Latest News
Sunseekers Ignore Official Guidance on Britain’s Hottest Day of the Year
Seeing pictures like this of the beach in Bournemouth yesterday, it’s hard to believe the opinion polls about the extent of public support for continuing lockdown restrictions. Looks to me as though the great British public is aware that the virus has all but disappeared and their chances of catching it outside is virtually zero.
The Mail has compiled a handy round-up of comments from paranoid bedwetters.
Beaches across the south coast were already packed by mid-morning on Friday, further stoking fears among police and local councils that tourists will ignore coronavirus social distancing rules and cram onto packed seafronts.
The scenes could be repeated on Saturday and Sunday, with the scorching weather set to continue.
Furious critics took to social media to slam beach-goers and accuse them of ‘undoing the hard work of lockdown’.
One wrote: ‘Here they are again, all the idiots on Brighton beach putting all of us at risk, they just keep on coming.’
A second said: ‘Government: ‘Stay away from beaches today. It’s hot, but no amount of heat is surely enough to risk your health and the health of loved ones by breaking social distancing rules, and undoing all the hard work of the last 4 months of lockdown.’
While a third added: ‘My worst nightmare, even before COVID. Too many people. We will never get over this virus if people are this stupid. Just because it’s hot doesn’t mean you should all pack a beach & not socially distance.’
Update of Elusive Government Report on Collateral Lockdown Damage
Readers will recall that on July 21st I asked them for help in tracking down an elusive Government report. This was the analysis done by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Office for National Statistics (ONS), Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) and the Home Office (HO) of the collateral damage of the lockdown. Eventually, I tracked it down – it was published with absolutely no fanfare here. The only reason it came to public attention is because Sir Patrick Vallance referred to it in passing when testifying before the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on July 16th.
Well, yesterday the Government published an update entitled “Direct and Indirect Impacts of COVID-19 on Excess Deaths and Morbidity”– and, thankfully, it was picked up by the Telegraph (see today’s front page above). This update was presented to SAGE on July 23rd, but it was only published yesterday.
The headline news is that the lockdown killed two people for every three that died of COVID-19 by the beginning of May. However, when you take into account the age of those who died from coronavirus, as well as their underlying health conditions, the loss of life as measured in Quality Adjusted Life Years, or Qalys, for those who died as a result of the lockdown was greater than it was for those who died of COVID-19. This is how the authors of the report put it:
The direct COVID-19 deaths account for the majority of all excess deaths. However, when morbidity is taken into account, the estimates for the health impacts from a lockdown and lockdown induced recession are greater in terms of QALYs than the direct
COVID-19 deaths. Much of the health impact, particularly in terms of morbidity, will be felt long after the pandemic is assumed to last…
According to Sarah Knapton, the Science Editor of the Telegraph:
The estimates show that 16,000 people had died through missed medical care by May 1st, while coronavirus killed 25,000 in the same period.
The figures include 6,000 people who did not attend A&E at the height of lockdown because of fears they might catch the virus and the feeling they should remain at home because of the “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” message.
Likewise, 10,000 people are thought to have died in care homes due to early discharge from hospital and not being able to access critical care.
The article includes some choice quotes from the President of the Royal Society of Surgeons:
Professor Neil Mortensen, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, warned that the health service “must never again be a coronavirus-only service”.
“We have to deal first with the most clinically urgent patients, and then as soon as possible with those who have been waiting the longest,” he said. “The period through August and September is vitally important in making progress before routine winter pressures emerge.”
Pretty damning, but before you pop the champagne corks with cries of “finally!”, a caveat. The authors of the report claim that the Covid death toll in an “unmitigated scenario”, i.e. a scenario in which the Government did nothing to encourage social distancing and people carried on as normal, would have been a whopping 1.5 million!
It should be noted that the health impacts modelled here represent a scenario with mitigations in place. Without mitigations, a far larger number of people would have died from COVID-19 such that the QALY impact from COVID-19 deaths would be more than three times the total QALY impact of all the categories (mortality and morbidity impacts) for the CSS mitigated scenario presented here. A comparison with an unmitigated scenario 3 is provided in Annex G and shows that mitigation have prevented up to 1.5m direct COVID-19 deaths.
Total balls, obviously. The relevant counter-factual is not this fantastical “unmitigated scenario”, but a continuation of the mitigation strategy put in place by the Government on March 16th in which people were encouraged to observe modest social distancing measures, with quarantining restricted to the infected, the elderly and the vulnerable. As even Chris Whitty now admits, this strategy proved effective and the number of daily cases was falling before the full lockdown was imposed on March 23rd. The real question is “Did the full lockdown prevent more loss of life than it caused?” and, thanks to this report, we can conclude with some confidence that it didn’t.
Thousands Wiped Off Official Covid Death Toll
Thousands are likely to be wiped off Public Health England’s official Covid death toll following Yook K Loke and Carl Heneghan’s blog post in which they drew attention to the fact that PHE was counting anyone who’d tested positive for COVID-19 and then died as having died from novel coronavirus, even if their death occurred months afterwards and clearly had no connection to the virus. As they pointed out, this meant that all 290,000+ Britons who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 would eventually be classified as having died from the virus, even if some of them don’t die for another 60 years.
According to the Sun, PHE’s official figures will now be revised downwards.
Matt Hancock will now step in and bring the figures in line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, who only count a death as Covid-related if it occurs 28 days after a person tests positive.
A second weekly measure, which records fatalities within 60 days of infection, will also be established.
An official announcement on the new approach is expected by the end of the week.
It could see England’s official coronavirus death toll of 41,686 reduced by around as much as 10 per cent – or 4,170.
Latest ONS Infection Survey Shows Infections Falling
The ONS’s latest weekly infection survey found that just 53 people tested positive in the last week of July, equating to an estimated one in 2,200 people in Wales and one in 1,900 in England. That’s down from one in 1,500 last week. In addition, the number of people estimated to be infected in the community in England last week was 35,700; this week it’s 28,300. So back down to 0.05% of the population, which is where it’s been since June 21st (see above).
Worth remembering that last week’s infection survey was widely cited by members of the Government to justify imposing a second lockdown on four-and-a-half million in the North West and “squeezing the brake” on the easing of restrictions across the rest of the country.
Does the fact that the ONS now thinks infections are back to where they’ve been for the last six weeks mean that the Northern lockdown can now be scrapped and we can get on with re-opening casinos, bowling alleys and skating rinks? Didn’t think so.
Stop Press: Preston is the latest victim of the mask-wearing lockdown mob, having been forced to undergo a second lockdown after a “spike” in infections.
Request For Help From Croatia-Bound Yanks
An American reader has asked for advice about a forthcoming visit to Croatia. Can anyone help? If you can, email me here and I’ll pass it on.
Would you or your readers kindly help advise on a possible September trip to Croatia for my husband and me? Trouble is Covidmania. Croatia is currently one of the few countries allowing visitors from the US, sans quarantine. That is, if one can produce a negative PCR test within three days of arrival.
Ideally, we would be tested here in the US the day before we travel, but I’m unsure if we would get the results back in time. Conversely, we could pay to be tested upon arrival in Croatia, but would be under house arrest until results are returned, with the possibility of false positives and enduring two weeks of punishment. Sheesh! Just putting this into words, I’m realizing what a conundrum we’re in.
In addition, can anyone shed light on our likely experiences regarding face masks, Perspex, and NORMALCY! How we crave normalcy. We don’t care about level of cleanliness or frequency of disinfectant procedures. We want real life and dirt. We did read the recent “Postcard from Croatia” in the Telegraph, but it looked slightly heavy on reassurances for those who fear to venture out, and we’re firmly not in that category.
Round-Up
- ‘Australia’s hysterical response to this pandemic is downright bonkers‘ – Robert Fenwick Elliott takes aim at Victoria’s ludicrously over-the-top lockdown, pointing out that the Covid death toll in Australia still hasn’t exceeded 250
- ‘End this shutdown of civic life. Our liberty depends on it‘ – Robustly sceptical piece by James Black in Bournbrook
- ‘Watch Christians Outsmart Dem Governor to Worship God at Walmart‘ – Christians get around church closures in Pennsylvania by holding a service in Walmart
- ‘Sweden settled in for the long haul, and now doesn’t need to worry about a second surge‘ – Daniel Hannan sings the praises of Sweden in ConservativeHome
- ‘Signs that coronavirus infection rate is levelling off in England and Wales‘ – The Times reports on the latest ONS infection survey
- ‘“Black Friday” at British Airways as 10,000 staff are made redundant‘ – More bad news for the airline industry
- ‘Why should anyone be forced to shield?‘ – Matthew Parris speaks up for oldsters in the Spectator
- ‘Glencore cancels dividend after recording $2.6bn loss‘ – The commodities group said that it would be “inappropriate” to proceed with the proposed $2.6 billion payout for the year given the continued uncertain outlook because of the pandemic and the need to reduce debt
- ‘Starmer overtakes Johnson as voters’ choice of Prime Minister‘ – Bound to happen
- ‘UK tourists “left in dark” by holiday quarantine, say MPs as anger over “red-listing” of countries grows‘ – Conservative MPs chastise the Government for its constantly changing holiday quarantine policy, led by the redoubtable Sir Graham Brady
- ‘An excerpt from Part 2 of “Unreported Truths” – a brief history of lockdowns‘ – Condensed extract from Alex Berenson’s best-selling book on the lockdowns
- ‘Germany’s populist revolt against the lockdown‘ – Sabine Beppler-Spahl, Spiked‘s German correspondent, reports on the growing lockdown backlash in Germany
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “We Are Normal” by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
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 23rd to Oct 2nd). 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 (now over 27,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
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. I may not be able to manage an update every day over the next few days as I’m in Wales doing some walking in the Brecon Beacons.
And Finally…
Sky News Australia’s Alan Jones demolishes the case for lockdown in his typically blunt, no-bullshit style. Includes an interview with arch-sceptic Professor James Allan. Watch it here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I posted on yesterday’s LS comment section about a F***book (whoops!) thread I’d commented on where one of the responses was ‘I’d rather believe the combined wisdom of WHO than one person with a degree’.
