The Care Home Scandal – A Call For Evidence
Lockdown Sceptics has asked an award-winning investigative journalist, David Rose, to investigate the high death toll in Britain’s care homes. Did 20,000+ elderly people really die of COVID-19 between March and July or were many of them just collateral lockdown damage? With lots of care homes short-staffed because employees were self-isolating at home, and with relatives and partners unable to visit to check up on their loved ones because of restrictions, how many elderly residents died of neglect, not Covid? How many succumbed to other conditions, untreated because they weren’t able to access hospitals or their local GP? After doctors were told by care home managers that the cause of death of a deceased resident was “novel coronavirus”, how many bothered to check before signing the death certificate? The risk of doctors misdiagnosing the cause of death is particularly high, given that various safeguards to minimise the risk of that happening were suspended in March.
David Rose would like Lockdown Sceptics readers to share any information they have that could help in this investigation. Here is his request:
We are receiving reports that some residents of care homes who died from causes other than Covid may have had their deaths ascribed to it – even though they never had the disease at all, and never tested positive. Readers will already be familiar with the pioneering work by Carl Henghan and his colleagues at the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, which forced the Government to change its death toll counting method. Previously, it will be recalled, people who died of, say, a road accident, were being counted as Covid deaths if they had tested positive at any time, perhaps months earlier. But here we are talking of something different – Covid “deaths” among people who never had the virus at all.
In one case, where a family is deciding whether to grant permission for Lockdown Sceptics to publicise it, an elderly lady in reasonable health was locked in her room for many hours each day in a care home on the south coast, refused all visitors, deprived of contact with other residents, and eventually went on hunger strike, refusing even to drink water. She died in the most wretched circumstances which were only indirectly a product of the virus – and yet, her death certificate reportedly claims she had Covid.
I’m looking for further examples of 1) elderly people who died as a result of the lockdown and associated measures, but whose deaths were wrongly attributed to “novel coronavirus”, and 2) those elderly people who clearly died from other causes but whose deaths were still formally ascribed to Covid because they once tested positive for it, even after the counting method change.
If you have relevant information, please email Lockdown Sceptics or David directly on [email protected].
Stop Press: This applies to hospice deaths ascribed to COVID-19 as well.
Simon Dolan’s Legal Challenge Delayed by MONTH Because Government Lawyer on Holiday
The legal challenge to the lockdown being brought by entrepreneur and founder of Keep Britain Free Simon Dolan has been delayed because one of the Government’s 11 lawyers is on holiday. This is despite Lord Justice Hickinbottom, who ordered the appeal, directing that the case needed to be heard quickly. Here’s what Simon had to say:
Our legal challenge against the Government delayed by a further month – due to a Government lawyer being on holiday.
We had been scheduled to go ahead on September 23rd, with the court having moved the hearing forward from the original date of September 28th.
But one of the Government’s 11-strong team is holiday on that date, meaning it has now been moved back to October 29th. The availability of suitably senior judges to hear the case on alternative dates was also a factor.
As you know, the appeal was ordered to be heard by Lord Justice Hickinbottom who said that the legal challenge “potentially raises fundamental issues concerning the proper spheres for democratically-accountable Ministers of the Government and judges”.
We are all naturally incredibly frustrated that the hearing will be delayed, especially give Lord Justice Hickinbottom’s direction that the case needed to be heard quickly. The case is of the utmost importance to the entire nation and we believe that further delays only highlights the Government’s inability to face up to its decisions.
The better news is that the delay will mean that the appeal will be held in person, rather than virtually as all previous stages have been.
We have seen in recent weeks that the Government, by its own admission, is willing to break the law. It cannot be allowed that these actions go unchecked and I urge everyone to consider the ramifications which the lockdown has had on our freedoms and liberties.
In the meantime, we will continue to fight to expose the dangerous and damaging impacts the Government’s lockdown strategy has had on the entire nation and I would urge you to join our fight by signing up to https://www.keepbritainfree.com
The convenience of the delay for the Government, which won’t risk its ludicrous measures being challenged for a further month, is more than a little suspicious, particularly when the speed with which Gina Miller’s Brexit appeal was heard shows what lawyers and judges can do when they really want to. Worried, Boris?
Health Minister: “Not Appropriate” To Get Tested Before Visiting Elderly Relatives
Lockdown Sceptics reader Lord Richard Balfe has written to tell us about about the shocking answer he received from Lords Health Minister James Bethell in the chamber on Wednesday to his question about testing.
Yesterday in the Lords I asked James Bethell our Lords Minister whether the Department would give some priority for testing “to the relatives of people in care, so that they can be tested and go in and see their loved ones?”
Bethell replied, “I want to clarify with my noble friend that it is not an appropriate use of Government test and trace capacity for relatives to use test and trace as a convenient method to find out whether they have the disease before they go to see relatives.
The full exchange can be found in Lords Hansard column 1285 for September 16th, which is available online.
I think the sheer callousness of the Government came through in the use of the word “convenient”.
So as we run up to Christmas with many old people having been isolated from family for months the Government believes that helping relatives to see their incarcerated relatives is an unacceptable use of convenient facilities.
I truly believe that without a shred of compassion they are getting near to openly running “death camps”. Certainly there is a level of misery and despair being promoted which makes me ashamed to be called a Conservative.
Surely, any sensible strategy involves protecting vulnerable people whilst allowing low risk people to go about their normal lives and build up a collective immunity (which then protects the vulnerable). Thus getting a test ahead of visiting shielding parents and grandparents is exactly when most people should be getting tested (if at all), rather than all the time, as per the Government’s Operation Moonshine.
Lockdown Sceptics a “Danger To Us All” Says Times Columnist
Lockdown zealot Times columnist David Aaronovitch has written a column entitled “Covid libertarians are a danger to us all” about why he thinks “Boris Johnson is right and Lord Sumption is wrong”.
