Category Archives: Politics and sociology

We all know that the overall ONS testing stats, so useful for scaring the public, are pretty useless for knowing what’s going on. Apart from the questionable nature of the (predominantly PCR) tests themselves, which may be hiding a casedemic, they are subject to a varying number of tests being done (so at least half of the present increase in cases is due to the increasing number of tests), to testing being concentrated on hot-spots rather than a consistent sample population, and increasingly to their consisting of an unspecified mix of PCR, LFT and antibody tests.

Abstract The imposition of a third national UK lockdown today presents a unique opportunity for gauging the effectiveness of lockdowns in managing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It is unique because both the previous lockdowns began after deaths had already peaked, meaning that cases had reached their maximum perhaps 3 weeks before that.

This is just to keep you aware that the “new COVID strain crisis” in the UK, or another country near you, is still just more of the same spin, and still has the same underlying agenda.

…with Eastasia I think the most sinister image I have seen during the whole of this debacle over SARS-CoV-2 during 2020 is this one:

An expert on BBC news this morning was decrying the high false negative rate of “lateral flow” COVID tests, in the light of a study which re-tested negative asymptomatic students with PCR tests, and found half a dozen positives. This suggested that statistically 60 students in the group were in fact infected, rather than the three (if I remember rightly) revealed by the original test.

With the death of John le Carré this last week, I felt it was about time I read some of his work, as opposed to seeing the film versions on TV. So I picked his December 2000 book The Constant Gardener, since in dealing with the rapacity and unscrupulousness of Big Pharma, it seemed somehow topical.