Lockdown Sceptics
Mumsnet Survey – Quarter of Parents are Bedwetters
Mumsnet published a survey today asking parents how satisfied they were with the arrangement schools put in place to re-admit some children in July. It contains this horrifying finding:
Among parents whose child was offered the opportunity to spend some time in school before the summer holidays, 23% say they did not take up the offer. The top reasons included:
* concern that their child might transmit COVID-19 to family members (48%);
* confidence that homeschooling was working well (39%);
* concern that their child might catch COVID-19 and become ill (38%); and
* worries about the local or regional infection rate (32%).
I don’t suppose I need remind readers that there isn’t a single documented case, anywhere in the world, of a child passing on the virus to an adult and the risk of a child under the age of 15 dying from COVID-19 is lower than the risk of them dying from a lightning strike.
PCR Test
A reader with a background in infectious diseases has emailed me in answer to the question I posed yesterday about the reliability of the PCR test. This won’t surprise anyone.
Your reader’s comments on the PCR test are interesting. It’s worth noting that the test have been in existence for decades but has never been fully tested for efficacy. The manual issued by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US actually states the following at the very start of the document: “Results are for the identification of 2019-nCoV RNA. The 2019-nCoV RNA is generally detectable in upper and lower respiratory specimens during infection. Positive results are indicative of active infection with 2019-nCoV but do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease. Laboratories within the United States and its territories are required to report all positive results to the appropriate public health authorities.”
So it was acknowledged not to be virus-specific reliable but nevertheless made positive PCR results notifiable. Brilliant stroke.
Meanwhile, the reader who posed the original question has followed up with a few more:
There are two other aspects of Government testing I find confusing and misleading
When working with biological and biochemical test data, it is important to understand what the test is measuring. There is a general perception, endorsed by the media and Government spokespeople, that the RT-PCR test detects the presence of the virus in swabs. It does no such thing. It detects a segment of one component of the virus, namely the RNA molecule contained within the virus capsule. The segment detected could have arisen from an intact viable virus particle, from a non-viable virus particle or from residual material or debris from virus particles destroyed or degraded by the host’s immune response.
Where the donor has symptoms and their swabs produce a positive result it is reasonable to conclude that they are probably infected with the virus. On the other hand, where the donor experiences no symptoms at the time of sampling nor within the next few days, most likely a positive test result would be derived from debris of degraded virus particles, in which case the donor would neither be infected nor infectious. This latter point neatly explains how donors can test positive but be asymptomatic: they would have been infected in the days before testing with symptoms unnoticed or inconsequential and which infection their immune system effectively fought off.
Of course, all testing to date assumes that we know what the pathogen causing COVID-19 is. Many years ago, Koch proposed criteria for establishing the causative agent of infectious diseases and these have been adapted to encompass viral diseases. Essentially, they require that the virus be isolated and purified, that it is shown to replicate in relevant host cells and that it demonstrates the symptoms of the disease when dosed to an appropriate animal. In January, RNA from a supposed virus was sequenced, shown to be related to the Sars virus and named SARS-CoV-2. Perhaps your readers may know to what extent the criteria have established that SARS-Cov-2 is the causative pathogen of COVID-19. In particular, I am not aware that any virus has been shown to induce the same symptoms and disease progression in animals.
Back in December and January, when COVID-19 was new and spreading rapidly, assumptions had to be made and shortcuts taken. There was no time to do the basic studies in logical order. We are now 8-9 months into the disease and there has been time to do these studies. Until they are done, we have to take it on faith we are testing for the right causative agent.
Simon Dolan Appeal to be Heard
Good news on the legal front. Simon Dolan’s has been given permission to appeal the High Court’s verdict on his Judicial Review. Here’s what it says on his CrowdJustice page:
Our challenge against the UK Government lockdown will continue to be heard after the Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that the case highlighted ‘fundamental’ concerns over the accountability of Government Ministers.
The Judicial Review will now proceed to a rolled-up hearing expected to be held at the Court of Appeal during the week commencing the 28th September after a ruling was handed down by Lord Justice Hickinbottom.
The hearing will decide on whether the case should progress to a full Appeal which would see the Government once again pressed to defend the introduction of measures which were described by the court as “possibly the most restrictive regime on the public life of persons and businesses ever”.
Lord Justice Hickinbottom said that the legal challenge “potentially raises fundamental issues concerning the proper spheres for democratically-accountable Ministers of the Government and judges”.
Owing to Government restrictions, our first hearing was held virtually. However, Lord Justice Hickinbottom ordered in his review that the case should be “considered by the full court in open court, and the Applicants given any opportunity to make good their case at least on arguability”.
You Think Trying to See a GP is Bad? Try a Dentist!
I got an email from a reader who has been left feeling disheartened after making a dental appointment.
Today I took a call from my dentist about an imminent check-up and filling. Previously I have never had any qualms about going to the dentist but I now confess to twinges of apprehension…
It is not hyperbole to say I felt as though I was being prepared to face an Ebola outbreak or a nuclear leak. First of all I was given an over-the-phone medical. The whole emphasis was on danger: the risk I posed to them and the risk they posed to me and what was being done to mitigate it. I started off getting irritated but by the end of the call I was grinning. Sometimes that’s all the you can do.
In summary: I cannot enter the surgery as it will be locked. I must wait in my car or stay a minimum of 2 meters from the front entrance until called on my mobile. A minimum of two metres? When I’m out on the street? That is beyond ridicule so I won’t even try. On entering I will immediately have my hands sanitised and can bring neither people nor possessions in with me. I will then have a face nappy applied, something which I have successfully avoided until now. I explained that I cannot wear one and have a lanyard. They were clear – no mask, no entry, Again, the emphasis was on the danger I posed to them. Should I have a coughing fit I could endanger the staff, all of whom appear to be my age or younger.
I was advised that my mask would be removed for the actual check-up and work, which was reassuring.
Finally, I was told to use the loo before I left home as the toilet is for staff only. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but it’s a one-and-three-quarter-hour drive for me, time for the treatment, and a one-and-three-quarter-hour drive home. I did say this may be difficult if I was caught short. I was advised that if I absolutely needed it then they would comply – but – their rules state that if I do then no one else may use if for a period of one hour (huh?) and it would then need to be “deep cleaned” (double huh??). So, no pressure then. I’ve no idea what they felt I might do in there but I suddenly felt very grubby. I have decided to change my usual breakfast routine and will instead have some toast and no liquids at all. I can’t put those good people through that.
COVID-19 as a Workplace Hazard (Part 3)
I’ve published the third articl in a series for Lockdown Sceptics written by a senior occupational health therapist about the difficulties the Government and its agencies are creating for businesses that want to re-open, this one pointing out that older workers may not be allowed to return to work when the economy grinds back to life. He sets out the problem in the opening few paragraphs:
Employers are seeking to return staff from shielding, but can only do this where they can demonstrate that the role is “Covid-secure”. Some employers are requesting their occupational health providers assess staff and advise of their “Covid-age”. Covid-age is a scheme that has been developed by occupational health doctors to stratify employees based on their risk of experiencing severe illness or death as a result of COVID-19.
You’re supposed to start with the person’s actual age and then add additional years for various reasons, e.g. high BMI, ethnicity, gender, medical conditions. This then results in the individual’s Covid-age. There is then a ‘traffic light system‘ that applies to you depending on your Covid-age – green, yellow, orange, red
It is immediately apparent that the higher your age, the more likely you are to fall into a higher risk category.
Don’t imagine that if you’re prepared to take the risk – or even sign a waiver, absolving your employer of any legal liability should you die of COVID-19 – it will make any difference. That doesn’t apply to normal workplace hazards – employers cannot escape liability that way – and it won’t apply to Covid.
I have no doubt that employers will err on the side of caution and prevent employees with a high Covid-age back to the workplace. Doesn’t matter how prepared the employee is to take the risk. As long as COVID-19 is regarded as a workplace hazard in the conventional sense, employers will not be able to take the employee’s own view into account. This will lead to individuals who are quite prepared to risk catching Covid losing their employment on medical capability grounds.
As usual, the Government appears to be aware that it has dug itself into a god almighty hole, but hasn’t a clue how to get out of it and the measures it’s taking to “restart” the economy will inevitably make things worse.
All three “workplace hazard” articles are in the right-hand menu under “What is the Exit Strategy?” This one is worth reading in full.
Beware the Bedwetters – They Can Now Demolish Your House
There was an extraordinary story in the Telegraph yesterday. The Prime Minister has given a broad range of powers to local authorities to contain outbreaks, including getting a magistrate to order the demolition of your home!
Councils will be able to draw on six separate Acts of Parliament to impose lightning closures of public buildings, order mass testing, ban events or shut down whole sectors of the economy.
They will also be able to limit school openings to set year groups and restrict travel to key workers only.
The power to demolish buildings, however, is perhaps the most striking inclusion in the Government’s Covid-19 Contain Framework.
The document, published by the Department of Health and Social Care, advises councils that, under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, they can apply to a magistrate “to impose restrictions or requirements to close contaminated premises; close public spaces in the area of the local authority; detain a conveyance or movable structure; disinfect or decontaminate premises; or order that a building, conveyance or structure be destroyed”.
It raises the possibility that care homes, factories, offices or even private homes could be bulldozed as a last resort if the virus starts to run out of control, although such measures have not been considered necessary during the outbreak.
Downing Street regards local or regional lockdowns as the way forward in containing coronavirus.
Given that the UK Government is unable to properly interpret the data about the prevalence of infections, what hope is there that Town Hall Sir Humphries will get it right?
When will this madness end?
Has Any Country Developed an Effective Covid Tracing App?
Lockdown Sceptic‘s Covid tracing app correspondent – an experienced techie – has been in touch to point out that the apps don’t appear to be working anywhere. It’s not just our app that’s practically useless – they all are. Here’s his round-up.
When pressed over the lack of a UK contract tracing app at PMQs, Boris claimed that no country has a working coronavirus app. What about Germany with 12m downloads, replied Sir Keir Starmer, brilliantly skewering him over his bizarre claim, said the Independent.
Germany and many other countries do have some software you can put on your phone. Indeed, there are so many of them that MIT Technology Review has a Covid Tracing Tracker currently listing 46 of them. But do they work, as in stop the spread of corona virus, and would they be legal or socially acceptable in the UK? How many people have to download the app for them to be effective? An Oxford University study claimed that such apps would have an effect at all levels of uptake, not just the widely reported 60%. That’s what the modellers say, so what happened in practice and was Boris or Keir correct?
Singapore’s TraceTogether was the first major Bluetooth-based app, downloaded by 2.1m Singaporeans or 35% of the population. Unfortunately, that didn’t include the migrant workers living in dorms who account for the majority of Singapore’s 44,000 infections. The Government admitted its tech wasn’t ideal because the phone has to be unlocked with the app running in the foreground for it to work, a problem that other countries releasing apps later should have heeded. The app also drained the phone’s battery, so people removed it. The Singaporean Government is now pinning its hopes – and a whopping $73m – on a wearable device instead.
Australia was quick off the mark in April with its Covidsafe app. It only detected 1 in 4 encounters during testing, with phones having to be unlocked and running the app in the foreground, but that didn’t stop Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt, promising Australians in lockdown: “It will help us as we seek to return to normal and the Australian way of life.” He reckoned 40% of Australians needed to be using it for it to be effective. Three months later, only 24% of Australians had downloaded it. Was it helping return Australia to normal life? ABC reported its impact was hard to measure. In Victoria, authorities have yet to point to a single COVID-19 exposure that was not picked up by manual contact tracing. In New South Wales, there’s only a single instance of a person being contacted using app data. Was it worth the $2.75M?
Germany’s app was built by the software giant SAP and Deutsche Telekom, and launched in mid-June along with a massive advertising campaign involving leading DAX companies and the German Football Association, the DFB, according to the Guardian. Helge Braun, the head of Angela Merkel’s office, said downloading the app amounted to “one small step for us, but a giant step in our fight against the pandemic”. That resulted in 6.5m downloads on the first day alone. One month later, the Government was boasting 16.2m downloads, 20% of Germany’s 83 million population. Because of the decentralised, privacy-respecting nature of the tech, we don’t know how many people were alerted by the German app. Well that’s the theory, anyway. In practice, we know that by July 20th a grand total of 660 Germans had been alerted by their app. Perhaps something to do with it not working unless –you guessed it – the phone is unlocked and the app is running in the foreground? Small step or giant leap? It was certainly a giant bill: €20M. And they open sourced it, so if you want €20M of software for free you can download it here.
In Ireland their bill was only €850k and 1.4m people – 28% of the population – downloaded it, 91 of whom received an exposure alert. What about France? It was launched in June, with the digital affairs minister Cédric O proclaiming: “From the first downloads the app helps avoid contamination, illness and so deaths.” Two million people were moved by that appeal to download le app. The headline on the MIT Technology Review article about it sums up what happened next: “Eight million people, 14 alerts: Why some COVID-19 apps are staying silent.”
Are there any apps that work? It seems unlikely given that the underlying physics of radio signal propagation does not work as the technocrats think it does. As I pointed out in Lockdown Sceptics back in June, Trinity College Dublin researchers found that signal strength could not be relied on outside of the lab as a proxy for proximity. China has a different approach, which may work, but given that it depends on handing over so much personal data, such as all your bank transactions, it would not be legal or even socially acceptable outside of China. And of course there is no sign of the Chinese app being withdrawn now the infection has passed, reports the New York Times.
So it appears that Boris was right snd Oxford’s modellers were wrong. No country has a working corona tracing app. Lockdowns don’t work and neither do the apps. Does that make Boris sceptic of the week?
Dr David Nabarro, Special Envoy to the WHO on COVID-19 and Lockdown Sceptic
Dr David Nabarro, a Special Envoy to the WHO on COVID-19, gave an interview to Mark Dolan on TalkRadio yesterday in which he made some sceptical noises.
“I don’t think that British society can tolerate more lockdowns and economic deprivation,” he said. “I think it’s wrong for children not to be going to school. What are we able to do as a society in order to push this virus back and get on with our lives?”
The interview begins at the 21 minute mark.
Government Refuses to Disclose When Mask Diktat Will be Reviewed and Admits Evidence is Weak
Sir Graham Brady, the Chair of the 1922 Committee, submitted a written Parliamentary Question asking the following on July 17th:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the efficacy of routinely available, non-clinical face masks in preventing aerosol spread of viruses.
The answer he received – which only arrived today – is unintentionally hilarious:
In June 2020 Public Health England conducted a rapid evidence review on the efficacy of different types of face coverings designed for use in community settings, and the effectiveness of face coverings to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV2 in the community.
The review found evidence from eight laboratory studies that materials commonly used in non-medical masks such as cotton and polyester may block droplets with a filtering efficiency similar to medical masks when folded in two or three layers. This evidence was limited by variations in materials, study design and testing methods, and judged to be weak.
The review identified evidence from epidemiological and modelling studies that mask wearing in the community may contribute to reducing the spread of COVID-19, but again the evidence was limited by study design and quality.
‘Face coverings in the community and COVID-19: a rapid review’ is available to view at the following link.
So the evidence that routinely available, non-clinical face masks are effective at preventing aerosol spread of viruses is… “weak” and “limited”. Shock!
Why the insistence that we wear them, then?
He also submitted another question on July 17th, quite reasonably asking when this absurd, un-evidenced policy will be reviewed:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the criteria according to which the legal requirement to wear face masks in retail settings will be ended; and how frequently a review of that policy will take place.
He got the following response, again not received until today:
As of Friday July 24th, members of the public must wear a face covering when visiting a shop or supermarket in England.
In addition, the Government is running a major proactive communications campaign on face coverings to alert the public where they are now required to wear face coverings and educate the public on how to correctly wear one.
The Government will keep the regulations under review and will continue assessing if measures need to be put in place for other settings going forward.
So a Conservative MP had to wait three weeks to receive a non-answer to his question.
If the Chair of the most influential backbench committee in the Conservative party cannot hold the Government to account, what hope do the rest of us have?
The Insanity of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020
A reader who runs a small business has flagged up something that passed me by, but which sounds deeply alarming.
Are you aware of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 which was sneaked into law on June 30th?
This bit of legislation effectively does, amongst other things, the following:
* Shuts down the ability for small businesses to serve statutory demands for non-payment of invoices.
* Absolves every director of any company operating in this country of responsibility for their actions between March 1st and September 30th. Meaning the usual claw-back under the wrongful trading laws and fraud is suspended.
* Creates an impossible situation where Coronavirus can be blamed for anything and everything – regardless of truth.
* Compels small companies to continue supplying non-paying companies with good and services.There’s been nothing about this in the press at all – which is a surprise to me as it effectively means any commercial contract entered into this year is void. This has been confirmed to me by a solicitor – who told me that it is so badly drafted that it could cover anything.
I run a small design business in London which has been effectively destroyed by this lockdown. As you would expect, nobody is paying any invoices, and we are now owed £60,000+ with no prospect of ever getting it back. We will be closing our company and losing our livelihoods because of this.
We’ve received essentially zero help from the government. All that is on offer is a vague promise of a grant for between £1000 to £5000 – which nobody can seem to tell me how to apply for.
This all means that it’s impossible to run a small business in this country as contract law has been effectively suspended – the larger zombie company will always win by default, as it is so expensive and risky to take them to court now – which no-doubt is the intention…
I’d appreciate it if you could raise a bit of awareness of this – as I’m sure there a lot of people who will be negatively affected.
Irish Health Authorities May Be Over-Counting Covid Deaths by 60%
A report was published last month by the Health Information and Quality Authority, a statutory, government-funded agency in Ireland which monitors the safety and quality of the healthcare and social care systems, drawing attention to possible errors in the Covid death count in the Emerald Isle. Here’s the killer bullet point:
The officially reported COVID-19 deaths may overestimate the true burden of excess mortality specifically caused by COVID-19. This may be due to the likely inclusion within official COVID-19 figures of people who were known to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) at the time of death who were at or close to end-of–life independently of COVID-19 or whose cause of death may have been predominantly due to other factors.
How long before our own authorities admit the same error? (Hat tip to InProportion2 for flagging this up on Twitter.)
Dispatch From the Melbourne Gulag
The Lockdown Sceptic reader who penned the “Postcard From Melbourne” I published last week has added a P.S. following the imposition of an even more draconian lockdown by Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews, known to disgruntled locals as Kim Jong Dan. Here’s an extract:
A beautiful winter Sunday afternoon was ruined by our hapless (or is that hopeless?) state Premier announcing in his gravest tones that Lockdown 2.0 and mandatory face nappies just aren’t doing the trick. We are all being very naughty and not doing as we’re told and so the ‘State of Emergency’ is being upgraded to a ‘State of Disaster’. This involves a near total shutdown of non-essential businesses, an 8pm-5am curfew, no travel further than 5km from your home and you’re only allowed out for one hour of exercise per day. Schools are closed, weddings banned and numbers at funerals are limited. Welcome to Lockdown 3.0.
Within minutes of the announcement, queues were forming outside supermarkets and by the end of the day the shelves had been stripped of fruit, veg and fresh meat by panic buying locusts. They obviously stopped listening to Kim Jong Dan’s doom-mongering before he got to the bit where he said supermarkets would remain open.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- ‘Is the UK in a better position than we think?‘ – Surprisingly robust piece by Nick Triggle, one of the BBC’s Health Correspondents. Repeats the point I’ve made that the ONS data apparently showing infections are on the rise is based on just 24 people testing positive in the past fortnight
- ‘Close pubs before schools if infections rise, ministers told‘ – The Children’s Commissioner for England Anne Longfield has urged the Government to close pubs rather than delay re-opening schools
- ‘How universities shut out conservative academics‘ – Good piece in UnHerd by Matthew Goodwin about Monday’s Policy Exchange report
- ‘Local lockdown in Aberdeen as Covid cluster grows‘ – Pubs are being closed in Aberdeen thanks to a single cluster of cases being detected among customers of a pub called the Hawthorn
- ‘Doctors criticise “barmy” rules forcing them to treat patients who refuse to wear face masks‘ – Good news – bedwetting GPs can’t refuse to treat patients who refuse to wear face nappies
- ‘Up to 1,500 jobs to go at WHSmith over ‘slow’ lockdown recovery‘ – Another high street staple is in the toilet
- ‘Petition launched as frustration grows over decision to close Bradford’s gyms‘ – Frustration is growing in Bradford over the shutdown of gyms following the imposition of a local lockdown. Energy Mill Gym in Shipley is refusing to comply with the new edict. Congrats to them
- ‘How dare politicians scapegoat the young for their lockdown failings‘ – Good piece by the young Madeline Grant in the Telegraph
- ‘Shutdowns hit the big picture at Disney‘ – The US giant, which has a market value of $212 billion, made a third-quarter loss of $4.7 billion, compared with a profit of $1.4 billion in the same period last year
- ‘Cornish beaches as busy as bank holiday every day‘ – Excellent!
- ‘Sex BAN for Northern couples who aren’t in a “bubble”‘ – Something tells me those “Red Wall” seats may not all return Tory MPs at the next General Election
- ‘Risk of severe COVID-19 disease with ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers: cohort study including 8.3 million people‘ – New paper in the BMJ shows heavy smoking can… save your life. Here’s the killer finding: “We observed a markedly decreased risk of both COVID-19 disease and ICU admission in smokers. The apparent protective association was greatest for heavy and moderate smokers and most markedly on the risk of ICU admission which was 88% lower in heavy smokers compared with non-smokers.”
- ‘Misleading media coverage of Sweden’s response to COVID-19‘ – Excellent comment in the BMJ pointing out how much about Sweden the public health panjandrums get wrong
- ‘Why Covid hasn’t been Boris’s Black Wednesday‘ – Good piece by Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator
- ‘Will reopening schools really cause a second spike?‘ – Ross Clark in the Spectator asks a question to which the answer is clearly no
Theme Tune Suggestions by Readers
Just one today: “You Got it All Wrong” by the Hives.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A couple of months ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have re-opened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you.
Now that non-essential shops have re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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 – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Forums Back Up and Running
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those papers and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open. Initially, they became a spam magnet so we temporarily closed them. However, we’ve found a team of people wiling to serve as moderators so the Forums are back up and running. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I thought I’d create a new permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Sept 8th to 19th). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from eBay here and an “exempt” card that looks like as if it’s been issued by the NHS for just £2.79 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
Meanwhile, there is a land, far away, where the mask-wearing lunatics haven’t yet taken over the asylum. It’s called Holland. More here.
Stop Press: No, wait. From 9am this morning face nappies have been made mandatory in parts of Amsterdam.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. If you feel like donating, however small the sum, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
The weekly London Calling podcast that I do with James Delingpole is a day late this week because when we recorded it on Monday I forgot to press the record button! Needless to say, it was the best one we’ve ever done. Anyway, we re-recorded it yesterday and you can listen to it here. Quite a lot of the discussion is devoted to asking whether we should formally apologise for so enthusiastically backing Boris. I imagine a scene in which I’m standing outside the Pearly Gates, pleading for admission, and God says to me: “Well, you helped set up four schools, you founded the Free Speech Union, you’re devoted husband and loving father, you give money to beggars, you’ve done a certain amount for charity… but you did write this 5,000 panegyric about Boris Johnson. Sorry, that’s a dealbreaker. Down you go.”
