Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#361 Post by barkingmad » Thu Nov 19, 2020 5:12 pm

"I should have added allegedly! :ymblushing:"

Aaah, that old chestnut, frequently employed by Private Eye to keep the lawyers at bay.

Seriously though, folks, does anyone see the lockdown madness lasting until next summer as is being trailed? [-X

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#362 Post by barkingmad » Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:25 am

Good to see a group of the peasants who are currently being dealt a crap hand by the guvvment making their voices heard?

Perhaps less ‘woke’ snowflakes and hopefully more a hailstorm;

“A new student-led group has been started out of Oxford to raise awareness of why lockdowns are such a terrible idea. From their manifesto:

We are Unlock, a student-led campaign that aims to highlight the irrationality and inherent unfairness of lockdown policies.

Unlock believes that lockdowns are highly damaging, based on overzealous science, and contrary to the very foundations of our traditional British liberty. Our mission is to raise awareness about the unforeseen, true costs of lockdown – the shocking excess deaths, the mental health struggles, and the decades worth of damage to our small businesses. This campaign seeks to give a real voice to people who can testify to the impact of lockdown on their lives.

Our duty as citizens is to support the communities around us. Our aim is to increase public awareness of lockdown’s limitations, ultimately to push the government to rethink the cost of their actions.
The campaign has five goals:

Unlock business. We want to unlock the voices of small business owners who have borne the financial cost of lockdown.
Unlock healthcare. We want to unlock the voices of patients who have missed appointments, treatments and screenings, and what this means for them.
Unlock education. We want to unlock the voices of students who have had a demoralising university experience like none other.
Unlock sport. We want to unlock the voices of gym-goers, sports teams, and individuals who have been stopped from keeping fit and healthy.
Unlock life. We want to unlock the voices of people who want to regain their liberty and community, and are frustrated because they aren’t being listened to”.

When is the next General Election in the UK, somewhere in2024? The incumbent governing party are also going to hope the peasants vote for them as they look at the golden dawn of all-electric vehicles looming just 6 years after that election.

And the local elections due in 2021 will be a harbinger of things to come, unless they are cancelled using the excuse of Covid-1984 which is being abused on a gigantic scale to excuse guvvment and commercial organisations from performing as they should.

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#363 Post by barkingmad » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:10 am

Perhaps comedy is our best weapon against Totalitarian Government?


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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#364 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:17 am

The REALITY of lockdown by a NHS physician follows so this is medical care in the 21st Century and NOT an East European concentration camp during World War 2;

The Critic magazine has another piece by the Covid Physician on the effect of lockdowns. It is an extensive and wide-ranging critique of how the virus has been handled, written by an NHS doctor. It starts with a tale of the effect on the treatment of a patient in need of specialised care:

"Lockdown has dire, hidden consequences for unwell patients in general practice. Take for example the 34 year-old patient with motor neurone disease. English is a second language, she is an asylum seeker who thought she was escaping persecution and tyranny. In addition to the general muscular spasticity and weakness which will eventually lead to a slow death by respiratory failure she has a progressive bulbar palsy which means she can no longer speak nor swallow well. These will worsen. Each morning she risks a death by choking on her puréed breakfast. A feeding tube has been proposed, but she pretends to her specialist it hasn’t been. She is on medicines that sedate her. She can barely handle a mobile phone. Let us say life is already a multiple misery.

COVID-19 has brought her a special new hell. Carers avoid her due to the vulnerability her medical conditions bring to her. Speech and language therapists (SALTs) avoid her and make-believe care through Microsoft Teams. To make this virtual dystopia impressive and even better than the real thing they have given it an incredible name: The SALT proudly states: “Consultation done with AAC meeting”. What is that? I keep reading. My goodness, another Fourth Industrial revolution thing? Augmentative and Alternative Communication. To me, a simple video-call is demoralising doublespeak, for non-existent care by proxy.

