But then Ministers discarded a decade of planning in a few hours and embarked on a sinister and untried experiment with the lives of millions. They ordered a national lockdown which was both coercive and indiscriminate.
That decision, I believe, was nothing to do with the science. They were panicked to act by seeing recently ordered lockdowns in Italy, France and Spain, following the lead of totalitarian China. Ministers seemed convinced that the public would blame them if they failed to do what other nations were doing.
EvidenceNotFear
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Published Nov 4 2013
“Walking can be 1.5 times more polluting than driving.”
Which is more polluting—driving a mile to work or walking that mile? The easy answer is, of course, driving. Cars have tailpipes; people don’t. Far more energy is needed to push a 3,000-pound car along the road than is needed to move a 150- to 250-pound body along a sidewalk. Walking seems like the green thing to do.
But appearances can be deceiving, making easy answers dead wrong. That’s the case here when the calories expended in walking are replaced.
Counting the Ways Energy is Consumed in the Food-Supply Chain
The primary reason that walking to work can be more polluting than driving is that growing crops and raising animals so that they can be consumed and digested by humans involves a food-supply chain that now extends to all corners of the Earth and uses a lot of energy. An unavoidable byproduct of this energy use is greenhouse gas emissions. How can this be?
https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2013/McKenziewalking.html
Using serum samples routinely collected in 9144 adults from a French general population-based cohort, we identified 353 participants with a positive anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG test, among whom 13 were sampled between November 2019 and January 2020 and were confirmed by neutralizing antibodies testing. Investigations in 11 of these participants revealed experience of symptoms possibly related to a SARS-CoV-2 infection or situations at risk of potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure. This suggests early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00716-2
Trapped in lockdown between the two extremes of Coronavirus deniers and lockdown orthodoxy, Nye is intrigued by Sweden’s approach: no lockdown, no school closures, no masks. She manages to secure an exclusive interview with Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, whose steely resolve not to buckle under world mainstream media pressure means – among other things, tango dancing is allowed in Stockholm!
Claudia Nye is a BAFTA nominated filmmaker. Brought back to documentaries for the sake of the future of her children, Nye travels from UK to Sweden to learn about their unique Covid-19 strategy.
She is also a qualified Relationship Counsellor, which she’s been practicing over the past ten years. She travelled to Stockholm with photo-journalist Sean Spencer and together they made this documentary
Video mirrors:
This is a BMJ Rapid Response letter by Dr Janet Menage, Wales, UK, in response to Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote-elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant, by Kamran Abbasi. You can find the full response in the link below.
From a medical perspective, it was clear early on in the crisis that disregarding clinical acumen in favour of blind obedience to abnormal ventilation measures, reliance on an unsuitable laboratory test for diagnosis and management, and abandoning the duty of care to elderly hospitalised patients and those awaiting diagnosis and treatment of serious diseases, would create severe problems down the line.
Doctors who had empirically found effective pharmaceutical remedies and preventative treatments were ignored, or worse, denigrated or silenced. Information regarding helpful dietary supplements was suppressed.
Categories
Deaths in the UK from 1990 to 2020 – ONS
A table of the yearly death rates per year in the U.K since 1990 up until the end of December 2020.
| Year | Number of deaths |
Population (Thousands) |
Crude mortality rate (per 100,000 population) |
Age-standardised mortality rate (per 100,000 population) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 608,002 | 59,829 | 1,016.20 | 1,043.50 |
| 2019 | 530,841 | 59,440 | 893.1 | 925 |
| 2018 | 541,589 | 59,116 | 916.1 | 965.4 |
| 2017 | 533,253 | 58,745 | 907.7 | 965.3 |
| 2016 | 525,048 | 58,381 | 899.3 | 966.9 |
| 2015 | 529,655 | 57,885 | 915 | 993.2 |
| 2014 | 501,424 | 57,409 | 873.4 | 953 |
| 2013 | 506,790 | 56,948 | 889.9 | 985.9 |
| 2012 | 499,331 | 56,568 | 882.7 | 987.4 |
| 2011 | 484,367 | 56,171 | 862.3 | 978.6 |
| 2010 | 493,242 | 55,692 | 885.7 | 1,017.10 |
| 2009 | 491,348 | 55,235 | 889.6 | 1,033.80 |
| 2008 | 509,090 | 54,842 | 928.3 | 1,091.90 |
| 2007 | 504,052 | 54,387 | 926.8 | 1,091.80 |
| 2006 | 502,599 | 53,951 | 931.6 | 1,104.30 |
| 2005 | 512,993 | 53,575 | 957.5 | 1,143.80 |
| 2004 | 514,250 | 53,152 | 967.5 | 1,163.00 |
| 2003 | 539,151 | 52,863 | 1,019.90 | 1,232.10 |
| 2002 | 535,356 | 52,602 | 1,017.70 | 1,231.30 |
| 2001 | 532,498 | 52,360 | 1,017.00 | 1,236.20 |
| 2000 | 537,877 | 52,140 | 1,031.60 | 1,266.40 |
| 1999 | 553,532 | 51,933 | 1,065.80 | 1,320.20 |
| 1998 | 553,435 | 51,720 | 1,070.10 | 1,327.20 |
| 1997 | 558,052 | 51,560 | 1,082.30 | 1,350.80 |
| 1996 | 563,007 | 51,410 | 1,095.10 | 1,372.50 |
| 1995 | 565,902 | 51,272 | 1,103.70 | 1,392.00 |
