The Jewish Chronicle has published a blistering essay by a non-Jewish academic about the alarming levels of anti-semitism she encounters on a daily basis at her university. It’s an anonymous piece because she doesn’t want to be targeted by ‘anti-Zionist’ loons on her campus, but every bit rings true. It begins:
As a non-Jewish lecturer at a major university, I can confirm that British academia is structurally racist against Jews. The penny finally dropped as I was second-marking a piece of undergraduate writing in which Jews were openly compared to scurrying vermin, spreading disease.
The student’s illiterate use of grammar, nonsensical punctuation and mixed metaphors would surely have embarrassed Goebbels. But Hitler’s arch propagandist would just as surely have approved of the spirit of the piece. Not that this was a uniquely awful specimen of the kind of “work” I’ve had to face as first and second marker of a large cohort of students since the horror of October 7th.
A different piece, produced by a student in the same year group, accused its readers, in the foulest language, of complicity with “genocide” and of “sleeping” while the IDF killed innocent civilians for target practice.
The obvious Jew-hatred of these pieces of writing were one thing. But then there were the comments of the first academic who had marked them, which praised the “Jews-as-vermin” piece as a moving indictment of Israeli “colonisation” that displayed a fine philosophical turn of phrase and a carefulness of language. As for the “genocide” piece, my colleague reassured the student that his message was deeply important.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem: not the fact that immature, 20-year-old students have been brought up on a diet of hating the West, hating Jews and unashamedly milking their self-declared victim status, but the fact that this pernicious nonsense is actively encouraged, praised and taught by the academy – and has been for decades. Ever since the late 1960s, higher education in the West has been infiltrated by a steady stream of nefarious actors, who claim victimhood and make allegations of “Islamophobia” on the one hand and spout racist hate speech against Jews on the other. The ultimate bait-and-switch.
The academics in question may not be paid agitators but they nonetheless fall over themselves to support one kind of non-white student (any kind of Muslim) over other kinds of minority non-white student (Jews or Christians from Africa, Israel, or elsewhere in the Middle East), no matter the hypocrisies involved.
I ask myself, for example, how the academic who had praised the diatribes would have responded to a piece of coursework in which Muslims in Britain were depicted as diseased vermin? Would said student have been given a first-class mark, as was the proposed grade here? The answer, for those of you asleep at the back, is no: the student would have been hauled up before an anti-racism panel and referred to Prevent before you could say “parody”.
Yet when I suggested a lower grade for the student in question (based on the woeful quality of the piece, rather than the racist slurs) and commented that the work that was uneducated at best, offensive at worst – which, after all, was my job as their tutor – my feedback was removed by the university lest there be negative public repercussions. As a compromise, a high 2:1 was awarded instead.
In my decades as a lecturer, I’ve often seen the bigotry of low expectations masquerading as positive discrimination, which no one in my line of work seems to care is still unlawful in the UK. But since October 7th, a new low in racist cognitive dissonance seems to have become commonplace.
Teaching people that “Palestine” was originally Muslim until it was colonised by Jews is so wrong, factually and historically as well as morally, that even as a non-Jewish academic, I can no longer keep quiet.
Worth reading in full.
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I wonder who’s going to be second…?
“OUR MOVEMENT, WE CAN WIN” Says Piers Corbyn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bjCkG6n0RI
Good for him, 1k views per hour, overnight.
I do my bit
would be good if Jeremy could show some solidarity with his brother
no chance .. there will be a fence he can sit on somewhere
Rolling Stones, Sitting on a fence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBItQrlgNI
Anybody here from Islington North written to him?
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/i-039-m-back-september-6th-2020_ZREIFY8auhMpzzQ.html
I’m Back! (September 6th 2020)
Dr Vernon Coleman
06 Sep 2020
Thanks.
Did you guess right?
Question: Why are they pushing the flu vaccination this year? Surely with masks, social distancing, gloves and other CoViD19 precautions then vaccination against flu is not needed as that coronavirus cannot get past all of these defences. Likewise the common cold and hay fever is a thing of the past. How can the children in Scotland have caught colds from each other?
The goal posts keep getting moved. The flu vaccine can be 40% effective (or not effective at all) and they’ll still force people to get it. They’re even saying a Covid vaccine only has to be 50% effective in order to be approved. Sure, masks won’t entirely prevent virus transmission, but it’s still worth wearing them even if they stop a few droplets from escaping. Or my favourite — masks would work if everyone wore them and everyone wore them properly. If they’re not making a difference it must be because too many people aren’t complying. Can’t you see how it makes perfect sense to get a flu vaccine, an untested Covid vaccine, and to wear gloves and masks 24/7? If everyone just complied 100% with all of these measures we’d all live forever.
Please please please post your last 2 sentences on Twitter just to see what replies you get. ;-D
Yep, as long as I’m “safe” I’ll abandon any other enjoyable plans I may have for the rest of my life because they’re risky, right? But at least, if I follow all the rules, guidelines, diktats, and have ALL the jabs, I’ll live longer….won’t I?
It’ll certainly feel like it.
That reminds me of a quote from one of the ‘Rat Pack’ back in the day.
“People who don’t drink don’t live longer, it just feels like it”.
on people who don’t drink Dean Martin said “imagine waking up and knowing thats as good as it’s gonna feel all day”
“I spent half my money on women and booze,
the rest was wasted”.
George Best.
They are arrogant, pretentious, neurotic, risk averse psychotics and are making projections on the rest of us. They want us to think just like them because they are so lonely with their inner demons.
Who is the they? Canada’s version of Dr. Fauci? Premier Ford? PM Trudeau?
For me it’s all to do with the nudge unit. Let’s say social distancing works, but to get people to adhere you have ramp up the fear, which they explicitly said in their march SAGE minutes.
Masks, gloves, sanitiser, it’s all theatre to model behaviour. There’s also the political aspect to make the government look like they are taking action when all this does is delay the normal passage of a bad flu through the population.
It may have been justified out of the belief in the ICL model and to flatten the curve. All I can think now is that there is a new agenda to squash general opposition to the Corporatism that we are seeing emerge now.
Mussolini would be proud
Look how your maks are made – Mumbai: Inferior masks with no filter made in slums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQi9yXkfUg
Victorian doctors argue the lockdown is ‘causing more harm than good’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XunhpcchiLA
Victorian surgeon Dr Geoffrey Wells says a growing number of doctors in the state believe the lock-down is “causing more harm than good”.
Carl Vernon posted a video of it with his commentary. I don’t think people are aware of the ethics involved with how their muzzles are made. I suspect even those cloth ones made here are the efforts of people paid derisory wages.
Slave labor in the United Kingdom. Yay!
Obviously not enough social distancing, diving masks and breathing tubes to become mandatory in schools.
The air in the scuba tanks will need to be filtered through a mask, if this doesn’t happen they will be useless.
I asked the question to show the logical absurdity that is the ongoing response to SARS-COV-2.
A) The government is saying everyone over 50 is going to be offered the flu vaccination as there’s likely to be a flu outbreak.
B) The government is saying to prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2 we should wear masks and socially distance etc.
C) It is reported that children in Scotland developed coughs and colds
D) Schools are adopting social distancing, strict hygiene and masks to reduce the spread of SARS-COV-2.
However if statement A is true the precautions in statement B are pointless because if they worked then they would stop statement A from happening.
Likewise statement D precautions would stop statement C from happening.
Statement C has happened therefore statement D is a falsehood as is statement B.
Indeed. As the government are not being questioned by anyone from the opposition or the media about the important stuff, I doubt they feel the need to be able to muster a logical argument for their actions
The answer would go something like “er unprecedented bar bar er bar er er test millions, er bar bar, world-beating, er er bar bar unprecedented er er stricter er bar working 24/7 er er …..”
Logic.
What idiots don’t have.
We are governed by idiots.
QED.
They are pushing flu vaccinations this year to emphasise that
1) Vaccines are good
2) Flu is also dangerous (this is a reaction to the argument that covid is no worse than bad flu, so the goalposts will now shift to “we should always have been wearing masks, getting flu vaccines and generally worrying ourselves half to death about flu”)
3) Life from now on will consist of a constant state of public health emergency, that the government will save us from provided we do what we’re told
Think about it – why wouldn’t any government want to carry on like this – it’s much more fun, if all you’re interested in is power and your own glory?
In any case, leading us out of this would require skills and courage that the government simply do not possess.
I think it is more prosaic, they (the NHS/PHE) know that due to the social distancing the public is lacking immunity to all the normal bugs and they are worried this year’s flu could be worse as a result.
Hence so many Scottish children coming down with cold when they returned to school ?
Can confirm 2 days at school, offspring came down with a cold. Dilemma this morning-if they go to school and cough, will they be viewed as a Covid vector and sent home to get test, if they stay at home, any reason given apart from perhaps a hangover
, could fall into the smorgasbord of Covid symptoms and then whole household locked into our home with a cross on the door. Decided that they should attend as so obviously a common cold and just hoping reason will prevail.
Headache? Mental health problems caused by face masks?
Schools will say send them in if it’s just a mild cold. If they are asking for a test, remind them that is not the advice.
Exactly
That would have been expected. No-one’s taken much notice of it before. Just sent the kids in with extra tissues.
Exactly, if people are still managing to catch and die of summer flu, and children still managing to catch colds, it would suggest that the fact people are not being admitted to hospital or dying of Covid is not because of any of the crappy measures we are taking (which colds and flu unsurprisingly can get around) but are because either it has run its course, or it just is not a very serious virus and people have it without noticing, or both.
This.
We have staked our entire mortgage on a problem we invented. Jesus. This is living nightmare we are walking into
Quite! But more people are dying of flu than of Covid! How can this be, with all of the ‘protection’ and restrictions in place since March?
Does the Flu Shot Increase COVID-19 Risk (YES!) and Other Interesting Questions
https://doctormurray.com/does-the-flu-shot-increase-covid-19-risk/
Thanks Victoria – I think you’ll find this interview with Zach Bush very interesting too – https://zachbushmd.com/video/the-highwire/.
Tried to share on fb and was “fact checked” and censored. Must be true then!
The article also answers my ongoing suspicion that people with high bp were at high risk because of the meds. Seems I was right.
There have been discussions in the BMJ about evidence pointing to the fact that the flu vaccine may make people more vulnerable to covid 19. So if more people have the flu vaccine, there could well be another crop of covid 19 cases to continue the fear and drive forward the vaccination agenda.
Vaccine associated virus interference- the US army did a study on their soldiers for whom the flu vaccine is compulsory and found that the vaccine made up to a third more susceptible to non influenza respiratory conditions.
It’s pretty shocking, and remarkably little official research has been done into this (quelle surprise). More doctors are calling for further investigation into the interplay between flu vaccination and susceptibility to coronaviruses, but despite that, the government is still hell bent on having us all vaccinated with both the flu vaccine and the “perfectly safe” covid 19 vaccine.
From my own personal experience, I had asthma all my life until time stopped me for going for my annual flu vaccine, some 11-12 years ago. Haven’t had a recurrence of asthma since. I never really thought about it before, but the timing seems just too coincidental now.
Their argument is that with a vaccine we can dispense with masks and all the antisocial-distancing nonsense.
And if you believe that ……
You will believe that pigs can fly.
Someone here yesterday said they condemned the XR actions to disrupt the press. I answered thus;
You condemn the XR movement (forget the feft/right for now). If the tyranny being imposed on the population just now extends through many years and the Govt erect statues of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson to honour them for their service in the time of Covid, would you condemn any protest in the future which tore down these statues along with carrying out civil disobedience to change the history, or in the case of XR, the future?
Protest which comes from the heart of people is absolutely integral to basic human freedoms and rights. The arrest of Piers Corbyn, which was clearly political, has crossed not a thin red line but a very thick black one.
Somehow, we must resist.
1. No legitimate evidence shows extreme weather increasing or sea level rise accelerating.
2. No legitimate survey of climate scientists shows anything close to the fabled 97% consensus.
3. All apocalyptic climate predictions by academics have failed.
4. Climate models used to generate alarm have no skill when checked against reliable tropospheric temperatures.
5. The most important argument against climate alarmism is that the proposed solutions are unworkable and dangerous.
I would keep the Johnson and Hancock statues next to Cromwell as a warning to future generations.
The only future you and XR will change is that of poor brown people who live from day to day and shit on the street who will also be devastated by this latest panic.
Hi Nigel
We live in the same town. Fancy a pint or a coffee?
If so mail me at mail (at) lockdowntruth.org
Cheers
The only future you and XR will change is that of poor brown people who live from day to day and shit on the street who will also be devastated by this latest panic.
Like San Francisco.
The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it’s quiet
Copyright © 1965
Extinction Rebellion are controlled/organised opposition.They are definitely not our allies in resisting this tyranny.
I don’t know much about XR though the other day I saw one of them saying how this lockdown and furlough is great because people have been able to do what they enjoy doing instead of working. Or something along those lines. If that’s representative of their thinking, then no thanks. But as I said I speak from ignorance. I tend to view all other political issues apart from coronapanic and freedom of speech as something of a sideline until we get out of this.
I’m not much into tearing down statues of any kind, but I think there’s a distinction to be made between tearing down the statue of someone who has taken a lead role in criminal oppression in living memory (e.g. Saddam Hussein) and someone who did some very bad things (or may have done) hundreds of years ago.
I support the right of any group to protest, less keen on people protesting in a way that deliberately disrupts life for others. That said, I will let XR worry about their own issues and I will worry about what’s important to me.
2019 Stop Corbyn, 2020 Stop Corbyn
“If the tyranny being imposed on the population just now extends through many years and the Govt erect statues of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson to honour them for their service in the time of Covid, would you condemn any protest in the future which tore down these statues”
What you advocate is mob rule, not protest. If there are proposals to put up statues to Hancock and Johnson (I am pretty confident there are no plausible circumstances in which that will happen, but for the sake of argument), then I would oppose them peacefully, not by mob violence.
“Protest which comes from the heart of people is absolutely integral to basic human freedoms and rights.“
XR and BLM are manipulated naifs, thugs and cynical troublemakers, who basically serve to intimidate dissenters from the elite dogmas of antiracism and climate alarmism. Note that both BLM and XR are generally given free reign until they go too far and actually interfere with business, as they seem to have done the other day. But even so, note that they were not treated as harshly as Piers Corbyn despite engaging in actual genuinely criminal activity.
“The arrest of Piers Corbyn, which was clearly political, has crossed not a thin red line but a very thick black one.“
Yes.
That’s how genuine dissent is treated, not by “taking a knee” (that revoltingly submissive display).
Who said conspiracy ?
So close but yet so far.
A flock of muzzled muttons. I think Ms Sturgeon is in there somewhere.
The UK Government’s accomplishments since March
Finance
Healthcare
Social
Economy destroyed, lives destroyed, healthcare destroyed, civil liberties destroyed and the objective to “save lives” a complete failure.
And it’s still not over.
These people have no longer any moral authority to govern us.
The word ‘moral’ isn’t in their vocabulary.
Nor, really, is authority. What they do have is unlimited power.
Or they think they do.
Unlimited bluff, rather?
That bluff needs calling.
Add to that, long term health issues from stress, psychological impacts on children, increase incidence of suicide, mental health issues. Educational disruption and long term effects.
To think we supposedly were protected by numerous human rights charters etc., yet aĺl legislation to protect our rights appears to have evaporated and not a single murmur from the usual vociferous human rights lawyers – it would appear only criminals have a right to family life. Talking of which, prisons appear to be the one section of society that has rarely been commented on. Considering close proximity of inmates, what of their cases or death toll, are they all masked up inside.
I used to support Amnesty International as I believe passionately in free speech but the scales have fallen from my eyes … not a word from them on any of this as far as I know. I would love to be wrong about this btw so if anyone knows more, please correct me.
Just looked at their site as I’m sure you did. They go along with the official narrative 100% while campaigning for rights within the “New Normal”. Like the proverbial deckchairs on the Titanic.
I used to support them (ai), as a volunteer and financially, but they have become a joke.
I suspect they have Gateskeepers now, like most organisation of that ilk.
Cases only, to end of July:
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/PressPolicy/News/Coronavirus
Thanks for that. I wish they would put keys on graphs, as otherwise difficult to interpret, but was interesting cases only stated, which is good, but then if no deaths again reaffirms the low threat of the virus.
I have worked out a long list of freedoms we have lost (and there are many more that listed) I would email the following to all your friends to make them realise we are slowly slippin into dictatorship.
They copied the lockdown in Wuhan China, instigated by the Chinese Communist Party, an organisation that has murdered more people than Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union combined
First they put us under house arrest – and I did nothing
Next they stopped us seeing members of our families – and I did nothing
Then they told us not to come within 2 metres of another human being – and I did nothing
Then they told us to wear a mask in supermarkets after saying masks didn’t stop the virus – and I did nothing
Then they announced that the economy had shrunk by over 20% – and I did nothing
Then they closed all places of worships – and I did nothing
Then they told us were the were merely trying to flatten the, but continued lockdowns, long after the “curve” had been flatten – and I did nothing
Then they axed British peoples holiday’s in France, Spain, The Netherlands and Croatia because of a handful of people had tested positive in those countries – and I did nothing
Then I found out Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of the United Kingdom, had worked for 12 years GlaxoSmithKline (no conflict of interest there regarding vaccines ?) – and I did nothing
Then I found out the death rate for Covid 19 was not worse than for season flu – and I did nothing
Then I found out that the UK death rate from Covid 19 and that of other countries had been massively exaggerated, to include any who have once tested positive for Covid but had died of something completely different – and I did nothing
Than I found people had been dying of untreated cancer and other serious diseases around the world – and I did nothing
Then I found out the Coronaviris Act 2020 was set to be renewed for another 2 years with massive state powers to remove our liberties – and I did nothing
Then I found the United Kingdom was completely bankrupt because there is no magic money forest for all this spending – and I did nothing
Then it became compulsory to wear a mask in the open air, against my will, be vaccinated against my will, be tested against my will – and I did nothing
Then one day I found all the freedom’s we had taken for granted had been taken away from us never to return.
What had I done to stop it? – NOTHING
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Yeah, good general perspective.
But I’m fairly sure the majority of people on here have done an awful lot. Why the repetition of the ‘nothing’ nonsense ?
He’s sort of right, John. We’ve done nothing physical. Yet.
Don’t forget breakdown of society – something people like to bleat about over the past few years but have fallen silent on despite it happening in front of our very own eyes. Social distancing and mandatory muzzling has resulted into communication problems; the destruction of trust between fellow human beings; the weakening of bonds that hold society together; treating people as lepers and the destruction of courtesy and good service.
Civilisation has time and again been shown as only skin deep. Humanity has regressed into barbarism but unfortunately too many are still asleep or in denial to realise this.
I wouldn’t go along with this altogether.
I’ve been working at a minor tourist attraction through the summer, and our visitors have, without exception, been courteous, friendly and appreciative, as I trust our team has been to the visitors.
Granted, the visitors are no doubt self-selecting – zombies wouldn’t come near us – but they are proof that not all human beings have ceased to be human, or civilised.
Some have regressed but most haven’t, though things might change when the free money runs out.
The aqueduct?
Great post
Suspended Democracy indefinitely while ruling by decree via twatter.
Absolutely true.
But it’s vital to remember when noting this fact, that all this has been done with the enthusiastic collaboration of all the alternatives, both within the “Conservative” Party and amongst the “Opposition” parties, the latter having mostly urged for the regime to go further, faster and harder.
This is not (just) a condemnation of the Johnson regime, nor of the “Conservative” Party, but of our entire political elite.
New parties needed.
What was Einstein’s definition of insanity again ?
Everyone should send this to their MP.
Throw the bums out!
They never did. They are immoral.
It’s like they’ve never heard of pneumonia! Lungs usually heal after a few months except in rare circumstances. Ground glass opacities are not uncommon with the flu.
I can’t begin to tell you how jealous I am of that Australian expat family as I remain stuck here in Vic and not permitted to go beyond 5km and have a curfew. Good on them though.
It may not be much of a consolation, Caramel, but at least the whole world knows what’s happening in your corner of hell.
When the reckoning comes, the guilty ones will have nowhere to hide.
Stay strong!
Thank you, it really does make me feel a bit better. That other countries see it and are horrified on our behalf..
Feed them to the crocodiles.
What would happen in the event of a returning Citizen refusing any putative vaccine?
Patrick O’Flynn
Boris Johnson’s careerist cabinet problem
Last year Boris Johnson won three notable domestic political victories. His hot streak began when he romped home in the Tory leadership contest and culminated with his decisive general election win.
Between those two landmark moments was an event that served as a bridge between them – a decisive purge of the pro-Remain centrist tendency inside the Conservative parliamentary party. Many of the leading names in Tory circles for the past 20 years were bounced out of the party and then the Commons over their Brexit-blocking antics.
Suddenly the game was up for Philip Hammond, David Lidington, David Gauke, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Rory Stewart, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames, among others. And instead of the British public reacting to the purge in horror – as predicted by many BBC types – many people lapped it up and were convinced that at last a Prime Minister was placing their democratic wishes above the conventions of the old mates club at Westminster.
It is fair to say that when Rudd, who had renounced the whip in sympathy with her colleagues, found herself live on Channel Four’s election night coverage as the result of the exit poll came through, the rictus grin decorating her face did not speak of unalloyed joy.
So far so good, from a Brexit-supporting point of view. But the trouble is that when you lose so many experienced front-rank politicians in one go you need to replace them. There were a few stout Brexiteers for Johnson to turn to, such as Priti Patel and Dominic Raab. A necessary accommodation was also reached with the giant brain of Michael Gove.
But many cabinet positions were filled by members of the careerist tendency – predominantly Remainers who decided that they would after all be prepared to serve in the cabinet of a PM willing to contemplate a no-deal Brexit.
Matthew Hancock, who opposed Johnson so vigorously in the early stages of the leadership contest and then flip-flopped back to him, was rewarded by keeping the health brief. Those bright lads Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden were also influential Johnson backers from the careerist wing, along with long-term Brexiteer Rishi Sunak. All three were found seats at the cabinet table. And the ideologically elastic Grant Shapps and Gavin Williamson (Boris’s leadership contest numbers man) won themselves recalls.
Nearly all these people are perfectly clever and capable. But none could be thought of as especially driven by a firm set of principles and beliefs. Indeed, Mr Jenrick in particular was so unattached to any particular cause or outlook that some backbenchers began privately referring to him as Mr Generic.
Under the tactical formation envisaged by Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings – best summarised as a flat back ten with one superstar striker up front to score all the goals – this did not seem to matter much.
But it has begun to matter now. Because the superstar striker has become unsure of himself and his team-mates, most of whom lack their own lodestars to guide them, don’t know what to do.
Hence Oliver Dowden’s slow and hesitant responses to woke cultural challenges such as Premier League footballers taking a knee for BLM and the proposed Last Night of the Proms lyric-ban. Hence the sheer misery that Mr Williamson lived through during the exams fiasco.
Only Sunak, the one who was most cruelly billed as the Prime Minister’s sycophant when he took over the reins at the Treasury, has shown the self-confidence to set his own course in his own brief.
Across the rest of the political terrain the whispers emanating from Whitehall suggest that the guiding lights of policy formation now are focus groups and opinion polls run out of Downing Street. It is all starting to smack of Norman Lamont’s ‘in office but not in power’ jibe at John Major. But Major was a fag end PM with a tiny majority. This should not be happening to Johnson.
A new nadir was hit this week when two successive cabinet ministers, first Hancock and then Shapps, failed to resolutely defend the idea of appointing former Australian PM Tony Abbott as the UK’s trade envoy. The woke orthodoxy has it in for Abbott due to one or two ropey comments he made way back when and because of his general conservative stance on social issues. The grassroots Tory tribe loves the sound of him.
Hancock was poorly briefed and stumbled when Sky’s Kay Burley unleashed her wrath upon him. But Shapps, one of the cabinet’s most fluent media performers, simply decided not to stick his neck out for Abbott, refusing even to say he that would be willing to go for a drink with him.
Whose fault is this? It would be easy to rail against Shapps on the grounds of him ‘not believing in anything’. But I am afraid the real culprit is a prime minister who has not given a sufficient lead in recent weeks and is no longer trusted by cabinet colleagues not to hang them out to dry by executing yet another focus grouped U-turn.
An array of moderately able careerists would love to have the courage of the Prime Minister’s convictions – if only they knew what they were.
WRITTEN BY
Patrick O’Flynn
Well, Mr O’Flynn is rather generous to all of them in my view. “Prime Minister has not given a sufficient lead in recent weeks”. Recent weeks? FFS.
Absolutely. Complete failure of analysis.
Months.
“Suddenly the game was up for Philip Hammond, David Lidington, David Gauke, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Rory Stewart, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames, among others. “
And, for certain, they’ll none of them be missed. Nor has any of them, to my knowledge, spoken out against the panic response to the latest coronavirus.
But if none of them would have improved matters on the over-arching failure of the Johnson regime, their replacements and the rest have none of them shown any gumption or wisdom, either.
I think Hammond and Clarke at least are somewhat more skeptical to the panic.
Happy to be disabused if I see anything from them that suggests it, but I haven’t so far.
Johnson thought that he was a special person that you would just love so much. Because he’s so special. Maybe when he was a journalist, not now.
Forward this to your muzzled mates
Inferior masks with no filter made in slums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQi9yXkfUg
Slum mask millionaire.
I was hoping someone would think of that one.
Great minds…
They need Kent’s Micronite Filter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbjo47fUxRM&list=WL&index=52&t=0s
Despite what climate alarmists say, data shows Arctic sea ice volume or thickness is growing, rather than shrinking, according to Sky News host Rowan Dean.
Din’t miss Dr Kendrick’s piece, folks. If he’s right – any cause to doubt it, you experts?-it blows the lockdown case out of the water.
Not that it will make any difference to our oppressors. The aim of lockdown is lockdown. The aim of fear is fear. But there is a bitter comfort in the certainty that it’s pure tyranny for its own sake. There is no ‘public good’ involved and never was.
People like Handjob and Boris are criminal psychopaths, but luckily for us they are also really, really stupid. We need to catch them red-handed.
I am feeling deeply suspicious about the timing of the latest spike in “cases”. Only last week, for the first time the MSM explained that PCR tests had variable sensitivity. It was put in terms that even scientifically-illiterate fuckwits like Handjob could understand. Now we have a convenient spike. Government Pravda rags such as the Guardian are also suspiciously regurgitating outright deceitful propaganda such as that hospital admissions will lag the “cases” spike by two weeks.
I can so image Handjob in a meeting asking “The BBC say that we can control the sensitivity of the tests? Surely it would be best if they were as sensitive as possible to help control the virus? Order our pillar 2 labs to max out the sensitivity.” I.e. increase the cycles until a papaya or goat can test positive.
So I would suggest that it might be prudent for Toby and other real journalists to fire off urgent FOI requests to testing labs to find out what
number of PCR testing cycles are in use, whether this has changed, when it changed and who ordered it. They are stupid enough to be caught by something like this.
Their stupidity evidenced by allowing the victimisation of Piers Corbyn thus creating a martyr to rally around.
Stupid error that only an amateur dictator would make.
Have you ever seen Hancock explain why you can got to a pub, Eat Out to
drain the public finances furtherHelp Out but can only meet family members in some kind of bubble of one or two people or something?He waffles, he blubbles and we’re in a whole lot of trouble.
As far as I am aware all this bubble business is load of meaningless babble. Outside of the local lockdown areas my understanding is that the only enforceable law is that you cannot meet in groups of over 30. Certainly my wife and I have been staying with our twin grandsons and helping with childcare, not much social distancing when changing nappies!
As far as I am aware we are not breaking any laws? as for anything else it is all Hancocks hubris and he can put it right where the monkey puts his nuts.
When the students return each shared house will be its own bubble and residents are not to mix with other bubbles, good luck policing that one.
Particularly any bubble that has access to (1) a crate of cider, or (2) a particularly good-looking bunch of housemates.
Or a good sound system. Or weed.
Bubble babble.
In the early 80’s we had psychobabble. That was fun too.
Apologies if you don’t know the original meme but this immediately distorted itself in my mind to
he waffle
he blubble
but most of all,
he snacc
“…fire off urgent FOI requests to testing labs to find out what
number of PCR testing cycles are in use,…”
No need. Its already public.
They typically run about 40 cycles. There is no convincing evidence that infectious virus is present if you need >30 cycles to detect it. Many positives need only <20 cycles to be detected. So 30 would still be a very sensitive limit.
Using 40 cycles instead of 30 makes the assay about 1000 fold more (over)sensitive. It also causes up to 9x more samples to be declared positive
My understanding (from what PHE said in the recent BBC article) was that multiple thresholds are in use due to a range of different testing kits. I recall seeing somewhere that the optimal number of cycles was 24 – I think this was from Carl Heneghan but I can’t find a reference now. If it is currently 40 then that is ridiculous – wouldn’t that be 65,536 (2^16) times more sensitive than 24 cycles?
Yes, exactly, it would.
It is true that to get exactly the same sensitivity the different assay designs, protocols, reagent mixes, etc would require a different cycle threshold (called Ct). But this will vary by no more than a few cycles (perhaps 2 or 3 max) across methods. The numbers I quoted were general guides, based on what various experts have stated. Going from the 20s to the 30s or even 40s generates an insane difference in levels of sensitivity (x2 per cycle, so about 1000-fold for 10 cycles, or 1,000,000 fold for 20 cycles). Remember, if you do enough cycles even pure water would come up positive!
The time lag excuse has got to be played out now. Been hearing about the new spikes for what feels like months now, and still no accompanying spike in deaths or hospitalisations. Think even new cases in Spain starting to go down. Just how long can it take of a person to even get seriously sick? If this is a time lag, then the folks who died in April must have caught it some time in February, in which case the lockdown would have been even more pointless.
Very sad to read Toby’s piece about the chap still unable to visit his dad in a care home.
Locally they have been allowing garden/verandah visits since July with some using a gazebo or marquee.
Anticipating inclement weather at least two have already repurposed their common room into the visiting area.
Presumably it is impossible to move residents between homes so that chaps father is literally a captive market for his ‘care’ home operators.
Toby,
It’s time to start changing the conversation. I think journalist need to start referring to Boris Johnson as ‘the destroyer of British Democracy’. Also masks now need to be referred to as BoJo masks. Let’s see how long the government keeps up with these ludicrous rules when their names are attached to them.
talk to your friends…Allison Pearson for one but I’m sure the spectator has a few who will join in as well.
This is an excellent post. Something us fellow sceptics need to work on. We need some on-side tech people to get a meme going on social media?
Send it to facebook group United Rebels. Very active information sharers. Gained 1000 members very quickly and still growing.
Good idea!
I think we need a massive multi media campaign funded by some rich sceptics + crowdfunding, professionally run, to counteract the propaganda that has been and continues to be relentless
You are right. A publicist would help get more sceptical articles in the media.
A team of political strategists and those versed in manipulating social and mainstream media, backed up by a think tank of sceptics drawn from science, journalism, politics and the law, and business, funded by whoever wants to donate, but it must be underwritten by someone/a group with millions. Vote Leave cost £6M apparently. We need a sceptic version of Cummings, but one with morals. Maybe all done on behalf of a new single-issue political party – Back to normal. And some high quality surveys to better understand the groups that need convincing, and what their concerns are. I don’t have the money needed, sadly.
Simon Dolan?
I did message him at KBF – no response. And one or two other notable rich sceptics, whose responses were cagey. Maybe things are being planned in secret.
It’s a war, Julian. We need to win more than we need morals.
“Political strategists and manipulating social media” are vastly overrated, one of the reasons we are in this mess.
imho.
My Lord Suburbian, you are indeed a master of ideas.
Just had another one. Can some clever person get us a picture of Winston Churchill with the words “defender of democracy” next to a picture of Boris Johnson with the words “destroyer of democracy”
I’m on a roll today…Picture of a masked looter saying, “the mask makes me safe”
Picture of a tired/lonely/sad looking mask wearing teenager with the words, “BoJo made me do it”
07.15 Monday, very noticable increase in early morning traffic, possibly more people able to return to work as the schools return in full today?
Mr S Days, who has been going into the office, admittedly an office built above the factory floor of an engineering company, as usual throughout this strange time can no longer linger over a second coffee before leaving the house.
Yes, other people using the roundabout outside Sainsburys, for goodness sake, where is this going to end?
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/i-039-m-back-september-6th-2020_ZREIFY8auhMpzzQ.html
I’m Back! (September 6th 2020)
Dr Vernon Coleman
06 Sep 2020
Unherd removed almost all the comments after Devi Sridhar’s remarkable interview.
It was a shockingly bad interview from her perspective. Freddie (who I think is an excellent interviewer/host) gave her enough rope to hang herself. She is a globalist shill, completely unqualified to be advising government at such a high level. She is neither a scientist nor a medic. I can only imagine what tone was taken in the comments – anyone with any shred of common sense and experience can see her for what she is even if the MSM poppets are either unable or unwilling to expose it.
She is one of the worst, most obvious exemplifiers of the profound inadequacy and unfitness for purpose of our ruling elites, and their reliance on “positive discrimination”. Puts you in mind of the pre-Revolutionary French ancien regime, as far as sheer inadequacy is concerned.
The fact that she holds any government or media position raises questions about the judgement or honesty, or both, of whoever made the decision to appoint her, frankly.
Which bit did you think was “shockingly bad” – and why? . ………………………………………
That’s disappointing, I thought Unherd were pretty sound.
I think most people had her number – they were polite (much more polite than Lockdown Sceptics) and their comments should not have been taken down. I was one of the least polite and I posted Hans Andersen’s tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’ (which is only about 400 words). Oddly, no one seemed to see the point.
You were saying Sridhar was like a princess with a pea problem ? Sorry, can’t quite recall the story.
And to be clear it was several hundred comments.
I couldn’t see much evidence for real analysis and she has a remarkable level of detachment from the consequences of the measures she advocates.
Desensitised – watch today’s UK Column.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-7th-september-2020
Too much profanity?
An outstandingly good round-up today, Toby. With your commissioned pieces you really do take this web site to the next level – it’s not just a talking shop, but could actually have a wider influence.
As an aside, I liked this bit in the open letter from two Newcastle professors:
…it is our contention that even if these measures were necessary, they should not have been possible – there are kinds and degrees of intervention in our arrangements for living and working that ought to be inconceivable and to remain so.
So right. We shouldn’t have to be drawn into debating the effectiveness of lockdowns or masks. They should simply not be considered as options because they violate our most cherished principles.
quite right. Our MP’s should be making this argument but few are and the closer we get to September 26th without any of them speaking out will make it worse for them.
There are countless examples on this forum of letters written to MP’s and their poor responses.
Perhaps we need a sidebar dedicated solely to MP’s responses to constituents
That’s what I would have expected any genuinely conservative or traditionalist politician to have stood for, and to have resigned over, if necessary.
I think it’s just yet another confirmation (if anyone still needed it) that Peter Hitchens was correct when he argued years ago (and wrote books on the topic) that the “Conservative” Party is no ,longer meaningfully conservative.
The Japanese government stated they could not impose lockdown or mandatory masks as it was against their constitution.
Possibly the creepiest video of Covid 19-84
The Lie of Masks – Unmasking Covid19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkOIesmFXg
Whitty is a really unsavoury character
Thanks – this is what I was searching for the other day.
Very proud of my son yesterday who said “well of course it’s easier to wear a mask, but I won’t, because someone has to set an example.”
He’s a star!