My patient’s neurologist does the same: multi-conferencing the locked-down patient as she slowly rots in her asylum accommodation amidst a cold, bleak post-industrial pseudo-apocalypse. A pathetic dripping roast for everyone to make even easier money off. It occurs to me that the dehumanising, forced-impoverishment and restrictions of my refugee and asylum patient group is now upon us all, meagre social credits, not allowed to work, restricted movement, restricted access to healthcare. We are all in the same lockdown boat, now.
It concludes with an excoriation of Johnson, Whitty, Vallance et al, who worry the author far more than COVID-19:

The Prime Minister is fond of saying he is following the science. He is not. He is absolving himself of command, control and blame by saying so. He may also be too classically-educated to appreciate he is not following the science with lockdown, masks and social-distancing. He is ensconced in an echo-chamber following a narrow body of nominal rubber-stamping medics, scientists and mathematicians without the correct skill sets, incentive nor personality traits to think outside of the box. They are the ones who ruthlessly rise to the top and become the best government mandarins in Whitehall. Ambitious, ladder-climbing, back-stabbing Et tu Brute? sociopaths in the image of their Caesar.

While they do politics, we are suffering and dying in their Yes Minister tragifarce for real. They could lock us up forever based upon their over-reactive criteria. Johnson, Whitty, Vallance, Hancock, and SAGE worry me more than COVID-19 and are far more dangerous to the UK. They have infantilised medicine. What would they do to us if a truly awesome contagion were to turn up?

Professors Hancock and Whitty have erased another fundamental medical principle from medicine: Primum Non Nocere: first do no harm.

The friends of lockdown(s) on the O-N forum are invited to rant about this effect of our national house arrest policy and to explain why it is "good for us".

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#365 Post by barkingmad » Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:34 am

Lest we forget history (yet again!) here is a reminder of how the shock horror of winter death rate increase was managed in previous years and explains that, as usual in British wintertime, hospital admissions WILL peak;

An NHS frontline nurse of some 17 years clinical experience is here with some observations about how ludicrous it is to be locking down to “protect the NHS” when the NHS is often in crisis during the winter.

—-The NHS’s “most serious winter crisis for many years”. A “lack of staff and beds”. 75% of acute medicine doctors say their “hospitals are not properly prepared”. An “inability to cope with the number of patients arriving”. The NHS “not well-equipped to deal with it”. Over 64,000 all-cause deaths in January alone.

Are these predictions for this winter?

No. It is what happened three years ago in the winter of 2017-18. There were more than 50,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales during that period – the highest recorded excess winter deaths since the winter of 1975-76*.

Was there a daily death toll on the BBC news? Do you even remember hearing it in the news?

I remember it actually as I was working in the NHS throughout. Influenza was rife, hospitals were full, ambulances frequently diverted, queues of patients nursed on hospital trolleys in corridors, bed managers scoured the wards for potential discharges. The NHS was overwhelmed.

But I didn’t hear anyone calling for lockdown back then.
This year, on the other hand, critical care bed occupancy was below average as it peaked in mid-November,—-

*But let us NOT forget winter 1968-69 with EIGHTY THOUSAND excess deaths, but in those days there were NO sightings of the lesser-spotted Hancock nor any of the tit family Whitty, Vallance and Ferguson nor their predecessors.

So WTF has world guvvments deliberately, despite warnings to the contrary, wrecked and are continuing to destroy the future for the very generation who are currently least affected by the ‘plague’? :-?

And then, casting doubt on the “Widely-respected ONS” stats, up pops this from the British Medical Journal accusing HMG of issuing inflated figures for the winter 2017-18;

https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2795/rr-6

So who can the British peasantry believe to supply accurate data on the topic and WHY would HMG deliberately massage the figures upwards, unless it was designed to pressure the Treasury to allocate more (much-needed) dosh to the NHS?

It should come as no surprise now that more than half of the polled UK peasantry sample expressed a lack of confidence in the handling of the pan(dem)ic, partly due to the contradictory, confusing and mixed messages being emitted from Drowning Street.

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#366 Post by barkingmad » Sun Dec 20, 2020 9:29 am

As it goes from bad to worse to positively insane in the UK, I make NO apologies for quoting my favourite senior beak’s opinion on the lockdown fetish currently afflicting the pea-sized brains of the Drowning Street set;

Former Supreme Court Justice Lord Jonathan Sumption has written a searing piece in the Telegraph pointing out what should be obvious by now, but isn’t to our Government and its blinkered scientific advisers: that lockdowns don’t work.

“Looking at Europe and North America, two things occur. The first is that the virus has become endemic. The consensus of epidemiologists is that the vaccine will mitigate its impact but will not suppress it. The second is that the progress of the virus once it becomes endemic is broadly the same in populous countries, regardless of the policies of their governments. There have been savage lockdowns, as in Spain, which put the army on the streets to stop people going out, even for exercise. There have been purely advisory regimes, like Sweden’s.

