Following up with Michael Gove
Our headline piece today comes from the senior doctor and regular Lockdown Sceptics contributor. He has done a fact check on Michael Gove’s infamous piece in the Times, now that the hospital data for the week it was published are available.
On November 28th, Michael Gove wrote an article in the Times claiming that the NHS could soon be entirely overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients occupying every hospital bed including the overflow Nightingale Hospitals. When writing this piece, he would have been aware of the up-to-date bed occupancy figures which are sent out to all hospital CEOs on a daily basis. These figures were not available outside of NHS executive and Government circles.
Yesterday (December 3rd) the weekly NHS statistics regarding bed occupancy were published up to December 1st, so the public can now see the data which Gove was privy to when writing his article. I have summarised the highlights below.
First, the headline figure of COVID-19 positive patients in English hospitals (Graph 1). Readers can clearly see the downward trends in the North West, North East and the Midlands in the w/e November 28th and flatlining everywhere else.
Next, ICU patients (Graph 2). Regular readers will know I favour this metric as it is harder to manipulate than most of the other figures. This shows exactly the same pattern as the inpatients. Clear downward trends in the North East, North West and the Midlands. Flatlining elsewhere with a slight rise in the South East reflecting the localised outbreak in the Medway area. Hard to square this with Mr Gove’s apocalyptic warnings of imminent catastrophe – I wonder what the Conservative Party MPs persuaded by the Government’s arguments last week will make of it now that they can see the real figures?
Another piece that came to my attention was in the Daily Mail on hospital admissions, claiming that up to a quarter of official COVID-19 ‘admissions’ may be patients who caught the virus while in hospital. The Mail has probably been looking at Graph 3. The important bit is the gap between the blue and yellow curves – this is almost certainly the number of patients catching COVID-19 in hospital. Professor Heneghan and I have repeatedly commented on this phenomenon and speculated as to its significance, but it appears to have evaded the attention of the NHS in their public briefings.
The Mail did ask NHS England about the figures for in-hospital infections. An NHS spokesperson said:
As the ONS has repeatedly made clear, when infections in the community are high, NHS staff and patients are more likely to be affected. While hospitals are asked to rigorously follow regularly updated guidance on infection prevention and control, the best way to reduce infection rates in hospitals is to reduce them in the wider community.
It’s not clear to me what that actually means. Is it an acknowledgement that NHS staff spread COVID-19 from the community into hospitals? Or an oblique acceptance that hospital infection control measures are inadequate to prevent nosocomial viral spread? A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a direct question would be preferable – it’s a matter of legitimate public concern.
The spokesperson might want to have a look at the graph of new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital for the English regions (Graph 4). I have added in trendlines to show that once again, the trend is downward in the North of England and the Midlands and virtually flat elsewhere. And yet the gap between patients diagnosed in hospital and admitted with COVID-19 remains stubbornly between 15% and 20%. Why could that be?
I now move on to bed occupancy levels. On average, 87.7% of available beds were occupied across the country in the week ending November 22nd, compared with 94.9% in the same week 2019. This figure does not include extra capacity at Nightingale hospitals, or the thousands of beds rented from the private sector. One senior NHS executive said that national occupancy data was “not a good guide to how pressured hospitals are”. I wonder whether he has told Simon Stevens, who used exactly those type of metrics to bolster the Government’s case ahead of the lockdown vote on November 5th?
The Government is about to embark on a mass vaccination programme with a series of drugs manufactured, tested and approved by regulatory bodies with impressive speed. Trust and confidence of the public will be paramount if mass uptake is to be achieved. In light of the figures released yesterday, would Mr Gove wish to comment on how the Government’s track record in interpreting and providing access to data on COVID-19 should inspire the trust and confidence of the British people?
Stop Press: The same doctor reports that there was a conference call on Wednesday night for the heads of NHS trusts with Simon Stevens, the Chief Executive of the NHS, about the role the NHS would be playing in the much-heralded vaccination programme. Lots of logistical problems were discussed: hiring extra staff, setting up marquees, working out how to bus in thousands of older people, etc. But there is a problem: while we’ve ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, there are actually only 400,000 available (1%). Not clear when the rest will arrive. Simon Stevens thinks “this is a good problem to have” (direct quote). The doctor writes: “So in essence they pushed out the vaccine fanfare on Wednesday for political PR reasons – probably to deflect attention from the CRG rebellion, knowing that they couldn’t deliver the vaccines and are now trying to spin their way out of it. They must have known about this for several days but kept it from the grunts on the ground.”
Where England’s COVID-19 Response Went Wrong
A recent article in Science Direct considers why, despite billions of pounds spent, a test-and-trace system established, and much other activity, the Government still ended up with a second, economically ruinous national lockdown. While the article accepts many of the nostrums about COVID-19 that lockdown sceptics would not, it is worth highlighting as it is a reminder of why the national response has been so damaging.
On the failure to prepare:
At the system level, pandemic planning focused on the threat of pandemic flu rather than other equally plausible pandemic pathogens. There was a focus on the traditional healthcare settings, with planning and preparations for the wider health and care sector rudimentary at best. Pandemic exercises had previously been carried out, such as Exercise Cygnus in 2016. Whilst health stakeholders may have rehearsed these scenarios, little was carried out to implement learning or action on issues identified from these exercises
On the fixation with centralised testing and tracing:
Initially, the narrative given was that contact tracing was not worth doing as the outbreak phase had moved from containment to mitigation as of March 17th 2020. The reality was that testing and contact tracing could not be performed on a large scale as there was no capacity to do this. After considerable criticism from the public, academics and public health bodies, there was a shift in Government policy. Belatedly, more than £12 billion was spent on a centralised testing and tracing system. For context, this staggering sum is more than the combined budget for all of primary care and public health in England. Glaringly, the leadership for this initiative lacked significant public health expertise
On narrow, hospital-centric perspectives:
Much of the preparedness was healthcare centric and built around hospital response. This can have serious consequences when it ignores the wider ramifications of decisions made in the interests of the hospital sector. For example, to create hospital surge capacity in the early part of the pandemic, there were large-scale discharges from hospitals of infected patients back to care homes, where infection control measures were suboptimal. This was a recipe for disaster and unwittingly seeded infections into these vulnerable settings.
On expertise gaps in the scientific advice:
For health emergencies, the UK Government receives its scientific advice from a committee of scientists, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Whilst SAGE had expert modellers, behavioural psychologists, infectious disease physicians and researchers, there was a crucial weakness: the surprising lack of technical expertise and experience of communicable disease control and outbreak management. There were no practicing Directors of Public Health or consultants in communicable disease control.
On the politics:
Politics has certainly compromised public health responses. There has been disproportionate political focus on mass testing in the hope that it is the magic bullet solution to the pandemic. Much focus has been placed on England’s faltering, publicly funded, private sector-delivered test and trace system. Even if it had been operating perfectly, transmissions may already have taken place by the time people were tested and traced. There is no perfect test or test system that will detect all cases.
On the lack of strategy:
Finally, there is the lack of a clear national strategy for managing the pandemic. It is not clear if the Government’s aim is for “zero-COVID-19” elimination, suppression to near zero levels or accepting the virus will become endemic and opting for mitigation. Sadly, the current Government seems to have adopted what some might describe as a “hope for the best” stratagem
And in conclusion:
If there is one key lesson from the pandemic thus far, it is the need for a well-resourced public health agency focused on biosecurity that is well prepared and able to scale up its response to pandemic threats. It is vital that this public health agency is independent and able to provide credible and trusted scientific and technical expertise and advice to both the Government and the public without fear or favour.
Worth reading in full. Apart from the plea for more mask-wearing, it is a sane analysis.
Stop Press: On a similar note, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus has just released a report that considers the Government’s reaction to COVID-19. It completely buys into the ‘second wave’ narrative, which is a shame. It recommends a “Covid-Secure UK plan” which involves bringing the reproduction rate below one, minimising transmission and obtaining widespread immunity through vaccination.