Masks haven’t stopped people catching (and dying of) flu. Is the flu virus somehow different to the coronavirus in the way it is transmitted?
A repost from late yesterday.
DT not behind paywal –
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/06/snp-has-not-proved-emergency-covid-powers-still-justified-childrens1/
“SNP has not proved all its emergency Covid powers are still justified, children’s commissioner says
Bruce Adamson said the SNP “proposes almost wholesale renewal of emergency provisions which significantly impact on children’s rights”.”
[…]
“In a submission to a Holyrood inquiry, he argued that SNP ministers’ powers should be reexamined following “the welcome progress” made towards “restoring public services to a more ‘normal’ state.”
“He noted that over the last six months more than more than 60 Scottish Statutory Instruments(SSIs) have been made by the SNP Government using the powers contained in the UK and Scottish Coronavirus Acts, curtailing a wide range of children’s human rights.
“However, Mr Adamson said the Scottish Government had failed to provide parliament with updated assessments on the impact of these on young people, which he said are needed to inform MSPs’ decision on whether the powers should be renewed.”
Repost from late yesterday, it would be good if more people saw the video.
British police going wrong. Assault Battery and False Arrest for a Facemask. A fine, decent man showing what keeping your head when all about you have lost theirs looks like.
https://youtu.be/-W6JfR7J8Mo
I suggest the Nudge Unit is wanting social media filling with these chilling videos to cause individual fear of arrest to increase. It feels too perfect a tool for the psychologists not to have calculated.
Really well done that man.
I hope it backfires, such police thuggery could equally make people question something imposed by brute force. It is equivalent to dragging someone from their car and beating them for a minor traffic offence.
How not to win friends and influence people.
As with the chap on the Liverpool train they probably picked on another big bloke hoping for a punch up but this one also remained remarkably calm.
A fine example of one man against the system. Cess Dick getting told a few truths by a great man – he has been camped outside Downing Street protesting for over a monyh protesting the resoinse to Covid19. Resharing from late yesterday as more people see and share the better.
Met Chief C. Dick gets door stepped and called out for her ‘hate-speech’ over encouragement of social shaming as a method of policing the population.
https://twitter.com/jimmy76120797/status/1302526393088172032?s=20
Really worth sharing in my view.
I just love seeing these people who actually do something, anything.
If there were many such minded people, we’d be out of all this within days.
Does anyone on here now have a more sceptical view on global warming > climate change > climate crisis?
Is it helpful to mix issues?
whilst we’re being fucked over on so many fronts
perhaps it is
It goes precisely to the same point: spurious data, supposition being stated as established theory and the application of results to real world policy without going through the standard measures to deem safe to use.
I was doubtful before now I’m certain that climate change caused by humans is a scam.It follows exactly the same pattern.Flawed computer modelling.Silencing of skeptical scientists.Governments enthusiastically adopting measures to tax and control.They just have found/created a better one with Covid because of the immediacy of fear.
for those that have not seen it this is a good climate sceptic blog
Also Global Warming Policy Forum full of info and do a good weekly newsletter
I’ve said before. Belief in man-made climate change is the gateway drug to belief in Covid doom porn. The nudge is the belief that modellers have an accurate picture of things and so must be trusted because of the argument to authority.
The trouble is that mathematics, signal to noise theory (which includes Bayesian theorems) and the way we deem things safe (engineering, auditing, regulations) all stand in the way of hypothetical whimsy. Or should do. But when you have an Agenda, politics can spin wool into gold.
The modellers are the Message.
Here is a short commentary from Sky News Australia about remarks from the head of the WHO – he gives the public the first hint that the political class want to turn the tools of the pandemic to combat climate change,
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188156827001
It is becoming increasingly apparent all these issues are connected – BLM, freedom of speech, climate change,identity politics, Covid 19. It is good to see the big picture.
U.N.agenda 21/30 explains a lot
Sky News Australia is a breath of fresh air-someone slagged off Alan Jones on a FB forum the other day saying he is a paid Shock Jock. Well every time I click on a link from Sky Australia there is a different commentator not just Alan Jones
Yep!
No, I vote we concentrate on the issue at hand. Plenty of other places to discuss climate related issues.
Heartily agree.The more conspiracy theories we get mixed up with, the easier it is for our enemies to portray us as nutters, regardless of whether or not the theories are well founded. We MUST concentrate on the present evil. Other issues can wait.
They are calling lockdown skeptics conspiracy theorists. No?
Just curious if the government’s and “expert’s” approaches to covid-19 has made people question the previous hot topic that was constantly in the news before March. A lot of sceptics on here have had their faith in these institutions shaken and wondered what else they might be sceptical about.
With regards to it being off-topic, Toby has a section on BLM in today’s post.
Yes, I disagree with those who believe we should be focused below the line on just lockdown. This is Toby’s blog, and he doesn’t limit himself to just that issue but rather allows himself to range, and I believe it is better that way. If he were to tightly discipline himself as to topic I believe it would become a chore for him and he would drift away from it sooner. I’m perfectly happy for him to discuss other issues, since I enjoy reading his take on them. That said, I tend to agree with him more often than not.
I agree it’s entirely up to Mr Young what he writes about, and entirely up to people who post here to pick up on or ignore anything, on or off topic.
However there is a distinction to be made between what we discuss here and how we should present arguments about our case to non-sceptics. Horse for courses. Some non-sceptics MAY be more persuaded if you bring in “conspiracy theories” or stuff about 5G and vaccinations (in the more general sense) or freedom of speech or climate change or Trump or Brexit or BLM. But many won’t be and think it best in general to stick to core message for outside world as there is no need to go further. The case against lockdown is incredibly easy to make, and doesn’t really require proving because it is already proved, on its face.
I don’t disagree with most of what you say. I just don’t regard the function of this place (the btl comments) as being projecting the maximally persuasive front to doubters. Better imo that this is a place for free discussion, where we can thrash out to our own satisfaction issues such as the ones you mention.
Yes indeed, I don’t think the comments here are or should be aimed at the general public of non-sceptics, for the reasons you cite
Damn right.
I often go off topic, but usually it is relevant in the wider context that the mainstream approach on these other topics mirrors the covid lockdown and so a comment about the BBC propaganda on Climate change, BLM, or their fixation with Trump is reflecting their similar propaganda approach to covid . So it is fair to comment on the police taking the knee for BLM if the same police are then abusing their power and arresting people for not wearing a mask. or allowing XR protests to take place but then arresting Piers Corbyn.
Agree
I agree about tackling one thing at once but we can’t ignore the fact that the issues are interconnected and all being orchestrated from the same place.
They all come from the same source that clamour for a Global Reset.
Bjorn Lomborg offers a far more balanced view on the environment than either extreme; harms vs benefits as opposed to apocalyptic doom or carry on complacency.
He is Swedish, perhaps there is a pattern here….
https://www.lomborg.com
Antony Watts is more sceptical, his website is also worth a look
https://wattsupwiththat.com
Actually, no. Where i differ from most “warmists” (I hate that term) is in recognising that carbon dioxide can’t actually be removed from the atmosphere on human timescales by human technology. This is why Michael Moore recent film, Planet of the Humans,” and got viciously attacked by the greenwash brigade (which is most of the left).
“carbon dioxide can’t actually be removed from the atmosphere on human timescales by human technology.“
Why not? Without going into the rights and wrongs, just as a technical question, it seems rather obtuse to me to claim that CO2 has been added to the atmosphere by human technology but it can’t possibly be removed equally well. Granted, it might be more costly to remove it, but on the other hand our technology is far advanced from when we started producing it on a large scale, and is likely to keep advancing. Likewise our energy wealth.
We have the technology to do it, it’s just a matter of cost and getting the carbon emissions emitted in generating the energy used to sequestrate CO2 below the amounts sequestrated. A breakthrough in fusion energy, for instance, would probably allow very rapid carbon dioxide sequestration.
I don;t know what the current numbers are, but I do know they are improving all the time, so whether or not it’s practicable now, it most likely will be soon.
We could remove it all if we decided that was what needed doing. Same with power plants.
Just using standard nuclear reactors would supply more than sufficient power to sequestrate CO2.
That’s my suspicion as well, but frankly it’s not important enough to me to bother doing the calculations.
This analysis on The World Bank’s climate change projects comes from the Bretton Woods Project
https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/doc/env/CarbonFinanceWB.pdf
Beware The World Bank, they are an important cog in the Global Reset.
There is no need to pay a penny to remove CO2. Plants do it all the time. Just get children to plant tree-seeds on a walk with their teachers every week.
If you actually do want to use a faster method, dump iron oxide into the oceans; it generates phytoplankton on a massive scale.
The drive to plant trees to offset carbon production has been leading to the destruction of habitats, reduction of water tables and, when pines are planted, the acidification of local rivers and waterways. Unintended consequences will get you every time.
By way of natural processes the CO2 will remain in the atmosphere (residence time) for many hundreds of years. Cutting emissions does not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – it reduces the additional amount being added every year.There is technology, of course, but do remove the actual quantities of CO2 that were not here fifty years ago would require (if the technology worked) vast amounts of energy (from fossil fuels) to produce vast platforms (produced using mining and processing materials and fossil fuels). It would be self defeating because it would require the consumption of vast amounts of fossil fuels. So-called renewable technologies require vast amounts of fossil energy to create wind turbines, solar panels and the like. It was this “inconvenient truth” that got “Planet of the Humans” removed from Youtube for a while – there’s a huge amount of money in “green energy.”
There are technologies for direct sequestration of atmospheric CO2, it doesn’t have to be a matter of reducing emissions and waiting for levels to go down naturally. As long as the energy used for sequestration generates less atmospheric CO2 than it removes, it can be done, and nuclear power, for instance, generates very little CO2..
For sure it would presumably require a colossal effort comparable to human industrialisation itself to reverse what has been done over the past century or so, but fortunately there is no evident need to reverse it completely or urgently. In that, it’s another parallel to the coronapanic – it would require an immensely costly effort to wipe out a virus that is now endemic, but fortunately there’s no rational reason to try to do so. We can live with this virus just as we can live with raised CO2 levels, most likely.
there’s a huge amount of money in “green energy”
and they want us all to pay for it.
and CO2 levels have gone up and down over the millenia. There have been times in the past when levels were much higher than now. there is also a strong argument that rather than an increase in CO2 causing warming, it is the other way round and natural warming cycles cause an in increase in natural CO2 which is what we see now. And the side effect of this is that the world is greening – what is it that plants live on ?…. it is CO2. and we have had years and years of increasing crop yields because of it .
That’s right. Calling CO2 public enemy number one is ridiculous. Maybe that’s why they switched to corona for the meanwhile, it’s getting more traction.
They fell for the climate change bollocks, maybe they’ll fall for the corona bollocks as well. Bullseye! Success!
No. And trying to tie it into the issues around climate change does nobody any favours.
We have certainly had an object lesson in two huge issues that apply both to the coronapanic and to climate alarmism, so that certainly ought to be food for thought for anyone who generally accepted the received opinion on climate change but refused to accept it on the coronapanic.
First, the limitations and inherent dangers of relying on modelling. Modelling has driven both the coronapanic and the climate panic. It’s at least as capable of producing agenda driven bullshit on climate change as it is on epidemiology.
Second, the ease with which mass hysteria and panic can be induced by alarmist modelling, and the way scientific, political and social establishments can be co-opted to push said panic and hysteria. This has been quite evident in both cases.
I’ve always been kind of in the middle on the climate panic, similarly to the coronapanic. I recognise that there is both human influence on the climate, and that there is a real disease and cock up rather than a “plandemic” conspiracy, but I also recognise that there is a panic and hysterical fear response in each case, that I reject.
So I suspect I have noticed these similarities because I’m already primed to do so – I’m sceptical in each case for basically the same reasons. I don’t think many will see the same things as I do on this.
In addition, if I’m going to be dismissed as a far right conspiracy theorist over one issue, simply for looking into the facts and forming my own opinions, I might as well have a look at some other unchallenged orthodoxies while I’m at it.
I think a large (and growing) number of people actually do see things your way.
I believe the climate zealots are heavily involved in this scamdemic.
I think global warming is happening, and to my mind the influence of humanity on the planet is generally not a good one – that much seems obvious. BUT I would now be very distrustful of climate models and predictions and worst case doom-mongering scenarios whereas before all this covid bollox I would have paid them more attention. Like covid, I think it’s probably a thing, but not as bad as they claim.
Yesterday’s announcement about a rise in +ve test results (so called cases) indicates again the critical role testing now has in driving this pantomime. I queried a twitter post yesterday and was told in reply that the PCR test done well can distinguish between SARS-Cov2 and other coronaviruses. But that does beg the question as to whether these tests are being done well?
In many areas of modern life we have bodies to oversee the quality and standard of services delivered. Do we know if there is any such control or oversight of this mass SARS-Cov2 screening programme? It is an unprecedented screening programme, set up very quickly and using private companies to deliver test results on which huge decisions are made about life in our country. If there is no control or oversight then this is something we should be pressing to be put in place.
‘Done well’ seems particularly vague as you say. In any case, it’s somewhat irrelevant if they indicate the presence of the virus, it’s a matter of how many cycles of amplification is required to get there.
That is what determines if someone is a risk in terms of transmission or not. The claim in that the number of cycles is often extremely high to the point of irrelevance. We need to know the answer to the average cycles question now.
I did at one point ask the question whether you would still get some output from a test that contained zero quantity of the virus RNA no matter how much you amplified it. I don’t recall getting a straightforward, unambiguous answer.
If we think of the test as ‘digital’, then the answer should be that you genuinely get nothing out at all i.e. if I multiply digital zero by 2^256 I will still get zero out. But if there are errors at each stage, then who knows? Any experts here?
Hate Digital. Analogue rules.
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.27.2001223#html_fulltext
The above is a report of an assessment of PCR test labs referenced by a SAGE report Toby linked to yesterday.
If you look at the main text under Table 1 you’ll see that out of 521 samples tested for sample code CVOP20S-02, 5 were false positives. Those samples were of HCoV-NL63, a different human coronavirus.
That’s a false positive rate of nearly 1%.
For sample code CVOP20S-04, another coronvirus, out of 521 samples assessed by the labs there were 3 false positives.
Finally, sample code CVOP20S-05 had no virus: just the transport medium. Out of the 521 samples the labs reported 3 false positives.
I conclude that the overall false positive rate is about 7 in a thousand.That’s close to the apparent UK prevalence from the test results.
At least it was back then in April and May. Are the UK test labs any better now, I wonder?
Very interesting! Where have the promised studies got to? On their way soon I hope.
This is the SAGE report I refer to
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914931/s0712-tfms-consensus-statement-sage.pdf
and the assessment of labs is Reference 3 of the SAGE report.
Panjandrum. Perfectly plucked and place. Thank you Toby, it’s why you are a journalist and not I. (!)
never heard of the word until I read Brian Sewell’s biog “Outsider”
What a surprise! How long will we limp along like this?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8705053/School-shut-FIVE-teachers-test-positive-coronavirus.html
His visit caused a stir online after the Prime Minister gave a speech in the library, in front of books with titles such as The Twits, Betrayed and The Subtle Knife.
The Twits. Roald Dahl. In my library.
I’m fairly new to this site so forgive me if this has already been done. I was wondering if anyone has carried out any analysis into the correlation between mandatory mask wearing and the number of cases? I’m no expert, but it seems like countries such as Spain and France with strict mask policies have the highest increase in cases. I understand that other factors will be at play I.e. these countries are popular with tourists and holiday makers but it would be interesting to see the outcome of such a study. If one has been done could someone post the link please.
It’s actually Belgium and Spain that have the strictest mask policies in Europe. And they are numbers 2 and 3 on the death rate rankings. Number 1 is Peru which has possibly had the most savage lockdown of all. (Rankings excluding micro countries like San Marino – basically Italy and Andorra – basically Spain).
Not aware of a study, but those simple facts certainly tell a story.
Don’t they just! And Belgium went into lockdown early – just like the Lockdown Lunatics wanted the UK to do.
The upcoming French numbers will be of interest to study in that regard. As far as I know, they are the only (larger) country, where people now have to wear masks throughout their whole workday.
If, as I strongly suspect now on tbe basis of what we now know about the importance of the viral load, further confirmed by the NYT story about PCR tests results 30/40 cycles variation, wearing a mask actually turns the harmless, lowly infected, asymptomatic and non-infectious person into that sick and infectious walking timebomb, French case numbers should remain elevated for good.
(Which might be the true goal of governments that mandate wearing them anyway, of course.)
Relative of mine found he developed a cold sore a few days after having to put on a mask on return to work. He was a true mask believer – perhaps not so much now…
I wonder whether our bodies use lips to help remove viruses from the body…perhaps masks are
Impeding that process.
If your CO2 intake is higher when wearing a mask, as it is, the intake of the viruses and germs you would otherwise have exhaled is also higher.
And if the viral load is the relevant criteria for becoming sick and infectious, as it is for SARS-Cov2, that spells trouble for any mask wearer and those case numbers.
That particular Gessler hat is not harmless by itself with regard to the Corona virus, as advertised by the Landvogts, but actually harmful and dangerous with regard to Corona for everyone
who greets/wears it.
Are you saying that someone who is infected but asymptomatic might become covid ill as a result of wearing a mask when they would otherwise not ?
If you look at the advice of our local administrations of face coverings, they all say largely the same thing. There best sell is that while the may not prevent a wearer from getting infected, they ‘may’ prevent others doing so.
It’s a social experiment and nudge policy designed to remind people to stay aware the deadly virus is out there. Unfortunately, as they even said back in June, they just give people a false sense of security and ego
Thats the conclusion I have come to, they want to intentionally lower our immune systems so they can push the vaccine we don’t need.
They are praying for a second wave. Sick.
Masks do not stop the virus, therefore mask wearing is illogical. There are some people making a fortune out of the scaremongering and people should stop acting like brainwashed sheep and wise up to it.
A member of the public calling out Cressida Dick for her despicable remarks about shaming people for not wearing muzzles:
https://twitter.com/jimmy76120797/status/1302526393088172032
She needs to resign. Its appalling that this crisis is causing people with disabilities and mental health issues to be thrown under the bus.
Just saw that Basics above has posted the same tweet and video. My bad however well done to this bloke.
It’s the same in Germany, France&co though.
Compare it to the Norwegian NIPH recommendation, where when they recommended their use on public transport at peak hours only, it was also explained that face masks only make a minimal impact, if at all, and it was stressed that people should be considerate towards people who don’t wear them and respect their choice!
https://www.fhi.no/en/news/2020/recommendations-about-face-masks/
Simon Dolan took Cressida Dick’s comments on LBC up with LBC. As yet they await a response.
https://static.crowdjustice.com/group_claim_document/Letter_to_LBC_radio_re_Cressida_Dick.pdf
I did get a fob off reply from her Dept. or whatever, so I replied’ what next the stocks’no reply to this!
Anyone have any inside info on what it’s like in the Greek Islands (Kos) at the moment? Supposed to be going in 2 weeks. Part of me sick at chucking away what we’ve paid already, but the other part of me not wanting to chuck more money at having a shit time in the ‘new normal’, worrying about whether we will suddenly have to quarantine on our return – which is not feasible for us.
Also do self certified mask exemptions apply on flights and in airports?
And just to add we booked this 9 months ago, before all this nonsense started…
I have a small home on a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. I have flown there and back twice now since flights restarted in mid July. There is a mandatory mask requirement in all indoor public areas such as mini markets, but nowhere else. The mask requirement is enforced by the local police and you will be fined 150 Euros for not wearing one. That said, that’s all that bothered me. Everything else is wonderful and the locals behave normally. The sun beds on beaches are a little further apart than normal but that’s nice, as are the tables in the tavernas, but again that’s nice! No masks required on beaches or around the pools. Waiters wear masks, you don’t have to. The sun is as gorgeous as ever as is the food. The sea is sparkling and warm.
However . . . check before you go. Last week wee Crankie in Scotland decided to put a mass quarantine requirement on anyone coming back from any part of Greece. Wales imposed quarantine requirements just on certain party islands. England decided to do nothing – for now. Greece’s data is currently around 13.8 people out of every 100,000 testing positive, and that’s well within the limit of 20 that Grant Shapps says will bring automatic quarantine, But I cannot see how Scotland, Wales and England. can all have different rules. It’s a complete nonsense as ever.
If you decide to go, you’ll have a great time! The usual Greek hospitality reigns supreme. You may be tested on arrival at the Greek airport – that will be decided by your QR code received the night before you travel. It seems that odd numbers get tested, even ones don’t. But it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a quick swab at the back of your tongue and throat, not up the nose! I haven’t yet heard of ANY British testing positive so far and being quarantined.
Flying, Both Jet2 and easyJet require a GPs note if you wish to remain maskless on their flights. Quite how you are supposed to see a GP to get this note, I have no idea. They insist on proper masks, not visors. You can of course remove your mask to eat and drink, so buy some crisps and make them last 3 hours. It’s a PITA frankly, but it will all seem worth it when you get there. I hope this helps.
Yes. About half the youngsters coming back from there are infected
Just to add to my previous post, I am NOT a fan of lockdown, masks, antisocial distancing or anything along those lines. I want them all gone, now. I won’t even go shopping in the U.K. right now because of the mask requirement. I refuse to enter a shop where they are required. But it is interesting to compare the differences between Greece and Britain. It is not “normal” out there but my goodness it is far more relaxing than staying in this country. It just showed me how bad this country has become, how trodden down. Nobody is hiding behind a sofa out there.
The World Bank’s COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program documents, marked “For Official Use Only,” identify the Bank’s COVID-19 program as ending in March 2025
https://nationalfile.com/world-bank-document-lists-covid-19-program-ending-in-march-2025/
Includes a little more on the World Bank recording trading in 2018 Covid19 diagnostic kits, Covid19 was only named in 2020.
There are plenty of conspiracies around without having to invent new ones.
Pleas3 explain how what I have said is a conspiracy. There is a report – document included in link showing what I have said.
Your last para implies foreknowledge in 2018 on the part of the World Bank of a future Covid19 outbreak. That’s a conspiracy theory. If you didn’t mean to imply that I don’t know why you phrased it that way.
I see so using the word ‘only’ implies conspiracy theory. My bad.
I mean to imply it as a fact in front of us that in 2018 World Bank associated active documents of WITS record trades of COVID19 diagnotic tests. Covid19 name was given by WHO in Feb 2020.
There’s no theory about it. Your labelling as theory is interesting. How much do you know about the cobnspiracy you attribute to the fact I linked to? Take a glance and dismiss or not even?
It’s a curious mode of discussion to immediately label something you know fuck all about as conspiracy. Not for you? Move along there’s plenty here for you to spout about.
The World Bank is involved in a lot of poltico-socio-economic activities all over the world. Bribery is one of their preferred methods of conducting business. Like the IMF and Belarus.
Beware The World Bank. Not our friend.
The British Police today.
I know this link has already been posted… But i do not apologise for posting it again and again.
We have seen videos of the Chinese police and the Australian police acting beyond what is reasonable and thought “that cannot happen here”..
This shows that the police have lost control.
This is a normal weekend at a large retail centre (White Rose, Leeds). A normal family shopping trip. The father is not wearing a mask. I do not know which shop he is.. that isnt mentioned. A shop assistant asks him why he isnt wearing a mask, He says “I am exempt” and when pressed says health reasons. Security are called and they ask him to leave. Not sure if security manhandle him. The police are waiting outside the shop. They handcuff him in front of his family – and you can see what happens.
This could be you.. It could be me.
The host of the police watch site has offered his help.
Toby, as you are player within the media, you should be publicising this as much as possible
Is it a propaganda video, ie this is what happens if you don’t wear a muzzle?
Yes. I think these arrests have perhaps been a wish of the nudge unit. The message seeing them sends is as you describe.
I think this is another example of the police acting on preconceptions, stereotypes and ignorance. I suspect that if that had been me, as pensioner, they would more readily accepted that I was exempt. I think they assume that if the person is young they are just trying it on.
The Government have created a dichotomy, on one hand they have announced a strict mandatory facemask policy and on the other hand they have, thankfully, set up a liberal, open and easy to use exemption procedure. The people who have bought into the strict facemask policy cannot believe that exemptions can be claimed in this way.
Everybody seems to believe in paperwork, even if it is just an exemption card you printed out from the Government web- site. So, much as some people criticise me, it is why I wear an exemption card and carry a printout of the Government’s guidelines. Also, as I do have a medical condition, I have a note of that and will happily hand it to any police officer if it avoids me getting pepper sprayed or handcuffed!
nicely put. I would argue about using the phrase “just trying it on” Given that the exemption reason is “putting on or wearing a mask causes distress” this is such a low threshold that anyone can claim it without having to prove anything but as you say this problem is due to the police and others not knowing, or not wanting to know that exemptions do exist and how they have to treat people who claim them
Strange that supermarket door staff knew the rules on day one and I explained them to the owner of my local convenience store in 2 minutes yet those whose job it is to uphold the law behave as though they don’t know what it is.
I understand your reasoning, but the handcuffing and arrest of that chap has just earned him £3000 if he wishes to pursue it. Much as that bitch of a copper might wish to try to say otherwise, any detention (particularly in handcuffs) is an arrest. So she and that nasty piece of work who actually put the cuffs on have earned themselves a complaint – fully justified. The security guards have just inadvertently handed in their resignations. This should be pursued absolutely to the maximum degree to stop it happening again. (I wish).
the guy who hosts the police watch site i think has made contact with the victim.. I have emailed Toby to ask him to take this further. I also emailed the link to the three MPs whose constituencies border onto White Rose and copied in the Police commissioner for West Yorkshire
Basically the police don’t know what the rules are! Actually ‘Plod’ is a pretty good name for them! Cressisa D^ck-head should be sacked she has been an absolute disaster. If the police weren’t liked before they positively detested now!
The government made it so easy to self exempt, if you looked, to avoid getting their Ass sued if wearing a mask exacerbated an existing medical condition.
Medicine and Health were big in Nazi Germany. Their ideas never went away.
It looks like the detention was on the assumption that Christopher (the guy) had assaulted the security guard. But it looks like he was following the guidelines and rightfully pushed back at being manhandled out of the shop. The reason why it happened was due to the facemask mandate.
Strange how Christopher was following the guidelines and then has to deal with all this. The police should have had more awareness of the situation and seen it for what it is. But now we have another example of abuse of power. At the end of the video you can see them trying to walk it back.
Put yourself if his shoes. See how you would feel. Good job he stayed calm enough. But his indignation was perfectly justified.
The situation is weird; many in authority just cannot believe that the exemption procedure works in this way. It is not helped by all the announcements about mandatory facemasks that fail to mention exemptions. It would appear that they forgot to tell the police about exemptions as well.
Much as I know you do not have to, I do find that having some exemption paperwork does make things easier.
Indignation? I was incandescent!
Utmost respect for this guy standing up for himself without becoming aggressive. Can see how it would have gone badly for someone less self-assured but just as blameless.
You are right; I must enhance my calm, John Spartan.
You are aware, Savage, that it is not an offence to inspect a three-piece suite without first having assumed an outfit of dystopian fancy dress?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y
Fighting in the aisles didn’t happen so they have started sending in the goons Stasi style.
Anyone remember Chris Hitchins promising himself not to use the word Kafkaesque when visiting Prague then having to do so?
This is right. Cressida’s army of vigilantes failed to materialise fully, and was too easily put off by the magic word ‘exempt.’ So now we get police officers using pepper spray as a form of arbitrary corporal punishment against non-maskwearers even when they do repeatedly say the magic word.
What I don’t know is whether this represents regime desperation, the last spasms before everything falls apart. Or whether it is a planned and deliberate digging in for the long term.
Toby, regarding your conspiracy section; this might be interesting reading (or not):
https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/06/%ef%bb%bffabricating-a-pandemic-who-could-organize-it-and-why/
Even the Devi woman is back tracking suggesting there won’t be a rise in deaths even though there is likely to be a rise in hospitalisation… well who would have thought it!?!?
You’ll see more of this. When the cock crows…
Apparently, it’s because more children are catching it, but because they are shorter they are not passing it on. I kid you not – that is what she said when interviewed on Sky’s Sophy Ridge show yesterday.
When you think the insanity cannot get much worse it does. If anyone had any doubt this is a global scam this latest gem should put them right.
Ha ha ha. Science.
LMAO!
Indistinguishable from satire.
That’s why they are banning comics, there’s too much material for them to play with. Embarrassing.
link?
“The good news is I think deaths will continue to fall but I think hospitalisations will continue to be challenging if these numbers continue and restrictions aren’t brought in place to try to bring it under control,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.
What additional restrictions could she possibly dream up?
In what way could hospitalisations “continue” to be challenging when there are currently virtually none and the hospitals are otherwise currently virtually empty?
Protect the NHS… from having to provide a service…
she’s not an epidemiologist. just a friend of the clintons and greasy pole climber. ignore
Down on the beach at Seaford, near the car boot sale, no masks anywhere. Crazy world.
Plenty of school Children & parents – not distancing – good news
And this from a bedwetter on Twitter. This person is single and has no children.
“
Sep 2
Schools are back and the amount of parents congregating at school gates this morning was insane. No social distancing in sight… but of course the schools will be blamed for a second spike in cases.. not common sense of parents.”
Probably a snitch that lives across the street from the school.
Just dropped my two off. No social distancing whatsoever and impossible to see any way that the new system can be any better than the old system.
Yay!
Yeah. But watching the two children opposite leaving for school. Older girl already clad in mask and that was just leaving her house. What rules they have at their school I shudder to think.
I was quite pleased to see three lads who have been wearing masks, since they returned to school, out and about yesterday maskless.
Maybe it’s their house rules?
Mandated by mum?
Some people find masks a fashion statement.
After all the emails about staggered times, I dropped my daughter off for her first day in reception and there was of course no one policing that crazy policy or antisocial distancing. Excellent.
Not one mask anywhere, just beaming smiles from kids and teachers welcoming them back.
But the head will be able to show Ofsted the Covid safety rulebook so everyone will be happy.
12.30 just drove past a school where the 1st years get released at lunchtime in the first week, likewise nobody paying any attention to SD.
Rise in young asymptomatic cases? Bloody good. If you haven’t got symptoms, then you haven’t got the disease the virus gives you. What do you think asymptomatic cases are FOR? For spreading immunity. Natural human defence against viruses that has kept us top of the food chain since we slithered out of the seas into the CO2 rich environment. And Hancock wants to stop it, natch. Moron.
Exactly – it’s a good thing but according to the Lying BBC it’s a bad thing.
The immune systems of the young are protecting the old as has been the case for millennia…
we should have let it rip over the summer
What the old ladies were saying in March.
Hancock is a point one.
Justin Webb-of-Lies on Radio For Them this morning declaring we “face the prospect” of Universities resuming activities as though that were a bad thing. Idiot Academic from UEA then came on to tell us their new testing regime would “identify an outbreak before it began”. Really? Sounds like Mystic Meg. Later in the same friendly, undemanding interview the Idiot Academic states the testing would enable them to identify an outbreak. Clearly this testing regime will have little practical value.
Interestingly, another, less idiotic academic came on later and basically said there weren’t enough lab resources in the country to test every student and member of staff twice a week….
It would be a tremendous waste of money and previous lab resources if UEA style testing were to be adopted nationwide.
UEA, home of the Climategate scandal!
Lookout okuk is pretty hot on conspiracies!
Climate bollox is not a conspiracy per se, rather an example of academic herd behaviour around which various special interests have coalesced. The whole thing has got out of hand, now becoming a cult-like ideology, a fully fledged belief system. People, like the XR nutjobs are attracted to it because it offers similar solace to religion. You may be untalented, unable to reason well; you may harbour deep seated aggression towards other people; you may have a destructive nihilistic streak; you may suffer from disabling anxiety….but posing as someone saving the planet helps you reconcile yourself with these negative personality traits.
The IPCC stuff is level headed. The XR fruitcakes exaggerate it and the BBC reports it. If you just believed the IPCC they would brand you a science denier
The IPCC’s whole remit is to show warming is caused by Co2. The problem is the source data – temperatures were never measured to the precision needed for climate science (around 0.1 degrees C or less). They were measured using systems designed to read reliably in all weathers to around +/- 1 degree C – because their use was for weather.
Taking a tool and simulating better precision is all well and good for hypothetical studies. It is dangerous and in other industries, illegal, to use this for anything deemed safe to use for people.
There is no excuse for this. If the bank tells you that you owe them £10000, the first thing you do is look at your bank statement and then older statements. Also receipts and spending. You have the required precision to tell them to go jump if you have actually got £2000 in your account.
The bank may tell you that the modelled your account and now pay up.
That’s the leve the IPCC is at. It’s nothing more than a political body.
Cannot keep up with the twists man. Look up the conspiracy. Per se ? Wtf. Back to basics. It’s a bright idea.
The arrangements I have heard about for Universities sound worse than those for schools – more masks, more online stuff, and the same cancellation of anything fun or extra-curricular. Schools and universities are NOT properly open.
Good points.
I half heard some health adviser for Scotland (American sounding) speaking on the Today programme this morn just afore seven. She said – and I para-phrase.
a) the rise in cases was a “bit” (I think she used that word) to do with more testing.
b) We weren’t seeing this reflected in mortality figures because the rise in cases was amongst the young. But it would feed through (in a couple of weeks I think she said) – just look at France.
Well, I looked at France. “Cases” began taking off around mid-July. They are now higher than they have ever been. But the seven day average mortality figure is now just a tad lower than it was in mid-July
That would be Prof Devi Shridar. She was on GMB on TV this morning spouting the same nonsense.
Where you’re going wrong Ned is you’re applying reason, logic and facts rather than sentiment, politics and self-interested ideology, like the eminent Prof.
she’s mad. she wants to lockdown until the disease is defeated. wont work for this and it wont work for any other disease
Lock her down.
Strange how all these consequences will occur in about “two weeks”. If we add together all the “two weeks” we find ourselves back in March. Apparently this was just before things were going to get “really bad” in about “two weeks”.
Cases=Herd Immunity is working?
I wish someone would put a stop to this madness, getting rid of that numpty Hancock would be a start.
Driving through congested London yesterday passed a Covid Testing Centre, not a car or human in sight in centre.
Good news! Maybe be people are realising that more testing = more ‘cases’ = more lockdowns.
My local testing station has been a wasteland for two months, Track’n’Trace staff mostly gone back to fending off complaints about John Lewis.
Excellent; anyone who gets tested is simply giving the worst bed-wetters the maximum ammunition to do the maximum damage to our economy and way of life. Some of this damage may be irreversible.
Interestingly, a friend of mine who recently developed a dry cough and tried to order a home test (against my advice) was unable to get one. None available.
Probably be told to get a test in Arbroath.
Where are they doing all these 200,000 tests then if the testing centres are abandoned? Maybe the test results are just as fake as the virus.
I hope that those people will be as lonely as the Maytag washer repairman.
He said: “It’s so important that people don’t allow this illness to infect grandparents and lead to the sort of problems we saw earlier in the year.” Hypocrites, didnt give it a thought when they offloaded thousands back to ill prepared care homes from hospital for the covid patients who never materialised and then told doctors in the covid instructions to care for the patients remotely. They are an utter disgrace when are people going to take a stand against this lot and investigate what their motive is.
He really is a cockroach! Just how much money he is squirreling away I wonder before he is relegated to political obscurity where he belongs.
Preventing us reaching herd immunity is a good way to increase risk to grandparents and make their lives miserable. My mother in law is 80 and furious with the idiots for ruining her granchildrens’ lives in her name.
