UK Set To Remove Most COVID Restrictions

The UK has already pretty much done away with mask mandates. Now they look to end most of the rest

UK PM Boris Johnson to lift all remaining Covid restrictions in England

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday will laud the lifting of all remaining Covid restrictions in England as a “moment of pride” as he sets out the government’s long-term plan for living with the virus, prompting concern among public health specialists and opposition lawmakers.

The move will see the legal requirement to self-isolate for up to 10 days after testing positive dropped a month earlier than planned. The government is also controversially expected to scale back access to free Covid tests. (snip)

Speaking ahead of the announcement, Johnson said the rule change will mark a “moment of pride after one of the most difficult periods in our country’s history.”

“The pandemic is not over but thanks to the incredible vaccine rollout we are now one step closer towards a return to normality and finally giving people back their freedoms while continuing to protect ourselves and others,” Johnson said.

The prime minister will meet with his Cabinet on Monday morning before updating lawmakers in the House of Commons. A press conference is expected to be held later in the day.

Well, the meeting is actually postponed till, supposedly, later in the day, due to many in the UK Parliament being very concerned over the ending of “free” COVID testing (some vulnerable groups would still be eligible). Free tests, which are actually paid for by the government, meaning all the people through taxation, is the one thing they should keep, at least for, say, 6 months. It would certainly make sure that people who think they are exposed will properly get tested, rather than being out and about in public and at work spreading Chinese flu.

More than 81% of adults have now received a booster vaccine dose in England, while cases continue to fall after the record highs caused by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Yet, COVID, mostly Delta and Omicron, raged through the U.K.? Huh. Really, though, the biggest change would be the legal obligation to self isolate

What does Freedom Day mean for YOUR business? Bosses face setting their OWN Covid rules for staff who test positive after government axes self-isolation orders this week

The Prime Minister is expected to unveil his ‘living with Covid’ plan today, with reports it will include the end of universal free tests, as well as the legal requirement to self-isolate.

This means companies will have to decide whether to pay for tests for staff, and set their own self-isolation policies. (snip)

The business minister told Sky News: ‘I would say that it’s like any illness, frankly, any transmissible illness that you would say stay at home.’

He said if an employee had flu, they would be expected to stay at home, ‘but it’ll be down to themselves or down to their employer’.

Asked what action employees should take if their employers tried to force them in if they were ill with Covid, Mr Scully said: ‘This is why we need to make sure that we’ve got really good guidance for employers.

Yeah, there needs to be some seriously good guidance. Really, if you are sick with anything you shouldn’t go to work, and employers shouldn’t force the workers to come in. There’s actually, under UK law, serious concern over the business being sued by the non-sick if the sick come to work, voluntarily or because they were told to come in. Businesses would be smart to tell employees to stay home for a few days, not come in even if the employee just thinks it’s a cold. As nations move into post-COVID days, treating it as endemic, you will hopefully see things change, where companies really stress to not come in.

Of course, what about those without sick pay? That’s a big baliwick, and the unions are making all sorts of hay over removing government funded sick pay. Businesses are going to have to figure this out. Everywhere.

Meanwhile

Australia welcomes back tourists with toy koalas, Tim Tams

International tourists and business travelers began arriving in Australia with few restrictions on Monday, bringing together families in tearful reunions after separations of two years or longer forced by some of the most draconian pandemic measures of any democracy in the world.

Australia closed its borders to tourists in March 2020 in a bid to reduce the local spread of COVID-19, but on Monday removed its final travel restrictions for fully vaccinated passengers.

Those travel restrictions didn’t really help, eh? Not with COVID having raged around the country multiple times.

Read: UK Set To Remove Most COVID Restrictions »

Brandon Admin Puts The Kibosh On New Drilling

This won’t cause pain for the middle and lower classes in the least, right?

Biden Administration Halts New Drilling in Legal Fight Over Climate Costs

The Biden administration is indefinitely freezing decisions about new federal oil and gas drilling as part of a legal brawl with Republican-led states that could significantly impact President Biden’s plans to tackle climate change.

The move, which came Saturday, was a response to a recent federal ruling that blocked the way the Biden administration was calculating the real cost of climate change, a figure that guides a range of government decisions, from pollution regulation to whether to permit new oil, gas or coal extraction on public lands and in federal waters.

Under President Barack Obama, the government estimated that the damage from wildfires, floods and rising sea levels was $51 for every ton of carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels. President Donald J. Trump lowered that number considerably, setting it at $7 or less per ton. Upon taking office, Mr. Biden revived the $51 level and set about updating it further — work that is underway.

