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.
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And it is not How it Starts. It has started a long time ago and the last chapter has started when buffoons like Trump and Johnson and in other places Bolsonaro and Moreno (they failed installing Guaido in Venezuela) and many other chosen leaders were foisted on populations, through many means, military force, lies, deception, election rigging, MSM compliance and so on. This is the history of so called democratic capitalism. As long as you hold an outward veneer of pseudo democracy and then forcibly impose it on others by military and financial means, you can go on pretending. Please stop attacking each other and recognise the common enemy.
That was my first thought too. This is the end game.
This ‘started’ a long time ago – who knows when exactly but it certainly began to build momentum when certain sections of British society began waving flags and proclaiming ‘Boris’ as their saviour who was going to ‘take back control’. While the media lied and gaslighted the public.
Many voters didn’t understand – and probably still don’t now as they queue for groceries – that Johnson is a puppet for Washington and that his denunciations of the EU were a cover for his treachery for the Americans that should have had him thrown into prison.
And that the coronovirus panic – like Brexit – is a cloak for fascism, to try to fool people who thought we defeated it 70 years ago.
Let’s hope the elite have gone too far this time – and flood on to the streets, beaches and parks this weekend to take back control from Johnson’s fascist government.
Many of those elderly Tory Brexiteers still don’t realise that the first instinct of their hero Cummings upon hearing of this pandemic was to cull them without pity. Good old Bozza too was up for a bit of mass culling initially.
Some Tory voters may now appreciate what their heroes had in mind for them but it’s probably just too painful to reflect on how worthless they are in the eyes of the individuals they elevated to power.
Dom
Levitation is one thing. Cheating another altogether. Tory voters lifted the weight millions.eters off the ground. Algorithms propelled it to the ceiling.
I always think it is better to eliminate cock up theories before testing conspiracy theories. Current governments’ actions are not that different to those taken in the plague of 1665, which was confined in the main to parts of London, and which was addressed through enforced isolation and restrictions on movement in and out of the affected areas, which did nothing to prevent the spread of the disease within those communities and caused further panic and fear among mainly the poor who were trapped in the ghetto of the disease, and producing stricter enforcement measures.
What disease was spread outwards was carried in the main by the rich and well to do who retreated into the country with their households to escape catching it in London – same sort of perturbation effects that have been identified with the equally nonsensical badger culls, and that has spreading Covid -19 globally through international travel
All we are getting now are the same effects but on a global scale with mass transmission of information and disinformation spreading fear and panic, governments uniformly conforming to international norms that have been set and reacting to the perception of risk, which is massively disproportionate to the actual risk, by their “one size to fit all” approaches, which is blighting the lives of ordinary citizens and cocking up in so doing to various degrees.
“What disease was spread outwards was carried in the main by the rich and well to do who retreated into the country with their households to escape catching it in London”
The reported fatality rate in Scotland when compared pro rata with the UK rate is out by a factor of 2.47 as of yesterday. The same index for Wales is out by 1.2 when compared to the UK. The index for Wales appears to be moving towards parity with the UK while the index for Scotland appears (for the moment) to be diverging.
Perhaps the Sons of Glyndwr had a point.
I am not sure you are making sense with your figures. If, as you suggest numbers are swollen by people retreating to remote or less densely populated areas in order to increase survival chances then it would appear not to be working. Or do you mean virus infectees are spreading their plague and then surviving and running away back to their cities..
I am sure the figures will eventually even out or if not there will be factors that militate towards higher death rate such as different demography or differences in statistical methods.
The Sons of Glyndwr burnt down the houses of rich non-Welsh people, leaving the houses of rich Welsh people alone. Which must have been lucrative for the rich Welsh who could buy the ruined houses back cheap and then flog them to the next incomer sucker.
I imagine if you trace the SoG back politically and culturally you will soon get to Ambrose Bebb, Action Française and the far-right monarchist Charles Maurras.
The idea that foreigners spread disease is certainly on the rise. If the 13 year old London lad Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab who died with coronavirus had been white, the medics would probably have allowed his parents to be by his bedside when he was dying.
@N_
Maybe if white the parents…but all this panic and quarantining is, to an extent atavistic, what is a tribe if not a form of self protection, efficient enough it may be said in those circumstances and those times, common enough to be thought of as standard issue
In Africa today you will observe many who think along such lines – but perhaps now’s not the time to pick a quarrel
I think it is meaningless to compare these mortality rates. This is a fast-moving scenario and if you want to compare mortality rates then you must compare them during the exponential phase of rise in numbers. All we can say at the moment is that London and England in general are one step ahead and that probably accounts for the apparent high mortality.
“The reported fatality rate in Scotland when compared pro rata with the UK rate is out by a factor of 2.47 as of yesterday”.
Unfortunately there are good reasons to doubt that “reported fatality rate”. It is added to whenever a person authorised to do so signs a death certificate giving Covid-19 as the cause of death. What we do not know if how many of those deaths were actually caused by Covid-19, or were merely of persons in whose bodies the virus could be detected. Or, worse still, of persons who died in an institution where the virus had been detected (or suspected).
As I have mentioned before, the death rate for several days has greatly exceeded to number of “serious or critical” cases for the previous day. How can someone die of a disease without having been listed as seriously ill the previous day?
The key information, to which I urge everyone to cling tightly, is the background death rate. That is, that rate at which people are dying of all causes. If the background rate for March 2020 does not differ markedly from that for March 2019 or March 2018, that is a sign that few (if any) more people are dying than usual.
Remember, the AVERAGE age of those said to have died from Covid-19 in Italy was 80. But 80 is also the average age at which Italians die of all causes.
Tom…During my digging into background mortality rate, and whether there is a spike in the data indicating that the virus is carrying off more people than would die anyway, I found the following, mainly from Off-G articles. In the UK, an average of 600,000 people a year die, of all causes. That equates to about 1642 per day, everyday. The European Monthly Mortality (MOMO) data suggests that, to date, there are no excess deaths. When the solemn voiced newsreaders, or News headlines shriek 700 Dead !, they don’t put that into the context, that, in all probability, another 900 people died too. The MOMO for 2017 for this period, showed that the entire UK suffered a very high excess, approaching 9%.
Thanks, Pyewacket. I do love some good solid data.
“Current governments’ actions are not that different to those taken in the plague of 1665…”
Which conveniently reminds us that, while scientific knowledge has made great steps in the intervening 355 years, the wisdom and understanding of politicians has not increased one little bit.
Tom Welsh
Wisdom of English politicians , you mean
No.
I have said what I have said.
I have not said what I have not said.
It seemed obvious that if the virus was to reach the UK it had to be through air and sea ports.
I came through Heathrow terminal 3 on 19th February directly from China, wearing a surgical mask as had everyone else on the plane. I was astonished to be able to pass all the way through immigration and customs with no testing and no questioning. I had been tested three times in China on the way OUT. Hong Kong and Shenzhen have had automatic temperature testing at entry points as far back as I can remember. Further correspondence I have read since suggests that nothing changed at Heathrow for weeks afterwards.
At the time I thought it was rank stupidity and lack of awareness but after the “herd immunity” theory I am beginning to wonder if it was deliberate.
I have just learned that my China business visa along with everyone else’s has been revoked and I will have to apply for a new one, but the consulate is now closed until further notice. First opportunity I will be out of here.
Much earlier than that Doctor K.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom#cite_note-Ball31Jan2020-6
I recovered from a very similar illness in the first week of February .It came from nowhere with beathing difficulties/cough/chest infection etc. and had to see the GP who prescribed Clairithromycin which had no effect and then Amoxicillin which did. A horrible nd quite frightening time. I had a chest X ray finally which gave the all clear. I am ‘elderly’ but have a strong physique and have kept myself fit.
The good GP was born in Baghdad and trained there. . It distressed me that he was in working in the UK when he should have been back in his country where there is a desperate need for medical facilities following the Bush and Blair onslaught on Iraq in 2003.
Thankyou Mary – keep well – God Bless x
An opportune moment to recall that Iraq in Hussein’s time and before the USA, Bush-and the PNAC people stepped in with their depleted uranium and plunder, the standard of medical qualifications was highly esteemed throughout the world, and Iraqi doctors were a major export across the Middle East, Africa, south Asia and many countries in Europe.
Thank you both, Mark and Cap’n Klonk. Best wishes and stay well.
Bill Gates has just said that ordinary travel will be restricted for people not carrying a Covid-19 Certificate. Does he mean certificate or does he mean the ready to go medical ID2020 – directly configured to personal data gathering on habits, income, spending, preferences, sexuality and totally invasive of the intimate sphere of every human being? I read it is also projected as a medical microchip implant.
It will be out of individual control.
The 1% seem hyper active in manipulating every sector of life and channel human labour into machinery that serves primarily a build-up of their own personal power. Gates seems to me an excessively influential man from a private interest sector who does not consult with the public masses upon whose lives and doings he pronounces and takes private decisions.
The World Health Organisation is funded up to 80% by private money among them the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates ‘foundation’ recently began funding the top German Charite institute for virology studies at the time when they were coming up with information which did not support the line being pursued by the world press regarding the impact of the virus. It duly changed its line.
The Rockerfeller Foundation is also promoting id2020:
https://id2020.org/alliance
The petroleum industry did not give a fig about health and pollution. It fought the electric car. It fought public transport. Standing by them in solidarity were the automobile and the airline industries, Lockheed, Raytheon, British Aerospace and so on. And the armaments sector – all feeding on fossil fuels.
Inconveniently for their earnings, oil reached market saturation with competition from Siberia and Iran.
How next to maintain the stranglehold they held over every body else?
Medicine?
Just at this historic moment Covid-19 has taken centre stage. And with the one fell word – pandemic – economies crash and citizens are placed under curfew. I believe the term is ‘home shelter’.
