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Post by chipbutty on Nov 27, 2020 20:13:07 GMT
As it turned out, the whole preface for a second lockdown was based on completely inaccurate and wildly overstated projections that had zero basis in fact and were comprehensively debunked in the days that followed. Now having tolerated a completely unnecessary four week lockdown (despite the above), millions of people now themselves on the cusp of being forced into a higher tier than the one they were in before lockdown, tiers that are also now harsher than the same level prior to lockdown. With a few notable press worthy exceptions (cynical – moi ?) and a clear effort to put the South into “ just shy of Armageddon for hospitality “ (aka tier 2), we’ve been tucked up royally.
Furthermore, this tier system will last until the 31st March 2021 as a minimum (with no MP vote due until then) and the only way to move to the lower tiers is if Matt Hancock decides it is to be so during his bi weekly review (anyone know what the parameters and hurdle rates are ?). However, let’s be realistic, there is no way on god’s earth any of the tier ratings will be dropped between now and March and I resign myself to another 4 months of this destructive nonsense.
Just in case it’s not blindingly obvious, in the new tier 3 zones, there is the very real possibility that by the end of March 2021, there will be businesses that have been forced to cease trading for almost 9 months, although gyms, hairdressers and beauty therapists (blessed are the minge waxers) will have only been closed for 5 of those 12 months).
As it stands today, the following I understand to be true:
> A Portuguese appeals court has ruled that PCR tests are unreliable and that it is unlawful to quarantine people based solely on a PCR test. The court stated, the test’s reliability depends on the number of cycles used and the viral load present. Citing Jaafar et al. 2020, the court concludes that: if someone is tested by PCR as positive when a threshold of 35 cycles or higher is used (as is the rule in most laboratories in Europe and the US), the probability that said person is infected is less than 3%, and the probability that said result is a false positive is 97%
> According to the BBC, 90,000 Liverpudlians were tested after one week of mass testing using the lateral flow test and only 336 of them tested positive, i.e. fewer than 0.4%. Almost all of these will be false positives as the lateral flow test has a false positive rate of 0.4%.
> As well as inflating the case count, false positives inflate the death count too, especially as any death with an incidental positive COVID test within prior 28 days is counted as COVID. So in the instance of you being taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack and test negative upon entry, if you subsequently test positive during your stay and die within 28 days of that test, you would be recorded as having died with Covid (assuming it’s not a false positive).
So – if you completely ignore the IFR for now, we are in a scenario where our freedoms and futures are being determined by data and statistics that are not fit for purpose. Instead they have “ given the false appearance of a deadly autumn epidemic when in fact the underlying signals, such as GP respiratory consultations, hospital admissions and overall deaths, are normal “. If you then try to understand the likelihood of death:
> Controversial research published by the WHO puts the average IFR for Covid at below 0.3% and if you are under 70 with no underlying health conditions, at 0.05% (In other words, for every 100,000 under 70s in good health who catch Covid, 50 would likely die). However if you look at the English NHS total Covid deaths to date (or in my case, up to 4pm on 25th November), it shows that of the total number of deaths involving a positive Covid test was 39,570, 35,073 were over 60 with a pre-existing condition (89%) and 20,656 were over 80 with a pre-existing condition (52%).
Does all of the above come anywhere near to justifying the proposed tiering that will take effect from Dec 2nd ? I would say not at all.
Is it any wonder why conspiracy theories are rife when 9 months in, we are faced with such wilfully perverse set of restrictions that will likely cause more damage than the disease they seek to mitigate ?
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Post by LandieMark on Nov 27, 2020 20:35:08 GMT
Yes, I agree.
It should be left up to the individual whether they hide at home or not. By all means quarantine if you have symptoms and a positive test, but the damage to the economy isn't worth it to lock everyone down.
The North East was reducing its cases well before the November lockdown and yet, we are in Tier 3. Our local MP is campaigning to get it lifted.
I am feeling incredibly angry at the moment.
