Broadcaster transmits huge part of Johnson’s promise to reduce scale of government failure – then twists framing of piece to cover further
This morning saw yet another shameful episode in the history of the BBC News channel’s readiness to cover for the Tory government and its failures, lies and broken promises.
In a segment on the expiry of the deadline for the government to hit 100,000 coronavirus tests carried out per day, the BBC showed Boris Johnson promising six weeks ago to hit 25,000 tests a day – and left out entirely the fact that he originally promised to hit 250,000 tests a day imminently.
It also framed the whole segment to make it appear that testing has always been the government’s ‘watchword throughout this crisis’ – even though the Tories have been so slow and dismissive on testing that the UK was one of the countries rebuked by the World Health Organisation for ignoring the WHO’s ‘test, test, test’ strategy that has allowed South Korea to reach zero domestic transmission without even having a lockdown:
The reality is that the Tories’ political decision to ignore the WHO’s advice to put mass testing at the heart of the UK’s coronavirus strategy has needlessly cost thousands of lives – we have suffered more deaths than any other country apart from the US – and has inflicted massive and avoidable damage on our economy.
Even if the Tories claim 100,000 tests were performed today – let alone the 250,000 Boris Johnson promised.
But you won’t hear that from the BBC today.
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We should be looking ahead now to what happens after this phase. What does testing actually achieve? It’s not a cure. You can self isolate people with the disease and send workers back to work whose symptoms are not cv but it doesn’t cure it or stop it, only a vaccine does that. So no vaccine and we ease lockdown, implies we tolerate just enough cv cases to fill Nightingale hosps and not strain NHS until we have herd immunity. So what has changed in govt strategy since Feb? Nothing. And what is the alternative without a vaccine? There isn’t one. The cv slowly works it’s way through the population while the economy collapses and 1930’s unemployment arrives. The virus is constantly mutating and the most virulent strains put people in icu where they are treated and the rest of the population develop herd immunity from exposure to the milder versions. No pubs restaurants social life sports gatherings etc. 2 years of it. We should adopt the Swedish model asap.
The hard fact is that, absent a vaccine, population immunity and the normal extinction of this particular virus is the only protection.
And all indications are that this virus is following the normal curve of any such. Pretending that we can benefit by continued *general* lockdown until a miracle cure appears at some unspecified future time is pure La La Land.
… and more cases and other viruses will appear. C’est la vie – ’twas always thus – except the previous response hasn’t been to artificially crash the economy, extend the epidemic and generate even more illness and death.
Testing’s primary value is in enabling the tracing and quarantining of contacts of the positives.
Early introduction is crucial to feasibility – otherwise one half of the population ends up chasing down the other half – but early introduction relies on the existence of an effective and thoroughly war-gamed plan, and an emergency infrastructure mothballed in warehouses.
Once infection has spread to all areas of the country, as it has, the intervention required is no longer feasible.
Effective lockdown could bring numbers back down to where testing and tracing becomes viable again, but this government isn’t even making a serious plan.
As soon as lockdown is eased infection will increase exponentially again, but probably even faster than before – the number of asymptomatic infected hidden within the population being much greater now than in the beginning.
BBC London this AM around 09:50, a caller said, that while a patient, he was told – you most likely have Coronavirus, but we CAN’T test you. You are better off home. He was discharged without being tested. There are at least FORTY THOUSAND others like him‼️
ORDERS came from on high, ie from over-promoted, overpaid, lacking ANY clinical experience, ORDERS came from that lot. Orders delivered to them FROM GOVERNMENT, to DENY tests to sick patients and vulnerable staff. Thus government hoped they could spin lies that Covid-19 infections and deaths were lower than the truth. They had no intention of saving lives.
We must put clear common-sense, observations and experience ON RECORD every day. This record will help expose future lies that criticisms are “with the benefit of hindsight”. Don’t wait‼️ Expose FACTS and FORESIGHT everyday‼️ Expose johnson’s LIES. Record johnson’s lies & Cummings’ plans and deadly results.