If you had stood any working day of the year beside any of the autostradas in Northern Italy leading to the bottleneck Alpine passes such as the Brenner, and counted the juggernauts and private cars speeding into Central and Eastern Europe, it would be clear that there had to be resulting high level toxicity in the area. Going one step further, you might conclude that this must produce a high risk factor for pulmonary health.in particular – which is a major factor in the Corona related death rates in Italy.
Is it not reasonable to think that private interests are at work behind what is actually instrumentalization of one of the many seasonal Corona viruses? Could it really not be that highly intelligent, well-paid think tanks honed in to the annual flu figures which peak in February and March which can take up to 20, 000 lives annually?
The real danger for all of us is not the virus or any of the other millions of viruses we carry around with us – but the probability that ordinary people will unknowingly be persuaded/pushed to accept the medical ID marker which will remove power and freedom from the common individual and bestow unheard of personal freedom on the select few.
Judging from the state of our medical services it is highly unlikely they will behave well.
Who the hell do think they are, the Gates’s, the Rockefellers and the Bezos’s et al? Do they make the laws now?
Some information on the northern italian situation is emerging other then air pollution it is the medical protocaol italian doctors follow: a combination of antibiotic & antivral & Interferon . It was published in an article in Lancet and commented upon by doctors with still a brain as a killer treatment. So if you feel unwell make sure NOT to get tested and NOT go to a doctor. Inhale salt water steam, drink hot lemon , and get rest. In passes in 3 days. Sophie ( from Italy )
Thanks for the advice – always suspected the “cure” would be worse than the disease – not just on the micro level (individuals) but also on the macro i.e. the lunatics are in charge of the asylum!
Bill Gates has zero legal authority to take any governmental actions. He has no standing at all in representing the people.
Bill Gates should never be allowed to travel again if he does not row back on this.
I have zero tolerance whatever for Bill Gates thinking he can control society. Everything he values could be destroyed in 24 hrs. Tops.
He would do well to remember he has never stood for public office and therefore has zero right to make any pronouncements about anything whatever to do with civil society, international law, nor until further notice, the applicability of the US Constitution to him and his family…..
I am extremely clear that Bill Gates’ children and grandchildren are all HIGHLY acceptable collateral damage.
Billionaires in the main have very, very bad genes. The genes of psychopaths, sociopaths, monopolists, narcissists and totalitarian extremists.
Why should they be spared any eugenic cull, eh?
” I am extremely clear that Bill Gates’ children and grandchildren are all HIGHLY acceptable collateral damage. ”
” Billionaires in the main have very, very bad genes. The genes of psychopaths, sociopaths, ”
You don’t do so bad yourself sometimes.
Bill Gates isn’t half getting his name in the papers in connection with Covid-19. There even seems to have been some “chaff”. This is a known psywar techique – and you had better believe that such material can be put out with very great speed when required. (What do people think units such as the 77th Brigade are for?)
The following list is not exhaustive.
CASE 1
Bill Gates (this is from the answers he posted to questions at the cesspool known as Reddit): “The question of which businesses should keep going is tricky. Certainly food supply and the health system. We still need water, electricity and the internet. Supply chains for critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running. Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.” (Emphasis added.) (Source.)
CASE 2
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds the Pirbright Institute in Britain which in November 2018 took out a US patent on an attenuated coronavirus it had developed. The patent says that this coronavirus “may be used as a vaccine for treating and/or preventing a disease, such as infectious bronchitis, in a subject”. (How you can both treat and prevent a disease in a single subject at the same time is left as an exercise for the reader. Either that, or the author can’t write “or” without sticking “and/” in front of it because they they think it sounds fancy.) The Gates-Pirbright-vaccine story is referenced here in an article which has whackball elements but that does not stop it being true that Pirbright really have developed a coronavirus and they really are funded by Gates.
CASE 3
There is a letter entitled “What is the Corona/Covid-19 Really Teaching us?” attributed to Bill Gates which has been denounced as bogus.
Interestingly the US advertising and surveillance company Google did not direct me to a copy of it when I asked them. All they served me up with was sites that denounce it. There was no such problem with the superior search engine run by the company DuckDuckGo. That engine directed me to a copy of the letter in the Muslim Times, an organ that calls it a “beautiful message” but nonetheless prefaces it with a disclaimer. (“The Muslim Times cannot confirm the authenticity of this post and believes that even if Bill Gates did not say it; he could have or should have!”)
If it were not for the context, the letter itself would be boring and even if it had not been denounced I would still think it was fairly obvious that it was not written by Bill Gates.
COMMENTS
1. Forcible testing and vaccination are coming, perhaps after another stage in this upheaval. Yes – it gets worse. You want to sell a solution? Then consider spreading the problem. And they are three-quarters of the way there already. From here on in, it’s what Dominic Cummings would call a “walk in the park”.
2. Forcible microchip implantation will come too, as anyone who has paid attention to Google and Oracle in this connection is aware.
N_
Forcible microchip implantation?
Hey! Mine’s too old. Probably dates back to analogue or cuneiform. I want one of those new ones that Gavin Williamson had and tell you you’re talking bollocks in the house of commons.
The World Health Organisation is funded up to 80% by private money among them the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Quote from Our World In Data website:
Additionally we found many errors in the data published by the WHO when we went through all the daily Situation Reports […] As of March 18 we no longer maintain this database for the reason that the WHO data can not be used for reliable time-series information.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Node. This is a fantastic and very complex website which incidentally also tells us how this is so different from flu. Is that little negative extract all you could quote from it? Any way thanks a lot I have now bookmarked it.
You seem to have massively missing the point, twice. Yes it IS a fantastic website and it does not trust the WHO figures. And it doesn’t say it”s different from flu. It explains that all flus are different from each other and explains the characteristics of this flu.
Dr Stefano Montanari regards the Coronavirus crisis as a total con:
https://inthesenewtimes.com/2020/04/02/coronavirus-the-position-of-doctor-stefano-montanari/
Excellent piece, thanks for that.
Unlike some contributors here, who seem so absolute and sure of themselves, I am not so hostile toward what are called conspiracy theories.
After all, such theories arise in the cracks that become apparent in official narratives, in all the lies and contradictions and propaganda wars that typify the mainstream media.
I have to say that the official story of this virus coming out of China doesn’t strike me as any less of a conspiracy theory. The Western media have done a great job with this one though, stirring up the usual divisions and racisms that politicians and bosses count on to keep their subjects as the patriots and slaves they are.
Instinct tells me that more plausible explanations lie in 1) leaks from biological weapons experiments being carried out, and which should never have been carried out, and which reveal that humans with all their technological hubris are really no better than the animals they slaughter; or 2) some kind of enormous con.
Conversely, though, I cannot just ignore the substantial increase in ambulances traffic that I see from the window of my study, and the level of sickness that I observed in people on trains and public transport back in February, before I started ‘stayin’ inside’.
But whatever the case may be, this doesn’t really matter. All the theories are beside the point, and totally missing the point.
Yes, this may be a con. Yes, it may break the EU. Yes, this may lead to China revoking visas, Britain becoming even more small-minded and Trump-affiliated. But all that is small and fades into irrelevance. The way that the people have allowed themselves to get so sidetracked and blinded by all these petty things and irrelevancies is really dispiriting.
What matters most is that this virus (whatever it might be) reveals how unequal and authoritarian the world has become, and that the only question now is what are the people going to do about it?
“I am not so hostile toward what are called conspiracy theories”.
It depends, to a great extent, on who calls them “conspiracy theories”. Just as the strongest proof that someone is a good person lies in the enemies they have.
Marmite, excellent post. I just want to add how truly manipulated we are by propaganda and the MSM. On Tuesday all, and I mean all, the MSM ran the same front page – i.e. what a shambles the lack of testing is and so on and so forth – almost the same narrative in each and everyone of them. Hey presto, right on cue, Bozo Adolf appears yesterday from one of his luxury houses in which he is not self-isolating but using the opportunity to hide from public scrutiny and avoid answering some very difficult question, and says oh, we are going to massively increase testing. The MSM set up the problem and then out trots Bozo Adolf as the Savior we all need – only he promises the earth but being the pathological liar that he is – delivers nothing except hyperbole, garbage and lies. Put this in context with the day before when the piece of sh*t called Gove said they were unable to increase testing because they didn’t have enough reagents despite the chemical industry saying there were enough and they could readily increase their production to produce more. Propaganda, Propaganda. The only disinformation here is MSM and Government disinformation. We are being led by a group of incompetent political morons. I have just read the interview from the post above with the Italian Doctor Montanari. The best and most sensible appraisal I have seen to date. Plenty of science plenty of facts. It is all a big con. Essentially, we are dealing with virulent flu virus.
Great read. Thanks Colin
This COVID-19 is an excuse to print money. Who would severely damage the UK economy without repasse. COVID-19 or ‘common cold’ virus has been extensively studied at Porton Down. I was offered £10 and short-term leave to be a guinea-pig to these experiments..
The trillions of dollars of fiat money will be used to further WWIII, a war necessary to retain and contain US dominance. Maybe COVID-19 is a precursor to another RNA virus more deadly, more pervasive and more contagious than anything we have experienced. I am not a doom merchant although I am a pessimist so those enlightened, authoritative and strong please be careful with parcels and their contents
Colin
I don’t know why you share such nonsense? Dr Montanari has no qualifications whatsoever to make these assertions, because they are just assertions. He has never worked in infectious disease as far as I can tell. If anyone expresses an opinion on Covid-19 is the only criterion that you think they may be right is that they confirm your beliefs? Do you then discount the opinion of many others doctors and scientists who are actually working on this? Do you also discount the WHO, the governments of Italy, China and South Korea, unconnected with the governments of US and UK who actually take the same laid back attitude as you and Dr Montanari? On the 14th of February there were 66.4K cases of Covid-19 in China and only 17 in USA. Todays figures are China 82.4 K with very little rise in the last two weeks and the figure for USA is 216.7 K whilst on 19/03/2020 was 13.7 K. Do these figures mean nothing to you?
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Dr Montanari’s qualifications are more relevant than most. In particular, he has spent years researching the health impact of nanoparticles, a field quite closely connected to virology.
