Lisa Nandy, Labour’s new Culture Secretary, has said she wants to end the “culture wars” that cause “division”. This from a woman who said male rapists should be sent to women’s prisons and who belongs to a party whose leaders wasted no time in taking the knee for race rioters. The Telegraph‘s Michael Deacon has more.
In her first speech in the role, [Nandy] said our society suffers from too much “division” – so she’s made it her “mission” to end it. “The era of culture wars,” she promised, “is over.”
A noble aim. There is, however, one small problem. Which is that she’s absolutely guaranteed to fail. Because, in reality, the culture wars are only just beginning. And it’s all the Left’s fault.
Left-wingers like Ms. Nandy love to blame the Tories for “stoking culture wars”. But this is the most brazen distortion of the truth. Think of all the culture wars that have been inflicted upon us in recent years. The rows over gender identity, Black Lives Matter, boycotting Israel, “decolonising” universities… Every single one of those conflicts was started by Left-wingers seeking to impose their radical beliefs on the rest of us. So the Left accusing the Right of stoking culture wars is like Putin blaming NATO for his invasion of Ukraine.
And it’s not as if Labour politicians have tried to rise above these conflicts. Time and again, they’ve eagerly embraced them. Take, for example, our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer – who, at the height of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, proudly released a photo of himself and Angela Rayner, his deputy, taking the knee.
For another example: take Ms. Nandy herself. When campaigning to be Labour leader in 2020, she was asked whether male criminals who identify as women should be placed in female prisons. She replied: “I think trans women are women and trans men are men. So I think they should be accommodated in the prison of their choosing.”
Three years after Ms. Nandy made these delightfully compassionate remarks, Isla Bryson, who was a man when found guilty of raping two women, was sent to a Scottish female prison. The resulting uproar – which helped bring down Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s First Minister – suggested that, funnily enough, locking rapists in a building full of women can actually be quite “divisive”. Yet it was Left-wingers who’d argued for it.
Worth reading in full.
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I feel embarrassed to be Welsh by the antics of the glorious government there. My parents still live in the North, an area rather ignored by the South Wales based government. A second lockdown would kill much of the economy for sure. I am glad at the minute that I am an ‘expat’.
It’s been pretty obvious for some time that both the Welsh and Scottish governments are just creating trouble and division because they can. I did read a news report somewhere that Guernsey’s government are something of lockdown-escape leaders though and are powering ahead?
Greetings from another inmate of the Welsh gulag.
I used to believe a lot of the stuff about Wales needing autonomy. Now I’ve seen what a Welsh Labour ‘government’ can do with that autonomy I an totally sickened and disgusted. What need of wicked English to oppress the Welsh when they can grind their own faces in the dust?
Another Welshie here (well I’m English born but anyway…). Totally agree with you. I have voted Welsh Labour in the past but will not be doing so again (God knows who I’ll vote for in the future – Monster Raving Looney most likely).
The five mile rule is patently ridiculous and completely unscientific. As I pointed out in my email to my AM, if you live in Cardiff then within a five mile radius of your house is likely to be 500,000 people. In my county there are only 95,000 residents in total. So if the five mile radius rule is to reduce the number of people you are likely to encounter, those living in Cardiff should be restricted to the end of their road, not five miles.
Incidentally within a five mile radius of my house are only forests, fields and villages with boarded up pubs. Oh and Chapels, but you can’t go in those either.
Grandpa Drakeford means well I’m sure, but he has been fatally infected by coronaphobia, for which it seems there is no cure. And devolution has been shown to be the giant pup that it is.
You’re very kind to Comrade Drakeford. I think he’s a Stalinist bully.
Completely agree with your other points. Wales is Covidhysteria cubed.
I agree, Drakeford is a bully and to set those sort of conditions in Wales indicates that he knows little about the country of which he is First Minister. My nearest town is 9 miles away so apparently I am not allowed to shop for food!
And yet we have not has a single death from or with C19 in this area!
For the first time in my life and like others who’ve posted I’m actually ashamed to be Welsh. Drake ford grew up on my street and according to my Mum once babysat for me. It’s unbelievable that coming from a rural, market town like Carmarthen, he could introduce such imbecilic rules. No basis in science or rationality and no appreciation of the discriminatory impact in more isolated homes and villages. My eighty year old mother now cannot drive the 7 miles to visit my Dad’s grave ( one of her few ‘ pleasures’ in LD) . I completely agree it’s exercising power for the sake of it and simply to differentiate from England. Not that our government is any better- still doubling down on LD measures ( bonking law, mandatory mask wearing). Serious ly, can it be lawful to introduce laws which carry financial penalties without any debate in Parliament- just gets announced on BBC with one week’s notice. What has happened to our civil liberties lawyers???? One friend suggested I wear a patch over my eye as that could constitute a’face covering’ and this from the party whose slogan was Take Back Control…what has happened to us. I seriously don’t see the point in living in the UK anymore.
I think Scots are having the same problems with fishy Nickers.
(Can I make that joke, Toby?)
My father-in-law still lives in Scotland (we moved out 4 years ago) and reading about the shenanigans of the Scottish government makes both of us shake our heads in despair. The other day we both thought that even if we still lived in Scotland we would be unable to visit him because She Who Must Be Obeyed has forbidden it.
Agreed Annie and Bart.
I was always something of a believer in self government for Wales, although I’ve now spent most of my adult life out of the place, but this troublemaking on part of both the Welsh and Scottish administration is going to stoke tension….
I voted No to devolution, and how right I proved to be!
Would that the English had been able to vote on that. I’d have voted no, mind you… we still need somewhere to build prisons and power stations
Scotland though? Byeeeeee.
My husband said the same thing – he remembers voting yes to devolution but over the last few years he thinks that devolution hasn’t exactly worked.
Tucker Carlson on Fox news made the point mediocre politicians enjoy the power imposing lockdowns give them. The heads of the Welsh and Scottish governments are an example of this.
Entirely.
Agree. I’m also disappointed that David TC Davies didn’t sign the letter to the Welsh Assembly. He’s usually not afraid to speak his mind and give Welsh Labour a kicking.
DTCD does a very good job of seeming to be reasonable, professional and effective, but down the years he has a long history of being nowhere on the important issues.
I enjoyed the interview with David Starkey two weeks ago where he told us the great panic happened on Sunday 15 th March with the doubling of covid deaths, possible French closure of frontiers and rumours of Northwick Park hospital being overrun.
Today I learnt of the effect of this panic locally. Every hospital Chief Exec in England was told on the Monday morning 16 th March presumably after a cabinet meeting to STOP all routine operations with immediate effect. People who were ready for surgery for the afternoons list , who had been waiting in pain for a new hip for months were told to get dressed and go home.
Since then most hospitals have been virtually empty .
Boris and Hancock needs to answer for this , I also think Whittey and Vallance need to be held to account as well.
Just where is the humanity? Similarly the forced closure of dentists – the associated pain and trauma for those unlucky enough to have tooth problems over these months should have been unthinkable for any caring politician: but who in Parliament has stood up for these sufferers?
It would certainly have been unthinkable for any politician to have suffered in that way himself.
I was hoping the Westminster Conga would have them coming rapidly to their senses but Sharma’s sudden “illness” will no doubt restore our non-Parliament again. Also the chance for Boris to have another 3 week’s holiday? Clever!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nhs-is-letting-down-thousands-of-patients
The NHS is letting down thousands of patients by Max Pemberton
Could we have caused more harm than good with our attempts to prepare for a Covid influx?
From magazine issue: 30 May 2020
“I’m embarrassed every Thursday. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. The outpouring of love for NHS workers at 8 p.m. each week has been touching. Who wouldn’t want to be clapped and cheered? But quietly among ourselves, many of us in the health service have increasingly felt it’s misplaced. I’ve come to dread it. It makes me wince. The fact is that the NHS is currently letting down thousands upon thousands of patients. When the dust has settled, I fear that we will be responsible for the death or morbidity of countless people.
Since the pandemic hit, entire NHS services have completely stopped. I fear that this will have catastrophic consequences for the health of the nation. What’s more, as ill health is inexorably linked to poverty, it will affect the poorest the most. Many of us in the health service, as we look around at our near-empty hospitals and blocked-out diaries, are asking if we have gone too far. Has the fear of the pandemic meant that we have overreacted? Could we have caused more harm than good with our attempts to prepare for the influx of Covid patients?”
I read today somewhere that Vallance and Whitty were talking today about maintaining anti-social distancing until the winter (possibly comment section of Monday’s blog).
I pointed out that the BLM protest movement has clearly defeated the virus, judging by the complete lack of distancing among the thousands of virtue signallers out on the streets.
As has been said by someone else:
“We went from going to the beach or getting a haircut might kill grandma to fighting racism is worth the risk of killing grandma in almost 3 days flat and they think people are too stupid to notice.”
The way the virus is going it’ll have disappeared by winter or at least be at sufficiently low levels to ditch all this nonsense. Once the economic reality hits along with the dark, cold nights and all the other ailments that come with winter (and with a health service having closed down for half the year, creating a massive backlog), I don’t think people will stand for social distancing anymore. By that time we’ll have far bigger fish to fry.
Methinks from all my reading that the viral load is pretty low already. I mean you’ve only got to look at the graphs. I’m sure Dr. John Lee with Dellingpole used to term ‘It’s all over’. (Can’t find it though, it’s a 75′ interfview.)
‘the term’ not ‘to term’. Anyone know how to create an edit button?
The virus has never posed a threat sufficient to justify this nonsense. Personally I feel that no government should have the power over its citizens to be able to ever impose a lockdown whatever the threat a virus poses – but if the virus did pose a real threat I could at least understand it.
I hope you’re right, this social distancing is just ridiculous. Now the public has to wear masks on public transport. It just gets worse.
Most people are too stupid to notice.
Or traumatised and brainwashed. Which amounts to the same thing.
I subscribe to the Spectator, this week and last weeks were particularly good.
Well, apparently we’ve to clap for BLM instead of the NHS tonight. Great smokescreen!
I’ll join the Islamist terrorists before I’ll do that!
(And I’m no particular fan of Islam.)
Thank you for your post . I’m a patient who has to visit a central London hospital every week for blood tests and an genuinely shocked to see the whole of the outpatient floor closed. For the last 11 weeks it’s pretty much been me and 4 phlebotomists with nothing to do. I feel sorry for the security guard who sits at the entrance with a mask but he has nothing to do and barely sees a soul. Previously there were some 10 clinics on the floor overrun with patients and standing room only outside the blood test clinic. Surely important conditions are being missed. I myself have been told I need a brain surgical procedure at the National Hospital but all investigative procedures have been cancelled until further notice. So I’m left waiting and wondering in limbo as to whether I have something serious or not and that could be treated. Meanwhile my best friend’s daughter (15) has been told that she can return to school on 15th but only for 2 hours per week. Why is no one politician up in arms about this? Why aren’t doctors, who I’m sure care deeply about their patients, speaking out? I just don’t understand this.
Whitty and Vallance started off well. My impression in the very early days was that they were minded towards mitigation with aggressive shielding of high risk individuals. Then things started to change around the time of the Ferguson model in mid-March. Vallance started to become less convincing, and I wondered whether, as a former research scientist in Big Pharm, he had been captured. The first (or maybe second) press conference after Whitty returned from his CV quarantine was interesting with regard to the body language between the two of them, with Whitty at one point interjecting ‘at odds’ with the line Vallance had taken on a specific question. Roll forward to today’s conference, which I found very scary, in that both of them were ‘unimpressive witnesses’ – posters on the previous thread pointed to the (deliberate) errors in response to various answers. Boris is a dead man walking in my view – when the dust settles on this he is going down one way or another. Hancock is unimportant – he is just the useful idiot in all this.
I definitely get the impression that Whitty thinks this is all a load of nonsense but cannot speak out because he is ‘muzzled’ (!) by his government paymasters. I know he’s let slip several times that the virus isn’t dangerous and he’s done various lectures on pandemics in the past which rubbished a lot of the measures that our own government has taken, such as banning travel – ‘utterly useless’ in his own words, as well as acknowledging the incredibly detrimental effect of closing schools (effects which the government are now ignoring) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=rn55z95L1h8&feature=emb_logo at 48:45
Definitely agree. A couple of weeks back, Witty went through his risk analysis again. He actually started to say, the majori……..many people won’t even catch it. The Ferguson model is based on 80% getting the disease whereas we now know that 40-60% have acquired immunity already.
Yes, I think Whitty has been very uncomfortable about the whole thing for several weeks now.
Vallance, on the other hand, is still the snake going full speed ahead.
I got that feeling too – they all seem to be reciting a script and it just doesn’t ring true. Hancock seems the most convinced of it all and keeps a straight face while rattling off more and more ridiculous lockdown rules while saying we are easing them – eg no bonking, kissing with face masks on, etc etc. I wish Monty Python could have a go at doing a skit it it would be hilarious.
Actually saw a young couple trying to kiss while wearing muzzles the other day. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I would have laughed until I cried.
I would have pointed and laughed till I cried.
Should have sneakily taken a picture!
I don’t think Handjob is at all convinced about the covid problem, or he wouldn’t throw out so much nonsense that is obviously invented on the spot.
You’re right about the straight face. I noticed how he worked on that dropped jaw technique way back when the PPE scandal was first emerging.
Hancock will never have a better opportunity in his life and he’s loving every second of it. I imagine that, when he got the call appointing him as health secretary, he was disappointed, but now thanks his lucky stars.
However, he’s going to be destroyed by any sensible enquiry. He just doesn’t realise it yet.
“Boris and Hancock needs to answer for this , I also think Whittey and Vallance need to be held to account as well”
Agreed, but who’s going to lead the charge?
Whitty seems to have developed cold feet about the policies but Vallance is forging ahead with his agenda. He’s the one to watch, as he confidently spouts a lot of fearmongering disinformation, which of course the MSM then blow out of all proportion.
This is where I have got really annoyed with the Thursday clappers. Utter madness to be applauding and exalting an organisation that is failing to care for thousands of people. What happened to first do no harm? Now we have more madness with Grant Shapps announcing face rags are to be compulsory on all public transport. This government is prolonging this thing until…regardless of science, medical opinion, and actual virus behaviour data. I long for the day being sceptical and pushing back against the injustices and nonsense of this whole covid19 thing, replace complacency and compliance.
I propose a little experiment. It would need a number of volunteers and three willing pubs, but I bet it would be workable.
Take three pubs, of comparable size and location.
Take three groups of people, if comparable composition. (Volunteers, ibviously.)
Pub A operates the six-foot rule.
Pub B operates the three-foot rule.
Pub C operates normally, like a pub.
After, say, three weeks you check for Covinfections.
Result should clear away a lot of the garbage.
BTW, bags I be in Pub C along with Lord Gumption, David Starkey, Peter Hitchens and others.
Great idea. I know which one I would rather drink in, not because I like being near people (I don’t) but because the atmosphere would probably be pretty dire in A and B.
Bit like going to that BBQ the nutty doctor on the BBC was on about where you set an alarm for the guests to go and wash their hands every hour and you send people home quickly in case they get too drunk and start having fun.
I don’t like being too near people either. I just don’t think we should be forced to avoid them like, um, the plague.
Mind you, enforced contact is just as bad. If just one good thing comes out of this bloody farce (no oath intended), I think it will be the permanent demise of the horrible compulsory handshaking orgy during Anglican communion.
Which reminds me. Of course I don’t think that any tinpot tyrant should be able to tell grandparents when to hug their grandchildren,but I do think the grandchildren should have a say. As a child I simply loathed being hugged by assorted relations.
That will not be permanent, handshakes before communion will be back. I advocate reversed social distancing. Mandatory hugs every time you make eye contact.
You wouldn’t get away with that nonsense in a genuine comedy sketch, would you?
I’ll take Pub A. I don’t mind a little sacrifice for the greater cause.
Pub B might be the better bet then. Pub A quickly ends up sacrificing the very existance of the pub when it can’t get enough people to make a profit. B could be run pretty normally, especially if you recognise the 1 metre rule as an idealised thing for people in long term proxmity, not something to panic about every time someone walks past someone else for a moment. And open the windows, fast flowing air from outside makes viral transmission even less likely.
I think pub A should be situated in a densely-populated area. All customers’ voices are to be amplified very loudly. Then when the neighbours complain, the excuse could be that the customers had to shout at each other through a PA system because they weren’t close enough to speak normally.
The deafening singalong was spontaneous because everyone was having such a good time …..
I’ll take pub B in the following of the science.
What science?
But Annie, haven’t we seen that experiment already…”Take three supermarkets…. of comparable size and location…”.
The idea was to re-create somewhere nice, not supermarket purgatory!
Point taken!
I’d be interested to know which pub the most fights break out in.
I’d bet on Pub A because self-righteous stressy people plus alcohol.
Which pub has the cabal behind all this in it to test their theories? I’ll go there, drunken violence would not be ruled out against the sanctimonious traitors they way I feel today.
Caesar complaint about the Britons liking a drink and a fight from what I recall of my history, let’s test it to see if it is still the same in perfidious Albion.
Peaceful protests please. We’re trying to get the pubs open!
Can I book a place in pub C too please?
Two problems with your awesome plan:
a) Shortage of effective tests to prove if anyone actually did succumb.
b) Shortage of virus still surviving to be passed on in the first place.
Eek.
Still, there would be three pubs open!
The scandal of WHO, Lancet and Big Pharma’s attempt to crush HCQ is getting bigger by the day. It is possible that HCQ will not be effective for Covid-19 in the end but for Big Pharma, MSM, BBC, Lancet, WHO to go to such length to discredit a cheap drug is extraordinary. To create a bogus company owned by one of the authors and as in this twitter:
“Fake is even an understatement. The data was completely made up, the company that made it up has a few employees (one according to its website is a porn star and the other is a caterer) and it is owned by the study’s principle author.”
Kudos to Guardian getting the story correct and also including a science fiction writer in the Board
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine
https://www.medicineuncensored.com/a-study-out-of-thin-air
Hold your hat, the winds are blowing for WHO! Just now WHO to start trial again when the scam was exposed!
https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1268225570715971584
The Lancet has an awful lot to answer for in this sorry tale. The editorial team needs to be subject to subpoena – suspect Mr Trump is the one most likely to do it. In US-style discovery, all manner of things could be disclosed if dates are set from 1 January 2020. As I have said on earlier threads, the 72 hour turnaround of submissions for a supposedly leading international academic journal should raise alarm bells with policy makers, particularly those impressed by Professor Ferguson and his model. In my area, the only journals that even come close to a 72 hour turnaround are ‘unranked’ for the purposes of research funding exercises. I referee for leading international journals in my field and anything less than 6 months is pushing it.
The WHO are following the Science Fiction.
Ah that’s made us chuckle, thanks!
Personally I think that whether that particular drug is any use or not is a sideshow. What really matters is that most patients need no drugs at all, and that the lockdowns have been causing damage out of all proportion to what this pesky virus can do. Any talk either way about HCQ distracts from the tragedy of draconian lockdowns.
I think if its possible that a dose of HCQ every few days could have actually protected the vulnerable but that was actively covered up and instead they were predictably killed by negligent policy that would be pretty big scandal/crime in addition to the lockdown itself.
It is hard to believe any of this is real sometimes. I think we need to reinstate capital punishment specifically for the prosecution of the crimes that have been perpetrated over the last few months.
I’m afraid that ‘hanging is too good for them’ has been drifting through my mind.
Normally I’m against capital punishment because of the horrible possibility of hanging the wrong person, but there would be no chance of that in the present case.
Every press conference an admission of their guilt.
It’s quite alarming how murderous we’re sounding.
When I read about Whitty undermining Boris’ stated desire to lessen the 2m rule, my thought was “He needs taking out!”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/boris-johnson-says-he-wants-to-relax-2-metre-physical-distancing-rule
I was rather shocked at myself. What is this doing to us all?!
As a pharmacist I was amazed at the concern over HCQ safety. HCQ is a safer version of chloroquine, which is available in the UK without prescription for malaria prevention. It has been a P not POM medicine for decades. Most common side effect is nausea. Of course need to prove efficacy in covid but safety has never been an issue for this drug, especially if it could help in serious disease.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pandemic-sent-1-5-billion-children-home-from-school-many-might-not-return-11591179919
The Pandemic Sent 1.5 Billion Children Home From School. Many Might Not Return.
And we never do this for influenza, an infection, children are 20 times more likely to die from.
Left wingers, MSM, Hollywood what are you saying to millions of girls in Africa who might never come back to school ending up exploited, in prostitution, and oppressed?
Regarding Ofcom and the ongoing censorship by officialdom, the quote from Game of Thrones is more relevant than ever:
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar; you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
Perhaps it could be reworded: ” When you censor someone’s speech, you’re not proving that he’s guilty of fake news; you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say…and that he might be correct.”
Over on Breitbart, James Delingpole has written a scathing article about Boris’s government going full-steam ahead with its Green New Deal, to kill off what remains of our economy in the wake of the unnecessary CV19 lockdown.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/06/03/britain-unleashes-green-new-deal-to-kill-whats-left-of-the-economy/
Come on, Toby, we need a new political party. There’s no electoral difference between the four main parties (yes, I’m including the deluded Greens in this), and they’re destroying this country at a rapid pace. Can anyone think of any decision this current government has made that’s made any sense???
If this lot have their way we will be back to the Stone Age if we haven’t already.
Yes, just one: Boris has vetoed Corbyn’s attempt to get Bercow into the Lords!
Yep, that’s about it, I think. They’re about as “Conservative” as New Labour.
Greetings Fellow Sceptics!
Following on from my bus journey to Golders Green yesterday, today I went shopping at Waitrose in Finchley Road – it was fairly quiet, no one way system and people were pretty much ignoring the spots on the floor. The staff were carrying on as normal – no masks (save for 1), a few wearing gloves but apart from that it was fairly OK.
A few masked zombies but it was nice to see the older customers carrying on as normal.
Postscript from yesterday’s post:
I forgot to mention that I walked past a primary school yesterday and it was refreshing to see the kids and parents carrying on with no social distancing, no teachers were wearing PPE either.
Granted this was home time so Lord knows what its like during lessons and breaks.
That’s heartening to know.
It is but I suspect because its a private school either parents won’t stand for that sort of social distancing nonsense or the teachers themselves are dedicated to their job and said that they won’t do their jobs if they have to wear PPE. Or both.
Most of the people I SEE are behaving normally, what worries me is that there might be an unseen majority of cowardly zealots still holed up in their homes where we don’t see them and yet still capable of influencing the mainstream media from there.
That’s true and that’s why we have to keep up the pressure to the point that the zealots become a minority that no-one listens to.
A bit of a random question but out of interest, is there anyone else who hasn’t had any symptoms of Covid-19 at all? I’ve heard lots of anecdotal reports both on here and elsewhere on the internet of people having mild symptoms and thinking they’ve had it. Back in late February, my 15-year-old sister was bedridden with a pretty nasty respiratory virus which had all the same symptoms as Covid-19, and a week later my dad got a cough/breathlessness and my mum totally lost her voice – worse than she’s ever lost it before. They’re all convinced they had it. I wasn’t living with them at the time but I must have come into contact with the virus because I used public transport a lot, worked in an open-plan office, went out shopping every weekend, etc.
I just feel a bit left out really (haha) – either I am lucky enough to have avoided infection, or maybe I am one of the elusive asymptomatic infectees…
Yes, neither I nor my wife have had any covid symptoms. Whether asymptomatic or just resistant (we both had BCG jabs at school – which has been suggested to give some immunity) or simply spared, I have no idea!
I’ve felt rather queasy with headaches at times. My brothers and their families probably both had the virus earlier in the year, so I’ve probably been exposed to it at least. Of course, having spent over 3 years doing litter picking in my spare time, I may have developed some useful resistance!
I had some kind of cold-like thing in late Feb/early March, my Mrs had something milder, my young adult daughters, nothing.
I believe my nephew had it in December. All the symptoms and doctor first said flu, then bronchitis and finally pneumonia. The only one in the family who had symptoms, despite lots of exposure, was his grandmother who had a heavy cold.
Nada here. A few in my household were flattened by something in December but nothing other than that. I have taken no precautions other than washing my hands as often as I always have done. I have flouted rules, touched railings and opened mail without disinfecting it too.
You’re kidding me. People aren’t actually disinfecting mail?
I’ve heard of people refusing to touch mail for three days.
We’ve seen a man disinfecting his dog (well, wiping it over) after it had wandered off to greet another dog, as they do.
My neighbours stopped feeding rubbish “treats” to my cat for a while, and he didn’t come in stinking of fabric softener, which was great.
I had some kind of viral infection in very early March, which I’m not sure was CV19. The symptoms didn’t quite fit, i.e. raised temperature for just two days, weak and slightly nauseous for a few more, but no typical sore throat or breathlessness, just a very long-lasting cough.
You’re just 21, so should be physically fit and healthy, so you may have been in contact with it and never had any symptoms at all. If so, county yourself lucky.
No, but there again I’ve been following the advice of “stay alert” from day one. Where I live is in West London-when I got on the tube in the morning on the Piccadilly line I had the choice of taking the tube that had come from Heathrow Airport which contained newly arrived passengers and had added commuters in Hounslow or one that had come from the Uxbridge branch. The choice was easy as the Uxbridge trains were lightly used. As the Heathrow trains were packed as sardine cans and given the WHO advice (?) about 1 meter and 15 minutes close contact the choice was easy to make.
Hi Poppy
I’ve been very impressed by the passion of your previous posts.
The trouble with the thoughts that we may have “had it” is that the symptoms can be so similar to an ordinary cold or flu, which, of course, are rife through the winter. Briefly, my son and his wife visited us on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day and, on New Year’s Day, she was in a terrible state with Covid-like symptoms, as my son had been before Christmas. He traced his illness back to a client of his, with whom he had close contact, who had visited a friend in Hong Kong in mid-December and had been ill on her return, as had her husband to the point of being hospitalised. Now that we know from the positive test in late December in Paris that the virus was in Europe so long ago, and therefore in China way before then, all this “fits”. But flu comes from abroad too! Neither my wife nor I had any illness, despite prolonged contact with our son and his wife, but we did have flu jabs in December, which suggests it may have been flu. My son’s wife’s parents had the same illness, but they didn’t have flu jabs. So, my hunch is that Covid-like symptoms in the early months of this year are more likely to have been flu.
That’s what I initially thought too, and it would explain why my 15 year old sister got the infection far worse than my parents did – flu has been around a lot longer than Covid-19 so there is a chance my parents had some immunity to that and my sister does not. But they all insist that the symptoms were those of Covid – again, it seems that we still know so little about the symptomatic nature of this virus.
I think my 10 year old may of had symptoms back February half term. I know kids are less likely to get it and to have symptoms but it was like he had a really bad cold. The last couple days of school he was quite tired and said it was sore breathing sometimes. He was meant to be in a swimming competition on the Saturday which he ended up not doing as he was quite ill. Then although the tiredness eased he developed a really bad cough which he had for around 3-4 days. Alot of kids from his school also had bad coughs around the same time.
I only really remember so much as I’m lucky that he’s not a kid that gets ill alot. And what with it being half term and swimming competition which he was upset he couldn’t do.
My daughter thought she had it back at the beginning of March. She bought a covid-19 test kit and sent in her sample. Much to her disappointment, it came back negative today.
Neither I nor my husband nor any of my numerous sisters have had anything approaching the symptoms, and like you, I feel left out!!!
My daughter had the symptoms back back in early March. She bought a covid-19 antibody test as she really wanted to know if she had caught it. The results came back today – negative.
The tests aren’t 100% reliable (yet).
The results took 3 months? Very useful – not!
My wife and I had an unusual flu-like illness in February,we felt very unwell for about a week and I know of at least five other people who had a similar illness in the period from early December to March.I’ve only had proper influenza twice in my whole life and the illness this year,whatever it was,was nowhere near as bad although it was quite unpleasant.
My mum had a cough back in November which left her with really wobbly legs and feeling totally drained, she said it was as if she’d had flu but not. Maybe that was it. My sister had a sore throat and felt sick just prior to lockdown. I had a sore throat and cough in February picked up from a work colleague who had a cough, but his girlfriend had been in bed for a week with what sounds like the virus.
To be honest we”ll never know unless they actually find a test that works.
Probably had them all ! Given they cover and fucking well overlap with everything from the common cold to stress. Oh, had a dry mouth as well… Must have been covid..
, and of course not the after effects of copious amounts of alcohol I had on a weekend away in Germany at the end of February.
What a crock of devious shit this has all been
Almost the whole of our village (N. Wales) was ill in early December with similar symptoms. We think we caught C19 from the Chinese students at several local private schools.
At my younger son’s school a few kids came down with ‘a bug’ in mid January (several went skiing over Christmas). He developed what looked like Chicken Pox in late January, but as he had that as a child, we assumed it must be Shingles – fairly unusual in a teenager, and it didn’t look like classic Shingles. The doctor (from overseas) questioned whether it was Shingles and asked the partner for a second opinion. She diagnosed Shingles and he was given an anti-viral. He was poorly for about a week with headache, temperature and upset stomach. Elder son started university in London last autumn. He was (very unusually for him) ill enough with a cough, temperature and loss of appetite to visit the doctor. He was told it was a virus, but not sure what. However, on returning home from university in mid-March he suffered loss of smell and taste (not recognised as a CV symptom at that stage), a slightly raised temperature for about 36 hours, but no cough. Two friends on the same course and living in the same halls returned overseas and were tested for CV on arrival. Both tested positive, so I assume my son’s symptoms mean he has had CV. Neither my husband nor I have had any symptoms of CV despite both sons being with us while they were both ill as described.
I had a heavy cold in January which actually lasted 2 weeks. Whether that was a symptom or not, I don’t know but what I remember was that it was very cold and damp early in this year.
Asymptomatic infection appears to be incredibly common. Anecdotally, I know of several people who have been swabbed as a result of infected contacts, who have been found to be COVID positive. This is vastly borne out in the literature. Certainly, first hand, the symptoms I experienced when I had COVID were in no way classical, and in any other year I would have paid them no mind whatsoever- it was only my extensive reading on possible presentations, and the ability to be able to get a swab as a key worker (combined with a healthy level of hypochondria!) that meant I could be tested. At no point did I fulfil the criteria on the NHS website to have COVID- and if I’d followed their guidance, I’d have gone to work and likely infected patients. I note they’ve now amended the information to include anosmia, but honestly this is 1. too little too late and 2. completely ignoring the asymptomatic carriers.
I would also caution in putting too much emphasis on antibody testing. When it was first announced I thought it would be a panacea for this crisis- we could truly establish the number affected- but it’s becoming increasingly clear that not all individuals produce antibodies in response to covid- there is much discussion involving T cell mediated immunity and immunological cross reactivity to other endemic coronaviruses.
Simply put- it is increasingly becoming apparent that it is possible to have had COVID, have minimal symptoms and have a negative antibody test.
Interestingly I have been tested for antibodies- using the Roche test with high levels of specificity and sensitivity. I have had a positive PCR swab for the virus- the gold standard- I know that I have had it. I am interested to see if I will also have antibodies.
Here are some articles which discuss these issues. Please note that they are not peer reviewe- very little in COVID research is these days- and therefore lack quality control and must be read with a skeptical mind- keep your wits about you always and keep questioning- but they raise very interesting questions
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.21.108308v1
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.092619v1.full.pdf
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3
Cassandra, PCR is not a diagnostic test. The gold standard test is a blind screened blood sample with a recognised virus present.
The inventor of the PCR test has been saying this for years when it was used for HIV.
Interesting- that was what we were told back in med school- although I am more than willing to accept that sometimes when teaching students, a simple lie is may well be preferred over the complicated truth.
I shall have a search and a read up!
Kary Mullis is the name to look up, Cassandra. Nobel prize for devising PCR test. Totally opposed to its use in diagnosis.
Med school = hypochondriac. Interesting!
We knew about the anosmia two months ago. Matt Handjob says he had it.
They’ve just flagged it up again – maybe to coincide with hayfever season:
Fumes given off by Britain’s rapeseed crops are causing flu-like symptoms such as headaches, wheezing, streaming eyes and runny noses, according to health experts. … Beverley Adams-Groom, of the National Pollen And Aerobiology Research Unit, said the fumes are known to irritate the airways.
‘These compounds cause a very strong smell and trigger flu-like symptoms in some people,’ she said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-458357/Runny-eyes-wheezy-chest-Blame-Britains-crops-rapeseed.html
I had a dry cough around February time. It’s the worst cough I’ve had in a long time, probably ever, and lasted a few days. That’s it though, could well have been just a cough but seems a bit coincidental.
Not had any symptoms myself , my partner is a type one diabetic so was supposedly high risk , she was sent home from work a week before the lockdown by her company.
She was concerned at first so we did hunker down for the first two weeks ( even though i am a total cynic and don’t believe anything that comes from the establishment or MSM )
anyway after a couple of weeks my partner realised this is really nothing worry about so she started heading out as much as possible.
Sorry going off point here
My main point regarding whether i or anyone else i know had symptoms is that from October till the end of January myself and the rest of my work crew ( Electricians ) where eating in the Regency Cafe in Pimlico ( best greasy spoon in London btw ) which is a major tourist attraction for Chinese tourists , they literally head there straight from Heathrow still with their suitcases .
So Basically we where sitting next to Chinese tourists every day for four months during the height of the wuhan epidemic . One of the guys was very ill with flu for a week in January but that was it , although i was teasing him saying he has the whuflu and he’s not long for this world.
Looking back now its possible he had it and if he did have it , why just one of us if it’s so easily transmissible when you consider that in construction we all work at very close proximity to each over all day , constantly pass each other tools , make each other tea and share food around. Yet the rest of us were fine and if i could have been an asymptomatic carrier then surely i would have passed it to my partner as she has a compromised immune system. Also the one who was ill did not pass onto anyone in his household.
If this did come over from China as we are told then you would think somewhere like the Regency Cafe would be one of the epicentres of the outbreak in London what with it’s high number of Chinese tourists.
My wife had symptoms in early March that I dismissed at the time as a cold, but in retrospect maybe I should have dismissed it as Covid instead. Mostly it was pretty mild cold symptoms, but her sense of taste changed (not something anybody was talking about at the time) and she was exhausted for a couple of days after the other symptoms went away. No temperature though. She’s absolutely certain that’s what it was (and she was at the time), but who knows? Either way, whatever it was, I didn’t catch it, or at least, if I did, it didn’t give me so much as a sniffle.
The son and most people he worked with and a bad hacking cough and feeling like shit (only way to describe it) for weeks in Nov/Dec last year.
They all swear now it was coronavirus going by the symptoms.
I too had a very bad bug at Christmas, which I believe was Covid. Nasty sore throat followed by two weeks of debilitating continuous dry coughing. Took weeks to get over properly. Never had any cold or flu like it before.
Sounds like the same one.
Even though we were in close contact with the son and his girlfriend and ate at the restaurant they work at neither of us have had anymore than a sniffle for one day.
Might be all the vitamin C and D3, wholesome food and good nutrition (including alcohol for me) we take as a matter of course an have done for years.
Or just got lucky and had no symptoms which would be strange for the wife a she used to catch everything going until she ramped up the Vitamin C. No scientific proof, just saying that is what we have observed.
My husband was pretty poorly mid-February; he had a bad fever and a dreadful cough, he couldn’t get out of bed for a couple of days, which is completely unlike him! We just thought it was a bug but with hindsight perhaps it was Covid-19. I think I had a bit of a cold the following week, but was nowhere near as ill as he was. I had flu once, years ago, and felt as though I could die, my husband said his symptoms weren’t as bad as that.
Only anecdotal of course, but I live in Central London and I would say about 80% of my friends and business contacts have either had symptoms, or had a family member or colleague who had symptoms (and therefore probably have had some exposure).
I got it skiing in Switzerland in late February. Of our group of five, 2 had mild flu like symptoms, two lost sense of taste/smell (including me), and one had no symptoms and/or just didn’t get it. I didn’t get a test but my girlfriend, who works in healthcare, tested positive.
My mother and mother in law (87) had all the symptoms in December. In my office 2 of my colleagues came down with it and took a good few weeks to feel anything like normal, I lost my sense of taste and smell for two weeks, my son came back from uni absolutely jiggered, no energy for a week and he felt as though someone was sitting on his chest having had a high temp and sore throat the week before he came home, daughters had headaches, most of the rest of my family have had various degrees of symptoms.
Tha’s nobbut a spring chicken Poppy. You’ve probbaly had it and didn’t even know at the time.
My son thinks he had it in January – felt strangely rough for a few days.
A friend had a raging temperature in January but was diagnosed with pneumonia. It was cleared up by antibiotics – or was it?!
Every day that goes by I get more and more angry with the current situation. Early on I wrote to my MP to state my case. After a particularly bad day in the office (stupid sneeze boards stapled to our desks) I was at an all time low. Out of the blue I received a call from said MP. I don’t want to say who is he, as we spoke in confidence, but he is a front bencher.
Anyway I was delighted to hear that he agreed with me! Also that he admired Lord Sumption’ writing and commentary on the subject. He then went on to admit that politically they couldn’t reverse the lock down. The stumbling block was the public fervour that remained in place and also the fact the CMO and CSA were advising against any easing. Despite that fact that many ministers including Boris also wanted an end to it!
However the conversation lifted my spirits as it confirmed what I already knew – I was right to think the way I did!
10 days have gone by and alas things have gotten no better! After hearing that my youngest son was stopped from hugging his older brother at school, my spirit broke somewhat, prompting another, angry letter. The shame of it is, I have always supported this man and believed that Johnson would be a good PM. Anyway my latest letter is below, maybe I was a bit harsh (ranty said the wife) but I am really struggling at the moment and this is really my only outlet!
Dear XXXX,
I write to you again with a sense of growing dread and frustration. When we spoke on the phone ten days ago, I was elated to hear you shared, in part, my view towards the ongoing lock down. However, it seems that the Government is to stay on the disastrous path they have set us upon!
There is still no clear attempt to right the wrongs that have been committed in haste and without justification to the citizens of this country. No messages to ease a frightened population. No effort to put over the basic facts!
(Borrowed this bit of text from a site link from Lockdown Sceptics)
This is a mild disease, one which was downgraded from a HCID back in March.
Most people won’t get the virus.
Most of the people who get it won’t display symptoms.
Most of the people who display symptoms will only be mildly sick.
Most of the people with severe symptoms will never be critically ill.
And most of the people who get critically ill will survive.
I go to work on a reduced rota and walk in a one way system around an office, that now has white screens stapled to the desks. I form part of a ridiculous queuing system when I go to the shops and even more absurdly, my children are now being forced to follow mock examples of this in their school! You plan on enforcing a 14 day quarantine on air passengers, you persist with this ‘doomed to fail’ track and trace system! Is there no limit to the amount of resources and money you will waste in an attempt to delay an illness comparable to influenza?
It would seem that the complete madness that has been cultivated in our society, is being allowed to play out whatever the costs. Is there no one, no single member of parliament with the strength and conviction to call this for what it actually is?
Quite frankly I feel that the Government have chosen to put its own Political interests before that of its citizens. The only action I have is to write to you to let you know the anger and contempt I now hold your party in.
I said before that I had always been a supporter of yours, I’ve listened to and agreed, with many of the things you have said. Why now, are you publicly silent?
You told me that you were following the science? Clearly that was not the case when the lock down was introduced! It was not a recommended course of action by SAGE, as the minutes recently released have shown.
When the scaremongering, which has worked on so many millions, begins to fade, how will you answer to your part in this? Where will you stand when we look back and debate these times, these decisions, these courses of action that your leadership has chosen to take?
I for one will find some peace in the fact that I stood against it. I was not complicit, I knew it was wrong. In that I also know that I can never forgive the Conservative party for this and shall never cast my vote for them again.
This confirms my suspicion that while the politicians are accountable, the public is the real problem.
True enough, but if MPs disagree they need to have the courage to say so.
Apparently there have been rumblings from Welsh Tories. And about bloody time.
Both of them? That’ll terrify the hundreds of socialists in Welsh politics.
The public have been whipped into a frenzy of fear by the media death campaign eg using crisis actors in the ‘nhs’
This whole thing stinks to high heaven
I don’t disagree… but most of us here very quickly came to our senses, if we even missed a beat in the first place.
Far too many people are not revising their opinions when the facts change.
Very good to hear your MP agrees with us, Paceyjg. Thank you.
Fantastic letter, I hope your MP hangs his head in shame and has sleepless nights night after night, as I do, over all this. What on earth can their excuse be for going on with this? It seems that this MP thinks the public is much too dim to accept the truth. Perhaps – almost certainly in many cases – he is right. But that isn’t an excuse, it’s an monumental moral failure. Not one MP in this country deserves public office. Most aren’t fit for any job at all.
Sounds like a load of BS. They can’t hide behind the CSO and the CMA. It’s the government that are supposed to make the decisions!
If Boris really wants to end the lockdown, why appear at the press briefing flanked by the dissenting CSO and CMA?
It’s nonsense – or cowardice of unprecedented proportions.
OOps, sorry Pacey. I should make it clear that your letter is great but I think your frontbencher’s excuse was a load of BS.
Well said, and just how I feel regarding the Conservative party.
If they had the courage of their convictions, as we know now from the SAGE minutes, they wouldn’t have gone for lockdown in the first place. I don’t envy the cabinet for the decision they have in front of them now. It must be clear by now that this is all a nonsense, but public opinion, the press and the opposition are noisily terrified every time they tried to make a change (far more so than in any other European country). If Boris followed the Norwegian Prime Minister and went on screen to say it was a mistake… at this point, everyone would think it was a trick.
I am actually quite impressed, Toby (and I like to think that’s not easily achieved). I have bee banned from mainstream media sites as “racist” for pointing out crime statistics in the way you do here. The truth, it appears, is “racist” in our warped and twisted society. It takes real courage to take on the antiracists – much more than it does the coronaphobes, even over such a relatively easy target as the BLM zealots. Good stuff!
Just to push it a little further:
“The murder of George Floyd was certainly horrific and the white police officer who killed him may have been racist.“
This was not necessarily a murder, and actually is quite unlikely to have been a murder at all, imo. I think it’s very unlikely the policeman in question will get a fair trial – juries are as influenced by hysteria as anyone and there will be huge pressure on any court to convict, if only to avoid the likely riots resulting from an acquittal. But it seems pretty unlikely that there was intent to kill here.
The internet suggests the policeman is being charged with “third degree murder”, which is a rather parochial Minnesota concept that seems to be a form of manslaughter, and second degree manslaughter. But until he has been convicted there is no “murder” here.
Obviously anyone can express an opinion that a killing was murder, especially when it’s an event in a foreign country. but I would suggest that to do so in the current context is to encourage the worst kind of inflammatory propaganda over this incident.
George Floyd told police he was struggling to breathe before an officer put a knee on his neck
Prosecutors detail the final moments of Floyd’s life as he begged for air.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/george-floyd-told-police-he-was-struggling-breathe-officer-put-n1218556
He may have been having a heart attack even before he was handcuffed, if this report is correct, in which case it wouldn’t even have been manslaughter. I’ve heard it said that he had a couple of drugs in his system which could have brought on a heart attack, including fentanyl.
If true, it’s a shame the police officers didn’t realise before trying to restrain him, though I’m sure the far left would have found something else to protest against.
I’d much prefer not to have to speculate on this kind of complex matter, but clearly the deluded masses, including virtually our entire media and political classes of “opinion leaders”, have already leaped to a grossly prejudiced presumption of the facts that is wholly unwarranted by any information they can possibly have.
And rather than being open to discussion, the vast majority are not only fixed in their opinion but are viciously hostile towards anyone raising any doubt about their assumption.
The very definition of bigotry.
I think in general it’s best to establish as much of the truth as possible before passing judgement – that’s what courts are for.
The whole business is very sad. I don’t know what the answer is, and to be honest I can’t see one coming any time soon, but I don’t think the path we’re on is the right one.
It’s really for the Americans to sort out, in my view. I think we have enough problems of our own. But I agree that a lot of the stuff people come out with on this subject is muddled, to put it mildly, and muddled thinking tends to be a general habit that leads to, for example, acceptance of unworkable solutions to overestimated problems.
The reality is of course that many of the people leaping to these conclusions, in public at least, are not interested in the truth of such events, but rather in how useful they can be for pushing their own agendas. The rest are just blind followers of the kind who gobbled up the corona fear-porn..
One question that the MSM is not answering, if the 2 of them worked together as security at a nightclub why did the victim not say the policeman’s name during the incident?
https://kstp.com/news/george-floyd-fired-officer-overlapped-security-shifts-at-south-minneapolis-club-may-28-2020/5743990/
It’s all a bit strange, but the flurry of public displays of ‘solidarity’ and virtue marketing have helped me pick out the kinds of companies i will no longer give my business to, specifically those wheedling sops who used the opportunity to pop up from nowhere after having done nothing useful for months, just to say they will donate some of their earnings to a ‘worthy’ cause. Business can’t have been too bad for them these last two months then, eh?
Those worried about not being able to have sex with somebody outside your own household, under The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 which were brought into force from Monday 1st June, I may have found a legal loophole:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/558/pdfs/uksi_20200558_en.pdf
It says: “7.—(1) During the emergency period…no person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place—
(a) outdoors, and consists of more than six persons, or
(b) indoors, and consists of two or more persons.
It then says you can be exempted, if “the gathering is reasonably necessary” and includes —
“(i) for work purposes”
Here’s the loophole: As long as one party pays for sex, this would fall under prostitution which is legally a form of work, and therefore exempt from the restrictions. Remember, in Great Britain, prostitution is legal as long as you don’t solicit.
Alternatively you could both start a business together (perhaps setup a limited company) and therefore every time you meet up it would be “for work purposes”.
I hope this is of some comfort to anyone concerned.
Nice dodge and slightly kinky.
In truth, encouraging prostitution is no more un-“Conservative” than most of the rest of this government’s actions, so they probably won’t have any problem with that anyway.
There’s nothing unconservative or immoral about the world’s oldest profession. A prostitute doesn’t get half your stuff, all your money and your kids at the end of your transaction.
Or have sex outside. At least the neighbours won’t be able to snitch to the plod about having someone over to stay in their house illegally…
Oh, this is crazy!! How can we accept that the government can say who we can or can’t invite to stay in our home if we wish!? Just ignore them. It’s a ridiculous law that should be ignored, unless you’re hooking up with an eighty-year-old with existing health issues, in which case, good luck to the both of you.
Or you could say you had a desire to commit sexual assault on a random person but your friend offered a safe alternative. That would count as reasonably necessary to me.
Joking aside, do we really think the police would be paying any heed to this new law? Some of the dodgiest people I know are in law enforcement.
Surely the dodgiest people are the curtain twitchers who would actually report someone staying the night?
Does that mean that prostitutes don’t have to wear masks, while hairdressers do?
