The Coronavirus Scare – We Now Know What It Was All About
Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA
Regular readers will know that right from the start I have reported on www.vernoncoleman.com that I do not believe that the coronavirus seemed to me to be more threatening than a nasty type of flu.
It was just a point of view, based on many decades of investigating and writing about medical matters. And I gave my reasoning, based on solid, factual evidence available to everyone.
I also expressed some views on why I thought that the coronavirus problem was being exaggerated.
These views attracted a good deal of criticism.
Yesterday, I decided (again) that I wanted to step back from writing about the coronavirus.
But things happened that really made that impossible.
As I pointed out yesterday, on March 19th, the public health bodies in the UK and the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens all decided that the coronavirus should no longer be classified as a `high consequence infectious disease’.
And the Government stated that `Cases of COVID-19 are no longer managed by HICD treatment centres only’.
(A high consequence infectious disease is defined as an acute infectious disease which typically has a high case-fatality rate and which requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely. There are a few other requirements but those will do for here. Coronavirus was one of those. Now it is not.)
The Government rather buried this information on their website. Go onto gov.uk and look for `High consequence infectious diseases (HCID)’ for the evidence. The statement is under the heading `Status of Covid-19’.
You have to hunt around, but it’s there.
Now, the decision to downgrade the coronavirus was made on 19th March but it doesn’t seem to have been published until 21st March.
Why the delay, I wonder? Were there discussions with the committees about their decisions? Your guess is as good as mine.
A few days later (after the coronavirus had been downgraded) the country was put into lockdown. The key word there is `after’.
The coronavirus has been rightly downgraded to an infectious disease – like the flu. (Though remember that the flu can, in a bad year, kill 600,000 people. It needs to be taken seriously. That was my point all along. And, despite the figures being wrong in Italy for example, the coronavirus has never looked like killing 600,000 people)
But the Government had put us all in lockdown. And told the police to make sure we obeyed.
This morning I rather expected that the world would be cheering. I thought the lockdown would be lifted, share prices would soar and people would going back to their lives.
I thought maybe the Government would like to explain how they got it so wrong, what the hidden agenda was and why they put the country into lockdown days after they knew that the coronavirus was not the big killer they had been claiming it to be.
But no one else seems to have reported this news.
And then I found out what was going on.
Today, the Government published an `Emergency bill to strengthen coronavirus (covid19) response plans’.
The new Bill, gives the Government tremendous powers including `easing legislative and regulatory requirements'.
The bill is 358 pages long and, for a start, lasts two years. (They didn’t write a 358 page Bill in a week, did they? How long have they been working on this?)
The police and immigration officers will have new powers.
There’s a ton of stuff in it. You can read it on gov.uk
There is a `temporary modification of mental health and mental capacity legislation’.
That’s a corker.
Confirmatory certificates are no longer required for cremation.
Hospitals get all sorts of powers.
Public meetings and demonstrations are banned, of course. (No wonder they were so quick to cancel the May elections. They knew this was coming. They could have held purely postal vote elections but they chose not to. Will there be any elections next year?)
There are powers relating to `restrictions on use and disclosure of information’.
And, lo and behold, there is a note about `arrangements for the vaccination or immunisation of persons against any disease’.
That probably won’t come as much of a surprise to readers of this website. (That prediction was the main source of the criticism poured down upon my ancient head.)
And, remember, this new Bill came in AFTER the Government knew that the coronavirus had been downgraded and was no longer considered to be an HICD. I’d love to have been in the room when the experts told Boris that they were downgrading the coronavirus.
Now, I am signing off again.
Oh, and by the way, Parliament is now closed a week early because of the coronavirus - even though it is no longer considered to be a `high consequence infectious disease’.
And so Boris is in charge of the country. Stalin would be green with envy.
I suspect we might have to kiss goodbye to Brexit. It will be claimed that we all have to work together with other countries and that there isn’t time to fix a Brexit deal. The ecstatic banks will all be bailed out (again) and the coronavirus will be blamed. The EU’s long-term plan to get rid of small businesses will be successful at last. When will cash be banned so that they can keep an eye on all our spending and whereabouts? Travel will be controlled and limited.
I’m not going to speculate any more on what is going on.
You can do that for yourselves.
It’s not difficult.
Please tell everyone you know to visit this website and read this article. No fees, no ads. Or send them a screenshot of this page. And send a copy to your MP, to newspapers, to radio stations and to TV stations.
Copyright Vernon Coleman 26th March 2020
www.vernoncoleman.com
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