UK Lifting Lockdown On Monday: Boris Johnson

(Victoria Friedman's  article from The BREITBART NEWS on 07 May 2020.)

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the government could begin lifting coronavirus lockdown restrictions from Monday. Mr Johnson said that he would reveal his “roadmap” on Sunday (May-10), and the slow lifting of social distancing measures would occur the following day “if we possibly can”.

Addressing the House of Commons on Wednesday, Prime Minister Johnson said that the measures will be announced on Sunday, saying: “The reason for that is we need to make sure the data is going to support our ability to do this. That data is coming in continuously over the next few days. We want, if we possibly can, to get going with some of these measures on Monday.

“I think it would be a good thing, Mr Speaker, if people had an idea of what’s coming the following day,” he said, with the government suggesting that cafés with outdoor areas may be one of the businesses that could open next week.

Lockdowns: Is Your Government Embracing Tyranny?

(Senator Rand Paul's article from The FOX NEWS on 04 May 2020.)

“Of all tyrannies,” C.S. Lewis once observed, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” We’re seeing the truth of these words play out right now all across the country, and if you don’t believe me, just look at the headlines.

While we try to help each other stay healthy and safe, state and local authorities are seizing unprecedented amounts of power in the supposed pursuit of that goal, setting dangerous precedents along the way.

Economic czars in the form of governors, including in my own state of Kentucky, are taking it on themselves to decree which businesses will live and which will shutter for continually extended lengths of time, leaving those who have poured their entire lives into their businesses to try to pick up the pieces and do their best to survive and feed their families in the meantime.

Professor Lockdown Resigns For Banging Married Lover

(Tyler Durden's article from The ZERO HEDGE on 05 May 2020.)

Professor lockdown has forgotten his 500,000 deaths model.

Scientist Whose Doomsday Models Sparked Global Lockdown Resigns After Breaking Quarantine To Bang Married Lover: Professor Neil Ferguson - whose dire coronavirus predictions prompted worldwide lockdown measures still in place - broke his own advice on the need for strict social distancing to hook up with his married lover, according to the Telegraph.

On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown. The 51-year-old Professor had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus.

Prof Ferguson told the Telegraph: "I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies].

Professor Neil "Lockdown" Ferguson: Infected Boris?

(Bill Bostock's article from The BUSINESS INSIDER on 25 April 2020.)

Neil Ferguson's infamous 500,000 deaths model from
the UK Imperial College funded by Bill Gates who
has been advocating open-ended global lockdown.

How 'Professor Lockdown' helped save tens of thousands of lives worldwide — and carried COVID-19 into Downing Street: There has never been a more momentous era to be an epidemiologist. 

The last 20 years have played host to a flurry of pathogen outbreaks; Foot and Mouth in 2001, SARS in 2003, Swine Flu in 2011, MERS in 2012, and Ebola and Zika in 2014.

Before that, there hadn't been a major influenza epidemic for 40 years. So as head of the department of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London since 2012, Professor Neil Ferguson has not been short of work.

He modeled the spread of all those outbreaks, advising five UK prime ministers in the process. But all that seems like a practice run for 2020. In February of this year, coherent data began emerging from northern Italy, the first place in Europe to feel the force of the novel coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, in November. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

How COVID-19 Tests Work and What's Next?

(Bianca Nogrady's article from THE SCIENTIST on 03 March 2020.)

The quick sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and distribution of the data early on in the COVID-19 outbreak has enabled the development of a variety of assays to diagnose patients based on snippets of the virus’s genetic code. But as the number of potential cases increases, and concerns rise about the possibility of a global pandemic, the pressure is on to enable even faster, more-accessible testing.

Current testing methods are considered accurate, but governments have restricted testing to central health agencies or a few accredited laboratories, limiting the ability to rapidly diagnose new cases, says epidemiologist and immunologist Michael Mina, the director of the pathology laboratory and molecular diagnostics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

These circumstances are driving a commercial race to develop new COVID-19 tests that can be deployed within hospitals and clinics to provide diagnostic answers in short order. Globally, nearly 89,000 cases have now been reported—more than 80,000 of these in China—along with more than 3,000 deaths. The virus has been found in 64 countries, six of those in just the past day.