Keep skwawkbox.org ahead of the curve. Phone Mon-Fri Talkradio 10:00 – 13:00. Mon-Thurs LBC 19:00 – 22:00. You may not like the presenters you don’t have to. But you will get a fair hearing with clear facts to hand.
Have your facts to hand and make your clear case of immediate tangible facts. 🌹🌹🌹
The whole exercise in C19 virus is to exploit a failing system….and let the virus spread.Johnson’s team and the west are clearly planning a reset of the world economy and its going to be carnage,With the USA leading the way desperately trying to plug the hole in the printing worthless money and stopping the Chinese and Russia in their plans to dump the petrol doller and replace it….Trump and Johnson ,Macron and the german chancellor didnt invent the Virus.But they will exploit it to enable the plans and experiments to go forward.ITs a question of how much will the public tolerate and is anyone out there capable of stopping them
Sweden does not exist in isolation; although it does? Its surrounding Scandanavian countries operate lockdown; & the people of Norway & Finland are more than 6 times less likely to become infected…….but Boris & MSM are preparing the ground for exit.
The differences between countries aren’t explained by lockdown – it’s an irrelevance, which is all that the Swedish situation shows.
https://youtu.be/k0Q4naYOYDw
… is an interesting take on the real effects of lockdown rather than the purported (evidence free) effects.
The only attempt that I know to map stringency of social measures against Covid-19 cases (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker) actually shows a low correlation of sever measures with a higher incidence. Basically – no real relationship between lockdown and number of cases.
You would concede that the word “lockdown” has been used somewhat flexibly – therefore all that can be said is that what’s been tried so far hasn’t stopped the spread.
Wittkowski’s contention, 10 minutes in, is that CV19 peaked on March 18th. I didn’t watch any more.
If he’s correct it’ll soon be obvious, we can breathe a sigh of relief, resume normal life and you can say “I told you so.”
Except March 18th was six weeks ago and we’re only seeing the kind of slowdown that social distancing (or half-arsed so-called “lockdown”) might be expected to achieve.
He still might be proved right though, and I hope he is.
I’m not holding my breath.
Big Brother Watch have released their ‘Emergency powers and civil liberties’ report April 2020′.
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Emergency-Powers-and-Civil-Liberties-Report-april-2020.pdf
Truth is an interesting concept. Not easy to define as a person can be factually wrong, but still be truthful. ………best defined in terms of an opposite i.e.deceit & an intention to do deceive.
There can be no definite article as there can never be just one truth A person can be economical with the truth; can be factually correct in what they say, but commit the sin of omission & selectivity. If the intention is to deceive a person cannot be telling the truth, regardless of facts.
Also Steve, two things can be true at the same time. In this case, the fact that governments, especially those wrongly assumed to be benign … all of them… will seize EVERY opportunity to subject citizens to more “big brother” control.
Governments neither need Covid-19 nor anything else to commit many diverse evils. Sinister forces in and out of governments have always lobbied and seized every opportunity for the benefit of a few. Covid-19 is another opportunity. Their exploitation of Covid-19 now, does not mean Covid-19 is a myth or less serious etc.
We do ourselves an intellectual disservice but also a political one, when our understandable, well reasoned and evidenced LOGICAL distrust, metastasises and / or mutates into a contagious blindness to facts.
Two things, even more, can be true at the same time. Covid-19 is DEADLY, SUPER CONTAGIOUS, needs to be contained till we get a vaccine, AND Tories Blue & Red are BASTARDS.🌹🌹🌹
This morning on BBC radio 4 Today programme a number of people involved with care homes ,including managers and owners were critical of the governments handling of covid especially lack of testing and ppe. The representative of the care home owners association became quite irate with Robinson when he suggested the owners were responsible. How will Tory MPs ,commentators and Guido spin it to present people who would appear to be natural Tory supporters such as these as hard line Labour activists,commies and trots?
They are well versed in this Jim – expert in fact. After all they portrayed life long anti racist and peace campaigner as an antisemite and the public swallowed it hook line and sinker
edit -apologies – the person to whom I am referring is Jeremy Corbyn,
Same people who would have gladly seen Nelson Mandela hung