News Round Up
- “Covid outbreak throws London G7 summit into chaos” – The Prime Minister is defending the decision to hold the G7 meeting in person after two members of the Indian delegation fell ill, according to the Telegraph
- “Pneumonia and flu now kill more people than Covid” – The Times reports that Flu and Pneumonia are killing more people than Covid
- “Almost a third of recent Covid deaths in England and Wales not caused by virus” – The weekly ONS data shows that nearly 33% of people included in the official Covid death count died primarily of other causes, with the virus simply mentioned on the death certificate, the Telegraph reports
- “The ‘Covid deaths’ which are not caused by Covid” – “We have become conditioned to hearing frightening daily death figures,” writes Ross Clark, commenting on the ONS figures for the Spectator, but “the wider picture is of overall mortality running only slightly ahead of a normal year”
- “The new care home scandal” – Writing in the Spectator, Kate Andrews highlights the new scandal in care homes – residents living in ‘prison-like’ circumstances
- “Britons fly via Turkey to avoid costly quarantine” – British travellers in ‘red list’ countries are stopping off in Istanbul to avoid border quarantine and the £1,750 bill, according to the BBC
- “Shame of Starmer, the Covid lapdog who didn’t bark” – Lockdowns were Starmer’s big opportunity to “live up to his core responsibility as Leader of the Opposition”, says Bill Wright in the Conservative Woman, but “he was just not man enough”
- “The Criminalisation of Dissent” – “One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalisation of dissent,” writes CJ Hopkins in Off-Guardian, and “Germany has been leading the way”
- “Boris, stop frittering our money on lockdowns – it’s time to listen to the science and let us out” – “We’re in £2 trillion of trouble now and the overwhelming majority of Britons want the freedom to earn our own livings,” writes Emily Hill in Mail+. “Not in 13 days or two months. Now.”
- “Covid Vaccines: Necessity, Efficacy and Safety” – Off-Guardian republishes the latest update from the Doctors for Covid Ethics after it was censored by Medium
- “Forgotten victims of the NHS Covid response” – Dan Astin Gregory and Professor Karol Sikora discuss the toll that prioritising COVID-19 patients has taken on people with other diseases, including cancer, for the Pandemic Podcast
- “As a society, adults are responsible for looking after children, not the other way around” – Watch Dr Ros Jones explain to Mark Dolan why she thinks healthy children don’t need the vaccine on talkRADIO
- “From Pandemic to Endemic” – The latest ZOE app data
- “Germany calls for ‘global reset’ to fight pandemics” – Heralding the launch of a World Health Organisation’s research hub, German Health Minister Jens Spahn called for a “global reset” in the fight against pandemics, Reuters reports. Yikes!
- “Serbia in ‘world first’ as citizens offered €25 to have Covid vaccine” – Euronews reports that Serbia will pay its citizens 3,000 dinars as a reward for getting the vaccine, a sum equivalent to around 5% of the country’s average monthly salary
- “Cabinet introduces Coronapass for access to venues after lockdown ends” – The Cyprus cabinet has decided to introduce a “Coronapass” for people to get into hospitality venues, churches, gyms, and shops, according to the Cyprus Mail
- “New Brunswick reports first death linked to AstraZeneca vaccine” – A person in their sixties received the jab mid April and died just over a week later, Global News reports
- “Lockdowns only delay COVID-19 cases, witness testifies at hearing on Manitoba’s restrictions” – Dr Jay Bhattacharya was an expert witness for a group of churches challenging lockdown restrictions in Manitoba, Canada, according to CBC. He argued that lockdowns only delay deaths from Covid, they don’t reduce the overall quantum
- “In critical shift, US now backs patent protection waivers for COVID-19 vaccines” – The Biden Administration has said that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, ABC reports
- “Imperial College Predicted Catastrophe in Every Country on Earth. Then the Models Failed” – “COVID-19 has produced no shortage of doomsaying prophets whose prognostications completely failed at future delivery,” writes Philip W. Magness at AIER. “No greater example exists than the epidemiology modelling team at Imperial College-London (ICL), led by the physicist Neil Ferguson”
- “Is This Our 1914 Moment?” – In an article for AIER, Joakim Book seeks to reconcile his pessimism at the “long-lasting horrors that will come from last year’s authoritarian power grab” with his confidence in the world’s progress
- “The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown” – In the Atlantic, Emma Green examines the curious US phenomenon that liberals are more likely to be anxious about Covid than conservatives
- “Covid Vax Opponents and Rigid Proponents… Are Both Anti-Science?” – The U.S. pause on the Johnson & Johnson jab “illustrates deep issues with science communication”, writes Dr. Vinay Prasad in Medpage Today
- “Venezuela to begin clinical trials of Cuba’s Abdala vaccine candidate” – If the trials of the Abdola vaccine are successful, the Government of Venezuela is planning to produce enough doses for four million people according to Reuters
- “The Government seem only to be looking at the harm caused by Covid rather than the harm caused by lockdown” – “If the Government is going to set itself up as the nation’s doctor they ought to follow medical principles,” says John Lee on talkRADIO – one of them being “First do no harm”
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Mike Graham: “The government seem only to be looking at the harm [to their political careers] caused by [exaggeration of the effects of] Covid rather than the harm caused by lockdown.”
