News Round-Up
- “Covid shrinks on all fronts again as cases fall by a third in a week” – There were another 31,933 infections recorded over the last 24 hours, Government dashboard data revealed, which was down a third on last Friday, reports the Mail.
- “Covid modellers to explain to MPs why Omicron predictions were so wrong” – Scientists have been called before the Commons committee to spell out why their scenarios predicting huge death figures fell short of reality, reports the Telegraph.
- “The madness of lockdown” – SAGE adviser Mark Woolhouse tells Spiked why he spoke out against lockdown.
- “Covid Mission-Creep – Laura Dodsworth on Canadian Authoritarianism, Central Bank Digital Currencies, Mass Formation, Conscientious Objection and More” – In the latest episode of the faith and current affairs podcast Irreverend, Thomas Pelham and Jamie Franklin are joined by A State of Fear author Laura Dodsworth.
- “Each extra 1% NHS pay rise means 500,000 fewer operations, say officials” – Unions react furiously to Government’s submission to NHS Pay Review Body, which recommends maximum rise of 3% this year, reports the Telegraph.
- “Ultra-Vaccinated, Locked-Down New Zealand Sees Record Infection Rate” – New Zealand, one of the world’s most vaccinated nations, shattered its infection rate record this week as citizens continued to protest the country’s draconian lockdowns and vaccine mandates, reports TrialSite News.
- “Tourism vs. Covid Mandates? Zimbabwe Mulls New Travel Restrictions” – Report from TrialSite News that Zimbabwe and Botswana are to insist on Covid vaccination for entry, despite the negative impact it will have on tourism – for reasons that are not really clear.
- “COVID-19: High Court quashes ‘unlawful’ vaccine mandate for police and defence force staff” – In a ruling released on Friday, Justice Cooke agreed the vaccine mandate infringed on parts of the New Zealand’s Bill of Rights Act, reports RNZ.
- “A few thoughts on COVID-19 vaccination” – Dr. Malcolm Kendrick gives his take.
- “We need to talk about underreporting….” – Will insurance companies reveal the real picture on Covid vaccine adverse events, asks HART.
- “The Disquiet About Disinformation” – Who are governments to complain about disinformation when they tossed out decades of pandemic planning, agreed upon by WHO, CDC, the UK, Europe, Australia, on no new evidence or trials, but simply a panicked whim, asks Omar Khan on Uncommon Wisdom.
- “Why the culture of fear will outlive Covid” – Western society was paralysed by anxiety long before the virus, says Patrick West in Spiked.
- “Why ivermectin? Dr Tess Lawrie has the answers” – Watch Dr. Tess Lawrie answer questions about widely used COVID-19 treatment ivermectin on TCW Defending Freedom.
- “Speech by Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid at the HSJ Digital Transformation Summit” – “Now to get there we need to show people that the app is for life, not just for Covid, and that it will be a future front door for interacting with the NHS,” said the Health Secretary as he told the summit it was important to “build back better” and “build back smarter”…
- “Even more infectious sub-variant of Omicron is now dominant in England” – The UKHSA says BA.2 is now behind 52.3% of Covid infections, but there is no evidence it is more likely to lead to hospitalisations or better able to evade vaccines than Omicron BA.1, reports the Mail.
- “UK’s £5.6bn Covid jabs rollout ‘good value’ for money, watchdog says” – The National Audit Office said securing a supply of vaccines early was “crucial” to their success and this helped “to save lives and reduce serious illness and hospitalisation”, despite 4.7 million being binned, in part over clotting worries, reports the Mail.
- “Anti-racism betrays Asian students” – Skin colour is trumping academic achievement, says Asra Q. Nomani in UnHerd.
- “The security services have gone woke” – Spies and soldiers should not be promoting identity politics, says Rakib Ehsan in Spiked.
- “Michael Vaughan: I thought, ‘I don’t need to be educated on race – I’m a good guy’” – The Telegraph carries the depressing spectacle of cricketer Michael Vaughan grovelling before the wokesters and thanking them for reprogramming him.
