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Do Medical Complications and Lingering Effects Make COVID-19 an Unusually Dangerous Diseases?
In the last few weeks, as the evidence mounts that the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is not much higher than seasonal flu and that most areas that have experienced bad outbreaks are well on their way to achieving herd immunity, the argument for keeping lockdowns in place has shifted away from the lethality of the disease and towards the medical complications and lingering effects associated with it. Advocates of a ‘zero-Covid’ strategy, like Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University, point to the complications of COVID-19, such as multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children and adolescents (MIS-C) and the persistent symptoms that some people have experienced after recovering from the illness, as a reason to continue with draconian suppression measures until a vaccine becomes available.
But just how many children are at risk of MIS-C and how many recovered Covid patients experience lingering symptoms? We asked an epidemiologist with a PhD from a Russell Group university and a retired Professor of Forensic and Biological Anthropology – both readers of Lockdown Sceptics – to carry out a review of the evidence and we’ve published their findings today.
It’s good news and bad news: good news for lockdown sceptics and bad news for lockdown zealots. For the most part, the risks of complications and lingering symptoms from COVID-19 are no greater than they are from the flu. So not a great argument for maintaining strict lockdowns – unless, that is, you think entire populations should be placed under house arrest every winter.
Here’s the section in their article in which they compare COVID-19 and seasonal influenza.
Distressing though COVID-19 associated MIS-C is, these cases have decreased from an already low population incidence and risk of fatality. While symptoms may persist in COVID-19 and may sometimes be serious, they are not typically so, and appear to measurably diminish with time, even within the short time frame of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In some years, epidemic – let alone pandemic – flu may lead to a broadly similar number of deaths to COVID-19, even given widely available vaccination.
Like COVID-19, influenza poses an elevated risk to the over-65s. However, influenza presents a clearly greater risk to all other ages, including children and adults. While seasonal flu leads to higher mortality rates at the extremes of age, 2009 H1N1 flu, for example, may have posed a particular threat to ‘working age’ adults.
Multi-organ complications, including myocarditis and encephalitis, occur in both flu and COVID-19. In both cases, these complications have the potential to be persistent and serious, but such instances are rare and may be complicated by pre-existing disease. Patients typically recover in a few weeks and where symptoms do persist, they diminish – if sometimes gradually – in frequency with time. The most persistent symptoms are predominately those such as fatigue, aches and pains, and shortness of breath and are not life-threatening.
It is far from evident that COVID-19 presents a greater risk of complications or persistent symptoms than flu and – given the demographic most affected – COVID-19 does not present as great a threat as flu to children and younger adults and the otherwise healthy.
Epidemiologically and clinically, flu may be as bad as COVID-19. In children, juveniles and productive adults flu appears worse.
This scholarly article, by two sceptical scientists, is worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Lungs damaged by coronavirus can repair themselves within three months, according to a study involving 86 patients in the Tyrolean region of Austria. The Telegraph has more.
Lungs can repair themselves after a serious bout of coronavirus in just three months, a new study has revealed, raising hope patients will not be living with debilitating symptoms for years on end.
Doctors said trials showed nearly half of patients in trials showed no evidence of lung damage at 12 weeks.
Although they confirm longstanding fears that Covid patients can suffer serious effects weeks after recovering from the virus, the results are the first to show that these tend to heal over time.
Are the Lockdowns a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy?
In light of the evidence that you’re no more likely to suffer medical complications and lingering effects from COVID-19 than you are with the flu, why do public health panjandrums like Devi Sridhar seemingly exaggerate the risk to argue for keeping strict lockdowns in place? Cynics would point to the links between those experts and various funding bodies and institutions that are linked to Bill Gates and which all seem to be singing from the same pro-lockdown, pro-vaccination hymn sheet – and in Prof Sridhar’s case, they do seem to be pretty extensive. As one scientist reader of Lockdown Sceptics pointed out:
I learn that Devi has written a book Governing Global Health Who Runs the World and Why? with Chelsea Clinton (both seem to have taken their MPhil at Oxford at about the same time). Devi has served on the World Economic Forum Council on the Health Industry and is a member of Edinburgh’s WHO Collaborating Centre on Population Health Research and Training. Her 2014 paper in NEJM argues that “a renewed attention to lawmaking efforts by the WHO and the human right to health are crucial elements of progress”. In a BMJ Opinion article, Devi and Chelsea offer advice to the new director of WHO – Dr Tedros – who had come from the The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. Apparently, Chelsea’s doctoral thesis is entitled “The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria: a response to global threats, a part of a global future”. HIV/AIDS is a priority of the Clinton Foundation, of which Chelsea is the Vice Chair (and which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation helps to fund).
This BMJ paper shows how much money is involved: “…in 2017, official development assistance for health reached $23.9bn, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private funder, gave $2.5bn in health aid…”
Just sayin’, as they say… and I don’t wish to question ‘good works’ at all, but I do wonder why so many countries are doing the same thing and why there is so much conformity and so little resistance within the public health establishment itself.
So is Prof Sridhar promoting a ‘zero-Covid’ strategy for self-interested reasons rather than in good faith? Probably not. In fact, we don’t think that’s a meaningful distinction in her case or in the case of Neil Ferguson, Sir Patrick Vallance, Chris Whitty et al. Rather, we think they are capable of advocating those public health policies that perfectly align with their broader professional interests without experiencing the slightest twinge of discomfort. They’re not being dishonest because they have persuaded themselves of the wisdom of the safety-first, interventionist approach. If they’re engaged in a conspiracy, it’s an unconscious conspiracy. This quote from Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities sums it up:
And indeed the most coldly calculating people do not have half the success in life that comes to those rightly blended personalities who are capable of feeling a really deep attachment to such persons and conditions as will advance their own interests.
Influential Lockdown Advocate Benefits Financially From Lockdowns
For fans of conspiracy theories, this one’s a doozy. Thomas Pueyo, who wrote a now famous, pro-lockdown Medium post on March 10th that’s had over 40 million views and been translated into more than two dozen languages is the President for Growth of an online learning platform called Course Hero that’s just raised over $80 million.
Among the claims Pueyo made in his post were:
- The coronavirus is coming to you.
- It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
- It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
- When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
- Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
- Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
- They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
- The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
- That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
He followed up with another post on March 19th in which he claimed that 10,000,000 Americans would die if strict shut downs weren’t imposed in every US state immediately. “If we do nothing: Everybody gets infected, the healthcare system gets overwhelmed, the mortality explodes, and ~10 million people die,” he wrote.
Not just a run-of-the-mill bedwetter, then, but a kind of super-bedwetter. And a highly influential one at that. The celebrities who shared his post included former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, actor George Takei, Twitter cofounder Ev Williams, author Margaret Atwood, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker. (Et tu, Pinker?)
Well, Course Hero, Pueyo’s company, has just netted $80 million in its latest fundraising round. Tech Crunch is in no doubt about why it’s been so successful – edtech companies offering remote learning tools have all done phenomenally well thanks to school and college closures during the lockdowns.
From a high level, the new raise is not surprising. Other edtech companies have also recently added on more capital to their balance sheets to meet remote learning demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But in Course Hero’s case, the new capital comes as a stark contrast to how the business functioned before 2020. After launching, the startup waited eight years to raise a $15 million Series A. Now, after going another nearly six years without raising venture capital, Course Hero has closed two rounds in this year alone.
Should we give Pueyo the benefit of the doubt and accept that he’s just another of Robert Musil’s “rightly blended personalities”? Maybe. But the fact that he hired a PR company to promote his Medium posts suggests he wasn’t just a disinterested blogger.
Philosophy Lecturers at Newcastle University Condemn Masks
We’re publishing an original piece today by Michael Lewis and Sinéad Murphy, two philosophy lecturers at Newcastle, about why they object to the the compulsory masks and draconian social distancing measures being insisted upon by their university.
As academics and as a university as a whole, our role is reasonably to examine and exemplify what is true and what is good, and to help our students to do likewise. This is particularly relevant for those of us in the humanities, allied as we are with the concept which, above all others, ought to have led policy responses to the virus, and which humanities academics should have seized upon immediately and promoted tirelessly: the humanity of the human.
Historically, the deprivation of the face and the refusal of contact with others (frequently in the context of virulent disease) have been the very first and most effective gestures of dehumanisation. And yet, now we are asked to imagine a truly risible classroom in which the teacher, and perhaps eventually everyone, is faceless, masked, and spaced two metres apart, so that all chance of serious interaction, human interaction – between student and teacher, but, perhaps most ruinously of all, among students themselves – is ruled out in favour of the atmosphere of the operating theatre.
