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They do have such people, maybe you switch off too soon? Andrew Bridgen MP was one just a few days ago, Peter Hitchens another, who claimed we should just 'laugh at the virus'. I have only seen one qualified person going against lockdowns, saying we should adopt the 'Swedish Method'. Which Sweden itself is now abandoning as naturally occurring herd immunity proved impossible to achieve. The 'Great Barrington Declaration against lockdowns has been given plenty of coverage and published by the BMJ.
Sweden has introduced slightly tighter restrictions (nothing like here, though) as cases have inevitably risen in the winter. I haven't seen any evidence that they are 'abandoning' their strategy at all. Still no lockdowns.
Someone posted the graphs on here a few days ago, and their excess death rate is about normal for this time of year.
It is also worth noting that the 'Swedish Method' is simply what would have been in most countries' plans for this type of pandemic before this year. When it actually happened most of them blindly followed China into a dystopian world of lockdowns and an ever increasing and confusing number of rules.
There is no correlation between enthusiasm for these dystopian practices and actual infection and death rates, do it is highly questionable whether they are achieving anything positive.
Two week exercise, but in reality it would have been for much longer. The exercise was across 15 regions of the UK, but back then we had a proper Strategic Pandemic Reserve, managed by the military in support of the civilian emergency planners and the NHS, but that was privatised, so Johnson inherited a mess he was very slow reacting to.
Look at the nations that did do proper lockdowns and where they are now. Our in / out approach has been to suppress the virus and wait for a vaccine. South Korea and Singapore, our proteges, fully locked down, used track and trace and enforced emergency powers.
Both of those are borderline police states, and suppressed it early at low levels. Once it's achieved wide spread it's a lost cause. See Italy, Spain, France, etc.
Both of those are borderline police states, and suppressed it early at low levels. Once it's achieved wide spread it's a lost cause. See Italy, Spain, France, etc.
Sweden has introduced slightly tighter restrictions (nothing like here, though) as cases have inevitably risen in the winter. I haven't seen any evidence that they are 'abandoning' their strategy at all. Still no lockdowns.
Someone posted the graphs on here a few days ago, and their excess death rate is about normal for this time of year.
It is also worth noting that the 'Swedish Method' is simply what would have been in most countries' plans for this type of pandemic before this year. When it actually happened most of them blindly followed China into a dystopian world of lockdowns and an ever increasing and confusing number of rules.
There is no correlation between enthusiasm for these dystopian practices and actual infection and death rates, do it is highly questionable whether they are achieving anything positive.
14th December read the Swedish Prime Ministers address. New laws being passed, to enforce lockdowns in 2021, and from Reuters on the 15th December, "
On 9 December Stockholm’s health authority declared that 99 per cent of its intensive care beds were occupied and asked national authorities to help them find extra staff.
The capital has since requested assistance from the country’s military, while Finland and Norway have offered outside support. Sweden’s cumulative death rate per million people (744) is around seven times higher than those of its Nordic neighbours and its caseload is rising at the fastest rate of almost any European country. "
Two week exercise, but in reality it would have been for much longer. The exercise was across 15 regions of the UK, but back then we had a proper Strategic Pandemic Reserve, managed by the military in support of the civilian emergency planners and the NHS, but that was privatised, so Johnson inherited a mess he was very slow reacting to.
There was a vaccine for the flu, but not the viral TB. It was a two week exercise, but the timescale envisaged was 6-8 months. Look at the nations that did do proper lockdowns and where they are now. Our in / out approach has been to suppress the virus and wait for a vaccine. South Korea and Singapore, our proteges, fully locked down, used track and trace and enforced emergency powers.
Do I think the UK could go onto a wartime style footing for nearly a year? Pretty bloody poor show if we could not.
14th December read the Swedish Prime Ministers address. New laws being passed, to enforce lockdowns in 2021, and from Reuters on the 15th December, "
On 9 December Stockholm’s health authority declared that 99 per cent of its intensive care beds were occupied and asked national authorities to help them find extra staff.
