Pubs to Reopen in April – But Can’t Serve Alcohol
No, you didn’t read that wrong. According to the Telegraph, the Government is considering a temporary “booze ban” as part of its reopening plans.
Pubs and restaurants could reopen as soon as April if they agree not to sell alcohol under options being discussed to allow the widespread relaxation of coronavirus restrictions after Easter.
The Telegraph can disclose that a temporary “booze ban” is being considered as part of the Government’s roadmap for lifting lockdown, which will be unveiled on Feb 22nd.
It is understood the move is being discussed to allay concerns from Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, and others about the effect of drinking on social distancing.
Under the three-stage plan for lifting restrictions, some outdoor socialising is expected to be allowed in March and schools are set to return.
It is hoped that hospitality can then reopen in April and that all of the most vulnerable will be vaccinated by May, in time for the local elections.
Something tells me this won’t go down very well with publicans…
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile, the Times is reporting that Boris has suddenly become one of the most fretful, cautious people in the Cabinet.
Any day now a folder will land on Boris Johnson’s desk. Inside will be longed-for data that will determine the nature of the next six months and very possibly his entire political legacy.
Public Health England’s best assessment of the effectiveness of the vaccination programme so far will in effect set the parameters for the nation’s exit from lockdown. The assessment shows the jabs are working as expected in protecting people from infection. It may also show encouraging signs on transmission as well as early real-world data on reduced mortality and hospital admissions. If so the prime minister can plot a spring unlocking and promise a glorious summer.
Insiders say he remains fretful. “He’s the person in the room saying, ‘Are you sure? I’m not as convinced as you are about this.’ It’s the scientists who are having to say, ‘It’s looking good.’” Critics would say his caution is overdue and there has been a tragic cost to his previous over-optimism but there is no denying his determination to avoid another false dawn.
Johnson met the executive of the 1922 Committee, a small group of the most senior Tory backbenchers, in his Commons office after PMQs on Wednesday. The group includes some of the most prominent lockdown sceptics in parliament, such as Sir Graham Brady and Steve Baker.
“He was very, very cautious,” a source said. “He described the road map as tentative and said that the NHS remains under severe pressure. He said above all that the government wants to avoid another lockdown.”
A Tory strategist puts it more bluntly. “The prime minister is acutely aware that there cannot be any reverse ferrets as the lockdown is eased, especially after the success of the vaccine programme. That would be a political catastrophe.”
Worth reading in full if you can stomach the bad news.
But there’s a glimmer of hope. According to MailOnline, a “battle royal” is about to commence as Tory MPs urge Boris to lift all restrictions by May 6th, when, according to Hancock, everyone over 50 will have been offered the vaccine.
The PM is under renewed pressure to step up the reopening of the country after the government accidentally revealed that the top nine groups – around 32million people – should be covered by the spring.
Ministers had previously refused to confirm a timetable, but the Cabinet Office cited it as a reason elections in England can take place on May 6th.
Senior Conservatives seized on the optimism to reiterate calls for a quick relaxation amid fears over the huge impact on education, the economy and other health issues. Mark Harper, who chairs the Tory MP lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group (CRG), said: “These top nine groups account for around 99% of those that have died from Covid and about 80% of hospital admissions.
“It will be almost impossible to justify having any restrictions in place at all by that point.”
Mr Johnson is set to unveil his road map out of lockdown towards the end of the month, with hopes the return of schools from March 8th can be followed by allowing mixing outdoors, with bars and restaurants freed up over the summer.
There was a barrage of other good news today, with the R number dipping below the critical level of one, research showing the AstraZeneca jab seems effective against the Kent variant, and the UK regulator saying it was not detecting significant side-effects. Another 19,114 people were reported as testing positive, down a third on last Friday, and the grim daily death toll was down 18 per cent week on week at 1,014.
Another 484,596 vaccine doses were administered in 24 hours, maintaining the impressive pace – with just under 11million people now inoculated.
A flurry of good news, but before you start popping the champagne, be warned: Neil Ferguson is on the warpath.
The competing pulls that Mr Johnson faces were underlined this afternoon as the Government published stark modelling from Prof Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College.
Considered by SAGE on January 14th, the paper assumed that there will be a phased easing of lockdown between March and July, and warned that a “rapid ramp-up” of vaccinations to “at least” 3 million doses a week is “critical to avoid exceeding national hospital capacity after the current wave”.
The Government is currently maintaining around that level. But the report added: “This would still lead to an additional 130,800 (103,200 – 167,600) deaths between now and June 2022.”
The Imperial team suggested that its findings meant “a more cautious approach to gradually lifting (lockdown measures) may need to be considered than the ones modelled in this report”.
But Professor Lockdown’s modelling appears to be based on the assumption that about 50,000 Covid patients would be in hospital by mid-February, before dropping towards the end of the month. In reality, the figures never exceeded 40,000 and have now dropped to about 30,000 already.
Worth reading in full.
France Rejects Third Lockdown
France’s Prime Minister has said “Non” to another lockdown. Looks like it’s Boris who is the cheese-eating surrender monkey. MailOnine has more.
France has rejected a third lockdown because the “economic, social and human” costs can’t be justified, Prime Minister Jean Castex said.
During a press conference on Thursday, Castex said stabilising new infection rates and an impending vaccine roll-out means the Government can hold off from imposing new nationwide measures.
France’s daily infection rate is just marginally lower than the UK’s with the country reporting 316.47 cases of Covid per million people on Thursday compared to Britain’s 331.09.
But the UK’s infection rate is currently plummeting amid a rapid vaccination programme, while cases in France have been slowly trending up in recent weeks.
French virus experts have repeatedly warned that a third national lockdown is “inevitable” as new and more-infectious variants of the virus take hold – with the UK strain likely to become “dominant” by March.
That has led to fears that cases could suddenly and rapidly increase – as happened in Portugal where the health system has near-collapsed since the New Year.
But Castex said another lockdown could only be enacted “as a last resort”.
“The situation today does not justify such a move,” he added.
If, however, the health situation deteriorates, the government would “not hesitate to do what is necessary”, he said.
Worth reading in full.
