In late May of this year, representatives of our governments will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to vote on acceptance of two documents that, taken together, are intended to transform international public health and the way states act when the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declares an emergency. These drafts, a Pandemic Agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), are intended to set up legally binding agreements under which states undertake to follow recommendations from the WHO regarding the human rights and healthcare of their own citizens.
Although these agreements will impact on health, economies and human rights in complex ways, they are still being negotiated by various committees less than seven weeks prior to the intended vote. They have been developed with unusual haste and are intended to proceed without countries having time to fully assess their implications, on a premise of an urgent threat that has already been demonstrated to be unfounded or grossly exaggerated.
The agreements are being promoted by wealthy countries as promoting equity. Yet, the rush to vote and implement will inevitably undermine equity by preventing states with fewer resources from equally participating in their development and having time to assess impact on their more fragile healthcare environments. This approach has not been so apparent in international health since the colonial era.
This is a poor and dangerous way to develop legally binding agreements. Rather than designing a coherent pandemic package that is proportionate to risk and burden and sensitive to the legitimate context of individual states, the world risks rapidly institutionalising a confusing set of legal regimes and overriding authorities reflecting the wants of competing global actors who shouted loudest, as evident in a recent public letter. The WHO, when inaugurated, was supposed to represent something better.
What is needed now is for countries– either those of lower income being marginalised once more by this process, or others that still hold that colonialism was wrong – to insist on a postponement of the process in order to simply ensure health, legal and ethical integrity. ‘Equity’, as the WHO Director-General likes to say.
The drafting of the Open Letter below addressing these issues was led by three lawyers with experience with the WHO, within the UN and in international treaty law, Dr. Silvia Behrendt, Associate Professor Amrei Muller, and Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh. It simply calls upon the WHO and Member States to extend the deadline for the adoption of the amendments to the International Health Regulations and a new Pandemic Agreement at the 77th World Health Assembly to safeguard the rule of law and equity. To proceed with the current deadline, against the WHO’s own legal requirements, would not just be legally wrong but demonstrate unequivocally that equity and respect for states rights have nothing to do with the WHO’s pandemic agenda.
Dear Dr. Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organisation
Dear Co-Chairs Dr. Asiri and Dr. Bloomfield of the WGIHR,
Dear Co-Chairs Dr. Matsoso and Mr. Driece of the INB,
Dear national delegates of the respective working groups,
Both the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR) and the International Negotiating Body (INB) negotiating the Pandemic Agreement were mandated to deliver the definite legal wording of the targeted amendments of the International Health Regulations (IHR) as well as of the Pandemic Agreement to the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA), taking place at the end of May 2024. These processes have been ushered through in haste to “capture a post-COVID-19 moment”, despite evidence that there is limited risk of another pandemic occurring in the short-to-medium term. In other words, there is time to get these measures right.
Yet, due to the speed in which these processes have occurred both negotiation processes are threatening to deliver illegitimate policies by violating the very objectives and principles of equity and deliberation which are proclaimed to be safeguarded through the pandemic law-making process under the auspices of WHO. Consequently, the politically set deadline for adoption at the 77th WHA must be lifted and extended to safeguard the lawfulness and transparency of the processes, clarifying the relationship between the amended IHR and the new Pandemic Agreement, and ensuring an equitable and democratic outcome.
The WGIHR’s Non-Compliance with the IHR Excludes a Lawful Adoption at the 77th WHA
The adoption of any amendments of the IHR at the 77th WHA can no longer be achieved in a lawful manner. Currently, the WGIHR keeps negotiating the draft amendments, with the aim to finalise the package of proposed amendments during its eighth meeting scheduled for April 22nd-26th that is then to be presented to the 77th WHA. This modus operandi is unlawful. It violates Article 55(2) IHR which sets out the procedure to be followed for amending the IHR:
The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.
The deadline for the Director-General to circulate the package of proposed amendments to the IHR to States Parties lawfully in advance of the 77th WHA has passed on January 27th 2024. As of yet, the Director-General has not communicated any amendments to the states.
The IHR is a multilateral treaty binding both states that ratified the IHR and the WHO, including subdivisions of the WHA like the WGIHR. They must abide by the binding procedural rules of Article 55(2) IHR and cannot suspend these rules arbitrarily.
During the public webcast of October 2nd 2023, the issue was referred to WHO’s Principal Legal Officer, Dr. Steven Solomon, who explained that since the draft amendments come from a subdivision of the WHA, the four-month requirement of Article 55(2) did not apply. However, his opinion disregards the fact that Article 55(2) does not make any distinction as to which state, group of states or specific part of the WHA propose the amendments. Moreover, in the Terms of Reference of the IHR Review Committee (2022) the timeline of the WGIHR’s work was set at: “January 2024: WGIHR submits its final package of proposed amendments to the Director-General who will communicate them to all States Parties in accordance with Article 55(2) for the consideration of the 77th World Health Assembly.” If the WGIHR and WHO purposefully violate the IHR, the rule of law is indeed undermined, potentially entailing international responsibility for the organisation and individuals in charge.
Inseparable Processes of IHR and New Pandemic Treaty
The available drafts of the WGIHR and INB imply that the two processes of the WGIHR and INB cannot stand independently but are inseparable from each other. Particularly, the new draft Pandemic Agreement cannot be adopted prior to revising the IHR because it needs to build upon the revised structure, material scope and institutions of the IHR (especially given wording of IHR core capacities currently in the March 7th 2024 negotiating text of the Pandemic Agreement). Disrupting challenges like the significant overlap in ratione materiae, the competences and relationships both between the newly established treaty bodies and versus member states, as well as the long-term financial implications for the health budget, etc. – require detailed clarification prior to adoption.
Equity and Democratic Legitimacy
Disregarding procedural obligations under the IHR and leaving the relationship between the amended IHR and new Pandemic Agreement nebulous not only undermines the international rule of law, it also undercuts the spirit of Article 55(2) of the IHR (2005), which guarantees member states four months lead-time to review IHR amendments to promote democratic legitimacy, procedural justice and to better ensure equitable outcomes.
States need at least four months to thoroughly reflect on the implications of proposed amendments for their domestic constitutional legal orders and their financial capacities. They must seek political and parliamentary approval prior to the adoption of the respective resolutions at the WHA. This is especially germane given the unique legal status of adopted IHR amendments that will enter into force automatically unless a state party actively opts out within a very short timeframe of 10 months.
Equity is stated by WHO to be at the heart of the pandemic preparedness and response agenda. Many low- and middle-income countries do not have representatives and experts present in Geneva during the entire parallel negotiation processes, have their representatives’ discussing matters in less familiar languages, and must rely on diplomatic group or regional representations. This introduces inequity to the ability to fully participate in the negotiation process within the WGIHR and the INB developing the Pandemic Agreement. Richer countries have more ability to input into drafts and greater resources to review their implications. These manifestly unfair negotiation processes are contrary to the spirit and stated intent of the entire process. Ensuring equity, transparency and fairness requires an adequate time to discuss and consider what are intended to be legally-binding agreements.
Markedly Exaggerated Urgency Claim
Whilst some have argued that urgency in developing new pandemic management instruments is justified by a rising risk and burden of such infectious disease outbreaks, this has recently been demonstrated to be a markedly exaggerated claim. The evidence bases on which the WHO has relied, and partner agencies including the World Bank and G20, demonstrate that the risk of naturally-derived outbreaks is not currently increasing, and overall burden is probably declining. This suggests that current mechanisms are indeed working relatively effectively, and changes must be viewed carefully, without undue urgency, in the light of the heterogeneity of threat and competing public health priorities across WHO Member States.
Appeal not to Adopt the IHR Amendments or Pandemic Agreement at the 77th WHA
The two working groups are requested to follow the UN Principles and guidelines for international negotiations, UN A/RES/53/101, and to conduct negotiations in a spirit of good faith and “endeavour to maintain a constructive atmosphere during negotiations and to refrain from any conduct which might undermine the negotiations and their progress”. A rational timeline without political pressure for results will safeguard the current law-making process from collapsing and prevent potential political abandonment, as experienced in case of the WHO Research and Development (R&D) Treaty.