You can listen to it here. And if you enjoy it, please do subscribe.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-close-pubs-before-schools-if-infections-rise-ministers-told-5dnncnpkw
Close pubs before schools if infections rise, ministers told
One of the comments!
Touche!
And presumably nobody who goes to the pub has children…
This is driven by absurd modelling of R which literally cannot be accurate. Its assumptions and nothing more, and others a wide range of assumptions that could be used. Most would show the opposite.
Who told them?
There’s a puritan thing going on here. Some people are appalled in principle that pubs are open before schools, because in their fevered imaginations that means that the country values getting drunk over the education of children. No it doesn’t. It just means that at one time there was a slight amount of rationality in the government’s response, even after the lockdown was implemented, and there was an idea of an inevitable progression out of lockdown and back to some attempt to re-start the economy, restore people’s freedoms and make life worth living again. That has now been snuffed out.
There was some Scottish (might have been Irish) woman on TV the other day saying that keeping schools shut reduces transmission because it stops people from doing other things such as going to work.
That’s some really twisted thinking right there.
There is a place for her in the government.
I’ve just finished watching UK Column’s latest broadcast.
It has worrying info that everyone needs to be aware of.
Please watch it when you can: https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-5th-august-2020
Definitely sobering stuff. But a great call to action at the end – time for citizen journalism to come into its own.
About johnson giving all those powers to local authorities (hoping to avoid blame in the long run).
Those powers will not be exercised by our local councillors but by the paid officials, self important Directors of Directorates who had an early practice run in closing roads to implement long laid plans for cycle lanes, all in the name of Social Distancing.
That will be just the start of their unaccountable common purpose control freakery.
I had conviced myself there would be a postcard from Latvia today – my crystal ball’s going in the bin!
I hope you did not lose too much at the bookies 😉
I have a Facebook contact in Latvia, Inga. Now I have all her friends, contacts, etc. I decided to let them all jump aboard. Some only communicate in Latvian and German, among other languages.
There was a Postcard from Latvia earlier, it was the only item under 2020/08/05 before all this appeared above, it’s now disappeared. Toby, what happened?
Glad I can get onto this page again. Don`t know what was going on there.
I had a problem too. Did you get a message saying this website was pretending to be Lockdown Sceptics ?
Yes, I had something like that a couple of hours ago. Maybe enemy agents from HMG are hacking into the site.
No I had a security issue message. Strange.
just a technical problem. .your browser always checks the website’s security certificate and if it detects any problems it initially will block the site with the error message as default. This can be due to various reasons (including for examplesystem clocks being out of alignment) but usually it is the certificate being out of date. All it needed was the host to update their certificate which they did.
I had a message saying my clock was out of alignment, but it wasn’t.
Me too. I had two clocks going and they both had the right time and date.
Hi all
Sorry to keep asking…
I’ve been taking in your advice and the general theme I think is that we don’t want a name that preaches or puts people off with words like free, fight, wake etc. It’s the unaware masses we’re after not ourselves.
I have two final (?) (I hope – as time is passing) names I’d like your opinions on. I’ll put them below and you can click up or down for them and/or comment.
Thanks
LT
“How Many Are We?”
Has me imagining people who are bewildered/don’t know what’s going on, or how to address it. I’ve missed much of what’s been discussed on here. Was ‘No new normal’ thrown out?
‘Back to the future’?
How about We Are Many. That is a positive statement that your know you have strength that has been artificially disabled by malevolent means. It references The Mask of Anarchy by Shelley, which everyone ought to read again, especially this part:
‘Men of England, heirs of Glory
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother.
Hopes of her, and one another;
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.
“We Have Questions”
How about ?
What??
A question mark ? and nothing else.
That’s my logo
How about The Prisoner episode titled ‘The General’? It was about re-educating people. Number 6 slotted a question into the computer and it blew up. Remember the question?
Sorry I have not been following this and this is probably not that helpful a suggestion, but what about appealing to people’s desire to get back to normal and enjoy life again, and emphasising there is good news about the virus, that things are not as bad as people think?
That’s the whole point! 🙂
“Back to Normal !” ?
I think that sums it up quite well
It’s over?
It’s over before it began?
Life is for living!
That won’t happen without a very hard fight. No use pretending otherwise, the government and its controllers are out to skewer us all.
You really can’t be subtle with these fucking morons…. even if you spell it out with crayon and rainbows, they still don’t understand. You will never win them over with logic or kindness, because they are the culture of attacking and shaming. You can only beat them at their own game. Shame the fuck out of them. Treat them like worms and slaves – they clearly like it! Abuse them more than the government abuses them, and then they’ll probably come crawling like the dogs they are. (That’s totally unfair of me, dogs are lovely). Make them feel like the pieces of shit they are. I am so tired of people making excuses for these intellectually lazy bed wetters.
That’s about it. There is a hard slog ahead, if we are going to stop this governmental genocide.
Hashtag #WDL2 as in (I) won’t do lockdown 2
https://www.facebook.com/clare.wills1/videos/10217947324690408/
is this true
Unfortunately it’s definitely true. NoGP visits, banned from hospital and care homes starving our elderly relatives to death. If we really cared we’d rise up and put a stop to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npfi0UZL2ow
Yep, I wept like a child when I watched it yesterday.
Why would care homes do this? They need full beds, not empty beds, as that’s their only source of income.
Plenty more victims available. There’s always a waiting list.
This crime calls for blood. Righteous vengeance.
Anybody sent a the above link to so-called called Age Concern?
From what I’ve heard direct from family who work for the NHS (and in the overseas equivalent) and care homes and anecdotal from family of friends and other medical staff I’ve spoken to over the months it’s 100% true.
I drove to pick up a Tesco C+C today and waited in the car while my wife popped into Boots. I was horrified to see the amount of children masked up outside of shops. All sorts from ages 3-15, some with parents masked up some without. I’m just so angry to think of the damage being caused.
It`s awful. It should be classed as child abuse.
Not by thicko Boris and his bunch of toe rags.
I’ve seen a huge increase in the numbers of young children wearing masks in the past couple of days,the youngest being a little girl of about 3 years old in a pushchair,it really makes me angry,I think it proves that most people are so open minded their brains have fallen out.
I dread to think how many serious bronchial cases there will be this winter.
That’s the idea …..
That’s just what the government wants, all down to Covid-19, of course.
Unfortunately, they are likely stunting the mental development of their kids.
With parents like those, they probably don’t have much mental to develop.
It’s virtue signalling.
Just as female circumcision is virtue signalling in certain communities.
I’ve been appalled at the photos of my nieces aged 5 and 3 both wearing muzzles but it seems like that’s the law where they are. Regardless its cruel and its depressing to see their lives seemingly slip away with no opportunities to go out and play with friends and even school is done via a computer screen.
The worst I saw was 2 year old in a buggy wearing a mask. To compound the child abuse, the dad who was also masked just gave her his mobile phone to keep her quiet rather than to talk and engage the old fashioned way.
I shudder to think what will happen to my nieces, that kid and actually all the children now when they grow up. They have been betrayed and screwed by their elders.
Yes, it is deeply disturbing to see this. I have got myself into a discussion on Facebook about this. Parents are saying things like their kids are choosing to wear masks and that it ‘makes them feel safe’. Utter madness!
Brainwashing the children. A crime against Humanity!
I can believe that. I tend to think that for some children and parents wearing a mask has somehow become trendy. I bet some children pester their parents to let them have one.
I had one woman tell me her nieces liked wearing masks as it made them feel grown up, offs.