Hancock to Seize Control of the NHS
Both the Times and the Telegraph are reporting that ministers are about to take control of the NHS – an odd story, given that I assumed the Government was in control of the NHS already. Is this an elaborate ruse so Hancock can avoid the blame for the NHS’s blunders, such as the still high rate of in-hospital infections? Here’s the Times‘s version of the story.
Ministers plan to take more control over the NHS with laws to block the closure of hospitals and overrule bosses in the biggest health reform for a decade.
Powers to put fluoride in water, impose health warnings on sausages and order the NHS to prevent obesity will be handed to the government under plans to be announced within weeks, The Times has been told.
At present only councils can add fluoride to water, with six million people in England drinking fluoridated water. Ministers want it extended nationwide, to cut tooth decay. They have become frustrated with local leaders who have little incentive to spend the money needed when they are not responsible for dental health.
The reforms will also scrap forced privatisation and competition within the NHS. Dozens of new management bodies will be given control over billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. The move is a reversal of 2012 reforms by Lord Lansley, then the Health Secretary.
NHS chiefs say that changes to allow GPs, hospitals and social care to work together will improve patient care. The Government is facing questions, however, about why it is embarking on a big reorganisation during a pandemic. A white paper will be published this month with plans to push the reforms through by April next year, in a drive that is alarming some on the NHS front line.
Worth reading in full.
Is the ONS’s Infection Survey Data Wholly Reliable?
There follows a guest post by Will Jones.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the latest of its weekly infection surveys yesterday.
Last week, the data had dismayed and surprised observers by concluding infections remained high despite NHS and ZOE data showing a steep decline.
This week, ONS data comes more into line with the other data sets.
However, there are some curious things about it that are worth flagging.
The first, as Dr Clare Craig points out in this tweet, is that the percentage modelled as testing positive for England overall is greater than the percentage testing positive in each age group.
On the face of it this isn’t mathematically possible and suggests there is something wrong with the way the percentages have been calculated.
The second question is why the ONS differs so hugely from ZOE when they are modelling essentially the same thing – namely, Covid infections in the community. Compare the above graph with the ZOE one below (taking note of the different time periods on the bottom – the ONS graph starts on December 20th, which is about halfway across the ZOE graph).
Two things jump out. First, why does the ONS have two humps with a larger one in late December, when ZOE has a single peak in mid-January and no December peak? The ZOE graph shape broadly matches the NHS test and trace cases shape, but the ONS one differs markedly.
Second, why do the estimates for the age groups differ so much between ONS and ZOE? ZOE shows clear age stratification, with older age groups showing lower infection levels and shallower curves. The exception is the youngest age group, the under-20s, which stays largely flat just above the over-60s since early December.
The ONS, on the other hand, shows the age groups all criss-crossing, and in particular the school-age lines surging, in mid-December, suggesting an epidemic in schools. This apparent epidemic among schoolchildren would have influenced the decision to close them at the start of the year.
Yet this school epidemic simply doesn’t exist in the ZOE data. Is it because ZOE data are based on symptoms, whereas the ONS data are based on positive PCR tests (with Ct cycles possibly up to 45) so will not exclude false positives or those no longer sick or infectious?
Whatever the explanation, there are clearly questions that need answering, particularly by the ONS. This is important because the ONS survey is treated by the Government and media as an accurate picture of the state of the epidemic. But what if that picture is more than a little bit wonky?
A Nurse Writes…
We’re publishing an original piece today by a woman who worked for four decades in the NHS as a nurse and midwife and now volunteers at a hospice. She thinks the coronavirus crisis has exposed our unwillingness to confront our own mortality. In particular, our obsession with extending people’s lives as long as we possibly can, regardless of whether they want to carry on living or not.
We are bombarded daily with carefully curated news reports that seem designed to induce fear and sentimentality often linked to the deaths of the frail and the elderly that exhort us to comply with the latest Government messages, one of which, trying to appeal to younger people, is “Don’t kill Granny”. Journalists delivering these reports appear to be looking over their shoulders to avoid censure by Ofcom. why else would they never challenge the received orthodoxies of the Government as they would if it were any other type of policy? Meanwhile, was anyone asking Granny what she wanted? These are taboo matters that cannot easily be aired in public as we live in a society of people who refuse to accept their own mortality until they might find themselves at this point and then wish that those around them would demonstrate more courage and compassion and wisdom in how they care for them. A recent episode of Hospital on BBC 2 featured Barnet General Hospital, which has been especially overwhelmed by COVID-19 as Barnet has the oldest demographic in London. It was difficult viewing but with a discerning eye I was fascinated to watch a lovely lady in her 80s, who had been found collapsed on the floor at home and had been diagnosed with a cardiac problem, not COVID-19. She said directly to camera she thought it was her time, that she was dying, that she believed in God and was essentially at peace with this. The young doctor treating this patient then speaks to camera after noticing how peaceful she is and interprets what she has said for the viewer: “She is in a delirium.” It seemed that the doctor could not accept what the patient had said and dismissed her ‘peace of mind’ as being ‘out of her mind’! This patient then spent the next few weeks in an acute bed being pushed to rehabilitate to a point when they realised that she would not be able to go home and live independently and so sent her off to a nursing home where no doubt currently she has become a prisoner of the state like so many others without being permitted to see loved ones. They call this a success story.
Worth reading in full.
Another Lockdown Tragedy
A reader has got in touch to tell us her elderly mother’s story. This is becoming a familiar refrain.
Firstly thank you for what you do – I have been reading since the beginning when, after the first few weeks of not knowing whether this really was a very bad virus, when we were all naturally cautious, it became clear that the collective marbles had been lost and the populace was being driven barmy.
One of those who bought into the narrative in its entirety was my 83 year-old mother who lived in Wales. Hers was a quiet life, she loved doing her jigsaws, seeing grandchildren and great grandchildren and popping into town on the bus with my father, 87, to do some shopping and have a coffee.
She was at that stage in reasonable shape for a woman her age although her lungs were slightly compromised from a bad bout of pneumonia many years before. In those halcyon days if either of my parents was ill and couldn’t get to the surgery, a doctor would visit their home.
The messages emerging from the press conferences of doom hit them hard. Contact with the GP became increasingly difficult, the surgery taking days to return calls, if they did at all. My mother became so frightened that she simply stopped going out in March 2020 and allowed no-one in the house. Her physical and mental health began to decline, quietly, behind those closed doors. Yes, parcels of food were being dropped off from the end of the garden path, so they were in no danger of starvation, but my parents live on a busy road and it is not possible to have a conversation and find out what is actually happening. No nice middle class garden to safely socially distance here, unlike most of those in the Westminster bubble who are calling the shots.
To cut a very long story short, in the beginning my mother would chat from the doorstep and then slowly she receded until she could just be spotted over my father’s shoulder in the distance at the foot of the stairs. It then transpired that her lungs had become very bad, the GPs had not seen her for months and months and she was having nightly panic attacks. Neither she nor my father were getting any sleep and the situation was deteriorating fast, culminating in an attack where the ambulance was called. The ambulance took many hours to arrive and she was whisked into hospital. This was November 2020.
That was the first hospital visit. When I called them and managed finally after many attempts to speak to the ward they informed me they had done a covid test. I laughed and said she hadn’t been out or let anyone into the house since March. If she got covid it would be the hospital that gave it to her. Little did I know how true that would be.
The hospital kept her in to stabilise her oxygen levels and was clearly in a big hurry to get her back home because of the risk of hospital acquired infection, as her pcr test was of course negative. As a result her discharge to home was chaotic, rushed and very badly managed indeed.
Unsurprisingly therefore it was only a matter of a short interval before another 999 call and another hospital admission, this time to a different hospital. This was where things became much worse. For several days at the beginning we had no idea where she was or even if she was still alive.
What ensued was a disgrace, she was moved to a total of four different wards, deteriorating all the time, with no continuity of care and very little access by us, her family, to information about her condition. Days would pass, particularly at the weekends, when the hospital simply didn’t pick up the phone. Or they transferred my call and the ward didn’t pick up or they cut off the call.
No-one was allowed to visit at any point. We were not allowed to speak to her as she didn’t have a mobile phone and the hospital had no facility to cater for such events. Indeed we were made to feel irresponsible for bothering the staff by calling to ask what was going on.
And then the inevitable happened and she and all the occupants of her ward tested positive for covid.
Still no visitors were allowed until they made the decision that she was in her last hours and a very very limited number of family members were allowed to say goodbye.
After my mother’s death I contacted the hospital trust involved to complain about everything they had done – and not done – but was told they would not investigate my concerns without my father’s consent, which I was not prepared to bother him with in his grief.
And my mother, who had various lung problems was of course put down as a covid death.
It is clear from your correspondence that this is happening all over the country. Yet another tragedy of inhumane treatment of an elderly person at the end of her life.
London Loses 10% of Population During Crisis
There’s a shocking story in the Telegraph claiming that almost 10% of Londoners have left the city since the start of the pandemic.
Even when the last Covid restrictions are lifted from London, there may be a little less bustle on its streets and elbow-jostling at its drinking dens.
One startling estimate that has caught the eye of economists warned the capital’s population may have plunged by 700,000 during the pandemic. That would equate to an 8% drop and be the first slump in London’s population in more than 30 years.
The capital has been the victim of decades-long migration trends suddenly reversing. But will that spell trouble for its economy?
London’s population has been hit by a double whammy of both native and foreign-born workers moving out as office work has shifted online and industries have been temporarily shuttered.
The home working revolution has tempted office workers out of London with many seeking cheaper rents.
Meanwhile, some foreign-born workers that are vital for industries shut down by the pandemic, such as hospitality and tourism, are believed to have moved back to their countries of birth. There are signs that populations in Eastern European countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, have risen markedly during the crisis as their brain drains reverse.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: New York City has also experienced an exodus, with its population falling by 126,355 in 2020. The New York Post has more.
Postcard From Goa
We’re publishing another contribution to our series “Around the World in 80 Lockdowns” – this one a “Postcard From Goa” by Will Smith. Although there’s nothing resembling a lockdown in Goa. We’ll let Will explain.
India has almost no meaningful welfare state. It is true to say, your family is your welfare. In India, after a brief lockdown in March and April of last year, I believe the Modi government realised that such a strategy was untenable. People had to earn money to feed themselves. Putting it bluntly, people had to work in order not to starve. And therein lay the reality for India. However much you might want to signal to the people you were taking action and trying to protect them, the truth is you simply can’t lock down a nation like this for long without devastating consequences. In other words, India was trapped between crap and crapper in a way that richer nations weren’t. In such a situation, what is left but to not lock down? And if that is your only option, then you must deal with the fear of Covid in a different way. If you can’t persuade people you can keep them safe, better not to have them worrying too much that they’re not safe, right?
The result has been a lot of lip-service type rules. We all carry our raggedy old cloth masks in a back pocket, stick them on when we go in a shop where the owner is wearing one, don’t bother otherwise. Not too serious, right? But what about this one? If you get a cough or a fever, if you think you might have something, the reality is it’s best not to say anything. The default is to carry on and hope you get better. If you take the official government test and are positive, you’ll be moved to a quarantine hospital; 100 beds to a room, no medicine, no oxygen or any medical equipment really, a couple of floor standing fans if you’re lucky, and, well, fingers crossed. Meanwhile your family is placed in isolation. In India of course it’s not unusual for three or even four generations to be living in the same household. Think about it. That’s a lot of breadwinners out of action for a lot of dependents who rely on them. Rather than the official test, therefore, take the unofficial black-market test. If it’s positive they won’t inform anyone except you and then you can choose. In my experience most will be somewhat responsible and isolate at home. But everyone else in that household will go on as normal. And who are you to blame them? What would you do?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: There’s an interesting article in the Washington Post asking why case numbers are plummeting in India.
