On Saturday 24th April 2021, tens of thousands of anti-lockdown protesters took to the streets of central London in one of the largest pro-freedom rallies we have seen since democracy was suspended on the 26th March 2020.
Some social media influencers such as Samantha Batt-Rawden would label the protesters as “selfish” saying the pro-freedom movement ‘made her want to cry’. She believed that this rally would result in a “third wave and further lockdowns.”
The “NHSMillion” Twitter account tweeted they were ‘watching on in utter devastation’ as the rally got underway.
Another social media personality/medic would go a lot further in her disdain towards the protesters by calling them “selfish pathetic attention-seeking morons”.
Other accounts would call the protesters “Idiot Londoners” claiming the event would act as a “super spreader event” for COVID-19.
COVID-19 alarmist and social media influencer Rachael Clarke would take to Twitter to label the pro-freedom marchers as being “beyond selfish [and] blatantly risking spreading Covid to vulnerable others.” She would go on to say “this behaviour is sickening”.
Her tweet would receive almost 16K “Likes”. These accounts get their huge followings by dealing in fear-porn.
Throughout the day of the 24th of April, and the days preceding, these hysterical tweets continued – mainly from social media doctors who have made names and careers for themselves spreading fear and hysteria on COVID-19.
Interestingly, the evidence points to Clarke not being against protests during the pandemic, just against protests that are challenging the fear-mongering and hysteria she has used to build her brand.
The previous month she would lend support to the’ peaceful protesters’ in London and condemned the police for enforcing COVID-19 legislation:
The Sarah Everard rally in London was banned by police due to COVID-19 restrictions but Clarke cleverly realising that popular opinion was in support of the rally, leant her support to it – even though it was not lawful.
When it came to the pro-freedom rally this article focuses on , Clarke appreciated that popular social media opinion was against it thus she came out against it too citing a fear it would be a super-spreader event. Unless Covid is selective on what protesters it will attack, it is unclear why she feared for one crowd but not the other?
Though Clarke wasn’t the only one taking this hypocritical and populist position.
Social media personality Sue Perkins would call on the protesters to “go home, switch on the news and look at the footage coming out India” and start being afraid again.
Sue, like Rachael, isn’t against all protests during COVID-19, she also supported the March protest.
It would seem that Perkins doesn’t think Covid can spread when at a “vigil” but it can when at a protest against COVID-19 restrictions. Same reasoning as Clarke.
The BBC Disinformation Campaign
I recently wrote about how the BBC’s “Disinformation Team” would spread disinformation and fake news (here and here) as they labelled pro-freedom protesters as ‘crowds heavily into fringe beliefs and online conspiracies’ . Their young disinformation reporter Marianna Spring would also attempt to downplay the number of people that took to the streets demanding a restoration of democratic rights and freedoms. She would claim “A few thousand..” people were in attendance.
When in effect there were many tens of thousands in attendance. In the end she had to be corrected by her boss and editor Mike Wendling who himself would go on to downplay the numbers whilst also, inadvertently, confirming Spring was spreading disinformation.
The actual footage of the rally shows just how far out Spring was in her estimation and this begs the question – Why was she trying to downplay the numbers of protesters whilst also attempting to discredit the rally as a whole? Impartial and balanced reporting is something absent from her job description, it would seem.
Full Fact – Checking
The “fact-checking” website fullfact.org would themselves side with Wendling’s upper estimate of 10K leaving Spring’s disinformation exposed even further for everyone to see. Neither made any attempt to apologise for her fake news.
Some commentators had raised suspicions at how Full Fact so happened to reach the same estimate as the BBC’s Wendling so I contacted them seeking clarification but to date they have decided to respond to my email. I also asked what methodology they used in crowd counting so that we could cross-check their estimate.
The Data
The overall case data for COVID-19 in England shows a steady but notable decline in case rates from 24th April to date, 9th May.
More specifically we dug deeper into the data for London from the date of the rally to the date of this publication, 12th May 2021 and their data reflects the overall English data displayed in the line graph above.
Drilling a bit further into the data, here are the exact numbers of cases, per day, from 24th April to 8th May (latest data pending on the dashboard).
What we can say, categorically, is that there was no spike in cases. In fact, there’s a 78% decrease in cases over the 14 days from the date of the rally. This is further evidence that outdoor spread isn’t something to be concerned about. We see this time and time again yet the Covid hysterics seek to avoid acknowledging this. Instead, they continually try to stoke up fear and panic.
