Boris Claims Lockdown Is Working Despite Infections Peaking Before It Began
Do the facts matter anymore, or is it just about spinning a narrative that justifies politicians’ latest radical intervention? The Prime Minister has claimed the fall in infections across England is all thanks to his latest school-closing, enforcement-heavy, virus-busting quarantine, despite the data showing the decline was already underway before the third lockdown was imposed. The Mail tries to bring some facts to bear on the matter.
Despite the latest huge death toll, Mr Johnson sounded a notably optimistic tone about the emerging impact of the restrictions. He said the country was “now starting to see the beginnings of some signs” that the crackdown was having an effect in parts of the country, while stressing it was “early days” and urged people to “keep their discipline”.
MailOnline analysis suggests the outbreak in England may have started slowing before the blanket lockdown on January 4th, with infection numbers peaking in the worst-hit regions at the start of the year. The tide appears to have turned in parts of the country experiencing the worst outbreaks – London, the South East and the East of England – in the first week of 2021, with cases coming down since then.
Coronavirus hospital admissions have also started to fall in London and the South East, although the numbers of patients are still rising on wards after surging above the peaks recorded in the first wave.
The figures bolster claims that Tier 4 – which kept schools open – thwarted the spread of the super-infectious mutant strain of the virus. But it appears the measure did not drive down infections fast enough for ministers, who instead opted for further curbs to daily life.
Here’s the latest graph from the ZOE Covid Symptom Study App showing infections peaking at the start of the year.
Stop Press: Nic Sturge-On has brought in even more restrictions in Scotland. Heed well, England – Boris will soon be copying her. From the BBC:
Only shops selling essential items – such as clothing, footwear, baby equipment, homeware and books – will be allowed to offer click and collect.
Collections must also be outdoors, with appointments staggered to avoid queuing.
And takeaways can no longer allow customers indoors, and must instead operate from a hatch or doorway.
Yet according to the ZOE App Scotland infections appear to have peaked in the middle of last week.
Someone should tell Nicola.
Stop Press 2: Recovery carried out a Twitter poll on the BBC’s coverage of the crisis and got an impressive 20,336 responses. The results make for grim reading for the Beeb.
How to Respond to a GP Survey…
When Lockdown Sceptics reader Tracy van den Broek’s GP surgery sent her their patient survey, it’s probably safe to say they weren’t prepared for the robust response they got back. Here’s what she sent them instead of the completed questionnaire.
Thank you for sending the questionnaire. I see the questions are framed in such a way that you will be able to give information to the Government and media which will be used to assure “the public” that all is well at the GP surgery level for most people.
I am appalled by the fact that the NHS has become our “master” in the past year – and has become essentially a Covid-only service for much of the year. The distortions of the situation shown on the BBC have implied that insufficient capacity for annual seasonal demand is a new thing. Because of my connection with the hospital as a volunteer on the chaplaincy team for the past 10 years I happen to know that treating patients in the corridors and bed shortage are annual events.
That the measures designed to “protect the NHS” are actually causing incalculable misery amongst carers, disabled people, dementia sufferers, and even otherwise healthy widows and others who live alone, is entirely overlooked.
That in order to “protect the NHS” normal development of children of all ages is distorted is reprehensible. We are raising a generation who will see themselves and others as a bio-hazard. The thwarting of normal social development of teenagers (raising suicidal ideation amongst countless individuals) is nothing short of a disaster – the consequences of these measure will be evident in the lives of this generation long after most SAGE scientists are dead.
I am a carer for my 15 year-old with Down’s Syndrome. All our normal social events have been denied us, putting us under immense psychological pressure – and we are by no means unique. Amongst my wide circle of friends up and down the country – and random people I have engaged in conversation – I only know of one person under 80 who has died of Covid (and he had chronic heart-disease and was morbidly obese). I know fewer than 10 people who have had Covid – but they all recovered.
The NHS, in its inception, was designed to serve people. As a master it is tyrannical (controlling and coercive) and has devastated our nation in too many ways to calculate. We are all the subjects of a huge psychological experiment and we didn’t give our informed consent. This has to be illegal and I hope that someone will show it to be so in due course.
I’m similarly unimpressed with my GP surgery – though as I stood in the airlock outside the empty waiting room in November, sobbing, the receptionist took pity on me and helped by getting a prescription for anti-depressants (which I’d requested a month earlier) signed by the GP who was sitting in his office somewhere in the building.
It all makes me more determined to do my best to take care of my own health through diet/exercise and alternative measures than follow the diktats of the pharmaceutical industry and its minions.
I most certainly do not have sufficient faith in this system to roll up my sleeve and become a guinea pig for a product which hasn’t passed through the normal, lengthy safety tests, and where the suppliers are indemnified.
Tracy isn’t having a good week. She adds:
Having been marched out of Costco last week (wearing my lanyard and in the company of my distressed 15 year-old daughter) because I wasn’t wearing a mask, I’m going to write to them too. I was told by the employee that it doesn’t matter that there is “exemption” allowed out there in the rest of the country, this was a privately owned company and this was their policy. I wondered whether I was on American territory when I was in there – and whether if they chose to require shoppers to stand on their heads, that would also be similarly enforceable.
What a China-style Zero Covid Strategy Would Really Mean
A Lockdown Sceptics reader has written to us deeply concerned about the adulation and copying of China’s handling of the coronavirus by Western Governments. He should know. He has lived in China on and off since 2002 and owns a home and company there. While he has been shut out of the country since the start of the crisis, he is frequently in touch with people there and has a good idea what it is like right now.
Some politicians and journalists like to hold China up as a success story of the handling of the coronavirus crisis. They point to its low reported deaths, its almost non-existent cases and the impression that life is seemingly back to normal.
That is an incomplete picture. Life in China is not normal and the fight against Covid is not over by a long way.
The reality is that life in China has changed dramatically since the start of the coronavirus crisis, in three very significant ways.
1. Surveillance. Prior to the crisis, the population could move around freely without restriction. Now, you cannot enter most major public places like a station, an airport, a mall or any government building, without scanning a tracking app on your phone that clears you for entry with a green smiley face. Most residential compounds also require scanning to enter. So after you leave your home, you need to pass a scan to come back in.
This surveillance has been added to the financial surveillance that has been in place for the last few years. Every money transaction takes place with one of the two giant payment platforms, WePay or Alipay, and is linked to your ID number which the government tracks.
So the surveillance of the population is now total and absolute. The government knows everything that everyone is doing.
2. Face masks. Contrary to beliefs in the west, prior to the coronavirus crisis face masks were virtually non-existent. The few people that did wear them might have done so on bad pollution days and even then it would have been a rare sight. Masks are now ubiquitous. There is supposedly no coronavirus in China but you need to wear a mask in airports, stations, malls, large public gatherings, taxis and all government buildings.
3. Closed borders. China has for all intents and purposes shut its borders and closed itself from the world indefinitely. Permits to enter China are hard to obtain. For those who obtain one, on arrival they must pass a quarantine of three weeks in isolation in a government assigned hotel room.
Like every nation that has opted for a Zero Covid approach, China’s fight against Covid isn’t over by reaching zero cases. With coronavirus continuing to spread to hundreds of millions around the world, China’s fight to keep the virus away is ongoing, relentless and, in the absence of a vaccine that provides 100% immunity, permanent.
Even with closed borders, strict entry protocols and the most far-reaching surveillance on the planet, outbreaks occur from time to time at which point entire cities are severely locked down, and their entire populations forced to pass a test.
So when politicians fantasise about Zero Covid and try to promote it pointing to China’s success they should be clear, honest and open about what it would really mean.
It would mean closing borders indefinitely, putting in place a system of surveillance of the population and executing severe targeted lockdowns and compulsory testing at the first sign of an infection in the community. It would also probably mean on-going wearing of masks in numerous settings like public transport or any large gatherings of crowds.
Zero Covid is not a strategy for eliminating Covid, it is a plan to reorganise society permanently in the image created by the Chinese Communist Party.
More on Pre-Existing Immunity
The failure of epidemiological models such as Neil Ferguson’s to incorporate pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2 was one of the two basic errors Dr Mike Yeadon identified in SAGE’s advice throughout the pandemic. A new rapid response has now appeared in the BMJ by a researcher at Umea University in Sweden, Rachel F. Nicoll, to highlight further recent findings on this important topic.
Since Peter Doshi’s excellent feature in the BMJ in September, entitled “COVID-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity?“, further studies on unexposed subjects have now been undertaken. Although all studies so far are small, they indicate that a significant proportion of individuals globally entered the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with some pre-existing immunity. This is true of studies of IgG antibodies, memory B cells and T cells.
The pre-existing immunity makes a difference to clinical outcomes.
Patients with a previously detected human coronavirus had less severe COVID-19; despite a similar rate of infection, hospitalisation and viral burden, the milder disease seemed to be due to more subdued inflammatory responses, leading to lower ICU admission and death.
As Peter Doshi points out, the WHO and CDC acknowledged the existence of pre-existing immunity to the 2009 swine flu epidemic but then ignored the evidence 11 years later. Furthermore, cross-reactive immunity to influenza strains has been modelled to be a critical influencer of susceptibility to newly emerging, potentially pandemic, influenza strains.
Epidemiologists have been calling SARS-CoV-2 a ‘novel virus’, implying no pre-existing immunity. Nevertheless, it is clear that some considerable pre-existing immunity is present but has not been incorporated into the modelling. Furthermore, Government policy decisions are being made based on the number of positive PCR tests (indicating the presence of a viral RNA fragment rather than current infection) instead of investigating the proportion of the population that has developed antibody, B cell or T cell immunity.
Worth reading in full.
Don’t Bet On It
While bookies are famed for giving you odds on any outcome you can imagine, it seems when it comes to Covid some things are out of play, as one Lockdown Sceptics reader discovered.
I am not a betting man by nature but prior to the third lockdown the bookies were one of the few places of entertainment still open to the public. So on Christmas Eve I decided to amuse myself by placing a bet.
