UnHerd Interview With Anders Tegnell
Freddie Sayers, the editor of UnHerd, has done an interview with Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s coronavirus strategy, that’s worth watching.
Freddie kicks off by asking him whether he thinks Sweden’s strategy has been a failure or a success.
I think to a great extent it’s been a success. We are now seeing rapidly falling cases, we have continuously had healthcare that has been working, there have been free beds at any given time, never any crowding in the hospitals, we have been able to keep schools open which we think is extremely important, and society fairly open — while still having social distancing in place in a way that means that the spread of the disease has been limited.
The failure has of course been the death toll… that has been very much related to the long-term care facilities in Sweden. Now that has improved, we see a lot less cases in those facilities.
Tegnell is careful not to claim that Sweden has avoided a lockdown altogether. Rather, it has had a partial lockdown, with the decline in economic and social activity being largely voluntary.
In many ways the voluntary measures we put in place in Sweden have been just as effective as complete lockdowns in other countries. So I don’t think complete lockdown is the way to go for all countries… the rapidly declining cases we see in Sweden right now is another indication that you can get the number of cases down quite a lot in a country without having a complete lockdown.
He is also cautious about claiming the absence of a full lockdown in Sweden has been beneficial and acknowledges that he doesn’t really know whether the Swedish death toll would be lower had they locked everyone down. But he points out that we do know that lockdowns cause considerable collateral damage.
It would have made maybe some difference, we don’t know. But on the other hand we know that lockdowns also have big other effects on public health. We know that closing schools has a great effect on children’s health in the short and the long term. We know that people being out of work also produces a lot of problems in the public health area. So we also have to look at what are the negative effect of lockdowns, and that has not been done very much so far.
However, one thing he is sure about is that trying to suppress or eradicate the virus is a mistake.
I don’t think that this is a disease that we can eradicate – not with the methods that we have right now. It might be a disease that in the long term we can eradicate with a vaccine, but I’m not even sure about that. If you look at comparable diseases like the flu and other respiratory viruses we are not even close to eradicating them despite the fact that we have a vaccine. I personally believe that this is a disease we are going to have to learn to live with.
Throughout the interview, Tegnell sound both modest and sensible – a far cry from our own public health panjandrums. That’s particularly true when he talks about why face masks haven’t been made mandatory in Sweden, my favourite part of the interview.
One reason is that the evidence base for using masks in society is still very weak. Even if more and more countries are now enforcing them in different ways … we haven’t seen any new evidence coming up, which is a little bit surprising. The other reason is that everything tells us that keeping social distance is a much better way of controlling this disease than putting masks on people. We are worried (and we get at least tales from other countries) that people put on masks and then they believe they can go around in society being close to each other, even going around in society being sick. And that, in our view, would definitely produce higher spread than we have right now.
Worth watching in full.
Poor Risk Assessment
A reader heard a worker in the City of London interviewed on Radio 4 yesterday who said something astonishingly stupid, even by bed-wetting standards.
I heard someone on the radio this morning saying she had bought a Harley-Davison to drive to work in Mayfair, in order to – you guessed it – “stay safe”. But if the fatality risk for a person of working age from COVID-19 is roughly equivalent to a daily car drive of about 50 miles, and motorbikes are 25 times more dangerous than driving, it would seem that a motorcycle commute of two miles poses a greater threat to life and limb than coronavirus. Lesson: If you want to stay safe, you must remain sane.
NHS Hospitals in England Reported No Deaths on Three Days Last Week
I have one eagle-eyed reader who checks the daily data releases from NHS England about the number of deaths recorded in hospitals in the previous 24 hours. This is what he found last week:
There were three days during this past week in which the report released for that day recorded ZERO deaths during the previous 24 hour period.
July 21st for the period 4pm July 19th – 4pm July 20th
July 22nd for the period 4pm July 20th – 4pm July 21st
July 24th for the period 4pm July 21st – 4pm July 22ndDuring the previous week, this only occurred on two days.
When I’ve reported these findings in the past, readers have contacted me to point out that in the latest data releases for NHS England, the days that initially recorded no deaths in earlier releases have subsequently had deaths assigned to them. That’s due to the much-discussed delay in the reporting. Nevertheless, what my correspondent says is true: when the data release for the 24-hour period in question was first released, it showed zero deaths.
Will Face Nappies Kill the High Street?
In his column in today’s Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens says Boris’s decision to make face masks mandatory in shops will kill off what’s left of the hight street.
The Government’s dedicated efforts to destroy our economy and an entire way of life have moved up a step.
High streets had just begun to stir feebly back into life after months of enforced shutdown. Then the futile decree went out from Downing Street that customers must wear muzzles.
And what will happen? Why, more people will choose not to bother to go near shops at all. They will buy from the internet giants instead.
I fear he’s right and this picture a reader took on Oxford Street yesterday confirms it. On a normal Saturday afternoon, Oxford Street would be teeming with people, but it’s now almost deserted. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos’s fortune has increased to $171.6 billion, cementing his status as the richest man in the world.
France’s Philosopher-King is a Lockdown Sceptic
The most famous philosophe in France, Bernard-Henri Lévy, has a new book out in which he argues that coronavirus has sent the world into “psychotic delirium”. In an interview in the Sunday Times he summarises the thesis of The Virus in the Age of Madness.
“People keep saying this is an unprecedented pandemic,” he says. “It is not true. Humanity has had to deal with many pandemics, often more grave than this one. There seems to be an intention, a collective desire, to panic. It is not as big a disaster as we think.”
“There is a sort of unilateral focus: Covid, Covid, Covid. It completely erased any other information,” Lévy says. He writes of the world falling into a state of “psychotic delirium” and of witnessing “the spectacle of world leaders so terrified by the threat of a corona Nuremberg that they deemed it more prudent to put the world on hold, caring little for the outbreaks of hunger, violence against the poor, and authoritarian takeovers that were sure to follow”.
He rages against “the dieticians, the prophylactocrats, vegetocrats and ecolocrats”, and against those finger-waggers telling us we deserved Covid. “Oozing goodness and contrition, they sing, reminding us that even before the pandemic they warned against the folly of a world that could not continue as it was, a world headed straight into a wall.”
Now he says: “People on the right and left are telling us that we had too much enjoyment and we have to be penitent and so on. This is such an unprogressive rhetoric. This is the most stupid and stubborn, profane religion, the opposite of what the progressives should be. This is exactly the best way to bury all the liberal and democratic dreams that made the West great.”
Sounds like a must read. If you can bear enriching Jeff Bezos even further, you can buy the book here.
Lanyard Success
A reader gets in touch to say his “mask exempt” lanyard is working like a treat.
I must thank you for recommending the “mask exempt” lanyards. I received mine yesterday and immediately took it for a test ride on public transport. During my journey from Didcot Parkway to Lille Europe, using Great Western, London Underground and Eurostar I was only challenged twice (both times in St. Pancras International). I simply pointed to my lanyard and said that I have a medical condition. No further questions!
You can buy your very own “mask exempt” lanyard here.
Round-Up
Here’s a round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Gloves may be the next step after masks in the battle against coronavirus‘ – What fresh hell is this?
