plastic beakers.
Not an experience I will be having again.
Worth saying which chain this pub belonged to, if it wasn’t a free house.
Not sure if it was a chain. It’s one that is on the canal. Not going to identify it further as the landlady looked only mid 20’s and not her fault.
Landlady decides to enforce voluntary measures and it’s not her fault?
True, if the pubco decided for her, so I think it’s always helpful to know if the pub belonged to a chain and if so which one.
I’d have been inclined to give them their drinks back – out of the glass!
Ever heard of ACE2? You should have, by now.
SARS-COV to ACE2 binding and the dangerous Covid-19 truth
I hardly understood about 10% of that! I did try.
The idea is that some of the drugs people take to treat high blood pressure, diabetes and some other things might end up making Covid worse. It’s a plausible theory.
ACE2 is an enzyme on the surface of some cells whose job is to regulate your blood pressure down. It also happens to be the hole in the barbed wire fence which the SARS2 viruses use to get into cells.
The blood pressure drugs are also trying to lower your blood pressure by intervening in the feedback loop that ACE2 is part of. So you end up with more ACE2. And that means more places for the virus to infect your cells, which you would expect to mean you’re more likely to get pneumonia in the first place and that it’s likely to be worse.
It’s certainly true that we’ve seen a high correlation with high blood pressure and severe disease in Western countries where most people with high blood pressure are treating it. So it’s not actually that high any more, but there will be more ACE2.
ACE2 getting blocked by the viruses, and therefore not doing its job, may also be responsible for some of the oxidative stress and blood clotting issues that causes people to die. And people with high blood pressure or diabetes are more prone to this to start with. This wasn’t mentioned in that article but is a reason why those conditions might make Covid worse that has nothing to do with the medication.
Virologists have been working hard over the past twenty years to get bat coronaviruses to attach to that very same receptor. Looks like they succeeded.
Human coronavirus NL63 has been infecting humans via ACE2 for about the last 1000 years.
From the Science article there is perhaps some assistance to an answer to the question, can Covid-19 sufferers be asymptomatic? In the past, it has been reasoned hereabouts that infection must present itself in symptoms, otherwise there is no infection (i.e. the PCR test results generally produce false positives). Apparently, more than 90% of symptomatic cases will present viral pneumonitis, which shores up the implicit connection. That being said, around 80% of symptomatic cases recover without deterioration. And so the Science article confirms the fact that Covid-19, when it is not countered by an immune response, is a rare illness requiring hospitalisation to prevent deterioration to death, and so the ICU figures produced by ICNARC (where some 4400 people have died of Covid-19 in and after critical care) are indeed the best indicator of a real Covid-19 death toll.
I wondered right from the beginning if prescribed medication made some people more susceptible. The BP drugs would fit the bill nicely.
It seems a number of members thought my Glasgow Herald post was an attempt to support the government’s stupidity. It was actually to show how stupid some posters on newspapers are.So, here is the post again, but this time with the robust reply!
The Post
“It’s good to know that Corona is not lethal. I wish I could write on here what I think of you and your idiotic statement.
I had Corona for 8 weeks, my cousin was in intensive care for 12 days.
My brothers father in law and his sister died from Corona in the same ward 4 days apart.
My uncle and two cousins died of it, yet none of them lived anywhere near each other.
As I said its good to know that in your opinion Corona is not lethal. Maybe it needs to devastate your family to change your mind.”
The Reply
“Give it a rest John, grow up and educate yourself. Everybody has Corona in their bodies if you amplify the results of the PCR test they are using. You are saying you have had SEVEN family members who had Covid-19 of which FIVE died except you and your cousin?
Let’s see if you’re confident and brave enough to list the names and ages of those who died as well as their underlying health conditions prior to death. The name of the hospital your cousin was in also please.
You cannot have a cold for eight weeks. The only thing you are suffering from John is hypochondria and attention deficit.”
Ouch.
That’s some pretty bad luck. Five people in one family died of it. Counting aunts, uncles, cousins etc. 0 out of about 30 in my family have had it.
0 out of everyone in mine (40 plus people..in different countries)
John obviously got our share
A close relative released with it from hospital where they had been since lockdown due to newly diagnosed leukaemia. Was very unwell with it (2-3 weeks) but even with greatly compromised immune system survived. However one does wonder why if it was so deadly and it was caught in hospital they were released to infect the rest of the household? Who btw did not catch it.
None of this makes sense
That John sounds like a chap on my road,him and everyone in his family,who are spread out all over the uk,have had it,his daughter ended up in ICU.He apparently recovered just by going for a walk everyday !.To top it all he says he is a carer and has personally seen twenty people in my town die of it,funny how the ONS map shows a total of four deaths in the whole of my area.Needless to say,he doesn’t want to hear anything I have got to say,I now go out of my to avoid him !.
A neighbour kept on about the number of deaths in this area until I pointed out that only one death from C19 had been registered on the ONS interactive map.
“What map?”
“The one on the ONS site on the internet”
“Oh”
A few days later she is now on about the number of deaths in a town 13 miles and a lot of countryside away!
That socked it to him! He was probably a troll.
Having problems with my cars brakes yesterday so phoned to book a preliminary investigation with Main Dealer.
He asked me if I would be waiting I replied
“I won’t have to wait outside will I?”
No sir you can use the waiting area but you’ll need a mask
Told him I’m medically exempt to which he replied ‘that’s fine’.
Used the sanitizer just to show willing, read the usual Covid rules, walked though the waiting area. 3 solo unmasked guys waiting each in his corner. Unmasked woman at Service Reception made no comment about masks as I handed her my key and took my corner in the waiting area.
Top marks so far.
Only downturn is the fearporn on the telly in the waiting area, BBC woman bleating on about Rising Cases.
Is spent much of today taking note of beeb Radio covid coverage, very strange full report tomorrow.
:
Enjoyed this comment on the Daily Fail article about why Doris has not given his adoring public the photo of his holiday like his predecessors have done before him.
“Come on. He isn’t in Scotland. How can anyone think, for a minute, that he is in a tent in Scotland in rain and gale force winds with his 3 month old baby? He’s off in the Caribbean, living it up on a private yacht benefitting from the largesse of people he has awarded contracts to. Can you image Winston Churchill disappearing for days on end during the war? Or Margaret Thatcher taking weeks off as Boris has since he became PM. Thatcher used to only get 3-4 hours sleep a night because the job of prime minister was so all demanding. Boris looks like he’s only awake 3-4 hours a day.”
That’s definitely a great point made!
Rumour that he is in a Greek island with his father who is hosting a family birthday party.
Hah you’ve beaten me to it.
Where are the paparazzi when you need them?
There’s a rumour he is in Greece celebrating his father’s 80th birthday.!
Using parlance of the moment, she doesn’t just contaminate north of Hardrians Wall.
Devi Sridhar
@devisridhar
·
19 Aug
I sit on Royal Society DELVE group feeding into UK SAGE, have attended UK Cabinet Office advisory meetings, work closely with WHO & UNICEF & on Scottish Govt Advisory Group (from April). But media only picks up that last role & not the others.
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1295985950640803840?s=20
Oh dear,someone’s feelings a bit hurt then ?,ha,ha,ha.
It’s at that level yes!
Thought it worth sharing as it is another tentacle to SAGE.
