The Eat Out to Help Out scheme is a recurring theme in the Covid Inquiry. A witness statement from Rishi Sunak was shown to the inquiry on Monday.
I don’t recall any concerns about the scheme being expressed during ministerial discussions, including those attended by Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty and then-Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance.
Patrick Vallance responded: “We didn’t see it before it was announced, and I think others in the Cabinet Office also said they didn’t see it before it was formulated as policy. So we weren’t involved in the run-up to it.”
He added: “I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk, and I think that would have been known by ministers.”
It’s not evident to us, so we thought we’d look at the evidence – something the inquiry isn’t too keen on.
Several approaches can be taken to look at the issue. First, we examine the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out statistics and geographic breakdown commentary.
It follows that the areas with the most participating outlets would have the most infections. One example is the South West, which claimed 11 million meals, nearly as many as the total for the South East or the North West. Yet cases kept falling until mid-Sep in the South West.
Cornwall (see the dark blue at the bottom left of the U.K. map) became the centre of the U.K.’s holiday destination as so many couldn’t leave the country. However, Vallance would have us believe that Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands and other scattered areas were the highest risk.
As it doesn’t fit the narrative, let’s also look instead at cases in Northern Europe – the answer might be that while U.K. cases were going through the roof in 2020, European cases may have flatlined or disappeared due to the lack of an eat-out scheme. As the data show, it’s not that straightforward.
If, as Vallance says, the scheme increased transmission risk, we would see a rise in cases within a week of the scheme starting in England. The modelling told us that some 80% of the population was susceptible and had no seasonal effect. Yet, it’s a little hard to spot.
You’d expect a dramatic rise in cases in August 2020 once the scheme came into force. So, we’ve focused on the surrounding months to show it had little effect until schools returned.
Writing in the Spectator, Michael Simmons asks whether the Eat Out to Help Out was behind the second wave? He says: “For the vast majority of August (when the scheme ran)… Covid cases were shrinking. Serious growth then only restarts in September and October.” Simmons also points out that in the “ONS’s infection survey there’s no sign of a great increase in Covid cases until the months after the scheme finished”.
Vallance’s assessment of the transmission risk also makes the same mistake the modellers make – it assumes we would have stayed home instead of going out. Yet what else would we have done in the absence of the scheme? Some of us would have still gone out to eat, some to the pub, and we would have inferred the same transmission risk.
We are at odds with the cost of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme – £849 million – and the level of fraud: the Public Accounts Committee estimated the scheme fraud losses at £71 million, almost 8.5% – suggesting one in every 12 meals claimed never existed and were never eaten.
It is concerning that the inquiry allows this evidence-free narrative to go unchallenged. It isn’t asking the critical questions about whether certain assumptions are grounded in evidence or just an adviser’s hunch. The inquiry’s continuing interest in political assassinations means it does not know what the evidence and the data show about the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme and, notably, how much it impacted the risk of infection.
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.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I am not sure what point there was in this story. We know BBC employees are highly paid so she would have the cash to do this. We also know they favour unlimited immigration. We know they think British tax payers should pay for anyone, from anywhere to come here to lengthen the queues for services.
what is the news value?
if you had reported the BBC journo had offered to take in a couple of them or was to pay for their lifetime costs, now that would be News.
Has she been promoted yet. Has Sunak recommended for an award.
“In another, it was reported that Ms. Harper warned that a 29-year-old Somali man who sexually assaulted a deaf girl aged 17 would be at “severely heightened risk” if he was sent back to Somalia because he had committed a sex crime.”
You’d kind of hope that people tempted to sexually assault or contemplating any serious crime would feel at “severely heightened risk”. Isn’t that the point? Better still, not just feel at “severely heightened risk” but actually BE at “severely heightened risk”.
“but actually BE at “severely heightened risk”.
This is what should be happening. And it is no different in this country. Paedophiles are at severe risk in prison in this country and deservedly so. They remain at risk even in anonomised community settings and as far as I am concerned rightly so.
A BBC employee has no business indulging her rank stupidity in such matters unless in her own time and at her expense.
Furthermore, once the deportation order is issued it should be immediate ie next plane out and no messing about.
“Furthermore, once the deportation order is issued it should be immediate ie next plane out and no messing about.”
That seems like harsh treatment for the BBC “journalist”, even by your standards
There wouldn’t be room on the plane for all the ones I’d like to see aboard!
The government could always book a fleet of aircraft – they love chucking taxpayers money about.
