{"id":223948,"date":"2020-12-30T08:20:56","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T08:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=223948"},"modified":"2021-01-01T07:43:10","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T07:43:10","slug":"is-matt-hancock-going-to-announce-more-stringent-lockdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=223948","title":{"rendered":"Is Matt Hancock Going to Announce More Stringent Lockdowns?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary \u2013 Dec 29, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Ahead of an announcement from Health Minister Matt Hancock, in which he is expected to unveil changes to the lockdown regime, the media is full of stories that seem intended to alarm readers.<\/h4>\n

In fact, if Matt Hancock does intend to announce tougher measures he couldn\u2019t have asked for more. For the media is providing all the coverage he needs to impose a more stringent lockdown. As the following stories that have appeared in the past few hours will fuel demands that “something must be done”, at least among the more gullible.<\/h4>\n

As in any war the media is playing its part — as it\u2019s doing so in the current crisis — and as in any war the ignorant and gullible will take the bait:<\/h4>\n

TAKING ITS TOLL: UK coronavirus cases at 53,135 on highest EVER day and deaths at 414 after hospital admissions pass April peak<\/h3>\n

Ellie Cambridge \u2013 The Sun Dec 29, 2020<\/h3>\n

THE UK has recorded 53,135 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours in the biggest rise yet.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026 https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/news\/13598435\/uk-coronavirus-case-rise-deaths\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Covid: UK surge in cases an ‘extreme concern’<\/h3>\n

BBC Online \u2013 Dec 29, 2020<\/h3>\n

A surge in coronavirus cases in the UK is of “extreme concern”, a health boss says, as a record number of cases was reported for the second day running.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-55475240<\/a><\/p>\n

I work in intensive care. Our beds are full, and more Covid patients are arriving<\/h3>\n

Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden \u2013 The Guardian Dec 29, 2020<\/h3>\n

Reports that we are quieter than this time last year are simply not true, and sap what morale NHS staff have left, writes one doctor.<\/p>\n

Continues …https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/dec\/29\/christmas-patients-coronavirus-intensive-care<\/a><\/p>\n

‘We’re running out of oxygen’: Doctor makes emotional plea as NHS on brink of COVID crisis<\/h3>\n

Continues … https:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/nhs-brink-overwhelmed-covid-doctor-plea-oxygen-131146981.html<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/h4>\n

It certainly makes for grim reading. Yet dig a little deeper and you will find that between them the Nightingale hospitals that were set up to treat Covid-19 have treated just 249 patients since April<\/a>. That’s hardly the numbers we would expect from the tone of the above reports. Moreover, the seven major Nightingales and the 19 temporary field hospitals are still largely empty.<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Nightingale hospital in Sunderland yesterday, with just a handful of cars in the car park. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

If the country were in the midst of a genuine health crisis, as the media and ministers would have us believe, then the Nightingale hospitals would be full.<\/h4>\n

Some reports claim that the hospitals are empty because the health service doesn\u2019t have enough staff for them. However, the Army\u2019s medical corps helped set up the facilities so if the country really is facing a \u201chealth crisis” of such magnitude why can\u2019t they be called on again?<\/h4>\n

Could it be that Covid crisis isn\u2019t quite as dire as we are being told?<\/h4>\n

Are the Covid stories, like those above, simply being used to induce the public into thinking that \u201csomething must be done”? Is this all intended to smooth the way for Matt Hancock to announce the imposition of more stringent measures?<\/h4>\n

This is all reminiscent of the way we were once subjected to a stream of speculative reports about Saddam’s WMD, which paved the way for the Iraq invasion and which all turned out to be entirely bogus.<\/h4>\n

Remember them? Do you recall the steady stream of stories fed to us by the media about the threat Iraq posed? Are we being subjected to a similar psyop, but this time focused on a health threat rather than WMD?<\/h4>\n

If tighter lockdown restrictions are imposed in the near future it will confirm for many that the authorities are using the media as an instrument of control.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If he is the media helping to pave the way for just such an announcement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":205163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,105,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-coronavirus","category-Health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=223948"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223987,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223948\/revisions\/223987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/205163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=223948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=223948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}