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Post by Stuntman on Nov 27, 2020 21:11:52 GMT
Do you think this is fertile territory for Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party?
Whatever you think of Farage, I would absolutely never underestimate him.
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Post by LandieMark on Nov 27, 2020 21:13:42 GMT
Farage is an opportunist not to be underestimated. We haven't seen the last of him.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2020 21:35:49 GMT
I did think he was being very quiet.
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Post by ChrisM on Nov 27, 2020 22:27:58 GMT
I gave up being angry with the way that the government were handling the virus a few months back. IMHO their incompetence beggars belief. All of Surrey will go into Tier 2 after 2 December, whereas before Lockdown2 we were in Tier 1, and the infections have been dropping over the past 4 weeks from what I have read. It makes no sense.... except if the government is trying to control us. By March 2021 at this rate, some businesses will have basically not been trading for the best part of 12 months - an entire year. Unemployment benefit payouts will have to increase but there will be far fewer working taxpayers paying in to the system. I believe that the economy will be in a far bigger mess than was hinted at in the budget review earlier this week. I'll be very surprised if the economy only downturns by about 10%, I reckon 20 to 25% will be nearer the mark. We have to learn to live with the virus and just locking ourselves up until some miracle cure is found is not (IMHO) the way of proceeding. The number of infections may be rising in some areas at the moment, but surely it is generally rising amongst asymptomatic people. Apart from those who already have underlying health issues (most of whom are elderly anyway) I don't see figures indicating that there is an increase in the number of people being admitted into hospital with covid-19, or dying solely due to covid-19. I think we should all just be forced to wear a mask in public (no exceptions) and get on with our lives. Perish the though of Matt Hancock alone deciding if an area can change tier EDIT: This is not going to help matters much, either: Hundreds get wrong results due to Covid test error www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55107272 |
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Post by chipbutty on Nov 28, 2020 17:37:38 GMT
Absolutely
As I have mentioned before, my father is slap dab in the danger zone (68, type 2 diabetic, overweight and in less than perfect health). He has had an unpleasant year health wise (just had a colonoscopy, badly damaged his back in a fall 6 months ago) and whilst he would have high odds of surviving Covid, a bad dose would be extremely unpleasant and very likely lead to a lengthy stay in hospital. He and my mum have done a great job of isolating (although I know he is climbing the walls in boredom) and they have been very careful with visitors.
It’s pretty much agreed that we will not be visiting at Christmas, as on balance, it will be a fairly joyless gathering at opposite ends of the room being continually doused in antibac.
He is perfectly able to make sensible decisions and I am able to respect those decisions.
Besides, the logistics would be a complete nightmare as it’s an 8 hour round trip and a hotel would be required, but most hotels will be shut in tier 3 for obvious reasons.
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Post by LandieMark on Nov 28, 2020 17:51:37 GMT
COVID isn't pleasant - I am still not 100% nearly 2 months on so I sympathise with your family sitution and it is eminately sensible in the circumstances.
I can understand the first lockdown. The pressure from Captain Hindsight (Starmer) and indeed the public and what was happening in Italy led to that. The "free" money helped lead the public opinion IMO.
This second lockdown and the rest of the tiers have no justification. The NE was lowering the number of cases quite dramatically prior to the national lockdown, these have remained low and yet we are tier 3 and London is tier 2. There doesn't seem to be any logic to any of it.
Richard Holden is trying to get NW Durham downgraded.
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Post by michael on Nov 28, 2020 18:04:20 GMT
It’s a no win situation. The government is trying to avoid the scenes that Italy and Spain saw in hospitals, not only to save their political skins but also because it would send a negative message to other NHS users that they shouldn’t go in.
I’d love to think that this experience would enable a debate about the suitability of the NHS model but that’s impossible as it’s heresy against the national cult.