Good for her!
I amuse myself at times, imagining a suitable care home to house superannuated Boris, Handjob, Krankie, Ferguson, Dan, and all the rest of the rubbish.
Bedonebyasyoudid.
I can’t tell you how angry I feel about that comment from MH. Of all the things he has said that has to be one of his vilest comments. Why would he throw the onus back on the young? As a grand-parent it is my decision/risk assessment if I want to see my grand-children. I have seen the confusion on their faces over not being a able to act naturally and come into our house for months. About 6 weeks ago one of our grand-chidren asked: ‘Grandpa are you available for a hug?’. The answer was ‘Yes!’ Life has felt so much better since then.
Don’t kill granny.
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/russischer_corona_impfstoff_solide_aber_schon_von_gestern
Good article in German about the Russisn vaccine and the futiliy of vaccination against SARS-Cov2 in general.
The virus has mutated and continues to do so, and the vast majority of people/age brackets don’t need that vaccination anyway!
My heartfelt gratitude to Michael and Sinéad for writing their open letter. I’ve written to them directly. I know staff at Newcastle and other Universities personally, and they have judged speaking out to be something with potential to endanger their roles. It is invaluable that such folk of high standing in Universities make their voices heard; their platform and their ability to write letters many of us simply can’t formulate as well is a gift they are using to the benefit of all.
I’ve seen the responses to smaller fish in HE, and their objections to mask wearing are met with short and unhelpful replies. I hope the above letter creates much needed debate. Newcastle University was wise, supportive of BAME folk, yet extremely diplomatic in their public response to black lives earlier this year. Given the constrained boundaries they had to respond inside, they made the best of it. I’ve high hopes Executive Board respond supportively to Michael and Sinéad, and other staff who have read peer reviewed publications and concluded similar to the authors.
Bravo.
There may not be a gigantic left wing conspiracy as such, but the virus is giving the middle class left the opportunity to pursue some of their aims and they aren’t going to let it go until they’ve achieved them.
1. Achieve carbon zero by destroying capitalism and foreign travel.
2. Money for middle class Labour councils to ruin cities with cycling infrastructure.
3. Keeps the working class under control and just lets them out to perform service roles like the Waitrose delivery.
4. Universal Basic Income.
5. The ability to virtue signal ones solidarity with BLM by wearing a mask in an homogenously white market town Waitrose.
6. Leverage for the teachers, lecturers and other public sector unions to pursue pay increases.
7. The dream that they can use it to bring down the government and stop, or at least control, Brexit.
I often think Point 1 in reality is more like “Pretend to want to achieve zero carbon, as long as it doesn’t affect me”. Most of these people’s carbon footprint is higher than average as they tend to be richer, in my experience.
Exactly. This dystopian world is only designed to control us, not them. Their children will still get a normal education and they will give themselves a fast-track system through the airports. Only we will have to “comply”.
It’s the same with mass immigration and unfettered globalisation. They are all for it because it doesn’t really affect them.
Yes. They’ll carry on with their nice cushy lifestyles because they benefit and don’t care if the ordinary Joe and Jane lose their jobs and see their standard of living plummet even further.
Mhmm, I know a few folks associated with XR and no flying thing and not driving a car seems to be what they tell other people to do rather than do it themselves
They are flown in from one state to another to cause a ruckus. They pack into SUVs. They’re not walking or taking the bus.
I am not sure the middle class left actually have any aims – they merely execute Guardian/BBC programming.
Gear change: a bold vision for cycling and walking
This has been going on for a while,especially in London.Johnson was at the forefront when he was mayor.
Implementing their long delayed plans for cycle/bus lanes was the first thing local road gangs did, leaving lockdown abandoned roadworks until later.
Utterly hilarious, this person is seemingly unaware that all of this agenda is being zealously promulgated by indisputably middle class Tory, Brexit voting counties throughout the South East and Home Counties (apart from UBI, the wet dream of certain right wing economists)!
Just got back from a walk to the local shop.
Chatted to a neighbour who asked why I didn’t wear a mask and just walked in?
Told them I was exempt on 2 counts.
Then had to explain the legal exemptions and illnesses you could get from wearing a mask which constitute “harm” and so on.
They asked “why isn’t this in the mainstream news?”.
Said they don’t want you to know but for you to be complaint and unquestioning with no independent thought.
They asked “why don’t you wear a lanyard then with an exemption badge?”.
Told him the last time that a government made a segment of the population wear distinguishing badges on their clothing so everyone else could see them were the Nazis in pre-war Germany and it was the Jews and other undesirables who wore the badges then were eventually rounded up and carted off and this is how the nazis started – wear a “badge”, get the rest of the population against you (the recent videos of the BTP etc), stir the pot and increase the tensions, then “papers please” (the new ID cards), take them away “for their own protection” and so on.
Asked him “how does he like living in a fascist country?”.
He walked away looking worried.
Did you tell him elections have been cancelled and that Sadiq Khan would otherwise no longer be mayor of London?
He should have started worrying five months ago.
A Prediction
As Universities become one of the last parts of the economy to open up they will be Covid Safety Central, long after the rest of us have given it all up and wander why we bothered the Uni’s will be full on lockdown Compliant for months and years after.
We’ve already heard the bleats from the students and unions, today it was the turn of the Institutions on BBC R4 Today, blathering on about all the steps they are taking to ensure students ‘safety’ on campus and how they can do ‘distance learning’ if insufficiently reassured.
All three feeding off each others fears perhaps, using Covid as cover for an easy life more like.
You have nailed it. Why people would pay for this offer though I haven’t worked out. University experience 2020 style will be bad experience.
I guess they feel they have to – those already enrolled because you may as wekk finish and even those enrolling because they think it’s the only way to get decent job (partly true).
Some are I know are sceptics, most seem reluctant to rebel, sadly.
‘ Bad’ doesn’t begin to describe it.
Why the bloody hell are students putting up with this?
Because they’re unaccountably scared. Although it’s probably fair to say that any 18 year old who genuinely is scared, is necessarily too stupid to benefit from a university education anyway.
I don’t think you need to attend lectures anyway. I never did. Got through fine. The rest of the student experience should be fine because students do what they are going to do anyway
Except a lot of the sporting and social activities are either cancelled or curtailed by order of the uni or of club committees being fearful and following guidance
And some students actually prefer physically attending lectures and being on campus, they will now not be able to or will have to wear masks
The social aspects are destroyed, you may as well sign up for the OU
The Long Covid thing is something that, if this was any other condition, would be confined to those in the medical field and patients. It would be important work but I would hear nothing of it and life would go on.
going on about long-covid means theyve just lost the other arguments
Exactly
As the facts support their case less and less, more of this crap will get tried
Same with the pressure now ramping up against “misinformation” and smears against sceptics for being “right wing” etc.
The tactics will get dirtier and dirtier
Agree. They have run out of barrel to scrape so will revert to other underhand tactics.
The tactics have been pretty underhand from the start
“In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t.” – Thomas Sowell
They’re having so much fun that they don’t want it to end. Let’s call it long-covid. Splendid idea!
Looks like most of the American giant corps have done very well from covy
Yes, but… as a millionaire corporate executive, what do you do with your money? Go out to a fine restaurant? Oh… it smells of hand sanitiser. Go to hedonistic parties? Oh… they’re illegal. Travel the world? Oh… you’ve got a wear a mask on the beach…
That’ll be an evening in with Netflix, then…
CEO of a FTSE 100 company overheard (not by me) on a recent working from home video conference: “will someone get the fucking peacocks off the Porsche!”
Peak Cov-2, right there!
Thank you so much Matt. I roared with laughter. Rarely do that nowadays.
next Zoom call I’m on I’m going to shout that mid way through the conference
First world problems, eh?
I love this website!
Can’t be Mike ‘I’m in the money’ Coupe, because he has now left Sainsbury’s!
oh how the rich live.. For me its more “get the fucking pigeons off the porch”
Reminds me of the Rich Man’s Blues which somebody (can’t remember who) sang:
“Woke up this morning, both the cars were gone”.
Listen to Joe Walsh . .Life’s been good
They put banal ads in the middle of a stonking guitar solo!
Were they social distancing?
Yes, except that the restaurants they go to probably have private rooms where that stuff doesn’t apply, they fly by private jet, attend private clubs, have parties in their mansions. Rules don’t apply to them. As someone here pointed out, no skin in the game. The lower down the financial order you go, the more directly affected you are by this crap.
But they could do all that before Covid.
Covid may have made them a few extra paper tokens (a.k.a. dollars), but at the cost of requiring extra security when the starving masses kick off and the flames and gunshots start getting nearer. I really can’t see the benefit that Covid could make to them.
And if 95% of humanity is wiped out due to some purely-accidental vaccine ‘enhancement’ phenomenon, they’ll find it pretty hard to find good staff. The smell will be quite bad for a while, too.
Well, indeed. They probably haven’t thought it through. Hubris.
Have you read The Time Machine?
I suppose on a private yacht you can do what ever you like!
Robert Maxwell certainly did
I know, you have to really feel for those guys. They don’t even have the annual jamboree at Davos to look forward to – no free skiing and sides (aka extra-curricular nookie) either!
Party on your private yacht. They already live and move in a completely different world from ours!
Hasn’t stopped Bill Gates and thousands others from jetsetting here and there across the globe while people are suffering down here on the ground.
No need to say more. Please share widely
Thanks. This is exactly what we need to forward and it will get read – cute, concise and factual
And wrong. You’ve obviously never had a parent in intensive care from the flu which ends up with them permanently on anti-seizure tablets.
The balance of risk with the flu vaccine favours the vaccine. It’s well tested and evolved thanks to years of experience. It helps far more than it harms.
You don’t want to mess with flu. It’s a nasty disease you want to avoid if you can. Particularly if you are very young or elderly.
Isn’t there a fair bit of research to say flu vaccination is the least effective in the elderly and immune compromised. Tom Jefferson seems to have said so. I am trying to find out if that is so. Any pointers to research would be helpful. Thank you so much.
Here’s the CDC points:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm
The Lancet did a study that showed it did not reduce mortality rates in the ages of about 45 to 75 – doing this from memory. I think it is on one of Dr Sam Bailey’s videos.
Then take 5000iu of vitamin D3 and 2 grams of vitamin C per day. You’ll be a lot better able to fight off the ‘flu with your own healthy immune system.
I’ve had the flu vaccine for around 10 years. I will not be having one again and only one reason is required – they have demonstrated in the panic to get a Coronabollocks vaccine that they now have zero concern about the safety of vaccines. I’d rather take the risk of flu thanks.
So, Sunday 6th September 2020 is the date on which Peak Covid Madness was finally reached.
The cricket match between Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire was abandoned at lunchtime. Not because a player died of covid, not because a player was taken seriously ill with covid and rushed to intensive care, not because a player tested positive for covid, but because a Northamptonshire squad player – who wasn’t even present at the match – had tested positive for covid and had been in contact with – up to 48 hours previously – 4 team mates.
On this basis the cricket authorities – with a straight face – announced that
“……….player welfare is paramount and that no risks should be taken with the health and safety of the players, officials and administrators involved in this match.”
There is only one way to go now:
The national speed limit on all roads including motorways will be reduced to 5 miles per hour, to minimise road deaths.
All food now consumed, whether in the home, in restaurants or from take-aways should be put through a blender for 20 seconds to minimise the risk of us choking on our food.
And – to reduce household accidents – only registered window cleaners are from now to be allowed to purchase and use ladders. Fortunately a company has come forward and offered to implement and operate a “window cleaner’s licensing scheme”. It will take a year to set up and the cost will be £1 billion – but any price is worth paying.
Remember the date – Sunday 6th September – Peak Covid Madness.
Be careful out there.
Registered window cleaners don’t use ladders now, it is all via long reach hose/brushes. They can’t use ladders cos of ‘ealth and safety’.
Good point – but we must still be ever-vigilant in our quest against that minority of rogue window cleaners who are tempted to break those ‘elf and safety rules.
What about skyscrapers?
Anyone who has ever walked into a lamp post can tell you that 5 miles per hour is too fast.
And don’t forget to keep looking at the pavement to avoid dog poo. It’s a dangerous world out there.
I hope that you don’t bruise easily.
If ever a sport was a socially distanced one it is cricket. Not even a caddy to carry your bat.
Signed A Philistine.
I don’t know,those slips could be too close together and that ball is obviously a vector of disease.
Ooooooh Winthorpe…
I’m sure there is plenty more madness they can dream up. How about banning cash due to risk of paper-cuts, banning foreign travel due to risk of sunburn. I hope they don’t read this.
We should stop worrying about dying it’ll come around soon enough.
Richie Allen radio show on the recent (Sunday?) Marr – Clegg interview. Clegg is Global developments director (or similar) at Facebook. He talks censorship and working towards a vaccine.
Begins at 25 mins in https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2020-09-06T04_12_44-07_00
The whole hour is worth listening – a review of yesterdays ‘papers’.
Also at 48 mins in Eamon Holmes vs (?) Denise Welch.
Must listen if you haven’t – I never had. It’s an exceptional short exchange. Here’s how I see it –
Eamon explains, cleverly imo, there are gov restrictions placed on all media preventing free speech. He, makes damn sure Denise does not interupt him as he finishes his point. It’s important he makes it. Then Eamon kindly tee’s up for Denise who whacks it straight down the fairway with her reply.
Do others have any thoughts about this exchange? I see Eamon setting an example of doing what he can with hands tied. If he speaks out, he is replaced by a lame presenter. By staying in place he can may be see his platform used to let Denise and others speak.
Denise was wonderful. Eamon’s silent in listening was great.
Yes, its great. We discussed it yesterday and the day before. I urge everyone who has not already watched to do so and consider carefully how brave Holmes is.
Interesting that Richard Madeley has been dropped as relief/holiday presenter on GMB. He has come out in print at a lockdown sceptic. Always thought the guy was intelligent despite his rather pretty-boy appearance (an I being judgemental?)
that will be Pisser Morgan’ influence. he doesnt tolerate any covid debate
Dont forget that Eamon Holmes got badly mauled back in April because he suggested that MSM shouldn’t immediately slam down on theories about 5G etc. Hence he was very circumspect in how he started the interview ..
Eamon Holmes sat down with David Icke a while back on a radio show (with Saira Khan) discussing how Google spies on it’s users. Eamon follows David Icke’s work and I suspect he knows that this Covid ‘reaction’ (not that the virus doesn’t exist) is a scam. I don’t believe for a second that he believes the official narrative
There are more and more in your face interviewers these days. Can’t get a word in edgewise.
Just read about another country (Australia) securing doses of a vaccine and made me wonder – is it entirely possible ‘cases’ will continue to climb after immunisation programs and what exactly would the response to that be? Acknowledgement that monitoring cases is useless? That the PCR test isn’t fit for this purpose? Will all cases be ascribed to anti-vaxxers refusing to take the vaccine?
Probably all of those, all at the same time.
Will the PCR test multiply trace of the vaccine and produce a “positive” response. The PCR test becomes more and more like the bovine tb ‘reactor test’ with each passing day.
Hancock saying the vaccine will be ready in the new year? How can he know this when trials arent finished yet?
He’s got Bill on his speed dial.
Agree. More to do with his anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown stance – ‘they’ were just waiting for him to say or do something (he has a bit of a temper, but so what!)
certainly the MSM are gunning for him in the way it is being reported. However the actual sporting issue of being expelled from the tournament is not unusual as the officials do take severe action regarding ball and racket abuse – with application of game and match forfeitures
If you watch the video carefully there is no malice in his action and not much force.The way the line judge goes down it reminds me of when a player feigns injury to get someone sent off in football.Although I’m not suggesting it was staged,that is a conspiracy theory too far for me.
seen it … and yes – he wasnt looking where he hit it and i think the judge was hit in the throat and it would have been with some force. So i agree it was unintentional that the judge was hit But he had done something similar early in the game . The ref also doesnt check replays (dont know if that is the archaic rule) so it looked bad in real time
And this is tennis. You will get a violation for hitting the floor with the racket. They just dont like temper tantrums..
John McEnroe.
Keep Britain Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8RUsEDXEsU
Government Lies
Make your own mind up about who to trust. You, or the Govt? Who will think for you? Who will act for you? Who will make decisions for your rights and the rights of your family.
No Real People Allowed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2EDrmMl0dQ&list=WL&index=57&t=0s
Human beings have been banned from US sports, as Americans plunge into dark ages superstition and madness
Stop the world I need to get off.I don’t know how much more of this stupidity I can take
Canned, piped in crowd noise during the Stanley Cup Hockey playoffs. Cheering goals, going crazy. All artificial. New Normal.
Smiley Labradors Play With Their First Toys!!
Something to cheer you up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74XJ3gWDFvw&list=WL&index=58&t=0s
Freedom Rally Beverly Hills – Patriotic guy debates & destroy angry BLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_QkKg64cn8&list=WL&index=62&t=0s
brilliant… and it is the thing that no one talks about. dozens of people – in this case black – murdered in Chicago but to BLM their lives dont matter because they were not killed by a white policeman. So this proves BLM are political agitators trying to cause racial disharmony. And this is the movement that all those virtue signalling sportsman take the knee for and all those middle class white people protest for
Don’t forget Lewis Hamilton.
Even the boss of Pfizer doesn’t want vaccines fast-tracked:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/pfizer-boss-warns-on-risk-of-fast-tracking-vaccines-1.4346521
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.palatinate.org.uk%2Fface-masks-to-be-compulsory-in-university-buildings-as-durham-updates-covid-19-guidelines%2F&h=AT0t8fbnY94vupyovm7fhvJCXe6yjIgKuYfELL2g_WWZpXzsEabyJdZPWCvHZ_fR5Q7VrqMLmNj3KufJk6q8MrJKGz1VMRiXuwvyE_CEbZ81SA7igUys74uihJDDYdU&s=1 Durham University.
From idyllic Northern refuge of the Celtic saints to dystopian police state of the Woke and risk averse.
Went to Kew Gardens yesterday. It was depressing to see at one of the cafés everybody happily and obediently putting a bag on their faces in order to go the counter and order. I really think that the middle-classes are irredeemable in terms of opposing the current state of terror – I swear that they would put a plastic bag over their heads and tie the handles together if the government asked them to. It makes me think that we would have been just as compliant as the French if the German had occupied us in WW2 – but maybe we are very different people now.
We are as a people socially conformist and law abiding so I am not at all surprised by how few people refuse to mask up, the scandal at the moment is these generally positive attributes that have stood us in good stead for generations has been exploited by charlatans and second rate chancers.
Strangely enough I was cycling through Widnes a month or so and it is as if Covid does not exist there. So it seems there is a divide between middle and working classes. Perhaps the push back will come from working class areas. Does anyone else think some of the Covid stuff is an attempt to scupper Brexit?
I think Covid is being used as a cover for many policies that would otherwise have met resistance- as Shapps stated some weeks ago, it is an opportunity to make lasting changes, and a national recovery will be a green recovery. I note Burham and Khan are lobbying for more powers to be devolved to mayors of cities, this is something that has been on the project creep agenda for a couple of years, and now the excuse is that more autonomy for cities will aid the recovery.
If there is hope it lies with the proles.
But then Winston meets some…
Ha – that phrase came to mind as well, but I wasn’t sure if I was remembering correctly.
I live in a working class area. Normality reigns here. Lots of working class folk from the north-west come to North Wales on holiday, and they abandon their mask-wearing at the border.
Then again, I was in Llandudno on Saturday, and it was like a Bank Holiday weekend pre-Lockdown, and that area’s quite middle-class.
Pembrokeshire was too for the bank holiday – I saw a bus load of chaps getting off a coach half cut with no masks visible. Cheered me up no end. As did shopping without a mask.
Yes we were in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire for a few days recently and I was very sad to be returning to mandatory muzzles in shops. Mostly do click and collect now but there’s always something you have to go out for. Having said that I did brave it yesterday – 5 shops nappieless and no challenges.
“ Does anyone else think some of the Covid stuff is an attempt to scupper Brexit?”
No – given that it is spread across Europe, and emerged from the Brexit wing of the Tory Party here.
“emerged from the Brexit wing of the Tory Party here.”
Oh come on, Rick H, ffs! You are far too intelligent to let wishful thinking drag you that far from reality, surely?
Are your political positions really that important to you?
on the other hand, our Government is pushing the lockdown, masks and all the additional rules/legislation to the extreme, most people are so terrified they will not challenge anything including the Government making a real mess of the Brexit negotiations
We’d have been the same as the French. Any country would. If it hadn’t been for the English Channel that’s exactly what would have happened.
Look at the Channel Islands as they were occupied in the 2nd world war
Correct. The behaviour of the Islanders under occupation is a very touchy subject in the Channel Islands. The exhibits at the “Underground Hospital” are all full of the attitude “What would you have done if Kurt said he had a child at home like you” and similar Quisling-style remarks.
No – we were always like other people. We just had a stretch of water, the US and Russia to help out at the right time. Fortunately, the tests of occupation were never tried out here, despite the royal and establishment connections to the Nazis in Germany.
But I do think that the previous two generations might have been more than a little dismayed at the blind compliance visible today, given that those generations genuinely did devote a hell of a lot of blood and treasure to preventing the worst happening.
All media today; ‘case’ numbers rising probably caused by young people not ‘following the rules’ on masks and social distancing, presumably this backsliding is happening all over Europe, the notion that the measures just don’t work just seems beyond the comprehension of these people.
Anyone in media bother to note Sweden don’t have a rise in cases. But of course this centre leftish country has decided on a policy of genocide and mass suicide. When will we realise this is just a virus
I’m a member of a car club that caters for a certain British sports car that is no longer made (I know that doesn’t narrow it down much!). The club is split up into regions and I write the regional report for my area and this ends up in the monthly magazine.
A few weeks ago we were contacted by our coordinator who said that we had to be very careful when writing our summaries as we could not be seen to have broken any of the Covid-19 guidelines. Presumably the club are worried that the local Stasi will be handing out fines if they discover we’ve had one member too many turning up to our monthly meeting. He also said that anything that appeared to have broken the guidelines would be edited out. So even a car club magazine that is only seen by club members can be subject to censorship.
The club have also carried out a risk assessment, part of which states – ‘Hand sanitiser is to be carried in [your] car at all times’. I’ve just received the latest magazine and they’ve had to re-assess this particular statement. It has come to their attention that when the temperature in a car increases above a certain level in hot and sunny conditions, alcohol-based aerosol hand sanitisers are liable to explode. I have to admit that I did end up with a wry smile on my face after reading this.
So just two more examples of the lunacy of 2020.
Would your fuel pump vapour lock as well?
I think this is going on everywhere. My city mayor appears to be trying to do his job whilst keeping out of the Covid madness. He looks to be trying to not get drawn into to don’t kill granny stupidity and be sensible. But he is coming under a lot of fire from local press to take a harder line.
The thing about using sanitiser all the time is that won’t this lead to bacteria and viruses becoming more resistant to such treatment?
So called super bugs found in hospitals are supposed to have arisen due to the over use of antibiotics?
Still, as I’m not an ‘expert’, everything will be alright . . .
There has already been research on how the use of anti bacterial sprays for household use has had an impact on immunity to some bugs, basically we are being over- sanitised, and this over-cleaning of hands and surfaces suggests it may well have negative consequences.
The teacher at the gate of my girl’s primary school tried to squeeze 80% proof sanitiser on my daughter’s hands – I’m having none of that. I’ve bought her some alcohol free wipes to use throughout the day instead, when the teacher insists the class ‘sanitise’. The teacher let her use them instead.
The wipes are effectively a placebo, not for my daughter (who’s a junior Sceptic) – but for the teacher, who was masked up and face-guarded. I’ll buy her a hazmat suit for Christmas.
My wife predicts tummy upsets for those children forced to use the sanitiser three or four times a day, due to the stuff continually getting in their mouths via fingers. Hopefully my daughter will use the wipes I’ve given her and avoid that fate.
the masked-up face shielded teacher. For flips sake. Insane.
Simplest way to look at it is that most bleaches/antibiotics and what not may kill 99.99% of germs/bugs/viruses/bacteria. Given that these are usually found in the millions or billions that leaves a lot of survivors that are resistant to the substance used to kill them.
These survivors multiply. Repeat the cycle a few times and the 0.01% that survive each time become ever more resistant until they are effectively immune to whatever you’re trying to kill them with.
This is how nature works, always has done and always will.
If we look at humans in a similar way. No virus will be 100% lethal to all humans. Without human intervention a similar process to the above would happen. In a way the current iteration of the human race could be considered “superhumans” compared to the viruses that have tried to wipe us out over the time we’ve been inhabiting the Earth.
TREAT HAND GELS AS LAST RESORT, OR RISK SUPERBUG ‘ARMAGEDDON’
https://www.naturalproductsglobal.com/europe/treat-hand-gels-as-last-resort-or-risk-superbug-armageddon/
the rise of superbugs has been an issue for years . the misuse of antibiotics by patients not completing treatments or over prescription . by farmers routinely dosing animals (not because they are ill .. but as a preventative) has been happening for a long time and and antibiotics are now becoming less effective.
Now the overuse of anti bacterial sanitisers will make this worse.
So what happens……. we end up back in the 19th century pre penicillin when the infection of a small cut will kill you. People do not realise the numbers of deaths that routine antibiotics prevent
Thanks for the link; an interesting read.
You could carry a bar of soap and a small bottle of water…
And carrying it doesn’t mean you have to use it…
I shall keep a sharp look-out for exploding cars on warm days, from now on.
I have actually thought about doing just as you suggest! The car club are only trying to cover themselves of course.
Some of our members carry a fire extinguisher in the back of their cars. These can also turn into very effective bombs if they get too hot. One car was written off when the extinguisher exploded but fortunately there was no one in it at the time.
Exploding hand sanitizer !WOW!
Yesterday
Reported Covid 19-84 deaths: 199
Total population of Europe over 741,000,000 people
Italy Reported Covid 19-84 deaths: 7
Total population of Italy over 60,000,000 people
For that the Government puts Italy on “amber alert”
I bet Clooney will have no problem hopping from Sonning to Lake Como on his private jet.
Most of the most populated countries across Europe had quite strict lockdowns – and still impose certain restrictions.
Perhaps they might argue that’s why current death numbers are low?
How would you explain Sweden?
Precisely.
Czech Republic.
And conversely, Peru, Argentina, Hawaii and California amongst others.
The inconvenient reality is no argument against the imagined realism if the theory – defend the theory against all evidence to the contrary
Sweden sacrificed their old by doing nothing but also managed to control the virus by doing nothing voluntarily.
Such an enigma.
Mayo didn’t mention Sweden. He (or she) said “most” countries.
And I saw nothing in mayo’s comment to suggest that he or she was pro lockdown.
Thanks.
That’s the trouble with many readers of this blog. They jump in without thinking.
… an argument that has been blown out of the water a long time ago.
See Sweden.
Ah, you beat me to it because I was writing an overlong reply to the post above.
I saw nothing in Mayo’s comment to suggest that he or she was advocating for lockdowns.
Mayo – a little geography quiz for you:
Which country was first to ban smacking?
King Erik XIII became a pirate after he was forced away from the crown of which country?
Which country has 400,000 moose roaming freely in the woods?
That is a perfectly valid point.
I wonder if Covid 19 gives you erectile dysfunction. I may explain the look on Boris’s face.
Of course it does. There isn’t a single symptom known to man that it does not give you.
Ingrowing toenails and varicose veins?
cant do … Boris is big dick
A couple of points from to-days blog.
No need to worry Matt because there’s been no corresponding uptick in hospitalisations or deaths
Hasn’t there? Symptomatic cases are on the rise (Covid symptom study). David Paton also reports an increase Triage in (111) calls and an uptick in hospitalisations – despite the recognised lag between infection & admission to hospital.
Should we give Pueyo the benefit of the doubt
Should we give Sunetra Gupta the benefit of the doubt for the ridiculous “plausible scenario” that the UK had achieved near herd immunity in March. Admittedly she doesn’t refer to it much nowadays but, then again, very few of our ‘sceptics’ seem willing to question her on it.
And I wonder if we should we give Nobel prize winner, Michael Levitt, the benefit of the doubt over his failure to understand basic mathematics when he concluded that the Diamond Princess death toll would be 116 if Neil Fergusons infection fatality rate applied.
Scepticism is not a one-way street. Too many ‘sceptic’ readers of this blog are happy to swallow any old bilge if it argues against the prevailing establishment view. That’s contrarianism – not scepticism.
Is that you Neil ? or Devi ?
Could it be Nicola?
Again. If you were a sceptic you would follow the Null Hypothesis and we would have carried on without this idiocy.
But by your own admission you have no sense of context.
Haha. Fantastic
What is the ‘Null Hypothesis”?
I’d suggest that if you have a novel virus the assumption must be that all of the population are susceptible.
Actually that’s still the case. We have no definite evidence yet that the whole population is not susceptible.
That might be a reasonable assumption in a fresh Earth and Adam and Eve the only people walking around the Garden of Eden.
Did they social distance?
Have you seen the list of symptoms for Covid 19 they are endless so I don’t see your point.
Whatever caused the spike of deaths in April/May is over.Fact
What has the increase in hospitalisations been? Can you link to stats? Are these ICU hospitalisations? How long are they lasting?
I don’t recall Gupta saying that – but she may have done. Can you link to that?
Can you give more detail on Levitt’s “failure to understand basic mathematics”?
“and an uptick in hospitalisations”
Relative to April please, and the size of the Nightingale Hospitals, or you’re scaremongering.
The “Fear then Relief” gambit may have worked back in March. You’re going to have to pick another marketing strategy now. Here’s the list: http://changingminds.org/techniques/general/sequential/sequential.htm
Mayo,
Your posts are peppered with ad hominems and insults (“ridiculous “, “failure to understand basic mathematics”, “swallow any old bilge”.
It would help your case if you provided links to evidence and reasons for your assertions.
Levitt’s Medium artice
https://medium.com/@michael.levitt/the-excess-burden-of-death-from-coronavirus-covid-19-is-closer-to-a-month-than-to-a-year-83fca74455b4
Read it.
We should not be too hasty to ignore and criticise this post. It should be pinned and checked against. Should numbers in hospital start to increase then that must be noted.
I think we’re not ignoring and any criticism is not of the substance but of the lack of substance. I think we’re engaging in argument, and currently waiting for the original poster to reciprocate.
What substance do you want?
Professor Gupta led a study which concluded a plausible scenario was that ~60% of the population had been exposed to the virus in March.
Google “Michael Levitt medium.com” if you doubt that the Nobel prize winner had trouble calculating the expected Diamond Princess death toll from Ferguson’s IFR estimate.
well they may well start to increase as it’s a new seasonal virus but it’s the measures we are mostly protesting against. Here in the north west I can be fined for having some in my home or garden!! I don’t find that acceptable. People are not obeying the rules in the local lockdowns because they don’t think it is in proportion and are blanket measures. My 79 year old mother in law breaks the laws every day by having her friends in her home and by going to visit her friends, one of whom has a terminally ill husband, she wants to support and not have these friends suffer alone.
I have aunts and uncles in their 80s wearing cloth masks when getting their groceries. They don’t have coronavirus to transmit as they have been no where for many months. All proportion has gone from our measures.
Three cheers for your doughty mother in law. She knows what it means to be human.
Mayo’s post doesn’t seem to bring any evidence based persuasion to the conversation. I am happy to be persuaded in any direction with fact based argument
Ok. what evidence do you want.
Please provide sources to back these statements up. (The NHS digital data page which was showing triage calls for Covid seems to have been removed).
Don’t waster your time on Mayo. Comes on, makes unsubstantiated claims, no references and doesn’t bother replying.
Ah, you’ve seen a pattern. If I see mayo again, I will just ignore their post. Thank you offlands
aka a shill
don’t feed the trolls..
Evidence … ?
I agree with you for the most part, but why does it have to reply?
I frequently decline to reply, but that doesn’t invalidate what I say.
I would think that, if you have what you believe to be a valid argument and someone presents a counter argument, you would want to respond either with a defence of your position or by conceding the point (the latter being unusual). If you don’t have enough confidence in your point to assert it, then maybe it wasn’t worth saying in the first place (“you” being people in general, rather than you in particular, John). Maybe that’s just me.
In particular, to come here and accuse Toby Young and the regular posters on the site, essentially, of being hypocrites (twice) and then not bother to respond to counterpoints (twice) smells vaguely of trollery.
Not bothering to respond to accusations of trollery, on the other hand, I can understand.
Yes, but there is no law which requires a person to respond to a post. It’s a free choice.
I would find it very oppressive to be required to respond to everyone who might reply to a post I might make on a blog.
Indeed. There’s no requirement for Mayo to justify himself, but also no requirement for anyone to take him seriously if he does not.
See my response to him below- I would genuinely like to know if there is substance to what he’s saying. He need not reply to me (and goodness knows he now has a lot of people to reply to, if he chooses to), but if what he is saying is true, it will be disappointing if he doesn’t because one might imagine he would want to back up his points. But no – he’s not obliged to.
Mayo tends to come in, hurl a few insults around, then leave without responding. Smells of troll to me.
My wife is in the Covid symptom study and according to her updates symptomatic cases aren’t on the rise.
According to the ONS weekly update cases aren’t on the rise either. As for calls to 111, could the symptoms described be down to the flu season that seems to have arrived early and which the face nappies are doing little to stop?
Should we give Ferguson the benefit of the doubt because his model has proved to be wrong, in relation to Sweden by a factor of 15?
Maybe he means this chart, from the bottom of here:
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map
Sorry I am struggling to paste the image
But that’s not what I would call an increase. That’s what I would call people going on holiday and not fannying about with COVID apps. Let’s see where goes from here.
But then this chart shows hospital admissions continue to fall:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914699/COVID19_Weekly_Report_02_September_2020.pdf
I haven’t looked at the most recent ONS data but the last time I did (probably about a month ago) of those with Covid symptoms only 1 in 10 were positive for SARS2. This is a convincing demonstration of the level of herd immunity for SARS2 compared to other viruses, which are starting to come back as people lose interest in lockdowns (and the symptom tracking app is probably picking these up) . If herd immunity isn’t stopping Covid then what is?
Mayo is also misrepresenting Gupta’s March paper. She didn’t claim the UK had reached herd immunity, just that it was equally consistent with the observed data. But it’s pretty obvious now, 6 months on, that the epidemic did indeed peak in March and we do have herd immunity at least for summertime. There may be a small adjustment in the winter but it’s unlikely to be anything to get concerned about.
“Should we give Sunetra Gupta the benefit of the doubt for the ridiculous “plausible scenario”
No. It’s nothing to do with ‘benefit of the doubt’ – it’s to do with an entirely plausible hypothesis that reflects the data.
That data shows key curves (Hospitalisation, ICU occupancy and Deaths) that have shown no sign of a continuing outbreak of this virus for many weeks. Such an outbreak as was is now invisible beyond normal statistical noise (artificially added to by irrelevant PCR test results).
All the indications are that population immunity is high.
Further – SARS-COV-2 never reached a level in the community that is ‘epidemic’, even at its peak. Now it is laughably below that level.
The claim that this vanished virus requires unheard-of measures to combat it is the ‘ridiculous’ hypothesis, not that of Sunetra Gupta.
I suggest that the following references are better at indicating the reality, rather than windy ungrounded bullshit from frantic and nonsensical efforts to cover the arse of official incompetence :
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-daily-update/
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/
Well, a few things.
