The North Forced Into Second Lockdown
Liverpool will be among several Northern cities to be plunged into a “three tier” lockdown, with pubs, bars, bookies, casinos and gyms ordered to close. The Mail has the details.
The Prime Minister will chair a COBRA meeting on Monday morning to hammer out the final details before setting out the new nationwide three-tier system of restrictions in the Commons.
From 5pm on Wednesday, hundreds of pubs in the northwest will be closed for four weeks, the Telegraph reports, while the Sun says that overnight stays in the northern hot spots are to be banned for the same period.
Locals will only be allowed out of their areas for essential travel such as work, education or health, and must return before the end of the day, with the country divided into ‘medium’, ‘high’ and ‘very high’ risk sectors.
Needless to say, the rumoured announcement provoked fury in Liverpool. Mayor Joe Anderson made his displeasure clear on twitter last night.
In Manchester, politicians launched a last-ditch appeal to ministers not to shut all pubs and restaurants and instead hand them the power to only close those which are not meeting coronavirus safety restrictions. Five of the city’s MPs yesterday warning Boris of the “devastating impact” of closing businesses. But these please are expected to fall on deaf ears.
Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, is no less incandescent than Joe Anderson.
“To be called to a meeting with 10 Downing Street on a Friday evening, to be effectively presented with proposals that needed to be agreed over the weekend, I mean that isn’t adequate or acceptable consultation to me,” he said. “That is being railroaded into a position. It’s all come too late.”
The Government is expected to announce these measures in spite of the fact that Britain recorded 12,872 new Covid cases yesterday, just 9% more than last Sunday’s adjusted total. What happened to “doubling roughly every seven days”? 12,872 is a long way off the 50,000 new cases that Britain was predicted to reach on October 13th (see below).
According to the Telegraph, Boris is expected to announce his new “three tier” system in the House of Commons and at a television Downing Street press conference, with the measures being debated and voted on in the Commons later this week. Let’s hope there’s a full scale rebellion.
What Became of the Graph of Doom?
Prof Carl Heneghan and his colleagues at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine have been taking a look at the daily case numbers and comparing them to the prediction projection made by Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance last month. Readers will recall that in the Graph of Doom, Witless and Unbalanced warned that we could reach 50,000 daily cases by October 13th. That’s tomorrow, folks. So how did the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Officer do? The original CEBM post was written on September 28th, but the data on the graph was updated on October 11th.
Last week, Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientist, said: ‘At the moment we think that the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.’
We reported last week on the rule of four on how to make sense of COVID cases. The Government’s data today shows that cases assessed by specimen date have not yet doubled over 21 days. On the 23 Sep they were 4,914 compared to 2,614 on 2 Sep – 88% higher, but not yet double.
Vallance said “If, and that’s quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows, doubling every seven days… if that continued, you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.
We put the doubling to the test by creating a tracker of the projection. At the moment there is a significant divergence in the case data with the 49,000 cases that were projected by the 13 Oct. We will keep this tracker up to date to monitor the changes.
The seven-day moving average takes account of four days before and three days after to provide an estimate and takes into account the latest reporting – the specimen date takes five days to stabilise and therefore lags the current reporting by this amount.
It’s just as well Witless and Unbalanced didn’t become weather forecasters.
Stop Press: David Patton, a lockdown sceptic on Twitter, has found some data showing that in several university towns the number of daily new cases is declining.
A Senior Doctor Writes…
More from my friend who’s a senior doctor at the NHS on why the so-called “second wave” isn’t as bad as the first and the NHS should be able to cope. One of the points Jonathan Van-Tam is expected to make when the Government unveils its new “three tier” scheme today is that the Royal Liverpool University Hospital was on course to admit more people suffering from Covid than during the peak of the pandemic in the spring, implying that unless Liverpool is locked down local hospitals could be overwhelmed by Covid patients. But as my friend points out, Covid hospitalisations exceeding those at the peak of the pandemic isn’t necessarily a cause for alarm if survival rates are going up and discharges are happening sooner.
An extract from Sarah Vine’s column in the Daily Mail:
“My mother sent me this from a Facebook post by an Italian doctor – it should be required reading in the Department of Health.
“On Covid, he writes: ‘The hospitalisations are growing, but fortunately also the discharges. Compared to the terrible days of last spring, we are witnessing on average shorter hospitalisations, slightly lower average age (67 years today), more manageable disease and practically zero lethality. We still have a few more complex cases, but these represent the minority.
“‘We have the drugs, we know how and when to use them, and we are more confident in what we do. It is therefore necessary to avoid giving messages of terror.'”
