The Sun leads with two important dates: the date we’ll return to work (May 26th) and the date the Premier League will resume behind closed doors (June 12th). May 26th is the day after a Monday bank holiday and according to the Sun‘s Political Editor Tom Newton Dunn the date Boris is going to name as back-to-work day next Thursday. That makes sense because May 7th is the day the Government and its scientific advisors are reviewing the lockdown. According to Newton Dunn, the announcement will give offices, shops and some factories two-and-a-half weeks to install new government social distancing measures, such as perspex screens and gaps between desks, as well as give the public enough time to overcome their “coronaphobia”. That’s the Sun‘s word for the fact that two-thirds of the public are now too scared to leave the house, as revealed in a poll for Ipsos Mori.
Will the Government expect us to observe the two metre social distancing rule when restrictions are eased? Possibly not, according to the Telegraph. It’s main front page story says the Government has asked the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) to look again at whether people need to stay two metres apart. If that rule is relaxed it will make reopening the country easier, not least because it’s unenforceable in schools, as Katharine Birbalsingh, the head of Michaela Community School, has pointed out. Christopher Hope, the Telegraph‘s political editor, has more details on the plans the Government is considering, which include staggered start times in offices and factories, a delayed lunch hour to reduce the likelihood of overcrowding in town centres, and temperature screening of employees as they turn up for work each day.
The Government’s plans for restarting the economy will almost certainly include a ‘test, track and trace’ programme, particularly after Matt Hancock hit his target yesterday of testing 100,000 people a day by the end of April. The number on April 30th was 122,347, but the Guardian claims this was inflated by including 39,000 test kits that had been sent to households and satellite testing locations. No evidence those kits have even arrived, let alone been used.
Among those industries hit worst by the lockdown is the aviation industry, with the Mail reporting that in the town of Crawley near Gatwick up to 50% of jobs are at risk of being lost or furloughed. British Airways has already announced it plans to make 12,000 staff redundant and its parent company IAG has just secured a £900 million loan from the Spanish Government. Meanwhile, Rolls Royce is cutting up to 8,000 jobs. Crawley Borough Council is among several local authorities that may have to file for bankruptcy, along with Liverpool City Council and Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council. Perhaps no surprise then that Simon Dolan, the businessmen who’s hoping to challenge the lockdown in the High Court, owns an aircraft charter business. The Mail has more details.
As the lockdown eases and we survey the economic wreckage, more and more people will start asking whether the cure was worse than the disease. And the evidence that the more modest social distancing measures put in place by the Government on March 16th were sufficient to “flatten the curve” continues to mount. A reader has sent me this interesting graph showing the use of mass transport in London, Birmingham and Manchester declining rapidly before the lockdown was imposed:
This is just one data point, but if you want to read a full survey of the evidence that lockdowns don’t work I recommend this paper by Thomas Meunier entitled ‘Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic‘. Here’s what the abstract says:
This phenomenological study assesses the impacts of full lockdown strategies applied in Italy, France, Spain and United Kingdom, on the slowdown of the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak. Comparing the trajectory of the epidemic before and after the lockdown, we find no evidence of any discontinuity in the growth rate, doubling time, and reproduction number trends. Extrapolating pre-lockdown growth rate trends, we provide estimates of the death toll in the absence of any lockdown policies, and show that these strategies might not have saved any life in western Europe. We also show that neighboring countries applying less restrictive social distancing measures (as opposed to police-enforced home containment) experience a very similar time evolution of the epidemic.
