Vaccine Rollout Continues Apace
The Telegraph reported yesterday that momentum is gathering behind the rollout of the vaccine.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine roll out is being ramped up across the UK, after Boris Johnson promised vaccines would soon be available to people within 10 miles of their home.
The Prime Minister confirmed that as of January 7th, with the Pfizer and Oxford jabs combined, 1.26 million people in England and over 1.5 million across the UK have been vaccinated.
The latest figures show an increase of 200,000 vaccinations in one day, and includes more than 650,000 people over 80, which is 23% of all the over-80s in England.
As he announced the national lockdown that began on January 5th, the Prime Minister insisted that that there is “one huge difference” compared to the lockdown of last March.
“We are rolling out the biggest vaccination programme in our history,” he said. “We have vaccinated more people in the UK than in the rest of Europe combined.
“By the middle of February if things go well, and with a wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups identified by the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation.”
595 GP-led sites are already providing vaccines, which should increase to 1,000 by the end of next week according to Mr Johnson. There are also 107 hospital sites with a “further 100 later this week”, he added.
Also contributing to this “unprecedented national effort” will be the armed forces, who are set to be drafted in to help run mass vaccination centres in sports stadiums and public venues.
It is a good thing that those in the priority groups who want it are getting the vaccine, including the Queen and Prince Phillip, not least as this is a form of focused protection as recommended by the authors of the Great Barrington declaration. In the Wall Street Journal last month they wrote:
Given these facts, the Great Barrington Declaration calls for focused protection for the vulnerable. That means directing limited resources, now including vaccines, to shield these people from infection.
Vaccinating vulnerable groups as quickly as possible isn’t just about protecting them – it’s also about protecting the NHS. Writing in the Telegraph yesterday, Juliet Samuel pointed out that the key to lifting restrictions lies with easing the strain on hospitals.
Thankfully, there is a windfall headed our way, in the form of the Covid vaccines. In seven weeks, if all goes to plan, the vast majority of the demographics most likely to die of this disease will be largely immune. That should be more than enough to end the lockdown.
The Government is keen to attach long lists of conditionals to this promise, however. Asked about it, Boris would only say that in the spring, “very much I hope there will be the chance, to look at some relaxations of restrictions”.
The factor to watch is not actually the rollout of the vaccine programme, but the hospitalisation rate and the performance of the NHS. The race is not between death and vaccinations, but between vaccinations and beds.
Organised societies have always had to make trade-offs about the value of human life. What’s so odd about the British approach, however, is that we have replaced the sanctity of human life with the sanctity of the health system. If the NHS had double the capacity, the policy would no doubt be to tolerate twice the death rate. This tells us something about the perceived role of Government. It isn’t there to save lives, as such, but to look like it might be able to save lives. “Our NHS” is an emotional rallying cry not because it is a brilliantly effective system (God knows it’s not) or even because many of its staff work very hard, but because it is a structure we rely upon to hide our vulnerability. It is about the ideal, rather than the grim reality.
The problem with an ideal is that it easily eludes a cost-benefit analysis. Against it, you must raise other ideals: universal education, for example, or freedom. Covid policy tells us that none of these ideals currently have the same power as the promise of a hospital bed staffed by a caring nurse. If the reality falls, the Government gets the blame.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Writing in the Sunday Times, Robert Collville calls for the NHS to be rebuilt to withstand the next crisis.
Stop Press 2: A retired GP has got in touch to point out how difficult it is to volunteer as a vaccinator.
My wife and I and another retired GP here in north east Scotland wanted to volunteer as unpaid vaccinators. As general practices here are not involved in the vaccination programme, the only way to get involved is for us to apply for jobs as grade 5 nurses working for NHS Grampian on a short term contract. We have done so, but interviews are not until after January 17th. Then will come training, so you can see where this is going. Why on Earth did they not have this vaccination workforce ready for the beginning of January?
Panicking the Public? How Covid Stories Don’t Add Up
Christine Padgham has an written an interesting piece for Think Scotland looking into the problems the pandemic response is creating, both now and in the future.
On Friday, Nicola Sturgeon addressed the nation yet again and openly considered the possibility of tightening current Covid restrictions further. Where is Scotland now? How did we get here? Where are we going?
Let me lay my cards on the table: I’m a lockdown sceptic. But like any good scientist/sceptic, I am constantly re-evaluating my position. Every day I ask myself repeatedly: am I wrong?
I’d love to be wrong.
So yesterday, in an act of unusually brave self-flagellation, I listened to BBC News. I was dutifully informed that hospitals are about to collapse in South East England. I am quite familiar with the English hospital data and so I am aware that there are hospitals struggling there, and this is clearly worrying. It makes me wonder if I’m wrong about the situation in Scotland, but then again the statistics were released as usual at 2.00pm. My fear was once again fed that we in Scotland will never get out of this positive feedback loop we are in: our obsessive fear and testing of Covid is creating more of a problem than the disease itself.
The problems we are storing up are: medical, societal, personal, economic, democratic. The present and future damages just go on and on.
Our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, thinks that Covid impact is reduced by limiting social contact. This has become her whole Covid mitigation strategy, along with many other leaders around the world. She has created this idea, which has stuck, that humans generally, and Government specifically, can manage the spread of a virus. She has sold this idea relentlessly, with the help of the media, who have provided her with endless propaganda to help. Now, if she wants to reduce cases, the only tool at her disposal is to further reduce social contact – without regard or respect for the costs of such measures; the costs we know land disproportionately on the most vulnerable: the children, the elderly, the poor.
But many people have had enough and their number is growing. We are heading for a crisis whichever way you look at it and it seems that people are perhaps beginning to understand this.
Put simply, there is no evidence that lockdown works to prevent the spread of a virus.
We know the Government told us this in March and it was correct. Lockdown and the quarantine of the healthy is a bizarre experiment – never tried before but not treated as the experiment it is. We talk as if we have always dealt with viruses this way. There has been no rigorous analysis of the virological results of lockdown at all, much less the societal effects. We haven’t asked what effects this will have on our immunity either. Are we storing up huge health problems for next year and the years beyond?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A new data site has been launched called Inform Scotland for those “who share a common concern that contextualised data on Covid in Scotland is not as easily available as it should be, and that Scotland lacks forums where critical and informed discussion of this data and the policies which are claimed to rest on it can take place”. Looks very good.
Stop Press 2: A reminder that Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance is himself a lockdown sceptic – or was. Ahead of the first Lockdown in March, the Evening Standard reported his comments on Sky News:
If you completely locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more then you would suppress this virus,
All of the evidence from previous epidemics suggests that when you do that and then you release it, it all comes back again.
The other part of this is to make sure that we don’t end up with a sudden peak again in the winter which is even larger which causes even more problems.
So we want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely which you can’t do anyway, not suppress it so we get the second peak and also allow enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune to this to help with the whole population response which would protect everybody.
New Study: Assessing the Impact of Lockdowns on COVID-19
John P. A. Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, Professor Jay Bhattacharya, a founding signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, and other colleagues at Stanford University, have published a new, fully peer-reviewed study. Their objective was to assess the impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions adopted by many countries in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The spread of COVID-19 has led to multiple policy responses that aim to reduce the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2. The principal goal of these so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is to reduce transmission in the absence of pharmaceutical options in order to reduce resultant death, disease, and health system overload. Some of the most restrictive NPI policies include mandatory stay-at-home and business closure orders (“lockdowns”). The early adoption of these more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) in early 2020 was justified because of the rapid spread of the disease, overwhelmed health systems in some hard-hit places, and substantial uncertainty about the virus’s morbidity and mortality.
Because of the potential harmful health effects of mrNPI, including hunger, opioid-related overdoses, missed vaccinations, increase in non-COVID-19 diseases from missed health services, domestic abuse, mental health and suicidality as well as a host of economic consequences with health implications, it is increasingly recognized that their postulated benefits deserve careful study… We propose an approach that balances the strengths of empirical analyses while taking into consideration underlying epidemic dynamics. We compare epidemic spread in places that implemented mrNPIs to counterfactuals that implemented only less-restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs). In this way, it may be possible to isolate the role of mrNPIs, net of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics. Here, we use Sweden and South Korea as the counterfactuals to isolate the effects of mrNPIs in countries that implemented mrNPIs as well as lrNPIs. Unlike most of its neighbors that implemented mandatory stay-at-home and business closures, Sweden’s approach in the early stages of the pandemic relied entirely on lrNPIs, including social distancing guidelines, discouraging of international and domestic travel, and a ban on large gatherings. South Korea also did not implement mrNPIs. Its strategy relied on intensive investments in testing, contact tracing, and isolation of infected cases and close contacts.
They describe their methodology as follows:
We estimate the unique effects of mrNPIs on case growth rate during the northern hemispheric spring of 2020 in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States by comparing the effect of NPIs in these countries to those in Sweden and South Korea (separately). The data we use builds on an analysis of NPI effects and consists of daily case numbers in subnational administrative regions of each country (e.g. regions in France, provinces in Iran, states in the US, and counties in Sweden), merged with the type and timing of policies in each administrative region…
It is important to note that because the true number of infections is not visible in any country, it is impossible to assess the impact of national policies on transmission of new infections. Instead, we follow other studies evaluating the effects of NPIs that use case numbers, implicitly assuming that their observed dynamics may represent a consistent shadow of the underlying infection dynamics.
