I asked my MP, Chloe Smith, Norwich North, about Covid19 vaccinations for Government staff.

Hi, Does anyone know what percentage of MP's; lords and Parliament and government staff have been fully vaccinated?

Alun Buffry
Norwich North

I will post her answer but normally she does not reply to me.

 

 

To Vax or Not to Vax, That is the Question

 

From what I understand, the vaccinations do not stop infection or transference to others, but the claim is that the vaccination will reduce the illness after infection. So even after a jab we should still take the precautions of masks, social distancing and washing hands (which we should do anyway).

 

So the choice is to risk whatever possible effects that the vaccination may itself cause or risk a more serious infection if and when we get covid.

 

A personal choice that does not effect others unless they are or become carers or health staff that need to look after the sick.

 

So I don't see the problem.  One side is trying to scare us into being vaccinated and the other side trying to scare us into not taking it.

 

The problem I have is that the anti-vaxers seem to run into conspiracy theory such as it contains nanochips and bytes to track and control us or make us more compatible with AI in the future, which is strange then that the elderly and sick would be targetted first and considering we are all tracked and traced ans spied on through the internet, phone lines, cameras and so on, anyway and whilst all that already exists they want us to stay indoors and not travel more than 5 miles or visit other people.

the way I see it, like all businesses, the vaccination producers want to sell their wares, and all the anti-vaxers seem to base their lives on the idea that some sort or illuninatuis elon musk bill gates conglomerate want to control 7 billion people, most of whom are poverty stricken and powerless.

 

I read people saying the vaccine will make us ill or kill us off yet most of my friends that have had it have suffered no worse than a sore arm or a mild overnight headache, so then I read ah yes but we will all suffer after the second dose or sometime in the future. then I read that somebody had the vaccine and died - 100 people out of the millions that have had the jab. Yet last year in the UK 1000 people died due to aspirin, many more due to tobacco or alcohol, all of which carry warnings and are sold in supermarkets and local shops.

 

It's a personal choice, to some degree determined by who we trust, but it is us that must make that choice. The idea that we cannot travel without a vaccination is untrue since the vaccination does not stop infection or transmission, so a covid test is more important - and many people will not be able to have the vaccine due to complications with health, other medication or allergies.

I think tee answers will NOT come through social media or TV news, so why bother reading and watching it.

 

WE KNOW that our Government tells porkies, so why believe them? But neither does that mean that everything they say is a lie.

 

 

Conspiract theory - the Truth about who is running things

....  it's actually aliens that have been living on the dark side of the moon and virus itself contains nanochip containing AI so it can infect other humans and in a few years they will use it to enslave the human race, and Musk is from the future and brought the recipes for vaccines to counteract the alien AI and save humanity, except both sides are just lizard pawns ultimately being controlled by Illuninati that live underground and have been running the world for thousands of years using frequencies far beyond 5G and as yet undetectable except by rock start musicians that knew the truth about man on the moon and were all assassinated by the Vatican , the message is in their music played backwards at high speed.

It's hard to believe that the UK government did not know this

 it's hard to believe that the UK government did not know this as schoolchildren are well known as asymptomatic carriers of flu

Largest COVID-19 contact tracing study to date finds children key to spread, evidence of superspreaders

Morgan Kelly, Princeton Environmental Institute

Sept. 30, 2020

A study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus’ continued spread is driven by only a small percentage of those who become infected.

Furthermore, children and young adults were found to be potentially much more important to transmitting the virus — especially within households — than previous studies have identified, according to a paper by researchers from the United States and India published Sept. 30 in the journal Science.

Researchers from the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, worked with public health officials in the southeast Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to track the infection pathways and mortality rate of 575,071 individuals who were exposed to 84,965 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. It is the largest contact tracing study — which is the process of identifying people who came into contact with an infected person — conducted in the world for any disease.

Lead researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, a senior research scholar in PEI, said that the paper is the first large study to capture the extraordinary extent to which SARS-CoV-2 hinges on “superspreading,” in which a small percentage of the infected population passes the virus on to more people. The researchers found that 71% of infected individuals did not infect any of their contacts, while a mere 8% of infected individuals accounted for 60% of new infections.

“Our study presents the largest empirical demonstration of superspreading that we are aware of in any infectious disease,” Laxminarayan said. “Superspreading events are the rule rather than the exception when one is looking at the spread of COVID-19, both in India and likely in all affected places.”

The findings provide extensive insight into the spread and deadliness of COVID-19 in countries such as India — which has experienced more than 96,000 deaths from the disease — that have a high incidence of resource-limited populations, the researchers reported. They found that coronavirus-related deaths in India occurred, on average, six days after hospitalization compared to an average of 13 days in the United States. Also, deaths from coronavirus in India have been concentrated among people aged 50-64, which is slightly younger than the 60-plus at-risk population in the United States.

The researchers also reported, however, the first large-scale evidence that the implementation of a countrywide shutdown in India led to substantial reductions in coronavirus transmission.

The researchers found that the chances of a person with coronavirus, regardless of their age, passing it on to a close contact ranged from 2.6% in the community to 9% in the household. The researchers found that children and young adults — who made up one-third of COVID cases — were especially key to transmitting the virus in the studied populations.

“Kids are very efficient transmitters in this setting, which is something that hasn’t been firmly established in previous studies,” Laxminarayan said. “We found that reported cases and deaths have been more concentrated in younger cohorts than we expected based on observations in higher-income countries.”

Children and young adults were much more likely to contract coronavirus from people their own age, the study found. Across all age groups, people had a greater chance of catching the coronavirus from someone their own age. The overall probability of catching coronavirus ranged from 4.7% for low-risk contacts up to 10.7% for high-risk contacts.

The study, “Epidemiology and transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in two Indian states,” was published Sept. 30 by the journal Science. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Status of COVID-19: As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.

 Status of COVID-19

As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.

The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.

 The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.

The need to have a national, coordinated response remains, but this is being met by the government’s COVID-19 response.

Cases of COVID-19 are no longer managed by HCID treatment centres only. All healthcare workers managing possible and confirmed cases should follow the updated national infection and prevention (IPC) guidance for COVID-19, which supersedes all previous IPC guidance for COVID-19. This guidance includes instructions about different personal protective equipment (PPE) ensembles that are appropriate for different clinical scenarios.

