Fears over the Indian Covid variant – which reports suggest is set to become the dominant strain in the U.K. within days – could mean the June 21st deadline for scrapping all the restrictions is delayed, as the Government says it needs more “time to assess the latest data”. Sky News has the story.
Boris Johnson said last week that the Government would be “saying more later this month about exactly what the world will look like” on June 21st and “what role there could be – if any – for certification [having to prove your Covid status] and social distancing”.
The Prime Minister also told MPs that ministers would “before the end of this month, set out all the details about the marriage world post-June 21st”.
That date is when the Government hopes to lift all legal limits on social contact under step four of its roadmap for easing coronavirus restrictions in England.
But asked about these announcements on Monday, Mr Johnson’s spokesman did not commit to the previously suggested timetables.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last week that ministers “haven’t ruled out” ending mask-wearing requirements on June 21st, and reports suggest that the Government’s domestic vaccine passport plans could be scaled back even further than previously expected. Other measures, such as caps on numbers attending large events, are, however, likely to stay in place past the “end” of lockdown.
Asked when the Government will reveal more details about the final step of the roadmap out of lockdown, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We need time to assess the latest data on this variant first identified in India so I’m not going to give a set time for doing that. We want to do everything possible to give people enough time to prepare.” The Sky News report continues:
Matt Hancock told MPs on Monday there are now more than 2,300 cases of the [Indian Covid] variant in the U.K., with 86 local authority areas reporting five or more cases.
The spread of the variant – which scientists fear could be up to 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant – has raised questions about the fourth step in the Government’s plan for lifting restrictions.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A full easing of lockdown restrictions is now unlikely, writes Robert Peston in the Spectator.
The prospect of the final easing of lockdown restrictions in England going ahead precisely as planned on June 21st is close to nil, according to ministers and officials.
“It is clear some social distancing will have to be retained, not everything we’ve set out for June 21st is likely to happen,” said a Government adviser. “But it is also possible some of the easing we’ve done today will have to be reversed.” …
The ethical and political question for the Prime Minister would be whether to slow down or even reverse unlocking if the disease were on the rise but there was no significant risk of the NHS being overwhelmed. Ministers tell me that is the big question pre-occupying Boris Johnson
Why is this even being considered if there is no real risk of the NHS being overwhelmed? How can something as harmful and costly as lockdown be deemed necessary or proportionate? When did “Zero Covid” become the de facto policy of the U.K. Government?
Also worth reading in full.
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Surprise surprise…….
Freedom Day??????? your not taking any notice of this nonsense, are you !!
Do your own thing for the sake of your own sanity
You only have to read Tom Bower’s book on Boris Johnson (and his father) and also Max Hastings’s opinion of him to understand what he stands for – Boris Johnson.
Unfortunately for the country the brilliance of our vaccination programme is credited to him by the general public rather than people like Kate Bingham.
This Indian variant stuff is nonsense. The use of ‘cases’ is willfully misleading. ‘Instances’ would be more appropriate as it seems to relate to testing of asymptomatic people, while ‘case’ implies symptomatic individuals. Does the ‘Indian variant’ result in more severe symptoms? Does it result in higher numbers of fatalities? No and no is my guess based on totally mortality figures. And whatever happened to the infamous ‘Kent variant’? The one that was going to destroy the world as we know it.
This is pure political BS trying to coerce people to take experimental drugs of limited use in relation to the adverse side effects. The US vaccine adverse effects system has been going for ~30 years. 40% of its entries have been generated in the last 6 months.
Watching the BBC lunchtime news. SAGE not happy about yesterday’s reopening as it fails the 4th measure ‘lack of a variant of concern’. If these people get their way we will be in lockdown forever.
It’s a cold
Yes colds can put people in hospital – always have done
Judging by his tweets yesterday,one time good Tory Mark Harper is now fully on board with the “get the jab” circus. Shame but he follows a well trodden path of spineless tories.
Many sceptics, me included knew that the opening up wouldn’t happen even BEFORE this new variant arrived upon the scene.
Obviously there can be no removal of freedoms already returned to the public. It has been clearly stated that the roadmap is irreversible.
Hmm, you do know that the past can be changed? Only the future is certain!
‘Freedom Day’ has been a fantasy from the beginning. They never planned on going through with it. Just think back over the last 14-15 months! Nudge, nudge, give the plebs a little bit, take it away, make a promise, give a bit of hope, remove it in their best interests, pump out a dodgy stat or two to terrify them, name-call the ‘wary‘ who choose not to have an experimental injection of a pretty much unknown substance, “vaccine IDIOTS” whose fault it is that we must delay freedom for all the rest. Set the fools against one another. They won’t remember yesterday’s lies, never mind last years.