Worth reading in full.
Black Lives Matter Window-Smasher is Rich White Liberal
The New York Post has learned that a Black Lives Matter protesters now facing felony rioting and misdemeanour graffiti charges – after a window-smashing spree in Manhattan on Friday night – is a wealthy Upper East Sider whose mother is an architect and whose father is a child psychiatrist.
Clara Kraebber, 20, is one of eight people arrested Friday night after a roiling, three-hour rampage that police say caused at least $100,000 in damage from Foley Square up to 24th Street.
“Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground!” the group chanted as it moved up Lafayette Street while busting the plate glass facades of banks, Starbucks and Duane-Reades.
The protest was organized by groups calling themselves the “New Afrikan Black Panther Party” and the “Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement.”
Given her privileged upbringing, Kraebber might seem an unlikely alleged revolutionary in those ranks.
Kraebber’s mother, Virginia Kindred, runs Kindred Arch. Works, a Manhattan architect firm that has designed spaces for Columbia University and NYU, and worked on numerous school and business spaces throughout the city.
Her father is Markus Kraebber, an Upper East Side child and adolescent psychiatrist who teaches at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry.
In 2016 the family paid $1.8 million for their 16th-floor apartment on East End Avenue. The family also owns a 1730 home — featuring four fireplaces, according to property listings — in tony Litchfield County, Conn.
Turns out, Kraebber was a student at Hunter College High School, a selective school that has been ranked as the top public high school in the United States. So let’s get this straight: a white member of America’s ruling class spent Friday night destroying the workplaces of working class immigrants to advance the cause of racial equality. The Post quotes a New York police officer who is justifiably outraged.
“This is the height of hypocrisy,” one law enforcement source who was at the protest told The Post. “This girl should be the poster child for white privilege, growing up on the Upper East Side and another home in Connecticut.
“I wonder how her rich parents feel about their daughter. How would they feel if they graffitied their townhouse?”
Worth reading in full.
Handy Cock “Concerned” After Cases Spike
Appearing on Sky News yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was “concerned” after 2,988 new COVID-19 infections were reported in the 24-hour period to Sunday.
Mr Hancock said there had been rises across Europe, and that it was “so important that we do all we can to prevent that happening here”.
He added that the new positive tests were predominantly among younger people, but warned that this could lead to a rise across the population as a whole, because it had happened elsewhere.
He said: “It’s so important that people don’t allow this illness to infect grandparents and lead to the sort of problems we saw earlier in the year.”
No need to worry Matt because there’s been no corresponding uptick in hospitalisations or deaths. In fact, there were only two Covid deaths in the whole of the UK yesterday, according to the Government’s coronavirus dashboard.
Nothing to see here folks, move on…
An Australian Nomad Writes…
A regular reader of Lockdown Sceptics has written to tell us about his adventures in Europe as an Australian expat.
We left Australia in September last year on a European adventure. We figured we’d take advantage of my UK dual citizenship status before Brexit and our ability to work from anywhere as digital nomads.
I thought I’d share some perspectives based on our experiences since the plague hit.
We were based in Bulgaria living inside a city apartment with four children when the very restrictive Bulgaria lockdowns started. Contemplating being stuck in an apartment for weeks with four children and with not so much as a balcony, we jumped on a flight to London and got ourselves some farm accommodation in Scotland for a few months. We watched as the mask requirement for shops was coming to Scotland, so bought a car and planned our exit from the UK via the only means possible without a mask requirement on transport, the Eurotunnel. We left Scotland on the same day masks were mandated, spent the next couple of weeks in England and left just before masks were mandated in shops there.
We carefully selected our next “home” after lots of research (including your site) and arrived in Denmark after an overnight airbnb in France followed by Germany. It was like being on a different planet, no masks, no perspex screens, no one-way aisles with stickers on the floor, no social distancing. The first weekend was rainy, so we took the kids to an extremely busy indoor play centre, with everyone packed in like sardines, no indication of a pandemic except for a few extra bottles of hand sanitizer around. We took the kids to the aqua park, Legoland and Lego House over the course of a few days, again no indication of a pandemic except for Legoland we found a couple of families in masks and one of the rides closed due to it being in a small confined space.
On seeing Denmark weaken their position on masks, we planned our next move once again, and shortly after masks were mandated on public transport in Denmark. We are currently in Norway and much like Denmark, life is normal here. We’re considering making a residency application and our children will start school here next week.
We were considering a flight back to Sydney, Australia, however…
In their wisdom, the Australian Government has placed a cap on the number of arrivals into Australia each day so as to not overwhelm the hotel quarantine program (now billed to the traveller). A Facebook group has been set up for hotel quarantine and the stories in there are very depressing. In order to try and get maximum revenue on enforced empty flights, airlines are giving preference to business class passengers and those who are booking economy fares are being continually cancelled and bumped to a later date, i.e. the best chance of getting home is to book a business class flight. Some people have been cancelled more than a dozen times, and are still waiting after months. Media reports have the number of stranded Australian’s trying to get home at over 23,000. In addition to thousands of expats trying to get home, people who have been given special permission to leave Australia for a funeral, medical travel etc. and were only prepared for a week or two away, are now living out of hotels, running out of money, and risk overstaying their visas.
Finally, back in Australia our Government has announced that it may become a requirement for citizens entering Australia to be vaccinated for COVID-19, if a vaccine is available. We are not excited about the prospect of being first in line for a rushed vaccine, so we, like many Australians may have a limited window of opportunity to find a way back into Australia before being forced to make that decision.
Based on the trainwreck that Australia has become, we feel very lucky to be in Norway and that we’re not stuck in the “lucky country”!
Another Heartbreaking Care Home Story
We got an email from a woman whose father is trapped in a care home with a “no visitors” policy.
My father’s care home is still not allowing any visits. I know other care homes have allowed garden visits since June so it is dependent on their management but I am not surprised by their fear.
My poor father is very unwell, but my family will not be allowed to see him unless he is dying. They will hold the phone near to him so he can hear our voices. I am so angry I wish it were possible to sue the Government for causing this misery and despair to so many poor frail and elderly people at the end of their lives. Should he die during this time, and it is looking more likely as I don’t see care homes being less afraid until the spring, I will carry the guilt of not being able to support him during the last months of his life for the rest of my life.
This inhuman cruelty has to stop. The Labour Party and various charities have called on ministers to take urgent action to help care homes in England receive more visitors – more power to their elbow.
Stop Press: The Sunday Times ran a piece about this issue last Sunday and yesterday it published the responses it got from readers, all telling their own heartbreaking stories.
Postcard From Portugal
If you live in England or Northern Ireland, but not Scotland or Wales, you can still go to Portugal without having to quarantine on your return. Clear? We didn’t think so. Nonetheless, if you’re prepared to risk it, a one-week break in the Algarve sounds idyllic. A reader sent us this yesterday.
I have just spent a week in brilliant sunshine in Vale do Lobo near Faro. Great to escape the new panic over so-called case numbers rising.
It has been a delight to be on holiday where almost everything seems normal. Apart from mandatory masks in shops, very few people seem to be wearing the ridiculous things. The minority that do seem somewhat mad and apologetic – like people who go out in full storm gear, sou’westers and wellies only to find that the sun is out.
We have eaten out every night and didn’t notice any crazed social distancing. The restaurants observe a weird dance in which customers put on a mask to walk to their table then take it off and breathe all over everyone around them for the rest of the meal, before putting the mask back on to leave the premises. What purpose this serves is clearly beyond anyone’s understanding, but it is the law.
Meanwhile, the beaches are uncrowded and completely normal, with children playing, families mingling and no social distancing at all.
The bars are open, complete with live music and the mandatory groups of young Brits singing Sweet Caroline at the top of their lungs.
A great place to go and free of usual crowds. Seems like this part of Portugal is over the virus.
Lockdown Madness in Seaford
We got an email from a reader in Seaford. The country really has been driven completely insane by all the bedwetting propaganda being pumped out by the Government and the BBC.
I went down to Rotary’s Car Boot Sale on the seafront at Seaford this morning. As can be seen from the picture, all visitors were expected to wear masks, as were the stallholders. Numbers on site were limited to 150 with a one-way system, hand sanitiser, and no more than six people, including myself, chose not to wear masks. So conditioned are people that nearly everyone donned a piece of cloth to protect themselves from a terrible virus in the fresh sea air on a sunny day, where the risk was zero. Current number of detected cases in town of 28,000 is zero. Last death in our NHS Trust’s area of 525,000 people was on August 2nd. Clearly, there is a lot of fear about, if not Coronavirus.
