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In fact, nothing is any problem except this grand conspiracy, and if everyone would just believe the conspiracy theorists, this grand conspiracy would become impossible, all problems would be revealed to be imaginary and we’d all realise that we had been living in paradise all along. Salvation!
They’re saying they want to increase social distancing to 3 metres now. That will stop the spread of the “mutant”, apparently.
HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS RUBBISH WILL PEOPLE TAKE?
Next the bosses will be telling us always to enter our bathrooms with our left feet first, or always to stir our coffee with a knife rather than a spoon.
Cloth masks don’t stop many virus particles at all. The proportion that get through is 97%, according to some “re$earch” in the Briti$h Medica£ Journa£. Anyone who wears a cloth mask is protecting neither themselves nor anyone else. You might as well wear a “Viruses, Keep Away” sign on your hat. If you want to wear a mask, wear a proper one. (And use 60%+ alcohol to wash your hands too, not some stupid gel that smells like lemons.)
The rulers couldn’t care less what kind of bacteria or viruses you get. It’s the socialisation they’re against. GIVE THEM AN INCH AND THEY’LL TAKE A YARD. That’s what’s happening.
They just want you
1) to become more habituated to obeying orders, and not to e.g. answer a policeman back
2) to become alienated from your family
3) to reduce your face-to-face socialising with other people in general
4) to get less exerciseLet me tell you something…
The prescribed distance is 1 metre in Singapore, where there have been 5 deaths “with Covid-19” per 1 million population, unlike in Britain where there have been 1204. In Singapore there is also a S$300 fine for being in public places without a mask. The government has been very strict there, and it’s a densely populated country. But do they make everyone stay 2 metres apart? No.It’s 1.5 metres in Australia.
So far it’s been 2 metres in Britain. The idea of increasing it to 3 metres has absolutely f*** all to do with reducing the famous “R” rate.
The stories about “woman fined for sitting on park bench” etc. are all part of the propaganda campaign. It’s impossible to know all the exact details of the enemy’s psychological warfare effort. That’s always true in psychological warfare. It’s not like a damned board game. But it seems to me very likely that they are trying to divide the population into two big parts: for or against the draconian measures
It works like this…
If they ratchet up the repressive measures too far too fast, they will get too many people too strongly opposed.
If they don’t ratchet them up much, then
1) they will feel like “pussies” (must keep the stormtroopers on their toes), and
2) they will have failed themselves by not getting towards their goal as fast as they could have (no point in “losing money”).Please don’t believe they aren’t that cynical. They ARE that cynical.
Also the practice of on-off on-off, “circuit breaker lockdown”, followed by “OK, everyone go to Ibiza and the pubs”, followed by “Oh dear, too fast a relaxation, better have another lockdown”, etc., it is absolutely CLASSIC Skinnerian conditioning. See “variable reward” and “variable ratio” etc. – concepts that are taught to those who run advertising campaigns and “social media” companies and websites.
N_ omitted to mention this, from the very link N_ provided:
– “The authors of this article, published in 2015, have written a response to their work in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge our readers to consider the response when reading the article:”
The questions I would like to an have an answer to from Node and Steph are:
Do you think there is a crisis in the health service or not?
If there is a crisis, what do you think it is due to?
We also know that the economy and people’s psyche and education are being severely disrupted, what do you think the reasons for these are?
Who do you think is responsible for this mess and why?
What is your proposed solution?‘The questions I would like to an have an answer to from Node and Steph are:’
Hahaha! All good questions which I would have been more than willing to spend a great deal of time trying to answer at the outset. I use the past tense because I am no longer willing to invest effort on this thread. The prevailing superciliousness, condescension, wrath and resentment of the primary contributors directed towards absolutely anyone venturing another opinion, misguided or otherwise, renders the thread purely a source of entertainment value to me.
Steph
It is your answer that is supercilious. I seem to recollect that you have had several goes at participating and then finally deciding that this is not for you, even stating that you were a bit embarrassed about saying you will not participate but then changing your mind. Since then your activities have been what I would describe as ‘sniping’ not really conveying any opinion, just criticising others. And of course now you do not wish to participate but just would like a source of entertainment. And here I was thinking that this is a serious life or death matter for many, oh but for Steph it is just a source of entertainment.‘It is your answer that is supercilious’
It is indeed.
