Simon Case mocked holidaymakers 'locked up' in Covid quarantine hotel rooms - "Those unlucky enough to be caught up in Britain’s pandemic-era quarantine hotel policy likened it to being held prisoner. Messages seen by The Telegraph show that ministers and officials shared the sentiment and joked about passengers being “locked up” in “shoe box” rooms... The hotel quarantine policy itself has since been criticised in reports by two parliamentary committees, which said it wasted taxpayers’ money without restricting the spread of Covid. In a report last April, the transport select committee that “using case numbers as an indicator, there is no evidence that the requirement for travellers from certain countries to quarantine at a hotel, rather than at a location of their choice, has improved the UK’s coronavirus situation compared with other European countries”. In a submission to the public accounts committee, the Cabinet Office said the Government was unable to determine how successful the quarantine policy had been because “it is difficult to isolate the effects of one of a number of interventions from the other ones”. The committee concluded that the Government “does not know whether it achieved value for money from the £486 million that it spent implementing measures”."
Untruth after untruth was peddled to justify the great lockdown disaster - "Let’s face it: Whitehall has learned almost nothing from the fiasco of 2020-22. There has been no proper cost-benefit analysis of lockdown. We haven’t engaged in a genuine inquest, our institutions haven’t been reformed, and the official inquiry will take too long and risks being captured by an establishment desperate to defend its legacy. Sir Keir Starmer, favourite to be our next prime minister, was at one with the Government and Matt Hancock on lockdowns – his only criticism was that he wanted more of the same, faster. This is why The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files are so important, and so clearly in the public interest. Given officialdom’s glacial progress, the free press has a duty to release information, accelerate debate and hold power to account. One question in particular that should trouble all of us is why so many of the claims made during the pandemic turned out not to be true. How much of this was genuine error or science not having caught up yet with a novel virus, and how much was it propaganda to make life easier for politicians, or to allow officials to save face? Why weren’t incorrect conclusions quickly rectified when the facts became clearer? We need to know. Why, for example, were we often told that the virus “doesn’t discriminate” while of course the old and very ill were the ones really at risk? It was obvious very early on – from the cruise ships that suffered early outbreaks, for instance, or from Italy – that fatality rates were massively age-contingent. Children were exceptionally safe. Or take the origins of the virus. Those who sought to explore whether it might have originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan were demonised, ridiculed or cancelled. Now, the director of the FBI has concluded that this is the most likely explanation. This begs a crucial question: would we have followed China’s methods – lockdown and extreme social control – had we imagined the Beijing authorities were covering up a Chernobyl-style disaster? Might we not have gone for a more voluntarist, Swedish style approach? Where are the profuse apologies from all those who tarred supporters of the lab leak hypothesis as “racist”, “Trumpites” or “conspiracy theorists”? In some cases, at least at first, the experts really didn’t know: in the virus’s earliest days, its mortality rate was unclear. It was also plausible that it might spread via touch, hence the hand-washing campaign launched in March 2020. Three years on, a seminal meta-analysis by the Cochrane Library suggests that hand-washing does in fact cut the number of infections by 14 per cent, but only enough to slow spread down slightly in an exponential growth situation. There was also some justification at first for believing that the virus could be caught outside – but it soon became evident that this was in fact extremely unlikely, with the fresh air immediately diluting and dispersing the virus. When did the Government find out, and why didn’t it scrap all restrictions on outside gatherings early on? Many independent analysts realised pretty quickly that Covid was caught via airborne transmission, or aerosols, and that these were only really effective indoors. Yet a great many people were so scared by official pronouncements that they even washed their shopping. It was deemed dangerous to ask questions. What about masks? It is obviously true that a high-tech contraption able to filter out all particles would help greatly. In the real world, however, masks as they actually exist and are worn by fallible humans (including, ludicrously, children) were for show... The authorities’ and scientific establishment’s decision to massively downplay the role of natural immunity in reducing the disease’s severity was another grave distortion of the truth. Yet the Lancet has now published a meta-review of 65 studies that finds that natural immunity (acquired as a result of catching Covid) protects as well as two vaccine shots. There were good reasons for people to get vaccinated: there was no need for officialdom to exaggerate the case. Crucially, the principal beneficiary of a vaccine is the person who is vaccinated... The case for vaccine passports was always thus extremely weak – and in my view, massively outweighed by the loss in liberty. Covid saw endless politicians, bureaucrats, public health officials, scientists, professional journal editors, Twitter activists, Left-wing broadcasters and especially big tech firms transmogrify into authoritarian censors. They thought that “following the science” meant that their role was to amplify whatever the public health establishment’s most risk-averse current consensus was, rather than to pursue the truth independently. They convinced themselves that dissidents were heartless, paranoid freaks. They went on a terrifying power and ego trip. The lesson is clear. Even in a crisis, free speech and open inquiry must be nurtured: elite groupthink is too often wrong, and must at all times be scrutinised. Long live the free press."