Known as the “social cost of carbon,” the metric is designed to underline the potential economic threats from greenhouse gas emissions so they can be compared to the economic benefits from acts like oil drilling. Economists and climate scientists say it is needed because climate-fueled heat waves, storms, wildfires and flooding already cost the United States billions of dollars annually but those costs are often not taken into account by policymakers. Factoring in those costs could make it harder for fossil fuel projects to win federal approval.

So, because Biden is having a hissy fit over what Trump did and the lawsuits from 10 Republican states which Biden lost, he’s going to screw the non-rich folks, driving up their cost of gasoline and natural gas, which will then further drive up the cost of everything.

Here comes $7 gas prices, warns oil strategist in dire outlook

Drivers best start bracing for another surge in gas prices amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and years of under-investment by the oil industry, warns one veteran energy strategist.

“My guess is that you are going to see $5 a gallon at any triple-digit [oil prices] … as soon as you get to $100. And you might get to $6.50 or $7. Forget about $150 a gallon, I don’t know where we will be bv then,” Energy Word founder Dan Dicker said on Yahoo Finance Live. (snip)

Gas prices are coming off their seventh straight weekly advance, according to data from GasBuddy. The national average is up 16.5 cents a gallon from a month ago and 97.2 cents a gallon from one year ago.

The average price nationally for gas currently stands at $3.47.

“Years of under-investment”? Things were going swimmingly during the Trump years. Biden comes in and messes everything up. Does anyone think he actually cares about the people who will be hurt the most? His admin will probably push EVs again, even though most in the middle and lower classes can’t afford one.

https://twitter.com/davidthomas38/status/1495418102263300098

Read: Brandon Admin Puts The Kibosh On New Drilling »

Russia Is Ready To Invade Ukraine! Maybe. Possibly. Someone Down In The Mailroom Thinks

CBS News is on the ball, you guys!

U.S. has intel that Russian commanders have orders to proceed with invasion

Biden Brain SuckerThe U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, with commanders on the ground making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sectors of the battlefield, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported on “Face the Nation” Sunday.

The orders don’t mean a invasion is a certainty, as Russian President Vladimir Putin could still change the orders if he changes his mind, the official said.

So yes? No? Interestingly, I’m getting two different versions of the article, one with the second paragraph being the above, and the other with the 2nd being

The intelligence indicates that “they’re doing everything that American commanders would do once they got the order to proceed,” Martin said.

and leaving out the part about it not being certain.

After weeks of warning that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent, President Biden told reporters on Friday that he was “convinced” Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine and said the U.S. believed Russian forces intended to attack in the “coming days.”

Surprisingly, Biden did not head to Delaware for President’s Day. His original schedule called for him to leave Saturday, which was then changed to Sunday, and then was cancelled. Perhaps that’s a sign that the invasion is ready? Or, perhaps he was just too tired to walk to the helicopter, because he sure hasn’t cared about optics so far.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told “Face the Nation” that the U.S. believes Russia is “moving forward” with plans to invade, despite denials from Moscow that such action will be taken.

“Everything we’re seeing tells us that the decision we believe President Putin has made to invade is moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’ve seen that with provocations created by the Russians or separatist forces over the weekend, false flag operations, now the news just this morning that the ‘exercises’ Russia was engaged in in Belarus with 30,000 Russian forces that was supposed to end this weekend will now continue because of tensions in eastern Ukraine, tensions created by Russia and the separatist forces it backs there.”

If Putin really wants to invade Ukraine, me bet is that he’ll wait till next weekend, after Joe gets to either his home in Delaware or Camp David.

BTW, remember when Democrats made fun of Romney for saying how dangerous Russia was? And then Russia went and invaded Crimea. Then Russia stopped getting frisky under Trump, but, is back to frisky because Biden is weak.

Read: Russia Is Ready To Invade Ukraine! Maybe. Possibly. Someone Down In The Mailroom Thinks »

If All You See…

…is a bridge crossing an area flooded from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is No Tricks Zone, with a post on the science being wrong on the Marshall Islands.

It’s shorts week!

