On Monday I was enlightened by Siouxie, ‘cos Siouxie does facts, and this week she informed us that “Videos like these are endangering lives”. What videos, you may ask? Videos recommending the use of power saws for haircuts, perhaps? Videos with instructions for making gunpowder in your bedroom? Well; no.
Many commentators have observed that the public health, social and economic havoc wreaked by the Xi Plague are a sneak preview of the kind of world we could expect should Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg have their way. But the COVID-19 world has something else in common with climate
Do we really need any more evidence that lockdowns are perhaps the most pernicious snake-oil sold to a panicked citizenry since the Millennium Bug? At least the Millennium Bug panic left behind some upgraded computer systems. The Chinese virus panic seems to bequeath us nothing but ruined economies and
Simon Thornley covidplanb.co.nz Why does New Zealand need a serosurvey? New Zealand urgently needs to test for antibodies to COVID-19. The standard test for COVID-19 at present is a genetic test that only detects whether or not the virus is currently in the body. Serology is
Better than a fictional murder mystery, the murder of researcher Bing Liu beats any Agatha Christie plot. Christie doesn’t reveal the most pertinent information about the motive for murder until the end of the book, which is both irritating and a deterrent to reading her books. In contrast to
As civil resistance (or, at the very least, social media grumbling) to COVID–19 lockdowns grows louder, the bootlicking types are scrambling to defend the Soviet-lite technocracy we’ve suddenly found ourselves living under. “Listen to the experts!” they bleat. “Trust the science!” “Science” is the great fetish of
We used to have a democracy, long ago, with institutions robust and whose advice, although not always reliable, was reasoned and open to scrutiny. We had excellent epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists carefully preparing reports displaying methods, workings and conclusions, citing references numerous. One such example was “Potential Health Impacts
Simon Thornley covidplanb.co.nz With much journalistic ink spilled over COVID-19, it is easy to forget that our policies of lockdown and social distancing are based on a belief about the lethality of the virus and its spread. This belief comes from interpreting evidence. Currently, two main ideas
Dave Pellowe davepellowe.com Jane Caro – novelist & social commentator – typed a piece yesterday titled “Our Leaders Agree With Science When Science Agrees With Them“. In it, she gives credit to the conservatives (among other national and state leaders) who have heeded the doomsday predictions of discredited pandemic models and
Along with other BFD writers, I have for the past week raised the question of whether New Zealand’s draconian lockdowns had actually achieved anything significant. The conclusion even then was: no. Jacinda Ardern has trashed and burned New Zealand’s economy for nothing. As more and more data becomes
Daphna Whitmore rdln.wordpress.com Since I wrote Corona fevers and the madness of models, criticising the lockdown in New Zealand, there have been many comments and some objections to the article. Some of these have been discussed in other forums but here I will try to respond to a
Alex Davis theemperorsrobes.blogspot.com On March 17th, eight days before New Zealand entered lockdown, Professor John Ioannidis, one of the world’s most cited medical researchers, published an article warning that the world was rushing into a series of panic-stricken responses to COVID-19 on the basis of
UK television and radio media are just as left-wing as they are in New Zealand. The Spectator highlights two interviews, each carried out very differently, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, of the Conservative party, got a roasting – as one would expect. The National
On March 4th this year, a buddy of mine returned from the UK to live in New Zealand. He had employment set up in Queenstown working in the aviation industry with tourists and locals alike. When he arrived, he had a bit of a cold and hadn’t been able
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