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Is the NHS really in danger of being 'overwhelmed'?

Morten Moreland in yesterday’s Times
Morten Moreland in yesterday’s Times
Just how great a risk is there of the NHS being overwhelmed? We're constantly being told by Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and others that unless we observe the traffic light restrictions in our area, we will witness the kind of scenes we saw in Lombardy back in March, with Covid patients dying in hospital corridors. But is that true? Not according to my friend who's worked as an NHS doctor for the past 30 years. Here is his guest post for today's Lockdown Sceptics.

The last three weeks have seen much speculation about the numbers of COVID patients in intensive care units, particularly in the North West and London. Further local lockdowns have been enforced by the Government in the North West, London and yesterday in the Midlands on the grounds that the NHS risks being overwhelmed. But how close is the system to being swamped, and what can we reasonably conclude from publicly available information?

NHS data released to the public to date is incomplete and usually a week in arrears. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson point out in their recent Spectator article that this crisis has been characterised by sequential data inadequacy from the Government's scientific advisors, Public Health England and the NHS. As they say "a look back at the figures issued shows that the track record, eventually validated against the facts, is abysmal. This is important because major decisions continue to be taken on the strength of such data".

Some of these mistakes relate to crass errors of basic management, others more disturbing over-exaggeration or over-extrapolation of the size of the threats to public health. It is known that more granular data exist - for instance around the cause of death statistics and in-hospital Covid infection rates. But these figures are not being released to the public by the NHS despite requests for more transparency - seemingly at odds with Freedom of Information obligations.

The data we do have throw up some interesting patterns.

Eiffel Tower

Tens of thousands stage anti-France rally in Bangladesh capital

Bangladesh protest france
© Munir Uz Zaman, AFPSupporters of the Islami Andolon Bangladesh, an Islamist political party, at an anti-France protest in Dhaka on October 27, 2020.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Bangladesh capital on Tuesday calling for a boycott of French products and burning an effigy of President Emmanuel Macron after he defended cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Police estimated that more than 40,000 people took part in the march organised by an Islamist party, which was halted before it could get close to the French embassy in Dhaka.

Hundreds of officers used a barbed-wire barricade to stop the protesters who broke up without violence.

The French leader has been the target of protests in several countries over his comments, made after a teacher was decapitated for showing the cartoons to his pupils.


The rally was organised by Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB), one of the country's largest Islamist parties, and started at Bangladesh's biggest mosque.

Protesters chanted "Boycott French products" and called for Macron to be punished.

Comment: Rival nations Iran and Saudi Arabia joined in their condemnation of Macron.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it rejects "any attempt to link Islam and terrorism" and denounced the cartoons as "offensive," adding that it condemns any act of terrorism, "whoever committed it." "We reject all practices and actions that generate hatred, violence and extremism and violate the values of coexistence and mutual respect among the peoples of the world."

French officials are warning their citizens abroad to exercise caution.


Attention

UK child abuse inquiry refuses to investigate Pakistani grooming gangs

grooming gang
© West Yorkshire Police
Britain's national inquiry into child sex abuse has been blasted for 'cowardice' over race as it refused to look at grooming gang scandals carried out by mostly Pakistani gangs, or to hear from key witnesses.

Victims of the grooming gangs and their advocates blasted the public probe, which was launched in 2015 and has so far cost taxpayers £143 million, after it emerged it would not be examining any of the notorious cases in which 'Asian' gangs have preyed on thousands of mostly white, working class girls.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales has so far looked at organisations like the Church of England and the Armed Forces to investigate "what went wrong and why" with regards to "institutional failure to protect children from abuse".

Comment: See also:


Dollar Gold

Rapper Lil Pump endorses Donald Trump, says 'f**k Sleepy Joe'

lil pump
Rapper Lil Pump seems to be a big fan of President Donald Trump.

The star rapper posted a message on his Instagram story late Sunday night, and loudly endorsed Trump for president because he doesn't want to pay higher taxes if Joe Biden wins.

He also said, "F**k Sleepy Joe." You can watch the absurd video below.

