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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

Almost £1bn spent on anti-Covid drug that doesn’t work – The Telegraph

Almost £1 billion of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on an anti-Covid drug that does not work, The Telegraph can disclose.

Less than two per cent of the 2.23 million courses of the antiviral drug molnupiravir procured by the Department of Health have ever been prescribed to patients, analysis by The Telegraph shows.

The rest are unlikely to ever be used after research found the drug makes no difference to hospitalisation or death rates.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the UK drugs watchdog, recently said molnupiravir should not be routinely used. In November, the drug was added to its draft “not recommended” list for treatment 

https://archive.today/2023.02.11-202410/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/11/almost-1bn-spent-anti-covid-drug-doesnt-work/

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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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Opinion

Is this the true, devastating cost of lockdown? – The Telegraph

Up to 100 times more may have been spent on preventing each Covid death than on preventing each non-Covid death

http://archive.today/2023.01.12-192720/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/12/true-devastating-cost-lockdown/

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News

Critics claim Covid jabs are causing heart problems – do they have any proof? – The Telegraph

On Monday evening, the American football player Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after colliding with an opponent. He suffered a cardiac arrest and needed to be twice resuscitated. Within hours, social media was rife with speculation that the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills star was the victim of a Covid jab, his heart – it was speculated – having been dangerously weakened by the vaccination.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/critics-claim-covid-jabs-causing-heart-problems-do-have-proof/

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News

Boris Johnson was secretly ‘nudged’ into wearing a Covid mask by government scientists – The Telegraph

Boris Johnson was secretly ‘nudged’ into wearing a facemask during the pandemic, according to the head of the government’s Behavioural Insights Team.

http://archive.today/2023.01.05-214830/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/boris-johnson-secretly-nudged-wearing-covid-mask-government/

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News

NHS creates £1.3bn pot for Covid compensation claims – The Telegraph

The NHS has set aside £1.3 billion to cope with compensation claims arising from the pandemic this year with claims for treatment delays, cancellations and misdiagnosis expected.

An annual report from NHS Resolution, which deals with patient disputes, shows that the health service anticipates it will need to pay out more than a billion pounds this financial year to settle claims arising from poor service during Covid.

http://archive.today/2022.11.28-210431/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/nhs-creates-13bn-pot-covid-compensation-claims/

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Opinion

The nationalised NHS model was doomed from the very start – The Telegraph

If demand for health care is nearly unlimited and cannot be rationed by price, it must be rationed in some other way. The NHS rations through shortages – of staff – and waiting lists. Additional rationing is achieved by those who “do not want to bother the doctor”, often at cost to their health, while large numbers go private, so creating the two-tier health system Bevan hoped to avoid – though he did not use an NHS GP but rather Sir Daniel Davies, physician to George VI.

http://archive.today/2022.11.29-042954/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/nationalised-nhs-model-doomed-start/

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News

Pfizer’s CEO rapped by regulator for making ‘misleading’ statements about children’s vaccines – The Telegraph

Pfizer’s CEO has been rapped by the UK’s pharmaceutical watchdog for making “misleading” statements about children’s vaccines, The Telegraph can disclose.

…A code of practice panel, convened by the PMCPA, found that Pfizer had breached the code in a number of different ways, including by misleading the public, making unsubstantiated claims, and by failing to present information in a factual and balanced way.

http://archive.today/2022.11.27-084441/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/26/pfizers-ceo-rapped-regulator-making-misleading-statements-childrens/

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News

Top virologists betrayed science with their Covid lab leak cover-up – The Telegraph

In March 2020, some colleagues in Parliament, knowing I was interested in genetics and medicine, asked me if I thought Covid began with a lab leak. “No,” I replied confidently. In this I relied on conversations with expert virologists and a paper that five of them published in Nature Medicine categorically ruling it out: “Our analyses clearly show that Sars-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposely manipulated virus.”

Today, I feel betrayed. Thanks to emails released under Freedom of Information this week, we now know that they did think a lab leak was possible, and the evidence that they then used to dismiss it was faulty.

http://archive.today/2022.11.24-182434/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/24/top-virologists-betrayed-science-covid-lab-leak-cover-up/

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Alternative Media

The journalist-run, intelligence-linked operation that warped British pandemic policy – The Grayzone

Presented as an independent voice for “unbiased” scientific advice, iSAGE provided a channel for media spinmeisters, spies and psy-op specialists to influence Britain’s pandemic policy without accountability. Leaked internal emails show members fretting over its unethical methods.

http://archive.today/2022.11.22-042832/https://thegrayzone.com/2022/11/21/journalist-intelligence-british-pandemic-policy/

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News

Sunak tells NHS to embrace robot workers as it prepares to sack staff – The Telegraph

Rishi Sunak has urged the NHS to embrace the use of robots as the health service prepares to cut its workforce by half in a drastic attempt to cut costs.

http://archive.today/2022.11.23-190219/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/21/sunak-tells-nhs-embrace-robot-workers-prepares-sack-staff/

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News

We are paying an enormous price for the bad science behind Covid lockdowns – The Telegraph

All too often, study results were used by experts who dipped into the pandemic – who have now dipped out – to back up positions of certainty. Such dogma led to the breakdown of constructive discussion. Consequently, destructive policies went largely unchallenged.  