| 1994 | 551,780 | 51,116 | 1,079.50 | 1,374.90 |
| 1993 | 578,512 | 50,986 | 1,134.70 | 1,453.40 |
| 1992 | 558,313 | 50,876 | 1,097.40 | 1,415.00 |
| 1991 | 570,044 | 50,748 | 1,123.30 | 1,464.30 |
| 1990 | 564,846 | 50,561 | 1,117.20 | 1,462.60 |
There’s no evidence that any of the current Covid-19 vaccines can completely stop people from being infected – and this has implications for our prospects of achieving herd immunity
- Family said Captain Sir Tom Moore had regularly tested negative for Covid-19 until he visited hospital
- Only after a ten-day stay for pneumonia was he discharged on January 12 and then tested positive that day
- The inspirational NHS fundraiser later had to be readmitted and died in hospital surrounded by his family
- A family spokesman revealed Captain Tom’s pneumonia battle meant he had not had the coronavirus vaccine
- Centenarian became a national treasure over first coronavirus lockdown after raising millions for the NHS
- Boris Johnson today announced there would be a clap at 6pm by everyone to remember his achievements
- It came after a minute’s silence was held in the Commons by MPs in honour of the respected ex-army man
- His grandson Tom Teixeira also paid tribute to him, describing him as ‘a patriot to the country’
‘On January 22, Tom was discharged from hospital back to the family home where he felt most comfortable. Unfortunately he was left still fighting pneumonia and tested positive for Covid-19 that day.
‘Tom was able to have visitors to say goodbye to him at the end of his life. On Monday evening his daughter Hannah and grandchildren Benjie and Georgia were able to be by his side and his daughter Lucy was able to speak to him on FaceTime.’
BELGIUM has advised against giving the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to over-55s because of a lack of data about its efficacy.
It became the latest European Union country to recommend that the Covid jab should not be given to older people. Health minister Frank Vandenbroucke said the country’s advisory health council, had suggested the doses of the Oxford-produced vaccine should only be administered to people younger than 55. He said Belgium was reviewing its vaccination strategy because AstraZeneca’s jab was seen as a key part of the government’s plan to prioritise vulnerable groups.
Liver samples were collected over time and the concentrations of ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 in each sample were measured. The conclusion As a result, ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 were shown to be rapidly distributed from the blood to the liver. Also, About 1% and about 50% of the doses of ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 are excreted in feces as unchanged drug, respectively.
https://www.pmda.go.jp/drugs/2021/P20210212001/672212000_30300AMX00231_I100_1.pdf
There are now twice as many people as 50 years ago. But, as EO Wilson has argued, they can all survive – in cities
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-kim-stanley-robinson
According to the most recently peer-reviewed paper on Covid-19, how many people who get the virus do you think survive? Go on, take a wild guess. Eighty percent? Ninety percent? Ninety-five percent? Nope. Precisely 99.8 percent live to see another day. Under-70s have an even higher survival rate – 99.96. Put another way, they have a 0.04 chance of dying; less than half of half a per cent.
And many of those are already seriously or even terminally ill from other conditions.
The Office for National Statistics said this week that far from a “second wave”, figures show all UK deaths are currently just 1.5 percent above average, and on a normal trajectory for early autumn.
[Hospital admissions] stubbornly bump along near the bottom of the chart.The co-relationship between diagnosis and death has radically changed in the last six months as treatments dramatically improve.
- Hospital chaos will have led to 46,000 avoidable deaths by end of next month
- Cancellations to routine operations may cause 18,000 excess deaths overall
- Another 40,000 people may die due to the economic impact of lockdown
More than 100,000 people are likely to die from non-coronavirus causes because of the pandemic, according to an official government estimate.
By the end of next month the chaos in hospitals and care homes will have led to 46,000 avoidable deaths, Department of Health research has suggested.
Cancellations to routine operations may cause 18,000 excess deaths in the long-term, on top of hundreds more from cancer.
Officials calculated that over the next few years another 40,000 people may die due to the economic impact of lockdown, including rising unemployment and mental health issues.
Telegraph Cartoonist Bob Moran makes an interesting comment about this BBC News article.
This is a great example of how mad people (the BBC) have become. In attempting to demonstrate how serious the current situation is, they accidentally show that everything is completely normal and remind us that when things were actually bad, we didn’t even notice.
@bobscartoons on Twitter, 29 January 2021
Published 4th Feb 2015
This may come as a shock to those of us who still associate homeschooling with fundamentalists eager to shelter their kids from the evils of the secular state. But it turns out that homeschooling has grown more mainstream over the last few years. According to the most recent statistics, the share of school-age kids who were homeschooled doubled between 1999 and 2012, from 1.7 to 3.4 percent.
