Britain now has a ‘road map’ for easing lockdown restrictions ? [Letter from Great Britain – 02-27-21]

“The Financial Jigsaw” has been serialised here and is replaced by this weekly “Letter from Great Britain.”  NOTEIf anyone would like an electronic copy of the complete book, I should be pleased to email a free PDF on request to: [email protected].

This week is all about ‘lockdowns’ with the Brits having a little hope of getting back to a resemblance of normal as 2021 progresses, but nevertheless it’s going to be a miserable spring for most of us.  Here’s Boris’s plan, including many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, but with no real assurances of anything to give the long-suffering British public any reason to believe that the old normal can ever be recovered.

8 March – All schools – primary and secondary – will open from 8 March, despite opposition from the main teaching unions who have called for a staggered reopening. Schools will be allowed to restart outdoor sports matches as well as other outdoor activities.  Care home visits indoors will resume, including allowing residents to hold hands with visitors.  Rules on socialising in a public space will be relaxed, meaning one person can sit down with another individual from outside their household or bubble for a coffee, drink or picnic.

29 March – The second part of the first phase of reopening will begin as schools break up for Easter holidays. Outdoor gatherings will be permitted for either up to six people – reinstating the rule of six – or two households. The new rule is designed to give greater flexibility for families to meet outside, where the risk of transmission is significantly lower.  Outdoor sports facilities such as tennis or basketball courts and golf course will reopen. Organised adult and children’s sport, such as grassroots football, can also return.  The government has said it hopes to vaccinate all adults over the age of 50 by 15 April.

Late April – The second phase will allow the reopening of some hospitality in limited circumstances, which could include serving outdoors only.  Non-essential retail is expected to reopen in April. Universities and colleges could get the green light to reopen campuses.

Mid May – Pubs and restaurants are likely to be allowed to open indoors, though there could still be limits on groups, and social distancing will be in place.  This phase is also most likely to be the time that hairdressers and beauticians reopen, though there may be further restrictions on very close contact treatments that were also slower to resume after the first lockdown.  The phase may also see families allowed to travel for short breaks around the UK, though with restrictions on household mixing.

Fourth phase (undated) – A further relaxation of social contact is likely to include some mixing indoors.  The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said he is optimistic about summer holidays being permitted in the UK, so June could see restrictions lifted on the tourism sector.  Foreign holidays are likely to be highly dependent on the actions of other governments and the progress of international vaccination – as well as a desire by ministers to strictly limit the ability of new variants to enter the country.

So there you have it – not a reason to be happy about 2021 as it looks like we are going to have many more months of pain and suffering not to mention continued isolation and loss of social contact.

After months of lockdown purgatory, Boris now has a ‘roadmap out of lockdown’.  I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but there is nothing to get excited about here. After being rightfully scorned for countless U-turns since March, reports say Boris is now too cowardly to commit and refuses to give any indication of an exit date.  Instead, Brits have been told that coming out of lockdown will involve a ‘gradual reopening of society’, rather than a set date on which we can return to normal life.  Clearly, the language around this ‘road to recovery’ has been carefully crafted by government spin doctors to keep plans vague and allow the goalposts to be endlessly moved.

Boris is touting this announcement as the last of its kind, but we have been here before and no doubt will be here again. This nightmarish Groundhog Day will never cease to end unless the Prime Minister sticks to his guns and ignores the blinkered scientists, only fixated on getting cases down without giving a thought to the bigger picture.

Not only are Government backbenchers putting on the pressure for the return to normality, now, even a member of SAGE has spoken out against the party line. Professor Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases expert from Edinburgh University, told a parliamentary committee this week that the data was actually pointing to an ‘earlier unlocking’.

Britain’s infections are tumbling and vaccinations are soaring. If world-leading scientific advisors are saying we can soon break free, what on earth is Boris waiting for?  With every additional day in lockdown the Government is sentencing countless more businesses, organisations and people to their demise. Without these establishments, there is no chance of Britain making any kind of recovery this year.  Hundreds of thousands of businesses are already at their wits end

People of the future will look back on this year of lockdown and be very confused. How could the entire world have thrown out settled practices of civil, economic, and cultural liberties for a virus that resisted every attempt to control it?  New pathogens are part of life, and there is nothing particularly unusual about this one. The enduring question now and for many years to come will be: why?  Many of us have asked this question a thousand times.  It is too early to say, and the answer will likely be similar to other epic FUBARs thoughout history.

And yet, it seems reasonable to observe that many groups and sectors had a kind of hankering for a pandemic. They turned a widespread and mostly manageable pathogen – doctor/patient relationships and reasonable cautions on the part of the vulnerable – and converted it into the basis for a global panic that overthrew centuries of progress in law and liberty.

That we will look back with astonishment at what has happened to the world is a near certainty.  I think that people of the future will never stop asking that great question of why. The answer is likely to be unsatisfying.  Was it a massive screw up by people and groups who wanted to try something completely new, none of whom were willing to bear responsibility for the results?

Or perhaps conspiracy theories are really on to something when we have so much historical evidence that evil people, with immense power to change our world, have a plan as published by the World Economic Forum, WHO, UN Agenda 2030 et al.

‘Conspiracies’ aside, here are some real facts about lockdowns“An important study in ‘Frontiers in Public Health’ on the data delivered by 160 countries has found no correlation between death rate and stringency of lockdown measures.  Another study showed no significant benefits of stay-at-home order and business closure on epidemic case growth.