Tier Patrol
It’s started. A report, from the MailOnline on the efforts of North Yorkshire Police to police travel between tiers:
A police force has been compared to the Gestapo after guarding its borders using number plate recognition cameras to stop drivers leaving Tier 3. North Yorkshire Police said it is using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology to monitor vehicles and track people who might try to leave Tier 3 to go to pubs or restaurants in neighbouring Tier 2 areas.
The force warned people could face “enforcement action” under public health regulations if they are caught making non-essential journeys into and out of the county – including £200 fines, doubling for further offences up to £6,400. But the move has sparked a fierce public backlash as furious Twitter users compare the local police force to the Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch called the police behaviour “totalitarian” and warned of a “growing surveillance state and a civil liberties landslide” with director Silkie Carlo telling MailOnline: “This is not policing by consent.”
Meanwhile, over in the Telegraph, we read:
Police have been criticised for their “overzealous” enforcement of the new rules on pubs, after landlords reported officers arguing over whether Scotch eggs were a substantial meal and threw out customers who had finished eating. Pub bosses in Tier 2 areas said police had visited their premises to argue over the regulations, insisting that Scotch eggs cannot be considered a “substantial” meal that allows punters to order alcohol.
Patrick Dardis, chief executive of Young’s, said officers in London on Wednesday also told customers to leave pub premises as soon as they had finished their meals, preventing them from ordering more drinks. “As if we haven’t got enough to contend with we have had some overzealous officials going into pubs unnecessarily and it’s a bit intimidating for customers,” Mr Dardis said.
“This whole petty argument about a Scotch egg, whether it is or whether it isn’t [a substantial meal] is not relevant. What it actually means is a table meal, a substantial meal, is just made up nonsense.
Daft rules, seemingly made up by the Government on the hoof, are leading to overzealous enforcement by authoritarian police forces. When’s this nonsense going to end?
Questions about the Vaccine
With the roll-out of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine set to begin early next week, after it received temporary authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, Kit Knightly has some burning questions to ask over at Off-Guardian. I quote from the piece and add some other sources:
Does it work?
The claim is that they are “95% effective”, but where did this come from:
The Pfizer vaccine trial included nearly 44,000 people. Half getting their vaccine, half getting a placebo. In total, from the 44,000 people, 170 were later recorded as having become ‘infected with COVID-19’. 162 of them were in the placebo group, eight of them in the vaccine group. The vaccine is therefore credited with preventing 154 cases of COVID-19… or 95%. This implies that the entire trial of 44,000 people is deemed a success based on the potentially multi-variant outcome from less than 4% of those involved. The details of the trial are hard to come by, so we have yet to find out how these 170 people were even diagnosed with COVID-19. Was it a clinical diagnosis based on symptoms? Or PCR test? Either method would raise serious questions about accuracy… Does it work? We have no idea.
The article Kit Knightly links to, by Peter Doshi in the BMJ, is worth reading on this. He writes that:
First, a relative risk reduction is being reported, not an absolute risk reduction, which appears to be less than 1%. Second, these results refer to the trials’ primary endpoint of COVID-19 of essentially any severity, and importantly not the vaccine’s ability to save lives, nor the ability to prevent infection, nor the efficacy in important subgroups (e.g. frail elderly).
Peter Doshi recommends full, open and independent scrutiny of the underlying trial data in order to build confidence in its results and in the vaccine’s efficacy. It is hard to disagree. It is also worth remembering that Matt Hancock, one of the vaccine’s foremost advocates, conceded yesterday that it is not known how long immunity derived from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will last.
Is it safe?
The potential for complications down the line certainly exists. Further, the vaccine is based on new technology – an mRNA vaccine, which injects viral genetic material to generate an immune response. The technology has been in development for years, but this would be the first mRNA vaccine actually put to use. So, “is it safe?” is “we don’t know”.
However, the vaccine pushers and manufacturers clearly have doubts about its safety, since they have gone out of their way to guarantee they have total legal indemnity from prosecution or civil suits should something go wrong. Not a confidence booster that.
You can find more information about mRNA vaccines from Horizon Magazine here and from Pfizer’s explainer here.
Yesterday, a number of readers flagged up a newly-released Government document – “Reg 174: Information for Healthcare Professionals on Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine“(pdf) – which contains some indications of how much about the vaccine is still unknown.
Summary of safety profile: “The most frequent adverse reactions in participants 16 years of age and older were pain at the injection site (> 80%), fatigue (> 60%), headache (> 50%), myalgia (> 30%), chills (> 30%), arthralgia (> 20%) and pyrexia (> 10%) and were usually mild or moderate in intensity and resolved within a few days after vaccination.”
Paediatric population: “The safety and efficacy of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 in children under 16 years of age have not yet been established”.
Incompatibilities: “In the absence of compatibility studies, this medicinal product must not be mixed with other medicinal products.”
Pregnancy: “Animal reproductive toxicity studies have not been completed. COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162v2 is not recommended during pregnancy. For women of childbearing age, pregnancy should be excluded before vaccination. In addition, women of childbearing age should be advised to avoid pregnancy for at least two months after their second dose.”
Fertility: “It is unknown whether COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 has an impact on fertility.”
Not a confidence-booster that, either. Do read the full document.
Who will get it?
First on the docket are the elderly and NHS workers. We don’t know who will be excluded. Immunocompromised people were excluded from the efficacy study, so presumably they’ll also be excluded from taking the vaccine. If not, that’s a potential disaster waiting to happen (although they have legal protection, so I guess that doesn’t matter).
The question of the hour is: Who will take it first on live TV? Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock? Both are game, apparently, though of course neither wants to “jump the queue”. According to the Telegraph, care home residents will get the vaccine first. The Guardian reports that the staff of the NHS are no longer first in the queue.
Will it become mandatory?
It’s certainly a possibility here in the UK. A few months ago a group of scholars submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament that mandatory vaccinations would be defensible on a human rights basis, and that there was already legal precedent for this action in UK legislation (specifically, treating mental health patients who may be a danger to themselves).
In the end, and this is purely my speculation, I doubt the vaccine will ever be literally legally mandatory. Parliament will reject the “expert advice” suggesting COVID-19 vaccines be forced on people. This will accomplish two goals at once: a) It will give the Government a veneer of “libertarianism”, a thin façade to cover its tyrannical nature. And b) It will allow a potential “third wave” of COVID-19 to be blamed on “vaccine hesitancy”.
Mandatory vaccination and its ugly twin sister, the vaccine passport, are being talked up by a number of ‘think tanks’, most recently by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which yesterday released a report – “How the Government Should Call the Shots: Getting the UK Vaccine-Ready“. Among other things, it recommended :
Urgently approve a digital platform for a health passport that can draw on vaccine and testing data to enable individuals to live freely and safely alongside COVID-19. This platform should also have a paper-based version.
No Tony. Just no.
A reader has been in touch about the ethics of the vaccination drive and the “warped behavioural logic” that underlies it. I’ll leave you with a few snippets from this correspondent’s remarks:
I feel that the Government is deliberately ramping up lockdowns and the fear factor, and will continue doing so probably at least until June, to worry as many people as possible so that they will rush for a vaccine and not ask too many questions. Whereas minor behavioural modification (“nudging”) might occasionally be desirable, inducing mass panic/hysteria (basically terrorising the public, as they have been doing since March) is unethical in the extreme and people should be called to account for it.
Whitty recently said don’t hug a relative at Christmas “if you want them to survive to be hugged again”, i.e., touch a relative and they will die. This for a virus that is as dangerous as a bad flu? SAGE gave the advice that people should not play board games at Christmas. This for a virus that is as dangerous as a bad flu? People are being told to wear masks because, if you walk past someone, you will kill them (remember the policeman on TV earlier in the pandemic screaming at a man walking down the road “You are killing people! You are killing people!”). How can you really make an informed choice after being bombarded in this way?
