Latest News
Mass Gatherings Back On in Sweden
Another step back to normality for the country that brazenly refused to lock down. Reuters has the story (hat tip Alistair Haimes):
Swedish concert goers and soccer fans can be allowed back in venues from October after the country’s Health Agency accepted a government proposal to raise the limit for some events to 500 from the current 50. With the number of new infections and COVID-19 deaths falling in Sweden, the government said last week it planned to introduce exceptions to the 50-person maximum for events from Oct. 1. In March, Sweden limited public gatherings to 50 people to halt the spread of the virus, effectively preventing theatres, soccer clubs and concerts from being able to bring in revenues from the public. “The proposal relates to events where there are numbered seats,” the Agency’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters, adding that people should be seated at least one metre apart. He said the effects of the changes would be evaluated “and if it works well, the limit can be raised”.
The ban on gatherings over 50 was one of the few social distancing measures Sweden made compulsory – though at least Swedes could still gather in groups of up to 50 throughout the epidemic, unlike here where we were placed under effective house arrest for over two months. In England, gatherings over 30 are still prohibited, with exceptions for schools and workplaces, and while the government is aiming to bring back sports events from October 1 uncertainty hangs over this, with Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty even warning that we may have to shut pubs to open schools. Sweden yet again showing that the path back to normality lies in accepting that you cannot hide from this virus forever.
Scientists and Doctors Back Herd Immunity
The once-maligned herd immunity is getting better press every day as more and more people accept it’s the only real way out of this debacle. Dr John Lee has one of his typically incisive analyses in the Spectator this week, adding his voice to those pointing out that immunity comes in many forms, and that antibody tests may be as misleading as PCR antigen tests in giving us a true picture of this virus:
A lot of emphasis is being placed on the presence of antibodies: if you test negative then you’re at risk. This would be alarming if true, especially as the latest official figures show just 6 per cent of Brits have tested positive for antibodies. But the real picture is, as so often, more complicated. The main way we fight viruses is through T-cell responses, which kill virally infected cells. Interestingly, some studies have shown that up to 60 per cent of people apparently never exposed to Covid-19 still had T-cells that reacted to the virus – suggesting that you might not need to have had this virus to have protection from it. It’s a hugely important theory. But T-cell responses are harder to measure than antibodies, so they are not being widely tested for.
Now that the Brazilian city of Manaus has confirmed that a coronavirus epidemic can go into spontaneous decline when around 20% of the population has developed antibodies regardless of lockdown or social distancing, the prospect of herd immunity is looking more achievable to many. News that reinfection is possible has been countered by scientists pointing out that they never thought otherwise, but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope of herd immunity. Helen Branswell at STAT has the details:
There’s been enormous amounts of debate – and concern – about how long-lasting or “durable” immune responses to this virus will be, based on a few scientific papers that suggest some people don’t develop many antibodies to the virus and others that report that those antibodies appear to decline quickly. The experts who spoke with STAT all felt that the immune responses to this virus are exactly what you would expect to see. And the case of the Hong Kong man who appears to have been reinfected underscore that, several said. “The fact that somebody may get reinfected is not surprising. But the reinfection didn’t cause disease,” said Peiris, who knows about the case but was not one of the authors reporting it. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York who studies human responses to viral infections, said it is hard to be definitive, given the limited human experience with this new coronavirus, but she said she could see no reason to believe the immune system would behave differently to this respiratory virus than to others. “So far, anyway, the evidence supports functional immunity, but the only way to see how long that will last is to follow people over time and see if those responses diminish,” she said. “The idea there is that, yes, your antibodies might wane, but your memory responses aren’t absent,” said Menachery, noting that when a primed immune system re-encounters the virus, production of antibodies would kick into gear.
Worth reading in full.
Are You in the 99.99% Group?
Is this really the virus that has brought the world to its knees? Michael Bayer has posted on Twitter a table from Sweden showing the likelihood of surviving COVID-19 broken down by age, sex and underlying conditions (hat tip Ivor Cummins). Most of the population has over 99.99 per cent chance of survival, and even among the very highest risk group of men over 80 with underlying conditions around four out of five survive. The average age of those who die is 84. Yet so effective has Project Fear been that the public thinks the death toll is over 100 times worse than it is. No doubt Covid can be nasty, especially if you’re in a high risk group. But so are many illnesses, and as viruses go SARS-CoV-2 is far from the deadliest the world has seen, and seems to be getting punier. The government needs to take the lead on dialling down the panic, not stoking it up.
Blaming a ‘Mutant Algorithm’ Betrays Boris’s Ignorance
Retired Chartered Statistician Brian Gedalla of the Royal Statistical Society has been in touch with a few words for the Prime Minister about his egregious attempt to blame an inanimate algorithm for his government’s entirely foreseeable exam grades fiasco:
The Prime Minister cannot be allowed to get away with blaming the exams fiasco on a “mutant algorithm”. There is no such thing. Algorithms are just sets of rules programmed into a computer. This algorithm was designed to produce a statistical distribution of grades according to a set of predetermined parameters. Its main purpose seems to have been to arrest the grade inflation which it was feared would be exacerbated by over-optimistic teacher assessments. Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of statistics could have told Ministers and Officials that while a fancy algorithm would get the overall picture right, it was highly unlikely to be able to “assign” that distribution to individual candidates to produce a bottom-up set of results appropriate to each candidate. The fault lies squarely with the Ministers and Officials who, yet again, have demonstrated that they are essentially ignorant of any understanding of numerate disciplines. It is hardly their fault that they do not understand mathematical concepts such as risk, statistical distributions and numerical modelling: they are not trained for such knowledge. But this failure has been a recurrent theme throughout this pandemic crisis. What is surprising and disappointing is that they do not seek out advice from those who could help them. In fact, the Royal Statistical Society DID try to help. Read here the correspondence between the RSS and Ofqual.
Maybe time to listen to some new experts, Boris.
What Killed Everyone Else?
According to the ONS, during the height of the epidemic in the UK two out of every five excess deaths, or 16,000 deaths, were from causes other than “with COVID-19”, most of them a result of lack of access to medical care. This disturbing picture is coming into sharper focus now as more data comes in. The Telegraph‘s Laura Donnelly reports that the number of heart attacks detected and treated fell by 40% during the pandemic, while the number of deaths from heart attacks spiked by a similar amount:
Earlier this month, a major study found deaths from the most common type of heart attack rose by almost 40 per cent during lockdown. The research prompted warnings that the Government’s “Stay at Home” message may have had a “devastating” impact, in deterring thousands of patients in medical crisis from seeking help. Cardiologists said that people were still having as many heart attacks, but were deciding not to go to hospital, either because they were trying to follow “stay home” messages or were afraid of picking up the virus in hospital.
The Times estimates that there are 15.3 million people currently on NHS waiting lists in need of follow-up appointments for health problems. Is it any wonder the Government’s own report predicted 200,000 deaths due to lockdown? And this is to say nothing of the hundreds of millions globally who will starve because of the lockdowns and economic collapse. Has a ‘cure’ ever been so much worse than the disease?
Stop Press: Ross Clark on the money in the Telegraph as usual asking “Did protecting the NHS actually cost lives?” You know the answer.
Round-Up
- ‘We need a No-Lockdown Party’ – James Allen in the Spectator Australia finds a disturbing lack of politicians who won’t support tyranny. Also here in Quadrant on ‘I Didn’t Vote for Tyranny. Did You?‘
- ‘The WHO is monitoring online conversations and emotions, using “social listening” to change COVID narratives‘ – part of its campaign against “coronavirus misinformation”, apparently. Is it monitoring itself?
- ‘The country with the world’s strictest lockdown is now the worst for excess deaths‘ – feature on Peru in the Telegraph that exposes the great lie that lockdowns save lives
- ‘Go back to work or risk losing your job’ – The threats begin as the government starts to panic that it has destroyed our city centres forever
- ‘What does a positive Covid test tell you about the probability you have the virus?‘ – good YouTube video about the reliability of tests that’s worth a watch
- ‘Review of calculated SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rates: Good CDC science versus dubious CDC science‘ – Professor Joseph Audie takes the US CDC to task for its dubious upward revision of the COVID-19 death risk
- ‘Facts about COVID-19‘ – the ever-reliable ‘Swiss Doctor’ has posted his September update, including fully referenced articles on the infection fatality rate, the effectiveness of treatments including HCQ, and the ineffectiveness of masks
- ‘Test and trace success rate at record low after mystery glitch‘ – the government’s spectacularly costly tracking programme continues to disappoint if not surprise.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We’ve also just introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A few 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 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! If they’ve made that clear to customers with a sign in the window or similar, so much the better. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I’ve created a 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 Oct 8th to Oct 17th). 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 with lanyard for just £3.99 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 30,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
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. Doing these daily updates is a lot of work (and today’s update was written by Will Jones, who’s going to be doing them three or four times a week going forward). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code, i.e. a link.
And Finally…
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Well it’s about ten minutes now, and nobody’s made a comment. So I guess it’s me!
Nicely played Barney…suggesting a certain gentlemanly insouciance while keeping your eyes on the prize.
Beautifully put👍
Yes, I thought so, too.
I’ve played the Trumpton roll call a few times because of you.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-coronavirus-immunity-riddle
Would someone, somewhere, in Westminster and Holyrood Please Read This?
Dr John Lee presents a display of rationality and common sense ; qualities which seem to have bypassed our leaders.
And one Lara Prendergast, also writing in the Spectator, has recently discovered that her ditsy designer cotton mask made her feel faint, panicky and desperate.
The need to breathe without facial obstruction compelled her to snatch it off and indulge in some bare faced inhalation: well I never!!
But then you get this sh*te Wendy (In ‘The Conversation’)
“Coronavirus case numbers have been rising throughout the summer in many European countries, while the UK has brought in targeted local lockdowns to prevent spikes in the virus from getting out of control. Though death rates have yet to catch up to positive test results, and hospitals are not overwhelmed as they were in the dark days of April and May, this new spate of infections is still cause for concern, epidemiologists and pandemic modellers say.
Have you seen this scaremongering context-free nonsense from today’s Grad?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/27/uk-sees-highest-number-of-new-covid-19-cases-since-mid-june
Daily case numbers and seven-day rolling average now higher than on 23 March when national lockdowns announced.
Not a mention of increased testing.
Despicable!
Jesus
Will it never end?
Hard to see when or how it will end. No political opposition to this crap, MSM just turning the dial (or is it screw?) higher everyday despite the evidence we see here. NOTHING about this charade makes any sense.
Agreed. Sanity Island here.
Grad heavily funded by Bill Gates. There’s your motive.
That is exactly so.
Of course it makes sense, it’s about control. And it’ll end when enough people rise up
Only when we all get the Gates vaccine.
Shit and turd, I’m third.
To recap on a post of mine that drifted off on the last thread…I was suggesting that we need an emergency tax on home working and home deliveries as a way of avoiding what will otherwise be a devastating economic meltdown in our city centres – not just cafes, sandwich bars, taxi services and so on will be affected but also theatres, music venues, art galleries and other enterprises if the home working trend gets a hold. The home delivery trend is also further aggravating the economic crisis. I am not against technological change but we need first to recover from an act huge self harm that has set us on a wayward course.
So you want me to give up my click and collect, and go into the superstore hell with the zombies?
Shan’t.
Annie get your gun.
