When comparing the impact of Covid in different countries, Japan is a clear outlier. In 2020, the country had zero days of mandatory business closures and zero days of mandatory stay-at-home orders. Despite seeing less change in mobility than major European countries, Japan has not had any excess mortality since the pandemic began.
As you may recall, the country hosted the Summer Olympics between 23rd July and 8th August. But even that did not lead to a large number of deaths. It has been suggested that Japanese people, and perhaps East Asians in general, have some degree of prior immunity to the virus.
In January of this year, Japan introduced restrictions on businesses for the first time. Specifically, 11 prefectures (including the capital, Tokyo) prohibited bars and restaurants from selling alcohol after 7pm, and forced them to close at 8pm.
In a recent preprint, Reo Takaku and colleagues investigated the impact of these measures on the spread of Covid. They began by checking whether the measures had their intended effect – of reducing the number of people frequenting bars and restaurants. This cannot be taken for granted: the night curfew in Greece had virtually no impact on mobility.
The researchers analysed survey data collected in the autumn of 2020 (when there were no restrictions in place) and the winter of 2021 (when there were restrictions in place). As the chart below indicates, the measures do appear to have had their intended effects.
The x-axis represents how far respondents lived from the border of a prefecture that introduced restrictions. The blue and green lines (corresponding to the right-hand y-axis) show the fraction of people who went to a bar or restaurant at least once in the relevant month.
The blue line corresponds to the autumn of 2020, and the green line corresponds to the winter of 2021. Notice that the green line is substantially flatter than the blue line, but only on the right-hand side of the chart. This suggests that restrictions did reduce the number of people frequenting bars and restaurants.
Next, the researchers examined whether the measures actually reduced the spread of Covid. To do this, they compared self-reported symptoms among individuals living either side of the border of a prefecture that introduced restrictions. They also controlled for a number of characteristics, such as age, marital status and household income.
As the chart below indicates, they found no evidence that the measures reduced the spread of Covid. Individuals living under restrictions were no less likely to report Covid symptoms than their counterparts on the other side of the border. This was true even for young people, and those who regularly used pubs and restaurants.
One plausible explanation for Takaku and colleagues’ findings is that people simply socialised elsewhere. Another possibility is that restrictions do not have additive effects on transmission; perhaps they only make a difference once practically all public locations are closed (including ‘essential’ ones like grocery stores and pharmacies).
“Given the large detrimental effects on employment,” the authors write, “alternative measures for full-service restaurants and bars should be considered”. And the best alternative measure, I would argue, is returning to business as usual.
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How did the police know this is the body of a man?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckke2wq54rko
“Police say tests are still being carried out to try to identify a man whose body was found on farmland a month ago.
Norfolk Police were called to Woodton, near Loddon, on 19 March at 12:02 GMT.
A cordon was put in place off Norwich Road. Police said the man was found “several weeks after his death” and further tests were being carried out.”
How come the BBC state the unidentified person is “a man” and refer to “his death” when the person might have identified as a woman for all they know?
Did BBC News break the BBC’s own rules?
Did they relax and forget that at the BBC they are not allowed to use common sense?
“There is, it seems, an epidemic of illness among the working-age population.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68849843
Nice graph. Don’t mention the jabs.
“Long time brewing
So why are working-age people so ill? Christopher Rocks, who heads up the Health Foundation’s work in this area, says it is a “complicated” picture.
He says while there has been a lot of focus on the issue since the pandemic, the trend has actually been developing for the past decade at least.”
Nick Tiggle is at pains to point out that the “epidemic of illness among the working-age population” has been happening for more than ten years, which is long before mass vaccination in 2021, and therefore it’s not even worth mentioning the Covid vaccines anywhere in the article, as if it shouldn’t possibly occur to any reasonable person that the Covid vaccines may have contributed to the “epidemic of illness among the working-age population”.
Nick Triggle explains that the “epidemic of illness among the working-age population” may have been caused by a combination of factors – but obviously the Covid vaccines could not possibly have been one of the combination of factors – despite the clear steep rise in illness during 2021 and 2022 – therefore not even worth mentioning.