Firstly, as I recall, Gupta said that it was “possible” that a very significant proportion of the population had already been exposed to the virus and that we may have been close to herd immunity. She didn’t state it as fact or even as her own opinion, only as a potential scenario and explicitly presented it as a counter example to the Ferguson model. She was open at the time that this was to show that the Imperial model was one extreme of a number of possible scenarios. As I say, that is as I recall it. If you can show me different then I will be happy to concede that Gupta was as wrong as Ferguson and will point out that it only goes to show that computer modelling of an epidemic is only as good as the assumptions made by the inputs.
Secondly, I haven’t seen Levitt’s mathematical error pointed out anywhere (presumably at least in part because the media have almost completely ignored his existence), but would very much like to see it. I would also say that Levitt based his model partly on the numbers from the diamond princess, rather than applying his model to it. If he was pointing out that Ferguson’s model had no relationship to real life outcomes (as he has done elsewhere) and was out by a factor of around 10, then he was correct, even if his maths in reaching the number of 116 was flawed. Again, it serves to highlight the uselessness of mathematical modelling as applied to the scenario.
I would also point out that, while I admire Levitt and to a lesser extent Gupta for speaking up, and while I still strongly believe that Ferguson has blood on his hands and deserves to be locked up, frankly the conversation has moved on. We now have real, painfully earned evidence of how the virus has behaved, so there is no longer any need to look to Levitt, Gupta or indeed Ferguson for a theoretical scenario of what might have happened.
When it comes to hospitalisations, last time I tried to look at the latest data (last night) the NHS site kept crashing on me. The previous time I looked, there had been no discernible increase. If someone can quote the latest numbers for me, I would appreciate it.
Regardless, there is no point in denying that the increase in positive tests might in fact imply some increase in the spread of the virus – though the irony of the government mass testing policy is that the amount of noise in the system would make it impossible to know whether that’s the case.
Similarly, there’s no point in denying that there is any possibility that we might see an increase in the virus spread either seasonally or as a direct result of the gradual easing of social restrictions, nor that this might lead to an increase in hospitalisations. Nobody (almost nobody) is saying that the virus doesn’t exist, nor that it doesn’t make some people sick. Personally, what I have seen makes me think it’s unlikely that we will see a “second wave” anything like the first, but I’m also prepared to accept that I’m wrong if it does happen (and I do realise that I’m suffering from confirmation bias), but if I am wrong and it does happen, it still doesn’t change the fact that lockdown and the associated social restrictions are not an acceptable way to handle the virus.
There are more and more scientific studies on immunity seeming to support Sunetra Gupta. And then there is Sweden!
I have a critical care anaesthetist friend working at a major north west hospital and he says there is no uptick in admissions, but there would be an expected uptick in respiratory illnesses as winter comes on anyway. Respiratory illness is also one of the main ways very frail elderly die.
It will be interesting to see what the ONS infection survey shows this week and during the coming weeks. It was continuing to show infections as levelled off last Friday and no evidence of difference between regions.
I find I am drawn to people like Michael Levitt, Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan because they are advocating calm over fear and panic and they appear to care about people. I don’t feel they have any other agenda than helping people. I feel they know people are suffering and are motivated to help rather than further their careers or make a name for themselves.
I’m surprised you are getting so many downvotes for this, but playing Devil’s Advocate comes with a price.
I quote you:
“the ridiculous “plausible scenario” that the UK had achieved near herd immunity in March.”
I’m not sure that is a ridiculous plausible scenario. It might well explain why the positive “cases” we are not hearing about are not resulting in a significant increase in hospitalisations and deaths.
I visited my mother at the care home yesterday for the first time in about 2 months (one of the cooks tested positive so they stopped visits for several weeks). What I saw was a person who is mentally broken, I’ve never seen anyone cry like that and it was unsettling to say the least. The carers aren’t interested (understandable at £8.50/hr) and you sense that it’s only the constant pestering that ensures even an adequate level of care. There’s a mix of apathy and arse-covering that is taking years off the residents’ lives. Between this and her stay in hospital, I could write paragraphs of this but it suffices to say that all the stories you’ve read about in the papers etc. apply in this case.
Interestingly, they’ve got someone in there who was sent from Dundee (I’m in England). I wonder how common this sort of thing was during the height of lockdown.
Normally the MSM would be all over this.
The pay scale is not relevant, when you do such jobs you are expected to have some decent human empathy, I find there are no excuses for negligence and poor standards of care and I speak as an ex senior nurse, trained back in the 80s, when doctors and nurses were accountable completely for the care they delivered. As student nurses we were paid peanuts but worked our socks off on those heavy orthopaedic and geriatric wards, with 2 hourly pressure area care an absolute must, and the patients were looked after impeccably in all aspects of their needs. Yes, I know these are carers ( or not, as the case seems to be) and not nurses, but they still deliver basic nursing care, and it appears in the past decade, no one is called to account or prosecuted for their actions in the healthcare setting.
Is it feasible to remove your mother from this nursing home?
Problem is about removing people right now is being able to settle them into another place when family are not allowed/limited inside so it’s perhaps kinder to leave them where they have some familiarity with even if it is a restrictive home. It’s a very difficult place to be in with a very frail elder confused family member.
The homes own their buildings and business and cannot be forced to be less restrictive with their visiting policies. My fathers place is doing something to facilitate visiting but it’s very restricted and minimal. When questioned they say they are trying to balance the government’s stated priority to reduce infections with allowing supportive contact with families. Government guidelines on care home visiting put infection control as first priority. I guess they don’t want more deaths than they have already caused.
When people need a care home they are not in a position to live a supported life in their own home or a family members home. My Dad and many of the residents in his care home need 24 hour care with a lot of physical moving. Dad needs a hoist for the bath or shower, is double incontinent, cannot manoeuvre or walk about on his own as he doesn’t understand how. He can walk but has to be told how to walk. Dementia destroys parts of the brain so that all aspect of self care and determination are mostly gone, just understanding he has a biscuit in his hand and can eat it is difficult. Looking after someone in this state is a full time job not a job one or two elderly family members can do.
There is another problem coming up too about elderly care which is suggesting children should look after their parents. Myself and many of my friends don’t have children. So that isn’t going to be an option.
Heartbreaking and equally enraging. A lot of LBC programmes have been highlighting the ongoing desperation of care homes at the moment.
Don’t want more deaths than they have already caused?
What they are doing in these care homes is murder. Long-drawn-out, but still murder.
Child abuse at one end of life’s span, and murder at the other.
They will pay in the end.
To the Tower!
My mum was in a local care home following a stroke, she died in February just before all this started, I imagine her now looking down and chortling, clever old me, I just got out in the nick of time. Her twin sister who is still alive at 91 is now so terrified of care homes that she has accumulated a bottle of ‘pills’ and says that if anyone tries to drag her to prison/care home she is going to swallow the lot.
With my works retirement group I visit a 95 year old lady in a local care home, obviously I cannot visit at the moment and as I am not a relative the home will not tell me how she is. I had to send her a stamped addressed postcard so that she could write back and tell me she was still alive but fed up!I have been told I cannot visit her until 2021 – if she lives that long!
Care homes are now being regarded much as Victorians used to view the work-house.
Please send that story to your MP and councillors. They need to know this is going on and that they were told as much while continuing to do nothing
New emotional distancing rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohRQ1ZbqcwE
Glad to see Toby has picked up on one of the many financial links between academics influencing government policy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Many of us have been seeing the spiders web of financial connections between academics, universities, big pharma and wealthy influential foundations (usually Gates or Rockefeller) for months.
I really can’t believe this hasn’t received any mainstream media coverage. But then again the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donates money to the Guardian, BBC and online fact checkers so what chance do we have of pointing out the clear conflicts of interest.
I find it baffling that a state broadcaster, pledged to be impartial would accept money from outside organisations, including organisations domiciled overseas
The BBC is interesting in that is has these side projects that it seems open to receiving funding for. The Guardian readers tended to be very anti Microsoft and big tech in the past but now the readership seems to have changed and they are very pro big pharma and big tech and certainly pro censorship.
It is a long time since the BBC was just a broadcaster. they now have fingers in all sorts of pies ….
Were they sanitized first?
This article published in 2019 and authored by Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard suggests that following the 2013 raid of the Guardian offices by the UK security services – in order to prevent them from publishing material leaked by Ed Snowden – it has now been effectively neutered.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/
(I offer the article as a matter of interest and to add to the debate. I do not necessarily agree with everything it says).
Perhaps it is the case – the Guardian has certainly changed over recent years. It certainly doesn’t support freedom unless it is a cause backed by the London metropolitan elite. Can’t believe how the paper seems to act as an unquestioning cheerleader of the Bill Gates and Big tech agenda.
I would have thought the readership would be against the roll out of facial recognition technology, state surveillance and a cashless society but as soon as it is framed by the state as being for the ‘greater good’ they fanatically support it. Crazy.
“Can’t believe how the paper seems to act as an unquestioning cheerleader of the Bill Gates and Big tech agenda.”
I daresay they give the Guardian a lot of money and that buys them influence. (I daresay also that the Guardian would deny this).
A newspaper that supports censorship should be taken to court.
lookup bbc worldwide aka bbc studios
For those on Facebook, this is worth watching – looks like B&MG is funding at least some, if not all, of the panel, on the “independent” Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which will be making decisions about the which Covid 19 vaccine to use, and when and how it should be deployed, according to the current government consultation document on changes to the Human Medicine Regulations to support the rollout of COVID 19 vaccinations. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1378683042522637
There is a YouTube video showing some the disgraceful behaviour of the Met Police at the anti lockdown rally at London – the police really try to intimidate the crowd and incite violence there is no way they would treat certain politically correct protests this way. Well done to the crowd for not fighting back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyJHEUjpuug&feature=share
Do you think people trust Bill Gates more because he always wears a sweater?
Gyles Brandreth in disguise?
I assume you are referring to this video https://youtu.be/ohRQ1ZbqcwE
This guy is awesome.
Edit: I see someone posted this a few posts down.
I was, and I wonder if that is the case.
Not convinced the public actually know anything about Bill Gates but assume he is ok because the media don’t question him. His PR team have done a great job in the last decade.
There seems to be the perception that he was a normal kid who was a software genius who made a global multinational from a garage. The truth is that he was from a very influential family who had important business connections (at IBM) which helped him greatly and that he took advantage of other peoples business naivety in the computing world to build an empire. Undoubtedly he is very clever (just look at the business network and influence he has built up) but history has shown he is incredibly ruthless.
Him and Branson. Faux-avuncular.
What makes you think that people trust Bill Gates?
They like his money.
Is it Shetland wool?
I find this difficult to understand.
Yesterday I’m sat on my own on the top deck of a double decker bus – towards the back not wearing a mask. A middle aged couple get on – which means they are younger than me as I’m in my seventies. They definitely notice that I’m not wearing a mask – but they are wearing masks. They sit right at the front of the bus. All through the journey they wear their masks as they chat to each other. It is an open top bus! – not an enclosed space.
They don’t even slip the masks round their chins. They could be sat on their own but for me – at the back of the bus and it is obvious that I’d not bothered if they don’t wear a mask – or it should be. (Or do they think I’m a police officer in mufti setting a trap?)
Why this conformity?
Bus passenger numbers where I live are dire. Does the mask wearing send out the signal that buses bain’t be safe to travel on?
I’ve just been out on a busy road this morning (9am) and seen several buses (I’m in Brixton, south London) and they had barely any passengers on them. I won’t take one while the mask edict is enforced. I think it’s a mixture of the mask-averse and the germ-phobic who are keeping them empty. Either way, Transport for London won’t last very long at this rate.
Transport for London will last for as long as the taxpayer funds it
It’s voodoo. So long as you’re nappied, the big bad bug can’t get you.
Was driving along the sea front just now. In Wales, nappies not required except on public transport. Woman walking along, fully nappied. Sea front empty of other people and a fresh wind blowing from the sea.
Are there any other epidemics going on at the moment? We know from the definition of epidemic, this one ended around April/May (?) but I was wondering if we are able to point to epidemics (as strictly defined) of suicide or MH referrals for example.
There is always an inquest after a suspected suicide. Massive backlog for coroners, so I doubt we’ll get any figures for a very long time
Figures from autopsies at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, including suicides of course.:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30180-8/fulltext
You are not alone in this misconception (re. the term ‘epidemic’ as officially defined – 40 per 10,000 in the community).
…. but this never reached true ‘epidemic’ proportions. See :
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/
Thanks for the clarity, Rick
A study of 1800 immuno suppressed kids in which my daughter was involved has shown that not a single one has been hospitalised because of covid.
Good news. I know a young woman who works in a Montreal Starbucks who is immuno suppressed.
Coronavirus LIVE: UK faces TOTAL LOCKDOWN as cases surge – warning issued for NEW wave
MATT HANCOCK has warned a new nationwide lockdown could be enforced after daily coronavirus cases hit a three-month high.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1332223/coronavirus-latest-news-coronavirus-uk-lockdown-uk-cases-boris-johnson-matt-hancock
Time Hancock was forced to STAY HOME and let the rest of us get on with our lives.
Someone (here?) mentioned the date 17th or 18th September a few weeks ago as the date to look out for.
I will be getting myself in trouble in the next Total Lockdown. I will not comply. I will deliberately be breaking the rules. Cases pose no danger to society. Lockdown does.
10.10.20
Please expand…
yes, please do!
no, please don’t … !
It has been spotted on many so-called conspiracy websites that dates of a type that have matching numbers (20-02-20 or 02-02-20 or 11-11 etc) are all used by evil people as dates upon which they try to “move things forward”. I must admit I have also spotted this. The London attacks were on 7/7, and so on.
oh shit
I broke all the rules last time but you are limited in what you can do if everywhere and everything is closed.I don’t think they will go for full lockdown as they cannot afford it
Remember what Whitty said about the balance for opening up schools? Most likely scenario is pubs closing but surely they can’t close cafes & restaurants after spending a month encouraging everyone to go to them?
Good luck with that. The publicans are starting to really feel the heat now and are organising to open up. Industry bodies are insisting it is make or break time
Yes. The one thing that a “conservative” government can’t mess with too much is their financial supporters, the Captains of Industry hold their purse-strings. I personally reckon this will be a big deal and may just save our bacon.
Project Fear has worked too well; the government is now having great difficulty in winding the fear down. The combination of teachers being paid to stay at home together with their unwillingness to go back to confronting the “difficult” pupils, and the desire to make things difficult for the government is causing them to be very reluctant to return to work. This is reflected in other industries. I just wish the police would be affected by the same behaviour; after all, they don’t catch any real criminals any more.
We couldn’t afford the first one, which is continuing. Lockdown never ended. The New Normal is Lockdown.
Luckily I live near swathes of moorland and forest to get lost in… I’m glad I moved from the city a few years ago! Last lockdown, my heart went out to those trapped in the urban wilderness.
It depends whether total economic collapse is part fo their plan. Destroy everything so they can rebuild from scratch (the Great Reset). If that’s the case, they won’t care about the effects of another full lockdown.
I have been told that several of the big banks are finally teetering on the very brink of the abyss. Nothing better to get rid of all that debt than by saying “a big virus did it and ran away” and then when the economy crashes, take all the property off those not lucky enough to be able to pay their mortgages.
They think that all they need to do to avoid the pitchforks and lamp-posts is to keep the TV and food coming; “Panem et circenses”.
We cannot afford it, they it seems can do what ever they like.
They can afford it… they don’t give a shit about us.
They couldn’t afford the last one.
It might have been 19th September which was the date I heard… my wife (who has psychic abilities (crazy, I know… but I’ve witnessed it myself – jaw-dropping and paradigm-shifting, to be honest), thinks we’ll have Lockdown MkII October to March.
Take it or leave it…
So covering the period before, during and after the US election…?
Yes, very much. An enormous amount of this crap is about trying to stop Trump being re-elected. I know that he does not have a direct connection to this country, but if they want to produce a lockdown or semi-civil-war condition in the USA, it’s no good if we are completely lockdown-free.
I’ll leave it. Thanks all the same.
Haha! I don’t blame you. But she’s always so fucking right all the time. Downside for me is that I have to be a good boy all the time… She knows everything…
Another rally was planned for September 19. One for the 26th as well.
Any significance attached to these dates? Other world events? Trying to work out ‘why just then’..
No idea I’m afraid. Hopefully she’s wrong.
This is just guesswork.
Unless you can provide any evidence that these dates are significant.
I’m not receptive to ladies with big earrings and crystal balls.
No evidence, but she’s not guessing. She just tells me what pops into her head. We’ll see if she’s right by the end of the year (hopefully she’s wrong).
As I just said, I am not listening to ladies with big earrings and crystal balls.
She has a crystal ball (though it’s an ornament only), but no earrings.
Could it also have to do with the mid October deadline for the Brexit deal to be done? If there is no deal then apparently food and other imports could be affected.
Best not to panic but also be prepared.
That sounds suspicious. Let’s do it on the 18th. Okay.
Some individuals who have spoken to Met Police officers (back in August) have been told that leave was cancelled for October – I can’t vouch for if this was true (perhaps others on here know?).
If true, it certainly gives the impression that the Met are preparing for an October lockdown (post the Corona virus bill extension inevitably being cleared). They are undoubtably planing on clamping down hard on dissent – I suspect that is why Cressida Dick was at Downing Street last week.
Apart from ignoring the rules, getting fined, not paying, appealing and clogging up the court system (which is my plan) what else can we do to resist?
Not a lot I am afraid. If everyone was just sensible and ignored the media it would be over. The masses seem brainwashed so little hope unless they wake up – and the police ‘just follow orders’. Why can’t we just go back to good hygiene standards and promoting healthy lifestyles. Lockdown makes the population as a whole more unhealthy and poor – why on earth do they persist with this strategy?
That boot sale in Seaford…..! I was thinking of going to one to get rid of some stuff, thought it would be a safe (not in the Covid way) space to get fresh air, enjoy a bit of banter, have a bit of normality, no masks…you know, that sort of thing! Looks like I’m going to take a raincheck on that too.
Boot sales in my area are normal apart from the person taking the gate money having a mask on. The odd stall holder has weird rules about touching their stuff, but most are more than fine. I think it’s important to keep supporting them as a cash based activity.
There’s a ‘depression coming’ in Victoria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6yJc6H-xBQ
Former NSW treasurer Michael Costa says some of the measures taken in Victoria are beyond belief especially given countries across the globe are “dealing with this problem without curfews”.
I should imagine the Victoria-ns are already depressed
Hi all
Has anyone out there been working on or keeping up to date with what the actual risk of being “infected” is and the risk of becoming seriously ill for various age groups?
E.G. if I walk into a crowded room and chat to people what is my chance of being in intensive care in three weeks time?
Obviously I know all the basics but I would like to hear from somebody who really knows their stuff as I am getting involved with a project which may challenge all the social distancing measures for businesses.
This could be important so please help!
Thanks
Looking up David spegalhalter might help and there was an article in the Sunday times about a week ago on infection risk. Carl Heneghans twitter has a link to an article in the spectator around July about risk to age groups think some thing like 1 in 2.5 million for children to 1 in 52 for elderly. Hope that is a start.
I think that’s risk of serious illness or death once infected – not risk of infection.
This kind of stuff is to be seriously avoided. Absolute definition of Pseudoscience
Ridiculous. How far fetched can things be?
It’s a vitally important question – and one that is hard to answer precisely.
As a starting point, I would suggest the ONS Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/englandandwales4september2020
This has the mixed virtue of being official, albeit based on the misleading PCR test.
Currently, their midpoint estimate is that, at a given time, 1 in 2000 ‘have’ the virus – i.e test positive.
(Already, when you think in terms of real life, the notion of a ‘severe’ ‘epidemic’ gets blown out of the water when you’d have to come close to 2000 people to encounter a virus – let alone catch it).
But this is only the start.This is the point at which calculations get a bit difficult. But let’s take a quoted figure of 28% of PCR ‘positives’ as indicating a real infection with a real virus (as opposed to an RNA fragment).
Then the community incidence immediately becomes about 1 in 8000 (in round figures) of the population who is *actually* infected in the real sense.
But this tells us nothing about the curve of the viral load amongst that population, and hence the potentiality of infecting others. Nor does it include a calculation of the general likelihood of infection – under what conditions, proximity, and time of contact.
So this is where it becomes really difficult (forget neat multiplicities for modellers like ‘R’ numbers).
… but infective contact is (as evidenced by current death figures) a pretty rare event
This is confirmed by community surveillance figures from GPs, which suggests that in August, there was a 3 in 10,000 incidence of ‘possible’ or actual Covid infections : i.e less than 1 in 10,000 confirmed infections. so between 1 in 8000 to 1 in 10000 seems a reasonable estimate of the odds of encountering SARS-COV-2.
[ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/ ]
Of becoming infected? Looks pretty vanishingly small to me !
Sorry that it’s a roundabout way of saying ‘f.knows except it’s pretty small odds’!
Indeed. What have SAGE and the WHO etc etc been doing for the last 9 months? Not much of use. Shouldn’t they have been doing serious research that allowed them to answer some of these questions?
They might well have done. But they don’t want it falling into our hands, do they?
Could you do the calculation as:
No of people currently in ICU (not sure what this is now but it was 283 as of end of July as per the most recent ICNARC I can find online, accessed here https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports
Divided by
27000 (from symptom tracker of people thought to be infected currently, which has been fairly static since June https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map)
= 1% chance of being in ICU if you get infected (not age adjusted)
So there is that.
Then you need to work out the chance of being infected on entering a crowded room. 1 in 2000 are currently “infected” as per the tests, which equates to 33,000 people in the UK. One assumes only non symptomatic people would be in the room in the first instance as everyone else would be at home feeling poorly. So 6,000 asymptomatic people out and about. Out of 66 million.
Then there is the probability of you catching it from an asymptomatic person. Which is tiny.
The numbers are getting too small for my calculator now.
Today: 756 covid in hospital. 69 on ventilators.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare
Kill me now. Today’s Jeremy Vine show on R2 is all about ‘Covid rules refresher’. Part of me would like to listen to see if this crap is challenged but I can already feel my blood pressure rising!
Sorry but …. They screen the calls, so only the ones supporting the lockdown will be put through
Don’t listen to his program, the more listeners the stronger his so-called influence
In Peter Hitchen’s column yesterday he challenged readers to write to their local MPs ask him/her why he/she is happy to acquiesce to this government in its rule by dictate and its by-passing of parliament. I was wondering if anybody has done something like this already and wouldn’t mind sharing their letter. A bit lazy maybe, but it would be easier than starting from scratch,
I’ve been meaning to do this this week. I’ll do it tonight in fact!
There are some template letters on the Keep Britain Free site – but not checked them out properly yet.
Thanks all.
I wrote mine some very strongly worded e-mails a few months back. He stopped replying.
Luckily my MP has his own blog so there are plenty of opportunities to express your opinion. Most people who write on there are anti Lockdown
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/
He has written letters to Hancock as to why certain treatment such as Hydroxychloroquine haven’t been used. I don’t think he’s ever received an answer.
Awkward Git did a good one a while back, and Ivor Cummins has excellent ones.
Mine still not answered any correspondence except that once which said “Many thanks for your recent correspondence – please do not hesitate to contact me again on any issue where you feel I may be of assistance.”
Even sending letters by post to his constituency office and they say they have forwarded them to him are ignored.
Still Peter Hitchen can live in hope one will give a proper answer at some point.
This is what I sent to my MP yesterday. I plagiarised PH’s column and added some comments of my own about BLM:
Thank you. I just used your letter as guidance for my own. One point, Piers Corbyn was arrested after the 29th August protest. 26th September is hopefully going to be a bigger protest than that one.
Forgot to put my last correspondence:
https://1drv.ms/w/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiT1jG5oT09bcl3mk?e=wDChx7
What Happens When Billionaires ‘Buy’ the News
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/09/07/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-media.aspx
Yes, his money buys him influence, but he still doesn’t make the decisions.
He has major influence over the WHO that is controlling the worldwide response to their pandemic and that is the reason why we’re being turned into chattels now.
It’s staggering the web of control he has built up. People really need to be made aware of this. They might be more questioning over what they are told.
“I Don’t Want to Die” Cancer Patients Treatment Paused | Carl Vernon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XCwSrI6o8A
Birmingham Stabbings Last Night – “Not Terror Related” / Son of Swedish Top Globalist Convicted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCaorx5lL-4
Sanity 4 Sweden
(This guy really does look like a Viking)
BBC News actually presenting sensible views from Madeleine Grant of DT and others. Talking about context of increased testing, no rise in hospitalisations or deaths.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914699/COVID19_Weekly_Report_02_September_2020.pdf
Gosh!
Dear ConstituentBy JOHNREDWOOD | Published: AUGUST 22, 2020
As we approach the next phase of the pandemic response where all businesses and services are allowed to re-open subject to social distancing rules, I thought I should write to you about where we have reached in handling the crisis. I will start today by looking at the response to the virus itself.
During the last six months I have pressed Ministers to work with doctors and scientists on a better set of treatments for serious cases of the virus. MPs without medical qualifications of course do not offer medical advice, but it is the job of Ministers to ask the profession for results and evidence about what might work. The early response to rely on oxygen, escalating to patients being placed on ventilators left us with a high death rate amongst serious cases. Ministers and advisers have been pressing for controlled trials of a range of therapies. So far this has resulted in the adoption of an anti viral drug which has reduced the time people suffer from the illness and helped recovery in a significant minority of patients. It has led to the approval of a steroid to deal with those patients that have extreme and damaging immune reactions to the virus. It has also led to some doctors considering blood clot busting drugs where there is evidence of clots on the lungs impeding the passage of oxygen into the bloodstream. There are other treatments which are proposed around the world which await conclusive evaluation here by the NHS. This is important, as we all wish to see the death rate down and suffering reduced.
I have taken up the issue of the spread of the disease in hospitals and care homes. Ministers have set policy to avoid the early release of CV 19 patients from hospital into care homes where they might spread the disease. They have also assured me the NHS is imposing strict standards of infection control, and seeking to isolate CV 19 patients and their treatment from other patients and procedures in General Hospitals. This is important not only to cut the spread of the virus, but also to reassure other users of the NHS hospital services that they are not at risk through attending a District General Hospital. My preferred solution of using the new Nightingale hospitals for CV 19 cases, leaving the General hospitals CV 19 free was not adopted, despite the obvious success in creating that substantial extra capacity quickly near the peak of the outbreak.
I have throughout sought to get from the government more accurate, consistent and reliable numerical data about cases of the disease and death rates from the disease. These are crucial to assessing the so called R rate or pace of spread of the virus, and to seeing how successful the NHS is at treating cases and bringing down the death rate as we all wish. Even in the last few days there have been changes to the figures for the number of deaths, as it has emerged again that past published figures were probably overstating the totals. The latest realignment puts the English figures onto a more comparable basis with Scotland by only citing CV 19 where the patient had it within 28 days of death. It still leaves open judgements about whether someone died of CV 19 or died of something else whilst also having had CV 19. The government did decide to seek a more accurate take on the rate of spread by sample testing the general population over time to see how the proportion with the virus varied. This was clearly a better way of judging it than trying to derive it from death rates which were based around changing and not entirely reliable numbers.
As we go forward I trust Ministers will press for more accuracy in data about incidence of the disease and death rates. They need to ensure decisions about local lock downs are well based, and to contain further outbreaks by a good test and trace system. As the Prime Minister has stated, we cannot afford another general lock down and must find other ways of countering the virus whilst allowing business and social life to revive.
Yours sincerely
Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing. Doesn’t seem to have had much effect. I think it will take hugely more backbenchers to threaten a rebellion before the cabinet take any notice. Any key vote on the continuation of lockdown measures will be won by miles because the opposition will all vote for them. The only way for backbench Tories to hold much sway is to refuse to back Brexit legislation unless the government stop this nonsense. I doubt they have the balls for that.
Great work.
The big missing piece is for the NHS and Ministers to focus the message on improving immune systems
They should have done that beginning in January.
As an aside, a couple of years ago my GP told me (presumably as a result of a blood test for something) that I was vitamin D deficient and pointed me to vitamin D supplements. Yes, it seems that once upon a time we did have a (partially) functioning Health System.
Ministers should focus on stopping meddling with our lives and health and leaving us the hell alone.
Letter to the Health Secretary
By JOHNREDWOOD | Published: AUGUST 9, 2020
I would like to follow up on my questions to you concerning the search for treatments that help CV 19 patients. You rightly replied that a number were in clinical research under your Recovery Trial, as well as with the WHO’s Solidarity trial and elsewhere. It was good news that Dexamethasone was shown to have helpful effects for some serious cases.
How are the trials both in the UK and abroad going for
1. Other immune moderators and Interferons?
2. Anti virals including Remdesivir and Hydroxychloroquine?
3. Anti coagulants?
4. Convalescent plasma?
5. Vitamins C and D? 6. Nitric Oxide, zinc and Ozone?
Some of these treatments some doctors say might be best used in the early stages to prevent the disease taking hold , and some may have beneficial effects in serious cases needing oxygen treatment, as with Dexamethasone. Clearly finding more ways of combatting the different features of the serious versions of the pandemic would be of great help in taming it.
Your stated policy of getting the NHS back to work on everything not related to CV 19 is now crucial. New contracts with the private health Sector should be based solely on buying stated procedures, treatments and operations for patients on the NHS waiting list. Buying capacity with no known patient in mind will be wasteful and will not incentivise the NHS to use the private capacity fully, as we saw during lock down.
It is also important that the policy of handling CV 19 cases in isolation hospitals or in clearly sealed off units in District General hospitals is properly enforced and advertised so patients are not put off attending surgeries, clinics and hospitals to have other serious conditions treated. With best wishes to you in getting the NHS fully back to work after the heroic efforts made by some to tackle the dangerous and difficult CV 19 surge.
******************************************
I don’t think he’s ever received an answer
I hope his nanny will be around to help him with the long words in your letter.
There seems to be some interest in guessing “when” the next lockdown will be in England.
I’m still not sure there will be one, but time will tell.
Is anyone interested in holding a lockdown sweepstake? 19th September it seems is apparently the date to put your money on.
One reader says that his wife has said that is the day (well, I’m convinced!) and another has said that “someone here said that date a few weeks ago”.
Carl Heneghan eat your heart out!
10th October has also been mooted with zero evidence.
Well that’s it then!
For those interested in betting I offer this piece on the Aussie horserace, the Coronavirus Cup which was held recently in Melbourne:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmT1aK6WIdU&feature=youtu.be
Don’t take things too seriously my friend. Chill out! Love and peace.
I’m not a betting man. However, I will say that, the point at which they impose another nationwide lockdown and/or shut down one or more sections of of the economy , will be the point at which I concede that there is genuine planned malicious intent.
Too late by then.
They want to extend their vicious Corona Virus Act for TWO more years so that they can take away any freedoms that they have so far forgotten about.
Everyone should write their MPs to ask them what they have been doing while the “government” has been rampaging over our democracy.
Tell them very firmly to vote against extending the Corona Virus Act.
Yes, agree that is important. However, if there is genuine malicious intent, then it’s already too late and it was too late on 13th December.
My MP and me aren’t on very good terms, in fact our battle lines have already been drawn.
Ask them to send you the definition of treason?
Take Fencing lessons.
Am writing at the moment. Just browsing for some ammunition.
I bet we don’t have another one. Those in power know Sweden got it right – the rest is just arse covering. There may be local lockdowns, more mask wearing, test etc. All this is to prove they know what they are doing.
It’s hard to believe that the Government would impose another full ‘lockdown’. The hand-wringing over ‘cases’ is all about maintaining the perception of a threat, in order to justify the original decision. Given the scale of the disaster that the Government has inflicted on the country it’s hardly surprising that they’re trying to avoid blame.
What puzzles me is that the facts are already in the public domain, and have been for some time. Why is no one in politics or the media (with a few honorable exceptions) taking the Government to task over this? Are our elected representatives no longer capable of independent thought?
Good chance of a local lockdown in Kent, Channel ports, M2, M20 area in Jan 2021, to alleviate Brexit lorry bottlenecks. Excuse will be +ve swabs from ramped up testing in Ashford area, home of one of UK’s biggest slaughterhouses.
I’ll go for my birthday 21st Sept. That’s as good a way to decide policy as anything hancock comes up with.
Look at this obnoxious example of weasel words and downright lies from Wancock (The Telegraph live feed, my emphasis):
‘Long Covid’ prevalent among young people, warns Hancock
Affluent young people have helped propel the rise in coronavirus cases, the Health Secretary has suggested.
Speaking on LBC radio, Mr Hancock said younger people could still have serious illness and could pass on disease to more vulnerable people – including their grandparents.
“The rise in the number of cases we have seen over the last few days is largely among younger people – under 25s, especially between 17 and 21 – and the message to all your younger listeners is that even though you are at lower risk of dying from Covid if you’re under 25, you can still have really serious symptoms and consequences.
“Long Covid – where people six months on are still ill – is prevalent among younger people.
“Also, that you can infect other people – this argument that we have seen that some people come out with saying ‘you don’t need to worry about a rise in cases because it is younger people and they don’t die’ – firstly they can get very, very ill.
“And secondly it inevitably leads to older people catching it from them – don’t infect your grandparents.”
Meanwhile, Mr Hancock said the rise in coronavirus cases was not restricted to poorer areas.
He added: “Over the summer we had particular problems in some of the areas that are most deprived.
“Actually, the recent increase we have seen in the last few days is more broadly spread. It’s actually among more affluent younger people where we have seen the rise.”
So how many young people are currently suffering from so-called long-covid?
This man is a gobshite of the worst kind.
Indeed, and why are the journalists reporting this stuff not asking these questions, and contacting other sources to get some balance? As someone put it the other day, a lot of journalism these days is churnalism.
Why did journalists not spot that in week 20 fewer Londoners died than is usual, that this trend continued and soon applied to the rest of the country.
I was aware of it (week 21 Hector Drummond blog), we all know about it, why weren’t they writing about it until very recently?
MP
Apologises To Marcus Rashford For Facts Of Life 
Stop It!!!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyreoSbogb4
There’s a lot of gobshitery about in the so called Conservative Party
He is dangerous and should be removed – to an asylum. Unfortunately the Dear Leader is similarly afflicted, although he has the Brexit negotiations to distract him (and us), meaning Handsy has free reign.
I think Hancock has kidnapped Boris’ previously unacknowledged love child and is holding it hostage to bend Boris to his evil ways.
No – he’s kidnapped Boris’s previous personality and inserted a new one of his own manufacture. Much more effective.
“He’s having a go at the birds now, says they’re scroungers. He’s making it up as he goes along.”
Life of Brian, 1979
I haven’t got anything against the birds Consider the lilies.
He’s having a go at the flowers now.
He’s not the Messiah……..
But he thinks he is!
“Well I say he is and I should know: I’ve followed a few!”
The wit and wisdom of Monty Python. Never fully appreciated in their day…
I wish they would make a film on this fiasco it would be hilarious
Which of course was written as a satirical view of what was going off in the early to mid 1970s.
ie. the last time this happened. We’re moving on from the neo-hippie period. What I want to know is when the neo-punks are going to show up?
Until a week ago I was in Ireland. I was picking up there just in conversation that long term impact of Covid was very bad. (Which has to be a supposition as it bain’t be around that long.) Clearly there aren’t enough mortality figures to keep people worried.
In the Republic of Ireland there has been a surge (dread term) in “cases” since mid August -but in the last fortnight only one person has been registered as dying with Covid.
I don’t think this can be all put down to youngsters not caring to socialise with their grannies.
