Should we be sceptical of the official Covid narratives?

Flu used to kill huge numbers world-wide until vaccines came along; I had my flu jab in December.
Covid is serious because it’s a new & highly contagious respiratory virus which, until recently, we had no vaccine for.
However, and with every empathy and respect for those who have died from it, it is not particularly deadly. Ebola for example, kills 90% of those it infects; fortunately it's nothing like as infectious as Covid-19.
Covid-19 kills less than 1% on the evidence of the first 12 months.

But back to the vaccines; don’t get carried away with euphoria. 

The new Covid vaccines aren’t effective for 2 -3 weeks after you have them; they don’t, strictly speaking, stop you catching Covid, they just reduce the severity of most (not all) people's reaction to it; it appears you CAN pass it on after being vaccinated; and there hasn’t been time for long-term safety trials.
[Indeed, the currrent mass vaccination programme IS  in effect the long-term safety trial!]  

It's also intersting that the German regulators are refusing to allow the AstraZeneca vaccine to be used on the over 65s at the moment citing insufficient data. So have we jumped the gun or are they beoing over-cautious? Only time will tell.

With more time, Covid vaccines will improve in both effectiveness and long-term safety, which is great news for all, especially the most vulnerable groups but I won't be rushing to have mine for a few months yet.

Covid numbers

Moving away from vaccines, by the NHS’s own admission, 15-20% of those counted in their Covid case statistics caught Covid IN HOSPITAL.

So, the percentage of patients going to hospital for non-Covid reasons & showing no symptoms who then test positive for Covid after they’ve been admitted is 15-20%. They are then automatically counted as Covid cases and, should they die, Covid deaths, irrespective of the actual or main cause.

The WHO have recently changed their guidance on the PCR test, saying that weak positive results ALWAYS need follow-up tests because they know that if no symptoms are apparent, they are likely to be a false positive. [The German scientist on you tube getting a positive result from a kiwi fruit should make anyone think].

Yet single weak positive tests have always been and continue to be automatically counted in the Covid figures and importantly are not removed should a subsequent test show negative!

Anyone who has tested positive for Covid in the month before they died is counted as a Covid death. Even if they were run over by a bus; or committed suicide; or died when they would have anyway due to cancer, for example. 

Doctors have not been ordered but been encouraged to put Covid on death certificates as at least a contributing factor if they have even a suspicion of Covid being present.
Any such mention of Covid is automatically counted in the Covid death statistics.

So, to me, there is no doubt that the Covid case and death figures have been knowingly manipulated upwards, presumably in an attempt to play it safe and convince as many people as possible to be obedient to the restrictions.

We can’t know by exactly how much they've been manipulated upwards, but it’s likely to be significant.

Lockdowns

Remember, we are told by Government, SAGE, the Opposition Parties and Mainstream-Media that none of the problems caused by lockdowns are as important as ‘beating’ Covid. Indeed lockdown-caused problems are barely mentioned & certainly not used to critique the lockdown policy itself.
No, we’re told unequivocally that lockdowns are the correct policy; in fact, harder lockdowns would be preferable to many. 

The fact that, despite the restricitons and lockdowns, Covid is having exactly the effect on health that you would expect moving from Winter to Summer and back into Winter again seems to be seen as irrelevant. 

Any optimism in the figures is all down to the lockdown & restrictions policy, but if figures go in the wrong direction it’s solely down to idiot people not doing what they’re told. Hmm....

This is how the pattern of announcements seems to go:

1. This is a catastrophe; be afraid, be VERY afraid; we’re locking down or putting in important restricitons; then

2. ‘Oh you’re doing well, thanks'; then

3. ‘restrictions might ease soon, keep it up’, followed by 

4. ‘nope, some of you have been bad, look at how bad it is because of YOU’ then 

5. ‘more restrictions/lockdowns required and it’s all YOUR fault’. 

Fear, praise, hope, criticise, punish; fear, praise, hope, criticise, punish – and repeat.

So what's happening?