Round-Up
- ‘Teachers must not be allowed to “put their feet up and watch Netflix” during future lockdowns, ex-head says‘ – Pauline Wood, the headteacher who was suspended for raising the alarm about teachers unwilling to work during school closures, says the danger’s not over in the Telegraph
- ‘Don’t shoot the messenger – it’s the children who will suffer the most‘ – A companion piece by Pauline Wood about why school governors and local authorities shouldn’t punish whistleblowers. She gives a nice plug to the Free Speech Union, which has been supporting her
- ‘Trade expertise and the ability to rile the pious? You’re hired, Tony Abbott‘ – Excellent column by Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times
- ‘Parliament not leading by example in the back-to-work push, say lawmakers‘ – A group of dozens of MPs and peers written a letter to the Telegraph urging Parliamentarians to return to work
- Dr Mike Yeadon’s response to vaccine consultation – Research scientist and biotech entrepreneur Dr Mike Yeadon responds to the DHSC’s consultation about Covid vaccines on Twitter – and it’s VERY critical. If you’re not on Twitter, you can read it here
- ‘The 1% blunder: How a simple but fatal math mistake by US COVID-19 experts caused the world to panic and order lockdowns‘ – Dr Malcolm Kendrick explains how a rudimentary error led governments around the world to exaggerate the risk of COVID-19 by a factor of 10
- ‘A little good news‘ – Sceptical US political blogger George Dance explains why 2.5 million cases worldwide isn’t such bad news
- ‘More than half of Britons think rules on meeting others are unclear‘ – According to polling data gathered by The Health Foundation and Ipsos MORI, 54% of people think the rules around meeting others are confusing. Just 54%?
- ‘I’m certain that Rhodes will fall. This is why‘ – Depressing article by Dan Hannan in the Telegraph
- ‘My run-in with the New York Times‘ – Andrew Sullivan explains how he became the target of a hit job in the New York Times
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “You Ruined The Holidays” by Liz Bissonette.
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 7th 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 31,500).
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).
Stop Press: The European Commission has issued a health warning about two different types of face nappies on sale in the UK, here and here.
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 (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending me stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the link).
And Finally…
In case you missed it, I interviewed Douglas Murray for the Quillette podcast last week to mark the publication of the paperback of The Madness of Crowds. We spoke about all that’s happened since the book came out a year ago – a year in which the crowds seem to have become even madder! Douglas’s conclusion? “The silent majority needs to speak up – now.”
You can listen to our conversation here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I wonder who’s going to be second…?
“OUR MOVEMENT, WE CAN WIN” Says Piers Corbyn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bjCkG6n0RI
Good for him, 1k views per hour, overnight.
I do my bit
would be good if Jeremy could show some solidarity with his brother
no chance .. there will be a fence he can sit on somewhere
Rolling Stones, Sitting on a fence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBItQrlgNI
Anybody here from Islington North written to him?
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/i-039-m-back-september-6th-2020_ZREIFY8auhMpzzQ.html
I’m Back! (September 6th 2020)
Dr Vernon Coleman
06 Sep 2020
Thanks.
Did you guess right?
Question: Why are they pushing the flu vaccination this year? Surely with masks, social distancing, gloves and other CoViD19 precautions then vaccination against flu is not needed as that coronavirus cannot get past all of these defences. Likewise the common cold and hay fever is a thing of the past. How can the children in Scotland have caught colds from each other?
The goal posts keep getting moved. The flu vaccine can be 40% effective (or not effective at all) and they’ll still force people to get it. They’re even saying a Covid vaccine only has to be 50% effective in order to be approved. Sure, masks won’t entirely prevent virus transmission, but it’s still worth wearing them even if they stop a few droplets from escaping. Or my favourite — masks would work if everyone wore them and everyone wore them properly. If they’re not making a difference it must be because too many people aren’t complying. Can’t you see how it makes perfect sense to get a flu vaccine, an untested Covid vaccine, and to wear gloves and masks 24/7? If everyone just complied 100% with all of these measures we’d all live forever.
Please please please post your last 2 sentences on Twitter just to see what replies you get. ;-D
Yep, as long as I’m “safe” I’ll abandon any other enjoyable plans I may have for the rest of my life because they’re risky, right? But at least, if I follow all the rules, guidelines, diktats, and have ALL the jabs, I’ll live longer….won’t I?
It’ll certainly feel like it.
That reminds me of a quote from one of the ‘Rat Pack’ back in the day.
“People who don’t drink don’t live longer, it just feels like it”.
on people who don’t drink Dean Martin said “imagine waking up and knowing thats as good as it’s gonna feel all day”
“I spent half my money on women and booze,
the rest was wasted”.
George Best.
They are arrogant, pretentious, neurotic, risk averse psychotics and are making projections on the rest of us. They want us to think just like them because they are so lonely with their inner demons.
Who is the they? Canada’s version of Dr. Fauci? Premier Ford? PM Trudeau?
For me it’s all to do with the nudge unit. Let’s say social distancing works, but to get people to adhere you have ramp up the fear, which they explicitly said in their march SAGE minutes.
Masks, gloves, sanitiser, it’s all theatre to model behaviour. There’s also the political aspect to make the government look like they are taking action when all this does is delay the normal passage of a bad flu through the population.
It may have been justified out of the belief in the ICL model and to flatten the curve. All I can think now is that there is a new agenda to squash general opposition to the Corporatism that we are seeing emerge now.
Mussolini would be proud
Look how your maks are made – Mumbai: Inferior masks with no filter made in slums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQi9yXkfUg
Victorian doctors argue the lockdown is ‘causing more harm than good’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XunhpcchiLA
Victorian surgeon Dr Geoffrey Wells says a growing number of doctors in the state believe the lock-down is “causing more harm than good”.
Carl Vernon posted a video of it with his commentary. I don’t think people are aware of the ethics involved with how their muzzles are made. I suspect even those cloth ones made here are the efforts of people paid derisory wages.
Slave labor in the United Kingdom. Yay!
Obviously not enough social distancing, diving masks and breathing tubes to become mandatory in schools.
The air in the scuba tanks will need to be filtered through a mask, if this doesn’t happen they will be useless.
I asked the question to show the logical absurdity that is the ongoing response to SARS-COV-2.
A) The government is saying everyone over 50 is going to be offered the flu vaccination as there’s likely to be a flu outbreak.
B) The government is saying to prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2 we should wear masks and socially distance etc.
C) It is reported that children in Scotland developed coughs and colds
D) Schools are adopting social distancing, strict hygiene and masks to reduce the spread of SARS-COV-2.
However if statement A is true the precautions in statement B are pointless because if they worked then they would stop statement A from happening.
Likewise statement D precautions would stop statement C from happening.
Statement C has happened therefore statement D is a falsehood as is statement B.
Indeed. As the government are not being questioned by anyone from the opposition or the media about the important stuff, I doubt they feel the need to be able to muster a logical argument for their actions
The answer would go something like “er unprecedented bar bar er bar er er test millions, er bar bar, world-beating, er er bar bar unprecedented er er stricter er bar working 24/7 er er …..”
Logic.
What idiots don’t have.
We are governed by idiots.
QED.
They are pushing flu vaccinations this year to emphasise that
1) Vaccines are good
2) Flu is also dangerous (this is a reaction to the argument that covid is no worse than bad flu, so the goalposts will now shift to “we should always have been wearing masks, getting flu vaccines and generally worrying ourselves half to death about flu”)
3) Life from now on will consist of a constant state of public health emergency, that the government will save us from provided we do what we’re told
Think about it – why wouldn’t any government want to carry on like this – it’s much more fun, if all you’re interested in is power and your own glory?
In any case, leading us out of this would require skills and courage that the government simply do not possess.
I think it is more prosaic, they (the NHS/PHE) know that due to the social distancing the public is lacking immunity to all the normal bugs and they are worried this year’s flu could be worse as a result.
Hence so many Scottish children coming down with cold when they returned to school ?
Can confirm 2 days at school, offspring came down with a cold. Dilemma this morning-if they go to school and cough, will they be viewed as a Covid vector and sent home to get test, if they stay at home, any reason given apart from perhaps a hangover 😂, could fall into the smorgasbord of Covid symptoms and then whole household locked into our home with a cross on the door. Decided that they should attend as so obviously a common cold and just hoping reason will prevail.
Headache? Mental health problems caused by face masks?
Schools will say send them in if it’s just a mild cold. If they are asking for a test, remind them that is not the advice.
