The PCR argument is a great example of where government transparency is lacking where it could easily be used to counter critics.

The “PCR is fake” people should clearly be ignored, but one of the more persuasive arguments from the “most tests are false positives” narrative seems to be that the amplification cycle thresholds are being set far too high and tests are therefore finding fragments of RNA from previous infection weeks or months ago.

Now I don’t know how much scientific merit that argument has, but is it not irresponsible of the government to withhold details of the testing parameters they are using, given the impact the results are having?

From my understanding, the "amplification cycly threshold" is a number which depends on the specific PCR test. So every lab has somewhat different numbers applying to their testing method. Consequently, there is no single number for this the government could publish. And without an analysis of that specific lab, the number isn't meaningful at all. Publishing it would actually be very harmful as it is so meaningless.

So individual labs can set their own standards for detecting an infection? Isn't that rather support for the skeptic's viewpoint? So there actually is no standard, just labs claiming things?

It is not setting individual standards, but about calibration of the process. Each piece of measurement equipment needs to be calibrated.

I fully agree with you, but I also recognize that in our society it appears the legitimate arguments are too easily ignored because no one is out protesting as a result. At best, we get headlines about small businesses closing or people out of work or divorces, but these facts are being treated as casualties of the pandemic and not a reason to protest the lockdowns. So the only way to affect change is to whip people into a frenzy and it seems only disinformation is effective at doing that.

Again, I fully agree with you and do not believe the ends justify the means here.

The intellectually honest way to approach a faulty argument is to discard the parts that are false, maybe with commentary, then attack the bits that remain with better arguments.

I don't believe the article is doing that. It characterises one protest as "anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxer, anti-mask, anti-5G ... organised by Save Our Rights UK Ltd". I don't think the protesters thought they were protesting against 5G; I note that Save Our Rights UK doesn't list 5G as an issue [0]. And many of the issues they do list are, y'know, pretty serious. I'd consider joining a protest against sweeping legislative changes in response to the pandemic. Such changes in crisis situations tend to be really bad in hindsight.

There is a big difference between legitimate and illegitimate arguments. But I don't trust the article to fairly represent the arguments of the people it is attacking. The author should have a little bit more empathy for the people in the movements they are attacking.

Also; as a general comment it isn't reasonable to demand everyone be articulate about why they are hurting or to understand where in the system the leverage points are to relieve the pain. This is a radical time, people who aren't full time public speakers might have things they want to say. Working hard to paint them as disinformed and therefore having illegitimate concerns is a terrible strategy at many levels.

[0] https://saveourrights.uk/issues-we-face/

You can scroll down that group's page you linked to a video of the protest, in which a man stands and makes a speech in front of a large, professionally produced banner bearing their logo with the words "End Covid Vax" and "Take Down 5G" below the hashtagged headline #OurMovement. The son of Britain's most famous conspiracy theorist opens his headline speech by cracking a joke about "killing a couple of grannies" by breaking lockdown

Whilst I'd agree that Byline Times is not the most nuanced of sources, going to the opposite extreme of artificially charitable representations of who these organizations are and what they stand for and pretending the crazy isn't there is the way to lose an argument with them. The wider points they make are their recruitment strategy, not their raison d'etre. Makes no more sense to debate these sorts of organizations by ignoring the crazy to make defensive arguments about how the government is right than combating far-right parties by ignoring the racism and talking about the wisdom of modern economics.

> There is a big difference between legitimate arguments about the risks involved in lockdown vs not locking down and entirely false claims

may be they are suffering from cognitive dissonance, and this is how they resolve their internal conflict - that it must be a hoax and covid false, because the lockdown is so much worse for them.

People believe in what it’s more comfortable to believe in. COVID being a hoax means that lockdown is unjustified and that also means all of their issues would go away: no sitting at home, going back to work.

It’s not about internal conflict, it’s about a pipe dream where it all goes away.

And on a practical level I would think many people would prefer a double-digit probability of dying from COVID while working rather than a few years spent in financial limbo due to lockdowns. So at this point COVID being a hoax becomes way less black-and-white: maybe it being a hoax is just a way to say that “I would rather take the risk, and the hoax here is that you are vastly overestimating the fear of death in population”

PS: I am not saying it’s a hoax, I am giving a reasonably plausible pattern of thought behind the mechanism justifying it being a hoax.

