A Scandal Brewing in Germany
Global Research has published an article about the growing pressure on the scientific journal Eurosurveillance to retract the critical paper by Christian Dorston entitled “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus by real-time RT-PCR”, which laid the groundwork for the use of PCR tests to detect COVID-19.
First, it reports on the criticisms of the original study, levelled by Dr Mike Yeadon, among others:
To begin with, as the critical scientists reveal, the paper that established the Drosten PCR test for the Wuhan strain of coronavirus that has subsequently been adopted with indecent haste by the Merkel government along with WHO for worldwide use – resulting in severe lockdowns globally and an economic and social catastrophe – was never peer-reviewed before its publication by Eurosurveillance. The report’s critics point out that: “the Corman-Drosten paper was submitted to Eurosurveillance on January 21st 2020 and accepted for publication on January 22nd 2020. On January 23rd 2020 the paper was online.”
The critics point out that Drosten and his co-author Dr Chantal Reusken, did not disclose a glaring conflict of interest. Both were also members of the editorial board of Eurosurveillance. Further, as reported by BBC and Google Statistics, on January 21st there were a world total of six deaths being attributed to the Wuhan virus. They ask, “Why did the authors assume a challenge for public health laboratories while there was no substantial evidence at that time to indicate that the outbreak was more widespread than initially thought?” Another co-author of the Drosten paper that gave a cover of apparent scientific credibility to the Drosten PCR procedure was head of the company who developed the test being marketed today, with the blessing of WHO, in the hundreds of millions, Olfert Landt, of Tib-Molbiol in Berlin, but Landt did not disclose that pertinent fact in the Drosten paper either.
Certainly nothing suspicious or improper here, or? It would be relevant to know if Drosten, the Merkel chief scientific advisor for COVID-19, Germany’s de facto “Tony Fauci,” gets a percentage for each test sold by Tib-Molbiol in their global marketing agreement with Roche.
But the criticisms of the paper are not the only problem facing Dr Drosten.
According to Dr. Markus Kühbacher, a specialist investigating scientific fraud such as dissertation plagiarism, Dr Drosten’s doctor thesis, by law must be deposited on a certain date with academic authorities at his University, who then sign a legal form, Revisionsschein, verified with signature, stamp of the University and date, with thesis title and author, to be sent to the University archive. With it, three original copies of the thesis are filed.
Kühbacher charges that the Goethe University is guilty of cover-up by claiming, falsely, Drosten’s Revisionsschein was on file. The University spokesman later was forced to admit it was not filed, at least not locatable by them. Moreover, of the three mandatory file copies of his doctor thesis, highly relevant given the global importance of Drosten’s coronavirus role, two copies have “disappeared,” and the remaining single copy is water-damaged. Kühbacher says Drosten will now likely face court charges for holding a fraudulent doctoral title.
Separately, there is another legal process about to begin brought by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg and his lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich.
Whether that is to pass, it is a fact that a separate legal process has been filed in Berlin against two people responsible for a German media site, Volksverpetzer.de, for slander and defamation, brought by a well-known and critical German medical doctor, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg. The court case demands of the defendants €250,000 in damages for defamation of character and material damages to Wodarg by the accused in their online site, as well as in other German media, claiming they viciously and without proof, defamed Wodarg, calling him a “covid-denier,” falsely calling him a right-wing extremist (he is a life-long former parliament member of the Social Democratic Party) and numerous other false and damaging charges
The attorney for Dr Wodarg is a well-known German-American attorney, Dr Reiner Fuellmich. In his charges against the defendants, Fuellmich cites in full the charges against the Drosten test for coronavirus of Dr Pieter Borger et al noted above. This is in effect forcing the defendants to refute the Borger paper. It is a major step on the way to refute the entire WHO COVID-19 PCR testing fraud.
.
The report is worth reading in full and the story is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Eurosurveillance has said it is “seeking further expert advice“, but claims the paper was peer-reviewed. Pretty fast turnaround, given that it was submitted on January 21st and published on January 22nd.
Mass PCR Testing an Expensive Blunder
Dr Tom Jefferson has a terrific piece in today’s Mail on Sunday, based on research recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases (Oxford University Press), on the mania for mass testing.
For the past few weeks I have received a stream of unsettling letters and emails from members of the public. They are all complete strangers, people I’ve never met. They decided to get in touch out of what I can only describe as desperation.
They are at their wits’ end because they are testing positive for COVID-19 despite having recovered from their symptoms. Some never had symptoms in the first place but are still being told they have the virus long after any possible infection. They are anxious and confused. Their lives are on hold.
One family tells me how their mother caught COVID-19 in hospital in October but continues to test positive. “This is starting to cause problems with her receiving treatment for cancer,” they write, “so we’re trying to prove she’s not still infectious.” Another man complains of losing his sense of smell two months ago, his only symptom. Yet his test results continue to be positive. When will he eventually be negative, he wants to know.
After detailing some of the failings in the way the test is used, and the critical fact that the this simple yes/no test cannot tell us if the individual is still sick, or capable of infecting others, he writes:
Last Friday, however, an academic journal reported that almost a quarter (24%) of infected staff and patients at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford were still testing positive for COVID-19 a full six weeks after the start of an illness that normally runs its course within 14 days.
If that were in any way representative, I’d have to conclude that the official coronavirus figures have been grossly overstated, with all the damage that entails.
As Newcastle University’s Professor Allyson Pollock said recently, the PCR tests were never designed to be used across entire populations. The manufacturer’s instructions, she says, make it clear that they are no more than a tool to help with diagnosis and they are “not to be used on healthy people with no symptoms”.
I believe that Britain’s new-found testing mania is a retreat from properly conducted clinical medicine as well as from common sense. And that we are witnessing a triumph of herd thinking, an expensive one at that. Most PCR kits still cost more than £100 to obtain privately, for example, and the Government says it is now delivering 500,000 a day. But even these figures are dwarfed by the £100 billion the Prime Minister is prepared to spend on a “moonshot” dream of supplying the population with tests more or less on demand.
All precision has been sacrificed and instead we are blundering through, imprisoning people in their homes, further crippling the economy long after the infection has vanished. This is why we must treat the Government’s daily tally of cases, often in five figures, with a huge dose of salt. And why we must restrict the reporting of positive coronavirus diagnoses to those who are infectious to others. These are the people who matter in a pandemic.
Perhaps in recognition, at least in part, of the of the unreliability of the PCR test, the Government’s emphasis is switching to the lateral flow test. Sky News reports that from Monday 1.6 million of these tests, which use similar technology to the pregnancy test and have a quicker turnaround, will be deployed in over 100 local authority areas. A reader wrote in yesterday, with this to say:
I am an NHS registered nurse and my hospital trust is now strongly encouraging twice weekly lateral flow tests for all its frontline staff (which I have politely declined). Interesting though how they use lateral flow tests for health carers (which has a low false positive rate) but continue to use PCR for the public (which has a high false positive rate). Its a win win for the government – less health workers requiring to isolate, whilst still maintaining a case-demic that justifies Tier 3 restrictions. Clever.
