ICU Occupancy in English Hospitals No Higher Than Last December
The media is full of alarming reports of NHS hospitals being on the brink of armageddon, such is the surge in coronavirus patients. “As we head into the new year we are seeing a real rise in the pressure on NHS services, particularly across London and the south-east,” Saffron Cordery, the Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Providers told the Guardian.
A letter from NHS chiefs sent to the chief executives of all NHS trust and foundation trusts on December 23rd contained this alarming paragraph:
With COVID-19 inpatient numbers rising in almost all parts of the country, and the new risk presented by the variant strain of the virus, you should continue to plan on the basis that we will remain in a level 4 incident for at least the rest of this financial year and NHS trusts should continue to safely mobilise all of their available surge capacity over the coming weeks. This should include maximising use of the independent sector, providing mutual aid, making use of specialist hospitals and hubs to protect urgent cancer and elective activity and planning for use of funded additional facilities such as the Nightingale hospitals, Seacole services and other community capacity. Timely and safe discharge should be prioritised, including making full use of hospices. Support for staff over this period will need to remain at the heart of our response, particularly as flexible redeployment may again be required.
And the Independent reports that the London Ambulance Service has issued a warning saying it can no longer guarantee an ambulance will turn up if women giving birth at home require emergency care.
Sounds like a major crisis, right? Better move the rest of England into Tier 4, make mask-wearing mandatory in all settings and close schools until Easter.
Or is it?
If you look at ICU occupancy in NHS hospitals across England on December 20th it was lower than the December average in 2019 in most of the country – and it’s worth remembering that the 2019-20 flu season was unusually mild.
Admittedly, the total number of ICU beds occupied in London on Dec 20th was quite a bit higher than the average for December 2019, but according to the ZOE app daily symptomatic cases in London are falling. The ZOE data in the graph below shows rising and falling daily symptomatic cases up to December 27th.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that there are more ICU beds this year than last year, so if you calculate the percentage of ICU beds occupied in NHS hospitals across England and compare that to the average percentage in December 2019 the picture looks even less bleak. In every region, including London, the percentage of ICU beds occupied at the moment is lower than it was this time last year.
East:
Dec 2019 average: 76.3%
On Dec 20th 2020: 74.0%London:
Dec 2019 average: 88.7%
On Dec 20th 2020: 86.3%Midlands:
Dec 2019 average: 82.2%
On Dec 20th 2020: 67.0%North East and Yorkshire:
Dec 2019 average: 78.4%
On Dec 20th 2020: 69.8%North West:
Dec 2019 average: 82.6%
On Dec 20th 2020: 68.7%South East:
Dec 2019 average: 83.7%
On Dec 20th 2020: 75.4%South West:
Dec 2019 average: 79.5%
On Dec 20th 2020: 73.3%
I’m not suggesting that NHS hospitals aren’t under pressure – nor even that they aren’t under more pressure than they were this time last year. But the issue isn’t a lack of ICU beds and it doesn’t appear to be a surging number of patients admitted to ICU beds with COVID-19. After all, if those numbers were surging on top of the usual December admissions for respiratory diseases you’d expect the total number of ICU beds occupied to be much higher this year than last and, as you can see from the Spectator data, the totals are lower in four of England’s seven NHS regions.
The reason for the crisis – if indeed there is a crisis – must lie elsewhere.
My money’s on a combination of higher-than-average staff absences and poor management. Disappointing, considering the NHS has had over six months to prepare for this “crisis”.
Lockdowns Pose Greatest Threat to Mental Health Since Second World War
According to the country’s leading psychiatrist, the ongoing restrictions pose the greatest threat to mental health since the Second World War. The Guardian has more.
Dr Adrian James, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said a combination of the disease, its social consequences and the economic fallout were having a profound effect on mental health that would continue long after the epidemic is reined in.
As many as 10 million people, including 1.5 million children, are thought to need new or additional mental health support as a direct result of the crisis.
“This is going to have a profound effect on mental health,” James said. “It is probably the biggest hit to mental health since the Second World War. It doesn’t stop when the virus is under control and there are few people in hospital. You’ve got to fund the long-term consequences.”
Demand for mental health services dropped at the start of the pandemic as people stayed away from GP surgeries and hospitals, or thought treatment was unavailable. But the dip was followed by a surge in people seeking help that shows no sign of abating.
Data from NHS Digital reveals that the number of people in contact with mental health services has never been higher, and some hospital trusts report that their mental health wards are at capacity. “The whole system is clearly under pressure,” James said.
Modelling by the Centre for Mental Health forecasts that as many as 10 million people will need new or additional mental health support as a direct result of the coronavirus epidemic. About 1.3 million people who have not had mental health problems before are expected to need treatment for moderate to severe anxiety, and 1.8 million treatment for moderate to severe depression, it found.
The overall figure includes 1.5 million children at risk of anxiety and depression brought about or aggravated by social isolation, quarantine or the hospitalisation or death of family members. The numbers may rise as the full impact becomes clear on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, care homes and people with disabilities.
Worth reading in full.
Conservative MPs Urge Boris to Keep Schools Open
A number of Conservative MPs have pleaded with Boris not to close schools in January even if it increases the R number. Camilla Turner in today’s Telegraph has more.
Their intervention comes ahead of crunch talks due to take place today between Number 10 and Department for Education officials about whether to delay the return to the classroom in January.
Downing Street has repeatedly said that keeping schools open is a “national priority” but scientists are warning that closures may be necessary to slow the spread of the new COVID-19 variant.
The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG ), which advises the Government, has said that the new variant of the virus may spread far more effectively in children than the original strain.
They said that might explain why the rate of the virus continued to increase in some areas during the second lockdown, when schools were open but more adults stayed at home.
Prof Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College London epidemiologist who became known as “Professor Lockdown” due to his instrumental role in pressing the Government into the first lockdown in March, has raised similar concerns.
He said data so far suggested that the new variant “has a higher propensity to infect children” with “statistically significantly higher” rates found among under-15s compared with those of the standard virus.
But Conservative MPs have told the Prime Minister that schools must be kept open even if it means a rise in the R number. “The view of most Tory MPs is that schools do need to stay open,” one backbencher said.
“It is the health people who are saying ‘oh gosh, the hospitals will be full’. We know that schools being open does increase the R rate. The question is, is that a price we are willing to pay and in my view it should be. Frankly, children don’t get harmed so why on earth should we punish them?”
Another senior Tory MP said it is regrettable that closing schools is now “on the table” but added that many MPs would oppose this.
“Until the Chief Medical Officer gets up and says ‘this is a disaster if we keep schools open because the new strain will threaten parents’, then fine, even I would accept that,” he said.
He added that “Professor Lockdown” is a “fanatic who wants to shut down everything” adding: “I think it’s absolutely wrong for him to start scaring parents and children without actually having the scientific evidence.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the US, school administrators are rethinking quarantine rules, according to the Wall St Journal.
Ten More Reasons to be Anti-Lockdown
A reader has sent us a good piece setting out 10 reasons to be opposed to lockdowns which we’re publishing today. Here are the first three:
The research: While those who oppose lockdowns have rigorously sought to justify their position with research – and can reference tens of studies as to the lack of efficacy of lockdowns (or stringent measures under different names) – the Government has been capable only of publishing one graph in their cost-benefit analysis of the tiers which appeared to show a correlation between Tier 3 measures and a reduction in cases (since discredited).
The use of data: While those who oppose lockdowns have analysed all data in as close to real time as possible, the ‘data’ used to justify lockdowns have been cherry-picked and often predictive, while being based on spurious assumptions that have repeatedly been proved inaccurate.
The source and balance of information: While those who oppose lockdowns possess no bias in obtaining their information, the Government is informed on the risks by a number of committees (SAGE NERVTAG, SPI-M) whose sole responsibility is to consider the virus and present the risks of that virus.
Then there’s my favourite, number 9:
Censorship and debate: While those who oppose lockdowns are constantly appealing for open debate and free speech, the Government avoids open debate, seeking instead to censor dissenting voices. Further, as there is a push to censor any “misinformation”, one can quite easily conclude that the mass of information available, and uncensored, from dissenting voices must therefore be much closer to irrefutable having had to pass a much higher standard in order to simply be available.
Worth reading in full.
BBC’s Alarmist Report on Fake News Contains Fake News
A report by the BBC’s “disinformation reporter” raises the alarm about the dangers of fake news. According to Marianna Spring, the “flurry of online falsehoods about coronavirus” are “destroying relationships and endangering lives”.
But what sort of deadly misinformation is the reporter talking about? Scroll down and you find this paragraph:
We catalogued mass poisonings and overdoses of hydroxychloroquine – a drug that world leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro falsely claimed cures or prevents COVID-19.
