March 16, 2024 - 11:00am
Small cracks are emerging in the mainstream Covid consensus following three weeks of proceedings in Wales, which wrapped up this week. Building on 10 months of public hearings so far, testimonies in Cardiff brought to light specific revelations that, if taken seriously by the inquiry, could help reorientate the way Baroness Hallett and her team have approached what should be a core concern: did lockdowns and other mandatory social distancing rules cause more harm than good?
Mark Drakeford, Wales’s outgoing First Minister, told the inquiry that local Covid lockdowns were a “failed experiment”, while epidemiologist Dr Chris Williams, who advocated for earlier lockdowns, admitted that trying to contain a virus like Covid was “essentially impossible after a while”.
They were not the only ones. Dr Roland Salmon, ex-director of Public Health Wales’s communicable diseases unit, went further by criticising school closures, firebreak lockdowns, and social distancing policies in places such as grocery stores and pubs, which even received some surprising coverage from the BBC. Meanwhile, Education Minister Jeremy Miles told the inquiry they needed “more impact assessments” about the harms of lockdown. Available assessments made in 2020 in Wales clearly predicted dramatic harms to population health and wellbeing.
We also heard from former Welsh Secretary Simon Hart, who informed the inquiry that stricter pandemic rules in Wales were different from England “for the sake of being different”. Welsh government ministers themselves suffered from “significant confusion” about the Covid rules they were responsible for implementing. This echoes similar concerns in England. In fact, the Welsh government appears to have acted unlawfully when it shut schools in March 2020 (such power officially resides with school governing bodies). Many of the criminal charges meted out to those who breached lockdown rules were also unlawful, the inquiry heard.
So small cracks have emerged from the mainstream consensus, and to the competent investigator these new revelations should be linked to similar earlier statements made in England and Scotland. But scientists, such as Dr Salmon, who were willing to question lockdown orthodoxy rarely feature on the inquiry panel. The inquiry has only heard from a few other scientists with this dissenting opinion, including Prof. Carl Heneghan from Oxford and Prof. Mark Woolhouse from the University of Edinburgh.
Yet on Wednesday this week, Baroness Hallett appeared to take a more balanced approach to her previous confrontational line of questioning with the Great Barrington Declaration.
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SubscribeWell we know that the £ multi-billion test and trace system was a complete waste of time, but that barely seems to get mentioned.
So there’s only the real question left; did the mass-vaccination program likewise on balance achieve any of its assumed aims and were the benefits worth the cost and the possible downstream harms ?
I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of time for those who made gazillions of pounds from it. Always follow the money.
I think vaccines were beneficial. The problem was the rollout. Young, healthy people were coerced to get the jab, long after it was clear they would not benefit from them and that herd immunity was nothing more than a fantasy.
The mRNA ‘vax’ was the biggest killer and disabler in history. It was pure poison –
Any proof of this yet?
Thought not.
I’m not convinced if it’s efficacy but it didn’t do me any harm.
Really no need to go overboard with such theories, entirely as unsubstantiated as the contrary view. But then again, it doesn’t surprise me…
For elderly people with co-morbidities, the vaccine was a life saver. For these people, the disease was worse than the cure. For healthy people, not so much.
Alex Berenson, Steve Kirsch and others have made millions of dollars peddling their claims that the mRNA vaccines have killed and disabled people. Those claims have no scientific support.
It’s the wrong question. Lockdowns were implemented to save lives, therefore that concept has to be included in such enquiry.
Did lockdown and mandatory social distancing rules save lives and is it worth undertaking considering the potential harms?
And there was of course precious little time to debate and answer that question.
There was only “precious little time” because an atmosphere of panic and crisis was created in which decision making could be framed as a choice between “saving lives” on the one hand, or “letting it rip” on the other. In such an atmosphere, the only harm considered was the harm of Covid, and all measures were assessed on how they might impact the spread of Covid, rather than on whether they would create other harms. In reality by March 2020 it was already clear from Italy that the great majority of Covid hospitalisations were amongst the very elderly with comorbidities, and that a more focused approach was appropriate. But an atmosphere of crisis was contrived and sustained to prevent this.
Although there may have been trends forming, none of that was clear at all, it was completely unknown how many people would be affected and could die and the timeframe for dealing with it.
As I recall, in the early stages there were suggestions of locking down the elderly and vulnerable but this was instantly rejected as inhumane and completely unrealistic. Which it still is.
The elderly and vulnerable were locked down, along with everyone else. They were left alone, cut off from family and other supports. They frequently were left to die alone. Others were herded into care homes where Covid spread like wildfire. Relatives who would have advocated for them were excluded, allowed at most to stand outside peering into windows. It was indeed inhumane and unrealistic. But it happened all the same, and our society will continue paying the price for many years.
Things were very clear to me, but then again I could separate the wood from the trees. This was hardly difficult.
Ahh if only you were in charge everything would have turned out ok. lol
Also, evidence required of historical tree/wood separation mechanism efficacy under controlled trial, including difficulty indices etc. With peer review obvs.
Most politicians were afraid of their own population, who were whipped up into a frenzy by the hysterical MSM and self important government appointed scientists. Everybody tried to implement the fiercest lockdowns and vaccinations, which were quickly put on the market as a security blanket for the entire population. Except for Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, nobody seemed to stop and think about the long term consequences of these measures.
Are you still clinging to the sliver of wood you call a life raft?
Only those who were implicated or complicate in this crime against humanity, which was covid from its creation in the lab, release, the deadly and Trillion $ ‘vax’, the lockdowns, the money printing (to make the elite more wealthy and create the inflation and debt to destroy the middle and working) would be saying how it all is justified.
The closing of Schools!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A generation of poorly parented lost their whole education and are doomed to low incomes and misery!
Teacher’s Unions really, really, hate the Children, as does the Government.
sorry to link it again – but a great watch, Tucker Carlson
https://rumble.com/v4j39pi-medical-expert-covid-vax-killed-more-americans-than-vietnam.html
heres the most recent work on vaccinations and blood clots .
https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2024/01/24/heartjnl-2023-323483
investigating 10.17 million vaccinated and 10.39 million unvaccinated people in UK, Spain and Estonia ( unless there is evidence that Americans are different (if there is some can you post a link) this would also apply there .
Being vaccinated reduced your risk of having blood clots.
‘Lost their whole education’. Really? Or is that a bit of an exaggeration?
What do the young kids say? You’re on the wrong side of history – and that becomes more apparent every day.
PS. I hate that phrase. Same with follow the science.
What are you going on about? Pointless having a debate with you folks.
A judge’s findings will always reflect the acceptable assumptions in the social milieu from which judges are drawn. This is what drives how facts are selected, curated and interpreted by an Inquiry. It is only by gradually chipping away at the dominant narrative amongst that social and professional class that the findings of this or any inquiry can be influenced, rather than in the hearings themselves.
Many of us saw this entire thing for what it was from the very beginning: a government exercise in control. We didn’t mask, we didn’t “distance”, we didn’t follow the floor arrows in the supermarket, we didn’t submit to the shots, and we didn’t get sick.
If you’re still wrestling with what this author is calling “cracks”, you’re hopelessly naive. Irreparable damage has been done – on purpose. “We didn’t know” is bullsh*t. They knew.
The people responsible must pay. Start with those in government and their media who collaborated with the WHO, the CDC, and the Chinese. Do it publicly. This was the greatest crime ever committed against humanity, and people the world over are still suffering. No quarter should be given.
Indeed.
I still don’t see any consequences for St.Anthony (Fauci) , who in my humble opinion was one of the worst culprits and liars during that time. Always thought that Rand Paul would get him in the end. I am still waiting…
Watch Dr Kory with Tucker Carlson from last night – Kory says more dead from the vax than all Americans dead in all wars since Korea. But that is the tip of the iceberg – the disabilities completely Dwarf the deaths!
Then – the banning of all ‘treatments’ Ivermectin and Hydrox. and so on – the forcing people to go to hospital after no early treatment to kill them with Remdisavre destroying their organs and the ‘Ventilators’ to blow their lungs out…. All the wile covid was treatable with simple medicines, and OTC products – only to say that was made illegal for Medics, they were muzzled and misled – so the covid ill sat doing nothing till past saving. This was extermination not medication.
a great show
https://rumble.com/v4j39pi-medical-expert-covid-vax-killed-more-americans-than-vietnam.html
Nuremberg Trials Needed! No informed consent! Crime against humanity, and this silly article says ‘cracks appear’
And what they have done to Anthony Bridgen – the only MP worth anything….
Is there any proof of this beyond yours and other people’s paranoia?
Thought not.
Really? What crime? Who committed it?
Some poor decisions were made, and people did die because of it. But politicians and public health officials make poor decisions all the time. A poor decision is not a crime.
“A poor decision is not a crime”? It is when it leads to gross negligence.
“On proper analysis, therefore, the jury is not deciding whether the particular defendant ought to be convicted on some unprincipled basis. The question for the jury is not whether the defendant’s negligence was gross, and whether, additionally, it was a crime, but whether his behaviour was grossly negligent and consequently criminal. This is not a question of law, but one of fact, for decision in the individual case”
https://vlex.co.uk/tags/criminal-negligence-4199578
What negligence?
“The people responsible must pay.”
And I must get an intimate daily rub-down from Taylor Swift.
Two nice ideas, but they’re not going to happen, are they?
Thank you. One can always hope … and continue chipping away at the wall of “consensus.” Sooner or later, it will give.
Sentences like this: “ questioned the notion that a scientific consensus about Covid policies exists;” seem to show a misunderstanding of the scientific method.
Since COVID was a new virus, all that scientists could do (all they can ever do) is give an informed opinion based on the evidence existing at the time.
The scientific method today, relating to COVID-19, is precisely to look back over the data and the decisions and see what lessons can be learned.
There can’t really be a ‘scientific consensus’ when there is so little data (as there was at the start).
Agreed. Consensus is a political term, not scientific.
Unfortunately, science has nothing to tell us about public policy decisions. Science depends on experiment and prediction. The scientific method can’t test past decisions. Learning from past mistakes has nothing to do with science.
We need to remember that the public and media were clamouring for lockdown etc. It would have been brave politicians who failed to act. Notice the cross-party consensus.
What we need now is good scientific analysis of the data so we can learn.
What we don’t need are hasty assertions, emotion and blame.
Totally agree. Screaming at Fauci doesn’t accomplish anything at this point IMO. We need to be clear though, the fear and public panic was completely manufactured by govt and health officials. See nudge unit for example. Politicians were hysterical. They showed zero leadership.
I don’t think the fear and public panic was completely manufactured. In my area (San Francisco Bay Area) the panic of the public was palpable. The pandemic did kill a lot of people, some of my extended family members included. Their deaths were agonizing, and the government had nothing to do with that.
The govt had two choices. They could lay out the facts and act reasonably – this is a dangerous disease, but impacts only the oldest and unhealthiest segment of the population. People need to be mindful, and take precautions, but if you are healthy, you will survive.
Or they could be hysterical and whip up a frenzy of fear. For months and months, we were told the disease would kill upwards of 3.5% of the population. These banana models were treated like fact way beyond reason.
Some fear was justified early on, but we knew exactly what this disease was by May, 2020.
Ahh but that would be reasonable and logical, people like Bardosh prefer dogma and propaganda.
I’m waiting for some public hearings on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. My bet is that it was created in a Wuhan lab and escaped, but I concede firm evidence is lacking. I’d really like to know, but without Chinese government cooperation, I guess we never will know.
I’d give that a 95% probability. As for why it was covered, I can’t say for sure.
It’s demoralising how this debate polarises into either the “we should have gone earlier” brigade and the “all a wicked plan to control” bunch.
I was against the severe lockdowns, I guess because viruses are very persistent and small, and tend to overcome isolationist efforts, and I tend to take the view that what will be will be. However, I think all this garbage was done because of four main reasons;
Government must do stuff, right? The media created a crazy environment – the daily briefings were an exercise in “Germany does more so why don’t you?”All people are stupid when it comes to models and think they actually predict the future reliably.Politicians are, on the whole, fairly shallow people and we’re way, way out of their depth on this. As most of them are on anything requiring courage or strategic thinking.
it wasn’t evil, it was just incompetence.
Odd how my 4 points looked itemised neatly on my post but condensed into a messy paragraph once I posted it.
Hope it’s not too confusing.
I’m glad you mentioned the journalists. The people on here who pile all the blame on venal/incompetent politicians have possibly never had to deal with a hysterical posse of uninformed (but hugely influential and unavoidable) journalists baying for more of everything by yesterday.
Good stuff Phil. I would suggest, however, that govt was at least equally to blame for creating hysteria.
Agreed. It wasn’t some evil plot – just everyday, boring incompetence, mixed with a healthy dose of hubris.
The two positions – to lockdown or not – are not either/or, unfortunately. The most interesting comment quoted here is that it might not even ‘be possible’ to contain a virus. But even if true, it still doesn’t mean that having a go at doing so does more or less harm than good. And how do you quantify harm and good anyway? Most young people might get zero immediate benefit for themselves – but still might prefer to lockdown hard to mitigate the chance of the death of an elderly relative. Children demonstrably suffered educationally – that’s measurable. Granny suddenly dying? Not so much.
I am not a virologist, but I am a very experienced quantitative analyst. Following the first 6 months of the pandemic, two things were clear to me: the data on who was at risk was available and unequivocal; and the cost of lockdowns was not being considered in decision making (or in the ludicrous forecasting models) in most countries, including the UK. I raised these questions with my friends – mostly senior professionals – lawyers, bankers etc – and was deeply shocked by their response. I was belittled as a conspiracy nut, ridiculed, and lost friends. However I was simply looking at the actual data published by the ONS, and applying my years of experience as an analyst. To this day I cannot explain exactly when or how the best educated and most successful strata in society became so irrational, so totalitarian and so intolerant. It does not augur well.