It is well known that the PCR generates high numbers of false positives (low specificity) due to high cycle thresholds. The Government is very tight lipped about what cycle thresholds are used, although cycles of 35-40 have been stated in the literature which likely only pick up old viral fragments. Surprisingly, even the fear mongering Anthony Fauci admitted that cycles this high would only pick up “dead nucleotides”.
I suspect that there might be a gradual move towards LFT testing in place of PCR, sold to the public for reasons of finance, speed (results within 30 minutes), convenience and accuracy. Maybe the change over to lateral flow testing will be one of the mechanisms to shift the narrative once the vaccines are rolled out over the coming months (read David Mackie article “How Will the Fiction be Sustained?“). Mass vaccination followed by a gradual switch from PCR to LFT (with its low false-positive rate) seems to be a plausible strategy that Boris will use to get out the hole he has dug himself. The question is, will the public notice the sleight of hand?
Stop Press: The University of Surrey and the National Measurement Laboratory have published an article in Clinical Chemistry on laboratory contamination, a key cause of PCR false positives. There is a good summary available here.
Lack of Hindsight on RNA vaccines
Professor Eric Caumes, the Head of the Department for Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, caused a bit of a stir last week with his comments on RNA vaccines. LifeSite news reports:
Professor Eric Caumes is part and parcel of the fear game around COVID-19, favouring France’s second lockdown that became effective at the end of October and promising a “third wave” of infections and disease if “barrier gestures” are not observed and people do not limit the amount of family dining together at Christmas.
He has clearly stated that he will take a COVID-19 vaccine as long as it is not an RNA vaccine like those being distributed in the United Kingdom now. RNA vaccines are expected to start in France in January with the residents of care homes for the elderly.
Caumes has voiced concerns regarding these vaccines. He complained earlier about the lack of available scientific data from their results and side effects, saying he would never blindly trust the vaccine industry merely on their press releases
On Wednesday, Caumes went much further in an interview he gave to the French daily Le Parisien. After seeing a report on the Pfizer vaccine from the American Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday evening, the data used by Pfizer to obtain marketing authorization turned out to be a shock.
Caumes measured his words, saying, “As I read the 53 pages, something struck me. I have never seen such a high frequency of adverse events for a vaccine. Apart from minor injection reactions such as local redness and pain, other side effects occur at relatively high rates, especially in young people and after the second dose. Take the example of fever. It can occur transiently after an injection; it is classic. But here, 15.8% of 18 to 55 year-olds had a fever of 38 degrees Celsius or higher within seven days after the second injection. And 45% had to take medication for fever or pain. 55% had headaches and 62% were tired. No, really, that’s much too much, perhaps there’s a problem… ” Caumes said.
Nevertheless, Caumes would still advise elderly people most at risk from getting severe forms of COVID-19 and dying to take the Pfizer or Moderna RNA vaccines because of what he considers to be a favourable benefit-risk balance. But he did not advise young or healthy people to do so. “Not only is there a lack of information, but these injections based on genetic material (messenger RNA) have never passed the commercialization stage until now,” Caumes said. “Perhaps they are revolutionary, but I want proof of their reliability, otherwise it is tantamount to placing blind trust in industry.”
His condemnation of the rush to obtain Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was already seen as an obstacle to France’s vaccine policy. French Health minister Olivier Véran immediately reacted, saying that Caumes “sometimes speaks nonsense”.
But Caumes repeated his critique to Le Parisien, stating, “Pfizer and Moderna simply announced their success in a press release. In my career as a physician, I’ve never seen anything like this before. You have to realize there is still no trace of scientific publication.
The LifeSite news report is worth reading in full. The interview with LeParisien, for anyone who reads French, is available here. People under 50 with no underlying health conditions are not currently included within the vaccine roll-out.
Stop Press: The United States has given the Pfizer vaccine the go-ahead. The Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn has assured the American public of the vaccine’s safety.
Health and Care Professions Council on the Vaccine
Following last Thursday’s post on the GMC pressuring doctors into taking the vaccine, a concerned reader has brought our attention to a similar statement from the Health and Care Professions Council, in its FAQs related to the COVID-19 vaccine. Our correspondent writes:
I noted your post on the GMC view on the COVID-19 vaccine and the HCPC (paramedic regulator amongst others) haven’t taken a much friendlier stance. The HCPC state that we are “strongly encourage(d)” to take the vaccine unless there are “good reasons”. I am slightly reassured by this but there seems to me at least to be a degree of arm-twisting there especially as they go on to state that “appropriate steps” need to be taken to reduce transmission if un-vaccinated. This to me suggests masks, gowns, etc. unless you’ve been vaccinated. As the PPE that we are made to wear is widely loathed by both staff and patients this seems like more pressure to go along if we don’t want our lives to be made miserable.
Coca-Cola Tests Positive for Coronavirus
As reported in yesterday’s Lockdown Sceptics, an Austrian MP gave a speech in which he tested some cola using a lateral flow test to prove just how unreliable it is. Sure enough, it was positive. You can watch the speech here.