Democrats, It's Time To Consider Plan B Sans Biden

(Elizabeth Bruenig's opinion article from The NEW YORK TIMES on 03 May 2020.)

If you’re lucky when you report your sexual assault, you’ll become known as a person who was sexually assaulted. If you’re unlucky, you’ll become known as a person who lied about being sexually assaulted. It could still go either way for Tara Reade.

In March, Ms. Reade told journalist Katie Halper on Halper’s podcast that she had been sexually assaulted by Joe Biden in 1993, while working in his Senate office. Ms. Reade contends that, sometime in the spring of that year, Mr. Biden forced her against a wall, shoved his hand up her skirt, and forced his fingers into her vagina. Mr. Biden has unequivocally denied Ms. Reade’s allegations.

Since the interview with Ms. Halper, an ad hoc vetting of Ms. Reade’s claims has unfolded in the media. Those who doubt Ms. Reade cite the fact that she has exhibited unusual behavior over the years, such as using several aliases; that she praised Mr. Biden occasionally; that she made different allegations at different times; that her recollection of the alleged incident is spotty in places.

Lockdown Is Costing Australia $5 Billion A Week

(Jane Norman's article from The ABC NEWS on 05 May 2020.)

Maintaining the coronavirus shutdown is costing the economy $5 billion a week, according to new Treasury analysis that will be considered by the nation's leaders as they meet to decide which restrictions to lift.

Treasury estimates the mass closure of businesses and activities, designed to stop the spread of the virus, will see Gross Domestic Product plunge by 10 per cent in the June quarter — the equivalent of $50 billion being wiped from the economy.

In a speech to be delivered to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will say he is "reassured" by National Cabinet's decision to bring forward its consideration of which COVID-19 restrictions to lift, and when.

No Lockdown In South Korea: COVID is Beaten

(Charlie Campbell's article from The TIME on 30 April 2020.)

South Korea’s Health Minister on How His Country Is Beating Coronavirus Without a Lockdown: It wasn’t looking good for South Korea in mid-February. The nation had the world’s second highest number of coronavirus cases after China, owing to a cluster of infections that arose from the Shincheonji Church in the city of Daegu, some 150 miles south of the capital Seoul.

But thanks to early preparations, and a robust public health response based around extensive testing and tech-powered contact tracing, the nation’s tally of infections has been kept to just 10,765, about half directly related to Shincheonji. More impressive still, no major lockdown or restrictions on movement have been imposed, save a few scattered curfews.

On Apr. 15, some 29 million people turned up to vote in parliamentary elections—yet no known infections arose, thanks to strict social distancing at the polls. On Wednesday, South Korea had zero local infections for the first time since the outbreak was first recorded 72 days previously (though four new cases had been imported.) “This is the strength of South Korea and its people,” President Moon Jae-in said on announcing the news.

Lockdowns Are Shit: NonLockdown Nations Fare Better

(Patrick Henningsen's article from The 21st CENTURY WIRE on 01 May 2020.)

Neil Ferguson's infamous 500,000 deaths model from
the UK Imperial College funded by Bill Gates who
has been advocating open-ended global lockdown.

Why Sweden Has Already Won the Debate on COVID ‘Lockdown’ Policy: As Europe and North America continue suffering their steady economic and social decline as a direct result of imposing ‘lockdown’ on their populations, other countries have taken a different approach to dealing with the coronavirus threat.

You wouldn’t know it by listening to western politicians or mainstream media stenographers, there are also nonlockdown countries. They are led by Sweden, Iceland, Belarus, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Surprisingly to some, their results have been as good or better than the lockdown countries, but without having to endure the socio-economic chaos we are now witnessing across the world.

For this reason alone, Sweden and others like them, have already won the policy debate, as well as the scientific one too. Unlike much of the rest of the world who saw fit to unquestioningly follow China’s lead on everything from quarantining, to economic shutdowns, to contact tracing, and PCR mass testing, nonlockdown countries have instead opted for a somewhat lighter touch – preserving their economies and societies, and in doing so avoiding an endless daisy chain of new problems and obstacles deriving directly from the imposition of brutal lockdown policy.