Just a point of precision: COVID, or “the pandemic”, has had almost no impact on our economy. “COVID-related health measures”, on the other hand, have had a massive impact.
This isn’t just a grumble from a lockdown skeptic. It matters how we think of this thing going forward. Every stupid face mask rule or social distancing law has a cost. It’s becoming increasingly clear that even as the efficacy of mitigation remains doubtful, these costs, when compounded, can be quite high.
Thank you for voicing what many people feel. This Covid brouhaha is a very peculiar phenomenon and there will be a reckoning in the next couple of years. I constantly berate those who wear a mask unnecessarily (nearly always women). Truly some are so sheep-like they consider it no imposition but it’s now their new normal. We must fight this supine acceptance.
Dr Leah Remeika-Dugan
3 years ago
We don’t have a pandemic.
We have a virus which ranked THIRD this year 2020 *behind* Influenza B then Influenza A. That is the # of infections were ranked : influenza b, influenza a, covid 19 (in that order).
We DO have a legacy of an epidemic of fear caused by a FALSE narrative which some people describe as a hoax.
Unless we begin to critically question the narrative – we won’t survive this narrative.
That requires stepping out of the tribe of agreement and unpopularly calling out the deception – and I hope we can very very soon take potent action steps to push back before it’s too late.
Well I’ve been calling it the ‘scamdemic’ more or less from the start. As you say, we need to critically question the narrative. And not only with regard to Covid but with regard to more or less every aspect of life and governance in the West. Personally I think it may be too late, such is the extent to which the western mind has been both corrupted and turned to mush.
If it is a scam, which I definitely think it is, then I don’t think we’re finished with the overall plan behind it. My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that a storm is brewing that will soon (in the next few months) reveal more of what this plan is, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, and will seek to impose further restrictions and controls at a global level. The good news is that, to me, people certainly are waking up as never before and, despite appearances, I think the sinister forces behind the manipulation are doomed to failure, exposure and permanent dismantling. I think they know their time is over and we will see evidence of this as they become more and more desperate and take their behaviour to a point of extremity from which there is no return for them into the shadows from which they’ve always operated.
I hope so. I personally don’t think the virus is a scam, it does exist, but the response to it has been blown out of all proportion because it quickly became a tool to beat the populists with. The main target here is Trump in my opinion, so if he loses the US election, positive outcome achieved, message changed, and we return back to some semblance of normal. If he wins, this either gets ramped up again, or another, equally insidious, agenda is pursued … I might be wrong, but it will be interesting to see what happens this November …
Curious that an increasing amount of Doctors are now expressing themselves with views such as the above. Do I detect a shift in the story line? Write this whilst listening to a sublime bit of music by Augustus Pablo. If you want to seek out a better reality……..
One million dead people ( numbers rising daily ) would I’m sure heartily disagree with your sentiments …………… if they could . What was the gist of Darwin’s words, ” Those of the species that fail to adapt will not survive in the long term “.
We may well need to permanently adapt for Corona 19 as the common cold research ran for over 50 years without finding a cure for the common cold , just a few fairly ineffective things to treat the resultant symptoms .
I wonder if you read the comment by Doctor Remeika- Dugan carefully? You appear to have missed the first section:- ‘We have a virus which ranked THIRD this year 2020 *behind* Influenza B then Influenza A. That is the # of infections were ranked : influenza b, influenza a, covid 19 (in that order).’ Why are you not more concerned about Influenza B and A more than Covid 19 given this situation? The elderly and vulnerable die every year from these and, according to many sources, in greater numbers than Covid 19 even this year. You are right that we almost certainly have to accept that no cure can be found and that the virus is here to stay like colds or the flu. Have you asked yourself why the world has never gone into lockdown because of these? Have you considered the consequences of the lockdown in terms of the physiological and psychological damage done? The deaths of people unable or unwilling to access regular health care because of the pervasive fear and the virtual shutdown of the NHS for ordinary services. There are many eminent doctors and scientists from relevant fields who do not agree with the prevailing narrative, but whose voices are censored or face attempts at discrediting them. Too many people are still swayed by the emotive messages of danger, rather than medical research. Isn’t it time to make your decisions about medical matters with your intellect rather than your emotions? Adaptation to a flu-like but actually less deadly virus should not mean lockdowns and face masks for 7 Billion people to protect the vulnerable few.