Even if all this is true, what’s his solution? Surely, surely even Wancock – even Wancock – can’t think that it’s sustainable to put the world on hold forever?
Imagine if every time you went to the doctor for any symptom, any symptom whatsoever, they asked you if you’d had any flu-like illness in the last 6 months or so, and then ascribed your symptoms to that? Almost 100% of humans could be shown to suffer from Long Flu syndrome causing such diverse symptoms as feeling a bit tired and under the weather, right up to cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease. This is basically what they are doing with covid.
Also, if you’re told that you are likely to suffer from Long Covid, then that is indeed what you will end up suffering from as you focus on every little symptom that arises – the well known nocebo effect.
As a 22-year-old I find it disgusting that our generation is being scapegoated for ‘killing granny’ when that’s just not true and when we’ve already been royally fucked by lockdown. An entire cohort on the cusp of adult life, who should be enjoying freedom and travel and experiences and forging new relationships, has had it all snatched away in favour of a drastically curtailed existence and back-breaking public debt that they will spend the rest of their adult lives repaying. And now this. It’s beyond revolting and I think Hancock is despicable for putting it in these terms. If anything, letting it spread amongst healthy young people is precisely the way to ‘protect granny’ via herd immunity!
Hancock and his contemporaries should be careful how they treat my generation, because we are the voters of tomorrow.
Well said Poppy – as a mother of two sons, 20 and 18. Your posts are always insightful.
Of course you won’t kill granny. That would only happen if you had a raging infection (high viral load) and sneezed on her while touching her with mask ridden hands. Most young people have too much sense to do that, just as they refrain from licking windows. All young people are being treated like fools because there might be window lickers out there.
I’ve seen a few, young window lickers in Montreal recently.
I think you make two good points here.
The divide and conquer strategy seems to be well in motion on this, like a few other recent events. We’ve previously had the older generation being blamed for ruining the lives of the younger generation through either pensions or the housing market as well as the EU referendum result. The key thing is, blame some amorphous demographic so that the heat is removed from the politicians, bureaucrats, media etc. and have the general public squabble amongst themselves.
The other is the point that Hancock wants to have his cake and eat it. If SARS-CoV2 is not spread among the general populace then there will never be any substantive herd immunity and therefore there will never be anything but lockdown (at least until a mythical vaccine is found). If we erronously define a case as detecting the virus, there will always be incidences and therefore always the need to stop people from interacting. It is asinine absurdity.
Poppy, I feel for you and your generation. I’m glad my sons are a little older so they at least had a normal start to adult life but I’m so fearful of how much longer this will go on and the dreadful consequences.
I actually think now that Matt Hancock is a somewhat deranged individual who will only be happy if we have a serious second wave. Most sane people want it gone, as it largely appears to be now, over-testing not withstanding. He appears to be enjoying it. Maybe, to be fair, he is just scared of the backlash if it is now acknowledged to be gone. As many say on here the government has no exit strategy other than the unicorn of an effective and safe vaccine. Boris’s brush with mortality has completely removed any backbone he previously had.
As a certified Old Fart – I totally agree with you.
That said, I am disappointed that your generation isn’t massively outpacing mine in terms of visible opposition. It’s the job of the young to be energetically resistant to all this crap.
Too interested in black thugs, unfortunately.
In fairness, your generation is probably being scapegoated because those of us who are a bit older don’t have grannies to kill any more.
If it’s any help Poppy Grannies did not ask handprick to do this on their behalf in fact to the contrary most were and still are saying they should (have) let Covid run it’s course “as usual”.
Exactly. Most older people I know are very pragmatic about the whole thing. As one 80+ year old said – there is always something going around somewhere and she wasn’t planning to put the rest of her life on hold because of it.
Bring back The Raging Grannies.
“I find it disgusting that our generation is being scapegoated for ‘killing granny’ when that’s just not true and when we’ve already been royally fucked by lockdown.”
I lost my temper with my mother on the phone about half an hour over this issue. She’s swallowed the propaganda whole.
My step-son’s starting in uni (Salford of all places!) on Monday and I dread what his experience of his first year will be.
I’m keeping it all love and light when’s he’s around, but inwardly I feel gloom. At least he’s sharing the experience with his two best friends from college, so he won’t be alone.
Let the young live. The virus is my problem, for me to deal with – not theirs.
he needs removing
v dangerous threat to public health and well being
Report him to the Health & Safety Executive
Hancock clearly wants us to eat the rich to Defeat the Covid, tosser.
Sent my letter to Ludlow Town Council.
Here is a link to it:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiTm-kDlVy5f9D5Px?e=xaKqKE
There “covid-19 market regulations v2” on their website is a gold-plated piece of nonsense as well.
https://1drv.ms/w/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiTu32092bq-bOw3A?e=TU2kGi
Peter Hitchens: ‘Coronavirus has been one of the greatest ever failures of journalism’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnfan7Rhztc
Peter Hitchens has told talkRADIO that coverage of coronavirus in the press “has been one of the greatest failures of journalism” in his life.
Indeed. The greatest failure of journalism and political leadership that I can think of, pretty much for all of the recorded history of this country.
All political parties are also GUILTY of mass failure.
Johnson reported in press yesterday re XR
“a free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change”
Clearly they are failing in respect of Covid. They are also failing spectacularly on climate change .
Agree. Johnson is lying
Peter Hitchens is being interviewed by Brian Rose of London Real today – https://freedomplatform.tv/peter-hitchens-britain-is-dead-how-the-governments-response-to-coronavirus-is-disproportionate-to-the-threat/
Really anxious today. Things are already bad enough without another lockdown. But they just want MORE. More lockdowns, more stupid rules, more muzzling, more testing + digital IDs. Most frighteningly, the full Melbourne treatment might just be around the corner. Really in despair now, why should we want to achieve anything when it can be all destroyed in the name of “safety”. I really wish there was more resistance to all this shit.
It is coming and there won’t be another shutdown.
Agreed, in the dozen or more conversations I’ve had today every one expressed exasperated scepticism not instigated by me and nobody was wearing a mask when previously they might have done.
Particular scorn was levelled at tosser Hancock for going on and on about young people ‘causing new cases’ since most now realise that Herd Immunity is the way forward.
Basically, we are being punished because bedwetters – those in power or otherwise – haven’t taken enough care with their own mental health.
It’s not in the name of safety, it’s in the name of control.
Resistance is building. Slowly, but it is coming. More people attending the demos. More sceptical articles in the Press. More sceptical reactions to articles in comment sections. Greater scepticism on social media.
I think the next 10 days are quite critical hapless Hancock is in despair over these test results and is convinced that increased hospital cases and deaths are just around the corner and I am afraid quite a lot of the UK population take the same line.
You can only ‘cry wolf’ so many times, if in 10 days time hospital cases and deaths have not gone up then I think things will start to look up.
He only needs look “Down Under”, where the southern hemisphere has just entered spring. It is the equivalent of March. This month and next month are the two to watch down there. If the deaths and hospitalisations don’t spike there, we have no reason to suspect they will here. Either before or after Xmas.
Like you say, the boy can only cry wolf so many times.
But in ten days everyone will have forgotten he said it and he’ll be onto the next one.
Maybe he’ll have a nervous breakdown and have to escorted from Parliament in a straightjacket.
Yesterday, of course, it was all going to be over with by Christmas… So obviously a second lockdown is on the cards today.
I can’t read the signs of the times. What we see now (including the arbitrary use of pepper spray as a form of corporal punishment for riding maskless) could be regime desperation, a sign that the skids are under our rulers. Or it could be planned and intentional digging in for the long term.
I’m sure that there are many people like me who are great fans of the Marx brothers and their zany anarchic humour, but I think that even they would have turned down a film plot that follows the living nightmare the people of our country are living through at the moment.
Someone sneezes in Accrington: Put the whole of Manchester under house arrest.
Expecting schoolchildren not to mix with their friends.
Having to conduct the business of buying a car behind a 1/4 inch perspex screen as my wife experienced last week “oh and of course you can’t have a test drive because we can’t social distance”
Literally begging people to go back to work.
Cities as large as London and as small as Shrewsbury like ghost towns.
Buses and trains 3/4 empty but never mind “Let’s build HS2,destroy whole communities and people’s homes and let’s incur more and more needless debt as if it’s not bad enough already.
HELLO!!!!!!,people are working from home, companies are going bankrupt, businesses are using Zoom,ect, why are you building the biggest white elephant ever ?
Like I said at the start of this tirade, The Marx brothers, Monty Python and the Goon show would shy away from such a deranged storyline.
Please someone somewhere save us from this living nightmare.
Hail Freedonia
The PM makes Rufus T Firefly look like a political genius
Actually Bojo reminds me of Harpo but without Harpo’s intelligence and command of the English language.
Harpo had class. Whatever class the PM had, has deserted him.
They have in common a wandering eye towards the ladies.
But without Harpo’s charm.
How HS2 can possibly proceed is beyond belief. The capacity arguments (which replaced the speed argument) are over. The Euston line only ever had capacity problems at rush hour.
The Coronavirus Act needs to be given the same treatment as the contract in Night at the Opera. (For those who don’t know, each clause of the contract was torn off till there was nothing left).
What about the sanity clause?
Chico?
‘He lost his shirt’.
They would be censored now.
PS: it’s getting worse and worse, my wife is just about to visit our dentist and has been informed ” don’t wear a coat( what about if it’s raining?) and bring your own pen( presumably because of risk of infection)”
Un-bel-ievable! I have an annual checkup due on 5 November I won’t be going if these stupid rules are in place.
Same for me. I got phone call to get my checkup from May rescheduled and there was a ridiculous amount of rules so I said no thanks. At the very least I was going to cycle there and you are not allowed any personal belongings in surgery so what was I supposed to do with my helmet, keep it on?
Well with Covid every little helps* so why not.
*C. Tesco PLC.
I am going to phone my dentist tomorrow to ask when my next checkup is due. Any crap from them and I’ll cancel my direct debit for Denplan, then shop around for a dentist who is less bed-wetty.
Annual checkups are overrated
A Dentist tells me that part of his Covid Safety cleansing regime is putting a chlorine tablet in the boiling water that he swabs surfaces down with between patients.
This means that several times a day he is breathing in chlorine infused steam and that his lungs are starting to suffer. Nice.
Probably not since it is done in between patients
.
what happens if you don’t bring a pen?
I’d be tempted to sport a white medics coat sans my own pen
It’s on RT, and given their reputation I can’t therefore know if this is true, or just designed to make us angry by a kremlin operative keen on fuelling both sides of every dispute in the west, but if it is true it is horrific:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/499786-germany-corona-world-dehumanizes-dissidents/
If anyone could find a second independent source showing that this is going on, might be useful so we can cite something more respectable than RT when we want to point out the evils of the coronanists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb5x-kVA0uA.
Also found this – the ‘educational’ UK offering: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52616222
Keep feeling the fear, kids!
That game from Wiseman is very creepy.
Second game shows kids collecting masks (to win the game) by picking them ip from the road, no wonder the first game thinks they are so infectious.
“It’s on RT, and given their reputation I can’t therefore know if this is true”
Former journalist and MP Martin Bell has been interviewed on RT. He seemed happy enough about doing it.
You can’t know if most of what you are exposed to by the media is true. You have to take some things on trust.
Not only RT, but all media sources should be treated with at least some degree of suspicion. It’s not right to just say, “well it was printed in (eg) the Telegraph so it’s right”. For that matter, it’s equally not right to say (eg) “it was printed in the Guardian so it’s wrong”, etc.
Often individual journalists are tarred with the same brush because they write for a particular publication. People frequently smear Peter Hitchens who writes for the Mail on Sunday simply because he writes for a publication which has proprietory links to the Daily Mail.
Over the weekend some of Murdoch’s papers were blockaded by XR. You think that this would be okay if they disrupted RT? What is your view of “free speech”?
The Telegraph vigorously defends it’s editorial independence, but individual journalists nevertheless have their own personal prejudices.
I have read and listened to some of RT’s content in the past and I have often found it quite reasonable. It doesn’t tend to parrot government narratives. Some MPs don’t like that.
Certainly I find it’s output no worse than any other media publication and generally preferable – in my subjective opinion – to the Guardian’s output.
I think one should always be a little wary of the media, whoever publishes it.
Malcolm Kendrick found that RT would publish his articles while UK MSM wouldn’t. The article cited by Toby today is on RT.
RT in my experience has been not much different in terms of overall honesty and reliability from British mainstream sources, its biases are just in different directions.
As for its “reputation”, bear in mind a lot of very well connected and funded people have worked very hard to create that “reputation” in the minds of people in the US and UK over the past few years, ever since it became clear that it had the potential to provide a chink in the propaganda wall created in the BBC, Guardian, Times, NYT, WP, etc.
It’s particularly hard now to take seriously criticisms of RT coming from citizens of this country, the country that funds the BBC, given the latter’s shamelessly dishonest and propagandist performance on the coronapanic.
I always smile when the BBC refers to “The Kremlin funded RT”
Does the induction period at the BBC cover electro-shock therapy to remove one’s capacity for self-awareness and recognition of irony?
“Whitehall funded BBC”.
“Second wave” graphs from Norway look familiar.
Suddenly uptick in cases but no change in the most important number.
Look across Europe, this models seems to fit everywhere.
Noting however the US appears to be ok a completely different place, still on first wave?
The US is much more spread out geographically and in terms of climate, and much less densely populated, so one could look upon it as more than one country
So it could have a Pandemic all by itself, darned American exceptionalism.
Yes and No, many states are still mostly suburban, i.e. 80% of population are urban living fairly close together, they are not evenly spread across the land.
Its like the argument from the muzzloids about Sweden is a much bigger country etc, ignoring that 80% of Swddish pop is urban and about 90% of UK.
Most western countries are 80% urban AFAIK
Yesterday
Reported Covid 19-84 deaths: 199
Total population of Europe over 741,000,000 people
Italy Reported Covid 19-84 deaths: 7
Total population of Italy over 60,000,000 people
For that the Government puts Italy on “amber alert”
I think that the word cases should always be written in inverted commas: “cases”.
They are apparently positive test results. Carl Heneghan has been saying for some time now that these tests are likely to be too sensitive and are picking up bits of dead virus.
Yes, they are not cases of Covid 19 the disease, they are positive tests for the Corona Virus.
US is split into “Northern” and “Hot” states. Northern states follow our pattern. Hot states more the patterns of the tropics (Brazil, Peru, Mexico). We have ours early in the year. They have it mid year which will tail off in November.
There’s essentially two curves overlapping due to latitude. If you look at the state splits, you’ll see it.
This is all standard seasonal respiratory disease stuff we’ve known since the 1950s…
Today’s shopping report, curate’s egg, good in parts. Waitrose, bouncer there but only counting in and out, not concerned about my bare face. All other customers muzzled and about 50% partners. One of the latter had a weird transparent muzzle which didn’t fit around her nose at all. Baker’s shop, all good, nice chat about a new line of flapjack style cakes they have started, smiles all round and cash sale. Hardware shop, oh dear. Grumpy (always is) owner pointed me towards the items that OH wanted, no comment about my bare face, but when I went to pay the £1.86, it was strictly no cash. Ridiculous, and I told him so, just got a shoulder shrug.
Garden centre, not been since muzzle day and now wishing I hadn’t gone today. Young whippersnapper on the entrance, no comment about bare face but a few moments later a man attracted my attention to tell me I should be wearing a mask. Not a member of staff, just another customer with his wife. “And it is your business because?” was my reply. He shrunk away with his wife and I decided to add that I was exempt with no further explanation. They side stepped me twice more outside in the fresh air where even the staff were unmuzzled! Missed one item in the one way system (they’ve moved things since I was last there) and had to go out and back in. Different lad on the entrance tried to hand me a muzzle, I declined and simply walked in. Might try a different place next time.
Tricky though it is I wont use a Garden Centre or physically go in to a Supermarket unless/until they STOP the mask cherade.
It’s hideous isn’t it? I have no idea why people accept it so readily. It’s just beyond mental.
Jeremy Vine back in line.
The main segment was “with Covid cases jumping to their highest levels since May we ask if You still understand the rules !”.
A Virologist then used his skills and experience to outline the law before fielding calls from concerned members of the public.
These were uniformly boring but all asked about some minutiae of the regulations in order to slavishly follow.
Topic on MSN “news” Site:
Does your child not want to eat? Could be coronavirus. OR 100 other reasons!
Next Meteor hits earth. Coronavirus to blame!
“He won’t eat his greens, i told you that opening schools would cause a second wave.”
Covid 19 – the new climate change
Not at all similar.
“Did you leave your brains somewhere? Can you remember where it was? And if you can’t actually be basically sceptical and critical and mistrustful of government statements, what are you doing in the trade of journalism anyway? You’re not suited to it. I think this has been one of the greatest failures of journalism that I’ve ever seen in my life, and a totally disgraceful one.”
Peter Hitchens on TalkRadio today, addressing himself to mainstream journalists and their abjectly failed coverage of the coronapanic.
Peter Hitchens: ‘Coronavirus has been one of the greatest ever failures of journalism’
(Linked below by Stephen Priest)
Speaking as someone who well remembers the strongest previous modern candidate for worst failure of journalism, namely the enabling of Bush and Blair’s Iraq crime and blunder, I would certainly say this one has been far worse, both in its scope, its depths of mendacity and stupidity and in its costs (other than for the direct victims of the violence unleashed by the Bush/Blair policy, obviously).
You and Hitchens are right
The MoS deserve some credit for not deplatforming him
Following that debacle, I first heard the phrase “we must do better in future,” with regards to journalism.
What they meant was that they allowed any narrative that the government may be wrong to aired at all. Coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war actually had a lot of open debate and allowed for plenty of dissenting voices in the media. This is what the media had to prevent in future. The invasion of Libya saw no such debate and any broader coverage of the global financial crisis was ignored. Recent issues with Syria and Russia have also been entirely one-sided.
“What they meant was that they allowed any narrative that the government may be wrong to aired at all. Coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war actually had a lot of open debate and allowed for plenty of dissenting voices in the media. This is what the media had to prevent in future.”
It’s certainly true that there was much more dissenting and questioning coverage over Iraq, albeit not necessarily given due prominence, than in the coronapanic. There was still the undue credence given to (often openly absurd) government and quasi-government assertions, but dissent was at least less well hidden. It was still true that those who got their information from the BBC and mainstream media were misinformed, but at least in some cases they did get minimal exposure to real questioning.
“The invasion of Libya saw no such debate and any broader coverage of the global financial crisis was ignored. Recent issues with Syria and Russia have also been entirely one-sided.”
Can’t speak for the financial crisis, but foreign affairs is my particular area of interest and what you say was certainly true about Libya, and coverage of Russia and China and related areas is generally heavily biased.
Anyone whose information comes from the BBC or any of the US sphere mainstream media (certainly English speaking) who thinks they know about geopolitics is wrong, period. The do not have any clear understanding of world events, rather they have a grossly biased one designed to serve the purposes of the elites and lobbies that have clout in the US sphere.
It would be nice to think that next time we have a proposed war or confrontation, people who are here because they now see just how mendacious and misleading our media can be, will be less inclined to go along with the kind of juvenile scaremongering and jingoism used to promote most of the counterproductive wars we have been misled into, over the past couple of decades. Indeed, it would be nice to think some of them might start to reconsider some of their easy assumptions about past events.
“Coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war actually had a lot of open debate”
Yes – there was certainly a difference in degree of suppression – witness the London protest, which didn’t result in a change of policy, but was reasonably reported.
Blair was never let off the hook by the Labour Party at large over the Iraq fictions.
“Blair was never let off the hook by the Labour Party at large over the Iraq fictions.”
Note that the vast majority of them managed to hold their collective noses long enough to re-elect the war criminal as Prime Minister a couple of years later. Vote numbers for Blair the War Criminal in 2005 were only 10% down on Blair the Great Leader of the Labour Party in 2001.
Bloody hypocrites, 90% of them!
The BBC reporting Hancock’s concern about the increase in cases simultaneously reported that in the same 24 hour period two people had died. One might almost think they were trying to undermine the narrative, but it is probably just another example of how occasionally the BBC does actually report inconvenient facts, like when they reported that the World Health Organisation had changed its advice on face masks for the generally population as a result of lobbying or like when they asserted, “We’re in an information war with Russia”. The only thing missing from the report was the contextual fact that on average one thousand and six hundred people die every day, regardless of the coronavirus. Maybe they will include this context at some point in the future.
It was Deborah Cohen who reported on the WHO mask decision. I think she is freelance, and has been a force for sanity. She also did a good report for Newsnight which made clear that the local lockdowns were based on increased testing and not much else. I think she’s pretty sceptical, but careful not to go too far so she can keep her platform (and her livelihood). If anyone wants to send her a story or offer support, her email address is on her website and she does answer
Freelance or not, she is still employed by the BBC.
Yes – the two reports from her that I have seen have been good journalism. Quite unusual.
If she does answer, then we should bombard her with suitable articles for her to study and hopefully use…
I think I just heard the one o’clock news on Radio 4 say something like:-
There been a great increase in Covid cases – they are at their highest since last May. There has been no corresponding increase, however, in hospital admissions and recorded deaths.
And I thought that should be:-
…whilst there’s been a corresponding decrease in hospital admissions and recorded deaths.
Not doing so, I think, is just sloppy journalism rather than trying to distort the picture.
If the government were so worried with cases why are holidays anywhere still allowed?
Feb Half term was a reason for significant spread of the virus.
Surely if keeping schools open and getting people to return to work is the PRIORITY the best solution is to stop people travelling full stop.
Why stop the spread of a virus that is largely now asymptomatic? Working in travel, the industry is on it’s knees already and if all travel was stopped, the Govt. would have to step in financially otherwise millions of jobs would be at risk. The outbound travel industry is worth £35 billion to GDP, employs 3,000,000 across the sector and up to 90,000 jobs are said to be at risk before the end of the month. Stopping all travel would destroy the industry with airlines, hotels, suppliers etc. all going under very quickly.
We have to learn to live with this. Treatments are better, evidence suggests the virus has weakened as most do (it is not in their interest to kill their host).
Just sent a letter to Cunard giving them a copy of my rebuttal of the WTTC’s stance on required measures for travel and tourism.
Links below if you are interested:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiUKobYEvbSO77JTA?e=p8yQ2A
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agv7JEO8MngCiUC5qpLgQuOGO_UK?e=UACOmh
Feel free to plagiarise and quote all you like to trade bodies.
Great answer. So why doesn’t this get explained to Hancock?
“Why stop the spread of a virus that is largely now asymptomatic?”
An excellent question.
One simple answer it has empowered certain groups – politicians, some scientists etc. who really don’t want to sink back into a situation that represents their true significance. The power of the fable has given them an amazing rush.
… and that’s before we get to the ‘Follow the Money’ scenarios.
Indeed. They love the limelight
The PRIORITY is to hold on to power and not be found out. I wouldn’t look for logic. I doubt they are “worried”. I am sure they know it’s all cobblers. If they really thought it was dangerous, there wouldn’t be all these exceptions. It’s all theatre.
I rather suspect they still need some people to be travelling, in order to test out new technology to be used at airports..
Have you noticed spurious new side effects of Covid 19 84 keep appearing?
“Scientist fear having Covid could lead to …x)”
The reality is you have Covid in April. In September you pick up x totally independently of Covid, but it now becomes a potential new side effect of covid
Just like all the Brexit predictions, they do not even possess the imagination to change the approach that worked so well in 2016!
Yes, but this time we don’t get a vote
Boris said we were all going to lose loved ones to Covid. How many of his loved one have died from Covid?
His dad has no fear of Covid. He went on holiday to Greece at the earliest opportunity. Boris had to wait till dad came back before he quarantined Greece.
I don’t even know anyone who has had Covid, let alone died of it!
Boris was like Chicken Licken telling everyone that the sky was falling down.
Now everyone is in the Fox den he doesn’t know how to tell them that the sky isn’t falling down and they’re all too scared to look. Meanwhile the fox is slowing eating them up one by one.
Yes, his dad is 80 so in theory in the ‘vulnerable’ age category who were advised to shield..
The Mod & Top Brass Waste £500,000 Pushing Our Armed Forces Towards Woke Lunacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOfwQ7y0qNI
Excellent. Well worth watching. These woke liberals are so full of shit they have to walk about holding their bottom lip up – face nappies permitting – to stop it pouring out.
The internet, COVID-19, and the open society
Good piece on the information bias currently disabling effective democratic governance in the US sphere.
Includes a bit more information about the censorship of Gabriela Gomes’ important work, which Toby (or Will) referenced here a day or two ago:
“And yet these important findings are being suppressed. As Gomes notes,
Maximum interventions, such as lockdowns and school closures, are thus deemed to be in the public interest. Any science or data which tend to undermine those policies is deemed out of bounds. Only viewpoints that reinforce the policy are allowed. In technical jargon, this is known as “backward.””
An interesting article on the subject of herd immunity: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-04-covid-19-high-prevalence-found-in-cape-town-antibody-study/
This is what happens when a densely populated area with little sanitation and no social distancing is subjected to lock down.
In moral jargon, it’s evil.
It’s the death of science, it’s anti-science.
These idiots will have dragged us back 500 years by the time they are finished and they realise they’ve screwed their own lives up as well as everyone else’s.
https://quillette.com/2020/09/06/the-china-syndrome-part-iv-did-china-fudge-its-data/
Philippe Lemoines last article about China and C-19. Not surprisingly, reading his previous articles, this last one says that China did not fudge data, not much worse than other countries. He is well informed about the claimed suspicion of China’s data but argues from his evidence that China did not fudge data. I’m not sure whether his information that in total 700 million were in lockdown really is correct. I always thought that lock downs outside Hubei were much more difficult to confirm for foreign news organisations. He is also not discussing the probability that China realized that the IFR was much lower than previously assessed in Hubei. That information was then hidden by China to let the world think that only draconian measure was necessary to stop the outbreak. And many countries have imitated China to an amazing attempt also in the repression. This disinformation was to inflict as much economic damage as possible in the competitors and/or great power rivals. Lemoine is also not discussing abut influenza data from China during this period and the possibility that many flu cases might in fact have been C-19.The Chinese state might for foreigners, highlight the testing mania but secretly in many provinces not done that many, as they realized that C-19 was not much worse than flu.
That China was promoting the “coronavirus as deadly disease” narrative from early on has always seemed to me to make much more sense, than the “coverup” narrative. You just have to look at some of the creepy videos in January at a time when nobody had yet even died from what they were calling a “mystery illness.”
How do we account for their incredibly low death rate?
That Kendrick article should be headlined at the top of the page, with big quotations. It explains pretty much everything.
Thing is though, we knew the difference between CFR and IFR back in late March, and that IFR was a small fraction of CFR. This really isn’t news to me.
John Lee’s article the Spectator in late March highlighted this issue.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
It’s behind a paywall, and the site rules here mean I can’t post the text to the whole article, but here’s one paragraph:
Most of the UK testing has been in hospitals, where there is a high concentration of patients susceptible to the effects of any infection. As anyone who has worked with sick people will know, any testing regime that is based only in hospitals will over-estimate the virulence of an infection. Also, we’re only dealing with those Covid-19 cases that have made people sick enough or worried enough to get tested. There will be many more unaware that they have the virus, with either no symptoms, or mild ones.
For me this was a seminal article, in that it confirmed my already extant suspicions that it was all bollocks.
In my view people like Ferguson deliberately confused and abused the data for their own advantage.
Hillary Laughing, Tony Blair Smiling, Barnier and Biden Talking – Why it’s All Good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8wa40eF4lI
Sanity 4 Sweden
the BBC are going to start recording new episodes of Casualty. The first is set at the start of the Coronovirus Crisis and features staff falling ill from the sickness.
Strange, I don’t recall the NHS being staffed by diabetic octogenarian dementia suffers.
This is precisely how the BBC has always worked to indoctrinate the citizenry with attitudes approved by the establishment and the elites who staff it, right back to the earliest days of radio broadcasts of the Archers. It’s how it played its pivotal role in the transformation of this country during the C20th into what it is today.
“it played its pivotal role in the transformation of this country during the C20th into what it is today.”
Indeed – it has been hand in glove with the dominant neoliberal narrative since the 1980s.
“since the 1980s“
LOL! And the rest!
Since the 1950s at least. but I understand that it only began to bother you when it diverged from your own preferences for how the country was to be manipulated, because you evidently liked the way the country was being driven into the ground culminating in the catastrophic 1970s.
I quite liked the 1970’s, colour telly, sound systems, Levi stapress, 4 pints for a quid, MGBGT.
Loons though, they were a mistake.
Your slip is showing.
My reference was to the factual event of financial deregulation and the consequent letting loose of global capital – which forms a direct line to this particular manipulation.
The ‘catastrophic’ 1970s certainly had nothing to touch this culmination of neoliberal global catastrophe! And certainly a reasonably functioning parliament.
As to the 1950s – I am of the generation that knows that, whilst not perfect, it was a far better time in which to grow up than previously, thanks to those who actually fought in the war and put themselves on the line whilst determined afterwards that we wouldn’t regress to the betrayals of the 1920s and 30s.
“Your slip is showing.”
? Doesn’t seem to have any relevance here, even in the usual figurative sense.
“My reference was to the factual event of financial deregulation and the consequent letting loose of global capital – which forms a direct line to this particular manipulation.
The ‘catastrophic’ 1970s certainly had nothing to touch this culmination of neoliberal global catastrophe! And certainly a reasonably functioning parliament.”
Your reference to the 1980s, given your generally expressed views here, was clearly to your demon, Thatcherism, which includes “neoliberalism” for those who rather naively view that as some kind of catch-all explanation.
Certainly for the bulk of the country (ie those who didn’t descend for decades into foaming at the mouth obsession with Margaret Thatcher), there was a dramatic improvement in most aspects of life compared to the lows of the 1970s.
“As to the 1950s – I am of the generation that knows that, whilst not perfect, it was a far better time in which to grow up than previously, thanks to those who actually fought in the war and put themselves on the line whilst determined afterwards that we wouldn’t regress to the betrayals of the 1920s and 30s.”
Exactly, the good things about life in the early C20th, despite relative material and technological poverty were precisely those that prevailed as a result of attitudes and culture existing before the negative effects of BBC indoctrination, among many other issues that dragged us down into the state where we found ourselves this year, culturally unable to resist descending into a mass blue funk at the approach of a glorified flu.
C’mon everyone, longer than that, in fact since it was established in the 1920s. Orwell was employed by the BBC and it was from his employment at the BBC he got his ideas for 1984. The BBC is well known to have played a large and important role in propagandising the population during WWII.
Indeed, though I was excluding the period when we faced an actually genuine existential threat….
Mark I know, I was expected to find Mr. Pastry and The Clitheroe Kid amusing.
I predict nobody will have PPE, but they will nearly all be wearing halos .
Everyone will be dropping flies
The women will be brilliant, the men will be useless.
There will be a racist doctor who says “Don’t bother trying to save that person’s life, Black lives don’t matter!” (probably a Trump lookalike)
And the kid with leukaemia will be Saved when the WHO comes up with a miracle vaccine !
You’re probably right..
I mean it’s not like they’re going to show the staff underworked, twiddling their thumbs and making Tiktok videos..
The BBC is like a propaganda of the establishment. What hope do we have when we are against the might of the British Brainwashing Corporation?
BBC count for What proportion of listeners these days?
I commented on how they had lost their world audience yesterday,.
I heard that each episode will feature a different TikTok dance routine.
And lots and lots of crying nurses.
I can’t think of anything worse!!
I am not looking forward to the next few years of films and TV featuring coronabollocks. Good thing there are still hundreds of great films I haven’t seen yet, and thousands of great books I haven’t read yet.
Clara Kraebber is a 21st Century Patty Hearst.
coming to an airport (and train station) near you
Incredible. To be honest, it’s so bizarre, dystopian and hideous that it made me laugh. WTF is happening in the world!
This comment against the video is a classic:
“So basically, we are already dead and are in hell. That is really the only explanation.”
You got that off a sketchy Dr. Who episode c. 1989, you can tell by the wobbly background sets.
So the people doing the spraying are protected from whatever chemical is in the spray, but not the passengers..
Australians are unaware only nine per cent of COVID deaths caused solely by virus: Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rZ9M7uz6o
Sky News Australia
588K subscribers
SUBSCRIBED
Sky News host Alan Jones says Australians are not being told the facts which clearly show people are dying with coronavirus, not from it.
All these conspiracy theories are clearly complete nonsense.
The fact that everything that has happened so far has matched the conspiracy theories 100% is a complete coincidence.
“everything that has happened so far has matched the conspiracy theories 100% is a complete coincidence“
Has it, though?
Can anyone produce a comprehensive list of the conspiracy theories in circulation, say, a year ago so we can get a true grasp for how many have “come true”, together with how specific they were?
Oooh, what a great project. I might give that a go… might take some time though!
I’ll definitely be interested in the results. Definitions and sources might be tricky issues.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories
Population-based seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 is more than halfway through the herd immunity threshold in the State of Maranhão, Brazil
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.28.20180463v1.full.pdf
According to Prof Balloux
“Serological study from Maranhão, Brazil, looks well done. Key findings – seroprevalence (Infection rate): ~40.4% – IFR: ~0.17% – asymptomatic infections: ~26% – Ratio of estimated infections/reported cases: ~22x – Masks/distancing: marginally protective”
Not sure if anyone has posted this before but here is a letter from PHE to schools advising that people should only get a test if they are exhibiting 1 or more of the three main symptoms, even if a member of the family has been diagnosed positive. That’s a good thing isn’t it? Although of course the main symptoms are the same as a cold or flu so it still means loads of tests come winter no doubt.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914391/Letter_from_PHE_and_NHS_Test_and_Trace_to_school_and_college_leaders.pdf
Young children always have colds. It could be mayhem.
Not just colds – a new school year is always when a fresh round of quotidian infections starts.
I am certainly happy about that. I will be forwarding it to the second master at my daughter’s new school.
How about if you feel unwell, stay at home until you feel better? If you think you have a cold or flu, would you get tested?
Son no 3 has a cold (predictably) 5 days after restarting school. As usual, runny nose causes cough. Was hoping not to test the system quite so early in the term.
My 4 year old went back to nursery and came home with a cold within a week. Runny nose and a slight cough for a few days. No need for a test because up here in Scotland we only need a test if there is a temperature, continuous cough or loss of taste/smell.
We just kept her off for a week and there was no panic. Nobody at the nursery seemed particularly bothered either.
More good news from Sweden:
Sweden’s central government recorded a 19.8 billion kroner (£1.71 billion) surplus on its finances in August, against expectations of a 26.7 billion kroner (£2.31 billion) deficit. Tax revenues were higher than expected and use of government support programmes was lower.
And how very different from things here in dear old Angleterre.
Boris: “Whatever it takes, whatever the cost”
See ‘Millenium Bridge; HS2″
The Old Etonian with the hand in others’ pockets.
Has johnson got enough family money to make it worth going after with a Class Action by those he has ruined ?
How is more private borrowing in kroner by the non-government sector good news for Swedes?
What I took from the headline was that the Swedish Government was expecting to have to spend money it didn’t have, but it turns out that wasn’t needed. Sounds like good news to me.
It has its own currency. And owns the Riskbank. How can it not have whatever kroner it requires?
How much would you have access to if you owned and controlled an entire central bank?
Absolutely nothing unless the place where I owned that bank produced stuff through that wonderful thing called WORK.