- ‘The Science and Law of Refusing to Wear Masks: Texts and Arguments in Support of Civil Disobedience‘ – Excellent summary of the law and guidance concerning face coverings, what you’re obliged to comply with, what you aren’t, and the penalties for not doing so
- ‘Coronavirus driven out in most local areas‘ – But not in Luton and Blackburn, apparently
- ‘The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It‘ – Interesting piece in Newsweek by Harvey Risch, Professor of Epidemiology at Yale’s School of Public Health, praising Hydroxychloroquine
- ‘Dominic Raab DEFENDS decision to axe quarantine-free travel to Spain overnight despite British tourists – including Transport Secretary Grant Shapps – already arriving for holidays‘ – Govt demonstrates it is absolutely determined to destroy the travel industry
- ‘“They’re spiteful anti-intellectuals”‘ – Heart-rending piece about Stephen Lamonby, the university lecturer sacked for praising Jews
- ‘JK Rowling holds the answer to ending cancel culture‘ – Douglas Murray on the public’s stubborn refusal to stop buying JK Rowling’s books
- ‘A sporting crowd will return at the Oval but restrictions still make for a dystopian sight‘ – The Oval has decided to admit 500 people to the forthcoming two-day friendly between Surrey and Middlesex, even though the stadium’s capacity is 25,000
- ‘Should individuals in the community without respiratory symptoms wear facemasks to reduce the spread of COVID-19?‘ – Good round-up of the evidence by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The answer, obviously, is no
- ‘5 reasons why the coronavirus nightmare may soon be over‘ – Ever the optimist, Matt Ridley sees light at the end of the tunnel. Buy his excellent new book here
- ‘Balancing the Risks of Pupils Returning to Schools‘ – Amusing parody of a bed-wetting report purporting to be from an organisation called DELVE with links to the Royal Society. Clue is in the title: the risk of pupils returning to schools is zero. At least, I assume it’s a parody
- ‘We lose much when the face is covered up‘ – Article by the Archdeacon of Hastings in the Church Times, a rare sceptic in the Church of England
- ‘Thousands of hotel jobs face axe, warns UK Hospitality boss‘ – No, really?
- ‘More than 30 people chasing each job in parts of UK‘ – Only 30?
- ‘Love of freedom is the missing ingredient in this Tory government‘ – Good piece by Madeline Grant in the Telegraph
- ‘It is terrifying that our civilization will not mourn the death of the city‘ – Janet Daly on cracking form
- ‘Coronavirus: Why everyone was wrong‘ – Good piece by Beda Stadler, the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern. Among other things, she says asymptomatic people aren’t infectious
- ‘Hazmat Suits For Air Travel Sold Out-But Will They Be Allowed Onboard?‘ – I think I’m going to get one of these to wear to fancy dress parties
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “Cover Me” by Bruce Springsteen.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A couple of 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 now 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. 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! Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those papers and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
We created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, but they became a magnet for spam (apologies for mixed metaphor) so we’ve temporarily closed them. However, we can open them again if some readers volunteer to be moderators. If you’d like to do this, please email Ian Rons, the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster, here – and thanks to those who’ve already volunteered. We’ll be re-opening the Forums soon.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation recently to pay for the upkeep of this site. If you feel like donating, however small the sum, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
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https://www.abc.es/espana/aragon/abci-zaragoza-monta-pabellon-para-confinar-casos-leves-covid-ante-avalancha-contagios-202007241653_noticia.html#vca=amp-rrss-inducido&vmc=abc-es&vso=tw&vli=noticia.video
Concentration camps for asymptomatic. Zaragoza in Spain opens on Monday a detention centre where up to 100 asymptomatic or very mild illness could be contained.
https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-hombre-permanece-aislado-italia-tras-17-test-positivos-covid-19-202007231415_noticia.html
Poor Italian isolated since mid April after having 17 PCR tests positive for Sars-Cov 2.
If this is not madness please tell me what is.
It’s not madness if it is deliberate tyranny. Why is this so difficult to comprehend ?
I think we need to bang that about a bit more. I’m pretty certain that most people cannot believe we are being subjugated by tyrants since the general population are aiding that tyranny and people trying to stand up to it are considered enemies of reason. This is why I am going slightly mad. I have friends (well friends no more) proudly presenting their profile pictures now wearing face masks. It’s considered benevolent. We that resist are malevolent.
They have us tied up in knots, don’t they, because anyone not falling into line with this madness is an evil, virus spreading murderer.
We just follow the science.
They believe in witchcraft, as do the governments that they enjoy obeying.
One has to recognise the self-fulfilling symmetry of the tactics. Create uncertainty which alarms the public then point to that alarm and say, “see, we told you the virus was bad news”. Stir ad infinitum.
Here come the camps. For asymptomatics? Or sceptics?
I’ve always had a feeling, right from the start of all this, that this is why the ‘Nightingale’ hospitals were erected. Remember that it was the military that built them.
Naaa, you’d need a special law to allow you to detain…. Oops.
There is one.
Yes, but the government always relies on the military to get them out of the smelly brown stuff. It was the same over the Foot And Mouth. Always followed by further defence cuts.
Do you have any feeling where veteran groups are on this masking of humanity? Each personel is clearly trained in biowarfare so may have a higher than average understanding of this lunacy.
Probably got the same split as the rest of us if I’m honest. The older they are, the more sceptical. It depends on how many of them still trust governments of course…
Thanks. It’s one aspect I’ll listen out for.
I don’t know about veteran groups, but I would consel all politicians to think very, very hard indeed before attempting any “lockdown” in the prison sense of the word. Remember Solzhenitsyn. “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of… Read more »
Absolutely correct. Farmers were too late to stop their herds be shot with army rifles (extremely cruel) before the lawyers got on the case – it was illegal slaughter of non-infected animals. That prompted Blair to change policy – when he realised it was also illegal – not the inhumane slaughter. For once I hope Jolyan comes forward with a landmark case!
It never made sense back then now its looking like a plan.
It caused a lot of small farms to fold and Big Ag to get much bigger. Smells like a plan too!
PCR tests for RNA maybe useful but they are not definitive and +ve results can be triggered by residual material still present after an infection has been ‘zapped’ by your immune system. People want biology to be black and white bit it is not and PCR results need professional interpretation. The way pillar 2 PCR tests are being used seems quite wrong, it is like a medieval witch hunter, finding Covid everywhere and the nightmare goes on for ever!
https://is.cdc.go.kr/upload_comm/syview/doc.html?fn=159118745823700.pdf&rs=/upload_comm/docu/0030/
The Korean study finding not viable RNA fragments 12 weeks later with pos PCR test but negative virus isolation is very important. I think the only way to challenge the UK government would be through the judicial system. Let’s say a person have respiratory symptoms pos PCR test and the Public Health Law applies and he/she should be isolated. Would it not be the best thing to appeal in a court that the evidence of being infected by a PCR test is not definite and should be always be confirmed by virus isolation? The person could reasonably claim a Covid-19 infection previously and it would be up to the government to prove that current infection really exists i.e. a reliable confirmatory evidence.
I’m really surprised that nobody in Leicester or any of the other places locked down has challenged the tests. It says plain as day on the government website that these are antigen tests and antigen is viral DNA fragments created by the destruction of virus by the immune system. Unless a person has symptoms or a further lab test is performed to isolate active virus, then asymptomatic people testing positive for antigen are RECOVERED not infected!!!
This absolutely is a game changer, or should be. It blows all the data on both cases and deaths diagnosed by PCR but asymptomatic totally out of the water.
But nobody is interested. There are a few articles floating around but MPs journalists etc don’t want to know.
Ghana press is much freeer. I’m planning to approach Ghanian journos and see if they will break it.
Have you read ‘Virus Mania’ by Torsten Engelbrecht? I highly recommend it.
You only have to read what the inventor of the ‘test’ said – to use it to diagnose illness would be unprofessional at best! Enough said
“finding Covid everywhere and the nightmare goes on for ever!”
Surely that’s the point
Jesus they’ve ramped up the dictatorship somewhat with that move.
A would-be-funny-if-it-wasnt-so-serious paragraph in that report
“The measures adopted last week by the Aragonese government have not yielded the expected results and have now been reinforced in an attempt to stem the wave of infections. In fact, a week after the first plan deployed by the regional Executive, the serious escalation of cases has not only not subsided but has worsened.”
