Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Sadists: Ottawa tells family members to stop window visits at nursing homes

Elizabeth Payne
Ottawa Sun
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:06 UTC
window visits
© AP
It has become an iconic image of the COVID-19 pandemic — a family member waving to an elderly loved one through the window of their long-term care home. Even Ontario Premier Doug Ford has talked about his wife visiting her mother that way.

But it will no longer be an option for families with loved ones in long-term care homes run by the City of Ottawa. In a memo this week, Dean Lett, director of long-term care for the city, asked families to stop visiting their loved ones at windows "to help ensure that physical distancing remains in place for all our residents."

The news has devastated family members who say the visits are the only remaining connection they have with anxious and isolated loved ones whom they've been unable to see in person during the pandemic. Many of them do not respond to electronic communications the same way, say families.
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Wall Street

Fake News industry moves on to next lie as Kim Jong-Un shows up alive


Sputnik
Sat, 02 May 2020 12:03 UTC
north korea kim jong un
'Surprise!'
Kim Jong-un's well-being has been a matter of speculation over the past several weeks as the North Korean leader has been conspicuously absent from public events which led to rumours that he was either ill or even dead.

A video of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting a fertiliser plant in Sunchon after his several-week absence from public functions has been shared by the Korean Central News Agency.


In the footage, the supreme leader is seen cheered by locals in face masks outside of the plant, waving flowers and flags. Kim himself was filmed talking with top officials, seemingly in good health and spirits. Notably, none of them was wearing any facial protection.

He was also seen examining a machine installed in the plant and giving instructions to officials who escorted the chairman. Kim, a habitual smoker, was also spotted with a cigarette during a meeting at the facility.



Comment: The Coroney virus will never take him then.

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Arrow Up

COVID-19 not as deadly as feared, hospitals will shift back to normal - UPMC doctor

David Wenner
Penn Live
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 19:52 UTC
Yealy
Dr. Donald Yealy of UPMC in Pittsburgh, Pa. speaks to reporters during an online briefing on April 30, 2020.
A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with the new coronavirus may be as low as 0.25% — far lower than the mortality rates of 2-4% or even higher cited in the early days of the pandemic.

Dr. Donald Yealy based it partly on studies of levels of coronavirus antibodies detected in people in New York and California, and partly on COVID-19 deaths in the Pittsburgh region. The studies found that 5-20% of people had been exposed to the coronavirus, with many noticing only mild illness or none at all, he said.

"We've learned that way more people, far, far more people have actually been exposed to the infection without any knowledge of it. That makes the overall death rate much lower," said Yealy, who is UPMC's chair of emergency medicine. "Many people just didn't feel sick at all and recovered without difficulty."

Comment: Whilst it's a good sign that doctors are seeing reason and are brave enough to speak out against the coronavirus propaganda, world leaders are decrying that there will be no returning to 'normal' - whether we like it or not - and, by all metrics, this hysteria has done an untold and potentially irreversible amount of damage to the world's economies, and the death toll caused by the draconian lockdown and its knock on effect has yet to be tallied, but it's highly likely it caused more deaths than the coronvirus:

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Megaphone

Raucous protest in Huntington Beach demands beaches open, end of stay-at-home order

Andrew J. Campa, Hannah Fry, Luke Money
Los Angeles Times
Fri, 01 May 2020 15:27 UTC
huntington beach protest
© Allen J. Schaben/Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles TimesThousands of protesters rally at the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.
More than 500 protesters converged on Huntington Beach again Friday to demand stay-at-home rules in California be lifted and to express their displeasure with Gov. Gavin Newsom's directive closing local beaches to slow the spread of coronavirus.

The crowd that descended on the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street was significantly larger than a demonstration at the same site near the Huntington Beach Pier two weeks ago. The raucous protest included people carrying banners that read "All jobs are essential" and "Freedom: We the people." One person had a sign that said "Recall Gavin Newsom."

Parents walked hand-in-hand with children to the now-closed beach, while protesters, some bringing their dogs, arrived on bikes, skateboards and scooters. Several shared their grievances through chants, signs and occasional songs.

Comment: You bet they're pleased - convincing people to give up their jobs, their life and their constitutional rights for an over-hyped flu is something beyond the authoritarian's wildest dreams. They should be happy that the protest at this stage has been peaceful. Once the true repercussions of the bogus lockdown are fully realized, protests are likely to take on an uglier tone.

See also:

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Eye 1

UK's 'snitch hotline' receives 194,000 calls during lockdown, police admit protracted measures making it harder for people to comply

Vikram Dodd
The Guardian
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 18:49 UTC
Park coronavrius
© George Wood/Getty ImagesA sign reminding the public about the closure of a play area in Peel Park, Bradford.
Police say they have received 194,000 calls "snitching" on people alleged to have broken the coronavirus lockdown, and say the draconian measures are getting harder to for people to observe the longer they go on.

The figures from the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) give an insight into how the tough rules, and fears of the virus spreading, have affected communities.

Sara Glen, a deputy chief constable who is part of the NPCC's leadership tackling coronavirus, said: "We have members of the public who are coming in on the phones and [via the internet] to report where they've got concerns either at gatherings of people that they can see from their locations, or if they think people aren't adhering to the regulations and that's actually putting them at risk."

