DAY BEFORE the Euro 2020 final against Italy I wrote about the wrong message the match’s high attendance rate was sending, seeing that citizens were denied access to essential services while Tories packed up (almost) an entire large stadium. The contradiction was just astounding and it’ll vertebrate for years to come. It was a policy choice. A misguided one. Compared to stadium capacity/attendance in Italy (Ukraine match) with distancing and masks.

At this point we must therefore assume that our government is reckless, incompetent, nihilist, and maybe even intentionally malicious. You cannot trust anything it says about COVID-19; and what I mean by that isn’t that it hypes it all up but the exact opposite. It’s downplaying an ongoing problem. A few hours ago, or at around 5PM, today’s (or Sunday’s) figures were released, less than a day after we had lost the Euro 2020 final (now we lose the battle to contain this virus).

Almost 35k new cases were confirmed across the UK (very high, especially for a Sunday!) and deaths/hospitalisations rose about 60% in one week. This past week alone! But our government is acting all ‘cool’ about it. As if given mass vaccination we’ll all be fine (this is still partly experimental; with no strong evidence to back most of it, not at this scale).

We seem to be governed by monarchs. Kim Yong Un would rather say nothing about North Korea’s COVID-19 situation/handling (one form of denial), whereas our foolish Pry Minister (Henry VIII) pretends to be a COVID-19 expert because his foolishness caused him to contract it. Now he’s willing to see lots of otherwise-preventable deaths and the spread of this plague doesn’t bother him when ignorance helps distract the ‘peasantry’ with football.

As I said last month, ignore our government’s advice. Stay home (we had done this a month earlier), avoid outside interactions if possible, wear masks when shopping for food, and assume this thing will last for at least another year. That’s not what everybody wants to hear, but realistic expectations don’t hurt.

It’s kind of sad when one’s government becomes the science denier and the general population needs to educate a business-centric (greedy) regime that doesn’t think ahead.

Filling up streets and even a densely-populated stadium at this time is a really awful idea

S I noted the other day, amid COVID-19 surge we’re meant to think that winning Euro 2020 is more important than winning against the virus. I went to town (Manchester) thrice this past week, only to see few people wearing masks and many who don’t respect people’s space with appropriate distancing. Here in Manchester, especially the centre of town, the number of cases is very high. We’re talking about more than one in a hundred. Not even counting recoveries, people who are not symptomatic etc.

Later today there’s a final in Wembley (again Wembley, not the capital of English football), this time the big chance (first in 55 years) to play the Euro final and maybe even win the whole tournament.

Our government is well aware of the coming COVID-19 crisis and likely imminent lock-downs/circuit-breakers, but to intoxicate the public with nationalism and a sentiment of national pride things are being opened up prematurely and the public is told that being reckless is OK. No need for masks, distancing etc. As if some dodgy firm administrating some (still experimental) doses will magically solve everything.

RMS, who is as pro-vaccination as I am, has just said: “Indonesia has been using Chinese vaccine, and it’s better than nothing, but a substantial number of medical personnel have caught Covid-19 anyway and cannot work.”

Our government keeps promoting a false sense of security; people are led to think or believe that vaccination alone — no matter whose — makes one invulnerable. This is clearly not the case. While vaccination certainly helps it does not mean that we can act as if COVID-19 is a thing of the past. Winning in football is nice and all, but packing up a stadium with fans sends the wrong message about public safety.

AST week I wrote about Wembley being half full in spite of a raging pandemic. Tomorrow we can expect Wembley to be in 2/3 capacity (about 60,000), but Manchester has large enough stadiums (almost as large as Wembley) with more decorated clubs (in the trophies sense) than any of the London clubs. Why is it that in 2021 every match still ‘defaults’ to London? Are Mancunians lesser people? Every now and then there’s an international match here, but clearly not often enough. In any case, those stadiums ought not be filled for the time being; with 37 new deaths today (linked to COVID-19) we’d be too arrogant to pretend it’s “all behind”…

Put the teams and the filming crew inside; that ought to be enough.