Round-up
- “Do Lockdowns Work?” – Christopher Snowdon replies to my piece in Quillette responding to his piece in Quillette. This one will run and run
- “Covid Superstars #3 – Dr Susan Michie” – LeftLockdownSceptics profiles the Stalinist lockdown enforcer
- “How Ottawa utterly botched Canada’s COVID vaccine acquisition” – Despite spending more money on this pandemic than anyone else, Canada is lagging behind almost every other developed nation in vaccination numbers, according to the National Post
- “Are you ready for the climate lockdowns?” – Stephen L. Miller with a depressing prognosis in Spectator USA
- “When will it be the right time to ease lockdown?” – Ross Clark in the Express reveals that the Government consensus around when to lift lockdown (after the most vulnerable have been vaccinated) is beginning to break down
- “The Government should apply a greater sense of urgency to unwinding lockdown” – Good leader in the Telegraph, urging the Government to get on with it
- “The cost of being a lockdown sceptic” – Great piece in the Critic by Alexander Adams
- “To say going to school simply ‘benefits’ children is cruelly misleading” – Molly Kingsley in the Telegraph on the ongoing cruelty of school closures
- “Boris Johnson cannot afford to be overly cautious about lifting lockdown” – Patrick O’Flynn urges Boris to stiffen his backbone
- “Graham lands deal for £100m School of Public Health” – Story in Construction Inquirer revealing that Imperial College London is building a £100 million public health centre at its new campus in White City
- “Experts predict quarantine hotels could be with us ‘until next summer’” – Annabel Fenwick Elliott in the Telegraph says industry experts are pessimistic about the quarantine hotels being a short-term measure
- “Mother of boy filmed verbally abusing Chris Whitty confiscates his PlayStation” – The Guardian reports on the mother’s reaction to her son’s TikTok video of him calling Chris Whitty a liar. Contrary to the claims made by the lockdown fanatics – who blamed this bit of rudeness on sceptics – it doesn’t sound like the lad is a regular visitor to this site
- Lockdown Sceptics contributor Prof David Patton responded on Twitter to Snowdon’s response to my response to… well, you get the idea
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “How Soon” by Henry Mancini, “Alone Again” by the Damned, “Lonesome Town” by the Cramps and “Freedom” by David Gray.
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 Lockdown Sceptics here.
Sharing Stories
Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, we bring you the story of the demise of Donald McNeil, the New York Times‘s star Covid reporter. He used the n-word on a 2019 educational trip with schoolchildren and, even though the New York Times investigated the incident after several complaints were made at the time – and reprimanded McNeil – the story resurfaced in the Daily Beast last week, an outrage mob formed up and McNeil has been forced to resign. In addition to stepping down, McNeil has issued a self-flagellating apology that – as Andrew Sullivan points out – reads like a confession procured by the Khmer Rouge. Fox News has the story.
Two days after the Beast reported on a letter written by more than 150 Times staffers expressing outrage at the paper’s handling of the McNeil claims, McNeil wrote a letter of his own to staff explaining what transpired on the 2019 educational trip and announcing his exit.
“On a 2019 New York Times trip to Peru for high school students, I was asked at dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur,” McNeil began the letter, which was obtained by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. “To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur myself.
“I should not have done that. Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended. I now realise that it cannot. It is deeply offensive and hurtful. The fact that I even thought I could defend it itself showed extraordinarily bad judgment. For that I apologise,” McNeil wrote.
After expressing an apology to the students on the trip, the 66-year-old reporter acknowledged that his “lapse of judgment” has hurt his colleagues and the institution itself, which “puts its confidence in me and expected better.”
“So for offending my colleagues – and for anything I’ve done to hurt the Times, which is an institution I love and whose mission I believe in and try to serve – I am sorry. I let you all down,” McNeil concluded.
The New York Times also has a version of the story.
Stop Press: I wrote a piece for yesterday’s Critic about the mistreatment of a 74 year-old man by a loneliness charity. His sin? Not finding Black Peter offensive.
“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.
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: We’ve been sent a report by Stephen Morris, the General Secretary of the Workers of England Union (WEU), about a recent case involving an NHS receptionist who was facing the sack because she refused to mask up.
An NHS receptionist joined the WEU as they were due to attend a third sickness absence interview, the letter stating they could be dismissed. The employee had medical conditions which meant they could not wear a mask or face shield and had been off work since the wearing of mask legislation came in.
During the meeting, the Manager and HR adviser went through the processes to justify the decision to terminate the member’s employment, unable to wear a face mask or shield, no reasonable adjustment could be made, no alternative roles available.
The WEU adviser raised the point that, neither the WEU or employee had seen a copy of the risk assessment on the employee to show what the risks were, what reasonable adjustments had been considered, or what other roles had been looked at, so they could not properly defend the member’s position. The NHS Manager and HR Adviser confirmed they do not usually give out risk assessments, and that none had been done in this case.
The WEU then pointed out that face screens create a greater risk of cross contamination due to droplets going from the mask to desks and keyboards, therefore transferring to door handles, light switches, and other equipment as the employee moves about, meaning a greater cleaning regime would be required, and without this risk assessment the employer was now failing every employee, even those who wore face screens and masks. This may also be a case of disability discrimination due to the failure of the employer to do proper assessments.
The Employee was not dismissed (or sanctioned), and the employer has had to go and do appropriate risk assessments!
The member was delighted with the outcome!
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.
Scottish Church leaders from a range of Christian denominations have launched legal action, supported by the Christian Legal Centre against the Scottish Government’s attempt to close churches in Scotland for the first time since the the Stuart kings in the 17th century. The church leaders emphasised it is a disproportionate step, and one which has serious implications for freedom of religion.” Further information available here.
There’s the class action lawsuit being brought by Dr Reiner Fuellmich and his team in various countries against “the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product, PCR tests”. Dr Fuellmich explains the lawsuit in this video. Dr Fuellmich has also served cease and desist papers on Professor Christian Drosten, co-author of the Corman-Drosten paper which was the first and WHO-recommended PCR protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2. That paper, which was pivotal to the roll out of mass PCR testing, was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance on January 21st and accepted following peer review on January 22nd. The paper has been critically reviewed here by Pieter Borger and colleagues, who also submitted a retraction request. UPDATE: The retraction request has been rejected.
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.
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…
Sandstone, a Scottish publisher, is bringing out a collection of Nic Sturge-on’s speeches called… wait for it… Women Hold Up Half the Sky. Odd choice of words, given it was a phrase coined by Mao Zhedong, the 20th Century’s most murderous dictator, responsible for between 15 and 55 million deaths.
Why is Sandstone publishing this book, given that it’s unlikely to sell more than 100 copies? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that Sandstone has received large subsidies from Creative Scotland, a funding arm of the Scottish Government, amounting to a cumulative total of £410,029.
