Vaccine Rollout Continues Apace
The Telegraph reported yesterday that momentum is gathering behind the rollout of the vaccine.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine roll out is being ramped up across the UK, after Boris Johnson promised vaccines would soon be available to people within 10 miles of their home.
The Prime Minister confirmed that as of January 7th, with the Pfizer and Oxford jabs combined, 1.26 million people in England and over 1.5 million across the UK have been vaccinated.
The latest figures show an increase of 200,000 vaccinations in one day, and includes more than 650,000 people over 80, which is 23% of all the over-80s in England.
As he announced the national lockdown that began on January 5th, the Prime Minister insisted that that there is “one huge difference” compared to the lockdown of last March.
“We are rolling out the biggest vaccination programme in our history,” he said. “We have vaccinated more people in the UK than in the rest of Europe combined.
“By the middle of February if things go well, and with a wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups identified by the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation.”
595 GP-led sites are already providing vaccines, which should increase to 1,000 by the end of next week according to Mr Johnson. There are also 107 hospital sites with a “further 100 later this week”, he added.
Also contributing to this “unprecedented national effort” will be the armed forces, who are set to be drafted in to help run mass vaccination centres in sports stadiums and public venues.
It is a good thing that those in the priority groups who want it are getting the vaccine, including the Queen and Prince Phillip, not least as this is a form of focused protection as recommended by the authors of the Great Barrington declaration. In the Wall Street Journal last month they wrote:
Given these facts, the Great Barrington Declaration calls for focused protection for the vulnerable. That means directing limited resources, now including vaccines, to shield these people from infection.
Vaccinating vulnerable groups as quickly as possible isn’t just about protecting them – it’s also about protecting the NHS. Writing in the Telegraph yesterday, Juliet Samuel pointed out that the key to lifting restrictions lies with easing the strain on hospitals.
Thankfully, there is a windfall headed our way, in the form of the Covid vaccines. In seven weeks, if all goes to plan, the vast majority of the demographics most likely to die of this disease will be largely immune. That should be more than enough to end the lockdown.
The Government is keen to attach long lists of conditionals to this promise, however. Asked about it, Boris would only say that in the spring, “very much I hope there will be the chance, to look at some relaxations of restrictions”.
The factor to watch is not actually the rollout of the vaccine programme, but the hospitalisation rate and the performance of the NHS. The race is not between death and vaccinations, but between vaccinations and beds.
Organised societies have always had to make trade-offs about the value of human life. What’s so odd about the British approach, however, is that we have replaced the sanctity of human life with the sanctity of the health system. If the NHS had double the capacity, the policy would no doubt be to tolerate twice the death rate. This tells us something about the perceived role of Government. It isn’t there to save lives, as such, but to look like it might be able to save lives. “Our NHS” is an emotional rallying cry not because it is a brilliantly effective system (God knows it’s not) or even because many of its staff work very hard, but because it is a structure we rely upon to hide our vulnerability. It is about the ideal, rather than the grim reality.
The problem with an ideal is that it easily eludes a cost-benefit analysis. Against it, you must raise other ideals: universal education, for example, or freedom. Covid policy tells us that none of these ideals currently have the same power as the promise of a hospital bed staffed by a caring nurse. If the reality falls, the Government gets the blame.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Writing in the Sunday Times, Robert Collville calls for the NHS to be rebuilt to withstand the next crisis.
Stop Press 2: A retired GP has got in touch to point out how difficult it is to volunteer as a vaccinator.
My wife and I and another retired GP here in north east Scotland wanted to volunteer as unpaid vaccinators. As general practices here are not involved in the vaccination programme, the only way to get involved is for us to apply for jobs as grade 5 nurses working for NHS Grampian on a short term contract. We have done so, but interviews are not until after January 17th. Then will come training, so you can see where this is going. Why on Earth did they not have this vaccination workforce ready for the beginning of January?
Panicking the Public? How Covid Stories Don’t Add Up
Christine Padgham has an written an interesting piece for Think Scotland looking into the problems the pandemic response is creating, both now and in the future.
On Friday, Nicola Sturgeon addressed the nation yet again and openly considered the possibility of tightening current Covid restrictions further. Where is Scotland now? How did we get here? Where are we going?
Let me lay my cards on the table: I’m a lockdown sceptic. But like any good scientist/sceptic, I am constantly re-evaluating my position. Every day I ask myself repeatedly: am I wrong?
I’d love to be wrong.
So yesterday, in an act of unusually brave self-flagellation, I listened to BBC News. I was dutifully informed that hospitals are about to collapse in South East England. I am quite familiar with the English hospital data and so I am aware that there are hospitals struggling there, and this is clearly worrying. It makes me wonder if I’m wrong about the situation in Scotland, but then again the statistics were released as usual at 2.00pm. My fear was once again fed that we in Scotland will never get out of this positive feedback loop we are in: our obsessive fear and testing of Covid is creating more of a problem than the disease itself.
The problems we are storing up are: medical, societal, personal, economic, democratic. The present and future damages just go on and on.
Our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, thinks that Covid impact is reduced by limiting social contact. This has become her whole Covid mitigation strategy, along with many other leaders around the world. She has created this idea, which has stuck, that humans generally, and Government specifically, can manage the spread of a virus. She has sold this idea relentlessly, with the help of the media, who have provided her with endless propaganda to help. Now, if she wants to reduce cases, the only tool at her disposal is to further reduce social contact – without regard or respect for the costs of such measures; the costs we know land disproportionately on the most vulnerable: the children, the elderly, the poor.
But many people have had enough and their number is growing. We are heading for a crisis whichever way you look at it and it seems that people are perhaps beginning to understand this.
Put simply, there is no evidence that lockdown works to prevent the spread of a virus.
We know the Government told us this in March and it was correct. Lockdown and the quarantine of the healthy is a bizarre experiment – never tried before but not treated as the experiment it is. We talk as if we have always dealt with viruses this way. There has been no rigorous analysis of the virological results of lockdown at all, much less the societal effects. We haven’t asked what effects this will have on our immunity either. Are we storing up huge health problems for next year and the years beyond?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A new data site has been launched called Inform Scotland for those “who share a common concern that contextualised data on Covid in Scotland is not as easily available as it should be, and that Scotland lacks forums where critical and informed discussion of this data and the policies which are claimed to rest on it can take place”. Looks very good.
Stop Press 2: A reminder that Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance is himself a lockdown sceptic – or was. Ahead of the first Lockdown in March, the Evening Standard reported his comments on Sky News:
If you completely locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more then you would suppress this virus,
All of the evidence from previous epidemics suggests that when you do that and then you release it, it all comes back again.
The other part of this is to make sure that we don’t end up with a sudden peak again in the winter which is even larger which causes even more problems.
So we want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely which you can’t do anyway, not suppress it so we get the second peak and also allow enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune to this to help with the whole population response which would protect everybody.
New Study: Assessing the Impact of Lockdowns on COVID-19
John P. A. Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, Professor Jay Bhattacharya, a founding signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, and other colleagues at Stanford University, have published a new, fully peer-reviewed study. Their objective was to assess the impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions adopted by many countries in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The spread of COVID-19 has led to multiple policy responses that aim to reduce the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2. The principal goal of these so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is to reduce transmission in the absence of pharmaceutical options in order to reduce resultant death, disease, and health system overload. Some of the most restrictive NPI policies include mandatory stay-at-home and business closure orders (“lockdowns”). The early adoption of these more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) in early 2020 was justified because of the rapid spread of the disease, overwhelmed health systems in some hard-hit places, and substantial uncertainty about the virus’s morbidity and mortality.
Because of the potential harmful health effects of mrNPI, including hunger, opioid-related overdoses, missed vaccinations, increase in non-COVID-19 diseases from missed health services, domestic abuse, mental health and suicidality as well as a host of economic consequences with health implications, it is increasingly recognized that their postulated benefits deserve careful study… We propose an approach that balances the strengths of empirical analyses while taking into consideration underlying epidemic dynamics. We compare epidemic spread in places that implemented mrNPIs to counterfactuals that implemented only less-restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs). In this way, it may be possible to isolate the role of mrNPIs, net of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics. Here, we use Sweden and South Korea as the counterfactuals to isolate the effects of mrNPIs in countries that implemented mrNPIs as well as lrNPIs. Unlike most of its neighbors that implemented mandatory stay-at-home and business closures, Sweden’s approach in the early stages of the pandemic relied entirely on lrNPIs, including social distancing guidelines, discouraging of international and domestic travel, and a ban on large gatherings. South Korea also did not implement mrNPIs. Its strategy relied on intensive investments in testing, contact tracing, and isolation of infected cases and close contacts.
They describe their methodology as follows:
We estimate the unique effects of mrNPIs on case growth rate during the northern hemispheric spring of 2020 in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States by comparing the effect of NPIs in these countries to those in Sweden and South Korea (separately). The data we use builds on an analysis of NPI effects and consists of daily case numbers in subnational administrative regions of each country (e.g. regions in France, provinces in Iran, states in the US, and counties in Sweden), merged with the type and timing of policies in each administrative region…
It is important to note that because the true number of infections is not visible in any country, it is impossible to assess the impact of national policies on transmission of new infections. Instead, we follow other studies evaluating the effects of NPIs that use case numbers, implicitly assuming that their observed dynamics may represent a consistent shadow of the underlying infection dynamics.