DELVE. – report on face masks to UK gov 19 June.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delve-report-on-face-masks-for-the-general-public-21-april-2020
DELVE whos who. Spot the connections each name is live-linked https://rs-delve.github.io/people.html#action-team
Action Team
Alex Archibald
Andrei Paleyes
Avishkar Bhoopchand
Axel Gandy
Azhar Hussain
William Browne
Bobby He
Bryn Elesedy
Caroline Wagner
Chris Chiu
David Ellis
Doug McNeall
Fiona Culley
Genevie Fernandes
Guy Harling
Gwenetta Curry
Harpreet Sood
Helen Greatrex
Inès Hassan
Jessica Montgomery
Kevin Donkers
Lois King
Marcel Behr
Mark Troll
Maxine Mackintosh
Michael Campbell
Michael Hutchinson
Miqdad Asaria
Neil Lawrence
Nenad Temasev
Niall Robinson
Nicholas Latimer
Nigel Field
Richard Wilkinson
Sang Woo (Daniel) Park
Sarah Filippi
Sheheryar Zaidi
Stephen Hansen
Thiemo Fetzer
Ulrich Paquet
Vasco Carvalho
Yee Whye Teh
Working Group
Alison Simmons
Anna Vignoles
Aziz Sheikh
Carol Propper
Devi Sridhar
Frank Kelly
Majid Ezzati
Neil Lawrence
Nigel Field
Paul Edelstein
Peter Diggle
Rachel Griffith
Rupert Lewis
Simon Burgess
Tim Besley
Yee Whye Teh
Steering Committee
Anne Johnson
Bryan Grenfell
Charles Bangham
Daniel Kahneman
Demis Hassabis
Devi Sridhar
Julie Maxton
Lalita Ramakrishnan
Neil Lawrence
Nick Stern
Nigel Field
Sylvia Richardson
Tim Gowers
Venki Ramakrishnan
Yee Whye Teh
Far too many to write a coherent report. I did start reading it, gave up and poured a beer while broccoli and cauliflower cheese inside a yorkie pud cooking instead for tea, More enjoyable, Maybe later.
Let me guess, one common theme running through them all who is a billionaire?
Here’s the report written by them:
https://royalsociety.org/news/2020/05/delve-group-publishes-evidence-paper-on-use-of-face-masks/
"DELVE group publishes evidence paper on the use of face masks in tackling Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
04 May 2020
Face masks could offer an important tool for contributing to the management of community transmission of Covid-19 within the general population, according to Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE). The multi-disciplinary group convened by the Royal Society supports a data-driven approach to learning from the different approaches countries are taking to managing the pandemic.
The group’s analysis suggests that the use of face masks, including home-made cloth masks, could reduce onward transmission if widely used in situations where physical distancing is not possible or predictable such as busy public transport, shopping and other potentially crowded public or workspaces. This contrasts to the standard use of masks for the protection of wearers. This is thought to be particularly important because a significant fraction of infected people are asymptomatic or presymptomatic and will not know that they are infectious." Cont at link above.
To give an idea of tge expertise of DELVE here is a list of positions held by the DELVE Working Group (machine learning is AI):
Professor of Statistical Machine Learning at the University of Oxford.
Professor of Economics of Political Science, LSE.
Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol.
Chief Science Policy Officer at the Royal Society.
Research Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Professor of Economics, University of Manchester
Professor of Statistics, Lancaster University
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UPenn
Director of the Centre of Molecular Epidemiology and Translational Research at the Institute for Global Health at UCL.
Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge.
Chair in Global Environmental Health at Imperial.
Professor of the Mathematics of Systems, University of Cambridge
Professor of Global Public Health at Edinburgh
Professor of Economics, Imperial
Director of the Usher Institute at Edinburgh University.
Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and a member of the ESRC Council.
Professor of Gastroenterology, University of Oxford
I was just about to write that DELVE is the group of “scientists” who don’t know the difference between a CCS and an RCT!..
Not many microbiologists or virologists there!
DavidC
Google’s DEEPMind is represented by a co founder
Demis Hassabis.
DEEPmind has done award winning work into stuctures of proteins. They are also involved with implementing AI into large datasets, including id scrubbed NHS data sold to them – iirc.
I’ve made this point before and no doubt I will make it again, but…
Bill Gates has more money than anybody could ever need, is retired and his hobby is infectious diseases and the idea of eradicating them through vaccination.
If you can find me a credible institution anywhere in the world that invests research time into either infectious diseases or vaccines that does not have any funding directly or indirectly from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, then I will be amazed.
If you can find me a virologist, immunologist or epidemiologist with any level of credibility who does not work for or is not connected to an institution that takes funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I will be amazed.
This does not make Bill Gates Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
No it doesn’t but his confirmed and multiple comments about depopulation if he gets vaccines right and the advance “warnings” that come true defiantly makes him a suspect.
Well said! I missed this the first time. There’s also not much money in vaccines or the third world so it’s good someone is doing this. I’ve even forgiven him for Excel.
If Gates really wanted to help people, he’d provide clean water for everyone, worldwide.
That he hasn’t speaks volumes.
Exactly – there are so many *truly* beneficial things someone like him (ie with limitless financial resources) could have done for people in poorer countries…
I’m not sure there was an insinuation that we have a super criminal of science fiction against us. There is a pattern to say that private money is being used to change how our nations are – and is doing so without discussion or consent. That’s quite important.
Once a person’s hobbies involve me without consent a line is crossed. A hobby does not cross borders surrepticiously and fund all manner of experiments on other humans, paid or not.
Not personally being in a position such as Gates myself I’m not certain but I’m able to imagine my moral compass operating in such a way that things like transparent consultation would be a feature of philanthropy. Where the agencies that I fund do not have people such as Adhanom leading them.
Would it not be morally right to actively not dominate the global health sphere? Monopolies are never beneficial.
Indeed a real contribution to world health would be to erase corruption not compound it.
The inference here is very often that he is indeed a super criminal. Not from you, necessarily.
You’ll not find me arguing for compulsory vaccination and I agree, that would cross – take a great stride over – a line. But I’ve never seen Gates urging compulsory vaccinations. I’ve seen an awful lot of talk that that’s what he’s doing, but all I’ve ever actually seen is him promoting them.
Regardless, yes, he could have focused on clean water and sanitation- and lots of people are doing that – but he didn’t. He focused on this.
I don’t think he’s any kind of saint, but nor do I think he’s the devil. He’s just a man with a lot of money, splashing it around to be gratefully accepted by scientists who are always on the lookout for funding.
Bastard, I’m really hungry now …
Sorry but it was lovely.
All I can say is that so many of these committees seem to me to be too big to actually get anything done! The most effective committee is less than 12 people.
PIgs in a trough.
Picked one at random, no others chosen at this time:
https://rs-delve.github.io/people/guy-harling.html
Links to Bill Gates via UCL and Wellcome Trust and Royal Society.
You can smell him from three clicks away!
Picked another one completely at random:
Vasco Carvalho
Again linked to Gates via Royal Society.
Looks like DELVE is financed by gates via the Royal Society:
Vasco Carvalho delve
as it’s put on one link “Professor Vasco Carvalho and Dr Flavio Toxvaerd are among the authors of a Royal Society DELVE Initiative Report “
From the Royal Society website:
Royal Society publishing policies meet the guidelines set down by a range of major funders including the Wellcome Trust, Research England, NIH, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
so no conflict of interest then.
Brilliant AG. Delve into Delve.
Wellcome Trust is an interesting entity that pops up at times.
Interesting you chose him, AG – I actually know Guy – taught him in Sunday school many moons ago!!!! Not seen him for many many years though…
Heh. Lalita Ramakrishnan is the daughter of the Royal Society twat.
You see… the connections are there – worth just listing the names.
Just having a minor meltdown in shock, saw a name on that list that I recognised, so clicked the link and went to his bio – and it *is* the person I know of that name – taught him in Sunday school (!!!) many moons ago and he is still recognisable (he had a cleft lip which is a bit of a giveaway, despite it being well-repaired)…
Am reeling in shock now…and wondering if/what I can usefully do with that information. He is part of the ‘Action group’ on that list – Guy Harling is his name…
Congratulate him and support him. We are all just trying to get along.
Three people on that list are individuals of the highest integrity, to my certain knowledge.
I’d like to know their personal opinion, then?
Or are they fools of the highest integrity?
Not fools, no. Why the sneer?
They must have left it behind then. MW
What makes you say that? Because you don’t agree on the group’s masks view? Nor do I; doesn’t have any bearing on their integrity.
Naturally, I don’t agree with its view but I used the word ‘integrity’ because you did.
I think their integrity can be brought into question because the report they have put their names too relies on slender evidence for its recommendations and yet is:
a) Recommending protracted mask-wearing by the public to prevent viral transmission based on this scant evidence.
b) Oblivious to any risks involved in long periods of enforced mask-wearing by members of the public when there is ample evidence of this.
c) Happy to make spurious comparisons with other safety measures such as seatbelts and crash helmets without much if any supporting evidence
and
c) Openly reliant on behavioural science in order to foist this measure on the public.
Agree Miriam – as I wrote above, Guy Harling was born with cleft lip and palate so you’d think he would be really interested in properly researching the cons of masks, given that children with this condition usually have breathing issues..