Is it ethical to push people into having an experimental COVID-19 vaccine that will not provide them with any benefit, for an illness which is no more dangerous than a bad flu? I’m sure that the Government will say that vaccination is necessary, to protect the older and more vulnerable. However, many in this group would die of something else if not COVID-19. You can’t stop people dying. You cannot justify mass vaccination on the grounds that it will save people who will die shortly anyway.
I will not have the vaccine if offered. My view may change in the future. Unlike the Government, I am open to other viewpoints. But I can see nothing in the current situation that justifies the mass vaccination of people, with an experimental vaccine, who are at little or no risk whatsoever – for a virus that is no more dangerous than a bad flu.
Stop Press: The MHRA has released the list of ingredients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Along with the guidance for health care professionals referenced above, it is available here (scroll down for links and references).
A Postcard from France
Reader Jane Norman has sent us a postcard from France. Lockdown scepticism looks a little different there, but her report touches on many issues relevant to the UK – the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir, scare stories in the press, and… vaccines.
Sceptics in France have a different perspective on COVID-19 from sceptics in Britain. There it is all about statistics, dodgy PCR tests, and lockdowns versus the Great Barrington Declaration. Here it is about treatment. The face of treatment is Professor Didier Raoult. Didier Raoult has become a household name in France. Some people think he’s wonderful, others distrust him, a man with long white hair and a beard, but absolutely everybody knows about him.
As well as being head of IHU Méditerranée, the huge university hospital in Marseilles, and a world-renowned expert in infectious diseases, he is also a member of the scientific council round Emmanuel Macron, the French equivalent of SAGE. Right at the start he walked out, slamming the door behind him, because he couldn’t work with such a bunch of charlatans. He didn’t call them that in so many words, but that is what he implied. He also mentioned their conflicts of interest with Big Pharma. Raoult is no maverick carping from the side lines. It’s as though someone like Chris Whitty or Patrick Vallance had gone rogue. It’s even better, because Raoult is a hospital doctor. He still wears a white coat.
Raoult and his colleagues at the IHU put out videos several times a week. Some of these have over a million views. So even though he is never invited to speak as an expert on mainstream media and even though the so-called experts are doing everything they can to try to discredit him, his voice is heard.
What does he say? COVID-19 is a new illness. (Not just a bad cold or hyped-up flu then.) The genome has been sequenced. (So, you do have something to work with, despite what some sceptics say.) You must use PCR tests. (Raoult is a great believer in the PCR test, properly administered up to 35 cycles.) You isolate positive cases and treat them with a combination of hydroxychloroquine (to reduce viral load), and azithromycin (to reduce the risk of cytokine storm). This was what he was doing back in March. He has subsequently added zinc to the protocol.
Jane’s postcard from France is worth reading in full and Professor Didier Raoult’s videos are available on the IHU Méditerranée-Infection YouTube Channel.
Round-Up
- “WHO is looking at ‘e-vaccination’ certificates to allow people to travel” – Not surprisingly, the WHO is on board with vaccination passports, but says “antibodies in people who have recovered from COVID-19 should not be a qualification for immunity passports”. Makes perfect sense
- “A global team of experts has found 10 fatal flaws in the main test for COVID-19 and is demanding it’s urgently axed” – From RT. The PCR test is non-specific, has no standard operating procedure, and is enormously variable. Our own Dr Mike Yeadon is one of the global team of experts
- “Van Morrison Sings for the Voiceless” – The National Review looks at Van Morrison’s anti-lockdown songs: “No More Lockdown“, “As I Walked Out“, and “Born to be Free“
- “Not All Deaths are Equal” – Watch Sir Charles Walker MP sharing his grown-up perspective on death during the debate on the tier system on December 1st
- “Faces covered, souls destroyed” – Frank Palmer on the dehumanising impact of compulsory mask wearing and other COVID-19 measures in the Conservative Woman
- “The case for Chinese reparations” – Douglas Murray says it is time for the citizens of the world to be given reparations by China for what it did to us this year
- “Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine: Devi Sridhar urges caution and possible “rethink” on Christmas plans” – Zero Covid zealot Professor Devi Sridhar trots out the usual “don’t hug granny” Christmas warnings
- “COVID-19 passport is a deeply insidious form of coercion that plays to the conspiracy theorists” – Watch anti-lockdown hero Sir Desmond Swayne speak to Julia Hartley-Brewer about the COVID-19 passport
- “Face masks in one lesson” – Podcast from Tom Woods in which he talks to author Allan Stravo about his new book on how to get out of wearing a face mask. Both Lockdown Sceptics heroes
- “COVID-19: Facebook to take down false vaccine claims” – The BBC reports on Facebook’s plans to start removing false claims about COVID-19 vaccines – and by “false” it means anything remotely sceptical. Expect endless cock-ups from Facebook’s crack team of “independent fact-checkers”
- “Supply fears hit vaccine amid warning over initial 800,000 doses” – Problems with the rollout begin. Report in the Telegraph
- “We’re beating the flu too: NHS cases could dodge a winter crisis as influenza cases fall 90%” – From the Daily Mail. Flu cases disappearing almost as quick as COVID-19. Remind us why we need the tiers again?
- “Piers Morgan tries to jump the vaccine queue” – Covid hysteric Piers Morgan has volunteered to take the vaccine on live TV with Hancock. Is he trying to jump the queue? wonders Steerpike in the Spectator. Go ahead Piers. Be our guest
- “Grant Shapps announces ‘high-value’ business travellers returning to England will be exempt from quarantine rules from Saturday” – It’s official. It really is one rule for them and one for the rest. From MailOnline
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Five today: “Needle and The Damage Done” by Neil Young, “Shot in the Dark” by Ozzy Osbourne, “And What If I Don’t” by Herbie Hancock, “Under My Skin” by Steps and “Taxman” by The Beatles.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing Stories
Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, the BBC’s all new “woke dictionary”. From the Daily Mail:
BBC staff will be given a language guide to help them avoid offending viewers and listeners. The move is part of plans to increase staff diversity and improve the portrayal of under-represented groups on screen.
Director-general Tim Davie said the initiative was “mission-critical” and decisions about the use of language needed to be made by “a diverse group of people”. June Sarpong, BBC Director of Creative Diversity, said the language guide would be published in January “offering our creative teams support”.
She added: “It’s not in any way saying they have to use this terminology, but it’s offering them support in terms of the kind of language that doesn’t cause offence.” Mr Davie said the BBC needed a “rewiring of the core” so that it would be “overt and direct that we are an anti-racist organisation”.
A new panel, including external members, will help the BBC ensure it gives an authentic portrayal of disability. There will also be investment in programmes aimed at progressing the careers of diverse talent, on and off screen.
Mr Davie has previously said the broadcaster must achieve diversity targets for BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) employees of 20% and a 12% representation for disability in the workforce. A gender balance target of 50:50 was already in place. He said: “It’s a bold number, but it is not that bold because that’s where Britain’s going to be very quickly. If you are not moving at that kind of speed, we have got a problem.” He added: “We do need targets and, by the way, the BBC can sometimes be a bit tough on itself. We have seen real progress in certain areas. On screen there’s been outstanding work.”
The BBC has committed to spending £100million of its commissioning budget from April 2021 on diverse programming.
Worth reading in full.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop 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 (takes a while to arrive). 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 with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Stop Press: A reader has spotted an opportunity to pressure MPs:
I’ve heard Jonathan Van-Tam has recently said that it’s a “good thing” that we’ll have to wear masks and socially distance for many years to come.
In the same way that the great Peter Hitchens called for sceptics to write to MPs about the tiered system vote, I wondered if you’d consider pointing out to readers that the requirement for masks has to be reviewed by the Secretary of State “before the end of the period six months after they came into force“. They came into force on July 24th, so by my reckoning they need to be reviewed by January 23rd.
This is less than two months away so perhaps this is something we should start writing to MPs about before it quietly gets renewed without debate.
Not a bad thought…
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 700,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Quotation Corner
We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Charles Mackay
They who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.
Sir Winston Churchill
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.
Richard Feynman
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
Albert Camus
We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Necessity is the plea for every restriction of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Younger
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Joseph Goebbels
Shameless Begging Bit
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First? Where are you all!