So exercised is Aaronovitch by Lord Sumption’s position that he tries to take it apart point by point. He fails miserably, of course. But it’s worth looking at his attempted take down because of what it tells us about the minds of those who believe the Government is right to carry on suppressing the virus indefinitely.
Aaronovitch starts by agreeing with Lord Sumption that herd immunity either through a vaccine or infection is the only real endgame. However, unlike Sumption, who points out that we are only delaying things with social distancing, Aaronovitch agrees with the “scientific community advising the Government” which believes that “it’s more important to slow the spread so that the health service can cope”. It’s all about keeping infection rates from “increasing exponentially” and buying time “before the vaccine arrives”.
He buys completely the Ferguson line that without social distancing the death toll would have been over 200,000: “Mass graves, coffins filling those nice new lorry parks and hospitals unable to take any other patients.” The irony, of course, is that it was precisely because of this kind of hysteria, whereby the Government wildly over-estimated the likely demand for critical care, that hospitals didn’t take other patients, leaving up to 16,000 people dead for want of medical attention with many more to come. In fact, the Government is about to ask hospitals to clear their beds again ahead of the second wave. Will they never learn?
Aaronovitch also appears blissfully unaware that almost all of his points can be countered with a single word: Sweden. How do we know not locking down doesn’t lead to apocalypse? Sweden. How do we know infections and deaths don’t keep on going until lorry parks are rammed with coffins? Sweden. How do we know our health service wouldn’t have been overwhelmed absent a lockdown: Sweden. Look: no lockdown, no apocalypse. But for some reason I can’t quite fathom Sweden doesn’t get a single mention in his article.
He says he “cannot see a reason” why the growth rate of deaths in early April “wouldn’t have continued”. Again, may I point you to Sweden? And also, Professor Carl Heneghan, who pointed out back in April that the deaths in London peaked way too soon for the lockdown to be credited with bringing the epidemic under control. Even Chris Whitty has acknowledged this. As in other places, it appears to have reached a natural limit (arguably helped by the pre-lockdown voluntary social distancing).
Against the idea of people choosing their own level of risk, he argues that all older people are more vulnerable to some degree and we can’t protect them all – parents of teenage children, for instance. It seems that no level of risk is acceptable to him. He concludes by arguing that “winter is coming, and if we want open schools and a half-normal life, and not have friends and relatives choking their last in ICUs, then there will have to be trade-offs”.
It is illuminating to see the statistically illiterate risk-aversion of the lockdown zealots spelled out so clearly. For all the suspicions about the cynical motives of those pushing the lockdown line – and I don’t doubt there are some who have no intention of letting a good crisis go to waste – it shows that many are just blocking out the evidence that counters their entrenched positions. They genuinely believe that going back to normal would lead to a new wave far bigger than anything we (or anyone) has seen so far, and that therefore all the pain is worth it. How do you break through such delusion?
Stop Press: According to YouGov, public approval of the Government’s handling of the crisis is at its lowest point so far: -33 compared to -18 last week. The testing fiasco must be a big part of that, given the Government’s repeated claim that mass testing is the way out for the UK. (Demand for tests now that schools are back outstrips supply three to four times over.) Recent Government focus groups reportedly discovered that a common complaint is the lack of a long-term plan for Covid. No kidding. What is the plan, Boris? Intermittent lockdowns to “control” the virus until we have a vaccine? But even the WHO has warned a vaccine is unlikely to be a silver bullet. Perhaps plummeting public support will focus the minds.
A University Worse Than Cambridge on Covid?
Following our story yesterday about Covid prison camp Trinity College Cambridge, a reader has been in touch about similar goings on across the Irish Sea.
Something similar has just happened in the University of Galway in Ireland. Simeon Burke a 2nd year Law Student from the County Mayo town of Castlebar stood against it.
Students at NUI Galway have been informed they must sign a pledge called the ‘Community Promise’ or be thrown out of the university.
This pledge means signing away your rights, disclosing personal health data, getting a #COVID19 test if instructed, and ‘changing your behaviour’.
Simeon Burke has managed to get the University authorities to tone down the strength of the demands. Earlier this week when asked to comment, a spokesman for NUI Galway confirmed the community promise was now a “voluntary public commitment” and separate to registration.
I think the advocates for liberty at Trinity College, Cambridge should take heart, and perhaps might even benefit from contacting directly Mr Simeon Burke. His Facebook page is here and his Twitter feed is @voteforsimeon.
When Will the Government Take Pre-existing Immunity Seriously?
A brilliant piece appeared in the Telegraph yesterday by Professor Michael Levitt and colleagues giving the most convincing explanation yet as to the behaviour of the virus around the world. Entitled “Let’s stop the continued self-destruction and test for Covid immunity“, it boasts an impressive list of authors. Alongside Michael Levitt (Nobel laureate and Stanford Professor) there is: Dr Uri Gavish, bio-medical consultant; Professor Udi Qimron, Head of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University; Professor Eyal Shahar, epidemiologist at the University of Arizona; and Dr Ifat Abadi-Korek, Research Director at the Assuta Medical Center.
Clinically skewering the implausible theories of the lockdown zealots, they write:
China, a country of almost a billion and half people, eventually registered less than 5,000 deaths, and South Korea (51 million people) – about 300. The obvious explanation for those negligible mortality rates – highly prevalent pre-existing immunity – was widely ignored. The world chose to believe that the tough lockdown in Wuhan, along with restrictions in other parts of China, somehow eradicated the virus.
The miracle in South Korea was explained by extensive testing and contact tracing, which wondrously succeeded, for the first time in medical history, to arrest the spread of a respiratory, often asymptomatic, infection. Over 125 million Japanese would later see about 1,500 deaths, with neither lockdown nor much testing. That was explained by order and discipline, or face masks, or bowing instead of hand shaking.
