The brevity of this post is out of proportion to the enormous importance of the subject. But I want to let you know I am thinking and working on it.
It is a recognised pattern for dictatorship to commence with emergency measures designed to combat a threat. Those emergency measures then become normalised and people exercising arbitrary power find it addictive. A new threat is then found to justify the continuation
It is by no means clear to me that it is a rational response to covid-19 to tear up all of the civil liberties which were won by the people against authority through centuries of struggle, and for which people died. To say that is not to minimise the threat of covid-19. It is also worth pointing out that a coronavirus pandemic was a widely foreseen eventuality. People keep sending me links to various TV shows or movies based on a coronavirus pandemic, generally claiming this proves it is a man-made event. No, that just proves it is a widely foreseen event. Which it is.
The lack of contingency preparedness is completely indefensible. It is partly a result of the stupidity of Tory austerity that has the NHS permanently operating at 100% capacity with no contingency, and partly the result of the crazed just-in time thinking that permeates management in all spheres and eliminates the holding of stock.
It is incredible to me that the UK is willing to throw away some £220 billion and rising on Trident against a war scenario nobody can sensibly define, but was not willing to spend a few million on holding stock of protective clothing for the NHS against the much more likely contingency of a pandemic. What does that say about our society?
Anyway, we are where we are. Nobody knows how deadly this virus is. There have not been, anywhere, sufficient reliable large general population samples to know what percentage of people who get the virus will die. We just do not know how many people in the UK have had it and not got seriously ill. My suspicion is that in a couple of years time it will be discovered the mortality rate was under 1%. But I do not know, and I do not blame the government for making worst assumptions in the absence of reliable scientific evidence. Personally, I am obeying lockdown and would advise others to do so too until the situation is clearer. But I do not want to see the police harassing people for going on a long walk or posting a letter. It really is a problem to have police empowered to stop and question a citizen for just walking in the street. It is also a problem that Peter Hitchens is being reviled for saying, in essence, little more than that. When you can’t criticise restrictions on liberty, you know society has entered a very dark phase indeed.
I would feel much more comfortable if they were open about what they do not know. All the excuses for not testing people rather than admit they did not have the tests rather rattles trust. The ability of the rich and well-connected to access tests also rattles trust.
But none of this justifies rule by fiat – if Parliament cannot sit, I personally believe it would benefit the nations of the UK to have no new laws for a while. There are too many laws already. It does not justify banning political gathering. I don’t recommend anyone to gather, and I don’t imagine they would gather, but the evil of banning political activity is much more serious than the danger of four lonely people in Solihull getting together to talk about coronavirus restrictions.
It certainly does not justify banning jury trials, which the Scottish government has just dropped from today’s Bill after a revolt led by Joanna Cherry. The bill still weakens the defence in trials by allowing pre-taped video evidence and dispensing with the right to cross-examine. If the accusers had been allowed to get away with their lies in the Alex Salmond trial without cross-examination, the result might have been very different. For God’s sake, if you cannot do justice, suspend it. Do not dispense rough justice.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
——————————————
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
How It Starts
A 41 year old woman has been fined for breaching coronavirus restrictions after she refused to tell police who she was and why she was at a railway station.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-52121216
North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court imposed a £660 fine under the Coronavirus Act 2020 on Monday.
Dinou, who did not enter a plea, was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £66 and costs of £85.
What the f**k has it got to do with the bluebottles what she was doing at a train station, the was either waiting for a train or just waiting for her own amusement.This is the very thin edge, we will be forced to carry certificates, soon, as in other lands.
You know what, I’ve never known there to be so many people who utterly despise the police, and it’s people you would never expect to express that kind of sentiment to boot. Sooner or later it will pop and no amount of contingency planning will be able to put the lid on.
Michael this is truly disgraceful. Truly shocking too. Considering the Police and the security services can access your e-mails at any time (see Snowden on this – he says the UK introduced the most draconian if you like spy legislation than any other country in response to, I think was 9/11. The Police, a year later, were found to be using this for purposes that had nothing to do with detecting terrorist activity but as a substitute to proper police investigation. I wouldn’t give my name – because I don’t have to. There will be a lot more of this police activity. Hand power to a bunch of racist thugs and this is what you will get. (Remember the BBC some years ago – police cadets, when referring to black people doing impersonations of monkeys, spouting thoughts that are fascist, extremist and racist – in fact, the undercover filming made these cadets look like escapees from Borstal not police officers in the making.
They will do a lot more than just read your emails. They will tap your phones, track your chips in your debit cards/passport/driving license etc. They can track your car as they all have chips in them nowadays.
There is nothing they cannot do, if they want to. The only limit is their budget for satellite surveillance time.
Michael, if you take a look at the law passed last week I think you will find that it is very broadly worded. For example:
SCHEDULE 22 Section 52 POWERS TO ISSUE DIRECTIONS RELATING TO EVENTS, GATHERINGS AND PREMISES
…
5(1) The Secretary of State may, for the purpose of—(a) preventing, protecting against, delaying or otherwise controlling the incidence or transmission of coronavirus, or (b) facilitating the most appropriate deployment of medical or emergency personnel and resources, issue a direction prohibiting, or imposing requirements or restrictions in relation to, the holding of an event or gathering in England.
…
6(1) The Secretary of State may, for the purpose of—(a) preventing, protecting against, delaying or otherwise controlling theincidence or transmission of coronavirus, or (b)facilitating the most appropriate deployment of medical oremergency personnel and resources, issue a direction imposing prohibitions, requirements or restrictions in relation to the entry into, departure from, or location of persons in, premises in England.
Within a short period of time enough people will have had and recovered from Covid19 to form a pool that can be called up for jury service. This, of course, presumes that having had it makes you immune which seems likely but has yet to be proved.
Ah, but how would they know. Nobody who has mild disease is being tested.
if the antibody test becomes available(as is said by the gov, then that should be excellent guide.
