Follow The Covid Rules Or Get Kicked Out, Cambridge Tells Students
Students at a Cambridge college have received a coronavirus “Community Statement” that they must sign and adhere to or risk being ejected from college accommodation. Lockdown Sceptics has seen the draconian rules issued by Trinity College to its students and it’s a shocker. It states:
You are required to sign this statement and adhere to it if you would like to return to, or remain resident in, College accommodation. No accommodation for the new academic year will be allocated until you return a signed copy of this statement. The Senior Tutor and Junior Bursar can withdraw your accommodation if you breach your commitment to follow the Community Statement.
The rules, sorry, I mean “community guidelines”, include being prepared to move rooms or leave at “very short notice”, rigorous cleaning duties, no visitors, being limited to the bare minimum of possessions for “basic living standards”, and a requirement to store in your room “three days’ supply of non-perishable food for use in the event of a lockdown”. Parties are “likely to be deemed a grave breach”. The rules can change at any point. (The Guardian also has the story.)
It is left entirely up to academic supervisors whether they will teach their students in person, leaving many at risk of a substandard education. As one university lecturer told us: “I have been at the receiving end of online teaching, and it is absolutely not as good as the real thing. Even in a small group you lose the immediacy, your attention drifts, and your tutor loses the body language necessary to get a feel of how you are responding to the instruction.”
New students were told before term began that they cannot defer their place if this is not to their liking. It’s our way or the highway at Trinity College, Cambridge. The college which, over the course of its history, has won more Nobel Prizes than France and Belgium combined has turned into a citadel of unscientific, hysterical group think. Perhaps it’s because the new Master is Sally Davies, the former Chief Medical Officer.
Treating young people in this way is cruel. Dressing it up as a “Community Statement” which “represents a commitment” by students – a commitment they had no choice about whether to make – is Orwellian doublespeak. If they don’t make this supposedly voluntary “commitment”, they lose their place at Cambridge.
We are used to “Generation Snowflake” complaining of micro-aggressions and wanting safe spaces and trigger warnings – fatuous nonsense, which is nonetheless frequently indulged by university authorities. Yet here we have a genuine example of oppressive treatment likely to cause harm to students’ well-being and mental health that’s due to the snowflakery of the grown ups. All in the name of protecting people from this “deadly” virus. Yet a recent analysis by Professor David Spiegelhalter in the BMJ has shown that the risk to people under 35 is almost zero.
All these rules and restrictions are in place for the benefit of much, much older people suffering from co-morbidities, in other words. What a dreadful burden to impose on the young, who have already had their education disrupted, their exams cancelled and been put through an A-Level grades fiasco which left many of them unsure whether they’d get a place at university until the last minute.
Students are informed at the end of the Statement that the College has “a Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisor as well as a Counsellor”. They’re going to need them.
Boris Needs to Look Again at the Facts About Covid
Too many people still assume that lockdown is the only thing that stood between us and Armageddon, and that restrictions of varying severity must continue until there is a vaccine or a cure. But is that what the evidence tells us? I wrote a piece for the Spectator yesterday making the case that Boris and the Government need to look again.
To get to the truth of what is happening – and to work out the approach we need to take – we need a control, something to show what happens when things are done differently. Peru offers one possible example: it has one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, yet also the world’s highest official death toll, at a rate of 929 per million. We also have Sweden, which favoured a light-touch approach; there has been no new big rise in cases or deaths and the country’s economy is getting back on its feet.
Critics point out that Sweden fared significantly worse than its Nordic neighbours, with 578 deaths per million, compared to Denmark’s 109 and Finland’s 61. However, Sweden, which never took on the burden of indefinite suppression, is now in a much stronger position to contemplate a return to normal life.
What’s more, an international comparison in the Lancet in July offered little conclusive evidence connecting the timing and strictness of lockdown in a country and the COVID-19 death rate. Yet still our leaders insist that wide-ranging restrictions on social and economic life are the best way to respond to this threat.
The public can be forgiven for overestimating the severity of the virus, having been subjected to a barrage of terror for the past six months. But the government and its advisers have no excuse. They ought to have twigged by now that, for most people, the threat has been overegged and the response to it far out of proportion to the danger it poses. Being able to step back and reappraise evidence and change direction in light of that – and then, crucially, bringing the public along with you – is an essential characteristic of a good leader and one that we are in desperate need of right now. On this count, Boris is failing badly.
Read the whole piece here.
Stop Press: The Lancet has set up a commission under economist and UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs to investigate the world’s response to the virus. Unfortunately, it begins with the assumption that lockdowns work and are necessary. Sachs told the Telegraph: “What we have learned, I think, about the public health response [to date] is that even though this is a devilish virus it is controllable. Around two billion people live in countries that have substantially suppressed the virus. They’ve been able to do that, primarily because of public health means, and especially these non-pharmaceutical interventions [extreme social distancing measures]. But if we look at the UK, the US, and western Europe, we failed to put such policies in place basically until now. In the US we still don’t have an effective control system.” Only just put social distancing in place now? What is this guy smoking? And what is the point of an “investigation” into the world’s response if it takes it for granted that the thrust of that response – to indiscriminately quarantine entire populations, the healthy as well as the sick – was correct before it’s concluded? Seems to be yet more self-justifying delusion from the global elites who got us into this mess.
Naked Scientist Sees the Light
Dr Chris Smith, a virologist at Cambridge and known on TV and radio as the “Naked Scientist”, has been a regular on BBC Radio 5 live throughout the pandemic, co-hosting “Commonsense coronavirus call-in” on Saturday afternoons with Colin Murray. At the start of the outbreak on March 12th he was among the doomsayers, predicting 50-100 million deaths worldwide (the current total is around 943,000). Now, however, he seems to have changed his tune. Discussing an interview with Lord Sumption that had occurred on the station earlier in the morning, he appears to go a long way in agreeing with the former judge. A reader has transcribed the exchange for us:
Dr Chris: What he’s [Lord Sumption] basically saying is that it’s unsustainable to carry on the way we are, because if we do we won’t have an economy to prop up the standard of living to which we’ve all become accustomed, and I think that is true; we do have to come up with a solution soon. The difference between March, when we didn’t know much about this outbreak and now, is that we do know a lot more about it. We know who is susceptible, we know how to stop it, and we know what we need to do to stop it, and I think therefore we do need to adjust. Rather than regard this as a blunderbuss thing, we just lock the country down, and I do agree with him completely that it is an absurd notion to think we just suppress the virus by keeping everyone under lock and key. That’s just not going to be possible, so we do have to have an alternative.
It’s clear there is not going to be a vaccine any time soon. We’re talking perhaps six months away still at the earliest before we’re properly in a position to move on this, and we don’t even know if we do get a vaccine that it will work, so we do need a Plan B. Perhaps that Plan B ought to be that, because we know who’s most at risk, we do our utmost to protect those people who are most at risk, and we afford much more flexibility and freedom to people, at their discretion of course, to go about their business as they see fit, so that we have done the most we can to protect the people we know are most at risk, and support the people who want to go out and about and do their own thing, and that to me seems like a reasonable compromise given what we now know about this virus.
