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Opinion

Boiling the bioethical frog – The Critic

This hunger games scenario of a middle-aged, potentially pre-infected and already immune health secretary taking a nominal, rushed, improperly trialled novel-technology vaccine after the pandemic has already passed on live TV is as unethical and obscene as any of the propaganda we have been subjected to. What have we become? If it happens, the supposed vaccinator, the TV station, the secretary of state, and the vaccine company should all be roundly condemned. It proves nothing and risks everything. Obnoxious and dangerous as he is, he hasn’t a clue what might happen to him. He is still that sacred thing: somebody’s patient. A power-crazed, ignorant man for whom the mantras “whatever it takes” and the “end justifies the means” are dear, offering himself for a macabre, televised ritual sacrifice fit for the Incas to appease his political masters. It is truly grotesque. There is no medical reason for him to have these chemicals.

https://thecritic.co.uk/boiling-the-bioethical-frog/

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Opinion Videos

If you don’t get angry, you’re condemned to this for life and so are your children – Peter Hitchens, talkRadio

  • The ‘new strain’ of coronavirus that put London into Tier 4 was down to more computer modelling from Neil Ferguson.
  • The government deliberately resorted to fear.
  • The damage done to our standing in the world is permanent.
  • The government is doing something it should not do and has no justification.
  • The whole notion of the mutant strain is completely constructed.
  • NERVTAG is full of psychologists who are experts in frightening people.
  • If you don’t get angry, this will never go away.
  • There is no evidence that this new variant is any more infection that the old one.
  • Historically medical beliefs are often wrong.
  • Fighting this thing is probably the most important thing we’ve ever done in our lives.
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Publications

Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death still well below April peak – UK Government Coronavirus Dashboard

Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death last updated on Sunday 20 December 2020.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

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News

Top scientific advisers rake in £400k: Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance are earning a fortune during Covid-19 pandemic and have appeared on the list of best-paid civil servants for the first time – Daily Mail

  • Professor Chris Whitty is paid between £205,000 and £210,000, it was revealed 
  • Meanwhile the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance is on up to £185,000
  • Thirty officials at soon-to-be scrapped Public Health England earn more than £150,000

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9061223/Top-scientific-advisers-rake-400k.html

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Opinion Videos

Will putting London into Tier 3 cripple the economy? – Dr. John Lee, talkRADIO

https://youtu.be/oHAJFQtnSVw
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News

The clampdown that is just bureaucratic insanity – Dr. John Lee, Daily Mail

By plunging London into a Tier Three lockdown, the Government is going to do terrible harm to the city, the entire national economy, and to millions of lives.

No one can predict the number of people who will lose jobs, suffer poor mental health or who will have life-saving operations postponed until too late.

All we can say with any certainty is that all these things will happen, and not to a few isolated people. The harms caused by these new restrictions, like those caused by the previous over-reactions, will be immense.

  • The Government is withholding much of the information we need to draw our own conclusions about better ways to handle the crisis.
  • The weekly average number of Covid deaths in the capital is just over a tenth of what it was at its peak in April.
  • Weekly average Covid admissions to London’s hospitals are a quarter of what were in the spring.
  • The [UK Government’s] obsession with secrecy is not intended to hide the facts from enemy agents but from us, the general public.
  • This disease is not like Spanish flu, or the plague. It does not sweep away young and old indiscriminately. In fact, many younger people – now more likely to catch Covid – will have it without even being aware. They will be infected but not affected.
  • The average age of people dying with a Covid infection is 82 years and four months – 14 months more than the average life expectancy in Britain.
  • In November the total number of deaths in London was very little different to the average over the past five years.
  • Covid is a respiratory virus that spreads on the wind. Just look at the leaves blowing around – that’s what viral particles do when we walk past each other.
  • Cloth or woven paper masks are no barrier to this tiny virus either, as shown by the world’s only controlled study, from Denmark, which found that they only made a small, ‘non-statistically-significant’ difference.

https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9053311/DR-JOHN-LEE-clampdown-just-bureaucratic-insanity.html

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Publications

Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19: A Tale of Three Models – medRxiv

Results While model 1 found that lockdown was the most effective measure in the original 11 countries, model 2 showed that lockdown had little or no benefit as it was typically introduced at a point when the time-varying reproductive number was already very low. Model 3 found that the simple banning of public events was beneficial, while lockdown had no consistent impact. Based on Bayesian metrics, model 2 was better supported by the data than either model 1 or model 3 for both time horizons.

Conclusions Inferences on effects of NPIs are non-robust and highly sensitive to model specification. Claimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.20160341v3

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Publications

Conflicts of interest among the UK government’s covid-19 advisers – BMJ

Little is known about the interests of the doctors, scientists, and academics on whose advice the UK government relies to manage the pandemic. Attempts to discover more are frequently thwarted, finds Paul D Thacker.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201210214506/https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4716

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News

Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report – The Guardian

The state of civil liberties around the world is bleak, according to a new study which found that 87% of the global population were living in nations deemed “closed”, “repressed” or “obstructed”.

The figure is a 4% increase on last year’s, as civil rights were found to have deteriorated in almost every country in the world during Covid-19. A number of governments have used the pandemic as an excuse to curtail rights such as free speech, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, according to Civicus Monitor, an alliance of civil society groups which assessed 196 countries.

