Lord Sumption has written an impressive piece in the Telegraph criticising the Government’s application of the so-called “precautionary principle” (assuming the worst when there is little evidence) and highlighting that the extreme measures taken in the hope of reducing the Covid death toll should have been based on “good reasons backed by evidence” which they weren’t, obviously.
The “sunk cost fallacy” is a well-known source of distortion in human decision-making. A decision is made which has destructive implications. The limited benefits and immense collateral damage gradually become apparent.
It is next to impossible for those involved in the decision to change their minds. No one wants to admit that it might all have been for nothing, even if that is the truth. They have invested too much in the decision to reverse out of the cul-de-sac. So they press on, more to avoid blame than to serve the public interest. This is what has happened to governments across Europe and to the dug-in body of specialists who advise them. Their recipe is simple: if lockdowns haven’t worked, there is nothing wrong with the concept. We just need more of them.
The former Supreme Court judge points to the “Overview of the Evidence” published by the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) last week, which he thinks is an impressive document. “We cannot contribute to the science, but we can at least understand it,” he writes. “Those who are unwilling to do even that much have no moral right to demand coercive measures against their fellow citizens.”
The HART overview concludes that lockdowns “must never be repeated”. They “serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms“. It calls for a return to the pandemic plans prepared over a decade for just this sort of event by the UK and other governments and endorsed by the WHO. They were based on two principles. Avoid coercion and don’t go for one size-fits-all measures like lockdowns when the risks affect different groups differently. They recommended balanced public health guidance, no border closures and targeted action to assist those who are most vulnerable. These principles were abruptly jettisoned a year ago. They were replaced by an untried experiment, which there was neither time nor research to consider properly.
Lord Sumption says that the HART paper covers three core points which the proponents of lockdowns have never been able to answer. These are: the availability of international comparisons which show no relationship between the stringency of lockdown and the level of Covid infections or deaths; the unwillingness of governments to confront the collateral costs of locking down; and the fact that the burden of the lockdown has fallen mainly on those who are the least vulnerable to COVID-19.
Worth reading in full.
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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
People who come up with schemes like that should be swabbed until death by nose-bleeding. This is nothing but wanton cruelty inflicted on a vulnerable group of people whose crime is that they have no means of escaping it.
Excellent
Didn’t they have hospitals that practiced this kind of treatment? They were abandoned in the 1970s because they realised it didn’t work, sanatoriums I believe they were called!
Mixed news from the England branch of world folly and evil – Mrs ToF went for a blood test today, no masks in sight. On the other hand an acquaintance has a daughter with a bad cough that has lasted weeks, antibiotics no good, amid the otherwise pretty good service she was getting from the GP it was suggested she should make her take a “covid test” – likely result that she will then dutifully “isolate” if she tests positive, instead of getting on with life. At least the mum hasn’t bothered testing her up to now.
Well what I find hilarious is that for a site that’s all about ‘free speech’, there’s a hell of a lot of censorship. Not only has resident Gestapo agent, ‘Hardliner’, locked me out of the site so I can’t log in on my phone, but he’s removed part of my post in the Round-up section. Ever feel like you’re being surveilled? You probably are…Actually it’s obviously just me that’s on a special ‘list’.
”Profanity and abuse will be removed…” except anything Hardliner doesn’t like is removed. Profanity and abuse do not factor in to it. Repeatedly, and without explanation, evidently. Care to comment, Hardliner? No, course not. I’m calling you out on your behaviour so you could at least do the decent thing, but I shan’t be holding my breath….But this post will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2….
I’ve been annoyed by this as well. OTOH, this is the website of the people who run it and they decide what gets published there. That’s just the way it works.
It’s Hardlines on a power trip, that’s what it is. Being deliberately antagonising. Either that or they’re Muslim and I’m pissing them off with my anti-Islam posts, channeling my inner Geert Wilders!
But it’s the double standards with the whole “free speech” gig. What is the criteria used by which some mod deems a post *inappropriate* and worth fiddling with? Especially as none of the posts he/she’s removing of mine breach the above warning.
So given that the “profanity and abuse will be removed…” warning is just mere window dressing, and posts are getting edited/removed anyway, with not even a courteous explanation provided, then from this day forth I’m identifying as a Tourettes sufferer, because fuck it. It makes no difference.
Now bring on the swear jar!
Some years ago, Karl Lauterbach (German Mr COVID and health minister) did a photo-op with some pre-teen girls about to go to a Dangerous climate change! march he was also planning to attend and he referred to them in a very weird (according to my personal judgement) way, something like “These young girls just told me why they’re worried about climate change and now, we’ll go to a climate march together!” I mentionend that once in a comment and the sentence got deleted. No idea why.
All my relatives keep doing that, too, and they all dutifully isolate when positive. But at least, they’ve discarded the masks (I personally threw one my mother was still carrying “just in case” into the bin). I keep telling them that COVID is essentially a cold and that it will usually pass on its own quickly enough that people will rarely even consciously notice this and hope that it’ll eventually sink in.
Japan has really lost its mojo.
I know someone who nearly died of pneumonia because our great NHS ambulance service did exactly the same thing to him.