The capital has since requested assistance from the country’s military, while Finland and Norway have offered outside support. Sweden’s cumulative death rate per million people (744) is around seven times higher than those of its Nordic neighbours and its caseload is rising at the fastest rate of almost any European country. "
What is being proposed is an enabling law which would allow their parliament to impose more restrictions. It's not gone through yet, and has its critics.
Caseload is of less importance than death rate, and that is around the average for the time of year.
And, to return to the main point, Sweden is doing no worse than European countries which did impose draconian restrictions back in March and April.
Both of those are borderline police states, and suppressed it early at low levels. Once it's achieved wide spread it's a lost cause. See Italy, Spain, France, etc.
As was the UK in WW2. But despite all the warnings, the UK failed spectacularly to act to try and prevent it's spread. Liverpool v Madrid, Cheltenham Festival etc. etc. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan told us what it was early on. You think the UK is not capable of being a 'police state?' I personally did not go to the miners strike in 1984, I was employed in the Home Counties on duties connected with it. But I witnessed first hand the resources the state used to make sure the power stations did not shut down. The huge numbers of police officers deployed to the coalfields were considered by the planners to be an army of occupation. They were just the visible presence. The NUM was so full of Special Branch informers and so many phones tapped it would have done the KGB proud. It was not comfortable to witness. Thatchers team had planned it to a tee, and when the files are finally released and historians look back, it will be clear why Scargill never had a chance. The moment they came to power in 1979, his downfall was being planned.
Both of those are borderline police states, and suppressed it early at low levels. Once it's achieved wide spread it's a lost cause. See Italy, Spain, France, etc.
With hindsight, it’s incredible that people in my area were going for ski trips to Italy even as late as mid-March.
There’s no doubt as a country we were slow off the mark, though whether this would have made much difference is another matter.
I can’t help but notice the irony that the types of people round here who last March wouldn’t forego their ski trip are in many cases the self-same ones who now want more in the way of restrictions.
What is being proposed is an enabling law which would allow their parliament to impose more restrictions. It's not gone through yet, and has its critics.
Caseload is of less importance than death rate, and that is around the average for the time of year.
And, to return to the main point, Sweden is doing no worse than European countries which did impose draconian restrictions back in March and April.
Caseload is very important as it dictates the measures taken in hospitals and that affects all conditions, not just covid. Swedens economy has been hit, badly, especially in Stockholm. International Banker, 17/12/20
"
Has Sweden achieved its aims? Far from it. For a start, its death rate is significantly worse than that of its Nordic neighbours. Denmark’s deaths-per-capita rate is nearly five times lower, while the rate is almost 10 times lower in both Finland and Norway. Indeed, a study published on October 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Sweden has been among the least effective in containing the virus. Of the countries included in the research, only Sweden and the United States fell into the category of having both high initial mortality rates and having failed to bring those numbers down since then. It is also worth noting that at 10 million people, Sweden’s population is on the smaller side. Adopting herd immunity in much bigger countries such as the US would mean potentially allowing hundreds of millions of people to contract the illness and many of those to die.
Of course, one would expect a higher mortality rate when the objective is to keep business open and minimise the impact on the economy. But even on the economic front, Sweden has not performed well. Its gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 8.3 percent in the three months to June 2020, compared with contractions of 5.1 percent for Norway, 4.5 percent for Finland and 6.8 percent for Denmark. As Gabriel Scally, a professor of public health at the University of Bristol, asserted in September, there is simply too much praise being given to the Swedish model. “We believe it is ineffective. Sweden has had an enormous amount of deaths per head of population, 5,880 deaths representing 581 deaths per million population. Compared with its neighbours it has been unsuccessful in preventing deaths—Finland, for example, has had 343 deaths, which equals 62 deaths per million population.” Scally also took the opportunity to dispel the myth that Sweden had not imposed any restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19. “There is little to suggest that Sweden’s strategy is better than its Nordic neighbours (particularly Norway and Finland), and a lot to suggest that it is worse, with a much larger burden of disease over spring and summer.”