At the back…biding my time.
Here!
Good morning!
out shopping.
Silver?
When the number of reported death were announced yesterday I saw them as confirming that mortalities are now declining, as this week’s highest day’s total is almost certain to be Wednesday’s which was lower than the highest day’s total for the previous week.
This is the first time it has happened since September that the highest day’s total has been less than the previous week’s. A decline!
That wasn’t reported on Radio 4. The News focussed instead on the total deaths now going above 60,000.
The problem with the total deaths to Covid is that it is summing two separate seasons. Bit like saying deaths from the Flu are now above 100,000 for the last two years.
The other problem with total deaths to covid is that they are not deaths to covid.
I would suggest that many of them are not even deaths “with covid”.
Typical sleight of hand.
Yes, but none of it means anything. For christ’s sake, how hasn’t this been digested yet after all this time? All you people who come here everyday for your adjustment into Covid-19 normalcy, who are waiting for to tell you this stuff? Toby Young ain’t going to. He’s not here to do that.
So, once again: if people didn’t die of a pneumonia caused by SARS-COV to ACE2 binding at the lung, they didn’t die of Covid-19.
Covid-19 In A Nutshell
Grant Shapps announces quarantine exemption for business travellers – “high value travellers” will not have to isolate. A disgusting display of one rule for the rich and another for the peasants. A sign of more to come?
Brings to mind the class-war sketches from That Was The Week That Was with Ronnie Corbett’s ‘I know my place’!
Just heard the Business Secretary tell the same thing to JHB on Talk Radio. His excuse was that the UK needs inward investment. Didn’t explain how very rich people are immune.
Anyone else smell a rat??
There are so many smelly rats out there that the stench is becoming overwhelming……..
What with the smelly rats and the stinky red herrings. Maybe face nappies aren’t such a bad idea after all.
On second thoughts ……
they don’t want the dirty unwashed to be able to travel and making it exceeding difficult to do so with all the restrictions and tests etc. I know i’ve spent hours trying to find an escape plan for december (without taking a test and preferably without quarantine on return, and where insurance will cover you but almost impossible!)
You need a negative PCR test, but not just any free NHS negative PCR test but a privately funded one for £100+ pounds… which you can’t book because everywhere is already full. Vaccines next. Travelling soon to become the luxury of the rich.
Cost me £160 for my private test and certificate in order to travel to Italy. The testing venue wasn’t full – indeed, I saw the manifest at reception and I was the only person booked that day. In the event, although I was stopped by Italian authorities and subjected to passport checks and questions, nobody asked me for my test result, not once.
All part of the Plan.
We’ll have to paddle our own canoes.
On the other hand, refugee Brits capsizing in the Channel will probably just be shot at by the French, in revenge for Waterloo.
Pay people smugglers to get you across channel in a boat? Seem to be pretty successful.
They are now bookings both ways.
Yet the great unwashed still voted Tory or labour last December people get the Government they deserve
Last December we weren’t prisoners of a fascist government backed by a stalinist opposition. (Vice versa in Wales, makes no difference.)
Now when was it I last washed?
Zil lanes for the rich.
So, how many grannies will that kill?
So the Elite are already immune from the Coof?
This virus just gets more discerning by the day
I think it’s read The Great Gatsby – “the rich are different from you and me”
Equally have found on certain airlines, business class relaxed about muzzles, economy class compulsory. Indeed old coroni is a snob.
This is pretty much the greens’ wet dream – travelling only for the rich while the rest of us should know our place and be grateful for being able to go to Blackpool.
We can’t go to blackpool
Maybe I am naive, but shouldn’t there be a legal challenge to such discrimination?
And you think Bill&co wear masks in their private jets…?!
His will be really smelly rubber. He is rather weird …..
But there have always been a large list of exemptions here : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules for example lorry drivers
For “high value travellers” read “politicians”.
I’ve seen some people describe the Corona Scandal as a ‘class war’.
Tony Blair flew back from the United States and broke quarantine rules and as far as I know he wasn’t fined or reprimanded. And another article that revealed Gov’t plans to allow jet setting business people to bypass quarantine rules
A deadly virus eh?
Of course it’s a class war. They think we’ve got too uppity and want to put up back in our boxes. Brexit brought their plans forward. RESIST!
The box they want to put us in is usually about six foot long.
Inner Party members will get all the breaks. What a surprise?! None of us saw this kind of evil crap coming… in ever greater, more brazen, manifestations.
Most of the people that brought the virus with them from China and infected Europe and the rest of the globe flew Business Class.
Is that what you really believe?
It is hard to understand how a Government can be so blind to public opinion. I can, at a very heavy push, see why business travellers might be exempt – business screwed after lockdown, urgent talks to try and save said business.
But, The Guardian has: “Recently signed elite sportspeople, performing arts professionals, TV production staff and journalists will also not have to abide by quarantine restrictions if arriving from a country outside of England’s travel corridor from 4am on Saturday.”
Perhaps they want to lose the next election.
”The next election”? What would that be, then?
From the Telegraph, “Coronavirus vaccine won’t free you from self-isolation, says Government.” Well this just keeps getting better! So here’s the state of play as I see it:
If you feel perfectly healthy:
-Assume you’re still infectious
-Wear a mask
-Keep your distance
-Isolate when you’re told to
-Follow the rules
If you’ve had a negative Covid test:
-Assume you’re still infectious
-Wear a mask
-Keep your distance
-Isolate when you’re told to
-Follow the rules
If you take a Covid vaccine:
-Assume you’re still infectious
-Wear a mask
-Keep your distance
-Isolate when you’re told to
-Follow the rules
Seen enough yet?
What is the point of having this poorly tested vaccine? Also not being given to under 16s and pregnant women. I wonder why? Perhaps not tested enough?
And any women who are planning to have a baby! And women who are breastfeeding.
Getting all the breastfeeding mothers to oppose the vaccine will be a good thing!
In fact any woman who is planning to have or even likely to have a baby
Not to forget any man expecting to have intimate relations with a woman intending to have children . Remember from the AIDS history that viruses (and that presumably includes the mRNA in the injection) can pass between sexual partners very easily, indeed inevitably.
So that reduces the no of vaccinations required quite considerably. I think that the 400000 samples that are the only number currently available should be quite adequate and the rest of the order can be cancelled, saving the taxpayer a mass of money.
oooo…this could be very useful for me and my wife. We’ve got 2 kids and we’re 36 and 37, so certainly can be classed as might want another child, and getting on a bit so can’t take any risks with jeopardising that.
I suspect we’ve all ready paid up front.
I’m making my plans now.
I’m 66, so it may take me some time to conceive.
That’s nobbut a spring chicken!
Cluck!
I’m 55, but might try looking into IVF, just a check up, initial stage so I have some medical proof, so I can claim trying to conceive.
👍👍
And immuno suppressed and those taking medications, that rules out most of the elderly, so the vulnerable cantvtake the vaccine, so that means the rest of us have to, to protect them. So back to square one.
I am hopeful that either the FDA, the EMA or, hopefully both, will refuse to grant a license for women under 60. Turn that demographic sceptical and the house of cards will come crashing down.
absolutely – we should watch carefully the other EU and US institutions approval of the vaxx as they will probably be more diligent, well you’d like to think so anyway.
I wouldn’t touch any drugs that come from America you would have to be on drugs to go there
They couldn’t be less diligent.
Even if they just refuse to grant a license for any reason it would surely destroy the government and the idea that we have a valid and safe licensing regime ourselves?
The vaccine has probably been tested for years and we can be quite sure that it will do what it is intended to do.
That’s what I’m afraid of!
Quite.
Like I said three or more months ago: they’re never going to let us out.
Let yourself out.
Only the weather keeping me in!
I never taken a blind bit of notice of the lockdowns, other than not going down to the pub. It is well past time to be brave as it’s been clear for some months now that they want us dead.
That’s why they’ve closed the pubs or made it so that we can’t communicate in them. I think if we could go out to the local then all the other ”rules” would break down.