By the beginning of April, comprehensive PCR tests for COVID-19 were conducted in small confined populations, such as naval and cruise ships. The fraction of infected people often did not exceed 20%. Given the rapid spread of the infection in these environments, it was far more likely that testing was conducted after the maximal rate of infection had been reached rather than, say, when the outbreak just started.
Similarly, an antibody survey in early April in the town of Gangelt, Germany found that only 14% had been infected. Again, pre-existing immunity was the most likely explanation.
They go on to examine instances where the antibody rate has been found to be above 20%, attributing them to poor living conditions weakening the immune system enough to mean even those with pre-existing immunity are infected sufficiently to produce antibodies. They conclude:
Any rational government should urgently invest effort in conducting surveys of cross immunity and other types of preexisting cellular immunity, which cost next-to-nothing compared to the funds spent on PCR testing, contact tracing, and of course, lockdowns.
In short, it is extremely likely that most of us are at least partially immune to COVID-19. Let’s accept this fact and try to quantify it. Continued self-destruction is a bad alternative.
Well worth reading in full.
The Vaccine Swindle
Lockdown Sceptics reader Barry Norris was on Sky News this week talking about the problems with pinning all our hopes on a vaccine. He’s also written a blog series about it.
There is a widespread and dangerous assumption that a return to normality will only be possible with – and will immediately follow – the approval of a SARS-2/Covid vaccine. Economic destruction from needless lockdowns was a direct consequence of the initial misdiagnosis of Covid as a second “Spanish Flu”. Now in the absence of a credible escape route from their Covid infection suppression policy, the same blundering governments – led by the wrong scientific advisers – look to a vaccine as an alluring overnight solution. This is at best naïve, probably preposterous, and in the hands of policy makers – deep in a lockdown hole of their own making – invites further disaster. In short, these great expectations for vaccines threaten more hard times ahead.
Covid has always been uniquely unsuited to a vaccine solution: it is relatively harmless for most of the population (hence the dubious necessity for mass vaccination) but poses a statistically significant mortality risk for a small cohort of the population with impaired immune systems, evidenced not only by the median age of death (82 years) but more significantly, the presence of comorbidities (90%+ cases).1 Vaccines are designed to elicit a specific antibody response from the immune system: it is widely recognised that their efficacy is significantly diminished in the old and sick.2 A Covid vaccine has therefore always been most likely to boost the immunity of the population who were only ever at risk of an asymptomatic infection, with the additional risk for previously healthy adults and children of unknown potentially severe vaccine side-effects, particularly antibody dependent enhancement (ADE).3
Although I do not consider myself an “anti-vaxxer”, I will be content to be at the back of the queue for any SARS-2/Covid vaccine.
Worth reading in full.
“Government are using a COVID-19 test with undeclared false positive rates”
Dr Mike Yeadon appeared on talkRadio yesterday to discuss the problems with the PCR test.
And Toby appeared on the same station talking about his recent confession that he was wrong to back Boris.
Round-Up
- “Hospitals told to clear beds for coronavirus spike in two weeks” – Here we go again
- “RECOUNT Coronavirus Scotland: Number of Covid hospital patients slashed from 262 to just 48 as stats overplayed by 80%” – After Scotland adjusted its method of counting Covid hospital patients yesterday, the numbers fell by 80%
- “The Covid hysteria is getting worse” – Lionel Shriver says what we’re all thinking in the Spectator
- “Delusional Covid ‘suppression’ strategy has sent us into a downward spiral” – Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph on the Government’s deadly fantasies of controlling this virus
- “As a black man, it is now almost impossible to stand up to the Black Lives Matter agenda” – Calvin Robinson in the Telegraph cuts through the nonsense to argue that the BLM narrative is “both factually untrue and damaging to racial relations”
- “WHO’s own document recommending face masks said there was very little evidence for them” – Hector Drummond on the curious case of the evidence-free mask endorsement
- “An enemy hath done this” – Michael Hurley suspects something sinister beneath the chaos and incompetence
- “A second lockdown is an overeaction to what is a ripple, not a wave” – Ross Clark gets the diagnosis right in the Telegraph
- “How Bolton only has TWO COVID-19 patients in hospital despite being England’s locked-down virus hotspot” – The Mail expresses scepticism about the restrictions imposed on Bolton yesterday
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
One today: “Everything I want To Do Is Illegal” by Massacres.
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.
“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).
Unmasked
Toby’s friend Roger Bowles, with whom he made a 15-minute film about Brexit in 2016, is making a documentary about Covid called Unmasked: The Virus and the Disease. He’s looking to include stories from ordinary people – like you and me, dear reader – about how they’ve been affected by the pandemic. Message from Roger below.
Unmasked: The Virus and the Disease will be a feature-length documentary that will follow the progress of Corona from its sensational debut in January as the only player on the world stage, through those salad days of early Lockdown and clapping the NHS, and into the autumn as we try to navigate our way through contradictory rules and ranks of “Covid Marshals” towards our doubtful economic future. The narrative will be told through contributions from experts, footage from the mainstream and alternative media, and – crucially – through the stories and experiences of ordinary people.
We are seeking contributors who are willing to speak on camera about their experiences, particularly the impact that Lockdown and other measures have had on them or their loved ones. All submissions will be dealt with in strict confidence and if it is necessary to protect identities we will do so.
We are also looking for material – video, photos, letters, emails, recordings – that evoke the strangely heightened experiences of this socially distanced year.
The film’s tone will be reflective and, where possible, lighthearted, seeking to balance the seriousness of the main theme, so we are looking for uplifting stories too.
As we move around the country filming over the next few weeks we will be putting out calls for certain kinds of stories or material, or announcing that we are visiting particular places. It would be hugely helpful if you could follow us, like our posts and tweets, comment, and share them if you can.
