Two-Metre Rule Will be Replaced by One-Metre Rule by July 4th
According to the Times, two metres will be replaced by one metre on July 4th so most pubs and restaurants will be able to reopen.
Boris Johnson will announce next week that the two-metre rule will be relaxed from July 4th and that pubs, restaurants, cafés and attractions can reopen as he attempts to revive the economy. Guidance drawn up by the Government and the hospitality industry will also be published as Britain embarks on a “new normal”.
Separately, ministers will publish legislation next week to encourage an “al fresco revolution”. Every pub, bar and restaurant will be automatically entitled to serve alcohol for people to drink on the pavement and in the street.
So that’s the good news. The bad news is, beer gardens and outdoor dining areas will be patrolled by the police to make sure the one-metre rule is being observed.
Let’s hope our brave boys in blue don’t “take the knee” mid-patrol. It will look like they’re proposing to whichever woman happens to be sitting at the nearest table.
A Doctor Writes
One of my readers, a retired NHS Consultant and member of the BAME population, has written a brief review for me of the delayed Public Health England report on why BAME people appear to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than white people. This report was much ballyhooed when it was published a few days ago, with its conclusions seeming to chime with the claims of the Black Lives Matter protestors. It led to hysterical headlines, such as this one in the Guardian: “Historical racism may be behind England’s higher BAME Covid-19 rate“.
My reader is a little more sceptical.
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups have a substantially higher risk of developing the COVID-19 syndrome from infection with SARS-CoV-2. Unfortunately, this has got entangled with the Black Lives Matter campaign before the details of why this should be so have been unravelled. So the finding has been overlaid, somewhat hysterically, by the social constructs of cultural deprivation and racism.
The risk increase varies between BAME subgroups. It is highest in people of Bangladeshi origin – much higher than in Black people of African origin. Research is ongoing, but the Government has rushed out this extraordinary report. Initially, its recommendations were redacted. Frankly they would have been better kept that way because we still don’t know enough. At least I would have put in something about the likelihood of a genetic predisposition. Blood group A seems to be important, but why?
The incidence of a great many medical conditions varies between ethnic subgroups. For instance, sickle-cell anaemia occurs entirely in people of African origin. It is genetically determined. So to ignore the possibility that COVID-19 susceptibility might have a genetic component is foolish. And to make socio-cultural analysis the focus of the investigation, as this report does, is bizarre. What anyway is a “culturally competent” assessment? Answers on a postcard, please.
The risk of death from COVID-19 varies by age, pre-existing condition such as diabetes, or ethnicity. Being on immune suppressants may reduce your risk of death (an Italian study showed a lower risk in patients with inflammatory joint disease on cytokine blockers). Risk may be heightened by the level of exposure; being coughed at as you examine a patient closely will be far more dangerous than being breathed at from a metre away. The virus may spread more in close-contact groups; hospitals, care homes, places of worship, clubs.
But there is little evidence that deprivation plays a part. One cannot argue that hospital consultants (I was one) are financially disadvantaged, yet the death toll has been higher among BAME hospital consultants than their white counterparts too. And why are Bangladeshis at greater risk than Black Britons if racism is the cause? Most are Muslim. Yes, they may communicate closely at the mosque or at home, but hygiene standards are very high. Close contact might explain the high level of acquisition, but not the high death toll. So there remain many unknowns. But we should look for a scientific explanation before we start blustering about racism and deprivation. The virus itself is not knowingly racist; it cannot think.
I do think that groups now shown to be most at risk should be shielded from front-line duties in COVID-19 management. That means BAME doctors, nurses and others. The problem is that the NHS is so heavily reliant on them…
A Geneticist Writes
I got an email from a geneticist and data scientist who is an avid reader of Lockdown Sceptics. He is convinced that the daily deaths in England, both in hospitals and care homes, is close to zero, although you wouldn’t know that from the statistics reeled off at the daily briefings, where, as we all know, they’re reporting the total deaths that were registered in the previous 24-hour period, not those that actually occurred in the past 24 hours. He writes:
COVID-19 really has all but disappeared from the UK. The 1% or so positive cases recorded per day from daily screening may well be in the range of false positives for PCR (a method I know VERY well, and developed variations of over the years).
Sign This Free Speech Petition
The Free Speech Union has gone to bat for Stu Peters, the Manx Radio host who’s been suspended by his employer and referred to the Isle of Man’s Communications Commission – the equivalent of Ofcom – because he challenged the concept of “White Privilege”. This is a flagrant violation of Stu Peters’ right to free speech and the FSU has written to the Communications Commission demanding it drop its investigation and exonerate him.
A petition has been started by some Isle of Man locals in support of Stu. It now has over 6,000 signatures. Please sign it to show your support for free speech.
Did Sweden Lock Down After All?
I’ve published a piece by David Crowe today entitled “Sweden Did in Fact Lock Down When it Came to Care Homes“. It argues that, when it comes to care homes, Sweden did lock down in that it imposed a blanket ban on visitors. According to Crowe, it was this attempt to protect the elderly from COVID-19 that accounts for the high number of excess deaths in Sweden’s care homes – and excess care home deaths more generally.
I believe that the isolation of patients in nursing homes has not prevented deaths, but has caused deaths. Elderly, infirm people have nothing to live for any more, and poor care and abuse can no longer be observed, and stopped, by visiting friends and relatives. Underpaid staff, those who have not quit or been put in quarantine, are even more overworked than normal, resulting in poor care, frustration and abuse. Hospitals do not want nursing home patients, and the recommended alternative for the nursing home is to sedate and, if that doesn’t work, sedate some more.
Sweden, like virtually every other country, imposed an absolute ban on nursing home visitors. If this is the most destructive part of the lockdown then it is fair to say that Sweden did actually lock down when they banned visitors to nursing homes on March 31st, and this explains why its death rate is in the middle of the pack. We will never know if Sweden would have had a far lower death rate if the doors of their nursing homes had been left open to the outside world.
It’s an interesting argument and worth reading in full.
Newsnight‘s Deborah Cohen Strikes Again
One of the few BBC reporters to unpack “the science” is Newsnight‘s Health Correspondent Deborah Cohen. Some readers will remember her excellent report at the beginning of May entitled “Is the Government really ‘following the science’?” Last night, she filed another report, this one about a recent meta-study in the Lancet that analysed just over a dozen studies looking at the effects of physical distance, face masks, and eye protection on virus transmission in health-care and non-health-care (e.g. community) settings. The paper concluded that your chances of catching COVID-19 if standing one metre away from an infectious person were twice as high as if standing at two metres away.