Definition of HCID 

In the UK, a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) is defined according to the following criteria:

• acute infectious disease
• typically has a high case-fatality rate
• may not have effective prophylaxis or treatment
• often difficult to recognise and detect rapidly
• ability to spread in the community and within healthcare settings
• requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely

Classification of HCIDs

HCIDs are further divided into contact and airborne groups:

•  contact HCIDs are usually spread by direct contact with an infected patient or infected fluids, tissues and other materials, or by indirect contact with contaminated materials and fomites

• airborne HCIDs are spread by respiratory droplets or aerosol transmission, in addition to contact routes of transmission

List of high consequence infectious diseases

A list of HCIDs has been agreed by a joint Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England HCID Programme:

Contact HCID	Airborne HCID
Argentine haemorrhagic fever (Junin virus)	Andes virus infection (hantavirus)
Bolivian haemorrhagic fever (Machupo virus)	Avian influenza A H7N9 and H5N1
Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF)	Avian influenza A H5N6 and H7N7
Ebola virus disease (EVD)	Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)
Lassa fever	Monkeypox
Lujo virus disease	Nipah virus infection
Marburg virus disease (MVD)	Pneumonic plague (Yersinia pestis)
Severe fever with thrombocytopaenia syndrome (SFTS)	Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)*

*No cases reported since 2004, but SARS remains a notifiable disease under the International Health Regulations (2005), hence its inclusion here

**Human to human transmission has not been described to date for avian influenza A(H5N6). Human to human transmission has been described for avian influenza A(H5N1), although this was not apparent until more than 30 human cases had been reported. Both A(H5N6) and A(H5N1) often cause severe illness and fatalities. Therefore, A(H5N6) has been included in the airborne HCID list despite not meeting all of the HCID criteria.

The list of HCIDs will be kept under review and updated by PHE if new HCIDs emerge that are of relevance to the UK.

HCIDs in the UK

HCIDs, including viral haemorrhagic fevers (VHFs), are rare in the UK. When cases do occur, they tend to be sporadic and are typically associated with recent travel to an area where the infection is known to be endemic or where an outbreak is occurring. None of the HCIDs listed above are endemic in the UK, and the known animal reservoirs are not found in the UK.

As of February 2020, 2019, the UK has experience of managing confirmed cases of Lassa fever, EVD, CCHF, MERS and monkeypox. The vast majority of these patients acquired their infections overseas, but rare incidents of secondary transmission of MERS and monkeypox have occurred in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid?fbclid=IwAR1WvHvkce7fl-rS-nWM2_V1gh45aQn52yaXb4ZV2xUeHuNyRjSY3NTjbhg

Protest exemption set to be removed from England lockdown rules

This has a lot to do with the weird locdown rules - over the years the collapse of the conomy (which will be blamed on the virus) and the environmental crisis will normally lead to more and more protests and the Governments of this country and elsewhere do not want that

 Protest exemption set to be removed from England lockdown rules

 The Guardian November 3 2020

 Expected move is met with fierce criticism from campaigners and human rights groups

Protections for protesters are set to be removed from the coronavirus rules under the second national lockdown, it has emerged, provoking anger from human rights groups and campaigners.

An exemption that permits demonstrations to take place with additional conditions designed to mitigate the spread of the virus is expected to be omitted from fresh regulations being drawn up for the lockdown that will commence from this Thursday.

There have been a series of a high-profile protests since the pandemic erupted in the UK including rallies for racial equality led by the Black Lives Matter movement, racist counter-demonstrations and marches against lockdown measures directed by conspiracy theorists and extremists.

While there will be no explicit ban on protests in the regulations, the removal of the exemption will render organising large-scale lawful protest almost impossible.

The expected move, first revealed by the Times, has been met with fierce criticism from campaigners and human rights groups.

Tyrek Morris, the co-founder of All Black Lives UK, a youth-led campaign group born out of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, said: “With regards to protesting, and protesting through the pandemic, one thing that is clear, we have no support from the government in any way shape or form.”

Morris said protests organised by All Black Lives UK had faced a heavy handed response, despite meeting the criteria set out by the exemption.

“Since the BLM movement arose again, the government has been completely against our protest, against protest full stop, and at every chance possible have tried to stop us. But we’ve always found a way around it. They could stop us protesting, but they can’t stop us fighting for our own rights.”

 

Morris said criticism of the current government was implicit in the All Black Lives UK protests. “We have criticism for the way the government has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, for how black people are more likely to suffer from this pandemic, we’ve been very vocal about Boris Johnson and his racist tendencies, his previous comments. So this does not come as a shock to me. They don’t want to hear us talk.”

Rosalind Comyn, the policy and campaigns manager at Liberty, the human rights group, said: “We should all be able to stand up for what we believe in. In a healthy democracy protest is one way we do that, and that’s why any measures which stop people expressing dissent are deeply worrying and should be treated with suspicion.

“We have always supported proportionate measures to protect lives, but people must not be criminalised en masse for voicing opposition to government action – even in the context of a pandemic. What’s more, parliament has been sidelined at every turn of this government’s pandemic response, making protest even more important than ever to ensure everyone’s voices are heard.

“The government and police must commit to uphold their duty to facilitate protest so we can stand up to power.”

A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion UK, which has staged climate protests since the pandemic outbreak, said: “Only a government keenly aware of its epic failing would bring in such extreme restrictions to protest.

“These are the actions of a government not willing to listen to its citizens. Studies over the last year have found that protests held outdoors do not lead to spikes in infection rates. This is clearly a political choice at a time when the government needs to be held to account on many fronts.”

When the regulations were refreshed for the new three-tiered system in England, the wording explicitly said a clause about gatherings of more than six was applicable to protests.

The clause in effect permitted individuals to gather in a group of more than six for the purposes of protest as long as the following rules were satisfied:

• The gathering has been organised by a business, a charity, a benevolent or philanthropic institution, a public body, or a political body.

• The organiser of the protest has carried out a risk assessment that meets the requirements of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

• The organiser has taken all reasonable steps to limit the risk of transmission of coronavirus, in line with the risk assessment and with any relevant government guidance.

