He told Lady Hallett’s inquiry: “Social measures, many of which are longstanding – quarantine, individual isolation, closing schools, many of these go back to the Middle Ages or beyond – these are not new ideas, however the very big new idea was the idea of a lockdown, I am talking here very very specifically about the state saying people have to go home and stay at home… It’s a very radical thing to do.”
Archiv: booting Chris Whitty
Lockdown was ‚very radical thing to do‘ – Whitty to Covid inquiry
. The chief medical adviser, Sir Chris Whitty, tells the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that lockdown was a „very radical thing to do“
– He calls the lockdown „extraordinarily major“ and a „big new idea“ that wasn‘t considered in advance
– He also says he saw the damage from the disease „first-hand“ as a working medic
– Earlier, Cobra chief Roger Hargreaves talked about the emergency regulations in the Civil Contingencies Act never being used
– The government‘s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance, is due to give evidence later
– zYou can watch the hearings by pressing play at the top of the page
The lockdown files: Rishi Sunak on what we weren’t told
(27 August 2022)
Lockdown – closing schools and much of the economy while sending the police after people who sat on park benches – was the most draconian policy introduced in peacetime. No. 10 wanted to present it as ‘following the science’ rather than a political decision, and this had implications for the wiring of government decision-making. It meant elevating Sage, a sprawling group of scientific advisers, into a committee that had the power to decide whether the country would lock down or not. There was no socioeconomic equivalent to Sage; no forum where other questions would be asked.
So whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation. No one, not even cabinet members, would know how these decisions were reached.
Rishi Sunak is just the start. The great lockdown scandal is about to unravel
(25.08.2022)
For some time, I’ve been trying to persuade Rishi Sunak to go on the record about what really happened in lockdown. Only a handful of people really know what took place then, because most ministers – including members of the Cabinet – were kept in the dark. Government was often reduced to a “quad” of ministers deciding on Britain’s future and the then chancellor of the exchequer was one of them. I’d heard rumours that Sunak was horrified at much of what he saw, but was keeping quiet. In which case, lessons would never be learnt.
His speaking out now confirms much of what many suspected. That the culture of fear, seen in the Orwellian advertising campaign that sought to terrify the country, applied inside Government.
Is Liz Truss the British Trump?
If you are a right-wing MP or ambitious wonk on the Truss campaign ‘pivot’ is such a useful word. Far better to say ‘we need to pivot from campaign mode to governing mode,’ than to blurt out that ‘now we have their votes we can forget the lies we told to win over Conservative members’. Far better for Truss herself to say, ‘I am pivoting from my previous position on tax cuts’ to ‘I admit that I was wrong’.
Pivoting calls to mind the elegance of a ballerina turning on her points. Not the cynicism of a politician breaking promises she made only a few days before.
Why didn’t more people resist lockdown?
As it will take years for culpable parties to retire, I once feared that a full generation would need to elapse before we recognised lockdowns for what they were: the biggest public health debacle in history. Yet everywhere I turn lately, still another journalist is decrying the avoidable social, medical and economic costs of this hysterical over-reaction to a virus, while deriding lockdown zealots for having vilified sceptics of a policy that may well end up killing more people than it protected. The Covid revisionism is welcome – though it’s a good deal easier to publish these opinion pieces now than it was two years ago, and I speak from experience.
The lockdown files: Rishi Sunak on what we weren’t told
(27 August 2022)
Lockdown – closing schools and much of the economy while sending the police after people who sat on park benches – was the most draconian policy introduced in peacetime. No. 10 wanted to present it as ‘following the science’ rather than a political decision, and this had implications for the wiring of government decision-making. It meant elevating Sage, a sprawling group of scientific advisers, into a committee that had the power to decide whether the country would lock down or not. There was no socioeconomic equivalent to Sage; no forum where other questions would be asked.
So whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation. No one, not even cabinet members, would know how these decisions were reached.
Empowering Sage scientists over Covid lockdown left us ‘screwed’, claims Sunak
The meetings were “literally me around that table, just fighting”, which “was incredibly uncomfortable every single time”.
At one meeting he raised the impact on children’s education: “I was very emotional about it. I was like, ‘Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare’, or something like that.
“There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.”
Setting out the problems he found with Government policy being influenced by outside academics, he said: “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed.”
Rishi Sunak says he wasn‘t ‚allowed to talk about the side effects of lockdown‘ during the pandemic
Mr Sunak said one of the Government’s biggest mistakes was giving too much power to scientists and claimed the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) edited its minutes to hide dissenting opinions.
The former chancellor made the statements in an interview with the Spectator magazine.