Ah deepgreenpuddock Michael Gove stated earlier today that the govt weren’t able to carry out testing because the necessary reagents weren’t available. Balderdash lies lies and more govt lies the chemical industry has said this is a lie and they r readily available. Why the govt reluctance to test? Because it would show the opposite to the propaganda currently peddled by the MSM – that the numbers r far fewer than all the reported hype and hysteria.
The daily orchestrated Scottish govt update is a joke. Clearly the first minister has had sight of all the questions prior to them being asked. For no one to ask yesterday- ‘given the crises among the poor and small businesses- why does Nicola Sturgeon think it is a priority to give her chums at rape crises Scotland over a million pounds of our money?’ Just beggars belief. Also there were 1000 deaths in Scotland in March 2019. And less in the same month this year. Why is that? Could be another good journalist type question.
Doesn’t this sound like a good reason for that million pounds?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/28/lockdowns-world-rise-domestic-violence
David Ross You are right to point to all cause mortality figures. And you are right that they show fewer people dying, which is the opposite of what one would expect if the coronavirus were the threat it has been presented as. However, as you elude: the corporate journalists are ignoring this completely reliable information. Doubtless because it undermines their sensationalist, hysterical, fear-mongering, panic provoking narrative.
Only the deaths from the coronavirus are in the updates, not all the deaths in the country, don’t jump to conclusions.
The SNP are finished if Nicola stays at the helm.
How do you figure that? Scots won’t vote for labour, and less that 50% vote Tory, there’s no one else and she knows it, Salmond could do an almighty comeback but I don’t know how SNP leaders are chosen
You are talking as if you think the Press is free and fearless.
You lose your pass to attend Press Conferences, if you actually ask a question of relevance to the electorate that the Government do not like.
The Excel Centre. Previously host to the Arms Fair. No irony.
One time we show how to kill. Next time we save your life.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/184514933@N07/albums/72157710904359916/
Note the number of plods.
PS. Excel is owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/08/19/excel-centre-sees-profits-hit-311m-mark/
The money keeps rolling in.
Amazing, isn’t it? The totally incongruous event the Excel is most renowned/notorious for goes entirely unmentioned in all the acres of coverage about this new hospital. Heard C4 News saying the centre was famed for its “worthy conventions.” The gaslighting is shameless and relentless.
Mary…just to add. When I first heard of these so-called Nightingale Hospitals being set up in London, Birmingham and Manchester, I also took a look at their buildings ownership. Excel, as you say, owned by Abu Dhabi. Manchester Central owned by the City Council, and the Birmingham NEC owned by Blackstone International, a US based multinational hedge fund and asset management firm. Further down the screen was a link to Investopaedia, which said how Blackstone could do well from the Corona crisis, it was posted on the 13/3.
Will they keep one of the beds advertisibg their ‘good will’, at the next planned arms fair? Off course they will.
The Excel Centre also hosts exhibitions for home renovation and self-building.
Does that make it the bastion of family life?
Of some reason many leaders throughout the world support goes up now.
Public support for Boris Johnson’s coronavirus response soars
https://www.cityam.com/public-support-for-boris-johnsons-coronavirus-response-soars/
Let’s see how his response is being perceived a few months from now. Bush and Blair enjoyed huge satisfaction ratings when the bombing of Baghdad started.
Thanks. Blackstone has a large stake in UK assets, including IN OUR NHS.
This press release portrays them as the most benevolent corporation that has ever existed.
https://www.blackstone.com/insights/article/blackstone-nec-group-exhibition-venue-uk-field-hospital-covid-19-patients
When you see the words ‘private equity’, you can only shudder.
PS Where is Boris? Is he recovering? Where is he? etc etc
We should be told. He is after all the Prime Minister. Do any of those nitwits who fell for his rhetoric in December giving him that large majority,* regret it now?
* 87 votes
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/government-majority
This could be a double edged sword, but the question regarding especially Italy is: Where is Nato when it might be useful instead contemplating idiotic wargames at the Russian border:
Nato is indeed well-prepared for medical emergencies and has a logistics system ideally suited to cope with the problems now facing European and other communities. According to Nato Headquarters its medical support embraces “medical general practice, force health protection before and during deployments, medical logistics and supply, medical intelligence and the medical dimension of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) warfare. Civilian-military cooperation in the medical area is very important during disaster relief, mass casualty situations and population movements, [and] military medical support may be involved in these missions too.”
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/31/in-the-pandemic-nato-shows-itself-to-be-as-irrelevant-as-ever/
Coming to think of it, do we have a national contingency plan> If so has someone mislaid it. Do we not know how to source PPE for front line workers, can we not test more widely. Did we have to wait several weeks, knowing that the epidemic is inevitable, to act? Are we really only dependent on Trident to protect us from viruses?
SA There is, I can reliably inform you an alleged national contingency plan, or at least there was as I, a few years ago now, attended a three day course run by The Cabinet Office about Emergency Planning which did include pandemics. Although there is no evidence that I can see that Covid-19 is, in fact, a pandemic – rather more a flu epidemic. However, I cannot see any of that Government planning in operation now. The contingency plans did not require total lockdown, martial law etc – it required co-ordinated, focussed action to manage a huge volume of corpses (yes, as I posted elsewhere) the Government contracts with one major UK supermarket chain to make their frozen delivery lorries available for the management, transport and burial of corpses. It advocated a focussed public information strategy to inform people as to risks, numbers, symptoms, where to present if you do have symptoms etc. Now, is any of this in operation? I think not. Bang goes the Government Emergency Planning Process – in comes mass hysteria invoked by the MSM, a ton of fake news, statistics that seem to be made up as they go along and are false or not open to scrutiny and yes, seemingly empty hospitals.
“Nato is indeed well-prepared for medical emergencies” ……NATO is a proxy organisation of America. It is a threat to world peace and should be disbanded immediately.
You are right of course, they have however treatment capacities both material wise and personnel wise.
Instead of leaving the Italians alone with overworked Doctors and the disengagement of the EU NATO could have been engaged in a medical capacity right from the start.
Not using available capacity because of ideology is a social justice warriors stance of purity and causing foolish waste.