If you read the interview, you will see plentiful evidence that he knows what he is talking about.
Nano particles are not self reproducing but viruses are. Just because they are small does not mean that they are the same or remotely similar. I am sorry but he has not come anywhere near a Covid-19 patient, let us listen more to those who have and less to the pseudo-experts and political analysts who think they know.
Mr Montanari is now shamed in Italy:
https://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2020/03/25/news/coronavirus_gl_scienziati_italiani_denunciano_i_guru_online_che_gridano_al_complotto-252285764/
Apparently Mr Montanari claim the virus was created by the Chinese.
https://www.open.online/2020/03/25/coronavirus-gli-scienziati-denunciano-stefano-montanari-affermazioni-anti-scientifiche-e-pericolose-sullepidemia/
Just ignore this nonsense!
In 2 months 10 000 people have been killed by the virus in Spain.
Nations like Spain, Italy, China seems to be the extreme cases, perhaps US and Russia will get there too eventually as things starts to move there too.
But on the other hand, Dr Stefano Montanari says it’s all a total con… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ll believe that 10,000 people have been killed by the Coronavirus in Spain in the last two months when somebody shows me a simple graph of the total number of deaths each day in Spain from January 1 to March 31 2019, and the numbers for the same period this year.
A rough calculation based on a population of 47 million and a life expectancy of 83 gives an average daily death total of about 1550 (obviously with season and other fluctuations). If there have been 10,000 extra deaths in 2 months then that is an average of 170 every single day, but the number has been growing rapidly. It was supposedly almost 1000 yesterday, so the gap between last years numbers and this years numbers should now be massive – an increase of around two thirds – and undeniable. The same logic applies to Italy.
I have not seen this simple obvious analysis anywhere, for any country, and I don’t understand why.
Stonky The Office for National Statistics provides weekly the number of registered deaths and helpfully compares them to the five yearly average for the corresponding week. Those figures show that there have been fewer deaths this month. The European Monitoring of Excess Mortality for Public Health Action similarly shows fewer deaths than usual for most of Europe, with Italy being the exception. And this is the reason why the corporate media are silent on all cause mortality: it completely undermines the official narrative and their hysterical fear-mongering.
Thanks for that. The UK figures are very revealing. I guess the raw data must be in the European graphs, but it doesn’t look too easy to unpack
Stonky
Since Corona is new for the year 2020, the 10000 cases are additional deaths compared with the 2019 toll.
I was sceptical about this Jack, but having at last seen some actual figures I now do not believe there is a shred of truh in it
Not sure how you can be sceptical of actual deaths. People die of Corona. Period.
People are dabbling with statistics in a way a child keeps digging up seeds to see whether they are germinated. The only way you can be sure that Covid-19 is causing an overall yearly rise in mortality is by taking yearly rates especially in a fast moving situation.
The facts that we know are that there is a quickly spreading pandemic that in the last three months has infected 952,000 case as of today worldwide with 48,000 deaths. There are three possibilities that by the end of this year there will be.
I refer to this website which explains the futility of looking at mortality now.
“Finally, we shall remember that while the 2003 SARS epidemic was still ongoing, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a fatality rate of 4% (or as low as 3%), whereas the final case fatality rate ended up being 9.6%.”
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#correct
Today I am told by the radio news that so many people died in Spain “with the coronavirus” not, note “of coronavirus”.
I first noted this change a few days ago.
And by the way there are a lot more respected medical professionals than Dr Stefano Montanari expressing doubt.
Jack wrong figures I’m afraid. Differentiate between the with and from and you get a completely different set of figures.
Jo Dominich
No you are wrong. That is how cause of death is reported – including the seasonal flu – which you of course do not doubt would cause deaths.
“In 2 months 10 000 people have been killed by the virus in Spain”.
Ahem. In 2 months 10 000 people have been killed *with* the virus in Spain.
Many people who ate tomatoes and olives have also died; as have many who wore sandals.
Tom Welsh
Of course, as people are killed “with” seasonal flu “with” cancer “with” HIV “with” sepsis.
Today I read a post from a fellow XR supporter who, after his recent chemo session, was told when visiting his hospital consultant that this was very likely the last of his sessions since the hospital might have to close the oncology department to cope with the impact of the virus. he is pleading with people to stay at home and keep the figures down. Most minor and major surgery and or treatments are now postponed due to the impact this virus has on an unprepared country.
I would not be surprised if we are getting the EU gold medal, we are well on the way to pass Italy’s figures, and they have had a well organised health service.
If there is any ‘reckoning’ it will be with this Government and their eugenic thoughts on how to limit the financial impact of people on the state.
It was precisely when I saw what happened in Italy that I realised that the UK was going to be in a lot of trouble.
Due to cancelled procedures and closed units, staff are twiddling their thumbs. Bank and agency nurses have been sent home, student nurses working part time to help make ends meet, laid off. Meanwhile they ask retirees to return and for volunteers.
Central planning at its best.
Nevermind, what a terrible anxiety for your friend. However, hospitals are not overwhelmed as is being reported and there is no reason, absolutely no reason at all, for essential curative treatment such as chemotherapy to be cancelled. We are nowhere close to Italy’s figures and never will be. Mass hysteria, fake news and propaganda have taken over facts and figures and the truth.
The principality of Andorra reportedly has plans to test its entire population. According to the news site ARA, health minister Joan Martínez Benazet says all 77,000 citizens of the state will get antibody tests!
200 people on the Aircraft carrier stationed in Guam, now off the Vietnamese coast, ‘Teddy Roosevelt’ have tested positive for Covid 19. there are 4000 crew onboard and the US defense minister asked the captain to keep all crew onboard.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/03/24/coronavirus-spreads-on-us-navy-ship-in-pacific-ocean/
Mathew Parris in yesterdays Times compared the number of deaths in the week to 20th of March this year compared to previous years. The number of deaths was 1% higher than the average of the previous several years.
For death figures to be meaningful (STATISTICALLY) they should be compared to previous years, eg on the 2nd of April 2020 x died of Coronavirus compared to total deaths of whatever on that day, which could then be compared the total number of deaths on the same day in previous years. This would give us a true picture of the severity of the pandemic.
The fact that we are not told such a simple and straightforward comparison makes me suspect the numbers.
We are at the end of the winter flu season and the yearly mortality would by now be falling. If we wait one more month we shall see how this figure shifts. People who do not understand data collection and statistics should stick to political commenting.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#correct
From the Office of National Statistics (ONS) the figures for this year, for England and Wales, show that more than 4,800 FEWER people died in the period from the beginning of January to 20th March when compared to the previous 5 years averaged.
Have the ONS got it wrong?
No the effect of the mortality from the virus have not filtered through yet, it is just beginning.
ONS statistics – Total Deaths England & Wales 2020 to March 20th
https://ibb.co/CJ9myCt
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
“We are at the end of the winter flu season and the yearly mortality would by now be falling.”
That is not what the ONS figures say, they say the spike season has only just started
https://ibb.co/Fm9HyjQ
Total number of deaths in the UK per year from 1990 to 2018
https://ibb.co/5MJ9g8B
The numbers vary enormously
NB. The population grew by ~10% between 1993 and 2011 but the Total Number of Deaths reduced by ~20%
They didn’t shut down society in 1993, why are they doing so now?
So tell me exactly what your point is. By the 20th March the national statistics did not show a rise in the total number of people who died from previous weeks. But on the 20th of March there was a total of 4,000 cases of Covid-19 in UK and presumable about 200 deaths although I do not have the exact figure. Today the UK figures are 34,000 and almost 3,000 deaths. Did you expect the figures from 20th March to foresee the deaths since then? Or do you think that figure of over 2500 deaths since then is not significant? Just please address this point.
Geoffrey – MD in the latest Private Eye makes a similar point. He writes ‘ … of every 10,000 who die in the UK in 2020, 9,996 – 9,999 will die of something other than corona virus ‘. He bases that on the latest imperial college predictions. MD is a practising GP.
There’s also a piece in Private Eye on how private hospitals will be making lots of lovely money by hiring out their hospitals to the NHS.
He must have a crystal ball this brilliant man. I would say that for every 10,000 who die in the UK in 2020 of other causes there could be 100,000 who die of Covid-19. That is if we continue this government’s covert herd immunity policy.
Anyway, since when was Private Eye the go to place for scientific information?
10000 killed in Spain
13000 killed in Italy
4000 killed in France
3400 killed in China
2400 killed in the UK
and so on..
but many people here deny the virus altogether – its just a “conspiracy”.
The ignorance by some here is bizarre,
These people are also the ones that raise the death toll, they don’t follow the guidelines, they stand in defiance of what is recommended because its just a lie altogether they reason.
These people should let go of the ego and realize that their ignorance could “kill” themselves or a family member to them, in Italy, Spain the hospital do not even have time to treat everyone – this is not normal, not a flu!
I agree, Jack.
I see groans about totalitarianism and the restriction of freedom, and I realize how far these concerns are from me personally.
I don’t live on pension or unemployment benefit. I do not live on donations. I can’t get paid for opening my mouth like celebrities, politicians or journalists.
My work and income completely depends on the normal functioning of the whole society around me.
When the society is asked to stay at home to stop spreading of the virus and to allow us quickly return to normal life, I really expect everyone to be responsible. Without quarantine, this will not be possible.
I would very much appreciate everyone’s contribution into this crisis survival by making a very simple thing – stay at home.
I’m not sure if it is being denied. Possibly by some, and that would just be a reflection of how much we trust authority at present. The behaviour of many leaders and governments is very strange, and does lead to questions being asked. For one, the vehement refusal to test in some more right-wing countries should be raising eyebrows all over!!! Also incomprehensible is the way people are being left to die in their homes, and then not counted, which means the numbers of recorded deaths are going to be wholly incorrect. This kind of topsy-turviness will naturally cause a lot of panicky people to try to find some reason in chaos.
What we do know is the following, and it validates Craig’s point.