Police and crime minister Kit Malthouse says people have a “duty” to make sure this lockdown is “the last one”. That’s in the context of the cops promising to crak down harder on people who go outside their houses without a reasonable excuse.
Read between Malthouse’s words. He is blaming the population, hoi polloi, the townies, proles, plebs, chavs, for the fact that the government ordered the current lockdown! He is saying were it not for the dirty germ-spreading lower orders of society who aren’t so keen on obeying the orders they receive from their betters, there wouldn’t have had to be any lockdowns after the first one.
Checks Malthouse’s background… some kinda third division private school…founder member of the HMC maybe but still nobody’s ever heard of it, “Liverpool College”…primed him for Newcastle University…
Being told two contradictory things and expected to believe them both at the same time is getting ramped up like nobody’s business. Time for another read of Orwell’s “1984”…
“Police will now be quicker to stop people and fine them for being outside of their home, warns Met chief”
…
and yet have they fined Boris Johnson yet, who seems to treat London as if it were Oxford or Cambridge, some overweight boozy posh git on his bike…
ET
Thanks for your polite and considered reply. I wanted to explore how the vaccine narrative has evolved – from society’s saviour to a bit-part player – but it’s very difficult with all the baying from the sidelines. I’m going to take a break for a few days, but I’ll be back.
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Derbyshire police withdraw two women’s £200 fines for lockdown walk…………
This episode ought to make the police think a little more about what it is exactly they are trying to enforce and some other things. The coffee shops are considered essential retail? What exactly is a picnic? Is it not a little over zealous to construe a takeout coffee as a picnic? Why were there so many police at that spot in the first place? Was this the social distancing equivalent of a speed trap? What is the purpose of their enforcement? To define what local means or what a picnic is or to try to prevent and discourage potentially virus spreading events?Ah ET. you are the good guy, the rest are just barking dogs. Careful not to get into bad ways.
Boris Johnson has blamed “demented” Chinese people selling traditional medicine, including for sexual potency, for SARS-CoV2.
Downing Street propagandists are trying to deflect the story into one about “Carrie” and “the environment”. They won’t see it like that at the Chinese embassy. Who’s Carrie anyway? And anyway it’s not Carrie that he’s been cycling to visit.
This drug-addled, drunken, overgrown schoolboy of a Tory prime minister, whose schtick aged into ludicrousness some time ago, has f*rted at China and wafted the expelled gas into Chinese faces wearing a look of superiority on his own.
When he was only the “former mayor of London”, he did much the same at Turkey. Before then, when he was a “journalist”, he channelled the Tory party’s beloved hero Enoch Powell by ranting about black people, whom he called “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”.
Tories cheered him to the rafters and made him prime minister after those achievements. But insulting China will probably have different consequences. Unlike Prince Philip, this pillock can be sacked.
(That’s even if few care to notice that the reported death rate “with Covid” per million population is 400 times bigger in Britain than in China. It’s as if it’s traitorous to imagine that Britain is not well managed, given that public schoolboys were born to rule. Never mind that the data shows that the rulers in Britain couldn’t run a f*cking vicar’s tea party even if they called in a catering company.)
Will Johnson be replaced by Jeremy Hunt (who made his large fortune trading in China) by Mayday?
SA, I agree with ET. I know of someone who, during the Spring restrictions, was hounded by a police helicopter for sunbathing on a hilltop half a mile from the nearest other person.
The ideal situation would be if we were a population sufficiently educated to spontaneously behave appropriately during a pandemic, with authorities trustworthy enough to apply appropriate discretion with the small amount of residual enforcement that would be needed.
Instead we have “news” media that promotes doubt about the seriousness of our predicament and every defensive measure available to us. Even the BBC gave air time to S Guptra’s highly marginal and now thoroughly disproven perspective that a second wave was impossible. How many lives has that editorial decision cost?
Steph, yet another appeal to emotion:
– “superciliousness, condescension, wrath and resentment…”
No, you were just wrong. You were manufacturing doubt to suit your political objectives on a matter where there is none. That’s just how it is with matters of fact. No matter what names you call me I cannot alter that because I am not God.
