Another Computer Simulation, Another Alarmist Prediction
Last week, a paper was published in the Lancet saying that re-opening schools would cause a tsunami-like second wave of Covid deaths unless the Government improved its test-and-trace programme. Based on a similar computer simulation to that used by Neil Ferguson et al, the paper generated headlines across the mainstream media, such as this one in the Sun: “‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’ Reopening schools in September risks 2nd virus wave unless test & trace improves as ministers say: ‘There’s more to do’.” The story began:
SCHOOL children returning to class in September risks triggering a devastating second wave of COVID-19 unless test and trace improves, a major new study today says.
Scientists said the UK’s test and trace system needed to be drastically improved as ministers today admitted there was “more to do” on making it work better.
IF the low numbers of contact tracing continue, it could result in another peak in December.
The crisis could be avoided, however – with pubs remaining open and no draconian lockdowns needed – if testing is ramped up and the track and trace system is improved.
The study says reopening schools must therefore be combined with a high-coverage test-trace-isolate strategy.
But how reliable is this study? I asked Sue Denim, the Lockdown Sceptics contributor who has written extensively about the flaws in Neil Ferguson’s modelling, to take a look at this paper for us. Regular readers won’t need reminding that Sue Denim is the pseudonym of a senior ex-Google engineer. Not surprisingly, Sue is unimpressed.
The paper argues that the level of testing, tracing and quarantining must be much higher than it is now in order to “avert a large number of COVID-19 cases and deaths” once schools have re-opened. In this case, a “large number” means a second wave of about 2-2.5x the size of the first, ending in about 320,000 cumulative deaths. That’s the worst case they simulate which still assumes a fairly aggressive contact tracing programme.
This number of predicted deaths is in the same sort of range as the ~500,000 predicted by Ferguson et al, which is no surprise given what the model does. The lower value comes from applying a reduction from some fraction of unlucky PCR-positive people being quarantined.
We already know this modelling approach doesn’t work because it failed to predict the course of the epidemic in Sweden. There is no mention in the paper of having identified any flaw in prior models that led to incorrect predictions, or even any recognition that agent-based simulations have yielded incorrect predictions before.
Sweden kept their schools open the entire time and saw no higher rate of infections amongst children than neighbouring Finland.
As we’ve come to expect from a group of epidemiologists, the papers do not perform this kind of cross-check against real world observed outcomes nor attempt to explain prior failures. There is no feedback loop.
I’ve published Sue’s latest article on the right-hand side as another sub-page of “How Reliable is Imperial College’s Modelling?”, beneath the three other pieces he/she’s written for us. Please comment beneath that page, not this one. Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: One of the largest studies in the world on coronavirus in schools was carried out in 100 institutions in the UK. According to Professor Russel Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of SAGE. “A new study that has been done in UK schools confirms there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools,” Professor Viner tells the Sunday Times. “This is the some of the largest data you will find on schools anywhere. Britain has done very well in terms of thinking of collecting data in schools.” The study, done by Public Health England, is due to be published later this year.
Re-Open Schools, says Harvard Professor of Medicine
The Spectator has published an excellent piece by Martin Kulldorff, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. He says the way to defeat the virus is to aim for herd immunity and points out that such a strategy poses very little risk to children.
With passionate discussions about opening schools, it is good to step back, take a deep breath, and examine what science tells us. To know the effect of smoking, we study smokers. To know the effects of vaccines, we study those vaccinated. Similarly, to know the effects of keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must study the one place that kept their schools open during the height of the pandemic. That place is Sweden.
Sweden never closed day-care centres or schools for its 1.8 million children ages one to 15. Of these children, zero died from COVID-19. The total number of cases is unknown, but the reported number is 468, which is 25 per 100,000. Of these 468 children, eight were hospitalised in an intensive care unit. This means that, whether schools are open or not, children are less at risk from COVID-19 than from influenza, which kills an average of 40-50 children in England and Wales each year. In contrast to influenza, schools are not driving the Covid-19 pandemic, and in Sweden, teachers had the same COVID-19 risk as the average risk among other professions.
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile, some bedwetting headteachers are telling parents they’ll only be able to educate their children for half days. Give me strength.
Love in a Covid Climate
I got an interesting email from a reader yesterday:
Am thinking of getting back onto the dating apps, having recently become single. It made me realise that a key criterion for meeting someone like-minded is that they absolutely must be a lockdown sceptic. If they are pro-mask or pro-antisocial distancing, they will be instantly binned. As I begin my journey back into the dating pool, I will be expressing openly my lockdown views and Covid scepticism on my dating profile. I genuinely think that if I can find a girl as sceptical as me, she must therefore be marriage material! That’s how important (and sadly divisive) this issue has now become. I could never date (let alone build a relationship) with a lockdown zealot, such is my disdain for these virtue-signalling bedwetters!
That reminded me that I’d flagged up the idea of creating a Lockdown Sceptics dating site a few weeks ago. Well, we haven’t done that exactly, but we have decided to devote a page in the Forums to people looking for romance. It’s called “Love in a Covid Climate” and you can find it at the bottom here.
Postcard From Whitby
A reader has got in touch to say he and his wife had a pleasant stay in Whitby. A beacon of common sense amidst all the hysteria, as you’d expect in North Yorkshire.
Whitby was the last place my wife and I visited pre-lockdown so we were determined to go back as soon as we were able. A few days before we went we came across a photo doing the rounds on social media showing hundreds of people swarming across Whitby’s famous swing bridge accompanied by the now familiar comments – “Covidiots”, “terrified locals”, etc. I admit, it made us a little uneasy and we’re both arch sceptics!
When we arrived at the B&B we were pleased to find sensible but not ridiculous precautions in place: breakfast sittings spread out a little more, trays outside the rooms to replenish anything we’d used, lots of hand sanitiser available, and so on. I asked the owners about the photos we’d seen and they were disgusted. The photo of the bridge had been taken immediately after the bridge had been shut to let a boat pass, giving a false impression of overcrowding. Other photos in circulation were not from this year at all but from busy days on previous years! The B&B had actually had cancellations on the back of this stuff. They assured us that Whitby wasn’t like that and, if anything, was quieter than usual for the time of year.
Venturing into the town, we found that they were right. Yes, there were plenty of people about but it was easy to keep your distance if you felt that way inclined (though it was refreshing to see most people making the eminently sensible judgement that fleeting contact outdoors on a sunny day was fairly low risk). Walking around the town in the morning or late afternoon/evening was fine and at no point did we see locals leaping into the road in terror.
That night we ate at a very famous fish and chip restaurant and found, again, sensible precautions balanced with an awareness that a meal out needs to be at least a vaguely enjoyable customer experience. So – the tables had been spaced out a little more (actually creating a more intimate atmosphere), card payments were preferred but not insisted on, some staff chose to wear masks, others didn’t, and a separate entrance/exit had been set up. Otherwise, everything was very relaxed and laid back. Not so much the ‘new normal’ more the old normal with a few adjustments. And that was the theme of our whole weekend: grown-up people taking grown-up decisions and behaving in a grown-up way. After six months of hysterical death porn it gave me just a flicker of hope that common sense will eventually win out. We even booked again for October. Though given that I turn 50 before then I guess there’s a fair chance that Boris might have me in solitary confinement; still, at least the wife should enjoy herself.
Face Nappies To Become Mandatory in Northern Ireland
Bad news for the people of Northern Ireland: face nappies will become mandatory in shops from tomorrow. A reader has the story:
A few weeks ago, the local Executive said that they wanted to encourage people to wear masks in shops rather than force them to. Their aim was to achieve 80% voluntary compliance. They proposed reviewing the situation on August 20th and if there wasn’t sufficient mask use then they would make it mandatory.
The “take-up” of mask use since the initial announcement has been fairly poor from the Executive‘s point of view. From being out and about I would guess about 10% of people in shops were wearing them.
So the public here have been largely unimpressed with the arguments for mask wearing and decided there’s not much point in doing so.
However, rather than thinking that the judgement of the people is something they should consider, the Executive brought forward the date for re-consideration and announced that due to the poor voluntary use of masks they will become compulsory in shops from this coming Monday August 10th.
Another example of a government in this crisis having tunnel vision about a particular course of action and not being able to contemplate anything different despite what the people think.
Lockdown Protests Across the UK
Lockdown protests took place in London, Plymouth, Brighton, Norwich, Cardiff, Belfast, Southampton, Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Manchester yesterday. They were organised by an outfit called “Save Our Rights UK“.
A reader reports from the protest in Manchester:
Our turnout in Manc was around 200, which was matched or surpassed in most other locations. It was very uplifting to partake in a microcosm of the best bits of the old normal with hugs and handshake physical greetings, no social distancing and looking out to a sea of unmasked friendly faces! We had no problems with the police (in fact they were quite friendly). Some of the public we passed were receptive to our messages, and a couple even joined in the march!