Cohen is quite critical of the study. “It was published in the Lancet and at first glance the results look sound,” she said.
Now questions have emerged about whether the evidence for two metres is quite as good as it looked. The paper concluded your chances of catching COVID-19 at one metre was double your chances at two. Scratch a little deeper and the vast majority of the 15 studies analysed don’t mention one or two metres at all. They say things like face-to-face contact and then this is extrapolated to one or two metres. For some, this extrapolation is very troubling.
We then hear from Professor Carl Heneghan at the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. He says the evidence “is of such low quality” that it’s “not sound science”.
Dr Colin Axon of Brunel University agrees: “There’s not really any solid evidence to support two metres and there never has been.”
Unfortunately, Deborah’s report isn’t available on YouTube yet, but you can watch last night’s episode of Newsnight again here. The report is near the beginning.
This report cannot be dismissed lightly. Deborah was an editor at the BMJ for 13 years so knows her stuff.
Will the Lancet be forced to retract yet another paper? Embarrassing.
Postcard From Oregon
A reader called JJ – a professional journalist in a former life – has written a “Postcard From Oregon” for me and it’s one of the best Postcards we’ve published. Here is an extract:
Even now, going out I nearly feel a fugitive, as if a weekly trip to buy food, supplies, and medicines is committing a terrible wrong against society. A wet, live layer of fear and suspicion drips from everything and everyone. Those of us not masked or distanced are given dirty looks, parents clutch their masked children away from us as we pass, and we get rude or even silent customer service in stores. Unkind words, insults and epithets are uttered publicly. Shame is in abundance. Rational discussion has become scarce. It rapidly descends into hostility and arguing. Comments are flagged and blocked, social accounts get banned. Messages to local officials are ignored or disparaged.
Definitely worth reading in full.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘UK-wide infections fall by up to 4% a day‘ – Sky News reports that the R is now well below one everywhere
- ‘Florida’s COVID-19 surge shows the state’s reopening plan is not working‘ – Alarmist piece in the Guardian suggesting Florida is about to be engulfed by a “second wave” following an uptick in infections. In fact, Florida has ramped up testing, which partly explains the higher number of cases, and the death toll still stands at just 3,000, compared with more than 17,000 in New York
- ‘Recovery: The Plot Thickens‘ – Part two of Edmund Fordham’s look at the dubious hydroxychloroquine trials of Peter Horby and Martin Landray in the Conservative Woman. The Spectator has covered the same story
- ‘Did slavery really make Britain rich?‘ – Sam Ashworth-Hayes parses the evidence in the Spectator and concludes it’s a myth that the slave trade made Britain the wealthy country it is today
- ‘Coronavirus recession could kill 12,000 a year for as long as it lasts‘ – The Times reports that a recession could kill as many as 12,000 a year. More evidence that the cure is worse than the disease
- ‘Lies, Damned Lies and COVID-19‘ – Strong piece from Michael Lesher in Off-Guardian
- ‘100,000 coronavirus antibody tests “gathering dust in warehouses”‘ – File this under “Dog Bites Man”
- ‘COVID-19 is far more widespread than we think‘ – Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist at Oxford’s Centre for Science-Based Medicine, tells Spiked he is certain the virus far more widespread than is generally believed
- ‘Woke, Inc‘ – Spiked‘s Fraser Myers asks why BLM, ostensibly an anti-capitalist movement, has the overwhelming backing of the world’s capitalist elites
- ‘Farewell, Uncle Ben‘ – Tom Slater in the Spectator bids goodbye to the racist rice
- ‘Half of Russell Group universities to delay the start of the academic year due to coronavirus‘ – From the “Businesses That Deserve To Go Bust” department
- ‘How to Admire Someone‘ – Omar S Khan, who wrote the Postcard From Sri Lanka for Lockdown Sceptics, has written a Medium post about why you should’t pull down statues of imperfect men
- ‘Pulling down statues won’t end hate‘ – Free Speech Union Director Inaya Folarin Iman with a brilliant piece for the Mail on why we should stop trying to cleanse Britain’s history of sinners
- ‘Historians will look back at us and ask: what on earth were they thinking?‘ – Free Speech Union Director Douglas Murray on the woke Cultural Revolution
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Now that non-essential shops have reopened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet. Dont worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and try to keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those publications and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It usually takes me several hours to do these daily updates, along with the other work connected with the site, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can donate to the Free Speech Union’s litigation fund by clicking here or join the Free Speech Union here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. Note: Please don’t email me at any other email addresses.
And Finally…
For those who missed the link to my Spectator column about getting a COVID-19 antibody test on Thursday, here’s your chance to listen to me reading it out. Also includes Laurence Fox on the pitfalls of wrongthink and Lucy Kellaway on the true cost to students of classroom closures.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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[…] June, in an excellent letter, a reader of Lockdown Sceptics expressed scepticism at historic racism being behind higher numbers. […]
[…] June, in an excellent letter, a reader of Lockdown Sceptics expressed scepticism at historic racism being behind higher numbers. […]
Nothing since last Saturday. Is Lockdownskeptics on hold? Is Toby Young OK?
Have you seen this???
That’s quite a damning headline!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/21/releasing-english-hospital-patients-into-care-homes-not-illegal
The Guardian writes at the end:
With those in power failing us …… at this historic moment, we demand better. From the covid pandemic and police brutality to the marginalisation of minority communities around the world, leadership is broken. Lacking sensitivity to the real lives of their people, leaders are gambling with public health, safety, community cohesion and the future of younger generations. Divisive and poor at crisis management, they sometimes appear more interested in serving themselves over the people they were elected to serve. We have to make them raise their game.