Paddy Power have a reputation of being able to give odds on anything you care to bet on so I wandered into one of their Glasgow branches, approached the counter and said that I wanted to place the following bet:
“I bet that 10 years from today Boris Johnson, Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon will have been sent to jail for the restrictions and other actions they took to impose lockdown.”
Apparently this was something of a deviation from the usual bets placed in the establishment and the guy and girl behind the counter were intrigued to know more (“what the f**k’s that all about?” as the girl put it).
I explained that two or three years from now very few people in the country will personally know someone that died of COVID-19 in the pandemic but that absolutely everyone will know someone who was financially ruined, committed suicide, developed mental health problems or died of cancer or other survivable illnesses that were not diagnosed or treated due to the lockdown restrictions.
By that time there will have been a full-scale enquiry. Rather than the outcome politicians are expecting at the moment (that the lockdown should have been earlier, harder, longer) the enquiry will show that the lockdown failed in its delusional objective of preventing the spread of an airborne respiratory virus and inflicted devastating economic and physical and mental health damage on the population that ultimately killed more people than COVID-19.
On the subject of Covid deaths the enquiry will also find that the tens of thousands of people claimed to have died “with Covid” is an outrageous distortion of the actual number of people whose deaths were genuinely due to the virus which will be a fraction of the Project Fear number being bandied about at present.
The enquiry will conclude that the real disaster in terms of lives and human misery was not COVID-19 but lockdown.
Then the blame begins.
Who is to blame for the coronavirus? Was it an act of God? A wet market culinary adventure too far? A bad day at the office for a Wuhan lab technician? We may never know.
Who is to blame for lockdown? Easy. Politicians. (And those “expert” SAGE members and broadcast media hacks but they are likely to wriggle off the hook. Not so the politicians – for a start people hate them already.)
The media will switch effortlessly from tear jerking “Covidiots Killed my Granny” stories to “Lockdown Let My Angel Boy Die of Cancer” front pages. People will be angry. People will want revenge. The clamour will grow. The process will be put in place.
The Paddy Power staff were very receptive to this reasoning but said they would have to phone “head office down south” to get the odds and that I should come back in an hour or so. So off I went for a wander round the shops that were open (normally I would have gone for a pint but hey, cretins).
When I returned the guy behind the counter looked up but seeing me his face fell. He said he thought it was a fun bet and he really wanted to know what odds it would get but that he had been told on the phone by his superiors that they “were not allowed to take any coronavirus related bets”.
So there you have it. Covid restrictions extend to Covid bets. I may not be able to put my money where my mouth is but in predicting that the lockdown criminals will end up behind bars I think I have picked a winner. Time will tell.
Postcard From Japan
Lockdown Sceptics reader Philip Patrick has written to us from Japan to say that Covidmania has begun to grip the country and push it towards the lockdown precipice despite the low death toll to date.
Japan is often cited as a Covid success story. Officially we are at 4,100 deaths now, which given a population of 126 million and densely packed cities, is, on the face of it, remarkable. There has been endless speculation as to why we’ve got off so lightly, with my favourite being the wacky idea that the lack of sibilant sounds in the language means less saliva is transferred during conversation. But it’s the more robust overall health, especially of seniors, and possible greater immunity from prior exposure to other Corona viruses that are the most plausible explanations.
If visitors were allowed into the country, they would probably be surprised by how normally life seems to be continuing. There is no heavy-handed police enforcement of a bewildering array of ever-changing micro-regulations, and no signs of panic. Schools are operating as normal, and universities, most of them, going back to face-to-face tuition from next term. Masks, fetishised by the Japanese at the best of times, are ubiquitous and de rigueur, but only a few of the bigger department stores such as Isetan (the Japanese Harrods) insist on them, and the one time I forgot I was reminded with such exquisite gentleness it was almost charming.
However, all of the above good news could be caveated with that very useful Japanese phrase ‘toriaezu’ (for the time being).
For, just as in the UK, there is a steady drumbeat of despair from the media, with a daily fusillade of uncontextualised statistics, and reports of hospitals on the brink, always on the brink, of being overwhelmed. The media are shrieking about the ‘case’ numbers with a sort of demented zeal (NHK is exactly the same as the BBC in its coverage) and there is no reporting of lockdown scepticism – which does exist. A few on-the-make politicians are trying their best to scare everyone – most prominently Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, whose daily gloom laden briefings are very similar to those of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Worth reading in full.
Common Challenges Impeding Debate
A Lockdown Sceptics reader – a PhD student in Australia – has sent us a list of the ways public debate over COVID-19 and lockdowns often generate more heat than light.
- The statement used frequently to silence questions – that there is “no evidence to support xyz” – is disingenuous, nor is this actually a rebuttal of a question. As researchers know, the absence of evidence does not prove the evidence of absence.
- ‘Cherry picking’ data (only using data that supports pre-determined conclusions) is another frequent issue and one of the more insidious methods of skewing findings or debates while appearing reasonable at first glance.
- Another tactic, playing the person not the issue – through labels of ‘Covid-denier’, ‘conspiracy-theorist’ or ‘anti-vaxxer’ if a person diverges from the ‘official’ line or asks questions – serves no one except authoritarian bullies and their side-kicks. It belongs with cancel culture and does not allow for questions to be raised (however well- or ill-informed), soundly debated, and concerns either validated or laid to rest rationally.
- That a ‘fact’ or ‘view’ has come from an authority should never place it above debate and discussion, as all researchers know. Indeed, authorities can (and have historically) sometimes been wrong, ‘got at’ or otherwise become unreliable. ‘Official’ does not automatically equal ‘reliable’, valid or true.
- By extension, so-called ‘fact-check’ (e.g. provided by major media sources including AP and Reuters) undertaken through appeal to official sources, or to experts who fail to substantiate their opinions, or through appeal to consensus, or other media reports, is inappropriate and substandard. Irrespective of whether it is an attempt at socially-responsible reporting, such methods of fact-checking fail miserably to meet the well-established academic standards of inquiry and discussion, crucial to informed discussion and arriving at valid findings.
- It is only through considering conflicting, knowledgeable and substantiated viewpoints from an objective, informed, unimpassioned perspective that we can hope to arrive at a worthwhile level of understanding. Without such discussion, statements like ‘following the science’ are not merely a nonsense, they’re misleading and dangerous.
- None of this would matter if, and this is the point, much of the mainstream media had not effectively positioned itself as an authority competent to judge the content, rather than engaging in investigating and reporting on the debates raging (and I do mean raging) among scientists over COVID-19.
- Furthermore, it is not necessarily that data or facts should be questioned (though often they should) but rather the interpretation should always be questioned.
Update From the Retired Detective Jailed For Painting a Pub
Paul (not his real name), the retired detective jailed and fined for painting a pub in July, has been back in touch with an update on his fine.
You previously published an item about my Covid arrest for painting the walls of a pub.
The incident occurred on July 3rd and the police issued a fixed penalty notice on October 3rd.
I refused to pay the fine.
The next step should have been for the police to lay information before a court so a summons could be issued and the matter proceed to a court hearing.
Well, what happened next?
You may be aware that there is a “limitation on proceedings” of six months for “summary” offences heard in the magistrates court.
The police let the time limit expire to prevent the case reaching court. The “fine” is therefore void.
How many more of these “fines” have been “disappeared” in this fashion?
With 45,000 lockdown fines reported now to have been issued by the police, how many others have gone (or will go) the same way?
The Free Speech Union is Hiring
The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby last year, is looking for a Website and IT Manager. Contract: 80-100%. Salary: up to £42,000 (pro rated). More info here.
Round-up
- “Year of extraordinary popular delusion” – Excellent piece by Edward Chancellor for Bloomberg Breaking Views in which he says the groupthink among Western political leaders about how to respond to the Covid crisis is an example of the mania Charles Mackay identified in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
- “Lockdown: A police constable’s perspective” – An anonymous police officer writes a letter saying he has “watched in disbelief and dismay at the way in which some of my colleagues across the UK have resorted to extreme force and heavy-handed tactics against people who are simply exercising their basic human rights”. We can’t vouch for the author actually being a copper but it’s remarkable if so
- “Parents are being gaslighted about home-schooling” – Andrew Hankinson in the Spectator isn’t prepared to carry on pretending it’s possible to do your job and teach your children at the same time
- “What They Said about Lockdowns before 2020” – Amelia Janaskie and Micha Gartz in AIER recall what was once a truth universally accepted – that lockdowns do more harm than good
- “Herd Immunity to CCP Virus Not Attainable in 2021: WHO” – WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan says: “We are not going to achieve any levels of population immunity or herd immunity in 2021”, and thus “physical distancing, hand washing, and mask-wearing” will still be required for the foreseeable, reports the Epoch Times
- “Deaths of despair’ during COVID-19 have risen significantly in 2020, new research says” – The pandemic and recession were associated with a 10-60% increase in deaths of despair above already high pre-pandemic levels, according to University of Chicago Economics Professor Casey Mulligan, reports MarketWatch
- “A lockdown of the mind” – Emma Webb in Spiked links the latest Big Tech clampdown on Trump supporters to the Covid censorship spearheaded by the WHO
- “The West should envy Japan’s COVID-19 response” – Ramesh Thakur in Japan Times says the Japanese shouldn’t listen to the West’s lockdown zealots
- “More on the inconsistency between the official NHS ‘Covid Pathways’ data and the official ‘Covid cases’ data” – Norman Fenton on the Probability and Risk blog highlights the discrepancy between PCR and non-PCR based Covid data
- “These senseless lockdown fines will only foster contempt among the public” – Ross Clark in the Mail taps into outrage at the ludicrous policing Brits now face
- “Edinburgh Covid expert Devi Sridhar says masks should be worn outside to cut virus infections” – Who is this “Covid expert”? Is she related to the social anthropologist of the same name?
- “US report into Covid origins expected to say Chinese army grew ‘dangerous coronaviruses’ in Wuhan” – Tsk, tsk. Isn’t the claim that SARS-CoV-2 is manmade supposed to be one of those “conspiracy theories” that now get you kicked off YouTube, Facebook and Twitter? Whatever can the Telegraph be thinking?
- “Covid hospital admissions fall in London and the south east for first time since Xmas” – The Health Service Journal catches up with Lockdown Sceptics
- “After a decade of deprivation, we need policies that prioritise recovery for families in poverty” – Press release from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that puts a pro-lockdown spin on it but is clear that for families in poverty “a third lockdown will push many to the brink when they have few resources left”
- “COVID-19, the vaccine and the betrayal of sub-Saharan Africa” – Dr David Bell and Muhammad Usman Khan on PANDA say there has been a strange and deadly shift in health priorities
- “Bank customers could have accounts CLOSED if they refuse to wear face masks in branches” – The Sun reports on the latest in maskophilia from HSBC
- “In 2021, governments will claim victory, maintain the illusion of control without admitting mistakes” – Andrew Mahon in the Westphalian Times has a premonition of how the year is going to pan out
- “Our freedom must return not a day later than necessary” – Allison Pearson lays it on the line in the Telegraph
- “GCSEs and A-levels likely to be partly assessed by cut-down versions of exams” – More confusion, more U-turns, more disruption for our beleaguered young people. From the Guardian
- “Incidence and Secondary Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Schools” – A new paper in Pediatrics that looked at schools in North Carolina found that “within-school secondary transmission” is “extremely limited”
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Seven today: “Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode, “Everything But The Truth” by Lucinda Williams, “When Will We All Be Free?” By Karan Casey, “You can’t do that” by The Beatles, “Tricked and trapped” by The Chairman of the Board, “There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner” by Noel Coward and “The New Normals” by Hot Beer (a Lockdown Sceptics reader – check it out).
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, it’s the news that Powell’s bookshop in Portland, Oregon has succumbed to Antifa demonstrators outside and pulled Andy Ngo’s anti-Antifa book from its shelves. Ella Whelan in the Telegraph is not impressed.
In his work, Ngo claims that Antifa protests, riots and public performances are responsible for the rising political violence in America. On the other hand, Ngo stands accused of “doxxing” Antifa activists (revealing their real names online) and stirring up Right-wing hatred of them on Twitter.
Last year, footage of Ngo, recorded by an undercover Left-wing activist, showed him present at a discussion among the Proud Boys, the far-Right group, about an upcoming fight with Antifa. Ngo strongly denied any links to such groups, calling himself an independent journalist, but while reporting on one such protest battle, he was attacked by Antifa activists who threw a milkshake on him, egged him and beat him up.
Critics claim that the issue is a journalistic one, too, and that Ngo plays fast and loose with the facts. For an 2018 article in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, he went to Whitechapel and portrayed a council sign banning alcohol consumption as evidence of “Islamic England”. (The Tower Hamlets authorities said that they were targeting anti-social behaviour.)
But even if Antifa were right, when they allege that Ngo is protected by the Proud Boys when reporting on demonstrations (which his lawyer has described as “absolutely false”), or that his work is mean or misleading, it’s irrelevant. Trying to get his book banned is wrong.
If we start banning books on the basis that their authors have disagreeable views or a penchant for exaggeration, half the shelves in the politics aisles would be empty.
It’s the latest in a long string of demands for censorship, and yet again the noisy activists have won.
Powell’s could do with the defiant attitude of the many radical Left-wing bookshops that went before it. It has succumbed to the pressure of a handful of young Antifa activists, brandishing their angry Tweets, and has announced that it will not stock Ngo’s book on its shelves and “will not promote it”. Whether you’re Ngo’s biggest fan or think he’s an opportunist with dodgy politics, you should be worried about these attacks.
Bookshops are independent businesses, and can stock whatever they like – but when angry mobs call the shots about what we are and aren’t allowed to read, we have a problem.
Stop Press: A row has broken out in Southall over the decision to rename Havelock Road “Guru Nanak Road” after the founder of Sikhism. Apparently, Sir Major General Henry Havelock, whom the road was named after, is steeped in the sins of British colonialism.
Stop Press 2: Gay roles should be given to gay actors, says Russell T. Davies. Does that mean straight roles have to be given to straight actors too?
“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 who is a health sciences researcher has done a handy summary of the conclusion of the study we linked to on Tuesday: “Effects of mask-wearing on the inhalability and deposition of airborne SARS-CoV-2 aerosols in human upper airway”.
Whilst the size of the majority of respiratory particles are ≈5 to 10 micrometers, the study by Xi et al found a typical 3-layer surgical mask or a zero filtration mask (e.g cloth mask) does not prevent inhalation of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles ≤3 micrometers in size, which is equivalent to ≤3000 nanometers in size. As the size of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles are approximately only 100 nanometers, use of surgical face masks cannot protect an individual from inhaling SARS-CoV-2 virus and therefore, it is unlikely that masks protect the wearer against aerosol infection from SARS-CoV-2. Worryingly, zero filtration (cloth) masks were found to increase deposits of SARS-CoV-2 virus on the face and upper airway. Given that the Xi et al study was conducted as a tightly controlled experiment and the mask “etiquette” of the general population is sub-optimal at best, it is almost impossible to conclude that surgical masks, particularly ‘trendy’, patterned zero filtration cloth masks, have any benefit as part of the suite of Covid policy measures currently being inflicted on the public by the UK government. If Boris Johnson was actually following the science he would withdraw the mask mandate immediately. It’s particularly galling with the news that all major supermarkets are now enforcing a mask mandate for shoppers and social media appears to have gone wild with delight, with the few who object to this new ‘happy shoppers policy’, being told by the gleeful masses that they should stay at home if they are unable to wear a mask. I can only conclude on that point that we have reached new, unparalleled levels of discrimination of people with illness or disability who are unable/struggle to wear a mask.
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.
Stop Press: Dr Ramsey, PHE’s Head of Immunisation, was asked by the Science and Technology Committee what Britain should do if the vaccines proved ineffective. Her answer? Focused protection.
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.
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…
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Really?
Second!
Yes Gold!
As real as this dystopian nightmare/ “dusk-’til-dawn-mare!
More bullshit from PHE/SAGE/BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55651518
Past Covid-19 infection may provide ‘months of immunity’
In other words: this shit is going on forever, suckers!
How can they know since only a handful worldwide have ever been thought to have been reinfected?
Have they been playing with their models again ?
If its Sage or PHE or BBC, playing with their balls probably.
Pay particular attention to the article above regarding lockdown in China.
6 reinfections in the whole world=’some’
Course it is going on for ever, China needs it for a while yet.
And apparently they (WHO and others) are saying that even if you do have the vaccine, you can still infect others i.e. it’ll always be here. Just watch Dr Simone Gold talking about vaccines in this vid. She really hits the nail on the head ….https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=xFntHpk1uok
Maskerades: yesterday, the odd bloke next door, who lives in what resembles an airless tomb with his mother-(windows and blinds permanently closed)-emerged and caught me out.
Usually I manage to avoid them, but every now and then, I fail.
He looked like a bank robber; swathed in black , cap pulled down, black mask pulled right up, black bomber jacket.
What a thoroughly sinister sight; OK, I think he’s peculiar at the best of times, but this mass masking is entirely unsettling.
To state the obvious ,it’s disrupted normal social encounters and must be a heaven sent opportunity for would be criminals.
Doesn’t sound like the sort of bloke one would ever want any social intercourse with. Have you ever seen his ma? Is she allowed out?
She is, but she’s as bad; she thinks the sun shines out of his nether regions and spent many months trying to manipulate me into some kind of hook up with said Norman-aka Shrek.
Gruesome Twosome! No friends, spend most of their time shut in the tomb,apart from a few forays past my living room window.
She’s in a rocking chair…
His name wouldn’t be Norman Bates, would it? and are you sure that his mother is still alive?
You could always ask to take a shower at his place.
It’s what I call him funnily enough’ He and Ma have been keeping tabs on me for the past 9 years, in the deluded hope that I would be the answer to his fantasies.
No chance!!!
I tend to avoid men especially who are wearing masks like the plague. Especially if they’re wearing those black ones, in casual clothing and wearing a hat/beanie or have their hoodie pulled up.
Sorry to sound horribly snobbish and judgemental but if they’re in that get up to me I suspect they’re either a potential mugger or commit other types of crime.
Mr Bart was nearly mugged a few years’ ago and of course the police couldn’t help because he couldn’t describe what they look like. Why is that so? No prizes for guessing why.
I tend to look down politely but unsuccessfully hiding a smile, like “tsk, a strapping young man like that, scared of a tiny virus.”
I’ve had the same thought as well.
I was reminded of that meme that was circulating around the time of VE Day where you had “1940 – facing certain death” and photos of those RAF aces taken presumably before they took on the Luftwaffe and into certain death. Side by side was “2020 – fear over a virus with a 99.8 survival rate” and a photo of a soyboy wearing a mask and cowering behind a chair.
We should probably circulate that meme and distribute it among the men.
My (obviously unmasked) son says ‘Hello’ loudly to anyone he sees while walking round our village especially if they avoid him.
Agree Bart.
sounds like my current mode of dress. I know it makes people uncomfortable in the supermarket but I didn’t make the rules
To me, and I’m a bloke, men in black masks look like rapists.
… and (including?) police.
‘a heaven sent opportunity for would be criminals.’ – yup, that is the government summed up nicely!
The care home worker who has had vaccine X2 and says
‘I hope this is all over soon’
I tell her that whitty has already said that the vaccine doesn’t mean you can stop wearing masks.
‘I’m alright with the mask actually, it’s not being able to go anywhere in the evening’
Not much future for her.
To breathe fresh air is a crime
We are all criminals now
The government’s message is: Stay at home. Compliance will of course ensure more and more people are vitamin D deficient, compromising their immune systems. One might almost think they want us to be unhealthy.
Correct. The more deaths the better for them. This whole project is about culling the population because that’s what Bill Gates has ordered!
Isn’t going very well so far according to ONS.
ONS is looking the rear view mirror. LS and its readers were making the same mistake in Spring when ONS was indicating relatively normal mortality early on but this was before the bulk of registrations had been processed.
Looking forward, even ‘they’ will have a job at keeping the figures up, as nearly all respiratory deaths disappear as Spring approaches.
Though they still have the 0.5m daily PCR tests and the 28-day death rule to rely on.
The next fallacy will be that Covid deaths are falling in line vaccination coverage.
I think you mean before tens of thousands of the elderly and infirm were kicked out of hospital at three hours notice.
ONS are still looking in their rear view mirror at 15560 lorry drivers in Kent, of whom only 36 tested positive, while the mutant ‘Kent covid’ virus was raging through the county.
I don’t know about you, but I went straight out and bought myself a lorry and a year’s supply of Yorkie bars.
Mark Twain refers
Did you hear Dr John someone, a pathologist, say the vaccine (presumably Pfizer) can trigger positive results in Covid tests? Seems highly likely to me given the nature of what the mRNA vaccine does.
Per Forbes (NOT renowned as a nexus of conspiracy theorists): Forbes: America’s Biggest Owner Of Farmland Is Now Bill Gates.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/01/14/americas-biggest-owner-of-farmland-is-now-bill-gates-bezos-turner/
Good to see someone else shares this belief. I’ve thought for a long time that they want an unhealthy population as this makes large numbers of people dependent and of course there’s no money to be made in healthy people either.
If one gives credence to the putative Rockefeller document, as read out by the Ghanaian president, (who isn’t the Ghanaian president but could be an actual Govt official), then that was an intentional or at least anticipated outcome.
It was remarkably prescient (and is becoming increasingly so) for something that surfaced as early as June…
Hence why this was never about health. Anyone who still think it is, is delusional and brainwashed.
This is large scale Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.
Local Live excitedly informs that Covid deaths in the Region have exceeded 600.
Followed by ‘Grim UK total of 100,000’ and ‘Concern about new Brazil mutant’.
If that hasn’t scared the headline skimmers to death later articles inform us that reported deaths at the Major Regional Hospital for the past few days have been 1, 2, 3, 0, 1, 0(Wednesday).
Three of the four NHS Trusts in the County have covids occupying less than 10% of beds which is among the lowest in the country and the main hospital is at 17%.
NHS Overwhelmed by Tsunami of Coronovirus I think not.
Meanwhile there are three separate stories about suicides which are more explicit than they used to be in blaming lockdown as the cause of the victims distress.
Where is thus 100,000 number coming from. We were at 68,000 with covid in December. There is no way we have had 32,000 deaths in Christmas and two weeks into January. Why has Carl Hennighan disappeared, has he been silenced?
It presumably includes Scotland and NI. 100,000 is a nice round scary number for a headline.
The government are again claiming (via the death stats without realising perhaps)that over 60%+ of deaths attributed to COVID are again occurring outside of hospitals. As I have stated before its normally 90% of deaths in hospital. Assuming care homes are for the moment under control to some degree where are these deaths all happening ? hey most likely are all cause deaths which the single doctor is signing off as covid to avoid paperwork and the need for PM’s. This will all come out at the end of this and there will be a lot of guilty parties who have had a hand in this and said nothing. Kept the mouths shut and taken the money.
Today’s edition opens with the rhetorical question: Do the facts matter anymore or is it just a matter of spinning a narrative…? The question is rhetorical because the answer is blatantly obvious. This “crisis” has never been about facts. The “facts” have been selected, and manipulated, and ordered, and ignored, and generally treated as tools in a zero sum game; weapons with which to defeat any opposition, rhetorical devices to justify policy choices. The factual bases to the justifications for the responses to the coronavirus are little more than window dressing. For the responses, far from following “the science” are nothing more than making stuff up. When a House of Commons Select Committee asked for the scientific basis for the two metre social distancing rule, they were told: the precautionary principle. When the same committee later asked Whitty for the evidential basis for the government’s change of position on mandatory face masks, he admitted that the evidence had not changed. The introduction of Lockdown Version One was based, not on facts, but the outcomes of a computer model, a model based on erroneous assumptions, not facts. Before the vote in parliament on Lockdown Version Two, Valance told the nation, “The… Read more »
There is just one figure that has not been manipulated and that is the ONS record of total registered deaths, to my mind this is the key figure to watch. I do not think anyone disputes this figure and yet so many who should know better ignore this figure in favour of the dubious daily scary death figures which are about as believable as a nine pound note.
Yesterday, would be Uberfuhrer Keir Starmer, was wittering on about the escalating death figures and many are claiming things are now as bad as they were in April/May. Ridiculous in week 15 in April we had 22351 deaths in one week against a 5 year average of 10497.
We have seen absolutely nothing like that in recent months and yet most do not, or choose not, to do this very simple and obvious cross check.
You are correct. The Office for National Statistics’ record of registered deaths is both valid and reliable. However, the promoters of the coronavirus crisis narrative do not base their justifications on those figures. Indeed, other than for a brief period (end of April), they have behaved as though those figures do not exist. The reason for this neglect of the registered death figures is obvious: they do not support the narrative that the coronavirus is an unprecedented public health crisis.
The ONS data is good for deaths. The Zoe data is good for community infections ( though it will pick up unrelated sniffles also). I generally assume the NHS and PHE are just making stuff up.
The ONS figures provide perspective… but of course that doesn’t fit the official narrative. For example this graph for the winter of 2017/18. 1800 to 2000 deaths per day is not unusual…
yes, this all cause mortality is a good figure but includes lockdown related deaths
it may have represented covid deaths in March/April, now you just cant say. deaths are a smidgen above 5 year average but so many denied cancer treatment, mass delusion, locked in homes, stress etc
I am well aware that the coronavirus responses are lethal. They were predictably going to cause more harm than the virus ever could.
The ONS registered death figures are valid and reliable for all cause mortality; they are not valid for cause of death.
Twat Whitty likes to tell us a load of Lockdown deaths are “on the Covid side”. I’d like to tell him a load of Covid deaths are on the Lockdown side. The lockdown-induced suppression of the immune systems of people who are socially isolated, deprived of contact with loved ones and friends, depressed, prevented from pursuing the exercise they love or have lost their jobs means they will be less able to fight off all diseases successfully; that will of course include Covid.
Did you see that shocking bullshit on the bbc, most deaths than WW1
UK Column featured it yesterday: https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-13th-january-2021
AlanG’s cov-hysteric brother also sent it to him with a crowing message that ‘it seems to contradict your figures’ (Alan’s figures had been from the ONS so, not wanting to abandon his little brother, he gamely – yet again – corrected the BBC shite for him with some more real figures.)
Said little brother (aged 67) is an evangelical Christian who is now serving two gods (God and Covid), although we don’t think he recognises this. He seems to rejoice at increasing death figures and stories about his local hospital being ‘overwhelmed’. He has hinted that we will collect our punishment (CV19 cooties) because of our sceptical views. Charming! MW
Sorry about your BIL, Miriam. My brother is also a cov-hysteric. 🙁
You cannot serve both God and Covid.
The churches have chosen Covid.
There is another choice.
Liam Fox MP slated the BBC over that in the Commons yesterday.
Good man!!
So in order to be able to remove recovered patients from hospital and free up beds they are having to stop testing them. An admission by the government that a posituve PCR tests does not mean a person is infectious.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/13/covid-hospital-patients-can-discharged-care-homes-without-test/
And this admission comes at the same time as PHE stating that immunity through catching the virus is actually better than the Oxford vaccine.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9142659/Previous-coronavirus-infection-gives-protection-against-reinfection-Oxford-vaccine.html
Refreshing to see that changes to the unscientific narrative / lies can happen, but why wait so long?
This latest decision does not, of course, imply that frail, elderly people will be dumped in care homes and left to die.
No I think that’s the plan
Yes the unanswered question that could really help here. Did the old folk stuck in their rooms spread the virus or was it the carers and visiting nurses? If you don’t ask hard questions you are going to keep making the same mistakes.
Of course, they would never ever do anything like that.
Re: The stop press item regarding face mask efficiency. The problem with explanations such as that is the everyday man has no concept of such small sizes. They cannot comprehend, therefore, the explanation. I prefer to use a simpler analogy to overcome this.
I like to describe their efficiency at catching the virus in a mask as the same as trying to catch water with a sieve. The penny then seems to drop much easier.
There’s always the confusion about whom face knickers are supposed to protect. No commercial brand, as far as I know, claims that they protect the wearer. Some packaging bears a clear warning that they don’t. Even the Fascist poison propaganda doesn’t make that claim. You are knickered so as to protect everybody else.
How you do this by knickering yourself on a mile-wide, empty beach is still a puzzle to me, but it’s presumably what the knickered person thinks he’s doing. Such selflessness us awe-inspiring.
Or in their car, alone
Baffling
Above and beyond the call of duty, you have to admire them.
The average bed wetter is wearing them because they have no idea how they work, and are only concerned with saving their own arses, screw anybody else. Anyone who tries telling you they are wearing if for your protection, not theirs, is an out and out lier. You can tell, their nose grows and pops out of their mask.
I agree. Even a ‘dandelion’ friend of mine (several PhDs, believes all the bullshit) told me that she is convinced that people are wearing the knickers to protect themselves and not others i.e. It’s pure superstition. This is borne out by the fact that the Danish study was suppressed for so long.
Just because it didn’t look at how masks might protect others doesn’t mean that they do. In fact other studies have shown they don’t. The Danish study was a gold-standard Randomised Control Trial but there have been plenty of others. Look at the sidebar on the blog for some of them.
Yesterday, on ‘Computing Forever’, I saw a flip of Fauci, interviewed last spring, stating very clearly that people should not wear masks because they were essentially useless. They get wet, people finger them all the time etc. We have tried to reason with a couple of old pillocks round here who wear them all the time but to no avail. p.s. It has pissed down with rain/snow here for 2 days so they will be working even ‘better’! MW
It’s a ploy to stop us talking to each other and discussing their evil plans!
The mumblings on 2 masks, if implemented, will certainly be a gag.
It never seems to dawn on people that if you can inhale and exhale through the mask, then I guess the virus will equally easily pass ‘through’ also. Then they will argue it is to stop the droplets when you are sneezing and coughing, apparently always in people’s faces -well surely a good old tissue will address that problem, and more hygenic, and as I am not coughing and sneezing everywhere, why do I need one. I actually haven’t heard anyone cough whilst out in the past 10 months.
I like the asbestos analogy, because that, I think, resonates well. I also use the example of wearing a mask when clearing out really dusty environments and you take the mask off only to see the inside is visibly grubby, and these are not microscopic.
Thinking asbestos, I wonder what nasty ingredients are in many of these ‘surgical’ masks, and the future fallout from inhaling all those micro particles.
It concerns me that so many young people and school children are being forced to wear the masks for many hours of the day. Inhaling the cotton or other fibrous particles is bad enough, but these fibres are covered in the pathogens normal in the mouth and nose and they are being permanently fixed in the lungs. That can’t be good surely.
All correct, but we have to make sacrifices.
The Dr Ted Noel Youtube video very clearly shows this
My mother told me that as her mask was wet when she came back from a walk, this proved that all the droplets (carrying COVID19) were caught.
I tried to explain the concept of nebulisation to her, but as it didn’t fit within the beliefs of the Church of COVID, it just went in one ear and out the other.
https://sewport.com/fabrics-directory/polyester fabric
I started sewing a couple of years ago and had to take a crash course in different fabrics. This is another concern I have had with these facecloth is what most of these things are made from. Polyester is not something I want to wear next to my face and yet all the stretchy ones from China seemed to made of the stuff. It’s the long term harm with zero testing done on the safety of covering your mouth and nose for long periods. Health and safety has gone along with sanity in 2020.
What nasty ingredients? Many masks are made from Polypropylene (sheds micro fibres into wearers lungs) plus use Ethylene Oxide; a gas used for sterilizing the mask which is carcinogenic. Also other plastics. I believe these masks are actually dangerous.
And the mask zealots always cite doctors conveniently forgetting that they don’t wear all the time, they’re only worn in temperature controlled environments, changed regularly and they don’t touch their faces.
Not to mention that the main reason they wear them (as well as those shower cap type hats) is to stop dribbling or get hair strands over the patient that they’re operating on. Many doctors and surgeons even dentists are ceasing to wear them while carrying out procedures.
Yes a lot of comments overlook that gaping wound the surgeons are working in. Haven’t seen that in a shop in all my life.
Indeed. Given that many of the zealots do watch medical dramas such as Holby City, Casualty, ER or Gray’s Anatomy they would have twigged that there is a reason why doctors only wear them on the operating room.
And yet even with that not wearing a mask in surgery reduces the overall infection transmission. It’s because of the sterile field and the regular practices to keep it sterile.
There were two studies on mask wearing surgeons during operations that showed bacterial infections were lower when surgeons didn’t wear masks.
I think this is also why many dentists are no longer wearing them.
These deluded fools who spout “stay safe, be kind, save lives, protect others blah blah” are at core (what drives them) and on the surface (how they behave) utterly selfish. And of course, they project their selfishness onto others like us.
I think that the ‘protecting others’ narrative about masks has been set up precisely because it is very very difficult to disprove. The Danish study has pretty much done that for the claim that they protect the wearer. And there are many data analyses regarding mask mandates that strongly suggest that they are damn useless, but nevertheless, because they are so many possible variables in whole society/region comparisons, it is almost impossible for these analyses to ‘prove’ that masks are useless. So, those who want to simply ignore these analyses. It is good to see more studies focusing on masks actually being harmful (eg recent German one).
And it’s why they favour the bollox droplet theory because it can be spun as supporting mandatory masking. I never once saw anyone open-mouthed coughing during the first lockdown when I was out shopping everyday. But still the virus was spreading extremely fast.
And such unintelligence is downright depressing.
Mosquito/chicken wire.
I find this hard to believe as viruses are so small they cannot be detected even by microscope. Even a ten year old child is capable understanding this.
That’s true but faced with relentless propaganda and emotions in this shit show, people’s thinking skills and sense of perspective has gone out of the window.
But in that case, you are effectively catching the fruit, not the water.
Viruses can only be seen in any way with an electron microscope.
Which tells you how tiny they are and therefore how absurd is the notion that a face covering can prevent transmission.
Newsflash: the invisible killer virus gets in through your eyes.
It has emerged that the public will be instructed to take additional measures to save lives and protect the NHS. a source said “Be kind and save the NHS by avoiding infection and thereby becoming a threat to the exhausted, heroic front line doctors and nurses: it’s essential to wear another mask covering your eyes”. Double-masking will be new government guidance, ministers are saying. One source said “Don’t worry, this won’t affect the public’s ability to see what’s going on out there…news outlets like the BBC will keep the British people updated.”
Especially when you are driving!
SAGE is suggesting the new regulations don’t go far enough. A source was quoted as saying: “Radical measures are required now. Only gouging out of eyes will stop this terror virus. If it saves one life it will be worth it.”
I have been struck by the lack of numeracy of many people, and I was no maths whizz kid at school myself.
I did post this earlier, but it should be instant penny dropping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BslFT9cKZwc
Goodun, my fave so far it like hiding from a guy with a high powered rifle behind a chain link fence.
I believe face masks while unable to stop you catching covid acts as a filter reducing viral load.Less virus less severe illness this is why I and fellow asthmatics can walk round Tesco without a face mask safe in the knowledge that if we do catch covid it won’t be too severe. It’s like Cockrofts follies installed on the nuclear reactor that set alight in 1957 at was then Windscale now Seascale. At the time of construction Cockroft was criticised for insisting that filters be put in the chimneys. Fortunately because of Cockrofts forward thinking the UK was saved from a major disaster.
I’m afraid any reduction in viral load does you no good as studies show a mask is still ineffective.
You say reduction in viral load makes no difference if that is the case then why do healthcare workers who were exposed to high viral loads the first to die. As we both know covid is mostly a disease of the old and sick yet many healthcare workers have suffered badly. I am talking pre-ppe since ppe became widely used healthcare workers are not suffering or dying.
Many healthcare workers are low paid, morbidly obese and malnourished.
They also work shifts, which is physically stressful and depletes the body of vitamins and minerals.
It’s incredible how many nurses are obese. Giving them free takeaway meals doesn’t help anyone.
They probably died because most healthcare workers will have had the the flu vaccine which set people up for a very bad Covid experience.
BS. In fact, there is a suggestion that masks nebulise the droplets, making them smaller and easier to be absorbed when a person breathes in (as someone with asthma (me also) you will probably have heard of a nebuliser – which converts a liquid medicine into a mist, to make it easier to absorb. This is the same principal).
As a person with asthma, I am happy to walk around Tesco (and everywhere else) maskless as wearing a mask makes it very uncomfortable for me to breath.
For some time I’ve been thinking covid is spread by airborne particles and not as droplets as was once thought. It would explain why it seems so easily to catch. Maybe your right about masks but I believe that with everyone wearing masks acting as filters the viral load is low thus explaining why us asthmatics are not suffering as much. The problem with masks then is you must be careful when taking them off.
Easy to catch? You seem to be equating positive PCR tests with actual illnesses.
A very common supposition.
You’ve (deliberately) got it the wrong way round. There’s never been any hard evidence droplets are the main transmission route. The government has backed the theory simply because it apppears to support mandatory masking.
The best thing to do with masks is not opening the packet.
Absolute 77th BS. And if you can’t wear one what do you think it’s doing to the population. Lots of people are undiagnosed asthmatic or developing lung conditions without realising it.
Mask people fiddle with the area around the nose – that’s a great way to pick up a viral load.
Next you’ll be posting it’s good for children to miss out on school: builds self-sufficiency.
I’ve had enough of people like you ruining the lives of everyone else.
From the stop press item above: “It’s particularly galling with the news that all major supermarkets are now enforcing a mask mandate for shoppers and social media appears to have gone wild with delight, with the few who object to this new ‘happy shoppers policy’, being told by the gleeful masses that they should stay at home if they are unable to wear a mask. I can only conclude on that point that we have reached new, unparalleled levels of discrimination of people with illness or disability who are unable/struggle to wear a mask”. It is about time we reminded the editors of the online press that while they happily moderate comments that do not follow their narrative, they have a responsibility to remove those comments which commit an offence under law. I posted this last night but it got lost in the fog of the 2000+ comments, so I repost it again. I shall be actively flagging and reporting comments that fall into this catagory from now on. ————– Those who do not wear face masks in stores are afforded legal protection of their right not to do so under the Health Protection, Coronavirus regulations, specificallly the exemptions to… Read more »
If we consistently reported those editors for hate crime would they change their policy?
No we all know they wouldn’t change. Just carry on shopping maskless and be prepared to deal robustly with Daily Mail covidians. They are usually middle aged women and will respond kindly when you tell them to fuck off.
These people making comments online must spend all their time indoors since even in these days of enhanced maskery I encounter no diffuculties with either Security, fellow shoppers or shop staff.
Today Mrs R was asked by another customer in the takeaway cafe, which we patronise very regularly, where her mask was. My wife is a gentle soul and asked the woman (it’s always a woman) if she was officially authorised to ask. The woman confirmed that she wasn’t and so Mrs R told her to that it would be better for her to mind her own business in future. The woman then muttered inaudibly, behind her mask and retired from battle. Perhaps as well, that that me and the dog were outside, as things might well have become rather more heated. I have a very basic vocabulary, when I get angry.
I’ve borrowed this, edited for relevance to context and put it on Mumsnet to rattle them, and the mask nazis who populate their pages.
who do we report them to? Police? Letters to the editor?
Thank you. I would suggest first port of call is to flag the comment stating why you object to it as you feel that it demonstrates a prejudice based on disability for which you have legal protection. That constitutes a hate incident. For more serious comments, inciting others to “take action or challenge” they can be reported to the police, who are obliged to record it as a hate crime.
Well said!!! Have copied and saved onto a Word document. Might use this as a reply to those idiots on Arsebook still sprouting this rubbish.
Hate crime also covers belief not just religion. If the instigation of policies that are based on unverified and hence unsafe data is being used to force someone to wear a talisman of that belief then this is forcing an unsubstantiated belief system on someone.
Now this could be applied to anything but the case is stronger when there are comparable standards. As I keep pointing out if your water was delivered to you without following safe standards but used much larger uncertainties and wasn’t audited, even if the water “looked” safe enough you’d be up in arms.
What we are seeing here is the bypassing of standard safety regulations because of “muh science” when it’s really “muh hypothetical musings”. Strangely I don’t see the economy being strangled because the universe may be an extra 400,000 years old.
“Agree and amplify” is one way of riposting. “Yeah I saw some bloke with a white stick trying to bring a DOG into the supermarket, do these people not care about spreading disease, if they can’t leave their filthy animal outside for ten minutes they should stay the f home.”
Very good. A job in SPI-B awaits if you want it. 🙂
I would like to complain and report a hate crime incident in your store. I am transgender. I identify as a woman called scarlet. I was wearing a full face mask and a plastic shield and TWICE your your check out operator called me SIR. How very dare you!
Yep that should get it moving!!
Over the course of the past 10 months, I’ve devised a Fun Game, and any number can play.
It’s called, ‘Guess the Agenda Contributor’, and is ever so simple – just cross-reference the names of the most hysterical Covidarians with their (almost inevitable) participation at the annual convocation of the Great and Good at Davos.
Of course, Matt Hancock is in there.
As also, naturally, is Professor Ferguson, Jacinda Ardern, and a WEALTH of other renowned governmental and media zealots.
The latest being Yoriko Koike.
So, go ahead, roll the dice.
Spin the wheel.
…if they’re screaming for lockdowns, they’re almost certain to turn up.
(Strangely enough, neither Piers Morgan nor Dan Andrews are in there, but I imagine even Klaus maintains SOME standards of entry.)
Perhaps the clowns running the show have realised that the support is just not there this time, and that none of this can happen without consent and self-policing, so have graciously decided not to further extend the restrictions.
Just read that government are going to ban all travel from South America due to the new Brazilian strain.They are insane or this is a plot to finish off the airlines
Not just the airlines.
CHILDREN, when caught in a lie, will often panic and keep lying. They are so afraid of the consequences of their actions, they convince themselves that, as long as they keep denying it, no one can punish them. As the lies mount up, and they become increasingly aware of the severity of the situation, they will tell bigger and bigger lies. They even start BELIEVING their own lies. They will say ANYTHING to avoid admitting that they told a terrible lie in the first place. They have no way out. Almost every MP, almost every journalist, and members of SAGE are those deceitful children. And their lies are costing lives. Their lies are DESTROYING lives. Their lies are making monsters out of ordinary people. The paranoid, hysterical, brainwashed mob are being inculcated with the message, the biggest lie of all, which is: UNMASKED PEOPLE WHO ARE MEETING THEIR FRIENDS ARE KILLING YOU. The lie is so big, so hideous, the only thing they can do is continue. We KNOW where this goes. We’ve seen it before. The lies get worse. And where does it end? We must all act NOW. Write to your MP. Keep writing the same message every… Read more »
Done will be interesting to see the response.
https://youtu.be/EHAuGA7gqFU
Add this video for good measure. Bafta award winning short from 2011
Gentle let-down – Maria has no humanity left.
I use her last reply to me to stick kindling on as I light the woodburner.
🙂
Mine will reply “Thanks for sending me your views. I’m afraid I don’t have that information”
Anyone looked into filing an official complaint into the “whistleblowing” of tax payer funded Ferguson et al?
As part of “advisory” teams they are abusing their positions by going to the press, on an hourly basis. We shouldn’t even know the names of these loons, let alone be listening to their personal views. They are there to advise the government.
It’s always struck me that it is most improper for them to do thus. I remember Witless and Unbalanced in a press conference saying they don’t do politics. I think that was June 2020. I don’t know who to complain to or how, but I’d do it.
Of course they may secretly have the approval of government. SAGE can say the things the government want to do but don’t want to be caught saying so. Plausible deniability.
Great idea!
The complaint about Whitty should go here, first:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health-and-social-care/about/complaints-procedure
and then, if the response is not satisfactory, here:
https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/
If you copy your complain on here, no doubt many will use the words, slightly altered, and follow suit.
Official Secrets Act?
Malfeasance in Public Office ?
They are doing the governments bidding so that is why they are allowed to broadcast their scaremongering.
I want to know the names of these loons. Can’t have one of them marrying a granddaughter can we ? 🙂
On fire this morning, NN! The force is strong in you. Penny completely dropped now? The only way out is OUT! “Stay home” is the most evil message ever pushed on an unsuspecting public.
Imagine, if and when the time comes, we are allowed to vote in another national election. Imagine having the stomach to vote either Tory or Labour.. don`t think so matey !
Neither. They both deserve electoral annihilation for having betrayed the British people and destroyed the fabric of this country.
both should be designated domestic terrorist organisations
Exactly. And their leaders Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer put on trial for treason.
Nuremberg style
Nearly 20 years ago Morrissey was singing of “a time when the English are sick to death of Labour and Tories…” It might be upon us.
But what else is there?
What do people think about the Social Democrats? Just a reminder: they were originally split off from the Labour party in desparation at the policies of the trade union dominated govt of Callaghan, Castle et al. Later they were absorbed into the Liberals as the Lib-Dem part , very left wing, but a minority seems to have remained as Soc-dems.. Looking at some of the Soc -Dem policies , although still left of centre they seem far more sensible that which we see from the Tories (for whom I have voted all my life) and Labour. I have not looked at all their policies yet , but the one about Covid seems quite sensible: COVID-19 PANDEMICThe Covid-19 virus is endemic, has spread globally and will endure. Consequently, public policy must be sustainable, comprehensible and relatively stable. The government’s erratic ‘stop-go’ approach to opening and closing society has failed to suppress the virus but has, instead, contributed to a growing state of public fear. Successive lockdowns wrongly prioritise Covid-19 deaths at the expense of all other – possibly greater – categories of mortality and threaten to undermine the liberties and embedded freedoms of the British people. Further, they risk causing a… Read more »
The SDP were about-lockdown from the start. I hope they can run candidates everywhere. I might get in touch.
https://sdp.org.uk/new-declaration/
Communitarian. Warning right there! Avoid.
https://www.thoughtco.com/communitarianism-definition-and-theories-5070063
https://www.ukcolumn.org/community/shop/books/the-deliberate-dumbing-down-of-america-kindle-edition/
*anti
I checked them out before Christmas and wasn’t impressed. They sound a bit greenwoke. Be worth seeing if they’re vaccine fanatics.
I joined as a follower because they were anti-lockdown, but was shocked to find they approved of muzzles.
if its anti-lockdown I’ll vote for it in May – whatever other policies it has
Which is why the elections may have to be delayed, pencils are dangerous vectors of disease.
An anti-lockdown party might do well, if they allow elections to happen at all. It might be a matter of how long-running this thing is. It might be yesterday’s potatoes by 2022, perhaps replaced by some new neurosis like global warming or whatever.
No it won’t be anything else, Covid is going to be a long runner.
If government ministers want to get sacks full of cash from Bill Gates, then being utterly corrupt will be a great help.
Andy Ngo was a little more than ‘beaten up’, he suffered brain damage. The leader of The Proud Boys is of Cuban heritage, not that that would stop him being ‘right wing’ of course.
Indeed. And The Proudboys have racial equality policy on their website!
‘Proudboys’ are just as much establishment creatures as antifa and blm.
Gruppenfuhrer Hancock clearly is too stupid to have any sense of irony, he is currently gushing on about reforms to the mental health act;
https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1349386151346499585
At the same time the Gov have nudged shops into this face-mask frenzy and created a nightmare world for us all. My wife is more easy going about masks than me but she has now said let’s stop going shopping and just do click and collect and avoid all shops. We are both finding ‘zoom’ meetings increasingly bizarre, frustrating and mind numbingly inhuman. I have had mental health problems and do manage a score on the autism spectrum but I am now worried about my wife’s state of mind, we have a large garden and a large nature reserve on our doorstep and spend a lot of time in them both, I think we could end up as the mad deranged couple in the woods!
So much for mental health reforms!
You will be the sane, normal couple in the woods. Stay with Nature. She is sane.
Had a quick look – actually, on face of it, appears quite positive. (Will have to read actual white paper). Of course what it actually means (as it was based on a report pre-Covid) is that you will have more choice about your treatment if you a detained under the MHA than if you don’t have mental health problems!
I’d worry that the Mental Health Act will be used to strengthen their ability to force dissidents into having the jab – after incarcerating them of course.
I will keep going to the shops without a mask and will make a scene if there are problems.
A stricter lockdown? Knowing the chumps in charge, I’d say it’s a fairly good possibility.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55620356
Indonesia coronavirus: The vaccination drive targeting younger people
what could possibly go wrong?
I don’t know about targeting very old and ill people, as I suspect it might be the vaccine that actually puts someone like that through the pearly gates, not the disease itself. Occasional reports of people dying shortly after vaccination may be an example of that.
We’re in a war but not with a virus- 21st century wars just use psychological terror employing a seasonal virus as the object of our terror while demoralising us to the point that we’ll accept anything – could be coming from Russia (Cummings and Starmer both have Russian connections) or China and, whichever it is, their main targets are the US and the UK ..
If you’re a political leader, in charge of a dysfunctional system, lockdowns are like just so hot right now.
The problem isn’t China, it’s Johnson, Gove and Bill Gates. Hancock is just there as an Aunt Sally.
If they are in the street for real when a BBC journo comes up to them…. I reckon they want to be out there and not locked up.
Tracy’s reply to her GP’s survey is one that should be circulated widely and sent to all GP practices. As someone who is an immigrant, I have always been befuddled about the postcode restrictions with regards to registering with a GP. Why can’t I register with one near my work? Perversely it would be more convenient to travel to one near my work than here in my neck of the woods where the lack of local amenities also extends to no nearby GP. Since moving to London, I have not registered with a GP and in fact I’ve boycotted them. I have resolved to keep myself as healthy by eating sensibly, relying on good old Mother Nature and supplements. The GPs I’ve encountered in my previous cities of residence leave a lot to be desired. As for Costco’s claim that they’re private property and can set the rules, that’s only true to a point. They can ask anyone with the 3Ds – drunk, stoned on drugs or disruptive to leave. But “private property” claims does not extend to discriminating against people with disabilities and that includes being unable to wear a mask. I hope to God someone sues them and… Read more »
I too have received the patient survey which is being conducted by Ipsos/Mori. What a complete and utter waste of money at a time like this. I rarely need to see a GP and other than a brief conversation over the phone in November about an eye infection, (I do not wear a mask), have not used the practice which happens to be excellent for over 18 months. I did consider venting my spleen in response but in the end dumped the survey into the bin reasoning that my views would not reach those who needed to see them. I feel that non-participation sends stronger message. I now get regular text messages to complete the survey which I ignore and delete.
My husband received the paper survey – shredded. He then received a text – deleted.
I have received an invitation this week to get a flu jab – shredded and an invitation to a health MOT – shredded. We couldn’t trust the NHS less now, despite several close relatives being front line workers.
I remember that documentary. He was a successful business man brimming with ideas. In the end he just gave up because “we don’t do it that way” was considered a reasonable answer to any attempted efficiency and the obstruction was off the scale.
Unlike you I will go for a mammogram and cervical smear. I won’t have anything to do with their MOT though. I can almost guarantee I would be pushed statins at the very least.
I know I’m mostly responsible for this myself but I had lost a lot of weight through careful and sustainable changes over 3 years. Lockdown has seen a lot of that come back on because I eat when I’m depressed. I don’t need to be told I’m overweight, I just want my life back to start tackling it again
And HRT; many will disagree with me, but, I’ve refused it consistently, along with all the various women’s screenings, and never regretted it.
Truly awful side effects from pill- prescribed for irregular cycle in my late teens- and since then have said ‘no thank you’ to any suggestion of the pill when younger and HRT since the big M.
As my late mum advised, the menopause is not an illness; best to see it through, albeit with suitable remedies if needed.
I do fully accept that many women swear by HRT and I appreciate their reasons.
The alternatives are plentiful and benign.
I found a direct correlation between sugar and menopausal symptoms. The more sugar the worse the symptoms.
They were money spinners. Massive ones. They are all off patent now and largely made by low cost Indian generic companies.
The Health MOT is an absolute waste of time
I won’t have one. I say refuse every invitation along with offers of flu vaccine, and shortly, the many- splendoured Covid vaccine.
Don’t want it; don’t need it.
I’m increasingly sick if the various invitation letters that land on my doorstep with increasing regularity once you reach a certain age. The ones that begin with ‘an appointment has been made for you’ really enrage me. I’ve opted out of each one of them but it was a painstaking process and caused me a lot of inconvenience. Even then the opt out isn’t permanent as they start hassling you again after a few years.
The recent flu vaccination letter was the final straw for me which I returned unopened and the box ticked addressee no longer at this address. I also put moved abroad on the envelope. I made hoping this will generate at FP69 form and removal from my GPs list.
I had a company medical several years ago. Got quite twitchy when I noticed the nurse taking a blood sample had a red pentagram tattoo on her forearm. They live ! 🙂
I never go to any NHS invites for screening, healthy woman checks or vaccines either. It is my intention to die of natural causes not side effects from big pharma’s ‘cures’ and dangerous screening devices.
IPSOS Mori polls are also rigged like the YouGov ones and half the time they’re time wasters too. Mr Bart and I used to do surveys for them until we decided that they were a waste of time.
I let rip on my survey. Even before this lunacy it was next to impossible to get an appointment with a GP of choice, even if prepared to wait 6 weeks. In 2019 I was asked to try a new drug by my GP and I didn’t want to take it but he asked me to try it. It meant I had to make an appointment for a few weeks’ time as it can affect the kidney function. I could not get an appointment so complained to the Practice Manager. I was then bullied, hassled and intimidated for 6 months, threatened with expulsion from the Practice and called a liar. Finally, they mumbled about their ‘misremembering’ but I’d had enough (several registered letters which always arrived on a Saturday morning and wrecked my weekend and mounting threats) and pursued my complaint. The Practice Manager left suddenly, they added exactly what I asked them to add to my notes which proved I had told the truth and they had lied. No apology. The whole incident left me shattered. The Ipsos/Mori survey bore no resemblance to the reality of medical care which was abysmal before this tyranny and non-existent now. I received… Read more »
Disgraceful! I hope you can change practices.
It is not about the virus, it is about undermining their control. We cannot be allowed to show the sheeple an alternative to the fear.
Well said, Bart.
Not wishing fo intrude and please smack me down if necessary, but is your skin of a darker shade than the average Brit’s, and if so, do you think this makes a difference to the way you are treated?
I’m of the Yellow tinged variety and oddly the notion that people of the yellow variety are docile seems to be open season to be bullied. I did wonder if they would have dared had I been black (regardless of gender) or a man over 6 feet built like Bruce Willis from Die Hard.
or fairly small like Bruce Lee or Jet Li …
That too. Had they been paying attention, the moral of those films is never underestimate the little guy.
Or Biker….
I’ve always envisaged him as 7′ tall, hairy, and with a blue face …
That us certainly how the sheeple are bleating.
Did you see the computer reconstruction in the DM yesterday of the effects of one person coughing in a supermarket. What a joke – a big cloud emanated from this ‘person ‘, supposedly crossing 2 aisles. So with this imagery now firmly etched in every bedwetter’ s mind, one non mask wearer could infect a whole supermarket if he has a minor splitter over the condiments aisle.
My irritation is, that if masks are so damned effective and necessary, then what are the maskies worried about – wear two if they are that scared.
As a smoker, coughing in public is now quite a different ballgame. 🙂
If “masks” were effective, we’d have been told to wear them long ago. The fact that the regulations just insist on “face coverings” tells you that they were never intended to be taken as anything more than a symbol of our subservience.
Those that resist the dubious pleasures of the mask are likely the same awkward people who won’t take kindly to being injected with liability free and almost certainly genocidal vaccines.
Cajoling people into wearing masks is also prepping them to accept the lethal Covid-19 injections. Difficult times will soon get very much worse.
I’m still the only bare faced heretic in the local Morrison’s Bart, but notice that some gags are now worn just below the nose.
Says it all really.
As to the latest nonsensical bans on take aways here in Sturgeonia; pouring with rain as usual, so how many of the regulars at our local Greggs, still open thankfully, wait in line outside?
Her Holiness of Holyrood has fallen prey to power-addicted-delusion- syndrome:(I’ve just made that up).
Goes with the zeitgeist-control by take away the number you first thought of, add the square root of minus one, touch up with some public hand wringing and emoting and bingo!
More tiers for fears.
Everytime I read the insanity emanating from Holyrood, I thank the Lord we are out of Scotland. My one regret is that father-in-law is still stuck there and he’s sure as hell fed up with the whole thing.
Your mention of Gregg’s reminds me of my local Wenzel’s, it was raining yesterday and everyone just huddled inside and the staff pretty much ignored us not following social distancing.
I’ve just walked past Gregg’s and it seems that common sense has prevailed there as well.
They’ve provided excellent friendly service throughout; no fuss about masks and many workers call in for early breakfast food and hot drinks.
Ditto with the Gregg’s here in London and they tend to be busy.
Another one that’s good with common sense and friendly service is Caffe Nero – no fuss about masks and social distancing, take cash and happily stamp your loyalty card.
Yep, Cafe Nero were the only place I could find at Victoria station still taking cash.
“Power addicted delusion syndrome” – that’s a great phrase and one we should all use from now on when talking of the evil Sturgeon.
Pleased you like it; I’m convinced that she’s lost all sense of proportion, determined as she is, to out do Boris- whatever it takes- and to pursue her increasingly inconsistent agenda of breaking up the UK.
PADS for short? Hmm… maybe not, I don’t like the image that’s conjured.
Well said. I’ve always been baffled about that and from my forays to the supermarket, I’m not the only one not wearing a mask and loads of staff aren’t wearing them either and are exempt.
There’s also the lack of basic scientific knowledge. I remember a doctor telling me years ago that half the time, catching a cough, cold or fever is the body saying that you need to rest and if you “caught” it from someone else, your body’s immune system is basically screaming for a rest.
That’s always been my take on it.
Who knew the Sex Pistols were so prescient?
Perhaps we should fill all urban spaces with protesters performing a country wide mass pogo!
At least that’s living.
“I gotta go over the Wall
I don’t understand this thing at all
It’s third rate B-Movie show
Cheap dialogue, cheap essential scenery
I gotta go over the wall”
And blind acceptance is a sign,
Of stupid fools who stand in line
Or as Sarah Connor says “The future’s not set… there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”
Yes, ironic that I as a deeply conservative person now think the ‘punk scum’ who I used to despise are right
Morning,
So, I received an email from Tesco last night:
“To protect our colleagues and customers, we won’t let anyone into our stores who isn’t wearing a face covering, unless they’re exempt in line with government guidance. Please also make sure that you wear your face covering correctly – covering your mouth and your nose.”
I posted a thing on the Sainsbury’s FB page when I received a similar email from them earlier in the week but I can’t find it now.
Does anyone have a ‘template’ they can use to email the CEOs of these companies explaining how they’re discriminating against people and are in contravention of the equality act?
I think these emails are appalling.
Thanks.
I got the same foul message and responded likewise.
Even on private property would not the discrimination laws of the 2010 act still stand, as in you cannot bar say gay couples from a B&B or put a sign in a shop saying ‘no travellers, non-whites’.
Yes it does – they cannot discriminate on their premises. They can however chuck you out if you assault someone or something similar
If the private property line is valid, surely it can work the other way and a premises could ban entry with masks?
Thanks everyone. I’ll try and draft something. Honestly, I can’t get over how illogical all this is, clearly masks don’t work, otherwise why would so called infections be going up? Also, it clearly isn’t being caused by non-mask wearers in shops since in the shops that I’ve been in, our local Sainsbury’s in particular, I’ve been the only person not wearing a mask. I couldn’t believe the public complied with the initial mandate given the lack of evidence supporting their use, now it seems that it’s just taken as fact that they’re effective! This whole situation is completely insane.
Have two theories for this:
Having chatted with staff from different supermarkets, the view on the floor is that mandatory masking has led to people spending less because they don’t want to go around the shops with a snotty rag across their face. There’s also the rise of delivery and click & collect which leads to little to no impulse purchases.
And don’t forget that there are more redundancies and bankruptcies which would influence how people are spending. If you’re at risk with losing your job, business even your home, spending would be reduced to the bare minimum.
Definitely something like that. Also think that they could have ‘threatened’ the supermarkets with something or promised them something in return for policing masks.
The government cannot make the face covering section more draconian without changing the Equalities Act or get approval from parliament and therefore are using these stooges to police it but also to plant incorrect information such as:
Very true. And the government knows how to play the supermarkets because they know that staff are not only poorly paid but also poorly trained.
I’ve come across a lot of this having complained to various retailers and even the Church of England! One retailer tried to fob me off with “we’re living in unprecedented times.” To which I replied “Please don’t use that excuse on me. I work in customer and visitor services and had I used that same excuse against a complaint, my managers would have handed me my P45 and escorted me off the premises.” He crumpled and quickly offered me an apology and compensation.
Supermarkets should realise that the virus should NOT be an excuse for poor service and practising blatant discrimination.
It says almost as much about the ignorance of the docile public, as it does about the criminal government.
“Private property” is dodgy because they can only enforce that for disruptive behaviour. But not discrimination. Can you imagine Tesco refusing entry to a person in a wheelchair or a black person? There would have been hell to pay and “private property” won’t wash.
Actually doesn’t the crown technically own all land? Private property is only a freehold, or a leasehold. In principal therefore you are not able to define your own rules if you create a public setting, (which is what a supermarket is), on your land, because the various Acts to increase equality and decrease discrimination still apply.
To stretch the analogy further, I can’t murder people on my own land, (violating one of the principle tenets of human rights law), simply because it’s private property. I would imagine that, in balancing the rights of the owner, with the various human rights Acts, a lot of account would have to be taken of the fact that the virus poses a very low threat to the owner’s health (unlike say, a person with a machine gun intent), and that, being a commercial establishment essentially inviting people inside, they aren’t permitted to draw the parameters of engagement in such a way as to violate human rights law.
What do others think?
I the rape is rape regardless of where it occurs. Same with theft and murder. What is different about discrimination? No signs at costco declaring you are now on private property. Police in family home without cause or warrant only last week.
Does costco have armed guards? No, because there are UK laws even on their patches of ground.
it is not about property ownership as such. we are all subject to the laws of the land. any owner of property can decide who they allow on to their property . however this is then governed by law – either by statute where certain functionaries can enter regardless or in certain circumstances, or where access cannot be limited where that limitations is discriminating against a person with a protected characteristic.
So Costco can decide on admission or refusal of access if they want as long as it is not due to the person having a protected characteristic. (and these include race, gender, religion, disability etc). so if the reason costco want to ban someone is because they have a disability (viz a condition meaning they cannot wear a face covering) they cannot do it as it would be discriminatory and a breach of the DDA
The sad thing is that many, like myself and my wife are giving up shops, just click and collect, e-bay and our village stores. On one hand we live in an IT global interconnected world on the other hand our actual real lives have become very small, narrow and insular. Some days it seems I speak to the birds and plants in the garden and local woods more than I speak to people.
That’s ok Steve. It’s only when they disagree with you, or start with the abuse, that you’ve got to worry. 🙂
I’d advise against becoming reliant on click-n-collect or, even worse, delivery of groceries. If we can no longer visit a physical shop, and pay with cash if we choose, we put ourselves at risk of a Chinese-style social credit system whereby the government can simply deem that we’ve been too naughty to buy food.
A year ago such a thought would’ve struck me as insane, but after the vicious erosion of our fundamental liberties in 2020 I can see it being increasingly likely. For our ‘own good’ of course. “V For Vendetta”, “12 Monkeys and “Children Of Men” are looking less fictional with each day that passes.
yes and they have started this announcement re masks on the speaker system – when in last night and it was constant every 3 minutes or so – but it did include something like “wear a mask unless you are exempt”. I’m hoping they will stop this in a while as annoying listening to it, but if you were staff it would drive you mad hearing all day.
Hopefully is a short term thing while the hysteria is in overdrive. I think headphones are a must next time to block it out.
God what a crazy world we live in – I despair sometimes!
Our council has bought two way street speakers – to keep in touch with people on the street – and higher quaility cctv – likely facial recognition. Not installed yet but the deal was in the local press several times in the summer last year.
it does confuse me how the state will be able to successfully use all these cctvs and the facial recognition and tracking software kindly supplied at great cost by the Chinese communist party, whilst every one is wearing a mask. Maybe the next step is to require transparent masks. Or maybe that is the time that the masks will suddenly be determined as unnecessary
Probably at some point (don’t ask me when but probably not this year) they will say nobody has to wear masks any more. I am not convinced that they have enough machinery that can recognise the masked, and the state likes to think it is in control. So then they will go back to the “normal” situation where people wearing masks, say in demos, become suspect, rather than engaging in a routine health precaution as at present.
Fairly sure they’re clever enough to scan and identify masked people now. 🙁 I could be wrong …
They can track you by your gait
Thats why it is always good to mince down the street like a gaylord or shuffle like a zombie
Interesting that they changed the narrative from being MEDICALLY exempt to ‘in line with government guidance’
There is no such a thing as MEDICALLY exempt
Also government guidelines specify ‘face coverings’ NOT ‘masks’ as they want us to believe – that means visors, scarfs, and pulling your sweater over your mouth/nose
I haven’t been in a shop since the mask wearing scam started. If any one confronted me, I’d end up in Jail. I have a very short fuse with brainwashed idiots, so I thought it best for myself, the public, my job and my wife that I stay away from said places.
Just read that. It’s like listening to a mirror! I’ve done exactly the same.
The letter from Tesco is legally correct. As long as they state that those who have an exemption are excluded from the policy, then they are not discriminating.
The real fact of the matter is that there is only one person forcing anyone to wear a mask, and that is you. (Not you in particular of course because you are exempt).
The government made the question of exemption one of self determination for a good reason. It is so they could not be accused of contravening Disabilities Act etc. They can argue that if anyone felt they couldn’t wear a mask it was left to the individual to choose between their needs and their conscience. Of course, if they had actually come out and said that, the whole thing would have fallen apart as nobody would have worn one. Luckily for them, the average member of the public hasn’t the intellect or desire to read between the lines of legislation and find out what their entitlements are.
Exactly, said this before. The exemptions are there not to protect those who are exempt, but to protect the government from any litigation when masks cause harm. The pleblic don’t look at the legislation at all, but gov can always say “We told you, you were exempt, so it’s your fault”.
there was a very good letter in comments yesterday written by Hubes.
It was also to Tesco
Never forget that those behind the scamdemic – Gates, Schwab et al. – will be aware and fearful of the many lawsuits emanating from lawyer Reiner Fullmich and the Coronavirus Investigative Committee in Germany, and others internationally. This will now be colouring all their moves as mediated through their puppets in national governments.
Interesting times are developing. There’s nothing like the likelihood of ending up at the International Criminal Court in The Hague to focus minds and put a stop to the lockdowns, which are a major crime against humanity.
Watch as it all slowly develops in the coming weeks and months. They’ll try to gradually wind down, in a vain attempt to save as much face and honour as possible, and then to distance themselves. But they’ll know it’s over and that justice looms.
In the sweet name if Jesus Christ ( no blasphemy intended), I hope you are right.
Much as I hope the same I am very skeptical- what makes you think the ICC is any less corrupt than the rest of the establishment? Gates et al have surely thought of this when they sprung the Great Reset trap- they have done a thorough job of putting all their ducks in a row first. Even if a court ruled against them, you have dozens of major governments already completely committed to this process, still largely supported by a terrified and increasingly psychologically re- engineered population.
Who exactly will enforce the law?
In the USA people with guns……..
And Biden/Pelosi want to go after the NRA.
That is why.
Also, to add the media will just black out reporting on it. I mean 200 million Indians protested this year and not a peep.
Judges at the ICC, and their families, were threatened when prosecuting US citizens.
Does the hague have capital punishment possibilities?
With Biden (Harris, who was rejected by the electorate) in the WH, we can expect the US will be a safe haven for the perpetrators.
“Do the facts matter anymore?” Will, old love, they haven’t mattered since March 2020 when the catastrophic decision was taken to ignore all previous pandemic planning and go down the suppression and lockdown route. All “facts” since then have been massaged and manipulated to support this failed narrative.
We are living with false reality constructed around us and have been for sometime.
Narrative has not failed, it has achieved exactly what was planned.
Some great contributions in todays update. This one line should give anybody who values freedom and democracy, food for thought
Zero Covid is not a strategy for eliminating Covid, it is a plan to reorganise society permanently in the image created by the Chinese Communist Party.
Spot on.
https://twitter.com/Stefraki/status/134949323063996416
Once the idea that lockdown can prevent death was accepted, every death is the government’s fault if there’s no lockdown, or your neighbour’s fault for not following the rules if there is lockdown. A perfect formula for tearing western liberal democracies apart from the inside.
And on cue, that page doesn’t exist! Lot’s of early spring cleaning going on?
I do wonder why they are actually out on the streets if they feel a stricter lockdown is needed, surely it is too dangerous and they’d already be doing their bit.