I’ve already set up a Website, as well as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels. I’ve also set up a GoFundMe if you would like to help finance the film.
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…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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What is wrong with you people? Sure, great, you are against the Lockdown measures, Hospital emptying to deal almost exclusively with ‘Covid – 19’ admissions (or lack of them, as per experience). But you seem to have missed an extremely important point, the PCR test is NOT SUITABLE FOR DIAGNOSTICS. Kar y Mullis, the Nobel Prize winning inventor, specifically and unequivocally stated the PCR test was not to be used as a diagnostic tool. Very conveniently for the PTB controlling the present draconian ‘regulations’, Kary Mullis ‘contracted’ ‘pneumonia’ and died in July (summertime, in USA) 2019. He was a very outspoken man, not afraid to tell truth to power, to tell truth to the medical (and other) Establishment.
Sure. the guy was 75, but as there is a considerable number of people who believe the US Military Contingent to the Wuhan World Military Games in Wuhan, China deliberately spread the (weaponised in US labs) virus at the Games, which started on 18 October 2019 (the precise same day as Gates and his high-level cronies met in New York for ‘Event 201’, a World Pandemic Simulation Exercise – purely coincidentally, I’m sure?).
This is the testing record for Brent which I just read was one of the worst affected London Boroughs! Does anyone have a borough they’re interested in, if so I’ll post the data.
SATURDAYS PAGE IS HERE
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/09/19/latest-news-139/#comments
it looks like everyone has moved on . Anyone not moving on will be tazered by the police. Mind how you go!
The majority (probably all) of the elderly people weren’t even dying of the virus but it’s being chalked off as a “Covid” death to keep the Covid death count high, the feamongering going and the $$$ coming in. These are old people with a wide variety of multiple serious medical conditions. They’re are on multiple toxic medical drugs that cause serious adverse reactions. Many were in and out of the ER & urgent care departments well before the arrival of this “new” (manufactured) virus. They were dying from pneumonia, COPD, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, adverse reactions to toxic medical drugs, etc. and some number of them died from complications of being put on a ventilator and other assorted iatrogenic deaths.
If you look back in recent history it has become almost a yearly thing, since 2004, to fabricate an epidemic or a “near” pandemic for the benefit of Big Pharma. In those past years there was always a huge problem in sustaining the narrative (lie), that being not having an appropriate number of dead bodies to convince the public that there was a “health emergency.” This year they took care of that by stuffing the most fragile along with “newly tested” at-risk… Read more »
It astonishes me that the NHS has not come under greater scrutiny. It is at the epicentre of this, the vortex around which all the key aspects of this event revolve. Diagnosis, treatment (or lack thereof), fatalities, death certification, testing, masks, health regulations, propaganda. Given its gargantuan size (the 5th largest employer in the world) and its Byzantine bureaucracy, that it exerts such an enormous influence on our society and culture is of great concern. For me it is now a very dangerous political institution.
Moonshot? no Moonshine? no Moondance? yes! yes! yes!!!!!
Boris is like a man who’s crashed his car, serious enough to cause damage to the car but no physical damage to passengers. Normally it would be prudent to let one of the passengers take over and drive the car to its destination. Only this time they forgot and let him carry on so his decision making is impaired because he’ll always refer back to the initial incident.
getting rid of this Authoritarian Government is a duty
After a brief whistle stop tour of pro-lockdown threads on Twitter, where all the contributors were begging people to be responsible and obey all the new regulations so that we can beat the second wave, I am in no doubt that the war we face is not with the government, but with our fellow citizens.
This is going to get really fucking nasty.
I wish I could disagree, but I think you’re spot on. The government is doing what they believe the people want, and what people appear to want is for the government to keep them “safe.” It’s like an abused wife staying with her abuser — it becomes a malevolent, soul-sucking relationship. I never expected much other than self-interest from my politicians, but I did expect more of my fellow citizens.
Everyone I speak to thinks it is all rubbish and just want to go back to normal.Unless the government believes that Twitter is representative of the people I would have to disagree .Also it is the government that has terrorised thempopulation,I don’t remember anyone asking for that
You’re fortunate to be around people who know this is all rubbish — it gives me hope that things might turn. I can only speak for Canada where mask wearing compliance is 100+%, by which I mean many people are wearing them outside where there is no mandate to do so and even indoors in places like Vancouver where there is no mandatory mask mandate at all. All our newspapers are peddling fear porn and everyone here is convinced the second wave is coming, with a large majority in favour of another lockdown. Our chief medical health officer is suggesting people hooking up not kiss and wear masks when they’re having sex. Glory holes have been suggested as an alternative to face-to-face sex. The other day a columnist in one of our national newspapers was predicting that schools in Toronto would be all online by Thanksgiving. Our school board is forcing 4-year-olds to wear masks in the classroom — which goes beyond what the provincial government suggested. A majority think a Covid vaccine should be mandatory and those who refuse it should be barred from civil life. I’m not on social media so what I’m reporting is mainstream thinking. This… Read more »
I just don’t get it Lisa. How does a chief medical officer think they have the right to interfere in the intimate lives of people, and even more worrying that people believe it and comply. I think they must be deranged. Four year olds in masks – where is the common sense. The parenting by some is dismal to say the least. Some children are sent to school filthy, uniforms grubby, hair matted etc. One child I saw in first aid the other day, hand covered in a nasty rash, looking like he needed a good scrub as well. Rang mum who said, oh he has had that for 3 months it is just a reaction to the hand gel. I said he needs to go the doctor, the teacher thinks it’s ringworm, I think it is excema. You have got to wonder why you would let a child continue to use hand sanitiser knowing it is causing a reaction and doing nothing about it. Why would you not start questioning the use of sanitiser? At least in NSW masks haven’t been mandated in schools and it is lovely seeing the children playing and running around as they always have… Read more »
Granted that Twitter is not the best litmus test for public opinion, but I felt my blood boiling as I read the contemptible nonsense being spouted on those threads. Borderline murderous hatred actually. It might come to that this winter, I cannot rule it out.