Croatian Advice
A reader has got in touch to reassure the anxious Americans who emailed yesterday, worried about their forthcoming trip to Croatia. Doesn’t sound too bad.
Currently in croatia you have to fill a form in before departure which they don’t check on arrival. Masks worn in shops and public transport but quite lax. Don’t see anyone wearing masks outside those settings.
Another reader points out that Gabriel Traveler, the YouTuber and travel journalist, is currently in Croatia and having a fine time. You can view his daily updates here.
Round-Up
- ‘Madness in Melbourne‘ – Jeffrey Tucker, Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research, with a strong piece condemning the draconian measures introduced in Melbourne. You can sign an open letter objecting to the measures here
- ‘Diabetic Amputations Soared Amid Italian Pandemic Lockdown‘ – Lack of outpatient wound care for people with diabetic foot ulceration during the Italian lockdown led to a surge in amputations
- ‘Gatwick puts terminal on ice as axe falls on thousands of British Airways staff‘ – Gatwick’s South Terminal could remain closed until next summer
- ‘Knives out for Hancock over Cobra failings‘ – The charge is that Matt Hancock presided over some unfocused Cobra meetings in the early stages of the crisis, leading to mistakes
- ‘Held hostage by fear: This was the week Britain was meant to get back to work – instead, we’re drifting into economic ruin… and it’s the poor who’ll suffer most‘ – Great piece by Dame Helena Morrissey in the Mail
- ‘Confusing and contradictory data is triggering pointless local lockdowns‘ – Good piece by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor of the Telegraph, pointing out how threadbare the evidence is that we’re on the cusp of a second wave
- ‘‘White privilege’: an elite ideology‘ – Hard-hitting polemic by Tom Slater, Deputy Editor of Spiked
- ‘Smoking and COVID-19 – the evidence gets stronger‘ – Nicotine addict Christopher Snowdon is delighted to find the evidence that smoking renders you less susceptible to COVID-19 is getting stronger
- ‘Half of Covid cases in newly-locked down Preston are under 30‘ – In other words, it’s another false alarm
- ‘How bad is covid really? (A Swedish doctor’s perspective)‘ – Sceptical piece by a Swedish emergency doctor
- ‘Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic‘ – Richard Hobday reminds us that sunlight helped to fight Spanish flu
- ‘How Nicola Sturgeon has secretly massaged Scotland’s coronavirus record‘ – Claims that the coronavirus rate in England is “five times higher” than in Scotland have been challenged by the UK statistics watchdog
- ‘“Sales went berserk!” Eat out scheme serves much-needed help to hard-hit restaurants‘ – Guardian reports on success of ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme
- ‘It doesn’t take a philosophy degree to see that the Government’s reasoning is dangerously flawed‘ – The redoubtable Janet Daley on fine form in the Telegraph
- ‘What future do we have if the woke warriors destroy our past?‘ – Douglas Murray takes aim at the statue wreckers
- ‘The real COVID-19 threat‘ – Good piece by Prof Carl Heneghan in the Spectator
- ‘We are living in a post-truth society‘ – Rod Liddle nails it as usual
- ‘Covid wards empty as virus death toll plunges‘ – Sunday Times reports that the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 96% since the peak of the pandemic, prompting speculation that we may be approaching herd immunity
- ‘Andrew Neil in frame to be new BBC Chairman‘ – If that happens, I might even start paying the license fee again
Theme Tune Suggestions by Readers
It’s a beach bonanza today: “Beach Death” by Car Seat Headrest, “Menace Beach” by Dom Kennedy, “On Evil Beach” by Duran Duran, “I Want To Go To The Beach” by Iggy Pop and “The Beach Is Free” by Billy Bragg.
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 (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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.
Forums Back Up and Running
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 have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open. Initially, they became a spam magnet so we temporarily closed them. However, we’ve found a team of people willing to serve as moderators so the Forums are back up and running. And we’ve added a new dating section – “Love in a Covid Climate”. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I thought I’d create a new permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Sept 23rd to Oct 2nd). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from eBay here and an “exempt” card that looks like as if it’s been issued by the NHS for just £2.79 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here (now over 27,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
Meanwhile, the public health authorities in Denmark are maintaining that there’s no need to wear masks. This prompted Berlingske, the country’s oldest newspaper, to complain recently that Danes had positioned themselves “to the right of Trump”. Danish health officials responded by reminded the paper that there’s little conclusive evidence that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory viruses. Zero Hedge has more.
Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
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go to google and put in three random digits followed by ‘new cases’ and see what comes up.
Repeat this with ANY different three digit number.
See what happens each time. What are the odds! Every random three digit number returns gives a series of “news articles” with the exact same number of cases🧐
Hahaha! If I type in 999 it comes up with:
Does Googling Any 3-Digit Number Followed by ‘New Cases’ Reveal COVID-19 Conspiracy?
Also : 1 Jul 2020 – Philippines confirms 999 new coronavirus infections
If I had time, I’d do this for numbers 1-999, just to see if I can find a number that doesn’t work (how many variations are there? I am a bear of little brain when it comes to mathematics).
There are 999 variations in the in the numbers 1 to 999.
Ha! Thanks Rowan. Of course there are. Told you I’m no good at maths…
It is very odd isn’t it!
The fact checking article seems to make sense of it mathematically:
“We have not typed each of the 900 three-digit numbers (100-999) into Google followed by “new cases,” …
… If each of the 50 states [US states] issued daily reports about COVID-19 cases for 200 days, that would mean 10,000 reports could contain a three-digit number of COVID-19 cases. There are approximately 19,500 municipal governments in the United States. If every one of those governments reported a daily rise in cases over this 200 days, that’s an additional 3,900,000 reports that could contain a three-digit number of COVID-19 cases. If you factor in local and national newspapers and websites (we’ll use 13,000, the number of daily newspapers in circulation in 2014; the actual number is likely much higher due to an unknown number of online news websites), that’s an additional 2,600,000 reports about COVID-19. “
This fact checker is snopes.. I have not looked at Snopes for a long time but i recall from way back that it was fairly reliable at debunking myths and other conspiracy claims
Snopes is an establishment outlet, c.f. wikipedia.
It’s also literally two people sat in their front room (Husband and wife team) — from which they attack “trolls in their basements”
Maybe they’ve hired someone to help them now 😂
And who funds them so handsomely one wonders, George…?
There actually divorced he was screwing around with someone he met on a pron site. Lol they have been charged as well. If you find the plandemic part 2 movie they talk about those 2 idiots. Lol
Thanks for that.
— https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/
Yeah 666 new cases in Spain on the 14th July (and quite a lot of other locations around the world too).
That’s Beastly.
The Devil’s in the Details there.
I came across this a few weeks ago, and the mathematical problem that underlies this is called the coupon collectors problem. If you do the maths of it, given the probably hundreds of thousands of similar articles that have been written, it is actually not all that surprising that there is at least one article with xxx number of cases.
I heard if you go to Google and type in Google that it breaks the internet!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news-review/coronavirus-what-if-it-were-just-a-horrible-dream-ht2wzgtv6
Coronavirus: what if it were just a horrible dream?
We could wake up in a cold sweat and vow never to fall asleep again!
Paywalled unfortunately – but sounds like a good Quentin Letts article!
I’ve literally just woken up from a disturbing dream.
having read your comment after Steve’s I’m a little dizzy to say the least
I’ve had one Covid nightmare. Settling down in the barbers chair as he puts the plastic bib thing on me I open my eyes to see The Dentist coming at me with a B&Q type power drill.
I screamed “I only came for a haircut !” and then woke up.
I just had a crazy dream last night where alien craft were going about laying waste to my home town, knocking down high rises and pulverising everything in sight. On the ground I had to confront one of the bast***s and killed it with my bare hands.
I woke up and thought of face masks for some reason. That I find quite disturbing!
Soft and squidgy, or crunchy and hard ?
If only
The government know it’s all over, prison visits resume next week.
Staff are more worried about visitor born drugs from which prisons have been Covid free.
So I could visit a convict but, because I’m in a mocked-down area, I can’t visit a member of my family?
Seems that way Cheezilla though Social Distancing is always d’rigour with prison visits, unless you’re delivering drugs to y’ homies.
Yeah, I mean… you pretty much just explained why it makes sense.
