The Eat Out to Help Out scheme is a recurring theme in the Covid Inquiry. A witness statement from Rishi Sunak was shown to the inquiry on Monday.
I don’t recall any concerns about the scheme being expressed during ministerial discussions, including those attended by Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty and then-Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance.
Patrick Vallance responded: “We didn’t see it before it was announced, and I think others in the Cabinet Office also said they didn’t see it before it was formulated as policy. So we weren’t involved in the run-up to it.”
He added: “I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk, and I think that would have been known by ministers.”
It’s not evident to us, so we thought we’d look at the evidence – something the inquiry isn’t too keen on.
Several approaches can be taken to look at the issue. First, we examine the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out statistics and geographic breakdown commentary.
It follows that the areas with the most participating outlets would have the most infections. One example is the South West, which claimed 11 million meals, nearly as many as the total for the South East or the North West. Yet cases kept falling until mid-Sep in the South West.
Cornwall (see the dark blue at the bottom left of the U.K. map) became the centre of the U.K.’s holiday destination as so many couldn’t leave the country. However, Vallance would have us believe that Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and other scattered areas were the highest risk.
As it doesn’t fit the narrative, let’s also look instead at cases in Northern Europe – the answer might be that while U.K. cases were going through the roof in 2020, European cases may have flatlined or disappeared due to the lack of an eat-out scheme. As the data show, it’s not that straightforward.
If, as Vallance says, the scheme increased transmission risk, we would see a rise in cases within a week of the scheme starting in England. The modelling told us that some 80% of the population was susceptible and had no seasonal effect. Yet, it’s a little hard to spot.
You’d expect a dramatic rise in cases in August 2020 once the scheme came into force. So, we’ve focused on the surrounding months to show it had little effect until schools returned.
Writing in the Spectator, Michael Simmons asks whether the Eat Out to Help Out was behind the second wave? He says: “For the vast majority of August (when the scheme ran)… Covid cases were shrinking. Serious growth then only restarts in September and October.” Simmons also points out that in the “ONS’s infection survey there’s no sign of a great increase in Covid cases until the months after the scheme finished”.
Vallance’s assessment of the transmission risk also makes the same mistake the modellers make – it assumes we would have stayed home instead of going out. Yet what else would we have done in the absence of the scheme? Some of us would have still gone out to eat, some to the pub, and we would have inferred the same transmission risk.
We are at odds with the cost of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme – £849 million – and the level of fraud: the Public Accounts Committee estimated the scheme fraud losses at £71 million, almost 8.5% – suggesting one in every 12 meals claimed never existed and were never eaten.
It is concerning that the inquiry allows this evidence-free narrative to go unchallenged. It isn’t asking the critical questions about whether certain assumptions are grounded in evidence or just an adviser’s hunch. The inquiry’s continuing interest in political assassinations means it does not know what the evidence and the data show about the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme and, notably, how much it impacted the risk of infection.
Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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Great Covid Con Never Again
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
“Conservative Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson has warned Richard Tice to be “careful what you wish for”, according to the Telegraph, claiming a surging Reform will hurt the Tories more than Labour.”
Yes Mr Anderson you dunderhead, that’s the point. Instead of whining, try getting your party to adopt and enact some actual conservative policies. Is he for real?
”His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James’s miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.”
It is indeed a shocking indictment of both the Conservative Party and our electoral system that the main reason to vote Conservative is ”for fear of finding something worse”.
I agree but I still have some sympathy for the idea of voting for ‘anyone but the […fill in pet hate here…] candidate’. I suspect that UKIP, for example, would have done significantly better if some voters had not declined to vote tactically for fear of splitting the vote of their least-worst-credible-chance-of-winning candidate. The country missed an opportunity to bring in AV at the second UK-wide referendum in 2011 – I suspect because it was associated with the Lib Dems (who claim they wanted PR instead).
I’m less enamoured of PR as the typical implementations seem to result in endless coalitions. For example, I think Geert Wilders has a long job ahead to establish a governing coalition in Netherlands.
There are two problems with your posting.
Firstly, UKIP is not the party it was under former leadership. It is now only a party for nihilists and fantacists.
Second, the AV system put forward by Cameron-Clegg was just about the worst possible version. It would have even further strengthened the position of party leaders. If you want AV look for a system that still allows local candidate selection, clear connection between elected representatives and a recognisable constituency and so gives a degree of local accountability.
In my opinion the additional member system used in Germany is effective on these criteria. If we also had mandatory recall provisions and voter mandated referendums (both at national, regional, City and local levels) we could expect a big improvement in the quality and performance of politicians and Whitehall.