The following two examples confirm these results: a country with low lockdown stringency like Sweden has at the moment the same fatality rate per million inhabitants as France, but lower than Spain, Italy and UK, where severe lockdown measures were applied.

In addition, Sweden has had for the second wave a much smaller excess mortality than France, Italy or Spain, an observation which allows one to suspect that lockdown measures are delaying the establishment of herd immunity. This is not desirable, as the time during which the old, sick and frail can be exposed to the virus gets longer.

            We are in the typical context of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, where, through neuro-immunological overresponses, physical immobilization, social isolation and socio-economic difficulties, the death toll gets maximized and the expected death prophecy confirmed.

            This requires then the maintenance and even increase of measures, and explains why people questioning their necessity are swiftly qualified as fools, idiots, conspiracy theorists or even murderers (heartlessly risking lives).  For almost a year, cultivated virus hysteria has fuelled the belief in a necessity to suppress “Covid19”.

            PCR tests are enacted for the whole population, with their extreme sensitivity and false positives, maintaining in the population the awareness of the dreadful presence of the virus.  Science moves on to find new threat markers, like the reproduction factor R and recently the rise of mutated virus variants. Thoughts and emotions remain focalized on covid-19 and its threat, taken out of the regular context of the normal human/virus interactions.  For example, tests of corona presence have never been performed before to establish what normality is along the year, and variants can be seen as the logical and usual answer of viruses to the development of human herd immunity.

            Should we have locked populations in the past during former flu epidemics?  Shall we have to do that in the future?  How long can our human environment resist such heavy, deleterious and questionable measures? And when shall the people of the world get their basic human rights and freedom back?

            Why propagate the idea the whole world needs to be vaccinated against covid-19 in the context of the above-mentioned epidemic data?  What of the recent confirmation, published by the WHO and authored by Dr. Ioannidis, of a general average case fatality ratio of 0.23% (analysed from 61 studies), in the range of a flu epidemic?

            With courage and scientific data at hand, we should stop hiding away from the virus on the order of our governments. We should trust nature that things will balance back to normal, instead of tampering chaotically and arrogantly with the natural dynamics regulating the human/virus interactions.

The relentless, never-ending confinement measures have led to the appearance of a host of absurd, even pathetic measures and situations, with some citizens wearing masks alone in their own cars, or jogging masked and alone in the countryside…I have heard many people around me wonder if they were not in a nightmare or a bad movie.  We need to wake up and work to fix this.” Read more: https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/12/lockdowns-are-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/

AND a very important report, how to decide if you need to take the ‘vaccine‘.  The fact is that these therapies are NOT vaccines, the mRNA concoctions are truly ‘synthetic gene therapies’ (SGT) and have never been used in humans.  They remain untested as trials are ongoing and the side effects are unknown. This is a mass experiment on a global basis and most recipients have no idea what they are putting into their bodies and the dire potential consequences – they have been frightened witless by all the propaganda.  Inform yourself with the facts: https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/22/synthetic-mrna-covid-vaccines-a-risk-benefit-analysis/

UK has agreed a trade deal with the EU. I will comment on the progression of this deal as it affects the UK economy. 

“Brexit began in earnest 50 days ago, on January 1, with the entry into force of the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It is — at least to my mind — the first ever trade agreement that actively seeks to slow down the flow of trade between the two signatory parties. And the costs are mounting for companies on both sides of the English Channel, particularly the British one. And the benefits remain largely elusive. This is no great surprise: Brexit is a process, not an event, and it will take time for most of the benefits of separation from the EU to feed through. Many of the costs, meanwhile, are of immediate impact, although some will no doubt fade as companies adapt to the new procedures.”  Here are the details: https://wolfstreet.com/2021/02/23/the-growing-pains-of-brexit-so-to-speak-50-days-in/

“50 miles directly across the Irish Sea from Dublin, a journey of just three-and-a-quarter hours by ferry, Holyhead was until December the second busiest roll-on roll-off port in the UK after Dover. About 450,000 trucks rumbled through each year on their way to Dublin, with cargoes of meat and agricultural produce, second-hand cars and items destined for the shelves of Irish supermarkets.

            But the UK’s departure from the EU has changed all that. In just seven weeks, freight volumes have plunged by 50%. The port’s owner, Stena Line, part of the shipping line owned by the Swedish Olsson family, is warning that the slump could be permanent.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/20/ports-feel-the-chill-as-trade-re-routes-around-brexit-britain

To be continued next week.

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Author: Austrian Peter

Peter J. Underwood is a retired international accountant and qualified humanistic counsellor living in Bruton, UK, with his wife, Yvonne. He pursued a career as an entrepreneur and business consultant, having founded several successful businesses in the UK and South Africa His latest Substack blog describes the African concept of Ubuntu - a system of localised community support using a gift economy model.

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Ghost

Another timely update, thanks.

You have left us with a bit of a cliffhanger! Especially those of us with friends close to Dublin!

nkit
nkit

“The government has said that it hopes to vaccinate all adults over the age of 50 by 15 April.”

Am I wrong to assume then that the vaccination is mandatory for all adults over 50? Or are they talking about those over 50 who volunteer for the jab?

Very well written piece, as always, Peter.

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