There follows a guest post by the pseudonymous German academic who calls himself Eugyppius. It first appeared on his Substack blog/newsletter, which is well worth subscribing to.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about attempts by Karl Lauterbach to delay the work of an expert committee with a mandate from the Bundestag to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdowns and other containment measures in Germany. Christian Drosten went so far as to resign from the committee, and gave a rambling radio interview in which he complained that the evaluative body hadn’t been granted enough time and that it had been staffed with the wrong people.
The whole controversy struck me as strange. Surely this was going to be some milquetoast whitewash of the lockdowns, and so you had to wonder why Drosten and Lauterbach were even bothering.
Well, I was wrong: The committee aren’t preparing a whitewash at all. They are poised, instead, to issue a mostly honest report admitting that there is no evidence that German containment has achieved anything. The Süddeutsche Zeitung has obtained a draft of their report, which is set to be released towards the end of this month. Their crack Corona reporter, renowned hypochondriac schoolmarm and go-to eugyppius villain Christina Berndt, is not pleased.
It’s fairly clear that the conclusions of the committee represent the quiet consensus of the post-Merkel German political establishment. Its experts were appointed by the government and the Bundestag, with each political party being permitted a number of nominations proportional to their share of electoral representation. Politicians were given every opportunity, in other words, to ensure that the committee didn’t arrive at any undesirable conclusions.
What we’re looking at here is a surreptitious effort by the political arm to close the door on mass containment, which explains the opposition from Lauterbach and Drosten. These men are merely the leading edge of the public health dictatorship in Germany, which has its deepest roots in academia, the permanent bureaucracy and the press. They will now strike back, and do everything in their power to avoid having their signature policies discredited.
There are important scraps of information to be gleaned from Berndt’s anathema:
The chapter on the Corona measures is poorly crafted, the selection and commentary of the scientific literature is one-sided, the negative consequences of the measures are overemphasised, important aspects are simply omitted; only a preconceived negative opinion of the Corona measures will find confirmation here, various virological and epidemiological experts told the SZ.
According to the chapter’s authors, there is in the end little evidence for the benefit of many measures, from contact restrictions to 3G rules – with the exception of wearing masks indoors.
From the beginning of this year, as country after country dropped all containment measures, politicians like Markus Söder began hawking a political compromise – vestigial mask mandates to appease the hystericists, and otherwise no restrictions. This is the vision that ultimately won out, and it just can’t be a coincidence that this is exactly what the expert committee ended up supporting.
The chapter is being drafted under the leadership of virologist Hendrik Streeck from the University of Bonn, who was originally supposed to share this task with Christian Drosten from the Charité in Berlin. But Drosten left the committee because, in his view, a sound scientific evaluation wasn’t possible in the allotted time and with the personnel available to the committee…
Streeck has had a more balanced view of containment and the risk posed by SARS-2 from the very beginning. Drosten obviously dropped out, calculating that it would be better to discredit the report from the outside, than lend the authority of his name to its contents.
[M]any important details in the draft report are surprising. It opens with the statement that Germany did not do well during the pandemic. For example, it claims that life expectancy in Germany for 2021 has fallen “by about half a year compared to the pre-Covid year 2019”, while people in Sweden, which critics of the measures regard as a positive example, are living longer. The comparison of 2021 with 2019 seems strange, though, because Sweden experienced massive deaths in 2020, and then imposed stricter measures later.The selection of studies moreover seems arbitrary. For example, relevant studies that give a good rating to Germany’s handling of the pandemic during the first wave are not mentioned, such as a high-ranking paper by Max Planck researcher Viola Priesemann published in the journal Science. …
Here we learn that the report is a not-so-subtle rebuke of the Merkel government specifically: It rates Germany’s pandemic performance poorly, snubs Merkel-adjacent modellers like the forever-wrong Viola Priesemann, and compares German outcomes unfavourably to Sweden, which took the opposite path of minimal mitigation.
Sometimes, studies that evaluate interventions as effective are cast into doubt with succinct statements that they have been “critically received”, without providing a reference. And in numerous places there is no reference at all, only the deliberate insertion of “REF” to suggest that there is something more to come here. An expert who, like other critics of the study, does not want to named, says: “It looks like they’re still looking for the right literature reference, because studies that support an opinion can always be found.”
Or, it’s, you know, a draft, but by all means, get your science friends to provide baseless anonymous criticism of conclusions you don’t like.
The dishonesty continues:
[L]iterature references are sometimes misrepresented in the report. For example, it is claimed that even the WHO, in a report from March 2019, “did not recommend broad contact and movement restrictions for the population in the event of an influenza pandemic due to a lack of scientific evidence”. Yet the report says the opposite. The WHO explicitly recommends avoiding crowds even in the case of a “moderate” influenza pandemic, school closures and masks from the next severity level (“severe”), and closing workplaces and travel restrictions from the “extraordinary” severity level, which probably applies to COVID-19.
This is more evidence that the report is trying to drive a stake through the heart of the lockdown regime. In addition to relying on modellers and avoiding international comparisons, the lockdowners like to elide the crucial distinction between mitigation and containment. Mitigation measures to “slow the spread”, including temporary regional closures, are categorically not the same as “broad restrictions on contact and movement” like lockdowns, border closures and mandatory quarantines of the healthy. Mitigation is when your schools close; containment is when your kids can’t play with their friends. Thus the WHO report, which Berndt misrepresents, says that “Contact tracing”, “quarantine of exposed individuals”, “entry and exit screening” and “border closure” are “not recommended in any circumstances” (p. 3) – to say nothing of lockdowns.
———-
Mass containment depends upon a whole tapestry of convenient lies and fictions. The middle path would have been to say that the measures are no longer necessary or cost-effective, given the widespread availability of vaccines and the immune resistance the German population has cultivated, while otherwise affirming the theoretical validity of the doctrinal system. Apparently, the report leaked to Christina Berndt doesn’t do that. It’s instead an effort to sink mass containment as a viable policy now and for all time, orchestrated by politicians desperate to end the closures.
For much of 2021, official messaging was dominated by two rival discourses that I nicknamed Team Lockdown and Team Vaccine. Some limited vaccine scepticism was possible, so long as you expressed deep fanatical devotion to repressive non-pharmaceutical interventions. Conversely, you were allowed to demand an end to lockdowns and other measures, so long as you sang the praises of the vaccines. In 2022, with the rise of Omicron, we have seen the total rout of Team Lockdown and the ascendancy of Team Vaccine everywhere but China.
I expect the Bundestag report to be thoroughly trashed by the German press and academic establishment, but as a sign of some opposition, finally, somewhere, it’s encouraging.
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Morning all.! I see our descent into hell has continued at pace in the last 48 hours. I’ve had a quiet weekend, although I have been able to rewrite an old proverb. The new versions is ‘Red sky at night, France is alight’.
Good luck to you all, brothers and sisters of the resistance, (or whatever you like to call yourself). ‘Carry on Regardless’…
Ohhh , Matron ! 😉👍
Morning Ging.😀
A tad naive Neil.. I can tell you with certainty, I live in France.. that the riots are in no way the resistance. They are highly organised from the top (TPTB) and part of the plan to collapse the country using immigrants brought in for no other reason than to cause trouble and strife. ANTIFA 2
Coming to a country near you soon.. guaranteed..
I have to add to my post that 42 people have given the thumbs up to Neils post, and this from people who are supposedly capable of critical thought on the Daily Sceptic.. sorry, but its absolutely pathetic..
What I also find telling is where were the riots when that Syrian migrant stabbed little kids in a playground the other week? I’m sure you yourself could give many other examples of incidents that don’t get the same exposure, where the perp is a Muslim and the victim native French, it’s happening all over Europe after all. But it seems when the roles are reversed and the victim Muslim every scummy, trouble-making POS is up in arms! At least with these recent/current riots the MSM will find it impossible to cover up who are the perps and who are the victims here, which is what they historically have form for doing, all across Europe.
Well noticed Mogs.. your post is accurate indeed. Retired French generals and gendarmes having been warning about this for a very long time but censored/cancelled.
Here’s a couple of links in French to give some insight.. any online translator will suffice.
https://profession-gendarme.com/appel-aux-resistants/
https://profession-gendarme.com/paris-deux-policiers-blesses-par-balles-cette-nuit-une-enquete-ouverte-pour-tentative-de-meurtre/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzmyHqW2dHA
Neil may well clarify, but I read his “brothers and sisters of the resistance” comment as addressed to us on DS, rather than (as you imply) the rioters in France.
Thanks for your observation about this being led by TPTB. That is very interesting indeed.
I do hope you’re right on Neil’s ‘resistance’ comment Michael and its my misinterpretation. His posts are usually right on the money. The thought of him being hoodwinked is worrying..
My reading of Neil’s post is that he acknowledges the trouble we are in and he is simply wishing us good luck.
Ok hux.. I did think it was a somewhat odd view for him to take, as I said above he always comes across in his posts as very astute. My apologies to Neil..