“We shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did,” he is quoted as saying.
Großbritannien – mehr Tote durch Lockdowns als durch Corona?
In Großbritannien findet momentan eine bemerkenswerte Diskussion über die vergangenen Lockdown-Maßnahmen statt. Einer der beiden konservativen Regierungschef-Kandidaten, der bisherige britische Finanzminister Rishi Sunak, hat diese Diskussion vor wenigen Tagen dramatisch intensiviert. Der staatliche Nachrichtensender BBC berichtete am 25.8.2022[1] über die Aussagen von Rishi Sunak gegenüber der Zeitschrift „The Spectator“: Ministern sei es untersagt worden, über Kollateralschäden (trade-offs) der Lockdowns zu diskutieren[2]; es sei falsch gewesen, eine staatliche Angstkampagne zu fahren. Das Regierungs-„Script“ sei ein ungerechtfertigtes Angst-Narrativ gewesen („the fear narrative“). Die vorgegebene Leitlinie sei gewesen: „Es gibt keine negativen Auswirkungen“.[3] Interne Kritik in dem wissenschaftlichen Beratungsgremium (SAGE) sei nicht veröffentlicht worden.
MP Greg Hands says Nadine Dorries’ retweet of Sunak as ‘Brutus the backstabber’ is dangerous
MP Greg Hands has branded ‘dangerous’ a retweet by culture secretary Nadine Dorries, showing Rishi Sunak stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.
… All politicians are corrupt especially nowadays. Name just one politician of ANY PARTY who has spoken out against the theft of our civil liberties and the abuse of our laws by Boris Johnson over the past 30 months? JUST COMPLICIT SILENCE!!
Our acceptance of a mass lock-in is more dangerous than any party
Let’s put aside for the moment the immediate furore over Boris Johnson’s future and the further flood of Downing Street festivity stories which may not be finished yet. We need to ask the question that must, given what has prevailed in our lives for the past two years, be most serious. How on earth did we get to a point where events and decisions which would once have been regarded as commonplace, even virtuous – an employer expressing good wishes to staff at a party, a child embracing elderly grandparents, a relative making regular visits to a dying hospital patient – became illegal?
Im guessing whitty and most of SAGE will disappear too they where only safe whilst Boris was P.M. Van-Tam is sensing the end of the Boris Johnson regime it will be like rats jumping ship now !
#BorisResign #BorisOut #BorisJohnson #BorisMustGo
It doesn’t matter what you say, Prime Minister – June 21 will still be our Freedom Day
No wonder the Brothers Grim, Whitty and Vallance, looked ill at ease as they attempted to pass off hugely encouraging charts as looming calamity. Because the physical Covid numbers are now so low, they resorted to percentages instead. Hospital admissions had increased “by 50 per cent in a week”, warned the Chief Medical Officer.
A 50 per cent increase in Covid patients sounds really bad, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. NHS England reported 137 Covid admissions on June 12
State of fear: how ministers ‘used covert tactics’ to keep scared public at home
The same document presented a grid of 14 options for increasing compliance which included “use media to increase sense of personal threat”, a tactic which was seen as having a “high” effectiveness though spill-over effects “could be negative”.
Some Sage participants now admit to feeling “embarrassed” by such advice.
One regular Sage attendee said: “The British people have been subjected to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told that is what’s happening.
The ‚covert tactics‘ used to scare Britons into staying at home: How SAGE document called for increase in ‚perceived threat‘ of Covid using ‚hard hitting emotional messages‘
Psychologists have accused Downing Street of using ‚covert psychological strategies‘ to emphasise the threat from Covid-19 without contextualising the risks, the Telegraph reported.
It was said this created ‚a state of heightened anxiety‘, adding many people became ‚too frightened to attend hospital‘.
Experts fear Britons have been the subject of an experiment in the use of tactics which operate ‚below their level of awareness,‘ it was said.
No 10 considers a tougher lockdown ‚with curfews, exercise limits, compulsory masks outside, no support bubbles and nurseries shut‘ if Covid cases keep rising‘ – amid suggestion ‚people may only be allowed to leave home ONCE a week‘
– The Cabinet Office refused to deny that the draconian new laws were incoming after UK‘s streets were busy
– They instead pointed to Matt Hancock‘s vague statement on rules earlier today: ‚Follow the rules we‘ve got‘
– Hancock refused to speculate when asked if harsher measures coming, such as curfews and closing nurseries
– Whitehall source said potential changes included introducing ban on people leaving their homes more than once a week
NHS could vaccinate UK against Covid in five days, says Oxford professor
Sir John Bell, regius chair of medicine at the University of Oxford, said stubborn NHS bureaucrats were standing in the way of a high-speed mass inoculation programme that could prevent many further deaths.