His logic appears to be that if “illness among the working-age population” was increasing before the Covid vaccines, then that means the Covid vaccines could not possibly have contributed to the further increase in “illness among the working-age population” during 2021 and 2022.
That, of course, is false logic.
I don’t suppose the ‘flu jabs foisted on so many people for so many years were to blame either…
Had to share this short vid and give a shout out to these awesome Portsmouth fans and patriots who turn up at a Hamas fan club gathering. Top marks to the flag-holding guy shouting ”Free Portsmouth!”. He doesn’t budge. Look at these disgraceful terrorist supporting clowns It’s like these chaps have gatecrashed a cult meeting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BJETYMCeiY&ab_channel=TurningPointUK
Just some footage of the amazing support for Bolsonaro over in Brazil yesterday, as the crowds unite in solidarity to show their opposition to dictatorship. Very heartening. Click on the Twitter links for the pics;
”It’s a picture-perfect Autumn Sunday Morning, the kind that makes Rio de Janeiro one of the most celebrated cities in the world, the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’ (City of Wonders).
On a day like that, it’s no wonder that people would flock to the beach.
But today, many people are not going to the famed Copacabana to be lazing on a Sunday morning; instead, they are gathering in yet another MASS demonstration against the socialist tyranny, in defense of democracy and in support of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
This comes right after the whole country became aware of the controversy pitting tech billionaire Elon Musk against the local Censorship Industrial Complex, led by a rogue Supreme Court and its self-appointed dictator, justice Alexandre de Moraes.
In the last few months, Brazilians watched as Bolsonaro, the greatest political leader, has been harassed, had his house raided, his passport taken, and his political rights suspended.
Meanwhile, the illegitimate President Lula da Silva leads a failing government rapidly destroying whatever economic stability we achieved under Bolsonaro’s no-nonsense administration.
Two months ago, a similar demonstration was held in the Streets of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and economic powerhouse. It gathered around 900,000 citizens to repudiate the socialist maneuvers to frame Bolsonaro for imaginary crimes (see link at the end of this post).
Lula was furious with the success of the São Paulo demonstration and wanted to stage a counter-rally, but his absolute lack of popular support meant that he could not.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/brazil-awakens-hundreds-thousands-gather-rios-copacabana-beach/
5G Health Risks Ten New Studies – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, including your local Reform Party candidate, your local vicar, media and friends online.
The Authoritarian Populism Index 2024
The key message here is:
‘…..there has been a steady decline in support for the radical left in recent years.’
That is the root cause of ‘Islamo-gauchisme’ which kicked off in Britain in 1994.
The decline in support for the radical left has forced it to reach out to Islamism.
‘….with the state never, with the Islamists sometimes’
‘The Prophet and the Proletariat’, Chris Harman 1994
That is what we are seeing on the streets of London
‘The left has made two mistakes in relation to the Islamists in the past. The first has been to write them off as fascists, with whom we have nothing in common. The second has been to see them as “progressives” who must not be criticised. These mistakes have jointly played a part in helping the Islamists to grow at the expense of the left in much of the Middle East.’
Islamism is, of course, fascism, religious fascism and so has much in common with the authoritarian left; totalitarian socialism.
The movement that we see on our streets looks as silly as P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Black shorts’ movement ‘swanking about in footer bags’. How ridiculous they look in their faux ethnic outfits, ill fitting and entirely risible headdresses, like extras from ‘The Life of Brian’ dressed in bedsheets!
Let us call them what they undoubtedly are:
A paid claque of socialist fascists, grotesquely affected poseurs on the lash…..
It comes from… something called science
Its a bbc (that we pay for) panel. How we love to spot the balance (that we pay for).
Let me see:
Packham:
‘Chris Packham has been sacked by a bird of prey charity for becoming “too political”, according to reports.
The popular conservationist was let go by Raptor Rescue because his environmental campaigns were said to be “splitting” its membership. The charity’s chair Malcolm Robbins said some members didn’t like the “political side” of Mr Packham’s activities and it couldn’t support his advice on breaking the law for environmental reasons.’
Layla Moran:
Liberal Democrat MP and the first MP to come out as pansexual (?)
Luke Johnson:
Daily Sceptic legend.