Having set out their method, they say:
In the framework of this analysis, there is no evidence that more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (“lockdowns”) contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in early 2020. By comparing the effectiveness of NPIs on case growth rates in countries that implemented more restrictive measures with those that implemented less restrictive measures, the evidence points away from indicating that mrNPIs provided additional meaningful benefit above and beyond lrNPIs. While modest decreases in daily growth (under 30%) cannot be excluded in a few countries, the possibility of large decreases in daily growth due to mrNPIs is incompatible with the accumulated data…
They then turn to the winter surge in case numbers.
During the northern hemisphere autumn and winter of 2020, many countries, especially in Europe and the US, experienced a large wave of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Those waves were met with new (or renewed) NPIs, including mrNPIs in some countries (e.g. England) and lrNPIs in others (e.g. Portugal) that had used mrNPIs in the first wave. The spread of infections in countries that were largely spared in the spring (e.g. Austria and Greece) further highlight the challenges and limited ability of NPIs to control the spread of this highly transmissible respiratory virus. Empirical data for the characteristics of fatalities in the later wave before mrNPIs were adopted as compared with the first wave (when mrNPIs had been used) shows that the proportion of COVID-19 deaths that occurred in nursing homes was often higher under mrNPIs rather than under less restrictive measures. This further suggests that restrictive measures do not clearly achieve protection of vulnerable populations. Some evidence also suggests that sometimes under more restrictive measures, infections may be more frequent in settings where vulnerable populations reside relative to the general population.
Finally, they conclude:
In summary, we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID-19 in early 2020. We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures. The data cannot fully exclude the possibility of some benefits. However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmissions may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures.
It’s quite technical, but worth taking the time to read in full.
Stop Press: A new study in Sweden has found that Schoolteachers were no more likely to catch COVID-19 than the rest of the population when Sweden remained open during the first lockdown.
Ivermectin
In the round-up, yesterday we linked to video letter from Dr Tess Lawrie of the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy in Bath to the Prime Minister concerning the potential of Ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19. The video, as many readers found, swiftly and mysteriously disappeared from YouTube so we’ve moved the story up here to give it greater prominence. Dr Lawrie’s message is still available on the consultancy’s website, together with the report and the related press release (pdf) which provides more detail:
New British research has examined and pooled data from a wide range of international studies – including Argentina, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Spain, Egypt, India and the US – and found that the anti-parasitic medicine Ivermectin not only reduces deaths from COVID-19, but can be used to protect doctors and nurses – as well as others who have had “contacts‟ with ill people – from getting the infection.
The report was published last week by an independent UK-based medical research company, the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd (E-BMC).
The research was conducted to support the recent findings of Dr Pierre Kory and clinical experts of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) in the US. Doctors around the world are now working together to raise awareness of this life-saving medicine which probably reduces the risk of a person dying from COVID-19 by between 65% and 95%.
In addition, the researchers believe that ivermectin should be offered as a prophylactic measure to health care workers as soon as possible because the analysis shows that ivermectin substantially reduces COVID-19 infections in these at risk groups.
The conclusions of the new global research are so clear that it is believed Ivermectin should be viewed as an essential drug to reduce the severity of illness and fatalities caused by the COVID-19 virus.
In most studies included in the review, the doses of Ivermectin given were similar to those given for common parasitic infections in humans (e.g. 0.2mg/kg orally, equivalent to a 12mg tablet for a 6kg adult).
Commenting on the research, Dr Tess Lawrie of the E-BMC, said, “This is really good news. Ivermectin will have a significant impact on the battle against COVID-19
Meanwhile, over in the USA, Drs Pierre Kory and Paul Marik of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance appeared before the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel to present the latest evidence on ivermectin. The press release (pdf) which followed said:
The doctors explained to the panel that numerous clinical studies, including peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials, showed large magnitude benefits of ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment and also in late-stage disease. Taken together, the doctors reported that the dozens of clinical trials that have now emerged from around the world are substantial enough to reliably assess clinical efficacy.
Specifically, the FLCCC physicians and Dr. Hill presented data from 18 randomized controlled trials that included over 2,100 patients. The trial results demonstrated that ivermectin produces faster viral clearance, faster time to hospital discharge, faster time to clinical recovery, and a 75% reduction
in mortality rates.“In order to save thousands who will die while waiting for their turn to receive the vaccine, it is imperative that treatment guidelines issued by the NIH over four months ago be updated to reflect the strength of the data for ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment, and late-stage disease,” said Dr. Kory, FLCCC president, following the hearing.
Ivermectin has not yet been approved by any of the relevant authorities in the UK as a COVID-19 treatment, but with so much emphasis being placed on rollout of the various vaccines it is worth considering that there are other potential drugs that could have been part of the solution.
Boris’s Latest Rules are More Baffling Than Ever
Charles Holland, a lawyer who writes regularly for the Spectator, has examined the rules of the new Lockdown and he is not impressed:
When Boris Johnson rolled back the legal restrictions over summer as Britain emerged from the first lockdown, he was clear that enough was enough:
“Neither the police themselves, nor the public that they serve, want virtually every aspect of our behaviour to be the subject of the criminal law… After a long period of asking… the British public to follow very strict and complex rules to bring coronavirus under control… we will be asking [people] to follow guidance on limiting their social contact, rather than forcing them to do so through legislation.”
There has obviously been a sharp U-turn in this approach and though previous rule changes have been justified on the basis of making them easier for the public to understand and for the police to enforce it would be hard to mount such a defence now, says Charles Holland.
The law is very complex, the mere 12 pages of regulations for the English Lockdown 1 have been superseded by 120 pages of the (thrice amended) Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020. Intricacy more appropriate to the Dungeons and Dragons’ rulebook has not stopped an accompanying barrage of guidance, ministerial statements, spokespersons’ clarifications, police pronouncements, public information posters and pop-ups…
The circumstances in which a person may leave their Tier 4 home to access childcare services, for example, has been subject to wholesale amendment three times in less than three weeks. Sparing readers the tedious technical ebbs and flows, the current position reserves the use of a particular species of childcare to parents who are “critical workers”, but only where “reasonably necessary” to enable them “to work or search for work, undertake training or education, or to attend a medical appointment or address a medical need'”.
Parking the checklist-style complexity, it is difficult understand the rhyme or reason for this sort of cheese-paring. Why is it reasonable for a critical worker to put their child in childcare in order to attend a job interview, but not to attend a funeral?
Matters are made worse by guidance which overstates the law. The latest lockdown guidance resurrects previously challenged advice that exercise “should be limited to once per day”. The word ‘should’ (not ‘must’) indicates to lawyers that this is non-legally binding advice. Non-lawyers, such as the ambulant constable or PCSO in your local park, may not draw such nice distinctions. The Met’s ominous suggestion that Londoners can “expect officers to be more inquisitive as to why they see them out and about” raises the spectre of al fresco debates on restrictions and exceptions. There is plenty to debate: the regulations now set out 16 non-exhaustive categories of circumstances deemed to be a reasonable excuse to leave the home, with an overlay of non-enforceable guidance to further confuse what is already unclear. Derbyshire Constabulary, in particular, have once more come under the spotlight for what appears to be enforcement of guidance (exercise locally) rather than the law.
The gilding of the law with guidance remains a continuing mystery. If you want exercise to be limited to once per day or to be taken locally, why not legislate for that? Why devalue the legislative currency, already under pressure because of the sheer volume of regulatory output? Press reports suggested that the Government did consider travel restrictions, and even a night-time curfew, but was not prepared to go that far.
Further confusion arises from post-legislative departmental ‘clarification’. Lockdown 3 saw the removal of the express ‘recreation’ exemption from the stay-at-home rule: within two days, representations from angling and shooting organisations had caused Government officials to ‘acknowledge’ that fishing and shooting constitute ‘exercise’, and thus within a permitted exception…
Why does this matter? Because the cost of lockdown will be squandered unless it works. The great unanswered question is this: is the current combination of laws, guidance and enforcement policies the best mechanism to achieve the minimum in social mixing and concomitant reduction in transmission of the virus? I’m not convinced.
No-one would envy Government the task of coming up with the right mixture of rules and imploring people to use their common sense. But constant tweaking of the criminal law to micromanage ways in which people might need to venture out of the front door and interact has produced a mush of overwhelming complexity. This is a gift to both the loophole spotter and the overzealous enforcer. It undermines enforcement against the irresponsible, who can – and do – use complexity of the law as justification for not understanding it. The resurgence of arbitrary lines of fine-tuning also undermines a message that would be more effective if put simply.
So while Boris’s broadcast message to “stay at home” was straightforward, the rules are anything but. There are too many regulations. They are too complicated. And Government advice only adds to this confusion.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Telegraph is reporting that police will issue fines to rule breakers after one warning.
Stop Press 2: The police do themselves get caught out occasionally. A number of officers were spotted tucking into breakfast inside a café. A clear breach of the rules and the matter is being investigated according to MailOnline.
The Military Approach to Managing the Crisis – Focused Protection
C2C journal has an interview with David Redmond, the former head of Alberta’s counter-terrorism strategy and an ex-military man. He draws on decades of high-level military experience to offer a robust alternative to Canada’s pandemic response.
C2C Journal: Throughout this crisis we’ve heard plenty from public health officials and doctors, and to a lesser-degree from economists and assorted other public policy experts. But while it’s popular to talk about how we are “at war” with COVID-19, we’ve heard next to nothing from the people who actually know how to win wars. Take us through the military perspective on how we should be battling this disease.