“The NHS has the theoretical capacity to immunise everybody in five days if they want to, but I don’t get the sense they are really motivated,” Bell told the Times.
No10 is examining plans to keep bars closed for FIVE MONTHS with full lockdown until late March as Covid death toll passes 80,000
Prof Whitty commended the public for their efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19 and noted the hope offered by various vaccines, but he echoed other experts in saying it would be some weeks before the jabs start to reduce the number of people taken to hospital.
Covid-19: the problems with case counting
(03 September 2020)
At the moment it seems that a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive result is the only criterion required for a case to be recognised.
“In any other disease we would have a clearly defined specification that would usually involve signs, symptoms, and a test result,” says Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and the editor of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. “We are moving into a biotech world where the norms of clinical reasoning are going out of the window. A PCR test does not equal covid-19; it should not, but in some definitions it does.”
The way ‘Covid deaths’ are being counted is a national scandal
(30.05.2020)
Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For Covid-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to Covid-19.
Enough and no more. Never in history have we behaved like this. This is psychological warfare and gaslighting. Whitty and the rest are drunk on power. I‘m not complying with this nonsense. I‘m not complying with this once great country becoming a totalitarian dictatorship.
Now scientists call for ‚lax‘ third lockdown to be made even TOUGHER: SAGE expert says new coronavirus variant cannot be contained by current restrictions as terrifying Chris Whitty adverts try to scare of Brits into staying at home
As a result, ministers are considering introducing tougher measures as part of the crackdown, including possibly making face masks mandatory in busy outdoor areas.
England‘s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty has appeared in adverts urging us to stay at home as the new variant of the virus rips across the country.
‘No hard evidence on curfew’ admits Gov adviser Vallance
(09 Dec 2020)
Vallance and chief medical officer Chris Whitty were asked if there was something that could be done in the structure in scientific advice that could be a bit more forensic about those restrictions on the sector that have a very big impact on certain people. The scientific advisers said they are trying very hard to get data but can´t give specific data on it, and nor can anyone else across the world.
COVID-19: Chief medical officer Chris Whitty warns coronavirus vaccine shortages will last months
(01.01.2021)
„At the moment it doesn‘t look good – a hole is appearing because there‘s a lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our own vaccine,“ BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told news weekly Spiegel.
Wrexham factory to produce millions of doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine
(30.12.2020)
The Wrexham plant is able to produce around 300 million doses of the vaccine each year, and has been producing 150,000 phials a day for months in readiness to roll out the vaccine across the UK.
The CP Pharmaceuticals lab will carry out the „fill and finish“ stage of the manufacturing process. This involves dispensing the vaccine into vials ready for it to be sent out across the country.
The 18-month agreement with parent company Wockhardt was announced back in August.
COVID-19: Chief medical officer Chris Whitty warns coronavirus vaccine shortages will last months
„At the moment it doesn‘t look good – a hole is appearing because there‘s a lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our own vaccine,“ BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told news weekly Spiegel.
What‘s the update on the Oxford vaccine Mr Hancock
Fantastic to see Margaret Keenan receive her second dose of the @Pfizer /@BioNTech_Group #coronavirus vaccine
Covid: Millions more braced for tougher rules in England
Government sources have indicated an announcement later will see more areas move into tier four – „stay at home“.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to detail the changes – which could be introduced within days – in the House of Commons after 14:30 GMT.
Still no Oxford vaccine emergency approval. Unbelievable.
(23.12.2020)
How many willing to bet that this case is part of pharma wars to sabotage Oxford vaccine?
(28.11.2020)
Oxford vaccine: How did they make it so quickly?
(23.11.2020)
Scientists took a common cold virus that infected chimpanzees and engineered it to become the building block of a vaccine against almost anything.
Before Covid, 330 people had been given ChAdOx1 based-vaccines for diseases ranging from flu to Zika virus, and prostate cancer to the tropical disease chikungunya.
The virus from chimps is genetically modified so it cannot cause an infection in people. It can then be modified again to contain the genetic blueprints for whatever you want to train the immune system to attack.
Boris Johnson’s future as Prime Minister rests on the Oxford vaccine being approved
The hope in Downing Street is that the Oxford vaccine will get the green light by the end of the year. This would allow the Prime Minister to start laying out plans for restrictions to be lifted.
UK has vaccinated 500,000 people against Covid since December 8, Boris Johnson says as regulators face growing pressure to approve Oxford‘s jab in desperate race to speed up the roll-out
The MHRA drugs regulator has been doing its final review of the vaccine for three weeks now, since November 27, with a decision expected by next Tuesday.
