This is a disingenuous claim. Cases in England peaked a few days BEFORE the last stage of opening, and mobility data shows the biggest changes in people's behaviour came after Step 2 in April and Step 3 in May, since when average cases rose from under 2,000 to over 40,000 a day.
Visits to Retail & Recreation (covering everything from restaurants and non-essential shops to museums and theme parks) rose after Step 2 in April, as shops reopened and outdoor hospitality returned.
And again after Step 3 in May, when indoor entertainment reopened.
Usage of public transport follows a similar pattern - a rise at Step 2 in mid-April and another smaller, slower rise after Step 3 in mid-May.
As with recreation, there's little or no immediate change visible in people's behaviour in the first few days after Step 4 on July 19th.
And visits to workplaces actually FELL over the last month, as case numbers surged and (in the most recent week we have data for) over a million people were told to self-isolate by Test & Trace or the NHS Covid App.
Meanwhile about one in six secondary school children and one in eight primary school children have been at home due to covid outbreaks as the school year limps to an end.
This in turn seems to have caused a big drop in regular lateral flow testing.
So the recent drop in cases is obviously good news, but the idea that it has anything to do with lifting restrictions .. 4 days later is clearly nonsense.
And the last stage of reopening in May let Delta run wild, resulting in 1,000,000 more cases and 1,000 more deaths, so far.
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Last week Andrew Bridgen claimed Ukraine might be working on a dirty bomb to use in a "false flag" attack in Europe. Unsurprisingly his comments have now been amplified by the Russian military and state media, and echoed back by Russian assets and useful idiots here in the UK. 🧵
Andrew Bridgen had an "incredibly productive" meeting with the Russian ambassador in London earlier this year.
Since then he's claimed Rishi Sunak called the election to avoid being a wartime PM, and that Ukraine's planning a "false flag" nuclear attack in Europe "like 9/11". 😳
Meanwhile Russian assets and useful idiots here in the UK have been amplifying these claims of false flag attacks and dirty bombs.
John and Irina Mappin at least are known to have visited the Russian embassy recently, and all frequently share Russian propaganda on social media.
Reform's manifesto (or "contract") panders to conspiracy theorists, falsely linking covid vaccines to excess deaths and pledging to "reject" the WEF, WHO and digital currencies.
Unsurprising, given many of their supporters and candidates have rather odd views on these topics. 🧵
Nigel Farage and his Reform Party recently got an endorsement from Laurence Fox of the similarly named Reclaim Party.
Farage even recorded a video with Fox, who has repeatedly compared the Pride flag to the Swastika and promoted Islamophobia.
With friends like these...
Laurence Fox's fiancée also took selfies with Farage while out supporting him in Clacton.
She's recently claimed (amongst many other things) that the pandemic didn't happen and that "they" manipulate the weather to rob us of vital Vitamin D. Right before a heat wave started. 🤦♂️
Reform's candidate in Edinburgh South West, Ian Harper, was a vocal backer of ivermectin, and the grifters and frauds who promoted it as a cure for covid. In his bio for Reform, he talks about a "globalist agenda" seeking to "collapse society".
Not the worst thing he's said. 🧵
Ian Harper's first Twitter account was suspended, and he's now locked his second (presumably to stop voters seeing it). Luckily the internet (and its archives) remembers.
Most of his pandemic posts seem to consist of vastly exaggerated claims about the wonders of ivermectin. 🙄
Unsurprisingly Reform's Ian Harper was an enthusiastic supporter of Tess Lawrie, founder of a British group called BIRD which promoted the dewormer ivermectin as a miracle "cure" for covid, much of it based on flawed or outright fraudulent studies.
Reform's candidate in Twickenham is a member of anti-vax misinformation group HART. In leaked chat logs, Alex Starling called vaccinating children "a perverted abomination", and talked about sneaking HART content and campaigns into articles he wrote for UK news site Reaction. 🧵
If you've not come across them before, HART identify as "a group of highly qualified doctors, scientists and other experts" who just "question the narrative". But many of their members believe covid vaccines were designed to depopulate the Earth! 😳
Alex Starling fit right in at HART, calling wearing masks at school "depraved cruelty" and vaccinating children against covid "a perverted abomination". He also repeatedly suggested covid vaccines work in the same way lions "work" on a herd of zebras, "by taking out the weakest".
John Mappin appeared on Russian TV at the weekend, claiming the British public doesn't support Ukraine. Because he spoke to a few friends, and they all love Russia too. 🤷♂️
Mappin often retweets Putin's propaganda, and last year claimed he could instantly end the Ukraine war. 🤔
Russian asset / useful idiot John Mappin has also been out campaigning for Nigel Farage in Clacton-on-Sea. Haven't they suffered enough already?
Mappin previously backed Andrew Bridgen, after the MP compared covid vaccines to the Holocaust. Just the man you want on your side. 🤦♂️
John Mappin rather optimistically claimed afterwards that Nigel Farage is going to be Prime Minister, hailing him for "one of the most brilliant and sanest speeches in this island's history". 🤪
But then he's already fallen for Scientology, QAnon, and covid conspiracy theories.
The BMJ has had to issue a statement after everyone from The Telegraph and former Brexit Minister David Davis to anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists claimed that covid vaccines may be responsible for excess deaths, based on a dubious study published in @BMJPublicHealth. 🧵
The Telegraph's @sarahknapton has a history of this. Two years ago she tried to blame excess deaths (including some covid deaths!) on lockdowns, with a clickbait headline that the article (behind a paywall) failed to support. This is more of the same.
As for the BMJ article that inspired all of this, it simply takes excess death data from 47 "western" countries (ranging from the US and UK to Australia and New Zealand to Bulgaria and Moldova), adds them all up, then engages in a lot of vague arm waving.