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
With hindsight, it’s incredible that people in my area were going for ski trips to Italy even as late as mid-March.
There’s no doubt as a country we were slow off the mark, though whether this would have made much difference is another matter.
I can’t help but notice the irony that the types of people round here who last March wouldn’t forego their ski trip are in many cases the self-same ones who now want more in the way of restrictions.
Hindsight. Back in February a chap I work with was meant to go to Italy on a ski trip being paid for by his Wifes employer. Free holiday! He refused to go, and told her She should not go because covid had been found in Italy. Seems he had more foresight than the Govt. Incidentally, there are several ski resorts in Italy that are a favourite for Chinese companies to send their best employees. Good for recreation and for access to Italy's industrial regions. Last time we went virtually every cable car and chair lift had Chinese people dominating the queues.
Its gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 8.3 percent in the three months to June 2020, compared with contractions of 5.1 percent for Norway, 4.5 percent for Finland and 6.8 percent for Denmark.
Your source doesn’t appear to account for Sweden accruing less debt than other countries due to less utilisation of furlough-like schemes and other relief?
Has Sweden achieved its aims? Far from it. For a start, its death rate is significantly worse than that of its Nordic neighbours. Denmark’s deaths-per-capita rate is nearly five times lower, while the rate is almost 10 times lower in both Finland and Norway. Indeed, a study published on October 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Sweden has been among the least effective in containing the virus. Of the countries included in the research, only Sweden and the United States fell into the category of having both high initial mortality rates and having failed to bring those numbers down since then. It is also worth noting that at 10 million people, Sweden’s population is on the smaller side. Adopting herd immunity in much bigger countries such as the US would mean potentially allowing hundreds of millions of people to contract the illness and many of those to die.
Of course, one would expect a higher mortality rate when the objective is to keep business open and minimise the impact on the economy. But even on the economic front, Sweden has not performed well. Its gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 8.3 percent in the three months to June 2020, compared with contractions of 5.1 percent for Norway, 4.5 percent for Finland and 6.8 percent for Denmark. As Gabriel Scally, a professor of public health at the University of Bristol, asserted in September, there is simply too much praise being given to the Swedish model. “We believe it is ineffective. Sweden has had an enormous amount of deaths per head of population, 5,880 deaths representing 581 deaths per million population. Compared with its neighbours it has been unsuccessful in preventing deaths—Finland, for example, has had 343 deaths, which equals 62 deaths per million population.” Scally also took the opportunity to dispel the myth that Sweden had not imposed any restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19. “There is little to suggest that Sweden’s strategy is better than its Nordic neighbours (particularly Norway and Finland), and a lot to suggest that it is worse, with a much larger burden of disease over spring and summer.”
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Hindsight. Back in February a chap I work with was meant to go to Italy on a ski trip being paid for by his Wifes employer. Free holiday! He refused to go, and told her She should not go because covid had been found in Italy. Seems he had more foresight than the Govt. Incidentally, there are several ski resorts in Italy that are a favourite for Chinese companies to send their best employees. Good for recreation and for access to Italy's industrial regions. Last time we went virtually every cable car and chair lift had Chinese people dominating the queues.
How many times do we have to point out that comparisons to other nordic countries don't matter, it's the fact that despite all the restrictions we've had, our death rate is not significantly better than Sweden, suggesting that out restrictions achieve nothing for the direct harms they cause.
Yes, if you stop the disease from becoming endemic you can suppress it, but that would have required measures before we even knew this thing was out of China, and hence wasn't an option for us.
You can tell someone doesn't know what they're talking about re: Sweden when they start making comparisons to other Nordic countries, because they're all exactly the same, aren't they?
Patient demand is equal "and now arguably greater" than at the first wave's peak, the service says.
www.bbc.co.uk
While it sounds serious it does highlight weaknesses in under-funding/resourcing of the NHS for many years, and also demands the question why we haven't gone to the trouble of sorting out transportation between different areas for patients where demand is lower (a policy France have managed in a way)?
