Why it's time for you to be protesting.

Ever been to a protest? Me neither, until today! What do me the Professors of Epidemiology at Oxford & Cambridge, Swedish Covid 19 Chief and a Nobel Prize winning Scientist have in common? None of us believed the governments predictions for Covid 19 deaths, nor do we believe the lock down is necessary, nor do we believe Covid 19 is a problem for the vast majority of the population. And we certainly don't believe it's worth the extra deaths from cancer, suicide and other serious health conditions which have been neglected, not to mention the increase in rates of child and domestic abuse. And as for our economy.....

If you are under 10 your chances of dying from Covid 19 are very remote, and child to adult transmission has not proven to exist. Adult to adult transmission when collecting children has. If you are over 80 you have roughly a 1 in 50 chance of dying. But you have a 10% chance of dying anyway this year. Scientists say many of the elderly people that have died would have died this year anyway. Once you remove these numbers from the Covid 19 death rates you're looking at a death figure of nothing more than we'd expect from a nasty dose of Flu. We have never closed the country down for flu, even at it's very worst.

The other thing myself and the esteemed collective above (and a plethora of other Professors aside) have in common is we haven't massively incorrectly predicted deaths using software that's so old is was used in the Sinclair Spectrum https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-led-lockdown-totally-unreliable-buggy-mess-say-experts/ Professor Ferguson has previous has a track record of being wildly out in his predictions of pandemics. Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. . . .

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.

In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K. The biggest question of all is why is the Government still listening to this guy who has as much skill at prediction as my 7 year old.

I have sat on the Bury leadership group with the council leader, chief exec and a number of other business leaders in the borough for a number of years. When this outbreak kicked off there was no UK data, other than the wildly incorrect predictions from a man with a long track record of getting it wrong. The Council Chief exec was having weekly talks with Government, I was urging them to kick back on it. But they went along with it like sheep. I'd been tracking the data from Italy and Spain, and the data didn't support the measures they were proposing over here. I resigned from the committee as it wasn't a productive use of my time and there was nothing I could do to influence the outcomes. The problem with having public servants dealing with this sort of thing is they will always have a job. They neither know nor care what it's like to be responsible for making payroll so your staff can pay their mortgages and look after their families. We'd done some good stuff as a group up until this point, but failing to push back on this when we had the opportunity was a massive disservice to our children, our community and the businesses that support it. Ignorance or the unwillingness to listen to anything other than government doctrine was at the heart of this.

I take no pleasure in saying "I told you so", but even now, when we've not had anywhere near the deaths predicted, particularly where I'm based, the NHS didn't collapse and the Nightingale Centres weren't even used (we left our elderly to die in care homes like death camps). There is no evidence to support child to adult transmission and increasing infection being inflated by false positives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08mz3m5 - without the hospital admissions or deaths to back it up, we're still in lockdown and now have mask wearing inflicted on perfectly healthy people. WHO guidance says if you're ill it will prevent transmission, but if you're ill you should be staying at home. 200000 people would have to wear a mask for a whole week to prevent one case of cornovirus, not death, just an infection. I can totally see the logic in Hospitals, but supermarkets when we were out shopping in them in the peak of infection without masks? Have we seen mass deaths of supermarket workers to prove the case of infection in shops? In a word, no. Because unless you're over 80 or have several co-morbidities, it's very hard to die of this virus. The most effective thing we could do to "save the NHS" and reduce the risk of death is put the obese on better food choices. Not the dreadful low fat high carb the government recommends, which leads to diabetes, but the low carb, good fat ones that have seen thousands of people reverse their diabetes (that doesn't really work for the pharma industry though).

What disgusts me most is the politicising of Covid. We were on a call this week with Andy Burnham (who has never really got that Covid 19 isn't the problem it's been predicted to be) and our local Tory MP James Daley. Daley never said a word the entire time he was on the call about any objections, but waited until afterwards to release a letter complaining that lock down should be decided on a borough by borough basis. Talk about point scoring. If Andy Burnham is really serious about saving lives he should ban driving, it'll save far more lives than the local lock down measures.

The Karens of this world with their opinions quoted as fact, and when once said opinions are completely decimated, you get the "you put business before lives" thrown at you. There is this perception that if you run a business you have a magic money tree in your office or restaurant that will miraculously keep producing cash, even when you're not trading. Well Karen, 96% of businesses in the UK earn less than ￡1m, the person who owns the coffee shop in our village has made less than ￡50 a day on some days, how do you suggest they pay their staff and provide good quality food and the excellent smiley service you expect from them on that? Your self righteous opinions aren't going to pay their bills. Chances are you're a baby boomer, you've paid your modest mortgage off and you're sitting pretty on a final salary pension. From the profile pictures I've seen of you spouting your ill advised and unwanted opinions on social media and the local newspapers website, your one of the overweight, over 65, comorbidity people that's at the higher risk. The kids who are affected by this, who wont get infected, aren't going to be that lucky. Apprenticeships are being cancelled in their droves. School leavers and Graduates don't have jobs to go to, they're going to have to pay much higher taxes - something you wont have to worry about. And the chance of them owning their own home before 40 is going to be a pipe dream. My advice to you Karen, is lose some weight, get some exercise and stop pissing on everyone else's chips because you've let yourself succumb to an unqualified fear due to your own ignorance and the enjoyment of finally being part of something. I imagine you were gutted when they stopped the Thursday night NHS clap. FYI, the doctors and nurses would rather have more pay as appreciation than a round of applause.

These polarized views are very divisive, I seen the tone change on social media from people like me saying the risk is being exaggerated, being attacked by 80% of people, to the Karens saying how selfish everyone who needs to earn a living is by going about their business instead of staying inside, being attacked by 80% of people. What a welcome turn in public opinion. One Karen stated on a local newspaper article that her friend had been killed by covid, so everything should be shut down (note she said, one friend, not 5, or dozens, just one). A young man replied that his friend had been hit and killed by a bus, but we weren't banning buses. The youth are really getting fed up of older people ranting about something that is unlikely to kill them, and even less likely to kill the young. The young, at least, have some perspective.

Black Lives Matter, VE Day, Eid, etc where were the huge peaks in infection/admissions/deaths afterwards? Why did nobody talk about that? Because there's nothing to see there. It's just not newsworthy. A friend of mine was chatting with a news crew in Preston about to make a report on the lock down there he told them there were no new admissions to the hospital and there had been no deaths for 4 weeks. Needless to say that didn't make it into the report.

Masks in Shops and local lock down was the last straw for me. How gullible does the government think we are, how far do we let ourselves be pushed? So, for the first time EVER, I'm going to a protest. I may be the only one there, I don't care. I have to stand up for my civil liberties, common sense, good contextual data, the future of my children and the normalising of society. There's nothing to see here. Lets get rid of the fear and get back to normal. If you want to wear a mask, knock yourself out, I wont judge you for it.

Want to listen to something other than the nanny state drivel the government feed us on the BBC? Get yourself over to UnHerd https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ on Youtube- Lockdown TV is excellent, they have some great Professors, Nobel Peace Prize winners and other great experts who don't have a track record in getting it massively wrong.

In the meanwhile, I'm off to get my hair cut, if I do get arrested at least I'll look the part. https://facebook.com/events/s/manchester-uk-united-for-freed/1141374772903775/?ti=icl