I continue to be confused on all this track and trace rubbish. As somebody living alone I can still safely say that since the start of lockdown I have never been within 1m of anybody at all for 15 minutes or more and rarely within 2m. That includes several pub meals and quite a few trips on trains and the tube. I could name none of the people I have been near, complete strangers including countless ones in Tesco. If I advertently had left my details at one of the pubs I visited and got a call from the T&T team (which I would probably ignore as an unrecognised number) and they told me to self-isolate I would treat that as an unreasonable request on the basis that even if I had been in the same pub as that anonymous person the chances of me picking up the virus from them is practically zero. Does it do anything to reduce the spread of the virus, practically zilch.
I’ve been within two metres of about 4,000 people since lockdown (enclosed), still here to tell the tale
Likewise karenovirus. Living my life as normal and not even a sniffle!
Same here! Couldn’t even stop biting my finger nails all this time. I should have caught it ages ago.
Covid-19 has always been a Bill Gates scam and is nothing more than influenza rebranded. The real danger will be Bill’s depopulating vaccines.
Note that I said ‘for 15 minutes’ which was the original definition of social distancing and that used by the now failed mobile phone apps. That limits it to my train journeys into London and pub lunches (both around an hour) and the queues outside Tesco when they used to have them. It gets even more bizarre when you take some of the pubs into account which have separate indoor and outdoor eating areas – I am very unlikely to have caught it from somebody sitting outside when I am inside, but I don’t expect the pub T&T takes that into account.
I take your point davews, my contacts would be between 5 – 30 minutes in enclosed spaces.
Incidentally I have two none infectionsious co-morbidities for which I did not get a letter from my GP telling me to shield for three months.
Must be wanting to get rid of me though I only trouble them once or twice a year.
You’re very unlikely to catch it wherever you are. It has packed and left, just like influenza does every spring, what a coincidence. A positive PCR test means nothing at all, but that obviously suits the bunch of criminals, that are masquerading as a government.
Well also as the person you were supposedly within 2m of who tested positive, if asymptomatic, has about a 6.5% chance of actually being infected with SARS2, and a very low chance of infecting anyone else with it.
If she was symptomatic, the chances of her having Covid having tested positive are much higher– about 94%. But if she was symptomatic you would have noticed. And she probably wouldn’t have gone to the pub.
The whole T&T is a complete charade, total political theatre, nothing more.
Yes, theatre. It’s a fashionable way to pretend you can control the virus while not wrecking the economy, but I think the numbers you’d need to test daily to properly suppress would need to be in the millions, and we’re nowhere near that kind of capability. By the time you’d ramped it up, you’d have herd immunity.
People point at Germany and South Korea’s “good” outcomes as evidence of TTT working, but the case for that seems weak to me.
How can it work when antibody studies have repeatedly shown that for every known case there are 5-10 cases that go undiagnosed?
You’d have to test almost everyone, daily, forever
Several times a day, but it will all stop as Bill Gates rides to the rescue with his world saving and global depopulating vaccine. I can hardly wait.
While I share your dislike of Gates and seriously question his motives. What exactly do you mean by de populating vaccines? I come on here for rational discussion not more fevered hysteria. How exactly will Gates use this vaccine to de populate? Where is your evidence? Be sensible.
Maybe start here ?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates-and-the-depopulation-agenda-robert-f-kennedy-junior-calls-for-an-investigation/5710021
Thank you. Yes, Kennedy is a master of the subject and the corrupt pro-vaxxers absolutely hate him for exposing their almighty scam.
The Gates philosophy is to reduce the family size of families in “the third world”, their logic is that people now have lots of children to compensate for the ones that die from disease, if they pay for vaccinations and “health care” then they will not need to have lots of children, just one or two. This is their official stance, and they have a clear goal to reduce the world’s population by 15-20%.
Some people say that the vaccine will have stuff in it that can reduce fertility in males and females and even that there is a vaccine for a specific gender, one for men and another for females.
Gates’s polio vaccine has left 496,000 Indian children with a measure of disability and it has killed many others. Eighty percent of all polio cases now come from the vaccine that Gates has been pushing on the third world.
I’m well aware that he is one of many powerful and influential eugencists operating in the world. I think I have said as much on this feed before. I think many ‘ordinary’ people would agree that the world is overpopulated and would support the reduction of the worlds population especially in the third world. Oddly they’re often the same people that seem so terrified of this virus and dying in general. Obviously they want there to be less people, just not them! I always thought these viruses where nature’s way of correcting the balance. Sadly our society has become perverse about death, namely to stay alive is more important than to live and die well. I just question the notion that this vaccine is going to be used to de populate. Where have you been the last 50 years, we’re doing a pretty good job of that without secret killer vaccines! Why do you think mass migration is necessary?
Bill Gates was brought up as a eugenicist and has made no secret of the fact that he believes the world to be massively overpopulated. Now why would he want a vaccine that actually saved lives?
Cases mean nothing at all. The RT-PCR test is totally unfit for purpose. It will always throw up false positives and on that basis Covid-19 can never go away, which seems to be the plan, until the vaccine.
Yes because if you’re trying to find all the asymptomatic cases how do you do that? There are about 30,000 of them, but distributed all over the place. You would basically have to test everyone.
If you’re only trying to find symptomatic cases then what’s the point? Although now only about 10% of people with cough/cold/fever etc. actually have Covid (and 90% other viruses) who cares? Anyone who’s ill can stay out of trouble and tell their friends. It doesn’t really matter what virus it is.
It can work if you’re tracking one or two small outbreaks in a country that’s genuinely unexposed like South Korea because then you basically know when to start. So as you say the idea is to pretend we’re South Korea and we’re in control. But it’s a complete joke.
That’s why Tweedledone and Tweedlevee sensibly advocated herd immunity from the beginning. They knew we’d never have T&T capacity.
They even encouraged it by allowing the football matches and Cheltenham to proceed.
They were certainly “got at” – from several sides it would seem!
Testing for an illness that doesn’t exist is the real joke.
And the new local lockdowns reinforce that to pick up an infection you need close contact, likely domestic. Picking up any sort of infection in a shop, public transport or gallery is almost impossible. Which makes me so angry Boris didn’t have the balls to stand up to this nonsense!!! Time for business leaders to speak out – they are the only people who are going to get this turned around!
Boris was instrumental in creating and perpetuating this nonsense, at least in the UK
He has shown not a shred of interest in standing up to anything
If you think back to the ash cloud and the suspension of all aviation, it took Willie Walsh of BA to ignore the government and he sent 13 long haul flights into Heathrow to prove it was safe to fly.
The government had to back down.
I think this is different though and I think there are deeper forces at work and that approach won’t work
The 2 meter social distancing guidance was brought in exclusively to pave the way for bluetooth based social distancing apps. These apps are a key demand of the global cabal that is driving this Corona Circus, the health passport. Big data gets is way and piles of cash. We loose our freedom and all our rights. Bastards.
I have had a Nokia tiny mobile phone since about 2009 (not even had a new battery in it) on which the text has become hard for me to see, necessitating putting on my glasses every time someone texts me (rare fortunately). As my husband has recently upgraded his smartphone (must be at least the 3rd time) I was going to have his old one simply because it would be easier for me to see the text. I had no intention of having awful things like Wattsapp on it as then people would be contacting me much too often. However…… I am now quietly forgetting about the smartphone (it’s a pfaff sorting it out for me to use anyway) as I am thinking that having one might be the beginning of a slippery slope to being tracked and traced and goodness knows what.
Try a Doro 2404. I have one of these, big buttons, large text.
I’ve still got, and use, my old Nokia stupid phone, much easier to text, phone and keep track of things, costs next to nothing.
Track and trace is simply a way of bringing in a more aggressive police state. Imagine a dawn raid to collect someone the authorities don’t like. Whisked away and likely not seen again if you don’t conform.
Appalling misrepresentation of Tegnell’s words here
The Guardian: Sweden’s Covid expert warns UK: opening and closing schools would be disastrous.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/09/swedens-covid-expert-warns-uk-opening-and-closing-schools-would-be-disastrous
Shameful. The media systematically misrepresent what Tegnell says.
A few months ago the headlines were that he admitted Sweden’s strategy was a mistake and should have done more what other countries have done. What he actually said was simply that they had made mistakes, particularly not dealing with nursing homes quickly enough, but remained confident that their strategy was the right long term approach.
The “problem” with Tegnell is that he is thoughtful, transparent and open to self-criticism. The way he is systematically misrepresented shows how disgusting the media is and how impossible they make it to have honest, transparent public figures who don’t measure every word.
The Grauniad is heavily funded by the Bill Gates Foundation. Absolutely everything they publish about this crisis reflects, and is tainted by, that simple fact. The rag is a wholly bought-and-paid-for propaganda arm of the vaccine industry.
Yes, the Guardian is indeed a Gates mouthpiece, and so is the BBC which has also taken the Gates shilling.
