Other Covid measures around the world

[Matthew]

Some places in the world have extreme Covid measures. The less extreme measures might foreshadow more extreme ones. In Belfast some authorities are acting as if people are dropping dead in the streets. The Belfast Christmas market entry is conditional on a health passport, lateral flow negative test or PCR negative test.

There is an ominous sentence in the Belfast Telegraph: "...the operating environment is subject to change” in preparation for legislative change due on November 29

From the Belfast Telegraph

"... But things have changed since the last time they were here. Its organisers, Market Place Europe, announced that it will be mandatory at all times for those seeking entrance to the market from Saturday to provide a Covid passport, proof of vaccination, proof of a negative Covid test or lateral flow test taken in the previous 48 hours, or evidence of a positive PCR test taken in the previous 30 to 180 days.

Customers will also be encouraged to wear masks and make payments using cards instead of cash where possible. Footfall will be closely monitored and when nearing capacity, a queuing system will be put in place and there will be a number of hand sanitising stations throughout the premises.

They also said that “the operating environment is subject to change” in preparation for legislative change due on November 29, adding that “with this in mind we will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated”. ..."

David Vance drew my attention to this, here's his take on it:

NO Christmas Market without a COVID PASS
David Vance Podcast Published November 21, 2021

https://rumble.com/vpk9a7-the-christ...t-stuffed.html

[Johan (Keyholder)]

Most major cities in Belgium are starting to cancel Christmas markets too.

[Brigantia]

Also noted is the "use cards instead of cash" narrative, continuing the planting of the belief in everyone's minds that cash has more germs than a sewer. Then I can see that they will have the excuse to withdraw cash from circulation as "no one uses cash anymore".

That's why I use cash as often as I can.

[Matthew]

"The screw is being turned"

More NHS staff needing vaccinations


(source Gareth Icke twitter)

[Matthew]

Opinion on Ireland

KB
@halftwottered
Ireland should be the Canary for the rest of the world.

95% of the adult population are at least double jabbed but restrictions are intensifying.

The Irish Leader has incredibly appealed directly to children as young as 5 to get mRNA'd.

Something has gone horribly wrong.
2:03 am · 5 Dec 2021·Twitter Web App

[Matthew]

Michael P Senger

Posted by @MichaelPSenger, twitter
Italy announces “lockdown for the unvaccinated” as the shadow of tyranny spreads from Germany and Austria to Italy.

(source twitter)
(linked article daily mail: link)

[I am B]

I find this to be a great idea for a thread to keep track of the "measures" developing and have it organised. We have a nice saying in spain, maybe at some other places too:
"Cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas quemar pon las tuyas a remojar" ("When you see your neighbor's beard getting burned get yours wet.")

Imo, as already comented on previous threads, Austria is the precedent for the whole EU. Here in Spain Fear is being massively spread while not a single case is seen. Pushing 3rd dose now with some possible christmas lockdowns, and maybe, if "they" are comfy enough, by the half/end of next year follow the trend with mandatory jab.

Lucky thing so far people here are remembering their basic rights when it comes to work, etc. so idk if they'll be able to push it all the way. Something bigger has to "happen" for people to buy on the new lockdowns and jab.

[Tintin]

In the wake of the somewhat suspiciously timed No 10 Christmas party 2020 revelations here in the UK today Laura Dodsworth was contacted by an insider revealing what many of us suspected may have been a reason for the mask mandate madness.

Here it is and followed by a relevant tweet around the party last Christmas:

“Masks were to soften you up for Plan B”
A government whistleblower lets the mask slip

Source: Substack

‘Masks were a softening up exercise for Plan B,’ according to a government whistleblower. He told me that while there is little appetite in the Cabinet for a full lockdown, Covid Passes are ‘oven-baked’ and ready to go.

In my opinion, the UK government’s Winter Plan was always about Plan B. It displayed a classic ‘foot-in-the-door’ strategy - the raison d’être of Plan A was to prepare you for Plan B. Now winter is upon us, and the nudges fall in a flurry of torpefying snowflakes. Worst case scenarios, big numbers, salutary stories in the media, threats and cajolements are directed at us daily. Plan B is in motion as calls for working from home are heard from the usual suspects and we hear the Cabinet is divided on Covid Passes.