I warned that second lockdown data was wrong – but I was ignored - "My role has never been to make the decisions, but to ensure that the decisions are based on the best available evidence. In this case, though, it was vital that decisions affecting the whole of society were made on accurate information. I work with a great team, who forensically look at the data and notice details that most overlook. We met daily, and it had become clear that the slides leaked to the BBC on estimated Covid deaths and that would later be presented at the government press conference were out of date and the reported deaths were way too high. I spent Saturday informing advisers that there needed to be a better understanding at the heart of the Government. While several others on that call were also trying to aid the understanding of the data, the message was clear – the Government was about to lock down again, based on the wrong information. I couldn’t help but think that the public won’t forgive you when they find out they are being fed a narrative of fear based on untruths. But nothing changed... I’ve had many sleepless nights during the pandemic as I’ve wrestled with how to get an evidence-based approach to the Government. But by the morning, I realised the advisers weren’t listening. A fixed ideology had rooted itself at the heart of Downing Street. The data was there to support the policy – it didn’t matter if it was incorrect, so long as it supported the lockdown... The Lockdown Files reveal that the Prime Minister told his WhatsApp group that I’d said “the death modelling you have been shown is already very wrong”, as it was out of date, having been drawn up three weeks previously. By Nov 6, Downing Street insisted the incorrect death toll data was “a mistake”. The error in the graphs made the numbers too high, but by then it was too late to change course. The second lockdown had already begun"
Trust the Science!
Jacob Rees-Mogg: We were denied evidence we needed to make anti-lockdown case - "Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he was never told that the Chief Medical Officer believed it would be possible to reduce the number of days for which people had to self-isolate after contact with a positive Covid case... four senior ministers made all key Covid decisions and other Cabinet colleagues were not shown the evidence they needed to make an anti-lockdown case."
How Boris Johnson’s desire to lift lockdown was thwarted by public opinion - "Boris Johnson considered lifting lockdown restrictions early but decided against it after being told that doing so would be “too far ahead of public opinion”. The former prime minister and his government always swore they were being “led by the science”, but messages between him and others have shown this was not exclusively the case. Public opinion also played its part in determining policy and strategy in the face of the pandemic. At the heart of decision-making, it now appears, were two former journalists – neither with any known scientific background – whose job was to brief journalists and advise the prime minister on media strategy."
Given that he was still bashed as a murderer for not locking down forever, as covid hystericists wanted, he should've just lifted lockdown earlier
Lockdown questions demand answers - "It appears that some measures were introduced not because they were supported by scientific evidence but because they were politically expedient, as in the case of facemasks in schools. Those who asked questions or wanted to take a less draconian course, such as Sir Gavin Williamson, the education secretary at the time, on reopening schools, were treated as irrational or mad. A mania for securing the public’s “compliance” with the rules may have seen important principles such as the operational independence of the police trashed. All this adds to what we already knew about how politics was conducted in the period. Sir Keir’s Labour decided to abandon its duties as the official opposition and rubber stamp every law and regulation, often failing to even scrutinise them. The broadcast media similarly neglected to question decisions, at times treating sceptical voices as borderline dangerous. Again, the priority seems to have been to ensure the public complied with the rules, rather than to ask whether the rules were right in the first place. But the debate the country should have had in 2020 can no longer be avoided. One of the purposes of the Covid inquiry has to be to ensure that Britain is better prepared the next time a major public health emergency hits – as it inevitably will. Obviously, that must include an examination of areas like healthcare capacity, economic resilience, and procurement. But if the UK and its political leaders are to learn the right lessons from Covid-19, they also need to ask the right questions. By necessity there must be a particular focus on the interests of the younger generation. These were almost entirely disregarded in 2020 and 2021, despite the virus posing the smallest risk to the young"
Matt Hancock: Leaked messages suggest plan to frighten public - "Matt Hancock suggested to an aide that they "frighten the pants off everyone" about Covid... the former health secretary discussed when to reveal the existence of the Kent variant of Covid to ensure people complied with lockdown rules... the head of the Civil Service, Simon Case, suggested the "fear/guilt factor" was vital to the government's messaging.
