News Round-Up
- “Covid cases fall for the eleventh day in a row” – Covid cases have fallen for the eleventh day in a row (week on week), with a further 24,470 recorded in the U.K. today, according to MailOnline.
- “Rail stations test finds zero Covid: Analysis recorded no traces” – Researchers found no COVID-19 on any surfaces and there were no virus particles in the air at major train stations such as London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, reports MailOnline.
- “Left-wing scientists are far from omniscient” – We should lay to rest the notion that science represents a neutral form of knowledge that is somehow distinct from the political melee, writes Freddy Sayers in the Telegraph.
- “Tyranny of the Covid experts” – Jonathan Sumption lets fly against Sir Jeremy Farrar in the Mail on Sunday.
- “It’s Time to End the Covid Mandates” – Randall G. Holcombe urges all U.S. states to end all the coronavirus restrictions in AIER.
- “Vaccine booster shots for 32m to begin next month” – Ministers aim to deliver average of almost 2.5m third doses a week, with a key role for pharmacies, reports the Telegraph.
- “Hundreds clash with police in Berlin anti-lockdown protests” – Berlin authorities banned several different protests due for this weekend, including one organised by the Stuttgart-based Querdenker movement, which had expected some 22,500 attendees, says MailOnline. See here for some footage of police brutality towards protestors.
- “There’s a new divide as bitter as Brexit between those happy to stay in Covid lockdown and the rest of us who want our old lives back” – Kirstie Allsopp in the Mail on Sunday says fear has made people paranoid in the U.K. and it’s time to get back to normal.
- “Seventeen countries could join the green list this week” – Among those places that U.K. travellers may be able to visit without having to quarantine on their return are Germany, Austria and Canada, according to the Telegraph.
- “Matt Hancock living alone as he battles to save ministerial career” – A month after his fall from grace, the former Health Secretary resurfaces at his family home in London and re-engages with backbench MPs, reports the Telegraph.
- “Jacob Rees-Mogg blasts plan to bring in Covid jab certification” – Enforcing vaccine passports is “not a British way to behave”, Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned the Government, reports the Daily Mail.
- “Johnson’s scapegoating the young over Covid jabs is not a wise tactic” – If the Conservatives want to win the hearts and minds of the under-25s they’d do better by incentivising vaccination, says Larry Elliott in the Guardian.
- “Could travel U-turn save our summer?” – The creation of an extra travel alert level hung in the balance last night amid a mounting Tory revolt and a warning by Rishi Sunak that the industry faced devastation, reports the Daily Mail.
- “Britons could be offered free coffee and cinema tickets to get jabbed” – In a bid to tackle vaccine hesitancy among young Britons, the Government is planning to do deals with cinema chains, coffee franchises and high street restaurants to offer incentives to get jabbed, according to the Daily Mail.
- “Half of Britons cut back on socialising to avoid pingdemic” – Nearly half of Britons are reducing social contact, polling for the Times has found, in a sign that the ‘pingdemic’ is having a significant effect on behaviour.
- “Public policy on Covid framed on the back of ‘massive modelling mistakes’” – Sky News Australia host Alan Jones says public policy on the response to COVID-19 has been framed on the back of “massive modelling mistakes”.
- “250,000 viable jobs at risk as furlough scheme winds down” – Hundreds of thousands of viable jobs will be put at risk when the furlough scheme ends, reports the Times.
- “2020s will be boring, endless COVID restrictions and judgement for those who do not comply” – Douglas Murray tells Fox & Friends that the years ahead will be filled with constant government intervention in people’s lives.
- “Covid: UK hits 85m jab milestone amid discount push for young” – Cheap travel and takeaways will be offered in a bid to boost vaccine uptake among young people, reports BBC News.
- “Average age of seriously-ill Covid patient falls by 10 years to 49” – The NHS figures illustrate the dramatic success of vaccines in protecting older adults in Britain, almost all of whom have been double-jabbed, claims the Daily Mail.
- “Bin lorry drivers are offered £3k bonuses as ‘pingdemic’ wreaks havoc” – Rubbish has piled up in many areas across the U.K. in recent weeks, reports the Daily Mail.
- “‘Multiple athletes’ involved in rule-breaking party at Olympic Village” – Bosses of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games say “multiple athletes” and team officials were involved in an alcohol-fuelled party at the athletes’ village complex on Friday night, according to MailOnline.
- “China tests millions as Nanjing airport outbreak sees Covid cases surge” – China fights its most widespread outbreak in months with cases in more than a dozen provinces, reports the Guardian.