I bet those parents took pics of them two, then in 15 years they can boast about how much woke they all were…
Fiction: Businesses don’t have a choice about imposing social distancing and other Coronavirus measures. Law: Subject to consideration of health and safety risk assessments as mentioned below, businesses can choose to impose some, all possible or no social distancing measures at all. They can offer dual service provision, directing those worried about Coronavirus to the left and those who are not to the right. They can charge higher prices to consumers who want social distancing and other Coronavirus ‘safety’ measures. They can offer lower prices and ‘fast passes’ and no queues for those who do not. This is the common law position in England and Wales. It remains the law in England for the moment and unenforceable guidance won’t change that. H&S risk assessments The government and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) repeatedly emphasis that it is for individual businesses to assess risks danger in their business. The HSE Coronavirus risk assessment is purely about risk of transmission of the Coronavirus. It does not address the fundamental issue of danger. Risk of transmission of a common cold or flu virus may be high, but the risk of significant danger to the staff is extremely small. It is open for a… Read more »
They did this in our local Frankie & Benny’s last week with regard to choice over service. It worked well, it pleasingly also resulted in our party finding out the waitress was something of a sceptic.
It’s great not to be treated like a Leper!
Could this be why johnson abandoned his 50+ ban ?
Sounds like employers could do it for him if their assessment finds older staff are in more ‘danger’ from the Covid than younger. (Would also give them the chance to turf out old codgers).
Today I had a thought about ‘postcard from suburbia’. Yes there are the bed welters here…yes some people walk 10 meters away because the can’t count to two but also the school summer clubs are full, the tennis camp is full, the swim club has restarted with the majority of the kids returning. When school (eventually) opened for my year 1 child 75% of kids were there day 1. By the end it was 90%. So don’t believe mumsnet. Those parents who are busy never look at it anyway. We certainly wouldn’t go their for news or advice. I wish I could think the same of teachers and teachers unions
The Northern Lights of Aberdeen are what I long to see; The Northern Lights of Aberdeen, that’s where I long to be. I’ve been a wand’rer all of my life and many a sight I’ve seen. God speed the day when I’m on my way to my home in Aberdeen. Maybe not at the moment! So Nicola S has had her way and put Aberdeen on the naughty step. One has to ask why, what are they trying to achieve? Are they going for total eradication of the virus? this would be arrogant deluded nonsense and would cost us very dear. Are they looking to contain the virus at a level we can live with? in which case what is the policy, what is the situation we can live with, what does successful containment look like? Or is this all posturing; If you can put parts of England on the naughty step I can do the same in Scotland. I did used to have to do management appraisals (terrible job) but none of the UK administrations would do very well if they came up for appraisal with me. No clear objectives no proper and effective project management. Every indication of… Read more »
They know there’s no virus left, so it’s all posturing and fearmongering – ie control.
A strongly pro-union area isn’t it?
Is that the problem? Clearly an example being set.
Point 3 was my first thought. Sturgeon has gone out of her way to be seen to be applying more stringent restrictions than Westminster. Given the local lockdowns south of the border, this was probably only a matter of time.
Covid is on its summer holidays but they don’t want to let us out of Lockdown mode.
Covid is always on holiday.
Some progress: The Daily Mail’s main headline, reported on the BBC website, was that more people have died as a result of lockdown from other diseases (or something like that – it’s vanished now!) The BBC’s news page reported that the UK death rate from Covid isn’t as high as was thought, followed by a summary of Oxford CEBM’s recent reports. Also, see the latest from Oxford CEBM, which gives a breakdown of deaths by age group for week ending 27 July, plus the number of people in each age group corresponding to one death, which is very useful for those of you who want to show people how unlikely it is that they will die from Covid presently. For example: in the age group 45-64, 10 people died in that week, meaning there was approx one death per 1.5 million people in that age group. There are 22.4 million people aged 15-44 in the UK, and there were 3 deaths from Covid in that week, roughly giving a one in 7.5 million chance of dying. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/ons-registered-deaths-in-england-and-wales-week-ending-27th-july/ I’ve found some stats with which to compare the Covid risk: Drowning in the bath: 1 death per 685,000 people Dying in a… Read more »
Zombies are surely the likeliest to die falling out of bed.
Or stifling underneath it?
I enjoyed reading the Postcard from Lativa. The Nordics and Baltics seem very inviting compared to this rotten quagmire.
seems we were the few lucky ones
From 9AM today face masks have become mandatory in parts of Amsterdam To see which parts please have a look at the map in this page: https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/coronavirus/more-about-face-masks-mandatory-parts/ That page shows the official map published by the city. To give an idea of the “scale” of these three areas, I have created a map with some crude red lines on them, which I am including here in this comment. The red areas (with the black A, B and C) are the areas shown in yellow in the official map (A = top, B = left bottom, C = right bottom). The straight yellow line above the A is approx. 1 kilometre (=0.62 miles). Effectively the A area consists of just a few streets plus the main Red Light area, in other words shopping and tourists. Oh, and prostitution of course. (Yes, they have been “open for business” since 1 July; no masks mandatory when using their “services”, only when going to their places of business.) Areas B and C are simply open air street markets. According to several law professors this particular local ordinance (it is not a law) is effectively illegal, Dutch law does not allow a local city to… Read more »
“It is of course utter bs, only a few corona hypochondriacs want this, it is just for show.“
As usual, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. The basis for the disastrous dominance of minority lobbies, whether safety obsessive or political correctness-based, throughout the modern west.
That lobby seems to have started today.
Several newspapers and such are all of a sudden featuring articles from shopkeepers in Amsterdam (and Rotterdam, where they also have street level mandatory masks since today) who are saying variations on the theme of “this is unfair, it would be okay if it would be all over the country”.
That’s like being sent to a firing squad and, rather than claiming you shouldn’t be shot, objecting to the fact that other people aren’t. We were hoping to go to Rotterdam for a short break away from muzzle madness, but I think we’re going to cancel now – it’s not worth paying money to go and be miserable somewhere else.
For information on the Rotterdam situation see this page in Dutch: https://www.rotterdam.nl/nieuws/mondkapjesplicht/
Oddly enough I couldn’t find proper English information, but Google Translate is quite accurate these days: https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rotterdam.nl%2Fnieuws%2Fmondkapjesplicht%2F
The near vertical red line (A) seems to be the Damrak, Amsterdams pedestrianised Oxford St.
The suitably penis shaped red marking to the right is about 30% of the tourist red light district (locals go elsewhere).
Area (B) appears to be one of Amsterdams drearily overmanaged modern suburbs.
Never been to (C).
Saw the news of the Aberdeen local lockdown earlier and just thought ‘Give me strength’. Genuinely, I need strength to keep buggering on through this perpetual nightmare. I knew in my bones that Johnson never meant ‘just 3 weeks to flatten the curve’, but I never thought it would go on for this long. Really, I didn’t. Now is a time that will really test our inner strength. The government can take away all the extrinsic things that make life worth living – pubs, restaurants, social events, education and jobs – but they can never take away intrinsic human spirit. Draw upon the most basic things that you have right now, because we will need them in the long fight ahead. I just can’t articulate the seething hatred, contempt, and disgust I have for the people making these decisions. There are no words strong enough, and I consider myself a decent wordsmith. They are true psychopaths. Ruining millions of lives and jobs for no reason and then insidiously lying about it, saying it’s for our ‘safety’, narcissistically portraying themselves as the saviours of humanity. Their actions cannot be rationalised in normal human ways because these people lack empathy. Every day… Read more »
Similar thing getting me through this Poppy. I wish I could share your optimism though.
Poppy is indeed, a gifted wordsmith, but her optimism appears misplaced. This is a fight to to the death, as they clearly want all of us dead. The gloves have to come off.
‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast.’ Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, 1733-4.
Of course we will eventually win through this, and be stronger for the experience. Our enemies are nothing like as strong as they might appear to some. The clock is ticking down on this nonsense.
Nicola appears to have the brain capacity of a sturgeon.
That’s an insult to sturgeons, hackneyed but true.
If you take a friend along
Take me in his place
Every piece of shit I own
We’ll pack into my case
Tho the northern lights
May have claimed her as their own
I could move to Aberdeen
Make the place my home
Not the finest place I’ve been
But I’ll make the place
Make the place my home
– Aberdeen by Danny Wilson (1987)
Poppy do you think there is any point in contacting the Office for Students? I wonder if there may be some sort of challenge to what universities are doing in terms of stripping out all the social aspects of university, making people form ‘bubbles’, putting clubs etc online? Isn’t the OfS supposed to be partly there to ensure students get value for money, and consumer protection? If the university offer is very different to what one signed up for (and accepting a place at university is a contract), surely that can be challenged? The university must have a student’s welfare at its core, and that includes mental health and the opportunity to make important social connections, as well as protecting people from the virus?