Co-incidentally he mentions shorter hospitalisation times and more discharges in Italy – similar to the effect I noted from the PHE data released on 8th October.
An extract from a piece by a French doctor in the Spectator:
“Daphnée Gotheil, a junior doctor at the Necker Hospital in Paris, tells me that the situation is much less severe than in the spring and that, in her view, ‘there is no cause for real concern yet’. And why not? ‘Our hospitals are now better equipped, doctors are more knowledgeable about the virus and they have developed new techniques to treat patients. We do not ventilate patients anywhere near as much – as we know now that it is something to do only as a last resort.’ Eight regions in France still have no Covid patients in ICU beds.
Critical reference to reduced proportions of ventilated patients – makes the problem a whole lot easier to manage than in April.
Despite predictions, I noted in the delayed Birthday honours list that there were no awards for Boris Johnson’s carers at St Thomas’s. Was that a political omission? Might this suggest Johnson has used up a substantial amount of his political capital within the Conservative parliamentary party (the current de facto opposition) to inhibit his customary self-indulgent generosity?
And finally… I read the letter from the GP published yesterday with interest. Would we have such a problem with patients getting hospital appointments if doctors were paid ‘fee for service’ (i.e., paid per patient they actually saw) instead of being salaried staff on the government payroll? At present they get paid the same for seeing no patients as they do for seeing a normal daily workload. Just a thought.
Stop Press: If you’re wondering why all the doctors and nurses that contribute to Lockdown Sceptics do so anonymously, it’s because they’ve been forced to sign NDAs as a condition of employment. Consequently, can I ask you to sign this petition calling on the NHS to nullify all such gagging orders when it comes to COVID-19?
Has the WHO Changed its Mind About Lockdowns?
David Nabarro, one of six Covid envoys appointed by the Director General of the WHO, was interviewed on Spectator TV on Thursday and – to everyone’s astonishment – said the WHO wasn’t in favour of lockdowns. News.com.au has more.
The World Health Organisation has backflipped on its original COVID-19 stance after calling for world leaders to stop locking down their countries and economies.
Dr. David Nabarro from the WHO appealed to world leaders yesterday, telling them to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” of the coronavirus.
He also claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty – with no mention of the potential lives saved.
“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said.
“We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr Nabarro told the Spectator.
“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”
Dr Nabarro’s main criticism of lockdowns involved the global impact, explaining how poorer economies that had been indirectly affected.
“Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” he said.
“Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. … Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”
You can watch Dr Nobarro’s entire interview with Andrew Neil here.
Is this now the official position of the WHO or has Dr Nabarro gone off-piste? If it’s official and the WHO has done a U-turn on lockdowns, that will have the censors at YouTube chasing their tails. Earlier this year, YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki said any content that “goes against” WHO guidance would be removed. Does this mean YouTube’s censors will have to remove every pro-lockdown video that’s been posted since last January? Or will YouTube finally acknowledge that there is no scientific consensus about how best to respond to this pandemic – no monolithic body of opinion called “the science” – and allow scientists and others to set out their stalls on the lockdowns, both for and against, in a spirit of free and open inquiry?
Edinburgh Campus Branded “World’s Most Expensive Prison”
Students at Edinburgh University are getting fed up with being forced to eat out-of-date junk food, in spite of paying £8,500 a year for food and accommodation in halls of residence. The Mail has more.
A first-year economics student, Tess Bailie, 18, has started a social media campaign to protest the poor conditions her fellow undergraduates are being forced to isolate in.
Her Instagram account, The UK’s Most Expensive Prison, has revealed that some students with nut allergies are being given foods with nuts in.
Another anonymous picture sent to the account shows dead mice allegedly in the pantry of one of the university’s halls of residence.
One student claimed they hadn’t been given food for two days while another said they had been given out of date food.
Worth reading in full.
Bedwetter Jibe to be Retired
My readers have spoken. By an overwhelming majority, you think we should retire the bedwetter jibe. The feeling is that it alienates potential allies and the purpose of Lockdown Sceptics is not just to preach to the choir, but to make converts – and many of those converts will be people who, initially at least, were concerned about getting COVID-19.
