I’m glad to see Jeremy MacKenzie in custody. The group he leads is genuinely dangerous (he’s former RCR, coincidentally). While our ideologically motivated violent extremism situation up here isn’t nearly as bad as the US, we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and it’s definitely spread some roots through the veterans community.
CDN/US Covid-related political discussion
- Thread starter Jarnhamar
- Start date
Halifax Tar
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Was he RCR ? I had it in my head he was a reserve augmentee for some reason ?
Ya he's on a dangerous path
He’s referred to himself as a MCpl from 2 RCR.
Blackadder1916
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So…this group wants to start a country that run diagonally from Alaska to Florida…
…but this guy is from Nova Scotia, which is totally bypassed by this proposed country.
Did he think this through?
There's precedent for Nova Scotians to move in search of opportunity.
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Oh come on - you know that answer alreadySo…this group wants to start a country that run diagonally from Alaska to Florida…
…but this guy is from Nova Scotia, which is totally bypassed by this proposed country.
Did he think this through?
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Get a Telegraph subscription.
The motherlode of Covid political communications has just been published.
www.telegraph.co.uk
The exact same conversations were being had in Ottawa, Washington, Canberra and Auckland - as well as Stockholm and Paris
The one thing that is clear - nothing was clear - even to the experts and the politicians they were advising.
Experts......
www.telegraph.co.uk
ALLISTER HEATH1 March 2023 • 9:00pm
London’s usually packed Regent Street during the Covid lockdowns CREDIT: Stephen Smith
It is just a question of time before our jittery, ultra-globalised world is hit by the next lethal pandemic. Nobody knows when it will strike, or what the Next Big One will be – an entirely new pathogen, perhaps, rather than bird flu or the Marburg virus – but I’m certain of one thing: Britain won’t be ready. We will run out of hospital and testing capacity. Our politicians will panic, dig out their catastrophically flawed Covid playbooks, and seek to terrorise us into another lockdown, guaranteeing our final moral and financial degradation.
Let’s face it: Whitehall has learned almost nothing from the fiasco of 2020-22. There has been no proper cost-benefit analysis of lockdown. We haven’t engaged in a genuine inquest, our institutions haven’t been reformed, and the official inquiry will take too long and risks being captured by an establishment desperate to defend its legacy. Sir Keir Starmer, favourite to be our next prime minister, was at one with the Government and Matt Hancock on lockdowns – his only criticism was that he wanted more of the same, faster.
This is why The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files are so important, and so clearly in the public interest. Given officialdom’s glacial progress, the free press has a duty to release information, accelerate debate and hold power to account.
One question in particular that should trouble all of us is why so many of the claims made during the pandemic turned out not to be true. How much of this was genuine error or science not having caught up yet with a novel virus, and how much was it propaganda to make life easier for politicians, or to allow officials to save face? Why weren’t incorrect conclusions quickly rectified when the facts became clearer? We need to know.
Why, for example, were we often told that the virus “doesn’t discriminate” while of course the old and very ill were the ones really at risk? It was obvious very early on – from the cruise ships that suffered early outbreaks, for instance, or from Italy – that fatality rates were massively age-contingent. Children were exceptionally safe.
Or take the origins of the virus. Those who sought to explore whether it might have originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan were demonised, ridiculed or cancelled. Now, the director of the FBI has concluded that this is the most likely explanation. This begs a crucial question: would we have followed China’s methods – lockdown and extreme social control – had we imagined the Beijing authorities were covering up a Chernobyl-style disaster? Might we not have gone for a more voluntarist, Swedish style approach? Where are the profuse apologies from all those who tarred supporters of the lab leak hypothesis as “racist”, “Trumpites” or “conspiracy theorists”?
In some cases, at least at first, the experts really didn’t know: in the virus’s earliest days, its mortality rate was unclear. It was also plausible that it might spread via touch, hence the hand-washing campaign launched in March 2020. Three years on, a seminal meta-analysis by the Cochrane Library suggests that hand-washing does in fact cut the number of infections by 14 per cent, but only enough to slow spread down slightly in an exponential growth situation.
There was also some justification at first for believing that the virus could be caught outside – but it soon became evident that this was in fact extremely unlikely, with the fresh air immediately diluting and dispersing the virus. When did the Government find out, and why didn’t it scrap all restrictions on outside gatherings early on? Many independent analysts realised pretty quickly that Covid was caught via airborne transmission, or aerosols, and that these were only really effective indoors. Yet a great many people were so scared by official pronouncements that they even washed their shopping. It was deemed dangerous to ask questions.