I am afraid increased police power is just the thin end of the wedge. With the growth of mobile phone use it is possible to track those that use the service and with G5 the precision of such tracking becomes more accurate.
This is already happening, see https://www.top10vpn.com/news/surveillance/covid-19-digital-rights-tracker/
Craig is right, this has sinister implications, people need to be aware of the dangers as well as any benefits.
I’ve never had a cellphone largely for that very reason.
Pete, I go out more than my once a day allocation as all this is absolute BS – the lockdown is the forerunner to more draconian legislation and the introduction of a Fascist Totalitarian government. When I go out, I leave my mobile phone at home. There are no benefits to this as world renowned scientists are saying clearly and very loudly that social distancing and lock down have no effecting on preventing spread of the disease – as has been proven by the countries who have had these measures in place for 4-6 weeks to no avail as the numbers are still increasing. The British Sheeples as usual, accept the media hype, the fake news and the mass hysteria. There are some small signs that people are officially getting fed up! The key words that people should be concerned about are: Another 6 months of this required, could go on for two years, threat of martial law. Keeping people in fear – the name of the game. People need to band together, ditch this crap, get out and about and yes, pubs and cafes should open. Peter Hitchins is right – all this is completely disproportionate to the actual true, low figures – people need to get thinking, start breaching unreasonable and fundamentally flawed instructions and fight against the powers given to the Police – what on earth do Derbyshire Police think they are doing.
Been happening for 20 years. I got rid of mobile phones permanently in 2010.
Does not stop them tracking you in other ways.
In general, its not the coronavirus that is the big killer. The big killer is the health care systems.
The big killer is that there are not enough hospital beds and ICUs with ventilators to treat people. Because of this, people who would survive the coronavirus are instead dying from the failure of the health care system.
We’ve seen a lower death rate (so far) in Germany. Turns out Germany was way above the European average in terms of ICU beds per capita.
When the health care system fails to provide basics, like protective gear for the health care workers, what they then do is to create more patients because not only to the health care workers get sick because of the lack of protection, but it is highly likely that they are instead spreading it to people for whom they need to care. This creates in turn a higher demand for ICU and hospital beds to treat the infected. And it helps with the exponential spreading of the virus.
What is killing the most people right now is not the coronavirus. What is killing many people right now is the failure of health care system in the capitalist systems of the west where the almighty dollar (or euro) matters more than being ready for a predictable pandemic. People are dying because it was “not cost effective” to have enough ICU beds to deal with an emergency, nor was it cost-effective to have needed stockpiles of protective gear for an emergency. This is the philosophy of capitalism, where acts of great evil, such as leaving a population defenseless against a pandemic, are justified in the name of higher profits.
This is well said.
Just looking at Britain and the US, we can see that the virus is punishing right-wing states and capitalist economies most severely.
Meanwhile, small countries like Cuba somehow are somehow showing just how big they are, and are sending their medical teams around the world, even apparently where they are not welcome on ideological grounds.
I don’t care if this is a form of ‘soft power’.
Exposing the failure of capitalism, however it is done, is simply just an urgency on all fronts, if life on this planet is to remain a possibility.
I also suspect that the reason the world is turning into a giant police state is because leaders know that global capitalism is totally unsustainable, and that without the strictest measures, there will be no stopping a tsunami of unrest on all shores.
Well said, Doc Watson.
It does make you wonder what all those self-regarding spooks in MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the gilded top brass in the Military, and whoever else attends the, oh-so-fearsomely-named, COBRA committee, have actually been doing with themselves since January. What is the point of even having Intelligence Services if they can’t report an effing pandemic in China to government ministers in good time, and advise them to get cracking PDQ to deal with this, very real, external threat? It was public knowledge within 2 weeks of the outbreak anyway.
These agencies demand, and are given, the powers to intrude into the minutiae of our daily lives, day after day, constantly strong-arming the government to supply endless physical and human resources for spying, intelligence-gathering, patrolling, missile-collecting, bombing and shooting, all in the name of our “National Security”, yet the *one time when they could have bloody made themselves useful*, when the The Greatest Threat Since WWll™ has actually materialised…. they haven’t warned, prepared, acted, or carried out a damn effing thing to protect the people of The UK.
But they can lazily sit on well-padded arses and feed xenophobic articles about China via their paid poodles into the media. Crap PR and cold war propaganda, and that’s about all they’re good for.
So… we have no facemasks, dire shortages of requisite medical equipment to treat victims or test patients and medical staff, vastly insufficient PPE, and no proper infrastructure to distribute it, no disinfecting of streets, no monitoring or quarantining of arrivals from Covid-19 hotspots, nothing!
Instead, *all* of the onus is put onto *us*, the public, to comply with lockdowns, put ourselves under house-arrest, abandon our jobs and lose our incomes, avoid family and friends, and meekly obey the dictates of the most feeble, incompetent, venal, and criminally neglegent government in living memory.
And when the mortality figures increase, as they surely will for the next few weeks, we will get the blame again – for not observing lockdowns assiduously enough, or for continuing to go to work, and we’ll be forced to endure further draconian measures, to cover up for government’s shameful and repeated failure to take immediate action on clear, publicly available, evidence that a serious and threatening event was imminent, earlier this year, as well as ignoring prior warnings from three years ago, that the UK was woefully unprepared for a pandemic outbreak.
While these CIA/M5/6 were busy upping the Russian Bear scare- to keep up their own budgets – the smallest of RNA strands, viruses can wreck havoc. Imagine a more lethal covid21. Covid19 should be a necessary hard slap in the face of these fools and their politician puppets.
Anyway, the endless QE by Western central banks will prove some fiat currencie$ toilet paper and real value like oil or gold will make a comeback. US Mil is working on the former in the ME since long while the FED & Wall street try to suppress the latter with flawed manipulations.
I post something similar elsewhere mr shigemitsu. They need taken out of conm9ns in public and done for criminal negligence. As you rightly assert the anti china rhetoric spouted by their whores in the msm should be seen what they are. Lazy and arrogant.
Doc Watson way too simplistic. Are people being killed or is it that international figures show that this flu virus, let’s call it what it is, is killing the over 80yrs who have 2 or more comorbid serious long-term conditions and their life expectancy was already extremely shortened. Remember this and remember it well, every year, on year on year our NHS who take £140bn and more of public money have systematically reduced bed capacity to what is now the lowest in the developed world and reduced Doctor and Nursing capacity at the front line to the extent that we have the lowest in the developed world (Andy Westbrook The Independent). Every year they have a ‘crisis’ of beds every winter, every summer, every March and so on and so forth. Every year, they do not have any contingency planning in place to manage this but they manage to grab the headlines. Remember October November December 2019 – go back and look at the tabloid press headlines – NHS turning ambulances away, shortage of beds etc etc. Happens every year without fail. £140bn is one hell of a lot of public money which seems to be going nowhere. In this alleged winter crisis just gone, did any additional public money get spent on additional doctors, ,opening new wards, creating additional bed capacity. Nope, not a penny. Nobody asks these questions. The NHS is not in crisis, it is seriously misusing public money to serve their own internal purposes. I think it was Thatcher that said there were more Managers and Administrators than actual beds – and she was the architect of all these tiers and tiers and tiers and tiers of management – all non productive posts – that now exist in the NHS. The Audit Commission over 12 years ago now I think if not longer, wrote a brilliant report highlighting just this about the NHS. If anyone can find it and provide a link, everybody should read it.
We all bang on about ICU beds and ventilators but in reallity what treatment is there for COVID-19.
Exactly. The concentration on treatment without throwing everything at prevention is simply stupid. It is a distraction in fact because also 50% of those ventilated, die and this data comes from UK and Italy.
Bill and SA, a world renowned medical clinician has written a good report about how many deaths are actually caused by poor diagnosis, mis-diagnosis and the wrong type of medical treatment. It is also the case that the drugs produced by Big Pharma from which they make billions, are highly toxic and also tend to give you a lot worse medical problems than the condition they are purported to treat. i can only speak for the UK but our GPs are ‘prescription happy’ – they get incredibly lucrative financial incentives from Big Pharma to prescribe their drugs – hence, the very dangerous drug, Statin, is over prescribed and has little or no medical value at all other than to cause memory loss, muscle aches and liver damage. Dr Malcolm Kendrick and Zoe Harcombe produce the real tried and tested evidence which I recommend everyone to read – The Great Cholesterol Con by Kendrick is brilliant. The fact is, like any flu virus, it affects the frail elderly and those with two or more long term serious comorbid conditions in which life expectancy was already very low. I strongly suspect misdiagnosis of CV-19 just to boost the fear, hysteria and anxiety, is resulting in increased ventilation which is probably the killer but nobody is going to say so are they?
Statins May be overused but they are effective. There are properly assessed clinical trials that show this. I do not know if those you quote have done research themselves. Just because some get side effects does not mean they don’t work.
Also Covid 19 is not just like the flu. Also it is a pandemic. Soon there will be one million infected around the world and in almost all countries. I take it the WHO and China and Italy and Spain got it all wrong.
Nothing that’s been proven yet in clinical trials.
But there have been promising results from hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and with and without zinc. A trial of over 1,000 New York COVID-19 patients is now underway. The treatment can cost as little as $20 over 5 days. But I’ve read the regime is most effective if started near onset of illness – so, I guess testing is important, here.
And, apparently, China has had good results from high doses of vitamin C.
Then there’s been testing with more expensive patented drugs used for HIV, ebola etc.
Sandra I am interested in your reference to HIV and Ebola (read Jon Rappaport back articles catalogue). Ebola, I believe, caused around 2m if not more deaths on the African continent. The world stood by and watched this happen and Medicines Sans Frontiers were the only international medical agency providing enhanced medical support. Their report makes interesting reading, very interesting reading. What is not known though, is that Big Pharma had vaccinations that halted the symptoms and cured the virus. Being a USA Big Pharma it refused to make the drug available to native African sufferers stating it would only be used for American Medical Personnel and a selected other medical personnel. Reasons: (i) Political – after all, the most Racist country in the world, the USA, don’t give a damn about millions of black people dying (ii) Money: Big Pharma are not known for their philanthropy – they want top dollar plus thousands of percent profits – and poor people are not worth it – so millions of poor people die – ok by them because stupid rich countries will pay over the odds (ref Jeremy Corbyn’s Conference Speech this year) (iii) Protection of Vested interests, namely USA interests, keep the African nations poor, impoverished and with reduced life expectancy and you can plunder their natural resources for yourself and no-one will question anything.
I believe that they tried to stop India from producing cheap generic anti-retro orals to export to Africa countries that could not afford the inflated prices paid in the West.
Actually the racism is appalling. The genocidal sanctions prevent Iran and Syria from effectively fighting Covid-19. There are also sanctions against the Sudan, despite the recent change of government which is more open. As to the war on Yemen, that is cruelty beyond belief.
You may well believe that Ebola “caused around 2m if not more deaths on the African continent” but you would be entirely wrong.
Ebola was only discovered in 1976. Here is a list of Ebola outbreaks since 1976. They sum to less than 20,000 – so only about 1,980,000 less than your belief
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/timeline-of-global-ebola-outbreaks-1976-present.html
I’ll look up the Rappaport articles.
This old (generic) malaria drug – hydroxychloroquine & chloroquine – is getting a rough ride from some establishments.
The European Commission have been negative and have stated that there’s no proof it will work, whereas they know that a U.S. trial has just started. Medics in U.S. are being threatened for pre-scribing it. Why? I can only think that it won’t benefit big pharma like drugs still under patent or a vaccine etc – so much big money involved.
If trials of this regime are successful, then there would no excuse for not medicating all who need it as, relatively, it would cost peanuts compared to a vaccine.
P.S.
Apparently, it’s a good idea to keep zinc levels up (taking care not to go over limit if using pills ra-ther than diet) in the body as it can stop viruses replicating. (Also, interestingly, the chloroquines push available zinc in the body into the cells where viruses replicate.)
