First misleading statement from the PM: use of raw data without the context of the rising number of tests.
Second misleading statement: ignoring the possibility of residual (T-cell) immunity.
Third misleading statement: hospitalisations have doubled in a fortnight, without stating that hospitalisations have plateaued in the last week.
'We must take action to *suppress* the disease.' That is an assertion without evidence. Sweden hasn't suppressed the disease and now has fewer cases than almost anywhere in Europe.
What is the evidence that closing at 10 pm will reduce transmission?
More masks. What empirical evidence is there to suggest that face coverings required in the community reduce transmission?
How will reducing weddings from 30 to 15 reduce transmission. Where is the EVIDENCE?
Now the supposed liberal states not only that criminalisation is necessary but that heavier penalisation is too. Again, where is the evidence that this would: (a) make a difference to transmission; or (b) be remotely proportionate?
'Local flair ups.' The North West has new regulations and yet is the only region to have fewer deaths per day than the five year average (ONS).
Significantly, the PM has stated that if the R goes above 1 he will impose further restrictions. In other words, considerations of virus transmission are the *determining* factor. That is to say, he cannot have concluded that these or other steps are proportionate...
...because ALL other considerations - all harms caused by these measures - will not be able to trump the requirement to get R below 1.
Not only are these to be for six months, this government has now moved towards a policy of suppression of a virus that has a death rate not much more than flu. This is unprecedented before 2020.
He now calls on us all to cover our faces and observe social distancing. There is no empirical evidence supporting requiring these measures in the community.
The nominal Leader of the 'Opposition' provides nothing of the sort.
He has the temerity to refer to the rule of law. When has Starmer ever criticised or even questioned wholesale removals of fundamental rights and freedoms? When has he questioned the imposition of regulations without Parliamentary scrutiny?
The use of the emergency procedure of the Public Health Act at all?
Starmer refuses (it must be deliberate as he must know about this) to challenge ANY of the utterly flawed data used in the exceptionally misleading presentation yesterday.
On false positives, on the trajectory of the case, on the evidence the lockdown made no difference to the infection peak.
He, as well as the Prime Minister, is a disgrace to the enormous responsibility of his office.
I will not listen to any of the rest of them. They are uninformed, uncritical, ignorant and fail to provide the scrutiny that is not only their job but their duty. It is difficult to think of a Parliament less worthy of its heritage.
This data undermines everything the PM, the @CMO_England and the Chief Scientific Adviser have presented in the last two days, reliant as they are on increased cases supposedly leading to increased hospitalisations and deaths.
https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1308349010181226497?s=20
https://twitter.com/vanessagray999/status/1308416941003071490?s=21
https://twitter.com/VanessaGray999/status/1308416941003071490
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