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Post by PG on Nov 28, 2020 19:19:34 GMT
I can understand the first lockdown. The pressure from Captain Hindsight (Starmer) and indeed the public and what was happening in Italy led to that. The "free" money helped lead the public opinion IMO. This second lockdown and the rest of the tiers have no justification. This is pretty much my view too. I just simply fail to understand how governments get themselves in situations where they just seem to keep digging in the hole they are in. And what is worse, as their "advice" is so skewed by group think, they probably do not even realise that are in a hole. And it's not just Covid. On almost any issue where any modicum of independent non-government sanctioned research is looked into, or even just a teeny bit of common sense, the same is found. Diesel cars and CO2; HS2; Covid; the NHS's god-like status; etc etc etc. We truly are lions led by donkeys. And Starmer and his ilk are just as bad. They'd be lock-down ultras. It's going to be interesting what happens in the US. Biden comes in - does he do a national lockdown? What happens if that fails to work? |
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Post by Alex on Nov 28, 2020 21:05:32 GMT
My wife had I have just spent the week rearranging our diaries and taking time off work because my youngest daughter has a school friend who had a positive result and named her as a close contact. However, at 11am on friday we were notified that there had been an error in the test and her friend had in fact not got a valid test result. I've never seen a child so desperate to get out the house and join her friends for history and german on a Friday afternoon. I'm assuming her friend was amongst the group of people who's tests were messed up.
I'm in two minds on the new tier system. I appreciate we need to be careful because the elderly and vulnerable could be really harmed by the virus but seeing our economy continue to be decimated and Rishi keep borrowing more money to pay people to be furloughed is going to harm my childrens generation even more. They will be faced with higher taxes for years to come to pay back all the money splurged by this government on an ineffective track and trace system and dodgy PPE sourced from a Turkish Del Boy. They will also be a generation whose education has suffered severe harm due to the lockdown and repeated periods of self isolation.
We as a family are taking sensible precautions. I'm following my works Covid risk assessment and my wife who is a teacher is following all the rules her school have in place. We don't have contact with her grandmother because shes in her mid 80s or her stepfather who is in his 70s and had heart problems. Isn't it about time the public were trusted? A lot of people who are breaking the rules are people acting like children because our government has treated them as children!
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Nov 28, 2020 22:12:47 GMT
I'm in two minds on the new tier system. I appreciate we. Isn't it about time the public were trusted? A lot of people who are breaking the rules are people acting like children because our government has treated them as children! When the Government announced the lockdown you had people packing into the pubs for a last blowout, hugging and kissing each other like long lost lovers. Three nights ago the police broke up a 300 person rave packed into a warehouse down the road from us. Sadly, people seem to enjoy behaving like children. |
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Post by Alex on Nov 29, 2020 8:36:06 GMT
But is there an argument that if the pubs were not closing down people wouldnt be packing into them for one last session?
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Post by racingteatray on Nov 29, 2020 9:12:02 GMT
If it's any consolation, The Sunday Times headline this morning is "Johnson in retreat as Tory revolt over tiers rocks No.10".
For those without subscriptions:
PM hints at looser restrictions for millions and whole-county lockdowns could be scrapped.
Boris Johnson capitulated to Tory MPs last night, announcing that he would reform his new coronavirus crackdown before Christmas after threats by backbenchers to vote down the government’s plans.
In a sign of disarray in Downing Street, the prime minister wrote to MPs, signalling that millions of people who will be hit with the toughest restrictions this week will see them eased on December 19.
He announced that the new rules would be scrapped altogether in February unless MPs want them to continue — putting an end to claims that tough restrictions will continue until Easter.
Millions of people whose towns and cities will be placed in tier 3 this week will be downgraded to tier 2. That will allow people to go to pubs and restaurants with those in their family bubbles as long as they eat a meal.
Johnson writes: “Where evidence shows the disease is in sustained decline, areas will be moved down.”
Those expected to benefit include 16.4 million people living in 88 boroughs in tier 3 where the Covid-19 infection rate is lower than for some areas in tier 2.