This is from Adam Ramsay, editor of openDemocracy:
Coronavirus is a public health emergency. Tens of thousands have died. Many times that are sick. But this crisis is also political. UNDERSCORE: POLITICAL. Parliaments have been suspended, new laws pushed through, rights and freedoms curtailed.
This is just what has happened in the last week:
Europe
UK Authorities including the Local Government Association and Greater Manchester Police called for a relaxation of freedom of information laws during the crisis, while police forces across the country faced criticism for inconsistencies in applying lockdown rules. Click here to read more about how coronavirus is affecting the British constitution.
Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova and Romania These six states announced plans to suspend participation in the European Convention on Human Rights because of the epidemic. They notified the Council of Europe of their intention, with Bulgaria expected to follow, Euractiv reported.
Hungary Parliament voted to allow Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely. The order also allows the suspension of parliament, punishments for journalists if the government believes their coronavirus reporting is not accurate and heavier penalties for violating quarantine regulations. No election or referendum can be held while it is in place.
Russia Anyone who violates the quarantine and infects others should be punished with death, said the leader of Russia’s republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. (Moscow Times, citing regional publication Caucasian Knot). Meanwhile, police dressed in black uniforms and holding white bats patrolled the streets of the Chechen town of Shali. In Moscow, police claimed to have caught and fined 200 people who violated quarantine and self-isolation using facial recognition and a 170,000-camera system.
Kosovo A recently elected left-wing government was forced from office following a dispute over the handling of the pandemic response. Writing on openDemocracy, a group of academics criticised the US-backed overthrow, arguing that the ousted administration had contained the spread of the virus “more effectively than in directly neighbouring countries”.
Montenegro Activists and journalists called on the government to postpone a public debate on proposed amendments to freedom of information laws, saying meaningful discussion was impossible during the pandemic.
Belarus The State Control Committee, which oversees the country’s financial investigations, detained Siarhei Satsuk, chief editor of the Yezhednevnik news website, after it published reports on coronavirus.
Asia
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the country’s poor for forgiveness after announcing a lockdown with only four hours’ notice, leaving many workers with long treks by foot to their home villages. The governor of Telangana threatened to introduce “shoot at sight” orders for those not adhering to the lockdown.
Philippines Congress granted President Rodrigo Duterte special emergency powers that could remain in force until 2022. Since then there have been mass arrests, with more than 17,000 detained for lockdown-related violations, according to data from the Philippine National Police (PNP) cited by the Rappler news network.
Azerbaijan President Aliyev suggested coronavirus may require a crackdown on political opposition. “Isolation of representatives of the fifth column will become a historical necessity,” he said.
Kyrgyzstan Authorities used COVID-19 as a pretext to stop an International Women’s Day march earlier this month, despite the fact that there were no registered cases in the country at the time.
Kazakhstan Despite the government’s promises to reform restrictive protest laws, the national parliament rushed through the first vote on a bill to maintain tight controls over peaceful assembly.
Middle East
Israel The defence minister published a programme to tackle the epidemic including recommendations for a system jointly developed by the military and a private company, NSO – accused in the past of creating malware used by authoritarian regimes to harvest data from targets’ phones. The software will track the mobile phones of people with coronavirus and award citizens a ‘contagion rating’ from 1 to 10, Haaretz reported.
Egypt Authorities forced a journalist to leave the country after she reported on a scientific study that said Egypt was likely to have many more coronavirus cases than officially confirmed.
Morocco Videos circulating on social media show police beating up and attacking people who are not abiding by the state lockdown order. More than 1,000 people are reported to have been prosecuted for not abiding by the new emergency law and curfew orders.
Lebanon Authorities arrested a number of activists for protesting against the lack of planning to fight the pandemic in the country and broke up a protesters’ camp in downtown Beirut. Ghayth Hammoud, a spokesperson of protesters in the northern district of Akar, was released after being beaten up and having his arm broken.
Iraq and Algeria Coronavirus has shut down pro-democracy street movements which had begun to emerge.
Africa
Guinea Coronavirus last week forced the cancellation of an attempted mediation by African leaders with President Alpha Conde ahead of a referendum, marred by violence and boycotts, in which 92%% of voters approved a constitution that could allow him to seek a third term. Coronavirus was “a pretext”, a source close to Niger’s presidency told Le Monde: “We told ourselves that this mediation was useless.”
Kenya Human rights groups condemned the “unnecessary and excessive use of force” by Kenyan police as the country imposed a curfew. Police had used tear gas and beatings against civilians trying to get home in time for curfew and beat up a journalist, a coalition of activist groups said in a statement. Police also killed a thirteen-year-old boy, reportedly for breaking the curfew.
South Africa Police fired rubber bullets towards hundreds of shoppers queueing outside a supermarket in Johannesburg and used whips to enforce social distancing. Last week the country criminalised disinformation about the coronavirus, prompting the United Nations to warn that: “Any attempts to criminalize information relating to the pandemic may create distrust in institutional information, delay access to reliable information and have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.”
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni ordered the police to arrest politicians who offer food handouts to communities and for them to be charged with attempted murder.
Latin America
Brazil Facebook took the rare step of deleting a video posted by President Jair Bolsonaro where he claimed that “hydroxychloroquine is working in all places” despite the drug still undergoing testing to determine its effectiveness for treating coronavirus. Twitter also deleted posts by Bolsonaro. Across the country, people protested against Bolsonaro’s dismissal of the crisis by beating pots and pans at their open windows after he called the population to get “back to work”.
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro also saw one of his posts deleted by Twitter. In his tweet, Maduro had invited followers to take a homemade herbal potion for twelve days to “remove coronavirus’s infectious genes”.
Colombia Death squads are taking advantage of coronavirus lockdowns to murder rural activists, local NGOs have warned.
Paraguay Police were praised by the interior minister after sharing videos of themselves punishing civilians.
Climate
US The Environmental Protection Agency will waive many pollution regulations while there are restrictions on travel movements, Bloomberg reported. The EPA said it would not pursue companies unable to complete “routine monitoring and reporting obligations” because of coronavirus measures. Environmentalists complained that if refineries and chemical plants were able to keep running, they should also be able to comply with the law. The EPA has also delayed the introduction of cleaner summertime petrol to help refiners reduce their surpluses of winter fuel, Bloomberg reported.
Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the European Union should ditch its green law seeking carbon neutrality as it battles the coronavirus.
Poland The country relies heavily on coal-fired power stations and will find it even more difficult to achieve the European Union’s climate goals because of the impact of the epidemic on the economy, the government said.
It’s not just governments. Ultraconservative and far-right movements around the world are celebrating as coronavirus locks women in the home, shuts down abortion clinics, suspends parliaments and postpones democratic debates about women’s and minority rights. Data mining companies are also having a field day.
Mr. Adam Ramsay should bring us more detail on the color of police uniform, and the quantity of cameras in the streets, in more countries! 🙂
Surprisingly, our news say that the number of deaths in the US exceeded that in China; that there is a real crisis in New York; that refrigerators are parked by the hospitals to serve as a temporary morgues in case of an increase in casualties; that medical personnel who dare to criticize inadequate protective equipment are dismissed.
And also news say that Russia sent a plane with medical aid to the United States, about which Trump commented that it was “very nice”, as if it wasn’t the aid deserving simple humane “thanks”, but a lovely magnetic souvenir – “very nice”.
When I see how the taxes are spent, I think they should better send the plane to Italy.
The USA is the best country in the world, it can do without our help, they have Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and really can survive without russian taxpayers. Great Britain is a bay of financial prosperity for rich people, too, can do without us, at least the queen can sell a couple of diamonds from her collection and help her subjects out.
The Queen is now living just up the road from me in the largest inhabited castle in the world, Windsor Castle.
She is now a very old lady and her and the Duke of Edinburgh are together isolating as a family, in their family castle.
I bet they have plenty of bog roll put by.
as if we are all on the same boat? 🙂
https://pikabu.ru/story/znamenitosti_seychas_myi_vse_v_odnoy_lodke_7319896
Marmite
Well of course part of the society is suspended, that is what states do in times of crisis.
Look at China how they managed to get the death down, by strong measures. That is what you need to,
Why is China an appropriate template? Why not look at Japan or South Korea.
Until Coronavirus all the right-on people were lauding Sweden as being the ultimate in state mandated virtue. So why not take a look at Sweden – unless of course Sweden has morphed into genocidal killers when compared to the kind, compassionate and endlessly virtuous Chinese state.
Because China have obviously made a better effort than South Korea, Japan and Sweden.
What is obvious to you is not obvious to many others.
For example Dr. Li, who subsequently died from Coronavirus, was reprimanded by the police for raising early alarms about Coronavirus. It is not obvious how political interference with the views of medical practitioners constitutes an effective response to a pandemic.
More recently Dr. Ai Fen, a Dr, in Wuhan, who also raised concerns regarding the response to Coronavirus has reportedly disappeared.
According to official Chinese figures Coronavirus in China has been all but eliminated. Yesterday China imposed draconian quarantine measures on the 600,000 inhabitants of Jia, a county in the Henan province due to an outbreak of Coronavirus – even though according to the Chinese there are no Coronavirus cases in China.
Part of the Chinese response to Coronavirus also involved exerting pressure on the WHO. Thus on January 14th the WHO issued a tweet stating that Chinese authorities had found no clear evidence of human to human transmission of Coronavirus. This was a lie.
So according to you reprimanding or disappearing Drs. lying about the incidence of Coronavirus and lying about the transmissibility of Coronavirus means that it is obvious that China has made better efforts that Japan, South Korea and Sweden.
Once the foregoing is clearly understood then your comments can be interpreted in the light that they deserve
Loony
Its a well known fact that China have managed it to great degree.
COVID-19: No new cases in China’s worst-hit province
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/-covid-19-no-new-cases-in-chinas-worst-hit-province/1786403
Look at their rates, fallen down tremendously past weeks.
Japan, South Korea do good too but not as good as the chinese obviously.