Update – after a couple more exchanges the following comment was made “In what on earth (sic!) could you possibly have a degree when you clearly DON’T know what you’re talking about and demonstrate that you lack even basic knowledge?”
So. Stating a TRUE fact (I HAVE a degree in Microbiology!), the response is that! This is what fact and data driven arguments are met with, and one of the main reasons why emotive and emotionally driven fact free and date free narratives can be disseminated by the government, and BELIEVED!
I’m staggered.
DavidC
The irrationality is all around us. All we can do is be rational, be positive and be true to the culture of our forebears that has given us so much wonderful freedom.
Sadly Johnson is being irrational, promoting negative thinking and totally destroying our beautiful legacy of freedom.
OKUK,
Right on both comments, and many thanks for them!
DavidC
As someone with multiple degrees and a professional degree I can only feel your pain! My usual response to similar situations is along the lines of “a good scientist is one who relies only on his own analysis; if you choose to belive someone else’s words as to what is better for you, you are no better than a pet for which the owner makes all decisions and gives the pet an illusion of free will. And if that’s the case, we have nothing to discuss.” A wise man knows when to walk away 😉
IMoz,
You’re absolutely right!. I’ve responded to that comment (and another similar one) saying that my mind is open to persuasion if they can present facts, data and links. Unlikely(!) so those are my final comments to them both, I won’t try to engage them any further. Why I should continue to be surprised by completely closed minds like that I don’t know, but I do.
DavidC
Exactly, true scientist admits the possibility of being wrong, which is why every time someone says to me “look this paper proves, let’s say, masks are useful”… So I might be wrong, I read it… then point out that the study was, for example, ruined by the unadjusted use of TamiFlu (there is one study that Royal Society relied on and they spelled out that they administered TamiFlu and didn’t bother adjusting for it, and the RS actually used that study in support of masks (well, as well as many other patently flawed ones!)) I mean seriously, wtf—you’d have thought if you are putting your reputation on the line at least you bother to read the thing yourself?!
Spot on IMoz.
There were several occasions in the last part of my career (I describe it as doing exactly that, careering from one thing to another) where I was introduced to people, to be met with ‘Oh, you’re the legend DavidC’ (well, my surname was used!). My response was always the same , ‘Er, no, I think you mean the leg end DavidC’.
A lack of self confidence has always been the bane and downside of my career, but the upside (I think, if there is one!) has always been a questioning mind and not taking things at face value. I’d rather have the morality, integrity and freedom to think over the money and being confined to a certain way of thinking.
More fool me…
DavidC
A questioning mind is at the heart of it all! When you question, you are also liberated by mistakes you might make/made:its a process of learning!
The Royal Society is a corrupt organisation. The clue is in the name.
Evidence?
That Krishnawhatsit chap, spoke in favour of masking. Bent as nine bob notes.
This is exactly what horrifies the still in sofar enlightend people since March, and why hundreds of thousands of them took to streets in Berlin last Saturday, and will do so again on 29.8. All they want, is that alternative viewpoints, studies, research and true science by renowned experts are published in the mainstream media and acknowledged by decision makers before making their decisions, instead of just being diffamated, or ignored or censored. And then, these experts should debate their thesis’ with the government’s ones, in public. Those who have the more convincing arguments will then automatically and fairly have shaped public opinion and government policy by having won the scientific argument- which is currently simply not taking place and as such not existing! The problem of us enlightend and truly liberal and truly scientific people is, that the other side is not in interested in that approach, true science, a compromise, or best-practice at all- and that most of their audience and our compatriots are judt fine with that as they have been successfully dumbed down, frightened and brainwashed by them already. They are fanatical ideologues and leaders and part of a crowd of as such like-minded people who… Read more »
Agreed, Jay
A huge part of the problem in UK academia and public service is Common Purpose. They don’t do ‘convincing arguments shaping public opinion’. This is what makes them a serious threat.
You don’t need a degree- just critical faculties and actually to use them. As for the WHO, even if you’re prepared to accept their ‘wisdom ‘ without challenge, that doesn’t help when they contradict themselves. But that’s why there’s no such thing as they Science’ – it should be constantly evolving and updated in the face of real data
I totally agree—quite a lot of the time, especially recently, the degree is more of an indoctrination and a hindrance than ability to critically think. It’s one of the reasons why I just set out my argument and evidence, and don’t say “listen to me because I have X degree, Y degree, and a Z degree” 😉
Luckily. I did my first degree when the tutors would tell you to f*ck off and find the answer yourself or fail; nowadays, spoon-feeding is not only the norm, but expected. Even back in 00s access to information was limites, nowadays, if you’re keen, you can easity find pretty much everything only, just need the brain to filter wheat from chaff 😉
Yes, ‘In God we trust, all others must provide data.’
You are staggered by lies from government? I’m shocked!
No.
I’m staggered (albeit why should I be these days?!) that a (TRUE!) declaration of my qualifications and fact and data driven arguments continue to be met with disbelief or denial by people, those same people who believe the fact free and data free narratives by the government. As for the lies by government itself, oh no, I’m never staggered by those!
DavidC
That moron must have a pretty agile (non)-mind if s/he can go on believing the WHO.
Masks are unnecessary for the masses.
Masks are recommended for the masses.
Sweden is wrong.
Sweden isn’t necessarily wrong.
The sun rises in the East.
The sun rises in the West.
It’s definitely not a good idea to assume, as I assume the Facebook poster does, that the WHO is an utterly impartial, unbiased, incorruptible and all-knowing organisation – especially given their record with the 2009 swine flu epidemic.
They probably have no idea what microbiology is. Probably are even unsure what biology is.
Is Biology the study of people who like to have sex with both genders?
They certainly have idea of the difference between bacteria and a virus.
never been a f*c*book or twatter user before. recently i have started to look at twatter for updates on the football transfer rumours. Even on that subject some of the comments clearly show that most users are deranged .
So on important subjects such as covid . climate change .. anything really, it is so depressing that people are equally deranged and fact and logic goes out of the window,
But it is treated so reverentially. The MSM do not help. For any event BBC in particular will quote tweets from non entities as if these are incisive and important statements.. and they have let the twitter storms drive the MSM narrative.
So sad
Quoting twitter comments should simply be against BBC rules. Every day we hear “one user tweeted… another said…” Local TV news are particularly bad at this.
a bit off subject but, can I borrow your collective expertise;
If someone has no symptoms and are asymptomatic were they already effectively immune?
If 80% of people who get the virus are asymptomatic could it be said that over 50 million Brits already had natural immunity?
I would say that this is what people have been talking about in terms of T Cell immunity and immunity conferred by other coronaviruses. And to my mind if you encounter a virus and shake it off without illness, are asymptomatic, you are not unwell. Some one on here wrote that at any one time we are infected with 8 to 12 viruses but not ill just fighting them off.
Thanks Wendy, yep the definition of immunity is…
In biology, immunity is the capability of multicellular organisms to resist harmful microorganisms. Immunity involves both specific and nonspecific components. The nonspecific components act as barriers or eliminators of a wide range of pathogens irrespective of their antigenic make-up.
So if 80% of people are asymptomatic then its reasonable to say 80% of the UK (over 50 million people) were already immune to covid19?
News article after article in The Telegraph and Spectator calmly and sensibly make the obvious case for following Sweden whilst here in Manchester the local authorities want to shut all pubs and bars who allow young people to mix and in Preston the council are calling young people Granny killers. Let’s hope the demonstrations in Germany catch on here ASAP. I have totally had enough of all the stupidity here. We need a strong leader in Government and if Boris can’t do it he must go.
totally agree wendy! it’s completely bonkers. our demonstrations seem to be a bit limp compared to the one in berlin recently. I’m in SW and bit far from london to attend protest and doesn’t seem to be much down here.
Sue: Quick! I’m in the SW too. My son told me yesterday that there is some kind of demo in Plymouth today, but I don’t have any details.
This is what we need! A few more sensible women in charge
Clearly Boris can’t do it. He is the reason we are where we are now.
Let him abandon the withdrawal agreement/transition period first then resign. No way his successor could backtrack on Brexit then, if the transition period ended early due to no agreement being foreseen within the remaining period.
We don’t need another Leader we need a passionate follower of Common Sense.
Perhaps Preston council can name the grannies who the young people have killed.
And as men are at greater risk than women, aren’t they also being very sexist as well as liars??
At least these are online conversations. What is really depressing is friends. A girl I’ve known for nearly fifty years (obviously not a girl any more, but she was when I first met her) – anything but a lockdown sceptic. Guardian reader, in fact. I wrote her a long email pointing out facts and where to find them. She replied “If you can’t cope with friends who do not share your views no wonder you fall out with your friends.” But covid is more than just a difference in views. It’s because of people’s horrifying lack of curiosity that we’re in this mess. Governments couldn’t do this to us if more people took the trouble to glance at the Internet. And covid hangs over every conversation. For example we’ve both had travel plans disrupted. But even that isn’t a neutral topic because she thinks it’s the price to pay for staying safe whereas I – don’t get me started.
What a bizarre response from your ‘friend ‘! I note she didn’t in any way try to debate your facts/sources, going instead for you in a personal/emotional way. That’s is what you get all the time with people like that.
You can’t educate pork!
I had my own family questioning what qualify ‘us’ to make a judgement! I have a Bsc in Genetics (dept. Medicine), an MSc in Biotechnologies (dept. Microbiology); other half has BSc and a PhD in Genetics and a DipM ( Marketing:Data Analysis).
I’m beyond staggered. I’m bloo.. livid!
I have a childhood friend who studied law, she is equally demonised!
Che,
Thank you for your comment.
