Why one-shot after a Covid-19 infection should suffice to be considered fully-vaxxed - "In the very large trial on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine single shot compared with placebo, among over 2,000 participants with prior infections, as documented by positive antibody status, their protection against moderate or severe disease was 90%. That’s much higher than the vaccine efficacy of 56%, yet the CDC recognizes 2-shot of this vaccine as “fully vaccinated” but ignores these data, and many other proof points, of natural immunity protection. A recent CDC report for Covid in California that included the Delta wave, the cumulative hospitalization rate for the vaccinated was 0.7% among vaccinated and 0.3% unvaccinated with prior infection. Notably, a 10-fold lower risk of subsequent infection was found in the people with natural immunity compared with those vaccinated in the Cleveland Clinic health system’s study of over 52,000 employees. These reports convey a high level of protection of natural immunity, at times comparable to 2-shot vaccines. Multiple studies following people at least 15 months out from Covid infections have shown persistent antibody levels and memory B cells. Reinfections among those with natural immunity throughout the pandemic, until the recent Omicron wave, have been very low, less than 1%. A United Kingdom study of about 9,000 people with prior infections demonstrated higher than 90% protection against subsequent infections, even among those who had Covid more than 18 months previously... an Omicron wave study from Cleveland Clinic in about 8,000 people with natural immunity, 1-shot of vaccine markedly reduced the risk of infection and 2 or 3-shots had no incremental protective benefit. That same finding was consistent in the Israel and UK studies: 1-shot did the trick, no added protection from 2 or 3-shots. Indeed, the waning of protection after 1-year in the UK study was averted with one dose of vaccine."
It’s irrational to ruin our lives to save the NHS - "The abiding vice of the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic until recently has been an obstinate refusal to look at the problem as a whole. Ministers have treated it as a pure question of public health management. In fact, it is not and never has been a pure question of public health management. It is a complex question of medical, economic, social, and educational policy, as well as a profound moral issue. There have been occasional nods at these other aspects of the crisis, but the Government has acted as if the only thing that really mattered was keeping infections down. Epidemiologists and mathematical modellers can take this blinkered line, but governments cannot. The essence of government is the assessment of the broadest possible range of factors, which usually point in different directions. One-dimensional solutions are almost always bad ones. This is what made December 20 2021 such a landmark date. The Government had the courage to reject the epidemiologists’ advice on the ground that other things mattered at least as much. Ironically, we owe this improvement in the quality of government to the collapse of the Prime Minister’s political standing among his own MPs and in the country at large. The result was to widen the decision-making process beyond a tiny cabal of the Prime Minister, the Health Secretary, the Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer. The move to Plan B on December 8 had taken most ministers by surprise. That was not a sensible way of conducting our affairs. For seemingly the first time, on December 20 the Cabinet had a real role in the decision. At least some of its members were prepared to do what the Prime Minister has hardly ever done – drill down into the detail and question some highly questionable assumptions. The “precautionary principle” is essentially a principle for making decisions radically affecting people’s lives without adequate evidence. Its rejection was a heartening development from which other European governments could learn. There is just one problem. We are still being told that the Government will do whatever is thought necessary to “save” the National Health Service. The idea that we must – at whatever human cost – keep the transmission of Covid at a level within the NHS’s capacity to cope is taken for granted by many people. It is one of the sacred cows of modern Britain. It is time that we started questioning it. The NHS’s capacity to cope is determined by political decisions taken over a long period of time. Governments do not like spending money on things which are badly needed but only at occasional moments of peak demand. It is an inefficient use of public funds... This is a particularly difficult dilemma when it comes to critical care in hospitals, which calls for expensive equipment and high levels of trained staff. All governments