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The Daily Sceptic
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Flip-Flopping and Turning Coats on an Evidence-Free Stage

by Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
5 October 2023 11:00 AM

Well, it now looks as if the grandees are turning against each other. Rishi Sunak, as we reminded our readers, stated to the Spectator that not even Cabinet Ministers were aware of the rationale for the toxic cocktail of evidence-free restrictions imposed on the nation. 

Now, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser during Covid, is accusing politicians of cherry-picking the science. Apparently, the diary he kept will be produced at the Hallett Enquiry. So, whom do you believe? Sir Patrick used some pretty strong words to describe the former Prime Minister, and incidentally, a registered medical practitioner should not use words such as ‘bipolar’ as an insult. Mental illness is no joke, especially for those whose conditions were caused or triggered by the three Ronnies’s restrictions. So why was Sir Patrick always standing up like a stalwart at the three Ronnies’ show every night? Why did he not resign if the Government was running amok with the advice? Two metres, rule of six, night curfews, see granny in the garden and Christmas parties on balconies and all.

We think the restrictions narrative is now fast unfolding. Unlike the decks of the Titanic, it’s everyone for themselves – I got my damehood/knighthood, my pension, time to move on with my trusted Kevlar armour around me.

One of the reasons why the narrative is unfolding is that SARS-CoV-2 is going up and down regardless of whatever idiocy the Government, the media and the so-called experts dreamed of, which brings us to our thread on the outputs of the UKHSA. On Tuesday we pointed out that the UKHSA has produced a map of what it calls available evidence on the use of what it classifies as non-pharmaceutical interventions – NPIs (the ‘Evidence Gap Map’). Here’s the main screen again:

As we explained, you can click the arrows in the top row and inspect the list of different interventions.

So the map tells us there is a massive dump of models of all kinds, a few other bits and pieces, but nothing strong enough to justify granny in the garden having a conversation through the window or ‘closing the Welsh borders’. 

But we are curious, you know us: we ask questions the whole time. So, we have downloaded references numbers 24 to 123, which are the 100 models which form the backbone of the UKHSA dataset (100 out of 151; 66% to be precise).

We have downloaded them, and now we are reading them and asking four straightforward questions about each published or quasi-published model included in the map:

  • What is the NPI being assessed (e.g. is it an NPI, and is it defined and described?) and in what setting? (e.g. community, hospital, homes etc.)
  • What is the source for the effect estimate? (to model its effects, you need a source of data, i.e., what does it do?).
  • What is the size of the effect? (such as risk reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection)
  • What is the case definition? (how did they define a case of COVID-19?)

Once we have answered these questions, we will grade the model using the ROBINS I tool. Remember the UKHSA did not assess the risk of bias, it just mapped.

We will then synthesise our findings and reflect on the advisability of relying on the mapped models for introducing restrictions.

To remind readers, we have done a similar exercise with a previous review produced by the UKHSA:

The UK Health Security Agency Review – our Trust the Evidence Critical Appraisal

  • U.K. Government Evidence for Mask Mandates – an introduction
  • Mystery studies
  • Studies with non-representative populations
  • Studies with obscure methods
  • Studies with no blinding and no protocol
  • Office for National Statistics – Part 1
  • Office for National Statistics – Part 2
  • Studies which shouldn’t have been in the UKHSA review
  • Predatory Journals to Inform Mask Policy
  • U.K. Government Evidence for Mask Mandates – Main Points

Bear with us as we do this work and present the results. TTE resources are finite: it’s just Tom and Carl.                      

Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.

Tags: Covid InquiryCOVID-19EvidenceFace MasksLockdownModellingNPIsThe ScienceUKHSA

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23 Comments
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DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago

Is it a case of ‘follow the money’, again

14
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Or, look at the philosophy. Ideology is what matters.

6
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  Moist Von Lipwig

Not in the way that the Useful Idiots think that it does.

China is a xenophobic Mandarin Han ethnostate. Even the Cantonese Han of Hong Kong are viewed as lesser beings to be ruled over.

Communism is just the tool used by the Mandarins to maintain control over their subject peoples. No amount of ideological purity, or Little Red Book bashing, will allow a non-Mandarin to rise to real power.

They will reward their pets with treats, but make no mistake, they aren’t allowed on the couch.

