Is the Pfizer Vaccine a Breakthrough?
Much relief could be heard yesterday with the announcement from Pfizer that its vaccine is “more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19”. The press release explains: “The case split between vaccinated individuals and those who received the placebo indicates a vaccine efficacy rate above 90%, at seven days after the second dose.”
But is it all it seems?
Ross Clark in the Spectator sounds a note of caution.
The Pfizer/BioNTech trial began in July, and has involved 43,538 volunteers, half of whom were given the vaccine and half of whom received a placebo. The committee issued its report when 94 of those participants had developed COVID-19 with at least one symptom. What we don’t yet know is how many of the 94 who were infected had been given the vaccine and how many were given the placebo – a vaccine can either stop you getting a virus or can mitigate the symptoms once you have it. Nor do we know how long the effect of this vaccine will last. All we know so far is that the vaccine was found to be effective 28 days after the second of the two doses.
Nor do we yet have much information on possible side-effects among the group given the vaccine. Earlier stages of the trial revealed some side-effects such as fatigue, headache and chills, but no information has yet been released on how widespread these effects were in the larger group. The fact that the trial is still ongoing, and has not been halted as the Oxford/Astra Zeneca trial briefly was in the summer, suggests that no serious illness has been traced to the vaccine.
Although Ross says in the Telegraph that an effective vaccine might be enough to save Boris’s premiership.
How soon will it be available if approved? Ross in the Spectator again:
Ben Osborn, Pfizer’s managing director in the UK said in July that there were 40 million doses sitting in a Belgian warehouse ready to be sent to Britain. That would be enough to treat 20 million people, given that the vaccine requires two doses. Last week, Paul Duffy, Vice President of Pfizer Global Supply, said that there is “very minimal” chance of the vaccine being distributed this year, even if it is approved this month. Distribution is more likely in the first half of next year, he said.
No 10 gave it a cautious welcome.
Speaking this lunchtime, the Prime Minister’s spokesman called the results “promising” but warned “there are no guarantees”. With limited information available in terms of the full results from the trial so far, they went on to say: “We will know if the vaccine is both safe and effective once the safety data is published, it’s only then that licensing authorities can consider it.”
Barry Norris of Argonaut Capital Partners – an expert on the biotech sector – told Lockdown Sceptics:
As we had expected, the Pfizer/BioNTech trial delivered a positive efficacy result.
There were two surprising elements: The timing of the announcement and the claim of 90% efficacy.
There are 44,000 people in the trial with half in the placebo. They were supposed to read out after just 32 cases in total. It was thought that the trial hadn’t yet read out because they hadn’t yet had enough infections. The trial actually read out after 94 cases, so they delayed it on purpose apparently as a result of “discussions with the FDA”. This smells like they didn’t want to announce it pre-Presidential election in case the ‘good news’ helped the incumbent. Trump must be fuming.
They claim 90% efficacy. What in practice does that mean? When they say efficacy they don’t give us the exact numbers but you should assume around 85 out of the 94 symptomatic cases were in the control group that received the placebo and just nine in the treatment group which received the vaccine. They simply measured symptomatic infection: are you a symptomatic sufferer of COVID-19 or not? They didn’t measure severity. Nearly all the volunteers in the trials are also all healthy adults, under 55 years old. There is no data for the old and already sick, although they will say at 90% efficacy in healthy adults it has a decent chance of working on them too.
It is important to note that the trial does not measure the vaccine’s ability to stop virus transmission between humans which is the supposed rationale for lockdown. The manufacturers and their cheerleaders will say it’s still a lockdown-buster because its failure to interrupt transmission doesn’t matter if the virus doesn’t develop into the disease. But that depends on whether it works for the vulnerable which we don’t know yet.
In terms of timing, they are suggesting mass vaccinations in time for the 2021/2022 coronavirus season which suggests at least another six months of virus suppression policies, including lockdowns.
One final consideration: the Pfizer vaccine won’t work against the ‘mink virus’ or plenty of other strains.
But let’s not be too churlish. If it really is 90% effective, protects the weak as well as the strong, has no major side effects and turns out to be as effective against other strains – all big ifs – it may help to calm everybody down. As Charles Mackay said in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Stop Press: According to the Times, BioNTech founders Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, a German-Turkish couple, may see their personal fortune reach £3 billion.