What about masks? It is obviously true that a high-tech contraption able to filter out all particles would help greatly. In the real world, however, masks as they actually exist and are worn by fallible humans (including, ludicrously, children) were for show: the government encouraged people to wear useless (and often filthy or badly fastened) cloth garments that did nothing to stop the virus. Basic surgical face masks were useless, too. In theory, N95 masks are more effective, and can protect some individuals under certain conditions.
In practice, however, the Cochrane meta-review is devastating: it finds, having analysed all available studies and randomised trials, that they do “not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers”. The authorities’ and scientific establishment’s decision to massively downplay the role of natural immunity in reducing the disease’s severity was another grave distortion of the truth. Yet the Lancet has now published a meta-review of 65 studies that finds that natural immunity (acquired as a result of catching Covid) protects as well as two vaccine shots. There were good reasons for people to get vaccinated: there was no need for officialdom to exaggerate the case.
Crucially, the principal beneficiary of a vaccine is the person who is vaccinated: they are much less likely to die (especially if they are elderly or otherwise at elevated risk), and the illness is likely to be a lot less severe. It was never likely that vaccines would eliminate, or even drastically reduce, transmission: there are plenty of “breakthrough infections”, usually with much milder symptoms. The case for vaccine passports was always thus extremely weak – and in my view, massively outweighed by the loss in liberty.
Covid saw endless politicians, bureaucrats, public health officials, scientists, professional journal editors, Twitter activists, Left-wing broadcasters and especially big tech firms transmogrify into authoritarian censors. They thought that “following the science” meant that their role was to amplify whatever the public health establishment’s most risk-averse current consensus was, rather than to pursue the truth independently. They convinced themselves that dissidents were heartless, paranoid freaks. They went on a terrifying power and ego trip.
The lesson is clear. Even in a crisis, free speech and open inquiry must be nurtured: elite groupthink is too often wrong, and must at all times be scrutinised. Long live the free press.
The motherlode of Covid political communications has just been published.
The Lockdown Files
The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health secretary Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. In the Lockdown Files we reveal the contents of those messages – and the serious questions they raise
www.telegraph.co.uk
The exact same conversations were being had in Ottawa, Washington, Canberra and Auckland - as well as Stockholm and Paris
The one thing that is clear - nothing was clear - even to the experts and the politicians they were advising.
Experts......
Untruth after untruth was peddled to justify the great lockdown disaster
So much of what we were told during the pandemic was wrong – and nobody has been held accountable
www.telegraph.co.uk
Untruth after untruth was peddled to justify the great lockdown disaster
So much of what we were told during the pandemic was wrong – and nobody has been held accountableALLISTER HEATH1 March 2023 • 9:00pm
London’s usually packed Regent Street during the Covid lockdowns CREDIT: Stephen Smith
It is just a question of time before our jittery, ultra-globalised world is hit by the next lethal pandemic. Nobody knows when it will strike, or what the Next Big One will be – an entirely new pathogen, perhaps, rather than bird flu or the Marburg virus – but I’m certain of one thing: Britain won’t be ready. We will run out of hospital and testing capacity. Our politicians will panic, dig out their catastrophically flawed Covid playbooks, and seek to terrorise us into another lockdown, guaranteeing our final moral and financial degradation.
Let’s face it: Whitehall has learned almost nothing from the fiasco of 2020-22. There has been no proper cost-benefit analysis of lockdown. We haven’t engaged in a genuine inquest, our institutions haven’t been reformed, and the official inquiry will take too long and risks being captured by an establishment desperate to defend its legacy. Sir Keir Starmer, favourite to be our next prime minister, was at one with the Government and Matt Hancock on lockdowns – his only criticism was that he wanted more of the same, faster.
This is why The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files are so important, and so clearly in the public interest. Given officialdom’s glacial progress, the free press has a duty to release information, accelerate debate and hold power to account.
One question in particular that should trouble all of us is why so many of the claims made during the pandemic turned out not to be true. How much of this was genuine error or science not having caught up yet with a novel virus, and how much was it propaganda to make life easier for politicians, or to allow officials to save face? Why weren’t incorrect conclusions quickly rectified when the facts became clearer? We need to know.