I’m quite sure most teachers are quite happy for schools to reopen. It’s just a vocal few that claim to be speaking on behalf of all of them that are resisting.
As is too often the case, the vocal, belligerent minority, who claim to speak for everyone, get a disproportionate amount of attention and give a completely distorted view of reality.
Very probably you’re right.
Again and again I observe that the vast majority of people behave as old-normally as they possibly can.
They got a good kicking on the Daily Mail comments in Toby’s roundup link.
Yeh – but getting a kicking from the Bile is a mark of sanity and intelligence 🙂
Reposting this as the new thread now up and running.
Houston, we have a problem:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-only-half-of-britons-say-they-would-get-a-vaccine-poll-reveals-12045605
Solution: let’s just keep banging away at the ‘young people, it’s you who are killing the grannies’, and they will be shamed into getting the untried, untested vaccine and risk their lives, not just their freedoms, to save granny!
On that front, I do hope the Preston city council lead and deputy lead have been adhering to lockdown and saving their mothers. They are a disgrace and should be ashamed of themselves. As should anyone who is seeking to blame young people for deaths of the elderly, who have been murdered in the main by our wonderful NHS. Grandad, by the way, is likely to be among the 16,000 or more who have died from other causes in being denied treatment (heart attacks, strokes, various cancers).
Update on the Oxford vaccine. Suggestions of a dispute between Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill at The Jenner. The wheels are starting to come off?
Any links to what the dispute is, please?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8607849/Top-Oxford-vaccine-scientists-ethics-row-infect-volunteers-coronavirus.html
I was speaking to a nurse, who agreed that rushing through mass vaccinations would be very dangerous, as it could be years before any damaging effects were seen. She said she would not want to be vaccinated with such a dodgy vaccine herself, but feared she would lose her job if one were on offer and she refused. Surely doctors and nurses should be saying very loudly that if “safety” is what the population want a rushed vaccine is not going to deliver it, and refuse to be instrumental in putting either their own or other people’s health at risk. “First do no harm.”
Medical staff routinely refuse annual flu jabs despite coming under pressure to do so.
Flu has not been sold as a “killer virus”. This time it may well be different. My friend certainly thinks so. After all, this particular vaccine is being sold as the solution to all our problems. I am seventy-seven. I have ignored the yearly invitations to be vaccinated against flu, and my non-immunised state has not prevented me from taking part in normal life. I have a feeling it won’t be so easy if it’s a Covid vaccine that’s on offer. Non-compliance will probably be punished by restrictions on movement and on participation in normal life.
A “new” virus was a good trojan horse – no-one would have bought this madness for flu. But they may do now.
Just drafted letter to GP: Dear Dr *** Coronavirus vaccines It is alarming that virtually untested vaccines are being rushed through in a panicked attempt to stamp out Covid-19, with the government ordering millions of doses from more than one candidate laboratory even before their products have been fully tested. As you know, vaccines cannot be considered safe until they have been tested repeatedly and over long periods of time. Even with the normal period of testing, tragedies occur – as, indeed, they do with other drugs mistakenly licensed as safe by the MHRA. It therefore seems rash in the extreme for the government to be proposing mass vaccination of the population with something that cannot be guaranteed free of serious long-term side effects, or even capable of significant protection against the virus. To date, no attempts to produce vaccines for a coronavirus have been successful, and even the flu shot now regularly administered is, I understand, at most 60 per cent effective. It is particularly surprising that the vaccine is being presented as the only way out of repeated whack-a-mole lockdowns at a time when, as stated by Dr John Lee, the most common symptoms of those testing positive for Covid-19 appear to be… Read more »
May I copy and paste this wonderful rendition and summary of the current madness? In hope to spread a message…
I have two ‘flu dangerous’ co-morbidities Gillian; self induced (smoking) COPD and asthmar (LOTF lol), ghastly when a child and I really Did Not want to die of Coronovirus19 induced asthma attack as foretold by the government and press.
I am happy to take my chances with self immunity conferred by frequent and full on contact with the general population.
So am I – and have been, since the start of the hysteria. I just hope I’m not going to be faced with travel restrictions, etc.once a vaccine is on offer …
Travel restrictions will be nothing as compared to what the vaccine is intended to do. If enough people say no to Gates’s depopulating vaccine, they will be unable to proceed with silly restrictions. Now is the time to firmly say no and of course that includes masks. Throw them away.
This is where we must draw the line and put up a serious fight.It’s my final line in the sand for sure
The time to fight is right now before they try to enforce their depopulating vaccine. This means no more masks. Refuse to wear them and see what happens, nothing in my case. This is a fight for our lives both metaphorically and literally.
Still, musn’t grumble …
“ rushing through mass vaccinations would be very dangerous”
This is patently the case. You have to be totally brainwashed or terminally dim (or both) not to understand this, and the necessity of proper double-blind (preferably) RC trialling – which, by definition takes time.
Of course – that leads you to an obvious fact : that vaccines cannot be a solution to Covid-19 – even if there were to be an on-going problem. (As opposed to the current manufactured scare)
Kerrrchingg!!!
And surely, testing on young adults who are normally asymptomatic with CV19 can’t prove whether the vaccine mitigates the symptoms?
They would have to test on some old folks to prove effectiveness.
Hmmm. Methinks the youngsters will “prove” the vaccine is a roaring success against covid – though the side-effects will probably be overlooked, as they have been with statins and similar cash cows.
Even testing vaccines on fit healthy young adults has produced some short term problems and hospitalisations.
The real danger though, will be the longer term effects on ordinary people and this aspect is not part of the trials. In any event, why are we supposed to believe that utterly corrupt Big Pharma, is honest enough to carry out its own trials and all the more so, as there is no risk whatsoever to vaccine suppliers. Governments in the UK have already agreed to fund all claims against Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing companies.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, it’s simply a bloody shambles.
A cynic writes –
You have to be totally brainwashed or terminally dim (or both) to believe proper double-blind RC trialling takes place for other vaccines.
There is, as you say, no proper double blind testing of vaccines and they are never tested against a true placebo.
To make things even cushier for the vaccine makers, governments will carry the costs of all claims made against them for the harm their vaccines will cause. Who wouldn’t be a featherbedded manufacturer of vaccines on those easy terms?
I think you’re right since I can’t imagine they test them against a control group who have never had any vaccines even if they could find enough unvaccinated people.
The vaccine was always meant to be very dangerous, that is what the whole Covid-19 fiasco is all about.
Thanks, you beat me to it!
Sources say trials of the vaccine – codenamed ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 – found two-thirds of recipients developed headaches and a fifth became feverish.
I’d rather risk covid, thanks very much.
The enemy may be invisible but for Seán McPartlin, volunteering to take part in the Oxford vaccine trial is ‘like going to war’.
Despite the potential risks, the 22-year-old Oriel College student, pictured, said: ‘When soldiers, often no older than boys, go to war, they accept death from the moment their boots touch foreign soil.
‘They accept it because they know what they are doing is just and because it has to be done for the safety of their loved ones back at home. But while many wars are often unjust and fought for the wrong reasons, the same cannot be said for Covid.
Quick, grab the sick bucket!!!!!
Yup, the “going to war” is a very apt quote given the picture in today’s post :-))
Would it be this Seán https://uk.gofundme.com/f/get-sean-to-oxford ?
I urge everyone to write to their MP, asking them to rule out voting for any measure that would make a coronavirus vaccine complusory. Mine refused. I think we need to get this information out to the public. If I had millions I would fund a video showing people – adults and children – being held down by goons while a “doctor” injects them. People think it couldn’t happen here – but if that’s the case, why would my MP refuse to condemn it now?
Agree. Did you see this too – likely linked, and also worrying – a Trojan horse entry?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/09/cross-party-coalition-seeks-revamp-legislation-crack-fake-cancer/
Under the guise of stopping fake cancer treatments, we could utilise this reasonable excuse to stop claims that the vaccine is dangerous etc.
I would fully expect the government and their wicked allies to resort to every trick in the book if they sense they may start losing the argument
How would that be different to the current state of play, Julian ?
Can’t read this because of the pay-wall. How does the vaccine link in ? The policy could be multi-purpose, but (off topic) the pharmaceuticals are very keen to stop cheap, successful treatments for cancer cutting in on their huge profits from chemo, and they lump respectable treatments in with quackery. Two people are currently in prison in France for wickedly curing cancer patients, without side effects, and without killing any of them – see https://in-this-together.com/gcmaf/. You even have to word things very carefully if you try a natural treatment – https://cancer-acts.com/our-story/. Nobody is allowed to cure cancer, except by the orthodox (and extremely lucrative) methods.