One sentence in Meunier’s conclusion jumped out: “As a concluding remark, it should be pointed out that, since the full lockdown strategies are shown to have no impact on the epidemic’s slowdown, one should consider their potentially high inherent death toll as a net loss of human lives.” That’s a reference to those who’ve died, and will die, as a direct result of the lockdowns. We won’t know that number for some time – I predict we’ll still be debating it in 50 years time – but we can take a stab at estimating how many people have died as a result of the UK lockdown to date and Hector Drummond has done precisely that in the Critic. He analysed the excess deaths in Weeks 14 to 16, as documented by the ONS, that weren’t recorded as deaths from COVID-19 to see if they were undiagnosed COVID-19 deaths or deaths from other causes. If the latter, that suggests the lockdown itself is partly to blame. Of the excess deaths in that period, 7,486 were not attributed to COVID-19. Those who claim the “real” death toll from coronavirus is much higher than the official figures suggest take it for granted that these were undiagnosed COVID-19 deaths, but if they were you’d expect the ratio of men to women in that figure to be roughly 60:40, a skew that holds true for all Covid deaths. But when Drummond looked at the non-Covid excess deaths in Weeks 14 to 16 he found the ratio was roughly 50:50, which suggests that at least some of them weren’t undiagnosed COVID-19 deaths. Well worth a read.
Another unintended consequence of the lockdown may be that it has interrupted the natural evolution of the virus whereby it would have become progressively milder if we’d stuck with mitigation. Dr John Lee, a retired consultant pathologist, has a fascinating piece in this week’s Spectator in which he poses that question. Dr Lee points out that all viruses mutate, and a rapidly-spreading one like SARS-CoV-2 typically becomes less harmful as it changes because this helps it survive. After all, if the virus kills too many of its hosts, it is more likely to die out, whereas if it becomes milder, it spreads further. He thinks it’s likely there are dozens of different strains of SARS-CoV-2 currently in circulation, some quite mild, others deadly. What if the Government’s suppression strategy has meant stopping those people with the milder versions of the virus from circulating and, at the same time, herding those with the deadlier versions into hospitals where they can infect other patients and NHS staff? It could be, says Dr Lee, that the lockdown is giving the nastier strains of the virus a helping hand, thereby slowing the tendency of this new disease to get milder with time.
As we tot up the unintended consequences of lockdowns across the world, it’s worth bearing in mind that the quarantining of entire countries for extended periods of time is a new and untried strategy for managing a pandemic. Historically, there are very few examples of lockdowns being used before. The earliest historical example I can find is Florence in 1631, when an outbreak of the plague killed 12% of the population. More recently, Mexico in 2009, during the first days of an H1N1 influenza outbreak, isolated those suspected of being infected, closed schools, banned public gatherings and cancelled a regional soccer tournament. But those measures weren’t replicated in other countries and Mexico abandoned them after 18 days, partly due to the mounting social and economic costs.
We’re often told by lockdown enthusiasts that those US cities that introduced extreme social distancing measures during the Spanish flu pandemic experienced fewer deaths than those that didn’t. But those measures stopped well short of a full lockdown. For instance, in St Louis, which is often held up as a model of how to manage the current pandemic, churches and schools were closed, business hours were restricted and people were ordered to wear mask in public, but the city never issued a stay-at-home order and only cancelled business activity entirely for about forty-eight hours.
Also worth noting that lockdowns weren’t even suggested during America’s deadliest bouts of seasonal flu since 1919. In 1967, flu killed about 100,000 Americans and in 1957 it killed about 116,000. As of yesterday, the COVID-19 death toll in the US was just under 65,000. As a side note, it now looks almost certain that the outbreak in Germany, which Angela Merkel described as the worst crisis to afflict the country since the Second World War, will kill fewer people than the seasonal influenza outbreak in 2018 – and no thanks to the lockdown Chancellor Merkel ordered. Der Spiegel has published the latest daily mortality figures for Germany, which show infections beginning to fall before the more extreme measures were introduced. And contrary to a lot of misinformed nonsense in the news, there’s been no sustained uptick in infections in Germany since the the lockdown was lifted, something that’s also true of Denmark and the Czech Republic.
So why the rush to lock down citizens across the world in response to coronavirus? It’s all the more surprising when you bear in mind that the World Health Organisation (WHO) specifically recommended against quarantining as a strategy for managing the outbreak of a flu-like pandemic in a report it published in 2019. This was drawn to my attention yesterday by a reader with a background in epidemiology and public health who says she’s been horrified by the unquestioning acceptance of the Covid response measures by her colleagues whom she expected to be more capable of critical thought. The WHO report, which you can read here, even stopped short of recommending the quarantining of exposed individuals. No doubt some people will point out that COVID-19 isn’t a flu-like illness, so more drastic measures are called for. But the WHO report says that quarantining wouldn’t have done any good as a way to mitigate the impact of Spanish flu, a much more deadly virus than SARS-CoV-2.