Just speaking to a chap in his thirties who had Covid in March, caught from coughing Italian kids at the nearby language school.
‘So will you be taking the vaccine?’
” course I will, covid’s not something you want to catch twice.”
So no doubt he will be keeping to the same rules for the foreseeable future.
He is a moron and deserves what he gets.
I’ve had flu twice in my almost 70 decades and, while it was no picnic, I always decline my annual flu jab offer.
me too no flu vaccine, I’ve only ever had the flu once not even sure what it was, didn’t mind at all,i even thought it was so interesting all the symptoms never have had a flu vaccine and never will
I’ve never had the flu vaccine when I worked for the NHS although I faced a lot of pressure during my final year. I will continue to decline it as I do with all the other so called health screening tests.
I’ve heard they’re changing the testing equipment to something that no longer tells you if you previously had the phantom virus, and only if you currently have it. No doubt this will allow them to ignore the idea of herd immunity and press on with the suggestion that we will need to take the vaccine regularly.
This is WW3
It’s been going for nearly a year now, government against the people and most of them don’t have a clue.
Only this time our government is the Enemy!
The Great Re-shit in full force. thanks to whatsherface on YouTube for the naming.
Gosh – is everyone still in bed due to the snow?
No up here is France – an hour ahead – but it is snowing!
Shame midget micron has closed the ski resorts!! I hear the resort workers are protesting!!
Here in Switzerland it looks like we are going to try to keep the resorts open, despite massive behind-the-scenes pressure from Merkel, Macron, EU, etc.
But getting here might be tricky.
Also, it seems Slovakia, Poland (Tatras), CR (pretty limited skiing) and Slovenia are trying to stay open. Again, Merkel and EU will exert enormous pressure, but the Poles may not care, as they are being bullied anyway, which may allow other former East-bloc countries also to successfully resist.
Austria seems to be open pretty much only for domestic skiers.
No,Judy, I would rather have a temperature of 5° and cold winds than 29.5°.
No offense intended.
I’d take that but without the cold winds!
No snow here in Norfolk yet.
It’s snowing over in Cambridgeshire, according to my sister.
Snowed quite hard for 2 hours here in east Suffolk, but ground sopping wet from the heavy rain, so no settle. Small river at the end of the garden has burst its banks so a rather fast flowing wide ‘river’ now running through our field.
What snow?
Snow?? We have rain in Bournemouth as yesterday’s deluge obviously wasn’t enough 😉
No snow in London but we had the deluge yesterday and today its freezing.
finally – a use for the face nappies. a bit of insulation to stop getting chapped lips from the cold
I’ll risk the chapped lips and remain human.
Us too. Guess what the weather’s like in the High Peak! 🙂 MW
Is thi snow on them theer ‘ills?
Aye! MW
I’m getting my usual chapped lips and dry skin on schedule – my badge of humanity!
That’s my excuse – but I don’t get up till it’s full daylight which, by some people’s standards, is well into the day at this time of year.
Hi Toby – have you seen this – it has been removed from YouTube
https://www.bitchute.com/video/K-4mvNiEzTQ/
Are we still putting it down to incompetence??, all planned from before day 1. Social credits!
In his view. Please keep a grip, the actual truth as it stands is bad enough. Don’t sex it up.
Sorry Nick it looks like 77th Brigade has got to you. The video is only telling it like it already is and will be. Now if you want proper “conspiracy theories” about the vaccines being deliberately harmful, well look no further.
I can’t get Bit Chute videos to play. What does it say?
Video seems to have been removed. But report is still there.
Nothing really new in report.
https://summit.news/2020/12/01/report-uk-deploys-military-infowar-unit-against-covid-vaccine-skeptics/
not sceptics just pro choice
The video is still there, is your browser messing yo u about? Try Duck Duck Go or something else other than Google.
Bitchute videos can be a bit twitchy
Seems to work better on certain browsers
No sound, but it looks like somebody’s interpretation of something. So not especially bothered thanks.
It is well worth watching Nick. He talks about the vaccination cards slated for introduction in Wales, and the unit from GCHQ now embedded in Downing Street.
I had no problem with the sound.
So, 77th and GCHQ are going to start monitoring this site. Oh, sorry, they already are…
Inevitable!
Not just monitoring, probably embedded.
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Boris that all the world should be registered for Track & Trace. This census first took place while Hancock was governing the NHS. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Guildford, out of the city of Nottingham, into the East Midlands, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, amongst other things, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. However, the NHS was still shut down after the plagues of their forefathers, generations before their time. So they went to an innkeeper who told them he was in Tier 3 and had no rooms and they must make their own bubble but not inside. And they must wear masks. And so, on Christmas Day in the year of our Lord, 1, Christ was born, and was wrapped in PPE, and placed in an isolation manger for 14 days lest the plagues of the… Read more »
That’s really good.
Saw the book in the image in a charity shop window yesterday, and it started me off. Therapy needed.
Johnson the clown cannot remain in office a day longer than necessary a serious liability
A blatant criminal.
Excellent, James; very funny. 🙂
Sounds like Michael Palin’s next series. I’m going to make that the title for my next album.
Eric Idle’s Travel Agent sketch.
Excellent!
You forgot to mention the gifts of the magi. Those jewelled pots and caskets were positively overflowing with hand sanitiser, in three novelty scents.
They rocked up a few days later. Episode two relates how they executed their cunning plan to get out of Cleckheckmondsedge.
Mea Culpa
Boris as the Baby Jesus with Hancock Vallance and Whitty as the Three Wise Men.
Thanks, excellent, we now need a version of the night before Christmas.
Almost tempted to circulate it to our church members….. I don’t remember much said about Mary’s mother in the Bible. I expect the shepherds and wise men though were forbidden to visit because of the tiers and 3 families rule..
Mary’s mother was called Anna. Her father was Joachim. Mary was born untainted by original sin (the Immaculate Conception), which of course means that Christ was untainted by it also. It’s all in the New Testament Apocrypha.
Bloody brilliant, just read ,cheered me up no end…
Your help please. I complained to the BBC about https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55143938 where it said “Why has it taken so long?” saying that was biased.
The response is
“This was with regards to the Netherlands being one of the countries worst affected by Europe’s second wave of Covid-19 yet is one of the last in Europe to introduce such a measure.
Anna explained that neighbouring nations followed World Health Organization advice (the body recommends wearing a mask to help reduce the spread of the virus) but the Netherlands refused to follow suit for several reasons, one being doubts over the effectiveness of masks.
We have discussed the effectiveness of face coverings across our news output, such as here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51205344”
The latter link just has assertions in it-no evidence.
Can someone please suggest a scientific response?
Fuck off?
Is anyone able to Slimy Gove this totally appropriate summation into a twenty-page document?
How can that slimeball stand there and lie so blatantly..
Point them to the Danish RCT that concluded that there was no definite evidence for benefits of mask wearing, and the various quotes from UK public health figures that masks were not recommended, before the U-turn.
This is a good one, linked by a commenter below:
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/neue_studie_die_maskenpflicht_wird_immer_zweifelhafter
Sure. Viral infections don’t happen in waves.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/28/evidence-masks-not-strong-either-direction-says-deputy-chief/
Evidence for masks ‘not very strong in either direction’, says Deputy Chief Medical Officer
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-face-masks-increase-risk-infection-doctor-jenny-harries-a9396811.html
Coronavirus: Face masks could increase risk of infection, medical chief warns
‘For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good ideas
They don’t want to listen to science any more!!
You might find something useful here:
Thanks all _I know it won’t do any good but it must take up someone’s time
Its the BBC you are wasting your time and energy. The BBC needs to be shut down and its staff held to account for terrorising the population over the last year. I don’t know how we are going to do this but I am pretty sure trying to reason with them is not going to help.
Can SKY and itv channel 4 also be shut down as well
I agree with you that is the ideal solution. But, for the meanwhile, I think it is worth arguing with them, if enough people do it. Even though it seems like a Sisyphean task.