Between these extremes there has been every possible variant. Some people, like the British, are said to be temperamentally resistant to being told what to do while others, like the Swedes or the Germans, are thought to be naturally compliant. The common factor is that they have failed. The Prime Minister’s extravagant rhetoric (“wrestling the disease to the ground”, etc.) sounds increasingly ridiculous.

Even with a vaccine as our exit route, this ought to make us pause before we start calling for more of a policy that has so demonstrably failed. Logically, there are only two possible explanations for its failure.

One is that the virus is more potent than governments. It may be that even the minimum of human interaction is enough to defeat the policy. In London, infections actually went up in the second lockdown. The other is that, whatever we do, the basic instincts of humanity, which is fundamentally sociable, will reassert themselves.

Governments and laws operate in a human environment. A policy that only works by suppressing our humanity is unlikely to work at all. Life is risky. A policy that seeks to eliminate risk ends up trying to eliminate life. We have to re-examine the whole concept that governments can simply turn social existence on and off at will, treating us as passive instruments of state policy.

This is not just a practical problem. It is a moral problem. What moral right does the state have to expect us to forswear our humanity to achieve its objectives, however admirable?
The central problem is expecting the healthy and low-risk majority to sacrifice so much, in many cases even their lives through missed medical care or suicide, for a vulnerable minority who could, if they wished and with some assistance, shield themselves.

COVID-19 is a serious threat to life and health for certain people: those over 65 and/or with identifiable clinical vulnerabilities.

Encouraging the vulnerable to isolate themselves speaks to their instinct for self-preservation. It goes with the grain of human nature. It is also rational – the onus should surely be on those most at risk to modify their way of life so as to limit that risk.

Ordering the young and healthy to isolate so as to avoid infecting the vulnerable, when the great majority of the vulnerable can keep themselves out of harm’s way if they wish, is not rational, conflicts with every instinct of social animals and defies human nature. Worse than that, it is morally disreputable. If you doubt me, then pause to think about the damage all this is inflicting on the young.

They are at virtually no risk of dying or even becoming seriously ill. “Long Covid” affects a small number and is not mortal. Yet the young and economically active are bearing the brunt of the Government’s measures. They are seeing their careers and job prospects destroyed before their eyes. We will get over COVID-19 eventually. Many of them will never get over the long-term effects of the countermeasures.
Some call this approach selfish. But Lord Sumption is having none of it. “The real selfishness,” he says, “is the selfishness of those who are willing to inflict all of these disasters on other people in the hope of enhancing their own security.”

Some may think this too long a read, but it seems to be one of the rare few glimmers of articulate commonsense available on this dark Sunday morning in blighted Blighty!

ribrash

Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#367 Post by ribrash » Sun Dec 20, 2020 10:00 am

barkingmad wrote:
Sun Dec 20, 2020 9:29 am
As it goes from bad to worse to positively insane in the UK, I make NO apologies for quoting my favourite senior beak’s opinion on the lockdown fetish currently afflicting the pea-sized brains of the Drowning Street set;

Former Supreme Court Justice Lord Jonathan Sumption has written a searing piece in the Telegraph pointing out what should be obvious by now, but isn’t to our Government and its blinkered scientific advisers: that lockdowns don’t work.

“Looking at Europe and North America, two things occur. The first is that the virus has become endemic. The consensus of epidemiologists is that the vaccine will mitigate its impact but will not suppress it. The second is that the progress of the virus once it becomes endemic is broadly the same in populous countries, regardless of the policies of their governments. There have been savage lockdowns, as in Spain, which put the army on the streets to stop people going out, even for exercise. There have been purely advisory regimes, like Sweden’s.

Between these extremes there has been every possible variant. Some people, like the British, are said to be temperamentally resistant to being told what to do while others, like the Swedes or the Germans, are thought to be naturally compliant. The common factor is that they have failed. The Prime Minister’s extravagant rhetoric (“wrestling the disease to the ground”, etc.) sounds increasingly ridiculous.

Even with a vaccine as our exit route, this ought to make us pause before we start calling for more of a policy that has so demonstrably failed. Logically, there are only two possible explanations for its failure.