Round-up
- “Nine months on, the COVID-19 divide between rich and poor is growing starker still” – Charlotte Tytton in the Telegraph points out that the pandemic is not a great leveller
- “Virus avoidance is not the whole of life” – Jenin Younes on the AIER blog, with a message that all public health advisors and epidemiologists need to hear
- “Broadcasters must stop lockdown cheerleading” – The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley says the broadcast media needs to sharpen its act on how it reports lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions
- “Hypocrisy of the Sky scaremongers” – The Conservative Woman‘s take on Kay Burley’s 60th birthday, together with an entertaining email written to Sky’s UK boss
- “Not enough face masks are made in America to deal with Coronavirus” – Report in the OPB of a Texas-based mask manufacturer, Mike Bowen, struggling to keep pace with demand. “I’ve got requests for maybe a billion and half masks if you add it up,” he says. Perhaps not wearing them as much would help
- “Accomplished pharma prof thrown in psych hospital after questioning official Covid narrative” – LifeSite news reports that Jean-Bernard Fourtillan, a retired French university professor known for his strong opposition to COVID-19 vaccines, has been sectioned and placed in solitary confinement at the psychiatric hospital of Uzès
- “Rise of the COVID-19 travel insurance clause” – Report in the Times about the costly new clauses appearing in travel insurance policies. No certainty of cover for COVID-19 related cancellations
- “Vaccine passports make no sense if the COVID-19 jabs don’t stop you spreading the virus” – Juliet Samuel makes a good point in the Telegraph
- “Broadstairs Christmas market order to shut down by Public Health England” – Another noble effort to do business scotched by COVID-19 rules. Report from the Isle of Thanet News
- “When was the exact moment we got infected with COVID-19” – From the Mail on Sunday. Brits left wondering how they caught the virus despite following all the rules. A mystery
- “New threat to Christmas break: NHS bosses warn that easing COVID-19 rules could spark a third wave” – The usual suspects sound the inevitable warnings
- “The COVID-19 Inversion of Reason” – Reader Wat Tyler has written for a German publication on the logical and moral tangles brought about by the UK’s reaction to COVID-19
- “Church of England gives space for COVID-19 vaccination and testing for up to a year” – Churches and cathedrals are giving their buildings over to the country’s biggest ever public health programme, according to the Guardian
- “Scotch eggs: 10-fold surge in demand for ‘substantial meal’” – The law of unintended consequences strikes again
- “How Kay Burley was nailed by her own Sky News colleagues” – The Mail on Sunday reports that Kay Burley’s downfall was an inside job by colleagues long disgruntled by her imperious ways
- “Tutor speaks out on Cambridge free speech battle” – UnHerd interviews Dr Arif Ahmed, the Cambridge academic and FSU member, ahead of the victory he was instrumental in winning for free speech at Cambridge University
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Three today: “Candy Castle” by Glass Candy, “Crime of the Century” by Supertramp and “If Everyone Was Listening” also by Supertramp
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, we bring you the Office of the American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust – the organisation that chooses Rhodes Scholars – and its commitment to diversity. First, from the press release announcing the election of the class of 2020 (pdf):
Elliot F. Gerson, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, describing this year’s class said: “This year’s American Rhodes Scholars reflect the remarkable diversity that characterises and strengthens the United States. Twenty-one of the 32 are students of colour, 10 are black, equal to the greatest number ever elected in one year in the United States. Fifteen are first-generation Americans or immigrants and one is a Dreamer with active DACA status. Seventeen of the winners are women, 14 are men, and one is non-binary. These young Americans will go to Oxford next October to study in fields broadly across the social, biological and physical sciences, the humanities and public policy.
Discussing the American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2020 in the Times, Gerard Baker can only come to one conclusion: “Rhodes scholars are a study in woke ideology.”
If you think diversity goes beyond skin colour, gender, sexuality or migrant status, think again. A brief look at the interests and intellectual pursuits of the 32 suggests a crushing uniformity of ideological outlook. By my count, only a handful of the 32 honourees do not boast an explicit background in social activism or an association with progressive causes.
To be clear: I’m sure these are all highly talented, principled and conscientious young people. Nor is there anything intrinsically wrong in giving under-represented minorities a leg-up in this way, though it has been standard academic practice in the US for decades. The issue is not with the students themselves. It’s with the cultural engineers who, by selecting them, are extending their purge of any dissenting political and ideological views from the commanding heights of society.
This year’s list of Rhodes Scholars reads, in fact, like a list of academics at leading institutions in the Soviet Union. In order to get preferment in Russia in those days, you had to include some babble about using research to advance the interests of the proletariat and to hasten the collapse of global capitalism, whatever discipline you happened to be studying.
Gerard Baker’s remarks are worth reading in full.
To convey just how woke it is, the Rhodes Trust has been tweeting some genuinely bizarre homages to former Rhodes Scholars. A bottle of champagne to anyone who can translate it into plain English.
Stop Press: Have you ever been faced with an Angry Wokester and been unsure how to deal with him/her/them? Never fear, Phil Shannon has written a comprehensive guide in Quadrant for the next time this occurs. Herewith the first of his 10 top tips for social interaction with angry woke liberals:
1. George Orwell and the Two Minutes Hate
When an angry woke liberal launches into the ritual denunciation of the political object of woke loathing de jour, intervene with a comment along the lines of “I see that it’s time for the scheduled Two Minutes Hate again”. Any liberal worth their literary salt will get the reference to Emmanuel Goldstein, the officially-designated ‘Enemy of the People’, the ersatz Trotsky-figure from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, whose image and memory all good and loyal citizens are daily required to curse and spit upon as a sign of their virtue and fealty to “correct” political thought. The woke like to imagine themselves as tolerant and liberal, and will not want to be compared to thought-totalitarians whipping up fear and hatred of an approved enemy. Angry woke liberals do not like to be Orwell-ed.
The guide is 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. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here.
Stop Press: A technologically savvy reader has helpfully produced an Android App which displays the message “I am exempt from wearing a face mask message”. It is only 99p and is available here.
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 in October 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 three quarters of a million 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.
Stop Press: Ex-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly did a great interview for her podcast recently with Dr Jay Bhattacharya and Dr Martin Kulldorff as well as Dr David Dowdy. The discussion covers the declaration and much else. Worth giving it a listen on Spotify.
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. Alas, he’s now reached the end of the road, with the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear his appeal. Dolan has no regrets. “We forced SAGE to produce its minutes, got the Government to concede it had not lawfully shut schools, and lit the fire on scrutinizing data and information,” he says. “We also believe our findings and evidence, while not considered properly by the judges, will be of use in the inevitable public inquires which will follow and will help history judge the PM, Matt Hancock and their advisers in the light that they deserve.”
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’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review yesterday, but the FSU may appeal the decision. Check here for updates.
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 (attributed)
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Thomas Paine
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
And Finally…
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Second.
I think you’re first.
Shush. Don’t tell anyone.
Deuteroneagu.
I hate these childish ‘I’m first’ postings but yours had me laughing! Excellent!
DavidC
Second the best.
That’s a first: claiming to be second when you’re first!
It certainly confused a few people!
That bit about Drosten is mind blowing. What are the odds that at a time when testing isn’t really needed, a fake doctor publishes a flawed paper at a journal that doesn’t peer review it but instead publishes it as fast as possible, for it to be immediately picked up and used universally to produce the biggest fraud in history? That sounds a tiny bit incredible, doesn’t it?
On the other hand, what are the odds that organizations seeking to fabricate the biggest fraud in history would locate a semi-respectable doctor with skeletons in the closet, and force him to publish a paper that is key to their plan? Not quite as big of a stretch, is it?
Blackmail makes the world go around, i tell you. Why do you think Epstein was suicided, and what do you think was the actual purpose of his island?
Cristi, read “Not Even Trying” by Bruce Charlton—“science” hasn’t been real science for quite some time.
Yes, he is a criminal of preposterous proportions. Yet we all know how this will end – he will somehow be protected from prosecution. I would say I hope he rots in hell but sadly I don’t think there is a hell.
Don’t worry, it exists all right.
I was going to say, “Here. Here.”
Why this is hell, nor are we out of it.
marlowe
Mephistopheles.
You create your own hell and carry it about with you.
Hell is the UK on a dark wet Sunday afternoon in tier 3. Hell hath no fury like a drinker scorned.
I havejust had a “substantial meal” and 7 pints – if that`s any help.
I think the Johnson smirk sums up the whole situation. These people have realised that they can do whatever they want. They move in lock step, responsibility is too widely diffused for there ever to be any accountability. Look at the USA: a presidential election is won through blatant fraud, the result stands. They can do whatever they want and they know it. The blatantness is almost part of the point. It puts us in our place.