30
-1
karenovirus
karenovirus
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Significant ethnic minorities include Tibetans, Uigurs, Mongolians, Manchurians and Koreans but all are sparsely populated in peripheral areas.

0
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

As if Communism is not compatible with racism or xenophobia.

The ground was long prepared for Communism or its equivalent in China.

0
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
3 years ago

There was an eco loon being interviewed on one of the major channels recently who brought up the subject of British guilt because the Industrial Revolution started here. Her knowledge of that process was hazy but the interviewer closed her down quite quickly, possibly to save her from further embarrassment.

A space to watch though.

19
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

Kim Jong Johnson has condemned the Industrial Revolution, being the great fat communist fraud that he is.

16
0
mishmash
mishmash
3 years ago
Reply to  Moist Von Lipwig

He also told a classroom full of children that we should feed people to animals because there are too many of us.

Last edited 3 years ago by mishmash
3
0
Dermot McClatchey
Dermot McClatchey
3 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

A space to watch though.

The space between her ears, I assume you mean.

8
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
3 years ago
Reply to  Dermot McClatchey

The industrial revolution as a target for the cancellers.

0
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago

On the contrary, Environmentalism has always been a combination of Communism and Fascism, deriving from the same philosophical roots.

18
-1
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Moist Von Lipwig

Yes it’s “odd”* that “former” communists went over to greenism despite the obvious evidence that the economic pollution inherent in marxism leads to mass pollution.

It’s like it’s an outlet for their narcisism.

6
0
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

Not so much Narcissism as nihilism.

Near the end of Weimar Germany, Bolshevik Socialists left the Communist party and went to the National Socialist party, the differences between them were only slight.

1
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago

Essentially, China is simply more clever than the West in pursuing the joint global power game.

Just in crude imperial resource terms, they have outplayed the US strategy of conquest by self-righteous thuggery at every turn

9
-4
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

And patient and determined. It’s a ruthless expansionist xenophobic ethno-State, but it’s not making the same mistake as previous examples. Conquest is a generational project, pushing just hard enough to not provoke any meaningful opposition.

12
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Not really. China’s growth relative to the US over the past half century or so is just the recovery of China from a long term historic low for China, contrasted with the US’s C20th high point. As far as the details are concerned, sometimes China “outplayed” the US, sometimes the reverse. Sometimes each has been using the other, as when the US backed China’s growth as a weapon against the Soviet Union.

This climate alarmism issue though is purely a matter of the US sphere being decadent and dominated by screeching ideological fanatics driving policies disconnected from reality, whereas China is not subject to the same idiocy and on this issue is just pursuing basically sensible growth policies.

14
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Exactly, marxism is so powerful it can make the chinese poor!

2
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

More aptly, it helped keep them poor. China’s original relative decline was like that of the entire world, in the face of the huge advances created by the European powers over the centuries after the beginning of industrialisation, especially Britain, and their offshoot the US which took over as top dog by the early C20th. Remember the US had the incomparable advantage of taking over almost for free an entire continent, from technologically and culturally primitive peoples who had barely exploited it.

Ideology is just part of the story.

5
0
I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

China is more cleverer or simply less corrupt than western politicians?

It appears to me than the biggest problem western democracies have are an abundance of of self-serving corruptible politicians.

6
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Rent-seeking is by far the west’s biggest issue.

5
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago

It’s a multi-pronged forking they’re inflicting on us, coming at us through bio-tyranny as well in order to turn us into a version of their vision of a total information, total control centralised State. Although saying so may severely ding my social credit score.

Even when they haven’t bought us outright, they’re more than capable of “nudging” us. If you imagine for one second that WuGov polls reflect the opinion of Britons, well, I have a Great Wall to sell you.

25
-1
Jo Starlin
Jo Starlin
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Uptick for “WuGov”.

9
0
Jo Starlin
Jo Starlin
3 years ago

I’d recommend Hidden Hand as a good read. Many of the lockdown villains, Dan Andrews in particular, have been Chinese lackeys for some time. Ardern, Bozo, Justine Trudeau and many others get a dishonourable mention, along with the utterly appalling Peter Mandelson.

23
0
AN other lockdown sceptic
AN other lockdown sceptic
3 years ago
Reply to  Jo Starlin

Was just about to mention this, you beat me to to it. I found the book truly shocking and scary. Next level corruption.

Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World

The Chinese Communist Party is determined to reshape the world in its image. The party is not interested in democracy. It sees only a bitter ideological struggle with the West, dividing the world into those who can be won over, and enemies. Many political and business elites have already been lured to their corner; others are weighing up a devil’s bargain.

Through its enormous economic power and covert influence operations, China is now weakening global institutions, aggressively targeting individual corporations, and threatening freedom of expression from the arts to academia. At the same time, Western security services are increasingly worried about incursions into our communications infrastructure.

In a landmark study combining meticulous research with unique insights, Hidden Hand exposes the Chinese Communist Party’s global program of subversion, and the threat it poses to democracy. We have already missed too many warning signs – now it is time to wake up.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48838251-hidden-hand

15
-2
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
3 years ago

Luke, timely and well stated.
Add to this China’s absolute control of rare earth minerals necessary for the ‘green’ batteries the West requires.
Only one man stands in the CCPs way: Donald J Trump.
This explains everything happening in America right now (Jan 6 Commission, rampant immigration to flood Republican states, energy shortage and price hike).
Thank God Trump will back in 2024 and the MAGA Republicans will have a 100 seat majority 2022.

15
-1
Susan
Susan
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

Beautiful fantasy!
The Chinese, aided by Trump’s domestic enemies, (among whom are ranked most elected Republicans), outfoxed him with the Whuflu. Election fraud is going to continue. And Trump will lose the loyalty of his base if he doesn’t soon catch on to the disaster that is the vaccines.

5
-1
BS665
BS665
3 years ago

At least Russia and China have a plan to win. The “West” has neither principles, will, plan, nor nerve. Contrary to Star Wars dogma (the essence of Western political theory), what do you want, a degenerate Republic or a virtuous Empire?

7
0
Backlash
Backlash
3 years ago
Reply to  BS665

I definitely don’t want to be ruled by or live like the Chinks do

3
0
BS665
BS665
3 years ago
Reply to  Backlash

Me neither. Many will welcome them as saviours, however. Red covidianism or Blue covidianism (not that we’ll have a choice)?

2
0
Backlash
Backlash
3 years ago
Reply to  BS665

We do have a choice, we start offending, attacking and deriding those who have turned against us and watch how many join the cause. More than you’d imagine.

0
0
Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
3 years ago

You can have Xi in your very own living room! (contains microphone)

https://www.redbubble.com/i/throw-pillow/Xi-Jinping-in-front-of-the-Chinese-Flag-by-saltybrit/32743796.5X2YF?country_code=GB&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-6buyvyc9AIVS9OyCh1Vdws5EAQYBCABEgKD2_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Rots of 5-star leview! Rook!

2
0
Susan
Susan
3 years ago

“Climate change” isn’t the only Western policy China has brought under its control. Can we name any current policies that reflect Western rather than communist ideals?

7
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Susan

In truth, communism is a western (European) ideology that infected Russia and China when they were particularly vulnerable, emerging from imperial rule and industrialising. If it has a national origin it was German. Though that’s not what’s important now, admittedly.

4
-2
cornubian
cornubian
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Communism is as German as curry sauce is British.

0
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  cornubian

As I indicated, European really, but if you are going to ascribe nationality to the origin of what we now think of as communism then that of Marx and Engels is better than another.

0
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

By the same logic, the UK is a German kingdom because it has been ruled by German monarchs for centuries, although the Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha-clan has been hiding this for political reasons since the first world-war by rebranding themselves as Windsor.

🙂 🙂

Marx was born in Trier. But he lived and worked in England and his theories were based on the English industrialisation as the German one largely only happened after 1871.

Last edited 3 years ago by RW
0
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

As I said, better described as European (in the wider sense including Britain) in terms of its origin, but Germany was the strongest influence on the birth of what we now think of as communism.

“Marx was born in Trier. But he lived and worked in England and his theories were based on the English industrialisation as the German one largely only happened after 1871.“

Born in Germany, raised in Germany, educated in German schools and universities and worked in Germany until the age of 25, and didn’t come to live in England until he was 32, by which time his philosophical basics including (German) Hegelian were well established and the Communist Manifesto already published. Granted he had visited and was very much influenced by developments in England, where the modern age was most advanced, at the time.