Why, for example, were we often told that the virus “doesn’t discriminate” while of course the old and very ill were the ones really at risk? It was obvious very early on – from the cruise ships that suffered early outbreaks, for instance, or from Italy – that fatality rates were massively age-contingent. Children were exceptionally safe.
Or take the origins of the virus. Those who sought to explore whether it might have originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan were demonised, ridiculed or cancelled. Now, the director of the FBI has concluded that this is the most likely explanation. This begs a crucial question: would we have followed China’s methods – lockdown and extreme social control – had we imagined the Beijing authorities were covering up a Chernobyl-style disaster? Might we not have gone for a more voluntarist, Swedish style approach? Where are the profuse apologies from all those who tarred supporters of the lab leak hypothesis as “racist”, “Trumpites” or “conspiracy theorists”?
In some cases, at least at first, the experts really didn’t know: in the virus’s earliest days, its mortality rate was unclear. It was also plausible that it might spread via touch, hence the hand-washing campaign launched in March 2020. Three years on, a seminal meta-analysis by the Cochrane Library suggests that hand-washing does in fact cut the number of infections by 14 per cent, but only enough to slow spread down slightly in an exponential growth situation.
There was also some justification at first for believing that the virus could be caught outside – but it soon became evident that this was in fact extremely unlikely, with the fresh air immediately diluting and dispersing the virus. When did the Government find out, and why didn’t it scrap all restrictions on outside gatherings early on? Many independent analysts realised pretty quickly that Covid was caught via airborne transmission, or aerosols, and that these were only really effective indoors. Yet a great many people were so scared by official pronouncements that they even washed their shopping. It was deemed dangerous to ask questions.
What about masks? It is obviously true that a high-tech contraption able to filter out all particles would help greatly. In the real world, however, masks as they actually exist and are worn by fallible humans (including, ludicrously, children) were for show: the government encouraged people to wear useless (and often filthy or badly fastened) cloth garments that did nothing to stop the virus. Basic surgical face masks were useless, too. In theory, N95 masks are more effective, and can protect some individuals under certain conditions.
In practice, however, the Cochrane meta-review is devastating: it finds, having analysed all available studies and randomised trials, that they do “not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers”. The authorities’ and scientific establishment’s decision to massively downplay the role of natural immunity in reducing the disease’s severity was another grave distortion of the truth. Yet the Lancet has now published a meta-review of 65 studies that finds that natural immunity (acquired as a result of catching Covid) protects as well as two vaccine shots. There were good reasons for people to get vaccinated: there was no need for officialdom to exaggerate the case.
Crucially, the principal beneficiary of a vaccine is the person who is vaccinated: they are much less likely to die (especially if they are elderly or otherwise at elevated risk), and the illness is likely to be a lot less severe. It was never likely that vaccines would eliminate, or even drastically reduce, transmission: there are plenty of “breakthrough infections”, usually with much milder symptoms. The case for vaccine passports was always thus extremely weak – and in my view, massively outweighed by the loss in liberty.
Covid saw endless politicians, bureaucrats, public health officials, scientists, professional journal editors, Twitter activists, Left-wing broadcasters and especially big tech firms transmogrify into authoritarian censors. They thought that “following the science” meant that their role was to amplify whatever the public health establishment’s most risk-averse current consensus was, rather than to pursue the truth independently. They convinced themselves that dissidents were heartless, paranoid freaks. They went on a terrifying power and ego trip.
The lesson is clear. Even in a crisis, free speech and open inquiry must be nurtured: elite groupthink is too often wrong, and must at all times be scrutinised. Long live the free press.
- Reaction score
- 8,295
- Points
- 1,160
I had to release Matt Hancock’s Covid WhatsApp messages to avoid a whitewash
We cannot wait any longer for answers on the pandemic. These texts are a vital historical record at a time when we need urgent answersISABEL OAKESHOTT28 February 2023 • 10:46pm
The writing on the wall is fading now, and some of the sad inscriptions are almost invisible.
“Hearts should be similar in size and no larger than an adult hand,” instructs a notice at one end of the National Covid Memorial Wall – but broken hearts don’t fit into regulation spaces.
A number of the bereaved have broken rules in ways they never did during the pandemic, taking extra space to commemorate their loved ones.
The most audacious breach is a tribute 100 times the size of the others and is an anguished broadside at the handling of the pandemic.