This seasoned government insider plays a key role on a Covid task force and has decided to speak out now because he is disturbed by the unethical reasons for mandating masks. Firstly, ‘It’s a highly political move to reset the Johnson administration’s orientation after bad polling over sleaze and corruption. If Omicron turns out to be super-bad and the public ask what the government did about it, the answer is we implemented masks. The one-way systems, plexiglass screens and masks are to give you an illusion of the government doing something. It’s just theatre. There is no evidence base or proportionality in favour of masks.’

Boris Johnson is a fan of deadcatting, a technique to deflect attention from one issue to another, akin to throwing a dead cat on a table during a heated debate to change the topic. Masks are a dead cat. In this case rather than throw them on the table, the government have slung them on our faces.

Face masks are increasingly discredited, but certain journalists fell hungrily upon a recent new study which concluded that face masks reduce transmission by 53%. The Guardian, The Times, Metro and New Scientist positively feasted. However, that fragrant soupçon of a percentage was based upon weak evidence, there were confounding factors and caution was required when interpreting the study, as Fullfact explained.

‘The public are annoyingly on board about masks’, said this task force advisor. ‘Journalists have not demanded evidence that they work. But the message from the government and the media is hegemonic - everyone says they do work.’

As I set out in my book A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic masks are a nudge, even described as a ‘signal’ by David Halpern, the director of the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team. Similarly, Professor Neil Ferguson said that masks remind us ‘we’re not completely out of the woods yet’. They serve as a visible public reminder of the pandemic, turning us back into walking billboards pronouncing danger. My source concurred: ‘Masks are a behavioural psychology policy. We need to stop pretending that it’s about public health. Nudge is a big thing in government.’

Despite ‘a pretty much unlimited budget to run trials’ they didn’t run one for masks ‘because they knew that they don’t work’. In effect, ‘the trial was Scotland versus England. And we found they don’t work.’

For this government insider the implications are now too serious to remain silent because ‘we are lying when we say masks work. They are a signal, a psyop. And we’ve criminalised not wearing them. Masks also transfer the blame onto individuals for the epidemic spreading. We have people counting the unmasked on public transport, policing each other. It is deeply unethical that we have set people against each other in this way. It allows the creation of an “out group” to blame.’ He points out that it is the government we should be blame for not increasing healthcare capacity.

The timing of our conversation is interesting. He speaks to me just before the news about Downing Street Christmas parties breaks. People are rightly angry about hypocrisy and the pain of their own cancelled plans last year. The nation suffered last minute restrictions while Downing Street enjoyed revelry. More than one million pounds in fines have been served to nearly 2,000 Covid-19 rule breakers at Westminster magistrates court, including throwing and attending parties, while Boris Johnson evades punishment.

But the real point is not the hypocrisy, or that we suffered while they did not. Rather it is that those who organised and attended the party had a different risk calculus. They did not feel imperilled by parties and gatherings. They knew they were safe, just as they know that masks don’t work. What we are expected to believe is another matter.

As these distasteful double standards are unmasked, Ministers are considering whether to impose Plan B and roll out Covid Passes. When the Winter Plan was published, we were told that the trigger to move from Plan A to Plan B was if the NHS comes under ‘unsustainable pressure’. This was left deliberately vague. If you were watching cases and hospitalisations with an anxious eye, I’m afraid you were missing the more important signs: stories about doctors’ anger at the ‘selfish’ un-jabbed, daily polling via Twitter, TV shows and Yougov about the national appetite for Covid Passes and mandates, and the reintroduction of masks.

There is an army of behavioural scientists, communications specialists and Covid task forces focussed on Covid. The government insider told me there are hundreds of people in this Covid apparatus, even though we are no longer in an emergency. Robert Higgs talks about the ‘ratchet effect’ in his book Crisis and Leviathan whereby the state expands in response to a crisis and then doesn't recede afterwards to its former level. The aura of emergency will not fade and we risk ever more stringent and unpalatable restrictions unless this apparatus is dismantled. Furthermore, public reputations have been staked on enforcing restrictions, including journalists, scientists and politicians.

The government insider is brutal about the reality of our situation: ‘England is teetering on the edge of a depressing, bureacratic, safety-obsessed society. We’re not at the level of Germany or Austria yet, but we’re on a precipice nonetheless.’ On his primary reason for calling me, he said he is ‘ashamed how much people believe in masks despite the lack of evidence’.