But while the clause remains in the new lockdown regulations, which were published late on Tuesday, the explicit reference to “protests” has vanished.

Whitehall sources told the Guardian the change was spearheaded by the Covid-19 taskforce and was designed to make the rules simpler.

But a senior police source told the Guardian they feared being “left in the middle” by any dropping of the protections for protests and also would rather there was a clear-cut regulation, rather than something vague and open to interpretation. “It’s going to be difficult,” the source said.

Police are saying they are already under strain from trying to impose existing Covid regulations, with regular crime returning to normal levels, having plunged during the first lockdown.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The right to peaceful protest is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. In these unprecedented circumstances, any gathering risks spreading the disease, leading to more deaths, so it is vital we all play our part in controlling the virus.

“People must follow the rules on meeting with others, which apply to all gatherings and therefore protests too. As they have done throughout the pandemic, the police and local authorities will engage, explain and encourage people to follow the rules before moving on to enforce the law.”

  Quick guide: What you can and can't do in England's new national Covid lockdown

New national restrictions are due to come into effect in England on Thursday, after MPs vote on them, and remain in place at least until 2 December.

What can I leave home for?

• For childcare or education, where it is not provided online.
• To go to work unless it can be done from home.
• Outdoor exercise either with household members or with one person from another household.
• For all medical reasons and appointments.
• To escape injury or harm, such as domestic abuse.
• To provide care for vulnerable people or volunteer.
• To shop for food and essentials.
• To see people in your support bubble.
• Children will still be able to move between homes if their parents are separated.

Government say the list is not exhaustive, and other permitted reasons for leaving home may be set out later. People could face fines from police for leaving their home without a legally permitted excuse.

Can different households mix indoors?

No, not unless they are part of an “exclusive” support bubble, which allows a single-person household to meet and socialise with another household.

Parents are allowed to form a childcare bubble with another household for the purposes of informal childcare, where the child is 13 or under.

Can different households mix outdoors?

People are allowed to meet one person from another household socially and for exercise in outdoor public spaces, which does not include private gardens.

Can I attend funerals, weddings or religious services?

Up to 30 people will still be allowed to attend funerals, while stone settings and ash scatterings can continue with up to 15 guests.

Weddings and civil partnership ceremonies are not permitted except in “exceptional circumstances”. Places of worship must remain closed except for voluntary services, individual prayer and other exempt activities.

Can I travel in the UK or abroad for a holiday?

Most outbound international travel will be banned. There is no exemption for staying away from home for a holiday. This means people cannot travel internationally or within the UK, unless for work, education or other legally permitted exemptions.

 Which businesses will close?

Everything except essential shops and education settings, which include nurseries, schools and universities, will close.

Entertainment venues will also have to close. Pubs, restaurants and indoor and outdoor leisure facilities will have to close their doors once more.

However, takeaway and delivery services will still be allowed, while construction and manufacturing will stay open.

Parents will still be able to access registered childcare and other childcare activities where reasonably necessary to enable parents to work. Some youth services may be able to continue, such as one-to-one youth work, but most youth clubs will need to close their doors.

Public services, such as jobcentres, courts, and civil registration offices will remain open.

There is no exemption for grassroots organised team sports. Elite sports will be allowed to continue behind closed doors as currently, including Premier League football matches.

The Convenience of Covid19

It is not that hard to see that both the world economy and the climate have been on the point of collapse for some years now and that more and more people around the world are taking to the streets to protest against their bungling greedy governments that have done little to halt that happening.

Capitalism, where a minority get richer and richer, the middle wealth become complacent and the poor are left out, often living on a comparative pittance, is inevitably doomed.  Nowadays Western currencies are based on nothing, governments can print as much paper money as they want and "I promise to pay the bearer" is as meaningless as "in God we trust".  Government debt to world banks run by a small number of billionaire families is beyond reason, sense and imagination, yet under Covid 19 many dish out small sums to the people in real need or most deserving and many times more to their business friends.  The corner shops suffer whilst on-line businesses and giant supermarkets thrive.  "in God we Trust" for them has become "in Covid we Trust".   Check out what the UK MP's are offered as subsidised lunches whilst NHS staff have to buy their own.  Normally the numbers on the streets demonstrating would have increased. 

As for the climate, well it's decades now since we have been warned and started to see the effects of pollution.  Now our seas - and our food - is full of plastic, radioactive chemicals spreading throughout the oceans, big cities have air so bad that people are told to wear masks or stay indoors, chemicals are put into our tap water to make it "safe" to drink whilst more and more get ill and need to take the dangerous pharmaceutical drugs that make the rich richer, and on it goes.  Normally the numbers on the streets protesting about the lack of action to save our planet would have continued to increase

Those that fight tyrannical governments, those that are having their own countries devastated and bombed, those that flee for their lives, are labelled as terrorists and immigrants; in reality, those that see through it all recognise their own governments and their forces as the real terrorists.

There are more police in the world than ever, but also more crimes and more prisons.  There are more doctors and nurses than ever but more sick and disabled (a terrible word).  There are more schools and universities but what they teach is carefully controlled.  More so-called freedom of speech through social media but more control and censorship.  More food than ever before but more starving millions.  More churches, synagogues, mosques and temples than ever but more war based on differences in beliefs and lifestyles.  Normally more people would be protesting those excesses and shortages.

Then conveniently along comes to governments' saviour - Covid19.

Street protests are banned.  Tyrannical police action is justified by governments that force restrictions, social distancing, numbers that can gather together even in our own homes, face coverings and threatening us with serious illnesses and death caused by over-flowing health services that they have for so long underfunded or sold off to private investors and big businesses whose very existence is to profit.

Now I am not saying that Covid19 in not real, or even that it has been deliberately spread, but it has come at an ideal times for the rich and powerful and that the Governments, just like the people that vote them in, are taking full advantage of the situation to further their private causes which are seldom seeking common or shared wealth and well-being.

DO NOT TRUST THE

LEADING CLOWNS
by Alun Buffry, June 2020

You may well think our leaders clowns,
For sure they let the people down.
It matters not where you come from,
If your name's Boris, Jacob or Dom.

Unless you're in the Upper Class,
Workers will stay upon their ass.
It matters more where they went to school.
Eaton and Oxford were so cool.