Presenter: So this would be shielding the most vulnerable, getting them to stay at home, and then letting the younger people go about their daily business?
Dr Chris: Well it doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old. If you’ve got an illness or some kind of problem that means you’re at high risk, then we should be doing our absolute utmost to protect you. But those people are the few in amongst the vast majority in the country who are not at high risk from this, let’s be honest. We now know a lot more about what the risk factors are, we know who we should be protecting, and we know how to protect people, and the evidence for that is that although we are seeing rising numbers of cases in the country, particularly among younger people, we’re not seeing that mirrored in the older generations quite yet, and so as a result that suggests that those people are being cautious, being careful, and those efforts are being rewarded in them by them not catching it. We mustn’t be complacent here; it may be, as people are suggesting, that we may see a filter through, with more young people’s cases turning to more older people’s cases later, and that may translate into more mortalities, but for now that isn’t the case, and perhaps we should be willing to consider it and its implications rather than immediately move towards more of the suppression approach, which all it does is kick the can down the road.
Postcard From Tanzania
Lockdown Sceptics long ago identified John Magufuli, the President of Tanzania, as one of the few world leaders to emerge from the coronavirus crisis with any credit, having rejected the advice to lock down his country because of his well-founded doubts about the false positive rate of the PCR test. As readers will recall, he ordered the army to carry out a range of tests when his doubts set in and both a goat and a papaya tested positive.
A reader, Tony Hughes, has sent us a postcard from Tanzania, where he lives, and confirms that it’s one of the few places in the world that hasn’t completely lost its mind.
Thank goodness we live in Tanzania. It may be a ‘developing’ country (GDP per capita is 40 times less than that of the UK) but in the ‘fight’ against Corona its people have retained their freedoms and liberties unlike those in many nations where these very concepts are championed as a mark of civilisation. Tanzanians – from 100 or more tribes – are among the most polite, respectful and tolerant people in the world. It is therefore unsurprising that the Government’s response has been thoughtful and balanced – despite the derision poured on it from the international media and other organisations, many with an interest in selling fear. Indeed, if the mark of a statesman is thinking of the next generation (rather than the next election), then the President’s outlook is a lesson that should be learnt by every other African and world politician.
So what sets Tanzania apart? First and foremost its current leaders understand the limitations of scientific modelling and testing, which in this pandemic so far, seems solely to have been used to produce a convenient outcome. Though much mocked at the time, Tanzania discovered very early that papaya, among other things, can return a positive Corona result. It is now, months later, amusing to see that the world is only just getting to acknowledge the problem of false positives.
This is not to say that Tanzanians have simply put their heads in the sand and ignored the virus. Everyone has a fear of the unknown. The Government’s initial public health response was decisive and quick. Right from the beginning, standard hygiene policies were introduced – even the smallest ‘duka’ (shop) provided facilities for hand sanitising, while temperature checks were made available in all larger shops, offices, hotels and other public places. Schools were also shut, team sports suspended and quarantine introduced for international arrivals – which restrictions were all lifted months ago as increasing knowledge suggests the virus is no worse than many of the diseases Tanzanians have to live with. More than this, however, its leaders know that development challenges are hard and poverty kills just as surely as any virus (though not necessarily the rich). Life expectancy is just under 65 years. The political response has therefore been great, the hopes and aspirations of ordinary Tanzanians have been put first – the median age is just 18. Though similarly mocked in the international press, this was done using language to help its deeply religious population remain aware but stop fixating on the virus, preventing the mass hysteria that had seemly affected so many in the UK and other parts of the world.
Tanzania is great place to visit, especially in these uncertain times. Want to wear a mask, socially distance or self-isolate (in some of the largest wilderness areas remaining in the world) – up to you. No one will judge or confuse you with a thousand little rules.
Big Brother’s NHS
Toby’s friend Tom Hodgkinson, who edits the Idler, has passed on a comment from his dad Neville, who worked as a medical and science journalist for British newspapers for 20 years. Neville has given us permission to republish. Hard to disagree.
From needing to protect “our NHS” (which is actually Big Brother’s NHS) from being overwhelmed we went to needing to protect ourselves against a new surge of infections brought in from other countries (ruining summer hols for many), and now as testing becomes more widespread, more “cases” are used to scare us – which are not cases at all, but positive results in healthy people with PCR testing. This finds a genetic needle in a haystack, quite possibly a signal from a previous infection with another of the 100 or so coronaviruses out there. And they have spent billions on lockdowns of proven uselessness. And millions on buying up a vaccine that doesn’t yet even exist. And yet papers like the Mirror, Guardian, Indie, etc. are baying for still more interference, including Stalinesque “snitching” on neighbours who break the entirely non evidence-based instructions. Wow! National debt now over two trillion pounds’
Spain’s “Second Wave”
Hospital admissions, ICU occupancy and deaths are up in Spain, particularly Madrid, leading to some lurid news reports adding to the growing hysteria around the dreaded ‘second wave’. The Telegraph, for example, has “Fears for Europe’s hospitals as Madrid death toll grows“, which states: “Hospitals in Europe’s COVID-19 hotpots are close to saturation point, with admissions to intensive care units increasing exponentially in cities such as Marseille and Madrid.”
So are ICU admissions really “increasing exponentially” in Madrid? Here is the graph:
Steady growth, certainly, but not exponential. In terms of being at “saturation point”, Covid patients currently occupy 22% of Madrid’s hospital beds and 8.5% nationally, so still plenty of spare capacity. The rise so far has been steady rather than steep or “exponential”.
As to deaths, although 239 deaths were announced today, they are spread over a number of recent days. This is what the chart by date of death looks like today (note that recent days will be revised upwards in future reports):
Notice how much smaller and gentler the new curve is compared to March. We don’t yet know how high it will go, but we do know it is not behaving the same as when the virus first hit.
BBC Propaganda
Longtime Lockdown Sceptics contributor Guy de la Bédoyère has been in touch to complain about the Ministry of Truth BBC.
Watched the 1pm BBC TV News today. Testing delays are the new Death Porn. They flogged the story out for 10 minutes at the top of the bulletin, doing everything conceivably possible to freak people out about a test shortage, weaving second wave references in and out, interviewing enraged test-wannabees, following the government line so slavishly they’ve managed to leave the flailing government behind unable to match testing to the extent the BBC has whipped up Second-Wave Terror. They’ve obviously all been watching Game of Thrones since the slogan du jour is “with winter approaching” (aka Winter is Coming), making it sound like twenty-feet deep snowdrifts and -40C gales are due any minute along with Monty Python ‘bring out your dead’ carts in every street.
They might as well also have shown footage of van loads of toilet paper being driven away from shops for good measure. Perhaps there is literally a newsroom textbook on how to do this. It’s all like Edwina Currie and the eggs on speed. Back in those days the BBC took a few days to destroy a whole industry – now it can crank the whole country up in hours.