David Redman: The first step to resolving emergencies is to respect the planning process. From the time I was a lieutenant, the army taught me to begin with what we called the Estimate of Situation. Once you have your problem, you analyse the mission: Who is your enemy? Who are your allies? What tasks are given? What tasks are implied? What can go wrong? After many years working with Government and the private sector, I’ve discovered that the knowledge and skills required for this sort of operational planning are severely lacking outside the military.
When an emergency happens, you need a process to create a plan, and then you need to follow that plan. Since the 1950s every Government in this country has had a set of emergency plans: what to do in the case of a forest fire, flood, dangerous goods accident or pandemic etc. These are all updated regularly. Alberta’s pandemic plan was last updated in 2014.
But what happened in the middle of March when COVID-19 appeared on our shores after wreaking havoc in China, Italy, Spain and France? Governments took every plan they’d ever written and threw them all out the window. No one followed the process. They panicked, put the doctors in charge and hid for three months. And now, having made that mistake, we can’t get out of it.
C2C: Why is it a mistake to put doctors in charge of a pandemic?
DR: The short answer is that a pandemic is not a public health emergency. It is a public emergency. These are two very different things. Public health emergencies are best used for local outbreaks of disease. An outbreak of measles in a single community that can be isolated could be considered a public health emergency. A provincewide or nationwide pandemic should never be declared a public health emergency because the powers that you need and the people who are going to be affected go far beyond the health care system. It affects every citizen, every industry, every non-profit organization. Everything.
The problem with our COVID-19 response is that power has been placed in the wrong place. Why? Because Governments adopted the wrong mission statement. The first principle of war is the selection and maintenance of the aim. If you miss on that, things are going to go very poorly. Across the country it appears to me that our aim has been to minimize the number of people who catch COVID-19. That is repeatedly reflected in the media. The daily case count is the most important thing in every daily newscast and every news story. It’s all the politicians seem to talk about. This is wrong…
C2C: Rather than put doctors in charge, what should we have done in response to COVID-19 in those first crucial months last spring?
DR: Since the middle of March, we had access to reliable statistics from China, Spain, Italy, France that showed quite clearly 70% of all deaths arising from Covid-19 were of people over the age of 80. Another 18% were 70 to 79 years old. Only 3.5% were under the age of 60. And less than 1% of the people who’d died up to that point didn’t have at least one pre-existing underlying medical complication. This wasn’t September. This was March. We knew very quickly what Covid-19 was doing – it was killing old people who had severe comorbidities. The immediate response should have been: how do we protect those people?
As we say in the military, an 80% solution applied with vigour immediately is better than a 100% solution applied too late. What holds in a battle holds in pandemics too. First, we should have identified every concentration of vulnerable people, including all nursing homes, hospitals and palliative care homes. Then comprehensive options should have been developed to quarantine both the residents of these facilities and the staff who supported them. Support and relief systems for these staff and surge capacity should have been discussed back in March. Instead each new outbreak in a seniors home seemed to come as a surprise.
Can this man please be placed in charge of coordinating Britain’s response to the next pandemic?
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “Rapid rollout of Covid testing blitz for people cannot work at home” – Perhaps in an effort to put people off from venturing out the house, Matt Hancock has announced a new community testing scheme with an article in the Mail on Sunday
- “Spring polls set to be put on hold” – The Sunday Times reports that spring elections may be delayed until autumn. That will mean Sadiq Khan remaining in office for 18 months after his term of office expired
- “Holiday-makers face being trapped abroad under new rules preventing them from travelling home if they fail a Covid test” – Report in the Mail On Sunday. When Grant Shapps makes new rules, travel chaos ensues
- “Telling us our exams have been scrapped is the final straw” – A-level student Beatrice Gove (daughter of Michael and Sarah) describes the impact of the lockdowns on her and her friends in a powerful piece in the Mail on Sunday
- “Neil Ferguson puts his faith in the herd” – An interview with the infamous disease modeller in the Sunday Times. He is “optimistic” about 2021, saying “there is a scenario” in which we have “fewer restrictions than we have now” in the autumn and things are “almost basically back to normal”. God help us
- “OECD: Lockdowns here to stay, even with vaccine plan” – The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development thinks lockdowns will be with us for another six to nine months, according to the BBC
- “Professor Sunetra Gupta, 5th January 2021” – Listen to Professor Sunetra Gupta’s recent appearance on the Today programme on Radio 4
- “Even in a pandemic, citizens should be free to ask difficult questions” – Excellent leader defending lockdown scepticism in yesterday’s Telegraph
- “I am, for the first time, afraid for the future of freedom in my country” – The latest from anti-lockdown stalwart Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday. He feels a dark, oppressive foreboding about the current situation
- “We are the lockdown lab rats” – Provocative piece by Andrew Cadman for the Conservative Woman. COVID-19 offers scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to test their theories and he wonders if the scientific quest is skewing the advice they give to Governments
- “It’s vital to inoculate against tunnel vision” – The Government’s decision-making process is not based on science, writes David Seedhouse for the Conservative Woman
- “France’s vaccine chaos will come back to haunt Macron where it hurts” – Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in the Telegraph, offering some insight into French difficulties in rolling out its vaccination programme
- “Chinese capital on alert as cases rise next door in Hebei” – The South China Morning Post reports that Beijing is on alert after 33 new cases were identified in Hubei
- “Majority of Canadians in recent poll support stricter COVID-19 lockdowns, hefty fines for rulebreakers” – The National Post reports on a poll which suggests that Canadians have developed a taste for authoritarian lockdowns. This was brought to our attention by a man in Canada who points out that the country ranks 51st in the world in deaths per million, with 443 compared to the UK’s 1,188
- “False Reports of a New ‘U.S. Variant’ Came From White House Task Force” – “Reports of a highly contagious new coronavirus variant in the United States, published on Friday by multiple news outlets” were “based on speculative statements” by Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Task Force, according to the New York Times. An illustration of the dangers of high-speed syndication
- “The Liberal-Left Has Gone Fully Illiberal” – Jenin Younes, writing for the AIER blog, is astonished at how the liberal-left has embraced authoritarian policies, ostensibly to manage the pandemic
- “Philippe Lemoine on the Case for Lockdown Scepticism” – Listen to Philippe Lemoine speak with Jonathan Key on the Quillette podcast, as they address the risks of forced isolation and discuss how lockdowns are supported by models based on flawed assumptions and how their benefits may well be the result of disease-avoidant behaviour that most of us would engage in anyway
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Five today: “Something Better Change” by The Stranglers, “A Winter’s Tale” by David Essex, “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel (featuring Kate Bush), “United We Stand” by Brotherhood of Man and “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones.
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 as well as post comments below the line, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing Stories
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Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, we bring you the University of Pennsylvania’s Athletics Department which has just adopted the recommendations of its Racial Justice Task Force. Campus Reform has the story:
The University of Pennsylvania’s Athletics Department approved a series of diversity-related recommendations from its “Racial Justice Task Force,” including a “permanent shared space for Black student-athletes” which is also open to “allies and non-athletes.”
Director of Penn Athletics and Recreation M. Grace Calhoun and the Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics unanimously affirmed the task force’s recommendations.
Penn Athletics states that “these recommendations have been created as a beginning, not a conclusion” in the process of making the athletics department into a “more diverse, inclusive, anti-racist organisation.”
The athletics department will create a “permanent shared space for Black student-athletes,” which will also be open to “allies and non-athletes.” This centre will also be “open late night and early morning with swipe access,” and include work-study opportunities “funded by the Black Student-Athlete Fund”.
Among the task force’s short-term goals is the hiring of an “Athletic Diversity & Inclusion” designee, who will be “solely dedicated to job responsibilities focusing on diversity and inclusion”. In the long-term, the University is recommended to “secure funding for and hire a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer”.
The task force notes that financial restrictions may apply in the short-term and therefore recommended that an existing staff member serve alongside a “group of diverse staff” which will assist with implementing the task force’s other recommendations…
According to the recommendation, student-athletes will view a one-hour video entitled “Broadening Your Perspectives”. Then, students will be divided into 30-person groups to discuss the video and view additional content.
In the long-term, staff members will undergo training during in-services, as well as implicit bias training for hiring managers “on an ongoing basis”.
Chance Layton, Communications and Membership Coordinator for the National Association of Scholars, told Campus Reform that “the intention of creating a space marketed for ‘Black student-athletes and club sport athletes’ is straightforward neo-segregation. Racially segregated spaces are not ‘separate but equal,’ and they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t exist, period.”
“Had this draft plan stuck with community engagement and enrichment, especially for the community around Penn, it might have served its purpose,” he added. “Instead, the drafters have opted to worsen race relations on campus.”
Stop Press: Over in the Critic, David Scullion has noted that the Germans are rethinking the names they give to weather events.
Before 1998 in Germany cloudy low pressure weather systems used to have female names and sunny highs were male, demonstrating beyond doubt the patriarchal nature of the planet. But now fearless activists [sic] journalists have uncovered another profound injustice in our atmosphere: the fact that German storms are given German names. The group have just started something called #WeatherCorrection, and no, it’s nothing as sinister as the cloud-seeding that tyrants reportedly do to make sure their birthday is sunny, it’s just a harmless plot by the New German Media Makers to re-make the weather in their image. The group have started naming weather fronts foreign-names instead of German ones as an awareness campaign in which they also want the media to impose race quotas when hiring. In Germany anyone can name a weather system; it’s €360 for a sunny high but €240 for a rainy low. Of course, placing a lower value on so-called “worse” weather is problematic, as is the discriminatory practice of only accepting euro payments when placing your political ad in the sky, but it’s progress. The next task will be combatting the white fragility of snowflakes and re-naming the earth’s light-source something a bit less male.