That’s exactly what I thought, but university bureaucracy is just the most sclerotic thing ever to exist so we’d never get anywhere and my bf says that the university may well be terrified of getting sued by some zealot for not implementing anti-covid measures (under which action though I am not sure). I imagine if one did contact the OfS one would get some boilerplate bullshit reply about how ‘necessary’ the restrictions are ‘during this unprecedented time’ to keep everyone ‘safe’.
How I wish Toby had not been hounded from his position on the board. I’ve got two young people starting at uni this autumn, one quite sanguine about the prospect, the other utterly devastated. If you feel like combining forces to launch some sort of official objection to the nonsense measures universities are proposing to implement, which go way beyond government ‘guidance’ even, I’d be up for that. I feel like I need to try, even if only to register some resistance. I’m beyond furious about it.
Online tuition was rubbish. My daughter is in one of the best universities and got none. No guidance for online exams either.
Students should protest and demand universities to open properly.
The person to lodge a complaint with would be the Higher Education Ombudsman, not the OfS. Marginally more likely to be taken seriously, although it probably won’t be.
Poppy, I always enjoy reading your posts. Don’t worry, we will win and as you say the truth always comes out. It may take a while but the Sheeple will eventually see that they have been played and once opinion turns, those who have made our lives a misery in the last few months will be made to pay.
Optimistic but I like it. You’ll have to get the army onside first however
Yes, it’s a long ordeal, but it WILL end.
Your gut is right, Poppy.
Keep the faith, burn the gob nappies, live life, be sure we will win.
>>>>I just can’t articulate the seething hatred, contempt, and disgust I have for the people making these decisions. <<<
It irks me that the people making Covid restrictions aren’t much restricted by them themselves. When are you likely to see one of them on a bus or shopping in a supermarket?
Forget justice, I think you need to draw up a list of those for summary Dalek extermination. Have they served justice on you?l
Another excellent post Poppy and I know how you feel. We have to keep on fighting.
You understand it well, Poppy.
But when I speak to my student daughter and her friends they are not angry about the current situation. They accept that the government made mistakes but they are accepting all the restrictions, masks. They don’t question decisions. They went to protest for Floyd but laugh at me when I say I am going to protest for our freedoms.
I am trying to make my daughter think critically and send her links with information.
I wonder when young people will realise that they are impacted the most and protest about online universities, no jobs and no futures.
I totally agree, JulieR. My husband’s two adult girls (23 and 19) won’t question what’s going on, and although they seem to agree that wearing masks won’t do anything, they don’t want to be seen as ‘different’ so wear them anyway (colour coordinated ones, natch). The apathy is staggering. We can’t discuss the situation in front of them because it makes them uncomfortable that we’re questioning what’s going on. This is their future that we’re trying to protect, but they don’t seem that bothered by what’s happening, and certainly aren’t looking ahead to how this will affect them. But then, they’ve grown up surgically attached to their smart phones, and i do believe the government has waged a long war priming the population to blindly accept what they’re told, and to be lazy thinkers who want instant gratification and an easy life…
Well if the government is going to prevent me from going to work because of (their) view on who is of a “high Covid age”, who is going to pay me? How do I eat?
Oh I know, you get looked after in prison, so looks like I’ll have to become a career criminal (either a very good one who makes lots of money from crime, or a very bad one who gets caught and sent to gaol).
Well done, cretinous government.
It looks like a different take on the shield the over-50s gambit!
Even worse really. It’s like a ban on working just because. Needless to say, I hope this doesn’t happen, but I’ll have to wait and see.
And try to keep calm.
Better go for a walk.
See you guys later :o))
Good way to disguise the coming tsunami of unemployment if all the oldies are locked out.
Too big to hard.
Agreed, high covid age will lead to “early retirement” rather than the dole.
The funniest thing about this is how they’re going to assign ‘covid age’.
Not the method. The actual practical process.
Until an in person assessment of your physical condition can be performed (I. E. Never in current circumstances) the only factors they have to go on are age and medical records. So exactly the same as they have to go on now.
Major Dumb.
No, they’ll have to turn up, in their masks, to claim their £300 quid attendance. Or maybe they can do it on Zoom
and Boris bro no?
The whole video is 17 mins, not the 30 seconds on Twitter:
https://m.facebook.com/clare.wills1/videos/10217947324690408/
NRS figures do not match Scottish Government daily figures. For nearly three weeks Scottish Government had been reporting zero ‘covid19 deaths’ those dying with Covid19. Now we learn there have been deaths during the time we previoysly were led to believe tgeir hadn’t. From guardian live feed: Seven more people die in Scotland According to the National Records of Scotland (NRS), seven deaths were registered that mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate between Monday 27 July and Sunday 2 August; a decrease of one from the previous week. The NRS said that was the second lowest weekly total for deaths since the first death was recorded in early March. A total of 4,208 deaths have been registered in Scotland, as of 2 August, of which 46% were related to deaths in care homes, 46% in hospitals and 7% at home or in non-institutional settings, the NRS said. To place these figures in context, the latest yearly totals show that, in 2018 24% of all deaths occurred in care homes, 49% in hospitals and 27% in home or non-institutional settings. Pete Whitehouse, the NRS’s director of statistical services, said: Loss of life from this virus is tragic and every death represents… Read more »
seven deaths were registered that mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate
Exactly.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tests-per-confirmed-case-daily-smoothed?tab=chart
More and more tests required to find a true positive test
Was mooching the internet while workmen in this morning (all sceptics). Got bored so rooted through the comments section on the Off-Guardian articles:
Here is the spike in English deaths of 15-44 year olds:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/01/the-uks-excess-deaths-are-by-far-the-youngest-in-europe-why/
In the comments is a link to this article:
https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/unprecedented-number-of-dnr-orders-for-learning-disabilities-patients/7027480.article
Explains everything doesn’t it?
Any doctor issuing a DNR letter without the knowledge and consent of the person concerned should be struck off.
Erm I’d say prosecuted for attempted murder…
Did you see the video on FB from the healthcare worker?
https://m.facebook.com/clare.wills1/videos/10217947324690408/%E2%80%AC
Listened to the whole 17 minutes, pretty harrowing and I’ve heard anecdotal examples very similar one rtes months but we need more to come forward like this.
Sadly, yes it does … eugenics in action.
Been reading Michael Shellenberger’s new book, Apocalypse Never”, or “Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All”. Although it’s obviously not about Covid 19, this passage from the chapter on nuclear power is relevant:
“About 150,000 people were evacuated [from the Fukushima prefecture following the tsunami in 2011] but more than 20,000 have yet to be allowed home. While some amount of temporary evacuation might have been justified, there was simply never any reason for such a large and long-term evacuation. More than one thousand people died from the evacuation, while others who were displaced suffered from alcoholism, depression, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety.”
Encouraging push-back from some doctors around the world:
https://principia-scientific.com/in-spain-doctors-for-truth-denounce-covid-19-fake-pandemic/
“This is a world dictatorship with a sanitary excuse,” was stressed at the end of the meeting. Doctors agreed that:
Valdepeñas concluded his final intervention asking the press for “an effort of responsibility that we have not seen so far”, and criticized the “continuous bombardment of information on the pandemic, without weighing neither the quantity nor the quality of the information”. The doctor indicated that when the media talk about “new outbreaks”, they should clarify that these are only positive tests, but that 98 percent [of the population] are “healthy, asymptomatic people.”
The comments are awesome!
We need groups of doctors / medical professionals to come together, in a similar way, in each county.
Please honour your hippocratic oath.