I went through a ‘black dog’ phase a few weeks ago thinking ‘Is it ME? Have I missed something?’ Thanks to comments such as yours (and respect to your extra qualifications and your other half’s as well, as well as your friend’s!) and those of Lockdown Sceptics, it’s made me feel that maybe my/our viewpoint(s) ARE correct and valid. I have the benefit of being semi retired (I refer to myself as unemployable!) and thus in thrall to NO ONE, being able to base my viewpoint on what I genuinely hope is unbiased and fact driven analysis. But, by heavens, that belief has been stretched to its limit by the mass hysteria surrounding Covid-19. I have Charles McKay’s ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ – a thoroughly recommended book even if the language is most assuredly 19th century!
DavidC
The WHO, led by a man who was the health minister for Ethiopia, who lied to the rest of the world and his own people about a cholera outbreak.
He only admitted that there was an outbreak when it spread to neighbouring countries and started killing people there. Up until then, he’d insisted it was just “watery diarrhoea” and not cholera.
The WHO also denies the existence of Taiwan.
If they told me the sky was blue, I’d want to double check for myself.
That’s a wonderful shot of the beach goers. Keep packing them in and enjoy your lives!
Another way of putting it is: ”fuckem”! 🙂
Isn’t it just, a shame Toby didn’t reference the fact there was no spikes or anything the last time they all wet themselves when people went to the beach.
I thought that too… probably the most important point. If beachgoers didn’t cause a detectable rise in cases nearly 2 months ago, they certainly won’t now!
What do they expect? Government cancel all summer holidays abroad and people will go to local beaches.
Exactly. The local councils should have realised that and had facilities like extra litter bins all ready to cope. Would have been a better investment than all those ridiculous stickers and pavement-widening paraphernalia.
Doh!!
absolutely – i see the picture and thing ‘good on ’em’ – go and enjoy your life and poke the pathetic naysayers in the eye. I’m not much of a beach person myself or crowds and it wouldn’t be my cup of tea but for those who like it fair enough, go enjoy while you can!!
I thought it was a good example of telephoto lens use!!
Let me see the best number I can find for the UK population is 67,920,084 https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/. So for 46,364 deaths that would be 0.07% or the fact 99.93% haven’t died of the Chinese Wuhan Virus Flu.
According to my calculator it’s 0.0006764706%. Add another zero.
Or maybe you’re another one who doesn’t understand percentages. The answer is 0.068262577, i.e. about 0.07, as nfw posted!
Scratch that, add two more zeros.
I would get a new calculator! You need to multiply your first number you quote above by 100 and not divide by 100!
I multiplied 68,000,000 times .0007 and the answer was 46,000.
I just performed the same calculation online. Same result.
And still wrong.
You are correct but a clearer way of presenting this and avoiding the confusion about percentages and fractions is that of the 67,920,084 people in the UK, 67,873,720 did not die from or with SARS CoV-2 infection.
Send that to Boris.
Please don’t. It might make it more comprehensible for BJ if you told him that fewer than 7 people in ten thousand died. Except you would have told him fewer than 7 in a million. Or 42 people, if UK population c. 60M. He’d have liked that.
420! Or, if you were adding your two zeros, 7 in 100 million, or 4 people in the UK. Even better.
Sorry Richard, afraid the temptation for the answer to be 42 was just too great, forgive me!
Boris will claim that his lockdowns have saved the rest of us. There is a turd where his brain should be.
Nah, he will think its his bank statement
And so far this year in England and Wales 330k people have died from other things that have nothing to do with Covid.
Also worldwide Covid deaths (with or from) make up only 2% of the total deaths so far this year
We should send them tweets , emails, instagrams and whatever else with soundtracks of people laughing hysterically. Maybe a few jokes thrown in for good measure.
Plus the 46k is about to be reduced as surprise surprise PHE have been manipulating the numbers
Knock about 46K off the total and it will be about right.
South Park 2003, SARS1, remember that one? The same LAME virus then that we are all terrified of now.
“There is only a 98% chance that I will live.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L8yEjOE-6E
Neither have 46,364 died of Covid-19 that is a fairy tale.
And isn’t the annual all mortality figure about 600,000, so just under 1% of the population?
Somebody was talking yesterday about Cummings and his trip Up North. I was in two minds: on the one hand I was glad and hoped folk would see the “great and the good” paid it (lockdown) no never mind.
On the other, it seemed like hypocrisy to acquiesce in the face of what he did.
In the end, I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t worry about such things – most people are idiots as has been shown recently. Anything that supports the cause (and isn’t Icke levels of batshit crazy) is a good thing – the means justifies the ends.
Last word goes to Abe Lincoln (the original Republican): “I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Thanks for the Lincoln quote, Jim. So very apt for us lot in Britain at the moment. Unfortunately.
Icke is much nearer the mark than most, that doesn’t bode well for our future.
“Icke levels of batshit crazy” ? Do fuck off, JBJ.
It’s an odd thing that with the honourable exception of Sweden & Balarous all governments do seem to be acting in exactly the same way you might expect a 7ft lizard to behave!
Maybe I’m old skool, but it’s the lizard people I have in mind. Or is that not his thing?
It is his thing. He has other ideas, but that’s his core principle.
There is an underlying tension here between the “unforgivable incompetence” school and the “globalist agenda” school, with something of a Venn diagram. We bump along, but there are some occasional flair ups. You’re very welcome here, but don’t always expect agreement in every particular.
While I agree with the rest of it, it should be remembered that Icke has a better predictive track record than Prof Pantsdown Ferguson
Good for the sunseekers!
Bournemouth declared a ‘major incident’ weeks back when people dared to sit on the beach. No doubt hundreds of locals died as a result of that outrageous behaviour. Funny it didn’t get reported, though.
What have they got now, a nuclear disaster?
They always do that every time people do something – VE Day, days at the beach, BLM protests. Cue a lot of doom mongering and shrieking.
And nothing has happened. The number of people getting it and dying have been decreasing day after day and yet TPTB and many people still behave as if we’re in the middle of the zombie apocalypse! Still going on and on about a “second wave” even as the economy and what makes life worth living is collapsing in front of our eyes.
I found this a while back so whenever I see people complaining about beach goers ect I post this graph
Excellent!!
We were out in town yesterday evening and went down to Bournemouth pier. A friend was down from London. Even at 7 it was busy on the beach. More mixing of people but not quite cheek to jowl. Was nice though. Lots of happy kids
Happy kids? What is this world coming to? You better start checking out how educators are brainwashing your children or else today’s children will become a new wave of future Sheeple.
I understood that in Bournemouth’s case, “major incident” meant that the council were struggling to cope with the sheer volume of people who’d arrived with cars and litter.
Manchester’s “major incident” however is something more sinister – unless they have an exceptional number of Karens and snitchers over there, in which case there could be civil war.
What would these locals tell the businesses who rely on visitors ? It’s a local shop ,cafe, boozer, chippie for local people.
Been looking at comments on the Preston farce in the Daily Fail. This one is typical:
“We want our Lives back. Stop trying to pretend these measures have stopped the Flu! It has to progress through the population, as it used to. Now our lives are being wrecked because a few, a very few, die! No point in being alive like this. Lets caked [presumably means ‘wake’] up or being threatened with being locked up! All to cover up the massive cock up by Stasi Govt. Where are our MPs in all this? Theyre supposed to represent us, not just hide at home allowing these stupid Fear Addicts to wreck our lives. Its not Living, being threatened with Imprisonment. In Solitary Confinement fir many of us! No better than North Korea or such Dictatorships! We are Prisoners!”
Go read and uptick, it’s encouraging!
Link
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8604915/Preston-gets-lockdown.html#reader-comments
Excellent!
Well said. Should be circulated more!
That’s well said. We shouldn’t be living in fear for a tiny extra risk of death over our lifetime. This country, like many others, has become spineless and pathetic. The worst thing about it is that if we hadn’t had Covid all the moral high ground bedwetting types would have been happy to carry on spreading the flu virus every winter.
I’m 15 minutes down the road from Preston. I hope the lockdown infection doesn’t spread because it will finish off this town.
Infections!?
Lockdown is being spoken of as a sickly purile virus in ots own right by R G. A brain virus I dare say.
Fear spreads like a virus. Only its now looking like the absurdity of these lock ups is causing immunity to lockaway peddling.
Knowing what we know now, knew by 06 Feb, hands up who thinks, in any conceivable scenario, that covid 19, a common cold coronavirus, could have killed 1.5 million people in this country? And how many think a collateral death toll of 16,000 is even close to the truth?
The people writing these reports are fanatical lunatics. We have some kind of education and training system in place that is turning out the batshit crazy in their millions.
The beyond silly ‘precautionary principle’ (remember pictures of mandatory flag men walking in front of early automobiles in this country waving red warning flags?That is the precautionary principle) is being used to kill, maim and otherwise injure, mentally and physically, generations of this country’s population because no-one at a senior level within Whitehall has the balls to point out, even now, at this late stage of staggeringly obvious anticlimax, that the emperor has no clothes.
Agreed. However, the cause of this brainwashing is bigger than the education system alone. As an adult over the last decade I have beensubjected to psychological training telling me to ignore what my eyes and deductive brain tell me. No longer am I allowed to have faith that 2+2=4, and if someone decides that 2+2=7 then both must be correct. Thankfully I, and probably all of you, are stubborn enough to be immune to this. There are many attack vectors for the brainwashing. If you are stupid enough to watch soaps then that is an obvious big attack vector along with MSM “news” and comedy. For me, I have found that work has been a growing attack vector (probably the biggest). For example, my company is regarded (and awarded) as one of the most diverse companies in the UK and equality is at their core. However, following BLM, they have now declared that they are racist organisation, and as an employee I now hear no end of it. Positive discrimination is now going to go into overdrive. Employees implicitly trust their seniors and lap this shit up. Eventually they start to automatically think the same way. I openly challenge this… Read more »
I totally agree, I have been acutely aware of how the brainwashing works for literally the last 20 years. Talking about it has put me firmly in the crazy conspiracy theorist camp with everybody I know.. Well, I was right all along but I am STILL a crazy conspiracy theorist.