I’ve not seen this mentioned at all in the comments, but has any seen the Week 21 ONS figures released on Tuesday?
There is now a death involving COVID-19 listed in the “COVID-19 Weekly Occurrences” table shows one “Death involving COVID-19” in Week 7 (1st Feb 2020 – 7th Feb 2020) that is for a Male in the 75-79 year old range.
I checked the Week 19 figures but this death does not appears, and I checked the Week 21 figures and this is when it appeaed.
Now this is very strange, as the first death we have all been told was on the 2nd March 2020, but this death in the latest figures took place between the 1st Feb 2020 and the 7th Feb 2020.
So, with the experts saying death 3-4 weeks after initial infection, this means that this person would’ve been infected between the 11th January 2020 and the 17th January 2020.
Why has this all been hushed up, and we’re still being told the 2nd March 2020 was when the first death took place.
Sorry, i should’ve put Week 20 is when the death appeared in the figures, in the 3rd paragraph.
This tallies up with the theory that the virus has been around for far longer than we originally thought, but is it possible for them to retroactively fiddle with the death stats as well? It wouldn’t make sense to fiddle with stats as early as February though, because as I said that lends weight to the theory that the virus has been spreading silently for ages and is thus less deadly, going against the government narrative.
How many flu and pneumonia deaths for week 21? Add it onto the 40,348 up to week 20.
Flu & Pneumonia not reported. They won’t be known until the full figures for May 2020 are published. For April there was around 25,000 deaths, compared to the 5-year average of 33,500, so down by 8,000-9,000
Actually, after finding the exact figures for both months there is a grand total of 28,358 that include “Influenza and Pneumonia”.
For deaths that only had ““Influenza and Pneumonia” on the death certificate, there were 7,997 deaths in April (weeks 14-17), and 4,704 deaths in May so far (weeks 18-21). So, a total of 12,701.
For deaths that had ““Influenza and Pneumonia” and also mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate, there were 9,963 deaths in April (weeks 14-17), and 5,694 deaths in May so far (weeks 18-21). So, a total of 15,657.
Just to put that 28,358 deaths into perspective, they was a total of 43,047 COVID-19 deaths during weeks 14-21.
So, “Influenza and Pneumonia” was involved in 65.88% of all the deaths.
Disregard that last percentage.
With their being 15,637 deaths that had ““Influenza and Pneumonia” and also mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate, this mean that 36.37% of the 43,047 COVID-19 deaths during weeks 14-21 involved “Influenza and Pneumonia”
So what did the rest of the Covid-19 patients die from? Did they just die WITH the virus?
No, there will be very few that just died of COVID-19. 90.4% in March & April had pre-existing illnesses that were listed on the death certificate with COVID-19. The other thing is that no one seems to be dying of “Old age” anymore, so even though 60% were over 80 years old, there was no listing of “Old age” on death certificates like there was before COVID-19 appeared.
Also, the breakdown of the % of COVID-19 deaths during weeks 14-21 are as follows:
80+ year old, which is 59.83%
70-79 Year olds were 22%
60-69 Year olds were 9.56%
50-59 Year olds were 4.46%
0-49 Year olds were 1.93%
I’ve screenshotted the part of the table it’s in.
Thanks for pointing this out. This is certainly the sort of question that one of the journos should ask at the daily press conference (some hope!). CV was made a ‘notifiable disease’ on 5 March 2020. Why would the government want to reclassify a death to before it was recognised as a cause of death in law? If there are blood samples lingering somewhere from people who have died several months ago, and the timeline for the outbreak in China can be confirmed as several months earlier than the official narrative (French and American athletes at the Wuhan military games have said they were unwell with a mystery illness in early October 2019, and the Cambridge University team estimate that the first mutation of the virus could have been in September 2019), then it is further supporting evidence for Professor Gupta vs Professor Ferguson. Unlock now!
Well… This is dynamite, isn’t it? Either the illness was around a lot longer ago than we were told and it was hushed up, or a government agency has been fiddling with official statistics, or it’s a mistake (how?). Can anyone suggest a suitably high-profile person who could take this up with a government figure, or get it into the MSM?
I have just read in New Scientist (which hss gone all Coviescared, BTW) that almost no autopsies have been done on Covid victims because the pathologists are too scared to do them. So we know practically nothing about how the virus affects the body.
There is speculation that it may attack the brain, but surely this must involve some confusion with Coronaphobia.
I think it has affected Boris Johnson’s brain. It would have affected Hancock too, but he is brainless.
From the Facts about Covid website (formerly A Swiss Doctor etc…) This was in April I believe. ‘Germany: The German Robert Koch Institute now advises against autopsies of test-positive deceased persons because the risk of droplet infection by aerosols is allegedly too high. In many cases, this means that the real cause of death can no longer be determined.
A specialist in pathology comments on this as follows: “Who might think evil of it! Up to now, it has been a matter of course for pathologists to carry out autopsies with appropriate safety precautions even in the case of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, PRION diseases, etc. It is quite remarkable that in a disease that is killing thousands of patients all over the world and bringing the economy of entire countries to a virtual standstill, only very few autopsy findings are available (six patients from China). From the point of view of both the epidemic police and the scientific community, there should be a particularly high level of public interest in autopsy findings. However, the opposite is the case. Are you afraid of finding out the true causes of death of the positively tested deceased? Could it be that the numbers of corona deaths would then melt away like snow in the spring sun?“’
Hello Annie,
There have been post-mortem examinations done in Germany and Switzerland.
My own ‘lockdown’ hero is Professor Klaus Pueschel of the University Medical Centre in Hamburg. He ignored the advice of the Robert Koch Institute (the German Government’s medical advisors) that it would be ‘too dangerous’ to carry out autopsies on COVID-19 patients and has, with his team, done around 150. As far as I am aware, ALL of the victims examined to date have had comorbidities, some of which were previously undiagnosed.
Professor Pueschel stated in an interview with the Hamburger Morgenpost on 6th April that ‘no-one has died of COVID-19 alone’. He also said that the ‘lockdown’ was out of all proportion to the threat posed by the virus, and predicted that the ‘pandemic’ would be little more than a blip on the annual mortality rates (which will probably be true in Germany, which has avoided our care homes fiasco).
Most of the articles relating to his work are in German, but Der Spiegel did publish one in English on their international website:
https://www.spiegel.de/international/learning-from-the-dead-what-autopsies-can-reveal-about-covid-19-a-6d9db1d4-1a47-4603-843a-94c949a29161
Hope this is of interest.
It most certainly is.
Thank you.
I wonder what proportion of Covid victims in Britain have been safely cremated so that no investigation will ever be possible?
A work colleague who had it said she was very very sick and that it spread into her other organs (eg kidneys) and took a long time to get rid of. She was otherwise healthy and slim and around 48. I had close contact with her before she got it and had very strange headaches and dizziness but was still fine to go to work. So not sure. I never get the flu though so it was unusual for me.
There have been rumblings about autopsies by the Royal College of Pathologists. See below:
https://www.rcpath.org/uploads/assets/c75b94a2-99e2-4ce4-86bcf0a7e61fdb03/Letter-Death-Investigations-Committee-regarding-about-statistics-on-deaths-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic-12-May-2020.pdf
Thank you for that. The letter should be required reading for everybody.
Among other excellent points, they point out that autopsies would improve knowledge and hence help to improve treatment.
Not rocket science, just common sense.
Which is rarer than diamond dust right now.
….. Many studies worldwide have shown that, when apost mortem examination is carried out, major discrepancies may be identified between the certified clinical cause of death and the cause of death determined at a post mortemexamination. One manifestation of this is that a clinical cause of death may fail to determine the difference between someone dying with COVID-19 infection as opposed to someone dying of it.Given these factors, death certification data upon which epidemiologists are relying and using to contribute to Government policy is likely to be flawed…..
Wow!
Also, the five high profile child deaths that were all over the MSM, are still not showing in the figures, and this is two months since they happened.
I have met a brick wall of silence in my investigation into these deaths, all I get is “we do not discuss individual cases”.
It was in the community in Paris by end December 2019 (confirmed by test on old sample). Inconceivable that it took 4 further months to reach UK but as it hadn’t been identified no one was looking for it. And anyone hospitalised with it before March would not have been isolated, no ppe used, so very easy to start a nosocomial outbreak in the hospital.
Well today is a sad day, my wife received her paperwork through from The Dept. for Employment or whatever they are called. She has signed on the dole.
As a professional she has had periods out of work in the past but we just work through until she is back in work. This time it feels different, she is applying for work within a 50 mile radius of home, so far only one response to an application and that was a thanks but no thanks, “we had so many people apply”.
At 55 she has competition from younger less experienced, but lower cost people in her field of expertise is going to be tough.
We shall see. We are not complaining, we have our health, and each other.
Hello Dave,
You have my sympathy. Sadly, your wife will not be alone. I work in the construction industry. I anticipate a flurry of activity once ‘lockdown’ ends, as people complete projects that have been on hold. Thereafter, I think we’ll be in for a very long lean period. I’m expecting to be out of work within a year – on the scrapheap at 58. Still, at least I’ll have my medal from Boris for the sacrifices I made in the war on COVID-19. That’ll help me feed my kids…
Very sorry to hear what has happened to your wife. I work in the museums and heritage sector which will be in for some very tough times with the economic recession and the proposed “social distancing” measures.
I dread to think of what will happen as people are made redundant, sign up for the dole then struggle to get any new job.
I’m furloghed. I’m 64 and a widower. I’m pretty sure I will have no job to go back to. Thank goodness I own my house outright, but it’s going to be a lean lean time.
I can’t help thinking that we should all be out now, marching on Downing St like the BLM protestors. I’m not sure though that we have the same impetus as it’s only estimated that the lockdown could lead to 60000 unnecessary deaths from cancer, heart issues, organ failure and suicide. If only we could find something important enough to get everybody angry, something that’s actually happened in this country to drive people out onto the streets to protest at the way we’re being treated?
There are two reasons why we cannot march like the BLM fantasists, or not to any useful effect at this stage..
First we lack the numbers. As with coronaphobia, the BLM/antiracist delusion is shared by the vast majority. Like coronaphobia (and for quite similar reasons and by quite similar people) it has been indoctrinated into the population by the mainstream media, but that’s been going on for decades now and is even more deeply embedded.
Second, unlike theirs, our view is actual dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy, and will be responded to as such. There would be as strong and physical a police crackdown as necessary, and no sympathy whatsoever in the media. What reports there were would emphasize the badthink nature of any demonstrators to ensure there would be no popular sympathy.
It’s night and day. The difference between true dissent and reinforcement of prevailing official dogma. If there is a parallel between BLM and coronapanic demonstrators, it would be with a bunch of people demonstrating against lifting the lockdown “too quickly” and full of hysterical banners about “saving the NHS” and “protecting teachers”..
Sad but very, very true. Makes me want to weep.
Yes indeed. Report on the BBC news website about the legality or otherwise of protests, no mention of the anti-lockdown protests, obviously. It tentatively concludes they are illegal “on paper”, then goes on to report the below.
So the UK police leadership have pretty much taken sides in this one, and guess which side they are on.
So if we do have a mass protest, we need to make sure there are at least 3,000 of us, seem like we’d kick off big-time if challenged, and failing that quote that the right to protest is part of democracy.
I’ll be writing to the National Police Chiefs Council, shortly.
“Chief constables today talk about their public duty to “facilitate” demonstrations – and that they only turn to force – such as bringing in riot police – if they believe they are going to have to quell trouble.
And it seems pretty clear that the police don’t want to break up peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrations even though, on paper at least, they would breach coronavirus laws.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told the London Assembly on Wednesday that her officers faced a difficult situation last Saturday when 3,000 people demonstrated in London over Mr Floyd’s death.
“If you put yourself in the shoes of a public order commander dealing with a protest which has come almost from nowhere, which has no organiser, nobody will engage with you, then you have to make your judgements at the time,” she said.
She added that officers decided that had they tried to enforce a mass dispersal, “we would probably have ended up with very serious disorder”.
She and the other members of the National Police Chiefs Council have instead issued a very strong and unusual statement in the hope of calming tensions.
They said they are appalled by Mr Floyd’s death in Minnesota and know people want to make their voices heard.
“The right to lawful protest is a key part of any democracy, which UK police uphold and facilitate,” the statement added.
It pointed out that with gatherings of more than six people outdoors still restricted, “we ask that people continue to work with officers at this challenging time”.”
These comments by senior policemen are obvious flat out lies, because they clearly did not “facilitate” the small anti-lockdown protest, and there clearly was no trouble that they needed to “quell” when they made arrests.
These people are politically motivated liars. Anyone who doesn’t see it is simply deluded.
I tend to agree. What makes me angriest is that I don’t think these people really care about BLM or whatever, they just feel the need to say they do, for fear of opprobrium or worse. The same goes for, for example, the PM.
Doubtless there are people who deeply and sincerely hold such beliefs, but I think they are stil in the minority. In reality a small but significant number of manipulative people have managed to turn somewhat extreme views into the accepted mainstream – accepted at least in terms of lip service if not accepted into people’s hearts and souls – at least not yet.
The BLM protests are providing a very useful smokescreen for now.
I wonder why on earth they would think that attempts to break up the BLM protests would lead to “very serious disorder”, whereas they had no qualms about doing so when faced with a hundred middle-class and mixed age white Britons a few weeks back.
I’m not up to the task of deciphering this conundrum.
Someone may need to commit suicide in public.
Horrifically, I’m being serious.
Tbh, I’d consider it. My children are grown up and independent. I consider my main duties in life done. I have only increasing contempt for the people of my nation. Nobody lives forever.
Not saying I’m enthusiastic about the idea….
Not volunteering for that one, but sometimes I feel I’m getting close to wanting to commit murder in public. The list of potential victims is long.
Long and growing.
Hara-kiri in front of Number 10 or outside the Houses of Parliament?
It has crossed my mind… and I would if I thought humanity was worth saving from itself. But I don’t. I just want it ALL to burn now.
Pfft, people will be dying in their thousands due to lack of medical care and they’re happy to accept them as collateral damage.
Public suicide would probably be met with cries of “burn the witch”, “another one for the Darwin awards” and “Granny killer”
Even more horrifically, I think you may be right.
“Oh that mad bitch killed herself, Darwin award lolololololol!”
Truthfully, yesterday I would have volunteered. I was so bad, so down, so depressed, it would have been a welcome relief. Today I just want to fight someone.
Stick with today’s mood,Carrie.
IT WILL END. AND THERE WILL BE A RECKONING.
Really? I hope so. But today I’m in the same mood Carrie was in yesterday. It’s suddenly hit me and I’m really low. In a way LS doesn’t help. I’m glad it’s here – don’t get me wrong – cos I’m sharing with like-minded people. At other times, like now, it makes me feel so helpless. And I spend too long here and I don’t see any end to it. yet, if I wasn’t here I’d feel lost. God I am angry and depressed today. I really want a reckoning. But as someone else said here about a week ago, it never happened with the banks in 2008, why would it happen with this?
Folks. Take a deep breath. Shut down all devices with links to the Internet.
Find some space where Nature rules. Flowers bud, bees buzz, birds sing, etc. Nature is completely sane. So are you. Only Covid Man in this world is vile. Cut him out of the picture, and refresh yourselves.
Echoes of the Vietnamese monk that set himself on fire. An image that still haunts me.
Takes some bottle to go that way. Pistol to the side of the head I could do.
Used as an album cover by Rage Against the Machine.
Take the Power Back!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqkMsXcHQYg
The upcoming Austerity measures and cuts that will soon be in place is something that should be being focussed. The banking crisis austerity was never out the news or social media either the claim of 500,000 deaths.
We’re in a bigger mess financially now than the banking crisis, so we could be looking at 1-2 millions austerity deaths.
Chester Zoo told to prepare to remain closed ‘indefinitely’ putting the future survival of the zoo at risk
https://www.chesterzoo.org/news/chester-zoo-told-to-prepare-to-remain-closed-indefinitely-putting-the-future-survival-of-the-zoo-at-risk/
Love that zoo from the TV series. A beacon of enlightened zoo keeping and conservation.
Wicked, wicked, WICKED.
https://apnews.com/3c061794970661042b18d5aeaaed9fae
China delayed releasing coronavirus info, frustrating WHO
How about this one:
https://www.facebook.com/matthancockofficial/photos/a.523654854422238/2010641649056877/?theater
No wonder he’s perfected his straight faced look while he spouts all those lies and waffle.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/02/two-metre-social-distancing-rulebased-outdated-science-may-have/
Two-metre social distancing rule based on outdated science that may have largely overestimated coronavirus risk
What do they mean ‘may have’? It’s bleedin’ obvious innit?
Still, they can’t police it unless they run around with tape measures so who cares? (Except the poor retailers who are losing business. Sorry, I empathise with them. I’m just talking about defiance.)
I can rebel against it quite happily but unfortunately businesses can’t and I feel seriously angry on their behalf and on behalf of their customers!
Talking of customers, did you see this latest insult to normal people?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/03/mcdonalds-parking-row-council-tells-homeowners-cannot-park-outside/
Unless you’re the CSO!
“It’s not an absolute [that] beyond two metres is safe and slightly less is not safe, there’s a graduation across that, and so roughly at a metre it’s somewhere between 10 and 30 times more risky than at two metres,” Sir Patrick told the Downing Street press conference on May 28.
That man must go!!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-can-t-neil-ferguson-s-imperial-model-be-replicated-
Why can’t Neil Ferguson’s Imperial model be replicated? | The Spectator
He answers the questions looking downward like a little boy who’s been caught doing something naughty.
And he’s tidied himself up. Guilty man in the dock!
Ok, the fraudulent death certificates are the biggest scandal ever, and it’s happening everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdDUyHdfC7A&list=WL&index=3 — This is Dr Pam Popper again (brilliant in her incandescent rage). At 13:20 she starts talking about death registration in Washington State, and the figures are staggering-
Back to me, hello.
100-87 = 13. 13% possible genuine covid deaths.
Sound familiar? Italy revised their deaths down to 12% of the total.
Everyone is overstating their covid deaths by 80-90%, even the hardest hit countries/regions. IT’S AN ABSOLUTE F—G SCANDAL.
I conclude with my favourite oxymoron – moderate certainty – that the majority of ‘covid’ deaths are in fact deaths that would have happened in the same time frame anyway.
Also lockdown collateral deaths (including gunshot wounds ;p) make up a significant minority of ‘covid’ deaths – and this minority will gradually become the majority as time goes on and the virus slowly dies out.
“Sound familiar? Italy revised their deaths down to 12% of the total.”
I’m reminded of this glorious performance, certainly unequalled by anything produced by any of our pathetic eunuch politicians.
I love him. What a legend.
Bloody marvellous. Tanto di cappello!
The Spanish government claimed zero deaths for 2 days running despite authorities in the autonomous regions notifying them daily of deaths in their regions. The government themselves claimed there were 64 deaths in Spain over the past week but the total death count went up by 1. The method of counting deaths has changed 8 times.
I mean, wtf?!
It makes a nonsense of the public record. How is anybody ever meant to disentangle the actual figures from the misreporting, for future posterity, and to make proper assessment when tackling any further outbreaks?
And that’s not to mention the thousands of cases where families will never truly be able to know the cause of death of one of their relatives.
It’s repugnant that this lackadaisical attitude to clinical reporting has been allowed.
I am now beginning to view the lockdown as a coup.
It’s not a Tory or a right-wing coup, but a parliamentary coup. They are all 650 of them in on this. I practically begged my (Labour) MP to oppose the Coronavirus Act, not that he was in the least bit interested in what I had to say on the matter.
I’m not saying that they deliberately planned this. Politicians are opportunistic creatures. These slavering hyenas and vultures will very happily feast on the decaying corpse of British democracy, severely injured as it has been by the virus of mainstream media fearmongering and pornography.
I am sure that the example provided by the civil servant of the German Ministry of Interior is exactly mirrored by what has happened here. Only here, our intrepid gaolers have been more careful to hide their tracks.
Any doubts that this is a coup this ought – in my view – to be dispelled by the news that the freedom to criticise the government regime over this lockdown has been throttled by Ofcom.
I recognise that it may seem an exaggeration to view this as a coup. But I am serious, and I would ask people here to seriously consider this as a realistic possibility.
And it’s not a question of the Johnson regime giving us back our democratic freedom. It wasn’t theirs to take from us in the first place! They have no right to do what they are doing. For any reason.
I note that arch remainer Jolyon Maugham QC has now woken up to the reality.Remainers and Brexiteers who genuinely value freedom and liberty must set all differences aside and unite.
I had thought that Brexit was the most important issue to concern Britain, but now I must agree with your views and now believe that this ‘coup’ (or whatever it is) is now considerably more important than Brexit. I NEVER saw that happening!
As a remainer I agree with that. Never thought anything worse than Brexit was likely to happen, thought there would be no more dangerous whitehall powergrab over people’s rights coming, then we get the lockdown. And the EU did nothing to protect us from it whilst we were still in the transiation period and under their courts, I voted remain because I liked it when the EU blocked whitehall attempts to further undermine civil rights, with the EU’s failrue to act at this most terrible time I’m no longer much bothered either way about the leave-remain debate.
Toby added a quote recently along the lines of ‘the future of politics will no longer be along the lines on capitalism vs socialism but will be democracy vs paternalism.
This made me think about the number of Common Purpose ‘graduates’ who are employed in our quangos, public services, universities and the BBC.
The current woke fad smacks of paternalism, we know how you should think and we will shame you until you think like us.
Common Purpose used to claim that they were providing leadership in a post-Democratic world.
Well, here we are!
It’s a coup. It may not have started out as one, but it is now. Our basic freedoms have been taken away and we now live in a police state. What makes me more angry than anything (and I’m pretty angry at most of it) is that the great British public have compliantly surrendered all their rights.
And the MPs are being very handsomely paid to stay away and not do their job.
It has all the hallmarks of a coup, but it isn’t a deliberate coup for the same reason that conspiracy theories never really add up: there’s no evidence to suggest that any government is competent enough to be able to achieve something so clever on purpose.
I’m utterly verklempt.
We’ve stopped cancer treatment, encouraged people to stay at home when it’s clearly damaged their health. We’ve stopped children getting an education, and stopped any recourse of freedom for children from abusive homes. We’ve locked people inside with abusers, forced people to spend weeks in essentially solitary confinement. We’ve prevented isolated and at risk people from having any human contact. We’ve intruded into private lives, and allowed interference to an Orwellian degree. We’ve ruined vast sectors of the economy, destroyed so many small businesses, pursued a policy that will result in hundreds of thousands- millions being unemployed. We’ve allowed neighbours to snitch on and police neighbours, encouraged hostility. We’ve prevented free movement, closed borders, filmed people with drones for taking a walk?! We’ve told everyone that we must accept a new normal, based on social distancing, based on a lack of human touch for millions. We’ve curtailed so many basic human rights and we are willing to continue to do so indefinitely. Because of COVID. Because the threat of COVID is apparently so great that the ends justify the means.
Meanwhile there are pictures of tens of thousands of people protesting in London today with zero social distancing. And that’s ok?!
Where is the condemnation? The hypocrisy is utterly overwhelming. For what it’s worth, I have nothing against the BLM movement, broadly agree with it, and firmly believe in the right of individuals to protest. But I cannot fathom the fact that no one seems to care. If COVID is so bad that it requires the heinous sacrifices we have made over the last few months, where is the outcry?
You have Boris telling people they can’t enter loved ones houses, can’t be inside with them- as though this is a reasonable imposition on peoples lives- meanwhile yards away thousands of people are crowding outside Downing Street. And there’s no denunciation of that?!
I am so angry. This whole thing makes an utter mockery of any kind of rule or law. It also makes an utter mockery of the claim that all this is necessary to defeat COVID. Either it is necessary, or it isn’t. The same “pro lockdown” people are now pro demonstration, how does that have any sort of internal logic?
This evening I am angrier than I have ever been with a government. I have felt disenfranchised in the past, I have felt ignored, I have even felt betrayed- but I have never felt such wholesale hypocrisy as that which is currently taking place.
This protest and the lack of response, disrespects every single person who has died as a result of this lockdown- or will die- and they will be legion. Either this lockdown is required, and should be equally applied to all, or it is not and we need to stop harming our citizens in aid of it.
How on earth can we have got to the stage where it’s ok for the government to exercise complete control over what I do in my own house, but it’s not ok for the government to have control over 15,000 people walking though the middle of London?
Hear, hear. The future is looking increasingly bleak, with further insults-plus-injuries to come in the form of the quarantine of arrivals and the even more insidious and deadly Net Zero project. The ruins of this country may well make WW2 seem a picnic!
Are the government trying to wreck the economy on purpose? Makes me wonder sometimes.
Well, some political hot potatoes like Heathrow 3rd runway will no longer be a problem for hmg once they have destroyed all the airlines. In France, the airline bailouts were contingent on reducing internal flights so no competition with trains. One example of the ‘new normal’. Thank god I’m not young.
While at the same time, boats of migrants enter freely and illegally, 167 just today..
Totally agree with you iv moving between extreme anxiety and extreme anger and I’m starting to depise a spineless individual who couldn’t manage a piss up in a brewery
Me too Nic,yesterday I was so full of anger I felt like I was about to burst but today I have had an increasing sense of doom and hopelessness,I have to say that at times today I have felt close to tears.I could never in my worst nightmares imagined that the whole planet could be pushed to the edge of disaster,for no apparent good reason,so quickly.Growing up in the 1970s and early 80s I was used to the constant fear that we all might be vapourised by a Hydrogen bomb at any moment and it was frightening but there always seemed hope and the feeling that good people were trying to prevent it from happening,but now there seems to be no hope and no good people in a position to stop this madness.
I remember that… ironically, I’m now turning to the prospect of nuclear armageddon – or a meteor strike – in hope rather than fear.
I spent the whole of yesterday verging between extreme anger at how our lives have been decimated in a few short weeks, to being in floods of tears and the deepest depression and shaking with anxiety. Patel’s announcement of quarantine threw me over the top. I need desperately to get out to my family home in Greece, be with them again, and bring some important things back to the U.K. as I’ve accepted that my time there will be almost non-existent this year and probably next as well because of flight costs and lack of availability. If I don’t get out there very soon, I may never see one family member again as their health has deteriorated badly.
It’s just madness. I can’t believe we’re living through this time. Is it really the case that our leaders are psychopathic enough to put their own popularity and careers first, at the expense of totally decimating the economy and practically the entire way of human life? I know the social media age makes it very hard for politicians to make unpopular decisions but God almighty, some of these measures are straight out of a Black Mirror episode.
I was feeling this way until I saw the BLM march in London today. It goes against so much of what the BBC, SKY etc have tried to indoctrinate us with. I understand there will be more marches at the weekend. It will be hard for the media to spin this away.
It really won’t. Let them burn it all down and then feed themselves out of the ashes.
It’s a total farce I agree.it’s woke liberal madness gone wrong.
There are only two options: resist or give up.
I am seething at both the hypocrisy of the media, campaigners and authorities over this, and also at the ‘Taking the knee’ submission of our police.
They had the cheek to go on about how Cummings has damaged the lockdown, while supporting blatant, mass breaking of the lockdown for political ends.
Awesome post. Your anger is justified and shared by many here.
Critics are preaching to the converted! Pointless!
This site now has a regular following and hundreds of posts every day, which is great! But, by and large, we all agree with each other. I don’t think many lockdown believers read this site, right? So, critics are preaching to the converted!
All the while, the lockdown believers cosily shelter-in-place on the websites of the BBC, the Guardian and the FT, to name but a few. And, by and large, they all agree that lockdown is the only way, it should have happened sooner, and we should keep at it indefinitely.
So, everyone is talking in their own cosy echo chamber. A bit pointless, right?
So, should the next stage be to take the discussion to the Lion’s den? To the websites of the BBC, the Guardian and the FT, to name but a few? Perhaps we can inspire some silent-critics on there to break their silence. Or would that be a rather futile effort? Just stirring the pot a bit could be fun, eh?
However, I would argue that doing that individually would probably be pointless, as you’d just get buried under a pile of nasty. No, we should do that collectively.
Here’s the idea:
Tell me, is this a dumb idea?
No, that seems a pretty good idea to me.
Good idea – but I can see many being banned from these ‘homes of free speecch’!
The cost of doing business…
And being banned from mainstream media sites for expressing opinions, you might not be surprised to hear, is something I’m fairly familiar with.
The main thing is to keep your own temper under control. It might not stop you getting banned – life isn’t fair in that way, but it will mean they will have to cynically abuse the rules to do so.
Which they will not hesitate to do. Consider the demographic who are most likely to be working for The Graun or The Times doing comment moderation.
Of course. consider the very obvious response of Facebook employees to their boss declining to censor the POTUS, ffs! And declining to censor him, what’s more, for a perfectly reasonable statement of enforcement of the rule of law that nobody with half a brain would look twice at.
One site described my anti-lockdowm comments as “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” in a reply to my post, then wiped my post out completely (a far worse fate than a ban, if you’re banned you just make a new account but at least people can see your old comment). The trick will be to make sure that our posts don’t get removed, go for sites where moderation is minimal or late enough that plenty will have read our views before they get memory-holed.
I got banned from The Verge for linking to a video of Bill Gates talking about how he expected a 20/1 return from his vaccine investments in an article where they were saying how amazing he was.
Not dumb at all. I do post occasionally, challenging stuff on the kind of sites you mention, and trying to stick to facts, stick to topic, be polite etc. I very rarely get any answers.
Every comment section I have come across has so many bedwetters with such illogical and vexatious arguments, I’m convinced half of them must either be paid trolls or plain old sockpuppets.
Present company excepted, people who post on social media are probably a bit odd and ought to have better things to do, so hopefully things are not as bad as they seem.
Most people I have spoken to in real life just seem apathetic.
Good idea. This site however is not pointless. It keeps me sane. And sadly, my own sanity is the only thing I’m endeavouring to retain with any alacrity – simply because I know from years of being ‘that person’ that preaching to the unconverted never works.
It also helps to clarify thinking. I wish some pro-lockdown people would come on and give us a good argument. I keep trying to pick arguments with them, in various places online and in person, but so far they either turn out to have a massively factually incorrect idea of the dangers, or just get abusive, or kind of switch off and say “we haven’t got a choice” – it really is a case of “does not compute” for them, they shut down.
Yes, clarifying thinking is exactly it. Being forced to write out an argument in a situation where it will face scrutiny, even friendly scrutiny, is a very useful discipline.
You cannot argue with the devout, because in their hearts they know their position cannot withstand rational scrutiny.
This site is wonderful for our sanity, great for shraing detaield explanations of why lockdown is wrong and providing good arguments to use in debate with zealots (at lest with any zealots capable of to-and-fro debating), but posting here won’t reach the people who are unsure and wavering in their views, making some effort to preach to the unconverted elsewhere can be worthwhile.
Yes, we can do both!
To be fair, having spent an hour or two here, going to the comments at the Grad is quite a shock to the system and definitely proves that this community is the antidote to insanity.
We just have to keep dripping away to the best of our ability.
Me too, and it’s led me to read no end of interesting and informative stuff, even if I don’t understand half of it!
It’s a good idea but I would concentrate on the Mail and the Sun, which are already about 50:50 in the comments on the subject of the lockdown.
The Telegraph is already turning skeptical and nobody cares about Guardian readers, least of all the government as those guys will never vote Tory anyway. They can carry on bleating about Covid forever as they already do about climate change.
FT and BBC are worth a shot though.
I think the sun is probably more 60 40 in our favour now… The mail…urgh! Can’t bear it.
Get to the guardian as well, as there was always a pre-existing army of folk who loved nothing more than sticking the boot into weasels like Owen Jones
I do post in the Telegraph and you are right, the comments sections are fast becoming very sceptical. The tide is certainly turning there, especially the outrage against the quarantine on return from abroad. I do get shouted at on that, but it’s always the same two idiots. I’ve also tried posting in the Express and Daily Mail but both can be hard going because there’s little chance of rational discussion. FT is certainly worth a shot.
I wonder if anyone in government actually reads the comments? I’d hope they do in the Telegraph.
I’ve just read many of the comments below the Allison Pearson article in the DT and it seemed to be the same four or five names coming up all the time writing about how the lockdown saved lives and was absolutely worth it and should have been imposed earlier and more stringently. Very disheartening that so few challenged these self-righteous nutcases. Because I don’t watch any tv or listen to any radio I suppose their support of this nonsense surprised me – I was certainly sickened by it. As others have written often in the comments on this great site, I come here to be reassured there is some sanity left in the world, but after reading all those crazy DT comments I feel that we are far from winning this battle.
Marion, if you haven’t seen this video dicussion (“lockdown is not the safe option’) have a look, it reassured me to see such a sensible discussion
https://youtu.be/tfXqbIPMgxU
There will almost certainly be people paid to influence the discussion within the comments sections of mainstream media. There will also be people who believe what they are saying and may well have come to their own conclusions from studying the data themselves.
It is useful to have discourse with the latter but it is often made difficult because of the existence of the former.
That’ll be trolls embracing the government line. Of my neighbours (quite a few) I have met no-one who thinks LD is a good idea and have met many (several getting on for their sixties) who think the official line is balderdash. (Trying to be polite here.) By the way no Thursday night blow jobs around where I live. (Given up being polite.)
That’s the sort of info that’s useful to share here.
I recently signed up to the 3-month trial with the Torygraph and found some kindred spirits responding to Allison Pearson’s article.
I’d been using the dreadful Grad because there’s no paywall and I don’t have to navigate a shedload of adverts to see what the MSM propaganda is up to.
However, the links to more useful places to comment are very welcome. Thanks.
I agree in principle but people also come here to vent, experience a bit of banter and humour. I already try and make my MP, any lockdown supporting MSM, lockdown supporting scientist, my daughter’s headmistress, as miserable as possible using formal letters, social media, etc.
I think people are doing what you suggest in their own way but I don’t disagree with you.
In my opinion, rebellion and social unrest is just around the corner anyway. The government knows it, and if it happens even before furloughs end and redundancies start I wont be surprised.
In a perverted way I think some of them want rebellion. Hence the lengthening of the revision interval. Each new batch of measures is being given time to reveal itself as more farcical than the last, so that people will ignore them. Relaxation by the back door.
Crazy? The whole bloody business us crazy anyway.
Yes… I do think this is true. A way of saying that ‘the people have decided’ and oh look, cos we killed so many people unnecessarily through fear porn and lack of hospital access ( will be classed as covid of course), those numbers keep coming down…. It’s a disgrace quite honestly
Or they’re wanting us to rebel so they can bring in those 20,000 troops?
We do have a lockdown zealot troll who appears here daily under the guise of “Anoymous”. However instead of constructive debate, it is just abusive and usually involves swearing and/or poor spelling. Not sure why they bother?
I want him back – might be Piers Morgan in disguise
Trolling is not my thing. He/she hasn’t been back.
Has anyone had a decent discussion with anyone on the “other side” of this issue?
No nor my son and his mates.
They bluff, bluster and threaten with insults then when faced with facts disappear.
Real people tend to go quiet then come back and say “sorry” or “can I have more facts?” as is happening on the son’s social media.
I don’t do it, just comment on pages like this. Just about given up on the Daily Wail, not worth it dealing with the trolls, 77th and idiots anymore.
Have been doing it already with my mates who are fairly apathetic. They know it’s all shit but until it harms them directly… Well, it’s frustrating. At least they are not fearful sheep.
FB I can’t stand at all. Hadn’t used it for years anyway.
I don’t get Twitter at all, shouty shouty but make your points and you do have anonymity.
YouTube MSM news streaming… Now I can say 100% that it has turned. Absolute anti lockdown house party going on.
I’ll post this link yet again -3rd time, sorry guys!, don’t miss this opportunity… Tell these fuckers what you think
https://renewnormal.co.uk
Thanks for that link. A ‘renew normal’, no less! I’ll just take ‘normal’, thank you, and right away, please.
People who live their lives on facebook deserve all they get.
I’m afraid I never really understood the point of twitter, except that many tweeters seem to be very nasty, small-minded individuals who must be pretty awful in the flesh.
Keep talking to your mates. Or to anyone.
You can tell a Covhysteric immediately, no point talking to the brain- dead. But I am increasingly encountering the straight look, the gleam in the eye, the cautious outreach, that means a sceptic at least in bud, if not yet in flower.
Spread the word.
I think it’s a great idea. Personaly I’d target the Guardian as it does have quite active comment sections (probably because it’s free) and there are some people on there that desperately need informing. You’ll have to be careful with the wording though, keep it factual and related to the article otherwise, from experience, it’ll be removed within minutes
No, it’s a good idea. I frequently post on the Guardian site, and the Sun and Daily Mail as well.
Good idea. Any action at this stage might help us vent our feelings. Collectively we might start to shift opinion. I can’t think anyone’s going to believe lockdown is a good idea indefinitely. Wait until October comes.
Letters to the editor of your local paper are also really worthwhile. And I was involved in another contentious issue, and we did this all the time, turned the comments around. Although boring as it sounds, writing letters to organisations, businesses, ministers, committees, or whatever, is what changes things.
Remember that not just sceptics can see the posting here… as soon as we link to a page, in anyway suggesting an organised ‘attack’, half of the people in that post will just turn to the “Toby Young’s Tory Trolls” line.
I’ve been ripping it up on the Telegraph site on a daily basis. Got perma-banned from The Times comments section because I lost it at some bedwetting boomer woman who I felt would be best served by being beaten to death with her own severed leg. Can’t bring myself to mingle in the cesspits of the Graun and the Mail.
Really? So, if we were to post a link to a discussion in the Telegraph for instance, they’d know about it and follow the trail back here?
The Tellygiraffe admins/moderators certainly could, yes… and any old punter could just come here, search for Telegraph.co.uk and see which story each link leads to. It’s a piece of cake.
I tried putting commentary into the “Lion’s den” early on in the Panicdemic, especially went for local news sits carrying outraged reports of lockdown violations, or the one or two stories about P. Corbyn’s early protests. Easy to set up a temporary email address and use it to sign up as a commenter on those sites, but not many readers seem to look at the lone comment or few which stands up for liberty against lockdown. Still as your proposal is a mass effort of many people making such comments then they might be able to get more noticed.
I post quite regularly on various comments sections of MSM. Off the top of my head, NY Times, BBC News, Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Sun are ones I’ve probably posted on most.
From experience it’s easy to spot when there’s a collective effort from a group who are clearly linked in some way. It’s particularly noticeable if when they’re all posting in the same time frame.
It’s probably better to just follow the links to stories from here and post as individuals whenever we happen to be on.
The Daily Mail seems to be predominately anti lockdown now judging from the highest rated posts in the last week or so. Not many people seem to comment in The Sun, perhaps their readers are more interested in looking at the pictures than voicing opinions. The Guardian is a mixed bag depending on the topic of discussion as is the BBC news. NY Times I only look at every now and then.
I am putting together a single A4 sheet (I can print out at home) which I can hand to colleagues & others with links to hard facts about the situation, I do not want to use work email as I could receive backlash and possible action from my employer.
What should I include on the sheet
I am going to link to this site of course, UK Column, various videos from Vernon Coleman etc.
I just want to get people thinking.
This has got some good stuff on it: https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/05/a-library-of-useful-links-on-the-virus-panic-for-thinking-people.html
There’s a good list of evidence-based facts on the Swiss policy research website: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
The Swiss doctor link above was the original source for all info!
It’s very comprehensive!
Some of the ‘5/10/12/15 experts’ pages on http://www.off-guardian.org are very good indeed, Dave. A few weeks ago now, they were.
Chief twat Boris Johnson said today that when the weather turns, there should be no visits to other properties under any circumstances. I think him and his dick head mates should be worried about the weather though. At the moment, its red hot and people have the opportunity to go out and meet up, to wherever outdoors they see fit.
However, when it gets cold and wet, I’d guess and hope people will begin to lose it and cause problems. We are, by nature, social beings – we can’t on a whole live without socialising. We need pubs, restaurants, entertainment venues, sport, etc. We’ve coped without these because its been hot – we want to be outside so its slightly more bearable.
Therefore, to encourage widespread rebellion, I think it needs to piss down. When we can’t go the park, or beach, or sit in gardens, that’s when people will struggle. There’s no other outlet. If (or when) government really try and crack down on people going to other properties as there is nothing else because the weather is shit, then maybe the people more accepting of lockdown will start to realise, that without the sun and dry weather, our lives really are utterly shit and begin to wake up.
Those liking furlough in the garden or park or beach might begin to realise things can only get worse once summer is over.
Yup, I have always thought the good weather contributed to “lockdown” being tolerable/making it seem like a holiday.
You are right. Plus I have hayfever so….. bonus.
Yes we have had nearly non stop dry sunny weather since this began nearly3 months ago . in another 3 months it will be nearly autumn cold wet autumn that’s when all this will really hit home and coupled with mass unemployment and poverty ,the shit will really hit the fan.
In the comments of another article on this blog I discussed with someone the effects of a winter versus summer lockdown. At the moment queuing to go into shops may be tolerable in warm dry weather but what happens in cold wet weather. A problem with a lockdown is that you haven’t got pubs, restaurants, libraries and limited shops to go into if the weather turns bad.
Totally agree. If we’d had terrible weather, there would be outrage. Imagine you’re on 80% of your wages, being paid to sunbathe during the day and watch Netflix in the evening. All the while you have a mortgage holiday and much welcomed break from the usual stresses of every day life. Would you want that to end?
Except when you are lucky enough to have a job you actually enjoy, then it is so f*cking enraging. And when you spent a lot of your early life subjected to what frankly should be descriebd as abuse, but more commonly goes by the name of health and safety procedures in certain types of healthcare establishment, and now see the whole country going insane with that kind of “you can’t make decisons because you have to be safe” thinking.
This is exactly the argument I was making earlier which is why I’m so pleased the weather is finally turning. Can you imagine how awful this lockdown would have been had it coincided with the February deluge and floods?
Not that it isn’t already awful but I imagine there would have been much less willing compliance.
Aha. Willing compliance.
You know that at the start, SAGE assumed that there would only be about 75% compliance at best?
That’s why they deliberately set out to terrify the sheeple.
And by God it worked. No dry knickers in the whole of Britain, except ours.
Was bad enough in march/April quite honestly
Don’t forget those poor people whose homes were flooded haven’t been able to get their houses fixed – and are still locked down in them!
Honestly, at this point, I hope it fucking snows.
It would be a side effect of Covid no doubt though.
I did say a couple of days ago that bad weather will cause the lockdown and social distancing to fall apart. Can you imagine a day where its chucking down with rain and people desperately trying to get inside a supermarket to shelter? No way will they be able to force customers out into the street in the pouring rain or cold weather there would be mayhem if that happens.
What does he mean ‘when the weather turns, there should be no visits to other properties under any circumstances.’ I thought that was already the case and what’s the weather got to do with it? I am speechless in my confusion. It seems to me that the damn thing (virus) has gone, wtf is he talking about? Can you reference where he has supposed to have said this, it is complete lunacy?
Here is a summary. People already do it, but with no good weather, I’d assume pressure to do this more will increase.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-coronavirus-meeting-indoors-warning-weather-a4459161.html%3famp
I have been praying for rain for weeks, for this very reason.
We had some rain in the North today, less people out and about than at any time during the draconian abuse of human rights which will go down in history as the lockdown-2020-blunder.
I think we need a rainfall of biblical proportions for the lockdown and social distancing to be discredited.
I would have people around, or go to visit other people’s houses, if they would actually agree with me!
Boris keeps saying we are at war.
During “the war” pubs, theatres etc were still open, you could meet your friends as much as you wanted – just behind the blackout curtains.
This is even worse, this war is against us, no-one else, and civil wars are always the worst when it all comes apart.
<< buys shares in umbrella companies >>
Good idea to discuss government ability to control the weather too ?
I can control the weather – everytime I say “I’m going to do the garden” or “light the BBQ” it seems to cloud over and rain.
Please send some my way. My garden got a bit of heavy drizzle yesterday, first rain for weeks, but it wasn’t enough.
Get some today? Here on the Shrop/Staffs border been tipping it down all morning, garden drains backed up and Im going to have to wade through the water to clear them.
During all those weeks of nice weather I had a BBQ, started cooking, felt something and looked up and it rained – only a passing shower for 10 mins but still later from the sky onto the beer can chicken.
A bit, on and off. Just some proper rain for a few minutes, then mostly sunny but too windy to enjoy it.
Maybe I need to get a magic barbecue like yours?
All well and good for midget haystacks to say, but some people need a bit of human contact
Chief twat Boris Johnson said today that when the weather turns, there should be no visits to other properties under any circumstances.
He really is pushing us! What’s he up to, I wonder?
btw MrMasonMills is back- some interesting tweets!
Worrying more like..
I’m not making any particular point with my post today, but rather I’m hoping to find a sizeable portion of lockdown sceptics who agree with me.
Is anybody else driven raving mad by these awful lockdown adverts currently showing every two minutes on TV? I know companies need to keep their marketing output current, but each and every one of them follows almost the same pattern: clips of lots of silly people having a whale of a time at home, set to terrible music. I can only imagine the idea is to portray the greatest assault on our civil liberties as one big party – something to be celebrated, embraced, remembered with a fondness.
Meanwhile on planet Earth, domestic abuse cases are exploding, isolated elderly people are slowly losing the will to live (literally) and as each day passes trapped in this mire, our future living standards and prospects look bleaker and bleaker. I understand none of these issues would help sell a product or service, hence why they are completely ignored. However, I just feel that in light of these awful, insidious effects of the lockdown, these happy-clappy adverts are completely tone deaf.
Totally agree. I try not to watch TV but the ad breaks are religiously muted in our house. They disgust me.
Bearing unavoidable adversity with fortitude is admirable, cheerfully committing national suicide is reprehensible.
They serve to reinforce the delusion that this is the “new normal” and that it’s OK.
Your last sentence sums it up perfectly. I think these adverts are not just wholly irritating – they are dangerous. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but the way that they attempt to normalise and sugarcoat one of the most appalling periods of suffering since WW2 is thoroughly sinister and chilling.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t watch the BBC for obvious reasons, and the commercial channels are too risky because of the upset I feel when these adverts are on. “In the uncertain times, more than ever, we are here to support you”.
TV output is absolutely disgusting. There’s one on Spanish TV called “Balcony Stories” showing people doing wacky things while under house arrest. All accompanied by a cheery coommentary that reminds me of You’ve Been Framed. Wrongful mass imprisonment is not only totally normal but fun is its deranged message.
I can certainly understand your position, but I haven’t experienced it simply because I haven’t watched tv (other than specific recordings on the internet), for a decade or more.
I haven’t regretted it, but you do find yourself more and more out of step with received opinions on many issues, which makes you realise just how important and how effective the propaganda impact of tv is.
