A councillor who is also a nurse has spoken out after anti-vaccination leaflets were delivered in Portslade.
Peter Atkinson, who represents North Portslade on Brighton and Hove City Council, said that he was disgusted by the anti-covid vaccination flyers.
He said: “I’m appalled and disgusted that anyone could think it’s right to peddle this sort of dangerous and reckless disinformation.
“We now have over 100,000 people who have died from covid in the country since the start of the outbreak.
“This includes over 1,500 in Sussex yet the leaflet says, ‘there is no new disease to be afraid of’.
“The leaflet then goes on to challenge the safety of the Pfizer vaccine in particular and accuses the company of developing a vaccine that is not safe.”
Councillor Atkinson said: “There’s no name or organisation named on this leaflet but to peddle this level of fake news and gross propaganda is truly despicable.
“Whoever is behind this just needs to spend a couple of minutes on our local intensive care units or on mental health units where staff are caring for patients who are covid positive.
“They would be truly shocked.
“It is also an insult to healthcare staff and other public-facing workers who have lost their lives during the pandemic.”
Councillor Atkinson said that he was worried that some people might be frightened by the claims in the leaflet and has sent it on to the council’s public health team.
He added: “Obviously, it is people’s personal choice whether they have the vaccine or not but this leaflet and the people behind it do not provide balanced information on which to make a decision.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/27/dont-you-dare-call-us-covid-deniers/
Roy, there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, criticising the government’s strategy and, on the other, claiming that the virus is not real and/or that the vaccine is not safe, as the irresponsible producers of these leaflets are doing.
Btw Spiked is hardly a reliable source of information – it’s the magazine of what was once the Revolutionary Communist Party and has since morphed into a right-wing “think tank” – to call them nutcases would be an understatement.
glad this article is published = and glad see the list of issues collected together and published in the picture so the reader can see all of the issues unlike getting the selective issues made by Councillor Atkinson highlighted = i recommend clicking all of the web sites mentioned in all of the leaflets so a balanced view can be made = shame no name of the publisher is made and thus no law is breached but it is not from a political party is it????
Not only does the leaflet peddle lies but whomever wrote and produced it does not have the courage of their convictions to put their name/ organisation on it – says it all.
In Spain they have a problem with young mainly British people getting very drunk and jumping off hotel balconies. The locals are bewildered as to why they should do this attribute it to natural selection.
The people that take time to distribute and believe these leaflets look like our very own example of nature seeking to strengthen the Brighton gene pool. No doubt when they are rasping for oxygen in A and E after having refused the vaccine the rest of us will look at them and think thank goodness for their small brains as my vaccine was delivered more quickly as due to people like this my position to get it went up the queue.
Councillor Peter Atkinson might want to deal with this within his own party first as all the rampant anti-vaxxers in the city seem to be labour activists
Anti-Vaxxers are best ignored anyway.
Though they have more intelligence than anyone at the council.
The social inadequates who produced this leaflets, and not put their names to it, should look at today’s New York Times which has a series of photographs of covid scenes in England, such as wards with venilators down people’s throats and an undertaker standing beside his mother’s coffin.
What hope in life is there for the children of people who produced this leaflet?
“The survival rate for covid is the same as it is for the flu”:
That is disputed and a brief trawl on the references on the leaflet and google shows the range of dispute. But the language of dispute is not helped by this Councillor’s vehemence.
COVID-19: The first cases appeared in China in late 2019, and the first confirmed case in the United States appeared in January 2020.
Approximately 100,371,303 cases have been confirmed worldwide. There have been 25,445,241 cases in the U.S. between January 2020 and January 27, 2021.*
Flu: The World Health Organization estimates that 1 billion people worldwide get the flu every year.
In the U.S., for Oct. 1, 2019–Apr. 4, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there were 39 million to 56 million cases of flu. (The CDC does not know the exact number because the flu is not a reportable disease in most parts of the U.S.)
Flu
Coronavirus vs. Flu Deaths
COVID-19: There have been approximately 2,160,562 deaths reported worldwide. In the U.S, 425,250 people have died of COVID-19 between January 2020 and January 27, 2021.*
Flu: The World Health Organization estimates that 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year worldwide.
The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, the vast majority of people do not yet have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working to estimate the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be substantially higher (possibly 10 times or more) than that of most strains of the flu.
*This information comes from the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases map developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
the only helpful element of this diatribe was the objection that “There’s no name or organisation named on this leaflet” the rest was cheap political rhetoric a.k.a. propaganda
Cllr Peter Atkinson sees the reality of this epidemic at the coal face. He and his colleagues are working tirelessly to treat the vulnerable under unimaginable pressure and it is disgusting that the risks he and others take daily to help others is being heightened by reckless conspiracy theories like this
Well done Peter for speaking out.