Another reader made the point eloquently:
My concern is more to do with a sort of ‘sectarianism’ which of course we saw during the Brexit debate – Remoaners vs Gammons – where the white heat of disagreement degenerates into insults that further divide. There is a temptation to abuse one’s opponent which is perfectly natural but doesn’t always help to communicate with those who are neither vehemently for or against something – in fact these people can just begin to see the debate itself as childish mud-slinging. I was very much in favour of Peter Hitchens’s description of masks as “face nappies” and “muzzles” because he seemed to be pitching it as a description of the government trying to infantilise us, or to shut us up. But the undertone, and possibly the intention of those who use the insult, is often actually to infantilise their fellow citizen (“Who other than a bed-wetting mask-wearer would wear a nappy?”) or suggest they are just obedient dogs. I don’t think that was or is Peter’s intention, but that is how things have ended up.
Which immediately raises the question: what should we call those who are excessively cautious about the risk posed by the virus, as well as those that spread fear in the Government and the media? Panty-waists? Chicken Littles? Chin wobbler? Any suggestions, email us here.
Stop Press: One reader has a suggestion:
I’ve long since felt that bedwetter is not strong enough. The lockdown zealots have morphed from being hysterical to something much more sinister. The difficulty is finding a word that captures my disgust with the patronising immunity-deniers who think it their duty to scare the great unwashed into submission regardless of the evidence and consequences. To me the pseudo-scientific commentators, scientists and medical practitioners who chose to ignore the growing evidence – that the cure is worse than the disease – have lost their humanity so perhaps we should call them aliens.
Round-Up
- “As a lockdown sceptic, I now know what it must feel like to have been a Remainer” – Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph cannot understand why the public is still behind the absurd restrictions
- “Scott Morrison reveals the four countries Australia will build ‘travel bubbles’ with first – but says Europe and the US are off the cards until 2022” – Is this all part of the ingenious ‘zero-Covid’ strategy?
- “The PM committed to ‘levelling up’. Instead his government is targeting the North for oblivion” – Ross Clark on fine form in the Telegraph
- “Arts groups to receive cash lifeline from £257m bailout fund” – Government planning to save 1,300 arts organisations with a £250 million bailout fund
- “Darren Grimes is being investigated for stirring up racial hatred – and that’s patently absurd” – I weigh in on the Darren Grimes scandal for the Telegraph
- “Dame Cressida Dick facing questions over ‘politically motivated’ investigation into Darren Grimes” – There has been widespread condemnation of the decision to investigate Darren Grimes for publishing an interview with Dr David Starkey
- “Prosecutor criticises ‘sinister’ Met for investigating Darren Grimes over interview” – Lord MacDonald, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, condemns the Met’s investigation of Darren Grimes in the Times
- “The persecution of Darren Grimes” – Brendan O’Neill says the police’s investigation of Darren Grimes is a disgraceful attack on press freedom
- “For how long can we keep locking down before there’s nothing left?‘ – Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph says the Government needs to urgently switch tack and embrace a herd immunity strategy
- “Lockdown has caused a mental-health crisis” – Dave Clements asks why mental health charities haven’t condemned the Government’s handling of the crisis, given the toll the restrictions are taking on mental health
- “California Mandates All Food Must Be Consumed Through IV To Ensure Masks Are Never Removed” – Excellent stuff from the Babylon B
- “Lab Coat Tyranny” – Christopher Rufo in City Journal reveals that California’s attempt to leverage the pandemic to railroad through progressive policies is no laughing matter
- “Thousands of excess deaths from cardiovascular disease during the COVID-19 pandemic” – A new study claims there were 2,085 excess deaths in England and Wales due to heart disease and stroke during the peak of the pandemic. On average, that’s 17 deaths each day over four months that could have been prevented
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “Highly Likely – Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads” written by Mike Hugg and Ian La Frenais and sung by Tony Rivers.
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 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.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today we bring you news that Lord Nelson’s “heroic status” is to be reviewed by the National Maritime Museum. The Telegraph has more.
Horatio Nelson towers over the pantheon of British heroes, and even his nemesis Napoleon kept a bust of the admiral in admiration – but such a statue would now be suspect.
Lord Nelson’s “heroic status” will be reviewed by the National Maritime Museum as part of efforts to challenge Britain’s “barbaric history of race and colonialism”, the Telegraph can reveal.
The admiral’s legacy is enshrined at the museum in Greenwich, which holds personal effects ranging from love letters to the coat Nelson wore when he was fatally shot during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Internal documents seen by The Telegraph reveal that the museum will capitalise on the “momentum built up by the Black Lives Matter movement” to make changes at the repository of naval treasures and address “aspects of slavery relating to the Royal Navy”.
Nelson displays could be subject to “wholesale changes” in future, and the “more complex” nature of his heroism will be tackled by curators re-evaluating historical events and people as part of a new strategy.