That’s great. And they know a thing or two about masks – cotton – and the mass wearing of them?
I know one is less than impressive. The balance of specialisms seems curious to me. But perhaps this is intentional. With other groups specialising in other areas.
Checking out the references, this one caught my eye:
https://www.influenceatwork.com/inside-influence-report/advice-for-reducing-undesirable-covid-19-behaviors/CNA
Page no longer exists!
Take the ‘CNA’ off the end of the URL.
Oh dear, what a pity, who gives a fuck?
yah boo sucks as well.
Bill gates stooge deserves all she gets.
She left out the most important one – she’s a fucking clueless idiot.
She is a thirty odd year old biology graduate (fair enough). I have two good friends (now retired), the husband a dentist and his wife a GP. He is dismissive of masks (‘They protect the patient from droplets, not the wearer, I had to replace them for every patient and after twenty minutes they are useless’). In their whole working careers they never encountered anything like the Spanish, Asian or Hong Kong flu.
And now we have a young person (in relative terms) who, again, will never have encountered the BIG flus, is completely over reacting to something which, in all rational analysis, is no more than a medium to bad ‘flu’ season, and doesn’t understand the difference between deaths, cases and positive test results.
Pathetic.
Professor at 27. Now, don’t get me wrong there are brilliant minds that sparkle among the dross.
Not just cream that floats to the top.
Re the Guardian propaganda piece posted earlier, here’s the exact same propaganda story in the Daily Mail. Someone in government making sure all the population is covered? Or just coronapanickers on the staff of each paper taking the opportunity to copy each other’s fearmongering propaganda?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8646365/Lockdown-free-Sweden-records-highest-number-deaths-six-month-period-150-years.html
all news originates from the ministry of information citizen
Does anyone have access to the correct figures so we can post them in the comments?
The statement may well be true (though Swedenborg disagrees way below).
Most of the rest of Europe took part in WWs 1 & 2 with high numbers of dead as a result, Sweden did not.
Had it done so the screamy would be
Sweden’s highest 6 month death rate since 1944, just like everywhere else.
Thanks. No links in Swedenborg’s posts
You can try :
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden?country=~SWE
… and play around with comparisons. But one keeps head-butting this dodgy word ‘cases’. Finding all-cause mortality is more difficult.
… and try :
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/
Thanks. Doesn’t show it broken down by month. One would really need to compare the same periods, or wait until the end of the year.
If you adjust for population and extrapolate 2020 so far to the end of the year (which will obviously overestimate) it only comes out about 10% higher than 2018, so the likelihood is that it will come out at similar to or less than 2018 by year end.
yes, they have the highest population ever so you would expect every year to be the highest (discounting natural internannual variability)
look here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden#Deaths
under excess mortality
Oct-May deaths is above the average by as much as last year was below it. Look from 1900 and it can be seen but is not an outlier
About on track. Two thirds of year over, just over two thirds of the annual mortality. If it ends up above the average it won’t be by much.
Our economy on the other hand…
Not easy to get sub-year figures, as you’ve noted below, but the issue really is the misleading and dishonest headline, because even if the figures are correct it means nothing without adjusting for population increase.
As the tweet linked by Swedenborg below shows, if you do that Sweden had more deaths in the same period in 2015, never mind 150 years back!
Repeat for Daily Mil
https://twitter.com/HaraldofW/status/1295466871328845826/photo/1
This is typical manipulation of data in Project fear. There were 55000 deaths in 1869 in Sweden due to one of the last European famine. The population was 4 million today 10 million.In fact there was more deaths in 2015, 60000 as you can see above. In the age group < 65 there has been no pandemic in Sweden as the total death is even a bit lower compared to last 5 years. This fake or distorted data was published in a Swedish paper, picked up by Project fear and circled around the world by Guardian. As idiotic as Piers Morgan’s Blitz deaths but Big Pharma more or less control MSM.
https://www.lci.fr/international/covid-19-coronavirus-la-suede-enregistre-son-plus-grand-nombre-de-deces-depuis-la-grande-famine-de-1869-2162160.html?fbclid=IwAR1IP0Mf4zYzsc_PP7JZFpoPvdpErNSvpj_HL3qlFz4CdJWOdsjOdqXW3xY
These type of news spreads quickly over the world.Above France.Big Pharma has control over media and combined with low IQ journalists
without any fact checking a story goes fast these days
See here: https://twitter.com/HaraldofW/status/1295466871328845826
Although incestuous networking has a role to play – particularly since the elimination of the greater part of investigative journalism and the substitution of an echo chamber – a lot of this is deliberate propaganda.
I picked up that something smelly was going on when I saw the same techniques of exclusion, distortion and lying that had been used in the Beb/Groan’s coverage of Corbyn emerging in their coverage of the virus (You don’t have to be a Corbyn fan to recognise the disconnect between a narrative and the reality – and the simple statistics of coverage). This set me off on analysing basic mortality data to see what the actuality of the virus’s impact was (i.e that the ‘Covid’ epidemic was nowhere near a disaster of plague-like proportions – there had been seven worse years in the past quarter of a century)
Once you get tuned into the propaganda lines being promulgated, you begin to recognise the techniques.
Very good points. It’s nearly all propaganda with a good dose of lazy cut-and-pasting. AG and I have doubted just about everything the mainstream puts out for decades. I’m not sure how but Agenda 21 got past us and we didn’t see this one coming! We were aware of WEF/Davos and possible skulduggery but not this.
We were prepared to go along with ‘flattening the curve’ for about a week and then we started to see what the Govt and media were doing. We don’t watch TV or use social media but it wasn’t hard to get the gist online. Actually, warning bells should have rung for us when all the lefty academics we know were screaming for lock-downs and they started ‘self-isolating’ when they were perfectly healthy. Some still are, actually.
We cast around for real information and found, to our bemusement, that the only people questioning this obvious psy-op were right-wing libertarians. When I told AlanG that Toby Young was running a really good blog and that I was finding useful material on it his reaction was pretty interesting! But then he started looking himself. Now he even posts here, occasionally, especially when his favourite message board, run by a hysterical medic, went full Coronaphobic bonkers. So here we are, born-again right-wing libertarians (not really) but happy to be out of the silo and exchanging views with a wider range of people than before. So, some good can come of nearly anything
Anyway, what is absolutely doing our heads in at the moment is that people who have made a career out of questioning the mainstream media – Media Lens, Greg Philo from the Glasgow media group, Craig Murray, Jonathan Cook and others – have all caught the Covid Derangement virus and are still cowering under their beds. They will not go near it in their writing.. The London Review of Books, previously an excellent source of book reviews and leftist political analysis has also gone the full Coronaphobe They can’t seem to apply their own techniques to this unprecedented and perilous situation which threatens everything we and they hold dear and you can’t reason with them. It’s as if they are watching it happen but not seeing it at all.
We wonder if they are waiting for some kind of ‘Bonfire of the Tories’ crossed with a ‘New Green Dawn’. If they are, I think they’ve got a big shock coming to them as I, for one, do not see anything leftist about what’s in store. And, yes, I know many on here think it’s a Marxist plan. Whatever you call it, it looks totalitarian to me. Anyway, if anyone can explain the phenomenon of the above, when all the lefty analysts can do is talk drivel about ‘risk’, ‘eradicating the virus’ blah, blah, I would be really grateful! MW
Comments are good on The Daily Fail article!
This does not include 2020 but useful:
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SWE/sweden/death-rate
Also, will be interested to see final year figure (these do not take population growth into account):
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/
For current:
https://www.covid19insweden.com/en/
The question isn’t the highest in how long but rather the highest by how much, especially compared to an average.
If it isn’t by much, then who cares how far back the last max was?
Just as well Sweden did what they did otherwise it could have been much worse.
The government is so desperate to bash Sweden re Covid
Those stats are stupid – if you look at the death rates for the last few years (rather than a 6 month period) you’d be pushed to spot the current ‘pandemic’..
NHS: Neurotic Hypondriacs Syndrome
Nazi Hell System.
Not Healing Symptoms
Nicely Helping Satan.
I copied this extra t from the Critic because it further confirms something weird is going on in some people brains.