One of the original reasons to initiate the amendment process of the IHR (2005) was the WHO’s express concern that states did not comply with their obligations under the IHR during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency of International Concern. With their failure to keep to the four-month review period, the WHO and the WGIHR themselves show their open disregard for their legally binding duties under the IHR. A resolution with proposed amendments to the IHR for adoption at the 77th WHA can no longer be presented lawfully. Consequently, the Pandemic Agreement also needs to be delayed, as both processes are interdependent.
This is an urgent appeal to the WHO and its Member States to safeguard the rule of law and procedural and outcome equity by allowing fair input and deliberation. To do so, it will require lifting and extending the deadline, thus rendering the possibility for a more future-proof legal architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response in-line with international law and its normative commitments.
Respectfully yours
Note. This letter was written to be used as states and other parties see best, with or without attribution, to further the cause of equity, proportionality and evidence-based policy making in international public health.
It can be signed by the public, who will be the recipients of harm of this rushed and misguided approach to public health, here.
Dr. David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modelling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Director of the Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in the USA, Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at FIND in Geneva, and coordinating malaria diagnostics strategy with the World Health Organisation. He is a Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute, where this article first appeared.
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There are quite a few aerosols in Government, academia, the media…..
Big, fat, festering, malodorous aerosoles.
More toxic than Covid !
Full of them!
Quite apart from Michie drawing the wrong inference, she also advised that the population should continue wearing masks “for ever”. (see UCL news page to confirm their own interpretation of what one of their professors said and meant).
In November last year she was saying the same “Prof Michie said masks should be worn in settings including classrooms, restaurants and pubs. “As a rule of thumb, anywhere where you’re not allowed to smoke is where we should be using masks,” she said, adding that FFP2 masks offered better protection for individuals than “flimsy” surgical masks.”
On that last point, I do have slightly more respect for people wearing FFP2/FFP3/N95 sealed respirators than risibly useless bits of damp mouldy cloth.
I should clarify that the scale goes negative though.
I always credited those wearing the ‘risibly useless bits of damp mouldy cloth’ as being those who didn’t buy into the nonsense, but did feel the need to conform and so did the minimum. Some of them, at least.
Maybe some of them, but a lot truly believe that their damp leopard-print piece of rag or blue 10-for-£2 disposable face nappy are actually effective. Never underestimate the gullibility of a section of the public, especially when the propaganda is coming from “trusted” sources such as the BBC.
You do have to wonder about them, don’t you? These otherwise outwardly intelligent looking people who seem to actually believe that a flimsy face mask is protecting them from an airborne virus. Even doctors! ‘It has to help a little’ is the plea I often hear. One bloke in a cafe was heard saying it was a small price to pay if it keeps us alive. Did he seriously believe this? If so, did he not wonder why anyone ever dies from a viral infection if they are so easily defeated? Or wonder why masks are not treated as a bio-hazard? So many contradictions, so few questions…
I have a friend who says it’s for the safety of everyone and I’m sure she does actually believe that. She’s very keen on her vaccine passport too but then she really only got the vaccinations to go to France on holiday. I have no idea what she believes about the vaccinations as it’s an elephant in the room with us now.
Scary that people are being jabbed simply so they can go abroad on holiday. Is it really that important? What do they do with their lives the rest of the year?
They plan their holidays… Going to France twice a year is Really Important to them.
I live in NE Scotland under the Adolf Sturgeon woman and I have not worn a mask since 19th June last year and I have not been challenged although I have asked others wearing masks why they were. The answers have been as detailed in other comments and none wish to engage in any meaningful debate. I despair that the people in the UK have either been brain-washed or they are just apathetic and ignorant.
It was certainly my rationale. I live in Scotland and have always done the minimum. I only wear a mask to go shopping and on ferries before I go to the cafeteria and am ‘allowed’ to take it off if I eat or drink. Nicola likes masks so I’ll wash mine and put them away case next autumn/winter she wants to bring them back…
I have no issue with people wanting to put whatever they want across their faces. Their face, their lungs, their choice. They can all argue till kingdom come about the efficacy or otherwise of various barriers.
The real issue is when compulsion is brought into the picture. That is where the line gets drawn in the sand as far as I am concerned. It was, and still is, an outrage that the line was rubbed out with no justification and no proper debate, purely on the back of shameful political expediency reinforced by a torrent of lies and bullying.
The compulsion is my issue, too.
If people want to indulge themselves in what I have always regarded as grand-scale hypochondria – well, whatever turns you on! But they insisted that I join them. That outraged and still outrages me.
You want to live locked down? Okay, I think that’s a shame – but I’ll help get your food for you. You want to wear masks? I’ll point out as politely as I can that they don’t actually do what you think they do, but I won’t laugh in your gagged face. You want to be jabbed experimentally so that you can avoid COVID-19 of all things?! Are you sure?
I know they’re not the real villains, and I’m sorry they were so frightened. But their fear does not give them the right to insist that I share it. That outraged me, and still does.
All those people who decided that I had to be compelled to join them in their absurd practices, without a thought or concern for what that would do to my life …
Their fear does not justify their arrogance
They are villains though- anyone who just goes along with something like this without even the slightest thought or question is at least guilty of assisting the criminal. I mean, if someone tried to sell you a brand new Rolex for £500 you’d at least question where it came from, ask to see a receipt, right?
Definitely…Too many fakes of them around.
Many wouldn’t I fear, they’d just think they’d got lucky.
You are correct about the fear and arrogance. Neighbours of ours believe(d) that the non-vaxxed (like me) should be locked up. Our immediate neighbour is languishing with Long Covid and won’t allow non-family in the house. I don’t know how you get back from those positions …
I don’t think you can. My best friend of 60 years, with whom I’d shared so many life experiences, joys, tragedies, traumas, and who I thought I knew so well, ended our friendship with a very abusive e mail, calling me a ‘f***ing moron’ because I wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough and had not had ‘my vaccinations’.
That is not something we can get back from. It appears I’ve spent 60 years believing she was someone she is not.
Wow, Lorrinet, that’s an ending if ever there was one. I’m sorry for you but you didn’t do anything wrong and she may well live to regret that email as things become clearer. You can’t unsay what’s been said though and I can imagine you feel totally betrayed and bereft. I hope you have someone to talk to about it.
Covid has certainly made me reassess some people I mix with. There is someone who treated me very badly a few years back (27 to be precise) and our paths have crossed again during lockdown. I am perfectly civil to her but the deep friendship can never be resurrected although I can be in her company and be quite happy. My closest friend is someone I now view differently as a result of her views on Covid matters and a few other things I chose to ignore. She is still a friend but the Covid elephant is definitely in the room.
The Covid dust will take a while to settle for many people but it will whirl round some people for the rest of their lives.
She said that we’re supposed to wear masks in restaurants and pubs?
Hahahahaha!
Presumably, all meals will have to be put through a blender and eaten through a straw? Oh, silly me – I forgot! The virus can’t get people when they are sitting down!
I was in a restaurant just before Christmas in York and a group of Chinese students came in, all double masked. When they’re food arrived they would pull down their masks for each mouthful, then pull them back up as quickly as possible. Bonkers.
FFP2 masks will only offer additional protection if they are worn correctly, ,ie sealed and the nose band correctly formed.They are not really suitable for anybody with facial fungus beards as they create an airgap.
Finally they are horrible to wear for any extended period if they fit correctly.
Oh and dont forget they are way more expensive than face nappies and need changing regularly.
Of course the cost elements are immaterial if you are a socialist who has inherited wealth like Michie.
Most people do not realise how tiny viruses actually are. If you can breath outside air with the mask on then a virus can pass through.