I don’t watch tv either, for the same reasons. I think that’s why I can still think for myself and why I often feel out of step with everyone else who does. I will watch Netflix or Prime, choosing my own content, but mostly I prefer to read and listen to music. I avoid all radio stations that have news or government adverts. I have been amazed how my neighbours have changed during the last 12 weeks, even those I would have thought were sensible. They all quote from tv. It’s awful. I feel like I am standing aside watching a car crash in slow motion, divorced from it all yet affected by it through no fault of my own. I am depressed, in tears and anxiety ridden on many days now, the black dog hangs over me, so imagine how bad I would be if I watched that trash and got involved with it.
Absolutely Mark. I haven’t watched tv for for years either, but still get startled/shocked at times by the extent to which it controls people’s conversation, and thereby their thinking.
I think a lot of people just don’t realise how much and how powerfully they are being actively propagandised just by watching soaps, or news programs.
Agreed, but I stopped watching them a long time ago.
If your equipment will record, record any programmes you want to watch and watch them a bit later, zapping through the ads. Saves a lot of rage.
Yep, it’s not just you; they boil my blood. Companies taking advantage of the situation to peddle their products on people. I find the one about Microsoft Teams with the doctor going saying he can share x-rays particularly infuriating for some reason.
Couldn’t stand them the day they arrived… But just understand that these are advertiser opportunists just wanting the one thing they have always wanted… Making money.
These guys get paid fortunes to make us part with our cash
Took em a couple weeks after lockdown started to start appearing.
The most odious one was the Microsoft teams one with the 4 way video conference and some idiot in the top right corner, indoors, on a video conference… With a fucking mask on. Haven’t seen that one since… Don’t think it’s a coincidence given mask wearing is falling rapidly in Uk
Once this thing turns our way, give em a couple of weeks and it will change again.
I don’t need avderts to sicken me, I get sickened by actual skype meetings in person, at those moments when someone asks “how is your lockdown going” ad expects you to make a positive response with some vague bullsh*t about “caring” and “protecting”. They don’t like hearing the truth, the lockdown is the most damaging over-reaction in living memory, when I respond with it instead.
I don’t have a telly but I used to listen to Classic FM, had to stop due to the irritating hourly news bulletins, patronising adverts and the last straw was the BLM post on their Facebook page. I messaged them to inform them why I had unliked their page – ironic that they get worked up over something that happened abroad and nothing to do with the UK yet are silent over the erosion of our civil liberties and proposals that could usher the demise of the cultural sector which includes orchestras and opera companies.
I gave up my TV licence a few years ago, and don’t listen to radio at the moment.
Not on Facebook either, and gave up on Twitter after being banned 3 times.
Absolutely agree. They are sickening
Haven’t had a telly for 10 years. Bliss.
Has anyone considered submitting evidence to Management of the Coronavirus Select Committee? Apply some pressure from an alternative source ie within
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/81/management-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak/
Had a quick look at this. Would it be worthwhile coordinating a submission from this website? May help us to look less like loonies who forgot to swallow their corona medicine.
PS. Reading the comments above I am now thinking I should change my moniker which I selected because I believed we were just victims of colossal incompetence and that they had got their knickers in a twist and didn’t know how to backtrack without exposing their ineptitude. The longer it goes on, the less sure I become.
That’s what I was thinking. I’ve submitted evidence to a Select Committee before and it is fairly straightforward. Would rather Toby lead however as he has documented this shit show studiously from the start.
Have you looked at who’s on the committee? Don’t waste your time!
Down here in darkest, fear-gripped Wales, I’ve been a sceptic since Day 1 (my word would have been cynic) and spent the first six weeks of this infernal lockdown wondering if there was just me and my eldest son, who dared think or worse, speak, views contrarian to government sponsored group think. Imagine my joy therefore, to stumble across lockdown sceptics and discover that there’s an entire community of doubters!!? It was a life-changing moment and massive thanks to Toby who has shown remarkable resolve, wit and courage swimming against the tide when the MSM has so pathetically laid down the tools of its trade – probing questions, challenging thinking, exploring back story. Last night (or maybe the night before – things have been blurred for three months now) I switched on Sky and such is our bananas world that because they have so little blood-curdling fear-filled Terror TV to send our way at the minute, they decided to show their “highlights reel” of the death and destruction Covid-19 spewed over New York in April/May, complete with slo-mo close-ups of Uncle Albert and Auntie Jean (or worse, grandma or grandpa) on a ventilator, or maybe even, breathing their last breath!! I mean come on, if it wasn’t so serious, you might think someone was having a laugh… but on and on it goes and not a contrarian view anywhere to be seen; just more of the same MSM group-think from the Ministry for Propaganda while life as we know it, is sacrificed on the altar of the “fear gods”. “Coronavirus has changing everything” shout the army of broadcasters, journalists and politicians, all desperate for us to believe in its inherent deception. But lies don’t become truth just because lots of people believe them. Covid-19 is just a bug, albeit a virulent one, in a world full of bugs. It hasn’t changed things a jot. What’s changed things is our chosen reaction and response to Covid-19!! Now that is the story. Or at least, it should be. But no-one in the mainstream seems to want to write it… Covid hysteria has morphed us into a nation of scared rabbits, morbidly eager to frighten ourselves to death in a fear-frenzy that apparently even now, 10 weeks on, appears to want to run and run… and still, the MSM try rocket-propel via a 24/7 platform never before seen in my 63 year lifetime at least! Many still appear blind to it or is it they just don’t care? In Wales, where the public sector reigns supreme, it’s so mental, it’s off the scale!! The Great Fear Folly rips my heart out when I think of the damage it has done, and will continue to do, especially to the younger generation who have yet to realise I think, that it is their future that has been mortgaged, their potential that has been stifled… by this generation, my generation, who aid and abet (and sycophantically applaud) dapper “Rishi Claus” and his strategy to cocoon us in the false reality of his fantasy furlough world. Economic meltdown and maybe even, economic oblivion, beckons with UK PLC looking for the nearest cliff to jump off. If that doesn’t equate to societal madness, I don’t know what does!! Rishi may be flavour of the month in some circles right now, but when the dust settles, history isn’t going to be kind to him. I cannot reconcile how it’s possible (for HM Gov and the majority of Joe Public) to react the way they did/have to what after all, was always going to be, the temporary threat of coronavirus, and no-one will ever convince me that the fear-inspired choices of our leaders back in late March, and since, were/are a reasonable and proportional response to the level of threat posed by Covid-19. Frankly, it’s a disgrace. And what for? Why? Yes, death is horrible. But like it or not, death is a part of life… and in 2019, an average of 1781 people died every single day in the UK, 1st Jan through to 31st December, and not a single one of them from or with Covid-19. Death comes to everyone in the end. Cue, the chirpers spouting their “preservation of life at any cost” rubbish… How naïve is that!!? A toxic and highly dangerous illusion that has never existed (or will ever exist) in any society, anywhere, anytime. It can’t. While the truth deniers are happy to ignore it and hide from it…truth is truth… The first recorded Covid-10 death occurred on March 5th. In the period March 5th to June 3rd (91 days) some 39,728 people have died, not FROM Covid-19 but WITH Covid-19. In the same period of 91 days, 42,315 people have died FROM cancer (at the rate of 465 per day in the UK; averaged from 170,000 deaths per year). That means that 2,587 MORE PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CANCER THIS LAST 91 DAYS THAN HAVE DIED FROM/WITH COVID-19… and the gap between the two is now increasing on a daily basis, as Covid deaths decrease and cancer continues to kill 465 people every day forever, until a cure is found! It also doesn’t take into account the estimated 30/40,000 cancer patients who are expected to die in 2020/21 because of failed diagnosis or lack of treatment during the coronavirus period For cancer, society deems it unnecessary to implement any kind of special measures. Yet, cancer kills 26% of us, 1 in 4, but so conditioned are we to its threat, that no-one turns their head anymore, unless of course, it’s you (or a loved one) getting the unwanted diagnosis. Covid-19 will come and go, horrible yes, people crying at their sense of loss and bereavement, holes left that will never be filled. But that pain applies to ALL death, not just death from Covid-19. Covid-19 is not special in that regard; it’s just another something that people die from. It’s the stratospherically high levels of fear that have accompanied it, that make Covid-19 “special”. It’s why otherwise intelligent relatively rational human beings have thought it perfectly right and appropriate (while “ignoring” cancer) to effectively throw the kitchen sink at it… Instead of taking precautions whereby those most at risk are protected as best as possible (and resources poured into that) entire populations have been placed in a state of lockdown that for many, has been little more than house arrest, in the first attempt in history – any society, anywhere, anytime – to quarantine the healthy rather than the sick with government telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who you can do it with, in the greatest abuse and infringement of civil liberties arguably since the Magna Carta of 1215. Little wonder then, it feels so extraordinary!! Millions of children have been stuck at home, schools closed, their educations on hold, their sense of play, fun, and social interaction all on pause. Thousands of businesses have already gone to the wall, with even more no doubt, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Entire industries are on the point of collapse, and our economy has been brought to its knees, massively overspent and over-borrowed, with HMRC’s tax revenues fallen off a cliff and already in overdraft! Years in the pit of recession and depression are now alas, inevitable, the Office of Budget Responsibility already predicting a staggering 35% plunge in GDP for this quarter, and 15% for 2020 if we’re lucky, with unemployment expected to push 5/6 million in 2021. It’s the same across the world, the context painted by the IMF and the World Bank’s decidedly unsugar-coated prediction that Rishi incidentally, recently endorsed as correct – “we’ve already entered the biggest ever economic downturn the world has ever seen”. The knock-on effect of which will mean inevitable Third World starvation and hundreds of thousands possibly millions, of deaths. Then, add in a full financial cost that, for the UK, is likely to exceed a trillion pounds and what’s already become a social catastrophe for all ages, including a mental health time-bomb of epic proportions, and it’s hard to see a happy ending! All mixed in together, it makes the worst that I’ve experienced during my lifetime – and that’s the three-day week, hyper-inflation, industrial chaos and IMF bailouts of the 1970’s – look like an Enid Blyton Famous Five adventure! Compare all that to cancer… which from what I can gather, the entire UK cancer research operates on total funding of circa £550m per year, none of which it appears, comes directly from government! Either way, it’s hardly an overwhelming response to a permanent threat that kills one in four of us, is it? In the end, when the dust settles, and time has been allowed to take the edge off emotions, we are likely to see that Covid-19 either killed or was a contributory factor in the death of well under 100,000 UK citizens. It’s terrible for their families, of course it is, but all death is terrible for those left behind (not just death that involves Covid-19), but even 100,000 equates to cause (or contributory) of death for 0.15% of the UK population. That’s three-twentieths of one per cent! Covid-19 is likely to be a one-off visitor to life as we know it. Cancer on the other hand, has been around for 3500 years and will be forever around until a cure is found. It really couldn’t be more permanent and virulent, getting its claws into 1 in 2 of us and, at 26%, killing over 1 in 4 Brits. With such a long list of disastrous consequences – a list that by the way is by no means finite – how can anyone argue that the response to Covid-19 i.e. “the solution”, was/is in proportion to “the problem”. And for the avoidance of doubt, the consequences I listed, are NOT the result of Covid-19. They are 100% the result of our nation’s chosen and preferred reaction & response to Covid-19. From Day 1, I fully accepted that this new virus causes great harm, especially to older people and to vulnerable people with underlying health issues and, as a fat 63 year-old, albeit one without any underlying health issues, I’m apparently higher up Covid-19’s hit-list than most! Protecting society and those most at risk, definitely demanded a response… but surely not the response we’ve seen, one that’s going to result in such devastating consequences. Lots have tried to paint it as money/economy being prioritised over lives and claim I/we don’t care about old people. It’s a bollocks argument; totally spurious. It’s always ben lives v. lives, because the economy is lives. Policies that result in an economic wasteland, even if created in the name of keeping people safe, will inevitably be responsible for more deaths than the virus. For example, the NHS is only possible because we have a successful economy. Tanzania hasn’t been wondering how it can take the pressure off its NHS… because it hasn’t got one! It doesn’t have a successful enough economy to be able to afford an NHS equivalent!! It’s a principle we ignore at our peril. A failed or less successful economy means less funds will be available for the NHS, and that’ll mean, in the bluntest of terms, that even more people will die. The motor car industry… Globally almost one-and-a-half million people are killed in road traffic accidents annually, with a further 30 million seriously injured! Yet no-one ever suggests that we should ban cars or ban driving. The cost of death and injury of the “few” though undesirable, is deemed “worth it” to the “many” – a price worth paying – so that we can all have the convenience and benefits that the motor car gives us individually and collectively as a society. In other words, it’s a trade-off. Uncomfortable yes, but necessary too, if society is to function efficiently. Once we accept the existence of the trade-off and get over the illusion that it doesn’t exist, we… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more…rishi had his hand forced tho I reckon by the govts policy. Had no other choice. Not that it Shld continue, end furlough and get back to normal!
Thanks Phil, perfectly put. This website is my little island of sanity too.
Or Boris could just say “Sorry. Mistake. As you were.”
Excellent post Phil, I’ve had these same thoughts from the beginning. I’ve mailed them to my MP & The Prime Minister but with no response.
It makes my blood boil that they cannot see what is going wrong!
Fantastic post, summed up just about everything I have felt for the past 3 months. When you get to wonder about the possible pre-planned future agenda of it all, it gets even worse.
I am sniffing down every avenue on that. It’s always about money, everything is
Many words and all to the point.
Stick with it, Phil. THIS WILL END.
AND THERE WILL BE A RECKONING.
As for the verdict of history … cataclysmic.
Maybe David Starkey has already written it. Can’t wait to read it. This time next year, or very probably sooner.
Your words are Churchillian………if only our Churchill wannabe leader could think and express himself like you we would be in a much better place.
Hello Phil,
Top notch post. Just wish we had some more like you up here in the SNPeople’s Republic. The whole ‘lockdown’ fiasco has been utterly depressing. Like you I have been a sceptic from the beginning – I actually wrote to the PM on day one of the ‘lockdown’ to express the view that Government policy was being dictated by sensationalist reporting in the media. Since then the whole experience has become ever more surreal.
The worst thing is that it was never about ‘saving lives’ or ‘protecting the NHS’ – it was all about saving the Government from the negative headlines that would have ensued if intensive care stations had been overwhelmed, as they were in Italy. Well, they’ve managed that, but at what cost? Our kids, and their kids, will probably have to pay for it…
I live in Wales and reading that Drakeford has threatened more lockdown in winter is making me feel utterly desperate! Living alone as I do (not by choice) I survive the long dark days and nights by going to my weekly dance class and meditation group plus a few parties and dinners with friends and neghbours. Without that to look forward to I don’t know what I’ll do, but the thought of continued (or resumed) imprisonment fills me with a terror I have never felt before in my life.
Since it began I drive quietly off to walk (sometimes with a friend or two) in nearby little-frequented woods and beaches – not so possible or desirable during the winter months. Nor is sitting with a friend in the garden which brightens my days….I am horrified of this happening and would consider escaping to a foreign country except that I wouldn’t want to twiddle my thumbs in exile for months. I have an elderly neighbour living in an old caravan who is unwell and given to periods of depression. I truly believe he would probably commit suicide if this happened. Interested to know which part of Wales other people, including Phil, in this forum, live in. Maybe we could link up?
I live in Cardiff, like you, the threat of future lockdowns terrifies me. I would be interested in linking up with like minded people.
Thanks for replying Kath. However I live in far West Wales so distance would be an issue.
Brilliant post!
Thank god for people like you, Toby. Keep up the good fight.
Conservative Freedom Party (.com) taking shape, slowly…
Any ideas welcome.
Drop the conservative bit
Well it’s meant to be a conservative party…
But there is already a party with that name (although it is not conservative I agree) so not a clear message. The Freedom Party. It can have a conservative manifesto.
Yes, I did think of the Freedom Party, but it used to exist in this country in BNP form (disbanded 2006). Freedom Party.com was also not available as it’s based in the USA!
Wholeheartedly agree
Are we thinking of a manifesto?
It’s very early days. I’m just setting it up out of frustration really, but if it helps people reject LibLabConGreen it will be worth it.
Lots of people like me have no one to vote for so willing to consider a new party.
So long as the party is very careful to stand solely to individual liberties, and not waste time with any point scoring causes or absurd harking back to old days (sure some liberties were betetr but plenty of things were worse, we need a betetr future not a recreation of some historical age). The rights of individuals NOT to be subjected to surveillance, censorship, limitation of movement, interference with property, or bureaucratic busy-bodying in the name of health and safety, any kind of “compliance”, or any kind of counterterrorism. Reduction of powers for the authorities must be the only goal. And don’t suggest anything silly like bringing back death penalties (too much power for an untrustworthy legal system) or closing borders, both are violations of liberties.
Maybe name it something like The “Right To Take Risks” party?
I’d definitely vote for a non-racist populist party that promotes British culture and the prosperity of this country’s citizens (rather than some meaningless GDP figure) – so young families can look forward to bringing up their kids in decent accommodation with a garden.
I’m a Tory councillor but I won’t be standing again as I can’t represent a party I will never vote for again.
Can’t you stand as an independent? There must be lots of your constituents who feel like you and they need someone to represent them.
Some suggestions:
At this stage in our history we need to move to a written constitution because the unwritten one has been trampled underfoot.We need to enshrine free speech principles in a written constitution – similar to the USA but even more strongly I would say.
Incorporate petition and referenda procedures into your constitution so that no longer can governments bamboozle the public.
Make it clear that you believe in a core British culture based on free speech and free mixing of all citizens.
Jonathan,
I just took a quick look at your policies. Your anti LGBT agenda will alienate millions. I know you previously expressed this is due to your Christian faith, but any party that truly wants to champion “freedom” for its citizens, would not ban LGBT rights or gay marriage.
I think you need to decide – do you want a party that promotes traditional conservative values or real libertarian-style freedom. At the moment your policies are very much treading in UKIP and Brexit style territory.
Maybe it will. There are gay people who oppose the same sex marriage act. For example, Dr Corbett in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SNxvtV7C7g&t=3849s
That boat has sailed. There is absolutely no point in trying to re-criminalise gay marriage…that is not a fundamental threat to our liberty. Lots of other things are.
The problem with a liberty-oriented party is that without shared basic principles it is impossible to agree on the most important issue, which is what are the proper bounds of liberty. I suspect we, even just considering England, are no longer a nation in that sense.
I would suggest either making it a traditionalist conservative party that prioritises liberty within those terms, or make it a single issue anti-lockdown party that is otherwise a broad church – pretty much what UKIP tried to do on euroscepticism. And still, as with UKIP, you will have to exclude many who will not tolerate sharing a platform with others.
Couldn’t agree more RDawg. We mustn’t let our cause of liberty be contaminated by such petty rubbish as discriminating against what consenting adults wish to do, that would be just another form of nanny state, only with a classically religious agenda rather than the quasi-religious agenda that health-and-safetyists use to intrude on our freedoms.
There’s nothing wrong with UKIP and Brexit! lol
I don’t think UKIP has opposed LGBT rights on gay marriage in recent years and being in the EU is hardly a libertarian project!
Of course if you, RDawg, are a true libertarian, presumably you support polygamy, polyandry and other forms of non-conventional marriage. Let us know!
.
Quite frankly I could not give a toss what any group of consenting adults wants to do, as long as it does not adversely affect the freedom or rights of anyone else.
Same sex, multi-sex, mult-partner , hell they can even marry a fucking goat so long as there was some way of knowing that the goat had consented.
Note that I also don’t care if it offends me, as if it does then I also have the right to criticise them
Call it the Citizens Party. “Conservative” is now a meaningless term. Nearly all Conservatives appear to support – at least in what they say – “equality of outcome”, an entirely Marxist idea.
The idea of being equal citizens – with the same rights and duties – seems to me a more positive way forward.
Above all, any new truly populist party needs to commit fully to the free speech principle – which means you defend the right of others to speak freely even if they are quite obnoxious. Without free speech, democracy is a shell concept.
If a party can’t defend that principle (and the current Conservative Party clearly cannot) there is not much hope for liberal democracy and you might as well shut up shop.
Freedom Front?
Too much like National Front. No thanks!
Would it be possible to please include a link to the anti-lockdown petition in every edition of this wonderful sanity-maintaining organ?
I signed it a couple of weeks ago, having discovered its existence here. I see today that it only has about 5 and a half thousand signatures, not even remotely enough for it to get an airing in parliament. It may be that many who find this site are unaware of its existence.
Thank you for the humour and good sense to be found here!
New break through in Maddie case! Phew, that was good timing, wasn’t it?!
Breathtaking in it’s audacity tbh.
They’re rubbing our face in it now.
Look! A squirrel!
Yes, and the MSM are also conveniently ignoring Hillary Clinton’s court appearance the other day and the other subpoenas that have been issued..
Question is what news they are trying to hide, and from who. Are they trying to distract us heroic sceptics while the government urinates over our civil liberties yet further, or distract the snitchy zealots from a more rapid lifting of illegal lockdown measures? Or distract both camos from something else altogether?
Maddie is now sitting somewhere thinking this pandemic is horsesht
It’s certainly a step up from the dead cat strategy…. *sigh*
For anyone genuinely interested in what happened to that child, I commend these videos and the others made by this guy: https://www.richplanet.net/richp_genre.php?ref=185&part=1&gen=1
So much that was never reported…
Just filled out a survey sent to me by an orchestra. I told them in no uncertain terms that I will not attend any concerts they put out if I have to social distance, queue to get in and wear a muzzle throughout a performance. And no way will I pay full price for a concert that is streamed – either voluntary donation (of any amount) or free.
Was it the BSO ? I had one from them today. Again said I would not attend if I had to wear a mask. And imagine an orchestra all masked up. Ridiculous.
It was the LPO – I filled out part 1 so was invited to do a part 2 today.
I guess all the orchestras are doing the same. I am confident it will all be over by the start of the new season so the questionnaire will be irrrelevant.
Also did one for the OAE a few days ago – said the same thing. I hope you’re right that said I do think the tide is slowly turning.
Rhe woodwind? The brass?
Ha ha yes that would be tricky. Also lots of conductors use facial expressions as well as waving their arms around. To be fair, I think it is a general arts survey, sent to me because I have a BSO season ticket. One other question was about ‘green field’ performances and I’m struggling to envisage a symphony orchestra sitting in a muddy Dorset field. It does seem strange though that people are really planning for some kind of ‘new normal’ rather than assuming this thing will be over and done with at some point.
Like to see the oboist play!
Might be wise right about now to start reminding shops, of all kinds, that it they try to go fully cashless then they won’t be getting our custom either. Not everyone might use cash at all times, but we must maintain the right to, otherwise we’ll get the government imposing negative interest rates and taxes on savings to pay for their apocalyptic lockdown blunder. Coins and notes are legal tender, anywhere which refuses them will be paid with them anyway, and then never shopped at again.
Agree. I use card more than cash for convenience but there should be choice. Thankfully the businesses in my area accept both.
Ad small b
OOps to the above!
If you use a card, the business has to pay a fee to the card company. That hits small independents much harder than the big chains. Cash is kinder.
Pile up your (big) trolley, whip out your cash, be refused, walk out of shop leaving behind aforementioned trolleyful.
Bit dry but a must watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1s-4k9f0dk
Unavailable.
Here’s the excerpt from SAGE 23 March minutes that make me think SAGE were encouraging what we call lockdown (emphasis added):
‘1. UK case accumulation to date suggests a higher reproduction number than previously anticipated. High rates of compliance for social distancing will be needed to bring the reproduction number below one and to bring cases within NHS capacity.
2. Public polling over the weekend on behaviour indicated significant changes but room for improvement in compliance rates. …
Case numbers in London could exceed NHS capacity within the next 10 days on the current trajectory…
21. Key areas for further improvement include reducing contact with friends and family outside the household, and contact in shops and other areas.
ACTION: SAGE secretariat to share SAGE paper from behavioural scientists on options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures with CCS and HMG Communications leads.’
I don’t think it’s hard here to read between the lines and see this is a group very worried about where things are going and urging more radical action. I imagine the paper with ‘options for increasing adherence to social distancing’ that was shared with the government may well have prompted the move that evening to house confinement to reduce contact ‘outside the household’.
I am a Conservative and a local councillor and now I find myself – a woman of 55 – to be a criminal. For the first time in my life I have deliberately and repeatedly broken the law. My latest foray into criminality was letting my son and his wife sleep over after a BBQ which we hosted a full 9 days before we were even allowed to have them in our garden. I feel a burning rage that a Conservative government has put me on the wrong side of the law by making it illegal to host my own child on my own property. Every time I see a police car I have to strongly resist the urge to stick two fingers up at it and I may go full breaking bad in the event I lose my job by joining a county lines gang as that is likely to be the only work available in this part of country once the depression takes hold. I certainly won’t be standing again as a Councillor as I can hardly represent a party I will never vote for again.
My brother and his wife sneaked into Wales last week to relieve the tedium of his being confined to house arrest in his 2-bed house in the North (we have large, secluded house and garden). They sneaked back out five days later. Not one of us gave a fuck.
Nor should you. Hope you had a good time.
You describe my state of mind exactly.
I am a habitual criminal. (Reminder to the English: until very recently it was a crime in Wales to leave your house more than once a day.) Fortunate in living in a rural area, I’ve been out whenever I felt like it, driven forbidden distances, I’ve walked forbidden footpaths, I actually do stick two fingers up at police cars, and I shall go on doing all four until either I’m arrested, or somebody assassinates Comrade Drakeford and sets us free.
Way to go Annie!
I think I must have broken ‘the law’s pretty much every day since the lockdown started
I’ve tried to, certainly.
Yes, I wish I had more opportunity!
I strongly approve of the Black Lives Matter cause, but I’m disgusted by how it is getting so much media attention and approval, and circulation of support by all manner of organisations and prominent individuals, when our anti-lockdown cause has been so psychotically attacked. Both causes are equally deserving, they are fighting for the same thing, the right of ordinary people not to be oppressed by authorities. Any decent people will be for liberty for everyone, black, white, asian, anyone else… and their right not to be arrested for walking in the park, sitting on a bench or opening their business. How come that Police Brutality gets ignored by so much of the mainstream media when it is targeted against populations as a whole, but full media sympathy when targeted at one group by authoritarian psychopaths in uniform? I’ve seen a flurry of adverts and emails asking if I wish to help the BLM cause, where was all this publicity for campains against the lockdown jackboot forcing down on black, white, asian and every other throat?
I have uniliked the pages of institutions and businesses that posted those ridiculous black squares on Facebook and messaged some of them saying that while I agree that racism and abhorent and challenged, why are they going ape up over something that happened in another country and has nothing to do with us yet are quiet at the erosion of our civil liberties and proposals that could spell the death knell of their businesses or institutions?
“agree that racism is abhorent and should be challenged” – doh!!
The trouble with this kind of seemingly safe statement of Official Truth lies in the basic dishonesty and flexible definition of the term “racism” in modern usage.
If challenged, its advocates will claim that it only means really nasty people – violent thugs or extreme discriminators. Then, when the need is to defend the antiracist haters, the definition is something like “prejudice on racial grounds”.
But as soon as the pressure is off and the antiracist haters need to use the term to promote their lobby interests or attack someone with opinions they dislike, it magically expands to cover anyone who opposes mass immigration, believes race has any scientific basis, fails to show sufficient respect for antiracist dogma, etc etc.
It’s the “stretchy band of hate”, a form of fallacy known as “motte and bailey”.
“Racism” and “racist” has been bandied about so often that I suspect that it has lost its real meaning a long time ago.
Exactly. That’s why whenever I see bland, thoughtless assertions like “racism is abhorrent and should be challenged” or “there can be no neutral position on racism”, it grates on me as much as “stay safe” or any of the other propaganda slogans of the coronapanic.
We need to recover honesty on our language before we can discuss these matters honestly, and that means accepting either that almost nobody is racist, or that being racist is not necessarily a bad thing, depending which definition you decide to use. We cannot afford to allow the antiracists to keep switching between the two as it suits them.
It’s a smokescreen – or an enormous dead cat.
Multiple Twitter attacks today on Prof Sikora who has been a positive light in all the darkness, as well as highlighting the cancer nightmare being caused by lockdown. More evidence that this is all agenda driven by those that want to destroy the economy.
I worked with the Prof at the Medical Research Council on the AIDS crisis in the mid 80s. I was newly graduated from university and he was always so nice to me. He seemed to me to be too young and too normal to be so clever and so eminent in his field. I knew my instinct to scepticism was justified when I read what Professor Sikora had to say at the start of this crisis.
I’ve seen that. Its really sad how many people have been brainwashed and are rubbishing experts who are raising the alarm over how this “cure” is becoming or has become worse than the disease.
But you have just highlighted one of, if not the biggest problem we like minded people face- convincing the majority that they have been brainwashed. A famous person once wrote:”It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled”.
Exactly and I won’t be surprised if some people have realised that they’ve been had but refuse to admit it so they shut their eyes and ears to convince themselves that they’re not fooled.
One of the sad traits of humanity is the reluctance to admit mistakes. People will go to ridiculous lengths to prove that they are right even when they know they are wrong. It is much more liberating to say ‘sorry I blew it’, but it takes courage and that is severely wanting right now.
David Starkey made a good point in his recent interview. If the government seriously want to regain credibility they have to do a “mea culpa”, admit that they got it wrong and apologise.
A pig just flew over my house and alighted on a willow twig, while the moon turned blue.
Mark twain I believe
Thoughts on this IMF model?
https://blogs.imf.org/2020/06/02/how-the-great-lockdown-saved-lives/
Seems pretty lightweight to me – no mention of how they explain why there’s no real correlation between lockdown measures and outcomes across different countries. Nothing new that I could see.
It confirms what I’ve been saying about the goalposts having changed from flattening the curve to nobody should die from this virus just because some countries have managed to keep their death figures low.
They have used modelling again and concluded “the stringent containment measures put in place in New Zealand…are likely to have reduced the number of fatalities by over 90 percent relative to a baseline with no containment measures”
One could reasonably conclude that a country that never had the virus at all but chose to lock down reduced the number of fatalities by 100% relative to the same baseline.
Or equally conclude that South Korea with roughly 10x the population of NZ also reduced the number of fatalities by over 90% (roughly proportional) with no stringent measures.
The real question is why has this virus been given special status such that the whole world needs to act in the most extreme ways to eradicate it. I’m sure the cost of all this (now and ongoing) could have been directed elsewhere and saved far more lives than may have been lost from the virus.
Why do none of my comments ever get approved even though I’m logged in? Everyone seems to be having a jolly discussion with like minded people while everything I post is flagged “awaiting approval” before disappearing never to be seen again, I’m only leaving this comment in the hope that if there is a moderator somewhere in the system they tell me how the heck the comments section works before I high tail it back to the Speccie.
Your comments are here and well appreciated, its just that the latest comments are at the bottom of the page.
It’s the same for me too.
Wow! That comment seems to have landed! Maybe there was a glitch yesterday.
If I had a pound every time a bank says on a TV advert, “During these difficult times, we’re here for you…”
That annoys me to death. or “ unprecedented times”
Or “we’re in this together” – no we are not!
During Mental Health week, I was annoyed at those “you are not alone” and “together we can beat” these adverts.
It’s the ‘keeping everyone safe’ that riles me!
“Until you default on your mortgage…. and then we’ll repossess your house!
#staysafeonthestreets”
The solution is very simple. Don’t watch commercial tv!
This might sound crude…..but,
I hear and see figures bandied about in the financial world that the cost of this social experiment in the UK could be 1 or even 2 Trillion pounds. Lets put that in perspective. 1Trillion divided by the 66 million population of the UK is 15,150 pounds per man woman and child or, lets say, 45,000 pounds per average family.
Hypothetically, if the lockdown had saved all of the 36,000 or so deaths due to covid-19 (which clearly it could not) or, lets say it saved a similar number, then every death saved or extended for a very few years has a cost of; 1 Trillion divided by 36,000 = 28 million pounds, each.
My children are going to have to pay for this and, cruelly, it was not of their making.
Sadly, some people will pay with their lives, and doubtless some already have, as a direct result of government interventions around the world.
The worst thing about it is that the people responsible either truly believe they are doing good or they’re in denial. I just hope that there will be justice done at some point in the future but I fear that it will be a hollow victory if that day ever comes.
Indeed, the damage already done boggles the mind but it can never, ever be allowed to happen again.
Unfortunately the collateral damage will have already been done but people are still too blind to realise that more people are dying literally and figuratively because of the lockdown and social distancing not from the virus.
After this the people who were responsible should be punished and blacklisted – never to hold public office or work for a scientific institution ever again. And we should be vigilant to ensure that our civil liberties are never again taken away from us.
Yes – we are currently in the phoney war. Come October and the real war (and possibly a REAL war) will arrive. It won’t be pretty.
If that’s all that’s done to them they should be thankful they got off so lightly
Actually I would prefer that they be condemned to reenact Sisyphus for the rest of their lives with us the public able to pelt them with rotten fruit and veg, rubbish, stones, milkshakes, etc.
The Sweden bashing continues:
FT – “Swedish expert admits country should have had tighter coronavirus controls”
BBC News – “Coronavirus: Sweden’s Tegnell admits too many died”
Guardian – “We should have done more, admits architect of Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy”
The Sun – “Coronavirus-ravaged Sweden admits getting lockdown totally wrong saying if they knew 4.5k would die they’d have done it (missing a word, presumably differently)”
Sky News – “Coronavirus: Man behind Sweden’s controversial strategy admits mistakes”
The Independent – “Coronavirus: Sweden admits it would have done more to lock down ‘if we knew what we know today'”
But wait what’s this:
The Local Sweden – “Tegnell: We still think Sweden’s strategy is good, but you can always do things better”
“State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has said that comments he made about what Sweden could have done better with the benefit of hindsight should not be taken as a rejection of the entire strategy”
“”We still think that the strategy is good, but you can always make improvements, especially when looking back. I personally think it would be rather strange if anyone answered anything else to such a question. You can always do things better,” he said, adding that he did not necessarily think he had been misquoted, but that his comments had been overinterpreted”
It’s all about context.
It’s all about lies.
The British MSM *need* Sweden’s policy to be rubbished because otherwise the Brits would protest against the increased restrictions being introduced. Not sure how UK schools are dangerous when Sweden’s have been open all along, with only *one* death of a child somewhere in the 0-9 age range…? (The Swedish authorities will not be more precise than that regarding this death, but they have also said that it is uncertain whether the child even died of the virus)
Is it just me or does that French restaurant photo look like the cone of silence from Get Smart?
Yep. But ‘smart’ is not a word word apply to the French pic.
Anyone realised that if you want to break the lockdown with no consequences, you just need to carry a ‘black lives matter’ board. Sovereign been stunned by the silence of the usual lefties. One man travels with his family to self isolate…. uproar, 10,000s (of a high risk group) wander round London… silence
If you want to meet your friends for a picnic, remember your banner
Great Idea!
El Mundo reports preliminary results from a huge seroprevalence study In Torrejon in the Madrid region, the biggest in Europe according to the paper. It’s found that between 18% to 22% either have or have had “contact with the virus”. More than 100,00 people have been tested, 72% of the population.This represents between 5,000 and 6,000 people, the majority apparently young, asymptomatic or with slight symptoms. One of the first cases of Covid in Spain was found in this town on the 27th of February and, as the head of the project Doctor Zafrilla points out,the virus spread without anyone knowing they should have been taking measures until the lockdown on the 14th of March. He adds that the test is 100% reliable. This testing is not to be confused with those being undertaken by the central government and whose first wave showed only 5% nationally. Final results are expected by the middle of June.
Correction: 72% of the population were tested and the figure of between 5,000 and 6,000 represents the number that tested positive.
I see the BBC are hammering the second wave in Iran story. Cases gave increased but is that because they never decreased – nothing was ever recorded properly? Their curves kind of look screwed up and based on other countries they seem to be an outlier in statistics.
And it’s Iran – their figures are not going to be reliable, they’ve looked strange from the start anyway. MSM scraping the barrel as always.
They have decided to crack on they have lifted the lockdown because otherwise they will starve.
They are going for herd immunity deaths are steady under a 100 a day as is new infections.
There will be no second wave and I think deaths will slowly decline.anddont forget there are 90 million people in iran so 90 deaths a day is a tiny amount
Looking at worldometers it looks like they are indeed having a second wave.
They were one of the first countries outside China to start reporting cases and appeared to get their outbreak under control rather quickly. Many of us uncharitably assumed they were lying. But it seems not.
The authoritarian regime probably helped them do a “successful” lockdown.
Their deaths per capita are similar to Germany’s. Should we be worried that Germany will have a second wave? I still think not looking at the progression of the epidemic in Germany.
Coronavirus: Vast majority of the population at risk if there’s a second wave, top scientist warns
We don’t know if there will be further “waves” of this disease, but it is obviously a plausible possibility. Indeed, this was always the main argument against suppression policies and in favour of mitigation and herd immunity policies. It might not, f course, and if it does it’s likely it will be far less damaging than the previous one because, contrary to this scientist’s probably intentionally misleading fear-mongering (at least as quoted here), in reality it appears likely we might have approached the herd immunity level for this disease in the current epidemic.
Has the fear-mongering been successful enough that people will tolerate another wave of economic and cultural self-harm? Time will tell.
It’s sad to observe, though, that we must now assume that any information provided by an establishment scientist such as this man is as likely to be untrue and intentionally misleading, for the purposes of opinion and behaviour management, as it is to be what he actually believes.
“Former chief medical officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said some nations that have got the virus under control have had more outbreaks and she said there could even be a third wave coming.
She said: “The countries that seem to have got rid of it still have cases popping up, and while it’s rattling around the world it will be very difficult to get rid of”
Which nations would these be, Dame Davies? Give examples. Only one I can readily see is Iran, and even then that’s cases going up, not deaths (so far). Cases are partly a measure of how much and who you test.
Those countries…cases popping up. Ah, that must be scientific language that thick people like me don’t understand.
They freely admit a vaccine may never be found, seem to think the virus will be around forever, but no mention of how they propose we get out of it.
Dame Sally has a rather interesting CV. If you are interested read the attached. When I say ‘read’ I mean ‘read between the lines’ and draw your own conclusions. I will point out the one glaring error in her own narrative. She was inspired to study Medicine after reading The Double Helix – published the year after she started her degree!
https://www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/people/summary/Davies
I think we can safely ignore her rantings.
The fact that Davies’ mother went to university was a major achievement given the small number of women who did degrees at the time.
Bollox. She’s four years older than me and it was no big deal that I went to uni.
OOps, her mum. That’ll teach me to read more carefully. Yes her Mum did well.
Also no mention that a well functioning immune system is critical in protecting people against most pathogens.
The only expert I trust is Professor Delores Cahill an immunologist. She’s the only one who talks about our immune systems no government official does, which is worrying. I’ve written to my MP about it she’s very much on board with everything the government does but I’ll keep on badgering her anyway.
So they’ve had to invent a third wave now? They are getting desperate!
I live by the sea and them waves just never stop coming.
The Coviwavers’record ( remember those?) has got stuck.
I no longer have any faith in scientists. I would get more sense using intuition and a set of tarot cards.
Even Mystic Meg has more credibility than this lot.
Great quote from Roger Bootle, Telegraph, 25 May 2020:
“The Government claimed to be relying on ‘the science’. In practice there is no such a thing. There are competing views from eminent scientists about the nature of the virus, how it is spread and how effective various measures are against it.
We have discovered that epidemiology is less like physics and more like economics. There is much that economists don’t know, even about their own subject. But they have one advantage over most other groups. They know it. Additionally, they know how forecasts can be grossly wrong, as the result of what seem to be only minor variations.”
Please not to slag off the Tarot. Of course there is more sense there than in the pronouncements of government reptiles.
(The third wave sounds like a new hairdo to me).
When autumn starts and the job losses begin there is no way another lock down could be imposed ,if it was there could well be civil unrest.
I genuinly expected there to be civil unrest for this lockdown, certainly after so long, but thus far people have been remarkably compliant. I find it terrifying that the public have simply rolled over and accepted this, and I fear that unless Johnson’s government is firmly booted out at the next election, it will embolden future governments to do this again for any reason they choose.
I thought the same and gave it a few weeks before people got irritable. But nada, barely a whimper.
It may sound contradictory but I believe it is precisely because the threat of this virus is low. Therefore people are willing to go along with anything because they are not in any immediate danger. They are essentially indifferent to the whole situation. They are not crying out to be saved nor are they complaining, they have just accepted that life is going on as the “new normal”.
Next election is too long to wait. Country will be finished by then.
Exactly!
It’s quite bizarre that they’re still going on and on about a second wave when many studies are pointing out that the second wave could have already happened and is now on the out.
The government and its acolytes in the scientific community I think are constantly going on about this in order to cover up their gross incompetence and the fact that they have wrecked our economy and so many lives.
I agree with Nic – no way will the populace tolerate another lockdown later in the year. When the furlough scheme ends and the Treasury announces that we are now officially in recession, the stats for unemployment, business closures and bankruptcy will be laid bare and there will be unrest and rioting.
It is worrying how the government are currently *adding* new rules – maybe they anticipate greater resistance to their next lockdown?
As they have been found to lie I don’t trust anything they say anymore.
More fear porn. I really wonder if people get off on this in some sinister sexual way. Or are they getting paid to spout this speculative nonsense? How’s about this https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/01/no-evidence-suggest-coronavirus-second-wave-coming/
That’s great.
More worrying is the article saying the virus was engineered in China.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/03/exclusive-coronavirus-began-accident-disease-escaped-chinese/
There’s plenty of equally credible evidence to suggest that it was engineered in the USA.
I thought it would be best to report from Sweden a more nuanced view what was said rather than reported in MSM about a supposed backdown in Sweden. The lockdown fanatics will always interpret things as suits them best. There can’t be nuances when you have to defend a monstrosity like a lockdown which the UK government knows is a total failure and an economic disaster out of all proportion. BBC and the MSM propaganda machine must be used to its maximum
https://www.thelocal.se/20200603/tegnell-heres-what-sweden-should-have-done-differently-to-fight-coronavirus
But Tegnell said it was still not clear what Sweden should have done differently, whether it should have introduced different measures or introduced them all at the same time rather than in incremental steps.
“In fact, all countries really have thrown everything at it at once. Sweden is one of the few countries and has worked its way up to a stop more and more. All other countries started with a lot of things at once, and the problem with that is that you don’t really know which of the measures you took had the best effect,” he said.
“Maybe we will get to know that now when you start removing measures one by one, and perhaps that will teach us some kind of lesson about what else, besides what we did, you could do without a full lockdown.”
Tegnell’s comments quickly grabbed headlines both in Sweden and in international media. But he told the Public Health Agency’s daily press conference at 2pm on Wednesday that they should not be interpreted as a rejection of the entire strategy. He said that with the benefit of hindsight there are always things that can be improved, but that he and his team would nevertheless not drastically have changed the strategy.
“We still think that the strategy is good, but you can always make improvements, especially when looking back. I personally think it would be rather strange if anyone answered anything else to such a question. You can always do things better,” he said, adding that he did not necessarily think he had been misquoted, but that his comments had been overinterpreted.
https://www.thelocal.se/20200310/timeline-how-the-coronavirus-has-developed-in-sweden
You have always to be careful looking at Worldometer and daily cases i.e. Sweden 3 rd June
“You may have noticed that the number of confirmed cases increased quite sharply today, from 38,589 yesterday. That’s because almost 1,400 of the new cases are not actually new cases, but have suddenly appeared in the statistics because a laboratory in Stockholm had reported its data late, said Tegnell. He said that they were all healthcare staff and that none of them had been very ill and none of them had died.”
Finally legal positions about lockdown rules in Sweden
“A curfew however is considered too great a measure to be imposed without going through parliament, so that isn’t covered by these new powers. In other words, if the government wanted to place a limit on when, how often, or for what reasons people in Sweden can leave their homes, it would need to get parliamentary approval and pass a new law, since this would curtail constitutional rights.
The original proposal to grant the government faster decision-making powers stated that: “Such an intervention as a ban on going outside – a type of isolation – or a quarantine of the whole society would likely mean limits to freedoms and rights that would require a law.”
Sweden’s constitution doesn’t allow for a state of emergency during peacetime. That’s a measure which exists in many other countries, allowing those countries’ governments to impose tougher restrictions during times of crises – something many of them have indeed done.”
Further
https://twitter.com/alexkx3/status/1268230965299683328/photo/1
On a per capita basis, the Swedish hotspot Stockholm has done better than all England re excess deaths.
Thanks just as I thought.
Maybe time that we get a Constitution in the UK to protect us from Government Ministers that erode our liberties and rights by amending existing legislation to lock us in our houses.
The Irish have one precisely because under British rule it wasn’t all in one document. Doesn’t help them.
The Constitution in Portugal requires that the President, the Government and the Parliament all agree in order to declare a State of Emergency. It took one day to pass it in Parliament – unanimously, with one or two MPs abstaining, and they didn’t really discuss whether it was necessary. After a few weeks the President grew tired of the State of Emergency and the Government just changed it to a State of Calamity, with essentially the same restrictions. So, probably a Constitution wouldn’t have done you much good…
The public and press were appalled that Dominic Cummings drove to another home, in theory for his child’s welfare. But when Boris was recovering from his ‘illness’, he went to stay at Chequers and nobody batted an eyelid. Can we be reassured that he will not be making the same reckless trip any time soon? Or at least that he will only be visiting for a barbecue in the garden, won’t move inside if it rains, and won’t be staying overnight?
Indeed. It’s one of his second homes.
I went for a walk in the Lakes on Tuesday. No crowds and no litter anywhere. One friendly sign by a farm read ‘footpaths open as usual.’ BBC won’t cover this!!
However, a concern. Two walkers I passed and said hello to said they were teachers. Not at school or working from home then.
Are headteachers tracking their teachers 1265 hours contracted directed time and planning when they will make up the missed hours? It is their job to ‘direct’ those hours. I hope this will be monitored by OFSTED/ DFE/ local authorities, as well as the quality of work set. Furthermore, I hope heads will not dish out performance related pay increments this year after all this!
I seem to have discovered the Lockdown playbook – Ken Follett’s ‘World Without End’, published in 2007. The later chapters, covering the Black Death, are uncannily prescient.
A few examples:
Page 724
…in Florence people stayed in their homes to avoid contact with the sick.
Is that a good idea?’ …
‘No, they didn’t escape,’ he said. ‘But perhaps even more would have died if they had done otherwise.
Page 724
‘The plague spreads from one person to another,’ she said angrily. ‘If you stay away from other people, you’ve got a better chance of escaping infection.’
Page 724
‘Shut the city gates,’ she replied. ‘Block the bridge. Keep all strangers out of the town.’