On a similar note in USA:
“Nursing homes across the country are kicking out old and disabled residents and sending them to homeless shelters and rundown motels”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/nursing-homes-evictions-discharges-coronavirus.html
Reading articles like Rod Liddle’s in the Times today ( https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/a-government-that-helps-people-in-a-crisis-doesnt-sound-so-bad-now-does-it-p3x8px2ts ) make me despair over whether this sort of pro-lockdown narrative – and in particular the idea of society being divided into virtuous, caring communitarians vs. irresponsible right-wing libertarians who only care about the economy – is ever going to be seriously challenged. (and “let the vulnerable die” seems to have happened widely here anyway, and in many other places like Belgium and NYC, thanks to care home and hospital infection. The term “protect and survive” also doesn’t really inspire much confidence if you think of its Cold War origins)
I do agree with Rod Liddle’s comments about the left and self-flagellating identity politics, though – I considered myself more or less a leftie until the recent media response to the BLM protests has made me unsure what, if any, side I’m on – but I don’t really want to talk about that here! (except in the context of the virus spreading – or not – as a result of non-distanced protests)
The BBC’s latest “second wave” article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53113785), hasn’t helped my mood today either. (I mean the article’s scaremongering attitude based on the surely now discredited Spanish Flu… Read more »
Welcome to the family Drawde. Like you, this site has been a sanity pill for me and many others I believe.
The determination to find a second wave is relentless. My MIL is a firm covidinsta and I asked her tonight ‘have you stopped for one moment and thought maybe there won’t be a second wave’? She hadn’t but actually started to question it – small victories!
Anyone know what’s happened to Sweden’s reporting for the last 2 days? They haven’t reported any cases, or any deaths, since 18th June.
I had the same question although media trying to ramp Sweden’s approach up as a ‘big mistake’
I’d say their deaths are running out, and also, in the last few weeks they haven’t reported any deaths on Sunday. They usually report most of the deaths on Tuesday – Thursday.
I could believe that they’ve had no deaths, but suddenly to have no cases for 2 days running seems odd.
If anyone here remembers ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and its catchy theme song-(age giveaway!), here is an adaptation:
Those Imperial teams with their science machines
The Covid deaths up
And the crazy lockdown
They excite all the media and steal all the scenes
With the Covid deaths up
And the crazy lockdown
They’re all frightfully keen
Those Imperial teams and their science machines
I’d eat in a normally operating restaurant tomorrow and go to the pub. I won’t be going to either though if I have to wear a muzzle and perform ridiculous rituals to maintain spurious and scientifically unproven social distancing guidelines and which are patrolled by the police. We all know this is purely to make the worried well who are at no risk feel a teeny bit safer (ie all those yummy mummies in their 30s prancing round M&S Food in face masks made from Cath Kidston fabric!)
I don’t think it has anything to do with making people feel safer. This is totalitarianism. It is all about making people obey. Each stage of obedience paves the way for the next set of demands.
If they wished to make people feel safer they would need to admit to the systematic lies of the MSM and that the government has been deliberately terrorising the people to make them unnecessarily fearful and that the virus threat this year was not significantly different to what it has been in previous years.
Yes, this has no basis in ‘making people feel safe’ but it’s about pushing us into greater obedience and ignorance as the great power and wealth transfer continues.
People are welcome to think all those governments panicked 3+ months ago and all copied each other: that they don’t know how to undo it. Frankly, it won’t wash now as our govt messes with our heads and lies at every turn.
We can still say no. We have more power than we realise and ‘they’ are terrified of us waking up to that fact. I think more people actually are doing now – I hope I’m right – bon courage!
“Yes, this has no basis in ‘making people feel safe’ but it’s about pushing us into greater obedience and ignorance as the great power and wealth transfer continues.”
With respect, I disagree. You give these people too much credit. They don’t know what they are doing half the time. It’s the blind leading the blind – talentless self serving politicians covering their backsides.
What is “power”? And what is “wealth”?
It sounds grand to use these words, but is your concept of these things the same as everyone elses?
You may be right about the politicians themselves that does not mean that they are not being manipulated into taking these actions.
Well okay, that’s fine, a diversity of viewpoints is important, but as I said, I myself don’t happen to believe that there are shady figures behind the scenes pulling the strings.
(Perhaps with creepy Gates being a notable exception …)
I’m half joking about Gates. There are lobby groups that may have too much influence, but ultimate responsibility for decision making rests with the government.
Gates is richer than God and his retirement hobby is funding scientific research and health programmes. He has a specific interest (infectious diseases and vaccines). It is absolutely no surprise that the greater part of all of the institutions and specific research programmes in this area should be partly funded by, or at least have connections to, Gates’ foundation. I would be surprised if you could find me one outside China that didn’t have any connection. It is also no surprise that he heavily lobbies governments – his wealth and name open the doors and he has a specific soapbox and he doesn’t have much else to do anymore. It is also no surprise that offers of funding will form part of this lobbying.
It’s all a bit dodgy, sure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Machiavellian supervillain.
God isn’t rich. In His supreme essence He is above all human attributes. In his human incarnation, he owned nothing.
I accept I don’t know for sure but all the research I have done since this lockdown began makes me lean overwhelmingly towards the shady figures behind the scenes theory.
To begin with why did we have to have a secretive SAGE committee engaged in secret meetings(minutes only revealed after court action) deciding public policy in response to a so called public health emergency. Surely that’s already a little shady and that’s just the last drop of water at the tip of the iceberg.
The government should always be taking advice from people who purport to be experts on any subject where they are in the process of making public policy. I’d far rather there were medics, epidemiologists, virologists and yes – even behavioural psychologists involved in advising the government, than that you had Johnson, Hancock and Raab sitting round in the cabinet room going “so, an epidemic, eh? Well. What d’you reckon we should do about that then?” To each other. I might have issues with the choice of advisors and indeed with a lot of the policy that’s been churned out, but surely it is better that there’s expert advice being sought?
As to whether it was shady and secretive – governments don’t normally feel any particular need to tell the public who is advising them on any given issue, unless they think that the name of the advisor is going to lend the policy more credibility. The only reason we were told about SAGE (cool name, huh? Sounds like it must be full of really clever people) at all is that Johnson et al wanted us to know that they were being led by “the science” and thus, we were in… Read more »
I didn’t set out to look for ‘schemes, agendas and nefarious motives everywhere’ I set out to learn about a deadly virus.
Well, then I fall back on my point that if you are even a little bit educated on this subject, then what passes for policy at the moment makes so little sense, that it’s incredibly easy to start believing that there must be something else going on. I know this, because I’ve started out down that road several times myself during this whole thing.
