Latest News
The row over school openings rumbles on. The Mail cites ‘‘evidence from 22 countries on the continent” at an EU briefing which suggests that reopening schools has not been harmful to children and teachers. Millions of pupils in Germany, France, Denmark and Norway are now back at their desks; even hard-hit Belgium has told primary and secondary schools to restart smaller final-year classes:
The decision to reopen schools in 22 EU states, including France where 1.4 million pupils went back to their classrooms, has not caused an increase in coronavirus cases across Europe.
The revelation piles pressure on unions resisting plans to send younger children back from June 1st.
The National Education Union yesterday even claimed it was not safe for teachers to mark workbooks.
The Mail quotes Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham: ‘The unions have been asking for evidence, and this is it. So they should start cooperating fully with the Government so that our schools can open again as soon as possible.”
Back in the UK Labour-run Bury Council yesterday became the latest local authority to reject the Government’s timetable for sending children back to class, joining Hartlepool, Liverpool and Stockport. You can watch Julia Hartley-Brewer arguing with a Bury Councillor on her Talk Radio show this morning here.
The Mail‘s online edition adds remarks from Tony Blair on last night’s Newsnight in which he backed calls for pupils to go back to school, saying some children were receiving no education at all.
The Times also has a story about the European education ministers being briefed by the EU at a meeting chaired by Blazenka Divjak, the Croatian Education Minister, who said that social distancing and hygiene measures appeared to be working. The paper points out that many of the UK councils considering delaying reopening are in deprived areas where children are suffering more from school closures.
In the Times‘s Letters pages, Kenneth Baker – Education Secretary for three years under Margaret Thatcher – is one of a number of readers concerned about the effect of ongoing school closures on children’s education.
SIR – The Sutton Trust has shown that 64% of primary school teachers have been giving just three hours of teaching a day during the lockdown. Teachers should go back to working a full day on June 1st.
Already two months of education have been lost; disadvantaged children will find it very challenging to catch up in a year. Hence, the sooner children return to school the better. Other countries are managing to do so safely and so should we.
Former Labour MP Frank Field, writing to the Guardian as chairman of the Frank Field Education Trust, agrees: “To allow this gap to develop unnecessarily, with the closure of schools, will be bordering on the politically criminal.”
Lockdown Isn’t Working
The newspapers are finally starting to take seriously the economic impact of the lockdown.
Today’s Telegraph notes that two million claims for grants, amounting to £6 billion, have been made in the past week under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.
The number of workers on the separate employee furlough scheme has gone up to eight million, an increase of 500,000 since last week. That brings to around ten million the total number of people now having their wages funded by Government borrowing, with a third of private sector workers wages currently paid by the state.
At the same time, with shops and businesses forcibly closed, claims for unemployment benefits soared by nearly 70% in April, according to the Guardian. The number of unemployed people claiming benefits has increased by the most since records began to reach almost 2.1 million in April. The Office for National Statistics says about 856,500 people signed up for Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance benefits in April, driving up the overall claimant count by 69% in a single month. It’s the biggest monthly increase since records began, while the overall number of people claiming benefits due to unemployment has risen above two million for the first time since 1996. They may shortly be joined by the 6,000 employees of the high street restaurant chain Bella Italia, which has called in the administrators.
Meanwhile, the number of employees on company payrolls plunged by 450,000 at the start of April. The number of vacancies posted by companies looking for new staff has also halved.
By way of contrast, the pre-lockdown headline measurement of unemployment had fallen to 3.9% in the three months to March, with the percentage of people in work at a joint-record high.
The Times reports that “the amount of work done in Britain crashed by a quarter in the final week of March as lockdown came into effect… The figures provide an early glimpse of the wreckage being caused to people’s lives”.
The Mail quotes Martina Kane, from the Health Foundation charity, on the worrying long-term effects of lockdown, especially on the young:
It is concerning that the current crisis is disproportionately affecting employment opportunities for young people. This could have worrying ramifications for young people’s longer term health outcomes. There is strong evidence that unemployment and poor quality work can have a negative impact on young people’s mental health. Financial insecurity can result in poor health both now and later in life.
We’re Not Going On a Summer Holiday
The summer holiday picture remains confusing. The Sun reports Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’s comments in the Commons yesterday that ministers are looking at “travel bridges” so people can fly to countries with low numbers of Covid infections. But it wasn’t all good news: he also warned that the Government is planning to fine travellers £10,000 if they break whatever quarantine restrictions are put in place.
But if you’re thinking about staying in the UK for your holiday, better not leave your home just yet. The Spectator’s Kate McCann told an alarming story on Twitter yesterday: “Ros Pritchard, Director General of the British Holiday and Home Park Association, says they have had ‘vigilantes’ reporting people staying on holiday home sites. The ‘tourists’ were in fact NHS staff who were being given accommodation to help them do their jobs.”
Trump’s Miracle Cure
The Mail and others report the news that Donald Trump has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus prophylactic. The paper publishes a letter written by White House physician Dr Sean Conley in which he says, “After numerous discussions, he and I regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from the treatment outweighed the relative risk.”
Common Cold May Provide Immunity
The Times reports on research published in the academic journal Cell which suggests that merely having suffered from the common cold in the past may confer some immunity against the virus:
Scientists have found cells that can fight the new coronavirus in the bloodstream of people who have only been infected with other coronaviruses that cause colds. The finding raises hope that some may have a degree of protection already and could explain the apparent randomness in how severely the virus strikes.
The research looked at ‘T-cells’ which spot other cells that have been infected.
Dan Davis, professor of immunology at the University of Manchester, said: “When a cell is infected with a coronavirus, the virus’s protein molecules are chopped up into very small pieces. And those small pieces are put up at the surface of the cell. When T-cells see these molecules that have never been in the body before they multiply, then they go and respond to those infected cells.”
Nightingale Dead On Arrival
Why is a new Nightingale hospital being built, given that almost none of the ones that have been built so far are being used? According to the Midweek Herald in Devon, work began on transforming a HomeBase in Exeter into a Nightingale on May 6th.
“NHS leaders in Devon say that they hope that Nightingale Exeter will not be needed but if or when it is, it will be ready,” reports the paper.
Lord Gumption Speaks
Watch this YouTube video of Jonathan Sumption setting out the case against lockdown on the BBC. “The current rationale for the lockdown is incoherent,” he says, matter-of-factly.
This appearance, like Sumption’s comment piece in the Sunday Times, led to ignominy being poured on his head. (Welcome to the club, m’Lud.) Read his robust reply to his critics in today’s Spectator.
Tory MP Likens Government Response to Morecambe and Wise Sketch
The Telegraph‘s Camilla Tominey reports on some rumblings of discontent from Conservative MPs at Boris’s first meeting with backbenchers since the lockdown was put in place which took place yesterday. One disgruntled MP came up with a good analogy to describe the Prime Minister’s response to the pandemic:
Summing up the mood on the back benches, one former minister on Monday likened his own party’s handling of the crisis to the famous Morecambe and Wise comedy sketch featuring legendary pianist and composer Andre Previn.
The respected MP told the Telegraph: “It’s like when Previn turns to Eric and says: ‘You’re not playing the right notes’ and Eric grabs him by the lapels and replies: ‘I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.’ Everything has been the wrong way round.”
Citing the newly-introduced 14-day quarantine period, the MP added: “That should have happened at the beginning of the crisis, not at the end.”
Is the Nation Suffering From OCD?
Interesting email from a psychiatric nurse who liked my suggestion yesterday that there’s something cult-like about the behaviour of those who’ve enthusiastically embraced their incarceration:
The citizens of this country are going to have huge problems in the phases of loosening lockdown with OCD and risk assessment.
Some background. I am a retired psychiatric and general nurse, with a sociology degree gained when sociology wasn’t a load of lefty nonsense (1970s). I had an unusual career. I left my job as an NHS Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) in 1996 to become self-employed as the first independent CPN in the country, working as a contractor to the NHS alongside a small private clinical practice. Having previously been a training officer in the NHS, I gradually developed the training side of the business, which became my sole focus for the last few years until my retirement two years ago.
About nine weeks ago, our Government said: “500,000 of us are going to die.” We all experienced terror. If we are told something powerfully and often enough, we will believe it. If we link what we are told to an emotional state, we will believe it more. If we link it to a negative emotion, such as fear, we will believe it so much that we don’t feel the need to question it.
Which brings me to OCD.
People with OCD believe that if they think something it must be true and, as a corollary, what they think is what will happen. On several occasions, I saw new mums with OCD who believed they were going to smother their babies because, crucially, they were thinking how awful it would be to do such a thing (the “obsession”). They thought, “If I’m thinking it, I will do it.” So they tried not to think about it. How? By developing behaviours designed to block such thoughts, or to keep themselves away from their baby (the “compulsion”). In therapy (if they will come, which they usually won’t), we ask them to do what seems crazy: think about smothering their baby more, not less. If they’re brave enough to do this, they find all the reasons why they don’t want to, and won’t, smother their baby. Think it through properly, don’t avoid thinking about it.
In my early career, I made the mistake of arguing with OCD sufferers, trying to convince them that terrible things were not going to happen. This is pointless, as they will always reply: “But it might happen!” I learnt to say, “Yes, it might,” which, of course, freaked people out: “Don’t say that! What kind of a therapist are you? You’re supposed to make me feel better!” I followed up, though, with: “How likely is it? What could stop the terrible thing from happening? What’s the evidence? Rather than others calming you down with pointless reassurances that nothing terrible will happen, how can you calm yourself down?” (People with OCD are far too reliant on others to provide them with reassurance.) And, crucially, “As you can’t be 100% sure that the terrible thing won’t happen, how can you get along with life while living with the remote possibility that it could, like you do with so many other potential dangers?”
We are abysmal at risk assessment. I used to run courses on positive risk management with care and health organisations (why it’s OK to take risks, because they have benefits). The Covid crisis is the ultimate and logical conclusion to our risk-averse culture. How often do we hear the words: “You can’t do that! It’s against health and safety!” And yet, the Health and Safety Executive is about the only Government body I know which has a sense of humour. It used to send out a regular “Health and Safety Myths” email, analysing all the things workers had been told by their bosses they couldn’t do because of “health and safety”, but pointing out that the danger was minor, and, importantly, not doing whatever it was created more danger. Example: teachers at a school were told no longer to use step ladders to access books on a high shelf, in case they fell off the ladder. Results: (a) they stood on chairs instead and fell off; and (b) the children’s education was damaged, because they couldn’t read the interesting books on the high shelf.
On risk management courses I used to talk about fear of flying. Someone in the group would always say they were terrified of planes, but still went abroad for holidays. I would ask how they got to the airport. “Eh? We drove!” I would point out that far more people are killed driving to airports than they are on planes, but this cut no mustard, because, of course, we only read in the news about plane crashes (precisely because they are so rare), not about car crashes (because they are so common). Also, newspapers don’t report safe plane landings. So, as in so many other aspects of life, we end up with completely erroneous notions of how dangerous things are.
As a nation, we are going to need to be taught effective risk assessment and risk management skills if we are to succeed in coming out of lockdown. We keep looking for a “no risk” route out, when in reality reducing one risk almost always creates another. We tend to believe that a hazard in the present is always worse than a hazard in the future; that a physical hazard is worse than a mental or emotional hazard. We rarely ask the key risk assessment questions:
How likely is it?
How soon will it happen?
How serious is it?I used to call these the “PIG Issues”: Probability, Imminence, Gravity.
Pulling this together, it’s as if we’ve suddenly become a nation of OCD sufferers: fuelled by our Government and our awful media, we’ve been taught to be mindful all the time of the terrible things which could happen. We’re presented constantly with images of mass graves, accounts of what happens in Intensive Care Units, etc. and so ruminate on these dangers. The more we think of these things, the more we believe them to be important and true – probable, rather than improbable. And our anxiety reinforces them: “I feel frightened. What is there to be frightened off? Yes: that!” Our anxiety “proves” our belief that we are in danger. Our danger-reduction strategies – like mask-wearing – prove, by temporarily reducing our anxiety, that we are right to feel danger. Then we seek certainty that the feared things won’t happen: “Unless the Government can give me absolute 100% certainty that my child will not get COVID-19 at school, I’m not taking the risk” Boris asked us to do our own risk assessments – “Stay Alert” – but we have become, over the past few years, a nation dependent on others to manage risks for us.
Unless we can undo years of mollycoddling, over-management and disempowerment, we will never go back to work or to take off our masks.
Staying Sane
For those of you beginning to go insane in virtue of being lockdown sceptics, rather than enthusiasts, this website seems to be quite therapeutic. I get several emails like the one below every day. This one is from a wine merchant in New Zealand:
Each morning when I awake (from a night of restless, worried sleep, clutching my pillow tight) the first thing I do is load your website and spend an hour or so, reading your latest daily missive and as many of the links as I have time for. It feeds my soul. It helps my mental state immeasurably to get through the coming day with the correct amount of grim humour at the sheer absurdity of where we find ourselves, and to know that there is also shared common outrage among the global rational and well balanced. Simply put, it is the one of the few thing keeping me sane at the moment – along with my family. My wife and I are libertarians and have been struggling to understand how so many of our fellow citizens can hold their liberty so lightly, and with such great irrationality throw away what looks like it could end up being a generation of progress and burden our children with indulgent profligacy, over something that, while terrible, in the big scheme of things is so innocuous that it is not, or rather it should not be, a threat to our systems of freedom and economy – our way of life.
Chin up, mate. If the worst comes to the worst, you can always drink your stock.
Shopping Aint What It Used To Be
A sad email from a reader who’d just visited his local garden centre:
I’ve just read your piece on the future of our High Streets. Today I visited our local garden centre, which isn’t exactly momentous news. But it got me thinking about what the short term future holds for retail in general. My visit was not pleasant, which I’ll come on to, and that concerns me. Once the lockdown is further lifted we will need to get our economy moving. But the salient point is that, thinking back to happier times, most of the retail places I visited was in part or wholly, for pleasure. For example – coffee. I can make this at home but I go to our local café for the atmosphere, to meet and be with people. And it’s a similar story for restaurants, nik nak shops, you name it.
Coming back to today, my wife and I were faced by a young chap in the car park wearing a surgical mask, even though I understand the risk of infection in the open air is negligible. Inside the garden centre we were greeted by the usual tape on the floor to keep us the required distance apart but again, everyone sported the sinister masks. And this is the truly bizarre part – several also wore plastic visors of the type a groundsman might wear for strimming duties. The reason for this flummoxed me. When it was time to pay there was a single till with a chequerboard area marked out in front. We were instructed, admittedly very politely, to deposit our trolley in this area and move away. The lady on the till then emerged from behind her plastic screen, reached for the trolley at arm’s length and, after drawing it back to safety, totted up our purchases.
The reason I think this rather odd experience is important is that for most of us shopping should be a pleasure. If it isn’t, who will go? Supermarkets and similar will survive as we all need provisions. But what of the others? Will we really be piling in and kick-starting the economy if the experience is anything like mine today?. I suspect many will either do without or shop online. That’s a terrible thought and I hope I’m wrong.
Alternative Daily Briefing
Interesting suggestion from a reader about how sceptics might get their message across more effectively:
As an alternative to the daily Government press briefing have you considered doing a Lockdown Sceptics press conference? Three people to present the case against the lockdown in a similar format to the Government’s daily briefing, but with the opposite message.
It could be led by Jonathan Sumption, Simon Dolan, you, Dan Hannan, Luke Johnson. Lead presenter puts forward an 8-10 min powerpoint setting out the case. We have a scientific expert just like the Government (Dr. Giesecke? Knut Wittkowski?) Then we could have questions… started by Peter Hitchens? Brendan O’Nielll? James Delingpole? then open it up and deal with flak from the MSM.
A dissenting press conference with us acting as the real opposition would bring publicity, offer a direct counterpoint to the Government propaganda, and allow us to present the full case in its entirety rather than piecemeal fragments on Twitter.
Quite a good idea, but doing these daily updates and maintaining this site, not to mention my three other jobs, leaves me with no time for anything else. If someone else wants to organise it, I’d be happy to do one of the presentations.
Has the NHS Stopped Buying Drugs?
A reader writes:
Just on a call with a colleague who mentioned a call she’d been on with senior [major drug company] UK staff who are forecasting an income squeeze till year-end because, quote, “The NHS has stopped buying drugs.” This team is in oncology, so the assumption must be that cancer treatments have taken a huge dent, because elective treatments are being put off, and because new diagnoses are not coming into scope. If the treatment downturn is significant enough that it is already feeding through into pharma sales and orders, it must be huge.
Lends credibility to Professor Karol Sikora’s claim that if the lockdown lasts six months there will be at least 50,000 extra deaths from cancer.
Latest NHS App Woes
In news that will surprise NO ONE, the rollout of the NHS’s tracing app has been delayed. Apparently, the version being tested on the Isle of Wight will not be the version rolled out nationally. They need to wait for the second version to be completed. Didn’t Matt Hancock say it would be launched nationally in mid-May? Looks like that’s one target he’s not going to meet.
A survey by the British Computer Society finds that 75% of IT experts predict the NHSX coronavirus app won’t work.
In any event, it looks like the app is on its way to being sidelined, with Matt Hancock’s announcement in the Commons yesterday that track-and-trace will now rely on people reporting when they’re ill and who they’ve had contact with by… making a telephone call:
Today I can confirm that we have recruited over 21,000 contact tracers in England. This includes 7,500 health care professionals who will provide our call handlers with expert clinical advice. They will help manually trace the contacts of anyone who has had a positive test and advise them on whether they need to isolate.
The work of these 21,000 people will be supported by the NHS-COVID 19 app which we are piloting in the Isle of Wight…
How will the app “support” those workers exactly, given that what is being piloted in Isle of Wight isn’t what will be rolled out nationally?
Meanwhile, the Health Service Journal has a story about an email sent by NHSX’s Chief Executive, Matthew Gould, which suggests he knows who’s going to get the blame for this fiasco. In an email leaked to the Journal with the subject “Launching websites and apps”, Gould writes: “We are losing goodwill and credibility because we keep doing non-compliant builds and launches. We have to do better.”
Time to dust off that CV, Mr Gould.
Did a 14 Year-Old Schoolgirl Invent the Lockdown Policy?
Yesterday, I pointed out that no country locked down its citizens in response to the flu pandemics of 1957-58 or 1968-70 and, as I’ve said before, quarantining whole populations in response to a pandemic has only been tried once before – in Mexico in 2009 in response to the H1N1 scare. And the policy was abandoned after 18 days due to rising social and economic costs. Moreover, numerous public health bodies advised against indiscriminate quarantining to mitigate the impact of a pandemic before 2020, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2019. The WHO specifically recommended against whole-population quarantining as a strategy for managing the outbreak of a flu-like virus in a report it published in 2019. The WHO report, which you can read here, even stopped short of recommending the quarantining of exposed individuals.
So why the last-minute change of plan?
I’m clearly going to have to devote a chapter in my book to this mystery – and I suspect the main culprit will be the WHO for praising the Chinese authorities’ better-late-than-never over-reaction, which involved mandatory testing of millions of people, imprisoning those who tested positive in purpose-built “hospitals”, and boarding up those who tested negative in their homes for weeks on end. Because the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is in thrall to Xi Jinping, he encouraged governments around the world to mimic China’s response. In this way, a totalitarian dictatorship called the tune that the rest of the world danced to. Incidentally, the Chinese authorities have agreed to an “independent” investigation into the origins of coronavirus on the condition that it’s led by the WHO. Isn’t that a bit like getting the monkey to investigate the organ-grinder?
But a post on the blog of the American Institute for Economic Research has drawn attention to another suspect in the investigation into this mystery: a 14 year-old high school girl. Her name is Laura Glass and in 2006 her dad, Robert Glass, was working as a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories. He and his daughter, then 14, co-authored a 2006 paper entitled ‘Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza‘ and this paper, apparently, was referenced in a proposal about how America should respond to a pandemic drafted by by two doctors working for the US federal government in 2006, along with a team at the Defense Department. The New York Times has more.
So how did a 14 year-old come to co-author an influential academic paper? According to the Albuquerque Journal, she conducted a high school science experiment that leant weight to the idea that quarantining populations, including shutting schools, would suppress the spread of a flu-like virus:
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
The fact that the lockdown policy was based, in part, on a high school science experiment is symptomatic of how how little real scientific expertise was involved in devising it. The two doctors who took up this cause were a Department of Veterans Affairs physician and an oncologist turned White House adviser, and the Defense Department officials were just garden-variety bureaucrats.
I must try and interview Laura Glass for my book.
YouTube Censors Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski
YouTube has appointed itself the world’s censor-in-chief during this crisis, but even our own Lord Chamberlain would have hesitated before muzzling Knut Wittkowski, former Head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University. (You’ll recall that I linked to his excellent interview in Spiked a couple of days ago.) The New York Post reports that YouTube removed a video of him talking about the virus that had racked up more than 1.3 million views.
The video was produced by the British film company Journeyman Pictures and YouTube hasn’t informed them or Wittkowski why it’s been removed. ”They don’t tell you,” he says. “They just say it violates our community standards. There’s no explanation for what those standards are or what standards it violated.”
Fortunately, the American Institute for Economic Research has put the video back up. You can watch it here.
#IDAHOBIT
Sunday was International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia, or IDAHOBIT. As Douglas Murray relates in his latest Telegraph column, the Metropolitan Police spent part of Sunday broadcasting their support for these causes. “We truly value and respect the unique qualities of everyone in the Met and are proud to celebrate this day”, the Met tweeted, following up with the hashtag #IDAHOBIT.
BBC News marked the occasion with a piece by Ben Hunte, the corporation’s LGBT correspondent, entitled: ‘I’m scared of being buried as the wrong gender.’ Here’s an extract:
Lucy, 21, from the north-east of England, is transgender and has severe heart issues. After years spent living as a woman, she says she has “no doubt” her parents would bury her as a man if she was to die from coronavirus.
“They’ll shave my long hair, put me in a suit, use my birth name and call me ‘he’ all the way through the funeral. The thought of my family doing it makes me feel so sick, but I know they will.”
Someone should tell Lucy to stop worrying – her chances of dying from coronavirus are less than one in a million.
A Military Fast Jet Pilot Writes…
Bullish email from a former military fast-jet pilot. He thinks he could have made a better decision about how to respond to the pandemic than the British Prime Minister:
I have spent most of my life in aviation as a military fast jet pilot and then as a captain for Thomas Cook until I was forced into redundancy last year. As aviators we have many skills including decision making in difficult situations. We have many tricks of the trade and most processes involve some sort of pneumonic. The latest one in Thomas Cook was FORDEC. It all starts with FACTS – you must must must start with as many facts from as many different sources as possible. Next comes OPTIONS – scope out how you can play the scenario out whilst considering the RISKS and BENEFITS of each option. Finally DECIDE, EXECUTE and then CHECK constantly to see if stuff has changed – the FACTS, for instance.
I’m guessing you know where my story fits into the current situation? This is not rocket science (ha). If required, a fast jet pilot can run through this in about five seconds!
I was also a CRMI crew resource management instructor and we had a whole history over 110 years of past accidents and incidents to learn from.
My common thread is that we have simply lost sight of the big picture. There is no voice of reason breaking through in the MSM. Where is Nigel Farage when you need him?
At the end of the day, as my father used to say, “Life Is A Near Death Experience”. Enjoy it as much as you can and let’s get on with the show.
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:
- ‘Sorrento IDs Antibody Against COVID-19 That Appears 100% Effective‘ – US-based pharmaceutical company says it’s found an antibody that blocks Covid
- ‘Putting a value on life seems wrong but it’s the only way out of this crisis‘ – IEA Director Mark Littlewood in the Times on why there’s nothing wrong with placing a value on human life
- ‘Professor Karol Sikora: fear is more deadly than the virus‘ – The NHS oncologist interviewed by Freddie Sayers for UnHerd
- ‘The warped thinking behind the world’s lockdowns‘ – Dan Hannan with another excellent column in the Washington Examiner
- ‘As the world battles a pandemic, the UN fights “gendered language”‘ – Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson skewer the UN’s obsession with identity politics in the Post-Millennial
- ‘New Yorkers are throwing “corona potlucks” and visiting “speakeasies”‘ – Report of shockingly outrageous behaviour in the New York Post. Alas, flights to New York are less frequent than they were
- ‘Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s‘ – Three Swedish academics explain why their country’s strategy is going global in Foreign Affairs
- ‘Vaccine hopes send airline and travel stocks soaring‘ – News of a successful human trial of a vaccine developed by US biotech company Moderna prompted investors to buy shares in airlines and travel companies
- ‘Should UK abandon two metre social distancing? Iain Duncan Smith urges Boris Johnson to relax rule to “get economy moving” as Britain is “only country in Europe” using measure‘ – The quiet man turns up the volume on the ludicrous two metre rule
- ‘Now we see that Covid lockdowns aren’t the only solution‘ – Fox News host Tucker Carlson, now a fully-fledged sceptic, reminds us that the predicted armageddon that would befall the state of Georgia for not locking down hasn’t occurred
- ‘We shut down the economy to make progress against COVID-19 – and then made no progress‘ – Depressing column by Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times
- ‘The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid‘ – Matt Ridley’s latest in the Spectator
- ‘Africa and the pandemic panic: Facts not fear‘ – New comment piece by Professor Ramesh Thakur, leading Australian sceptic
- ‘We have been lied to: 6 facts that change everything we know about SARS-CoV-2‘ – Daniel Horowitz doesn’t pull his punches in the Conservative Review
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
Last week, 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 reopened near you. 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. We’re up to 500 now – keep ’em coming. And if you want a laugh about what to look forward to when the lockdown us over, check out this video.
Theme Tune Suggestions
Just one today, but what a corker: ‘Throw the R Away‘ by the Proclaimers.
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. I’ve now got two journalists helping out and I’d like to pay them something, so if you feel like donating please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here. The site’s total page views have passed one million and it’s averaging 54,000 visitors a day. We’re having an impact…
And Finally…
Listen to James Delingpole telling me about being threatened with arrest at Sunday’s Hyde Park rally in our latest London Calling podcast. And watch this spoof of the daily Downing Street press briefing by comedy due Larry and Paul. Wait for the Peston question…
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I went for a run yesterday evening as Boris has allowed us unlimited exercise. I was hoping the mass hysteria was abating . During the run I observed that all the buses were still empty and even more people were wearing masks .The building site was working but I have been told that there is a 70 % absence Most of the workers are too scared to go back to work . I also obseved grown adults turn to face the wall when I ran past so as to avoid the corona !
The terror engendered by the corona porn propaganda has turned this nation into quivering wrecks. What has the government done ?
‘quivering wrecks’, Very polite!
Created a nation of zombies, that’s what.
I’m finding that even a few seconds’ conversation, particularly with a shopkeeper, can reveal a fellow sceptic, though naturally both parties will speak with caution for fear of the Gestapo. Fortunately, the real zombies are very easy to recognise from that dull-eyed, brain- dead stare and shuffling gait.
God, they’re everywhere. It’s like Saturday evening on the Horror channel.
Don’t forget the ostentatious showing off of their masks and gloves.
I’ve noticed more people wearing masks and scarves one had a kerchief tied around her face though positioned underneath her nose, another had the mask around her neck because she was talking to her friend. The human race has become far too stupid to survive!
What’s funny is many of them look like bank robbers especially with sunglasses. There are less and less people in my area wearing them, those who seem to be wearing them come from low income groups.
It gets funnier. Apparently some people are using dust masks, designed to let air in ( while keeping dust out, obviously) and then to expel every single particle when you breathe out.
BTW, did you read last week about the spike in A&E admissions they always get after the Thursday act of worship, owing to the enthusiastic faithful falling off the bollards, etc., they’ve climbed on to in order to demonstrate their fervour? I haven’t stopped laughing since I read it.
Interesting point, i’m a supermarket worker and lots of us don’t but the social distancing and the fear, i’d say 3/4’s don’t. After all ten weeks into lockdown and not one of the over 250 staff at our store has come down with it, another of our stores within five miles of mine has over 500 staff and not one of them has come down with it most people are thinking maybe this isn’t what they say it is. I don’t wear a mask and i’ve had customers question me and i just tell them i was born without a mask and i’ll never wear one to walk this earth or to please others so scared they’re prepared to cover their face thinking it will prevent a virus when it’s nothing more than a kids blanket to help them sleep.
Brilliant comment – thanks. My wife was wondering about the staff in shops who are presumably coming into contact with hundreds of people every day. I suggested to her that maybe they become immune without necessarily becoming ill. It would fit the idea of the human immune system building up resistance due to repeated low level exposure to viruses – the more types the better. Maybe supermarket workers have particularly well developed immune systems as a result..?
(I agree with your views on masks too)
In order to gain immunity we need to mix with others. The government has made an absolute blunder. I’m very angry with the way this has been handled,.
Well said. My husband has observed the same thing about supermarket workers and wondered if it was like what Edward Jenner noticed about milkmaids never contracting smallpox as they were repeatedly exposed to other types of virus especially cowpox which is a less lethal form of small pox.
Hello Annie. That’s what my wife and I call them Covid zombies or walking dead.
Snap! Except that they don’t do much walking, too busy s…..g themselves with fright at home.
More like sleep walkers. WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
We should analyse how certain countries with very low death rates per M have successfully treated it (eg Germany & Australia) use the method and then publicise it to the hilt. Fear would pretty much evaporate. Or would it? Nothing will reassure people blinded by OCD.
It’s making me feel like some sort of alien for not giving a fuck.
Like…. are we weird? Are our brains somehow immune to brainwashing?
In a word, Yes. Your mind is too strong.
We’ve taken the red pill and don’t believe anything any more without double checking. We read alternative viewpoints, not just what the government and msm tel us. And I don’t understand why the general public do, considering they don’t trust the media or government the rest of the time.
Exactly, I don’t want to even try to imagine our world in its current state but with this website missing.
Yep. It’s as if there is a brain virus which has effectively lobotomised most of the world.
Just because you (we) are a minority does not make us wrong.
It’s bizarre. All through the lockdown I’ve been walking through the park and along the river and there have been small numbers of people, not all paranoid.
The other day I walked on a nearby common and there were several walkers out.
Today I walked on another common and there was no-one, not even the usual dog walkers. Oh well, I sat on a seat in the sun and watched a hobby wheeling through the air.
It’s not everyone… I assure you. There are very few masked goons around my area. Didn’t see a single one today – for the first time.
Also, very interesting. Basically every company has been doing their best to persuade you not to call them haven’t they…
Well, my WiFi has been playing up recently… On off etc. – cue various bouts of covid cyber attack paranoia from me (don’t discount that by the way…)
So thought sod it, called the provider. Yeah all the shite on the automated message, then just like that, put through, next day engineer.
Even the better the young chap who came out sorted it out great, was really switched on and knew this whole thing was bullshit too – normal pub going, holiday abroad wanting type.
He said that their team is at 40% for normal callouts because the stupid cowards don’t want them in their house.
They are out there.
So, if you ever want to get a plumber, electrician (always a nightmare pinning them down), or anything like that…. Now is the time folks!
Interesting as 2-3 weeks ago one of our blinds came crashing down so we had to call for an emergency repair via one of those task websites.
A nice young bloke came, apologised for having to put on a mask did the job well then when my husband asked him the possibility of a future job, he removes his mask and talked us through what could be done.
We also chatted a bit about the current situation and he pretty much said that he’s not been really following the news and thinks that the over all death count is vastly inflated.
So yes I agree with you all here as there seems to be a silent majority now forming The question now is will the MSM and the government listen? Or will they continue to insist on leading us to a zombie apocalypse?
