News Round Up
- “Rapid Covid testing in England may be scaled back over false positives” – Government officials are raising the well known problem of the false positive rate in mass Covid testing in areas with low infection rates, the Guardian reports
- “UK’s daily Covid infections fall again by 12% in a week” – The MailOnline reported yesterday that there were 2,672 diagnoses in the previous 24 hours and 30 fatalities, down from 3,030 and 53 a week ago
- “‘Case numbers are down’: No 10 slaps down Justin Trudeau after he claims Britain is facing a ‘very serious’ Covid third wave” – The Canadian Prime Minister’s claim that Britain is facing a third wave has been rejected by a No 10 spokesman, scientists and Tory backbenchers who have accused him of trafficking in “fake news”, MailOnline reports
- “University challenge: Who would be a student right now?” – Young people can play football, go to the pub, socialise and work, but they are still not allowed to broaden their minds with a human to human university education, as Victoria Lambert points out in the Telegraph. Not until May 17th
- “Cancer patient saw disease all but vanish after catching Covid” – According to the Telegraph, a 61 year-old with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was admitted to hospital with Covid. After making a recovery he had another scan and found his cancer had almost completely disappeared
- “Brain fog: how trauma, uncertainty and isolation have affected our minds and memory” – A feature in the Guardian on why, after a year of lockdown, many are finding it hard to think clearly, or remember what happened when. Could this be the real cause of Long Covid?
- “Weekly summary of yellow card reporting” – As of April 5th, 2021, for the UK, 46,309 yellow cards have been reported for the Pfizer jab (11 million first doses administered, 4.4 million second), and 129,673 yellow cards have been reported for the AstraZeneca jab (20.6 million first doses, 1 million second doses). Adverse reactions included anaphylaxis, bells palsy and thromboembolic events
- “Top hospital trust abandons plan for mandatory Covid vaccination” – Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust is the first to say that it will not introduce a ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy, HSJ reports
- “Wife tells of man’s paralysis ordeal after Covid vaccine” – Extracts from an interview in UK Column published in the Conservative Woman, in which Nicola describes how her husband developed a spinal disorder called transverse myelitis after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine
- “The tainted morality of using aborted foetuses to make Covid vaccines” – The Conservative Woman has printed Thomas Seidler’s essay explaining 12 faulty assumptions about the use of fetal tissue in vaccines, from a Christian perspective
- “It was all wrong” – It is long past time to call out the “Covidian Codswallop”, says Omar S. Khan in his latest blog post
- “Self-anointed celebrity COVID-19 saviours need to wake up and realise poorer countries need power, not pity” – With ‘VAX LIVE, The Concert to Reunite the World’ coming up next month, Chris Sweeney wonders in RT why we must “keep enduring these tacky events”
- “Vaccine passports are a grotesque invasion of our Liberty” – Vaccine passports are a “dystopian monstrosity”, says Andrew Rosindell MP in Bournbrook magazine, “a call for a biosecurity state, in which not just the Government, but private businesses large and small take a detailed interest in our personal health choices”
- “Has the UK reached herd immunity?” – Exploring the continued drop in rates of Covid cases, Professor Tim Spector suggests that with 60% of the UK now vaccinated, and an additional 5–10% with natural immunity, the UK could now be approaching herd immunity
- “Belgium to start easing lockdown Monday, including for travel, schools” – Schools in Belgium will start to reopen on Monday according to Politico. Hairdressers will start to reopen the week after and outdoor dining at bars and restaurants will be allowed from May 8th
- “Cyprus’s cabinet all receive AstraZeneca shots to win over public” – Cyprus’s entire cabinet have all been given the AstraZeneca jab, according to Ekathimerini, in an attempt to convince a cautious public to follow suit
- “Norway should stop using the AstraZeneca vaccine, says country’s public health institute” – Norway’s National Institute of Public Health is advising that the country should stop using the AstraZeneca jab because of its connection with blood clots, Euronews reports
- “If Sweden’s Covid strategy is such a disaster, why is it still so popular?” – Like most of the world “Swedes want to control the virus, but also to protect normal life”, writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph. “What marks Sweden out is an unbroken belief that its method could still be proved right in the end”
- “Why are Christians who just want to worship being called Covid conspiracy theorists waging a holy war on lockdown?” – Writing for RT, Jani Allan looks at the story of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, which was fenced off by order of the Alberta Health Services for violating public health regulations
- “Is opposing lockdowns seditious?” – At AIER, Joakim Book looks at how, in Covid lockdowns and much else, disagreement has taken on a “quasi-religious status”, to the point at which dissent from the majority view has become sedition
- “Three books on the Covid/Lockdown Catastrophe” – Jeffrey A. Tucker at AIER picks out three must-read books for understanding the lockdowns as they were experienced in the U.S.