What they smoking
Totally normal customer Kusi Kimani has accused Marks & Spencer of “covert racism” after discovering a brown bra on its website had been labelled “tobacco”. Ms Kimani told Mirror Online: “I saw it about two weeks after George Floyd’s death and it was particularly raw to see at that time.” If you’re still baffled what’s actually offensive, Ms Kimani said it was the negative connotations of tobacco that could offend “a young girl who is already uncomfortable with the colour of her skin”. As anybody knows, children always hate doing the things they’re told not to do like smoking, and they don’t – you know – think it’s totally cool.
Must be so exciting for these sad, empty lived wokeists when they suddenly find something to be offended about. “At last! Victimhood!” The Holy Grail of 21st century humanity.
I suppose we should be happy for her (or zhe, or whatever the current term is).
http://ageoftruth.tv/mads-palsvig-banksters-vs-slaves-5g-depopulation-agenda/
WATCH THIS: Dec 2018
back in February I was reading the reports coming out of China and the nickname of the illness was the telephone disease.
Wonder why?
Oh look, a down vote as well for Richard.
Forget 5G for the moment and ask yourself whether damage has already been done with 4G and the preceding Gs.
Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
2nd and 3rd generation of people brought up and living on processed food
That drop has nothing to do with fertility, and everything to do with educating women. It has been known about for a long time as well. I remember reading a book at least 10 years ago about peak humanity and what the downside of that curve will bring in terms of shrinking economies. Japan is a very interesting case study as they have little inwards migration.
and increasing wealth.. As people get wealthier – and this is for example wealthy by african or indian standards, family sizes reduce.
Yes, that too. But the main one is education of women and reliable methods of birth control which are easy to access.
What a surprise, mention 5G or EMFs in other than a positive light and out come the down votes no matter which forum you mention it on.
No real surprise.
From someone who’s wife has serious electromagnetic hypersensitivity all I can say is research it away from the mainstream – same a this vaccine and cover and green narrative – and you maya actually be surprised.
Just before the accusations of tin foil hat wearing emerge, it’s worth having a read of this paper from The Lancet.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30221-3/fulltext
It relates to our cumulative exposure to non-ionising radiation over time and how close we are to workplace exposure limits already – all the time.
Many of the safety studies look in isolation at the additional exposure and not the aggregation.
Some foil is looking pretty good to me right now…
I’d rather wear a tinfoil hat than a mask. I’m a conspiracy realist.
Neat!
Oestrogen from the contraceptive pill in the domestic water supply, and poor diet will have had a much bigger effect on fertility.
Bang goes another of the scaremongering disaster warnings from those wanting to manipulate us into radical “solutions” that just happen to suit their agenda.
Endless population growth goes in alongside all the rest, including the new ice age, the malthusian impossibility of feeding the word, peak oil, Y2k, and the coronavirus plague disaster, and most likely to be joined by catastrophic global warming.
Cue scaremongering about how we are all doomed because populations will age and there will be nobody to pay taxes and we’ll all supposedly be desperate for mass immigration to trash our societies (most of those already flagged up by the reliably manipulative BBC in that piece).
In reality, it’s good if populations decline a bit, once the economic changes are addressed, people can already work for much longer, work is progressively less physically demanding, and birth rates can undoubtedly be manipulated upwards as they’ve been manipulated downwards for decades, just by making it more attractive to have children (which is something human beings tend to do naturally, left to themselves).
“We this for the people, for our families, for our patients … We have a lot of evidence that it is a fake story all over the world…”
“640 DOCTORS, CV19 IS A GLOBAL SCAM”– See video and presentation. The 640 doctors at this conference are further backed by more doctors in their countries.
https://www.marktaliano.net/640-doctors-cv19-is-a-global-scam/
The speaker is Heiko Schöning, doctor and member of the initiative “Doctors for Enlightenment”.
The doctors’ website:
https://acu2020.org/english-versions/
Corona has kept the whole world in suspense for months. Corona concerns us all. Many of the measures taken by the government to fight the disease from COVID-19 are disproportionate and harmful to the population. Since no independent committee of inquiry has yet been convened, the extra-parliamentary corona committee of inquiry, ACU for short, was announced on May 31, 2020 in front of 5,000 people in Stuttgart. The ACU was also referred to in the June 20, 2020 issue of the weekly newspaper with the highest circulation, “Democratic Resistance”.
This Corona Committee stands for well-founded, free and broad education for all citizens on a multimedia basis. In addition, information is provided internationally in several languages in order to achieve the broadest possible range.
A few weeks ago, I e-mailed my MP to protest against mandatory masks. Without repeating the whole e-mail, to summarise, I expressed my concerns about the creation of a totalitarian state, denounced the claim that the government was following the science by pointing out the many faults with Professor Ferguson’s fantasies, explained that as rational people we must be prepared to accept very small risks in our day-to-day life and then announced that, although I would never adhere to this particular law, I was by no means a criminal.
I have just received a reply. I am genuinely impressed by how patronising my MP thinks she can get away with being.
Dear Ben Shirley,
Thank you for getting in touch regarding your concerns over civil liberties and their being impinged upon in the name of Covid related regulations. While we disagree about the necessity of such measures – I think the lockdown actions taken by the government have been broadly correct thus far – I hope that you’ll draw some comfort from this: https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-major-supermarkets-refuse-to-enforce-face-mask-rules-despite-police-pleas-12035409
While it is now illegal to go into a shop without face covering, the amount of shops that are refusing to enforce the rule, and police forces who don’t have the resources to do so, suggests that totalitarianism is not upon us yet! As I’m sure you’re aware, whether you disagree with them or not, many people are very scared about the situation we are currently in. I would urge you to show them kindness and respect by being considerate to their wishes and comply with the minor inconvenience of occasionally donning a facemask, although, as you can see above, I don’t think that your failure to do so will see you sent to the gulag.
Best wishes,
Your MP
1) Shops are refusing to enforce the rule not out of any benign feeling towards dissenting attitudes but because they do not wish to tempt any lawsuits that may arise from a breach of the Equality Act 2010
2) Totalitarianism is a manifestation of certain political ideologies. The fact that the police is not sufficiently equipped to enforce the ideology does not mean that the ideology doesn’t exist.
3) I agree in the need to show kindness and compassion towards those with bed-wetting tendencies but I will do this by refusing to indulge their irrational fears and gently nurturing them towards a healthy state of mind governed by reason.
4) Australia and New Zealand.
But what the hell, I’m preaching to the converted.
At least you got an answer even if it is a load of old bollocks.
True – most of mine to my MP don’t get an answer, leaving me furious. Mind you, his single reply to one of mine left me incandescent!
It is now hard to see any solution other than civil war.
I would like bedwetters to show compassion and respect towards me by not demanding something of me.
The difference between bedwetters and sceptics is that we don’t want anything from them other than to be left alone whereas they want to force people to do something they want.
Doesn’t sound very compassionate or respectful of them, to be honest.
It’s an odd argument for an MP – you’re doing something illegal but the shop will turn a blind eye seems to be what she is saying.
So basically it’s only for our own incompetence and lack of resources that we are not yet living in a totalitarian state, but we’re trying our best to get there. Does that sum it up?
“I hope that you’ll draw some comfort from this: https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-major-supermarkets-refuse-to-enforce-face-mask-rules-despite-police-pleas-12035409“
It infuriates me that these supposedly intelligent people just don’t understand the harm they do by passing stupid laws that are then widely ignored and bring the whole concept of law and order into disrepute, never mind the discord it introduces directly into society between decent people who want to obey laws because that’s what one should do and other decent people who recognise the harm done by these stupid laws and choose to resist them..
Should disqualify them from any role in government, straight away.
https://youtu.be/iHi6qccp0aY
Don’t know if it has been posted before, but it’s saying what we LS members have known all along.
Great interview. Bit surprised though that they did not disguise her voice – fairly sure someone will recognise it and expose her..
The President of Italy’s Infectious Diseases Therapy Society has felt it necessary to point out that people with Covid 19 should not be treated with antibiotics. This is beyond satire.
Heneghan continues to scream into the wind for us
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/don-t-put-oldham-into-lockdown
If only they’d take his advice on board, everything he says is reasoned and logical, always.