“I know your life they could have saved, The government, if they’d behaved,” observes the writer in a bitter poem dedicated to a lost partner. Apparently, only 17 mourners attended his funeral (“200’s what it should have been”) and she was not allowed to say a final farewell.
“They wouldn’t let me see your face,” she laments. “I ask is this the way to say goodbye, and not let me look and cry?”
Harry Dowdall was one of the earliest victims of the pandemic in London. It should have been possible for his devastated partner to be with him as he lay dying, and to see his body at the funeral parlour. Was it wise to limit funeral attendance at that time? Probably. It is just one of many questions the public inquiry into the pandemic must consider.
Families who have decorated the National Covid Memorial Wall might have to wait years before the Covid inquiry reaches its conclusions CREDIT: Yui Mok/PA
Just one problem - we may have to wait many years before it reaches any conclusions. That’s why I’ve decided to release this sensational cache of private communications - because we absolutely cannot wait any longer for answers.
Already, the inquiry is mired in a secrecy row, as lawyers busy themselves redacting civil servants’ names from thousands of documents. By the time all those being paid vast sums of taxpayers’ money to protect reputations have finished, it is hard not to imagine the whole thing may become a colossal whitewash.
It is far more illuminating to read these extraordinary messages. They provide an unrivalled insight into when, why and how the Government made critical decisions during the crisis, which is exactly what we all deserve to know. No sanitised Civil Service-approved documents can compare with the rawness of this real-time record.
There’s no secret about how I came to be in possession of this communications treasure trove. The common thread is Matt Hancock, the former health secretary.
Throughout the pandemic, he used the messaging service WhatsApp to communicate with colleagues practically every minute of every day. Following his resignation in June 2021, he downloaded the records from his phone and shared them with various people, including me. I was helping him to write his book about the crisis, and we drew heavily from the material to reconstruct his day-by-day account. Suffice to say there was plenty of important material left over.
Precisely what needed to be done as the virus began its deadly rampage at the beginning of 2020, and how the response should have evolved as the nature of the threat was better understood, is a debate that has only intensified with the passage of time. While most people can forgive early mistakes by politicians and policymakers, bitter divisions remain over whether some of the measures that caused the most lasting hurt and damage - and the unprecedented assault on civil liberties - were ever justified. We need urgent answers.
Sweden wrapped up its investigation a year ago. The verdict, delivered in a neat 800-page report, was that avoiding mandatory lockdowns – an approach that made Sweden a global outlier – ultimately worked out quite well. After an early wobble over spiralling infection rates, Swedish ministers doubled down. They were rewarded with one of the lowest levels of excess mortality in Europe.
The French didn’t hang around with their public inquiry either. It began in July 2020, quickly involving police and prosecutors. In Oct 2020, officers raided the homes of senior government and health officials, presumably searching for sensitive documents. Among the properties targeted were those of Olivier Veran, the then health minister, and the director of France’s national health agency. It might seem extreme, but at least it shows they mean business. In Italy, the early epicentre of the outbreak in Europe, the formal inquiry has also made considerable progress.
As for the UK? It took the best part of 18 months just to agree terms of reference.
Announced in May 2021, our public inquiry – which has already cost up to £85 million - has yet to begin formal hearings. Alarmingly, it does not appear to have any specific timeframe or deadline.
We all know what this means - it will drag on forever. After all, the investigation into Bloody Sunday took 10 years and was nowhere near as daunting a task.
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The Lockdown Files have thrown Westminster into a state of panic
These explosive revelations are already sending ripples through the political establishmentTOM HARRIS1 March 2023 • 10:26am
The Lockdown Files have thrown Westminster into a state of panic – and have infuriated the rest of the country.
Explosive WhatsApp messages sent to and by the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, have exposed some of the mistakes and misinformation that led to unnecessary deaths and despair during the Covid pandemic of 2020-2022.
The revelation that Hancock ignored the chief medical officer’s advice to test everyone being admitted to care homes – not just those arriving from hospital – raises a colossal question mark over the government’s entire handling of the crisis.
The previously confidential WhatsApp messages were revealed by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who was passed the massive volume of 100,000 messages by Hancock himself to help her write a book about Hancock’s role in the pandemic. But after reading their content, and aware that Britain’s own public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic was lagging well behind those of other countries, Oakeshott chose to divulge their content now.