Comment: It should no longer be a surprise to anyone how a country can so easily become a totalitarian state with citizen informers:

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Beaker

Best of the Web: There is no such thing as 'The Science'

Rob Lyons
Spiked
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:01 UTC
lab samples PPE bottles
© Getty Images


Science is not some grand tome we can consult to get the 'right' answer.

According to David Blunkett, a former senior cabinet minister in Tony Blair's governments, attempts to have a blanket lockdown on the over-70s are discriminatory. He believes that the current 'shielding' rules are too crude and need to be more nuanced. Whatever the merits of his ideas, his comments on the scientific advice that the government is receiving are interesting.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World at One on 28 April, Blunkett argued that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has a problem. Drawing on Matthew Syed's book, Rebel Ideas, he said that 'major mistakes in the recent past have been made by people of similar ilk, similar ideas, similar background, similar thinking being considered the only experts that you could draw down on. And I'd like RAGE - a Recovery Advisory Group - that had a very much broader swathe of advice and expertise to draw down on.'

Comment: See also:

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Light Saber

There will be blowback, in mostly good ways

Jeffrey A. Tucker
American Institute for Economic Research
Fri, 24 Apr 2020 05:45 UTC
swinging ball toy
Two months ago, it had been mandatory in my local grocery to use only shopping bags brought from home. Plastic bags were illegal by local ordinance. Then the virus hit. Suddenly the opposite was true. It was illegal to bring bags from home because they could spread disease. Plastic bags were mandatory. As a huge fan of plastic bags, I experienced profound Schadenfreude.

It's amazing how the prospect of death clarifies priorities.

Before the virus, we indulged in all sorts of luxuries such as dabbling in dirtiness and imagining a world purified by bucolic naturalness. But when the virus hit, we suddenly realized that a healthy life really matters and that natural things can be very wicked. And then when government put everyone under house arrest and criminalized freedom itself, we realized many other things too. And we did it fast.

Lots of people are predicting how life will fundamentally change in light of our collective experience this last month. I agree but I don't think it will turn out quite as people think. This whole period has been an unconscionable trauma for billions of people, wrecking lives far beyond what even the worst virus could achieve. I'm detecting enormous, unfathomable levels of public fury barely beneath the surface. It won't stay beneath the surface for long.

Our lives in the coming years will be defined by forms of blowback in the wake of both the disease and the egregious policy response, as a much needed corrective. The thing is that you can't take away everyone's rights, put a whole people under house arrest, and abolish the rule of law without generating a response to that in the future.

Comment: While the writer may be a bit too optimistic in his proposals, it does look that we might be heading towards at least a couple of these down the road... we hope.

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Corona

Greater Manchester Police ask residents to snitch on anyone 'repeating conspiracy theories'

Cindy Harper
reclaimthenet.org
Tue, 28 Apr 2020 11:56 UTC
manchester police
Asking people to call the police on family engaging in "conspiracy theories" is an idea that sounds like it comes out of China's social credit system.

But it's not. It's happening in the United Kingdom.

Police in Manchester, England, are engaging in a social media campaign, requesting local residents to call police if any of their friends and family are engaging in "conspiracy theories."

"Online platforms can be a fun world. Unfortunately, they can also be used to exploit vulnerable people. If you are worried that one of your friends or family is showing signs of radicalisation seek advice or call police on 101," Greater Manchester Police said on Facebook. (Archive)

101 is the non-emergency number to contact local police in the UK.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

The 'pandemic' is deepening America's many divides

Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:50 UTC
America divided
And so we've reached the precarious state of disunion in which the only thing the warring elites can agree upon is that the Federal Reserve should rescue their private wealth, regardless of cost or consequences.

America's divides are proliferating and deepening by the day. The key political and economic divides predate the pandemic, but the pandemic is acting as a catalyst, creating new divides and exacerbating existing ones.

Let's start with the politicization and subsequent polarization of re-opening the economy. In a reasonably sane, coherent society, this issue would be subject to common sense debates about risks, trade-offs, policies, responses to new data, etc.

But American society is neither sane nor coherent, so what should be a non-partisan debate was immediately politicized, to the absurd extreme that "progressives" must favor continuing strict lockdowns lest they be accused of being "conservative."

The erosion of middle ground and the disappearance of de-politicized policy debates is a clear sign that a society is doomed to disintegration not just of the social order but the political and economic orders.
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Eye 1

California orders release of 7 high-level sex offenders over concerns they could contract coronavirus

Holly McKay
Fox News
Fri, 01 May 2020 22:38 UTC
California sex offenders
© Orange County Sheriff's Office
Just days before California's Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the closure of parks and beaches in Orange County, making it a criminal offense to step foot in the sand, the state ordered the release of seven high-risk sex offenders from the county's jails over concerns they could contract coronavirus.

The court-ordered move prompted the District Attorney's Office to issue a safety warning to the community this week, highlighting that the men are likely to re-offend.

"These kinds of high-risk sex offenders are the most dangerous kind of criminal and the most likely to re-offend," DA Todd Spitzer said in a statement. "They are doing everything they can to avoid detection by the parole officers assigned to monitor them so they can potentially commit additional sex offenses. These are not the kind of people who should be getting a break."

According to Spitzer's office, Court Commissioner Joseph Dane ordered the controversial releases throughout April, despite the men having been charged with tampering with their GPS monitoring devices.

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