One is that the virus is more potent than governments. It may be that even the minimum of human interaction is enough to defeat the policy. In London, infections actually went up in the second lockdown. The other is that, whatever we do, the basic instincts of humanity, which is fundamentally sociable, will reassert themselves.

Governments and laws operate in a human environment. A policy that only works by suppressing our humanity is unlikely to work at all. Life is risky. A policy that seeks to eliminate risk ends up trying to eliminate life. We have to re-examine the whole concept that governments can simply turn social existence on and off at will, treating us as passive instruments of state policy.

This is not just a practical problem. It is a moral problem. What moral right does the state have to expect us to forswear our humanity to achieve its objectives, however admirable?
The central problem is expecting the healthy and low-risk majority to sacrifice so much, in many cases even their lives through missed medical care or suicide, for a vulnerable minority who could, if they wished and with some assistance, shield themselves.

COVID-19 is a serious threat to life and health for certain people: those over 65 and/or with identifiable clinical vulnerabilities.

Encouraging the vulnerable to isolate themselves speaks to their instinct for self-preservation. It goes with the grain of human nature. It is also rational – the onus should surely be on those most at risk to modify their way of life so as to limit that risk.

Ordering the young and healthy to isolate so as to avoid infecting the vulnerable, when the great majority of the vulnerable can keep themselves out of harm’s way if they wish, is not rational, conflicts with every instinct of social animals and defies human nature. Worse than that, it is morally disreputable. If you doubt me, then pause to think about the damage all this is inflicting on the young.

They are at virtually no risk of dying or even becoming seriously ill. “Long Covid” affects a small number and is not mortal. Yet the young and economically active are bearing the brunt of the Government’s measures. They are seeing their careers and job prospects destroyed before their eyes. We will get over COVID-19 eventually. Many of them will never get over the long-term effects of the countermeasures.
Some call this approach selfish. But Lord Sumption is having none of it. “The real selfishness,” he says, “is the selfishness of those who are willing to inflict all of these disasters on other people in the hope of enhancing their own security.”

Some may think this too long a read, but it seems to be one of the rare few glimmers of articulate commonsense available on this dark Sunday morning in blighted Blighty!
+10

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#368 Post by barkingmad » Sun Dec 20, 2020 11:23 am

Worth a quick read, then further research, an original article by philosopher Sean Walsh who thinks the people running the show in the UK are worse than liars – they’re fakers. Here’s the opening section:

“In 1986 the philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote an article called ‘On *****‘ in which he pointed out that there is an epistemological and therefore morally significant difference between lying and faking. When you lie, he argued, you inadvertently disclose that you have some concern for the truth. To fake, on the other hand, is to reach for whatever ***** you can spout in service of your desired end.

This lack of concern for truth is what makes the chancer worse than the liar. The faker, having lost any interest in separating the true from the false, will inevitably end up deceiving himself. He has no skin in the game. The liar is at least theoretically capable of being brought to book; the faker is beyond help. His world is fundamentally distorted.

The histrionic response to COVID-19 has shown that we are presided over by a Lockdown Sanhedrin, the High Priests of which are all fakers. These are not dispassionate and objective observers of “the science”, because science, properly done, eschews fakery. They are people trapped in the addiction of authoritarianism. And self-deception is a driver of that pathology. There is a bewildering disparity between the ‘data’ they offer us and the homily they compose from it. When you acquire the habit of lying to yourself you end up not being able to spot when you look ridiculous to other people”.

And this is what’s happened.

“Was it for this that Daddy died”? ~X(

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#369 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:57 pm

Although this interview is from 8 months ago, it may serve for some reflection on WTF we are currently doing by wrecking the future of what used to be described as the "civilised World"?

https://unherddev.wpengine.com/thepost/ ... om-sweden/

Salient points for those who may not wish to take time out to view/listen are as summarised here;

UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
The paper was very much too pessimistic
Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
The results will eventually be similar for all countries
Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available.

Worth pondering as the madness of crowds dribbles into 2021 without any alleviation of the collateral damage. ~X(

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#370 Post by G-CPTN » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:07 pm

barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:57 pm

The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
Is that 0.1% (1 in 1000) of infected patients or of the whole population?

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#371 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:13 pm

G-CPTN wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:07 pm
barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:57 pm

The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
Is that 0.1% (1 in 1000) of infected patients or of the whole population?
I dunno, I'd have look back through the vid and consult reliable stats, the latter are difficult to come by in the UK due to the 'massaging' of just about any number for their nefarious purposes.