Yeah we REALLY DO! Come on doctors, grow a pair and stand up! Stop worrying about loosing your immense pay package. What’s the point of having loads of cash if the world you and your family live in is an Orwellian hell on earth.
I was with him until he mentioned 5G and influenza vaccines…
I wonder if anyone has done a study on current HCQ patients (prior to Covid19 exposure and on the drug for RA or lupus etc) and whether they have tested positive and if yes, severity of symptoms… just curious… asking for a friend…
Here’s a Freedom of Information request idea for Scotland: it would be useful to know what instructions were given by Sturge Un’s government once she recovered from her crocodile tears over young people gathering in Aberdonian pubs. Presumably that behaviour had to be punished by ramping up testing to find enough “cases” to justify the new lockdown
What’s the betting there are no written records?
Good point – but even if there are it will be justified by the “huge concern” over the gathering of people in pubs which “obviously needs to be followed up by extensive testing to KEEP SAFE
Couldn’t MI5 bug these un-minuted meetings though? Seems easy enough in “Spooks”
That sounds about right.
Thanks for those “workplace” articles. I ad started to ponder the huge variations between retail premises’ interpretation of “safe”. For example, two local Italian restaurants- one just the same as it always was – the other the same except for one table re-oriented. Elsewhere one way: masks; plastic screens, holy hand wash, etc.
I suspect it is not just the Health & Safety gestapo and lawyers, the insurance companies are probably putting pressure on as well.
However if the perception is that only this approach will persuade the “sheeple” that it is safe to work, sell and buy, then I fear that this will all be with us forever.
I cannot imagine any scenario where the politicians and media are prepared to say that there is no longer any risk (e.g. Sturgeon wanting to “eradicate” the virus).
Most people seem unable to understand what levels of risk are.They want 100% safety but, as we know, that is not real life so it will never end and eventually those who do not cooperate with the system will have to be punished.
Logic can never defeat a belief system (just ask the Pope).
“Logic can never defeat a belief system (just ask the Pope).” Well, the church’s influence has waned and partly been replaced by science (by rational, actual science rather than the pseudoscience driving the coronapanic). In the same way, one would hope that in time, people will see that logic (the virus isn’t that dangerous) leads to a more pleasing result (freedom from fear, economy not screwed) than blind belief in it.
Unfortunately they’re applying logic based on false premisses, obligingly supplied by the beeb et al.
Auntie Beeb’s a dweeb.
The insurance companies will be one of the reasons firms are not keen to repopulate their offices. The only way out might be to give them an indemnity against ‘because Covid ‘ prosecutions but that would require the government to admit that the virus was not such a big deal after all.
‘Ode to a Grecian Earn’?
Toby, your spelling is appalling.
On the 3rd you also wrote ‘bear’ instead of ‘bare’ in the subtitle ‘New Report Lays Bear Extent […]’.
Obviously confused with “What’s a Grecian Urn? “About 25 bob a week”. Easily done.
I needed a laugh, thank you.
I’m here all lockdown, don’t forget to tip your ‘scientist’.
I queued to get in to Natwest bank today. When it was my turn to go in the Natwest staffer asked the usual what do you want question and then asked where my mask was. After telling him I’m exempt he then told me I could not come in until the branch had been cleared. I kid you not. He then scurried away and five minutes later another staffer came out to let me in. All I needed was the machine to pay in a cheque. We exchanged a few words about the insanity of it all and I pointed out that 3 three doors down there was a packed coffee shop with no mask wearers and a restaurant directly opposite with the same but he wanted me out as quickly as possible. Madness and all for what?
What’s a staffer?
One who staffs,
Thank you. One must always call out Americanisms.
Fair point.
Although it’s fascinating how some Americanisms are more like how we spoke here in the 17th century – we changed, they didn’t. Not all of course.
I’d have thought it obvious given the context.
Sorry, I’m just being argumentative. I can’t help it when I see American usage taking over.
Someone from Stoke.
That’s crazy, but if a few of us attended a branch at 10 minute intervals we could cause a lot of inconvenience!
You could be describing my local shopping precinct, queues outside the banks in the drizzle, all holding their masks, nearby bakery/cafe full of facially naked customers.
But it is fun using the ATM as the queue slinks away either side like a cut up worm.
Here is a government sponsored article from the Daily Mail, about “staying safe as we get back to much needed normality.” The picture really helps to drive home the point. If normal is looking like you are de – activating a nuclear bomb.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8572833/Worrying-staying-safe-army-health-professionals-working-scenes.html
What a wonderful world we live in, all those fulfilled. happy workers in the NHS. It .just fills my heart with an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness We really must start clappnig again.
NOT
Daily Mail not allowing comments on that article. I wonder why not?
The government learned their lesson after the Let’s Get Back video. It took them almost 12 hours to turn the comments off under that piece of s****. They still haven’t turned off the Like/Dislike buttons, which are 28 Like/92 Dislike. But then the damn thing only has about 6,000 views anyway.
At least the DM allows comments on most of their articles. I’m a left-winger but abandoned the Guardian since their commenters didn’t take kindly to someone talking about the costs of lockdown. Now the Guardian only has open comments on perhaps one coronavirus article at a time.
Thanks for reporting on this. It’s the details I find say so much. Published with comments – to harvest opinion. Then turned off. With likes enabled – further harvesting but not a spreading point for thoughts of dissent.
Hazmat suits for everybody. Ils sont vraiment chic!
Warning: Have a sick bucket ready before opening the above!
“Sponsored by the UK government’ ’nuff said.
That was july31.Their headline today was much more encouraging.’The real health cost of lockdown ‘ goes on to say that only 2% of deaths are due to Covid and there is a huge backlog of other diseases waiting to be treated.The editorial says we all need to get back to work and school.All stuff we have known from April but coming from the mail,which has been one of the chief Covid doomongers,it is encouraging
“Positive results are indicative of active infection with 2019-nCoV but do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses.” That does not mean that other bacteria or viruses will cause a positive test. This is a myth. The PCR test does have a (low) false positive rate but it’s not because of other bacteria or viruses. It just means that if you’re a doctor and you find someone has SARS2, don’t assume that that’s what’s what making them ill. They might also have a bacterial infection and need antibiotics. But doctors do need to be aware of the consequences of Bayes theorem. Suppose the test is 99.5% specific and 70% sensitive. These are not unreasonable numbers and that would be considered by most a very good test kit (with “85% accuracy”). At the height of the epidemic, maybe 20% of people will actually have SARS2. In that case if you test positive, your chances of having a real infection are 97%. If you test negative your chances of having a real infection are still 7% (because of the relatively low sensitivity of the test). This is fairly intuitive, but it does mean in a country like New Zealand… Read more »
Exactly – they are not using it as it should be used but to meet their agenda.
You can tell that also because they don’t even bother with looking at the positive ratio (which doesn’t change, because it’s just noise, because they’re false positives) but apparently base decisions on absolute numbers of positives. Even the government can’t be that stupid.
It turns out that the ONS testing (the ONS are much less clueless) can be used to calibrate the Pillar 2 testing. Pillar 2 are finding ten or more times the prevalence that the ONS are. Yes there’s some selection bias in Pillar 2 but not that much.
The Pillar 2 results are junk, the ONS ones probably reasonable (but also treat with caution). The only rational conclusion is that Covid exists in the UK at low levels and seems to be pretty stable.
In New Zealand they have the odd positive or two still popping up from day to day. I wondered where these are coming from. Is your explanation the probable reason for it?
Quite possibly. But it could also be that they do actually have a few real infections smouldering away. You need some threshold level for the epidemic to catch fire and burst into life. This is why they’re probably doomed.
Sorry to disagree but the Government can be that stupid.
It’s deliberate stupidity though.
Good explanation. Thanks. I’m waiting for Peston or Kuenssberg to put this analysis (in a simplified form, of course) to the likes of Lt. Gruber.
Tweet this to Deborah Cohen?
I hope you’re not holding your breath while you’re waiting. That could be dangerous.