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DeSantis Fights Back on Obscene Drag Shows for Kids…
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/26/exclusive-ron-desantis-florida-files-complaint-against-bar-that-held-lewd-drag-show-for-kids/
Exclusive: Ron DeSantis’ Florida Files Complaint Against Bar that Held Lewd Drag Show for Children
by JOEL B. POLLAK
Yellow Boards By The Road
“But what can I do? I am just one person”, said 8 billion people …
Thursday 4th August 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A321 Wargrave Road &
A4 New Bath Road
Twyford, Berks RG10 9PN
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Flaming Nora I’m back! And what a palarver getting here, but I won’t bore you with the deets. But suffice to say, the many people who haven’t returned are not tight-wads. The vibe around here has definitely been obliterated, which leads me to my main point;
To the DS team,
Despite the fact I value this site and appreciate all of the hard work you guys put in to churning out quality articles I am less than impressed with the way the recent changes to this place have been implemented. I’m perplexed as to why you ditched the other comments section, but didn’t feel any explanation was warranted, and why you felt it wasn’t worth giving us a heads-up that you planned to bring in this ‘pay to comment’ concept. It was just dropped on us out of the blue under the guise of ‘site maintenance’. This comes across to me as both underhand and cheeky. I’m certain that had you let us know that you were in dire straits financially in advance people would have contributed gladly because we are all grateful for this place, but respect works both ways and what you did is not cool.
I would therefore appreciate it if someone from the team could explain the following;
1) Why you got rid of the other comments section, in the ‘basement’. That section offered a totally different place in which many people could engage, both on and off-topic ( often very much off! ) and not have others moaning about them doing so. It had a more laid-back vibe and was extremely popular and active. This section has always been very ‘business-like’, talking only about today’s topics, and dies a death come the afternoon, whereas the other section was active into the small hours. There’s a reason many posters from both sections never or rarely crossed over and posted on both sections. This site had something to appeal to everyone but now that is gone.
2) Why you didn’t tell us of the up-coming significant changes you had planned. By not doing so you have silenced and cancelled the opinions that posters were entitled to share, both good and bad ( as surely all feedback is constructive? ) about what was coming. Evidently many did have misgivings because a large chunk of posters have not returned and now we’ll never know why because you didn’t give them the opportunity to raise any concerns. You’ve ironically taken the “free” out of ‘Free Speech’ in more ways than one.
People visit this site not just for the articles but for the community built by the many, varied and regular posters. Dumping a ‘pay to comment’ policy on us with no advance warning has gone down like a lead balloon for many of them, evidently. So a shout out to the regulars from the other section; BagpussKitty ( I miss your cartoons! ), Victoria, Londo, Swedenborg, Kate, Dante, Bungle…I know you’re still here. Please consider coming back, even just temporarily so that you can actually share your thoughts on these changes. I miss all of the contributions, the craic, the informative and funny exchanges we enjoyed. The place won’t be the same without you all and everyone in this one section doesn’t exactly bode well going forward, though that remains to be seen.
In a nut shell, this site is now different but not improved. Just my opinion for what its worth.
There’s still a comments section under the daily newsletter pages – I don’t see how that has changed.
As for the £5 – it seems odd in a way to charge people who made a net positive contribution but I doubt there were any easy choices as to how to raise money, and putting the whole thing behind a paywall simply means our message won’t go to those who need it most.
I think the articles are better – more original pieces, fewer links to mainstream press behind paywalls that were sceptic-lite.
I’m not referring to that comments section. There was a general comments section at the bottom of the site, so under this section. It wasn’t exactly hidden away, it was there plain as day.
And as I said above, I’ve no probs with contributing financially in order to not lose this site but its the sudden and unexpected way in which it was brought about that I find hard to comprehend. Really inconsiderate actually. People could have aired their views on this had they been made aware ahead of time, then they could have decided for themselves to remain or leave. The fact that such a large number of key contributors have decided to leave and stay gone is not something to be overlooked. But as for the ‘why’…. they were deprived of giving their reasons so we may never know.
I don’t know if you saw my post three days ago. I said some of the same things. And feel very similarly about the changes.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/07/25/news-round-up-501/#comment-825077
Yes Amtrup I did. I concurred 100%. Wish we could get the opinions from those who are conspicuous by their absence too, from both comments sections. People are entitled to give feedback but that ability has been denied them.
I am baffled as to what comments section you’re referring to but I will take your word for it.
I am not sure TY or DS owes us anything. I personally don’t feel it does. Maybe others are more invested in it. It’s TY’s site to do with what he feels best, and as long as it is supporting anti-lockdown and free speech causes I will support it and hope it succeeds.
It’s a shame that certain people don’t post here any more, but I am not convinced that telling them about the changes in advance would have made any difference. People are free to do a one-off contribution of £5 to have their say, or email the DS team.
I think DS is vastly improved. The comments section is now a comments section. I’ve been a subscriber since the site started, and my favourite posters are still here. Most of the names you quote I don’t recognise. I’m sure ‘Kate’ (as I think I know who ‘Kate’ is – hero!) is still here, under another name, as cover might have been blown…
I didn’t hang out in this section as much but even I can see that many familiar posters are absent. All of the Aussies have gone, for starters. That’s a real shame as I find it interesting to get firsthand accounts of the situation from people in other countries. Mark was a major contributor, then there’s naughty boy RedHotScot…just to name a couple. You probably don’t recognise the ones I mentioned as they were active mainly in the general comments section. Where the people who aren’t so starchy would go to kick back and let it all hang out..As I said, there was something for everyone but now there’s only here.
You have to wonder whether online payments from Oz are somehow disrupted or made too complicated. Conspiracy though it sounds, I wouldn’t put it past the shysters who want to shut us up and have the power to do so through such devious means. The increasing practice of freezing bank accounts is a sign of what TPTB can and are doing. They don’t like dissent and they don’t like us all being connected. A long shot perhaps but plausible.
Do you really think so many are that paranoid about the security of paying online ( though doesn’t everyone pay online these days? It’s hard to avoid. ) that this is the reason they haven’t returned? It seems a bit over the top. So we’re down to 3 possible reasons why people have gone MIA;
1) They’re too tight to cough up a fiver. Seems pretty unlikely to me.