Prosperity comes from WORK. The nice stuff we have comes from WORK.
Yes and natural resources, and innovation, and what has already been built, but resources require WORK to extract and use them, innovation requires WORK to arrive at and implement, and what has already been built required WORK.
You’re welcome to set up your own country with a printing press for money, see how far you get.
Ok sounds reasonable.
However not true.
Money is created by the banks.
Simples
They started tapering off the furlough scheme some time ago now..
How will they feel about bailing out the rest of the EU?
Prince William and Kate Middleton saw lockdown as ‘a rare gift’ because royal children are usually ‘unavoidably denied the privilege of prolonged time with parents’, expert claims
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8705283/Prince-William-Kate-Middleton-felt-lockdown-rare-gift-spend-time-children.html#comments
How lovely for them.
“We is Royals, we don’t do tect”
Phil the Hun, 1987.
Where’s Oliver C. when you need him?
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2020-08-31/secretary-generals-remarks-town-hall-young-women-civil-society-organizations-delivered
“The pandemic is only demonstrating what we all know: that millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls and boys.”
Antonio Guterres UN Secretary General
Virtue signaling arsehole.
Right on Sister Smack it to The Man !!!
What a wanker!
And I didn’t quite get it – in which town was this meeting being held?
And they even succeed in dying more from Covid19, the bastards.
Quite a few people don’t like BJ or Handjob. Unsurprisingly, this has left them a little Krankie.
Pandemic Town Hall: Doctors speak about coronavirus therapies which are blocked by authorities
Covid-19 is not a death sentence (video)
https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-09-06-pandemic-town-hall-doctors-speak-about-coronavirus-therapies.html
Panto & West End
Lies – Moron Minister Oliver Dowden Clueless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETht1jElV20
Do our Ministers know nothing? How can the West End & Panto happen for Christmas. Utter lunacy as I explain…
Bit worried about how many of the postcards from overseas (including today’s) say “apart from mandatory masks in shops….everything was pretty normal…” As if that’s no big deal…
Glad I’m not the only one noticing this – imagine someone coming back from a holiday before all this and reporting the same thing… People would’ve said ‘What???? Masks???’
Yes, and masks for walking to and from your restaurant table, which is actually WORSE than here.
Some restaurants here insist on the same. My brother went to one in Melton Mowbray and they had to do do that. I thought last week I had convinced my brother he didn’t need one, sadly he still does.
I have just decided not to go to our local amateur radio club this week (first meeting after lockdown) as everybody except me will be wearing a mask, no tea and coffee as the kitchen is off bounds. Should be an opportunity for a nice chat, I would find it a totally miserable experience.
I thought exactly the same thing when I read it. Sounds like Toronto — my home city that I’ve escaped from since early May. Mandatory masks “only” inside and the same stupidity in restaurants. I’ve eaten outside once but refuse to eat inside and wear the mask to and from the table and washroom. I guess it’s all relative, but “normal” and “mask” should not ever be in the same sentence.
Unfortunately most people think wearing the mask is no problem. These people are braindead. They are also a threat to me and everyone here, even the lefties. And even i don’t wish any harm on them. I want them to be as free as me.
I agree with you but I found in France that there is a difference in attitude. People wear their mask because it is the law but the atmosphere is very different from UK. There is no pretence that they work. Restaurants are full and atmospheric and people remove them to kiss each other! The mandate is complied with but clearly held in disdain. In the UK they are divisive and create conflict between citizens.
Thought you’d seen it all? No you haven’t:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/07/robots-used-uk-care-homes-help-reduce-loneliness
I wouldn’t wish it on those in care homes, and the plan is evil, but judging by how some of what I thought were fellow humans seem to value life and freedom so little, I might prefer to be with robots than some of them
There was a gleeful bit on the BBC tech show (the name of which I’ve forgotten) in early April talking about how exciting it was robots were being used in Belgian care homes.
Apologies if this has already been posted. Spanish chase off police attempting to arrest someone for not wearing a mask.
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1302932100639789056
And the guy who wears a thong as a face nappy. Good one!
Might have got nasty if it was the Guardia Civil instead of the Policia Local but good to see nonetheless.
I just did a back of a fag packet calculation.
There are/were about 418,000 people in UK care homes. 50% of care homes have had a coronavirus outbreak. It wouldn’t surprise you if everyone in those affected care homes had a bit of virus dead/alive floating around in them. Remember 90% of them survived the virus even if they had quite a serious reaction. Still, 418,000 x 50% = 209,000 exposed to the virus.
Residents of care homes live on average 20 months. So, of our 209,000 covid exposed care home residents we would normally expect 10,450 to die each month, that’s about 350 per day. It’s quite likely that some of these perfectly natural deaths are going to be identified as Covid deaths & indeed I would guess loads of them would test positive.
Another source to feed the mad frenzy.
Good point – and don’t forget that the number of vulnerable were considerably inflated by the remarkable previous season of low infection. Many of the elderly/vulnerable cohort who died in 2020 had had a longer life than would have been expected in he normal course of events.
especially true for sweden. +5000 deaths over expected this year, -4000 last year such that seasonal mortality this year is within the interannual variability
pope gone full lockdown sceptic
Pope Francis has told told believers that gossiping “is a worse plague than Covid”.
In his weekly address at the Vatican on Sunday, the Pope said: “Please, brothers and sisters, let’s make an effort not to gossip. The devil is the great gossip. He is always saying bad things about others because he is the liar who tries to split the Church.”
I had always suspected that Facebook was spawned by Lucifer.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
in terms of deaths per million it looks like chile, brazil, ecuador and bolivia will overtake us within a week. Its almost like you can’t really compare countries until it’s all over. Something Professor Spiegelhalter said early on before he was paid to write the article ‘how come UK did so badly’ by the guardian.
There is a basic problem in the data. It makes comparisons impossible, except in terms of all-cause mortality.
tru dat. and even all cause mortality is difficult because you can’t assign it to covid, lockdown or the deconstruction of the health systems and is affected heavily by what happened in previous seasons
That’s right – it’s just a better general gauge of how mortality in general is trending.It is then an assumption what part Covid plays in this. But trying to be specific about Covid is a waste of time.
Yet another talking point away. There’s only been 13,000 in intensive care with the pneumonia that comes from SARS-COV to ACE2 binding at the lung (Covid-19) (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland). About 8,000 survived. If there are people suffering long terms illness, it’s very very few.
Covid-19: utterly false perception of great danger created by letting some old and ill people die
This goes to the heart of dying from or dying with.
It’s possible for somebody with a serious health condition to test positive for the virus be asymptomatic and die. If they’re asymptomatic then the virus didn’t kill them.
Last month in a magazine article the Rail Safety and Standards Board stated that the risk of catching Covid on a train journey was ‘extremely low’,about 1 in 11,000.
In the latest edition of the magazine there is a letter from someone who feels that 1 in 11,000 is actually ‘alarmingly high’.
I’m sure the 44% of RAF Bomber Command airmen that were killed in WW2 wouldn’t have thought 1 in 11,000 ‘alarmingly high’,this country is utterly pathetic now.
Well if you could fit the population of the world in a single carriage that would work out to be around 600k dead in that carriage alone. Think how much time would be lost at each stop unloading the corpses. Trains barely run on time as it is. Now imagine a train with multiple carriages…
The numbers are meaningless though. 1 in 11,000 based on what? That somebody else in the carriage has it? Your journey is from Penzance to Aberdeen or is it if you go from Bradford to Leeds? How big is the train carriage, what are the average number of passengers etc etc? . The number is just nonsense. Like most of them,
It’s a fair average estimate of coming across someone with a viable virus – based on available data.
The chance of an individual becoming infected is considerably less – and, yes, affected by other conditions.
The point is, however, that some indication of the degree of real risk is needed at this time of gross exaggeration.
Those people love fiddling with numbers. Most of the time the results are skewed. And that’s the way they like it.
You focus on an essential feature of the current barminess – the absolute lack of any assessment of real risk.
Who is the most barmy : someone who regularly got into a bomber to oppose totalitarianism or someone who bows the knee to totalitarian instruction because they have a 1 in 10000 chance of catching a fairly ordinary virus?
You have a 1 in 33,000 chance of being killed in a road accident in UK (source https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/whats-likelihood-getting-car-accident-uk). Killed, not just being involved in one. And since the IFR of Covid is 0.1% by my pathetic maths that makes it either 1 in 100,000 or 1 in a million of catching it on a train and it killing you. Bet the person who thinks it alarmingly high to risk the train has no compunction about getting in a car.
I’m supposed to be returning to work next week (1 week in, 2 weeks from home) and I’ve just been told that, though I won’t have to wear a muzzle at my desk, I’m supposed to muzzle up everytime I leave it. I said that, in that case, I’d rather continue working from home. Not sure what I’m going to do if that request gets turned down. This madness shows no sign of ending.
Can you use an exemption card? You should be able to …
Probably but I dislike having to and if I’m the only unmuzzled one there I have no doubt that will probably go down as a black mark against my name with management.
Show them the studies that show masks do not work, include teh DELVE one about the hamster.
Ask to see the risk assessment and supporting documents and research to show their mitigations will work.
health and Safety at Work legislation says you do not have to work to a risk assessment you do not agree with but can use one you are happy with as long as you have evidence to prove your mitigations are researched.
Also show them the HS+E info on correct PPE (it’s on their website), training and so on and see what happen. They supply incorrect PPE for virus protection as that is what they say the mask is for and then give you no FIT test and no training they have broken the law and that incurs big fines.
Don’t forget COSHH as well as a virus is a hazardous substance. Then there is the correct disposal of possibly contaminated equipemnt to consider.
Hector Drummond had a good post a few months ago about this subject.
Push back and your employer can get in a big muddle, sacks you go to tribunal claiming constructive dismissal.
Good info. I’ll have a look for the Hector Drummond post. Thanks.
Also take a look on nomasks.info – lots of articles and papers that state that masks don’t work.
Point of order: the DELVE hamster study suggests that masks do work. Unfortunately for DELVE what it really shows is that stringing mask material between the cages of hamsters seems to limit the transmission of SARS 2 between said hamsters. What it does not show is how this can have any bearing at all on the transmission of the virus between animals more than 1000x larger with completely different material strapped directly to their respiratory orifices. My lungs are probably the size of 100 whole hamsters.
I suppose if you wear a mask it might stop you breathing in whole hamsters.
I had a hamster when I was a kid. I did not inhale.
Good point.
However, the madness is beginning to end – just watched the Spanish video you linked to earlier. It was indeed a beautiful thing to see! Thanks for sharing. “Libertad!”
Maybe you should think about changing who your managers are – but I appreciate that’s not easy at present
I manage people and am clear I would NEVER force people to wear masks
Have they said why? Is on a whim ? They must have a reason.
They haven’t said why. I have requested more clarification. I suspect that maybe some bedwetters were worried and they are trying to appease them but I really don’t know.
I am in a similar situation. Guidance changed from some masked areas that it would ordinarily be possible, if inconvenient, to avoid en route to my desk, to masks everywhere but – so there is no way to avoid visible compliance or non-compliance. My intention is to go in less than I had hoped, and balls it out when I do.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54061938, Greek islands on the naughty step as anticipated
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46399090
I like to post this BBC report from 30th November 2018 that reports over 50,000 excess deaths in 2017/18. I find no one ever believes me when I tell them, show/send them this report & suddenly you see the penny begin to drop.
It is satisfying to know there is information out there produced by an organisation like the BBC that can be used to neutralise that organisation’s own current lies. And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. Unless… they decide to start erasing past news reports and scientific papers because they’re “dangerous” and could cause people to take a more relaxed attitude to Covid.
Don’t give them ideas. I’m surprised it’s still there.
You mirror my experience. Individuals who are usually pretty sceptical or questioning can’t believe the facts. Such is the power of propaganda.
As an experiment, try this one :
“Covid-19 never reached the level in the community (even at its worst) required for the definition of an ‘epidemic’ ” (40 in 10,000 population in one week)
See : https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/
for the data.
This is so on the money. At some point people are going to twig that their doctors have gone AWOL. It’s hard to win trust but easy to lose it.
A lot of people have twigged. The doctors are unhappy about it as well, judging by GP comments on Pulse magazine website, which is for medical professionals only.
Dr.Kendrick’s article in RT reckons it was a terrible ‘mistake’ and monumental ‘stupidity’. It wasn’t a mistake, nor was it stupidity, it was a cover for draconian laws against civil liberties. Everyone knows now that ‘infections’ are not ‘cases’ (i.e require medical intervention) but Hancock and his minions insist that they are so they can keep the numbers up (spikes, surges, spikes, surges) to keep the fear up and make people compliant. The same logic applies to muzzles, this disease is no longer dangerous but they are going to keep on turning the screws until we really do rise up or capitulate completely. I’m not sure about the website that uploaded this to YouTube (bit too conspiratorial for me) but these German doctors are saying this is a massive global scam and I can buy into that. On this alone I’m with Piers Corbyn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5YJhwJCS2o
I could never have imagined a time when Piers Corbyn was the most high profile person standing up for our freedom and liberty. He was very poorly treated by Yorkshire police. Unsurprisingly, yet to see any mainstream media condemnation.
It’s not just Hancock. They’re doing the same in other countries, e.g. Australia and the US, and probably elsewhere.
One has to ask why. Why are they all doing it in unison?? Is this being coordinated?
No to all vaccines! Check the CDC study from last week again.
This has just appeared in The Telegraph live feed:
South Korea develops test that can tell the difference between coronavirus and seasonal flu
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) has announced it is developing a test kit that will be able to detect both seasonal flu and Covid-19.
Both diseases display similar symptoms, making it difficult for medical professionals to administer the right type of test from the beginning.
“As Covid-19 and influenza share symptoms, it is very important to discern them from each other in the country’s fight against the new coronavirus,” KCDC Director Jeong Eun-kyeong said in a briefing.
The KCDC says that several institutions have applied to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for kits and that the approval process is already under way.
Just to confirm – the current (unreliable) PCR test can differentiate between bat flu and seasonal flu, can’t it? In other words, it picks up bat flu (allegedly) but doesn’t pick up seasonal flu ….
As you point out, we should only need the one test anyway, as we’re told the PCR test cannot possibly cross-react with any other viruses, and a positive test result is guaranteed 100% accurate confirmation that you are infected with coronavirus.
Also, depsite the fact the seasonal flu does indeed kill grannies (and children), everyone breathes a sigh of relief if the test is negative for the dreaded corona and you are free to spread your flu as far and wide as you like.
It can, yes. Or at least, I bloody hope it can, since they’re completely different families of virus. This is stupid journalism or bad writing – the new test can test for _both_ SARS 2 _and_ ‘flu and differentiate between them. At present we can only test for _either_ SARS 2 _or_ ‘flu*, meaning 2 tests might be needed.
*obviously we can test for lots of other things as well if we want to.
I’d rather know if they can tell the difference between CV19 and a cold virus…
I think Guy153 (and probably others) have shown pretty clearly here that they can.
The PCR test will never confuse the two. But an antibody test easily might.
It’s more important than you think to test for multiple viruses. First it provides context but also if you have the flu and have symptoms then they look a lot like Covid. So what if you have a positive Covid AND Flu?
If you don’t have unique symptoms of one then you can’t attribute them. But what happens is that Covid is put down. That isn’t how you are supposed to record data.
Prof Carl Heneghan & Tom Jefferson
Covid-19 and the end of clinical medicine as we know it
When we trained at medical school we were taught to approach each patient on his or her own merits. We were taught to take a history: ask questions about past medical problems, drugs and present complaints; to do a physical examination and make a management plan including those tests that allowed us to narrow the range of possible diagnoses. Treatment was the next option. After we learned to do all this, we were awarded the title of doctor – professionally trained, licensed and regulated to carry out the procedures described. This model of actions which has a long history is called clinical medicine. But what impact has Covid-19 had on this tried and tested way of doing things?
In the last 30 years, clinical medicine has had two important evolutions. The first was the recognition of the primacy of the patient in all our actions. Physicians then become benign agents between the patients and the ‘system’ giving the best advice possible, reducing uncertainties, and directing action when needed on the basis of interpretation of the complex set of circumstances of each patient. The second is the advent of evidence-based medicine (EBM), or the recognition that any course of action needs to be based on the best available up to date scientific evidence. When there is uncertainty this needs to be communicated to the patient.
Patient-centricity and EBM became swiftly incorporated into clinical medicine. Communication, partnership and teamwork and ‘Maintaining Trust’ became essential components of Good Medical Practice – the essential guidance that describes what it means to be a good doctor. Effectively interacting with others and ensuring that all concerns are heard and above all ensuring the care of our patients is our first concern. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, has seen a retreat of clinical medicine, patient centricity and EBM.
Consultations have become more difficult to obtain, and the ignorance of the basics of infectious disease control has seen hospitals transformed into infectious centres with patients fearful of admission or outpatient appointments. Further nervousness amongst patients has been fuelled by mathematical models purporting to forecast the future and mass and inappropriate use of tests which cannot distinguish those who are infectious and require isolation from those who harbour remnants of the infectious agents.
The patient has become a prisoner of a system labelling him or her as ‘positive’ when we are not sure what that label means. Physicians have been completely bypassed in the biotech decision making machine that now makes and reports the diagnosis.
And what of EBM in all this? The deluge of studies on the previously little studied coronaviruses would point to a prodigious increase in knowledge, but only a few add to our understanding. Many are clearly ‘me too’ efforts where researchers need to have their name associated with the pandemic. A good example of this is the number of reviews of the evidence on masks published in the last three months – fifteen to our knowledge. Yet, the number of published trials on the effects of masks in Covid-19 transmission is – so far – zero.
Governments are producing a series of contradictory and confusing policies which have a brief shelf life as the next crisis emerges. It is increasingly clear the evidence is often ignored. Keeping up to date is a full time occupation, and the advances of the last 30 years have at best been put on hold.
The duties of a good doctor include working in partnership with patients to inform them about what they want or need in a way they can understand, and respecting their rights to reach decisions with you about their treatment and care. Questions need to be asked as to how this will occur if you don’t see your doctor, particularly if all you have to do is queue in at a drive in to get your answer.
And ultimately what is a ‘good test’? We think it’s the test which helps your doctor narrow the uncertainty around the origins and management of your problem.
WRITTEN BY
Prof Carl Heneghan & Tom Jefferson
Carl Heneghan is professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford and director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Tom Jefferson is a senior associate tutor and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford
from the Spectator
I think I may love Carl Heneghan but, mercifully for him, not in a weird stalker-ish way….
Yes me too – and Dr John Lee as well
Think you’ve got quite a lot of competition on the Heneghan front…
He really is the go to man. I keep trying to work out if he is Yorkshire born where I am from or Lancashire born where I live now. Anyone know?
Sounds Lancastrian to me, I am going to guess Bolton area.
He’s Scottish. Edinburgh. Not joking. He obviously has picked up the manchester lilt-twang along the way.
Move over, I loved him first!
And Peter Hitchens and David Starkey and Lord Sumption… heck, I’m a sceptical woukd-be polygamist, or whatever the female equivalent is.
Sumption has been very quiet lately.
But back on topic, I’ll sign up to the Heneghan fan club, but I don’t think I’ll have his babies.
Who knew common sense could be so sexy?
The CEBM has always been my touchstone of sanity in this era of insanity.
As has been pointed out below :
Risk of death opposing totalitarianism (Bomber crews, WW II) = 1 in 2 (and a bit)
Risk of death required for a current subservience to totalitarian curtailment of civil rights = ~ 1 in 1,000,000.
always useful to drop into a FB debate when getting accused of pushing a selfish narrative to lift the lockdown
“a selfish narrative to lift the lockdown”
Uh?
Am I wrong in reading this as barmy nonsense?
I think you missed the “getting accused of”
At the current mortality rate, more like 1 in 35 million….
It really is a fantastic article. I feel how they both have tried to find the right way to say enough is enough without being confrontational and without anger but their message comes over loud and clear. Well done those men. They really are fighting for us
Wankock will read that and say “Bollocks to them. Who do they think they are. I’m in charge here”.
I doubt Hancock reads much, or has much interest in expanding his understanding. He certainly betrays no sign of curiousity.
Can he read?
Well – he can’t read numbers.
It actually reminds me of His Dark Materials. Oxford being the bastion against the Magisterium
Excess winter deaths highest since 1970s, says ONS
30 November 2018
There were around 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017-18 – the highest since the winter of 1975-76, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.
The increase is thought to be down to the flu, the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine in older people and spells of very cold weather last winter.
Most excess deaths occurred in women and the over-85s.
Similar peaks in excess deaths have been seen in previous years.
Before the 2017-18 peak in excess winter deaths, there were peaks in 2014-15 and 1999-2000.
An extra 6,000 deaths are estimated to have occurred during last winter compared with three years ago.
The figures for last winter, counted as December to March, are still provisional while figures for all other previous winters have been confirmed.
Chilly temperatures
Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the Office for National Statistics said: “Peaks like these are not unusual – we have seen more than eight peaks during the last 40 years.
“It is likely that last winter’s increase was due to the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine and below average winter temperatures”.
Last winter, two strains of flu – influenza A and B – were circulating.
Despite more people over 65 getting a flu jab, the vaccine was more effective in younger people and could explain why flu had a greater impact on elderly people, the ONS said.
This year, it is hoped that an enhanced flu vaccine for elderly people should perform better.
The ONS said the increases could also be explained partly by colder weather and lower temperatures, compared with the five-year average, in December, February and March.
More than a third of the excess deaths were caused by respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia.
GP surgeries and pharmacies should have all their stocks of the flu vaccine by now.
Public Health England has advised all adults over 65 to have the vaccine as soon as possible.
From the BBC Website
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46399090
A good one to send people who insist on saying coronavirus is exceptional
Sadly a lot of people can’t handle the truth.
This is worth reading – it’s mention on this website Malcolm Kendrick,
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/500000-covid19-math-mistake-panic/
I reported back in March on Twitter that there were 28330 deaths from flu in 2014-5 and got one response – “comparing oranges with apples I’m afraid”. Still don’t know what they meant
10 of the 20 years between 1950 & 1970 saw excess deaths of over 60,000. This during a period when the population was more than 25% below today’s. So 60,000 then equates to 75,000 in today’s money. Remarkably quite a few of the contributors on this site managed to survive these cruel annual culls.
Not only did we survive them, most people didn’t know anyone who didn’t.
“Excess winter deaths highest since 1970s, says ONS”
Uh?
That’s total, utter, verifiable, bollocks.
2019-20 was only the eighth season in terms of mortality since 1993/94.
… but, of course, you have to have the basic numeracy to correct for population size.
As to the term ‘excess deaths’ – that’s another layer of bollocks which indicates only a Mystic Meg modelling projection (I’ll explain if any Fergusson clone is actually too dim to understand)
The headline refers to 2017-18 not 2019-2020.
My 12 year old challenged her science teacher’s coronavirus narrative today (low risk for healthy kids) – pretty proud of that!
I work in a primary school and I’m glad to report that it’s all pretty relaxed so far – dreading anyone testing positive though…
Good on her. I’m hoping mine will do the same.
Good for her, tell her well done from me.
Three cheers for your daughter and her excellent parents.
Picking up my daughter at the school gates today, I encountered … drum roll … my very first full-blown True Believer (I’m not counting family – my mum swallows everything the BBC spoonfeeds her). We chatted about the school day – then the conversation turned to “The Virus™”. I discovered that she was absolutely petrified. The fact that she had made her 9-year old son wear a mask all day was a big giveaway.
To try to put things into context for her, I quoted a few nuggets of truth abut the virus (thanks Swiss Doctor). I even told her how my neighbour tested positive, but suffered no ill effects. What was fascinating was her response. “I won’t listen to what anyone says – I don’t want to risk catching it.”
The only thing that will cure these people of their hysteria is, I’m afraid, a vaccine they believe is 100% effective against the ‘rona. Anything less and they will be prepared to live this living death of theirs for the rest of their miserable lives.
However, I do think that people like her are in the minority. Over the summer I’ve talked to dozens of people, and none were as extreme as her. All apart from her were willing to listen to a sceptical view. I’ve seen hundreds, probably thousands of people disregarding the ‘guidance’ on beaches and town centres, and elsewhere. Despite my disheartening encounter today, I still feel hopeful, that most only pay lip-service to the official narrative.
This is where strong political leadership comes in, at the moment the dominant political narrative reinforces her fear, isolate it and it will be more inclined to dissipate.
None of the kids in our primary school are wearing masks.
A chap came to fix the school dishwasher today and he had a mask in his hand but he didn’t put it on.
Our head agreed with me that masks are just a collecting point for germs and to be avoided!
Thank God for even one head who isn’t a sadistic child abuser.
That’s a very perceptive observation in terms of the range of responses.
I think that what worries me most is the refusal of many to see the dangers of ‘just going along with it’ for the sake of a quiet life.
That’s what did for Germany in the 1930s.
I wonder if she’s equally terrified of the flu-like viruses that do the rounds most years…
I used to think that was a good argument that would shut these people down, but they are now advocating masks and anti-social distancing FOREVER since they’ve just now discovered how deadly the flu can be. This is what we’re up against…give me strength.
“What was fascinating was her response. “I won’t listen to what anyone says – I don’t want to risk catching it.”“
I’ve come across that kind of complete blanking response occasionally, as well. I get the impression these people are afraid to engage in case they somehow get tricked into becoming heretics. The only safe thing to do is to only take your information and opinions from approved sources.
Peter Hitchens in his TalkRadio piece today suggested he’s starting to think along the lines of a lot of people just liking to be scared, because it gives them an excuse to slump into the protective arms of authority.
He might be right in that.
Oh yes, and well done to your daughter! Brilliant!
Please tell me your school is not imposing tests on kids or teachers?
We have received tests in school but I checked the government guidance and they are a last resort if parents can’t get a test elsewhere…
Good to hear – thank you.
I’m wondering what the end result is going to be when the inevitable day comes in the next few weeks when one or other of my primary aged children has a sniffle and is sent home and I refuse to get any of us tested. We will just have to wait and see.
Well done to your daughter. My son has been trained to do the same. He goes back on Wednesday!
Good luck to him, we are with him!
These people who want to keep us locked up until there is no more virus are insane. It’s like they refuse to see the damage being done to everyone. The must be stopped. If they don’t then i’m pretty sure the consequences for them will be very severe because i don’t believe they’re ever gonna stop. I predict an IRA style militia will form to take back our country from these lunatics. We don’t want that but we can’t go on with this nightmare any longer and they won’t listen, they just won’t listen. The time has come for them to stop.
You are right. They won’t listen, they won’t stop. They will have to be made to.
Listen, and understand. That
terminatorgovernment is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.How do we make them stop?
I think it would have to be closer to your ‘militia’ idea than the ballot box, for sure. Unless you can absolutely convince them they will lose their seats, in which case – as ever – they will turn on a sixpence, but we haven’t got a vote for a long time, and even if we had now, they wouldn’t listen, as you say.
At present, people (even those not bothering too much) are essentially compliant. There’s no obvious reservoir of active revolt.
If there was, the police would squash it very quickly. Unless it was too big to do that.
The estimated percentage of resistance in occupied France was 2.5 – 5. They still made a difference. The bedwetters won’t resist an uprising. They’ll hide behind the sofa and support whoever wins. Twas ever thus.
“It’s like they refuse to see the damage being done to everyone.”
I don’t know if they refuse to see the damage, as they’re convinced of their own correctness, or if it’s what they want.
If we were in the U.S., I’d say it’s about trashing the economy and blaming Trump.
What the reason is for the UK, I have no idea unless it’s all part of the same power-grab by the international Communists, and our government are either ignorant or complicit.
I would suggest that any talk of “militia” is an extremely bad idea.
Hi All,
I’m on holiday and hoped that finally can read Bernard-Henri Levy’s book
The Virus in the Age of Madness. But you will not believe it. It is not available on amazon. I hope it is not because of any censorship. Is there anybody who can help me to get a kindle version?
Looks like you can get on Kindle:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Virus-Age-Madness-Bernard-Henri-Levy-ebook/dp/B08C4SH9LQ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1599495050&sr=1-1
Just looked on Amazon.co.uk and it’s available there in multiple formats, including kindle. If you can’t buy it direct through your kindle, perhaps it would work to buy it on the site through a browser and then it should be available for you to download on your kindle once you have.
Got it via Amazon (ashamed to say). Not very radical, in the end – a bit too accepting of standard memes in my perception and lacking insight. I wouldn’t bother to buy it.
I agree with Rick. I bought it a while ago and didn’t think it was worth it.
Amazon have been censoring Covid books which don’t follow the narrative however.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-break-up-amazon-a4461511.html
I highly recommend the book in question here.
Back to 1984, our guide to modern living.
Why are Handjob and his cronies so desperately anxious to maintain the Coronapanic?
It’s the exact equivalent of the perpetual war in the novel, which is never won or lost but which keeps the population in a constant state of fear, mingled with hatred of the imagined enemy. It also enables the government to waste the products of human effort without making anybody better off.
If the war stops, the warmongers are dead.
I think it’s because they have convinced themselves that there will be a “second wave”. They’re not very bright, unfortunately.
I’m yet to see this picked up on by anyone in the mainstream media.
From Big Brother Watch:
A few days ago, Ministers revealed new plans for a digital ID system.
This means that each of us could be assigned a digital ID that enables anyone in authority to reach vast numbers of records about us.
Digital IDs would likely correspond to a centralised national database of personal information about each and every one of us, spanning health, work, travel, benefits and even biometric data.
To make matters worse, Tony Blair piped up to support the policy and even suggested using digital IDs to check millions of citizens for coronavirus vaccinations.
https://mailchi.mp/bigbrotherwatch/digital-id-cards-not-on-our-watch-6468463210?e=21637ff1cc
Tony can go first. We’ll follow him around everywhere. Everywhere!
Welcome 1984
It’s already here, same photo on, a passport, drving licence, pnc, ANPR, airport cameras all linked into facial recognition cameras, People carrying tracking devices ( you call them I phones) around with them 24/7
They are all cross referenced
Of course.
That’s been the plan all along.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOnk6BR5dSw
Digital Immunity Passports are Coming – 29/5/2020 (Computing Forever)
Send it to Peter Hitchens and also Simon Dolan, plus Mike Graham at Talk Radio – they will mention it! Likewise Laurence Fox, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Douglas Murray..
BLM, XR, ANTIFA. Many of their street troops are Mercenaries.
Is Hancock human or just an android. I’m beginning to have my doubts. He is reported as saying new Co Vid ‘spikes in Spain and France started with young people’. What does he expect? Young single people never to socially interact, ever again? One can only wonder as to what he did at university. I’m sick and tired of normal ‘living’ now being characterised as something immoral and selfish. Just stop now— please. For the sake of our sanity.
I hate all this nonsense telling young people not to “kill Granny”. Has anyone asked Granny whether or not she wants the social lives and education of her grandchildren disrupted like this? I think not.
I’ve asked my children’s granny. Her opinion is “I’d rather you lined us all up and shot us than that you destroyed children’s lives like this”
Ditto. I didn’t have to ask, either, she volunteered that view
Why are they so worried about Granny when it’s Grandad that’s more at risk?
Because the feminine form sounds more cuddly and makes you out to be even more of a heartless killer, of course.
Can’t speak for Granny – but this ‘Grumpa’ reckons that children and grandchildren just need to get on with LIVING instead of COWERING.
My experience (elderly parents, relatives, neighbours etc.) is that Granny, Grandpa etc. are often most against all the nonsense. They seem to have much more of a “use your common sense and get on with it” approach. My mum has even said that she vividly remembers the 1957/1958 Asian flu because she was so annoyed didn’t get it. Swathes of her class were off school while she still had to go!
Interestingly, it’s often the millennial bedwetting children who are holding grandparents hostage. My mom has a friend from her gym who is literally being held hostage by her doctor son who dictates what she can and can’t do (go back to the gym) or he will keep her from seeing the grandchildren. Now they’ve co-opted her into being the kids’ teacher as they’re too frightened to send the kids back to school. Latest death stat from Canada — 2 deaths in the whole country on September 5th.
I keep saying it but those hostages will need some sort of psychological help to recover from this.
What about Grandad/Grandpa? Is he less important and therefore dispensable?
Does he have any evidence of spikes starting with young people? More likely they’re just the ones turning up for tests for some reason. Perhaps they need them to be allowed to go to work or college or the beach or something.
You have to wonder if these people were ever actually young themselves. It’s absolutely ridiculous to expect young people to put up with this indefinitely when they are at virtually no risk from the virus themselves.
They may have been young, just not actually, er, alive. Not in the sense that normal people like us think of as being alive, anyway.
Anyway the rich and powerful don’t much care what stupid rules they make other people follow, as they often (as we have seen) ignore those rules themselves.
But they are putting up with it. WHY?
Well, not exactly. There have been plenty of illegal raves and/or house parties happening all over the country.
Also the fact that he thinks grandparents can provide childcare whilst maintaining a 1m+ distance clearly demonstrates that he’s living in cloud cuckoo land.
Our local railway stations here in south west London are now patrolled by people in white vests that say “Trespass and Welfare Officer” on the back. First I was accosted by one of them on the platform. Showed her my exemption paper and walked as far away from her as possible, unable to bring myself to make eye contact with her or anybody around me. Then again when I boarded the train one of these new officials, from outside the train on another platform, signalled to me to cover my face. I pressed my pathetic dog-earred “exemption paper” against the window and he gave me a friendly thumbs up. I feel a bit sorry for these people. I’m now not sure what makes me more uncomfortable: Walking around holding up a piece of paper like a begging sign, every time I go on public transport ot into a shop — or just wearing a neck scarf, pulling it over my mouth in a half-assed way to get past the bouncers, and then pulling it back down once I’ve got shot of them.
The politicians Responsible for doing this to you, in the full knowledge I am sure that it is futile, deserve to be in jail.
Trespass and Welfare my ass They are trespassing on my right to breathe and doing harm to my welfare.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trespass-welfare-officers-required-ricky-smith
Generous pay! What’s not to love? I don’t think I’ll be going near a train station anytime soon.
These are even more sinister: https://www.landsheriffs.co.uk/our-clients/ Who wouldn’t think they were actual Police with that clever use of the word “sheriff”
Well, based on that, we (the resistance) could all just order ourselves vests with the words “enforcement officer” on the back. I’d like to see someone tell me to put a mask on then. Nobody would be able to tell who was who and the whole thing would come apart at the seams (not the vest, but the mask fascism hopefully).
That’s not a bad idea!
An excellent one. Each if us his or her own little Hitler.
I want ‘Senior Enforcement Officer’ on mine, so that I can go and kick the nasty fat little Hitleress in our indoor market.
Below the response from the DFT to an FOI request sent about a month ago regarding the quarantine rules and the decision criteria for which countries are exempt. In bold, an interesting set of reasons why they might not tell me. Is this just standard obfuscation? have I touched a nerve? Do they actually have a system or is the truth that it’s arbitrary/based on political considerations and not public health?
“Dear Mr XXXXX,
TRAVEL CORRIDORS
Thank you for your request for information which we received on 11 August
2020.
Summary of request: “Detail the criteria used to decide which
countries are subject to covid-related quarantine. Explain the
basis on which arrivals from, say, France are not subject to
quarantine whereas arrivals from Sweden are. When is the next
review for Sweden”.
Your request has been considered under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA). The Department does hold some of the information you are
seeking. FOIA obliges us to respond to requests promptly, in any case no
later than 20 working days after receipt of a request. However, when a
qualified exemption applies to the information, the public interest test needs
to be considered.