Stop Press 2: Tom Slater has written a good column in the Sunday Times on how we let IT guys censor a President. Brendan O’Neill has something to say about it too, in Spiked-Online.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And 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. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
Stop Press: A reader has got in touch to challenge the perception that the populations of Asian countries have always been enthusiastic mask wearers.
I have lived in Asia for most of the last 20 years (China and Malaysia) and travelled extensively throughout the region during that time.
So it is with absolute authority that I can say that the claim that wearing masks in public in Asian countries was common prior to this Covid crisis is complete and utter rubbish. I have seen this assertion made on numerous occasions by politicians and others here in Britain. It simply isn’t true.
Prior to the Covid crisis, masks could be seen from time to time on a very small proportion of people, primarily as a protection against severe pollution (for which a mask definitely does help). In more recent times I have encountered the odd person with a cold wearing a mask out of consideration but this is something I have encountered perhaps half a dozen times over a period of 20 years.
The idea that mask wearing was widespread prior to the Covid crisis is just not true and the few people that did wear them did so primarily to protect themselves from pollution.
If our hope is a complete return to normality at some point, I think it is essential that this claim of widespread mask wearing in Asia prior to Covid be called out for the misinformation that it is.
Have other readers had a similar experience of mask wearing in the East Asia? Let us know here.
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 in October 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 Toby’s 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 three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD 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.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road. The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. 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 and Runnymede Trust’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.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
Stop Press: A new group called Lawyers for Liberty are supporting the Robin Tilbrook case against the Government examining whether the Government has acted constitutionally in enacting a lockdown. They are asking for witness statements from UK-based business owners, large or small, who have been forced to close, as the group’s spokesperson, Jo Rogers, explains:
Are you a business owner forced to close your business premises as a result of lockdowns? @L4L_UK and @pcrclaims are supporting a current court case. Click link to receive a standard witness statement tmw: https://t.co/26M8aBRjVl – Qs on harms to children next week pic.twitter.com/P2gpcJ5u8c
— Jo Rogers(@JoRogersUK) January 6, 2021
You can access the form to submit a statement on their Democracy Declaration page, and you can learn more about the group from this interview with Jo Rogers.
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.
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…
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Sad? No, it’s monstrous.
And evil.
Brainwashed…
You do not know just how true that is.
There are protests but not enough. Now DeWaffle Johnson is spouting climate nonsense
You are being lied to! My son is dead, he took the vaccine.
The Vaccine give her son blood clots in the head
https://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell/9391
Upcoming peaceful anti lockdown events – and we mean peaceful
Wednesday 22nd September 5.30pm
A322 Downshire Way/Twin Bridges Roundabout
Bracknell RG12 7AA
Saturday 2nd October 2pm
GRAND STAND IN THE PARK BERKSHIRE
– with a couple of guest speakers and a stroll thought the town centre at the end
Reading River Promenade
Reading RG4 8BX
Saturday 16th October 1pm
Combined Berks/Bucks/Oxon/Surrey MEGA Yellow Board-Hold the Line
Stafferton Way
Maidenhead
SL6 1AY
Stand in the Park Make friends – keep sane – talk freedom and have a laugh
Reading River Promenade Sundays 10am
Join our Telegram group https://t.me/standindparkreading
Bracknell South Hill Park Sundays 10am & Wednesdays 2pm
Join our Telegram group http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
It is also deeply depressing, though.
Indeed
Sad is not the right word
This article is frankly pure BS, I was in Malta during the summer… yes mask were seen, but did I wear one… NO mostly not. Ditto in Sicily… and Crotone southern Italia… where the under 30s were full bore on “passeggiata” and were droves of them keeling over from the plague from these nightly super-spreader beach-side events… ergh? Nope.
Ditto Corfu and Greece… for sure in Athens more of the mask clad could be seen… if over 50s…but the vast majority of people know this is BS and act OLD NORMAL accordingly…
These current case number uplifts are vaxx related not wild variant whu-flu driven…
Watch and learn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obdI7tgKLtA
Meanwhile this weeks Kunstler is a must:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/and-then-everything-happens-at-once/
No. On the whole it’s Not BS. I’m currently in southern Spain and when indoors in 98% of establishments you must wear a face mask. A few, very few, establishments are quietly ignoring it. Since june 23rd the spanish have not been required to wear masks outside. Yet, depressingly the majority still cling to wearing face masks outdoors. It will take a very long time for the insidious covid group think to loosen its hold over people’s psyche of fear.
They. Strap. Plasticised. Gags. To. Their. Faces. In. 90 degree Heat.
Morons.
It’s mainly the fear of social disapproval. Everybody knows there is no virus. But you must be seen to be doing your part.
It may well be the case where you are visiting in southern Spain Raquel, but rest assured the whole of Spain isn’t like that. I have been retired here on the Costa Azahar (Valencia region) for over 20 years, and yes, ‘covidiocy’ is amply demonstrated by dyed-in-the-wool mask wearers, proving the Abe Lincoln maxim to be true: “You can fool some of the people all of the time” (eg lone mask wearers driving their car).
Since the lifting of the alfresco mask mandate in june I am heartened to report that beaches here are virtually mask free zones. Bar terraces ditto. Yes, if you wish to drink inside, or visit the loo some establishments insist on masking, but most can’t be arsed imposing such nonsense. Long may it continue.
I am an unjabbed, healthy septugenarian and shall forgo my beloved globe-trotting, believing it a small price to pay to avoid becoming a lab-rat.
The experience from Spain is masks are warn indoors it is obligatory. Marks are warn where social distancing cannot be obtained. So the rules are there. It is simply not worth the effort to pull down your mask if and when you can keep a distance. Only to pull it up when you are approaching others.
It is not bullpoo.
Face masks everywhere in Finland. 99% compliance? Schoolkids aged 12 up have been getting the jabbings for the past 5 weeks. Everyone in Finland thinks the ‘vaccines’ are great and believe everything the government tells them.
Spain counted any death with a positive PCR at any time, i.e. no cut off, as a Covid death.
https://mobile.twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1438633874477682691
It’s in official documents.
That also explains wild regional variations as you’d expect viral spread to be largely uniform across a nation, and, if not, it points to data issues (or manipulation)
Unfortunately, the people of Italy and Spain, within living memory, have lived under totalitarian regimes – it’s something they have been conditioned to accept.
True. And so has most of Europe. But I see absolutely no fundamental difference here (pace the granting of (some) mask ‘freedom’). That is what is massively depressing – the ease with which totalitarian police states have emerged across the board with scarcely a murmur of protest.
I am preparing myself against the urge to vomit when I see the usual knee-jerk wearing of poppies in October (the competitive virtue-signalling gets earlier by the year) by the zombies who have absolutely no fucking idea what it’s all about. Watch the masked bands of hypocrites at the Cenotaph insulting the dead by tremulously wearing masks as wreaths are laid.
‘Land of the Free’ – be buggered.
It’s been hypocritical since March 2020. My two grandfathers who fought at the Somme must be turning in their graves.
I now understand vividly the US second amendment. The founding fathers were pretty alert to what might go wrong and what checks and balances it needed to reduce the risk.
I have to say that the Second Amendment has bugger all to do with anything relevant today – it’s a much misunderstood and abused provision from a different time and circumstance that has altered nothing in the US.
But the capitulation to totalitarianism is shameful – the equivalent, not of a remembrance of sacrifice for freedom from tyranny, but as the equivalent of handing out cups of tea to the Wehrmacht as they came ashore at Dover.
Unless there is a SIGNIFICANT change between now and November 11 I will NOT be attending a ‘Remembrance Day’ service. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming. I really feel for our Rector who fought in thje army and has done everything he can to defy the nonsense but he will be obliged to lead the Remembrance service.
Frankly, it will be sickening, particularly the sight of those despicable politicians who have caused this mess. It should be noted very clearly that it is NOT covid that has caused all this trouble; it is the RESPONSE to covid. Any politician, civil servant, clergyman (or woman) or television or newspaper reporter that attempts to blame ‘covid’ is lying.
I wonder if the Beeb will show the footage of Blow Job drunkenly swaying at the Cenotaph from a couple of years ago? It would be the most appropriate image for the times.
Spot on RH – re: 11am, 11.11.1918, could not have put it more cogently if I tried.
Lazy comment.
Spain has a constitution that has ultimately safeguarded people’s rights. After a constitutional court process, lockdowns have been declared unconstitutional and therefore illegal. They will no longer be allowed.
In Britain, Parliament can do what it wants and is. A legal challenge of lockdowns has been a complete failure. There may yet be another lockdown.
When are Brits going to get off their cultural high horse and stop resorting to tired old narratives?
“In Britain, Parliament can do what it wants …”
This should read :
“In Britain, the Executive can do what it wants …”
That is the crucial issue. Parliament is essentially irrelevant.
Actually, Parliament can literally enact any legislation with a simple majority.
The executive is doing what it wants because Parliament has allowed it to by enacting the Coronavirus Act.
Many of the worst excesses have used the public health act rather than the coronavirus act – in ways which the government which passed it clearly never envisaged, but unless the courts rein them in (and they show no sign of doing so), there’s nothing to stop them.
Yes…….the PHA 1984, allows the government to quarantine ‘infectious people’.
That is exactly what Hancock did……only he decided to call people with +ve PCR-tests, but no symptoms ‘infectious’…….so easily done eh?