Yes. They’re so pleased with themselves it’s a wonder they manage to contain it as a mere smirk.
Hancock can’t.
True. He’s progressed to evil chuckling.
The Deep State can do anything they want these days. Most people are already under total mind-control. My suggestion: turn off the TV! I haven’t watched mainstream for years now
I wonder if most of the world’s politicians are being blackmailed or bribed to impose restrictions. Belarus was offered loans to impose restrictions
Sorry I’m late with this reply but I find it depressing reading about all this shit and took today off. I have been convinced for some time that we have to attack the PCR test. It’s being used wrongly on asymptomatic people and very possibly ALL positive tests on such people are are false. Drosten isn’t just any fake doctor. He’s a research scientist who identified the Sars virus in 2003. He was also one of the main reasons Merkel bought 60 million doses of vaccine for the swine flu outbreak in 2009 which ended up being destroyed (costing €40 million) because the German people didn’t want it. I believe only about 40,000 people ended up being vaccinated. I don’t think anyone in Big Pharma would know about his fake doctorate, I suspect he has close ties to Big Pharma so I don’t think he’s being blackmailed. It’s worse. He is very close to the Merkel government. Conspiracy theorists are very suspicious of his being present at a conference for CDU big-wigs at the end of last year. His possibly fake doctorate has been known of for a number of weeks now. The university where he studied has been doing… Read more »
About “Coca-Cola Tests Positive for Coronavirus”…
I have no doubt that the test did actually fail and give a false positive. But if you’re going to do an experiment, do it properly. Use a clean glass, an unopened bottle of Coke, wear a mask, so that no one can complain about anything.
People can just say: “What if he was drinking from that glass and he has covid?” Or: “What if droplets from him speaking ended up in the glass and he has covid?” Sure, those are all nonsense, but can you convince the people saying those things? Cause i can’t.
Given that the labs testing for COVID aren’t operating to best practices, why should he?
I’m more impressed that he had the balls to do that. If it had come up negative, his speech might not have gone off so well. Clearly, he was confident that it would be positive.
It isn’t just that…..all sugary drinks will mess with the reagents so the false positive is an invalid result, it is merely useful for its sensationalist content – nothing more.
It was just a piece of theatre, and quite an effective one.
Nothing wrong with that – there’s a place for theatre in politics – let’s face it much of the mainstream elite political case is exactly that. But there’s not much point criticising it over details of unscientific procedure. The point has been made when the footage was watched. The rest is irrelevant.
Politics is theatre for ugly people.
Thanks for the Caumes-Drosten photos, so redolent of the medical scumbaggery we have come to know and love.
The test, trace and jab lumpencovidariat can have every confidence of their being ushered out of existence by these and similar home-grown monkeys, tout suite.
Ushered out … to music.
https://youtu.be/qYI-dC9G0us
That’s brill!
From the roundup
After questioning the official Covid narrative Jean-Bernard Foutillan was taken from his home, 10th December, by law enforcement officers and placed in solitary confinement in (a) psychiatric hospital.
A favourite technique of the former Soviet Union for dealing with dissidents who were too well known in the west to be bumped off.
A practice for which they were rightly criticised, not least by France.
This is where we now are. Scratch a liberal, find a fascist.
Today’s Liberals are not Classical Liberals. They just borrowed the title to hide their real intentions.
The French should be shouting from the rooftops about this.
Free Jean-Bernard Foutillan!
Very disturbing report.
Excellent work exposing the issues of the PCR test that may have been apparent from the start. I do have one concern. The sources you mentioned are GlobalResearch and LifeSite News. Many people will see publications by that source and will dismiss it as right-wing crazy conspiracy theories. I think one of the problems with lockdown skepticism is that it’s been seen as a right-wing, and I know the site’s publisher leans right, but it has also published bang-on critiques of lockdowns from the left end of the political spectrum. Do you know if the information brought forward by GlobalResearch and LifeSite News has been uncovered by any sources that can’t be so easily dismissed as being conspiracy sites?
Agreed; I discovered earlier this year that linking to articles on the Global Research site elicited dismissive reactions. In this case the article about Drosten is by William Engdahl and could have been linked to directly at his excellent and interesting blog http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO10Dec2020.php
Here is the man paper (over 100 pages).
https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
Thanks for this – I agree that linking to Global Research wpuld only damage my credibility with my Professor brother. I also de-link from the LS site anything I send him, and link only from the mother-lode (sorry, Toby!).
The paper is (as expected) highly technical to a non-scientist like me but it’s only 32 pages of report – the rest is references and BTL comments.
If you let your eyes glide over the graphs and formulae, the words sections are very clear (and damning).
As a former lefty I actually think the left wing case against the lockdown is the strongest one there is ie that lockdowns decimate the lives of poorer citizens both here and around the world. I am forever puzzled that so few lefties make that case and instead are lockdown addicts. I applaud all the lefties on this site for breaking with their allies on this issue…..I wish there were more.
Not to continue the drift even further but there is another important aspect that has been missed. Once lockdowns come into effect, police enforcement for non-compliance is on the table. The issue of police discrimination against and mistreatment of certain segments of the population entered the spotlight in a big way this year. Are the police all of a sudden going to not enforce lockdown in a similarly discriminatory and arbitrary way? That the left missed this connection is mind-boggling, since traditionally it was the left that pointed out such police discrimination.
“I am forever puzzled that so few lefties make that case and instead are lockdown addicts.” Yes, they are the MOST sure that they are right and no evidence to the contrary h as any merit. I think it is this outsize conviction of being right that stems from the leftist’s know-it-all attitude. This is also what links leftistst to academics. It is as though these people, most of them well educated, have never outgrown the “enlightenment” they achieved as students when they suddenly felt they understood the world for the first time! And better than anyone else. They are still in that late-adolescent haze of knowing better than their elders. Only now they know better than everyone. You know the old joke: “Hire an adolescent while they still know everything.” But as stated these grown-up adolescents haven’t outgrown their young hubris, sense of superiority, and conviction that they know better. The idea that they have been snagged hook line and sinker is so foreign, and abhorrent, to them that they will never climb down, no matter what evidence they are presented with. The ony hope is that in the still of the night something leads them to question their… Read more »
It’s true that Mr Young has put up a few sceptic pieces from some who lean more left but they are sadly very few & far between.
Breaking news Welsh Government announce post Christmas lockdown A spokesperson said ‘ We are experiencing unprecedented rises in cases. We will honour our commitment to the Christmas break but it is anticipated that this will lead to a further rise in cases in the new year Therefore in order to protect the public we will introduce new protective measures from the 1st January From 1st of January all stairs, staircases, including spiral staircases must be removed from residential properties within a period of 14 days Our research suggests that people are using staircases to move between floors within residential properties causing the virus to spread Grants will be available to carry out this work. Those on benefits will pay nothing This measure will be funded by a 300% poll tax levy on bungalow owners. Selfish bungalow owners are causing the rise in infections and it is only fair that they should be asked to contribute A full list of the new restrictions will be published at 11pm on 31st December A plan to remove all windows and doors from residential properties in order to allow in fresh air is still under discussion Nothing can been ruled in or out at… Read more »
They knew about this in the olden days Cecil which is why the TB Isolation Hospitals were built ground floor only as staircases were recognised as dangerous vectors of infection.