We aim to make all decisions within 20 working days, however sometimes we
require more time. Your request raises complex public interest considerations
which must be analysed before we can come to a decision on releasing the
information.
The exemptions that apply to the information you have requested are:
section 28(1) Information likely to prejudice relations within the UK
section 29(1)(a) Information likely to prejudice the UK economy
section 35(1)(a) Information relating to formulation or development of
government policy
section 35(1)(b) Communications between Ministers
section 42(1) Information covered by Legal Professional Privilege
section 43(2) Information that would be likely to, prejudice the
commercial interests of any person
In your case we need to extend our response time limit by 20 working days in
order to assess whether the public interest in maintaining these exemptions
outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. Therefore, we plan
to let you have a response by 7 October 2020. If further time is required we
will keep you informed.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
If you are unhappy with the way the Department has handled your request or
with the decisions made in relation to your request you may complain within
two calendar months of the date of this letter by writing to the Department’s
FOI Advice Team at: E-mail: FOI-Advice-Team-DFT@dft.gov.uk
Please send or copy any follow-up correspondence relating to this request to
the FOI Advice Team to help ensure that it receives prompt attention. Please
also remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
Please see attached details of DfT’s complaints procedure and your right to
complain to the Information Commissioner.
Yours sincerely
XXXXXXX
Restart, Recovery and Engagement Unit”
They are giving you the brush off. Keeping Sweden on the quarantine list is overtly political; no question. It will be interesting to see on which of their criteria they refuse your request. They are scum.
By the time they reply, if rumours here are to be believed, the UK could be in another countrywide lockdown..
Thought for the day: Every time I think that all this is temporary and we’ll soon go back to normal, I remind myself that it is now almost two decades since ‘9-11’ and we still can’t board a plane with a pair of tweezers and a medium-sized bottle of suntan lotion (despite nobody ever having brought down a plane using a manicure set and a 250ml tube of Amber Solaire).
I’m still waiting for the temporary income tax to be shelved. It was introduced in 1799 by the then Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (SCUMBAG) as a temporary measure to cover the cost of the Napoleonic Wars.
Or as I once said in an airport security line, “I have a small tube of toothpaste, and I’m not afraid to use it!”
And did you regret that after the rubber glove treatment?
So true
“The Latin origins of the word ‘education’ reveal its role in ‘leading forth’.”
No, that would be “eduction”. The Latin root of ‘education’ means to feed, in the sense of cram with worthless information in the hope that one day you will regurgitate it and out-pedant somebody on the internet.
Actually to train or prune into shape.
I claim my prize.
“The silent majority needs to speak up – now.”
Who do we speak to that’s bothering to listen??
We spoke up at the Brexit referendum, and the establishment spent three years refusing to accept what we said.
We spoke up again in 2019 and voted for a Conservative government, but got a bunch of authoritarian bedwetting liberal lefties instead.
True, though I am pretty sure the current incumbents will want to be re-elected, and if enough people push back they may follow the prevailing wind
The ‘silent majority’ are usually a whining minority who have nothing to say beyond a whine.
Or a continual grumble.
Certainly those of us here who voted for the Tories are disappointed. I think they are pretty left wing, by my standards. Maybe I am now a terrible fascist. With hindsight, I shouldn’t have voted, and won’t do until some better parties come along. I think some of the ways of thinking that have led us to this could be deemed more “left” than “right” wing, and it seems like there are more right than left wing sceptics.
But I think we should focus on what we agree on, which is hopefully a respect for truth and freedom.
“Right” and “Left” wing governments and politicians across the world have screwed this up.
I wrote IDIOTS on my last ballot paper. I voted for the labour guy in the other one when Boris got in, our local labour guy got about 400 votes, so no point in voting at all really.
Authoritarian liberal? Oxymoron
Sadly not, when “liberal” is used in the American sense rather than the traditional English sense. In American it pretty much means what we would use “leftist” for. And there most certainly can be authoritarian leftists – in fact that’s in some ways the essence of what collectivism is all about.
I loath this ‘left’ ‘right’ bollocks, stop simplifying centuries of history and political evolution. Conservatism isn’t ‘right’ and the current ‘left’ isn’t socialist! It doesn’t mean anything anymore.
“Sweden. “Two Swedish laboratories have discovered deficiencies in a CE-marked so-called test kit that was used to show if you have an ongoing COVID-19 infection. Due to the error, the test method could not distinguish between low levels of COVID-19 virus and negative sample. The error has led to about 3,700 people sampled in nine different regions (see list below) have probably received false-positive answers. They have thus been wrongly informed that they have a COVID-19 infection.” Historical data has been adjusted according to the official revised time series. From worldometer”
We have all been talking about the reliability or not of the PCR tests for a while. I saw the above today on Worldometer under Sweden’s positive tests notifications. They are acknowledging 3,700 people received tests that were false positive. In their acknowledgement of this it has draws further attention to the uselessness of local lockdowns done on tests alone. More power to our cause.
Amazing how they’ve actually wanted to sort through this mess in a logical manner. Especially compared to the UK and Irelands approach which seems to be to crank up the fear, and use every opportunity to ram through all sort of wet dream policies in the mean time.
If you go onto the website of the Public health authority here in Sweden a box pops up in the middle of the screen informing of the error and that there will be recalculations… they’ve been very open about it!
Only a £21,000.00 loss this month due to refunds of cancelled holidays. Thank you Government.
kin’ell, poor you.
Are you the travel agent or the punter?
The agent
Ouch!
Won’t be paying much tax for a while, I suppose. (No consolation, I know…)
It’s absolutely disgusting that these pricks in government can ruin so many lives with the touch of a keyboard.They are loving the power of ruling by decree
I really feel for you. I just hope that somehow, someway there will be payback.
The Virus Has Now Shifted to the Young, Apparently | Carl Vernon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9cbRB4JDVo
Somebody in her 70s told him I’d rather live a shorter life with freedom than a longer life like this.
Personally I think is a very crafty virus it spent the spring killing the old now it’s going to spend the autumn killing the young. It’s a bit like when the Luftwaffe switched from bombing airfields to bombing cities 80 years ago.
Don’t forget Boris told us it’s and invisible enemy, a sort of 21st century mutant luftwaffe.
Absolute bollocks, I reckon. Just that the effect on the older population has moderated after the deaths of the most vulnerable who were survivors from earlier mild seasons.
The trouble is so many people still believe this nonsense.
It is the standard response I hear from anyone to whom I point out the “casedemic” numbers.
Indeed, like a number of superficially effective responses over the course of this panic, it emerged pretty quickly and uniformly, making me suspect the hand of state behavioural nudgers behind it, with mainstream media collaboration.
Teachers just hedging for another paid holiday. Oh my neighbours looked so pissed going back! I felt gleeful, I really did.
Re: Postcard from the Algarve
Mandatory masks in shops and mandatory masks to walk to your table in a restaurant sounds good to you, Tobes? At least over here I know there are essentially zero consequences to not wearing one. When will the madness end?
Where in the Algarve? We go to Lagos every year – except this year, of course!
Seems like if you’re anti-face nappy you’re probably a conspiracy theory nutjob, oh, and a free thinker.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/07/french-anti-maskers-see-themselves-as-free-thinkers-study-shows
And educated apparently. Guardian journalists are pro-muzzle aren’t they?
Yes. They were one of the main drivers encouraging the government to bring it in.
‘Free thinker’ is an insult now, is it?
Actually, I see myself as human, and therefore endowed with the capacity to think. There ain’t many of us left. None in Grauniadland, evidently.
UK
New Cases 2,948
Deaths 3
I wonder which in the media will report.
What are the chances of the BBC, Sky and Sir Keir Starmer asking why are we still destroying the economy when so few people are dying from/with/of/due to Covid?
Let’s see:
Please spare a thought for all these folk, they have been cruelly left behind. Yes, The Dreadful Killer Virus ™ has left them all completely untouched.
Just you wait till the second wave hits……
Now that’s a beer spitter! Funny!
Plys the entire population of our town , less one Chinese immigrant with innumerable co-morbidities….
That the case fatality rate today was 0.1%?
Bill Cooper warned us all in 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix9iSrBoAww
To fair to the police West Midlands police large numbers of them had to be on standby in case a dangerous 73 year old man with a megaphone decided to make an anti lockdown speech in Birmingham City Centre
More youth battering, and bumptious bollocks from the odious Health Secretary, here on the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-54056771
This comment from the health correspondent is enough to make you slit your wrists:
The social distancing that is now becoming a routine part of our everyday lives and the test and trace teams in place will help.
NOT a routine part of anybody’s llife hereabouts. Eff off, you loathsome little Handwirm..
Ditto.
He is deluded isn’t he?
The people where I live love it. They’ve been shuffling to the edge of the pavement with frightened eyes since March and they’re still going strong!
The report is by Nick Triggle. He has been one of the less awful reporters, but this isn’t one of his better efforts. Just accepts the narrative. Uncurious.
It’s not part of my families lives and never will be …so pig off
He’s a wrong un
So speaks the man for whom evidence exists of his inability to keep his hands to himself (Harry Dunn’s parents and another MP in the House) and mind his distance (the female colleague whose constituency hospital he visited). He is certainly odious – to add to being drunk on power. He is dangerous.
Eh! What’s all that then?
Well, I’m in East Dunbartonshire and Krankie has just announced restrictions from midnight tonight: no visiting other houses and no hosting members of other households in your house. No other changes to existing restrictions apparently. Not sure if the new restriction s advisory only, will check the legislation later. We join Glsagow City, West Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire in this. Over 1.1 million people. East Dunbartonshire is generally affluent and has a very high age demographic, almost all of whom are already terrified and 100% mask-wearing. This will only make it more difficult to bring these people back to proper normal.
She’s a Tin Pot Dictator, all come out of the covid wood work
All of them are tinpots. The Moron Clown in Westminster, the Turtle’s Head in Cardiff, and the Wicked Witch in Edinburgh.
Last week’s for rest of Glasgow were only ‘guidance’ so I suspect just the same. All of us in Scotland obviously will be desperate to install the tracking app on our phones later in week to assist her with working out where to lockdown next.
This is the biggest pile of bollocks. You can’t have people visit your home or go to theirs but you can meet the same people in a pub or restaurant. This virus must be incredibly clever to work out who is socialising at home and who is socialising at pubs etc. and transmit itself accordingly. Honestly, you couldn’t write this shite.
I’ve said that to a few people last few days. If she really thinks there is a danger then she should close pubs in Glasgow and surrounding area. The fact that all she’s doing is half hearted ‘guidance’ to not visit people’s houses means no one in Glasgow is taking her seriously.
Shutting the pubs would kill them off for good. In turn it would alert many more to seeing something is badly up with krankie dictatorship.
There’s child abuse – and child abuse!
https://www.facebook.com/tochter.deswindes/videos/168565631404987
Surely that’s a scene from Dr Who – the sort of scary moment when I used to watch from behind the sofa?
It can’t be real.
Can it?
Can’t tell where it was filmed but the child neither looked nor sounded ill.
The commentary reads
“Firstly, this is what virus protection looks like.
Secondly, this child is obviously healthy, otherwise it [Kind is neuter] couldn’t be either walking or screaming
Will you now wake up!?!?
Or do you want this?
Do you want your children to be taken away?”
Another reminder for the Inaugural Lockdown Sceptics FPL private league:
https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/ybj6s2
Useful link and report.
Like and share!
https://www.nation.lk/online/percentage-of-positive-covid-19-tests-in-the-uk-has-dropped-from-40-to-less-than-2-5-2132.html
Let’s face it, folks. It goes on and on because your energy is redirected into futile behaviour. Read this thing (which doesn’t make any difference to anything), make a comment about it, maybe donate. A lot of donkeys led by other donkeys paid off by the other side, that’s the defining feature of this war.
What are you going to do that will make a difference?
In the economic carnage of coronahoax fallout, the target is UK Government and administrators of the debt-for-wealth financial system
Who are these donkeys?
Toby’s latest article in The Telegraph just published (paywall):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/07/should-worried-uptick-covid-cases-almost-certainly-not/
“Until” “really” “could” – surprised those words are being used by Toby.
Either we believe this or we don’t.
Politicians have always had a bad press, but this lying lot beat them all. Blair/Gates will get their vaccine controls they always wanted.
Confidence in LS shaken.
Back in 2014 it was published by even the BBC that the lungs can regenerate from even a small bit of healthy tissue. Been trying to shut down this “permanent lung damage” false narrative for months and months, to my own detriment. And as for the other “long term” effects, many of us were calling b.s. on them months ago.
Yet, only now, when the pandemic is basically over, does LS even mention it, and even though I know this site was informed on this lung damage info, such info was ignored. In fact, most if not all messages to the gmail account for this site go unread with no response even when requested.
And the overt gay- and transphobia that this site’s owner openly espouses, as well as his overt repudiation of alternative thinking, such as that done by Icke and others, tells me there is much, much more awakening to be done here.
I’ll keep trying to get through here but when the LS voice of free speech and dissent exposes a second face, one that admits not all speech should be free or that not all walks of life are tolerable, hope fades.
Wake up, LS. Even your readers are more awake now. And no, we’re not “woke” but rather “awake” and that’s a huge difference. Freedom isn’t comfortable for everyone and when you can make someone squirm with unbearable discomfort merely by showing them a photo of a woman with a beard, or by saying “5G isn’t safe” we then see the truth.
Is it possible to be skeptical of Lockdown Skeptics?
Well, the site owner is entitled to his opinion. Nothing on here is censored, to my knowledge, and people here post whatever they feel like posting. I don’t think anyone feels, or should feel, conditioned in any way by the line taken by the site owner.
I think in general as matter of tactics that when trying to persuade the public at large of the sceptic case, it’s best to stick to core message, which is that virus isn’t as dangerous as it was made out to be and that the lockdown is doing more harm than good, and avoid bringing in other factors such as motivation, which are not at all necessary to win the argument.
I’ve had responses to some emails, not others.
Glad this site is here.
I agree with you. What I think is happening is that the lies and misinformation about the virus severity and the lack of proportion in the measures is bringing out a level of anxiety about what is going on, which in turn produced paranoia and theories. I don’t know what is happening in Sweden but I assume there is greater community cohesion and an adult conversation with citizens which is likely to have avoided some of this. For me masks here is a real example of this problem. It is dividing, causing conflict, confusion and humiliation. Many will wonder why would a government who cares for its people impose such a policy, it leads to suspicion.
“Many will wonder why would a government who cares for its people impose such a policy”
I doubt they care much for us. Nothing new there, they just happened upon a wizard wheeze to be able to screw us over without looking bad – it’s for our own good.
I’d add, on the subject of long-term lung damage, though long-term effects of Covid have been mentioned before in a media, they’ve only become “a thing” in the media in the last few weeks, now that no bugger is dying of it anymore and there has to be a reason to remain frit. I can’t speak for Toby, but it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to prepare an argument relating to long term lung damage until a very few days ago.
I think it’s worth it now though. Listening to some cretin on LBC earlier saying young people could have lung damage FOR LIFE after COVID.
FOR LIFE!!!! Ffs. How the hell would you know? I am an athletic 40 something who runs 5 or so miles a day. Caught a heavy cold in December and could still feel it impairing my breathing until May. THAT IS NORMAL!!! I do not have life long damage and I bet these 20 somethings don’t either.
“I think it’s worth it now though.”
I agree. Long term effects have replaced “WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE GRANNIES???” As the new emotional counter to any questioning of the narrative.
Paras 1,2 and 6 ok. While remembering that Toby must be extremely busy keeping up this site, as well as trying to make a living.
Para. 3 I’m struggling with. I’ve been reading this site for months, along with Toby’s articles in the Spectator and Telegraph, and recall nothing to suggest gay- or trans-phobia. Icke is, well, Icke. I’d trust him rather than Ferguson; but reliable scientist he ain’t.
Paras 4 and 5 I’m unable to comment on, as I’m not sure what they mean.
“recall nothing to suggest gay- or trans-phobia”
Nor do I, and I would tend to approve of the kind of stuff that the kind of obsessively intolerant identity lobbyist who would accuse somebody of something-phobia would characterise as such. If you see what I mean.
If we Jyrkoff too much do we get more Mayo?
I don’t agree with all the opinions published here, by any means. It does make me think though,as do the comments which often raise even more unusual ideas like 5G stuff etc. I like reading it all, simply for consideration if nothing else. This is not a boot camp, we don’t have to agree or be convinced by what we find here.
I think it’s just trolling.
You reckon ? What gave it away, the name ?
You use an appropriate alias … yawn.
Would you, “jyrkoff”, like to elaborate on Toby Young’s alleged homophobia.
Douglas Murray, who he interviewed at length on Quillette a couple of days ago and who is openly gay would also no doubt be interested.
Oh dear…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/07/are-you-a-complete-covidiot-its-what-the-government-wants-of-all-of-us-coronavirus
There is a send her an email button next to article. Plenty of opportunity to contact her with data from ONS/NHS/CEBM backing up that’s it’s not that serious when put in proper context and see what she uses to back up her opposite point of view.
Unfortunately she is doing what she accuses others of and closing her mind. She might want some kind of new normal but she is in the minority, living in some kind of guardian reading rarified air. She fails to try to see the suffering going on.
I suspect she sees it, but as is usually the case with Guardianistas, she firmly believes the suffering is mostly of bad people who deserve it for having bad opinions, or who inflict it on themselves by refusing to change their opinions to the Right Ones.
It’s been written by a covidiot.
In a way it’s kind of reassuring to read the Guardian’s particular variety of bilge on this topic. When so many of those that I hoped might have some common sense and moral fibre have failed us, at least reliable fools like Suzanne Moore (and most of the rest of the Guardian’s regular stable) continue to be even more stupid than the folk on the other side.
This piece seems to be an unusually willfully stupid, even by her standards, collection of idiotic assertions of untruth, and accusations of what she herself is guilty of.
“Some of them lead huge countries and tell us Covid is but a mild flu, such as Jair Bolsonaro.”
I love this one in particular. Could Moore cope with the content of the essay Toby published today (Do Medical Complications and Lingering Effects Make COVID-19 an Unusually Dangerous Diseases?) without her brains imploding? I suspect not, but doubtless then imploding brains would just be listed as another coronavirus symptom and her death would be added to the numbers, in the continuing desperate hope of catching up with another of the numerous flu tolls still mortifyingly ahead of covid.
I managed the first couple of sentences and then had to stop. Oh dear indeed
She says
Denial is of course a defence mechanism that enables us to pace our feelings of grief. We don’t want to think about death, so we deny it. The loss of the old ways of life is panic-inducing if we dwell on it. So some reject even the possibility of death, paradoxically increasing the risky behaviour that increases their chance of dying.
See how she cannot make the statement without having to say “paradoxically…” at the end. She knows at the back of her mind that what she is saying is wrong, but her prejudice against “covidiocy” is so strong that she can’t work it out.
The “covidiots” are not in denial about death, so there is no paradox. It’s the opposite: they know that they risk death every day just by existing. But they’d rather take that risk in a sane, free world than one in which people like her live under the illusion that Neil Ferguson and Trish Greenhalgh can make them “safe”.
She is prepared to throw away “the old ways of life” on the say-so of people who mistakenly interchange CFR and IFR thus predicting a catastrophe ten times worse than it actually was. How casually she is prepared to take their word for it and ruin her own life.
Not to mention the ‘remote tribe phenomenon’, where the more we mess around with distancing and isolation and simple-minded manipulation of the immune system, the closer we get to being wiped out by the next genuinely novel pathogen.
She’s bonkers and wicked with it. I don’t care what she wants to do with her life, just fuck off out of mine and everyone else’s.
My feelings exactly. The Guardian has always made me feel like this, the past few years.
“The old ways of life,” such as freedom of assembly, personal autonomy, the right to dress as one pleases so long as it does not offend long-established public decency, respect for intellectual pluralism. What is The Guardian for, if all that is mere nostalgia?
Your answer is very good. I suspect it took more mental effort than her entire article which reads like something a teenager would write. It’s just a list of her opinions, there are no facts. She may as well be leaning over the fence with a fag on,this is modern journalism. Sadly rags of this sort have given a platform to a person that is essentially an opinionated gossip.
Have you noticed how no one ever tries to show you data to persuade you that the virus really is that deadly? They just assume that we must know it to be true. We’re idiots for believing otherwise.
Here’s a challenge to anyone reading: go and find me the data that shows that this thing is in fact so significant a problem that it was worth shutting down and distorting our entire way of life even for a week, let alone forever. Go and find me an evidence-based demonstration of why the virus justifies depriving our kids of education and socialisation for 6 months.
I’ve looked and I can’t find it. I’m happy to be convinced – it would make the world make much more sense.
Until you do, I’ll carry on behaving like the idiots are people like this woman.
Why do you even waste time on this?
She was always a prat when she wrote for the Mail on Sunday.She has found her spiritual home at the Guardian
Great background from which to cast aspersions. From Wiki:
Moore embarked on a psychology degree at Middlesex Polytechnic, but soon switched to cultural studies. She began a PhD and journalism career simultaneously after graduation, but ceased work on her doctorate after 18 months. In The Guardian in 1995, Moore falsely stated that Germaine Greer had undergone a hysterectomy at 25. Greer responded by accusing Moore of possessing “hair bird’s-nested all over the place, fuck-me shoes and three fat inches of cleavage”.
Nice lady, and clearly holds to the old maxim ‘never let the facts get in the way of the story’!
Who knew we’d all end up loving Greer!
Nice to finally find out who the ‘fuck-me shoes’ woman actually is.
Thanks TT.
Interesting take on things. It seems as if she’s suggesting the government need people to dumb down their thinking/belief in this virus in order to get things back to some sort of normality.
I guess in a way she’s describing the reprogramming of someone who’s delusional or a fantasist but trying to say the desired end state is Covidiocy.
Who’s she? Why do you expect anything but shite from the Guardian? Have you seen who they’re in league with? And is it news to you that people really believe this? They really really do!
Hmm, funny that – I can’t see any way to comment about it!
DavidC
Well, Bill Gates wants something for his money.
Shame they don’t have comments any longer. Still, if this lunatic gets her way, and society collapses as a result, I hope she is among the first to starve.
News Flash
( Primary School) Grandson today – The hand sanitizer has been put in a secret place! –
There was an incident! relating to the word alcohol! —– His friend tried to drink it!
I understand there’s been a big increase in cases of child poisoning, mostly very young children, who have ingested hand sanitiser [poison].
They tried to pour 80% alcohol sanitiser on my child’s hands today. I soon put a stop to that.
Well done! – cumulatively I wonder how much alcohol does get absorbed through the skin?
Oh please tell me it can!
It Can!
Could make going to the pub an interesting experience then …
True story: many years ago a friend of mine spent a good deal of time in Norway, where booze is very expensive. He was constantly surprised on a night out to find that his local friends would spend the whole evening nursing one or two beers, but still be at least as drunk as he was, so he asked.
Apparently, the done thing was to soak a tampon with vodka before you went out and… er… insert it. Apparently it works wonders.
Not hands or feet, admittedly.
Goodness! Well, you certainly get educated in some interesting facts on the old LS.
Yes, it can. It is Isopropyl Alcohol, which is poisonous. The sanitisers used to be based on Ethanol (the Vodka alcohol) but they’ve stopped this because people kept drinking it as soon as they were alone in the toilets.
Apparently not very much.
Especially through the feet.
Lad in school uniform came out from the house next door to where I was working
How was school?
Madness
All one ways
Better Then Nothing
Got my GCSEs next year
and off he went on his bike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEm_U6H9Og
A demonstration at a TEDx talk of Yellofier, the crazy musical app.
Boris Blank of Yello fame and Yellofier. An APK app for just $3. Children will love it.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffhp&q=yellofier+apk&ia=web
MP of Leeds East, Richard Burgon, tweeting that the government must immediately pursue a zero covid strategy or face a “deadly second wave”.
Add him to the list of people completely out of touch with reality.
Do they really believe in zero covid stratergy?
Some of the MPs might. Doubt the Cabinet do, or their advisers. They may pretend to do so. Can’t believe they are that dense.
“Can’t believe they are that dense.”
I can.
All politicians, with very few exceptions, are thick as pigshit.
Unherd TV covered this several weeks back (on YT). It is called the strategy of suppression. It doesn’t work and in any event, it is based on the idea that tests prove something.
He’s as thick as mince!
I just dropped him an email richard@richardburgon.com. I can’t imagine it’ll have much effect it sounds like he’s gone very tin foil hat.
He’s always been that way. I doubt that dropping him an e-mail would make much difference. MPs don’t even answer constituents’ e-mails.
I don’t think people like him are going to change their tune on the basis of random e-mails.
I e-mailed our Dear Leader recently, and received a response from the (wait for it)…’Correspondence Triage Team’. Perhaps they have drafted in some under-employed medics to help with Nicola’s fan mail.
They sent me a link to some Scottish Government PR material, and failed to respond to a single point raised in my e-mail.
No surprise there then.
The Who: Darling, what’s for tea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl3HL9NNIa8
He was one of the first on it.
Burgon qualified as a solicitor in 2006. thank God we’ve that kind of expertise in Parliament. Most Doctors who write about this seem to think Zero Covid is impossible.
A great many MPs have legal qualifications. They call them “lawmakers” in the USA for a reason.
Burgon is a complete plank.. He makes most other Labour MPs seem intelligent.
That is great news about Burgon. He is the ultimate reverse indicator. The man is utterly devoid of a brain. A truly comical individual.
A Cupid Stunt, surely?
And after that a zero death strategy, presumably.
God George Takei is insufferable. He’s made his fame being a supporting character on a sci-fi show from the late 1960’s. He’s always supporting left wing causes no matter how shady they are.
Don’t underestimate the part played in our general cultural decline over the past century or so by “celebrities”, from musicians and artists to actors, and their massive empowerment by the legal and technological changes that funneled gargantuan wealth to them, and put their voices and faces in every home, so that the weak minded think they know them, sympathise with them, and want to be like them. They tend to have dissolute, degenerate, and decadent attitudes, like Takei,and their politics reflect those.
Cardi B is a case in point. She recently released a song called WAP which is an acronym for something that should be age restricted (for the over 75-s), and the accompanying video is pure pornography. I hadn’t heard of the woman (?) until a couple of weeks ago.
Well I still haven’t heard of him/her/it (except in your comment), and I’m intending to keep it that way. Also decided not to search for WAP, on the Precautionary Principle.
I had to Google it and wasn’t disappointed.
Please don’t, you really don’t want to know.
Ye Gods. I’ve just had a look and didn’t even make it to the one minute mark. What a load of crap!
DavidC
You lasted a full minute?
Lol! Not quite!
DavidC
Am I the only person who finds her name funny, to me a cardi is something you fling into the back seat of the car on a blazing hot day ‘in case it turns chilly later’
I understand it is actually a reference to Bacardi, appropriate in as much as both are cheap and tasteless.
Yes, I find them all insufferable.
Just because their paid a lot of money for pretending to be someone, saying words into a camera or singing, they think they’re important. And, they think they can use their fame to influence people into sharing their views. Sadly, it seems to work.
Most of them are narcissistic tossers. Remember the truly nauseating ‘Imagine’ video a while back? It made my teeth itch. Madonna singing ‘fried fish’ and bath time bollocks. Ellen crying in her palatial mansion and ‘no make up videos’ (because of lockdown – stunning and brave). More likely attention starved idiots seeking their fix of adoration.
Well Takei is a left winger, so you would expect him to support left wing causes. He’s about 90 and as “woke” as they come.
Yes he’s always on some crusade or another – recently he attacked those defending biological sex as “ignorant” desperate to come across as ‘oooh progressive’ but ended up getting it with both barrels, mainly from proper liberal progressives, & homosexuals who accused him of throwing them under the bus, & also other trans activists who said his stance was doing harm!
Takei by name, Takei by nature.
Caerphilly County Borough going into local lockdown from 1900 BST on Tuesday due to arise in “cases.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54057835
Nobody us ill. They might get ill in a fortnight’s time.
Or not.
Arseholes.
More testing, more cases, surge, activity in homes, yadda, yadda, yadda. 19 positives, no mention of their condition. 0.01% of county population; get tested, get locked down.
And what Annie just said.
The very strange thing is —- that pillar 1 cases seems to be stable.
It’s hysteria about tests.
Where do i find the data for “cases” per pillar? Thanks!
There was a graph of cases – Cannot find it at the moment. Will post if I find it.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374
Thanks for the link!
Is it because nearly all the testing is in the workplace. Potentially, the same people are being tested, over and over each week?
They’re not cases Sam, they’re positive test results.
DavidC
Testyria.
Keeping the schools open is like holding an engine together with duct tape. It might work for about 2 minutes before it flies apart. The whole system in now more wobbly than a pile of Jenga bricks at the Jenga world championship. One kid with the sniffles and the whole bastard school closes down….This is not going to work at all.
Yep our four year old daughter’s school career lasted all of one day before a classmate she had been in Greenwich park with apparently tested positive and got her and the rest of them that were there excluded for two weeks.
If the government are planning another whole country lockdown, then whole schools closing down will not bother them..
Derek,
I watched the video concerning zero covid and was shocked that people like this professor totally bonkers could be advising the government. The only thing I agreed on was that covid was more devastating than flu. Like flu covid is seasonal,spreads by droplets and as the same mortality and therefore should not need lockdown which this professor would want forever. This professor says she would want to see a good drug therapy, a vaccine and a good level of natural immunity in the community before she would end her zero covid strategy. First there’s already a drug therapy it’s called hydroxycholoquine when given at the correct dose not the toxic level which was given to critically ill patients in combination with zinc and an antibiotic works very well if given early. Vaccines will be available by next year and natural immunity is already occurring in Sweden due to no lockdown there. This is evident because the rate of weekly covid cases in Sweden is lower than lockdown Denmark and Norway. This professor and other’s like her believe only government action can stop pandemics. They ignore the fact government has already killed half of all covid victims due to the policy of putting the most infectious patients with the most vulnerable. They ignore the fact that governments have destroyed kids education,economies and the health of millions. So people like this professor should be shown for what they are power crazy nut cases.
Huh? How do you get a good level of natural immunity in the community whilst following a zero covid strategy?!
You obviously don’t. If you saw the video of the two American frontline doctors telling everyone that continually washing your hands and isolating yourself reduces your natural. So lockdown may have avoided some of us catching covid but where all going to end up suffering from every day germs. Why?
Covid is NOT more devastating than the flu.
DavidC
When I say more devastating I mean it affects more parts of your body not just your lungs other wise it would be called Wuhan flu. I agree as I’ve stated it has the same mortality as flu. But unlike flu it doesn’t affect people equally but seems to target the elderly and very sick.
“When I say more devastating I mean it affects more parts of your body not just your lungs other wise it would be called Wuhan flu.”
Er, no it wouldn’t. A coronavirus is not an influenza virus.
I have seen nothing to suggest that coronaviruses (including this one) affect anything else other than the respiratory tract, except in perhaps the most severe cases.
But severe flu can in some cases cause heart damage, so I’m not sure what you are saying?
Have you seen my comment to Mark it is about these power crazy nut cases trying justify their lockdown. They’ve made some terrible mistakes and they don’t know how to get out of the hole they’ve dug themselves. Or have the decency of saying We made a mistake.
“The only thing I agreed on was that covid was more devastating than flu.”
Well as DavidC posted, you can safely disagree on that as well. Read the article Toby just published, and referenced above:
Do Medical Complications and Lingering Effects Make COVID-19 an Unusually Dangerous Diseases?
Hello Mark,
I’ve re-read Tobys article and while we can disagree the point I want to make is that these power crazy nut cases are trying justify their views. Just before the government made face masks mandatory I said to my wife I think where all going to be alright. I can’t see any reason why the government wants us to wear masks now but to cover their backs. Everywhere will eventually reach herd immunity and the government wants us to believe face masks did it. But as we all know masks didn’t stop it spreading from China and is increasing in Europe as well as the UK and all because our immunity as been reduced by lockdown.
“The only thing I agreed on was that covid was more devastating than flu.”
Not according to the mortality figures.
“Vaccines will be available by next year”
… untested and unproven. For a moderate infection that has gone?
I wasn’t going to reply as everyone wants to criticise me but all missing the point I am making. These power crazy nut cases are trying justify themselves by frightening us and are unwilling to accept their made mistakes. I hear now that Hancock is going around saying don’t catch covid and kill granny. I say you killed grandfather by putting infected people in his care home and sending infected staff home giving families and friends an unwanted infection. Lastly don’t people understand that by arguing among ourselves we let these hazards get away with murder.
I’m currently reading Paul Brickhill’s 1951 book on the Dam Busters (RAF 617 Squadron). From Chapter 10:
“British people who had endured the Blitz read with understandable satisfaction of RAF bombers over Cologne or Essen or Hamburg, or of the Hamm sidings being pounded. They did not know (they would have been shaken to know, and the propaganda people did not dare to tell them) that many of these raids did little damage. Some did none at all…”
The analogy is not exact, but for “raids did little damage” read “positive tests do not imply that people are ill”.
Governments have always lied and manipulated public opinion. The present lot do little else.
As described in Bomber Command by Max Hastings which I have just finished reading. Some of the horrors the Germans in those towns you mentioned suffered were truly horrific in human terms but did very little to the German infrastructure until the final two or three months.
I think in the final month’s the Allies had complete air superiority, though there would still be anti-aircraft guns.
That reminds me of one of the best mask related tv ads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18b65Om2jA
Quite funny but I should pedantically point out that the real bombs were barrel-shaped, about 6 feet in diameter, and weighed over 4 tons!
So Mr Van Tam….
“infections among younger people in EU countries had later filtered through to older age groups.”
Has anyone got any proof of this?
This would appear to be make or break week.
They can’t keep saying this.
Make or break what?
Well if hospitalisations don’t increase then it’s game over for him.
If they do increase and so do deaths then he will be proved right and we will all look like mugs.
Yes but they won’t. They have been predicting a “second wave” for months. It’s not going to happen.
They can say anything, habitual liars, all of them. I remember Nick Clegg presented with a video of him lying and he denied he’d said it!
LeMonde have reported a 15% increase in hospital admissions which they seem to be saying are covid-related. Alongside over 8k-9k positive tests 2 days on the trot.No idea how they classify/count, but I don’t imagine it’s any more coherent or useful than here.
In France, I should have said
According to a tweet graphing it from a week or so ago, the raw data are here:
http://www.data.gouv.fr/en/datasets/r/63352e38-d353-4b54-bfd1-f1b3ee1cabd7
And he’s updated the graph to yesterday here:
https://twitter.com/JohnDStats/status/1302925744058896385
“LeMonde have reported a 15% increase in hospital admissions which they seem to be saying are covid-related.”
How many people and over what time period? And how ill are these people?
From mask-wearing maybe?
There’s always been something funny going on with hospital numbers in France. They’ve remained relentlessly higher than those in the UK, with no obvious or forthcoming explanation. On the one hand, this makes a 15% increase more concerning; on the other it makes me doubt the numbers.
Whose pocket is Van Tam in?
Just had a Parish Council meeting apparently there were around 6000 SARS-Cov2 tests in Devon just recently and of these 45 were +ve and these were mostly younger people returning from holidays abroad, particularly Croatia. Not really sure what this tells us but it is always interesting to get some local detail. People seem terrified that this is where the second wave is coming from, I guess time will tell on that one.