I sent the link to my MP and asked him to find out how many covid cases are in our local hospital – the local mockdown is to be reviewed tomorrow.
10 March 2020
‘We’re not prepared’: coronavirus could devastate homeless communities
The lack of a coordinated coronavirus strategy for homeless communities could be catastrophic for sick and older people already struggling to survive in tents and overcrowded shelters in California, advocates warned.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/10/california-coronavirus-homeless-communities
16 August 2020
Coronavirus hasn’t devastated the homeless as many feared
More than 200 of an estimated 8,000 homeless people in San Francisco have tested positive for the virus, and half came from an outbreak at a homeless shelter in April. One homeless person is among the city’s 69 deaths.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-hasnt-devastated-homeless-many-151417622.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAL0PFGYjJGN5dnjRqL9Wo1RjPdFEh6EzYu9WGDBDl9voKxFI40ZdviICJc_oBgAWXrCCFtnVdljBE25bv9zpZhaj77pU2yhcFW8mfUg_QBRmBQsgBST3x3zE_0_DQ4CfObrgoCoIk_vKFtcEauKogKXNx5MV-piNK7VAAbKqBsjf
Mr Dee, Great link, However you can delete everything after the ? in the bottom link – all the information that follow is what can be used to identify you
Really? Thanks!
But I don’t really care if I’m identified. They’ll know soon enough, if they don’t already. Effing M Effers.
so 1 person in 8000 died. And as this population is homeless, it is likely that there may be underlying issues such as ill health through substance abuse
Bear in mind the MAJORITY of this people probably have underlying health issues.
Also it’s a subset of society where there is NO social distancing, NO hand hygiene, NO masks. So where were the deaths? We were told that if we lived like that, a huge proportion of us would die.
This fact concerning the homeless has blown the lid off it all for me, once and for all. Scamdemic. Plandemic. Whatever you want to call it – that’s my position from now on, unless anyone can persuade me otherwise.
I also suspect they kept clear of hospitals where aggressive drug treatments and invasive ventilation were the approved “treatments” in the early days.
Excellent point.
The interview with Mads Palsvig took place on December 16, 2018. He mentions the word New World Order and describes the plan around minute 29.
Moderately encouraging results from a survey of those on the mailing list of a local organisation which puts on live music in pubs, allowing for some selection bias.
62% are ready to attend live events, subject to the current precautionary policies in pubs.
22% are not yet ready but expect to be in two months.
15% currently are only willing to watch at home via live streaming.
1% are not ready for live events or streaming.
This is in the Midlands. It contrasts with the cowardly behaviour shown by the larger organisations and particularly those in London, as described by our regular contributor Bart Simpson.
Oh look who received $200 000 in April 2020 from the Gates Foundation:
Date: April 2020
Purpose: to support improved and efficient strategic coordination for Nigeria’s emergency response to COVID-19 outbreak
Amount: $200,000
Term: 4
Topic: Global Health and Development Public Awareness and Analysis
Regions Served: GLOBAL|AFRICA
Program: Global Development
Grantee Location: London
Grantee Website: http://institute.global/
Wasn’t Nigeria where Gates tried to bribe the senate with $ 10 000 000 to start giving covid vaccines etc?
I believe it was.
I believe that $10 million was the money I was promised from a Nigerian Prince in a email I received yesterday!
In other news, good to see that Hashem Abedi doesn’t need to worry about leaving his cell afterall. For 55 years. That’s what I call a local lockdown.
He’ll be out in 5 years
He’ll be released by the end of the year when we have our next full Lockdown to make way for us lot, arrested for ignoring the Lockdown and refusing to wear masks outdoors.
https://nypost.com/2020/08/19/swedens-tegnell-wearing-face-masks-may-be-very-dangerous/
This has to be my last post today – you must be getting fed up of me!
All posts inspired by me listening to this episode of The Last American Vagabond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yxqhXg-pJA
Here is why I don’t like that article, Mr. Dee.
The way they frame his comments makes it seem like what he’s saying is that face-masks are not enough, and that stricter measures are also necessary. That totally contradicts many other statements I’ve read from the same man. He is not recommending masks on public transport or anywhere in Sweden, for instance, so to say that his disagreement with masks is that they are insufficient alone, seems to be very obviously misleading. I would prefer a much more complete interview that includes his full statements.
Yes I saw that. Great piece of PR by Tegnell (if it’s really coming from him and not just spin from the NY Post). He’s portrayed as some kind of Grim Reaper so I don’t see why he shouldn’t point out some of the other side’s hypocrisy.
Today’s stats from Sweden are very encouraging
13 out of the 21 regions now have *no one* in intensive care with Covid. Of the rest, 5 regions have one person in intensive care and one region has 3. There are 8 people in intensive care in the Gothenburg area and 11 in Stockholm.
There are 11 regions (more than half) with 3 or fewer hospitalised CV-19 patients and 6 regions with between 5 and 10 hospitalised patients.
The only regions with more than 10 people in hospital with the virus are:
Kronoberg (which borders the Malmö area) – 10
Uppsala (4th biggest city and about an hour from Stockholm) – 15
Stockholm – 43
Västra Götaland (Gothenburg area) – 47
The drop in the total number of hospitalised Covid patients since Tuesday is 18.
Watch it while you can:
https://plandemicseries.com
Pandemic 2.
It’s also on London Real and Rose has his own Digital Freedom Platform so it won’t be taken down. I highly recommend watching it, and Rose interviewed the film maker the next day and the interview is also worth watching on London Real.
Well worth a watch.
As my very wise wife put it to me the other day ‘one person’s conspiracy theory is another person’s yet to be proved hypothesis’
Regarding your upcoming protest, which I agree with entirely, I think it’s important not to lump together being against lockdown with other issues.
By way of example, I don’t hate Bill Gates or think he’s some kind of evil megalomaniac. I’m don’t want the NHS sold to private equity, I’m not pro guns, I don’t think Hillary Clinton is a lizard, I don’t think the whole thing was planned (though they are trying not to “…waste a crisis) etc. Furthermore, I didn’t vote for Brexit and I still think it’s a bad idea, though I acknowledge that the issue has been flogged to death so the Brexiteers better get on with it.
Simply, I think the cost of lockdowns massively outweighs the benefit, by many orders of magnitude. The fact that so many don’t, or won’t see this simple fact infuriates me.
That does not make me a right wing loon. In fact I had a Guardian membership before this whole affair – I have ended it due to their incompetent and misleading reporting and refusal to write anything vaguely sane.
If you want to get broad appeal, don’t tie in this issue with others.
Great advice. Simple message: no lockdowns, no masks, no new normal. And that is it.
I completely agree with you. Focus, focus, focus.
And I think Gates is a megalomaniac – but we have to focus on what affects us directly and what we potentially have control over – and that is the Lockdown. Even the masks issue can be a distraction (and probably was introduced to be one).
Once we win the Lockdown Sceptic argument we can then move on to another issue, if necessary. We have to fight our battles one at a time.
Whatever Gates is, his name is all over this situation and he has funded nearly every organisation and institution cheer-leading for lockdowns and unnecessary and rushed vaccines.
I agree with the idea of focusing on the lockdown and leaving out other issues (Gates, Brexit, climate change, 5G, cancel culture etc.).
However, protesting about mandatory masks should be a given. In my view, the mask mandate is such an infringement of civil liberties and so inextricably a part of lockdown that protesting this is essential. MW
My problem with the Gates stuff is this: Bill Gates is a billioinaire, and so he has “ties” to literally everything. Look at your own stock portfolio… if you have any fund, you probably have ties to a lot of things as well. This has been used against Trump in the liberal press… “oh, Trump has an interest in such and such.” Well, of course he does. He has assets everywhere.
But furthermore, if Gates really was concerned about this virus and wanted to do something, it makes sense that he would sink a ton of money into vaccine research. So, doing the right thing kind (from his perspective) kind of looks the same as doing the nefarious thing.
I’m not willing to spend too much time on the Gates conspiracy stuff. He’s an egomaniac, and maybe he does want to rule the world. I’m skeptical about unproven vaccines, and I inherently don’t trust people who want to control me. But I also don’t like to assume the worst in people, and frankly, the jury is out on most of them. I simply think our focus should lie elsewhere. Like, asserting our individual rights, keeping our government in line and holding people accountable, restoring checks and balances (at least in the US) and separation of powers.