Pity those who designed the Nightingales forgot this.
Hope you didn’t fall for it, Karenovirus! After long experience, I am pretty sure that Cecil B. is not Dungford’s press release officer.
However, the fact that Cecil’s carefully crafted nonsense sounds so plausible says everything about the clown show that is the Welsh ‘government’.
After you, Cecil!
😉
No, please, after you
Claude.
The alias of my pseudonym.
And Biker isn’t Queen Elizabeth II, though it’s entertaining to imagine that he might be. 🙂
Not gonna lie. With all the crazy stuff coming out of government these days, that sounded very plausible to me. It’s a joke, though, right? Right…?
Cecil B, put all of these press releases together in a book called ” Thoughts of Chairman Drakeford”. You could even make the book little and red.
Certainly very little. Everything about Dungford is little, except his ego and his sadism.
Yes please please do!!!
I fear such a volume would be little read.
What kind of a freak has a spiral staircase in a bungalow????
It’s either a stairway to heaven or the road to nowhere.
If Dungford lives in a bungalow, it’s the road to nowhere.,It’s the only place he knows.
Someone who didn’t have space for a proper flight of stairs when they did the loft conversion!
‘We are experiencing an unprecedented rise in asymptomatic cases in healthy people’
Clarification is long overdue
Joke? No?
Yesterday reader Cristi.Neagu referenced the book The Camp Of The Saints by John Raspail.
That rang some bells until I finally remembered A State Of Denmark by Derek Raymond also from 1970 but set in a dystopian England that has sleepwalked into dictatorship with N. Ireland, Scotland and Wales having gone their own way . . .
This is part of fairly recent Guardian review which I expected to be completely hostile as my Socialist then GF condemned it as ‘racist’.
Awesome find. Glad to have jarred your memory.
Loosely related, ‘1990’ starting Edward Woodward, ran for two seasons in the late 1970s.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075469/
Wow, prescient. They were just 30 years out!
In a dystopian future, Britain is under the grip of the Home Office’s Public Control Department (PCD), a tyrannically oppressive bureaucracy riding roughshod over the population’s civil liberties.
16 episodes. £13.50
https://www.amazon.co.uk/1990-Complete-Collection-Edward-Woodward/dp/B075NT1NYL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17SK68U6XARHY&dchild=1&keywords=1990+edward+woodward&qid=1607865114&sprefix=1990+ed%2Cinstant-video%2C201&sr=8-1
We will shortly be receiving the early leaks of what will be put forward on 16th December.
Both bases have been covered so far with a lot of groundwork put in to justify further restrictions before Christmas or soon after if we dare to try and enjoy ourselves by brazenly sharing the serving spoons with our grannies.
Any predictions?
Local Live (mirror group news) suggesting this area might be going into tier 1 despite their own daily misleading headlines suggesting cases/deaths going up when in fact they are going down.
Even single Administration in the UK has been softening the crows up for more restrictions. Blaming the people for non compliance even before the fact now. Open up, but don’t dare do anything.
On the increased testing list that came out (116 areas) not one was Nottinghamshire and we’re in Tier 3. As Notts was the lowest figure Tier 3 is this the sign of Tier 2?
“Like many recent scientific results that did not at all please the prejudice of the establishment… he thought all he had to do was to show that (he) was right and everybody would listen.
“That was his first mistake. The mistake about being naive about peoples motives, a mistake scientists make all the time”.
A commentary about Mike Yeadon ?
No, J Bronowski on Galileo, The Ascent Of Man. 1973.
Good quote. I need to re-read that book. I’ll always recall the quote about absolute knowledge and what it does.
Or Sunetra Gupta… we have reached endemic equilibrium exactly as she said we would. The government and the corrupt sage are using tiers and lockdowns to try and claim credit for nature.
Reminds me of a children’s story by Patrick Moore. Naive scientists are delighted that their governments are funding colonies on the Moon, only to find that the real intention is to test nuclear weapons there.
Fred Hoyle’s SF novels also give a good picture of how science interacts with government. They are a good read, too.
Fantastic book.
The whole legality of the fines has yet to be tested in Court. So far as I am aware nobody has yet been prosecuted under Covid regulations.
In this tier 2 area apart from the roads and streets being quieter than might be expected in the run up to Xmas and no organised social life the culture shock should not be too bad.
Remember that Strongbow TV ad with the lovely feel good atmosphere – the pub duo singing Electric Dreams?
Saw it broadcast last night with the bottom third of the screen replaced by a black banner saying it was filmed pre Covid-19.
Thanks Strongbow, really worthwhile you letting us know.
So pleased I don’t watch telly.
Most stronbow drinkers will now be sitting at home getting smashed on it, like they have been every day since April, on their own. Hitting new heights of alcoholism that would make the governments alcohol daily unit intake look like guidance on how much to drink for breakfast.
This is if they can still afford Stronbow, most of them will have gone onto the “cider” you get in blue bottles, £1.99 for a 3 litre of an 8% “cleaning cider”.
Soon a lot of Strongbow drinkers will be dead from liver collapse.
Stay safe.
I was in the supermarket yesterday and the man ahead of me was buying three enormous bottles of Strongbow, and nothing else. The thing is, he was lean, fit looking and quite well dressed. I’m suffering from cognitive dissonance about this.
Yes I saw that patronising shit as well…another customer lost. ‘Socialise responsibly’ it said……fuck off Strongbow…go and drown in one of your Vats of Cider and don’t tell me how to socialise.
I’m not sure which type of advertisement annoys me more – the ones where everyone wears face nappys or the ones where they don’t but they have some stupid message about how it was filmed before social distancing.
Very good point.
I don’t have a television. F**k off Strongbow
How ridiculous that the government are thinking of putting London into Tier 3 – it is quite clear from the graphs of death per day that we have achieved group immunity (oh I forgot that doesn’t exist because you can only get immunity from a vaccine !).
When is this ridiculous shambles going to end ?
I was with people yesterday (yes, fewer than 6 of us in an open space – Kenwood to be precise, so that was legal) and people were seriously suggesting ‘letting’ people meet up for Christmas was a bad idea, and that our ridiculous secondary school head-teacher has done a good thing by stopping the kids going to school next week and having ‘home learning’
I am disgusted by the illogicality, innumeracy and blatant lies of the government, and that normally sensible people swallow this garbage without thinking.
Orwell was pretty close, but you need to go to Lewis Carrol to really get it.
By the way, one of the people came up to me furtively at the end and said I was 100% right, so it’s not completely hopeless.