“That’s why I’ve decided to release this sensational cache of private communications – because we absolutely cannot wait any longer for answers,” she said.
After the relative success of Rishi Sunak’s negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol, these revelations will derail attention from his political agenda and put ministers on the defensive once again, even if many of them were never in positions of authority at the time of the lockdowns.
Shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, commented: “The claim that the government threw a ‘protective ring’ around care homes during Covid has proven to be a sham. They ignored the chief medical officer and people died. How many lives could have been saved?”
Streeting’s criticism was echoed by, Rachel Clarke, an NHS palliative care doctor who was a vocal critic of Government policy during the pandemic. She wrote on Twitter: “In 2020, Matt Hancock brazenly lied on camera, insisting he ‘threw a protective ring’ around care homes. Now leaked WhatsApps reveals this was hogwash. Hancock rejected Chris Whitty’s advice to Covid test everyone coming into care homes. Utter, shameless charlatan.”
A spokesman for Hancock has denied the claims.
The Lockdown Files represent the biggest series of revelations since the Telegraph became the first newspaper to expose the details of the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009. Further revelations, based on the cache of WhatsApp messages, will be revealed in the coming days.
They throw into question the entire basis on which the government forced the nation into lockdown and pose a series of difficult questions for ministers about the decisions they made on citizens’ behalf.
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Face masks introduced in English secondary schools to avoid ‘argument’ with Sturgeon
Boris Johnson told policy ‘not worth’ a row after First Minister had already made coverings compulsory in communal areasByThe Lockdown Files Team1 March 2023 • 5:00pm
Nicola Sturgeon introduced face mask measures in schools north of the border before they were adopted in England CREDIT: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty
Face masks were introduced in schools for the first time after Boris Johnson was told it was “not worth an argument” with Nicola Sturgeon over the issue, the Lockdown Files reveal.
Mr Johnson went ahead with the policy despite England’s Chief Medical Officer saying there were “no very strong reasons” to do so. It was one of the most controversial of the pandemic and was not finally ended in England until January 2022 – 16 months later.
Ms Sturgeon had already announced the compulsory wearing of face masks in corridors and communal areas in Scottish secondary schools when, in August 2020, Mr Johnson asked for advice on whether they were necessary in England.
In WhatsApp messages, Sir Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, appeared ambivalent when asked for his opinion. He said: “No strong reason against in corridors etc, and no very strong reasons for,” adding: “So agree not worth an argument.”
The following day, the Government announced that secondary school children returning to classes in September in areas subject to local lockdown would be required to wear face masks in corridors and communal areas where social distancing was difficult to maintain. The policy was later extended to the classroom.
Third of a million pupils affected
The guidance at the time applied to a third of a million pupils in secondary schools in Greater Manchester, parts of Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Leicester. In other areas in England, schools were given the power to “recommend” face mask be worn in communal areas.The decision prompted a backlash, with one head teacher complaining that “masks mean mayhem”.
The communications show how Mr Johnson appears to have been bounced into the decision after Ms Sturgeon introduced the change in Scotland on Aug 25, 2020. Schools north of the border begin the school year earlier than those in England.
Allowing devolved nations to set their own Covid policies is understood to be one of Mr Johnson’s pandemic regrets.
In a group WhatsApp on the same day, one week before schools in England were due to reopen. Mr Johnson wrote: “Folks, I am about to asked about masks in schools. Before we perform another u-turn can I have a view on whether they are necessary?”
Lee Cain, his director of communications, questioned why Downing Street would “want to have the fight on not having masks in certain school settings” while Simon Case, the permanent secretary for Covid who was promoted a week later to Cabinet Secretary, said “nervous parents will freak out” if children are wearing masks in Scottish schools but not English ones.
Mr Johnson’s administration had already decided that masks would not be worn in school settings, and there was no provision for it in guidance issued before the reopening.
But the then prime minister realised he would be confronted about it after the World Health Organisation recommended four days earlier, on Aug 21, that children aged 12 and over should wear masks in situations where they could not maintain social distancing.
Ms Sturgeon then introduced the policy of secondary school pupils wearing masks in corridors and communal spaces.
Mr Cain told the PM: “Considering Scotland has just confirmed it will I find it hard to believe we will hold the line. At a minimum I would give yourself flex and not commit to ruling it out. Also, why do we want to have the fight on not having masks in certain school settings.”
