By contrast, this AM’s ‘news’ from the beeb overflows with “race against time”, “got to get millions vaccinated as quickly as possible” [of course! surprise!], “only way to ‘save’ the NHS” [again!], and other such stampeder-bollocks. The whole thing’s so obviously a panic-whipping scam, designed to keep everyone in a state of terrified obedience: Two minutes terror, as often as possible. Total house arrest for all of Britain and occupied Eire, which - as usual - I shall be ignoring.
Roll on the resistance! Defy the lying lunacy! Keep taking the C, the D, and ivermectin if you can get an illicit supply (I’m supposing that it will be restricted as much as the crooks can get away with that), take good care of your immune system, refuse the vaccine mass-experiment, and don’t fall for the panic-demic. Be a goat! 
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Ivor in great form as usual. The real issue is getting anyone with TDS to listen, really listen, and listen to the end. I keep pushing this sort of non emotional analysis on family and friends but its a bit like banging ones head against a wall.
Very disheartening, and I haven’t watched a BBC broadcast of any kind for half a decade now. (I bought two newspapers last year, solely for wrapping vegetable peelings). Yet it seeps into the consciousness via the web etc, amplified by the shrieking twitterati. Pleased UK Column is back, and on good form, but very worried that the “conspiracy theorist” trope is being widened every day to scrape up more and more dissidents. But hey: Hong Kong.
Hmmm. So I’m half way through so far, and I have to say that IC is just not being honest with the stats at all.
Very disappointing.
To try and claim that this year is similar to any year in the last half century is just burying one’s head in the sand. He has said this consistently for months now, despite the fact that he must realise he’s not being honest.
We’ve increased ICU capacity 400% or so, and we are so full that we can’t accept new patients… And hospitalisations are still rising.
When was the last time that happened?
Comparing covid to spanish flu is a meaningless thing to do. Most of the deaths in the spanish flu would have been averted with penicillin and oxygen. Dan over at TLN spoke about this recently. I wonder if IC doesn’t know that?
For the bit about Sweden, see the graph below. I wonder how IC missed that, given that he uses this exact data source for his own numbers?
I’ll keep watching, and post up any other thoughts I have.
Let’s look at Sweden vs the neighbours (from euromomo - the source that IC uses). You can go and check out the data for yourselves - something that seems too difficult for IC to do, despite the fact that he introduced me to this data source, and even uses it in the video above.
Can you spot the odd one out? You don’t need a PhD in data science…
And looking at excess mortality over the whole year (which IC pretends to do by cherry picking dates, instead of looking at the actual graph. Maybe he didn’t see it? It’s on an obscure site that he might not have heard of - Euromomo). Note again these are excess deaths over and above what might be considered the average over the last several years - including the spikes due to the last several flu outbreaks. Over and above those. That’s what excess deaths means.
I’ve struggled a few times to replicate what Ivor is saying. He picks along at a brisk pace and the evidence he refers to isn’t that accessible. On one of his lockdown presentations a month or so back he put up a list of about 20 studies on the screen that he said showed lockdown doesn’t work. I tried to fish out the first 7 or so, three weren’t at the address. The first one was this
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext
From which Ivor referred to this:
“Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people.”
However the text continues:
"However, full lockdowns (RR=2.47: 95%CI: 1.08–5.64) [and reduced country vulnerability to biological threats (i.e. high scores on the global health security scale for risk environment) (RR=1.55; 95%CI: 1.13–2.12)]…were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates. "
It’s a bit murky, and needed more but his one selection was misleading.
Another one the list was this:
Refers to paper, reported here: https://townhall.com/columnists/marinamedvin/2020/04/15/israeli-professor-shows-virus-follows-fixed-pattern-n2566915.
Paper not in English though.
Shock! Israeli Study Reveals COVID19 Lockdown Was Pointless, https://principia-scientific.com/shock-israeli-study-reveals-covid19-lockdown-was-pointless/
It seems of the countries compared, only Sweden had no lockdown so that was the only country in comparison.
