Really? Seriously? Hm …

 

The main topic on the front pages today is that the ‘Covid Unsung Heroes’ are being honoured by the Queen. One lone Covid article this morning was gracing the top spot in the DT. It’s a report on some of those ‘rising numbers’ being due to Covid infections picked up in NHS hospitals. More on that below. Finally, there’s something about some talks in Brussels … but even with Brussels pubs and restaurants closed the Remain – sorry: remaining Brussels correspondents still were able to pick up gossip from their always ‘senior EU diplomat’ sources.

So, from the top – about those ‘heroes’, those who ‘fought the virus’ as a footballer, fitness guru and other ‘celebrity’ stuff who were honoured, six members of SAGE included: 

“Six members of the committee have been awarded OBEs for “services to the Covid-19 response” in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, alongside dozens of health workers and volunteers who have fought the virus on the front line. Meanwhile, Government officials including England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and senior officials from Public Health England are understood to have been passed over for honours amid concerns that their handling of the pandemic could be criticised during a future public inquiry.” (paywalled link)

Here’s the official statement from the Cabinet Office as reported in The Times:

“The Cabinet Office said there were 414 “exceptional contributions of unsung heroes”. Health and social care workers make up more than 200 of the 1,495 recipients on the list, including 41 nurses and midwives.”(link paywalled)

In other words – it’s been ‘business as usual’, with over 1,000 gongs going to the usual suspects swarming around the Westminster Cabal. It’s mildly amazing to note that the V & W duo hasn’t received their gong and neither has that Doom-modeller Professor Pantsdown – because they ‘might’ be criticised in a future Covid Inquiry for their handling of the the outbreak. It is annoying though to see that none of the non-covid-government scientists were honoured. I’m referring especially to the Oxford Professor Carl Henegan, director of the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM). 

While I don’t want to get into a ‘my scientist is better than your scientist’ spat, it has become patently obvious during the Covid months that CEBM and Prof Henegan have taken a dispassionate look at the data available and put them into context. They have consistently made a case for being sceptical of “Teh Science” on which the Covid government has based their lockdown measures. Prof Henegan and his colleagues certainly aren’t the heroes of BJ, Hancock and SAGE – but they ought to be ours! 

Their latest findings are disturbing and provide another instance of doubting “Teh Science” behind BJ and Hancock’s lockdown measures. Only the DT thought it worthwhile to write about this:

“Across England as a whole, 18 per cent of patients in hospital with Covid-19 tested positive for the virus for the first time seven days or more after admission. The proportion was highest – at 24 per cent – in the North-West, which is under imminent threat of further lockdown measures.” (paywalled link)

The DT quotes from the latest report by CEBM, published yesterday, reporting that CEBM used the daily NHS data made available since the 22nd of September. So I went to the horse’s mouth from which I quote the following, rather important, paragraph:

“We used these data to construct a measure of the number of patients in hospital who are test-positive for COVID-19. We consider patients to be newly in hospital with COVID-19 at the point of admission (if they tested positive prior to admission) or at the point at which they test positive (if they test positive in hospital). In line with NHS England guidance, we consider patients who test positive after over 7 days in hospital to be probable healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).” (link)

No slight-of-hand, no ‘conspiracy’ – just the data available from NHS England, used by following ‘the guidance’ of NHS England itself. They describe what they did – this is called ‘show your workings’ – and their findings are disturbing:

“Using this approach we used data from 15 September, the first day in recent months on which there were over 150 admissions. While only three days since 15 September had seen these cases form over 10% of the total of new patients in hospital with COVID-19, each of the last seven days reported has seen probable HCAIs from over 10% of newly reported hospitalised patients. The most recent date of reporting (6 October) shows a record high, with over 18% of hospitalisations being patients diagnosed after over 7 days in hospital. This appears to be particularly notable in the North West, where 17% (163/967) in the last week and 24% (44/181) on 6 October of those patients newly in hospital with COVID-19 were probable HCAIs.” (link)

This is disturbing because, as we reported yesterday, the Covid government is now using a new slogan, that “we” should flock back to ‘Our NHS’ so they ‘can help us’. It is even more disturbing because these numbers are not secret, they are official NHS numbers, available to the people in Hancock’s Health empire, the SAGE duo included. And let’s not ask why ‘Our MSM’, the DT excepted, are oblivious to these findings. It’s as if infections acquired in hospital cannot be of any concern, as if such thing never ever happened! The DT observes that there are:

“[…] growing concerns that the NHS has failed to learn lessons from the first wave of the pandemic about high levels of transmission within hospitals. The percentage of probably healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) appears to be as bad, if not worse, than that recorded during the height of the first wave. This is despite an order from Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, for hospitals to improve their Covid security in June.” (paywalled link)

Is this why Sir Simon Stevens is ‘expected’ to step down from his post next spring, according to gossip by ‘senior sources’ who talked to The Times? Their report was published on the 20th of last month:

“Although his departure date is not “set in stone”, it is understood that he intends to leave in the spring. […] Stevens, who has led the NHS through the coronavirus pandemic, has been the subject of recent hostile briefings about his future, although allies claim that he has set out his own exit strategy. Multiple sources have said that rumblings about his future have been reverberating around Whitehall during the pandemic but have grown louder in recent weeks.“(link, paywalled)

Well, I confess to being a suspicious, cynical old cow and wonder: this gossip came to light on September 20th, a few days after the NHS published the numbers which CEBM used in their analysis. I’m sure Stevens must have known those data – and must have known that his precious NHS England had not ‘followed his orders’. It looks as if some Whitehall denizens were preparing the field for a “jump before getting pushed” exit. 

Rounding up today’s Covid Soap Opera, The Times, which seems to have become the propaganda unit for the BMA, writes that ‘corona doctors’ are demanding moar masks and coming up with this proposal:

“The rule of six should include the earlier stipulation that only two households could meet, ideally outdoors, Dr Nagpaul [Chair of the BMA] said, […] Masks should be compulsory indoors and outdoors, he said, as a simple message people could understand: “It cannot be easy for the public to understand what will make a difference if they’re told to wear a mask in one setting, but then it’s not required in another.” (link, paywalled)

If you needed one more example for the contempt in which the Westminster Cabal and their ‘medical experts’ hold us, the contempt in which actual doctors hold us, the patients they’re supposed to treat, then just let that ’advice’ sink in: meet outdoors in the autumn and winter weather, but only while wearing masks which must be worn everywhere because we dumb plebs just don’t ‘understand’ …

In case you forgot: this is coming from the same organisation whose members think they should be allowed to prescribe ‘life-ending drugs’ to all who want, provided they themselves don’t have to administer them.

As for the ongoing EU talks – yep, they’re ongoing and will continue. This comes under ‘when is a deadline not a deadline’. The DT’s Remain correspondent reports what his ‘senior EU diplomats’ have fed him:

“Brexit negotiations will continue even if a deal is not reached by Boris Johnson’s October 15 deadline, Michel Barnier has informed EU ambassadors. Senior EU diplomats said Brussels simply did not believe that the Prime Minister’s threat to walk out of trade talks if a deal was not “in sight” by Thursday’s European Council summit. “Negotiations will continue. It is not a deadline,” a senior EU diplomat said on Friday. […] Talks are expected to continue right up until Thursday afternoon.”  (paywalled link)

And here’s RemainCentral with a heartwarming description on what we might expect:

“In a sign of growing trust between the two sides before next week’s critical EU summit Lord Frost, Britain’s chief negotiator, and Michel Barnier, his EU counterpart, have agreed that even if a wider deal proves impossible to reach, contact will continue.” (link, paywalled)

I leave you with this exquisitely funny stumbling block Belgium has come up with. It comes under ‘yer ‘aving a larf’:

“Belgium will invoke a 1666 Royal charter granting 50 men of Bruges the eternal right to fish British waters if there is a no-deal Brexit in a legal challenge to protect its fishermen. King Charles II granted the charter staying in the city during his 1656 to 1659 exile after the English Civil War . “If we don’t reach a deal, we could invoke the charter. It dates back to 1666 but was confirmed by a UK lawyer in 1820,” a spokesperson for the Flemish Fisheries Minister Hilde Crevits said.” (paywalled link)

Given that Belgium didn’t even exist in 1666, and given that this charter was granted only to ‘50 men of Bruges’ – men, not industrial fishing conglomerates – this surely would be laughed out of court. But who knows – anything is possible in Brussels … still,  it was good of DT’s Remain Crisp to have informed us!

Let’s hope we all remain in good health and good spirits so that none of us needs to enter the edifices of ‘Our Sacred Cow’, a.k.a. hospitals!

 

KBO!

 

Photo by FlickrDelusions

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