Well I have stated time and again that I believe the importation of thousands of military aged young men was deliberate. I also believe these men are an army in waiting. Quite possibly their purpose is exactly the same as that being played out in France. This now seems more likely than not. I wonder what the “spark” will be which mobilises them?
You won’t be surprised to learn Hux.. that a lot of these young men were running around with assault rifles. They’ve apparently been identified as coming from Ukraine.. now who’d have guessed something like that would happen..
Have you considered the theory that it might be the usual (ie the US) PTB demonstrating to Macron that he’s been a bit of a naughty boy recently, and that countries break when their leaders step out of line?
The CIAs modus operandi over many decades has been to destabilise regimes in that way to replace them with those more compliant (though i guess they’d have to deal with Marine Le Pen first).
In what way did in refer to the riots as resistance, Will.? I didn’t say that and that was not to be inferred from me mentioning France being alight, and the ‘resistance’ of Daily Sceptic readers in separate paragraphs. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
I further suspect that the 42 brave souls (now 54) who have thumb-up’ed my post, were probably just acknowledging my Good Morning greeting to them, rather than dissecting the meaning of it from a critical viewpoint, I’d like to think so anyway. I read and post most days, and acknowledge them. Maybe they did the same for me. So take your ‘absolutely pathetic’ comment and put it where it will not cast a shadow. Enjoy the rest of your day.
He has apologised above (in a reply to HP) for misinterpreting what you were saying…
“The rise of the ‘laptop class’ and their constant push for change create instability and divide society. N.S. Lyons explains why rule by nerds leads to perpetual chaos.”
It’s hard to observe what’s going on in the world without making generalizations, so I’m OK with them as long as they are accurate. Regarding this one, I would just like to point out that I’m a nerd and a member of the “laptop class” and I really don’t like change at all, let alone push for it.
There are several types of Nerds so we won’t lump you in with the ones above ! In fact I think everyone can be a bit Nerdy at times including myself ! 🥴
“According to the Telegraph, police have confirmed that a 24 year-old man has been charged following a report of a hate crime against transgender rapist, Isla Bryson, at HMP Edinburgh.”
I do wish people would write more clearly. Is “Isla Bryson” a man or a woman? I don’t really know what “transgender” means. If Isla Bryson is a man, please say so. If Isla Bryson is not this man’s real name, please write “Mr X who has changed his name by deed poll to Isla Bryson”. If Mr X is one of those men who has had his willy chopped off in a lunatic attempt to “become a woman” please say so.
Interesting – prisoner attacking someone for being a transgenderist is a hate crime. What about a prisoner who attacks someone for being a rapist, which has certainly happened historically in prisons?
And what if someone is attacked because, being a rapist, they have tried to minimise their accountability by “becoming” a woman? That situation is not quite the same as being transphobic simpliciter, is it?
A few years ago I had it on good authority (a warden from a high security nick) that child killers don’t fare well in prisons either – never hear about those either, do you?
BTW Isla Bryson is one of those rare hybrids which we are told to elevate to almost godlike status these days – an XY (wo)man with a d*ck.
…I know you already know this..but it’s good to get this insanity into the open..it is against the law to ‘deadname’ someone..i.e to call someone who is transgender male, for instance and is now called Allan, but was born female and Alison…by their original name….
‘’Deadnaming’ is considered to be harassment/discrimination and falls under the 2010
Equality Act….
It cost £18 pounds to change your name by Deed Poll..you then can apply to change your name on a driving licence, passport, bank cards, everything…. You are then considered, in law, that person.
Besides which..the woke world..and that definitely includes the scum MSM…the Police, the Law and everyone involved in this …. All of whom will be breaking their necks to out woke each other!….
“‘’Deadnaming’ is considered to be harassment/discrimination and falls under the 2010
Equality Act….”
I didn’t know that. Does the Equality Act explicitly state this or is there case law for it?
..maybe I should have said ‘could’ be considered harassment?…I think that in the prevailing climate any case brought would win….especially if the person has gone to all the trouble of changing their identity by Deed Poll etc…?
Also it is an offence of Hate Crime under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as the Act recognises five types of hate crime on the basis of:
I suppose my point is, the MSM and establishment is so captured by this nonsense..we’ve no chance of them stopping now…it’s freaking depressing….
Thanks. Depressing indeed. I doubt stating someone has changed their name would be considered a hate crime even in the current climate, but perhaps saying someone is a man could be.
