It’s early morning and I’m already fuming! Today, the peacocks are given the opportunity to ‘vote by zoom’ on the Lockdown now already in force. It’s no secret that my opinion of said peacocks is not precisely stellar, but it’s now quickly becoming subterranean when even parliamentary stalwarts such a Sir John Redwood are only going to fiddle at the edges of that Lockdown Legislation rather than question the whole thing – because he and the rest all ‘believe’ the data on which BJ and SAGE have been basing this latest lockdown. 

The SAGEs – let’s briefly remind ourselves that they’re not elected representatives, that we cannot deselect them – are relishing their power. They want ever ‘moar lockdowns’ and Mr W has already come out with remarks to that effect:

“Chris Whitty […]  cautioned people not to “kid ourselves” that the advent of vaccines would mean that the virus disappeared in spring. He warned that the lockdown restrictions could be lifted only “by degrees”. [He] said that although vaccination could do the “heavy lifting”, it was possible that some restrictions might have to be imposed again next winter when the virus was most likely to spread. The deaths from Covid-19 would not drop to zero but the number of cases would be manageable.” (link, paywalled)

That is the direction SAGE and therefore BJ are planning to go: in order to achieve a ‘manageable number of covid deaths’ the rest of the country, our non-covid health, the economy, education must be prepared for more sacrifices by rolling lockdowns. I learned a new word when I read the next ‘Whitty-saying’ about those future lockdowns:

“But the aim of this is to de-risk it as much as possible by the vaccine, to the point where actually we get to the stage where the risk is incredibly low relative to where we are now.” (link, paywalled)

What the fluff is ‘de-risk’? Never mind that this clearly means that only SAGE will determine when all things covid have been ‘de-risked’ to being ‘incredibly low’! Never mind that the attending ‘journalists’ didn’t ask for a number to show what is meant by ‘incredibly low’ even though the MSM, again up to their eyebrows in numbers and graphs, relish SAGE numbers. 

This is even more astonishing because our peacocks are clearly so impressed by those latest SAGE numbers that they’ll agree to BJ’s lockdown, only demanding ‘more and better vaccination’. Some covid ‘rebels’ are however prepared to stand up, even to the covid rabbits in their own ranks:

“Sir Desmond Swayne said he would vote against the measures and warned: “There will be a chorus who will not put up with this, who will turn up and shout ‘no’ against it.” [He] suggested some colleagues had been “overawed by the scale of the great consensus out there”, which he characterised as: “This [new strain] is a terrible thing, and you [sceptics] shut up.” (paywalled link)

The main ‘debating point’ will be about vaccination and perhaps about the Education Minister being made to walk the plank for his decision to close schools. Well, he used to be the chief whip, so that looks like the revenge of the whipped mice. It’s plain peacocking though, or do the MPs really believe he could have stood up against his PM, SAGE and the Teachers’ Unions’? Here’s Sir Desmond Swayne again, saying:

“I’m appalled that we are where we are. I’m deeply suspicious of the science, and the fact is that we’ve been bounced again. The Government lacks the scientific and statistical expertise to ask the right questions and review the data and modelling.” (paywalled link)

I concur: this government is scientifically illiterate. Sadly most MPs are clearly unwilling to educate themselves. Does even one of those peacocks actually read Lockdown Sceptics? Instead they are trying to look good by demanding an ‘exit strategy’ and reports about vaccination.

Even Sir John Redwood – who surely ought to know about numbers! – looks impotent when I read this morning’s Diary entry.  Yes, one can look reasonable and ‘learned’ even while accepting the fallacy of the SAGEs numbers by talking about their ‘vaccine strategy’.

As for that ‘strategy’ – oh dearie me! There’s the ‘strategy’ of only giving one jab and prolonging the time to that second, booster jab to get as many people jabbed as possible. Even so, Whitty is not just hedging the SAGE’s bets but is clearly planning for a prolonged lockdown:

“For the next three to four months the number of vaccines we have available is going to constrain our ability to get through the 25 million to 30 million people we must do to get through” (link, paywalled). 

That brings us nicely to the end of March at best – the date when Sunak’s furlough scheme is running out – or to the end of April. At the beginning of May local and assembly elections are going to take place – any bets that they won’t? Any bets that BJ will tell us he’s ‘confident’ there will be elections, only to come out a few days later announcing that sadly, with a heavy heart, he had to cancel them, just like Christmas was cancelled? Thanks to the frightened peasants, happy with more lockdowns, this won’t raise any eyebrows.

Other SAGEs are already proposing that the lockdown screws to be tightened even further:

“Sage member Professor Andrew Hayward warned that we may need to do more than “stay at home and wait for the vaccine” to control the virus. Scientists and unions are calling for even tougher restrictions as cases of coronavirus soar, arguing that nurseries must close, the two-metre rule be reimposed and travel restrictions enacted between regions.” (paywalled link)

But – if case numbers ‘soar’ without bodies piling up outside mortuaries – doesn’t this mean the virus isn’t killing us all? That perhaps – attention: dirty hate word! – we might have herd immunity? The above quote is from an article aimed at the problem of ‘essential key workers’, the 10 million who keep the country running. Professor Jackie Cassell from Brighton and Sussex Medical school has thought deeply about this. It’s not, as one would expect, about prioritising their vaccination, it’s this:

“Social deprivation is not just associated with Covid-19 – it is the actual mechanism of getting infected. So in Tier 4 or lockdown, these essential workers are taking the bulk of society’s Covid-19 risk working. Therefore if we want to control Covid-19 we have to ensure that every essential worker – however precarious their job – knows they will get financial and personal support to self-isolate. Money, accommodation to protect vulnerable members of their household and the family or friends they provide unpaid care for. These are not optional extras. They are basics of infection control.” (paywalled link)

While I agree that these key workers should get the financial security they deserve – why not take 25% off the salary of the WFH civil serpents to pay for that? – I am astonished that this professor equates having a covid infection with ‘social deprivation’, and that ‘moar money’ equals ‘infection control’.

Ms Cassell seems to believe that key workers would go and get tested and then self-isolate if only they had more money, if only their jobs were secure, as those of the NHS staff and police are. Let’s not worry about safeguarding the electricity supply, the food deliveries, the removal of household refuse – provide key workers with money to self-isolate and thus ‘control the virus’. Words fail me!

Finally – the latest ‘news’ indicating already that BJ’s vaccination programme won’t work. It’s not because of the change in ‘jab strategy’, even as Mr V of SAGE told ‘the press’ that they’re still debating it but that, in fact, “we don’t know yet” (link, paywalled) if it’ll be effective against those scary mutations. No – it’s because ‘Our Sacred Cow’ is stamping her hooves. Just as in Lockdown 1 ‘Our NHS’ and PHE don’t want to cede a scintilla of their power.

For example, pharmacists – who have been giving flu jabs for years – aren’t envisaged to give covid jabs. The CEO of the group representing all pharmacies told the DT that “We’ve been telling the NHS that we’re ready, willing and desperate to help. But we’ve been met by a de facto silence.” (paywalled link). Sounds familiar, doesn’t it! In the same report we read that:

“Amid increasing questions over the urgency of the UK’s planned rollout, it emerged that there are five million doses of the Pfizer jab yet to be used, despite it being cleared over a month ago, and 3.5 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab held up waiting to pass the regulator’s safety checks.” (paywalled link)

Yes, well – safety first, by all accounts but why are the Pfizer jabs lingering in warehouses? Is it perhaps because of PHE ‘bureaucracy’? There’s a separate report which would indicate this:

“Public Health England has decided not to work on Sundays to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to NHS hospitals, according to leaked documents, amid growing questions over the urgency of the UK roll-out. Guidance issued to NHS Trusts warns that PHE will not deliver vaccines on Sundays or after agreed “cut-off points” every lunchtime, even if supplies are running low.” (paywalled link)

Doesn’t this make the ‘vaccine drive’ look like the next BJ shambles – a shambles for which we pay with more economic destruction and a generation of kids not being taught anything? A shambles produced by PHE and ‘Our NHS’ who would rather everything went the usual bureaucratic way than having to work on Sundays, the urgency of ‘covid deaths’ and all the rest notwithstanding? 

Is this not, in fact, proof again that the mad SAGEs and their helpers in ‘Our NHS’ prefer to keep the whole country in lockdowns, with brief respites?  They don’t have to pay for this – we do, and not just with our taxes. We pay with our deteriorating health, with uneducated kids, with more deaths from non-covid causes. Why is it that we are again asked to sacrifice for ‘Our NHS’ while that ‘Sacred Cow’ isn’t sacrificing anything, not even by working on Sundays?

We’re drifting into a society where ‘fear’ rules, where power-mad bureaucrats rule and where our elected representatives are too scared to do their duty. However, there’s the unintended consequence that, thanks to this latest lockdown, more of us will have time to watch, read and listen to the various lockdown sceptical videos, blogs and podcasts, to educate ourselves.

The time will surely come when we’ll get rid of those mad Lockdownians, showing them up for the naked covid emperors they are.

KBO!