As it happens, I also disrespect your opinion that the sick should be left to die without treatment so that young people can socialise, but you are entitled to it. But you have no moral justification to muddy the facts to make your opinion look more humane than the circumstances permit.
This is not rude etc. but it is blunt. But people are dying from preventable illness, and doctors are having to decide who gets treatment; I have far more sympathy for these than for your offended sensibilities.
@SA
I stand by my assessment that this was crass policing. That they have withdrawn the fines underlines this. Unfortunately it is the kind of thing that feeds into the fascist narrative. There is a reason behind the lockdowns which is to reduce situations in which transmission may potentially occur. Within the rules they have allowed for people to meet up with one other from another household locally to exercise whilst maintaining social distancing. In Ireland they defined local as within 2 km (lockdown 1) in the UK they haven’t defined it. What’s local in say London isn’t the same thing as rurally. That is what these two women did. The coffees were immatterial to any transmission risk.
What I am saying is that policng decisions should be judged aganst what may cause a transmission risk rather than what constitutes a picnic or local. And the need to be seen to be fair minded. It doesn’t help that Bojo as prime minister of UK was seen to be cycling 7 miles presumably with a security detail (at least I hope the Prime Minister isn’t allowed to cycle London’s streets without a security detail, notwithstanding that it would be greast if he could do so without worry).
Mixed messages, one of the major problems throughout.I am sorry to cause a misunderstanding. Of course I agree that policing needs to be more nuanced, I was just referring to the praised heaped on ET and the disdain on those ‘braying’.
‘But you have no moral justification to muddy the facts…’
How interesting that you should mention morals. Here is a rather interesting little paper, only a pre-print I’m afraid, but quite well put together. You will like it because it fully acknowledges the seriousness of covid, and has lots of damning phrases which you will be able to throw at people like ‘Covid-19 (C19) remains an urgent and visible threat’ and ‘Covid-19 (C19) has been a terrifying global health threat since its detection.’
Its aim is to demonstrate how the case for restrictions has become moralised. I hope you will find it of interest too. May I take this opportunity of wishing you and your moral high ground many years of happiness together and that you remain blissfully blinded to all else forever.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103120304248
No again, Steph. I was entirely explicit. I personally disrespect your opinion that illness should be permitted to spread for the sake of young people’s socialising, but unambiguously stated that you are entitled to it.
The moral issue I made was about your attempt to muddy the facts of covid-19 mortality, to make your opinion seem more humane than it is; it’s about honesty. Doctors are familiar with this in the field of informed consent for medical procedures.
If you think it’s right to deceive people so they hold the opinion about restrictions that you prefer, go ahead and say so. If not, get off your moral high horse and apologise for repeatedly insulting people.
Clark
I haven’t muddied the facts of covid-19 mortality. I queried it, investigated it and then set out the difference between the government headline statistic and the WHO definition. A difference of around 14%, as stated by the ONS. It is telling that you regard that as muddying.
You don’t like to be insulted. Neither do I. But to use one of your own, oft-used, responses – tough.A human rights Lawyer Adam Wagner wrote this in the Guardian:
“Lockdown rules in England have been changed at least 64 times by the government since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a human rights barrister has calculated, amid growing calls for clearer guidance for the public.
Adam Wagner, of Doughty Street Chambers, said that new national regulations, local regulations, regulations on face coverings or rules on travel quarantine have passed into law on average every four-and-a-half days since the first restrictions were introduced in the spring.
As a result, the rules have become increasingly cumbersome, with police, lawyers and ministers unable to distinguish between laws and advice. The guidance given to the public often does not reflect the law, Wagner said.
Many rules, including those demanding that people have a reasonable excuse before travelling, are effectively unenforceable, he said.”
And that is the problem, the rules change often, there is no distinction between Law and guidance, and the law is not consistently applied. High profile politicians also are not setting good examples in their personal behaviors.
Steph, are you generally interested in statistics? Or just with the “died of or with covid-19” non-issue component of the covid denial conspiracy theory? ‘Cos you went on about it in great detail for two whole pages of comments, arguing against doctors who are working very hard trying to avert these deaths.