That was the intention of Blair’s drive to have 50% of children go to unversity.The majority come out as brainwashed drones and then common purpose finishes the job,by marking out leaders and brainwashing them.The soaps then push the same messages and that takes care of the working classes.Very few people are immune this spirit of the age
This is what SAGE were using 31 March: ‘Annex G: Comparison to unmitigated scenario: In this section we show the results of comparing the total deaths expected over 12 months with the CSS as compared to the “unmitigated Reasonable Worst Case (RWC) Scenario 31st March”. This is a scenario provided to SAGE to represent what might feasibly have occurred if no changes occurred to reduce the spread of the virus, such as through social distancing measures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. The results are shown in the table below. Table 53 Comparison with “unmitigated RWC scenario 31st March” Comparison with unmitigated RWC scenario Health impact category CSS (covers 12 months from Mar ‘20 to Mar ’21) Unmitigated RWC Scenario 31st March A. Direct impact from COVID-19 85,000 COVID-19 deaths (12 months from March 2020 to end March 2021) We estimate that around 67,000 of those are excess deaths. 700,000 years of life lost. 530,000 QALYs lost 504,000 COVID-19 deaths. 439,000 (410,000 to 454,000) excess deaths 4,000,000 (2,700,000 to 5,100,000) years of life lost. 3,000,000 (2,800,000 to 3,500,000) QALYs lost Comparing this to the mitigated scenario suggests 420,000 COVID-19 deaths would have occurred if mitigations were not put in place. Of this,… Read more »
The precautionary principle goes hand-in-hand with the R2P protocol. Right to Protect. This says that the international community must react to “threats”. This R2p doctrine was used to justify the sacking of Libya and Syria. “Carbon” emissions also will fall under this framework. The idea that a country is threatening their neighbours with too much “carbon” or a biological hazard will demand international intervention.
The irony is that if the govt believed in the precautionary principle then they would have spent far more on the NHS so it was properly prepared for a pandemic, the chance of which is 100% at some point. Lockdown was probably not about precaution but naked panic and fear, and saving the govt rather than the NHS.
Doesn’t seem to have worked for either!
The NHS is somewhat wrecked, but unfortunately the govt is intact. Even the anti-Brexit types who didn’t trust Johnson over prorogation seem more than happy for him to lockdown the country and inflict draconian laws.
I’m struggling to imagine where they got that 1.5 million figure. Even Ferguson’s infamous prediction was only a third of that. Maybe it’s based on the average global CFR which I think is around 3.5% (still probably exaggerated and not the same as the IFR which is less than a tenth of that at most)
It feels like the precautionary principle ought to be the other way round now. There may be a small chance of a devastating second wave if all the science somehow turns out to be incorrect, or the virus suddenly mutates – but this is set against the certainty of all the social, physical mental and health, economic and cultural damage that’s being done and is only getting worse.
You dont need to struggle, the figures are in the Annexe G to the SAGE paper which I copied in its entirety above, it’s the total of Categories A and B.
For supposedly eminent scientists and qualified medics, they seem to have little idea how bodies and microbes actually work.
I think I could have done better just with what I learned for O-Level biology.
‘Evidence indicates markedly higher mortality risk from COVID-19 among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, but deaths are not consistent across BAME groups.’ ‘It is important to note that compared to the White British population per capita deaths are markedly greater in Indian, Other Black, Black Caribbean and Other Ethnic group’ ‘…and they are markedly greater in Black Caribbean and Black Other groups compared to all other ethnicities (except ‘Other ethnic group’). For example, per capita, Black Caribbean deaths are over twice those of Bangladeshi and Pakistani populations.’ CEBM 05 May 2020 Why? ‘It is known that second and third generation ethnic immigrants may not understand the vulnerability of their infants to tuberculosis and this may result in withholding consent for BCG vaccination. Similarly, infants born of a mixed marriage may not be recognised as being eligible for selective neonatal BCG vaccination.’ ‘Infants of Indian sub-continental origin (ISC) were significantly more likely to have been vaccinated than non-ISC infants (ISC 70% v non-ISC 29%).’ https://adc.bmj.com/content/89/1/48 Of course this is not proof but, if this site is about anything, it is about common sense: ‘The current evidence about BCG vaccination and prevention of acute respiratory infections is of high quality, as it… Read more »
This was suggested some time ago but as usual with our media nothing was followed up. Scaremongering is what they do best!
They honestly cant cope with nuanced stories, so much easier to write something sensational and wrong.
I’s because they tend to work with press releases. Lazy journalism.
I have a question:
Looking at the average age of a ‘Covid’ death and range of co-morbidities, wouldn’t most of them have been in the shielding category? If so, how did they get Covid outside of nosocomial settings?
‘Official’ deaths in care homes seem to be around 15,000 and around 33,000 in hospitals:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
I guess we will never know but I would love to know how many would have tested negative before attending hospital.
See if you can find this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Up-Against-Wall-Motherf-Memoir/dp/1583228497
They care homes vs hospital deaths numbers will likely also disguise a number of people who were in a care home but then transferred into hospital when they got very sick.
I thought once they got very sick they were DNR’d.
Is the answer not simply that we don’t actually know how viruses spread? Strange as it may sound, we have yet to gain a proper scientific understanding of how viruses spread. We have some notions, but not much more.
Which is why everything is so completely incoherent. Governments have set themselves the impossible task of protecting us against a virus without having any real clue how to do it or even whether it can be done simply with the right public policy.
Sadly we are the guinea pigs in this immoral and grotesque social experiment.
We are. From what I can see, nothing will stop the spread but can only slow it down to some extent. Masks, quarantine, social distancing, lockdowns etc. None of it makes the slightest bit of difference in the long run. It is going to happen, delay all you want but you won’t stop it so work on treatments, protect the most vulnerable as best as possible, be healthy and keep living.
A lot would have been shuttling between hospital and care home on a fairly regular basis. This is why I think it’s wrong for people to argue for ignoring how many of them tested positive for CV 19 at point of death. We need to know that it was widespread in the general population (their visitors, carers, nurses, doctors) for whom it wasn’t a big deal, to get a true picture of how that affects this frail population.
Keep it out of the hospitals, treat with HCQ early on first suspicion and it is less dangerous than seasonal flu.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=239747
None of it makes the slightest bit of difference in the long run… or in the short run.
Spain and Belgium have the strictest mask policies in Europe (must be worn indoors and outdoors) and their measured infection rates are as high as anyone else’s and have in fact increased since the mandates.
The implementation of lockdowns and masks don’t seem to correlate at all with a reduction in deaths or infections.
That’s because the lockdowns and masks haven’t been about a virus.
Singapore got its Nosocomial infection rate down to statistical zero in March.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=239747
Thank you very much for this link – EVERYONE should read it, his conclusions on nappy-wearing are inescapable.
Need to spread the word, keep reposting etc
Go out enjoy the summer and fuck the government. Line them fuckers up agains the wall and offer them choice, a firing squad or get off our fucking backs. I’ll decided how i live and where i go not you and also i’m not responsible if someone gets sick. Never have been in the past and i won’t be in the future. The government has overreached massively and i’m happy people feel this and are doing what they want. This madness must stop now. Time to fight back, no mask, no social distance, no name, no number, no tests and no fucking quarantine.
Agree with you, never before have we had a narrative which states that we are responsible for other people’s health so we must totally upend our own lives to stop passing on a disease. It’s this insidious focus on saving others that invalidates the perfectly legitimate argument that health is a matter of weighing up personal risk. We are not responsible for other people’s health outcomes to the extent that the government are making out with the lockdown.
Amazingly powerful statement. Couldn’t agree more.
Feeling more or less the same myself now (can’t even honestly bring myself to disagree with the firing squad bit). I don’t have any confidence in this government to get us out of this mess, or for the Opposition or most of the media to hold them to account. The only way is for individuals (and organisations) to stand up to it.
Well said. We are responsible for our own lives and not for everyone else’s, as for those who bang on about “protecting the NHS” well they exist to serve us not the other way around. If they can’t cope then reform is needed to make sure they can.
I would offer no choice Biker, firing squad.
And then they’ll get off our fucking backs.
I don’t hate these people i pity them. These fools think they know enough so they can lead us to the promised land. I’m no Moses but if you followed me you’d at least be on the road and living. I’m sick to death of them telling us one thing and millions of us ignoring them and doing what we want. Time for us who want to get at it to take control. You just need to ignore their rules best you can, tell everyone who asks your position on the matter and go about your day.
Pity them is right, until you see them bullying or even assaulting someone for disagreeing with them. Then the pity ends and the hatred begins.
They deserve hate and worse. They have murdered thousands by their cowardice and stupidity.
Why offer a choice? Well, hung or shot might be ok.
Well hung or shot?? Not sure that I like the sound of that! (insert smiley)
Couldn’t agree more. Look at the state of our country/the world. Most people normally dont give a shit about their own health and either live with and/or eventually die from preventable illness, preventable if they took moderate responsibility for their own health. But all of a sudden everyone has to stick their nose in and take charge of OTHER people’s health. I am responsible for my health and in part for those dependent on me at home. No one else. Leave me alone, sheep.
Thank you; your comments are keeping me sane.
Amen to all that and no fucking vaccine.
Obviously I agree with you but it isn’t the case that people have never before been held responsible if others get sick. I worry about this because I am genuinely concerned that if the UK continues on this path it’s only time before someone is charged with recklessly infecting someone with covid.
There were rumblings of it being threatened in MSM when they covered the recent story of Belly Mujinga (google it -her death is v sad but not a crime).
The most obvious parallel is hiv – according to wiki as of June 2006 seven people in England and Wales have been convicted for transmitting hiv recklessly (under existing assault law). I don’t know about any other diseases but I fear we may be on this path.
From the various reports from far and wide and from the comments on here, it appears to me that the lockdown and muzzle zealots – here in the UK and throughout the world – are becoming ever more hyperbolic, extremist and aggressive in their words and actions.