make this trade-off. But recent British governments of all political complexions have carried the process further than most. The number of NHS beds has declined for 30 years. On the eve of the pandemic, the UK’s critical care capacity per hundred thousand of population was among the lowest in the world: better than India’s or China’s but only half that of Italy or France and less than a quarter of that of Germany or the United States. Underproviding for peak demand is a perfectly rational policy, given competing calls on scarce resources. Every pound spend on critical care facilities is a pound not spent on other pressing concerns, like education, social security or policing. But it inevitably involves accepting that in health emergencies the NHS will be overwhelmed at the peak. Epidemics of respiratory disease have regularly exceeded hospital capacity before anyone had heard of Covid-19. Asian flu (1957-8) and Hong Kong flu (1968-9), although less serious than Covid-19, swamped the NHS. Ordinary winter flu regularly overwhelms it. It happens roughly every two to three years, most recently in 2014-15, in 2016-17 and again in 2017-18. People died, sometimes in large numbers. So when governments tell us that we must behave in a way that “saves” the National Health Service, what they really mean is that we, the healthy and the vulnerable alike, must “save” it from the choices made by those same governments... Either we must prioritise health spending over everything else, to a degree which no government in the world has ever attempted. Or else we must allow governments to put our lives on hold with annual lockdowns and the like as a way of limiting public expenditure on emergency facilities in the NHS. The rational alternative is to do what human beings have done from time immemorial, namely to take periodical epidemics of potentially mortal diseases on the chin. An overwhelmed health service is a bad thing. We can all agree on that. But it is not the worst thing that can happen to a society. The worst thing that can happen to a society is that its members use the coercive powers of the state so as systematically to stunt their own lives and those of their fellow citizens. Take education, for example... The brighter pupils and those with strong parental support will probably make up the lost time. But all the research suggests that the more vulnerable and marginal learners will suffer serious and irreversible damage to their life chances. This will have a major impact on future inequality. Sending whole classes or whole years home if any of them are infected produces the same result in slow motion. This is a less visible and less dramatic catastrophe than piling up the dying on trolleys in hospital corridors, which is why politicians care less about it. But it is arguably even more serious. The same point can be made about the other indirect consequences of heavy-handed government intervention, for example on mental health, culture and sheer human misery. The economic implications of lockdowns and other measures of compulsory distancing will be with us for many years. In the long run, no country ever improved human welfare or even public health by making itself poorer. The NHS is a facility, not a regulator. It is there to enrich and not to impoverish our lives. It exists to serve us, and not the other way round. We need not blame the epidemiologists. It is their job to think about nothing but epidemics. But this is not a sensible priority for government or for the rest of us. We have lives to live, and there is more to life than the avoidance of death."
Hospitals 'full to bursting' as bed shortage hits danger level - 2012
Hospitals scramble to prevent crisis in NHS's 'toughest ever' winter - 2013
More patients, overstretched doctors – is the NHS facing a winter crisis? - 2014
Hospital bed occupancy rates hit record high risking care - 2015
Hospitals in England told to put operations on hold to free up beds - 2016
NHS bosses sound alarm over hospitals already running at 99% capacity - 2017
NHS intensive care units sending patients elsewhere due to lack of beds - 2018
Hospital beds at record low in England as NHS struggles with demand - 2019
These are all from the Guardian, so leftists can't pretend that this is fake news from a right wing tabloid