Read: If All You See… »

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Patriotic Pinup

Happy Sunday! Another great day in the Once and Future Nation of America. The Sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Brandon is trying to start a war in Ukraine. This pinup is by Edward D’Ancona, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. The Last Refuge shows the Royal Canadian Mounted Police trampling a lady in a walker
  2. The Lid has thoughts on President’s Day
  3. The OK Corral has your feel good story of the day
  4. The Other McCain discusses CNN and the Ukraine “crisis”
  5. The Right Scoop notes that other Canadian cities are stepping up against cracking down on protesters
  6. Independent Sentinel covers Queen Elizabeth getting Wuhan Flu
  7. Pacific Pundit says that a protester assaulted by Ottawa police to sue on Monday
  8. Outside The Beltway discusses the notion of helmet laws being raaaaacist
  9. Moonbattery covers the CDC lowering childhood speech standards
  10. Legal Insurrection highlights how “freedom” is now white supremacy
  11. Jihad Watch notes a woman charged after her Muslim attempted rapist is stabbed
  12. IOTW Report discusses a really bad for Dems report
  13. Gen Z Conservative shows Tucker humiliating AOC, who whines back
  14. Geller Report covers Justin Trudeau and his party plummeting in wake of going Fascist
  15. And last, but not least, DC Clothesline features Bill Gates saying wearing masks is like wearing pants (while not wearing a mask)

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your Pinups for Vets calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me. I’ve also mostly alphabetized them, makes it easier scrolling the feedreader

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?

Two great sites for getting news links are Liberty Daily and Whatafinger.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

WHO Keeps With Scaremongering, Warns Of Doom From More Variants

Nothing like some good old fashioned doom-saying to attempt to keep the peons under control, eh?

The WHO warns that the pandemic is not over and the world should expect ‘more dangerous variants to emerge’

The World Health Organization on Friday warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet over and said there’s a possibility of new variants.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told attendees at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that vaccinations and the fact that Omicron has turned out to be a far less severe variant are “driving a dangerous narrative that the pandemic is over.”

“But it’s not. Not when 70,000 people a week are dying from a preventable and treatable disease,” Ghebreyesus added.

“Not when 83% of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine,” he continued. “Not when health systems continue to strain and crack under the caseload. Not when we have a highly transmissible virus circulating almost unchecked, with too little surveillance to track its evolution.”

Except, Africa never really had a big problem with COVID. Their infection rates, and, especially their death and hospitalization rates, were way, way, way lower than in the 1st World.

Ghebreyesus also warned that the world should prepare for the potential of more variants to arise.

“In fact, the conditions are ideal for more transmissible, more dangerous variants to emerge,” he said.

At this point, not many want to listen anymore. He could be 100% correct. Maybe there will be more variants flowing around the world from the Chinese coronavirus. We don’t know. But, people are tired of the government authoritarianism. Freedom leaning folks were tired of it back in 2020. Leftists are getting tired of it now, hence why so many governments are removing masking mandates.

There were very few cities and counties left in North Carolina which had mask mandates, and almost all were run by Democrats. They originally stated, at least here in Raleigh and Wake County, that they would remove the reinstated mask mandates when the positivity rate was below 5%. Before Omicron hit it was around 3.2%, and they were still waiting. It’s well above 5% right now. So, why is it fine now but not fine then? It couldn’t possibly be due to there being an election in 2022, where the mayor is up for re-election, right? Same in most other places in NC.

Speaking of masks, the Washington Post does their normal crazy

‘A very toxic environment’: Virginia students navigate ugly mask battle

Alexandra Swan, 17, believes it is wrong to make snap judgments about other people.

But these days, when the senior walks through the doors of her high school in Louisa County, Va., she finds it hard to follow her own rules. Whenever she sees another student — friend, foe or stranger — her eyes jump to the same place: their mouth and nose, which might or might not be covered by a mask, now that Louisa County Public Schools has complied with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) controversial order that made masking optional.

“I see these people just not wearing a mask, or wearing one pulled down, like, under their chin,” said Swan, “and my brain just immediately goes, ‘That person does not share the same ideals as me. We won’t get along.’ ” She added: “They may not be a bad person. They may just be thinking the same things as their parents.”

That’s a serious bit of mask crazy, mask cult. In just 2 years many of the kids have been taught that anyone failing to wearing their mask to the conformance of the kids is a Bad Person, and, if not them, their parents. That they can’t be friends with that person. That having different ideals is Full Stop for being able to be friendly.

School now feels, Swan said, “like a war zone”: a raging partisan battle that no one can opt out of, because every single student arrives with evidence of their politics — those without masks typically lean right, she said — written across their faces. Swan said she has stopped speaking with students who go maskless because they are dismissive of the decision to mask and unwilling to hear a different opinion.