The publicly-funded museum is seeking to communicate the “often barbaric history of race, colonialism and representation in British maritime history”.
Sounds like a great day out. Can’t wait to take the kids.
Stop Press: Dominic Sandbrook in the Mail says the Museum’s plans to review the “heroic status” of Nelson is an assault on the integrity of history itself.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop 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 £1.49 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory masks 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).
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (offer protection to the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last week and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it. If you Google it, the top hit you get is a smear piece in the Guardian headlined: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this hit job the day before it appeared). On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now shows up in the search results – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports a suppression strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics, so expect no let up in the attacks.
You can find the petition here. Please sign it. Last time I checked it had over 300,000 signatories.
Stop Press: Hospitalisations and deaths in London have stabilised. Could it be because Londoners have achieved herd immunity? The latest infection survey data suggests about one in eight Londoners have got Covid antibodies, not far off the 15% that Dr Gabriela Gomes et al estimate is the average herd immunity threshold. (There is even some suggestion that widespread immunity is shielding the South of England more widely).
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
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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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Subversion isn’t just a crap source control tool.
All those ‘experts’ Johnson has advising him need to explain why this map looks like this; e.g. what’s so special about these areas.
Map courtesy of https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1315735349595959296
Looking at that map, it suggests most areas which returned a labour MP at the 2019 election are in lockdown.
The main exception being London & Bristol being the main areas which are not red or amber.
Morecambe & Lunesdale is a Conservative Seat but is under tier two as it gets lumped in with Lancaster who is a Labour Seat . The “cases “ are mainly uni students at Lancaster
Nice to see the three stooges standing at their podiums with marketing banners attached.
HANDS FACE SPACE
Gawd I already fuckin hated slogan boards for all these political ‘press conferences’ but they’ve really uped their game to irritate the living shit outta me with all the Corona sloganeering!
https://logicinthetimeofcovid.com/2020/09/07/waiting-for-zero/
https://twitter.com/ClareCraigPath/status/1315742628340797443
“Testing in hospitals has kept increasing and we are now testing 70,000 a day. At that rate, and with a false positive rate of 0.4% for pillar one you would expect 47 false positive deaths a day excluding community testing.”
Will we never go under 50 C-19 deaths per day just because of insane mass testing?
https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1315746844421623817
“The same applies to those classified as COVID-19 hospital admissions. Last year hospital admissions in October averaged 44,000 daily. Would expect 176 false positives. Also note there is always a sharp increase of admissions in October compared to September”
Clare Craig is great.
Great post, thank you. 🙂
Have to add: this is a dreadful statistic.
THe UK’s main economic role in the world is that it provides the main marketplace for the biggest financial bubble in human history.
That bubble’s days are numbered.
How does the UK propose to earn its way, never mind pay for the pensions and health care and care homes of the boomers,
The UK’s rulers have the delicate task of managing its slide into the second world.
Build Back Better. Hands Face Space.
Make money laundering and all narcotic drugs legal and above board. Job done.
Better than what we have right now.
The City of London is the global capital of money laundering already. This would merely be publicly admitting what everyone knows.
Future UK governments will have no choice but to pimp each and every one of us out to the rest of the world.
Better get used to more knee bending.
One word – Micawber!
It’s so funny seeing Trump claiming they saved millions of lives based on the modelling.
The people who swear by the modelling but hate trump must be so confused as to what to think about it.
Do they agree that he saved millions of lives or do they say the models weren’t predictions?
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
.
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they… Read more »
Goodnight !
Quite good this Kipling chap
Makes exceedingly good cakes I hear.
All locked down these days I´m afraid.
That kipling makes dreadful half-stale hard lumps of pure sugar, lets us say that if you had classical covid symptoms and ate one you wouldn’t have an experience any different from if your sensory equipment was functional. I’d much rather have something fresh from a local bakery, and not have the bakery sent bust.
His danegeld poem gives a good argument why we musn’y submit to restrictions.
Poetry Lovers’ Page – Rudyard Kipling: Dane-Geld
When it all goes wrong lets remember on this web site we are sane and correct. We are not mad bad or granny killers we are right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU
“UK government debt has risen above £2 trillion for the first time amid heavy spending to support the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Spending on measures such as the furlough scheme means the debt figure now equals the value of everything the UK produces in a year.
Total debt hit £2.004tn in July, £227.6bn more than last year, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53859299
It’s not yet ‘Game Over’, but it is definitely ‘mate in five moves’ for the UK.
These measures are about implementing social control to try and deal with financial and economic collapse.