I understand your points and totally agree with your first point. It matches my opinion. The present UKIP rump is not worthy of votes and may well be a good example of the ‘anyone but…’ candidates. Who knows what they might have become if, in earlier years, people had not considered a UKIP vote worse than a wasted vote?
As with most negotiations in politics a referendum vote for AV would not have been the end of the discussion. ‘The people want AV – what sort of AV shall we grant them?’. As in the third UK-wide referendum: ‘The people want Brexit – what sort of Brexit shall we allow them?’
However, if it became established, AV had the potential to enable policies which appeal to voters (possibly including tinkering with the form of AV itself) to be floated and tested in popular opinion.
I’m not fully decided yet but I will probably vote Reform at the next GE. The Conservatives have abandoned their natural base – not the other way around. One thing I fear about this is the outside possibility that Reform might win an outright majority; they would then have no, or very little ministerial experience to call upon in government – the Blob would run rings around them.
Your last point about Germany’s system is not a positive in my opinion; they have to include the loony Greens in their coalition.
Lee Anderson would better spend his time investigating the 150 con tory MP’s currently on the take from the eco nutters alliance.
Indeed. It’s hard to know whether he’s really as dense as he sounds or just another liar.
Lee Anderson happens to be my MP and I asked him about joining Reform of which he replied “they won’t win a single seat in paliment, you’ll just be allowing a labour win”
As Tof just explained, try fighting for votes instead of trying to blow other parties candles out to make yours look brighter!
I’m voting reform, its time we all voted for what we want and believe in, not just to keep someone else out!
100% agree. Anderson is either deluded or very efficiently repeating the same lying party line. Either way he can get stuffed.
Anderson has sadly holed himself below the water line with this crap.
He knows what the people want but, he dare not offend the pay wall that feeds him!
He accepted the job that toned him down by device! Chairman!
Think of Rishi saying this in your minds eye!(he’ll be smiling all the time of course)
Rishi- ” look, Lee, your a guaranteed red wall seat for us, but tone down the working man Bullshit, ….I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you Chairman!..How’s that sound?”
Wah- wah…yes boss!
I like Lee! But I cannot vote for him! Not while ‘these’ handlers are in government!
Imagine all reformers,…breathing life into Britain ” 
He needs to join reform!
Lee, Richard, Nigel, Andrew! The start of a new, real, party! It happened with the wigs, and later with labour!
more of the same….sorry 
!
What is the alternative?
We never needed good leaders more!
Here’s his reply:- 19/09/2023
Hi —-,
Thanks for your email and I do sympathise with what you are saying.
However I would politely suggest that Parliament needs more Tory MPs like me to speak out for people like you.
If I do not get re-elected you will be stuck with a Labour MP who will never speak out for you.
Regardless of who wins the next election you need a strong local voice in Parliament.
You can help make that happen.
Regards
Lee
Thanks for posting.
Thanks
On the face of it, an attractive response, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. His “speaking out” (which I missed during “covid” – don’t remember him saying a peep about it) does no good – in fact it’s the opposite. It perpetuates the illusion/delusion that we have a serious party of the political right – we don’t and we have not done for a long time. Any Tory MP with conservative ideas should resign from the party and join a proper right wing party or stay independent. A mass mutiny would shake things up.
His reply implies a two party state. As the Tories cannot win next time it implies a one party state.
Well done Lee!
Well, that’s interesting that Sky News allows that question to be asked. I wonder what the rest of the clip says.
But that moment when the NHS doctor confronted Javid about the jabs and natural immunity came to mind.
Apparently she launched into the standard ad hominem attack, as per this article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/activist-guest-blasts-sky-news-for-platforming-climate-denying-gb-news-contributor/ar-AA1mlKz0
-proving, once again, that there’s no substance, just propaganda.
Savage Jabbit seems to have been knighted !!
FFS!
As I have posted previously their motto is:
‘Rub their noses in it and keep reminding them.’
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/01/01/survivors-of-nova-music-festival-sue-israeli-security-establishment-for-failing-to-protect-them/
Forty-two Israelis who attended the Nova music festival near the Gaza border that was attacked on October 7 have sued the Israeli security establishment for failing to protect the event.
The lawsuit filed a claim for $56 million against Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, the Israeli Defense Forces, the Defense Ministry, and the Israeli Police and says the agencies’ “negligence and the gross oversight” allowed the Hamas attack on the festival to happen.
“A single phone call by IDF officials to the commander responsible for the party to disperse it immediately in view of the expected danger would have saved lives and prevented the physical and mental injuries of hundreds of partygoers, including the plaintiffs,” the lawsuit reads.
Oh I don’t know. It seems quite reasonable that a biological male should represent un-women UK… Or have I missed the point?
Israeli govt want Alan Dershowitz to represent it at the Hague next week
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/netanyahu-wants-alan-dershowitz-represent-israel-hague-report?nid=331061&topic=Israel-Palestine%2520war&fid=496086
As pointed out elsewhere, this is going to produce major cognitive dissonance in a large section of the US ‘progressive’ population – Dershowitz represented Trump at one of his impeachment trials….
Addendum – Malaysia now endorses SA’s suit.
https://www.kln.gov.my/web/guest/-/malaysia-welcomes-the-application-by-south-africa-before-the-international-court-of-justice-against-israel-on-alleged-genocide-violations-in-the-gaza-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67865327
Having proved to be utterly useless at tackling real life crime plod has decided to tackle fantasy crime.
Madness off the scale.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-covid-part-9-did-lockdown-work/
Part nine, the penultimate, of Paul Weston’s unmissable guide to the Scamdemic – lockdowns.
“...large numbers of deaths were the forced result of government-ordained lockdowns. It is difficult to understand why our politicians are not locked up for life after successful prosecution for crimes against humanity.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/holocaust-denial-has-gone-mainstream/
Very interesting article. How Holocaust denial has become acceptable. Very disturbing.
It is an interesting article and yet – the linguistic gymnastics used to state the case for a ‘mainstream’ holocaust denial don’t, I think, stand up to scrutiny. I accept that the situation vis a vis the concept of a holocaust has become far more polarised because of what’s happening at the moment but, aside from the usual descent into unhelpful emotive language, the writer appears to be 1) fully accepting that the deaths on 7th October (1139 according to the Israeli govt – some of which it accepts its own defence force caused) can be defined as a ‘holocaust’, yet unwilling to recognise that the deaths subsequent to that (21,000+, with 7000+ missing, 50000+ injured) could be too; and 2) does not actually define what ‘mainstream’ is. If the MSM is anything to go by, it is overwhelmingly pro-Israel: where is the holocaust denial there? The UK govt is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, as are those of the US, EU and many other Western states; I see no holocaust denial there. But when there are numerous statements from govts denying that an obvious genocide is taking place, a genocide that is flouting just about every regulation of various Geneva Conventions, when the murder of 1139 is instantly defined by a govt leader as a ‘holocaust’ yet the ongoing murder of 21000+ is ‘defence’, is there any wonder that people, dumb, subservient sheep they may be, start to question what the meaning of a ‘holocaust’ actually is? What is the writer’s purpose of aligning, however tangentially, a basic, human, anti-genocide sentiment with ‘holocaust denial’? References to Orwell have become so hackneyed and pedestrian these days it’s almost laughable – so here’s another one:
“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell wrote these words, which come at the end of his essay “Politics and the English Language,” in 1946. He could be writing them from the grave today and thinking of ways in which language is being used in the context of the so-called “Israel-Gaza war.” “In our time,” Orwell says, “political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.” He is not alluding to falsehoods or fallacies, but to words and phrases that keep us from the facts, or from the effect the facts would otherwise have on us. His essay is about “debased language”: language that defends the indefensible by preventing us from thinking.
https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/orwell-gaza-debasement-language/
I much appreciate your well considered response and thanks for the Orwell quote.
Notwithstanding the weaknesses in the author’s case which you have identified I do believe that there is an attempt to undermine the holocaust as fact. And to reinforce Orwell, people in our government executive pay lip service to the reality of the holocaust whilst at the same time blithely setting about the murder of their own citizens via their anti human lockdowns as Paul Weston has made abundantly clear in the series of articles I have been reposting.
That people such as Johnstone, Jabbit, Hancock, Valance, Michie, van Tam, Witty and scores of others still walk free after the mass care home deaths – and the rest – tells us all we need to know about the honesty and motives of these people.
( I have diluted my words somewhat. My actual views on the people named above are much stronger but detailing them here would get me banned).
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/had-you-known-would-you-have-taken-the-jab/
Pfizer facing court in the USA. The case is undoubtedly sound considering Pfisser’s wholesale lies but will the case be heard by a non-corrupted judge?
Let’s not get our hopes up.
“To this point, ‘victories’ against the hegemon that emerged in 2020 have been defensive in nature. Groups have fended off vaccine mandates, states have resisted calls for renewed lockdowns, and journalists have begun to expose the corruption that shattered Western civilization.