That does not entitle them to lie to us without consequense.

Why not simply provide data to counter their "lies"? What makes you so sure to be in possession of the truth? Have you verified yourself, or have you simply chosen to trust the authorities?

> false claims about hospital admissions being at normal levels.

"Normal level" is all relative. If you look up the press, "on the brink of the apocalypse" seems to be the normal level for at least the last couple of years in the UK.

2012: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/dec/02/hospitals-fu...

2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/24/nhs-hospital...

2014: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/27/nhs-winter-c...

2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/27/nhs-hospital...

2016: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/16/hospitals-in...

2017: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/07/nhs-bosses-s...

2018: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/07/patients-tur...

2019: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/25/hospital-be...

Except for the articles which say that beds have been cut, the rest is manifestly untrue.

While the press tend to catastrophise, this is the first year we've seen doctors and nurses from multiple countries spontaneously going on social media to plead with people to take the virus seriously.

It's also the first year recent-history where some countries - including developed countries like Portugal - have had to send patients abroad, or ask for other kinds of medical help from other countries.

So it is absolutely a false claim to suggest that hospital admissions are at normal levels. They aren't.

It's also the first year where excess death totals have been far above any previous statistical variation.

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surve...

Sorry but "doctors going on social media" is absolutely no proof for anything. I have also seen several doctors on social media say that there is less activity at hospitals than usual.

Seriously, just provide the numbers about hospital use. No social media nonsense.

Your data about "excess deaths" is only for the last five years, by the way, not "any previous year".

What's interesting so far this year is that deaths with covid on the death certificate in january (say w/e 22 jan - 9,000) is below the 4,655 excess deaths.

Back in April it was the other way round. I wonder how many non-covid deaths lockdown is saving (because things like the normal winter flu aren't spreading)

Saving is an interesting viewpoint given

1. Excess deaths are high after lockdown measures

2. These deaths are no longer explained by covid 19 death counts

I know tons of people who have relapsed, regressed, and are just generally unwell at this point. .3% of my Facebook friends have made a suicide attempt since lockdowns began.

The longer this goes on, the more dramatic these incidents are going to become.

according to Tyler Black (1) who compiled all official numbers he could find there is no evidence of an increase in suicides for the US

https://twitter.com/tylerblack32/status/1357765466601775106

1) MD, Suicidologist, emergency psychiatrist and pharmacologist

Similar in the UK, although with a caveat that in the UK at least it can take a long time to register suicdes. Even in normal times only 50% of suicides are registered in the year they happen, and with covid there's a backlog. I suspect we won't know the real level of suicide in 2020 until 2022.

That said, the data that is available doesn't point to an increase outside of the historical increase (suicides in the UK have been increasing for a long time)

The data that's been released in the UK was using a newer rapid method, looking at death before coroners issue a conclusion. NCISH are calling this real time monitoring data. Some local areas sometimes call this data "suspected self inflicted deaths".

Suicides in the UK have not been increasing for a long time. They increased this year for the first time since 2007. There are a few reasons for this, but part of it is a change in the standard of proof used by coroner's after the Maughan case. Coroner's used to have to use "beyond all reasonable doubt", and now have to use "balance of probabilities" for a conclusion of suicide.

Okay, but you’re participating in amplification of disinformation right now. It’s the “just asking questions” sort or approach that doesn’t actually say anything specific, but aims to create a general fog of doubt and confusion.

If there is a specific point you want to make, then do so. It might be valid. Back that point up with details or an explanation that shows why you think it is the case, and expect to provide more information if your view is a challenging or unlikely one.

I don't know about the UK, but for example in Germany there are official statistics about ICU use. ICU use was at normal levels the whole time. But of course that is also being managed by scheduling risky surgery, for example.

Nevertheless, I don't know what makes you so sure your claims are true. I haven't really seen completely convincing evidence.

I have seen politicians publicly proclaim that the opportunity the pandemic provides should be used. So there definitely ARE politicians who would like to use it. What makes you so sure that none of the politicians in power, or indeed any of the other actors involved, don't share that sentiment?