Our leader’s masks are slipping, exposing hypocrisy, psychological manipulation and barefaced lies. Frankly, I am ashamed of them.

----------------------------

talkRADIO with Julia Hartley-Brewer, December 08

[Matthew]

Sad times for German children

GB News
@GBNEWS
'The ritual humiliation of children [in Germany] who are asked to go to the front of the class and state their vaccination status daily, those who are vaccinated are applauded.'

Journalist Alex Story reports on coronavirus restrictions in EU countries.

[Matthew]

Extreme Covid measures in New Zealand as usual, easy to miss sometimes. Here Jacinda Ardern spells out that there will be overtly government controlled press like the CCP

Election Wizard
@ElectionWiz
WATCH: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern says her country has created a special account to fund journalists who will produce government-approved stories on Covid-19.

[Matthew]

Coercion is OK(???). The Nuremberg code is not law, it's a warning signal

Jim Slater
@69mib_com
Conservative Baroness Brady has said: "My view is that we can’t force people to have jabs, but we can force vaccine refuseniks to live a far more difficult, inconvenient & restricted life, one that will also be more expensive because of mandatory testing."

[DeeMetrios]

Posted by Matthew (here)
Coercion is OK(???). The Nuremberg code is not law, it's a warning signal

Jim Slater
@69mib_com
Conservative Baroness Brady has said: "My view is that we can’t force people to have jabs, but we can force vaccine refuseniks to live a far more difficult, inconvenient & restricted life, one that will also be more expensive because of mandatory testing."

Bitch !! .... I bet she has not received any jabs

[Icare]

From October, but still interesting:

How the Amish community deals with the virus:

In short, they all got it and now believe to be immune, no more deaths than usual.

https://www.fulcrum7.com/news/2021/1...-and-the-amish

[Matthew]

Scotland test the water for more extreme measures

James Melville
@JamesMelville
Meanwhile, in Scotland Flag of Scotland
The absolute state of this. <image>

[Matthew]

France, Macron is going to piss off the unvaccinated to the bitter end. His actual words

Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
NEW - Emmanuel Macron denounced France's 5 million unvaccinated as "non-citizens" and vows: "I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. That's the strategy." (Le Parisien)

[Matthew]

Italy in parity with world tyranny

Antonello Guerrera
@antoguerrera
BREAKING. Italy's government approves by decree *compulsory* #Covid vaccinations for residents older than 50.
Vaccine passports will be necessary also to enter shops, banks, and hairdressers/barbers

[Bill Ryan]

Here's an interesting, unexpected article — about covid measures in Antarctica.

• https://brownstone.org/articles/life...vid-antarctica

Life in Zero-Covid Antarctica

In October of 2021, I deployed to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for the second time. Each austral summer, McMurdo Station becomes home to about 1,000 eclectic and wonderful people who are the workforce behind the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) United States Antarctic Program (USAP), which facilitates research with a logistical prowess on par with that of the US military.

Despite McMurdo’s remoteness and lack of the usual American amenities, there is normally a rich community life on this strange island. The community organizes yoga classes, cafes, art galleries, music festivals, craft fairs, holiday parties, and more. I was enamored by this social-scape during my first visit in 2017, but in 2021 community life at McMurdo has been unrecognizable due to the NSF’s Covid policies for the Antarctic.

While USAP research stations are some of the only populations in the world with zero Covid, residents of these stations live under stricter Covid precautions than many Western cities during peak waves of infection.

In the time between my two Antarctic deployments, I received a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. There, I learned the importance of evidence-based public health interventions, of carefully analyzing health risks, of targeting interventions based on those risks, and of always considering unintended negative consequences.

So, throughout the pandemic, I have been baffled to see many public health professionals and scientific institutions advocate for broad, extreme, and unprecedented measures without supporting evidence. The NSF’s scientifically inconsistent Covid policies for Antarctica are the most prominent examples of this fallacy I have now experienced.

The NSF formulated these polices early in the pandemic. Given the remote and resource-limited nature of Antarctica, the NSF recognized that Covid outbreaks in the intimate station populations would spread quickly and might easily overwhelm clinical capacities. And with aerial medical evacuation dangerously unreliable, the NSF smartly formulated policies to prevent Covid from reaching Antarctica and to mitigate its impact in case it did.