Meanwhile, the steady flow of facts and figures is all going the Sceptics’ way – like some massive tide flowing in among the rocks; unseen almost, but steady and relentless. And the top public comments in Conservative publications like the Spectator, Telegraph and Mail are overwhelmingly sceptical, exhibiting bitter and increasingly widespread frustration with what is going on.
The debate is becoming increasingly polarised and ugly, and yet the grounding of fact is crumbling away from underneath the zealots – which perhaps explains their increasingly illogical and erratic behaviour. Eventually, facts are always stubborn things – as is economic mathematics.
These observations suggest to me that the hysteria is simply going to burn itself out, as a ‘tipping point’ arrives. Predicting the timing is difficult. But it is coming.
Off to the beach today! A quiet hidden-away place, so no risk of catching or spreading anything. What a fine citizen I am.
Agreed – the tone of the Telegraph / Mail coverage has shifted markedly in the last few days and comments are now overwhelming sceptical. Was at a Sainsbury’s yesterday – man struggling with his mask as strong had broken. Told him not to worry – he struggled on but came up to me at the end and said was fed up with this rubbish (second person that day) – thought government had made a massive error and now trying to cover up. Didn’t know about this site but was very happy to learn about it. I feel there is a growing momentum amongst people and it just needs a focal point / person around whom to rally.
Yes, with the overwhelming scepticism among those majority conservative sympathisers, how long can the current administration maintain its course? Can a Conservative PM afford to loose for long the grass roots of the party?
Alpine, our treasured psychiatrist, can you tell us if mass hysteria does tend to burn itself out?
Annie, it will only shift when there’s an acceptance that the losses outweigh the gains. But that also means having to bear the guilt and shame of the destruction wrecked. I don’t think we’re even close unfortunately
Guilt? Dominic Cummings? Shame? Boris Johnson??
Actually DC did admit mistakes during the Rose Garden interview, so guilt is a possibility in his case. The latter, not.
The little dark secret propping all this up is that too many people are benefiting from it. There are too many people out there who either get paid without actually working (e.g. teachers), are working less (e.g. doctors) or who have really taken to working from home and don’t want to revert (tonnes of people).
Yes, that’s a very important point, that is all too often forgotten.
A very, very important point.
I don’t think it’s being continued because the average person is enjoying it. Most are desperate to get their children back in school and go out for a meal in a pub. It’s being continued because the slow Loris and his chums made a huge mistake in not doing a Sweden, and are now busily trying to make it look like it was all to save us from Armageddon.
Yes, but people like Ferguson and Hancock et al. are enjoying it. And, until very recently of course, a lot of people on furlough have been happy about it. And the teaching unions have a stick to work with; and every little busybody who enjoys their moral superiority bossy other people around is happy for it to continue.
A hundred times this. This is obvious when you consider that people claim it’s too dangerous to go to the office but are going to restaurants for their subsidised lunch. It’s very hard to convince someone it’s safe to go back to work when they don’t like work.
I wonder what will happen (being optimistic here saying “when” not “if”) when the overall mood eventually changes and even the BBC, Guardian etc. have to acknowledge it? Are they going to admit they were wrong (and partly responsible themselves) or simply act as if their opinion was that way all along? I suspect the latter, journalists and papers have done this plenty of times in the past and got away with it.
There’s a rather depressingly pious (literally) article in the Times today talking about putting a value on human life in the context of Christian values, and basically taking the stance that, even though we know we’re doing more harm in the long term, anything is justifiable if it saves just one life in the short term. Maybe a valid stance (for an individual) but only if you apply it to all preventable deaths! The article writer is right that all the Covid deaths are individual people with relatives, friends etc. who will miss them – but elderly people were dying from disease and neglect in care homes before Covid, and not many people in the media spoke out for them.
I’d imagined that a large number of people would simply get bored with it all, like some really naff fad that seemed to a lot of people as a great idea at the time but quickly turned sour. If I had to stick my neck out on timing, I’d guess that six months was a natural turnaround time – which would take us to the latter part of September. At the start of this, back in March it seemed to me that, the actual disease effects aside, as a society we were writing our own chapter for a new edition of Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. It was many years ago that I read this, but as I remember the collective delusions and hysteria often seemed to have a finite burn-out time. Seventeenth-century witch-hunt scares, which the current madness reminds me of, seemed in discrete communities to burn themselves out in a few months (although they might rumble on in he background for far longer). I’m only guessing, as should say that I don’t have any professional background in this. If anyone on here can recommend a good edition of Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions I’d be… Read more »
It is long out of copyright and there are plenty of free editions for download.
try Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1852
Yes, I’ve seen the free editions on Google Books etc.
I thought it might be good to have a nice hardback copy.
That quote always stayed with me since I read it many years ago. Very apposite now.
Make sure you lie on your front AND NO BACKSTROKE!
Got stung by a weever fish. Bit like a covid vaccination I’d guess.
Remedy is to stick foot in bucket of extremely hot water. Where BJ and chums should be.
Yes, so I’m told. Trouble is, I don’t generally take hot water to the beach! There were lifeguards around today and I had a chat with them. They offered the kettle but I didn’t bother. One of them told me he’s been got about 10 times.
Johnson and his friends are going to be in very hot water before long.
Classic pattern of behaviour for a crumbling case of cognitive dissonance.
They know they’re on the ropes!
Yes, their claims are getting ever more shrill and implausible (cf. 1.5 million deaths in today’s blog). That suggests to me the stasis may be shifting.
I hope you’re right, but the vast majority will only change their minds when told to do so by someone in a position of authority. Sad to say, but for the big issues such as this they do not and cannot form their own opinion.
Maybe it needs a much smaller number of opinion-formers, rather than an authority figure as such?
The Preston ‘lockdown’ is pretty pathetic. Like the Northern lockdown introduced hastily on 30th July, all the restrictions now are social ones – i.e. no visiting people inside their house – rather than economic ones, such as the closure of shops or pubs. I know Scotland has gone harder with its Aberdeen lockdown but we know Sturgeon likes to do things differently from England just for the sake of it and they’re about 2 months behind us anyway because of how much she’s slowed easing down. I think that at least in England any future local ‘lockdowns’ will consist of just these totally unenforceable social restrictions that are very easy to ignore because the government knows now that it cannot afford to shut the economy down a second time, especially with furlough scheme beginning to wind down. Of course the unthinking sheep populace or those who still support lockdown will agree with the measures and see them as effective. I hope there is a robust silent majority emerging who are beginning to see through the bullshit. I suppose these social restrictions are a sign that the government know how harmful lockdown is economically (and socially/culturally as well) but still want… Read more »
I think that’s exactly right, poppy. It smacks, to me, of increasing desperation. A knowledge that the wheels are beginning to come off while fighting a rearguard action (mixed metaphors? Not me!) in the hope that no one will notice what’s happening.
The Tory COVID CLOWN CAR:
The wheels fall off, with a bang and a puff of smoke
The doors open and close on their own
The boot lid pops up and down
The bonnet blows open with a puff of smoke and a bang
The exhaust falls off
The steering wheel comes off
The brakes don’t work
The car’s interior fills up with foam
The crank handle falls off
The bumpers fall off
The windscreen wipers start wiping
The washer jets squirt
The horn goes off randomly
The clown with a mop of blond hair and a mask falls over a few times trying to get in and out the car and chases it around the arena as if under remote control doing hidden thumb pointy gestures and waving his arms about
Hilarious!
. . . at least Boris won’t need any make-up
Agree with you Poppy. They have lost the plot and control ages ago and all these measures smack of a desperate need to control.
I get the feeling as well that they know that its only a matter of time before the volcano erupts. The furlough scheme is winding down, measures to get people out and about spending have failed and even this latest measure to get people to visit our cultural treasures is doomed to failure. Hopefully more and more people are waking up.
Let’s look at it this way. The people running this horror show were so excited to take advantage of this opportunity that they didn’t have time to put in place the perfect group of people to carry out their plan to the fullest. This bumbling, fumbling government, unfortunately, is really not bright enough to really pull it off. Back to the drawing board. That could give us enough time to prepare for their next attack, so we must continue to resist this present BS tooth and nail and claw back as much freedom as we can now. A couple of hackers would also help a lot.
Exactly. I think the way to go now apart from raising greater awareness is continued resistance and civil disobedience on our pat.
The tipping point of ‘enough’ people waking up will no doubt be met with an ’emergency lockdown’, i.e. no travel or gatherings – with enforcement.
They can try but if more than enough people resist, it will be unenforceable. Look at antisocial distancing – hardly anyone cares now even the police who were ridiculed for enforcing it.
Hope so, Bart, but there’s just so many sheep, who would welcome it.
People who agree with measures are not just unthinking sheep. There are many out there who are benefiting from all this by getting paid and not working, working less for the same pay or working from home and loving it. They’ll believe whatever they need to believe if they can carry on in the same way.
I’m amazed (though not really surprised to be honest) that they feel they can justify, and get away with, another local lockdown. The dubious justification behind last week’s ones (see Carl Heneghan’s article on CEBM) was even mentioned in the mainstream media.
There are people who have been ‘sheilding’ all this time who really have no idea what is happening other than what they get from MSM. Now they are poking their heads out and finding people who have been carrying on as normal all these months. Act normal, make it clear that they are the ones who have been fooled.
Some brief additions before heading to the beach.
Covid is still raging in Wales …according to the data with 74 hospital admissions on August 5th as opposed to England with only 21 covid admissions that day . Garbage in ??
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare
The adulation of the Victorian Premier in Australia continues . The journalists from the only Melbourne broadsheet asked the glorious leader ” how do you manage to do all this ..we are so grateful to you ”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-victoria-enters-lockdown-weekend-new-south-wales-and-queensland-borders-restricted-australia-s-death-toll-reaches-266-20200807-p55jrm.html
A patient was refused assessment at a neighbouring surgery because they refused to wear a mask because of anxiety . This is against PHE guidelines. I presume they have a case for disability discrimmination under the 1995 act ; anyone know ?