Stop Press 2: Sarah Knapton in the Telegraph reports there are fears that, even if an effective vaccine becomes available, many people will refuse it because they feel it has been rushed out in just a few months. The Royal Society is so concerned about uptake that it is calling for anti-vaxxers to be prosecuted if they spread misinformation about the dangers.
More on the Leaked NHS Slide Deck
I asked my doctor friend to take a look at the NHS England slide deck that was leaked to me yesterday. He found the smoking gun that I missed: the overall impression it gives is that the NHS is coping perfectly well with the ‘second wave’, has considerable spare capacity and isn’t anywhere close to being overwhelmed. Why is that significant? Because it was presented to NHS managers on November 2nd, so could have been shown to MPs before the Lockdown 2.0 vote on November 4th. But instead MPs were presented with a completely different data set that gave the opposite impression. In other words, the Government and its scientific advisors knew the NHS was coping perfectly well with rising Covid infections and deliberately misled MPs.
Yesterday Toby wrote an article referring to a leaked set of briefing slides presented to NHS senior managers on November 2nd.
The deck is full of data up to November 1st in relation to the overall activity and capacity within NHS regions. Toby focused yesterday on the extremely high level of absence by NHS staff in the North of England (37%) as a result of a combination of positive Covid tests and being forced to self-isolate due to a Test and Trace contact or having to look after a child sent home from school. For comparison, the normal NHS staff absence rate is approximately 3%.
I have now had a look through the remainder of the information.
The first thing that jumps out is that, with the exception of the North West and North East, the rest of the NHS looked fine as of November 1st – nowhere near capacity and not stressed for this time of year. I have split the information up into separate headings for ease of comprehension.
ICU Capacity:
The North West and North East had needed to reduce the provision of elective surgery by about 50% to manage a Covid surge, but there were still 146 available ICU beds in the North West on November 1st with total ICU bed occupancy running at 78%. A similar picture was reported across the country, with 290 vacant ICU beds in London, 278 vacant in the South East and 296 beds available in the Midlands. So essentially sufficient spare ICU beds to cope with a doubling of Covid critical care numbers while still running routine services in most regions (assuming sufficient staff availability).
Tellingly, the oxygen demands from trusts across England was slightly lower than normal pre-Covid levels – 276 MT compared with 281 MT pre-Covid. For comparison, at the height of the spring oxygen utilisation by Trusts peaked at 431 MT. This is a good surrogate marker of respiratory disease intensity as patients on CPAP masks and mechanical ventilation consume a lot of oxygen.
Total inpatient burden:
The total Covid positive inpatients in England were reported as 8,806 (remember this does not necessarily mean all these patients are suffering from Covid – just that they have tested positive). There were approximately 130-140,000 inpatient beds in Hospitals in England – 6.5% Covid positive bed occupancy across the whole NHS, peaking at 12% in the North.
COVID infections in the community:
The R rate was estimated at 1.1-1.3. The general graph trends were flat lining.
Nightingale Hospitals:
Manchester set to re-open for convalescent patients. Other Northern Nightingales on standby. Kit and equipment fully stocked.
Regional reports:
All regional authorities reported that they were managing with no critical capacity problems anticipated in the coming 72 hrs. The North West and North East were the worst affected, but in both regions, Covid stress on beds and ICU occupancy had fallen in the previous 72 hrs. There were plenty of spare beds available. London region remarked that “capacity remains robust” and they were looking at releasing hospital staff to participate in community vaccination programmes. The remaining regions reported no significant risks or capacity problems with bed occupancy rates. We have been told since the middle of September that London was “two weeks behind the North West” and the second wave would arrive soon – no convincing sign of it on November 1st.
Staff absences:
As Toby reported yesterday, staff absences seemed to be the critical issue in the North West, North East and the Midlands and are flagged up as risks by regional reporting. It isn’t clear from these slides if all of absentees had actually had a positive Covid test or if they were shielding for another reason. It is interesting that staff absence in the South East was much lower – Hampshire Hospitals reported 1% Covid positive tests among their staff. Absence rates in London peaked at about 18% in the Spring surge and are currently running at approximately 8%, compared to 37% in the North East. How might we explain these discrepancies?
