Another Tory lie – and one that will needlessly wreck local economies and leave people in danger
The Tories are attempting to justify their plans to close pubs and restaurants by claiming that almost a third of infections in the second wave of the pandemic are contracted in hospitality settings:
Public Health England’s own data expose the blatant – and massive – lie. Just 4% of infections outside the home trace back to pubs and restaurants.
But by contrast, 38% of infections are caught in schools, by far the biggest means of transmission:
You are nine times more likely to catch COVID in a school as in a pub or restaurant and more than six times more likely to catch it in a workplace. Yet the Tories are ignoring the biggest sources of infection and closing hospitality to look like they are doing something.
But any plan to suppress the second wave that does not involve re-closing schools and workplaces, where almost two thirds of total transmission take place, and re-instituting furlough or a better scheme is a sham.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
More from the Poor Man’s Guardian – Johnson’s and Starmer’s little Scary Fairy helper.
Do get a grip on reality. and basic numbers.
But the Tories are relying upon expert advice aren’t they, because we know what they think of experts, or was that just ‘half a brain Gove’, one the Tories in-house thickos?
The Tories should take the opportunity to stimulate the economy, by ensuring that every single child have access to both internet and its own wide screen home computer that they can attend lessons from home and submit home work. Then children could be divided into groups so that once per week they can attend school physically for lessons but due to the reduced numbers it would be easier to keep social distancing among pupils and teachers.
The Skwawkbox’s sources are The Independent and Public Health England.
What are yours – Trunt? Breitbart? QAnon? “A Swiss Scientist?”
Covidiot.
It is not knowable where infection occurs. HOWEVER, because official sources are indicating that for the last 10 days between 45 and 57% of all infections have been of school-age children and adults currently attending universities, it is highly unlikely that educational institutions are more infectious than pubs,clubs, restaurants.
Perhaps tho’ David you need to realise that the Infection Fatality rate (globally) is 0.14%. The wonderful journalist Kit Knightley informs us that “ WHO (Accidentally) Confirms Covid is No More Dangerous Than Flu. Head of Health Emergencies Program “best estimates” put IFR at 0.14% “
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/
Facts are sacred
qwertboi, allow me to paraphrase your first paragraph “It’s not knowable but I know that because half are in education, schools & uni’s can’t be the cause.” You sure that’s what you meant?
You get that the global figure includes countries like China, S. Korea, Vietnam etc. that acted fast and with logic and virtually beat the virus – right?
You also get that that including the world’s BEST in the global figure LOWERS the average MASSIVELY, and that including them in your argument concerning UK policy – close to the WORST in the world – makes nonsense of you and your co-deniers’ already-ridiculous assertions – RIGHT?
This claim is not correct, the 38% refers to schools & Universities (and presumably colleges as well) a vital distinction. As we already know Coronavirus is spread disproportionally by young adults once they leave school. Neither can I find the pie chart in PHE week 40 report. All cases need to be adjusted for the number of tests to find the true incidence. Parents are manically testing children because rhinoviruses are on the up and what Covid cases there are will probably get measured. Uni students in contrast generally don’t want to be tested for obvious reasons!
“As we already know Coronavirus is spread disproportionally by young adults once they leave school.”
I didn’t know that. What might explain this apparent anomaly?
I haven’t read of parents “manically testing children.” either.
I’d be interested to read it if you have a link. Are parents manically ignoring official advice, and are they asking their kids to pretend symptoms – perhaps faking a coughing fit – to justify the waste of tests?
gov.uk – “you should only book a test if your child has any of these 3 coronavirus symptoms:
1. a high temperature: any new high temperature where your child feels hot to touch on their chest or back (you do not need to measure the temperature)
2. a new continuous cough: coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
3. a loss of, or change in, sense of smell or taste: a noticeable loss of smell or taste or things smell and taste different to normal
” I haven’t read of parents “manically testing children.” either.”