What changed the WHO’s mind and prompted it to praise the response of the Chinese authorities in Hubei province, which included the virtual incarceration of 60 million people? It was this, more than anything else, that persuaded governments across the world to lockdown their citizens. It’s all the more mysterious, given that the WHO has now done a reverse ferret and praised the Swedish government’s herd immunity strategy as a “model” of how to manage the pandemic.
While we’re on the subject of Sweden, Philip Magnes at the American Institute for Economic Research has written an interesting article about a group of researchers at Uppsala University who plugged Sweden’s numbers into Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College model in early April, hoping to persuade the authorities to abandon the mitigation strategy and impose a lockdown. According to the model, if the Swedish Government continued to pursue its “reckless” policy the capacity of the healthcare system would be overwhelmed 40-fold and approximately 96,000 would die of COVID-19 by the end of the year. By May 1st, the Uppsala group predicted, the death toll would be 40,000. In fact, as of April 29th, Sweden’s death toll from COVID-19 was 2,462, and its hospitals are nowhere near the projected collapse. I illustrated the same point with a graph last week, showing the death toll the Imperial model would have predicted if it had been applied to Sweden
For my elderly readers whose eyesight isn’t what it was, the blue area represents what would have happened under the ‘do nothing’ scenario in Sweden according to Professor Ferguson’s model, the yellow area what would have happed if the Swedish Government had stuck with mitigation – which is what is what it did, obviously – and the red area the actual death toll in Sweden.
We learned yesterday that the response of the Chinese authorities to the outbreak, which the WHO praised so effusively in February, included lying about human-to-human transmission, locking up whistleblowers and refusing to help nations develop a vaccine. Those are among the revelations in a leaked 15-page dossier from the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance. This dossier is almost certainly what Donald Trump was referring to earlier this week when he said he had evidence that the virus originated in a Chinese virology lab. The dossier says that a team of scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted research in into deadly bat-derived coronaviruses, with at least one of the virus samples being a 96% genetic match for SARS-CoV-2.
This will be grist to the mill of Republican critics of the lockdowns imposed in states controlled by Democrats. Which poses the question: to what extent is your reaction to the lockdowns mediated by your political views? The short answer is a great deal, with conservatives being much more likely to oppose extreme social distancing measures than liberals. But why should that be so? The Heterodox Academy has published an article by Luke Conway, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Montana, who has researched that question. Here’s his conclusion:
Conservatives oppose the government telling them when they can or cannot leave their homes; liberals support such policies. Because a threatening disease might validate government interventions that conservatives dislike, conservatives appear motivated to downplay the severity. Or conversely, because a threatening disease might validate government interventions that liberals do like, liberals seem motivated to magnify the threat.
This jibes with an essay by Inaya Folarin Iman published in Spiked yesterday about how the lockdown and the British people’s surprising acquiescence to it has its roots in the “decades-long cultivation of a culture of fear and the sanctification of safety” and “the increasing hyper-regulation of everyday life and the growing normalisation of censorship and suppression of dissent”. Could this be what’s responsible for “coronaphobia”?
Happily, not everyone around the world has responded so cravenly to being bossed around by the authorities. The residents of Harris County, Texas have been having a laugh at the expense of a recent announcement about what face-coverings they should wear that misspelt “bandana” as “banana”:
Theme tune suggestions from readers are flooding in. The latest batch include ‘I’m Gonna Kill You‘ by Wynn Stewart, ‘I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself‘ by Buddy Knox and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper‘ by Ashbury Heights. Keep ’em coming.
For more light relief, have a read of ‘The Good Flu Guide’, an article published in Punch in 1987 (author unknown). Hat tip to comedian Simon Evans – one of the few right-of-centre comics to appear regularly on Radio 4 – for unearthing this gem:
Thanks as always to those of you who donated to pay for the upkeep of this site yesterday. If you feel like donating, you can do so by clicking here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, you can email me here. See you tomorrow.
