One of Independent SAGE’s “experts”, who on Tuesday criticised the Government for not delaying the latest easing of lockdown restrictions, is a social scientist-cum-race adviser with no medical qualifications. Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, told Good Morning Britain that the third step of the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown should have been stalled because of the Indian Covid variant – not only to protect the unvaccinated but also to protect the vaccinated, who she claimed could still be vulnerable to this strain of the virus.
Vaccines will certainly help to reduce severe disease [from the variant]… but at the moment there are some things that we still don’t know about this variant and one of the main things we don’t know is, to what extent it can still escape the vaccines. We need to find that out.
What the Government should have done was to stall this stage of the roadmap, particularly because we didn’t pass test four… [which says] if we think that there’s any further risk from new variants of concern, we should stall. They have completely ignored that and gone ahead.
The Telegraph has more on Dr Haque’s medical expertise – or lack thereof!
Dr Zubaida Haque… specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various Government-commissioned reports on welfare issues.
In an interview with Good Morning Britain, she said the Government should have stalled the latest stage of the roadmap out of lockdown…
She went on to criticise Matt Hancock for his recent comments indicating vaccine hesitancy may be behind the rise in Covid hospitalisations in Bolton, one of the Indian variant hotspots.
“This whole notion that, that at the moment, everyone’s freedom is threatened because of vaccine hesitancy groups is absolute nonsense,” Dr Haque said.
It was one of Dr Haque’s many TV interviews and newspaper columns since the pandemic began, ranging in scope from vaccine passports and the reopening of schools to financial support for low-paid workers needing to self-isolate.
However, she has no medical, clinical, virological or epidemiological qualifications.
Instead, her PhD thesis was titled: Exploring the validity and possible causes of the apparently poor performances of Bangladeshi students in British secondary schools.
She now works for the Hamilton Commission, an organisation set up by Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton to improve the representation of Black people in U.K. motorsport.
Dr Haque was not the only member of the historically overly cautious Independent SAGE group to take to the airwaves criticising the latest step towards freedom.
Dr Kit Yates and Prof Gabriel Scally both appeared on Sky News, on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, talking about the new variant.
Dr Yates is an expert in using mathematical techniques to predict biological models at the University of Bath, while Prof Scally is president of the Epidemiology and Public Health section of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Sir David King, chairman of Independent Sage said: “When we set up Independent SAGE we wanted to ensure that it was truly multi-disciplinary and fit for purpose when it comes to giving the best possible evidence-based advice in relation to the pandemic.
“We are proud to have such a wealth of experience to call upon as [we] require.”
Worth reading in full.
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The SAGE and other evil loons here and elsewhere WITH medical and scientific expertise are no better.
Exactly. This is not essentially a ‘medical’ question.That it is remains a bone-headed idea that hands expertise over to a cult. Sometimes pretended ‘scepticism’ ends up as stupid as Covmania.
My experience is that the medical profession is little (if any) more informed than the general public over Covid. Thus the acceptance of mask-wearing, PCR testing and all the other crap.
I agree. Sadly many people put blind trust in doctors and cite their general support for coronamadness as conclusive proof it is justified, forgetting that doctors have the same human weaknesses as the rest of us
“…specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various Government-commissioned reports on welfare issues…”
So a specialist in talking bollox, talking bollox
Possibly, but the core issue is the lack of critical thinking skills across the board in SAGE, the lack of courage, honesty, integrity, the pushing of pet agendas, the love of power and attention, possibly pandering to politicians, links with outside vested interests etc etc. Whitty and Van Tam and Vallance are all clever men with all the necessary knowledge to see the truth, but they choose not to see it or speak it.
There’s a fundamental problem with an Emergency committee which is that they will tend to want to prolong their own existence so they will want to prolong the emergency.
Watching Witty in a press conference the other day reminded me of a one eyed mad dog chasing its tail.
Hey you guys,
Thank your lucky stars you only have clowns with no medical qualifications hectoring ou down in England.
Up here in the Scottish gulag our “chief medical advisor” o the little Crone, is a booming dentist called Jason Leitch.
Plus the devious shredder woman, who is as bad as this one here.
Don’t be rude about one eyed mad tail chasing dogs!