This government is at war with its own people – except most of the people haven’t realised it yet.
Agreed but what is their purpose ? What is that old saw about eliminating all the impossible and what is left must be the answer ? Selling us to The Aliens ?
Or to technocracy ? Recently found this website: https://www.technocracy.news/
No just the Americans
forced medication
who is your mp?
Julie Marson
They won’t make it compulsory you just won’t be able to fly without a Vaccine Certificate, or work in a public facing job, take driving lessons, put your child in school, eat in a public place, get medical attention . . .
That’s the most likely scenario – de facto compulsory
If the percentage of refusers is high enough, the country won’t be able to run without us and they’ll be obliged to drop it.
I used to work for a CFS/ME support Group. We knew that hepatitis B vaccine caused a really nasty form of ME. Many teachers and health workers were affected as they were asked to take this vaccine as a condition of employment. Dr Charles Shepherd of the ME Association Charity alerted the Dept of Health in 1996 and tried to get vaccine damage compensation for the victims. No recognition of this occurred and the “Yuppie Flu” campaign was intensified in the media.
If you are vaccine injured you have to prove that the vaccine caused your injury. How can you do this when our government will not release funding to do this research?
Do you know how much of a delay there can be in between vaccination and side-effects happening, Kate ?
Hi Gillian, This is not known, however the best research suggests that ill effects can show up several years after vaccination. The best research was done in France, by Gherardi and Authier. They called the condition macrophagic myofasciitis. In short, the aluminium adjuvant is walled off in the muscle but travels over time through the body inside white blood cells, eventually accumulating in the brain, where it causes fatigue, neurological symptoms and pain. This research started in 1998 and continued until about 2017. It has been shut down despite objections from the researchers and despite the quality of the research and gravity of the implications of this discovery. Gherardi and Authier found that a third of their chronic fatigue patients had MMF – a vaccine adjuvant caused disease.They diagnosed this with a muscle biopsy in the arm. If you search you can find many papers of theirs, here is a link to one.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4246686/
They will just make so many restrictions that most of us have to accept it for whatever one affects us most, just a few at a time, like resident parking permits (o/t, sorry).
The mask edict is probably a test to see if we comply.
Might be better to lobby GPs rather than MPs. They must know perfectly well that a vaccine that hasn’t been tested long-term is not safe. They should refuse to be complicit in administering it.
That’s a super idea. Thanks! I will write to my surgery.
Me too. I’ve given up on my MP. He was deputy chief whip in the Blair government.
My MP used to Alan Hazlehurst. He got caught up in the expenses scandal, claiming for gardening. But if you wrote to him, you got a proper signed letter back. I have contacted my current MP twice: no response.
My understanding is that if you write a ‘proper’ (snail mail) letter your MP is obliged to respond. Apparently so few people do write to their MP that around nine people in a month writing about the same issue is seen as an overwhelming concern….if it’s done by ‘proper’ letter it’s probably considered an immediate and urgent concern and will be raised in parliament 🙂
I contacted my MP the day after lockdown asking to clarify my position in law: I was asked about ‘is it business critical vs nation critical’ but ‘I’m sure you’re doing everything possible to ensure….’
Confirmed to me that spoiling the ballot at the last elections was politically critical!
My GP Surgery sent me a text advising that the Winter Flu Jab would be in the XXXX Business Centre, didn’t say it was actually the Cattle Market, just sayin’.
They are broken reeds. But…
Can you sue a broken reed?
Going by the last six months it will be done by Boris decree and MPs won’t be involved in the process.
No, that’s us wicked unbelievers.
BBC R4 9am News was reporting 16% Vaccine Sceptics because Conspiracy Theories.
People who listen to the BBC are conspiracy theorists in the truest sense of the term.
Ha ha!
Have you seen this on the BBC website ?
How they envision our dystopian Covid future
https://www.bbc.com/news/resources/idt-dc2d6e2d-3ab4-42de-8d03-bb7eda5fff8e
UK Column ripped this to shreds on Friday.
The beeb seems very happy with its dystopian predictions.
Yeah, but I persist in the interest of fellow Lockdown Sceptics since I believe I maybe immune.
Indeed they turned into mass murderers and are instrumental in child abuse going through the roof. They are also hellbent in destroying the economy with untold misery to come.
Which is why all these insane measures must continue and even intensify. Basically, life must be made as miserable as possible for the population right up until the vaccine arrives and they can then hold out the carrot of everyone being allowed to get back to normal.
The commentary on dating apps was interesting given that some apps are promoting the lockdown and warning people not to meet. Thus a culture of judgement builds and ways to report miscreants are established. Some apps are suspending profiles or issuing bans for breaches of social distancing rules.
WLTM Lady who likes PPE and social distancing. Oooh year…..face nappies and gloves…..so sexy.
Don’t joke… our bloody kids are going to develop these fetish’s by the truckload
Look, my plastic gloves are PINK….Droooollll
Well, there was someone on here the other day who said she thought the black masks were sexy. (I’d said I thought they looked sinister.)
That was me but I also said ‘… in a nazi/antifa kind of way’.
Would have thought the sarc was obvious.
I can tell you that these messages are not stopping people meeting. Everyone I talk to on them is more than happy to meet up.
Just trying to avoid getting shut down perhaps.
I’m sure that plays a big part, but I can think of at least two apps who have community moderators who moralise about it endlessly and even shut down fora that they think might promote actually real world meetings.
How do you fight mental depression?
This psychosis is killing my mood.
Concentrate on your interests and hobbies. For you it looks as if music is the thing, because of your piano icon. For me it’s reading history and learning Classical Greek. Struggling through a few lines of Homer takes me a thousand miles and many centuries from the current madness.
As Graham says, interests, hobbies and sports. I hit people with swords (and get hit myself). Just spent a happy couple of hours doing that this morning and feel much more positive for it.
Golf keeps me sane and I wouldn’t watch the bbc.
I’ve been reading Tolstoy – managed to finish Anna Karenina and currently plowing through War and Peace, the scale of the plot and characters do force you to concentrate to keep track of the narrative.
Tolstoy also points out that people are inherently complex, there are difficulties in life but in the end, the difficulties will pass and that good wins in the end.
I have found reading War and Peace while sitting through tedious zoom chats stopped me from throwing my laptop out of the window.
Exercise, sleep, and nutrition are crucial.
I’ve found playing chess helps to calm my frazzled nerves. Only against a computer, though. I like being able to make errors and undo them without the embarrassment of a human opponent.
I’m a rubbish player in all aspects (positioning, noticing threats, anticipating ahead), but I might be improving over time. I can definitely recommend the all-absorbing focus of it all – plus it’s very abstract so a welcome respite from human society.
There are two articles which have been promoted by WHO as the most importance evidence for the use of masks in community settings during the C-19 pandemic. This policy change has then been adopted by most countries and I think these two articles are the cornerstones in this new agenda The first article was the metanalysis in Lancet https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7263814/ This was essentially a rehash of previously observational studies and had no RCTs for C-19 and it has been posted severe criticism earlier on that article. The second article was https://www.pnas.org/content/117/26/14857 “Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19”This is interesting. The main authors are Chinese working in US universities and the sole non-Chinese is Mario Molina. He was a previous Nobel laureate working in La Jolla,CA and I suppose his name was put in to increase the respect of the article.(The same “respect” has not been shown to another Nobel Laurate Michael Levitt heavily criticizing the pandemic response in some aspects). The article looks superficially impressive. But it is a total fraud. A letter from 45 epidemiologists posted a letter just some days after it was published and requested the article to be withdrawn immediately.https://metrics.stanford.edu/PNAS%20retraction%20request%20LoE%20061820“We are… Read more »
This is a common occurrence where a paper is publishsed and is taken as fact, in full contradiction to how other safety related issues are progressed.
Policy is made before any forethought, before any Trust but Verify. And then is there any corrective actions taken and people punished? Not a chance.
We live in the Age of the Theorists. Very often they will fit reality to their models.
Molina is on the paper because as a member of NAS he could get it published via PNAS’s Track 1 process (member submissions), rather than having it properly peer-reviewed. You can tell this because the reviewers are named in the paper. This is a procedure that is unique among academic journals.
Thank you for this revealing information.
Wonderful photos at the end of today’s blog that pretty much sums up the courage of our forefathers and the current generation of bedwetters. Not long before Armistice Day on 11th November. Are Boris and our Queen really going to wear face masks at the Cenotaph? These commemorations could well turn into a flashpoint between pro and anti-maskers. And I shall not be one to disrespect the dead of the two World Wars by turning up in a face mask, and not singing. [Too, the establishment Churches in this crisis have shown nothing but moral cowardice – just when strong leadership was called for, and the need to maintain a separation between Church and State. Where is their support for the poor, particularly those in the Third World who will die in their hundreds of thousands because of the trashing of the global economy? Shame on them.]
