Today marks the official launch of the website Collateral Global, which aims to “to build an evidence-based understanding of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic response measures to inform future policies and strategies for pandemic preparedness”.
The editorial board contains many faces that will be familiar to Lockdown Sceptics readers, including Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff (the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration), as well as Oxford’s Carl Heneghan and the LSE’s Paul Dolan.
Through a series of themed editions, the website promises “original content highlighting everything from expert opinion and academic summaries to human stories and video diaries”. The theme of the first edition is introductory. It includes an editor’s note from Jay Bhattacharya, an essay on the ethics of lockdown by Oxford’s Alberto Giubilini, and several other contributions.
Bhattacharya doesn’t pull any punches in his editorial, which begins:
In 1915, chemistry lost its innocence when mustard gas poisoned British troops in Ypres, Belgium. Physics lost its innocence in 1945 amongst the radioactive rubble of Hiroshima, Japan. Public health lost its innocence in March 2020 when the world adopted lockdowns as a primary tool to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though he acknowledges, “As with war, not everything that came out of lockdown was bad and our reporting will reflect that truth.” According to the FAQs, the website “has no political or institutional affiliations” – its only allegiance is to “the enduring principles of scientific inquiry”.
Collateral Global is set to provide a range of interesting content, so do check it out.
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I’m in! Signed-up and donated!
I sincerely wish them very well, but I hope they can steer clear of the vaccination controversy and other Ernst Stavro Blofeld conspiracy theories, since that is the path to certain disregard, ever since Andrew Wakefield.If anyone wants to prolong restrictions, shit stirring about vaccine is the best way to accomplish that.
People should be allowed to talk about it, I get what you’re saying and I agree it’s a sure way to have all future things you say instantly written off but that’s surely cause for concern in itself?
Anyone who comes on here and tries to suppress human testimony or the concerns of censored scientists and doctors, is not to be trusted. Why are you here?
I reckon he’s here to represent some semi- establishment pro-vaccine group like the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Edit: by pro-vaccine I mean “let’s lock everyone in their own heads forever by mandating booster shots twice a week for the common cold” pro-vaccine.
Ummm, no, the best way to prolong restrictions is to pander to those who want restrictions. End of.
Agreed. The anti-vaxx brigade are as bad as the mask fanatics. Grasping at straws to push their extreme beliefs.
It’s time to do real science and ask the pertinent questions – like where is the evidence for masking children now that unions are demanding it continues.
We should have the data to verify which way to go now.
Fon – you have been posting controversial content on here for some time now. Personally I think you could be an infiltrator from the ‘other side’, or a troll. Are you passing content from this site onto officials or pro-lockdowners I wonder? If not, what are your reasons for continuing to be a member of this site?
Good for them. The founders of this site decided to do it themselves. They have effectively gone around the “gatekeepers of the news.” We need a lot more entrepreneurs who do the same thing.
“As with war, not everything that came out of lockdown was bad and our reporting will reflect that truth.”
I do hope that this isn’t a sign of genuflection to the bullies.
Covid and lockdowns were not about a war (except in the fevered images propounded by the Covid fanatics).
The parallel is flawed beyond belief (not that I’m into giving war a pass either nen it comes to ethics).
Lockdowns were about a fake medical treatment that was expected by the rational to subvert the necessary harm/benefit equation for medical treatment. Which it did – big time, thus denying essential medical ethics.The use of chemical and nuclear weapons is a totally different set of issues.
I’m struggling to think of anything good that has come from losing over a year of our lives to hysteria.
The only thing I can think of is that of (in April last year) showing how much of a problem is pollution from the internal combustion engine. But it couldn’t provide a solution, beyond demonstrating how much clearer the atmosphere can be.
Please don’t tell me you would support the banning of the internal combustion engine.
You’re showing unhealthy signs of the sort of unhealthy imaginings that I associate with Covid believers, Bill. 🙂 Where did I suggest that? I just pointed up a simple fact.
It’s interesting that there’s a down-vote on that simple incontrovertible fact. I wouldn’t be into equating opposition to the Covid myths with alternative bug-eyed reality denials – even if I was a petrol head!