Having set out their method, they say:
In the framework of this analysis, there is no evidence that more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (“lockdowns”) contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in early 2020. By comparing the effectiveness of NPIs on case growth rates in countries that implemented more restrictive measures with those that implemented less restrictive measures, the evidence points away from indicating that mrNPIs provided additional meaningful benefit above and beyond lrNPIs. While modest decreases in daily growth (under 30%) cannot be excluded in a few countries, the possibility of large decreases in daily growth due to mrNPIs is incompatible with the accumulated data…
They then turn to the winter surge in case numbers.
During the northern hemisphere autumn and winter of 2020, many countries, especially in Europe and the US, experienced a large wave of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Those waves were met with new (or renewed) NPIs, including mrNPIs in some countries (e.g. England) and lrNPIs in others (e.g. Portugal) that had used mrNPIs in the first wave. The spread of infections in countries that were largely spared in the spring (e.g. Austria and Greece) further highlight the challenges and limited ability of NPIs to control the spread of this highly transmissible respiratory virus. Empirical data for the characteristics of fatalities in the later wave before mrNPIs were adopted as compared with the first wave (when mrNPIs had been used) shows that the proportion of COVID-19 deaths that occurred in nursing homes was often higher under mrNPIs rather than under less restrictive measures. This further suggests that restrictive measures do not clearly achieve protection of vulnerable populations. Some evidence also suggests that sometimes under more restrictive measures, infections may be more frequent in settings where vulnerable populations reside relative to the general population.
Finally, they conclude:
In summary, we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID-19 in early 2020. We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures. The data cannot fully exclude the possibility of some benefits. However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmissions may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures.
It’s quite technical, but worth taking the time to read in full.
Stop Press: A new study in Sweden has found that Schoolteachers were no more likely to catch COVID-19 than the rest of the population when Sweden remained open during the first lockdown.
Ivermectin
In the round-up, yesterday we linked to video letter from Dr Tess Lawrie of the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy in Bath to the Prime Minister concerning the potential of Ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19. The video, as many readers found, swiftly and mysteriously disappeared from YouTube so we’ve moved the story up here to give it greater prominence. Dr Lawrie’s message is still available on the consultancy’s website, together with the report and the related press release (pdf) which provides more detail:
New British research has examined and pooled data from a wide range of international studies – including Argentina, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Spain, Egypt, India and the US – and found that the anti-parasitic medicine Ivermectin not only reduces deaths from COVID-19, but can be used to protect doctors and nurses – as well as others who have had “contacts‟ with ill people – from getting the infection.
The report was published last week by an independent UK-based medical research company, the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd (E-BMC).
The research was conducted to support the recent findings of Dr Pierre Kory and clinical experts of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) in the US. Doctors around the world are now working together to raise awareness of this life-saving medicine which probably reduces the risk of a person dying from COVID-19 by between 65% and 95%.
In addition, the researchers believe that ivermectin should be offered as a prophylactic measure to health care workers as soon as possible because the analysis shows that ivermectin substantially reduces COVID-19 infections in these at risk groups.
The conclusions of the new global research are so clear that it is believed Ivermectin should be viewed as an essential drug to reduce the severity of illness and fatalities caused by the COVID-19 virus.
In most studies included in the review, the doses of Ivermectin given were similar to those given for common parasitic infections in humans (e.g. 0.2mg/kg orally, equivalent to a 12mg tablet for a 6kg adult).
Commenting on the research, Dr Tess Lawrie of the E-BMC, said, “This is really good news. Ivermectin will have a significant impact on the battle against COVID-19
Meanwhile, over in the USA, Drs Pierre Kory and Paul Marik of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance appeared before the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel to present the latest evidence on ivermectin. The press release (pdf) which followed said:
The doctors explained to the panel that numerous clinical studies, including peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials, showed large magnitude benefits of ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment and also in late-stage disease. Taken together, the doctors reported that the dozens of clinical trials that have now emerged from around the world are substantial enough to reliably assess clinical efficacy.
Specifically, the FLCCC physicians and Dr. Hill presented data from 18 randomized controlled trials that included over 2,100 patients. The trial results demonstrated that ivermectin produces faster viral clearance, faster time to hospital discharge, faster time to clinical recovery, and a 75% reduction
in mortality rates.“In order to save thousands who will die while waiting for their turn to receive the vaccine, it is imperative that treatment guidelines issued by the NIH over four months ago be updated to reflect the strength of the data for ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment, and late-stage disease,” said Dr. Kory, FLCCC president, following the hearing.
Ivermectin has not yet been approved by any of the relevant authorities in the UK as a COVID-19 treatment, but with so much emphasis being placed on rollout of the various vaccines it is worth considering that there are other potential drugs that could have been part of the solution.
Boris’s Latest Rules are More Baffling Than Ever
Charles Holland, a lawyer who writes regularly for the Spectator, has examined the rules of the new Lockdown and he is not impressed:
When Boris Johnson rolled back the legal restrictions over summer as Britain emerged from the first lockdown, he was clear that enough was enough:
“Neither the police themselves, nor the public that they serve, want virtually every aspect of our behaviour to be the subject of the criminal law… After a long period of asking… the British public to follow very strict and complex rules to bring coronavirus under control… we will be asking [people] to follow guidance on limiting their social contact, rather than forcing them to do so through legislation.”
There has obviously been a sharp U-turn in this approach and though previous rule changes have been justified on the basis of making them easier for the public to understand and for the police to enforce it would be hard to mount such a defence now, says Charles Holland.
The law is very complex, the mere 12 pages of regulations for the English Lockdown 1 have been superseded by 120 pages of the (thrice amended) Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020. Intricacy more appropriate to the Dungeons and Dragons’ rulebook has not stopped an accompanying barrage of guidance, ministerial statements, spokespersons’ clarifications, police pronouncements, public information posters and pop-ups…
The circumstances in which a person may leave their Tier 4 home to access childcare services, for example, has been subject to wholesale amendment three times in less than three weeks. Sparing readers the tedious technical ebbs and flows, the current position reserves the use of a particular species of childcare to parents who are “critical workers”, but only where “reasonably necessary” to enable them “to work or search for work, undertake training or education, or to attend a medical appointment or address a medical need'”.
Parking the checklist-style complexity, it is difficult understand the rhyme or reason for this sort of cheese-paring. Why is it reasonable for a critical worker to put their child in childcare in order to attend a job interview, but not to attend a funeral?
Matters are made worse by guidance which overstates the law. The latest lockdown guidance resurrects previously challenged advice that exercise “should be limited to once per day”. The word ‘should’ (not ‘must’) indicates to lawyers that this is non-legally binding advice. Non-lawyers, such as the ambulant constable or PCSO in your local park, may not draw such nice distinctions. The Met’s ominous suggestion that Londoners can “expect officers to be more inquisitive as to why they see them out and about” raises the spectre of al fresco debates on restrictions and exceptions. There is plenty to debate: the regulations now set out 16 non-exhaustive categories of circumstances deemed to be a reasonable excuse to leave the home, with an overlay of non-enforceable guidance to further confuse what is already unclear. Derbyshire Constabulary, in particular, have once more come under the spotlight for what appears to be enforcement of guidance (exercise locally) rather than the law.
The gilding of the law with guidance remains a continuing mystery. If you want exercise to be limited to once per day or to be taken locally, why not legislate for that? Why devalue the legislative currency, already under pressure because of the sheer volume of regulatory output? Press reports suggested that the Government did consider travel restrictions, and even a night-time curfew, but was not prepared to go that far.
Further confusion arises from post-legislative departmental ‘clarification’. Lockdown 3 saw the removal of the express ‘recreation’ exemption from the stay-at-home rule: within two days, representations from angling and shooting organisations had caused Government officials to ‘acknowledge’ that fishing and shooting constitute ‘exercise’, and thus within a permitted exception…
Why does this matter? Because the cost of lockdown will be squandered unless it works. The great unanswered question is this: is the current combination of laws, guidance and enforcement policies the best mechanism to achieve the minimum in social mixing and concomitant reduction in transmission of the virus? I’m not convinced.
No-one would envy Government the task of coming up with the right mixture of rules and imploring people to use their common sense. But constant tweaking of the criminal law to micromanage ways in which people might need to venture out of the front door and interact has produced a mush of overwhelming complexity. This is a gift to both the loophole spotter and the overzealous enforcer. It undermines enforcement against the irresponsible, who can – and do – use complexity of the law as justification for not understanding it. The resurgence of arbitrary lines of fine-tuning also undermines a message that would be more effective if put simply.
So while Boris’s broadcast message to “stay at home” was straightforward, the rules are anything but. There are too many regulations. They are too complicated. And Government advice only adds to this confusion.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Telegraph is reporting that police will issue fines to rule breakers after one warning.
