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šŸšØImportant changes to lockdown/self-isolation regulations from 5pm

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Ā£800 'house party' FPN & police can now access track & trace data

https://t.co/k9XCpVsXhC

 ā€œLarge gathering offenceā€

As trailed by Home Secretary last week there is now a fixed penalty notice of Ā£800 (or Ā£400 if you pay within 14 days) for participating in an gathering of over 15 people in a private residence
Fixed Penalty Notices double for each subsequent ā€œlarge gathering offenceā€ up to Ā£6,400

Compare:
- Ordinary fixed penalty notice is Ā£200 or Ā£100 if paid in 14 days
- Holding or being involved in the holding of a gathering of over 30 people is Ā£10,000
Second big change:

Since September has been a legal requirement to sell-isolate if you test positive/notified by Track & Trace of exposure to someone else who tested positive

Police can now be given access to NHS Track & Trace data if for the purpose of enforcement/prosecution
This will make it easier for police to enforce people breaking self-isolation rules. Currently there has been practically no enforcement.

Data says only a small proportion of people meant to be self-isolating are fully doing so. https://t.co/LcwKfQ6PVx
But obviously this raises important human rights questions because police will be given access to information about our movements and social interactions.

They are only permitted to use that data for the purposes of Covid rules enforcement - but will they?
- Will data be kept safe and secure?
- Can police resist the temptation of using the data for other criminal enforcement purposes?
- Do we want the police having this information at all?
- Is enforcement going to make things better? Or make people less willing to share info?
As I said in the tweet quoted above, track & trace has mostly failed but we don't know if because police haven't been able to enforce. Could equally be lack of follow up, bad messaging, basic incompetence. As with all things Covid related, don't assume enforcement is the answer
Covid regulations table now updated https://t.co/5A0SJvCGWP
Important point made by @mikarv that the ability for the police to access Track & Trace data does *not* extend to data caught by the NHS phone app. See my thread on the self-isolation law https://t.co/Bn8WQJvMWn
I also made a YouTube video on the self-isolation law - nb. as the description says the self-isolation rules have subsequently been amended to reduce the isolation times down from 14 to 10 days in certain circumstances https://t.co/CxgnH6MekA
Good question. As far as I can tell (as usually you have to piece together two bits of law to figure it out) it is the contact details (including name, address), the notification of positive test/exposure, the period of isolation. So...
... should not include the details of who they came into contact with, however the police may be able to figure that out if they piece together multiple notifications given at the same time.
Donā€™t forget the police donā€™t necessarily want to be doing this either https://t.co/QUhfmMh03C

More from Adam Wagner

Adam Wagner
Adam Wagner
@AdamWagner1
šŸšØThe new lockdown regulations are here: coming into force on Thursday

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Analysis below as I read them (thread)

https://t.co/adPk9PsE0j

32 pages, 13,891 words...


As expected, "No person may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse" - back to the language of the Mar 2020 regulations

Again, there is a *non-exhaustive* list (because: "include") of reasonable excuses, now referred to as "exceptions"


What are the exceptions? There are many. There are 13 listed, but a number have sub-categories of exception, particularly Exception 1 (leaving home necessary for certain purposes). Here they are, except I can't fit them into four screen grabs!


Here's number 5


You might notice that these are many more than in the first lockdown [screen shot from first lockdown regs below] - though some have made a reappearance. Basically this is a more detailed and complex set of reasons for people to not stay at home.
UK
Adam Wagner
Adam Wagner
@AdamWagner1
A short thread on why I am dubious that the government can lawfully impose charges on travellers entering the UK for quarantine and testing (proposed at Ā£1,750 and Ā£210)

1/

The UK has signed up to the International Health Regulations (IHA) 2005. These therefore create binding international legal obligations on the UK.

The IHA explicitly prevent charging for travellers' quarantine or medical examinations.

https://t.co/n4oWE8x5Vg /2


International law is not actionable in a UK court unless it has been implemented in law.

But it can be used as an aide to interpretation where a statute isn't clear as to what powers it grants.

See e.g. Lord Bingham in A v SSHD https://t.co/RXmib1qGYD

/3


The Quarantine regulations will, I assume, be made under section 45B of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984

https://t.co/54L4lHGMEr

/4


That gives pretty broad powers but I can't see any power to charge for quarantine. Perhaps it will be inferred from somewhere else in Part 2A?

