End the Lockdown
- Thread starter Walter
- Start date
So the stats are actually out there that those states are doing better than the lockdowned states, yet the thick sheeple believe lockdowns are good, are working, and they should continue.
Swedish professor quits COVID-19 research amid hostility over his findings
A Swedish professor of epidemiology has quit researching COVID-19 after facing fierce backlash over his findings that the illness poses a low threat to children — undermining the political argument that schools can’t reopen.
Jonas Ludvigsson, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute, said he has lost sleep as a result of the “angry messages through social media and email” assailing his study and partly blaming him for Sweden’s contrarian COVID-19 strategy, the College Fix reported.
His research focused on children ages 1 to 16 during the first wave of the pandemic last spring, including those with “laboratory-verified or clinically verified COVID-19, including patients who were admitted for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children” because it’s “likely” related to the bug.
Only 15 children went to the ICU — a rate of 0.77 per 100,000, according to the report. Four had “an underlying chronic coexisting condition” and none died.
As far as teachers, “fewer than” 30 ended up in the ICU during the same period — a rate of about 19 per 100,000.
Ludvigsson also noted that children weren’t wearing face masks, while the rest of Swedish citizens were simply “encouraged” to practice social distancing.....More
Sunak’s silence on the scars of lockdown
The chancellor needs to wake up to the economic devastation around us.
£407 billion. That’s the staggering cost of our experiment in mass house arrest – also known as lockdown. Of course, that’s only the smallest and least relevant aspect of the cost – the cost borne by the government. These are just numbers on a spreadsheet – much of it magicked up by the tap of a keyboard at the Bank of England. The cost borne by workers, families and firms – the shuttered businesses, the rising destitution, the lives placed on hold – didn’t get much of an airing in Rishi Sunak’s tastelessly upbeat budget statement today.
Sunak was particularly upbeat about unemployment, despite it being by far the most immediate challenge facing our battered economy. His line was that things weren’t as bad as they could have been. Officially, the number of payroll employees has fallen by 726,000 on pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment is expected to peak at 6.5 per cent – lower than after the 2008 crash, despite a much bigger hit to output. Crucially for Sunak, this is less than the peak of 11.9 per cent forecasted last July. The furlough scheme, it is claimed, has saved over 1.8million jobs that might have been lost for good.
But the furlough scheme has done something far more profound than that. Yes, it was necessary. Something radical had to be done, and done quickly, last March as the crisis loomed. The government was right to ‘go big and early’, to borrow the chancellor’s phrasing. Furlough has paid the wages of an estimated 11million people, keeping their finances above water as the economy around them collapsed. Just look to the US – where unemployment peaked at 14.8 per cent – to see the economic pain the pandemic and the restrictions might have caused without this unprecedented intervention.
But the announcement in the budget that furlough will continue until September 2021 is deeply shocking. It is the clearest sign yet that the true devastation of the crisis will outlast the official end of lockdown. It tells us that while many shops, restaurants and leisure outlets will be legally allowed to reopen by the summer, the chancellor expects many of them never to open their doors again.
And while there is plenty of pent-up demand in the economy, with consumers raring to get spending again post-lockdown, it will take some time for this to translate into new business ventures and, most importantly, jobs.
In the meantime, millions of workers have been put into the economic equivalent of a medically induced coma, their jobs in suspended animation, sustained only by the drip-feed of state cash. And while employers will have to up their contributions as we stumble towards September, this will only be the beginning of the end, as the government grapples with how to phase it out. Sunak has already tried three times to pull the plug on furlough.
These measures will have an impact on non-furloughed workers, too. While 80 per cent of your wages is a generous subsidy, unless you have a generous employer, willing to plug the gap, that also means a pay cut of up to 20 per cent. One employment lawyer warns that this has made drastic pay cuts ‘socially acceptable’. Instead of ditching unviable jobs, companies could keep staff on but with reduced hours and pay.
It is not hard to envision some form of furlough becoming a way of life. In Germany, when the pandemic struck, there was no need to invent ‘radical’ measures as a scheme was already in place to top up the incomes of workers whose hours were reduced. This was the model Sunak was emulating before two further lockdowns brought back the original furlough.
The key problem with all of these support schemes is that they conceal the extent of the economic rot – and not just that caused by lockdown. For all the excitement about a post-vaccine economic bounce-back, the long-term prospects are not looking good. Sunak says the economic recovery will be ‘swifter and more sustained’ than expected – the OBR expects record growth of 7.3 per cent in 2022, which will get us back to our pre-pandemic output. But after this, the growth projections are risible – 1.6 per cent in 2023, 1.7 per cent in 2024, and 1.7 per cent in 2025.
Though this is mostly a reflection of the dire state of Britain’s pre-Covid economy, the chancellor has yet again avoided taking radical measures to fix the fundamentals. Vast amounts of state support once again go towards propping up the old decaying economy, when we really need the state to both invest in and make the space for new dynamic, productive and profitable ventures that can provide the high-paying jobs we all deserve. As with any budget, some of the individual measures – such as new investment allowances – sound good, but unless they significantly move the dial towards higher productivity and higher growth (which the government’s own projections suggest not), they are not worth writing home about.
The support measures were necessary to sustain people’s livelihoods. But there is a danger that they blind our leaders to the reality of the economic carnage they have created. Watching this upbeat and oblivious budget, you could be forgiven for thinking the government was in an induced coma, too.
www.spiked-online.com
The chancellor needs to wake up to the economic devastation around us.
FRASER MYERS
ASSISTANT EDITOR
3rd March 2021
Spiked£407 billion. That’s the staggering cost of our experiment in mass house arrest – also known as lockdown. Of course, that’s only the smallest and least relevant aspect of the cost – the cost borne by the government. These are just numbers on a spreadsheet – much of it magicked up by the tap of a keyboard at the Bank of England. The cost borne by workers, families and firms – the shuttered businesses, the rising destitution, the lives placed on hold – didn’t get much of an airing in Rishi Sunak’s tastelessly upbeat budget statement today.
Sunak was particularly upbeat about unemployment, despite it being by far the most immediate challenge facing our battered economy. His line was that things weren’t as bad as they could have been. Officially, the number of payroll employees has fallen by 726,000 on pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment is expected to peak at 6.5 per cent – lower than after the 2008 crash, despite a much bigger hit to output. Crucially for Sunak, this is less than the peak of 11.9 per cent forecasted last July. The furlough scheme, it is claimed, has saved over 1.8million jobs that might have been lost for good.
But the furlough scheme has done something far more profound than that. Yes, it was necessary. Something radical had to be done, and done quickly, last March as the crisis loomed. The government was right to ‘go big and early’, to borrow the chancellor’s phrasing. Furlough has paid the wages of an estimated 11million people, keeping their finances above water as the economy around them collapsed. Just look to the US – where unemployment peaked at 14.8 per cent – to see the economic pain the pandemic and the restrictions might have caused without this unprecedented intervention.
But the announcement in the budget that furlough will continue until September 2021 is deeply shocking. It is the clearest sign yet that the true devastation of the crisis will outlast the official end of lockdown. It tells us that while many shops, restaurants and leisure outlets will be legally allowed to reopen by the summer, the chancellor expects many of them never to open their doors again.
And while there is plenty of pent-up demand in the economy, with consumers raring to get spending again post-lockdown, it will take some time for this to translate into new business ventures and, most importantly, jobs.
In the meantime, millions of workers have been put into the economic equivalent of a medically induced coma, their jobs in suspended animation, sustained only by the drip-feed of state cash. And while employers will have to up their contributions as we stumble towards September, this will only be the beginning of the end, as the government grapples with how to phase it out. Sunak has already tried three times to pull the plug on furlough.
These measures will have an impact on non-furloughed workers, too. While 80 per cent of your wages is a generous subsidy, unless you have a generous employer, willing to plug the gap, that also means a pay cut of up to 20 per cent. One employment lawyer warns that this has made drastic pay cuts ‘socially acceptable’. Instead of ditching unviable jobs, companies could keep staff on but with reduced hours and pay.
It is not hard to envision some form of furlough becoming a way of life. In Germany, when the pandemic struck, there was no need to invent ‘radical’ measures as a scheme was already in place to top up the incomes of workers whose hours were reduced. This was the model Sunak was emulating before two further lockdowns brought back the original furlough.
The key problem with all of these support schemes is that they conceal the extent of the economic rot – and not just that caused by lockdown. For all the excitement about a post-vaccine economic bounce-back, the long-term prospects are not looking good. Sunak says the economic recovery will be ‘swifter and more sustained’ than expected – the OBR expects record growth of 7.3 per cent in 2022, which will get us back to our pre-pandemic output. But after this, the growth projections are risible – 1.6 per cent in 2023, 1.7 per cent in 2024, and 1.7 per cent in 2025.