Did you see the article in the Telegraph about the nosocomial transmission in the isle of Sheppy prisons, Laurence? London’s herd immunity will dissipate the small spike and the arseholes will claim it was tier three that did it.
No doubt they’ll fabricate some way to claim credit for getting rid of the virus – that or the virtually irrelevant vaccine !
Kenwood House was the only place, apart from Scratchwood Services, to get a Sunday morning breakfast after a punk rock allnighter at The Rainbow, Finsbury Park.
Can’t see that coming back anytime soon.
Kenwood one of the places you will see Matt Hancock walking at the weekend. We have seen him there.
How very distressing for you🙊🙉🙈
Or tempting?
and you let him get away?
You should have cracked open his skull and feasted on the goo inside. Before the rest of us have to.
Oh God, you just blotted my happy memories.
Happy memories when we could go on a Saturday evening to Kenwood and listen to the concerts. However the locals do not like the noise and traffic so the concerts are no longer. Other than taking a long walk to see the rhododendrons and azaleas in bloom there is no reason to visit Kenwood any longer.
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!
Aaaaah the Rainbow. What a venue, saw Slade there, saw Queen, deep purple (could not hear properly for a week). A very young Suzi Q, in that one piece leather suit, you could not walk far without tripping over someone’s tongue. No barriers of course just the slanted front of stage and nobody sitting in their assigned seat. I think it’s a mosque now!
I saw Chuck Berry there the night before my Economics ‘0’ level. Only a 30 minute set but one of the best concerts I ever attended.
Many years ago, Kenwood House was our standard Sunday outing. We were students, we were broke, and Kenwood was free, but it was also delightful. Many happy memories.
Do people still toss Frisbees on the lawn?
I know I am dating myself horribly.
Hancock probably tosses himself.
Seen elsewhere,
”Continued leaks to the MSM by government is to try to to soften us up for London being in Stage 3. There is zilch evidence for this. The areas where they say there are problems are for the most part on the edge of London and there is more testing in these areas. Testing does not stop the virus which is now endemic. Testing is the problem. What about all the pubs, restaurants and hospitality venues which have bought in stock which does not keep, they are not the problem. Does he want to bankrupt them and the £1000 pound handout which we the taxpayer have to pay for is not the solution. Hancock worked for the Bank of England but appears to have no understanding of money and how it works. Why put London into tier 3 when for a few days later the Christmas regulations come into force? Then there is New Year and nobody is going to abide by any regulations worldwide. The whole charade is falling apart. Any MP who on Tuesday votes to put London into Tier 3 and continue any regulations for the rest of the country will not be elected again.”
I am torn over the London in tier 3 issue. I’m in tier 3 miles away from the so called hotspot. London has higher rates . I regard it as political that London and Liverpool were put in tier 2. If all of London went into tier 3 then I believe the outcry would get something done about the tier system . On the other hand I don’t beleive in the tier system
I read with disgust what you say above about Drosten.
But to call him Germany’s ‘Dr Fauci’ is too gross an insult even for one such as he !
From the roundup.
Link about sales of scotch eggs going up tenfold seems broken
:about#blank from my Android.
Such a pity, parts of it were excellent.
Oh do tell Annie !
It’s what the Curate in Punch actually said about the tainted egg served to him by the Bishop.
It usually comes over as ‘good in parts’.
I was searching the web to educate myself about the cartoon but ended up in New Zealand!
Bowalley Road: A Curate’s Egg Cabinet: Much Of It Is Bad, But Some Parts Of It Are Excellent.
Ah Annie, nobody seems to remember those old cartoons any longer.
I remember.
A Scotch Egg maker from Bolton is doing well.
Coronavirus scotch egg debate sparks sales boost for firms | The Bolton News
Wow, proper full size scotch eggs unlike the titchy things on offer in supermarkets.
Without any doubt a substantial meal!
And freezing cold as they are in the cooler!
Could the demand for Scotch eggs outstrip the demand for the Wonder Vaxx? Yes I think it could.
Will Scotch eggs fend of The Rona better than the wonder Vaxx?
Yes probably.
Will they be made mandatory? Bad news for Jews, Muslims and vegetarians.
Beef scotch eggs?
We need to ‘scotch’ this rumour. Is is a eggsample of a conspiracy theory.
<gets coat>
There’s an Indian version called nargesi kofta. Made with spiced lamb. Very good!
Join our ever increasing club.
So churches are to become centres for administering snake oil.
This is entirely appropriate, seeing that they have all turned into Covidian temples for the indoctrination of nappied ghouls.
JW Pennebaker’s miracle wonder cure all elixir should be right here at home. How long before they run pieces on the BBC whereby the vaccine wagon rolls in to town, they call out a “random” audience member who takes the cure before throwing down their crutches and dancing a jig before the wonderstruck simple townsfolk?
A miracle! A miracle!
A faith healer invited two members of his audience to come on to the stage and be instantly cured. To tremendous applause, up came Charlie, who had a st-st-stammer, and Bill, who walked with a crutch.
The healer sent them both behind a screen, and called loudly on the name of the Lord.Then he thundered, ‘Bill, throw away your crutch!’
To delirious applause, the crutch came hurtling from behind the screen.
‘Now, Charlie, speak!’
‘P-p-please, sir, B-B-Bill’s f-f-fallen over.’
They are also being used as centres for flu vaccinations when many GP surgeries are perfectly adequate. More taxpayers money wasted.
My local GP Practice are now using the Church hall over the road but only after considerable protest from elderly patients who previously had been expected to go to a large shed on a trading estate some 3 miles away and some distance from the nearest bus stop (if they were allowed on the socially distanced bus).
Probably costs £10 per day to hire.
Protect the vulnerable, eh?
What the F. has happened to ‘ Christians’ didn’t they face persecution and horrible deaths in the early times from the Romans. Where is the ‘faith’ in their saviour?
Gone. Except for a few stubborn folk like me. Being ‘Christian’ now means being woke, and staying safe behind your muzzle.
Eternal life? Rise to the life immortal?Don’t make them laugh. (Or smile. Or sing.)
Mike Yeadon on the PCR testing, again:
https://twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1337868485511303183
I wonder whether Fullermich could sue BBC for defamation of Mike Yeadon for the ‘Reality Check’ article which mentioned him?
Yeadon would have to sue if he is the defamed one.
Indeed, I was speaking shorthand.
“…only if you set the amp to 11”.
Frivolous I know, but it did make me think of Spinal Tap.
I’m counting on Mike Yeadon and his ilk, btw.
I wonder if Drosten is feeling a bit nervous at the moment. Seems to me that he could well become the ultimate fall guy who everything can be blamed on if there is ever an enquiry into why all the western governments allowed their economies to tank and thousands of lives to be lost.
Reminds me of the bit in Jason Bourne when they decide that if ‘Blackbriar goes south, we can roll it up and blame it on Landy’ or words to that effect.
Couldn’t have happened to a better man.
Good. No sympathy whatsoever for him.
A cheerful thought with which to start the day.