Good grief, it’s a mask cult. They maskers have been taught that a mask is only meant to protect others, not themselves, hence, it’s a war if others refuse to wear the masks, which mostly offer barely any actual protection.

Swan said she cannot wait to graduate and escape to college, where she plans to major in musical theater.

“Before, when masks were all required, you didn’t — it wasn’t like you were making a statement,” she said. “This made everything so much worse.”

Who’s surprised that the uber-mask cultist is going to major in a discipline that will most likely give little monetary reward, and most likely be one of those screeching for the government to cancel her huge student loan debt?

Read: WHO Keeps With Scaremongering, Warns Of Doom From More Variants »

If All You See…

…is a horrible bright day from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on always checking the math.

BTW, I always get a kick out of photos like this, because they’re getting up at the crack of dawn, doing the hair, makeup, getting the clothes (or lack thereof) just right, going out somewhere to do this while most are waking up. You can tell the sun is just coming up.

Read: If All You See… »

Doctors Say No Need For Masking School Kids, The Danger Is Low

Just last week this was considered to be “dangerous dis/mis-information”, you know

WRAL would have been railing at people who were saying this over the last year plus. Seriously, we’ve known that the threat to children from COVID is very low since the beginning. We’ve known that there was little need for masks in schools since schools started reopening. That the masks would barely make any difference at all. Of course, the Experts are saying it’s OK only if the kids are vaccinated, despite kids having done well in school long before they were eligible for the shots, which are equivalent to getting a flu shot at this point.

Read: Doctors Say No Need For Masking School Kids, The Danger Is Low »

New Zealand Decides To Take Soft Approach On Protesters

Initially, New Zealand was getting a bit hard on the protesters protesting at their Parliament building, arresting some, playing loud music, turning on the sprinklers, and threatening them. Now

New Zealand Police Adopts “Hands-Off Approach” For Anti-Vaccine Protests

New Zealand police ruled out forcibly clearing anti-vaccination protesters camped around parliament in Wellington on Friday, saying they did not want to provoke violence on the streets of the capital.
Police have taken a hands-off approach after an attempt to take control of the lawns late last week resulted in violent clashes and 120 arrests.

Commissioner Andrew Coster acknowledged growing frustration among Wellington residents and business owners as protest vehicles blocked downtown streets for the 11th day.

But he insisted dialogue with the demonstration’s leaders was yielding positive results, even though the number of people squatting outside the legislature continues to swell.

“Enforcement action taken by police runs the real risk of injury to the public, escalation in numbers of people, and a transition away from a largely peaceful protest to violence,” Coster said.

Perhaps the Powers That Be realized that New Zealand actually has a Constitution which guarantees the right to protest the government and speak out against them, and it’s a really bad look to go after these protesters, as annoying as they may be. And that going after people can whip the citizens up even more. And that going after people engaged in Constitutionally protected protest can lead to Bad Things, such as the politicians getting voted out.

Those same politicians are surely watching what’s going on in Canada, with the government declaring war on people engaged in Constitutionally protected speech and protest, taking away those freedoms in a targeted manner because they are protesting government. The government is even violating their Charter of Rights and Freedoms by investigating military members who support the Freedom Truckers.

This is what happened

The Canadian government on Friday condemned an attack on a Coastal GasLink pipeline work camp in northern British Columbia, in which police said assailants brandishing axes threatened workers and damaged equipment. (snip)

Coastal GasLink said on Thursday approximately 20 masked attackers wearing camouflage surrounded a work site off a forest service road and attacked workers early in the morning. They wielded axes, fired flare guns and tried to set one vehicle on fire while workers were inside, the company said in a statement.

The workers fled and the attackers vandalized heavy equipment and construction trailers, causing millions of dollars worth of damage, the company added.

Trudeau “condemns”. But, he’s not insulting them, threatening them, not invoking emergency powers to shut them down and arrest them. Why? Because they aren’t protesting the government.

It doesn’t matter if you agree with the truckers or protesters in New Zealand (or Australia, France, other countries) who are against mandates: you either believe in freedom of speech, protest, and petitioning for redress of grievance for all or you don’t believe in it.

Read: New Zealand Decides To Take Soft Approach On Protesters »

Warmist John Kerry Says We Need To Act Like This Is An Existential Threat

By we, he means you

Not him (more below the more tag)

Read More »

Read: Warmist John Kerry Says We Need To Act Like This Is An Existential Threat »

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