Though this is mostly a reflection of the dire state of Britain’s pre-Covid economy, the chancellor has yet again avoided taking radical measures to fix the fundamentals. Vast amounts of state support once again go towards propping up the old decaying economy, when we really need the state to both invest in and make the space for new dynamic, productive and profitable ventures that can provide the high-paying jobs we all deserve. As with any budget, some of the individual measures – such as new investment allowances – sound good, but unless they significantly move the dial towards higher productivity and higher growth (which the government’s own projections suggest not), they are not worth writing home about.
The support measures were necessary to sustain people’s livelihoods. But there is a danger that they blind our leaders to the reality of the economic carnage they have created. Watching this upbeat and oblivious budget, you could be forgiven for thinking the government was in an induced coma, too.
Sunak’s silence on the scars of lockdown
The chancellor needs to wake up to the economic devastation around us.
www.spiked-online.com
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced during his Budget speech today that the UK economy is expected to grow 7.3% in 2022. It'll be 4% this year.
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This whole dam Covid nonsense needs to end and now. This week the states of Texas and Mississippi have just ended all restrictions on Covid. Masks, social distancing and lock downs are gone. They have lifted all the restrictions that have been making people's lives miserable as hell for a year now. Texans and the people of Mississsippi have now finally got their freedoms back and it looks like other states may follow suit.
Apparently, this has made many governors of many blue states really pissed off. They have said that many people in those two states are going to die. Sure buffoons. It is their blue state restrictions on Covid today that is been and is still killing people and not because of Covid. They no doubt are all in a state of fear and panic themselves now because they may be seeing the writing on the wall. They may see the end of their tyranny and their power and control over their citizen's soon and come to an end. Some of those blue states have already started to allow some bars and restaurants to partially open. They are now trying to save their asses.
Now, if we could only see one premier in one of our conservative provinces do the same? Say that they are now going to end all restrictions on Covid. I guess that they already have heard about what Texas and Mississippi have done and they may start to feel the anger of many Canadians that have had enough of all of these tyrannical Covid restrictions and bring them to an end here in Canada. All it will take is for one premier to do so and the rest will have to follow. I am looking forward to the day when I will all not have to wear a mask anymore and start to see the streets of Canada littered with thrown away masks. Works for me. How about you?
This may never end here in Canada even if everyone takes the vaccine jab. I do believe that our dear comrade leaders will not be quite in a hurry to give up their power and control and tyranny over we the people. They like the taste of dictatorship and they will want to hang onto their tyranny for as long as they can. But as to just what happened in Texas and Mississippi recently where all restrictions on Covid have been lifted and those citizen's in those two states have now got their old life and freedoms back. Way the go you two.
This will only start to spread like fire now and it will only be a matter of time before it comes to Canada. Which province will be the first to lift their restrictions on Covid? I kind of doubt it but I do hope that it will be BC first and finally get rid of globalist comrade Bonnie Henry Poo who makes $360,000 dollars a year for her efforts in trying to maintain her power and tyranny over us here in BC. Bonnie Poo knows this is all just full of Covid horse shit. She needs to be gone now. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
If it can even save one life end the lockdown eh JLM?
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1366663992958148611?s=20
Would these suicides be counted as COVID deaths?
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1366663992958148611?s=20
Would these suicides be counted as COVID deaths?
This China virus hoax will soon start to unravel. It has too. The lie cannot continue on much longer. Too many doctors and scientists are starting to ask too many questions and challenging the liars like Fauci and our own dear BC health official darling Bonnie Henry. It is and never has been about a virus. It was always been about the liars and thieves like Fauci and Gates and Henry and the rest of their ilk to make lots of money. Bonnie Poo makes $360,000 a year trying to push the hoax and keep it alive. Why would she not, eh? Easy-peasy money to be earned her just to keep the bs going.
I wonder when our dear leaders get all the people out there vaccinated will the pandemic come to an end? Something tells me it will not. Why even fraudster Fauci himself has said himself that we still may have to wear masks and social distance for another year. WTF is going on here? I am pretty sure that I know as to what is going on here? Total bull shit.
The point here is that they the people need to stop listening to all of these professional liars and bull chitters who keep pushing Convid.. I can pretty much guarantee anyone here that if everybody stopped playing this lying Convid game the next day this story would come to an end very quickly and end up in the history books. The words in the future history books would say that The day when the biggest hoax ever played on humanity had the whole world fooled.