And no, I'm not a consiracy theorist.
I see a combination of silo-thinking, simple politics and incompetence, not some Machiavellian world order takeover. 

We seem to be playing an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ game and focussing solely on Covid.

Does the death and suffering caused by non-Covid health issues, both physical & mental not matter?

Does the soaring unemployment rate, which will rise even higher once Government salary support is removed, and will devastate the lives of many for years if not decades to come not matter?

Does the educational deficit for our children, particularly from the poorest backgrounds, not matter?

Does the uncontested removal of civil liberties we thought we had secured centuries ago, not matter? 

Well, the answer is of course, YES for those who have been directly affected by any of these things but as that’s not yet the majority, too many just go along with it all, presumably because they can ‘feel’ Covid all around them but not these other problems. 

Either that or they simply choose to believe the official catastrophe narrative.

The attitude seems to be ‘focus solely on the immediate problem and the future will just have to sort itself out as best it can’.
Oh, great! That's what we want from our politicians, head in the sand short-termism!

If Covid, like the Black Death, was killing 30 to 40% of the population or even 2 to 3% of the population as the Spanish flu did immediately after the First World War, then I could understand this focus on Covid to the exclusion of all other important societal issues.
But since, one year on from the first suspected cases, 0.15% of the population have died from Covid according to the official figures [which you will recall are exaggerated], I don't understand the ‘only Covid matters’ policy. 

Now, I am willing to believe that there may be very good reasons for ignoring all the other vital societal issues being negatively impacted by the lockdown & restrictions policy. However, any such reasons are not being volunteered and no politician or member of the media even seems to be asking these questions. 

Why almost no one with any power or influence is asking questions about the trade-off between the assumed but hard to quantify benefits of focusing solely on Covid and the known but hard to quantify disbenefits of focusing solely on Covid, is a question I would love to know the answer to.
But the University of Bristol estimated late last year that the equivalent of 560,000 extra deaths would occur due to the lockdowns, so I am very concerned.

Scepticism

Finally, but very importantly, it’s never wrong to look more deeply into what those who have power & influence over you are telling you.
We’d all like to believe that we can relax, sit back, and rely on those with power to do what’s best for us at all times, but that’s wishful thinking; no-one’s quite that naive are they?

There will always be political biases and agendas as well as well-intentioned error in what those with power & influence say and do, and if you don’t identify what they are, you can’t properly judge the extent to which you agree or disagree, can you?

We don't simply decide whether we like the Party in Government or not and then just accept or dismiss whatever they say, do we? I mean, that would be stupid wouldn't it? 😉

After all, and with the Covid figures being an exemplar, if they don’t trust the people enough to be 100% honest so we can make our own minds up, why should the people 100% trust them?

My advice

Do your own research & thinking on ALL important issues.

Honest, open-minded scepticism of those with power & influence is not just acceptable, I think we should consider it our duty as citizens of a free & democratic country - that is, if we want it to stay that way!

Lockdown arguments miss a crucial point

There are various discussions/arguments on social media about the need for and effectiveness of the lockdowns we have had. 
With a few exceptions, they run along expected self-interest lines.

Those who support lockdowns come into one or more of these categories:

1. those who have lost someone close to them from Covid;

2. those in a vulnerable category themselves and are fearful;

3.  those who have a secure income (pension or high job security) such that lockdowns have no effect on their ability to pay mortgages/rent etc;

4. those who unquestioningly accept the government and media narrative and believe they are being selfless or good citizens by supporting lockdowns

Those against lockdowns are:

1. those who know no-one that has died or even hospitalized from Covid;

2.  those who neither themselves nor a family member are in a vulnerable category;

3.  those who have lost their job or business, or fear they will and hence are highly stressed about paying mortgages/rents etc;

4. those who believe the adverse consequences of lockdowns are causing more harm overall than Covid itself;

As I said, the first three points are largely understandable natural reactions.

Point 4 is the topic of real interest to me, however, I think a crucial point is being missed:

WE HAVE HAD NO LOCKDOWNS!!