A totally negligible problem compared to what the ICE has to offer. No good is ever totally free of downsides, but the response of politicians to covid IS totally free of any worthwhile upsides (my above comment holds but is not useful, merely horrific).
Not ‘a negligible problem’ at all just because you don’t like the fact – and the illustration of it was stark and startling, as anyone with reasonable eyesight saw. It was useful to have that information – that’s all I said.
Your remark about the wider issues is irrelevant to my original comment.
and yet the air is still cleaner now than it was 100 years ago…
That’s an amazingly low bar!!!!!!! – and the result of de-industrialization (not great) and moving away from carbon-based fuels in other areas.
The simple factual point I was making is that the internal combustion engine is a major, observable source of atmospheric pollution, and that I was quite surprised at what a difference a reduction could make.
A fair point.
It was nice cycling on quiet roads. It was nice to have five miles of beach entirely to oneself.
But that did nothing to make up for the endless miseries of slavery. A golden shackle is still a shackle.
The only things (linked) that I can think of are how it opened our eyes to quite how evil and uncaring our politicians are, whilst revealing the depths of mindlessness widespread throughout the world’s population. Both are truly terrible revelations, but it is probably better to realise quite how badly the world has changed over the last few decades.
The ATL piece is badly edited, read the item on the site & that comment is put into a context which gives it far less weight.
> Lockdowns were about a fake medical treatment that was expected by the rational
yes. but, as with all events, data was obtained. Most of it was data regarding negative side-effects. The data though is of great value to reduce chance of a repeat, it is a small recompence, admittedly.
I give up, fon. Could you get a translator?
it means ‘I hope we live and learn’, but it is far from guarenteed.
and the lies of lockdown fanatics need to be pushed back on.
This from the Con is chock full
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-long-term-global-herd-immunity-covid.html
Vaccines give us immunity against diseases, often to a greater extent than contracting the disease itself
I will not be donating, just saying. The GBD is a very disturbing document, openly discriminatory against the old and vulnerable in the face of a moderate flu-like virus. In their own words (GBD): Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. Too little too late. Why have this lot not been more active and vocal as successive lockdowns kept steam-rolling the economy and Big Pharma’s vaxx was rolled out to all and sundry (kids next remember)? Instead sporadic appearances by members of this elitist cabal (TV interviews and hearings) have been less than robust (I cannot recall any criticism of the experimental vaxx either despite the multitude of ADRs being reported, but I might have missed that one…). Now, go straight to down vote, let us not attack our betters, eh? Do not bother thinking why this lot have been so slow at coming forward beyond a miserable page of A4 ‘declaration’ (frightened of losing their jobs is the usual excuse btw). And while you are on do not bother asking why NHS doctors who pledged to ‘do no harm’ have agreed to shove 50m+ doses so far of this dangerous (1000 deaths and… Read more »
In what way is that statement discriminatory against the old and vulnerable?
and the sentence before that is:
It then goes on to say how we should protect the old and vulnerable rather than indiscriminately killing them as our goverment did so successfully.
In what way is that statement discriminatory against the old and vulnerable?
Try reading the rest of the document:
Prescriptive living for the over 65s and those in multi-generational households – do you think that is a way to deal with something less harmful than a flu? This document advocates a 2 tier society where civil liberties go out the window if one is deemed too old, not much different to lockdown measures really. Classic academic fence sitting.
I railed against the GBD in TCW on the week of its release, my attitude had only hardened, and so I find the amount of uncritical buy-in truly frightening. It is not a document any true libertarian could sign up to.
I think you’ll find that there would have been alot more choice for those elderly or vulnerable who didn’t want to take part. Instead all 67 million people have had their lives and livelihoods disrupted with absolutely no choice in it at all.
How can you say that? Who would be giving that choice?
The classical ethical faux pas. You are now saying it is better to treat the over 65s as 2nd class citizens than to deprive the whole population of their civil liberties? This is the slippery slop to mob rule and totalitarianism. We are all equal under the law or we are not – period.
That’s like saying we should give everyone a triple heart bypass because of the fact that some people require that surgery.
Nobody requires surgery here!! And if they did diagnosis would certainly NOT be arbitrarily based on age, sex, race etc.
Besides lockdown isn’t needed, it’s a myth created by SAGE with the help of the CCP, encouraged by BBC, MSM, voted into law by MPs, and enforced by the State Police. Locking down the over 65s is no different in principle to locking down everyone, in fact it’s worse because it admits that lockdown is not necessary, or why have the under 65s still at liberty?
There was no suggestion of ordering the elderly to stay in their homes. The suggestion involved advising them to reduce interactions that might lead to them becoming infected, while providing them with support to assist them in doing this.
It is discriminatory, because there might be younger people who’d like state support in cocooning themselves, but would not be eligible.
We can question whether the advice was appropriate to the disease threat, or was an overreaction. If the advice was bad, you could say it was discriminatory, since the bad advice was aimed at a specific group, but, unless it was a deliberate strategy to frighten the elderly off the streets, I don’t it’s reasonable to raise that objection.
I’m sure there have always been people who’d reduce their social interaction when they knew there was a bad ‘flu in circulation. There is nothing inhumane in encouraging people to make informed, intelligent, choices.
There was no suggestion of ordering the elderly to stay in their homes. Really? Then what else could this mean, pray tell? I have annotated this section of the GBD just in case of any misunderstanding on my part: ‘Retired people [the over 65s, mainly] living at home [as opposed to living as part of an extended family – covered elsewhere in the GBD btw – or being in a care home] should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home [they shouldn’t be allowed to go out shopping / socialising in most circumstances] . When possible [deliberately vague, exceptions for weather or health maybe?], they should meet family members outside rather than inside [go to the park or maybe the garden or exercise yard in a socially prescribed bubble].’ Multi-generational households similarly come under the prescriptive, ageist and inequitable agenda of the GBD. It is discriminatory, because there might be younger people who’d like state support in cocooning themselves, but would not be eligible. I assume this is a joke, or you are missing the point that this NOT about state aid, but arbitrary home imprisonment for no rational reason other than being over 65. There’s no suggestion… Read more »
It appears to me that we’re taking the GBD in different contexts. Over the past year, we have seen our government declare that people “should” do something, or “should not” do something, and this being followed by police officers beating people up when they encounter them not doing, or doing, whatever it was, respectively. This, though, must not be allowed to redefine our language for us. (We do not want Newspeak.) Even, if, alas, our language has been changed, you need to note that the GBD was written some time ago, and not to assume it to be reflective of any such nouveaux nuance. The GBD is simply a proposal of a strategy for reducing the human cost of a, then new, respiratory infection. It states what “should” be done to attain the benefits it envisages, that is all. It is not the diktat of a fascist regime, for which you seem to take it. Had the authors wished to propose that over 65s should be confined in their homes with razor wire and machine gun posts, they could easily have done so; they did not. The disease discriminates (or, at least, so it appeared – but I don’t rule out that the disease has merely… Read more »
I am over-65, and I’m tired of being made a scape-goat for lockdown. My children and grandchildren are the future – I am not – I have lived most of my allotted time-span while theirs is only beginning. The ‘don’t kill granny’ mantra has led to us ‘boomers’ being blamed by some for ruining the life-chances of the young, and for instilling an utterly disproportionate level of fear. Greater care, and pre-emptive treatment, should have been concentrated on the elderly and infirm while the rest of the country got on with life. As it was, the elderly have died in large numbers anyway, many sent off to care-homes with known covid cases, or through lack of available GP appointments meaning untreated conditions, avoidable heart failures, undiagnosed cancers, etc. I’m glad I’m not paying for NHS insurance now; I am nearly crippled with hip and knee osteoarthritis and have been told that the earliest I can even TALK to a consultant is July 2022! I’ll probably be gone by then. In this sense the elderly and infirm are already being treated like 2nd class citizens, since we don’t have the vitality of youth to sustain us and yet cannot get treatment.… Read more »
“Prescriptive living for the over 65s”
They actually reject prescription – they simply outline a set of voluntary alternatives if some measures are advisable.