Would love to know what those initial measures were, presumably, some business closures, more mask use, more distancing etc – So when those don’t work, just dig deeper.
Literally imprisoning people because they caught a cold.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-virus-in-the-age-of-madness-bernard-henri-levy-with-hannah-macinnes-tickets-111014062048
Can someone please explain to me the logic of gloves as mentioned in first item of Round Up? If your hands can be contaminated then how come gloves can’t? Have they got some special powers to ward off viruses? In all this lunacy where it seems people believe the Emperor’s got a nice new suit this reasoning takes the biscuit. I went for a drink yesterday in a place with hardly any restrictions at all, but the waitress wore gloves. I could see how sweaty her hands were underneath the gloves (the gloves were soaking wet) and they stank, whether of hand sanitiser or something else I don’t know. What is the insanity of banning reading materials from public transport, or stop someone running for a bus (surely that’s fake news?) because of viral spread but it’s absolutely fine to go running as exercise, cycling or using the gym?. I am unbelievably staggered .that people I took to be sensible can even entertain this bulshit. I want to scream from the rooftops IT MAKES NO EFFING SENSE. (I see amusingly from my Facebook feed that a stand up anarchist/leftist I once liked, Jonathan Pie, is now an unapologetic advocate of… Read more »
I posted before about staff fiddling with masks – or Snot Concentrators as they should be called – while serving food. Gloves would be just as bad, especially with the false sense of security. The Government has mandated a food hygeine hazard!
Love it.🤣🤣🤣
Pie has had his chips!
a stand up anarchist/leftist I once liked, Jonathan Pie, is now an unapologetic advocate of muzzles
Oh dear. Toby linked to one of his videos a couple of weeks ago and I really enjoyed it – having felt a bit queasy about him during the ‘Brexit years’. Sad news that he (his character) has finally sunk to this level of unawareness. As you say, another one off the list.
It really is unbelievable who turns out to be a member of the herd. I still haven’t got over Steve Baker being a pro-nappy man. Not to mention Rod Liddle.
I saw the mask one yesterday and was hugely disappointed, thought it was going to go the other way but sadly not.
I feel I ought to be able to quote Plato or Homer about thus not setting store into stars so yonder or similar. I can’t so will simply say – it’s good not to store faith in idols. Faith in yourself is a wiser way. Blimey, not too shabby for a Sunday even if I do say so myself!
Steve Baker and Rod Liddle? Is that right? You’d have thought they would be the least likely to fall for the bullshit. Astounding.
You can never trust people.
PR campaigns….. people like Jonathan Pie, Tom Hanks, etc., are being bought. They are sell outs. Even as someone who was completely unknown and only got the odd line here or there in film and TV, I had opportunities like this come up during the Trump/Clinton election. It’s the only film/tv work I have ever…. EVER…. turned down.
Here’s a good breakdown of the PR campaign the WHO is paying for on this matter: https://www.bitchute.com/video/EmWDUmFV6yY/
Liddle likes to position himself as “voice of the Volk”, just sides with the winners no matter what, Therefore just going along with the majority and adding his familiar “edge”. Amusing when you happen to agree, but rumbled when meeting reality that isn’t recently validated by the herd
In their twisted minds, the subconscious is telling the wearers that gloves are good because their precious skin doesn’t have to touch anything that the lepers (everyone else) could have touched with their filthy diseased mitts. Unfortunately these base instincts have no capabilities of reasoning, logic or knowledge.
The conscious mind then rationalises it yet again as protecting others, when in fact it is entirely selfish and ineffective.
Logic is not a factor in the decision to wear them.
Because people have heard that the virus spreads through touching surfaces, they seem to have made the leap to believing you catch it through your skin. Someone on here posted the other day that their girls’ school had banned shorts for PE for next term because of the risk of bare skin on surfaces. It was astonishing. Is this the quality of the people we trust to educate our children?
The risk comes from picking up a virus from a surface and then touching your face (mouth, nose, eyes). It’s very hard to touch these things with your thigh. I would think that the risk – already amplified by the tendency to fiddle with your face when you’re wearing a mask – is made even worse by wearing a pair of filthy disposable gloves you’ve been wearing since you left the house and touched every damn thing with them because they make you feel safer.
“Can someone please explain to me the logic of gloves”
Nope, literally nobody would be able to…
I’m hoping that it was just some off-piste peer rambling in the House of Lords, followed by the Telegraph (as usual) seizing on click bait material.
Otherwise, it’s a new low in terms of being totally inexplicable and pointless.
Stay calm Bella. You are not living in the Hunger Games just yet. Gloves have been used for years in the food preparation industries – years long before Covid arrived. You can look on the internet for articles about them. Like any measure in food safety they are ineffective if used incorrectly.
Oh and nobody has said you cannot read a book on public transport. You are safe again! You really must stop worrying and imagining this stuff. It’s making you tetchy.
Nice how you changed the narrative from newspapers to a book. Hope your 30 pieces of silver are worth it.
Toby’s recommendation, The Virus in the Age of Madness; don’t get it from Bezos, get the paperback edition from Books Etc. It’s published on Tuesday.
https://www.booksetc.co.uk/books/view/-9780300257373
Only problem is, at 68 pages the print edition is expensive.
Strange capatcha at the top under the page head. Not sure why. Error?
This is all just manufactured BS. They’re ramping up project fear so we don’t know what to expect next and we’re happy for our bit of “freedom”. Maybe we won’t complain about masks so much!
/v1/fill/w_740,h_469,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/f90459_80e75f8567704f69b946155df9852c11~mv2.webp
Looks like the actual situation with deaths in Spain isn’t much different to here, except their numbers “flatlined” even earlier. It looks like the standard epidemic curve the disease has followed in most countries.
So is the sudden rise in “cases” an artifact resulting from increased testing? I thought maybe since they locked down earlier and harder there might be a bigger unexposed/susceptible percentage of the population compared to the UK, but the above graph seems to suggest not.
It’s just because of testing. They’re finding people who don’t even know they have it but also there are false positives, the common cold can cause a positive result and there is talk of fake results either just made up or the test is pre-contaminated. These “cases” aren’t translating into deaths.
Currently 94,111 cases in Spain with 93.494 rated as “mild”.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/
I am in Spain at the moment, and frigging loving it, best holiday ever (in Aragon and all). I think that it is because of masks, everyone wears them here, even outside, which is ridiculous. I think that people think the masks are actually effective at stopping covid so have a false confidence. On the one hand it is lovely to go to restaurants full of people who aren’t bothering to social distance. On the other it is bound to lead to an uptick, but in young people who are almost certain to get better. Sounds about the right balance to me.
Now look at the graph for the U.K. from the same site.
https://www.lockdowntruth.org/post/the-day-i-ve-joked-about-before-has-actually-arrived
I knew it! I saw an image on the Evening Standard showing people on the tube wearing gloves and just knew that was coming next.
Well I would recommend this to ensure no transmission while on public transport – or while in public
It works on so many levels!
Revenge of the Mummies.
After our regular Zoom church service this morning somebody brought up the issue of masks. I have always been aware that most of our church members have been taken in by the media hype lock stock and barrel and felt uncomfortable making any comment about my sceptical views. But almost without exception they all felt the mask idea was crazy, they are uncomfortable, and in our particular area the new case rate is so low that they are pointless. One woman works in our local Tesco, they have been told they have to wear them all the time, and after a full shift they are terrible. I think this confirms that what we all know here, all the herds religiously follow the rules but hate them profoundly. Let us wait till the supermarket staff protest about their compulsory use.
Doesn’t help where we are at the moment but I do feel a tad cheerier now.
Our church is due to start services again next Sunday. Sadly our vicar at the end of this week’s on line service has just announced that the C of E is strongly advising wearing muzzles at services I fear that many will comply even though there are few cases in our area.