Look, at the end of the day, one of us is going to look pretty silly in 12 month’s time and I mean no disrespect at all when I say that I really hope it’s you and not me. If it is you, then I will buy you a beer (and if it’s me, then it probably won’t be possible to buy beer anymore).
I really hope its me too I think we can agree on that.
While I agree with using experts, I disagree with using theorists or those whose whole existence relies on derived data and relationships. Because we don’t rely on such people when making phones, cars, food and water safe. We use real engineers, technicians and auditors. We use validation and verification methods.
From very early on you can see that believing models and modellers just because they are academic leads to all sorts of problems. And as I’ve stated on this site before, it’s not surprising as we have had policies been made by listening to climate change scientists for well over a decade and have seen so much money spent on useless renewable schemes. Or as in the case in Northern Ireland, a direct money making rip off scheme.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, and I might wish that they had used _different_ experts, or that the experts they used had been more genuinely expert. If you want to predict the future, you either go to someone who uses computer models, or you go to a fortune teller. Either way, you probably end up with about the same level of accuracy, but if you go to the bloke with the computer, you probably sound more credible.
Anyway, the quality of the people on SAGE wasn’t really my point.
Agree. Governments and their allies in the media are still insisting on the lies they’ve been feeding people for months. They won’t come out of this unless we make them.
My reply to Saved, Paulito, Matt, John Pretty: It seems clear to me that there are 2 main points of view on this thread about this issue. It’s the usual cock-up or conspiracy argument and we may all need to agree to disagree.
However, to those who think it’s a cock-up and ideas of weath and power are ‘grand’, I would say, just look at the billions paid over in QE so far and ask who will be footing the bill. Ask yourself why the UK Govt is the 2nd biggest funder of Gates’ WHO and why Johnson has pledged £1.65bn to GAVI. Why has big business been prioritised world-wide over SMEs who are still being crippled by the disastrous ‘lockdown’ measures and with more to come (the ‘easing’ is a sick joke.)
As for Gates, he is a long way from being a philanthropist. His main project appears to be eugenics and all the funding of academic institutions, media organisations and Big Pharma appear to be to further that end.
I hope the cock-up theorists are right but, in the end, we’re all in the shit anyway!
As you say, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I don’t even really know why I keep getting drawn into these kinds of threads – I don’t have any particular axe to grind. I suppose I just find it difficult to stop arguing!
I think that we can all at least agree that the results of the decisions made are going to be pretty disastrous in the future, however you look at it.
Well, guys it’s really healthy to be able to agree to disagree these days!
There is a relatively new free speech concept called “viewpoint diversity” which I think may have been coined by Jonathan Haidt.
It’s something I have been thinking about a lot lately while trying to communicate more effectively on discussion boards like this one. I’m far from being an expert practitioner.
I am still inclined to get defensive about my own view on issues at times, but I am learning to be more open and respectful of the views of others.
Sorry, just to add – it’s depressing to live in a world where what’s going on can only be explained by either “cock-up theory” or “conspiracy theory”.
There’s no question that the situation is awful, the only question remains, is whether it happened by mistake, based on decisions made by appalling incompetence, or on purpose because of the malign forces that have planned this carefully.
I can assure you that the decision to go into lockdown belongs firmly in the “cockup” camp, and the decision to stay in it belongs in the “conspiracy” camp. As to the rest: who knows?
Neatly put, Nick. Panic was definitely in there but was it real or a smokescreen? Thanks for a good discussion everyone. Over and out from me as I see Toby has put up a new post now.
I am in agreement with you in case that is not clear.
Cath Kidston has gone bust. Lockdownitis.
On the BAME issue, I’m not totally sure about the suggested genetic predisposition to Covid-19 in the Bangladeshi population. If this is the sole explanation why does Bangladesh itself have relatively few Covid-19 deaths. Even if we allow for under-reporting, a deprived country like Bangladesh would have difficulty hiding a hugely mounting death toll. On a per capita comparison with the UK, Bangladesh ought to have 70 times the number of reported deaths.
I still think Vitamin D is likely to be a key factor.
Repeat. Limerick for a Jobs Killer:
There once was a two metre rule
Dreamt up out the blue by some fool
‘Stay right in your place
with your mask on your face’
Makes authoritarians drool
The next mass wave needs to be of resignations from politicians,the public health mafia and hysterical media, for being such a bunch of hopeless, ruinous fuckwits
Pretty good!
conservativefreedomparty.com
It’s March 2021 – a novel pathogen originating in China is on the loose killing thousands across the planet…
Would we really go through another lockdown, to lop off another 10% of our GDP, stop our children being educated for another six months and place ourselves under house arrest yet again?
I think the answer is no. Of course sensible measures might be taken with theatres closing again for instance. But a total national lockdown? No.
Of course we would. We’d just all be muzzled instantly rather than waiting for three months until it’s all well and truly over before making them mandatory.
Sadly, we now know that’s true!
We will have already been muzzled for half a year. You cant beat the foresight of our dear leaders!
Of course this will be a new super strain that had adapted to our muzzles making it clearly so dangerous that will have to have a much harsher lockdown then before and because it has proven so able to adapt that lockdown will never be lifted. Its whats best for you.
What theatres? At this rate there will be very few left to close down again.
If we’re out from this lockdown by then. Never-ending-lock.
The Ombudsman for Police Scotland is called The Scottish Police Authority (SPA). They are currently conducting a so called ‘indenpendent’ public inquiry into the policing of the covid19 measures following the passing of the emergency powers.
The SPA are asking for public opinion, evidence and so on for their inquiry to review.
Go to http://www.spa.police.uk/performancepages/618379/618466/
The website isnt clear but submissions by public are requested.
With policy appearing to have caused death in care homes and away from clinical settings – it would appear there is an opportunity serious and damning questions/evidence to reach one corner of the establishment.
The tone of the SPA inquiry discussion heard in one of their public online debate seemed to be looking at the policing of the public during the declared and accepted by them public health emergency rather than investigating the causes of the lockdown, the created panic and its effects. Has it been assumed there is no crime in the deliberate increasing of threat in individuals? See SAGE group behavioural scientists section SPI-B leaked documentation to see this was a goal advised by SAGE to UK Government. Sturgeon is on pulic record saying SAGE has been the advisory group for the Scottish… Read more »
Will the 2 metre rule be withdrawn up here as well, or shall we, as I fear, have to wait another couple of weeks so that She Who Must Be Obeyed can make yet another pointless point about Saving Scottish Lives while diverging from wicked Westminster?