- “Neil Young Threatens To Leave Spotify Again Unless Vladimir Putin Backs Down From Ukraine” – The latest scoop from the Babylon Bee.
If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us 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.
What a time to be alive!🙈
Still, those of us getting on in years can brag that we have lived through the (admittedly not-very-) high-point relative to democracy and freedom!
Really……..?
Out of the frying pan into the fire 🙈
From bad to worse 🙈
And we’d only just solved coronavirus! 🙈
Climate change wasn’t scary enough, so they had to bring in E v W war.
But none of this should be happening at all. Bloody planet-killing asteroid couldn’t stick to the timetable.
War is the abuse that facilitates every other abuse. We can look forward to the reintroduction of vaccine mandates soon, as well as food and fuel rationing.
BBC some years back reminded us that there’s a black hole in the centre of the galaxy and said we’d end up getting sucked into it. Prepare for life beyond the event horizon.
If that’s true, it makes one wonder why anybody pays their TV licence, since we and the BBC are soon to be reduced to a super-dense microscopic entity.
Surely the BBC is already a super-dense microscopic entity?!
Super-dense, but still sprawlingly large, unfortunately.
I stopped paying for and watching MSM. Why do you pay to be lied to?
I don’t. Like you, I ‘unsubscribed’ some time ago. I do seem to have cost them a lot more than the missing TV tax, judging by the volume of Crapita letters that go into my recycle bin.
LOL. Shows how much science they understand.
Why did so many of the adults (the ones who understand how the Ukraine situation is Russia’s rational response to aggressive US policy over the past 30 years) get the judgement on whether Russia intended to invade Ukraine wrong? Two of the most informed adults are Professors John Mearsheimer and Richard Sakwa. Another very informed and generally wise observer of these matters is Peter Hitchens. All three (unwisely imo) went out on a limb recently to give their opinion that Russia “will not invade Ukraine”. Clearly, they were all wrong. Why did three such eminently qualified and wise observers make this error? I responded to Peter Hitchens’ rash assertion that if Putin were to invade “it would prove he is stark staring mad” in a comment here on DS ten days ago: “Where I disagree with Hitchens is in his assertion that if the Russians invade it will be proof that Putin is stark, staring mad. The fact is that Putin is not insane, and if he chooses to roll the dice on the Ukraine it’s because he has made a different assessment from ours, of the costs of not doing so and the likely outcomes. This is the traditional… Read more »
That Mearsheimer piece from 15th Feb contains lots of good material to counter the jingoist propaganda nonsense floating around about Putin supposedly having “gone mad”, which our host seems prey to. When you see someone claiming that Putin “might be mad”, they are either lying, or they are too stupid or ignorant to understand basic international relations. Ask yourself who is acting irrationally here. The Russians, trying to address what they see (probably correctly, fwiw) as an existential threat, or those in the west who are acting as though they don’t have the most basic grasp of realpolitik? “Now, the question you want to ask yourself is, why are the Russians doing this? This is realpolitik 101. And the fact that people in the west, especially in places like Britain and the United States, don’t understand this, boggles my mind! I just don’t understand it!” PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER: THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE | KING’S POLITICS And here’s the recent piece by Prof Sakwa, also before the Russian invasion, in which he made the same error in judgment of the situation as Mearsheimer did, as described above. It nevertheless contains a wealth of useful information on why the Russians did… Read more »
Thank you very much for these very interesting and helpful comments.
And here’s Farage, under huge pressure to join in the prevailing US sphere Russophobia described so aptly in Mearsheimer’s piece:
https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1497315533372416002
Here’s what seems to me an absolutely excellent article doing an awesome job of setting the record straight/providing a much needed more balanced, and ***sceptical*** ( vis a vis the pro-US/NATO/western mainstream media propaganda, an example of which was posted on this site, ATL yesterday ), truly *international* perspective on the Ukraine/Russia situation;
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/25/us-nato-backed-aggression-towards-russia-finally-checked/
and some more
https://therealslog.com/2022/02/25/bear-status-update-poked/ (this one, google the author for her Russia creds)
https://thesaker.is/russian-operation-in-the-ukraine-end-of-day-2/
the second link cemented some of the rumours I had heard regarding neo-Nazis running the show in the Ukraine – possible backed by the usual Three Letter Agencies.