2) They’re worried about the security element of donating to this site. I find this hard to believe also, although if I were in Canada it would be a different story. If spies wanted to trace you they could easily. Even if you never pay for anything online there’s many other means available to find a person.
3) People are pissed off with the DS team and holding a grudge due to not being forewarned about the changes. I don’t think people hold onto grudges that long if they’re normal, adjusted individuals. Plus, the benefits of this site outweigh the inconvenience of the recent shenanigans here so surely people would want to rejoin the fold by now?
So its a mystery to me as none of these possible reasons sound very plausible to me. Not for *everyone* who’s missing anyway.
As I said in my post the other day my reasons for not donating earlier were that I’m mostly pretty broke; I “don’t do” subscriptions/have never done them, and I don’t like using my bank card online more than can help/if I can avoid it, and yes, I was/am annoyed/repelled/alienated by how this change was carried out, on top of the earlier changes a year or more ago when DS started erasing the whole comment thread below the Daily Update at the end of each day. .
And I was/am still very sad about the disappearance/destruction of that wonderful early feeling of cooperative community here, in which we seemed to be a team, a real community fighting the lockdown&mask&testing etc together.
That sense of cooperative team effort, of acting together to resist was tarnished by the unilateral acts of the editorial team that time, and now again. It has seriously eroded the feelings of loyalty I felt towards this site. I have made this one payment/donation in recognition of the great thing it was, and because I appreciated a new site link in the Roundup, but I don’t know if I will be making any more donations.
I think it’s possible that sceptics are inherently less inclined to “subscribe to” things, less likely to “buy into” stuff, not so readily “sold on” anything … and they like to, need to, weigh up pros and cons, and do not like decisions being made for them.
You misread me, Mogs. I didn’t question the integrity of our antipodean friends at all, just the authorities and the way they can manipulate things like overseas payments – god knows I’ve had problems sometimes with this. Anyway, read my reply again and you’ll get the gist of it.
I miss the Aussies very much. I would share a drink with Alt Ego any time. Lovely fella.
For those of us who are frequent and usually Daily posters DS is not “vastly improved.” Prior to the changes we had a large and diverse body of commenters who provided many often well-researched and genuinely thought-provoking points of view. Yes we had the occasional bouts of levity but in these demonic days is that really so bad? And in any case the people periodically lightening the mood tended to congregate in the general Comments section and not here at BTL.
We also had a more international cast of people. The Aussies seem to have disappeared entirely and I miss them and their Southern Hemisphere perspective very much. Holland lost too many but it’s fantastic to have Mogwai back. The US element is denuded – where’s Bill Rice now?
The bottom line is that successful commentary requires a degree of erudition from a wide and diverse group of people and without doubt a modicum of commitment to frequency of posting. Hopefully we can re build this site and get back to some occasional bouts of craziness for the sake of everyone’s sanity.
I do not think the changes to DS were handled well, clumsily would be a better description, but if a paywall was required to keep this bastion of free speech alive then I support the team. At the end of the day nothing runs on fresh air.
So, no Deborah, we are not “vastly improved.”
Well articulated and totally agreed, Hux. Also thank you to yourself and the others who have welcomed me back. Just a mere hiatus.
I do hope more of the tribe will think on and trickle back as time goes on. The site was richer for their presence and regular posts, be it the technical stuff like graphs and scientific papers, or the many other links and articles that people took a lot of time to research and share, which most people wouldn’t know where to find..the random threads started by shared opinions or anecdotes or people just stopping by to connect and have a chin-wag, looking for camaraderie and mutual support or just to vent your spleen. To have a place where its frowned upon to talk about anything other than the articles on the site, despite the huge diversity of personalities who frequent this place, is unrealistic and frankly bonkers.
You need to be a rabble rouser and start up the ‘Breakfast Club’ again. See how many join and how long it takes for anarchy to ensue.
We all know how offensive and annoying wishing people a ‘good morning’ is. 
Why, it makes you practically a troll around these parts!
Another lovely post Mogwai and you made me laugh.
I do tend to keep late nights so the “breakfast club” might be revived. Lately, I have tended to put DS to bed by 11:30 pm because there’s nothing happening and pre changes the evening banter was always the best. And you are absolutely correct –
“random threads started by shared opinions or anecdotes or people just stopping by to connect and have a chin-wag, looking for camaraderie and mutual support or just to vent your spleen. To have a place where its frowned upon to talk about anything other than the articles on the site, despite the huge diversity of personalities who frequent this place, is unrealistic and frankly bonkers.”
That to me sums up why
this site means so much. The only people who share similar views to mine are on this site. Away from here any discussion of our predicament is ĺimited to C1984, Putin bad and how many jabs have you had. Everybody I speak to has their head in the sand. It drives me nuts. I come here for sanity and like-minded souls who at least allow me to think I am not on my own. Bleak I know.
Thanks again and I will repeat myself – glad you are back.
PS. I hope some of the others can get back.
Good evening, Hux! I liked your tenacity in continuing to wish us all a jolly good morning and how it irked all those grumbly downtickers.
Many thanks Aethelred.
Actually I genuinely meant those “good mornings” because I felt I was amongst friends, like-minded souls who sought keypad comfort from those with similar views. We had a real community. Short of us all being sat round a table in a pub with a drink in our hands it couldn’t get much better.
We need to bring that community back. Lord knows we have enough fighting to do.
Oh I know you did, Hux, and it was a lovely way to start the day. I liked yours and AE’s banter. I truly hope you get to meet him and have a pint together one day. I’ll even join you!
Cheers Aethelred. The drinks will be on me and it will be a pleasure.
I have the impression – which my be wrong – that Toby never much cared for the comments sections. Shame, as I felt they were a massive part of the site.
You might almost say they were lifesavers – kept you up to date with evolving themes in a way ATL couldn’t. I’m guessing those forums meant many people didn’t take the stabs who otherwise might have done so – so literally a lifesaver.
The forums were a fine place for the airing of cutting edge themes, which weren’t yet ready for ATL presentation – for example, they were almost completely anti-stab while ATL was neutral or even supportive. Certainly ATL in early 2021 seemed slow to perceive that the threat had moved on from actual lockdowns to the new and even more insidious ground of stab coercion.