JoThe attempted manipulation of public opinion, and the single view that is common across the main stream media throughout the lockdown, has much in common with the Brexit battle post the referendum result, however this time we have no Brexit Party nor ERG fighting on our side. Much of this propaganda seems to be created by ‘charities’ linked to both the Home Office and the FCO. An additional problem is that the security world now grows (in the manner of so many government departments) to fill and ever expanding brief. Partly this is connected with the digital world, no decent employer would have opened up an ‘internal mail’ envelope sent between two of his employees, and it was (and is) illegal to open someone else Royal Mail post. Yet, the corporate world routinely monitors, and records the emails of all its employers, this is a huge cultural shift. These days, the civil service, the EU, and the corporate world are very happy to be in bed together Thus the security services are in a world in which prying and spying (monitoring in corporate speak) have become, at least amongst the new establishment, routine and acceptable, and not confined to genuine… Read more »
The Mail are a joke. Yesterday they had a scare story about how babies were dying due to covid, and they act surprised when people don’t want to send their kids to schools. This paper more than any other is responsible for covid hysteria.
Weirdest thing is how by hosting our hero Hitchens(Peter) they have an excellent anti-lockdown columnist working for them. And despite his influence they manage to cover their front pages in rabid panic generating coronaphobic rubbish.
It must be because they know the fear stories sell newspapers.
I don’t get how they keep publishing Peter hitchens serving sense AND this crap
It confuses me that so many of the population reject reason and insist, demand and push a fiction of panic in the face of reason. I think Peter Hitchens is right when he says that the population need to be convinced they got it wrong.
For now, we must stop giving people incentives for prolonging the lockdown. Pupils or no pupils, teachers need to be back in school full time. Being kind and not wanting a confrontation, I would grant those who want to stay home discretionary UNPAID leave of absence. Though I wonder why they should be employed at all for the harm they are doing to our children and our nation’s future. It’s sickening that teachers are sitting on full pay at home whilst hundreds of thousands are suffering losing their jobs.
Particularly when as key workers, lots of their own kids have been in school the whole time! Schools did not shut, just ran a skeleton service for key worker children, and vulnerable children – uptake was much lower than predicted, but nevertheless, schools have been ticking along all this time without mass slaughter (one would think if kids were super spreaders, the kids of NHS workers, spending all evening and all weekend at home might have carried it in?).
Considering what is being taught in schools, the kids might be better off not going back:
https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/education/mum-disgusted-hardcore-porn-homework-4142348
Hull Daily Mail: Hull mum disgusted as 11-year-old set ‘hardcore porn’ homework
Archbishop Sentamu Academy has apologised after children were asked to define different types of pornography
That’s extremely disturbing! (So is the photo of the mother if I’m honest.)
They’ve run out of crisis actors, and used a full-size Barbie doll instead.
I have long wondered if the furlough scheme has the unintended consequence of prolonging the lockdown because that’s human nature – if you’re still being paid even if you’re doing SFA why would you want to haul your carcass back to work especially as the media still continue to pump apocalyptic stories about infections and what people should and should not do?
Its not just teachers but I think that’s what companies should do – people who still want to stay at home should be given the option of unpaid leave (save for those with legitimate health concerns – they can avail of statutory sick pay) with the understanding as well that they are not guaranteed annual leave later in the year.
There is also the problem of malingerers and I can imagine all this talk of social distancing at work and other measures will just be abused by this lot.
Absolutely Bart. These people have the government over a barrel. To confront people with the truth now would be admit they were wrong and were deliberately fear mongering the whole time and so it goes on.
Allison Pearson from The Telegraph wrote an interesting article and provided this amusing sentence regarding the teachers – it should become a slogan.
[quote] …getting dressed for Ebola when facing Crayola. [/quote]
The Larry and Paul spoof of the daily briefings is just hilarious and so accurate.
Telegraph running with the story today that Rishi Sunak reckons the country is facing a ‘severe recession’ – you don’t say?! What really makes me sick is that a) this recession has been caused by the government’s own policy and b) they won’t acknowledge that it’s their fault and try to fix it, just prolong the agony instead.
I find it utterly disgraceful and revolting that this pack of sociopaths are willing to put political face-saving and their own careers above the wellbeing of this country and its people. Sure, you’d get a few screamers on social media if there were more dramatic lockdown-easing measures, but we desperately need a politician with backbone to make decisions which might be unpopular at times like this. As someone rightly pointed out on this site, populism is fine for small day-to-day policies, but not significant situations like this which will have far-reaching consequences. These unpopular decisions are those which will be more beneficial in the long run. Cruel to be kind, as it were – but the lockdown is far, far crueller.
That’s a good point – what we need now is a politician with a backbone who will look at this issue from a wholistic and a long term perspective. Essentially to drag this country kicking and screaming back to the real world.
I know he’s crap, but he is the Prime Minister. So has he gone to ground again?
Anyone interested ? Nightingale Exeter – looking for more expressions of interest
The new Nightingale hospital in Exeter is looking for Medics, Registered Nurses, Therapy Support Workers and Healthcare Assistants.
Staff from across the region have recently been invited to complete an expression of interest to join Nightingale Exeter. There was an excellent response and thanks to everyone who has applied so far. The first inductions are taking place this week and an additional induction programme will take place the week of 1 June to support demand.
There is now a specific need for applications for certain roles including Medics, Registered Nurses, Therapy Support Workers and Healthcare Assistants. As a result, the closing date for all expressions of interest has been extended to Wednesday 20 May at 2pm
“The first inductions are taking place this week and an additional induction programme will take place the week of 1 June to support demand.”
Demand for what exactly?
Choreographers, camera men, dancers the usual sorts of things the NHS requires.
Fabulous. They’ll be able to sit around waiting for something to happen like the rest of us.
You should add mental health professionals to that list. I reckon you could fit a hundred ‘nightingales’ with a steady stream of patients
Get ready to work on those dance routines.
Loved the “pneumonic” in the pilot’s tale; very apropos!
I have been released! I live in a “zone” of Michigan in the US that has a very small population and we’ve been cleared to reopen most businesses. Surprise for the governor, everyone already started working and going out and about a few weeks ago.
I was also cleared to get an antibody test this week. I’m sure it will show that I am immune – I’m sure I had it last December. Confirmation will be great though.
Best wishes Amy, enjoy your freedom!
Good luck Amy! Hope all goes well.
Congratulations, Amy! Your governor is off the rails, sorry to say. I’m happy at least some of you have been released from house arrest! Good luck with the antibody test. I gave blood yesterday – the Blood Connection is doing COVID antibody tests on all donors. I should have a result next week, for whatever that is worth.
I wouldn’t bother with an antibody test if you’re not forced to have it. Don’t let that little fear cockroach back into your life
Ruin the economy. Destroy everything. Vote for us next time.
Yep, one-party (effectively) socialist rule.
Alright, I know it’s super difficult sticking up for Boris, it’s all been a total fucking orchestrated sham.
But just remember this is happening throughout the world.
New Zealand and it’s 15 fuckin deaths or whatever, and they still stayed in lockdown after all that
Hi ianp, that’s quite true. Makes it worse, obviously, but you’re quite right.
I’m the Kiwi mentioned in today’s post. We’ve had 21 deaths in total and only 2 new cases in the last 9 days and we are still in a partial lockdown.
Insanity.
Hi I am a Kiwi too. My suspicions are that NO ONE has actually died of Covid19 in our country (???). I have noticed that very few medical details have been mentioned of each death since the press revealed that the first West Coast “victim” in April had actually had a severe lung disease!!!! She did not die of Covid and no responsible pathologist would ever state that the underlying cause was Covid19.
I think that even the imbeciles in the MSM have figured out that it is far scarier to imply that some healthy people have died.
Hello brothers and sisters in sanity! Being in this site is like taking a deep breath of sweet, fresh air.
I see that Lord Gumption is under attack from the egregious Melanie Philips in The Times, first for criticising the lockdown rules and secondly for obeying them because they are the law.
Jonathan, go rend her asunder – if you think it’s worth the bother.
Oh, and apparently we sceptics are putting Britain ‘on the road to tyranny’.
Excuse me! WE are!?
I find it disorientating. People like Melanie Phillips and Rod Liddle! What on earth is happening?
Rod Liddle has totally lost the plot. His pro-lockdown rant in the latest Spectator didn’t even have any internal logic (let alone consistency with his previous views). Another one who’s been felled by the Brain Virus…
Conspiracy? Considering the nutters involved in conspiracy theories it’s always helpful to have some distance but when you find them clickable (see below) in front of you?
https://twitter.com/az_reason/status/1262626015509049345
Look in Wikipedia Disease X exists also in Mach 2020 Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30123-7/fulltext
DT also reports that today ‘Boris Johnson discussed the UK’s contribution to the global coronavirus effort in a call with Bill and Melinda Gates today, a Downing Street spokeswoman said:’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-vaccine-testing-lockdown-deaths-cases/
Is that the same Bill and Melinda Gates who have funded UCL to the tune of 250 million?
That couple have bought out everyone in positions of influence… why is nothing done about this?
If these rats appear with a ‘vaccine’ this summer then I actually do predict riots.
On the contrary, the evidence suggests that people will be lining up in their (socially distanced) droves, eagerly waiting to be injected with a rushed-through vaccine that’s barely even in the experimental stages.
So much for fearing for their health. But as the Milgram experiment has shown, people have a tendency to defer to whatever a perceived authority figure will tell them.
I fear you’re right, Gossamer.
David Starkey talking about the foolishness of lockdown: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8S8Js-tEmlg&feature=youtu.be
Something for the next press briefing from the science led government?
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/inventors-develop-mask-to-let-you-eat-and-stay-safe/2372046/?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DFWBrand
Omg it’s like when he tried to eat through his mask in the Cory Hart video 😂😂
I laughed out loud, more in shock and incredulity than anything else.
What the fuck.
But these things are like absolute golddust… Send them on to your friends with a neutral question about it. Try not to be sarcastic.
You’ll easily weed out which of them is a death cult zombie. Normal people will laugh about it, therefore you know who isn’t a raving lunatic
There’s definitely money to be made from these stupid, selfish cowards. You could sell them anything as long as it claims to keep them “safe”.
WINSTON CHURCHILL, JUNE 1940 Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, BORIS JOHNSON, MARCH 2020 Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the virus and all the odious apparatus of Nanny State rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall impose 14 day quarantine before we can go to France, we shall isolate ourselves from the seas and oceans, we shall close our airports and bankrupt our airlines so they may never again… Read more »
Point of order; regarding the 14 year old with her lockdown paper – a computer model is in no way shape or form a science experiment! It could conceivably form a part of one, but that would involve testing a variety of models against reality, not merely running a single amateur’s (attempt at a) model and calling the results science. Please do not repeat this nonsense as it is plain there are already rather too many people in places of high influence and authority who believe it. Yesterday I noted the inherent incoherence of the phrase “social distancing“, observing that distancing is antisocial by definition. Social is a synonym for gregarious, which means to assemble (flock) together in groups. Today I want to mention a couple more oxymorons I’ve seen around the lockdown traps lately. For example, here in Germany it has been illegal to home school since the 1930’s. No guesses where that policy came from. During the lockdown it is also mandatory to home school. Go figure. Or how about this excerpt from Trump and his doctor, above: “he and I regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from the… Read more »
The police officer who came into my work asking to use the toilet, one of my younger colleagues let them in. The police officer who came straight into my work past all the queues to within 2m of staff and customers to ask about some commotion outside. Police coming within 2m to tell me to move along while sitting down having a cigarette during a hectic stressful day at work. Three police to a panda car. Many police to many riot vans.
Only government officials I see are police..
They crash around like bloody rhinos with the absolute convinction that the rules don’t apply to them. Because apparently they don’t.
Hello Scuzzaman. Spanish government spokesman on Saturday, the best mask is 2 metres distance. Same spokesman on the next day, compulsory masks and social distancing.
“Notice that he gets to decide based on his assessment of the trade-off between relative risks presented by the different options available, he gets to practice informed consent, but he simultaneously has denied that choice to his fellow citizens by forcing people out of work, out of business, out of school, in order to placate his own fears over one possible course of action.” He pushed the FDA to allow doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine “off label,” i.e. medics could prescribe it even though it hadn’t yet been tested and approved for treating for CV19. It was the MSM and other politicians who ridiculed him and the use of hydroxychloroquine. Nick Ferrari and his guest yesterday, a doctor, dismissed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat CV19, because of “dangerous” side effects, and because studies had found that it wasn’t effective. The doctor didn’t make clear whether the studies he was referring to also included azythromycin and zinc in the treatment protocols. Trump left it to the individual states to treat the epidemic as they saw fit, i.e. left it up to the state governors to decide whether lock down or not. He did not mandate a countrywide lockdown. It’s notable that… Read more »
Ah those plastic strimming visors! I did my weekly shop in Lidl this morning where a very large elderly lady was pushing a shopping cart around with her latex gloves and a perspex face mask (bit like a nuclear scientist). I was nearly wetting myself with laughter at the nonsense. Clearly way past her brain capacity to understand that gloves are about as pointless as it gets, a perspex visor might be useful if she keeps a spitting cobra as a pet and that one of the biggest risk factors is obesity (one of the things she could actually have done something about during her imprisonment if she seriously wanted to reduce her already small risk). After this entertainment I checked today’s updated ONS figures which informed me that if you are under 45 you probably have a similar chance of dying from drowning as from Covid-19 (or indeed more chance of dying from drowning as the figures don’t say who has died of Covid 19 merely “Deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate”). On checking out last year’s suicide figure’s this age group is probably twice as likely to top themselves though – although I suspect this… Read more »
My elderly dad went to a doctors appointment last week,you have to press a buzzer at the outside door and wait to be admitted one at a time,when the door was opened he was greeted by the GP in head to toe PPE,apron,gloves,plastic visor,surgical mask etc,my dad’s immediate response was to say ‘I’m not ready for my postmortem yet’ !,surprisingly the GP actually thought that was funny,some of them at our surgery have had a humour bypass.
sod the doctors they’re mostly useless. A quick internet search and you’re good. Stay away from the NHS at all costs. Basically unless you’re bleeding to death there are other solutions to queuing like school kids at lunch to see some useless doctor who’ll probably just prescribe a drug they promote because they’re all getting backhanders and perks from the drug company
Biker. Just about sums up what medical science has become. Prevention, screening you’re going to die if you don’t medicate yourself to the eyeballs. Medicine, as it’s currently practiced bears a lot of the responsibility for creating this risk averse mindset in the population.
“Wi-ers going on a welding course.” PMSL! I’m going to use that one.
Hello fellow sceptics! The Guardian article has pushed me into posting, what absolute trash! To dispel thier stereotype myth, I would consider myself left, anti consumerist, a believer in man made climate change and a public sector worker…on paper thier dream reader! Problem is I am also a free thinker and can make my own mind up on things! Love the way they state that we can’t apply critical thought and don’t look the science… quite the opposite. Insulting to Carl Sagen too pontificating what he ‘would’ have thought. Any one with critical thought can look at the raw data and see that a number has well and truly been pulled off! Back to the lockdown, it’s like everyone is under a spell, even normally intelligent people seem to be under it and unable to see for themselves and are lapping it up fueled by the gutter press. On another note what also angers me is the faux concern for others which actually, in my opinion, boils down to self preservation. If people actually cared they would be putting the data into perspective and thinking hang on let’s put our efforts into protecting the vulnerable and let everyone else get… Read more »
anyone who considers themselves a free thinker while holding left wing views isn’t a free thinker
That may, or may not be true. However, for the sake of harmony we must put our party political differences on hold, at least for the time being and use all our collective intellect to counter the establishment narrative on this.
no because left wing thinking has given us the piss poor NHS and led the nation to think that the government knows best and we should do what they tell us. eft wing ideas are a hideous virus that ned countered at every opportunity
Spelldispel. Self preservation is a human instinct that I can understand, but when they dress it up as concern for others it disgusts me. This policy of house arrest has only “protected” the healthy and low risk while shunting the most vulnerable groups into care homes to die. When they talk about “can’t put a price on a lfe” they are talking about their own. Despicable.
Driving around town today I noticed several car and motorcycle dealerships have now re-opened. Their websites say it is only for servicing but they also say you can purchase new vehicles via email or by phone. Might be wishful thinking on my part, but have they decided enough is enough?
I noticed the same around here yesterday,looks like they reached the end of their tolerance of this madness.
Yes I noticed a garage open today too. I’ll check if mine is back in business.
My car was getting screwed up due to the pollution control gubbins while I’ve only been pootling to the shops and a few other places. Fortunately a couple of long fast runs seem to have sorted it.
MOTs were suspended a while back, I wonder if they are letting the garages reopen to recoup the MOT fees. Every penny counts when you are this far in debt.
With petrol stations are their toilets generally open??
Yes, I have already re-booked my Mazda for the service it missed on 7 April.
Hello fellow sceptics! The Guardian article has pushed me into posting, what absolute trash! To dispel thier stereotype myth, I would consider myself left, anti consumerist, a believer in man made climate change and a public sector worker…on paper thier dream reader! Problem is I am also a free thinker and can make my own mind up on things! Love the way they state that we can’t apply critical thought and don’t look the science… quite the opposite. Insulting to Carl Sagen too pontificating what he ‘would’ have thought. Any one with critical thought can look at the raw data and see that a number has well and truly been pulled off! Back to the lockdown, it’s like everyone is under a spell, even normally intelligent people seem to be under it and unable to see for themselves and are lapping it up fueled by the gutter press. On another note what also angers me is the faux concern for others which actually, in my opinion, boils down to self preservation. If people actually cared they would be putting the data into perspective and thinking hang on let’s put our efforts into protecting the vulnerable and let everyone else get… Read more »
Welcome to the club 🤝
The deletion (which occurred May 8) was all the more devastating because Dr. Wittkowski had been posting comments there, replies to people’s criticisms and questions, for almost a month. He was writing these replies semi-daily, some of them very substantial. Thousands of words worth, in the end. (This was the best way to get out the word, as the US media refused to interview him.) They are now all lost at their original source.
Fortunately, they are NOT lost forever: I foresaw this deletion coming (“a matter of when, not if”) and worked to copy the Youtube comments written by Wittkowski, re-hosting them at my humble website and thus preserving them. Many are excellent, informative, addressing common criticisms of his ideas. He answers all with good spirits:
Find these “Updates from Knut Wittkowski” here:
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/against-the-corona-panic-pt-v-a-hero-of-the-hour-dr-knut-wittkowski/#updates
A public service – well done!
You are a legend.
Thanks a lot Hail. Dr Wittowski is fabulous.
Top notch. Thank you.
Agreed
Excellent. Thank you. Been taking screenshots and downloads of a number of things myself.
He is far from the only one being censored… every qualified person who contradicts the desired political narrative is being removed from social media…it’s obvious why..
Nice one, Hail.
Thank you!
The world’s first geriatric pandemic. In country after country, state after state in the US, the same pattern. Pennsylvania has more COVID deaths over age 100 than under age 45. More deaths over age 95 than under age 60. More deaths over 85 than under 80
https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1262783822925647872
Pandemic, as the definition goes, is the worldwide spread of a new disease. Most of the historical analysis point to those in younger age groups being disproportionately affected in a pandemic. As opposed to seasonal outbreaks where older people are more likely to be affected. The WHO’s own description of pandemic in 2010.
CDC, the UK government scientists, PHE and the whole establishment scientific community knows that this death pattern in Covid-19 is completely opposite to a new pandemic flu. We would have thousands and thousands of deaths in younger persons in a flu pandemic at this stage. They all know that the response with lockdown was totally counterproductive and most likely increasing the deaths amongst elderly which should have been the main priority at the start of the pandemic.
The figures are stark, and should be simple for anyone to grasp. Yet the hysteria in the media continues – Sara Tor’s outrageous analogy of teachers going back to school with WWI in today’s Times. How to convince the masses, more so since our Dear Leader mentioned the 500k death projection in Ferguson’s original, non peer-reviewed model in his outings last week, and has since gone to ground (again)?
This is the real scandal and horror of this insanity.
I know it is grossly unfashionable to believe “they” (“who are ‘they’?” my skeptical friend always asks) did this to us but I have to ask a counter-question:
What would have been done differently if there really was a “they” who wanted to do this to us on purpose?
Wanted to frighten the world into voluntarily giving up our freedom, begging to be imprisoned, enthusiastically rubber-stamping the overturning of a thousand years of legal developments and liberal governance, and aggressively policing our own dissenters?
What more could “they” have done?
The country that brings out the skeptic in me is India. Population 1.8 BILLION. Number of CV deaths circa 2800. Anyone that has ever been to one of that country’s mega cities will know that social distancing in cramped, crowded buildings would be impossible. Then there’s multi generational households and general poor hygiene. Why hasn’t this ‘deadly’ disease ripped through thst country?
And as much to the point, why has India imposed a lockdown for so relatively few deaths?
They have nearly 900,000 deaths a year from lung disease including TB, yet people aren’t forced to stay at home for that.
No old people in the cities?
No, that’s definitely not the case, many generations live in the same household, in cities and everywhere else…
The average life expectancy in India is 69 compared to 81 for the UK. They’re not living long enough to die of Covid.
I also don’t know how they’re testing and reporting etc. It’s very hard to compare reported death rates between different countries.
Possibly.. there are also reports that a lot of people are being infected when already in hospital for other conditions. So that could account for fewer deaths – a lot of people may live miles from a hospital and also not be able to afford to go to hospital for other conditions.
I believe this could also be the case in Africa and where death rates are surprisingly low and at odds with the “wait until CV-19 hits the continent” scares of a few weeks back. Yet, it has had little impact.
And let’s praise President John Magufuli in Tanzania who announced yesterday the total opening of that country’s airspace and no quarantine for arriving air passengers.
Because (according to the independent experts on the internet – as opposed to those ‘advising’ the government) we actually *need* social contact to keep our immune systems functioning properly. Note too that the New York governor expressed surprise that there were so many cases turning up at hospital who had actually been isolating at home…
India average age in 2015:
26.8 years old
‘It may not simply be that the older you get, the more at risk you are, though. As we show in the next section, the CFR for people with underlying health conditions – such as cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases or diabetes – is higher than for those without. Elderly people are more likely to have those conditions, which is likely to be part of the reason why the elderly are most at risk from COVID-19.’
https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid
So, essentially, similar to something the splendid Sir David Spiegelhalter said, your risk of dying this year is in no way altered by Covid 19, pretty much whatever age you are.
‘Life is something that happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’
They are all quite simply, criminals.
Yes – and in Sweden practically a quarter of the deaths have been of people who were 90+.. I hadn’t realised there were so many people in that particular age group. They were not merely ‘elderly’, but actually extremely elderly.
This could actually be a big contributor to their death figures- the fact they have a very long-lived population has actually worked against them lol
True for Italy too I think.
We have some longevity here in Suffolk too, my mother was 95 and one of our neighbours was 106. I recall a few years back probably in winter there were more ambulances than buses going past for a while, most of those who died were at least eighty plus.
I haven’t seen anything like that at all during this “crisis”
It seems that it is due to most of these people living in care homes and not being properly shielded there 🙁
Although to be fair people of this age would have been at a high risk from any ‘normal’ flu or other illness.
Are there any figures comparing tha average age of people who died of Covid and average life expectancy?
In Sweden about 2/3 of all Covid-19 deaths are over the life expectancy in Sweden. I think in Western Europe most country’s median age of Covid-19 death is about the life expectancy age but the only link I have is Germany,82 years
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-04-28-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
Old people get a different flu vaccine from younger people. Some sort of reaction with it..?
Do they? That’s interesting
From here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/flu-influenza-vaccine/ “There are several types of flu vaccine. You’ll be offered the one that’s most effective for your age: children aged 2 to 17 in an eligible group are offered a live attenuated quadrivalent vaccine (LAIV), given as a nasal spray adults aged 18 to 64 who are either pregnant, or at increased risk from flu because of a long-term health condition, are offered a quadrivalent injected vaccine – the vaccine offered will have been grown either in eggs or cells (QIVe or QIVc), which are considered to be equally suitable adults aged 65 and over will be offered either an adjuvanted trivalent injected vaccine grown in eggs (aTIV) or a cell-grown quadrivalent injected vaccine (QIVc) – both vaccines are considered to be equally suitable.” Just found this, too, from 2018: “A flu vaccine that was licensed in Italy 20 years ago is to be used for the first time in the UK this winter in a bid to cut the death toll among older people from the infectious disease. Public Health England says the vaccine, only now available in England, could reduce GP consultations by 30,000, hospital visits by more than 2,000 and prevent more than 700… Read more »
Govt and NHS policies actively increased the danger to the old and sick – the most vulnerable – by pitching them back into care homes and leaving them there to die.
One day soon there will be a reckoning.
After the last week, its finally dawned on me that we’re not going to get out of this, we’re simply too outnumbered by inbreds. I saw Sadiq Khan and TFL suggesting the way to ease overcrowding is to reduce capacity. When I run out of space I always look for something smaller… Is this covid law of inverse capacity mathematics calculations? I despair. George Eustace then announces we’re “trying” to get to stage 3 of whatever the hell their corona alert system is, claiming that because we were 2-3 weeks behind other countries were not their yet. If so then why can’t hospitality industries open before July, like in these said countries, which are doing now? July is 6 or so weeks away, not 2-3. What is it with the UK? Its like coronavirus has stripped IQ’s. We’re paying for people to stay at home, in the process slowing killing everyone’s future. We selectively kill the very people lockdown was supposed to protect in care homes. We have all become the kid in school who was allergic to everything and we’ve accept state mothering en masse. As for government, I’m convinced they’re actually remedial. There are characters in cabinet who… Read more »
What’s going on is not far removed from the crazy dystopian world in the film ‘Brazil’!
There is such an astonishing level of incompetence and political idiocy that you have to wonder whether they really are that stupid, or is there another motive?
For example, Grant Shapps announcement about all of us cycling or walking to work. It’s straight out of the Extinction Rebellion, Carbon Zero playbook. The government has budgeted £2 billion for this. That’s £2 billion of taxpayers money that we don’t have, on top of the other £billions that Sunak is merrily spending that we also don’t have. Is it stupidity, or another agenda?
How much did all the fuss about Cameron/Osborne’s austerity programme save? Maybe £35-40B?
Sureley this rate of spending increase, tax revenue falls, unemployment.. will wipe it out several times. What a change in heart for a party that went on and on about Brown’s reckless gambles.
Remember the letter left for the conservative gov,t say no money left. What are the current gov,t going to leave for the next lot.
Watch UK column online to see what is really going on….
Of course it’s part of the agenda, a worldwide one as is 5G in some way, oh and digital currency at some point. I just can’t see how things will align, pretty sure there are 2 paths at least. We are not going to stop it, and there will be mass disorder before we get there.
But, pretty much the people need to choose… Come out of their fucking houses, and ditch any thought of a mask. The apathetic need to be brought to a breaking point.
London is spread out widely. How the heck are we supposed to walk or cycle over long distances? At this rate it will take me over half a day to walk to work then back again. I might as well not bother.
My husband is thinking of buying a bike after he saw on Google maps that it will take him only an hour to get to work. I told him that its highly doubtful since we live in NW London (where there is no direct bus link to central London) and his workplace is on the other side of the river. I don’t think trying to dissuade him will work so hopefully either he arrives at that conclusion before buying a bicycle or the novelty of cycling to work wears off faster than you can day Covid 19 or we are due for a washout weather when we emerge from lockdown.
Borrow a bike, if possible, for a short trial period ?
That’s a good idea. Another thing my husband was considering is the bicycle would only be for exercise and not to commute to work.
Unfortunately,this is the horrible conclusion I have reached as well after seeing the increasingly paranoid and frankly bizarre behaviour of a lot of our fellow citizens,authorities and government in the past week,it’s like they are under some kind of spell cast by a witch in a fairy tale.One of the things that has really shown me that the country has gone mad is the sight of 600 seat trains heading off to London with a maximum of 60 passengers !.
There is a way out – look for a job abroad.
Except that Brexit has ended the right to live and work abroad. Just like the lockdown, everyone is forced to do what the majority wants no matter how cruel that is to the individual.
Depends where you want to go…
Nobody ever had a “right” to go and work in any other country. EU membership created a privilege granted by the governments involved to do so in other member countries, but of course that came with the price of accepting all the costs of EU membership, including all the future consequences of membership in the developing United States of Europe.
We will no doubt disagree on those costs and whether they were a price worth paying for the benefits, and this is not the place to go into all that. I just wanted to address the particular inaccuracies in your comment directly.
Also your suggestion that brexit is somehow a matter of the “cruel majority” inflicting something on others, assumes incorrectly that brexit was somehow an aggressive new initiative, when in fact it was a defensive response to the policy of inflicting the EU project upon us all.
Isn’t the majority inflicting something on the minority known as……. democracy? :oD
Yep. Aka mob rule. 🙂
Democracy is becoming a problem in its current form. We need to place hard limits on what powers a majority may exercise over a minority, so that liberty can be preserved for all. The idea of a “democracy” where whatever the majority wants is done and the minority is crushed is exactly how the likes of Putin, Jinping, Erdogan and Orban like “democracy” to work. A democracy is only worth having if it is kept a liberal democracy, and our socieities haven’t had enough care for liberty for a long time.
Sounds like a Constitution would be a good idea ? 🙂
Until you think about the kind of people who would write it….
Ahem. “We the people …”
The ones we don’t write favour the state over us.
Eh? So you’re saying that the person who gets the most votes shouldn’t win?
Indeed, this is where the whole idea of democracy becomes tricky and one of the reasons why a democratic system requires a shared moral basis that is common to most at least of the citizens, so that limits to the tyranny of the majority can be agreed.
But the important point to recognise here was the one about correctly attributing the active and the reactive. The people trying to impose dramatic change on the nation were the supporters of the EU project. The brexiteers were acting defensively, in response to that attempt at profound and probably after a certain point irreversible change.
Except nobody mandated the lockdown in the largest democratic vote in British history.
Also to me it’s kinda the opposite. The vast majority of people who are not in danger are suffering in order to ‘protect’ the vulnerable people they’re not even in contact with (those in care homes and hospitals) and the rare outlying young person who will get it and die.
I do believe you need to run away.
I ran away in the eighties when the Government made my building businesss unsustainable by loading on more and more regulation, taxes and levies. (Just to rub salt in the wounds they did this during a recession). Elfandsafety had just started and they put me in jail for a day for not signing the right form. That was before the extraordinary level of regulation both from the EU and self imposed you all live under now.
I built a boat and sailed off into the sunset and ever since life has been sweet…..until now….. where the decisions your politicians have made have just broke the economy of my little Caribbean country.
At this stage I’d accept your idea of a sceptics commune. I’m really starting to hate those people who are welcoming dystopia with open arms.
There’s something cult-like about the behaviour of those who’ve enthusiastically embraced their incarceration: This line, along with your substantial comments yesterday on the COVID Cult essay by Dr. Willbourn, leads me pitch the following link: Is Corona a literal religious cult? An anthropological study. (Or, Corona as virus-centered apocalypse cult; its ascent to state religion; the mass-conversion event to the cult; a study of the cult.) (May 17-18). I began to realize the need for an anthropologist’s approach to “understand” Corona. We can draw on expertise in the fields of anthropology and even archaeology on the nature of religions/cults here. I hadn’t seen a full, serious take on “Corona as a Religious Cult,” so I wrote one myself. It is investigative and generally not polemical. Calling something a “cult” sounds inevitably polemical, but in anthropology “cult” is a neutral term. Don’t box yourself in with what you think a cult (or a religion, both heavy words) “looks like.” Drawing on anthropology’s understanding of cults, the surprising finding is that Corona aligns with virtually all the indicators of a religious cult. A cult in the literal sense. (I started off thinking “cult” was a good metaphor. Slowly I realized it is… Read more »
For someone who grew up in a Catholic neighbourhood in the late 60s/early 70s, the control tactics and mechanisms seem very familiar. It works on fear, and is orchestrated through the compliance of women in large part. This is the same as Climate Change. They work on women’s (apparent) over-sensitivity to the safety and needs of the children. Seems to work!
Biggest supporters of lockdown were women also – been saying for ages, women have been stuck in compassion (female socialisation) and worry for others against their own interests, particularly since those most hurt by austerity, abuse, etc are women and kids (plus who’s doing all the unpaid and low paid grunt work currently?). I have also wondered what we’d be doing if it was 70% women who were snuffing it. Shutting down the world? I very much doubt it. I had hoped the stories of vulnerable kids, domestic violence, carehomes, animal welfare crisis, and lockdown suicides etc, might snap them out of it. I’d also love to see the demographic data for lockdown supporting women, I’d guess they are affluent enough to either to be able to forgo one salary or are already affluent enough that mum doesn’t need to work, and these women are still in a la la lend of fairly cakes and fuzzy felt, and haven’t quite copped on yet to the pain that’s coming. If you’re poor and on zero hours, or work in a supermarket, or in some other shitty ‘key worker’ job, I very much doubt your reality has been any different through all… Read more »
BecJT you are so right. The metropolitan liberal type who looks down her nose at the working class woman in the regions is the Climate Change, natural childbirth promoting type who likes nothing better than emote, without either understanding, or genuinely caring about her plight. They are the ones who have pushed for, and facilitate this lockdown. But, hey, they got the restrictions on their cleaners and nannies lifted early. They have not yet clocked, however, where this is all going – with fewer top-end jobs, who do they think will get them – the boys or the girls?
Tyneside Tigress. Wonder how many of those who fit your description are home schoolers.
“I have also wondered what we’d be doing if it was 70% women who were i snuffing it. Shutting down the world? I very much doubt it.”
Just as it isn’t helpful to view this through party political lenses, it’s also wrong to make it about other prior convictions. I’ve barely seen reference to the fact that it’s majority men who have died, and the lockdown wasn’t instituted to protect the lives of men only.
Yes it is a cult. They worship the NHS with weekly services on a Thursday at 8pm. All must bow to their rules and anyone who questions the rules must be silenced.
The essay makes some excellent points on Corona as Cult. In addition, I have long believed this cult is messianic. The Messiah, of course, is the Vaccine – and the doctrine is that we will wait, even if it takes a lifetime, we will wait.
BBC Radio 4’s File on Four has just done an excellent documentary on Carehomes (I warn you, you’ll need a tissue, it’s heartbreaking). What they don’t do, of course, is link the ‘worried well’ clamour for lockdown, quaranting perfectly low risk hypochondriacs, to what happened in care homes (the government listened to those who shouted loudest and chucked the old under the bus) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j81c
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1.full.pdf+html
Infection fatality rates ranged from 0.03% to 0.50% and corrected values ranged
from 0.02% to 0.40%.
I posted this as one of the last comments yesterday. Too important not to be missed.
This is Prof Ionnadis Stanford Univ with a analysis of twelve studies just published.
You will not hear about this from MSM/BBC and they have tried from Day1 to stop him
although he is a world known epidemiologist. Worth reading in detail.
I wrote to my MP today with some info from the CEBM which I’m sure you’ve already seen, I pasted it on yesterday’s chat, but will repeat here just in case useful: Infection Fatality Rate IFR All of the above would be understandable if Covid 19 were as lethal as we were first led to believe. However, the largest study in the world conducted by Ben Goldacre’s team at Oxford, with a cohort of 17.4m people, tracked by their NHS number, clearly shows that for those who are healthy, and under 60, the risk is zero. There is no justification for quarantining the well, and it is extremely unfortunate that the concept of herd immunity was weaponised by the media and the opposition in the way that it was, when resources could have been diverted to shielding the vulnerable, whilst the rest of us sensibly got on with it. The Study is here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20092999v1 (page 11 is the crucial bit re risk). Carl Heneghan’s team at the CEBM have also done good work via their excellent Covid 19 evidence service. As they say about the IFR, “We could make a simple estimation of the IFR as 0.38%, based on halving… Read more »
Well done, but s/he will respond, if at all, with a bland fob-off reply telling you to stay home in total isolation because We’re All In It Together.
That’s my third volley, he’s already done that twice but I was so enraged by the comparison he made between covid and the civilian casualties in the second world war, that I couldn’t let it drop. He’s actually a good MP, been very helpful on other issues, but if you look at his voting record, he’s never, ever, ever rebelled. Which is probably why he’s tootled along for so many years in this seat (huge margin, I’m in a Jam and Jerusalem Tory seat).
Even more significant is that the IFR for people of working age is negligible. It’s extremely low even when you include comorbidities. 2000 or so of people aged under 65 dead “with Covid” in UK including comorbidities out of at least several million infections, fewer than 300 without comorbidities, somewhere between 0 and 300 where Covid was actually the cause of death.
This is a problem for hospitals and care homes. Getting everyone else back to work will not only help with all the (much worse) problems created by the lockdown but will make sure the epidemic burns out (which it probably has already anyway) and this will actually protect the vulnerable and save more lives.
Exactly, which is what the Goldacre study says, it tracked who died in hospitals and worked out the risk, page 11 of the first link I posted is really illuminating. I still don’t understand why that study was not front page news.
Sorry yes reading your post again I realised you’d already said all that and I wasn’t adding anything 🙂 I guess I just wanted to rant. I’ll have a closer look at that paper as I was just trying to work out a bunch of those things for myself.
No worries! Goldacre doesn’t talk about IFR as far as I recall, but doesn’t lay out that the risk is ZERO unless you have the risk factors. For kids the risk is so low, they couldn’t measure it.
Something Cummings said at one point [citation needed] while patting himself on the back for orchestrating Brexit and being so much cleverer than everybody else was that the way to turn public opinion was not with a single bolus dose of shock headline but by gradually planting ideas over a few weeks.
I think the idea is if you see something starkly contradicting your current belief system you’ll dismiss it as an anomaly. But if you see something that seems to confirm something you saw a few weeks back, but can’t really remember what it was exactly (and what cracks there may have been in it) you will start to change your mind. I keep hearing things about how Covid wasn’t that bad after all you think, somebody else was just saying that, seems like everyone is saying it now… Hopefully this is what they’re now doing via the Daily Telegraph and their other usual channels, and something about these actual risks will appear in a little while.
“Clever girl……”
Jurassic Park..?
Yup. My favourite <3
There are facts and then there is The Agenda. See also, low fat diets, statins save lives etc. etc.
I have some devout Christian mates, they’re not nutters, they are however true believers. They have, more than once, pointed out the book of Revelation, and their worry seems to centre on mandatory tracking and vaccines (“Let the one with understanding reckon the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.” – as anyone who has seen the Exorcist will know!). Given the Catholic Church has already raised the alarm on the cost of lockdown, I sent my devout friends this interesting little gem about Microsoft: CRYPTOCURRENCY SYSTEM USING BODY ACTIVITY DATA – Microsoft Patent, “A sensor communicatively coupled to or comprised in the device of the user may sense body activity of the user. Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. The cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify if the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.” Make of this what you will (maybe the developers have a sense of humour) but if you knock out… Read more »
I signed an appeal online by a group of Catholic cardinals. I noticed that one of the signatories was Robert Kennedy Junior! https://veritasliberabitvos.info/appeal/
Thank you for that, I’ve sent it to my Benedictine Nun friend, she’s lovely (sort of a Sr Wendy, totally exploded all my prejudices and stereotypes), I’ll be interested to know what her opinions are, and what is her perspective from inside the Church.
Expecting the CoE administrative and leadership structure to do anything that would require taking actual Christianity seriously is absolutely a lost cause. These people are post-Christians, and their primary concerns involve pushing modern political agendas, not anything that could be taken seriously as religious in any traditional sense, except where it supports those agendas.
As witnessed by their prompt and total submission to the covid cult.
I fear you are right, the Roman Catholics on the other hand seem very on the ball (laying aside my concerns about skeletons on their own closet) and is extremely influential, all over the world, particularly the developing world where famine really will be on a biblical scale.
The C of E for instance, provides and funds nearly all homeless provision in this country, and the biggest overseas aid, and food bank charities in the UK are Christian, it’s so frustrating they are not putting two and two together.
I’m very opposed to mandatory tracking, not for the same reason as my religious friends, and had hoped the church would lead the charge.
Without wanting to offend anyone, aren’t the CoE mainly lead by academics, experts in fairly obscure matters of theology or philosophy. Busy trying to apply them to the latest thoughts in gender or environmentalism?
Happy to be corrected here, but haven’t they quite willingly allowed ALL of their churches to be closed without any word of concern?
I dont just mean services stopped, but actually preventing parishioners to use their buildings for prayer and private worship?
There must be people who have worshiped in a church every sunday for decades, suddenly banned from their buildings by their own leaders.
In communities like mine, nothing would function civic society wise with out church halls, youth clubs, aerobics classes, WI, U3A, drama groups, elderly lunch clubs, playgroups, toy libraries, the lot. In fact, across the denominations, the churches here all club together to fund all youth outreach, as our local authority slashed their youth budget, so apart from a rickety child protection service there is no youth provision at all. They also fund the foodbank. I don’t get why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops about the poverty and suffering that is coming? The Catholics, on the other hand, put up a fight, and are continuing to do so. I’ve just written to my Benedictine nun friend, to get the lie of the land from her. In the UK, massive swathes of the voluntary sector (also being hammered and going bust) are founded and run on Christian principles (in the love in action sense, not proselytising sense), Christian Aid is very visible, but you’d be surprised how many trusts, foundations and service delivery charities are actually religious. I really don’t get the silence. But yes, I’m not religious really (well I have an interest, I’m not a worshipper in the churchy… Read more »
The organisation Christian Concern are doing a lot of positive work!
Lots of Christian charities seem to be stepping up to service the lockdown, my point was really why they are not questioning or lobbying against the policy.
Christian Concern took the government to a judicial review because they changed the abortion law (to allow home abortions) after Parliament closed, despite Matt Hancock stating clearly on the floor of the House that there were no plans to do so. Parliament neither got the chance for a debate nor a vote.
It is essential that we keep a close eye on what other law changes they try to pass, hoping we will not notice until it is too late…
I missed the abortion thing, I’m pro choice myself, but hadn’t clocked that at all, will have a look
It is the precedent that this move sets which is worrying – ie changing a law with no Parliamentary debate or chance for MPs to vote – also blatantly lying on the floor of the House..
Roger that, no matter the law they shouldn’t be doing that! I know I’ll upset the brexit supporters by saying this, but Boris is a bit cavalier with how things are supposed to be done, that’s always worried me about him with this.
I have worshipped in a church every Sunday for 27 years, I am heart broken. For the first time in 800 years we didn’t have any churches open for Easter. Many of the Church leaders are believe the best way to love their neighbour is by not silently killing them with Covid. Their ignorance on the sceptics position may be contributed to by their new schedule. They are spending many extra hours a week editing online sermons and services and phoning every parishioner to check they are ok, for lonely old ladies this takes a considerable time. I don’t think they have the time for wonderful websites like this. I am gently trying to help my fellow Christians to see that we need to love our neighbours globally, by ending the lockdown contagion, which is killing so many in the third world from hunger. This is my first approach, I am praying about my tactics for phase 2 of ‘wake up church.’
The local clergy must be working so hard trying. Really tough time being a vicar. I gather our local church is burning dozens DVDs and CDs every week for elderly parishioners who don’t use the internet. They have also been doing food parcel deliveries as well. The CoE has unconditionally accepted the government’s “advice”, and that is disappointing. I suppose I have to be thankful that at least church staff were given “key worker” status – which I guess means at least those with children can continue to work.
At the beginning of the year I returned to church after a long break. The first few weeks of “lockdown” I watched all the online services and helped out with some recording. I was also one of those people that thought the lockdown might be a good opportunity for reading and reflecting. These past couple of weeks I have had no motivation to watch or read. The past couple of Sundays, Sunday has felt like any other day. It might just as well be.
This is church without community. No communion of believers. Nothing Jesus did was at a social distance.
“Nothing Jesus did was at a social distance.” not quite true (eg :time in the desert) but maybe you know what I mean!)
You are not wrong – there are definitely moves afoot in this direction (courtesy of Mr Gates).
I and someone else tried to post a link regarding forthcoming international travel restrictions on here yesterday, but despite the supposed freedom of expression championed by the host of this site, our posts were removed… So I will now try to write in such a way as to not trigger any block!
The link concerned a spreadsheet on the website of the organisation-that-the-UK-is-in-the-process-of leaving, showing a clear timeline stretching back and forward several years, for the implementation into the document we all have to carry when we travel (!) a certificate showing whether or not we have had all required jabs. On page 9 of the spreadsheet there is a reference to the need for mass procurement of doses of a jab for a mass outbreak of the type of illness that we currently find ourselves in. Clear signs of the agenda to restrict travel to only those who comply. If you want to see the spreadsheet go to Simon Dolan’s Twitter account (the guy taking the government to court re the lockdown) – someone called Ruth Romano posted it there yesterday.
Thanks, I’ll look. And that sounds odd, did you email Toby?
No, I did not dare! I don’t know whether weblinks with particular prefixes trigger some algorithm?
Probably, they gave up moderating as we’re all so nice! I’d drop him a line, I don’t share his views on everything, but I think he means it when he says he’s pro free speech!
This is the document on Simon Dolan’s twitter https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf
Good to see it has not been removed this time 🙂
That thing was veeeeery illuminating.
As a devout Christian and loather of the lockdown I am heart broken by the devastation brought upon our world in the name of ‘good’. This lockdown is a classic ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ It might look good, but scratch the surface and it bleeds evil. The fact that we can sit within 2m of many complete strangers in a park, but we cannot worship God in any place, with our fellow believers, is wrong. In New Zealand strip bars and cinemas have opened but churches can’t. On a Sunday in the U.K. I would have to sing hymns in the B and Q queue because churches cannot open. Cathedrals can’t have anyone in even to pray alone, despite their vast sizes, but it’s ok because we can buy some essential rattan furniture. We are made to worship God and people are worshipping the NHS instead. We are blessed though that the church is not limited by walls. We are still phoning and praying with each other daily and we are serving our communities; with food banks, prescription collections and providing online support to families in crisis. Many Christians can see the chain of events occurring which are taking away… Read more »
I might be tempted to return to taking UK politics seriously if there were a Dangerous Party. At least there would be one party that is directly addressing an issue in our culture that I have long been concerned about. And I may say here that I feel I have been comprehensively vindicated by the covebola panic – the immense costs of this panic can be largely attributed to the unchecked spread of risk aversion through our society, which is a problem I have been pointing to for decades.
Assuming Toby’s role in the Party is as leader/figurehead, leaving the education brief available, can I propose your psychiatric nurse correspondent for this role? His task should be to devise suitable methods and materials to incorporate the following into the education curriculum at an early age, with annual refreshers right through to tertiary level:
courses on positive risk management
why it’s OK to take risks, because they have benefits
in reality reducing one risk almost always creates another.
The objective being to:
undo years of mollycoddling, over-management and disempowerment
Plus how to think critically, evaluate evidence, consider differing perspectives, construct an argument and debate, with special modules on: the world will not end if someone disagrees with you, and: feelings are not facts.
Yes!
Hang on, aren’t teachers supposed to be doing this kind of thing?
When was your last perusal of the National Curriculum, Chris ? 🙂
Some of them are, I know a few, they are drowning under dictats, paperwork, obsession with results league tables, forced to teach all sorts of nonsense (genderbread person if you’ve ever seen that absolute twaddle), and on and on. It’s miserable for kids too, so much pressure, lots of extra curricular stuff dropped – arts, music, computer club etc. I think lots of teachers would be love to teach, and understand the value of a education, which is not the same as shuffling kids through on a conveyor belt. They plot kids on a graph now, calculating their GCSE grade from the moment they walk through the door at 11, weekly conferences, parent interventions, etc etc, it’s all about grades (exams), and not actually about learning (and learning to think).
I had four children go through the state school system and as far as I could tell from watching their education their “critical thinking” and “PSHE” lessons were basically indoctrination in the dogmas and taboos of the Guardian-reading classes from which the teachers were drawn. I used to refer to PSHE as “state indoctrination classes” when talking to them about it
I have a friend who gets the PSE lesson plans from the school (you can get them if you request them). He goes through them, and then does a little lesson of his own basically counteracting all the tripe they got taught in the school lesson. Heh.
Disappointed to see that the main argument in favour of reopening schools revolves around class victimhood. Yes, it’s probably true that poor kids will fall further behind wealthy kids, but is that the best we can do? Does it always have to boil down to identity politics?
There are loads of good reasons, apart from education, why children from all backgrounds are better of in a classroom than incarcerated at home. The social aspect for a start. Interacting with different people. It’s part of growing up.
There are probably just as many good reasons not to imprison a child in their home for six months solid, which is what many parents seem to favour.
What will it take to make parents see sense?
The nonsense I read on Facebook suggests a form of group virtue-signalling. “Look what a good parent I am! I love my children so much that I’m not going to risk their lives, no matter what the government says.”
Yes. Agreed. Folks bend the Covid slapdown to further their pet grievances whether that’s identity politics, feminism or whatever. I’ve seen the suggestion in the commentaries tonight that if women had been most affected there would be no lockdown. This stuff is unhelpful and, as always, divisive.
Yes, a few weeks ago the BBC and Guardian started talking about how the lockdown was unfair and increasing inequality. Naively I thought that meant they were saying the the lockdown was bad.
It was only later that I realised that in fact they still think the lockdown is terrific. It’s just that they want to continue their normal practice of baiting, agitation and virtue signalling.
I despair of these parents! Here in Sweden there has been *one* death of child under 9 and as the authorities have not released the age of the child, it might have been a child below school age. And they said it is uncertain whether this death was even from corona. There have been no reports of mass infections of children, their parents or teachers and if schools being open was thought to be contributing to the death toll here then they would have been shut.. Government advice has been for children to not visit their grandparents for the time being, and people seem to have been respecting this.
Our sixth form equivalents (16-19 year olds) and universities have been shut, with comprehensive distance teaching instead, but those age groups have been socialising outside of school hours and here again – no mass outbreaks or deaths. There have been a total of only 8 deaths in the age group 20-29, which may have included some university students, but may not – those deaths might have been in the older part of this age group.
I just can’t understand why parents in the UK are so paranoid…
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-a-way-out-of-the-maze/
One of the very few scientists with a bit of common sense
Horizon ( I think, I had to switch it off quickly as it made me feel sick.) programme tonight. Siting encephalitis and strokes in young people as a new symptom. Why?! Why are they doing this? How can the Media now be in charge? The government will never be able to unlock with horror stories like these on prime time tv.
That condition in children that’s been in the papers, doctors warn all parents about it after ANY virus, my sis in law has five kids, and she said when they all went down with something, she remembers the doctor explaining what it was, and what to look out for.
My daughter had chicken pox when she was a baby. Had a few spots, was a bit grumpy, got over it. My son had it when he was 18 months and was in hospital on a drip for a week! I asked the senior ward nurse what it was he had, and she said” chicken pox! It can be a nasty infection if it gets you the wrong way.”
I watched it through to the end. Usual BBC doom and gloom, accompanied by appropriate doom filled music. Only once, I think was it pointed out that the vast majority of people will have only a mild illness.
Well at least they pointed that out. I couldn’t watch it, too depressing.
I too had to switch off but not before noticing the female infectious disease specialist could not look straight at the camera. When discussing the lung xray and heart image she would look left which suggests memory and truth (script). When talking about the encephalitis and strokes she kept looking left suggesting lies:
https://www.learning-mind.com/eye-movements-when-lying/
I am really annoying the fear mongers on Yahoo right now. I just posted this comment on the story regarding Ian Duncan Smith saying that the 2m social distancing rule should be relaxed. It’s already got 2 thumbs down in less than 10 minutes. My post below “ This has totally been blown out of all proportion. The fear & scaremongering regarding this normal flu virus is insane. People are NOT dying at a rate of 20,000 a day, dropping dead on the streets, if they were, then by all means be scared, but come on that is not happening. All you scared of a stupid flu virus people should stay locked up in your homes if you wish, but I find it unacceptable to have your statutory freedoms & rights removed on a whim & you all accept it & nobody actually questioned it. This is all fake people, wake up here. The world has always had viruses & it has never stopped, people do die everyday all over the world from illness, accidents etc, yet life goes on, economies don’t stop, but now? Silly silly people. This is bang out of order, the sooner all you scared of… Read more »
It’s getting better folks, already had a comment that someone (that one of the posters who replied knows) died from it but had no underlying health conditions.
Honestly, you couldn’t make this up. The fear is insane.
Well they have to win their argument. Can’t let you inject some common sense into the discussion. No evidence or citation of course from whoever posted. So just in passing I’d like to say I played singles tennis today with Serena Williams on a closed Centre Court. (Bit worried about picking up that ball. Damn Covid can last 72 hours on surfaces without a drink.)
That’s very true Nigel. & LOL at playing singles tennis today with Serena Williams, that actually did make me properly laugh.
A comment in my Facebook feed yesterday was “Schools WILL be the next care homes when they open their doors. I can tell you that MY kids will not be sent to the slaughter” Spreading fear of the disease and fear that your peers are watching and judging you on what your priorities are… getting your kids back to school vs your kids lives, all laid out in a ‘it really is that simple’ style.
Crazy! If that were true then schools here in Sweden would have been shut ages ago and it would be all over the news… whereas it is only care home deaths here that are being reported.
People are scared shitless. Not about Covid, not really… they are scared of what others think of them and their opinions on literally everything. Any argument that has a more complex moral stance than immediately obvious virtue signalling is ‘fascism’. They intentionally wade in with insidious comments like the one this week from Phillip Pullman on twitter to bait and provoke in the hope of backlash so they can slyly say ‘See what I mean’.
This. I hate to say it but….
It really does remind me of the B word. Like….. People rubbing their hands together salivating at the thought of the impending doom that never arrives.
Who’s the one who’s supposed to care about the future of country more than being right again?