“all clever men”
… which illustrates that ‘cleverness’ is no guard against stupidity, nor a badge of the wider concept of ‘intelligence’.
Nor does it provide a guard against personality defects like egomania, significance seeking or tunnel vision.
Neither is it a guard against vanity, dishonesty, selfishess, cowardice, the love of power, greed and ambition, or against plain evil
Why do people think that “experts” are any less susceptible to human weakness than the rest of us?
She has nothing to do with Witty, Van Tam and Vallance. She is not a government adviser.
I think most of us know that – but the discussion has moved on to the wider issues of poor science/scientists.
“clever men”
That adjective again. The ‘clever’ can be incredibly stupid and self-seeking, and a lot of other things.
a Race -baiting parasite on the British taxpayer.
I wonder if she could give a list of life’s pleasures. Just a green list would do – nothing too demanding.
Yip, another lefty Woke arsehole with a useless f*cking degree. Same as the bint in Scotland that makes all the medical decisions. F*cking social anthropologist, what ever the f*ck one of those is.
“another lefty Woke arsehole”
As opposed to the righty woke arseholes who are the prime movers?
This isn’t the time for duggie political axe-grinding.
Madmen
Here at the agency our ‘Freedom Day’ campaign has achieved astonishing results and record sales of our clients Monkey Gunk
The next phase of the campaign will introduce a little spice and the mystique of far away places generating further sales growth
The new phase will also allow those who have already bought the opportunity to adopt a smug superior attitude in the run up to their deaths this winter
Nothing surprises me anymore – the entire world (well the western half of it) has gone absolutely stark raving mad.
She’s allowed to talk and talk (and talk) uninterruptedly on BBC News. No interviewing, just a platform for alarmist noise. Compare that to Sunetra Gupta barely being able to get a sentence out without hostile questioning from Annita McVeigh.
You wonder why the media roll these people out, with out doing any background checks. Although it’s in their interest to keep on scaring people, they know they’ve massively over blown the threat of covid and have to keep it going somehow, mostly by giving air time to those with the most extreme views.
I think people have had enough and hopefully the backlash begins. The lieing will have to stop at some point and the truth will out. Fingers crossed.
Of course they do checks, to make sure that they stay on-message.
With almost 40 yrs in television media I can say with confidence that the clique of newsrooom produders are infantile, poorly educated control freaks whose skills lie in delivering slick shows.
They have partisan, ill-informed, ‘6th form’ politics which prohibits all impartiality and always favours easy guests who will trot out the prevailing narative as long as the show runs smoothly and the feathers of the pyramid of editorial management above aren’t ruffled with any career-threatening controversy.
Total buy-in to any propaganda.
What an utter disgrace.
“possible causes of the apparently poor performances of Bangladeshi students in British secondary schools”.
might be a topic that needs discussion when setting forth education, housing, or policing and social policies and budgets.
But she can go straight to hell if she thinks she is in any way qualified to decide how I live my life.
“possible causes of the ‘apparently poor performances…”
Well that’s a REALLY scientific starting point and it goes without saying that the ensuing treatise will read like unutterable woke gobbledook of such infinite intellectual quality as to warrant the title of Doctor.
We have sunk pretty low.
Ph.D’s are ten a penny nowadays especially if one submits a thesis on a particularly woke topic. I doubt that there would be a university in Britain that would fail her thesis even if it were complete rubbish.
Don’t know how much credence to give to this headline and date from a Swedish website:
“1,000 lawyers and 10,000 doctors have filed a lawsuit for violations of the Nuremberg Code. The new Nuremberg trial starts on July 3, 2021” ( http://sistatiden.se/1000-advokater-och-10000-lakare-har-inlamnat-en-stamningsansokan-for-brott-mot-nurnbergkoden-den-nya-nurnberg-rattegangen-startar-den-3-juli-2021/).
We live in hope…
I can read a bit of Swedish, and the gist of what you say looks to be correct from a quick skim through that article, thank you.
…but don’t hold your breath!
Agreed. But a better jurisdiction than most.
Presumably she is in regular communication with her ‘compatriot’ who is equally ‘well qualified’ advising the Scottish admin.