They had a grand old party time,
That's why they pull the Party line.
They laugh and tell us what to do,
Won't listen to the likes of You.

We vote and think our votes will count,
Lead us to what we think we want,
We praise them for the little they give,
They hide away the way they live.

And when they want to fight a war,
They ask all all to give some more.
They sail their yachts and ride their horses,
They play with their balls on their golf courses.

They drink their champers and fine wines,
They eat their gourmet meals so fine,
Put chemicals in our food and water,
Send our soldiers out for slaughter.

Yet deep inside we’re all the same,
It matters not your family name,
For when we reach the end of life,
It’s them that will suffer the grief and strife.

For then they’ll see themselves were bad,
For then it’s them in loneliness that will feel sad,
It’s them that did us all that bad,
For them that last breath will be so sad.

For one thing to them I’d like to teach,
That in this life we each need peace.
It’s not in glory, wealth or fame.
It’s only in our Soul’s true name. 

 

Covid19, is it real?

Of course it's real but what the government is telling us is not ALL true.

The death figures depend upon how they are counted.

Recently, the numbers reported by the UK Government are the numbers of people that ave died "within 28 days of testing positive for Covid19".  They don't say that the people died from the virus.

Most people die with food in their stomachs but that does not mean that the food kiiled them. 

My friend's granny had a heart attack, she was taken to hospital and tested negative, they kept her in for a week or so, tested her again and that wa snegative; they sent her home, three days later her carers found her dead; on the death certificate it said covid19. 

Another friends mum is in a a care home; they tested all the residents and staff; all negative; in the next few weeks three died, they said of covid19; they were all over 80; they forced them into isolation. A couple more died since then but now they say of pneumonia. It's been a hot summer, that often kills more people. 

Worry and stress is a massive cause of illness and death. 

In the UK male suicide rate has certainly increased. 

 Stats are not reliable.

I think if people take precautions out of sense it is far better than living in fear. Fear is a weapon for tyrants and churches.

Black Lives Matter, Street demonstrations and the Second Covid19 Wave

At the end of the first world war, there was a nasty killer virus spreading; people went out in the streets in large numbers to celebrate the end of the war; it caused a second wave of virus infections and more people died than during the war.

In 2020, we have Covid19, which has killed between 40,000 and 60,000 people in the UK alone. Now the Government is (in my opinion, jumping the gun) easing the restrictions on social contact.

So now, as well as crowds gathering in places such as beaches, we are seeing mass demonstrations on the streets in agreement with the demonstrations in the USA about police murdering and mistreating black people: many people think they are safe if they wear a mask - they are not.

Will we now see the dreaded second wave of Covid19 infections and many more deaths?

UK Government must think the people are dumb: Brandon Lewis speaks nonsense

I just heard idiotic minister Brandon Lewis saying that the reason why they are imposing a 14 day quarantine on people arriving in the UK from next Monday is that it is more important now that the infection rate is "going down" as one more infection from somebody arriving from abroad (where in many places the infection rate is lowering and lockdowns being eased) is more damaging now than it was when the infection rate was high! Talk about stupid - do they really think anyone will swallow that pathetic excuse for another blunder,

Brandon Lewis on BBC Breakfast Time "“As the spread in our communities is now much lower, the marginal impact of anyone coming into the country (with Covid-19) is much higher – that is why this is the right time to do it.”

AFTER they have brought back 1.3 million people into the UK without enforced isolation or testing over the last weeks?

It comes as Boris Johnson prepares to tell a summit of world leaders that vaccinating the world against deadly diseases, including Covid 19 is “the most essential shared endeavour of our lifetimes” as he calls for "humanity to unite" by entering a "new era of global health co-operation".

Another blunder, surely everyone entering from abroad when the infection rates in so many countries was high should have been told to isolate for at least two weeks. I am sure that they are trying to kill more old and infirmed people, that is the only thing that makes sense for me.

Sending the children back to school when they know damned well that children are the carriers without showing any symptoms at all. Of course the other major blunder is testing - all schoolchildren should be tested - and tha track and trace is a waste of time and not working well at all. I heard today that ten thousands tests that were sent to the US for analysis have to be done again Conclusion:

The UK Blundering-Boris government think the people are dumb. Coronavirus: Thousands of homeless 'back on streets by July'

<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52915913">Coronavirus: Thousands of homeless 'back on streets by July'</a>

COVID19 = Coordinated Orchestrated Virus International Distribution 2019.

COVID19 = Coordinated Orchestrated Virus International Distribution 2019.

Governments are "alert" to the fact that a truly effective vaccine will never be made and are already telling us that even if we have had it already and have antibodies we may not be immune (which means vaccine will not work on everyone) so they are intent on slowing down the infection rate so that health services can "cope", all based on the herd immunity idea that the  extra deaths (70,000 per year in the UK) will mostly be the aged and sick and will slow down population growth which is essential - next step will be to reduce births - sadly the way population is growing and the need to decrease it, with more being born than dying every day, the whole planet is facing disaster.

Wars between super-powers must be avoided due to the nuclear threat; people would not accept enforced birth control or limits or maximum age limits that science fiction has proposed; we cannot simply starve people even though we starve many in third world countries already, so how do we reduce population growth or the population itself?

Allowing the consumption of poisons in our food and water supplies and tobacco and pharmaceuticals that kill so many? Slow spread of a virus that targets the old and sick?

Who could imagine that? Or is it just nature fighting back? Or aliens? Or the devil? And what is the difference?

And just look at what is happening on the beaches.

What is the confusing Government message?  Stay alert - well we should stay alert every day and stay alert of about what the Government are doing!  They are telling us that!

Then what I see is people that "think it's all over" or that it won't get them.  Are they simply dumb or selfish or are they confused.  So much for Government messages.

On the one hand we hear government telling us this virus is deadly but we see them bumbling along and failing to tackle it one every level.

I for one am not convinced by what our Government is saying, yet I know that there is a message within it; they hide the truth in plain sight.

I for one know that most of the most powerful politicians and business people are not interested in us, they are only interested in making themselves richer, more powerful and famous.

We can do nothing about all that.

So I say, find joy in your life, relax best that you can, stay safe and keep others as safe as possible and consider what is most important in your life and focus on that.