The Danger of Assuming That Family Time Is Dispensable - The Atlantic - "Many news articles and comments from public officials portrayed Thanksgiving travelers, regardless of the precautions they were taking, as irresponsible people. On social media, they were maligned as #covidiots, recklessly endangering themselves and their loved ones... many long months into this pandemic, people are at their wits’ end: economically depleted, socially isolated, and disgruntled about—and in some cases genuinely baffled by—the arbitrariness of some of the restrictions on their daily lives. And if the HIV epidemic has revealed anything, it’s that shaming does little to deter risky behavior. Instead, it perpetuates stigma, which drives behavior underground and hinders prevention efforts... Like the unfounded concerns about harm reduction for HIV and substance use, the worry is that risk-mitigation tools, such as testing, will give people a false sense of security and promote bad behavior. This misguided notion has been used as an excuse not to offer testing, including on some college campuses... Through their policies, states are telling Americans that dining indoors is safe in revenue-generating situations, such as at a restaurant or formally catered event, while private holiday dinners are roundly condemned... If elected officials are going to scold the public for their disobedience, the least they can do is practice what they preach. But one after another, they’ve been caught breaking their own rules... just like safer-sex education, guidance for this holiday season must also include nuanced information about how people can protect themselves if they travel to that Christmas dinner anyway: minimizing contacts and testing before and afterward, keeping gatherings small, driving instead of flying, masking when indoors or close to others, meeting outdoors if feasible, and increasing ventilation when outdoors isn’t an option. Giving any risk-mitigation advice might seem imprudent when the dangers of social contact are so acute, but adherence to public-health recommendations is never universal, and everyone needs access to information and tools to stay safer... instead of closing outdoor venues and banning all outdoor gatherings, which have been deemed inessential pleasures in a pandemic, communities could do the opposite. Like Montreal, they can create appealing public spaces where people can gather more safely, equipped with open-air tents and heat lamps. They can outfit local parks with firepits and wood, as Calgary did. They can offer free outdoor activities, such as ice-skating, snowshoeing, and even art installations, to reduce pandemic fatigue and lure people away from indoor gatherings... With the federal government catastrophically failing to respond to the worst pandemic in a century, it feels like only personal responsibility can save us—so of course we’re turning on one another. But viruses are not moral agents, and infection is not a personal failure"
From 2020
Stigma is only bad when it's against the left's favored groups
The same people who don't want to "promote bad behavior" mock those who think giving out free condoms encourages sex
Anger on campuses as freshers given wristbands to signify Covid vaccination - "The Information Commissioner's Office has previously said organisations need "compelling reasons" to check Covid-19 status, as this is private health data. At least nine student unions across England are requiring students to show Covid-19 passports to enter their nightclubs, despite no law for such a measure. Ministers in England were previously considering plans to bring in Covid-19 passports for nightclubs and lectures, but both ideas have been abandoned for now amid outcry at the potential discriminatory effects."
They should get yellow stars instead
Savvy ☭ on Twitter - "Nobody should want COVID to become endemic. Endemic means being forced into accepting a mass amount of preventable death every year like we do with mass shootings and car accidents."
When covid hystericists are still wedded to covid zero. Naturally OP self-identities as Marxist
Reply: "🤦♂️ Either this is pure virtue-signaling, or you're recommending that extraordinary measures be taken to prevent auto accident deaths, like depriving motorists found to be breaking traffic laws of their ability to buy food, hold a job etc..."
Start of revised safe management measures postponed due to surge in COVID-19 cases: MOH
Since neither vaccination nor natural immunity provide very high immunity to new variants, Singapore is going to be in "transition" forever
Doctors, nurses struggle to cope as Covid-19 patients flock to A&E depts, many with mild symptoms - "Hospitals and healthcare workers are struggling to cope with a flood of Covid-19 patients seeking treatment in the accident and emergency (A&E) department, many with mild or no symptoms and who do not require immediate medical attention. This is despite the Ministry of Health (MOH) announcing that test centres will be open for those looking to take a supervised self-administered antigen rapid test (ART) for free, and get the results reflected in their HealthHub record... Remy said he saw many patients who, despite being young and healthy, would report symptoms that were out of proportion. "Some request to go to the isolation facilities even though they may be able to self-isolate if their family is willing to cooperate to rearrange living arrangements," he said."
