Day: 8 January 2021

by Guy de la Bédoyère There’s been a lot of soul-searching on Lockdown Sceptics recently. Despite our collective best efforts to provide a way of exploring alternatives to the terrible consequences of lockdown and find a route through the mesmerising complexity of data, we’ve had little or no wider impact except to be blithely dismissed by some as reckless lunatics. In an age of almost religious mania we have become the heretics. Yet I know plenty of normal and good people in despair at the way their lives and those of others are being systematically sacrificed in pursuit of one goal that has been allowed to eclipse all others, and debate stifled. It’s intensely frustrating. I’ve spent hours, days, wading through the figures so many politicians, journalists, and even apparently some scientists, cannot be bothered to, or simply don’t understand. And on this website, I am far from alone in having done so. It hasn’t been an exercise in denial. Not a bit of it. I just want to know the truth or get as close as I can to it. All I have ever wanted to do is understand properly the choices we face and how best we can inform ourselves. I accept without reservation that Covid presents a unique and dangerous challenge. But I have come to terms with ...

A Defence of Lockdown Sceptics What follows is a guest post by Toby. I was disappointed to read the Spectator article by Lockdown Sceptics contributor Alistair Haimes about his departure from our ranks. The brilliant data analyst has been a valuable ally and I hope he will return to the fold in due course.  His argument boils down to this: "When the facts change, I change my mind." But what facts have changed? He cites three. First, the health service is under severe stress and unless we can reduce virus transmission over the next few weeks it’s at serious risk of being overwhelmed. That wasn’t true when the second national lockdown was imposed in November, he says, but it is today. Second, we now have two approved Covid vaccines, with more to follow, so any new restrictions will be short-lived. Third, there is a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 which is around 50% more transmissible than the pre-existing variants. I’ll take each of these in turn – although I may digress a bit. First, I’m sceptical of the claim that we have X number of days to save the NHS – a familiar trope that I thought the Labour Party had flogged to death. Let’s not forget that a winter bed crisis in the NHS is an annual event, as you ...