If the Government was truly following the science, it would not delay the lifting of lockdown restrictions beyond June 21st, according to David Paton. Instead, as the Professor of Industrial Economics at the University of Nottingham writes in today’s Mail, the mood at Number 10 is extremely pessimistic because our leaders have become infected by their own “scaremongering propaganda”.
Ministers told us that the vaccines were the route to freedom because they would protect the public and break the link between infections and hospitalisations. That has proved to be the reality.
Indeed, the contrast between the grim peak of the second wave and the vastly improved situation today is stark, despite the advent of new variants.
It is true that the number of cases is currently increasing – up from a low point at the end of April of about 19 positive tests per 100,000 people to 44 per 100,000 now – but the impact of the rise has been nothing like as devastating as previously.
NHS data shows that hospital admissions have risen somewhat from a low of 74 per day to the current average of 103 per day, yet at the peak in January we saw over 4,000 admissions on a single day.
There is even better news when it comes to the number of patients admitted to hospital in the last seven days. The latest figure of 869 is 0.6% down on the previous seven-day period, and nothing like the savage January peak of 34,336.
It is the same story with death rates, which are currently averaging 5.7 per day, up from a low of 4.3 per day, but that compares to a January peak of no fewer than 1,245 deaths on a single day…
Ignoring such hard data, some of the advocates of delay like to bolster their argument by citing the modelling done by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE), which sets out some pessimistic scenarios in the event of lockdown’s demise.
But there are two serious problems with this approach. First, SAGE’s record on modelling throughout the pandemic has been poor and overly negative. Second, it was the SAGE models themselves which formed the basis of the Government’s roadmap.
Even against the backdrop of the bleakest SAGE scenario, ministers initially maintained that the reopening on June 21st should proceed.
In fact, fully aware of the gloomiest SAGE projections, Boris Johnson explicitly stated on April 13th that “at the moment I cannot see any reason to change the roadmap”.
Given that the picture has turned out to be much healthier than anything SAGE projected, there would be no logic at all behind any delay. In their two scenarios closest to the Government’s roadmap, SAGE’s models indicated that there could be between 6,100 and 10,200 hospital patients by early June with more increases to come.
In fact, the present total of just 879 is only 14% of SAGE’s lower projection. So we are currently in a much better position than the Government envisaged…
At times it seems as if the Government has developed a bunker mentality, infected by its own scaremongering propaganda and SAGE’s shroud-waving.
But it is time to stop hiding behind the flawed models and fearful messages, embrace openness and get the country moving again without a delay. The real catastrophe would be a timid surrender to the voices of hesitancy and anxiety.
Worth reading in full.
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Every time I see the phrase “follow the science” I get badly triggered.
Gosh! It’s almost as though fear is infectious! It’s almost as though fear overwhelms reason! It’s almost as though fear and scaremongering leads to spreading panic
Why oh why did nobody warn us about this!?
If only our leaders had had some way of knowing about this!
One would almost be tempted to think that perhaps scaremongering should be frowned upon, perhaps even punished, if we are going down the road of controlling speech, as we have done now for several decades.
Should we rethink our recent cultural shift from frowning upon fearmongers, hysterics and cowards and laughing at them, to praising them as “responsible”and “caring”?
Yes – “terrorism” has become fashionable, it seems.
UK government and US/Israel counterparts have long been the biggest terrorist agency on a global scale.
And awarding them Knighthoods?
“the impact of the rise has been nothing like as devastating as previously”
I must have missed something – I haven’t seen any rise that could be described as ‘devastating’, although the additional winter mortality caused by vaccines was a bit concerning.
Vaccines in elderly deaths in Norway.
Of 100 deep dive investigations, 10% were definitely caused by the vaccines. 25% probably caused by the vaccines. So 1/3 of the deaths in total.
5 were deemed unclassifiable, the rest put down to other causes.
