Southwest Airlines pilots and staff are flying in the face of corporate and government vaccine mandates
By R. M. Huffman | RT | October 12, 2021
Southwest Airlines’ top brass can deny the massive delays they’ve been experiencing have anything to do with their insistence staff take Covid shots or lose their job till they are blue in the face… but no one is buying it.
Southwest is experiencing turbulence. Over the weekend, the Texas-based airline canceled over 1,800 flights. Monday was no better: almost 400 more flights were canceled. A corporate spokesman, Alan Kasher, blamed the catastrophic interruption in business on bad weather in Florida and “issues” with air traffic control.
His claim was met with immediate disbelief, as the Federal Aviation Administration countered that no ATC staffing shortages were reported over the weekend, and competitor airlines flying in the same regions only canceled a tiny fraction of their own flights. The real reason for the cancellations is an open secret, despite Kasher’s reticence in acknowledging it. Southwest’s pilots and crews have been given a vaccine mandate, and they’re simply not having it.
Just today, on Good Morning America, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly spun the bad news like a turbine, citing “no evidence” that his company’s disastrous past few days had any connection with the vaccine ultimatum he’d handed down to his workforce. It does, of course, and Kelly knows it.
Here’s what’s actually happening. On September 9, Joe Biden announced his intention to force every company that employs more than 100 people to give their employees a vaccine mandate. Southwest Airlines subsequently relayed a missive to its employees, pilots, and crew members: “Southwest Airlines will be required to comply with the federal government’s directive for Employees of federal contractors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.” The deadline was set for December 8: get the vaccine, hope for an exemption, or be fired.
Many of these employees had already contracted and beaten the disease, enjoying an effective natural immunity. Others remained concerned about reports of adverse effects, including thrombosis (for which the Johnson & Johnson jab was pulled from market) and myocarditis (for which the Moderna shot was pulled as well). Many were also aware that vaccinations, while decreasing hospitalizations and deaths, don’t completely stop breakthrough infections and have demonstrated a diminishing efficacy.
Whatever the individual reasons, a mandate mutiny began brewing. It’s manifested now, asserting itself over these last few days in a way that can’t be ignored. Pilots save up paid sick days, often accumulating months’ worth, even years. As their concerns have gone unheard by executives and, faced with the ignominy of sacrificing bodily autonomy for corporate compliance, or being fired and losing their careers – including all those saved hours they’ve earned – pilots are simply calling in sick and cashing in their paid leave.
The union for Southwest’s 9,000 pilots denies an organized protest, sick-out, or shutdown, and that’s true. These individuals acting out of conscience are a loose confederation of colleagues at best. They’ve been told by Southwest suits that “the federal directive gives little latitude for input or choice.”They rejected that assertion, are rejecting it, and will continue to reject it.
Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the entire scenario is the fact that there isn’t even a rule with which Southwest Airlines is complying. When President Biden delivered his ultimatum in September, lawmakers and legal scholars were dubious. Many wondered how Biden intended to give teeth to his speech, as he’s not a part of any legislative body. His answer: use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to define vaccination as a workplace safety concern and issue a rule accordingly.
Regardless of the small agency’s legal standing to accomplish such a legislative workaround, or its ability to subsequently enforce it, a more foundational problem remains for Southwest and other employers: OSHA has not yet made such a rule, much less navigated the legal challenges already being made.
Unsuccessful with his carrots, Biden has picked up a stick; legally, this stick would be fragile in the best case, but at the moment it remains a complete mirage. It’s hard to believe that Southwest is so willing to infuriate both stranded customers and disgruntled pilots to avoid being beaten with it.
It is natural that airline executives would want to stay in the government’s good graces. After all, they’ve multiple times gone begging to Congress, cap in hand, lamenting the looming layoffs of their “valued employees” and asking for taxpayer bailout dollars. They’ve received them, to the tune of billions, as well as millions in compensation for themselves. Government contracts, at risk if the company doesn’t impose a vaccine mandate, make up a mere 3% of Southwest’s business, yet a hard line has been drawn over all objections of pilots and crews. How could Southwest’s employees not question where their CEO’s loyalty really lies?
Customers stranded at airports and dealing with canceled flights can’t be blamed for being frustrated, but their ire ought not be aimed at Southwest pilots, any more than the many tea enthusiasts among the American colonials should have been angry at the men who tossed the tea shipments into Boston Harbor. Economic disruption can be powerful, both as a symbol and as a practical protest method (although sometimes it’s mostly property destruction and looting, to which this current action bears no resemblance).
Perhaps even more so than the nurses and doctors once held up as heroes and now fired for refusing the jab, these pilots and crew members are showing concerned Americans, Europeans, Australians, and all free citizens, a potential way forward through this miserable morass of mandates. In Western democracies, government is designed to represent the people, not rule them. At some point, our elected officials decided that they would prefer to be masters rather than servants, entangling themselves with corporate leadership in a moldering rat king of stifling bureaucratic fiat and decree.
Just tell them no.
American corporations exist at the whim of their customers and through the willingness of their employees.
The United States government serves only with the consent of the governed.
Neither is the king of anybody. It’s high time they stop behaving as if they are.
Southwest Airlines’ goodwill is gone. Its executives now have a choice: hold firm to a specious vaccine mandate and watch its customers and employees fly away or, find a spine, and tell the federal government that it won’t play the willing stooge to Biden’s bullying tactics.
It’s time for corporate vaccine mandates to crash and burn.
R. M. Huffman is a physician, author, and observer of culture.
Why the Mainstream Media Remains Silent on the JFK Records Deadline
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | October 13, 2021
With the October 26 deadline only two weeks from now on releasing the 60-year secret records of the CIA relating to the Kennedy assassination, the silence from the mainstream press is deafening. The great mainstream defenders of transparency and openness in government, at least when it comes foreign dictatorships, cannot bring themselves to openly advocate for the release of thousands of records relating to the JFK assassination that the CIA still insists on keeping secret.
Why the silence? I will explain the reason, but first please permit me to restate the prediction I have made regarding this matter.
I predict that within the next weeks, President Biden will grant a request by the CIA for continued secrecy of its assassination-related records. I predict that Biden will order the release of some of the records for appearance’s sake, but he will cite “national security” to justify continuing the secrecy of the vast majority of the records.
Why do I make this prediction? Because the reason that the CIA needed to keep these records secret 60 years ago still exists. That same reason was why it it needed to keep them secret during the 1990s, when the Assassination Records Review Board was enforcing the JFK Records Act of 1992, which mandated the release of all federal records relating to the assassination.
Further, that same reason obviously caused the CIA, despite the law’s mandate, to continue keeping its records secret for another 25 years after the JFK Records Act was enacted. When that deadline came due in 2017, that same reason obviously motivated the CIA to petition President Trump for another extension of time for secrecy, which Trump dutifully granted. That deadline comes due on October 26, 2021 — two weeks from now — and mark my words: The same reason will cause the CIA to request that Biden grant another extension of time for secrecy, which Biden, like Trump, will dutifully grant.
What is the reason that has caused the CIA to want to keep these thousands of records secret from the American people. The reason, I am more convinced than ever, is that the CIA knows that those remaining records constitute more pieces to the overall puzzle of criminal culpability on the part of the CIA in the regime-change operation that took place on November 22,1963.