Keep the children out of schools

No schools, it is so obvious, for the sake of a month before the holidays - whether the children are good or bad at lessons in school or at home, one thing that we and the Government know is that children are an excellent way of spreading viruses to adults without showing any or many symptoms themselves. It's almost as if the UK Government wants to infect people in large numbers through children, care homes, public transport and the workplace.

Reader Letter: Isolating over 70s is age discrimination

Reader Letter: Isolating over 70s is age discrimination

PUBLISHED: 09 May 2020 Eastern Daily Press

Tim Bornett

The government is considering proposals to ask all those over 70 to self isolate irrespective of health factors. Hopefully this will not be taken on board.

By gradually easing the lockdown it will sound strange if senior citizens have increased restrictions.

Many people in their 70s and 80s are fit and active. They would wonder why, for example, an obese 40 year old and a heavy smoker may have any restriction lifted but senior citizens being asked to stay at home.

Many members of both Houses of Parliament are over 70. Many scientists are as well together with other groups who no doubt like to get out to do some exercise.

To segment the over 70s from the rest of society is age discrimination and could cause severe resentment especially if the government decides younger people could exercise at least twice a day.

I urge people who feel strongly to contact their MPs with the view for the latter to lobby the government and to express concerns over this potential age discrimination.

Boris and the Virus Timeline

COPIED FROM FACEBOOK POST ny Clara O'Donnell

Shared and to my understanding this is all factually correct, couldn't have been bothered to write it myself, I'm glad someone else has.

‘I read this earlier and saved it..

Here's some Facts, not opinions. Just plain and simple raw informational facts - stuff that happened, and was recorded as such by multiple sources. Ergo = what happened - attached to a timeline.

If you think any of these are inaccurate, please present your EVIDENCE as well as The SOURCES of this evidence - I am more than happy to be shown new information that puts the picture into better context. But as far as I can check myself and cross reference, all of these points are also documented in multiple places by both legacy (newspaper / print) media and online & social media:

perception may change, Facts do not.

UK TIMELINE:

December 31st China alerts WHO to new virus.

January 23rd Study reveals a third of China’s patients require intensive care.

January 24th Boris Johnson misses first Cobra meeting.
January 29th Boris Johnson misses second Cobra meeting.

January 31st The NHS declares first ever ‘Level 4 critical incident’ Meanwhile, the government declines to join European scheme to source PPE.

February 5th Boris Johnson misses third Cobra meeting.

February 12th Boris Johnson misses fourth Cobra meeting. Exeter University published study warning Coronavirus could infect 45 million people in the UK if left unchallenged.

February 13th Boris Johnson misses conference call with European leaders.

February 14th Boris Johnson goes away on holiday. Aides are told keeps Johnson’s briefing notes short or he will not read them.

February 18th Johnson misses fifth cobra meeting.

February 26th Boris Johnson announces ‘Herd Immunity’ strategy, announcing some people will lose loved ones. Government document is leaked, predicting half a million Brits could die in ‘worse case scenario’

February 29th Boris Johnson retreats to his country manor. NHS warns of ‘PPE shortage nightmare’ Stockpiles have dwindled or expired after years of austerity cuts.

March 2nd Boris Johnson attends his first Cobra meeting, declining another opportunity to join European PPE scheme. Government’s own scientists say over half a million Brit’s could die if virus left unrestrained. Johnson tells country “We are very, very well prepared.”

March 3rd Scientists urge Government to advise public not to shake hands. Boris Johnson brags about shaking hands of Coronavirus patients.

March 4th Government stops providing daily updates on virus following a 70% spike in UK cases. They will later U-turn on this amid accusations they are withholding vital information.

March 5th Boris Johnson tells public to ‘wash their hands and business as usual’

March 7th Boris Johnson joins 82,000 people at Six Nations match.

March 9th After Ireland cancels St Patrick’s day parades, the government says there’s “No Rationale” for cancelling sporting events.

March 10th - 13th Cheltenham takes place, more than a quarter of a million people attend.

March 11th 3,000 Atletico Madrid fans fly to Liverpool.

March 12th Boris Johnson states banning events such as Cheltenham will have little effect. The Imperial College study finds the government’s plan is projected to kill half a million people.

March 13th The FA suspends the Premier League, citing an absence of Government guidance. Britain is invited to join European scheme for joint purchase of ventilators, and refuses. Boris Johnson lifts restrictions of those arriving from Coronavirus hot spots.

March 14th Government is still allowing mass gatherings, as Stereophonics play to 5,000 people in Cardiff.

March 16th Boris Johnson asks Britons not to go to pubs, but allows them to stay open. During a conference call, Johnson jokes that push to build new ventilators should be called ‘Operation Last Gasp’

March 19th Hospital patients with Coronavirus are returned to care homes in a bid to free up hospital space. What follows is a boom of virus cases in care homes.

March 20th The Government states that PPE shortage crisis is “Completely resolved” Less than two weeks later, the British Medical Association reports an acute shortage in PPE.

March 23rd UK goes into lockdown.

March 26th Boris Johnson is accused of putting ‘Brexit over Breathing’ by not joining EU ventilator scheme. The government then state they had not joined the scheme because they had ‘missed the email’

April 1st The Evening Standard publishes that just 0.17% of NHS staff have been tested for the virus.

April 3rd The UK death toll overtakes China.

April 5th 17.5 million Antibody tests, ordered by the government and described by Boris Johnson as a ‘game changer’ are found to be a failure.

April 7th Boris Johnson is moved to intensive care with Coronavirus.

April 16th Flights bring 15,000 people a day into the UK - without virus testing.

April 17th Health Secretary Matt Hancock says “I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and have PPE fall from the sky.” The UK has now missed four opportunities to join the EU’s PPE scheme.

April 21st The Government fails to reach its target of face masks for the NHS, as it is revealed manufactures offers of help were met with silence. Instead millions of pieces of PPE are being shipped from the UK to Europe.

April 23rd - 24th Government announces testing kits for 10 million key workers. Orders run out within minutes as only 5,000 are made available.

April 25th UK death toll from Coronavirus overtakes that of The Blitz.

April 30th Boris Johnson announces the UK has succeeded in avoiding a tragedy that had engulfed other parts of the world - At this point, The UK has the 3rd highest death toll in the world.

