What fresh nonsense is this, coming out of the mouth of Chris Whitty in his second day of evidence at the Covid Inquiry?
Listeners-in today were treated to yet another plateful of steaming tripe from the Chief Medical Officer.
First, he claimed that by the end of October 2020 ministers “did not have much choice” but to impose a second lockdown because infection rates had risen too high. Asked by inquiry counsel Hugo Keith KC, in his characteristically leading way, whether the second lockdown could have been avoided if the tier system of staggered restrictions had been imposed earlier, Whitty said: “I think most people would say that’s the case.” Had tiered restrictions had more time to work “there remains the possibility that the second lockdown might not have been necessary or might not have been as long”, he added.
This is palpable nonsense, of course. The beginnings of the tier system appeared in June 2020 when the first ‘local lockdown’ of Leicester was imposed, with similar measures subsequently extended to other areas, especially in the North. How many months of lockdown does Dr. Whitty think are needed for them to work? It was pointed out at the time that none of these measures succeeded in bringing down infections, with reported new infections doubling in northern areas following the imposition of local measures.
Whitty then used his appearance today to denounce the concept of herd immunity – the sole basis on which an epidemic can end – as a “ridiculous and dangerous” idea, leading listeners to wonder whether Sir Chris has any working understanding of epidemiology at all.
Most egregiously of all, though, the Chief Medical Officer claimed it would have been “inconceivable” to make herd immunity through natural infection a policy goal because “it would have led to extraordinarily high loss of life”.
You’d think I would have become inured to this kind of moronity by now, it being the constant fare of the inquiry and the whole ill-informed mainstream discourse on Covid. But it never ceases to astound me that our top medics and scientists can make such baseless claims despite so much depending on them getting this stuff right.
Extraordinarily high loss of life? Do we really need to to wheel out, once again, in late 2023, the examples of places which did not lock down and experienced outcomes no worse than elsewhere. Sweden, most obviously, whose trajectory was the same as other countries. Florida (after April 2020). South Dakota. Belarus. Tanzania. Clearly, we do.
Where is Sweden’s extraordinarily high loss of life? Or Florida’s? Or South Dakota’s? Claims like Whitty’s still feel like they’re stuck in March 2020, when Neil Ferguson was going round scaring everyone with his silly models that massively over-predicted the impact of the virus everywhere, including Sweden.
But from the inquiry counsel came no probing at all of Whitty’s baseless claim. And so once again a lockdown-supporting myth with no evidence is reinforced, to be echoed we presume in the predetermined conclusions of this biased inquiry.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“Becky Lee Birtwhistle Hodges, who was born male”
This person IS male. Determined at conception, immutable.
I’m confident that if he just wears a dress this will level the playing field.
High-heels might work.
No, only bright red lippy does the trick.
So, Mr Hodges can ‘cast his line’ twice as far as many women.
I bet he can, or is it just me that has a dirty mind?
I don’t want to seem picky but why is the DS title for this article referring to a “trans woman”. There is no such thing. There are men and women. Some men pretend to be women, but they are men. There are a lot of talented wordsmiths in the DS team, please can they find some snappy phrase that doesn’t involve the word “woman” or if it does, also involves the word “man”. I honestly get confused by these terms. When I am reading something and I see some phrase like “trans woman” I start thinking of women, but the article is about a man. This is exactly the kind of confusion our enemies wish to sow by corrupting the language.
Indeed, the terminology always confuses me. When I see the words ‘trans woman’ my brain automatically assumes this is a woman who has converted to a man. It seems logical, the more I think about it: she is, fundamentally, a female due to her genes, therefore describing her as’woman’ seems perfectly reasonable, but in an effort to acknowledge that she has undergone some procedure/transition the prefix ‘trans’ is added. However I usually find that I am supposed to infer the opposite.
Thanks – glad it is not just me. I like “man pretending to be a woman” but it’s not pithy enough. “Trans man” would actually make a lot more sense to me – a man who thinks or pretends to think he has “transcended” his sex, or “transitioned” to a different sex. Like “trannies”. A tranny was always a bloke dressed as a woman.
Male transvestite.
Preferable to “trans woman”, for sure.
What I want to know is what is the female equivalent of a male transvestite? Serious question. I mean, if you see a woman dressing and acting like a man most people would refer to her as a ”dyke” and presume she’s a lesbian. However, much like transvestites are often straight men who happen to have a fetish with dressing up as women, a lesbian can hardly be the female equivalent can she? So if anybody knows what you would call a woman who likes parodying a man but is actually straight, please share because going by the workings of human psychology, such a person must exist.
“What I want to know is what is the female equivalent of a male transvestite?”
Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender people may identify as straight, gay, bisexual or some other sexual orientation.
This is the definition given by John’s Hopkins. Yes, I know it is woke central.