Comment: You win some, you lose some: Rapper 50 cent, who had previously endorsed the president, has apparently walked back his endorsement. From Sputnik:
'Fu*k Donald Trump': 50 Cent 'Comes to His Senses', Withdraws Support For POTUS After Ex's Critique
00:47 GMT 26.10.2020 by Muhammad Osman

Over the past week, 50 Cent made headlines by criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's tax plans, urging fans to vote for Trump because the rapper doesn't want to "go from '50 Cent' to '20 Cent'". In response, ex-girlfriend and comedienne Chelsea Handler promised to pay his taxes "in exchange for you coming to your senses."

US rap superstar Curtis James Jackson III, aka 50 Cent, on Sunday walked back his earlier endorsement of Republican President Donald Trump, after a former girlfriend, American actress Chelsea Handler, reminded him that "he was a Black person" and called on him to "come to your senses".

The New York musician said that he "never liked" Trump, and claimed that the president "had me set up".

"Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him. for all I know he had me set up and had my friend Angel Fernandez killed but that's history. LOL," 50 Cent tweeted, responding to remarks made by Handler during her interview on NBC's 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon on Friday night.


On Friday, 50 Cent's ex-girlfriend told Fallon that she was prompted to remind her "favorite ex-boyfriend" that "he can't vote for Donald Trump" because he is African-American, arguing that the rapper's support for the GOP candidate "shouldn't be influencing" American people because the rapper is only "worried about his own personal pocketbook".
"So he doesn't want to pay 62 percent in taxes because he doesn't want to go from '50 Cent' to '20 Cent' and I had to remind him that he was a Black person, so he can't vote for Donald Trump and that he shouldn't be influencing an entire swath of people who may listen to him because he's worried about his own personal pocketbook," Handler said during the Friday night interview.
The comedienne's comments came after the Grammy Award winner on Tuesday slammed Democratic candidate Joe Biden's tax plans, which suggest an increase on taxes above an annual $400,000, calling on fans to "vote for Trump". The rapper later defended his remarks, arguing that he doesn't "want to be 20 Cent" under a Biden tax plan.

...

He later told fans that he "just remembered I'm bankrupt", so Biden's tax plans would not affect him.


In response to the artist's remarks, Handler commented on his tweet saying, "You used to be my favorite ex-boyfriend". Responding to the comedienne, 50 Cent tweeted: "I love ya Gator, don't let Trump and Joe Biden come between us girl."


Following that statement by 'Fiddy', Handler reminded the artist of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the killing of an African-American resident of Minnesota's city of Minneapolis by a white police officer. Trump has continued to be heavily criticized for his response to the protests triggered by the incident.
"Hey f--ker! I will pay your taxes in exchange for you coming to your senses. Happily! Black lives matter. That's you, f--ker! Remember?" the actor responded to one 50 Cent's tweet.
Trump is seeking re-election against the Democratic candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden. The election is set for 3 November.
It's rather surprising that, despite all the machismo Jackson puts into his image, he'd so quickly back down from the pressure, specifically his ex-girlfriend Handler (a rather ironic name, given the circumstances). Guess 50 Cent is all talk when he raps about how little he cares about what other people think of him.


Quenelle

Facebook deploys aggressive measures to combat election unrest

facebook
As the U.S. braces for election-related unrest next month, Facebook executives are implementing emergency measures reserved for "at-risk" countries in a company-wide effort to bring down the online temperature.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the social media giant plans to limit the spread of viral content and lower the benchmark for suppressing potentially inflammatory posts using internal tools previously deployed in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

The tools, now a key component of Facebook's strategy to prepare for the contentious U.S. election, would only be activated in "dire circumstances" and instances of violence, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Comment: In other words, once the election is over the need to censor anti-Dem, anti-Biden content will decrease and therefore FB won't have to be as tyrannical. We wait with baited breath.

See also:


Eye 1

Daughter blasted for 'manipulating dying Republican dad into voting for Biden after intense exchanges on death bed'

daughter dying father republican biden
She explains how her father is 'dying of Aplastic Anemia' and had weeks or months or live.
Social media users fumed over a video that shows a woman revealing how she convinced her terminally ill conservative father to vote for Joe Biden in his final days.