The North of England has recently been experiencing a wave of Covid similar to that which hit London in the spring. I know from a separate source that Covid antibody titres measured in hospital staff in the North West have doubled in the last couple of months (suggesting that a large number of staff have been exposed to the virus, even if they remained asymptomatic).
Further, Test and Trace protocols, which were not active in the spring, now force staff to isolate if they have come into contact with a Covid patient – and there are a lot of those in hospitals. It is possible that some of the difference is a testing artefact – i.e., there might be a lower rate of false positives in Hampshire due to more rigorous laboratory protocols than in the North of England. But if 37% of nurses in the North of England really did have COVID-19 on November 1st then a measurable number of them should by now be ill enough to be admitted to hospital for a few days and noticed in the figures. Anecdotally, I have been informed that a large number of those absences are not due to staff directly testing positive, but as a result of Test and Trace contact tracing – essentially the law of unintended consequences.
I don’t know why these slides were leaked. My guess is that the whistleblower was disturbed by the stark contrast between the alarming public briefings last week and the reassuring information provided to NHS professionals at the same time.
I imagine senior advisors to the Government will argue that if calamity strikes, it would be too late to implement lockdown constraints as it takes two weeks for societal interventions to take effect. So better safe than sorry. But if we accept that argument, then the country is destined to be incarcerated indefinitely for fear of the sky falling in.
In any event, there was clearly a lot of spare capacity still in the system as of November 1st – the vast majority of the NHS was still doing a full schedule of elective activity and we still had spare ICU beds available – a lot more than usual at this time of year.
I was concerned to read in the Sunday Times that Chris Hopson, the Chief executive of NHS Providers, had said: “You can’t stop someone having a heart attack or a stroke… but you can control the volume of COVID-19 patients by using lockdowns to reduce the infection rate… the NHS will certainly be arguing that the Government should be very cautious about coming out of lockdown.”
Does this mean that the NHS now regards societal lockdowns as a legitimate routine medical intervention? Perhaps to be deployed whenever it finds itself incapable of meeting performance targets? Mr Hopson must have missed the WHO guidance about lockdowns being an emergency measure of last resort.
I wonder if those slides were shown to Conservative MPs before last week’s vote? Or even to the Prime Minister? If they had been, would we now be in Lockdown 2.0?
My reading of the information on the slide deck is that as of November 1st the NHS at shop floor level was doing a good job of handling a difficult situation. There was no cause for panic and that the tiered approach seemed to be working pretty well. We don’t know what has happened in the last week of course – maybe things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse – or for the better. With luck, someone will eventually let us know.
Finally, I was greatly encouraged to read the excellent interview with Professor Whitty in the British Medical Journal this week. He makes a good case for his position and states: “I’m very much in favour of transparency in all areas. I do believe that transparency, wherever possible is a good thing.” He goes on to explain that the difficult decisions that policy makers are faced with are all about balance. I found his commentary very reassuring.
I’m hoping that we can now look forward to a balanced public debate on the health downsides of lockdowns versus their benefits and the wider societal implications of the compulsory curtailment of civil rights by unconstrained executive fiat. Perhaps the NHS will be so kind as to include Lockdown Sceptics on the distribution list for the next slide deck so Toby and Will can make the information available to the public, consistent with the spirit of open and transparent governance.
How Will Students Get Home For Christmas?
Are students going to be confined in their halls of residence over Christmas – particularly if the second lockdown hasn’t been lifted by then? Hopefully not, reports the Telegraph. Camilla Turner, the paper’s Education Editor, reveals secret Government plans to roll out mass testing at universities.
The Prime Minister said on Monday that official guidance will shortly be issued on how universities should manage the mass movement of students at the end of term in a way that does not risk spreading the virus around the country.
The Telegraph can reveal that the Government’s strategy involves setting up large scale asymptomatic testing programmes at universities so that students with a negative test result can safely travel home.
Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, has written to Vice-Chancellors asking whether they would be prepared to take part in the scheme.
University leaders have been told that they need to register their interest in the scheme and place their order for testing kits by the end of this week. They would then have until the end of the month to prepare test sites and get them ready for operation.