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Barely any mention of working class jobs all about the middle class professionals but I suppose you did not care when mass EU movement affected us because it did not effect you, so nothing changes. Welcome to the world we have had to live in for decades
No British workers are “lazy” and should “learn new [unspecified] skills”. Nothing to do with lots of motivated and skilled workers coming to a (relatively) high paid market, saturating the work force. Nope.
Heard that countless times from otherwise sensible and moderate people.
What never fails to amaze me is how easily people rolled over and accepted the changes to the retirement age, the aim of living and working in a modern society should be to better the working and living conditions of those taking part, more holiday entitlement and a lower retirement age should have been the goal, instead regardless of the pandemic we are facing more poverty as we get older, we will be more reliant on benefits as out health deteriorates and more likely to be unemployed well before retirement age, a backward step by any description.
Olaf Felts
3 years ago
I should by now be resisting the urge to make any comment about covi world – alas cannot help myself. In my youth as I was trawling through the writings of the likes of Satre, Camus, Kant, Nietzsche, Kafka, Plato etc., I could not help but reflect that wisdom escapes the vast majority of the human race and I am now living the daily confirmation of this. We have centuries of amassed knowledge but appear to have learnt so little. I could easily weep if I was not so busy laughing. Take a look at the Lockdown Sceptic website of a picture of primary school children sitting masked at their shielded desks – indeed an alternative reality. Our ability to believe the most implausible seems to know no bounds. Franz Kafka’s The Trial has to stand as the most revealing exposition of the human condition – covi world revisited.
We humans do seem to have an almost infinite capacity for believing the incredible against the evidence of our own eyes, especially if the incredible is coming from an authority figure. Every time I go shopping I feel like a traitor for wearing a mask, but am not allowed into the supermarket without one. I do like to eat, so I wear one and hate myself every second it is on. I despair when I see, like today, Sunday, a healthy man of about fifty striding down our deserted street at 6am wearing a mask, or young people doing the same. I am fortunate in that my wife is as sceptical as I am. My close friends have very different views and it is seriously affecting their marriage. I’m sure they aren’t alone. I try to express my views and concerns as calmly as possible to anyone I talk to about the lockdown and find people are quite divided on the topic. From my point of view, the only way to counter the fear and panic is with the facts as far as we know them. I realise that the truth has become for many a matter of opinion (This is my truth, what’s yours?). I still prefer my beliefs to be based on the best evidence we have. All the evidence at the moment suggests that I’ve woken up in a parallel universe.
The problem is, Simon, that the people are, at large, suffering from PTSD because they’ve been exposed (via msm) to medical carnage, graphically and relentlessly paraded in front of them without the medical training for coping with what they’re seeing and hearing.
When, factually, the overall survival rate is 99.97% (though I’m sure to the public, a percentage of statistically negligible deaths is meaningless to them whenever it’s mentioned, regarding to come to grips with what has been paraded before them). This doesn’t account for the vent mgmt issues (no further comments on that from me).
Relentless. Much like … at least what it reminds me of is War of The Worlds, when the storyline was read out dramatised on the radio a hundred years ago and the poor people, then, had no preloaded skills to distinguish fact from fiction. If we recall, people actually thought Martians were invading the Earth and by and large they reacted to the playbook on the radio broadcast.
I was also just thinking about the turn of phrase, “when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true”.
By the way this is my first opportunity to review the previous comments. Thank you for speaking up (above).
This also reminds me of the coral snake for serpent phobics. As there’s a benign snake that looks very similar. A. Coral snake = RED ON YELLOW KILLS THE FELLOW B. king snake = RED ON BLACK WON’T HURT JACK Yet…for the truly fearful, they’ll kill that poor king snake *every* time – just in case.
If humankind doesn’t critically question this narrative, there’s going to be no more king snakes — and only coral snakes.
Good Wishes
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Yet we learned today that retail sales grew 3% in July relative to July 2019. I have read countless articles like this. Indeed, I’ve been reading articles like this since the early 1990s. At this point nobody knows how it’s all going to play out.