100%
A wee pearl of positivity….
Close Encounters Of The Human Kind
Was out for a fish supper earlier. Went into shop. 4 people already in a queue, all muzzled and staring. None of staff were, gave me hope. Asked the girl behnd counter with her lovely smile for “a fish supper”, she said “will be 5 minutes”, “no problem, I’ll wait” I said.
I commented on how nice it was to see her smile, she reciprocated similar. More hope.
Standing there I looked up and the BBC news channel was on TV on wall behind the counter, just as the hourly headlines come up. Straight into it!! I laughed to myself and noticed how it was now “infections” not “cases”. Interesting!
Funny that, how they interchange those words so seemlessly, don’t you think? You really need to pay attention to the words and language used. Otherwise one could quite easily get confused and end just going along with it as one had become hypnotised by it all.
Anyhoo, another girl came in behind me, 20’s muzzle-less (more hope) then a Dad with his wee boy on his shoulders. Dad, muzzle-less, was late 20s, early 30’s and wee boy was… Read more »
Reading this made my day! I love the quote.
Me Too!
As above Steeve
Glad to help CG. It’s the little things…….
Powerful stuff. You have a lot of light in you. In the same situation I would have exhibited total disdain for those in masks, and walked out of there surrounded by darkness.
I find it easier to work with a light 😉
You have made my day B Boru, who knows you may have very well started a chain reaction in your area. WELL DONE!😊
I thought the mood was a bit low 😉 was beginning to see folk reaching for ropes on here last night!
Boris Johnson – Eton, Oxford
Matt Hancock – Kings School, Oxford, Cambridge.
Completely numerically incompetent,
Or egomaniacs caught in their web of lies and “only making it worse on themselves”
Pick your poison.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man – and sometimes cometh the wrong man.
It really makes you want to weep.
It has been the hour The Man could have made all the difference.
A pity The Man must be Swedish!
Covid: UK seeing second wave, says Boris Johnson
The UK is “now seeing a second wave” of Covid-19, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said, adding: “It’s been inevitable we’d see it in this country.”
Mr Johnson said he did not “want to go into bigger lockdown measures” but that tighter social distancing rules might be necessary.
It is understood a new three-tiered set of restrictions is being considered.
The plan would aim to avoid a national lockdown but could stop household-to-household contact.
______________
Why would this this be inevitable with all the measures in place. Surely that means none of them were worth the paper they were written on. Try and stop me seeing me friends and family you useless wannabe dictator.
Because that was the plan all along ffs. There is no evidence of a second wave, of course not, so they have to manufacture it.
Checked back through my documentation and found this comment on here from 17th June:
“According to the London Calling podcast referenced at the end of this update James Dellingpole cites ‘a friend, of a friend, of a friend who knows someone in government’ (I’m not quoting verbatim) who says that there has already been planned a new lockdown in October. Not because of the virus, but to save the government’s blushes from having got it wrong in the first place. (It’s about the 20-25′ mark if you want to listen to it.) If there is any element of truth in this then the government is committing wilful murder for the sake of salvaging their reputation. And if it has been planned already this is deceit of the first order. It may be rumour, it maybe scaremongering, but if true I would suggest that is a capital crime and a firing squad should be commissioned. I really cannot believe what I heard.“
I remember that…
But it still does not explain why they are bringing in operation moonshot and daily testing? Or compulsory Track n Trace..
Was this actually a manufactured ‘leak’ to throw us off the scent?
Operation moonshot is designed to fail.It cannot work.You could test in the morning and be infected by the evening.Same with app based track and trace.Not everyone has a smart phone nor will everyone carry one.
The only way to be sure you are not infectious is to be vaccinated and to have a tattoo implanted in your skin with your vaccine history on it.This is the goal and all these measures are to condition us to accept the vaccine when it comes.
Unless we begin to fight back this is our future
Operation moonshot is a Trumpian diversion tactic. This country couldn’t organise more than half a dozen, accurate tests a day in anything but a civil servants wet dream.
They’re not backing down. They are racing for the security, the political breathing space, of full lockdown.
Full lockdown in incremental stages is clearly the target here. It is possibly the only way for them to preserve their grip on power after the end of furlough.
Not that it would have made any difference, but I doubt Simon Dolan’s case will ever be heard.
I’ll have more of a look at this tomorrow but a question to sleep on in this oh so racist country of our, why is it that the Pakistani community has more than 5 x the rate of positive coronavirus tests compared to the Black community and over 7 x the ‘other ethnic’ group?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/919092/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_38_FINAL.pdf
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.03.186296v1
Genetic – Bangladeshis have more ACE 2 receptors.
Hello,
All the usual studies mention social and economic reasons but no one seems to mention vitamin D. Rickets a disease of the 19th century I is common in the Asian community apparently and if your deficient in vitamin D your more prone to respiratory infections like covid. Many studies around the world as shown vitamin D halves respiratory infections and reduces your chance of ending up in ICU if you get covid.
Maybe the Pakistani community are the sensible ones, ignoring the stupid rules, getting on with their lives and all the while developing community immunity. A pity the entitled white majority are hiding under the stairs taking handouts because of a glorified cold.
I genuinely haven’t read or watched a news report for at least two months, I can’t face it. I actually use this site to pick up on what’s happening. So hats off to you people still braving the BBC, Sky, Twitter hysteria and reporting back. You’re doing it so I don’t have to. I salute you!
Hear hear! Courtesy of all the fabulous contributions above and below the line, this place is my one-stop-shop for news updates.
Positive cases for Hackney & City of London. Is this really a case for a further lockdown?
Sadiq Khan twitted a statement
https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan?s=20
About accelerating speed of Covid spreading in London and new restrictions coming soon.