I’m over 65 (way over) and I don’t have a problem with it, even tho’ I don’t buy into the serious scenario – which I don’t.
Precisely. How is saying “if you’re vulnerable then we recommend you stay at home and we’ll support you in that decision” not a better alternative to what has been done?
Let me re-quote the GBD, my emphasis:
SHOULD indicates preferential bordering on (if not openly advocating) prescriptive measures. It is governmental vernacular to enforce compliance, like ‘supermarket shoppers SHOULD wear face coverings’.
Just because you don’t mind being treated as a 2nd class citizen is neither here nor there. Many people don’t seem to have a problem with being Guinea Pigs for Big Pharma’s experimental gene therapy, half the population so far apparently, but it doesn’t make it ethical.
should is a very different proposition to must.
No different to saying you shouldn’t eat or drink too much.
It’s entirely up to you if you decide to take the advice or not.
As I said earlier the government’s ministerial announcements are often littered with should – but they quickly evolve into must (as with face covering advice). The GBD uses ‘should’, as it is not in any position to state ‘must’ – nevertheless it could have utilised a less prescriptive term, but it chose not to.
The same has happened with the whole vaxx program, and particularly the mission creep towards injecting this muck into (supposedly invulnerable) school kids. Why isn’t the GBD being updated to oppose this mission creep, as times they are a changin’?
“All scientific inquiries are biased (that’s how scientists get paid) they set out to prove what Big Pharma / Government / Multinationals want to hear.”
So – what’s your solution? Just sitting in a mire of generalized, undiscriminating condemnation and whining incontinently at everything?
So – what’s your solution?
Well, me old china, you did ask!! And if you call that ‘incontinent whining’ then so be it. Better to be incontinent AND consistent in that opposition rather than buying into a frightened elite putting on a belated show because they are scared shitless of being hauled in front of a court of inquiry at the end of this for failing to stand up and oppose this government’s measures.
You miss the point by a country mile.
I was focusing on the daft idea that all scientific enquiries are ‘biased’. If that were the case, then there is no ‘science’ at all.
Apart from the fact that I will bet that there is no ‘court of inquiry’ (a wish upon a rainbow), the dismissal of all science as pointless seems to me even more defeatist and defeatist.
There are no simple answers to the mass propaganda assault, but abandoning all hope of basic rationality in favour of just sitting on one’s arse and howling at the moon is definitely a dead end.
Me? I prefer just continually pushing rational analysis – again and again and again – even if it’s against the odds.
I’m not interested in the religious purity of isolationist imaginary principles that predictably are going nowhere from the get-go.
the daft idea that all scientific enquiries are ‘biased’. Not daft, that’s how dialectic works, and why two groups of eminent scientists can hold diametrically opposed views. Science is process, it is not an objective unmoving conclusion, as science is forever evolving. Corporate interests have hijacked this process many moons ago. Science itself might remain aloof, but scientists remain eminently corruptible. the dismissal of all science as pointless I have not done that, nor would I. I simply ask for higher standards of ethics and standards in the pursuit of scientific solutions from scientists. Suspending the operation of Nuremberg protocol to administer an experimental vaxx to the whole population (unopposed by the scientific community) is not a great start. Likewise when I see comments here (and in GBD) accepting the premise of locking down sections of society – seemingly oblivious that to accept ANY form of deprivation of liberty is ethically wrong unless under the most extreme of circumstances, which is not the case with C19. Is it really better to imprison 1 than imprison 10, when none should be imprisoned in the first place? abandoning all hope of basic rationality I hold rationality as the highest aim. Unfortunately it… Read more »
“continually pushing rational analysis – again and again and again”
Analysis paralysis?
I can’t see what it will achieve. We want justice and I’m putting my trust in Dr Reiner Fuellmich who spotted the scam 12 months ago and has been preparing a class action lawsuit against the perpetrators.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-germany-ease-virus-curbs-vaccinated.html
Germany goes full on social Health Credit scheme.