It’s not that bad, Annie.
You just have to smile a lot. And remember that part of the plan is to kill off cash, which will mean you have no control over where you spend your money, and they’ll be able to track your activity – and no doubt tax you on your birthday money. Go to Better Than Cash Alliance.
Not just that they can track your activity – they’ve been doing that for decades. More that they can cut you off completely from your money by the push of a button.
Check out the German tv series “You are wanted.”
I recommend the subtitled version rather than the dubbed one, especially if you speak any German.
Clearly my proposal goes along with withdrawal of mandatory mask laws – in fact you would need to make it illegal to demand mask wearing in ordinary shops.
Fair enough. But even in mask-free Wales, town centres are a ghastly experience with nag, nag, nag Covinotices everywhere, and shops proclaiming that you’re welcome back, but with a list of fifty million rules that you have to comply with before they’ll deign to let you in.
Village shop ok. Indoor market ok, if I storm past the fat little one-way-only gauleiter on the doors. Farm shop ok. Wayside veggie and egg stalls fine. Zombie shops – no.
I’ve survived twenty years of online shopping and I shall carry on.
I hated shopping even before all this: I’ve been having the bulk of my groceries delivered since it became possible about twenty years ago and I was using Amazon before most people knew what the internet was. Why should I be penalized because I don’t want to live like it’s the nineteenth century? I also take a packed lunch to work – are you suggesting these should be penalised too to force me to eat from unhealthy and expensive fast food outlets whilst working in the office?
Your comment also has a logical inconsistency. You mention theatres and arts venues being threatened by home working. How? Do you go to plays in your lunch hour? Personally, I find not spending my Saturdays miserably trudging around shopping centres gives me the time to go to about fifty plays a year. If you taxed online shopping enough to actually force me into the shops you’d therefore do more damage to the theatres than if you just left me alone.
Same here, shopping is something I would rather stay as far away from as possible.
I too hated the weekly shop. But now it is a fun game of scare the shopper. Wait patiently at the end if an aisle, then spring forth chest out and watch them scatter. You can play a points game like snooker – pick a red top to start, if they leap out the way you are on a break next pick a colour – black top scores 7. So far my highest break was 54! Would need a few hours for the ton.
A lot of young and youngish people go the theatre and other arts venues after work. If they’re not already in the city centre there will be little incentive for them to travel in.
I don’t know about countering increased government interference in the marketplace from the lockdown with increased government interference in the marketplace with a tax.
How about we just end all restrictions and let things sort themselves out?
Second. And privatize health care while you’re at it.
Because the US model works so well for everyone. Obviously.
The German, Scandinavian, french, swiss, Austrian, dutch, australian, N Z all work better than the 2nd world british system.
Wonder what they’ve all got in common?
Well I know, from speaking with a Norwegian about it whilst there last month, that the Norway model is one where you pay a small amount per use, up to a maximum (if I recall correctly) of e1,800 per year, after that your healthcare is free. So it’s certainly not private healthcare, given a pack of drugs can cost you 1800 in the US. Other differences in Norway were: Higher wages Higher cost of living Higher taxes (close to 50% tax for everyone except the absolute poorest, as I understood it) Much smaller gap between rich/poor, very little homelessness – strong safety net When I lived in France the system was such that in certain medical environments you paid 20% (or something like that) of the cost of treatment, the rest was covered by government. I know when I had to get an MRI on my back it only cost me e120 and no one tried to deny me getting it, I didnt have to beg – it was just the quickest and best way to find out what was wrong with me. Again though, in France, my taxes were over 40% (including social security charges) despite earning less than… Read more »
Much smaller gap between rich/poor
There’s the key.
As long as you remember that a smaller gap between rich and poor is an indicator that your economy is getting smaller.
Taxes in UK are high, we pay about OECD average for healthcare.
Bismarkian social insurance model is a proven method of providing healthcare that is manifestly superior to the NHS.
It depends how many decades we wish to retain a 2nd world healthcare system for.
Change to the German model allows people to choose to spend more on health of they wish – it’s their choice at that point.
One advantage of the social insurance model is it removes politicians from the decision tree.
I don’t understand why so many people here want politicians involved in health decisions.
I think you’ve missed my point. I’m certainly not advocating politicians having a say on health decisions (unless they are trained medical professionals… and even then they’ve not exactly covered themselves in glory the last few months have they). My point is UK taxes are relatively low and we still get completely free healthcare (our taxes are most definitely _not_ high, we have fairly low rates of tax, but we also have a piece of shit state pension etc as a result). I imagine even if we moved to a part-paid at point of service healthcare system, our taxes would remain the same as governments just find other ways of gobbling up our money. Personally, I’d be up for a system similar in operation to european counterparts even if it meant some further contributions (ideally capped like the Norway model) as long as the level of healthcare improved; shorter waiting times, when you want to see specialist in X you actually can, without having to go through a 6 month process of arguing with low level Drs first) sufficient a & e departments across the entire country The worst thing would be for everyone to agitate for change (which the… Read more »
Eh, I think you’ve missed my point.
Taxation as a % of GDP is at historic highs just now, some stats are indicating we haven’t had a higher % for 50 years.
Our tax as a % of GDP is higher than Finland for example
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=GB
As long as you have a nationalised stalinist monoculture like the NHS politicians will inevitably be intimately involved in screwing it up.
Its the cognitive dissonance that gets me.
UK has a really shit system compared to other countries, lets have more of what makes it a shit system instead of changing to the system that every other advanced country uses a variation of.
I hope and pray the NHS is strangled in a ditch so we can move to a 1st world healthcare system that doesn’t delight in neglecting people and allows people to choose to spend their own money on health as they wish.
Well obviously if you have a personal insurance element you will have lower taxes.
Insurance administration adds hugely to costs. Tables on Wikipedia show UK per capita health costs are lower than comparable countries eg France, Germany, Canada,, USA by between about 10% and 50%. Whether we get as good a health system as other countries is up for debate. But the NHS is cheap.
No its not for what we get.
Its nasty but its not particularly cheap, we spend more per cap than Belgium & Lux for example.
Insurance admin can be cheaper than running it through national taxation, if you choose Bismarkian Social Insurance as done in most countries from Norway to Australia.
US style govt controlled medical insurance is a very expensive non free market way to do it. Lot of campaigners in US want to remove govt mandates from insurance market to allow free market to operate.
Basically there are 2 outliers, US & UK, rest of the world treats both as object lessons in what to avoid.
Please give links for UK per capita health cost.
( I hope you realise that many US healthcare commentators are convinced the rest of the world freeloads on US expenditure on drug research, with UK for example not spending enough on drugs to fund medical research)
You can play this game ad infinitum – Brazilians think the US drug companies steal the DNA from their tropical forests. That’s a perfectly reasonable position.
Don’t know why you’re trying to deny the NHS is cheap in relation to other comparable countries.
Another factor is that in the UK the private sector effectively subsidises the public health provision. That doesn’t happen in countries with Bismarckian systems.
Don’t know why you think the NHS is acceptable or cheap & don’t know why you say I’m denying it, these are the ONS figures. We spend about average for OECD countries, not the top, not the bottom, roundabout average, we are 6th of 7 for G7 spend, again not the cheapest. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcomparewithothercountries/2019-08-29 I would prefer a 1st world system that doesn’t come up with systems to kill off the elderly through neglect, others are quite happy with that system. A system that scores better on mortality outcomes would be good, instead of one that scores really well on how the workforce perceive it but poorly on health outcomes or your chances of leaving your hospital visit still breathing. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcomparewithothercountries/2019-08-29 I would also prefer a system that allowed personal choice to spend more on health for normal working people like they have in Germany, not just the rich like here. Stalinist management systems don’t work elsewhere, so don’t know why you think they are appropriate for healthcare. More govt spending is a non starter, so one that is proven to give more personal choice on healthcare spend is an improvement. Again, need some verification that the private sector subsidises public… Read more »
They’re more expensive.
Not all, we spend about OECD average on healthcare.
Bismarkian social insurance model makes extra spending on health palatable as it is a personal choice.
Thats why all those countries operate a social insurance model with most health care provided by private or mutual hospitals, funded by social insurance co’s, but with an element of co-pay to stop people taking the piss.
It works – unlike our Stalinist model.
There is a reason only one other country in the world tried an NHS, then dropped it pronto when they worked out the implications.
Japanese healthcare system pretty good too I think.
The Swiss model works extremely well and you get excellent healthcare and what you need. Insurance based where the government subsidises the premium for the less well-off.
You might get two people to vote for that. You and your mum!
Good article here:
https://iea.org.uk/health-capitalism-works-we-should-give-it-a-try/
It’s not a great situation but where we are now after 6 months is not a reflection of a free market at play. What business could foresee the government going mad and deliberately wrecking the economy? I think it is best to try to restore the status quo ante: the alternative will be huge economic dislocation not unlike the consequences of a major war cutting off markets eg post WW1 Austria. That will require direct government intervention on a continuing massive scale.
Why not just accept the high street as a concept is dead (it was dying a long time before the lockdown) and reimagine town centres as vibrant social centres bursting with culture and vitality (I’m ever the idealistic optimist).
I’d reimagine them as places to live in. All the big shops are now on the outskirts anyway, so the city needs to be turned inside out. Turn the dead city-centre stores into desirable residences, like they’ve done with redundant warehouses. Construct decent housing, and the little shops would spring up of their own accord to serve the needs of the inhabitants.
This, if course, assumes that the Covid insanity has ended, which it will. Don’t know when, but it will, and pretty soon, I think. It’s wise to plan your post-war strategy while the war is still on.
Unfortunately this may just be the plan, sort-of. It could be that cities will be ‘re-thought’ and ‘re-purposed’ to accommodate most of the population, probably in Soviet-style apartment blocks. Before the lockdown, Manchester was already a vast building-site with tower blocks springing up everywhere. Since it’s obvious they are not going to be used as offices (were they ever?) what are they for? We also watch with kindly interest the progress of the Great Green Reset or whatever it’s called. The sparkler, Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester and lockdown cheer-leader, doesn’t want people using public transport (too dangerous!) but wants you walking, cycling or in a car. This would presumably be a nice ‘green’ electric one, as-if. Since the vast number of unemployed people will not be able to afford any car, let alone an electric one, and public transport will tank, sooner rather than later, that leaves walking and cycling round your lovely New Normal city concrete desert. Oh and, don’t expect shops. Everyone will be forced online and I notice that many people on here don’t have a problem with that. What happens when ‘no-jab, no-pay’ is imposed, may concentrate the mind when your card stops working. Sorry,… Read more »
Shopping is not a very enjoyable thing for me anyway.
The quicker the better.
Any more free time gets added to more fulfilling activities
I hate shopping too, especially in big stores. Small shops are usually more fun and friendlier. The quicker the better? What, living in a tower block with mandatory jabs so you can access your UBI and use your card to get your rationed food parcel?
You see a Utopian future in the New Normal. I hope you’re right! MW
You don’t have to be a flaky person to know that focusing on the negative, fearing the negative, is more likely to bring it about
Still amuses me that just about the only place on earth where people didn’t suffer Stockholm syndrome in recent months was….. Stockholm!
Have a look into smart cities, it’s backed by the EU, WEF, Gates, etc. It’s ultimate aim is for all of us to live in smart cities, countryside will be used for offsetting carbon zero so no one allowed there, we will own nothing as everything will be subscription based which works great for the major financial institutions as we pay all our lives and never own anything.