And virus can reach the nasopharynx from the eyes via the tear ducts, so unless the mask zombie is also wearing skin-tight goggles it’s like locking the front door against burglars and leaving the windows wide-open.
I’m still surprised that viruses in the UK haven’t become obese, just to fit in better. Then they’d struggle to get through those paper masks.
That’s it- simples! I keep saying this, but it’s like I’m speaking Martian. I’m really losing patience with all this- surely by now it’s bloody obvious that they don’t work, yet here we are still talking about it. My wife’s mate has a daughter who’s a nurse and she’s rabidly pro-mask and demands that we obey because, you know, nurse- yet ask for explanations, proof, etc. and all you get is a ‘why won’t people listen to me’ type comment. Why would a nurse be an expert in chemistry or physics?
I taught adults who were wannabe nurses and let me assure you there was a miniscule number who’d done sufficient chemistry let alone physics to understand the science of the virus. They’d just do what they were told and in most cases question nothing.
Protection from what exactly? Bad breath?
The best way to deal with people like Michie is to strip her of all she has and make her work for a living. She’s the sort who got rid of the Grammar schools, with all the opportunities they offered the working class. I think too many of them got educated enough to enter parliament and become leaders – they forgot their place. Mustn’t do that. Just put your mask on and shut up.
Michie’s job was to use psyops – her expertise- to terrify and intimidate the populace into conformity to serve the CCP’s demands on Lockdowns and social isolation techniques – she earned her rewards.
I wonder if she has any ,more Picassos to sell for a few million ? Do you pay Capital Gains on Art sales – I bet you don’t . How many people did her CCP sponsored advice put out of work and how many businesses were destroyed by her dark influence over Johnson?
How did this anti-democrat, Castro tyranny supporting Communist ever get to run the Covid policy and be lionised by the BBC ?
Any answers Johnson?
“As a rule of thumb, anywhere where you’re not allowed to smoke is where we should be using masks”
In my region the public health nannying adverts are now off the scale so much that no ad break is without one of them.
The one which really makes me crease up laughing is the one advertising the new law brought in by the NI Executive to ban smoking in a car where there are children under the age of 18 inside, because second hand smoke is so harmful to their health. All delivered in heavy lecturing undertone.
So, no one can smoke in a car with kids in it because it is so harmful to them but you are MORE THAN HAPPY for those same kids to wear masks in school all day and on the bus home and no one blinks so much as an eyelid at ALL the harms that does to the health of children under the age of 18. And that is before we get to the harms those kids might suffer from the jabs you want them to have to “protect” them from an illness which is unlikely to so much as trouble their perfectly health immune systems.
Mark Dolan said on his show the other evening that as far as he is concerned SAGE is a 4 letter word. We will need to be careful we don’t infringe the profanity rules if we mention it from now on.
Michie is a behavioural scientist and a self confessed longtime Communist who has no medical training and can only be on SAGE for the money and prestige. Surely we can find some sort of criminal charge to lay at her door for the all the damage that she has done with the ‘nudge’ unit.
I am waiting to see how long it will be before we will find nobody within the Government or SAGE who will admit that they backed lockdowns. Witless and Unbalanced have already started backtracking on previous statements. Bring on the Inquiry.
Noah, you have expert-itis. All top “experts” are presentationally trained and this reciprocally influences what they research, how they conduct their research, and what conclusions they make. They can all stuff any mea culpas where the Sun doesn’t shine – at least until the glorious dawn when one of them tells it how it really is, which reality being how it is would almost certainly be after a mental breakdown. (It’s tough for a person to break out of telling lies all their life and to emerge from priding themselves in playing a hierarchical role the whole f***ing time in their uniform.) Any who do tell it how it is will certainly say that the whole notion of “expert” is fit only for the dustbin.
Coincidentally, I’m some way through Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s ‘The Great Cholesterol Con’ and the main conclusion he draws repeatedly is how often ‘research’ sets out with an outcome in mind and often words the ‘Finding’ in such a way as to bemoan that the result did not match what was desired. That’s hardly ‘Science’.
When enough such efforts have been expended to no effect, the general conclusion is that there must be a paradox involved that has simply not yet been identified. It reads terrifyingly like frustrated ‘confirmation bias’ and is reshaping much of what I’d believed about science and medicine for the last several decades.
There’s no available evidence that saturated fats cause heart disease, yet every health authority affirms that it’s so. Scary…
Rule of thumb: If it involves compiling statistics about anecdotes (ie, stuff people tell other people) it’s not science (unless it’s meant to provide historical information about people).
For the majority of our meals and cooking generally I now use animal fats: butter, lard, goose fat. British rapeseed oil if oil is required.
First choice is always animal fats. We have as a species grown up with them over thousands of years. And food tastes better too.
Read his recent book The Clot Thickens next. Never met the man but I’m a big fan of him
‘The Great Cholesterol Con’ is alluded to in no small part in Ivor Cummins (where’d he go) book The Fat Emperor.
Epidemiological analysis from a psychologist is about as useful as investment advice from a fishmonger.
Communists gunna communise.
Why are you insulting fishmongers?
This is a very fair point. I should have said “substantially less”.
oh I don’t know Borgy. Here in the NE Uplands of the Socialist Utopia of Jockistan, the fishermen have the biggest houses.
In this part of East Anglia, it was said that the fish merchants drove around in Rolls-Royces and the fishermen rode bicycles. There a very few of either, nowadays. My “beef” with anything to do with the Scots fishing industry is that it gave us, in a round about way, Michael Gove.
Its not clear that covid spreads via aerosols at all. The black fog is nonsense. Even if masks did ‘stop’ infectious droplets, you just get a collection of infectious droplets on a damp mask. And what do people do with masks all the time, touch them and then touch something else.
The fundamental point, and its still amazing that even people writing for the DS seem to struggle to understand, is that if you are asymptomatic you are at a miniscule risk of passing on any respiratory virus. There is not the mechanism of transfer if someone is asymptomatic. When was the last time you went shopping and someone was in there sneezing, coughing, blowing their nose. Symptomatic people have stayed at home. And where ill people congregate, hospitals /care homes, is where there had been proven high levels of spread.
Is it any suprise that omicold is more transmissible and has classic cold symptoms like runny nose, sneezing, coughing etc. Its mild and has the best methods of transmission (droplets, touch) and people who have these symptoms are likely to continue to do things that before they wouldnt.
‘Its not clear that covid spreads via aerosols at all.’
It’s not CoVid… it’s SARS Coronavirus 2.
All it’s mates, other coronavirus, rhinovirus, influenza virus, adenovirus have been shown from decades of research and observation to spread via aerosols.
Why would this particular coronavirus be different?
Aerosols but not droplets? There are plenty of studies from before covid which, yes aerosol is mentioned as a route but it is still relatively unknown as to what extent. I have read studies showing touch and ingestion to be the biggest form of transmission in flu. In the context of this article it says it spreads by aerosol rather then droplets ie the black fog of doom we see in the scaremongering adverts. This is nonsense. The drivers of epidemics are symptomatic people not fit and healthy people sitting around breathing normally. Even fauci knows this and has said so. You need the kinetic energy of a cough, sneeze, even runny nose to displace sufficient virus to be infectious. Masking fit and healthy people is like giving cardboard body armour to people for a war that doesnt exist and then claiming it has stopped bullets.
The Spanish flu is an interesting example. At the time scientists in the USA were unable to infect healthy volunteers from those infected no matter how hard they tried.
Upto and including swabbing the eyes of the volunteers with mucus from the infected.
It is almost like it wasn’t an infectious disease at all.
They possibly got it mixed up with Spanish Fly.
The interesting thing about the Spanish flu is that it didn’t happen in Germany as primary sources from the time simply don’t mention it[*]. Meanwhile, my preferred (although entirely unverified) pet theory about that is that it was mainly an exercise in applied hysterics of underoccupied American housewives whose men had gone to war and their medical advisors who possibly created an avoidable medical disaster by quarantining healthy young people in large hospital facilities where they then died from secondary bacterial infections which couldn’t be treated at that time (no antibiotics yet) and – happy about this excellent breeding ground – jumped from bed to bed.
