Sky News host Alan Jones says people are being swept up into a sense of hysteria and alarmism around COVID-19.
There are only 17 people in hospital with the coronavirus in NSW, eight of them in intensive care, while the World Health Organisation continue to maintain that 99 per cent of all cases will experience mild symptoms.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a vaccine, and we’re going to have to learn to live with this,” Mr Jones told Sky News host Chris Smith.
“But we learned to live with a whole lot of other communicable diseases.
“More people are dying from the flu with a vaccine than are dying from coronavirus without a vaccine.”
Collateral Damage
Data from official sources show that the lockdown measures are doing more harm than COVID-19 itself.
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- Sweden’s GDP fell 8.6 in Q2 2020, the country’s worst quarterly decline in modern history.
- The Scandanavian nation markedly outperformed the rest of Europe. Its GDP drop in the second quarter was lower than the 12.1 average experienced in the Eurozone, as well as the 11.9 average across the whole of the EU.
- Sweden outperformed several European countries, including Spain (18.5 percent fall), France (13.6 percent), Italy (12.4 percent) and Germany (10.1 percent).
The national lockdown may have indirectly caused 16,000 excess deaths in two months, according to government analysts.
However, the report concludes 41% of those deaths were the result of missed medical care rather than the virus itself.
The consequences to be inflicted on the personal wellbeing of Australians, business viability, the national economy, and mental health are far beyond what could be described as responsible management of the situation says Sky News host Alan Jones.
“The nation is swimming in debt, kids are out of school, people are locked up while all along the mental anguish of what is taking place is beyond calculation,” Mr Jones said.
On Monday, Premier Daniel Andrews outlined the details of his stage four lockdowns which will affect Metropolitan Melbourne for at least six weeks in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Mr Andrews ordered all non-essential workers not to leave their homes from Thursday but promised people they will not need to bulk buy food as supermarkets, grocery stores and pharmacies would stay open.
Mr Jones said if lockdowns were the answer, why do deaths continue to escalate around the country.
Mr Jones discussed the issue with Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland.
- Australia-wide: 43 critical cases
- 1% of patients critical
- 99% of cases are mild
- 221 COVID-19 deaths so far out of a population of 26 million
- 440 Australians die every day
- 1,000-1,500 flu deaths each year
- COVID-19 not in top 50 death causes
- Professor James Allan: “In a decade this will be looked back on as one of the most colossal public policy fiascos of the century.”
- Around 161,000 Australians die every year (440 per day)
- 1,200 die in car accidents
- 16,000 people died because they didn’t get healthcare from March 23 to May 1
- At the same time, 25,000 Britons died of coronavirus at the pandemic’s height
- Of the 16,000, 6,000 were unwell people who were too scared to go to A&E
- It is feared that 81,500 people could die over next 50 years because of lockdown
- In the next five years, 1,400 could die as they were diagnosed with cancer late
- The new figures were presented to the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in the middle of July.
- They were calculated by the Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Government Actuary’s Department and the Home Office.
- The 16,000 people who died included 6,000 who didn’t go to A&E during lockdown because they feared catching the virus.
- Another 10,000 people are thought to have died in care homes after early discharge from hospital and a lack of access to care.
- A further 26,000 people could die by next month because of the restrictions, while in total 81,500 people could lose their lives in the next 50 years because of the virus.
- In more bad news, the next five years could see 1,400 people die because they were diagnosed with cancer too late.
- An earlier report by the same team suggested deaths caused by delayed care amid the virus they could be as high as 185,000.
- Professor Neil Mortensen, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, warned that the health service ‘must never again be a coronavirus-only service’.
Categories
Live NHS Special – Unlocked
We get to grips with the unintended consequences of lockdown on the NHS & the health of the nation.
Martin Daubney interviews Ex-director of the WHO Cancer Programme Professor Karol Sikora.
Consultant Neurologist and MS specialist Dr Waqar Rashid
Dr Ellie Cannon NHS GP and Mail on Sunday Columnist
Dr Tom Jefferson Clinical Epidomilogist- University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
Dr John Lee Former Clinical Professor of Pathology at Hull York Medical School and Consultant Histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital & Director of Cancer Services at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.
The lockdown was one of the most restrictive measures ever introduced since Britain became a democracy. It was originally justified on the basis of ‘flattening the curve’ to protect the NHS. But since this was achieved some time ago, new reasons are always produced to keep us at home or prevent people from carrying out normal activities. Many of our legal rights are being infringed as a result. A legal challenge to the lockdown was launched by businessman Simon Dolan, who sought a judicial review of the government’s policies. Francis Hoar is a barrister who worked on his team. spiked caught up with him to ask why he thinks the lockdown was unlawful, and what damage he feels it has done.
- The [lockdown] measures were not within the parameters of the 1984 Public Health Act. That act does not grant powers to lock down the country, impose restrictions on when people can leave their houses, go to church, meet others or protest.
- Matt Hancock, had ‘fettered his discretion’ in relation to how long the measures would last. This was unlawful because it prevented him from looking at all factors when making his decision.
- The measures breached rights protected in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), including Article Five, the right to liberty (impacted by regulations about when people could leave the house); Article Eight, the right to family and private lives; Article Nine, freedom of religious belief and expression; Article 11, the right to freedom of assembly and association; and Article Two, which relates to the right to education – impacted by the closure of schools.
- The measures were disproportionate because the harms caused were known to the government from an early stage.
- Lockdown legislation was introduced to parliament one working day before they came into force. None of them received any scrutiny by parliament or were debated in detail before they were enacted.
- The government opposition, whose duty it is to provide scrutiny for government measures, failed to oppose the government’s use of the emergency legislation.
- Extremely few lawyers have criticised the impact of these regulations on principle which is surprising because they are such obvious and incredibly serious depravations of very important and serious rights.
- The traditional understanding of Article Two of the ECHR is that it obliges the government to inform individuals of risks to their life, to protect against risks caused by government actions and to provide adequate investigation and redress against loss of life caused by the state.
- There isn’t any case law to suggest that the government has positive obligations to withdraw rights when there is a natural event such as a virus.
- Most of the rights protected by the ECHR have a venerable history in English law and have been removed by executive fiat under an act of parliament, without the need for parliamentary scrutiny.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/31/the-lockdown-has-caused-a-humanitarian-tragedy/
Almost 2,700 people a week have died because of the effects of lockdown, analysis of official data suggests.
The study by economists and academics from Sheffield and Loughborough universities suggests more than 21,000 people died as a result of the measures introduced in March.
The analysis examines Office for National Statistics (ONS) data in the eight weeks that followed the national lockdown.
Researchers said the findings show that “lockdown has killed 21,000 people” because the policy has had “significant unintended consequences” such as lack of access to critical healthcare and a collapse in A&E attendances.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/29/lockdown-has-killed-21000-people-say-experts/
Experts fear people still unable to access medical care even though there are now relatively few coronavirus cases in hospitals
Twice as many people are now dying at home from unexplained causes rather than Covid-19, with experts calling for an urgent investigation into what is causing the excess deaths.
The ONS figures show that deaths in hospitals continue to be much lower than usual, suggesting that many of the home deaths are people who would ordinarily have received hospital care.
A RISE in the use of sedation to manage ‘lockdown distress’ amongst the elderly may have contributed to a stark increase in dementia death rates, a charity has warned.
Figures show in all the deaths involving Covid-19 between March and June 2020, 92% had at least one pre-existing condition with dementia accounting for almost a third.
People with treatable cancers are going to die because hospitals have been laid empty due to Government scaremongering, an NHS nurse has warned.
An NHS nurse called Holly* has said that throughout the lockdown period “hospitals were empty” beyond the ICU units and Covid wards and that people have died as a result.
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Four scientific evidences of the null effect of massive confinement during covid 19 in Spain
It is obvious that the official hypothesis of the non lockdown deaths in Spain is dismantled by the real result in Sweden. The huge difference between 10,000 and 450 in Sweden could not be explained, either very remotely, by geographical, demographic or sociological factors that differentiate Sweden from Spain. If That is the case, Sweden would naturally be an anti-covid society. A scientifically unsustainable fantasy.
No medical treatment would be approved without using control groups in the experiments, however mass confinement is accepted without this condition, knowing that Sweden serves perfectly as an experimental control group.
(Note that the document is hosted on Google Drive.)
As national restrictions were imposed, experts from the Department of Health, the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the government’s Actuary Department and the Home Office forecast the collateral damage from delays to healthcare and the effects of recession arising from the pandemic response.
It estimated that in a reasonable worst case scenario, around 50,000 people would die from coronavirus in the first six months of the pandemic, with mitigation measures in place.
[T]he report published in April they calculated that up to 25,000 could die from delays to treatment in the same period and a further 185,000 in the medium to long term – amounting to nearly one million years of life lost.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/lockdown-may-cost-200k-lives-government-report-shows/
- From late-February 2020, Birmingham City Council gave care homes a £1,000 extra cash to take in hospital patients in a hurry, including some with coronavirus.
- Reason: more NHS beds could be freed up for coronavirus patients.
- Care home had to bid for the resident in a four hour window and, if their bid was ‘winning’, organise admission within 24 hours – regardless of the citizen’s Covid-19 testing or diagnosis status at the point of discharge.