@ Jo Dominich April 1, 2020 at 19:32
‘…Protection of Vested interests, namely USA interests, keep the African nations poor, impoverished and with reduced life expectancy and you can plunder their natural resources for yourself and no-one will question anything.’
Indeed, ‘… no-one will question anything’, including how they got Ebola in the first place.
Cui bono?
Paul Barbara, brilliant question. I guess the same question needs to be asked now of CV-19 doesn’t it. I wish I had the answer. I will say this though, a couple of months ago (it might have even been just before Christmas) I watched a BBC4 programme a sort of Storyville programme about two Danish Journalists who were doing in-depth investigative journalism into the death of a Danish politician representing them at the UN. He died in a plane crash but he was a fierce proponent of developing the African continent helping them to greater economic success and implementing financial and other support strategies to achieve this. The Politician’s name is Das Hammerjosld (wrong spelling but close). The programme was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. These Danish journalists uncovered many sinister things which they proved but fell short of being able to prove DH was murdered due to his keen interest in developing the African continent. However, the true fascination was in the fact that, as a result of their travelling the breadth and depth of African countries they uncovered a far more serious issue and I mean a terrible terrible issue that has wiped out millions of African lives. That issue is that a British allegedly Military Doctor calling himself Major (can’t remember the surname) purporting to be a medical doctor (he was neither a Major or a Doctor in fact) travelled around poor African Countries and poor communities with what he called a revolutionary drug to reduce and eliminate certain diseases. Millions of African women, men and children were injected with this so called drug. What these two journalists uncovered to an extremely high level of proof what that in fact, what was being injected was the HIV virus as some sort of mass experiment. Hence, for years and still now, the consequences of that is large numbers of Africans dying of AIDS related illnesses and it has spread widely across the whole African continent. Your question about the Ebola virus’ origin has got me thinking. Cui bono indeed?
Currently the best touted options are chloroquine + other licensed drugs; big doses of Vitamins C and D.
Reality is that the best cure fro 95% is their own immune system.
Wow. Craig Murray and Peter Hitchens on the same side of an issue. Has the world gone mad? Oh, yes, of course, the Corona virus thing…
Craig Murray and Peter Hitchens have always had far more in common than you might imagine.
Just because they are different in terms of economics and religion does not mean there is not plenty of other ground for fertile concensus.
This is almost exactly what I have been saying since the government decided to bow to the pressure of the media and other disreputable groups.
Today’s figure of 563 deaths from the virus is the highest day on day rise since the outbreak. There is a total of 2352 deaths now.
Retired doctor Dr Alfa Sa’adu is the 4th medic to die in the UK from Covid-19. RIP.
As Dr John Lee wrote in the Spectator – politics makes strange bedfellows – 51,000 people would be expected to die in March in a normal year. As the World Life Expectancy site makes clear, 32,120 people died from “flu and pneumonia” in 2017. The Covid 19 figures are hardly apocalyptic.
Mary, these stats are not verified since we are not doing any testing. These are seriously manipulated figures. Can’t see over burdened hospitals here. This is media hype, hysteria mongering and fake news.
Craig,
Thank you.
10 out of 10 again.
You are one of a number that I expect will light the touch-paper that will change our Country (Scotland) for the better.
@Ian Foulds
Did you leave purposely leave out the usual “blue” from that sentence?
Life is always changing. Just as the Nazi’s grew from a minority group of people with a penchant for wearing brown shirts (style & taste wasn’t their forte) selfishly seeking for themselves more power, rights & control to the exclusion of all else, plunging the world into a dark abyss as their members grew & infiltrated every aspect of society, spreading uncontrollably throughout – nature has filled the void vacated by their costly, devastating, eventual purging & spawned a new breed. Enter the “Me Too” movement – & you do so at your peril – focused on women empowerment & support of gays & transgenders. Nature’s freaks have taken hold like Fallopia japonica, spreading rapidly through the loins of the garden of Eden & are threatening, like their potent predecessors, the very existence of mankind. Laws are being introduced or changed at the behest of pressure from women groups – & legislation being removed or watered down to make it easier to strengthen the female hold on the world – for that is their single agenda, their only purpose, that is their itinerary – & it is one way travel. You are either on board, like the Nazi culture – or surplus to requirements. Nothing will stop them or stand in their way. They may lose the battle, but they will win the war. Politicians are too weak to stand up to them for fear of reprisals & of being seen as not “politically correct”. MSM simply echo their cause – & are a voice, vehicle & tool for their aims. Some people with insight, here & abroad, warned of the Nazi threat many, many years before the contagious spread of their odious, stench smelling, insidious disease took hold – but were mocked at & not listened to. History has a way of repeating itself, just as we have a way of repeating lessons that are never learned. The prognosis is not good. I take some comfort – it is the only thing left to take as everything else is being destroyed – as being from the same cloth as those who had insight & were mocked at & not listened to all those generations ago. You don’t need a crystal ball to see the future or know that we are all doomed. Yes, doomed I tell you.
“The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws”.
– Edward Abbey (“A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”)
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. In such a country as this they are of all bad things the worst, worse by far than anywhere else; and they derive a particular malignity even from the wisdom and soundness of the rest of our institutions”.
– Edmund Burke (Bristol, 1780 [III. 24])
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blairs-frenzied-law-making-a-new-offence-for-every-day-spent-in-office-412072.html
“In total, the Government has brought in 3,023 offences since May 1997. They comprise 1,169 introduced by primary legislation – debated in Parliament – and 1,854 by secondary legislation such as statutory instruments and orders in council.”
A lot of frightened and confused people on this thread many of whom seem to have swallowed the scare stories circulated by this government and a corrupt MSM. They seem to have forgotten how they were lied to and controlled over Iraq, Skripal, 911 etc. This “deadly” virus is beginning to assume the stature of the Black Death in the imagination of misinformed and confused individuals who will surrender hard won freedoms to politicians and those who control them.
grafter
have you tried popping over to your local hospital to see all those stress actors?
To keep offering that advice implies you have?
No, but I believe there is a crisis. you don’t seem to think anything extraordinary is happening.