- “CNN’s Sanjay Gupta breaks with his network and backs former CDC director Robert Redfield’s ‘informed’ theory that COVID escaped from Wuhan lab” – The Daily Mail reports that CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent supports the lab leak theory, calling it the “simplest explanation”
- “Is Dr. Fauci the ‘Father of the Pandemic?” – If Covid did indeed leak from the Wuhan lab, then “Dr. Fauci and the National Institutes of Health must assume significant responsibility for a global pandemic,” says Peter Navarro in the Washington Times, for they funnelled U.S. taxpayers’ money into the lab and approved its gain-of-function research
- “Covid Truth, on the Wuhan Lab, Herd Immunity, Vaccines and Variants, with Josh Rogin and Dr. Marty Makary” – Josh Rogin and Dr. Marty Makary come to the the Megyn Kelly Show to discuss the origins of COVID-19, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the media bias in discussing the origins of Covid, herd immunity and more
- “Was COVID-19 made inside a Chinese lab?” – 60 Minutes Australia investigates the origins of COVID-19
- “Who is responsible for the campaign of Covid fear” – Time for Recovery is running a poll. Do vote if you are on Twitter
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Item 1 ‘Rapid Covid testing might be scaled back . . .’
Probably to avoid embarrassment because huge numbers will refuse to take part since most are now aware of the large percentage of false positives resulting in them having to isolate for no good reason. Spending yet more time alone at home has long since ceased to have any novelty value.
The Guardian article may answer a question I posed yesterday.
‘Local Live reports one local authority in the County with zero Covid cases after 9,000 tests being carried out. Where are the false positives?’.
In the article Jon Deeks, Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Birmingham said . . .
“Based on the Government’s analysis it would take 16,000 tests to find one infected person in London (an area with similarly low incidence of Covid as my County). If these tests cost £10.00 each* that’s £160,000 to find one person . . . A complete waste of money”.
*Remind me, how much are private testing cowboys charging individuals for tests when arriving at Heathrow these days ?
‘Canadian PM Trudeau slapped down . . . told to butt out . . .’
The entire article roundly contradicts bozos daft claim that lockdown caused Covid reductions in the UK rather than vaccines (not to mention seasonality).
On a lighter note.
Seems Canadian MPs might have other things to worry about.
This from The Telegraph.
‘UKs daily Covid infections fell again by 12% in a week’.
Oops: “Professor Tim Spector, a King’s College London epidemiologist . . . said
‘The epidemic had ‘mainly’ been squashed by the exemplar vaccine program’ “.
Odds on he’ll be next for the David Kelly treatment.
Yes but no mention of seasonality in any of Professor Spectors analysis so still holding up one side of the narrative.
He’s essentially a brown-nosed shill.
As is Gates Foundation medical stooge Fauci.
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1382738615990620163
Essential viewing, a US politico that understands he serves the people, not the lobbyists behind the curtains in the background pulling the strings….
If this current BUILD BACK BETTER global cabal takedown is to be derailed (legally)… then we know which perpetrators to look for to stand trial.
Excuse me but what about the 835 deaths (521 AZ 314 PF) and the 624,633 adverse reactions (492,105 AZ 132,528 PF). Is that an exemplar vaccine program. Try telling that to those families of the 835. Source -MHRA Yellow Card website figures stated are between 03/02/21 and 12/04/21.
No use telling me Epi, tell Tim Spector!
Deaths look right, but I just spend a jolly half an hour crunching the last week’s release locked at 5/4/21.
Are the ADRs on the MHRAs website for that week only?
Please just clarify, if you wouldn’t mind.
“every death is a tragedy”, said Matt Hancock (more than once, I believe). It appears, however, that this does not apply when the death is associated with one of their experimental injections.
I used to have a lot of time for Tim Spector. Now I realise he’s one of the scarier Project Fear initiatives. He’s scripted to be contrary enough to make us think he’s on our side, but holistically he’s ‘on message’. It’s an attempt to make it look as if the Government looks at a broad spectrum of opinion, which we all know is utter BS.
I’m not sure that anyone who wades armpit deep in the genetics of others is anything but frightening. You have to be blessed with huge wells of probity, and perspective to be able to much else than dehumanise your subjects.
‘Placing its creation in the context of a broader social transformation aimed at empowering workers – and diminishing what Marx referred to as “the wages system” – Bevan describes the NHS as “the most revolutionary feature of the British Socialist programme.”
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/aneurin-bevan-on-the-socialist-ambitions-of-the-nhs
It is the NHS that has imposed the socialist fascism of lockdown and other, frankly dotty, non pharmaceutical interventions on the British people via SAGE and a government in office but not in power.
And more socialist fascism is on its way in more stark raving bonkers measures laughably said to be designed to mitigate climate change….you know….the thing that has been happening to this planet for billions of years.
No more politicians…no more elections….there is a much easier way of deciding future policy for us all….and a great deal more sane:
‘A good example of wisdom in groups is the Naskapi Indians’ use of caribou shoulder bones to locate game (Weick, 1979). They hold bones over a fire until they crack and then hunt in the directions to which the bones crack.’
https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/07/wisdom-randomness-and-the-naskapi-indians.html#:~:text=A%20good%20example%20of%20wisdom,to%20which%20the%20bones%20crack.&text=The%20wisdom%20inherent%20in%20this,its%20ambivalence%20toward%20the%20past.
“It is the NHS that has imposed the socialist fascism of lockdown” Well to be fair I think it’s more the insane worship/sacred cow status of the NHS that is the issue. The tail wagging the dog. I think one could reasonably choose to provide healthcare in this way without going mad as we have done.
It’s nothing to do with any of that – it’s about the manipulation of power and the corruption of institutions – both public and private.
The interesting thing is that the opposite end of incredibly inefficient health management system in the US has suffered in the same way.
I certainly don’t ‘worship’ the NHS, but, were I in the US I would be dead – from lack of money – which actually puts the NHS a bit ahead in the effectiveness stakes.
Well the NHS was certainly wheeled out as one of the biggest justifications for all the nonsense, and senior figures within the NHS seemed very happy for this to be the case, though you’re right that other countries with different healthcare models also went similarly mad.
Oh dear … more moronic political crap with ‘socialist fascism’ as a descriptor of home counties Tory policy and Thatcherite ‘free’ market corporate global capitalism working together.
Few on here believe that this government has been doing anything more than rubber stamping NHS policy expounded by SAGE.
The illiberal measures themselves, placed through statutory instruments without parliamentary vote, draconian penalties enforced by a government police service, bear all the hallmarks, yes, of typical socialist fascism, the NHS, of course, very much a socialist construct.
The government clearly bears ultimate responsibility but, make no mistake, the real instigators of this hopeless nincompoopery are socialist to a man.
And the precautionary principle, their leitmotif, derives from eco-socialism.
If by “socialists” you mean they employ socialist rhetoric to manipulate us, you may be correct. However, I cannot believe that the ultra wealthy, who meet in Davos, harbour any genuine interest in a more even distribution of resources between their small numbers and the great mass of us.
Some encouraging items covered above.
I have submitted this comment, awaiting moderation, on the website hosting MP Andrew Rosindell’s article:
Thank you for speaking out on this.
Many of your fellow MPs from across all parties will share your sentiments but will be wary of stating their views publicly.
Please do all you can to persuade as many of them as possible to come out now and to act on their consciences.
This could be the only opportunity to prevent the dreadful permanent loss of our civil liberties.
Peter Navarro love that guy. The Fauci virus, yes might go with that. The guy is a complete rat, never answers a direct question.