Boris Johnson ‘manipulated’ by Matt Hancock into backing lockdowns, claims whistleblower - "Mr Hancock had at times “conspired to limit and select the evidence that Boris Johnson was given” in order to influence policy decisions... “He was manipulated. And we can argue about whether a leader should allow himself or herself to be manipulated. “But I think that he had certainly taken a real knock as a result of nearly dying of this virus that had blown him off course. His libertarian instincts had slightly been kind of brought into check as a result of that. And I think that he vacillated.” She continued: “You see that in these messages, you see him sort of wanting to bring some sense of proportion into all of this, arguing about the relative risks for very elderly people of dying of Covid versus falling down the stairs... “What’s so distasteful is to see the glee with which they did this, the relish with which they amassed power in a way that has never happened before. And I think people absolutely need to know that’s what happened.”"
Matt Hancock rejected advice to cut Covid isolation as it would ‘imply we’ve been wrong’ - "Matt Hancock rejected advice from England’s Chief Medical Officer to replace the 14-day Covid quarantine with five days of testing because it would “imply we’ve been getting it wrong”... Mr Hancock fought to take credit for the success of Britain’s vaccine campaign, telling colleagues: “Everyone knows I’m Mr Vaccine and this is the route out.” He feared being overshadowed by others, including the medicines regulator, saying that speeding up approval of jabs was a “Hancock triumph”. Dame Kate Bingham, the vaccines tsar, was also criticised by Mr Hancock as “totally unreliable” and “wacky” after she questioned the need to inoculate the entire population. On Sunday a former minister, MPs and scientific experts criticised the “Project Fear” narrative that has been exposed by The Lockdown Files, saying that the “psychological warfare” employed by ministers must never be repeated... Dame Kate Bingham, the vaccines tsar, was also criticised by Mr Hancock as “totally unreliable” and “wacky” after she questioned the need to inoculate the entire population. On Sunday a former minister, MPs and scientific experts criticised the “Project Fear” narrative that has been exposed by The Lockdown Files, saying that the “psychological warfare” employed by ministers must never be repeated... Mr Hancock has always claimed he was “guided by the science” when making policy decisions that curtailed people’s freedom to go about their daily lives... A year earlier, scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine published a study in Lancet Public Health that looked at whether “test to release” could reduce or replace quarantine for contacts of positive cases. They found that – provided all tests were returned negative – releasing contacts on day seven, or daily testing for five days without quarantine, were both just as effective at preventing the spread of the disease as making people self-isolate for the full 14 days."
Covid not deadly enough to fast-track vaccines, Chris Whitty advised ministers - "The Chief Medical Officer said a Covid vaccine could not be fast-tracked because the virus had a “low mortality rate” in the early days of the pandemic, messages reveal Prof Sir Chris Whitty told Matt Hancock and others that diseases with a mortality rate in the range of one per cent would need a “very safe” vaccine and that the necessary clinical trials would be a “rate limiting step”... The highest mortality rate for Covid in England was recorded in April 2020, when 626 people per 100,000 were dying of Covid – 0.6 per cent... In May 2021 Mr Cummings told a Covid super-committee of MPs he believed it was “unarguable” that the vaccine trials process should have happened more quickly... A letter sent by Scripps Research on his behalf later insisted that Andersen objectively researched he origins of COVID and claimed that Fauci did not influence his work... Collins emailed Fauci 'expressing dismay that Proximal Origin — which they saw prior to publication and were given the opportunity to edit — did not squash the lab leak hypothesis and asks if the NIH could do more to "put down" the lab leak hypothesis... a report from the US Office of Inspector General found that the NIH did not properly review whether the tests in Wuhan involved dangerous pathogens with pandemic potential... Chinese officials were found to have wiped crucial databases from the lab and stifled independent investigations into the facility when questions started to be asked about its involvement. Researchers who fell ill with a mysterious flu-like virus months before the official COVID timeline were silenced or disappeared. One of its chief scientists was nicknamed the 'Bat Lady' for her extensive work on coronaviruses like COVID."
Businesses, families would have been severely hit if Singapore had closed borders to migrant workers: MOM - "Singapore would have been hit hard by a shortfall of at least 100,000 workers and 30,000 domestic workers if migrant workers had not been allowed to enter after the circuit breaker period"
From 2021. When people only have one obsession...
Singapore Withholds Privileges From People With Sinovac Shots - Bloomberg - "With growing evidence that mRNA vaccines are not just more effective at preventing serious illness and death, but can also curb transmission, governments are scrambling to backstop their use of non-mRNA shots like those from the Chinese makers and AstraZeneca Plc."