There is certainly something extraordinary happening, but as the death rate this year is below those of preceding years and as many restrictions make no medical sense, it means COVID-19 is a cover for something else.
How thick do you have to be to believe this is all a secret coordinated trick by the governments of China, Japan, Germany, France, Belgium, USA and all the rest ?
Its the shape changing reptiles here at play. You can’t see they are shape changing because they are shape changing.
I noted here when the (Westmidden) emergency powers legislation was published that provision had been made in England (I presume England’s and Wales’ legal systems are one and the same) and Northern Ireland for trials to continue using audio and video links, but unlike with all the other subjects covered therein, there was no corresponding provision for Scotland. I suspected the Scottish Government would legislate separately for this matter, in some token manner, following the example in E-W-NI, didn’t think they’d go off on their own far more worrying tack.
What is reality?
When I watch the news I am presented with one version of reality.
When I read this and many other sources I am presented with a different version of reality.
Which version of reality will prevail over time.
It will never be possible to absolutely prove that the measure taken have or have not had a beneficial effect.
If the governments current version of reality can persist then it might be easier to repeat it in the future.
We know that there will be a price to pay for the shut down of a large part of the world economy.
As always the heaviest price will be paid in the third world countries. It will likely result in mass starvation a huge rise in child mortality and the shortening of life expectancy.
It may take decades to recover if recovery is allowed.
But this will just be presented as the new reality that can not be avoided.
When a world wide launch of a new model mobile phone occurs.
This takes massive resources and organisation.
Resources and organisation could if wished be directed to prevent the worst outcome of this current event.
Some of those who question what is reported have tried to check if it is true.
A number of people that have seen reports about hospitals being overwhelmed
have gone to the hospitals to check. What they have found does not agree with what has been reported.
This is one of many links
https://www.winterwatch.net/2020/04/strained-resources-citizen-sleuths-investigate-the-cronyvirus-pandemic/
This does not mean that people have not died. I expect a lot of bad and lazy reporters who do not make an effort to get there facts accurate.
But the government should give a proper break down of the reported deaths.
Giving there ages . What major illnesses they had. What was the most significant factor contributing to there death.
This is from the BBC Coronavirus: UK deaths rise to 2,352
What is wrong with this headline. Firstly Corona virus covers a range of viruses including the common cold. If they mean COVID-19 then they should say so.
Secondly it suggests that they all died from COVID-19 or that COVID-19 was the most significant cause of there deaths. Where as the number that had died from other causes but had COVID-19 could be a significant proportion.
Both of your closing points are correct but the second is much more important than the first. Most of the medical bulletins I’ve read for people who have died with Covid-19 do NOT say they have died of it. They say the patients had pre-existing chronic illnesses and that they also had Covid-19. And the rulers have locked down the world, for this? Do we get the feeling we are being lied to? An extreme minority of cases involving younger people are given large-scale publicity. E.g. a 13-year-boy sadly died at King’s College Hospital, London. It is an absolute outrage that his family were discouraged – and by the sound of it, BANNED – from being with him. Clearly medics have been hit by the same mental “virus” as the police who are stopping people going for walks in the countryside. There is such a thing as protective equipment and if it cannot be given to family members who want to attend the bedside of a mortally ill child…words fail me… If you would like to contribute money to help the family pay for the funeral and other needs, please click here. Note that although they have been treated in this way they do not criticise the medics. On the contrary, they thank them. They further say “As Muslims, we believe that this life is short and temporary and we have to remain patient when facing hardship.”
I strongly suggest I have just had coronavirus. Fortunately it seems it only got as far as my upper respiratory tract and did not unduly impact my asthma subject lungs prone to filling with fluid normally. I hardly coughed but strongly felt the bottom of my lungs. Started with waking at 03:00 sweating buckets. Then woke the next day to the runs with no a priori reason. Then more fever, sore muscles and joints, a sniffle, a lurking but not developed headache. All entirely consistent and to be safe I am behaving as though I have it.
Spoke to the postie through the letterbox telling I might have it. Item left on doorstep and postie high tailed it sensibly. I shall not leave the property until late next week regardless of what I’m running out of. Don’t have the money for a supermarket delivery anyway.
I will exercise inside and in the back garden as much as I can or go made with excess energy. I bounced up this morning, did squats with burpees, bounced around the kitchen waiting for my morning porridge to cook. Not going for a run will be a strain but I do not want to infect anyone else.
I’m very fit and healthy despite being 54 so I was not unduly worried. I have a high VO2 max so I have a lot of spare capacity while at rest before I get breathless. Exercise improves your immune system. All that fever, especially at the start shows my immune system was on the case.
Two days previous I walked to the supermarket, lined up spaced outside. As we were waiting a guy walked past us to the end of the line much too close and coughed just in front of me. Was that it? It was my only outing other than runs for more than a week. Which seems to show it is very easy to get it. I’ve already had flu this year (can’t have the vaccine). It was stronger than that, more fever, more muscle and joint pain. But pretty mild.
Same here, I was ill very early in the New Year for about a week, coughing, fever, aches, trots and eyes that felt like washing up liquid had been poured in them (never had a combo like that before). I reckon a close relative who had returned from China for Christmas gave it to me, they were feeling unwell upon return and guess what? – they work for an organisation that monitors infectious diseases :-). All now fitter than the butchers dog I am happy to report.
More power to you Craig. I’ve only recently found your blog and have enjoyed reading your articles. I’ve set up a direct debit in your favour but what I’d also like is to subscribe to your blog so that I’m advised of new articles. I can’t seem to find anything of that sort on your blog. Am I missing something?
Hello, David. There’s no notifications on new articles or answers to your comments. I’d like to get those, too.
Right next to the top of Craig’s web page is a little symbol next to the mail button. This is the RSS feed, if you use a RSS utility (a news alert type program) and add this to it it will popup on your computor (or whatever you use to connect to the web) at each new post. There are numerous free RSS programs and apps.
Even a One percent death rate would be a huge number of deaths. Stay in but be prepared to fight the restrictions if they are extended beyond what is acceptable. There’s no contradiction – you can’t fight back politically if you’ve gone out, caught the virus and are incapacitated or dead. Stop making a bigger deal out of this than is necessary
The restrictions are a means. They are not the end. If you want a hackneyed phrase, there is “shock and awe”. It is softening people the hell up. It is psychological warfare against the population not of one country but the world. Things won’t be the same two weeks from now as they are now.
N_,
It’s a lot worse than that. I knew you would be one of the first here to “get it”. Most people are still in shock and panic, and denial. Supply lines are going to break down. The UK imports 50% of its field, and much of the rest it grows, will not be harvested, and will rot because of a shortage of fruit pickers.
I’m getting the pick axe out tomorrow, to dig up my lawn. My wife knows how to grow food, and now is the time to start. You can buy 500 tomato seeds for 99p on the internet, as I have. They have just started to germinate.
This is not an April Fool Days Joke. This is Deadly Serious.
Tony
Tony, you want to grow root veg far more than tomatoes.
Potato, onion, beetroot, parsnip, swede, turnip, winter radish, leek.
That will feed you through a winter.
Mary, these stats are not verified since we are not doing any testing. These are seriously manipulated figures. Can’t see over burdened hospitals here. This is media hype, hysteria mongering and fake news.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8163587/PETER-HITCHENS-Great-Panic-foolish-freedom-broken-economy-crippled.html
The Peter Hitchens article referred to in Craig’s blog.
The severity of the pointless and counter-productive restrictions are to make the virus appear severe due to the severity of the restrictions, but as the death rate is less than the preceding years its clearly being hyped for other reasons.
The wall to wall MSM coverage indicates Deep State, but the big difference between this and their other lies, and its Achilles heel, is this is affecting everyone, and its not deemed political, just a medical matter, meaning the expose is widespread already.
Craig. I’ve no idea if you’ll see this but if you do watch this and follow the links
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bM9aZflBoOU&list=PLg8_Df7lKXNQjBqiiPxIWi_P5bW4K8E_w&index=2&t=0s
Craig Murray has got it in One.
Edinburgh Festival has already been cancelled
For an Education, read Off-Guardian, and prepare as much as you can to be self sufficient, which means, if you have got a garden, or any space even a yard, prepare to start growing food. It’s possible to grow potatoes, and all kinds of vegetables even in old tyres filled with soil and compost.
Supply lines, are almost certain to breakdown. If you want to stay alive, you need to start preparing now, for the coming winter. If it is severe, we are all going to be in big trouble.
This is very serious, not the Coronavirus itself, but the brainwashing, and panic resulting from it.
Spinach is brilliant. It grows all year round. Foraging is also a very good source of food, especially in the late summer and autumn.
Never thought it would come to this, but it has.
Good Luck,
Tony
The mortality rate of a disease is a variable. It depends on many factors. The previous condition of the sick, the medical means to fight it, the condition of the health system, etc. Statistics on this are always distorted. In the current case, for example, because there are asymptomatic cases, but also because governments falsify figures. Only ex-post excess mortality studies are reasonably reliable.
But none of this is particularly relevant. What is crucial is to keep the overburdening of the health system as low as possible. If someone falls seriously ill with Covid-19 and needs intensive care but does not receive it, the probability of a fatal outcome is logically much higher. Therefore drastic measures are indicated. However, any emergency law should have an expiry date and operate on the opt-in principle, i.e. require a new parliamentary resolution to extend it.
The Coronavirus Act 2020 has an expiry date (in March 2022) but it allows the date to be altered by “a relevant national authority” using secondary legislation.
The Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 have an expiry date too, also in March 2022. They themselves are secondary legislation, laid under s45R of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, and their provisions can be similarly extended.
Parliament can reject secondary legislation, so you may be barking up the wrong tree.
A “GPs’ practice” called Llynfi Surgery in Maesteg, Wales [*] recently sent a letter out to patients with “life-limiting” illnesses (such as cancer) asking them to “complete a ‘do not resuscitate’ form”.
Listen to what they say:
“Completing a DNACPR will have several benefits.
1/ your GP and more importantly your friends and family will know not to call 999.
2/ scarce ambulance resources can be targeted to the young and fit who have a greater chance.”
The senior partner at this business is a woman called R J Cribb who calls herself a “doctor” without listing a PhD or DPhil in her qualifications and whom we can therefore assume hasn’t got one.
Many cops and medics, and c***s from local councils too, are absolutely champing at the bit, drooling at the thought of the coming cull. It’s like Christmas every day for them.
Note
(*) A “GPs’ practice” – or in less idiotic words a business operation run by non-specialist medics much of whose job involves causing unnecessary delay for non-rich patients who need to see a specialist, while all the time allowing the gullible to think they are qualified to an academic level that they aren’t – and to think they are “nice” because they can put on a fake smile – who enjoy making jokes with each other about the “Primark Test” (or “Woolworth’s Test” as it used to be), and who take about 8 holidays each year paid for by pharmaceutical companies in hotels in places such as Dubai that attract people who are both rich and very stupid and boring. Seriously you have got to be very naive not to realise that GPs do not like ill people. (They don’t mind them when they’re of their own caste or higher, but those who are of their own caste or higher mostly go private for patently obvious reasons.)
I am sure you will not want a PhD in zoology to treat you medically, or maybe you do, who knows.
Should you believe that the midst of a pandemic provides an ideal opportunity to spread panic and disinformation then you appear to have a lot to offer.
Dr. RJ Cribb does not hold a PhD or DPhil because she is a Doctor of Medicine, and so holds an MBBCH. She is a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Whilst it is quite reasonable to assume that she does not hold a PhD it is not reasonable to assume or to imply that this lady is not a fully qualified medical Doctor.
The practice you refer to is probably attempting to introduce some form of pre-hospitalization triage. Triage is a normal and necessary practice in instances whereby the demand from medical attention exceeds the supply of medical facilities.
A pandemic is perhaps the text book example of an instance whereby any system of medical infrastructure can be overwhelmed by demand. The inability to offer treatment to 100% of sick people will lead to a number of moral, ethical and emotional dilemmas.