…‘But there are already sick people in town.’
…‘Close all taverns. Cancel meetings of all guilds. Prohibit guests at weddings.’
… ‘In Florence they even abandoned meetings of the city council.’ …
‘Then how are people to do business?’ ‘
If you do business, you’ll die,’ Caris said. ‘And you’ll kill your wife and children, too. So choose.
Page 735
‘No masks.’ … ‘You don’t imagine they’re effective, do you?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘No, of course not. How could they be?
Page 787
No monk is to go outside without my personal permission, which will be granted only in emergency
791
‘You heard that sneeze – don’t you understand what it means?’ He turned to the rest of the monks, to make sure they heard what he said next.
‘They’ve all got the plague!’ They gave a collective murmur of fear.
Godwyn wanted them frightened
I read that ages ago, and Pillars of the Earth too! Wonderful books, your post has just reminded me of them now
How about this TV show from years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY6-HvE5YdU&feature=emb_logo
Prophetic or what?
WOW!!
Lol I remember when I read this and thought, “that’s way too strict” !
They weren’t that strict even with city lockdowns back then. They were stricter with sieges for obvious reasons.
Today’s Daily Mail provides a useful guide as to what quarantine rules mean. Laughable, unenforceable. Take a look at Step 4 in guide.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8385451/Police-use-reasonable-force-make-self-isolate-14-days.html
I hope they are unenforceable. It’s such a nonsense and I’m fuming about it.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1268452535758721024
according to Andrew Neil
“Leading scientists say UK’s plans for 2-week quarantine of all arrivals make “no sense”. Downing Street’s own chief scientific adviser distances himself from the policy. The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) was not consulted on the decision.”
https://twitter.com/NahasNewman/status/1268389152120242178/photo/1
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30053-7/fulltext
Now we know from Hubei IFR 0.16% according to this Lancet study
This serosurvey looked at evacuees from Hubei IFR 0.16%
97% of infections uncaptured
“our findings indicate that about 2·2 million people (3·8%, 95% CI 2·2–6·0) in Hubei and 0·5 million people (4·4%, 2·5–7·1) in Wuhan could have been infected. The number of laboratory-confirmed symptomatic patients in Hubei province was reported as 67802 (3% of 2·2 million) as of March 31, 2020.18 Thus 97% of infections in Hubei might have gone undiagnosed at that period of the epidemic.”
“Furthermore, the number of deaths reported in Hubei was 3193 up to March 31, 2020, which is about 0·16% of the estimated 2·2 million seropositive individuals”
Then they state that the IFR is 10 times higher than the swine influenza pandemic( a bit strange as they have chosen the most benign flu pandemic ever where there was a big cross immunity in the population against H1N1)
“Future waves of the outbreak are inevitable without a vaccine or antiviral prophylaxis.”
So this study is going to be used by BBC/MSM to scare us for the second wave and the necessity of vaccine. But the important thing is the IFR 0.16%.
“97% of infections uncaptured”
Remember when the WHO told us that we ought to take the crude fatality rate seen in China very seriously, because they’d been so good at finding all the cases? As in:
Another bad prediction that seemed highly suspect at the time.
It looks like they’re underestimating prevalence by deliberately using a high threshold value for the IgG test. We know from the Lübeck study that quite a few people who do have antibodies (and were PCR positive) only have them in small quantities.
This may be due to some combination of low viral load, innate immune response, cross-immunity or killer T-cell dominated response.
But in spite of trying their best to underestimate prevalence they still end up with a low IFR probably because of China’s rather conservative count of the number of deaths in Hubei.
I agree that you should be suspicious of death figures from China so difficult to state that the IFR is correct but on the other hand, they could underestimate the IFR because of underestimating the antibodies level incl. transient antibody response.
But the general IFR 0.16 % is actually not the main thing. The most important thing is IFR below 50 years. The Hubei figures of age of death was remarkably similar to Spain which makes me think that IFR below 50 is very small. This is the most important figure against the ruinous lockdown and MSM/BBC and government will do anything in their power to hide them. The emperor is naked if you show them.
“ IFR below 50 is very small. This is the most important figure against the ruinous lockdown”
Indeed. I pointed this out to a friend of mine. He replied with concern for people over 50, 60 or whatever – the more vulnerable. I said, well, yes it is more dangerous for them but they may need to be more careful, if they feel that is right for them. His answer was that we should all social distance, for as long as it takes, so that the vulnerable are safer.
Their IFR sounds about right so they probably underestimating the prevalence by about the same amount that the Chinese are undercounting the deaths
A factor of 2 or 3.
But are they undercounting them or are countries like the UK overcounting them? A bit of both. I agree that it’s more important and relevant to look at IFR in lower age groups especially from the point of view of whether lockdowns come anywhere close to making any sort of sense.
I think this study is pretty shaky. Returning Hong Kong residents from Hubei are not a representative sample of the Hubei population. Given that they are travellers, they are more likely to have had a wider spread of contacts, hence higher risk of infection. They could have all come from the same place/city, so again not representative for the Hubei province.
This snippet caught my attention: “the higher amount of possible disease-enhancing cross-reactive antibody in adults than in children, as evident by the OD value of the enzyme immunoassay, should be explored further as a possible explanation of more severe disease in adults”
So, are they saying that adults are more at risk, possibly because they have antibodies for other coronaviruses? In other words, because adults have more immunity for, say, the common cold, they may be more at risk from Covid-19? That would be a sort of reverse-immunity..
Yes, such things do exist, but it’s very speculative that this is a problem with COVID-19.
One thing that can happen is “antibody dependent enhancement”, which is where the antibodies instead of neutralising viruses actually make it easier for them to get inside cells. But if this happens for SARS2, it would be (slightly wrong) spike antibodies that did it, because the spike protein is what the virus uses to get inside cells.
But the recent Singapore study found half of people who had not had either SARS1 or SARS2 had some T-cell cross-reactivity with SARS2 from other coronaviruses but not on the spike protein. It’s therefore unlikely that that would be harmful in that way, and more likely that it would help.
The earlier paper with some of their names on it that they’re referring to was about SARS1 vaccine enhancement (when the vaccine makes the disease worse). That wouldn’t have been due to the “wrong” antibodies though (the vaccine made the right antibodies) but possibly some kind of immune system imbalance.
Might memory of other coronaviruses make SARS2 worse? It’s possible, but it’s more likely that it’s the other way around.
Interesting to note that for SARS1 every vaccine attempt produced enhancement. For MERS, inactivated virus vaccines did, but Chad/MVA vaccines were OK. An inactivated virus vaccine would be expected to bias the response more towards Th2/antibodies/humoral response. A Chad/MVA vaccine has to get inside cells first and get them to actually make the antigens so would bias towards Th1 and the cell-mediated response, with more killer T cells. That was indeed what happened on the monkeys with the Chad SARS2 virus. In that earlier paper of theirs (Liu 2019) they were speculating that a Th1 biased response towards these vaccines might be better and reduce enhancement.
But neither SARS2 vaccine seemed to show enhancement in monkeys, and China are going ahead with human trials of an inactivated virus one, and Oxford with the Chad one. And nothing seemed to work for SARS1.
And this snippet “some patients with mild symptoms might mount a B-cell response that is undetectable by our conventional antibody assays” suggests that all antibody tests may be underestimating the number of people infected. And they may be underestimating it massively.
So actually, antibody tests only indicate the lower bound of infected people. The reality may be much much higher.
In general actual prevalence is probably up to about twice what seroprevalence tells you (based on Lubeck, where 70% of PCR positive were antibody positive, but only 40% of the asymptomatic cases). But it depends on the test.
In this study they actually say their test is only 73% sensitive (so will only find 73% of actual cases) because they set the threshold high. They also point out that because exposure was several months ago antibody levels will have dropped a bit (but those people will still have memory B cells and memory T cells for many years if not life).
A headline in today’s The Times sums up the current insanity – ‘Private hospitals sit empty as waiting lists for surgery grow’. Govt is apparently wasting millions on private hospitals that are sitting idle, waiting for NHS patients……another day, another dose of insanity.
Meanwhile, Boris concentrates his efforts on telling people not to go inside someone else’s house if it starts raining.
I am now firmly of the opinion that the guy has serious mental problems as he is unable to think rationally any more. The US has the 25th Amendment for dealing with this situation, have we anything similar?
Indeed, the whole cabinet seems to be operating under extreme mental delusions – Priti’s ridiculously timed quarantine indicates rather clearly how delusional they are. But, yes, how can this be stopped and who could do this – especially given that the Opposition are equally deluded?
That could perhaps explain why Hancock started laughing manically on Sky News a few days ago when he was questioned on the TT app. They’re clearly all undergoing some sort of collective breakdown. I don’t blame them – it must surely be sinking in now that they are responsible for the misery of millions.
The ONS figures for March and April where 33,841 deaths were recorded shows that of the people that dies there was 46,715 pre-existing conditions listed on the death certificates. These were:
Dementia and Alzheimers disease: 8,577
Symptoms signs and ill-defined conditions: 7,376
Influenza and pneumonia: 7,225
Diabetes: 7,090
Hypertensive Disorders: 6,404
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 5,372
Diseases of the urinary system: 4,671
By age, pre-existing conditions listed on the death certificates:
0-69 Years old: 6,697
70 and over: 40,018
So, based on this you could guess that nearly everyone had at least one other pre-exsiting condition on their death certificate, which just shows you how ludicrous this whole COVID-19 pandemic is.
I have found the actual value and it is 90.4% of people who died had an pre-existing condtion, this is from the ONS:
“Of the deaths involving COVID-19 that occurred in England and Wales in March and April 2020, there was at least one pre-existing condition in 90.4% of cases”
I also noticed that “Old Age” is not listed as one of the pre-existing conditions, yet around 60% of deaths are over the average lifespan in the UK.
Many GP s write ” old age ” as the cause of death on anyone over the age of 80 when they have no idea as to why they died but were found by the spouse on the floor. It would be interesting to see if this cause of death has disappeared recently to be replaced by untested but suspected Covid19 .
They may well do. But in April and May they’ve been doing so twice as often. There is also an entry for respiratory disease which is also monitored by ONS.
Ludicrous is not the word I would use. Evil is more apposite
Whilst true, it does not detract from the fact that life expectancy in the elderly, particularly the 85+ has diminished. Whether it is offset by fewer deaths in 2H2020 remains to be seen. My expectation is that these deaths will not be and life expectancy has indeed fallen. Better management, treatment and possibly vaccination will eventually restore it again.
You may be right. The question is, in an attempt to prevent that diminution of life expectancy (which appears not to have been especially successful), can the actions taken and the damage done be justified, bearing in mind the apparent intention of the UK government to carry on interfering with normal life indefinitely?
I’d honestly feel better about this whole catastrophe if I could believe at least in part that there had been some sense in it. But I just can’t see it.
To put C19 in context, maybe it might be useful to look at necrotising fasciitis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis
This is a horror disease that kills up to 35% of people who become infected.
“More than 70% of cases are recorded in people with at least one of these clinical situations: immunosuppression, diabetes, alcoholism/drug abuse/smoking, malignancies, and chronic systemic diseases. For reasons that are unclear, it occasionally occurs in people with an apparently normal general condition.
Necrotizing fasciitis can occur at any part of the body, but it is more commonly seen at the extremities, perineum, and genitals. … Trauma is the usual cause of the infection, such as from intravenous drug injection, insulin injection, animal and insect bites… Skin infections such as abscess and ulcers can also complicate necrotizing fasciitis.”
This is an unbelievably nasty disease (look at the photos!) that could strike a person at any time, even if they are healthy, and it could be from something as random and uncontrollable as an insect bite. But would you cocoon yourself in your home and seal all the windows to avoid it? Our natural assumption is “It’s not going to happen to me”.
C19 is, we are led to believe, a fairly horrendous disease in a small number of people. Maybe, in terms of raw numbers, you’re slightly more likely to die from it than necrotising fasciitis, but is the average member of the public even able to put the figures into context? I suspect that you could change the odds by a large factor and it wouldn’t change people’s behaviour one jot.
The problem with C19 is that the government’s Project Fear and the press’s endless hysteria has focused people’s attention on the horror of the disease and, perhaps, most importantly has made people think they can avoid it. Thus, if you get it, or spread it, it’s your fault. This perception is going to take a long time to shake off, if ever.
Or as the red tops call it ‘the flesh eating bug’
Just having a browse through the newspapers today and surprised by how little is being made of unrest both here and throughout Europe. I’m getting that queasy D-notice feeling? It would explain why the internet providers have taken so quickly to pulling video of people who don’t tow the line/off message. 50 years before that info drops into the public domain, I’ll tell my granddaughter to keep her eye open for it.
https://twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1268271016834367488/photo/1
Spain produced two curves one for diagnosed cases(blue) and one for onset of symptoms(purple). Bad luck for the lockdown fanatics. BNP -10% for nothing.
“No models needed. Spain’s OFFICIAL data hides the recognition that peak, and thus flatten, happened 3 DAYS BEFORE LOCKDOWN Onset symptoms data shows it peaked 17mar. Counting 5,1days back, for infection to onset symptoms, it’s 12mar, lowest range 3 days, 14m Lockdown began 15mar.”
Get prepared for the 2nd wave and more lockdowns – WHO wants to run a 2nd pandemic preparedness exercise in Sept 2020 – page 39, second bullet point:
https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_report/GPMB_annualreport_2019.pdf
https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_report/GPMB_Annual_Report_Exec_Summary_Foreword_and_About_English.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=WFI0WNHHImo&feature=emb_logo
Is this why the Governments don’t want to stop the lockdown? Or coincidence?
Took a bit of searching but found it – is this exercise 1 he’s talking about or am I putting 2+2 together to get 10 to suit my own beliefs?
https://twitter.com/ShepardAmbellas/status/1241372623172325379
http://stateofthenation.co/?p=9649
Answers welcome as I do like to challenge my own thinking rather than be in a bubble of my own making like media luvvies and politicians in islington or Notting Hill or wherever they seem to congregate..
Are you sure about this or are clutching at straws? As of yesterday my mental state is fluctuating between indescribable anger and extreme anxiety and I’d like to suggest we don’t post stuff that is likely to fuel those emotions unless we are sure. I don’t mean to cast aspersions because I appreciate your contributions but I’m getting to the point now where any more bad news (in respect of the lies and false narratives) is making me want to do damage to someone, and I am not prone to aggression. I loathe guns but if I lived in the U.S. I would be going out to buy one and all the ammo I could get, which would be a disaster because as my stability begins to wane the chances of me using it would be high. I wonder if that is what they are banking on.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised about more lockdowns, I think it’s a very thin stretch to attribute it to a planned exercise. The exercise that he’s referenced is similar to military exercises that simulate enemy invasions. The military doesn’t actually invade a country and kill people to practice how they’d respond to a theoretical invasion.
The military have better morals than big pharma though …
Ted Bundy had better morals than Jack The Ripper.
Which is relevant how, exactly ?
That’s why I asked if I was making 2+2=10, I’m not sure so thought I’d ask.
But too many “coincidences” piling up time and time again over the years and decades with these are names and organisations cropping up time and time again.
In my opinion something is starting to really stink and getting close to being revealed one way or another for good or bad.
Amazing Polly on youtube has also quoted this. Compulsory masks are probably to make us more vulnerable to the next wave, the virus having already killed the most vulnerable in society..
YouTube has reinstated the Triggernometry interview with Peter Hitchens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jERxPhrY_18
I don’t think they ever pulled it..? The issue was that they ‘shadow banned’ it. But yes, you’re right that you can now do a search for it and find it.
It actually came out on my recommends.
What do we think about a lockdown sceptics bulldog branded mask?? I don’t wear one (obviously) and currently avoiding situations where they’re mandatory. But I can see this may not always be feasible, eg at hairdressers, school uniform shop (!).
I will as far as possible be boycotting anywhere that mandates mask wearing. I will be wearing my hair long if I can’t find a hairdresser that doesn’t insist on it.
But it will be very hard to avoid it completely.
I’ve got nothing against bulldogs but think a more neutral approach might be better – something with just words rather than an image. I’m terribly verbose, so can’t currently think of anything better than “The WHO says mask wearing is not generally useful or necessary, I am only wearing this mask because I have to”. I’m sure one of the more erudite contributors could come up with something more pithy.
SWMBO had a hairdo yesterday.
She entered the salon reluctantly wearing a mask but was told to remove it almost immediately and only to bother with hand gel if she particularly wanted it.
Hairdresser was wearing a mask but pulled it aside to blow her nose a couple of times (she is a severe hay fever sufferer).
Farcical.
Was this in France? I sense a day trip coming on, could combine it with a trip to the dentist while I am there.
Yes, Quillan down in the SW.
Appointments essential – and the salon door locked after customers (max 2 at a time) enter.
Not sure what’s happening with dentists yet.
The health insurers are keen to get us back to the doctor’s though – ‘free’ long (1/2 hour) consultations for over-65’s until the end of June.
An attempt to offset – or more likely atone for – lockdown deaths?
Re dentists see my reply to Julian above.
How does locking people in comply with fire regs? More dangerous than covid I’d have thought.
Totally. I’ve been wondering for ages what I’d write on a mask that’s concise, polite, but blunt, if/when I’m forced to wear one. Which I am now in some cases. Not come up with anything so thought maybe an image better.
I’d say a picture of a hand covering the mouth would be subtle but highly suggestive. Think along the lines of somebody being abducted for the image.
I think hairdressers will be forced by the regs to insist on masks, whether they are in favour or not.
Just got the new guidelines for visiting the dentist. (Not from him but from his overseeing body.) Good grief, it’s ridiculous!!
You’ve to wait in your car till summoned.The door will be locked till you’re allowed in. (What do people on foot or public transport do if it’s raining?)
You’ll be given a mask on entry. Not sure what you do with it while receiving treatment!
Do they think we’ll infect the receptionist who will be barricaded behind a screen. How do they think supermarket cashiers have survived for so long??
I will be wearing a balaclava.
It looks as sinister as masks should to people.
Hot though!
This should do it!
Absolutely not
I’ve got a plague doctor mask for any situation where it is compulsory and I absolutely cannot avoid wearing a mask.
Wonderful!
Interesting piece in CoronaCircus discussing the concept of Kayfabe in wrestling and it’s relevance to the media of today.
“Before the scripted nature of professional wrestling became widely known, the term “kayfabe” was used as a code among industry insiders to discuss matters in public without revealing the staged nature of their discipline.”
https://coronacircus.com/2020/06/02/welcome-to-kayfabe/
If it wasn’t so tragic this would be fascinating in itself. I used to contend as a child in the 1960s watching the television wrestling on ITV on Saturday afternoon that it was all fake and could we watch something else. I was castigated for my remarks. I couldn’t understand how people believed it was real. But now I am living in it, every day, people really believing that the bogeyman (CV19) is coming to get you. The people who are pushing this narrative should be….I can’t think of something sufficient or appropriate that is acceptable on a fair-minded website. Let’s just say my thoughts are very, very dark and spiteful. Hangover doesn’t help. But then that’s an occupational hazard these days.
Interesting (for some, maybe not for others) snippet. Back in the days when pro fighters would put on sword fights with sharp blades in London, there was debate then about the degree to which the fights were staged, and there is evidence to support it happening.
Neither of them being killed, like ?
Deaths did happen, but surprisingly rarely, from a modern perspective (perhaps we could regard that as evidence).
I’d have bringing those fights back in the Dangerous Party’s manifesto, personally.
Are there stats on duels fought with swords ? Could do a comparative analysis.
I had an email from the Conservative Party this morning inviting me to ask Rishi Sunak a question for the next newsletter. Well – no thanks. But I did then think, what if we all wrote to the Conservative Party itself to put pressure on Boris Johnson? They want votes, and if they see they are genuinely losing voters, they won’t like it.
With the majority of the people who have died during the lockdown being in the age groups most likely to vote Conservative, I don’t think they are that bothered about losing voters
They’ve mainly been playing to the floating voters, not to their base, whom they take for granted.
I think we should write as much as we can, without wasting energy. I have written to my MP several times, some along the lines of “unless you do something I will never vote for you again”. No response.
I also wrote to various allegedly lockdown sceptic MPs. No response.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying.
Yes, at least we can keep irritating them.
They have an 80 majority for the next 4.5 years. Do you think they give a sh*t about votes right now?
What a nightmare!
That will ensure that a restaurant who does all of that will close as diners will stay away.
Let’s hope that this nonsense never gets off the ground. If it does then that will be the end of restaurants and cafes and by extension the high street and cultural institutions.
It’s the end of life as we know it. No social interaction unless Fuhrer Boris says so. He’s a Libertarian or so I’m told!
Never a libertarian. Authoritarian populist, opportunist, pretend liberal, lightweight.
Obviously wooden tables will have to be replaced with plastic ones
Nooooo!
If it came to that, could you use some of the plasticised cloth to create a disinfectable surface. Much cheaper than new tables! Dunhelm had a large selection but I’m not sure what their current setup is. You’ll surely find some online, eg ebay or Amazon.
“I was unfortunate enough to visit the establishment of kh1485. I was not impressed. The seating was clearly 1.8m apart when the law states that it should be a minimum of 2m (see exhibit 1 for the prosecution a picture with tape measure showing clearly 1.8m). After the imposition of having to move the chair myself to the required safe distance I was struck by the distinct lack of smell of any cleaning substances at all. Had the tables not been disinfected between guests? It is lucky I carry my own disinfectant just for times like these. After perusing the menu, which also lacked the smell of any cleaning substance I decided to order a simple coffee TO GO as I was already feeling rather unsafe and didn’t want to spend longer than necessary in this cesspit. After being handed my coffee by what can only be described as a recently unwashed hand I made my escape to the relative safety of the outside. I feel it is my duty as a responsible citizen to say do not put your life at risk by coming within a mile of this place”
Yours sincerely a regular TripAdvisor Megalomaniac
This is an example of what future reviews may well look like.
We are desperately hoping our favourite small village restaurant will open soon,we have been there nearly every week for ten years,the food is great but more importantly the family that run it are so kind,friendly and hard working and they feel like members of our family,if that doesn’t sound too daft !.Unfortunately,knowing what nazis the local council are I can only see them being open with all of the stupid unnecessary restrictions in place and that would be completely unworkable for them and to us it would make a meal there unbearable.This to me is heartbreaking,it is a level of madness totally off the scale.The family has spent twenty years building up their business to the success it had become but I really can’t see it surviving and all caused by a so called Conservative government.Also there is another restaurant in the village,again family run and they lost their son in a road accident a few months ago and are now having to cope with this luncacy,I am becoming so angry and frustrated about the treatment of the decent hardworking people of this country that I am struggling to write this without filling it with expletives !,
yet the majority of the population just carries on,doing as they are told,in blissful,retarded ignorance.
Oh,the best way to disinfect wooden tables ?,burn them I would have thought !.
I’ve been mourning the inevitable demise of my favourite little cafe – and no doubt the formerly thriving village it inhabits, which is full of mostly small independent shops.
Real wood is self-disinfecting – though you might have to go through the motions.
This is just crazy! How is any business suppost to run and make any money with these ridiculous measures??! And as a diner i wouldn’t be visiting anywhere with social distancing in place.
I’d come to your cafe though if it was closer.
This site now has 1775 users registered, so probably with duplicated accounts, test accounts, admin accounts, and trolls, there will still be over 1,000 people who have registered on here.
Is now the time we should be forming and registering and official Political Party or Protest Group?
Count me in!
I can’t bear to watch the covbola update, but here’s the transcript :
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-at-the-coronavirus-press-conference-3-june-2020
Now… Did he just mention BILL GATES ?!!! A Global Vaccine summit??
Whether you want to go down the road of a conspiracy or not this is an absolute red flag. His name is absolute mud on many websites for previous ‘vaccination’ crimes. The government will know that.
If the government is still playing this ‘goading the public’ game then they are certainly succeeding judging from the comments I saw on Youtube yesterday
They say:
Should say:
Sounds a marvellous dining experience!
More potential job losses in the tourism sector:
Travelodge to file for form of bankruptcy to save 10,000 jobsBudget hotel chain Travelodge is to file for a form of bankruptcy after losing £350 million of sales due to the lockdown.
It said that it has no option but to apply for a Company Voluntary Arrangement to save 10,000 jobs and secure its long-term future.
A creditors’ meeting will be held on June 19. Holders of three-quarters of its debt must agree to the CVA or Travelodge could face voluntary liquidation.
https://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?c=setreg®ion=2&m_id=bvT_T_bm&w_id=37600&news_id=2042936
What the f*ck are the Government doing to this country?
BBC reports casually quote government people saying things like “unemployment caused by coronavirus”. That’s another part of the narrative we need to fight against and expose – relentlessly correct people to point out it was the REACTION to coronavirus about which the government had a CHOICE. Viruses don’t cause unemployment, though they appear to cause madness.
Yes, they could at least say caused by the lockdown.
Deliberately wrecking it although some claim it’s sheer incompetence. Either way our lives will be changed forever and not in a good way. At what point the population decides they have had enough remains to be seen we need to find our elusive backbone. This government needs to be challenged on the direction they have taken. I wonder how. any more points the blond wrecking ball has dropped in the polls.
According to that nice Mr Sunak those losing their jobs can retrain to work in the expanding Green Sector! Great news eh
Yeah, great whilst being paid far less and becoming homeless!
Priority to be given as apprenticeships for the young. So, if you’re over 30 and jobless, you’re presumably stuffed?
I feel as though I’ve woken in a parallel universe this morning. The potential loss of 10000 livelihoods at Travelodge should be front and centre of every news programme and website. Instead we have reheated Madeline McCann stories and day 5 of Black Lives Matter. No doubt tonights clapping seals will find somecway of working both into their 5 minute NHS love in tonight.
I think the clapping is over. Now I think you’re meant to come to your door and ‘take a knee’ – I’m not making it up. This could get very nasty.
Those policemen kneeling in front of a baying mob yesterday in London was one of the most sickening things I’ve ever seen.
It is obvious that Mason Mills on twitter is Dominic Cummings
A quote from the brain behind the lockdown that eminent Public Health Expert Dominic Cummings
“Good luck to all those children who are returning back to school today. It seems that the majority of parents who decided to keep their kids home are Labour voters. It’s time to move the UK forward again. Don’t let political points scoring harm the county AND your children.”
(Did he miss r)?
Linguistic note: in former times you could just ‘return’ – now it has to be the tautological ‘return back’ (presumably in the same vein as ‘outside of‘ and the ghastly ‘off of‘).
I see George Floyd was found to have Covid when he died. So he presumably will count as ‘another Covid death?’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8386421/George-Floyd-autopsy-report-reveals-tested-positive-coronavirus.html
George Floyd was laid off by his employer because of the lockdown.
Then he’s arrested for using a forged $20 bill because he’s got no wages.
So, his death and the subsequent riots and protests can be attributed to the lockdown, as without this and him still in a job he would’ve had the money.
No one is conveniently mentioning this in the MSM are they?
It was the virus wot dun it.
OMG When you put it like that the Lockdown has a lot to answer for!
You mean even more to answer for.
This breaks my heart more than anything. No lockdown, George Floyd is still employed. Not murdered by the police.
I’m not going in any establishment where the staff wear masks. This is just a continuation of a false narrative, a bloody great big lie – I just don’t understand what the objective is. Apart from the Orwellian boot on our faces.
The social distance graphs in the Lockdown Truth blog are great. They illustrate the way the media and others instill fear into the population about things that really are not significant risks whether we undertake profound alterations in the way we live or we simply accept that life comes with small risks. The media routinely use relative risk versus absolute risk to scare us into believing that things are far worse than they really are. One of the most common examples of this is the risk of sunlight touching our skin. The behavior nazis who moralize about using sunscreen sound very much like the coronanzis who moralize about masks and social distancing.
Another point of interest is that even those graphs include fear-indusing language: the use of the word “safe”. At 1 metre apart, we’re 97.4% “safe”. Safe from what? Safe from the likely result of acquiring a symptomless virus that will be successfully dealt with by our immune systems as we already do throughout much of our lives?
Where can we find this blog?
: https://www.lockdowntruth.org/post/the-guardian-continues-project-fear-over-distancing-report
Thanks – like it. Big pictures that even apathetic people can understand.
I’d love to know ow they worked out those percentages. In a lab I presume so completely useless
When it’s safe = never. I agree . I think that the reassuring intention of the graphics was clear but ‘safe’ is a much-abused word at the moment.
Excellent comment…
But I am puzzled. I am no statistician but surely your chance of infection depends on the time period as well. If the time period is infinity your chance of getting it will be 100% whether you’re 1 m, 2m or 10 ms apart. It might be near 100% if the time period is 10 years. And over a year?
So what is the time period being used here? 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, a year? If it’s a 1.3% difference between 1 m and 2m over 3 months, that difference might further narrow over a year.
Presumably also some average is being applied for social interaction. As has been mentioned young people, though far less likely to suffer symptoms, are far more likely to become infected because they mix with so many people and on the move so much.
Another point is that “infected” is a v. grey area when you look into it. It’s pretty clear that a large proportion are exposed to their virus (in their nasal cavities and in their throats but their frontline defences defeat the virus and they never produce antibodies. Were those people “infected”? I’d say yes but I’m not sure if that’s how it’s defined officially.
Excellent points and there’s more of course: is this distance for indoor enviroments? What would the air exchange rate have to be in the building?
Sherelle Jacobs in today’s Telegraph:
With the Government committed to concealing its mistakes, and those who question “the science” dismissed as cranks, there is no certainty that Britain will be able to have a sensible conversation about lockdown. But try we must.
I’ll say.
I like Sherelle she talks a lot of sense.
She’s excellent. Her and Allison Pearson.
Both are my favourite columnists in the DT. Sherelle came in for some stick today for daring to criticise the government.
Allison’ new podcast is excellent too:
A new podcast that speaks your language. News and views from beyond the bubble with Telegraph columnists, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan. Every Thursday.
https://art19.com/shows/planet-normal
She has been consistent on this from the start. I subscribed primarily because of her articles (and others such as Allister Heath). I had tired of the lefty metropolitanism of The Times, especially the sneering female journos who emote about working class issues while looking down their noses at women like me.
I hadn’t been aware of her before. Give her a medal.
Just read a letter sent to Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez from the Deputy Director General for Competition of the European Commission Cecilio Madero. It was sent in a private capacity as a Spanish citizen, but was utterly scathing. In the letter he calls the PMs handling of the coronapanic as “catastrophic” condemning generations to economic disaster. He goes on to say that he must be suffering from a mental illness because if his policies were part of a concious, premeditated plan it would lead him down the road to legal action. He then called for his immediate resignation. He’s not alone in questioning the PM’s mental health. Psycopath is the most frequent description of him in newspaper comments sections which just about sums him and his entire government up.
….must be suffering from a mental illness
I love that.
“He then called for his immediate resignation.“
Strong stuff! Love it.
So a typical politician, then? Boris is clearly at least a sociopath and I have little doubt that that applies to the whole cabinet; I also wonder whether Cummings is a psychopath!
Another first class piece from Sherelle Jacobs:
The chilling attempt to rewrite lockdown history
http://digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/248/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/248/pub/248/page/66/article/48023
When the government pursued the ‘dash for diesel’ (the environmental disaster that resulted in the deaths of thousands), they eventually blamed the car manufacturers for misleading their chief scientific adviser.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/04/fuel-duty-cut-for-diesel-cars-was-wrong-says-ex-chief-science-adviser
“The science now tells us…”. Funny that. ‘The Science’ that had been accepted by the mainstream turned out to be wrong. So if Google had been suppressing the alternative point of view at the time, they would have been suppressing the truth – the truth that could have saved thousands of lives.
Will we something similar with the Covid disaster?
Good morning dear friends.
It with a heavy heart and overwhelming feeling of dread that I come to you today.
I watched the BLM protests unfold in the USA on Twitter last night and it was utterly appalling.
The Democrats,the MSM and the “woke” celebrities seem to be orchestrating a civil war from behind their ivory towers.
To see white people defending their property with guns and black business owners also having to defend their properties was devastating.
Many, including policemen have lost their lives.
These people are not social activists they are anarchists who do not give a care for the rights of others or the values that have been built up over centuries.
This is not just about the USA it is about us and I fear we are heading for similar on our shores.
It has already started with the pure bile and violence exhibited in London last night.
To see our MP’s tweeting that they went to Hyde Park (maintaing social distancing of course) “to take the knee” and policemen on their knees was the most horrendous picture of dystopia I can imagine.
I fear we will have the army on our streets soon.
I have the feeling that something truly satanic is afoot.
That may sound strong but that is what my brain and my gut is telling me.
I agree with you about the despicable nature of these events, but I’m hopeful we won’t see much actual violence on the streets here. It’s not unusual for these kinds of events to get out of control in the US. Doctrinal antiracism is to blame for the bile, both there and here, because it explicitly promotes resentment, division and hatred and creates lobbies depending upon that division and hatred for their power and in many cases for their salaries.
When you look at what rioting means in the US, though, including armed looters gutting small businesses at gunpoint, think about the fact that Facebook staff rebelled at their leader’s refusal to censor Trump for saying that looters could be shot, as though that is some kind of unreasonable thing to say. These people are some kind of aliens who can’t distinguish between defensive and aggressive violence, and they are taking control of our public communications on social media.
Facebook employees hold virtual walkout over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Trump
I fear we will see much more rioting.
Cressida Dick has stated that the police are unwilling to properly police these so called protests as she does not want the police to come under attack, which happened last night anyway.
More “protests” are being organised.
The government and parliament have totally lost the plot.
The army will be called in.
We could soon be under marshall law.
I don’t fear it. Someone has to burn it all down. It might as well be these useful idiots.
Well, the armed forces are the only ones who have performed brilliantly in this pandemic. Building hospitals, sorting out shambolic nhs ppe distribution.
And spying on the internet for so called misinformation.
But i bet they did it efficiently
I know what you mean. I had all sorts of thoughts/feelings and gave up watching/reading the reports last night. The violence this is generating is unbelievable, especially as Floyd’s family have called on people to stop. As his brother said in this clip – https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/3289976934348369/ – if he’s not ‘wilding out’, what are these people who didn’t even know Floyd think they’re doing??
I could go on but shall spare you.
It is partly due to the lockdown and so people aren’t at work, school, university etc. I agree that there is something very sinister about every thing that is happening at the moment. The government need to wake up and get a grip and get the country back to normal – proper normal, immediately.
I had thought UK column were a bit extreme, but now everything they have been saying makes sense – scarily…
It is what my gut is telling me too. This has all got beyond control. And it’s all connected psychologically. Most interesting (and disturbing) events of my lifetime
Yes – and I really fear what will happen in October as the furlough is fully unwound and millions end up jobless!
Some advice required please
when i appear at my door at 20.00 this evening banging my frying pan and singing the variation of “we will rock you”, should i be doing this standing or should i “take the knee”.
Just want to make sure i am as woke as i can be
I believe the correct stance is to lie prone on the ground.
Is that Thursday night sh1t still going on? I thought we were going to have seen the back of it now….
I thought all that crap was over
Round me, it kicked off at 8.00 last night – then quickly died as, I suspect, they realised it was the wrong day!
Not sure what you want to achieve or who you will convince that you are against clapping for NHS. Note: the last clapping was last week.
Seriously? Has the clapping finished? wasnt aware as i have never participated but i did notice last week i heard nothing through the window although it was still included in the tv schedules
anyway given the way the economy and my finances are going i will take the airplane crash position .. sit down, stick my head between my legs and kiss my A*se goodbye
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dying-of-neglect-the-other-covid-care-home-scandal
A must read from Prof Heneghan and Tom Jefferson Oxford Evidence Based Group
The elderly died of dehydration due to lack of staff. Shocking. Disgusting and lockdown helped that.
Resign Johnson
Matt Hancock, NHS management and all at PHE.
Those who opposed the lockdown from the beginning would understand the enormous problem of sheltering the elderly from this virus. Even with testing of staff, masks etc we might have ended up with the same amount of deaths of Covid-19. But they would not have died of dehydration and neglect, the most unworthy death imaginable.
Already in Feb the government knew about the low death rate in young and high death rate in elderly and frail. What did they do? Scaring the working population and anybody could have guessed that low paid workers in the care sector would have felt frightened for their own health with government’s propaganda machine BBC constantly playing up the death story. And doing nothing for the care home sector which everybody knew would be the prime target for this disease.
This 21st century government, science led, could not even protect the most vulnerable in the population, let them die of neglect and dehydration. Instituting a lockdown which would break down even the minimal of care needed incl. having enormous sick leave in staff, without any masks, and difficulty for relatives to travel and visit their loved ones. Shame on them.
If this government had one iota of decency they should resign of this scandal.
And the whole of our wretched cabinet (plus about 630 other MPs)!
Thanks for posting that – it is difficult to read. A full-scale inquiry is needed eventually, but action is required right now. Our public sector institutions have not been fit for purpose for many years (since the 1970s). They are filled with political appointees who get moved around, onwards and upwards, without every being held accountable.
Peter Hitchens has been saying for years that this country is finished. I like him despite having political (and sometimes cultural) differences but I didn’t realise how prescient his remarks were back then.
Relevant tweet from Peter Hitchens:
“James Forsyth says in the Spectator that government is bracing itself for a public inquiry into the Covid farce. But ministers fear ‘a lawyer would be the worst person to chair it as they would take it down the blame route’. So we *definitely* need a lawyer in charge.”
I think it needs a coroner who is both a doctor/scientist as well as legally qualified, such as this guy, who ruffled a lot of feathers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Walker_(barrister)
We need all the emails, text messages and memos between the protagonists, and all the original minutes from SAGE (not the sanitised, ‘minutes of minutes’ just released), and the pre-meeting guidance notes that normally do not appear in The National Archives till declassified under the 30 year rule.
Shocking article. Old people died as a result of neglect. Care homes must either be abolished or fixed but this can’t continue. We care better for animals.
We are all getting older. Is this what we want for ourselves?
I think this article needs to be spread as widely as possible. People will definitely take notice as a very large proportion of deaths have been in care homes.
Reading this should put into perspective the true threat posed by the virus in a way most people can understand.
The virus didn’t kill my grandma, it was neglect.
Here’s what I penned for distribution along with the article:
Half the deaths in Scotland from COVID-19 have been in care homes. This is potentially a damning indictment of how we protect the vulnerable. There is no suggestion (yet) that people in Scotland have died of neglect but this needs to be investigated.
Shocking but not surprising. Added to lack of care is lack of will to live when you are shut in a room all day with brief visits from masked care workers to bring food. Solitary confinement is bad for mental health so people just give up. Also, how many have signed dnr ? I saw a skynews piece on a sheffield care home and there was a covid patient struggling to breathe but just left alone to die in his room. Why are these sick old people not taken to hospital given that hospitals are empty ? They at least deserve to get treatment.
I am probably breaking all copyright laws but I don’t care.It should be read by everyone especially the lockdown fanatics.
“Offficially, more than 44,000 deaths in England and Wales have involved Covid-19. But how many have died as a direct result of the disease itself and how many are victims of the fear and neglect that it has engendered?
It is remarkable how many deaths during this pandemic have occurred in care homes. According to the Office for National Statistics, nearly 50,000 care home deaths were registered in the 11 weeks up to 22 May in England and Wales — 25,000 more than you would expect at this time of the year. Two out of five care homes in England have had a coronavirus outbreak; in the north-east, it’s half.
Not all these deaths, however, have been attributed to Covid-19. Even when death certificates do mention it, it is not always clear that it is the disease that was the ultimate cause of death. The data refers to people who died with Covid-19 present in their bodies, whether or not it was the direct cause. This raises questions about whether there’s another reason for many of these deaths which has gone largely unnoticed while attention has been focused on Covid-19. This is not just a British phenomenon, but one seen across Europe.
A recent study in the southern Île-de-France region suggests confinement itself has had catastrophic consequences. In long-term care facilities with excess Covid-19 deaths, researchers found that acute respiratory distress was not the primary problem — deaths were mainly due to hypovolemic shock, or fluid loss. Confined to their rooms in lockdown, with staff absences running at 40 per cent and with a consequent reduction in the usual support, residents were dying of thirst.
In old age people tend to lose their sensation of thirst, which makes them susceptible to dehydration unless they are reminded and encouraged to drink by staff or family. Dementia further exacerbates the problem, as sufferers can forget to eat and drink altogether and often cannot communicate their needs. Dehydration leads to worsening delirium and confusion, which further limits communication. For such people, having carers around is a matter of life and death.The Covid-19 crisis has placed extra demands on care homes, many of which were already inadequately staffed after years of underfunding. Across Europe, as in Britain, outsourcing to private contractors (in many cases private equity firms) led to cost-cutting. During the pandemic, many carers became immersed in attempts to prevent the spread of infection. Contact between carers and residents was reduced, often as a result of the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). Less contact means less care and, therefore, more deaths.
In Spain, where two-thirds of the country’s fatalities have occurred in care homes, prosecutors have launched investigations into the deaths of 140 residents who were found in a state of complete abandonment. Some were already dead in their beds when discovered. Staff had been instructed not to touch the bodies, and funeral service delays meant corpses just lay where they died.
In Italian care homes, families traditionally supply an extra level of care and attention. But when family members were banned from visiting the homes of their elderly relatives, that safety net vanished. For weeks, Italy’s official daily death toll — which was based on deaths in hospitals only — failed to measure the unfolding disaster in care homes. Istat, the Italian equivalent of the Office for National Statistics, has since reported nearly 19,000 additional excess deaths during March and April — people who died either at home or in nursing homes, probably unsupported by family, neighbours or care home staff.
In Britain, the government and other authorities were distracted by the need to protect hospitals from becoming overloaded. Great efforts were made to ramp up testing, increase critical-care capacity and equip hospitals with more ventilators. Care homes — 801 of which already had Covid outbreaks by the time lockdown was imposed — were overlooked. In order to free up space in hospitals, older patients were discharged into care homes without even being tested for the virus. In the two weeks after lockdown, when the risk of infection should have been waning, a further 1,800 homes in England reported outbreaks.
In Scotland, police are investigating the deaths of three residents at a care home in Skye where ten residents died. Nearly half of Scottish Covid deaths have been in care homes, and so far three in five homes have notified the Care Inspectorate of a suspected outbreak.
Sweden, which refrained from imposing a lockdown, has been criticised by many for ending up with a higher death toll than Norway or Denmark. But here, as elsewhere in Europe, the real problem was in care homes — where nearly half of Covid deaths have occurred. Protective equipment was not available and symptomatic staff still turned up to work. Lacking clinical expertise, staff were unable to administer oxygen.
Contrast the above with the situation in Hong Kong, where 54 nursing homes were affected by the 2002-03 Sars epidemic. Spooked by this, authorities took infection control seriously this time around. Visits to care homes were restricted by January. Testing was made available for all patients who exhibited symptoms (in contrast to Britain). New admissions to care homes were limited. As a result, Hong Kong’s visiting doctors were better able to attend to the needs of residents. Most homes kept one to three months’ supply of protective equipment. Staff were trained in infection control. As a consequence, in the Covid crisis, Hong Kong has seen no deaths in care homes. Not one.
It has taken a global pandemic to realise what has been going on in care homes: underfunded, under-resourced and understaffed, many were destined to fail. Simple restoration of fluids, nutrition, a little oxygen therapy and good supportive care can often save the lives of the frailest and most vulnerable. But with medical attention focused on slowing the spread of Covid-19 in the community at large, care home residents were denied basic care. Lockdown did nothing to impede deaths in the place where they were most likely to happen.
Out of sight, the elderly have remained out of mind. Many homes were already not fit for purpose. The extra confinement which came with the Covid-19 panic has proved deadly. For the sake of a drink, in many cases, the elderly have died in their droves. We will, next time, learn lessons about what not to do. But we can help by being honest with ourselves about a scandal that is still ongoing.
Professor Carl Heneghan is director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, where Professor Tom Jefferson is a senior research fellow.
Written byCarl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson “
Thank you. Disgusting
Another depressing photograph, this time from The Telegraph. I wonder what the children make of this madness.
?imwidth=480
Given that the incidence of Wuhan flu in children is vanishingly small, why in the name of sanity do they need their temperature checking?
My wife has just returned to work in a school. I’m told the hysterical measures being taken throughout the establishment are shocking, and will inevitably have a long-lasting impact on the victims. Is this going to be the new abnormal for schools?
The funniest thing are those silly plastic aprons ( NHS issue ) . They tear very easily and are compltely useless . I wear one only because I might be denounced to the local committee of public safety if I dont .
The lady on the right really should have a think about healthy eating though.
Suddenly being Fattist is PC on the grounds of health and safety. I await the government campaigns to “save” these people from themselves.
The woman in the middle is huge!
This is just so wrong.
> I wonder what the children make of this madness.
I’ve educated my kids to recognise this for the madness it is. My 10 year old son got to meet up with his ‘totally hoodwinked’ grandma after easing this week. It was most amusing to hear him lecturing her about how lock downs cause more deaths than they save.
Great, well done Paul. Please flick your son’s ear for me, and tell him an internet loony thinks he’s a good lad.
If we treated our children like that at home, the social services & police would down like a ton of bricks! (An English ton
)
That was my first reaction,it’s like she thinks he is about to explode or burst into flames,either that or she is lighting a firework and is ready to run away,my second reaction was how very healthy the other woman looks…..
My daughter (19 months) now has her temperature checked on arrival, at 10am, and 2pm. The absurdity astounds me, and I have told them what I think. But good grief!!!! She may contract COVID within a four-hour span???
Some positive signs in travel. I was booking flights for my family to Menorca last week. £356 for all of us. Looked for more today and July and August now 90% sold out with EasyJet. Looks like there is some confidence returning.
So are all these passengers going to self-isolate for 14 days when they come back from their holidays? I think not. Stupid bloody nonsense
I think it demonstrates that they don’t give a flying f**k or are certain that it will not be in place by the time they return. Even SAGE are stating that they did not recommend the quarantine – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-deaths-cases-air-bridges-lockdown1/
If face masks were any use, surely we should be exhorted to wear them now. Why are these stupid measures always put off for two weeks. Nuts!
PS no I’m not advocating the actual use of masks!!!
Quite interesting that Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, has gone public (Telegraph and Mail) with his ‘support’ for CV being manufactured in the Wuhan lab based on a new scientific paper. He is flying a kite for the idea of reparations from China. Interestingly this is not a new line – a group of Indian researchers published a paper in February to this effect, before it was withdrawn, I believe, after an intervention from the usual suspects. Here is the original coverage from ZeroHedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/coronavirus-contains-hiv-insertions-stoking-fears-over-artificially-created-bioweapon
Many other websites that published this in March were vilified and labeled as fake news by no other than Facebook and others.