So we have one more casualty of the Covid 19 pandemic: science. This is based on free, civilised discussion and recognition of the presence and role of uncertainty – the vital ingredients for its progress. Following “the science” was not a potent force for effective policymaking when so much of the “science” was flawed. 

http://archive.today/2022.11.16-164221/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/16/paying-enormous-price-bad-science-behind-covid-lockdowns/

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News

Rising non-Covid excess deaths reveal the disastrous legacy of the pandemic – The Telegraph

Figures reveal there were 18,394 deaths ‘due to’ Covid recorded this year in England and Wales. But since May there have been 23,195 excess deaths where the primary cause was another condition.

Some of those people did die with a coronavirus infection, but it was not the main reason for the death.

Experts continue to argue over the reasons behind this recent uptick in unexpected deaths, which shows no sign of slowing.

But it is likely that collateral damage from the pandemic, coupled with long term NHS problems, have collided into a perfect, and deadly, storm.

…Prof Banerjee fears that the indirect effects of the pandemic will turn out to be greater than the harm from Covid itself, and that it is vital for future preparedness planning to take into account long-term outcomes.

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News

Lockdown effects feared to be killing more people than Covid – The Telegraph

The effects of lockdown may now be killing more people than are dying of Covid, official statistics suggest.

Figures for excess deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that around 1,000 more people than usual are currently dying each week from conditions other than the virus.

Number of patients facing a 12+ hour wait (2019-2022) – Source BMA

http://archive.today/2022.08.19-090630/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/18/lockdown-effects-feared-killing-people-covid/

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News

Ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030 ‘unrealistic’ due to slow progress with EV charger network – The Telegraph

Ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 may not be realistic because the electric vehicle charging network isn’t close to being ready, a government advisory report has warned.

Sir John Armitt, head of the National Infrastructure Commission, said there was a “real risk” to the deadline because of the slow progress of installing new electric chargers.

Drivers will not switch away from fossil fuel cars quickly enough if they are not confident of being able to charge electric vehicles, the commission warned in a report published on Wednesday.

The electric vehicle charging network is “significantly behind where it needs to be” and without more chargers drivers “will not have the confidence to make the switch to electric vehicles”, the report warns.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220316170408/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/16/ban-petrol-diesel-cars-2030-unrealistic-due-slow-progress-ev/

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News

Britain’s Covid experts ‘misled with alarming models and abandoned objectivity’ – The Telegraph

Scientists abandoned their objectivity, misled with alarming models and failed to appreciate the damage lockdown would cause, a government adviser has claimed in a damning indictment of Britain’s pandemic response.

In his memoir, The Year The World Went Mad, Prof Woolhouse claimed that lockdowns “had surprisingly little effect” and just “deferred the problem to another day, at great cost”.

He argued that Spi-M was set up to tackle the wrong disease, influenza, and that early models were based on flu dynamics, and so mistakenly thought schools were a major driver while underrepresenting the impact of shielding.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220305142940/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/05/britains-covid-experts-misled-alarming-models-abandoned-objectivity/

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News

Covid modelling that prompted first UK lockdown based on ‘inaccurate’ case numbers – The Telegraph

Scientists did not have accurate Covid case numbers, and were unsure of hospitalisation and death rates when they published models suggesting that more than 500,000 people could die if Britain took no action in the first wave of the pandemic, it has emerged.

On March 16 2020, Imperial College published its “Report 9” paper suggesting that failing to take action could overwhelm the NHS within weeks and result in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Before the paper, the UK coronavirus strategy was to flatten the peak rather than suppress the wave, but after the modelling was made public, the Government made a rapid u-turn, which eventually led to lockdown on March 23.

However SPI-M (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling) minutes released to the Telegraph under a Freedom of Information request show that by March 16, modellers were still “uncertain” of case numbers “due to data limitations”.

The minutes show that members were waiting for comprehensive mortality data from Public Health England (PHE) and said that current best estimates for the infection fatality rate, hospitalisation rates, and the number of people needing intensive care were still uncertain.

They also believed that modelling only showed “proof of concept” that lockdowns could help, and warned that “further work would be required”.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226190045/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/covid-modelling-prompted-first-uk-lockdown-based-inaccurate/

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News

How scientific ‘groupthink’ silenced those who disagreed with Covid lockdowns – The Telegraph

“Following the science” became a mainstay mantra of the pandemic, frequently trotted-out to justify unpalatable policy decisions such as banning hugging or denying fathers the right to attend the birth of a child.

Yet as Britain’s epidemic begins to fade away, it is becoming increasingly clear that many influential scientists were ignored, ridiculed and shunned for expressing moderate views that the virus could be managed in a way which would cause far less collateral damage.

Instead, a narrow scientific “groupthink” emerged, which sought to cast those questioning draconian policies as unethical, immoral and fringe. That smokescreen is finally starting to dissipate.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226190050/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/scientific-groupthink-silenced-disagreed-covid-lockdowns/

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News

Doctors’ face masks ‘aggravated’ communication failure that led to fatal overdose – The Telegraph

The wearing of face masks by doctors contributed to the death of a patient in an NHS hospital because they exacerbated communication problems, a coroner has said.

The personal protective equipment “aggravated” a “failure in verbal communication” between two physicians treating an epileptic patient.

John Skinner was admitted to Watford General hospital suffering from seizures in May 2020, during the first Covid wave.

He was given phenytoin, an anti-epileptic drug, by a junior doctor who did not know the correct dose to be administered and asked for help from a more senior colleague who told him to use a 15 mg/kg dose measurement. This was misheard as 50 kg/mg.

http://archive.today/2022.02.15-153142/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/15/doctors-face-masks-aggravated-communication-failure-led-fatal/