Exactly
That would have been expected. No-one’s taken much notice of it before. Just sent the kids in with extra tissues.
Exactly, if people are still managing to catch and die of summer flu, and children still managing to catch colds, it would suggest that the fact people are not being admitted to hospital or dying of Covid is not because of any of the crappy measures we are taking (which colds and flu unsurprisingly can get around) but are because either it has run its course, or it just is not a very serious virus and people have it without noticing, or both.
This.
We have staked our entire mortgage on a problem we invented. Jesus. This is living nightmare we are walking into
Quite! But more people are dying of flu than of Covid! How can this be, with all of the ‘protection’ and restrictions in place since March?
Does the Flu Shot Increase COVID-19 Risk (YES!) and Other Interesting Questions
https://doctormurray.com/does-the-flu-shot-increase-covid-19-risk/
Thanks Victoria – I think you’ll find this interview with Zach Bush very interesting too – https://zachbushmd.com/video/the-highwire/.
Tried to share on fb and was “fact checked” and censored. Must be true then!
The article also answers my ongoing suspicion that people with high bp were at high risk because of the meds. Seems I was right.
There have been discussions in the BMJ about evidence pointing to the fact that the flu vaccine may make people more vulnerable to covid 19. So if more people have the flu vaccine, there could well be another crop of covid 19 cases to continue the fear and drive forward the vaccination agenda.
Vaccine associated virus interference- the US army did a study on their soldiers for whom the flu vaccine is compulsory and found that the vaccine made up to a third more susceptible to non influenza respiratory conditions.
It’s pretty shocking, and remarkably little official research has been done into this (quelle surprise). More doctors are calling for further investigation into the interplay between flu vaccination and susceptibility to coronaviruses, but despite that, the government is still hell bent on having us all vaccinated with both the flu vaccine and the “perfectly safe” covid 19 vaccine.
From my own personal experience, I had asthma all my life until time stopped me for going for my annual flu vaccine, some 11-12 years ago. Haven’t had a recurrence of asthma since. I never really thought about it before, but the timing seems just too coincidental now.
Their argument is that with a vaccine we can dispense with masks and all the antisocial-distancing nonsense.
And if you believe that ……
You will believe that pigs can fly.
Someone here yesterday said they condemned the XR actions to disrupt the press. I answered thus;
You condemn the XR movement (forget the feft/right for now). If the tyranny being imposed on the population just now extends through many years and the Govt erect statues of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson to honour them for their service in the time of Covid, would you condemn any protest in the future which tore down these statues along with carrying out civil disobedience to change the history, or in the case of XR, the future?
Protest which comes from the heart of people is absolutely integral to basic human freedoms and rights. The arrest of Piers Corbyn, which was clearly political, has crossed not a thin red line but a very thick black one.
Somehow, we must resist.
1. No legitimate evidence shows extreme weather increasing or sea level rise accelerating.
2. No legitimate survey of climate scientists shows anything close to the fabled 97% consensus.
3. All apocalyptic climate predictions by academics have failed.
4. Climate models used to generate alarm have no skill when checked against reliable tropospheric temperatures.
5. The most important argument against climate alarmism is that the proposed solutions are unworkable and dangerous.
I would keep the Johnson and Hancock statues next to Cromwell as a warning to future generations.
The only future you and XR will change is that of poor brown people who live from day to day and shit on the street who will also be devastated by this latest panic.
Hi Nigel
We live in the same town. Fancy a pint or a coffee?
If so mail me at mail (at) lockdowntruth.org
Cheers
The only future you and XR will change is that of poor brown people who live from day to day and shit on the street who will also be devastated by this latest panic.
Like San Francisco.
The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it’s quiet
Copyright © 1965
Extinction Rebellion are controlled/organised opposition.They are definitely not our allies in resisting this tyranny.
I don’t know much about XR though the other day I saw one of them saying how this lockdown and furlough is great because people have been able to do what they enjoy doing instead of working. Or something along those lines. If that’s representative of their thinking, then no thanks. But as I said I speak from ignorance. I tend to view all other political issues apart from coronapanic and freedom of speech as something of a sideline until we get out of this.
I’m not much into tearing down statues of any kind, but I think there’s a distinction to be made between tearing down the statue of someone who has taken a lead role in criminal oppression in living memory (e.g. Saddam Hussein) and someone who did some very bad things (or may have done) hundreds of years ago.
I support the right of any group to protest, less keen on people protesting in a way that deliberately disrupts life for others. That said, I will let XR worry about their own issues and I will worry about what’s important to me.
2019 Stop Corbyn, 2020 Stop Corbyn
“If the tyranny being imposed on the population just now extends through many years and the Govt erect statues of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson to honour them for their service in the time of Covid, would you condemn any protest in the future which tore down these statues” What you advocate is mob rule, not protest. If there are proposals to put up statues to Hancock and Johnson (I am pretty confident there are no plausible circumstances in which that will happen, but for the sake of argument), then I would oppose them peacefully, not by mob violence. “Protest which comes from the heart of people is absolutely integral to basic human freedoms and rights.“ XR and BLM are manipulated naifs, thugs and cynical troublemakers, who basically serve to intimidate dissenters from the elite dogmas of antiracism and climate alarmism. Note that both BLM and XR are generally given free reign until they go too far and actually interfere with business, as they seem to have done the other day. But even so, note that they were not treated as harshly as Piers Corbyn despite engaging in actual genuinely criminal activity. “The arrest of Piers Corbyn, which was clearly… Read more »
Who said conspiracy ?
So close but yet so far.
A flock of muzzled muttons. I think Ms Sturgeon is in there somewhere.
The UK Government’s accomplishments since March
Finance
Healthcare
Social
Economy destroyed, lives destroyed, healthcare destroyed, civil liberties destroyed and the objective to “save lives” a complete failure.
And it’s still not over.
These people have no longer any moral authority to govern us.
The word ‘moral’ isn’t in their vocabulary.
Nor, really, is authority. What they do have is unlimited power.
Or they think they do.
Unlimited bluff, rather?
That bluff needs calling.
Add to that, long term health issues from stress, psychological impacts on children, increase incidence of suicide, mental health issues. Educational disruption and long term effects.
To think we supposedly were protected by numerous human rights charters etc., yet aĺl legislation to protect our rights appears to have evaporated and not a single murmur from the usual vociferous human rights lawyers – it would appear only criminals have a right to family life. Talking of which, prisons appear to be the one section of society that has rarely been commented on. Considering close proximity of inmates, what of their cases or death toll, are they all masked up inside.
I used to support Amnesty International as I believe passionately in free speech but the scales have fallen from my eyes … not a word from them on any of this as far as I know. I would love to be wrong about this btw so if anyone knows more, please correct me.
Just looked at their site as I’m sure you did. They go along with the official narrative 100% while campaigning for rights within the “New Normal”. Like the proverbial deckchairs on the Titanic.
I used to support them (ai), as a volunteer and financially, but they have become a joke.
I suspect they have Gateskeepers now, like most organisation of that ilk.
Cases only, to end of July:
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/PressPolicy/News/Coronavirus
Thanks for that. I wish they would put keys on graphs, as otherwise difficult to interpret, but was interesting cases only stated, which is good, but then if no deaths again reaffirms the low threat of the virus.
I have worked out a long list of freedoms we have lost (and there are many more that listed) I would email the following to all your friends to make them realise we are slowly slippin into dictatorship. They copied the lockdown in Wuhan China, instigated by the Chinese Communist Party, an organisation that has murdered more people than Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union combined First they put us under house arrest – and I did nothing Next they stopped us seeing members of our families – and I did nothing Then they told us not to come within 2 metres of another human being – and I did nothing Then they told us to wear a mask in supermarkets after saying masks didn’t stop the virus – and I did nothing Then they announced that the economy had shrunk by over 20% – and I did nothing Then they closed all places of worships – and I did nothing Then they told us were the were merely trying to flatten the, but continued lockdowns, long after the “curve” had been flatten – and I did nothing Then they axed British peoples holiday’s in France, Spain, The Netherlands and Croatia because of… Read more »
Yeah, good general perspective.
But I’m fairly sure the majority of people on here have done an awful lot. Why the repetition of the ‘nothing’ nonsense ?
He’s sort of right, John. We’ve done nothing physical. Yet.
Don’t forget breakdown of society – something people like to bleat about over the past few years but have fallen silent on despite it happening in front of our very own eyes. Social distancing and mandatory muzzling has resulted into communication problems; the destruction of trust between fellow human beings; the weakening of bonds that hold society together; treating people as lepers and the destruction of courtesy and good service.