Hang on a second. The claim that HCQ cures or prevents COVID-19 is false?
I’m afraid that doesn’t pass the fact-checking test, Ms Spring. Over 200 studies have shown HCQ is an effective treatment for Covid. Trump and Bolsonaro may have exaggerated the preventative and curative properties of HCQ, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ineffective and anyone taking it is likely to poison themselves. On the contrary, it’s almost certainly no more dangerous than any of the Covid vaccines.
Stop Press: David Goodhart wrote an excellent piece for the Telegraph yesterday about the moment he lost his faith in television news.
I believe it was on Monday April 20th that it struck me most forcefully: that day, a grim milestone was reached, with 100 health and social care workers reported to have died from COVID-19 – and I was witnessing a national panic. I realised then that we can no longer do television news for grown-ups.
For the preceding three weeks, I had been watching the same thing every night on the BBC Ten O’Clock News: here is a shocking statistic about Covid, here’s someone who died, here’s a sobbing relative or frontline hero telling you to stay at home, save lives and protect the NHS.
The coverage was relentlessly emotional and infantilising, lacking explanation and context. Was the 100-plus NHS staff deaths from Covid a lot, or a little? There are 600,000 patient-facing staff in the NHS, so a few probably die from infections they catch from patients every month in normal times. Was 100 deaths since the start of the crisis, about a month earlier, twice the normal rate or 50 times? How did it compare to other countries?
Not a word. In Britain, we are supposed to be good at media. And no doubt in some niches we still are. But at the start of the crisis, our main channels of electronic communication became showcases for our contemporary vices: emotionalism, virtue-signalling and a querulously adolescent attitude to authority.
At the same time, I was keeping an eye on the main TV bulletins in Germany and France and while, reassuringly, they were having exactly the same debates as us about inadequate PPE supplies and the disease ravaging old peoples’ homes, the news seemed to be delivered with more rigour and authority and without the British reflex of blaming the Government for everything that was going wrong.
Worth reading in full.
Is Public Opinion Finally Beginning to Turn Against Lockdowns?
According to a poll in yesterday’s Sunday Express, millions of Britons want the Tiers to be scrapped.
With much of Britain stuck in Tier 4 rules, an exclusive survey for the Sunday Express showed more than half of people do not want to wait for the whole population to be vaccinated. The One Poll survey revealed one in five people (21%) want the tiers to be ended when MPs have the chance to vote on them at the end of January. Three in 10 believe that restrictions should end when all the over-60s and people in vulnerable groups have had the chance to have the vaccine.
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance have suggested restrictions should remain for most of next year until the whole population has had the chance to have the vaccine.
However, only 32% of the 1,013 people, surveyed in the week before Christmas, support this position which some MPs have already branded extreme.
Former Cabinet minister Esther McVey, the founder of the powerful Blue Collar Conservatism movement of more than 120 Tory MPs, said that the poll shows the Prime Minister cannot keep forcing restrictions on an unwilling country.
She said: “As on every issue the public are way ahead of politicians. We cannot keep these restrictions and lockdowns in perpetuity and the Government needs to take heed and ensure a new strategy is developed ASAP which returns our freedoms and allows the economy to reopen.”
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “Meet The 50 Doctors, Scientists And Healthcare Entrepreneurs Who Became Pandemic Billionaires In 2020” – Forbes identifies the 50 people who’ve become billionaires as a result of the pandemic. 27 of them are based in China
- “Millions to receive Oxford coronavirus vaccine from Jan 4th” – Two million people will receive their first dose of either the Oxford vaccine or the Pfizer jab within a fortnight, according to the Telegraph
- “Eton College attempted to refer dismissed Master under Prevent Duty for advocating male superiority” – The Telegraph‘s Camilla Turner reveals the Head Master of Eton referred English teacher Will Knowland to the Local Authority because he thought’s his lecture challenging radical feminist orthodoxy was a breach of the Prevent Duty, as set out in the Prevention of Terrorism Act
- “UK radio host under fire for highlighting low COVID-19 mortality among healthy & young and calling for them to ‘carry on living’” – Julia Hartley Brewer is under fire for retweeting Paul Embery’s tweet pointing out that only 377 under-60s in England with no underlying health conditions have died of Covid this year
- “377 people aged under 60 with ‘NO underlying health conditions’ have died of Covid in England’s hospitals” – MailOnline may be about to get into trouble too as it’s devoted a story to the same statistic
- “Hundreds of British holidaymakers escape from quarantine in luxury ski resort” – 420 Brits were in Verbier, but after they were told to quarantine in their hotel room for 10 days all but a dozen fled
- “WHO Deletes Naturally Acquired Immunity from Its Website” – Jeffrey A. Tucker, Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research, weighs in on the WHO’s decision to redefine “herd immunity” so it makes no reference to naturally acquired immunity
- “More than 15,000 lorry drivers tested for Covid after almost a week of disruption” – ITV reports that of the 15,000 lorry drivers tested for COVID-19 only 36 (0.23%) were positive. Needless to say, these were lateral flow tests, not PCR
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Fear” by Pulp, “Stuck in a Bubble” by George Alice and NASAYA, “Going Out of My Head” by Dodie West and “Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley.
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 as well as post comments below the line, 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 tragic story of a young American girl who lost her college place when a vengeful classmate released an embarrassing SnapChat video she’d posted when she was 15 in which she used a racial epithet. The New York Times has more.
Jimmy Galligan was in history class last school year when his phone buzzed with a message. Once he clicked on it, he found a three-second video of a white classmate looking into the camera and uttering an anti-Black racial slur.
The slur, he said, was regularly hurled in classrooms and hallways throughout his years in the Loudoun County school district. He had brought the issue up to teachers and administrators but, much to his anger and frustration, his complaints had gone nowhere.
So he held on to the video, which was sent to him by a friend, and made a decision that would ricochet across Leesburg, Va., a town named for an ancestor of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee and whose school system had fought an order to desegregate for more than a decade after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling.
“I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” Mr. Galligan, 18, whose mother is Black and father is white, said of the classmate who uttered the slur, Mimi Groves. He tucked the video away, deciding to post it publicly when the time was right.
Ms. Groves had originally sent the video, in which she looked into the camera and said, “I can drive,” followed by the slur, to a friend on Snapchat in 2016, when she was a freshman and had just gotten her learner’s permit. It later circulated among some students at Heritage High School, which she and Mr. Galligan attended, but did not cause much of a stir.
Mr. Galligan had not seen the video before receiving it last school year, when he and Ms. Groves were seniors. By then, she was a varsity cheer captain who dreamed of attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, whose cheer team was the reigning national champion. When she made the team in May, her parents celebrated with a cake and orange balloons, the university’s official colour.
The next month, as protests were sweeping the nation after the police killing of George Floyd, Ms. Groves, in a public Instagram post, urged people to “protest, donate, sign a petition, rally, do something” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“You have the audacity to post this, after saying the N-word,” responded someone whom Ms. Groves said she did not know.
Her alarm at the stranger’s comment turned to panic as friends began calling, directing her to the source of a brewing social media furor. Mr. Galligan, who had waited until Ms. Groves had chosen a college, had publicly posted the video that afternoon. Within hours, it had been shared to Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter, where furious calls mounted for the University of Tennessee to revoke its admission offer.
By that June evening, about a week after Mr. Floyd’s killing, teenagers across the country had begun leveraging social media to call out their peers for racist behavior. Some students set up anonymous pages on Instagram devoted to holding classmates accountable, including in Loudoun County.
The consequences were swift. Over the next two days, Ms. Groves was removed from the university’s cheer team. She then withdrew from the school under pressure from admissions officials, who told her they had received hundreds of emails and phone calls from outraged alumni, students and the public.
This is an appalling story, revealing just how petty and spiteful the woke can be. Worth reading in full – although bear in mind that the New York Times calls what happened to this teenage girl “a reckoning”, as though she got her just deserts. Chilling.
Stop Press: Rakib Ehsan in the Telegraph says he hopes we can ditch the concept of “white privilege” in 2021
Stop Press 2: In the latest twist in the free speech scandal at Eton, the Telegraph‘s Camilla Turner reveals the Head Master referred English teacher Will Knowland to the Local Authority because of his concerns that his lecture challenging radical feminist orthodoxy was a breach the Prevent Duty, as set out in the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
“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. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p, and he’s even said he’ll donate half the money to Lockdown Sceptics, so everyone wins.
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: The constitutional court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has declared that the forced wearing of masks is a violation of basic human rights.
