Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 06 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Burka

Migrant crossings from France to UK spiked during lockdown


Comment: You won't hear a single word of complaint about this from the 'Karens' and authoritarians screaming bloody murder about 'maintaining social distancing'...


migrant crossings UK
The number of unaccompanied young migrants crossing the Channel from France to Britain has spiked during the coronavirus outbreak, as travel restrictions force them onto boats rather than trucks.

Kent County Council in southeast England, which includes the major port of Dover, was dealing with "230 to 250" young migrants a year ago, its chief executive, Roger Gough, said.

"But that number has pretty much doubled. It's now nearly 470 and new arrivals are coming in all the time," he told AFP.

Channel crossing attempts have increased since the end of 2018, despite the danger of heavy maritime traffic, strong currents and low water temperatures.

In 2019, 2,758 migrants were rescued by the French and British authorities while trying to cross the strait -- four times more than in 2018, according to French officials.

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the trend, with the reduced number of trucks going through the Channel Tunnel leading migrants to make the crossing in small boats instead.

Comment: So much for Brexit ending illegal mass migration to the UK. Why, it's as if the UK govt continues to tacitly encourage it in order to drive down wages and maintain a social 'strategy of tension'...


Arrow Up

China offers farmers cash to stop breeding exotic animals, Wuhan declared a "wildlife sanctuary"

civet
© AP
A civet cat stall is closed at a wildlife market in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, January 5, 2004.
The city at the center of the coronavirus crisis has banned the eating of wild animals and Chinese farmers are being offered cash to quit breeding exotic animals. Both moves come amid mounting pressure for China to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade blamed by many for the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people.

The local administration in Wuhan, the city of about 11 million people in China's central Hubei province where cases of the new coronavirus were first recorded late last year, announced Wednesday that the eating of all wild animals was officially banned.


Comment: Multiple cases of coronaviruses in numerous other countries have been uncovered that occurred before the outbreaks in Wuhan: Coronavirus may have been in Ireland last year - Taoiseach


The city also banned virtually all hunting of wild animals within its limits, declaring Wuhan "a wildlife sanctuary," with the exception of government sanctioned hunting for "scientific research, population regulation, monitoring of epidemic diseases and other special circumstances."

Comment: While it is pretty clear by now that the coronavirus was not transmitted through the wildlife trade, it seems that countries are using the contrived crisis as an opportunity to implement, what may normally be, difficult to push through policy:


Padlock

The lockdown left is no friend of the working class

the tube
If you want to know how messed-up politics has become in the Covid era, consider this: a Tory government is agitating for working people to have the right to return to work, while the TUC and the rest of the left are howling for working people to be kept at home. Evil Tories want to get the working classes working, while hip Corbynistas cry: 'No! It's too dangerous. Leave them in their flats.'

It's an about-face of epic proportions. How far we've come since the Battle of Orgreave. It is now the left that wants working people to be decommissioned, put out to pasture, languishing on state-paid wages or Universal Credit and uncertain of whether their job will even exist once the lockdown is finally lifted. And it's the Tories saying: 'Erm, don't you think it would be better if working people worked?'

Of course, the left's justification for its new policy of preventing the working classes from working is that they might catch Covid-19 and die. They're ramping up the culture of fear in a desperate effort to present their bizarre, historically unprecedented anti-work outlook as a good, noble thing. Actual facts - like the fact that under-40s have made up just 0.75 per cent of deaths from Covid - don't get so much as a look-in. No, keep all workers at home, even the fit, healthy young ones.

Comment: See also:


Play

YouTube defends removing epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski's video on coronavirus herd immunity

youtube HQ headquarters
© AFP PHOTO / JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
YouTube defended its removal of a video of a prominent epidemiologist explaining his view on coronavirus and "herd immunity."

The video featured Dr. Knut Wittkowski, the former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University. In it, he was critical of lockdown and social distancing measures, arguing they are counterproductive to achieving "herd immunity" from the virus. The video was removed for purported "misinformation" after reaching over 1.3 million views.

"With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity," Wittkowski said in the video, according to the New York Post, which first reported the story on Saturday. "About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won't even have recognized that they were infected."

Comment: While YouTube's strategy of licking the boots of the authorities may keep them out of trouble (to a certain extent) with those same authorities, users are not happy about the platform's recent uptick in censorship. With the announcement that mega YouTube star Joe Rogan is leaving the platform for greener pastures, it seems like YouTube's days may be numbered if they continue to oust content that doesn't fall inline with official narratives.

See also:


Syringe

Doubts raised over Oxford coronavirus vaccine after ALL of the monkeys that took part in the trial are found to have contracted the disease

coronavirus vaccine
The coronavirus vaccine being developed by scientists at Oxford University may not prevent people from becoming infected with the disease after all, experts have warned.

In the latest animal trials of the vaccine carried out on rhesus macaques, all six of the participating monkeys went on to catch the coronavirus.

Dr William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor, revealed the monkeys who received the vaccine had the same amount of virus in their noses as the three non-vaccinated monkeys in the trial.

This suggests the treatment, which has already received in the region of £90million in government investment, may not halt the spread of the deadly disease.