This and more has already been predicted. See the link below as a matter of interest.
Remember that massive new propaganda contract recently renewed but nearly trebled in value for the coming year to 2022? All when this imaginary crisis was retreating! I wouldn’t mind a bit of that. £320 million wasn’t it? Nice if you can get it.
Anyone who even half believes their lies and propaganda deserves what they get out of this sh1te….I DON’T! Neither do my children or grandchildren. What sort of future lies in wait for them?
The… Read more »
New ‘variants’ with higher transmissibility is always ‘discovered’ just before a vital stage of restrictions are due to be removed. It is the only joker card that SAGE have left.
We know it & they know that we know it, but it will happen anyway.
And Johnson falls for it every time.
Sadly it prompted Germany to declare GB a dangerous country again, and after loosening the rules for British residents to enter Germany, tightened them again.
step 1: brainwash public via mass media in believing that there is a threat
step 2: once the threat is adopted and in circulation within society inform of new policy changes using threat as justification
step 3: execute new policy
anyone who doesnt see this (most people it seems) are just stupid and ignorant… will we all have to pay for this?
People say that Labour has been taken over by woke ideologues but the Tories (with a few notable exceptions) are not far behind them. What has the Party done with its 80 seat majority in the past 18 months apart from Covid mismanagement? If anyone ever discovers a formula to deprogramme our brainwashed population they are going to be in deep trouble.
Hmm, what indeed? Well, there’s pressing ahead with the enormously (un-)popular HS2, cancelling de-criminalisation of not paying the BBC tax as well as banning, in the near future, the internal combustion engine and gas-central heating (etc, all in the same vein, which is looking pretty clotted!).
A little bit of research will show that they ramp up genome testing in areas where the are spikes, even down to restricting it to individual streets in some cases.
And yet the figures are being bandied about as if it is widespread across the country, giving an entirely false picture and further scaring the already irrationally scared.
Take comfort from the fact that we are no longer seeing pictures of sick people in India. It is already waning there and it is affecting only a handful of people here.
Is anyone on here really surprised? No idea what the latest and greatest rules are and don’t care to. Roll things back if you like Boris, it won’t make any difference.
The one good thing is that this will help grow the protest base. I thought it could fizzle out before July due to the so called ‘freedom day’ but it seems they’re not that bright.
Let’s hope Saturday 29th May is a big draw. Would be nice if a 100K people blockade the BBC lol
Well, the only comforting thing from that was that Peston thinks the prospect of the originally planned unwinding is nil. I struggle to think of any Peston prognostication that has proved correct.
Surprise, surprise. Didn’t see that one coming!!
The only 2 things preoccupying his mind are how quick he can fool people into being injected and getting the surveillance passports out!
Which is why its imperative for those of us who refuse to be herded about like cattle, stick our heels in refuse their jabs. Without our total compliance their dastardly plans cannot work. I wish the younger generation would have more critical thinking!
Quickly.
I guess what makes this hatred for Boris Johnson so much more strongly felt is that for years the man has painted himself as this classic liberal, a defender of freedoms and liberties going back centuries in this country etc etc many times in the past he quotes the greatest classical liberal thinkers of our time and he has come up with a few himself … only then for him to get the PM job and perform a complete about-turn – we now discover (far too late) that Johnson does not have the courage of his convictions – he is cowardly and there appears to be nothing classically liberal about him at all – in fact he seems to be an authoritarian and now comes across as a total fraud … many people who voted for him feel completely betrayed.
He can’t bear the thought that he can’t centrally plan everything and is imagining it all falling apart without his guidance as the Great Helmsman (copyright Kim Il Sung). King Canute knew the limits of government power, Johnson does not.
Well, the first few words on the script for the “Today” programme 06:00 BST on the R4 radio channel were roughly along the lines of “The Government is encouraging the use of ‘vaccination’ ….” I switched it off before the end of the sentence. Memo to semi-intelligent politicians: don’t play political games with peoples health and related problems.
I’ve asked myself the question: Would you pull the trigger if you believed that the removal by assassination of these monumental fools would end the totalitarianism? I’ve answered Yes.
You have to remember Gollum.
Maybe Boris will jump into the fire clutching the ring,
Surely even non- lockdown sceptics must be beginning to see that this is purely a power grabbing exercise? The “concern” over the spread of a variant is just another b.s. excuse to continue the grinding out of the message of fear. Sadly too many of the population are happy to be the organ monkey, compliantly dancing to BoJo and SAGE’s tune.
Had an interesting chat with my cousin, who I haven’t spoken to since all this kicked off. At first she was all about how terrible everything was, variants, vaccines…and I came back with questions and hard facts. Suddenly it was like the sun coming out. She said that she, too sees through the lies, and has done research to see that things don’t add up. She’s not on the same page as me but it was wonderful to have a balanced conversation for change. It seems that many may feel and see as we do but are just too scared to speak out.
The pig dictator is a liar. Who knew?
As pointed out elsewhere, the core problem is
“No One Did Due Diligence on Ferguson”
If that had been done properly, all of this s*** show could have been avoided.
https://mobile.twitter.com/conspiracyguy11/status/1393967419530653701
And so-called real world efficacy is being studied by Public Health England and professor Neil Ferguson.
When did Ferguson ever inhabit the ‘real world?’
When he was with his mistress back during the great pandemic.
Well I’m still ending my limited compliance with the tyranny on the 21st.
I post this video, not for its content (The Great Buffoon) but to draw attention to the dislikes: likes ratio – currently running at 10: 1. Similar trends can be found on other msm Youtube videos, even the BBC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDNhZEZ6AY8
Yes, I noticed a BBC youtube video today (just by chance as I certainly don’t seek them out!) and there were about 1,500 dislikes and just under 1,000 likes but the comments were overwhelmingly against the content (something about ‘vaccinating the whole world’ bonkers stuff).
The inevitable “Comments are turned off” applies…
I’m straight to likes/dislikes and comments on all those MSM clips and it is heartening to see how many ARE really downvoting these monstrous b@stards, doing their pieces to camera.
I don’t recognise this country anymore. The complacent compliance, the NHS worship, the lack of critical thought…it goes on.
Maybe this is why we have the most pusilanimous bunch of politicians ever.
I do believe that Blair and his rich mates set out to ruin the UK many years ago, the steady march has achieved a lot of that, knocking down each of the institutions, destroying the parties, asset stripping the UK…..the Blairites have the run the show since he was elected and ever since
Yes, it’s always surprised me that Blair and his cohorts get such a free run in the press despite the horrendous damage they caused.
Probably because the establishment is stuffed with their fellow travellers.
Herr Blair my Father used to call him. He’d be turning in his grave right now. 😡
They have been hard at work undermining the resilience and independence of the population for a few decades now and here we are.
Case counts aren’t riding. Deaths are not rising. Positivity rates are flat. Vaccine rollout accelerated. Likely past 70% antibody population (to say nothing of T Cell). The reason it isn’t exploding is because the links needed to explode are broken by the 70% with antibody reaction. This is insane. We have in 2 weeks moved from “this needs to be brought forward” to “oh heck no, keep things as is.” And during those 2 weeks case counts and deaths went down! We know the vaccine stops the Indian variant from serious illness in 99.6% of cases. There will always be another variant but you have to have links to waves. If some variant breaks immunity? Well, were screwed…but it will remind us we have to learn to live with this.
The people of 1956 and 68 who endured those flus must be wondering what happened.
Well I was born at the end of the 57/58 flu pandemic and was 10 years old in 1968. My aunt tells me she and her mum had flu in 68. Neither she nor I knew about these 2 flu pandemics until covid. We are both wondering what is happening and how it will come to an end!!
I’m a little younger, and can also remember winter outbreaks of ‘flu with one of my brothers, and dad around then. You quiet likely had some other real problematic infections in those days too. I certainly had measles, and one or two others over the years, and can’t remember the primary school being closed down (a likely source of infection), or anything like that in the 1960s.
We’ve become a nation of wimps – its very sad.
I was at Uni in 1968 and was blissfully unaware of any Flu epidemic. Mind you, cider was a shilling and thre’pence a pint in the Students’ Union bar, so there were lots of things I was unaware of.
I was working in London during the 1968 Influenza outbreak and you wouldn’t have known the was a pandemic! No masks, no social distancing, no threats to our liberty, life went on as normal, no great fuss. So when I look around me today I really am amazed at the stupidity of people.
What we are experiencing now is tyranny!
I was at grammar school in 1957/8 and the only thing I recall was that because so many girls were absent with the ‘flu the three year classes were melded in to one for a couple of weeks. In 1968 I was teaching in a secondary school and have no recollection of anything untoward with the ‘flu that winter. I remember more about the disruption caused by the power cuts and three day week of the early 1970s.