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I’ve added this c**t to the list
Stamping? Watch out for collapsing stadiums!
GFY.
Where the fuck do they find these arseholes…
Well put, the mind continues to be boggled.. daily , fuck it , hourly…
Good luck with that plan. Please rid us of these morons asap.
Their function is to serve as movers of the Overton window. Mainstream rejects such outlandish ideas, but less outlandish but equally stupid ideas then seem acceptable.
I wish someone would kick a football through that particular window.
If you’re the kind of cuck that took your vaccine passport to the match, this is exactly what you deserve.
How about putting your “masculinity” into real life struggles for a change instead of escaping into another season of idiotball?
Two words “YUCK FOU!”.
Another Behavioural Scientist! Wouldn’t want real science confusing the issue would we! Luckily I’m an Arsenal fan so not making any noise is the Old Normal for me!
You lot must have the right to make a noise, sing and shout , when the mood takes you. When you win the double or something. Hope you get back to the Emirates soon .
Wow. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stupid and sad.
kind of makes you think that somebody wants theses collective events stopped or neutered.
I think that is the case. I think big tech are driving this. Pushing for things to be made so ridiculous and soul destroying that people stay at home and log on. We have to resist and get out there. If they destroy these things we have to make new things on our terms
Great to see Dame Theresa has been working through her issues
Talking through them too.
I don’t know about “new norms”, but I can think of a few “new entertainments” worth going for. First off, we could try throwing Dame Wotsername, plus the other members of SAGE, Ferguson and several others, into a Roman-style arena filled with ravening wild animals. Any that survived could then undertake gladiatorial contests, and any remaining could be javelin and archery targets for the spectators.That in itself would take the onlookers’ minds off their feet, made aching by excess stamping.
I’m in danger of becoming a sports fan.
We could start with sending them to Millwall for the afternoon.
Not sure whether that’s a condign punishment, or just “cruel and unnatural”. For me, it would be the latter.
I pride myself on an extensive vocabulary Fiatlux. Good one re’ ‘condign.’ Never come across that one in my 72 years on the planet. (Zarg, as it has become).
I no longer have words for these maniacs.
Black Lives Matter are all part of the controlled system, designed to be used to Nudge, Nudge, Nudge, Nudge….us into tyranny! And…
Ministers have accepted that testing before entry is likely to be required to make concerts, festivals and sporting fixtures safe even after all restrictions are lifted on June 21st. They are debating which elements of social distancing and Covid-secure rules will need to remain in place beyond that date…
Not lifting all restrictions then!!! Here’s an idea: Nobody go to these events. Tell them to shove them where the sun don’t shine, together with their bloody surveillance, rules devices and all the rest! Don’t consent, ever!
Yep.completely agree. dame Theresa is a top nudger, according to wiki.
I suppose the days when we supposedly elected politicians to implement policies that we agree with are a distant and rapidly fading memory.
i spend my spare time and money at football and music events. I will not go if I have to show papers, or have my behaviour dictated by a nudge unit tosser.
those who run these events need to think hard about how and if they comply too.
Most people will go along and get along. The evil bastards will find a way to dial down the restrictions so that they don’t put people off, but there will always be restrictions, at least in the UK, apart from places that fly under the radar. If you want old normal you’ll need to go to the US or maybe some poor forgotten country somewhere.
Zambia?
I am fully expecting that my participation in life will be minimal until I die (decades away, hopefully) – limited to seeing close friends and family who are sceptics, and some private outdoor activities. And working from home. I don’t expect to go indoors anywhere or to any organised activity or event. Basically just the same as my life now, except that when we have people round it won’t be illegal (not that this bothers us). The best I can hope for is to find some pub or shop or cafe that is run and frequented by sceptics, but there is not much sign of that where I live – too respectable.
We moved somewhere respectable just before lockdown, and I now realise that there’s a downside to that.