I'm happy to take my chances either way...

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#372 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 23, 2020 6:04 pm

G-CPTN wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:07 pm
barkingmad wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:57 pm

The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
Is that 0.1% (1 in 1000) of infected patients or of the whole population?
I reviewed this very telling video and I understand he meant 0.1% of the whole population.

Even at that figure I’ll take my chances trying to enjoy what’s left of my life.

Has anyone here had a look at QALY and assessed their personal valuation??!

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#373 Post by barkingmad » Wed Dec 23, 2020 6:22 pm

Some more stats on how to die, before the topic and the ultimate task was overtaken by politicians obsessed by bad meeja reports and the likelihood of lawsuits over granny croaking it by the open window;

https://www.theguardian.com/news/databl ... wales-2009

Yes, I know the figures are from a time of innocence nearly a decade ago, but we’re now closer than ever to “sabre-toothed tiger outside the cave territory” and I can’t sleep at night worrying over it all!

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#374 Post by barkingmad » Thu Dec 24, 2020 10:03 am

Some more reading in case you wonder WTF is going on during what should be the ‘festive season’?

https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns- ... -evidence/

Then heed the advice given in this golden oldie, but beware turning on the TV and/or radio or it will spoil the effect;



Aaaaah vinyl, in the days when men were men and had sheep for breakfast, but not in the Welsh mode... =))

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#375 Post by barkingmad » Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:49 am

More from the Branch Covidians, still taking a very sideways look at Soviet Britain;

Ten Reasons to be Anti-Lockdown.

Warning, coffin-dodging bedwetters are advised to look away now due to upsetting content;

1) The research: While those who oppose lockdowns have rigorously sought to justify their position with research – and can reference tens of studies as to the lack of efficacy of lockdowns (or stringent measures under different names) – the Government has been capable only of publishing one graph in their cost-benefit analysis of the tiers which appeared to show a correlation between Tier 3 measures and a reduction in cases (since discredited).

2) The use of data: While those who oppose lockdowns have analysed all data in as close to real time as possible, the ‘data’ used to justify lockdowns have been cherry-picked and often predictive, while being based on spurious assumptions that have repeatedly been proved inaccurate.

3) The source and balance of information: While those who oppose lockdowns possess no bias in obtaining their information, the Government is informed on the risks by a number of committees (Sage, Nervtag, SPI-M) whose sole responsibility is to consider the virus and present the risks of that virus.

4) The expertise of sources: While those who oppose lockdowns have been entertained by commentators, cartoonists, comedians, and so on, they have been informed by scientists and medical professionals (Gupta, Heneghan, Spector, Yeadon, Craig, et al.). 5) The Government, however, has a disturbing proportion of social scientists or behavioural scientists (with no relevant expertise) informing each of their actions. Devi Sridhar, one of the chief “scientific” advisors to the Scottish Government, has a PhD in social anthropology.

6) The fear campaign: While those who oppose lockdowns have sought to bring joy, maintain sanity, spread compassion, and care for people – all people – the Government has operated a campaign of fear and propaganda unlike anything we have seen before in this country. Were this situation a severe threat to life, the message would undoubtedly be one of “Keep Calm and Carry On”; there is a reason that the first piece of advice in any crisis is always to not panic: level-headedness leads to good decision making.

7) The costs (part 1 – health): While those who oppose lockdowns plead to the masses to understand how depression has tripled in 16-39 year-olds this year, how still births have potentially quadrupled this year, how the largest underlying factor in deaths of those suffering with dementia or Alzheimer’s (which contributes to c.10% of deaths in the UK each year) is loneliness and that the treatment of the suffering elderly – stripping them of dignity, of compassion, of their grip on reality – has been a death sentence in and of itself, how domestic abuse has soared, and many other factors, the Government appears blinkered to any health costs that are not Covid related.

8) The costs (part 2 – economy): While those who oppose lockdowns seek to understand the economic costs, and seem to understand that economic costs cannot simply be separated from health costs (killing small businesses kills livelihoods, drives up depression, drives up inequality – which has been shown to be more correlated with Covid-related deaths than the severity of lockdown measures, drives down tax revenues, drives down potential spending on healthcare, drives down life expectancy), the Government seems content to prioritise health over the economy (which doesn’t make sense as explained).
9) The costs (part 3 – culture): While those who oppose lockdowns seek to support the culture of this country – be that in supporting small businesses, art galleries, museums, music, pubs, or sport – the Government seems content to simply erase what it means to be British.

10) Censorship and debate: While those who oppose lockdowns are constantly appealing for open debate and free speech, the Government avoids open debate, seeking instead to censor dissenting voices. Further, as there is a push to censor any “misinformation”, one can quite easily conclude that the mass of information available, and uncensored, from dissenting voices must therefore be much closer to irrefutable having had to pass a much higher standard in order to simply be available.
Motivation: While those who oppose lockdowns have invested time and effort, the Government has invested near on half a trillion pounds of the people’s money in their “fight against the virus”. Should that be proven to be a waste, it would lose power, lose credibility, lose everything. While those who oppose lockdowns and those who support lockdowns alike have been able to achieve some degree of fame and notoriety through positioning themselves centre-stage, those who oppose lockdowns have been subject to ridicule, defamation, slander, and abuse; they have risked their careers and reputations. They have done this for what they have believed is right and worth fighting for; they have done this to fight for each and every one one of us; they have done this in the name of compassion. ~X(

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#376 Post by barkingmad » Sun Jan 03, 2021 12:29 pm

In case anyone here had not noticed the continuation of virtual house arrest and the virtual confiscating of passports, here is a little reminder of the dissenters out there and why they are so vilified;

"Lockdown sceptics have made all kinds of important, well-reasoned, fact-based arguments against the lockdowns and other restrictions that have been imposed upon us. The problem of ‘deaths with’ COVID-19; the many issues with the accuracy of PCR tests; the overinflation of the IFR; the comparisons to other diseases; the excess death charts; the fact that the NHS is always nearly overwhelmed every year. None of it has cut through, because most people just don’t respond to fact-based argument. They respond to what they consider to be the moral truth. More importantly, they really don’t respond to fact-based argument if that would mean owning up to being immoral and abnormal. If in order to change your mind you have to become a pariah, then human psychology 101 provides a quick answer: you won’t change your mind.

Early on the in pandemic, the television news was almost nothing but emotion. Stories about young people, children, and key workers getting sick and dying. People weren’t interested in ‘the science’. They were interested in how awful the virus was and how scared they were of something happening to them or a loved one. How different things might be now if there had also been regular stories in the news about people who had lost a loved one due to a failure to get medical treatment, people sent into downward spirals of depression due to social deprivation or job loss, children whose development has been damaged by lack of education or socialisation, people with severe mental health problems deprived of face to face treatment, and so on? Maybe this is the sort of thing that is now required, in recognition that this war has been lost, but that others will follow.

I await incoming from the Establishment bed-wetters but DILLIGAF?

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#377 Post by AtomKraft » Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:02 am

We have now settled in our farmhouse in a small village in Bulgaria.
There's no Covid in the village, we have 2000m2 of garden and no neighbours.
Life is great!👍 And cheap, as was our new house.

Free speech is here, you can say what you like as most locals won't understand you!

I feel sorry for my fellow Brits and Scots, but as that old saying goes, 'Those prepared to sacrifice freedom in order to gain a little safety, deserve neither freedom nor safety'.

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#378 Post by AtomKraft » Tue Jul 06, 2021 5:34 pm

There are many folk in the U.K. Who really like some of the more controlling aspects of lockdown, and frankly they'd like it to continue- for ever if required.

The left are going to campaign and push a 'Zero Covid' strategy, and insist that state intervention in our lives continues "for safety reasons".

I forecast that ending the lockdown would be a much trickier prospect than starting it. I guess we are about to find out exactly how tricky?

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#379 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Jul 06, 2021 5:59 pm

To a point AK. As Farage said, we now have over 70 millions with millions more immigrants than was thought. What Covid and lock down has done is give us space. Lock down has frustrated my wife but had far less impact on me. I suspect this enforced distancing has given many of us space, town and shops less crowded. Car parks empty. Actually quite enjoyable. All very selfish of course.

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Re: Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

#380 Post by AtomKraft » Tue Jul 06, 2021 10:22 pm

Clearly, Boris has decided to let the virus rip. Wisely IMHO.

The vaccine will keep hospital admissions and deaths down.

The young will spread the bug, aided by the vaccinated.

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