Tag: Lockdowns

Returning to COVID19

3 Comments

Tuesday, 31 January 2023 — Dr Malcolm Kendrick

With the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, my thoughts were dragged back to Covid once more. Jacinda, as Prime Minster of New Zealand was the ultimate lockdown enforcer. She was feted round the world for her iron will, but I was not a fan, to put it mildly. Whenever I heard her speak, it brought to mind one of my most favourite quotes:

‘Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’  C.S. Lewis

Continue reading →

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

Leave a comment

21 November 2022 — 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.

Continue reading →

The Folly of Following ‘The’ Science: an Exercise in Grammar

Leave a comment

Friday, 9 September 2022 — HART

The devil is in the detail…

Rishi Sunak’s revelations in The Spectator on 1 September reveal his disquiet at the influence SAGE advisers wielded during the pandemic, the perils of applying lockdowns, the inappropriate fear messaging targeted at the public based on exaggerated modelling of data and, importantly, the censorship of dissenting views within ministerial meetings.

Continue reading →

From Wuhan to Ottawa

Leave a comment

Thursday, 17 February 2022 — Swiss Policy Research

Canadian “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa (Shropshire)

The latest medical and political coronavirus developments.

Lockdowns in retrospect

A recent preprint meta-analysis by researchers from Denmark (Center for Political Studies), Sweden (Lund University) and the US (Johns Hopkins University) found that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had no significant impact on mortality. Moreover, the authors highlight that the many “simulation studies” that claimed otherwise essentially presupposed that the entire decline in infections had been due to “measures”, when in reality the decline had been a natural phenomenon. This discrepancy was first shown by a French researcher (see this interview).

Continue reading →

Covid justice crisis: MPs, rights groups and lawyers call for urgent review of all Covid fines and prosecutions

Leave a comment

Wednesday, 2 February 2022 — Big Brother Watch

COVID JUSTICE CRISIS: MPS, RIGHTS GROUPS AND LAWYERS CALL FOR URGENT REVIEW OF ALL COVID FINES AND PROSECUTIONS

  • 40+ parliamentarians, 15 rights groups and human rights lawyers demand Government launches a review of coronavirus fines and prosecutions
  • They submit “substantial evidence that thousands of people have been wrongfully fined and even prosecuted unlawfully under coronavirus-related legislation” amid “allegations of numerous offences under these same laws in the heart of Government”.
  • In a joint letter published by civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch and criminal justice watchdog Fair Trials, the signatories cite the discriminatory, inconsistent and unlawful enforcement of coronavirus laws and regulations. They claim there is an “urgent need for a review of the enforcement of coronavirus-related laws and regulations, in order for justice to be served”. The signatories call for wrongfully or unlawfully issued fines to be repaid, prosecutions withdrawn and criminal convictions rescinded.

Continue reading →

More Than 400 Studies on the Failure of Compulsory Covid Interventions

Leave a comment

30 November, 2021 — Brownstone Institute

By 

The great body of evidence (comparative research studies and high-quality pieces of evidence and reporting judged to be relevant to this analysis) shows that COVID-19 lockdowns, shelter-in-place policies, masks, school closures, and mask mandates have failed in their purpose of curbing transmission or reducing deaths. These restrictive policies were ineffective and devastating failures, causing immense harm especially to the poorer and vulnerable within societies.

Continue reading →

The Telegraph – Austria’s precedent-setting lockdown is an assault on human rights

Leave a comment

19 November, 2021 — Big Brother Watch

[How ironic that it’s left to a rightwing rag like the Telegraph to warn us of the approaching fascism. WB]

Europe is in the midst not only of a public health crisis, but also of a dangerous shift towards authoritarianism. The Austrian government’s introduction of a lockdown only for unvaccinated people this week was a precedent-setting assault on human rights: liberty, privacy, freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom from discrimination. And yet, if you follow the work of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency, which sits in the heart of Vienna, you wouldn’t know that it is even happening.

Continue reading →

Lockdowns: Fewer Suicides in 2020?

Leave a comment

17 April 2021 — Swiss Policy Research

Overall, ‘lockdowns’ have had no discernible impact on covid mortality. This is true in the US (compare Florida to other states) and in Europe (compare Sweden to the EU), but also in Latin America (compare Peru and Argentina to Brazil), Africa (low impact of covid anyway), and even in Asia (see India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines).

USA: Leading causes of death, 2015 to 2020 (JAMA, March 2021)

Continue reading →

Believing in impossible things – and COVID19

Leave a comment

6 March 2021 — Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

1: ‘The Concept of Coronavirus Herd Immunity Is Deadly and Dangerous’ https://www.self.com/story/coronavirus-herd-immunity

Since COVID19 first hurtled over the horizon, before landing upon us all with great force, I find that I have been asked to believe in many impossible things. First, I was told that attempting to create herd immunity was not achievable. It would also be extremely dangerous and would inevitably result in many hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.

Continue reading →

Zoom Privilege: COVID-19 restrictions are making the rich richer & everyone else poorer

1 Comment

21 January 2021 — The Dossier

“Non-essential” Americans are being drowned by draconian policies.

Wall Street, Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley are swimming in cash and prosperity. 2020 could not have gone better for the country’s elites. The vast majority of Americans, on the other hand, have been forced into financial, physical, and emotional ruin. 2020 served as the year that government dictates — purposed with fighting a disease with a 99.8% recovery rate — manifested unprecedented wealth inequality, and created health issues far more dangerous than COVID-19. The unintended consequences of “fighting a virus” with the power of government are now on display for the world to see.

Stanford Study Questions Benefits of Lockdowns and Stay-At-Home Orders

Leave a comment

15 January 2021 — Outkick

by

A group of researchers at Stanford published a peer-reviewed study earlier this month assessing the impact of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders — what they refer to as non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in early 2020. The study did not find evidence to support that NPIs were effective in preventing the spread.

Continue reading →

COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink

Leave a comment

3 November 2020 — Preprints

Ari Joffe

Version 1 : Received: 14 October 2020 / Approved: 15 October 2020 / Online: 15 October 2020 (16:02:58 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 3 November 2020 / Approved: 4 November 2020 / Online: 4 November 2020 (10:14:33 CET)

How to cite: Joffe, A. COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink. Preprints 2020, 2020100330 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202010.0330.v2). Joffe, A. COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink. Preprints 2020, 2020100330 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202010.0330.v2).

Abstract

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to save the population from COVID-19 cases and deaths, and to prevent overwhelming health care systems with COVID-19 patients. In this narrative review I explain why I changed my mind about supporting lockdowns.

Continue reading →