You can see the entire thing spiralling out of control as a news story, accelerating, growing like a snowball, and brainwashing as many people as possible into the idea that if they so much as sneeze they have to get a Covid test at any price or die, while at the same time telling everyone the testing system is about to blow up like HMS Hood in 1941.
It’s as if the country has been consumed by a fetish for gratuitous hysteria.
What would I do if I had symptoms? As far as possible: nothing except stay at home. Who are these long-distance test hunters who drive 250 miles or more for a test? Unless they’re really essential workers, are they utterly insane? Or what is the insanity behind sending them there? Even if we assume they have the virus, how many additional people are they going to come into contact with? Still, so long as they eat constantly en route there’s no chance of putting anyone else at risk.
There’s one good quote to bear in mind – the only hope we have left:
“Hysteria takes too much energy to be maintained forever.” Mira Grant (science fiction author)
Unfortunately, the BBC seems to have plenty of energy.
Round-Up
- “Swathes of public to be refused coronavirus tests under rationing plans” – Another embarrassing disaster for the Government’s handling of Covid
- “How tragic that Coronaphobia is turning our land of liberty into a Stasi-like state” – Ross Clark adds another great piece to the Mail‘s growing tally of sceptical output
- “COVID-19 and the false positive trap” – Excellently lucid explanation of the problem of false positives by Lockdown Sceptics contributor Dr Clare Craig in the Spectator
- “China’s Global Lockdown Propaganda Campaign” – Michael Senger in the Tablet lays bare the shocking CCP social media propaganda campaign that helped send lockdown global, although our own Sue Denim says treat all reports of bot farms pumping out fake news with caution
- “Is Britain heading towards civil war?” – Asks Andrew Cadman in Conservative Woman, inspired by Douglas Murray’s comments to James Delingpole
- “We could be guinea pigs for untested vaccines” – Vlod Barchuk in Conservative Woman on the dangers of the Government’s plans to bypass key safeguards. There’s still time to respond to the consultation here
- “Are we becoming immune to the vaccine message?” – A rundown of the problems with vaccines by Dr Priyad Ariyaratnam in the Speccie
- “What Are We Waiting For?” – Another blog post by Omar S. Khan, this time wondering why people aren’t taking their freedom back
- “Patel will never make us a nation of snitchers” – Solid piece by Alice Thomson in the Times
- “Boris Johnson has six months left to save his premiership” – An optimistic forecast by Allister Heath in the Telegraph
- “Johnson’s erratic style could cost him dear” – Iain Martin in the Times senses growing discontent with the Prime Minister
- “Where’s Boris?” – Fraser Nelson expresses his doubts about Boris’s leadership in the Spectator
- “George Washington Enrolment Drops 17% in Pandemic Setback” – A sign of things to come?
- “Boris Johnson has wiped the smile from our faces” – Sean Walsh takes a philosophical look at why it’s all gone so wrong for our scientists and politicians
- “Crucial Update on the Viral Issue: a ‘Debunking the Detractors’ Special!” – Ivor Cummins responds in detail to criticism of his now famous September 8th explainer
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “We No Mingle” by Terror Fabulous.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We’ve also introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today it’s the turn of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which recently removed its display of shrunken heads. It issued a lengthy explanation for this, including this section in answer to the question “Were these changes in response to the Black Lives Matter movement?” (Short answer: Yes.)
At the Pitt Rivers Museum, we condemn racism in the strongest terms; we work towards becoming an anti-racist institution and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. As a museum, we know it is important not to be silent and to lend whatever support we can, both to our own staff members, and to the broader communities that are impacted by institutionalised, everyday racism and other exclusionary practices. We express our solidarity and our recognition of how museums like ours, and collections like ours, cannot be separated from the ongoing violence and systemic racism happening in Oxford, in the UK, in the US, and elsewhere.
The guiding principles of our Strategic Plan state that we aim to be part of a process of redress, social healing and the mending of historically difficult relationships. We acknowledge that the Pitt Rivers Museum can be an uncomfortable place for people to visit. Addressing colonial, racist and otherwise derogatory language on labels and/or in database description, doing provenance research into the manner in which objects were taken (e.g. by the use of military violence or coercion) and, where requested, taking objects off display or enabling the return of objects to originating communities are all integral to that process.
We aim to be a place of listening to and learning from stakeholders and we want to be an inclusive, reflexive and thought-provoking museum, that enables audiences to perceive displays from different viewpoints. To truly live up to this, we know that we can do more, we can be better and we are committed to do so. We have a responsibility to speak out, and to ask and address uncomfortable questions which we have not asked persistently enough.
The Museum’s rootedness in coloniality comes to us in materialized form through its unique Victorian galleries, the often-problematic language of its historic labels, and the very presence of its collections. Collections like the one we steward, were largely gathered during the time of the British Empire. During this period, systems and structures used for the exploitation of resources and people, including enslavement, were set up in institutionalised form in order to accumulate wealth and power for the colonisers. Part of that system of disempowerment of local authority was through the taking of (often sacred) objects. The people who took these objects felt entitled to do so; to appropriate them in order to represent cultural practices, and to speak about and for others from eurocentric perspectives. This process of taking and categorising cultural practice was often highly problematic, as there was no acknowledgement of the views of the originating communities and no reflection on the methods used to dispossess communities of these objects.
A visit to the Museum, therefore, evokes very different emotions and feeling with different people, depending on background and walks of life. For those who have heritage or roots in regions of the world that suffered the violence of Empire, the Pitt Rivers Museum can be a very difficult and hurtful place to be, as it can be for people who have to confront ableist and heter-normative world views on a daily basis. Too often stories have been silenced, perspectives erased. Undoing this coloniality is integral to the work the Museum does today.
As Toby said on London Calling yesterday, isn’t it a little self-defeating to describe the Pitt Rivers Museum as “a very difficult and hurtful place to be” for descendants of those “that suffered the violence of Empire” if you want to encourage black, Asian and minority ethnic students to visit? It’s almost like saying, “We’re deeply ashamed of the links between the Pitt Rivers Museum and white privilege and for that reason we want to discourage non-white people from visiting in future.”
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here.
And Finally…
Toby adds his voice to the growing chorus of doubters about Boris in his Spectator column today.
What on earth happened to the freedom-loving, twinkly-eyed, Rabelaisian character I voted for? Oliver Hardy has left the stage, replaced by Oliver Cromwell. His government has even said it wants to lower the speed limit on motorways to 60 mph. Didn’t Boris once say that voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3? Where did that guy go?
Can his lacklustre performance be blamed on the fact that he came down with a bad dose of Covid several months ago? Toby doesn’t think so.
This explanation is attractive to former Boris enthusiasts like me because it lets us off the hook. It’s not that we overestimated him; rather that he’s changed in a way we couldn’t have anticipated. But the difficulty with those theories is that his mishandling of the crisis predates his battle with COVID-19.