Meanwhile there is much talk on Twitter about ‘zero covid’ I must admit that to me this idea is a bit like trying to sweep the beach clean of sand! But there seem to be many who, despite the lesson from King Canute, think they can hold back the tide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp05TMZo7to&list=WL&index=74&t=0s
Coronabollox! What was this all for?Godfrey Bloom Official
Thanks for sharing this link – looks like Godfrey Bloom has a few interesting videos that may be worth a look.
This is a link from a Carl Heneghan & Tom Jefferson article (that’s the 2nd link). It shows data from a load doctor’s practices covering 5.4m patients. The charts show why people go to see doctors. Of the 25,523 who went during week commencing 24th August complaining they thought they had Covid, 24,074 (94%) didn’t have it. 1,005 (3.9%) possibly had it and 443 (1.7%) definitely had it. It makes you wonder what the 94% had. But look at this stuff, is it all hysteria or am I missing something?
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZTU5ZDE5MGYtMzUzMy00ZjRmLTg4MGEtMTM3ZGJiZDNhODFkIiwidCI6IjZiOTAyNjkzLTEwNzQtNDBhYS05ZTIxLWQ4OTQ0NmEyZWJiNSIsImMiOjh9
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/
My immediate reactions is: what the heck happened in the last week reported? Reporting delays?
If you select ‘confirmed’ or ‘probable’ the previous week drops to near nothing also.
I’d guess reporting delays that’s why I looked at the prior week’s data.
“It makes you wonder what the 94% had.”
Colds?
Bedwettervirus
In April and May cases were nominally in the region of 3-4 thousands daily and 800-1000 were dying “daily”.
Can anyone explain that?
Has the virus changed?
They were only testing sick people. Now they are testing anyone who has a pulse. As some one explained in the comments today, even SAGE admit a 1% false positive rate, and with the level of testing we are wasting money on, we can dismiss much of what we see.
Deaths and hospitalisations are all we can go on when tests are so sensitive.
And these need to be drilled down between ‘with’ and ‘ of’ Covid..
Not much testing. Plenty of infected people, mainly the vulnerable died. Not helped by harmful treatment such as ventilators & lack of knowledge of helpful treatments.
Also political refusal to try suggested treatments (cough, hydroxychloroquine, cough)
There are a number of explanations. My personal favorite is that the test is too sensitive and is detecting “dead” virus particles. That is one idea put forward by Carl Heneghan.
So many of these “cases” aren’t actually cases at all.
We have never in the history of humanity tested apparently healthy people for the presence of viruses, certainly not on this scale. I would guess that at any one time we might test positive for any number of pathogens. Doesn’t mean we will get ill and doesn’t mean that we will pass it on.
There’s also the possibility that many more people had the virus back in March and never displayed any symptoms.
Then there’s the possibility that we have achieved herd immunity levels.
The possibility that the virus has changed is another explanation.
Agree with all that John. Hopefully, Heneghan and his team is conducting further analysis to distinguish among these various possibilities – and gets on with it before Hancock et al get any further stupid ideas!
It would suggest that in April/May the actual number of people infected was far greater than was detected. What we’re detecting now isn’t even close to what it was then.
This actually gives a lot more credence to what Sunetra Gupta has been saying that we have reached a high level of immunity already.
No great surprise to see the fear narrative being perpetuated.
They think there will be a second wave. I think that’s why they are doing it.
I agree. I think this madness will continue until the spring and they realise the second wave isn’t going to materialise.
I feel silly saying this, but I’m starting to think that this is all about ousting Trump.
It’s the only way it all makes sense.
And the people behind it must believe the damage of not ousting him is worse that the mass deaths and chaos we are witnessing.
Tell me I’ve gone barmy and to lose the tin foil hat, please!
It’s definitely more about politics than public health in the States now. I suspect that in bygone days civil war would have broken out already there.
Some say it already has….
I don’t think you’ve gone barmy, but your basic error, it seems to me, is to assume the world should make sense….
And it seems unlikely to me it’s “all about Trump”. For sure, an awful lot of the nonsense comes from people absolutely, ruthlessly determined to get rid of Trump, for reasons of ideology, grudge, personal gain and sheer damned obsession. But if they were powerful enough and competent enough to intentionally manufacture all this, then Trump would never have gotten elected in the first place.
He wasn’t supposed to have been elected.
The UK wasn’t supposed to vote for Brexit.
Both were big flies in the ointment.
Don’t forget how world leaders fawned over Obama, and gave him a Nobel prize for being elected.
He stands in the way of of many plans international organizations have for us.
And what far left politician isn’t hiding a totalitarian control freak, eg Dan Andrew, Jacinda Ardern….
“your basic error, it seems to me, is to assume the world should make sense”
Agree with this a thousand times over.
Agree with you and Mark.
Part of me thinks this is all about Trump, part of me thinks there’s even more to it. So IDK. Understand your point, “Trump would never have gotten elected in the first place…” but don’t forget, there was a very serious assault to assume the Presidency in 2016. 1) the recounts in key battleground states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Democrat strongholds for years. This failed quite abruptly when it was clear that Trump was gaining votes all over the place; most of the press quickly skipped town when it emerged that Detroit (Democrat stronghold for decades) had accidentally ended up with over 35% of its precincts reporting higher vote totals, than they had actual registered people on the voting rolls. 2) Death threats to electors in the Electoral College attempting to derail a Trump inauguration by having electoral college votes certified for Clinton even when she lost a state – so widespread that even CNN couldn’t avoid reporting on it, 3) ConsortiumNews reported (Nov 2016) that Clinton & the Dem’s would pursue a “Russian-Puppet-Conspiracy” angle in the event Trump was not prevented from taking office in Jan 2017. The Democrat Impeach Leadership PAC was born, early Feb 2017.
2020? I’ve no doubt they’re going hard or going home. I think they may pull a Kevin Spacey (House of Cards reference). The basic blueprint – cause some kind of large scale incident; HoC was a terror threat; to prevent a key state[s] certifying the result. Drag out said threat until such time that control of the election gets constitutionally passed to Congress. – wonder who they’d vote for… it’s a puzzler….:)
Don’t think it’s *all* about Trump, but some of it is.. Fauci is on film saying a few years ago, that Trump would face a pandemic during his term..
The rest of the world would disagree with that assertion.
I think it’s become a big part of it. While the PC liberal Left initially downplayed the virus, telling us to hug a Chinese person and continue visiting Chinatown restaurants, it soon became obvious that the Covid crisis could seriously damage Trump and his chances of re-election. So the Democrats and Leftists in the USA got on board and strongly backed the Lockdown Lunacy and the Mask Madness, relishing the damage being done to the economy which they see only as Trump’s economy. The PC Left outside the USA see the importance of destroying Trump, so I think they are deliberately trying to help extend the crisis to the end of November.
Good points – though unfortunately for the PC Left this is technically the Obama economy. as late as Feb this year Obama was telling everybody who would listen, and even those who wouldn’t: it’s the Obama economy
It’s about many things. But of course the Democrats have jumped on the whole thing, praying for more deaths and virue signalling with their demand for masking, to disastrous effect. Never mind their poor response to the recent mob looting.
Trump to win. He’s won me over during this CV-19 period
The masks nonsense certainly gained momentum when Trump initially declared himself anti.
“I’m starting to think that this is all about ousting Trump.”
I should think again.
I don’t know but think some believe if Trump loses (or accepts he has lost) he goes in November when he actually stays until January 20th 2021. I didn’t think we could get to September so certainly don’t think we can get away with another 4 more months of this.
It makes more sense to me & is partially reated to Trump that there are a large number of very powerful Marxists & those associated who can see the imminent end of capitalism as a great positive to work towards. The reality of these people making Pol Pot appear a humanitarian will be lost on them & their and our destruction will see them struggling through the indexes of the standard works before they’re lynched or worse.
They are all bought and paid buffoons. Send them canned, uncontrollable guffaws and roll on the floor laughter. Laugh them out of their job.
So it was confirmed by someone close to me that in aerosol generating procedures in the NHS, they aren’t using PPE anymore.
So if the NHS aren’t doing it why the hell are masks mandated in shops?
That’s not true anywhere in the U.K.
There has been a downgrade in the recommendations for asymptomatic tested negative patients but this has not been adopted widely.
Fear remains high amongst many health care professions (not this one)
It’s for ALL THE AEROSOLS out there
I see that the U.K. infection rate has risen above the government’s threshold of 20 cases per 100,000. This is the point at which air bridges disappear and travellers compelled to quarantine themselves for two weeks. Following the government’s logic, though to dignify their decision making with such a word is highly questionable, it would follow that the entire nation has to self quarantine for two weeks, with no exceptions.
I read somewhere the other day a piece explaining that “infections” are not the same as “cases”. I’m rather annoyed though as I can’t remember where it was I saw it.
Got it, a piece by Dr Malcolm Kendrick:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/category/covid-19/
My understanding is that infection is when you have the disease causing agent and a case is when that infectious agent causes disease symptoms.
So that you can be infected with the SARS-Cov2 virus but it is only if and when that results in disease symptoms that you become a Covid 19 case.
Ramping up for a 2nd lockdown?
Insanity if they go down that route.
Scottish Government to make GP consultations via video the ‘default option’
4 September 2020 Eleanor Philpotts
Scottish GPs will be doing all patient consultations via video link in future, the Goverment has announced, although GPs expressed concern for the future of the
doctor-patient relationship.
Going a lot further than health secretary Matt Hancock, who earlier this summer suggested all GP consultations could be done remotely in the future, the Scottish Government intends to roll out an existing video consultation platform as the ‘default option’ for all patients consultations across general practice and secondary care.
….
RCGP Scotland chair Dr Carey Lunan said: ‘These options can work well for patients who have access to technology and are confident in using it. It may also be a more convenient option for those who live in remote areas and may struggle to access transport. However, for many patients speaking to their GP by phone or video does not work as well because their problems are more complex, more difficult to describe or more personal in nature.
‘Certain groups of patients particularly struggle with this type of consultation, for instance those living with sensory impairment, those who have English as a second language, those with cognitive difficulties, the frail or elderly and also those who have less readily available access to technology.’
Calling for a full evaluation of the impact of switching to digital cosnultation, Dr Lunan added that ‘digital consulting is still in its infancy’ and said there are ‘still many unanswered questions in terms of its impact on potential worsening of existing health inequalities and the longer-term impact on patient care and health outcomes’.
And she warned that patients and GPs alike report that they ‘miss the face-to-face contact’ when using video consulting.
‘Building relationships with patients and their families is why many have chosen a career in general practice,’ said Dr Lunan.”
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/scottish-government-to-make-gp-consultations-via-video-the-default-option/20041435.article
Comments
” I have always had the impression that Ms Sturgeon has never heard anything funny or said anything funny in her life. But this is funny verging on total stupidity. Why have I bothered spending thirty years telling medical students and GP trainees how imperative examination is even the subtle observations when some clueless ignorant politician with a degree in bugger all can trample all over such hard work.”
“Ear pain. Abdominal pain. Rectal bleeding. Rash of unknown origin. Leg swelling. Joint pain. Unintentional weight loss. Acute paediatric illness. Care of the elderly. Dementia care. Breathlessness. Chest pain. Oral ulceration. Neck lump. Red eye.
Just a small selection of common presentations that a remote consultation will impair ones ability to assess. Patients may very well be satisfied that they don’t have to visit what they may regard as the covid breeding ground of their local GP surgery. But perhaps that’s because they haven’t yet fully experienced the missed opportunities to detect serious treatable illnesses.
Good luck out there.”
“Right now I am spending a lot of my time bringing in patients who have bounced through 3-4 remote consultations and associated creams, antobiotics etc, in order to properly examine them and sort them out. A very large number of them have been misdiagnosed – and this is the fault of the medium used to communicate, not the doctor.
In the search for a solution to the cost of the NHS, our politicians ike to pretend the job is easy and can be replicated by technology or other, less well trained, members of staff. They are trying to pretend the problem fits the solution they have. It doesn’t and it will be a disaster.
Technology has a role – I would estimate 40% phonecalls and 2% video, with some email pics occasionally helpful – but the rest needs to be F2F. Phones and video are actually a much less efficient way of delivering care, and a much less safe one as well. Until our politicians recognise this this disaster will continue to unroll.”
Me: I’d say the doctor’s are as unhappy about this as their patients
Clearly at least some of them are. It’s good to know.
This my recent comment in the Spectator site.
Clinical medicine is indeed dead.
I am a radiologist.
I am being referred patients for image guided biopsies of things that do not exist.
Patient now phones GP practice and maybe speaks to GP or more often a nurse and says i think I have a lump in my neck, groin or wherever . No examination but referred to ENT, haematology or general surgery/medicine clinic under 2 week rule as a suspected cancer. Another telephone consultation with consultant, registrar or specialist Nurse. Again no examination but referred for imaging and biopsy. Booked for urgent biopsy under 2 week rule. Sometimes also booked for ‘urgent’ staging CT or MRI – just in case. Eventually get seen by me who is now able to take a history and actually examine the patient before performing any imaging or procedure. I often find nothing and supposed lump has disappeared or was a normal finding and a complete waste of everyone’s time – especially the patient who has been worrying they might have a serious problem such as cancer. Sometimes they are disappointed when I explain that there is nothing wrong with them and they do not need a biopsy. Most are relieved.
Meanwhile other patients wait and the list for urgent CT, MRI, USS and limited consultant radiologist time grows ever longer.
I think there will be a rash of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions as a result of this as well. My daughter had a tele-health appointment and was given a prescription without be seen or swabbed. She probably needed it, but we know the over-prescribing of antibiotics was a problem when appointments were in person, so I can only imagine the abuse that’s happening now and will continue.
plus quite a lot of anti bacterial hand gels about. Read an article a while back that over use can also be a factor in antibiotic resistance.
True — so between the superbugs predicted by the overuse of antibacterial hand gels and the abuse of antibiotics, we’re in for a world of pain.
If this does come to fruition then I sincerely hope that every patient with a misdiagnosis or whose illness becomes critical due to a lack of proper examination sues the arse off of this pathetic excuse for government. The sooner we get rid of the SNP the better, unfortunately I don’t hold out much hope for this in May’s election.
The potential for hacking of such consultations scares me.. no privacy..
Don’t bother with a proper history or examination – just send them for a ‘scan’ and let the radiologist sort it.
Obvious sense.
NHS management have a lot to answer for in manipulating this panicdemic to push their own agenda.
Can anyone settle a debate between a friend and myself. We are both against providing personal details at restaurants etc. which is now mandatory in Scotland. I give false info courtesy of the numerous phishing texts I get whilst my friend says there’s no point in this as they can trace you from your card details when you pay. I don’t think they are allowed to do this as the data protection / GDPR says that data must be used for the purpose its gathered for. So does anyone know if they can use your card details for track and trace? Thanks.
Under GDPR (or indeed previously existing data privacy legislation) they’re not allowed to. The venue will in fact get almost none of your information from your card, other than a record of the transaction assuming you use chip and pin or contactless. They could take your name as printed on your card, but they’re not supposed to. You can, of course, be traced to your card, but the venue could not do this and I would hope that track and trace could not do this (I haven’t seen any legislation giving them the power). The police could do this, given the right warrants (but would rely on your bank giving them the information)
I’m suspicious that it would only take another SI signed by Hancock and they could get your info under the guise of it being necessary for public health.. Nothing would surprise me now..
We are (until the end of the year) still subject to GDPR and the UK interpretation of the EU GDPR directive is still (unless or until it is repealed or overwritten) in force. New legislation (whether by act of parliament or by SI) could change this, but it hasn’t yet.
You can be forcibly removed from your home and taken to a testing centre… It’s illegal for my neighbour to come into my garden… They have imposed drastic restrictions that would make you likely to protest, but made it illegal for more than 30 of you to gather… No surprises indeed.
Thanks for clarifying that Matt.
Pay cash
I would imagine that using a mobile phone to pay would be more difficult to trace back to you. They use a seperate virtual account number that is only linked to your bank account via Google, Apple or Samsung. But answering the exact question, no they currently can’t trace you this way according to data protection legislation.
I’ve been refusing to give T&T details everywhere, and although I have had to explain it to them quite regularly, this weekend I had my first experience of them refusing my opt-out. Apparently it was the businesses requirement even if not legally required. Told him where to shove his track and trace.
So now I can’t decide which I prefer more. Loudly telling them to shove their track and trace up their rectums or giving them the local MPs details from https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP . What a dilema.
Thanks for your reply.
I just quietly rebel by putting down a number from one of the many crank texts I get! They’re happy thinking I’m being a good little sheep and I’m happy knowing I’m not. Win win.
I pay cash when I give false details. OK, never use my card any more when I’ve given my details. Well, someone else’s. RJ Bingham crops up a lot.
Help! Can somebody please save us from this complete twit – latest from Handsy Hancock:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/07/covid-pass-lasting-24-hours-could-allow-people-back-theatres/
‘Matt Hancock has suggested introduction of ‘pregnancy-style test’ to reassure those afraid of coming into contact with virus carriers.’
You can only imagine the tone of the comments underneath the article.
His pronouncements now are so obviously insane and the agenda so clear about controlling people, that it may do our cause some good, by waking people up..
Exactly. This idiotic suggestion, if it ever came to pass, would require testing to be linked to some form of photographic identification document, and the associated database, of course.
Great new name for Hancock in the comments.Foot penis
Mr TT went into hysterics with that!
First good laugh I’ve had in ages
Yes, I laughed out loud at that. Good bunch of comments.
Another Cupid Stunt.
Comments are wonderful:
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As this is the Telegraph, I think it’s a fair assumption these comments come from those who voted Conservative, or lean that way.
Yoohoo, flatten the curve was five months ago.
Fad Gadget, 1980s, Swallow It:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdvjAzAmBLU
Video taken down..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S_H8hlyZc
Have any of you come across this absolutely jaw-dropping horrorshow yet?
https://masks4all.co/about-us/
Vojtech Petracek, the lead, is particularly chilling. All their profile pics have masks phtoshopped on their face. Bizarre
I commented before seeing your comment – it IS bizarre!
DavidC
Note they are all white men! No BAME…
So?
They’re the World Economic Forum (Davos) folks. Not a coincidence.
Spot on Lisa, I noticed that as well.
DavidC
From the same site (per their “The Science” page):
“The political science of mask-wearing”
How do you get all or most people to wear masks? Well, you can educate them and try to persuade them, but a more effective approach is to require them to wear a mask, either in specific settings such as public transportation or grocery stores or even at all times outside the home. Research on vaccination (Bradford and Mandich 2015) shows that jurisdictions which set a higher bar for vaccine exemptions have higher vaccination rates. The same approach is now being used to increase mask wearing compliance, and early results (Leffler et al. 2020) suggest that these laws are effective at increasing compliance and slowing or stopping the spread of COVID-19.
“Require them”
I hate the ruling-class, I do.
Me too. If they’re part of the Establishment, I want them all tried.
It’s all about compliance. If education and persuasion don’t convince people and you must compel a behaviour, the evidence is not very persuasive. If this were Ebola, I don’t think the government would need to mandate anything — we’d do the risk assessment and react accordingly. They give away their purpose when they admit the goal is to increase compliance. We all know there isn’t a stitch of evidence that mandatory masks have slowed or stopped the spread (see California, Peru, Spain, France, etc.).
So do they want us all to wear masks all the time for ever? WHY?
Try and communicate with someone when both of you are wearing a mask. It’s not easy. Citizens should be seen and not heard.
Because they want to control you. That’s been obvious for months. They want us on our knees. And because they are such miserable shits they want to take the joy out of it for everyone else. Classic children’s playground stuff. We are being governed by pre pubescent children.
Humiliation, Compliance, Subordination and many many more.
Kind of them to self-incriminate so publicly.
Jeremy Howard,
Distinguished Research Scientist at USF; Founding Researcher at fast.ai; Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council
Petr Ludwig,
A bestselling author, and an expert on critical thinking and the popularization of science
Cam Woodsum,
Founder of Nomad Impact Ventures; Former Head of Special Projects at DoorDash
David Keating,
President, Institute for Free Speech
Vojtech Petracek, Assoc. Prof., Ph.D.,
Particle Physicist, President of the Czech Technical University in Prague
Vladimir Zdimal, Ph.D.,
Head of the Department of Chemistry and Aerosol Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences
Emil Pavlik, M.D., Ph.D.,
Microbiologist and Virologist
Leos Navratil, Prof., M.D., Ph.D.,
Population Protection Expert, Head of the Department of Health Care and Population Protection, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague
Martin Hausenblass,
Entrepreneur and investor.
Josef Prusa,
Entrepreneur, an expert on 3D printing, founder of Prusa Research
Misha Chellam,
Founder at Council on Technology & Society & Tradecraft
Look at the photos of the team. The ‘masks’ all look photoshopped on to them!
DavidC
Goldman Sachs, saved from going belly up by the Obama Administration in 2009, now advises the W.H.O., according to Dr. Vernon Coleman. Money talks.
Ah yes, but they were doing God’s work you know!
Why do the BBC seem so keen on getting Far Left Marxist extremist and SAGE advisor Susan Michie on their programmes? The question contains enough information to explain why! She was on Radio For Them today yet again receiving the equivalent of underarm bowling delivrries from Evan Davis and being given acres of air time to spread fear and despondency among the population. When asked one slightly probing questions – how all four UK nations have ended up pretty much in the same place despite their varying policies – she had no answer and came out with a load of irrelevant guff about better coordination between the four nations.
The ‘Far Left’ and ‘Marxist’ tags are as unnecessary as Handoncock’s ‘Far Right’ and ‘Neoliberal’ credentials.
The main point is that they’re both a.holes.
Hancock’s many things but he’s not Far Right. Michie is Far Left.
Hancock is just nothing.
Your last sentence, exactly the same conversation between R2 Jeremy Vine and his pet Virologist.
At last I am going to be extremely rich! Thats because I have invented a vaccine for Covid-19 which I guarantee will work and I am going to sell 67 million dosses of it to the UK Government for a hundred quid a pop. Thats 6.7 Billion squid so I have already ordered my megayacht.
I am sure that you have some questions such as;
Is it safe?
Absolutely, it has been approved for injection by every regulatory body worldwide and has been tested for safety over many years.
How do you know it works?
Statistically it must do, but to make sure I am going to organise a trial. We will immunise a test group of 1000 volunteers and encourage them to go to the pub, football matches, beach parties, protests and raves without wearing a face mask for two weeks and then we will test who has caught the virus. Just to be absolutely sure we will not use the standard PCR test but will use the much more accurate viral culture test.
Will it be 100% effective?
No vaccine is 100% effective in fact the influenza vaccines currently in use are shown to be only about 50% effective. Nevertheless, we fully expect that none, or at most one, of the 1000 volunteers will test positive which means that our vaccine will be shown to be at least 99.9 % effective. When our vaccination program is rolled out over the whole population we expect to find as few as 0.04% of the population will test positive over a 14 day period. Clearly this makes my vaccine 99.96% effective.
When will it be available?
Supplies of the vaccine are already distributed to and avaiilable in most health care facilities. We could start the program tomorrow as soon as the Government send me the first payment.
Call now!
If lines are busy call later, but do call.
Handsy Hancock is saying Q1 next year. Apparently you and your colleagues have pushed back the roll-out twice now. If you don’t get on with it, every country will have reached herd immunity. Can you not skip the safety trials – nobody will know!!
Brilliant.
Caerphilly in Wales going local lockdown with 55 cases in 100,000?
… and when an ‘epidemic’ is defined as 40 cases per 10,000 ….????
WTF??
No entry or exit from the county borough without reasonable excuse. All over the age must wear face masks indoors, and no visits to other people’s homes. Kim Jong Un is Welsh.
Arch bedwetter John Edmunds of Sage nearly crying with terror and fear on ITN news. A truly pathetic individual. A Dr saying basically not much to worry about, yet all focus on the fear mongers ‘obvious concerns’ that therefore mean they must be justified. No need to even bother asking basic questions. Truly disgusting. As Peter Hitchens said, the journalists have been utterly abysmal throughout on this.
Just seen it. Absolutely PATHETIC! What an absolute toss pot. I’ve never seen anything like it. Disgusting propaganda. And that misery guts presenter. What a bloody shit show!
I was thinking the same. The daft bugger wants to cancel Christmas.
The way I see it things are going well: cases rising exponentially but deaths and hospitalisations dwindling. Probably exactly what we want to happen. Edmund seems to want to flatten this latest curve so more cases arise in the depths of winter….not a good idea.
But Christmas is in December……how do they know it has been cancelled?
We need the infections now, before winter comes and the virus gets active again. Seems to me that only Sweden has sufficient herd immunity to get through the winter thanks to no lockdown. If the cretins in government lock down here again, there will be societal and economic collapse in 2021, and quite likely mass starvation too.
No, what he wants is to stoke the panic and fear. He wants the public to believe a whopping great lie that they have been telling since the beginning. That this disease is uniquely virulent and community transmission is rife and therefore lockdown is the only answer. To protect them from the truth that their idiotic advice was wrong by mikes and moving frail old folk out if hospitals into care homes was a disaster and most people who died caught it in a Care home or a hospital. Not in the tube, not at Cheltenham, not in schools or shops or churches or any other damned place. The entire nonsense is built in that one massive and outright lie. All of it is done with that grand deception in mind. Goebbels would have tipped his hat to the masters.
We part company on community transmission. I believe it is highly infectious. But agree it’s no more virulent than an averagely bad year’s flu.
As we agree on core principles I am asking in the spirit of genuine enquiry why you believe community transmission is rife in this? I have no medical papers to proffer, but I base my view on the following; the fact that most deaths have been of very ill and old people, they are not prevalent in wider community settings, that about 70% of deaths have occurred as a result of catching it in hospital or care home settings. That means only about 8,000 deaths from ‘Community’ settings and we don’t know how many of those had other serious illnesses. There was no discernible increases in hospitalisations or deaths following Cheltenham, Anfield, BLM, Bournemouth, illegal raves etc. Diamond Princess where only 19% caught it. Much talk of Asymptomatic transmission which just seems bizarre, and finally, the Pillar 2 tests which are picking up people who are simply not ill by any measure. During Feb and March at the height of this, the tubes and trains were still crowded, so were the pubs, offices and factories. There were no SD measures, or masks. If there IS community transmission, it is at such a low level of virulence as to not have any significant bearing on outcomes as to be not worth worrying about. In fact it would be positive for herd immunity and a vaccine completely unnecessary. That is my thinking, but I would really like to hear yours as I am always keen to gain different insights and perspectives, particularly from fellow sceptics. Thanks.
Christmas is cancelled, can’t bloody afford it after these morons on their taxpayer funded pensions stuck the rest of us in the s### for a generation.
He reminded me of Simon Pegg in the the spoof film Shaun of the dead – (sorry Simon) that wide eyed look of surprize
Yes – good spot….didn’t that film also have a large cast of zombies?
Exactly……..
I’m sure this was the guy who was explaining how kids are “viral buckets” back in March. Instrumental in stoking fears that led to school closures.
What do we have to do to get a ‘scalp’? SAGE, Hancock, Boris, Van Tam – the list of wrong uns is endless
The whole lot must go. The entire establishment has failed and must be replaced.
ITV News featuring child labour being used in face mask manufacture…hope all the Masked Fraternity feel guilty.
They won’t. It’s for the “greater good.”
Perhaps they could combine their no schooling policy with their support for child labour and rediscover the spirit of Victorian enterprise…for the greater good.
Victorian? More like mediaeval.
In Ireland the government have enacted laws to limit protest. Tracey O Mahoney has been making some excellent legal advice videos on various aspects of anti lockdown including masks and vaccines.
This is another. She she’s exactly what is happening.
Zero deaths. They enacted their zero covid agenda. Opposition MPs are spineless, journalists are spineless. Its getting very worrying.
https://youtu.be/gPWkgZpYmyg
Police Scotland figures for edinburgh.
Over the weekend of Friday, 4 September 2020 to Sunday, 6 September 2020, officers attended 391 house gatherings in response to reports of alleged breaches of coronavirus regulations, police said – a 23 per cent increase compared to the previous weekend.
Does that mean increased ‘cases’ or increased enforcement?
Does this mean there is an increase in snitches, or an increase in sceptics?
391 snitches must feel so proud of themselves.
Of course they do – they got to exercise power vicariously, or to get a grudge settled with state force, and they can tell themselves it was for the noble cause of saving lives.
That’s one reason why snitches are so hated, and why they are such a dangerous and divisive tool for the state to be permitted to use for mere policy enforcement purposes (as opposed to real crime).
An impressive contribution from Devi Sridhar. I really thought Prof Neil Ferguson had the National Bullshitter of the Year award in the bag for his performance earlier in the year, but Sridhar could be a real contender on the basis of this interview, being so full of malodorous bovine faeces as it was. Her fake concern for the child victims of her lunatic lockdown ideology was hard to take.
The biggest bullshit episode I’ve seen was Cuomo in NYC. “We will never lock people down in NYC. We can’t do that to people. Shelter at home is not an option for us”
NYC locked down the next day.
Cuomo certainly wins Covid Bore of the Year with his painfully slow delivery and his little homilies about “I talk to my daughters, they say – Pop you give too much of yourself, you have to rest up…I know they’re right but I say, girls, I’ve got a city to save…” on and on and on…
A very interesting article recommended by Heneghan “Waiting for Zero”written by a pathologist Clare Craig
https://logicinthetimeofcovid.com/2020/09/07/waiting-for-zero/
An interesting article.
This article seems to focus on Pillar 1 testing. Am I alone in thinking that it doesn’t sufficiently cover the issue of errors in Pillar 2 testing that is at the root of so much current exaggeration?
The key with this is the threshold of cycles needed to produce ‘positives’, and the resultant confusion involving irrelevant RNA fragments when sampling asymptomatic individuals.
PHE just released new guidelines more sensible for Pillar 2 at least in the right direction
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sars-cov-2-rna-testing-assurance-of-positive-results-during-periods-of-low-prevalence/assurance-of-sars-cov-2-rna-positive-results-during-periods-of-low-prevalence
Is it just me….seemed rather flimsy and speculative. Rather large links in the chain of argument seemed to be missing. Take one example: she seems (her meaning is not always clear) to be arguing that we can reference the general death rate for hospital patients to make assumptions about false positives in Covid cases. It seems irrelevant either way. Generally in winter I would expect the category of patients admitted with breathing difficulties to have a much higher death rate in hospital than patients admitted for say ingrowing toenails. If the death rate is now much lower that could a statistical artefact because it is those Covid patients who have not died who are “left over” from the peak crisis. I don’t see how you can assume false positives. Maybe I’m missing something.
Because of massive hospitalscreening of all admitted patients she is calculating the amount of false positive and every admission has 1,7 % fatality rate and then she gets the number of constant C-19 deaths(false pos) which would occur each week.
Why would the Covid death rate be constant? There’s no evidence for that that I can see. The virus was picking the low hanging fruit at the beginning and so we have seen a declining death rate.
But she is speaking of false positives.They are not C-19 deaths but lab results show C-19 and could even have low Ct value below 25 and still be false positive.The clinicians must with this false result actively decide that this is not a C-19 death,that is the problem with all masstesting .
Maybe it refers to the likelihood of a false positive / false negative based on the sensitivity & specificity of a test and the prevalence of the thing being tested for. E.g. http://araw.mede.uic.edu/cgi-bin/testcalc.pl
Though she seems to be concluding what many of us already suspect – that there will be enough of an uptick in the stats during the winter for the government to make all our lives (even more) miserable again! She has just explained how it’s going to happen. Forget about Christmas!
David Icke said there will be a 2nd massive lock down and it will be almost instant. The msm are now helping set the seeds.
UK Column today.
https://youtu.be/qgq5NsMqxS8
Deals with the political policing we are now seeing across the west. It also looks into NLP being used in the civil service.
It starts by clearing up a very intetesting renaming exercise by the World Bank. Curious administration.
The UK Column guys make a good point the videos of policing seem to be orchestrated by high-ups in the police. EG. Piers Corbyn arrested in public by overwhelming force – he’s 73 – would it not have been better policing to arrest him at his home next day? If an arrest is what they are intent on. The police actions at Corbyn’s arrests have caused violence. This in only my example, other aressts on social media follow a similar pattern – police causing the scuffle/brutality.
An this same subject are the images from Australia of cuffed men and women having masks forcibly strapped to their faces by police as an integral part of the arrest ‘performance’.
As uK Column show this is unlawful medical intervetion in each case breaking a well documented human right see the UKC today for the wording of those rights.
We must not allow the police to get away with any of this behaviour they are displaying they need bringing to justice.
How must Hancock’s guilt porn message to the young, about not killing grandma, sound in the ears of older people? Surely what they hear must be: ‘If only you were dead, your grandchildren could live normally.’
What a vicious message.
How much more humane to let us all get on with life. It probably won’t kill grandma, and grandma would (probably) rather take the risk.
As an Old Fart : Precisely.
We’re quite capable of assessing risk, and certainly don’t require the intervention of brainless wazzocks like Handycock who can’t even do basic maths.
Hong Kong police tackled a 12-year old girl to the ground and arrested her on Sunday amid protests against delayed parliamentary elections.
She was later charged for allegedly violating coronavirus social distancing rules.
DT article here:
https://t.co/4BuoAiUHFF?amp=1
Twitter video of it here:
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1302987275060629504?s=20
Whatever I read, watch and listen to always leads me back to the terrible 3. I’m talking about the UN, the WHO and the Elite. Under cover of covid horrid things are being done to us and planned for us. Do-gooders are not always what they seem and money is a powerful influencer. Some here may benefit from the content of James Corbett, Vernon Coleman, and UK Column to cite but three, when it comes to joining the dots linking the terrible 3 and gaining a deeper perspective of lockdown and beyond.
They’re not ”elite”, though, are they?
Can’t we think of a more appropriate word for them?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sars-cov-2-rna-testing-assurance-of-positive-results-during-periods-of-low-prevalence/assurance-of-sars-cov-2-rna-positive-results-during-periods-of-low-prevalence
New guidelines seems to follow Heneghan’s suggestions.
Positive test results at the limit of detection – Pillar 2 LaboratoriesRequest a repeat sample and advise self isolation pending the results of the second sample.
Contact tracing should only be initiated if there is a positive result from the repeat sample.
A positive result at the limit of detection from the repeat sample is suggestive of the late stage cycle of infection and therefore contact tracing and further self isolation is not advised.
This too is disingenuous because the chart shows a rise and fall of the virus but it does not quantify how many test results are in the two areas encircled in red dotted lines.
“Half a million Covid deaths was ABSURD we are being DUPED, says RICHARD MADELEY”
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/richard-and-judy/1323175/coronavirus-lockdown-figures-covid-19-death-toll
This prong of attack is vital. Without friendly translators such as Deinse Welch and now Richard Madeley the message won’t reach to important people – that is the great British Public. Well done Richard.
Punters queue to get into a car boot sale in Seaford
What a joke!
They couldn’t possibly allow people to see that it’s possible to have some sort of life without the threat of constant lockdowns:
There’s no good reason why Sweden isn’t on our quarantine-free list
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/sweden-quarantine-list/
Let’s hope the ongoing judicial review of the quarantine rules ( see Toby’s update of Friday) exposes the political nature of the irrational quarantine rules. If you haven’t already, please contribute to this. It’s a serious application ( Francis Hoar, S Dolan’s counsel) and will no doubt have cost a lot more than the crowd fund can achieve. But the bigger point here is to support those individuals who are prepared to challenge these incursions on our liberty.