But...
UK
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Adam Wagner
Adam Wagner
@AdamWagner1
A year ago, the idea that you could close every restaurant, cafƩ and pub in the capital without a Parliamentary vote or even a debate would have been unthinkable. Today we have allowed government by executive decree and it now seems normal. Covid lawmaking has corroded democracy

To explain: since March, the government has used the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 to pass lockdown laws - over 60 (I have listed them here https://t.co/5Z1p3gVjbX).


The lockdown laws have imposed stringent restrictions on movement, freedom of association, family life, religion etc. But each and every lockdown law passed has used the super emergency procedure which allows the government to pass them without a parliamentary vote for 28 days

The government did this for months before MPs revolted at which point it promised to put any major changes before parliament first. It has done this since the three tiers in mid-October.

BUT...

(1) The govt is still only giving parliament about 12 hours to consider laws and the vote is a simple yes or no

(2) Changes to tiered areas are not considered major changes so these don't go to a vote until 28 days later by which time it has usually changed.
POLITICS
Adam Wagner
Adam Wagner
@AdamWagner1
This is a thread on human rights and the Coronavirus.

It will be a mixture of discussion, ideas and links and I will try to keep adding to it as things progress (THREAD)

I have been thinking about how human rights values and laws can help us traverse the next few months of deep crisis - across the planet.

We could 'suspend' or ignore human rights as a 'peace time nicety' as has happened in the past.

But to do so would be a huge error /1

As a preliminary, it is really, really important to understand that looking at the potential response to Coronavirus through a human rights lens does not generate any easy answers. Iā€™m not going to offer any. /2

Another preliminary: as with response to terrorism (there are similarities here) it is natural that when people are frightened, critical voices raising ā€˜nicetiesā€™ like individual rights are seen as annoying and beside the point. They. Are. Not. We know that from history. /3

What can human rights offer? Well, for one thing this is exactly the kind of crisis which the modern human rights system was designed for.

Iā€™m going to start with the general and then move onto the specific /4
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Adam Wagner
Adam Wagner
@AdamWagner1
šŸšØNew lockdown regulations just published, in force tomorrow

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 3) and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

https://t.co/L5jwlTDaIE

(Thread)


These are not a new set of regulations: they are amendments an old set of regulations

Which we thought were gone! But they are back

Welcome back No.3 regulations

A quick thing before we continue!

I have been analysing these laws for free for 9 months now - if you want to say thanks and have a few Ā£ to spare please give to my @LawCentres fundraiser

They give free legal advice to people who need it

They also amend the All Tiers regulations

Oh god it's all amendments by paragraph references

Basically all of England now in Tier 4 and Tier 4 is amended but not by a huge amount

This really is a terrible way to make laws on the fly - who can possibly understand it?!


So, to explain, you need 2 documents open if you want to understand what is going on:

All Tiers regulations (Tiers 1-4, 2 December as amended) https://t.co/IraPQ112ak

And amendments https://t.co/L5jwlTDaIE

No sensible way of doing except by track changes, on it now, back soon
HEALTH

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Alex McNeil
Alex McNeil
@AlexMcNeil14
Masks. A short thread. In June last year my GP advised me that wearing a mask even for a short space of time would be harmful for me on two fronts. One - I have painful rosacea on my face. Itā€™s a horrible condition and itā€™s lifelong. I can at times look scary!

Putting on a mask simply makes it worse. Two - I have hypertension. Manageable and controlled. GP also advises that mask wearing even for short periods can raise cortisol levels and make them dangerous to me.

On that basis and given the dreadful treatment us non-maskers have to suffer and to appease the abusers I have three times asked my GP to issue me with a letter relating to my conditions.

On each occasion she has said that there is no need. Whilst she wonā€™t admit it straight up, all conversations suggest sheā€™s been told not to. I happen to agree that no-one should need to reveal their medical history to anyone other than medical professionals responsible for me.

Iā€™ve researched mask wearing in relation to what they are supposed to be used for ref *Covid* - Iā€™m no thicko - I prepare risk assessments (and Iā€™m qualified to do so) every day (or did) - and the evidence *for* is weak. Very weak.
HEALTH
mf.
mf.
@redwineclouds
After therapy sessions, it is occurring to me how my parents and maybe most desi parents don't really grow as parents. For example, a person would be a very different to a baby and to a teenager because the needs and vulnerabilities are so different.

