Archiv: booting Patrick Vallance


26.10.2022 - 06:16 [ Spectator.co.uk ]

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.

26.10.2022 - 06:09 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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.

03.09.2022 - 17:36 [ Spectator.co.uk/ ]

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.

03.09.2022 - 16:54 [ Spectator.com.au/ ]

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.

03.09.2022 - 16:34 [ Spectator.co.uk ]

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.

03.09.2022 - 16:13 [ theArgus.co.uk ]

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.”

03.09.2022 - 16:05 [ GBnews.uk ]

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.

03.09.2022 - 15:44 [ Nachdenkseiten ]

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.

31.07.2022 - 17:39 [ Independent.co.uk ]

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.

31.07.2022 - 08:10 [ fizzforbrexit / Nitter ]

… 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!!

15.01.2022 - 19:24 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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?

13.01.2022 - 10:24 [ @VinysBack / Twitter ]

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

21.07.2021 - 19:30 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Sir Patrick Vallance corrects mistake about Covid hospital admissions and says 60% of infected patients needing NHS treatment are unvaccinated after wrongly claiming majority have had both jabs

(yesterday)

– Sir Patrick Vallance corrected a mistake about Covid hospitalisation rates
– He originally said 60 per cent of people going to hospital were doubled jabbed
– But he later tweeted the figure applied to the unvaccinated people

10.07.2021 - 16:59 [ Express.co.uk ]

If Covid hadn‘t been politicised, lockdown would be over, says JUDY FINNIGAN

If the scientists are so unsure that double-jabbed bodies are protected from the worst effects of Covid, ie ICU and death, then what the hell was all the fuss about when they were invented late last year?

Covid is no longer a matter of public health. It’s been politicised. Reputations have been staked. Pompous men are using you and me as pawns. It’s like Brexit. We just want to get on with our lives but the scientists and politicians don’t seem to care about that.

16.06.2021 - 15:55 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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

04.04.2021 - 12:19 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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.

03.04.2021 - 19:55 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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.

11.01.2021 - 08:14 [ DailyMal.co.uk ]

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

10.01.2021 - 15:33 [ theGuardian.com ]

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.

10.01.2021 - 15:27 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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.

09.01.2021 - 18:18 [ BMJ.com ]

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.”

09.01.2021 - 18:12 [ Spectator.co.uk ]

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.

04.01.2021 - 17:40 [ MorningAdvertiser.co.uk ]

‘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.

02.01.2021 - 08:32 [ .business-live.co.uk ]

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.

28.12.2020 - 17:20 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

SAGE demands ALL pupils are kept home till February: Scientists demand new national lockdown for kids after Gove says only Years 11 and 13 and primary schools will return on January 4

Pressure has also been growing on Boris Johnson from within his own party to keep all pupils in school at the start the new term – but the PM has sided with SAGE scientists, who are pushing for schools, especially secondary schools to close for all of January, at least, because of the new super-strain of Covid-19, according to Politico.

Mr Johnson was reportedly told last week by SAGE, led by Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance, that a stricter lockdown is required because the one in November, where schools remained open, did not keep the ‚R‘ rate below 1, an adviser has claimed.

23.12.2020 - 11:32 [ BBC ]

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.

23.12.2020 - 11:18 [ inews.co.uk ]

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.

21.12.2020 - 22:37 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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.

20.12.2020 - 15:24 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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…

13.12.2020 - 19:40 [ BMJ.com ]

Conflicts of interest among the UK government’s covid-19 advisers

(09.12.2020)

Little is known about the interests of the doctors, scientists, and academics on whose advice the UK government relies to manage the pandemic. Attempts to discover more are frequently thwarted, finds Paul D Thacker

13.12.2020 - 19:35 [ Heise.de ]

Unklare Verbindungen zwischen Corona-Beratern und Privatwirtschaft

Kritiker der Regierungspolitik in Großbritannien führen zur Untermauerung ihrer Forderungen just den Chef des GOS, Patrick Vallance, an. Der führenden Wissenschaftsberater der Johnson-Regierung und zugleich Vorsitzende der Impf-Taskforce besitze Aktien des Pharmaunternehmens GlaxoSmithKline im Wert von 600.000 britischer Pfund. Eben dieses Unternehmen hatte einen undurchsichtigen Corona-Impf-Deal mit der Regierung geschlossen.

14.11.2020 - 15:59 [ BMJ.com ]

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.

06.11.2020 - 18:15 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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.

06.11.2020 - 13:35 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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.

03.11.2020 - 14:59 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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

03.11.2020 - 14:49 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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

02.11.2020 - 15:38 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

How Vallance‘s secret blood-curdling press briefing on looming lockdown – an hour BEFORE Boris agreed to it – lit the fuse on Nov 5th shutdown that could blow up our economy

– Boris Johnson announced England-wide lockdown after weeks insisting he would stick to his local ‚Tiers‘
– The PM summoned a dramatic press conference Saturday night after details of the U-turn idea were leaked
– Sir Patrick Vallance gave blood-curdling briefing about the situation on Friday before ministers made decision
– More details were then leaked overnight before the wider Cabinet had been gathered, forcing the PM‘s hand
Mr Johnson is set to use a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon to say there is ‚no alternative‘

02.11.2020 - 15:33 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Apocalyptic forecast of 4,000 coronavirus deaths a day could be FIVE TIMES too high and had already been proved wrong when government revealed it at weekend

– Sir Patrick Vallance presented worst-case scenario in Saturday‘s briefing when lockdown was confirmed
– But it has emerged it was based on forecasts made weeks ago and since updated to give lower estimates
– Oxford‘s Carl Heneghan said he was ‚concerned‘ at officials‘ choice to use old data which could be misleading
– Tory MPs accused SAGE, of which Vallance is chair, of ‚cherry-picking‘ figures and not giving full picture
– England will be thrust into a second lockdown from Thursday, pending a vote in Parliament on Wednesday

01.11.2020 - 18:24 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

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.

01.11.2020 - 18:18 [ CNN ]

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.

30.10.2020 - 13:20 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

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.