I’m in similar boat – except it will be VERY difficult to see my family and friends some of whom live abroad. I’m resigned now to the kind of life you describe although it feels like a half life – missing the bits that make life worth living. I remember way last year being out for a walk and realising things were heading in a very draconian way and musing to myself about all the things I like to do and thinking “well they can’t stop me doing those”. Turns out they can stop me doing a lot of them. And where I live there are no sceptics that I know of. Even just to have contact with some of my family members I have to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics and compromises. Feels very isolated.
None of the bull shit Ministers seem to accept was ever necessary according to ministers own Gov. research.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/316200/Mass_Gatherings_evidence_Review.pdf
As a form of protest, this would by far be the most effective.
I know the arseholes have attempted to turn ‘herd immunity’ into a phrase that no longer means something we thought we understood, but the power of the herd still exists.
If no one got on a plane, booked a holiday, went to a gig, refused to enter a pub or restaurant that enforces an app check on ID and vaccine status and so on, most of this nonsense would die. If there were similar effective boycotts and ‘herd community’ action against other vested interests such as big tech and governments it would be even better and even more effective.
Some of these twats are drunk on their own power and delusions of control.
Unfortunately they are succeeding for the most part.
I recommend we stand SAGE in front of a firing squad. I’d happily pull the trigger!
It’s my turn first.
Annie get your gun!
And get the corporal at Black Adder’s firing squad, he prided himself on the quickness of his order between “AIM” and “FIRE!”
Some revolting peasants in Paris on MayDay today!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9ci2cnPMUfDnmjEJeEUYQ
That is hilarious! All I can see happening here is people will find better ways to spend their time where they can express themselves and celebrate freely and whole new ecosystem of human interaction will open up. These puritans are both short sighted and boring and should just be ignored.
Sadly I don’t think it is hilarious. The specific proposal in this article won’t happen, but there will be watered down coronabollocks stuff more or everywhere, forever, and most people will go along with it, and those of us who will have no truck with it will have very limited lives, and yes we will have to develop a new ecosystem but it will take many years, will cause upheaval and distress to many of us, especially those in areas with few sceptics. We will be outcasts.
But we will be having a lot more fun as outcasts won’t we. Groups are coming together already – you may be able to find a local one.
Well I would rather be what I consider awake to reality than not, yes, and I would rather live my life without paranoia. But losing most of your friends and being cut off from a lot of the activities you used to enjoy is a big upheaval and will take time to get used to.
I completely agree yes. I have nothing to do with any old friends now – even ones I have known since childhood. Have made lots of new friends who I must have more in common with really.
I miss my choir massively – that is a biggie for me, but I just can’t be with people who will be talking about how wonderful their vax’s were and who will probably be muzzled up. It has ruined everything. I have been in a kind of grieving process for many months. I do understand,and wasn’t being flippant at all – it is a massive upheaveal as you say.
They ARE being ignored.
Not entirely. They serve to reinforce the lie that SOME level of restrictions is necessary/inevitable.
Agreed.
Why do they go for Football ? ID cards in the 80’s. Fences. Travel bans. European bans ….and now vaccine passports. QR entry. Trap and Trace and now no booze. F right off you loony tunes.
The real problem is that far too many people just shrug and seem to accept it’s necessary, when it’s not. Just go back and look at the attendance figures for games in the 1919/20 season post Spanish flu. And then consider why a moderate illness like Covid is demanding all this paff when Spanish flu did not.
I’d love to see them try to bring this type of bull to the Bundesliga.
None of this pantomime is remotely necessary.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/316200/Mass_Gatherings_evidence_Review.pdf
I think it was Andrew Marr that said that in between the the end of the 2nd world war and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, the socialists hoped for a new Jerusalem and the tories hoped for a new glorious Elizabethan age but the British people ig
nored them both and went shopping.
I think that the majority of the British people of 2021 will ignore the Covid zealots and party; BIG TIME.
I do not intend ‘conforming’ any more.
SNAP.
I hope you’re right. But I am doubtful on present evidence.
We had a guy delivering and fitting a new dishwasher today. Having said that he and his mate needn’t bother about masks, I was treated to a discourse on how Covid was rife around where he lived. This, when we know that the incidence is about as low as it gets.
I don’t think this is particularly atypical.
People , for whatever reason, who are enjoying restraints will stop believing government statistics when they don’t show doom and gloom. The brainwashing has been that good.