The last few days have been particularly interesting – seems a bit of an abandon ship mentality from Boris Johnson. I have a theory and would like to see what people think based on “Why would Bojo play down Vaccine success and promote lockdown” If we think the original playbook of pandemic response advised against quarantine of the healthy (lockdown) and masks etc (others can be seen in this brilliant presentation from Nick Hudson: https://odysee.com/@PANDA:3b/TimeToReopenSociety:7 ) The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) suggested focused protection for the vulnerable and the young should be free to go about their business. The government has botched their response on so many levels but the vaccine gambit has put them up in the polls (apparently) in terms of approval ratings as its “seen” as a very successful rollout (especially vs the EU). So why play down the only “success story” of the pandemic? Surely, now the vulnerable are vaccinated (ie: protected) and the hospitalisations, deaths and cases are falling off the grid (irrespective of how obviously inflated they have been throughout) and according to Chris Whitty the majority of infections are spreading in the young but still falling stats in hospitalisations, cases or deaths are… Read more »
“Why would Bojo play down Vaccine success and promote lockdown” The problem with simply focusing in on the virus, vaccines and the fear machine created around them means you’re obscuring the bigger picture. This week’s 3hr BBC Saint Greta commercial was for one thing, and one thing only. To educate the British public that lockdowns were excellent at dropping global carbon/CO2 emissions by 17%. Though due to this global house arrest policy enacted by all ‘LOCKSTEP’ govts… minimising for 3 months car, truck, plane and train use (in the west) – the key takeaway was of course it only lasted long enough to take us back to the 2006 CO2 levels. And guess what LDS folks? We therefore need much more severe culls of fossil fuel burnings to get us swiftly to the absolute zero emissions required. So the 99% can kiss their pre 2020 lifestlye choices good-bye for good. Its why Bojo needs desperately to gaslight Brits into believing the lockdowns are a vital part of the New Normal strategy, these dates below give clues as to the change in messaging…right here, right now. Next week April 22/23 President Biden invites 40 world leaders to the virtual Global summit on… Read more »
They were pitching this at least a year ago: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238831-greta-we-must-fight-the-climate-crisis-and-pandemic-simultaneously/#ixzz6IBcJhs79
Apparently YouTube has updated its “medical misinformation policy”
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en&ref_topic=9282436
Among the gems
Funnily enough I was just this minute reading Justice Thomas’ comments on the Trump Twitter case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf
It’s highly relevant. If we’re going to have freedom of speech and information in the future, with all the benefits that come with it, then social media platforms above a certain size need to be given protection from being sued for what people post, but be prohibited from censorship of any kind.
I just sent google a very snarky comment regarding science being ever evolving and them being idiots trying to police what is true and what is fabrication. Under “How can we improve this article?”. Brats – soon they will be banning videos on chiropractice, nutritional advice, Chinese medicine etc….
A feature in the Guardian on why, after a year of lockdown, many are finding it hard to think clearly, or remember what happened when. Could this be the real cause of Long Covid?
NO. It’s the result of being locked down and deprived of the quality stimulus of mixed human contact for 12 months. Long Covid indeed!
‘Lockdown will make you free’
appears to be bozos new mantra.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Posted by an LS reader last year.
For the students …
If you want brain fog, being a Grauniad reader to start with no doubt helps, but the idea that lockdown makes you stupid is convincing, and adequately explains why the Fascists are so keen on it.
I suspect you’ve understood “the real cause of Long Covid” as “a (real) symptom of Long CoViD”. By my reading, the quotation is actually suggesting that “Long CoViD” is a manifestation of the psychological effects of lockdown.
Good afternoon, you glorious double-mutant covidiots.
That first story is heartening. It’s great to see that there are a few rationalists left in government, and even better than the Lügenpresse are prepared to run the story and challenge the Settled Science.
The thing is, this has always been bloody obvious. There was never any purpose to mass testing in the community other than to produce false positives and “daily confirmed case” shock numbers.
That’s not a problem for the regime, it’s the goal, so why would they stop now rather than doubling down?
BBC News: “Around 130,000 people are “estimated” to have had Covid in the week leading up for the 10th of April”.
WHAT THE BLEEDIN HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?
I’ve always “estimated” that I’m a millionaire but I never have been.
Strange times indeed. Everyone is becoming polarised in the most minuscule of ways. In the supermarket some are gaily and happily chatting and laughing as if masks weren’t in their way. Whilst others, with faces looking like they’ve melted downwards (small town, I recognise some of them and they don’t normally look that droopy), are the picture of dejection. And then there are the usual bunch of grey helmets who think they won the war, and have only crawled out of their Anderson shelters for supplies. They hate me and my battered visor. And my tendency to dawdle in front of luxury coffees flaunting my wealth, instead of buying a jar of Mellow birds or Camp Coffee to go with my Swiss roll. I can hear them fume as I deliberate over precisely which streaky bacon I’m going to buy. Don’t I know they are full of cholesterol? DO I WANT TO DIE??? I truly believe that quite a chunk of this generation think the world revolves around them. It’s quite wonderful to behold. They voted Brexit. If happened because they are ALL POWERFUL. They do not recognise the role of the rest of electorate because they are completely narcissistically… Read more »
This might be the best macro summary I’ve read yet. It’s extremely long, but the author’s style is so colorful and his logic so formidable, it should be a must read for all serious COVID students imo.