My very funny Glaswegian neighbour suspects that Wee Birnie sees herself as a female incarnation of Braveheart.
i do hope that she doesnt lift her kilt and show her arse.
With different measures being used in England, Scotland, Wales and NI, which is following ‘the science’. Why is no one asking that obvious question?
Wee Birnie follows Scottish science-(at leat,that’s my opinion, judging by the Holyrood emissions).
lol, science is different in Scotland, is it. I see.
I know what my mother would say, “Do you think I came up the Clyde in a banana skin, Nicola?
Quite right! She would like us to believe that it is…
Because no one in any of the pathetic little governments knows anything whatsoever about science.
Or economics, or common sense, or elementary humanity.
You’ll probably get the face masks everywhere but keep the two meter rule. Nothing like being extra safe!
Hi wendyk – glad to see you’re still commenting. You might be interested in these latest statistics from the National Records of Scotland. The latest statistics show that there have been 4,878 excess deaths in Scotland between weeks 12-24 compared to the five year average. Covid19 accounts for 3,810 distributed among care homes : 1,831, hospitals : 1,736 and home : 236. So 1,068 extra deaths seem to have nothing to do with covid19. I took a closer look at the excel table. 2,451 excess deaths occurred in care homes. There were only 14 more respiratory deaths than usual and since the symptoms of covid19 are very similar to the symptoms of pneumonia in many cases, there is probably a good deal of overlap. Deaths from cancer were actually lower than usual, by 101, and deaths from dementia 394 higher! (I wonder why.) In hospitals there were no more than 216 excess all-cause deaths while hospital deaths from cancer, dementia, heart disease, respiratory disease (apart from covid19) and other causes were substantially lower than the five year average. Respiratory disease usually sees off an average of 1,062 Scots in hospital during weeks 12-24. This year 1,736 have died in hospital… Read more »
Thanks for this Jane, and I quite agree. A friend has finally been given an appointment tomorrow for her yearly mammogram, having waited anxiously for several weeks. She has also developed a nasty eye infection, which her optician has reviewed by Zoom or similar and prescribed antibiotics accordingly.
This extended house arrest is futile and even loyal Nicola supporters are starting to question the need for it.
If this despotic government starts introducing compulsory mask wearing, I will either go into shops not wearing one or order online.
I will never wear a mask.
NO ME. NEVER. NEVER.
Have a look at this section…No, I will never wear a mask either
On the effectiveness of masks
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Whilst I completely agree, I will be wearing a mask over my mouth on the plane because I want to get to where I am going. But, for health and safety reasons, I will not be wearing a mask at other times. Well accept on Spanish public transport where it is mandatory – but definitely no other times!!
Me too. I WILL NOT WEAR ONE>
Never.
# usneither!
We’re told to wear masks,
Note told, but not asked.
They’ll help to protect us
Say those who direct us
But then we’ll refuse to wear masks.
I was at the supermarket earlier, we don’t have many mask wearers around here, but we do have a few. They are handy in one respect – the stupid have never previously been labelled
Ha Ha
When the Chinese take away I deliver for re-opened about 6 weeks ago I was asked to wear PPE stuff. I accepted the gloves to protect my hands from sanitiser (we are cash only) but I refused the mask. The father and son were happy with this but the mother was insistent. I do respect their irrational fear, although I am sure we have all had the cv thingy already. Anyway, I was banished to the customer side of the OTT CV19 exclusion screens. But that’s fine – makes it easier to interact with the customers. I don’t bother with the gloves anymore, they keep ripping and make my hands sweaty – my hands are permanently pissed nowadays.
The local Chinese takeaway here is no problem. Just go in as normal and order at the counter. No masks, gloves, sanitizer or anything.
The little Asian corner shop I nip into to get monster munchies has wrapped some cling film round two bits of wood as a screen. I need to take a photo of it. But I usually pay him on the way out the shop as he’s usually at the door smoking a fag – great guy – fearless!
Seasalt are flogging them under the name ‘handybands’.
Handy for strangling politicians and zombies, maybe.
COVID-19 Evidence is lacking for 2 meter distancingThere is no scientific evidence to support the disastrous two-metre rule. Poor quality research is being used to justify a policy with enormous consequences for us all
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-evidence-is-lacking-for-2-meter-distancing/
So the much trumpeted ‘second wave’ after people visited beaches and parks 2/3 weeks ago has also turned out to be a damp squib. It’s just a pity these damp squibs have cost the country billions of pounds and ruined our childerns’ education. Suggest you take the opportunity to tell Witless Whitty, Neil the Mudeller and Jon ‘Dangerous Moment’ Van Dam exactly what you think of their efforts….I will be.
So much for the “spike” in infections following demonstrations on the 6th and 13th June.
Spikes that the media assured us would happen, but have not materialised so far:
Easter weekend
First May Bank holiday (sunny)
Second May Bank holiday (sunny)
In fact most of April and May (sunny)
VE Day (street parties)
BLM protests (multiple, non-socially distanced)
Easing of lockdown to allow unlimited outdoor exercise
Easing of lockdown to allow meeting one other person outdoors
Easing of lockdown to allow a gathering of up to 6 outdoors
Have I missed any?!
Yet I have a friend convinced we’ll be back in full lockdown by the end of June…
I’m sure there will be people still on self imposed lockdown in 10 years time, like those Japanese WWII soldiers on that island who still thought they were at war when they were found years later
Do any of our Dutch participants have news of the protests planned, then banned, in the Netherlands yet?
Laurence Fox on the pitfalls of wrongthink (above) is brilliant
Yes, he is.
I’m trying to apply some common sense/logic to the argument for wearing face masks (which I have no doubt will become mandatory in indoor public spaces in the UK when the 2 metre rule is scrapped).
So the argument for face masks is that if you are asymptomatic then wearing a face mask will help prevent you spreading the virus around i.e. if you speak, laugh, cough or sneeze water droplets from your mouth containing particles of the virus will be stopped or slowed down by the mask, reducing spread. Science does not agree on this (due to size of the coronavirus particles) but you can see why, in simplistic terms this message seems logical to many people. Hence the 51% public support for face masks in public areas.