Thanks to an ongoing media obsession it is easy to list the cumulative death rates from Coronavirus. Coronavirus death rates may continue to spike for a while, but one day it will go away.
No doubt there is some reason why the media does not obsess over the 3,700 people that are killed around the world every day by way of road accidents. This sums to 1.35 million per year – and this particular form of death does not go away with the passage of time.
Obviously Coronavirus is a concern – but it is not the only concern. There is a strong correlation between life expectancy and economic wealth. In the UK wealthy people tend to live longer than poorer people. Average life expectancy in the UK tends to be higher than average life expectancies in poorer countries. The life expectancy in Russia collapsed contemporaneously with the collapse of the USSR.
How long can the UK, and other nations, keep their economies shuttered before there is permanent damage to the economic fabric? Permanent damage to the economy will result in declines in life expectancy. This is not a forecast or a conspiracy. This is a known fact and is observable within and across economies.
Why is the media entirely silent on this matter? This is where the conspiracy is, and the fact that it exists is evident by the omissions of politicians and the media.
No it is not Loony, we only know the number of people who have died with Corona virus not of Corona virus.
Geoffrey
Not Corona is considered the cause of death in these cases.
Jack, a. how do you know this ? b. That is not what the statistics suggest and c. What brought you to Craig’s blog ?
Geoffrey
When people die the cause of death is labeled.
Yes Jack but is it labelled correctly?
This morning on the radio I was told that Eddie Large had caught coronavirus in hospital while he was in the terminal stages of heart failure, this evening he has died of coronavirus while being “treated for heart failure”.
I mean no disrespect to Mr Large’s family, my mother died of heart failure, and as far as I can recall from that stressful time heart failure is not “treated”, it is managed in order to give the sufferer as dignified a passing as possible (and I am eternally grateful for the care my mother received).
This only goes to show the confusion that is being sowed, whether deliberately or not.
J Galt
No I dont doubt the labeling is dubious to begin with.
Corona is especially deadly for those that already have a condition, disease which Mr Large obviously had.
Loony:
‘No doubt there is some reason why the media does not obsess over the 3,700 people that are killed around the world every day by way of road accidents. This sums to 1.35 million per year – and this particular form of death does not go away with the passage of time.’
You can add to this the amount of death hastened by air pollution, and ill health caused by starvation, homelessness, arbitrary detention, police beatings.
As for your reason, well, it’s simply because the economy show needs to go on….
In the US 46 people have lost their jobs for every confirmed case of Coronavirus. That seems a very peculiar response to a problem when the overwhelming priority is that the “economy show” goes on.
“As for your reason, well, it’s simply because the economy show needs to go on….”
But in Britain today, the economy is not going on. The government has stopped it cold in its tracks, with no indication that it has any plan to restart the economy – or how.
Why is Covid-19 considered so much more of a threat than the “normal” road traffic deaths? Since there are so many fewer Covid-19 deaths.
Tom Welsh
“Why is Covid-19 considered so much more of a threat”
This is a pandemic, a car crash is not a pandemic threat to human kind.
Loony
Economic damage is of course already done and inevitably in times of a pandemic.
By doing nothing as you? seems to profess would generate tremendous death and even more economic damage.
Past couple of deacades have made efforts to lower the road killings. Corona on the other hand is something novel, we dont know this virus yet that is why we have to take great precaution.
Not shuttering entire economies is not tantamount to doing nothing. How do you know how many people are likely to die of Coronavirus?
It is known that the collapse of the USSR caused the Russian economy to collapse and that a consequence of this collapse was that average life expectancy declined from just above 70 to 55.
If UK life expectancies were to collapse to post soviet Russian levels would that be more or less harmful than Coronavirus.
Given that there is no timetable for reopening the economy neither you nor anyone else can have any idea as to the ultimate quantum of economic damage.
Loony
No there is no timetable nor have the whole of society been shut down to begin with, you cannot timetable a novel pandemic crisis when it will be over or not.
So you agree that there remains a possibility of economic collapse and consequent decline in average life expectancy.
If you cannot measure any decline in average life expectancy you cannot know whether in terms of saving lives it is better to lock the economy down or to not lock the economy down. This being the case the actions currently being taken amount to no more than someones opinion.
In this case citizens of the UK and the US are living lives entirely determined by the opinion of Professor Neil Ferguson. This man is now more powerful than any elected politician anywhere. In return for being handed power almost without limit Professor Ferguson is refusing to make public the codes and assumptions underpinning his model. Thus no-one can objectively challenge anything that he may conclude.
Oddly the public seem largely happy with this state of affairs.
Loony
Yes there is already an economic crash worldwide that will probably hang with us atleast a decade from now and with that,-life will be changed for alot of people in terms of quality of life.
What do you propose doing to curb the virus?
Jack, your figures are wrong again. The most accurate figure is the Chinese one. The Italian Institute of health has significantly reduced the death rate from CV19 to 12%. in 2013/14 the flu epidemic then killed over 28,000 people in that year. This is a flu just a stronger strain of it.
How can my numbers be wrong when I use the numbers the Spanish authorities use?
No this is not the “flu” its more deadly, more contagious, already in 2 months it have almost top the seasonal flu death rate (which of some reason you do not doubt by the way).
Typo
I mean death toll. Not death rate – which of course is far higher at the moment.
Now Spain has caught up with Italy
both Spain and Italy have now passed the 110,000 cases mark.
Jack
No one is disputing the existence of covid19
But when you put figures up as you have why not stick up,say,the last 20 years numbers of deaths due to seasonal viruses in these countries
Purely as perspective
With the furore about the police actions, I’m reminded of the need on the part of so many of us, to lionise the police. They are treated like demigods who put their lives on the line every single day, to protect us. Well, some of them do, some of the time. But there are far more dangerous professions – builders, for one. No one calls them ‘heroes’. But at the end of the day, if you apply to join the police, you do so because you want to be able to tell other people what to do. You can tell yourself that you do so ‘to help people’, and in a small minority of cases, this is no doubt true. But at the end of the day, the motivation is the same: power. Every single person in the police force is a police officer because he or she likes power over other people. So please, spare us the faux surprise when these people abuse powers that they’re given. It is – as the saying goes – in the nature of the beast.
The director general of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom, has earned the unfortunate sobriquet of Dr Death, pertaining to his role as a former (very brief) Minister of Health in Ethiopia’s authoritarian government, as he presided over tens of thousands of deaths by malaria, and other treatable diseases. We were warned:
https://www.ethiopianregistrar.com/ethiopias-current-minister-of-foreign-affairs-tedros-adhanoms-candidacy-to-head-who-is-disdain-travesty-of-justice-and-idiocy/
@ Monster April 2, 2020 at 14:07
It seems the director general of the WHO has a worse reputation than that in some quarters. This guy seems very knowledgeable about the WHO, weaponising virus’s etc. I cannot follow it, having difficulty with my hearing, but perhaps someone else can sus him out; he has made a number of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O26Lsxs6USI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAEy5FHTxz4
I wonder whether in an ironic twist of history, we might get to see the rise of fascism in Europe repeated here afterf leaving the EU.
I remember the scene from the film Amarcord when someone tries to play the Internationale from a bell tower and gets used for target practice. Then we have the 1940s films “Freedom Radio” in which a disillusioned doctor starts illegal boradcasts and “Pimpernel Smith” (guess from which regime to which the hero helps people to escape) but I won’t spoil the endings.
Whether or not we counterparts to these emerge in the UK, it’s not impossible that Craig’s B&B might come in useful for people fleeing unjust persecution. It might be a good idea to read Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place for useful ideas, just in case it should ever be needed.
(corrected)
I wonder whether in an ironic twist of history, we might get to see the rise of fascism in Europe repeated here after leaving the EU.
I remember the scene from the film Amarcord when someone tries to play the Internationale from a bell tower and gets used for target practice. Then we have the 1940s films “Freedom Radio” in which a disillusioned doctor starts illegal broadcasts and “Pimpernel Smith” (guess from which regime to which the hero helps people to escape) but I won’t spoil the endings.
Whether or not counterparts to these emerge in the UK, it’s not impossible that Craig’s B&B might come in useful for people fleeing unjust persecution. It might be a good idea to read Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place for useful ideas, just in case it should ever be needed.
Has anyone else noticed a crackdown on the online expression of doubt in respect of Big Brother’s line on the coronavirus?
In another place I go to online, the hammer was wielded a few hours ago very fast, and with no messing about: a number of users who have each contributed several hundred articles over many years simply had their accounts and ALL their posts summarily deleted, with no reasons given. They had questioned, mostly very mildly, the official line on the coronavirus.
That is a German-owned site. I suspect German companies running social sites have been given instructions by the BfV security service in no uncertain terms.
This is highly on-topic for this thread, “How it starts”.
Where else has it been happening, or not happening?
Are we getting “physical lockdown – online clampdown?” We should know very fast if the answer is “yes”.
Does anyone here hang out at the big British opinion-control sites such as Mumsnet, the Student Room, Arrse, or Pistonheads?
N_
Looks like we’ll explode like pressure cookers without our release valves. Back to street demonstrations, kettling and scrapping in the underground. That was what happened when we dared to criticise Gordon Brown’s handling of the banking crisis. Such thin skins these politicians…
How it Starts…
I’ve used Student Room for professional reasons, but stopped last-year when I noticed a clear pinky + perky tag-team of nudgers trying to hide off-narrative talking points. State sponsored by their covert actions. Sworn to HMQE2 by their choice of subject matter that they were diluting.
Precisely theStudentRoom.co.uk also dumped a three gigabyte cookie on me, [in my system browser cache, OS hard-limits these to twenty-five megs] Plus when I last visited SR, all the generic adverts were asking me to join a certain governmental communications headquarters, yet I don’t live in Scarborough, nor Devon, nor Salford Quays, nor…
MumsNet, hmmm…. the things I could tell you about that digital watering-hole
The scythe could soon be wielded through
* WordPress-hosted blogs
* Google-hosted blogs
* publication of “offending” material using the facilities of Google
* the publicisation or availability-to-search of “offending” material using the facilities of Google
* “offending” socialisation of other kinds that use the facilities of Google (such as Hangouts and Youtube)
* ditto Facebook (including Whatsapp), Apple, and other “Satans”
Those who haven’t noticed that Google is the enemy haven’t been paying attention.
Some assumptions that the present way of doing things would go on for ever have already been destroyed. More will follow. Soon.
Has anyone else noticed a crackdown on the online expression of doubt in respect of Big Brother’s line on the coronavirus?
I was banned from here for doing that:
https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/
Maybe it had nothing to do with big brother? Do tell us why you were banned?
For questioning the figures. For saying “nobody knows the mortality rate because nobody knows the infection rate.” For pointing out precisely how the statistics posted by the blog owner are inflated. Why don’t you look for yourself :
https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/
– “Has anyone else noticed a crackdown on the online expression of doubt…”
Node was asked to leave for expressing precisely zero doubt in his conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is fake, a “manufactured crisis”, and for publicly accusing Squonk of deliberate deception.
Squonk, owner of squonk.tk, has been following the outbreak since January and long since realised how very serious it is. Squonk suffered Node’s foolishness, not particularly gladly, but for a long time and with many refusals to address evidence, before eventually asking Node to leave.
I pointed out that the mortality rates Squonk was publishing on his website were massively inflated and I described specifically why. I repeatedly asked him to address those points, but he wouldn’t. That’s why I say he is knowingly posting false information. If Squonk or Clark disagree, all they have to do is demonstrate that the figures he is posting aren’t exaggerated in the way I describe. But they won’t because they can’t. But they continue to post false figures because they believe the end justifies the means.
Squonk banned me because I wouldn’t let him off the hook on this point. The evidence is there for anybody to judge for themselves : https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/
This ‘crisis’ has been manufactured or taken advantage of in order to impose police state powers on much of the world. The MSM is scaring the public into accepting these repressive measures. Squonk’s blog is enthusiastically helping them by spreading the hysteria and silencing criticism of it. In the future we will question how we were so easily tricked out of our rights and I will point an accusing finger at Squonk’s blog.
I’m not letting you off with this, Squonk. You are misrepresenting me on your blog where you have banned me from replying.
Regarding the first of your rebuttals, beginning …
“I’ve posted some details of death totals across Northern Italy from official government Italian National Institute of Statistics for the first 3 weeks of March.” . . . you are aware these figures are inflated at least 8-fold, because I’ve told you that the Italian National Institute of Health has issued a statement, specifically to correct people who are exaggerating their mortality rate :
“On re-evaluation by the [Italian] National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/23/italy-only-12-of-covid19-deaths-list-covid19-as-cause/
Regarding your 2nd rebuttal about Bergamo, it is typical of your attacks on me, vaguely implying something but without substance. I have never said “the Italian government is making up the numbers as is the city of Bergamo, doctors, priests, mayors, journalists etc.” As a matter of fact, I have never commented on Bergamo and your link leads to a post where you complain about an article somebody else posted (you threatened to ban that person too). What I have said is that you are very selective about which Italian government statistics you publish – only the sensational ones.
And in case you are considering having my comments removed from this blog too, and I know you have the influence to do that, I will remind you that I am replying to an on-topic question : “Has anyone else noticed a crackdown on the online expression of doubt in respect of Big Brother’s line on the coronavirus?”, and further point out that Craig’s post echoes some of my disquiet about “tear[ing] up all of the civil liberties which were won by the people against authority through centuries of struggle.” Would you ban Craig from your blog if he repeated it there? Does it make you wonder just a teeny bit if you should really be demanding the government tears up even more of those liberties?
The statistics you refer to Node were released on March 20, a fortnight ago. They therefore refer only to deaths before that date, and would have taken some time in compilation. With deaths associated with covid-19 doubling every three or four days, that delay is crucial.
– “But they continue to post false figures because they believe the end justifies the means”
That is ad hominen and your comment, though on-topic, could be removed on that basis. Imputing motive is specifically banned under Craig’s rules.
– “This ‘crisis’ has been manufactured or taken advantage of in order to impose police state powers on much of the world”
The reason that’s highly improbable is that the social restrictions are also crippling the holy cow of nearly all governments, economic growth. What we’re seeing are panic responses from governments which neglected to prepare and left restrictions too late, despite having months of warning.
– “Does it make you wonder just a teeny bit if you should really be demanding the government tears up even more of those liberties?”
Squonk has done no such thing. Node, you seem unable to separate the issues of the reality of the pandemic, and government responses to it.
Why are you banging on so? It’s not likely that you’ll join me and other activists, civilly and peacefully disobeying on the streets after the peak has passed, to win back our civil liberties, because previously you’ve dismissed such actions as “controlled opposition”.
Node
Squonk is not big brother, so your original statement was not correct.
How it starts?
It started a long long time ago im afraid.
Surely the whole problem for the lay community is, “Which coronavirus experts should we believe?” These guys?
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Even if only some of the above is reliable then surely something very strange is going on.
Thanks for the link. Most interesting.
You’re welcome, Doug.
There are claims going around that Bill Gates, unelected at any time in his life to represent any human beings, is going around saying that no-one in future will be allowed to travel without ‘Covid19 digital certificates’/
Firstly: as Bill Gates represents no-one, Bill Gates is in effect announcing a coup d’etat whereby Bill Gates purports to believe that he has executive authority to govern. Is that Washington State, the USA, the whole world Bill? We’d like to know how big your delusions are….
Secondly, it must be assumed that Bill Gates will be earning revenue streams from this ‘digital certification’ process, much as he will undoubtedly hope to force people to be jabbed with his new ‘vaccine revenue streams’. Does suggest a conflict of infterest sufficiently enormous that he cannot hold any public office until he decides whether he is interested in governing or winning government contracts.
I am very strongly of the opinion that Bill Gates making any announcements about anything has zero validity anywhere in the world, and absolutely not outside the USA, where he holds citizenship. He is not a citizen of the UK and hence has no right to any contribution to the running of this country.
I do not consider Bill Gates a fit and proper person to rule without standing for election and consider his actions akin to those which led to Muammar Gaddaafi being bumped off, namely him thinking he can do things which a lot of foreign people do not like the sound of.
Why are the media allowing Bill Gates, an unelected man, to make pronouncements which are in effect governmental policy statements?
I refuse to accept anything Gates has to say and would certainly consider it a death sentence offence for Bill Gates to ever leave his house again until a global referendum has been held into whether a house arrest of the entire Gates family should be lifted.
Fancy that, Bill?
Mr. Murray,
Willis Eschenbach at wattsupwiththat.com has noted that the novel coronavirus trajectories in the US, UK and Europe don’t seem to be significantly different despite various levels of lockdowns, travel restrictions, social distancing etc.
While China did institute a draconian lockdown, they along with Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan also instituted draconian tracking and quarantine enforcement. All of these nations are showing qualitatively and quantitatively different outcomes from the novel coronavirus outbreaks.
What is your view on this, given your concern over expansion of state power noted above?
With the debate about how many have died because of, or with, COVID-19, it seems that audits of causes of deaths won’t be as precise during this crisis as before:
Article about 14 March
‘Medical safeguards introduced following the conviction of Britain’s most notorious serial killer Dr Harold Shipman will be temporarily relaxed as Ministers are handed sweeping new powers to tackle coronavirus.
‘Under emergency legislation to be put before MPs within days, strict rules around the registration of deaths and cremations will be put on hold to ease the burden on the NHS.’
https://expressdigest.com/dr-harold-shipman-laws-are-put-on-hold-to-help-gps-cope-with-growing-coronavirus-death-toll/
And one of the safeguards to be relaxed is a review of all deaths by medical examiners to check for poor NHS care.
Here’s an example from the Coronavirus Act, Schedule 13, Part 1, of the relaxation of rules around the registration of deaths:
‘(3) A registered medical practitioner (“P”) may sign a certificate under section 22(1) of the 1953 Act, even in the case of a person who has not been attended during that person’s last illness by a regis-tered medical practitioner, if P is able to state to the best of P’s knowledge and belief the cause of death.’
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/schedule/13/enacted
Also, a confirmatory medical certificate is no longer required for cremations in England and Wales.
Section 19:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/part/1/crossheading/registration-of-deaths-and-stillbirths-etc/enacted
@Sandra – Yes – from the Coronavirus Act 2020:
1) laxer rules on death certificates (you’ve given links)
2) indemnification for killing or injuring people (sections 11-13)
3) enabling of local councils to command e.g. local removal firms to ship bodies out so they can be burnt and with less paperwork (section 58, schedule 28 (don’t miss para 5, subparas 1 and 7))
N_, thanks for info.
This thread is entitled, ‘How It Starts’. But I think you’ve pointed out how it ends.
How conveniently expedient:
From Yahoo, 20 March:
‘A UK city council has said all funerals must now be ‘cremation only’ with no mourners allowed in a bid to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
‘Leeds council has taken unprecedented measures to restrict funeral arrangements as the UK bat-tles the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in a total of 3,983 cases and 177 deaths.
‘Starting with immediate effect from today, any new services booked in Leeds will be undertaken as ‘Direct Cremation Services’ only.
‘A direct cremation is a funeral which is not attended by mourners and has no service.’
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-leeds-council-funerals-direct-cremation-no-mourners-allowed-180047298.html
And cremation is against some people’s religious beliefs.
But, look on the bright side, there’s always the mass grave, I suppose – unless you live in Leeds:
‘Measures to stop the ‘death management industry’ being overwhelmed will also be drawn up, including using so-called Henry VIII powers to allow the compulsory purchase of land for large bur-ial sites with the flick of a ministerial pen.
‘The new law, expected to sail through the Commons due to the Government’s 80-seat majority, will allow further emergency provisions to be implemented through statutory instrument – chang-es to the law that do not require a vote.