The Chinese had a lockdown of Wuhan Province. In that, the army were on the streets distributing basic food & water supplies but more importantly ensuring that, with a few exceptions, no-one set foot outside their doors!

In the UK, TENS OF MILLIONS of people have continued, at least to some extent, to mingle with others.

Our society could not function without the NHS, Ambulance & Police, for example.
Also, food producers, distributors and retailers.
Also, workers that keep our electricity, gas and water supplies maintained.  
Also, teachers for in-class teaching of these key worker’s children. 
And I’m sure I’ve missed some.

In addition, we were ALL allowed to go to the food shops whenever we liked (no checks were made) in which there was, in reality, almost zero social distancing.

So, along with the evidence on the usefulness of masks being mixed at best, the reality in the UK is that we’ve never had a real lockdown or frankly, anything even close.

There has been massive and continuous mingling which in turn means we've created a lot of economic, non-covid medical, social and educational stress & damage that could not possibly achieve anything more than a partial slowing-down of Covid spread, at best.

There’s been a lot of wishful thinking behind most of the restrictions we’ve been subjected to, including our partial-lockdowns, with very little evidence of their effectiveness,  but the government had to be seen to be doing something.

As with all respiratory viruses, most of the increases and decreases in Covid deaths can be explained by the simple changing of the seasons.
In winter, respiratory viruses affect far more people than in the summer; thus a second wave was inevitable.

Due to the reality of continuous mingling, there is no direct evidence that the pretend-lockdowns have made more than a marginal difference.
  
For example, in this study, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-europe-lockdown-excess-deaths-recession/ it found no correlation between the strictness of lockdown measures and the spread of the virus. It also notes that the countries with the most severe restrictions are suffering the most economically which will play out over the next few years – no surprise there.

So why then has the Government and its medical/scientific advisers taken the steps they have and continued with them, rather than any alternative policies?

Well, I don’t think we need to look too much further than initial panic followed by a pragmatic retreat into political & reputational expediency.
 
They simply weren’t prepared to do what Sweden did, (i.e. almost nothing).
  
If taking that route had resulted in far higher numbers of deaths per thousand than other European countries who had taken more drastic action, that would have been the end of Johnson’s government for sure. 

'Murderous complacency' would have been the cry.

Much safer politically to adopt similar policies to almost everyone else in Europe, whatever the final outcome.
In essence, safety in numbers or political camouflage.

The BEST DECISION the Government made was to go it alone on acquiring vaccinations rather than go in with the EU scheme. This is why we are so far ahead on vaccinations.
Even Germany gave up and went it alone recently as the EU centralised system was quite literally not delivering the goods.

What we don't know is how long they stay effective for, if you can still catch Covid after vaccination and/or if you can still pass it on to others.
The current mass vaccination programme IS the long-term clinical trial that there wasn't time to do.

The WORST DECISION the Government made is more difficult but 
I think there are two tied for first place, and they were both made in the summer months.
  
The first was to rely solely on rushed vaccines being available in time for winter and not using the summer to create and train a Volunteer Medical Service that could staff the Nightingale hospitals from November/December onwards thus taking pressure off the main NHS which always struggles in winter, even without Covid;

[Putting as many Covid patients into the Nightingale Hospitals as possible from November would also have reduced the in-hospital catching of Covid by non-Covid patients which the NHS estimates at between 15-20% of Covid cases].

The second error was not to make any attempt to make special provision for the winter such that the most vulnerable, say aged 80+ and those with certain existing conditions, could be shielded along with their carers within defined bubbles, allowing everyone else (and therefore the economy) to carry on largely as normal.

These lacks of foresight made a winter lockdown, whether effective or otherwise, a political necessity as hospitals filled-up.

What we can't yet know is whether the negative impacts from these various partial lockdowns will be seen by history as having done more damage overall than the Covid virus itself. 

However, that the Government have done no such cost/benefit analysis, or if they have, not published it, is very poor indeed and probably tells its own story.