Yes, that’s just what I meant! MW
And everyone in driverless cars.. which I’m sure wouldn’t take you anywhere untoward if you posted the ‘wrong’ opinions online. Nope.
The other potential timebomb with a city full of electric & driverless cars – there are still folks online adamant that Putin paid for a US presidential election with about $25k of facebook ads (a chunk of which were not seen til after election day). Presumably he would have no problem hacking an entire grid and just bricking every car, thereby shutting a city totally down in the process..
You echo my thoughts very clearly.
The traffic going into my small city is busier than this time last year, regardless 50% cheap grub days, don’t know what they are doing if not shopping, most cultural venues are still closed.
High Street companies like John Lewis lost all sympathy from me a few years ago when they ended the with a losses and blamed it all on Brexit. John Lewis ends with a £4 million loss, it was all Brexit’s fault though, nothing to do with the stupid £5 million they’d payed to Elton John for their annual Xmas vanity project!
John lewis came off my list when you had to pay a fee to collect your online shopping package from Waitrose. Yes I know it was not a lot of money but is is the principle.
And how much hidden subsidy did they get to open that fancy Birmingham store. Which has now closed down only a few years later.
I’m with you on that. There are too many shops. Shit ones at that. I don’t care if they dissapear. Sadly people’s jobs go as well, so then what? Unfortunately there isn’t much industry left here to employ the unskilled. A change is afoot.
It’s already in motion. Some of the plans were put in place last year. There was a recent article about demolishing “covid contaminated buldings” : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/04/councilscan-demolish-contaminated-buildings-new-powers-stop/ Kirklees was publicising its planned green space for Huddersfield town centre several months ago. Here’s something similar: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/04/manchester-to-build-first-city-centre-park-in-100-years and https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/press-release/uk-first-as-towns-and-cities-are-chosen-for-11m-initiative-to-save-green-spaces Hilary McGrady, the National Trust’s Director General, said: “. This is not just about new ways to fund and support these much-loved community spaces, but completely re-thinking the role green spaces play in our lives …..We need to give parks a reboot and start thinking about them as essential elements of our communities” Ironic when you think that the National Trust is now severely rationing access to its country parks. Parks are much more tempting when toilets are available too! Minister for Parks and Green Spaces, Rishi Sunak said: Well there’s a coincidence! More evidence of endgame pre-planning? Town centres are going to be embarrassingly derelict soon. Certainly there seems to be mind-boggling amounts of money available to manage the effects of the plandemic. Bradford demolished a huge chunk of it’s town centre many years ago and replaced it with a lake. The report said: “Any place that wants a thriving economy can only do… Read more »
Because you and I will have to pay for the resultant massive economic and social dislocation.
How would you handle a situation where the London tube network usage falls by 40% permanently? You still have to maintain the network so it can operate efficiently and safely.
Workers in the inner cities can’t easily relocate to the far suburbs – there is no cheap housing for them there even uf there are jobs.
The dislocation has all taken place within the space of six months – outside war this is unprecedented.
It’s possible there could be massive population influx too. Activist groups are actively campaigning to mobilize tens of thousands of migrants into the country, on the grounds that a) everybody who died here needs to be replaced, & b) every individual migrant will immediately contribute thousands & thousands to the economy….I’m sure nothing could go wrong with this plan….!
NO! NEIN! NEVER!
Not in favour of this – it should be choice not compulsion. The high street have done themselves no favours by cravenly kowtowing to the government’s “Covid safety guidelines” and given carte blanche to their management and staff with Hitler and Stalin tendencies to treat their customers like Typhoid Mary. Why should we reward their abysmal behaviour and lack of good customer service not to mention their outmoded practices and stupid opening hours? I for one will not shed tears when they go bust as they only have themselves to blame.
Yes, they have never spoken out against this madness even though these companies hold the power to do so.
Then there is their support for BLM, it’s lies, the erasing of British history, and the defunding of the police.
Plus anything the woke minority says they back.
Exactly. This is what I’ve been banging on – they could have cushioned their losses by speaking out but they didn’t. Instead they jumped on bandwagons like BLM.
They are now reaping what they sow and we should keep pushing back. Once they’ve gone bust it will be too late for them.
Agree, most of the supermarkets have removed door guards and rails but many other shops still thinks they can treat you like dirt.
Big yellow sign in Adnams shop window (3/4 window size):
No thank you
Any shop that has the following signs:
Will not get my custom and will be boycotted forevermore.
We’ve got a couple like that & I agree with you. The only thing I’ve wondered though, us if the shop thinks they are going to get into trouble for not enforcing mask wearing.
Because of the trip to the hairdressers in the week, when I said she really didn’t have to wear a mask for me, she said I must, in case we get inspected. Who has told them or implied to them that they would be inspected?
Seems likely. As Peter Hitchens pointed out way back, since the magic money tree is unlikely to exist we are going to have to pay for what we have spent and will spend, out of a reduced economic activity, so there will likely be taxes and confiscations galore, stealthy or otherwise, in our near futures.
In an ideal world, we would apportion the costs according to the contributions made to the fear that caused them to be incurred. So confiscatory taxes on media organisations that fearmongered, pretty much all politicians, “experts” who failed to maintain proportion, and significant taxes on “influencers” and people who used their social media accounts to spread fear and to abuse and threaten those who weren’t fooled, and on organisations who pushed for stupid over-fearful precautions that deepened and prolonged the crisis (trade unions etc). .
Was it Toby who sat down with his children one wet afternoon to list those who’d profited the most from the lockdown, starting with Amazon, Zoom, et al? Prime targets, a few large concerns, not too hard to administer if OECD can get its act together? Most people would regard it like insurance fraud, a victimless crime.
ideal indeed!
Their bug problen is taxes are already at their highest in 50 years.
The more they tax, the less the economy will grow.
See Singapore or Hong Kong for further details.
Stagflation, here we come.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoonsp&q=stagflation+1970s&ia=web
Here is a webpage with many links to Stagflation in the 1970s.
Luddite ideas I’m afraid. No way will people currently saving between £3-6000 a year on an annual season ticket to work, i.e. all of the South East, consent to returning to that, and their employers won’t try to make them. They know they’ll just defect. And firms themselves can see massive rental savings. The City, and other such centres, will morph into something else, no point in trying to stem the tide.
Family members who work in The City are already adjusting to wfh and enjoying it. They get as much work done, with far less stress and, as you say, without the awful and costly daily commute.
One is now working permanently from home, while the other two envisage a significantly reduced office presence; the remainder being done from home.
The downside of course, is that the many workers-mainly in minimum wage jobs-who’ve kept us all going during the house arrests will not have this option, nor will they benefit from the reduction in stress which the highly paid professionals are enjoying.
Income disparities and differentials in general well being are bound to increase, especially as others have said, when automation starts to make serious inroads into the labour market.
The 4th industrial revolution is going to cause massive white collar job losses as well;as the power of computing takes over many functions including many managerial positions and the professions
Whatever happened to the typing pool ?
When laptops were invented the typing pool became surplus to requirements.
Exactly, the company I worked for ceased to have a typing pool around 1990 (pre-laptop but when PCs became common).
Wait till their jobs go to India!!
This has already started I think
One of the more intriguing elements here is that many well-paid middle class people may well become superfluous. If they can do their jobs working from home presumably someone in India or Malaysia can do them just as well. At the very least such people might end up with a pay reduction, given that there are so many things they no longer need to spend money on, like travel.
This parallels my experience of Millennial Whining: they can’t afford the properties they think they should have and can’t get paid as much as they think they deserve for the job they think should be theirs, so we should all do something about it. Why? Where I live many millennials are homeowners and have a fair amount of disposable income, but they are doing uncool jobs like fixing air conditioners and selling agricultural equipment. It’s much harder to live without these people than it is to do without your local paperpusher. But this is also why there will no doubt be an attempt to attack and dispossess such people for being too independent. We have to start thinking about how to stand together.
The advance of automation was the subject of many books and studies as far back as the 1950s. Read Jacques Ellul’s ‘Technological Society’.
This is deluded thinking.
The high street has been dying for years, why should I bail it out with an emergency tax?
Why should I also be taxed for home deliveries, once again to bail out the already failing high street. Also, I am not driving to the city or town this is reducing pollution which local Gov has been requesting for years.
Also, working from home is a good thing and if it can be done should be encouraged rather than discouraged. It makes workers happier, they get more done as they aren’t constantly distracted as in the office, aren’t as tired due to the commuting, see their families more, and have more time for themselves. One of the things I do is implement remote working solutions and I’ve yet to find anyone yet who is yet to say “I’m really missing going in to the office every day”, everyone I’ve worked with have embraced it and it has been a real positive for them.
This is the future the tech barons have in store for us.Atomised individuals in our little pods.Easier to control and manipulate.I glad all the home workers are enjoying themselves but if things do not get back to normal soon then get ready to pay a lot more tax to support all those jobs which will disappear.Hopefully your pension fund has not invested in city centre land and that job which you can do from home can be done doesn’t get off shored.
You are right that this crisis has sped up things that were happening anyway but we are not ready for this change.
Just to clarify that should have read pay more tax to support all those people who’s jobs have disappeared.The high street was dying because of local council policies and unfair advantages given to online businesses.Hunan beings are social animals and I’m sure a lot of people will tire of working from home after the novelty wears off
We’re gonna be paying more tax anyway, or have you missed all the spending over the last 6 months?
The high street has been in trouble from the before internet shopping, it’s just a continuation, and why when you can order in one click and get something delivered to your door next day would you waste hours of your precious time driving into a city and then shopping around, wasting half a day? I could spend that time instead going cycling with the kids, or walking in the Peak District, rather than boring myself stupid in shops.
I’m glad you have a wonderful work life balance now but millions will be made unemployed in this new normal.300 billion will be a drop the ocean if this continues.I sometimes wonder if this is all just an experiment for agenda 2030.See what sectors are needed,what is not essential,how pliant the population are.
I agree that it seems insane for everyone to travel in and out of work everyday when it can be accomplished just as well from home,but a massive part of the economy exists just to serve that function.
Also you say it’s a relief to be free from micro mangers wait until you have a algorithm monitoring you all the time.
As the future of our cities it would be wonderful if all those redundant offices were turned into large houses with gardens but it will just be more barrack like housing for the poor.
I agree that this change has been forced onto people without preparation and it has been brutal. City centre businesses who have been put out of business are among the many paying the price and I don’t think we should be callous about what has happened to them. After all, many of us were going along blithely without expecting things to change.
Our way of living, pre Scamdemic was undoubtedly unsustainable. A change to more home-working and a move out of city centres was probably inevitable and maybe even desirable. Anecdotally, small towns are surviving, after a fashion, although the draconian ‘measures’ they have imposed, sometimes unnecessarily, must be affecting their profits.
I have read bits and pieces about people being unhappy with home-working. It does not suit everyone and I know personally some people who hate it. We are not all sociopaths and the lack of community and social living is driving the rise in mental illness and other problems. I can’t provide much in the way of links but I found this:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/risk-working-home-burnout/ MW
If more people move to home working it could have a major economic impact :-
If large numbers of workers travel by public transport, this provides bus and train operators with a regular source of income. More home workers could result in public transport providers loosing a lot of income.