Steph
” Here is a rather interesting little paper, only a pre-print I’m afraid, but quite well put together. “
It is not a little paper, it is actually quite complicated in many ways. Have you read all the paper and reached your own conclusions? A personally found it difficult to do so. Of course it makes the point that there is currently more tolerance to harmful by-products due to measures to combat Covid-19 than those unrelated to Covid-19, and that this amounts to moralization of the issue:
“As such, the harmful by-products inherent in combating C19’s health effects would be accepted as more tolerable than identical harm resulting from efforts unrelated to C19’s health effects. Predictions were overwhelmingly supported.”
But this is the current problem with this pandemic. From the outset, public health experts and the WHO knew that this was serious and that there was a real risk of a pandemic. It is a fact that is not really for debate for many reasons we can discuss if needed, but there are still some who question this basic fact. Secondly there have been long-agreed protocols for dealing with pandemics and the aim is early containment with stringent measures and some countries managed to do so. In certain countries in the West, it was seen that these methods are outdated because individualism trumps the common good. Our country had not reviewed the plans to deal with epidemics, was totally unprepared for one, despite the threatened pandemics of 2003 and 2012 which luckily did not spread, but many experts would say that it is a question of when, not if, the next pandemic will occur, given the interconnectivity of countries.
To return to the topic of morality and beliefs, in a situation with many unknowns, it is common to revert to tried and tested measures, and it is also understandable that those who are most at risk will be more fearful of the consequences of the disease to themselves and all of those around them. This is specially the case when there are so many unknowns about the virus, and we keep discovering more about these dangers, such as the recent quickly spreading variant, long covid, and increasingly severe disease in younger age groups. It is not uncommon for people who face an uncertain future to have strong beliefs and to see that those who are thwarting their possible changes of survival in moral terms, and this is exactly what this paper concludes. Why do we not haver papers in scientific journals to investigate why there is a rise in evangelical tele-preachers? It is a sort of related phenomenon. Proving it does not move us forward. Also when you look the supposed groups studied in the paper then there is a group with perceived direct threat which would be difficult to define in the general population, because they could be the elderly, with comorbidities, obese, people with underlying conditions, and so on, and then also those closely related to them or those who have had direct experience of the disease. These will still constitute a minority of the population whether it is 10% or 30%. However those who suffer most from lockdown are 100% of the population and therefore in any analysis we have unequal groups to compare. Moreover when we look at recruitment in the study in this paper, one of the studies relies on recruitment through social media, and these are generally people with strong and polarised group.My own feelings is that the pandemic has been politicised from the outset, with too much decisions left to governments to carry out measures in keeping with a political agenda. It has been divisive with polarisation of views. Tough measures taken from the outset could have possible stopped or slowed the pandemic, but needed worldwide bipartisan agreement. But it is too late now to have prolonged lockdowns, that train has long left the station. There are sadly no easy alternatives until hopefully vaccination will help to contain the spread of the virus.
SA – Thank you for taking the time to read that paper and posting a considered response. Yes, I have of course read it myself and would not have linked to it otherwise. It is a bit unwieldy I agree, but as I tend to read studies and articles relating to ‘the bigger picture’ rather more than those specific to the virus itself, although I read some of those too, it was of interest to me.
The problem for me is, and always has been, does the cost of the response outweigh the cost of the disease? Its all well and good to say ‘if we had done x at the beginning’ things might have worked out better. But we didn’t, and now we are where we are. It has indeed become horribly politicised, that was almost inevitable in our society, but I do also get a very strong sense that those still clamouring for harsher restrictions now view themselves as ‘morally’ right, always an exceedingly distasteful attitude in my opinion. I felt that this bit of research shed a little light on that and tried to warn of the dangers inherent in such a situation. A feeling of having morality on ones side, makes people behave differently than they might otherwise, what was ‘wrong’ before becomes acceptable ‘under the circumstances’. They are even clamouring to have sceptical or dissenting voices de-platformed and silenced altogether in the name of ‘stopping the spread of misinformation’. Have you ever really stopped to consider how incredibly dangerous that is to society? How that moral outrage will be used and how, far from finding a practical solution to the problem of this or any other virus, it will distort reality altogether? Both you and Clarke have made plain that you consider me callous, uncaring and even downright malicious. The result being that I no longer wish to debate with either of you. Do you see how that works in the wider context?
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