I hope passport fakers boom, because no one healthy should consider the jab a lower risk.
Batflu parties would be pretty useful, were there any actual batflu around to have a party with.
Well – I guess it’s not Jews this time. But that’s not much of an upside for those who thought that Germany has moved on.
S’truth, you are an utter hypocrite Rick. There is no consistency in your views at all, despite your protestations.
When I pointed out (above) that the GBD meant “Prescriptive living for the over 65s” you denied it, in spite of the fact the GBD strongly advocates selective inequitable irrational action by making the over 65s into 2nd class citizens.
Instead you proudly stated:
Yet here you are switching sides again and bashing the Germans for doing exactly what the GBD is advocating, that is creating a 2 tier society!!
Perhaps just be honest and say what you really mean:
“I am non-vaxxed and will therefore be a second class citizen, and I don’t have a problem with it...”
Or perhaps you have already succumbed to the vaxx coercion and propaganda?
Sorry I upset you by pointing out your tendency to – bluntly – spout nonsense. But rattling the bars and shouting more loudly won’t turn incoherence into coherence. I suggest that you also get hold of a dictionary re. the term ‘hypocrite’. It’s not someone who points out your misinterpretations.
The parallel you are trying to establish is non-existent.
Not shouting Rick, just trying to point out the important bits you seem intent on missing, as you keep contradicting yourself. If you can’t see the parallel then there’s no point in endless iterations. Nevertheless, promoting diametrically opposed opinions on this page that (1) inferior civil rights for the unvaxxed in Germany is somehow wrong, while (2) inferior civil rights for the over 65s in the UK is somehow OK is hypocritical, whether you choose to whisper it or shout it. There’s no worming out of the meaning of the GBD, as it employs ‘should’ in auxiliary function to express obligation (and as a less blunt alternative to ‘must’), this is not some voluntary take it or leave it suggestion (or what would be the point?), and that meaning is made deliberately unambiguous in these sentences: ‘Retired people living at home should* have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should* meet family members outside rather than inside.’ (* – italics for emphasis, not shouting!) Too many LDS readers, including you, seem to have developed a curious tolerance to (indeed acceptance of, judging by your earlier comments) the previously abhorrent notion of enforced lockdowns, despite their… Read more »
“As with war, not everything that came out of lockdown was bad and our reporting will reflect that truth.”
Sorry, I have to disagree … this was never a war – this was a balls-up of catastrophic proportions – everything that came out of lockdown was bad – and I mean BAD. There was nothing good to say about lockdown at all. It was a monumentally disasterous policy the impact of which is going to be felt for at least a generation. We had a perfectly rational, sensible and carefully planned-out policy of dealing with pandemics that took years to develop – a policy that had rejected lockdowns as a way of dealing with future pandemics – only for it to be discarded in just a few days by a spooked government that decided to immitate the irrational methods of a tyrannical communist regime instead.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill: “Never have so few done so much damage to so many.“
The good thing to come out of it is the fact that a great many unsustainable attitudes, vices, bad priorities, vested interests, corruption etc. have been exposed for all to see. Now those things can be addressed, hopefully…
Also, WW1 was a monumental disaster and a complete misapplication of technology and resources for dubious moral aims, so yes, the analogy isn’t far off.
…
“inform future policies and strategies for pandemic preparedness”
I think this is shaping up to be another limited hangout.
I mean, let’s keep everyone busy, poring over the details of with what the regime has got away (as Prof. Ferguson terms it) so far, and ruminating upon how we might discourage it from making the same “mistakes” in a future “pandemic”. Meanwhile, the regime can grind merrily on with its agenda, herding us all into a dystopia of forced medical experimentation and “vaccine” “passports”.
There’s all old saying about fighting the previous war (i.e. in terms of techniques an inadequate general employs)[1]. We’re still in the midst of the one war, but we damn well need to move with the battle!
A caution against joining the fan club of any (erstwhile) sceptic:
“Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, ‘Is it reasonable?’” – Richard Phillips Feynman
What’s good about war? I suppose it made some moving poetry.