The bombshell comes after initial reports last week suggested the vaccine offered 'some' immunity against the virus, and stopped it getting deep into the lungs, where it becomes deadly.

The vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCov-19, is currently undergoing its first human clinical trial, as nations accelerate their efforts to tackle the deadly virus.

Comment: See also:


Play

Leaving the compound: Joe Rogan announces he's leaving YouTube for exclusive deal with Spotify

Joe Rogan
© Getty Images
Joe Rogan has signed an exclusive deal with Spotify, which will see his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, disappear from all other platforms.

The multi-year deal is believed to be worth $100m (£82 million), according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rogan's podcast, which is one of the most popular in the world, will arrive on the streaming giant on 1 September.

Comment: Although the money aspect is noteworthy, the above article really misses the point of why this move is significant. Many commentators (including this excellent analysis by Tim Pool) are speculating that Rogan is making this move since YouTube is not a 'safe' platform to be housing one's business, given the rise in rampant censorship on the platform. While Rogan himself has not been a victim of the YouTube ban-hammer, yet, many creators who are saying similar things are not so lucky. It seems likely that Rogan is aware of which way the wind is blowing and is making a move while he's still able to.

See also:


Info

"Masks on, clothes off": First strip club in America reopens

strip club stage money
Dozens of states are already in the process of reopening their crashed economies. Now the first strip club in the country, located in Wyoming, has resumed pole dancing operations and threw a grand reopening party last Friday called "masks on, clothes off."

"When they [state officials] reopened the restaurants and bars in Wyoming, we were super excited because it's been very difficult for us," Kim Chavez, the owner of "The Den," told FOX31.

"It's been horrible to go almost three months without any kind of income," Chavez's husband, Greg Chavez, said.

Brick Wall

Should Britain relax the two-metre distance rule?

social distancing
Could the Government be about to relax the two-metre rule for social distancing? On Wednesday morning, professor Robert Dingwall, a sociologist who sits on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, questioned the rule, saying he had tried to trace the scientific justification for it but couldn't. The evidence, he said, was 'fragile'. Some countries, such as the US and Spain, have also set a distance of two metres but others, such as Australia, Germany and the Netherlands are content with 1.5 metres and others, such as Norway and Finland are happy with a single metre.

The two-metre rule is going to be a huge impediment to relaxing lockdown. As an example, a standard train carriage in Britain is 2.8 metres wide. It is possible to maintain one metre social distancing by only using the window seats, but it is impossible to maintain two metres distance when people have to walk up and down the aisles. Likewise, one metre social distancing is practical in shops and restaurants while two metres is either impossible or impractical for commercial reasons.

Before this pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control was already recommending distancing of six feet (just under two metres) as a means of avoiding the transmission of influenza - and some claim it is a rule of thumb which has been in use since the 1930s. However, a Chinese study in the journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases studied the atmosphere in hospital wards in Wuhan at the peak of the epidemic and detected the virus present in the air up to four metres away from an infected patient.

Comment: Britain should not relax the social distancing rule; they should scrap it altogether. There is no evidence that it works and only makes life inconvenient (or in some situations, impossible). Trying to mitigate exposure to the virus is a fool's game - it's everywhere. The best defense against the virus is a strong immune system.

See also:


Bizarro Earth

State murder: Thousands of UK cancer patients could die early due to lockdown delays

mammogram
© BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A mammogram screening for breast cancer. Researchers have warned that coronavirus-related delays in diagnosis and treatment of a range of cancers could lead to a rise in deaths.
Thousands of people with cancer could die early because so many hospitals have suspended surgery for the disease while the NHS battles the coronavirus, experts warn today.

The pandemic will have "a terrible indirect impact on the lives of cancer patients" for months to come, on top of the devastation for families who have lost a loved one to Covid-19, according to research by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR).

The authors say that the disruption to NHS cancer treatment, and especially delays to operations to remove tumours, will lead directly to some people's disease having become incurable.

Comment: See also: Genocide of the 'impure': Surge in Do Not Resuscitate orders for learning disabilities patients issued during UK lockdown


Colosseum

UK universities facing £760m loss as lockdown causes surge in students deferring courses

Christ's College
© Joe Toth/REX/ShutterstockRichard Adams Education editor
A sign at Christ's College, Cambridge.
British universities face a potential £760m blow to their funding after about one in five students said they would not enrol in the next academic year if classes were delivered online and other activities curtailed.

A survey of students applying for undergraduate places found that more than 20% said they were willing to delay starting their courses if universities were not operating as normal due to the coronavirus pandemic, which would mean there would be 120,000 fewer students when the academic year begins in autumn.

The results, released by the University and College Union (UCU), come as universities are wrestling with how to reopen campuses for students while protecting them from Covid-19.

A number of universities including Cambridge have said they will conduct all lectures online throughout the 2020-21 academic year, offering "blended learning" that mixes online teaching with tutorials and in-person seminars where possible.

Comment: What the above highlights is the dilapidated state of the UK's educational institutions, because they were already in the red (despite quadrupling tuition fees in recent years) and they were heavily relying on foreign students just to function. But what we are also seeing are the initial effects that government fomented hysteria, along with a draconian lockdown, have on a population and its economy - and it's likely that there's much worse up ahead: