The real Covid scandal is emerging right in front of the inquiry’s nose, writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph: Britain could have escaped the horrors of lockdown, but nobody pulled apart the doom models driving it. Here’s an excerpt.
Let’s go back to when much of the world had copied the Wuhan lockdown, with two major exceptions: Britain and Sweden. In both countries, public health officials were reluctant to implement a lockdown theory that had no basis in science. Ditto the case for mandatory masks. The public had responded: mobile-phone data showed millions were already staying home. Could you really put an entire nation under house arrest, then mandate masks, if you had no evidence that either policy would work?
Sweden held firm, but Britain buckled. It was all decided in 10 fateful days where, thanks to inquiries in both countries, we know a lot more about what happened.
The written evidence submitted by Dominic Cummings is one of the richest, most considered and illuminating documents in the whole Covid mystery. He was, in effect, the Head of Staff to a Prime Minister he viewed with despair, even contempt. He has since admitted that he was discussing the possibility of deposing his boss within “days” of his 2019 general election victory. So he was prone to taking matters into his own hands, trying to circumvent what he regarded as a dysfunctional system and an incompetent PM.
His frustration, at first, was directed at the public-health officials who resisted lockdown. SAGE advisers were, at the time, unanimously against it. Even Professor Neil Ferguson fretted that lockdown might be “worse than the disease”. Was this the cool, firm voice of science – or the blinkered inertia of sleepy Whitehall? Cummings suspected the latter and commissioned his own analysis from outsiders, whose models painted a far more alarming picture. He knew these voices would be dismissed as “tech bros”. But, he says, “I was inclined to take the ‘tech bros’ and some scientists dissenting from the public-health consensus more seriously.”
There was no SAGE modelling until quite late on but, soon, models and disaster-graphs were everywhere. Cummings’s evidence includes photos taken in No. 10 of hand-drawn charts with annotations like “100,000+ people dying in corridors”. He says he told Boris Johnson that failure to lock down would end in a “zombie apocalypse movie with unburied bodies”. The PM asked him, if this was all true, “why aren’t Hancock, Whitty, Vallance telling me this?”
It’s a very good question. Cummings told him the health team “haven’t listened and absorbed what the models really mean”. Soon, Neil Ferguson’s doom models were published – and making headway across the world. Britain’s scientists fell in behind the modellers.
It was a different story in Sweden where Johan Giesecke, a former state epidemiologist, had returned to the Public Health Agency and was reading Ferguson’s models in disbelief. Remember mad cow disease, when four million English livestock had been slaughtered to prevent the disease spreading? “They thought 50,000 people would die,” he told his staff. “How many did? 177.” He recalled Ferguson saying 200 million might die from bird flu when just 455 did. Modellers, he argued, had been calamitously wrong in the past. Should society really be closed now on their say so?
On March 18th, Cummings had asked Demis Hassabis, an AI guru, to attend Sage. His verdict? “Shut everything down ASAP.” On the same day, Giesecke’s team in Stockholm was pulling apart Ferguson’s models, finding flaw after flaw. When some Swedish academics started to call for lockdown based on Ferguson’s work, Giesecke agreed to go on Swedish television to debate them. As did Anders Tegnell, his protégé. They gave interviews non-stop, in the street and on train platforms, making the case for staying open. They showed it was possible to win the argument.
Nelson points out that while one internal U.K. report said Covid patients would need up to 600,000 hospital beds, the actual number peaked at 34,000. Johnson was told that 90,000 ventilators were needed, but the actual peak was 3,700 – while all the extra ventilators ordered cost an extraordinary £569 million and ended up in an MoD warehouse gathering dust.
Noting, correctly, that new Covid cases were falling before the first lockdown, Nelson insists that the reason lockdown was not needed was because the voluntary behaviour change was enough to “force” the virus “into reverse”. This, too, is wrong, and also dangerous (though not so dangerous as lockdown) as it implies that even if lockdown is not required, people still need (and need to be encouraged) to cower in their homes when a virus is spreading. But to what end, since the virus is not going to go away and everyone will be exposed sooner or later? The only realistic answer is some kind of healthcare rationing – stay home to protect the NHS and all that. But as Nelson notes, healthcare systems were nowhere near overload, and besides one of the main harms of lockdown – “eight million NHS appointments that never took place”, as Nelson puts it – is people staying away from getting the healthcare they need, so expecting them to do that voluntarily (and encouraging them to do so) hardly helps matters. Lockdown is bad because it keeps people away from healthcare, but we don’t need lockdown because people voluntarily stay away from healthcare is hardly a sound argument.
But the fundamental error in the ‘voluntary behaviour change was necessary’ position is that it fails to recognise that Covid waves, just like waves of other similar viruses, fall by themselves without any behaviour change. You need only look at charts showing winter flu waves and successive Covid waves to see that they all have the same shape – straight up and straight down. It’s the characteristic shape of a respiratory virus outbreak and there is no sign of it being affected by shifts in behaviour to any noticeable degree. Thus, there is no reason to think that behaviour change – everyone staying home – was necessary to bring the first wave down any more than it was for any later wave or the flu every winter. The cause of the drop is likely in all cases to be much more due to the susceptibility of the population to the circulating strain (typically no more than 10-20% of the country are infected in any given virus wave) than any hiding away behind closed doors.
This point aside, Nelson is being a hero in making a big thing out of the failures of lockdown and the inadequacies of the Covid Inquiry to address the evidence properly – even making Carl Heneghan’s overlooked inquiry report the cover piece for this week’s Spectator. Both Heneghan’s piece and Nelson’s Telegraph write-up are worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Heneghan and Tom Jefferson provide data from Lombardy which show behaviour change was not needed to bring down the first wave. Italy was locked down from March 8th (starting with the North), a date which coincided with when new daily Covid hospitalisations plateaued, as the following chart shows. Since new infections precede hospitalisations by at least a week, this indicates that the epidemic had stopped its explosive growth well before the lockdown.
Google mobility data from Lombardy also show that there was no change in behaviour during the pre-lockdown period. While there was a drop in movement following the initial quarantine zone being imposed around a few towns on February 21st, there was no subsequent change that could explain why the outbreak slowed down in the week coming up to lockdown.
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“NatWest … struggles to process a mountain of data requests”. It they were just ‘requests’ they wouldn’t bother.
Good morning everyone….
children offered £1.500 to take part in covid quacksine trial…
sigh…welcome to another day in
world…
After the dozens of studies showing ‘cardiac’ problems after vaccination..here comes another one…
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064772
Cardiovascular Assessment up to One Year After COVID-19 Vaccine–Associated Myocarditis
We evaluated the cardiovascular outcomes at up to 1 year in adolescent patients diagnosed with COVID-19 vaccine–associated myocarditis.
To our knowledge, this is the longest follow-up study to date with comprehensive cardiac evaluation and imaging of adolescent patients diagnosed with COVID-19 vaccine–associated myocarditis. Global systolic ventricular function appears to be preserved. However, impairment of LV and RV myocardial deformation and persistence of LGE in a significant subset of patients with up to 1 year of follow-up was observed. Growing evidence suggests worse prognosis in the presence of altered myocardial deformation and LGE in patients with myocarditis.
Given that impaired myocardial deformation and LGE are indicators of subclinical myocardial dysfunction and fibrosis, there exists a potential long-term effect on exercise capacity and cardiac functional reserve during stress.”
…and let’s face it this is just ONE disease from the jab…..in a list of dozens….
Yeah it just further illustrates why we’re seeing young athletes have sudden cardiac episodes and it doesn’t bode well for many of them resuming their professional career does it? I shared this yesterday.
if It isn’t on the forum here, I probably missed it..I don’t always have time to look at every story…but you are right there are serious and obvious problems with the vaccination…and if it isn’t that, then they need to come out and tell us what it is don’t they?
Also, how can they, scientifically and morally be allowed, by our Government, to perform these trials?..when that same Government doesn’t give these vaccines to healthy children in that age group….and as children in that age group don’t get seriously ill from Convid either..why would you even use them as Guinea pigs ??
I know that everyone can’t see the X Files ( as I now call the re-hashed Twitter…LOL)
But there is some interesting stuff coming out of the Australian Senate Covid Committee….hopefully it will make its way to YouTube so I can share…
…meanwhile one of the things that has come out is that Pfizer sent their employees there a ‘special batch’ of vaccines..they didn’t use the ones sent to ordinary Australian’s….!!?
…and this from Senator Antic….
”During last night’s Senate hearing into our COVID 19 Vaccine Discrimination Bill representatives from Moderna couldn’t provide the numbers of serious adverse reactions from their COVID mRNA injection.
I was so stunned I literally dropped my pen!
https://twitter.com/SenatorAntic/status/1687294055829688321
I hope people are really seeing through this crap now..and if nothing else along with the American Covid Committee, we are really getting to see these weasels squirm, as they try to defend the indefensible….!
A few days ago I posted Pfizer’s decline in covid vaccine products sales..well Moderna it would seem are going the same way…
Moderna….The company generated $344 million during the second quarter of 2023, a 93% decline from $4.75 billion it pulled down in the same period last year. Its quarterly loss came in at $1.4 billion.
Moderna has described this year as ‘transitional’ as it shifts some of its focus to other projects, including its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine.”
So still a lot of money but nothing like last year…let’s hope the trajectory keeps going in the same direction……?
Yes Jikky broke that ages ago, I shared it a while back, I think on a Chris Martenson ( Peak Prosperity ) video initially. There’s some really interesting but shocking things coming out of that hearing, such as when they can’t explain how myocarditis is resulting from people taking their products and how nobody was forced to take a jab in Australia!
They’re just disgusting worms who have sold their souls to Big Pharma.
Yes..that was the brilliant Senator Malcolm Roberts….with the Pfizer shills saying they would have to ‘get back to him’ on that!! Outrageous!
Brett Weinstein talks about what he believes is the reason behind the jab causing myocarditis..and it’s the mRNA, which I also believe, and is very worrying as they want to use it in everything…
I have long thought that part of the ‘con’ was to get mRNA out, by stealth and to get it accepted as a ‘proven’ technology in the confusion…?
Brett’s podcast….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbkUg6c-Igk
I have found this showing a Pfizer shill not answering a question from Senator Rennick regarding the mechanism by which the injection causes Myocarditis: –
https://rumble.com/v34fn1p-australian-senator-gerard-rennick-grills-evasive-pro-vaccine-pro-pfizer-doc.html
Right at the end of your Twitter link, the guy asking the questions should have asked him to clarify what is in the placebos. That’s how they get away with it, by saying that there were no safety concerns between the vaccine group and the placebo group but not clarifying what they are injecting in the placebo group.
Yes … there are so many aspects to the utter fraud..it’s hard to know where to start!!
In this farcical ‘Covid Inquiry’ does anybody know if the hugely elaborate and unethical SPI-B nudging thing has been covered yet? Because I’d love to know what the justification could be for something like that and how these sociopaths could ever defend such behaviour. I found this ( see below ) and it’s focusing on ‘nudging’ due to a decline in vax uptake. I can’t see a date on it but it’s referring to the scamdemic, but of course this could be applied to all vaccines as childhood vax uptake has reportedly dwindled a bit, and I hope it continues to do so. But I honestly do not understand how they can get away with this approach lawfully. I mean, just present the information, pros and cons, and let competent adults make their own decisions about their’s and their kids’ health FGS. There should be zero manipulation or pressurizing involved.
”Vaccine hesitancy (VH) and the global decline of vaccine coverage are a major global health threat, and novel approaches for increasing vaccine confidence and uptake are urgently needed. ‘Nudging’, defined as altering the environmental context in which a decision is made or a certain behaviour is enacted, has shown promising results in several health promotion strategies. We present a comprehensive synthesis of evidence regarding the value and impact of nudges to address VH.
Identified interventions are presented according to a framework for behaviour change, MINDSPACE. Articles (n=48) from 10 primarily high-income countries were included in the review. Nudging-based interventions identified include using reminders and recall, changing the way information is framed and delivered to an intended audience, changing the messenger delivering information, invoking social norms and emotional affect (eg, through storytelling, dramatic narratives and graphical presentations), and offering incentives or changing defaults. The most promising evidence exists for nudges that offer incentives to parents and healthcare workers, that make information more salient or that use trusted messengers to deliver information. The effectiveness of nudging interventions and the direction of the effect varies substantially by context. Evidence for some approaches is mixed, highlighting a need for further research, including how successful interventions can be adapted across settings.
Nudging-based interventions show potential to increase vaccine confidence and uptake, but further evidence is needed for the development of clear recommendations. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic increases the urgency of undertaking nudging-focused research.”
https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/9/e006237
Handy collection of articles by PANDA here. I think if more people can see these then they’re less likely to get taken in by the next fake plandemic and also less likely to get any more toxic shots;
”Since 2020, PANDATA has consistently argued against lockdowns and heavy-handed Covid interventions. In the absence of any cost-benefit analysis, it was always evident that the harms of such interventions would grossly outweigh any benefits.
On closer reflection it has become increasingly evident that Covid never warranted ANY novel interventions. PANDATA has now published a series of articles examining the drivers of excess deaths to bring focus to this important issue. The following 7 articles demonstrate that not only was Covid neither novel nor particularly deadly, but that the Covid policies and interventions were the likely main drivers of mortality.
So where does this knowledge leave us now? Can we really stand by in silence while we witness a MULTITUDE OF HARMFUL POLICIES being rolled out globally in the name of ‘novel deadly viruses’?”
https://twitter.com/PanData19/status/1687462681215750145
Thanks for posting, Mogs. I have read a couple of the articles, which seem well-written and well-argued. One thing I noticed is that the authors do not argue that the SARS-CoV-2 virus does not exist (rebadged flu) – merely that it wasn’t “novel” or particularly deadly.
To be honest I’ve not actually read from anyone in the so-called ‘freedom movement’ that the virus doesn’t exist. I still think that the majority of deaths/cases were certainly rebranded because I never believed that flu can just ‘disappear’ or be eclipsed by another respiratory virus. So I do think Covid exists but I do get a bit uncertain and wishy-washy on the details. Was it released in various locations across the globe, because expecting it to travel around the world from a single location and maintain it’s IFR seems entirely ‘Hollywood science fiction-like’ and highly improbable?
Here’s something a bit fun you might like, because it speaks to the ”conspiracy-theorist” in all of us,
Read the comments;
https://metatron.substack.com/p/saturday-morning-conspiracy-theory
I agree with your take – which seems to be consistent with Joel Smalley’s. That the virus does exist and probably was re-engineered; but that that is not critical to what followed. And there were undoubtedly many “cases” labelled “Covid” which were actually flu.
The viral sequence exists in a computer & was used to manufacture the spike protein introduced into folk via the bioweapon injections.
Dr Mike Yeadon has said that he does not believe the ‘virus’ exists.
In early 2020 homeopaths & radiologists were being informed/reporting that ‘covid’ was radiation damage. Funny that this information has been censored within the MSM.
The symptoms are very real but the underlying cause is not a virus. If treated early, radiation exposure/damage is reversible. If left untreated, repeated exposure to EMF from WiFi, mobile phones exacerbates the damage.
Lots of research into transmission of viruses ie flu which could not induce an infection in the test subjects even when mucous from lungs/nose/throat/mouth were directly introduced into their noses/throats/eyes.
It’s basically germ theory vs terrain theory. If the terrain ie the body is in a weakened, unhealthy state, then disease is more likely to occur when the body is placed under further stress.
I managed to look at some of “the end of covid” interviews to get a better idea of the germ vs terrain debate. Unsure what their availability is now and they are of mixed quality but Andrew Kaufman, Tom Cowan and Mark Bailey are all worth learning from. No one can say that viruses ie pathogenic, self-replicating particles don’t exist but we can be sure that the particles virologists claim to identify from sick people can’t do what they claim by way of replication, contagion, etc. I am now highly sceptical of all claims that germs, eg bacteria, cause disease as opposed to being part of life and correlated with environmental assaults, eg toxic chemicals that cause us to show symptoms of disease – a sign of detoxing. A good analogy is the presence of maggots on a dead animal found in the wild. You don’t blame the maggots for the animal’s demise.
I agree – nobody has proved that viruses exist in the form that we have been taught about. Bacteria when they get too numerous in quantity for the body to deal with result in disease but it’s the state of the terrain ie the body which determines whether disease occurs due to being unable to deal with the threat posed by the bacteria. Hence why young, healthy folk tend to do better than a frail elderly individual.
It’s certainly been interesting & challenging throwing out one’s preconceptions to get to where we currently are.
This is the Telegraph this morning…..LOL!
Forecasters have warned that the “worst storm of the year” will hit Britain on Saturday.
The Met Office said Storm Antoni would pose the greatest risk to the public in well over a year with millions facing travel chaos.
From Saturday, winds of up to 55 mph with the potential to uproot trees and heavy thundery downpours were predicted.
It is the first named storm of the season, which runs from September 2022 until the end of August 2023.
The agency names storms based on the level of impact they will have on UK citizens.
The unseasonal weather is likely to impact those travelling by land and sea with restrictions being considered by the forecaster.
Campers have also been warned about the increased likelihood of trees being ripped out of the ground by strong gusts because branches bearing leaves will catch wind more easily.
“Many people will be camping, using caravans and going to the beach as part of their summer holiday plans and this weather could pose a risk to them.
Trees with leaves are more likely to catch the strong winds and get uprooted.
BLA BLA BLA……
As I have come in from a dog walk this morning totally wet through, again…and it’s 11.7 degrees here..can somebody please send me some global boiling…..? Ta !!
Funny how the BBC weatherman yesterday said that Antoni was named by European meteorologists for its impact on them, not us. But if there’s a named Bogeyman to scare people with, it will be used.
Robert Dingwall’s article in the Mail is brilliant. As a (retired) GP I had no detailed knowledge of the pandemic plan at that time, but the general approach was Public Health 101, familiar to me from every other epidemic scare of my career. And that’s why I knew from the start that something was horribly wrong in the worldwide response to COVID.
It’s also why I felt, and still feel, grief and bewilderment not so much at the non-medics who ignored my professional knowledge and parroted the official garbage at me, but at the way the entire medical profession so quickly jumped ship on the basic epidemiology they must have been familiar with. To hear grown medics echoing the crass excuse, “We didn’t know anything about the virus at the beginning,” is still distressing three years later, because it is Tosh.
And the Inquiry looks likely to set the abandonment of science and reason in stone for the next time the cognoscenti choose to create a disease scare. Science died in 2020.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12370977/The-Covid-Inquiry-never-admit-strong-pandemic-plan-went-wrong-Leftie-scientists-panicky-politicians-writes-PROFESSOR-ROBERT-DINGWALL.html
A good article, as you say, and not behind a paywall. I hadn’t seen it so thanks for the heads-up…
You might find this an interesting read on a rainy day like today!? This is something I was aware of so I never understood the ‘we panicked because we didn’t have a plan in place’…!
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/927770/exercise-cygnus-report.pdf
Exercise Cygnus Report
Tier One Command Post Exercise
Pandemic Influenza
18-20 October 2016
Clearly the enquiry wilkl not pay attention to Dingwall’s article or evidence. It is not what they want to hear. To give it credence would undemine the intentions of the political class next time they have an excuse to control us.
All the more reason for as many lay people as possble to respond to the Hallett Inquiry’s request for experiences as part of “Every Story Matters” (google it for web page) to put on record all our doubts on whether there was a pandemic,lockdowns, jab rollouts etc.; to support those such as Hart Group who are trying to give evidence to the Inquiry, which sthe Inquiry so far has limited.
I know this could be called ”cherry-picking” and there’s no mention of if they all got the jab usefully included in the blurbs but just how common was it in prior years for women to be diagnosed with cancer before or just after giving birth? It looks really bad when put in a collection like this but I’ve no clue what the normal rate is/was so don’t want to jump to conclusions. However if it were confirmed that all of these women did get jabbed then there’s your common denominator that surely warrants a ‘signal’.
https://palexander.substack.com/p/pregnancy-and-aggressive-rapid-lethal
Deleted by me…
The Daily Sceptic is a blog created by British commentator Toby Young. It has published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and climate change denial. Wikipedia
Founder(s): Toby Young …C’mon Toby – Defamation or what!
I’d call that a badge of honour! He’s up there with Malone, McCullough, Kory, etc and now even Clauser –
In May 2023, Clauser joined the board of the CO2 Coalition, a climate change denialorganization.[11]
Indeed. Wikipedia is now a near 100% reliable guide to who and what are shysters and who are legitimate – just look for the buzzwords “conspiracy theorist,” “misinformation,” “pseudoscience” etc and you can guarantee it’s about someone worth listening to.
Don’t know if this has been posted before but the co-founder of Wikipedia had this to say..
“The co-founder of Wikipedia has revealed a bombshell concerning long-running suspicions of US intelligence interference and manipulation on the world’s most well-known collaborative online encyclopedia. The site’s co-creator Larry Sanger spoke to journalist Glenn Greenwald on his “System Update” podcast, and outlined the known “information warfare” efforts of US intelligence, which have to some extend make Wikipedia a tool of “control” by the left-liberal Washington deep state.
Some observers who have long watched and carefully documented US government involvement in major social media platforms as well as Wikipedia itself have commented, “the CIA Is running Wikipedia, Wow, what a shocker. Sanger asserted during Greenwald’s show, “We do have evidence that, as early as 2008, that CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia,” before posing: “Do you think that they stopped doing that back then?”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wikipedia-co-founder-describes-us-intelligence-manipulation-worlds-largest-online
Strange that the NHS, with waiting-lists of millions, is going to spend resources on trans-gendering 7-year olds . . .