It will take a reversal of attitudes for the harm caused by lockdown to destroy political careers, but it can happen. Check “preference cascade”.
Plenty of political careers were destroyed when Appeasement was abandoned but it took the nazi invasion of Poland to achieve that.
Rudolph Hess clearly did not understand that when he flew to Scotland to try to negotiate with the once influential Duke of Hamilton who by then was ‘out of the loop’.
The BBC and The Times were both supportive of Appeasement but they emerged unscathed.
If a Churchillian figure was to emerge to bring us out of Lockdown it’s hard to see how he could form a Government of National Unity as there is nobody in the opposition worthy of taking part.
Your analogy isn’t pertinent, karenovirus. It’s now much, much worse in terms of ‘decision making’:
I did not say that Chamberlain and other Appeasers were wrong, merely that many of their careers were finished once the policy was abandoned hence my reference to the Duke of Hamilton.
Two examples of not being ‘wrong’, had WW2 started over the Sudetenland the RAF would not have been anything like as strong as it was by the Battle of Britain and every Council run school in the country would not have had a reinforced ‘safe room’ constructed. Chamberlains government was not idle.
I would agree that there currently appears to be no political mechanism for the consequences of making 15 months of wrong decisions.
I used the ‘invasion of Poland’ as shorthand since everyone has at least heard of that !
Yes – if they are ever unable to extend furlough, there will be a very large number of angry jobless released to hit the streets!
You seem to be approaching this from the ‘old normal’ mindset when people generally believed the public vote counted for something. Politicians are puppets and there’s no legitimate opposition within westminster.
“Almost a third of Covid deaths not caused by the virus” Telegraph.
‘33% died primarily of other causes. . . the virus simply being mentioned on the death certificate’.
I’ve been reporting Local Live (mirror group news) constant use of that weasel phrase on and off for about 9 months if their daily dirge of Covid doom and gloom had something new or topical to say.
Typically “Craptown in south Dullshire had the highest number of Coronovirus deaths with 16 cases where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate”.
The phrase was always intended to make whatever the situation was appear worse.
“Almost a third of Covid deaths not caused by the virus”
Probably an underestimate.
“G7 thrown into chaos by Covid” Telegraph.
They must be desperate, that the two members of the Indian party have been tested positive does not throw the meeting into chaos at all.
They are not a ‘Delegation’ but observers who can observe perfectly well on Zoom, indeed they could have done so back home in India.
One rule for one,etc.
“An investigation conducted by the Alzheimer’s Society last summer, surveying more than 125 care homes, revealed 80 per cent saw a ‘deterioration in the health of their residents with dementia due to lack of social contact’.”
Eighty per cent. Eighty per cent.
‘First do no harm’, you sadistic, murdering fuckers.
Annie thank you for highlighting this. That was last summer and still care home residents are being treated like prisoners. So long as they don’t tarnish the government by dying of covid they can die of isolation and loneliness after being separated from their desperate families for more than a year. I know as I am one of the desperate families … how do I reconcile not being able to support my poor dad in what might be his last year.
Just don’t ever, ever blame yourself. You are your dad are both victims of the blackest, most evil crime of the century.
There will be a reckoning.
The only thing being “kept safe” (how I detest those words) is the government’s reputation.
“The Covid deaths that are not caused by Covid” Spectator.
‘ONS figures for week ending 23rd April show . . . all deaths in England and Wales were 5.3 less than the 5 year average suggesting that the second wave of Covid is now over.’
Pity The Spectator did not choose to report last year when the same ONS figures for the 2nd week of June showed that fewer people died in London (all deaths) than the 5 year average. That continued to be the case and spread to the rest of the country in the following few weeks suggesting that the current outbreak of Covid was then over.
As someone pointed out here at LS it was clearly because you can’t die of Covid in March (2020) and then die of your underlying comorbidities in June (which was what would have happened statistically anyway).
I used this in conversation many times and most people seemed to get the point.
I know I keep banging on about this issue – but anything below the ‘five year average’ is, in historical terms, incredibly low.
It is not a representative baseline at all.
“A recent article in The Lancetshowed that health-care workers in the United Kingdom who were swabbed every two weeks after vaccination demonstrated an 86 percent reduction in asymptomatic infection compared with unvaccinated individuals.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/vaccines-are-banishing-any-debate-about-reopening-schools/618155/
Really?Anybody seen this article? How did they measure this miraculous reduction in non-existent infections?