Go on – tell me, what does the UK export that the rest of the world wants?
Hornby train sets.
Correction: “All Hornby manufacturing was moved to China in 1995“.
So nothing then. Apart from professional services, which owing to everyone working at home are now no longer tied to any geographical location.
I watch an American YouTuber who tests things to see which is best (tools, fasteners, adhesives etc.) I am amazed by how little of the stuff he tests is actually made in The US, I would say more is made in Germany than is made in The US. Most is made in China
We are all stuffed.
Almost every object in my possession is manufactured by de facto slave labour in the Far East, purchased by me at affordable prices off the back of their sweat and blood.
Something of a reckoning is going on in 2020.
Maybe the western world is becoming enslaved to China masters.
Stands to reason seeing as they make everything.
We are also getting a glimpse of the kind of state power to which the people that make all our stuff with with we furnish our lives have been subjected for decades. Not very nice is it.
Richard I am well aware that China and the far east is where the vast majority of stuff is made.
I worked at a manufacturing company in Sheffield, the company went bust some years ago.
When the remaining equipment was auctioned off, the heavy machinery was bought and exported to India.
Did we ever fully recover from the deindustrialisation of the UK which began in earnest under Thatcher that laid waste to so many towns and cities?
If we did, that recovery has now been demolished in less than a year, with absolutely nothing to fall back on.
History lessons.
Wind energy! And maybe eventually shale gas if we get our act together…
Wax jackets.
And not even all of those (check the label or absence thereof).
aero engines, whoops they are not need any longer
Well one (not the only) outstanding thing is its expertise in the performing arts – which has been comprehensively wrecked in the last year.
The action of lunatics.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.31.20184036v3.full.pdf
Assessing the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on US Mortality: A County-Level Analysis
“This result implies that 26.3% [95% CI, 20.1% to 32.5%] of all excess deaths were not directly assigned to Covid-19 on death certificates”
The remarkable thing is that Ethical skeptic a twitter pseudonym ,known for remarkable astute complex interpretation of US data, not easy to follow, from his analysis just of available CDC data reaches almost exact same figure as in the publication.
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1315744397837955075/photo/1
https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1315775140437794816
But Dr Fauci thinks those excess deaths still are C-19,suicides ,cancer,stroke etc does not exist in his world
Do not know if this has already been posted, the barrister representing the Simon Dolan judicial reviews, talks to Anna Brees.
Francis Hoar
Thank you so much for the link. It was just what I needed right now..
“This latest revelation will no doubt be an embarrassment to what is already looking like a haphazard bio-surveillance operation being run by the UK government.
“It’s now been revealed that private firms are collecting UK government NHS ‘track-and-trace’ data taken unknowingly from visitors to pubs and restaurants, harvested and then sold on to marketing firms for profit.”
https://21stcenturywire.com/2020/10/12/how-uk-track-and-trace-data-from-restaurants-is-being-harvested-and-sold-on/
Found out that Nero’s app if used to pay for coffee etc talks to NHS with T&T data. Manager there told me I didn’t need to scan anything else because of the above.
In flagrant breach of GDPR, which many organisations worked diligently for many years to implement. The regulations must be null and void for anyone working with the state due to a throwaway clause in one of the SIs that has sailed into law this year.
There seems to be more and more despair on this site. Here is a thought:
A pair of scales. One side has a kg and one side has 10 grams You keep adding more and more weight to the light side and nothing happens. Then as you approach the balancing weight of 1000 grams the light side starts to fall. Then there is balance for a moment and then the situation reverses- slowly at first and then very quickly. For most of the whole process the heavy side doesn’t move. If you were just looking at the heavy side you would think that nothing was happening; but it is. Our situation is more dynamic than that because when the light side starts to rise lots of weight will move from the heavy side to the light side. This whole situation could shift very quickly. So please don’t give up. The truth will out if we we keep going.
Yes.
You are right, but even despair plays a role. When you have reached rock bottom, the only direction left is upwards.
In my opinion what we are seeing is an attempt by those in power to save the status quo.
But their financial house of cards will fall and take them with it.
How do I know?
Negative interest rates means we have reached the Endgame.
Negative interest rates are crazy, money printing”/quantitative easing”(long term) is crazy. Only a matter of time before serious trouble comes of it, and that’s even if there hadn’t been lockdowns.