Yes, I miss those forums and many of the posters. (But good to see the back of the trolls though.)
Yes I agree. And it didn’t go unnoticed by me the regular fishing of articles from the general comments section, usually posted by the likes of Swedenborg, which would then appear the very next day in the News Round-up. I don’t know how many hours some posters devoted to researching and posting on here multiple times on a daily basis but their efforts were appreciated. I think I’d feel a bit hard done by and like I’d been shafted after working so hard to add value to this site only to have these radical changes dropped on me out of nowhere. I hope people aren’t holding a grudge after all this time but you never know…
Even though I didn’t get a mention I’m glad you have re surfaced , lots to digest in your comeback post & I agree on most points raised , nothing stays the same so let’s regroup & Carry On Regardless ! Toby is still The Man & he is slowly hardening his view on all we see being deliberately done to the world as we knew it ! Welcome back
Haha now now Freddy. The only reason I didn’t mention you is that I’ve seen you about, albeit much less frequently. I’m on about the people who have literally vanished. Well most of the regulars from the other section are posting much less often, I rarely see them. Sophie, Hux, Judy…ebygum is giving it some welly most days though.
Yes I just think its a shame when people change things seemingly just for the sake of changing them. No real improvements have been made. If that were the case then we wouldn’t have lost so many regulars, who invested an awful lot of time and effort here, would we? If this site was ‘new and improved’ then we’d be seeing an increase in people posting not a decrease. It might change over time though. Let’s see…:-)
I’m here less often because things have been crazy busy at work. And also I used to be here mainly for the science updates from Kate and Swedenborg.
Currently I am fascinated by the massive fibrous clots that embalmers are finding, which could be fibrin based, but nobody knows for sure. But I have nobody to really discuss it with.
I’m on leave this week though, so am here a bit more. Though mostly hiking all day
Have you seen the video of the clots removed by John O’Looney from the cardiac blood vessels of a young man who died of a heart attack? They’re absolutely mad!
https://t.me/AnnadeBuisseretUKLawyer/3057
No I hadn’t – thanks for posting. I was wondering why we hadn’t heard more from the U.K. and was thinking maybe embalming is less common here? Not sure about that. Who gets embalmed?
Anyone who requests it!
If you want to keep up to date with things, then Anna’s Telegram is useful as she is in touch with many of the wonderful folk who are leading the fight for truth.
John O’Looney also put out a video of him looking at contracts for hospitals for cremations of babies. Any babies who are stillborn or die shortly after are being sent straight to the crematoria & bypassing the funeral directors. Almost as if they don’t want the sheer numbers being known…. Almost as if they want all the evidence destroying….
https://t.me/robinmg/21796
Ok
Welcome back, Mogs! I too took a sabbatical for precisely the same reasons and when I visited the comments section I could no longer comment on, it seemed like an empty town in a Western with nothing but tumbleweed blowing through and a door banging endlessly… But I took the plunge, like you because I missed the banter and interaction, like you, and have been rather disappointed that this has not really returned. It’s ironic that TY values and champions free speech but didn’t think it necessary to inform all the commenters about DS plans but, as you say, just foist them upon us. I get it that DS needs some money to run what has been a lifeline for many of us and that an awful lot of work goes into it but maybe an explanation of what they were going to do in advance would have gone some way towards minimising the surprise and disappointment. Still here we are, and here it is, we go on… Looking forward to the banter and interaction.
Maybe they should have taken a tiny leaf out of The Daily Expose’s book! LOL My god, their site has pop-ups and notices all over the place asking for donations constantly. Very in yer face but nobody can say that they weren’t warned if the site suddenly disappears due to lack of financial support. Contrast that with here, I had no idea what the financial situation was. Well nobody would if we weren’t notified by the team would we? Good job I’m not cynical or I’d conclude that the DS team don’t give a crap about the posters here, only the money they can get off us. If I were a cynic I’d think that the abrupt change was a strategic way of trying to get more money as opposed to just putting up a notice saying they need more funding. They chose to force peoples’ hands rather than take the polite route. Well I hope it worked.
Very well put, Mogwai. The principle of things is so important.
But I would say a fiver a month is, well… well worth it. Forgive their mistake in dropping it on us.
Agreed. A fiver a month is naff all. I’d squander that in a day without knowing where it went and I’m far from flush, let alone over the course of a month! And this is precisely why there are other reasons why so many posters have gone AWOL. Nowt to do with being stingy gits.
Mogwai!
Bloody great you are back.
You have made my day. I haven’t read your post yet. God I wish I could give you a big hug.
I hope all is well.
Ah bless ya! What a lovely post to read.
Great to be back with like-minded folk and kindred spirits. Well once you find your tribe you can’t just chuck it all away, right? I also hope all is good with you in Saddleback land…or was it Saddleworth?? Crap, there’s a saddle in there somewhere I’m certain. *Blonde moment alert!*
Definitely a ‘saddle.’
Saddleworth.
Blonde Moment? There are a multitude of blonde beers on the supermarket shelves over here now but I’m not familiar with ‘Blonde Moment.’ One to look out for I guess.
I share your views totally.
Great Post.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/07/27/the-phoniest-most-pr-intensive-war-of-all-time/#comment-84072
We’ve seen this before.
Top man
Edinburgh professor Richard Ennos.
Top man.
And he was interviewed on GBN by Mark Steyn last night, so he’s still got a job there – and so he should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhAjues38c from around 13 minutes in.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/27/dangerous-transgender-male-assaulted-women-sex-toy-dark/
I have a confession to make. Whenever I read transgender articles, I get confused as to who / what are they referring to: man- woman or woman- man? I look it up on the ‘net’ which tells me that a transgender man is a person assigned as woman at birth but identifies as male; transgender woman vice versa. Ah right, methinks, I got that…then I read / see another article and my brain hasn’t retained the information. Weird. I can only think that my old, decrepit brain is getting worse at retaining memory or, it’s fine tuning and shedding useless, unnecessary
Crapdata. I hope it’s the second.I think destabilisation and confusion is part of the trans agenda;
”Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola
Lo lo lo lo Lola”
But it is also a dangerous world, you do not go far into this subject before you come across puberty blocking castration drugs, gender realignment surgery, breast binding and mastectomy. As the mRNA vaccines are showing us; the human body is a highly complex dynamic interacting machine and it is very dangerous to play around with it. Female Sparrowhawks are 25% bigger than male Sparrowhawks, if a male Sparrowhawk went ‘trans’ and decided it wanted to be female it physically could not increase its body size by 25%, however much it tried. We delude ourselves if we think that it is different for humans; the more you study the biology the more you realise that the biological difference between human males and females is every bit as unbridgeable as it is for Sparrowhawks.