How much do these people get paid to appear on the telly and do they get more for being in SAGE or Independent SAGE ?
Perhaps Mike Yeadon and Dr Gupta should set up Real SAGE or Continuity SAGE.
Ask Bill he seems to be paying most of the them.
It’s already been done : see PANDA and HART.
Puppet indeed.
Why so kind?
Has the penny dropped yet folks? This is nothing, in the main, to do with a ‘virus’. That’s just the vehicle or Trojan Horse, for something far more nefarious.
Just get on and live you lives and with the normal common sense precuations.
Let the prosecutions begin!
My PhD is also not in a scientific area but because I worked in industry I do understand statistics and performed modeling. These “experts” need to admit they know less than someone with simple common sense. As for the Hamilton initiative, if this is the kind of person he hires, it’s money poorly spent. Critical thinking is a prerequisite for social change.
But he is a mentally sick prick, what more do you expect
This is the point. The essential skills are in data and analysis – basically the common skills of all research. None of these are out of reach of anyone using critical thinking. (I often have this argument with a close family member who has a university fellowship in a highly recondite area of physics).
One of the most amazing aspects of this debacle is, in fact, how the demolition of the Covid narrative requires only basic descriptive statistics and rational (‘scientific’) thinking. These skills can be gained from any academic background.
Stick ‘Dr’ in front of your name and it seems you can assume authority on all manner of things.
I’ve learned a lot this last year – most of it rather depressing.
Has anyone else noticed the photograph’s similarity with Sridhar’s agonized, unbalanced stare?
Spot on!
To be fair though, there is this from the article which is on our side:
She went on to criticise Matt Hancock for his recent comments indicating vaccine hesitancy may be behind the rise in Covid hospitalisations in Bolton, one of the Indian variant hotspots.
“This whole notion that, that at the moment, everyone’s freedom is threatened because of vaccine hesitancy groups is absolute nonsense,” Dr Haque said.
But of course, what this is really about is pretending that there is (insert serious faced senior politician) “rigorous debate” within government.
Let’s be clear that this is “Independent SAGE” and is nothing to do with the Witty-Vallance camarilla. It appears to be a self-annointed coterie of control freaks promoting their own interests.
It was heartening to read the comments in DT it seems the government and their minions might have overcooked the variant fear porn. I’m also thinking of adding Dr. to my name as I reckon I’m more qualified than many of those who carry the title.
Why do we have so many individuals in Sage that are making our lives shite without any medical qualifications whatsoever. What world we live in when a race baiter and a physicist make medical decisions that effect all of us, WTF is going on within the corridors of power!! We may as well ask anybody off the street and ask them their opinions. Ask me, I have an O level in Biology which is a dam sight more than Mr Ferguson and Ms Haque have. Un f*king believable!!
Whilst agreeing with you about SAGE and its gong/job chasers – I don’t think medical qualifications are the main issue. Many medical personnel are ignorant of data and statistics – which are at the core of this.
It highlights that in a public investigation of the handling of the Pandemic the role of SAGE and the media is fundamental. Any mortality and morbidity associated with an obsession with Covid. “Sine qua non” with the horrendous hidden morbidity needs exposing , and those who chose to subject us to Lockdown without understanding that those to of us in medicine we understand that death is sadly a part of life- as Macbeth uttered –
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Thank you Lockdown Skeptics for providing solace that among the madness that some rationality prevails.
I (and I don’t think I’m alone) fear that an inquiry into the establishment with personnel chosen by the establishment, will not reach any uncomfortable conclusions.
Why oh why? Do we give a voice to such useless imported trash.
Too big for her own boots
I have no problem with people from non- medical backgrounds having an opinion ( isn’t that what we are doing here?). What boils my p*ss is their sheer inability to look at, and understand the tsunami of evidence that this “pandemic” is not an existential threat to all mankind ( do “THEY” even approve of that term these days?). They are either stupid or cunning. I truly hope it is the former, but strongly suspect otherwise.
Why are our useless government listening to this crazy FCKING Bitch. We need to stop this ridiculous crap from controling our lives.
Just highlights why the thinking person in this country – of which there are fewer and fewer due to Government brainwashing – is extremely skeptical of anything that SAGE says.