‘The Mail on Sunday understands the grim reality of what Whitehall insiders have dubbed ‘death pits’ have been left from the Bill to avoid public panic.’
https://expressdigest.com/dr-harold-shipman-laws-are-put-on-hold-to-help-gps-cope-with-growing-coronavirus-death-toll/
P.S.
Since the Leeds council took the unprecedented step of allowing only ‘direct cremation’ – Yahoo, 20, March:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-leeds-council-funerals-direct-cremation-no-mourners-allowed-180047298.html
the Government has listened to those whose religious beliefs are against cremation and passed an amendment on 22 March to respect the wishes of the deceased for the disposal of their bodies.
Coronavirus Act, Schedule 28, Part 4:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/schedule/28/enacted
(I was horrified. So am thankful for small mercies – even ‘death pits’ – as wags in Whitehall have dubbed them.)
The creation of a mass grave was shown on Ch 4 News tonight. Readying.
Quid Pro Quo
Mr.Putin rings up Mr.Trump, “Hello Don do you want some stuff to help with covid-19, for New York, we have plenty and can bring it over on the Antanov?”
“Yep, that would be great, thanks a lot Vlad.
If there’s anything we could do for you, just holler”
And so the Antonov, stuffed full of virus fighting goodies, lands in New York.
Now, previously Donald had been on the blower to a couple of his mates, M.B.S. and Vlad,
“Now guys this crude war is bringing us all down, let’s play fair and sort this out, please?”
et voila
Crude rises from 23$/barrel to 31$/Barrel in twenty four hours.
Next guess will be a resumption of the G8.
U.S.A. pulls completely out of Syria.
All along Donald wanted to play more equitably with Vladimir
but was held back by the deep state, covid-19 is both Donald’s and Vladimir’s “get out of jail free card”
It is a funny old world.
There are many comments under this article that make fun of Trump and Putin’s conspiracy. It is as if Putin spent a dollar out of his own pocket on at least one mask or at least one gallon of fuel to make this flight possible.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russia-sending-plane-filled-with-medical-equipment-to-u-s-amid-coronavirus-pandemic
Very few just say “thank you to Russia”, for my appreciation. I communicate with many ordinary people from the USA and I know for sure that they are just normal, like other people everywhere else in the world.
As for oil prices, China increased its purchase from Russia, from 500 thousand tons in February, to 700 thousand tons in March and 1 million in April. Russia will be safe, no need to place hope onto Trump or bin Salman.
Moscow is paying half, Washington the rest.
Meanwhile there are complaints of shortages from within Russia.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-usa-backlas/what-about-us-russias-coronavirus-supplies-to-united-states-spark-criticism-at-home-idUSKBN21K1WR
My cousin’s currently living in New York, says things are indescribably grim.
Navalny criticizes Putin, what a newest news today! Navalny would criticize in any case, I believe that this is the essence of his ‘work’.
I don’t understand how it is even possible to leave people without help when we can? Apparently we are in the very beginning, while in USA it is already burst out like hell. There are 30 deaths in Russia by today, in New York they are 4000.
Thanks for the link, Kempe. I’m glad to know that the medical equipment was paid equally. This fact should shut up all critics on both sides.
I especially hope some critics stop commenting “oh f*ck off” or “f*ck you” as they do on Twitter now
http://prntscr.com/rs1ed1
discussing the news on medical aid here
https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1245237645762052101
Sturgeon’s attempt to remove trials with juries shows total and utter contempt for democracy and justice.
This is a health crisis. We live in a supposed democracy. But Sturgeon’s proposals show that truth we don’t. Without a jury there is no doubt in n my mind that Alex Salmond would by now be languishing in a jail for the rest of his life on trumped up sex charges.
The current SNP leadership in combination with a corrupt police and prosecution service show exactly how flimsy our so called democracy actually is. Thankfully, the legal fraternity en-masse stood against the odious Sturgeon’s proposals.
As from 23 March 2020:
“All jury trials have been temporarily suspended in England and Wales as part of the ongoing efforts to stem the spread of coronavirus, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ) has announced.”
Doesn’t seem to have attracted that much attention, including yours Willie. But these ‘odious’ English Law Lords, eh, what are they like?
@Craig – “I want to let you know I am thinking and working on it.”
What is happening to homeless people in Britain right now is deserving of this blog’s attention.
As well as to the elderly, the chronically ill, and the disabled.
When the cattle trucks get going, we know what initials they will bear: N H S. Did anyone say fascism wasn’t cynical and hypocritical?
I don’t hold out much hope, but if fascism is to be defeated there needs to be a widespread resistance movement. Really there should be something similar to a general strike, but it is hard to envisage what form that might take given that the rulers are imposing conditions on us which are similar to those of a general strike. The conditions are similar except that they are without any collectivity of resistance, and not only that but the police are breaking up “meetings” of more than two people and they have closed all “social” spaces, with moral support from most of the smartphone-addled population. So things aren’t looking good. Prepare to resist forcible testing, vaccination, and tracking. (That last one is somewhat difficult for those who are psychologically addicted to carrying permanently switched-on microwave trackers.)
Statement by the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless:
“Homeless people must not be punished for not staying at home. They must be protected from fines and other sanctions, and provided with safe alternatives.”
With the Mussolinis at the back of my mind…
we propose a slogan:
TEAR DOWN THE GATES
Before it’s too late.
There needs to be an urgent accounting, when the immediate restrictions are lifted.
Looks like in Italy they are *undercounting* rather than overcounting the number of Covid-19 victims, due to lack of testing.
What the official figures don’t say. They don’t say that in March 2020 more than 5.400 people have died in Bergamo province, 4.500 of which due to coronavirus. Six times more than the previous year. Of only 2.060 of them, the «official» certified deaths caused by Covid-19 in the local hospitals (data as at yesterday), we know everything: age, gender, pre-existing conditions. We do not know anything about the other 2.500. Many of them are old people, who died at home or in assisted residential homes. In spite of the unmistakable symptoms, as recorded by physicians and relatives, they were never tested for the disease. On their death certificate you can just read: interstitial pneumonia.
https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/coronavirus-the-real-death-tool-4500-victims-in-one-month-in-the-province-of_1347414_11/
Correct, *all* the numbers are wrong….. In Italy, in Vanuatu, in UK.
Hopefully some papers will be written in six-months which will have the updated information, I believe many of the countries are giving their best attempt at relevant data, although they are *all* measuring in different ways.
Daily Torygraph noticed that some UK hospitals were self reporting triple the fatality rate compared to the UK Gov published fatality rate for that same hospital. UK Gov muttered something about transparency and delays.
The crisis does have an end, for the first half of today I did not hear any ambulances whatsover, but one just whizzed past – full blue lights.
from the (admittedly flawed) Italian official figures, the best available here, it shows that my own measure of a rolling day n/day n+1 % increase-deaths is now the lowest in the last 41 days. Winter is no longer coming, it is going.
“Daily Torygraph noticed that some UK hospitals were self reporting triple the fatality rate compared to the UK Gov published fatality rate for that same hospital.”
Hospital bosses have clearly been instructed to give it some and f*** the truth (“We’ve got your back – just do what we tell you – ramp up those figures, OK?”) and they’re going for it like the bunch of gauleiters that they are.
I wonder how many of the elderly (and other) people who are experiencing “excess” deaths have genuinely had Covid-19 or if they have had Covid-19 then whether it had much of an effect on them before they snuffed it.
Many in Britain like to be “cynical” about politicians and journalists even if they usually stop short of realising how corrupt the system is, preferring to criticise the government for “wasting money” etc. (sic – yawn). As if a government “wastes” money! My measure for how critical people really are has for decades been what they say about two of the most important hierarchies most of them come into a lot of contact with: the “health” and “education” systems. I really don’t care what they say about this or that politician on the telly (who is actually paid to get on the stage and gob off) if they haven’t got the gumption to criticise headteachers or medical consultants.
But “our NHS” is working ever so hard to save the lives of the elderly, disabled, and homeless, right? The truth is that the scum who run the NHS are stopping non-white families from seeing their children in hospital before they die, and they are sending out letters ordering patients to sign “Do Not Resuscitate” forms on themselves, because of the great “benefits” their signatures will bring, such as that their families won’t have to suffer the inconvenience of dialling 999 if they have a heart attack (and will therefore have more time to pick their smartphones maybe, when Granddad is croaking to death in front of their eyes?)
A large chart representation of where England and Wales were on the 20th March (4,800+ Fewer Deaths than the previous 5 years averaged)
https://ibb.co/55sk1vV
We are due for a spike, the overall death numbers will indicate the true extent of the problem because the government has avoided performing mass testings and the deaths due solely to Covid-19 have been masked by anyone with Covid-19 (tested +ve or even Suspected of having the virus) is being recorded as dying WITH the Virus and not BECAUSE of the virus, so people that would have died anyway are being recorded as dying from the disease.
Because of that the ONLY true measure we have of the problem are the Total Death Statistics compared with previous recent years.
As I indicated above, and you keep spreading misinformation, on the 20th of march there were only 4000 cases in UK. Today there are just under 40000. Most of the deaths due to corona virus would not and could not have been recorded by 20th March.
What “misinformation” have I spread?
Provide the evidence.
You have no idea how many cases there are in England and Wales, no one has thanks to the government not testing
It is you spreading misinformation.
I said that on and up to the 20th March there had been more than 4,800 Fewer deaths than for the same period in the previous 5 years averaged. I didn’t make the figures up, the Office for National Statistics published them. Take your problem up with them.
If you don’t like that, or it doesn’t sit well with your rigid mindset or you don’t understand what it means there is nothing I can do about that.
What it means is that there needs to be more than 4,800 ADDITIONAL deaths in England and Wales in weeks 13 to15 to the current trend to bring this years figures into line with the AVERAGE number of deaths in the same period in the previous 5 years.
If you think you have have some evidence to support your ludicrous claims then post it here for everyone to see.
