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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Conspiracy Theories & Claims

ITVs 'This Morning' has banned anti-vaxxer Beverly Turner from the show af5er a heated debate with host Dermit O'Leary

"ITV has blocked pundit Beverley Turner from showing on This Morning following an on-screen row over the coronavirus vaccine.

A dialogue concerning the jab’s effectiveness grew to become a heated row after Ms Turner stated younger individuals ought to reject having the vaccine.

It is understood that employees on the present have been instructed to not ebook Ms Turner, 47, as a information reviewer amid fears her Covid-19 views are too controversial."

https://travelguides.buzz/topstorie...ley-turner-is-blocked-from-itvs-this-morning/

Although ITV's This Morning programme stood by Eamonn Holmes when he made his ignorant comments associating 5G with the spread of Covid:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52279109

I guess ITV considered him too big a star to fire.
 
Although ITV's This Morning programme stood by Eamonn Holmes when he made his ignorant comments associating 5G with the spread of Covid:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52279109

I guess ITV considered him too big a star to fire.
I guess its a bit easier to not rebook a guest, than to dismiss a presenter who, no doubt has a contract worth a lot of money that would need to be paid out in compensation if it was terminated.
 

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Regarding the Foot and Mouth outbreak in Surrey, which may or may not bear something of a similarity to events behind Covid's origins, when animals in close proximity to the research centre in Pirbright first displayed Foot and Mouth symptoms, I assume that a lab-leak was immediately considered?
Odd then that when people in close proximity to the Wuhan Virology Research lab, first started displaying symptoms, the lab-leak possibility was immediately played-down.

IIRC, the authorities were quite quick to assign the Pirbright episode to an escape. However, China is a very different place and works in different ways.
 
IIRC, the authorities were quite quick to assign the Pirbright episode to an escape. However, China is a very different place and works in different ways.
Well quite. We cannot expect a totalitarian state to behave like a western democracy.
One can only speculate though how things may have panned out differently had the Chinese regime come clean about events from the start.
 
First I thought this too tangential to post here, but with the discussion above about banning anti-vaxers etc. this becomes relevant.

I have seen a few articles about how Michel Foucault was appreciated by leftists but is now appreciated by alt-right types. I'm always searching for good models of our current strange situation. And I think this model of " revolution against expert biopower" is a useful building block. It's not that I absolutely agree with this model, but it explains the current tensions and even makes testable predictions.

Let me share a few quotes from these articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/michel-foucault.html
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/how-we-forgot-foucault/
https://outsidertheory.com/theorycels-in-trumpworld/
https://www.city-journal.org/the-establishment-strikes-back-for-now

From his 1963 book The Birth of the Clinic up to the final series of lectures he delivered in the early 1980s, Foucault’s work on the inseparability of power and knowledge laid particular emphasis on the political implications of biomedical science.

Even a perfunctory reading of Foucault should raise questions about the current veneration of scientific expertise [my note: in corona times: including the bashing of ant-vaxxers, mask-refusers etc.] and related demands to subordinate politics to science. Indeed, there could hardly be an outlook more opposed to Foucault’s mode of analysis than a politics premised on “believing in science.” From a Foucauldian perspective, such a fetishization of scientific knowledge entails a blindness to its inextricability from power. In his famous 1971 debate with Noam Chomsky, Foucault asserted that “[t]he real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent.” In other words, the same qualities that the average professional-class liberal today views as the virtues of scientific institutions are what Foucault claimed should lead us to be skeptical.

During the pandemic, the delegation of decisions to public health experts has entailed a dramatic expansion of state authority and abrogation of basic rights, most notably freedom of speech and assembly. A range of needs and values that might contravene the prevention of infection were sidelined at the behest of unelected health officials.

This conflict becomes visible when the determinations of medical and scientific experts are presented as transcending politics, as has occurred in the past year. For the average citizen, the opaqueness of the relevant calculations, along with the identification of extraordinary risks, essentially forestalls the possibility of debate.
Questioning the determinations of health experts is treated not as participation in a democratic decision-making process, but as tantamount to “literal murder.”

And some comments even make a link between Foucault, Trumpism and the resistance to the scientific expert class:

Foucault, like the Frankfurt School, offered a bracing account of the subtle means by which power is exercised in the modern era, especially under the neutral guise of bureaucratic institutions. Despite its clear left-wing provenance, such a view resonates with the longstanding right-wing attack on the liberal control of supposedly neutral institutions like education and the media. Like the New Left in the 1960s, many on the right now see themselves as opponents of what Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse (one of Breitbart’s main nemeses) called the “totally administered society.” Those on the left, conversely, revere the institutions Frankfurt School theorists and Foucault viewed with suspicion, such as the media, entertainment, education, medicine, and government bureaucracy. This is in part because that’s where their paychecks tend to come from.

And there are voices that this anti-expert "revolution" may be quashed for now, but that it's not dead at all. And may come back with force:

The people in charge of our great institutions fear and loathe the public. The election of Trump convinced them that ordinary citizens couldn’t be trusted with the vote. The rise of social media has persuaded them that limits must be imposed on what can be said. Aware that they lack personal and institutional authority, they will gladly settle for political power. They aim to tame the beast.

Let’s be clear: there’s no elite conspiracy, no secret gatherings in smoke-filled rooms, only a herd-like huddling of conformist minds. There’s no elite ideology in any coherent sense, only a blind impulse to control that gravitates instinctively to certain positions on certain issues. The script is always the restoration of order in a broken world.

Two common threads are apparent: the public is a bigoted and destructive monster, and only state power wielded by virtuous elites can protect this creature from itself.


Looking through this model, some things become clearer, for example why the anti-science resistance is so strong and persistent, and why it is echoed so strongly in alt-right conspiratorial circles.

Note:
I was afraid that this analysis might be too esoteric for this forum, but then I found this nice post and quote. And it fits!
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...s-dont-happen-much-anymore.65825/post-1859518

Foucault has:

Each society has its regime of truth, its "
general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true."
 
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First I thought this too tangential to post here, but with the discussion above about banning anti-vaxers etc. this becomes relevant.

I have seen a few articles about how Michel Foucault was appreciated by leftists but is now appreciated by alt-right types. I'm always searching for good models of our current strange situation. And I think this model of " revolution against expert biopower" is a useful building block. It's not that I absolutely agree with this model, but it explains the current tensions and even makes testable predictions.

Let me share a few quotes from these articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/michel-foucault.html
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/how-we-forgot-foucault/
https://outsidertheory.com/theorycels-in-trumpworld/
https://www.city-journal.org/the-establishment-strikes-back-for-now

From his 1963 book The Birth of the Clinic up to the final series of lectures he delivered in the early 1980s, Foucault’s work on the inseparability of power and knowledge laid particular emphasis on the political implications of biomedical science.

Even a perfunctory reading of Foucault should raise questions about the current veneration of scientific expertise [my note: in corona times: including the bashing of ant-vaxxers, mask-refusers etc.] and related demands to subordinate politics to science. Indeed, there could hardly be an outlook more opposed to Foucault’s mode of analysis than a politics premised on “believing in science.” From a Foucauldian perspective, such a fetishization of scientific knowledge entails a blindness to its inextricability from power. In his famous 1971 debate with Noam Chomsky, Foucault asserted that “[t]he real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent.” In other words, the same qualities that the average professional-class liberal today views as the virtues of scientific institutions are what Foucault claimed should lead us to be skeptical.

During the pandemic, the delegation of decisions to public health experts has entailed a dramatic expansion of state authority and abrogation of basic rights, most notably freedom of speech and assembly. A range of needs and values that might contravene the prevention of infection were sidelined at the behest of unelected health officials.

This conflict becomes visible when the determinations of medical and scientific experts are presented as transcending politics, as has occurred in the past year. For the average citizen, the opaqueness of the relevant calculations, along with the identification of extraordinary risks, essentially forestalls the possibility of debate.
Questioning the determinations of health experts is treated not as participation in a democratic decision-making process, but as tantamount to “literal murder.”

And some comments even make a link between Foucault, Trumpism and the resistance to the scientific expert class:

Foucault, like the Frankfurt School, offered a bracing account of the subtle means by which power is exercised in the modern era, especially under the neutral guise of bureaucratic institutions. Despite its clear left-wing provenance, such a view resonates with the longstanding right-wing attack on the liberal control of supposedly neutral institutions like education and the media. Like the New Left in the 1960s, many on the right now see themselves as opponents of what Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse (one of Breitbart’s main nemeses) called the “totally administered society.” Those on the left, conversely, revere the institutions Frankfurt School theorists and Foucault viewed with suspicion, such as the media, entertainment, education, medicine, and government bureaucracy. This is in part because that’s where their paychecks tend to come from.

And there are voices that this anti-expert "revolution" may be quashed for now, but that it's not dead at all. And may come back with force:

The people in charge of our great institutions fear and loathe the public. The election of Trump convinced them that ordinary citizens couldn’t be trusted with the vote. The rise of social media has persuaded them that limits must be imposed on what can be said. Aware that they lack personal and institutional authority, they will gladly settle for political power. They aim to tame the beast.

Let’s be clear: there’s no elite conspiracy, no secret gatherings in smoke-filled rooms, only a herd-like huddling of conformist minds. There’s no elite ideology in any coherent sense, only a blind impulse to control that gravitates instinctively to certain positions on certain issues. The script is always the restoration of order in a broken world.

Two common threads are apparent: the public is a bigoted and destructive monster, and only state power wielded by virtuous elites can protect this creature from itself.


Looking through this model, some things become clearer, for example why the anti-science resistance is so strong and persistent, and why it is echoed so strongly in alt-right conspiratorial circles.

Note:
I was afraid that this analysis might be too esoteric for this forum, but then I found this nice post and quote. And it fits!
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...s-dont-happen-much-anymore.65825/post-1859518

Foucault has:

Each society has its regime of truth, its "
general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true."
Yeah, I keep seeing stuff along the lines of "we need to fight misinformation"... which is another way of phrasing suppression of dissenting views. People get labeled as spreaders of dangerous misinformation.... in a bid to silence opposing views.

Then we found out some of those attempting to suppress "misinformation" were actually liars trying to hide the truth. But it's not over yet, and the war of... frankly I'm not sure what to call it. An ideological conflict about what is and isn't true?

Some of it seems to be calling opposition "anti-science" just for questioning the motives of those allegedly advocating science. It's like the thing with Fauci... apparently his motives are more than just "questionable". He has a full conflict of interest in the Covid-19 investigation.

That sort of thing drastically changes the dialog when it comes to questioning the official version of things. the dissent is not entirely ANTI-science. Some of it is rightly pointing out that the official line isn't entirely true.
 
COVID vaccines can cause forks to stick to your forehead.

What a time to be alive.

Saw one thing someone linked on a Discord server. Allegedly someone attempted to do a public demonstration of that sort of thing. Apparently she not only failed but didn't even make it look good. It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder if she was a false flag.
 
There used to be a craze in the UK of people hanging spoons off their noses. But this vaccine magnet thing is just dumb.
That's part of why I suspect false flag shenanigans. It's the sort of thing that you'd think people could easily verify isn't true. And why would someone try to do a public demonstration if she didn't have the ability to make the spoon stick at all? It feels like the sort of thing that's getting spread around as malicious gossip meant to give people an easy talking point when they want to "debunk" their opposition.
 
Speculation has been circulating that B.A. is concerned about letting newly vaccinated pilots fly after four deaths in a short space of time. It's has reached the stage where an official denial was deemed more likely to cool than raise temperatures.

View attachment 40994

Discussion:

Fact Check-British Airways is not in ‘crisis talks’ with the government over vaccinated pilots​

By Reuters Fact Check
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-aviation-idUSL2N2NZ1ZO

I note that Fact Check only debunked the bit about BA holding "crisis talks" with the government but, until the causes of death of these 4 comparatively young men whose job included regular health checks, are revealed, speculation is likely to continue.
Is the suggestion that a combination of being vaccinated and the lower air pressure in airliner cockpits could be to blame?
Also of interest, in one link in the Pakistani article reporting this, was that data from Italy suggests that the Pfizer vaccination has been linked to 4 times as many deaths as the AstraZeneca.

https://en.baaghitv.com/pfizer-shot-four-times-more-deadly-than-astrazeneca/

(Edited to correct Indian to Pakistani)
 
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I couldn't resist looking at the Facebook fanclub page:

View attachment 39737

There's a civil Facebook war going on this group between pro- and anti- voices, with the usual social media venom.
There are anti politics, anti immigrant, anti vax and even bitcoin (!) people discussing this.
And I translate a part from one of the - calmer and more reasonable - recent posts, to give an impression of the support:

A soldier whose new fitness business is in danger of being bottled up by corona measures, from a few threats, writes farewell letters, and disappears. (with or but not with stolen weapons).
This soldier who has participated in various missions, who has worked for his country for years, is now being hunted down as state enemy number 1, the media has already condemned him as a terrorist.

I myself am thinking about this for a moment, because I too, like so many soldiers, have participated in operational missions, and like so many others I sometimes use harsh language to make my views clear and defend them, and like so many others I also dislike the dictatorship of Van Ranst [the virologist]. I too, like so many others, dislike the incompetent political leaders in Belgium.

The conditions in which you are deployed are often blurry, there is no front as such, the man who embraces you today fires a rocket at your compound tomorrow. The boy who greets you at the gate throws rocks at your car the next day. The enemy no longer has a recognizable uniform, everyone you see can have bad intentions.

And then you come home, after four, six or nine months of absence, and you notice that so much has changed in your own country, you have to relearn with your partner, you get ahead of the prices of gasoline and food that have skyrocketed. you have to go through some kind of detox period, and this detox lasts longer and longer per additional mission.

These colleagues, these people who are facing these kinds of problems, should not be put on a list of radicalised, these colleagues need specialist help and guidance, primarily by their own colleagues and chefs and secondly by specialist aid workers.

We can spend money to stop Islam radicalisation but we can't spend money to help radicalised people who have been so committed to their country. Belgium should be deeply ashamed!
Tragically enough, what I expected has happened. The dead body of Jurgen Conings has been found. Probably death by his own hand.

The body of Belgian soldier Jürgen C. was found on Sunday after a weeks-long manhunt in the Dilserbos near Stein, just across the Belgian border. Police earlier searched the man in Hoge Kempen National Park and carried out several searches. Mayor Johan Tollenaere of Maaseik observed a pungent smell of corpses while mountain biking on Sunday. He passed the coordinates to the research team.

The body of a bearded person was wearing black clothing. A riot gun, a handgun, an axe, a pocket knife and ammunition were also found on the body. Prosecutors suspect the 46-year-old soldier himself has ended his life. The probable cause of death would be suicide by means of a firearm, according to initial study results.

Why C. was searched for over a month:
C. left farewell letters on his departure in which he made threats to "the Belgian regime" and virologists. The threats, combined with certain personality traits, made the authorities find the threat of the similarly armed C. serious. Army barracks and mosques, among others, closed their doors. Virologist Marc Van Ranst, who had previously been threatened by C., was in hiding

For the governor, it's a "sad story," with his thoughts going out to the bereaved.


https://www.nu.nl/klopjacht-belgisc...igt-dat-gevonden-lichaam-van-jurgen-c-is.html
 
An air purifier manufacturer has been forced to withdraw adverts claiming its product destroyed covid 19.

"An advert for an air purifier which claimed to kill off coronavirus has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

A complaint was lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the Go-Vi Eradicator 19.

The company behind it claimed its purifier was "proven to destroy coronavirus cells".

The ASA said the purifier's claims were misleading and could not be substantiated."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57571494
 
An air purifier manufacturer has been forced to withdraw adverts claiming its product destroyed covid 19.

"An advert for an air purifier which claimed to kill off coronavirus has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

A complaint was lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the Go-Vi Eradicator 19.

The company behind it claimed its purifier was "proven to destroy coronavirus cells".

The ASA said the purifier's claims were misleading and could not be substantiated."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57571494
It's strange that they also said
asa said:
The ASA said that "in principle" the particular type of ultraviolet light was effective against the Covid-19 virus - but real-world testing was needed.
and then there's this:
The small print claimed the £570 device was more than 99.9% effective at destroying the H5N1 bird flu virus, according to testing done in France.
So the advertised device HAS been proven to be capable of neutralizing similar airborne viruses. The complaint is about how they didn't do testing with this specific virus. That makes the response seem excessive. Calling the claims "misleading" sounds like the ASA is accusing them of lying about the product.

Oh boy... this is certainly an interesting case.
 
It's strange that they also said

and then there's this:

So the advertised device HAS been proven to be capable of neutralizing similar airborne viruses. The complaint is about how they didn't do testing with this specific virus. That makes the response seem excessive. Calling the claims "misleading" sounds like the ASA is accusing them of lying about the product.

Oh boy... this is certainly an interesting case.
The ASA is pretty strict when it comes to companies making specific claims about their products, if the manufacturer had sold it on the basis that it destroyed bird flu, then there wouldnt be an issue, it has been scientifically tested and does perform to that stipulation, however, they were selling it on the premise that it destroys Covid 19, which hasnt been scientifically tested or proven, therefore the the advert is mislealing and was banned, if you make claims in adverts (in the UK) there are certain rules that have to me met, one of these is independent scientific testing.
 
The ASA is pretty strict when it comes to companies making specific claims about their products, if the manufacturer had sold it on the basis that it destroyed bird flu, then there wouldnt be an issue, it has been scientifically tested and does perform to that stipulation, however, they were selling it on the premise that it destroys Covid 19, which hasnt been scientifically tested or proven, therefore the the advert is mislealing and was banned, if you make claims in adverts (in the UK) there are certain rules that have to me met, one of these is independent scientific testing.
Ultra violet light destroys viruses in laboratory situations, but the strength needed to do so is dangerous to the eye. Extremely unlikely that this will be useful in the real world. It has not even been possible yet to prove that uv in sunlight destroys covid, although it does kill many other pathogens.
 
I note that Fact Check only debunked the bit about BA holding "crisis talks" with the government but, until the causes of death of these 4 comparatively young men whose job included regular health checks, are revealed, speculation is likely to continue.
Is the suggestion that a combination of being vaccinated and the lower air pressure in airliner cockpits could be to blame?
Also of interest, in one link in the Pakistani article reporting this, was that data from Italy suggests that the Pfizer vaccination has been linked to 4 times as many deaths as the AstraZeneca.

https://en.baaghitv.com/pfizer-shot-four-times-more-deadly-than-astrazeneca/

(Edited to correct Indian to Pakistani)

An update to the BA pilots' vaccine conspiracy claim.

Nicholas Synnott contracted Covid on a flight to the USA in March 2020 (long before the vaccination programme). He spent 243 days in a Texas hospital before being transferred back to the UK, where he died from respiratory and organ failure.

Edward Brice-Bennett died from abdominal trauma following a mountain biking accident.

A person with direct knowledge of Grant Mercer's cause of death stated unequivocally that it was unrelated to the Covid vaccination.

No further details on the 4th pilot, but I would be very surprised if vaccination were implicated.

Looks like one more conspiracy turns out to have no basis in fact.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/british-airways-pilots-died-covid-vax/
 
An update to the BA pilots' vaccine conspiracy claim.

Nicholas Synnott contracted Covid on a flight to the USA in March 2020 (long before the vaccination programme). He spent 243 days in a Texas hospital before being transferred back to the UK, where he died from respiratory and organ failure.

Edward Brice-Bennett died from abdominal trauma following a mountain biking accident.

A person with direct knowledge of Grant Mercer's cause of death stated unequivocally that it was unrelated to the Covid vaccination.

No further details on the 4th pilot, but I would be very surprised if vaccination were implicated.

Looks like one more conspiracy turns out to have no basis in fact.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/british-airways-pilots-died-covid-vax/

One further update and make of this what you will; the fund-raising proceeds from BA pilot Grant Mercer's funeral went to the charity CALM - one of the leading charities tackling depression and suicide.

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/...-proof-deaths-were-from-covid-19-vaccine.html
 
The ASA is pretty strict when it comes to companies making specific claims about their products, if the manufacturer had sold it on the basis that it destroyed bird flu, then there wouldnt be an issue, it has been scientifically tested and does perform to that stipulation, however, they were selling it on the premise that it destroys Covid 19, which hasnt been scientifically tested or proven, therefore the the advert is mislealing and was banned, if you make claims in adverts (in the UK) there are certain rules that have to me met, one of these is independent scientific testing.
Ultra violet light destroys viruses in laboratory situations, but the strength needed to do so is dangerous to the eye. Extremely unlikely that this will be useful in the real world. It has not even been possible yet to prove that uv in sunlight destroys covid, although it does kill many other pathogens.
This is something that's been hotly debated in the US several times. The exact specific claims are often the difference between something being misleading or not. For example, stating your device has been "proven to be able to destroy Covid-19 in the air" is not the same as claiming it "can destroy airborne viruses similar to Covid-19". Sure both claims are designed to give the customer a reason to feel that the product is capable of it, but if the product is the example listed above, one of those sample claims is lying and the other is not. Which is why I'm wondering what the specific wording was here.
 
... The exact specific claims are often the difference between something being misleading or not. For example, stating your device has been "proven to be able to destroy Covid-19 in the air" is not the same as claiming it "can destroy airborne viruses similar to Covid-19". Sure both claims are designed to give the customer a reason to feel that the product is capable of it, but if the product is the example listed above, one of those sample claims is lying and the other is not. Which is why I'm wondering what the specific wording was here.
The ASA webpage on this case:

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/go-vi-ltd-a20-1085562-go-vi-ltd.html

... provides selected excerpts of the ad reviewed and found misleading. It also summarizes the grounds for finding the ad misleading.

The bit that surprises me is that neither ASA not anyone else commenting on this case have taken note of clearly misleading ad text that could have been leveraged to assert Go-Vi hadn't really claimed to kill COVID-19 in the first place - specifically:
“Proven to destroy Coronavirus cells”
There's no such thing as a virus (much less coronavirus) 'cell'.
 
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