Very probably, yes – the act applies to GP surgeries every bit as much as it does to other settings. I would suggest the patient should seek legal advice, though. The link Toby provides on his page would be a good place to start, because a key will be finding a solicitor sympathetic to the position.
Ultimately, an initial solicitor’s letter will probably be enough to force the practice to back down.
It would be under the equality act 2010, and yes it is disability discrimination, patient should ask to see the Equality Impact Assessment and the Risk Assessment for their services.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/04/doctors-criticise-barmy-rules-forcing-treat-patients-refuse/ (paywall) but includes “In a bulletin to GPs, NHS England said patients “should not be refused entry to a premises or access to care if they are unable to or refuse to” wear a face mask”. Can’t find a link to that bulletin -do we have any GPs who can help?
Great edition of LS this morning. One of the best. But how to get it read by the bedwetters? A link with a simple title – ‘ read something you won’t agree with’ ?
What do people think?… Are there any amateur psychologists that can suggest a more effective alternative?
Honestly, I think we need to choose our platform. Rehearse the facts and have conversations face to face. Find a chink and exploit it – not aggressively, but persuasively. Don’t do it online in an open forum, because there will be too many people who won’t read what’s behind your argument and will just dismiss it out of hand. My recent experience is that most people are beginning to suspect they’ve been had. If you can talk to them one-on-one you’ll get further than if you do it somewhere (like Facebook) where you’ll be shouted down by idiots who will never admit they’ve been had.
It’s those types of contrary fuckers I’m aiming for. Was thinking a bit of reverse psychology but you are probably right. I’ve also found the odd lull to be effective as the constant butting of heads just builds resistance.
I’d ignore them. They’re hysterical and their opinions are a matter of faith, not knowledge. Work on people who are wavering and you’ll get further. Eventually even the total zealots will come around once nobody else is listening to them and he all of a sudden they’ll be telling you that they never believed the crap in the first place.
These bedwetters won’t ever listen whatever you say, they only work on emotion and not facts. No matter what you throw at them they will always come back with things like “but if it saves one life” or “but you’re could spread it and kill and vulnerable person”. They have been conditioned to think like this for many years by the MSM and TV programming such as watching soaps and dramas.
Wonder how many of them drink and drive? Or smoke? Or engage in high risk activities, such as ‘crossing the road’?
Now now, Sam, no digs at smokers please. We are near the very top of Common Purpose’s list to be sent to the gulags.
You should be aware by now that smoking is one of those activities that has a strongly protective effect against Covid ( Very inconvenient for the bansturbators & puritans)
https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/31/heartjnl-2020-317393
It has many strongly protective effects. 🙂 One of the biggest is against certain forms of arthritis.
Toby tells us that our Covid death statistics are to be modified so that they are counted only if death occurs within 28 days of being tested positive.
This is still nonsense surely as it is the cause of death that is important.
The next step needs to be a review of death certificates to remove all of the 3rd part (Peter Thompson will be able to help by being more specific about the section on the form) “other complications known to be present” entires from the totals.
I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to go any further than that. The death certificates stand as a matter of record and the bodies have been cremated. I suspect the numbers we end up with will always be overinflated.
Also, when complete garbage like “1.5M lives saved” is being trotted out, we need to remember that every life not lost to Covid has the potential to be another life “saved” by lockdown.
It is impossible to now know how many people died of rather than with Covid.Because of a deliberate act by the government to assign Covid to any patient who was suspected of having It despite a lack of positive test.
The symptoms are so wide ranging anyone could have be classed as having it.
Even the excess mortality figures are skewed because we don’t know how many deaths are due to the lockdown itself.
We will face a fight because when they are ready the government can point to the figures and say look how bad it would have been,without all our measures.
Will never happen as the figures would be near zero. I take it they’ve gone for 28 days as more than likely 95%-99% of the deaths will have occurred in this short time due to COVID-19 deaths only being registered from the beginning of March, so the figures will only drop by a few hundred, rather than basing them on what the person actually died of which would significantly reduce the amount of COVID-19 deaths.
I don’t know what experience you have of very elderly people, although we do know Peter Thompson has. Whether in a care home or not, most will have more than one thing wrong with them all the time, to do with deteriorating organs and/or processes, plus falling over and injuring themselves ( poor eyesight, deafness so don’t hear a cyclist coming up behind them and get in their path, postural hypotension, i.e. dizziness when they stand up due to blood not getting round fast enough any longer). They go in and out of hospital on a regular basis, getting patched up and out again – until the last time, when they might die under anaesthetic at 95 as a surgeon inserts a replacement hip joint (as happened to my close relative), or of a respiratory disease contracted either in their care home or in hospital, on top of their initial reason for admission. In the former case it’s doubtful they’d be tested for CV19, although I don’t know if it became routine in all hospital deaths after 23 March? But otherwise, if with symptoms, I think it’s right to include CV 19 on the death cert, as otherwise we’d never… Read more »
Sylvie, I was talking to the OH (a nurse) about this. Cv19 should go down in the notes and supporting material if that’s possible not as a cause of death. So the actual numbers reflect reality – i.e. uncertainty
Simply if you don’t know you don’t attribute. You could still record CV19 information but it wouldn’t be a false attribution.
I think the person certifying it is duty bound to include it on the death cert though? As otherwise, how could it be part of public health reviews and decisions taken drawing on them, which are the foundation data for the ONS stats?
It’s a notifiable disease.
The trouble is that they aren’t performing autopsies (WHO guidance?) so they can’t be certain and with co-morbidities you can never really be sure which condition actually wielded the dagger. That’s why any measure is always an approximation – flu death statistics are compiled without a test too. Whether 28 days is a small enough window (arguably nobody who’s going to do from CV hangs on that long) is a reasonable question, but from our perspective anything which reduces the daily deaths to zero or near zero has to be a good thing.
Sorry, but if you’ve got an 85 year old who died in hospital with a 6 month old neck bone break which wasn’t healing, a newer urinary infection, dehydration and a positive CV 19 swab, you’re not going to perform an autopsy to find out if it was ‘ really’ CV 19 they died of. You’re just not.
I agree, but I read somewhere that the WHO actually issued guidance not to carry out autopsies where Covid was suspected. Obviously common-sense should tell you that some of these deaths aren’t Covid, but politics seems to be telling people that they have to consider them as such regardless.
I don’t have the reference to hand but think that was so for UK too. But I don’t think autopsies would have been ordered anyway, in the majority of those (very elderly, multiple co morbidities) cases, i. e. I don’t believe they would have normally taken place anyway. No point. There might have been a point for otherwise healthy young people (bus drivers, medical staff) where the diagnosis was uncertain.
I also disagree with your ‘anything that reduces the daily deaths to zero or near zero has to be a good thing.’ It isn’t. We need to know how widespread and contagious this is, how serious in what age cohorts, and so on. We need good data.
Ronan Maher wrote an excellent article for Hector Drummond’s website on the changes to UK death certification and its consequences..
Good morning Fellow Sceptics!
As we all know today is the day when mandatory muzzling in more indoor spaces including museums, art galleries and heritage sites begins.
We should vote with our wallet and feet and boycott these places. Crucially write to them and tell them why we’re boycotting.
If we must go and visit, use the feedback forms and surveys to let them know how we feel.
Hopefully this will wake the likes of the National Gallery, National Trust, British Museum, V&A, English Heritage, etc up and shame them for their lack of courage in standing up to the government who have done bugger all for the sector and is complicit in their destruction.
Absolutely – we have to vote with our feet. As far as possible, I’m avoiding places that require masks, e.g. instead of grabbing a sandwich from Pret or local supermarket for lunch, eat in at a local cafe instead.
Well said and also boycott those who demand you give your details for NHS T&T!
Agree
Had two emails yesterday from Heritage places I support. Replied to both saying that in view of the mask policy wouldn’t be visiting until it was repealed
Have just done the same with the British Museum – Mr Bart and I are members but have said that we won’t be visiting until “safety” measures and mandatory mask wearing has been abolished.
New song suggestion: ‘Our day will come’ by Ruby and the Romantics.
A change is gonna come, Sam Cooke.
A change is gonna come …
And when it does we’ll be ‘Twistin’ the Night Away’…
Tide is Turning by Roger Waters
Haha, careful now, that’s the motto of the IRA! Only in Irish it’s ‘tiocfaidh ar la” (chucky R La).
Am I the only one who heard ‘careful now’ in a Father Ted accent ? 🙂
Ruby & the Romantics beat them to it.
Sturgeon has been interviewed and asked why the joint statement by the UK Government and devolved nations on tacking Covid has not yet materialised. Her response is that they have been unable to agree the wording : “For reasons I don’t fully understand there seems to be, on the part of the UK government, an unwillingness to use the word elimination and I don’t really know why that is the case.”
So, confirmation that up her in SNP land we are now going for full elimination of this virus. What a joke.
Maybe, just maybe, we can take some hope from this statement that BoJo realises this is impossible.
If they aren’t ever going to go down the Herd Immunity route then the only option for “Full Elimination” will be to vaccinate everyone.
Not much chance of that happening any times soon, so speaks the man in the US who knows a bit about these things, and is personally, pretty invested (in a financial as well as scientific sense) in the bandwagon:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-vaccine-may-only-be-50-effective-us-disease-expert-fauci-warns-12044927
If ir were eliminated there would be no need for a vaccine to protect from what has been eliminated.
And that would assume 100% efficacy of the vaccine, wouldn’t it?
And no need for regular repeat jabs!
The vaccine will be all about elimination, ask Bill Gates.
Is there a way to get sturgeon sectioned?
Eliminated.
Fully (and finally!) eliminated.
I’ve eliminated her. Well, people like her. Ok, what I mean is “I’ve shit ’em”.
Getting rid of swinney as many are calling for would really get her jitters going. She isolated as it is with only a tiny bunker of support in her circle of trust.