After all, let’s face it: No matter what definition is put on that nebulous and meaningless term “national security,” there is no possibility that anything bad will happen to the United States if those 60-year-old secret records are released to the American people. The United States will not fall into the ocean. The supposed international communist conspiracy to take over the United States that was supposedly based in Moscow, Russia (yes, that Russia!) during the Cold War won’t be reinvigorated. Communist Cuba will not invade the United States. The dominoes near North Vietnam will not fall to the communists. North Korea will not come and get us.
President Biden just ordered the release of President Trump’s secret records relating to the January 6 Capitol protests. Why not the same decision with respect to those 60-year-old secret records of the CIA relating to the Kennedy assassination?
Why won’t the mainstream press call on Biden to enforce the JFK Records Act of 1992? They’re scared to do so. In a remarkably candid and direct statement made to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in 2017, New York Senator Charles Schumer explained why they are scared: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer said to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Schumer was referring to President Trump, but actually the admonition applies to everyone. The CIA, the Pentagon, the NSA, and the FBI — i.e., the entire intelligence community — has “six ways from Sunday at getting back” at anyone who takes it on, including newspaper owners, publishers, and editors.
Most people know about Operation Mockingbird, the top-secret operation of the CIA to acquire assets within the mainstream press to advance the CIA’s propaganda. Does anyone really think that the CIA would stop there in the quest to expand its power and influence?
Not a chance! For example, the entire national-security establishment would concentrate on acquiring, installing, and grooming assets in Congress, which sets the budgets. Does anyone think it’s just a coincidence that Congress gives the national-security establishment whatever it wants plus sometimes even more than what it wants? There is good reason why President Eisenhower planned to use the term “military-industrial-congressional” complex in his Farewell Address. No one can reasonably deny that Congress is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the national-security establishment.
But they obviously would not stop there. They would also be acquiring assets within the IRS, one of the most powerful and tyrannical agencies within the federal government. There isn’t anyone, including newspaper owners, publishers, and editors, who isn’t afraid of receiving an audit notice from the IRS.
And if it happens, no one would ever be able to prove that it originated with the CIA or the rest of the national-security establishment. It would just look like it was occurring at random. If any victim of an IRS audit accused the CIA or the rest of the national-security establishment of being behind the audit, they would be ready to hurl the infamous “conspiracy theorist” label at him.
What newspaper owner, publisher, or editor wants to take that chance? They all know that the national-security establishment frowns very seriously on any mainstream media outlet that even remotely suggests that the Kennedy assassination was a regime-change operation, no different in principle from those in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Congo, and Chile both before and after the Kennedy assassination. But they also do not want to take the chance of upsetting the CIA by simply calling on it to release its 60-year-old still-secret records relating to the assassination.
After all, everyone knows that if an entity is powerful enough to regime-change presidents and prime ministers, both foreign and domestic, with impunity, it can easily destroy any mainstream media executive who dares to buck the CIA on the assassination.
It’s just the way life works in a national-security state. It’s why the mainstream media is maintaining strict silence on the upcoming October 26 deadline on the release of those 60-year-old still-secret records of the CIA relating to the Kennedy assassination.
Southwest CEO: The President Forced Vaccine Mandates on Them
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | October 13, 2021
In an interview with CNBC, Southwest Airlines’ CEO Gary Kelly didn’t pull any punches when pinning the blame on his company’s hard-handed vaccine mandates — and laid it squarely on the head of President Joe Biden.
“I’ve never been in favor of corporations imposing that kind of a mandate,” Kelly said. “But the executive order from President Biden mandates that all federal employees and then all federal contractors, which covers all the major airlines, have to have a [vaccine] mandate … so we’re working through that.”
United and Hawaiian Airlines already had a COVID vaccine requirement in place before Biden’s announcement; American, Alaska and JetBlue followed through with theirs before Southwest instituted theirs. Like other carriers, Southwest started out by offering incentives to voluntarily get the shots.
Delta’s “incentive” came in the form of a $200 health insurance surcharge for unvaccinated workers. While Kelly claimed that the delays and cancellations of thousands of Southwest flights were due to bad weather and air traffic control issues in Florida, speculation continues to swirl that the real reason for the disruptions were mass “sick-outs” by employees protesting the mandate.
Still, Kelly insisted the whole thing was the president’s fault when he sent out a company message to Southwest employees: “I do not believe it is up to me … to mandate to people that they get vaccinated,” he said.
Preventing Covid Infections Among Healthy Children Is Pointless
By Noah Carl • The Daily Sceptic • October 12, 2021
Thanks to school closures, children missed out on in-person teaching, as well as regular face-to-face interaction with their friends, for the best part of a year.
The main rationale for closing schools was to help ‘flatten the curve’ of total infections, and thereby prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. (We’ve known since early on in the pandemic that children’s risk of death from Covid is vanishingly small – lower even than their chance of dying from seasonal flu.)
However, evidence suggests that neither lockdowns in general, nor school closures in particular, were necessary to prevent healthcare systems from being overwhelmed; and the harms from school closures were substantial.
Once the Government conceded it was time for schools to reopen, there came a new justification to keep them closed: protecting teachers. Yet studies have repeatedly shown that teachers are not at elevated risk of death from Covid.
Even after schools finally did open up, pupils faced a rigamarole of mask mandates, regular testing and stints of mandatory self-isolation. Since the vast majority of vulnerable people (and most teachers) had been vaccinated by this point, it’s unclear exactly why things couldn’t just return to normal.
As far as one can discern, the specific rationale seems to be: ‘something to do with case numbers and/or long Covid’. Why we should care about case numbers in an age-group that faces a higher risk of death from season flu has not been explained.
As to long Covid, the latest data suggest that only a tiny number of children (less than 2%) continue to report symptoms 12 weeks after infection. One study found that symptoms were no more common among children who’d had the virus than among those who’d never been infected.
Despite all this, demands for more restrictions in schools can still be heard. On 3rd September, scientists associated with Independent SAGE, as well as various other individuals and organisations, co-signed a letter in The BMJ Opinion calling for the Government “to protect children, our wider communities, and the NHS”.
Their “nine point plan” includes such measures as: reinstating face coverings; offering vaccines to all 12–15 year-olds; and reinstating contact tracing “with a strict policy on mandatory isolation”.
But according to Chris Whitty, “roughly half” of children have already have Covid, and it’s reasonable to assume that “the great majority” are “going to get it at some point” because “this is incredibly infectious”.
Now that almost all vulnerable people have been vaccinated, why are we trying to stop children getting the virus if “the great majority” of them are going to get it at some point anyway? Offering the vaccine to those with an underlying health condition makes sense, but apart from that, why do anything at all?
In fact, shouldn’t we actively encourage young people to get the virus, so as to build up more population immunity before the winter?
Merrick Garland’s America
The justice department targets dissenters
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 12, 2021
There have been a number of suggestions online that the withdrawal of American soldiers from overseas is being undertaken to use the troops against those individuals and domestic groups that are being targeted by the Justice Department. The possibility has a certain coherency given that we have a White House that believes it has the right to forcefully inflict medical procedures on anyone who happens to live in the US, but it falls down due to the fact that the soldiers themselves might side with the dissidents as they are being sent to reeducation camps and subsequently weeded out based on their political views, even to the extent of having their social media covertly monitored. Quis custodet custodes?, one must ask.