Maidan anyone?
The article at The Slog is brilliant. Thank you! The link led to an empty page, but I found the article on the front page, at this link:
https://therealslog.com/2022/02/25/bear-status-update-poked/
And the Saker one on the Russian Op is extraordinarily detailed and in depth. Thx again.
Ukraine relinquishes application to join NATO; Putin does not invade and NORD 2 goes on stream; Putin then decides that he will push the Eastern border further west by….walking into Poland and the Baltic States with the help of that paragon of independence , Byelorussia; all that would be the “fault” of the US ignoring “legal and moral constraints”…PULL THE OTHER ONE. Putin obviously did not “go mad” when murdering Litvinenko, attempting to do the same to the Skripals…..and others on foreign soil. I dont see the US trying to add the 52nd state to the “flag”, do you – probably “yes”. Set out the USSR’s role in the Middle East since before WWII – its support of Egypt and Syria – both of whom hell bent on eradicating the state of Israel – and the latter has been killing its own population by chemical weapons – get the connection there? Putin is an egotistical maniac, drunk on Vodka or power or both, does not give a damn about people – let us not forget that it was an international consortium that retrieved the fall out from Chernobyl that saved a vast amount of Russian acreage ….doesn’t give a shit… Read more »
Dealt with in my comment on today’s RoundUp.
The absolute C You Next Tuesday that is currently screwing the nation’s health has this to offer:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/health-and-social-care-secretary-sajid-javid-hsj-digital-transformation-summit
In other words, Digital ID and a slave society.
“Is this page upsetting ?
Status Report,What went wrong?”
Nothing on that page. Did find this if it’s any help. Health Secretary sets out ambitious tech agenda – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with standard electronic patient records in concept. The problem is how they might (will) be misused.
a) as a control mechanism
b) poor security giving rise to privacy failures
c) used commercially breaking privacy
I agree. In fact the digitisation of patient records has streamlined the system and made things a lot easier. But all the points you’ve made are bang on, not to mention this app, for which you will need in order to access ANY NHS healthcare in future, which will be conditional on certain medical procedures you may have to have, and a whole plethora of other information you will have present to access services…and that’s WAY before you get to actually see anyone in person…if in fact you do. I’ve noticed how hard they’re pushing this app when I try to call my surgery or sny other NHS number.
The link is broken or removed.
These dogs won’t give it up. But we can. I can’t even afford a smart phone to put their sh**y app on, not when my energy bill will exactly double in on 1st April, together with all the other price hikes…and I don’t want or need one either. The so-called NHS is already being transformed in into an animal we don’t recognise or able to access. “Health” as we know it left the building ages ago. It’s all about “Bio-Security”now. It’s a good job I’ve studied anatomy and physiology, herbalism and many aspects of complementary health. Going to need those skills more than ever now!
Yes, I’m feeling glad of my knowledge of diet/nutrition and a certain amount of general biology etc, because it helps me to feel relatively independent, wary actually, of most conventional medical institutions/systems.
Covid modellers: We’re here to explain.
MPs: And we’re hear to ream.
Don’t you just wish?
Sounds like a lot of “we were following the science, but the scientists lied to us” arse covering to me, exactly as predicted on these pages the first time the words “following the science” were uttered 2 years ago.
Let the self preservation/backstabathon commence!!
We knew “following the science” would be their feeble excuse the moment Hancock (?) first mumbled that phrase.
Roundup 1.”Covid cases fall by 1/3″ (3rd consecutive week).
It’s an early spring. Covid is a type if flu, it’s what always happens, why is this “news”?
Michael Vaughan proving himself an absolute trouser filling coward.
Have a chat with Sir Matt le Tissier.
Bloody waste of space.
He’s looking to avoid having all those MSM ‘appearance fees’ cancelled.
Then again, ‘sporting hero’ is a silly term, isn’t it?
I bet he wants his job back at TMS, hope he stays away tbh unless he’s changed his boring tune a bit. FWIW, i wouldn’t say he is racist, i just get the impression from listening to him that he has very little interest and zero understanding of the lives of ordinary folk, unlike the ‘celebs’ he mixes with, so he’s quite capable of saying something offensive at any time without realising it.
My God I could not agree more – he has shat over the peers of his previous existence by surrendering to the woke Gestapo. “I did not realise I was unconscious biased until I war on a course…” what absolute bollox.
But what offends me most is the gaslighting comments from certain Sports media people who previously played the game at First Class level and beyond – I had the great pleasure of playing against some of these – and beating some of them – as an amateur. I can’t relate in strong enough terms for fear of being censored the level of verbal abuse I witnessed from some of these “elite” players who are now broadcasters and fully paid up members of the the club of Hypocrites.
Their faux reaction – “I am aghast at the extent of the racism and abuse…….” – makes me puke; what a bunch of lying bullshitters these alleged TMS etc broadcasting icons are – at least Brian Johnston, Don Mosey and John Arlott etc were well above that salt level, all RIP.
The Sweden article appears to say lockdown bad, all other restrictions good and you should have done them sooner, faster, harder… I skimmed it in fairness, but my BS detector was going off so.
I guess we wait for the Florida article for some truth?
I had to switch my BS meter off completely this week. It was doing my head in!
No wonder Malteaser head is being so blasé:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/health-and-social-care-secretary-sajid-javid-hsj-digital-transformation-summit-
Bastards!
Why have the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph and others taken to spelling Ukraine rather than the usual Ucraine? After some weeks ‘UKIP’ still springs to mind. The Russians and are the same people, one derived from the other (both from KIEV), sharing the same language, just as the English/Anglo-Americans. The U.S different spelling (color V. colour) was merely a 19th Century literary device designed to imply otherwise. The are however guilty of insisting in law that ‘their’ spelling be used so “Ivan” is not a lawful signature, it has to be “Ivin”. Such pettiness has brought about their downfall. Russians and are the same people in much the same way as English and Anglo-Americans; one derived from the other, both from KIEV, sharing the same language. How many English know if they are of Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian stock ? Their DNA is identical yet they fought each other for centuries over that issue. During Late Antiquity/Dark Ages the spent their time fighting off Germanic/Teutonic Knights while the Russians came under the cruel yolk of the Mongols before fighting them off, subsequently spending four centuries sharing the Royal Household as the until the 1917 revolution. The only reason the USSR recognised as… Read more »
What happened to the “EDIT” function ?
My post above should read ‘Russians and The Ucranians . . .’ are the same peop”.
” Ucranians” in a number of places otherwise it makes no sense.
A. Self-edit function ceases 15 minutes after publication.
Nope, it must cease 15 minutes after start of ‘writing’. I took 1/2 hour to complete that response (because, because) and tried to edit straight after publication.
Can you imagine Wessex, as a separate country, at war against the rest of England with London as its capital sending fighter bombers to attack Winchester?
‘cruel yolk’ might need some attention, too. If the Edit function reappears (which it will, sure as eggs is eggs).
Agreed; a hyperbolic distraction from the point I was trying to make.
Call me weird but in my 50-odd years I’ve never once seen it spelt “Ucraine” (before your post obviously) only “Ukraine”.
I’m 61 and agree.
Ditto
They can stick their Ucraines,Mumbais, Beijings and Kyivs where the sun doesn’t shine. We don’t have to call Paris ‘Paree’ yet, do we?
Ice Age Farmer calls out the high improbablility of these being “accidental strikes”. We’re being primed for fuel & food shortages:
Merchant Ships Hit by Missiles; Grain/Fertilizer Exports STOP in Ukraine/Russia
Roundup 2.
“Covid Modellers to explain why Omnicon predictions were so wrong”
Because they are always wrong, often by a negative factor 10.
To increase their sense of self-importance and so get paid for more interviews.