“and the cycle threshold was reasonable”
Can you elaborate on that? It seems to contradict your statement “It found the RNA” because it depends on some adjustable threshold.
Does the test produce zero output when the RNA is not present? If so, why do you need to set a “reasonable” threshold? If not, where does that output come from?
Ct just means that you need to reach the necessary fluorecence threshold (detectable over background/negative control) within the required number of cycles, the more cycles you do the more likely you are to reach the necessary flourecence threshold (so long as you’re in the exponential phase of the PCR (still plenty of reagent left)). It also depends if you’re using cybergreen (which latches onto any double-stranded DNA) or specific fluorophore probe but that depends on what gene you’re tagging with (for example, RdRp (IP2 or IP4), N1, N2, N3, or E (but that can show SARS-CoV), and there’s a bunch of others). Of course, different countries are using different probes… When the primer/probe gets incorporated into the transcription, polymirase chops off fluorophore allowing it to be free of quencher on the end of the probe, the fluorophore glows. The glow is measured, and you compare that glow to the fluorecence threshold, after a pre-determined number of cycles (Ct); obviously you’ll have fewer loose fluorophores after one cycle than ten cycles, for example. In short, the whole (q)RT-PCR is just one giant mess! With `q’ you can quantify how much you had to begin with, with plain RT-PCR you just get… Read more »
Many thanks. What I’m driving at is that the test produces ‘some’ output even when the gene/RNA is not present..? If that isn’t the case, you could reasonably keep going as long as you wanted, and if there was *any* present you could presumably say it was ‘positive’. But if it’s a lot fuzzier than that, obviously you set a threshold. But this means that there are ‘marginal’ tests where you don’t get a full output, and nor do you get zero, and presumably this is where the false positives and negatives come in. I can see that you can set the threshold to give you the balance you want between false positives and negatives given ‘average’ samples, but presumably sticking a swab up someone’s nose isn’t a fine science..?
You mention quantity. So is the test responding to absolute amount of the gene/RNA, or ‘concentration’, or something else?
You actually have a problem going the other way—you might have too few pieces of analyte samples to start the reaction—below Level of Detection (LoD).
But then again, if you have fluorecence all you know for certain is that you have free fluorophores, that’s all. Then you have a bigger problem: if you haven’t purified the virus and have a reference curve, what do you base your fluorecence threshold and cycle threshold on, perhaps a whim?..
On top of that, even if you extrapolate back and say “ok, free fluorophores mean the correct RNA” you can’t tell whether it’s what’s making the patient sick (the CDC caution), or whether that RNA came from active virus in the first place, or whether that’s actually RNA and not RNA fragments!
Incidentally, when PCR tests for MERS-CoV and H7N9 were being devoloped, those tests were “presumptive,” somehow between then and SARS-CoV-2, PCR tests have become “confirmatory”—wtf?!
I think there is some possibility of the primers themselves getting amplified at huge cycle counts but I’m not sure about this– they have clever ways of mitigating it. It depends on the exact design of the test apparatus. The primers encode the genomic sequences that you’re looking for and the idea is that if they match on the DNA that’s in there (you convert the RNA to DNA first) the amount of them gets doubled every cycle. Basically it’s a trade-off. If you set the threshold very low the test will work but be less sensitive– you will need a larger amount of virus in there to start with for it to work. If you set the threshold really high it just gets ridiculous. If you have contamination it’s likely to be at much lower levels than what you’d find in a real positive sample. It’s a bit like turning the volume up on your hifi with no music playing. At some point some random background hiss will actually get rather loud– but if there was real music in there it would be deafening you. I do wonder if the Pillar 2 tests are using a different cycle threshold… Read more »
I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that Pillar 2 is RT-PCR and not qRT-PCR…
I think they’re all just the “qualitative” yes/no with a cycle threshold of about 37 or so. But it would be good to know more details. Also what the differences are between the ONS and the Pillar 2 kits.
Isn’t “quantitative” where you use the cycle count you needed to find anything to estimate how much virus is actually there? This is generally considered a bit sketchy at best I think.
I think it’s done using same machines but when you set Ct it’s not quantification (unless you quantify with “enough”), in qPCR-proper, you have you Cq_1, Cq_2, .., Cq_N then you extrapolate your quantity.
But given that SARS-CoV-2 still hasn’t been purified (has it?) how do you know what your reference curve looks like, and from the same premise, what did you base your fluorecence threshold on? The latter is more interesting!
I’ve making this exact point for weeks regarding Bayes Theorem, despite the fact I’m actually a professional mathematician myself, people still think I’m sharing an opinion.
The numbers we feed in might be up for debate, but it’s a bloody theorem and sadly our education system seems incapable of teaching this basic fact.
Regarding the communication of this pretty devastating thesis, I find it pretty tough to communicate this with otherwise intelligent people. Lord knows how the simpleton talking heads in the MSM would cope.
I’ve had this exact conversation with a friend today! I sent him one of Carl Heneghan’s analyses and he was saying he couldn’t really comment on it because he didn’t know what “axes Heneghan had to grind” or similar, as though this stuff isn’t a mathematical fact.
Presumably Ferguson sometimes grinds a few axes too, but people seem to believe every word he says…
He should be executed
I think some people might think a “theorem” is the same sort of thing as what is colloquially called an “theory” in other words an opinion… And they get used to the idea that boffins are always saying one thing or another so just believe what you want.
Good point, theorem looks like a typo to a lot of people. The outcome of Bayes theorem in this case is counter intuitive, but has very real ramifications.
The best response I’ve had is “if you’re correct, why has nobody else spotted this?” Stating that this isn’t really an argument just gets me labelled with the ‘contrarian/smart arse/etc’.
Luckily we are all contrarians here and the explanation is extremely helpful to non-mathematicians like me!
Indeed, people don’t understand the difference between ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theorem’ or, what nowadays passes for COVID-science, ‘whimsical speculation.’
Last time I shopped at the supermarket I was asked if I had any symptoms. One day later I wrote down a list. There are about 40 so far, all negative. Here are some examples: scared, paranoid, angry, bitter, disgusted, dismayed, incredulous, disconsolate, dejected, despondent,fearful, fretful, concerned, morose, depressed, shocked, shattered … and many many more. Now I have to translate them all into French. Check Roget’s Thesaurus and we could probably come up with hundreds. So, I was thinking of writing them all down on a scroll-like parchment paper, unraveling the paper as I read down the page. How long would they tolerate that?
Another unsavoury aspect of all this – unqualified strangers asking you questions about your medical status and poking thermometers at you. For a bad flu, we’ve moved from the presumption of innocence to the presumption of guilt. Some workplaces are doing/proposing temperature checks for staff – sorry, but I don’t want some colleague who I may not know (or one I do know very well) pointing any kind of device at me and telling me I can’t work that day.
Also not recommended by WHO for determining if people are suffering from “covid-19” or not as temperature tells you nothing meaningful.
This advice has never been changed.
They remind me of the magical thermal healers that Del Boy was trying to sell in an episode of Only fools and horses.Is this all really happening?
3 times now I’ve apparently had a temperature of between 34.2 and 34.7 when I’ve been checked when walking into a pub. Now, _either_ I died last Wednesday and my corpse is taking a while to cool down, or those remote thermometers don’t work.
This is why I can’t get too worked up about having my temperature taken – it’s just silliness.
Do you have a fringe? If yes then that’s your answer!
Nope. No fringe.
https://www.cebm.net/2020/08/screening-for-covid-19-with-infrared-thermometers-more-marketing-than-medical-evidence/?fbclid=IwAR2buaV1Hz42ffEilxbTLiOw8OxftzUzpoEpGxmDhF-ZAIaIVXj7zphFtt0
So funny! They do not even know how to use the equipment but they have ticked the box….
When the pubs reopened at the beginning of July, the media got excited because 3 or so immediately closed because a customed claimed to have the virus. Did any other customer or member of staff actually get infected? I can find no follow up on web.