However the pro face mask argument goes on to say that whilst face masks will stop/reduce you spreading the virus they will not stop you catching it. That’s where logic hits a big brick wall. If a face mask reduces the chances of you expelling the virus from your mouth/nose – which will be exiting your mouth/nose at a relatively high velocity – then why do they not prevent you… Read more »
There is no medical justification for mass muzzling. There is only political justification. IMO.
In the opinion of a lot of doctors and scientists as well.
That’s exactly the thinking, yes, I believe. It was introduced on public transport to try to make people feel more confident about using public transport. Perversely, I think it’s probably actually _raised_ the fear level, because sharing a tube train with people who are all masked must be so obviously abnormal that it can only possibly make you feel subconsciously uncomfortable.
I agree, i find them deeply disturbing and intimidating.
Me too. It suggests that the danger level is now so high (much higher than it was back in March) that the government have no choice but to enforce them.
Whilst the idea that wearing masks will make people feel safer may be intuitive, it is doubtless false, and will actually increase the level of fear: and given the SAGE has a whole sub-committee devoted to the behavioural science, it is obvious that the government knows this; but that is the same sub-committee and government that, as a matter of policy, decided to deliberately use fear to ensure compliance with lockdown rules.
Germ-collecting, fear-spreading and backed by Khan. All good reasons to go maskless. People wouldn’t wear them if they thought of them as pathogen inhalers.
I agree for the most part, but they seem to be totally unaware of the absurdity of their own behaviour.
(childish downvote)
Before all this started, back in the land of normal, this kind of over-the-top precautionary fear was labelled as a disorder – OCD. One of the key principles of treatment was to drop all crutches, like carrying hand sanitiser or not touching door handles etc, because they maintain the belief that the danger is real. Mask-wearing in public places must surely be having the same effect?
The doctor they have on ITV’s Good Morning Britain some weeks ago stated that we all have to behave like we have OCD now.
Great solution, well done that man.
Maybe time to work on that tendency towards negative self-programming, Spingy ?
Perhaps its just being realistic.
Realism surely deals with real things, not future possibilities ?
Here is the definition from Oxford Languages via Google:
realistic
1.having or showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected.
“I thought we had a realistic chance of winning”
2.
representing things in a way that is accurate and true to life.
“a realistic human drama”
Fair enough. Now try to convince me its sensible and practical …
Wearing face masks is not sensible or practical. It is sensible and practical to expect this government is going to try and impose further unnecessary and harmful restrictions on our liberty otherwise we would have to live in a state of self delusion that will ultimately lead to disappointment or ever greater levels of self delusion. As difficult and horrifying as it may be to accept where we are it is healthier then to pretend we are not living under totalitarianism.
We can only begin to fix a problem once we accept fully that it exists. I think that is being sensible and practical.
Ever the pessimist….
Masks are a pschological tool to instill fear and compliance. The risks outweigh the benefits even when there is a risk of catching CV19. Now there isn’t. The virus is over. Nobody should be wearing a muzzle for the sake of their own health. The Govt knows this.
It seems possible to me, that if you are actually infected and symptomatic, then wearing a mask would reduce the distance that the splatter from a cough or sneeze would travel. In this case of course, good common sense would suggest that you should stay at home, mask or no mask. If asymptomatic, I can’t see any real evidence for justifying mandatory mask wearing at this point. I genuinely don’t think there is any. The WHO position up until recently has been that you only need to wear one if you have symptoms or are caring for someone with symptoms. As far as I am aware, there has been no new evidence to change this recommendation.
Interestingly, the WHO official statement on face masks seems to be that, while they conclude that there is little to no benefit to healthy people wearing one, they’ve decided anyway that governments should recommend them for reasons they haven’t explained. Note the word recommend, NOT enforce.
Also, if you’re symptomatic, you don’t need to wear a mask, because you have a physical illness and a respiratory problem. Both of which exempt you from having to wear a mask.
UK Travel Quarantine ‘Completely Useless’, Says World Leading Epidemiologist
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-travel-quarantine-completely-useless-says-world-leading-epidemiologist/ar-BB15MsR3
and so says everyone else.
“The bad news is, beer gardens and outdoor dining areas will be patrolled by the police to make sure the one-metre rule is being observed.”
And the other bad news is you will now be forced into a face muzzle in return for this “generous concession”.
It’s high time these restrictions were all just dropped.
How can you eat and drink with a muzzle on?
I guess it will be like the dentist, where they make you wear one for the 30 seconds it takes to walk from reception into the treatment room, whereupon you promptly have to take it off on account of the dentist needing to see inside your mouth.
How about a plague doctor mask with a builtin straw? Made of a non-plastic material of course (although we seem to have forgotten about all that). Then you could dip your beak into your pint and slurp it up as if you had been in a teleporter accident involving a mosquito. This could be the new normal!
Well, tbh I’m not much of a pub-goer these days. And I gave up alcohol a year ago. I would generally only go for family birthdays and the like.
I’ll just not bother with them if they are going to continue with this charade.
Looks like you’ll have to make an appointment to attend the pub anyway, which kind of takes away the whole point.
lol, yes, I daresay it takes away the whole pint, too!
Current rule in Germany is that you have to wear the muzzle walking into the establishment, while you’re moving around inside (to go to the loo, for example), but not while you’re sat at your table. Because obviously you don’t breathe out while you’re sitting down.
The whole thing is farcical, but my guess is it’s where we’re going.
I’m not sure I can honestly take much more of this kind of stupidity!
Wow, I have just had a really scary exchange with someone in a supermarket. A young woman, and black muzzle wearer, I dared to challenge her for wearing it as I passed her in the aisle. A few moments later she approached me in the queue eye blazing hatefully and threatened me, saying if I said that again then she would report me and I would be thrown out of the shop! As it was, it was not a shop I would go into very often. I denied all knowledge of saying anything to her.
I then paid for my items on the self service till and as I was finishing the woman approached the counter assistant. She maybe couldn’t see that I was still stood next to her as there was a screen dividing me from her.
She broke her promise. Despite the fact that I did not repeat what I said, she did indeed report me. It was absolutely extraordinary. I didn’t tell her to take it off or anything, just challenged her for wearing it. I’m not sure what she expected to gain from this “selfless” act of denunciation, but it was scary.
