IMAGINE we are just coming up to New Year’s Day — not 2022, but 2018.
As the winter drew on, scientists sounded the alarm about a virus spreading throughout the population that HAD to be stopped.
Can you imagine shutting down the entire country because of the common cold?[/caption]
In the grand scheme of things Omicron may inflict no greater harm on the population than a common cold[/caption]
It would mean no social gatherings. No rellies round for Christmas. Bars shut.
What we might call “a lockdown”. Because this virus spreads very rapidly.
The scientists had terrifying charts that showed just how rapidly. Stop work! Close everything down!
The virus these scientists were worried about had the following symptoms: Bit of a sore throat. Runny nose. Maybe a few aches and pains. Can last a few days.
“We like to call it,” one epidemiologist told the BBC, “the common cold.”
Can you imagine shutting down the entire country because of the common cold?
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And yet that it what the “experts” seem to be demanding now.
They are scared stiff of the Omicron variant.
And yet of the people I know who have had Omicron — not Delta, which I accept is a rather nastier bugger — not one has experienced anything more injurious than the sniffles and a bit of a backache.
Maybe a mildly sore throat. In other words, it seems to have roughly the same effect as a common cold.
This isn’t just anecdotal evidence.
The hospitalisation rates are scarcely moving and the death rate has hardly increased.
Don’t forget — a winter cold can kill, too, if you are already very ill or very old.
So, in the grand scheme of things, Omicron may inflict no greater harm on the population than a common cold.
Perhaps its effects are mitigated by the fact we’re all (mainly) nicely vaccinated.
Although remember — the experts told us two jabs were not enough to stop Omicron. So vaccinated or not, it seems pretty similar to the cold.
Everybody I know who has had Omicron said they would have gone into work had the illness been called “the common cold”. Instead they had to isolate for ten days. This is madness.
I heard one scientist jabbering on the radio about how the virus doubles its rate of transmission every two days.
No it doesn’t. It only seemed to do that in the first few days after it was identified.
A week ago there were just under 80,000 new cases. If it doubled every two days you would expect the daily figure now to be around 300,000
WORST CASE SCENARIO
It’s not. It’s just over 106,000. And before yesterday it was hovering around 90,000 for three or four days.
Now, perhaps we are socially distancing voluntarily to prevent the spread.
But even that doesn’t account for the huge disparity between the models dreamed up by the experts and the reality.
Indeed, one very respected scientist, the boss of the Government’s Sage modelling committee, rather let the cat out of the bag.
Dr Graham Medley appeared to admit to Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator magazine, that their models only dealt with the worst- case scenario.
The trouble with this is that the worst possible case isn’t likely to happen.
It is highly unlikely to happen.
And yet that is what the Government is basing its strategy upon. And it hasn’t happened this time.
I have been fully behind previous lockdowns and social-distancing measures. But this time it is genuinely absurd.
A virus that has all the threat of an attack of the sniffles is wrecking our economy, closing businesses and spreading gloom.
Keep the country open, Johnson. We have been led by the flawed science for too long.
‘You’re late out’
‘Yeah, had to polish my shoes’
GIANT millipedes the length of a car used to roam the North East of England, apparently.
They’ve just found a fossil of one on the Northumberland coast.
Their scientific name is Arthropleura, but they tend to go by the name “Arthur”.
None of this has come as much of a surprise to us locals. In fact, we’re pretty sure they’re still about.
I saw one coming out of the Wetherspoons pub in Stockton a few weeks back.
It was wearing a short skirt and fishnets and was out of its box on WKDs and Red Bull.
Couldn’t walk in a straight line for love nor money.
But that may have been because it was wearing 1,000 stiletto heels. And carrying a kebab parmo.
Good on you, Harry
ANOTHER court victory for the excellent Harry Miller from Humberside.
He had a visit from the police for sharing a supposedly “trans- phobic” limerick.
Harry Miller from Humberside had another court victory[/caption]
They recorded it as a “non-crime hate incident”.
Now three appeal court judges have agreed with Harry that the incident should NOT have been recorded.
“The recording of non-crime hate incidents is plainly an interference with freedom of expression, and knowledge that such matters are being recorded and stored in a police database is likely to have a serious ‘chilling effect’ on public debate,” Dame Victoria Sharp ruled.
This is great news for freedom of speech.
There have been more than 120,000 such incidents recorded by our coppers.
I think they prefer investigating imaginary hate crimes than solving burglaries.
Anyway, this ruling means they won’t be doing it any more.
And those 120,000 should be stricken from the record.
Xmas pressies
MY wife has put the Christmas presents under the tree already.
I can tell by the shape there’s about 15 lateral flow tests.
There’s a promising bottle-shaped gift for me. But it’s almost certainly hand sanitiser. Never mind.
The days are getting longer and spring isn’t very far away.
Have a wonderful Christmas. And a much, much better New Year.
Plea card trick
MORE evidence that Americans don’t like the truth.
Some lardbuckets who visit doctors in the States carry cards with them demanding that they should not be weighed.
Some lardbuckets who visit doctors in the States carry cards with them demanding that they should not be weighed[/caption]
These cards come from a “body-positive” online group.
They say that it can be terribly hurtful for a fat person to find out his or her weight.
They add: “In a fatphobic society, being weighed and talking about weight causes feelings of stress and shame.”
The reason they are visiting the doctor, of course, is probably related to the fact that they last saw their own penis in about 1997.
Model of broadcasting
LAURA KUENSSBERG is stepping down as the BBC’s political editor in the New Year.
She was the first woman to hold the position and, in my opinion, did a brilliant job.
The Tories couldn’t stick her.
And nor could the Labour Left.
But she has been a model of unbiased, impartial broadcasting.
Two suggestions for her replacement: Andrew Neil or Justin Webb.
But don’t hold your breath.
Maybe buy a tin hat
OUR planet is expecting a few visitors on January 3, 2022.
The Quadrantid meteors are on their way across the galaxy.
Our planet is expecting a few visitors on January 3, 2022[/caption]
They come from somewhere near The Plough. Not the pub The Plough, but the constellation. You’ll be able to see them easily enough, apparently.
Normally this would be pleasant news.
We all love a good meteor shower.
But the way things have been going recently, you’ve got to be a bit worried.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they brought with them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and some locusts.
Poor Welsh
IF you’re ever tempted to vote Labour, just have a look at what the poor Welsh have to put up with.
The Labour administration there is fining people £60 if they go into work.
They want them to work from home. But you can still go down the pub without being fined.
Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Even the trades unions think this latest edict is fabulously stupid.
Put a sock in it
TOM HOLLAND, who is starring as Spider-Man, says it would be nice to see the comicbook character not as white and male.
Yes, Tom.
Spider-Man actor Tom Holland says it would be nice to see the comicbook character not as white and male[/caption]
That’s what keeps me awake at night, too.
But Tom – aren’t you white and male?
Couldn’t you have cancelled yourself and demanded the role go to a transgendered Chinese dwarf?
When will these luvvies put a sock in it?