Well actually tof my comment was aimed at the Third World perps but I would have no problem in seeing this fake journo treated similarly.
Actually, can you remember several years back, there was a plane with a convicted sex offender on it who was in the process of being deported. But when the passengers got wind of the fact he was facing possible death ( allegedly. Not sure if that was true but the deets are a bit blurry now, tbh ) when he got back to his home country they all did a ‘mutiny’ and the pervert was allowed to get off and stay. I think it was the UK but it’s a bit vague now, and I don’t remember what happened to him.
Well this woman is exactly like those idiotic, reckless passengers. Why in the name of all that is rational, would citizens want dangerous trash like that roaming the streets, like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to strike again? How on earth can sharing a society with vermin like this be in anyone’s best interests? I’m just mystified as to the inner workings of many people’s minds these days, I really am at a loss.
Damned right Mogs.
We don’t want to be facing a…
‘Lessons will be learned’ event once again.
Do we?
As society becomes more and more fragmented it becomes weaker, ( the scamdemic years were a good example of this ) less able to form a resistance to threats and so it becomes less safe. This is especially true of larger cities. We could do a lot worse than listening to the many ex-Muslims, many of whom are active on Twitter. Honestly, if it’s not the globalists it’s the bloody Islamists. Does that make anyone who resists ”far-right”, by default?
“What has Islam brought to Europe?
Intimidation, censorship, terrorism, rape gangs, no-go zones, hate preachers, violent homophobia, oppression of women, jihadist marches, shari’ah courts, madrassahs (indoctrination of children), halal slaughter, occupation of roads for prayers, blaring the adhan over loudspeakers, massive welfare fraud, Islamist political parties, rabid antisemitism, attacks on churches and Hindu temples, extreme intolerance for Ahmadis and apostates, and much more.”
~ Alliance of Former Muslims
https://twitter.com/ImtiazMadmood/status/1754823623766896772
As summaries go that takes some beating Mogs.
While agreeing with all of that….Maajid Nawas is a great guy. The fact that he says how Muslims are not interpretating the Koran correctly may well be true, but many don’t see it that way and they are the ones we have a problem with.
It seems this is the psychological side of the demise of society ready for Build Back Better.
Yes it was in the UK and he turned out to be a total wrong’un.
Personally I’d have got off the plane because I wouldn’t have wanted to be on it with him (don’t see why decent passengers should be transported with the scum), and just let the damn thing take off.
I remember on the old Wooton show Amy Michel saying that migrants were not committing sex crimes because they were migrants. ——-Sorry Amy you are totally wrong. In Sweeden migrants commit 10 times more sex crimes and rapes than Indigenous Swedes. So they are committing sex crime entirely because of who they are and what their culture is. STOP making excuses for these scum.
This person has literally argued people who committed violent crimes in the UK must granted asylum because having committed these crimes in the UK would negatively effect their social standing in the countries they supposedly fled from. Ie, first, they immigrate illegally, then, they commit violent crimes and then, they must be allowed to stay forever because they committed violent crimes.
People whose minds are twisted like this will endanger any society they’re allowed to be part of.
BBC is a criminal organisation. This story just confirms the obvious. Help an illegal criminal – get deported with the illegal criminal.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/polly-billington-face-of-the-emerging-master-class/
Here is another thoroughly nasty piece of work about to burst from her cocoon – Polly Billington. And she has form; until recently head honcho at the deeply malicious UK 100. A real US and Them advocate.
“Her UK100 scheme, aided and abetted by politicians, is designed to impoverish us, removing our rights and liberties that we took for granted as participants in a civic democracy. It’s a near future of no travel, no petrol, no pets and no petty cash. East Thanet is sleepwalking into electing an extremist, whose decarbonisation plans will apply to hoi polloi but not her and her pals in high places.”
She is standing for Labour in the Thanet by-election and when elected will doubtless muscle her way on to Labour’s front bench.
I saw a news clip with Greta protesting somewhere, one of the placards said…’End Private Jets’….If she keeps on like that she will be kept outside in the snow at the next Davos meeting. She would have to mingle with all the hoi polloi like Rebel News.
Oh, we can’t be having that Ron. Has she been placed on half pay or something?
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/dolans-digest-its-the-immigrants-stupid/
Simon Dolan, whom I do have some time for, but here with a lamentable apologia for Fishy and his mob of treasonous barstewards. The guy is way behind the curve.
Remember he launched two legal challenges against Lockdown with no success. Does anyone remember what their reason (excuse) to reject the challenge was?