I worked for a government media monitoring service in the past, and I cannot believe how bad the MSM has become now. (Worldwide I think, or at least — in varying degrees — in all countries I look at.)
Actually, I think the term ‘corporate media’ is much more apt than MSM, even for media that is government-funded.
Here are some links. Last is in German. I included because it is excellent.
https://www.aier.org/article/the-year-of-disguises/
https://swprs.org/danish-mask-study-no-benefit/
https://www.psychologycounts.com/
https://dailysceptic.org/2020/11/19/
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/neue_studie_die_maskenpflicht_wird_immer_zweifelhafter
Stop paying the licence fee, 100% guaranteed to improve your quality of life (and QALYs probably).
Was very sad to hear my normally sceptic colleague say yesterday that he will be having the vaccine if it means he can travel and return to normal. He has went the other way now. Idiot.
My get out clause for the vaccine is I may have a third child in the future and don’t want the vaccine to affect my fertility.
I say we should encourage as many people (believers) as possible to have it, less left for us and we can see if the potential adverse effects are really a thing. They are our volunteer guinea pigs.
I’ve been thinking that myself. When the vaccine was first mentioned some weeks/months ago, I was urging friends and family to please think twice about having it. I met with usual ‘believers’ responses. Now, I say nothing. If asked what I’m going to do I will say ‘probably not’. I’ve given up on trying to talk to them about it. If they’re mad enough and silly enough not to question something as important as this, bugger ‘em. Sounds harsh, I know but my patience is stretched thin these days. As is my sanity.
I posted something very similar yesterday. In a spin about whether I would want to talk people out of it or just say let them get on with it if they are so desperate. Puts me and mine further down the queue.
This is difficult. I quite agree: if people are daft enough to take it, it’s their problem.
My worry is that, if the take-up is high, then the Govt may be able to introduce the WHO/Gates ‘vaccine passports’, which must be resisted at all costs. If take-up is low, this idea will not be practical.
So, I will be encouraging people not to take it (at the risk of prosecution?)
Me too. Can’t be bothered to argue about vaccination except with my daughter who is precious to me. Let everyone take the jab if it makes them feel safer. My immune system isn’t up to it.
Accidentally downvoted you but then upvoted to compensate.
Yes, once it is in your blood it is there for good.
I have decided to identify as a pregnant woman for the foreseeable future, and the SNP, on prior form, will have to acknowledge me as such.
I’m 61. Would it be stretching it to say I haven’t completed my family yet?
I’m over 70 but am self identifying as a 28 year old thinking about starting a family.
You’re as old as you feel!
Given that we don’t know what this vaccine could turn people into, maybe you get your wish.
A 2020 Midwich Cuckoos if you like. 😉
As is your right with today’s loony laws. We live in strange times.
Join Christian Science.
Become deathly allergic to one of the ingredients.
also I have a feeling plenty fake “I.D” certificates will be flooding E-bay once 4Chan get their hands on them
Polyethelene glycol (PEG). Tell them that gaviscon gives you bad stomach pain or a rash.
When the Corona Stasi ask why I am exempt – I have a plethora of fanciful conditions which shut them up immediately
Last week it was PTSD
This week it is Aids
Next week I quite fancy Morgellons disease
They should not ask, you are not obliged to give medical or other reasons.But for ‘fun’ bi-polar and extreme mood swings is good.
I keep a horse. Snake oil always gives us both the epizootic sniggers.
You’ve hit on a theme that skeptics veer away from in case they look like a “conspiracy theorist” (as if that’s worse then being a pot-banging mask-wearing government policy zealot), when talking about the vaccine affecting fertility. Wind the clocks back to Gates talking about population control in the same breath as championing vaccination…
Soros to Fauci: you will issue the following statement of apology or it will be the sharks for you.
Time for Soros to be given a permanent afternoon nap horrible old Nazi Reminds me of a James Bond villain with a white cat
Exclusive: Coronavirus vaccine won’t free you from self-isolation, says Government
The jabs provide Covid-19 immunity but scientists are yet to prove this prevents recipients from carrying and spreading the virus
By
Gordon Rayner,
POLITICAL EDITOR
3 December 2020 • 7:00pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/03/exclusive-vaccine-wont-free-self-isolation-says-government/
Sorted – if it doesn’t stop the vaccinated spreading the cough then there is certainly no point the healthy taking it
There was also the moral problem of a healthy 20 year old taking a vaccine that is not 100% safe to allow an elderly frail person to possibly live for a few more weeks
Not many elderly would accept that risk in their name!
Good article.
The comments were going gangbusters yesterday evening, then shut down with a clanking of chains. Most of the comments still in place though.
The Government can fuck off and keep it’s fat hands off my rights
Yes, it seems that the vaccine does not do anything really useful.
In light of this, it is quite extraordinary to behold how it is being celebrated by UK govt and media.
Backlash soon?
Worse, the money has already been allocated.
it is quite extraordinary to behold how it is being
celebratedpropagandised by UK govt and media.‘Vaccines Will Set You Free’
They better change that sign over the gate
There is an item in today’s newsletter about the review of the English face-mask regs in January 2021, if that review passes them to continue we will have compulsory face-masks until July 2021. As well as writing to MPs as suggested, I wonder if it is worth starting a petition on the Government Petition site, calling for these regs to be rescinded? You need the promoter & 5 supporters willing to put down their name and email address. Do we have 6 people on this site, who live in England and would be willing to start up such a petition?
I’m sure if you start one there will be many on this site who would support it
To start a petition I would need 5 people to sponsor it, which I do not have.
They would need to be willing for their names and email addresses to be recorded on the Government petitions web-site.
I think there is a way to DM people via the forum, if you’re logged in. Happy to send you my details if you manage to do it.
I may be wrong but I have seen others post here asking for sponsors, so I thought it was possible to create a petition and publish the link to get sponsors.
I have put my draft wording for a petition in a post under the Politics section of the forums bit of this web-site, I have also put my email so that if this goes ahead you can let me have your details by email. Steve.
Yes I am willing to put my name and email. Not sure how to get a direct message to you though without putting the details on here?
Hello, I have put my draft wording for this on the forum section of this site in the Politics category, I have also put my email so that if this goes ahead you can email me with your details as a sponsor.
Dr Vernon Coleman has a lot of followers. Richie Allen, James Delingpole… Spread your request to as many sites as possible.
If you sign a petition, they take your details anyway. I’ve signed so many this year that mine are as good as on autofill.
The first five to sign are effectively your sponsors.
“They”, not “We“.
Bojo, Handjob and JVT can say we as much as they want. I do not consider myself to be one of them.
I have ventured into North Yorkshire (T2) from my town (T3) twice since the Tiers for Fears were announced. I walked the very pleasant ten miles into Knaresborough for market day, visited a cafe and had a jolly chat on the bus back with two elderly ladies also from my town who were wielding their “freedom passes” (good for them). Then last night, two miles over the border by bus for a meal in a lovely pub in a T2 village. The bus drivers don’t ask questions. So the moral seems to be, avoid the NY Plod by walking or using the bus.
https://www.saveourrights.uk
I despair sometimes, I really do. Looking at Facebook this morning, all these people applauding the fact that “anti vaxxers” are being censored left right and centre. It doesn’t seem to compute with them that once they start censoring one group of people, it’s only a matter of time before they come for them as well. Censorship and cancel culture is a cancer and one of the main reasons we’re in this mess. We need open transparent debate on these issues and when they shut down opposing views, all that says to me is that the establishment are scared of what these people have to say.
After all, if there’s no credence to these ‘theories’, surely it should be easy to debunk them?
It’s a big problem. Extreme polarisation of views and cancel culture have made open transparent debate almost impossible. A lot of people are thinking of ways to ‘debunk’ an argument before actually listening to it these days, as they have chosen a ‘side’.
Nothing good can come of it and those who support it will be in for a rude awakening when at some point they too are cancelled or vilified.