Few would dispute that he failed to give the pandemic the attention he should have done in January and February, time he could have spent devising an effective containment strategy. Come March, he was just buffeted by events, one minute saying we should ‘take it on the chin’, the next imposing a full lockdown. His lack of engagement with the detail, both before and after his spell in intensive care, means the Government’s response has been led by others around the cabinet table, like Matt Hancock, who seem to be wholly captured by a small coterie of scientific advisors who decided early on that Sars-CoV-2 was ‘the big one’ and have been unwilling to abandon that hypothesis in the light of all the evidence to the contrary.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
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FRIDAY PAGE IS HERE. MOVE ALONG
And watch out for the Gendarmes
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/09/18/latest-news-138/#comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54199642 reports another partial lockdown across the whole of England.
First BBC article I’ve read for months. It’s another reality. No wonder the UK is in such trouble.
“However Prime Minister Boris Johnson is understood to be deeply reluctant to order another national lockdown, where everyone would be asked to stay at home and businesses to close.”
He doesn’t have to do anything. The power to impose stringent local lockdowns has been delegated to local authorities, so the government has washed its hands of the responsibility. One by one, all the major urban centres are taking it upon themselves to finish the job.
All part of the plan
Government wants local authorities to take over so they get the blame when the public finally wakes up to what is going on.
Talk Radio, 5 hours ago, Toby regrets backing Boris.
Currently item #5. Sorry, can’t post links from Android.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6191658847001
Former Victorian public servant claims he was ‘stifled from the very beginning’
17/09/2020|12min
Former economist at the Victorian Treasury Department Sanjeev Sabhlok, who resigned after being stifled by superiors, has told Sky News top public servants chose not to “rock the boat” as it was not welcome by their “political masters”.
Mr Sabhlok recently resigned from his post at the Victorian Department of Finance and Treasury after being asked to remove online posts criticising the state’s management of the pandemic.
In an exclusive television interview with Sky News host Peta Credlin, Mr Sabhlok said that he raised objections in February claiming data was sufficient to look at actions to “isolate the elderly to protect them” whilst letting the rest of society to “continue with precautions”.
Mr Sabhlok said he was told this was “not the department’s job”, but in fact the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I’ve been stifled from the very beginning,” he said
“Normally treasury provides holistic advice. That’s the whole point of economics.
He said the Victorian government quickly imposed approaches emblematic of “extreme overreach”.
“We started reaching from one heavy handed approach to the more heavy handed approaches,” according to Mr… Read more »
Full credit to this guy for having the guts to go public. In that imprisoned state he is risking everything to do so. Sky News Australia also deserves praise for broadcasting it. If this was a military conflict, their studios would have been bombed long ago (remember Al Jazeera in the 2003 Iraq War).
SANJEEV SABHLOK : MY NOMINATION FOR AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coronavirus-public-servant-sanjeev-sabhlok-quits-slams-police-state/news-story/e95a481a6b08aa461eeb34113d930b1b
An economist with the Victorian Department of Finance and Treasury has resigned so he can call out Labor Premier Dan Andrews’ handling of the pandemic and the “police state” imposed on Melbourne residents.
I have sent the video clip to my MP. We can only hope.
The World Health Organization, which is the medical epicenter of the depopulation lobby, now considers your child’s presence in school informed consent to vaccinate that child.
The WHO has labeled it ‘implied consent’
Link to WHO pdf
https://www.who.int/immunization/programmes_systems/policies_strategies/consent_note_en.pdf
Getting jabbed against infections was just a routine part of infant/junior school life in the 60’s. Administered by the School Nurse who was regarded as a Fierce Saint, not to be messed with.
Vaccines have come a long way in 2020. Inclusive of tagging infra red tattoo.
Beautifully put by the Israeli Gilad Atzmon –
“If I have to choose between getting my T cells from Covid 19 or from Bill Gates, Oxford Chimpanzees or an Israeli WMD factory.. I certainly go for Covid, it guaranties 99.98% survival rate ..”
Twitter.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563.full?ijkey=fb7IwiBWN21zMIF&keytype=ref#
Apologies if duplicating.
There’s a very important point you’re missing in the Spain article. In rough numbers, around 420,000 people die each year in Spain, around 1,150 a day.
Now in the latest figures 13% of tests gave a positive result, so you’d expect 149 per day of the deaths to be people who have tested covid positive, even assuming that has no health effect (in the same way as 58 would be left-handed assuming 5% of people are left handed).
The actual daily figure (deaths of people who have tested positive) is around 60 so well below this, implying either that COVID is good for you (very unlikely) or that the results are completely meaningless (most likely).
so there is no evidence of an uptick at all in Spain.
Vignettes from the time of the plague:
1. Happily, 99% of schoolkids on the train totally ignoring the mask rule. Overhearing their conversations they seem (rightly) far more concerned about the fraud calls they get on their mobiles than the non existent threat (for them at that age) of Covid. Why doesn’t our useless government do anything to combat phone and internet fraud?
2. Had my first challenge out shopping maskless today. Was in Waitrose so won’t be going back there in a hurry! Explained I was exempt…no further queries. But even so I resent the intrusion.
3. Got a taxi back from the station today. Driver told me he’d been waiting for over three hours for a fare. He said things had got far worse since the rule of 6 was introduced. We agreed this was nothing to do with the rule itself but reflected the government ramping up the fear factor. In other words the government is sabotaging the very economic recovery it claims it wants.
4. Neghbour told me his very fit mid 80s yr old father passed away recently in hospital. Tested negative for Covid three times but was being recorded as “possible”… Read more »
I really appreciate these reports, and admire your bloody mindedness to go about your daily business irrespective of the conditions. I have not ventured further than a quarter of a mile from my flat, or been within a metre of another person, since 18th March. My coping mechanism, nothing more. The boots on the ground intelligence I gather from these kind of contributions on here are an absolutely invaluable insight into where we are. No detail is too trivial. Please keep it up.
There is NOTHING out there. They are playing M. Night Shyamalan‘s film ‘The Village’ for real.
It’s as bad as I thought then. Simply too excruciating to see places I once knew desecrated like this.
I remain entirely non-judgmental as to how individuals (meaning people not in the public sphere, ie people not telling the rest of us what to do) decide to respond. We all try and adapt to this weird new environment as best as can!
Well, if it makes you feel better Richard here’s a trivial detail: I have been to my local watering hole every day/night since the 24th July (after they got the draught beer back on – yes I like beer as well as wine) and I’m still singing and dancing and being convivial. We even laugh (all those droplets!!!!) The only negative is that I realise how much money I saved during lockdown – but blow me, how effing boring.
Excellent work. Supporting your local and trying to preserve humanity is more important than ever. I am barred from my local, although with 6 months of beard growth I would probably no longer be recognised.
I have at least supported a local microbrewery (Fourpure Brewing) with fortnightly orders, but it does not compare to the pub.
me too! Drinking in several places in London-nothing after 10 except the suburbs. Salient point was how much I saved during lockdown too
I’m not wearing masks, anywhere. I go to the pub every night, and on Friday and Saturday night when I’m a bit pissed I hug my mates. I walk the dog every day and smile at everyone I pass. Courage my friend.