He is pathetic.
See the Allen Show yesterday starting at 11 mins in. The link was posted an hour or so ago.
Tim Spectre Kings College london on BBC radio suggesting London may not be susceptible to the virus as other parts of the country. He says the unallowable! Worth looking it up in light of Kahn’s alarmism.
Is there a link please?
Below in other post. Not long ago. Its an easy search too. Richie allen radio show. Yesterday
Khan was one of the first public figures to put pressure on the government to make masks mandatory in shops, and has presided over the transformation of Transport for London into a vehicle for propaganda and oppression.
I have always thought he was obnoxious. Now I know that he is evil.
A predictably on-message reply in this thread from the terminally woke Georgia Gould (leader of Camden Council):
“Strong statement from @MayorofLondon on rising Covid-19 cases in London. As London leaders we’re working closely together & ready to take further action if necessary. Help stop spread by wearing a mask, washing hands, following rule of 6 & self-isolating if experiencing symptoms.”
You are not London’s leaders, you are London’s executioners.
Incidentally, I sat next to her and her (now deceased) father for years in the 90s as season ticket holders at QPR (Loftus Road). I did not like her, and we never spoke. If only I had I known then what she would become.
Yep. They are sentencing London to death. It’s like the end of the Roman Empire, when people deserted the big cities.
London is already on its knees.Any more restrictions will finish it.Instead of fighting for its future Khan is begging for its destruction
One of the most shocking interviews I’ve ever heard, Julia Hartley-Brewer with Matt Hancock, sadly Julia clearly has no idea of percentages & false positives either but you’d expect Hancock to have a passing acquaintance with such concepts. He thought a 1% false positive rate meant that 1% of all positive tests were false, rather than 1% of all tests!!!!! So, he’s out by a factor of 100. You couldn’t make it up. Sadly, poor old Julia let it go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEqm0ldWf-8 it’s 1:50 in. I’m still in shock. It’s been referenced below but probably already lost.
Oh ffs. He should be sacked based on that alone.
But did you see her tweet later where she quoted all the stats and proved him to be lying? https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1306916494773755910
3.6K retweets of her thread on it – she’s doing a good job!
It is truly shocking, the whole interview. I mean, how are these people allowed to stay in their positions? In any line of work, if you are questioned on a subject where you are the authority and cannot answer or give false information, you simply do not last. There is no accountability in public sector, none whatsoever.
Like the health minister Julia interviewed yesterday who did not know how many healthy under 60s had died – he tried to claim the data was not available… Julia told him the answer!!!
Please I´m so thick. If I test 100 people does 1% false positives mean what exactly?
1 person who doesn’t have it is claimed to have it.
So 250 thousand tested, there would be 2500 false cases?
If 250k are tested and the current prevalence is 20%, then 200,000 don’t have it. So a 1% false positive rate in this case would translate to 2,000 people.
Of course the issue is more apparent when prevalence is lower, because there will be more false positives than true positives… which is why any sensible testing regime would demand that people are tested twice and that the first test is not added to statistics unless the second test has been done.
By a different laboratory…
There are two aspects to look at – false positives and false negatives. False positives are those that don’t have it but show up as having it. I made a calculator to try and explain it, it’s very basic but hopefully gets the idea across https://coronacalculator.azurewebsites.net Or to put it another way – it’s not possible to answer your question accurately without also understanding the current prevalence.
This is beyond me I´m afraid, but as this is headline news everyday, and defines the fate of millions, this needs to be understood.
Ha fair. Hopefully my other reply is a bit more digestible.
I spotted that but attributed it to barefaced lying.
Yesterday I got a taxi back from the station. About 10.15pm when I got in the cab. The driver told me he’d been waiting for a fare for over 3 hours! We agreed this was nothing to do with the Rule of 6 but reflected the ramping up of the fear factor by the government. This approach is unsustainable.
Newsnight. Emily looks exceptionally happy. A new national lockdown is in view. Lewis also chirpy.
No one asking why we need a new lockdown if the the first one didn’t work.
Far Left extremist Susan Michie being allowed to spread alarm and despondency on Newsnight as per normal. WHO nutjob on speaking complete vacuuous bollox.
But followed by Professor Dingwall who seems to be a sceptic (only caught the end of his interview)
My post crossed with yours.
Yes he’s been sceptical from the start.
Prof Dingwall – a sociologist -injecting a welcome dose of reality to Newsnight. Basically pointing the finger at the Ferguson Faction, the epidemiological mafia, for having kidnapped national policy, in pursuit of their obsessions.
Yes! wife just listened to him!
The above the line today is one of the best imo. There have been many exceptional days coverage. Reflective of the huge amount of work going on in all areas to correct this serious situation.
So good the read about the appointment of David Rose to investigate what has happened in carehomes and hospices.
BBC News at Ten: we are back in Mawkfest territory. Interviews with families of virus “victims”. All very sad but no mention of one obvious factor (obvious from the photos) – the O word (obesity).
Seems like we are being terrorised again. The outlook for our nation is grim indeed given the chilling effect this will have on the economy. Just as important it will mean our culture remains in the deep freeze. London news reporting on reopening Ronnie Scott’s jazz club…for how long?
A very strange experience for me. I had headphones on watching UK column news whilst the father-in-law had BBC news on the TV. Yin and yang.
They ran Covid propaganda for near on 25 minutes with at least a full 5 minute segment dedicated to 3 victims, “sadly taken by Covid” back in April, family testimonies and even a ring of solemn NHS colleagues paying their respects. Anyone would think a princess had recently passed away. I didn’t listen to any of it, but the pictures, over-spun graphs and banner alerts were enough to grab anyone’s attention.
Strap in everyone, mockdown 2 is coming.
Your synapses must have been under strain!