From 2021. Weird, I thought covid hystericists claim no one thought that vaccines were to reduce transmission
Syracuse students speak out against professor's 'Chinese Communist Party Flu' syllabus notes - "Student groups spoke out after chemistry professor Jon Zubieta was reported to have written "Wuhan Flu" and "Chinese Communist Party Flu" in his syllabus notes. He was removed from the classroom, and the school issued a statement. "The derogatory language used by a professor on his course syllabus is damaging to the learning environment for our students and offensive to Chinese, international and Asian-Americans everywhere who have experienced hate speech, rhetoric and actions since the pandemic began," said a joint statement from Karin Ruhlandt, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and John Liu, the university's interim vice chancellor and provost. Some said it's not enough. "A lot of students are uncomfortable with the decision to place Zubieta on administrative leave. We expected him to be fired," said a sophomore who is an organizer for #NotAgainSU and asked not to be identified... While the #NotAgainSU organizer was impressed at the quicker response this time around, she was surprised at the actual decision. "There is no need for an investigation if there is proof. It went viral, so the evidence is there," she said. "These stereotypes and biases that are incorporated in the class by faculty will allow for unsafe spaces for students.""
From 2020. Criticising the Chinese Communist Party is racist
So much for "white fragility"
The year journalists stopped doing their job - "Bad news sells, and we have had a whole heap of it this year. In 2020, we in the UK have witnessed the most severe restrictions on civil liberties in living memory... The consequences have been ruinous... The government has been inept... You would expect that, in the context of our leaders’ litany of failures, the media would be challenging the government on its key policy: lockdown. The confusing and contradictory nature of the rules should be exposed. At the absolute minimum, journalists should be approaching government data and rhetoric with critical eyes and ears. But in reality, a very strange thing has happened. The media have certainly been attacking the government, but on everything except the lockdown. In fact, it has been clear from an early stage that the media largely support lockdown, and if anything would rather we had a bit more of it. They have done little to conceal their bias on this central issue of our time. No doubt, many broadcasters and reporters think they are dutifully scrutinising the government and its representatives. They will likely think they are being objective. But scrutiny now appears to mean agreeing with the basic premise of the government’s policy, while arguing that it has not gone far enough... Should we be surprised at the abject failure of the press to cope with Covid? Perhaps not entirely. After all, it has spectacularly embarrassed itself over the past few years in its utter incomprehension of, and refusal to accept, Brexit. New meaning was given to the word scaremongering from the referendum onwards. And yet outlets still found a way to ramp things up even more when Covid came to town. In a period when sanity has been strained, the press has helped to make things worse."
From 2020
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The EU and The Vaccine - "'I spent early lockdown playing chess against my computer, but stopped when I realized I was getting worse rather than better. When autumn brought new regulations, I devoted myself to listening to the Beethoven piano sonatas in order of composition, but gave up when I realized how repetitive they are. No one cares if I think he's a genius, of course, but I bet the patron who commissioned them secretly found them disappointingly samey too… I've been studying the events of the summer of 1914, the months in which Europe slid disastrously towards war. It was meant to be a distraction. But I couldn't help finding a strange parallel with our own Europe, and its slide into disastrous failure on vaccine distribution… Those foolish and reckless emperors all swept away by the forces they unleashed, could not foresee how slaughter would follow, marrying the technologies of the 20th century, modern railways and new machine guns with the tactics of the 19th. It is not on the same scale, thank God, but I feel a parallel in the way that our current crop of leaders have sought to cover up failures over vaccination with a fog of accusation and implication. How else to explain Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion that the AstraZeneca vaccine was quasi ineffective in older people, or that in some way, it was generally disappointing? Or the anonymous German government briefing - wholly wrong - that said it was nearly useless. The underlying motive, of course, was anger at a failure to secure supplies, which has left some European governments in the rather ludicrous position of angrily demanding increased supplies of a product while simultaneously suggesting that it might not work. The situation is complicated because the European Commission took over the role of acquiring vaccines from the individual member states. After the first COVID wave in which EU countries closed borders and launched individual bailouts, the Brussels institutions were fearful for their own centrality. The truth is, though, that the European Commission was not well suited to the task. It was behind the United States, the UK and Israel in funding development, and signing risky contract to procure drugs at a point where they might have proved useless. It was a time for risk, but the commission is not good at calibrating risk. It had to balance the different instincts of individual member states, and also consider who would bear legal responsibility if the vaccines turned out to be useless or even to have dangerous side effects. It seems to me likely that history will judge that the Commission got its vaccine policy wrong. In trying to correct things by blaming AstraZeneca and threatening to block exports, it is now considering a really risky policy. Vaccines produced in the EU are now somehow the property of the EU. And to see shipments or demand the intellectual property involved in production is going about it a feeling of piracy. Invoking those powers is a big step. Starting to use them would be a bigger step still'"