Fair enough he didn’t refer directly to this and the others, which he collected en route to his claim. Trouble is it doesn’t amount to reliability and so supporters are let down later, when the chips are down.
Ivor who is from Ireland has compared Ireland and Sweden a lot - probably too much - and a few months back said Sweden was doing the best in Europe.
He picks things up on his travels and might be worth reading for that reason, but I like to see the substance in front of me to check I can safely jump on it.
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Hi ED
yes, I also started looking through the list of papers that he mentions and found them to be much more complex than he is trying to make them sound.
There are plenty of things to criticise and talk about around the current mainstream narrative of covid. Blatantly fudging the data seems like the wrong way to go…
Edit: To give credit where it’s due, however, I did find this link that he has in his list to be very interesting from a modelling perspective. I feel like the way diseases are modelled is going to change as a result of all this…
Prof Gabriela Gomes is an example of how an honest scientist has had her name dragged through the mud, and her work dismissed, for entirely political reasons. She is a brave and unfortunate example of how scientists who challenge the mainstream are being pilloried. Her twitter feed is a sad but important read.
Sorry PP, but the figures don’t agree with your assertion. The link below shows adult critical care beds from 2010 to 2019, rising by 500 from 3,500 (about 15% increase). The link also shows England in 2010, as way, way below Germany, Belgium, the US and Canada in critical care beds per 100,000 population. In fact we only just pip a few places like Greece. Just because Dan at TLN says something, it doesn’t mean we must accept it without question.
Seems unless I have misunderstood something here, you have been captured by aliens! No offence intended.
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Thanks Pat, I’ll have a read. It’s not just Dan’s take on this BTW. I’ve seen a number of reports across the country about OR’s, pediatric wards, regular wards etc. being converted into makeshift ICUs over the last few months. There are also reports that instead of the usual 1 to 1 ratio of ICU nurse to patient, it’s now growing to something like 1 nurse to 3-5 patients (hence my 400% number). There are plenty of such articles around if you look for em.
Admittedly it’s just that - reports. I don’t have hard data beyond that.
On the subject of excess deaths, the ONS have published figures for 2020 now which show that excess deaths per 1000 people in the UK in 2020 were the worst numbers since 1940.
As I said above, you have to go back more that 50 years to find the last time it was this bad…
Hahaha. Actually, I’d be totally up for that! 
Cheers
Edit: this is a link to the 1940 reference. Follow the link for the chart
P! Don’t say that! Don’t you know what they stick into you!
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Haha! For some reason this now comes to mind
@PontiusPrimate. Perhaps this is why NHS hospitals are “crammed” and possibly nothing at all to do with Corona?
Morning @PatB!
The planned destruction of the NHS by our political goons is a criminal act. No doubt about it. And it absolutely is a factor in the hospital crisis we’re in. Incidentally looking into it further, I think I was wrong in thinking there has been a fourfold increase in ICU beds this year around the country - I think it’s closer to a doubling, on average.
So yes, that is (in the words of the Big Lebowski) a fucking travesty dude. People like Theresa May, and Jeremy Hunt should be in prison for their part in this, and the increase in suffering and death that can be traced directly to their actions. In fact basically the whole frigging Tory party should be in prison for crimes against humanity.
However, the lack of beds alone doesn’t explain why we are experiencing the worst excess mortality since 1940. It doesn’t explain doctors on the ground - like Pierre Kory - saying “it’s all covid, covid, covid. I don’t see any other diseases. And they’re all dying”.
It doesn’t explain Dan’s accounts, or other interviews with ICU doctors and nurses. It doesn’t explain why countries like Italy (which hasn’t suffered the massive cuts in beds we have) got so devastated. Or New York. Or a dozen other parts of the world.
So overall, it’s criminal, but it’s not an explanation of what we’re actually seeing.
Cheers
PP
In the UK, we are currently admitting an entire hospital worth of patients every day. Having more beds would be good but there’s no way to keep up with the way covid is spreading