That’s exactly the problem with one friend in particular on Facebook. She’s always commenting on posts with various controversial subject matters, and she nearly always quotes BBC articles to “debunk” whatever opinions she disagrees with. She’s a lovely person otherwise but I find it best not to try and argue with people like that, it’s a waste of energy.
She does not sound very lovely to me…..I wonder how lovely those who committed suicide due to lockdown would have thought she was.
You need to get on Alt tech and only use legacy media sparingly (to laugh at them mainly)
Bitchute
Minds
Gab
Parler
All fantastic resources
Duckduckgo
Yandex
SearX
Avoid Google and it’s subsidiaries at all costs
I am using Brave browser and Qwant search engine at the moment.
I got an absolute pounding after posting in a local group that I would refuse a vaccine. I was accused of being a ‘5G’er’ and a ‘flat earther’ when I’ve never mentioned either issue at all. It’s the avid masketeers that are the nasty, rude and offensive ones. They cannot seem to grasp that, maybe, just maybe, THEY are the conspiracy theorists. I’ve been told ‘I hope your cancer kills you’ or that I’m ‘a bot’. When I complained that my friend’s cancer is terminal due entirely to a 5 month delay in surgery I got ‘Do you ever stop moaning’? And WE are the enemy? Some want us refused medical treatment (what medical treatment?) or want us dragged from our homes to be forcibly be given a vaccine that doesn’t stop you getting flu or protect you in any way. Glorified Lemsip until they add the surprise ingredients.
“Do you ever stop moaning?” is an appalling reply.
Even worse was the fact that the woman who said it works for the NHS!
They have no cogent arguments then?
I think many people have made up their minds and are afraid of being challenged.Hence why its easy to retreat to using soundbites and smearing other people. I always come across this whenever I try to debate and reason with people – the slogans and soundbites always come out but nothing to do with common sense and reason.
Some of those people applauding are trolls/Change Agents. Maybe even paid to do it.
That sounds like the Army’s 77th Brigade. That’s what the Army does these days and of course we are their enemy.
Censoring and attacking any challenge to the pro vax, is surely counter productive? what have they got to hide ?
NO
POLITCAL
VACCINATIONS
Well, I don’t mind if they vaccinate all politicians: a cull is desperately needed!
Especially as Hancock has offered to take the vaccine on live air
Do you really think any grandstanding politician will be given the actual vaccine? MW
Only a fool will believe this crap!
What difference does it make if he does take anything, real or not? It doesn’t actually prove anything.
People will see him, or Piers, or whover take something; not drop dead in 10 minutes and think, “That’s good enough for me!”, and head off to the extermination camps.
They don’t realise that the ‘real’ problem could be months, or years, down the line.
Propaganda! None of these TV volunteers will take anything.
Eric Idle as TV Host.
It does feel like our approach to PCR testing would be if someone tested the notes in my wallet and found trace amounts of cocaine. I then get arrested for possession of drugs and locked away for ten days.
It seems we’re just going around testing the notes in peoples wallets and because we’re finding these trace amounts of cocaine, deciding that there’s a massive drug problem and everyone needs locking up.
Whereas if we also completed a hair or blood test (the equivalent of looking for symptoms in the people being tested) which would come back negative in the majority of these positive cocaine-on-note cases, we’d clearly see there isn’t a cocaine usage epidemic and we’re just being stupid for assuming so because of trace amounts on a bank note.
Excellent analogy.
Police State
https://northyorkshire.police.uk/news/statement-from-supt-mike-walker-on-travel-between-tiers/
North Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Mike Walker fiddles with words. He talks about restrictions and travel, but the travel itself for a day journey is ADVISORY – it is the group activities etc which are in law. See the legislation and even the lockdown fanatic BBC links below. He should be sacked for the way he is trying to control the public by distorting the law, no doubt due to his own opinions.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1374/contents/made
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52530518
I am not planning to go to North Yorkshire but if I was and was stopped, I would ask the PC to explain to me the legislation – not any other guidance document – but the legalisation they are acting under.
Most police are unsure of these cretinous rules themselves here in Brentwood Essex they are clueless
I have twice crossed the T3 to T2 border to go for lunch…..stuff the police.
That’s extraordinary. He even mentions that it is “advice” then goes on to confirm his police will be actively enforcing this “advice”, then ends with the classic summary of what we are being “asked” to do
Didn’t you all expect this? When someone is brow beaten for such a long time they will jump at any option the believe to get them out of this. In this case namely a vaccine. WAKE UP The vaccine won’t change anything at all. This is all the beginning, nothing short of people taking back their freedom without any vaccines, masks, social distancing et al – ANYTHING ELSE IS KOWTOWING. Let us talk of hypocrisy/stupidity. “infections are happening in the home” – solution, lock everyone up in the home. “Only 10% have had it and may be immune” – well how can that be if everyone was locked up but still able to go to shops etc? Also apparently herd immunity only exists if a version of covid (not yet isolated) is mixed with formaldehyde and thimerosal etc and injected straight into a vein rather than going through the bodies many stages of immunity. Yet you think this will work? The vaccine is the virus, all this will do is help the virus mutate and make those who have had the vaccine LESS immune. To each their own is my belief but much like the flu vaccine this will only… Read more »
To look on the bright side, the restrictions are so restrictive – not even attempted in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany to this level – that kickback will come. And that kickback will be hard.
How? The restrictions are designed to prevent kickback.
The problem for the planners is that the restrictions that are designed to prevent kickback, ultimately cause kickback,
We need a written constitution and hopefully become a federal republic where everyone is equal not born in a antiquated class system and monarchy nonsense which has no place in the 21st century
It is a pressure cooker. Pressure will have to be released, sooner or later, or risk the lid blowing off. My feeling is eventually they are going to have to do that.
Newton’s Law.
Someone posted this link of Dolores Cahill’s speech yesterday
PROF. DOLORES CAHILL IN DUBLIN SPEAKING TRUTH 28TH NOVEMBER (bitchute.com)
I hope no one lets her down.
I fear civil unrest Johnson and Hancock will only push too far before getting a well deserved beating both
The one thing keeping me going at the moment is I’m sure that the majority of people think we’ll go back to old normal now we have a vaccine. Surely, surely, surely there will be kick back when that doesn’t happen?
I think there will be a kickback. In fact my anecdotal evidence from a shopping trip today is that there is now more “under-nose” mask wearing. People may be thinking, now there is this miraculous “vack-seen” which will save all our lives, or at least 90% of them, we can be a bit less strict with the miraculous masks. If they’re later told “No, you’ve got to keep wearing the masks for ever”, they won’t be very pleased to say the least. I wonder what the reaction will be to the Premier League demanding masks at all times when a limited number of supporters are in the stadiums? I’ve seen a picture of fans cheering at Arsenal’s Europa League match last night, and some of them have pulled their masks down.
That poor fucker drinking coffee in a park ! bloody terrorist .. result mayhem….welcome to Albion 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAV7aZYrddE&app=desktop
first jabs happening on Tuesday 8th December
full immunity 28 days later on 5th Jan
any effect won’t be seen until 10th Jan from this tiny cohort
lets face it, by the time they have spent Dec,Jan, Feb immunising people, we would expect to see the results just as the virus is suppressed by the summer.
In Greece, the government imposed a strict lockdown from late March to early May, Greece had few deaths, the government duly took credit. However flu season was ending. As autumn descended they have had another lockdown, the death toll is much higher and the renewed lockdown seems to have little effect, so it has been lengthened to at least December 14. The rise in cases and also deaths coincided closely with weather being cold enough not to wear a T-shirt outdoors.
I’m sure they’re well aware of that!
“And in conclusion
Worth reading in full. Apart from the plea for more mask-wearing (?), it is a sane analysis.”
This last point sounds sane but I have profound doubts that it is in fact a good idea in practice, given the demonstration given by government and technocrats of the willingness to abuse power, and the propensity of the public to be frightened into compliance.
The word “biosecurity” fills me with dread I am afraid. I would rather have a fairly lacklustre state of preparedness than the mad overreaction that we have had.