Civilisation has time and again been shown as only skin deep. Humanity has regressed into barbarism but unfortunately too many are still asleep or in denial to realise this.
I wouldn’t go along with this altogether.
I’ve been working at a minor tourist attraction through the summer, and our visitors have, without exception, been courteous, friendly and appreciative, as I trust our team has been to the visitors.
Granted, the visitors are no doubt self-selecting – zombies wouldn’t come near us – but they are proof that not all human beings have ceased to be human, or civilised.
Some have regressed but most haven’t, though things might change when the free money runs out.
The aqueduct?
Great post
Suspended Democracy indefinitely while ruling by decree via twatter.
Absolutely true.
But it’s vital to remember when noting this fact, that all this has been done with the enthusiastic collaboration of all the alternatives, both within the “Conservative” Party and amongst the “Opposition” parties, the latter having mostly urged for the regime to go further, faster and harder.
This is not (just) a condemnation of the Johnson regime, nor of the “Conservative” Party, but of our entire political elite.
New parties needed.
What was Einstein’s definition of insanity again ?
Everyone should send this to their MP.
Throw the bums out!
They never did. They are immoral.
It’s like they’ve never heard of pneumonia! Lungs usually heal after a few months except in rare circumstances. Ground glass opacities are not uncommon with the flu.
I can’t begin to tell you how jealous I am of that Australian expat family as I remain stuck here in Vic and not permitted to go beyond 5km and have a curfew. Good on them though.
It may not be much of a consolation, Caramel, but at least the whole world knows what’s happening in your corner of hell.
When the reckoning comes, the guilty ones will have nowhere to hide.
Stay strong!
Thank you, it really does make me feel a bit better. That other countries see it and are horrified on our behalf..
Feed them to the crocodiles.
What would happen in the event of a returning Citizen refusing any putative vaccine?
Patrick O’Flynn Boris Johnson’s careerist cabinet problem Last year Boris Johnson won three notable domestic political victories. His hot streak began when he romped home in the Tory leadership contest and culminated with his decisive general election win. Between those two landmark moments was an event that served as a bridge between them – a decisive purge of the pro-Remain centrist tendency inside the Conservative parliamentary party. Many of the leading names in Tory circles for the past 20 years were bounced out of the party and then the Commons over their Brexit-blocking antics. Suddenly the game was up for Philip Hammond, David Lidington, David Gauke, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Rory Stewart, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames, among others. And instead of the British public reacting to the purge in horror – as predicted by many BBC types – many people lapped it up and were convinced that at last a Prime Minister was placing their democratic wishes above the conventions of the old mates club at Westminster. It is fair to say that when Rudd, who had renounced the whip in sympathy with her colleagues, found herself live on Channel Four’s election night coverage as… Read more »
But it has begun to matter now. Because the superstar striker has become unsure of himself and his team-mates, most of whom lack their own lodestars to guide them, don’t know what to do. Hence Oliver Dowden’s slow and hesitant responses to woke cultural challenges such as Premier League footballers taking a knee for BLM and the proposed Last Night of the Proms lyric-ban. Hence the sheer misery that Mr Williamson lived through during the exams fiasco. Only Sunak, the one who was most cruelly billed as the Prime Minister’s sycophant when he took over the reins at the Treasury, has shown the self-confidence to set his own course in his own brief. Across the rest of the political terrain the whispers emanating from Whitehall suggest that the guiding lights of policy formation now are focus groups and opinion polls run out of Downing Street. It is all starting to smack of Norman Lamont’s ‘in office but not in power’ jibe at John Major. But Major was a fag end PM with a tiny majority. This should not be happening to Johnson. A new nadir was hit this week when two successive cabinet ministers, first Hancock and then Shapps, failed… Read more »
Well, Mr O’Flynn is rather generous to all of them in my view. “Prime Minister has not given a sufficient lead in recent weeks”. Recent weeks? FFS.
Absolutely. Complete failure of analysis.
Months.
“Suddenly the game was up for Philip Hammond, David Lidington, David Gauke, Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Rory Stewart, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames, among others. “
And, for certain, they’ll none of them be missed. Nor has any of them, to my knowledge, spoken out against the panic response to the latest coronavirus.
But if none of them would have improved matters on the over-arching failure of the Johnson regime, their replacements and the rest have none of them shown any gumption or wisdom, either.
I think Hammond and Clarke at least are somewhat more skeptical to the panic.
Happy to be disabused if I see anything from them that suggests it, but I haven’t so far.
Johnson thought that he was a special person that you would just love so much. Because he’s so special. Maybe when he was a journalist, not now.
Forward this to your muzzled mates
Inferior masks with no filter made in slums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQi9yXkfUg
Slum mask millionaire.
I was hoping someone would think of that one.
Great minds…
They need Kent’s Micronite Filter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbjo47fUxRM&list=WL&index=52&t=0s
Despite what climate alarmists say, data shows Arctic sea ice volume or thickness is growing, rather than shrinking, according to Sky News host Rowan Dean.
Din’t miss Dr Kendrick’s piece, folks. If he’s right – any cause to doubt it, you experts?-it blows the lockdown case out of the water.
Not that it will make any difference to our oppressors. The aim of lockdown is lockdown. The aim of fear is fear. But there is a bitter comfort in the certainty that it’s pure tyranny for its own sake. There is no ‘public good’ involved and never was.
People like Handjob and Boris are criminal psychopaths, but luckily for us they are also really, really stupid. We need to catch them red-handed. I am feeling deeply suspicious about the timing of the latest spike in “cases”. Only last week, for the first time the MSM explained that PCR tests had variable sensitivity. It was put in terms that even scientifically-illiterate fuckwits like Handjob could understand. Now we have a convenient spike. Government Pravda rags such as the Guardian are also suspiciously regurgitating outright deceitful propaganda such as that hospital admissions will lag the “cases” spike by two weeks. I can so image Handjob in a meeting asking “The BBC say that we can control the sensitivity of the tests? Surely it would be best if they were as sensitive as possible to help control the virus? Order our pillar 2 labs to max out the sensitivity.” I.e. increase the cycles until a papaya or goat can test positive. So I would suggest that it might be prudent for Toby and other real journalists to fire off urgent FOI requests to testing labs to find out what number of PCR testing cycles are in use, whether this has changed,… Read more »
Their stupidity evidenced by allowing the victimisation of Piers Corbyn thus creating a martyr to rally around.
Stupid error that only an amateur dictator would make.
Have you ever seen Hancock explain why you can got to a pub, Eat Out to
drain the public finances furtherHelp Out but can only meet family members in some kind of bubble of one or two people or something?He waffles, he blubbles and we’re in a whole lot of trouble.
As far as I am aware all this bubble business is load of meaningless babble. Outside of the local lockdown areas my understanding is that the only enforceable law is that you cannot meet in groups of over 30. Certainly my wife and I have been staying with our twin grandsons and helping with childcare, not much social distancing when changing nappies!
As far as I am aware we are not breaking any laws? as for anything else it is all Hancocks hubris and he can put it right where the monkey puts his nuts.
When the students return each shared house will be its own bubble and residents are not to mix with other bubbles, good luck policing that one.
Particularly any bubble that has access to (1) a crate of cider, or (2) a particularly good-looking bunch of housemates.
Or a good sound system. Or weed.
Bubble babble.
In the early 80’s we had psychobabble. That was fun too.
Apologies if you don’t know the original meme but this immediately distorted itself in my mind to
he waffle
he blubble
but most of all,
he snacc
“…fire off urgent FOI requests to testing labs to find out what
number of PCR testing cycles are in use,…”
No need. Its already public.
They typically run about 40 cycles. There is no convincing evidence that infectious virus is present if you need >30 cycles to detect it. Many positives need only <20 cycles to be detected. So 30 would still be a very sensitive limit.
Using 40 cycles instead of 30 makes the assay about 1000 fold more (over)sensitive. It also causes up to 9x more samples to be declared positive
My understanding (from what PHE said in the recent BBC article) was that multiple thresholds are in use due to a range of different testing kits. I recall seeing somewhere that the optimal number of cycles was 24 – I think this was from Carl Heneghan but I can’t find a reference now. If it is currently 40 then that is ridiculous – wouldn’t that be 65,536 (2^16) times more sensitive than 24 cycles?
Yes, exactly, it would.