I just voted for the independent candidates.
What a pleasure!
I just voted, maskless and smiling. No trouble at all.
Just hope the results will wipe the smirk off a few Fascist and Stalinist faces.
Lucky you. In this part of Suffolk, for the County election, we have the usual trio. A goofy LibDem, a Labour unknown and the Tory hereditary incumbent who is utterly useless, and a stranger to truth. No sign of anyone else, and I did asked the Reform Party why they weren’t running anyone. As usual, the Greens reached an accommodation with the LDs for one or the other not to run. The last time we had a county run by a LibDem-Labour coalition, they upped the council tax in their first year by a double figure percentage.
A complete crock of s**t.
Sorry to hear that. Utmost sympathy.
I wanted to vote for an independent candidate for police commissioner but at the top of his list was “supporting the police to implement covid regulations”. So I didn’t. And there was nobody else worth voting for, so for the first time in years, I didn’t vote at all.
‘The Criminalisation of Dissent’
Off-Guardian.
Reports on the worrying trend of States starting to take sanctions against people simply for objecting to the Official Line.
They report that Germany, of all countries, is taking the lead with their security services monitoring Covid Deniers (who they ?) and anti vaxxers as though they were terrorists.
In my Google news feed yesterday* there was an article reporting that nice Mr Putin has just re-introduced an old Soviet set of laws that similarly criminalise criticism of the Regime and its policies. It used to start with accusations of ‘hooliganism’ and ended with people being sent to psychiatric hospitals for forced medication.
There was a discussion of this topic here at LS last year when a former Russian Citizen reader confirmed that it was acceptable to criticize unpopular individual politicians or failing policies but this was only to make people think they could ‘do something’ (Have Agency I believe to be the current phrase).
* Can’t find the article again because once read it disappears next time you go to Google news feed.
Good morning all.
It’s a shame that it’s not possible in an election for all of the parties to lose.
Well if almost nobody voted for them it would be a moral defeat but more importantly people would realise there was room for new parties to fill the gap. Hitchens is right, IMO – we must stop voting for the least worst party and either abstain or, better, vote “none of the above” so it’s clear that the issue is not simple apathy.
Yes – I had three local election papers. None of them allowed room for ‘None of the Above’ at the bottom, so I was forced to write None of These in limited gaps. Better than nothing, but not as good as AK47s!
I’ve always been an advocate of making a choice at elections, since not doing so essentially means you’re holding up a white flag and allowing a choice in which you have taken no effective part except to just whinge.
In previous circumstances, I would have held out against voter petulance being a useful strategy. I’ve never respected those who have come out with ‘They’re all the same’ or ‘All politicians are crooks’ etc. – lazy non-think. And, of course, that non-think and non-engagement actually lies behind allowing the fulfilment of current establishment political coup. That’s the irony.
But I confess that this year, I’m stumped – the difference being that we have crossed the borderline from flawed democracy to a totalitarian state, where choice has moved from being difficult to being non-existent. The first election in which I’ve not voted was that which gifted establishment Starmer the leadership of the Labour Party against no real alternative.
It’s going to be hard to tell if bozos handling of covid/lockdown has had any effect on voting. Local Government elections always have low turnouts as do those for Police Commissioners; the Mayoral votes might be interesting in some areas.
See also in the roundup above, Germany leading the way in the criminalisation of dissent.
Coincidence ?
“Boris, stop frittering our money . . .” Mail+.
Emily Hill writes ‘Last year, when cases were soaring, Boris Johnson took to our TV screens, often with next to no warning,
to declare emergency measures.
So why does he not (now) say thanks folks the emergency is over – and it’s time to lift all the restrictions to avert economic oblivion?’
Johnson could have done that three weeks into Lockdown 1. and on numerous occasions since but avoided doing so being the coward that he is.
Sadly it’s now well past time to avert economic oblivion, Emily thinks our troubles amount to two trillion quid but it’s way worse than that.
BJ couldn’t have lifted all restrictions because that would put a spanner in the works of the WEF’s Great Reset plans. It is all part of the re-conditioning process, whilst carefully introducing each step of the various plans that underpin the overarching strategy, which has been planned with meticulous care. By the time the masses wake up from their fear and propaganda induced comas, it will be far too late. They (and us dragged along with them if we do not triumph in our resistance) will be living the globalists Great Reset new normal.
But we didn’t know that then; I came across various ‘conspiracy’ sites as the months wore on but was still putting our delayed release down to cowardice and bad politics until the start of Tiers For Fears when I started taking them more seriously.
Our 2 trillion of debt is 2 trillion of establishment credit.