I am pretty sure that when Thatcher’s government drafted the legislation, bu ‘infectious’ it meant TB, small-pox, plague etc. and wanted to enable forced quarantine of those carrying a really deadly disease.
Note too though that the PHA 1984 only allows the government to institute measures that are PROPORTIONATE to the the intended aim.
Note too that the PHA specifically DISALLOWS mandatory jabs.
You massively overestimate the independence of parliament.
Sorry – you’re just wrong.
Hey-up the finger Jerk’s out of the burrow again!
Amd Parliament has voted for its own demise. Ignorant and stupid MPs are nearly as guilty as traitorous government ministers.
Yeh …. but … What can be done to alter this?
Writing an e-mail to your MP or signing an on-line petition always work well.
Sorry EF, that is wholly dependant on the moral, ethical and independently minded calibre of one’s MP – sadly very wanting in my case – please see the reproduced response from my MP in the comment to the first article today – I suspect this is a Cabinet Office/CS penned round robin made available to MPs who are bombarded with constituents concerns and cannot be arsed to respond individually.
“Am I right, Sir?”
Take two reality tablets upon waking with a large glass of cynicism.
Spain has a constitution that has ultimately safeguarded people’s rights
Hmmm, is that why Madrid sent riot police from Seville to Barcelona to beat up people voting in an independence referendum?
Is that why a dozen or elected Catalan politicians were convicted of trumped up charges of sedition…….and handed incredibly long and disproportionate prison sentences?
Lazy thinking?
Why were the charges “trumped up”? It’s pretty clear they were guilty of exactly what they were accused of.
The issue of Catalan secession is not straightforward. There are arguments on both sides, as is often the case in such situations.
But I find it extremely difficult to take supposed “nationalists” seriously if their stated objective is merely to shift their nation’s external allegiance from an existing capital to Brussels, and submerge it in the emerging Euro superstate.
Fake nationalists, like the SNP jokers.
Nope, you are wrong……..it was not illegal to organise such a referendum.
They were charged, as I understand it, with “sedition”, “rebellion” and “misuse of public funds”.
On the face if it I’d say they appeared to have been arguably guilty of exactly those things (not saying that they were definitely guilty as a matter of law, just that the charges seem perfectly plausible based on their actions).
If they were real nationalists rather than Euro-apologists, they might have a moral leg to stand on, at least. But it’s apparent that their posturing as “nationalists” is purely for show.
A lazy comment? Does that make it any less true? And what does the mass wearing of masks indicate?
The court ruling that the state of alarm is unconstitutional was a play on words.
It concluded that the government should have resorted to a state of emergency, not a state of alarm.The court voted six against five and found that such a lockdown should have been imposed under the next level of emergency situation under Spanish law, the state of emergency. This would have required the prior approval of the lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies.
Article 116 of the Spanish Constitution describes three legal categories for emergency situations: state of alarm, state of emergency and state of siege.
The lockdown saw Spaniards confined to their homes apart from for essential activities such as buying food. A few were allowed to carry on working too.
The ruling was complicated but one point came out was of the serious drawbacks to a state of emergency would have been the more severe restrictions on fundamental rights that it would have brought with it.
A state of emergency is subject to less oversight, and allows the police to increase the time that they can detain people from three to 10 days with no judicial supervision. Police can also enter homes or establishments with the use of force – i.e. knocking down the door – when they deem it necessary, and also without any prior authorization from the courts. The authorities can also close down media outlets under a state of emergency, all in the name of maintaining public order.
Oddly the Constitutional Court ruled on the state of alarm due to an appeal filed by the far-right Vox party. “A political party thatvoted in favour of the state of alarm when it was presented for the first time in Congress.
Throughout the Franco era, Spain had a constitution which guaranteed fundamental freedoms.
On paper.
If you toed the line.
And didn’t ask what was going on in the cells under the police building.
And they, like us, have voted in a socialist regime.
Have they the same mentality as before WW11? Whereas the British were kicking against it. My son tells me masks are optional inside his large office block and he rarely sees them, the policy was to encourage people to come back into the office.
Wait till the end of October.
Yes, we are in the lull before the inevitable storm, that all thinkers know they plotting.
“Whereas the British were kicking against it”
No they weren’t. The official policy was in effect to tacitly support Franco by the tactic of saying nowt. A slice of the establishment at large didn’t much mind Hitler, either.
I’m afraid the history isn’t entirely glorious.
It was individuals who rallied to the cause of democratic freedom. See the extensive literature.
Not worth going to any of these backward places, until or if they get a grip of themselves and the same goes for the compliant airline industry.
Backward eh?
Spaniards have at no time been barred from leaving the country. In “advanced” Britain the government made foreign travel illegal.
Lazy article, lazy editorial work, lazy comments.
I didn’t say Britain is advanced, it isn’t. However for me, it is not worthwhile to jump through expensive and bodily invasive hoops just to go somewhere where masks are still the order of the day. If you think that’s okay, then fine go ahead and mask up.
Yes, I went to exchange some unused foreign currency the other day that I’ve had since 2019.
The woman asked when I’d fly again; I said there’s no way I’d voluntarily pay to sit on a plane wearing a mask. Ditto subways, cafes or airports.
Virgin Atlantic have been emailing me for most of the pandemic trying to encourage me to fly to the Caribbean. To calm my fears, they say they’ll give me a health pack containing hand gels, surface wipes and medical-grade masks “we will require you to wear yours at all times on the plane”.
They failed to persuade me.
Your facts are all wrong.
Spain doesn’t require more “bodily invasive hoops” to jump through than the UK. Actually, less. To leave, to arrive in and to live in.
No one living in Spain can be compelled to do a test or stay in their homes. The constitutional court has made it very clear.
Not the case in the UK. To not isolate is a criminal offense.
I’m afraid to say Brits are too often badly informed and arrogant with respect to other places, especially “southern Europe”
You may not have to do tests but in some areas you ahve to ahvea Covid passort to enter bars. No vaticination? that will mean a test.
Bloody auto spill cheque.
The only region that has tried to implement it is Galicia and it is being challenged in court.
Andalucia tried it and the courts struck it down.
Meanwhile in Britain, judges wave through every draconian government measure.
That’s just the facts, which to judge from some comments on here, some are finding hard to digest.
That just isn’t true. The regions that have tried it have been met with legal challenges and have either been struck down or are in the process of being struck down.
Which areas please?
This is the thing. We haven’t got mandated vaccine passports, the whole of the government is foregoing mask wearing in Parliament while the opposition signal their virtue. Schools are back, without masking and optional testing. I will grant you there is still a very insidious coercion around vaccines but it really is nothing like Europe, America, Israel, NZ, Aus etc etc. The bedwetters in government have been marginalised in favour of CRG sympathisers. And there is a drip drip of people realising that the vaccines inefficiency at preventing infection and transmission makes passports absurd. I am still extremely worried about ADE, not least because all my family and friends have fallen for the bollocks, but we are not in a bad place in England, relative to the rest of the world apart from Sweden and Denmark.
This is where I am. My view/fear though is that our betters in the state blob are regrouping and concocting ways to enforce on us the measures being seen in AU, Canada, France etc. I do hope I’m wrong but I just don’t see how we’ve had a pass from the latest nonsense seen elsewhere.
I think it is partly down to this forum which is read by the likes Of JHB, Pearson and others with a bit of backbone in the media, plus the likes of Fysh and Baker on the Tory back benches. The Lib Dems are late to the party whilst the Labour Party have backed the wrong horse again and are hiding behind their masks.
Agrred, IMO the current relaxation is just a temporary reprieve. Another few weeks and we’ll be back in lockdown and masks. And the passports will spread.
It seems to me the real rulers are dictating different restrictions in different countries to test what they can get away with, a social experiment which would make Stanley Milgram proud.
“I will grant you there is still a very insidious coercion around vaccines, but …”
Thank you Polyanna, for that reassurance from the La La Land Broadcasting Corporation. I’m glad you’ve pointed out the difference between being in shit up to the eyeballs from being in it up to the eyebrows.
Meanwhile … the coercion for the snake oil reaches 12-year olds, whilst the majority of the nation turns over and snores, and Blow Job prepares the ground for the Winter Campaign …
Need I go on?
Don’t get me wrong, I think the mass vaccination of healthy people with a leaky vaccine could turn out to be an even more stupid decision than lockdown, but we aren’t seeing coercion of kids to be vaccinated on anything like the level we did adults. It still isn’t great, by any stretch, but England is, at the moment, in a much better place, related to all this bollocks, than most of the rest of the world. There is still a long way to go to win this fight but scepticism is finally starting to get some proper traction in England, you only have to walk around Tesco’s to see that.
Depends what Tesco. Mask wearing inside all supermarkets in my area is still at an extremely high level. Granted, very slowly, more people are ditching their muzzles but I fear once autumn gets into full swing the government will ramp up the mask message again and we will very quickly reverse back to almost 100% compliance.
My local Tesco is now down to about a third wearing face nappies. M&S Food still at about 50%.
It’ll only take a bit of opening of the scaremonger tap to push those numbers well back up again,
Let them. We know that there never was and never will be any legal, moral or logical reason to wear one, so we’re eternally exempt and can forever feel the breeze against our chins!
I live in the most middle-class virtue-signalling Guardian-reading XR-supporting commuter town in northern England and have been in a minority of one throughout the so-called pandemic when in Tesco’s. But even here there’s been a distinct change over recent weeks. Thus spoiling my fun; I no longer look brave and defiant.. doh!