I am not afraid, just incapable of subjecting myself to the horrors that have been inflicted upon our public spaces. I won’t ever use hand sanitiser, let alone a mask.
Used to drink copious amounts of Courage in my youth. Directors was always acceptable, but Best was worse than soapy dish water. An insipid pint.
Richard, each to his own; I’m in my 60’s, have COPD, assmar and a dodgy back but decided early on not to hide indoors and if the Covid got me sign a DNR, put me in corner and fill me full of morphine and goodbye.
None of this came to pass I work, shop and live normally, apart from care staff I’ve yet to meet anyone who knows anybody who has had the Covid far less died from it despite being up close and personal with about 5k individuals since March 23rd.
It’s all bullshit.
Doctors warn Madrid is walking ‘in slow motion’ towards a repeat of its ‘nuclear bomb’ Covid crisis in March
Lots of emphasis on “cases” and some, but relatively little, talk about hospitalisations. Pretty vital how his develops though.
“‘In a way, it’s like the situation in March but in slow motion,’ said Dr. Carlos Velayos, who works as an intensive care unit physician at the public hospital in suburban Fuenlabrada. ”
Well ok, but the key feature of March was precisely the rapidity….
euromomo.eu showing a moderate excess death in Belgium and in Spain. No excess deaths anywhere else in the 24 participating nations. No excess deaths in Week 37 (w/e 11/09/20) showing that the Bank Holiday excuse was just that – an excuse.
Trouble with death numbers is that there is considerable lag. Hospitalisations are a much better number to watch atm.
Madrid was locked down hard. Lockdowns don’t work, just kick the can. This is where it’s landed. At the beginning of the winter season, which is the worst time, instead of where the virus wanted to be – all done by now.
Unbelievable, the staggeringly cretinous Ashworth supporting the loathsome Zahawi.
Who votes for these people? Such 3rd raters.
Sunetra just needs to explain to John that the virus has always not been deadly, it’s simply the media frenzy and panic which made it seem like it was more, the initial panicked estimates from China and the WHO. And of course the initial stupidity of emptying hospitals into care homes and then ignoring them.
I care about the truth and think she should try to communicate it – but wonder if his version might not prove more palatable to all the people who bought the death porn in the spring
I agree it is an easier way out, and if the gov and media committed to that false narrative as opposed to the current one, I could not care less as long as people go back to life!!!
I fear that gives too much of a hostage to fortune. Rub their noses in the truth. Slay the vampiric narrative, or it will come back to bite us.
Exactly. It’s a sort of stockholm syndrome. It will be very difficult for all of these martyrs to accept that … maybe it wasn’t all really necessary.
Yes, that’s the difference between a salesperson (him) and an analyst (her). They would be a dynamite Pharma research team in The City!
“A witness called Pierre said that the Briton had tried to explain that he struggled to breathe with the mask on.
But the officer pointed at his vest and replied, ‘What does that say? This is marked “Police”, not a damned “social worker”, I do not give a damn.’
It’s further alleged by another witness named Clemence that one of the officers yelled: ‘You’re in France here, you’re not in your country.'”
Why you should never, ever, give police these kinds of powers. Mask wearing and all similar policies should always be voluntary, ruat caelum.
French cop kicks and stamps on British man’s head as he is arrested for ‘not wearing a face mask and possessing a knife’ at train station
As for the convenient “resisting arrest” claim by the police that he took out a Swiss Army knife (of all things) and supposedly tried to stab one of them with it, that should be treated with the same automatic scepticism as should be applied to claims that victims of violence made “racial abuse” towards their attackers, as such claims are so commonly made falsely to try to justify violence.
Strip away the language, the uniform and the body and only the brain remains. Police around the world appear to have their brains filled with violence. Is this a result of counter terrorism training? Police are out of depth policing public health enforcement.
They kick you in the head to protect your health. Strange times.
Looks to me like the c*** doing the kicking isn’t wearing a mask. Hopefully someone will give him the good kicking that he needs.
If you are watching Question Time to see brilliant Sunetra Gupta prepare to want to throw bricks at your laptop/TV when that ignorant, smug, cretinous muppet Ashworth tries to argue.
‘argue’? What is this ‘argue’ of which you speak?
Caldwell is good too. Ashworth is a disgrace
Yes, I just started watching – he’s great. I really feel like sanity is finally, slowly coming back
I took the opposite view.The audience and all the panel bar him and Suneta Gupta gave all bought into the Covid scam.Arguing over the handling of tests without questioning the need for it all.I wish she had argued her point that it is not a deadly virus when Fiona Bruce threw the 41,000 figure at her.She could have calmly explained the difference between dying with and of coronavirus; the fact is no one knows the true figure because they labelled everything Covid.
Pompous windbag. “I hear what you’re saying as the expert… and I choose to completely ignore it.” Rubbish socks too.
Zahawi: “…what I’m seeing in the data…” yes, I wonder what that is you idiot with no epidemiological training – I love that they cut to Sunetra’s barely suppressed smirk.
I stopped consuming any BBC media months ago.
Is there an audience? If so, are they all wearing masks and socially distanced?
Audience on Zoom.You are right it is not good for the blood pressure
Apparently 250,000 fewer licences bought this year.
Didn’t watch it – what’s the verdict?
I am beginning to doubt that a second national lockdown will actually be necessary. If all the major urban areas are in local lockdowns, it amounts to exactly the same thing. Job done.
Any thoughts on why the Midlands and North have been the keenest to exercise their newly acquired powers?
It’s the Ferguson Foot & Mouth disease approach. He might have resigned from SAGE, but his model lives on in this government’s mind!
Labour authoritiesA lot of grandstanding especially from Burnham in Manchester.Politicians love power and never miss a chance to exercise it
I’ve heard that Burnham has been especially keen to lead the pack.
The authoritarian mindset is now so deeply entrenched that central government can more or less step back and let all the local authorities get on with it. They will be competing to outdo each other. Reminds me of the Gauleiters in the Third Reich, who ruled their areas completely independently with no interference from Berlin.
It gives him a national profile as well,just as Sturgeon has used the pandemic to further the cause of Scottish independence
Daniel Andrews. Andrew Cuomo. Gavin Newsom.
Names I should not know, but I do. This is their moment in history.
If when one dies one goes to Hell to suffer just eternal torment, surely part of the torment will involve having to listen to Andrew Cuomo’s self-serving homilies delivered direct to the CNN camera. .
Socialists. Commie-lite.
Because the local government Officers enjoy the power they now wield.
A music venue owner told me today that a local pub was closed down for three days after the landlord was grassed up by his own customer for insufficient Covid safety.
Usually corruption is for personal gain which is understandable, this is just the ability to boss people around which is pathetic.
Creeping Curfew coming your way =
Second Lockdown by stealth, they really do think that we are stupid.