May 1st The Government announces it has reached its target of 100,000 tests - They haven’t conducted the tests, but posted the testing kits.

May 4th The number of NHS staff that have died from Coronavirus overtakes the number of British Military personnel that died during the Iraq War.

May 5th The UK death toll becomes the highest in Europe.

May 6th Boris Johnson announces the UK could start to lift lockdown restrictions by next week.

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just some facts - make up your own minds - Dont let someone make it up for you. (including me - as I say, this is just raw info, perceive it as you will)’

Japanese island suffering second wave of coronavirus after lifting lockdown too early

Just remember in the UK the Government has managed this virus crIsis poorly from the start - so just because they are easing the lockdown does not mean everything goes back to normal:

PLEASE continue to avoid crowds, respect social distancing, avoid public transport if possible, wash hands and shopping.

Remember how Boris delayed the official lockdown, failed to secure adequate Personal Protection Equipment for hospitals and care homes, failed to buy enough ventilators, boasted about shaking hands in hospitals and then got sick himself, falsified death figures - all almost certainly resulting in more cases and deaths. CONTINUE TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND OTHERS. AVOID A SECOND WAVE.

Japanese island suffering second wave of coronavirus after lifting lockdown too early

A northern region of Japan is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections - and deaths - that experts say could have been avoided if the state of emergency had not been lifted too early.

The island of Hokkaido had been held up as a model of how to control the spread of the virus, but it has now become a case study for the impact the disease can have if a lockdown is relaxed too soon.

And experts say they hope that other cities and nations that are toying with the idea of lifting restrictions on travel, work and schools can learn from Hokkaido’s experience.

Naomichi Suzuki, the prefectural governor, on February 29 declared a state of emergency in response to a sharp increase in coronavirus cases, all of which could be traced back to the Sapporo Snow Festival at the beginning of the month. The annual event attracted more than 2 million people to the city, with local health authorities treating a Chinese tourist from Wuhan who had contracted the illness before arriving in Hokkaido.

Despite the state of emergency, 118 people were being treated for the virus by March 12, making Hokkaido the worst-hit of all Japan’s 47 prefectures.

In tandem with the state of emergency - under which schools were closed, large-scale gatherings were cancelled and people were officially “encouraged” to stay at home - the local government introduced aggressive measures to trace and isolate anyone who had been in contact with victims. The approach appeared to have been effective and, just a week later, the number of new cases had fallen to one or two a day.

Assuming that they had weathered the storm - and keen to get the local economy operating again - local authorities lifted the state of emergency on March 19, with schools and businesses reopening.

With hindsight, experts agree, it was too early and, just 26 days later and after 135 new infections were reported in the space of a week, the lockdown was reimposed on Hokkaido’s 5.3 million residents.

“At the time, we didn’t have enough information and we did not have an adequate understanding of this disease”, said Yoko Tsukamoto, a professor of infection control at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido.

“And, given the information that was available - that new cases were down to one or two a day - it could be argued that the governor made the right decision in lifting the state of emergency”, she told The Telegraph.

“We know that was the wrong move now, but then it seemed the best thing to do”.

The lessons that other authorities will have to learn if they want to protect their residents are clear, Professor Tsukamoto said.

“These lockdowns and states of emergency will have to be lifted eventually, but the lesson is to wait as long as possible, to get accurate data on infection numbers and to be very, very cautious when the rules are relaxed”, she said.

“And the authorities have to be ready to move quickly and put the restrictions back in place at the first sign of another surge”, she said.

The Japanese government is planning to extend the state of emergency over the new coronavirus pandemic by about one month for the entire country, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday.

The state of emergency is currently scheduled to end on May 6.

Thirty-eight new cases were reported across Hokkaido on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 688, the fifth-highest in Japan. The illness also claimed one more life, raising the death toll to 27.

In a nation of 127 million people, there have been 13,576 cases and 376 deaths to date, although the Japanese government has been criticised for limiting the number of tests that are conducted on suspected coronavirus patients and the true figure is likely to be significantly higher.

Sunday Times publishes a truly shocking article it is beyond disturbing

Today (April 19th) the Sunday Times publishes a truly shocking article it is beyond disturbing.

Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears. Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives

What the Sunday Times article says:

For people who don’t want to buy the Sunday Times, here is the gist.

It begins on the third Friday of January when the Coronavirus had started its deadly spread.
“The virus had spread from China to six countries and was almost certainly in many others. Sensing the coming danger, the British government briefly went into wartime mode that day, holding a meeting of Cobra, its national crisis committee.

But it took just an hour that January 24 lunchtime to brush aside the coronavirus threat. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, bounced out of Whitehall after chairing the meeting and breezily told reporters the risk to the UK public was ‘low’.”

This ignored advice in the medical journal The Lancet that this virus could be as deadly as the 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic that killed at least fifty million people.

Boris Johnson had missed the Cobra meeting, but found time to go to a Chinese New Year celebration.
“That afternoon his spokesman played down the looming threat from the east and reassured the nation that we were “well prepared for any new diseases”. The confident, almost nonchalant, attitude displayed that day in January would continue for more than a month.

Johnson went on to miss four further Cobra meetings on the virus. As Britain was hit by unprecedented flooding, he completed the EU withdrawal, reshuffled his cabinet and then went away to the grace-and-favour country retreat at Chevening where he spent most of the two weeks over half-term with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds.”

The article continues:

“It would not be until March 2 — another five weeks — that Johnson would attend a Cobra meeting about the coronavirus. But by then it was almost certainly too late.”

An adviser is damning:
“Last week, a senior adviser to Downing Street broke ranks and blamed the weeks of complacency on a failure of leadership in cabinet. In particular, the prime minister was singled out.
“There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there,” the adviser said. “And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.”

“Among the key points likely to be explored will be why it took so long to recognise an urgent need for a massive boost in supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers; ventilators to treat acute respiratory symptoms; and tests to detect the infection.

Any inquiry may also ask whether the government’s failure to get to grips with the scale of the crisis in those early days had the knock-on effect of the national lockdown being introduced days or even weeks too late, causing many thousands more unnecessary deaths.”