The irony that… Read more »
Well done. Does not matter if she reports you or not. You are right, always be constructive. Maybe ask if they are very sick.
Thank you!
I tend to assume that people who are wearing muzzles in places where they don’t have to, are so far gone down the rabbit hole of fear and self-righteous virtue signalling that they’re not worth engaging with.
Re banning you from the shop – I wasn’t aware that “querying the necessity of wearing a mask” was currently illegal?
matt you may well be right. Still, I think we have to engage them somehow. As I said, I think I may have to be direct, but very polite.
The shop assistant I had just spoken to myself to ask about father’s day cards. (The only reason I was there, really). I really nice young woman, I had seen her working there before. She was listening kindly to the mask wearer, but not taking sides from what I could make out.
The self righteous seem to presume that their own sense of goodness qualifies them to be judge, jury and executioner. I doubt I would be “thrown out” of the shop or banned, but clearly the mask wearer seemed to think that this was an appropriate response.
Have to say I disagree about engaging with people. If people are so afraid they feel they have to wear a mask then no amount of engaging with them in the street or in a shop will change their minds. They are already behaving irrationally and it will only entrench their fear deeper if a stranger comes up to them and tells them masks are pointless. Better to go about your business unmasked, relaxed and unafraid – I’m sure this will work far better to convince people that masks are unnecessary. Only engage if you yourself are approached.
Three weeks or so ago I was putting my shopping in the boot of my car. Parked next to me a woman got out, adorned with mask and shopping bags. She asked me what it was like in the shop. It was her first venture out since lockdown began and she was very obviously quite scared. You could dismiss her as being a sheeple and that it’s her own fault but the reality is that the media have done such an affective job of terrifying the majority of the British public that can you really blame people like her for being… Read more »
“if a stranger comes up to them and tells them masks are pointless.”
I didn’t say it was pointless, I asked her why she was wearing it.
And I certainly do not have any idea of the emotional state of someone whose face is half covered in a mask!
Yes you do, John. Brainwashed, frightened, and quite probably feeling like a muppet.
As others have said, the mask wearers are the most damaged by all this, and should initially, imho, be handled with kid gloves. Or proper PPE gloves, depending on taste …
Well, brainwashed I will accept, but frightened, not necessarily.
I mean, she could have answered, “because I’m scared”, and that might have been the truth, but that would be an admission of weakness and might account for her overly aggressive reaction to what I said.
Overheard while standing in the local farm shop queue – elderly woman who had done her shopping stopped to chat with a friend just ahead of me in the queue: ‘I brought my mask but as no one else is wearing one I didn’t put it on.’
Made me feel quite hopeful.
I hate to say this John but weren’t you being self-righteous too?
I make a point of looking at mask-wearers as if they’ve sprouted huge green antennae but I wouldn’t challenge them. Surely it’s their choice?
I believe all people should be free to do whatever they choose, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
She should be free to wear a ridiculous contraption that’s harmful to her health, just as you should remain free not to.
Besdies, if the mask-wearers venture out into the community and find lots of people behaving normally, they might be tempted to try leaving the mask behind next time.
Again, I didn’t tell her to take it off. That is indeed her choice.
I simply asked her why she was wearing it.
I accept that. But she didn’t and took it as a challenge – which it was.
I’m not sure you do.
She didn’t what?
I asked her why she was wearing it.
PS: I didn’t demand an answer. You ask someone a question. There is no law which says you have to answer. It was rhetorical as much as anything.
I think they mean that in asking why it was implicit that there is no reason to be wearing one, otherwise why ask.
Just leave the lambs to the slaughter, you literally cannot start a conversation now with a stranger, what have we done to society…
Paul. This is getting too complicated.
My fear is that if these people are not addressed (let me put it that way) then not only will they continue to wear then, but they will insist that everyone else does too.
I simply think that I need to be more careful next time, but self censorship is out I’m afraid.
Agree 100% with your aims, John. But would you ask a strange woman why she is wearing that pink blouse ?
Er no, but until a couple of months ago I wouldn’t have asked a strange man or woman why they were wearing a black muzzle.
I have addressed a man before. He said it was for my protection and told me to go away.
If you don’t ask then you don’t know. It’s not something I do every time I go out. I just happened to do it this morning.
I was really shocked by how she took it.
Ahh being able to strike up a conversation with a stranger, I vaguely remember the days before they started to point and shout ‘heretic’ at you for trying, vaguely…
oddly enough, I was never in the habit of it.
As a woman if a strange man approaches me in a shop I’m automatically a little wary anyway – that’s just the nature of society – and if their opening remark was ‘why are you doing….’ then my response is doing to be defensive especially if I believe what I’m doing is right and supported by the government and scientists.
I didn’t actually approach her. I just said it as I passed by in the aisle.
Don’t make ANY assumptions.
And. PS: you are making assumptions about this woman’s motives and her feelings. None of which you can know.
If you think speaking to someone in a public space is an act of aggression then with respect you have a very twisted view of society.
How do you get to know anyone? Someone has to speak first.
Maybe that’s why I have reached middle age and am still single.
Women assume that men are monsters.
Register to go to the pub? Is it April 1st today https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8444181/Drinkers-register-online-visiting-pubs-says-Matt-Hancock.html
Register that you’ve been to a pub, I think. It’s to work with track and trace.
Mind you – hard to see how a pub can operate without at least partial reservations expected, with any kind of distancing in place.
All the pubs near me have my picture on the wall anyway so I’m not overly fussed by this
Unfortunately, the article is peppered with Wankock’s new mantra: “if it’s safe to do so ….if it’s safe to do so ….if it’s safe to do so…..
I love the picture of a normal-looking Notting Hill, taken yesterday. Shows how increasingly sinister HMG’s foot-dragging is becoming.
Hancock must win prize for lockdown’s biggest wazzock. He is a prize plum. I wish I could think of a way of turning the heat up on this chump
Burning at the stake is generally quite effective.
I’d like to see Boris toasted medium rare, and Hancock well done.
Nothing about Hancock could ever be well done.
Rotten meat. Bin.
Literally couldn’t agree more.
Some pillock on the telly suggested the lockdown might end on the 4th of July.
I thought it already had ended??!!
I need to stop watching these clowns.