If there is one thing that all Americans should feel pleased about with the Republican Party performance it is the fact that the then Republican dominated Senate was able to block President Barack Obama’s bid to place Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court. The downside of that is, of course, that he now is Joe Biden’s Attorney General, where he is very well placed to engage in mischief that will potentially affect all Americans. In fact, he has proven to be a more than willing accomplice in the social engineering that the Biden Administration is engaged in, to include his declaration of war against white supremacists as the single greatest terrorist threat the United States faces today.
One might well recall Taki Theodoracopulos’s recent comment that “If America survives in its current form, years from now people will wonder how society was enslaved by a minority of privileged people who would surrender and give up their mother at the first sign of an attack.” That defines Garland and those around him, but he is generally regarded by the media and those who care about such things, as a moderate, judicially speaking. As I can hardly confirm his actual views on anything, I would not dispute that assessment, but I would note that he certainly walks like a standard Democratic Party liberal duck since he has been appointed Attorney General, very tolerant of bizarre “woke” culture and taking the lead on finding and punishing domestic terrorists. The enemies list admittedly features white supremacists regarded ipso facto as extremists, but it now also includes parents who do not support “critical race theory” (CRT) in the nation’s public schools.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has observed how “The Department of Justice’s fight against angry parents is a real testament to the authoritarian nature of the Biden administration and indeed, the entirety of the left. It takes a lot of hubris to declare that you know how to raise someone’s child better than them and send authorities to shut you down when you protest that.” To be sure, Critical Race Theory has been fairly criticized as it pretends to be an antidote to systemic racism but is itself racist in nature as it opposes a race neutral system that equally benefits everyone. It proposes that America’s governmental bodies and infrastructures are racist and supportive of “white supremacy” and must be deconstructed. It requires everything to be examined through a value system determined by identity politics and race and it views both whites and their institutions as hopelessly corrupted, if not evil. This is what will be taught to children and this is why parents are protesting.
One has to wonder if a “moderate” jurist would support using the nation’s law enforcement resources to come down on hard on people, most of whom are committing something that might be referred to as thought crimes. The mainstream media has little to say on the issue, most probably because Garland is a protected species called “Jewish” and he is also serving a liberal Democratic Administration. One notes in particular that Garland has said nothing about intensifying FBI efforts to identify, arrest, prosecute and confine the black lives matter punks who rioted, burned and looted last summer, causing billions of dollars-worth of damage, and beating and even killing those who resisted. Could it be because they are part of the Democratic Party coalition?
Some of the press coverage on Garland that does exist is embarrassing because it is exculpatory of what might be an egregious violation of the Constitution by a government that might be described truthfully as neo-totalitarian. Indeed, Garland’s most recent pronouncement on cracking down on CRT critics triggered an approving puff piece from Newsweek, which once upon a time was considered a reliable news magazine.
The article is headlined “Merrick Garland Tackles Threats to Educators Amid Critical Race Theory Furor,” which is all you need to know about what will follow. Per News-weak and Garland, educators are being threatened by racists. Its lead paragraphs states that “Attorney General Merrick Garland is taking aim at intimidation and threats of violence directed at educators and school administrators who are working to give children ‘a proper education in a safe environment.’ Garland issued a memorandum to FBI Director Christopher Wray and federal prosecutors on Monday saying there had been a ‘disturbing spike’ in threats against school personnel and promising to take measures to deal with the issue. The move from the Department of Justice comes after fraught scenes at school board meetings across the country, with heated exchanges about COVID-19 regulations and Critical Race Theory (CRT).”
Garland’s action was reportedly in response to a letter from the politically left-leaning National School Boards Association (NSBA) to President joe Biden on September 29th, comparing threats against school personnel to “domestic terrorism.” It said “… many public school officials are… facing physical threats because of propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula. As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Garland is mobilizing what he refers to as a “Partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement.” The FBI memorandum itself argues that “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools. While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views. Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety. The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate. In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
Merrick Garland, like Newsweek, makes pretty clear where he sits on the issue and it is beyond amusing to see him write about the “nation’s core values,” which he and his accomplices are attempting to subvert and destroy. The school boards are presumed to be completely innocent while the parents protesting against the “values” being forced down the throats of their children by the recently empowered “woke” fanatics who tend to make up many of the boards are the criminals. If Garland had looked a little deeper, he would have discovered that quite a lot of the harassment and intimidation is coming from the members of the school boards and their political allies in local government and the media, as has been evident in Loudoun County Virginia. Indeed, while Garland states his intention to stop those who would “intimidate individuals based on their views,” that is exactly what he and his friends in the world of education are trying to do, and succeeding in many places. A “proper education in a safe environment” is precisely what students are not receiving as standards are dropped and the focus on racism and transgenderism begin to influence and generally dominate what is in the curriculum, aided and abetted by hypocrites like Merrick Garland and his nominal boss the perpetually befuddled President Joe Biden.
No one can make a better assessment of what is happening to our country than former congressman Ron Paul. In a recent piece entitled “Parents Should Control Education” he observes: “In contrast to an authoritarian society, a free society recognizes that parents have both the responsibility and the right to provide their children with a quality education that reflects the parents’ values. Teachers who use their positions to indoctrinate children in beliefs that contradict the views of the parents are the ones overstepping their bounds. Restoring parental control of education should be a priority for all who believe in liberty. If government can override the wishes of parents in the name of ‘education’ or ‘protecting children’s health’ then what area of our lives is safe from government intrusion?”
Indeed Dr. Paul, with Merrick Garland at the helm and Captain Queeg in the White House no area of our lives is safe from the government.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Australia Building Quarantine Camps For “Ongoing Operations”
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | October 12, 2021
Despite some states tentatively beginning to lift lockdown restrictions, Australian authorities are building quarantine camps that won’t be completed until next year in order to prepare for “ongoing operations” and to house those “who have not had access to vaccination.”
According to ABC Australia, one such 1,000-bed quarantine facility at Wellcamp Airport outside Toowoomba will be fully completed by the end of March 2022.
“At this stage, the cabins will be used by domestic travellers returning from COVID hotspots,” states the report.
However, it also makes clear that the camp will be used for “ongoing operations” and will be a source of employment for the local area.
The camps is split into different zones and accommodates singles, doubles, and family rooms while being patrolled by police and security guards 24/7.
Citing new strains of COVID and people “who have not had access to vaccination,” Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles told the media outlet, “We anticipate there to be a continuing need for quarantine facilities.”
The government is leasing the land on which the camp is being built from the Wagner Corporation for 12 months with an option for a further 12 months after that.
Another 1,000-bed quarantine facility is also being built on a 30-hectare Army barracks site in the industrial area of Pinkenba, near Brisbane Airport.
“Why anyone who had left Australia would come back again is unclear,” writes Dave Blount. “It is possibly the most repressive country in the world regarding Covid tyranny.”
As we previously highlighted, state authorities in America are also constructing new “quarantine facilities” for Americans who are “unable to quarantine at home.”
As we reported last year, Authorities in Quebec City, Canada announced they will isolate “uncooperative” citizens in a coronavirus facility, the location of which remains a secret.
New Zealand also announced plans to place COVID infectees and their family members in “quarantine facilities.”
Back in January, German authorities also announced they would hold COVID dissidents who repeatedly fail to properly follow the rules in what was described as a ‘detention camp’ located in Dresden.