Furthermore:
“Britain was in a poor state of readiness for a pandemic. Emergency stockpiles of PPE had severely dwindled and gone out of date after becoming a low priority in the years of austerity cuts. The training to prepare key workers for a pandemic had been put on hold for two years while contingency planning was diverted to deal with a possible no-deal Brexit.”

This will hurt the notion the Tories are ‘patriotic’:

“Instead, the government sent supplies the other way — shipping 279,000 items of its depleted stockpile of protective equipment to China during this period, following a request for help from the authorities there.”
Johnson is castigated:

“The prime minister had been sunning himself with his girlfriend in the millionaires’ Caribbean resort of Mustique when China first alerted the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31 that several cases of an unusual pneumonia had been recorded in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in Hubei province.”

Devi Sridhar’s warnings are highlighted:

“Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh University, had predicted in a talk two years earlier that a virus might jump species from an animal in China and spread quickly to become a human pandemic. So the news from Wuhan set her on high alert.

“In early January a lot of my global health colleagues and I were kind of discussing ‘What’s going on?’” she recalled. “China still hadn’t confirmed the virus was human-to-human. A lot of us were suspecting it was because it was a respiratory pathogen and you wouldn’t see the numbers of cases that we were seeing out of China if it was not human-to-human. So that was disturbing.”
By as early as January 16 the professor was on Twitter calling for swift action to prepare for the virus. “Been asked by journalists how serious #WuhanPneumonia outbreak is,” she wrote. “My answer: take it seriously because of cross-border spread (planes means bugs travel far & fast), likely human-to-human transmission and previous outbreaks have taught overresponding is better than delaying action.”

The article spells out the realisation of danger:
“One of those present was Imperial’s Ferguson, who was already working on his own estimate — putting infectivity at 2.6 and possibly as high as 3.5 — which he sent to ministers and officials in a report on the day of the Cobra meeting on January 24. The Spanish flu had an estimated infectivity rate of between 2.0 and 3.0, so Ferguson’s finding was shocking.”

“The professor’s other bombshell in the same report was that there needed to be a 60% cut in the transmission rate — which meant stopping contact between people. In layman’s terms it meant a lockdown, a move that would paralyse an economy already facing a battering from Brexit. At the time such a suggestion was unthinkable in the government and belonged to the world of post-apocalypse movies.

The growing alarm among scientists appears not to have been heard or heeded by policy-makers. After the January 25 Cobra meeting, the chorus of reassurance was not just from Hancock and the prime minister’s spokesman: Whitty was confident too.”
The UK would be an epicentre of infection:

““Cobra met today to discuss the situation in Wuhan, China,” said Whitty. “We have global experts monitoring the situation around the clock and have a strong track record of managing new forms of infectious disease . . . there are no confirmed cases in the UK to date.”

However, by then there had been 1,000 cases worldwide and 41 deaths, mostly in Wuhan. A Lancet report that day presented a study of 41 coronavirus patients admitted to hospital in Wuhan which found that more than half had severe breathing problems, a third required intensive care and six had died.

And there was now little doubt that the UK would be hit by the virus. A study by Southampton University has shown that 190,000 people flew into the UK from Wuhan and other high-risk Chinese cities between January and March. The researchers estimated that up to 1,900 of these passengers would have been infected with the coronavirus — almost guaranteeing the UK would become a centre of the subsequent pandemic.”

Still the government was complacent:
“On January 31 — or Brexit day as it had become known — there was a rousing 11pm speech by the prime minister promising that the withdrawal from the European Union would be the dawn of a new era unleashing the British people who would “grow in confidence” month by month.

By this time, there was good reason for the government’s top scientific advisers to feel creeping unease about the virus. The WHO had declared the coronavirus a global emergency just the day before and scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had confirmed to Whitty in a private meeting of the Nervtag advisory committee on respiratory illness that the virus’s infectivity could be as bad as Ferguson’s worst estimate several days earlier.

The official scientific advisers were willing to concede in public that there might be several cases of the coronavirus in the UK. But they had faith that the country’s plans for a pandemic would prove robust.

This was probably a big mistake. An adviser to Downing Street — speaking off the record — says their confidence in “the plan” was misplaced. While a possible pandemic had been listed as the No 1 threat to the nation for many years, the source says that in reality it had long since stopped being treated as such.”

Austerity is to blame for failings:
“Several emergency planners and scientists said that the plans to protect the UK in a pandemic had once been a top priority and had been well-funded for a decade following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. But then austerity cuts struck. “We were the envy of the world,” the source said, “but pandemic planning became a casualty of the austerity years when there were more pressing needs.”

The last rehearsal for a pandemic was a 2016 exercise codenamed Cygnus which predicted the health service would collapse and highlighted a long list of shortcomings — including, presciently, a lack of PPE and intensive care ventilators.

But an equally lengthy list of recommendations to address the deficiencies was never implemented. The source said preparations for a no-deal Brexit “sucked all the blood out of pandemic planning” in the following years.

In the year leading up to the coronavirus outbreak key government committee meetings on pandemic planning were repeatedly “bumped” off the diary to make way for discussions about more pressing issues such as the beds crisis in the NHS. Training for NHS staff with protective equipment and respirators was also neglected, the source alleges.

Members of the government advisory group on pandemics are said to have felt powerless. “They would joke between themselves, ‘Haha let’s hope we don’t get a pandemic,’ because there wasn’t a single area of practice that was being nurtured in order for us to meet basic requirements for pandemic, never mind do it well,” said the source.

“If you were with senior NHS managers at all during the last two years, you were aware that their biggest fear, their sweatiest nightmare, was a pandemic because they weren’t prepared for it.”

It meant that the government had much catching up to do when it was becoming clear that this “nightmare” was becoming a distinct possibility in February. But the source says there was little urgency. “Almost every plan we had was not activated in February. Almost every government department has failed to properly implement their own pandemic plans,” the source said.”
Economic considerations dominated:

“One deviation from the plan, for example, was a failure to give an early warning to firms that there might be a lockdown so they could start contingency planning. “There was a duty to get them to start thinking about their cashflow and their business continuity arrangements,” the source said.”

Herd immunity is condemned:
“But Public Health England failed to take advantage of our early breakthroughs with tests and lost early opportunities to step up production to the levels that would later be needed.