Weeping comment, increasingly hyperbolic statements. Skin greasy and blotchy with sweat in press conference. Would take Bruno Ganz or Anthony Hopkins to play her in the remake.
Anybody remember the Munsters?
a tiny bunker of support in her circle of trust.
Like Hitler.
How about a straightjacket?
This is because she is being advised by the 36 year old Professor Sridhar, who is neither a doctor nor a scientist (unless you count an MPhil and DPhil in social policy), and who just happens to be a friend of Chelsea Clinton. This is what we are up against, unfortunately.
Yes, and it was Sridhar’s dept at Edinburgh Uni which got the £28million bung from Bill Gates. And Stasi Sturgeon hates Trump so it does seem the political nature of Covid is to oust the Donald.
That ‘Trump hate’ is a feature on the landscape of being a good little snp follower. Trinkets in shops and homes virtue display the Democrat thinking about Trump. Trump lampoon masks and toilet brushs for sale in shop windows. This is how Scotland is, not a whisky glow sunset over miekle pap of loch flipping salmon with kilts on and bag peeps a’dronin’ some air of lament.
Got my self thinking! Are bag pipes now banned? Bags of swilling virus surely!
Those of us old enough will recall when the same irrational burning hatred mixed with contempt was directed at Reagan by the same kinds of people. I suppose the Bushes got the same treatment, but deserved it more. Trump just seems to have had the dial turned up to 11 by these people.
Not so many years ago, Scotland took its knickers off and rolled on its back for Trump when he proposed to build a giant golf resort in Aberdeenshire.
Tempora mutantur.
Nicola’s a solicitor.
How spectacularly STUPID!!!
There is no way that you can eliminate a virus – even if you vaccinate every individual once a month.
The virus is here to stay, we need to learn to live with it
Do we need to learn to live with it or do we need to remember how we live with viruses? I say we need to learn to recognise evil and propaganda, then we will be just dandy once more.
But look at the Dodo, we eradicated that!
Hmm. Where do you get anti-Dodo vaccine?
Is this a serious question? You know that a Dodo is a bird right?
It must be much harder to eliminate a bird. Birds can fly away, but the virus just hovers in the air and on surfaces and stuff.
The dodo was a flightless bird!
Also it had never met humans before and didn’t know to be shit scared of us.
They’ll say covids will be found clinging to the heather and a full scorched earth policy is the only way to go. Then it’ll be the seaweed on the beaches….
The older-by-the-day-looking-moo spun the spinning. Based on only the words you quote it is clear she is also saying she is the reason for the joint statement to not have been presented. Her way or nothing and that is ok by her. Nihilistic nationalism is splitting her own vote. A few more weeks and she may tantrum – her language is heading in that direction as she realised this is one almighty corner she has painted herself into.
Take off and nuke the whole site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
It may well be that elimination isn’t desirable. If we go down the path of elimination for something like this then we are settting a very low bar for elimination of future pathogens. And once we start wel have to keep channeling resources into human interventions forever where a more natural route may have sufficed.
When did Scotland eliminate the common cold?
Sticky Nurgeon
Did interviewer query ‘elimination’?
This could be interesting. Assuming Wee Krankie is telling the truth (OK, I know!!) this suggests that Johnson and co. may not yet be going along with this lunatic document from ‘Independent’ Sage:
‘Independent SAGE believes that the UK government must fundamentally change its
approach and we propose a new overarching strategic objective of achieving a Zero COVID UK, i.e. the elimination of the virus from the UK. We believe this should be informed by science and debated in public, and a proper coordinated strategy for its achievement developed with the public.
[and]
Even under the most optimistic estimates for when a vaccine will become available, it is
unlikely to provide “sterilising immunity” and in any case is very unlikely to be provided to
all individuals in the UK within the next year. ‘
Posted on here yesterday (sorry, forget who it was): https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20200717-A-Better-Way-To-Go.pdf
After reading that, my opinion of “Independent SAGE” has gone even lower!
I hope more than anything else that Johnson and co. don’t attempt to follow the chimera of “zero COVID”. That would eclipse almost everything they’ve already done, which is saying something. It doesn’t seem totally beyond possibility that they might decide on this in an attempt to show themselves as “caring more about people’s health”
Unless you permanently close our borders (and maybe not even then) “Zero COVID” is surely unachievable even with a vaccine, in the same way as we’ve never eliminated common cold viruses. But a government attempting it will inflict many more months of pointless misery and economic ruin on its people before finding this out!
No sane person could entertain the notion of eradicating a coronavirus.
https://twitter.com/ChGefaell/status/1291882932651601921/photo/4
A very interesting graph what is happening in Spain. Second wave? Enormous increase in testing.37500 cases last 14 days.60% asymptomatc 37% mild 3% hospitalization but deaths very low for now and many cases in previously not hit regions but also new cases in previously hit regions. The interesting is the CFR current last month 0.26% and if we assume this is the same since the beginning of the pandemic, what do we get? The real peak in April was 300000 and not 8000.And the total cases 10,7 million cases and that is 23% of the Spanish population. Herdimmunity?? Daily case CFR adjusted does not indicate second wave for now.
BTW not very good news for masks.The highest mask bearing in Europe and several thousands symptomatic cases.
But… imagine how much worse it would be without the masks!
Dogs and cats living together
Thanks for this. It’s one to keep an eye on. There’s a possibility from the serology map that Catalonia and Valencia were not fully cooked through the first time around. But the Barcelona wastewater from Jan 2020 contradicts this and indicates they may even have had it first. I’m sitting on the fence.
1.5 million dead without lockdown now? Triple Fergoid’s overinflated number. How did they come up with that one??
The answer is in Toby’s original post, it’s Annexe G to the SAGE paper.
‘We shall fight on the beaches…..’
Our country may be coming back to us…..They took their time!
Inproportion2 Straw Poll:
‘Based on this small informal poll, general opinions on Covid have dramatically shifted against the government.
The most popular response in both groups was D:
“The govt and their experts have got the whole Covid topic completely and utterly wrong with a disastrous blanket lockdown”
And…..we know exactly where all the lunatics are!:
‘Respondents to the survey who were sourced by a request through twitter seem not to have changed their opinions at all.’
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/straw_poll_5aug.html
If we start from a premise that hcq including combination is an effective treatment and that the powers that be have been waging an all out battle against its use costing hundreds of thousands of lives what could be the motivation? Vaccine money is not enough. It can only be to stop Trump’s reelection and the unveiling of criminality and the halt in the plot to deconstruct Western institutions and install a fascist empire. I should also say it has provided governments with the opportunity to extend their reach and power over every area of our lives. George Orwell would shudder to believe it.
Well it might be an effective treatment in some cases at some stage of their infection. It’s not a panacea. But since a quarter of UK deaths also had dementia, it might be more merciful to just give them palliative care.
Actually…
https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535
Coronavirus: For every three COVID-19 deaths, lockdown may have caused another two
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lockdown-may-have-indirectly-caused-16-000-excess-deaths-study-12044923
16,000 of the 38,500 excess deaths we’re non-COVID, it reports:
“However, the report concludes 41% of those deaths were the result of missed medical care rather than the virus itself.
Of the 16,000 deaths, the paper estimates 6,000 were as a result of a “significant reduction in A&E attendances and emergency admissions”.
Another 21,000 deaths expected by next March:
“The modelling suggests there could be a further 26,000 excess deaths by March 2021 as a result of ongoing restrictions to medical care.”
Sage have had this report for over a month and sat on it:
“The document was presented to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) last month, but was only released on Friday.”
And that’s assuming that all the ‘Covid deaths’ were directly caused by Civid, which we know to be a lie.
Some excitable journalists assume ‘all the CV deaths were directly caused by CV’, Annie, I’m sure you know better. SAGE had a more nuanced paper in front of them.
The odds are that there have been other infections around that have caused terminal respiratory disease in the vulnerable. It’s what happens, and it will show as a spike of deaths amongst older vulnerable people who have had an extra year of life because there was little infection last year (i.e some raised mortality this year may be a result of good, not ill- fortune).
But the problem is that we will never know, because of the lack of consistent death registration. I would be very suspicious of any numbers attached to ‘Covid’ deaths.
More suspicious than those from flu or pneumonia ( whatever that implies, it’s a description of symptoms from a cluster of viral and bacterial infections)?
Covid figures will be inflated because presumably they tick the “had Covid” box for anyone who tested positive. But they might have had hardly any symptoms.
If you tested more people for other cold and flu viruses you would probably find a similar picture. Lots of mild and asymptomatic cases. Somebody should actually do this to find out because it would be interesting to confirm whether there’s anything special about Covid in this respect.
You wouldn’t say someone had flu or pneumonia unless they actually did have quite severe symptoms.
Maybe in the future now that PCR tests are so cheap we’ll just record all the viruses someone had when they died. Would be potentially useful data.
I’ve read this site daily for months and found it about the only place for regular common sense. But in the past week I joined the Daily Mail website to try adding a few comments. Anyway a few days later and with all my posts anti lockdown, highlighting the stupidity of Boris etc, comments with an uptick versus a down tick are about 12 to 1. Over 300 up ticks and few down ticks even when I am slating the Mails own article and highlighting the craziness of the numbers. Maybe just maybe there are a silent majority that also don’t believe the lies and want us to get back to normal ASAP? It’s easy to say your pro lockdown when your getting paid for nothing or allowed to work from home, but the millions on the beaches would suggest that what suits is the order of the day. Pretend to be panicked when it suits your needs, then crack on with life when it suits you as well. Shame the government isn’t bright enough or gutsy enough to see through all the bullsh•t …..from scientists and also from the public playing the game!!! Lightweight politicians so scared of social… Read more »
Great job JB!
I think it’s the realisation that the money is running out. Redundancy rumours for companies are probably starting or in some cases (Like Bart S’s place) actual meetings about it.
And to contrast that, the council workers, politicians, teachers etc all on full pay.
Because without them continuing to be paid to collect your bins, maintain the flood barriers, work out how to preserve adult and child social care with holes in budgets of billions, and so on, you’d have a breakdown of civil society. I don’t want to live in Beirut.