And many of those new homeschoolers come from the tech community. When homeschooling expert Diane Flynn Keith held a sold-out workshop in Redwood City, California, last month, fully half of the parents worked in the tech industry. Jens Peter de Pedro, an app designer in Brooklyn, says that five of the 10 fathers in his homeschooling group work in tech, as do two of the eight mothers. And Samantha Cook says that her local hackerspace is often filled with tech-savvy homeschoolers.
http://archive.today/2015.02.04-185234/http://www.wired.com/2015/02/silicon-valley-home-schooling/
Published 26 April 2018.
The number of children being homeschooled has risen by about 40% over three years, the BBC has found.
Across the UK 48,000 children were being home-educated in 2016-17, up from about 34,000 in 2014-15.
http://archive.today/2022.01.31-164041/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-42624220
It has been called a “second pandemic” with charities across the UK warning of a growing mental health crisis since the first Covid restrictions began.
But because it takes months for suicides to be formally recorded, there are, as yet, no official figures on suicides over the past year. That means its too soon to know whether the virus has affected the number of people taking their own lives.
However, new figures from England’s ambulance services, shared with ITV News, suggest some areas have experienced a spike in calls related to suicide or suicide attempts.
In the first six months after lockdown, from March to November 2020, London Ambulance Service recorded 15,541 calls relating to suicide or attempted suicide. That compares to 11,703 calls over the same period in 2019.
If you or someone you know if struggling with your mental health, you can get help here:
- Samaritans operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year, by calling 116 123. If you prefer to write down how you’re feeling, or if you’re worried about being overheard on the phone, you can email Samaritans at [email protected]
- Rethink Mental Illness offer practical advice and information for anyone affected by mental health problems on a wide range of topics including treatment, support and care. Phone 0300 5000 927 (Mon-Fri 9.30am-4pm) or visit rethink.org
- Mind also offer mental health support between 9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. You can call them on 0300 123 3393 or text them on 86463. There is also lots of information available on their website.
- Campaign Against Living Miserably’s (CALM) helpline and webchat are open from 5pm until midnight, 365 days a year. Call CALM on 0800 58 58 58 or chat to their trained helpline staff online. No matter who you are or what
Germany has recommended the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine should only be given to people under the age of 65, according to reports.
The country’s vaccine committee has reportedly said the jab, developed alongside the University of Oxford, should only be offered to people aged between 18 and 64.
It gave a lack of sufficient data on the effectiveness of the inoculation in older people as the reason for the decision in a draft recommendation.
Life after coronavirus will not feel like life before. It is best that governments acknowledge that and start planning now in order to capture the best that can come out of a very tough period while not raising expectations that life will suddenly snap back to an almost forgotten normal.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/coronavirus-no-back-normal
Categories
Pharmaceutical fraud – Wikipedia
$3 billion GSK settlement. On 2 July 2012, GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to a $3 billion settlement of the largest health-care fraud case in the U.S. and the largest payment by a drug company. The settlement is related to the company’s illegal promotion of prescription drugs, its failure to report safety data, bribing doctors, and promoting medicines for uses for which they were not licensed. The drugs involved were Paxil, Wellbutrin, Advair, Lamictal, and Zofran for off-label, non-covered uses. Those and the drugs Imitrex, Lotronex, Flovent, and Valtrex were involved in the kickback scheme. The government investigation of GSK was launched largely on the basis of information provided by four whistleblowers who filed two qui tam (whistleblower) lawsuits against the company under the False Claims Act. GSK settled the whistleblowers’ lawsuits for a total of $1.017 billion out of the $3 billion settlement, the largest civil False Claims Act settlement to date.
Pfizer $2.3 billion settlement: Pfizer settled multiple civil and criminal allegations for $2.3 billion in the largest case of pharmaceutical and health care fraud in US history. The drugs involved were Bextra (an anti-inflammatory drug), Geodon (an anti-psychotic drug), Lipitor (a cholesterol drug), Norvasc (anti-hypertensive drug), Viagra (erectile dysfunction), Zithromax (antibiotic), Zyrtec (antihistamine), Zyvox (an antibiotic), Lyrica (an anti-epileptic drug), Relpax (anti-migraine drug), Celebrex (anti-inflammatory drug), and Depo-provera (birth control).
Merck $650 million settlement: Merck settled a nominal pricing fraud case in which the company was accused of taking kickbacks and violating Medicaid best price regulations for various drugs.
United States et al., ex rel. Jim Conrad and Constance Conrad v. Forest Pharmaceuticals, Inc, et al. involved a drug manufacturer selling a drug, Levothroid, that had never been approved by the FDA. These allegations settled for $42.5 million due to multiple whistleblowers stepping forward to provide detailed information on the alleged fraud. The collective reward to the relators in this case was over $14.6 million.
Wikipedia snapshot from 28 January 2021: