Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a major threat, not only to countries whose economies rely on agricultural exports, but also to industrialised countries that maintain a healthy domestic livestock industry by eliminating major infectious diseases from their livestock populations. Traditional methods of controlling diseases such as FMD require the rapid detection and slaughter of infected animals, and any susceptible animals with which they may have been in contact, either directly or indirectly. During the 2001 epidemic of FMD in the United Kingdom (UK), this approach was supplemented by a culling policy driven by unvalidated predictive models. The epidemic and its control resulted in the death of approximately ten million animals, public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter, and political resolve to adopt alternative options, notably including vaccination, to control any future epidemics. The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism.
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Despite the success of the vaccine programme, which will see all vulnerable people protected against Covid-19 in a month, it seems lockdown will largely continue until July.
Restaurants and churches possibly still closed. Travel impossible. Families forbidden to mingle indoors. The Treasury still borrowing billions to keep people on furlough. This is draining the health of our population and our economy.
Anyone would be justified in demanding to know what the past year’s sacrifices have been for, if not to end lockdown as soon as possible.
How can the Government fail to set free the country — particularly after the stellar vaccination campaign?
EXPERTS have called for urgent action to protect children from the harm of lockdown, saying youngsters are being used in “an unethical mass experiment” and warning we are on the brink of a “national emergency”.
They are urging the Government to take urgent steps to examine and address the collateral damage that has been caused to children from issues such as school closures, lockdowns and social isolation as a result of the pandemic. One specialist is calling for a task force to be launched immediately and to remain in place for10 years, which would include experts in child abuse and neglect, childhood depression, suicide and anxiety, as well as physical, educational and developmental health.
New documents published by the Department of Health and Social Care show that Doja Limited were awarded the multi-million pound contract in May of last year. The company’s director has said it was founded to sell “rare diamonds”, and does not appear to have a history of supplying PPE.
The company, which has no website and is registered to an accountant’s firm, was handed the contract under a controversial scheme which allows ministers to directly award deals relating to procurement during the pandemic without putting the tender to a competitive process.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/diamond-dealer-nhs-ppe-contract-procurement
Norman Fenton is Professor in Risk Information Management at Queen Mary University of London and also a Director of Agena, a company that specialises in risk management for critical systems.
One of the major messages currently being pushed everywhere by the UK Government about COVID-19 is the claim that “1 in 3 people who have the virus have no symptoms”. In fact, if we trust the Government’s own data, this claim is massively exaggerated. The true figure – as we explain below – is more like 1 in 38*. Moreover, using data from
an ongoing study at Cambridge University (in which only people without symptoms are tested) we conclude that 96% of such people who test positive do not have the virus (i.e. they are mostly false positives).
https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/02/claim-that-1-in-3-people-who-have-virus.html
As with so many of the Government’s Covid-19 measures, the ten-year jail sentence is important mainly for what it tells us about the mentality of the decision-makers. Laws like these can only be justified on the footing that nothing matters except keeping infections down.
They are the work of people who think that there is no limit to the human misery, oppressive cruelty, economic damage or injustice that we must put up with if it reduces infections.
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.
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:
- 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.
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
Immunocompetent staff, patients and residents who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR should be exempt from routine re-testing by PCR or LFD antigen tests (for example, repeated whole setting screening or screening prior to hospital discharge) within a period of 90 days from their initial illness onset or test (if asymptomatic) unless they develop new COVID-19 symptoms. This is because fragments of inactive virus can be persistently detected by PCR in respiratory tract samples following infection – long after a person has completed their isolation period and is no longer infectious.
A group of 47 psychologists has claimed this amounts to a strategic decision “to inflate the fear levels of the British public”, which it states is “ethically murky” and has left people too afraid to leave their homes for medical appointments. Led by former NHS consultant psychologist Dr Gary Sidley, the experts have written to the British Psychological Society (BPS) claiming the strategy is “morally questionable.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1388315/coronavirus-feat-tactics-psychology-british-public
Since inception, the program has transferred over $7.6 Billion worth of equipment (based on the items Original Acquisition Value [OAV]). In Fiscal Year 2022, $160 Million (based on OAV) worth of equipment was conditionally transferred to participating law enforcement agencies.
A Government advert that says joggers and dog-walkers are “highly likely” to have Covid is to be discontinued after the regulator said there was no evidence to support the claim.
The Telegraph can reveal that the Cabinet Office has also agreed not to repeat the claim made in the 30-second radio ad – which also warns that “people will die” if individuals “bend the rules” – after being contacted by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The taxpayer-funded advert was condemned by MPs and public health experts for spreading “false information” and risking “scaring” people into physical inactivity during the third national lockdown.
https://archive.is/3R3Ip#selection-61.1-61.115
Source URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/21/government-discontinue-covid-ad-accusing-joggers-exercising/
Secret talks covered vaccines and mass testing
Tony Blair has been advising health secretary Matt Hancock on coronavirus pandemic strategy, it has emerged.
The former Labour prime minister has reportedly privately offered strategic advice to the government a number of times during the course of the outbreak.
Topics touched on by the ex-Labour leader are said to include vaccine strategy and mass testing, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
The secret talks are reportedly part of an attempted comeback for the former politician, according to a source familiar with his thinking who spoke to the same newspaper.
Ivor Cummins aka the Fat Emperor – gives James the lowdown on why you can’t trust anything our governments tell us about Covid-19. If you want the facts on Coronavirus – how deadly is it? do lockdowns and masks work? how does it compare with previous pandemics? – you’ve come to the right place
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Mr Zahawi’s wife, Lana Saib, has a controlling interest in Warren Medical Ltd, which was set up in June according to Companies House records.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/vaccines-minister-defends-family-setting-23269433
The unprecedented measures of universal lockdowns, tight institutional lockdowns of care homes, universal masking of the general population, obsession with surfaces and hands, and the accelerated vaccine deployment are contrary to known science, and contrary to recent leading studies. There has been government recklessness by action and negligence by omission. Institutional measures have been needed for a long time to stem corruption in both medicine and public health policy.
Lockdowns cannot eradicate the disease or protect the public. Indeed, Matt Hancock nearly said as much this week. They lead to only economic meltdown, social despair and direct harms to health from other causes.
In fact, lockdowns may be worse than just useless. There is some science to suggest – perhaps ironically – they actually drive the disease to spread more easily.
This danger lies in the evolutionary nature of the coronavirus. Like all viruses it mutates all the time. More than 20,000 variants of the Covid-19 virus have already been identified, which is why it is so wrong of the Government to whip up hysteria over two new strains, a reportedly more infectious strain in the South East of the UK and a ‘South African’ strain.