From 2021
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Iran’s internal rivalries - "‘We chatted about Chile's impressive vaccine program. At that point 3.1 million people have been vaccinated in just three weeks. The government got ahead by offering to host trials and ordering a variety of different vaccines. But things began to slip out of the government's control again at the start of March, infection rates started to rise, and Chile's initial success began to falter… So far Chile’s relied heavily on the Chinese manufactured Sinovac which makes up the lion's share of its supplies. Like many other vaccines, Sinovac had its fair share of controversy. Recently, the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention appeared to question its efficacy rates. He quickly backtracked, but not before causing panic here in Chile. The government defends the vaccine, as do local scientists. The latest data collected in a real world study of Sinovac in Chile is much more positive than the data from clinical trials. The vaccine is 85% effective in stopping people from going to hospital and having severe symptoms. But Dr. *something*, the director of the trial in Chile, says that people still need to understand that it's vital to get two doses, and to allow two weeks for the protective effects to kick in. That message doesn't seem to have been well communicated, and could be one of the reasons rates shot up in March. When I visit a local dropin vaccine center and talk to some of the people waiting outside, they tell me they didn't realize the importance of waiting for the vaccine to take effect. The government were too busy boasting about their world class campaign, but they didn't give us enough information about how the vaccines work... Social distancing is also something Chileans still find really difficult. I have friends who are totally paranoid about keeping the virus out. They make you spray your shoes when you go into their house and spend hours disinfecting the grocery bags when they're delivered, but they think nothing of giving you two loving kisses on each cheek when they see you’"
From 2021
Cardiac arrest in a 17-year-old boy--a case report
17-Year-Old Multi-Sport Athlete Has a Cardiac Arrest During Competition
17-year-old cardiac arrest victim awake and talking in Wellington Hospital
Clearly the covid vaccine was around before 2020
EDITORIAL: COVID busybodies need to get a life | Toronto Sun - "there was a very small but vocal minority of people who thrived throughout the pandemic. Their true selves really came out to shine. These are the COVID busybodies. While most people are content to just live their lives and mind their own business, there are some people who have always obsessed over what others are doing and wanted to control their every move — pandemic or not... The busybodies are still very active on social media though, complaining about how many people have now gone back to living their lives — away from their controlling clutches. The latest prop for the busybodies to cling onto is the idea of vaccine passports."
From 2021, before covid apartheid
‘Wash your hands’ was once controversial medical advice - "In the spring of 1850, Semmelweis took the stage at the prestigious Vienna Medical Society and extolled the virtues of hand washing to a crowd of doctors. His theory flew in the face of accepted medical wisdom of the time and was rejected by the medical community, who faulted both his science and his logic. Historians believe they also rejected his theory because it blamed them for their patients’ deaths. Despite reversing the mortality rates in the maternity wards, the Vienna Hospital abandoned mandatory handwashing. The ensuing years were difficult for Semmelweis. He left Vienna and went to Pest in Hungary where he also worked in a maternity ward. He instituted his handwashing practice there and, as in Vienna, drastically reduced the rate of maternal mortality. Yet his success at saving lives earned no acceptance of his ideas. Semmelweis published articles on handwashing in 1858 and 1860 followed by a book a year later, but his theories were still not embraced by the establishment. His book was widely condemned by doctors with other theories for the continuing spread of childbed fever."
A scientismist shared a silly meme about "science" and "experts", then got upset when I presented this. Ignorant people still think that there's some platonic ideal of "Science" out there, and that science is not a social phenomenon and consensus does not rely on social phenomena. Max Planck had no idea how science worked when he talked about funerals
Opinion | Beware of ‘expert’ consensus. The covid-19 lab leak theory shows why. - The Washington Post - "“science” was a demand that others subordinate their judgment to an elite-approved group of credentialed scientific experts, many of whom were proclaiming the lab leak unlikely in the extreme. It seems that expert consensus was somewhat illusory, and it would have been well to remember that like the rest of us, scientists are prone to groupthink and nonscientific concerns can creep into their public statements. We all heard the confident pronouncements of support for Chinese scientists, but less about the quiet doubts that were apparently being expressed privately by people uninterested in a bruising public fight."
The scientismist got very upset with the hand washing example, proclaiming that it was ancient history. He also got upset with this article, claiming that it was a failure of science journalism, not of science. Strange how the Washington Post writer missed the memo
