1/ In February 2020 I was a slightly nervous passenger on a Chiltern Line train, travelling from the Vale of Aylesbury into London Marylebone where I would take an onward underground train to Old Street in Shoreditch, avoiding any people that looked like they could be Chinese,…

2/ …while being excruciatingly aware of the distress this situation must be causing them.

Covid-19 was a seemingly deadly new virus ravaging China that had now spread around the world and to the UK and I was scared.

3/ Scared of catching the virus and taking it home to my 7-year old son who after a week-long hacking dry cough and high temperature in January, had been diagnosed with Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP), a potentially deadly blood disorder brought on by an immune reaction to, in…

4/ …this case, a mystery virus.

I didn’t have to worry for too long as I was one of the victims of the first wave.

5/ Made redundant in a down market I need the country to get out of lockdown and back to work to rebuild my career and so I am left with some time on my hands, a Twitter account and an emotive interest in our rapid recovery.

And so, I met the lockdown sceptics.

6/ Their fans are easy to spot usually brandishing a #KBF hashtag or bright yellow smiley face.

7/ They will talk about science, data and the root cause of things with all the strength of conviction and lack of understanding of a 4-year old describing how they are the fastest person in the world, foreverer.

The leaders?

8/ Outspoken social commentator Toby Young contributes to the http://lockdownsceptics.org  website and was an actively outspoken on Twitter until recently when he mysteriously deleted all of his history. Perhaps it was a virus? Dr. Mike Yeadon, a former CSO at Pfizer company. Dr.

9/ Clare Craig, a sometimes registered pathologist, and Ivor Cummins.

10/ Ivor Cummins, an engineer and former R&D Manager at Hewlett Packard, where he led teams designing complex printer components, is in his own words a “Master Technologist with a quarter-century as the best complex problem-solving leader amongst the top tier of the latter”.

11/ Ivor explained in responses to recent criticism from Christopher Snowdon and Dominic Lawson that they failed to “address the science and data of China Lockdown effectiveness versus cost”.

12/ This isn’t at all surprising as Ivor along with a number of other lockdown sceptics have been forced to come up with increasingly ridiculous claims to try to retain some form of credibility, from PCR cases are fake and there’s a global network of doctors falsifying death…

13/ …certificates, to their most recent blarney, that the majority of current deaths are being caused by “CCP China Lockdown Science”.

So, what is “CCP China Lockdown Science” and has it worked?

14/ From all accounts, despite what could be significant underreporting of case and mortality levels by China, they locked down hard, early and came out before the west.

15/ We witnessed China place 11 million of the citizens of Wuhan under some of the world’s most limiting restrictions, bringing some condemnation from the international community.

16/ We saw the videos of Wuhan residents shouting “stay strong” or “keep going” from their windows as they brought in Chinese New Year.

They certainly weren’t out on the streets clapping the NHS with a cup of tea and bourbon biscuit.

17/ China wasn’t experiencing a western lockdown. This was a harsh and fiercely enforced lockdown inflicted on a city the size of London by a government with little regard for the feelings of their population.

18/ There can be no comparison to the lax lockdown experienced throughout the UK, where people openly flouted lockdown restrictions, most recently with Lawrence Fox going so far as to encourage others to use anxiety as an excuse to go mask free shopping, without a thought to…

19/ …the very serious damage these actions could do to those who genuinely suffer.

20/ China seems to have had some success, with pictures flooding social media of a return to reasonable normality and positive financial forecasts in a recent PWC analysis showing China and Ireland as clear financial winners with a growth in GDP since 2019.

21/ So what about the glorious Emerald Isle? Home of aforementioned “master technologist” and lockdown critic Ivor Cummins.

22/ Up until the New Year they had seen good results but Ireland has been described as having some of Europe’s toughest covid restrictions, banning all public or private gathering and visits to hospitals or prisons, with some compassionate exceptions.

23/ Up until December 1st, they had one of the lowest mortality rates in Europe, whether you look at deaths per million, or at the excess mortality records of Ivor Cummins’ “Gold Standard” acid test, Euromomo.

24/ Following the holidays things have changed rapidly with cases, hospital admissions, ICU use and inevitably lives lost increasing exponentially.

25/ In a letter of 26th November, Nphet stressed that cases would not be contained if hospitality and home visits were allowed over the Christmas holiday season.

26/ A move Ivor Cummins described at the time as “clueless” and that they “can't understand that lockdown destroys population health and saves nothing”.

27/ Nphet stated “We remain especially vulnerable to a rise in reproduction number given the ongoing high case numbers per day and the high likelihood of significantly increased socialisation given the time of year.”

28/ The Government then declared it would permit households to mix with two other households from December 18th and that they would reopen hospitality from December 4th, allowing six people to dine indoors in restaurants or gastropubs.

29/ Throughout the end of November Ireland’s resident lockdown sceptic and mask denier, continued his mission to turn the tables on his government, stating on the 28th November that masks should not be required outside with the epidemic gone, while continuing to dismiss the…

30/ …effectiveness of lockdowns to his many followers.

Daily new confirmed cases started to rise rapidly, from 52 per million people on the 4th of December, to a peak of over 1300 per million on January 10th.

31/ Now on the 17th January mortality has risen by more than an additional 20% and see’s little sign of slowing. With the Level 5 lockdown in place we saw a sharp reduction in cases, as everyone but Ivor and his sceptic chums predicted.

32/ A reduction in mortality will follow naturally.

Explaining why lockdowns do and don’t work is quite simple.

33/ If you can be infectious for 3 weeks and you lock yourself in a box for 4, you cannot infect people, that is unless the lockdown sceptics next angle of attack is that 5G can spread covid… Watch this space!

34/ People need to eat and drink, they need medicine, they need money. These things bring us into contact with others who could potentially have the virus.

35/ To deny that lockdowns prevent the spread of a virus is as utterly ridiculous as to deny the earth is roughly spherical in shape, yet the Flat Earth Society exists and so does Ivor Cummins...

36/ Although I am pretty sure the former is significantly less harmful, as we come full circle back to China.

37/ As thousands packed the streets of Wuhan to bring in the New Year the majority of British and Irish citizens were locked in their homes with not a party or a pub in sight.

38/ I couldn’t help but wonder what part sceptics like Ivor played and how many of his countrymen and women ventured out over Christmas taking his advice, ignoring mask restrictions, meeting friends, being free.

39/ Losing an elderly relative is a hell of a price to pay for a pint of Guinness.

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