Err, because between 17th September and 23rd September they’ve done 14.5 million tests and 153.5 thousand of them tested positive according to gov.uk
people aren’t “faking”, they’re frightened Einstein.
I would ask those of you open to reason consider other methods of dealing with the virus rather than take the current ‘experts’ as offering the only possible response. While I’m not advocating a complete acceptance of the response contained in The Barrington Declaration: https://www.aier.org/article/the-great-barrington-declaration-and-its-critics/ I believe that we will have to live with the virus. We cannot depend on a vaccination making us immune. We may have to use vaccination + as yet unavailable cure to treat the vulnerable. Given that we live in a neoliberal country we cannot rely on methods to damp down the virus that impact on the economy as there is no medium/long term assistance available for the majority of people and the poor have no savings to fall back on, therefore we can’t take the response of Socialist countries as our own. It is my personal belief that so far we have let social scientists write far too much of the narrative and they have used their new found power to instill fear and control thinking. The fact that there are alternate opinions shows that ‘experts’ don’t all hold the same views, therefore this is not wholly “science driven”.
I support the wearing of masks. I support social distancing. I do not support shutting down our hospitals, surgeries and dentists to all but emergencies thereby storing up problems for the future. I do not support measures that shut small businesses and put an as yet unknown amount of people out of work and I do not support 40 years of small government and austerity for the poor given that our current predicament is 4 times worse than the recession of 2007/8. I do not trust western governments and I didn’t think many of you did either. Given they’ve openly spoken about implementing a global economic reset, I think we have every reason to question what they are doing to us and look for alternative solutions now that we are 9 months in and know a lot more than we did at the start.
Indeed lundiel. Indeed!
In fact (wearing my biochemist hat), we have been living with coronavirus since 1942, when it was discovered as an avian virus in North Dakota.
Moreover, WHO (collated) data inform us that fewer than 1 in 130,000 infected people will die because of coronavirus. Globally the Infection Fatality Rate is no worse than that of influenza in a good year
Ooops, meant fewer than *3* per hundred thousand
”Evidence presented to MPs shows hospitality is single biggest spreader of infection, warns nadim zahawi.”
That’ll be the very same nadim zawahi who claimed £5k of taxpayer moolah to heat his stables and tried to called it: ‘An administrative oversight’.
lundiel, I’ve considered lots of other ways of dealing with CV, but why wouldn’t we look at what has been proven to work elsewhere?
China hasn’t suffered economically to anything like the degree Western democracies have and far fewer of its people have died.
We could learn many lessons from China, which is almost back to economic normality I understand.
“Implementing a global economic reset” could be a double-edged sword.
Neoliberal dogma has always been that their economic model is the only one possible.
A global economic reset, however, proves that the model they’ve just ditched for a brand new and ‘improved’ one, was never the only possible model after all.
Capitalism maintains that command economies can’t work – their “global economic reset” will be the epitome of a command economy – the mother of all command economies in fact, commanded by the 1% – proving once and for all that there’s no technical reason socialist governments can not also command economies to the benefit of ALL the people.
Fortuitously the digital revolution that enables the command economy of the 1% also solves the old problem of the commissar class that’s always been considered the fatal flaw in communism.
We’ll still have to fight them for power but hopefully this time the status quo that the MSM is paid to guarantee having already been ruptured will make the difference.
Northern leaders have rejected the Government’s new local furlough scheme as they brace for tougher lockdown restrictions from next week.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s financial package is “insufficient to protect our communities” and warned new measures threaten to “widen the North-South divide”.
The leaders of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Tyneside spoke out against the scheme at a press conference on Saturday amid ongoing discussions with the Government.
They have called for a vote in Parliament and for northern MPs to back them and revolt against the Government.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-northern-leaders-reject-new-22823095#source=push
Keeping schools open means more can go out to work rather than care for their brats at home.
And closing pubs etc early, indeed entirely, ensures the workers won’t be late for work.
Top hole.
One must have one’s priorities right.
Old boy.