Other Examples
Dublin
On Saturday 27th February thousands took to the streets of Dublin calling for a restoration of democratic rights and freedoms.
This event too was billed by detractors as a “super-spreader” event but, like the London Protest, cases fell over the preceding two weeks after the event.
Cork
On the 6th March, crowds took to the streets of Cork for a pro-freedom rally and just like the Dublin rally the previous week, it was also billed by detractors as a “super-spreader” event.
And like the Dublin rally turned out to be anything but as Cork also witnessed a drop in cases over the preceding two weeks:
Tampa – The Super Bowl
On February 7th 2021, 25K people attended the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
Mainstream media labelled the event as an “Experiment in Covid Immunity”.
The data again would prove that outdoor events do not act as “super-spreaders”.
Texas Rangers Full Capacity Game
On the 5th of April this year the Texas Rangers played to a 40,000+ capacity crowd.
The data was clear – the event did not act as a super-spreader either.
Joe Biden would urge Texas to “listen to Dr Fauci, the scientists and the experts” and to not go ahead with the game. He called it “a mistake”.
The trouble is that even after Dr Fauci got this wrong on Texas he then struggled to explain why he got it wrong and why there was no surge in cases as he predicted.
The reason for Fauci struggling to explain why outdoor spread wasn’t a thing in Texas is due to him long ago ditching the science of how viruses spread in favour of new Covid-era science in which SARS-CoV-2 would be spun as a freak of nature that defies all previous epidemiology. Only it doesn’t defy pre-Covid-era science at all. Had Fauci stuck to the science he once espoused, he could have easily explained why Texas saw no spikes in cases following the game. Outdoor virus spread is a rarity and has not been recorded occurring in any numbers that would give a rational scientific person much cause for concern.
Sturgis Bike Rally
Over 9 days in August of 2020, South Dakota hosted over 500,000 people who attended the Sturgis bike rally. When comparing the data to their northern neighbours there was no great difference in the trend patterns of new cases.
You will note a slight uptick at the end of August before cases plummeted again in early September in South Dakota. That could well be because of the rally but given the brevity of the spike and it’s small size, it certainly doesn’t raise cause for concern when we see the South Dakota had less mortality during this time than North Dakota who didn’t have a 500K person bike rally.
Once the predicted spike didn’t occur the corporate media soon forgot about Sturgis.
Outdoor Events Are Safe
The evidence is very clear, outdoor events are safe. Just as with any other respiratory virus like seasonal flu. It’s spread person to person depending on the viral load of the infected person and the viral dosage expelled by the infected person, which I detail in-depth here.
When outdoors, things like temperature, wind, humidity etc all play big parts in making transmission of virus extremely difficult. That’s not to say they can’t and don’t occur, but they are extremely rare when compared to indoor transmissions.
When investigating these events and the various influencers warning of impending doom if they went ahead, I also set out to try and understand why these people, who claim to be following the data and the science, refuse to follow the data and the science when it points to them being wrong. Why do allegedly well-intentioned people like Rachael Clarke or Batt-Rowden ignore the data that has been gleaned from the events that I write about in this report and continue to propagate fear and hysteria?
The only plausible explanations are that they either arrogant of the data I present herein or they are aware of it and chose to ignore it. Either explanation is as dangerous as the other. It is also plausible that as quite a few of these social media “experts” have built up their brands using Covid fear that they may have become so blinded by their assumed self-importance that they can no longer think objectively. They need Covid hysteria to sustain their social media influence. If it disappears, so does their value as influencers. So does their relevance.
As a well-known UK corporate journalist said to me recently, ‘The content needs to be sensationalised but believable. People buy fear and sensationalism.’ And that is the truth. If you’re a sensationalist like Rachael Clarke and Trish Greenhalgh, no matter how wrong you are in your claims and predictions, your following will continue to grow. The more fear you put out, the more the fearful will flock to you and given there is no shortage of frightened people at present, they have an unlimited supply of followers to attract. You therefore soon begin to appreciate that fear-mongering is a rewarding position, if even the short term.
The events above go a long way to helping us understand that outdoor transmissions pose an extremely small risk to the health of those attending the given event/s. This should leave us all questioning the expertise and advice that has been directing governments worldwide over the past 14 months telling us that outdoor events are dangerous and should therefore be banned. Kids have suffered worse of all, as they watched as their sports and playtime were taken away from them and criminalised. This cannot be allowed to happen again. We MUST follow the data and not simply pay lip-service to the claim that we are.