In city centres I assume commuters are important economically because workers spend money in businesses to and from work and during lunch breaks. How much of a hit will city centres take without commuters. I recall one comment from someone who said Belfast city centre was dead due the lack of trade from office workers who were working from home.
A factor which creates the demand for residential property and affects property prices is people needing somewhere to live close to where they work which is no longer important if people can work from anywhere.
If organizations no longer use offices and all staff work from home, this a knock on effect on companies who rent commercial property, suppliers of office furniture, stationery etc.
I have friends and relatives in Russia.
The technology in Russia is very good, internet is better and cheaper. But remote working didn’t prove to be popular in Russia. Many people are now back in offices and they don’t have a problem of empty city centres. Companies are worried about internet security at people homes, the productivity, social interaction.
I am sure there will be hackers attacks in home computers of some important people.
But wfh should leave them more time to pursue leisure and group activities. Weird that this is the other sector that has been systematically undermined by the lockdown.
What unfair advantages?
Tax.globalist internet businesses can domicile anywhere.I don’t know the exact figures but Amazon Google Uber etc pay minuscule amounts of tax related to turnover
Shops have an unfair advantage over online business in that they don’t have to pay the transportation cost of getting the item to the
customers address.
Why on earth would you pay tax on turnover.
1) Tax is paid on profit not turnover.
2) Online business is not exempt from VAT, so a sales tax is paid, with no differential between thebtypes of business.
Online retailers either charge for postage or work it into the price if you are spending enough money. Shops have an advantage in that you can see what you are buying, and judging by some of the things I’ve recently ordered online that is a major benefit.
Yes. Don’t know about everyone else, but I have coats in my wardrobe 3 different sizes. Shoes 3 different sizes (according to the numbers on the labels, I mean). all a perfect fit for me!
Those jobs we going anyway, we’ve sped this up by 5-10 years, automation by 2030 was expected to cause exactly this same scenario.
Pensions no matter where the money is located are f*cked anyway, companies you could always bank on like Rolls Royce, Boeing, they are all on their knees.
Workers were more controllable at work. One good thing that will probably come out of this is less micro managers, this seems to me to be why more people are happier. As long as they are meeting their objectives which they are then employees are happy. The other good thing it allows you to do is see who the dead wood is in your business, whereas in the office they can always find excuses to hide behind.
The apocryphal epitaph ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office, Spike Milligan ?
No – his was “I told you I was ill.”
Get Matt Hancock’s Department back to work first. They can set the example.
Then the Government to confirm in writing to businesses that they will not continue with new add-ons (i.e masks in offices) / making it up as they go along. Why would any business get their workers back to work when the Government continue implementing non-sensical measures?
Exactly. If they want to get people back to work, the MPs should set the example by sitting bum-cheek to bum-cheek and maskless in the Houses of Parliament, doing what we pay them to do!
Give OKUK a break, it’s not an entirely misguided idea. Greenies have been moaning about ‘carbon footprints’ forever, but somehow they never get around to mentioning that ordering things on a whim off the web involves a lot of packaging and transport. (I’ve also noticed that Amazon has been drastically overpackaging items since batflu began, but I can’t work out why. Nobody else is) I realize that his idea was to get people back into shops, but a digitax combined with a ban on shops being permitted to require facerags for entry might really make a difference.
And yes, venues such as shops, restaurants, and museums have a symbiotic relationship, espeically for people like me who have to travel to get to them. If I want to see an exhibition, why not do some shopping or have a meal while I’m there? I am surprised that none of TPTB seem to understand how much impulse spending people do when they’re out, and how damaging it is for shops & restaurants not to have that income.
Business rates are one of those stealth taxes designed to hide the real rate of taxation from the consumer. When retail businesses can’t pay, the money will have to be raised in other ways. The government will look for other stealth taxes.
It’s like electric vehicles not paying fuel duty. The money will be raised from consumers by a different tax.
Subsidising electric vehicles.
Check out the agenda for the next Davos Summit thingy… the future is all about homeworking (where your job hasn’t been automated out of existence) & online data mining for the block chain-based digital currency systems. There won’t be an awful lot left of city centres.
Are You in the 99.99% Group?YES.
Oh nooos 97.9992% does it mean I’m twice as likely to cop it from Covid?
Nope since I’m a smoker, sorted.
Me too.
I’m over 6 foot so I’m a dead man walking.
You’ll be fine if you keep your six feet apart.
Perhaps we should adopt quadrupedal motion for the loftier folks.
Like it, create a sort of bell curve of human development on that poster from chimp through Neanderthal to homo sapiens. Although it’s more the reverse of a pandemic curve, it was a long slow ascent with a precipitous descent after the peak.
Spot on! A sceptics’ poster perhaps.
Yes! Although the next to last should be bent over a smart phone.
I have this t-shirt and wore it proudly last weekend.
A new ministry for silly walks.
I’m in the 99.998% group. Woo hoo!!!
Thinking of getting a t-shirt with 99.9815% on it. Thinking further 99.99% would be a cool name for LSs!
I’ll add this together with my “Man to Sheep” t-shirt.
Bastard!
Well, I’m 98.76 (60-69 with a condition), Alan G is 95.65 (70-80 with a condition). Bothered? Ask us! MW
Do you look bothered?
I am quite satisfied with my 99.5%.
Holy smokes I made the top ten!!
Has a ‘cure’ ever been so much worse than the disease?
This is the worst horror story in the history of humankind.
I’m just thinking how anyone could just click on this page, have a good open minded read through today’s blog, and they’d be free of Project Fear and would have their ability to think for themselves back again. Sadly we’re not able to break the MSM’s stranglehold on the majority of folks.
It is a brilliant update. Much as I am loathe to criticise Toby, I think the strength of today’s update is it’s adherence to the folly of lockdown. Please leave the BLM, climate change, Rule Britannia stuff; even though I am in agreement with much of it, it is a distraction just as we are starting to get some traction on the lockdown issue.
Curious that you were the only one promoting that litany.
I disagree with that. On the contrary, as the lockdown scepticism gets wider traction it makes more sense to broaden the discussion, because the lockdown stuff is less rare in other places.
This is still Toby’s blog, basically, and if he constrains himself to just lockdown issues I suspect it will become a chore for him and he will drop it sooner. I enjoy reading his stuff and trust him more than most not to introduce political censorship, so I hope he continues to interpret his brief broadly.
Agreed
Disagree. The focus on lockdown/covid hysteria is important, but it is also vital to highlight the fact that the mentality that got us into this situation is hard at work screwing up other aspects of our lives as well. It is no accident that the Mask Gestapo overlaps significantly with people who think free speech hertz their feelz. This is only the beginning of a long campaign.
Half the population the media could tell them to drink unicorn milk and sprinkle ferry dust on their masks and they would be straight off to Tesco’s to try and buy it. Until this I never knew how stupid we had become. Shame the universities don’t do a degree in common sense and not believing everything you are told.
Universities would not be able to run courses in common sense.
Though I suspect they would have an intimate knowledge of the procedure and punishment for potentially using the wrong pronouns to address somebody.
Looking back at this year (+?) Future generations would be generous to label the governments reaction to Covid as childlike.
Agree 100%. And to think we laughed as kids when we heard of pockets full of posies for the plague or people chucking shite onto their own street dying of dysentery. Lockdown has been a completely joke novel ‘treatment’ that a 10 year old could’ve said wouldn’t work.
Well, the bit about burning a “witch” if she floated (sank?) would run a good second.
In England, witches were hanged, not burned.
Sank: innocent, drowned, dead.
Floated: guilty, hanged, dead.
Zombie mentality. It’s all around us. I know how those ‘witches’ must have felt.
Do not be too hard on yourself.
Watch it, I can put spells on people, you know.
Couldn’t agree more and the scary thing is that they are all as bad as each other. Never known such a bunch of half baked halfwits in charge of the country, in Government and opposition. All completely unvotable. I thought Corbyn would have been a disaster, but seeing the Buffoon, Hancock and the rest, he couldn’t have been any worse.
I’m of the opinion that much of the stupidity is intentional and is a distraction from the evil agenda that underlies the world wide Covid fiasco.
Yep. At least people are talking about it now.
In February The Agenda was firmly in realms of conspiracy theory and discounted by almost EVERYBODY automatically.
Well, how things have changed.
Read about the European Witch Craze of the 17th century. This is a doddle in comparison. Though has many similarities (I’ve a theory that the psychological process is the same).
Actually – the witch hunts were less lethal than the lockdown in England and Wales. In Scotland and the rest of Western Europe, not so.
Have you looked at the 18C tulip mania into which the majority of people with money bought into a crazy self perpetuating price bubble until it eventually crashed? Difference between that and lockdownmania is that the government didn’t start and perpetuate it, just looked on in bewilderment as people bankrupted themselves over the price of a tulip bulb.
Yes. I read Mackay’s Madness of Crowds years ago. I need to dig that book back out again.
Very similar to modern day crypto currencies such as Bitcoin.
South Sea Bubble too ‘A company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.’ (1720)
I’d been researching the English witch trials going into this, for a project I’m working on. You’re right, a lot of the psychological processes were similar and it seems a lot of the public became very sceptical.
Spooky facts:
Malleus Maleficarum, the 15th century document that essentially sparked the craze across Europe, was produced 30 years after the invention of the printing press, allowing it to be distributed across the continent.
The web, as we know, made it’s debut in 1990
Many years ago, I bought a paper back copy.Gruesome reading matter.
Have you read the Malleus Malleficarum? I used to have a copy. Absolutely bonkers, And chilling. Mild ‘persuasion’ equals hanging a woman up from the rafters by her thumbs. It was regarded as ‘The Science’ of the day.
The Witch Craze was very much disseminated by lawyers, medical doctors and other so-called ‘experts’. It was top-down imposed on a population that suffered mass hysteria as a result – dobbing in neighbours as witches for example.In one case, a German mayor was accused as a witch by his political enemies. They accused him of digging up the corpse of a child for a satanic ritual. He protested his innocence and the grave was dug up to reveal the child’s bones – but the witch ‘experts’ claimed that satan had created a facsimile of the bones to hide the mayor’s crimes. He was burned.
In Scotland, it was particularly bad – because the idiot king, James VI (later the 1st of England) was utterly paranoid that a witch cult roamed the land.
History indeed is repeating itself.
The writer, Kramer, managed to use his supposed support from Rome ( it was a technicality ), to beat back the sceptical voices at the time.
King James also wrote Daemonologie, based partly on Kramers writings.
…but the witch ‘experts’ claimed that satan had created a facsimile of the bones to hide the mayor’s crimes.
I didn’t realise the WHO existed in the C16th.
They didn’t, but their mentality did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htTN90mh1gI
Watch this: excellent adaptation of ‘The Ash Tree’ by MR James. Made when the Beeb produced good dramas. An account of the persecution of local village women.
A favourite of mine.
Thanks for the tip. Love the atmosphere of the films from this era.
I still have Trevor-Roper’s book on the Witch Craze in my library.
‘The Discovery of the Mind’ is a must read. A good antidote to all this stupidity.
i am wondering how it will be referred to in years to come. Like the Tulip mania or South Sea Bubble….what will people call this outbreak of collective insanity?
‘The Event’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22mt0cVyW5c
The Great Cancellation
Incarceration perhaps?
The Great Corona Cockup of 2020.