Looks like many Singaporeans aren't ready to live with covid
Ironically, the worried well swarming A&E is due to covid hysteria
'I want to be in the system': Patients with Covid-19 mild symptoms bog down GPs, polyclinics after self-test - "some GPs said that there have been many patients who have been choking up the queues at GP clinics, regardless of their symptoms, because they want to be recognised officially as Covid-19 positive. This is because recovered Covid-19 patients will be able to delay their booster shots, be exempt from certain vaccine-related policies and infection controls, or be subject to fewer travel restrictions... some GP clinics and polyclinics continue to be inundated with patients who exhibit mild symptoms and require minimal treatment, ever since MOH roped in primary care doctors early last month to diagnose low-risk patients with mild symptoms using rapid test kits, and for them to continue caring for patients under Protocol 2. Dr Philip Koh, a GP from Healthway Medical clinic in Tampines, said that since then, around half of all the patients he sees are related to the coronavirus. None of them have had serious symptoms of Covid-19... It takes more than 15 minutes for Dr Koh to see each patient who goes to his clinic for confirmatory testing. Since they are all mild cases, the medical treatment that he gives is minimal. “Last time, if we had a flu case, my time with the patient (consists of) just the consultation and that’s it… Now, it’s different. Besides swabbing, we have to tag the patient under Protocol 1 or 2, fill in the required forms, et cetera,” Dr Koh said. "Most of it is administrative." Another GP told TODAY that because the wait to get a supervised swab outside his clinic would take some time, he would ask them to wait at the mall opposite the clinic as his place is too small to accommodate a crowd... Dr Yeo Suan Aik from Yeo's Clinic in Clementi said: “On the ground, patients are not sure when to see a doctor and when not to. People are confused — the rules keep changing after all."... from Jan 23, travellers into Singapore who are fully vaccinated and have a past infection less than 90 days ago will be exempted from all testing and quarantine requirements if they are able to provide documentary proof.
When repressive policies to force people to get a booster backfire and increase healthcare system strain.
Looks like a lot of Singaporeans don't want to be forced to take the booster and/or anticipate a further tightening of covid apartheid. Ironically, it's covid apartheid that is causing a strain on primary care
Two-thirds of Canadians ready to drop COVID-19 restrictions - "The survey, conducted by Maru Public Opinion for Postmedia, revealed that 64 per cent of respondents believe that unless hospitals and intensive care units are affected by a sudden surge of COVID-19 patients that compromises the care of other people, governments should lift pandemic restrictions. Respondents living in Quebec (71 per cent), Alberta (65 per cent) and Ontario (65 per cent) were found to be the most likely to hold this view... 56 per cent of Canadians say the unvaccinated should not be pressured into getting the shot. The majority believe that if someone has not gotten it by now, they won’t, and pressuring them is creating backlash that is “worse than living with them in our communities.” On the topic of who precautions should be determined by, 53 per cent of respondents believe that it should be left up to them to choose what measures they take to protect themselves and not the government or health-care officials... 45 per cent of Canadians believe that now is the time for chief medical officers and health officials to stand back."
Covid hystericists dismissed the Angus Reid survey. Of course they will dismiss this one too
So much for claims that the majority support mandates
Thread by @ScottReidCPC on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Trudeau’s announcement he’s lifting Emergencies Act speaks volumes. No Freedom Convoy protester was charged with anything more severe than conspiracy to commit mischief.
So the govt’s claims of a threat of sedition was disinformation.
If there had ever been a credible threat that any of the arrested protesters were engaged in an attempt to violently overthrow the constitution, they would have been charged. They were not.
If there were any hint that any of the truckers & supporters, including the ones now demonstrating in Winnipeg & Quebec City, were potentially violent, Trudeau would be keeping the Act in place. He is not.
So, with no dangers still in existence, it must be the case that the government knew this all along, and the claims of sedition made in the justice minister’s explanatory document were just a lie."
CCLA asks feds to "immediately revoke" Emergencies Act - "The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is calling on the federal government to immediately revoke the Emergencies Act... The organization, which has been defending Canadian civil liberties and constitutional rights since 1964, is asking individual legislators to vote according to their “own personal conscience,” not with their respective political parties. In a letter written to the government on Monday, the CCLA pointed out that the blockade in Ottawa has been cleared and that various border crossings had been reopened — without reliance — on the invocation of federal emergency powers... Mendelsohn says the question is no longer whether the government was justified in issuing a proclamation of emergency a week ago but asks why it “continues to be justified today.” “Let’s be clear; every Canadian is currently subject to the emergency orders,” says the CCLA. “The orders limit peaceful assembly across the country and require financial institutions to freeze bank accounts without judicial oversight. The federal government does not control how and when these laws are used. These legal powers have been placed in the hands of police officers across the country. As with all broad grants of power, the risk of abuse is significant.”"