I having a metaphor day. This is even better:
There is a seesaw and on one side you have the all the rotten governments of the world, the WHO, the WEF, the CIA, Big Pharma, the IMF and the World Bank, big bad Bill, the Clinton’s, Soros etc etc. And then on the other side you have a few hundred thousand lockdown sceptics, conspiracy theorists of all colours, a few honest journalists, SKY News, Australia, the Fox News guy, Anna Brees, Matt le Tissier and Novak Djokovic and a few thousand scientists who have remembered the job of scientists is to question not to get a big new shiny grant. That’s all. A pathetic disorganised rabble who cannot even agree on what they want or what the opposition is up to. But every day tens of thousands climb onto their side. The bad guys are amused. They game planned all this decades ago. They chat amongst themselves. They congratulate each other on how easy it all was. They even shake the seesaw a few times and watch thousands fall off the other side and die. But more and more keep getting on. Tens of thousands day after day. It is… Read more »
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
… And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house. In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
We need more of this.
My MP wrote in response to my objections and included a list of the support measures her Government colleagues have put in place.
In reply I have said “expecting people to be grateful for these measures is the same madness as if I ran someone over and then expected the injured person to thank me for not reversing back over them”
And I thought Teresa May was useless, I did not realise that if she went then what was left really was the bottom of a shit barrel.
My MP stopped replying to me years ago, still send her the odd email now and again.
As I’ve been ignored for so long, I’ve started sending the odd book for her to read instead.
A copy of the Nuremburg trials is arriving at westminster just before bonfire night for her.
A total waste of money on my part – they’ll probably burn it
I like it. Direct action like this does have an affect. Like the send a mask idea.
I’ve got nothing to lose now. I’ve behaved myself for most of my life (had a run in with the law over driving offences and the odd parking ticket), but now I’m going to be a subversive little shit, and take great pleasure in doing it.
I owe it to my baby. She’s fucked otherwise.
Well in Captain…there comes a time where we all must identify where we draw the line and fight to take back our freedoms
My english teacher friend would hate you. you do not reverse back. you reverse.
All the best teachers I had didn’t seem to hate anyone.
LS commenters have often questioned the scottish government prrcentage calculation of daily figures. There is now an asterisk with an ‘under review’ label.
Scottish numbers: 12 October 2020
Summary
961 new cases of COVID-19 reported; this is 17.1%* of newly tested individuals
0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
36 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
487 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
12,994 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
* the approach used to calculate this percentage using only newly tested individuals is under review. Further information is provided on the Data definitions and sources webpage
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/
0 reported new deaths.
The mortality rate just keeps rocketing down
Bloody crazy
People don’t die on Mondays, no wait, wasn’t it people don’t work in stats on the weekend so Mondays have an artificially high bias?
Fucking nonsense.
Am I really dumb? I always used the number of tests done they reported on that day and their stated + tests, and that is the percentage.
“Am I really dumb?”
No, you’re not; this line is misleading:
961 new cases of COVID-19 reported; this is 17.1%* of newly tested individuals
Reading their description:
The line in the summary should say:
961 new cases of COVID-19 reported; 17.1% of these are newly tested individuals
I think…(?) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just want to add something to this that I said here earlier, because it could be misunderstood:
The biggest problem I have with those who want to pin the blame on “globalists”, people like Gates and Soros, is that while these people undoubtedly use their money to buy influence. They can never buy responsibility.
That’s the key difference. Responsibility rests squarely with elected governments. Politicians are slippery creatures. Even the best of them are probably not to be trusted. Not completely.
They all of them probably have their own selfish agendas.
The risk that you run in suggesting that Boris is externally controlled is that it lets him off the hook. But he is the Prime Minister of this country. He is 100% responsible for what happens.
No-one else.
By “responsibility” I do not mean blame. I mean, it is Johnson’s job to run this country. Gates, is an American citizen, he lives in the United States. It has nothing to do with him.
Sure, he wants to buy influence for his pet project, “vaccines”, he’s a fanatic. He can see no downside to them and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of personal choice. and… Read more »
Johnson has come across as very weak and indecisive throughout this saga, diametrically opposed to his public image that has been carefully nurtured since 2016. I suspect his performance also falls well short of his own image of himself, although whether he has the level of introspection necessary to realise this is unclear.
Absolutely he’s responsible. His party may get money from big business etc., there may be opinion polls to sway him, but his craven decisions are his own, and he needs to show real leadership (and by the way, give people what they thought they were voting for, rather a long way from what we’ve got!
John I certainly would not want you to go. There is nothing worse than any forum or discourse where everyone agrees with each other. Apologies if I have been rash in previous replies this current circumstance brings out the worst in people (myself included).
I’ll try again. I said something along these lines yesterday. Now, as I write I’m holding my nerve and choosing not to lash out.