The god awful James Max is back on Dan Wootton's TalkRadio slot (you know, the one where Dan questions the govt and is a safe space for those anti-lockdown) and his poll question is "are the public responsible for another lockdown?" - is this muppet for real? Divide and conquer working a treat - why on earth would he ask such a question, let alone on an anti-lockdown show? And his show started with a 10 minute monologue about how nobody follows the rules.
Am I entitled to write a complaint to the radio station? I'm really angry that the only safe space in all of the news networks to criticise lockdowns has put in somebody of these views.
His views have went down like a cold bucket of sick on Twitter and I noticed him getting quite defensive before I switched off.
The god awful James Max is back on Dan Wootton's TalkRadio slot (you know, the one where Dan questions the govt and is a safe space for those anti-lockdown) and his poll question is "are the public responsible for another lockdown?" - is this muppet for real? Divide and conquer working a treat - why on earth would he ask such a question, let alone on an anti-lockdown show? And his show started with a 10 minute monologue about how nobody follows the rules.
Am I entitled to write a complaint to the radio station? I'm really angry that the only safe space in all of the news networks to criticise lockdowns has put in somebody of these views.
His views have went down like a cold bucket of sick on Twitter and I noticed him getting quite defensive before I switched off.
Out of tomorrow's paper front pages, only the Mirror and Independent lead with the apparent Hospital overwhelming in a very negative way; the others focus on school closure/delay restarting debates and vaccine targets rather than other restrictions being imposed/tightened:
Out of tomorrow's paper front pages, only the Mirror and Independent lead with the apparent Hospital overwhelming in a very negative way; the others focus on school closure/delay restarting debates and vaccine targets rather than other restrictions being imposed/tightened:
What surprises me is that despite the hospitals being "overwhelmed" by covid patients, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of photographic evidence. I can remember many a time when the NHS was totally swamped & the newspapers were full of pictures of patients on beds in corridors.
What surprises me is that despite the hospitals being "overwhelmed" by covid patients, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of photographic evidence. I can remember many a time when the NHS was totally swamped & the newspapers were full of pictures of patients on beds in corridors.
Perhaps because no one is being allowed into hospitals to take photographic evidence due to the restrictions on entering Covid wards?
Presumably the only people who can be in a Covid ward are patients (not in a position to take photos) and staff (not in a position to take photos).
I don't know specifics on policies and procedures, but that seems like a logical explanation.
Perhaps because no one is being allowed into hospitals to take photographic evidence due to the restrictions on entering Covid wards?
Presumably the only people who can be in a Covid ward are patients (not in a position to take photos) and staff (not in a position to take photos).
I don't know specifics on policies and procedures, but that seems like a logical explanation.
Yes, I'm sure there are.
If you are talking about smartphones, again not an expert but I would have thought you wouldn't a) take your personal phone into a covid ward in the first place and b) definitely wouldn't take the phone out and expose it to virus.
It's not your typical a&e full "beds in corridors" situation
Not to mention that staff will presumably have restrictions on what they can publish/post/take pictures of.
But I'm sure if you try hard enough you will find photos from people who work in a&e, but probably on private social media accounts etc and not being shared with the media.
So you're left with professional journalists who (presumably) aren't allowed into the hospital.
Yes, I'm sure there are.
If you are talking about smartphones, again not an expert but I would have thought you wouldn't a) take your personal phone into a covid ward in the first place and b) definitely wouldn't take the phone out and expose it to virus.
It's not your typical a&e full "beds in corridors" situation
Not to mention that staff will presumably have restrictions on what they can publish/post/take pictures of.
But I'm sure if you try hard enough you will find photos from people who work in a&e, but probably on private social media accounts etc and not being shared with the media.
So you're left with professional journalists who (presumably) aren't allowed into the hospital.
I remember during the first wave there was a similar lack of reporting from hospitals in areas that were suffering, and there were similar comments then.
If the BBC have had coverage in between then it will be because it became practical to arrange as there was no longer a crisis. I assume the coverage you have seen was not showing crisis-level situations?