- “Boris Johnson’s approval rating plummets” – A new poll by the Conservative Home website finds Boris’s rating dropping from 39.2% last month to just 3.4 per cent today, reports the Daily Mail.
- “Allegra Stratton: Net-zero date too far away” – Boris Johnson’s spokeswoman for the UN climate conference in Glasgow says the Government’s target of making the U.K. carbon neutral by 2050 is “too far away”, says the Times.
- “Net-zero zealots take no notice of the hardship their haste will cause” – Britain ploughs on with costly green policies while dozens of other countries break their promises, says Nick Timothy in the Telegraph.
- “Classical Music’s Suicide Pact (Part 1)” – Succumbing to specious charges of racism, America’s orchestras, opera companies, and conductors are abandoning the Western canon, says Heather Mac Donald in City Journal.
- “Trustees quit Vegan Society after claims of racism at the top” – Five trustees at the Vegan Society have quit after claims of racism and discrimination at the top of the charity, reports the Times.
- “Shot putter Raven Saunders crosses arms in Tokyo podium protest” – A 25-year-old American shot putter crossed her wrists on the podium, explaining that the cross represents “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet”.
- “If you believe in liberal values, you have to stand up to this” – Andrew Doyle rails against the insistence that employees use the preferred gender pronouns of their colleagues on GB News
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“No Covid-19 at Manchester Piccadilly”.
Oh good – no more masks there then except from nut jobs who can give us all a good laugh. Watch out for the faecal matter on the train seats though, all sorts of crap in it, best bring a plastic seat covering – just to stay safe, you know…
Maybe the government can simply offer hazmat suits and separate oxygen supply for those visiting hospitals as this is largely a nosocomial infection, and allow the rest of us to get on with our lives. It’d be much cheaper. My friend was in hospital the other day and is ill in bed now.
There was a bloke used to get my bus to work every morning, laid out old newspapers on the seats before sitting down. I thought he was a loony at the time but who knew he was actually ahead of the game?
I think he was just a former bus driver. I know one, and long b4 Covid, he once gave me similar advice, for a very good reason.
Yup, London buses people have their dogs sit on the seats, sure they’ve been in the bidet before doing that 🙂
You’ve just identified the main way it spreads: vaxxed, masked people who still SITT and whose s*it then infects the next person….
“Left-wing scientists”.
Of course, real, observational science, testable and repeatable in a laboratory is not political. Truth in science now.
It’s not ‘left-wing‘ scientists (Telegraph sub-editing?). It’s an inherent problem in science. Although Sayers is a good interviewer, he’s not a great analyst.
Kuhn’s ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions‘ raised the issue of the nature of scientific ‘knowledge’ some 50+ years ago.
That’s why to talk of ‘the science’ as an immutable body of knowledge is bad science.
But as we know, “The Science” is government-speak for “The Propaganda”, and it need not (and often doesn’t) actually have scientific evidence to back it up!
The policies don’t seem to change much, the studies “supporting” them seem to though.
“Hancock battles to save ministerial ‘career’ “.
He would, wouldn’t he? Give me Sir Graham Brady (who resigned his ministerial role on a point of principle) any day.
Graham Brady is also not a cockwomble, unlike Matt Hancockwomble.
“Rubbish has piled up in many areas across the UK”.
Yes. This has happened before, hasn’t it? And people voted for change. I live in hope…
Government filth would appear to be le mot juste!
Rubbish has certainly piled up in Westminster.
Please add to this Round-Up that Sky News Australia has been given a week’s ‘ban’ on YouTube for “spreading COVID misinformation“.
To be honest I am surprised they lasted so long.Other channels with similar political views have not. Those were removed, with no Covid related issues.
Not so widely reported in MSM is that the cost of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to the EU has increased. Strange that after the attacks on AZ and most countries now not accepting it.
I have aslo read that there is an increase in deaths from Covid in Isral even theough they have a majority of the population vaccinated. Maybe they will head down the road of compulsory vaccination then.
They are rolling out boosters in Israel, starting with the most vulnerable. What could go wrong?
The Grauniad wants Fishi Rishi to rob pensioners so that he can give cash candy to kiddiwinkies who get snake-oiled.
Good scheme, eh?
Most pensioners are Covidisters and sheep, I’m afraid, so I wouldn’t waste any pity on em.
As a 72 year old, I truly despair of “My Generation”.
I think you would find that there is very little difference between age groups on this matter. In my extended family, however, it is the young who form the bulk of the terrified. Either way, the sheep are certainly spread across the board.
Fair comment.
For a supposedly tax mad, anti-capitalist, anti freedom of earning rag like the Grauniad, they sure are keen on using money as a tool…
Good morning, rational zealots.
Quite an insipid crop today, and we seem to have taken our eye off the ball – Social Credit Score apps are still coming next month, despite the ‘opposition’ from the Limp Dems.
Freddie Sayers’ piece is decent enough, although he rather misses his own point by referring to “SAGE member Susan Michie” when “Communist Party member” would be more on point.
Right, I’m off to dump my rubbish in the nearest stream in order to save us from the Chinese Virus.
I have reread the exemption doc again, and to me it now also seems that the Covid pass itself will become mandatory to HAVE, once the digital solution for the (hopefully self-) exempted) is found.
You can self-exempt yourself from HAVING the pass (and as such the jab and tests) whete and when required at first, but once the DS is found, the exemption is ON the pass FROM the jab and the tests(!).
Which indicates the above: an implicitly mandatory ID card introduced through the backdoor/arm, which can and will soon likely be abused as a SC, re-education and punishment tool.
I’ve had a look at this one ( https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/using-the-nhs-covid-pass/#exemptions ) which was mentioned by Victoria the other day. It looks like an outbreak of bureaucratic madness and abuse of modern technology. No real or justifiable use of resources to do any such thing on health terms. No shortage of opportunism though, although further down the page it admits that it is actually unenforceable legally, and that those that try to implement it might face litigation under the Equalities Act 2010, to start with. Plenty of other ways of suing them as well, but it might just be that some will lose trade if they try it on.
That doc states clearly anyone can self-exempt and no business has the right to ask for proof. Makes the whole thing utterly ridiculous
It’s designed to cause confrontation, as with the muzzle mandates.
If they had permitted the demo, it would have been 100s of thousands again.
Its solely politically motivated illegal prohibition is raising concerns with the few MSM and legal experts and commentators with integrity left though.
According to the MSM TV in Germany, there were just a few thousand protesters in Berlin yesterday. The report was further framed through mainly accusing them of not keepin SD and not wearing masks- whilst omitting that they aren’t mandatory in general anymore outside and that the permitted, celebrated and larger CSD parade a week before did just the same.
The framing highlight was showing as a last take the too normal and diverse group under a street sign called Reichsstrasse.
The people just had to walk along there, and every street in Berlin is as such history laden (Reichstag anyone?!)- they are just desperately continuing to try to frame the protesters as Nazis at every occasion.
When you are red-pilled, you can and will see and digest the MSM news completely different!
I guess as people were so split into different areas of the city it is difficult to know how many went for a Sunday walk. I actually preferred this to a stationary event on the street of 17th June ( it will be street of August 1st one day!).
I heard that coaches were stopped on the outskirts on Saturday and the passengers given Platzverweise there and then, so did they turn around?
As Markus Haintz pointed out in an interview with Reitschuster on Saturday, if people go to places where a demo has been forbidden, get a Platzverweis and go back and then get arrested, they will fill up the cells and the police will just have to give up. Not that I encourage that, but would have been interesting to see how the police reacts.
We need COVID parties not Pfizer profit “boosters”.
Exactly – this what I said last March 2020. Just like the measles parties of old.
Randall Holcombe is talking sh*te in his piece: the spike in cases is NOT entirely among the unvaccinated, as he mindlessly regurgitates.
I noticed he provides no evidence for any of his claims, is that what people call an opinion piece because it seems like poor journalism.
You know that freedom, the enlightenment, democracy, human dignity and mankind is in danger, when decent people like Jonathan Sumption are on the fringe and people with a God complex, like Jeremy Farrar, are mainstream and in charge.
Farrar is the incarnation of the very person Bertrand Russell must have had in mind when he penned this:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
Dunning-Kruger effect.
Think of the intelligence of the average person, then realise that 50% are worse than that!
depends if it’s mean or median 🙂
but then goes on to say they’re perfectly fine in those nightclub things that the riff-raff go to. You can’t have it both ways you traitorous cunt.
Quite so – it is very hard to believe but some people (even Carolyn Bates, a pretty hard-core Conservative, on the Telegraph comments) actually still believe that Rees-Mogg is a true Conservative!
“Researchers found no COVID-19 on any surfaces”
The fomite theory was debunked months ago. Why is this even being discussed?
There is a real problem with updating understanding based upon advances in data. Particularly if it is good news and reduces fear.