The Guardian and such news outlets paint a favourable picture of him. A maligned genius doing his best to help society. Attack by right wing conspiracy theorists.
If the Corona Scandal house-of-cards ever comes falling down (I’m not hopefull that it will unfortunately) then I hope Reiner Fuellmich is heralded as the hero he is. His face belongs on banknotes. There are many other heroes too
Hard to find news of him and the lawsuit.
He is friends with Ferguson isn’t he?
You know it’s funny— headlines claiming LFT’s can’t find find half the cases of PCR tests, as a bad thing! The way i see it—there are no cases to be found. Just dead RNA to amplify…
The ‘truth’ is whatever these bastards want it to be.
“How many fingers am I holding up Winston?”
Do you really want to see five?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9046351/When-exact-moment-got-infected-Covid.html
This article is from the links above. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been included, but it does raise the spectre of child infection and illness, child to adult transmission, and schools and restaurants as major vectors of infection. All of these things have either been challenged on Lockdown Sceptics or been contextualized/reported in proportion. I can imagine someone using the article to justify the closure of schools.
Child to adult infection? That would be the flu.
Sorry support for this version of the Flu has been suspended at the clost of March 2020.
Flu users must now upgrade to Flu 2.0 for continued support.
After this date in order to benefit from the exciting new enhancements to your flu experience you will have needed to upgrade to Flu 2.0 Professional or Flu 2.0 Home.
There is no cost to the end user for this upgrade.
Future upgrades will not take on the moniker of Flu2.1 or Flu 3.0, we will adhear to the trusted easily recognisable brand name you know and trust, Flu 2.0 but enhancements to your flu experience will be rolled out and applied automatically going forward. Other enhancements may be rolled into these updates on an ongoing basis.
Stay safe!
Bill
xxxx
Brilliant!
It’s leaky propaganda then.
Very interesting from Tom Jefferson and gives me more certainty about something I have been pondering: given that the number of recorded “cases” has been roughly in the range 15,000-25,000 for weeks and weeks now, how many of these are actually the same people – people among the, I don’t know, 3 million or so people who are required to have a test regularly for their jobs – and it keeps coming back positive?
That would explain a lot!
From the NMC website FAQ
If an employer asks a nurse, midwife or nursing associate to take a Covid-19 test and they refuses to be tested, will they be at risk of a fitness to practise referral to the NMC?
Refusing to agree to a Covid-19 test could be regarded as a failure to comply with these requirements of the Code, depending on the individual circumstances.
depending on the individual circumstances?
Not recommended for anybody pregnant or ‘intending’ to get pregnant; people with allergies, co-morbidities (incl obesity) or taking other medications.
That probably covers 70-80% of health workers.
From the roundup the Telegraph has woken up to the probability that the Pfizer vaccine is unlikely to stop infections (but it might result in infected health practitioners going to work when ‘ill’ because they don’t know that they are).
If the Pfizer vaccine is more likely to give you Covid than prevent it, then taking the vaccine would make you a risk to others.
I’m not sure why a health worker could refuse a test though, unless it’s because a) the test is is rubbish and b) ultimately the individual should have autonomy over what is done to his/ her body.
Require each and every NHS employer to provide its own risk assessment.
They can’t claim Group Coverage because each and every NHS Trust require suppliers to provide specs in their own particular way even though the product or service has been approved by the DoH.
Maybe they value the intactness of their nasal/brain barrier.
a bit of a) mixed with a bit of b)
Yesterday I met up with a friend and we went walking along Central London, its the busiest I’ve seen in the run up to Christmas but not on the same level as it was in the past. It’s the Christmas rush but I also suspect the rumours of London being put under tier 3 also has a part to play. It was nice to see people out and about – no antisocial distancing and even if some of the shops were limiting the number of people through queues, they were simply going through the motions and not actively enforcing any “safety” measures. On the whole we found that the shop & restaurant staff responded positively to our muzzle free faces. The only blight were some people muzzled even outdoors!!! And children too! Good grief! As I said here as few days’ ago, I might lost my job next month. Any more restrictions could finish us off. I’m angry that many people I work with still aren’t awake despite the threat of redundancy. The government seem determined to destroy everything and they must be hoping that enough people are brainwashed. Otherwise, when they finally wake up there will be hell to… Read more »
It’s always so nice to see so many people out and about. It’s the same where I live. It feels like a massive middle finger to all those medical quangocrats who think they can regulate away ordinary human behaviour.
Yes, but for me it won’t be a sufficiently large middle finger until people stop wearing masks.
Yes! For me, it’s all about the masks. They are THE ultimate sign of compliance with government crap. I can stomach the distancing (just) and hand sanitising (sometimes not a bad thing if you think about the state of some folks hands) but the masks…..NO!
Agree. They are the ultimate sign of zombie enslavement.
That’s the whole point!
The masks make me feel physically ill. I almost have to restrain myself from feeling violent. If I was ever meaningfully challenged for not wearing one I think it would come close as to whether I managed it.
I find it hard to be believe, and viscerally shocking, that such a large proportion of the population has so little self respect as to submit themselves to such a pitiful abasement. I will never be able to look at my fellow citizens in the same light again.
Yes the people are a disgrace and humans have been permanently debased in my eyes. I have been challenged twice by other customers and yes it could have turned violent if they had pushed it further and got physical. Fortunately they had the good sense to back off when robustly responded to.
Totally agree!
Agree. However until the muzzles and other “safety” measures are not observed, its not a proper fightback but the beginnings seems to be in the crowds yesterday.
We are English and we really don’t like confrontation, so we comply in case we are shouted at. The kickback is coming from the barbarians the huns and the goths. It’s probably my Germanic heritage that makes me a non conforming cussed bastard who keeps laughing at people in masks. And masked while driving cars WTF is that all about?
They are doing that to protect others you see!
And there are people like Zoe Strimpel in today’s Sunday Telegraph, who describes a recent visit to the theatre and casually says “And, of course, everyone wore a mask throughout the performance.” Yeah yeah, new normal and all that crap. I certainly won’t be going under such abnormal conditions.
Agree. I’ve found that talking about breathing in your own CO2; developing dermatitis and impetigo seems to get people thinking.
Should also start mentioning oxygen deprivation too.
There will be hell to pay, and the price will be a direct route to hell for the guilty.
Lets hope its the brainwashed who lose their jobs…they deserve it.
The brainwashed will probably receive a bonus.
Sadly thats probably true.
The Rhodes Trust has long since jumped on establishment bandwagons that were unlikely to appeal to the Founder whose money they wasted (esp in the 1990s and 2000s) until it needed a top up. Look at the composition of the trustees over the last 30 years, look at most of the Wardens of Rhodes House in that period… Another institution that has been hollowed out.
I find it very interesting that all those who agitate about the devastating economic and social consequences that would happen as a result of a No Deal Brexit seem to conveniently ignore the devastating economic and social consequences that have ALREADY happened as a result of lockdowns.
Good point. And I’ve noticed a lot of the rabid remainers are also lockdownistas as well, I don’t think they’re aware that lockdowns are and have caused more harm than Brexit will.
Do you think it’s because these people no longer have a church to go to they now look for a cause to hallelujah. Look at XR and remainers and now covid muggles. They BELIEVE! nothing you say or evidence you bring will move them from their beliefs. They then have to make more and more outlandish theories to maintain their beliefs. Once these disciples are at their church of do good nobody will stand in their way. Non believer, crucifixion, heretic crucifixion. Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!
I’ve been atheist since I began to see the logical inconsistencies in religion (at around 8 years old). I always thought we would be better off as a species without religion. However, after seeing the cancerous thought processes in the population, culminating in the church of Corona, I realise that I was very wrong. The weak-minded need religion, without it they cannot cope with life. I would much rather people were members of a relatively passive and established religion than Church of Covid, XR, CO2, Marx, etc. At least most organised religions are beyond the witch-burning phase.
The behavior of Branch Covidians implies they have no time to worship hokey and cheesy deities like Jesus and Buddha.
They would much rather devote their faith to sexy and dangerous demigods like Corona-chan and George Floyd.
Call me old fashioned but I always thought Cameron should have invaded Belgium, occupied Brussels and negotiated from a position of strength.
Good morning Poppy
This is a very salient point.
Im a strong remainer myself (my wife is Portuguese and our children dual-nationality) but I completely agree.
Im not sure even in their nightmares, that whats happening right now economically/socially etc could be any worse than what could of happened (had Covid never been a thing).
We ourselves had been having serious conversations about moving to Portugal to live (partly as a response to Brexit but also as we feel it would be good for us all to try something new and for the children to enjoy exploring the other side of their culture). Right now, that reality seems further away.
Kind regards
Simon
The damage due to lockdown is far greater. Besides, they are not going to allow a genuine brexit. 28 countries are in the EU and 23 European countries (or countries wholly or partly within the European continent) are outside of the EU. Countries not in the EU:
The Lockdown great reset is by far the biggest scourge.
and that’s not including Greenland, which used to be in the European Communities (or whatever it was called then) or the Channel Islands (which might be regarded as several countries depending on how you count it), whose sovereignty has been repeatedly violated by the EU (as I understand(.
Even Peter Hitchens is at it today. Although he is a Leaver, he is agitating for the EEA solution. Of course, this means remaining in the Single Market which in itself defeats the point of Brexit. As always, they drone on about the chaos this will cause in Kent. Myself, I’m not convinced the EU is going to stop selling us its goods, so unless they want to see tighter controls at our end (including on those trucks using the UK as a land bridge between Ireland and the continent), which will cause delays for them also, I suggest this drivel is just more EU propaganda.
Either way I couldn’t give a flying f whether we trade with the rEU or not. There is nothing they sell to us we cannot get from elsewhere, and there is nothing we sell to them that we cannot sell elsewhere, or even buy for ourselves.
Apols to those for whom this is way off-topic.
Rant away, it’s why we are here.
I agree but the problem is lack of deep sea port capacity. We threw everything into EU trade particularly when the Chunnel opened. Incidentally some money is going into direct France-Eire routes but I don’t know how economic they’ll be.
They do what they like kf, it’ll just take longer than it needs to. And if much of the European sea trade can use Rotterdam, our waters are well deep enough to do the same. And you can throw a port together fairly quickly when you need to.
It’s the lack of a maritime strategy – lunacy for an island country – that’s to blame. TPTB have been very lazy since Maastricht!
In fairness to Hitchens, I’ve heard him say on several occasions recently that he was always in favour of a “Norway solution”.
Yes he has always been wrong lol. He also did not vote in the referendum which was quite arrogant and aloof. I agree with him much of the time but he can also be a pompous prick sometimes.
Agree entirely most trade is carried out outside the single market and are the big German car companies going to want to cut their own throats and lose their huge UK sales. If they do…. stuff them there are plenty of good cars around now from elsewhere in the world often at much cheaper prices.
Hitchens is deluded on this…he keeps talking about how his late friend Booker forecasted terrible disaster in Kent. Well Booker wrote a book about the EU called ‘The great deception’. Whats the point in writing a book with that title and then wanting to stay in it?
The Koreans build better cars than the Germans. I’m afraid German engineering has slipped in recent years. Somewhat.
The EU (EEA) tried to impose rail privatisation on Norway last year, which prompted a strike by railway workers. This is the true face of the EU whose tentacle-like influence extends to non-EU member states
The EU is a toxic organisation that I have no doubt will collapse on its own. I don’t know what will happen to its decadent Versailles in Brussels. Perhaps it should be recommissioned for the homeless
Stuff Hitchen’s Norway option then!
The EEA is a trap. I suspect Peter Hitchens thinks it’s still the old (pre-1980’s) EFTA.
I think that “The Left” (Deep State) are so upset at the antics of Evil Boris and the Evil Fascist Tories that they are trying to kill the egregious regime off and hammer a stake in it’s heart. They are happy to cause the total destruction of everything, scorched earth to ensure the death of the Fascist cabal that is The Tory party right now.
The Tories have behaved so badly in their tenure and have abused so many long standing political protocols for so long now that as “The Left” see it there is no option but to try bawl and bray for more lockdowns and harsher measures untill Boris presides over a rubbish dump that we used to call the UK.
It’s Global Communitarianism now. We have transcended democracy.
It shows they just use it as a weapon….they dont care about being inconsistent.
Spot on. Brexit is an irrelevant side show compared with the economic devastation to come.
Brexit is mainly about ending free movement and stopping immigration. Which is exactly what the lockdown has done, 9 months early.
Scotland Awake !
They’re brave. I take my hat off to them. Sturgeon is a tyrant busy destroying Scotland’s economy as a bull in a china shop
This advert appeared in my Facebook page from the dear old Welsh Government.
Yes a virus that is so dangerous that no special hazardous waste or clinical waste procedures are necessary. Just grab that contaminated bit of material with you bare hands and put it in the bin in the park.
Magically those viruses have now disappeared into some magical viral black hole and do not need treating as clinical waste for special handling and subsequent incineration. If ever you needed evidence that masks are bullshit – here it is.
Remarkably unused looking face pantie.
Perhaps they are like your cat: both alive and dead at the same time?
I picked up and binned a discarded one just now, before it got into the sea. I used a plastic bag as a grabber, as I do for dog dirt. Dog dirt doesn’t bother me, but the gob nappy made me heave and retch.
A link to Joel Smalley MBA, Data Scientist and Marie Oldfield, CStat, Csci, Statistician charts on google drive
‘England 2020 – Questions for the UK government in consideration of the empirical data’
Some amazing charts there.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zkE00ANmITzyXaSM-S_44ZWEJTxoUtp3/view
Great questions and charts, thank you
Brilliant data free Cumbria, thank you for sharing.
Third the one with the hairy chest.