If so this would correlate to a lack of access to hospitals that are reporting critical levels of occupancy.
There are probably a few hospitals over capacity now, which is what the media is jumping on. But that is not unusual for winter...
I remember seeing Whittys spreadsheet earlier this year showing some hospitals at capacity at the top. It scared people, of course. But then someone else posted the entire thing that he didn't show in the press conference, and the vast majority of hospitals on the list - 90% or so - were below average capacity.
What surprises me is that despite the hospitals being "overwhelmed" by covid patients, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of photographic evidence. I can remember many a time when the NHS was totally swamped & the newspapers were full of pictures of patients on beds in corridors.
And the Nightingale Hospital in London was closed without much fanfare. Government were warning of a second wave before we’d even hit the first peak, yet they didn’t keep it mothballed ???
You can go to the site (both the physical and online ones) for proof that the location is back in it’s original configuration as a conference centre
Plan a stress-free journey, see what events are on, search for places to eat at the venue and browse through hand-picked entertainment and attractions in London.
And the Nightingale Hospital in London was closed without much fanfare. Government were warning of a second wave before we’d even hit the first peak, yet they didn’t keep it mothballed ???
You can go to the site (both the physical and online ones) for proof that the location is back in it’s original configuration as a conference centre
Plan a stress-free journey, see what events are on, search for places to eat at the venue and browse through hand-picked entertainment and attractions in London.
Yeah, interesting that this hasn't been widely reported whilst the media has focused in on the NHS being close to capacity. I wonder what has happened to all the equipment procured for them?
And the Nightingale Hospital in London was closed without much fanfare. Government were warning of a second wave before we’d even hit the first peak, yet they didn’t keep it mothballed ???
You can go to the site (both the physical and online ones) for proof that the location is back in it’s original configuration as a conference centre
Plan a stress-free journey, see what events are on, search for places to eat at the venue and browse through hand-picked entertainment and attractions in London.
We have our Government and its advisors complaining about hospitals being overwhelmed, yet the Nightingale, which at the very least could be used to get some people requiring less intensive care out of the way, or provide somewhere for recovering patients to recuperate, instead of reinfecting their care homes, has been dismantled.
And the Nightingale Hospital in London was closed without much fanfare. Government were warning of a second wave before we’d even hit the first peak, yet they didn’t keep it mothballed ???
You can go to the site (both the physical and online ones) for proof that the location is back in it’s original configuration as a conference centre
Plan a stress-free journey, see what events are on, search for places to eat at the venue and browse through hand-picked entertainment and attractions in London.
Yeah, interesting that this hasn't been widely reported whilst the media has focused in on the NHS being close to capacity. I wonder what has happened to all the equipment procured for them?
It is being widely reported that the reason the London Nightingale Hospital isn't being used is due to the lack of staff. I googled "Nightingale Hospital" and found all major news websites reporting on this.
Even so, hospitals have been told to start preparing to use them.
There are probably a few hospitals over capacity now, which is what the media is jumping on. But that is not unusual for winter...
I remember seeing Whittys spreadsheet earlier this year showing some hospitals at capacity at the top. It scared people, of course. But then someone else posted the entire thing that he didn't show in the press conference, and the vast majority of hospitals on the list - 90% or so - were below average capacity.
Not unusual for winter, but the measures taken to free up capacity are unprecedented - a usual winter does not see the levels of disruption to elective procedures, for example. Yet capacity is still being reached.
Of course, even a handful of hospitals at capacity is a worrying sign. The effects from a hospital not being able to accept patients are immediate to everyone, those that need urgent care need to wait / travel further. Moving patients from one hospital to another is dangerous and time consuming (draining more resources). Multiple hospitals in the same area reaching capacity is even more worrying.
It's irrelevant that the vast majority of hospitals were below average capacity given the crisis was in London at the time, and the vast majority of Hospitals are outside London. You could hardly justify a "business as usual attitude" by claiming that as hospitals in Scotland, the North, The South-West were below average capacity there was nothing to worry about in London. That does no good for the patients in the London hospitals!
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