So here’s the odd thing. Last Friday evening, I spent a fabulous night at a bar in my home town where they had a live band on playing hits from the 80’s (it was my music era growing up so forgive me for enjoying it). It was hot, sweaty and crowded…people queuing three deep and shoulder to shoulder at the bar…people dancing like drunken lunatics (yes, I was one, so sue me) and not a f*cking mask in sight. Only two days later, in my local Waitrose I saw at least two people who had been at that bar and who danced all night with wild abandon dutifully wearing masks whilst shopping. What the f*ck is all that about? I despair.
People associate going into shops with wearing masks, ditto getting on trains. It’s habit now.
“we aren’t seeing coercion of kids to be vaccinated on anything like the level we did adults. “
Sorry – but the steps taken so far are massively coercive – and completely political, with no real medical cover.
I’ve been thinking that just this afternoon, whilst walking round Tesco’s in fact. Masks definitely on the decline and even older people, patronisingly referred to in the new paradigm as “vulnerable” seem to be forgoing them. Although I share the fear that the enemy will come back harder in the autumn, I can’t help feeling that some of the momentum has been lost. Any way never mind masks, the nation’s children are about to be poisoned; let’s concentrate on that for now.
“We” are about to have social credit score apps (“vaxxports”) imposed at the start of October.
Scotchland and Wales are just the dry runs for the imposition in England when they’ve decided which statistic to tweak next.
The vaxxport system is already in place and being used “voluntarily” by some venues.
They’re coming, and I’m surprised at anyone here being naïve enough to believe otherwise.
On the other hand, some Aussie testicular fortitude:
https://twitter.com/DifficultNerd/status/1440231179240697859
I’m not sure how this ever ends to be honest.
Why, of course it ends with your smart phone recording your CO2 emissions and awarding you social credit points that limit your life options accordingly.
“ big Covid numbers”
Yes – well – we all know about those! The winner of the medical Booker Prize two years running!
But, don’t celebrate the relative ‘freedom’ of this country. Those of us outside the monkey cage see a rather different picture.
True – there has been a dropping of mask compulsion here, and it is good to note the consequent freedom of masks in certain common settings. Bit this is but the exposed tip of an iceberg.
But, as I illustrated yesterday, the psychosis is still riding high in terms of it’s voluntary application in indoor settings under the umbrella of ‘safety’ measures. The majority of the population remain programmed to quite a profound level.
Never forget the temporary freedom has its purpose – to convince the majority that the few critics were “all wrong all along” and that they are following along voluntarily. With that accomplished the whipping will be resumed shortly.
But, but, but……..we were told, “Get jabbed and everything can go back to normal”.
But…they kind of forget to mention that you will NEVER be fully jabbed!
Always one more!
HotelHospital California.Not a very accurate picture.
Spain has no vaxx passports at all, of any kind. And masks now only required indoors, not outdoors. No temperature checks anywhere, never have been.
People do voluntarily wear masks in more instances than are required. That is for sure.
No Covid passports?
Read this.
https://spanishnewstoday.com/over-21-million-covid-passports-already-issued-in-spain_1638253-a.html
https://www.eleconomista.es/actualidad/noticias/11393868/09/21/Sera-obligatorio-presentar-el-pasaporte-Covid-para-entrar-en-los-bares-y-discotecas-de-Galicia.html
The Spanish have the EU Covid/Vaccine Passport. Been in use since June.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/safe-covid-19-vaccines-europeans/eu-digital-covid-certificate_en
It’s a certificate of vaccination. Britain has them too.
The constitution does not allow them to be used in the country in any way that limits people’s rights.
This does not mean that governments and officials have not tried. But unlike in Britain where the judiciary has just stood aside, in Spain the courts and most importantly the constitutional court which is the highest in the country, have stopped the violation of constitutionally granted rights.
This is perhaps what really distinguishes Spain from Britain and perhaps other countries. In Spain, there are a number of fundamental rights which are enshrined in a constitution that cannot be changed by a simple parliamentary majority.
I think most Brits simply don’t understand that and draw instead from obsolete, tired old narratives about plucky freedom loving Brits and downtrodden southern Europeans with longstanding illiberal tendencies.
It might be true of Italians, but it’s certainly not the case of Spain.
Absolutely agree.
Something is kicking off down under ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCIWfRmZ-Ww
The bundling of Spain and Italy into one as if these two countries are doing the same things nd can be judged together does the Daily Sceptic very little credit.
Absolutely true.Spain,apart from masks,is a totally different country.No coercive vaccination,no Covidpassport and open and in practice no SD. Italy seems to be utterly different with no Constitutional Court protecting them as in Spain.
To further add to the depression is that Toby still refers to this scam as a pandemic. This despite countless articles produced and linked to by this site proving there was no such thing.
And what’s the situation with travelling to the likes of Spain these days? Is being double-jabbed a requirement?
Well … its a case of the ‘elastic dictionary’.
It is a ‘pandemic’ – by virtue of the WHO excluding an assessment of mortality as part of the definition.
Of course – this is now a strange circumstance, whereby a ‘pandemic’ doesn’t reach official levels defined as ‘epidemic’!
No. Spain does not mandate vaccines.
Based on a the comments and reactions on here, I’m a bit disappointed at how unwilling British people are to be corrected when their facts and judgements are way off.
Qué?
Hilarious. While you rely on a fictional character created by a British comic for your mockery, Spaniards who want to look down on Brits use the very real British drunken louts in Mallorca who from time to time fall off balconies trying stupid stunts.
“The Spanish government requires all arrivals to Spain from the UK to present on entry a pre-travel declaration form and one of the following: a negative COVID-19 test* or proof of vaccination.”
*free tests from the NHS not valid – only those you have to pay for. The NHS tests are obviously fake. Ali Baba’s PCR-test-for-£99-my-friend is the only thing that will see you right.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.collinsongroup.com?stars=1
This would be England too, if Labour were in charge of Covid policy. A lot of people would be happy with it too. See their MPs in the House of Commons, and Sadiq Khan wanting it to be a criminal offence not to wear a mask on a bus again. Masks forever ‘To keep us all safe’.
Some real anger building up in Australia.
And rightly so, when a trade union, of all things, fails to stand firmly to protect its members against lockdowns and coerced injection with a dangerous, experimental treatment
The unions failed utterly in this country, largely captured by the panickers from the beginning, and it looks as though they failed as completely in Australia.
Hopefully these kinds of responses will force them to confront what is really going on.
https://twitter.com/InProportion2/status/1440251707020267520
Victorian construction industry shut down after tradies’ violent protest outside union
The union leadership smeared dissenters as extremists (doubtless some of them were, but extremism in defence of liberty is no vice), of course, and claimed to have been “blind-sided”:
“Mr Setka said he did not back vaccinations being mandated, despite protesters claiming the union was wrongfully supporting the government’s decision.
“We were blind-sighted by some of the Department of Health’s recommendations last week,” he said.
“How all of a sudden it’s our fault is beyond me.
“We’re virtually being blamed for everything.””
This is the one MELBOURNE PROTEST video they don’t want you to see
Great video report on the Melbourne construction workers’ protest yesterday (posted previously by AN other lockdown sceptic above).
“One thing I’ve gotta say is to the nation of Australia, as a union member, I’m so sorry that we didn’t stand up for all those shopkeepers and all those other people that’ve been trampled upon, and I feel disgusted that we were allowed to work during that time. .. But let’s stand up as a nation. This is bullshit what’s going on, and don’t be tricked by the media, by the lies and the deceit.”
99% of people will only care once it affects them. The vast majority on here are making their own lives miserable for those 99% and they could give a fuck most days.
“The unions failed utterly in this country, largely captured by the panickers from the beginning“
Actually this goes a little too far. While it’s correct I think to say that they failed utterly at the crucial time, when lockdowns were imposed, and most, like the teaching unions, were strongly on the wrong side of the issues, nevertheless I have seen some reports of them coming out against coerced vaccination.
Too little too late, but at least they are not all wholeheartedly pushing the evil.
The unions in this country have been a cowardly disgrace.
The leaders of the teaching unions have clearly been bought and have connived with the government in seeking to destroy the education system in this country along with the mental health of school children and students.
Union leaderships are stuffed full of Quislings and in many cases outright traitors.
The position of Trade Unions in this country throughout the Scam is indefensible. Quite simply they have failed their members and are guilty of dereliction of duty as a minimum.
“Union leader John Setka has been accused of assaulting his wife, Emma Walters, in an alleged incident this week which has left Ms Walters saying she has fears for her safety.”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/john-setka-investigated-over-alleged-domestic-violence-assault-20210827-p58mdi.html
Nice guy.
“Union leader John Setka has been accused of assaulting his wife, Emma Walters, in an alleged incident this week which has left Ms Walters saying she has fears for her safety.
In a sworn statement to police, Ms Walters – a high-profile lawyer and mother of two — says that after an argument on Wednesday night, Mr Setka, the Victorian secretary of the CFMEU, became violent and repeatedly hit her head against a table leaving her with a bruised forehead.”
“John was out of control. He hit my head against the table about five times,” the statement said. “It was very painful. John is a lot bigger and stronger than me and he can totally physically control me. When he loses his temper, there isn’t anything I can do but submit to him”
“In 2019, Mr Setka was convicted of harassing Ms Walters and breaching court orders after more than 25 calls and 45 text messages in which he called her a “weak f—en piece of shit” and a “treacherous Aussie f—en c—” and a “f—en dog”.”