A propos of nothing, I realised what is one of the greatest inventions of all time today, the common O-ring. Without it much of our way of life would ( literally in some cases) grind to a halt.
Simple, little things can make all the difference.
Forgive my ignorance but what’s an O-ring? Sounds interesting whatever it is.
Some workmen worship their masks, others whip them off the minute you give the nod, some just don’t bother even wearing them. We’ve had various bits of maintenance work carried out throughout the last year, and a mixed bag of sceptics/zealots, from the gas engineer with whom we had a great chat, to the telephone engineer, fully napped and gloved up, who refused to come within 10ft of the house, and freaked when we said the problem was inside the house!
All the working geezer’s we have had were ,.. erm sceptics tho’ they would not use the term, one gas fire maintenance bloke was a UK Column fan and went on anti lockdown demos.
You will always get the ” well, I heard from somebody who reckons he knew this woman who had a friend whose cousin”(you get the drift).
Just ignore em.
Agreed. I went to a shop yesterday with an elderly gentleman. I wasn’t wearing a mask – he almost had a panic attack. People have been convinced by the MSM and government sponsored hysteria, especially elderly people. What has been done to people psychologically by all of this is disgraceful.
Behavioural Scientists running the country, who would have ever thought it. Trouble is once they see even a minority abiding by some of their ridiculous rules, they think of more.
Johnson has ceded control to unelected academics and his girlfriend.
It was always a game to him
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis
Reincarnated farm animals..
Gov.Uk (easily found)..
Government Response to the Science and Technology Select Committee Report on Behaviour Change.
The Government welcomes the Science and Technology Select Committee‘s report on Behaviour Change, and agrees with the vast majority of its conclusions and recommendations.
Of course they agree, because it perpetuates the Big Lie, and keeps their easy power going.
Professor Dame Theresa Marteau and her colleagues at SAGE want to destroy our culture and ways of life. The new abnormal needs to be resisted at all costs.
BLM’s vision for fans at these events sounds like a real riot!… See what i did there?
Well, Texas Rangers had their opener on April 6th with a packed 34,000 crowd attendance. They have also lifted all their restrictions (including mask wearing) since March 2nd. They have also a wide spread of the so-called British variant. You would expect a “surge” or something of the like, right? The answer is that nothing has really happened. Nothing. Britain has been the epicenter of covid misinformation and propaganda. We (by “we” i mean European countries) did lockdown only after Imperial’s false model for 500,000 deaths etc. Since then all type of scientific rubbish has emerged. Please, live your myth but not spread it out.
I don’t think it can be said that it is anybody on this website’s myth. Imperial college pseudo scientists don’t speak for me just because they happen to be based in the same country as me.
If you remember, there was the ‘bodies in the streets’ scenario after beaches got crowded last year in the UK.
I do wonder whether we react too much to sociopathic nutters like this, and similarly jump too predictably at the fakery of the virtue-signalling BLM stuff.
Remember the way of dealing with attention-seeking kids? Don’t give them attention.
I take your point.
I don’t think these proposals will gain much traction, but as I posted earlier I think they serve to reinforce the idea that some kind of restrictions and “new normal” are necessary and inevitable.
Yes, Julian – it’s a difficult balance getting the reaction right in the face of the wall of propaganda that is being generated.
And indeed, the oldest trick in the political book is to propose something totally outrageous and then back-peddle to something that is just ‘outrageous’ to get it accepted.
In my experience, the major problem is simply breaking through the blithe acceptance of any old crap that is fed to the public, and the fact that the large majority think that the members of SAGE are engaged in ‘science’. I run across gullible belief every day.
They tried to stop loud swearing on the terraces some years ago, how did that go ?
I’m completely at a loss about what BLM have to do with it and what example of theirs we might be expected to follow.
When this is all over, the one field of science that will have been damaged more than anything else is Behavioural Psychologist.
People will see it as a worthless and incredibly dangerous manipulation technique.
I think you’re right – it’s a case of scientific abuse dominating worthwhile research.
I’m sure a lot of decent social and clinical psychologists will be appalled.