I saw a leftist covid hystericist very upset over this. The left only values civil liberties only when they support leftist causes
Adam Zivo: How Trudeau's use of the Emergencies Act violates the rights of Canadians - "The definition of “threats to the security of Canada” is spelled out in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which lists four possible kinds of threats: i) espionage or sabotage; ii) clandestine or deceptive foreign-influenced activities that threaten Canada’s interests; iii) activities that use, or threaten, serious violence for the purpose of achieving a political or ideological objective; and iv) activities that threaten the constitutionally established system of government through covert, unlawful acts or by violent overthrow. The CCLA examines each of these conditions and concludes that none of them have been met, as the protests have not been covert or deceptive and have not presented any serious threats of violence. Sporadic harassment, as well as the presence of crowd-sourced foreign donations, are not sufficient to turn a protest into a national security threat. Protests are inherently chaotic and cannot be held to an impossible standard of conduct upon threat of invoking emergency legislation. Were it otherwise, there would be a chilling effect on Canada’s democracy. As the lawsuit notes, the Emergencies Act “was intended to address situations of war, invasion and other national emergencies that are so exigent and threatening that they cannot be dealt with under existing laws or through typical democratic processes.” Protests do not really fall within the act’s scope. In order for the government to declare that there is a “national emergency,” it must show there is an “urgent and critical situation” that: i) “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it”; or ii) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada.”... The Trudeau government has argued that the protests are creating economic harms and supply chain issues that justify declaring a national emergency. The CCLA rebuts this by pointing out that the government has failed to demonstrate how these economic effects concretely lead to an acute threat to Canadian lives and safety. Insofar as supply chains go, the government has provided no evidence that Canadians will be deprived of necessities, especially considering that the blockade at the Ambassador Bridge was peacefully cleared prior to the emergency declaration. The CCLA maintains that criminal law is more than capable of addressing all of the federal government’s concerns, through offences such as mischief, unlawful assembly and causing a disturbance or nuisance. The lawsuit notes that “municipal bylaws also operate to similar effect.” In particular, court injunctions can be used to restrain protests without invoking emergency powers, such as those that were issued to clear the Ambassador Bridge blockade and stop the incessant trucker honking within downtown Ottawa. As these injunctions were granted by provincial judges and enforced by provincial and municipal authorities, it suggests that protests can, and have, been managed by the provinces and do not require federal interference via the Emergencies Act. The CCLA argues that the Trudeau government’s crackdown on protests violates several fundamental rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — specifically, the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. These violations are exacerbated by the fact that the Trudeau government has banned protests that may “reasonably be expected” to lead to a breach of peace. This effectively prohibits assembly before it actually occurs, and necessarily targets peaceful assembly, because an assembly that has not yet become violent is, by definition, a peaceful one. Additionally, the CCLA argues that Trudeau’s order that Canadian financial institutions freeze or suspend bank accounts held by “designated persons” also violates charter-protected rights. When financial institutions are forced to disclose the existence of property, as well as information relating to said property, to CSIS and the RCMP without judicial authorization or reasonable or probable grounds, that violates Canadians’ right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. Some of Trudeau’s supporters have tried to gaslight Canadians into thinking that invoking the Emergencies Act will have little impact on the integrity of Canadian civil liberties. Vehement opposition from the CCLA, one of Canada’s most prominent and respected rights organizations, helps dispel these attempts to normalize the flippant use of extraordinary powers."
Opinion: I witnessed the creation of the Emergencies Act. It shouldn’t have been invoked in Ottawa - The Globe and Mail - "I was present during the negotiations around the federal Emergencies Act in 1987. As one of two full-time lawyers at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association at the time, I witnessed firsthand how Alan Borovoy, the CCLA’s then-general counsel, managed to shape the contours of this scheme. And I saw how the end product was a carefully calibrated piece of legislation with checks at every turn... It seems that, despite its creators’ best intentions, the carefully crafted Emergencies Act remains vulnerable to the urges of power hoarders."
Mrs. Noodles 🕊🌿✌💚 on Twitter - "Sick of people who don't live in downtown Ottawa telling me I'm now free from some kind of occupation, when now I can't get past police barricades to bring my dog to his favorite park. Truckers never asked me for my papers just to cross the street."