Yet here on the south coast of England the beach is one place I go for a walk to avoid seeing any muzzled zombies.
It has been rare all along during this insanity to see any muzzled here at the beach, with a very occasional exception, which is why I choose to seek sanctuary here from the muzzled.
Also now people usually manage to avoid the the “Scalded Cat Sidestep” dance routine when passing you too, which is gratifying.
And they smile at you when you walk past, saying hello. I watched the Australian press release yesterday where Gladys Berejiklian stood there wearing a mask as she blatantly lied on national TV about how the vaccine cuts transmission dramatically (maybe 7% as reported here). Behind her these faceless people all wearing masks. They think they are free?
Yes I do get a few smiles and even an occasional short chat.
I must admit that I find masks creepy – always have done.
When I see what is happening in Aus. I sometimes think I must be dreaming.
They certainly aren’t free.
Mask? More like tent! Have you seen the size of her conk!!
The Pinocchio Effect!
I read the article and already wondered why the author is making his children wear masks or does so himself.
I am also quite sure that children were not at school for a very long time, and even not allowed out for a long a long period of time.
Then I get to the end and the author is Toby Young. My heart sank. I am so glad he provided this platform last year, and for the swamp on reddit, but this site is loosing momentum each day.
“Then I get to the end and the author is Toby Young“
The byline on this site is usually just whoever posts the article up, not necessarily the writer.
They don’t give the author of this piece, but the text at the beginning indicates that it wasn’t written by Young. Says it’s a “guest post” by a Sceptic reader
Schools were indeed closed in Italy for a long time, and there is talking of them closing again.
This is not written from Toby’s experience. It is stated in the first line that it is a guest writer.
If it is law to wear a mask or the alternative is to get a huge fine. Then I think the way forward is to wear that mask. Or not to visit said location.
for the person who voted me down. It is a 100€ fine per person per event.
https://www.noticiastrabajo.es/fin-estado-alarma-multa-no-llevar-mascarilla/
That is on the street.
If you are in a vehicle with no cohabiting and not wearing a mask the fine increases. Plus you are limited to the number of no cohabiting persons in said vehicle unless it is public transport. Regulations on how to store masks too.
https://www.lasprovincias.es/sociedad/avisa-importante-multa-20210325085303-nt.html
Sorry folks you have to use your favourite translator for these links.
With these two examples you can see why the Spanish cower down and accpt things the way they are. Yes some are cheesed off. But being fined for a number, of some would say minor issues, added up in one stop-check does not make you want to be a hero.
Sainsbury’s just now, 80% masked zombies.
Well it was 98% a few months ago.
Other supermarkets are available where it’s down as low as 50-60%.
Unfortunately, just over the border, Wales remains a masked state.
Why don’t the Welsh just tell the government to fuck off? Or just ignore their government?
Unfortunately, this chimes with a friend of mine who has just returned from Spain saying she loved the ‘rules’ and that she felt considerably safer there than in the U.K. These people are still essentially calling the shots.
The desire to fit in is the main driver of all human behavior. The manipulators are fully aware of it, and that’s precisely what mandates are designed for – to reach a critical mass after which dissenting individuals start believing that they are the odd one out. That’s also why they have patriotic music played in public spaces every day in North Korea and the affirmations of love to dear leader. It looks silly and artificial, and outsiders cannot conceive how people can be so dumb to conform to such enforced rituals. But now you understand, it works.
By successfully applying peer pressure you can control people very effectively, the main difficulty is in the beginning to establish such as system – you need a catalyst – but when it’s online, it just keeps on rolling. Just like a ponzi scheme which recruits ever more participants based on its “success”.
What the Covid/Lockdown/Mask/’Vaccine’ era has shown is that there is nothing new under the psychological sun. The Covid mania is giving us a confirmation of three seminal psychology theories – B. F. Skinner on conditioning (see people still don the mask when and where they haven’t been ‘mandated’ to do so), Soloman Asch on conformity (do not stand out from the crowd) and, of course, Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority (people in white coats with Professor/Dr. in front of their name must be obeyed because of their medical ‘wisdom’). Our health overlords are working, consciously or otherwise, to this script.
And this it with there being no evidence that masks make much difference at all.
Science is dead. This is religion.
It’s fear of social disapproval.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1440216658245603336
Nice
Excellent.
“President of Croatia says they are done jabbing. They are not going to do it any more.”
Maybe it’s an example of politicians having gone mad in crowds, and recovering one by one…?
How long can it be before Croatia joins Syria, Iraq, Libya, and a host of others on the list of pariah states meriting US attack?
He pretty much anticipates it with his comment: they can close us with a wire.
What a legend.
When in Lanzarote earlier this year, masks were obligatory outside except in the country ( not defined). Now the obligation is removed. Restaurants and bars are fully open inside and out as its at the Canary Island level 1 restrictions. We are returning in the New Year so will report back, but I suspect the high Brit element on the island will ensure its returned more or less to normal with the exception of the masks in supermarkets. Given France restrictions this seems mild now.
Anyway later today we start the first leg of our ‘great escape’ to De Santis land. Just in time as it turns out, November would have seen our plans scuppered thanks to the Biden WH ‘vaccine’ push. First a quick jump to Madrid where we officially enter Spain for one night, only to reenter the airport tomorrow to fly to Panama. Antigens were negative, Spanish Health QR codes obtained, Panamanian Health QR codes obtained. Flights checked in online.
Then 14 days in Panama which will be fine, ‘masks are mandatory though, and it will be wet! Then another antigen test, and flight to Tampa. Then as soon as we leave the airport its masks in the bin, and making the most of 8 weeks of freedom.
The return to France is not something we look forward to. Antigen test before we leave, completion of French ‘honour’ form to say we will self-isolate for 7 days and then take a PCR test. We hope maybe, just maybe some of this will have been relaxed by December, but anyway its worth it! As we want to get away again in January we will have to make sure we do enough ‘conforming’ not to be put on some ‘no fly’ list that our new fascist government no doubt is creating.
We have had 2 parallel routes ‘in case’ these have now been closed. Its like planning D-Day. Stressful for absolutely no purpose, we are fit, healthy individuals who probably got this ‘cold’ in Bangkok January 2020 but we have no way of proving it.
We want to see our son who will join us from Denver over Thanksgiving. But we also want to do this just to put two fingers up at all the fascists, large and small.
Before you go back you can check on this website about what paperwork is need to fly into Spain. Plus you can read what regulations are in the area you wish to visit.
https://travelsafe.spain.info/en/
At the moment it states that in the CIs
From 26th June, the face mask will not be mandatory in outdoor spaces as long as you can respect social distancing. However, the face mask will be mandatory in indoor or closed spaces, including public transport.Social distancing is 1.5m.
There is all sort of other crap about capacities and that will depend on level alert and type of establishment.
As a Brit who has been living and working in Italy for over 10 years I feel reasonably qualified to comment on the current situation here, which is nothing less than a medical dictatorship. Some Brits may feel a certain sense of security or even pride in the fact that they suddenly seem rather “free” compared to some of their European neighbours. Alas anybody who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention throughout this show will surely realise that all will be leveled out sooner or later.
I would generally agree with the writer as far as Italy is concerned, there are still large swathes of people who choose to suffer a useless mask under the 35 degree sun while out in open air. Indoors they are still required in all situations, exceptions made for the covid safe actions of drinking at a bar or eating in a restaurant, but not strangely enough for any child above 5 years of age in a classroom. Apparently schooling isn’t a safe exercise unless everybody is masked and all staff have their “green pass”. The writer is far off the mark with their comment about children not missing school, as a matter of fact Italian students missed more in school teaching that any other country in Europe and I must add to devastating effects, I’m a teacher and saw them myself first hand.
Italy and Italians are on the forefront of the blind march into a technocratic medical dictatorship. You can no longer do anything of substance without your God forsaken “green pass” and the government has continuously talked about obligatory vaccination for all if not enough people fall in line. However, there has been little to no pushback here, actually on the contrary you will find many a fervent believer who has been subdued into believing that anybody who even questions all of this is what they call a “no vax” and the MSM has created the image of some sort of terrorist organisation which communicates through telegram, a dangerous group which must be ridiculed and squashed at all costs.
Why? I don’t know. The spectator had an interesting article regarding Italy’s situation the other day, I tend to agree with much that was written there but the true answer as to why a nation decides it is willing to give up a lot of its freedoms in the name of little more than witchcraft is a question for philosophers of which I am not. I will conclude this long, venting post by reiterating my initial observation, yes England may seem to the untrained eye to once again be a land of reason, choice and dare I say democracy but it’s all a chimera I feel and soon enough the scales will tip back in the other direction for it must be clear by know that this is not individual nations somehow bumbling along making similar errors of judgement but a clear globalist, organised frogmarch towards a very bleak future.
For a reason not yet clear, Italy has been the front runner in most of the draconian moves. The Spectator article seemed to capture the reason why its been used in this manner. As you rightly say, its been used, and others quickly follow when the trial has proved yet again ‘we didn’t realise we could get away with that’.
I think it’s related to the fact that it got the first scare, with the virus imported soon after Wuhan – and panicked, displaying wet pants on washing lines all over the place.
Saner analysis revealed that the initial mortality related to older people and (probably) – as in Spain, household composition.
But, as we know, the updating of intelligence just doesn’t happen when Covid stalks.
Good post! Thanks!
Excellent post thank you
Useful post, thank you.
