Ignoring Warnings and Rational Science, European Leaders Activate Second Lockdowns
Updated
*UPDATE: APNews.com is reporting U.K.’s 4-week coronavirus lockdown may have to last longer
By Jefferey Jaxen
Just like that, governments and health ‘officials’ around the world have chosen to flat out ignore actual science and raw data that warns of the consequences of implementing a second population lockdown.
One month ago, The Great Barrington Declaration was authored and signed in Southwest Massachusetts. So far, 44,480 medical/public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed on to warn that lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.
This has been Ignored!
The Great Barrington Declaration called for ‘Focused Protection’ as the most compassionate approach balances risks and benefits. Again, backed by science and nearly a year of data, a ‘Focused Protection’ approach would allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.
This too was ignored!
It was on March 23, 2020 U.K Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the British public to the public “you must stay at home” during a televised address. The most significant set of restrictions on British life in living memory were set in place as Johnson ordered the first nationwide lockdown threatening police force.
The result for the country was the deepest coronavirus-related recession among the leading industrial economies, as the UK economy plummeted into a recession as GDP fell by 20.4%. Add to that tally over 30,000 excess care home deaths.
Despite months of record-breaking protests against government lockdown measures, Johnson was back at it on claiming “there is no alternative,” he delivered a televised speech stating “From Thursday [Oct. 29] until the start of December you must stay at home, you may only leave home for specific reasons.” The second lockdown had arrived and the people of the U.K. are under siege.
The Telegraph reported that the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner has said that under the region’s Tier 2 restrictions, officers will enter homes and separate households if necessary. Under the government’s rules for areas in Tier 2 and Tier 3, people must not meet indoors with anyone outside their household or ‘support bubble.’ Many are looking to the coming holidays in hopes that the government won’t impose its rules on private family gatherings.
France announced a new lockdown that went into effect on Friday. It is planned, at this point, to last until at least the end of November according to reporting. Non-essential business will close as the country will “brutally apply the brakes” according to President Macron. Not all the country’s people were on board with his vision: Realtime data, along with citizen journalists’ video, showed massive traffic jams during the hours leading up to France’s lockdown start.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the country hopes to limit the economic blow of its second lockdown to negative 15% – that would be in addition to the already 30% drop caused by its first lockdown in March.
Meanwhile, to nobody’s surprise, protests intensified across Europe over the weekend. The same protests, once framed as small groups of neo-Nazi’s and “conspiracy theorists” by corporate media’s gatekeeping attempts, can no longer be hidden. Populations are now in full revolt against society-destroying government edicts masquerading as public health ‘greater good’ measures.
Germany too will dole out another lockdown starting today. Don’t worry, it’s being labeled a ‘partial lockdown.’ Restaurants, bars, theaters and concert halls will be closed while non-essential travel is being ‘called off.’ With an unemployment rate of 6.2% and a nearly 10% drop in its economy, German Labour Office head Detlef Scheele claimed “This will hit the labour market, but it won’t collapse.”
In the same breath with each lockdown measure announced across Europe, governments are also making sure to promise another round of monetary support measures.
As the European lockdowns were being announced, Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, wrote in a Spectator piece that it’s long past time to retire lockdowns from the public health toolkit given their failures
In his piece titled “It’s Time for an Alternative to Lockdown,” Bhattacharya argues:
“…can’t we think of a better way to handle this pandemic? No one is in any doubt about the threat posed by the Coronavirus. But nor should there be any doubt about the harm posed by lockdown: the mental health, the economic destitution, the deep damage inflicted on families, communities and societies. Perhaps the worst of it is the idea that, when lockdown ends, the virus resumes – and you are back where you started. Where is the exit strategy? And where is the assessment of the costs?”
Before the Great Barrington Declaration, Belgium medical doctors and health professionals warned in September of the devastating effects of the lockdown in an open letter. They wrote, “After the initial panic surrounding Covid-19, the objective facts now show a completely different picture – there is no medical justification for any emergency policy anymore. The current crisis management has become totally disproportionate and causes more damage than it does any good.”
At the time, they called for “an end to all measures” and asked for “an immediate restoration of our normal democratic governance and legal structures and of all our civil liberties.”
They were ignored!
Belgium has now imposed its second lockdown as the government moved to restrict travel and shopping. Family contact will be targeted to “an absolute minimum of one outside the closest cluster for the next 6 weeks” reports ABC News. Remote work will be mandatory.
Speaking to The HighWire, Denis Rancourt Ph.D, called the first set of lockdowns a mass crime, pointing out: “Any universal lockdown, in the presence or absence of any single or array of viral respiratory diseases, is a mass crime. Why repeat the assault?”
He states that “the all-cause mortality shows sharp surges in deaths that followed the March 11, 2020 WHO global recommendation for hospital clearing as “pandemic” response, across the world, in those jurisdictions that sent hospitalized infected elderly persons into the community, including locked down care homes.” The lockdowns turned care homes and institutions for sick and elderly persons into killing fields, says Rancourt.
Meanwhile, Professor Knut Wittkowski questioned the initial, strong lockdown measures in March. When asked about the current, second attempt at lockdown, he was apparently still not sold on them because “they delay, but do not prevent infections, illnesses, and deaths” he stated.
It’s clear now governments never had an exit strategy. In the early stages, populations were promised freedom at the tip of a needle. Now, the someday, maybe experimental vaccine has been laid bare to show its limited (if any!) potential.
Research from Peter Doshi and The BMJ question whether any of the crop of Covid-19 vaccines will save lives. The answer: Anybody’s guess. Doshi writes: “We now learn that none of the trials currently underway are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.”
“In all the ongoing Phase III trials for which details have been released, laboratory confirmed infections, even with only mild symptoms, qualify as meeting the primary endpoint definition. In Pfizer and Moderna’s trials, for example, people with only a cough and positive laboratory test would bring those trials one event closer to their completion,” Doshi reveals.
With governments showing little quarter in their new lockdowns beyond keeping some schools open, populations squashed under the thumbs of government authority are chafing. We can probably expect some level of revolt in the weeks…or maybe even days…to come.