Except that they are not the ones “working from home”. The bureaucrats always try to protect their own jobs by hiding behind the people who are actually doing the work.
You need both. Someone has to keep track of the money, organise the work schedules, do the forward thinking and the back up admin. Why do you think the computer industry is such a phenomenal success, and there’s a terminal on every desk?
Well said. Many of these lockdownistas won’t be singing the praises of lockdown for long if the government has to raid their pensions to pay for all the free money they have been throwing away like confetti.
I had a meeting with Tory Chairman on Thursday evening. I must preface this by saying I like him, respect him, and he is a good person. However, he was just about to jet off to his house in France, so I alarmed him by telling him about potential quarantine, as he could not break it due to his position and profile, and it would damage his business. Landed blow 1. Secondly, we were just chatting about all this, and he’s still clinging to ‘it’s just politics’ and in the end I just said, ‘we’re beyond that now, this is about what is morally right, there is no way Boris can ‘spin’ his way out of this any more, the damage its doing is just immense. It needs to stop. Lawyers are galvanising, this is the biggest infringement of civil liberties ever seen, it’s not good’. Landed blow 2. I’ve also written to the chairman of the 1922 Committee (on someone’s recommendation here, thank you) imploring him to do something to get these nutters’ hands off the tiller. I politely laid it out in its gruesome glory. This is killing and ruining people, it’s wrecking the economy, my rights are… Read more »
Well done you. Keep pushing.
Agree. Husband cancelled his membership, and wrote to CCHQ, local association and MP (he is a minister who ‘inherited’ the seat, and really a LibDem, in our view). No response.
My local Tory Mp is next to useless I’m afraid. I have written to her numerous times sending links for evidence against lockdowns and on the last occasions even citing my inability to get an hospital referral appointment even though there have been no covid deaths in my local hospital for over 2 months. All she could say was that the HandCOCK ordered reopening of the NHS (NCS more like) backin April and that things are opening up (though obviously not in my case) and to see if my GP could suggest an alternative centre!! I even accused her and her Government of only caring about Covid deaths. Her response? To assure me that this wasn’t the case!! Laughable doesn’t even begin to describe it.
My local MP is useless too. You can write to Sir Graham even if you are not one of his constituents
They need to feel PRESSURE, and the tide turning away from them, they think this is popular. It might be, but those people don’t write to them! So sorry about the GP, my 85 old dad is having the same issue. It’s a scandal.
My GP has been great actually, I’ve had several phone consultations and even a face to face one (all next day), when I didn’t wear a face mask and when questioned by the receptionist I just said the Dr asked me in for a quick throat swab test (non covid!) anyway and that was that. I even had a chest x-ray at a local centre which was – wait for it – EMPTY.
My MP is useless too – doesn’t even reply to messages. And he’s the chief whip…
I wrote to Sir Graham Brady too Bec and got a very quick and quite encouraging reply. I have put both letters in the forum under ‘Politics …’ for the record. I would recommend that others do the same too.
Great, he’s not replied to me, but I’ve seen from the press that he’s being more vocal and asking difficult questions so I’m hoping he’s getting lots of correspondence. There must be a grown up somewhere to inject some realism into this madness.
Sir Brady politely replied to me too. He`s not even my mp (no replies from him).
Thanks!
Wrote to my MP as the leading light in the Red Wall MPs and reminded him what the 1922 Committee is capable of. Doubt if he’ll reply but you have to keep trying
Apologies if this has already been posted – I had a day off the forums yesterday as I was mentally exhausted..
I just found this, which may explain why the government are still pursuing lockdown strategies: https://greatgameindia.com/belarus-world-bank-coronavirus-conditions/
Basically it is a condition of them getting money/loans etc from the World Bank. If they do not do as they are told (ie impose ever stricter controls on the population) then they get no money – which obviously they need in order to have any chance of rescuing the UK’s financial situation..
There are lots of interesting links from this one, as an aside..
I said that was happening ages ago. Held to ransom by the world bank unless we comply with the lockdown.
Great stuff, Bec. Probably my biggest two disappointments in this whole nonsense were the failures of two groups to apply any effective pushback to this disastrous panic – “Conservative” backbenchers and grassroots members, and big business and investors.
Most of the other disappointments – Johnson’s and the “Conservative” hierarchy’s performance, failures by courts, journalists, Opposition, big tech, were all groups I had little real hope for, once the Johnson government had proved the suspicions about their mettle to have been correct.
I’ve had a sympathetic response from Sir Graham Brady too. altsale@parliament.uk
Dealing with the public really makes one live the human race, doesn’t it?
As fir the zombie race…
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1291777239282057218/photo/1
Not very good news for mask fanatics.Hawaii. Mask mandate and cases.
Well after a lovely week of normal living in Norway a sharp snap back to gloom as we’re getting ready to leave just now. Conversation turns to covid with the taxi driver as they’ve had this cruise ship with some cases, an English woman who lives in France in our group joined in too. ‘who in their right mind would go on a cruise atm anyway?’ she said, to which I replied well I would – what exactly are you so scared of? Norwegian taxi driver is just casually dismissing the entire cruise industry for years, ‘my daughter has a heart disease and this is much more dangerous than flu, that’s a fact!’ she asserted after I had pointed out its ridiculous to continue like this when most people unaffected and death ages etc. At this point its hopefully as once people emotional there’s no reasoning, what was more disturbing was the 33yr old English woman, perfectly healthy ‘I don’t know what to believe now, I’ve heard so many different things’, tried to point out it’d not a religion with beliefs there are just cold hard facts, most of us have no risk and its overblown… ‘well I’ve read some… Read more »
It seems fitting to make mention of a recent TV interview posted on here in which Gates casually mentioned tgat he is having regular calls with Fauci to discuss plan and strategy. Who is gates to be doing such a thing?
Here’s the link someone else posted https://youtu.be/V8i4hwbsj_I
I think it gives an excellent recap on the sickness and evil of gates. Even excluding the commentary the gates interview on US msm is included for own judgement. The interviewer appears to look uncomfortable with the concepts gates in describing.
He is a sicko. Why the folk in the Norwegian taxi cannot see that is a curosity that psychologist will spend years explaining. Mass psychosis.
The thing is none of these people, who are this far gone (and I think this is still a majority of people) will believe the truth unless it’s uttered by their chosen hero, be it Boris, or vallance, Cummings, starmer or sturgeon – it has to come from a single person that they decide they believe above any facts or figures we might present.
21.30 onwards – Boris and Whitty
Interesting analysis of the Berlin protests following that
That is a great video!
And as you say – who is Gates to be discussing plan and strategy – the man has ZERO medical qualifications.! Makes me so mad!
This “well, I’ve read some young people have died too” reply is one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard (and there’s a lot of stupidity going around at the moment”. So many people have absolutely no understanding of statistics and probability. If your only criteria for something being a risk is that it has a non-zero probability of happening, you would never leave your house, as there is a non-zero probability of you being run over, knifed to death by a psycho or killed by a meteorite falling on your head.
But if you stay in your house, the roof could fall in, the gas might leak, the chip pan might catch fire, the computer might blow up in your face, you could be strangled by your bra or your trousers or fatally injured by a tea cosy, or the monster that lives under the bed might come out and get you.
Quandary.
Good Morning everyone – I am out for the day! However for those who would like to direct the nation and have a bit of time on there hands, what do you think the UK policy should be at the moment? I will check in this evening to see how the policy is looking!
I suspect within the Lockdown Sceptic group there will be differences of opinion!
My first policy change would be to remove the mandatory mask wearing rule inside shops etc – I would still have some restrictions concerning social distancing.
Get rid of the bastard masks NOW!.
All anti-social distancing achieves is slowing down herd immunity. Scrap all of it and let people make their own choices and decide what level of risk they are comfortable with.
Warn the over-65’s who are in frail health that there’s a nasty virus going round and they should take care.
Tells the over-65’s in good health, those of working age and children that there’s very little to fear from this virus, and they should carry on as normal, but taking normal health precautions if they have cold or flu symptoms.
…er, that’s it (Ed).
Scrap all rules.
All of them.
Tomorrow.
Simples. Stop paying the media to fearmonger. Start fining them every time they do.
All future policy centred around shielding care homes and setting up proper old fashioned ‘flu wards’ in hospitals. Winter season preparation.
Oh and stop plugging vaccines for seasonal diseases. Start a programme of education advertising for good health as winter comes re: vitamin D, zinc, vitamin c, time outdoors, a hug is health!
Start studying and using HCQ and zinc (plus any other methods with validity) on covid patients. Restrict use of ventilators and use CPAP machines instead.
And for God’s sake- OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!
Open the schools now, forget about the summer holidays.
No thanks. I’m away with my kids at the moment. Would be a pain in the bum to have to head home to get them back to school. 17th August would be fine.
If we’ve really just gone through the last 6 months to protect the NHS, then why hasn’t there been a publicity campaign to spread this message?
Exactly.
Replace SAGE with actual scientists. Get Heneghan, Lee, Gupta etc onboard to promote real normality with sensible guidelines for the vulnerable.
Cancel all WHO funding too.
Wholeheartedly agree. I’m not sure how the assorted rag-bag of poor scientists was chosen – except, perhaps, on the basis of their brown noses.
They have been dangerously wrong at every point.
Er at least one of them was “chosen” (ie offered up) because he was so poor in his prior role. “Promoted” away from his opportunity to cause any moe damage…or so it was hoped…
Reform the NHS as well. Stop the worship of the Church of the NHS and get rid of their privileges in terms of discounts, freebies, etc
Have a draw for politicians. The loser gets caned publically. And I’m talking Indonesia style caning here
Interesting question.
Basically – not a lot other than normal behaviour where there is no significant infection around (as now).
The key – THINK : ‘BACK END OF A NORMAL, GONE ‘FLU EPIDEMIC’
Oh – I forgot some ‘don’ts’ :