Plenty more of this come. One snitch can ruin an entire community with a handful of tip-offs. This is a power trip for them as much as it is for the official enforcers.
More lies and propaganda from the Welsh ‘Government’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-54189913
Just wanted to say hi to the fellow university student that commented earlier – I can’t seem to find your comment now, but it’s nice to see other dissenters my age.
Good for you, its early days yet but students strolling around the local campus are 75% freefaced and ignoring rule of 6.
Good for them!!!
It’s Thursday, shouldn’t you all be out clapping?
Question Time – John Caudwell a testing sceptic – great explanation of why not to panic. Waiting for Gupta’s first comment.
yes, it’s almost painfully exciting – I so want her to do well
I was one of the original staff for Caudwell Communications. We never sold any phones, and John and his brother Brian decided it was a non starter and they would close the business that afternoon. Whilst we were locking up the phone rang, and we unlocked the door and one of the guys there answered the phone and sold all the phones. If we’d have left 5 minutes earlier or not answered that call there wouldn’t have been any Caudwell Communications or Phones4u, and he wouldn’t have walked away with £300 million.
Of such chances are great fortunes made and lost…
(Nice anecdote, thanks).
Yes, there’s a very fine line between success and failure.
Wow, what a great story. He is performing very well tonight – a sceptic through-and-through.
yes, clear, persuasive, fluent
in that case don’t knock the BBC where there is a chance like this to influence public opinion. I had to wade through treacle to get to Heneghan’s interview.
Reminds me of JB Priestley’s play Dangerous Corner!
I think she is nervous. Alarmed by her understanding of how alarmed many people will be by hearing what she has to say. Then she was interrupted; Caudwell took over and communicated more effectively.
What do others think?
Agree….she is not a natural communicator in front of a TV camera….is careful with her words and needs patience to be listened to.
Yes agree, I thought that too. She is getting better though with each answer. Caudwell is a star – and he is supporting her too. Ashworth has lost it. Zahawi is a slimeball and wittering anyway (has he got Borisitis?)
both Ashworth and Zahawi are making themselves look like fools. All they are allowed to do, evidently, is parrot the prepared lines. Literally, robots could perform as they are doing
She is clearly not a confident speaker in this environment. Caudwell is excellent – speaking with common sense and logic. The two most are just arrogant sock puppets. No surprise there then.
Edit – “the two mps”
Agree she is a bit too timid but she is not a politician.Ashworth is infuriating.What a prick
I think her arguments are often too nuanced and advanced and she’s realising she’s got to somehow come down to their level while still being convincing. Tough job! Good to see Caudwell supporting effectively though for sure.
Is this something that is available online? It would be good to see these sorts of issues actually being debated publicly.
it will be on the BBCiplayer
I live in WA state. 🙂 LS (for obvious reasons) appears to be primarily British… I’m a bit surprised there aren’t more of us on here.
Apparently you can watch iplayer in the US provided you have the right VPN
https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/watch-bbc-in-usa-iplayer/
Hopefully the key clips will be on Youtube in due course.
I need to get a VPN, anyway, so that I can watch baseball games when my team (colorado Rockies) plays against Seattle! I mean… if they have a baseball season next year and it isn’t completely ruined by social justice and covid bullshit.
Well, now you have an excuse to try one out now to watch Question Time, so you can iron out any kinks before the really important stuff returns next year… 🙂 Though I did once go to a baseball match in Los Angeles, and mostly what I remember is a long afternoon of endless eating – similar to our cricket test matches, but with food instead of beer.
The only concern would be the suggestion that iplayer blocks some VPNs, which would suggest you might need up to date info as to what still works.
thanks I will check out-I’m encouraged by responses here
Casedemic. No other words needed…
So why the suggestion of a surge in hospital cases?
If ‘we’ are right then this will be gone if the red line doesn’t move.
They could start stuffing care homes with infected people again that might help get the death rate moving
The “Patients admitted to hospital” or “Patients in hospital” data are misleading, as the simply COUNT the number of people including those who were positive up to 14 days before entering hospital. Since the amount of testing and number of Pillar 2 positives has gone up these last few weeks, then of course the number known to be positives in hospital has gone up. I.e., it just tracks the number of Pillar 2 positives.
The only ‘unbiased’ and meaningful data is the number of deaths
And even then it’s still ‘you’ve died from Covid if you had a positive test within the last 28 days’ isn’t it?
I have been playing spreadsheets on PHE data when bored too.
Hospital admissions show a bit of an upturn but they do not publish discharges so its meaningless.
Patients in hospital has flatlined for months, so have deaths and so has the positivity rate of all tests (ignoring unknown false positives). I see no upturn in these figures.
I wonder if there could be a clue in the residual level of these flat lines which can point us to the false pos rate?
Short answer yes. See here:
https://dailysceptic.org/false-positives/
There are still roughly 3 hospitals per covid patient so I wouldn’t say we have a surge….absolutely insane to think this is something we are 2 weeks away from being swamped by. And 20 odd hospitals per ICU patient…
How about Fraudemic?
yeah someone else making graphs 🙂
The hypnotic threes propaganda continues into the ‘recovery’ – code name for reset. We are all going to be soon sick of – Build Back Better – code name for go eco or go bust. As an example BBC R4 wanted to give meaning to the BBB tag. So bicycles, electric ones and scooters.
I don’t think its patronising to suggest if you are over, say 70, and have say a health condition then a scooter on an icy pavement in a gale isn’t really going to be ideal. Ditto if you a parent of say 2.4 children. Ditto if … you get the idea. Yes there are many over 70 fit as a fiddle fleas zipping about. But as a measure for infrastucture, really? We won’t be traveling.
Transport is only one area though, Build Back Better is coming to every nook of our lives.
Same here in Canada. We’ve already been told that any recovery has to be a “green” recovery. Interestingly, there was a piece in Spiked yesterday about the green energy debacle in my province of Ontario and it was a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. Our energy prices are the highest in North America, which I can vouch for personally. Be afraid, be very afraid.
In europe somewhere, I forget where, charging a car with ekectric was pence but that has changed to be comparable to the pounds paid for petrol. Just an arbtrary rise. Maybe somewhere in the low countries.
Clearly there’s a issue with zero tax vehicals and road repair. When the current co2 stream ends how do you repair roads? Tax zero catbon? Well optical fibres are being installed in uk motorways ready for pay per mile. To do with Smart motorways. Smart.
Feel like I’m off topic. But this is all part of tge prescribed recovery from the lockdown. I’ll focus more, I respect the focus everyone else has.
I’m not going to be bloody afraid. That is what they want and I will not live my life in fear. Lisa, please don’t peddle this bollocks. Give us freedom or give us death. Fuck ’em
I don’t know what bollocks you think I’m peddling. Our “green” energy policy in Ontario resulted in a bill for $5,000 to heat our country place for 3 months the first winter we owned it. My point is that these policies designed to provide cheaper energy did the exact opposite, and yet my federal government has flat out stated that any recovery must be a green recovery. So, given my personal experience with what green policy looks like, it will be more expensive and less efficient and that inspires fear. Maybe your government will do it better, but based on recent events I highly doubt it.