Dearlove also interviewed for this new podcast. The rest of the podcast is well worth a listen for its anti lockdown message too:
A new podcast that speaks your language. News and views from beyond the bubble with Telegraph columnists, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan. Every Thursday.
https://art19.com/shows/planet-normal
One assumes ex-MI6 means the same as ex-CIA ?
Interesting article in The Guardian about Tiananmen Square:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/04/tiananmen-square-witnesses-remember-an-air-of-celebration-and-then-orwellian-silence
“The thing that really floored me was the Orwellian silence afterwards,” says Avery, who stayed in Beijing until 1991, working under martial law that was kept in place until the year after the crackdown. “Afterwards, everything out of people’s mouths was the party line. Nobody was having conversations. It was just mind boggling.”
The only truth is the truth they allow you to see.
I wonder if anyone at the Guardian recognises the irony as they publish the words.
Day whatever of the global takeover, the News from the Pictish Underground
After his partner was killed by the virus famous comedian Sid Little has joined the Underground, Little said Large would want me to do this. Cannon and Ball have said they will put aside their differences and are gonna say Rock On Tommy once again. Unfortunately the Chuckle Brothers are behind the lockdown saying we should stay in and not be passing the virus from me to you and you to me. The Two Ronnies documentary The Worm That Turned as been banned and declared fake news and liable to cause unrest amongst the stay at home apple watch wearing mung bean eating soya latte drinking progressive dads. They feel their masculinity is a curse and think staying at home letting the wife work is much better.
Irn Bru will no longer be banned, under this significant reduction in the Lockdown it is hoped by Citizen Sturgeon the public will embrace these new freedoms and be inspired to stay in drinking the national drink until their teeth rot and fall out thus saving the need for dentists to ever open again.
more bulletins after todays episode of ‘Pointless’
Another great interview by Freddie Sayers, this time with Professor Karl Friston, a statistician who, within the neuroscience field, is ranked by Science magazine as the most influential in the world; he explains his ‘dynamic causal modelling’.
“As Professor Friston puts it, once you put into the model sensible behaviours that people do anyway such as staying in bed when they are sick, the effect of legal lockdown “literally goes away”.”
https://unherd.com/2020/06/karl-friston-up-to-80-not-even-susceptible-to-covid-19/
My daughter and I have both been tested for antibodies and both came up negative. This more than anything has convinced me that COVID is chump change. Here is why:
We both were in Berlin the week Trump abruptly announced his travel ban and everyone had to rush home to the U.S. from what was then declared a hot spot. We spent hours crammed into the immigration hall in Dallas-Fort Worth with fellow miserable travelers and all their diseases.
My daughter had two nasty respiratory viruses in the winter, a flu-like think in January when she was still living in the university residence halls and a cough after we got home from Germany and she was forced to move back home. I didn’t, but then I haven’t caught a cold or flu since I adopted a keto diet four years ago. (True! Many keto folks report the same thing.) We thought maybe one of those was the dread COVID.
In addition, my daughter works as an EMT – an emergency medical technician. She drives an ambulance and picks up sick and injured people all over the county. All spring they have classified anyone with a cough as “suspected COVID.” (Our state has had about almost 12K confirmed cases and 500 deaths, total, so many of those suspects obviously weren’t COVID, but whatever. And yes, she wears a mask, etc.)
So, if anyone ought to have been exposed to COVID by now, it’s the two of us.
But no. Despite travel, exposure to the sick, and a history of unpleasant cold/flu illnesses, no COVID antibodies. Nothing. Nada.
Yes, either that or the tests are unreliable!
Both!
Excellent interview
I’ve a feeling this is going to be bang on the money as it seems to explain all the data that we’re seeing:
Inconsistencies between countries / regions (with regards to deaths) are due to different levels of population susceptibility and government interventions have very little or no impact.
A similar course is followed regardless of lock-down measures as susceptible members of population are ‘burnt out’
Reduction in infections even though serological testing indicates low levels of previous infection – herd immunity only needs to be reached among the susceptible therefore may only require the 5-10% we’ve been seeing (assuming that 50-80% aren’t susceptible).
Good stuff. I see he’s also a member of the alternative SAGE. Anyone watched these, what sort of recommendations are they coming up with?
Another good article by Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph today.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/04/architects-lockdown-must-not-allowed-rewrite-history/
Within it she writes:
‘Ferguson’s truth-twisting is a chilling symptom of the culture of denial that pervades No 10 (which he is, scandalously, still advising).’
Ferguson is still advising No. 10??
Yes, I had to read it twice too, as it’s literally incredible.
Does anyone know anything more about this?
Seeing the word ‘architects’ in your post reminded me of the latest article on the website ‘architects for social housing’, where I found of the large number of contracts that the government have basically given to companies without putting the contracts out to tender. I would be fairly certain that there are MPs with shares or close links to these companies… One was GSK who we know Patrick Vallance used to work for. So that Ferguson is still involved does not surprise me…
I just can’t understand why Johnson et al are still listening to that proven charlatan.
No wonder we are in the state we find ourselves.
That man has been professionally and personally entirely discredited. Yet still he has the ear of No. 10. Something smells rotten to me.
You must be suffering the ‘loss of smell’ symptom because its been barely possible to inhale without retching for months even 100 miles from London the rot is so bad.
Nothing should surprise at this point. It seems now with MSM support the government can do anything and the bulk of the public will appear to go along with it. There is no feedback left in the system making explosive failure inevitable.
‘There is no feedback left in the system making explosive failure inevitable.’
Yes, I entirely agree, especially after the masks announcement. The sooner the better now, to end this charade before it does even more damage.
I’m in the deep south west by the way! Well over 200 miles from London. And the stench reaches here.
I understood he’d resigned.
Resigned from SAGE. But clearly Johnson and his cabal of incompetents still value his opinions – a proven charlatan. God help us all.
Is Will Gompertz one of us?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52821993?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
The Machine Stops is awesome. Very prescient.
Free download here: https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf
Or it’s about 99p on Kindle. Read it!
Thankyou I shall check it!
Social distancing to a T.
I think describing the BLM activists as promoting a “conspiracy theory” is a bit too much – and in all honesty I’m not sure this site is the appropriate forum to debate that without diluting its main message.
It may be difficult to evidence systemic racial bias in the US criminal justice system via the data but there is plenty of good evidence that substantial improvement can still be made (the third series of the podcast Serial is an excellent piece of investigative journalism which explains a lot of the nuances of what black people in particular experience). This in itself seems like good enough reason for (peaceful) protest especially in the context of the divisive and childish tone set by the White House.
More generally it would be helpful if US police forces could find a way of shooting fewer citizens of all backgrounds and races.
I do however fully agree with the point that BLM and lockdown protesters have been treated very differently by the press!
It’s valid. It fits the definition as an idea that is hard to prove or disprove, and which centres around a concerted effort on the part of one group to do things to another group (or groups) without their consent or prior knowledge.
It’s akin to persecution centred paranoid schizophrenia.
And again, as i’ve said before, it’ss a forceful push for problems to be sorted out by ‘somebody else’, rather than used as an opportunity for introspection.
“BLM and lockdown protesters have been treated very differently by the press!”
And by the police – arrests for the (much smaller number of) anti lockdown protestors, none that I know of for the BLM protestors.
There were arrests apparently, around 30, but likely none for contravening of the coronavirus regulations.
Thanks for that. I hadn’t see that in the reports I read. As far as I know the protests were allowed to carry on, whereas I think the anti-lockdown protest was broken up and told to move on/go home.
The police are too busy grovelling on their knees apologising for having white privileges.
“It may be difficult to evidence systemic racial bias in the US criminal justice system via the data but there is plenty of good evidence that substantial improvement can still be made“
I think you’ve pretty much conceded Toby’s point, rjght there.
“More generally it would be helpful if US police forces could find a way of shooting fewer citizens of all backgrounds and races.”
Why’s that any business of anyone’s outside the US?
And why should we accept it being used for race-baiting over here, as the BLM race-baiters do by lying about supposedly prevalent racist murders?
I agree with your point that this site should not have been used to make the point. We should be celebrating the fact that these people do not trust the state or partake in social distancing.
No. First, it’s Toby’s blog so if he feels it’s appropriate to cover that here then it is. It’s not even unrelated to the coronapanic.
As for “celebrating the fact that these people do not trust the state”, that’s the direct equivalent of all the people who wanted to protect Cummings for personal partisan reasons claiming we shouldn’t criticise him because the rules he apparently broke were wrongful. Just as we could and should have enjoyed the damage Cummings did to the lockdown and to the government responsible for it whilst still trying to force him out of government, so we can and should also enjoy the damage the obvious hypocrisy of coronapanickers and BLM’ers does to their causes while still criticising them for their profound faults.
I have one objection to your piece about BLM, I’m probably the 94th person to point it out.
“The murder of George Floyd….”. It seems unlikely it was the intent of the police officer to kill or seriously injure George Floyd, I’m unaware of any evidence that supports this. In the current heated climate there is a world of difference between a murder and an act of stupidity of a police officer.
Actually I saw a lengthy film online, showing the incident from several angles, and it is clear that there is NO ONE on the pavement from where the ‘knee on neck’ footage must have been filmed – so who filmed it and how did they do it? Also when he is dragged from the car, there are two policemen involved, but from another angle there is only one, who then drags him over to where he then fell… so how did the other policeman suddenly ‘evaporate’ into thin air??? I will see if I can find the link – I watched it on my mobile so will have to trawl through the history..
Please try and find that link, as it’s impossible to get any information on this asides from MSM sources
Did you also notice how when the paramedics arrive they just put him on the stretcher and carted him off – no checking pulse, no 1st aid, no resuscitation and so on?
They were not in imminent danger as the area was clear except for the Police.
Orphans of Liberty have some good info in one of there entries https://4liberty.org.uk/2020/05/30/the-coordinated-riots/ scroll to bottom and some on Jim Stone’s website.
I must be the only one that is really struggling to join the dots between George Floyd and lockdown scepticism.
If you really are struggling and that isn’t just your way of saying you’d prefer Toby didn’t discuss it, it’s not hard to explain. Though you have to bear in mind that it’s not about George Floyd at all, for anyone, except inasmuch as he’s the foreigner whose death the BLM lobbyists have decided is a good one to exploit to promote their political and cultural war.
Here’s the connection:
Small anti-lockdown protest, police crack down, make completely unjustifiable arrests, and the establishment explodes with outrage at the “irresponsible” protesters “endangering lives” by their protest.
Huge BLM protests, police insist they have no problem with them and their duty is to “facilitate protest” (while making cringeworthy and humiliating gestures of submission, apparently), and the establishment suddenly decides that maintaining social distancing isn’t as important after all as protesting about a foreigner killed by foreign police in a foreign country, whose death might or might not have been a murder.
Part of it is because of the hypocrisy of the reaction to the protests: protest the lockdown and the loss of civil liberties: evil.
Protest the death of George Floyd and loss of civil liberties: virtuous
Many companies and institutions virtue signal on their social media accounts about BLM but nothing about the lockdown and social distancing having a catastrophic effect on our civil liberties and livelihoods. The irony of the likes of the Ashmolean, Tate, Classic FM and Roccoco Chocolates being silent over proposals that would hasten their demise is worrying.
Guido having a go at the Newsnight (lies, damned lies and) statistics on covid daily deaths last night
https://order-order.com/2020/06/04/newsnights-fake-news-graph-punishes-honesty/
As Newsnight is the worst of the BBC news outlets, also take some enjoyment out of Rod Liddle’s article in the spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-real-problem-with-newsnight
just to add to this, i have copied a comment from the spectator site which someone added to Rod Liddle’s article as it is a BBC insider who made it
“Having worked in three BBC offices and now at a major network radio programme, I chuckled with recognition at all of this. From the ‘lackey’ mentioned above to the presenters, the whole place is shot through with leftist thinking. An example: after last December’s election, a major on-air figure came in with cakes, plonked them down and loudly proclaimed “Brought these to cheer us all up.” That’s the level of comfort they have in the knowledge that everyone is of the same ilk..The morning after Brexit was similarly morgue-like and Brexit is still sneered at and talked of in terms of a disaster.
The same is true after any incident of Islamic terror. The conversation will skirt around the HUGE elephant in the room (the actual doctrine) and instead go in the direction of improving security or blaming poverty/mental health. It’s almost become an in-joke among my colleagues that I’m the knee-jerk reactionary who wants to talk about the connection between beliefs and actions. When you hear the presenters do the subsequent interviews, nowhere will the difficult questions be asked about the Koranic verses that might have inspired it. The skill the better presenters have developed is in bias by omission.
This goes for the day-to-day business of economics or public spending, too. Rarely is a free-market view espoused, or if such a guest is invited on they will be flagged as ‘right of centre’ whereas research from a poverty charity like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will be lapped up and never given any political colouring (the reporting of food banks is a good example of this…the Trussell Trust who organised the first of them are always given a free hit. You will never hear a BBC presenter ask “Is there an element of ‘Build them and they will come, here?” because the thought will JUST not occur to them)
Elsewhere, case studies are trawled for and presented as examples of how Government policy is failing (eg on Universal Credit) rather than the bigger picture be presented of the difficult job of rolling out an overhaul of a national policy that’s bound to come with glitches and faults.
On George Floyd – has anyone heard a BBC presenter state the fact that more white men are killed by cops than black? And that 50% of all homicides in the US are carried out by black people at 14% of the population (and most by men at 7%)? Nope.
As Rod points out, Maitlis’ rant passed muster because, from the lowliest runner to the presenter herself, nobody disagreed with a word of it”.
Those shooting statistics need to be broadcast widely!
They are reasonably well known to people who track stuff below the headlines, Carrie. But repeating them can get you labelled as a racist, cost you your job, etc.
The Sepctator article is subscription only. What’s the gist of it?
The real problem with NewsnightROD LIDDLE JUNE 06, 2020
The Twitter feed of BBC Newsnight editor Esme Wren (remember, I read this stuff so you don’t have to) is full of plaintive whining that no cabinet minister will agree to appear on her benighted programme. The Twitter feed of her chief presenter, Emily Maitlis, is largely a screed of bile and petulance directed at the government, some of which is usefully later recycled into her opening programme monologue.
Unless Esme has had her brain scooped out with a soup spoon you might expect her to have found a connection between these two facts. Not a bit of it. ‘Cabinet minister, what is it about Newsnight, with its left-wing presenters, left-wing reporters, left-wing agenda and loathing of the government that makes you reluctant to travel across London for a late-night interview?’ It’s a tough one, isn’t it?
The BBC’s commendably swift decision to upbraid both Maitlis and Wren (rather than forcing the thousands of angry viewers to go through the labyrinthine complaints procedure) just might be a sign that even the corporation has grown tired of its overpaid, grandstanding, virtue-signalling presenters and their inability to tell the difference between fact and their own adolescent opinions, as reflected back to them via their social media groupies.
I think I detect the hands of Fran Unsworth, director of news and current affairs, and David Jordan, director of editorial policy and standards, in the swiftness of the reprimand, although I cannot be certain. They are both good journalists who I know worry about the impartiality of the BBC and the distance it has moved from the core values of its benefactors, the licence fee payers. But what will come of it all, do you suppose? My guess is nothing, pretty much, in the end.
In July last year, when I appeared on the programme and was subjected to a tirade of abuse from Maitlis, the complaints piled up. The BBC complaints unit upheld the complaint in its entirety: Maitlis had been ‘sneering and bullying’ and had allowed her personal animosity to colour the interview, such as it was.
I contacted the programme’s editor after the adjudication and asked what she was going to do about it. A languid couple of weeks later she replied, saying, effectively, ‘Naff all and there’s nothing you can do about it, you bigoted whore.’
Or kinda words to that effect. To quote directly from Esme’s email: ‘In this particular case the action point was to remind the programme “the need to ensure rigorous questioning of controversial views does not lead to a perceived lack of impartiality”, which has been noted.’
So just to note it, then. But she didn’t even note it, because Maitlis was quickly back to her same old schtick. Much though she irritates me, the presenter is far from the only one to blame. She may not even be the main person to blame. Esme Wren, as editor, is perhaps more responsible for having let that opening look-at-me-folks monologue go through without alteration, which is sackable in itself and even more so given the previous warning.
But even she is not wholly to blame. When I emerged from that Newsnight interview last summer (somewhat unwell, having just thrown up in the green room as a consequence of food poisoning), some Newsnight lackey told me that the reason Maitlis had been so ferocious (and indeed slanderous) was because there had been grave objections from within the Newsnight team about having me on at all, me being a fascist and stuff. So she had attempted to compensate by not letting me say anything and not asking questions relating to the reasons I was there, i.e. Brexit. It was enough simply to howl ‘racist’, as it so often is.
And that’s the real problem: the suffocating monoculture of Newsnight, the lack of diversity of opinion — a problem for all BBC news and current affairs programmes, but Newsnight especially. There was nobody in a programme meeting to offer a counter view: ‘Oh, you know, I don’t think he’s racist at all. I think he’s right.’ Just as during the Brexit debate there was nobody to say: ‘Well, perhaps we should leave — and maybe those predictions of calamity are wide of the mark.’
And nobody to say: ‘You know, I think Dominic Cummings was justified in going to Durham and I don’t think he should be sacked.’ I will bet you a free dinner for two in Barnard Castle that nobody said that in a Newsnight meeting. Eventually you reach the point where because everybody on the programme thinks the same thing, they think it’s the truth, not opinion at all. And they are buttressed in that epic delusion by their friends, who think the same thing again and by the jabbering mania of Twitter, which they think is representative of the real world.
By the same token, there was unanimity across the BBC — not just on Newsnight — that the violent protests in the US in support of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a white cop, were entirely justified, no matter how many neighbourhoods got torched, and that the policeman was a murderous racist bigot just like Trump.
In those editorial meetings at Today and the World at One and the Ten O’Clock News, I will guarantee nobody said: ‘Well, that policeman was brutal. And now he has been charged with murder, which is what’s meant to happen. Is it, then, absolutely necessary to set fire to shops, houses, cars and throw bricks through people’s windows? Shouldn’t we question the rectitude of the rioters — I mean, just a little bit?’
Not a chance. ‘We understand your desperation, your very real need to burn down your own house,’ was the subtext of every interview done on the subject. And in that approach I suspect they are misjudging the view of the American public, just as they misjudge the views of our own public. All it takes is one voice to query the leftish orthodoxy. But that one voice doesn’t exist.
You reach the point where because everybody on the programme thinks the same thing, they think it’s the truth
Thanks for posting it. I haven’t watched Newsnight or Question Time since each of them in turn has been hijacked by wokeness.
I expect Boris to have his revenge and this teaming heap of dog turd will be gone in 12 months
After all this, you’re still counting on Boris? Can you send me a copy of your prescription?
Do I gather that the writer was just a little bit peeved?
I think Liddle’s pretty much permanently peeved, isn’t he? (Usually I pretty much share his feelings, as far as I’ve noticed).
Certainly having a good whinge.
I really enjoyed Maitlis’ monologue. Thought the beeb had finally found its teeth.
Worth bearing in mind that Liddle is a lockdown enthusiast, or was last I heard on here.
Still it’s nice to be reminded about the gross bias at the BBC, and the ludicrous charges of “racism” slung about as standard by our media elites. Also nice that the temporary warming of the “Conservative” government to the BBC as a useful propaganda outlet seems to have broken down. Hopefully they’ll be addressing the criminal licence fee charge as we were promised.
I’m reading this book as a result of a recommendation on here:
The Noble Liar: How and why the BBC distorts the news to promote a liberal agenda
Pretty good so far and it includes the following revealing quote from Jeremy Paxman:
“If you ask me what the politics of most people at the BBC are I should say most people voted Remain, that most people were Labour/Liberal Democrat. I should say that by and large they were liberal with a small l on social issues. I should say that they were people who detested certain kinds of right-wing behaviour.”
This is the organisation that has played as big a role in shaping our whole society for 50 years and more, as it has played in pushing the coronapanic in the past few months.
I think Aitken’s looking at this with a reference point from a couple of decades ago. Now there is strong element of Far Left, Corbynista, and race-baiting elements in the BBC. Paul Mason was a good example of that. I doubt there are many Lib-Dem supporters now at the BBC. Virtually no Conservatives or UKIP supporters. Absolutely no one sceptical about the joys of mass immigration. The coronavirus crisis has been seen by the BBC from Day One as a political opportunity – an opening to destroy Johnson, Cummings, Brexit, and the Conservative Government. Not to say the Government wasn’t appallingly ill-prepared and then appallingly incompetent.
The Paxman quote is from 2017. As for the book, I haven’t finished it yet, but it was only just published. It does begin with an overview covering the background of the early-mid-C20th newsprint dominance.
Seems pretty good so far.
I hadn’t watched any news programmes or read any newspapers for years, so was neither informed nor influenced re the Brexit referendum.
However, I did (and still do) consider that despite its appalling flaws, Europe was the only thing that stood between us and America.
The world is a different place now but with a no-deal Brexit, we’re going to be prey to the lowest possible denominators.
“Some people genuinely believe that we shall never get social justice from the British Government, but we shall get it from Jacques Delors; They believe that a good king is better than a bad Parliament. I have never taken that view.”
Me neither. You want someone to protect you from America? – Do it yourself.
And this from South Africa.
https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/irrational-irrational-constitutional-crisis-as-judge-rules-lockdown-regulations-invalid-20200602
That is very encouraging news.
Thanks for this – a quote from the judge in this case:
“The starting point was not
‘how can we as government limit Constitutional rights in the least possible fashion whilst still protecting the inhabitants of SA?‘,
but rather
‘we will seek to achieve our goal by whatever means, irrespective of the costs and we will determine … which Constitutional rights you as the people of South Africa may exercise‘,”
We need this judge for the Dolan case!
And now this:
https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2020/06/04/south-african-lockdown-rules-declared-unlawful/#more-144002
‘A French designer has come up with an innovative solution to the problem of how couples can enjoy romantic dinners while still observing social distancing rules…’
The new rules are, no more than 10 to a table, tables 1 metre apart, staff must wear masks, diners to wear masks only if moving around. No restriction on terraces, except masks for staff.
I am not sure what ‘problem’ for couples is being solved, as they would be more restricted with the lampshade than without.
Hello all, read and watch.
https://unherd.com/2020/06/karl-friston-up-to-80-not-even-susceptible-to-covid-19/
Very encouraging!
New covid 19 cases in Wales today. Thirty Five. Thirty Five. Out of a population of 3.5 million. Remind me why we are still restricted to travelling within 5 miles of home? By applying the test of reasonableness I think we are all entitled to go wherever the bloody hell we like.
Yu are restricted from travelling more than five miles from home because Wales is governed by a bunch of people with hollow heads.
‘Five miles’ is an elastic term where I come from.
And ‘hollow heads’ is a mild term for halfwitted Stalinist bullies of the Drakeford type.
You’re forbidden travelling five miles or more because your compatriots have given up all sense of autonomy and are willing to ruled (not governed by fascists.) They should all be hanged but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ll say that again. I’m so angry I’m making multiple typos. ‘You’re forbidden travelling five miles or more because your compatriots have given up all sense of autonomy and are willing to be ruled (not governed) by fascists. They should all be hanged but I’m not holding my breath.
If everyone just went out and carried on as normal, they would have a hard job stopping us! So just do it! BLM did!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ETm51GayRjlnoaRVtUOWfkolEeAQZ-zPhXkCbVe4_ik/edit#gid=435667374
In US the same thing. Care home deaths sometimes up to 80% of deaths in some states.
The same figures as in Europe. And MSM/BBC always neglecting the true aspect of this pandemic and following the Big Pharma script of a dangerous disease for young and need for Bill Gates vaccine.
More cross talk and double-speak from the Scottish Nationalist Party today.
Why are care home residents who aren’t showing symptoms not being tested? Well, that because of ethics, oh, and because testing people who don’t have symptoms doesn’t do anything to stop the spread of infection.
Is that because asymptomatic people aren’t spreaders?
Secondly, Sturgeon is considering making masks mandatory in public. Why? To stop the spread. But if someone has symptoms, wearing a mask won’t stop the spread. And worse still, she’s not even recommending medical grade masks. She’s recommending scarves, etc. Which do even less to stop the spread. Also, people with symptoms are meant to be self-isolating.
Which takes us back to people who aren’t showing symptoms: the masks are to stop them potentially infecting others.
But wait…haven’t we already learned that testing people without symptoms is pointless, therefore, people without symptoms can’t be a fucking risk to others…
At the end of the day Sturgeon has said, quite simply, that “the government wants to see people wearing masks.”
No because of “the science”. Not because of any “medical benefit”. No, because her government wants to see it.
Well she can f**k off. I’m not wearing one, nor will any of my family. This is getting ridiculous. We need to be taking some kind of action…the lunatics are taking over and I can’t stand it.
Sorry…major rant fest today. Husband, local authority manager, just back from office. Of the 24 seats/desks he has for his team, three (yes that’s right, 3) have been designated far enough apart from one another for people to sit at. Our whole world of work has ground to a halt. How is anyone going to function? It’s a joke. We are a joke. I’ll say it again, I’m ashamed of my country.
I suspect that many who observe her in action would wish that she permanently wore a mask!
A gag,surely?
Mask – gag same thing.
An impervious one!
Talking of masks does anyone think the American press pack are v. passive-aggressive in the way they wear their masks at press conferences.
She is a psychopath.
Maybe write This Is Bollox on it.
Just putting a suggestion out here, and it may be something that has been raised before. Or there are good reasons I haven’t thought as to why it’s a terrible idea.
I have just spent (wasted) several hours writing and responding to my MP. This was a fairly intensive process as I lobbed in as many facts as I could find and had to redraft it several times so that my blinding anger didn’t come across as deranged. Anyhow my suggestion is: should this website have a folder of letters to MPs so that these can be used/adapted by members? (I took some great points from a letter that had been posted here).
Potentially this could increase the rate of these letters and get more of our voices heard as well as freeing up time so that we can join the back of the queue for Sainsbury’s.
I frequently email my MP. He very rarely replies, but when he does it is obvious that he has best glanced at it and merely sends a form reply. They sussed this out a long time ago!
I was emailing my MP every day up until last week. Gave up.
I feel naive. When will I learn?
When we play by their rules and are ignored, what options are left to us.
I was talking about touchpapers up there, lucky mine is something more concrete than the BLM goons.
I wonder how many of them would riot over an immunity passport or mandatory vaccination?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qwif8PF1EI
This is terrifying
Is it where we are moving?
This is the sort of thing that happens when inequality becomes so large there is a forced correction. Look back at the French and Russian revolutions. Granted in a democracy revolutions are harder to justify because as I intimated the other day if there is no better system than a democracy what would be the purpose of a revolution?
It’s nothing to do with inequality. At any particular level of poverty there are more whites in that state than blacks in the US, and the US is a country where opportunities for blacks are plentiful, as witnessed by the numerous black politicians in office, from councilors to mayors of cities, to a former POTUS, and numerous black professionals and businessmen.
Equality is not complete, but it is not in the slightest comparable with the kinds of levels of either inequality or absolute poverty prevalent in the revolutionary times you refer to. That’s simple fantasy on your part. Furthermore plenty of people have suffered far greater inequality ad absolute poverty than US blacks without rioting. The difference is a sense of entitlement, resentment and hatred whipped up by manipulators for their own social, political and economic benefit.
Your idea of this being some kind of underclass uprising based on injustice is as much a fantasy as the BLM lie of systematic racist police violence.
If anything I think it has actually more to do with the lockdown than systemic racism or injustice. The BLM (and Antifa – a tiny minority with a lot of influence, sadly) activists may be genuinely protesting Floyd’s death, but the vast majority of looters and rioters just needed a touchpaper. They are pissed off, jobless, broke – because of the actions of their governments. They may not even realise it consciously but they needed an excuse to protest against lockdown – because lockdown is ‘for the common good’, and anyone protesting it is evil. Black Lives Matter is the perfect excuse to express frustration – maybe more generally with class inequality but more than likely with lockdown because it has exacerbated these issues.
I’m talking about America here though. The idiots protesting in this country are just SJWs with nothing better to do – furlough is currently saving them from needing a touchpaper.
These kinds of protests rationalised as justified by the underlying BLM lie are fairly regular occurrences in the US. Baltimore in 2015 was one that escalated into rioting that got attention around the world. You might be correct that the coincidence of the lockdown and its effects has made this a lot worse, but it’s something that has been building up for a long time.
It has been a long term campaign of hate propaganda built on a lie.
I’d suggest it’s more to do with the constant identity politics peddled by the Democrats over the past ten years or more.
They’ve told lies to divide the US along racial and gender lines. It’s easier to control people who are at each other’s throats and are afraid. They’ve told the black Americans that they are victims, and it’s all the fault of white Americans. They’ve kept them in poverty, done little to nothing for their neighbourhoods, kept them dependant on welfare.
24 out of the 25 cities that have had riots are run by Democrats.
Defo a contributory factor, yes
What better thing to lash out about than a black man getting killed by the police in a Dem state where to get angry about anything other than identity politics is socially unacceptable?
I guess most of these people just couldn’t be bothered to go to work then and decided to go rioting and looting because they had nothing better to do.
Some of them are agitators, some (probably most) soft-headed useful idiots who went on a demo and found themselves used as cover for a riot, others are criminals, some are doubtless unemployed, others have jobs but were motivated nevertheless to join the demos and riots.
Even the Guardian has noticed that the trouble isn’t all indigenous.
Is it your theory then that only the unemployed poor riot?
Is it your theory that people who don’t think like you are fantacists?
You’ll forgive me if I just ignore your bullshit.
People who claim that there is a systematic racist police killing of blacks in the US are fantasists because there is no evidence for such a thing (see Toby’s piece above).
People who claim that inequality in the US is remotely comparable to levels of inequality and absolute poverty in the French and Russian revolutionary times are also fantasists, because that is self-evidently absurd to anybody who has any grasp of history and economics.
And people who claim others are fantacists based on their own imagination are quite clearly fantacists themselves.
They are probably the least likely to do so, unless whipped into it.Too many other worries.
As Orwell and countless others have observed, the poorest in society are cannon fodder for the revolutionaries in the middle who want to become the high.
Powerful stuff that will hopefully be part of a backlash in the US at least against the hatred and racebaiting of BLM. With a bit of luck it will serve as its own punishment for the guilty, by ensuring the re-election of Trump, whom they hate and despise.
Remember that, as pointed out by Toby above, the entire basis of BLM is a lie, much like the entire basis of coronapanic is a lie. And both lies exploit basic human sympathy to whip up support and to demonise opponents, just as both lies are strongly pushed by almost the entirety of the media establishments in the US and UK.
Precisely. And it is quite eerie how seemingly non-existent the backlash has been. Despite the mainstream media fawning over these BLM riots there’s a tonne of hatred online for it.
I am saying follow the money… Despite the riots, despite the unemployment, there is Nasdaq today reaching all time highs. That is not all QE, can’t be. The stock market loves trump, hates the democrats, and so could you conclude that all this makes is more likely for trump to be re-elected? I could be wrong of course, but why would anyone vote for a party that is openly condoning the violence. The vast majority of people are not extremists
It is terrifying, and watching this BLM terrorism unfold has really turned my world upside down. I grew up as an Irish Catholic in a Protestant Loyalist town in N.I. I experienced hatred and discrimination at first hand on a daily basis. Luckily my town largely escaped the mayhem of other parts of the region. I grew up on a mixed council estate suffering the same substandard housing and lack of opportunities as my Protestant neighbours. As a result I rejected the traditional sectarian divisions and developed a left wing perspective. I don’t liken my experiences to those of black Americans but to think that anybody from my community would ever force a Protestant/Unionist to their knees to apologise for past injustices just disgusts me to my core. I’ve been following events in America very closely since Trump came to power and swallowed whole the liberal media’s coverage. I don’t like Trump and never will, but seeing how these so respectable figures from the media and showbusiness cheer on murderous thugs has left me horrified, disgusted and ashamed of ever having identified myself with them. I. like many on the left, always expected that a turn to totalitarianism would come from the right, to see it being imposed by my tribe sickens me. It hasn’t escaped my notice that what poses as the left is the most enthusiastic in promoting this horrific lockdown, nor that many on the right that I’d previously vilified are the most energetic, thoughtful and coherent in opposing it. I won’t kneel down but will admit i was wrong.
Try watching Tucker Carlson instead. He pulls no punches, and will at least get opinions from both sides.
The Left are more likely to be authoritarian totalitarians. Their ideology is at war with reality and cannot stand up to criticism, which it’s why they censor you, and will silence you. They will use violence to get what they want. See China, USSR, Cambodia, Seattle, Portland, etc.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Bit disingenuous of Toby to say today that the virus is’ petering out’ in Sweden as it is elsewhere, on basis of nil deaths reported last Sunday, when the figures were already available for the subsequent dates on worldometer, as above:
DEATHS
28 May 46
29 May 84
30 May 4
31 May 0
1 June 8
2 June 65
3 June 74
And to give a link to Anders Tegnell on vaccine likelihood, rather than his comments reported yesterday on how an earlier and less permissive lockdown , with far better attention to care homes, would have lowered Swedish death rates. The Sweden specific page not updated either.
It will be the same as here where weekend deaths are not reported till the next week.
Worldometer shows deaths on the date they’re reported. You should look at the data on when the deaths happened which can be found here for Sweden:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
Thanks. There’s a bit called “Tidsserie: Avlidna per dag” which I think shows deaths on the day they happened. The page when it first loads shows “Tidsserie: Sjukdomsfall per dag” which I think is positive tests per day, you need to use the little arrows underneath to scroll.
One of the annoying things about the way the govt reports the figures is that they don’t make clear that the numbers are as reported rather than when they happened, so the number of people dying is generally lower than the figures they give – there’s a lag of a few weeks sometimes.
If you’re talking about the UK death rate then you can find the equivalent data here:
https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/
The most recent update on when the deaths happened is here:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-4th-june/
There’s a couple of new graphs that I hadn’t seen before. Moving average of hospital admissions and %age of hospital trusts reporting zero deaths.
We are discussing Sweden here, not UK.
Sorry, I went off topic. The point I am making is that I feel the headline figures reported in the UK and on Worldometers are not necessarily as helpful as they should be and people may not be aware what they are looking at.
Well I assumed that was what Toby was looking at. Because on the site you quote, I couldn’t find zero deaths on 31 May at all, the ‘ avlidna per dag’ which I thought was ‘ deceased per day’, was:
27 May 37
28 May 24
29 May 22
30 May 20
31 May 18
1 June 16
2 June 12
Can someone please explain where you get zero deaths on 31 May from this?
I’m not sure.
This might be heretical but I come here mainly for the comments and debate rather than reading what Mr Young reads too closely. Hope that doesn’t get me banned!
I’m grateful that Mr Young has done this and that he speaks out, just find the comments more interesting as it’s interactive.
Zero deaths were reported on one of the days over the weekend. Presumably 31st of May but I’m not going back to check.
The zero deaths reported that day came from the facts as known at the time of the daily announcement. There is often a time lag between when a death occurs and when it is officially recorded, especially at the weekends. Someone could die on a Saturday and it would not make the official records until Tuesday the following week. This is why Sweden’s figures at the weekends are usually lower, and then ‘jump’ up again on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
See the problem with Worldometer is that it’s bullshit.
Oop – Nobody beat me to it.
The bigger problem is that whilstever we can’t see the deaths caused by lockdown (suspension of other health services, mental health epidemic, economic crash etc. – substantially more than covid, eventually, I’d wager), the death figures are largely kinda irrelevant.
Quite, which is why I described Toby’s use of their figure to prop up his assertion as disingenuous.
And since there are non Covid deaths both caused by lockdown and prevented by it (eg road traffic , workplace deaths) and we will never know if the one cancels out the other, it’s arguable that that is also irrelevant .
The worldometer is not a fully reliable even on death statistics. They are reporting the report date of death.
There are two reporting system of death of Covid-19 in Sweden, one through Public Health Agency which report Covid-19 pos and death within 30 days of diagnosis of Covid-19. This I think is best illustrated in
https://c19.se/en/Sweden
There one can see clearly how the death reporting varies from day to day and best viewed on logarithmic scale
There is beginning of decline and you can also see a more clearer decline of ICU care. This probably means that the care home deaths are not occurring at ICU and ICU care more reflects the community outbreak which is declining. But ongoing problems in care home with deaths not sent to hospitals or ICU.
The other reporting system is for each doctor to write a certificate of death within 3 weeks which could include the most of the cases above but not all of them. On the other hand,it could be a few cases deemed to be Covid-19 without laboratory confirmed case (i.e.in a care home an outbreak of clinical Covid-19 might not been swabbed in time). This will all the time further change the death statistics.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
If you click on the right arrow below on Tidsserie: Sjukdomsfall per dag and come to the end you would see Tidsserie: Avlidna per dag which is death per day.
There you can see the death per day of Covid-19. But just like the UK figures, if 40 deaths are reported they will be scattered along the dates in that Graph.
You are right, one should never rely on one day but as you can see the maximum of deaths was earlier in April but there will be a painful lot of more deaths coming. That will not take away that death per day it is still declining.
Seven-day moving average without the previous 3-5 days for reporting is the correct way of looking at deaths. in Sweden deaths are trending with cases and look pretty stable. Improvements could be explained by better management.
The c19.se site is very good. And as a resident of Sweden I am encouraged to see the steady drop in the numbers in intensive care. Only a couple of weeks ago it was reported that things were looking better because the numbers in intensive care had been under 400 for several days in a row. Today it is 292 whereas only a few days ago it was still around 315. So things *are* improving, despite the attempts of the foreign media to give a negative picture of Sweden’s response to the virus.
Whatever. The numbers are low for a whole country. The whole point of having a lockdown is that without it thousands, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands, would die. But the figures from Sweden show that that’s not so. Stockholm should be a plague city. It’s not.
So, yet again, what is the lockdown for?
Sweden’s deaths per 100k inhabitants are up there with Uk, Italy, Spain, without it being a major international travel hub, hosting international sporting events or taking in anything like the UKs number of international students. Plus they did have a lockdown, just more permissive than those countries. So could have been worse still.
Another thing to consider is the ill effects for those due for heart bypasses, cancer, hip etc operations if they’d gone to hospital, in the absence of a lockdown, only to get CV as well, as seems likely from what we now know about nosocomial infections ?
The worldwide LD is undoubtedly an epic disaster, could have been much better managed even in Europe (i.e.without Asian cultural norms) as it appears to have been in Germany. I don’t now think none of it was necessary at all (I used to).
It’s the other way around!
Sweden’s deaths are up there with UK, Italy, Spain etc. DESPITE the fact we have had legally enforceable lockdowns! You’re right in saying that Sweden had loose lockdown measures – but surely that means WE could have shared those loose lockdown measures and not had a much worse outcome?
Burden of proof remains on EFFECTIVENESS of lockdown, not speculation of how much worse it ‘could’ have been without it.
Perhaps we are on the same page here ? and agree with Anders Tegnell that a tighter lockdown around care homes and hospitals (temperature checks at start and end of shift, no transfers of agency staff across homes etc) and less elsewhere, keeping schools open for a start, would have been better.
I live in Sweden – we have NOT had a lockdown. Apart from a ban on gatherings of over 50 people and on visiting care homes, there has only been *advice*…nothing forced…no fines..
This is what I meant by ‘loose lockdown’ – you’ve had certain restrictions (stuff has been closed/ large gatherings banned etc.) and social distancing measures that were guidance rather than legally enforceable. This is clearly all that was necessary!
But of course your government trusts you. Ours thinks we’re all children.
The lockdown is because the politicians were panicked into it, can’t or won’t admit it, so can’t lift the lockdown even when it’s been proven unnecessary. If there’s no spike after the protests in London, then we will know it’s all bs.
Exactly.
Yet again, because they can, for a police state, for the nwo.
You have a point here. Information should be reliable
Correction:
Sweden deaths
30 May : 45 (not 4!)
Breaking News just in from Sky News.
Northern Ireland had 1 more COVID-19 death today. Reported as proof that it doesn’t take much to bring the cases back up again.
Fuck me. We’re doomed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDls2VIJ7ys&list=WL&index=5
I love this woman. Here she reads out the experience of an ‘expert’ on coronavirus and his experience of ‘having it’. – 4 negative tests. 4 NEGATIVE TESTS.
Given the fact that they keep testing over and over again until they get a positive, shouldn’t he er….. have ended up with a postive?
You know what this reminds me of?
Demonic possession. Or witchcraft. (Peopple have said that before).
EVERYONE HAS IT, THEY JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET
Salem!
Pam’s corona panic videos are among the best on youtube. Righteous anger at, and ridicule for, the insanity. I always feel better after watching one.
Thanks it’s refreshing to listen to someone normal instead of a government official. Wearing gloves or a mask all day is laughable. My sister is certain she has it and has had two tests both negative now she is going for a blood test she’s determined to have it!!
https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2020/06/04/south-african-lockdown-rules-declared-unlawful/#more-144002
Well worth the hour and 15 minutes watch:
Letter to my MP regarding quarantine:
Can I please urge you to oppose the UK quarantine measures on arrival due to be introduced on 8th June. The plans are unworkable, poorly thought-out and already damaging sales in the travel industry. This should have been done from the onset, not at this late stage.
Independent forecaster the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated that the quarantine would contribute to more than 90% of the UK’s summer tourism trade being obliterated.
Founder Douglas McWilliams estimated the overall cost of coronavirus to the travel industry could be more than £20 billion.
He said: “The peak summer months of July, August and September would [normally] bring in over £9 billion from inbound tourism.
“If the two-week blanket quarantine is enforced, this £9 billion is likely to be reduced to £0.5 billion, costing the tourist industry £650million a week.”
If countries are allowing visitors but our Government is restricting travel, that is directly taking away income for my business. Will any compensation be considered as £10,000 as grant (which I still have not been accepted for due to shared office space) would in no way go to cover the losses. To put it in perspective, in April 2019 I turned over £190,000 with a gross profit of £18,000. In April 2020 I turned over £1,900 with a loss of £16,000 (due to refunds of commissions). May figures will be significantly worse.
His response:
Thanks for your email. I do understand your concerns here and a number of my colleagues who were in the Commons for the discussion of these measures raised them. The Government will keep them under review and adjust them if they have the unintended consequences you suggest.
Best wishes,
David
David Johnston OBE MP
“…. if they have the unintended consequences you suggest”
What a crock of shit. IF? Surely when, not if. And to call them unintended consquences is a bit like saying you didn’t intend to smash the inside of your nut into pulp when using a sledgehammer to crack it open.
Indeed a crock of shit. The country could do with £9 billion too not that many will want to visit this laughing stock of a nation though.
Ouch
David Johnson OBE MP and condescending wanker.
I thought that last bit of his title wasn’t supposed to be written as it’s a given, and MP stands for Myopic Pillock
“MP and condescending wanker.”
It’s a selection requirement in my part of the country.
Very interesting article on Unherd.
https://unherd.com/2020/06/karl-friston-up-to-80-not-even-susceptible-to-covid-19/
Yes very interesting – very much along the lines I’ve been thinking in my inexpert way…
And of course it means antibody tests are useless for determining who should go back to work. The only issue I would is with the phrase “who have not been exposed to coronavirus” in the passage below…we wouldn’t have any idea whether not they had been exposed to it…all we can say is they haven’t developed antibodies for the disease.
“Results have just been published of a study suggesting that 40%-60% of people who have not been exposed to coronavirus have resistance at the T-cell level from other similar coronaviruses like the common cold.”
Well worth the watch:
https://youtu.be/nMsaEqGzU0A
Mr Gething said daily attendances at A&E departments in Wales are a third lower and the biggest decrease in activity had been among children under 16, where activity had more than halved.
Evidently, those who are reluctant to send their kids back to school have a point – just the wrong one!
True: less indoctrination at the moment!
Some 1st quarter GDP analysis:
Also, I believe, Swedes haven’t been scared witless, so haven’t stopped seeking medical advice when needed.
Man, 26, charged over ‘George Floyd death’ image
Freedom of speech? Not in this country.
This is basically a blasphemy crime against the secular religion of the identitarian establishment.
Greetings from behind Wakes’s Iron curtain. Things are looking up a little. Several places serving takeaways (no need to take it too far away). Nice young man taking orders puts on plastic visor with resigned air. We agree that it isn’t necessary and the whole silly setup won’t last.
Call off on way home to buy local strawberries. Shop owner has laid his mask aside on the counter, where it is keeping nice and sterile for when he next needs it.
His shop has notice giving opening hours. They are ‘closed Sundays owing to Coronavirus’.
Nice to know it doesn’t operate Mondays to Saturdays.
You gotta laugh.
Wales. Typo. Sorry.
Ah, I wondered!
According to The Spectator the government is basing policy on public opinion. “If the government is not following the science on its quarantine policy, what is leading its decision-making process? The answer may lie in The Spectator’s exclusive polling carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies: out of a sample of 1,500, more than 60 per cent agree with 14 days of self-isolation for travellers to the UK, while 67 per cent agree it should apply to UK citizens as well. It seems public opinion is playing a role in crafting government policy; this isn’t particularly surprising, but shouldn’t be categorised as ‘the science’ either.” So why have a bloody government then. And if it is following public opinion when are they bringing back capital punishment, corporal punishment, castration for sex offenders, forcible deportation of immigrants and hanging, drawing and quartering for anti-monarchists? (Full disclosure: I do not favour any of those policies.)
Oh I have no doubt they are looking very closely at public opinion – but it’s a public opinion they helped push in what I think is a completely wrong direction by lack of leadership, honesty, perspective, poor communication and poor execution.
I always remember an episode of either Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister where Humphrey Appleby said you can get the polls to say what you want, it’s the way you ask the questions that matters.
So yes they’re following public opinion of their own making cos they’ve asked the right questions.
It certainly is. If these same folk had been asked if they were prepared to give up their foreign holidays next year, because the airlines would by then have gone bankrupt due to mass quarantine this year, you can guarantee most would not agree to the quarantine. If you ask questions in a survey, you have to give the consequences of each answer really. But of course they never do . . .
The problem is that they are following public opinion whilst also leading it. It reminds me of Ouija boards. The cup moves, but only because everyone is following each other – the direction being agreed subconsciously as words start to form
The results of that poll are hardly surprising, given the unrelenting fear propaganda to which the sheeple have been subjected.
The media – who hate Boris Johnson – tell the people what to think; then the government asks the people what to do. Therefore the government is happily doing the bidding of people who hate them.
Spot on!
Maybe we should just do away with government altogether and base policy on trending social media memes.
Government by Facebook…..
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/could-the-key-to-covid-be-found-in-the-russian-pandemic
We have earlier discussed that in this blog but now an article in Spectator I think free to read. Speculation that the Russian flu 1890 was really a corona virus, one type which is normally circulating among us. Earlier it has been hypothesized that it was an influenza strain, possibly H2N2, which came back as Asiatic flu 1957-58 and then sparing people who had had the Russia flu (sparing elderly affecting young like almost all new flu pandemics).
