https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1fvy6h1/boris_johnson_it_saved_lives_but_now_im_not_sure/
BORIS JOHNSON: It saved lives, but now I'm not sure lockdown works
My last meeting with the Queen and her inspirational words of wisdom...
READ HERE
How a Scottish holiday with Carrie nearly ended in disaster: I was being
swept out to sea in a blow-up kayak. Time for a life or death
decision... READ HERE
By Boris Johnson For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 11:59 EDT, 28 September 2024 | Updated: 03:21 EDT, 29
September 2024
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As therapies go, lockdown was devastating. In our preliminary
discussions about these types of intervention – telling people not to go
near each other – we had all assumed that we would have a problem
persuading them to comply.
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, scientist Patrick Vallance and I had
thought that if some Tory PM appeared on TV and told the British people
not to go to the pub, and then not even to venture out of doors, their
natural cussedness and libertarianism would encourage them to stick two
fingers up to government.
Well, as it turned out, lockdown was an easy sell, and indeed my
stay-at-home message was heeded so punctiliously by the workforce that
the UK sustained the biggest fall in output since the Great Frost of
1709. The trains were empty. Town centres were silent. The streets were
deserted save for the cats – which we first believed, probably wrongly,
not to be vectors of the disease.
Boris announces the first Covid lockdown to the nation from No10 Downing
Street in 2020
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Boris announces the first Covid lockdown to the nation from No10 Downing
Street in 2020
In that terrible April in 2020, new car sales fell by 97 per cent – not
surprisingly, since I had shut the showrooms. National compliance was so
total that we even desisted from some types of economic activity that
were theoretically intended to continue – such as construction – and
which did in fact continue in countries such as France and Germany.
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With the traffic off the streets and the trains deserted, this could
use Covid-secure protocols to build those bypasses, upgrade that track,
send the fibre-optic cable sprouting through the national wainscot.
We missed that chance, Crossrail was delayed, HS2 ground to a halt, and
as the cost of it all exploded I felt as if the vast crenellated
sandcastle of my plans was being washed away by the tide of the virus.
Around April 20, it started to look as though we had been through the
crest of the wave. We had gone up more than 1,000 deaths per day, but
now the totals were falling – both for deaths and hospital admissions.
A police officer asks members of the public to leave Brighton beach in
April 2020 as strict rules were in place
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A police officer asks members of the public to leave Brighton beach in
April 2020 as strict rules were in place
The M8 motorway near Glasgow as an electronic sign displays a stark
message in March 2020
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The M8 motorway near Glasgow as an electronic sign displays a stark
message in March 2020
They were still horrendous – 800, 700, 600 – but the trajectory was
clear. It looked and felt to me as if the great national effort was
beginning to work. All that privation, all that seclusion – it was
starting to deprive the virus of targets; we were protecting the NHS and
saving lives.
At that moment I believed in the correlation between the
non-pharmaceutical interventions – the lockdown and other restrictions
on human contact – and the shape of the epi curve. I believed that we
had bent that parabola by the strength of our collective will, like Uri
Geller with a spoon.
Read More
BORIS JOHNSON: How a Scottish holiday with Carrie nearly ended in disaster
article image
It was only later that I started to look at the curves of the pandemic
around the world – the double hump that seemed to rise and fall
irrespective of the approaches taken by governments. There were always
two waves, whether you were in China, where lockdowns were ruthlessly
enforced, or in Sweden, where they took a more voluntary approach.
Looking back, I wonder if King Cnut was right all along when he
stationed his throne on the shore of the Thames and asked his courtiers
to watch as he vainly ordered the tide to withdraw. Maybe there are
limits to human agency; maybe it isn't possible for government action to
repel the waves of a highly contagious disease, any more than it is
possible to repel the tide of the Thames.
I am not saying that lockdowns achieved nothing; I am sure they had some
effect. But were they decisive in beating back the disease, turning
that wave down? All I can say is that I am no longer sure.
Adapted from Unleashed by Boris Johnson (William Collins, £30), to be
published on October 10. © Boris Johnson 2024. To order a copy for
£25.50 (offer valid until October 12, 2024; UK P&P free on orders over
£25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
Boris Johnson will be in conversation with Gyles Brandreth at The
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, on October 12.
In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's
secret (Philippians 4:12). Though masking is less protective, it helps
us avoid the appearance of doing the evil of spreading airborne
pathogens while there are people getting sick because of not being
100% protected. It is written that we're to "abstain from **all**
appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).
Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8 ) way to eradicate the
COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the UK & elsewhere is by
rapidly (i.e. use the "Rapid COVID-19 Test" ) finding out at any given
moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
"convince it forward" (John 15:12) for them to call their doctor and
self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic.
Thus, we're hoping for the best while preparing for the worse-case
scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron,
Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations
combining via slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like "Deltamicron"
that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no
longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry (
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/6ZoE95d-VKc/m/14vVZoyOBgAJ
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?