Even if you add the false attributed Covid-19 deaths for the past 2 weeks for the entire UK (not just England and Wales) to the figures I posted, the figures for this year are still well below average.
I and a great deal more would love to see some reliable figures of how many people in the UK are infected and how many have actually died FROM the virus and not just WITH it. If you have those figures then post them, don’t just say I am wrong that makes you look stupid
The government just love people like you, easy to panic with absolutely no desire in researching or learning the truth.
Long rant. But bottom line
Double counting: so the benefit of improved deaths for 2020 over 2019 can only accrue to the non-corona virus deaths. To compensate for this improvement corona related deaths have to really overcompensate by beating that figure and more.
Point 2; the deaths recorded so far is until 20/03/2020, before the marked increas in Covid-19 cases so let us wait for mortality figures from April before making a judgement as to whether Covid-19 has led to increase in death rate.
Now if you cannot figure this out, I am afraid I can’t help you.
For a seminal study into narcissistic personality disorder listen to Hancock’s Half Hour – oops Matt Hancock’s Covid-19 briefing today which had references of “I” and “me” out-gunning “we” by about 50 to 1. He starts by telling us what wonderful goals he has personally achieved, then goes on to list all the brilliant things his department has also achieved. This rambled on for ten uninterrupted minutes, whereupon, dizzy with his own self aggrandisement he suddenly woke up from his narcissistic dream and actually gave us some facts, which are very disturbing.
Then, sideswiping the truth that a minor private company managed to source and order more testing kits for its own employees than the entire british government had found, he continued breathlessly to tell us how, despite the UK having the worst current accelerated death statistics in the EU, somehow his department had triumphed. I couldn’t listen to the rest, having thrown up into my sick bag and signing off, not with the Virus, but truth nausea.
The current UK regime is deluded. It is contributing, through negligence, to the increased death of its own citizens. UN should intervene.
@ SA April 2, 2020 at 19:02
Sure, like they did in Haiti, Bosnia and elsewhere.
Yes, but apart from all the usual ‘ramping up’ and ‘ready next week’ garbage, an announcement that £13.5bn NHS deficit is to be ‘written off’. Now why would they do that? Why would they take this particular opportunity to have the NHS looking all neat, tidy and financially stable?
Steph intetesting indeed. However. With a budget of £140bn a year the lowest bed and doctor and nurse capacity on the frontline in the developed world and some of the worst patient diagnosis treatment and outcomes in the world how is it that the NHS has a £13bn deficit? That’s the real question. £140bn per year of public money is a huge huge budget which funds essentially some of the worst health care in the world. How many private companies can run a £13bn deficit? None
BBC: “Coronavirus: Israeli spyware firm pitches to be Covid-19 saviour“:
“A controversial Israeli cyber-security company is marketing software that uses mobile phone data to monitor and predict the spread of the coronavirus. NSO Group says it is in talks with governments around the world, and claims some are already testing it. The surveillance software-maker is being sued by WhatsApp for allegedly sending malware to the phones of human rights activists and journalists. The company also faces a lawsuit in which it is accused of supplying software to the Saudi government, which the country is said to have used to spy on the journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his murder.”
(…)
“NSO gave the BBC a demonstration of how its system works, via a video conference link. A heat map of Israel showed hotspots where there were a high number of cases of the virus. Zooming in, individual phones of people with the infection were mapped, and represented by an anonymised ID number. Details were also shown of other phones they had encountered and the relevant times and locations.” (Emphasis added.)
– in other words a small selection of the info that NSA, GCHQ and Unit 8200 have had on all smartphones 24/7 for years.
Moral: don’t use mobile phones. The “smarter” the phone is, the stupider its carrier is.
N, it is highly likely that it will become compulsory to carry one on your person, rather like id docs are in virtually every country bar GB. Those without will be issued with one (and billed presumably).
This will of course be a temporary measure until the Gates’ get their way with chipping. Ref. ID2020, ref.the fine print in crimson contagion, etc..
Interesting that one of the partners in ID2020 is Gavi, “the vaccine alliance”, which works together with Microsoft and that age-old funder of “population research”, the Rockefeller Foundation.
That Crimson Contagion in the US was followed by Event 201 internationally suggests a key role for US multinationals in what is to come. Not sure what exercises they have had in the past year in the Far East, although all four countries in the two standoffs are well prepared for biological warfare in both attack and defence, and we know which one of the four is the techno giant.
@ N_ April 2, 2020 at 19:29
RFID chips can be administered by syringe, along with ‘vaccines’.
Fasten your seat belts…it’s gonna be a rough ride!
Come on Paul stop you fixation on vaccines.
‘Moral: don’t use mobile phones. The “smarter” the phone is, the stupider its carrier is.’
I lived by that moral for several years, and still firmly believe it. I think I can also say that since submitting to the power of Apple, I have indeed become stupider. But not so stupid as to use the thing in public. I’d hate to be caught dead using one.
I really don’t know why people are going on about theories here. They don’t really matter, and won’t help anything at the end of the night. There are facts, and you need to start with what is known, and what can be agreed. People are dying. Some are profiting off of this. Governments and multinationals have been exposed (if that was needed) as harbingers of death and impediments to survival, and are becoming increasingly authoritarian. More pressing issues like climate are being brushed aside. The reckless abuse and rape of the life-support system that is the earth (which no longer attracts headlines) has been forgotten. And the insurrection that is needed to reverse these trends seems impossible, because we have all been so brainwashed to believe that this is the stuff of movies only.
Surely the closure of large swathes of the economy should reduce emissions and therefore be beneficial in the fight against climate change. It seems that this virus has given climate change activists almost exactly what they have been arguing for.
However Professor Patricia MacCormack believes the only solution to prevent climate change is the extinction of the human race. Presumably climate change activists need to decide whether the current reduction in emissions is better or worse than taking no measures to protect the population in the hope that the much longed for extinction event comes to pass.
Why so coy in celebrating human misery – misery that is absolutely necessary for the greater good.
Are you taking what she says literally? Surely hers is just a ‘modest proposal’. Either that, or it just betrays defeatism and weakness. First of all, climate change activists do not all think the same way, or have the same positions. Second, it doesn’t need to be so black and white. There was life before the Anthropocene, after all. And even a few pockets of decency that could serve as models for the present. The Diggers come to mind.
The sceptics in here, for there are many, should direct their scepticism at the government’s inaction rather than at minimising the effect of the epidemic and calling it just another flu virus. The government has failed to take any measures for two months since they knew of the outbreak and even when they knew it was coming. They also had very clear models and examples set by China and South Korea, They all sat and did nothing. To this day, Matt Hancock promises things that should have been planned far in advance and have not materialised. The PPE for frontline staff was promised and not delivered until after the epidemic really started sweeping and the testing keeps being delayed. There has been no control on our borders when it was essential to do so, and not because of the stupid Brexit either, we were going to take control of our borders, remember. There is no attempt at quarantining the milder cases properly, which could reduce the number of infections, because they lacked the organisation and the will to do it properly. Instead mild cases remain at home infecting their ‘loved ones’. There was no scrutiny of any sort in on travellers coming from high risk area, no checks, no monitoring of temperature or symptoms, something that had been done in countries which have successfully shown the way. There was no help and planning with supermarkets for increasing delivery capacity in advance of announcement of social distancing. Even these when announced were just advisory and the result was a last surge to distribute the virus widely by panicky shoppers, and unexpected holiday makers visiting parks in huge numbers, infecting the largest possible number of people. The advice was often ambiguous and sometimes contradictory. To this day you can still go to work if you cannot work from home, which is probably about 90% of workers. The government had declared its policy of experimenting on the population with their ill-conceived herd immunity theory. They have not changed this policy, just stopped talking about it. I wonder whether there will be any reckoning?
But the sceptics here must remember they are aiding this inept regime in maintaining a pseudo fig leaf of decency for not introducing stricter measures and earlier.
SA you are correct
Boris is in hiding, he sometimes does this, if he does not want scrutiny.
It was always herd immunity, everything they have done or not done
points to herd immunity.
I think this is as good a summing up as one can get. Spot on.
Hancock has appeared twice on the state broadcaster’s channel today selling his snake oil. He is currently on Question Time. A very shallow man is in charge OUR NHS.
I expect all the Tories were clapping for the NHS like sealions earlier at 8pm.
This is the real Hancock.
‘Chair of free market think tank has supported Mr Hancock’s political career with regular donations
New health secretary Matt Hancock received £32,000 in donations from chair of think tank that wants NHS ‘abolished’
Matt Hancock received nine donations between £2,000 and £4,000 from businessman who heads board of free market group, the Institute of Economic Affairs.’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-privatisation-donations-matt-hancock-health-secretary-institute-economic-affairs-a8442001.html
He received very many large donations for his ‘leadership campaign’. That was money down the drain!
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=24773
It is a long road to finding rationality and good statistical data about the virus, a franetic and panicking press doesn’t help. As a somewhat empirical test I have friends all over the UK, London, the South East and South West especially, I have friends in Russia, Iran, France (several locations) and the US. – age range between 29 – 60. Non of us know anyone who has covid19, nor know anyone who knows anyone who has it, or had it and certainly we don’t know anyone who has been into hospital as yet. That seems to suggest that it is a very small percentage of the population that have been hit by it. Anyone on here had covid19 (that they know of) anyone know anyone who has had it? It is for many asymptomatic so I do not doubt that many people have had it and do indeed have it.
Being poorly prepared has lead to the destruction of the (already long term moribund) economy, my only hope is that the incompetents won’t be allowed by their tame pets in the MSM to get away with it. I’m sure they’ll be fiddling the stats as we speak. We can only hope.
In response to your little fun survey – Nope, nobody I know has had it to their knowledge, and nobody that I know knows anyone that has either!
I know someone who knows someone whose mother has died of it. Any good?
Your chances of knowing someone with Covid 19 in U.K. is about 0.05% at present. So well done you are pretty average.
I’d say it’s about 1 in 300, by comparing the ratio of the UK and German Death rates.