Now we have this interesting speculation.
Yes – I read it earlier – very interesting!
Just back from the hospital. The nurse who checked me in and got me set up was a total Karen. Pure dragon.
Not anything like as much COVID fuss as I thought there would be though… I don’t know whether to be concerned about that or not, given the noisycomical nature of the virus.
Still not clapping for the fokkers tonight. No decision yet on which national anthem I’ll be playing out the window tonight. I’m liking Cuba though. May check out Venezuela.
I thought the nurse ‘who initiated the clapping’ asked for it to stop as it has become too political – no shit, Sherlock! Anyway there are one or two fokkers around here who will probably not have had the memo. We like the national anthem idea; our preferred choice is to play the 90s Japanese noise/improvisation band, Ground Zero’s version of ‘Those were the Days’ or another of their tracks as loud as we can. We are old bastards and we’re just not having this load of bollox. Childish, but it makes us feel better!
They will all be out kneeling in submission instead
Kneeling in submission is what it is. I hate the phrase “taking the knee” as if it were some act of defiance.
I posted some recommends for National anthems – why not try Japan? Or Sweden.
The Swedish one. Could put a Swedish flag in the window as well.
This could be one of the reasons for the high death rate in Nursing homes in Stockholm. Badly trained staff and low pay.
“For years, Swedish nurses have come to Norway to work in care homes for two main reasons. They are paid three times as much. Their shifts are shorter, so they get more rest. Rested staff make less mistakes.”
Giesicke said on the unherd interview that Swedish care homes are much bigger than in other countries with 100s of residents so when infected are harder to isolate/control. Also a factor to consider.
Just in from today’s bullshit extravaganza:
“Face coverings will be compulsory on public transport from June 15, Mr Shapps told the briefing.
While the wearing of homemade masks is currently advisory, the Transport Secretary said that as more lockdown restrictions are lifted the strain on public transport services would increase.
In order to minimise the risk of infection on services with higher passenger loads, he added that it was now necessary to impose more stringent requirements on the use of face coverings”
WTF! Why, when the situation is supposedly improving, are more and more draconian measures being introduced? Also, fines in NI for not anti-social distancing now going up to £1000, even though there’s essentially no Wuhan flu left in the province. Who are the morons in charge at the moment?
The Transport Secretary is fully behind quarantine when arriving in the country too. He’s an idiot.
Mental imo.
Are you sure about the social distancing fines? It’s only a guideline not a regulation in any of the four UK countries.
This is according to The Telegraph:
£1,000 fines for people flouting social distancing rules in Northern IrelandSpeaking in Belfast during the daily coronavirus briefing, Arelene Foster said the penalties would also apply to people who travel across the border from the Republic of Ireland.
They just don’t get it. Its bonkers!
I am shaking with anger. Not only do we know that it does not help with the spread and can make you ill why now! I really do think they are just sitting there saying ‘What shall we try next?’ and laughing when the sheep accept it.
Calm down. Your information is wrong and outdated. If you follow the development of the understanding of the virus data you’ll know it’s moving fast.
What’s moving fast?
The knowledge base is developing fast – not fast enough. The modes of transmission and the role that masks have in different settings. It’s not a one size fits all answer.
Care to clarify or expand on your statement or was it sarcasm?
No he’s a shill twat
Hmm….great comment. Keep it up.
It smacks of desperation to me. The government have been so successful in terrifying the population into believing that this “lethal” virus lurks around every corner that they are having great difficulty in persuading people to come out from behind the sofa and go back to work. As with the quarantine measure, this has been ill-thought out but I suspect that it is mainly targeted at London and other big cities. It just doesn’t make sense in rural areas. I foresee mass panic buying of face masks now! What happens when there is a shortage?
They are certainly desperate. . . . .to keep the lockdown going and people paralysed by fear. If they really wanted to get people back to work, they would simply stop the furlough payments immediately.
Since this hasn’t happened and the trains/buses are empty anywhere but cities (as you say), we need to look at the plans to ‘Re-think and Re-purpose Government’ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-plan-to-rebuild-the-uk-governments-covid-19-recovery-strategy/our-plan-to-rebuild-the-uk-governments-covid-19-recovery-strategy while everyone is looking the other way. Goodbye democracy!
If they really wanted people back to work they wouldn’t keep reinforcing the 2m rule!
There are new government instructions how to make a mask from a sock. (sorry can’t remember where I saw it but it was on an official site)
Put a sock in it?
Do they advise washing the sock first?
That would be sensible, so probably not.
The morons are losing any public support they might have had. They’ve turned into virtue signalling numpties.
Wow this is horrific. Every glimmer of hope that that insanity is going to go away is crushed by bullshit like this.
That’ll be a ‘No’ from me. I just won’t use it.
That’s it. Will boycott transport unless I have to go back to work – what planet are these people on? Especially as the virus is on the wane and several studies have shown that they’re actually a hazard.
Or maybe I can say I have breathing issues.
Face masks now mandatory on public transport, apparently.
What’s public transport?
Curious to know if that includes cabs. Probably does if regulated by TFL, maybe not elsewhere.
Not going back into London any time soon, going to buy a car.
Not even the WHO recommend masks for most.
PM did say before that “I do think that face coverings will be useful both for epidemiological reasons but also for giving people confidence that they can go back to work“. Obvioulsy he knows a lot about epidemiology, and confidence.
So it’s basically a sop, tick in the box, lip service, pandering to paranoia.
Shapps says he’s pleased aren’t using public transport. Well, there probably won’t be any, soon, as it will be financially unviable.
And we’ll all cycle everywhere.
We’ll be back to the horse and cart if this lot carry on like this, tilling the soil.
But who will be able to afford a horse or cart? Shank’s pony!
Mason Mills (most likely Cummings under a pseudonym) tweeted some time ago that mask advice would change and they would become compulsory…
I saved this thinking I’d never have to use it they’d never introduce face mask regulation. Ha! It’s the great Doctor John Lee again.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/face-masks-should-there-be-a-cover-up-?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020200428%20%20%20SM&utm_content=LNCH%20%2020200428%20%20%20SM+CID_76c5b04e628a13757874092d2df3a432&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_term=on%20Coffee%20House
Coronavirus: Face coverings to be mandatory on public transport
Good job I never use public transport.
Don’t expect it will be long before they are mandatory elsewhere though.
They might try. It will never wash.
Hope you’re right!
I’m hoping John’s right and we can avoid that shameful badge of national humiliation.
That’s what happened in Spain.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-4th-june/
The numbers are extremely low now. What’s the point at this stage?
I suspect the transmission in the community, as opposed to care homes and hospitals, is even lower, making the measures even more pointless.
The point is they want you under their thumb. This is not about a virus, it’s about control. Haven’t people got it by now?
UK column have clearly not been exaggerating in their reports, unfortunately..
Tyranny just because they can.
The government might be getting freaked out by the fact that fewer and fewer people are wearing masks. Not freaked out because they fear a second wave, but ironically because they know it’s unlikely.
So … if they make it compulsory, then everyone can thank the government for preventing the second wave that was never going to happen.
Will someone wake me up please, this nightmare gets worse and worse.
I love wearing facemasks, as my glasses steam up and I can’t see anything. Still, safety first, eh?
Develop asthma. Problem solved.
Now you mention it I do feel a bit breathless…
Oh that’ll be the mask.
Where did you get that the WHO is against using face masks? I see nothing on their website to that effect.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks clearly states
“If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.”
They also now say that the “virus” is not mutating to become more dangerous:
https://www.thenewscommenter.com/news/coronavirus-is-not-mutating-to-become-more-dangerous-who-says/1321344
Toby – can you add some masks with your Lockdown Sceptics design to your shop? Now we are forced to wear them on public transport, it would seem pretty appropriate!
Superb.
Or maybe have them emblazoned with a suitable slogan ….
The plague doctor masks? OK…
Seriously, I think proper masks, whatever the slogan represent capitulation in practice. I prefer ridicule either with this or as Peter Hitchens plans, with an old fashioned gas mask.
Maybe he just dug his original issue gas mask out of the cupboard?
‘I am wearing this on the orders of Stalinist morons?’
Bit long maybe?Anyway, I’m not going to wear one. And if anybody stares piercingly at me I shall BREATHE. on them.
Do they stipulate where on the face you have to wear them? Where masks are mandatory, wearing one under the chin or as a hairband would be more comfortable.
Could this be a get out https://www.asthma.org.uk/advice/triggers/coronavirus-covid-19/what-should-people-with-asthma-do-now/
“For some people with asthma, wearing a face covering might not be easy. It could make it feel harder to breathe. The government has advised that people with respiratory conditions don’t need to wear face coverings, so if you are finding it hard, then don’t wear one.”
Thanks for this.
I just contracted asthma.
In Scotland, obviously, thugs will be commissioned to beat up genuine asthmatics.
Now I’m even more angry! They’ve announced wearing a mask will be compulsory on public transport. When will these idiots wake up?
Crazy.. Do give this document a read – at least someone is looking in detail at what is going on rules-wise: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Emergency-Powers-and-Civil-Liberties-Report-May-2020-Final.pdf
Thanks for posting Carrie, I read it all, it is really frightening.
There’s something in The Times online (sorry I can’t link to it) reporting that Scottish Minister Mike Russell (a complete idiot at the best of times) is encouraging people to stare piercingly at other people in shops who aren’t wearing masks. Disgusting!
That’s would be a great opportunity to start a conversation and educate them
We’ll see who blinks first then !
Mandatory sticking out tongue would be my answer.
Redacted?
Redacted is the new freedom of information.
Sorry, no just twitchy fingers!!
Here’s a quote from some trade union nutcase (my emphasis):
How did some people express any view whatsoever before that hideous phrase “new normal” was around? Anyway, from what’s said above, it seems like a call for face masks to be a permanent requirement, even when Wuhan flu is long gone.
The name of the ‘trade union nutcase’ is important data.
Apologies. Should have prefixed the quote with – “And the Unite union, which represents 80,000 bus workers, has also welcomed the announcement. This is from Bobby Norton, its national officer for public transport.”
Thanks Tenchy. He’ll want to go into his local at some point in the future, and people should at least be aware of his record.
We get RMT updates (they are the rail union). They will say exactly the same. Poor deluded tossers! Hyper-rationality rules, they are terrified for their members as they have been brainwashed along with all the rest.
Surely you mean Nobhead Norton?
As a long time supporter of trade unions I am now done with them. Morons too.
Placed at risk from what?
All these union tossers ought to be very careful,from what I understand a lot of their members are going to be on the dole before too long,the reduced numbers of passengers is going to send a lot of bus companies to the wall and the government may be spending £400M a month to have trains full of fresh air running all over the country but it isn’t going to last.A lot of the employees of the rail companies have never been so well paid,some drivers get upwards of £70K a year and if they are prepared to lose that,well you just keep supporting your unions,in my opinion if you do you need your heads testing.
The media and the unions seem to be oblivious to the fact that a large amount of public transport use is discretionary and not just people forced to commute to work and making travel extremely unpleasant seems a really good way to get people to part with their money doesn’t it ?.
That’s it, I’m not going to be using public transport for the foreseeable future. Fuck ’em all. I’ve had it. This is coercion and this is a very visible sign you have the fascist boot on your face. Masks don’t work and they know it. Next up: mandatory vaccinations. Revolution please. Rise up.
Yeah I’ve had it too!
I’m livid. I’m getting more and more depressed and angry over this.
I feel like someone signed me up for a 30 day free trial of communism, and now it’s turned into an auto-newing subscription with ever changing terms.
Yes we need to resist this new outrage as much as possible. Expect ‘push back’ from the terrified who will not want us on the bus or train. It is political, meant to humiliate us and make us police each other into obedience. Meanwhile, remember those breathing difficulties, Bella, which mean you’re exempt?
We’re all asthmatics now …
It’s going to make things worse because no-one knows how to wear the damn things, as soon as they become damp they’re dangerous (to yourself) and I think you’re supposed to replace them every half an hour. Ha bloody ha!!! I was saying back at the beginning of April that this was an exercise in public control. I doubted myself back then – maybe I was just too paranoid. No, not paranoid enough. And what makes me angry is how compliant everyone is.
Us too, Bella. However, we’re not all compliant, judging by the response on LS.
If it’s so damn essential to wear a mask, why only from June 15th? And, most importantly, as they are saying that people with breathing difficulties are exempt, isn’t that an admission that covering your face is dangerous? The London tube during a heatwave is stifling in any case, with people sometimes getting seriously unwell through lack of oxygen.
Maybe there will be a push to get everyone back to work after 15th so have to make public transport ‘safe’ for all the bed wetters.
Exactly!
June 15th is aeons away in this charade. It’s not gonna happen , just more provocation from the government. They’ll try more tricks over the next week or so.
Yes,me too,I’ve had my fill of this and all of the arseholes that are happy to go along with every new piece of lunacy the regime decides to inflict on us,masks on public transport,yeah right,that’s just the start of it,it’ll be masks worn everywhere next month.I live over a hundred miles form London in an area that has had virtually no cases of the virus but now because of that smug,useless,virture signalling little twat that supposedly runs the capital and the completely spineless morons that supposedly run the rest of the country I will need a mask to travel by train to the nearest city !.No chance,never ,ever will I be forced to wear anything against my will.They can stick their masks,their public transport and just about everything else where the sun never shines.Everyday I get more despondent and angry and today,my birthday of all days,I have reached breaking point,no more talking,we now have to do something or we and all we care about are finished.
To add insult to grievous injury, I just got email from ebay telling me I should spend some money to support ‘our healthcare heroes’ !!!!!!!!!.
Much appreciated,I’ve tried to remain calm today but didn’t manage it !.
lol, yes, I think I upset a few friends on another message board.
We need a political movement.
YOUNG’S is planning to start reopening some of its pubs and beer gardens from mid-July.
It believes all its sites – inside and out – will be open by August 3 and customers will have to keep just 1 meter apart.
The pub chain, which has 276 boozers – most of which are in London says it will table service, reduced menus and offer staff masks.
But chief executive, Patrick Dardis, told The Sun: “We want pubs to be pubs, not like an operating theatre.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/11780823/youngs-open-pubs-london-mid-july/
I like the idea of ‘offer’ staff masks, that sounds very sensible, rather than forcing staff to wear muzzles.
Well done Youngs, I will enjoy a pint in one of your establishments next time I am in the smoke.
Sanity at last.
“Coronavirus latest news: Face masks to be made mandatory on public transport “Just in time before the virus disappears.
Madness! This document is worth a read: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Emergency-Powers-and-Civil-Liberties-Report-May-2020-Final.pdf
Just finished reading it. Thank god there are others out there keeping a close eye on proceedings. Some things in this report I didn’t know about like the thermal imaging surveillance now in at my local airport (Bournemouth) grhhh. Though its currently full of BA’s planes so not much can get in or out.
There are a few post below and elsewhere about advice from the WHO on the use of facemasks. Some of the links don’t work, so here’s one that should (I assume this is up-to-date and they haven’t suddenly changed their minds):
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
Watch the two short videos then think about the use of these health hazards by the man in the street.
BTW, I know the WHO are a bunch of chancers, but surely what they say about masks can be taken as valid?
I sent it to my MP weeks ago. No reply.
https://twitter.com/FrankfurtZack/status/1268519768329457669/photo/1
Nice graph from Germany showing no effect of lockdown ,no second wave and indeed lowering of R with easing of lockdown
Been into work today, preparing for scholars to return on 15th June.
Talking to a member of staff, who I respect, has been working from home until now due to being a severe asthmatic.
Apparently some time between March & now they had a very severe asthma attack, but they did not go to A&E or call an ambulance due to a fear of CV19.
Give me strength.
Respect is hard won, but easily lost.
It’s not really the fault of the public. We have been pummelled with this “fear porn”. I saw it for what it was and avoided it, but most clearly didn’t and were swept along by it.
Well due to the fact that covid is proven to be largely a nosocomid disease, that might have been an inadvertently wise decision.
Ah face masks. Nothing to do with science and everything to do with appeasing the bed wetting Karens of the world who would otherwise refuse to go to work.
Face masks would have been quite useful a couple of months ago during that pandemic we just had, especially for people who actually worked in hospitals. Members of the public could even have worn them if they had needed to go out while suffering from Covid-19. But we didn’t even have enough for the NHS so people kept quiet about them. Now it seems llike somebody had produced millions of the damn things and so we all have to wear them to be polite?
Face masks have never had any use outside of hospitals and dental surgeries.
Face masks = filthy muck. Maybe they offer some marginal protection from spreading disease but only if they are put on new and fresh each day. But I bet people start wearing them for weeks and months without washing them. I don’t know if any research has been done but I bet if you are exposed to the virus, it’s got in your nasal cavity and your throat, face masks make it more difficult to expel it.
According to my dentist, face masks are only effective for 10 minutes then you have to change them. If you’re wearing those cloth ones, you have to wash them in high temperatures just like cloth nappies – which defeats the purpose of caring for the environment.
You still have a dentist?
This was before lockdown when I completed my treatment.
New and fresh every half hour. As soon as they are damp they are useless. That’s why this is just another example of totalitarianism in a police state and nothing to do with health.
I think we should make any mandatory masks look as (artificially!!) filthy and disgusting as possible and wear them with pride.
LOL – so true! Visible mould spots would be good. It’s not like they are proposing random mask checks or any kind of quality control.
Fake blood, joke insects, yellow or green stuff, I like this possibility.
I have a truly disgusting one with real blood, from a nosebleed.
Remove it frequently as you pretend to blow your nose disgustingly – while coughing loudly.
Here is the latest version that will go down a treat on the underground. But hey, at least facial recognition is now dead in the water (for the time being).
Yeah…. I actually would wear that….
I love it!
Bloody hell sorry! Trying again
Perfect for supermarket queuing! Should reduce waiting time.
It looks like we largely have London’s venerable mayor to thank:
In response to the announcement, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “I’m pleased that our lobbying has paid off and the Government has finally seen sense and made it mandatory for people to wear face coverings on public transport.
“This is something I and others have been calling on ministers to do for some time, and is in line with a large body of evidence that they can help stop the spread of coronavirus.
What body of evidence. I used to be a supporter of the Labour Party. I hate them now. Along with the Tories.
Sadiq Khan deserves to lose next year. He’s been a crap mayor even before this crisis with his virtue signalling and inability to knuckle down and work on London’s problems such as crime and housing. Now he’s making things worse – won’t be surprised if this mandatory face masks also leads to a spike in crime and gang related problems.
There is NO EVIDENCE that masks stop the spread of coronavirus. Not that there is any in London!
A friend of mine from Iran is saying that after lockdown eased over there the number of infections and deaths are on the rise again. That would mean that the virus behaves differently in Iran than elsewhere…or Iranian government is feeding the wrong numbers in an attempt to keep people locked in…
Anybody has some reliable data on Iran?
For weeks infections have been around the 2ooo a day mark and deaths about 80 a day iran has a population of 90 plus million so the deaths per day are very small they have been out of lockdown for many weeks and numbers are stable a bit like Sweden they have not had a second wave and are on the way to herd immunity .
Remember to keep numbers down to near 0 in europe has meant massove lockdowns loss of freedoms and trashing of economies I think there will always be a few deaths it depends on what a nation will put up with.
Thank you Nic!
But they all count them differently, so you cannot really compare countries.
This is supposed to be a representative democracy.
If our representatives simply ask our opinion, via opinion poll, focus group or referendum, whenever a decision has to be made, then we no longer need them.
Of course, opinion polls can easily be fixed by asking the question in a pointed manner. A special case of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’!
How true. My dad once commissioned a statistical survey, I forget for what. He asked the statistician what result he thought most likely. The statistician, unsmiling, said, ‘What response would you like, sir?
I was amazed to find you can vitually turn results on their head with judicious application of confidence intervals when people are offered choices. Lies, damned lies, statistics and statistics as used by the National Statistics Authority (Humpty Dumpty version).
They feed these numbers to the press, who can’t be arsed to check them. Mission accomplished.
In the graph attached I have added the latest figures from the ONS, showing the actual date of death registered, in England and Wales, by the 30th May. If the current trend continues in next weeks figures, and there is no obvious reason for it to change, then it will reveal that daily deaths was down to double figures by the 29th May and subsequently you would expect the daily deaths to be showing single figures by the time we get to the 5th June. This is in complete contrast to the figures that have been announced this week in the daily bulletins.
In comparison, it would appear that the daily figures the Government are announcing have very little relation to the actual current daily deaths and the figures in reality will be spread back through the past days and weeks.
It is time the Government stops using data to suit its means and own up to reality.
The virus, whilst it may still be around us, it is now obviously not causing significant deaths. There is no sign of a ‘second wave’, this real trend is following almost exactly the trends in all other European countries and the number of cases are becoming irrelevant. As for quarantine rules for air travel into this country – a complete waste of time!
Wow, as I’ve thought from the very beginning a complete pack of lies from HMG. It just proves that they are on a different agenda than combating Covid19!
I just sent this to my MP – he agrees it should be used instead of the govt graph – be interesting to see what happens – nothing probably!
just read the NHS England website and they say the deaths they report are from the previous 24 hours in hospitals. Are care homes deaths the reason for the discrepancy? Just can’t get my head round it fully. Lot or work to produce the black line I imagine.
Here is the graph – hopefully!
Hi all,
I’ve set up an online petition. I need the initial five signatures before they can “approve” it. Can I ask a couple of you to please sign? Thanks.
PS if we already are at 5 signatures, then don’t worry until it’s “official”.
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/324770/sponsors/new?token=BkoaIxmDZRv-1glWuR-l
My petition:
Ban the Compulsory Wearing of Face Coverings (or Masks) on Public Transport
Retract the compulsory requirement for passengers to wear face coverings on public transport from 15th June 2020, (as announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on 4th June 2020).
The compulsory requirement for passengers to wear face coverings or masks on public transport from 15th June 2020, is oppressive, humiliating, and a disgraceful attack on our liberties and human rights in what is supposed to be a free and democratic society. This government continues to pass highly restrictive draconian laws as a disproportionate and hysterical overreaction to Covid-19; none of which face any proper parliamentary scrutiny, or are informed by independent scientific consensus.
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/324770/sponsors/new?token=BkoaIxmDZRv-1glWuR-l
Signed it.
Won’t let me, keep getting error 422
Note – once it gets to 21 signatures, it won’t allow any more until it’s been approved and published. Strange system.
Anyway, if it’s at between 5 and 21 then please feel free to sign.
Thank you
Signed!
Signed
Ok, it’s officially at the “checking stage” now. If it gets the green light I will report back. Thanks again everyone.
We need Toby’s new political party to get up and running as soon as possible. Things are just getting completely stupid now.
Yeah, it’s doing my head in.
Have a faaaaaaaaaaaag !
Well as long as nobody ever votes for LibLabConGreen again, we can have small sensible parties running the show.
I only voted Tory last time to preserve the referendum result. Never again.
I seriously don’t think I can cope with much more of this. Some days I just sit and shake now, with nerves and anxiety over the future. It’s just madness.
The mask announcement pushed me over the edge today. There was rage followed by a few tears.
Just can’t fathom the continued insanity.
I totally agree.
The same.
Okay, I didn’t cry.
Don’t worry, this is all a game… It won’t be enforced and a lot will change between now and the 15th. Look at the contact tracing fiasco, given the finger by the public and fallen apart before it even started.
Mind you, there was me thinking that the almighty backlash was going to come this week but it’s soon.
It’s no surprise to me that the UK and USA seem to be the last(?) ones to be coming out of lockdown.
It’s got a lot to do with these pricks rioting in London, I have not been surprised by that and how it’s gone, and the pathetic police response to it. I am sensing a huge amount of resentment and hatred building and the govt are prodding and provoking more and more until things will explode. Bit of a scary prospect to be honest.
Hope I am wrong
Me to you are not the only one I have an 18 year old son what is going to happen to his generation?
This madness must stop but after 3 months it’s getting worse.
However when the mass job losses start things will change very quickly and the government k nows it.
Me too, CarrieAH (and SRagdoll.) My business is on the brink and the lockdown has become a hydra: they ease one thing and bring in another draconian measure at the same time. The masks were the final straw. I’m suffering a mix of boredom, fear and sheer anger. Ultimately I feel helpless. My reaction would generally be to flee, but to where?
Italy leading the way?
https://theduran.com/enraged-italians-abandon-masks-denounce-pandemic-as-scam/
Euro dropping at last is it?
I don’t think the Italians were ever as pathetically frit as our zombies are, though.
Why can’t we do that? And when is the effing disgusting BBC going to interview someone who thinks masks are bad?
What’s the BBC?
Well done Italy.
This doesn’t surprise me. The Italians have had enough, let’s hope its us next.
*eye roll*
Notice the constant stressing of the ‘far-right’ and ‘right-wing’ stuff. Maybe people just enjoy their freedom, you know? And maybe given their history with fascism, Italians recognise it when they see it?
But YAY this means I can move back to Italy!! (I had the most glorious 9 months of my life there in my 20s. Sigh. Why the hell did I come back here)
They are indeed a diverse bunch. One of the leaders stood for election for the Socialist party. But yeah, we’re all far right according to the media.
Excellent. We urgently need some Orange Vests here.
Somebody should send this to the Transport minister:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAGKK3EgK5r/
This American nurse explains why face masks are dangerous and ineffective.
I take your point, BUT businesses cannot ignore government rules and hence feel the full brunt. Each new piece of government stupidity, or refusal to lift previous stupidities, will thus lead to further economic damage with all the associated losses of livelihoods, jobs, tax-take etc.
From the survey of our 100 staff, people have their eye on September for back-to-normal. A six month holiday / sabbatical / easy working from home. Win/ win for the typical British worker. Not so much for the people who value their liberty and business owners/ managers.
I don’t see a way out, the Government has pandered to them at every step.
I fear your staff are deluded, depending on what “normal” they mean – an actual human normal or a mad, bad, unworkable “new normal”.
I fear that without some very hard pushes, our and other governments will want to persist with this state of emergency mentality and the restrictions on life that go with it for a very long time to come.
I just look at them with amusement
My elderly parents were in town the other day and a chap actually turned and faced the wall as they passed !,my dad called him a dickhead !.
I have to admit,I felt so wound-up when I went out this afternoon I was actively looking for a mask wearer or a swerver to re-educate but I didn’t meet one !,which is very unusual,still more chances tomorrow.
The bizarre and offensive behaviour had reduced a lot around here last week but it seems this week a lot of them have had a booster shot of lunacy.What a horrible bitch on the mobility scooter !.
Presumably, if you stopped walking adjacent to the person in the hedge, they would have to stay there ? Or maybe they’d burrow further in …
Tempting to find out!
You could try a supermarket. A couple of weeks ago I confronted a zombie wearing a black number. He told me it was for my protection and then told me to go away … I told him to take his own advice.
I wrote a long email to a friend today, trying to lay out the argument. He’s intelligent man, and normally very sceptical of any infringement of liberty, but he seems to have completely bought into the mainstream narrative, to the extent that the last time we discussed the subject, he showed me an FT infographic demonstrating that the that UK lockdown was “not as bad” as in other countries.
It was a very long email, but I thought I’d post the opening paragraph here. Please let me know what I’ve missed in the basic argument:
“ My argument is this: The government decision to impose lockdown on the country was a political decision taken as a response to bad science and public panic – it turns out that if you have a populist prime minister, he will be terrified of popular criticism. The public panic was itself created by the same bad science, by a feedback loop in social media, by mass media picking it up and amplifying it, and by the previous panicked reactions of other governments, such as Italy and later Spain and France. Latterly, that public fear persists thanks to the effectiveness of the original government messaging, the draconian nature of the lockdown itself (if the government is taking such extraordinary steps, it must be bad) and by the continued efforts of the media to promote and exaggerate the message of terror.
The virus is real and it is killing people, and that is sad. However, it is neither infectious enough nor deadly enough to come close to justifying the measures that the great majority of the civilized world has taken to combat it and in any case, there is growing evidence that the quarantine of the entire population doesn’t actually work and may be actively harmful even on its own terms. These measures are themselves colossally destructive in terms of the direct effect they have on physical and psychological health, in terms of the economy (not a lives versus money argument, but a lives versus lives argument) and in terms of our social fabric, culture and way of life. Additionally, the lives that are being saved (if, indeed, any lives are being saved) are the lives of those near to death in any case; while the futures that are being destroyed are the futures of the young. The death of an octogenarian grandmother is sad on a personal level and in a John Donne “ask not for whom the bell tolls” sense, but is an irrelevance at a societal level, especially compared to the widespread effects of the relative destitution and crippling public debt that we have brought upon ourselves for the future.
Finally, even if none of the above were true, there would still be no justification on moral, constitutional or philosophical grounds for the degree to which the government has taken away our ancient freedoms and intruded into our lives.
Among the things I am not particularly interested in here are:
– Operational issues around things like testing capacity and PPE (I’ll make a slight exception for testing, because it looks to me like “test, track and trace” is the best and only propaganda tool that the government has left to convince the public that it’s safe to allow them to emerge from their hobbit holes);
– The degree to which our lockdown is or was more or less severe than those imposed elsewhere;
– The behavior of Dominic Cummings (except inasmuch as it seems highly likely to me that he should take a lot of the blame for the lockdown policy and certainly for the government terror campaign that has cowed the public into submission);
– Public Health England failures in nursing home policy (except as far as the clearing out of hospitals in preparation and thus seeding the virus more heavily into nursing homes has inflated the numbers and so contributed to the fear narrative).”
That’s a pretty sound opening argument. Depending on your friend’s interests and positions, you could go into more detail about the involvement of the NHS, and the role of the government’s prioritising protection of the institution for political reasons in both the initial panic and in the considerable consequential loss of life. The latter resulting both from the halt to general NHS activities and the shipping of infected patients out to care homes full of vulnerable elderly and ill people.
But that could equally be unnecessary detail, so up to you.
David Starkey made a good case on this in an interview a couple of weeks ago:
David Starkey: Covid-19 — Britain’s Disastrous Response Will Have Devastating Consequences
Thanks. The email as a whole ended up going on so long that I had to cut it short and promise a part 2. I hit about 4,000 words ad had only really covered why the Imperial model is a load of crap, why it’s clear that the decision to put us all under house arrest was politically motivated, why the infectivity rate is nothing like what they’ve scared the world into believing and a quick look at why you’re vanishingly unlikely to die from the thing, even if by some bad luck you catch it in the first place.
Next up is: why the lockdown is ineffective looking at the international comparisons. Also including why there is nothing other than an a priori counter argument to this (if you stop people from meeting people, they can’t spread the virus) and that the onus is on the people imposing the restrictions to prove that they’re valid, not on those opposing them to demonstrate.
After that comes the part about the significant and direct negative effects of the lockdown itself on… everything, and here’s where I’ll point out the NHS effects
And finally, why the extent of the measures is unjustifiable anyway and under any circumstances.
I agree with your point about proportionality. In the USA in the Spanish Flu outbreak, the virus’s death toll was 5000 per million. We are currently at 558 deaths per million and it seems unlikely we will break 1000, unless the virus mutates into a more deadly version. The deaths are also highly concentrated among those very close to the end of life, not among young people, as with the Spanish Flu.
Even with 5000 per million our forebears didn’t attempt to lock down the whole of society. Of course mass gatherings were banned and people changed their habits out of fear.
Then there is the balance factor. We are now hearing that many current excess deaths are among the socially isolated elderly, especially those with dementia, who are basically giving up on life thanks to the lockdown, as they don’t see their loved ones. So lockdown is cost as well as (alleged though elusive) benefit.
The biggest cost is of course the horrendous economic damage which will case millions serious misery, anxiety, sleeplessness and early death (being taken “before their time” as our sentimentalist Prime Minister likes to call it).
I have a friend who is similar. I have been trying not to alienate him. lol, he recently asked in an exasperated tone, what I would have done.
I told him I would have done nothing.
I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to read his reply!
You lost me at the bit where you claim the virus is killing people…
Have they proved there’s a virus yet ?
I am late to the party? Did everyone see the Piers Morgan tweet trying to defend his son being at a non-socially distanced violent demo, after criticising Dominic Cumming in the most unpleasant terms for supposedly breaking lockdown rules, despite him having socially distanced as all times.
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1268564962307424258
I thought Emily Maitlis was going to win the National Liars Society Hypocrisy Award 2020 but it seems not. Piers, this is your year.
God, I can’t stand the man. His coverage of this crisis has been deeply disingenuous and he must be brought to justice for the lies he has spread and the panic he has created.
Presumably GMTV ratings benefit from the lockdown as people aren’t commuting…that’s probably all it’s about.
Of course that is true. However, the people who watch that tripe must also bear responsibility.
I wish I could give your post a dozen likes, Hugh. Have been shouting from the rooftops for a month and a half: besides boycotting Good Morning Britain, the only way to get back at Piers Morgan is to ignore him COMPLETELY. He wins (through publicity) every time he’s criticised. Those who click on his articles to vent at him in the comments section are falling into his trap. Stop taking the bait to click on any article written by him or about him. It’s called click-baiting for a reason and we must resist.
well, watched some GMB this morning. No mention of Morgan and his comments. (also no mention on itv.com/news) However they have wheeled out Kate Garraway, a co-presenter. Her husband (This is Derek Draper who is a labour lobbyist with an interesting background and part of the bubble) has been in hospital for 10 weeks with covid (and with some very unusual and specific effects) . . However why have they decided to feature this today (with 30 minute interviews etc) ? Not been a mention for the last 10 weeks. Couldn’t be a diversionary tactic could it?
The technicians in my workplace have worked out how to make facemasks from old socks. I know these things are totally ineffective health theatre, so this is what I will do from now on, when on public transport. As revenge against Khan, and idiot Shapps, I will now make a point of travelling on the Tube and Overground. The longest routes possible. In fact I feel a wrong direction trip on the Circle coming tomorrow.
I had thought of draping a thin piece of gauze over my face. This has the big plus of actually being able to breathe.
Yes, we got some cheese cloth for baking the other day. Will make a fine transparent breathable a.k.a pointless face covering!
https://www.bitchute.com/video/h9JbjST6Desh/
Dr Wittkowski in top form in a new video, final about New York outbreak and the complete failure of lockdown. He estimates 30000 extra deaths in nursing homes because of the governor’s order to maximise hospital beds by sending home patients to nursing home. Very instructive. Dynamite for the UK lockdown we all know happened late.
Forgive me, but are you saying we should have locked down earlier?
Because I don’t think we should have locked down at all.
Of course not. You cannot lockdown earlier as you will never recognize the peak in reality.Lockdown should in theory work only when the curve goes up and just start to slow down before reaching the peak. That would in theory have maximum effect of a 2 week lock down to stop the maximum number of infections and thus flatten the curve and spread out the numbers.Pure theory and in practice we see that it is impossible to define that point early on in an epidemic. Always too late and no effect. The same late lockdown,New Yorh,UK,Europe
Surely another important point is that even in a lockdown such as ours, you have 11 million going into work every day and then mixing with their families/households and other people on “lockdown”, when out shopping in supermarkets. 11 million – that’s bigger than Sweden’s population and it means with their households that about 25 million people at least are not really under any meaningful lockdown.
It’s been much reported in the last day or two how Sweden’s top epidemiologist has admitted to getting it wrong. This is what Fraser Nelson has to say about it in The Telegraph:
So he didn’t say they got it wrong. At least, if we can believe Fraser Nelson, and I’ve no reason to doubt what he says.
Of course he didn’t.
The press being despicable and agenda driven as usual. This whole affair is making me very glad I don’t work with these people on a daily basis any more
I’ve had my differences with Nelson over the years, but he’s a pretty careful man with this kind of thing. It’s very encouraging that he has come out with this.
Journalists who have tried to speak the truth should be remembered with honour, those that didn’t (the majority) should forever be showered with opprobrium.
Well, according to Peter Hitchens the Tories are not conservatives.
conservativefreedomparty.com
Of course they aren’t. They are social liberals, who are religiously attached to collective healthcare and education and who did not hesitate to throw all our traditions and constitutional assumptions into the dustbin of tyranny at the mere whiff of potential temporary unpopularity, and in reliance on the magic money tree to solve resulting problems.
As I’ve noted here before, they are about as conservative as New Labour, and indeed Blair’s Labour and the post-Thatcher “Conservative” Party are merely the two faces of the same establishment
One reason why Johnathan Castro’s new conservative party is desperately needed.
I’ve been saying for years that whoever you vote for, the government always gets in. The big parties are all the same once in power. Because their strings are being pulled much higher up the ladder. Look at the change in Boris.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1924
Discussion pro and contra lockdown in BMJ. Prof Ionnadis and Dr Melnick Yale(I think an influential lockdown fanatic US)
Dr Ted Melnick (Yale Medical Center) – if this is the guy, he looks about 17.
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1268324065187704833
This is an interesting short video . Prof Levitt stating his view but remarkable is the answer from the opposing Prof O’Neil immunologist in Ireland. Condescending?
That’s a pretty dramatic confrontation between two scientists who ought to know what they are talking about in this regard, and it’s difficult to reconcile their words in that short clip.
“I have a habit of walking in the road rather than the pavement, mostly because it annoys car drivers.”
My 77 year old father almost cleaned up an idiot like you the other day. It’s not clever.
I walk regularly for exercise, but confess I haven’t had it that bad – I only had one prickly hedge hugger on my last long walk. The rest were almost normal.
Yet another graph, useless in the grand scheme of things but I was bored! I haven’t looked at the correlation of spikes to ridiculous measures introduced by the muppet show but I bet it is there:
Lockdown Sceptics Comments by date.
https://www.canva.com/design/DAD-PsViY2Y/jX4zd8t0-AdcVCy7o5h-TA/view?utm_content=DAD-PsViY2Y&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink
Unlike the virus, our numbers at least keep growing.
Absolute corker in the Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/04/coronavirus-infections-england-wales-hit-peak-days-lockdown/
Coronavirus infections in England and Wales peaked several days before the lockdown came in, a new study suggests, indicating that the draconian restrictions were not responsible for the decline in deaths and cases.
Modelling by Professor Simon Wood, of the school of mathematics at the University of Bristol, shows that the majority of people who died at the peak would have been infected roughly five days before the lockdown was introduced.
Well that’s interesting. Now we are back where we were at the beginning with the original data showing a 23 day time to death, meaning that the death peak was too early to have been caused by the lockdown.. Nobody there is using the data that it was suggested here showed a shorter time to death that conveniently resulted in the death peak coming just the right length of time after the lockdown.
Question is why is this only now becoming mainstream news. Any journalist worth their salt should be reporting that this knowledge has been circulating for a while now.
I’m afraid you don’t need to be a professor of mathematics and a complex computer program in order to state the bleed’n obvious. First look at the date when there was the most fatalities. Then go back 14 days. Hey presto!
Hi BecJT,
Thanks for this. I think I’ve asked this before but I’ll ask again as I can’t remember the answer! Wouldn’t the counter argument to this be that lockdown stopped more infections so the peak is actually lower than it would have been because of the lockdown? If that makes sense. I don’t believe that but I just can’t get my head around a valid response!
I’m struggling again today following yesterday’s announcement about masks. I’m feeling down and despondent about it all, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel as these buffoons keep making things worse. I’ve taken solace from Psalm 37:1-10 so I’m trying not to fret but I’ll be writing to my MP and to Keir Starmer again.
No, because if the virus was still spreading exponentially in the community up to the day of lockdown (assuming community spread was a significant part of the problem at all), then you should still have seen a continued rise in infections and therefore hospitalisations and deaths for a further 2 weeks.
A lockdown could theoretically make the peak and the number of deaths lower (except it doesn’t look like it did). The only way you could make it have any effect on the timeline for the course of the disease would be to deliberately kill people as soon as they came into hospital.
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1268664756266622976
Not just the Lancet article about HCQ was retracted (the bogus company study) but also the latest HCQ study in New Eng J Med which said HCQ was dangerous. Reason was that the authors did not have control over primary data. This is serious scandal for two top Medical Journals and also a serious blow to Big Pharma’s meddling in this issue. BBC has of course as usual promoted these scientific articles, anything against the Arch villain Trump,instead of a serious discussion of pro or contra the drug.
Yep Trump trumps everything – including the truth – for the BBC, ITV, Sky and the rest of the MSM. They all have a very bad case of TDS. Even Kate Andrews, normally quite a sensible sort, on the Sky Press Preview, was in full Trump-fascist-racist-rant-mode giving the impression he wanted to mow down peaceful protestors Tianamen Square style, rather than stop looting, burning and rioting. The idea that had Trump offered a few emollient words there would have been no rioting is absurd. There were riots against the Police under Obama – 5 Police officers were shot dead in Dallas in 2016 during a demonstration. There were riots across the States that year. As H Rap Brown, back in the 1960s, didn’t quite say – “Violence is as American as apple pie”.
British Airways? Heroism? Wow.
Jesus… Where are you? I am not seeing much if any of that idiocy round here anymore
Edge of East Reading for me…closer to the countryside than urban areas.Maybe that’s a factor? There doesn’t seem to be that much of a pattern
Ah, the Woke Road !
“If this thing was so damned virulent, why aren’t all the supermarket workers dropping like flies.”
I asked the local (mid sized) supermarket a few days ago how many of them had had it. None. Most of them on checkout have very little protection. Same at the local newsagent – none – and again no protection, apart that one or two that sometimes wear disposable gloves. And which is all about as front line as one can get from what I can see.
https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/06/she-is-not-doing-better-than-england.html
As per this link, there is growing support in scotland for our cause, even if they don’t want to call themselves a “lockdown sceptic”. In tesco today I was informed that the majority of customers are now fed up with these on-going dictates and (as per the now low death rates) just want to get back to normal alongside other countries in europe. “Slow and steady” (or as I refer, “dumb and dumber”) (the strategy of sturgeon) will not hold with the majority much longer.
The Effie Deans blog is great.
A couple of months ago I had a discussion/argument about natural immunity. I can’t remember the exact words I used but it was something along these lines:
Epidemiologists say people only become immune once they’ve become infected.
I say people are already immune and becoming infected just proves it.
Obviously it’s a bit more nuanced than that because technically if you’re immune you can’t get infected but you hopefully get what I was trying to say.
Anyway for my troubles I was accused of misrepresenting the science and told it was not possible for anybody to have natural immunity because this was an entirely new virus. Natural immunity can only be gotten via parents I was told.
The point is that I, a non expert in epidemiology, was able to surmise the existence of natural/innate immunity on the basis that this is how nature has been working for millenia. The idea that a brand new virus can appear and nothing/nobody in the world has any way to combat it is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. What it highlighted to me is that some of these so called experts have their noses stuck so firmly in their textbooks that they don’t have a firm grasp of reality.
Hence they will cling on to the idea that herd immunity can only be achieved at high levels of population infection. Or that you’re only immune if you can’t pass the virus on to somebody else and only the presence of antibodies proves it. They think that there is only one scientific definition of immunity and if nature doesn’t accept that definition then there is something wrong with nature.
Well maybe if nature is showing something different to what the books say should happen then perhaps it’s time to rewrite, or at least update, the books.
But it’s not an entirely new virus in that it’s part of the Coronavirus family, so it’s entirely possible that some are already immune. And remember, this virus SARS-Cov-2, causes the disease COVID-19 when a person’s immune system overreacts to it.
For example, when someone under 40 dies of COVID-19 and they have “no underlying health conditions”, they did, in fact, have an underlying health condition; their immune system was prone to overreacting to new viruses, which is a previously undiagnosed health condition.
I can’t remember the number, but humans are exposed to MANY new viruses more often than we realise. If our immune system couldn’t take them in its stride, humans would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
That’s the point. All we hear is we don’t know enough about it, there’s no proof of immunity and we have to proceed as if it’s a complete unknown.
And then we look at Sweden who approached it as if it was a known entity and they were proven right.
Nature tends towards equilibrium. It is highly unlikely that anything natural would suddenly appear that would suddenly create such an imbalance as to wipe out the human race.
I guess there’s the argument that it may not be natural but that’s a different story.
According to Dr. John Lee we have more viruses in our body than cells.
HOW TO DO A RISK ASSESSMENT
If we assume a life expectancy of 80 years then the annual risk of death for everyone is 1:80
Clearly, the risk of death increases with age so if you are lucky enough to live to 70 then your annual risk is about 1:10
Total deaths from Coronavirus in UK are about 40,000 and it appears from the data that the virus has run its course over the past 3 months and there will be very few more deaths caused by it. Therefore, the annual chance of death from the virus = 66 million (population) divided by 40,000 = 1:1650
It can be seen that the risk is very small therefore we can all go about our lives and business as before,
Except our fascist overlords don’t want us to go about our lives and business as before.
I found out something interesting about an acquaintance of mine today. In January of this year, this otherwise healthy fifty-year-old had been in hospital in a coma being treated with a ventilator due to ‘complications from flu’. She’s absolutely fine, now. She now thinks it may have been C19 but her husband doesn’t because it was too early.
I don’t know what to think of that.
It could be seen as supportive of the lockdown policy: the disease is terrifying and can even put healthy fifty-year-olds close to death so we must do everything we can to prevent its spread. It doesn’t have any implications for the disease being more widespread than thought and herd immunity having already been reached, because serological studies don’t support it. (so the argument would go…)
But it could also be seen in anti-lockdown terms: we now know that ventilators are inappropriate for C19 and often do more harm than good; maybe her illness wasn’t as bad as thought and could have been treated with some gentle oxygen and maybe some HCQ/zinc or similar. Despite that, it shows that even a person mistreated with a ventilator can survive C19 perfectly intact. And it would suggest that the disease is more widespread than thought, and ‘we’ve all had it by now’, even if there are some unlucky ones who get a more severe dose. Or if it really was flu, it just goes to show that society’s complete lack of fear of ‘just flu’ but crippling fear of C19 makes no sense.
Obviously, I favour the latter explanation.
It could have been CV19. It could also have been the ‘flu. The latter is more likely, though, as the ‘flu is less discriminatory than CV19.
In a similar vein – a friend’s daughter is a nurse in the ICU unit at a nearby major hospital. Before lockdown they had what they thought would be their first two cases of covid-related deaths. In fact, both subsequently tested negative for covid19 and the deaths were attributed to severe flu. One was in their mid-forties, the other their 20’s.
Children as young as 2 are vaccinated against the ‘flu for the reason that children as young as 2 can die of the ‘flu. The latter can’t said about CV19. But hey, keep the schools closed, right?
I also recall internet podcaster ‘The Britisher’ going through an absolutely terrible time with a flu-like illness in January, having to miss one or two of his weekly podcasts. And it went on an on for weeks.
I believe even the WHO is now asking questions about whether the disease was spreading earlier than thought.
Again, this could be seen in pro- or anti- lockdown terms.