We do have one such analysis from Bristol University suggesting that the adverse effects of lockdowns will mean the equivalent of 560,000 extra deaths. And that was based solely on the economic repercussions, not the non-Covid medical, societal and educational repercussions as well.

Still, it's the done thing to just accept what we're being told by the Government backed-up by generally supportive opposition Parties and a totally compliant media.

The only question the Government is being asked by these institutions that should be holding it to account is, 'why aren't you locking down harder and arresting or fining anyone not complying?' 

Even the most obvious and reasonable questions about the effectiveness of certain policies and the amount of longer term damage as a result of them, are simply not allowed it seems.

So much for our democracy! SIGH!!

Life isn’t simple, in fact it can be darned complicated!

Deciding national policies that affect nearly 70 million people is REALLY complicated.
Which means that getting it perfectly right is essentially impossible and will almost never involve simplistic solutions. Any decision made by Government has a myriad of knock-on effects, many unforeseen (at least by the decision makers).

We have to be able to hold multiple ideas in our heads and find a path through them that doesn’t involve simply believing what it suits us to believe, and then pretending that it's ok for any opposing thought or idea to be ignored or closed-down.

For example, it’s possible to believe that Trump was the President most dangerously unfit for that office ever, while also believing that the self-righteous censorship of woke social justice corporations like Google, Twitter & Facebook, needs to be opposed.
 
It’s possible to believe that Covid is a new and dangerous virus that needs to be tamed and the vulnerable groups shielded, while also believing that the economic, medical and social downsides of these lockdowns will be seen in the future to have done more damage overall than Covid itself.

Things which are portrayed by panicky incompetent politicians and ideological journalists as simplistic, i.e. this thing good, that thing bad, are rarely that simple.
They are not all or nothing, mutually exclusive choices.

We don’t have to pick one or the other and then see who can shout loudest or enforce their view on others in the most draconian way.
We have to deal simultaneously with two, and often more, difficult issues and find a path that maximises the best and avoids the worst outcomes of them all.

We also have to judge whether the imperative needs of today outweigh or are outweighed by the less tangible but equally important needs of tomorrow, or next year, or next decade.
And that can be the hardest judgement of all.

It doesn’t matter whether we are young or old.
Together we are a continuous living conduit between the past and the future and we need to treat each other, as well as previous generations and future generations, with the respect that this realisation demands.
 
Self-righteous ideological warfare will not achieve anything good because those on the side that wins become tyrants and those on the side that loses become slaves.
 
We can do better than that; but we have to want to, and then be bothered to make the effort, because it won’t be easy.

A divergence in socio-political view between two Christians

 

Context

A polite and friendly conversation between two British Christians:

One, a Non-conformist Protestant in their mid-50s; highly educated; top 25% in terms of financial income/assets; two children between 14 and under 23.

The other, a Church of England (C of E) Protestant, also mid-50s; well-educated (but not to the extent of the first) and around the 50% mark in terms of financial income/assets; two children between 14 and under 23.

Many similarities it would therefore seem, yet differing outlooks.

The discussion centred around this statement: ‘young people feel the older generations are selfish because we should all be locked-down together. Only old people go to church and they’re still open whereas Universities and schools are closed.

So, there are two topics here which, although interwoven in the discussion, I will take separately in an attempt not to confuse the issues.

[NB. I am speaking from my knowledge of Christianity in the UK. I make no claims to be speaking for anyone else or to be encompassing any other religions within my views].

1.    Places of Worship should be closed to show support for the secular authorities.

The rather flippant but sadly true first response is that so few people go to church these days that it hardly matters.
Nevertheless, that very fact means that churches are among the safest indoor spaces you can find. No social distancing problems here!
And when you add the fact that most churches are quite draughty due to single-glazed stained-glass windows and ill-fitting old doors, it’s like being outside anyway!
So the probability of people catching or passing on Covid in churches is way below that of being in a supermarket or hospital or care-home or office.

With sensible rules on numbers, social distancing and suitable hand-sanitising etc there is no real medical reason to close churches down.

My second thought is this.
Surely the church’s mission has to be far more than simply falling in line with whatever the secular authorities want.
As the Historian & writer Tom Holland said recently, the Church of England has missed an opportunity to differentiate itself from the secular; to provide spiritual leadership and places of calm & solace in these troubled times. 
He said that by merely parroting the offical Government line, the C of E leadership has become an unimportant sub-department of the Welfare State.

This should come as no surprise.

In terms of our political parties, the C of E leadership’s occasional forays into politics in the media or the House of Lords show them to be, not the Tory party at prayer as they were once described, but the Liberal Democrat Party at prayer.
Left wing but in a rather supercilious, head-in-the-clouds, financially secure, safe and socially conformist way. Conformist in that, whatever, the left of centre secular cause of the moment, they’re for it!
In terms of their outlook on life, they are ‘of the elite’, not ‘of the people’. Tim Farron must be chuffed.

2.    Young people feel that older generations are selfish

Again, my first flippant response is that you couldn’t find a larger irony than young people (especially those of the comfortable middle-classes) accusing others of selfishness.
A more pampered, self-righteous, narcissistic yet fragile generation I doubt there has ever been!
That’s what increasing prosperity does; it increases the size of the middle-classes; that is, it increases the number who feel comfortable, safe and secure, which over time drifts into decadence.
Gratitude & responsibility decreases with security while entitlement & navel-gazing increases.

Secondly, on what basis does any young person look at older people with such disdain?

The young will find that making the right decisions to make the world a better place while working and raising a family is not as easy in the real world as it looks from their cosy bedrooms or Uni digs – both paid for by a combination of mum & dad as well as the taxes of those older folk they scorn.

I think you need to stand on your own two feet and actually contribute something meaningful to society before giving yourself the right to be judgemental of older folk.

We are not separate. We are a continuous fluid link between the past and the future which should be treated with the grace and respect that such an awesome responsibility requires, not with self-righteousness and arrogance.

What do you think?

Covid is real! Government policy is questionable!

 

COVID IS REAL!!

COVID IS SERIOUS!!

Every death matters, whether from Covid or not.

Of course I want the NHS to be able to cope with the winter surge in hospitalisations!

Questioning the specific policies of the Government is NOT Covid denialism or being anti-vaxxer or not caring about the seriously ill or dismissing the NHS staff or any other of the ridiculous strawman mischaracterisations that anyone who dares to ask awkward questions about Government policy are usually accused of.

The NHS always struggles hugely in the winter months and with Covid, yes, special measures were required.

I’ve been saying for months that this should have been organised in the summer by building more Nightingale Hospitals and calling for volunteers from retired doctors/nurses & final year medical and nursing students for autumn training specifically on Covid. A Volunteer Medical Reserve like the TA.
They would then have been on stand-by to staff the Nightingale Hospitals over the winter which were, after all, built for the exact purpose of taking the strain off the main NHS hospitals. 

Instead, seemingly all eggs were put in the vaccine basket that was never going to be ready & tested by the beginning of December. 

Even those vaccines now available take 3 weeks or more after inoculation to become fully effective; and are at best effective for 75% of people on crrent information. We also don't have sufficient data yet to know if vaccinated poeple can still carry & pass the virus on.

How can we know? 

Vaccines developed in 6 months cannot have been tested sufficiently to answer these longer-term questions. 

Simple prima facie safety for most (not all) people is all there has been time to do clinical trials for.
Some people think that so much money has been thrown at the vaccines that it has been possible to condense years of clinical trials into a few months.
Nonsense!
Obviously, clinical trials to evaluate long term effects need to be conducted over the long term; money has nothing to do with it!

The current mass vaccinations are actually the clinical trial to find out these longer term answers.
Fingers crossed that we get the answers we want, eh?

Are the vaccines better than nothing?
Of course they are but ‘nothing’ is a pretty low bar to have to beat isn’t it?
These vaccines may not turn out to be the panacea that many, out of fear & desperation, seem to believe.

Even if the vaccines are highly effective, like flu, Covid will be back each year in differing forms and we will have to live with it well into the future. 

The future. Yes, that’s the problem isn’t it?

I understood the first lockdown.
Owing to the disgraceful behaviour of China, in cahoots with the WHO, trying to play the problem down, we couldn't be sure in March whether we were dealing with the Black Death or something closer to flu in terms of mortality rates.
But with what we know now, that huge swathes of the UK’s economy have been closed down again instead of focussing on shielding as best possible the vulnerable and preparing the Nightingale Hospitals to take Covid patients from the start of December is the issue that ministers, PHE, SAGE & the NHS leadership need to be scrutinised over. 

At some point, the lockdown cure will do more damage than the disease. 
At some point the disbenefits of lockdowns (economic, medical and social) must outweigh any benefits. Many think that point has been and gone!

This can’t be a controversial view as it’s plain common-sense but it’s not being discussed; or at least not by politicians or the mainstream media.

Is the job of Government simply to look at the immediate problem and solve that at whatever price for the future?

Well, if Covid was killing as many people as the Black Death (30-40% of the population) or even the Spanish Flu of 100 years ago (2-3%), perhaps you could make a case for that.
But as the fatality rate is less than 0.2% of the population, surely Government’s job is to make special arrangements for those known to be particularly vulnerable, vaccinate the NHS staff and carers, get as many Covid patients into Nightingale Hospitals as possible, but then to do what’s best for the economic and social well-being of the country, not just right now, but for future years; and yet this doesn’t appear to be be happening.

Lockdowns are NOT what’s best for the economic and social well-being of the country for future years. They are a short-term panic measure that doesn't really work but gives the impression of doing something useful.

All lockdowns can do is slightly delay the spread.
They can't stop the spread because too many people MUST work to keep society functioning.
So, many people have to continue mixing to some extent with others that spread is inevitable, lockdown or not.

Neither proper leadership, nor bravery in the face of pressure, nor transparency & honesty with data are exactly to the fore with this Government.
(In this they are no diffrent to any other).
We are only told the information they think will bolster the case for their chosen policies, not everything we need and are entilted to know.

But since the opposition parties and most of the media companies (both mainstream & social), seem to have fallen into line, the Government have no pressure being put on them to improve either their honesty or transparency, sadly.

And without honesty or transparency, there will be no pressure and therefore no incentive for Government to make better decisions.

The ‘ought’ concept and why it’s dangerous!

 There is always great danger in telling people what they ‘ought’ to believe or ‘ought’ to think or ‘ought’ to say.

Of course, the word ‘ought’ doesn’t have to be used specifically but if the implication of what you’re being told is that you ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’ to do/say/think something, beware!

It may be right, but just beware.

Why?

Well, the ‘ought’ concept is very judgmental and has clear implications that you are bad or ignorant or immoral or uncaring or selfish if you don't.
And who wants to be, or for others to think of you as, bad or ignorant or immoral or selfish or uncaring?

None of us, right?

So, a form of words that mean ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’ is not a suggestion to considera view, but rather an attempt to coerce via shame or ridicule.

Examples of ‘ought’/'ought not'

Fear: You ‘ought’ to be very fearful. If you aren’t, you are ignorant or stupid etc

Intolerance: You ‘ought not’ to tolerate those whose opinions differ from yours. If you do, you are ignorant or immoral etc

Censorship: You ‘ought’ to agree with increasing limitations on freedom of speech. If you don’t, you are ignorant or immoral etc

Social media cancel culture: You ‘ought’ to be quite happy with people’s careers being ruined because they hold legal but unpopular views. If you aren’t, you are ignorant or immoral etc

Don’t be an ‘oughter’!

Think for yourself, ask questions, do your own research and come to your own conclusions; dare to listen to alternative views; and encourage others to do the same.

Indeed, you ‘ought’ to do these things, right?