In the UK, you should get a group of people together on horses and march Boris Johnson up onto some mountain and force him to sign a 2nd Magna Carta, for goodness sake. But regardless… all of this seems more important than theorizing about Gates.
At the end of last year, before the pandemic, he posted on his gatesnotes site that vaccines were the smart thing to invest in over the next year… coincidence? I think not…
I think just talking his book. By the way, what are his personal investments in Pharma? As in shareholdings?
agree!
Absolutely agree!
You sound like me posting under another username. There’s a few in the same boat, and there’s a broad range of political leanings in the comments down here.
Agree on the not conflating being pro individual freedoms with all the other issues, however I believe the group organising it unfortunately does come with some other positions attached, which is a shame.
I’ve also seen Simon Dolan tweeting a pro trump and retweeting an anti trans message from Brexiteer London mayor candidate today, which I reckon will alienate some potential backers to his anti lockdown stance. That said, he’s entitled to his own views and to say what he wants, I can just see the downside of it.
Definitely agreed. Stick to the facts and figures of the virus, lockdowns, masks etc. and avoid anything that could be perceived as “conspiracy theory” or separate issues like climate change.
I’ve no problem with e.g. Simon Dolan’s views on Brexit or US politics even if I might not agree with them myself, but highlighting them in an anti-lockdown context is likely to confirm the prejudices of those who think we’re all “far-right” and “irresponsible libertarians”.
Maybe all this is a lost cause when, e.g. T-cell immunity research can be labelled a “right-wing conspiracy theory” in a Buzzfeed article, but the more people we can convince without alienating them, the better.
I find the phenomenon of labeling any potentially positive story as “a right wing theory” especially bizarre.
77th, innit …
or 13th Signal Regiment
who they?
British Army Cyber Intelligence and surveillance unit:
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/13_Signal_Regiment_(United_Kingdom)
T Cell immunity is also an accepted fact from mask advocates too.
https://youtu.be/D5Z6wdu1eI0
Honestly, as this drips through to the lockdown fanatics, they really need to come out of this and take a long hard look at themselves.
At least John Campbell provides a balanced view of matters.
I’m going to the gathering on the 29th regardless of what other interests may be present. In a perfect world it would be great to be able to participate in a clearly messaging anti lockdown civil liberties demo but so far I haven’t managed to find one.
I think that’s a naive idea – that you could have a ‘pure’ demo. Variety of opinion and overlap are part of the nature of protest in my limited experience – messy but that’s a bit like life, eh?
But if anyone here wants to do the work organising one I’ll be happy to help and definately come along.
I’m grateful to the people organising the one on the 29th for giving me the opportunity to stand up in public. Beats sitting at a keyboard typing and tutting and shaking my head etc…
Well said. Ditto climate change.
Does someone agree with me? Just because the manufactured response to Covid is wrong, concern over GW is not misplaced. The two issues are not similar.
I don’t think we should spend time here (and even less so at a protest) debating it.
Personally, I’ve never spent any time questioning the theory (as distinct from the asinine government responses to it).
Recent history might lead one to question the validity of computer modelling in terms of predicting the future and therefore to raise a sceptical eyebrow at any claims generated through that method, but otherwise, I have bigger things to worry about.
Yes, I agree. Though with 30 years of data to churn, climate change models might not be too far off the mark. Analogous, perhaps, with models of global population by 2100, with there high, median and low. We,now, have bigger things to worry about. But let’s not bequeath our grandchildren a calamity.
Agreed.
Moderately encouraging results (allowing for some selection bias) from a survey of those on the mailing list of a local organisation which puts on live music in pubs.
62% are ready to attend live events, subject to the current precautionary policies in pubs.
22% are not yet ready but expect to be in two months time.
15% prefer to stay at home and watch a live-streamed event.
1% are not interested in attending or watching a live stream.
This is in the Midlands. It contrasts with the cowardly behaviour of large arts organisations, particularly those in London as described by our regular contributor Bart Simpson.
I wonder what the logic is for people thinking it’s not OK now but will be in 2 months. I wonder what that’s based on?
Seeing if there is a spike *if* schools re-open maybe???
Good question. Must have been talking to the clairvoyants who also know they’ll be a vaccine in 18 months.
Austria , Croatia and Trinidad & Tobago now on the 14 day quarantine list . Portugal now ok .
The covid world tour 2020.
All very carefully calibrated no doubt.
Strange world of UK .Those countries will probably do the same.
In diplomacy they call it reciprocity.Normal people call it preschool behaviour.
Well, most of the countries cannot do that because it’s not a symmetrical relationship (e.g. Portugal desperately needs UK tourists whereas the UK couldn’t care less about Portuguese tourists).
Can we conclude from this that Boris is either already in Greece, or about to go to Greece for his dad’s 80th birthday? Let’s hope there are some sharp-eyed members of the public with cameras to hand.
Rappoport as usual leads the way –
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/08/20/covid-going-to-root-of-the-poisonous-tree/
Yep. I read his work earlier in the year. John is describing what Robert Cialdini called Commitment and Consistency. It’s harder to backtrack if you accept and commit to changes in thinking. And that’s how you get brainwashed or more often just plain conned.
Robert Cialdini. I’ve been waiting for someone to mention him here. Read his book “Influence”: many illustrations of what tricks are being used on us by the government.
yes … but … there is polio, etc…
I think it is perfectly fine to express concern with the safety of vaccines, but there are plenty of safe vaccines where the good outweighs the bad. I also think it is a good idea to express particular concern about any sort of new covid vaccine, especially as we are becoming increasingly aware that it is totally unnecessary.
But I also dislike this tendency to use anecdote to push arguments. After all, we can interview the parents of children killed by covid, and we can document pretty awful stories of families impacted by covid. But that doesn’t make the costs of interventions worth-while, and it doesn’t somehow make the idiotic masks and distancing magically work.
Same goes for vaccines. For every tragic story of a child negatively impacted by a vaccine, there are hundreds of tragic stories of children killed or harmed by polio. So, I reject that premise of this guy’s argument, not because I don’t want to be seen as extreme, but because I think the anti-vax arguments are fundamentally flawed, even when I remain extremely skeptical about a rushed CV19 vaccine.
“But I also dislike this tendency to use anecdote to push arguments. After all, we can interview the parents of children killed by covid, and we can document pretty awful stories of families impacted by covid. “
There was a time when the culture in the Anglosphere frowned on that kind of emotionally manipulative “reporting”, and it was regarded as something for less reputable outlets to engage in. There was at least an aspiration to report the dry facts alone, with opinionating reserved as far as possible for editorials.
The story of how that was replaced even as an aspiration, by our modern, emotive, cause-driven, manipulative news reporting would be an illuminating one.
Before you comment on vaccines it might be a good idea to get more informed. As a dentist I presumed I know about vaccines – it was a mentioned in lectures, one learned enough to get through exams and they had eradicated polio and TB, right?
Recently I was shown a Facebook comment criticising Dr Judy Mikovits as she had said that there are no vaccines that have been effective against respiratory diseases. “Hasn’t she heard of BCG and TB?” I’ve seen Dr J M on video and I thought she really wouldn’t make such a basic mistake, so I looked up BCG and TB on the WHO website.
Guess what? Paragraph 2 says that the BCG doesn’t protect against TB but against secondary infections! WTF?? Please excuse the expletives but this was a Red Pill Moment!
The only way to find the truth about vaccines is to look into the website Children’s Health Defence from Bobby Kennedy Junior. Although pilloried as an “Anti Vaxxer” he is actually PRO vaccines – if they’re safe. And guess what?????
By the way, I’d like to see your references of children killed by covid. My understanding is that there are next to no child covid deaths, all deaths were where preconditions dominated.
Thanks cubby.
(What’s your poistion on fluoride ?).
I’ve done much research on vaccines , starting in dogs actually, it seemed odd to me that most vaccines in humans last a lifetime but canine vaccines needed a Booster every single year . So I began reading and digging out why this could be so . Turned out it wasn’t , the reason was simple Big Pharma had never tested immunity after 12 months ( why would they when they make shed loads of money) Vets just learned their vaccine info from the Companies that sold it . It took one Vet to make it his business to find out … and yes the majority last a Minimum of 7 years
I then started to look at human vaccines … Boosters are not given to make any difference to immunity but to catch those children that missed the first course .