Some shrieking banshee spewing venom and disinformation is not likely to lead to more rational outcomes.
Loony the point is euthenasia is illegal. Patients r being asked to die to save GPs the trouble of providing healthcare to the poor elderly and the disabled and to save 999 and the ambulance service. Where will it end? Very very badly once u go down the road of selection and the hugely discredited Bentham utility principle u r in the realm of eugenics the master race and mass death by selection.
Is it not ‘MBChB’?
N_
April 1, 2020 at 20:20
“The senior partner at this business is a woman called R J Cribb who calls herself a “doctor” without listing a PhD or DPhil in her qualifications and whom we can therefore assume hasn’t got one.”
————————————————————————–
Doctors of medicine do not need a PhD or DPhil to practice as GPs. They have a university degree like MD.
She hasn’t got a doctorate either in medicine or in any other subject.
An MD in Britain actually is a proper doctoral degree, unlike in the US where it is not.
In Britain anybody can call themselves a “doctor”. Unfortunately the term is not protected. The same is true of “accountant”, “surveyor”, etc. If the term were restricted to those who genuinely are doctorally qualified, whether in medicine or in any other subject, the vast majority of GPs, hospital consultants and other medics would have to stop using it or have their a*ses slung in jail.
N_
April 1, 2020 at 20:20
“An MD in Britain actually is a proper doctoral degree.”
————————————————————–
Sorry N- an MD is just a degree in medicine like a BSc is merely a degree in science. A doctorate like PhD or DPhil is the highest degree awarded after years of research.
————————————————————
“In Britain anybody can call themselves a “doctor”. Unfortunately the term is not protected.””
————————————————————
Sorry N- It is against the law to impersonate a Doctor.
There is no such thing in UK as MD. That is an Americanism, it is a MB,BCh.
The drive to eliminate uncertainty for the benefit of surveillance capitalism ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html ) is alive and well. If there is one thing the author along with all sides across the spectrum of reactions to the COVID-19 phenomenon, except for the marginalized few (https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/28/10-more-experts-criticising-the-coronavirus-panic/), seem to agree on is that this event underscores the need for more data, big data, and complete, comprehensive data that can then be fed into artificially intelligent analytical capabilities which, unlikely mere mortals, is at last smart enough to decipher the hidden patterns with sufficient competence and reliability to give modern-day oracles and technocrats, along with the herds they shepherd, the minimal levels of confidence they now must have before the stranglehold on life and liberty can be responsibly relaxed.
This of course, the arguments will likely soon ensue, must give added urgency to the roll out of the 5G network, which had been experiencing a few setbacks of late, and also provide the wider impetus to energize the heretofore rather sluggish and disjointed build-out of Internet of Things infrastructures and corresponding applications in the forms of smart asses and assets, smart cities, smart countries, and smart global order so as to finally bring about that long sought and ultimate technocratic utopia of maximal efficiency and safety under the cozy covers of globalized uberveillance (“What is Uberveillance? – Definition from Techopedia.” 13 Jun. 2019, https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4150/uberveillance.). The term Uberveillance (http://uberveillance.com) “was coined by M.G. Michael in 2006, and expanded upon by Katina Michael.”
And so in line with SDG Acceleration Action (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgactions/about ) Data4Now ( https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=33636 ) and ID2020 ( https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-causes-effects-real-danger-agenda-id2020/5706153), we can look forward to the expedited full deployment by beneficent governments and capitalists the world over of, per the definition at technopedia.com, “objects that can be placed inside the human body to provide precise information about movements and locations. A class of these types of devices are called technotherapeutics, and they can be used in health care to provide doctors and others with critical information about the human body.” For such a brief and cursory definition, technopedia must surely be lauded for pointing out, however mildly, that the “idea of uberveillance raises a variety of questions about privacy and inherent human rights. Some critics base their analysis of uberveillance on the work of philosophers like Michel Foucault, and apply some of the same complex dialectics between security and liberty. Those looking closely at technotherapeutics and other similar devices might describe uberveillance as surveillance from the inside looking out, where these devices may be described as black box technologies for the human body. The idea is that these devices may effectively force individuals to provide detailed information on their movements to outside observers, regardless of whether these are related to government groups or not, and that emerging uses of such technologies may lead to various instances of abusive or dangerous uberveillance in the future.”
For a brief summary of the promise of nanotechnology in medicine, including nonovaccines naturally, see the infographic by Best Health Degrees provided by visualcapitallist.com ( https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-future-of-nanotechnology-in-medicine/). Well, then cheers!
I don’t think any sensible person could object to the isolation advice. It is clearly better than non- isolation. However to hear the daily government briefings on TV and Radio tells you just how Orwellian the control by the government is. That wouldn’t even matter so much if there was any evidence of competence. But there is no evidence of any competence.
Each daily press conference compromises pre-edited and clearly vetted questions, none of which are in the slightest way properly enquiring or searching, by a pre-selected and supine group of favoured “journalists” who seem to be utterly devoid of critical faculties.
Where are the Ventilators? Why are they taking weeks to be delivered? Where are the testing kits? Why are there so few? What about the truly SHOCKING statistic that around 50% of those in ICUs are dying (that implies that you are better off never even ending up in hospital even if you contract the virus). Where is the protective gear for NHS staff? How is it that plausible stories of NHS staff who complain are being warned or threatened with their jobs by NHS bosses are circulating, but this is not discussed in these briefing?
Why do the spokespeople at these briefings discuss first their “achievements” but do not mention their utter failure to get things moving.
To listen to these briefings uncritically, you would think that the UK had achieved outstanding responses to the virus, whereas the statistics tell you the complete opposite. Why are journalists not up in arms? Why are they giving the government such an easy ride?
Where is proper media scrutiny of what appears to be a massive PR campaign at the expense of effective action? Why are these questions not being asked?
“It is clearly better than non-isolation.”
Do you favour lengthy annual mass isolation against flu?
“Orwellian”……..The sheeple don’t know the meaning of that word.