The authors ask for more considered screening based on frailty. Now, I’ve listened to the anonymous Irish nurses on Hugo Talks website speaking about how vaccines are being given to people on end of life care. Days to live. So that’s how far removed we are from screening, that is, fek all. What benefit is a vaccine to them?
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1372
it will come out eventually – the second wave in overall mortality was obviously (to me) mainly vaccine effects on the hyperfrail – just shifting deaths forward a season or a few months.
this was always to be expected because in the initial trials the vaccine side effects were worse than covid symptoms and also why many countries had an upper age limit for vaccination
So for 35 per cent of the frail elderly the vaccines were involuntary euthanasia.
Otherwise known as killings.
Where does Gates stand on euthanasia by the way?
I think we can guess.
it is following the science… the science that suits the agenda… there are lots of versions of the science going on here
Scaremongering?
What a load of bollox.
Following the instructions of the Reset masters more like.
Fake news, simple as.
I now struggle to believe that the inner cabal (PM, Hancock, Gove, Whitty, Vallance) are infected by their own scaremongering propaganda.
None of them are that stupid.
No, you’re right there.
Hancock certainly is. PM close. The other three are at the very least sociopaths so immune to feelings of any description.
Hancockwomble and Kim Jong Johnson are morons, Gove isn’t stupid, he’s a totalitarian.
Agreed, those three have some brain cells although if Whitty and Vallance had consciences, they’d have walked out in protest in March 2020 when the existing (WHO) pandemic plan was jettisoned.
[Comparison for those with long memories: the same way in which Michael Heseltine walked out of a Cabinet meeting in 1986, being unable to stand things any longer].
BTW, is Gove still taking regular orders from the billionaire and the war criminal? There was mention here of a report in Conservative Woman but I couldn’t find it.
Oh yes they are. They consider themselves to be so intelligent that any decisions they make are naturally right and of course beyond the comprehension of the proles. In the real world that approach defines stupidity
But they are! Stupid if they thought we ALL bought into their story.
Oh I don’t know….if they had any sense at all I think they’d realise that it’s time to stop digging.
Won’t someone please think of the nurses?
https://odysee.com/@momo:f/ntsh:9
These are all excellent, logical arguments. Point proved, QED and all that. But there has been nothing logical from the majority of Gov for about 14.5 months now. Civil Servants wrote them a lovely plan and they discarded it.
They can dress it up as science, but since it’s built on dodgy data and modelling, reality can be anything they want.
What we have instead is a weird new cult. And until the media start representing skeptics as intelligent questioners rather than conspiracy theorists I don’t see what the change will be? Even the jabs aren’t enough for the sheep.
It has been destined to end only one way for some time now – when people simply stop complying with all of it.
They have to keep us in prison to coerce top up jabs this autumn, and jabbing children this autumn. 100 per cent, with yearly or more frequent boosters.
It’s not a cult or weird.
It’s very logical.
It’s Genocide.
That’s IT.
Has the government been brainwashed? And is no longer fit for purpose? Has the Behavioural Insights Team on SAGE been too successful?
Definitely not fit for purpose. (“No longer” implies it had once been!) Brainwashed is a different question. Almost certainly not, as their duplicity (especially Hancock’s) is palpable.
If your waiting for the government to hand back your freedoms then you’ll be waiting for an eternity – there will always be another variant for the government to use as an excuse to keep this covid tyranny going for longer – governments have a track record of temporarily removing freedoms but then never giving them back. Remember that back in March 2020 the reason for the three week lockdown was to ‘save the NHS’ and prevent it from being overwhelmed well that didn’t happen and the NHS is nowhere near being overwhelmed at the moment so why are still under this curfew? The goalposts keep moving and will keep moving until we say ENOUGH!
This will not end until WE say it does – and we can all begin by ditching those hideous face masks.