The “pre-end-of-term testing” would take place between November 30 and December 6, according to a timeline prepared by NHS Test and Trace and sent out to Vice-Chancellors.
University leaders were told that one of the key objectives is to “test asymptomatic students before the end of this term” so that they can make “informed decisions regarding their return home for Christmas, minimising the risk of spreading the virus to vulnerable people at their destination”.
The plans are understood to have been warmly received by Vice-Chancellors, who previously rejected proposals from ministers that would see them force students to self-isolate for a fortnight before the end of term.
Reading this, I couldn’t help wondering what would become of those students who test positive. Will they be forced to remain in their cubicles in largely empty buildings while the rest of the country celebrates?
Worth reading in full.
Professor Tim Spector: “Infections Falling”
Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London and Chief Researcher for the Covid Symptom Study, appeared on Julia Hartley Brewer’s talkRADIO show yesterday morning to explain why he thinks cases are beginning to decline, the R value across the country is 1 and in some parts of the country below 1 and why he’d bet money on the daily death totals starting to fall shortly.
Cummings Clashes With Whitty
The Covid self-isolation period is expected to be cut from two weeks to 10 days after a row involving Prof Chris Whitty and Dominic Cummings, who had been pushing for a more drastic change, according to the Guardian.
The reduced quarantine time is to be made possible by increasing the use of rapid tests – for which the UK Government has paid more than £500m, despite the fact that some are not designed to test people without symptoms.
It comes amid growing concerns about compliance, with only 11% of people abiding fully by the current two-week self-isolation rule, according to research by King’s College London in September.
Under the new proposals, people are expected to be allowed to stop self-isolating on the 10th day after coming into contact with an infected person, following a negative test, in the hope this will improve compliance. But if they test positive on that date, they will be asked to continue self-isolating for a further eight days.
The planned change is a compromise hammered out at No 10 after Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, rejected proposals instigated by Cummings, the prime minister’s most senior aide, for a more dramatic cut in the quarantine period, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. Downing Street did not deny the claims.
According to the source, Whitty discovered on Tuesday last week that a press release had been drafted to use the rapid tests to halve self-isolation to seven days, with the eventual goal of scrapping the self-isolation period entirely by offering tests to people as soon as they are notified of a contact with an infected person.
Whitty is said to have been implacably opposed on public health grounds, arguing that the incubation period for the virus was too long to allow immediate testing and the rapid tests would fail to detect every infected person.
The proposal to test after eight days, with permission to leave the house on the 10th day, was “cooked up” as a compromise, to placate Cummings, the source said.
Worth reading in full.
Viva L’Espagna
A reader thinks he’s found a loophole in the new regulations that enables him to make unlimited trips to Spain.
I thought you might be interested in my long weekend in Spain. I believe I may have exploited a loophole in the legislation…
I travelled to Spain on Friday (during lockdown 2.0) via Liverpool Airport. I was able to fly with no questions asked whatsoever. Had I been asked why I was travelling, my answer would have been that I was visiting Spain to view a property which is for sale. This seems to be allowed under Part 2 of the Coronavirus restrictions, which say you can leave your house to view a property you’re interested in purchasing. There doesn’t seem to be anything saying that the property has to be in the UK.
It seems to be widely understood that you can only fly abroad for work purposes, but I can’t see anything in the rules which explicitly says this. Either way, my work could be as a prospective Spanish property developer!
The 14-day isolation period is obviously restrictive when I return, but there is an exception (section 9) which allows me to leave the house during the isolation period to travel out of England. So I plan to isolate until Friday and then go back to Spain to view another property over the weekend :-).
I may be wrong about the above. I’m no legal expert, but it certainly seems worth giving it a go to escape the madness and have a few beers and nice lunches on the beaches in Spain.
Stop Press: Lottie Gross in the Telegraph says there’s nothing to stop people flying abroad at Heathrow – no one asked her if she was travelling for “business reasons” when she headed off to Gibraltar. As far as she can tell, there’s no enforcement of the rules whatsoever.
A Legal Caveat
A lawyer has sent me some words of caution about flouting the lockdown rules. Best not to be too cavalier about it, he says, or take it for granted that the rules are unenforceable in the courts.