A child is either immune after the first dose or not … antibody tests don’t tell the full story , low antibodies are often the reason for a Booster .. not needed as memory cells have a big role to play. If you have some antibodies then your T cells will recognise the virus and produce more antibodies if needed . Those children who have no antibodies are called non-responders and its unlikely they will have a response if repeat vaccinated . Same with dogs
Lots more to whole saga than that of course but it did show me all was not what it seemed
I don’t disagree about children killed by covid. Extremely rare. But I think kids killed by vaccines is even more rare. I do agree that safety is important- it’s a cost/benefit analysis.
Err, SV40 ?
I should have added – you wouldn’t trust the MSM and the politicos to tell you the truth re the 2nd, would you Ryan ?
So why trust the medical establishment and big pharma (and the politicos again) to tell the truth about vaccines?
No, I don’t trust the media. But I do have doctor friends. Not always in favor of every vaccine fwiw.
The media are fomenting hysteria. On Sky, there is a rolling banner saying that 6 people have died of Covid. If it were ebola, or the plague, or a mad axeman, there would be a frisson of fear. But there are 1650 deaths per day on average. Probably 30 or more died of flu. Goodness knows how many people died of dementia and alzheimer’s yesterday. They don’t give us a daily update on those.
Either the broadcasters are so stupid they don’t know that 6 is a small number. Or they are trying to maintain the story of “deadly virus stalks the land” long after its time. I think what they are doing now borders on the criminally culpable.
Just put official compalints into the BBC, ITV and Sky about “misrepresentation of facts”:
“From a FOI to the DHSC about tests they are using. Q : supply the justification that a positive test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated. A: SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Any broadcast, TV show, news show, advert says a positive test is the same as having the virus is a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth.
If you would like the full FOI answer please do not hesitate to contact me.”
Yes, I saw that. Very interesting and well done for finding it. I have no confidence that a complaint would be noticed. The fear-mongering is quite obviously deliberate.
Well done – look forward to the replies!
I wouldn’t hold your breath for a meaningful response from the BBC re your complaint. I think they outsource their complaints department. I once complained to them about sexism on Woman’s Hour. They have a play or a book as a serial each week. In this play, a female character was angry about a male driving badly and shouted at him that he was a *cock”. Given the anti-sexist stance Woman’s Hour and the BBC take, I complained that it was sexist and, for them, hypocritical, to use male genitals as a term of abuse, pointing out that there would no doubt be outrage if a character was referred to as a “fanny”, or worse. No reply after weeks, so I pestered them. Eventually, case dismissed as no grounds for complaint, since “cock” is a term of endearment in Lancashire, where the drama was set. I pointed out the woman was angry, with no hint of endearment. No avail. That’s the BBC. Anyway, a story of light relief.
How about posting your email here so we can copy it and send it ourselves plus addresses.
” … borders on…”. ?!?
But yes indeed.
Plandemic 2
https://twitter.com/grantshapps
He is copping a lot of flak over latest announcement. The masses are stirring.
I know I keep saying it, but this is just flim flam, to divert attention from the manslaughter of tens of thousands in the hospitals and care homes
Johnson got slaughtered on Twitter today as well, and with some pretty robust sceptic positions represented.
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1296378748372123657
Comment on his twitter feed:
‘removed the queen’ – have read that before somewhere – is it true? Proof?
Hello, sorry my apologies if this has already been on here. Simon Dolan is raising funds for his legal challenge to lockdown legislation. I understand they feel the case is stronger as death rates fall and there are now few hospital cases so that there is no imminent threat requiring draconian lock-down powers.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/lockdownlegalchallenge/
Always good to keep in in the comments feed. Thanks.
Just seen this moronic nonsense on FB. Surely this contravenes the Equality Act 2010?
Easiest is just not to spend your money there.
To which point – do we know where it came from? I’d like to boycott them, even if I have to travel halfway across the country to do it.
Bedwetters losing their very thin veneer of fake altruism
Easy. Boycott.
Need some business size cards to hand out to managers at these places. Let them know why we are not putting our money into their tills.
This appeared in the local free paper delivered today. “Teesside to manufacture coronavirus vaccine if trial successful” Article cites Mayor Houchen has given £4million to Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Billingham to produce 60 million doses. WTF. Goes on to say the first lucky recipients will be, “… frontline health and social care workers, ethnic minorities, adults with serious diseases, and the elderly.” The Mayor goes on to say everyone in Teesside should be proud we’re at the forefront in the fight against coronavirus. Well he does not speak for me and if I’m the last person on Teesside to reject this snake oil, only then will I feel proud. Incidentally I read today that dentists are discovering more and more problems with the prolonged wearing of face nappies. So much so they’re calling it ‘mask mouth’. Take them off zombies.
You are absolutely correct, also noted here:
https://www.foxnews.com/health/mask-mouth-dentists-new-term
key line: “while mask wearing is not negotiable during this time…”
Oh, yeah? Why not? This bullshit infuriates me.
Sounds like we finally found some white privilege….not being a Guinea pig for an untested vaccine.
Hi everyone, I want to tell you a story about my last week. I have had no problems going mask less until last Saturday when I came upon a weird situation. I walked into a millets store and as soon as I was in the door a voice barked at me where’s your mask and put one of these on, I turned and saw a big guy member of staff pointing to a box on a table .I explained to him I am exempt . Again he said are you going to put one on whereupon I again said I have a exemption card do you want to see it and also do you not understand what exempt means .At this point he threw his hands up and said I will not come near you then . Feeling things were getting serious I said ok forget it and walked out.I was about to walk away but thought no why should I suffer this . I walked back up to the entrance where he was now standing and said you know you can be fined for discriminating,his reply was fine me then and go on fill your boots. What I felt like doing at that point is best left unsaid anyway I kept calm and walked away. As soon as I got home I found the customer complaints and started email . At first I felt I was being fobbed off but I persisted with more emails , explaining how this is not just about me and that unmasked people expect the same treatment as everyone else . Anyway I now have received today a apology and been told the staff in that store have been instructed in how to behave properly and that I will have no problems in the future and given a £10 voucher. I will be sending a mate in unmasked before I enter again just to test they really have learnt their lesson and it’s not just my complaint getting heard. Anyway I hope people understand if we are treated bad we must complain and not let it go .I would also say if anyone on here is not getting satisfaction on an individual basis please put your case on here and tell us what’s wrong because we may be able to help together to put pressure on any store that’s out of order.
Well done for that.
Today, I was prepared to complain about the door keepers in my local Waitrose store. They’re not bad, but I have been told to wear a mask every time I have gone there, and each time, I’ve said I’m exempt, and there’s been no further trouble. But today I was prepared with a print out of the government website saying people should not be routinely asked for proof, and I was going to see the manager about it all. Surprise, surprise, I walked in with no mask and was not told to put a mask on. Maybe the word is going round. I might still print off one of those ‘we won’t ask’ posters and take that along next time.
Well done keep up the pressure Felice.
Brilliant! Well done!
Thanks mate.
Can I just make a small comment, to say how much I admire those of you who have the ability to dig deep for well-analysed and presented information. Although I am able to find some things myself, I have to say that there have been some corkers of articles highlighted here. There is so much information, figures and data, it is brain-blowing trying to keep up with it all. I’m keeping tabs on the basic issues, such as falling death-rate, the unreliability of the current tests (i.e false positives, due to previous infections etc); and trying to keep a few pointed facts up my sleeve when faced with bed-wetters who are totally on board with the covid narratives and simply refuse to listen to anything else. Personally I’ve found the “go along to get along” types particularly frustrating.
Agreed, this site has been an absolute goldmine for me.
There is a great deal of alignment, and a coherent structure, in many of the positions expressed in the comments here. A collaborative effort to transform this into a punchy slide deck/pdf outlining the key sceptical positions that could be widely distributed is worth considering.
I have a quiet day at work tomorrow. I’ll give it a stab for others to add to.
Great stuff. I’m absolutely shit at visuals but could definitely pitch in with wording/structure. I’ll have a crack at a potential outline myself.