I fixed the opening line..
A member of the public has suggested that Sage and the Government should all be held at the Tower and tried for treason.
“A member of SAGE has suggested that the Government should learn from the Black Lives Matter movement in how to……”
Desecrate our heritage and monuments and play the victim.
Because that’s the only thing the BLM could teach anyone.
I can imagine fans at certain clubs not going along with this. I’m a regular at one of these clubs and i’m wondering if they would try and sanction clubs whose supporters push back and sing and chant, maybe celebrate the odd goal? I can hear the tannoy blurting out warnings to crowd already !
I’ve not watched footy for a year now as I didn’t think i’d ever be allowed back in a stadium again since I was never going to take a vaccine or be swabbed like a lab rat.
The fact this commie dropped in BLM as a role model says it all really. I’m just amazed they didn’t suggest jazz hands !!!!!!
There have already been clubs sanctioned after breaches of social distancing, as I recall. Remember the televised FA cup match where they were putting messages over the tannoy for people to obey the rules? (Maybe clubs should follow the example of Marine and create some “gardens” overlooking the pitch where people could do what they want)
Forget the BLM movement. The government should learn from the massive march for freedom which took place in central London last Saturday. No social distancing, no masks, no hand sanitiser but plenty of shouting, singing, laughing, handshakes and hugs, Humanity in action.
“Forget the BLM movement.”
Or don’t necessarily ‘forget’ it – just don’t get diverted by it and get it out of proportion.
I’ve had far more success showing up the hypocrisy of the BLM movement by simply highlighting their actual beliefs than I have showing the real situation over Covid.
It’s a misdirection.
If anyone hasn’t read it , I link the english chapter pdf ( second one down) , of Bhakdi’s book ‘Corona unmasked’ . Warning for anyone of a nervous disposition or who has just been vaccinated, best not read without stiff drink.
https://www.goldegg-verlag.com/titel/corona-unmasked/
Thanks for that. Very disturbing…
A little titbit of statistics.
There were 7 recorded deaths in the UK ‘with’ covid today. Which everyone will celebrate as so very small etc etc , must be the vaccines etc.
Well its TWICE the rate of death per head of population as recorded today in INDIA! ( 80 )
Doubt you will read it expressed like that in the MSM. ‘Cases’ in India were also about half of UK rate per head of population.
Be like BLM. Smash statues. Destroy property. Act like 1980s football fans.
Does it really say that they want hugs and handshakes to be monitored by CCTV, or do I need to get my eyes tested? Or are these people totally barking mad?
Barking mad
“Right, you high fived someone outside of your bubble after that goal. Don’t try and deny it, I saw you. I must ask you to leave the stadium”.
Speaking of Barking, why was it safer to watch sport there than in Lancashire?
If the clubs go along with this, let them. Their revenues will never recover. They are already in a world of hurt – that’s why they wanted to create the Super League.
March 2020 one would not have expected people to put with so much shit for so long, but they did. Sadly I believe they will continue to do so.
14th March, 2020, a packed crowd of over 3,000 at a match in county Durham. How is it more dangerous now? Seriously?
Allegedly 14 cv deaths that Saturday. 7 announced today. Something strange happened to people in the past year, yes indeedy. The psychologists of the future will have a field day analysing all this.
Ministers have accepted that testing before entry is likely to be required to make concerts, festivals and sporting fixtures safe even after all restrictions are lifted on June 21st.
All restrictions lifted? – testing! Doesn’t sound like it to me.
So to be clear, a class of people will be denied going to the theatre, going to the match and other things besides for an indefinite period of time? And quite a lot of people in some demographics (ethnic/religious minorities?). Can they really get away with this?
Behavioural Scientists are certainly a socially challenged bunch. Most likely with restricted childhoods, parent issues, playground bullies, tittle tattles, needing a weekly therapy session.
Stamping? hilarious!
It reminds me of that Sumo wrestler who was considered a bit of a bad boy because he actually punched the air when he won a fight.