🙂 I had my volume turned up to 11
Deliberate – no journalist will dare say ‘But your relative was rather overweight, wasn’t he/she?’…
Indeed…but if they could find a few more svelte victims you can bet the image-obsessed BBC would be focusing on them. The fact they can’t tells its own story.
Exactly!
Ive felt the atmosphere change.It feels like the beginning of March again.The politicians are clamouring for more lockdown and we are being led that way.
A totally manufactured crisis regarding testing is all it has taken.
I despair for the stupidity of this nation and it is economic ruin that we will get.This is nothing less than a political class that is at war with its own people.
I really think Hancock hates the british people and is enjoying seeing us squirm it’s not like he has to make any sacrafices
He needs locking up.
or sectioned
Or to retake his Maths GCSE.
Hancock has no emotions, nor empathy. Psychopaths generally don’t.
Should you get a dose the best thing & indeed the thing that in 99.75% of cases fights it’s off is your immunity system. Immunity systems can be strengthened by:
The Zoe report on diet & lifestyle with about 1.8m respondents found fat people got fatter, thin people got thinner during lockdown. Miserable people got more miserable. People who normally stay in stayed in more.
So, everything that’s bad has got worse & everything that’s good has been tacitly discouraged.
The real pandemic is old age, which I accept we can’t do much about, & poor health, which is so often associated with a crap diet & poor life choices.
Sage advice. Sadly my current reality constitutes:
Going into this I was not unhealthy physically (only marginally overweight, 3 miles of brisk walking every day, 1 beer + takeaway session per week, healthy diet otherwise).
This transition has been fuelled by a devil-may-care attitude towards survival entirely nurtured by society’s descent into the abyss.
Imagine a world where your messages – backed up 100% by “the science” – were being projected by the mass media rather than the messages of anxiety and dread we are being subjected to. We would be in a much better, a much happier place!
According to Sam Coates report live a few minutes ago on Sky, there is at least one Cabinet minister pressing Boris to back off on more measures (the rule of 6 has only been in place since Monday, so not enough time to evaluate any impact). Glimmer of hope for the tide turning? Suspect John Caudwell’s performance on Question Time last night chimed with some in the party. Ultimately, it always boils down to ‘it’s the economy stupid’, and a Tory party driven by its big ticket donors. Hang on in there folks!
Couldn’t agree more TT.
Give these new rules two weeks.
Let’s see the impact.
You can’t react without seeing whether the rules work!
But in 2 weeks the government will likely have extended their emergency powers for another 2 years…..
That is a big worry…
First rule of good experimental science – never change more than one variable at a time…
The rules can be made to work quite simply by following the Italian lead and stopping testing.
Reality cannot be denied for all time. The coffers are empty, the coffins not – despite all the Lockdown promises.
I hope you are right, Tigress. But I don’t know know the politics work that way. The regime will be coterminous with covid restrictions, and Johnson knows it. Opposition is difficult to organise in full lockdown. So the logical move is to start full lockdown soon.
Remember the economy is already trashed. Lots of job losses within weeks, whatever government does now. You can see why they would want lockdown (even if it actually worsens the long term problem).
We are getting close to regime change I think, though. Interestingly Alex Deane on Sky paper review, choosing his words carefully, pointing to Boris ‘not being the man he was’. He is very close to the Tory party. Interesting!
Then the race is on. Johnson et al. have advantages. One is the unflinching locked in support of Starmer and much of the media, which shares complicity in the first lockdown and hasn’t found a way to purge itself of that. Coherence requires support of the coming lockdown. A second advantage is that the regime can force the pace in to lockdown, while regime change within the Tory Party is a clunky process. See how long it took to unseat May, who had much less support. Meanwhile Johnson and the science TM gallop into six months of lockdown mark 2. Twenty letters in Brady’sbureau count for zip.
I hope I’m wrong, Tigress. I hope you are right. But I think a few feathers will fly before the end.
I think the Tory Party knows it cannot afford to wait that long to unseat Boris, and the big donors are pushing them. I agree it will take some time – I anticipate late October, following a very scary month in the financial markets. In other words, it will get worse before it gets better, but the timeframe will be squashed as a consequence.
the Jeremy Hunt interview on Radio 4 Today could be seen as a marker point
Fraser Nelson saying much the same in the Spectator…summed up in the phrase “What’s happened to Boris?”. Toby, in the the same journal is also – quite rightly – putting the boot in as Boris lies prostrate. Politics is a blood sport.
I actually feel this is our only hope at the moment.It will take too long to build a new political movement.The opposition are useless and more fervent lockdowners than the government.We have no history of military coups to remove a renegade government.If this continues to Christmas there will be nothing left to conserve.A place coup is more amenable.But who,there are no politicians of stature in the Conservative party
Johnson (actually Cummings) will be gone by Christmas if we lock down again. Cummings is so arrogant he thinks the Tories wouldn’t dare but, if they were happy to hold their noses and get rid of Thatcher, they will have little compunction over ridding themselves of this latter day Rasputin. Johnson could actually save himself by chucking Cummings etc under the bus but I don’t think he is brave enough to do that so suspect he will be replaced instead.
Maybe they want lockdown to continue till the end of the year, ie end of the transition period?
Later I think, and I doubt Brexit is even relevant.
If you lockdown in October, you can’t come out till April. Obvs.
Exactly. Given how much damage has been done in the last 6 months, another 8+ months of ever tighter restrictions will bring the country to its knees. Surely there has to be a breaking point.
It won’t take 8 months.Even if we opened up tomorrow the economic damage would be catastrophic.There are 2 explanations,the entire political class has gone collectively insane and taken half the country with them or they are being controlled by powerful globalist intrests who are instructing them in what to do
I agree – it’s just we haven’t yet seen the true reckoning. When people no longer have income coming in, then you see the true damage to the economy. This will be the worst ever depression. Back in the 1930s you had a two track economy – the south was really booming (owing to all the new technologies of the time such as electricity, cars, radio, and
film plus the new suburban lifestyle) . We won’t have those growth factors this time around – our key urban centres are being destroyed by this unprecedented act of self harm.