The video, which was uploaded on TikTok by @Erleepen, explains how the woman's 55-year-old conservative father had never voted for a Democrat in his life.

She revealed they had clashed in "intense exchanges" over his decision to vote to Trump - while he was dying of aplastic anemia.

Megaphone

Best of the Web: 'Shove your new world order up your *ss!' — London erupts in protest against lockdown

protests london
Thousands of protesters descended on the British capital on Saturday to call for an end to coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions on businesses in the UK, which they described as a form of "tyranny".

In a Breitbart London exclusive video, protesters were seen singing: "I would rather be a human than a slave", "We are the 99 per cent", and "You can shove your New World Order up your ass".

The 'Stop the New Normal' march was organised by the anti-lockdown activist group Stand Up X and was one of the largest rallies against the government's coronavirus restrictions since the beginning of the lockdowns in March.

The large scale act of civil disobedience followed more restrictions being imposed on the people of Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, as well as the introduction of a 'tier system' by Prime Minister Boris in England, in which local regions and cities are placed under lockdown if spikes in coronavirus cases are recorded.


Comment: See also:


Attention

France in 'critical' Covid-19 second wave amid record cases

Jean-François Delfraissy
Jean-François Delfraissy is the president of the government's scientific council and has warned that the country is at a "critical" point
France is in a "critical situation" faced with the Covid-19 epidemic, amid record cases and a second wave that is proving "more brutal" than the first, the president of the government's scientific advisory council has said.

Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Conseil Scientifique, said today (Monday October 26) on news channel RTL: "The situation is very difficult, even critical. We have a virus that is spreading extremely quickly.

"We knew that we would have this second wave, but even we are surprised by the brutality of what has been happening over the past 10-15 days. This may be due to the weather getting colder and the fact that the virus is extremely sensitive to the climate.

"This virus is very difficult. This second wave will probably be stronger than the first wave. The pressure on the health system will be here within three weeks, especially when it comes to intensive care. Many members of the public seem to not have realised [yet] what is waiting for us."


Comment: So, another lockdown in the works, even though it did nothing to 'flatten the curve' the first time around. See also:


Stock Up

New Russian invasion? Coronavirus fallout fuels domestic e-commerce boom, with companies poised to expand across Europe

fashion
© Sputnik / Sergey Pyatakov; NurPhoto via Getty Images / Jaap Arriens 19
Russia's "new economy" is booming, but no one seems to have noticed. The only European country with real domestic alternatives to the leading US tech giants has seen a surge in innovation, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Everyone is suffering from the impact of the coronavirus. The World Bank is predicting a 5.2 percent contraction in global GDP in 2020 - the worst recession in decades - and Russia's GDP is projected to shrink by some 4.4 percent. But that is not affecting the country's innovation economy, where online sales are growing in double digits and, if anything, have only accelerated because of the crisis.

Of course, part of the reason online transactions are doing well is because everyone was locked up at home for several months from March, but the strict lockdowns have only accelerated the growth of online business in Russia that was already well established before Covid-19 appeared.

The three leading players on the IT commerce front - Ozon, Wildberries, and the London listed Yandex, better known as "the Google of Russia" - have already been putting in 70-80 percent annual revenue growth for several years now, and the present situation will only make them expand faster.

Megaphone

Actor Matthew McConaughey calls 'illiberal' Far Left 'condescending and patronizing,' talks anti-Christian bias in Hollywood

Matthew McConaughey
© Tim Warner/Getty Images
Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey said last week that he's personally witnessed Christian friends in Hollywood hold out on expressing their faith publicly at risk of potentially losing out in their career.

During a podcast released Thursday with host Joe Rogan, McConaughey recalled fellow actors he has prayed with holding their applause when he thanked God during award speeches.

"I have had — and I won't throw any people under the bus — but I have had moments where I was on stage receiving an award in front of my peers in Hollywood, and there were people in the crowd that I have prayed with before dinners many times, and when I thanked God, I saw some of those people go to clap, but then notice that, 'bad thing on my resume' and then sit back on their hands," McConaughey said.