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 GBD 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. 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 in December and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
Stop Press: An Italian court has declared lockdowns illegal.
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.
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.
Morning!
Silver!
Hold on, what am I then? 🙂 (bronze I suppose but it was close! Busy for the time of day)
Deary me, I really must stop staying up so late breaking those horrible “rules”!
Hiya!
Not anything to do with Buckie Thistle or Brandybuck is it?
Meriadoc would’ve relished all this wouldn’t he, and scoured the shire(s) and swepped away all those horrible pettifogging rules. Though whether they were any worse off in the shire when he returned there than we are in our shires is an (ent)moot point.
Would be nice if there were to be a similar uprising across our Shires… and finally get us rid of Wormtongue & co!
A Whitless Wormtongue, Unbalanced Saruman and Boris Sauron.
If only the shires can be made to realise that they don’t need to take all this any more. I hope the “banning” of Christmas and New Year festivities will chip away at the collective madness that’s descended on us. I suppose that’s why they’ve ramped up the fear propaganda, because that’s what they’re worried about…will they really willingly set us free in a few months when more people have been vaccinated?
ICU bed’s overflowing is a hoax. Here in the US it’s an artifact of manipulation of definitions and elimination of context. Media whores all of them who report these lies. 1) Increased ICU usage is normal this time of the year; 2) Many hospitals shuttered in the last 10 years all over the States combined with an increase in population (aging as well) resulting in fewer beds per capita; 3) ICU beds “available” depends on staff available. Staff has been reduced due to furloughs and school closures. School closures alone have reduced staff by 16% in California for example; 4) States have mandated that records be altered to show “available” beds only reflect the beds that can be staffed. So for example if you have 100 ICU beds with only 90 staff to work that bed (assuming one staff per bed in this example) and have 90 patients you must record that you are 100% full even though you have 10% of your beds available- which is normal capacity. No mention of WHY those beds can’t be staffed. These are the facts on the ground here in the States- Another Covid 1984 Mini-Truth. This year’s seasonal virus was re-branded as… Read more »
And what’s the betting that when Biden takes control, all these covid cases will disappear, hospital numbers will normalise and he will be feted as the new messiah.
I wish I’d had that regional ICU bed usage to show the senior medic who last week told me that our major regional hospital and two neighbouring ones were ‘overwhelmed with Covid’ (which I knew to be inaccurate).
One thing we’ve noticed with this bullshit is how much so called health care professionals will lie. They are all liars. They all say they know a hospital overwhelmed someplace, it’s never their hospital mind but a hospital in Brigadoon. They’ve heard about the mythical overwhelmed hospital from their mate who works in the ICU of the Camelot Trust or and A&E department of Shangri-La District General so it’s true and anyway don’t argue with them because they’re profession people and risking their usually unhealthy fat asses paid for with money stolen from my fucking pocket. They live in Xanadu and we fucking pay for it.
A state-funded pleasure dome!
Update on 27 December We can confirm that sadly five patients, who had tested positive for Covid-19, have passed away at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. They were two women; one in her 80s and the other in her 90s and three men; one in his 60s, one in his 70s and one in his 80s. All had underlying health conditions. Update on 26 December We can confirm that sadly five patients, who had tested positive for Covid-19, have passed away at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. They were two men in their 80s, a woman in her 50s and a man in his 70s, all with underlying health conditions; and a man in his 70s, who did not have any underlying health conditions. Update on 24 December We can confirm that sadly two men, one in his 80s and one in his 90s, both with underlying health conditions, and who had tested positive for Covid-19 have passed away at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Update on 23 December We can confirm that a woman in her 90s with underlying health conditions, who had tested positive for Covid-19, has passed away at the Norfolk and Norwich University… Read more »
Drip drip drip, the editorial style is different but torpor is still clearly the intention
It could be of course that the man in his 60s without underlying health conditions tested positive after he shot himself, or drowned, or died due to injurious sustained in a car accident, or fell of a ladder?
Why weren’t they sad on 21 & 23 December? Maybe those were ones they were glad to get rid of
Funny, there are no reports of covid in Norfolk&Norwich in the NOIDS report for those dates.
Proof that with covid you can die more than once
Page 14:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/947077/NOIDS-weekly-report-week51-2020.pdf
We have to be on our toes every minute to derail this bullshit.
How can any serious person vote for a man like Joe Biden? lol. He’s so fucking stupid he makes an SNP supporter blush
What happens if he keels over before inauguration, does the box ticking VP elect take over or is the election run again ?
Don’t worry the dumb as fuck leftists have it covered, they’ve got a human of colour called Richard Harris to keep the standard of stupidity high all ready to go. SheHe/It used to be a bit of a drinker and made a porno film with Native Indians and nipple hooks so you never know maybe it’ll work out fine. After all the last thing we want is people who make money from their own enterprise, we need people skilled at lifting the money from your bank account and giving it to themselves and the rigged fixed election has provided the dumb leftist the opportunity to fill their boots. Personally i can’t wait fo the dumb lefties to be out in the street protesting about the latest war the progressive inclusive lefties have started. How they lie to themselves is always a mystery to me.
Kamala Harris takes over. Probably sooner rather than later.
That’s the plan. They’ve referred to the Harris-Biden administration on more than one occasion.
Harris had to drop out right at the beginning of the Democrat primaries as she couldn’t muster any voter support. Biden came fifth with about 15% of the votes, though none of the candidates really inspired the voters apart from Bernie Sanders.
The two of them are the least inspiring candidates in a very long time, yet were supposed to believe that voters came out in record numbers to give them 81 million votes, more than the sainted Obama.
Yeah. Sure. Right.
2020 election by county. Red is Trump. Blue is Biden.
Wow….. where is that information from please? Thank you.
Check out Newsmax, Epoch Times or One America News Network. Breitbart US too. UK MSM will never report any of it.
The Reds have it!
Looks like he won hands down where there wasn’t many people.
He’s just a place-holding puppet.
Some such situation has been predicted widely. It is a possible scenario. I don’t think this is a ball they can keep in the air forever and by the time of the inauguration it will be roughly eight or nine weeks to the Northern Hemisphere spring, when respiratory-type ailments tend to start going down, just as they tend to go up in autumn and winter.
More likely to impose nationwide mask mandate and lockdown.
Parliament would have to vote if they called it National lockdown.
Beijing Biden the new Messiah? Who woulda thunk it?
We are either Enablers or Disablers. Take your pick.
Do not resuscitate=Palliative care=Euthanasia.
“This year’s seasonal virus was re-branded as Covid19 . . .” as predicted here and elsewhere months ago in order to produce their ‘second spike’.
Question: just exactly where does the World Bank and IMF get its money from in the first place, that they can make demands on countries on how they handle CV19? Is it the famous MMT: Modern Monetary Theory/Magic Money Tree?
They (it, really) are funded and OWNED by the governments of the 180 countries who are its members.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YRm6k4X3lFg
Tim Pool: TikTok Dancing Nurses MOCKING US, Like Dancing At A Funeral, Fauci Admits To LYING AGAIN
Mainstream media is complicit in this fiasco, generating hysteria with its virtual signalling claptrap, unbalanced reporting and deliberate attempts to confuse. Beautiful morning on the beaches today and lovely to see families in the water, in the sun, surfing and relaxing. At the press conference concern was raised by a reporter about ‘the numbers’ on the beaches. Not asking how many people are in hospital. There is 1 in NSW not in intensive care. 25 Australia wide not in intensive care. Hmmm, that’s about 1 in a million. Their segments each night contain random interviews with the general population who respond along the lines of keeping ‘safe’. Never mind the civil rights of people being swiftly and irrevocably eviscerated. I doubt they would ever air my comment that ‘this is the greatest scam perpetrated on mankind’.
There were the same complaints in UK during the summer about covidiots invading, swarming, swamping beaches and public parks even though it resulted in zero extra cases.
Yes, Tenby’s zombies looked on holidaymakers as hand grenades with the pin out. The rest of us cheerfully ministered to their wants and needs as far as we were able.
Nothing happened.
Yes, and the same here in Dorset and in the SW generally!
Sometimes critics of the BS seem downhearted by all the people taken in by the fear campaign. Yet looking at comments by a lot of these can be morale-boosting – for them, there are too damn many people not running around thinking the sky is going to fall, and this upsets them.
Yes. All those biohazards invading Bournemouth – which only moved into Tier 2 in the recent scam.
Just like all those BLM protests which the governments in several countries considered to be of greater importance than the risk from CV19.
That’s when anyone with an ounce of common sense should have realised that it’s all a scam.