The key lesson so far is that we need to accept that new viruses may emerge about which not much can be done, and that any response needs to be proportionate to the impact of the “pandemic”.
If there is one key lesson from the pandemic thus far is the fact that it was just a bumbling attempt to accelerate The Great Reset.
Shropshire where I live and neighbouring Worcestershire are in teir 2 but nearby Staffordshire and the West Midlands are in teir 3 and I’m sure other sceptics will agree that the difference is truly amazing.
Here we can go into a coffee shop and eateries but in teir 3 ,the towns, cities and villages are basically “ghost towns”.
If this madness doesn’t end soon, it will be a “ghost world”
Ghost world is their final solution.
Thats right I have a house in Shropshire and another in Staffordshire. As I drive from one to the other the difference is bizarre…staffs is dead at the moment so guess where i spend most of my time lol.
This guy is doing great work realtime monitoring the rates of areas vs the Tiers they are in – gets retweeted by Carl Heneghan
https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1334539240995254272
From Mike Yeadon.
Matt Hancock Would Take the COVID Vaccine With Piers Morgan | Good Morni… https://youtu.be/mdvpJrGzcIU via @YouTubeSee 8min on. Mr Hancock, asked by he’d vaccinate given he’s had Covid19 said: “Because we don’t yet know the impact of having had Covid19 on whether you’re immune……and don’t transmit it again”.This really is big news to immunologists. (Source: https://threader.app/thread/1334446393788936193)
This is what’s been puzzling me. If you’ve had Covid, you don’t need the vaccine. The people in charge have gone down the wrong rabbit hole, completely and utterly.
They will get saline. Unless there’s a switching of the vial at the last minute
Strychnine would be an appropriate substitute.
Richie Allen received 3 confidential Pfizer COVID vaccine docs from an anonymous NHS worker NHS staff set to administer the covid vaccines to other NHS staff are told there is no available data if the vaccine causes infertility in their prevaccination literature. The information sheets that will be handed to the vaccine recipient do not mention this fact. They omit it. Richie Allen broke this important detail last night at the very start of his Radio show – link below. The information sheet documents now exist as pdf at gov.uk etc. The only link I have is in this tweet below. Jennie Espelho (@1Mirror1978) Tweeted: @RichieAllenShow @Piers_Corbyn Richie, I’ve read this document now so have a much better understanding of the question you asked. I am shocked by these admissions in this document. Martin is absolutely right in his concerns and if his superiors can’t see it……😳 https://t.co/wJDauVtj2I https://twitter.com/1Mirror1978/status/1334610551222267907?s=20 This links to the uk gov infomation for health care workers as spoken about on allen show. The full show is exceptional – Jenny Lowes highly experienced NHS worker in the second hour is a brilliant listen with some great thoughts and advice based in the real world. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2020-12-03T11_20_47-08_00 First ten… Read more »
Yep. Lots of important guests. Weekly. For years and years.
Personal Story
I live with my brother, who has property overseas and spends the winter there. On returning to UK in March, just as the virus panic kicked off, he found that the local GPs barricaded themselves and did not respond to his many requests to review and renew his diabetes medicines. So they didn’t.
In October he got Coronavirus and he’s OK now but he was more sick than he might have been, undoubtedly, because of the lack of diabetes medication. Meanwhile, note that I live in the same house, provided his food, care etc during his illness, did not wear any mask and was never ill. I have had tests and antibody tests but nothing. Negative. This massively infectious disease in front of my face for 2 weeks at home – and nothing. In general health, I am very fit and healthy and take multivitamins including vitamin D. I have no other illness or medications. However, lockdowns have increased stress and restricted physical activities at times.
The moral of the story is looking after personal health and providing normal health services will do far more to promote the health of people than any lockdown.
Anything that keeps us healthy has been banned by the Government. This includes human interaction which is vital for physical and emotional wellbeing
Is your brother getting his diabetes meds now?
Can I suggest you have a look at dietdoctor.com for ways to reduce his reliance on the meds. Helped my DH to come off all the diabetic meds.
Dare I ask your age?
My age is 50
Thanks for replying.You are on the cusp, you know. I suppose you realise that if you’d have been a few months older you’d have been ‘vulnerable’ and would undoubtedly have caught Covvie and sadlidied?
My wife had “something nasty that had all the symptoms of the ‘rona” in December last year. I didn’t get it.
As you mention vitamin D… the NHS now have ads on social media informing us that it’s vital we should take it. Why not earlier in the year? Cunts the lot of them.
Ah! day what is it now, and the fraud goes on
“On average, 87.7% of available beds were occupied across the country in the week ending November 22nd, compared with 94.9% in the same week 2019.”
The key sentence for me in today’s update.
Indeed, though you’d need to look at how many people were turned away/operations/treatments cancelled, in each period, and what those operations and treatments were, average wait times. Healthcare is usually oversubscribed, rationed and operating with a backlog, and I think these things need to be measured alongside occupancy to give an accurate picture of the level of pressure. I’ve tried to find some decent, up to date data for this, and asked contacts to provide it, but found nothing useful especially for recent months. The collection of cancelled operations data was suspended last time I checked.
That slimy lying Gove.
The government will twist that stat around to make it look like their measures were effective.
Remember all those police forces apologising for “getting it wrong” by being overzealous, back when lockdown was introduced?
One of the refresher lessons of 2020. Give our police forces powers, and they will abuse them. It is as simple as that.
Remember that, next time some new law restricting behaviour or speech is proposed. Never dream that it is ok because “the police will be sensible” about applying it. That’s the road to gross injustices.
And remember it when the police are claiming to be short of resources, and making excuses about not tackling real crime.
There is a desperate need for a thorough overhaul of policing, partly to undo its infiltration by woke-ist social manipulators, and generally just to refocus it on actual crimes – thefts, robberies and assaults of all kinds,plus financial crimes and frauds.
Telegraph
The eedjits should have set a minimum price tag as they did in the Auld Sod. A “substantial meal” is exact as asking for a “long piece of string.”
The reputation of the police will take years to recover when the real criminals are in Government and parliament
There should be no rules, no lockdowns or business shutdowns. Arguing over what constitutes a substantial meal is simply playing the oppressor’s game. All pubs should open immediately and call the government’s bluff.
Agreed. I was just seeking to highlight how incompetent the powers that be are.
Gove said a scotch egg is a substantial meal. OK he changed the tune a few times afterwards, but that one got out of the bag and would do for me.
Police are increasingly looking like enforcers for the elitist social engineers and authoritarian academics.
“generally just to refocus it on actual crimes – thefts, robberies and assaults of all kinds,plus financial crimes and frauds”.
The trouble is these things are really hard to investigate and really expensive to police. It’s much more efficient getting them to hand out FPN’s willy nilly and it brings in a few quid too.
What’s the problem with property crime anyway? Most people are insured. All the police need to do is issue a crime number really. This can be done in a call centre.
“What’s the problem with property crime anyway? Most people are insured. All the police need to do is issue a crime number really. This can be done in a call centre.” I assumed this was sarcasm on your part. But just in case it wasn’t, and for anyone reading who might be tempted by that view for real, here’s why “property crime”(theft, robbery and petty vandalism) is extremely serious, at least when directed at individuals and their personal or business property. 1 Not everyone has insurance, and insurance does not always respond. And the ones who don’t have insurance are often the ones who suffer the most from property crime, who can least afford to repair, replace or do without the items taken or destroyed. Petty theft, robbery and vandalism constitute one of the worst plagues on the poorest people and probably creates more misery and general suffering than almost any other factor. Thieves and vandals are often most hated in poor areas, and for good reason. And it’s not just the physical loss of the item – it’s the soul-destroying helplessness of being unable to prevent your property from being removed or destroyed by scum. 2 People are entitled… Read more »
So very true Mark I find myself agreeing with the awful BLM about defunding the police!
Then think again. BLM’s goal in defunding the police is to replace it with a political militia – basically to do the kinds of things our police are being misapplied to do now, as their core function.
I know Mark I was only joking!!!
: – ) Always hard to be sure in writing…..