By using methods such as detention of protesters, excessive use of force, censorship, attacks on journalists, and harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders, many governments have used Covid-19 to “introduce or implement additional restrictions on civic freedoms”, the report said.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/09/covid-used-as-pretext-to-curtail-civil-rights-around-the-world-finds-report

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News

Data showing rising cases before second lockdown quietly revised down – Telegraph

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data – which showed soaring coronavirus cases before the second lockdown – has been quietly revised down and now suggests that cases were largely plateauing at the time, it has emerged.

Many experts have complained that the data presented by the Government ahead of the lockdown was “riddled with errors” and exaggerated the need for a second lockdown, while Greg Clark, the chairman of the Commons science and technology committee, said the belated admission of errors was “of great concern”.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201208165734/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/08/data-showing-rising-cases-second-lockdown-quietly-revised/

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Publications

John Kerry reveals Biden’s devotion to radical ‘Great Reset’ movement – The Hill

At a panel discussion about the Great Reset hosted by the World Economic Forum in mid-November, former Secretary of State John Kerry – Biden’s would-be special presidential envoy for climate – firmly declared that the Biden administration will support the Great Reset and that the Great Reset “will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20201205141023/https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/528482-john-kerry-reveals-bidens-devotion-to-radical-great-reset-movement

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News

Pfizer given protection from legal action by UK government – The Independent

The UK government has granted pharmaceutical giant Pfizer a legal indemnity protecting it from being sued, enabling its coronavirus vaccine to be rolled out across the country as early as next week.

The Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed the company has been given an indemnity protecting it from legal action as a result of any problems with the vaccine.

Ministers have also changed the law in recent weeks to give new protections to companies such as Pfizer, giving them immunity from being sued by patients in the event of any complications.

NHS staff providing the vaccine, as well as manufacturers of the drug, are also protected.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201202182311/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-pfizer-vaccine-legal-indemnity-safety-ministers-b1765124.html

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Opinion Videos

George Hook Show – with Professor John Lee – Viral Reality!

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Publications

UK Economic and fiscal outlook – UK Office for Budget Responsibility

The coronavirus pandemic has delivered the largest peacetime shock to the global economy on record. It has required the imposition of severe restrictions on economic and social life; driven unprecedented falls in national income; fuelled rises in public deficits and debt surpassed only in wartime; and created considerable uncertainty about the future.

…GDP is set to fall by 11 per cent this year – the largest drop in annual output since the Great Frost of 1709.

https://obr.uk/docs/ExecSumm_November_2020.pdf

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News

Xantura – Data Analytics – Impact Investing – LittleSis

Source: Xantura – Data Analytics – Impact Investing, LittleSis

https://littlesis.org/relationships/1739834

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News

Army spies to take on antivax militants – The Sunday Times

The army has mobilised an elite “information warfare” unit renowned for assisting operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to counter online propaganda against vaccines, as Britain prepares to deliver its first injections within days.

The defence cultural specialist unit was launched in Afghanistan in 2010 and belongs to the army’s 77th Brigade. The secretive unit has often worked side-by-side with psychological operations teams.

Leaked documents reveal that its soldiers are already monitoring cyberspace for Covid-19 content and analysing how British citizens are being targeted online.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/army-spies-to-take-on-antivax-militants-mfzsj66w2

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News

The Covid data spies paid to know ALL your secrets: Town halls harvest millions of highly personal details including if you’re being unfaithful or having unsafe sex – Daily Mail

  • A private firm inked deals with local authorities to gather data that can be used to predict who is likely to break lockdown, creating risk analyses for households
  • The system, called Covid OneView, is produced by data analytics firm Xantura
  • Councils said the aim is to help identify those most at risk from coronavirus
  • MPs have said the system lacks transparency and its not clear why so much information about residents’ lives was needed
  • Covid OneView can gather included notes on:
    • Unfaithful and unsafe sex, emotional health and wellbeing, sleep issues and dangerous pets
    • Anger management issues and socially unacceptable behaviour
    • Financial details, including debt, low income and tax arrears
    • School attendance, low school commitment and free school meals

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8994911/Town-halls-harvest-millions-personal-details-including-youre-unfaithful-debt.html

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News

Number 10 cherry-picked ‘spurious’ Covid data to justify England’s second lockdown and may have intended to frighten the public, top Cambridge statistician claims – Daily Mail

  • Sir David Spiegelhalter suggested the Government tried to ‘manipulate’ Britons
  • Cherry-picked ‘worst-case scenarios’ to ‘instill a certain emotional reaction’
  • No10 lambasted for its apocalyptic graphs and spurious data shown to public

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8979123/Number-10-used-apocalyptic-Covid-19-graphs-frighten-public-lockdown-statistician.html

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Videos

Dr Mike Yeadon on the UK government’s mismanagement of COVID-19 on – Unlocked

YouTube has removed interview so we have archived the video in the above location. It is currently available on Unlocked Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/unlockedunitedkingdom/videos/vb.112364983833705/409747283542470/

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Publications

Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation – Frontiers in Public Health

Results: Higher Covid death rates are observed in the [25/65°] latitude and in the [−35/−125°] longitude ranges. The national criteria most associated with death rate are life expectancy and its slowdown, public health context (metabolic and non-communicable diseases (NCD) burden vs. infectious diseases prevalence), economy (growth national product, financial support), and environment (temperature, ultra-violet index). Stringency of the measures settled to fight pandemia, including lockdown, did not appear to be linked with death rate.

Conclusion: Countries that already experienced a stagnation or regression of life expectancy, with high income and NCD rates, had the highest price to pay. This burden was not alleviated by more stringent public decisions. Inherent factors have predetermined the Covid-19 mortality: understanding them may improve prevention strategies by increasing population resilience through better physical fitness and immunity.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.604339/full