It is true that to get exactly the same sensitivity the different assay designs, protocols, reagent mixes, etc would require a different cycle threshold (called Ct). But this will vary by no more than a few cycles (perhaps 2 or 3 max) across methods. The numbers I quoted were general guides, based on what various experts have stated. Going from the 20s to the 30s or even 40s generates an insane difference in levels of sensitivity (x2 per cycle, so about 1000-fold for 10 cycles, or 1,000,000 fold for 20 cycles). Remember, if you do enough cycles even pure water would come up positive!
The time lag excuse has got to be played out now. Been hearing about the new spikes for what feels like months now, and still no accompanying spike in deaths or hospitalisations. Think even new cases in Spain starting to go down. Just how long can it take of a person to even get seriously sick? If this is a time lag, then the folks who died in April must have caught it some time in February, in which case the lockdown would have been even more pointless.
Very sad to read Toby’s piece about the chap still unable to visit his dad in a care home.
Locally they have been allowing garden/verandah visits since July with some using a gazebo or marquee.
Anticipating inclement weather at least two have already repurposed their common room into the visiting area.
Presumably it is impossible to move residents between homes so that chaps father is literally a captive market for his ‘care’ home operators.
Toby,
It’s time to start changing the conversation. I think journalist need to start referring to Boris Johnson as ‘the destroyer of British Democracy’. Also masks now need to be referred to as BoJo masks. Let’s see how long the government keeps up with these ludicrous rules when their names are attached to them.
talk to your friends…Allison Pearson for one but I’m sure the spectator has a few who will join in as well.
This is an excellent post. Something us fellow sceptics need to work on. We need some on-side tech people to get a meme going on social media?
Send it to facebook group United Rebels. Very active information sharers. Gained 1000 members very quickly and still growing.
Good idea!
I think we need a massive multi media campaign funded by some rich sceptics + crowdfunding, professionally run, to counteract the propaganda that has been and continues to be relentless
You are right. A publicist would help get more sceptical articles in the media.
A team of political strategists and those versed in manipulating social and mainstream media, backed up by a think tank of sceptics drawn from science, journalism, politics and the law, and business, funded by whoever wants to donate, but it must be underwritten by someone/a group with millions. Vote Leave cost £6M apparently. We need a sceptic version of Cummings, but one with morals. Maybe all done on behalf of a new single-issue political party – Back to normal. And some high quality surveys to better understand the groups that need convincing, and what their concerns are. I don’t have the money needed, sadly.
Simon Dolan?
I did message him at KBF – no response. And one or two other notable rich sceptics, whose responses were cagey. Maybe things are being planned in secret.
It’s a war, Julian. We need to win more than we need morals.
“Political strategists and manipulating social media” are vastly overrated, one of the reasons we are in this mess.
imho.
My Lord Suburbian, you are indeed a master of ideas.
Just had another one. Can some clever person get us a picture of Winston Churchill with the words “defender of democracy” next to a picture of Boris Johnson with the words “destroyer of democracy”
I’m on a roll today…Picture of a masked looter saying, “the mask makes me safe”
Picture of a tired/lonely/sad looking mask wearing teenager with the words, “BoJo made me do it”
07.15 Monday, very noticable increase in early morning traffic, possibly more people able to return to work as the schools return in full today?
Mr S Days, who has been going into the office, admittedly an office built above the factory floor of an engineering company, as usual throughout this strange time can no longer linger over a second coffee before leaving the house.
Yes, other people using the roundabout outside Sainsburys, for goodness sake, where is this going to end?
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/i-039-m-back-september-6th-2020_ZREIFY8auhMpzzQ.html
I’m Back! (September 6th 2020)
Dr Vernon Coleman
06 Sep 2020
Unherd removed almost all the comments after Devi Sridhar’s remarkable interview.
It was a shockingly bad interview from her perspective. Freddie (who I think is an excellent interviewer/host) gave her enough rope to hang herself. She is a globalist shill, completely unqualified to be advising government at such a high level. She is neither a scientist nor a medic. I can only imagine what tone was taken in the comments – anyone with any shred of common sense and experience can see her for what she is even if the MSM poppets are either unable or unwilling to expose it.
She is one of the worst, most obvious exemplifiers of the profound inadequacy and unfitness for purpose of our ruling elites, and their reliance on “positive discrimination”. Puts you in mind of the pre-Revolutionary French ancien regime, as far as sheer inadequacy is concerned.
The fact that she holds any government or media position raises questions about the judgement or honesty, or both, of whoever made the decision to appoint her, frankly.
Which bit did you think was “shockingly bad” – and why? . ………………………………………
That’s disappointing, I thought Unherd were pretty sound.
I think most people had her number – they were polite (much more polite than Lockdown Sceptics) and their comments should not have been taken down. I was one of the least polite and I posted Hans Andersen’s tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’ (which is only about 400 words). Oddly, no one seemed to see the point.
You were saying Sridhar was like a princess with a pea problem ? Sorry, can’t quite recall the story. 🙂
And to be clear it was several hundred comments.
I couldn’t see much evidence for real analysis and she has a remarkable level of detachment from the consequences of the measures she advocates.
Desensitised – watch today’s UK Column.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-7th-september-2020
Too much profanity?
An outstandingly good round-up today, Toby. With your commissioned pieces you really do take this web site to the next level – it’s not just a talking shop, but could actually have a wider influence.
As an aside, I liked this bit in the open letter from two Newcastle professors:
…it is our contention that even if these measures were necessary, they should not have been possible – there are kinds and degrees of intervention in our arrangements for living and working that ought to be inconceivable and to remain so.
So right. We shouldn’t have to be drawn into debating the effectiveness of lockdowns or masks. They should simply not be considered as options because they violate our most cherished principles.
quite right. Our MP’s should be making this argument but few are and the closer we get to September 26th without any of them speaking out will make it worse for them.
There are countless examples on this forum of letters written to MP’s and their poor responses.
Perhaps we need a sidebar dedicated solely to MP’s responses to constituents
That’s what I would have expected any genuinely conservative or traditionalist politician to have stood for, and to have resigned over, if necessary.
I think it’s just yet another confirmation (if anyone still needed it) that Peter Hitchens was correct when he argued years ago (and wrote books on the topic) that the “Conservative” Party is no ,longer meaningfully conservative.
The Japanese government stated they could not impose lockdown or mandatory masks as it was against their constitution.
Possibly the creepiest video of Covid 19-84
The Lie of Masks – Unmasking Covid19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkOIesmFXg
Whitty is a really unsavoury character
Thanks – this is what I was searching for the other day.
Very proud of my son yesterday who said “well of course it’s easier to wear a mask, but I won’t, because someone has to set an example.”
He’s a star!
Masks haven’t stopped people catching (and dying of) flu. Is the flu virus somehow different to the coronavirus in the way it is transmitted?
A repost from late yesterday.
DT not behind paywal –
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/06/snp-has-not-proved-emergency-covid-powers-still-justified-childrens1/
“SNP has not proved all its emergency Covid powers are still justified, children’s commissioner says
Bruce Adamson said the SNP “proposes almost wholesale renewal of emergency provisions which significantly impact on children’s rights”.”
[…]
“In a submission to a Holyrood inquiry, he argued that SNP ministers’ powers should be reexamined following “the welcome progress” made towards “restoring public services to a more ‘normal’ state.”
“He noted that over the last six months more than more than 60 Scottish Statutory Instruments(SSIs) have been made by the SNP Government using the powers contained in the UK and Scottish Coronavirus Acts, curtailing a wide range of children’s human rights.
“However, Mr Adamson said the Scottish Government had failed to provide parliament with updated assessments on the impact of these on young people, which he said are needed to inform MSPs’ decision on whether the powers should be renewed.”
Repost from late yesterday, it would be good if more people saw the video.
British police going wrong. Assault Battery and False Arrest for a Facemask. A fine, decent man showing what keeping your head when all about you have lost theirs looks like.
https://youtu.be/-W6JfR7J8Mo
I suggest the Nudge Unit is wanting social media filling with these chilling videos to cause individual fear of arrest to increase. It feels too perfect a tool for the psychologists not to have calculated.
Really well done that man.
I hope it backfires, such police thuggery could equally make people question something imposed by brute force. It is equivalent to dragging someone from their car and beating them for a minor traffic offence.
How not to win friends and influence people.
As with the chap on the Liverpool train they probably picked on another big bloke hoping for a punch up but this one also remained remarkably calm.
A fine example of one man against the system. Cess Dick getting told a few truths by a great man – he has been camped outside Downing Street protesting for over a monyh protesting the resoinse to Covid19. Resharing from late yesterday as more people see and share the better.