Not only has Mr Johnson got them outnumbered; he’s got them surrounded!
The thing that irritates me is that that nob is allowed to get away with saying something as dumb and meaningless and plain wrong as this being the hottest year in the “global south” ever.
Can’t somebody just ask one of these people who say make these inane statements a simple question: what’s the temperature of “the global south” or “the planet” or even “Britain” – whichever part of the world they use for their inane statement – right now? What’s the temperature right now?
They won’t be able to answer it because it’s a stupid concept. And if they can’t tell you what it is now, they can’t tell you what it was for a year, or what it was 100 years ago, as the idiots pretend to know.
But no one ever challenges these ridiculous statements properly.
Layla Moron (sic) clearly identifies as a kitchen untensil.
Or it may very well have been an attempt to describe herself as a sex pot, which went horribly wrong…….
Zelensky: $61 billion U.S. aid deal gives us a chance to win
What’s really going on?
U.S. military aid, including long range ATACMS may very well be on the way to Ukraine by the end of this week.
Good idea, because all those cheering on Russia are also cheering on the Chinese Communist Party, you know, the party that put over three million of its own people into labour camps and forcibly sterilises them.
‘In 2017, just because I was an official worker in a school, they gave me a wider choice to have this IUD or sterilisation operation. But in 2019 they said there is an order from the government that every woman from 18 years to 59 years old has to be sterilised. So they said you have to do this now.’
‘(April 21) Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Alexander Moiseev signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation with Chinese Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Hu Zhongming.’
Well done! Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back, comrades!
But make sure you take your money out of the bank and put it under your mattress:
(April 20) The House passed a foreign aid package Saturday as well as what’s called the REPO Act…….The REPO Act, which would authorize Biden to confiscate the frozen Russian assets in U.S. banks and transfer them to a special fund for Ukraine, is part of the foreign aid package that was stalled for months in the House. More than $6 billion of the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets are sitting in U.S. banks. Most of the $300 billion in assets are in Germany, France and Belgium.
‘We’re making good progress in how to access those funds on an agreed basis that I think we can take forward to the G7’
Oh dear! That’s kyboshed the funding for all those oddball and weirdo politicos for the foreseeable…….
Millions in publicity. Toby should send him a thank you note.
No such thing as a bad press, a cynic might say – after all, it’s free advertising.
What! Toby must immediately declare to us how much he is being paid by Enron…
My, what a tired old trope that is, even for the likes of Packham.
I dob the DS a few quid when I can and drive an ICE car – perhaps that’s what Packham means by ‘oil industry interests’?
The worrying thing about the “openly Jewish” affair is the calculus that makes avoiding a large riot the Met’s priority.
One often hears of incidents abroad of some minority member being murdered by a mob whilst the police stand by. I’ve always assumed it’s just because the police sympathise with the mob, but they might well argue that one person being clubbed to death without any arrests is preferable to a major riot in which many might die, including the police doing their job.
In such cases the victim is “breaching the peace” by being there and so antagonising the crowd by being a Christian, or a suspected gay, or looking like a landlord, and so has only himself to blame for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So if a significant part of the crowd had turned on the lone chap in the skull-cap, would the unarmed police, noticeably not in riot gear, have risked their own safety by intervening? That is why the police must be seen to have obvious control of public events, so that it is the mob that fears retribution, rather than the bystanders fearing lynching.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13334041/Ship-defied-Nazi-U-boats-transport-vital-resources-World-War-II-scrapped-replaced-slavery-reflection-room-Liverpool.html
Slavery reflection room? I imagine there are thousands in existence throughout the UK already – front room / living rooms, pubs, restaurants, workplaces – where hammered taxpayers ‘reflect’ on the multitudinous ways shyster money-grabbing and money-wasting governments pilfer their money.
“BlackRock boss steps up security after anti-woke backlash”
Let’s just pause for a moment and consider just how vanishingly insignificant $800K is to Fink. It’s like 2p down the back of the sofa….
Sue Chris Packham for libel, I will donate to the fund. (Not involved with the oil industry unless driving a non electric car counts)
Been renamed. Oxford Diversity now
“Zelensky: $61 billion U.S. aid deal gives us a chance to win”
Chance to win my arse!
