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News

Britain drilled to accept lockdown in future pandemics, says ‘nudge unit’ chief – The Telegraph

Britain has been drilled to comply with lockdown under a future pandemic, the chief executive of the ‘nudge unit’ has said.

Professor David Halpern told The Telegraph that the country had “practised the drill” of wearing face masks and working from home and “could redo it” in a future crisis.

http://archive.today/2023.07.06-145552/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/06/britain-drilled-to-accept-lockdown-in-future-pandemics/

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Publications

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions – Institute of Economic Affairs

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns, also referred to as ‘Covid restrictions’, ‘social distancing measures’ etc., on COVID-19 mortality based on available empirical evidence. We define lockdowns as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). We employ a systematic search and screening procedure in which 19,646 studies are identified that could potentially address the purpose of our study. After three levels of screening, 32 studies qualified. Of those, estimates from 22 studies could be converted to standardised measures for inclusion in the metaanalysis.

https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdict-on-covid-restrictions/

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News

Sucharit Bhakdi & the prosecution of “thought crime” – OffGuardian

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, one of the first medical experts to speak out against the Covid hysteria, is being prosecuted in Germany. Please see the resources below for more information.

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News

The wind and solar power myth has finally been exposed – The Telegraph

Many governments in the Western world have committed to “net zero” emissions of carbon in the near future. The US and UK both say they will deliver by 2050. It’s widely believed that wind and solar power can achieve this. This belief has led the US and British governments, among others, to promote and heavily subsidise wind and solar.

These plans have a single, fatal flaw: they are reliant on the pipe-dream that there is some affordable way to store surplus electricity at scale.

In the real world a wind farm’s output often drops below 10 per cent of its rated “capacity” for days at a time. Solar power disappears completely every night and drops by 50 per cent or more during cloudy days. “Capacity” being a largely meaningless figure for a wind or solar plant, about 3000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity is needed to replace a 1000 MW conventional power station in terms of energy over time: and in fact, as we shall see, the conventional power station or something very like it will still be needed frequently once the wind and solar are online.

http://archive.today/2023.05.13-125957/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/10/wind-solar-renewables-pointless-waste/

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News

Covid: No evidence shielding helped – Swansea uni study – BBC News

There is no evidence that shielding benefited vulnerable people during the Covid pandemic, according to a study.

Swansea University compared 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the rest of the population of three million.

The study found deaths and healthcare usage were higher among shielding people than the general population.

The Welsh government said shielding was introduced on medical and scientific advice and it will continue to review evidence from the pandemic.

The study also found the Covid rate was higher among those shielding – 5.9% compared to 5.7%.

The researchers said the data raised questions about whether the policy worked.

http://archive.today/2023.04.24-112929/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-65358308

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News

Matt Hancock’s plan to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’ about Covid – The Telegraph

Throughout the course of the pandemic, officials and ministers wrestled with how to ensure the public complied with ever-changing lockdown restrictions. One weapon in their arsenal was fear. 

“We frighten the pants off everyone,” Matt Hancock suggested during one WhatsApp message with his media adviser. 

The then health secretary was not alone in his desire to scare the public into compliance. The WhatsApp messages seen by The Telegraph show how several members of Mr Hancock’s team engaged in a kind of “Project Fear”, in which they spoke of how to utilise “fear and guilt” to make people obey lockdown.

https://archive.today/2023.03.06-043724/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/project-fear-covid-lockdown-files-matt-hancock-whatsapp/

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News

‘Project Fear’ authors discussed when to ‘deploy’ new Covid variant – The Telegraph

Matt Hancock wanted to “deploy” a new Covid variant to “frighten the pants off” the public and ensure they complied with lockdown, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph have revealed.

The Lockdown Files – more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between ministers, officials and others – show how the Government used scare tactics to force compliance and push through lockdowns.

https://archive.today/2023.03.06-095041/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/project-fear-covid-variant-lockdown-matt-hancock-whatsapp/

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News

The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned? – The New York Times

But whatever the reason, mask mandates were a fool’s errand from the start. They may have created a false sense of safety — and thus permission to resume semi-normal life. They did almost nothing to advance safety itself. The Cochrane report ought to be the final nail in this particular coffin.

There’s a final lesson. The last justification for masks is that, even if they proved to be ineffective, they seemed like a relatively low-cost, intuitively effective way of doing something against the virus in the early days of the pandemic. But “do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy. And the people who had the courage to say as much deserved to be listened to, not treated with contempt. They may not ever get the apology they deserve, but vindication ought to be enough.

https://archive.today/2023.02.23-001001/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-work.html

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News

The price Britain paid for lockdown was colossal. Was there an alternative? – The Guardian

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting of the long-term consequences of quarantining the country during lockdown. There were warnings at the time that keeping people under a form of house arrest would lead to rising loneliness, mental illness, domestic abuse and childhood obesity; a growing school attainment divide between pupils from rich and poor homes; an increase in hospital waiting lists and a rise in undiagnosed cases of cancer. All of which have come to pass. Only last month, for example, a report by the House of Commons Library expressed concern that the estimated rate of absence from school in the current academic year was 7.8% – compared with 4.8% in 2019-20.

https://archive.today/2023.02.12-113815/https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/12/price-britain-paid-lockdown-colossal-alternative-recession-austerity-stagnation

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News

We went too far with Covid restrictions says Germany’s pro-lockdown minister – The Telegraph

Some Covid restrictions were “idiocy” and lengthy school closures were an “unnecessary mistake”, Germany’s lockdown chief has admitted.