The Great New Normal Purge
By CJ Hopkins | The Consent Factory | October 12, 2021
So, the Great New Normal Purge has begun … right on cue, right by the numbers.
As we “paranoid conspiracy theorists” have been warning would happen for the past 18 months, people who refuse to convert to the new official ideology are now being segregated, stripped of their jobs, banned from attending schools, denied medical treatment, and otherwise persecuted.
Relentless official propaganda demonizing “the Unvaccinated” is being pumped out by the corporate and state media, government leaders, health officials, and shrieking fanatics on social media. “The Unvaccinated” are the new official “Untermenschen,” an underclass of subhuman “others” the New Normal masses are being conditioned to hate.
But it isn’t just a purge of “the Unvaccinated.” Anyone deviating from the official ideology is being systematically demonized and persecuted. In Germany, Australia, and other New Normal countries, protesting the New Normal is officially outlawed. The New Normal Gestapo is going around to people’s homes to interrogate them about their anti-New Normal Facebook posts. Corporations are openly censoring content that contradicts the official narrative. New Normal goon squads roam the streets, checking people’s “vaccination” papers.
And it’s not just governments and corporations carrying out the New Normal Purge. Friends are purging friends. Wives are purging husbands. Fathers are purging children. Children are purging parents. New Normals are purging old normal thoughts. Global “health authorities” are revising definitions to make them conform to New Normal “science.”
And so on … a new official “reality” is being manufactured, right before our eyes. Anything and anyone that doesn’t conform to it is being purged, unpersoned, memory-holed, erased.
None of which should come as a surprise.
Every nascent totalitarian system, at some stage of its takeover of society, launches a purge of political opponents, ideological dissidents, and other “anti-social deviants.” Such purges can be brief or open-ended, and they can take any number of outward forms, depending on the type of totalitarian system, but you cannot have totalitarianism without them.
The essence of totalitarianism — regardless of which costumes and ideology it wears — is a desire to completely control society, every aspect of society, every individual behavior and thought. Every totalitarian system, whether an entire nation, a tiny cult, or any other form of social body, evolves toward this unachievable goal … the total ideological transformation and control of every single element of society (or whatever type of social body it comprises). This fanatical pursuit of total control, absolute ideological uniformity, and the elimination of all dissent, is what makes totalitarianism totalitarianism.
Thus, each new totalitarian system, at some point in its evolution, needs to launch a purge of those who refuse to conform to its official ideology. It needs to do this for two basic reasons: (1) to segregate or otherwise eliminate actual political opponents and dissidents who pose a threat to the new regime; and (2) and more importantly, to establish the ideological territory within which the masses must now confine themselves in order to avoid being segregated, or eliminated.
The purge must be conducted openly, brutally, so that the masses understand that the rules of society have changed, forever, that their former rights and freedoms are gone, and that from now on any type of resistance or deviation from official ideology will not be tolerated, and will be ruthlessly punished.
The purge is usually launched during a “state of emergency,” under imminent threat from some official “enemy” (e.g., “communist infiltrators,” “counter-revolutionaries,” or … you know, a “devastating pandemic”), such that the normal rules of society can be indefinitely suspended “for the sake of survival.” The more terrified the masses can be made, the more willing they will be to surrender their freedom and follow orders, no matter how insane.
The lifeblood of totalitarianism is fear … fear of both the system’s official enemy (which is constantly stoked with propaganda) and of the totalitarian system itself. That the brutality of the system is rationalized by the threat posed by the official enemy doesn’t make it any less brutal or terrifying. Under totalitarian systems (of any type or scale) fear is a constant and there is no escape from it.
The masses’ fear is then channeled into hatred … hatred of the official “Untermenschen,” whom the system encourages the masses to scapegoat. Thus, the purge is also a means of allowing the masses to purge themselves of their fear, to transform it into self-righteous hatred and unleash it on the “Untermenschen” instead of the totalitarian system, which, obviously, would be suicidal.
Every totalitarian system — both the individuals running it and the system, structurally — instinctively understands how all this works. New Normal totalitarianism is no exception.
Just reflect on what has happened over the last 18 months.
Day after day, month after month, the masses have been subjected to the most destructive psychological-terror campaign in the history of psychological terror. Sadly, many of them have been reduced to paranoid, anus-puckering invalids, afraid of the outdoors, of human contact, afraid of their own children, afraid of the air, morbidly obsessed with disease and death … and consumed with hatred of “the Unvaccinated.”
Their hatred, of course, is utterly irrational, the product of fear and propaganda, as hatred of “the Untermenschen” always is. It has absolutely nothing to do with a virus, which even the New Normal authorities admit. “The Unvaccinated” are no more of a threat to anyone than any other human being … except insofar as they threaten the New Normals’ belief in their delusional ideology.
No, we are way past rationality at this point. We are witnessing the birth of a new form of totalitarianism. Not “communism.” Not “fascism.” Global-capitalist totalitarianism. Pseudo-medical totalitarianism. Pathologized totalitarianism. A form of totalitarianism without a dictator, without a definable ideology. A totalitarianism based on “science,” on “fact,” on “reality,” which it creates itself.
I don’t know about you, but, so far, it has certainly made quite an impression on me. So much so that I have mostly set aside my satirical schtick to try to understand it … what it actually is, why it is happening, why it is happening now, where it is going, and how to oppose it, or at least disrupt it.
The way I see it, the next six months will determine how successful the initial stages of the roll-out of this new totalitarianism will be. By April of 2022, either we’ll all be showing our “papers” to the New Normal Gestapo to be able to earn a living, attend a school, dine at a restaurant, travel, and otherwise live our lives, or we will have thrown a monkey wrench into the machinery. I do not expect GloboCap to abandon the roll-out of the New Normal over the longer term — they are clearly committed to implementing it — but we have the power to ruin their opening act (which they’ve been planning and rehearsing for quite some time).
So, let’s go ahead and do that, shall we? Before we get purged, or unpersoned, or whatever. I’m not sure, as I haven’t seen a “fact-check” yet, but I believe there are some commercial airline pilots in the USA who are showing us the way.
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Natural Immunity and Covid-19: Twenty-Nine Scientific Studies to Share with Employers, Health Officials, and Politicians
BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | OCTOBER 10, 2021
From the beginning of the March 2020 lockdowns for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the subject of natural immunity (also called post-infection immunity) has been neglected. Once the vaccination became widely available, what began with near silence at the beginning turned nearly into a complete blackout of the topic.
Even now, there is an absence of open discussion, presumably in the interests of promoting universal vaccination and required documentation of such vaccination as a condition of participating in public life and even the jobs marketplace. Still, the science exists. Many studies exist. Their authors deserve credit, recognition, and to have their voices heard.
These studies demonstrate what was and is already known: natural immunity for a SARS-type virus is robust, long-lasting, and broadly effective even in the case of mutations, generally more so than vaccines. In fact, a major contribution of 20th-century science has been to expand upon and further elucidate this principle that has been known since the ancient world. Every expert presumably knew this long before the current debates. The effort to pretend otherwise is a scientific scandal of the highest order, especially because the continued neglect of the topic is affecting the rights and freedoms of billions of people.
People who have contracted the virus and recovered deserve recognition. For that matter, people who prefer an exposure risk to the virus in order to gain robust immunity deserve the freedom to make that choice. The realization that natural immunity – which pertains now to perhaps half of the US population and billions around the world – is effective in providing protection should have a dramatic effect on vaccine mandates.