Anthony Furey on Twitter - "The Trudeau government says the Emergencies Act needs to stay in place for now because of potential “future blockades”. Trudeau goes on to characterize any MP who votes against the Emergencies Act later today as someone who is against democracy."
S.F. Mayor London Breed had her own French Laundry party — the night after Gavin Newsom’s - "While indoor dining was allowed in Napa County at the time with no specified limit on the number of households, the state’s guidelines “strongly discouraged” social gatherings and capped them at three households. Breed’s dinner at an opulent restaurant — amid an economic catastrophe that’s shuttered countless small businesses and stretched the lines at local food banks to new lengths — might not have technically violated the rules, but it isn’t a great look. The dinner would have certainly violated San Francisco’s health guidelines if it took place in Breed’s own city... Three days after dining at the French Laundry, Breed banned indoor dining in San Francisco altogether."
Why the 1918 Flu Pandemic Never Really Ended - "the H1N1 strain that caused the Spanish flu receded into the background and stuck around as the regular seasonal flu... “We’re still living in what I would call the ‘1918 pandemic era’ 102 years later” says Taubenberger, “and I don’t know how long it will last.”"
Clearly the world can never go back to normal due to covid
Covid alarmism has done more harm than good - "Broadcast journalists are utterly apocalyptic about Covid-19. They are very good at delivering negative news and government justifications for lockdown. But we rarely hear about positive developments or reasons to question our collective house arrest. The written press has been a little more diverse. But when did you last hear anything other than the government-approved narrative on the airwaves? The fact, say, that new treatments means the virus kills fewer of those who get infected than earlier in the crisis? Or the fact that the average age of those it kills is older than the life expectancy of men born in the UK? Do they just want us to be scared? We know many editors believe the public to be too hateful and stupid to be given the full facts. We have seen this with coverage of Islamist terror attacks, when reporters speak in riddles about ‘ideological motives’. They have taken a similarly paternalistic approach to Covid. It seems as if some newsrooms consider us too volatile and too fond of our freedom to be given all the information on the virus. Should we know too much we might start breaking the rules, they fear. But is it the job of journalists to help to maintain an atmosphere of fear to keep the population cowering at home?... Is it any surprise that many people now have a wildly inflated perception of the threat posed by the virus? Or that, perhaps consequently, alarmingly high proportions of people appear to support lockdowns? In the row over schools reopening this week, the majority said they wanted schools to close, despite the serious harms this will cause children, compared to the low risk they face from Covid. Do we like lockdown or have we not been properly informed of the risks? When asked in July what percentage of the population they thought had succumbed to the virus, the mean-average answer given by Brits was nearly seven per cent, which was roughly 100 times higher than the official death toll at the time, and higher than the mortality rate of adult British men during the First World War. The median-average (and most common) perception of the death rate was one per cent of the population, which is also drastically higher than reality... The BBC, Channel 4 and almost all other major broadcasters now prominently feature fact-checkers. This trend is the latest manifestation of the ‘impartiality’ lie: the fact-checkers populating our screens almost never look into inflammatory and fearmongering claims about Covid. They only investigate those which question lockdowns or the hysteria... Social-media firms are also at fault. Undoubtedly, there has been a dampening effect on speech as a result of their censorship of lockdown sceptics. Fearful of losing their platforms and livelihoods, many journalists are nervous about reporting even seemingly obvious things that run counter to the official narrative."