This is the second day where the daily update has given the impression that the current lockdown rules (The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations) are unenforceable in some way or another.
While the SI is ambiguous in parts and while I am sure the CPS are not particularly keen to use it to prosecute, I think one should be careful about giving readers the impression that any excuse for breaking the regs would be legally acceptable.
As with any law, tantalising loopholes appear due to the way the various parts of the statute are structured. Will and I have had exchanges about the feasibility of communal worship where it forms part of a broadcast service and I have been asked separately about whether there is a way to keep a stables open for private lessons. In both cases one can stretch to finding a way to make it ‘legal’, but in both cases I am quite sure that the intention of the law is not to allow it. Courts are supposed to interpret statute to give effect to the intention of Parliament, so intention of law can matter where the words are ambiguous.
Notwithstanding that loopholes can be found, the basic structure of the SI is that no person can be outside the place they are living without reasonable excuse. It’s true that this is not defined as such, but we are told that:
“the circumstances in which a person has a reasonable excuse include where one of the exceptions set out in regulation 6 applies”
Reg 6 goes on to list the various exceptions, many of which are quite wide, and some of which are quite narrow. We aren’t told if “include” means that the list of exceptions in reg 6 is comprehensive or if there could be other reasonable excuses. If the list is comprehensive (as I suspect is the intention) then other ‘reasonable’ excuses would not give one legal permission to depart from one’s house.
Assuming the list is not comprehensive, we also aren’t told if the “reasonable excuse” is subjective or objective. An objective standard of “reasonableness” would tend to be higher/less permissive than a subjective one, although not always.
So while I agree that there’s room to challenge lots of the restrictions, and I personally would like to see people doing so, people have to appreciate that they might end up losing the argument if it gets as far as court.
Thanks as always for the hard and frankly amazing work.
NCIS: New Orleans: Pro-Masking Propaganda
A reader is unimpressed by the new season of NCIS: New Orleans.
Just watched the first episode of the new season of NCIS: New Orleans and a more blatant message that COVID-19 is the new plague couldn’t be put forward. Within the first two minutes the lead character had masked up in the street despite there being no one else around. Within five minutes he was quoting Boris’s “hands face space” – and this is an American show! Numerous times mask-wearing was portrayed as if it was compulsory with nearly every character wearing one. Is this what we’re up against now, television shows being used to promote how dangerous this virus is without any question? No mention of how unproven any of the science or data behind mask wearing is.
Liverpool Council Officer’s Rude Email
Ros Maidment, a retired paediatrician and member of UsForThem, emailed Steve Reddy, Liverpool Council’s Director of Children’s Services, on Sunday to express her concern about a number of letters which had gone out to parents on Friday from Liverpool schools, including primaries, informing them that their kids were going to be given a rapid Covid test on Monday. Like the Broadgreen International School, these schools don’t appear to grasp that informed consent is required before a school can carry out a medical procedure on a child – which means the parent has to opt in. The school cannot take a failure to opt out as tantamount to consent. In her email to Mr Reddy, Ros politely called this a “misunderstanding”.
“Sorry if this sounds confrontational but it really is a matter of urgency, given the testing in schools is due to start tomorrow,” she wrote.
This was the reply she received from Mr Reddy:
Dear Ros,
The only “misunderstanding” would be you thinking we are taking any notice of your emails.
You have apologised in your emails for sounding confrontational, so let me do the same.
Tomorrow morning I will request the council ICT team to put a block on so we won’t receive them anymore, it’s not great use of our time, we’ve got work to do.
Take care, stay safe and well.
Best wishes,
Steve
What a charmer!
Stop Press: Almost as rude has been the response of various professors of public health at Liverpool University involved in the mass testing programme to the queries of Allyson Pollock, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, who has some well-founded reservations about the £100 billion + “Moonshot”. You can read Allyson’s exchanges with the tetchy boffins on her website.
Stop Press: Read this excellent letter in the BMJ by Angela E. Raffle, a distinguished public health consultant, about the risks of rolling out a mass screening programme without adequate preparation.