[*] Actually, Jünger mentions it in passing in In Stahlgewittern but basically just as something he has heard of and certainly not as terrible killer disease.
A similar study was done recently with covid and they only managed to infect about half the people if i remember rightly. Yes there are many things which are still relatively unknown and the immune system is incredibly complex. Genetics certainly plays a role in my view. There are people who are completely immune to ebola for example purely because their genetic makeup rather then their immune response to it.
Yep- it’s the old ‘buy this rock to stop bear attacks’ ploy. No one has been attacked by a bear round here, so this rock obviously works…
Possibly, they were dreading the worst since they thought (but did not admit) that it was man-made in a GoF lab?
Can we not leave the Covid Boll*cks behind and concentrate on their next planned horror nightmare for us?
Deny, deny, deny…….
https://youtu.be/SGu8qiBUf-4
Ah. So thats how you do it.
The Guardian speaks to ‘expert’s who support the narrative that the Guardian pushed relentlessly for two years? Not exactly a shock this is it? The Guardian, and their ridiculously puffed up, virtue-signalling, illiberal, ignorant, Britain-hating, family loathing, pronoun-loving, BBC-loving, idiotic, readers are the real problem in society. Middle-class morons whose love of Flat Whites is even more intense than their hatred of democracy.
The Grauniad is fakenews central
Are they allowed to call them “Flat Whites”? Surely that is racist! Out of principle I have never bought one.
You prefer a Busty Black?
Flat Whites is what they’d like to reduce us to.
I thought ‘flat whites’ were trainers.
A hearty round of applause from me.
I am quite partial to a flat white. However, as I didn’t try and get you cancelled for dissing my fellow flat white aficionados, I assume I am made of the right stuff. Huzzah
In the interests of balance, I must point out that the Graun does offer a very decent cryptic crossword most days. And you don’t even need to subscribe to complete it online (unlike the grasping Daily [ex]Torygraph).
Sums them up perfectly! Remember the old ‘Bait-a-Leftie’ thing from a few years ago? I think it should be brought back.
The thing about these ‘experts’ is that they are deemed such because a) They are fully versed in theory and b) have been around a long time.
As soon as a practical solution is sought ftom them, they get it wrong every time.
Ferguson being the best example of this.
In other words they fail dismally to show any real level of expertise, and as such I cannot believe those in decision making positions still listen to them.
we need to differentiate actual experts (who can be wrong) with non-experts pretending to be experts (ie Devi Sridhar, Michie)
Have a look at the bank accounts of those two – I bet they are experts when it comes to ripping the British public off!
The public also needs to differentiate between different areas of expertise, and to understand the limitations of those areas. If the public had understood from the start that risk assessing particular measures (taking account of the many associated harms) wasn’t within the expertise of the government’s chosen epidemiologist (or, indeed, of their pharmacist neighbour or medical student friend), things might have gone very differently.
I always thought the ‘experts’ were deemed as such because we’re governed by either lawyers or Arts graduates, none of whom has a grasp of anything vaguely technical.
SAGE must be peeing themselves at the ease with which they’ve bamboozled Bunter and Co.
It reminds me of the answer to the job interview question “what is your weakness” where you are encouraged to reply “I pay too much attention to detail” turn a negative into a positive and look stupid.
what’s your weakness?
I’m too honest
I don’t think that’s a weakness
I don’t give a fuck what you think
I’m a workaholic!
What is your weakness?
It’s that my circumstances are such that I needed to apply for a job like this where I’d be interviewed by a dunderhead like you.
I have little patience for dumb questions.
Japan did ivermectin ,it didn’t do nothing.
The one thing I learned above all else from the pandemic is that most “experts” are as stupid as everyone else, even WITHIN their area of expertise. The scientific method works but it is a method, not a church, and scientists should be treated not as priests but as ordinary, flawed human beings like everyone else.
But hasn’t been much in use over the last two years.
Wow I’ve actually found something I agree with Fauci on “It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.” In other words, if you consider yourself the type of person who is likely to cough/sneeze in someone’s face then maybe you should wear one.
probably those still masking just can’t trust themselves.
Michie is just plain ignorant. Fauci shows that he knows what he does is wrong (see Robert Kennedy’s book) , in my book that makes him plain evil.
At some point, someone decided they’re a good psychological tool.
To be fair, there are some people who probably should wear a muzzle. If you can’t have a conversation with dousing your interlocutor with your spit, you should do something about it. Nothing to do with Covid – it’s just minging.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” Richard Feynman.
As for Michie, she needs a lifetime injunction banning her from being within 100 feet of human beings.
Deffo, for the Michie Variant.
Having seen numerous forecasts prove totally wrong in the arena of climate, I’ve yet to see one academic admit they were wrong. It doesn’t happen.
Why? Because until 20 years ago and the internet, the only people who would point out how disastrously wrong these arrogant academics had been … were other academics as only academics were permitted by the press and media to say anything about the work of academics. And there was an unwritten rule, that academics don’t mention the failure of academia.
Then along came the internet, we didn’t need to go to a library to read their appalling forecasts, we didn’t need the conspiring news media to admit they too had published utterly absurd forecasts. We could read it on the internet (or we could till google started censoring … but it still gets through in places like here).
Michie has proved herself a fool – but she’s a communist fool so that presumably makes it all right in Guardian world.
She’s not a ‘communist’ – she isn’t sharing her house or money with anyone.
In retrospect, all the genocidal ‘mistakes’ seem quite silly.
Let’s just forget the whole thing and embrace WW3 together as one.
WW3: I’ll arrange the bunting and also stuff like commemorative mugs/t-shirts.
Noah, No
The government appointed these people for SAGE when there were plenty of other “experts” they could have listened to.
The fault lies squarely with the government.
You only have to look at the gerrymandering going on at the JCVI to realise that Governments select their experts to tell them to do the things they already intend to do.
The role of the ‘expert’ is to give them the credibility that they are ‘following the science’.
MICHIE
” As a clinical psychologist she worked with adults and families on topics covering antenatal care, genetic counselling and occupational stress.[8] Her later career interests have been in designing and evaluating methods of behavioural change, especially in relation to wellbeing and health improvement.” So, eminently qualified to pontificate on disease transmission ………. NOT.
Wow- if anyone’s CV was ever full of ‘can’t actually do anything remotely useful in the real world’, this would be the one.
It is in the interests of all of the establishment, including ‘pro government’ scientists, to continue pushing the illusion that the approach to covid was broadly correct.
What they’re doing here is giving the illusion of having reviewed the advice given at the time by saying that some things should have been done differently — but it is always the minor inconsequential things, never the fundamentals of the approach. We’ll have an official review of the covid response soon enough, and I expect very much the same thing from that.
The reality is that in Jan/Feb 2020 there was information coming from China that there was a serious infectious disease there. At that point they should have had a rigorous response re. travel, including stopping of flights from Wuhan and perhaps China — this wasn’t done. In March a targeted lockdown made sense — this wasn’t done. By late March it was becoming clear that the disease mainly targeted the old and obese, and that a ‘Great Barrington’ type lockdown was needed — they ignored this and locked everyone down anyway. By Summer 2020 it was clear that covid was coming in waves naturally and that lockdowns did very little to restrict transmission (for whatever reason) — they continued with lockdown policy anyway.
I’d suggest that at every point in this pandemic the official response was wrong.
The one thing they probably did right (time will tell) is the vaccination of the elderly starting from late 2020. Then they mucked that up by trying to vaccinate the world.