Or
‘The Great Corona Con Trick of 2020’.
Corona Con-trick Catastrophe
Der Götterdämmerung.
Bill Gates will likely have no intention of allowing those who will survive, the luxury of philosophical discussions concerning the Great Vaccine Cull of 2021-22.
Future historians will mark this time as the year when people went bananas and loco. Plus they will make fun of us just as we make fun of the Medieval response to the Black Death.
Sadly, I don’t think so. In order to become a historian in future, you will have to show yourself to be a conformist. For a start, you’ll have to observe all the virus precautions in your own institution – that are never going away.
https://medium.com/@haas_33533/considerations-for-a-safe-return-to-campus-4eee3f0730dc
It is now seeming to me that the public may always have been just as gullible and stupid as they are now, but it can only be seen clearly when organised into a huge, coherent wave of stupidity e.g. Diana’s funeral.
Sadly for us, the advent of internet and ‘social media’ has created a permanent wave of organised, coherent stupidity.
Hopefully it won’t go that way but you’re spot on about academia now and that’s why I’m perversely glad that I ran out of money which meant I couldn’t continue with my PhD.
This is so true and social media has given them a platform to expose their gullibility and stupidity to millions out there.
No change really, they are just as gullible as ever. Before they had the internet and social media people were brainwashed by newspapers, TV, and the Church.
Too many people need to be told how to think and this will never change.
Exactly. I look at people I know post selfies of themselves on Arsebook or Narcisstgram wearing muzzles and I despair.
The gullible will always be with us.
The worst thing any Gov wants is people who can think for themselves.
What is worrying are the so called intelligentsia with absolutely no common sense at all.
True. They couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery even if their lives depended on it. Plus they live in cloud cuckoo land.
Millions of the equally gullible and stupid.
Don’t forget that these future historians from prestigious Universities are now the ones who are protesting to have statues removed, they have no problem erasing history.
Not all statues. There is one of Robert Byrd in a Virginia legislative building. Leftists are fighting to the death to protect this statue of a disgusting racial segregationist, who led the protests against the 1964 Civil Rights act. Apparently it’s nothing to do with the fact that he was mates with Biden, & saint Obama gave the eulogy at his funeral…
The internet created a medium for the dissemination of the best and the worst of human thought.
Bananacorona
Remind me: What was Winston Smith’s job for the Ministry of Truth ……..
I would give the Medieval response the benefit of the doubt compared to the people who are making decisions for us today.
“There are many ways to save lives, but not at the expense of life itself.” —Michael Levitt
Maoist China had its moments – but it kept them discretely to itself.
It’s certainly the biggest sequence of bad decisions by multiple nations since World War 1.
It will get a lot worse, once we’ve been injected with Gates’s genocidal witches brew. Very dark days ahead.
Just say no.
Re Toby’s piece about the NHS waiting list, 15million backlog.
A neighbour broke her little finger on Tuesday, not wanting to bother doctor she went to A&E from where she got a referral for treatment for outpatient treatment today, straight to the front of the queue.
Perhaps they have done what airports do when planes are grounded for a while. In the evening there are 50,000 stranded passengers waiting for flights, by morning there are none.
Miracle of Biblical proportions? No they just got cancelled and are now people without tickets hanging around the airport so why don’t they just go away.
One man against all this craziness and fraud !
Paris to be totally gagged from today.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53934952
The City of Light the cradle of the Enlightenment, the city of Voltaire, the city of artists and philosophers, the capital of the contestataire, surrenders to voodoo obscurantism.
No wonder Descartes ended up in Sweden.
Interesting headline “undeniable surge”, implies other ‘surges’ are deniable (sp?).
And the same article evokes a (surprise) ‘second wave’ in Spain, Europe’s face-nappy capital.
As they say, do the math.
Do the mask.
Regarding Sweden, as of this morning’s stats we now have 2 regions with NO hospitalised patients, and a further 8 regions have only 1 or 2 in hospital. So 10 out of the 21 regions have 2 or fewer patients in hospital with the virus.
In the country as a whole, there are 13 fewer people in hospital than there were just 3 days ago – quite a big drop..
There are now only 4 regions that have more than 7 hospitalised patients with CV 19, and these are the biggest 4 regions in terms of population. Uppsala has 12, Skåne (Malmö area) has 16, Stockholm has 44 and the Gothenburg area has 49. Even in Stockholm and Gothenburg only a combined total of 13 of these patients are in intensive care.
Good news and worth pointing out to anyone saying Sweden is a disaster!
Good intel, Carrie
Viva Sweden!!!
No wonder Voltaire spent so much of his life fighting the French Establishment and about as far away from Paris as he could.
I recommend ‘Passionate Minds’ by David Bodanis, about his lengthy and controversial relationship with the truly remarkable Emilie du Chatelet, the aristocrat who became a pioneering physicist and court gambler.
She was years ahead of her time.
I know about his relationship with Emilie, although it’s a fair time since I read a biography of him. Clearly, she was a remarkable woman.
It’s not generally recalled that Voltaire spent over two years in London, probably the most formative period of his intellectual life. I don’t think he’d glean much from staying there in recent years though.
No! I think he’d leave on the next boat!
Ich bin ein (hole-less) doughnut (something like that).
Seeing police in Paris entering the cafe
Clever quote
“It’s interesting how – apparently – people are so afraid of the virus you have to enforce social distancing on them by – for the greater good – using brutal police force, because, they can’t evaluate the risk for themselves, so kind and thoughtful of the state.”
As head of the awarding committee for the Covid Stupid Award, this week I’m torn between the Dean of the University of Virginia (nobody to come within six feet of anybody else, ever) and the couple who put a full-size face nappy on their baby.
Any other contestsnts?
Which should win?
It seems like we have a tie! So many stupid people about it’s becoming a problem. Some doctor or nurse in India put a nasal swab up a newborn’s nose and damaged its brain, the mother had tested positive for Covid so they thought they’d test the baby as well!! As I said so many stupid people around
.
Can you link me to that one? A strong contender.
https://thelogicalindian.com/humaninterest/infant-dies-in-medical-negligence-23063
and there’s this one too
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/coronavirus/2020/07/15/Coronavirus-Saudi-child-dies-due-to-a-COVID-19-test-swab-breaking-in-his-nose
The nasal swab and its dangers seem to be constantly dismissed. I had an op years ago to remove some of the bone in my nose to improve breathing. If I ever have to have this test there may well be an unexpected path for the swab to get to places it shouldn’t. These cases, and any in adults where it also no doubt has happened, should be given wide publicity. Test and Kill should be the new buzzword.
Oh god, that’s fucking awful. The poor child and parents. I feel sick.
It’s happened twice?
Anybody know of other similar incidents? Maybe they’ve happened but been suppressed…
My God. My God.
PS. This is wicked, not stupid. It’s off the end of the scale for stupid.
Problem is people are so myopic in the UK that these tragic events won’t galvanise them against the potential dangers of the test unless it happens here. And even then they’ll mumble it was ‘worth it to save one life’.
Murder a baby to save my life, that’s fine by me, eh?
That’s not stupidity, it’s malpractice, he should be stuck off and facing jail.
The Dean wouldn’t dare step foot in the still busy cafe where I’m currently having breakfast.
Chap I saw emerge from a gents’ cubicle fully masked? Or maybe the previous occupant had left it rather pungent?
Did he perhaps pinch the mask the previous occupant had discarded?
Saw a woman masked and gloved put newspapers on the seats she was going to park her bum and bag in the Underground. Most odd.
This is good news.
https://t.co/i9h0ZHDPfX?amp=1
They have my support. And I admired the BBC before all this.
See Trustpilot BBC
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.bbc.co.uk
Over 7,000 responses, 93% of them 1 star out of 5
Add your resonse?
Done it a few days ago. Wish I could have given them 0. I can’t remember my exact words (which were scathing), but I did direct them to the Swiss Doctor website as a source for future reporting.
This is at least one concrete and immediate step which can be taken to reap some small improvement from this disaster.
But it’s down to the government, so the odds are they will be too cowardly to go through with it. If they do it will probably be with all kinds of “protections” so we end up in not much better a situation than we are in now.;
Except that we can all do our bit by cancelling the BBC ourselves.
Definitely.
I wasn’t aware until last week that the television licence is required to watch any live television; that is, not just the BBC but any of the other channels too.
It really is a bizarre anachronism, that should have been scotched decades ago.
Yes. When it was thought up, it was literally a licence that allowed you to have a new-fangled television. A real rarity and a sign of some wealth. Until relatively recently, even owning a TV set made you liable for the licence fee. At the time, there was only the BBC and it made logical sense to charge people who had a television for the cost of making television programming and running the channel. As time has gone on, and more and more different ways of receiving and consuming ‘television’ programming have come along (first commercial terrestrial channels, then satellite, then cable, then the internet and streaming), then the funding model has become less and less justifiable, to the point where its internal logic no longer works – I have to pay the BBC for the right to watch a live broadcast on a streaming service, but not if I want to watch any other piece of programming that is not live on the same streaming service (unless it’s the iPlayer). I’m sorry, what? Add to that the fact that the concept of paying for the right to own a television has become obsolete to the extent that it’s not… Read more »
A few pounds on broadband each month would be reasonable. To be divvied out to all content providers if they do genuine public service stuff.
Indeed to watch any live tv channel or use bbc iplayer you need a licence – not sure of the history of this and seems a bit nuts.
Without a licence you can watch catchup tv e.g. go to itv website and view programmes from there, or netflix/amazon etc.
I haven’t cancelled my licence yet as i download from iplayer when go away, but very tempted when up for renewal.
A few years ago some TV licensing thug rang our small office and claimed that if we had computers or laptops capable of receiving TV programming, we needs a license for the premises. He was threatening enough that our office admin got nervous and put him through to the MD, who promptly told him to fuck off and not call back. He didn’t. The end.
If you are going to stop paying either tell them that you do not have a TV or just never open the door unless you are expecting someone. Apparently the licensing guys nab many single mothers who unthinkingly answer the door while the TV is on. Consider it a form of peaceful protest without the arson.
Consider yourself lucky in that regard – in Ireland, mere possession of a device capable of receiving TV signals makes you liable for a licence. An unconnected aerial or satellite dish on your roof means you need a licence.
Yikes! That’s really unfair.
BBC should be defunded. We want freedom to watch what we want.
Watch TV online instead.
Where is the 2nd wave Bojo promised us 2 weeks ago?
I jumped over it down on Prestatyn beach the other day.
You made a bit of a splash then!
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepyGm9Me6w
50? Zero, more like
Thanks. That was a nice bit of nostalgia.
You’re welcome. Used to watch it as well.
They’ve been banging on about the 2nd wave since April, it’s still hasn’t materialised. Only second waves of testing.
They are probably having meetings discussing how to create this badly needed second wave.
Same place as the one he promised in May
And June
and July.
They’re all behind the cushion, together with that ‘Do or Die’ Brexit from October.
Don’t worry the deaths from Flu over the winter months will be the second wave. Get prepared for more lockdown
Plus don’t forget the health problems associated with mask wearing – hypercapnia, hypoxia, gum disease, migraines, headaches, etc – they will be put down as Covid 19.
Dr Simone Gold is my Heroine.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-gsn_Ye2EYDDkV_79Ag1tgUqZLNCMSt-/view
HCQ treatment negates the argument for a vaccine – especially a dodgy one where all the ferrets died when it was put to the test.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HzWis8DdHL3H/
Boris needs to reclaim the billions he gave, or promised to the vaccine manufacturers and spend it to revive the high street and support the little businesses he has crippled.
HCQ working negates the cases for Remdesivir, vaccines, lockdowns, SD and masks.
And that’s exactly why the fatwa against it had to be started in the first place and must continue.
Otherwise, politicians, virologists and epudimiologists will be HDQd, the media will implode and the 90% of the population which supported those measures and believed the propaganda will be traumatized.
I believe I read it had been approved for use in Australia now? If so maybe Tony Abbot can make Boris see sense!
Pretty well everything negates the argument for a vaccine, from cheap drugs to plasma transfusion to the acquisition of natural immunity by younger people, which I strongly favour. But the money in advance purchase agreements is irrecoverable and a true free marketer would say that the high street is no more worthy of support than the obsolete coal mining industry.
The difference of course is that the mining industry was obsolete but being sustained at government expense (ie everyone else’s taxes), whereas the high street is (arguably,at any rate) not (yet) obsolete, but has been harmed by government action for the (supposed) greater good.
Indeed, I had that at the back of my mind and do accept that more short term compensation would be appropriate to tide over the truly small entrepreneurs like kh1485 (where are they?). Just not keen on propping up the likes of M&S with taxpayers’ money. Or their offshore landlords. Depends a bit on what people are thinking of when they talk about the High Street.
Is mining really that obsolete when Drax is subsidised to ship wood pellets from the US.
EVERYONE RING LBC NOW! 03456060973 Doing a debate about the seconde wave and increased testing. I’ve just tried and although poo poo’d be the researcher for using ONS statistics, I don’t think I’ll get on.
https://bedwetters.buzzsprout.com/
So yesterday I received an email from the school my daughter (13) is due to start at in 10 days. It’s a well known boarding school. She’s super excited to be going, and I need her to board because of my job and my husbands, both of which (usually) involve large amounts of international travel. They want to test everyone within a few days of arrival for corona for “peace of mind”. Oh, and charge me for it! I don’t want to cause trouble for her, but I feel I have to object this. Can you help me check my reasons? This is an excerpt from my response which says I will not permit her to be tested until my questions have been answered to my satisfaction: 1) what is the purpose of the test, other than to offer peace of mind? and to whom would it offer peace of mind? Why would an explanation of the facts not offer a similar peace of mind and was this not considered? The facts being: a) PCR tests detect viral fragments, and are not necessarily indicative of active infection. Patients may continue to test positive long after initial infection (up to 8 weeks or more)… Read more »
Your facts are spot on. My only quibble being with 1 b) – if you get a positive test right now, it is in fact much less likely that you’re infected than that it is a false positive.
I would say that, as a private institution, it is up to the school to impose what rules it wants to. If you could demonstrate that it’s discrimination you might have a compelling argument, but I can’t see an angle on that. In terms of imposing a medical procedure – they’re not. Your daughter has a choice either to take the test or not attend the school. Requiring a risk assessment is fine, but with hundreds of thousands of people being tested daily, I would think it would be hard to show that there’s a significant risk. You’ve asked the right questions to undermine the policy, but it will be up to them whether they change the policy. Sorry.
Thanks Matt. I guessed you were right on my legal position. And we already had tests to go on holiday (country required it) so I am not that bothered about them per se, It’s more that I want to register my disgust at the futility of it all.
If they think all parents are coronadeluded, then there will be no limit to the lunacy to which my daughter will be subjected in the name of “peace of mind”. I am concerned now that she could be in the care of rabid corona fanatics.
My issue with the test isn’t so much the test itself, but the possibility of being found positive and forced to isolate even though you are not ill and not a danger to others. The risk is of lost education and liberty.
Exactly! Though with the 2 reports of deaths as a result of PCR tests up-page (albeit in far younger children), I don’t think we can conclude the test is risk-free anyway. I may throw that in. Certainly they can cause nosebleeds anyway – why should she risk a nose bleed to reassure some faceless somebody who needs pacifying?
“with the 2 reports of deaths as a result of PCR tests up-page (albeit in far younger children), I don’t think we can conclude the test is risk-free anyway. I may throw that in. Certainly they can cause nosebleeds anyway ”
Definitely – if there’s one thing likely to make them worry, it’s the possibility of being accused of causing harm themselves.
Might be worth throwing in whatever you can find on this and asking them for a personal, absolute guarantee that the tests will cause no harm to your child.
Anyone who demands that I get tested and causes my nose to bleed will have damaged the membrane just under my brain. If this ever occurs, then I will make their nose bleed too; fair’s fair.
Matt as usual is pretty sound, I think.
The only point I’d raise is that they haven’t actually stated this as a condition and it might well be that they are open to exceptions or to persuasion. Then again, while your arguments are good, as you say it’s likely they are mostly concerned to reassure the basically irrational, and so they probably aren’t really interested in the actual facts of the situation. It’s theatre.
Clearly this is not make or break for you, so your approach of just raising reasonable queries seems to be the best one.
I have further questions: Do the school *only* intend to test pupils the once, as you say ‘within a few days of arrival’, or are you by agreeing, also giving permission for random future tests? Why wait a few days before testing? Surely if the point is to give ‘peace of mind’ (to other parents?), pupils should be tested *on arrival*, or bring with them a test from their own GP that has been carried out within, say, the last 10 days – if indeed the aim is to ensure that no one brings the virus into the school when they arrive at the start of term. What will be the school’s policy regarding exeats? If parents visit their child during the term, or a child goes home for the weekend, will they be re-testing children again? Is the school *only* boarding, or are there day pupils there as well? What is the testing policy for them? What is their policy on masks? I would also be asking what – if any – the school’s policy is regarding flu vaccines – it has happened before that schools have carried these out without asking the parents’ permission, deeming children of 13… Read more »
Oh very good Carrie. Thank you! After hearing of those 2 deaths of babies up-page caused by testing, I do want a risk assessment. That’s 2 more deaths caused by PCR than we have had of healthy children from COVID in this country I believe.
During my years practicing as children’s nurse, it’s drummed into you that every single medical intervention has risk. The balance has to be struck between harm and benefit, if the risk of harming the child with no discernable benefit, I wouldn’t perform it.
If your daughter is subjected to a naso-pharyngeal swab, I would want a properly
qualified children’s nurse or school nurse, with appropriate training and risk assessment.
Show them this – https://english.alarabiya.net/en/coronavirus/2020/07/15/Coronavirus-Saudi-child-dies-due-to-a-COVID-19-test-swab-breaking-in-his-nose
The frequency of a procedure significantly increases the risk.
Obviously your daughter has minimal risk of sustaining trauma from a swab, it focuses the mind of the performing the swab. Make you get their name and it’s audited that it’s signed off every time the swab is performed.
Thank you Winston. I had thought of that as I was out cycling this morning. I will add it to my response.
What your daughter REALLY doesn’t want is a stressed-out idiot of a PE teacher in a mask, , visor, gloves and apron mashing a 10 inch cotton bud around in your child’s head a few millimetres from the base of her brain.
FFS.
Suggest you request school to first supply certificates of negative tests for every single teacher, cook, cleaner, gardener, all peripatetic teaching staff who go in and out (they were the spreaders in care homes, no reason to think it will be different in a boarding school), to ensure that they are not the source of the ‘completely harmless to children’ virus, which ‘after a few days’ ought to be spreading in this enclosed environment? To the benefit of the children themselves, by providing them with a primed immune system for the future? And if the fear is for vulnerable teachers, you assume they will be isolated and only expected to teach remotely – they may in extremis need to consider whether this is the right career for them?
If you really wanted to go the full Monty, enquire about so called deep cleaning procedures they may have been implementing, ‘fogging’ of soft furnishings etc etc. You might disapprove of the dangerous precedent of depriving children of a normal virus loaded environment in which to train their immune systems.
Excellent replies. my two year old grandson returned from the first few days of nursery school after long isolation from his friends (some weeks ago) with a sniffle (surprise!). He and parents had to be tested before he was allowed back. All negative thank goodness. He took it like the brave little soldier he is (just another bit of grownup insanity) but his dad was less impressed by having swabs stuck up his nose.
Challenging the school is very important. Our school published a bus policy where all children were required to wear a mask on the bus. They only changed it when they became aware that under 11’s are not required to wear a mask. It seems as if they sit in their offices and think how can we appease parents from both sides (terrified — this is bonkers) without actually doing research to get the facts and then devise a policy without applying any critical thinking.
Very important to find out what will happen next, i.e various examples in this discussion thread
Heard that a junior school (private) will be sending all children with a snotty nose home until their nose stops running. WTF…so many young children seem to have permanently snotty noses will there be any left at school?
A snotty nose is and has not been a symptom of Covid 19, so what is their reasoning? I assume it is a new policy invented to “stop the spread”?
In terms of future generations looking back on this as an equivalent of the South Sea Bubble or Tulip Mania, I suggest the Great Viral Lobotomy: the era when a fairly run of the mill viral infection led to a voluntary suspension of insight, personal responsibility, maturity and rationality.
This cognitive and social decline was fostered and maintained by ineffectual politicians, and driven by media hyperbole and bias, reliance on an army of implausible so called experts and the endemic risk aversion of the public at large.
Other suggestions welcome.
The ‘rona. 2020 tour
Good one!
The Covid Conundrum: an era when mindless emoting,aided and abetted by so called democratic governments, led to the cultish, unquestioning adulation of certain institutions and leaders.
Dissent and expert opinions which countered the official narrative were repudiated and suppressed.
to me it looks like europe marching to war in 1914 ‘it’ll be over by christmas’ or the medieval dancing outbreaks
The danse macabre
There is at least a scientific explanation for the Tarantella (St. Anthony’s fire, ergotism).
Thurber’s ‘The Day the Dam Broke’ is brilliant, highly recommended. http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2019/12/the-day-dam-broke.html
Thanks for the tip. I love the -timely-cartoon.
Well put.
Not sure why you tipped this one. ‘Worth a watch’ because it reeks of Gates funding perhaps?
‘What does a positive Covid test tell you about the probability you have the virus?‘ – good YouTube video about the reliability of tests that’s worth a watch
Don’t need a video, just this FOI request answer from the DHSC:
One of my questions and the most important:
-supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated.
The answer:
SARS-CoV-2 RNA means the RNA is present in that sample at that point in time. It does not mean that the patient has the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
You should look at the video it shows that your reply from DHSC is disingenuous at best. With 2% false positives and 20% false negatives (both conservative figures) and 0.5% infection rate there is only a 17% (4/24) chance that a positive test indicates an infection. (5 infections, 1 missed, 20 false positives, 24 positive results per thousand)
A positive test does not mean an infection or case.
Never has done.
It just means that they have found viral DNA that they think might be of the correct type in the sample.
It doesn’t even mean that, 20 false positives (RNA to be pedantic).
I don’t think the terminology matters, a positive test without any other symptoms (the main one being a persistent dry cough) means SFA except another big stick for them to try and beat us into submission with.
8am BBC R4 News, reports BMJ conclusion that the chances of children being affected by Covid are “vanishingly small” and that only 6 had died of it during the crisis.
They call that news ? Obviously tried to keep that quiet until it suited their current agenda of getting the schools reopened
Is that 6 in the UK or worldwide?