Christmas Shop in Ipswich Stays Open by Selling Toilet Paper
An enterprising shop manager in Ipswich has managed to get around lockdown restrictions and remain open by adding some “essential” items to his shop’s shelves. Neighbouring traders, who’ve slavishly complied with the guidance, are incandescent. The East Anglian Daily Times has more.
“Furious” traders have complained that a temporary Christmas shop is staying open in Ipswich during lockdown – despite its owners saying they are selling essential items.
All non-essential stores have been ordered to close as part of the second national shutdown, which began last week.
However, certain stores selling essential items – such as food – are allowed to remain open.
The store in Tavern Street predominantly sells Christmas cards, wrapping paper and toys and gadgets – but also has a small stock of canned goods, toilet roll and cleaning items.
According to the shop’s manager, this allows them to stay open as an essential store.
The manager said: “We took the shop on in August, we’ve got a contract with the landlord that we can sell essential goods.
“We are selling essential items, so we are no different to other shops in Ipswich like B&M or Wilkos.
“If you go into those shops, they have got a load of Christmas stuff as well.
“We have got paperwork from the landlord from when we got it and we can sell essential goods, Christmas, novelty and gadgets.
“We’ve got food, disinfectants and PPE, so no different to Wilkos or B&M.”
Staff from Ipswich Borough Council visited the shop on Monday, November 9th but are yet to make a decision on the store’s future.
The shop’s manager is hereby crowned Sceptic of the Week.
London Calling
In this week’s episode of London Calling, James Delingpole and I talk about vaccines, Trump’s cold dead hands, Biden’s pro-mask fanaticism and my hunt for a new helper on Lockdown Sceptics (see job ad below). The thing James is riding in the above picture is supposed to be an opinion poll (or something) because, according to James, Trump identified him as “Britain’s best pollster” in a Tweet on Sunday afternoon, even though James isn’t a pollster. Seems like wishful thinking to me. Listen to the podcast here and subscribe on iTunes here.
Stop Press: My friend Michael Wolff has written an insightful piece about Trump and what’s likely to be going through his mind, as well as that of his family and closest advisors, for the Daily Mail. Michael’s written two books about the Trump Presidency that are flat-out hilarious. Highly recommended.
Thank the MPs Who Voted Against Lockdown 2.0
A reader has provided a helpful list of all 39 MPs who voted against the second lockdown and their email addresses so you can write to thank them.
Adam Afriyie – adam.afriyie.mp@parliament.uk
Peter Bone – bonep@parliament.uk
Sir Graham Brady – altsale@parliament.uk
Steve Brine – steve.brine.mp@parliament.uk
Christopher Chope – chopec@parliament.uk
Philip Davies – daviesp@parliament.uk
Jonathan Djanogly – jonathan.djanogly.mp@parliament.uk
Jackie Doyle-Price – Jackie.doyleprice.mp@parliament.uk
Richard Drax – Richard.drax.mp@parliament.uk
Sir Iain Duncan Smith – iain.duncansmith@parliament.uk
Marcus Fysh – marcus.fysh.mp@parliament.uk
Chris Green – chris.green.mp@parliament.uk
James Grundy – james.grundy.mp@parliament.uk
Mark Harper – mark.harper.mp@parliament.uk
Gordon Henderson – gordon.henderson.mp@parliament.uk
David Jones – katharine.huggins@parliament.uk
Tim Loughton – loughtont@parliament.uk
Craig Mackinlay – craig.mackinlay.mp@parliament.uk
Stephen Mcpartland – Stephen@stephenmcpartland.co.uk
Esther Mcvey – esther.mcvey.mp@parliament.uk
Huw Merriman – huw.merriman.mp@parliament.uk
Anne Marie Morris – annemarie.morris.mp@parliament.uk
Sir Mike Penning – mike.penning.mp@parliament.uk
John Redwood – john.redwood.mp@parliament.uk
Andrew Rosindell – andrew.rosindell.mp@parliament.uk
Henry Smith – henry.smith.mp@parliament.uk
Sir Desmond Swayne – swayned@parliament.uk
Sir Charles Walker – charles.walker.mp@parliament.uk
Craig Whittaker – craig.whittaker.mp@parliament.uk
William Wragg – william@williamwragg.org.uk
Julian Lewis – julian.lewis@parliament.uk
Paul Girvan – paul.girvan.mp@parliament.uk
Carla Lockhart – carla.lockhart.mp@parliament.uk
Ian Paisley – ian.paisley.mp@parliament.uk
Sammy Wilson – barronj@parliament.uk
Sir Robert Syms – symsmp.office@parliament.uk
Derek Thomas – derek.thomas.mp@parliament.uk
Phillip Hollobone – philip.hollobone.mp@parliament.uk
Steve Baker – steve.baker.mp@parliament.uk
Postcard From Sicily
We’ve received a postcard from a reader who’d just got back from Sicily with his wife. Sounds alright – provided you ignore the pointless red tape while travelling. Here’s an extract:
Masks stayed on, for two hours of waiting at the terminal and for the three hours’ duration of the flight. It was the first time I had been obliged to wear a mask for this length of time. The psychological effect is disturbing. It makes you feel cut off, hampered in your ability to make yourself heard, disempowered. And of course it is more difficult to hear what other people are saying to you – especially in a foreign language. Given that the WHO did not advise mask-wearing for months, and only grudgingly conceded that masks might be a good thing (while pointing out that there was no scientific evidence for it), one can only wonder whether this sense of disempowerment is precisely the effect that governments wish to achieve. My own mask has a printed text on it: MASKS ARE DEHUMANISING, DEGRADING AND INEFFECTIVE.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- “As the case for lockdown crumbles, No 10 doesn’t seem to grasp the damage it has done” – Andrew Lilico in the Telegraph regrets that the Government lacks the stomach for the impact assessment the country so urgently needs
- “Does lockdown prevent covid deaths?” – Sebastian Rushworth MD discusses the Lancet study that seems to show lockdowns have little impact on Covid mortality
- “SAGE conflicts of interest” – Dr Zoe Harcombe PhD discusses the shortcomings of SAGE, including the fact that many of its members have a vested interest in seeing vaccines being rolled out
- “Pupils forget how to spell after months out of school” – School and nursery closures have led to children regressing in basic learning and social skills, with some toddlers back in nappies and primary school pupils forgetting how to spell, Ofsted has warned.
- “Hope of quarantine-free travel after city-wide trial, says Shapps” – According to the Times, the rapid testing being trialed in Liverpool could be used to cut quarantine times in half
- “Biden urges caution despite worldwide excitement at Pfizer vaccine” – As the world celebrated Pfizer’s breakthrough, Biden unveiled his plans for mandatory outdoor masking in every state
- “Free at last! Welsh revellers hit the town” – Welsh party-goers went out for the first time in 17 days last night to celebrate the end of the ‘fire break’ lockdown
- “Oxford’s coronavirus vaccine results could be available within weeks” – Sarah Knapton in the Telegraph says the Oxford team may be ready to release results of its trials soon
- “UK vaccine taskforce chief Kate Bingham expected to quit” – According to the Guardian, the beleaguered Vaccine Taskforce Chief is about to resign after a succession of scandals
- “Peter Hitchens: ‘In 1776 America declared independence and they are jolly well entitled to it’” – Peter Hitchens on his regular slot with Mike Graham on talkRADIO
- “‘Boris Johnson subcontracted to Whitty and Vallance’” – David Mellor fleshes out his thesis in the Mail on Sunday with Dan Wootton
- “‘Lockdowns don’t work’ Former Head of Diseases, Public Health Wales Dr Roland Salmon” – Anna Brees interviews Dr Roland Salmon, who has little time for lockdowns
- “The Covid Cult” – Another talk from Thomas E. Woods Jr. Scathing
- “Call to give Scottish care home residents vitamin D” – The average care home resident in Scotland has less vitamin D than is required for normal bodily functioning, according to the Times
- “Doctors raise questions over Stormont restrictions policy” – A group of doctors in Northern Ireland have raised questions over Stormont Covid restrictions and warned that policies are being formulated on the back of modelling that has “repeatedly been proven to be incorrect”
- “Patients pay an unforgivable price for ‘saving the NHS’” – Kate Andrews in the Telegraph says the NHS has started cancelling surgeries for serious conditions again
- “If the models were wrong, why are we in lockdown?” – Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan ask the obvious question on their Planet Normal podcast
- “Sweden’s ‘Dry Tinder’ Accounts for Many COVID-19-deaths” – Jonas Harvey on the the AIER blog says the reason Sweden had a higher Covid death toll than neighbouring countries is because it had two mild flu seasons on the trot, meaning many vulnerable souls who normally would have died of the flu survived to April 2020 and, then, sadly died from COVID-19 instead
- The Zero Covid Campaign – A group of hard leftists and militant trade unionists have launched the “Zero Covid” campaign, arguing for even stricter, more draconian lockdowns until the virus has been completely eliminated – which, now that it’s endemic, is impossible, obviously. Given that it’s the most disadvantaged who suffer during lockdowns, and their’s will go on forever, the Left’s ongoing support for this bonkers strategy is a head-scratcher
- “High prevalence of pre-existing serological cross-reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in sub-Sahara Africa” – Important new paper in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases showing that exposure to other coronaviruses may induce cross-reactive antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in sub-Sahara Africa
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “The Coronavirus Song” performed by an unknown due in an Irish bar. Lockdown Sceptics readers will enjoy this one.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, I’m highlighting a Harvard University advertisement for an Associate University Librarian for Antiracism.
