Latest News
The Telegraph‘s Business section leads on Rishi Sunack’s warning to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee yesterday that the country is facing “a severe recession, the likes of which we haven’t seen”. That red line shooting beyond Sunack’s nose is the number of unemployment claims triggered by different financial shocks dating back to 1970 – and the 857,000 new claimants in shown on the graph for 2020 is just for the month of April. The Telegraph points out this is the biggest surge in benefit claims since 1947.
The same point was made more bluntly on Channel 4 News last night by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. “The longer we stay on lockdown, the more companies will go bankrupt,” he said.
The Express has the same story, as does the FT, which quotes the Chancellor warning the Committee that the economy may not “immediately bounce back”.
No shit, Sunack.
Excess Cancer Deaths Likely to Increase as Result of Lockdown
The Edinburgh Evening News looks at just one of many human tragedies caused by the response to the virus – the story of Dalkeith mother-of-one Karen Hilton, whose life expectancy has been cut from 12 months to six after cancer trials were halted as doctors prioritised patients with COVID-19.
Karen, 48, who has already had to cancel her wedding due to the lockdown, spoke out as UK charity Breast Cancer Now launched a campaign to help thousands of secondary breast cancer patients who fear their lives could be shortened due to changes to treatment, scans and trials:
At the moment I’m on chemotherapy, but because of the nature of my disease, which is triple negative and very aggressive, there are only so many options that I can get. After you’ve exhausted all of the chemotherapies… my only options left are trials. Trials haven’t been happening, they’re not going to be focusing on research, and there’s already 450 cancer patients dying every day – but you don’t see those figures published along with the stats for Covid. It’s heart-breaking and sanity must prevail, in that you can’t just cut off the lifelines of all these hundreds of thousands of patients. Obviously they’re diverting attention away from breast cancer trials on to Covid and our issue is that it’s just another disease. Covid is going to be around for a long time but cancer patients won’t if we don’t get access to these trials. It just feels like they’re cutting off the stage 4 cancer patient’s lifelines – so it’s literally life or death.
The Guardian deals more fully with the impact of the lockdown on cancer patients, saying “thousands of people… could die early because so many hospitals have suspended surgery for the disease while the NHS battles the coronavirus”.
Schools’ Out For Summer
In its online edition, the Telegraph reports that “[t]he country is heading for a divide on the reopening of schools, with Government minister Robert Buckland this morning conceding a ‘uniform’ start from June 1st is unlikely.”
The Justice Secretary told Sky the “picture is a mixed one”, with at least 11 councils now refusing to open schools on the date set by the Prime Minister. He insisted conversations were ongoing but admitted there was “not a long time to go” to persuade teachers, unions and councils it was safe.
This is in spite of the paper’s splash, in which the British Medical Association now says schools can reopen on June 1st, or earlier, as long as it is “safe to do so”, and – in what is described as “an apparent softening of its stance regarding pupils returning to the classroom” – admitting that there is “growing evidence that the risk to individual children from COVID-19 is extremely small”. Today’s Telegraph also includes a comment piece by Dr Peter English, Chair of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Medicine Committee, pointing out that even though sending children back to school is not “risk free”, keeping them at home isn’t either.
The Guardian reports that “up to 1,500 primary schools in England are expected to remain closed on June 1st after a rebellion by at least 18 councils forced the Government to say it had no plans to sanction them”. And the Telegraph reveals that Scottish pupils may only return part-time when schools there reopen in August.
The Mail exposes what it calls the “cynical tactics” of a teacher’s union trying to stop schools reopening. It reports on Zoom video footage available on the National Education Union’s (NEU) YouTube account which shows leaders discussing how to “threaten” headmasters who try to get their staff back to work:
In a further sign of their hardline approach, they described their opposition to the date as a “negotiating position”. Mary Bousted, the NEU’s joint General Secretary, was even shown accusing children of being “mucky”, spreading germs and “wiping their snot on your trousers or on your dress”.
The paper says parents and teachers are at war over the issue:
At least 13 mainly Labour councils are actively opposing Boris Johnson’s plans to open schools in England on June 1st as parents who want their children back in class claim they have been branded “teacher bashers”.
Extraordinary rows have broken out on WhatsApp groups and online forums as it was revealed that up to 1,500 English primary schools are now expected to remain closed in 12 days’ time despite millions of children being at home for more than eight weeks.
On Mumsnet today a thread suggested that “parents aren’t allowed to criticise teachers anymore” and sparked outrage among those in the teaching profession. One parent wrote: “I’ve seen a lot of parents genuinely concerned about the teaching who were immediately accused of ‘teacher bashing’ and being ‘too lazy to teach their own children’. It’s ridiculous’”
Cambridge: No Face-to-Face Contact With Students For a Year
Cambridge University has announced all lectures will be online for the duration of the next academic year. Cambridge didn’t close during World War Two – and didn’t close during any of the recent influenza pandemics with a higher death toll than SARS-CoV-2, such as 1968-70. But the University’s administrators have decided that the risk posed by the current virus is simply too great.
“Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the University has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year,” a press release announced.
This follows the disclosure from Manchester University that all its lectures will be online next term. Neither university has offered to reduce tuition fees as a consequence, which may be an oversight if they want to persuade students who’ve accepted places this year not to defer.
In truth, that will probably be less of a problem for Cambridge and Manchester than for low tariff institutions. If you’ve got a place at De Montfort University, for instance, why would you pay £9,250 a year to take an online course when there are cheaper, better-designed online courses out there? Even private schools have reduced their fees while pupils are taught from home (although not by much).
In a story in today’s paper, the Guardian lays bare the scale of the problem facing British universities, saying they face a £760 million hole in their finances from deferrals alone:
A survey of students applying for undergraduate places found that more than 20% said they were willing to delay starting their courses if universities were not operating as normal due to the coronavirus pandemic, which would mean there would be 120,000 fewer students when the academic year begins in autumn. The results, released by the University and College Union, come as universities are wrestling with how to reopen campuses for students while protecting them from COVID-19.
British universities are facing a perfect storm going into the next academic year: lots of students who were supposed to be starting this autumn will defer; applications for the following year will decline; EU students will have to pay full fees for the first time, meaning fewer will apply; and foreign students in general will stay away due to travel restrictions and fear of contagion. The sector is clearly hoping the Government will bail it out, but that may be naive. As the Guardian reported on May 3rd: “University leaders had asked the Government for a bailout running into billions of pounds to make up for lost international student and research revenue. But the plea on behalf of the sector was said to have ‘landed badly’ with the Treasury.”
If Britain’s universities don’t radically rethink their plans for the next year and the Treasury continues to play hardball, at least one third of them will end up going under. Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, predicted last year that up to 50 percent of America’s colleges and universities will go bankrupt in the next 10 to 15 years. I think the same is true of the UK, except that Covid has speeded up the process.
Gerard Degroot, a former member of the St Andrew’s History Department, sums up the situation in UnHerd:
Many universities were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. A lingering dispute over pensions had corroded morale. The over-emphasis on research, imposed largely by the Government, had warped priorities, leading to a decline in teaching quality everywhere. Mounting student debt led many young people to question whether the ‘ivory tower experience’ is worth the investment.
The virus is ruthless: it exposes and punishes those weaknesses. Over the long term, some institutions might be forced to close, while others will have to radically transform the product they offer.
Is COVID-19 a Nosocomial Disease?
There’s an interesting graph on Guido today showing the percentage of all Covid deaths that have occurred in care homes in different European countries. The data is from a new report from the EU’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC) on the prevalence of COVID-19 in long term care facilities, including care homes. I’ve looked at the report and the data in Guido‘s graph is correct.