We’ve just got the antisocial distancing dilemma to resolve now
Oh, and the upcoming economic depression might need some fetteling
“new normal” and “social distancing” are the continuation of lockdown by any other means.
Interesting e-mail regarding the dissapearance of the virus. I’m not convinced that the PCR test would have such a high false pos rate and, if it did, wouldn’t this also manifest itself in the testing of the deceased? Such an affect would mean that we could never get to zero deaths per day due to the lack of test specificity. As some places have reached zero deaths for multiple consecutive days (assuming they’re still testing) then this suggests a very very low number of false positives.
Lingering positivity in the population, even after we reach zero deaths per day, could mean that the virus has become less virulent, the testing is based on antibody results (previous infection) or the virus is now just circulating amongst the fit and healthy (or a combination of all 3)
To take a quote from The Prisoner
“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.”
“I am not a number, i am a free man!”
“Brainwashed imbeciles,” he sneers at his fellow citizens. “Can you laugh? Can you cry? Can you think?”
I love The Prisoner. But how many other people who profess to like it will have unquestioningly accepted the Covid ’emergency’, New Normal, etc.? My guess is that there’s a large chunk of society who know about 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 and so on, but who would stare blankly at you from over their mandatory mask, if you suggested that we are busily engaged in creating such a dystopia for ourselves right now.
The Chief statistician from ONS on Marr saying that the IFR a fortnight ago was 0.24% this week 0.06%. But he still says be careful! 0.06%!! It’s lower than flu!
yes, but stay alert
Britain needs lerts…
Are you sure this is the IFR? I thought that was the % of the population currently estimated to have the infection?
Yes, my mistake. Thought it looked wrong when I pressed the send button!
It’s still a very low figure!!
Yes – he was talking about infection rates, not IFR. You are never going to get a member of SAGE talking about IFR in public, because it will make them look stupid.
Lots of talk about the “problem” of infection rates having plateaued at about this rate. It strikes me that it is completely unreasonable to expect that any endemic virus will ever be infecting much less than 0.06% of the population at any given time. More back an envelope stuff, but if you assume that that percentage is a constant and that everyone who has it, has it for around a month and that the IFR is 0.25%, I work that out as a little over 1,000 deaths a year.
I reckon we can live with that.
The problem is, they look at countries like New Zealand where it’s been more or less eradicated (because it never really took hold in the first place), and seem to think that it’s possible for every country in the world to get to that point regardless of how rife the infection has been.
Anyway, it seems obvious that continuing lockdown isn’t pushing infection rates down much further, so we’re now getting no benefits, only harm.
Well, yes. But, however stupid the decisions that have been made, the government does have actual scientists giving them actual scientific advice and it’s hard to believe that they’ve managed to find a scientist stupid enough to advise them that the virus can actually be eradicated in a country like this one.
Totally agree. What’s going on is so far beyond my comprehension that I just can’t imagine what advice they’re now getting.
A scientist advising something that is obviously stupid ? I though that was what they did for a living …
What defines a scientist? Do you just have to look like one?
I think you have be be receiving funding from Bill Gates philanthropy directly or via big pharma.
Well, the Imperial model, presumably accepted by the consensus on SAGE and the government, assumed an IFR of 1%. I am not aware they’ve ever backtracked from that. But of course they don’t talk about it. And no journalist has ever thought to ask or press them on it. It’s surely one of THE crucial pieces of information on which to base your policy decisions.
I think US CDC is estimating 0.35% based on testing falling to 0.26% based on some assumptions about people exposed who do not develop antibodies.
Bet Marr didn’t question it either…useless!
The bbc is still reeling out the second wave lie I see from the website this morning. They are so irresponsible.
Hancock, being interviewed by Nick Robinson (standing I for Marr) talked about a second wave “as we’ve seen in other countries”
That’s the second time I’ve heard him say that. Where? Which other countries?
He means either countries that locked down immediately, and were “lucky” not to have had significant spread before that point (e.g. New Zealand, other parts of China) and are therefore still trying to prevent their first wave from happening; or small isolated clusters of new infections in reopened countries or parts of countries (e.g. China, Florida) which the media delight in calling a second wave.
He’s a fear-mongering idiot.
We must try to challenge, in person and online, every mention of a second wave, everywhere. Ask them where the evidence is, and ask them to quote figures and sources. Mention that Europe has been reopening for some time and there is no sign of one. Isolated outbreaks or “I read somewhere” do not count.
Remember the second wave in Weston-Super-Mare? Which was so bad that they had to close the local A&E? Supposedly because some people sat on the beach on a sunny day. Turns out a handful of doctors at the hopsital had tested positive, so they closed to avoid spreading it to patients. Most “second wave” reports will turn out to be something ridiculous like this.
Same batch of testers?
https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2020-06-10/healthy-patients-wrongly-put-in-coronavirus-wards-after-musgrove-park-hospital-records-false-positive-tests/
I also remember reading somewhere that no so-called “second wave” has occurred anywhere that has reached a certain number of cases per million as a result of the “first wave”. Not checked to see if it’s actually true.
fear-mongering useful idiot. I never watch the BBC, but I assume it all went unchallenged.
David Crowe’s article about how isolation and neglect of old people in Sweden, rather than C19 itself, might have caused the country’s relatively high number of deaths, makes for interesting reading. Nearly 4,500 of Sweden’s slighly more than 5000 C19 deaths are among people over seventy years old. (Most are among people over eighty.) These elderly Swedes were presumably not going out to Sweden’s open restaurants every evening. It is obviously not in the Swedish government’s interests to exaggerate the numbers. It might be in someone else’s interests, though, to do so – care home owners, for example. How are C19 deaths actually determined in Sweden? Is mere suspicion enough as in Britain? Might it turn out in Sweden as in Italy that only about 12 per cent of those put down as dying of C19 actually did die of it? In which case Sweden would have the same questions to answer as other countries which implemented full-on lockdown.
Spain has stopped quarantine for visiting Brits….
Start the anti-UK quarantine bollocks revolution, get your short breaks booked…
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en
But do you still have to wear mask and gloves?
In a Mediterranean summer?
Yes – stay safe
Talking to the masses about lockdown:
To paraphrase a quote in one of the Carry On films – trying to debate with a lockdownista is like trying to get blood out of a stone, a bleeding mystery.