Johnson’s move came after 70 Tory MPs said they were prepared to vote against his plans when they come before parliament on Tuesday — putting the PM at the mercy of Labour. In his letter Johnson revealed that:
● The tiers plan will have a “sunset clause”, meaning it is abolished from February 3
● MPs will then get another vote on whether to continue with the same approach until March
● “Every local authority area and each region” will be reviewed every two weeks to see whether it should be in a lower tier — a signal the government is abandoning the approach that whole counties must be in the same tier even where they have a huge variance in infection rates
● The government will publish the precise criteria needed to ease restrictions
● The public will be able to see live data on their town or council, updated online every day
● The new tiers will be announced on December 17 and come into force two days later.
Behind the scenes it is understood that Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has been privately reassured that his region, home to 2.8 million people, is likely to be downgraded from tier 3 to tier 2.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has told MPs in Leicestershire that low-infection rural areas will be “decoupled” from the city of Leicester, which has a much higher incidence of the virus.
Johnson’s change of heart was hailed as “constructive” by Steve Baker, the commander of the rebels.
But it raised new questions about Johnson’s approach. Hours earlier Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, had published a 2,000-word article in The Times insisting that tiers must apply to entire counties because “casting the net wide is more effective”.
He also said hospitals could be overwhelmed without the curbs. But Tory MP Tobias Ellwood told the Observer that Gove had been “completely disingenuous because every one of our Nightingale [temporary hospitals] is underused. They are largely dormant.”
Other MPs said the health minister, Nadine Dorries, had told them finding staff for the seven Nightingales was difficult because they were seen as “dark and dingy”.
The move put Johnson on a collision course with scientists and health chiefs.
Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said only last week that while tier 3 would cut infections, tier 2 was capable only of “holding the line”.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, said: “Any decision taken now to relax the restrictions in the run-up to Christmas would be premature and full of risk. If the government gets this wrong there’s a real risk of a third surge in Covid cases in January or February, just when winter pressures on the health service are likely to be at their worst.”
Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Johnson says, “We are so nearly out of our captivity. But if we try to jump the fence now, we will simply tangle ourselves in the last barbed wire, with disastrous consequences for the NHS.”
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 0:00:28 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 30, 2020 9:21:00 GMT
Slight flaw to the argument for total financial ownership when no one is travelling anywhere so those WFH are simply amassing more liquid assets. Where the shares held by large investors are paying lower or no Dividends and their market values have slumped. No point arguing that that affects small investors more as the holdings by small investors are a gnats piss in the ocean. It affects their pensions but see the point about liquid assets above.
As to the small village issue: during the previous tiered system I was in tier 2, the country club in tier 1. Did I stop going or simply adhere to tier 2 rules in tier 1? Same for schools: 25% of our school kids were tier 1 but still got walked to school with parents from tiers 1 and 2. So that village: if it was in tier 1 but the shops, jobs, friends were in tiers 2 and 3 then the village would be in its own tier one lockdown. They’d all go mental pretty soon and start eating one another. By levelling the tiers across huge areas there’s no chance of “them” and “us” between adjacent villages because as soon as a tier 1 villager left their village they’d have to abide by whatever the rules were outside.
The tiers make fuck all difference in cities: London was packed yesterday even though no shops, bars or restaurants were open. It’s guidance to gain some control over the spread as opposed to a military curfew with armed militias wondering the streets shooting anyone without the correct shoelace pattern.
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Post by chipbutty on Nov 30, 2020 9:36:21 GMT
The problem Boris faces is that no one trusts him, so any promises to review each region every 2 weeks is essentially meaningless unless it is supported by a vote – nanny SAGE says you’ve all been naughty boys and girls, look at the graphs of doom, back into lockdown you go. As the expression goes, we’ve been diddled too many times previously.
Similarly, the promise to look at reducing the tiers in December means that the soonest you can go from tier 3 to tier 2 is December 19th (even if your area is one that should not be in tier 3 currently). I don’t see how this will help the hospitality industry at all as they’ve still lost the bulk of December. Anyway – who would bother opening given it would be so hard to re-stock at such short notice ?