On the basis that the term ‘transvestite’ derives from something along the lines of across+vestment (n.b. I am not an English scholar so this may only be an approximation) I don’t see any genderedness to the term. So a woman who enjoys dressing up in male clothing would be a transvestite just as would a man dressing up in female clothing. The only problem I see is that we, as a society, don’t have much clothing which is identified as exclusively worn by men, so no-one beats an eyelid if a woman turns up dressed in, say, a three-piece suit but people look askance if a man turns up in, say, twin-set and pearls (Grayson Perry notwithstanding).
This actually brings me back to my previously mentioned confusion over terminology. If no one were to be interested in the gender of the transvestite one would append a gender descriptor: ‘transvestite man’ (man who enjoys dressing as a woman) and ‘transvestite woman’ (woman who enjoys dressing as a man). So surely by the same logical process a trans-sexual woman must be a woman who has crossed sex to be (at least in physical appearance) a man and vice versa.
Wahey, I got a down vote!
Anyway, I just spotted a couple of autocomplete typos.
It should say “no-one bats an eyelid”, not ‘beats’
And
“If one were to be interested…”, not ‘no one’.
With apologies for poor proof reading
Transvestite is Latin (or latinized) for crossdresser.
Yes, quite
Male transsexual would suggest itself. Or just transsexual, as it’s clear what that means wrt joining a women sports team.
I’d vote for that too. What have the trans activists got against transvestites anyway? Grayson Perry makes no bones about it (last I heard), although Eddie Izzard has lost the plot recently. It seems to be yet another in the trans activists’ long list of exclusionary discrimination.
Thank you for the common sense.
The words exist: female/male transvestite: someone who habitually wears clothes of the opposite sex; female/male transsexual: someone who has a desire to have the physical characteristics and adopt the behaviour of the opposite sex – or somebody who already had.
So a male transvestite is a man who likes to wear women’s clothes; a male transsexual, is a man who wishes or is altered to have characteristics and behaviour of a women.
Gender is a word deliberately misapplied to Humans to mislead. It is applicable only in grammar.
Ironically, ‘gender’ as misapplied to the human condition refers to characteristics and behaviour that is determined by biology, the sex of the individual, the hormonal activity that that causes, and the physical, physiological, emotional and behaviour that result as a consequence.
So whether a biological woman behaves like a woman, or a biological man behaves like a woman, one natural, the other role-playing, either case it’s sex.
Yes, two kinds of trannies – one that just wears the clothes, the other than gets their bits chopped and takes dangerous drugs.
That is crude and unfair tof.
In what way – what other kinds are there? I have absolutely nothing against these people, but they are not women.
Does this mean that someone is either a cock in a frock or a tranny with a fanny?
Yes, me too – very confusing. You’re not being picky – the language used is exactly what this absurd situation is all about. Similarly, the infuriating use by MMS journalists – and I’m thinking mostly of the Telegraph here – of female pronouns and adjectives even when writing articles that are sceptical of trans claims. “Just say ‘he’ and ‘his’!!!” I find myself yelling at no one in particular.
Then there’s the constant confusion between the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’. Yes, actually, ‘there are’ more than two genders – as many as the fantasists require to fuel their campaign of unreality; gender is a construct, produced by the imagination – so they can have as many as they like, bless their little cottons! But there are only two SEXES!!! That’s biology! By failing to grasp this simple linguistic point, otherwise noble supporters of the cause of common sense are deepening the ocean of confusion in which the trannies swim.
Thinking back I remember we had transvestites – simply cross dressers – and then pre and post op transexuals. Just think we should avoid using any phrase containing the word “woman” when describing a man.
There is only one way for sports people to deal with this absurdity if they disagree with it. —-Refuse to participate. Whether it is running, swimming, jumping, rowing, boxing or any other sport of any kind. —-REFUSE to PARTICIPATE. You cannot have sporting events without participants.
It’s a man, and these women have the correct approach – nobody can compete with a team of one.
There is no comment section beneath the Army Doctor article.
I thought it was just me. Glad that I am not alone in the world.
Another week, another glitch..ho hum, lol.
Moderator here – the lack of that Comments section seems to be a Sunday night technical SNAFU! We’re trying to fix it, apologies for the omission, and thanks for letting us know
There seems to be other problems, or maybe it’s just my internet connection. Sometimes I have to refresh a page 4 or 5 times before it loads properly and sometimes the main part of the page will load but it won’t show comments.
Where have my comments gone? I posted on this article! Why have they been removed?
Fixed, ‘Comments’ section is
now open under the Army doc story
Well done.
Well done ladies. The Angling Society should be ashamed of itself.
As a losely related remark: Does anybody know what an istor is? It must be something a transistor claims to be.
A transistor has three terminals, while an istor has just two. It requires an istor to attend GIDS (general istor dismemberment service) for the alteration.
The way to end this nonsense is for all sportswomen to refuse to participate where men parading as women are allowed to participate.
Just waiting for the next Olympics and the inclusion of male transvestites in the women’s squad. I hope the entire squad resigns and the British Olympics Committee and Government are completely humiliated.
As unfair as it is, more women need to refuse to compete just as this team has. Bravo!
These women who refused, have more balls than the entire parliament out together.