He then said that unless Sir Chris and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser, “are willing to go out and say WHO and Scots are wrong, I think some nervous parents will freak out about this happening in Scotland but not in England.”
Sir Chris replied a quarter of an hour later: “No strong reason against in corridors etc, and no very strong reasons for. The downsides are in the classroom because of the potential to interfere with teaching. So agree not worth an argument.”
Guidance had excluded schools
Sir Patrick said it made “logical sense” for children to wear masks in corridors and communal areas “where crowding cannot be avoided”, but a concerned Mr Johnson replied: “The trouble is that the current guidance specifically excludes schools. God knows why.”Mr Johnson replied at 9.55am, 40 minutes after he had first raised the subject: “In order to allow schools to require face coverings in any part of the school we will now have to do a u-turn.”
In a sign of the policy disarray, Nick Gibb, the long-standing minister for school standards, had only that morning told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “masks are not necessary for staff or pupils”.
That evening Sir Gavin Williamson, the then education secretary, said the Government was not considering introducing face masks in schools because of his confidence in the “system of controls” already in place prior to reopening.
The next day, Sir Gavin said on the radio that ministers “always listen to the best scientific and medical advice” and concluded that masks were an “extra precautionary measure”.
The new guidance, published on Aug 26, the day after the WhatsApp group messages, said staff and pupils in secondary schools in local lockdown areas were required to wear face masks when moving around the building and in communal areas where social distancing was difficult to maintain.
The guidance was later extended in February 2021, recommending the use of face masks in “all indoor environments”, including classrooms in secondary schools. It was withdrawn in May 2021, reintroduced in January 2022 to combat the rise of the omicron variant and then withdrawn again a little over a fortnight later.
The about-turn in August 2020 led to strong criticism of Mr Johnson’s government at the time. Katherine Birbalsingh, the head teacher of a school in north west London, tweeted: “Masks mean mayhem… [pupils] will be pulling each other’s masks, repositioning their own masks constantly, bullying each other over choice of mask etc. Add that to rise in chatter because teachers will not be able to hold kids to account for talking.”
Prof Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the policy “could spread the virus more” because children would be touching their faces in readjusting their masks.
Brad Sallows
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I hope a stiff broom is used to come clean about everything. If a more serious pandemic emerges, people can't be employing insufficient measures and thinking they are safe.
See also: Peltzman Effect.
See also: Peltzman Effect.
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Some one will catch me.... look ma, no hands.
Halifax Tar
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So now that the ties are unraveling around the stupid way we handled COVID lets hope we learn something and take a more measured non emotional response.
Halifax Tar
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So from my quick reading of the posts above, a lot of the fury was (rightfully) directed at the folks not testing everyone who went to care homes. Also, it was from many meta-studies on how everything worked out.
My first question would be when those studies were done? Yes, we know in 2023 that such-and-such works, but did we know in 2020? 2021?
Also, remember the uproar that govt was flip-flopping on guidance when it would drop certain things, then lock down? To use a pay analogy, is it better to give you funds with a good chance that they would claw them back, or wait until confirmation before giving you the funds?
I’ll be the first to admit that we as a society went overboard based on the evidence above, but we didn’t know it at the time. We were going with the best info at the time…as we should be doing.
Halifax Tar
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I don't know about the whole we didn't know at the time. What has been shown to be right now was once a dirty conspiracy theory. Masks, Lab Leaks, comorbidities, long term effects ect ect ect.
This became a left V right thing because those advising and making decisions couldn't look past their own politics.
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How about we all just make more use if the phrase "we don't know"?
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Generally a good humble idea, but if a government says "we don't know," is that an excuse to do nothing at all because there's no perfect solution right then, or to do what they know at the time to be the best that can be done?
Also, some people who were saying, "what's the science know? They can't agree" are now pointing to the same science proving their points? Is this like people complaining about bought-and-paid-for media until said media shares something they agree with/like? Hindsight's always 20-20.
Good point - more those that were deciding, because once the politicians have decided, the advisors generally have to toe the line.
Halifax Tar
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That's a fair compromise. But I do believe the politics of the "experts" had much to do with our policy making surrounding COVID.
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But the experts advise govt. The experts do not create policy. It is a very distinct difference.
The govt can be completely procedurally (and legally, if stupidly) correct in saying “thank you for your time, but we’re doing something else instead”.
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