An argument I have not seen being made is this:
For this new illness, there were some unlucky ‘pioneers’. They copped for the full dose and had to go through the symptoms. But immunity is a continuous process. Luckier people received lower doses and were partially inoculated without symptoms. They didn’t shed the virus too badly, and spread it in similar innocuous (aha!) form to other people.
And then, as we have discussed before, as time wore on the epidemic naturally damped down in a way that the conventional models are incapable of representing; ‘R’ and ‘R0’ became meaningless because it wasn’t a question of total susceptibility or total immunity, but a general ‘resistance’ to this infection and disease.
Of course, if the lockdown and social distancing works, we are now interfering with this continuous ‘robustifying’ process. As the virus mutates, we are not keeping up with it. At some point, we will be back to square one. And that goes for all the other hundreds of diseases that are out there.
The other thing here is that, if there are milder strains and more severe strains circulating, then absolutely the most stupid way to deal with it is to stop people who have it and are well enough to go about their business from having the opportunity to pass it to anyone else, while taking everybody who is very sick and putting them together in a confined environment (a hospital) and then throw uninflected people (medical staff) into that environment. All you’re doing is creating a perfect environment for the more severe strains to replicate, while the milder strains die out because they can’t get passed on.
Oddly Matt, Matt Ridley wrote much the same in the Spectator!
Hospitals and care home often have no natural ventilation, pretty much the same air is circulating around them. I am sure at some point the realisation will dawn that ventilation is an important health factor and that we need to design new ventilation systems that actually bring in fresh air (without exposing people to cold air of course).. Van Tamm made the point himself by pointing to the importance of fresh air in diminishing opportunities for infection.
Another thing that not many people know is that within an individual there will be mutations among the 7 billion virus particles being produced by the sick person…so your own body is a lab.
Kevin McGuire (Mirror, Sky Press Preview had an awful flu like illness from around late November …went on for months…he said at some point he’d had it for six weeks or something and couldn’t shake it off. He still looks ill.
The ONS figures for weeks 20 & 21 now show the first death in Week 7 (week ending 7th Feb) so it must’ve been around 3-4 weeks before that.
She should do an antibody test to see if she’s had it.
If only the test were reliable, eh ?
Just one of mad Annie’s mad thoughts:
I’ve been wondering, in my artless Welsh way, if the Covibug ever killed anybody at all, anywhere.
It seems to me that it acts as a catalyst, enabling a pre-existing condition to kill the victim, not sometimes but sll the time.
It may hasten the death of a very sick child, but spare a healthy centenarian.
We know that Covideath certificates are often fraudulent.
Practically no autopsies are being performed to determine the true cause of Covideath.
But I strongly suspect that nobody dies OF it.
Experts ( real ones, not government ones): please shoot me down if necessary, I’m no medico.
I just wonder.
Much as I think the reaction to the virus has been wrong headed and created an unprecedented disaster from what would have been a small variation in health outcomes, statistically, it seems obvious to me it has made a difference, at least in those countries that have a fair number of older, frail people and people with poor health being kept alive by more advanced medical care.
Exactly what those people died of, and how long most of them would have lived, is unclear as there have been different recording methods and the desire either to hide or exaggerate depending on agenda.
I think djaustin posts somewhere here about it having reduced life expectancy a little especially in the 85+ age range.
So it’s certainly real, in my view, but the way it has been presented is utterly lacking in perspective and has caused many times more suffering than it has prevented.
I think it was a perfect storm of something new, the immediate global nature of media these days, and people’s increasing delusion that we can cheat death and live forever, and generally weak governments that follow rather than lead public opinion, and the Chinese approach to it that somehow everyone else thought should be followed.
While OF and WITH are important distinctions, my personal view on the tactics of this is to look at overall statistics of excess deaths and risk of dying from/with covid-19 broken down by age, rather than risking getting dismissed as a crank – people just come back with “tell that to someone whose mum died of it” or “tell that to an ICU nurse”.
Here in Sweden 24% of all deaths have been of people aged over 90.
Early risers you Welsh!
Poor sleepers just now.
I guess the logical thing is to associate the death with the most recent illness contracted at the point of death.
For example somebody with cancer who contracts COVID-19 will be classed as having died from the virus.
Let’s say the cause of that cancer was from eating bacon all their life (silly example just to make the point). If they ultimately die from cancer, then cancer will be the cause of death and not eating bacon.
But in this case you could reasonably ask which was the bigger factor in the death. If eating bacon took up 80% of that persons life and the cancer was only present for the final 1% what was the biggest contributor? Arguably if they never ate bacon they wouldn’t have died of the cancer.
So likewise with COVID-19, if it was only present for the final days/weeks of a persons life how much of a factor was it relative to other illnesses present.
It’s not a simple question to answer.
I’m sure it isn’t simple. Just asking…
In a way it’s the converse of what happened during the Depression, when starvation weakened people so that they died readily from e.g. pneumonia, but ‘starvation’ was never mentioned as a contributory cause on the death certificate.
Well done BA. Not usually my favourite airline but still … completely the right thing to do. My anger at Patel knows no bounds at the moment. She is preventing me from seeing my family in Greece. One family member has a terminal disease. I loathe her.
The British Medical Association says mandatory mask wearing shouldn’t be restricted to public transport, but should be extended to all areas where social distancing is not possible:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-plans-for-mandatory-face-coverings-dont-go-far-enough-doctors-say-12000768
Insane.
Fuck ’em.
Mr Young:
On 11 April, when Boris Johnson was in intensive care, you wrote an anguished article in The Spectator: ‘Britain needs Boris, the extraordinary man I’ve known for 35 years’. In it you concluded: ‘Britain isn’t finished with you yet, Boris. You will come back to us, full of strength and vigour, larger than life like never before. You must.’
This was, I am sure, heartfelt and genuine stuff. And I too sincerely hoped he would get better and return to work, having nourished restrained hopes for a better political future after the election of last December
But things have moved on. Is it possible now to be a lockdown sceptic and still believe that Boris Johnson is fit to be Prime Minister? Is he fit to hold any position of executive responsibility? Him, and the cabal of ignorants and incompetents he has closeted himself with? Rather shouldn’t he and his cohorts be removed from office immediately, and face criminal investigation into their negligence concerning, among other things, the treatment of care homes, the manipulation and obfuscation of official figures, the wanton destruction of the economy … I could go on and on.
To even the most ardent of Johnson’s former supporters, the face masks nonsense of yesterday was surely the last straw. He can’t go on. Notably, neither he nor Hapless Hancock had the courage or decency to make such an important announcement themselves – rather they sent out a minion to do their dirty work for them, a minion who himself is apparently so lacking in self-respect that he submitted to such a humiliation.
If anyone wants to make any arguments in favour of Johnson and his team of fellow amateurs then please post below. I will read with an open mind. But right now I don’t see how it’s possible to be a lockdown sceptic and think that the current Prime Minister is fit to remain in post.
I agree. He’s a bungling buffoon.
Totally agree. Only consolation to those in E and W is that Nicola Sturgeon is worse. Just wait….masks will be mandated in public transport AND in shops in Scotland on 15 June. It will be announced today or next week. Nickla must be seen to be outdoing Boris in the “keep the peepil safe” stakes”. She’s got an election to win in 2021.
No, they have been catastrophically incompetent, cowardly and I think latterly dishonest, at the very least with themselves. They have hidden behind advisers when it suited them and ignored advice at other times when they should have been following it. They panicked, and now they do not know how to get out of the hole they created, they are digging harder.
I would save none of them.
They should never be allowed near public office again and should go down in history as probably the worst government we have ever had.
I’ve no doubt the opposition would have been worse, overall, while possible executing some elements of policy more efficiently, but the whole of parliament has gone along with this monumental blunder, so they should all go.
Not voting for any of them next time, or until such time as there is a huge clearout and admission of guilt, which I doubt will happen in my lifetime.
Worryingly now we seem to be living in a dictatorship…since they passed that coronavirus act they have merely added to the restrictions on us and powers to themselves, using statutory instruments..
I must admit that I had hopes for Boris. How, I wondered, could he be worse than May – and yet he has achieved the nigh on impossible!
Yes, the PM and cabinet must take responsibility and all go now. Our “constitution” allows for this, because we elect MPs and they choose who is PM. So the “Conservative” Party MPs could elect a new PM and continue the rest of the 5 year term of the Parliament.
But as in so many areas we are polluted by American culture, and the system has become more and more presidential, so the anti-conservative (and anti-“Conservative”) media will attack a new PM as “unelected” – truth has never been an issue for them.
It would be tough, but a government that repudiated the lockdown and set out efficiently to begin to undo the damage could possibly survive a few years. Enough to get Brexit done and put some distance in from this disaster.
Longer term, though, we clearly need a new political class, and we need somehow to destroy the grip of the existing media elites on both old media and social media. Getting rd somehow of the BBC state propaganda service that has been so damaging in this crisis is a priority. It probably can’t be done and we are probably doomed. But you never know…
But if Johnson doesn’t go of his own accord (and serving PMs almost never do), he has to be forced out – in practice by his own MPs. So we have to wait until enough Conservatives decide his time has come.
I don’t see how he can survive this catastrophe, and I hope he doesn’t. There’s too much gone wrong now. He has no credibility. He has to go.
He’s been there only a few months, yet already we need a fresh start. As long as he is in No 10, I don’t see how we can leave the CV era behind us. He’s also clearly completely incompetent, him and the people around him.
Yes, longer term we need a new political class, and a renewed management class, a renewed media, a renewed just about everything.
But who else is there, realistically?? I did trust Steve Baker, but now I am not so sure..
Yes, that’s one of the most depressing things about this: not one MP (as far as I know) has spoken out.
Our MP down here is happily sitting on the fence, as are a lot of others I would guess. Maybe they’re waiting to sniff blood.
Johnson out! And take the rest of that incompetent shower with him.
Boris is a disaster.
The worst most narcissistic PM we’ve ever had.
All of this was to protect his image and not make it look as if the Nhs was struggling on his watch.
There is no way he’ll be PM come the next election.
And he can take thicko Cummings with him.
I agree that Johnson is a disaster. What is really infuriating though is that people who think along these lines still call him ‘Boris’ with the affectionate tone usually reserved for an unruly schoolchild.
Well said. Would really like Toby to reply to this comment!
Well as General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, I hope he doesn’t mind me challenging him like this. It’s not an actual challenge of course, but just a means of illustrating how perceptions of Boris ‘Boris’ Johnson have evolved over the last few weeks – from Toby’s touching article of 11 April, in which he spoke for many people, to the emerging bitterness against Johnson and his dreadful government which we see now.
The current Prime Minister has been weighed in the balance and found wanting, very badly wanting.
I just read this in a newsletter I get from a naturopath. What do people think? Can it be true? Or is it a wild conspiracy theory? I would love to hear from anyone more competent than me to judge.
The Pharma/Medical Cartel have been actively discouraging autopsies/post mortems all over the world so they can hide the real cause of death. W.H.O. gave a false code U07.2. for “suspected” or fake C.V. diagnosis. W.H.O. also started persuading doctors to possibly lie about the cause of death, for example, dying OF, rather than WITH C.V.
Why are some countries reporting low deaths from C.V.?
It is because they are not allowing their doctors to enter the fake U07.2. code. Italy went against the W.H.O. recommendations, and allowed 50 autopsies which reveals the Pharma/Medical Crimes.
The Results!
Italy may have discovered C.V. is not a virus, but a bacterium. It clots the blood and reduces the oxygen saturation from dispersing throughout the body. This went against the World Health Organization’s advice that no bodies be autopsied. The Italian Ministry of Health autopsies found the blood was clotted in all of the patient’s veins. They immediately started using aspirin 100mg and a anti-coagulant drug and have had immense success. 14,000 people were released from the hospital as healthy and covid free.
Italy is now demanding Bill Gates and the World health Organization be held accountable for crimes against humanity for misleading, misdirecting, and withholding life-saving information from the world, which cost the lives of thousands. Ventilators and ICU units were not necessary, and mandated vaccine is not necessary. If C.V. is a bacterium, it can be easily treated with aspirin and coagulant.
A More Technical Article Regarding This Rechears
Carlie J Gardipee 2020 Discovery:
Autopsies Prove that C.V. is a Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (Pulmonary Thrombosis)
Autopsies performed by the Italian pathologists has shown that it is not pneumonia but it is Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (Thrombosis) which ought to be fought with antibiotics, antivirals, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants.
If this is the same for all cases, that means the whole world is about to resolve this novel pandemic much earlier than expected.
The protocols are currently being changed in Italy who have been adversely affected by this pandemic.
“Thanks to 50 autopsies performed on patients who died of C.V., Italian pathologists have discovered that IT IS NOT PNEUMONIA, strictly speaking, because the virus does not only kill pneumocytes of this type, but uses an inflammatory storm to create an endothelial vascular thrombosis.”, says Carlie J Gardipee.
In disseminated intravascular coagulation, the lung is the most affected because it is the most inflamed, but there is also a heart attack, stroke and many other thromboembolic diseases.
In fact, the protocols rendered antiviral therapies useless and focused on anti-inflammatory and anti-clotting therapies. These therapies should be done immediately, even at home, in which the treatment of patients responds very well.
If the Chinese had denounced it, they would have invested in home therapy, not intensive care! So, the way to fight it is with antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants.
An Italian pathologist reports that the hospital in Bergamo did a total of 50 autopsies, the Italian series is the highest in the world. The Chinese did only 3, which seems to fully confirm the information.
In a nutshell, the disease is determined by a disseminated intravascular coagulation triggered by the virus; therefore, it is not pneumonia but pulmonary thrombosis, a major diagnostic error.
Some world leaders doubled the number of resuscitation places in the ICU, with unnecessary exorbitant costs.
According to the Italian pathologist, treatment in ICUs is useless if thromboembolism is not resolved first. “If we ventilate a lung where blood does not circulate, it is useless, in fact, nine (9) patients out of ten (10) will die because the problem is cardiovascular, not respiratory.”
“It is venous micro-thrombosis, not pneumonia, that determines mortality.”
According to the literature, inflammation induces thrombosis through a complex but well-known pathophysiological mechanism.
Unfortunately, what the scientific literature said, especially Chinese, until mid-March was that anti-inflammatory drugs should not be used.
Now, the therapy being used in Italy is with anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, as with influenza, and the number of hospitalized patients has been reduced.
He also discovered that many deaths, even people in their 40s, had a history of fever for 10 to 15 days, which were not treated properly.
The inflammation does a great deal of tissue damage and creates ground for thrombus formation. However, the main problem is not the virus, but the immune hyperreaction that destroys the cell where the virus is instilled.
In fact, patients with rheumatoid arthritis have never needed to be admitted to the ICU because they are on corticosteroid therapy, which is a great anti-inflammatory.
With this important discovery, it is possible to return to normal life in time.
At the moment this story looks bogus. No stories / links anywhere even in half dodgy websites. Just people reposting it on comments section
Thanks for looking into this, Steve.
This article appears to back it up:
https://www.gynecology.su/jour/article/view/633
If you search for “Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation covid” the top three results are ‘factchecker’ sites though that attempt to quash it.
Will be interesting to see what the Swiss policy research group makes of this – I do trust them…
A tragic article in Spiked.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/05/germanys-locked-down-state-of-mind/
We can lift every lockdown rule going but if we don’t lift distancing life still dies a death, not just as we know it to their shit “new normal” but way beyond that. Even as of now, people are irreversibly brainwashed and if we lift the 2 metre rule it won’t make much difference. Scrap all the rules, we’ve still destroyed all social aspects of our lives.
What on earth kind of place have governments, scientists and bed wetting pricks in their acceptance and fervour created. God help us all.
The governments are now reaping what they’ve sown – they were so successful in scaring people and now they’re finding it hard to deprogram that fear. Hence why social distancing should go.
It goes against our human nature and the quality of life itself.
The government will only have themselves to blame if they don’t reverse social distancing then they see a spike in unemployment, bankruptcy, suicide, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse.
What sign do you see that makes you think governments want to ‘deprogram that fear’. The destruction is starting to look quite deliberate.
Social distancing is against nature, which is about the most damning thing anyone can say about anything, in my view.
I think some in government would like to deprogram the fear, the ones who actually are not enjoying this much. I am not sure who they are, though. Sunak, maybe. But most seem to relish the power and the chance to be at the centre of attention every news cycle.
I have to agree. I keep expecting a sane policy to lift or stop parts of lockdown, it just never happens. Yesterday they order us to wear masks then try and placate us with drivel about bikes and green initiatives. I may be a minority but who gives a shit about those things? They also say not using public transport is good, without any comprehension that millions rely on it to get to work. They do this deliberately or because they’re retarded, I cant any longer tell which it is.
Not retarded intellectually I don’t think, just morally, emotionally.
There’s a special kind of stupidity that people with decent IQs have.
The great Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway have said they would rather work with people of IQ 130 who underestimate their own talents than with people of 170 who don’t know their limitations, and both of them have always said that their business success is down to patience, openness, humility, admitting when you don’t know something, and knowing when you are out of your depth.
Vanity, insecurity. Character defects I think, that’s the main thing. There’s no way that they really really think, for example, that the Magic Money Tree will work.
Surely none if them have a high IQ.
They’ve got high enough IQs to work out we’re on the road to ruin.
…and at the same time cars are also ‘bad’..
Agree they’re not serious given the half hearted measures and its causing more unemployment and businesses to close.
Yep. I’d say it’s looked quite deliberate for quite a while, but I am either more perceptive or more crazy than most.
Agree. And not ‘starting to.’ It’s been looking like that for some time.
Doctors are now recommending face masks should be worn everywhere, where social distancing is not possible.
Anyone see the irony in Boris following this guidance after his “letterbox” comments about face coverings?
Yes, it did occur to me too.
He is unfit to be Prime Minister.
SOME doctors! My neighbour is one and certainly does not support ANY further idiocy, let alone masks.
but MSM will only feature those doctors that are pro mask. this morning on BBC they interviewed three commuters about whether mandatory masks were good. All three said yes (one was wearing a mask) Wonder how many said no and so were ignored as they did not support the narrative
Of course. I keep on saying, they’ve got their boots firmly on our faces – hopefully, not as Orwell says, forever – but it’s gonna need a concerted effort to throw them off.
Spot on article from Spiked, if this madness doesn’t end then there could be a demise of this sector among others:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/04/the-culture-of-the-fear-could-kill-the-theatre/
We are clearly heading for a new soviet-style era, comrade!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1291633/Coronavirus-latest-updates-bald-men-at-risk-severe-impact/amp
My fucking god. Please, I can’t take this anymore. On second thoughts, I’m bald. Where’s my mask and 2m stick?
The world has collapsed. Please, please, give us an apocalyptic war or alien invasion to make things better.
This is ridiculous and scrapping the bottom of the barrel frankly.
I endorse your wish for an alien inbasion or apocalyptic war if only to put us out of our misery.
“invasion” – doh!!!
Quite – and, if we did have an invasion by intelligent aliens, I would find it very hard to pick a side to root for!
I, for one, would welcome our new insect overlords…
Rule by invertebrates: nothing new, after all.
Maybe they are here in ‘War of the Worlds’ style:
https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1268738637333700608
Very weird lightening strike in Washington this early this morning
So, the latest position. As that c**t Piers Morgan has now said that breaking lockdown rules is ok (i.e. to join a mob of 1000s – not a legitimate reason and not distanced) and that this no clue government seem to be following the outputs of idiots like Morgan and Khan then can we all do what we want … or does this only apply if you have a famous dad or midguided concepts of what racism is?
I am now going to watch last night’s Question Time. David Lammy? now thats going to mean some reasoned logical arguments about kneegate
Watch Q T with Lammy. Ffs are you mental?
Since when we did in the UK use the phrase ‘take a knee’??? All sounds planned, as does much of the language around these events..
The comments sections is becoming a nightmare on here, as there is now regularly over 1,000 comments, and because of this there are many duplicated topics, and it is becoming extremely hard to read.
Is there any chance of starting a forum as this would allow for much better debate, and if we are going to look at protesting it will allow us to better organise these events.
That’s a good idea. It would allow threads to last beyond the day of Mr Young’s update.
I agree with the forum idea, the comments section is so slow now. Great to see so many people now commenting but it needs to be in a better format.
A member did set one up. I will find the post and link.
Someone already did: https://lockdownsceptics.com/
There would be a trust issue there for me. Bitter experience says that legitimate opinions will get people banned from any forum that does not have a strong and honest commitment to free speech. This is certainly the case in any of the mainstream media comment sections, which all ultimately enforce our political taboos by censorship. It’s not so much that my opinions are extreme enough to get me banned, although clearly I wouldn’t last ten minutes in the BBC or Guardian forums, but rather that I am close enough to the edge of what is nowadays permitted that anyone further out than me tends to get banned and I am left as the “extremist” having to watch my words all the time..
Such is the fate of the moderate in a society that has moved to extreme positions.
Most people who claim to believe in free speech actually don’t, or not enough to resist any pressure, and when push comes to shove they will cave to the identity lobbies.
I sort of trust Toby on this because he makes a big and public commitment via his Free Speech Union.
I would like Toby to set up a proper forum here to manage the comments better, and if he were to start a fund specifically to fund the costs of that, I’d chip in. In fact, maybe he could combine it with setting one up for the FSU.
Yes, agree.
That’s the one – thank you
Whoever designed this, can they get rid of the black background? I can’t read it. Blue text on black is virtually unreadable if you have any sunlight on your screen and I’m using a PC.
I’ve got the same problem, I can’t read it. I’ve emailed the admin but not heard back
The one disadvantage to having a system with topic threads is that most video links might end up in the same thread, and would therefore be easy to find and delete en masse, were this website to be infiltrated and censored..
https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1268741835150831619/photo/1
This is a map showing how much of the labour force has been shut down due to school closures.
This is one of the most ignorant and contra productive way of dealing with this pandemic. It was known early on that, contrary to flu pandemic, children were not affected.
In any pandemic planning for pandemic Covid-19, in choosing which social distancing to select, school closures must be the worst one
In a pandemic you need the maximum of people working in NHS and care homes.
And school closures might reduce a trained workforce up to 20 % even before the disease has arrived in numbers to affect hospitals.
A self inflicted disaster just at the start. Look at the result for our elderly in care homes.
https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/coronavirus-le-president-du-conseil-scientifique-ecarte-un-reconfinement-meme-en-cas-de-deuxieme-vague-1927278.html
Now even in France.The chief of the Covid-19 response in France. In a second wave we cannot have a lockdown. Too expensive.
That’s very encouraging. Would be great if it were covered in an article on the BBC or in the press. I’m not on Twitter but someone ought to Tweet this around a bit, to see if some of the sceptical journalists like Hitchens pick it up. It’s a powerful argument on our side.
The UK Chancellor said last week that furlough wouldn’t be part of a second lockdown. So, this winter will be interesting.
It does sound like they have already decided that there *will be* a second lockdown..
I think it’s more indication that there will be no countrywide lockdown. The thinking now is for localised lockdowns.
Great YouTube channel here! –
“I Wear My Face Mask in the Car”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DDXG-dHugc
Mask advice please.
How do I conform to the law but minimize the amount of my exhale that I am forced to inhale? Can I buy a cheap mask and just punch small holes in it?
https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/anders-tegnell-there-are-things-we-could-have-done-better/
“UK media misleadingly spun Anders Tegnell’s recent comments. He clears things up in a new interview, says he does not recommend a lockdown at all, and still thinks Sweden took the right course. Says their main mistake was not protecting care homes.”
One of the regrets he had in the Covid-19 response was closing Universities and high school which was not warranted. In fact the social distancing measures taken in Sweden is now considered too costly. The voluntary recommendation of stopping long distance travel in the country is to be ended. The Swedish generous sick leave policy and the recommendation to stay home with Covid-19 symptoms until recovered and no use in testing of mild cases ,is now going to be changed. Not because of TTT but because of excluding Covid-19 from more common cold. There are enormous costs of sick leave for trifle infections symptoms indistinguishable from Covid-19. They need people in essential services quick ie. police, fire brigade etc. They are therefore rolling out an increased testing program to open up and normalize the society. This would explain the increase in PCR+ cases in Sweden recently. This would not mean that there is a raging Covid-19 infection in society leading to hospitalizations and ICU use. The deaths in care homes is continuing because of the high nosocomial transmission and they haven’t yet started to test all home care staff.
I’m moving to Sweden they are eminently more sensible than the idiots in power here.
Yes, here in Sweden we are being told it is ok to travel to other areas of the country – it was not forbidden before, but was actively discouraged. The numbers of people in intensive care here have fallen from 400 to under 300 in the last week and a half – things are clearly getting better. And yes, up till now people have been told to stay home if they have any symptoms that might be CV19, which is obviously a big cost to employers, so they need to be able to know quickly if they have the virus or not. The furlough scheme is being tapered off – my landlady will be going back to her normal hours in a few weeks’ time.
I have a deep sense of foreboding about the announcement of compulsory mask wearing on public transport. Can’t help but feel it’s a prelude to compulsory mask wearing in all indoor spaces, with a view to reducing the stupid 2m rule. Can’t decide what I dread the most: walking round wearing a f***ing plague mask or being imprisoned in the house.
I get that impression. I expect the announcement in a matter of a couple of weeks.
It’s the logical next step. Both rules need to go, along with all the others. Of the two, I suppose mask wearing at least lets life, economic and otherwise, carry on in some fashion. 2 metres is utterly unworkable and they know it.
I agree but masks are also unworkable for the customers of restaurants, pubs and cafes. I am so sick of this craziness and I too dread having to wear a mask anywhere – I never use public transport so that’s something, I suppose…sorry for those who do.
Everyone needs to work on their asthma …
I read a post on another forum from someone who lives in HK. He said masks were worn everywhere but the pubs were open – you wear your mask to the pub, sit down at the table and then take it off once you are with your group. Still pretty horrific.
Will kids in school have to wear masks? How will they justify this? Kids in Sweden have not been wearing them and there has so far been ONE child death here (in the 0-9 age range) and they are not even sure that child actually died of the virus.
How many of the 50,000 deaths attributed to covid are ‘Shipman’ deaths? Let me explain the pre covid and post covid process of death certification
Pre Covid
1 A doctor would be required to pronounce the person dead
2 A doctor who had seen the deceased person in the last 14 days (usually that persons GP) could sign an MCCD (Medical certificate of cause of death). The death could then be registered and body could then be released to family for burial or cremation. (After Shipman two doctors were required to sign the MCCD if there was to be a cremation)
3 If there was no MCCD the police acting on behalf of the Coroner would be informed. They would examine the body etc, and enquire into the circumstances of the death. If there were no suspicious circumstances they would submit a ‘sudden death’ report to the coroner (before the end of the shift they were working)
4 The Coroner would make further enquiries and decide if there was to be post mortem, and/or an inquest etc
Post Covid
A care home manager or a funeral director can sign an MCCD (provided they add covid as one of the causes of death) There is no requirement that the deceased has tested positive for covid or that they have been seen by a doctor. The body can then be buried or cremated
Yes, that’s it, no doctors, no police, no coroner
So
How many people died of starvation in care home……. nobody knows
How many people died of thirst in care homes…. nobody knows
How many people were murdered in care homes… nobody knows
Never mind facemasks. This is insane and must stop.
100 % agree. Shocking. This is not EBOLA and one wants to get rid of the body as quickly as possible. This is a common cold virus. This is the most bizarre response in the whole pandemic. They don’t want us to believe in conspiracy theories?
See Ronan Maher’s twitter feed and his article on Hector Drummond’s website regarding this. Proper certification of cause of death is essential to prevent people like Shipman. Interestingly the Italians are now doing autopsies of ‘Covid’ deaths and finding what people really died of…
The implications of your post are horrifying. Enough to make my blood run cold.
I’ve long wondered what the mechanism might be for dementia patients being at greatly increased risk of dying from covid-19. The post suggests an answer: neglect.
This, and many other issues, must not be forgotten when the panic has passed. I very much hope the Lockdown Sceptics site will play its full part in ensuring that answers are forthcoming.
You should bear in mind that not all dementia patients want to live in the longer term. I found this on another website today:
“I am great grandma, just a young great grandma, I am also immunosuppressed and this tiny tiddler of a virus worries me not a jot. I also used to work with lots of demented oldies and none of them cared to be kept alive.”
What you are describing is mass murder.
End of.
According to the World Health Organisation, healthy people only need to wear face masks if they are caring for someone with COVID 19. Yet the government has announced that wearing face masks will be compulsory for those using public transport from 15 June. This is just another example of how the policy response to the coronavirus is not based on “the science” as there is no empirical evidence that wearing face masks is of benefit to the general public.
Government manipulated provocation using MSM is what it is. If this does not rile people up then they’ll try something else.
This is all becoming quite clear to me.
Mason Mills on Twitter tweeted as far back as 3rd April that ‘mask advice will change’ – this has been planned for a long time….
This is a graph in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/architect-of-sweden-coronavirus-strategy-admits-too-many-died-anders-tegnell):
?_nc_cat=105&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_eui2=AeF1_TqT0FeXCJElQ_A0AvZtixeLPhvgEX2LF4s-G-ARfYf1PAtWrtKPNoL6P-uMxeQ&_nc_oc=AQm7-1R2Fwb1I0FTDl0xVHepEZ1TM_oqVqLirhl8KsHydB8i_Gf3Cj0hur4UUtp5-nQ&_nc_ht=scontent-lht6-1.xx&oh=adf3c576b0a04a139dce468379714403&oe=5F007340
Looks bad for Sweden doesn’t it? But look to the left, 5.29 deaths per million.
Now compare that number to this flu tracker which shows deaths per 100k (so multiply by 10 to get deaths/million):
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/influenza-pneumonia/by-country/
The lowest Country in the chart is Finland with 29.1 deaths per million for flu.
Perspective.
Sorry, here’s the graph
Yes, they took one week in isolation because it put Sweden in a bad light as a way of trying to suggest that Sweden should have locked down. It is typically dishonest reporting by the Guardian. Taken over all Sweden is not worst affected.
Moreover they’re comparing low numbers and making it look bad for Sweden that they’ve got the highest of those low numbers in that week.
5.29 deaths per million is not a lot. It’s like saying Sweden’s policy has been proven a disaster for having 2 deaths because some other country only had 1.
Never mind the questionable case of George Floyd who might or might not have been murdered, and the whole evil BLM fantasy of systematic racist police killings that is pure nonsense, here is a real case of likely police murder.
Of course, it doesn’t serve the political and social ends of those exploiting the death of Floyd, so I guess we wont be seeing a pandemic of virtue signalling over this one:
Death of man after face mask arrest shines light on Mexican police brutality
What do we make of this video folks? https://twitter.com/Seekthetruth101/status/1266637895491870720
Multiple angles of the Floyd ‘murder’ show an inconsistent picture of what happened…eg no one on the pavement from where the ‘knee on neck’ film would have had to be filmed.. two policemen drag him from the car, but then one ‘evaporates’ because in the next shot there is only one policeman dragging him.. You get the idea..
Makes you wonder if this is a false flag..
https://twitter.com/Seekthetruth101/status/1266637895491870720 PS to my last post – the video at the top of the thread is long, but if you scroll down you can see shorter clips showing the inconsistencies in the whole incident, plus other interesting facts and pictures, eg George Floyd standing next to a Corona (drink) ad..
Phoned my dentist a couple of weeks ago because I had gum trouble and was concerned that it might turn into something nasty. After some telephone advice they said they’d call me when they are reopening.This morning they called, they’re reopening next week. But it’ll cost me £200 to just walk through the door. That’s nearly four times the usual consultation fee. They got really indignant when I pointed out that they’d been paid by the government to close and now are going to shaft their clients on reopening.What’s the betting they’re not the only business to claw back their losses by hiking prices? And since many can’t or won’t pay they’ll go south. Not looking forward to the consequences of that.
Very worrying – early signs of massive inflationary pressures I guess!
It’s the age old problem restaurants have/had. When they lack business instead of improving their offering a lot of naive restauraters increase the prices.
The logic being that people were not happy with the food before so they’d clearly be willing to pay more for it moving forward.
That is worrying. I think the price of everything will go up exponentially so less people will buy things or seek treatment or go to a concert or dine out. The shop or cafe or thatre group notices less takings as people stay away then they’re forced to make more redundancies or close.
It’s going to be a vicious cycle.
Time to look around for a new garage ?
Ask them to do the safety related thing(s). Then wipe their dust from your shoes. Small one or two man operations are often a better bet, especially if you can get someone to recommend one.
A lot of businesses will only be able to survive by catering for very well off people, or by offering a vastly inferior product/service to currently.
I wish you the very best of luck
I agree, I think it is very likely that the quality of products and services will suffer as a result of this.
It annoys car drivers ‘cos it’s fucking stupid, concrete.
There’s an article in the Telegraph saying that BA are considering legal action to stop Patel introducing the 14 day quarantine next week. Go BA! I hope they do.
The most worrying thing I read last night was the long document on bigbrotherwatch, particularly regarding what is being introduced at Heathrow, thermal imaging of passengers. Read it and protest!
Finally written to my MP. The email is pretty much as RDawg’s original but I add my concerns about the face mask rule from the 15th.
I get the feeling he’s not going to reply but let’s wait and see:
I am writing to you as a concerned constituent over the government’s policy over lockdown and social distancing which I believe is doing more harm than good.
I am noticing that institutions such as the National Trust with their limited reopening of their properties go on about “public health and safety”. Given that this seems to be the view, may I ask why the government does not:
1) Ban all traffic on UK roads with immediate effect? (we suffer 40,000 U.K. deaths from air pollution alone; 25,000 serious injuries and 1,750 deaths from road traffic incidents annually).
2) Ban the sale and consumption of alcohol? (7,500 alcohol related deaths per year).
3) Ban the sale of cigarettes and all forms of smoking? (78,000 deaths from smoking each year in the U.K.)
In these above examples, it is commonly accepted that all of them involve an element of risk, and will inevitably lead to some loss of life as a direct result of allowing them to continue. However, the risks posed are up to us, the public, to decide if they outweigh the benefits and not the government. Everything in life involves an element of risk and sadly the government has become completely blinkered with the risks of catching and dying of Covid-19, much to the detriment of everything else. Why has Covid-19 now become the de facto deadliest disease in the world? There are significantly greater risks encountered by all of us every single day of our lives, yet these have been either ignored or allowed to continue because they are widely regarded as acceptable and normal. May I add that according to David Spiegelhalter, the UK’s top statistician, the risk of coronavirus for the young is “staggeringly low”, as he condemned the government’s “embarrassing” handling of Covid-19.
This obsession with all things Covid-19 and making everything 100% “safe” needs to end, and it needs to end now. The risks associated from continuing lockdown and social distancing are far, far greater than the number of lives that are allegedly being saved by continuing with current measures:
– Multiple suicides due to the mental health crisis
– Up to a predicted 60,000 avoidable cancer deaths now the NHS has abandoned cancer screenings and treatment (ref: Prof. Karol Sikora), again “due to Covid-19”
– 2 million operations cancelled by the NHS, “due to Covid-19”.
– Dental treatment withheld for three months “due to Covid-19”.
– A total devastation of the economy, mass unemployment, multiple businesses failing – I’m sure that you are aware of the links between economic recession and poverty, reduced life expectancy, poorer healthcare, poor mental health, rise in drug and alcohol abuse and increased suicides? Do these lives not matter?
There is also the fact that living in the current way is unhealthy, miserable, unsustainable and destroying all the elements of life that give us joy and purpose. If I had told you three months ago that this government would make it illegal to hug another person outside your own household, would you have believed me? I am not allowed to see my father-in-law or comfort a friend. I cannot go to church or attend a funeral, yet the government says I can go to B&Q or Tesco’s. Do you appreciate the inconsistency of these new rules? None of them (which are being made up every day), are facing any parliamentary scrutiny and as such are both unconstitutional and have no legal basis in our so-called free and democratic society.
I am also concerned about the move to make face masks mandatory from 15 June. I believe that this is a counterproductive move given that the virus is on the wane and there is available literature as to why mask wearing can be counterproductive and even harmful to the person wearing them and those around them. A nurse has posted a video demonstrating that mask wearing can lead to breathing difficulties and affect the nervous system as there is no oxygen coming into the brain:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAGKK3EgK5r/
Other videos and article include:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf6yBeXmzCo
https://www.oralhealthgroup.com/features/face-masks-dont-work-revealing-review/
Even the WHO has called for face masks to be only worn by people who are caring for those with Covid 19:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
I hope that you and the rest of our representative MPs will see sense before it is too late, and before we risk more irreparable damage to the economy, our lives and everything else that makes life worth living. The entire debacle could have been completely avoided with simple hand-washing, isolating at home when sick and proper shielding of the elderly and vulnerable.
I will leave you with this quote from Lord Sumption, who from day one has been calling out the nonsense of this lockdown and social distancing:
“Somebody has got to stand up for a sense of proportion, somebody has got to stand up for a measure of balance and somebody has got to stand up for the millions of people who are being propelled into misery and in many cases financial ruin by the lockdown. I’m really sorry that it should be me and I think that it’s a sad reflection on the quality of our democracy that it should be me. But if no one else is going to do it, then I am.”
Re mask wearing – the is obviously some kind of ‘plan’ for all this that has been thought out ages in advance – they are not ‘following the science’. ‘Mason Mills’ on Twitter (thought to be Cummings, but is in any case most definitely an insider) tweeted as far back as *3rd April* that ‘Mask advice will change’ and joked (grrr) that masks would be good Christmas presents…
He is currently boasting about the UKs involvement in vaccines..
They are not definitely following the science anymore and as many have pointing out there is no such thing as “the science”. This is all political now as they are unwilling to admit that they’ve overreacted and are continuing to dig themselves into a bigger hole and taking us all down into that hole.
I fear the actual reason may turn out to be more depressing. Here’s what I think, I stress it’s just my opinion.
The current excuse is that these things are being put in place in anticipation of a second wave. If a second wave doesn’t come rather than admit everything was for nowt they will start looking for positives and how we could have been doing this all along. So they’ll use that as an excuse to maintain social distancing and reinforce it with the idea that we will be more prepared for future pandemics.
That’s probably how they’ll spin it agree. However there is still time and the possibility that this will be unenforceable or unravel when something happens.
I’m still convinced that we will see rioting before the end of summer or when the furlough scheme ends in October.
There will be no “second wave”. The narrative has moved along to phase 2 , civil insurgency and martial law.
They can stick their vaccines, only not in me!
IF he/she replies, I’ll bet it will be with a form email that totally ignores virtually everything you say!
I’m preparing myself for that and will never vote for him again.
Farcical Commons nonsense highlights the profound uselessness of our entire ruling political class.
Alok Sharma is STILL waiting for his coronavirus test results but is ‘working from home’ – as Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak face a nervous wait to see if they have to self-isolate after their 45-minute meeting with him
This is all a completely unnecessary mess that is entirely of their own making and in that it mirrors the mess they have made of the entire country.
The proper response would be for MPs to get on with their jobs, which are (in theory at least) much more important than any trivial risks from this disease, and without this farcical parade of 2m “distancing” that interferes with their work to no significant benefit whatsoever. The shameful display of MPs queuing for a mile just to vote reflects the catastrophic damage to productivity nationwide that they have inflicted and continue to inflict upon us.
Even Rees-Mogg, who superficially sounds sensible in “insisting it was right that MPs should come to the chamber and ‘do our democratic duty” is actually not opposing the parade of distancing idiocy, as far as I’m aware.
A shower of embarrassing numpties.
Boris will probably self-isolate to ‘prove’ that having the virus does not make you immune..
Personally, I believe that Boris should self-isolate, INDEFINITELY!
Boris has had several periods of self isolation this year
The next one should be in the Tower.
I thought he tested negative:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/04/alok-sharma-receives-negative-coronavirus-test-result
They got it wrong… he got a negative TripAdvisor review. Said his carpets were dirty and his food was cold.
ONS analysis of deaths not associated with COVID is now available:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/analysisofdeathregistrationsnotinvolvingcoronaviruscovid19englandandwales28december2019to1may2020/technicalannex
Just skim read it so far but it appears they are trying to attribute as much as possible to ‘undiagnosed COVID’. I find that hard to swallow since it is widely evident that it is listed on countless death certificates despite not being the cause of death.
I’ve only just started to read it but I find the following paragraph very upsetting:
The largest increases in non-COVID-19 deaths compared to the five-year average are seen in deaths due to “dementia and Alzheimer disease” and “symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions” (the latter mostly indicating old age and frailty); overall, there have been 5,404 excess deaths (an increase of 52.2% on the five-year average) due to dementia and Alzheimer disease and 1,567 excess deaths (an increase of 77.8%) due to “symptoms signs and ill-defined conditions” from Week 11 (ending 13 March) to Week 18 (ending 1 May), which together comprise two thirds of total non-COVID-19 excess deaths in this period.
This would seem to me that these particular excess deaths could be due to neglect (probably due to lack of staff) and/or failure to offer treatment to these people at a hospital because of the decision to keep the hospitals empty for COVID-19 patients.
Am I right in remembering that there are only about 1700 deaths where CV19 is the *only* cause of death on the certificate? I seem to remember reading that somewhere..
Yes
Folks, have you seen Lord Sumption’s latest?
I’m no good at linking, but at the moment ‘sumption’ plus ‘bbc’ in Youtube search is bringing it up.
The interviewer lays a trap – for a high court judge and leadingg historian! – so childishly obvious that a blind dinkey would see through it. The withering contempt with which Lord G says ‘I won’t put weapons in the hands of people like you’ is a feast for the eye, the ear and the mind.
Don’t miss it.
Do you have a date for this, Annie ? Nothing new comes up for me. Or name of the interviewer ?
From the quote above, it sounds like the one he gave a couple of weeks ago
It was a couple of weeks ago. I saw it back then.
Easiest way to link is : a) go to relevant article and click in address box, b) Press Ctrl and C, c) Return here and press Ctrl and V. Voila!
p.s. Should have said, after (b) click in your comment and then (c).
This is the link from 18 May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j129QQ
Regarding Sweden’s covid 19 strategy, this is what Anders Tegnell actually said:
‘Tegnell’s comments quickly grabbed headlines both in Sweden and in international media. But he told the Public Health Agency’s daily press conference at 2pm on Wednesday that they should not be interpreted as a rejection of the entire strategy. He said that with the benefit of hindsight there are always things that can be improved, but that he and his team would nevertheless not drastically have changed the strategy.
“We still think that the strategy is good, but you can always make improvements, especially when looking back. I personally think it would be rather strange if anyone answered anything else to such a question. You can always do things better,” he said, adding that he did not necessarily think he had been misquoted, but that his comments had been overinterpreted.’
https://www.thelocal.se/20200603/tegnell-heres-what-sweden-should-have-done-differently-to-fight-coronavirus
I’ve just realised that I’ve allowed myself to be misdirected.
One of the things I’ve been concerned about is the fact that this sets the precedent that lockdown is the way to respond to a pandemic of an infectious disease.
The actual problem is that it sets the precedent that there are circumstances under which the government can place the entire nation under house arrest by executive fiat, without so much as parliamentary scrutiny.
Whatever your thoughts about the intention of the current government, in a country with an unwritten constitution that’s a bloody dangerous precedent. This HAS to be tested in the courts as soon as possible.
Equally as scary that the general public have accepted it almost universally without question. Proof that if you scare your citizens enough you can get them to adhere to any rules and restrictions you like and get them to report on rule breakers in their neighbourhood.
Yes, this is terrifying. And not only that, but the opposition and the press – supposed checks on this sort of thing being able to happen – have not only supported the thing, but clamoured that it should have happened sooner, should have been more restrictive and should last longer. And the judiciary has been silent.
Yes. The degree to which people have been frightened, and their being encouraged to grass up their neighbours, will be two of the major challenges in helping them heal.
Exactly so. That’s always been at the forefront of my mind. And that’s why I always took the view that even if the worst-case scenario of the Ferguson model had been true (which I never believed anyway) then it still would have been morally wrong to impose a lockdown.
Well strictly speaking, thy didn’t impose lockdown by fiat, they used existing law that supposedly allowed them to do his (Public Health Act 1984) and drew up regulations under that law. Clearly it could be that the Act doesn’t actually allow them to do this.
I think this is pretty much what the Dolan case is testing.
And administratively we have been reminded that there is insufficient protection against police authorities just enforcing government dictats rather than actual law. That’s another issue that needs addressing urgently imo.
Yes, there’s two interlinking problems. You control people by instilling fear in them and then you maintain control because there is no perceived vocal opposition. It’s marginalised.This is the way tyrants work. Saddam, Gaddafi, Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin et al. So, I’m sad to say, the only way to combat tyranny is resistance and uprising. Ballot box won’t do anything. And, boy, will there be collateral damage. Last night I watched The Two Popes in Netflix. Some of it documents the military coup in Argentina in the 1970s which was horrendous. Killing the resistance with injections and throwing them out of airplanes into the sea. I nearly burst into tears fearing we are heading that way. Then again maybe it was hitting that second bottle of Chardonnay.
No, I believe your fear is fully justified.
I don’t think that Act covers it. I think it only lets you quarantine people if you have a good reason to think they’re dangerously ill. But they can and will make new laws so fundamentally the scary thing is the lack of resistance and the popularity of the measures.
I’m leaning towards thinking we need a constitution.
I’m not saying the government is necessarily correct in its assertion, just saying that that law is what they claim to be basing the current regs on, as noted at the beginning of the regulations:
“The Secretary of State makes the following Regulations in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 45C(1), (3)(c), (4)(d), 45F(2) and 45P of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 ”
As noted, I believe this is to be tested in court by the Dolan case.
A written constitution might help, but I suspect it’s too late – consider who would be drafting any constitution and that it would be riddled with noble sounding concessions to political correctness and powers to act for the Greater Good. We are no longer a society with the wisdom or fortitude to draft such a thing effectively.
Consider the example of the contrast between the US Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, on freedom of speech.
US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”
European Convention on Human Rights: “The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary”
As far as protecting basic freedom of speech is concerned, the US constitution has broadly worked for over 200 years, whereas the European convention has fundamentally failed within a few decades, allowing “hate speech” laws to be created and imposed to suppress dissent from the Euro-establishment’s politically correct dogma.
Small wonder, when you contrast the stark, uncompromising simplicity of the US version with the mumbling nonsense of the Euro version.
If you think a constitution will solve anything, I guess you haven’t been watching how that worked out in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.
In fairness they still have their guns and their basic freedom of speech (more than we do, anyway), which is quite an achievement. I’m not slow to criticise the Yanks when appropriate, but I think they’ve done pretty well on that score (it’s not as though the world is overflowing with lands of liberty, after all). They’ve gone down to the forces of political correctness and identity politics, but what countries haven’t?