Guido highlighted this to show that the UK has fared better at protecting its care home residents than other European countries, but it points to something else, too, which is the degree to which COVID-19 is primarily a nosocomial disease. This is a theme taken up in a Medium post by the banker Jonathan Tepper called ‘Ground Zero: When the Cure is Worse than the Disease‘. The post includes lots of interesting facts and quotes pointing to hospitals and care homes as the main vectors of transmission:
- Data from five European countries suggest that care homes accounted between 42% and 57% of all deaths related to COVID-19.
- A group of doctors from the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo warned of nosocomial infections in the New England Journal of Medicine: “We are learning that hospitals might be the main COVID-19 carriers. They are rapidly populated by infected patients, facilitating transmission to uninfected patients.”
- Nearly 14% of Spain’s reported COVID-19 cases are medical professionals.
- The ECDPC has warned hospitals: “It is likely that nosocomial outbreaks are important amplifiers of the local outbreaks, and they disproportionately affect the elderly and vulnerable populations.”
- Today, almost all new cases in Spain are in hospitals and retirement homes.
Tepper asks whether many of these deaths could have been avoided if politicians and their scientific advisors had realised sooner that COVID-19 was primarily a nosocomial disease, as does a leader in today’s Telegraph. He also discusses the fact that people under 60 in good health are at minimal risk of dying from COVID-19 and draws the obvious conclusion:
If hospitals and retirement homes are one of the main transmission vectors and the disease and the virus overwhelmingly affects the very old and sick who have multiple existing conditions, shutting the entire economy will not solve the problem.
Government Stocks Up on Hydroxychloroquine
While the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic continue to mock Trump for disclosing he takes a daily dose of hydroxychloroquine – and social media companies are busy removing any content that promotes it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 – the British Government is planning to buy the anti-malarial drug in bulk. According to the Guardian, ministers are seeking 16 million tablets in packets of up to 100 as part of a £35m contract put out to tender last Friday:
A Whitehall source said the purchase of hydroxychloroquine was related to current clinical trials to evaluate it as a treatment for people with COVID-19, adding that it should only be taken on prescription or as part of a controlled clinical trial.
It’s worth pointing out that the Government’s purchasing of a drug is no guarantee that it’s effective. Britain spent £424 million stockpiling Tamiflu, hoping it could be used to treat both bird flu and swine flue. This was partly on the advice of Liam Donaldson, then the Chief Medical Officer for the UK, who had seen the modelling from Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College predicting that bird flue could kill up to 200 million people worldwide and swine flu could kill 65,000 in the UK alone. AT the time, Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, was refusing to release all the data from its clinical trials and only agreed to do this in 2013, long after the money had been spent. This followed sustained pressure from the lockdown sceptic Carl Heneghan, among others. When Heneghan and his team were able to review the Tamiflu data, they concluded the drug is marginally useful in shortening a bout of flu by half a day, but does not prevent complications, keep people out of hospital or reduce the spread of infection and does have side-effects, some of which are alarming. The Guardian has more.
I’ve discussed the evidence surrounding hydroxychloroquine, both as a prophylactic against and as a treatment for COVID-19, in the page entitled ‘What Are the Most Effective Treatments‘ on the right-hand side. For what it’s worth, I started taking chloroquine when I thought I had COVID-19, but stopped after three days when I started getting heart palpitations. It may or may not have contributed to my own speedy recovery.
Lawyers Turn on Lord Gumption
There was an article in the Law Society Gazette yesterday by Jonathan Compton chastising Lord Sumption for straying into the political arena. In particular, he takes issue with Sumption’s civil liberties argument that it should be up to individuals to assess whether they want to take the risk of leaving their homes, not the Government:
The risk of exposure to the COVID-19 is indeed an individual risk. But it does not follow – as Lord Sumption suggests – that it must be solely in the hands of the individual to decide to take that risk or not. The “individual risk” argument risks underplaying, indeed ignoring, what we may call the “societal risk” argument.
The “societal risk” argument may be put thus: if we leave it in the hands of individuals to decide whether they choose to run the exposure risk, then we run the risk that infection levels will increase to the point where basic supply chains start to break down, less/no food in shops, less people/no one on the tills, fewer/no petrol deliveries, no imports of medicines, food stuffs, critical levels of agricultural workers, bus, rail and tube drivers. By this time, of course, the NHS would have been over-run some time ago. This is a risk to the fabric of society itself. A risk to society poses grave risks to the individuals in it, surely?
I’ll save Lord Sumption the trouble of having to respond to the “societal risk” argument and do so myself. If we end the lockdown tomorrow, there is zero risk of basic supply chains breaking down, shops running out of food, check-out clerks leaving tills unattended, petrol deliveries stopping, or any of the other calamities the lily-livered Compton envisages. None of those things have happened in those countries that have ended their lockdowns, nor have they happened in those countries and US states that never locked down in the first place. As Sumption has repeatedly said, the burden falls on those who want to suspend our liberties to show that not doing so would be catastrophic – for instance, that not doing so will cause a net loss of life. To date, the British Government has come nowhere near meeting that threshold.
Luckily, not all lawyers hold their manhoods as cheap as Jonathan Compton. There’s a robust comment below his article which has got more thumbs-up than any other:
I support Lord Sumption. He doesn’t mince his words, and he has no time for high-emotion, low-intellect, entitled muppets who demand protection from everything. I am confident that those cowering behind their sofas, demanding that they be wrapped in cotton wool at the expense of others, are quite happy to accept NHS treatment and to shop at supermarkets – workers there aren’t cowering at home: you’re not better than them.
Graph Porn
A reader has compiled this graph showing that infections peaked in both London and the country at large on March 14th and 18th respectively – nine days before the lockdown in one case and five days in the other. He also sent me the source for all his data, which look robust to me. In other words, placing more than 66 million people under virtual house arrest wasn’t necessary to “Save Lives” or “Protect the NHS”.
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:
- ‘This is not a natural disaster, but a manmade one‘ – Staunch sceptic Lionel Shriver’s latest column in the Spectator
- ‘The UK’s public health response to COVID-19‘ – Damning assessment of the UK Government’s response to the pandemic in the BMJ. But the thrust of the criticism is that the UK should have locked down earlier, without offering much evidence that that would have resulted in fewer deaths from COVID-19
- ‘Under the Corona Act, Dr Shipman could have got away with more murders‘ – Ronan Maher in the Critic digs into the changes the Government has made into the regulations surrounding the reporting of death and finds much to be alarmed about
- ‘We’re all in the big numbers now‘ – The always dependable Alistair Haimes sums up everything we’ve learnt so far. Includes the under-statement of the century: “Imperial College haven’t had a good war.”
- ‘Every person prosecuted under Coronavirus Act was wrongly charged‘ – I missed this story last Friday, but it’s a marmalade-dropper. Literally every person prosecuted under the Coronavirus Act in April was wrongly charged, says the CPS
- ‘It is fear – not science – that is stopping our children being educated‘ – Robust column in the Telegraph by the redoubtable Allison Pearson. She refers to a new petition you can sign if you think chidden should go back to school
- ‘UK coronavirus death figures fall for third week in a row‘ – Good news in the Times. According to one expert, it may be “difficult to find” anyone with the virus on their death certificate by the end of June
- ‘The Results of Europe’s Lockdown Experiment Are In‘ – Bloomberg does what we did on Lockdown Sceptics last week, which is to use the Blavatnik School of Government’s table ranking countries according to the severity of their lockdowns to see if there’s any correlation between that and the number of Covid infections and deaths. Answer: No, although there is a positive correlation between the severity of a country’s lockdown and damage to its economy
- ‘WHO to be investigated over coronavirus pandemic response‘ – The World Health Organisation has agreed to an independent investigation into its response to the pandemic. Can I be one of the investigators please?