I have been easily triggered in the past. It’s a personality flaw, but I’m learning to control it. Takes time though.
One or two people (by no means all) are hostile to me. In some cases it’s probably jealousy, I don’t know. I’ve probably been taken personally.
We are all private individuals here. and we’re all strangers.
Maybe there are some government or security service trolls here. I don’t know. I’m certainly not one of them. I detest Johnson and his cabal.
I also dislike the concept of forced vaccines.
I don’t know what more I can say. I can’t prove that, but then neither can you.
I have a right to a voice, I have a right to speak, whether you like it or not.
I did leave this site once, but I decided to return. Yes, I can change my mind. I have that right too.
If you don’t like me, them I’m sorry, but that’s tough. I’m not here to make friends, but neither and I here to… Read more »
Disagreeing with you is not the same as disliking you
You have snapped me out of self pity on more than one occasion. Much needed as it leads nowhere.
I don’t know what’s gone on, but don’t worry about it. These forums have a tendency to end up like that sooner or later. I had a similar experience once with another forum (I’m back on it now), but there were always plenty of decent people who I respected as well. At the end of the day, we’re all here to oppose the lockdown (apart from government trolls!) and we should not lose sight of that, whatever our differences of opinion and approach.
Vote of no confidence to be motioned against the arrogant speccy scumbag over in Australia:-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8742133/Premier-Daniel-Andrews-kicked-office-pandemic-response.html
I’ve already posted today the Krankie is insane, and that Whitty is insane, so at the risk of sounding like I’ve got nothing original to say, I reckon…
Andrews is insane!
Totally agree, JH; this guy really is a scumbag.
Insane or not, Andrews is not somebody who should be able to wield any power over people.
Looks like http://www.brandnewtube.com has been hacked…
Yep, it was shut down for a while yesterday as well.
Someone is clearly feeling the heat….
I should perhaps declare an interest in the story about Lord Nelson, me being a direct descendent (according to a family story) of one of Britain’s great naval heroes, Sir Cloudesley Shovell (a Stuart admiral described as the Lord Nelson of his day),
Apparently the National Maritime Museum wish to “address aspects of slavery relating to the Royal Navy. Might I suggest that they start with Sir Cloudesley Shovell himself, and his connection to slavery? In fact, I have the reference right here.
“In Algiers [in the Barbary States, North Africa]…By January 1675 some 189 English captives had been redeemed…Shovell played a part in the redemption of the English slaves by assisting the joint commissioners, Narbrough, Brisbane and Martin”.
(Sir Cloudesley Shovell, chapter VI, by Simon Harris).
History is complicated, and I have no reason to believe that British history is particularly worse than most other countries. Indeed, believe it or not, there are those who would go out on a limb and say that, overall, British history is something to be quite proud of (at least until this year!).
One wonders what Nelson and Shovell would have made of the current shameful mess. I suspect their words might have… Read more »
History is neither good nor bad, it just is. Every moment that has passed has brought us to where we are today.
I see people complaining about the past and how they would change parts of it if they could. And I will always say to them, if the past was changed in any way you probably wouldn’t be here to moan about it.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/chris-whitty-tier-three-alone-will-not-be-enough
Witless adding yet more doom and gloom to the proceedings, nothing is ever enough for hm, he would prefer to see us all welded into our houses for the duration.
Chris Whitty made clear at tonight’s press conference with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that he doesn’t think that the tier three restrictions are enough to get on top of the virus in the worst hit places. He was explicit that local councils will need to go even further in terms of closures in some places. Later in the press conference he said that the government ‘knew full lockdown works’ but it was also aware of the societal and economic harm it does, and the government rightly wants to keep schools open. Taken together, the answers strongly implied that Whitty thinks that in Covid hotspots everything apart from schools should be under consideration for being closed.
Whitty is insane!
If lockdowns work, the fucking ‘case’ numbers wouldn’t go up.
I think there is every likelihood he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He was speaking very quickly at the press conference, not answering questions and blathering. Whether you agree with what he says or not, he is not normally like that.
Possibly, but I’m finding it hard to feel sorry for a man whose advice/policies has caused misery for millions and the deaths of thousands, with more to come.
It’s cruel to hope you’re right – but I do.
I hope he suffers exactly the same fate as whatever happens to those whose mental health was worst affected by the lockdown. He deserved no less.