The Harvard Library seeks a collaborative, strategic, and results-oriented leader for the newly created position of Associate University Librarian for Antiracism.
The ideal candidate for this position will have a broad vision for the role of antiracism in shaping the future of research libraries and achieving institutional excellence, as well as a strong track record in managing change, building and supporting initiatives that promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and a sophisticated understanding of anti-racism philosophy and resources. With strong support of the library’s senior leadership, the AUL for Antiracism will help synthesize, integrate and further catalyze the library’s equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, and antiracism efforts across all aspects of the library’s mission…
Responsibilities
Reporting to the Vice President (VP) for the Harvard Library and University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Associate University Librarian (AUL) for Antiracism is a collaborative leader whose primary focus is the development of the Harvard Library as an exemplary antiracist research library. The AUL serves as an active member of the VP’s senior team, sharing in responsibility for library-wide planning and resource allocation, and providing vision and advice on organizational development, diversity and social justice matters, communication strategies, and crisis management. The AUL engages as a thought-leader with colleagues across the Harvard Library and faculty, students and staff across the university in advancing strategies for an inclusive library climate and all aspects of equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging and antiracism in the library’s workforce, services, collections and spaces. This includes developing and implementing measurable goals and metrics, and using data, research and evidence-based practice to identify and change systems, structures, policies, practices and individual behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism. The AUL’s direct reports are individuals on the library’s new antiracism team, which will include librarians with roles such as collection development and research services as well as the Harvard Library Human Resources team’s diversity specialist. The AUL builds collaborative relationships with diversity leaders across the university and represents the library on related university councils, and coordinates library responses to emerging local, national, or global events that affect the experience of students, faculty and/or staff from historically marginalized groups and populations.
You have until December 13th to apply.
Stop Press: More nonsense from Harvard.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Mask Censorship: The Swiss Doctor has translated the article in a Danish newspaper about the suppressed Danish mask study. Largest RCT on the effectiveness of masks ever carried out. Rejected by three top scientific journals so far.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and my Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics, so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 650,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
Christian Concern is JR-ing the Government over its insistence on closing churches during the lockdowns. Read about it here.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
We’re Hiring
Lockdown Sceptics is looking to hire someone to help us write the daily update. This will involve producing a daily update yourself two or three times a week – so a page exactly like this one – under your own byline. The ideal candidate will have some journalistic background, be able to work quickly under pressure and know their way around WordPress. We can pay you £75 for each update. If you’re interested, email us here and put “Job Application” in the subject line.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
And Finally…
This routine from comedian the late George Carlin about our neurotic fear of germs is right on the money. Incredibly, it was recorded in 1999.
Stop Press: James Herriot makes exactly the same point as Carlin in All Creatures Great and Small. He writes about a knacker’s yard, where the family recycled dead livestock into soap and glue…
There were eight young Mallocks and they had spent their lifetimes playing among tuberculous lungs and a vast spectrum of bacteria from Salmonella to Anthrax. They were the healthiest children in the district.
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.
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.