Bunch of goons. But then the “C” of E ceased being a “C” a long time ago.
Try this Christian perspective on your pianola. Sent my by husband’s very sceptical and evangelical Christian brother (not about masks but the ‘plandemic’):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcQEKgxjDLk&feature=youtu.be
I will not be attending our church until the mask wearing stops. Watched online a few minutes of the vicar preaching in a mask this morning but had to switch off. I want to worship God not covid.
Confirms what I was beginning to suspect from meeting holidaymakers. They just yearn for a return to normality. I think the Fascists know this and are fighting a rearguard terror action. Keep pushing, folks, ’cause the rot is setting in.
I agree with that. Blair is not pushed onto stage without reason. The rot is there, as it was from the start. The rag-tag sceptics can and will counter this abhorent grab for our rights and freedoms.
The cracks are setting in and widening. I intend to enjoy watching the inevitable catch up with all those, not just the government, involved in this horror show.
Yes out today in west yorks people are drifting back to proper normal theyv had enough
Realising there is a rightly strengthening outrage at what we are enduring here I am reposting my whimsical new game. I believe laughing at oppression is a valid counter. This is harmless nonsense that even mask wearers can use to mock wearing masks. The numbers are so unutterably low that to do nothing is to succumb to the psychosis.
Supermarket mask ‘pub-cricket’.
For those barefaced shoppers there’s sport to be had to bring a little competitive fun to the supermarket* zombie apocalypse.
Like old time pub cricket it is a game to be enjoyed on the move. Similar to a staring competition the name of the game is to ‘affect’ mask wearers by attitude or glance. Causing a mask to be touched scores 1 point, a ‘pull’ scores 4 and a removal scores 6.
Its a non contact sport where if played correctly the maskees are non the wiser. Much sneak and cunning tactic can be devised to get that involuntary arm in motion!
Best played in pairs but equally good to practice alone. Mirth and merriment for children of all ages!
*can be played wild on the street in larger numbers.
There was a 60s film titled ‘Wild in the Street’. All about teenage rebellion.
I bet they weren’t cricketers! I will look it out. Thanks!
The younger folk in the streets not the chain shopping areas are not giving to much credence to masking. The spar/co op type shops. Let them get on with it the wild bunch that they are!
They made it to Wikipedia:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Wild+in+the+street+film&ia=web
Yes a group were going in to a post office all.masked up , I jokingly asked if they were planning on holding it up
“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
We are at that point with many. Not all. But many.
I think one of the biggest illusions is that the government is motivated to act, and implementing policies, in ‘our’ best interests…this is clearly not the case in many (most?) countries around the world in their response to COVID…
The link between governments acting in our interest is one I don’t grasp. The maskees where deriding the whole political sharade but 12 short months ago. Yet now we are hanging off every word these thugs in suits say.
I do not grasp the mechanism at work to switch from untrusting to trusting.
Good point. Maybe the difference here is that people have been spooked to fear an imminent threat to their lives from an invisible enemy that could strike anyone at anytime.
They are terrified and looking to the “authorities” to help them but have forgotten that these same “authorities” have been lying to them over most things for a long time.
The alternative approach is self-reliance and independent thought and action. But unfortunately seems the majority is just not up to it at this moment.
I recognise what you say. Perhaps my revulsion towards politicians is ‘real’ where in others 12 months ago was a caricature only. I simply cannot reconcile the two. The fearing started the herd mentality at work, which I cannot fathom either. But listen to these grunts in suits to protect me? Ha!
I truly must not be self-aware to appreciate how different I am from the flock. These politicians are not worth spit this year or any year. It’s that simple for me.
If a plague comes then I remain read to take responsible and reasonable action. Otherwise I will continue living my life. They don’t care about me unless they want something from me.
Maybe they never were.
Sadly, few of us are actually self-reliant. As for independent thought, that’s definitely a minority thing!
Sapere aude has gone out of fashion.
To gens Y and Z it is a completely alien concept anyway
Unfortunately the majority of people are wired to follow. If people weren’t awakened by the Iraq War sell job with its constant fear mongering about WMD, they’re surely not able to spot the obvious parallels with this Covid campaign of bollocks and fear. They all believe our Western governments would never do such a thing and tyranny is something that only happens in far away lands run by ‘bad guys’.
I agree, unless they know and prepare us for a bigger danger, which they can’t tell us about yet, see Deep Impact.
If they had acted in the peoples best interest and good faith at the start, they negated that now through their, in the best case sunk-cost-fallacy and cognitive-dissonance driven, actions since then.
And yet their illusions make them terrified and miserable! Talk about the worst of both worlds!
Well Sainsbury’s Brookwood was very unpleasant this morning. Apart from one of the checkout staff (who I naturally gravitated towards after I’d done my shopping), I was the only person in the store not wearing a mask.
Maybe my local Sainsbury’s will be better. I know the Woking area is positively dystopian at the moment, with antisocial distancing and mask notices everywhere.
Cheer yourself up with a game of supermarket mask pub cricket! I caught myself avoiding eye contact in my opressive shop last week… that’s what they want. So fight back with a smile, it makes things better. You are likely to even find a few who are masked but simmering with hatred of it. Keep spirits up.
Defo the best thing yo can do is act normal, smile and be yourself and look people in the eye.
They hate it. They *hate* that some people aren’t afraid, because deep down they know they’re cowards. It’s all projection.
Over here in Greece, this is what many waiters, shop staff and shoppers are wearing. It’s a bit odd but at least you can see smiles and expressions. Of course it does nothing to prevent catching a virus but sort of falls within the law out here.
I have to say that of all the coverings I’ve seen that is the best so far, in terms of still being able to see the face. But we still shouldn’t be wearing anything at all.
Interested in your comment …. on hearing that this mask rule was comming in on 24th and finding that wearing a mask is very unpleasant ( I get dizzy spells and coughing fits after a just couple of minutes) on Wednesday 15th I did a major shop at that particular branch of Sainsburys. No problem going in without a mask at that time, it seemed like ~ 40% customers were masked. I did another major shop there last Wednesday and suprisingly there seemed less customers masked.
Fortunately in my town we have a excellent Co-op & a M&S Simply Food store at the petrol station so I hope that one or the other of those will allow me in without a mask to get milk & bread.
Brilliant! I look forward to the day when I meet another bare face in a super market again. Scotland here.
Keep your courage, Scotties! There will come an end! De-Sturgeonise Scotland now!
Me!
They both have to let you in fran. You have a valid exemption (medical).
There’s a link to an useful toolkit from this page. Sets out what you need to do in case of discrimination
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/07/face-covering-litigation-threats-and-administrative-headache/
Take downloaded the pdf
I did go into the food store in the Knaphill town centre near the garage and didn’t get many looks. They had a table with sanitiser near the door which I didn’t use.
I’m hoping the Burpham Sainsbury’s will be better. It was pretty relaxed last Thursday.
If you want to be cheered up go for a walk in Woking park around 8ish to see all the kids and park goers getting on and enjoying life. At least that is what it was like a week or two ago (I’ve been a few times over the last 2 months).
During this whole thing I have been avoiding large shops due to queues and how they seem to attract the worst kinds of people. The only times I remembered seeing masked people in stores before Friday was when visiting a B&Q and another large store, which I found amusing because they are literally stores where you have stupid amounts of space to distance from each other.
The problem with those lanyards is that the authorities are going to catch on to them eventually, making life hell for people with actual disabilities. If you want to rebel against wearing a mask, then rebel. But hiding behind disabled people is not rebellion.
I don’t have a lanyard, but wearing hearing aids and glasses I could probably get one if I really wanted. But I agree with you, that we need to break the rules properly.
Hearing aids, varifocal glasses, nasal rhinitis, not to mention putting a mask on gives me the frights. I have huge issues with then tangling with the hearing aids and have wrecked a couple of masks due to the straps breaking around my aids. I shall be trying the government issued lanyard tomorrow in Tesco, not sure lanyards really help but will try and get the message out that some of us can’t wear the horrible things.
I agree and understand the reluctance to do so. No one wants stress and threat as part of their daily life.
My suggestion is for people to take these lanyards with them if they like. But pocketed and produced in the event of a question. A security blanket.
I agree with the sentiment we need to protest properly. But understand this is not acceptable for some.
What ‘authorities’? Police have already stated no enforcement, the Karens have no power.
But I applaud your wish to support those with disabilities.
These ‘lanyards’ are somewhat analogous to wearing a yellow star in my opinion.
Why should people for whatever reason have to display a physical symbol to justify getting into a shop ffs?? It’s humiliating and it’s just not right!!
Sue. I agree. You hsve a great point. It is humiliating. Perhaps tgat is why the gov have set this in motion without regulation. We adopt the labeling hidden disability identification within society without a second thought. Perhaps the yellow star regulation will come in. To put in a top down regulation for lanyards would be identical to the yellow star. Are we voting for yellow stars by using a lanyard?
Perhaps people with hidden disabilities are grateful that more publuc are aware and so have greater understanding of issues.
Its a complex issue, yet I think properly protesting is the correct thing to do.
Sadly a yellow symbol is already in the govermental ‘face covering exemption’ badge download versions. It’s a yellow circle with a keep your distance symbol within the circle.
A shiver went down my spine when I saw it. I’m lost for words.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/903453/Exemption_from_face_covering_badge_to_print.pdf
and
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/903452/Exemption_from_face_covering_badge_for_mobile_phone.pdf
Things are wrong.
I agree with that and am doing what Basics suggests and keeping it in my bag to produced if needed. Although I have a legit exemption I am not the sort of person who likes to Make a song and dance about my condition and would not normally seek to be seen as in anyway debilitated. I hate wearing the lanyard because it seems to say “pity me”. On the flip side i do want the special treatment of not having to wear the muzzle!
Wearing a face nappy is more humiliating!
At least the lanyard wearers prove you can shop safely without wearing a muzzle.
I still think the produce it only if challenged is the best approach though.
I agree. The lanyards implicitly concede legitimacy to the government’s abuse of law, whether one intends to do so or not.
If people feel the need for reassurance in case of confrontation, then I would agree with Basic below – take it with you but keep it out of sight unless needed.
The lanyards also cover those of us that experience severe distress at having a covering over the mouth and nose…this is one of the psychological effects on emotional and mental wellbeing.
Yes that is true Azoumi. The point is that lanyards are an imposition in themselves. In a free society they have no place other than to alert a fact that a person may require assistance outside of normal courtesy.
A lanyard is not a way forward to be exempting people from bad laws.
In order to protest this showing a lanyard isn’t helpful. However as I have said I understand the anxiety this causes people and so suggested people carry a lanyard if they wish. Keep it in your pocket and produce if it seems required. That way seems a compromise. It’s just my opinion.
This is what we (husband) and I have decided to do too. We’re keeping cards in our pockets and we’ll only produce them if there’s no other choice. In fact this should not be necessary according to the Government’s own guidelines.
I had made lanyards for us but then we decided for the same reasons as all of you (above) that we don’t think labelling ourselves or anyone else is the way to go.
If a member of the public challenges us we will politely tell them that it’s against the law for them to do so.
Yes and I don’t disagree one bit…it’s just a bit scary when you’re on your own and have to do you’re shopping n stuff…I am more scared of being attacked or something to be honest…I am working towards going bare faced with no lanyard though and the more confident I get the more blatant I will become!
I’m entitled an exemption but tbh I think the government’s lax approach to dishing them out is deliberate. They have basically given the entire population a get out if they choose to take it. Anybody who is anti mask would find wearing one distressing so they don’t have to. Years of people banging on about “hidden disabilities” means most people would be wary of challenging another person . I think the government is actually very well aware masks make no difference to the virus (otherwise places where they must be worn wouldn’t be so random) but they thought it would reassure the most scared. I think they realised for every bedwetter who would go to the shops with a mask a sceptic would chose to stay home and shop on line. A self certified exemption regime enables them to square the circle.
Which basically is what they’ve been doing most of the time. Even our lockdown wasn’t particularly harshly enforced, at least by the government themselves. It was by nasty spying neighbours, but that’s a different story altogether. The police were asked to stop crowds descending on Wales or the Peak District en masse, but day to day stuff was mostly left alone. I drove every day on empty roads between my home and my land to look after my animals, and although I was very wary of being stopped, I never was. The media made a huge deal of everything, but the government didn’t really. Only Matt Hancock and he’s an idiot. I’m not excusing the government by saying this, just looking back and getting some hindsight. Now the mask thing – they have given plenty of ways to get around it, even by putting notices on their own website that you can download. Quarantine when coming back from abroad though is a different issue, and they don’t seem to really want anyone leaving the country and spending money abroad. They are making it deliberately difficult. They’ve pumped billions of £££ into the economy from the bottom up through furlough etc.and… Read more »
Which basically is what they’ve been doing most of the time. Even our lockdown wasn’t particularly harshly enforced, at least by the government themselves. It was by nasty spying neighbours, but that’s a different story altogether. The police were asked to stop crowds descending on Wales or the Peak District en masse, but day to day stuff was mostly left alone. I drove every day on empty roads between my home and my land to look after my animals, and although I was very wary of being stopped, I never was. The media made a huge deal of everything, but the government didn’t really. Only Matt Hancock and he’s an idiot. I’m not excusing the government by saying this, just looking back and getting some hindsight. Now the mask thing – they have given plenty of ways to get around it, even by putting notices on their own website that you can download. Quarantine when coming back from abroad though is a different issue, and they don’t seem to really want anyone leaving the country and spending money abroad. They are making it deliberately difficult. They’ve pumped billions of £££ into the economy from the bottom up through furlough etc.and… Read more »
The nudge unit are clearly behind this and it’s all about depersonalising us. It has nothing to do with confidence but is about instilling the opposite.
I suspect the bedwetters have had 5 months to get their online shopping streamlined and will not go out anyway.
Absolutely correct.
The whole thing, incl.SD, is atbthus stage just about testing the public’s obedience levels and about preventing any opposition arising through the multiplying, untraceable and uncontrollable conversations made in face to face meetings.
I agree.
In Germany and Austria you need a specific medical exemption certificate by a doctor to be able to pass the guards.
Totally agree and exactly what I said to my kids
It’s not just those with disabilities. Read the list of exemptions. One of the exemptions is ‘if putting a mask on would cause distress’ and one won’t know until a person puts a mask on that he or she is suffering distress. Another is if donning a mask will exacerbate someone with breathing problems. Again not a visible disability. Those with (a) mental problem(s). Again, not a visible disbaility necessarily.
I don’t think they should be worn as a matter of course but can be carried and produced when necessary if challenged by shop staff – which shouldn’t happen anyway.
I agree. I don’t blame anyone who does it for an easy life though.
The gvt. are the liars, not me. You don’t beat them by joining them.
I agree with those here who have said that it’s better to defy completely than to use the lanyards, but you have to be prepared for the possibility of confrontation and some people don’t want that.
More to the point, I’m completely convinced that the “authorities” won’t catch on to this, because they’re already aware it’s a farce. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have made the exemptions so broad as to potentially include absolutely anybody and they wouldn’t have made it a self certification process.
There’s clearly a question about usage with regard to the term “lockdown”. For me, the whole point about lockdown is that it is coercive. Reductions in activity achieved by voluntary measures are not lockdown. That’s fundamental for me. Voluntary restrictions are fine, because people can choose to ignore them. Coercive restrictions are wrongful, because they are an abuse of law.