This woman is a bloody disgrace to humanity and should not be allowed to live freely amongst decent people in civilized society. Not only is she a complete traitor to British people but a traitor to women. She has played an active role in jeopardizing both national security ( to be fair, the politicians can take full credit for that one ) and the safety of British citizens. How much more migrant crime does a country actually need? Have we not reached peak ‘cultural enrichment’ from the paedo-worshippers and criminals yet?? Is Europe to continue being the garbage disposal unit for the third world rejects? Because this is what’s happening now, which I’m sure people like her will be all in favour of. Nothing says ”you have been conquered” like a Western country having ‘no-go zones’ and self-appointed Sharia psychos roaming around. But I suppose as long as women wear a hijab they’ll know who to molest and who to leave alone, so there is that..I mean, evidently “lessons” were not ”learnt” after the scandal of the extensive and long-running Pakistani rape gangs preying on vulnerable young girls. Unforgiveable, FFS!
”In the United Kingdom, there are now “no-go zones” that are Sharia compliant. Islamists seek to replace British law with Islamic law and left-wing immigration policies are helping the Islamists to achieve their goals.” ( 1min clip )
https://twitter.com/sapphirewrites_/status/1741067386772734031
Have you read “While Europe Slept” and “Surrender” by Bruce Bawer yet? Not that you need any educating on this subject, but I recommend those books. I notice there is some new Islamic Political Party supposedly for the “Muslim Community”——-I wasn’t aware that we needed political party’s to cater for different religious bunches of people. Do all Catholics think the same and require a political party? How about all protestants? Jews? ——–Only Muslims.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/king-charles-iii-diagnosed-with-cancer-buckingham-palace-says/
Official statement from the Palace for those who can be bothered.
This is a really good argument for setting a retirement age for royals such that their successors do actually succeed them before they enter the still-kept-alive-by-medical-maintenance stage of their lives. Charles III has now become king. That’s all he was ever going to become and he should really considering retiring now so that the present heir apparent can actually become king while he has still something like a life in front of him.
Willy is by all accounts thicker than his Dad. Maybe we will find out sooner rather than later.
Well, the idea that them Royals shag around like all students do and when they finally, likely out of exhaustion, settle down with some random tart, that random tart can just be ennobled and everything’s fine is obviously a reductio ad absurdum of the very concept of nobility and monarchy, but this would be a different conversation. Nevertheless, kings are supposed to be young or at least not already, for all practical purposes, very expensive OAPs by the time they finally get to ascend the throne.
And yet the BBC is somehow impartial… Sure.
Indeed. I think it’s close to impossible for any organisation working in the news and current affairs area to be “impartial”, so the solution is to get the state out of the business and then it’s “caveat emptor”.
Truly impartial? Probably not. But the BBC can be way more impartial, as we all know. And setting new guidelines is useless. There already are guidelines, but the people who are supposed to enforce them are just as impartial as the people they’re overseeing.
I’m not sure how that could possibly work. A political/social attitudes questionnaire to sort people into groups, quotas for people in each group, divide up tasks between them, get people of opposing views to write the same article and publish both.
Two basic steps to get most of the way there:
But like I said, who’s going to hold them to this?
Well, depending on your political views you will decide which facts to include and which not to, and which “sides” are worth getting statements from. As you say, who will enforce this? You’d need left and right wing “enforcers” – I think it has to be adversarial.
Yeah, and you get left and right wing overseers, except the right wing overseers will be exactly like all the commissions created to investigate the government: bought and paid for. So it’s a never ending cycle of “who’s watching the watchmen?” The only way out of this is for the people to hold the media and Ofcom accountable, but people couldn’t care less, which is why we’re in this mess to begin with. This is why TV, Hollywood, and social media are so important for the globalists. Keep the people satisfied and you can do whatever you want.
When I was young we had a set of national newspapers that were reasonably well divided between left and right – the spectrum still exists but the whole range has shifted to the left. Perhaps that was just luck.
It wasn’t luck. Some people worked very hard for that society. They’re all gone now, or too old to care.
Certainly good people worked hard and many are gone, but I think what evolved was luck or maybe the market doing its work. Press Barons, as they were know, were possibly more right wing, as I think the rich in general used to be, but I am not sure why for example the Daily Mirror supported Labour from 1945 onwards.
I think it’s socialism. I think those Press Barons, as self interested as they may have been, still cared about providing a good service. They had no interest in lying on a grand scale. But once socialism came along, that gave people an overarching cause. The People’s Cause. Combine this with the postmodernism that was so common amongst the socialist intelligentsia, and you have a perfect storm. There’s no facts, there’s no objective reality. All there is is power, and we must have the power at any cost so that we may further The People’s Cause. Like Diana West likes to say: “The issue is not The Issue. The Issue is always The Revolution.” Now you had people outright lying and supporting false narratives because they believed it was for a good cause. And there’s nothing that makes ordinary people more receptive to evil than believing it’s in the name of good.
So things changed. Back before all this, the worst people in society were out for themselves, trying to make some more money. Now the worst people in society aren’t even working for themselves. They lying, cheating, stealing, destroying without even realising the damage they’re causing, because they’re convinced it’s all in the name of the common good.
The Daily Mirror started supporting Labour for The Cause.
I still don’t know whether that kind of rich powerful person supports left wing causes because they really believe in them or for other reasons. Larry Fink of Blackrock has made a point of pushing Net Zero and “DEI”. Why?
With socialism there has always been three groups, as far as I can tell. The Party, the enforcers and the useful idiots, and the compliant population. The enforcers and the useful idiots either do what they do to survive, or they genuinely believe in the cause. Very few people in the Party believe in the cause. Most know that the goal of socialism is to create a subservient worker class, and that they’re the ones who truly own the means of production, supposedly in the name of the proletariat.
So I don’t think for one second that people like Larry Fink, or George Soros, or Klaus Schwab believe anything they say. I have absolutely no doubt that they don’t have a genuine bone in their bodies. But A LOT of the people working for them truly believe. Ordinary people just don’t force others through such ordeals, even if it’s in their self interest. But get them to believe that it’s all worth it, that utopia awaits, that it’s all for the greater good, and they’ll do it. And in any case, if they didn’t believe that would mean that millions of people are in on a conspiracy where they know none of this will ever work, but they’re keeping it a secret. It would make no sense.
And you see this everywhere. In the summer of 2022, when there was that so-called drought, I went to a park and noticed that even though the adjacent river was up to its usual level, the park’s duck pond was drained. Why? To conserve water, I’m sure the council would say. The end result? “Oh wow, this drought is so bad even the lake dried up!” Was the local council like “Yeah, let’s drain the lake and make these fools believe that there’s a drought when there isn’t so they live in fear of climate change!” No chance. What happened is that someone at the top did have that goal in mind and just told councils to shut down water features and drain ponds and whatnot, in order to conserve water. And the local authorities just did it. They didn’t ask themselves how exactly that will save water. They didn’t reply saying “but we have enough water”. That’s above their pay grade, not their responsibility. Useful idiots, advancing The Cause without even knowing. There’s no need for a conspiracy theory when people just mindlessly do what they’re told.
“So I don’t think for one second that people like Larry Fink, or George Soros, or Klaus Schwab believe anything they say.”
That would be my guess too.
My arse is more impartial than the BBC. It may not be symmetrical but it’s definitely more impartial.
https://off-guardian.org/2024/02/06/family-of-9-11-victim-vows-to-keep-fighting-for-new-inquest-after-uk-attorney-general-denies-them-a-second-time/
It is impossible not to conclude that, as usual the British government is colluding with the US government in covering up the real facts behind what really happened on 9 / 11. I am inclined to believe this was another Deep State job.
Agreed…And also Dr David Kelly.
Dr David Kelly certainly. Bliar had him ‘removed.’
One really has to appreciates this argument:
In another, it was reported that Ms. Harper warned that a 29-year-old Somali man who sexually assaulted a deaf girl aged 17 would be at “severely heightened risk” if he was sent back to Somalia because he had committed a sex crime.
In other words, he must be granted asylum because he committed crimes here(!).
Obvious implication: Harper and her ilk want people to commit violent crimes in the UK.
Quote
The BBC has since announced that Ms. Harper was leaving the organisation. It is understood that she will depart later this month and that her most recent role at the corporation was as a journalist reporter. It remains unclear whether she quit or was sacked.
Intelligence asset – busted. The sickening ways of the treasonous establishment.
This should be another nail in the BBC coffin. Not that is that much more room for more nails. I despise the BBC and this slapper.
Is she unmarried? Often find these bleeding heart women are just falling romantically for the ‘bad boys’ they are supporting
Female biology is destroying our civilisation. I am with Nick Dixon on removing the vote from women and men who have not worked in a job that has to earn a profit. And men who have been in the military would get two votes. And all public sector workers automatically get no vote because they can influence the decisions of ministers through their work, and they are paid from enforced taxes.