I’m trying to hang but so many with so much power seem to be mesmerisingly stupid. On my “to do” list this weekend is to explain false positives and their impact to my son who will be home from weekly boarding school. He is 10 so basic percentages should not be beyond him, but I want to be sure he gets it!!
So what are we saying here? That we believe the rule of 6 might actually be a good idea?
I understood it rather that there had been insufficient time to show how stupid and destructive the ‘rule of six’ is.
But perhaps better for a sheep not to intervene between a dragon and a tigress.
It is a terrible idea and completely useless, the same as wearing masks.
And another thing how on earth are we going to afford another lockdown unless they are withdrawing all business help.
If they do there will be trouble you cannot force a good business to shut without financial help.
The Lockdown Lunatics in charge of the UK train are driving it towards the buffers at 90mph.
Sorry if this has come up before but it seems to me the chaotic Pillar 2 testing shambles continues as false positives are growing….for 85 plus females we are supposed to believe they are now around 12 percent positive….up from 9 percent last week. Totally impossible. How many would have died last week if this were true? Tens of thousands?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/919092/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_38_FINAL.pdf
See bottom of page 8.
Someone needs to look into this nonsense and what effect it has on admissions and ultimately deaths reported. Looks like a bit of a crafty numerical fiddle to me…..
Had a quick look and didn’t spot what the absolute numbers of tests for this demographic were. Haven’t seen many 85+ ladies queueing up outside test centres in the phtos. Percentages pretty meaningless alone. Also don’t forgot that even among the elderly covid is far from being an automatic death sentence (especially if it’s a false positive!).
Boris keeps mentioning spain and france .but theyhavent locked down fully again ad they know it will be economic suicide.
I think the UK is going to be Northern/Western Hemisphere petri dish for the full-on authoritarian technocracy just as Victoria is in the Southern.
France have said they won’t lock down again. Not sure about Spain but they don’t seem too fussed at the moment.
As usual the UK will be the cr*ppest of the bunch.
Why is no one asking why Spain isn’t overflowing with dead bodies despite not locking down again throughout their “second wave”?
The only reason I can think of for BJ going for a second lockdown is because he does not want lose in Simon Dolan’s case, because the consequences of that would be so humiliating and would open the floodgates for loads of claims for damages…
Is anyone contesting the French and Spanish government’s lockdowns in their courts?
I dont think people will bend over and take it , like they did in march think if they do a full lockdown again their will be violence.
My wife said “They have cooked the goose- eaten it – thrown the bones in the bin” Translation – We have been down this road before and SHE WILL BE SEEING THE GRANDCHILDREN!!!!
I hope you’re right, but the British people have consistently disappointed me so far so I don’t have particularly high expectations now.
Quick view from relatives in Sweden…they are horrified at what is happening in Britain. One is British-born. He says life in Sweden is pretty much normal; still some social distancing but apart from that things are ticking along normally. He says the UK is clearly now a police state.
Your relatives are right re Sweden – I’m also living there. However, all my family are in the UK and I fear for them 🙁
God speed the Swedes! If they can show the community immunity approach works, that will be a very powerful fact to be used against the Lockdown Lunatics.
Latest stats still looking good here in Sweden – no big upticks in hospital admissions, just the odd one or two new admissions here and there… Overall numbers of hospitalised slightly down again from Tuesday…
looking forward to my holiday in Sweden soon
I’m feeling new lows tonight. So many lamps of freedom went out in March, and as the famous quote continues, I don’t think we will see them lit again for a long time now. The beginning of a new dark age. I wish I’d seen all this coming back then but it’s too late now.
The parallel with the eve of the Great War is significant.
The number of people who are going to die as a direct result of the global policy response to Covid-19 will far outnumber the deaths in all the wars of the 20th century combined.
Speaking to a friend tonight and he reminded me about a particular emergency tax that was introduced in Ireland following the EU bailout 10 years ago. Its on his payslip still, temporarily permanent is seems. They expect this to either rise or a new tax is added to help pay for the Covid-19 state bailouts.
Just a small but indicative example of how this stuff is drip fed under the guide of necessity at times of crisis, only to remain.
A few days ago I started to see articles appearing in the MSM which were at least questioning some of hysterical responses that the government has made since March (hypocrites in my view as they were/are the main reason the response has been so fear and doom Laden!), now they seem to be doubling up the fear porn and parroting every political piece of garbage being espoused by any of the so called authority figures. Including making up and attributing stuff that gets denied later. Am I the only one seeing this? When (if!) this is all over, I’d like to see every one of these poundshop journalists in court on a charge of malfeasance, if not treason.
I think the fear porn increased in the last 2 weeks as I now see people walking in the local park wearing masks.
I saw a few small children in IKEA this week wearing masks.
I saw a couple of small children (not over the age of 4 I’d say) wearing masks in Lidl yesterday. It honestly makes me feel sick.
I see erstwhile intelligent people seeing cases are up. Using their own logic, within their paradigm. They are feverishly stroking their talisman more – more means safer. Now it is not a panic of fear I see latching the masks to faces, it is intellectual desperation. Very few people have stamina to keep fear up for 6 months.
I noticed the same thing!!!
I think every time they write the wrong thing, their editors get a call…
Does anyone know if the mixing with other households not allowed under local (or rather, not national but close enough) lockdown includes meeting with significant others? I read under the current guidelines outside of local lockdown that this is allowed, with no need to distance. (Not that I care anyway, I’ll keep seeing my partner no matter what)
Adolf says no
I prefer not to bother finding out about rules I have zero intention of adhering too.
Just ignore the rules simplr
Yes – the only answer is to not give a f. about any fag-packet ‘rules’