The EU quarantines the UK thanks to Hancock’s covid panic

 

I’m not given to speculation, to looking for conspiracies behind every news. I’m not given to trying to find connections between unrelated new items to prove that there are powers who will do anything to promote their agenda. However, the strange appearance of this covid virus mutant suddenly forcing poor BJ to cancel Christmas, to lock down most of the country – they call it ‘tier 4’ nowadays – just at the point in time when the MEPs had set their deadline for the end of the negotiations is certainly odd.

As usual, that deadline came and went, and allegedly B & F are talking some more today. Speculation is that there’ll be ‘a deal’ before Christmas Day. Our friends at facts4eu sum it up when they write that a No Deal is BJ’s last chance to give us at least some Christmas cheer (link). However, there’s the quarantine in which most EU countries have now placed the UK, implemented very speedily, thanks to our government’s covid mutant panic. More on that below.

First, let’s look at reports from yesterday’s papers. We read about how ‘a shaken’ BJ was given the ‘evidence’ by that unholy duo V & W. They rely on BJ being scientifically illiterate, thus again scaring him into acting as they wanted – moar lockdown now – by waving the scare flag of ‘70% more infectious’ (link). Last night, the non-SAGE scientists demanded evidence, with Professor Carl Henegan very politely not saying that this number of 70% was cr*p, only pointing out that in his experience it was an impossibility (link). There’s a lovely tweet by Dr Yeadon in reply to one by Professor Henegan who tweeted:

“Can anyone point me to the evidence that this new variant is “70% more transmissible than the old variant?” – Mike Yeadon: “I suspect it’s invented. It’s one of around 40,000 variants, typically emerging from error prone replication. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious if it turns out to be an asymptomatic variant: easy to catch & pass on but doesn’t make you ill. We could call it a vaccine.” (link)

Never mind – BJ only listens to SAGE, so tier 4 it is. Of course, we’ve now become accustomed to the ‘magical’ game of equating ‘case numbers’, i.e. test results, with people actually hospitalised. However, it’s in hospitals that most ‘cases’ are occurring. This scandal has made it into this morning’s Times:

“Almost one in four people diagnosed with coronavirus could have contracted it in hospital, figures suggest. Out of 10,150 patients being treated for the disease in hospital, 2,414 may have developed symptoms of the disease in wards while they were being treated for other illnesses, according to data from NHS England. In the week to December 13 there were 8,337 cases in hospitals, of which 1,787 were likely to have been hospital-acquired, an increase of 35 per cent. At one hospital 41 per cent of Covid-19 patients developed symptoms while receiving treatment. Hospital-acquired infections are rising across parts of London and the southeast […].” (link, paywalled)

Yes – the country is in lockdown-by-another-name because people get infected in hospitals, not out in the wild! Why this isn’t yet shouted from the rooftops I do not understand. There’s more. We read that testing in the tier-4 areas is ‘on the brink of collapse’:

“Nearly two million residents in Tier 4 areas were unable to access coronavirus tests on Sunday (December 20) amid a surge in demand across the South-East. No walk-in or drive-in tests in Kent were shown as available by 3pm on Sunday […] with residents asked to travel to London testing centres instead. It comes after fears emerged that England’s testing infrastructure could be on the brink of collapse after not a single test was available in London just hours before the city was plunged into tougher restrictions on Saturday (December 19).” (paywalled link)

Why get tested when one’s locked down anyway, regardless? Perhaps these people believe what SAGE and government have told them, that testing is a ‘cure’ for covid? Perhaps we can at least expect case numbers to come down in those areas.

Meanwhile, Londoners fled their covid-infested city, making Hancock stamp his feet, threatening police road blocks and all. Sadly, police chiefs had to tell him that there was no legal ground for them to block people leaving. For a summary see this morning’s LockdownSceptics Newsletter (link) where you’ll also find an eyewitness report on police ‘action’ at the Lockdown protest in London. One wonders if the police can’t enforce travel bans and man roadblocks because they have to corral and intimidate peaceful protesters.