Individuals whose livelihoods and liberties are being deprecated and deleted need access to the scientific literature as it pertains to this virus. They should send a link to this page far and wide. The scientists have not been silent; they just haven’t received the public attention they deserve. The preparation of this list was assisted by links provided by Paul Elias Alexander and Rational Ground’s own cheat sheet on natural immunity, which also includes links to popular articles on the topic.
1. One-year sustained cellular and humoral immunities of COVID-19 convalescents, by Jie Zhang, Hao Lin, Beiwei Ye, Min Zhao, Jianbo Zhan, et al. Clinical Infectious Diseases, October 5, 2021. “SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibodies, and also NAb can persist among over 95% COVID-19 convalescents from 6 months to 12 months after disease onset. At least 19/71 (26%) of COVID-19 convalescents (double positive in ELISA and MCLIA) had detectable circulating IgM antibody against SARS-CoV-2 at 12m post-disease onset. Notably, the percentages of convalescents with positive SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses (at least one of the SARS-CoV-2 antigen S1, S2, M and N protein) were 71/76 (93%) and 67/73 (92%) at 6m and 12m, respectively. Furthermore, both antibody and T-cell memory levels of the convalescents were positively associated with their disease severity.”
2. Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections, by Sivan Gazit, Roei Shlezinger, Galit Perez, Roni Lotan, Asaf Peretz, Amir Ben-Tov, Dani Cohen, Khitam Muhsen, Gabriel Chodick, Tal Patalon. MedRxiv, August 25, 2021. “Our analysis demonstrates that SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant for a symptomatic disease as well…. This analysis demonstrated that natural immunity affords longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization due to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”
3. Shedding of Infectious SARS-CoV-2 Despite Vaccination, by Kasen K. Riemersma, Brittany E. Grogan, Amanda Kita-Yarbro, Gunnar E. Jeppson, David H. O’Connor, Thomas C. Friedrich, Katarina M. Grande, MedRxiv, August 24, 2021. “The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant might cause high viral loads, is highly transmissible, and contains mutations that confer partial immune escape. Outbreak investigations suggest that vaccinated persons can spread Delta. We compared RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) data from 699 swab specimens collected in Wisconsin 29 June through 31 July 2021 and tested with a qualitative assay by a single contract laboratory. Specimens came from residents of 36 counties, most in southern and southeastern Wisconsin, and 81% of cases were not associated with an outbreak. During this time, estimated prevalence of Delta variants in Wisconsin increased from 69% to over 95%. Vaccination status was determined via self-reporting and state immunization records.”
4. Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals, by Nabin K. Shrestha, Patrick C. Burke, Amy S. Nowacki, Paul Terpeluk, Steven M. Gordon, MedRxiv, June 5, 2021. “Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.”
5. Large-scale study of antibody titer decay following BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine or SARS-CoV-2 infection, by Ariel Israel, Yotam Shenhar, Ilan Green, Eugene Merzon, Avivit Golan-Cohen, Alejandro A Schäffer, Eytan Ruppin, Shlomo Vinker, Eli Magen. MedRxiv, August 22, 2021. “This study demonstrates individuals who received the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine have different kinetics of antibody levels compared to patients who had been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with higher initial levels but a much faster exponential decrease in the first group.”
6. Discrete Immune Response Signature to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination Versus Infection, by Ellie Ivanova, Joseph Devlin, et al. Cell, May 2021. “While both infection and vaccination induced robust innate and adaptive immune responses, our analysis revealed significant qualitative differences between the two types of immune challenges. In COVID-19 patients, immune responses were characterized by a highly augmented interferon response which was largely absent in vaccine recipients.”
7. SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, by Jackson S. Turner, Wooseob Kim, Elizaveta Kalaidina, Charles W. Goss, Adriana M. Rauseo, Aaron J. Schmitz, Lena Hansen, Alem Haile, Michael K. Klebert, Iskra Pusic, Jane A. O’Halloran, Rachel M. Presti, Ali H. Ellebedy. Nature, May 24, 2021. “This study sought to determine whether infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces antigen-specific long-lived BMPCs in humans. We detected SARS-CoV-2 S-specific BMPCs in bone marrow aspirates from 15 out of 19 convalescent individuals, and in none from the 11 control participants…. Overall, our results are consistent with SARS-CoV-2 infection eliciting a canonical T-cell-dependent B cell response, in which an early transient burst of extrafollicular plasmablasts generates a wave of serum antibodies that decline relatively quickly. This is followed by more stably maintained levels of serum antibodies that are supported by long-lived BMPCs.”
8. Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells, by Kristen W. Cohen, Susanne L. Linderman, Zoe Moodie, Julie Czartoski, Lilin Lai, Grace Mantus, Carson Norwood, Lindsay E. Nyhoff, Venkata Viswanadh Edara, et al. MedRxiv, April 27, 2021. “Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2. We evaluated 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally from early infection and for eight months thereafter and found a predominant broad-based immune memory response. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibited a bi-phasic decay with an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells. In addition, there was a sustained IgG+ memory B cell response, which bodes well for a rapid antibody response upon virus re-exposure.”
9. Incidence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 infection among previously infected or vaccinated employees, by N Kojima, A Roshani, M Brobeck, A Baca, JD Klausner. MedRxiv, July 8, 2021. “Previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 were associated with decreased risk for infection or re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 in a routinely screened workforce. The was no difference in the infection incidence between vaccinated individuals and individuals with previous infection. Further research is needed to determine whether our results are consistent with the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants.”
10. Single cell profiling of T and B cell repertoires following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine, by Suhas Sureshchandra, Sloan A. Lewis, Brianna Doratt, Allen Jankeel, Izabela Ibraim, Ilhem Messaoudi. BioRxiv, July 15, 2021. “Interestingly, clonally expanded CD8 T cells were observed in every vaccinee, as observed following natural infection. TCR gene usage, however, was variable, reflecting the diversity of repertoires and MHC polymorphism in the human population. Natural infection induced expansion of larger CD8 T cell clones occupied distinct clusters, likely due to the recognition of a broader set of viral epitopes presented by the virus not seen in the mRNA vaccine. Our study highlights a coordinated adaptive immune response where early CD4 T cell responses facilitate the development of the B cell response and substantial expansion of effector CD8 T cells, together capable of contributing to future recall responses.”
11. mRNA vaccine-induced T cells respond identically to SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern but differ in longevity and homing properties depending on prior infection status, Jason Neidleman, Xiaoyu Luo, Matthew McGregor, Guorui Xie, Victoria Murray, Warner C. Greene, Sulggi A. Lee, Nadia R. Roan. BioRxiv, July 29, 2021. “In infection-naïve individuals, the second dose boosted the quantity and altered the phenotypic properties of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells, while in convalescents the second dose changed neither. Spike-specific T cells from convalescent vaccinees differed strikingly from those of infection-naïve vaccinees, with phenotypic features suggesting superior long-term persistence and ability to home to the respiratory tract including the nasopharynx. These results provide reassurance that vaccine-elicited T cells respond robustly to emerging viral variants, confirm that convalescents may not need a second vaccine dose, and suggest that vaccinated convalescents may have more persistent nasopharynx-homing SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells compared to their infection-naïve counterparts.”
12. Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection, Jennifer M. Dan, Jose Mateus, Yu Kato, Kathryn M. Hastie, et al., Science, January 6, 2021. “Understanding immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 is critical for improving diagnostics and vaccines, and for assessing the likely future course of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed multiple compartments of circulating immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 in 254 samples from 188 COVID-19 cases, including 43 samples at ≥ 6 months post-infection. IgG to the Spike protein was relatively stable over 6+ months. Spike-specific memory B cells were more abundant at 6 months than at 1 month post symptom onset. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells declined with a half-life of 3-5 months. By studying antibody, memory B cell, CD4+ T cell, and CD8+ T cell memory to SARS-CoV-2 in an integrated manner, we observed that each component of SARS-CoV-2 immune memory exhibited distinct kinetics.”
13. Persistence of neutralizing antibodies a year after SARS-CoV-2 infection, by Anu Haveri, Nina Ekström, Anna Solastie, Camilla Virta, Pamela Österlund, Elina Isosaari, Hanna Nohynek, Arto A. Palmu, Merit Melin. MedRxiv, July 16, 2021. “We assessed the persistence of serum antibodies following wild-type SARS-CoV-2 infection six and twelve months after diagnosis in 367 individuals of whom 13% had severe disease requiring hospitalization. We determined the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S-IgG) and nucleoprotein IgG concentrations and the proportion of subjects with neutralizing antibodies (NAb).”
14. Quantifying the risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 reinfection over time, by Eamon O Murchu, Paula Byrne, Paul G. Carty, et al. Rev Med Virol. 2021. “Reinfection was an uncommon event (absolute rate 0%–1.1%), with no study reporting an increase in the risk of reinfection over time. Only one study esti- mated the population‐level risk of reinfection based on whole genome sequencing in a subset of patients; the estimated risk was low (0.1% [95% CI: 0.08–0.11%]) with no evidence of waning immunity for up to 7 months following primary infection. These data suggest that naturally acquired SARS‐CoV‐2 immunity does not wane for at least 10 months post‐infection. However, the applicability of these studies to new variants or to vaccine‐induced immunity remains uncertain.”
15. SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy, by Laith J. Abu-Raddad, Hiam Chemaitelly, Peter Coyle, Joel A. Malek. The Lancet, July 27, 2021. “Reinfection is rare in the young and international population of Qatar. Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months.”
16. Natural immunity against COVID-19 significantly reduces the risk of reinfection: findings from a cohort of sero-survey participants, by Bijaya Kumar Mishra, Debdutta Bhattacharya, Jaya Singh Kshatri, Sanghamitra Pati. MedRxiv, July 19, 2021. “These findings reinforce the strong plausibility that development of antibody following natural infection not only protects against re-infection by the virus to a great extent, but also safeguards against progression to severe COVID-19 disease.”
17. Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel, by Yair Goldberg, Micha Mandel, Yonatan Woodbridge, Ronen Fluss, Ilya Novikov, Rami Yaari, Arnona Ziv, Laurence Freedman, Amit Huppert, et al.. MedRxiv, April 24, 2021. “Similarly, the overall estimated level of protection from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection for documented infection is 94·8% (CI:[94·4, 95·1]); hospitalization 94·1% (CI:[91·9, 95·7]); and severe illness 96·4% (CI:[92·5, 98·3]). Our results question the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals.”
18. Immune Memory in Mild COVID-19 Patients and Unexposed Donors Reveals Persistent T Cell Responses After SARS-CoV-2 Infection, by Asgar Ansari, Rakesh Arya, Shilpa Sachan, Someshwar Nath Jha, Anurag Kalia, Anupam Lall, Alessandro Sette, et al. Front Immunol. March 11, 2021. “Using HLA class II predicted peptide megapools, we identified SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive CD4+ T cells in around 66% of the unexposed individuals. Moreover, we found detectable immune memory in mild COVID-19 patients several months after recovery in the crucial arms of protective adaptive immunity; CD4+ T cells and B cells, with a minimal contribution from CD8+ T cells. Interestingly, the persistent immune memory in COVID-19 patients is predominantly targeted towards the Spike glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2. This study provides the evidence of both high magnitude pre-existing and persistent immune memory in Indian population.”
19. Live virus neutralisation testing in convalescent patients and subjects vaccinated against 19A, 20B, 20I/501Y.V1 and 20H/501Y.V2 isolates of SARS-CoV-2, by Claudia Gonzalez, Carla Saade, Antonin Bal, Martine Valette, et al, MedRxiv, May 11, 2021. “ No significant difference was observed between the 20B and 19A isolates for HCWs with mild COVID-19 and critical patients. However, a significant decrease in neutralisation ability was found for 20I/501Y.V1 in comparison with 19A isolate for critical patients and HCWs 6-months post infection. Concerning 20H/501Y.V2, all populations had a significant reduction in neutralising antibody titres in comparison with the 19A isolate. Interestingly, a significant difference in neutralisation capacity was observed for vaccinated HCWs between the two variants whereas it was not significant for the convalescent groups.”
20. Highly functional virus-specific cellular immune response in asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, by Nina Le Bert, Hannah E. Clapham, Anthony T. Tan, Wan Ni Chia, et al, Journal of Experimental Medicine, March 1, 2021. “Thus, asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2–infected individuals are not characterized by weak antiviral immunity; on the contrary, they mount a highly functional virus-specific cellular immune response.”
21. SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell memory is sustained in COVID-19 convalescent patients for 10 months with successful development of stem cell-like memory T cells, Jae Hyung Jung, Min-Seok Rha, Moa Sa, Hee Kyoung Choi, Ji Hoon Jeon, et al, Nature Communications, June 30, 2021. “In particular, we observe sustained polyfunctionality and proliferation capacity of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells. Among SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells detected by activation-induced markers, the proportion of stem cell-like memory T (TSCM) cells is increased, peaking at approximately 120 DPSO. Development of TSCM cells is confirmed by SARS-CoV-2-specific MHC-I multimer staining. Considering the self-renewal capacity and multipotency of TSCM cells, our data suggest that SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells are long-lasting after recovery from COVID-19, thus support the feasibility of effective vaccination programs as a measure for COVID-19 control.”
22. Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination, by Alice Cho, Frauke Muecksch, Dennis Schaefer-Babajew, Zijun Wang, et al, BioRxiv, et al, BioRxiv, July 29, 2021. “We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination. These results suggest that boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.” Newer version reads: “These results suggest that boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines will increase plasma neutralizing activity but may not produce antibodies with breadth equivalent to those obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.”
23. Differential effects of the second SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine dose on T cell immunity in naïve and COVID-19 recovered individuals, by Carmen Camara, Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo, Eduardo Lopez-Granados. Et al., BioRxiv, March 27, 2021. “While a two-dose immunization regimen with the BNT162b2 vaccine has been demonstrated to provide a 95% efficacy in naïve individuals, the effects of the second vaccine dose in individuals who have previously recovered from natural SARS-CoV-2 infection has been questioned. Here we characterized SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific humoral and cellular immunity in naïve and previously infected individuals during full BNT162b2 vaccination. Our results demonstrate that the second dose increases both the humoral and cellular immunity in naïve individuals. On the contrary, the second BNT162b2 vaccine dose results in a reduction of cellular immunity in COVID-19 recovered individuals, which suggests that a second dose, according to the current standard regimen of vaccination, may be not necessary in individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
24. COVID-19 natural immunity: Scientific Brief. World Health Organization. May 10, 2021. “Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months). Some variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses with key changes in the spike protein have a reduced susceptibility to neutralization by antibodies in the blood. While neutralizing antibodies mainly target the spike protein, cellular immunity elicited by natural infection also target other viral proteins, which tend to be more conserved across variants than the spike protein.”