‘Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be‘ – James Baldwin
The NHS doesn’t even believe it’s going to be overwhelmed. It’s closed down the Nightingale hospitals: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/56331358
Nothing like playing the political “Blame Game”, is there? The weak and amoral Johnson is in full “Flashman” mode, where everything is everybody else’s fault, but not the bully’s, who is skulking in the rears, whilst others get six of the best. None of these SOBs give a monkey’s about any damage, other than that which may affect them.
I never thought I’d see the day when I felt some degree of sympathy with that pompous and self-regarding purveyor of entertainments, Lord Lloyd Webber.
Who, the Lloyd Webber who blames the uninjected for everything; who yesterday said he was opening his venues on 21st June irrespective of what the government say; who will use whatever means necessary to get people to fill seats by following ‘certain protocols’ ie use of vaccine passports and is happy for the audience to wear masks; who is prepared to be arrested for opening, if necessary; who is prepared to go legal and sue the government for massive compensation for loss of income, courtesy of the taxpayers – that Lord Lloyd Webber?
He gets no sympathy vote from me.
David Paton, it’s gone for the summer cos it’s a seasonal virus – and natural immunity has risen and risen too. Remember last summer? No vaccines, and yet no Covid.
“vaccines were the route to freedom because they would protect the public and break the link between infections and hospitalisations. That has proved to be the reality. Indeed, the contrast between the grim peak of the second wave and the vastly improved situation today is stark, despite the advent of new variants.”
Yet another plug for the experimental, genetically-engineered, biological agents. The article correctly points out that the government is, ostensibly, being massively overcautious, but plants the idea that our best way out is to continue taking the shots. Once we’ve all been sufficiently pumped full of the scientific miracle, even the government will have to recognise that it’s safe to let us out again!
Extra points awarded for the sinister reference to “variants”.
Professor Paton takes SAGE at their word and still proves them wrong.
However, great fat communist fraud Kim Jong Johnson will continue lockdown forever because he is innumerate.
If only our ‘leaders’ had enough knowledge and perception of the world around them to understand that “Covid-19” is a malicious hoax, and that there have never been any germs deadlier than a normal flu virus anywhere in 21st century Britain.
The brainwashed, hypnotised, cultist morons and malevolent conspirators should at the very least be fired, and made to hand back their salaries obtained under false pretences of working for the public good. Preferably, they should be put on trial and executed on livestream, and replaced by people from Lockdown Sceptics and UK Column.
By the way, what has happened to Bob? His cartoons are excellent and he has been a sceptic from Day One. I can’t remember when I last saw one of his cartoons in the Telegraph
Is that Bob Moran? I just checked out his Tweets; there’s plenty of good stuff, such as his view that those calling for children to be jabbed should “burn in hell”.
Thanks for that. I’m not on any social media
Oh, they will!
If it were simply about the evidence…
By the way, Laura, the presenter rushed to hospital after her second AZ jab – referenced in a report in the Express in the round up below – already had thrombocytoponic purpura. ie tendency to blood clots and low platelets … so the NHS called her in to have an early dose of an experimental vaccine which has the known fatal side effects of blood clots and low platelets.
Who made that decision?
What the….
Sir David King, Chair of the ghastly independent SAGE cites the same data quoted in this article to urge a delay in reopening. The Government and the media picked their “experts” early on in the pandemic and have stuck with them. Our leaders either lack the intelligence to challenge any of this bullshit or are afraid of losing credibility if they all of a sudden began to question ” the science” that they have been blindly following for the past 15 months. The only light I see is that as more real factual data emerges, an increasing number of people are seeing through the hype.
So the pathalogical liars have come to believe their own bullshit. Is anyone surprised?
The biters bit – victims of their own psyop!
I’m so tired of well meaning articles distorting the truth. The current number of covid admissions is NOT 103 per day. That’s the number of people who were admitted to hospital (for any reason), who were THEN tested and found to have the virus (probably a false positive anyway). If they then die from their road crash injuries, of course they’re counted as a covid death. It’s so important this gets drummed home.