Time to say good-bye to life as we used to know it

 

As expected, that ‘three-tier’ system is imposed on cities in the North, with Liverpool being given the top-tier Lockdown spot. Other towns and cities are still ‘negotiating’ with the government – and yep, it’s about money on the one hand and giving local mayors power to make those lockdown decisions themselves. We’re still governed by graphs and stats as opposed to real life ‘on the ground’.

To get you in the right mood, I suggest you look at the cartoon gracing the top of this morning’s LockdownSceptics News – that’s all I’m saying! As for the rest of our dear MSM – well, confusing reigns amongst the ‘Global Health, Science and Fear’ editors. Above all, it seems they can’t make up their minds on which particular news to choose so as to best scare us ignorant peasants. Obviously, while bewailing the lockdown fate of Liverpool ‘Our MSM’ cannot now rail against these measures because BJ is only following demands based on their ongoing fear and hysteria campaign. 

Before we look at what was decided, recall that Hancock ‘promised’ last week (“a long time in politics!”) to involve MPs in the decision making and allow them to vote on such measures. That was rescinded immediately, with debate and voting only permitted after the fact. So ‘our peacocks’ will have a chat about this today in the ghostly HoC, and even a vote. I wonder if Sir John Redwood will get an answer to the questions he raised in his Diary yesterday (link). Government however seems confident that there will be enough peacocks to support their latest system, now called a three-tier-system, not a ‘traffic light scheme’:

“The lowest tier, for “medium” risk areas, will involve current restrictions of the “rule of six” and 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants, while the middle tier, for “high” risk areas, will ban household mixing indoors. The top tier, for “very high” risk areas, will force pubs to close unless they can operate as restaurants, as well as banning household mixing indoors and outdoors and advising against travel to and from those areas.” (paywalled link)

“Advising against travel” – will police forces now check cars going into or coming from level-three areas? In Wales, the First Wet Sheep, Mr D., is ‘giving Johnson a last chance’ to stop the English from ‘hotspots’ travelling to Wales – yep, he really did (link). Is he scared that infected Scousers will invade the pristine Welsh hills where only sheep (four-legged ones) roam?

Next, here’s proof that these lockdowns are about money, leading me to suspect that other Mayors are just waiting for a large enough pay packet from Sunak before inflicting misery on their inhabitants:

“Liverpool, which agreed to be placed into the top tier, will receive £14 million of extra funding for more testing to help the city through the next month, after which the lockdown will be reviewed. […] Mr Johnson said talks were continuing with local leaders in the North-West, North-East and Yorkshire and the Humber about the approach and the support available if they moved into the third tier.” (paywalled link)

Apparently, we ought to call ourselves lucky that BJ has refrained from ‘following teh science’! The SAGEs, in an obvious attempt to wash their hands in innocence, have told ‘Our MSM’ that actually, they wanted a proper national lockdown as the only way to stop this ‘wave’ but were overruled:

“Boris Johnson overruled Government scientists who pressed for national lockdown measures such as stopping all household mixing and closing all pubs, it emerged on Monday night. Papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) show that the body called for an immediate introduction of national interventions, saying failure to take such measures could result in “a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences”.”(paywalled link)

Ah! ‘Tis clearly nothing to do with fearmongering – how very dare you! There’s more, illustrating that SAGE has indeed lost all touch with reality, with the way ordinary people have to live and work. They even seem to have lost touch with the reality pertaining to the actualité of test & trace, never mind the validity of those tests:

“The test-and-trace system is only having a “marginal impact” on reducing the spread of coronavirus, key scientists advising the Government have said. The programme will “further decline” unless it grows at the same rate as the epidemic, [SAGE] warned in documents released on Monday. The Sage scientists wrote: “The relatively low levels of engagement with the system… coupled with testing delays and likely poor rates of adherence with self-isolation suggests that this system is having a marginal impact on transmission at the moment.” (paywalled link)

Words fail me! Not sufficiently testing & tracing has led to more infections? Even though test labs already can’t cope we still need more of this? Does SAGE think enforcing tests for everyone will frighten the virus from spreading? And what about the efficiency of those lockdowns, local or otherwise:

“After months of restrictions in the northwest, rates are many times higher than when local lockdowns were imposed. Luton, the sole area to have local restrictions lifted fully, also now has rates much higher than when they were placed on the Bedfordshire town in late July.” (link, paywalled)

There’s more – I really wonder if the Post-Covid madness which has government in its grip is affecting the thought processes of the various editors in ‘Our MSM’ as well! While opining that poor BJ had no choice and that it’s up to the local people to do as they’re told, they surreptitiously dropped in this little sentence, also admitting the failure of local lockdowns:

“It is also an admission that Mr Johnson’s previous whack-a-mole strategy of local lockdowns in response to local outbreaks has failed, with infection rates still rising in 19 out of the 20 areas in which restrictions have been put in place.” (link, paywalled)

And still they support this latest scheme! Is that because, according to a poll run by The Times (we know what polls are worth, don’t we!), it seems that people in lockdown areas believe the measures aren’t sufficiently strict:

“People living in local lockdown regions of England are also more supportive of tougher restrictions, with 47 per cent saying the rules in their area do not go far enough, compared with 34 per cent in the rest of England. Only 9 per cent of voters in areas of England not subject to local lockdown think restrictions go too far, according to polling of 1,725 adults carried out on Thursday and Friday.” (link, paywalled)

What lovely attitude is demonstrated by this poll: ‘I’m miserable, so everybody else should be made miserable’ …! It’s this mental attitude which enforces muzzle wearing, it’s this attitude which allows BJ and SAGE literally to get away with murder. I wonder what these miserablists would say if they were told that taxes would have to rise by £40bn to stop the covid debt spiralling out of control (paywalled link). Perhaps they don’t pay taxes? 

To round up today’s sorry saga, here are some ‘medical’ Covid news. Firstly, the Big Pharma firm Roche – the one whose warehouse has run out of test material not just for Covid but for other, vital tests, as we reported last week – has announced that they’re going to start selling an new test – by the end of the year:

“These fully automated systems can provide test results in 18 minutes for a single test (excluding time for sample collection, transport, and preparation), with a throughput of up to 300 tests per hour from a single analyser, depending on the analyser,” the group said in a statement.” (paywalled link)

Never mind that nobody knows how accurate those tests will be – it’s ‘more jam day after tomorrow’!  I wonder if it was this announcement which made the SAGEs demand moar tests for everybody.

And just as one other Big Pharma firm announced they had to stop their vaccine trial because one of the participants ‘fell sick’ with an ‘unexplained illness’ (paywalled link), two directors of two think tanks have come up with a proposal to which I can only say “words fail me, again”:

“We propose to let cold, hard cash do some of the persuasion, in turn avoiding a more coercive and controversial mandate. Pay people £200 to be immunised, with a £50 referral bonus if they convince a friend to do likewise. Call it “Arms Out To Help Out”.” (link, paywalled)

Such financial incentives, they write, have worked in the past, so why not spend money on that rather than on lockdowns:

“This would cost taxpayers up to £17 billion upfront. As fiscal conservatives we do not propose this lightly. But the pandemic costs us £20 billion per month in lost output, so this is cost effective if it speeds up herd immunity by just one month. A vaccine payment could prove the most powerful economic stimulus available.” (link, paywalled)

Never mind the unknowable long-term effects of these new vaccines, regardless of how ‘safe’ they turn out to be in the short run! Who would want to be labelled a crackpot anti-vaxxer when they can get £200 from Rishi!

Is this the starting shot for a new ‘national campaign’? After all, “we” have already shown our compliance by keeping to the first national Lockdown, “we” have shown our compliance by muzzling up, “we” have shown our compliance by submitting to the questionable test regime when asked to, so why would “we” not comply with enforced vaccination, especially when given extra dosh?

I leave you with news from China, which comes under “something isn’t quite right”. We read that

“[…] a total of 13  infections were reported in mainland China on Oct. 12, down from 21 a day earlier. Seven of the new cases were imported infections that originated from overseas, while all six local cases were reported in the eastern province of Shandong, where Qingdao is located. Authorities in the area of the outbreak said on Tuesday that they have completed tests on more than 3 million people.” (paywalled link)

Tests on more than 3 million people to ‘detect’ a total of ‘six local cases’, with seven having been ‘imported’? Did the authorities stop all business and other activities to test 3 million people – for that? And “we” must believe this? Huh.

Prepare for more government PR campaigns – to stay indoors, or get tested, or, when available, to get vaccinated. You know it makes sense – not!

 

KBO!

 

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