Another tripartite incantation. Remember Jimmy Savile: “Now then now then now then”.
All three words in the spell are false:
Build = accelerating destruction
Back = we are never recovering
Better = worse for the people
“Destroy Forever Worse” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though.
As i say, people won’t buy it. And it fails on another level too. It’s not governments who control recoveries, it’s the industrialists and entrepreneurs. And if there’s no market for it, there’s no market for it.
Hence the spell aspect, it’s very clever psychological conditioning. Repeat that enough times and it will gradually seep into the minds of people so they will genuinely believe that what is being proposed is in fact better.
Not convinced. This isn’t fear driving them, but convenience. If it’s not as good or better, they won’t buy it.
Or enthusiasm. A lot of people are genuinely enjoying this.
There we can agree. Let’s just hope it’s not a majority.
True, all govts can do is hinder recovery.
The best a govt can do is Emulate Cowperthwaite and get out of the way as in Hong Kong.
Big multinational companies (Davos types) heavily support the green new deal and all the social engineering agenda. People won’t be given a choice – all political parties support the plan.
If most citizens are reliant on a universal basic income and this is subject to your social credit score, you will find people will quickly become model citizens (in the eyes of the establishment). China with it state controlled enterprises and citizens is the future for the West.
I’m afraid we’re drifting a little there. UBI – or Communism repackaged – simply will not work. Remove incentive and you get less, not more, which means economic stagnation, the precise affliction that destroyed Soviet Communism everywhere.
Multinational corporations don’t run countries, despite what conspiracy theorists claim, politicians do, and politicians are answerable. They also have among their number those with Machiavellian minds who will spot opportunities to exploit.
China is a totalitarian state which, for all its faults, replaced something even worse. Here, it will be a retrograde step and, for that reason alone, unlikely. There is no fear driving any craving for such a move.
Remember, what is offered MUST be better, or it won’t happen.
Machines don’t need an incentive to work.What is coming is the 4th industrial revolution.This crisis has been a prototype.Masses of people out of work and kept alive by the stateAlso our politicians don’t seem very accountable at the moment.What is coming is not communism.It is technocratic Facism.The merging of the state with corporations.The whole track and trace apparatus is being built to neutralise any opposition to this
So true Richard, excellent point. After all, healthy is the new sick and is backed up by all these (meaningless) cases.
To quote Les Grossman there’s always : Go Fuck Yourself, but that’d be like a Ron Burgundy moment
If this is the plan, then the government will learn the hard way that if you replace one thing with another, the new thing needs to be better than what it replaces, or people don’t accept it. Forgotten the fuel protests of 2000?
The population is much different to 2000. I can’t imagine a fuel style protest again – people in general are much more passive (unless it is a well funded and elite backed movement like Black Lives Matter, or other far left cause). Younger generations have had the green agenda drilled into them for a couple of decades now.
The WHO and Fauci seem to have moved onto the green recovery agenda – the fact that many of their solutions aren’t particularly environmentally friendly seems to go unnoticed. I suspect they desire population control.
Young people don’t appear to care about their rights and freedoms – and privacy – now. I have been amazed at their compliance. My friends and I would never have stopped meeting our girl/boyfriends… would have been an extra challenge, adding more excitement….
I know at 18 nothing would have stopped me going out.Especially something the government said
Suspect what you like. Because something is drilled into someone, doesn’t mean they believe it. Besides, revolutionary change is not, contrary to popular opinion, driven by the young. I recommend you read Lenin.
That’s an interesting thought… I think Lenin was young in 1917. And today’s BLM/Antifa stuff seems to be driven by young (mostly very poorly educated) people. I have also been absolutely amazed by the numbers of young people I see not even questioning these regulations. Recently drove by a basketball court and saw about 10 high-school aged kids out playing ball – all wearing masks.
I have, however, said that I don’t think these sorts of people are really capable of pulling off any sort of actual revolution. That requires far more discontent than currently exists in much of the world (certainly the US). “I’d love to be a part of the revolution, but I have a tee time at 9:30.”
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924), so 47 in 1917.
“today’s BLM/Antifa stuff seems to be driven by young (mostly very poorly educated) people“
The point is that these movements (BLM, antifa, XR) are not rebellious, whatever the self-described motives of their ringleaders might be, they are better described as enforcement mobs for intimidating dissenters from establishment dogmas. that’s why they get so little pushback from authorities and elites.
The BLM/XR/antifa phenomenon is better compared to the Chinese Cultural Revolution than revolutionary movements.
Notes from a couple of hours going about life with bbc r4 on in the background. Admitedly hard to read so skip if you can’t understand.
Quite an interesting rate of propaganda/social engineering hits per minute. Nothing was off message, no breadth to their tone of voice – R4 equipes the listener to be informed to go about intelligently in our modern world.
The Briefing Brief?) on R4 today covered what scientists have kearned about covid19 in the past 6 months.
I drifted off. Cannot remember the point that had me swearing at the man on the radio – easily procen rubbish.
Herd immunity – coronaviruses don’t operate in the realm of herd immunity so its likely herd immunity isnt going to help us. Mutations mean they escape the herd immunity. We are not sure but yeah, herd immunity is no going to help. Apparently.
Vaccine – we are going to need many little vaccines to tackle individual circumstances not one big vaccine for all.
Scientists – had to ‘retool’ at the start of lockdown. Kay.
Masks – Presenter has there been “good research ” done into their efficacy? Scientist – well I have chsnged my opinion over the… Read more »
Masks work for Covid-19 but not for flu? What the actual fuck?
Genuinely, catch it on the brief today. I half listened hence vagueness. But yes, cambridge scientist or another university equivalent said what you understand. Flu doesnt care a jot for masks. Covid is scared of them – or something.
I know. I heard it too. Unlike a lot of people on this site I used to like the BBC – or should I say R4 and World Service, although I was selective in what I listened to. I heard a World Service prog back in March before the lockdown on the efficacy of face masks and its conclusions were that – apart from surgical grade masks – they were of no benefit. I haven’t forgotten that prog because since then it has become politicised. I go with not wearing masks.
I havent been able to listen to r 4 for years 20 years ago it was lovely within limits. Then it became something to play to tomatos in the green house. Now it would make the tomatos wilt, it is that toxic.
I used to enjoy the world service. It is now unhealthy to listen to it imo, deeply sinister foreign policy at work. With a bit of persistence the internet beats the world service to a pulp.
Great reset corresponding with agenda 21/30
Two weeks then….and if it doesn’t spike….then what?
Spike over and we move on?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/17/exclusive-hospitals-told-clear-beds-coronavirus-spike-two-weeks/
They’re fast running out of places to hide!
“A template for the so-called “escalation framework”, seen by The Telegraph, includes provision for “mandatory masks” at the amber level, suggesting face coverings will be legally required in even more settings than they are now.”
There is no end to the insanity.