- ‘National Trust faces £200m loss as it closes for summer‘ – The Times has alarming news for National Trust members. Will they get a rebate? And if the charity’s in trouble, why shut down for the summer?
- ‘Even Pakistan is more relaxed on coronavirus than Britain‘ – My friend James Delingpole thinks Imran Khan might not be such a villain after all
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.
Theme Tune Suggestions
More suggestions from readers about theme tunes for this site: “The Distance” by Cake, “Every Day Should Be A Holiday” by the Dandy Warhols and, of course, “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper.
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 now passed one million and it’s averaging 54,000 visitors a day. We’re changing hearts and minds…
And Finally…
A reader has dug up a picture from an Italian magazine that published a story in 1962 about what the the world might look in 2022. The illustration is uncanny…
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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Rishi is firmly on the ball isn’t he. I mean, only 2 months behind anyone with half a brain realised shutting the economy and spending billions was going to lead to the mother of all recessions is pretty smart.
I heard today that 9000 jobs are to be lost at Rolls Royce. Call me an old cynic but in due course I suspect these prestige manufacturing jobs will pop up somewhere ‘off shore’.
I don’t think they will (this time!) – aviation will take a long time to recover fully.
What they should be asking is
“We have the technology and the skilled workforce, what else could we make?” (ventilators is not the answer)
Think home many ventilators a big jet engine could power!
Unlikely the rate that flight deck staff are being laid off, or retired world wide. We will not need aircraft engines in the volume we have in the past.
I was laid off in early April for “covid related downsizing” reasons. I’m a skilled tech worker in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley region with over 20+ years of experience in my field. Before I was laid off, my company (a major star-up with ample funding, and outpacing all growth projections. I was 5th hire almost 4 years ago) had hired two outsourced Chinese nationals (contract, not full time). I helped train them. There level of work was mediocre. I’m not a conspiracy theorist in. Any sense, but this has me thinking. China will do well out of this. I don’t think there was any Chinese “grand plan”, but they will benefit from the hysteria.
That level of insight is why he earns the big bucks.
I don’t think he’s an idiot. Previously he had to toe the party line, make sure people were more scared of Covid 19 than any economic impact, so people would cower in their homes. However the tide has turned – now they need to terrify people back to work. Expect to see the terrible economic impact ramped up over the next few weeks.
As Madeline Grant said in an interview a few weeks’ back, the government was a victim of its own success and now they will have to find a way of reversing that given that the economy is now in a tailspin.
I suspect that having dangled the carrot, Sunak will now unveil the stick – perhaps that will shake many of the Covid zombies out of their torpor.
Some companies that were not doing well before this will shed jobs and blame Covid 19. Same thing happened after 9/11 when all the airlines in chapter 11 retrenched workers.
They don’t have the right to destroy society in the name of safety. Let’s face it those whom claim they care about saving lives aren’t chained up outside the arms manufacturers protesting the loss of life of those the bombs are dropped on. They don’t care about other people. The people who really care are those wanting the full return to open society right now, those whom want the government vastly reduced in size and scope. We fought the war to free the people but it turns out we’re under the jackboot in a global tyranny ruled over by the WHO, the UN, the EU and other folk we don’t know. Told what to do in every aspect of our lives, for our own good. Well sod this for a game of soldiers. I’m not having it anymore.
Absolutely- I have been saying the same, sadly it seems that most people under about 50 don’t actually want freedom- it’s too scary. Interesting to note that it’s basically the private sector- which pays for all this- wants to get back to work, whilst the public sector- which is doing very nicely as usual thank you- is throwing tantrums and making threats. Meanwhile cancer patients, etc., can sod off. Can you imagine telling a private company, ‘No I’m not coming back to work until you guarantee 100% safety and you have to pay me my full salary and fund my pension in the meantime’? Just how do they think these things work?
“They don’t have the right to destroy society in the name of safety.”
Um . . . yes they do. That’s the problem.
They have the power to.
I wish it were possible to impeach Boris and his cabinet for gross stupidity. It grieves me that they will get away with the damage they have wreaked on us. As for all of us waiting for NHS treatment I’ve written off my op for this year, fortunately its not life threatening, just annoying.
“Dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy” – this is what New York Times said about Jared Kushner when he took over the coronavirus response.
I would say that it’s a great description of Boris’ and his cabinet performance.
Yes, to coin a phrase, there’s disappointments, damned disappointments and Boris.
No such luck for the cancer survivor in Edinburgh whose eloquent piece is quoted from above. It is, simply put, her life on the line. And while I agree with most of what she cites, she’s wrong in one aspect: the cancer fatalities will not be ignored but added to the Covid 19(84) tally.
Which is, in a way, ignoring them…sadly.
Same here. I’m listed as “urgent” since my delaying my op will almost certainly reduce the chance that normal function will be restored and I will be left with a disability. In the meantime prolonging the treatment I’m currently on can lead to all kinds of complications I just don’t want to think about. I’m pretty fit and healthy currently – I work at it – but a further delay of months will mean morbidities that will require more treatment.
Sorry to hear that Jonathan. Fingers crossed they manage to sort you out sooner than you anticipate.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’m a Type 1 diabetic and have condition called diabetic amytrophy. This is a rare condition that causes muscle wastage of the legs mainly but I managed to get a neurologist. I got referred for an MRI scan. Amazingly I got the scan 2 weeks ago although I had to run a gauntlet of Covid screenings and the country hospital was like a ghost ship apart from PPD donned nurses. Like you I fight the condition by cycling. Gladly it’s reversible and doesn’t need surgery. Keep your chin up mate and I hope you get the surgery you need.
Hope that your operation gets scheduled ASAP.
The thing that really disturbs me is this talk of ‘easing restrictions’ when really its the complete opposite. So when they talk of opening bars and restaurants, at 10% capacity and only outside, or allowing people onto the tube but only with security preventing you from getting on (if you still have a job) if there is some capacity, or the insane restrictions for schools that are simply psychological abuse camps, then it should be clear that they wish to impose restrictions that were never there before. They have gone through every minute social interaction in our lives and made it arduous, restrictive, petty and unworkable under the guise of ‘keeping us safe’. They are doing this almost at the same time everywhere in the world so its not like these ideas are coming from our corrupt government. These ludicrous yet sinister measures are here to stay and if this ‘new normal’ is the way we are supposed to live then it is a life not worth living.
Agree, MoH. Except that it seems to be our karma to make sure they’re NOT here to stay.
I said right from the outset of this that it would be very interesting to see just how many of our little freedoms we get back. Politicians and bureaucrats don’t like giving things back. As usual, I was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist when in fact I am a simple Libertarian who values his freedom above all else- so a Nazi according to some…
Like you, I prize liberty. It’s very worrying and bewildering how many folk are content to be and even want to be infantalised. Our welfare state is not the safety net it was intended to be, but the foundation of dependency and the antithesis of self-reliance. It also facilitates big government and all that entails, with big slogans and other tools of propaganda so readily appropriated.
You aren’t alone in this…. for ruminating on this very point about the ratchet of authoritarian measures, I was labelled hysterical, ironically by people intent on responding hysterically to the piffling risks of COVID… Fine thought I, let’s just see, shall we?
I totally agree. The New Normal is oxymoronic and hideous phraseology. Hell no!!!
Good t-shirt there Catherine –
New Normal ? HELL NO !
Quite apart from anything else, it wrongly implies that there was an ‘old normal’. It’s classic communist thinking of individuals as fungible cogs in a machine, all with the same backgrounds, skills, talents, drives, beliefs and desires.
If the depression isn’t enough to get the Reform Party into power at the next General Election, then our future, and the future of young men and women even more so, is starting to look pretty grim. Time is running out if we want to actually change the course we’ve been on since 1990.
Stuff like this gives me hope that the future may not be lost. Hopefully Americans have woken up to what life would be like under the Democrats
Helpful if I provide the link!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bm8urk_Ifs
And meanwhile in the rest of the world……….
https://mobile.twitter.com/amnestypress/status/1261324416157454337
Where the fuck has Amnesty International been all this time?
Censored I imagine, for spreading false information – gross breaches of human rights only happen in those nasty ‘poor’ countries, not in the glorious First world!
Hiding under the bed like all the other bedwetters..
Scrub that comment. Bedwetters hiding under a bed doesn’t make much sense.
Could be a bunkbed. Stacked bedwetters.
In the Universities section ‘I think the same is true of the UK, except that Covid has speeded up the process’. We know you meant the lockdown and the associated panic rather than the virus itself!
As you point out, many universities were already strapped for cash before all this so it seems the Vice-Chancellors have crunched the numbers and reacted accordingly. SC2 has provided a handy figleaf for slashing costs. Otherwise this suicidal overreaction to ‘protect’ almost the least vulnerable sector of society makes no sense. Who would want to pay Russell Group top-whack for ‘Open University Lite’ i.e. without the study weekends? No social life, no peer group, no sports, no sex, no booze, no drugs – no point! We wonder how the universities can come back from this. We share your view that Higher Education may be yet another casualty.
On another note, the secretary of a local British Legion in our small High Peak town has just told us he’s shocked at the number of emails he’s been getting reporting suicides among local ex-servicemen. Many more than normal. Also a Registrar friend of his reports a growing number of teenage suicides (or attempts) locally.
No sex, yes indeed. I’ve not seen it mentioned before – perhaps it is considered in bad taste – but sex has been banned for many, unless public indecency is your thing. If nothing else, I think this will break the collective appetite to stay “locked down” and to “social distance”. Attempts to stop people having sex for extended periods generally don’t work out too well. I am hoping against hope that some universities find a way to provide a more normal experience, so that students can choose what suits them best. If this 2 metre distance insanity persists, I can’t see any primary and secondary schools and colleges being able to offer a full time on-premises experience – there simply isn’t the space and aren’t the number of teachers to be able to have that kind of separation and smaller class sizes. I wonder how many of the cabinet actually believe this madness, and intend it to carry on forever, how many are simply still in panic mode and haven’t really thought it through, and how many know it’s all nonsense but are going along with it to fit in, and how many know it’s nonsense and are saying… Read more »
I’m sure sex is perfectly acceptable so long as both parties observe social distancing.
All very well for King Dong but not us mere mortals
Neil Ferguson couldn’t hack it either, bless him.
If students do online courses rather than actually attend university there will be a massive economic knock on effect. There is a university in my city which is a major employer. If universities move to online courses far fewer staff will be needed and many businesses in my city are dependent on student trade which they will lose if no students come.
Agree Ianric. The university in my home town was at one time the biggest employer. Add to that the money spent by students in local shops and bars and the rents paid to landlords the impact of losing it would be huge.
This amounts to a candlestick makers’ petition.
Things will move on, some businesses will win, others will lose.
The whole further education business is a pyramid scheme that will inevitably collapse under the weight of technology, mobility and the strangulation of student life by all the zealots they’ve acquiesced to.
Mine too! The university is essentially the economic backbone of my town.
This is the inherent problem with the runaway numbers of ‘universities’. Not only has it dumbed down the entry level and quality of content, but these institutions are primarily businesses and everything else comes second. The priority is bums on seats to the detriment of students and standards. Universities do attract lots of investment and improve the ambiance of the local areas, but that shouldn’t be the function of academia?
Jesus, look at that unemployment claims graph. To those who begged the government to go harder with the lockdown; those who vented their faux virtue-signalling outrage on social media when we got the tiniest crumb of relief on May 10th with pathetic easing of restrictions; those who snitch on their neighbours for daring to go outside; those who clap for the the NHS, a bloated behemoth parasitically sucking the life out of this country, which actually caused more deaths with its sclerotic bureaucracy and ruinous policies; those who treat Neil Ferguson’s debunked many-times-over model as gospel; those who are prepared to abuse our children and rob them of their childhood to satisfy their own myopic abdication of risk assessment; those who shut down beauty spots and stop people from getting fresh air and exercise when there is zero risk of transmission in a wide open space; those who slavishly adhere to arbitrary social distancing; those who believe that cancelling the medical treatment of millions is an adequate price to pay for dealing with Covid when hospitals now lie empty; those who refuse to engage with countless pieces of evidence that undermine the lockdown; those who think it is justified to… Read more »
100%
Poppy, I’m a reasonably intelligent bloke who wouldn’t normally believe in outlandish theories, but two things fairly recently have made me question the motives of our ‘leaders’. One was Theresa May’s woeful performance in the 2017 General Election and obviously more recently, Johnson’s (and indeed other ‘leaders’ around the world) handling of this current pantomime. They really can’t be so dumb, can they? And that makes me think that there is an ulterior motive (and that’s not the way I like to think…)
It’s clear this is a global economic ctrl-alt-delete.
YES!
Too right and with Bill Gates seemingly driving the keyboard.
Yes, it is really hard to understand how this could have happened. I still favour cock-up (well, Boris is the chief culprit after all), but it is a devastatingly astonishing piece of stupidity. I think they just decided to deal with this one issue and forgot everything else.
Brilliant Poppy,absolutely spot on,but you know what they would say,’yeah,but if saves just one life……’
And yet, in normal times, old patients get sacrificed all the time for
the benefit if younger patients. Ask any honest health pro.
Rantastic Poppy.
Yes excellent”!
Again I wish I can recommend this comment more than once. You have articulated very well how I feel.
Can I interest you in making some babies, Poppy?
Poppy 😍
Well said
I know how to get public sector back to work. You are back in school, council offices, dept for xxx, etc. Etc. Next Monday or we furlough you. What the fear disappear.
Wow! Bravo!!!
And we will pay the price of this whole none sense together. Now, when allthe evidence stands for lockdown sceptics,every single person on this site should receive a relief from tax increases. And the ones from Poppy’s brilliant summary should pay the price for what they wanted. But now the government is in trouble with their politics pleasing the majority of people instead of leading them. I’m wondering how they will sell the bad news now. It’s very likely that they will finish if don’t go for massive debts that even our grandchildren will pay. I would bet for it that’s what they will do. Because in this way they still can please people instead of leading them. They will delay the problem instead of sorting this out now. We certainly need politicians who are not shared to lead people and take the responsibility for what they did.
Ah, but we won’t all pay the price together, will we? Only those of us who actually produce will pay. As usual, the public sector will do just fine.
Absolutely spot on Poppy! You’ve perfectly articulated how I feel, thank you.
Don’t forget all this who don’t qualify for any of the schemes so are not on the numbers – 3 in my house alone.
Poppy, that is brilliant. I hope you don’t mind that I have copied it and posted it to as many friends and family as won’t disown me for ‘impure thoughts’ as possible. Thanks to you for a great comment. And thanks to Toby Young for all his brilliant work and dedication. This site truly helps keep me sane in a world gone mad. Thank you!
I’ve been working through this in a large supermarket 36 hours a week and before this whole thing the company planed on having a double discount day for employee’s but in a show of solidarity with the grief stricken they’ve cancelled it saying it’s not respectful to those suffering the virus. You know what i’ve always said that the only people they hate more than the customers are employees. I’ve worked my pan in for £9.50 a hour and company profits are up over 30%. I’m glad though that i won’t be getting my extra ten percent off because i’d be upset to think grief stricken families were more grief stricken knowing that i was getting and extra ten percent off my shopping for one day. To hear people saying they don’t want to go back to work makes me mad. Those refusing shouldn’t be using my supermarket
Biker, for what it’s worth, what you and your colleagues are doing is very much appreciated by the vast majority of the public. We only go shopping once a week but we’ve seen some really flaky characters giving verbal abuse to shop workers. We ‘clap’ for you all on Thursday evenings!
Cheers T Prince. The worst customers are those in masks. Almost all of them are rude and aggressive. They’ve lost their mind and have decided that they can just shout at me any way they like. As always the most selfish horrible people are always those who virtue signal the most.
Well said, as always, mate.
If anything the supermarket workers, postmen, delivery people, bin men and cleaners deserve the clap every Thursday not the NHS.
“supermarket workers, postmen, delivery people, bin men and cleaners deserve the clap”
Bit harsh, surely….
At the beginning of the lockdown my wife and I volunteered to stock shelves in the local supermarket for free even though we have full time jobs and run an animal charity because we knew they would be inundated, They were very appreciative but didn’t accept our offer probably due to insurance reasons.
Not much chance of that with social distancing!
Whoopsie – I meant we should be clapping for those workers not the NHS”
Wish there was an edit button
🙂
Though I’m with Riffman below. I’m certainly not planning on giving anyone the clap….
Yes! And don’t forget the workers and owners of the local shops (for those who still have them)
Whoa here everybody! I thought seal clapping was rather frowned on by readers of this site? I fully appreciate the work put in by those mentioned: but 1) they are all lucky enough to have a job and 2) they are (certainly supermarket staff) under say 25, and as ‘we’ all know at no risk ( not even slight) to themselves. I wish my daughter could find ANY work right now.
Steady on. I’m furloughed from my current job, but I’m topping up my already low income (the company refuse to pay the remaining 20%) by working as a home delivery driver for a large Supermarket chain. I’m 58.
Independent shops are going to be decimated by this.
Thank you for all your work. My supermarket has been an oasis of normality throughout this, the staff cheerfully ignoring any of the 2 metre malarkey. However my mum’s supermarket was a different kettle of fish, with “we’re all in this together” T shirts (I have NEVER been in this together), young people holding placards urging customers to keep their distance, more young people spraying everything in sight with disinfectant spray, and a one way system which I didn’t notice. I will avoid that chain in future.
It sounds like the same supermarket I’ve used locally a few times- customers tut-tutting because I take my son and he sometimes STANDS STILL to look at things and once, gasp, went the wrong way by mistake! You’d have thought he’d just stabbed somebody…They dutifully line up outside doing the one out/one in thing, even when there isn’t anything telling them to, and get very abusive if you ask why. I popped my head inside to ask if we could come in and was told that there were three people in so it was fine but the woman in front of me was most indignant, telling me I was putting every one at risk…that’s me told then. Meanwhile, in two other local shops staff and customers are carrying on quite cheerfully. Bizarre,no?
First day of compulsory muzzling here in Spain. You can, however not wear it if you can keep a distance of 2 metres. Took the car in for a service and there were fewer muzzle wearers than I’ve seen in at least a month. At the garage they had to tell numerous people that muzzles were necessary. The mechanic we talked to was wearing a mask stood talking to us like a normal sane human being at a sane normal distance. One other guy walked around happily dealing with customers and without a muzzle. Warmed the cockles.
I cannot understand how supermarket and shop workers are so unregarded in all this. They are at the forefront at what keeps this society going. But we’ve all seen them treated with disdain and even abuse. It makes me ashamed at what sort of a society we’ve become. It’s also more evidence of the deep class divisions in this tragi-comedy.
Ms Pearson was correct in yesterday’s (20 May) Telegraph: British society has gone stark raving mad. And that’s the kindest interpretation that can be put on it.
Well done Biker, and please let your workmates know that not everyone is regardless of what you are all doing.
The universities have an agenda that goes beyond student/staff safety. The university of manchester closed their campus on 17th March. They immediately cancelled a large number of research scholarships, pleaded financial ruin and demanded a government bail out. On what basis? At that point their finances were in the same state as they had been 1 week/month/year previously. Nobody received a fee refund, and huge numbers of staff were furloughed. The decision to suspend face to face teaching from September seems like a strange way to retain student numbers. Learning online isn’t just about logging in to lectures. It means no library facilities and no campus life. This does not equate to the same high standard that they claim justifies no fee reduction for this or the next academic year. I don’t know how they’re getting away with it.
1) Teachers unions should be treated as terrorist organisations and acted against accordingly. Recalcitrant teachers should be fired and barred from teaching again.
2) I’m reaching the point of wishing to see the entire political and media establishment hanging by the neck.
I’m not convinced either of these measures will be sufficient, but the feelgood factor will be a vital boost for national morale.
1) Agree
2) Agree
This may give you a feelgood factor…even if you’re not a Trump supporter, the alternative is pretty scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bm8urk_Ifs
The alternative is creepy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H5NJZMDumY
Jeez…. Saw Eric Garcetti (Mayor of LA) explaining lock down rules in his part of sunny California: You can swim, surf, body-board in the water (sea) . You can run or walk on the beach but not cycle. You can sit on WET sand but not DRY…and we think we’re being lead by jackasses!
It is crazy, would love to hear the reasonings behind those rules. I know some of those if not all of the democratic leaders are just trying to hurt the economy as much as they possibly can. Just to blame it on Trump… It hasnt been a health issue for a long time anymore.
What reasoning do they need? Where people like Boris could be said to have adopted these extreme measures with reluctance, is there a single leftist who hasn’t approached the whole business with relish and an eye on the boundless opportunities to wield power for its own sake?
Yeah, me for a start as I have said maybe a dozen times in this forum on different days.
Haha… fair enough… I’ll presume you naive, rather that evil 😉
You know that’s the first time since I came here on the first day the site was published that someone has made a personal remark and a judgmental one at that. I’ve had very sensible and very civil exchanges with people who hold a different political perspective. I’ve respected them and they’ve reciprocated. Forty five years active engagement in politics does not make me naive. What is naive is thinking that anyone that leans to the left of the political spectrum favours lockdown and the curtailment of liberties. None of my colleagues, who also have the same leanings, support the authoritarian tendencies of a mouthy vocal group. To think we might: now that’s naive.
xxxxx
Dunno what went wrong there. I wanted to say Well said Nigel (speaking as a non leftie)
Nigel, the comment was tongue in cheek – hence the winky emoji – no offense was intended.
Teaching unions in particular are an absolute disgrace. Don’t child abusers have to stay a certain distance fron schools. That’s as close as those people should be to any school. I say the unions, because I know there are lots of teachers who love their pupils and their jobs and would be back tomorrow if they were allowed.
Katherine Birbalsingh always gives me hope, and I have teachers in my own family who are inspirational in their own ways.
None of these would deny the preponderance of pondlife among their profession though.
The chart on the timing of the lockdown vs the peak deaths is excellent. But I had heard that the median time for death is 18 days (see minute 9 of this useful moreorless podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000hn4s). Would be good to hear where the source of the 23 days for the median is.
Thanks for sharing this. The source for 23 days is the early Wuhan paper, but I agree it may be different in the UK for a number of reasons. The thing I don’t this is clear is why London and the UK are so different, when the lockdown date was the same (and if you extend this analysis internationally, there is very little consistency between lockdown date and the date of peak deaths).
Did the government foresee all this damage when they panicked into the lockdown.
Or is coming as a surprise?
I believe they knew this would happen, anyone with half a brain that can think outside of the MSM brainwashing narrative could have foreseen this, the bigger question is why they and other governments have done this?
Everything is happening as they wanted it to. Lockdown was inevitable, even when it was becoming quite apparent how small the threat was. Now big businesses can capitalise, and millions are beholden to the government for handouts, as long as they do as they’re told.
Reported today that 9000 jobs are to be lost at Rolls Royce. Call me an old cynic but in due course I suspect these prestige manufacturing jobs will pop up somewhere ‘off shore’.
I don’t think so. The global economy is on its knees and the aviation industry is in extremely bad shape, I seriously doubt there will be much demand for what Rolls Royce does.
‘Accepted wisdom’ (I don’t know how true it is) says that the luxury sector – Rolls Royces, big yachts, jewels, etc. is always the least affected during bad times.
I think the reason why that’s the accepted wisdom is that their production is small to begin with and they can always rely on a pool of millionaires/billionaires as customers. Of course the reality is as the global economy tanks a lot of these rich will take the hit as well – I used to live in Edinburgh (my father-in-law still does) and since we’ve left there has been a building spree and many of these luxury flats have been snapped up by wealthy foreigners mostly Chinese. I won’t be surprised if there will be a plethora of “for sale” signs outside these flats as these Chinese rush to cash in to either pay their debts or keep their lifestyles and businesses afloat.
I think the most telling point for me was when the news that Neil Ferguson had resigned broke. The next morning Matt Hancock was interviewed on Sky News and asked what he thought about it. All he had to say was “I’m speechless”.
Maybe it’s just me but that’s the response I would expect from somebody thinking “That arsehole got us into this mess, I’ve not even got something remotely nice to say about it”. Secretly I think people are really pissed off that they were taken of course by his modelling.
All just my opinion of course as there’s no way to prove any of it.
That’s a very interesting observation about Matt Hancock. He could have avoided been drawn into the case and yet he roundly condemned him, saying it was a matter for the police.
It would have been easy to use a prepared line about how helpful his expertise has been, but we are disappointed.
I thought at the time that numpty Neil was being set up as the scapegoat for this and the decisions based on his worthless modelling would be reversed. Hancock’s “it’s a matter for the pólice” comment suggested that Ferguson’s role in this disaster was going to be investigated. Silly me.
Everyone who was taken in by Ferguson, given his track record, should be peeled and rolled in salt.
This is what we get for being ruled by a cadre of wankers who did PPE degrees, and spent their formative years thinking they were in Brideshead Revisited.
Not a one of them appreciates that there is no such thing as ‘the science’ and that models are completely worthless until they are validated by real data.
What I would like to know is who was the actual person that hired Ferguson to advise the government. Did they not check his CV and realise his past modelling debacles were as accurate as a 4 year old’s. Maybe he just lied on his CV and just pretended he was epidemiologist.
Apparently Imperial College are the A-Team when it comes to this sort of thing. I’d hate to see the quality of the other teams if that’s the case.
With all that Gates money, they can afford the best PR firms.
The fictional A-Team were on the run from the authorities. Would be nice to see life imitate art…
Just been thinking about something after the daily update: Am I correct in thinking that the R number and therefore number of new infections is now higher in the north than it is in London? It seems to be presumed that this is because London has always been ahead of other parts of the country in terms of the course of the infection ( I think I remember it being stated that London was 2 weeks ahead of other parts). What’s confusing me is that, if this was the case, and as the lockdown was implemented for everyone at the same time, then surely on the day of lockdown London would have significantly more infected people than other parts of the country. If the lockdown was the reason for the drop in infections, as we’re repeatedly told, then wouldn’t the north hit zero new infections first (as I think London have today) simply because they had a lower starting point? As this hasn’t happened wouldn’t that suggest that the course of the infection is dropping after a certain period of time, regardless of lockdown, and that’s why London is so far ahead, because it started there first?? As I’m saying,… Read more »
I think you’re right with your thinking. However the counter argument would be it wasn’t a proper lockdown as there were still millions of people working/moving around. This makes it hard to say for definite that the lockdown had little effect.
Based on the data it would appear that the virus would have declined regardless of actions taken. Some people predicted this and that’s how things panned out. In some ways lockdown may have extended the time the virus hung around for.
I recall seeing MSM news reports of tube trains and buses crammed with people and the fear that this would lead to rampant transmission of the virus. This has not happened as far as i am aware? So another MSM fear porn story?
What you’re saying makes perfect sense to me and I was thinking the same thing the other day. Sadly though it seems rather difficult to discuss any aspect of this situation with a lot of people because they just start accusing you of wanting to murder OAPs, or if they are a little more genteel in their ways you get a sort of “does not compute” reaction – I rarely see or experience any exchange where there’s a real attempt to engage with specific points of logic or approach and make counter arguments. That’s one of the most difficult and dangerous aspects of this madness. What one really wants to see is senior government figures and their advisors and prominent supporters – those responsible for this mess – grilled in a Q&A by sharp-witted, slightly hostile journalists who are well briefed on the subject, or grilled by experts with differing views. Anders Tegnell vs. his UK counterpart, head to head, for an extended period. Or the Swedish PM vs ours. I’ve no idea if the Swedish PM would be much cop, but somewhere there must be a politician with balls who can also speak well and appear intelligent to “intellectuals”… Read more »
Get the president of Tanzania in! And tell him to bring his papaya!
Whether it’s a green papaya or a white papaya, we don’t have time for parliamentary procedure right now.
Baddum tish ! 🙂
What we really needed was someone of the calibre of a certain Mrs. T leading the country, but sadly they do not make them even remotely like her anyomre.
‘you isolate if you want to, the lady’s not for isolating’
Yep now is the time to draw a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel and build a big wall on it.
Your logic seems sound.
The UK gov added loss of smell and taste to the list of symptoms on 18th May that should warn people to self isolate for 7 days being Covid-19 suspect.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/loss-of-smell-and-taste-as-symptoms-of-covid-19-what-does-the-evidence-say/
According to this evidence-based review very strange to incorporate these symptoms just now. The evidence are not strong and furthermore only having these symptoms to self isolate would lead to gross overdiagnosis. Furthermore, both influenza and other resp. viruses could have these symptoms.
The point is that this science led government introduced this measure and only 2 days later an evidence-based investigation from a reputable source have serious doubts about this.
https://www.avogel.co.uk/health/hayfever/can-hayfever-cause-loss-of-taste-and-smell/
Just in time for the grass-pollen season. Keeps the ball rolling, so to say.
As a lifelong sufferer, yes it bloody does!
Everything is a symptom. Makes it easier to attribute deaths to it and get those numbers up.
Also, it’s hay-fever season and anosmia (loss of tasste/smell) is a common symptom of that, too. I wonder why this is being trotted out now….
Very good point! And for some reason it’s especially bad this spring.
It was bad agree. This is the first time I had to take antihistamines my whole life.
The photo I saw accompanying this story showed somebody wearing a face mask trying to smell a rose. I think I could have suggested a diagnosis and a cure.
Loss of smell and taste is your average bog standard symptom for a whole load of illnesses – colds, flu, fever, cough, even hay fever. I get the feeling they’re really scrapping the bottom of the barrel now.
Just the same with suddenly putting a load more people on the self-isolation-for-twelve-weeks list now. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for yet more lockdown justifications.
Waiting to hear about covid related dandruff.
And still they claim that we should have had _more_ lockdown, not less. And yet again, it’s all from modelling, not actual evidence: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/earlier-lockdown-could-have-prevented-three-quarters-uk-coronavirus/
I mentioned before in a post (I think yesterday) that people conflate the need for a lockdown with the result of isolating a virus.
If we start with the simplest case of 1 infected person by isolating that person and it’s job done (assuming no other infections). If you lock down an entire country and isolate that person it’s the same result but you could be mistaken in thinking it was the lockdown that achieved that result.
Early action to isolate a virus makes the biggest difference but it’s not necessarily down to enforcing a lockdown. Case in point compare New Zealand (lockdown) vs South Korea (no lockdown) with basically the same result.
The difference being that that one person won’t cause everyone else to go bankrupt if you only isolate them.
Just had a good day at Blackpool. Some very heartening sights: lots of families and groups playing on the beach and in the water – too cold for my old bones though very few masks and gloves in use, only 2 being worn by very old people in wheelchairs and a few others used as chin warmers so they could speak properly very little concern about social distancing, just people being polite and civillised shopkeepers willing to listen when I said the council forgot 2 words from the social distancing signs – if possible shopkeepers not fussed over enforcing any of the restrictions, it is done by the people themselves, if they remember Police just driving up and down bored not hassling anyone only 1 +/- 25 year old, I’d say university educated reasonably well off professional and his partner getting twitchy in a queue as he did not know what 6 ft looked like and he never had a thought in his head that did not come from social media and he’s the least in danger – numpty very few compared to normal down and outs and drunks about throwing litter everywhere – but give me a choice between… Read more »
Impressive work and well done on keeping up the R number of the truth.
Indeed.
I have taken to talking to people on my daily walks (when I find some) and it’s interesting just how many have become cynical about the never-ending bullshit. Doesn’t take much of a push for some of them to open up.
“Police just driving up and down bored not hassling anyone”
But I don’t think they should be there, anyway. No doubt the police in East Germany didn’t hassle people – most of the time…
You’re right, they didn’t – their informers in homes, families and workplaces did the job for them. They just came in at the end to make the final arrest after the inevitable denunciation.
I’m starting to think this book isn’t about East Germany after all:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stasiland-Stories-Behind-Berlin-Wall/dp/1847083358
From Cambridgeshire,probably, where the police had a snitch site up and running as soon as the lockdown started. Hail to the fenland Stasi.
Good on you my friend.
Popped into the supermarket today for a socially distanced experience . A few ” Karens ” wearing face masks ( what is the male version of Karen called ? )
There were karens back in the flu epidemic of 1968.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9yj72pkPWo
Ken. I like Ken.
Although he sounds a bit too hunky.
Keith. Gotta be Keith.
The only tradesman who came to my house in mask and rubber gloves was called ” Tim ” ….whereas both Scott and Kevin were attired as normal.
Or Ian…?
Darren?
I just call them twats
😂😂😂
Did you not get the memo on gender fluidity? We’re all ‘Karens’ now and must be referred to individually as ‘they’ or ‘them’… 🙂
It’s Derek. Derek and Karen. He plays golf.
BBC just interviewed a ‘fit and healthy’ doctor in his 50s with ‘no health conditions’ who survived his noble battle with The Corona. (What’s betting if we did some digging we’d reveal otherwise, but whatever that’s not my point).
They managed to find the 1 in a million (literally) case and interview him.
What’s stopping them interviewing some of the thousands of cancer patients like the lady mentioned above? What’s stopping them interviewing a parent whose teenage child has committed suicide? (they love a good suicide when someone’s been bullied- but not when they’ve been forcibly imprisoned in their own home apparently)
Shame on the BBC. Shame. 🔔🔔
I’ve recently received a reminder that my tv license expires at the end of this month. I don’t have live tv, I refuse to have my viewing interrupted by strident ads for stuff I neither want nor need, so I just use a firestick and iplayer. I’ve just finished watching the excellent A Word and am about to watch Killing Eve 3. I’ve been so absolutely disgusted with the biased covid news reporting and disappointed with the toothless HIGNFY that I doubt I’ll renew my license this year.
Good decision Cheese. The telly is insidious, and very damaging.
Maybe we all need to stop paying the bbc to lie to us, give auntie a bit of a shoc
I will battle Capita goons on my doorstep with kitchen implements after this. They’ll have to arrest me before I pay the tv licence ever again.
To help get across the anti-lockdown reasoning I’ve started a twitter account that attempts to pull together short messages about the damage the lockdown is causing, and alternative ways of viewing the science.
The idea of “flashcards” is that they can be easily shared with people to help get the message across.
I’m a PhD molecular biologist myself so I understand the majority of the science behind this, and I work in science media now so know how to spot when science is being spun.
If you want to use these flashcards you can find them here: https://twitter.com/covidflashcards
All the best – let’s keep fighting the good fight.
Nick, I suggest you tag other known sceptics when you tweet, Toby, James Delingpole, Peter Hitchens and so on – people with large followings – that way you may get more followers and retweets..
These are superb; well done. Look forward to seeing them out there in the wild.
They are great, but Britain’s zombies are in a state if psychotic panic and wholly impervious to reason.
Fantastic resource. Someone was asking for something like this on here yesterday.
Fantastic!
Nurse who only wore underwear under transparenet PPE gown on male hospital ward in Russia because she was “too hot” is disciplined (but the patients don’t seem too upset!)
Conspiracy version: Russians devise a new way to reduce the pressure on geriatric wards by seeing off some of the old buffers with heart attacks.
Mind you, if she had a similar weight to many of the nurses seen of late on TV, it might have failed.
Lockdown doesn’t work – again:
Peru’s coronavirus response was ‘right on time’ – so why isn’t it working?
The Guardian notes: “In stark contrast to his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro – who has deliberately undermined social distancing and quarantine measures – Peru’s leader strictly adhered to the World Health Organization’s coronavirus recommendations and mobilised the police and army to enforce a stringent quarantine. But more than two months later the country is one of the region’s worst-hit by Covid-19 and has been unable to flatten the curve of infections. Peru now ranks second only to Brazil in Latin America with more than 99,483 cases and a death toll of 2,914 according to official figures on Tuesday. ” You would think the comparison would therefore be worth exploring further, wouldn’t you? I mean otherwise the reader might be left just to assume that Brazil has done much worse than Peru. But no, the Guardian decides not to bother with that kind of nonsense. After all too much information of the wrong kind is bad for plebs. They get all confused and start to get silly ideas that they can decide for themselves about things that should rightly be left to the much cleverer people who run leftist newspapers, for instance. In fact, here are the current stats on the… Read more »
Sweden has double the population of Scotland but only 400 or so more deaths.
And one of the people advising the Scottish Government made it clear on Question Time (Devi Sridhar – 14th May) that Scotland should be aspiring to countries like South Korea and not Sweden. Lo and behold we’re still under stay home restrictions until the infection rate goes down as much as possible.
Devi Sridhar is a snake.
Speak of the Devil: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/20/british-schools-science-children-education-testing-tracing
No mention that Sweden didn’t close their schools. Guess they don’t think there’s anything to be learned from there.
“The lesson from there and other nations with similarly effective regimes is that the UK needs to suppress the virus and ensure that public health infrastructure is ready to detect new infections and identify clusters rapidly.”
So as I said above, this is likely why we’re still under the stay home slogan in Scotland.
Sorry she was talking about Australia in the quoted part.
Now here’s someone who has the right idea – especially about the furlough:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/furlough-generous-transformed-pub-supermarket-instead/
We have a duty to respect and obey the government.
Unless it does something morally WRONG.
Which is what the lock-down is.
Therefore we have a duty to disobey this government.
Let’s get Godwin again- Do these people think the Germans had a duty to obey Hitler?
Yep as per the Nuremberg Principle – I was just following orders is not an acceptable defence.
A duty to respect and obey the government? I reject both of these putative obligations in their entirety.
What’s the source for 23 days median between infection and death? According to the UN the mean incubation period is 5-6 days https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/covid-19-faqs. And according to large surveys in Italy https://www.epicentro.iss.it/en/coronavirus/sars-cov-2-analysis-of-deaths and UK https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042v1 the median time between symptom onset and death is 10 days. That’s 4 days between symptoms and admission and 6 days between admission and death. The death curve can also be seen to lag the admission curve by 6 days.
It puts UK peak infection on 23 March, 16 days before peak deaths on 8 April and the day before lockdown came in.
This paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v1 says, “We estimate the mean duration from onset-of-symptoms to death to be 17.8 days (95% credible interval, crI 16.9,19.2 days)” so you need to add another 5 or so for incubation.
Possibly the shorter times found in that other UK study were because people were turning up with already rather severe symptoms? Especially as rather a lot of them died. I couldn’t see where it said 10 days in there anyway but I probably just wasn’t looking hard enough.
This would put peak UK infections a bit earlier. There’s also a bit of a lag in when deaths get reported although maybe you took that into account.
The Manchester paper (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijcp.13528) puts the peak of reported cases on 8th April. But that will lag actual peak infections by however long it takes to get a PCR test back and for it to get reported.
The Verity report from Wuhan has not been replicated in Italy or UK, for whatever reason, and shouldn’t be relied on for other contexts. The Italy study gives 10 days. The UK study says 4 days from symptoms to admission and 7 day average hospital stay, though that’s for all patients not just deceased. However, the lag between admissions and deaths in New York City is 7 days. With this consistency of data pointing to 15-17 days it’s hard to see how you can apply the Wuhan interval to the UK and other Western countries.
Reported cases is almost useless data, of course, because it depends on number of tests and who’s tested.
The Wuhan data is the source. I can’t access the Italian link you posted but I agree that the time from infection to death in the UK may well be more like 18 days. I think the more interesting point raised by those charts is why it is so different between the UK and London. If the lockdown has caused infections to peak, you would expect the peak in deaths to be at the same time.
Also, if you extend this analysis internationally, there is little correlation between lockdown date and peak deaths. Now, none of this may prove anything – it might just be that the infection > death time varies widely between countries (for example, because Italy was more willing to accept elderly patients into hospitals, prolonging their life) – but it’s an interesting data point which hasn’t had much attention to date.
I don’t know why you can’t access the Italy report. Google ‘Characteristics of COVID-19 patients dying in Italy Report based on available data on May 14th, 2020’ to find it. UK is more like 16 days.
We should use the best, most recent and most relevant data to build the sceptic case and that is the data from Italy and UK not Wuhan.
I agree the lack of any consistent relationship between social distancing and death curves is receiving scandalously little attention given it’s the main verification data for social distancing measures. I have been writing about it, most recently here https://conservativewoman.co.uk/social-distancing-the-case-against/.
I can see the Italy link now – and agree that’s a fair challenge.
I’m not sure I do agree that the peak in London is the same as in the rest of the UK. If you dig into the ONS data in more detail (rather than looking at the absolute peak, which tends to fluctuate), the curve for London looks to be c. 4 days ahead of the rest of the UK, and 2 days ahead of the Midlands. Perhaps 4 days isn’t enough to be statistically significant – or could be explained by something, but it is strange given the lockdown happened simultaneously in each region.
Yes the London curve is flatter at the top and gets to the high level earlier – it’s a slightly different shape making comparisons difficult. The peak used to be 4 April but shifted as more late registrations came in.
Also the peak of deaths in both London and UK is 8 April not 6th and 10th. See https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-20th-may/
Another great document from ‘Architects for social housing’ showing the lack of justification for the lockdown and manipulation of Covid death recording: https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2020/05/01/manufacturing-consensus-the-registering-of-covid-19-deaths-in-the-uk/
Extract from the above-mentioned document: ‘it’s on the basis of this increase of an average of 522 deaths per week this year out of a population of 56 million people in England and Wales that the Government has imposed the lockdown of the entire UK, the suspension of our civil liberties, and the removal of our legislature.’
Uncanny how fit they all look? I’d go for a world like that in a heartbeat: no iPhones, women still taking pride in their appearance, men looking like they mean business. The old boy in the background is even doffing his hat! Bring on the bubble cars!
Down my way the local rag is stirring up trouble with photos of people that have the temerity to go to the beach in 26c weather, Some of the comments are ludicrous. ‘They’re spreading the virus, they’re all going to die etc etc’
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/18462616.brighton-beach-goers-soak-sun-lockdown-ease/
The ignorance is astounding. I enjoyed the numbers piece Toby linked to today. Under 45 healthy person is more likely to be struck by lightning. Brilliant. And yet we still have to queue outside Tesco like sim city NPCs
Near me (Suffolk Coastal) queues seem to have largely disappeared at Tesco – and the atmosphere while shopping and at the tills has become much less tense. Maybe it’s the weather or maybe all the paranoid sheeple don’t come out any more!?
The sheeple stocked up on Monday for their extended minibreak at home good weather lockdown.
Same here in the part of Dublin I live in. Not just Tesco but Iceland and Lidl also. Having said that, I can’t see our Government bringing forward their lockdown lifting schedule.
I have been emailing various ministers regularly on anti-lockdown matters (primarily our Minister for Health and the Taoiseach) -needless to say, they haven’t responded.
Unfortunately for me, I live more than 5km from my family and am WFH so haven’t seen anyone I know in over 2 months at this stage. I am part of the collateral damage of this insane policy.
Around me (south London) there is some serious casual racism crawling out the woodwork. Our local neighbourhood Facebook group (predominantly white, middle class) spends most the day taking photos of black kids and families in the parks and posting them up complaining. It drives me nuts the assumptions people make about other people, and yet they’ll all be the first out there clapping away for the NHS and feeling holier than thou!
“It drives me nuts the assumptions people make about other people”
And yet here you are, making assumptions about other people.
Just sayin’.
‘The World Bank warns 60m more people could be pushed into “extreme poverty”‘ off the front page of the BBC website. I will be using this retort to the lockdown fanatics quoting thier gospel as the source when questioned where I got it from.
Quite – and that is the sort of true poverty that kills. Our Prime Minister (among most other leaders) should be heartily ashamed of this even if they can live with the decimation of our economy and life prospects. Suicide levels are expected to surge now, but I doubt many politicians will take that route.
Heard today that 9000 jobs are to be lost at Rolls Royce. Call me an old cynic but in due course I suspect these prestige manufacturing jobs will pop up somewhere ‘off shore’.
I think that I remember a time when 9000 job losses at RR would be the headline of every national newspaper
Probably somewhere which doesn’t have 2m of social distancing!!!
Today, in the dictatorship of Scotland, hundreds of families defied Sturgeon to go for a stroll on Portobello promenade. Needless to say, Plod turned up to “offer advice” but only because, it seems, some local bigwig snitched on them. Disappointingly, Ruth Davidson MSP supported Plod rather than her constituents. Despite that, I’m pleased to r3port that Plod’s intervention had little effect.