But here, I feel that growth for parents stagnants sometime around when a child is 12-13. None of our parents really talk to us about puberty and growing up. None of us are taught or can talk about relationships because of moral reasons. So what do you have?

You have parents who are still parenting their adult children like kids, not apologising to us but asking us to eat, reminding us to wear jackets, locking up cars. They care. But they are coming from a care where the parent is always concerned about keeping the kid safe and alive

which imo really reduces the kind of parental advice and care one needs as an adult. Because adults know enough about the world to no longer be infantilized but we still have parents who expect us to be the same children because they're still the same kind of parents.

This is why so many of our parental relationships are strained or just based on civilities. We're forced to hide a lot from them because parents refuse to grow as parents and acknowledge us as adults. How many of us are still lectured, have curfews, other restrictions?
HEALTH
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Thane Black
Thane Black
@thane_black
A week ago I voluntarily admitted myself to the hospital to get help bc I am losing weight as a result of increased food intolerances, secondary to my very severe #MECFS. A psychiatrist here decided that im mentally ill, 1/

purely on the basis that the medical workup was unable to explain my food intolerance. My psych eval only found mild anxiety and depression. 2/

They have put me on a 72hr psych hold while they work to get the county courts to commit me to a psych ward. This is a nightmare. They have taken away most of my belongings, put me in a new uniform, and are keeping me under 24/7 video surveillance. 3/

In the middle of the night last night when I sat up to use the urinal loud alarms sounded, as though I was trying to escape. I canā€™t even walk and hadnā€™t even left my bed. 4/

If they succeed in having me fully committed I will lose ability to communicate with the outside world except for an occasional phone call. I will lose all agency, and will very likely have treatments forced upon me. 5/
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writer sam
writer sam
@writersamr
Some thoughts on this: Firstly, it might be personal preference, but I am not keen on this kind of campaign as I feel like it trivialises cancer. Sometimes the serious message gets lost because people are sharing pics of cats or whatever and the important context is gone.


More importantly, the statistic being used in the campaign is misleading. It says 57% of women put off cervical screening if they can't get waxed. But on further investigation, that's not accurate.

The page here goes on to say "57% of women who regularly have their pubic hair professionally removed would put off attending their cervical screening appointment if they hadnā€™t been able to visit a beauty salon."

So the 57% represents a concern not across the whole population of women, but only those who regularly get waxed. So how big of an issue is this across the whole population? And what else is stopping people getting smears?

I think campaigns for cancer screening are really tricky because there is so much nuance that often doesn't fit into a catchy headline or hashtag. It's certainly not easy and is part of a bigger conversation.
HEALTH
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
"Public health" isn't just about vaccinations, clinics and urgent care: it's a holistic discipline that encompasses all the contributors to health outcomes, which include things like housing, employment, transportation, pollution and more.

1/


A new working paper from @nberpubs estimates the number of US covid deaths that could have been prevented with a coherent, effective eviction moratorium and a ban on utility cutoffs:

The paper, written by a multidisciplinary group of Duke researchers from medicine and economics, found that housing precarity (a risk of losing your home) drove risky behavior that increased the spread of the disease and the resulting deaths.

3/

For example, it forced people to double-up on lodgings, making social distancing impossible, to say nothing of self-isolating after an exposure. It also drove people to tolerate high-risk workplace conditions, including illegal conditions.

4/

The authors used regression techniques to control for confounding variables, and used like-for-like counties with different utility and eviction policies to estimate the effect that these had on infection rates.

5/
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Hello, writers! How about a thread on LITERARY AGENTS? How to get one, how to talk to one, how to keep one happy. Spoiler alert: I am 100% pro agent and can't imagine not having one on my side. 1/

Why would you want a literary agent?
* you want to be traditionally published
* you want someone experienced to help guide your career
* you want to learn how to edit like a pro
* you want to sell foreign and movie rights
* you want answers to your newbie questions 2/

Why you might *NOT* want a literary agent:
* you want to self publish
* you're not willing to compromise on your edits
* you don't think their expertise is worth 15% of your advance
I... can't think this way. Literary agents have been crucial to my career. 3/

So, how do you get a literary agent?
1. Have a finished, revised, edited, polished manuscript.
2. Write a query letter for your book
3. Send your query to agents who rep your genre and are open to submissions
4. Repeat steps 1-4 until you're offered representation. 4/

So, let's go through those four steps. First of all, you must have a finished, revised, edited, polished book, and it must be sellable. That is, you can't sell a 600k picture book or a 40k adult Fantasy, etc. You must read extensively in the genre you're writing. 5/
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Panic! in the Discord
Panic! in the Discord
@discord__panic
Neo-nazi group #PatriotFront held a photo op in #Chicago last weekend & is currently marching around #DC so it's as good time as any to compile a list of their identified members for folks to watch for

Who are these chuds?