(…)
However, they made a decision about Pfizer and BioNTech‘s jab within 10 days of being instructed to do so by the Department of Health.
Who knew what and when about Britain‘s Covid mutation? PHE first discovered the fast-spreading variant in October but didn‘t raise the alarm until last week – amid claims scientists held back discovery to bounce No10 into Tier Four
At the start of the month information about VUI-202012/01 was passed to the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Advisory Group (NERVTAG) committee, which advises England‘s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty. The group first discussed the strain at a December 11 meeting and began modelling its severity on the UK‘s epidemic.
Ministers were not made aware of the variant until last Monday, almost two months after its initial discovery, when they were told it was more infectious and probably behind the continued rise in cases in London and the South East.
It felt like a meeting of horror movie scriptwriters: GLEN OWEN tells the inside story of how a libertarian PM ended up feeling he had no choice but to cancel Christmas
The grim countenances of Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance told the story before they even started talking – Christmas was off. As Boris Johnson sat in the Cabinet Room at 5pm on Friday, Whitty and Vallance appeared on the Zoom monitors and started reeling off increasingly alarming data about the new mutant strain of the coronavirus…
Researchers looking at new coronavirus strain, says health minister
Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, told a press conference that London was being moved to more stringent Tier 3 restrictions because cases were surging in and around the capital — and not directly in response to the discovery of the new variant.
Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science
Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health.1 Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.
The UK’s pandemic response provides at least four examples of suppression of science or scientists. First, the membership, research, and deliberations of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) were initially secret until a press leak forced transparency.
Downing Street REJECTS calls to end lockdown despite four more sets of real-world data showing second wave of Covid was dropping and R rate was stable BEFORE crippling restrictions based on flawed projections
Downing Street today refused calls for England‘s second lockdown to be cut short and insisted it will run until December 2, despite four more sets of real-world data that show the second wave was already shrinking before the Government pushed the panic button on a drastic month-long shutdown.
Promising figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – which runs a massive government surveillance scheme that randomly swabs tens of thousands of people to track the size of the outbreak – suggest that the country‘s coronavirus outbreak has shrunk.
Exclusive: ‚Covid graphs were wrong in suggesting daily deaths would soon surpass first wave‘
Official projections which pushed the country into a second lockdown have been quietly revised to no longer suggest deaths could soon overtake those at the peak of the first wave, The Telegraph has learned.
More proof England‘s lockdown was premature? Top researchers say R rate has dropped to 1 as Oxford expert claims Covid infections are ‚flatlining‘ and the ‚4,000 deaths‘ graph used to justify restrictions has ‚proven to be incorrect‘
– King‘s College London said cases were now ‚plateauing‘ and there was a ‚slight fall‘ in infections across UK
– Oxford‘s Carl Heneghan said told how coronavirus hospital admissions, cases and ‚in effect‘ deaths in retreat
– It comes as Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Chris Whitty face questions from MPs over the 4,000 deaths figure
Is the NHS actually QUIETER than usual? Leaked document claims hospitals are 84% full (but last autumn the figure was 92%)
– Beds have never been less than 85% full for a three-month period since 2010
– Spring this year was the first time, because patients were turfed out for Covid-19
– And occupancy remains below average levels despite second wave, stat shows
Coronavirus latest news: Boris Johnson faces Tory rebellion over national lockdown
Boris Johnson faces a rebellion from his backbenches over the new national lockdown restrictions for England amid warnings that the measures would be „disastrous“ for the economy.
This comes after Cabinet Minister Michael Gove admitted the four-week-long national lockdown could be extended beyond December 2.
Boris Johnson accused of ‚giving in to scientific advisers‘ as England heads for lockdown
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith wrote in the UK‘s Telegraph newspaper that the month-long lockdown showed government was „giving in to the scientific advisers,“ claiming that government experts had „pressurised“ Johnson into the step.
„Normally, advisers advise and ministers decide. Yet that system has broken down with Sage [the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] believing its advice to be more like commandments written on stone and its members publicly lecturing the Government over the airways,“ Duncan Smith wrote.
German Pfizer vaccine could be ready before Oxford-AstraZeneca injection and be given to Brits before Christmas
Ms Bingham was appointed chair of the UK‘s Vaccine Taskforce for Covid-19 in May and reports directly to the Prime Minister on the progress of a coronavirus vaccine, which experts say is key to controlling the pandemic.
The taskforce, which Ms Bingham says was the ‚brainchild of Sir Patrick Vallance‘ — Number 10‘s chief scientific adviser, is at the forefront of putting plans in place to get the UK population vaccinated.