The Stanford-based Professor of Medicine told me that lockdowns “will be seen as the single biggest public health mistake in history”.
At a time when all the U.K.’s main political parties backed lockdown vehemently, with Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer and Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP incessantly calling for Covid-related restrictions to be even more punitive, Bhattacharya’s words were not universally welcomed.
On the contrary, his efforts to promote “targeted shielding” – helping the elderly and others with medical conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to Covid, while letting the rest of us get on with our lives – were widely dismissed as irresponsible.
Even in that climate, when to question lockdown was to face social ostracism, Bhattacharya was warning of the “enormous collateral consequences” of keeping people inside and isolating them from their loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was supported by two more top epidemiologists – Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University and Martin Kulldorff, then of Harvard. …
I’m shocked – but hardly surprised – that the U.K.’s lockdown policies have been barely discussed during this election campaign.
There seems to be a conspiracy of silence between the main parties to keep quiet about lockdown, seeing as all of them agreed with and helped reinforce it. This position is now, at the very least, open to serious question.
Missed operations, economic scarring, compromised schooling and very serious damage to people’s mental health – not least among children and young adults – were just some of the problems stored up for the future by shutting down the country three times in 2020 and 2021. …
Amidst the election campaign and well away from the public eye the U.K.’s ridiculous “Covid Inquiry” rumbles on. The inquiry team is touring the country as part of the “Every Story Matters” project, allowing people to speak anonymously without giving formal evidence to the inquiry.
Our Covid Inquiry is astonishingly drawn out – having started in June 2022 and scheduled to take evidence until at least June 2026. It’s a lawyers’ bonanza, paid for by us – with costs exceeding £70 million last year alone and the final bill expected to reach almost £200 million.
Rather than addressing the central question – whether, if the U.K. faces a pandemic similar to COVID-19, we lock down again or not – this Covid investigation has instead become a ludicrously expensive talking shop.
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Most likely. Gathering restrictions did literally ZILCH to stop the virus at a population level, or even slow it down once it had gathered momentum. The kernel of truth is that large gatherings may temporarily accelerate transmission at the very, very beginning, but by the time the restrictions were imposed the horse was long since out of the barn.
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega knew that from the beginning, and actually *encouraged* mass gatherings given the futility of banning or restricting them, and their vital functions in preserving a sense of normalcy for the community. And he is a hard leftist, go figure.
Last edited 2 years ago by True Spirit of America Party
The vast majority of lockdown policies, including lockdown itself, were based on flawed evidence, accompanied by the impression that the so-called experts had just gone back to college! We are all still suffering from it – although some have made a profit in the short term.
I’m not criticising the idea that airborne transmission of any kind of virus in poorly ventilated environments though. Although I’m reasonably confident that the last time I caught a minor respiratory infection (lets call it a common cold), in late 2019, was in such a place, I have never believed in the idea that wearing face covers etc was any good. Crass overreaction to the whole affair has been a large part of the panic.
Indeed, the fact that poor ventilation accelerates transmission of airborne viruses was known for nearly a century, even before viruses themselves were discovered. Back then, they simply called it “vitiated air”, and central heating systems then were literally designed to be operated with the windows open. That’s why in very old buildings with old-style steam boiler heating, the temperature always feels significantly hotter than the thermostat says, unless you open the nearest window (or if there’s a draft). That’s a feature, not a bug.
Last edited 2 years ago by True Spirit of America Party
Perhaps in some cases things were done based on flawed evidence in the sense that those doing them genuinely believed the evidence was solid. But in a lot of cases restrictions and decisions were not based on evidence at all – what actually happened was decisions were made and then evidence found or fabricated that appeared to justify the decision.
One of the lesser reasons I will never believe or respect anything any government says again, ever, this is one of the finer ways in which the government cried wolf. It’s almost as if they were actively searching for petty things to ban, to “appear to be doing something”, along with the taped up benches and playgrounds.
Is there an army removing any remaining signs about masks and social distancing? There ought to be.
Although each government takes ultimate responsibility for engineering and promoting the claptrap around a hyped up ‘killer virus’, the opposition parties were just as bad – if not worse, ie Labour – encouraging and egging them on to do their worst.
edit spelling
Last edited 2 years ago by ellie-em
Unutterably Pistoff
2 years ago
That period was so dystopian. I went for a walk with my wife. People (all in masks) jumped off pavements. We sat on a bench, were glared at, and wondered what hell we were in. I used to admire the people I shared this country with. Now I pity and, generally speaking have no trust in them. I’m ill.
Masks were things worn by actors in Greek plays. You found yourself in a myth. You could hardly communicate. You were atomised, stereotyped, and thrown apart. God help me recover.
There are still people out there who leap back from you if you get too close. people also get off the pavement to avoid getting too close. Masks are still in evidence where we live. Shops still have signs about social distancing which are ignored for the most part but are still there. Some people will never get over the nonsense we were fed.
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I always assumed supposed super-spreader events such as the South Dakota bikers or a crowded pub were another COVID myth used to justify restrictions.
Most likely. Gathering restrictions did literally ZILCH to stop the virus at a population level, or even slow it down once it had gathered momentum. The kernel of truth is that large gatherings may temporarily accelerate transmission at the very, very beginning, but by the time the restrictions were imposed the horse was long since out of the barn.
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega knew that from the beginning, and actually *encouraged* mass gatherings given the futility of banning or restricting them, and their vital functions in preserving a sense of normalcy for the community. And he is a hard leftist, go figure.
The vast majority of lockdown policies, including lockdown itself, were based on flawed evidence, accompanied by the impression that the so-called experts had just gone back to college! We are all still suffering from it – although some have made a profit in the short term.
I’m not criticising the idea that airborne transmission of any kind of virus in poorly ventilated environments though. Although I’m reasonably confident that the last time I caught a minor respiratory infection (lets call it a common cold), in late 2019, was in such a place, I have never believed in the idea that wearing face covers etc was any good. Crass overreaction to the whole affair has been a large part of the panic.
Indeed, the fact that poor ventilation accelerates transmission of airborne viruses was known for nearly a century, even before viruses themselves were discovered. Back then, they simply called it “vitiated air”, and central heating systems then were literally designed to be operated with the windows open. That’s why in very old buildings with old-style steam boiler heating, the temperature always feels significantly hotter than the thermostat says, unless you open the nearest window (or if there’s a draft). That’s a feature, not a bug.
Perhaps in some cases things were done based on flawed evidence in the sense that those doing them genuinely believed the evidence was solid. But in a lot of cases restrictions and decisions were not based on evidence at all – what actually happened was decisions were made and then evidence found or fabricated that appeared to justify the decision.
One of the lesser reasons I will never believe or respect anything any government says again, ever, this is one of the finer ways in which the government cried wolf. It’s almost as if they were actively searching for petty things to ban, to “appear to be doing something”, along with the taped up benches and playgrounds.
Is there an army removing any remaining signs about masks and social distancing? There ought to be.
Although each government takes ultimate responsibility for engineering and promoting the claptrap around a hyped up ‘killer virus’, the opposition parties were just as bad – if not worse, ie Labour – encouraging and egging them on to do their worst.
edit spelling
That period was so dystopian. I went for a walk with my wife. People (all in masks) jumped off pavements. We sat on a bench, were glared at, and wondered what hell we were in. I used to admire the people I shared this country with. Now I pity and, generally speaking have no trust in them. I’m ill.
Masks were things worn by actors in Greek plays. You found yourself in a myth. You could hardly communicate. You were atomised, stereotyped, and thrown apart. God help me recover.
So true.
There are still people out there who leap back from you if you get too close. people also get off the pavement to avoid getting too close. Masks are still in evidence where we live. Shops still have signs about social distancing which are ignored for the most part but are still there. Some people will never get over the nonsense we were fed.