Seems an approriate link to your post: https://www.newchartistmovement.org.uk/
The phrase “lockdown” comes, as you all know, directly from prison jargon. We are all being conditioned into acting as if we are in an open-air prison; which will then get smaller and smaller..
There are rumours that Romania will declare soon a second lockdown. This is an interesting example. They had an early very severe lockdown during several months. The cases decreased.
Mandatory masks early on in several parts of the country. Censorship laws forbidding spreading false rumours about Covid-19 with no right to appeal. Then some easing of measures.
Romania has again rapidly increasing numbers 1000 per day. If the first lockdown was ruinous who is going to pay for the second one? These countries in Europe which instituted a vigorous lockdown early on and were admired for the low case count afterwards as a shining example of lockdown are in for serious trouble. There is a big Romanian diaspora in Europe. Watch out Austria, Germany and Greece. Lots of agriculture workers from Romania in these countries. This just shows the folly of lockdown and you cannot stop a respiratory virus with laws.
Agree 100%. Tegnell and Giescke actually said this way back in March or April. My only caution concerning your argument is that a lot of countries with a low death rate, especially as a percentage of known infections, also persisted in post mortem examinations. Germany springs to mind here. They did stop PMs for a while, but soon returned to them.
‘Romania has again rapidly increasing numbers 1000 per day.’ Cannot italicise sorry.
Tests, cases, hospital admissions what is increasing?
Positive tests are going up and hospital cases will also go up because the ridiculous Romanian government mandated last week that anyone who tests positive must spend al least 48 hours in hospital for “observation”. If you refuse the police will arrest and take you to hospital
Ceaucescu would be so proud
wow that’s draconian! I work with company colleagues in romania – i’ll ask them next week what’s going on. We start our conference calls with an update on the virus in our different countries romania, italy and uk! 🙂
My wife tested positive on Friday and she had to go to hospital last night, she has very mild symptoms and we have enough room for her completely isolate away from me and the kids but she was told she had no choice.
It was an ambulance or a police car
Can one refuse to be tested – or just not ask?
You need to go to a hospital to be tested by the government but a lot of companies here are testing employees and I suppose that is down to your contract. A lot of people are also getting tested so they can leave the country as most of Romania’s neighbors are asking for a recent negative test to let you cross the border, these test are done by private labs
All of the private labs that are doing testing are required by law to inform the health ministry when they get a positive.
That is how my wife got caught, she had a slight temperature and a cough so she got a test at work, while the test was being processed they passed the new law requiring hospitalization and when it came back positive of she went,
On top of that me and the kids need to completely isolate for 2 weeks, if I am caught outside my property I can be fined, luckily I have someone to get food for us
Demand a second test, look what happened with St Mirren coaches
She will get another test in hospital
Results back in 48 hours, head they win, tails you lose
Bad luck on that – my sympathies with you both!
I suspect if you refuse, it will be Black Mariah and disappearance.
Ridiculous. I’m sorry for you and your family.
Yikes!
!!!
So she’s in hospital with a cold?
Basically yes, they are treating her with hydroxichloriquine, so they are not completely bonkers
Wow.
Rebelling doctors then.
Against the Gilead and vaccine lobby, that is courageous and important.
Holy F I am glad I asked. In Europe too.
Just noticed we are hearing zero instances of reasonable actions being taken outside of Sweden. Each new News item is yet another negative story for humanity.
*crosses off list*
😣
I only have the reported cases as per worldometer and no further details.
Maybe this is your operating system, but mine allows one to select text and then click on B/I/U/$ for bold/italics/underline/strike-through.
Thanks. Mobile says no. I think its limited funtionality on a phone.
Yes – makes sense. Sometimes the symbols are a bit impenetrable: sorry if grandmas, eggs and sucking come to mind though!
I live in Romania and the government are already locking down certain areas, the general consensus here is that the government will be reluctant to lock down the whole country because there are elections coming up in September and the anti lockdown sentiment is pretty strong so it would kill the very small majority the ruling coalition currently enjoy
The country locked down really hard, really early with very few cases and now we are enjoying the real first wave, deaths however are still pretty low and almost non existent among the healthy
The main spread seems to be in tourist areas at the Black Sea and mountain resorts so it is possible they could close them down for a few weeks but again, those pesky elections may hold that off
Goddamn it Romania is one of my flee to countries.
Romania is stunning but the government are absolute garbage, they automatically revert to authoritarian policies whenever they can. Plus the president has his sights on an EU position after his last term so he has no interest in supporting the people here. He is scum
I love this guy – Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen – I’ve only just discovered him, but I find him so inspirational. This particular video is from early May.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPkZJRyVps
“Sometimes you have to break the law to be a decent human being.”
Yes, he seems an interesting guy. Would love to know which ship that is at the end of the video!
The official approach to Covid is starting to resemble a descent into Dante’s 9 circles of hell. The question is what if anything can be done? Many people reading Lockdown Skeptics are in agreement about the horror of this nonsense but many people in the Country are OK with all this madness. So what can we do? what should we do?
They’re all OK with this madness until it starts affecting them: losing jobs, unable to get some official paperwork, unable to go on holiday or return from it. Churchill was right about democracy: for large part, people aren’t that intelligent.
Masks have woken a few people, I think once the big numbers of job losses start in the autumn, we will see more people waking up to the fact this has all been a restructuring plan.
Each new opression will gather more realisation something badly is wrong. Let them try gloves. Let’s have Loose women chatter drivel about gloves – waking people up in numbers we can only dream of. Whenever the tipping point is reached it will be a fast reversal of behaviours.
We can take comfort in the knowledge that that tipping point will come. The authorities are rushing into a dystopia on a timescale of weeks, when you usually need years to establish yourself.
Even Lenin had to learn this lesson the hard way.
I watched a video clip several hours ago of Frankie goes to Hollywood on Top of the Pops, 1984. They were all wearing gloves.
The fact that even supermarkets are dead speaks volumes – once more and more shops close and more people lose their jobs, the shit will hit the fan and people will wake up that they’ve been had.
When the furlough runs out. Game over.
I work in public sector too, in Scotland. Really wish somebody would let me back into an office, as I am also sick of having home space commandeered as an office, unfortunately sounds like no prospect any time soon.
Really tired of the ‘let’s all work from home for good’ agenda. Fair enough to give a choice, but lots of people would choose to get back to a normal work environment. Lots of my colleagues feel same. It’s a few noisy people in unions, a few risk averse managers, and a few particularly highly strung individuals who, as far as I can tell are the big fans of the home working.
Working from home is fine for the affluent with a spare bedroom to convert. Unfortunately, they’re the ones clamouring to keep things as they are.
You can ask to see their risk assessment. They have to account for your mental health in terms of isolation. Also your house/home environment needs to fulfil a safe working environment (not always appropriate). Make them work for the madness. If you feel their policy is detriment to your health tell them and force them to do something about it.
Yes. The backlog of paperwork is soon going to hit hard.
If your passport expires in the lockdown queue, does that mean you’ve no valid ID if you don’t drive?
To be honest there’s not much we can do. Don’t stop sending the message but if you take this too seriously it could drive you insane. Best to take an observer role if you can. Eventually people will individually realise what is going on. I hope.
i’m having a nice cup of tea and just waiting for the whole nonsense to blow over
Cornetto?
I wonder whether the Spanish decision might be more significant than we think – it will be a few days before we get a true sense of the anger (when people start getting home, or try to get refunds).
I think it is. It’s the beginning of mass irritation (along with masks, but them not so much as people love to virtue signal).
People will realise that they can’t plan anything any more without fear of having it cancelled at short notice and/or being imprisoned afterwards for two weeks. They will realise we can’t actually LIVE under these circumstances.