What an intriguing nest. Presumably, if I become Joanne, it ought to be possible – even necessary – to get my children‘s birth certificates altered so that Joanne is their father. Or in law, are they entitled to officially deadname me because my old name is on their birth certificate?
I think this is a no-brainer to all of us here by now, nevertheless it’s the latest by the PANDA team showing that the lockdowns did nothing positive, only negative. It is also why, if we were living in a non-Clown World, absolutely everybody involved with imposing these destructive draconian measures on us would be stood in the dock and have to pay for the extensive abuses they meted out on their citizens. If heads don’t roll and there’s zero accountability from this ‘Inquiry’ you know that we really are at the mercy of criminals who shall just carry on committing their crimes with impunity. I think none of us have our hopes up and can see the warped reality, the ”new normal” for what it really is, hence it will all be a very protracted foregone conclusion. Crimes against humanity? Par for the course in Clown World. 🙁
”In summary, lockdowns did not stop the spread of Covid, but did cause untold misery, starvation and death around the world, especially in low-income countries. Lockdowns, as everyone should have predicted, caused significant excess deaths in those countries that implemented them. The figure of 372 deaths per million equates to a fatality rate of 0.04%. Although this number is less than the average IFR of Covid, lockdowns primarily killed younger people than Covid did. For example, in the USA, “40% of excess deaths” came from the under “65 age stratum.” Hence, if we were to judge the outcome of the lockdowns using “quality years of life” (as is commonly used by health economists to evaluate the benefits of certain interventions), we would have to say they had a catastrophically negative impact.”
https://pandauncut.substack.com/p/did-lockdowns-save-the-world-from
“Banks are to be warned they must protect free speech”
Am I becoming too cynical and sceptical? this effort by Jeremy Hunt seems to me to have a hollow ring to it and be a bit too sanctimonious to be true. If TPTB have Central Bank Digital Currency on their minds then they need everyone to have a bank account so that they can keep tabs on them and control their actions. They do not want people to totally loose their accounts, they need them to have a digital account as the means by which TPTB can monitor, control, sanction and admonish people.
Yes. I wasn’t aware that private corporations such as banks were bound to obey decrees made by government ministers in the press about free speech. If the practice of closing accounts is wrong, legislation must be passed, or if it already exists, enforced.
Legislation to ban CBDCs would help, but they’re not going to do that, are they?
“Am I becoming too cynical and sceptical?”
If you mean with reference to a statement from Chunt I would say you are not being sceptical enough. The bloke can’t open his mouth without lying.
Jeremy Cnut.. banks.. free speech.. I’ve just spat my coffee all over my keyboard. Surely someone’s ‘avin a larf’.. haha 🙂
“Zelensky warns…”
The much heralded counter-offensive has been admitted to be at a standstill by Western media, and even Zaluzhny has said as much in WaPo, with much lightly-disguised recrimination against the western
participantsobservers who insisted it go ahead with inadequate forces.Several attacks against Zaporizhzhia have been thwarted, and to the Russians it looks like they’re close to an end game even if the West sends F16s and legions of Romanians into the fray. Their main fear would be if NATO tries to throw the cards in the air by going nuclear, as they have repeatedly warned. Otherwise, Russia looks very strong, and the West/Ukraine increasingly weak, and even many western sources concede that.
So it naturally follows(!) that General Surovikin, wondering the best way to further his strategic goals with a massive army in reserve, air superiority, and equipment and ammunition dominance, will decide to blow up his own nuclear power station.
If the alternative were true, that it is Ukraine that is planning a false-flag, the question is only if the Western public believes it and supports total war. Should they do so, it would only declare to a majority of the world the total destruction of the Western psyche by its own propaganda.
‘Biden backs plan to block the sun in bid to limit global warming’. More confirmation, as if any was needed, about who really runs the world: –
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/01/11/bill-gates-backed-climate-solution-gains-traction-but-concerns-linger/
…this made me titter…
6 minutes of President of Belarus Lukashenko…’fighting the Covid narrative’..
I suppose he illustrates that the saying ‘he’s not all bad’ might be true!!? LOL!
https://rumble.com/v2wp232-6-minutes-of-lukashenko-fighting-the-covid-agenda.html
Or ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows’
Articles in three organs are referenced on this topic ““Banks are to be warned they must protect free speech” – Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is “deeply concerned” about bank bans on customers who hold controversial views” I cannot comment there because I do not subscribe to any of them.
I have a lot of problems with this seemingly welcome development.