The policies begin with medical screening for health risks, which include known Covid risk factors. Deployers to McMurdo travel as cohorts that isolate in hotel rooms for three days, confirm a negative PCR test result, then fly on a private, direct flight to Christchurch, New Zealand.

When the first cohorts of the summer season arrived in September, there had been zero Covid cases on the entire South Island for almost a year. PCR tests and screenings for symptoms took place on arrival, days three, seven, and 12 during 14 days of strict isolation in Christchurch’s proven and effective “managed isolation and quarantine” (MIQ) facilities. US and Royal New Zealand Air Force aircrews subjected to the same isolation procedures as USAP cohorts then flew them to “the ice”. While at great expense, these sound, evidence-based procedures have to-date successfully kept Covid out of all USAP stations.

It is after arriving to Antarctica where these policies go awry. Following passenger plane arrivals of Covid-free cohorts, the entire receiving station population must wear masks, social distance, and adhere to inconsistently and arbitrarily reduced capacities in public and recreational spaces for one week.

In October a new passenger plane arrived about every five days, protracting restrictions to the entire month. We were relegated to constant face coverings where we lived and worked and a loss of any social or recreational activities that usually preside at McMurdo Station – all in the absence of Covid. Even the most ardent mask supporters had become “anti-maskers”.

Beyond low morale, the policies contribute to immense operational and safety setbacks. The station population this season is small – around 500 – and has been slowly dwindling in response to the strict policies and a vaccine mandate that took effect one week after my cohort (with an 85% vaccination rate) arrived. Multiple written assurances that those who were non-vaccinated would not be medically disqualified, were reversed. Several workers in critical departments refused the vaccine and were sent home, many others quit due to the other extreme policies. Nearly all departments are now short-staffed.

The station power plant is only about half-staffed. A power supply failure in the Antarctic environment means water sources could freeze and food would not be safely stored. The fire department was so short staffed they could not fully support the airfield where frequent flights may have to land in inclement weather on an ice runway.

This hazard legally barred the New York Air National Guard – who flies special ski-equipped LC-130s on essential cargo flights – from arriving on schedule, greatly impeding logistics and supply chains. They since arrived with a waiver but could not fly regular intracontinental missions for three more weeks until more firefighters from New Zealand arrived.

These avoidable, policy-derived setbacks contributed to three of six research projects in West Antarctica canceling before beginning, reducing total supportable research projects from the seasonal average of 60 down to 11, and caused the entire month of normal life in December to be robbed by mask-wearing and canceled holiday events.

These policies are dictated by the NSF’s mysterious Covid Control Board. As affected people have attempted to clarify questions or contact this Control Board, no one, at multiple management levels, has been forthright with the identity or public health qualifications of their members. USAP employees with unrelated administrative jobs have had time and energy absconded to develop Covid solutions for a population where Covid does not exist. Their policy is protecting no one from nothing.

When prodded about the senseless and inconsistent policies, USAP managers feebly attempt to defend them without providing any sort of evidence for their foundation. There are no references to any Covid research or CDC guidelines. Questions routed to the NSF leadership addressing these issues have gone unanswered. The real humans subject to these excessive policies have loud voices that are simply being ignored.

There is no hope for life at McMurdo void of Covid precautions despite the strict isolation process en route, despite the now 100% vaccinated population, and despite screenings for comorbidities. A recent Covid outbreak at a Belgian research base with similar demographics and no reported health impacts beyond mild symptoms demonstrates the minimal risk of Covid itself while the negative impacts of the policies remain clearly evident.

Yet, workers are threatened with termination if they defy the illogical rules. The things that draw people to McMurdo station have been needlessly lost. Antarctic research – which provides some of our greatest insight for understanding the difficult problem of climate change – has been stymied, community members’ lives have lost value, and all these hindrances are driven not by scientific evidence, but by politics and optics.

USAP workers are being uniquely challenged in one of the most uniquely extreme, uniquely isolated, and uniquely Covid free places on earth. If an enterprise mostly created and funded by the NSF cannot utilize scientific reasoning and accept nomalcy where there is no Covid, how can we trust our scientific institutions to seek to in the rest of the world, where Covid is here to stay?

Author:
Willy Forsyth MPH EMT-P, has worked as a Public Health Professional with Humanitarian agencies across Africa and Asia. He is also an Alaska Air National Guard Pararescueman with experience in risk mitigation of complex operations across global settings. He most recently worked as a Field Safety Coordinator and Search and Rescue Lead with the United States Antarctic Program at McMurdo Station.

[happyuk]

Posted by DeeMetrios (here)

Posted by Matthew (here)
Coercion is OK(???). The Nuremberg code is not law, it's a warning signal

Jim Slater
@69mib_com
Conservative Baroness Brady has said: "My view is that we can’t force people to have jabs, but we can force vaccine refuseniks to live a far more difficult, inconvenient & restricted life, one that will also be more expensive because of mandatory testing."

Bitch !! .... I bet she has not received any jabs

They're like playground bullies aren't they. Pathetic.
I would think what she said is not only insulting and morally suspect but possibly illegal? UK Blackmail law states

when one makes unwarranted demands with menaces in order to attain personal gain or project loss on another. It does not matter whether the demands are possible or in what fashion the demands are made. These could be express, implied, written, spoken or through conduct.

Best ignore these people and don't give them the energy they crave, their bark is worse than their bite. If only these people had the balls to lose the bodyguards and the police and the security and all the other munchkins they surround themselves with and talk to Joe Public face to face.

Karen Brady appears in the UK version of the TV show The Apprentice as a supposed self-made businesswoman.
Brady lied on her CV in order to get a graduate traineeship at Saatchi & Saatchi.

On a deeper level this is nothing to do with health & safety. By not submitting to the master's will and vaccinating the moment they snap their fingers, we've broken an unwritten code. We've crossed the boundary between 'trusted sheep' to 'bad news' and are now entering 'asshole' territory. It's only recently I've begun to suss out what's really annoying them: by not vaccinating in sufficient numbers we're spoiling their plans.

Make no mistake, Karen Brady and her ilk are motivated by money not benevolence as this Piers Morgan documentary on Monte Carlo shows (between 07:45 to 9:35).

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CxK2AZXPqf8

[Kryztian]

Bumping this post and article. The Amish community solved their COVID problem long ago and the world never noticed.

If government health leaders truly cared about health, they would have looked into this and reported back on this.

Posted by Icare (here)
From October, but still interesting:

How the Amish community deals with the virus:

In short, they all got it and now believe to be immune, no more deaths than usual.

https://www.fulcrum7.com/news/2021/1...-and-the-amish

[Matthew]

Amish communities lack of restrictions beautifully contrasts the other countries creeping restrictions!

I'm going off topic here ..so I'll make the font smallThis is on topic so the font is normal sized; the Amish community brought this to mind. This report might be around on the forum in its proper place, I'll check in a second.

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2022/...-in-the-world/
Antarctica outbreak: Fully vaccinated staff catch Covid in one of the most remote places in the world

Antarctica outbreak: Fully vaccinated staff catch Covid in one of the most remote places in the world.
Staff at Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth Polar Station had to follow STRICT safety measures to enter the base.

DESPITE having to follow strict safety measures; being fully vaccinated, passing multiple PCR tests and quarantining before entering its Polar Station, two-thirds of the 25 staff based at Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth in Antarctica – one of the most remote places in the world – have caught Covid after an almost impossible outbreak.

Although living miles from civilisation, a large percentage of the staff have been infected by the virus that spread from a single positive case, which was detected on December 14, among a group of people who had arrived at the base seven days earlier.

Despite this person being immediately placed into isolation, tests revealed that two others had also contracted the virus – leading to the eventual outbreak.

All three people were eventually evacuated on December 23, but not before the virus had spread further. Now, the two emergency doctors at the station are not allowing any new arrivals at the station until the virus dissipates.

Prior to arriving at the base, all 25 polar researchers at the zero-emissions base in remote Antarctica underwent a PCR test in Belgium two hours before flying to South Africa, then once there, they were quarantined for 10 days and took another PCR test.


A further test was needed when leaving Cape Town for Antarctica and a final one five days after that.

All 25 of the staff are fully vaccinated and one had a booster shot.

The research will now be shortened, according to Belgium’s Polar Secretariat, and staff will stay there until at least January 12, when new expeditions are set to arrive.

EDIT UPDATE:
Ok I checked and it's three post or so above me