Anyone would think they give the money to Len in a suitcase…it never leaves the US, it goes straight to US munitions companies who are making a mint out of it!
‘making a mint…’
That’s not quite true, is it…..
The U.S. Army owns its own munitions factories.
‘….the Army has added shifts, bought robots, and expanded its ammunition plants, Bush said. The Army’s investment has also been inexpensive relative to other Army programs
‘….the most basic type of 155mm shell, costs around $3,000, according to an Army spokesperson.’
‘….it never leaves the US’
$14bn is for Ukraine to purchase weapons and equipment from U.S. firms.
$8bn is direct budget support for Ukraine.
‘Chance to win…..’
The package includes long range ATACMS.
You will see…….
Then how prey tell does the west make money from forever war? Are all the commentators like Neil Oliver incorrect according to you then?
America pays for arms contractors to produce most of its stock pile and you well know it! Bow tied men in smoky back room deals for billions of dollars!
‘How….does the west make money from forever war?’
This makes no sense:
Falklands: For the United Kingdom, the war cost 258 men, 6 ships (10 others suffered varying degrees of battle damage), 34 aircraft, and £2.778 billion (£9.255 billion in 2018)
Gulf war 1: from the inception of the operation in August 1990 through February 1991, OMB reported incremental costs of $31.6 billion, including combat costs; (2) OMB has found no evidence to dispute the DOD $12.2-billion cost estimate for a 3-month post-combat period and redeployment; (3) the GAO-estimated incremental funding requirements for fiscal year (FY) 1991 was about $33 billion. U.S. allies contributed about $32 billion to the defense cooperation account and were expected to contribute an additional $15.3 billion.
Gulf war 2: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5bn
Afghanistan: Since invading Afghanistan in 2001, the United States spent $2.313 trillion on the war.
You had no idea that the U.S. Army produces a lot of its own munitions from Go-Cos, munitions factories owned by the U.S. Government.
You provide no evidence to support your, frankly, dotty ideas.
Please do a bit of research and only come back when you have at least some idea of what you are talking about; support your statements with some evidence.
By converting tax payers money into finance for gov companies and departments, that’s how the rich get richer, its not the government’s money they are spending, its ours!
I’m starting to think your another bot!
“Zelensky: $61 billion U.S. aid deal gives us a chance to win”
Please see this eleven-minute, eye-opening video “Zelensky Unmasked”:
Truth In Media on X: “Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t who you think he is. Woke celebrities and warmongering politicians adore him, but very few Americans know about the shadowy billionaires backing this actor-turned-president. Episode 2 of “Zelenskyy Unmasked” is here… https://t.co/YCzVx4VipV” / X (twitter.com)
Truth in media? Ben Swann?
‘A youth pastor turned news anchor who used his platform to spread debunked conspiracy theories related to “pizzagate” and the Sandy Hook mass shooting before CBS fired him in 2018, Swann registered Friday as an agent of TV Novosti. DOJ describedTV Novosti as “the Russian government entity responsible for the worldwide broadcasts of the RT Network” when its production company, T&R Productions LLC, registered under FARA in 2017.’
‘…the bulk of the roughly $40 million in payments foreign agents and lobbyists reported receiving from Russian government media entities broadcasting propaganda targeting the U.S. last year came from RIA Novosti, which paid nearly $32m to T&R Productions LLC in 2021 alone.’
Follow the money!
“The Government’s adviser on Political Violence and Disruption”
Who invented this bloody non-job and who currently creams a butty off the taxpayers for occupying the desk? I don’t recall any adverts for the post.
I don’t know, but as an openly white man, I feel I have to report myself to them. And my friend next door, who’s openly white AND Jewish FFS – double violence right there just by existing.
“Mark Menzies has resigned as an MP, although he won’t stand down and force a by-election”
Surely if he has resigned as an MP there is a vacancy and his ex-constituents are entitled to an election – for all the good it will achieve.
“Mindless ‘compassion’ is leading us towards the end of our civilisation”
Yes, but they don’t mention the “Suicidal Altruism” of allowing parasitic, hostile aliens to swarm into the only home you have, while you kneel before them and move your family into the garden shed.