Oh, and as for treatments and prophylactics? We’ll probably get some results from the treatment studies in the next 12 months or so (3 months was sufficient for the vaccines). I note that we’re now 8 months from the end of the CORONAVIT trial, looking into whether vitamin D could help — I suppose it can report its findings now that the threat from covid has gone away…
What’s a “Great Barrington type” lockdown? Or do you mean advising the vulnerable to be a bit more careful?
Any idea why cohorts becoming eligible for vaxxing suddenly started dying more than they had been?
Will the government assemble a wider range of scientists if the same situation happens again… you know, people who are competent, experts with a track record of getting things right (unlike Mr Ferguson), and who are open to the (real) science?
That will depend on whether stopping a virus would be their main goal.
IMHO science doesn’t exist in ‘compartments’ such as SAGE or the IPCC. By its very nature it invites critique and rigour. You’re unlikely to find it at a very small table!
Ferguson is a modeler, Shridar is a self-styled ‘public health expert’, and Michie is a lifelong communist and behavioral psychologist.
When it comes to epidemiology, my cat has the same number of academic qualifications as those three combined (zero).
Your cat would probably do less harm though…
There’s something really sick in Western societies. Or is it me that is being unreasonable in refusing to adapt to the new milieu where what used to be wrong is now right, and where what used to be right is now wrong?
Dr Gary Jenkins, a psychiatrist, was murdered in a British park one night by a female and two males. The three perpetrators were found guilty of Mr Jenkins’ murder and sentenced.
Jenkins was in the park on the night of his murder for a specific reason, and it was the manner in which his reason for being there was reported in various news media that struct me.
Dr Gary Jenkins had been in the park on the night in question cruising for other men to have sex with. Generally, when men go to a park to have sex with other men they carry out the act there and then in the actual park. Complete strangers are apt to meet in darkened areas of the park and engage in sexual acts with each other.
These men, if they wanted, could go to designated pubs and clubs to meet other men, but they don’t. The risks involved with meeting strangers in darkened areas out of doors, and in having sex in a place where they might get observed by others, attracts them to meet each other at night in public parks and similar areas.
This is all very well, consenting adults can do as they please, albeit having sex in public areas is, I think, illegal.
What struct about the way the media reported Dr Gary Jenkins’ murder is that they portrayed adult males visiting parks in the dead of night to meet other males and have immediate sex with them as being something completely normal.
I, for the life of me, can’t see how meeting a stranger (regardless of their gender) in a dark public park at the dead of night – someone you know nothing about and who you can only dimly see – and having sex with them can be classed as normal behaviour.
One man will be meeting another man and both of them will be aware that each of them do this regularly. Therefore, both should be well aware that the chances of them giving each other diseases is quite high – especially if they are professionals like psychiatrists.
My point is, when the mainstream class above behaviour as being normal and acceptable, then it’s akin to beating your head against a brick wall to argue with the mainstream about the effectiveness of a dust mask (2.5 microns) in stopping SARS‑CoV‑2 pathogens (0.1 to 0.5 microns).
All sadly true. I’m not saying Jenkins got what he deserved and wilful murder is just that, but he was obviously putting himself at great risk and he must have known that but we seem to live in a world where putting yourself at such risk is seen as your ‘inalienable right’ and you should be protected from all consequences without any hint of responsibility, yet these same people demand everyone else take every conceivable, (and inconceivable), precaution to keep them safe. Bizarre.
The great cover-up begins.
Politicians, scientists, health providers, media and scientists all diving for cover.
As if letting granny die by herself, our children’s education, vax bullying and destruction of many small businesses had nothing to do with them.
Let the inquest begin.
Why is Michie referred to as a scientist?
She is a psychologist with a BA.
She’s not even one of the millions in the UK with a Bachelor of Science and even they would only be referred to as scientists by someone trying to mock the concept of a scientist.
quite
Most people like Michie are drawn to the psychology and psychiatric fields by their own mental problems.
Never trust a psychologist or psychiatrist. They are usually madder than the people they treat.
Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?
The evidence on masks is so flimsy that ultimately I think this is political. You either like them and like imposing things like this on people, or you don’t. I don’t. The danger from covid is so low and the possible benefits of masks are so low that I just don’t give a toss whether they might work a tiny bit – I don’t want to wear one to help others and I don’t believe anyone should be forced to.
The dust masks being used were/are laughable.
Allow me to help them with their biggest mistakes:
1) thinking that this was a virus that merited any kind of special action whatsoever – the Diamond Princess showed it wasn’t. We could have focused on early treatment from the get go and everything would have been just fine.
2) Devil Sridhar going on Newsround and falsely claiming the vaccines were 100% safe to the audience of children. Tell that to the parents of the children in the VAERS database, of whom there are now thousands I believe. And those dead of myocarditis.
3) Susan Michie thinking everyone should wear a mask FOREVER. She alone should have one superglued to her hideous face permanently, to spare the rest of us the sight of it. They are completely bloody useless for all other purposes.
4) Ferguson. Turning his computer on. He shouldn’t be allowed to touch the things. He clearly has no idea how to use one and has only ever produced complete drivel. Shit in, shit out, with a lot of shit mangling in-between. How does he make a living doing this? it’s beyond my comprehension.
The reason they refused to focus on early treatment from the get-go was because if they admitted there were alternative treatments for the (flu) virus, they would not have got emergency authorisation for the gene therapies.
It was lie after lie, and fraud after fraud. They lied about the gene therapies being vaccines because if they told the truth about them being gene therapies, they again would not have got emergency authorisation to use them. The emergency authorisation applied only to vaccines.
What’s really laughable about it is that the FDA in the United States actually from the get-go had these fake vaccines registered as gene therapies. This was revealed as fact last year.
The blatant criminality is shocking, and prima facie evidence is to be had in abundance to prove it.
Crimes against humanity have been committed.
Love is in the air!
The ‘unvaxxed’ are punished for not wanting to take an experimental drug, to this very day, yet ‘Professor’ Ferguson deliberately breaks the ‘lockdown’ and gets away with it.
Yes one wouldn’t want to cross a bridge or fly in an aeroplane designed by such “experts”.
‘ When it became clear that Covid spreads…’
CoVid is a disease, it cannot spread. What spreads is the pathogen which causes the disease.
Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. This is when we are infectious – why asymptomatic spread is a nonsense.
Coughing and sneezing into a mask is like throwing tomatoes at a tennis racket, any droplets will disintegrate and be pushed through mask materials of any kind by the force behind the cough and sneeze. Once a mask becomes wet, after about ten minutes, hygroscopic pressure moves pathogens across the mask material in both directions making masks useless. Masks are breeding grounds for staph & step disease causing bacteria which colonise the nano-pharynx of most people.
All this was known until March 2020.
The only effective masks are made of impenetrable materials like rubber, worn skin tight with two way Hepafilters. Anything else is just play-acting.
He parrots the lines that the Government want to hear. One SAGE member admitted to this on Twitter, to paraphrase ‘we produce the models that Ministers ask for’.
Governments appoint ‘experts’ to give credibility to things they intend to do.
“Something must be done. We’ve decided to make a presentation, which we have done, so something has been done.” Pretty much the script for all that lot. Doesn’t matter if it actually does any good in real life, but if enough punters believe in it, they’ve won.
Susan says:
“Oh no! Without tests & case data all we will be left with is lagged ONS data, essential but lagged by about 10 days …..”
“Trade unions & health & safety officers & policies to protect staff vital in these uncertain & rough times. There is legislation guaranteeing workers safe air to breathe. How will this legal requirement be met? Needs central advice & resources,not just ‘individual responsibility’ “
https://twitter.com/susanmichie
Most of these nut cases are drawn to the psychology and psychiatric fields by their own mental problems.
Never trust a psychologist or psychiatrist. They are usually madder than the people they treat.
I’ve known two shrinks, both very senior, smart people, barking mad and I would end up giving them counselling not the other way round.
MY EYES!!!! put a mask on it, fast.
The lady is obviously a total basketcase: Other living beings on this planet breathing is just too dangerous to me! How did you manage to get so old and unsightly then, Susan?
PS: Considering that, not the least due to your macchinations, it’s entirely possible that I won’t be allowed to meet my parents ever again, coming within breathing distance of me might, depending on future circumstances, actually not be entirely safe for you. But face coverings are not going to be of use in this case.
Can I just say that I’m all in favour of face masks as it’s such a quick and convenient way of identifying the truly stupid.
But only if they are 100% optional.
I knew a farmer once who’d rattle a bucket and his cattle would come running to get fed. I never thought I would see the day when someone would rattle a bucket and humans would go running to get injected with experimental gene therapies.
Same thing with my terrier and her tin food bowl. The difference is that if I tried to feed her anything rubbish or suspicious, she’d run a mile in the opposite direction.
I think this is a Pavlovian response, but I didn’t expect to see it exemplified in eagerness for “vaccination” when the Government rattled the bucket. The end result for many is perhaps too much “kicking the bucket”.
But you did really, didn’t you? You only have to spend a little time with most people to realise that’s exactly what they’d do.
I am of the opinion, after many year’s of research, that ALL large government is fundamentally corrupt, an insidious cancer, they are but playthings of a global technocracy that has existed since the creation of Cecil Rhodes “Round Table” in the 19th centuary and the FED in 1913! Any pronouncement made by our “democratically” elected representatives comes with the usually hidden proviso that it benefits the 1% to the detriment of the 99%…Ferguson, Sridhar, Michie et al, minions of government and whores to big pharma money, and slaves to a nascent global technocratic totalitarian orthodoxy, should we listen too these rancid individuals now that they try to manipulate the narrative as the evidence that disproves it becomes undeniable? This evil contrived plandemic has already cost the lives of millions due to it’s NPIs, coerced untested cytotoxins and the evil suppression of IVM and HCQ, how many more will die of cancers, auto immune disease and heart problems in the months and year’s to come due to these cytotoxins forced on a populace by a technocracy with a malevolent agenda?
Now we are potentially looking at global conflict due to US/CIA/UK/EU/NATO/Deep state Machiavellian skulduggery. What does the future hold? God knows, but i know that your government means you harm! Distrust government and all of it’s add ons, stay alert to the false flags to come and AVOID THE “VACCINES” AT ALL COSTS…
I am of the opinion after many years of life that humanity is a failed experiment and that some greater power has us earmarked for extinction.
I am also of the opinion He’s torturing us a little first because He’s so disgusted at how badly we failed.
How else can you explain the stupidity of so many humans?
Indeed. As the incomparable Fabrizio De Andre put it in “Un Blasfemo”
Mi arrestarono un giorno per le donne ed il vino
Non avevano leggi per punire un blasfemo
Non mi uccise la morte, ma due guardie bigotte
Mi cercarono l’anima a forza di botte
Perché dissi che Dio imbrogliò il primo uomo
Lo costrinse a viaggiare una vita da scemo
Nel giardino incantato lo costrinse a sognare
A ignorare che al mondo c’e’ il bene e c’è il male
Quando vide che l’uomo allungava le dita
A rubargli il mistero di una mela proibita
Per paura che ormai non avesse padroni
Lo fermò con la morte, inventò le stagioni
Well, they would say that wouldn’t they. Like, did you expect them to admit they were wrong about anything, let alone everything.
Sad to see so few views on this video showing a treatment (Ivor The Mectin) that “works rather well” was falsely inferred as not helpful in preventing death and thus not available to be used (probably because it would damage profitability).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX8Nq4fr9g8
Hay-fever is caused by pollen particles. They are big – we can even see them – much bigger than water droplets or virus.
Soooooo…….. if masks are ‘effective’ against water droplets and viral particles, they must be effective against pollen; why then don’t hay-fever sufferers wear masks during hay-fever season?
Because they don’t offer any protection? I wonder.
Probably because no one has suggested it before but I’m sure that has changed.
Because we’re better off using real air filters, e.g. in modern cars (the first one I had with proper air intake filters was in 1992), or other air conditioning plant, such as in offices, stores etc that seem to do a good job at capturing excess pollen.
As an aside, a while back there were some comments from a related specialist that suggested that hay fever sufferers could be less vulnerable to certain viruses, on account of his view that nasal cells that were reacting allergically to pollen would not be accessible by a virus at the same time, and we only have so much surface area and so on. Not that he was recommending allergy as a cure, but you never know – someone might!
Lies lies ,lies – he masks were always psychological and political – ever
since teh sudden ‘expert’ volte face ion their use (from ‘useless’ to ‘essential” overnight!) never anything to do with health or the spread of a respiratory disease which passes through all bu the seruious medically approved mask.
This is now a boring conversation.
But then sadly just look at the frightened sheep, still clinging on to their comfort nappies – and of course the two-faced phoney politicians !
lockdown saves a few hundred lives (0.2%)
lockdown kills 100,000 from missed cancer screenings
when do the hangings start?
Is there a discernible difference between
a Coprolith and a Mitchie? Asking for a GP friend who’s having a well earned siesta in the lounge.
Not a SAGE scientist, a SAGE hoaxer.
Accuracy is your friend.
Ms Mitchie would use any excuse to keep masks, its the control aspect that appeals (Fields: Experimental psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, health psychology)
The question SAGE should be asked every day is this: why did you forecast an initial peak in June, when it was clear from the rate of growth in the UK and every other country, that the epidemic had to peak in April? And, they were still saying that within days of the peak!
Most of the SAGE scientists didn’t make the mistake of appearing on television or in the press coming out with rubbish they knew was wrong (or suspected could be wrong). They left that to scientifically illiterate psychologists and modellers.
Now they can claim they were misinterpreted or the nuances of their opinions weren’t communicated fully.
They failed as scientists and human beings but did reasonably well at ass covering.
‘When it became clear that Covid spreads via aerosols rather than droplets, the case for masks became hugely weaker.;
What was the scientific evidence used to prove that claim to be true?
We have no definite comprehensive evidence about the spread of ANY viral infection. What we have are educated guesses – based on knowledge that virions can travel on aerosols, and that intriducing enough virions into a respiratory orifice can result in the virus infecting someone…
‘What we have are educated guesses – based on knowledge that virions can travel on aerosols’
Could you name any of the scientific papers that establish this?
As I have tried to comprehend the basics of virology the more I have come to the view that the whole discipline is based on guesswork and make believe.
Very lucrative guesswork and make believe for virologists and pharma.
Sridhar previously advocated ‘Zero Covid’ – something that was never tenable in a large, dense, highly connected country like the U.K.
‘Zero Covid’ is quite tenable in a large, dense, highly connected country like the U.K – IF:
1 – the illness only has a human resevoir – no animals can get infected
2 – the vaccine is effective at preventing transmission of the illness
Neither of these things are true, of course. In particular, the vaccine DID NOT WORK – a point which needs to be stressed at every opportunity….
And it needs to be deadly enough so the benefits outweigh the harms.
You have read these studies whereby large numbers of people seem to find human beings in masks more attractive. What on earth does that say about a large number of people. For me the very essence of life is seeing every expression on someone’s face. Life would be much diminished without this language. There is an impulse and a drive towards the corpse and the grave these days. We are the opposite tendency. We love life even if it is fucked up and we know that out of this horror show new and better things will manifest. And not in the way distant future because the reckoning is now.
I find men in masks with their children feeble and unattractive.
Really? That might explain my utter failure to pull…I thought modern women liked to see men showing they cared, and wringing their hands covered with gloop. Honestly- women….
I am very attracted to the idea of putting politicians & journalists in muzzles … so long as they are locked in and totally sound tight.
I remember reading on Mike Yeadon’s and Robin Monotti’s telegram posts that the masks nebulises the air born virus particles, resulting in separating clumps of virus into the smaller and singular amounts. Therefore the virus travels in the breath, deeper in to the airways and respiratory areas, rather than getting stuck in the nose or throat . This makes the virus location deeper in the body to be more dangerous!!