25. SARS-CoV-2 re-infection risk in Austria, by Stefan Pilz, Ali Chakeri, John Pa Ioannidis, et al. Eur J Clin Invest. April 2021. “We recorded 40 tentative re-infections in 14 840 COVID-19 survivors of the first wave (0.27%) and 253 581 infections in 8 885 640 individuals of the remaining general population (2.85%) translating into an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.09 (0.07 to 0.13). We observed a relatively low re-infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in Austria. Protection against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection is comparable with the highest available estimates on vaccine efficacies. Further well-designed research on this issue is urgently needed for improving evidence-based decisions on public health measures and vaccination strategies.”
26. Anti-spike antibody response to natural SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population, by Jia Wei, Philippa C. Matthews, Nicole Stoesser, et al, MedRxiv, July 5, 2021. “We estimated antibody levels associated with protection against reinfection likely last 1.5-2 years on average, with levels associated with protection from severe infection present for several years. These estimates could inform planning for vaccination booster strategies.”
27. SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN), by Victoria Jane Hall, FFPH, Sarah Foulkes, MSc, Andre Charlett, PhD, Ana Atti, MSc, et al. The Lancet, April 29, 2021. “A previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an 84% lower risk of infection, with median protective effect observed 7 months following primary infection. This time period is the minimum probable effect because seroconversions were not included. This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals.”
28. SARS-CoV-2 Natural Antibody Response Persists for at Least 12 Months in a Nationwide Study From the Faroe Islands, by Maria Skaalum Petersen, Cecilie Bo Hansen, Marnar Fríheim Kristiansen, et al, Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Volume 8, Issue 8, August 2021. “Although the protective role of antibodies is currently unknown, our results show that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies persisted at least 12 months after symptom onset and maybe even longer, indicating that COVID-19-convalescent individuals may be protected from reinfection. Our results represent SARS-CoV-2 antibody immunity in nationwide cohorts in a setting with few undetected cases, and we believe that our results add to the understanding of natural immunity and the expected durability of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine immune responses. Moreover, they can help with public health policy and ongoing strategies for vaccine delivery.
29. Associations of Vaccination and of Prior Infection With Positive PCR Test Results for SARS-CoV-2 in Airline Passengers Arriving in Qatar, by Roberto Bertollini, MD, MPH1; Hiam Chemaitelly, MSc2; Hadi M. Yassine. JAMA Research Letter, June 9, 2021. “Of 9180 individuals with no record of vaccination but with a record of prior infection at least 90 days before the PCR test (group 3), 7694 could be matched to individuals with no record of vaccination or prior infection (group 2), among whom PCR positivity was 1.01% (95% CI, 0.80%-1.26%) and 3.81% (95% CI, 3.39%-4.26%), respectively. The relative risk for PCR positivity was 0.22 (95% CI, 0.17-0.28) for vaccinated individuals and 0.26 (95% CI, 0.21-0.34) for individuals with prior infection compared with no record of vaccination or prior infection.”
Articles in the popular media
Why COVID-19 Vaccines Should Not Be Required for All Americans, by Marty Makary, US News, August 21, 2021
Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine—but vaccination remains vital, by Meredith Wadson, Science, August 26, 2021
Natural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection? By David Rosenberg, Israeli National News, July 13, 2021.
Flu survivors still immune after 90 years, by Ed Yong, National Geographic, August 17, 2008.
Rescind Vaccine Mandates: Open Letter to Medical Societies, Hospitals, Clinics, and Other Healthcare Facilities, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, August 31, 2021.
University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics, By Aaron Kheriaty and Gerard V. Bradley, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2021.
Immunity to the Coronavirus May Last Years, New Data Hint, by Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times, November 17, 2020.
COVID-19 induces lasting antibody protection, Tamari Bhandara, Washington University School of Medicine, May 24, 2021.
The World Health Organization Oversold the Vaccine and Deprecated Natural Immunity, by Jeffrey Tucker, Brownstone Institute, August 29, 2021.
Why Does the CDC Recognize Natural Immunity for Chicken Pox but Not Covid? By Paul Elias Alexander, Brownstone Institute, September 17, 2021.
Rand Paul and Xavier Becerra Square Off on Natural Immunity, with Devastating Results, by Brownstone Institute, October 2, 2021.
Lockdowns, Mandates, and Natural Immunity: Kulldorff vs. Offit, by Brownstone Institute, October 6, 2021.
Hospitals Should Hire, Not Fire, Nurses with Natural Immunity, by Martin Kulldorff, October 1, 2021.
The Strange Neglect of Natural Immunity, by Jayanta Bhattacharya, Brownstone Institute, July 28, 2021.
The Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research is a nonprofit organization conceived of in May 2021 in support of a society that minimizes the role of violence in public life.
Learning To Fear Free Speech: How Politicians Are Moving To Protect Us From Our Unhealthy Reading Choices
By Jonathan Turley | The Hill | October 11, 2021
“Caution: Free Speech May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” Such a rewording of the original 1965 warning on tobacco products could soon appear on social media platforms, if a Senate hearing this week is any indicator. Listening to former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, senators decried how Facebook is literally killing people by not censoring content, and Haugen proposed a regulatory board to protect the public.
But before we embrace a new “ministry of information” model to protect us from dangerous viewpoints, we may want to consider what we would lose in this Faustian free-speech bargain.
Warnings over the “addiction” and “unhealthy” content of the internet have been building into a movement for years. In July, President Biden slammed Big Tech companies for “killing people” by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic. On Tuesday, many senators were enthralled by Haugen’s testimony because they, too, have long called for greater regulation or censorship. It all began reasonably enough over concerns about violent speech, and then expanded to exploitative speech. However, it continued to expand even further as the regulation of speech became an insatiable appetite for silencing opposing views.
In recent hearings with social media giants, members like Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) were critical of limiting censorship to areas like election fraud and instead demanded censorship of disinformation on climate change and other subjects. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has repeatedly called for “robust content modification” to remove untrue or misleading information.
Haugen lashed out at what she said was the knowing harm committed against people, particularly children, by exposing them to disinformation or unhealthy views. Haugen wants the company to remove “toxic” content and change algorithms to make such sites less visible. She complained that sites with a high engagement rate are more likely to be favored in searches. However, the problem is that sites deemed false or harmful are too popular. Haugen said that artificially removing “likes” is not enough because the popularity or interest in some sites will still push them to the top of searches.
It was a familiar objection. Just the week before, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for Amazon to steer readers to “true” books on climate change. Her objection was that the popularity of “misleading” books was pushing them to the top of searches, and she wants the algorithms changed to help readers pick what she considers to be healthier choices — meaning, more in line with her views.
Similarly, Haugen’s solution seems to be … well, her: “Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to analyze these experiments, to understand what is happening inside … there needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me could do a tour of duty after working at a place like [Facebook], and have a place to work on things like regulation.” Censorship programs always begin with politicians and bureaucrats who — in their own minds — have the benefit of knowing what is true and the ability to protect the rest of us from our harmful thoughts.