Updated understanding is ignored it if doesn’t fit the narrative, or confirms what was already known but didn’t fit the narrative a while ago either. For example masks – there was no evidence that they would work, there is low loads of statistical evidence clearly showing that they don’t work, but the pretence that they are effective continues. Likewise lockdowns, one-way systems, and so on.
They “work” to keep the scare going via dehumanisation.
Governments only care about the scare.
You can tell its August, even in ‘covid times’. Yawn, nothing here to stimulate the juices.
I’m just going to claim anything for the jabs, how are they going to check? Medical information is supposedly confidential!
I hope everyone does the same, claim to the max. Then inform them you’re not allowed to see my socio-medical credit score.
I think it’s important to make a stand on this. I’ve alredy had several colleagues express astonishment that I haven’t had (and have no intention of having) the vaccines.
Why are they astonished?
Just say you’ll consider it if covid makes it into top 20 dangerous things (currently 26th)
I work in the sort of organisation where most of the staff swallow everything the government says and question nothing!
It sounds as if you work at a university!
People really are dumb, aren’t they? Have they not worked it out yet how they can socialise AND avoid being asked to stay at home?
If someone in your household regularly tests because they are forced to for work, and they test positive…
But that’s not a “ping”
Indeed but it’s part of the same madness of mass testing and quarantining of healthy people
It’ll only apply to a minority of people though – most of those who are affected will be because of their own stupidity in installing the spy ‘n’ snitch app, and doing what it says.
Not sure
I tend to talk to very few people these days but I know at least two households to which this has happened
no covid deaths anywhere in europe
https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
why is there any restriction anywhere?
Oh that’ll be because of those pesky modellers with their pesky charts and graphs and the fact that governments seems to be enjoying their new found powers of control. They all like to talk of freedom and maps and roads to freedom (remember ‘flattening the sombrero or the curve?) as if we don’t actually already have inherent freedom (and, it seems, never did) but in some ghastly ‘Orwellian’ sense, we now have to earn the right to our old freedoms, which some of the more gloomy forecasters on this site say will never come back (never say never in my book) but what do I know.
The DT finally admits the existence of Ivermectin and other early treatment drugs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/31/drugs-dished-gps-everything-head-lice-diabetes-could-future/
“Covid cases have fallen for the eleventh day in a row (week on week)”
Again (and again) – So f.ing what?
“Researchers found no COVID-19 on any surfaces”
… and since we know that fomite transmission isn’t a problem … quelle surprise.
from 24th to 26th thing mentioned on death cert!
IT’S OBVIOUSLY THE BIGGEST EMERGENCY EVAR!
Indeed, and what if “cases” start rising again – which is entirely possible?
It’s a dangerous and foolish argument. Better to stick to the basics.
Concentrating on small, unrepresentative samples of data is bad statistics. I will be massively surprised if respiratory infections don’t begin rising in about a month’s time – and the counterpart to that Mail article will be Covidiots ranting about ‘an x% rise in cases in a seven-day period’.
I am sure Will and Noah know this. Probably they are grasping at straws now. I still think ultimately the argument we need to get into people’s heads is the basic one – covid was not exceptional, none of the measures worked. Unless we do that, we’re a hostage to fortune.
“Enforcing vaccine passports is ‘not a British way to behave’, Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned the Government.”
The well-known Bertie Wooster tosser voices about the most nonsense reason against vaccine passports that it’s possible to conceive.
To be fair in his head he probably equates “British” with some notions of personal freedom etc. Quite why he can’t see that these notions have been discredited by his own boss and the electorate is beyond me
He’s just not that bright! How could he be?
More seriously – this notion of a coherent ‘Britishness’ (and, for that matter, any other national equivalent) is a travesty of observation, and can be pulled apart on the back of any statement about it. It’s no more appealing or true than any simplistic racial/national stereotype.
At least we’ve learned during this shit-show that the totalitarian instinct is just as present here as in Germany – to cite but one characteristic.
I guess whatever brightness he possesses has not saved him from being deluded in this area.
I think it’s fair to say that historically there has been less authoritarianism in our way of doing things in comparison to continental Europe, but that hasn’t helped us very much with covid – and the same goes for other anglosphere countries like NZ, Aus, and Canada.
I have been surprised by how much crap we’ve swallowed, but we’re just the same weak humans here as are found anywhere else, and anyone who clings to romantic notions now is just engaging in wishful thinking.
Mmm, he’s been so quite about everything that I’ve assumed he’s been ‘got at’ in some way.
“17 countries could join the green list this week”…and no doubt be put on amber plus a few days later…