UK, been the same for months, never got a mention in the MSM before.
And bingo!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/all-children-who-died-of-covid-19-were-already-seriously-ill-jlxr8mkxq
Thank, it would have been cruel to assume they were already very ill but it’s not surprising
goddamnit, why can’t we be Sweden?! This is starting to piss me off.
Its not just us – the rest of the world too has gone tonto. I always get pissed off every time I see photos of my 5 and 3 year old nieces muzzled and even wearing visors!!!
You’ll love the smorgasbord.
99.9986, unless I have an underlying conditions, which… It’s not obesity or diabetes, but I’m sure there’s some thing or another wrong with me. Does anxiety count? It’s caused by reading too many history books and then watching as your entire country starts making the same dumbshit errors that have already been written about and analyzed, but that nobody bothers to read, anymore.
I have a 97.9992 chance of survival with my asthma and age!
Snap !
Where’s the calculator?
I assume it’s just based on the table Toby (Will, actually, in this case) quoted above the line today.
D’oh. Didn’t look, came straight to comments. Critical thinking/scrutiny cred blown! Thanks.
Be very afraid!
Our high school chemistry teacher used to tell us to be very careful.
The comment about the lack numeracy amongst our ruling class is really pertinent, I’m a mathematician myself and frankly it feels as though I’m speaking another language most of the time. Even when it comes to the most basic concepts – properly counting or shockingly enough… adding up!
I’m sure a lot of you have had the retort “why do you know better?” Sadly the reasoned response is met with “but you’re not a doctor.” Anybody have any responses that don’t result in me insulting them?
Basic (and I mean basic) arithmetic skills are a rare commodity, these days. Sad, but true. The number of folk that continue to say “I’m no good at maths/spelling”, and don’t do anything about it is really depressing.
I used to say “don’t worry I’m illiterate.” That got a few raised eyebrows.
Fave story, absolutely true. Somehow, I ended up in an intolerable situation where I was about 45 and my ‘manager’ was about 20. She apparently had a first class honours degree in Business Management.
The scene: we are planning training for the coming month…
Manager: “What date will Monday be?” (turns to look at Outlook Calendar)
Me (before she can look): “The 12th”
Manager: “What’s the Monday after that?” (turns to look at Outlook Calendar)
Me: (before she can look): “The 19th”
Manager: “What’s the Monday after that?” (turns to look at Outlook Calendar)
Me: (before she can look): “The 26th”
Manager: “How are you doing that?”
Me: “I’m adding seven on”
Manager: “Oh, I’m not good at maths…”
My father left school at 14 and could easily do that in his 90’s
My 8 year-old granddaughter could easily have done that!
I had a hospital test recently where the doctor asked me to count down in sevens: 100, 93, 86 and so on. It’s surprisingly difficult. I’d got down to the sixties before he said stop, I think he was just torturing me 🙂
I find it odd how people are perfectly happy to say these things without shame. I might not be able to remember all the maths I did at school (takes a bit of time to remember my Maclaurin series expansions, for example) but if I couldn’t do the basics correctly I think I’d be close to handing in my dinner pail.
I’m impressed, rarely is the Maclaurin series mentioned!
A special case of the Taylor series, if I remember rightly!
That’s right, somebody was copying homework!
There are over nine million people (9.000,000) in the UK who are currently classified as being functionally illiterate. This means that their reading, writing, and numeracy skills are below that needed to navigate their way in a modern society. Add to that millions more of the older generation who whilst being literate are not up to speed with modern computer skills and technology.
Which is why bank closures, the push to a cashless society and a total reliance on computers and smart phone technology is leaving so many people left behind and unable to cope. And this without an imaginary fatal virus that makes their situation even worse.
National Literacy Society, Jan (?) 2019: ‘16.4% of adults in England, or 7.1 million people, can be described as having ‘very poor literacy skills.’ They can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately and independently, and obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources, or on unfamiliar topics, could cause problems. This is also known as being functionally illiterate.’
Are you adding in a whole 2M older age cohort whom you assume to be digitally inept, to get to 9M?
I agree with your main point, it’s a depressingly large %. It’s just that these numbers can creep into general discourse through Chinese whispers, and double counting is a problem.
Guardian article 3/3/19—fifth paragraph down:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/03/literacy-white-working-class-boys-h-is-for-harry
‘Nine million adults in the UK are functionally illiterate, and one in four British five-year-olds struggles with basic vocabulary. Three-quarters of white working-class boys fail to achieve the government’s benchmark at the age of 16′.
This does not include any ‘older age cohort’ as you put it. These numbers must be huge as I personally know very many people who are lost with modern technology.
I used to teach in a secondary school in a prosperous small town in Essex.There was a seven- form entrt, and in every one of the Year 7 forms, five or six out of 30-odd were functionally illiterate. One or two were totally illiterate, couldn’t read words of one syllable, or write their own names.
They were given no extra help and so moved inexorably up the school, leaving as illiterate as they had arrived.
My mum was a housewife who taught me to read before I went to school.
Nowadays, she’d be at work and I’d be childminded.
when i was a kid at school we would do “mental arithmetic” every day. basically training to do sums in your head – along with times tables. they stopped that years ago.
They did. Had to do it ourselves for our kids, back in the 90s.
Did you play Buzz and Squeak in primary school?
‘Buzz’ meant counting round the form. You said ‘buzz’ instead of the number if it was divisible by 5. Then you added ‘squeak’ for a number divisible by 3. Thus 15 would be ‘buzz squeak!’
It was a matter of pride to speed up the the count, and if anybody missed a buzz or squeak, there were shrieks of derision.
We called it fizz bang. Taught it to my granddaughter last time I saw her. She loved it!
Sadly a lot of the Yoof seem rather proud of their stupidity. The pink haired pile of make-up and false eyelashes that is the barmaid in my local boozer seems to revel in her stupidity.
Yes I’ve had this response, recently from a friend,who listens to Nicola.
Frankly, I’m mathematically challenged-(O level maths grade D marked the end of my struggles)-but common sense shows what a complete cock up all this has been.
Absolutely, the biggest challenge we’re facing is the people thinking it’s beyond them. I can assure people, their common sense is on the money. Additionally, all those ‘clever’ models aren’t what they seem, as we all seem to know here.
Garbage in, garbage out. The ‘scientists’ and ‘experts’ are usually neither too!
Ferguson’s model may have been full of holes and flaws but the real mistake was the assumption that the data fed in (rate of transmission, IFR and start date) were all definitely true, and that no other scenarios were considered. As time went on and the real world showed more and more that the assumptions were probably incorrect, the unforgivable sin was not to revisit the exercise with more realistic parameters, but to continue to insist the initial assumptions must be true.
“the assumption that the data fed in (rate of transmission, IFR and start date) were all definitely true“
Also the herd immunity threshold that they assumed, based on absurdly simplistic theorising, that was never going to be correct and was always, necessarily, going to be an overstatement of the danger, and in fact seems to have turned out to have been a very dramatic overstatement.
Agree. I was a maths and science dunce but even I could see that a lot of the figures bandied about didn’t make sense.
I had a lot with my partner in the early days – “why do you know better than all this medical experts”? Turns out I did know better – as did all the other sceptics. My best approach with this line or argument is not to deny the existence on COVID-19, but to say response has been way over the top and lockdown has created 100 new problems to solve, which are worse. Putting death numbers and risk level into context usually calms people down. Also highlight that there is no scientific consensus and more and more experts across many fields – health, science, economics, psychology etc – do not agree with the MSM narrative.
Same here and equally so with my parents, as this has unfolded we should all feel vindicated.
In many many conversations I’ve done the ‘we humans have coexisted with an army of bugs-some lethal, some less so, many little more than irritants and many many more residing symbiotically within and upon us; the latter being essential for maintenance of our well being.’
Followed up by- ‘we’re all still alive, but people’s livelihoods are being devastated : indebtedness, unemployment, lack of future prospects and a whole host of entirely foreseeable and until recently, treatable or at least manageable, conditions is now taking its toll. on public health’.
Regrettably, I haven’t managed to overcome the fear-driven OCD which now manifests in formerly stable,well educated and ostensibly intelligent acquaintances.
My mother in law didn’t make it to secondary school, but knows it’s all bullshit. Common sense is sufficient.
Absolutely correct!
Regular maintenance of the bullshit meter reader.
When I encounter covid hysterics I point out that in our community 800 deaths were predicted, and that we haven’t had any, not one in six months
They never answer. They all have that ‘your a nutter’ look on their faces. They move away blissful in their ignorance
They don’t look at any evidence – for or against – they just go off what they’ve heard and make the rest up.
What’s really baffling is that, although they clearly think “We’re all going to die”, they can’t seem to see that, well, you know.. they haven’t!
Yep.
I doubt if they are very blissful.
Posted before about telling a woman why she was exempt from wearing a mask.
“That’s just your opinion” she replied.
No, it’s the law, I have it on my phone would you like to see it?
But she wandered off probably thinking it beyond her (probably right).
“That’s just your opinion”…
The classic reply from someone who knows fuck all, can’t prove their point and certainly can’t disprove yours. As Shakespeare said, “I’ve shit ’em.”
Oh yes, that’s the fallback for the ignorant. Their ludicrous “all opinions are equal despite level of reasoning” approach.
I’ve used a version of this when leaving instructions in the box for a [appliance, toy, thing that needs building] “it’s just the manufacturer’s opinion” of what I should be doing right now..”
The journos are as bad, if not worse. There was one particular discussion of ‘the science’ a few weeks ago on Sky where Sophy Ridge (Oxford, English graduate) was questioning the correspondent, Sam Coates (Cambridge, English graduate). Breathtaking. Mind you, as a Biochemistry graduate, I do not find many supposed expert scientists’ grasp of ‘the science’ any more compelling!
Don’t you find that these ‘experts’ miss the foundations of science and then fly off on wild tangents? “Does my model approach describing reality? No, hmmmm. Just needs another variable!”
Science!!!!!
The fascinating thing about maths, especially pure maths, is that a lot of the solutions involve reframing. Countabilty problems are like this. By looking at say a set of numbers in a different light and seeing arrangements you didn’t see before, solutions unlock themselves.
I don’t do a lot of pure maths anymore. I did quite a bit for my physics degree. But I kept a lot of the books. Advanced Calculus was one.
The analogy to life and risk is relevant.
This is heartening to hear, Physics is a big interest of mine. Indeed I did my undergrad dissertation on differential geometry specifically on Gravitational Waves.
The ability to abstract and generalise is so crucial for making sense of the world. Totally with you on that.
Oh lordy it’s tough. Apologies to any smart doctors out there, but most of them just aren’t that bright. They either became doctors because they “wanted to help people” (laudable) or because their parents were doctors. They worked VERY HARD at school to get into medical school. The brighter ones often quit once qualified because it’s soul destroying repetitive work for the most part, dealing with an ungrateful general public.
I have the same issue at work because I don’t have a PhD. I came top in my year, was published as an undergraduate, but couldn’t face 3 more years of poverty, in a smelly lab, washing a lot of glassware to maybe get a couple more publications. Those who were able to tolerate that (or more likely, needed to make up for their weaker degree results to look more employable) did a PhD. Very few do a PhD for the love of the science.
I’ve said this very thing countless times, it’s not a dig at Doctors, but you’re spot on. Similarly why I work in the private sector – I also think the Academy is seriously overrated in terms of talent (I’m not suggested I’m talented!). The private sector is judged by outcome, something which would help academics!
Remember the country celebrating the new millennium in 2000?
Back then, my brother drove a VW Beetle called the Millennium Bug.
I’m sure you will agree with me when I say that one of the most important aspects of maths is a fundamental understanding of ‘Compound interest’. And believe me not many people know this or indeed understand it. Which is why the financial services industry booms at the expense of the individual. Saving over the long term and allowing your interest to build upon interest is what Einstein described as:
“the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.”
Absolutely, the financial sector relies on this ignorance. The good news is that once understood, it can be turned into a great wealth building tool.
Which is how I was able to make myself financially secure at a relatively young age
as explained in “The Restaurant at the end of the universe”. You put a small amount of money in an account – and once you time travel to get to Milliways that money has grown via compound interest to a huge amount to pay for your meal (and watching the universe explode)
This is, of course, impossible.
I’ll let the financial services experts here debate whether an understanding of compound interest is more or less important than an understanding of risk. I saw some figures about what will have happened to some of the maturing Baby Bonds dished out, something like £250 per child. Equity investment won hands down, over that particular timescale.
“an understanding of compound interest is more or less important than an understanding of risk“
Two sides of the same coin, in a sense.
Let’s play with that stash of gold sovereigns John B’s got under the floorboards.
An understanding of compound interest is fundamental. An understanding of risk is at best a guess at any given time.
Doctors are themselves not all that numerate, nor are they necessarily good at assessing risk as they are generally, in my experience, just repeating risk assessments that we have all heard already. But then that isn’t what they are supposed to be doing; they’re supposed to be diagnosing illnesses, not generating public policy. I doubt this will be very persuasive though.
When I meet a hard case I tend to drop facts & argument and ask them exactly where they think all this is going. What is the ultimate objective, and what do they want to happen next? OK, if that is done, what will the outcome be? Is this course of action realistic? etc. Again, I don’t know how persuasive this is, but my idea is to plant some cause-and-effect concepts in a mind that has never had two consecutive logical thoughts. It’s hard. A friend of mine recently tried this on someone who ended up shaking and nearly crying, insisting that the whole of the US should be locked down tight while complaining that his business was being destroyed. I don’t know how to help someone like this.
Actually I do, but it involves a slap.
Meanwhile in my local Costa (somewhere in the North), basically Chesterfield.
I’ve just seen a chap walk in mask free, question every single dumb policy, notice there are no ‘available and safe’ tables… “this is crazy, why isn’t it back to normal?” Leaves in disgust.
A proper sceptic spotted in the wild!
I’d have asked him for a date!
He was peak Chad Sceptic, great to see.
We must rope him in!
Apologies if these have already been posted – Spanish doctor destroys government media covid “crisis” narrative:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/FNrzgWMxM6Oa/
Also “NHS worker” Louise Hampton has a rant about covid bollocks:
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1298908088595107840
Seems she works for a private call centre. Or did.
Help!—where’s my hearing aid? Last night Mrs Hopkins and I ventured into ‘The Wetherby Whaler’ at Guiseley—Leeds, which is the successor to the famous Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip restaurant. They advised booking—we didn’t. They would like you to pay by card—I insisted on cash. They asked for my surname and ‘phone number which I duly supplied as Hopkins, 07747075611 (you can try that number if you like and if you get a response let me know—I’d be curious to see who answers it!). Not that many people in seeing as the half price offer was finished but we were seated quite close to two elderly couples who were tucking into their fish and chips as if Cod and haddock were about to become extinct. All of a sudden one of the elderly ladies began looking down at the floor, got up and then crouched down obviously looking for something on the carpet. I’m no spring chick myself but this lady must have been around eighty and was struggling to get down to carpet level. I turned on my pre Coroni, sod the social distance, knight in shining armour persona and asked if I could be of help—I thought she… Read more »
‘Unable to fit or remove a mask due to a disability’ – hearing aids are a disability so definitely covered. Having struggled outside Tesco one day trying to remove my mask which kept getting tangled in the hearing aids I decided enough was enough. Certainly a danger of dropping the aid – and once when it dropped out while doing the gardening they are jolly hard to find again. Just one of the exemptions I qualify for, I don’t even need to use the ‘fear and panic’ one.
My Dad wouldn’t even wear his hearing aids before all of this, ‘in case he lost them’. Both he and I have hearing problems & wear glasses, so adding a mask into the mix – even if I was minded to – is a complete non-starter. But we have both got other exemptions up our sleeve, just in case!
I don’t expect anyone ever to ring any number I might give, just to save time, within the 21 days after which the venue must destroy it. But I wouldn’t want anyone else to be inconvenienced if ‘they’ did. Luckily I have a selection of blocked numbers on my phone from people telling me they will take £39.95 from my non existent Amazon Prime account. Or something. For a bonus point, use one with an international dialling code. You’re welcome.
Genius! I’ll be following your example the next time I’m asked for personal details as per the lunacy passing for COVID legislation.
My dad came out of the garage shop after paying for his petrol and quickly pulled his mask off because he was struggling to breathe and his hearing aid flew across to the pumps and smashed into several pieces !,the next day he asked to get him an exemption card.
I enjoy your storytelling style HH. Can’t believe Harry Ramsdens is no more?
The original Harry Ramsdens sold out many years ago and went the way of the Franchise with the consequent lack in quality. The original premises at Guiseley are now occupied by Wetherby Whaler who are themselves a high quality fish and chip restaurant. So, apart from the name, not a lot has changed for us locals.
Thanks for your kind compliment by the way 🙂
There’s also one at Wakefield, although haven’t been since January.
This may have been posted before, suggests 70% of PCR tests of asymptomatic patients could be false positives
https://reflectionsipc.com/2020/05/21/screening-patients-and-staff-without-symptoms-for-sars-cov-2-beware-false-positives-and-negatives/
If true, we have a testdemic, which doesn’t amount to a casedemic. which doesn’t get anywhere near an epidemic or a pandemic
Because we are being governed by demicks!
Retail Report
Mrs Doubtings trip to Wilkinsons (Wilko)
Firstly she had to queue! Obviously too many people shopping. In the past the door guarding has been a member of store staff, today it was a dedicated guard, rather than a general member of store staff.
Door guarding mumbled something through his mask at Mrs Doubting, to which she replied “sorry I cannot understand you”, to which he mumbled again, again Mrs doubting said she did not understand, so the door guarding pointed at a sign, Mrs Doubting said “No” and walked in.
Oh for the return of the old fashioned walk in the door retail experience.
Ha! Well done Mrs Doubting! I am bemused and amused by the fact the gorilla was too scared to take off his mask and preferred to resort to caveman communication.
I’ve not been in my local Wilkos for a while, but I’ve noticed there’s often a queue – seems they’re still being quite restrictive with the numbers they allow in.
There used to be a queue in my local Wilko’s but there’s not been one for ages now. Mr Bart went there to stock up on a few stuff before mandatory muzzling and has not been back since.
Wilko sell online. Why bother with their beastly stores?
They used to deliver to our rural part of Scotland, but after there were rumours about them struggling, they stopped delivering. They are now on my ‘don’t bother using list’.
“Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of statistics could have told Ministers and Officials that while a fancy algorithm would get the overall picture right, it was highly unlikely to be able to “assign” that distribution to individual candidates to produce a bottom-up set of results appropriate to each candidate. The fault lies squarely with the Ministers and Officials who, yet again, have demonstrated that they are essentially ignorant of any understanding of numerate disciplines. ” Skewering the Prime Minister’s buffoonery is rather like spearing fat fish in a very tight barrel, but the real truth is that the blame should be put where it belongs – on the panic reaction that closed the schools and cancelled exams. From that, the rest follows. The problem isn’t inadequate implementation of the attempt to invent a system to artificially predict children’s grades. The whole effort was fundamentally misguided, and impossible. That fact should have been recognised and given proper prominence when the decision to over-react was taken. Promoting the idea that it is somehow theoretically possible to achieve this merely understates the costs of panic reactions such as this. The costs of closing schools and cancelling exams cannot be somehow recouped. Those children will… Read more »
It was a monumental mistake to cancel the exams. My son is in the A Level cohort. His ‘results’ – A*A*A – are entirely justified by his performance in Mocks, which were full exam board papers conducted under exam conditions. However, as the school put in excessively optimistic centre assessed grades, he was assigned A*AA from the algorithm. We went down the road of challenging the rank order in one of the subjects. We now have the rank orders for all three subjects. Two are totally inexplicable. We are pursuing the school, because we suspect universities are going to start asking for rank orders and Mock results, due to ‘prizes for all’ this year. He was planning a gap year in any event, so had not applied to university for 2020 start.
“Skewering the Prime Minister’s buffoonery is rather like spearing fat fish in a very tight barrel…”
Brilliant. However, I’m sure de Piffle and his Gang of Mediocrity would have trouble succeeding at even that (they wouldn’t be able to find the pointy end of the spears for a start).
Brief but interesting chat with a young man in marketing from Chelsea.
I was commiserating with him for being cooped up during a fantastic spring.
He said quite flatly “there was no Lockdown in London, it was just ignored.”
I lived in London until my thirties so this did not surprise me.
If Chesea counts as part of the metropolitan bubble where the politicians, media types and luvvies live then it’s no surprise that they kept this dirty little secret to themselves.
What does surprise me is that I have seen no mention of it here @LS, Any Londoners care to refute or confirm ?
I know a few Londoners but not in those circles. But it’s fairly predictable that the rich and powerful will ignore stupid rules made up for the plebs. I’m sure the people who got caught are the tipof the iceberg.
For sure. I know some of my neighbours would disappear for days (to other parts of the country?) when we were supposed to stay home. Plenty of households getting together for kids to play outdoors. Just to add, we are middle-aged renters who managed to luck into a flat in what was at the time the shabby house on the block (looked like a squat…since painted) when the rental market was slow, and clung on. No car, and certainly no country house for us. But the people across the road have live-in staff. They came and went during lockdown. I’m less bothered than that than by the fact that so many other people seemed to just suck it up.
In NYC Governor Cuomo has made it less of a secret – the hoi polloi apparently have to surrender to his covid checkpoints & who the hell knows what else… but if you’re a rock star you’re exempt. 🙂
Well, most businesses closed because they had to. As far as only leaving the house for a limited time to exercise and shop… certainly ignored around by many in my neck of the woods. Also, no police breaking up the increasingly large gatherings (esp. posh teens) that were taking place. We live in a fairly afffluent middle class bit (although that describes most of London now, so…) I got the impression from friends outside London they were more compliant. It’s almost worse now things have opened because of all the mindless healthy and safety signage and rules.
You need to get out more if you think most of London is fairly affluent middle class
Just meant lots of people priced out of areas that used to be more affordable. Poorly worded on my part.
You are right,there are no affordable parts of London anymore unless you can get a council place.
And “affordable” means either dodgy suburban area or bad transport links or both.
I live in NW London – in a relatively bad area and I can guarantee you that many people here simply ignored the lockdown and antisocial distancing rules.
What’s been dispiriting is the increase in drug use and domestics – lost count of how many households I’ve heard squabbling and shouting.
That said its a very sheepie area due to the fairly high muzzle compliance.