These efforts, though important, have failed to bring accountability against those who usurped our civil liberties and pillaged the national treasury. Paxton’s suit strikes at the heart of the corruption behind the Covid regime: how their success required mass deception and their profits depended on lies.
Though $10million in fines is little compared to the $75billion in revenue that Pfizer raked in from vaccines alone, the suit signifies that the resistance is at last on the offensive.
Big Pharma sees this is a grave threat, and its lobbying forces led a failed impeachment effort against Paxton this fall. They threw him out of his office, and disabled his ability to do his job that the voters sent him to do. Turning up nothing, the legislature rejected the entire drama. Now he is back and working and this is the result: accountability at last.”
We wish the plaintiffs all the best.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/02/gp-surgeries-could-be-earning-almost-1-billion-from-ghost-p/
The article opens with this para:
“Doctors could be earning almost £1 billion from “ghost patients” after a fraud investigation into how many people were registered with GPs was halted.”
And ends with this:
“We have not yet revisited the issue as we direct our resources to where the intelligence indicates the most appropriate priorities sit.”
So investigating the gifting of one billion pounds of taxpayers money to frankly poor quality GP’s is not where “priorities sit.”
Some P45’s are overdue – at least.
“GP surgeries could be earning almost £1 billion from ‘ghost patients’”
What if they are not ghost patients?
Maybe there is a greater population than being admitted?!
Absolutely Dinger. The exact same thought occurred to me. Loads of illegals roaming the country and lax record keeping in the surgeries. And of course another £125 quid a pop – that’ll do nicely.
Prior to computerisation, dealing with ghosts (we were an honest bunch og GPs) meant sending out letters to people who hadn’t been seen for years, in case they’d moved, died abroad or whatever. A couple of non-replies, and we deleted them.
Nowadays, it’s hard to see where any ghosts are coming from – patients register on a computer system that now uploads them to the NHS database. If they die that will be registered on the system codes whether in hospital or at home. If they change GP that too will yank them off the old GP’s system. That seems to leave just millions of people disappearing – migrating to Rwanda or being abducted by aliens, perhaps.
Or could it possibly be disinformation to blame the NHS ideology problems on the doctors?
We saw during Covid how inefficient the state is at recording deaths and we know there were millions more NI numbers issued than working age people in the country.
The sate in all its form and agencies is just not up to the job and, frankly, it has no intention of improving.
Can you believe this? The most natural biological waste is now regarded as pollution! Maybe they will clear all the forests of dirty rotting leaves and twigs and general natural detritus like wild animal poo and dead wild animal carcases and the like, oh and all plant life which ends up rotting back into the ground and producing millions of tons of all that ‘poisonous’ Co2! Ffs!
https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/01/02/france-implements-compulsory-composting-heres-how-it-will-help-slash-emissions
Thanks for posting.
So what is happening to our green bin collections in the UK?
https://www.recyclingbins.co.uk/blog/recycled-food-waste/
“Sadly, much of our recycled food waste goes straight to landfill, where it degrades and produces harmful greenhouse gasses such as methane. To overcome this, we need to reduce the amount of food we waste, redistribute edible food to those in need, and turn it into animal feed. But there’s only so much we can do at home.
According to a recent report by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), we waste 9.5 million tonnes of food in the UK every year. Of that, 4.5 tonnes of that comes from residential households. Our annual food waste, valued at over £19 billion, can generate thirty-six million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions if not disposed of correctly, causing catastrophic damage to the environment.”
So, basically what we patiently sort for the green bins goes in landfill and generates…
…36 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Oh my God.
Thirty six million tonnes! That’s just a guess but it is possibly backed up by the $cience.
“a surging Reform will hurt the Tories more than Labour”. Whose fault is that?
That is his assessment, just as the pundits used to say UKIP drew members and support only from the Tories. Until it turned out not to be true.
“There were almost six million more patients registered to GPs in England last year than the total population size of the country, according to the Telegraph.”
You would think a “world class” (sic) NHS which was short of funds (sic) would run checks between the NI numbers database and GP records.
BTW, what evidence do illegal immigrants and overstayers need to show to get free medical services in this county?
All Socialist Parties require a Great Leader.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-increased-risk-of-swollen-lymph-nodes-in-children-study-5555737
I remember following the JCVI minutes/ Sage minutes during the Covid fiasco. The members were quite clear that they expected lymphadenopathy to occur from the vaccines. They appeared to be blasé about it.
I’m grimly interested to see what the lymphoma cancer rates are going to be over the next few years.