Has there been definitive evidence of ONE “super spreader” event from an outdoor sporting event? If there is, I missed it. I’d note that pro and college teams aren’t the only teams that have played sports in the past 10 months. High school teams did as well, and I know for a fact that many of the high school football games in my state were filled with at least 50 percent fans, fans who were NOT socially distancing or even wearing masks. I have heard of no local outbreak after any of these many games.
I have not watched a football match since March last year including the FA cup final and the semi-final (former CFC fan) although I did try to watch the Madrid derby but the stream was poor.
BLM is the reason I will no longer watch any of this so to see them invoked again is I feel a further showing of contempt from those who wish to control these things and by virtue us.
My contempt for football fans is also growing especially after the furore over the ‘new’ league proposals. The fuss made about that while ignoring all of the recent shit show including the above means it is best I avoid such people. Another avenue of pleasure that closed off – to quote one Basil Fawlty.
Despite my best efforts to make the best of things every week delivers a fresh horror. I am really wondering what levels I would go if I thought i could stop all this. Best left …
Silicone valley is making sure that the only smiles we can see are those on our social media pages. There will be no more socializing as we know it unless it is via facebook. And when the climate agenda comes next it will further reduce society to a bunch of pixels
Strange times we live in, when being normal is an alternative lifestyle!!!
Just a thought, what if we all make an effort to join old normal groups for regular meeetups, even if it means attending events we would not normally be interested in? Perhaps some people will go to raves for the first time, just as a point of principle? There’s got to be a backlash against all this unnatural madness.
I don’t like crowds but every time I see a film or TV scene of a heaving bar or club I think to myself I want to be there, and do that. I don’t suppose I will get the chance.
Here’s the SAGE zealot who wants to control our minds and make us all “more healthy”:
She’s only 64 in that pic and looks like she could be 84.
A case of “physician heal thyself”.
She’s one of those “nudge” fuckers; a menace to society. And at 68 she’s long past the time when she should have retired. Taken to a logical conclusion, she’s doing a younger person out of a job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Marteau
Ye gods!
Christ, I didn’t know what she looked like but, after reading this article I had a photo-fit in mind…and it fitted!
Lol!
I’m up for stamping – on Boris’s balls.
BLM is the go-to political formation for liberal technocrats and system managers hungry for vicarious street-fighting credibility. The corporate world draws from the same well – business discourse, especially around diversity in recruitment, frequently references ‘what BLM has taught us’, ‘how the death of George Floyd changed the way we think about…’ etc etc. Like the other alphabet protest groups (RTS, XR, KTB) BLM is an approved and managed form of rebellion – unlike the anti-lockdown movement, of course, which is a genuine insurgency, or at least possesses the capacity for mass insurgency.
Sorry, I don’t recall seeing a SAGE party candidate last time I voted…
Yes, it’s a coup d’etat. Big pharma’s had too much influence for years and years, only difference now is it’s more obvious.
For a foretaste of things to come, these are the conditions that audience members at the Crucible HAD TO SIGN A CONTRACT AGREEING TO, in order to attend.
https://wst.tv/checklist/
No bloody way is any event worth going to under those conditions.
Yes, a foretaste indeed. That’s one to go in the file for reference! Note the use of the NHS app!
The men (and those identifying as men) couild beat their chests if their team wins… like gorillas.
Isn’t this a bit dodgy? Soldiers are told to break step when marching over bridges for a reason.
This is nothing to do with health and actually nothing to do with “the great reset” either. It’s simply another manifestation of a deeply puritanical and joyless aspect of human nature that rears it’s head throughout history and periodically gains ascendency. We are unfortunate to be living through one such period.
Stop this nonsense, take back your freedoms. Demand they be given back. Stop sitting on your hands.
Anyone who attends any of these ‘sanitized’ events needs to ask themselves this:
If they and every other member of the crowd has tested negative what does it matter whether they shout, sing or eat and drink?
Anyone playing along with this lunacy deserves to have a very dull life, lived in black & white.
I’ve been trying to imagine going to a sanitized concert. Among the many gigs I’ve been to, I’ve seen The Killers quite a few times and trying to imagine nothing but clapping when Mr. Brightside starts up…….yeah….that’s never gonna happen.
Which part of FUCK and OFF don’t they understand?