Patriot Front broke away from white nationalist org Vanguard America following #unitetheright in #charlottesville after James Alex Fields was seen with a VA shield before driving his car into a crowd, murdering Heather Heyer & injuring dozens of others

Syed Robbie Javid a.k.a. Sayed Robbie Javid or Robbie Javid of Alexandria,


Antoine Bernard Renard (a.k.a. ā€œCharlemagne MDā€ on Discord) from Rockville, MD.

https://t.co/ykEjdZFDi6


Brandon Troy Higgs, 25, from Reisterstown,
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\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8I Support Our Military & Law Enforcement\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
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1. We were informed that Tier 4B (us, the Internet Group) would receive 800# notification on Wed. 16 Dec. (A Shotgun Release of liquidity started on Mon. 14 Dec.).

Redemption Center personnel were scheduled to work for the next nine days from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm until...

2. ... Dec. 24, when they would close at 5:30 pm.

The general public would begin exchanging at the new International Rates on the first banking business day after the Christmas Holiday.

A. The RV, NESARA, GESARA, Restored Republic and Martial Law

3. According to Charlie Ward we began the Ten Days of Darkness on Tues. 15 Dec. The Ten Days would finish Dec. 24 Christmas Eve with the US going into NESARA and then the rest of the world would go straight into GESARA on 1 Jan. 2021.

4. Every single country and territory has agreed to GESARA. The UK government corporation was liquidated in Oct. last year and it was finalized last week. France has started breaking up their Parliament. Everything needed for implementation of NESARA/GESARA was finished.

5. Trumpā€™s Christmas present: In a recent Executive Order President Trump declared that all government agencies (except for essential ones) permanently close on Dec. 24 2020. Trump had that authority since we were already under Martial Law (the US had been functioning under...
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Anshul Pandey
Anshul Pandey
@Anshulspiritual
LING PURANA: IMPORTANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

Reading Ling Purana provides bhog and moksha to the reader and listeners. It is about Shiva's sermon to Brahma when Shiva entered the Agni Ling and preached about Dharma sidhhi through the stories of Agni Kalp.


Vyasji divided this into two parts. This book is different from others and has eleven thousand shlokas which depict the glory of Shiva. This Puran is the summary about importance of Tridev.
It starts first with a questions. Then it describes the Shrishti in brief.

Then there is description of Yog and Kalp. Next is the evolution of Ling and its puja Vidhi. It consists of dialogue between Sanat Kumar and Shail etc. It also mentions the character of Dadhichi, the dharma representation of that yug, Bhuvan kosh description,

Chandravansh and Surya vansh. Next there is elaborate description of Shrishti, story of Tripur, Ling and Pashu Paash vimoksha, Vrats for Shiva, Discipline, Repentance, Arisht, description of Shri Shail. Next is the story of Andhakasur, Varah, Narsingh,

kĀ”lling of Jalandhar, Shiv sahastra naam, story of Daksha's yagya and its destruction, killing of Madan and marriage of Parvati.

Next is Vinayak katha, Shiv tandav, Ambrish katha and Upmanyu .
RELIGION
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRI BANASHANKARI AMMAN, BANGALORE
#bharatmandir

Located in Southern Bangalore, this is one of the most popular places of worship in Bangalore City.
Devoted to Devi Banashankari, this shrine is visited specially during Rahukala which is believed to be an unfavorable time.


Somanna Shetty, a great devotee of Devi, brought this murti from Badamiā€™s Banshankari Amma Kshetram.
It is said that many years ago, three ladies visited this shrine and requested the pujari to conduct puja for them. Since it was the inauspicious rahu kaal, the pujari refused.


However, upon their insistence, he conducted the puja. When he returned with prasadam, the ladies vanished. This made the people believe that they were none other than the Devi herself. Since then, the people perform poojas here during the Rahukaal.
@GunduHuDuGa


People use lemons as a diya. Lemons are cut from the centre and their pulps are removed, for pouring oil in them.
It is strongly believed that Devi removes all the troubles from the life of her devotees during the Rahukala although it is considered inauspicious for any pooja.
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