I said elsewhere he will end up like Dr David Kelly either dead by his own hand or the victim of a mysterious ‘incident’. At least David Kelly was an honourable man, I can’t decide whether Whitty is mad, bad or just hopelessly out if his depth. Either way he seems to be about to implode. Whatever befalls him, the government is ultimately responsible.
Whitty is an completely unremarkable man. I don’t know what his objective actually is. Nor do I think he has any clear idea what it is either.
You’re often very encouraging, Tyneside Tigress. It’s your judicious tone, your thoughtful, reasoned commentary. Feeling depressed and rather hopeless tonight, I do appreciate your nice sane contributions.
I would love to ask Whitty how exactly I pay my bills and keep a roof over my head if we totally lockdown. I am one of the over 3 million left out any form of government support and had to take 4 months off unpaid, I have been back at work since July 13th, and luckily live in a lower case area in the south. I cant afford another lockdown with no money coming in, what planet are they on.
Due to all this doom and gloom work for me has really slowed down this month. I feel so sorry for anyone who is locked down again.
Heartbreaking to see all those scousers on the news.Fake concern from the BBC but why don’t they ask WHY?
An explicit, public acknowledgement by one of the policy’s chief architects that it does in fact do societal and economic harm is a concession of sorts.
Hard hitting article from Richard Littlejohn:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8832693/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Driven-fear-dodgy-science-bound-end-tiers.html
I’ve just listened to Toby Young and James Delingpole’s weekly podcast London Calling.
One of the best episodes yet in my estimation. A (rightly) increasingly belligerent Delingpole called Tony “the cuckmeister” for “retiring” bedwetters. A fair accusation.
https://ricochet.com/podcast/london-calling/do-not-pass-go/
need to get off the internet, we are being monitered. think, group and do . this is a war.
If you want to wimp out go. Don’t expect me to join you in your cowardice.
But John it’s obvious you’re one of those doing the monitoring
I have as much right to speak here as anyone else.
I am not monitoring anyone! That’s paranoia. You don’t have to agree with me.
You are not going to silence me.
bro i’m teasing you
A somewhat passionate response. Still a bit wound up after listening to Toby and James’ excellent podcast.
No evidence that people here are under any particular threat.
Perhaps you would not wish to discuss details of your organised plans on a totally open online platform, but it is still wise to have somewhere public to win converts to our cause.
they cut it there
at the end of the briefing boris was going , um, ah,um,ah,um. Hes on the ropes. they ut it there, if i was there i would have knocked him out for 11
Must have been contract tasting again.
So.
Negative interest rates anyone?
Austerity anyone?!
Yes I can’t wait to pay my bank for the privilege of storing my money with them. It’s only fair, they do absolutely nothing for it.
At an anti lockdown protest a couple of weeks ago we got the Territorial Support Group treatment at the orders of Downing Street and New Scotland Yard. I don’t have any problem with the event below but the police treatment and silence of in the media about Cov-idiots etc (or any mention at all) is breathtaking.
https://www.facebook.com/612873090/videos/10157516856103091/
I saw that.They marched up park lane and back again.Couldnt understand what they were chanting but saw some whipping themselves so I think it was sone sort of Shia Muslim parade.
The hypocrisy of our leaders is something else
I fully support them but the double standards in policing and media reaction are staggering. Wonder what Good Morning Britain had to say about that, nothing I bet!
Remember when some were saying it wouldn’t drag on until after the US Presidential Election? Well it’s only a few weeks away now.
Wonder what will happen on Nov 4th?
The dawn of Bonfire night?
Ooh that’s a coincidence for the ages!
I don’t know what to make of this.
95% of deaths up to August with CV-19 on the death cert had flu and pneumonia listed as well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54463511
It means that they did not die of Covid-19 as if you didn’t know about Covid-19 you would label these as flu or/and pneumonia.
The symptoms are the same.
Welcome to the world of Karl Popper!
You’d naturally interpret it the other way around wouldn’t you.
Perhaps it’s worth checking back on the guidelines, which may say that if Covid is mentioned at all then as a “notifiable disease” it’s taken as the primary cause?
Regardless, a “Covid-19 Death” is where it is “mentioned on the birth certificate”. So there’s some flexibility at play, being used in that reporting.
Yep! That is how far ahead they planned this thing!
They took from the flu/pneumonia column and stacked the Covid column. Covid is difficult to distinguish from pneumonia, so if both present = Covid
As an aside, they’ve eradicated flu in Ireland
https://www.hpsc.ie/news/title-20415-en.html?fbclid=IwAR3bMA_0sb346x6kHpkUzq-JjinO8z4L9PRJlaHIWpFw_vrWo0DgPQxwWyA