I imagine they will cancel any official 11th November gatherings but they can’t stop individuals gathering at cenotaphs and singing VERY LOUDLY!!!
Went to a coffee & cake place on the beach in Eastbourne yesterday. I’ve been there a few times before because the coffee is very good, and there’s been a very nice Polish girl there whom I assault with my very bad Polish. They do like people taking the trouble to have a go though, I find. She wasn’t there this time and the place had sprouted many more mask instruction signs. It’s tiny, so only one inside at a time. You pay for your order and then take it to the table area outside on the beach.
I step two feet in.
“Have you a mask?” No greeting.
“No”
“Well, can you wear one next time you come?”
“I don’t wear a mask”
Pregnant pause. This does not compute. It’s not “ok”, or “sorry”, or not even “I’m exempt”
Cogs whir – but do not mesh.
“Oh. What would you like?”
There is a clue here. Do not relax eye contact. Maintain throughout. They are on very thin ice, and they know it. I went back for a second coffee. We parted sort of friends, but she looked as though she wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit.
I apologise in advance for breach of your copyright, but I’m nicking that one;
“Cogs whir – but do not mesh.”
I love you – in a brotherly sense!
Went to the Royal Mail sorting office this morning to collect an undelivered package. The place was festooned with Covid propaganda and a big notice stating that mask wearing was compulsory from 24 July.
There were three assorted mask wearers in front of me and soon a few more were behind. The unmasked woman behind the counter was pleasant enough and if she was at all phased by seeing a naked face on the other side of the screen, she hid it well. She almost smiled as she handed me the package and for one very brief moment, it was as if not wearing masks was the new normal.
Journal of Virology.Antibodies not the sole thing for future vaccines
https://jvi.asm.org/content/88/19/11034
“Virus-Specific Memory CD8 T Cells Provide Substantial Protection from Lethal Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection”
“Overall, our results show that SARS-CoV-specific memory CD8 T cells protect susceptible hosts from lethal SARS-CoV infection, but they also suggest that SARS-CoV-specific CD4 T cell and antibody responses are necessary for complete protection.”
We are told that we won’t achieve immunity through recovering from the virus (hence the argument against herd immunity) but a vaccine made from the virus will give us immunity. what am I missing ?
i have asked the very same question on my facebook and got sneered at as usual, i have asked the question in youtube comments and got told i ‘didnt understand how it works’, but again no-one actually gave me an answer…
Money invested in vaccines.
And fame (or infamy?) the prize. Lots of big egos in ‘research’.
It won’t give immunity – they’re already admitting that.
Theoretically it will “mitigate symptoms” for the most vulnerable group.
The fact that it will need to be repeated regularly is the clue.
That clearly isn’t immunity and those pushing the vaccine by claiming it’s the only way to achieve herd immunity are talking out of a very dirty orifice.
Not to mention that we’ve almost certainly ‘achieved’ herd immunity anyway.
Billions of dollars,pounds euros etc
There was a protest planned this weekend in Melbourne, however the police arrested the two organisers ahead of the protest and charged them with incitement. The protest has been incorrectly labelled as an “anti mask rally” but it was simply in opposition to the city’s draconian shutdown. This is really Minority Report level dystopia, where citizens are charged with pre -crimes. I have read reports of other planned protests being disappeared from social media.
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/victoria-police-arrest-melbourne-anti-mask-rally-organisers-ahead-of-protest-c-1222910
There is a new label now being used to describe us sceptics – “covid deniers” is increasingly replacing “anti vaxxers”. It’s a master stoke in malevolence, by managing to evoke two nasty extreme right conspiracy theories – that covid 19 does not exist, and holocaust denial.
Having been a “climate denier” for many years I’m not fussed. My responses is becoming “so you support the government’s policy on this? Okay so you support kids and old people dying alone and scared as well. Good for you”
The narrative is now that vaccine sceptics are conspiracy theorists, because many of them also think masks are pointless. So would Dr Jenny Harries be among the conspiracy theorists?
Venn diagram of Cimate Deniers, Brexiteers and Lockdown Sceptics = ‘0’
I think there are some Remainers on here, who are very solid Sceptics. I welcome them. I think this is way more important that Brexit. Climate stuff I haven’t paid much attention to so I am not sure – I certainly wouldn’t say I was definitely a “denier”.
I think the most significant overlap is between sceptics and people who truly believe in freedom of speech, and I think freedom of speech/ideas is the single most important issue we face, after this virus madness. And of course they are related.
Well I’m pleased that Remainers are welcomed here as I’ve been following this site and commenting almost since the beginning and am definitely a Remainer. Thanks!
For me the two issues are completely separate. The positive and negative effects of Brexit will become apparent over years and at the moment are mere speculation for many of us. The negative effects and the craziness of lockdown however are visible now, affecting people now, and as individuals we all have the ability to make our views known and make our own small protests where we can.
There are no positives.
Agreed. As a confirmed Brexiteer I am willing to strain to my bosom any Remainer who opposes the current bollox.
You have been warned.
Strain away Annie. Go girl!
Truth is what unites us all.
I voted remain because I could see clearly the horror show that a leave vote would cause. I also quite like the idea of being in a European commune. Being able to live in Europe, use their health services, travel anywhere I wanted to go to.
That last vote was obviously going to usher in a new age of Fascism. Every member of the Tory cabinet a card carrying raving Fascist. I spoiled my ballot paper as I have done in every election.
Anyone who goes against WHO guidelines is a conspiracy theorist, including significant proportion of health professionals !
I am not a climate denier, as I am old enough to know that it is getting hotter and that winters now only very rarely happen in the UK. What’s causing these changes is altogether another matter.
However, I am a very well researched anti-vaxxer and also now a Covid-19 denier. There is no proper science that proves the infection called Covid-19 actually exists. It seems to be little more than repackaged seasonal influenza with lots of hype from corrupt government and complicit media.
Of course, the eugenicist and ardent advocate of global depopulation, Mr Bill (WHO) Gates is also very deeply involved. Bill’s vaccines certainly do have a very chequered history, but this time around, I’m sure they will do exactly what Bill wants them to do.
Yep, I’ve spotted weather occasionally too.
This is the Australia that has had a total of 250 deaths from the Covid ?
Yes !
TERRIFYING !!!!!!!!
It’s interesting to remember that Australia historically has form in terms of totalitarian measures – aided and abetted by ‘democratic’ UK.
Remember Goff Whitlam?.
Sad but true. Having lived in both countries, I can say that the media has more freedom and independence in the UK than Australia. Accordingly, the public is better informed.
God help the Aussies then!
They’ll need to help themselves.
Would the Aussie army shoot fellow Aussies ?
Hitler upis alive and well and living in Melbourne.
sceptic and phobic are now both words used to condemn people who do not toe the line. As mhcp says below, anyone who does not accept the Greta doctrine on climate change – anyone that queries the science or lack of it even slightly is a denier…
Same with phobias. Originally a word used as a suffix for a fear, whether rational or irrational, of things, again has been corrupted. For example i do not like certain aspects of islam – treatment of women, treatment of gays – but to criticise in anyway makes me an “islamaphobe”, Strictly (and etymologically) speaking that indicates i am scared of Islam. However I am not… I am critical of certain aspects. (Other religions are available and also subject to criticism),
While people label Covid deniers as being extreme, there is little hope for the future.
The coronavirus known as SARS-Cov-2 has not been isolated or proven to exist. Covid-19 seems little more than a rebranded seasonal influenza, which has been built up by ludicrous hype from both government and complicit mainstream media.
Dig just a little deeper and you find Bill Gates waiting in the wings with his vaccinations of mass depopulation.
We should reply in kind by referring to those following lockdown orthodoxy as ‘immunity deniers’; two can play at that game.
Oppose anything in the agenda, you’re a denier. Not just the holocaust.
Contrary to what the MSM tell us, this is what popular beaches in Cornwall (and Devon) looked like yesterday, Saturday: https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/what-beaches-cornwall-devon-look-4407609 For those of you who can’t be bothered to click the link, very few people on them. I think it’s wise to withhold my location on the web, but I would say that my local beach, where we had a nice picnic and swim yesterday late afternoon, here in the south west was pleasantly busy. No-one seemed to give a stuff about anti-social distancing, just keeping the normal polite spaces between groups, but inevitably coming into close contact enough to kick sand into my salad as they walked around. The pubs around the beach were teeming with people. The only second wave will be from that big posh yacht going by. Separate topic: Zoe Covid, when it started, said there were over 2m infected people in the UK. I gave up looking at it about two weeks ago, as their self-reporting method seems a bit dubious to me. I looked last night. They estimate the total number of infected people in this country, aged 19 to 69 (?), is… 25,000! That’s one in two thousand. I checked various council… Read more »
This one?
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076
I was speaking to a friend who was saying that they are starting to see real issues with certain specialist procedures. They work in gastro fields involving scopes and the like. Quite a few people now being seen have more severe stage cancers, ones that could have been dealt with, even just to prolong life for a few more years. What has happened is that procedures ear marked for say February, were delayed by standard delays. Then Covid measures kicked in and the delays were extended dramatically. A lot of staff were willing to work but guidelines said certain PPE was needed. Other staff wouldn’t work without it due to the top down policy from managers and advice saying Covid required it. There seems to be little local verification in the NHS. All policy driven central mandate stuff that is only turned around by persistence. Skeleton procedures then ensue causing more delays. In the last month services have been ramped up with extra agency help, to try and eat into the backlog. Problem is now that person hasn’t been seen for 5/6 months which for certain people and cancers (like bowel cancer) has meant a serious progression. And these people… Read more »
“My friend is expecting law suits to be brought.”
I do hope so. Any visiting lawyers want to get together a pro bono group for this?
Doesn’t the Covid Act though claim to prevent legal action against medics and similar when lack of treatment is said to be due to the virus? This is not to say that it couldn’t be challenged in the courts however.
Lack of treatment due to the lockdown ?
I think it does. The counter argument would be then why didn’t the hospital quickly test this i.e evidence based medicine. Which is one of the main NHS remits.
The more lawsuits, the sooner, the better.
I think if lawyers were to call out about group actions many many people would contact them. The personal abuses and losses have been atrocious. It seems to me to be the only way to get these thing proper publicity.
If Simon Dolan’s case is successful then other claims much more likely to succeed.
Thousands of heart operations have been cancelled.
One of my colleagues 30-year old partner had urgent heart operation scheduled for March. The operation got cancelled, he collapsed and died in May. It is very tragic.
And I believe there many lives lost because of cancelled operation. The hospital where the operation was scheduled was never overwhelmed with Covid.
If there was a group action my colleague would join but she will not sue by herself.
It was heartwarming to see the lockdown protests. I would have attended had I known. Can you provide details of future similar events to maximise support.
I always look forward to reading the Sceptics a rare island of sanity in a sea of madness. Many thanks
Join the forum save our rights UK?
Yes I would have attended and many I know. Would be good to list any future dates on here.
Absolutely – I was furious at finding out there was one near me. Obviously, it wouldn’t have been mentioned in the local press, so somewhere like this really needs to help promote any future gatherings.
I’ve been looking forward to a camping trip in the New Forest with a group of car enthusiasts next weekend. It was all arranged weeks ago, a simple two-day affair visiting a motorcycle museum on the Saturday and then going to an event at Beaulieu on the Sunday. There were 10 people booked last week, now three have dropped out because they don’t want to be forced to wear masks. But of course, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson knows what’s best for the economy.
Make sure the museum knows. why the three dropped out.
Very likely the museum didn’t want to impose the rule, but we must stiffen resistance somehow.
Yes I am thinking of a standard letter to drop off at places I would like to go to but won’t because of the mask mandate. Let’s all try to do this if possible.
Have you seen this? Perhaps I got it from here in the first place…. http://laworfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Face-Covering-Exemption-Notice-with-Law-Explained-24-July-2020.pdf
That’s a good idea, thanks. Mind you, the motorcycle museum has adopted a cash-only policy of its own volition so it must be a bit bed-wettery.
Oops. I meant card-only.
Yesterday the issue of long term Covid symptoms was raised and in the Swedish doctor’s blog post (link above in the main page) there is a question raised in the comments section about this and I am going to copy and paste Sebastian Rushworth MD’s answer here (hope that is Okay to do?). I think it sheds some light on this. The article is well worth a read by the way … how I envy and admire the Swedish right now.
‘The vast majority recover without complications. If you become really sick and you spend weeks in the ICU on a ventilator then there are a whole host of complications you can experience, mostly related to the fact that you are immobilized (muscle loss, pneumonia, and pulmonary embolism for example) and to the fact that air is actively being pushed In to your lungs instead of passively dragged in. These are the same complications everyone who spend a lot of time intubated risks experiencing. Apart from that, there have been reports of vascular complications, like Kawasaki disease in children and stroke in adults, but these are all very uncommon’.
Yes our media is emphasising the few bad outcomes and never mentioning most people are totally asymptomatic.
“asymptomatic” = not ill, let’s call a spade a spade, not “a sharp piece of metal capable of decapitation”
Yes, what does it matter if everyone in the whole country tests positive if they are not ill?!!
It doesn’t matter a bean!
We’re forever pointing this out to people. That, plus talking about ‘cases’ or ‘infections’ when what is meant is a positive result to a test of unreliable accuracy.
Yes, if you are so right. Perhaps we can hope Carl Heneghan can help out with some research on whether asymptomatic folks can actually pass on the virus. It’s my gut feeling they don’t but it would be good to have some studies on this.
Sorry the ‘if’ shouldn’t be there and too late to edit
Why would anyone need research to prove a negative? What research is there to prove that they can pass? There have been all of two reports (cf. proper studies) and both had a sample count of 1 patient, on top of that, the actual reports are risible, and I’m being polite.
All the “evidence” I’ve seen for the Asymptomatic Superspreader Myth is contact tracers asserting that they’re totally sure they traced absolutely everyone and yet somehow the virus slipped through the net. It’s closely related to the Myth that the people who have tested positive are the only people who are positive.
Did you see the report of the German doctors interviewing the Chinese patien in China over the phone? The interview went along the lines of “did you have any symptoms?”—“No,” “so it was a normal day”—“yes, I felt tired, took paracetamol with antihistamines and went to sleep”
“Aha,” the doctors said, “this proves asymptomatic spread!”
:facepalm:
Don’t you get Kawasaki from riding motor bikes?
Are you thinking of the Suzuki Method?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbgkkvIvswU
Amazed Northern Ireland going the masks route…haven’t they been basically covid free for months now?? Just doesn’t add up all these countries (England included) slamming in place ridiculous mask mandates when the thing is barely present anymore.
Yes, funny that! Someone remind me why so many countries and states have mandated mask-wearing when there’s nothing to catch. ‘Couldn’t be anything to do with control, could it?
“Postcard from Whitby”.
It’s great to know that Whitby is doing well but the Covid Safe rail timetable means I can’t set of to my nearest, large, seaside town until 11.30am on a Sunday.
And on the subject of fake photos, two weeks ago a resident of that same seaside town (old seadog type) told me that he could recognise very large amounts of flotsam on the beach which resulted from a particularly large storm three years ago which were likewise being presented as Seaside Madness.
The linked article by the Swedish doctor is very interesting. Here he is answering a comment about the PCR tests:
As I understand it from the literature, the tests have a high false negative rate (why we’ve been re-testing people with a negative test result but where we still think covid is likely) but a pretty low rate of false positives. However, I don’t put much stock in what the PCR tests show on a societal level, for two reasons. Firstly, people stay PCR positive for up to two months after being infected even though they are no longer infectious, so a positive PCR test is often a sign of an old infection that is over and done with. Secondly, how much covid you find depends on how much testing you do, and the rates of testing over the course of the pandemic have varied a lot both within and between countries. This is why it makes much more sense to look at the number of deaths than the number of infections, since that statistic doesn’t vary based on how much testing you’re doing and is much harder to manipulate.
To which one has to add that *what* the PCR test measures is a bone of contention.
This was discussed on a Facebook post yesterday on the NHS page (which I am now following just to stick my Lockdown Sceptic oar in there). She was asking if the test measures “corona virus” or “covid 19”. As usual people had a right go at her. I couldn’t answer but wish I could. Can anyone tell me?
Covid 19 is the name of the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, which is the name of the coronavirus itself.
And a tool of control.
You are allowed to die once per wave.
But didn’t that poor wee Muslim boy, the youngest victim in the UK at the time, die more than once?
He was also reported as dying in Portugal as well if I remember correctly as the pictures of the “victim” were identical and possibly Poland and Turkey.
yes, & I would love to get to the bottom of that story.