This was in part because the government was planning for the virus using its blueprint for fighting the flu. Once a flu pandemic has found its way into the population and there is no vaccine, then the virus is allowed to take its course until “herd immunity” is acquired. Such a plan does not require mass testing.”

And again, herd immunity dominated the strategy:
“A senior politician told this newspaper: “I had conversations with Chris Whitty at the end of January and they were absolutely focused on herd immunity. The reason is that with flu, herd immunity is the right response if you haven’t got a vaccine.
“All of our planning was for pandemic flu. There has basically been a divide between scientists in Asia who saw this as a horrible, deadly disease on the lines of Sars, which requires immediate lockdown, and those in the West, particularly in the US and UK, who saw this as flu.”

The prime minister’s special adviser Dominic Cummings is said to have had initial enthusiasm for the herd immunity concept, which may have played a part in the government’s early approach to managing the virus. The Department of Health firmly denies that “herd immunity” was ever its aim and rejects suggestions that Whitty supported it. Cummings also denies backing the concept.”

Testing was a major failure:

“The failure to obtain large amounts of testing equipment was another big error of judgment, according to the Downing Street source. It would later be one of the big scandals of the coronavirus crisis that the considerable capacity of Britain’s private laboratories to mass-produce tests was not harnessed during those crucial weeks of February.”
PPE was a failure:

“The lack of action was confirmed by Doris-Ann Williams, chief executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, which represents 110 companies that make up most of the UK’s testing sector. Amazingly, she says her organisation did not receive a meaningful approach from the government asking for help until April 1 — the night before Hancock bowed to pressure and announced a belated and ambitious target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of this month.

There was also a failure to replenish supplies of gowns and masks for health and care workers in the early weeks of February — despite NHS England declaring the virus its first “level four critical incident” at the end of January.

It was a key part of the pandemic plan — the NHS’s Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza dated December 2017 — that the NHS would be able to draw on “just in case” stockpiles of PPE.”

There was a sense of drift:
“The NHS could have contacted UK-based suppliers. The British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) was ready to help supply PPE in February — and throughout March — but it was only on April 1 that its offer of help was accepted. Dr Simon Festing, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “Orders undoubtedly went overseas instead of to the NHS because of the missed opportunities in the procurement process.”

Downing Street admitted on February 24 — just five days before NHS chiefs warned a lack of PPE left the health service facing a “nightmare” — that the UK government had supplied 1,800 pairs of goggles and 43,000 disposable gloves, 194,000 sanitising wipes, 37,500 medical gowns and 2,500 face masks to China.

A senior department of health insider described the sense of drift witnessed during those crucial weeks in February: “We missed the boat on testing and PPE . . . I remember being called into some of the meetings about this in February and thinking, ‘Well it’s a good thing this isn’t the big one.’”What the Sunday Times article said Part Two.

Johnson finally returned from exile:
"By Friday, February 28, the virus had taken root in the UK with reported cases rising to 19 and the stock markets were plunging. It was finally time for Johnson to act. He summoned a TV reporter into Downing Street to say he was on top of the coronavirus crisis.

“The issue of coronavirus is something that is now the government’s top priority,” he said. “I have just had a meeting with the chief medical officer and secretary of state for health talking about the preparations that we need to make.”

It was finally announced that Johnson would be attending a meeting of Cobra — after a weekend at Chequers with Symonds where the couple would publicly release news of the engagement and their baby."

It had taken five weeks to respond:
"At the Cobra meeting the next day with Johnson in the chair a full “battle plan” was finally signed off to contain, delay and mitigate the spread of the virus. This was on March 2 — five weeks after the first Cobra meeting on the virus."
There was a desperate game of catch-up:

"As the number of infections grew daily, some things were impossible to retrieve. There was a worldwide shortage of PPE and the prime minister would have to personally ring manufacturers of ventilators and testing kits in a desperate effort to boost supplies."

Shame upon our MP's that have cost so many lives through their greed and bumbling mishandling of the crisis

This Government and the previous ones have failed the NHS, failed the people, failed the country and failed the world.

Their bumbling delays have for sure cost many lives and will cost more.

Just look at Boris Johnson, boasting of shaking hands will infected people in hospital, delay after delay, then suddenly contracting the virus, getting the best health care available, and making an almost miraculous recovery, then going in a car with at least two other people to his (the PM's) private luxurious residence at Chequers, whilst ordering others to stay away from hheir safe second homes, restrict their movements and keep their distance from their loved ones.

Shame on him, shame on all the MP's with their 10 grand allowance to "run" their business from home, 10% pay rise, 50 grand increase in pension, whilst letting the rest of us down in the worst way possible.

They have no idea and I really doubt mnay care.

Clapping and raising money for the NHS

i would really like to think that the money gets to where it is intended FAST and not sit in the bank which it has done with so many charities.

i think it is a shame that the government cannot give them this money especially when The Times reported that every one of the 650 MP's is to be given an extra £10,000 each to "help them work from home" 650 x10,000 = £6,500,000

Also, IF they raise 5 million pounds, there are about 2 million NHS staff, so that would be £2.50 each.

Coronavirus: #OneMillionClaps appeal aims to raise at least £5m for NHS workers

The money raised will provide NHS nurses, doctors, staff and volunteers with food, travel, accommodation and counselling.
Greg Heffer, political reporter
Greg Heffer

A new appeal being launched on Thursday aims to raise at least £5m to support NHS workers battling coronavirus.

Organised by NHS Charities Together, the #OneMillionClaps appeal aims to inspire at least one million Britons to donate £5 by texting "clap" to 70507 along with a message of support.

The money raised will be used to provide NHS nurses, doctors, staff and volunteers with food, travel, accommodation and counselling during the COVID-19 crisis.

The appeal will begin on Thursday evening when Britons are again expected to applaud NHS workers from their doorsteps for the third week in a row.

Comedian David Walliams has voiced a short film featuring NHS staff to promote the #OneMillionClaps appeal.
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It also features a re-recording of Queen's hit We Will Rock You with the new lyric: "NHS, we love you. We say, we say, thank you."

For the last two weeks, people all over the UK - including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and countless celebrities - have joined in the "clap for our carers" campaign on Thursday evenings, in order to thank NHS staff for efforts on the coronavirus frontline.