Stop Press 2: The police do themselves get caught out occasionally. A number of officers were spotted tucking into breakfast inside a café. A clear breach of the rules and the matter is being investigated according to MailOnline.
The Military Approach to Managing the Crisis – Focused Protection
C2C journal has an interview with David Redmond, the former head of Alberta’s counter-terrorism strategy and an ex-military man. He draws on decades of high-level military experience to offer a robust alternative to Canada’s pandemic response.
C2C Journal: Throughout this crisis we’ve heard plenty from public health officials and doctors, and to a lesser-degree from economists and assorted other public policy experts. But while it’s popular to talk about how we are “at war” with COVID-19, we’ve heard next to nothing from the people who actually know how to win wars. Take us through the military perspective on how we should be battling this disease.
David Redman: The first step to resolving emergencies is to respect the planning process. From the time I was a lieutenant, the army taught me to begin with what we called the Estimate of Situation. Once you have your problem, you analyse the mission: Who is your enemy? Who are your allies? What tasks are given? What tasks are implied? What can go wrong? After many years working with Government and the private sector, I’ve discovered that the knowledge and skills required for this sort of operational planning are severely lacking outside the military.
When an emergency happens, you need a process to create a plan, and then you need to follow that plan. Since the 1950s every Government in this country has had a set of emergency plans: what to do in the case of a forest fire, flood, dangerous goods accident or pandemic etc. These are all updated regularly. Alberta’s pandemic plan was last updated in 2014.
But what happened in the middle of March when COVID-19 appeared on our shores after wreaking havoc in China, Italy, Spain and France? Governments took every plan they’d ever written and threw them all out the window. No one followed the process. They panicked, put the doctors in charge and hid for three months. And now, having made that mistake, we can’t get out of it.
C2C: Why is it a mistake to put doctors in charge of a pandemic?
DR: The short answer is that a pandemic is not a public health emergency. It is a public emergency. These are two very different things. Public health emergencies are best used for local outbreaks of disease. An outbreak of measles in a single community that can be isolated could be considered a public health emergency. A provincewide or nationwide pandemic should never be declared a public health emergency because the powers that you need and the people who are going to be affected go far beyond the health care system. It affects every citizen, every industry, every non-profit organization. Everything.
The problem with our COVID-19 response is that power has been placed in the wrong place. Why? Because Governments adopted the wrong mission statement. The first principle of war is the selection and maintenance of the aim. If you miss on that, things are going to go very poorly. Across the country it appears to me that our aim has been to minimize the number of people who catch COVID-19. That is repeatedly reflected in the media. The daily case count is the most important thing in every daily newscast and every news story. It’s all the politicians seem to talk about. This is wrong…
C2C: Rather than put doctors in charge, what should we have done in response to COVID-19 in those first crucial months last spring?
DR: Since the middle of March, we had access to reliable statistics from China, Spain, Italy, France that showed quite clearly 70% of all deaths arising from Covid-19 were of people over the age of 80. Another 18% were 70 to 79 years old. Only 3.5% were under the age of 60. And less than 1% of the people who’d died up to that point didn’t have at least one pre-existing underlying medical complication. This wasn’t September. This was March. We knew very quickly what Covid-19 was doing – it was killing old people who had severe comorbidities. The immediate response should have been: how do we protect those people?
As we say in the military, an 80% solution applied with vigour immediately is better than a 100% solution applied too late. What holds in a battle holds in pandemics too. First, we should have identified every concentration of vulnerable people, including all nursing homes, hospitals and palliative care homes. Then comprehensive options should have been developed to quarantine both the residents of these facilities and the staff who supported them. Support and relief systems for these staff and surge capacity should have been discussed back in March. Instead each new outbreak in a seniors home seemed to come as a surprise.
Can this man please be placed in charge of coordinating Britain’s response to the next pandemic?
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “Rapid rollout of Covid testing blitz for people cannot work at home” – Perhaps in an effort to put people off from venturing out the house, Matt Hancock has announced a new community testing scheme with an article in the Mail on Sunday
- “Spring polls set to be put on hold” – The Sunday Times reports that spring elections may be delayed until autumn. That will mean Sadiq Khan remaining in office for 18 months after his term of office expired
- “Holiday-makers face being trapped abroad under new rules preventing them from travelling home if they fail a Covid test” – Report in the Mail On Sunday. When Grant Shapps makes new rules, travel chaos ensues
- “Telling us our exams have been scrapped is the final straw” – A-level student Beatrice Gove (daughter of Michael and Sarah) describes the impact of the lockdowns on her and her friends in a powerful piece in the Mail on Sunday
- “Neil Ferguson puts his faith in the herd” – An interview with the infamous disease modeller in the Sunday Times. He is “optimistic” about 2021, saying “there is a scenario” in which we have “fewer restrictions than we have now” in the autumn and things are “almost basically back to normal”. God help us
- “OECD: Lockdowns here to stay, even with vaccine plan” – The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development thinks lockdowns will be with us for another six to nine months, according to the BBC
- “Professor Sunetra Gupta, 5th January 2021” – Listen to Professor Sunetra Gupta’s recent appearance on the Today programme on Radio 4
- “Even in a pandemic, citizens should be free to ask difficult questions” – Excellent leader defending lockdown scepticism in yesterday’s Telegraph
- “I am, for the first time, afraid for the future of freedom in my country” – The latest from anti-lockdown stalwart Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday. He feels a dark, oppressive foreboding about the current situation
- “We are the lockdown lab rats” – Provocative piece by Andrew Cadman for the Conservative Woman. COVID-19 offers scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to test their theories and he wonders if the scientific quest is skewing the advice they give to Governments
- “It’s vital to inoculate against tunnel vision” – The Government’s decision-making process is not based on science, writes David Seedhouse for the Conservative Woman
- “France’s vaccine chaos will come back to haunt Macron where it hurts” – Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in the Telegraph, offering some insight into French difficulties in rolling out its vaccination programme
- “Chinese capital on alert as cases rise next door in Hebei” – The South China Morning Post reports that Beijing is on alert after 33 new cases were identified in Hubei
- “Majority of Canadians in recent poll support stricter COVID-19 lockdowns, hefty fines for rulebreakers” – The National Post reports on a poll which suggests that Canadians have developed a taste for authoritarian lockdowns. This was brought to our attention by a man in Canada who points out that the country ranks 51st in the world in deaths per million, with 443 compared to the UK’s 1,188
- “False Reports of a New ‘U.S. Variant’ Came From White House Task Force” – “Reports of a highly contagious new coronavirus variant in the United States, published on Friday by multiple news outlets” were “based on speculative statements” by Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Task Force, according to the New York Times. An illustration of the dangers of high-speed syndication
- “The Liberal-Left Has Gone Fully Illiberal” – Jenin Younes, writing for the AIER blog, is astonished at how the liberal-left has embraced authoritarian policies, ostensibly to manage the pandemic
- “Philippe Lemoine on the Case for Lockdown Scepticism” – Listen to Philippe Lemoine speak with Jonathan Key on the Quillette podcast, as they address the risks of forced isolation and discuss how lockdowns are supported by models based on flawed assumptions and how their benefits may well be the result of disease-avoidant behaviour that most of us would engage in anyway
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Five today: “Something Better Change” by The Stranglers, “A Winter’s Tale” by David Essex, “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel (featuring Kate Bush), “United We Stand” by Brotherhood of Man and “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones.
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 University of Pennsylvania’s Athletics Department which has just adopted the recommendations of its Racial Justice Task Force. Campus Reform has the story:
The University of Pennsylvania’s Athletics Department approved a series of diversity-related recommendations from its “Racial Justice Task Force,” including a “permanent shared space for Black student-athletes” which is also open to “allies and non-athletes.”
Director of Penn Athletics and Recreation M. Grace Calhoun and the Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics unanimously affirmed the task force’s recommendations.
Penn Athletics states that “these recommendations have been created as a beginning, not a conclusion” in the process of making the athletics department into a “more diverse, inclusive, anti-racist organisation.”
The athletics department will create a “permanent shared space for Black student-athletes,” which will also be open to “allies and non-athletes.” This centre will also be “open late night and early morning with swipe access,” and include work-study opportunities “funded by the Black Student-Athlete Fund”.
Among the task force’s short-term goals is the hiring of an “Athletic Diversity & Inclusion” designee, who will be “solely dedicated to job responsibilities focusing on diversity and inclusion”. In the long-term, the University is recommended to “secure funding for and hire a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer”.
The task force notes that financial restrictions may apply in the short-term and therefore recommended that an existing staff member serve alongside a “group of diverse staff” which will assist with implementing the task force’s other recommendations…
According to the recommendation, student-athletes will view a one-hour video entitled “Broadening Your Perspectives”. Then, students will be divided into 30-person groups to discuss the video and view additional content.
In the long-term, staff members will undergo training during in-services, as well as implicit bias training for hiring managers “on an ongoing basis”.
Chance Layton, Communications and Membership Coordinator for the National Association of Scholars, told Campus Reform that “the intention of creating a space marketed for ‘Black student-athletes and club sport athletes’ is straightforward neo-segregation. Racially segregated spaces are not ‘separate but equal,’ and they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t exist, period.”
“Had this draft plan stuck with community engagement and enrichment, especially for the community around Penn, it might have served its purpose,” he added. “Instead, the drafters have opted to worsen race relations on campus.”
Stop Press: Over in the Critic, David Scullion has noted that the Germans are rethinking the names they give to weather events.
Before 1998 in Germany cloudy low pressure weather systems used to have female names and sunny highs were male, demonstrating beyond doubt the patriarchal nature of the planet. But now fearless activists [sic] journalists have uncovered another profound injustice in our atmosphere: the fact that German storms are given German names. The group have just started something called #WeatherCorrection, and no, it’s nothing as sinister as the cloud-seeding that tyrants reportedly do to make sure their birthday is sunny, it’s just a harmless plot by the New German Media Makers to re-make the weather in their image. The group have started naming weather fronts foreign-names instead of German ones as an awareness campaign in which they also want the media to impose race quotas when hiring. In Germany anyone can name a weather system; it’s €360 for a sunny high but €240 for a rainy low. Of course, placing a lower value on so-called “worse” weather is problematic, as is the discriminatory practice of only accepting euro payments when placing your political ad in the sky, but it’s progress. The next task will be combatting the white fragility of snowflakes and re-naming the earth’s light-source something a bit less male.
Stop Press 2: Tom Slater has written a good column in the Sunday Times on how we let IT guys censor a President. Brendan O’Neill has something to say about it too, in Spiked-Online.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And 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.
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 and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
Stop Press: A reader has got in touch to challenge the perception that the populations of Asian countries have always been enthusiastic mask wearers.
I have lived in Asia for most of the last 20 years (China and Malaysia) and travelled extensively throughout the region during that time.
So it is with absolute authority that I can say that the claim that wearing masks in public in Asian countries was common prior to this Covid crisis is complete and utter rubbish. I have seen this assertion made on numerous occasions by politicians and others here in Britain. It simply isn’t true.
Prior to the Covid crisis, masks could be seen from time to time on a very small proportion of people, primarily as a protection against severe pollution (for which a mask definitely does help). In more recent times I have encountered the odd person with a cold wearing a mask out of consideration but this is something I have encountered perhaps half a dozen times over a period of 20 years.
The idea that mask wearing was widespread prior to the Covid crisis is just not true and the few people that did wear them did so primarily to protect themselves from pollution.
If our hope is a complete return to normality at some point, I think it is essential that this claim of widespread mask wearing in Asia prior to Covid be called out for the misinformation that it is.
Have other readers had a similar experience of mask wearing in the East Asia? Let us know here.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched in October and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the 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. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road. The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. 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 and Runnymede Trust’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.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th 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: A new group called Lawyers for Liberty are supporting the Robin Tilbrook case against the Government examining whether the Government has acted constitutionally in enacting a lockdown. They are asking for witness statements from UK-based business owners, large or small, who have been forced to close, as the group’s spokesperson, Jo Rogers, explains:
You can access the form to submit a statement on their Democracy Declaration page, and you can learn more about the group from this interview with Jo Rogers.
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.
First😃
Give us some tips please. Stay up late/rise early -have two screens and keep on pressing refresh?
The prizes for podium places are enormous!
A bit like trying to get a delivery slot these days at a supermarket.
I’ve only managed once. And it’s a tie with norfolksceptic. Stay up late and live on the other side of the pond…
I managed it 3 times I think but it was at weekends when new page came online late morning UK time. I just kept refreshing page every 5 or 10 mins and then immediately went to comments and posted when it updated to new day.
Such a waste of a first post, instead of posting something meaningful that will help our cause.
Don’t be a misery. People are having fun. That’s a good thing.
You are free to scroll down to more worthy contributions, such as mine, if you wish.
Fair enough, but I thought fun was banned, it’s in the new regs.
Is that your idea of fun? Oh well, it takes all sorts.
There’s no shortage of space, Andrew. And there’s always room for a smile, surely?
Do lighten up. There will be plenty of doom and gloom to keep you happy.
First for the first time !
Ahhh you must have hit „post“ right before me!
Line up at the start, please. One, two, three …
Looks like you won ! Must have been one of the closest in LS history !!
I read LS just to read who won!
The Dominion voting machine has adjudicated in your favour
Duting my teenage historic novelist Alfred Duggan introduced me to some very strange real life characters including Elagabalus/Heliogabalus, not as good as Mary Renault at exploring the character flaws of leaders but but getting there.
Family Favourites. Duggan’s irreverent style was a shock to me when I first met it, but his insights are sometimes brilliant.
I know of no piece of writing that interprets the crusader’s mentality better than Count Bohemond. And Lord Geoffrey’s Fancy is a fascinating insight into a corner of medieval history that is virtually unexplored in this country.
I started with King Alfred but read them all Annie.
Alfred as you’ve never known him before, and no stone statue or plaster saint!
The only contemporary writer who might, perhaps, compare is Lindsey Davies. A spicy guide to the seamy side of Roman life.
Knight with Armour was my introduction to Duggan – imo one of our best historical fiction writers.
Brilliant and we know, and they know ,that Lockdowns Kill. The carnage being inflicted on the poor, the young and the self employed and many others will manifest in years to come, as the now inconvenient deaths and morbidities take their toll and reveal the true extent of the damage done. Style superseded political substance and true conviction with the advent of Blair and ‘Cool Brittania’ ; since then, the few decent MPs with integrity and moral courage have largely departed: Kate Hoey, Frank Field, Gisella Stewart. Now we have a few brave stalwarts: Sir Desmond Swaye, Esther McVey, Sir Graham Brady. Meanwhile up here, we’re in the grip of a cult, a Covidictatorship, run by The Sturgeonator and her cohorts. Careful PR and grooming, slavish support by the MSM, confected emoting and She Who Must Be Obeyed goes from strength to strength, as Scotland’s already lacklustre economy goes into free fall and its poll position in the European drug related morbidity list, extends its lead. So, well paid, securely placed, affluent movers and shakers now point the self righteous finger at the growing numbers of citizens who are starting to protest at the ruination of their lives, prospects, livelihoods… Read more »
We stop it by not caving in. It’s a case of who blinks first. It won’t be us.
But ironically the dissent is growing so as a method for suppressing it it’s really not working!
Your “cynical view” is reality. All the death, destruction and hardship is part of the plan.
I wish I had an infallible plan to end the tyranny. The only (very minor) successes I have had in making people think and possibly question the narrative have been with the stickers on my car and leaflets. But you never really know the real magnitude of the effect these actions have.
I’ve tried but now I’m going to tell the faithful about this:
https://www.victimsoflockdown.com/your-stories-1
I hope it will penetrate the wall of obedience.
Lockdown Three, Week One.
One week into lockdown .1 I was driving around a deserted city perhaps seeing another vehicle every few minutes or so.
In the local shopping precinct of 25-30 retail outlets only the Co-Op and Mcolls were open. The 4 or 5 cars in the car park looked strangely guilty.
Yesterday from 10am onwards that same car park was rammed with cars queuing on the highway to get in as usual. Virtually all the premises were open except for the pub, a cafe and the hairdressers. Everywhere else had either self identified as essential or been officially designated thus I know not.
Likewise the Sainsbury car park was full but there was no evidence of shoppers queuing to get inside.
An outlying village Surgery has been designated a Vaccine Station, there were two Police Officers controlling access to it behind traffic cones across the Public Highway close in which the surgery is situated.
There was a fair amount of vehicle and pedestrian movement but some of that would have been to do with Tesco Metro just over the road.
This ain’t no lockdown bozo & chums.
DELUSIONAL ARROGANCE: Lot worse than Covid.
I was thinking the same. The media reports (largely negative) of police overreach are terrible, but I don’t see anything like that here. Everywhere busy. Families. Couples. A few police wandering around. No contact with the public at all.
Policing by Social Media. You only need one or two Police over-reaches to go viral ‘pour encourager les autres’. Of course, the apology / inquiry will follow.. but the message is out there: Go for a walk and you’ll get nicked.
Some of these stories may well be true, but some may be propaganda.
When the mask mandate in shops had been going for a couple of weeks or so, a report appeared on the local online journal of an unnamed young woman being fined by police for shopping without a mask. This happened in an unnamed shop and on an unspecified date. We were told that the police officers then followed the young woman into another unnamed shop, where again she was found without a mask and so another fine was issued.
There were no reports from anyone who witnessed these events and nothing else ever surfaced, in the local or social media. The story has all the hallmarks of being a fictional event planted for propaganda purposes and likely emanated from the local branch of the plod.
That sounds about correct, the same with the street on ITV all clapping on Thursday when we all know it was silent everywhere. People are now waking up to the bullshit.
They’ve fallen into the old trap of believing their own propaganda, hence the sudden panic. Don’t worry, Bozo, Steiner will retrieve the situation.