The number of deaths isn’t always that reliable either. But at least they do count everyone (or nearly everyone) who actually died. I agree that if you want to see what’s going on with the epidemic it’s best just to look at deaths, even though they’re three weeks late, unless you’re prepared to do a bit of digging and see what, if anything, you can conclude from the tests. You can test positive after a couple of months but it’s rare. It’s an issue now because with the prevalence so low and the way the tests are being used the false positive rate, although low, is dominant. All things considered the PCR test is pretty good (about 70% sensitive and 99% specific) but like any tool it has to be used properly. There’s no point doing all your testing after it’s all over anyway, and there’s not much point using it to try to track an epidemic unless you make some effort to ensure your sampling is reasonably random. It’s not really much use for isolating a country like NZ because of false negatives– if you’re really trying to do that you’re going to have to quarantine all visitors anyway.… Read more »
https://twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1292228482488053760/photo/1
Spain. Aragon has reported high hospitalizations. Or revolving door?
“Aragón region is now supposed to be the spark of the new explosion. High hospitalisation is aired. NEW FEAR TRICK Hospitalise and immediately discharge. Then air ONLY the first number. NEW FEAR TRICK to take some 2~0 days to arrive. Are this really hospital cases?”
Red is discharged from hospital.Grey admitted to hospital.
Thank you for posting all the links to research and articles. It is really helpful
Yes, I second that. For sure THANK YOU SWEDENBORG! Your a hero.
I KNEW they were doing this!!
Well, I didn’t. But I felt it in my waters.
I swear to god most to the people now in hospital with ‘covid’ are enduring a very lonely stay in a hospital room with the sniffles.
Pre-booked 15 minute slots at the tip are the ONE good thing to come out of this. No more queuing round here.
On the contrary, we (Merton) never used to have queueing (except at peak bank holiday weekends in spring/summer) and now there’s always a queue and not enough bookings available for each hour booking slots they use… Hugely inefficient.
My ‘one positive’ would be if we never see a return to the ‘cram them in like sardines’ approach many restaurants in cities had started to take over last few years.
I fear the emptier restaurants will struggle to make enough profit to survive – or eating out will become the luxury it used to be because prices will have to increase to cover lost footfall.
If the virus is as deadly as the hype, how come the government has to test more than a hundred thousand people a day who are not ill in order to find cases?
… and the idea (as posited by the ICL garbage) that ‘track and trace’ provides a solution (or mitigation) – anyway – is utter, patent nonsense to any thinking person. The flaws are obvious – even beyond the fact that there is no epidemic around
Remember – in saner times – less than a year ago – the WHO (before it became totally compromised) itself dismissed it as a worthwhile measure.
Kerrrchinggg!!!?
Just a sanity check for other Victor Meldrews who simply ‘Don’t believe it’ : At the height of the mortality spike this year, the moving average figure of deaths was at about 750 a day; the figure is now running in the single figure area, sometimes going into the teens : i.e. a decrease by a factor of about -10x. (CEBM) The curve matches *all* curves of declining infection for Covid. There is no epidemic – and all the scary stuff is based on the equivalent of casting chicken bones – not science. The ‘second wave’ hypothesis is based on negative wishful thinking – there is no consistency in ‘waves’ emerging from epidemic spikes – and certainly no indicators of one at this time emerging from the current situation. Schools are a particular bone of contention at present, and it is right to emphasize the lack of evidence of them being agents of spread – particularly in this situation of pretty obvious growing herd immunity. However, I’d pick up on one thing : “some bedwetting headteachers are telling parents they’ll only be able to educate their children for half days.” Bedwetting – perhaps – but the real problem is the clutch of… Read more »
The doublespeak calls their reasoning “science” where it is the opposite of science.
Look at what people said in March\April.
Who was wrong? What are they saying now? Ignore it.
Who was right? What are they saying now? Do what they say.
It’s true. With the best will in the world, it is extremely difficult for schools to re-open.
It’s done it’s job, the virus has killed all those who were extremely vulnerable to it. The asymptomatic and mildness of the cases in people with healthy immune systems show that we are more than capable of resisting the virus.
If I can see this then any person can see it, then the Governments and experts around the world can see it too, which shows this is nothing to do with this virus and that there is something more sinister being played out.
Agreed – not sure if anyone else was listening to five live around 10am this morning (always useful to understand what enemy is thinking!) – there was an item about Tenby – lots of talk over crowding / angry queues and locals moving around before 9.30 otherwise not feeling safe. But then other guest came on and said but good news is that there are no signs of any second waves – the presenter couldn’t have cut them off faster – it clearly didn’t suit the narrative at all.
I couldn’t care less about the bedwetting teachers: teachers have complained for years! As I said elsewhere in this thread, Parents are the ones with the duty to deliver an education to their children under art.7 of the Education Act 1996, they need to hold teachers accountable! Sack the lot!
People are allowed to gather in a group of up to 30 under the current law, they could share resources, etc…(Home Educators have done this for years!) Please don’t misundersand my message… I’m Pro-education: School or Otherwise! I’m Pro-socialise: School or Otherwise! Lockdown is preventing both education and social development!
My children are adults but I wish/hope they have/will have the same choice in education I was afforded and then chose for my children.
They will call covids normal seasonal return the Second Wave so those local authorities run by authoritarian nutters will be able to impose local lockdown as severe as they like.
Included in the Second Wave numbers will be the bronchial and lung disorders caused by wearing petri dishes over the mouth for hours on end, week after week.
Friends perhaps some of you can help me out. I am struggling this morning to understand how the teachers unions will respond to ‘moral duty’ when it is promoted by a man with the morals of a sewer rat!
It’s always puzzled me how an individual whose only skill is in the field of bullshit and lying has been blindly followed in this sad parade of fearful idiocy.
Four of us are due to say at a very nice hotel on the south coast in a couple of weeks, in order to visit OH’s disabled cousin. We stayed there last year and it’s a big spacious place.
Just checked on their website and in particular on their Covid policy. I kid you not, there are 75 separate points in their guidelines, one of which even covers their fried eggs policy FGS!! Apparently, they will be served at the same time as toast!
i was more concerned about their mandatory mask policy in all public areas from August 8th, so have just phoned them to check. No problem at all if you are exempt. So why isn’t this made clear on their website? I made this point the other day about the notices outside shops- the bit about exemptions is always in the smallest of print. It is almost as if they don’t want you to know that you could actually be exempt.
To be sympathetic – I guess businesses are caught in a bit of a trap over this.
My two most common experiences so far are that people are complete,y thrown by my turning up without a mask on – they simply cannot comprehend why someone would not be wearing one. The second experience is related, which is pure fear that my not having a mask means I am going to give the virus to them.
I am genuinely perplexed that the majority of people 2 weeks ago were happily not wearing masks & with the flick of mandatory legislation, the majority start wearing them & think that non-mask wearers are the odd ones out. Utter, utter madness.
Last week a woman asked me why I was not wearing a mask
“I’m exempt”
‘Why are you exempt?’
“Because I’m special” and walked on.
Qu: excuse my ignorance but I have been blanking out anything to do with track and trace. However as this seems to be the new go-to weapon in this fight (after successful deployment of homemade face masks), how does it work? Does the COVID-19 Exposure Notification on iPhone have to be switched on?
https://fullfact.org/health/covid-19-track-and-trace-app-has-not-been-automatically-downloaded-peoples-phones/
You’d have to switch on Bluetooth and download something else, from memory. You can even delete the CV19 Exp notification by
some method explained somewhere on YouTube but it’s an extreme faff so without Bluetooth on I didn’t bother.
But I’m still fascinated by the whole £10Bn/M this thing is supposed to cost. A lot of people here, who obviously know about computers, rubbished that as the cost of developing the app alone. £10Bn looked weird to me, as HMRC’s IT programme costs less than this and should dwarf it in scale (and is, arguably, of more use to government…)
Then there are said to be 27K tracers working to scripts, so not much expertise, say £15 p hr (some supervisors more, some less). £16M per week if working a standard 40 hour week (anecdotally they say they’re standing by/watching Netflix all day long)? If this started mid June, say 8 weeks in, we’ve already spent £128M on this with Serco, so the £10M figure must be wrong? Is it my assumptions or my maths?
I think it might have been AG who said they’d done an FoI request on costs – have you had any answer yet, I wonder?
They probably had to try to develop artificial intelligence first in order to actually design the app as they have no natural intelligence
You have to have a T&T app installed for it to be used
Thanks. Good to know
Just keep your Bluetooth off and don’t download anything
I understand the Normandy comparison but the reality there is that I’m pretty sure everyone involved on D Day were under 50 and had passed their medical.
That would mean a similar cohort from today would have a survival rate of 99.999% based on this article:
https://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2020/06/the-extraordinary-impact-of-age-on-covid-19-fatalities.html
In the great scheme of (logical) things – the age gradient isn’t so surprising, and is actually a marker of the general lack of severity of Covid. Many people at the end of their lives succumb to respiratory infections – Covid triggered or not.
The trouble is, if we are going to nitpick the details of the joke the most inaccurate part is the “facing almost certain death”.