Karl Lauterbach, who became the face of the pro-lockdown movement, said some regulations went too far.

“Much of what we did was right but what was idiocy was the things like jogging with masks, or rules for outdoors. Those were excessive,” Mr Lauterbach said.

https://archive.today/2023.02.10-173712/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/10/went-far-covid-restrictions-says-germanys-pro-lockdown-minister/

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News

Britons face 20,000 digital pound cap under Bank of England plan – Reuters

Britons would be limited to 20,000 digital pounds ($24,000) each if the country goes ahead with a digital currency, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said on Tuesday.

…Money above the cap would be “swept” into a customer’s commercial bank account given that a digital pound would not be a means for storing wealth, he told members of UK Finance, a banking industry body.

https://archive.today/2023.02.07-202104/https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/consumers-face-20000-pound-limit-digital-pound-bank-england-says-2023-02-07/

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News

Southend rules out signing up to ’15-minute cities’ scheme – Essex Echo

SOUTHEND Council has ruled out ever signing up to a 15-minute city scheme which restricts residents’ ability to travel freely across the city.

Councils across the country are signing up to a net zero 2030 scheme and some are including plans for 15-minute cities where residents have everything they need within a 15-minute walk, cycle of public transport ride.

https://archive.today/2023.02.10-132052/https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/23306264.southend-rules-signing-15-minute-cities-scheme/

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Opinion

Do mask mandates work? – Professor Carl Heneghan and Professor Tom Jefferson, The Spectator

Interestingly, 12 trials in the review, ten in the community and two among healthcare workers, found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to influenza-like or Covid-19-like illness transmission. Equally, the review found that masks had no effect on laboratory-confirmed influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes. Five other trials showed no difference between one type of mask over another.

https://archive.today/2023.02.03-091622/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/do-mask-mandates-work/

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News

Low traffic neighbourhoods are a death knell for independent stores and cafés – The Grocer

LTN schemes emerged from ‘15-minute city’ ideology: “a residential urban concept in which most daily necessities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling from residents’ homes”. A lovely idea, but if you can’t cycle all your food shopping home, or lug it back because you’re too old or burdened with toddlers, you become a casualty of environmental piety.

https://archive.today/2023.02.03-081307/https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/second-opinion/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-are-a-death-knell-for-independent-stores-and-cafes/675837.article

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Opinion

It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives – Newsweek

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

https://archive.today/2023.01.30-172533/https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-coivd-it-cost-lives-opinion-1776630

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News

Army spied on lockdown critics: Sceptics, including our own Peter Hitchens, long suspected they were under surveillance. Now we’ve obtained official records that prove they were right all along – The Mail on Sunday

A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised the Government’s Covid lockdown policies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Military operatives in the UK’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response.

They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll predictions, as well as journalists such as Peter Hitchens and Toby Young. Their dissenting views were then reported back to No 10.

Documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, and shared exclusively with this newspaper, exposed the work of Government cells such as the Counter Disinformation Unit, based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Rapid Response Unit in the Cabinet Office.

https://archive.today/2023.01.29-172141/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11687675/Army-spied-lockdown-critics-Sceptics-including-Peter-Hitchens-suspected-watched.html

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Alternative Media

NHS Doctor confirms Health & Social Care Staff were instructed to let Patients die or “euthanize” them to falsely increase the COVID Death Count while Hospitals were EMPTY – The Expose

An NHS whistleblower, who wishes to remain anonymous, has come forward with allegations that the NHS hospitals were not overwhelmed during the Covid-19 pandemic, as was reported by authorities and the mainstream media.

The whistleblower also confirmed that the little care given throughout the pandemic amounted to negligence, and that the Goverment and NHS bosses essentially instructed staff to let people die, or in some cases kill them through the ‘End of Life Care’ programme and falsely label the deaths as being due to Covid-19.

https://archive.today/2023.01.21-071551/https://expose-news.com/2023/01/21/nhs-staff-told-to-kill-patients-for-covid/

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News

Fatal heart attacks have surged in Australia. Here’s why – The Sydney Morning Herald

The pandemic has caused a surge of fatal cardiac arrests in Australia, as delayed care and COVID’s damaging effect on the heart drives a major uptick in serious heart issues.

More than 10,200 Australians died of ischemic heart disease in the first eight months of 2022 – that is about 17 per cent higher than would be expected in a normal year.

https://archive.today/2023.01.20-230252/https://www.smh.com.au/national/fatal-heart-attacks-have-surged-in-australia-here-s-why-20230117-p5cd22.html

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News

Mask-Wearing Champions Japan and South Korea Look to End the Habit – The Wall Street Journal

Three years into the pandemic, nearly everyone in Japan is wearing a mask most of the time in public, and in South Korea it is legally required indoors.

Now these two Asian champions of mask-wearing say it is time to move on. Officials in Tokyo and Seoul on Friday called for easing of mask protocols, overriding concerns from some who say the practice still saves lives and keeps away a variety of ailments.

https://archive.today/2023.01.20-155931/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/mask-wearing-champions-japan-and-south-korea-look-to-end-the-habit-11674214938

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Videos

Neil Oliver Interviews Dr. John Campbell – Dr. John Campbell

Dr. John Campbell is an internet sensation, giving facts & data to help us navigate healthcare in the present day. The interview covers John’s development, work, rise to fame & what he would do to help get healthcare back in shape.