- Care home manager, Jane Farr, of Digby Manor care home in Erdington, believes her rejection of the offer is one of the reasons none of her residents have been infected.
- From late February, any in-patients deemed ‘fit to discharge’ were rapidly moved out of hospital so hospital staff could focus on coronavirus patients.
- Dr David Rosser, chief executive of University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) said the city created too much capacity – indicating some of the frantic measures to empty beds turned out to be not needed.
- From April 15 the Government’s rules changed and all discharged residents were supposed to undergo a test first.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/revealed-16-care-homes-given-18550503
A fifth of vulnerable people in Britain thought about self-harming or killing themselves during lockdown, according to research shared with the Guardian, as a series of inquests underline the mental health toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Findings from University College London reveal that 8,000 out of 44,000 people surveyed (18%) reported thoughts of self-harm or suicide, and 42% had accessed support services. A further 5% said they had harmed themselves at least once since the start of the UK’s lockdown.
Such is the quality of decision-making in the process generating our lockdown narrative. An early maintained but exaggerated belief in the lethality of the virus reinforced by modelling that was almost data-free, then amplified by further modelling with no proven predictive value. All summed up by recommendations from a committee based on qualitative data that hasn’t even been peer-reviewed.
- According to Office for National Statistics, this year comes only eighth in terms of deaths in past 27 years.
- The spread of viruses like Covid-19 is not new. What’s new is our response.
- The whole Covid drama has really been a crisis of awareness of what viruses normally do, rather than a crisis caused by an abnormally lethal new bug.
- Modelling is not science, for the simple reason that a prediction made by a scientist (using a model or not) is just opinion.
- To be classified as science, a prediction or theory needs to be able to be tested, and potentially falsified.
- A problem with the current approach: a wilful determination to ignore the quality of the information being used to set Covid policy.
- Most Covid research was not peer- reviewed.
- In medical science there is a well-known classification of data quality known as ‘the hierarchy of evidence’: a seven-level system gives an idea of how much weight can be placed on any given study or recommendation.
- Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) form the highest, most reliable form of medical evidence: Level 1 and 2.
- Virtually all evidence pertaining to Covid-19 policy is found in the lowest levels (much less compelling Levels 5 and 6): descriptive-only studies looking for a pattern, without using controls.
- Level 7 is at the bottom of the hierarchy (the opinion of authorities or reports of expert committees) because ‘authorities’ often fail to change their minds in the face of new evidence.
- Committees often issue compromise recommendations that are scientifically non-valid.
- The advice of Sage (or any committee of scientists) is the least reliable form of evidence there is.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-strong-was-the-scientific-advice-behind-lockdown
Government must take urgent action to prevent even bigger crisis in future, charity warns
Lockdown has been devastating for mental health and the worst could be yet to come, a leading charity has said.
The mental health charity Mind says a survey has revealed that lockdown has had a dramatic impact on the nation’s mental health, warning that unless action is taken now, the problem could grow.
Lockdown deaths:
The really concerning thing is that if all the deaths taking place during lockdown are put down as Covid-19 deaths, we are going to miss the fact that the lockdown policies have caused an increase in deaths from many other things. There has been a 50 per cent reduction in people turning up to A&E. It is clear that people just do not want to bother the doctors. And a number of these people will be dying. If we muddle the Covid-19 statistics in with the other statistics, we might think the lockdown has prevented a certain number of deaths, when it has actually caused a large number of deaths.
NHS capacity:
You hear this idea that all NHS staff have been working 20 times as hard as they have ever done. This is complete nonsense. An awful lot of people have been standing around wondering what the hell to do with themselves. A&E has never been so quiet.
The chances of children dying from COVID-19:
How many people aged 15 or under have died of Covid-19? Four. The chance of dying from a lightning strike is one in 700,000. The chance of dying of Covid-19 in that age group is one in 3.5million. And we locked them all down. Even among the 15- to 44-year-olds, the death rate is very low and the vast majority of deaths have been people who had significant underlying health conditions. We locked them down as well. We locked down the population that had virtually zero risk of getting any serious problems from the disease, and then spread it wildly among the highly vulnerable age group.
On vaccines:
It is not clear that getting the virus actually makes you immune to it in the future, and it is not clear a vaccine would either.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/26/the-lockdown-is-causing-so-many-deaths/
Government figures have revealed that lack of money forced millions of people to go hungry or rely on food banks during the first few weeks of the coronavirus lockdown, with families and young adults worst affected.
Households with children, people with health issues and people aged 16-24 were most likely to either to skip meals or use food charities to feed themselves or their family in April and May, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) data showed.
Seeking medical help too late during pandemic was contributory factor in the deaths of nine children, Royal College research finds
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/nhs-treatment-delays-linked-child-deaths-coronavirus/