Interesting Fraser – there’s also data out there that since the imposition of the mask, footfall in supermarkets has dropped some couple of million and on-line shopping has increased. Let me take Alexander Johnson by the hand and walk him through an average town centre and see the empty and shutdown shops.
David Gould
3 years ago
Welcome to the world of reality, once you get to about 45 it’s usual for your income to reduce employment by employment unless you are very lucky . I gather it is because most folk in that age group & above as employees are thought to have peaked in their fitness of body & mind and their ability to adapt .
Now . for the women in this group add in the onset of their menopause and how it screws their heads & lives up , Drag in the casualties of it in the male population and it’s easy to see why your earning capacity get reduced as you get older . The only way I see out of it is to be self employed in a fairly non physical theatre of work and coin it whilst you can before Alzheimer’s , wacky baccy etc. etc. or alcohol destroys the old grey matter & the grim reaper takes over hosting duties .
Scott Powell
3 years ago
The LAST form of diversity you will ever see pushed by the media is for AGE diversity. You’ll get someone’s sexual preference first. Then someone who has x percent of some ethnic minority that is the flavour of the day. Absolute last will be someone who has actually been though sh*t, and seen a lot. No, their viewpoint will be the LAST to be considered.
Olaf Felts
3 years ago
Absolutely irrelevant to the below other than – one positive thing of covi world is that it has highlighted to me that there are many people out there with whom I would really enjoy the company of over a beer or two and a jolly good irreverent chat – discussing truth and integrity perhaps! Bless you all.
Not sure how thought through this article is…Some young people are fast, effective, cheap and reliable at work. However way more than half are not. As an old broom that knows the corners i can match any youngster who sweeps clean in both hands on manual work and computer based engineering, and far outstrip them in sales and project management . When they are 50+ they’ll hopefully be as good as me. If the woman in the article is any good at sales she’ll be straight back in as good work winners/closers are like hen’s teeth. Though if she’s only getting 45k perhaps she’s not so hot or stuck in a low profit sector? There are still a lot of eat what you kill sales jobs out there and if your present employer won’t give you 30-40% of your net profit then there are plenty that will.
Just a point of precision: COVID, or “the pandemic”, has had almost no impact on our economy. “COVID-related health measures”, on the other hand, have had a massive impact.
This isn’t just a grumble from a lockdown skeptic. It matters how we think of this thing going forward. Every stupid face mask rule or social distancing law has a cost. It’s becoming increasingly clear that even as the efficacy of mitigation remains doubtful, these costs, when compounded, can be quite high.
Thank you for voicing what many people feel. This Covid brouhaha is a very peculiar phenomenon and there will be a reckoning in the next couple of years. I constantly berate those who wear a mask unnecessarily (nearly always women). Truly some are so sheep-like they consider it no imposition but it’s now their new normal. We must fight this supine acceptance.
We don’t have a pandemic.
We have a virus which ranked THIRD this year 2020 *behind* Influenza B then Influenza A. That is the # of infections were ranked : influenza b, influenza a, covid 19 (in that order).
We DO have a legacy of an epidemic of fear caused by a FALSE narrative which some people describe as a hoax.
Unless we begin to critically question the narrative – we won’t survive this narrative.
That requires stepping out of the tribe of agreement and unpopularly calling out the deception – and I hope we can very very soon take potent action steps to push back before it’s too late.
God help us all.
Well I’ve been calling it the ‘scamdemic’ more or less from the start. As you say, we need to critically question the narrative. And not only with regard to Covid but with regard to more or less every aspect of life and governance in the West. Personally I think it may be too late, such is the extent to which the western mind has been both corrupted and turned to mush.
If it is a scam, which I definitely think it is, then I don’t think we’re finished with the overall plan behind it. My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that a storm is brewing that will soon (in the next few months) reveal more of what this plan is, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, and will seek to impose further restrictions and controls at a global level. The good news is that, to me, people certainly are waking up as never before and, despite appearances, I think the sinister forces behind the manipulation are doomed to failure, exposure and permanent dismantling. I think they know their time is over and we will see evidence of this as they become more and more desperate and take their behaviour to a point of extremity from which there is no return for them into the shadows from which they’ve always operated.
I hope so. I personally don’t think the virus is a scam, it does exist, but the response to it has been blown out of all proportion because it quickly became a tool to beat the populists with. The main target here is Trump in my opinion, so if he loses the US election, positive outcome achieved, message changed, and we return back to some semblance of normal. If he wins, this either gets ramped up again, or another, equally insidious, agenda is pursued … I might be wrong, but it will be interesting to see what happens this November …
Curious that an increasing amount of Doctors are now expressing themselves with views such as the above. Do I detect a shift in the story line? Write this whilst listening to a sublime bit of music by Augustus Pablo. If you want to seek out a better reality……..
One million dead people ( numbers rising daily ) would I’m sure heartily disagree with your sentiments …………… if they could .
What was the gist of Darwin’s words, ” Those of the species that fail to adapt will not survive in the long term “.
We may well need to permanently adapt for Corona 19 as the common cold research ran for over 50 years without finding a cure for the common cold , just a few fairly ineffective things to treat the resultant symptoms .
I wonder if you read the comment by Doctor Remeika- Dugan carefully? You appear to have missed the first section:-
‘We have a virus which ranked THIRD this year 2020 *behind* Influenza B then Influenza A. That is the # of infections were ranked : influenza b, influenza a, covid 19 (in that order).’
Why are you not more concerned about Influenza B and A more than Covid 19 given this situation?
The elderly and vulnerable die every year from these and, according to many sources, in greater numbers than Covid 19 even this year.
You are right that we almost certainly have to accept that no cure can be found and that the virus is here to stay like colds or the flu. Have you asked yourself why the world has never gone into lockdown because of these? Have you considered the consequences of the lockdown in terms of the physiological and psychological damage done? The deaths of people unable or unwilling to access regular health care because of the pervasive fear and the virtual shutdown of the NHS for ordinary services.
There are many eminent doctors and scientists from relevant fields who do not agree with the prevailing narrative, but whose voices are censored or face attempts at discrediting them.
Too many people are still swayed by the emotive messages of danger, rather than medical research. Isn’t it time to make your decisions about medical matters with your intellect rather than your emotions? Adaptation to a flu-like but actually less deadly virus should not mean lockdowns and face masks for 7 Billion people to protect the vulnerable few.
Barely any mention of working class jobs all about the middle class professionals but I suppose you did not care when mass EU movement affected us because it did not effect you, so nothing changes.
Welcome to the world we have had to live in for decades
No British workers are “lazy” and should “learn new [unspecified] skills”. Nothing to do with lots of motivated and skilled workers coming to a (relatively) high paid market, saturating the work force. Nope.
Heard that countless times from otherwise sensible and moderate people.
Yeh. It was always a class war.
What never fails to amaze me is how easily people rolled over and accepted the changes to the retirement age, the aim of living and working in a modern society should be to better the working and living conditions of those taking part, more holiday entitlement and a lower retirement age should have been the goal, instead regardless of the pandemic we are facing more poverty as we get older, we will be more reliant on benefits as out health deteriorates and more likely to be unemployed well before retirement age, a backward step by any description.
I should by now be resisting the urge to make any comment about covi world – alas cannot help myself. In my youth as I was trawling through the writings of the likes of Satre, Camus, Kant, Nietzsche, Kafka, Plato etc., I could not help but reflect that wisdom escapes the vast majority of the human race and I am now living the daily confirmation of this. We have centuries of amassed knowledge but appear to have learnt so little. I could easily weep if I was not so busy laughing. Take a look at the Lockdown Sceptic website of a picture of primary school children sitting masked at their shielded desks – indeed an alternative reality. Our ability to believe the most implausible seems to know no bounds. Franz Kafka’s The Trial has to stand as the most revealing exposition of the human condition – covi world revisited.
We humans do seem to have an almost infinite capacity for believing the incredible against the evidence of our own eyes, especially if the incredible is coming from an authority figure. Every time I go shopping I feel like a traitor for wearing a mask, but am not allowed into the supermarket without one. I do like to eat, so I wear one and hate myself every second it is on.
I despair when I see, like today, Sunday, a healthy man of about fifty striding down our deserted street at 6am wearing a mask, or young people doing the same. I am fortunate in that my wife is as sceptical as I am. My close friends have very different views and it is seriously affecting their marriage. I’m sure they aren’t alone. I try to express my views and concerns as calmly as possible to anyone I talk to about the lockdown and find people are quite divided on the topic.
From my point of view, the only way to counter the fear and panic is with the facts as far as we know them. I realise that the truth has become for many a matter of opinion (This is my truth, what’s yours?). I still prefer my beliefs to be based on the best evidence we have.
All the evidence at the moment suggests that I’ve woken up in a parallel universe.
The problem is, Simon, that the people are, at large, suffering from PTSD because they’ve been exposed (via msm) to medical carnage, graphically and relentlessly paraded in front of them without the medical training for coping with what they’re seeing and hearing.
When, factually, the overall survival rate is 99.97% (though I’m sure to the public, a percentage of statistically negligible deaths is meaningless to them whenever it’s mentioned, regarding to come to grips with what has been paraded before them). This doesn’t account for the vent mgmt issues (no further comments on that from me).
Relentless. Much like … at least what it reminds me of is War of The Worlds, when the storyline was read out dramatised on the radio a hundred years ago and the poor people, then, had no preloaded skills to distinguish fact from fiction. If we recall, people actually thought Martians were invading the Earth and by and large they reacted to the playbook on the radio broadcast.
I was also just thinking about the turn of phrase, “when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true”.
By the way this is my first opportunity to review the previous comments. Thank you for speaking up (above).
This also reminds me of the coral snake for serpent phobics. As there’s a benign snake that looks very similar.
A. Coral snake = RED ON YELLOW KILLS THE FELLOW
B. king snake = RED ON BLACK WON’T HURT JACK
Yet…for the truly fearful, they’ll kill that poor king snake *every* time – just in case.
If humankind doesn’t critically question this narrative, there’s going to be no more king snakes — and only coral snakes.
Good Wishes
Yet we learned today that retail sales grew 3% in July relative to July 2019. I have read countless articles like this. Indeed, I’ve been reading articles like this since the early 1990s. At this point nobody knows how it’s all going to play out.
Interesting Fraser – there’s also data out there that since the imposition of the mask, footfall in supermarkets has dropped some couple of million and on-line shopping has increased. Let me take Alexander Johnson by the hand and walk him through an average town centre and see the empty and shutdown shops.
Welcome to the world of reality, once you get to about 45 it’s usual for your income to reduce employment by employment unless you are very lucky . I gather it is because most folk in that age group & above as employees are thought to have peaked in their fitness of body & mind and their ability to adapt .
Now . for the women in this group add in the onset of their menopause and how it screws their heads & lives up , Drag in the casualties of it in the male population and it’s easy to see why your earning capacity get reduced as you get older .
The only way I see out of it is to be self employed in a fairly non physical theatre of work and coin it whilst you can before Alzheimer’s , wacky baccy etc. etc. or alcohol destroys the old grey matter & the grim reaper takes over hosting duties .
The LAST form of diversity you will ever see pushed by the media is for AGE diversity. You’ll get someone’s sexual preference first. Then someone who has x percent of some ethnic minority that is the flavour of the day. Absolute last will be someone who has actually been though sh*t, and seen a lot. No, their viewpoint will be the LAST to be considered.
Absolutely irrelevant to the below other than – one positive thing of covi world is that it has highlighted to me that there are many people out there with whom I would really enjoy the company of over a beer or two and a jolly good irreverent chat – discussing truth and integrity perhaps! Bless you all.
I’d love to join that conversation, too.
Not sure how thought through this article is…Some young people are fast, effective, cheap and reliable at work. However way more than half are not. As an old broom that knows the corners i can match any youngster who sweeps clean in both hands on manual work and computer based engineering, and far outstrip them in sales and project management . When they are 50+ they’ll hopefully be as good as me. If the woman in the article is any good at sales she’ll be straight back in as good work winners/closers are like hen’s teeth. Though if she’s only getting 45k perhaps she’s not so hot or stuck in a low profit sector? There are still a lot of eat what you kill sales jobs out there and if your present employer won’t give you 30-40% of your net profit then there are plenty that will.