The total arbitrary absurdity of food shops and workplaces open while cafes and pubs and gyms shut. Arbitrariness seems to be deliberate.
Yes – I think you are right: it is a form of mental torture to wear people down.
The aim is to kill all small, independent businesses.
The slightly longer term aim is to kill nearly all of us.
My park across the road to me has become a boggy mess as they allowed the football to carry on. So fed up with having to wash our dog down after every walk we decided to drive the 10 miles to Sunny, freezing cold, Southend on sea to walk along the promenade where it is paved. Greeted with huge stay at home light displays. Parked up and….. car parking suspended due to covid. All along the seafront, all the car parks are closed. But 100 yards away the car park for the westcliffe theatre is open, so are the shopping mall car parks. So we just parked there. Lovely walk along the front, quite a few walkers. No masks, stop and chat to fellow doggy walkers, all wanting to know where we got our cocker spaniels walking coat. No social distancing. So I can park up to go shop in sainsbury with people coughing and spluttering all over the food and in the queue with their ineffective masks. But I can’t walk in the fresh air to get some exercise. And you wonder why you have an obesity problem.
NN, while there are people like you about, darkness cannot fall.
I know it’s an awful cliché to say that no amount of darkness can quench the light if one small candle, but like most clichés, it’s a cliché because it’s true.
Light more candles, friends!
I was so downhearted the other day, how do we move on from this? You are so right Annie, fighting the good fight, lighting the candles, as you say. Didn’t the Resistance do this during WW2? You are all so learned. Let’s light a candle in a window (please don’t burn the house down, we have a terrible insurance ad here), a silent demonstration of unity and help if needed.
From the main text
A retired GP asks why it is do difficult to become a volunteer vaccinater
Qualified Doctor Liam Fox MP asked bozo the same question in Parliament.
A friend of ours has a son who is in his second year of medicine at university. He and his entire cohort have been drafted in to administer the jab.
I am not joking.
So they will have completed courses on conflict resolution and diversity awareness?
On Zoom.
I see that we are anti lockdown “mobs” now, according to the MSM.
I’ve always wanted to be a one-woman mob. Yay.
We shall be ‘domestic terrorists’ soon which will be a lot more exciting.
I have the hair and beard
As do I!
I could have the beard, but the only way I could have the hair, would be if the beard was long enough to comb up over my face onto my head.
Might take a while.
If only we were :o))
2021: Year of the Mob
The MSM elite have called me so many things over the last few years. There was a whole list of insults for me wanting to leave the EU (and I’m being held responsible for this government’s mishandling of leaving the EU), and the same people who wanted to stay in the EU now call us a “Covidiot Mob.”
Something I pointed out the other day is that Remainers – particularly the BBC brand – used to attack the elderly population as a whole, accusing them of ruining their future. Now the hypocrite swines use their faux concerns for the elderly to lock us all down.
And even then they treat the elderly like shit, not letting them see relatives etc.
Indeed they do treat them like shit. My neighbour across the road told me today that just prior to Christmas, his mother had a fall. Against her wishes, the paramedic insisted she was to be taken to hospital. She was admitted to a Covid ward, caught the virus and died. The hospital staff would not allow her sons to visit; she never saw them again.
Oh my, my poor, credulous friend is still trying to trust The Message, but even she is at least becoming aware of absurdity.
“My letter from the N.H.S. came today to say I was eligible for a jab now.
I got onto the web site where we were told we had to book an appointment and the only venues given to me for a jab were a) Birmingham b) Epsom Race Course c) Stevenage d) The Docks, London.”
My friend is 85, can only walk a little way, and lives not far from Cambridge. She bas no transport.
It did sound a little incongruous when they announced on the news that all over 80s were going to get a letter offering them a jab at a vaccination centre within 45 mins drive of where they live. So that is loads of over 80s driving around for 90 mins in total in the January weather conditions! What could possibly go wrong?
A literal car crash policy;one amongst many.
Surely not so far to hitch from Cambridge to Stevenage ?
If you can hitch in a bubble.
Sounds like your friend has had a lucky escape.
I also received a letter from the NHS yesterday but didn’t open it and returned it with the addressee no longer at this address ticked. I think it was probably about the flu vaccine rather than the Covid one as I’m 60 and not in a vulnerable group. I’ve never had the flu vaccine either and just want to stay under the radar even if this means I’m not registered with a GP for a while.
I found that letter (with name and address blacked out) helped to cover up some of the bottles in the recycle bin…with other stupid brochures and…still rattled rather embarrassingly!
The Antarctic research stations had for many decades shown the value of isolation as a means of preventing the transmission of viral respiratory illnesses. A small group of individuals are isolated until months later there arrives new personnel and supplies. When this happens, the station personnel are susceptible to colds for a period of ten to fourteen days. Then they are untroubled by colds, until the next arrival of new personnel and supplies. This is the usual pattern. However, it has happened that even after months of isolation the group can contract colds. One such outbreak was studied in depth, and the conclusion was the cause was unknown. The study is worth reading https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/pdf/jhyg00082-0026.pdf The obvious way the above study is relevant is in relation to the government’s commitment to the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the virus, specifically its commitment to minimise social contact: stay at home, social distancing, face masks, shut downs, etc. These interventions can never come anywhere near the complete isolation that occurs in the Antarctic research stations. No matter how draconian the measures a government introduced, there would still be millions of social contacts every day. These contacts would inevitably provide a virus (any… Read more »
Excellent. Will be stealing that for my local rep
“Colds” are not always caused by a virus but can be the body’s way of cleansing itself through all the mucous discharge.
A nice hot curry pot noodle, after a spell in the garden during this cold snap, also helps no end! Plenty of ‘discharge’, then warm up with a hot toddy!
Curries are great if you have a cold. Plus chicken noodle soup or even Wonton noodle soup.
I was particularly interested in the item in today’s LS news about Ivermectin. I find it horrendous that the Junta and the Health tyrants turned their backs on possible treatment options and pumped all that money into Test, Trace and Vaccinate. Many, including myself, have, over the months, called for more money and research into treatments but they did not listen. They were hell bent on the total control solution. So now we have a lot of sick people putting pressure on hospitals when, in my view, it is quite likely that many of those people could have been treated and discharged more quickly if we had done much more to develop effective treatment regimes and if we had rolled out effective advice on vitamin D, getting out in the sunshine etc. etc.
The health tyrants say the public has blood on its hands for not following the rules, I rather think they have blood on their hands for not being open to the development of treatments and preventative measure.
One would think they actually don’t want people to get better. The goal is the vaccine. And it isn’t a vaccine at all, there is no evidence that it stops one catching or transmitting any virus. I am reading that it’s a form of gene therapy which may be very dangerous for a lot of people. But if they openly admitted this they would have to look at other treatments including simple things like Vitamin C and d3 etc and that doesn’t fit the agenda and makes no one any money.
Absolutely, the drugs and supplements known to help are all very cheap and off patent. No profit for the major drug companies. Though there is no reason AZ etc couldn’t start manufacturing them if they wanted to.
Of course it is all about the vaccine. I still want to know how much stands to be made by the individual, that persuaded the government several times that an exaggerated number of people would die unless we rushed out and mass vaccinated the entire population, while leading the UK modelling team for vaccination distribution funded by a very rich American couple.
The amount made by Bill Gates, who has a large stake in all the vaccines so far approved, will be vast. Remember too, that Bill is a very generous funder of Imperial College. No doubt, Imperial are well aware that what’s good for Bill’s creepy vaccine agenda, is also likely to be very good for Imperial.
Obviously they coulnn’t care ‘A Monkey’s” about our health.
To paraphrase what someone said on off-Guardian, it’s an infantile notion, to think that they actually care about us.
Important typo in the item: (e.g. 0.2mg/kg orally, equivalent to a 12mg tablet for a 6kg adult).
60kg obviously
Not many 6kg adults, or even 60kg nowadays.
There are some lightweights in the Cabinet.
I think Bozzo ate parts of them…..
There’s also a heavyweight, we could well do without.
As I said here yesterday if this was genuinely about health, the government would have been shouting from the rooftops the following:
The cynic in me thinks that this is because all the above are free or require little money so far better to scare the populace, make them ill or compromise their immune systems via lockdowns, social distancing and masks and hey presto, a captive audience for vaccine and drugs.
Whatever happened to the old adage “prevention is better than cure”?
The last thing that the oligarch depopulators and their paid off chums in government will want, is a public that is taking sensible preventative measures. Of course the best preventative measure and the cheapest will be to avoid all of the Covid-19 vaccines.
There’s a big element of Pharma capture of all of this as well. No doubt the smear of HCQ early on was a hit piece by the industry as they dominated the scene with vaccines as their preferred solution. However, while HCQ is being used, there is still a lot of valid debate around its effectiveness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/ Ivermectin is a more obvious case https://c19ivermectin.com/ If the drug had been approved before the vaccines, in the US at least but I’ll assume here too, any approval for Pfzier etc would have had to show that it was better than existing medicines for combating CV-19. A more rigorous approval process would have been required. So what does that say? If 2.3% of all those getting the first dose are experiencing some kind of adverse effect, how would that stand up against Ivermectin? And what of its claims of efficacy against symptoms but no data on prevention of death from CV-19? Well, the RCTs for ivermectin are showing they do have an impact, a very substantial one. So why are they still on the fence? While people die, where is the emergency approval for this extremely promising treatment? “We need more research” they… Read more »
A couple of months ago I read/heard that there were some 120 scientific papers testifying to the effectiveness of HCQ. Alan Jones was trying to promote HCQ and Ivermectin at that time, but of course the “health authorities” continued allowing patients to suffer.
https://americasfrontlinedoctorsummit.com/wp-content/uploads/202…
· PDF
Priti Patel. The wrong person in the wrong job at the wrong time
Like most of the cabinet, especially Handoncock
The biggest problem is Gove. And I suspect/am sure that Cummings is still pulling his strings.
The snake Gove is actually an octopus, his tentacles reach a long way. Cummings has not gone a way, he is whispering in several ears. he knows the dirty secrets. I suspect snakey Gove has a lot of dirty secrets
They are all so bad, they’ve made Truss look good.
Worse than that, they’ve made Brown one of the great prime minister’s of the 21st century.
Any time would have been the wrong time for Priti. She is high on her own self importance and below zero on competence for the job. Like Treason May a previous occupant. Absolutely nothing of any import between the ears.
Priti Patel. The wrong person
in the wrong job at the wrong timeOn MSM: What is “STILL ALLOWED” during lockdown not what is not allowed during lockdown!!!
Deaths per day are behind births per day. Every day, every week, every month, every year.
I understand that was not the case with Spanish Flu nor with the Black Death when deaths out-numbered births. But so far, based on ONS data it has been true for England & Wales with this current virus hoo-haa. We have the ONS birth figures for Jan – Sept 2020 and they are ahead of the 2020 total death figures. Following a live birth you have 6 weeks to register the birth and so final 2020 birth figure will not be out for a while but all projections are that for England & Wales the ONS live birth total for 2020 will be between 10-20 thousand higher than the total death figure, despite the effect of Covid.
If you were into conspiracy theories you could almost imagine this virus had been engineered by a very cunning PR person to cause maximum disruption whilst actually doing very little damage to human populations.
Indeed. Given Fergusons doom laden predictions, you’d have to think Hancock deserves a statue on Parliament Square.
Here in Northern Ireland Robin Swann should be consultant to the world on successful lockdowns.
When people constantly start giving off about how bad our response has been, I always give them the positive. What pandemic?
Never mind a statue, just get him a gibbet.
I would be most willing to assist in “attaching” him.
Or just put him in the stocks and pelt him with used face masks full of rotten food.
That’s why we have the vaccines.
2 deaths from Covid on Saturday in my NHS Region of 1.8m.
Have you noticed the are only giving out covid deaths and not total deaths. Can only see total deaths up to Christmas then it stops?
I have just read a post in a local group blaming dog groomers! It can be hilarious, though, with ‘I was in the park/Asda/wherever and it was rammed’. They can’t seem to find the double standards as they were there in the first place.
It is said that the ‘vaccine’ changes the DNA of the recipient to that of Chimp DNA
For some Covidians this will be a step up the evolutionary ladder
Amoeba DNA would be a step up for some of them.
That isn’t true though.
And why would they need a vaccine to devolve the masses when Facebook, BBC, Love Island, etc have done such a great job?
Excellent, excellent update today, Jonathan. I have been really flat last few days, especially for you guys in the UK. Seriously, a ‘picnic’ walking with cups of coffee. Monty Python could not dream this stuff up. The reading today is compelling, excellent stuff.
I have something here to make you laugh, cheer you up.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OpWiFygdAAE
https://youtu.be/BxX7Tv9Z8ks
Enjoy.
Excellent, excellent update today, Jonathan.
…if you overlook his promotion of the “vaccine” (for which “lockdown” is the necessary precursor) and repetition of ‘protect the NHS’ propaganda. FFS.
AG
Duncan Trussell Family Hour EPISODE 417 : Jason Louv
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Duncan+Trussell+Family+Hour+EPISODE+417+%3A+Jason+Louv
Stay with it.. takes a while to relate to covid…
https://techround.co.uk/news/would-you-wear-a-mask-during-sex-27-of-brits-would/
And here,for your edification folks, a new take on S&M-Masks and Sex.(M&S gets a new look).
We have got something similar on our NSW Health website, Wendy. When will they get out of our lives.
When we stop being stupid enough to let them in.
I keep hoping ,but they they’re still there!
I think that might be why Bozzo is so keen, he did go to Public School after all…
Well said. It feels a lot like a new Dark Age is descending upon us. Hopefully more folk will wake before it gets that bad.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/we-are-the-lockdown-lab-rats/
Three questions need to be asked: Is critical care occupancy in the NHS significantly higher than previous years Has lockdown had any impact on this If lockdown has had an impact, is it morally justifiable Firstly, the NHS stats for critical care are nearly always compared in the press based on absolute numbers year on year, whereas in reality the vast majority of occupants are over 70, which population has increased (in England and Wales) from 6.984m in 2014 to 8.037m in 2019 (2020 figures are not available). If you compare age adjusted occupancy for the winters of 2014/15 (the worst recent year), 2017/18 and 2020/21 there is very little difference (see chart) – this goes up to 3 January, the latest figures available and things have got worse since then. However, the issue is clearly one of capacity, the number of older people has increased dramatically and the critical care capacity is not fit for purpose – around 1,000 in the whole of London ! How can the government shut down schools because they themselves provide fewer hospital beds than virtually anywhere else in Europe – the children suffer because of the government’s incompetence. Secondly, as can be seen… Read more »
As I’ve said many times previously the life expectancy of the very old, unwell, frail members of society has been weaponised to ensure public compliance by means of blatant emotional manipulation on an industrial scale: ‘don’t kill granny’, ‘granny killers’,etc..
Our consumerist approach to life expectancy,the hysterical view of death at the end of life as an intrusive outrage,egged on by mendacious politicians and their allies in the MSM, has led in no small part to this disaster,which is destroying the expectations of young people who will inherit the debts, the lack of decent jobs and the social and political fall out.
Change the strategy, improve conditions for staff and residents of nursing homes, vaccinate those in need and those who want it, and restore liberty and normality to everyone else.
Who truly wants to live on into a state of helpless dependency :
‘Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’
I have seen the senility wards – sorry, wings – in ‘care’ homes that were, in their way, good ones, and fiendishly expensive.
No torment in hell could be worse.
Agree Annie; a living death.
Nobody needs the Covid vaccines, as they have no merit. The Covid vaccines are now the heavy artillery in the government’s genocidal war against it’s own people.
Agree.
What makes my blood boil, is that if back in March 2020 we had had a sensible government, the following would have been enacted:
1) keep economy & society open
2) save £400bn
3) use some of that £400bn to create more capacity in hospitals for the inevitable winter virus season
instead they did the opposite and throw my children’s education under the bus.
That was the original plan but Italy locking down opened up a whole world of possibilities.
The government saw a once in a lifetime chance to reorder government and society.
Yup – Fergusson said so himself didn’t he. And STILL the lockdown fanatics don’t see this?????
Well hopefully its going to backfire on them spectacularly.
Did they?
Please direct me to the evidence to back up your assertion Jonathan.
Oh, there isn’t any! What a surprise.
Jonathan, you must have been a pain at school.
Teacher “Palmer, 40% in this test!”.
Palmer “No, sir, I got 100%, I am right about everything!”
(And no, I do not support this government or anything they are doing. In my opinion they are grossly incompetent. I am sorry if you don’t like that!)
Check out Ferguson’s interview in The Times. There’s the evidence – he states it himself and that they ‘couldn’t believe they’d get away with it’. Oh and this cosy chat with Tony Blair should send a shiver down your spine.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Albion_Rover/status/1342971818093780992?s=20
And no, I do not support this government or anything they are doing.
Hmmm.
“government saw”???
More likely government was directed with carrot and stick to follow the plan.
Yes that is almost certainly the case, but it doesn’t alter the point that the government has worked very hard since March to cause great distress to its own citizens. It is now likely up to something far far worse, as it pushes hard Bill Gates’s long planned, depopulation by vaccination agenda.
The government saw a once in a lifetime chance to reorder government and society.
Very true and being sold out to the globalists, they also wanted to massively depopulate both the UK and the rest of the planet. The vaccines are their weapon of genocide.
Agree, boost up the healthcare, look after vulnerable and everything else stay open and everyone carry on. That’s how all pandemics in the past have been dealt with. I’ve never understood why this should be any different, unless the government are really that stupid.
Do they allow home school in the UK? Might be a good option to get the kids away from the communist indoctrination they’re getting in the public schools (at least in the US that’s what they’re getting)
Only viable if you can afford to have one parent not working. Difficult nowadays.