Well hopefully anyway. The Comfortably Unbothereds need to be made uncomfortable.
and remember to have fun and enjoy every day
One superb way to have fun is introduce a little Supetnarket mask pub cricjet into your daily routine… !!
Victoria makes yet another excellent point. Have fun. Enjoy. That is where we beat them. Not by becoming unwell from anger. Use the anger to motivate.
Personally I cannot help laughing at the farce, yet I realise the fight is fundamental to our lives.
Just a general comment to multiple replies…. When? When is it that people are “going to realise?” Who are these people who are going to spontaneously break out of mob mentality and have a moment of self-reflection to think, “I’m being an authoritarian cunt.” Do you know how long it took Germans to even contemplate that they may have done something wrong? They basically never did. The ones who lived through it eventually died and were outnumbered by those who did not live through it.
It is affecting them now. And they are loving the martyrdom. The more they bleed for it, the more pious and righteous they will feel. I don’t think anyone has changed their minds during any of this. The silenced have merely started speaking up – and some of us screaming at the top of our lungs.
Totally off topic in one sense but very pertinent in another. At the risk of sounding obsequious I think that the likes of Toby Young, Peter Hitchens and indeed all you who post here and are trying your level best in the real world to push back are doing a tremendous job. In the face of this collective hysteria it can be screamingly difficult to act as we would wish. The power of group think, madness of crowds and the corresponding peer pressure to conform does not make the lives of us sceptics easy. I am lucky in that I have a wife who thinks like me and we are in harmony but my neighbours, most of my friends and some of my family seem to be virus addicts. I am fortunate also in the sense that whilst there can be no one out there who is more sceptical than I my dad passed on to me a temperament that can stand in the face of fear, panic and nonsense and feel, more often than not, pity for those so affected. Don’t forget this and I say it to myself on a regular basis: ‘All it takes for evil to… Read more »
Well said Harry.
Well said indeed.
But we do a lot just by staying sane. It’s a little bit like the concentration camps: the survivors were sustained by a burning desire to see justice on their oppressors.
They hanged Hoess at the entrance to Auschwitz. There is such a thing as justice.
Thanks for the reminder. So true
I grew up in apartheid South Africa and left when I could. I do not like being told what to do or think and will resist things which I think are wrong. We need more people who are prepared to stand up and be counted.
Hear, hear!!! I wish I can recommend this comment more than once.
Hey Harry, you have just lifted my spirits. Many Thanks for those timely words !!!!!!
‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’.
100%
Thanks Harry
I went into six shops on Sunday morning with my ‘mask exemp’ lanyard at the ready in my pocket but did not need to produce it.
If I am ‘reminded’ that I’m supposed to wear one I’ll try “thanks mate/luv/darlin’ I’m exempt, Cheers! “.
The Science and Law article linked by Toby is superb and I highly recommend reading in full.
It is however equally troubling as I do not think this country as a whole, has the cohones or desire to do anything about this.
No wonder we see so few challenges to the current insanity by doctors and the rest of the professional class: what happened to employment law?
https://www.stopthenewnormal.com/british-pakistani-doctors-licence-revoked-for-peddling-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/
“Almost 40 countries have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections over the past week, around double the number that did so the previous week, according to a Reuters tally showing a pick-up in the pandemic in every region of the world”.
At least this will be driving the IFR lower and lower as most asymptomatic, false positives or mild cases plus deaths bottoming out.
Just how low does it need to go though?
Ah yes, Matthew 7:7 ( …. seek and ye shall find ).
I hope they stop this muzzle business soon. I can’t afford to keep going shopping like this.
Have you signed the petition to repeal forced masking?:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/331430
That is extreme anxiety. EXEMPT!
It’s a bit like the real Nazi bit of the lockdown. I was glad when they ended it as then I didn’t have to go out so much.
Ironically, I went out a lot more then!
We did too!
You are a beacon of fine examplehood TJN!
Thank you for your service.
Seriously, it’s costing me money! I went in Tescos yesterday needing nothing but just got some booze, of which I have loads already. Today it was coca-cola and chocolate, which I don’t need. Friday it was milk, which we don’t need as we have deliveries and it went straight in the freezer.
It’s on the books until 23 July 2021. Of course we’re all hoping it’s scrapped way before then!
Johnson says he’s expecting it to be in place until next summer. I’m bored with it already.
The campaign below is by Zed Phoenix who wants to legally challenge the UK cov19 tracking ‘Health’ Passport, which makes acting as a sovereign individual (job, travel, school, or whatever else they want to include) conditional on your being vaccinated and up to date, of course. He runs a media platform govote.org and I found out about his campaign on KeepBritainFree.com (Simon Dolan’s, who is also attempting judicial review of lockdown. KBFis a site worth supporting, as is Zed Phoenix who is apparently now being crushed by social media with government apparently taking an unhealthy interest in his campaign:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/join-the-legal-challenge-to-st/
One wonders whether or not our dear leaders have been reading the life story of Howard Hughes for inspiration on how to control our population.
“Howard Hughes–the billionaire aviator, motion-picture producer and business tycoon–spent most of his life trying to avoid germs. Toward the end of his life, he lay naked in bed in darkened hotel rooms in what he considered a germ-free zone. He wore tissue boxes on his feet to protect them. And he burned his clothing if someone near him became ill.”
https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug05/hughes
I haven’t seen anyone wearing tissue boxes on their feet in my neck of the woods—maybe they’re all in bed!
But if the initial run on toilet rolls when Coroni was just getting started was anything to go by perhaps the next ‘must have’ accessory will be an incinerator.
I will bet you 20 hard earned British pounds that the toilet roll episode was a manufactured event caused by givernment/intelligence/77 brigade/13 signals.
Just a hunch. No evidence. But I would make a bet in it.
I don’t know about the toilet paper, but I couldn’t get damn eggs anywhere for a week or so, and I have three eggs for breakfast everyday; luckily, becuase I eat so much, I usually have about 24 spare and a lot of 12 that I’m eating through, but I did get close to having just three at one time before I managed to replenish… #firstworldproblems
Stand up for eggs!
My butcher explained it all to me, there was a demand outstripping supply issue – eggs went up 5% overnight, haven’t come down. Eggs and flour I can understand the shortage. I may be wrong though. But the central core story of lickdown being a big giggle over toilet rolls? Not buying that, the event had too many positive aspects for the lockingdown priciples. Not least it served to dustract the nation about what was really happening.
Only opinion. But I know I’m right!
Funnily enough, while the supermarkets had no eggs, once I managed to get to the butchers’ on time (the local market shut at stupid time) they had so many eggs they had no idea what to do with them!
Mostly manufactured by the newspapers IMO. Almost all of them had articles about the need to stock up before I had heard a thing elsewhere about loo rolls!
My reply to people about it at the time was along the lines of “well, if you run out of loo roll, you can always just wash yourself, it’s not like you’re gonna run out of water; and if you do run out of water, how are you going to flush?..”
Somehow my grandparents survived before toilet paper was invented.
Mind you their outside loo took the newspaper squares no problem. Imagine what that would do to today’s sewage systems!
No, I think this triggered it…
ha ha
It started in SW3, SW7, SW5 and SW10. First it was removing little Jacinta and Felix from school, then it was nice Mrs Smith-Brown, the teacher who was so brave to spend the entirety of the ER protest on Waterloo Bridge (weather wasn’t always very nice, and at one point they ran out of mung beans, until the nice Arch Bishop stepped in), who felt it appropriate to self-isolate when she sensed – in a Greta sense – a sniffle in the air. Then it was loo rolls at the Waitrose near Gloucester Road. Before long, the cash machines on the King’s Road were all empty. The rest is all history, as they say.
Didn’t the govt themselves tell us to ensure we had at least 2 weeks’ food supply in the house, so that we could self-isolate and not leave the house if we developed symptoms? That will have terrified people into thinking we would be welded into our houses Chinese-style and left to starve to death…
It was because subconsciously the public knew there was a shitstorm coming.
Mass buying of incinerators by the government will probably be the next big thing! Oh, and I have a feeling that a totalitarian government has made some use of incinerators in the past.
Ah but we have hand gel and dettol wipes nowadays!
We used to have an incinerator in our backyard. Everybody had one. That was Southern California in the 40s 50s and 60s.
It was planned that Comrade Shapps had landed in Spain yesterday before the ”essential travel only” + 14 day quarantine diktat was announce, as a PR illusion that ‘we are all in this together”.
In reality;
He and his family get their holiday, unlike many who have had their holidays ruined.
He will have his full payed job to return to and can ‘work’ from his large home and garden – unlike many who will lose their jobs.
But at least the irrationally scared bedwetters can feel safer….
and that a ‘something that must be done’ has been done by a decisive
DominicgovernmentHow many other MPs escaped before the announcement? We all need to be very alert to any hints of hypocrisy, phones ready on camera mode!
Wonder where he is staying? I do hope for his sake that it’s nowhere near me!
https://is.cdc.go.kr/upload_comm/syview/doc.html?fn=159118745823700.pdf&rs=/upload_comm/docu/0030/
This is the important Korean document about problems with PCR pos without being infectious. This document is in English but not very good editing or easy read (I often find this in Asian publications no disrespect meant) but there are some startling things in there. The Korean seems to do a lot of viral isolation of SARS-Cov2 which seems to be very seldom done here in Western countries. You would think viral isolation would be of paramount value in case you want to send a person back to school etc. and many other uses.
I think the weakest link in the mass hysteria and mass testing is the actual PCR test. How reliable is it? Can you use it for isolation purposes on its own? Shouldn’t virus isolation be the gold standard for PCR tests? Why not virus isolation in unclear Covid-19 deaths?
This, right here is the key to undoing the entire scamdemic.
My reading of the report is that after having a confirmed bout with an infection, and isolating for two weeks, a number of people retest positive on PCR. But there is no evidence of an active virus and no evidence of them infecting others. File this under RNA residue that PCR picks up after a successful immune response? Suggests to me that a lot of the “new” cases showing up in this unprecedented PCR test bonanza (now about 1 million test results per day in the US) is basically picking up RNA debris from the first and only outbreak in the US in the spring. This makes sense given we have not yet seen any increase in total mortality for June, when cases went to unprecedented levels and as testing was expanded to include anyone who wants one or needs one to work.
THIS. In the same way they literally have no idea if the PCR test is detecting leftover corona or current corona. They literally have no idea if someone with no antibodies actually was exposed, but innately immune for some reason and didn’t need to produce any. We won’t get started on the pissible detection of ANY ol corona rather than cov-2 specifically. They have no idea about anything and the more they test, the LESS of an idea they have. The tests give a totally false sense of what is going on (or not going on 😉).
Here is a you tube of Zed Phoenix, govote.org who wants to legally challenge the cov 19 Health Passport mentioned below, and which is horrifying in its implications:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvHhgpz1Ig
Here’s the link to crowdjustice to fund the case:its up to 15K + currently:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/join-the-legal-challenge-to-st/
Yes, I was wondering about ‘degrading’.
As for Matt Ridley, well, I have to say that it looks as though he is now approaching senility. He has made a career out of being an optimist, often correctly (e.g. over the asinine global warming scam), but I am afraid that, like Booker towards the end, he has completely lost his hold on reality. The Telegraph article could, for heaven’s sake, have been written by de Pfeffel Johnson and shows that Ridley has roughly zero insight into what is now happening in the UK (and elsewhere).
He’s reverted to Northern Rock days!!
I was also seriously unimpressed by this article on first reading. I thought he’s missing the point – it doesn’t matter if the virus will soon be over, the real nightmare is society’s (and the government’s) response to it, and that just seems to be going from bad to worse.
However, if read from a non-sceptic perspective, of someone fearful of catching/spreading the virus and terrified of a second wave, the article does a good job of pointing out some of the positive findings and developments of the last month or so. But I suspect the Telegraph (one of the more sceptical and critical papers, if not very consistently so) isn’t the best place to get this message out to the wider public. Reading an article like this on the BBC’s website (some chance!) might actually give me hope.
Worth a reminder, for folk who might not feel confident making a stand against muzzles, there is good info here:
http://laworfiction.com/2020/07/face-covering-litigation-threats-and-administrative-headache/
Do click on the Toolkit link.
Thank you, I found that very useful.
This is excellent. It might be worth putting printed copies through some shop letter boxes (after dark?)
Thats really interesting, a friend works in a supermarket and she served a customer who wasn’t wearing a face mask and the next customer told her off for not challenging him. She told him it wasn’t her job to police customers. He apologised tbf but I’ll send her this as the personal liability bit is quite worrying.
Considering that the NHS appears to be fully capable the logical thing to do is open it all up.
But then logic does not come into it when it appears that interested parties are pushing for a vaccine.
In my mind I’m thinking how do we do a force majeure on Parliment and remove the lot. This is a prime opportunity to change. Things like:
Remove hate speech laws (yes even that Iman will get to spout what he likes)
Simplify tax (threshold + 10% for PAYE – Corp tax at 5% up to 10% for up to 2 million then up to 10 million and above)
Remove inheritence tax
Stmp duty to 0.1%
Remove IR35
Remove 16 hr cap on people on benefits who can work part time
Stop all funding of climate schemes – only fund out of standard research budget
Cut the public sector in half – temporary unemployment yes, but then people will have more money, businesses will have more money = larger private sector.
There’s more but you get the picture. Is this the opportunity for once to have ourselves a proper free market economy?
I have thought for a while that one of the underlying reasons for the rationing (via telephone triage, if one can get that far at all with the GP) of health services is that a much lower level of provision will be seen as the new norm. I cannot envisage a return of health services to the status quo ante. Call me a cynic, but it looks like one effective way of pruning costs in years to come.
Definitely. Prior to this, our GP was already only allowing access via telephone triage, and bigging themselves up as being one of the first in the country to do so. They are dead pleased about it all now of course, as they haven’t had to change anything much for covid apart from allowing even fewer people to physically access the surgery than before. Telephone triage access was already planned across the country, covid will just speed up the implementation. I don’t think any GPs will go back to how they were before, ever again.
My friend is a GP. They only see a small number of patients the rest are phone consultations. And she likes it. She said that it is going to be like that now. I am so angry about it.
She also told me that all locums are gone as not needed any more.
Then she isn’t a very good GP. To be fair, most aren’t.
Taxpayers Alliance make the same arguments plus more.
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com
but they are fighting an uphill struggle same as the sceptics as it does not follow the narrative of control every facet of life. having spare cash means they ahem less control over you, be a debt slave with no spare cash each month and you are controlled very effectively.
Additionals:
Public sector pensions – cap at ‘average wage’ for any employee.
Redundancies – payment capped at statutory redundancy pay irrespective of contract terms (negotiated by Common Purpose ‘mates’ for those in the upper echelons).
Our tax system is insane. Every new government makes it more complicated with new rules, exceptions and exemptions.
Inheritance tax is just one of many taxes that make no sense, because wealther people wrap their assets up in trust funds and use deeds of variation to move assets around. Plus the family home exception which discourages older people in big houses from downsizing. If we kept IHT we ought to make it low, around 2% of all assets and remove loopholes and exceptions.
I dont understand employer NI contributions (employers could just buy insurance to ensure sick pay, mat leave etc.. is covered). Why we still separate income tax and NI also make no sense.
If only we had a Conservative government with a large majority.