First, it is suggested the views of those who have been cancelled by the banks are “Extreme”. I accept that limiting immigration, delivering Brexit, a smaller state and stopping the woke nonesense etc are all issues on which there would be little agreement between (say) Nogel Farage and any member of the Cabinet, the Government and hardly any MPs (except the ones who already work for GB News.
Second, the fact the Chancellor thinks he has the power to tell banks what to do (which some of the organs say he has) shows we have lost our democract. If he has overstepped his actual authority then it shows what powers he thinks he should have and will no doubt soon be awarded.
Banks are not (yet) government owned. They exist as businesses to make money providing services their customers want within a regulatory structure. Ministers should not be able to tell them how to run their affairs and should not want such power if they are a democrat.
The regulatory organisations (FCA, PRA, Competition and Markets Authority) are statutory regulatory bodies which oufght to take an interest in what the banks have done. Are they abusing their market power as oligopolists, have they colluded in closing accounts and refusing banking services to particular people and organisations, have they treated their customers fairly. These are all matters that should have ben the sunbects of regulatory activity for some time. If the regulators have overlooked these issues the Chancellor should remind them of their statutory obligations.
I am not aware that Nigel Farage has been informed why his bank has closed his accounts. I am also not clear he has been told by other banks why they have refused to offer services.
Would the banks have got away with this if Mr Farage had declared that he was gay or transgender?
Businesses have been taken to court for refusing to offer services / do work for alphabet customers.
If Nigel Farage is to be permanently refused banking services it follows that every business / organisation in the country should be compelled to accept payments in cash.
In this instance the government has a responsibility to make the situation very clear. In fact the government has a responsibility to act not just on behalf of Nigel Farage but on behalf of the citizens of this country.
In failing to act the government is conniving in the stripping away of a person’s rights as a citizen of this country.
Surely not…..
If you cancel “Extreme Right” views, it’s equivalent to cancelling everything that’s “bigger the average.” All you do is shift the average down, making another tranche of views “extreme.” If the process continues, Maoism becomes an extreme right ideology.
I think the Trudeau clip has been ‘deplatformed’.
Inconvenient truth.
Yes.. I think you’re right. Good stuff this ‘free speech’ on Twatter..
You’re definitely right.. looks like Macron’s doing the same for whats going on in France..
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/macron-demands-platforms-delete-riot-content-blames-social-media-video-games-protest
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12254167/More-gloomy-news-Biden-backs-plan-BLOCK-sunlight-Earth-bid-limit-global-warming.html
Bit late isn’t he.. they’ve been at it since 1946, and seriously since the mid 90s. I’ve enclosed a pic of skies above my house in Brittany to let Biden know its already in full swing.. so there’s no need for him to concern his befuddled self..
https://t.me/DrMikeYeadon/1438
I don’t know if this will work.
Yes it does. Worth a read. It is good news.
Yeah.. I really like Mike.. a very clever man, and he’s got balls the size beach-balls. I do hope that he’s right in his thinking in that post..
The one thing I am confident in stating with regard to Dr Mike Yeadon is that he has been bang on since mid 2020 and with everything. I am not by nature an optimist but even I took a grain of comfort from his post.
Me too..
Robert F Kennedy Jr talking about vaccines: –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLxBwIupF88
Apologies if it has been posted before.
A few more people are sticking their heads above the parapet and finally questioning the safety of childhood vaccines. Heather Heying has a good post on her substack Natural Selections just a few days ago. Of course the Highwire is on top of it and Aaron Siri’s recent presentation to the Arizona State Senate https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/aaron-siri-gives-testimony-on-the-floor-of-arizona-state-senate/ covers it all. Not easy listening for parents, especially in the USA where kids are jabbed even more than UK and Europe. How has it come to this where parents and doctors are afraid to ask questions or discuss whether theever increasing incidence of chronic illness in children might be due – at least partially – to the jabs.
what the Hell has happened to good old common sense??..the brilliant bit from Robert Kennedy’s video, talking to the doctor the other day…’why does a two day old baby need hepB vaccine? Why indeed…I am boggled that parents don’t even question it!?
We’ve been conditioned to believe that the medical authorities are working in our best interests even if we had suspicions about the pharmaceutical industry. Before 2020 I took every vaccine on offer. No more. Many parents are now kicking themselves for letting their children be jabbed, especially if they are showing signs of autoimmune problems, metabolic issues etc. As in all the things going on we must stay strong and resist the nonsense as best we can for the sake of humanity.
Never apologise..it’s good if it’s posted twice or more..it means we all get to see it..not everyone can look every day….I’m of the mind…the more the merrier…better we see it twice..than not at all..