Ironically, I have long been a critic of social media companies for their rapid expansion of censorship, including the silencing of political critics, public health experts and pro-democracy movements at the behest of foreign governments like China and Russia. I am unabashedly an internet originalist who favors an open, free forum for people to exchange ideas and viewpoints — allowing free speech to be its own disinfectant of bad speech.
Facebook has been running a slick campaign to persuade people to embrace corporate censorship. Yet, now, even the Facebook censors are being denounced as too passive in the face of runaway free speech. The focus is on the algorithms used to remove content or, as with Haugen and Warren, used to flag or promote popular sites.
Haugen describes her approach as a “non-content-based solution” but it is clearly not that. She objects to algorithms like “downstream MSI” which tracks traffic and pushes postings based on past likes or comments. As explained by one site, it is “based on their ability to engage users, not necessarily its usefulness or truthfulness.” Of course, the objection to those “un-useful” sites is their content and claimed harm.
Like Warren, Haugen is calling for what I have criticized as “enlightened algorithms” to protect us from our own bad choices. Our digital sentinels are “non-content-based” but will magically remove bad content to prevent unhealthy choices.
There is no question that the internet is fueling an epidemic of eating disorders and other great social problems. The solution, however, is not to create regulatory boards or to reduce free speech. Europe has long deployed such oversight boards in removing what it considers harmful stereotypes from advertising and barring images of honey or chips — but the results have been underwhelming at best.
It is no accident that authoritarian countries have long wanted such regulation, since free speech is a threat to their power. Now, we also have U.S. academics writing that “China was right” all along about censorship, and public officials demanding more power to censor further. We have lost faith in free speech, and we are being told to put our faith into algorithmic guardians.
We can confront our problems more effectively by using good speech to overcome bad speech. When it comes to minors, we can use parents to protect their children by increasing parental controls over internet access; we can help parents with more or better programs and resources for mental illnesses. Of course, it is hard to advocate for restraint when the image of an anorexic child is juxtaposed against the abstract concept of free speech. However, that is the siren’s call of censorship: Protecting that child by reducing her free-speech rights is no solution for her — but it is a solution for many who want more control over opposing views.
Free speech is not some six-post-a-day addiction that should be cured with algorithmic patches. There is no such thing as a content-neutral algorithm that removes only harmful disinformation — because behind each of those enlightened algorithms are people who are throttling speech according to what they deem to be harmful thoughts or viewpoints.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
FB “whistleblower” saga has propelled push for social media “permits”
It’s easy to see where this is going…
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 11, 2021
Apparently emboldened by a recent “Facebook whistleblower’s” congressional testimony and media tour, an op-end has surfaced on project-sindicate.org exploring how information could be further and more efficiently contained and obscured from users, beyond “old-fashioned” ways like censorship and downranking.
And Steven Hill, formerly of the Center for Humane Technology (CHT) – an outfit dedicated to “radically reimagining our digital infrastructure” – has an appropriately radical idea: introduce digital operating permits and “protect people” by not allowing more than 1,000 to see a particular post.
To make the idea somewhat palatable, it was introduced under the guise of a novel way of dealing with what everybody seems to agree needs to be dealt with: tech monopolies. But the tech monopoly horse has left the barn a long time ago, and it seems that a degree of regulation will now be needed to rein it in and then allow natural ways of dealing with monopolies – fair competition and innovation to take care of the problem.
But Hill thinks the way to make them less dominant is by making major social media sites’ audiences artificially smaller. And since an average person hardly communicates with 1,000 people “in real life” (notwithstanding that people’s digital lives have very much become a part of their “real” one), Hill doesn’t think that users would be “deprived” by this limitation.
But right away, the true nature of this extraordinarily dystopian idea reveals itself to be not to truly limit the power of tech monopolies, but to make sure that the message that does get out to a lot of people (so, more than 1,000 at a time) is very controlled.
Namely, these new constrained, “digital camps” of allegedly “undeprived users,” would apply to everybody but what Big Tech decides are “legitimate news, information, music, and videos from leaders, artists, and thinkers.”
To a society that is reliant upon the internet, having access to information and communication constrained in this way would be unprecedented, even in some reviled authoritarian regimes. And who would act as the “front company” for this operation?
The report would like those to be human “moderators” like the kind social media giants already employ. They would “identify public-interest content” that would be exempt from the digital operating permits enforced on social media.
Southwest airlines cancellations continue, as “unforeseen crew issues” halt trains and industry accross U.S.
RT | October 11, 2021
Hundreds more Southwest flights have been canceled or delayed, as rumors of a staff “sickout” in protest over Covid-19 vaccine mandates persist. SouthWest’s union says no such action is taking place, but others aren’t convinced.
Some 355 Southwest Airlines flights were canceled and 571 delayed as of Monday morning, according to data from FlightAware. The cancellations and delays came after the airline, known for its budget fares, canceled around 2,000 flights over the weekend, leaving passengers stranded at airports throughout the US.
Rumors suggested that the cancellations were a result of employees calling in sick en masse to protest against the company’s recently announced vaccine mandate, which gives employees until December 8 to get immunized against Covid-19 or face unemployment. The mandate was issued to comply with orders from the Biden administration.
The airline, however, blamed the weekend’s delays on “[air traffic control] issues and disruptive weather,” and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) – a union representing some 10,000 Southwest pilots – said on Sunday that “there are no work slowdowns or sickouts either related to the recent mandatory vaccine mandate or otherwise.” The union said that it would not authorize such action, and sided with the airline in blaming “staffing at Jacksonville Center,” the country’s fourth-busiest area control center which oversees air traffic in parts of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
The union said that while other airlines were relatively unaffected by the supposed staffing issue in Jacksonville Center, Southwest’s “operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure.”
A number of aviation journalists reported over the weekend that there was indeed a “sickout” at Jacksonville Center. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed these reports, and Jacksonville Aviation Authority COO Tony Cugno told the JAA board of directors that staffing shortages were the result of a number of employees taking annual leave, coupled with others staying at home immediately after receiving their Covid-19 vaccination.
Unverified reports suggest, however, that some air traffic control employees are bunking off work to protest against the mandates.
The explanations from Southwest and the authorities in Jacksonville haven’t tamped down rumors of discontent within the airline. For one thing, the SWAPA is suing the airline over its vaccine mandate, and filed a motion on Friday to have the mandate blocked. The union’s release also did not mention anything about anti-vaccine staff taking time off by using up vacation days, as some commentators online have suggested they’re doing.
Passengers affected by the weekend’s cancellations also reported that not only were flights not taking off, but Southwest’s airport desks were unstaffed. The airline has not yet explained this shortage of ground staff.
What’s happening at Southwest is still unclear. However, walkouts have been reported in a number of other critical industries in recent days. Shipbuilders in Newport News – who are also required to get vaccinated by December 8 – staged a protest on Friday, and “unforeseen crew issues” have halted trains in the Northeast, though information in the mainstream media remains thin on the ground.
“The mainstream media is doing its best to keep a lid on the expanding rebellion against the vaccine mandates,” former US senator Ron Paul wrote on Monday, adding that strikes and walkouts threaten “to completely derail an already crumbling economy and to obliterate a deeply unpopular US president and administration.”
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From the Archives
A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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