Doesn’t help when TPTB start dishing out gongs and knighthoods before the issue (whatever) has been fully resolved (ie 10-20 years hence).
But it does guarantee the complicity with government wishes of the gong-seekers. (Who wants to wait 20 years for a grubby reward?)
‘Sir’ Chris Whitty my left bum-cheek!
Roundup “ultra vaccinated NZ sets new Covid infection rate”.
Just as predicted many many times here at lockdownsceptics over the past 18 months.
“You can’t hide from an virus indefinitely” but when it gets you after 18 months hiding it will be worse since you have lessened your levels of natural protection.
We told them this again and again.
Is that stupid woman still in charge over there?
Indeed, and have they done anything useful with the time they bought themselves at such enormous cost? Such as improved treatment protocols, better infection control in hospitals? Or did they bet everything on the “vaccines”?
The one benefit they might enjoy is that they’ll undergo Omicron rather than its precedents.
Ardern is not impressive, but look around the world and point out a politician who is…
“The one benefit they might enjoy is that they’ll undergo Omicron rather than its precedents.”
I guess that’s an argument. However the benefits if any are minimal, and the cost is immense. And they couldn’t know for sure that it would mutate as it did.
“Ardern is not impressive, but look around the world and point out a politician who is…”
The Swedish PM at the time, to an extent. The blokes in Tanzania and Belarus. Kristi Noem and Ron DeSantis. The Presidents of Brazil and Mexico. Those are the main ones who spring to mind who were in charge and resisted the madness. There are a few more on the opposition side.
I’d hate to think that I’d given the impression that I disagree with your summation, Julian. Hence the ‘one benefit’ bit.
Thanks. Yours was a good point, and not one I had thought of/seen made before. That’s what I like about this site – freedom of speech and exchange of views and ideas.
New Zealand is just entering coronavirus season, so why are they surprised, particularly given the lack of efficacy of the different vaccines.
Exactly the same point I made in my post above about UK fall in Covid cases being entirely seasonal and normal.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/462344/covid-19-protesters-show-up-as-patients-at-hospitals-across-new-zealand
Hospitals across the country are receiving anti covid mandate protestors from the New Zealand parliament protests and the protestors are ‘reportedly’ spitting at police. Nothing remotely resembling evidence or sources and 200 protestors there today.
I assume most of them will be admitted to hospitals across New Zealand and on ventilators tomorrow.
In a normal world the journalist would be called out for writing this rubbish but he or she will probably be demoted for not getting nazi flags in the article.
It is too easy to be parochial and ignore the full madness continuing in a lot of the rest of the world.
So Neil Young was making empty threats, as was Joni Mitchell. They are both still there.
It’s a satirical piece from the satirical site Babylon Bee, mocking Neil Young’s original/real threat ref Joe Rogan at the same time as the knee-jerk western mainstream response to the situation in Ukraine.
That’s alright then, Neil Young will sort it out.
Sceptics was rather disappointing today with no hard analysis of the reasons for the war in Ukraine. Column News UK was brilliant yesterday in exposing Nato’s ambitions in the area and the corruption in the barely democratic state caused by American money and influence.
Indeed!
The Ukraine crisis is huge ( with implications for world power balance etc ) and the official/govt/establishment and MSM narrative about it surely needs just as much seriously sceptical attention as the whole Covid lockdown and vax story.
… even if it does take attention away from the German health insurance revelations about mass vax injury/damage and death ….
I’ve been fond of Neil Young’s music for many years now, but it looks like growing old has affected his world-view.
Very good skit by Babylon Bee, and nobody’s fault but Neil’s.
Why not just reduce the income tax rate for NHS staff (particularly nurses) to say, 10%? Instant payrise for all. The government is robbing Peter to pay Paul anyway, what different would it make ultimately?
Then there’s the number of staff leaving for financial reasons, meaning that procedures will be cancelled anyway.
How about stopping pissing money away on pointless testing, crap useless PPE, trick and treat, etc, etc. Oh and sack 10% of the work-at-home managers just because.