Met Chief C. Dick gets door stepped and called out for her ‘hate-speech’ over encouragement of social shaming as a method of policing the population.
https://twitter.com/jimmy76120797/status/1302526393088172032?s=20
Really worth sharing in my view.
I just love seeing these people who actually do something, anything.
If there were many such minded people, we’d be out of all this within days.
Does anyone on here now have a more sceptical view on global warming > climate change > climate crisis?
Is it helpful to mix issues?
whilst we’re being fucked over on so many fronts
perhaps it is
It goes precisely to the same point: spurious data, supposition being stated as established theory and the application of results to real world policy without going through the standard measures to deem safe to use.
I was doubtful before now I’m certain that climate change caused by humans is a scam.It follows exactly the same pattern.Flawed computer modelling.Silencing of skeptical scientists.Governments enthusiastically adopting measures to tax and control.They just have found/created a better one with Covid because of the immediacy of fear.
for those that have not seen it this is a good climate sceptic blog
Also Global Warming Policy Forum full of info and do a good weekly newsletter
I’ve said before. Belief in man-made climate change is the gateway drug to belief in Covid doom porn. The nudge is the belief that modellers have an accurate picture of things and so must be trusted because of the argument to authority.
The trouble is that mathematics, signal to noise theory (which includes Bayesian theorems) and the way we deem things safe (engineering, auditing, regulations) all stand in the way of hypothetical whimsy. Or should do. But when you have an Agenda, politics can spin wool into gold.
The modellers are the Message.
Here is a short commentary from Sky News Australia about remarks from the head of the WHO – he gives the public the first hint that the political class want to turn the tools of the pandemic to combat climate change,
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188156827001
It is becoming increasingly apparent all these issues are connected – BLM, freedom of speech, climate change,identity politics, Covid 19. It is good to see the big picture.
U.N.agenda 21/30 explains a lot
Sky News Australia is a breath of fresh air-someone slagged off Alan Jones on a FB forum the other day saying he is a paid Shock Jock. Well every time I click on a link from Sky Australia there is a different commentator not just Alan Jones
Yep!
No, I vote we concentrate on the issue at hand. Plenty of other places to discuss climate related issues.
Heartily agree.The more conspiracy theories we get mixed up with, the easier it is for our enemies to portray us as nutters, regardless of whether or not the theories are well founded. We MUST concentrate on the present evil. Other issues can wait.
They are calling lockdown skeptics conspiracy theorists. No?
Just curious if the government’s and “expert’s” approaches to covid-19 has made people question the previous hot topic that was constantly in the news before March. A lot of sceptics on here have had their faith in these institutions shaken and wondered what else they might be sceptical about.
With regards to it being off-topic, Toby has a section on BLM in today’s post.
Yes, I disagree with those who believe we should be focused below the line on just lockdown. This is Toby’s blog, and he doesn’t limit himself to just that issue but rather allows himself to range, and I believe it is better that way. If he were to tightly discipline himself as to topic I believe it would become a chore for him and he would drift away from it sooner. I’m perfectly happy for him to discuss other issues, since I enjoy reading his take on them. That said, I tend to agree with him more often than not.
I agree it’s entirely up to Mr Young what he writes about, and entirely up to people who post here to pick up on or ignore anything, on or off topic.
However there is a distinction to be made between what we discuss here and how we should present arguments about our case to non-sceptics. Horse for courses. Some non-sceptics MAY be more persuaded if you bring in “conspiracy theories” or stuff about 5G and vaccinations (in the more general sense) or freedom of speech or climate change or Trump or Brexit or BLM. But many won’t be and think it best in general to stick to core message for outside world as there is no need to go further. The case against lockdown is incredibly easy to make, and doesn’t really require proving because it is already proved, on its face.
I don’t disagree with most of what you say. I just don’t regard the function of this place (the btl comments) as being projecting the maximally persuasive front to doubters. Better imo that this is a place for free discussion, where we can thrash out to our own satisfaction issues such as the ones you mention.
Yes indeed, I don’t think the comments here are or should be aimed at the general public of non-sceptics, for the reasons you cite
Damn right.
I often go off topic, but usually it is relevant in the wider context that the mainstream approach on these other topics mirrors the covid lockdown and so a comment about the BBC propaganda on Climate change, BLM, or their fixation with Trump is reflecting their similar propaganda approach to covid . So it is fair to comment on the police taking the knee for BLM if the same police are then abusing their power and arresting people for not wearing a mask. or allowing XR protests to take place but then arresting Piers Corbyn.
Agree
I agree about tackling one thing at once but we can’t ignore the fact that the issues are interconnected and all being orchestrated from the same place.
They all come from the same source that clamour for a Global Reset.
Bjorn Lomborg offers a far more balanced view on the environment than either extreme; harms vs benefits as opposed to apocalyptic doom or carry on complacency.
He is Swedish, perhaps there is a pattern here….
https://www.lomborg.com
Antony Watts is more sceptical, his website is also worth a look
https://wattsupwiththat.com
Actually, no. Where i differ from most “warmists” (I hate that term) is in recognising that carbon dioxide can’t actually be removed from the atmosphere on human timescales by human technology. This is why Michael Moore recent film, Planet of the Humans,” and got viciously attacked by the greenwash brigade (which is most of the left).
“carbon dioxide can’t actually be removed from the atmosphere on human timescales by human technology.“
Why not? Without going into the rights and wrongs, just as a technical question, it seems rather obtuse to me to claim that CO2 has been added to the atmosphere by human technology but it can’t possibly be removed equally well. Granted, it might be more costly to remove it, but on the other hand our technology is far advanced from when we started producing it on a large scale, and is likely to keep advancing. Likewise our energy wealth.
We have the technology to do it, it’s just a matter of cost and getting the carbon emissions emitted in generating the energy used to sequestrate CO2 below the amounts sequestrated. A breakthrough in fusion energy, for instance, would probably allow very rapid carbon dioxide sequestration.
I don;t know what the current numbers are, but I do know they are improving all the time, so whether or not it’s practicable now, it most likely will be soon.
We could remove it all if we decided that was what needed doing. Same with power plants.
Just using standard nuclear reactors would supply more than sufficient power to sequestrate CO2.
That’s my suspicion as well, but frankly it’s not important enough to me to bother doing the calculations.
This analysis on The World Bank’s climate change projects comes from the Bretton Woods Project
https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/doc/env/CarbonFinanceWB.pdf
Beware The World Bank, they are an important cog in the Global Reset.
There is no need to pay a penny to remove CO2. Plants do it all the time. Just get children to plant tree-seeds on a walk with their teachers every week.
If you actually do want to use a faster method, dump iron oxide into the oceans; it generates phytoplankton on a massive scale.
The drive to plant trees to offset carbon production has been leading to the destruction of habitats, reduction of water tables and, when pines are planted, the acidification of local rivers and waterways. Unintended consequences will get you every time.
By way of natural processes the CO2 will remain in the atmosphere (residence time) for many hundreds of years. Cutting emissions does not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – it reduces the additional amount being added every year.There is technology, of course, but do remove the actual quantities of CO2 that were not here fifty years ago would require (if the technology worked) vast amounts of energy (from fossil fuels) to produce vast platforms (produced using mining and processing materials and fossil fuels). It would be self defeating because it would require the consumption of vast amounts of fossil fuels. So-called renewable technologies require vast amounts of fossil energy to create wind turbines, solar panels and the like. It was this “inconvenient truth” that got “Planet of the Humans” removed from Youtube for a while – there’s a huge amount of money in “green energy.”
There are technologies for direct sequestration of atmospheric CO2, it doesn’t have to be a matter of reducing emissions and waiting for levels to go down naturally. As long as the energy used for sequestration generates less atmospheric CO2 than it removes, it can be done, and nuclear power, for instance, generates very little CO2..
For sure it would presumably require a colossal effort comparable to human industrialisation itself to reverse what has been done over the past century or so, but fortunately there is no evident need to reverse it completely or urgently. In that, it’s another parallel to the coronapanic – it would require an immensely costly effort to wipe out a virus that is now endemic, but fortunately there’s no rational reason to try to do so. We can live with this virus just as we can live with raised CO2 levels, most likely.
there’s a huge amount of money in “green energy”
and they want us all to pay for it.
and CO2 levels have gone up and down over the millenia. There have been times in the past when levels were much higher than now. there is also a strong argument that rather than an increase in CO2 causing warming, it is the other way round and natural warming cycles cause an in increase in natural CO2 which is what we see now. And the side effect of this is that the world is greening – what is it that plants live on ?…. it is CO2. and we have had years and years of increasing crop yields because of it .