This is an argument I would agree with, if you give people the facts that support solid advice, then people as a rule are generally sensible. Of course there are lunatics in every demographic, but when you take a heavy handed approach that is driven to induce fear supported by highly questionable data, more and more people will rebel. I cannot think of a single person I know who has followed the rules to letter since the summer – even the most ardent “ army on the streets “ types from March are bending the rules to suit. This will just get worse and I dare not think about the pockets of civil unrest that will pop up as we go into the new year and small business collapse starts to hit critical mass – furlough is next to bloody useless if staffing is only 30% of your costs and there is no revenue to service your considerable business debt (never mind the business owners needing to make a living).
I’ve looked into this Great Reset business and there are a few things you need to educate me on:
> If the elites plan to cancel individual debt in exchange for all your property (wipe your mortgage, but lose your house) – what are they going to do about the millions of people who own property debt free ?
> If they do take property to wipe out debt – what happens then ?, do you get to stay in your house for a rent ?, and if so, how is this fair when the size and standard of property that would be seized varies so much ? Are they going to bull doze everything and build tower blocks for all ?
> If this is the plan, then surely every MP in the western world (plus significant chunks of the government) must be part of the plan ? – have they got exemption from having their property stripped ?
The activity above would require a logistical operation of unimaginable scope and complexity that would take years of detailed planning and communication. It would have to be delivered (in the main) by the very people it seeks to enslave – which therefore means it will never happen. It would also require the most powerful people in the world to capitulate to one main individual – but that is the complete antithesis of how these individuals got to that position in the first place.
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Post by ChrisM on Nov 30, 2020 9:37:47 GMT
Ask yourself some questions.
Why is no one dying of the flu anymore?
Simple - because they are wearing face masks and this stops the transmission of the virus. Simple solution to the covid crisis is to make everyone wear a face mask in public and at work when near others, no exceptions, then we can all get back to "almost normality" |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Nov 30, 2020 10:09:09 GMT
Ask yourself some questions.
Why are sleepy villages where no one knows anyone who's had Covid, let alone died of it, suddenly finding themselves in tier 3 and no better off than they were in full lockdown?
Why are there no excess deaths in 2020?
Why is no one dying of the flu anymore?
Why does Covid 19 have no unique symptoms?
When we're told there are x many "new cases" today, what does that actually mean and why are they not properly explaining that? If a "new case" just means a positive test result it doesn't mean the person is ill or contagious.
Why are they using RT-PCR as a testing tool when that is not (and never was) its intended purpose?
Do you really believe that the body's natural immunity to Covid is short-lived? People who had SARS 1 are still immune today. They still haven't managed to invent a vaccine for that supposedly closely related disease 17 years later and yet somehow came up with one for the new SuperFlu in a matter of months. It's almost as if they knew what was coming, hmmm?
Why are there no excess deaths in 2020? No idea where you got this none sense from: www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4500www.healtheuropa.eu/uk-tops-excess-death-figures-in-first-wave/103653/www.theactuary.com/2020/11/26/uks-excess-death-toll-rises-around-64900fullfact.org/health/covid-deaths/We are currently tracking on 65k excess deaths this year in the UK. Why is no one dying of flu? Says who? fullfact.org/health/flu-pneumonia-death-years/Basically, at this point in the year (before the flu season has really started BTW), we have a lower than usual flu death rate, probably for the reasons above. As has been pointed out before the SARS vaccine research was used as the starting point for the COVID vaccines so they got a massive head start there, basically 70% of the work had been done. The SARS vaccine did not proceed to full clinical trials as the virus was successfully contained through quarantining and mask wearing, meaning there were not enough suffers to trial it. As for The Great Reset: file with Apollo Moon landing conspiracies, flat earth, 9/11 etc. I assume you don't accept digital tokens in the form of bank transfer and insist on being paid in gold? Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? And finally: www.businessinsider.com/psychologist-explains-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories-during-uncertain-times-2020-4?r=US&IR=T |
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