Speaking as someone with experience of this, I think the issue is that although numbers are similar the patients aren’t. In the past people who would not recover were rarely admitted to ITU. There is almost no benefit in intubating and ventilating the co morbid elderly, they just can’t be successfully weaned off. However the Covid panic seems to have shifted the criteria enough that many more are brought into the ‘critical care ‘ fold.
Thankyou. Interesting for that possible profile shift to be investigated.
To be clear, are you saying that what is causing the problem for hospitals is that people who are dying anyway are being subjected to invasive treatment they don’t need?
However the Covid panic seems to have shifted the criteria enough that many more are brought into the ‘critical care ‘ fold.
Yes and we can have a good guess at why they have done that. Overflowing ITUs headlines will always create excellent fear porn.
The schools aren’t shut because of incompetence. They were shut to coerce people to take the vaccine. Remember BJ saying that he was confident that if the rollout of the vaccine went to plan he was confident of a return to normal by April. Then admitted that schools may not be open until the summer if circumstances change.
Of course, they have blown it, because more than ever are claiming key worker status to keep their kids in school, despite distribution of the vaccine being slower than anticipated and take up lower than anticipated.
We mustn’t forget it clearly suits some teachers very well to be paid for doing less or nothing. Today’s news included head teachers of some schools say teachers are complaining about “invasion of privacy” if they have to do online lessons on Zoom. God give me patience – precisely a few feet of their own home being shown on a camera. Let’s face it – the truth is that some of them want to get all their pay and do none of their work and are not suited to being teachers at all. Who wouldn’t want to be paid for doing precisely nothing?
In Zoom you can set the background to be a picture behind you.
Thank you for the contents of the newsletter today. Good luck to Colonel Redman but I fear politicians in Canada seem as bad as politicians here and will not listen. It’s never too late to change. One military maxim always stood out to me for application to life: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”. When will this government and it’s pet chosen scientists/medics ever change their strategy which is failing? Credit to Peter Hitchens again. As a sidenote there,in my experience judges in this country appear: (a) part of the established elite; and (b) reluctant and frightened to go against any government with a substantial majority ie tacitly acknowledging their subservience to power which happened under the Blair regime and is happening under the Johnson regime. The medics seized on steroids quickly so why their reluctance with Ivermectin which has been discussed online very positively for at least 3 months? I see Prof Ferguson thinks restrictions will be lifted later this year. Oh,good.With his track record that means we’re probably doomed with loss of freedom for years! Maybehe’s realising that he’ll be one of the patsies (I hope so) and that he’d better retract some of his attitude?… Read more »
“Maybehe’s realising that he’ll be one of the patsies (I hope so) and that he’d better retract some of his attitude?”
Highly doubt it. You only have to see one of this guy’s interviews to understand he lacks basic interpersonal skills and is likely on the autistic spectrum. He is not just clueless but physiologically unable to comprehend the complex dynamics that go into subterfuge, betrayal etc. It would be meat and drink for an arch-schemer like Pfeffel to dispatch Professor Prick.
The interview last week (The Times?) highlighted this perfectly. More of these puff pieces – used as a stalking horse – the better please.
Thanks.
He is an odd fellow without doubt.
My sporting friends have replied to me that they all plan to wait for however long it takes for lockdown to end and resume the sport.
That’s a positive I suppose but akin to hunkering down in a tropical storm and waiting for the rain to stop.
Few of them appear to be sceptics – yet.
Most have committed to the vaccine talisman.
Ferguson is very easily recognisable with his rat faced features. He wont be having life time security like Johnson. If this shit is ever over lets hope someone recognises him somewhere and he gets what he deserves.
Juliet Samuel wrote her entire piece in the DT mentioned above about NHS capacity without once mentioning the Nightingale hospitals. Bizarre!
I take that as a tacit acknowledgement they’re just for show.
They’re for mass vaccination.
https://www.cityam.com/nightingale-hospital-in-london-to-open-as-mass-vaccination-centre/
Things really bad in London:
‘At some emergency wards, patients wait more than 12 hours before they are tended to. Corridors are jammed with beds carrying frail and elderly patients waiting to be admitted to hospital wards. Outpatient appointments were cancelled to free up staff members, and by Wednesday morning hospitals had been ordered to postpone nonurgent surgeries until the end of the month.’
‘The situation has become so dire that the head of the health service is warning that the system is overwhelmed.’
‘This is battlefield medicine’
Things really bad in Wales:
‘A senior nurse says the stress A&E staff face at Wales’ biggest hospital is worse than she faced on the front line during the second Iraq war.’
And that was all years ago………
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/world/europe/uk-national-health-service.html
And BBC 13 Jan 2015
The point cannot be made often enough that this is a typical winter surge which the NHS has not been able to cope with for many years now.
Its not the frontline staff. It never is. It’s the system itself.
There is another way:
https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Niemietz-NHS-Interactive.pdf
People have this tiresome habit of getting ill. If only they’d just stop doing it, hospitals will do fine.
Like libraries. People have this tiresome habit of taking books out. However, with the present attitudes to education, the library problem will soon solve itself.
Yes, but what is atypical of this winter surge is the the NHS is even far more unprepared than usual to deal with it. This year of all years.
And money was never a problem – just think of the billions pissed away on T&T, every penny of which we can now confidently say was utterly wasted.
Criminal.
A further indictment is that government interventions have, in fact, exacerbated the situation; fewer beds and fewer staff……..
Yes, that’s what I’m getting at.
Muzzles in particular: if you’re coming down with covid, or any viral respiratory disease, rebreathing your own exhaled virus is surely effectively increasing viral load, and thus risk turning a trivial or mild illness into something much more serious.
I seriously wonder whether we might be seeing the results now. No one seems to be asking this question though.
I think this is true. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the young people they claim are in hospital are there due to excessive mask wearing and its buggered up their throat & lungs. I think its an elephant in the room.
A masked elephant, so they couldn’t see it.
I think the government are criminally naive especially given that there is so much hard research out there as to how masks do nothing to stop viruses and are often a health hazard. Whole thing seems to be about control and submission, but if people are now getting sick from it and placing a strain on the NHS..stunning own goal!
Yes the NHS alone has received an extra £52 billion of Covid funding in 2020-21, and an extra £21 billion in 2021-22.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget
And where the fuck has it gone??
Really, where?
Contracts not tendered?
The NHS is just like pouring money down the toilet, this will continue until the whole thing is reformed top to bottom and ensuring capacity is available for winter surge.
Manager’s pockets.
Nice one – I think that would be a real eye-opener to a lot of people.
The other factor is staff absence, in any other year staff members would be off work if they were ill; however this winter there are staff who are ill plus those who are off because they’re self isolating. Additionally there is reduced bed capacity because of distancing. The current issue within hospitals has been created from the response to the virus. It is a positive feedback loop.
This is so very true and all of us are being penalised for this insane policy! Makes my blood boil…………….
indeed and the NHS has had 8 months or so for contingency planning to cope with the increased winter demand. If this is a ‘serious’ as they claim then they should have gone on a war footing early on and trained staff from other departments over the summer to manage and support the expected higher respiratory/flu/covid patients.
They have all completed medical courses and although many now specialised it can’t be beyond the wit of say a surgeon (who is probably doing less surgery now) to turn their hand on the critical care wards with some re-training. They should have extended their facilities and made the nightingales fit for purpose to manage more patients. An acquaintance’s husband is an anaesthetist who earlier in year was bored stupid as no operations, ridiculous waste of resource.
The fact that they appear not to have done contingency planning and now apparently overrun and staff so stressed etc if you believe the headlines, is nothing short of negligence and incompetence – but i think we have come to expect this of the NHS.
12% of NHS staff are off work.Thousands of beds have been lost due to Covid requirements.,extra spacing etc.
But it’s your fault because you went for a walk in the park
That’s what they’d have us think isn’t it
If you can read French, look up Victor Hugo’s tremendous tirade against tyranny and corruption, Ultima verba.
https://www.poetica.fr/poeme-150/victor-hugo-ultima-verba/
The last verse is famous. It’s my mantra now.
Si l’on n’est plus que mille, eh bien, j’en suis ! Si même
Ils ne sont plus que cent, je brave encor Sylla ;
S’il en demeure dix, je serai le dixième ;
Et s’il n’en reste qu’un, je serai celui-là !
No translation can do it justice, but in plain words: “If there are no more than a thousand of us left, I’m one of them! If even / there are no more than a hundred left, I still defy Sulla [a Roman dictator]; / If ten remain, then I will be the tenth, / and if only one remains, then I will be that one.”
Lovely quote.
Merci bien. C’est magnifique!
I thought 750000 people had already volunteered to help the NHS with vaccines etc
In respect of the vaccine I wrote a small piece for my little blog yesterday. Here is an extract.
“But let’s step back and remind ourselves of a few things. Firstly around 99.75% of people survive catching Covid-19. This is now an accepted fact and I’ll refer you to the paper by John P A Ioannidis which is published on the WHO website. Thus it doesn’t matter if the vaccine stops people dying or not because it will almost be impossible to measure that fact. However, should it cause many deaths the drug companies have absolved themselves of all liability. They cannot lose – Kerching! The wide awake reader will be asking themselves ‘so what exactly is the point of the vaccine other than making money?” Congratulations you have just got straight to the crux of the matter.”
http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/health/covid-19-vaccine-the-biggest-public-health-disaster-ever/
Really enjoying your blog posts. Keep up the great work.
Beautiful photos too.
One argument I’ve seen against the GBD approach of ‘focused protection’ is that it would create a ‘two-tier society’ – some people needing to shield while others get on with their life.
First of all, the GBD doesn’t support compulsory shielding; if vulnerable want to get out and take risks, they can do so. They are not obliged to lock themselves away if they don’t want to. It’s a matter of weighing up personal risk and then making a free choice, which is what should have happened from the very beginning.
Secondly, a ‘two-tier society’ is exactly what lockdown has created. Those in big houses living with their loved ones who can comfortably work from home in safe jobs and get Amazon deliveries; and those who live alone, or who can’t work from home, or who are having their jobs and educations destroyed, or who are missing out on vital medical treatment.
The implication behind the ‘two-tier society’ argument against focused protection is an incredibly repressive communist approach of ‘Well if we have to suffer, then everyone has to as well.’
How is this morally right or proportionate?
How is that different from the current ‘two tier society’ where one half of the population work from home or watch Netflix on furlough whilst the other half struggle in to work to stack supermarket shelves, wipe the backsides of those who need care or drive their white vans to deliver Waitrose hampers to those sat at home?
Well indeed, that was exactly my point!
oops, so incensed by paragraph two I never got to paragraph three!
You cannot introduce compulsory shielding on anyone who has mental capacity as people who do not have capacity already have legal protection through the deprivation of liberty safeguards and these same protections would have to be extended. However, in doing so there would be a breach of the mental capacity act.
Excellently argued, Poppy.
As for communism, it was a case of the rich man in his dacha, the poor man in his two-room concrete flat.
“Thankfully, there is a windfall headed our way, in the form of the Covid vaccines. In seven weeks, if all goes to plan, the vast majority of the demographics most likely to die of this disease will be largely immune. That should be more than enough to end the lockdown. The Government is keen to attach long lists of conditionals to this promise, however. Asked about it, Boris would only say that in the spring, “very much I hope there will be the chance, to look at some relaxations of restrictions”. The factor to watch is not actually the rollout of the vaccine programme, but the hospitalisation rate and the performance of the NHS. The race is not between death and vaccinations, but between vaccinations and beds.” Above is from the Telegraph piece as quoted above the line. There’s too much vaccine cheerleading going on for my liking among “sceptics” but it’s understandable. However I think it is dangerous. Aside from the dubious morality of pushing a poorly tested “emergency” vaccine, and the longer term issue that by doing so we’re validating a year of lockdowns as a response to new viruses, the more immediate problem is that we’re again playing on the… Read more »
Yes, I hope like the rest of them that the vaccine is our way out of this fiasco. However, I seem to remember Boris promising us that his Moonshot plan was the way for us to regain our freedoms. Instead the mass testing has resulted in more restrictions. I really don’t see how we are going to get out of it. Lockdowns so blatantly obviously don’t work so the government advisors just advise stricter measures, I suppose eventually nature will take its course and respiratory illnesses will decline like they do every year, and HMG can claim success…until autumn?
Vaxx does not stop transmission. Never has. Reduces symptoms, might help 10-30% ?? (no one knows), of the pop with compromised immune systems. For the rest neutral or negative given the ingredients. I am 100% healthy, my immune system is 99.7% effective, so the vaxx does what? Nothing. Is 99.8% going to ‘save’ me from CV 19? (I already had it, so the answer is no).
The seasonal hospital admissions bulge will decline as it always does and the pig dictator will claim it as a magnificen victory for Govt policy.
…and “owing to the tremendous success of what we have done this year, it must serve as the blueprint for years to come”.
Agree with everything you say. I have a massive worry that even when the vulnerable have had the vaccine, things won’t look much different to how they did last year! The precedent has now been set and that is the thing that scares me the most! Hence Whitty saying that even if the vaccine rollout goes well this year (and I’m against this experimental vaccine I have to say), there ‘may have to be measures brought in next winter’. That sent chills down my spine!
Not just your spine, I’m sure. Who’s going to invest in any public-facing business when the best that our leaders can offer is “more of the same”? If only there was a way to give these people a sense of economic reality.
As has already been commented on today, another great update post today. The authors are at the centre of a hurricane, often directed at them personally. Great credit to them for sticking the course.
What’s especially striking about these posts is the tone – calmer than in previous months – factual, evidence-based, questioning, citing opinions and facts from a wide range of sources and expertise. I get the impression that the authors are putting a great deal of effort into getting this tone right.
And it is clear that Scepticism is steadily and surely gaining ground. One bellwether example: the proportion of parents who are determined to keep their children in school this time. Just as the increasingly shrill language and actions of the Zealots denotes panic and insecurity: they know they are losing, in terms both of public opinion and the disease itself.
With the greatest of respect to Toby Young and the rest of the team, whose efforts are admirable, I beg to differ.
With the exception of TY’s piece the other day, recent updates have IMO been overly conciliatory and far too much couched within the fantasy world of a public health emergency that has been created by the govt, and not enough sticking to the core message:
1) Covid is not exceptional
2) Lockdowns don’t work and are unorthodox
3) Even if lockdowns did work, they cannot be justified on any rational basis
While remaining calm is good, righteous anger can be appropriate, and in any case I think with very few exceptions the writing above the line has not been ranty or wild – it has always been evidence-driven where appropriate.
We should stop being so defensive.
Both great posts. What I hope we can all agree on is that lockdown policy (and those who serve to prop it up) appear to be held together by the thinnest of threads.
I agree that, to my liking, they have been too conciliatory in accepting the new definition of ‘cases’, and in their accounts of the vaccine and the associated issues. Maybe they have their reasons. And sitting here I’m not in the centre of the storm of bullying, character assassination and threats that people like Toby re facing right now.
I agree with your three points, but especially with the simple and obvious ‘lockdowns don’t work’. That fact can’t be stated too often.
Until a few days ago I regarded the current ‘public health emergency’ as a fantasy, an invention. But the post above the line on here by a London doctor a couple of days ago has forced me to change my mind. In London and the SE there does indeed appear to be an emergency, although one that was entirely predictable and for which the Government and NHS had failed entirely to make any provision – for example, far fewer hospital beds than last winter. In this respect, the emergency is self inflicted. As I’ve written elsewhere here today: criminal.
I prefer suppressed seething anger to the more overt stuff.
Lockdown’s obviously don’t work. We have had one since March 2019. What has been ‘successful’ – nothing.
LDs have killed 45.000. Excess deaths are about 75.000. Maybe 30k have died from CV 19. Rest with it from something else. The death count for 2020 is not above the 10 yr historical average (if you account for ageing).
So agree with others. Site is too nice, too placid, too ‘genteel’, taking the higher road.
When the enemies of your life, your democracy, your family, are actively killing people, locking them down, having the police and media terrorise them, the time for ‘conciliation’ was long over.
The only way this ends, is if the people en-masse start civil disobedience and inform the morons ruining this country, that violence is around the corner.
Fascism is not defeated by group hugs.
I can see this crime ending in one of only two ways: mass civil disobedience, or economic collapse.
Or both.
And hopefully serious retribution.
Lockdowns are not working,everyone can see that.
The health and scientific fanatics are peddling the same rubbish and attempting to double down on failure.
The public despite not protesting are quietly ignoring the rules.
The government have a choice,they can roll back testing to look as though the virus is receding or they can double down on repression.
The next few weeks should be intresting.
The ‘more, more, more’ bastards keep getting their way though. And it’s all our fault.
Indeed it is not. I learnt this at school in a tough part of Manchester. Bullies will never respond to hugs…they have to be defeated by force of strength. I remember there was one who used to bully everyone around him and he was always supported by other goons to back him up. Myself and 2 other friends prepared an assault and waited for our moment. Eventually we noticed he went into the loos on his own and we rushed in and got him alone and frankly we beat the shit out of him and made it very visible deliberately so everyone could see he had taken a pasting. He lost all credibility after that and others started standing up to him to!
I agree with you here Julian. I think we have nothing to be defensive about. I have huge admiration for Toby especially given that he has been through the most appalling cancelation by the mob in the past and has recently had an unpleasant death threat. He is trying to cling to his precarious foothold in the mainstream media which is now operating under the techniques of mob rule and tries to demonise anyone who lies outside the narrative. However if we are not careful we will find ourselves gradually accepting the enemy’s terms of reference which will lead to more and more gradual back sliding. The key points to keep to are that covid is no danger to almost everyone and that total deaths for any purpose are not out of line with previous years. Also that lockdowns do not work in the long term and carry utterly colossal collateral damage and cannot be justified in moral terms. They are the ultimate of the evils of big government and favour collectivism over individualism. I think we are entering a very disturbing era indeed and the recent videos of women being arrested with their hands handcuffed behind their backs give… Read more »