Could’ve should’ve didn’t.
yes, that’s when the penny dropped for me: that and the spate of government members and their henchmen worldwide flouting the rules they had imposed on the rest of us. that was the time when I realised we were being scammed.
Oopsy daisy, should read virtue signalling not virtual signalling.😆
“virtual signalling” is when people wear a face nappy in a zoom call.
Zoom=Virtual signalling.
So if we apply the logic regarding the NHS to a private company, then you blame your inefficiencies, staffing levels, managerial incompetencies on your clients – not our fault gov, it’s those damn customers. What warped sense of administration is this when the whole of society is expected to lose their way of life, their businesses, the children their education, because an over paid, over indulged bureaucratic monster such as the NHS is no longer fit for purpose. This creature is now worse than the banking system, too big to fail and for some reason beyond criticism and is truly becoming some adored cult.
It is supposed to be serving the public, not the public sacrificed to serve it. With the NHS now allowed to be as useless as it desires, and the warped reversal of responsibility,that is the more inefficient it becomes the more the public’s need for healthcare must be punished, even to the extent it has stolen the private healthcare, its performance will only get worse.
The same bureaucratic monster that ran away to WFH leaving the frontline staff to it only to emerge months later to impose a slurry of new rules to emphasize their own importance.
Absolutely right.
When the Falklands War was on, I remember how upset the nation was at the sinking of HMS Sheffield but public opinion in favour of that war did not seem to waver; a fisherman customer of mine said, “It’s sad but that’s what they’re for” which I thought was harsh but he was right.
This is what the NHS is for so they should get on with it.
It really does feel like tail wagging dog at times.
This NHS worship was imposed on us from the government, and from some numpties on social media.
The handclapping and cheering every Thursday smacked too much of communist-style propaganda for me. We didn’t join in, but our next-door neighbours did. They have a Tesla, and their 11 year-old son is joining in the push to become vegan or vegetarian. I’m saying nothing else.
If you think back to the London Olympics, suddenly we were given the NHS to worship as a national treasure, for all the world to see put there by the leftist organisers set up by Bliar with the blessing of call me Dave Camoron. Boris is doing the same on steroids to try and capture votes with his undying support. Hes wasting his fucking time. The likes of Pantsdown and most of the NHS senior management are card carrying communists, so Boris is feeding the monster in the impossible hope that somehow they will support him. It shows how clueless and political naive he really is and the rest of this so called Tory government are.
Boris is a Commie enabler?
It is time to ridicule, mock, denounce, demonize and satirize the morons who are wrecking our world. Don’t write polite letters anymore. Be creative, be unpredictable, be sarcastic.
Boris is a lifelong eugenicist just like his father and Bill Gates.
And globally inspired Public Health England.
You’re spot on Hattie, if my boss came to me and said we were failing and had to improve our performance the last two things I’d do is blame the customers and ask for more investment. I’d be expected to rationalise services, improve efficiencies and cut unnecessary steps in our processes.
When talking to people about the failed NHS I often relate my most recent experience at hospital, turn up on time having travelled 2 hours to get there (25 miles from my home?) and was asked, can I ask your marital status, can I ask your religion, can I ask your ethnicity, can I ask your sexual identification (?). Obviously answered no to each as none of them are relevant to my diagnosis/treatment. The problem for me comes when it took 3 minutes to ask and input the data, when you multiply this by the millions of people they see every year it’s wasted thousands of days of time collecting useless data. Add to it the meaningless jobs created to ‘analyse’ the data and you hit the efficiency jackpot. No wonder the NHS employs over a million staff.
They collect that data so that some minister can answer an MPs question about such things.
Having spent some time doing data analysis in the NHS, producing reports, etc, all of those data points you’ve mentioned were of complete and absolute irrelevance. We never recorded them in pathology, except the occasional transgender patient really threw up some screwed up path results which were difficult to interpret because of the hormones they were taking.
Yes interesting thought. On the basis of 10 million patients being asked those same questions, I make it 57 person-work-years wasted!!
It’s not just the data collection either. The inefficiency is everywhere. Even when you are supposedly under the care of a consultant you are more likely to be seeing the registrar and as likely as not a different registrar each time. This means that you waste half the time recapping your case notes with them through their lack of preparation. To boot they also treat you like an idiot for the most part. On the third occasion this happened to me I verbally reamed (politely) out the registrar for their lack of preparation, pointing out that as a consultant engineer I would not dream of turning up to a client site on a return visit without having first fully prepared with a review of the “case notes”. My clients are not paying me to have them regurgitate the same material on each visit.
You met them too???
To be fair I’ve found the hardest part is getting past the GP (and before him/her the receptionists) at least some of the hospital octoirs seem to know a bit about medicine
The cost of asking/inputting/analysing the data all pale into insignificance next to the cost of building the systems that handle it.
Fantastic post, Hattie! You have truly nailed down the utter absurdity of the NHS. Splendidly put. If I may add one thing
‘This creature is now worse than the banking system, too big to fail and for some reason beyond criticism and is truly becoming some adored cult.’
It seems to me that the NHS’ cult status is well and truly established, my friend.
Yes in business we worry about 1. The customer is always right and 2. how do we maintain our profit margin. So the question always being asked is what are you adding to the project? If we are overloaded with non productive staff the hourly rate for our staff would be so high we could not make a profit and our tender price would mean we would win no contracts. So the ratio of non chargeable staff is always lower that the engineers, software guys, production etc. If you look at a project you have on average 30 productive chargeable staff and two non. Now let’s look at the NHS…… oh dear!
I’m afriad it’s much worse than that. It exists to disable and kill people, and this was the case before the pandemic. I have mountains of medical records, complaints, ombudsmans, GMC cases, policy and legal documents here to prove that. They have literally written policy to kill people. I fully intended to take my case to judicial review, but I don’t know now. I knew I wasn’t the only victim (had friends whos parents were coerced into DNRs when they were medicated, too), but the beast is so much bigger than I ever could have imagined. Stay away from NHS Scotland at all costs. It’s the communist death camp.
absolutely. the NHS must go.
I see there’s more on the Orwellian BBC today.
My current complaint of misinformation at the BBC relates to the fact that they are reporting claims that there is not enough evidence to show that vitamin D boosts immunity to viruses (have they even bothered to speak to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service? I have my doubts) whilst at the same time reporting that the “BAME community” suffer more from cv – presumably due to a lack of vitamin D (they also suffer more from rickets).Notable that reported cv deaths are low in many African countries.
Their coverage of vaccines as the “only way out” of the current extreme restrictions also strikes me as unbalanced (and witless).
On the subject of Vitamin D, I recently received a Facebook post from NHS England extolling the use of Vitamin D as a prophylactic medicine to counter Covid-19. The BBC has clearly not been informed by the Ministry of Truth that the narrative has changed!
Memory holes not working?
Which means that without a blush they will change their narrative at some point.
On the subject of vitamin D do we know if there have been any studies to establish the vitamin D levels of people who have died of Covid or who have suffered serious covid? I do take some vitamin supplements especially in the winter time but I have no idea whether or not I need to do so? I guess to assess vitamin levels you would need to carry out a full blood test?
If there are, I haven’t heard of them. Over to the experts…
I have heard that, of the “healthy” who have died of Covid, quite a lot could reasonably be described as obese. I would guess that the number of under 60’s who are genuinely healthy (not obese, take vitamin supplements etc., have a good diet including plenty of raw fruit and veg, get exercise, and so on) who have died of Covid is vanishingly small.
Certainly, some may need to take more vitamins than others, and it migbt be helpful to talk to a good, nutritionally trained doctor (many doctors know little about nutritional medicine, apparently).
A good start might be to look at this page from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service.
orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n04.shtml
Likely to be the case, although obesity is endemic in many places so it makes a lot of people vulnerable. Certainly on closer examination many media stories about younger people dying turn out to concern someone who was not that healthy to begin with.
You do need to take Vitamin D in winter. It does help boost your immune system, and will help to maintain bone density.
I also found that my hair fell out at an alarming rate when I became VitD deficient, so there’s another reason for taking it.
Conditions caused/made worse by vitamin D deficiency include osteoporosis, tooth decay. Now we seem to know that it can cause diabetes, high blood pressure and a range of conditions you don’t want, maybe even MS.
I think it verges on criminal negligence that most healthcare systems and governments ignore it.
Finland is an honourable exception. It has fortified some common foods and managed to increase the average level in people’s blood to more than the levels measured in southern Europe. The per capita death rate from COVID seems to be about 90% lower than the UK rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Finland#/media/File:COVID-19_Finland_timeline.en.svg
Vitamin D has always been a mainstay of the low carb/paleo/primal/keto way of eating but since Dr Atkins was vilified by Big Food/Pharma, so too has promotion of Vitamin D among mainstream health.
I actually succeeded in getting a test on the NHS. The result took weeks to arrive and then I needn’t have bothered, it was 95 without supplementing. You should have sen the doctor’s face when I said
“That’ll be all the grass-fed butter and cheese then”
Probably also fish and getting out in the sun.
Also NOT taking statins
I have been on a keto diet for a month. Not for weight loss – I have medical problems, and I heard it might help. I have been a chronic low-fat, low-calorie dieter for 14 years. I was obese, and once I lost the weight, I was always terrified of getting fat again so watched what I ate like a hawk.
I can’t believe the difference in one month. The constant pressure in my head is gone and the brain fog and visual migraine is much improved. I had a ‘normal’ 150 carb day just before Christmas, and those symptoms hit me like a lorry with headaches to boot. They retreated again as soon as I resumed the high fat diet.
AND…… and…. I have no cellulite now. I shit you not – my thighs haven’t looked like this since I was 13! (Lost 2 Kg, too, but I am still low-calorie. Not yet convinced I can give up calorie-counting and obsessive weighing).
Vitamin D3 is very good for those of us who suffer from dry skin, eczema & psoriasis. It was recommended to me by my dermatologist in the 1980’s & cured my psoriasis in 9 months.
Local press is still at it
“Three more Covid deaths in County”
Turns out to be over two days in a population of 1 million.
“Across England a further 231 people who tested positive for Covid19 have died in hospitals”
Turns out to be from Dec 9th to 26th.
These qualifiers are never adjacent to the scary lead, they are always at least an advert or some other text away and the whole thing is written in such a turgid way you might think the editor only wants readers to skim the headlines.
In the Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate, Eleanor Iselin is told by her journalist son Raymond Shaw that he plans to denounce her in his newspaper column. She dismisses this, saying most people only read the headlines.
Publishing these ‘covid’ deaths figures is all well and good, but without any context they are absolutely meaningless.
This method of ‘reporting’ the data has been going on from the very start of all this and it drives my engineering brain loopy!
If you ask most people ‘how many people died in the UK yesterday, including ‘covid’ and all other ways’ they wouldn’t have a bloody clue.
More robust reporting would include the total number of deaths, and then list out the numbers attributed to ‘covid’, heart disease, pneumonia, stroke, etc, etc. That would at least allow the general public to see the proportional factor.
But I suppose that would remove the fear factor and sensationalism that MSM thrives on
I believe total mortality averages 1,600 daily of which 450 are from cancer.
A total set to rise as a result of NHS neglect.
At least 165,000 cancer deaths this year, then… Pandemic!!
Just before lockdown V1 I was running a training course in a large manufacturing plant. The conversation turned to Covid and one guy asked how many people died each day/year in UK. None of the 15 middle managers on the course knew, I offered the answer and was roundly ridiculed. One guy said it was no more than 20-25 a WEEK! It’s the only time I’ve been thankful for Google, never seen such a roomful of slackjaws when my numbers were corroborated.
A quick set of questions showed that they didn’t know the number of smoker/drinker deaths a day, the population of UK, the number of births a year, UK average life expectancy, it was actually quite worrying that these people were the ‘brains’ of one of the UK’s largest manufacturers. The Government is free to use data however it wishes because the population is generally clueless.
Yes, I’ve found it useful to quote a ‘rule of thumb’ figure of one person dying every minute in UK, and a hundred around the world.
So you know the smoker deaths a day? According to ? Do tell.
Tested positive, again misleading, as doesn’t mean they died of it but with it, and then the high rate of false positives. I can expect the fear mongering to go into overdrive in the coming weeks if uptake of their Frankencine is poor.
Dr John Campbell, GP, level headed review of VitD…
https://youtu.be/Bga_qG30JyY
The WHO has very recently changed its information on herd immunity, ie from natural immunity derived from exposure to antigens or from vaccines, to vaccines only. No mention of natural immunity.
That’s blatant propaganda.
And factually incorrect
Yes when we were young we got measles mumps and chickenpox every week, we never developed immunity. Oh wait. . .
Whatever they say is propaganda. Gates Foundation sudsidized propaganda.
I just want to remind everyone that the BBC’s “disinformation reporter”, Marianna Spring, only left university in 2018. How does someone get a job like that with so little experience, I wonder?
Private girls’ school Sutton School – £20k per year fees. Oxford University. Guardian newspaper.. barely in her twenties.. now tells people what to think on the BBC.
Who’s she related to?
MI5 operative?
That’s what they speculated on UK Column news, given her time in Russia:
https://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/news/undergraduate-linguist-marianna-spring-becomes-news-reporter-moscow-times
I used to be pro-security services, but 2020 has shattered my opinion of every aspect of the establishment.
“Mariana is currently enrolled on a Russian language course at a university in Yaroslal’ where she is staying with her minders”.
‘Minders’ being an euphemism (if one’s suspicion re her real talents is correct …).
Arthur Dent?
Yes, I tend to agree. I myself worked — externally — for a gov’t news monitoring agency. And I am just so shocked by how bad media manipulation has become this year.
What is really frightening is she is almost certainly so brainwashed herself that she really believes in her mission to counter ‘disinformation’. But unbelievably incompetent for someone with an ‘elite’ education.
God help us.
I am glad to see Toby picked up on her end of year report actually being used to spread disinformation itself. I don’t think journalism can get any lower than that.
Merely the fact that a publicly funded broadcaster has such a unit is extremely sinister
Family and friends connections?
Mi5 NPC
The bits you can see are quite attractive, but the mask has probably caused acne and bad breath, so I shall resist the urge to develop a crush.
I’ve seen a picture without the mask. Oh no! Oh help! Crush impending.
Think of it as an exotic kink.
UK column suggested she may be in the intelligence services
I’ll repeat, as it is always worth repeating (not having a go, Jonathan) –
EVERY BBC EMPLOYEE HAS ALWAYS BEEN, AND STILL IS, VETTED BY MI5.
And there’s more proof that the whole vaccination ‘race’ has become the play ball of scientifically illiterate ministers and civil serpents. According to the report in the Telegraph (here) they are now thinking about extending the time between the first and second jab (21 days for the mRNA jab, 28 for the Oxford/AstraZeneca one) to 12 weeks. They ‘reassure’ people that ‘everybody will get a jab’, as if we’re all impatient kids who can’t wait to be given that lovely present!
That of course begs the question: what protection does the vaccine really confer if the time span between first and second jab can be altered at will – at the political will of ‘ministers’ to make the UK into the 1st country where all have had ‘Teh Jab’?
To me, this is just another piece in the puzzle showing that the whole covid ‘saga’ was and is determined by politics pure and simple, not by health considerations for the people.
Shortly before the Pfizer arrived a BBC R4 interviewer asked The Expert what would happen if someone had one injection but not the second. Expert replied
1. A single injection would be ineffective.
2. There was a window of about 7 days around 21 days following the initial injection for the second to be effective.
Evidently they asked The Wrong Expert.
Luckily, the zombie animals have no memory of anything the pigs told them more than five minutes ago.
The zombies will hear,see and believe what they are lead to believe.
Wasn’t it Susan Michie of SAGE who tweeted support for the idea a that people just give up the second dose to ensure more are vaccinated? Claiming it would still provide 90% of intended effectiveness?
They pluck this shite from anywhere it seems
Blair was certainly saying it before Xmas Eve.
Proof if any was needed that the UK population are the test subjects
In animal health, we do not give the second “booster” before 21days. We only give a series of shots in very young animals because we are worried about interference from maternal antibodies.
That’s in the case of a vaccine, not whatever they are using for CoV-19!
I am extremely skeptical about these new technologies. Humanity imagining itself cleverer than nature always has unintended consequences as biological systems are far more complex than our simple minds can fathom.
Artificial Intelligence.
Some time ago, some hero posted a set of newspaper headlines screaming about the NHS being overwhelmed – going back years. Is there any chance it could we posted again?I’d like to send it to my drivelling wanker of an MP.
Hi Annie, attached is the image, it is hard to verify each front page as Google doesn’t make it easy to retrieve them, but finding links to support the sentiment is very easy just by searching some key words. For example – The Daily Express article (from 8th January 2018) can be found by google searching “Britain in Grip of Killer Flu” and it is stored online by PressReader. NHS crisis: Jeremy Hunt apologises to patients as thousands of non-urgent operations postponed Independent 3rd January 2018 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-apology-nhs-crisis-patients-non-urgent-operations-care-delayed-latest-a8139556.html Excess winter deaths in England and Wales highest since 1976 The Guardian 30th November 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/30/excess-winter-deaths-in-england-and-wales-highest-since-1976 NHS hospitals still in grip of winter crisis, figures show The Guardian 25th January 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/25/hospitals-still-in-grip-of-winter-crisis-nhs-england-figures-show Killer flu outbreak is to blame for a 42% spike in deaths in January after 64,000 people died – the highest number since records began Daily Mail 27th February 2018 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5440785/Killer-flu-outbreak-blame-42-spike-deaths.html NHS hospitals ordered to cancel all routine operations in January as flu spike and bed shortages lead to A&E crisis The Telegraph 3rd January 2018 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/nhs-hospitals-ordered-cancel-routine-operations-january/ UK ‘in grip of worst flu season since 2011’ BBC News 18th January 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42725152 All the above links are from 2018 regarding the… Read more »
Brilliant, thank you.
There’s been stories about NHS in crisis, purple surges etc. for years if memory serves.
And not just the current regime, I seem to remember the mid-Staffordshire hospital scandal under a previous administration, billions wasted under public-private partnerships and computer related reforms that went round in circles and wasted billions.
NHS unionists used to say “save our NHS” and I used to think “change your NHS”. It needs more than just throwing money at it, and other countries are getting better outcomes than us. And they need to start taking nutrition seriously.
This is what annoys me – no constructive criticism of the NHS, why every winter we have the same old story of being overwhelmed. Where is the scandal over 2016 Cygnus exercise which showed their failings in responding to a pandemic, but no intervention or action to address this was taken. Instead we have the warped ideology that the public and society are to be decimated to save an inefficient, bloated, over-funded public non service.
They DO take nutrition seriously. They tell us to eat the most profitable diet so they can prescribe the most profitable drugs as antidotes.
If they make you fat (see aslo, nurses and dieticians) this is good as obese people eat more food by definition and pop their clogs early. If they make you diabetic this is also good as diabetes drugs are among the most profitable, and insulin has gone up by hundreds of percent.
You’d almost think it was a plot but of course that would be a conspiracy theory
Opps one typo in my final sentence, severe winter (such as 2017-18) is what I meant, not 2018-19
The overloaded NHS, allegedly, is a bread-and-butter doom and gloom story for the newspapers, especially every winter.
Along with the one about the “winter wonderland” theme park which charges £20 admission and consists of a few fairy lights strung on trees, Santa talking on his mobile phone, and elves standing around smoking.
Am I the only one who sees this as a Christmas highlight ? 🙂
Some people just shouldn’t be allowed cars to get there nor money to get in.
Sensationalism. Their preferred method of informing the public.
Sir, please consider yourself promoted to Secretary of State for All Media.
Here’s one
And another
Dates would be helpful
January 2015
Thanks
“Our NHS Is Dying”
My reply: GOOD!
There was this one as well from several years …unfortunately not very good quality
From the main article
‘As many as ten million people . . . are thought to need new or additional mental health support as a direct result of the crisis’
Good luck with that.
Mental health practitioners have told that their work with pre-existing caseloads had been made harder because isolation is the worse thing that can happen with many of their patients.
They have been presented with many new cases of people being driven into suicidal depression as a result of lockdown whom they have no chance of helping.
Managers emerged from WFH to demand that all face to face encounters become mask to mask thus removing the element of empathy necessary for correct diagnosis and reassurance.
All true however suspect ie know that it is pressure from infection control and health and safety that dictates whether workers WFH or mask up rather than from managers.
For the most part it’s the people’s responsibility to be supportive of each other, but they’ve reneged on that responsibility. Calling on “professionals” in this sort of instance is essentially privatisation/nationalisation of the social.
Good point. They have taken our social lives, the connections which keep us sane through natural means.
No fucking way two million people will have this so called vaccine by january the 4th or any other day. I have my doubts you’ll be able to find two million people wanting to take this. Like the testing no one will have it. They are lying, straight up bare faced total fucking bullshit lies about these tests, same goes for the up-take of this vaccine. Me mate works in the big hospital near me and he tells me virtually no member of the staff is gonna take it. He knows this because almost everyone of his co-workers tell him. I don’t know how many people will take it but i bet when the whip comes down i don’t think ten percent of the country will have had it. This won’t please the people in charge who’re mentally ill with Munchausen syndrome by proxy and think we’re all sick and need them to save them.
They have turned the stand alone teaching building at my hospital into a vaccination station* comlete with new fences and Security boxes so I’ll keep an occasional eye on how busy it is.
Probably not very much if the tumbleweed testing station is anything to go by.
* Begs the question, when do they intend to resume medical training ?
Why bother with medical training? i’ve had better luck treating myself over the years from youtube videos and eating dock leaves. Doctors don’t want you to know that.
beneficial if you have eaten too many nettles?
Many of my daily consultations involve the same people whose problems are on the whole mental and social . Most in previous ages would have seen a priest or have talked to another member of the family. Sadly family structure has been destroyed for many in the last 40 years.
I do see however significant presentations as well, in old and young , in which case dock leaves would not be the appropriate treatment. The art is sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Don’t know about doc leaves, but fine whisky is a much under-rated medicine imo.
When I started getting into the proper stuff I was told that if you drink the right amount you’ll live forever; the trick is to find the right amount.
Enjoy your dosage experiments.
Actually rich in VitC and minerals. Don’t eat to excess though. Dock pie a traditional dish. Times have often been hard, remember. We’ll all be scavenging the fields and hedgerows like Ukrainian peasants in the famine at this rate.
We lived upon nettles,
While nettles were good
And Waterloo porridge wor t’best on us food.
Take the Covvitrain to the vaccination
Station.
Receive the holy snake oil
With elation.
Save
The nation.
As voiced by Ali G and the Slough massif innit.
Also begs the question ‘Why security boxes ?!’.
There’s no reason to wait until it is fully rolled out either. I don’t see why, once the elderly and mentally incapacitated have had their jab that the rest of the country cannot be contacted in advance – ‘Do you want the vaccine? Yes or No?’
Once everyone has been offered it, then the people have spoken. No fucking about with this drawn out process. Play on.
I’m still on the fb group of the area I used to live in (very vibrant part of Leeds inner city). Four GP practices put out a plea for people to urge their over-80s or any that they know, to take the vaccine as they have contacted all such patients and take up has been extremely poor.
My practice contacted all those over 80 living at home about the vaccine to arrange appointments . Nearly all were keen to have an appointment . The reasons for this are many but there is little reluctance amongst this age group .
If my mother in law is any example, she’ll take anything the doctor tells her too. Absolute compliance to the man in the white coat. No thinking required
Interesting observation. I wonder how that will extrapolate as the vaccine becomes more widely available.
Incidentally, are you prepared to say whether you’ll have it?
Genuine question. Were I a doctor (I’m not) and was unprepared to take it I’d be hesitant about recommending it to patients who were in the same or lower balance-of-risk category as me.
I only encounter any vaccine scepticism in the working age population . Those over 75 tend to have no doubts about having the vaccine…. they also tend to regard the BBC as an impeccable source of information. There are of course exceptions which any commentator can tell me.
Among medical and nursing staff there is considerable hesistancy and a large minority would rather wait / postpone any decision on having any Covid vaccine.
Many thanks. Always interesting to have coal-face observations.
Had a great day of law-breaking yesterday. 8 kids, 9 adults and a dog in my mother-in-law’s house, celebrating the last vestiges of Christmas as it slips away for another year.
Some of the older adults made a vague reference to being “scared of passing on the virus” but zero social distancing or any other bizarre Covid rituals were adhered to. All in all, it was as normal a celebration as I could have wished for.
Family always emerges victorious.
Were I still in London in my 20s-30s I’m sure I would have been meeting daily with some or all of my many friends from different social circles.
I didn’t care for my London relatives and the others were way down in Cornwall.
Let me assure you families in London have been mixing.What the eye doesn’t see etc….
Three cheers for your family!
Nice
Can one of my FS’s tell me how to get a Covid anti body test please?
As a healthy 72 year old, I wouldn’t want to stop a neurotic “WFH’er” from getting his/her “fix”.
PS: question is genuine.
https://www.rightangled.co/products/covid-19-antibody-test
HELLO10 should give £10 off
Many thanks.
I understand the body only creates antibodies for a few weeks after infection so a positive antibody test would not preclude you from the vaccine, at least not for very long. However, loss of antibodies does not mean you are not immune as T cell immunity is believed to be long lasting. I know that T cell immunity can be tested even though the test is a lot more complex BUT I have not been able to source any way of obtaining a private test. If anyone knows of any labs offering this test, please let me know. Is the lack thereof because the governments don’t want individuals to have a good reason to avoid the vaccine? The more digging you do, the more it seems like vaccination of the whole population is the aim. I am not anti vaccine but this apparent agenda is very worrying.
Won’t vaccination of the whole population increase prevalence? As having it doesn’t stop you catching or transmitting the virus however infected individuals will be swanning about symptomless where previously they’d be holed up in bed.
I can only assume that if they’re asymptomatic then they’re not burdening the sainted NHS.
That is what is supposed to be so scary about Covid mutant .1, people contract the virus but show no symptoms (ie not unwell) so “infected individuals will be swanning about symptomless . . .”
The Horror.
Oh even Better the BBC are bullshitting that this new strain affects the young. God how I wish I could blow that place up!
Maybe they have a secret underground bunker?
Just when we have got over the xmas panic, and almost having to tell my young daughter that she is banned from seeing my parents, (they luckily ignored it in the end) it now looks likely that I will have to have yet another conversation with her, this time telling her that school (which she loves and is her final year of primary) could well be closed again instead of returning next week.
When that happened the first time she was so upset, doing lessons on zoom and missing her friends, and if that is to be the way we go again, it will be so upsetting.
Will this never end?
Slightly off topic, but not really
The pig dictators handling of brexit brings to the fore what a lying malevolent individual he is
I make no leave or remain point
The ‘deal’ was cynically announced on Christmas Eve. The deal document is said to run to 2000 pages . How many MP’s will have read any of it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or Boxing Day?
Therefore the majority of MP’s will have 2 days to read, digest and understand the document. They will not understand what they are voting for
This was planned
My point is that the pig dictator is a madman
He has presided Stalin like over the deaths of thousands
We also saw this behavior prior to Christmas when almost weeping he declared it would be inhuman to cancel Christmas
MP’s took him at his word and went home satisfied
Once the MP’s had gone home for the holidays he invented the mutant virus and did what he himself had declared to be inhuman
His main attributes are lying, manipulation, a false charm, and a absolute disregard for human life
This is a very dangerous man
I agree with the points about covid but, three days to digest an EU treaty, because it has been agreed at a minute to midnight is, positively, luxurious. When even Farage is forced to congratulate the PM and his negotiators with little more than a grumble about fishing I think we can say it is a fairly positive deal for the UK. Whether it will get through the European council is the question, I expect Macron to try and veto it because the EU have capitulated across the board. The yo-yo must be in considerably worse trouble than we realise if the Germans are so desperate to avoid No Deal.
Now, if Johnson would just use the positivity to be as proactive in relation to Bat flu, starting with a ban on the use of the PCR test we might extricate ourselves from this ridiculous situation.
The Germans rule in Europe, it will go through. Credit where due Bunter has done well to get a deal. Can he now regain control from the health Commies?
Well no need for the North and Midlands to go into CCP shutdown 3, as a start.
We are all going into full lockdown until April. The NHS staff are not taking the vaccine in anything like sufficient numbers, who can blame them, to deal with the staffing crisis.
Agree on the NHS staff, not the full CCP shutdown. The heat is on Bunter from the Conservative members and MP’s in the Midlands and North. Testing schoolkids to get the numbers up as looks to be Hancock’s next scam won’t cut it either.
Why would the vaccine deal with the staffing crisis?
Depends what this so called deal entails…I no longer trust Farage on his notable weak response to the government this past few months … A man who is supposed to prize self determination, independence and here we have a government that is intent on destroying our most basic civil liberties, and little more than a squeak from Farage.
Farage is another Boris – only interested in serving himself.
Forgive a little scepticism regarding arguments from authority, even the authority of Farage. Do we know what the ‘deal’ actually says? Has anyone on here read through the 2,000 pages?
Spot on. People praising the deal have not read it
They praise because the pig dictator told them to praise
this was a summary of the main points and who had “won”.. It was a government summary so maybe a little biased . However worth a read just for the flavour
Main use – what it always was – a useless distraction to play with while Rome burns.
Agree – though Gove said something like we will have a “special relationship” with the EU: not sure that inspires confidence?!
Not forgetting there are 4543 words in the American Constitution.
But how many words from USSC judgments interpreting it?
Might be nice to know how many US gun owners (a constitutional right there) are lockdown sceptics.Is their government more wary of them as a consequence?
Millions of people armed to the teeth who mistrust their government ?
See if the likely answer occurs to you, TC. 🙂
He doesn’t believe in Parliamentary accountability. He’s the chappy who closed Parliament down. And then the people gave him a majority.
You can never underestimate the stupidity of the electorate.
I agree almost entirely, but just can’t go along with that bit about charm.
Have just come across this interview..
Vaclav Claus on lockdowns et al, likening the methods being used to the Czech communist era (17 mins):
https://youtu.be/kyrI4kurMnc
Edit
Another interview – Catherine Austin Fitts. Am only part way through this and am finding it quite disconcerting, making the conspiracy theories sound more plausible (48 mins):
https://youtu.be/C1-0XKYAZII
Although there was much shock-horror about Chinese brainwashing during and after the Korean War (it was often credited with spooky powers it did not really have) Western scientists, especially CIA-linked, thought the Chinese might be onto something and social control had its uses.
One can research MK-Ultra, Monarch, etc. if one wants.
Former President and PM Vaclav Klaus. Eurosceptic, climate sceptic, covid-sceptic.
Has said he will not be taking a ‘superfluous’ vaccine.
https://www.klaus.cz/clanky/4560
Scenario: patient has Pfizer jab. Second jab due. Pfizer vaccine runs out, but Oxford vaccine available. Does patient now take Oxford vaccine?
Question is why anyone would need 2 jabs to be ‘effective’. Why can’t 1 jab do the ‘job’?
Perhaps it depends which comes first… like mixing beer on whisky, very risky. Whisky on beer, never fear! 🙂
They already suggested using two different vaccines early in December.
07.50 BBC R4
Damian/Dominic (?) Farrow
‘There will be no economic recovery until we have beaten Coronovirus’
‘We have been scrabbling around to find the money to invest in vaccines . . .’
‘Scrabbling’ ?
Like when Barclays tried to borrow cash from the mafia during the banking crisis?
They keep talking about this virus as if they were in some sort of re-run of the D day landings and we will ‘defeat’ the virus, whatever that means? If anything this virus is more like the Viet-cong fighting a guerilla war, being a pest and running rings around us like the viet-cong did with the USA.
Most viruses ebb and flow, in often unpredictable ways, is it likely that 2021 will see this virus ebb away naturally? The jet stream is due to shift a little and we should be getting some more high pressure weather, that along with improving light levels as we go through January might see this virus start to decline naturally, we live in hope!
Covid now is a purely political conundrum. Rona herself is irrelevant. If you have ever wondered whether our rulers could fight their way out of a paper bag, here’s your answer.
If they abandoned the PCR test for the LFT the virus would “disappear” overnight. The people in hospital “with covid” don’t actually “have” covid. Covid is now a glorified cold and no where near as prevalent as the PCR testing indicates.
This is one of the most pernicious ideas – that it’s possible to defeat a virus as mild and easily spread as this one
It’s never been done before, and if there was a way to do it without killing the patient it would have been done
One day we may have the technology (God forbid, as on current form it will be abused) but to think we have this power now is a dangerous delusion
So they are using the term coronavirus not covid … so we are now attempting to defeat the cold virus that has been around for how long. This will not end until we end it.
The videos from New Zealands ‘Covid Plan B’ are really good and definitely deserve to have more Youtube views. Each upload is a laid back discussion by GPs / epidemiologists /specialists etc. Their style is quite chilled, so personally I increase the Youtube playback speed to 1.5X to whiz through them.
Their credentials can be seen on their website https://www.covidplanb.co.nz
Here is their last upload (14th Dec), it gets going 4 minutes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntck40aX31I&t
Formerly Janice 21 here.
Never got round to wishing everyone a merry Christmas but hope you all managed to have a good enough one regardless.
I haven’t left the house since Christmas Eve and have avoided all news and social media, so had a mostly Covid free Christmas thankfully. Although MIL video called us on Christmas morning and ended up going into the usual hysteria about cases, deaths new strain etc so I left the room.
Have to go go the shops today to get some fresh food supplies……dreading seeing the muzzles.
Had intended on going to visit some family members who live about 50 miles away this week (ones who dont care about the ‘rules’) but even hubby is wary of the police stopping us with the kids in the back. This week is supposed to be the most stringent of the 6 week lockdown with curfew and not travelling unless essential, so MIL informed husband. I’ll go anyway.
Travelled 180 mile round trip on Boxing day to visit 2 relatives. 1 in Tier 3 and 1 in Tier 2. Saw NO police let alone stopped by them and I travelled on major routes.
You would be very unlucky to even see Police
I went 40 miles up the tier 2 motorway and back this morning, no Police at all just an overhead gantry sign
“Tier 2 Stay Local”
If you did happen to be stopped, just say that you are visiting a family member who lives alone, is in your “bubble” (ugh), and is suicidally lonely.
Slap hubby. Go anyway
So the government is going to ban bogof’s… another example of how out of touch they are. I’m not stupid. If I buy a bogof, I don’t eat them both at the same day, I keep or freeze one for another time. It helps me save money. What’s to stop the shops just having a half price promotion? Why are we trusting these cretins to run our country if they waste parliamentary time on moronic and easily side stepped ideas like this? No doubt drakeford will have to go further and ban all food on the grounds it might make you fat.
That horse has already bolted for the rapists father.
Did the ONS actually report the results of a survey last week or were the headlines predicated on modelling?
Bit of a moral problem and need some guidance.
The public park opposite us is full of people having snowball fights and using makeshift sledges on the slopes .
Is it my civic duty to inform the police that there are people out apparently enjoying themselves in defiance of the orders from Ferguson et al?
I have seen no mention in the regulations for Tier 3 about what to do if it snows. Is this because the BBC told Boris that it would never, ever snow in England again?
Be a good citizen and dob them in. Save granny
Yes, there is a high probability that snow spatter is a major new source of viral transmission.
throwing snowballs is now illegal . and snowmen must be masked
vomit
Perhaps snow is the key to wiping Covid out
If any of those selfish people in the park slip on the snow, don’t they realise ambulances are at breaking point and hospitals stretched to capacity? Just call the army and have them shot.
made me think of this joyful scene from the film “the victors”
seasons greetings!
Shooting too good for them!
Make them watch Pig dictator press briefing on repeat!!
If socially distanced and wearing balaclavas and gloves and wiping down sledges if sharing there isn’t a problem. However a single breach must be reported so that the park can be closed down until sanitised. I think you knew this already.
Go to the park in t-shirt and shorts, and tell them how wrong it is to be having fun – especially throwing those disease-vectoring snowballs.
Remember to duck, bob, and weave as you run …
Another nail in the coffin for Ferguson’s model in this new very technical article from Ionnaidis
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.20160341v3.full.pdf+html
Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19: A Tale of Three Models
Conclusions Inferences on effects of NPIs are non-robust and highly sensitive to model specification. Claimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.
Excellent.
The conclusions are quite powerful. It is a devastating critique of the work of Imperial college which is used to support continuing lockdowns. In particular the Nature paper (Flaxman et al) is examined. Among other errors the Imperial paper selectively only used data which supported its case and the stated uncertainty estimates for the impact of lockdowns failed to represent the true uncertainty. Particularly given the stakes involved, both these things are in my view criminal.
Its a preprint so hopefully it won’t get neutered too much in the review process.
Just hearing Blair talking to Ferguson, about ‘non compliance’, is shocking, it needs to be like S Korea he said. Globalist Blair and his Blairites are the evil in this country.
S or N Korea?
he said south, which is a democracy but a ‘controlled’ democracy. The illusion that keeps the people happy…………
But no doubt would prefer North.
Really worried about this global warming stuff .
more pressure on NHS expected today with grannies sliding all over and breaking hips .
only a couple of inches so far. . amazing how much nicer the world looks . no doubt if it is widespread the country will grind to a halt as it usually does with a smattering of snow.
snow in winter??? who’d have thought it .
It will have Sally Traffic wetting herself on R2 because the snow gates are closed on some B road up a mountain near Caithness.
The roads turn to glass up there, I’ve heard …
Just more rain here in Norfolk.
I’m worried about the effects of snow build up on outdoor mask breathability.
Ah, but it’s OK – kids shortly won’t know what snow looks like! Dr Viner, a UEA ‘scientist’ said so in 2000, hence it must be true soon.
Are you legally permitted to lean out of your window for the non-essential taking of photographs ?
i was tied to the furniture to prevent falling and i held my breath
Did you see any of the green (in the ad) virus “particles” passing you when at the window, or did you have a granny there catching them Christmas day?
good point. i thought i would see lots of green miasma highlighted against the white background but saw none … it must be a hoax
I got stuck in a drift of global warming once.
From the ten reasons not to have lockdowns:
“the Government seems content to simply erase what it means to be British.”
And I’ve yet to be convinced that this isn’t the precise reason that they’re doing it.
The point about bias: we also know that there are some hard left, even one confirmed communist among the advisors. Even without a political label, one advisor’s Twitter account shows clear and open disdain and contempt for Boris and his cabinet.
“the Government seems content to simply erase what it means to be British”
Governments across the world seem content to simply erase what it means to be human
Yep. I think TPTB have decided that democracy was a bad precedent to set and will now remove it from the table. Even more sadly, it seems that most humans now feel the need for nanny and don’t like the idea of freedom with all its requirements for self-responsibility and decision-making.
#Homo Non Sapiens
Fingers burned. There will certainly never be another referendum in this country.
Homo stupidens?
The main characteristic of ‘what it means to be British’ seems to actually be a sublime delusion about the constiutional freedoms and protections inherent in a hand-me-down monarchical system.
“one advisor’s Twitter account shows clear and open disdain and contempt for Boris and his cabinet.”
Who would not have disdain and and contempt for the egregious liar Mr Toad? Hardly a distinguishing feature.
Toady: Noun parasite, sycophant, toady, leech, sponge mean a usually obsequious flatterer or self-seeker. parasite applies to one who clings to a person of wealth, power, or influence or is useless to society. a jet-setter with an entourage of parasites sycophant adds to this a strong suggestion of fawning, flattery, or adulation. a powerful prince surrounded by sycophants toady emphasizes the servility and snobbery of the self-seeker. cultivated leaders of society and became their toady leech stresses persistence in clinging to or bleeding another for one’s own advantage. a leech living off his family and friends sponge stresses the parasitic laziness, dependence, and opportunism of the cadger. a shiftless sponge, always looking for a handout Verb fawn, toady, truckle, cringe, cower mean to behave abjectly before a superior. fawn implies seeking favor by servile flattery or exaggerated attention. waiters fawning over a celebrity toady suggests the attempt to ingratiate oneself by an abjectly menial or subservient attitude. toadying to his boss truckle implies the subordination of oneself and one’s desires or judgment to those of a superior. truckling to a powerful lobbyist cringe suggests a bowing or shrinking in fear or servility. a cringing sycophant cower suggests a display of… Read more »
After this year’s performance, I’d expect most twitter accounts to show open disdain and contempt for them.
Bit unprofessional from an advisor though ……..
Daily Mail: Only primary school children and students in Year 11 and 13 will return to classrooms next week.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9092177/Only-primary-school-children-students-Year-11-13-return-classrooms-week.html
Good point about the advice, but sadly they will all follow it, except maybe a few private schools
Government bloke on R4 just now going on about a staged return.
Name always useful, if you caught it karen ?
Shocking! They continue on the path that these children will increase the so-called R rate – what a lot of utter nonsense!!!
In that case, the Teachers should all be furloughed.
We must fight back. “I will not comply”
Well said. Your last sentence is very spot on as I was bullied when I was in school and now my tormentors act as if nothing happened. Its good to be in another country where I don’t see them and I can blank them on anti-social media.
I can imagine that once this shit show is over that many people will go, “its time for healing let bygones be bygones” but I for one will never forgive and forget. It will be our sacred duty to remind them that they were collaborators in this attempt to destroy our country, society and even our health.
If we want them to listen when we remind them (at enormous length and on a variety of topics), then we need at least formal interaction to be in place. 🙂
Yes, exactly. Collaborators should never be forgiven and ideally should be prosecuted where possible. I’m not holding my breath for a crimes against humanity tribunal – I expect that you’re right about how many people, once most have woken up, will want ‘healing’ and ‘to let bygones be bygones’ – and the authorities will want to move on so that economies can be re-started. Most will not want to dwell on this.
I think, however, that in many countries there will be resistance to moving on and suspect that there could be major problems for many years. In some places, politics will be shifted due to a new ‘issue dimension’, as well call it in political science. Parties will re-align over this and related matters (how intrusive the state should be, for example).
This won’t go away quickly or easily.
Agree. I think as well there will be less trust between people and I suspect many relationships and friendships will never recover.
They will deserve every globule of (metaphorical) spittle that rolls down their weaselly little faces.
Collaborators sums them up so succinctly and it has the gravitas to go with it.
They are calling it the ‘England’ variant.
What a load of rubbish. Well done the Cock!