So NO to masks nebulising the virus particles !
I always assumed it would nebulise gob on the way out and make transmission worse.
Sorry Noah, this is muddle-headed. Grant for the sake of argument that the virus spreads via droplets (how one can with a straight face claim to know that it spreads only via droplets (which was the claim) is beyond me, but I digress). Leaving aside the fact that asymptomatics do not spread virus and thus ‘mass mask wearing’ still would not be justified, the clue is in the language. It spreads via droplets. This is crucial. If a virus particle is piggybacking on a droplet, then once that droplet evaporates after being stuck on a damp face covering, where do you think the particle goes? The virus particle remains. So, among other things, the wearer can then send forth the particle out/back out into the population by coughing, sneezing, or even talking, or they can draw in the particle by breathing in. Thus the face covering plays a mediatory role in the transmission of the virus, and so, even granting the ‘droplets’ view, the face covering is still rendered utterly useless.
You got it! Once the virus dries on the mask, any movement of said mask or even air flow through the mask, can create a fine dust that, unlike the original large droplets that would have quickly dropped to the floor, the fine dust sits in the air for long periods ready to be breathed in my anyone whether they have a mask or not.
A point made to dellingpod by Yeadon back in 2020.
Those who promote the use of such things are relying on the lack of knowledge by the majority, but anyone who understands how tiny the compounds under suspicion are, and know a bit about the size of the filters (or pretend filers), would soon understand that they are junk, at best.
The existence of other objects in the air, humidity, ionisation etc probably have an effect on the transmission of items as small as viruses (say between 50 and 100 nm maximum).
It seems increasingly likely to me that the very foundation of virology is simply wrong.
The evidence to show that super tiny particles can waft around in the air, be inhaled and then cause disease is lacking.
For example with sars-cov-2 we are in the most advanced scientific age yet they have never isolated an actual example of the claimed virus from a real world sample, their claimed isolates are only a computer generated fantasy.
Also they have argued and blustered over the concept of asymptomatic transmission, whilst evidence for symptomatic transmission is just assumed, but where is the actual scientific evidence that one person can spread sars-cov-2 from coughing or sneezing etc?
Michie is a so-called behavrioural scientist, ie, she isn’t a scientist at all, just someone who comes up with unverifiable, fancy theories re: Why do people behave in a certain way and equally fancy, equally unverifiable theories how the behaviour of people can be influenced by targetted communication. In other words, she’s a self-professed witch researching how to curse or otherwise enchant people with powerful words (I’m meaning this absolutely literally).
Her opinions on medical matters are of no concern to anyone. Even when these are – unsurprisingly – that diseases can be prevented by wearing suitable talismans in a suitable way.
The only real question regarding any COVID experts is really just Stupid enough to believe in his own theories or bought?
I think you will find that she is, in fact, a complete waste of skin.
They thought that they could usher in a left wing agenda on the back of a perfect excuse, an infectious disease – my health is your health etc. It might be hard to believe but people in other countries envy us because of the removal of restrictions. We achieved that because we as the English still have the spiritual sense to say no. We should exult our nation for that. We may be a rag tag bunch but still we don’t let anyone fuck with us.
I think it was more down to Boris royally screwing it all up.
Boris tried to cover for the covid corruption his chum Owne Paterson was involved in (probably because Boris and other Tories are involved in far worse).
Forcing all Tory MPs to vote change the rules to protect Paterson faced such a public backlash that Boris was forced to stand down, this angered his back benchers.
Then hot on the heels of the Paterson debacle the series of leaks showing that Boris was partying whilst we were in lockdown.
This made the winter lockdown 2021 impossible to impose which allowed the SAGE predictions to be proven to be complete balls.
That is why our restrictions are being lifted.
Probably but I am talking about the left wing support for these insane directives. As if a phoenix of purified statism would arise from the ashes, If you pay any attention at all to the realm of economic affairs you see where the real land lies.We are surrounded by naivete and ignorance on a level that perhaps we weren’t aware of.
Correct. Kim Jong Johnson does either what he thinks will be popular or what he will be unpopular for not doing.
He delayed ‘freedom day’ on false information then, scared of the backlash, went ahead with it.
He was all set to lock down again in December, the great fat communist fraud.
The nonsense is certainly still in full swing in Germany, with forced use of N95/ FFP2 masks everywhere and the so-called health minister calling for mandatory vaccination to prevent the coming COVID apocalypse next autumn.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/revoking-vaccination-as-a-condition-of-deployment-across-all-health-and-social-care/outcome/revoking-vaccination-as-a-condition-of-deployment-across-all-health-and-social-care-consultation-response
Don’t get drawn in. The whole thing is black magic. Don’t even discuss the tactics outside of special groups.I see it clearly and it is just cheap black magic.
You wear it because you like the feeling of someone elses hand on your face. Messing and fucking with you. We are movng into serious times we can’t just piss about for evermore. The more serious of us will need to get together.
Count me in- truly sick and tired of virtue-signalling lefties telling me what to do. Or trying.
Another football fan gone too soon
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-60570620
Or not? as the article makes no mention of his age. There is no information at all on the internet as to how old he was
The mainstream media in Britain are pushing for a “people’s” nuclear war.
Here they are, doing it:
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-activist-breaks-down-in-tears-as-she-confronts-boris-johnson-about-lack-of-no-fly-zone-12554760
Listen. Poland is in NATO and it is already in a no fly zone for Russian warplanes.
The text may say “Poland” but the mugs who soak up rubbish from the media will associate this “young woman sobs” story with Ukraine because it’s Ukraine that is mentioned in the headline.
A NATO or British or US no-fly zone over Ukraine would mean World War 3 – a war between NATO and Russia which would turn nuclear fast.
It would mean shooting down Russian planes and also bombing the Russian airbases they fly from inside Russia itself so as to “protect” NATO pilots. It also means Russia shooting down the western planes and bombing the bases they fly from whether they are in Poland or Estonia.
Let’s be absolutely clear about this:
A NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine means bombing Russia.
It means escalation to nuclear war, WW3.
Daria Kaleniuk is a warmongering turd. Look at how she holds the microphone, and listen to how she speaks. She’s highly media-trained. Must have taken a lot of CIA money to get her into the press conference to come out with all that cr*p.
Edit: when I watched her act at the Sky website, it was topped and tailed with an advert for “Vanguard Investors” featuring actors doing Churchillian V-signs. This was the top link for “Daria Kaleniuk” at Google Videos.
A moronic airhead, more likely. She remembers no fly zones from the past and hence, she wants one. But this is not about some relatively small and technologically rather backwards Arabian country but about a huge country a war is presently being fought in, including aerial warfare. Assuming the NATO had the necessary forces for a huge offensive operation in the area – and I’m certain it hasn’t – all it could do was intervene in the ongoing war on the side of Ukraine in order to achieve NATO/ Ukraine air superiority, ie, become an ordinary combatant.
This doesn’t necessarily mean WW3 as the fighting might well stay localized in Ukraine (as Putin is already struggling to achieve his objectives there, he could probably do without opening another front) but there’s no way the NATO can just declare a no fly zone over Ukraine by fiat and enforce that easily and effectively due to being the only significant air power in the war theatre.
This is just an example of how thoroughly stupid and clueless most people are and how they’re nevertheless concinved that their opinions on pretty much any topic must make sense because they’re theirs. Eg, their opinions about disease prevention.
Seeking to establish NATO air superiority would require bombing the airbases in Russia that the Russian planes fly from.
If NATO bombs Russia, Russia will respond by attacking NATO countries – perhaps at first “only” Poland or Estonia.
Seeking to establish NATO air superiority would require bombing the airbases in Russia that the Russian planes fly from.
As the Germans found out to their own detriment during the so-called battle of Britain, bombing airbases is a pretty useless exercise unless as tactical support for ground forces operating in the area (and ultimtatively, taking those air bases to stop them from being repaired and used again).