My role involves communicating scientific information. I do a lot of PowerPoint. I can help.
Keep it up darkhorse, and nice name by the way!
No idea why considering the amount of anti lockdown anti mask articles I read, but this popped up in my news feed:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/plastic-face-shields-do-masks-one-better/
I’ll have a look at what background this idiot comes from.
Unsurprisingly he has a number of qualifications. But loves getting the hiking boots on and getting outdoors, how odd.
Tempted to email him, as it’s on his site profile.
My stepson is finally going to use his exemption card, and not wear a mask again, and brave the hostility he perceives from mask-wearers. The reason – his asthma has got far far worse since he’s started wearing a mask. I’m relieved!
Get ready for new Lockdowns!
I’m writing from Spain. There have been comments in the Spanish press recently denying an article in the Euro Weekly News last week that the Spanish government is planning a nationwide lockdown starting from the 18th of September. It has since been admitted that there were such discussions but “this would only happen if things should get worse”.
My wife is Czech. A friend in Moravia told her last night that they had been told to prepare for a further lockdown. (Number of deaths in Czechia in the last week? 13.) Guess when?
17th September.
I checked Spanish deaths on Worldometer this week. Spain, number 10 on the list, deaths yesterday 127. UK is number 12 on the list with 16 deaths. Italy 7, Germany 9, France 17.
What on earth is going on? One could presume that the Spanish government, which has imposed the most draconian anti covid measures in Europe, is counting all non – accidental deaths as Covid. They would appear to be positioning for a new lockdown, after all.
Has anyone else heard of 17/18 September being touted as a make or break day?
Out of interest, have you seen the Spanish doctor interview video I posted along with a couple of other posters earlier today? What sort of response in Spain has there been to this interview?
It’s a great video!
The female presenter in that video mentioned rumoured lockdowns in September/October.
https://twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1296442287065636864
https://twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1296440742412537856
Death data Spain complex. Different regions different reporting. In Basque region every death after 60 days having PCR+ is a C-19 death. Suspicion something similar Catalonia, Aragon, Canarias. Yesterday 127 deaths Spain. Such a sudden extreme high number is always suspicion of artefacts. Doubt a second national lockdown. Macron can’t afford it and speaks about very localized lockdown i.e. pestering local population in some restricted areas. These tourist countries are on the brink of ruin.
I remember the rumours of an October lockdown leaking out of Westminster circles a few months back.
If this is pulled off then it’s game over.
I was listening to a Russian political analyst. He said that Russian elites would not survive a second lockdown. People have nothing to lose, there will be violence.
Daily death figures are hopelessly unreliable. There’s always a load a back-filling, posting deaths back weeks or months because notification has been held up in the system, or a change in procedure somewhere. Also, with the PCR test it catches lots of people who aren’t necessarily symptomatic, but the more you catch the bigger the chance some are going to die. Also, remember a huge proportion of deaths are of very old people in care-homes who were, in many instances, exposed to the virus in April and May so may well test positive but may now have died of the other things that kill old people.
UK death figures have just been published and things like heart problems, pneumonia/flu, dementia are all down, why? because the people that you would expect to die of these things have been coded as Covid deaths. It’s back to the died ‘with’ v died ‘of’ covid. I think it’s a bugger’s muddle!
Only a few days ago it was Greece that was likely to be on the quarantine list. Is anyone taking any bets that that won’t happen until Stanley Johnson and the rest of the clan are safely back on UK shores?
Alternatively, the Johnson clan could well be turned into “victims”, a “look it can happen to any of us” scenario.
I couldn’t quite believe what popped up on the Daily Telegraph website – a holiday advert for south Australia, specifically mentioning Victoria and Melbourne. That’s some sick sense of humour for an algorithm!
Good idea! Booked.
Enjoy your beating by the police.
Yeah, there is no way I will ever visit Australia or New Zealand Now.
Film yourself not wearing a mask in Oz and you can sell the footage as Romper Stomper 2.
Half a million already spaffed on “mission statements” for the the new PHE replacement:
‘McKinsey was paid more than half a million pounds by the UK government for six weeks of work to decide the “vision, purpose and narrative” of a new public health authority in England, according to a recently published contract.’
https://www.ft.com/content/3cc76ad4-4d75-4e07-9f6d-476611fbb28f
I guess these little things add up. Now perhaps I’m starting to understand how a phony T&T scheme can end up costing £10bn (if that figure can really be true).
The £10BN figure can’t be true. It’s impossible. I’m eagerly awaiting the answer to the FOI request.
But half a million for 6 weeks’ work from McKinsey sounds about right. Not that I understand why you would engage McKinsey in the first place.
Watch “Brewster’s Millions” again!
Make sure Simon Dolan knows about this, he will tweet it!
As it was such a lovely evening I went out for a walk today. Stopped in at one country pub for a pint outside in the sun. I had to wait by the door to be seated, was instructed by a sign to sanitise my hands, and was eventually told that the garden was “being shut down” for “capacity management”, but I could have a table inside. I walked out.
5 minutes walk away I tried my luck at another favourite, and it was like Covid had never happened – no tape, no sticky circles telling me where to stand, no perspex and NO TEST AND TRACE! I don’t think I’m ever going to leave…
At the pub now, same reason it’s a lovely evening. I don’t bother with the hand sanitizer and give a fake number and name. I was listening to another couple arrive who were unhappy to give their details, the lad working the garden shift assured them they binned the details after two weeks. But all they do is scrawl the details down on a waiters pad anyway.
misinformation campaign is alive and well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-appeared-to-be-under-control-in-europe-now-its-surging-again-11597848444?mod=trending_now_pos3
Memberships I’ve quitted in order:
Economist
FT
Spectator
and finally the WSJ…
Go woke go broke I hope.
Don’t forget National Review
I gave up on the Spectator a few months ago. I keep reading about how their readership has increased (from them) but so many comments I read on various websites indicate lots of people are cancelling their subs.
Seems a bit unfair on the Spectator. The rest I can understand being hardline globalist propaganda outfits. It’s true Liddle has disappointed and they give far too much space to drippy commentators like Ross Clark, Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth. But the Spectator has some good sceptical voices – not least Our Tobes.
I just saw a new batch of Quebec government posters. There were 4 and each one had a youngest person, 30 to 40, masked. Below one it said Solidarity, another Conviction and another Courage. Below that was written Votre Gouvernement/Your Government.
Here’s a webpage full of them. Quite a new industry is popping up here and it’s all negative.
Revealing though, clearly Covid is a totalitarian thugocrat’s big opportunity
Well, if it’s ‘their’ government then they can sack the lot of them, can’t they?
Fascinating little vignette on Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ this evening.
The discussion was about how new research had shown that singing in normal venues is not a hazard for the spread of droplets.
It was seen as ‘good news’.
…. but nobody was pointing out the fact that the major fact that the virus is now as rare as hens’ teeth. There is no basic risk of any magnitude – droplets or no droplets.
… But the myth goes on.
This is an everyday example of its perpetuation : it has become the taken-for-granted narrative that is so deeply embedded.
Yep and the UK MSM – particularly the three unwise monkeys of the BBC, Sky and ITV – are to blame. They know exactly what they are doing when they switch from referencing deaths and ICU admissions to referencing cases while still showing images of hospitals or people on ventilators. This is designed to maintain fear levels. They know exactly what they are doing when they peddle nonsense, like the suggestion that young people have only been ignoring social distancing for the last couple of weeks, and this is somehow going to cause an Autumn spike. They know exactly what they are doing when they claim the US has the worst Covid record in the world when in fact its death rate is better than those of the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. They know exactly what they are doing when they ascribe what are negative effects of lockdown to the virus. They know exactly what they are doing when they don’t tell people vastly more people are dying from flu compare with Covid now.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahrosenbaum/2020/08/19/why-t-cell-immunity-wont-end-coronavirus-pandemic/#36bfbbbc33d5
Another article from MSM to show that T cells immunity now is an election issue in the US
Clearly propaganda.
THURSDAYs edition has arrived
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/08/20/latest-news-109/#comments
It’s interesting, the same week Apple’s market cap exceeds $2trillion UK debt exceeds £2trillion. What’s the exchange rate 1.31 or so. It’s amazing, a company flogging mobile phones is worth almost the UK’s GDP.