How the left learned to love the Tory police state - "Voices from across the political spectrum have been (rightly) critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic. But the criticism has overwhelmingly been that the government did not lock down fast enough or hard enough. This has been a particularly depressing refrain of the left. The very people who present themselves as radical opponents of the Tory government have been cheerleaders for its extraordinary accumulation of state power, its rescinding of the right to free association and protest, its sidelining of parliamentary democracy, and its shutdown of civil society. And that’s just the basics of the policy – never mind its disastrous unintended consequences. When the first full lockdown was announced in March, the Guardian’s Owen Jones was relieved to have been placed ‘under house arrest along with millions of people under a police state by a right-wing Tory government’. This may have been expressed in jest, but it was literally what had happened. The police had suddenly been given extraordinary powers to prevent members of the public from going about their business (and even then, officers often went beyond the law, arresting people for crimes which did not exist). Aside from some crocodile tears over the fact that ethnic-minority Britons were being disproportionately arrested and fined for lockdown breaches, the left learned to love the police state pretty quickly. Every time restrictions were eased, reducing the scope of everyday activities that could get you arrested, the left cried murder. Now the left argues that restrictions on social mixing are not enough – we need restrictions on thought and speech, too. Take Paul Mason, whose latest book is How To Stop Fascism and who, last year, warned that a right-wing prime minister was plotting a coup against democracy. He has continually blasted the government for allowing too much freedom. His latest crusade is against lockdown sceptics whose ‘disinformation’ (aka disagreements with the government) he says needs to be ‘suppressed’. Mason wants opponents of the police state to be silenced either by the goverment or by the megacorporations of Silicon Valley. That would represent true ‘leadership’, he says. How To Stop Fascism indeed. Many self-styled socialists have made it their mission to shut down society, regardless of the cost. And there has been a tremendous cost. One area where this has been most catastrophic is in schools... Teaching unions and left-wing outlets like Novara Media said that schools were unsafe to open even in June, at the trough of Britain’s epidemic. Novara Media accused ministers of weaponising concerns about disadvantaged students to pursue ‘harmful policies’. The life-ruining harms of denying children a proper education barely raised a squeak. The costs of lockdown fall overwhelmingly on the working class – the very people the left is supposed to champion. The bank balances of the poorest have been reduced by £170 per month compared with before the lockdown – an astonishing 14 per cent drop. This is despite the unprecedented state support that has been made available to keep jobs afloat. In contrast, those on higher incomes have, on average, saved an extra £400 per month. The left is simply in denial about this. It presents our state-enforced atomisation as solidarity in action. It does this by decrying any tentative re-opening as sacrificing workers to the cruel whims of billionaires. But in reality, the super-rich are the real beneficiaries of lockdown. The wealth of Britain’s billionaires has grown by 20 per cent – faster than at any time since the Great Depression. The shutdown of society – and its replacement by state and central-bank support – has led to what is arguably the greatest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history. One that has been supported wholeheartedly by the left. Instead of recognising that nearly 10 months in and out of lockdown has not succeeded in taking pressure off our clapped-out health service, many on the left engage in the fantasy of ‘Zero Covid’. This strategy has the backing of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and Independent SAGE (which one commentator memorably described as ‘SAGE… if you hate the Tories’. If you thought that Zero Covid sounded like a more reasonable proposition with the arrival of the vaccines, think again. Independent SAGE’s Christine Pagel is calling for lockdown to continue even after the vaccine has been administered to the most vulnerable (by which point the death rate will have collapsed). Before she was charged with harassment and lost the Labour whip, Claudia Webbe MP was in the Socialist Campaign Group. She now claims that ‘the UK has never properly locked down’. She makes explicit what other leftists try to imply when they cry ‘full lockdown now!’ and rage at the Covid death figures whenever the public is given the most minor reprieve from house arrest. (Many of the left’s most shrill demands for lockdown came last week when most of England was already under the Tier 4 ‘stay at home’ rules – lockdown in all but name.) In doing so, the harms of the lockdown are brushed aside and the fact that thousands have died of Covid regardless of the restrictions is ignored. The scene is set for forever lockdown. Many might have thought the lowest point of the sorry excuse for what remains of the British left would have been its rejection of the Brexit vote – when it called for millions of working-class votes to be thrown into the shredder to defend the neoliberal EU oligarchy. But it has now spent the whole year demanding that an authoritarian police state enforce policies that have devastated the poor and blighted the lives of disadvantaged children. Surely, it can never recover from this."
Leftists now believe that "freedom" is just fascist dog whistling, so
From January 2021. A year later with a super high vaccination rate the left were still whipping up covid hysteria