So now we come to the ‘Brexit connection’. Thanks to this panic decision, to the announcement by BJ about how he had to rob us of our Christmas on Saturday, for once EU countries acted decisively. They banned all travel from the UK:

“Britain’s border with France was closed last night with all travellers and lorry drivers blocked from leaving and the EU ready to ban all arrivals to the bloc. Fears were mounting of gridlock on roads in Kent as the Channel Tunnel said that its services would be suspended at 11pm yesterday amid an international scramble to quarantine Britain over a faster-spreading variant of coronavirus.” (link, paywalled)

Amazing, isn’t it: apparently the whole of the UK must be infected by that mutant virus so that no-one can be allowed to spread it to the pristine EU by travelling. More:

Flights, ferries and trains from Britain are expected to be banned by Brussels after a wave of European countries including Italy, the Netherlands and Ireland implemented bans on arrivals. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany and Sweden also announced travel bans.” (link, paywalled)

These are the same countries which have seen such rise in case numbers that they’ve been implementing lockdowns already anyway – but never mind that now! And isn’t it wonderful how fast the EU can act! After all, what could the poor things do when they heard that Hancock said:

“[…] that “the new variant is out of control” amid fears that even Tier 4 measures in the southeast would not be able to restrict the spread. He urged everyone to “act like they might have the virus” after it emerged yesterday that government scientific advisers had concluded that even full lockdown might no longer be enough to prevent cases increasing. Areas may stay in Tier 4 for months, he suggested.” (link, paywalled)

Gawdalmighty! I think the one ‘out of control’ is our health czar himself. His and BJ’s pronunciations were taken seriously, as plain truth, by the EU countries. That’s why the UK is now in international quarantine. Thank you, Hancock! 

As for the talks – well, first see this:

“Mr Barnier faced demands from the European Union’s fishing industry to take a harder line in the trade and fisheries talks. The deepening pandemic crisis and the emergence in Britain of a mutation of the coronavirus have increased pressure on negotiators to try to find a deal in the first half of this week.” (link, paywalled)

Then see this:

“Negotiators believe Mr Macron is gambling on the theory that no deal will be so unpopular in Britain that Boris Johnson will cave in and accept Brussels’ current offer within weeks of leaving the single market and customs union on January 1. […] Senior Government sources have dismissed the idea as “fantasy” and insisted that it “makes no sense” to reject a deal now only to accept it weeks later.” (paywalled link)

That is in accord with the news about Barnier being told not to give an inch even while ‘our lot’ say they’ll keep on talking for as long as there’s a possibility of a compromise. 

However, given that the EU member states have put our country into quarantine thanks to our government’s panic over that mutant, I believe we can interpret their oh so timely decision as an attempt to ‘blockade’ us into giving way, to force BJ’s hands to scrap Brexit as he scrapped Christmas.

Lorry queues at Dover, food delivery chains broken, images of forlorn planes with the BA logo on their tails parked at airports: these are the news and images Remain has been lusting for. For them, this is what will happen if we don’t cave and crawl back to the mighty EU. Here’s one report:

“The Port of Dover is closed to all traffic, worsening fears of shortages in the coming days. Typically between 9,000 and 10,000 lorries a day use the port in both directions. Haulage chiefs warned yesterday that they feared for supermarket supply chains in the run-up to Christmas. Freight from France is allowed to enter Britain but there are concerns that many hauliers will be reluctant to make the crossing if they might get stuck.” (link, paywalled)

If you think this blockade is a natural reaction by countries trying to stop the spread of a mutant virus about which nothing can be said so far except that it exists, a mutant virus which even the SAGEs are so far reluctant to declare as more deadly than the earlier strain, then please think again! Covid cases have been rising in all EU countries for the last weeks, leading to harsh lockdowns. There were no bans for goods travelling between countries then.

Do we really believe that only the panic created by SAGE for their own reasons, exacerbated by Hancock by his statement, forced the EU countries to quarantine the whole of the UK? That they, especially under the ‘guidance’ of Macron, did not think this was the best and last opportunity to show us the error of our ways? That this wasn’t a Hancock-given opportunity for them to punish us preemptively for a No Deal Brexit?

Well, I don’t think so – and as I said at the start of this column, I am not given to fanciful speculations. We all know that Barnier, Macron and the EU have been hell-bent on punishing us for Brexit, negotiating dishonestly. However, I won’t speculate about the outcome of these last-minute talks, nor about when Barnier and Frosty throw in their respective towels.

I leave you with this unassailable fact: today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. From tomorrow onwards the days start getting longer and light comes back. That is something no covid mutant, no SAGE, no Hancock, no Macron and not even shilly-shallying BJ can alter or prevent.

 

KBO!

 

Photo by chrisinplymouth

Print Friendly, PDF & Email