0
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

(*The territory and societies now comprising Germany, obviously)

0
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Marx fled Germany in 1849 while his contemporary Ferdinand Lassalle established the first socialist party in Germany. Later on, the German socialists turned towards Marxism, an England-born, internationalist school of thought. But this was sort-of lukewarm as they were never really a revolutionary party, squashed the proletarian (of sorts) revolution of 1918/19 with the help of the former Imperial Army and continue to this day as the ever shapeshifting opportunists of the SPD.

Last edited 3 years ago by RW
0
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

You can point to a number of influences – British early radicalism and experience of modernity, French revolutionary socialism, but I’m sticking with Germany as the best option for a single national origin, while repeating that it’s really best described as European in origin.

0
0
CoronanationStreet
CoronanationStreet
3 years ago

How many articles do we have to see the words China, CCP, World Economic Forum quoted in the same text to realise the world as we enjoy it is under attack from global communists masquerading as our saviours. They haven’t managed to quite subvert the history, culture, institutions and policy of every Western nation state via the ballot box, so they simply insert themselves above democracy and enforce from the top down. Very CCP.

3
-1
peyrole
peyrole
3 years ago

Simplistic views of the ‘red or yellow menace don’t help.
China is as dependent on the USD as any nation on earth. How do you think the US pays for all the stuff China sells it? China is completely linked into the financialisation problems post 2008. It seeks the expansion through ‘global commons’ just as much if not more than most nations. What people are perceiving is second order issues, significant though they are, of who gets what slice of the cake. Wars happen over far less.
China , and its rulers, are no different to those anywhere, they want to be top dog in this new paradigm. They want to dictate the terms on which they operate, no difference to those in Washington.
But this cake slicing is not the main issue facing us. Its the financialisation of everything including our bodies. That is not a Chinese or ‘communist’ plot. That is very much homegrown, with the ex-BoE chairman playing a leading role.
Johnson doesn’t answer to the Chinese, but he does answer to the cabal of globalist financiers/corporates who run our fascist world.

4
0
cornubian
cornubian
3 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

Exactly right. The cabal who control the world monetary system (Federal Reserve/World Bank/IMF/BfIS etc) control every government no matter what size their army is. This Mail story is smoke and mirrors intended to deflect attention away from the real source of our problem. The world has a common enemy – and its not the Iranians, the Syrians, the Russians and its certainly not the Chinese. As the saying goes, to find out who our real rulers are, just see who you are not allowed to mention let alone criticise.

5
0
cornubian
cornubian
3 years ago

How many Chinese communists sit on the board of Greenpeace or steer the XR agenda? None, because this story is total bull. Follow the money and you will find Western ‘environmental’ activism is directly and indirectly funded by the same special interest group that funded the Bolsheviks – and done for the same purpose. And BTW, these billionaires also funded Mao Tse Tung’s rise to power

Who controls china.png
3
0
Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
3 years ago

It’s not China that designates itself a developing nation at the WTO, thus making itself exempt from all these restrictions. Their strings are pulled by the globalists that have used them to suck all the value out of the Western nations. And we’re the suckers if we continue to ignorantly blame China for everything.

We may well enter into a war with them that will devastate both countries and kill millions of people because of this stupidity, when we could simply drive down to Davos and take care of the problem in an afternoon.

7
0
cornubian
cornubian
3 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Well said. The Mail article serves to direct attention away from our real rulers. Not long ago it was supposedly the Russians pulling the strings, now its said to be the Chinese when in fact, the real deadly enemy is within.

4
0
ComeTheRevolution
ComeTheRevolution
3 years ago
Reply to  cornubian

Brendon O Connell is one of the best researchers to enlighten people as to what is really going on internationally. His Youtube and Brighteon channels are very good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDtDeNQhWST7EnDtx-DSfug

0
0
Backlash
Backlash
3 years ago

The most remarkable aspect of this decision from China was that they were for once transparent and truthful about something. Their usual habit is to lie about what they’ve done or outright deny. I’d have expected them to play along and then just do as they please anyway – they clearly see no threat.

Last edited 3 years ago by Backlash
3
0
Lister of Smeg
Lister of Smeg
3 years ago

Once a communist, always a communist.

0
0

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