By all means breakdown the rigid stereotypes that society imposes on males and females, let people dress how they want, let girls play with toy tractors and let boys play at dressing up. But if you start to play around with human male/female biology you are into dangerous and damaging territory and it will not end well.
I have to explain that to Mr.Gefion every time he talks about something he’s read. The latest missive about transmen giving birth had him very confused!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/27/trans-parents-should-given-chestfeeding-support/
As physicians you’d have thought they would have some basic knowledge of anatomy!
males have breasts and can develop breast cancer.
The chest is everything above the diaphragm up to the shoulders.
If you have a chest X-ray that is what is imaged, otherwise it’s a mammogram.
Humans are mammals which means that females have mammary glands producing milk. Although my 12 week old grand daughter does try and suckle my carotid!
They are the royal college of obstetricians and gynaecologists, the meaning of gynae is female/woman.
“The lights are going out across Europe”
This article in Spiked highlights the absence of any grasp on reality and reason currently in Europe among our so-called leaders. NATO is promoting and arming a country in a war against Russia. A war, not a skirmish or a bit of a tiff, a proper war with weapons and soldiers and stuff. Death, destruction etc. And yet they – the NATO countries, which includes most of the EU – are worried that the country that they are arming another country against is going to turn off the gas! So, rather than start peace negotiations and find a diplomatic solution with a ceasefire and an end of major hostilities so that energy supplies, grain supplies and food distribution can continue, they would rather fight this proxy war and let their citizens suffer. They continue to try and drum up support and, quite depressingly, I see these Ukrainian flags everywhere. If you don’t go along with the NATO narrative, you are against them as the journalist/blogger Graham Phillips is finding out with the UK government freezing his accounts although he hasn’t been charged with anything or done anything wrong other than tell the truth…which clearly goes against their version. It all feels wrong and skewed yet of course we don’t have the media to counter or question the decisions being made on our behalf. It’s a crusade, nothing more, and we have to pay the price. Let’s see if a few more people start to wake up when they’re sitting in the dark and they’re cold and hungry…while the government basks in heating at our expense and quaffs champagne and gorges on cake.
https://thewhiterose.uk/farce-mask-almost-20-years-ago-they-knew-mask-are-useless/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-latest-news-from-our-blog_11
Also a perfect example and illustration of how the times, politicians, scientists, media and people have changed for the worse over the last 2 decades.
2 brilliant articles from the libertarian camp on what really ails us, happens and how we got there.
“Woke capitalism is what happens when social democracy grows to such proportions as to make it nearly impossible to earn a profit without political approval.”
https://www.michaelrectenwald.com/essays/the-failure-of-liberalism-and-the-conservative-crisis-of-faith
“Contrary to what almost everyone thinks, the main purpose of regulation is not to protect consumers but to entrench the current order. Regulation prevents new institutions from arising quickly and cheaply.
Does the Department of Agriculture really need 100,000 employees to regulate fewer than two million farms in the U.S.?
Has the Department of Energy, created in 1977 to somehow solve a temporary crisis, done anything of value with its 110,000 employees and contractors and $32 billion annual budget?”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/07/doug-casey/heres-what-the-government-should-really-do-in-the-greater-depression/
Morning fellow Sceptics…..welcome back Mogs…..
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom/cdc-covid-vaccine-adverse-effects-data
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is demanding answers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after the agency told a nonprofit group that it never conducted a mandated data mining analysis on reported adverse effects that followed the administration of Covid-19 vaccine doses.
The CDC is tasked with performing a proportional reporting ratio, or PRR, data mining analysis on a weekly basis to determine whether the amount of reported “adverse events” following the administration of COVID-19 vaccine doses in the public Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, database is proportional to reported adverse events linked to the administration of other vaccines.
But the CDC said in a June 16 letter to Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group led by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that “no PRRs were conducted by the CDC.” The CDC’s letter, which was in response to an FOIA request submitted by the group, added that “data mining is outside of th[e] agency’s purview.”
VAERS standard operating procedures state clearly that the CDC “will perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed.”
https://rairfoundation.com/hungarian-mp-links-drastic-fall-in-birth-rates-to-mass-vaccinations-against-covid-video/
The deputy president of the Hungarian political party, Our Homeland Movement, warned that her country’s birth rates had shown a sudden and drastic drop since the beginning of this year. This massive dop comes almost nine months after the first surge of the covid “vaccines.”
During Dóra Dúró’s June 27, 2022, speech on the floor of the national parliament, she pointed out that the number of births in Hungry decreased this year by 20 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, the national fertility rate also fell:
I am of course going to state the usual:
Depopulation.
I looked up the U.K. abortion stats today, for last year. They look pretty stable. How do we reconcile this with the 10pct drop in Germany and the 10pct plus fall in births in the U.K.? It’s all v odd.
This is an interesting little article….there’s no doubt in my mind that this winter is going to be very hard in relation to fuel depravation…
https://watt-logic.com/2022/07/28/winter-outlook-2022/
If National Grid has not adjusted its assumptions on import levels in light of the market changes described above, then it is seriously mis-leading the market as to the true picture this winter. It seems beyond wishful thinking to believe our winter capacity margin this year will be higher than last.
Thanks for the link ebygum. I have read the article and while some of the technical stuff is beyond me the messaging being put out by the National Grid reminds me very much of the messaging put out about the, erm “vaccines,” i.e. ‘safe and effective.’
In short National Grid are lying.
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1552432596776357890
from…Ethical Sceptic, graphs provided if you have Twitter….
Remember the states which registered the lowest VAERS Severe AE rates versus percent of population vaccinated? What we called the ‘saline effect’…
Well they’re back
Those same states ALSO happen to have the lowest rates of Non-Covid Natural Cause Excess Death.
Funny that!