Oh fuck no!
This is so that when they eventually ‘allow’ Simon Dolan’s case, they can say their actions have been proportionate to the ‘threat’..
Who is leaking to the press and doing the government’s ‘advance warning’ signalling for them?
Once masks have been made mandatory everywhere at all times, this policy approach to maintaining fear levels can no longer be exploited. I suspect there will therefore be at least another 3-4 stages of incremental expansion of the mandate before we reach the inevitable end point.
Was kind of hoping for 3-4 stages prior to where we’re at now if I’m honest…
If there is no spike they will simply say the measures taken worked but the virus is still out there. There is no definable end to this.
True
Been told that Army medics are arriving in number at Catterick Garrison due to a ‘surge’ in coronavirus cases in North Yorkshire. Apparently this also happened in March.
I am relived to know that these measures are being put in place to protect me if I get a runny noze, whilst my wife dies of cancer.
When the government is telling us to stop confusing covid with the common cold you would think people would start to realise that we are not dealing with Ebola or the Black Death here. I despair at the total inability of most people to think critically.
This is probably one of the most important points made! If only people could think.
That is an excellent point. I might borrow that, if that’s ok?
Be my guest!
This was on the news update I get from the Spectator and it makes me hopping mad:
Yet again the No Health Service strikes again. And we’re supposed to call them heroes?
Enough already!!!
It always was a health rationing service, it’s single biggest failing. Now everybody can see exactly what it is.
https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1306613124112449536/photo/1
Cases in England by specimen date. Higher than earlier but not exponential increase
Carl Heneghan mentioned the unnecessary panic surrounding the coronavirus to the committee today. Given most of that panic was helped along thanks to our press stirring the pot, helped along by the government’s various nudge groups.
Well news editors across the media, well government ministers and prime minister, well SPI-B or whoever you are, you broke it, you own it. Start putting it right. The evidence is all there about how the nasty bug isn’t as dangerous as first feared, use it.
Ball is in your court.
Spot on.
Enough is enough now.
Agree. But I’m not sure I can imagine what would motivate them to put it right at this point. ‘they’ and we have a completely different understanding of what the problem is.
This is fear and panic on steroids, just posted on Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/17/exclusive-hospitals-told-clear-beds-coronavirus-spike-two-weeks/
Here we go again. Nobody – no matter how old or sick – must die of covid but cancer, stroke, coronary and a myriad of other patients are casually thrown under the bus.
That magic “two weeks” again. When it doesn’t happen… Fingers crossed.
Timed to perfection for the 30 September renewal of the legislation!
Exactly – that is actually the *only* reason…
If it doesn’t happen they will claim the measures work.
If it does happen they will claim the measures weren’t enough and put more measures.
There is no escape.
Oh there is :o))
Goodness, I come to these pages after 11pm and all I read is negativity and fear. Maybe the alcohol has communally kicked in, I don’t know. We can fight back. If you’re going to lose your liberty anyway then fight back before you lose it, don’t just give in. History is littered with rebellion and though many failed many also won. Glorious Revolution Mk II anyone? Fucking fight.
https://twitter.com/SpectatorEvents/status/1306628383464448000
Spectator TV Anderew Neil interviewing Tegnell and more with Fraser Nelson and others
Drip drip
Unfortunately labelled a private video so not available for everyone to watch..
You can watch it here Carrie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NynUwxOct_8
Good luck Sunetra. I suspect you will need it as you will be treated like a nazi.
Deep Breath. I am going to get shouted at. I think there is going to be a second wave, albeit probably a wavette. Hospital cases and ventilator rates are rising, albeit slowly. But it goes against the curve cited in the article by the wise three a short while ago. This is going to make things difficult and no doubt a second lockdown will occur – even if they don’t stop people going to work, the social aspect and closing of hospitality sector (which is, after all, a significant part of our economic life blood) will stop a lot of people going to work. How many people will end up on Universal Credit? I have heard of several young graduates who have no work and have chosen to do a Masters or teaching degree because they don’t want to do nothing. My neighbours’ son, with a degree from Oxford, has had to return home because he has no work and now has chosen to study for a Masters.
My view remains that we should not close down to save a minority of people, when so many will suffer for years/decades to come. We now know a lot about collateral damage… Read more »
“Deep Breath. I am going to get shouted at. I think there is going to be a second wave, albeit probably a wavette. Hospital cases and ventilator rates are rising, albeit slowly. But it goes against the curve cited in the article by the wise three a short while ago.”
No reason for anyone to shout at you – nobody knows for certain what the future course of this disease will be. The most we can say is that the evidence seems to support the theories that tend to go against a “second wave”, in the sense of a repeated significant epidemic.
I’m still hopeful that what we will see is a shallow hump over the winter season.
… and don’t mention the camels!
Dromedaries…
A dromedary is a kind of camel.
A single hump camel, the thoroughbred. Ordinary camels have two humps. We don’t one of those…
It was always inevitable that a now-endemic respiratory disease would return in the autumn and there will always be a fresh crop of the vulnerable to be harvested by it and by the other respiratory diseases that are also endemic. Those that are saying “see? second wave!” are ignoring the relative irrelevance of the ‘first wave’ and the likely complete irrelevance of the second.
The ‘vulnerable’ are usually the elderly. However due to all the people whose other conditions have not been diagnosed or treated for the last 6 months, there is likely to be a different (and possibly younger) group of ‘vulnerables’ this winter, susceptible to the virus (and who would not otherwise have been so)..
Absolutely. The issue is not whether we see a rise, but whether we see it at epidemic levels and whether we see signs of very rapid spread.
The fact is, is what the supposed cv19 is or will do this winter is exactly what flu has done every year, and no-one battered an eye lid. What were the numbers in 2017/18, 50,000, all age groups, and not a whisper in the press. Cold winters thousands of elderly die of fuel poverty, not a whisper by politicians. Now, every death related to this virus will be documented, while every other death will be a ‘so what’. Already the past few weeks, the media and politicians have ignored there have been more deaths from flu, as that might put some perspective on the matter and challenge their idiot restrictions.
Ah yes, but the second wave “they” want must be bigger and scarier than the first!
Depends what you mean by “wave”. Is the increase in flu cases during winter each year a “wave”?
Good point. And by flattening the bloody sombrero for far too long into the summer we have not actually got through the first wave. Unlike Sweden. When your first wave is done, there is no second wave.
Yes, it probably is, sometimes more like a tsunami (eg 2014-15) but we used to be more tolerant of waves. We certainly aren’t now
So maybe the tide is a better analogy than a wave?
Quite possibly
We must all be good little worker bees and keep going to work. On no account must we have a family, social or cultural life however. I feel like I have woken up in a mild and wetter version of a soviet labour camp.
They did say winter was coming, perhaps this is the new way to pronounce “Siberia”.
The virus will do what it does, regardless of us. None of the measures have made or will make any difference to this.
The sunk cost fallacy is a major player here in the repetition of the lockdown approach, most significantly in the minds of all those who supported the measures.