Glad you’ve come round. This is why I’ve never ever listened to their sermons.
They have no moral authority. In fact they have no authority.
Yes, terrifying. And some argue that some dictatorships (e.g. Hitler) started this way, with ‘temporary emergency measures’, which they never let go.
And this Government is thus far doing exactly what those dictators did: not let go when the ’emergency’ that was used as the pretext for the measures is over. We went into lockdown to suppress the curve and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Those have been met, but the Government has moved the goalposts… so far following the dictatorship playbook!
By extension, it will be very hard in future to rebuff any would-by-dictator about ’emergency measures’!
In the past terrorism was used as an excuse to attack civil liberties eg the patriot act in the US but we have seen disease is a much more effective way of attacking civil liberties. You could never use terrorism to introduce the measures we have seen under coronavirus eg placing the population under arrest.
In a comment someone made the point if coronavirus is so dangerous and we are genuinely in the middle of a pandemic, why does the government have to rely on draconian laws and measures such as roadblocks. If we were in the middle of a genuine pandemic we would see evidence with our eyes with large numbers dying or suffering severe symptoms if they survive and people would voluntarily take measures to protect themselves eg travelling less, avoiding large crowds. Governments should never have to resort to coercion to prevent people putting themselves in danger. For instance, it is common sense that it is dangerous to run into a burning building. Imagine if the government passed a law making it illegal to go into a burning buildings and you could be fined. The police would be called to burning buildings in case people tried to go in.
A couple of things yesterday in my area that shows some in the retail sector have lost the plot and are doing the best to cut their own throats.
A large department store issued a gushing press release saying how pleased they are to be opening up on June 15th and how much they have missed their customers (money more like),this from a company that closed two weeks before they were told to in a massive bit of virtue signalling that got them a lot of free publicity but which I think backfired on them because I bet they didn’t expect to be closed for this long and must have lost millions of pounds.
They say that they have made it easier than ever to shop there,??,in practice this means,a new queuing system outside,limited customers inside at any one time,a one way system marked by ‘bold arrows’,the whole store ‘marked out at 2 m intervals to keep customers safe’,’baskets and trolleys regularly sanitised for customer safety’,staff wearing PPE,some kind of strange system at the tills,cafe closed,toilets closed,most of clothing section closed and it ends with something along the lines of ‘we look forward to seeing you soon’.
Okay,somebody come clean,I am in an episode of the Twilight Zone,aren’t I ?,really,I must be ?.
The local Matalan store opened this week and my mum went with my neice .Ludicrous queuing outside,woman in the queue said she had been waiting quite a long time and the security guard now employed to herd the livestock outside said ‘we only allow 39 customers in at a time,it’s a small store’,wtf ??,the bloody place is the size of an aircraft hanger,I bet you could get two Boeing 737s in there !.I love the shops employing security staff like bouncers outside of some exclusive nightspot,’if your names not on the list,you’re not coming in’ !.
Inside,stupid one way system as usual,you have to go around the whole shop to get what you actually want,only three checkouts open ‘to maintain social distancing’ and of course a long queue for the checkouts.
This is simply insane.
The meat head bouncers at the doors to these places seem to think they are still outside nightclubs, dealing with drunks. I reckon these stores are in for a big shock when, unsurprisingly, they discover their takings are way down due to the reduction in customer numbers. Only way out is to reduce the 2m rule otherwise they will quickly go under and then it is goodbye to the High Street.
I’d rather have meathead bouncers than Karens. You know where you are with a bouncer, and they won’t remonstrate with you at length using a megaphone and a cadence best kept for reception class.
My goodness that’s straight out of a Kafka novel isn’t it?
Many of our department stores are in trouble, Debenhams comes to mind as its in administration. I’m wondering how they can write that with a straight face and not realising that they’re committing financial suicide.
I won’t be surprised if this re-opening will backfire on them as people will stay away either because they can’t be bothered with re-enacting the Soviet Union or they’re watching the pennies.
Walked past our local Debenhams earlier as it was being bored up. Tis no more.
Also got an email this morning from a beauty salon I have used in the past saying they are no more thanks to this Covid lockdown bullshit.
It’s only going to get worse.
*boarded
Whereabouts in the country are you, out of interest?
“classified”
If you asked me that question I wouldn’t tell you.
I was just wondering if it was ALL Debenhams branches that had closed, or just some of them..
Sad to hear that your local hairdresser has gone under and agree its going to get worse.
I was told privately about Debenhams’ troubles on 24th May.
Staff in PPE? Madness… Supermarket staff have not been in full PPE and they have not been dying in large numbers..
The bosses are making a mistake, and some staff will enjoy their new power. However, spare a thought for other employees who probably hate this as much as we do but have little option but to go along with it as otherwise they have no job.
I am conflicted – I want to support local and high street shops, and my daughter works in one. But I don’t want to be badgered about distancing etc. or made to feel unwelcome. Equally I don’t want to give all my money to online retailers.
I will certainly favour any shop that tries to make me feel welcome despite all this. If I can find one!
A big IF sadly!
They all have to pay lip service to the town hall inspectorate.
But you can tell which ones take it too seriously, and which ones think it a pain in the arse.
Unfortunately the high street especially the big stores “have to be seen to be doing something”. I get the feeling they know deep down that this will hasten their demise especially if they are in deep trouble even before this.
That seems to be one of the underlying issues in this whole sorry debacle. Everyone has to ‘be seen to be doing something’, be it clapping, physical distancing, mask wearing, drawing rainbows, publishing fear propaganda or issuing absurdly long covid care customer policies. It’s like a large chunk of reality has turned into an infant making an Instagram story and there aren’t any adults around to tell them to switch it off and get on with things.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. My line manager also said that same thing when I raised concerns over our putative reopening in under two month’s time. We don’t like being patronised and yet here we are in this crisis being patronised left, right and centre – not just by the government, the MSM but even businesses and institutions.
I’m beginning to think that this has to “be seen to be doing something” has been an abomination and a blight in our current lives that it deserves to be exorcised along with “if it saves one life its worth it”
Name the department store. Name and shame is the name of the game (sorry) now.
I don’t know the store that Paul is referring to, but Debenhams has been in the doggy doo again recently over this. Staff have been furloughed, then made redundant, and then furloughed again. According to a friend whose mother is/was an employee it was being kept our of the news. That’s what I was told on 24th May.
The Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s in my area isn’t bad. Ditto the Co-op.
Our local Tesco employs young girls to patrol the aisles and maintain the one way system – Woe betide you if you fail to comply. They also wave big signs about the 2m rule – bit like the women who parade around the boxing ring between rounds, but fully clothed (unfortunately!).
Nearby Asda and Morrison stores – more of free for all, far fewer masks, and they are cheaper!
Result is Tesco is usually very quiet cf. other two.
My Tesco is okay. I think it depends to some degree on the store manager.
Had an incredible rain storm earlier today. People could not have queued outside in such conditions. Basically, these shops can kiss goodbye to customers unless the weather’s nice – and even then, they – or the authorities – are going out of their way to make it as unpleasant an experience as possible.
It’s as though they imagine that there’s always been shops and always will be, no matter how unpleasant they make it. Same for restaurants, theatres, etc. But clearly, people – even the majority who are lockdown enthusiasts – aren’t going to pay extra to be treated like cattle with foot-and-mouth, and are simply going to stay where it’s nice: at home. Presumably that works for the government, the WHO and Mr Gates, but if they kill off the majority of businesses, we are fast approaching a future that looks like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28o6fJda1c
If I see a queue outside any shop, I drive on. Same at the next shop? I drive on. Mostly I’ve been stocking up on groceries from the two local Scot-Mid stores as there is never a queue. I refuse to stand outside in whatever weather we may be having in order to, when it’s safe to do so, part with my hard-earned.
Same. I’ve generally found it can be done.
One small positive is that,despite ridiculous queues and rules, there is quite high demand. Need to help surviving businesses to get back on their feet, especially small, local ones.
Our local Waitroses are pretty relaxed. I guess it largely depends on the manager, and the staff.
These places will all go out of business before too long.
Our ALDI is run by jack-booted Nazis. I guess it depends where you are.
Guardian article about “controversial” scientist Sunetra Gupta:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/the-costs-are-too-high-the-scientist-who-wants-lockdown-lifted-faster-sunetra-gupta
“Speaking in a personal capacity, Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University”
“It is not clear to me that population-wide measures were ever actually the right way to go with this. I actively supported the lockdown specifically on the understanding that it was a temporary, time-limited emergency measure. I was not thinking of something that would drag on for months. I was expecting that we would develop a more nuanced strategy once we realised some groups were 10,000 times more at risk than others, that we would adjust our strategy accordingly. And that is only just starting to happen now. It’s not what I signed up for.”
Good, more unravelling. Chipping away.
Can’t see the ability to make comments under this one. Shame!
Yes I was going to rise to that “1% IFR that it is generally thought to be”. Nobody seriously thinks it is 1%!
When I was a university studying science there was no such thing as a controversial scientist (maybe some controversial areas of research). Scientists came up with all sorts of research ideas, in this case, an alternative epi model and everything was considered in an empirical way. Now, if you don’t follow the groupthink you are contoversial. The most dangerous thing is to say the science is settled. There is always more to learn and discover. Science is broken.
It’s almost as if science has gone full circle and become the new religion.
Apart from a Martin Luther like figure to reform the Church of the NHS we will need a Copernicus or Galileo like figure to reform science.
Who has read the Poet Laureate’s poem “Lockdown”? Personally, I couldn’t finish it. He equates this thing with the plague. Really?
https://www.simonarmitage.com/wp-content/uploads/Lockdown-by-Simon-Armitage.pdf
Eurgh.
One is reminded of the poetry of the farmed rabbits, in Watership Down.
Cowslips Warren where the rabbits have accepted their fate because the farmer has them on furlough, those rabbits?
“Take me with you stream on your dark journey…”
That’s the one.
Yup!
Though it was written in early March when the worst hysteria was comparing it to a new plague. Lots happened since then.
Why are MSM/BBC not discussing this? Biggest cover up ever.These are figures taken direct from CDC website
https://coronavirusbellcurve.com/latest-cdc-data-shows-low-death-rate-for-people-of-all-ages-and-health-conditions/
“In Scenario 5, the CDC’s best estimate, the overall COVID-19 mortality rate for symptomatic cases is .4%, much lower than the numbers that have been thrown about in the media for months.
The CDC doesn’t go into detail about how they came to their numbers, but I have few thoughts and comments after seeing this data:
Will be interesting to see if Swiss Policy Research group quotes this – they seem to keep very up-to-date with their info.
Is that right Carrie? Last update I saw was May 6th.
I know they are not publishing updates as often as before, but what I meant was that they do add ‘new’ information *that is verifiable*, ie that has been checked – they quote the latest reliable research. I should maybe have expressed myself better!
Quite sure I read elsewhere on this site that the CDC had said .25%, not .4%. Did I misread or misremember?
I think that the lower figure was an estimate based on their assumptions about people with natural immunity who have been exposed but don’t have antibodies.
Trust me, this absurdly long web address is very interesting. It’s an Israeli mathematician who correctly predicted the virus effects very early on and has since shown that the effects have been the same everywhere. The virus always peaks in 40 days and then goes to virtually nothing after 70 days, irrespective of whatever actions politicians take.
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/151268/israeli-mathematician-accurately-predicted-40-day-covid-19-peak-reveals-new-bombshell-prediction/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Health+Experts+Baffled+by+Israeli+who+Predicted+Date+of+Covid-19+Peak%3A+Now+he+has+another+Big+Prediction+and+Today+s+Top+Stories&utm_campaign=BIN+-+AM+-+JUNE+2%2C+2020
Yes, Andre of ‘Peerless Reads’ youtube channel says the same thing.
Thank you, I wasn’t aware of him.
What date do you figure Russia and Brazil ‘commenced’? No sign of the 40 day ‘peak’ there yet.
For example Brazil hit 100 deaths on March 28th. We’ve gone through over 60 days of April and May and the trend is still upwards. No doubt you’re expecting a Trump miracle disappearance on new deaths/cases within the next fortnight?
These are huge countries. I think, especially in the case of Russia, it’s difficult to make meaningful comparisons.
In comparison to the USA or continental Europe as a whole? You have an interesting approach to interpreting data.
You might also note that more than 50% of the cases in the example I gave above (Brazil) are in Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro
It’s just an observation Tom. Clearly the virus has a lot further to travel around Russia than it does around Belgium! it must make a difference.
Geography must surely make a difference, yes. In any country of any size, you will surely have multiple actual waves of infection, because the first cases will start in different parts of The country at different times. If you take the UK as an example, London’s wave started and ended earlier than elsewhere – which makes sense, because the concentration of economic activity means that it’s more likely that the first UK cases would have been in London. Other parts of the country have been behind on the way up and behind on the way down, but the pattern is very similar.
From a sceptic point of view, this is interesting, because there are only two possible explanations that I can see: either the lockdown works as a way to control the virus, but it took some parts of the country longer to start observing it; or the lockdown hasn’t made the blindest difference and the infection follows a pretty set pattern regardless.
Not sure what I think about the chap in Israel though. In particular, his thinking on a second wave seems to be “no reason to believe it will happen.” I get that, but it’s not the same as having a reason to believe it won’t. I prefer to think that it doesn’t matter a damn either way, because it’s just not that dangerous.
Here in Sweden the largest number of cases has been in the capital, as you would expect. The case numbers have risen and fallen in other areas.. I would suspect that the small peaks that we are still seeing here and there are a result of people feeling more relaxed now and travelling to their holiday cottages, which are often in areas where there have so far been few cases. These would be small coastal resorts and remote forest areas where there are few permanent residents. The island of Gotland had hardly any cases for ages – few enough for them to have been able to trace contacts, but they then had a rise in cases after Easter – likely due to a few asymptomatic people going to their holiday cottages there and taking the virus with them..
I would never “lockdown” under any circumstance.
What’s a “Trump miracle disappearance”?
I would like to believe it, but it is somewhat difficult to make that case for the UK. Growth definitely started early March, and it is now 90 days later and it hasn’t gone away yet. It has by and large gone away in London, where the spread happened before the social distancing. But not elsewhere.
So, perhaps his hypothesis is true only if the spread happens before social distancing. That would make sense.
Could it be that the social distancing measures and lockdown have intervened and slowed the natural progression?
Yes, possibly.
The point is that the dude needs to adapt his theory to new data and insights. Every scientist should look for outliers, errors and anomalies, because that is where we learn.
Not-adapting the theory is exactly what Ferguson’s team did when confronted with contradicting data and failed predictions. So his model has proven to be unreliable, and yet he persists with it. That’s not called science, that’s called religion.
It pretty much has gone away in the UK. You wouldn’t expect it to go to nothing. It will just tick over at a low level for ever like NL63, OC43 or any of the other coronaviruses that nobody tests for or pays much attention to.
If I understood the ONS data correctly (and I think they just released some more which I haven’t looked at yet) if you have a cold now there’s only about a 1 in 24 chance it’s Covid and not some other virus.
I’d rather like “Panic” by the Smiths as a theme tune. it seems to provide some reasonable metaphors for what is currently happening.
The Palace of Westminster is the disco and Boris Johnson is the dee jay.
Fans of the Smiths may understand my capital point !
“Hopes may rise in the Grasmere”
Panic is an excellent choice. A refreshing change from Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.
Where was yesterday’s Lockdown Sceptics daily update? I need my fix!! Perhaps 77th Brigade have kidnapped Toby and are interrogating him in a dark room?
I think he said he wasn’t doing one yesterday so hopefully he’ll do one today. I know what you mean need that daily lockdown fix.
It is a huge job to collate all the information people are sending him – I am not surprised that he needs days off here and there. And he is not getting paid for this either..
Can’t be, deputy! Tobias Ellwood has been MIA on a BLM march.
I have ordered my new face covering ready for Grant Shapps’ new requirement to be “safe” on public transport. What do you think?
Perfect.
I just ordered a black balaclava with a skull face on it.
If anyone wants to fuck with me on the bus they’ll have to be brave.
Of course they’ll be brave… they’ll be on a bus. So brave or mentally handicapped… it’s a fine line.
It just needs a ‘stay the fuck away from me’ slogan on the front and it ticks all boxes.
Very fetching that should scare the wits out of the virus as well as the more anxious bedwetters.
He said in this one (last line) he’d be back on Friday.
Scotland’s Dear Leader dutifully informed us today that, due to the lockdown rules her government was forced to enact to keep us safe, the Scottish economy may not recover for years.
Thankfully, however, Dear Leader reminded us that, by following her rules, she’ll allow the economy to start to recover. At some point. In the future. But it’s by us following her rules that she can allow herself to think about letting the economy begin again.
Some cad pointed out that it was by following her rules that the economy got into this mess in the first place, but that doesn’t make sense to me.
No, her clear and concise guidelines are for Scottish people to follow her rules as her rules will allow the economy to start the long process of recovering.
I’m thrilled to see that with each of our Twitter updates, many, many people point out how clear and concise and easy to understand her instructions are. And many people who live in England now wish they lived in Scotland. Which is great news. Obviously, they can’t move up here just yet because of the rules, but when the rules allow them to I hope they make good on their desires.
In other news the Scottish Chief Constable helpfully reminded us that house parties are illegal but if we’re not going to have a house party and instead decide to protest George Floyd’s death in America, Scots have the right to do so. Peacefully, of course. And while doing their best to follow the rules.
Remind me what percentage of the Scottish population is currently infected – 0.001% or something like that?
15,000 out of 5,400,000.
The only thing stopping me from moving to join you is your blood-sucking insects. [ Mind you, outside your ‘parliament’, I’m not fond of your midges either. ]
Blood sucking insects – is that a new name for the SNP?
Does anybody else cringe when they report that 1 person (or some other low number) has died on any particular day or am I just desensitised to such awful numbers?
Just received the following from my dental practice. What a palaver!
Allander Dental Care Patient COVID-19 Reopening Policy
This policy has been created based on multiple updated sources from within the dental and medical professions and the government.
It outlines modifications to our normal procedures that we intend to employ once the practice can be reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic peak has subsided.
It is not known at this time whether these procedures are temporary or whether they will become a permanent feature of the way dental practices must be run to ensure patient and staff safety in the future.
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic is still being evaluated and studied and policies and recommendations are likely to change in line with new scientific evidence over time.
We would like to thank all of our patients for their patience and forbearance during the period of temporary practice closure and for their understanding and cooperation whilst we implement new measures at the practice.
We will of course be providing dental care to all of our patients in the safest possible environment. We greatly appreciate your assistance with any new or modified procedures at the practice.
Timetable
It is our intention for the practice to re-open to patients once Scottish Government give us the green light. We anticipate this will be mid to late June 2020. Our team has been working hard behind the scenes to prepare the practice for reopening and have updated our policies and protocols to ensure your safety is paramount.
Initially we will prioritise the following patient groups:
– Patients with emergency problems or other dental problems that require urgent assessment and treatment;
– Patients with treatment that was incomplete before the practice was temporarily closed;
Further to the above patient groups we intend to prioritise patients who were due for routine examinations and hygienist visits during the period of closure.
Patient communication before reopening
Our team will be contacting patients and confirming appointments ahead of their scheduled time.
We will request that all patients who are attending the surgery to update their standard medical and dental history forms beforehand.
We will also ask you to complete a risk assessment form that will allow us to assess your level of risk for coronavirus infection before you attend the surgery.
New Measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 Transmission
Our normal cross-infection control protocols at Allander Dental Care against all previously known pathogens are already woven into all clinical activity carried out at the practice.
It should be remembered that a dental practice is already a very clean environment compared to public areas and there is no evidence of COVID-19 transmission occurring in increased rates in dentists or their staff.
We have collectively evaluated all of the updated guidance and observed what measures have been put in place in other countries. We feel that the measures that are outlined in this policy will reduce risk to the minimum level at the practice.
Please be assured that all of our clinical staff will also be complying with our updated procedures to reduce the risk of cross infection in both directions.
Before Attending the Practice
We will carry out a pre-attendance assessment via your completed medical history and risk assessment relative to coronavirus infection risk. If you have any difficulties with completing the forms our team are here to assist.
A dentist may also carry out a video consultation with you to assess your dental problem prior to your visit so that a provisional treatment plan can be proposed to minimise the number of visits you require. We may also request that you send photographs of your mouth to our practice mobile via Whatsapp.
If we feel that you are at risk of having possibly been infected, even if you are asymptomatic, we will respectfully request for you to delay booking any appointments with us for at least one month.
We recommend that patients in the high-risk groups for developing complications from coronavirus delay non-essential dental treatment for as long as possible until the trend of the pandemic becomes clear. If you are in a high risk group and do require treatment we will schedule your appointment at the beginning of the day.
To find out whether you are in a high or very high-risk group please visit the following website https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/people-at-higher-risk-from-coronavirus/ or ask any member of our team for guidance.
When travelling to the practice, we would recommend that you limit close contact with other members of the public as far as possible.
Please endeavour to arrive no more than five minutes before your scheduled appointment. If you are travelling by car we would be grateful if you could wait in your car and call the practice on 0141 956 3191 to confirm your arrival. We will meet all patients on arrival at the building and bring them straight into the surgery.
One adult is able to attend with a child; please do not bring additional family members with you unless they are happy to wait in the car or outside the building.
Arriving at the Practice
When you attend the practice, we will welcome you, and ask for you to hang your coat or jacket in the porch entrance to the practice. The front door will remain locked, however we cannot accept liability for personal items so please limit what you bring into the building.
We will take your temperature with a no-touch thermometer. If your temperature is above 37.8°C, you will be unable to enter the practice and will be asked to return home and self isolate as per current government guidelines.
We intend to eliminate waiting inside the practice and at reception. Accordingly, appointments will be staggered so that patients do not arrive or leave at the same time as other patients as far as we are able to manage.
When using the WC, please do your best to ensure that you leave the facilities, as you would expect to find them and wash your hand thoroughly. The restroom will be regularly disinfected between patients.
If you are well, we will direct you straight to the surgery and request that you do all the following before or during your appointment.
– Thoroughly wash your hands for 30 seconds with the antiseptic hand wash provided in the surgery.
– We may ask you to use a Hydrogen Peroxide mouthwash before some dental treatments are provided
– Rubber dam or other barrier mechanisms will be used for more procedures than previously.
Practice Procedures
The Allander Dental Care team have spent time critically looking at every aspect of the practice with a view to removing all non-essential items that can potentially be the cause of infection.
You may find that the practice will appear to be quite bare when you attend.
All clinical and common areas including door handles and surfaces will be regularly disinfected in addition to our normal surface cleaning protocols between patients.
Allander Dental Care will be providing a buffer period between patients to allow additional time for additional decontamination procedures, allow for any treatment overruns and allow preparation time for the next patient so that they do not need to wait in the reception area.
All future appointments will be made and confirmed by email or telephone to limit your time spent at reception.
Allander Dental Care will be operating contactless payment systems going forwards, and we will request that payment, if required is made using a credit or debit card.
Dental Procedures
All dental staff will be using personal protective equipment in line with current recommendations and evidence.
We apologise in advance for the necessary reduction in social interaction that this will necessitate. Whilst our PPE may make us appear impersonal and distant, please be assured we are still the same friendly team underneath it all!
We are especially mindful that many dental treatments are aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs). It is difficult for us to carry out some dental procedures without generation of some level of aerosol. Aerosol suspended in the air is a theoretical source of infection which we obviously wish to keep to a minimum. Currently the dental literature suggests:
– Our use of our normal high-volume suction reduces aerosol production by over 90%.
– The use of dental rubber dam where appropriate reduces bio aerosols by a further 30 to 90%
– Our regular facemasks filter approximately 60% of remaining airborne particles.
– FFP masks filter 94% and 99% respectively of airborne particles in both directions (patient to clinician and clinician to patient).
We therefore feel that our normal dental procedures can be carried out with minimal additional risk by the use of high-volume suction, rubber dam and FFP masks. Despite the financial impact of the coronavirus we have no plans to increase our normal fees or change our business model at this time.
Summary
The vast majority of our patients are otherwise healthy without coronavirus infection and we are confident that we are able to provide normal dental care for these patients in as normal an environment as possible while bearing in mind our responsibilities to mitigate risks of infection spread as far as is practically possible.
Our policies and procedures will be constantly reviewed and updated as necessitated by circumstances and the best available evidence over time.
If you have any questions regarding this policy or about your treatment at Allander Dental Care please do not hesitate to contact us on 0141 956 3191 or reception@allanderdentalcare.com where a member of our team will be happy to assist.
Jesus…. too long; didn’t read.
Is every normal activity going to have its own associated 10,000 words of process-related pablum?
I keep thinking things can’t possibly get any more insane and I never cease to be stupefied by the next day’s shenanigans.
Yes,every day beats the previous one for lunacy.
It has come to something where despite all these ridiculous rules, we are expected to feel thankful that a dental practice is opening at all!
Fuck that, gimme the pliers.
I’ve been told that someone did just that. Took him about an hour to remove the tooth. (I don’t know if the story is true or not).
Should have done an Aunt Sally from Huckleberry fin. Bit of string tied to the tooth attached to a bedpost and a flaming torch works wonders.
God almighty !,dentists are amongst the biggest bed-wetters there is,sounds like it will take about three hours for a check-up !.
You sure this is not an American dental practice? They have a “restroom” – we don’t have restrooms in the UK.
Brave of you to read it all.
Resist the ‘new normal’. The more we resist the less likely they will persist. I’m sure the joy of having a McDonald’s open will wear off soon and when nobody is queuing what will they do then?
At least they are prepared to carry out normal dental procedures. I had originally worried that we were going to be given only pre Victorian era dental treatment for the foreseeable future.
FML!
All for a virus which has been practically eliminated in the community and which is not harmful to the majority that get it.
Gawd….is your dental practice doing their version of War and Peace or what?
I think I’d rather take my chances with a barber, thanks!
I have received the following message from my local Police neighbourhood watch alert system,
‘If NHS Test and Trace calls you by phone, the service will be using a single phone number 0300 0135 000. The only website the service will ask you to visit is https://contact-tracing.phe.gov.uk.’
So there’s a number to block and ignore.
Blocked it 2 weeks ago, home and mobile. All my friends have agreed common ground, ‘I’ve been self isolating for (insert your own no. of weeks)’ The whole process is doomed, you only have to look at the drop off in tests.
Did you know you can’t block the number the government texts you from? Remember the tests announcing lockdown? Can’t block it.
You can just say you didn’t read it as you only read texts from stored contacts, thought it was spam and deleted it.
When was that, I never got one?
Thanks for that. Very helpful of them to let us know the number so we can block it. How long will it be before they realise that by doing so they have enabled a large proportion of the population to block the number?!
Considering how long its taking to realise the virus is not so deadly after all possibly quite a while.
My hairdresser is blanking me… I’ve been using her for 20 years – at her house and mine – and have brought plenty of other clients to her… we went to each other’s weddings. Now I want her to come out to me (for a nice little bonus) and cut my hair, she’s gone dark.
I’m thinking I need to get rid of her and find a new one when possible. I feel now like she’s in the enemy camp.
I know that on the face of it, it’s unreasonable of me to expect her to break the law, but when the law itself is so unreasonable, what other choice do we have, and why should I continue to give my money to someone who isn’t prepared to crack on and do what’s right?
This is where we need an underground network of black market providers.
What has the UK come to when we’re seriously discussing blackmarket hairdressers!
It won’t just be hairdressers. My daughter does partner dancing – that’ll have to go underground too.
That’ll be me too!
Not to mention playgroups/nurseries and schools that dont participate in child abuse.
A totalitarian state and the people love it.
I don’t much like the sound of that, but it may happen.
Try understanding her position. She’s a hairdresser and come to a different conclusion than you. She is not your enemy. She just has a different view.
Well, I personally wouldn’t expect someone to break the law to cut my hair, on the other hand it’s not unreasonable to take your business where you choose based on your own principles.
She may have lockdown sceptic views but not wish to break the law.
Thinking in terms of enemies may or may not be healthy, reasonable or helpful, but I think this is such an era-defining issue that people are going to take sides and have strong views.
I don’t regard everyone who disagrees with me on this issue as an enemy, but those who are knowingly wrecking our country (government and their helpers in the media and establishment) are all of our enemies, I feel.
I prefer to persuade people of my position by stealth, but that’s just my style, and a tactic I personally think will bear more fruit, but I respect others’ strong feelings on this subject and their choice to be more direct and confrontational.
I’d put it more positively – I’d much prefer any money I spend to go to people who share my views on the lockdown. The difficulty is that we are such a minority that anyone advertising as antilockdown or openly breaking the law would suffer more from it than they might recover from our support.
Hence the need for it to be below the radar in some way. Difficult to see how it could work other than on a very small scale local basis, and it’s probably not worth the kind of investment of effort that would be required to build something since we all hope this nonsense won’t be around long term.
Could always say it’s all part of a BLM protest. They’re immune from CV19…
Precisely. Why not walk a mile in her shoes…..then, when she finds out, you’re a mile away and you have her shoes!
I’m not sure her shoes would fit me… Which is a shame as I sure would look pretty in them.
She has the view that is allowing the government to continue with this dipshittery.
I’m honestly sick to f***ing death of it now. I dare my MP to walk down my street now. All my power tool batteries are fully charged.
I agree, people have been pummelled with this virus propaganda. Not everyone is so well informed as the people who come here.
Because they are stupid and lazy and should be used as compost.
Perhaps.
It is reasonable because the law is an ass and it’s almost one’s duty to break it. Currently we live in a state where two young lovers from separate households cannot meet and have sex or be physically intimate in any way. That is consciously cruel and if anyone tells me that it’s a clinical precaution I say they are naive. This is a coup andIi want to say to people who accuse me of being ‘a conspiracy theorist’ wake up! We have sleepwalked into tyranny. Do you really accept that people aged sixteen and over cannot meet anymore to experience one of the joys of life? Wake up for god’s sake. This is not going to get better.
We live in a state where two young lovers from spear households cannot meet up and have sex….but they can meet up with thousands of others in a huge crowd and be part of a protest about something that happened thousands of miles away.
Yup, Hancock pleading with people not to demonstrate this weekend, for the sake of their loved ones. Not because it’s the law.
As long as they are under the banner of a state approved protest group they can meet up.
I wrote to my MP asking if any in Parliament have been having their hair cut because I didn’t believe none of them hadn’t. My hairdresser is self employed and needs to work I suggested when she felt able could she put me top of her list that was a month ago and I haven’t heard since. I’ve started cutting it myself, however if I find I can do without her she’ll have one less customer.
Starmer’s hair is no way self-cut – he’s getting a pro to do that.
Their baldricks can multitask Julian …
My MPs man friday Gavin answers all of his e-mails. I imagine that he can turn his hand to other tasks with equal aplomb …
Well, my hairdresser came to me, but I’m not so sure we did anything wrong.
He was travelling for work, tick.
My home was his place of work, and you are allowed to go to work physically if you cannot work from home, tick.
We maintained social distancing where possible and applied ‘common sense’, tick.
Someone else may well come to a different conclusion, but that’s what you get with ‘common sense’.
I’m absolutely certain you did nothing wrong. I’m equally pretty confident you broke the law.
And therein lies the whole problem…
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020
Para 4.- Requirement to close premises and businesses during the emergency
4(4) A person responsible for carrying on a business or providing a service which is listed in Part 2 of Schedule 2 must cease to carry on that business or to provide that service during the emergency period.
SCHEDULE 2
Businesses subject to restrictions or closure
PART 2
14. Nail, beauty, hair salons and barbers.
Don’t insult my hairdresser! He is not a mere ‘barber’ and he is certainly not a ‘salon’. He is an executive hair consultant!
Not sure a magistrate would appreciate the distinction…
It says ‘salons’…nothing about peripatetic hairdressers..
Unless your neighbour knows the hairdresser personally then they cannot know that he/she is not a cleaner turning up to work for you – and they can work now!
She just got back to me and offered me 17th of July!
Binned. F**k her.
Maybe you need to queue … she may be very busy catching up !
I first contacted her about 4 weeks ago, and now she comes back to me and I’m 2 weeks down the list? Sorry, nope. She’s toast.
lol, that’s okay Aidan. I’m just being diplomatic. A close friend of my sister is a self employed hairdresser. I saw her on 24th May. She commented that she was “bored”. Her partner’s business is struggling too.
Do you suppose they’re getting the 20 pieces of government silver, hence are reasonably happy not to work?
Toby has a good piece in the Spectator this week pointing out how You Tube are shadow banning an interview with Peter Hitchens (on the Triggernometry site) about the lockdown catastrophe. Outrageous abuse of a monopoly position, effectively shutting down free speech.
The first thing a populist government should do is enshrine the free speech principle as a foundational principle of our democracy and create legal jeopardy for firms like You Tube and Google in a monopolistic position in the market. They will soon start respecting free speech.
There is one face mask which I have some sympathy with:
https://www.nuclearblast.de/en/products/textilien/sonstiges/stueck/face-mask-fuck-off.html
I’d prefer wearing a Hannibal or Scream mask.
If the worst comes to the worst, let’s have one with lockdownsceptics.org blazoned on it.
My partner and I have a policy of never thanking people who leap out of our way. Depending on the circumstances, we have a gentle go at them about how there’s no danger from walking past someone outside (for goodness’ sake!)
Today a woman actually leapt off the footpath in front of a speeding car to avoid us, out in the countrside on a breezy day. She was obviously annoyed at our ingratitude and, in response to our usual spiel, told us poor old deluded dears that she wouldn’t come near us because she’d been working with children all day. When we said children presented no risk to anyone she stalked off in a hufff.
More masks than ever in our local town yesterday and a few in Morrisons today. One child cringed away from us and a woman, clearly struggling mentally, and with a mask dangling round her neck, turned to face the wall as we passed. Very upsetting.
We are determined to stay sane in what seems to be a more and more dystopian situation. As every day goes past and the G.I.C.dictate ever more lunatic and untimely restrictions after the virus is as good as gone, it seems people need to cling ever more tightly to their comfort blankets of fear. How are we going to undo this damage as a society?
I have a neighbour who when someone jumps out of the way says ‘That’s right, fuck off, fuck right off!’ shouting to expel as much air as possible. I love it.
Having been a frequent viewer of this site for a couple of weeks it’s fair to say it’s saved my sanity on many a day. I like many have become more and more frustrated with the school situation amongst many others. Today I have learnt that schools in a nearby borough have been told not to open as the R rate has increased in England to wait for it …between 0.7 and 1 ! The impacts this will have to to future generations makes me so angry ! Anyways rant over ….
I’ve finally just received a response from one of Keir Starmer’s team. I’ll copy it in when I’ve replied. It basically says they fully support the government and that they were wrong not going into lockdown quickly enough, then it’s just a party political broadcast. These are dark days for British politics, an authoritarian government and a weak opposition that hasn’t seized an opportunity to undermine the government that has been handed to them on a golden plate. I’m very despondent. I went to Sainsbury’s today and had to be told to go and stand in an empty bay while the lady did the alcohol age thing. I really feel for the staff. There’s these screens up around the self checkout and the tills that serve no purpose whatsoever. Our society has degenerated in a matter of months. Please make it stop someone!
It’s why I’m still having food deliveries every week. It’s not that I’m frightened of going into a supermarket , quite the opposite, it’s that I just cannot mentally cope with the nonsense going on in shops right now. I’ve been waiting for clothing shops to reopen, but again I honestly don’t think I can visit them. I will either get furiously angry or very tearful. I just refuse to stand in distanced queues, walk through a one way system, not touch anything, stand in spots on floors and wear a mask. That’s not restful shopping! That’s just a chore. The government have destroyed our country in a few short weeks. I will never forgive them.
That’s exactly how I feel
I walked past a Next open yesterday on a retail park. Maximum 32 customers allowed (this is a huge Next too), I saw a customer have his temperature taken before entering and then the handwash. Clothes shops won’t exist in 12 months unless this intrusive charade is abolished.
I understand your reluctance to shop, but this just reinforces it. I have had mixed experiences in shops, but I have found that there are times when they are less busy and I’ve been able to shop without stress. Evenings and the smaller supermarkets seem better – I’ve never had to queue at those times.
As far as I am concerned any retailers not taking a public stance against this deserve to go bust.
Well, we all have to eat … and my garden isn’t big enough to grow my own stuff …
I feel exactly the same, I used to love a little bit of retail therapy or going to a restaurant or the theatre and fear the experience will be far different in future that I am also likely to get very angry or burst into tears.
To add to this today I’ve been informed by a family member who works as a teacher that schools in the next borough to us will not open next week as planned as the R rate in England has increased. The potential impacts this will have on our future generation infuriates me !
Not forgiving them is too soft. It needs to be something really physical, painful and humiliating because I can guarantee you will never see any of them standing in queues. I feel 1789 coming on all over again. Bastille anyone?
This is exactly how I feel. I used to love going into physical shops, window shopping, just going on shopping trips etc – online shopping has never really done it for me and I try and avoid it as much as possible because our high streets need all the help they can get. Now I’ve just put off going into town because of all this inane rubbish. Totally takes the fun out of the experience. Not that many shops are open right now anyway because we are exiting lockdown at a glacial pace
I will never forgive them nor anyone at this point that is still willing to go along with the nonsense.
Try going to Morrison’s instead. At our local one, the car park was almost as busy as normal, but there was next to no queue to get in. No arrows and one-way systems inside. A few people wore masks, but none of the staff did, and it was pretty much like shopping before CV19.
There was a single queue for the checkouts, but actually that worked out fine, because you were directed to the next available checkout instead of guessing which one might be quicker and getting it wrong.
Just been to get my winter tires removed. First world problem know but what a load of bollox.
All staff had to wear masks and change gloves Every time the gove or receive a key.
All the cars had cling film on the steering wheel and bottles of sanitiser next to each car so the staff guy can disinfect the car everyone someone touched it.
I was told the dealer is scared cos trading standards can turn up and close them down.
Trading standards have no actual guidelines cos the morons in No10 are making up this shite on the fly.
However if the “don’t think we are taking it seriously the will close us down”
Dealer sounds a bit dim. Or else is a lockdown enthusiast.
“It’s that noxious that I reckon it would kill anything at ten paces!”
lol, excepting viruses …
Just seen that Dr. John Lee a retired doctor of pathology I think he was said lockdown is an over reaction. He said fair enough have one at the beginning as we didn’t know how bad it was going to be and try to protect the NHS but now we know more about covid 19 its not as bad as anyone thought so locknown not needed.
Have you seen his interview with James Delingpole? It’s one of the best.
I’ve not seen that. Wheres it at? I was gobsmacked as this was an interview on BBC Scotland drive time radio show. Surely I thought not the BBC questioning the lockdown. Especially Scotland as if you believe the waffle we all bow down to Queen Nicola
Here’s a link. Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMsaEqGzU0A
Thanks
When we locked down the credible science was already telling us this was not as bad as the MSM were portraying yet for some reason all that was ignored and Fergusons fantasies were all that mattered.
That was the idea, originally. Johnson said 3 weeks and bring the NHS up to speed, then review. By that time, end of 3 weeks, we knew it wasn’t going to be as bad as first thought but he got ill and bottled it. It’s been downhill ever since.
I’m pissed off with it all today.
So am I. Feeling at my lowest. Can’t shake off the depression. Don’t understand why it’s so bad today, nothing in particular is better or worse than the last 2 or 3 weeks. Mood swinging depending on what I have read or seen. The Dr John Lee interview with James Delingpole was a wonderful lift, so will watch again tonight.
Iv sufferd badly from the start nearly 3 months I come on here to cheer myself up
I completely understand the depression. This site is my only sanctuary. I think what really hit me was having to comfort my 18 year old daughter – lonely and depressed and fed up of university on line tutorials in the isolated environment of our kitchen and then hearing that my 15 year old god daughter is going to go back to school on 15 th but only for 2 hours per week – per week! And the face mask nonsense- Kafka, Orwell, Armando ianucci – none of them could have conceived of this insanity. Where are the civil liberties lawyers who would ( quite rightly) defend a person’s right to wear a face covering, but not to defend the right not to do so? And what is a public service broadcaster doing being the unquestioning platform for Government edicts issued from third rate ministers – with no scrutiny or accountability- not even a half hearted attempt to justify it with ‘THE Science’- can you believe that muppet Schapps actually said – ’even though views are mixed etc..’ they don’t have to bother to justify anything anymore. Why doesn’t anyone seem to care? Either in the MSM or political establishment? I seriously don’t want to live in this country anymore. It’s alien to me.
I find a good physical workout helps
The Guardian’s latest scoop
tory-mp-bob-seely-attended-lockdown-barbecue-with-journalists
I read that regular people have been jailed on IOW for breaking lockdown rules. On that basis I expect nothing to happen to the people involved in this BBQ.
Do you have a link, please, Nobody ?
Isle of Man, not Wight I think:
Coronavirus Isle of Man: Man jailed for accepting a lift to the chemist’s
Ah yes, a lot more likely. Thanks Mark.
It’s a sign of the times, isn’t it when we see that story and go; ah yes, the Isle of Man, that makes more sense…
HANG ON A MINUTE, IT MAKES NO F***ING SENSE WHATSOEVER! THEY JAILED A MAN FOR SIX WEEKS FOR ACCEPTING A LIFT! TO THE CHEMIST! IN THE BRITISH ISLES!
And his defence was it’s no different than getting a taxi. And it’s not. A taxi driver much more likely, as per his job, to have a myriad of different people in his car any of whom could have been infected.
What a fool! imagine thinking that mere reason would come to his aid, in a world plainly gone utterly insane.
I genuinely think Franz Kafka would have listened to our stories and laughingly dismissed them as too implausible for words.
sorry I got my islands mixed up
I went into garden centre today and saw the staff member at the door wearing a full face visor – thought I was in a welders yard.
I then saw a man with a muzzle on – I thought I was in an S&M club.
I then saw a lady jumping out of the way as someone else approached her – I thought I was in an anthropophobia convention.
It then dawned on me- I was in an insane asylum.
LOL
This has just come from my son’s head teacher:-
From 15th June we will be widening the school opening for selected students in year 10 and 12. The government announced some weeks ago that children in year 10 and 12 would be able to have some face to face meetings with their teachers, and when the final guidance for secondary schools came out there were some significant limitations around how many children could be in at the same time. This meant our original plan of having all the children in for some meetings with their teachers was simply not going to be achievable. Many other secondary schools in the area have come to the same conclusion.
We monitor online activity of children engaging with remote learning and we have some feedback from students about how they are finding working from home. What we are seeing is about 50% of students doing a fantastic job in the circumstances, about 25% of students being a little inconsistent, and another 25% not really engaging very well at all. There are many reasons for that last quartile’s lower level of engagement, including access to technology, personal attitude or their specific learning needs. This is very concerning and we need to prioritise those students and give them the support and boost that they need to get back on track, before any further loss of learning happens.
So, from the 15th June, we are going to invite into school students from year 10 and 12 who are finding it difficult to work from home or who have done very little remote learning since the start of Lockdown, with the aim of supporting and encouraging them to recover their learning and catch up. This provision will only be supportive and will not replace the continuing online learning programme that is already set up for years 9, 10 and 12. The main method of learning for all students in those year groups will continue to be online learning.
If we have identified your son as being in need of some support and structure, you will receive a letter from me inviting him in for certain days in the week: Year 10 – Tue and Thu; Year 12 – Wed. I will send you the operational plans which will include all the safety measures we have put in place and all the expectations around social distancing and hygiene. If your son is invited, I would strongly urge you to send him in so that his education doesn’t suffer any more than it may have already. If you are reluctant to send him in, we will have a phone call with you to find a solution or provide reassurances around safety measures.
If your son is not invited to come in or is in year 9, but is struggling to effectively study at home, please contact his Head of Year – we may be able to provide support and encouragement in other ways. But bear in mind that remote learning is not a substitute for face to face schooling, and many students are actually finding it a challenge in different ways.
As yet we do not have any idea about what schools will be like in September, but it is highly likely that there will be some restrictions that may further impact on the satisfactory provision of learning for all students. It is vital, therefore to get everyone comfortable with remote learning and with some good independent learning habits. This may be a feature of education and training for many years to come.
So it would seem the “final guidance” is so restrictive that a school covering 5 year groups cannot only have between 25 and 50% of the children from one year group in on any one day – that’s under 10% of what used to be normal capacity. Has anyone seen this guidance?
“This may be a feature of education and training for many years to come.”
WTF? What’s the matter with these bloody people!
Insanity indeed, but it won’t be a feature ‘for many years to come’. Once the virus disappears or is at a suitably low/harmless level like flu, there will be no reason for these ludicrous measures to still be in place. A lot of people are incapable of thinking ahead to the future rationally due to fear and assume this situation will be exactly the same, forever.
If their motive is to tame/expunge the virus maybe. If their motive is oppression then no.
Sounds ridiculous of the school. My son went back this week into reception, over half of the 120 children in his year have gone back, key worker children and vulnerable children from the other two years are also there. From the 15th they are looking to take Y1 back too and also further reception children whose parents have decided to stop hiding behind the sofa.
That seems like an unwilling team, over-complying with rules and under-delivering on education.
Our son is in year 1, and they basically just split the class over two rooms. And on Friday he’s off, because of ‘disinfecting’ (couldn’t do that on a Saturday it seems). So that’s what, 40% capacity? It can go up when the 2 m rule is dropped. So a lot more than what eastberks44 is saying.
I’m not sure how much it matters, but we have been greasing their bottoms for weeks, with little cute messages of encouragement. That we know about the Teachers’ Unions, but that our son would sooo much like to go back to school. That it is sooo fantastic what they are doing, and that they should not let themselves be discouraged by the pessimists. That our son is really enjoying it, and it would be even better if they could all be back in the same room, like in Denmark. Etc. Etc. And we just sprinkle these things around at every opportunity: responding to e-mails, at the school gate, etc.
So a bit of covert pushing and loading them with arguments for their internal evaluations, which they undoubtedly have.
For anybody who is worried about being bald, or in blood group A, or possibly blond, or left-handed, or possibly inclined to cross their t’s and finish their i’s with a DOT, here is some guidance re spurious correlations:
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
That was joyful. A few more piss takes would be welcome. Been a tough day today. Any astrologers or soothsayers care to comment?
Thought I would share this, which is a graph produced by a friend of a friend who is in the data science business. My first response was “I can’t see a correlation”. The answer was “there aren’t any”
I normally avoid BBC TV News but the guy there just said ‘40000 people have now died after testing positive for the coronavirus’.
This sort of statement is a complete distortion of the facts as it is saying that the coronavirus by itself has killed 40,000 people, which is a blatant lie. The lack of any qualifying statements about co-morbidities shows that BBC reporting is now just a govt-controlled propaganda tool to maintain fear levels.
I won’t be watching them again.
Been like that for at least 3 months Fred. You been hibernating ?