Establishing a no fly zone over Ukraine would require air superiority there, not random military operations in Russia.
The wretched Kaleniuk is described as the executive director of the “Anti-Corruption Action Centre civil society organisation”. What have “anti-corruption” and “civil society” got to do with bombing Russia? CIA all the way.
More on the Anti-Corruption Action Centre:
Supervisory Board:
Oleksa Shalaiskyi – Сo-founder and Chief Editor of “Nashi Groshi” project, “investigative journalist”
Francis Fukuyama – “American philosopher, political economist, publicist, and professor at Stanford University”
Giovanni Kessler -” Famous Italian lawyer and prosecutor. He specializes in tackling fraud, financial crimes and corruption.” He was until 2017 the Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF, a department of the European Commission.
Oliver Bullough – “British journalist and writer. He makes journalist investigations of corruption and financial crimes, he is awarded numerous prestigious awards”
Karen A. Greenaway – “Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent at International Corruption Unit. World expert on investigating transborder organized crime, corruption and money laundering”
Daria Kaleniuk works with “PEP.ORG.UA”
https://antac.org.ua/en/about-us/
http://pep.org.ua/
PEP calls for a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine and for kicking Russia off the UN Security Council. (Russia cannot be kicked off the UNSC, but this may soon become a pumped-up meme in the West anyway.)
“PEP” means “Politically Exposed Persons”, mostly who invest big piles of money without letting the light in, including offshore – presumably especially those among them who aren’t friendly with the US or Israel.
A “permanent” member of the SC means precisely that. What the US, its brown noser satellite Britain, and France could do is stop participating, but that’s different. Russia cannot be expelled. It’s not a f***ing gentlemen’s club.
What is there to deal with – you are a slag and you will be treated like a slag. All perfectly fair.
On topic, and well worth the investment, if only for the chucklesome ‘Ozymaskias’…
https://www.aier.org/article/ozymaskias/
Some scientists really aren’t very clever at all and shouldn’t bother getting up out of bed each day. That would make life much better for the rest of us.
Michie isn’t a Scientist she is a psychologist – Ferguson a Maths/physics graduate- like most is SAGE totally out of touch with treating diseases.
I’ve been wondering how much the people of the world have collectively spent on masks.
Here’s a rough stab at this in America … Let’s say half the citizens in America (167 million people) dutifully wore a mask not for the entire pandemic (nearly two years) but only for half of the pandemic.
That would be 167 million mask-wearing Americans times 365 days. (This thought exercise assumes most Americans wore a disposable mask and changed them out every day). Math: 167 million mask-wearing people times 365 days of mask wearing = 60,955,000,000 (60.955 Billion) masks!
Of course, plenty of people probably have washable, re-usable designer masks, so the figure might be lower … but, then again, it might be higher because I’m sure some people wore masks daily for two years …. and some people no doubt wore more than one mask per day. But this is my ballpark mask figure (and for a long time people did have to wear masks at the ballpark).
Next question: How much does an average mask actually cost? Who knows? They probably cost more today than they did two years ago because inflation is much higher today. I’m going to guess that the light blue ones I see littering the countryside and parking lots of America probably cost about 5 cents/mask.
70 billion masks times a nickel/mask = $3.048 billion spent just on masks …. Just in America.
China, which has 1.2 billion people who have never taken off their mask for 750 days, must now be broke …. or even richer because this nation probably manufactures 90 percent of all global masks.
I’m going to guess that the citizens of the world have easily spent $100 billion on masks … which, to me anyway, is a LOT of money …. Which takes my mind back, back … to one summer day many years ago ….
…. When I finally graduated from college, some friends of my parents hosted a pool-side cocktail party to celebrate my accomplishment. I was standing by the cabana sipping a gin and tonic with my Wayfarers on when a businessman, a friend of my parents, wandered over to me.
I figured he was going to congratulate me or maybe ask me what I was planning to do with the rest of my life.
Instead, he looked me in the eye, kind of like he was sizing me up. He said just one word, a word I’ll never forget:
“Masks.”
It’s good getting posts from across The Pond….keep ’em coming.
If science can’t be questioned it’s not science anymore. It’s propaganda. They want to rip on people for taking Ivermectin. I researched and saw the evidence on the internet. Research papers are on the internet for those who wants to see. Top respected world doctors are being under defamation by MSM and vaccine manufacturers. I won’t back down recommeding IVM. You can get yours by visiting https://ivmpharmacy.com
Michie makes a lot of wrong inferences. I recall her being interviewed by Deborah Cohen on a Newsnight special about 18 months ago (?), via Zoom of course. She was asked what evidence there was that masks worked. Her answer, bearing in mind she is purportedly an intelligent evaluator of evidential data, was to say that “the numbers of positive ‘cases’ being found had gone down since masks had been worn” thus proving they worked. Simple, isn’t it, when you’re an expert.
I am someone who feels anger seeing mask wearers I cannot stand their awful flithy cloths whoever wants to cover up their face is deranged I have never seen so many compliance in my 29 Year life, . I am depressed seeing people no longer want freedom and seem so willingly to give it up for a disease which affects the obese and elderly, and that so many
of my fellow citizens chose to remain ignorant and will not read any information except BBC Sky News , Channel 4 and will not research Bitchute , and Conservative Woman, I try to not look at mask wearers now in the street they just disgust me and fill me with rage.
They ruined our lives and took away our freedoms they did not have to support the lockdown , they could have said no to more lockdowns they could have rioted and said no too masks instead my fellow Citizen’s appear too love lockdowns think covid is the only thing people die from above suicide cancer diabetes and want constant vaccines, it appears most do not want families the birth rate is falling I never see a English woman with three children depopulation is right here .
What about the elderly gentleman in Ukraine that was run over by a tank while driving his car? It’s excellent that the old guy is OK as the body of the car did not crush. But, he was wearing a mask on his own in the car? What will be his view of risk now?
Good to see that not all under 30s are virtue signalling communists!
Guardian. ‘Nuff said- stop reading.
Michie does, of course, seem to be quite stupid
Ordinary employees go through regular evidence-based appraisals to review their performance. SAGE “experts” should be subjected to the same. If it was done properly very few of them would have their contracts renewed.
We need a Star Chamber of Skeptics – who can hold them to account.
Michie’s is a Psychologist who had neither the education or experience to be commenting on the effectiveness of masks. We have given the like of these irrelevant individuals the power over our lives. They need to be held to account for the damaged they caused.The only aspect that masks did effectively suppress was the truth
Michie would be pro-mask, looking like the missing link she probably thinks it increases her chances…
“While getting scientists to reflect on their mistakes is a useful exercise,…”
Scientists? I thought a scientist was someone that used scientific methods on top of observations to establish truths.
And… just because someone studied science it doesn’t make them a scientist, any more than someone that studied music at a music college becomes a musician.
During the two year panic, I never saw Ferguson, Michie or Shridha debate their ideas once with scientists who took a different view. They had no need to as the media treated them with such reverence. Zero Covid was and remains an extremist ideology. Inaccurate modelling led to unnecessary shutdowns and muzzle wearing has become the garment of choice for many people. The ideas of these three individuals did real and lasting harm to our society. They became darlings of the liberal elite. Any pretence of journalistic balance at the Guardian went out of the window. Alistair Hetherington must be turning in his grave.
In what universe is Michie defined as a scientist? Behavioural Psychology is more akin to English Literature than science; it values opinions over empirical evidence
Does anyone think that all the bs that SAGE has spewed out comes from a government who are mostly useless and the few that aren’t have very little say. The orders come from way above these peons. The best thing would be to get rid of SAGE and Whitty and Valance. I would like to see completely independent experts who don’t have any ties to the pharmaceutical companies. People who put public health first. As it is governments are dancing to the tune of the WEF, the UN and billionaires and their funded NGO’s.