That’s right. Calling CO2 public enemy number one is ridiculous. Maybe that’s why they switched to corona for the meanwhile, it’s getting more traction.
They fell for the climate change bollocks, maybe they’ll fall for the corona bollocks as well. Bullseye! Success!
No. And trying to tie it into the issues around climate change does nobody any favours.
We have certainly had an object lesson in two huge issues that apply both to the coronapanic and to climate alarmism, so that certainly ought to be food for thought for anyone who generally accepted the received opinion on climate change but refused to accept it on the coronapanic. First, the limitations and inherent dangers of relying on modelling. Modelling has driven both the coronapanic and the climate panic. It’s at least as capable of producing agenda driven bullshit on climate change as it is on epidemiology. Second, the ease with which mass hysteria and panic can be induced by alarmist modelling, and the way scientific, political and social establishments can be co-opted to push said panic and hysteria. This has been quite evident in both cases. I’ve always been kind of in the middle on the climate panic, similarly to the coronapanic. I recognise that there is both human influence on the climate, and that there is a real disease and cock up rather than a “plandemic” conspiracy, but I also recognise that there is a panic and hysterical fear response in each case, that I reject. So I suspect I have noticed these similarities because I’m already primed… Read more »
In addition, if I’m going to be dismissed as a far right conspiracy theorist over one issue, simply for looking into the facts and forming my own opinions, I might as well have a look at some other unchallenged orthodoxies while I’m at it.
I think a large (and growing) number of people actually do see things your way.
I believe the climate zealots are heavily involved in this scamdemic.
I think global warming is happening, and to my mind the influence of humanity on the planet is generally not a good one – that much seems obvious. BUT I would now be very distrustful of climate models and predictions and worst case doom-mongering scenarios whereas before all this covid bollox I would have paid them more attention. Like covid, I think it’s probably a thing, but not as bad as they claim.
Yesterday’s announcement about a rise in +ve test results (so called cases) indicates again the critical role testing now has in driving this pantomime. I queried a twitter post yesterday and was told in reply that the PCR test done well can distinguish between SARS-Cov2 and other coronaviruses. But that does beg the question as to whether these tests are being done well?
In many areas of modern life we have bodies to oversee the quality and standard of services delivered. Do we know if there is any such control or oversight of this mass SARS-Cov2 screening programme? It is an unprecedented screening programme, set up very quickly and using private companies to deliver test results on which huge decisions are made about life in our country. If there is no control or oversight then this is something we should be pressing to be put in place.
‘Done well’ seems particularly vague as you say. In any case, it’s somewhat irrelevant if they indicate the presence of the virus, it’s a matter of how many cycles of amplification is required to get there.
That is what determines if someone is a risk in terms of transmission or not. The claim in that the number of cycles is often extremely high to the point of irrelevance. We need to know the answer to the average cycles question now.
I did at one point ask the question whether you would still get some output from a test that contained zero quantity of the virus RNA no matter how much you amplified it. I don’t recall getting a straightforward, unambiguous answer.
If we think of the test as ‘digital’, then the answer should be that you genuinely get nothing out at all i.e. if I multiply digital zero by 2^256 I will still get zero out. But if there are errors at each stage, then who knows? Any experts here?
Hate Digital. Analogue rules.
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.27.2001223#html_fulltext
The above is a report of an assessment of PCR test labs referenced by a SAGE report Toby linked to yesterday.
If you look at the main text under Table 1 you’ll see that out of 521 samples tested for sample code CVOP20S-02, 5 were false positives. Those samples were of HCoV-NL63, a different human coronavirus.
That’s a false positive rate of nearly 1%.
For sample code CVOP20S-04, another coronvirus, out of 521 samples assessed by the labs there were 3 false positives.
Finally, sample code CVOP20S-05 had no virus: just the transport medium. Out of the 521 samples the labs reported 3 false positives.
I conclude that the overall false positive rate is about 7 in a thousand.That’s close to the apparent UK prevalence from the test results.
At least it was back then in April and May. Are the UK test labs any better now, I wonder?
Very interesting! Where have the promised studies got to? On their way soon I hope.
This is the SAGE report I refer to
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914931/s0712-tfms-consensus-statement-sage.pdf
and the assessment of labs is Reference 3 of the SAGE report.
Panjandrum. Perfectly plucked and place. Thank you Toby, it’s why you are a journalist and not I. (!)
never heard of the word until I read Brian Sewell’s biog “Outsider”
What a surprise! How long will we limp along like this?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8705053/School-shut-FIVE-teachers-test-positive-coronavirus.html
His visit caused a stir online after the Prime Minister gave a speech in the library, in front of books with titles such as The Twits, Betrayed and The Subtle Knife.
The Twits. Roald Dahl. In my library.
I’m fairly new to this site so forgive me if this has already been done. I was wondering if anyone has carried out any analysis into the correlation between mandatory mask wearing and the number of cases? I’m no expert, but it seems like countries such as Spain and France with strict mask policies have the highest increase in cases. I understand that other factors will be at play I.e. these countries are popular with tourists and holiday makers but it would be interesting to see the outcome of such a study. If one has been done could someone post the link please.
It’s actually Belgium and Spain that have the strictest mask policies in Europe. And they are numbers 2 and 3 on the death rate rankings. Number 1 is Peru which has possibly had the most savage lockdown of all. (Rankings excluding micro countries like San Marino – basically Italy and Andorra – basically Spain).
Not aware of a study, but those simple facts certainly tell a story.
Don’t they just! And Belgium went into lockdown early – just like the Lockdown Lunatics wanted the UK to do.
The upcoming French numbers will be of interest to study in that regard. As far as I know, they are the only (larger) country, where people now have to wear masks throughout their whole workday.
If, as I strongly suspect now on tbe basis of what we now know about the importance of the viral load, further confirmed by the NYT story about PCR tests results 30/40 cycles variation, wearing a mask actually turns the harmless, lowly infected, asymptomatic and non-infectious person into that sick and infectious walking timebomb, French case numbers should remain elevated for good.
(Which might be the true goal of governments that mandate wearing them anyway, of course.)
Relative of mine found he developed a cold sore a few days after having to put on a mask on return to work. He was a true mask believer – perhaps not so much now…
I wonder whether our bodies use lips to help remove viruses from the body…perhaps masks are
Impeding that process.
If your CO2 intake is higher when wearing a mask, as it is, the intake of the viruses and germs you would otherwise have exhaled is also higher.
And if the viral load is the relevant criteria for becoming sick and infectious, as it is for SARS-Cov2, that spells trouble for any mask wearer and those case numbers.
That particular Gessler hat is not harmless by itself with regard to the Corona virus, as advertised by the Landvogts, but actually harmful and dangerous with regard to Corona for everyone
who greets/wears it.
Are you saying that someone who is infected but asymptomatic might become covid ill as a result of wearing a mask when they would otherwise not ?
If you look at the advice of our local administrations of face coverings, they all say largely the same thing. There best sell is that while the may not prevent a wearer from getting infected, they ‘may’ prevent others doing so.
It’s a social experiment and nudge policy designed to remind people to stay aware the deadly virus is out there. Unfortunately, as they even said back in June, they just give people a false sense of security and ego
Thats the conclusion I have come to, they want to intentionally lower our immune systems so they can push the vaccine we don’t need.
They are praying for a second wave. Sick.
Masks do not stop the virus, therefore mask wearing is illogical. There are some people making a fortune out of the scaremongering and people should stop acting like brainwashed sheep and wise up to it.
A member of the public calling out Cressida Dick for her despicable remarks about shaming people for not wearing muzzles:
https://twitter.com/jimmy76120797/status/1302526393088172032
She needs to resign. Its appalling that this crisis is causing people with disabilities and mental health issues to be thrown under the bus.
Just saw that Basics above has posted the same tweet and video. My bad however well done to this bloke.
It’s the same in Germany, France&co though.
Compare it to the Norwegian NIPH recommendation, where when they recommended their use on public transport at peak hours only, it was also explained that face masks only make a minimal impact, if at all, and it was stressed that people should be considerate towards people who don’t wear them and respect their choice!
https://www.fhi.no/en/news/2020/recommendations-about-face-masks/
Simon Dolan took Cressida Dick’s comments on LBC up with LBC. As yet they await a response.
https://static.crowdjustice.com/group_claim_document/Letter_to_LBC_radio_re_Cressida_Dick.pdf
I did get a fob off reply from her Dept. or whatever, so I replied’ what next the stocks’no reply to this!