I am a “Baby boomer” born in 1948 and witnessing the behaviour of (it seems to me) the majority of my fellow “boomers”; wearing face nappies in the open air,running away from anybody who dares to come within 10 yards and constantly repeating the mantras: ” you can’t be too careful” and “it’s the fault of the “young uns for mingling””, I think it might be time to call us, “Baby Doomers”.
Mhmm, that is interesting as where I live it’s the younger, left looking, people that are masked and the boomers and poor folks that seem to be showing dissent. I am in a greater Manchester inner city area and perhaps cities are different. When I have been to country towns there seems to be more swerving and mask wearing, I suppose it’s easier to identify someone as a stranger in a small town.
I think it varies a lot from place to place and in some areas a “culture” of covidianism develops within a certain demographic, but it isn’t always the same demographic. Where I am it’s mixed.
Yes, and also it has changed over time in the same place
My perception is closer to yours, Wendy – or that there isn’t much difference.
Very little outdoors mask wearing now. I guess the incidence of idiocy varies quite a lot, however.
Madness of crowds, perhaps it’s a locally based fashion thing.
Actually, Wendy, I live in a small country town in Shropshire and the “Baby doomers” do seem to be fewer in number but if you travel to our nearest “sizeable” town (Kidderminster in North Worcestershire) it’s Baby Doomers” are very prevalent.
As you say, ” interesting”.
Parents were called “the Greatest generation ” boomers have the greatest self-veneration.
No debt is too large to offload onto their kids.
Yes, TLAWL, Some of my generation (no all) are indeed, selfish.
… and I don’t see any ‘baby boomers’ in the Cabinet. Infants, yes – but not boomers. Maybe some would be an asset, looking at previous political participants?
Generalizations like this are a mark of a serous absence of brain matter.
Serbia to pay citizens €25.00 to take vaccine. Euronews.
So now Covid is so dangerous the State has to bribe people to allow it to make them safe.
Serb President Aleksandar Vucic said it was ‘irresponsible and selfish’ not to be vaccinated, although he ruled out any restrictions.
●
●
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But the President did announce that public sector employees who have not been vaccinated would no longer be eligible for sick pay if they contract Covid 19.’
I believe that is called the carrot and stick approach though interestingly Euronews reports that the measures are being taken amid waning public interest (in vaccines) and “Growing Skepticism”👍 YAY !
I wonder from a legal perspective if the state has paid you to take a medical treatment and it goes wrong what the consequences mights be.
It is very bizarre to have to bribe your citizens to take a medical treatment which they are saying they do not want.
Can anyone verify whether the MSM on TV or otherwise have started trying to suggest women who have a bad reaction to the ‘vaccine’ in terms of their menstrual cycle are actually having bad reactions to tampons?
The Criminalisation of Dissent (Round Up) is worth reading – and keeping in mind as we continue to fight for our rights, freedom and resist the ‘New Normal’ (I’m definitely NOT advocating we passively acquiesce, just that we act cautiously, even though we are not in Germany as the author is. Remember, the UK is formally signed up as a lead WEF partner and the PM and key cabinet members are all committed to delivering the Great Reset as their WEF conference speeches and other documents clearly indicate.
Yes, CJ Hopkins writes some excellent pieces for Off Guardian.
If you do some research on Reuters they are a key World Economic Forum member (as is the WHO). A key director of their board is also a senior Gates employee. They did an appallingly false smear and hatchet job on Dr Mike Yeadon when he challenged something they printed. View this source with great suspicion and distrust.
Yes. Reuters, like other agencies, is part of the global establishment press.
In other words, this too is a normal year. “Slight” variations are absolutely normal. Greater than slight variations are absolutely normal.
To hell with all this getting back to normal rubbish – we’re already at normal.
What we desperately need is for our political rulers to get back in touch with reality, and end their psychotic war on liberal democracy.
What’s a ‘normal’ year, FFS ? It certainly isn’t any of the previous 10 if the word has any meaning at all (which is doubtful)! Mortality has had a generally declining trend, which has flattened out and begun to rise again – it is never stable.
“The Times reports that Flu and Pneumonia are killing more people than Covid”
This may be seized upon as ‘good news’ from the sceptical point of view.
But note the subliminal message – that the mortality caused by ‘Covid’ is known.
It isn’t, never has been, never will be. But is probably about 20% of that reported.
The bank of England announces that the economy is set to grow at fastest rate for 70 years when lockdown ends in June????
DRRRRRR, When the economy has been destroyed and flat on it’s back(It might have saved one life) there is only one bloody way it can go!: UP.
Mind you, how long it takes to recover is another thing.
The thicko hacks have adapted their coronavirus misinformation skills – just like how the scary summer r-rate, when applied to fuck-all prevalence, results in an absolute increase of fuck-all “cases”.
You said it, BP.
Which part of the economy? The billionaire corporate tax-dodging part?
You also said it,N.