I’m currently in southern Spain. Costa del Sol. No one is wearing masks on the beach. They’re warn inside in supermarkets etc. Waiters wear them but they don’t enforce diners to wear them. Some people do though
For anyone on here willing to be confronted by an honest comparison between Spain and the UK in its performance during this coronavirus horror show (that’s what this article is about, after all) here is the reality.
From the point of view of crazy out of proportion measures Spain has outdone the UK in only two things.
1. Masks. They continue to have them indoors. And had them outdoors when the UK never mandated outdoor masks.
2. The first lockdown. Spain went nuts and made it very difficult for people to go out for a period of 8 weeks.
In every other respect Spain has been an island of sanity where the UK has lost it’s mind.
Britain is a bastion of freedom compared to “southern Europeans” only in the badly informed minds of Brits.
“Most importantly, the draconian measures of the first lockdown were taken to court and ultimately declared anticonstitutional and so they cannot be repeated.”
This for me also is arguably the most important.
I accept your points but there is a concern (to me) that continued wearing of masks is the price Spaniards and Italians are prepared to pay for what they consider to be ‘normality’. There is nothing about the ‘pandemic’ that I would accept as a condition to normal living and social conditions. That is not say the U.K is any kind of superior example, as it isn’t, as virtually everywhere seems a long way off normal and with no encouraging signs that they ever will be.
I hate masks. I have little to no respect for those that wear them. My stomach turns at the thought that they will be with us for a long time in some for or other. No argument from me on the monstrosity that are masks.
Having said that, vaccine passports worry me much more. Vaccine passports cement the principle that you have to prove your health status to participate in society. They represent the end of the most basic freedom and mark our complete enslavement to the state. I don’t think I exaggerate one iota.
As horrible as masks are, I can see them gradually disappearing. Once we have health passports, they will be almost impossible to roll back.
In that respect Spain is ahead of most countries that I am aware of, at least for now, in that the constitution prohibits any such discrimination. The constitution could be changed, but that would not be easy. Conversely, I see the imposition of digital IDs in the UK within a trojan horse NHS app as a virtual certainty.
The first England lockdown was for ten weeks.
Read what you have written. You have just made a defence case for one set of violations on humans being better than another Governments set of violations. Its rather like saying the Robber who robbed me only broke my 2 Arms and blacked my eyes, the other Robber actually killed that person. So Iwas lucky.
There is no better in this situation, the principle of denying basic fundamental freedoms, and bodily rights is not for any Government to decide upon, it is all wrong, and saying oh well, its not as bad as what they are doing means you have already accepted that you are not a free human being, and what do we call someone who is not free? Its a Slave,
Well, both of these countries have form when it comes to fascism………….
As does the UK now!
Has Toby had the jab then?
This was most certainly not the case in Menorca in late July and late August
It seems to me that the cruelty inflicted on populations have been accepted because those populations have been slowly suppressed anyway. We all think we have freedom but how many cameras are there on the roads, in shopping centres etc. How many regulations do we abide by in form filling, name giving exercises for everything we do. How many taxes do we blindly pay. How many times do we stop and think about what we say, what we wear, where we walk. Indeed how many of us choose to holiday further afield than France, Italy or Spain.
Everything we do is controlled one way or another. Most of us never get the Government or the Council we vote for. Even Leavers haven’t seen the Brexit they voted for. Every single thing that was important in that vote has been ignored. Migration is at an all time high, we have not left the ECJ, the EAW, or indeed had VAT lowered because we want to rejoin the world in trade without the overseeing of Brussels. Populations have slowly walked into a Global communism. We haven’t noticed because we have still been ‘allowed’ to buy property or choose our child’s school. However, our jobs have stagnated and our wages but less than they did 40yrs ago. We live on debt and credit. We actually own nothing already.
Now the Globalists have stepped up the suppression with a pandemic, lockdowns and jabs. It’s just the end game to something started many moons ago. It’s blatant but so many are already mind controlled they just meekly comply with the next diktat. Over the next few years there will be horrendous culling of populations and those who do survive will have a struggle like nothing on earth before. This is not a war like any other. This is the war of worlds fighting for the soul of humanity.
I am working on a new mask for the Italians it has a zip in it such that they don’t ever have to take it off, and they can therefore eat with it on, I think it will be a best seller with some in the UK too. Anyone want to fund me?
There’s a few comments here from people with recent first hand experience of Spain. What’s the deal there with covid certification?
Having returned from the Peleopnnese and now being made to suffer for my non vaccinated status. I can report that the further down the peninsual I travelled the less attention was paid to the Greek Governments Covid pass.
The experiences of blatant discrimination which the poor beleagured and frankly government imposed impoverished Greeks have to impose were as follows.
Thos of us on arrival without the vaccine passports were pulled aside shoved into tented cubicles and made to take lateral flow tests, which the results would be then texted to us within the 24 hours. We were allowed to go about our normal travel plans whilst waiting for the results.
In Monemvasia, One night it poured with rain. The Restaurants and Bars would only allow the prrof of vaccination people inside. The “unclean” had to eat in the rain or just not eat.
We were not allowed on Public transport.
Shops you have to wear a mask, most had it slung under the nose.
In Hotels you don’t have to wear a mask the staff do, and you have to give permission for them to clean your room.
Apart from the rainy night when it was made blatantly clear what lies in store for the disobedient come winter, We had a good break. It was slightly spoiled again by an Aegean member of staff who when we were boarding the plane rechecked all documents, shouted very loudly my vaccination status in fron of the other passengers, took my PLF form and continued to question me loudly on testing etc in front of the other passengers.
As my vaccinated Brother said, “There are the few of you that haven’t taken it so what do you expect? they are going to come down on you”
In other words because I don;t want the experimental drug, because I am worried it will damage my body, I must be humiliated, and made an example of
Utterly bizarre. You were made to take a test but all the jabbed, who as we all know (although have to pretend otherwise) are just as likely to be infected as the unjabbed, were allowed to enter and visit restaurants at will, whereas you were not.
There is zero justification for this, at least with regard to public health. If Greece were covid free and if the injections conferred any sort of immunity, there might be a case for operating this kind of discriminatory apartheid. As it is, there is none.
I know its just good old discrimination because we haven’t done as we are told.
Further example of the madness, on return to the Uk I had to take a test to prove negative Covid before flying back, the vaccinated did not, On return to the Uk I have to isolate for 10 days thus far I have had visits to my remote home by both Test and trace and the Police (because clearly they have no real crimes to attend to). I have to pay in total one hundred and sixty pounds for day 2 and day 8 tests, and a day 5 if I went to get out of jail earlier. The vaccinated do not have to isolate and only have to take a day 2 test.
So as the SAGE people say the “vaccine” does not confer immunity and it does not stop the individual transmitting, so the only differnec between a vaccinated and an unvaccinated person is the mark given by the Government that you are an obedient citizen, you get a pat on the head and some treats. The disobedient unvaccinated person has to be punished because of their disobedience. Because as far as the virus is concerned both parties can catch it and both can transmit it.
“As my vaccinated Brother said, “There are the few of you that haven’t taken it so what do you expect? they are going to come down on you”“
This is why I blame those who have taken the “vaccine”, apart from the small minority for whom there might be a plausible medical reason to do so, more than some others here do.
As soon as state and media lies and coercion began to be used to coerce compliance, it became a moral duty to resist, imo. Those who did not resist made life harder for their betters, who did resist. Morally reprehensible.
I agree.
In the words of Labi Sithri (forgive spelling)
“The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, cos there’s
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that’s mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you
Cos there’s
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we’re just not good enough
When we know better
Just look ’em in the eyes and say
We’re gonna do it anyway 2x
Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Masks are ineffective, pointless and harmful at the same time. It was known at the start of 2020 that masks are ineffective against respiratory viruses. No new high quality research has provided any evidence to the contrary since March 2020.
They are, quite obviously, a way to force people to be constantly conscious of a “threat” and to behave in all sorts of weird ways that are unnatural for humans. When people literally step off the pavement into the path of oncoming vehicles to avoid facing unmasked people, then you know that something is badly wrong with the concept.
It’s time to really follow the Science and drop the mask theatre entirely. If Susan Mitchie wants to wear a mask, she can go ahead and wear a mask, but as for coercing the rest of us into doing something that does nothing to reduce the transmission of the virus and creates vast quantities of unnecessary waste materials, forget it, evil commie bitch.
Generalisation is oftentimes dangerous and here is a post conflating personal experience with a perception of cause. In Spain the various areas had different rules but this year in the Alicante province masks were not worn on the beach and recent restrictions have been released in Murcia.
On point is of note is that whatever the percentage portions of society believes that masks make them safe and vaccination cures. Covid19 is no longer a disease : it is a religion the dress code is a mask and initiation is a vaccine and confirmation a vaccine certificate
Just back from Sicily (Yellow zone – heightened risk). Similar experience in restaurants (including ‘green pass’ requirement – UK vax doc accepted) and hotels. Good news is that on the streets, where theoretically masks are required, 80% are not wearing them – thank god for some common sense ! I guess that despite the threat of a hefty fine, with this level of civil disobedience it becomes unenforceable for the police. I also found that wearing it mouth only, allowing me to breathe and no glasses fog, met with no reproach. So some progress at last and had a wonderful hol regardless.
Wow, brainless people on the beach in hotter countries wearing masks? That’s one of the heights of dumbness.
Having a dive in the sea with mask?
These people are so ignorant and ridiculous that I cannot find the right term to described it…
WANKERS
Chosen not to be vaccinated makes it unlikely we’ll ever get away again.