Manchester and the northwest badly hit

ust over 3 weeks ago we went into lock-down again (personal decision), seeing the non-linear growth in the number of COVID-19 cases, not to mention how the government had (re)opened lots of non-essential things — all this while denying access to very critical services. They forced us to take a phone of a friend to bypass their oppressive restrictions [1, 2].

Apparently you can meet ‘mates’ down the pub but cannot see a public official to get important work done! Worse yet, those public officials don’t even respond to you. They don’t speak to you and there’s nobody to talk to. Not even in E-mail or over the phone.

While vaccination does lower death rates, it comes at a hidden cost. And morever we cannot entirely rely on it as if it makes people invulnerable and thus we can just go back to “normal”.

If you value your safety and well-being, and if it’s possible for you to work from home, consider doing that for months to come. Don’t trust what our ‘Orange One’ says. We have a psychopathic and insane Pry Minister who keeps spreading false optimism about coronavirus (this misplaced optimism is bound to make things even worse!). Patients admitted with coronavirus are up 40% this past week alone, yet the lying psychopath pretends it’s all going to be “business as usual” next month. Deja vu (last summer).

We shall stay home. Our leaders are nihilistic (what sane person says “bodies [can] pile up high”?), far worse than incompetent and more sinister than merely misinformed.

am not against vaccination, I am definitely a strong proponent of vaccines, and am vaccinated almost since birth, myself (all the typical vaccines). But I also recognise the importance of making informed decisions where choices do exist and a word of caution is warranted. Self-censorship rarely makes society safer and we can develop herd immunity to misinformation, we should not be resistant to humble stories of real people.

Today I caught up with an old friend. He’s actually not old at all. We met in person again. He is a kind and gentle cop over here and he is about my age, i.e. late thirties.

Two months ago he got vaccinated along with colleagues at the Sport City near Etihad/City Stadium. He and 13 colleagues were given, under some pressure, the AstraZeneca jab (time was almosy running out for these). Up until then he visited homes — well, as part of his work as a policeman — and had no real issues. He walked around with a sanitiser and masks. He felt OK. He felt reasonably safe.

Then the jab came and ‘knocked him out’. Violently ill for a week. 4 days just in bed. A week unable to function. As it turns out, all his colleagues got ill too, also with the very same symptoms. Only one did not get ill, so that’s 1 out of 14. Their ages range from 22 to 50, i.e. not fatal or lethal age range for many with the potential of contracting (and possible then passing) COVID. 8 out of 14 were under 30.

But wait, it gets worse. My friend now refuses to take followup jabs and regrets taking the first one. He says he has since then contracted the flu easily, which he didn’t before. Flu wasn’t an issue before that. And now he has chronic respiratory problems, even 2 months down the line. He never had that before. It’s not going away. He wakes up at night unable to breathe. He is my age and just one jab of AstraZeneca did this to him. That was around the time concerns about blood clots was already becoming a thing, then building up in the press. Then orders were canceled, then the notorious renaming campaigns.

AstraZeneca is in trouble. Don’t let it add trouble to your life too. Just because the products change name won’t mean increased safety but covert introduction to unsuspecting recipients.

He and his colleagues, all except one, were so ill they could not do the police service or open the station. They went back home. Service at risk. Essential service.

This is a real story from a person I deem trustworthy and truthful. I’d also add that this is about one particular vaccine. Others might be OK. Many exist already and long-term tests have been limited, with media keeping tight-lipped at times. AstraZeneca still hasn’t explained what happened in South Africa last year. AstraZeneca isn’t being honest, and hardly even transparent with its shareholders/stakeholders.

I am just publishing this information not as opponent of vaccination but as a person who simply cannot trust AstraZeneca. It’s about AstraZeneca, not vaccination in general.

Well done, “super-spreader”