Private WhatsApp messages shared with The Telegraph reveal how U.K. health officials, including former health secretary Matt Hancock, made COVID-19 policy decisions based on political expediency rather than science, as health officials claimed publicly.
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.
As described in a previous HART bulletin, there has been a pervasive reluctance for the powers-that-be to discuss the questionable ethics of the covert behavioural-science techniques used by the Government throughout the covid-19 messaging campaign.
28 September, 2020 — The Critic
“The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”
– SPI-B paper, 22 March 2020.
Fear is the most powerful of emotions and, as emotions are stronger than thoughts, fear can overpower the clearest of minds. We shouldn’t feel bad about being frightened. From an evolutionary perspective, it is key to our survival, it protects us from danger. And that is precisely what makes fear one of the most powerful tools in behavioural psychology.
13 November 2020 — BMJ
Kamran Abbasi, executive editor
Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling.
16 October 2020 — Lockdown Sceptics
by Mike Yeadon
Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, give a Coronavirus Data Briefing in 10 Downing Street. Picture by Pippa Fowles/No 10 Downing Street.
“It’s Easier to Fool People Than It Is to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.” – Mark Twain
Abstract
SAGE made – and continues to make – two fatal errors in its assessment of the SAR-CoV-2 pandemic, rendering its predictions wildly inaccurate, with disastrous results. These errors led SAGE to conclude that the pandemic is still in its early stages, with the vast majority (93%) of the UK population remaining susceptible to infection and that, in the absence of more action, a very high number of deaths will occur. Continue reading
30 August, 2020 — Novara Media
Chief Medical Officer Chris Witty, Boris Johnson, and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance (Pippa Fowles | No 10 Downing Street)
In part one of a two-part series, Hilary Wainwright talks to Sir David King, former government chief scientific adviser (2000-2007) and founder and chair of Independent SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies). Formed in May, the group aims to improve public understanding about how to handle Covid-19, as the official SAGE works in secrecy and the government’s incompetent handling of the crisis continues.
1 June 2020 — 21st Century Wire
An incredible discovery of UK government documents from SAGE science advisory committee reveals that Downing Street’s decision to ‘Lockdown’ the country was in fact a political one, and little to do with “The Science” that government insists it’s being guided by. Also, many are concerned about a spike in child abuse reports as a result of government lockdown policy. All this and more.
Co-hosts Brian Gerrish, Mike Robinson and David Scott with the latest Coronavirus updates. Watch:
Continue reading
20 May 2020 — The Critic
It is the end of the affair. We are no longer at epidemic levels of covid-19 prevalence in the UK (0.27% of the population infected, where 0.4% is the low end required to be “epidemic”), and all-cause deaths have slipped back below average.
Source: Office for National Statistics, 15 May 2020
It seems a good time to look back on the extraordinary past few weeks and try and draw conclusions.
19 May 2020 — True Publica
The British Medical Journal is one of the world’s oldest and most respected general medical journals. It has published a damning report that details the Boris Johnson government response to the COVID-19 crisis that can be distilled down to just a few words, – ‘too little, too late and too flawed’.
The New Dark Age 