Day: 24 December 2020

An analysis of the March 14th 'Open Letter' from U.K. scientists calling on the Government "to take stronger measures of social distancing" (i.e. Lockdown). Among various news outlets, the Guardian rapidly publicised the open letter by a group of "scientists" calling for a lockdown in an article on the March 14th. 245 UK scientists including those from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Sanger Institute, and the Francis Crick Institute, had signed; Including Professors, Lecturers and Researchers in the fields of Immunology, Biology, Medicine and Complex Systems. The resulting media frenzy, together with Imperial Colleges computer model predictions, appeared to have the desired effect of causing a Government U-turn and the first of many lockdowns. The letter appears to have originated from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary College London, and is posted on the Queen Mary server. On closer inspection the first 245 UK signatories are made up of the following: 54 (22%) from Queen Mary (of which 42 are from the School of Mathematical Sciences including the first nine signatories)* 41 from Cambridge University22 from Imperial College8 from the Sanger Institute4 from Oxford University2 from LSHTM (neither is a medical doctor. one is also a honorary Research Associate at Imperial)1 from Francis Crick Institute (Theoretical Physics of Biology Lab) The remaining ...

Happy Christmas! For the next three days – starting tomorrow – I'll be publishing a pared down version of Lockdown Sceptics so I can have a bit of time off over Christmas. Cartoonist Bob Moran has very kindly given me three original cartoons which I'm going to run on consecutive days and, below them, I'll include a round-up, as well as an And Finally..., but little else. Happy Christmas to all our readers. Thanks for all your links, stories and suggestions, as well as your comments below the line and in the forums. Lockdown Sceptics is really a collaboration between our small team, the commenters and the people who email us at lockdownsceptics@gmail.com – like Mitesh B. Karia, who sends us dozens of links to interesting articles every day. To date, we've had over 21,000 emails and we do our best to read every one. Back in April, when I set up this blog, I imagined I'd be signing off about now. Turns out, that was a bit naive. God knows when this madness will end, but at least there are some comforts in this digital camaraderie. Readers often get in touch to say Lockdown Sceptics has kept them sane. The feeling's mutual. Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk join London and Kent in Tier 4 In a last-minute Christmas gift, ...