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Re-Evaluating Mask Mandates – Part I: Science Gives Way to the “Talisman”

By Masha Krylova | C2C Journal | June 13, 2021

The health of my patient will be my first consideration; I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat.

—World Medical Association: Declaration of Geneva, 2006

Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.

—Walter Lippmann, 1937

We all remember when it was natural to strike up a conversation with a stranger on a street, in a mall or in a café. Sharing a smile would often start the enjoyable process from which mutual trust and understanding could flow. Seeing other people’s open faces and hearing them laugh felt contagious and energizing. A spontaneous encounter had a chance to turn into something long-lasting and meaningful.

Those times were pre-Covid-19; the pandemic has brought great upheaval to social norms. Rarely do many of us talk to strangers in public places. Communication is largely transactional – aiming a few words at a clerk behind a plexiglass shield and straining to hear the muffled reply. Laughter has become a rarity. And even if others smile at us, we hardly can tell – or know when to smile back. All we see are faces largely hidden behind masks and staring, shifting or downcast eyes.

Happily, that is beginning to change. Mask mandates are dropping left and right across the United States. As of June 8, 35 U.S. states had removed these requirements in indoor or outdoor public settings. A few U.S. governors have even prohibited local governments and school boards from countermanding such state policy. At the same time, the exposure of Anthony Fauci’s serial contradictions has loosened his grip on the American psyche – weakening the entire pro-mask side. Gathering limits are disappearing as well; the recent Indy 500 was packed with mostly unmasked auto race enthusiasts and fans are once again jamming stadiums for pro sports.

In Canada, a number of provinces are also reopening – led in speed by Alberta, where all provincial restrictions will be dropped within two weeks of 70 percent of the population receiving one dose of vaccine. That pointedly includes the mask mandate. If this occurs, and much of the rest of Canada follows suit, the summer of 2021 could end up being, if not exactly the “best summer ever” in the previous hopeful words of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, then at least one to rekindle normal life and, perhaps, look back upon as the time when the Covid-19 pandemic was put in its grave.

These lovely sentiments – surely shared by millions of Canadians – could be dashed, however. Reopening is threatened by a number of political leaders, urged on by an entrenched medical/scientific faction, who appear almost terrified of normality’s return and whose default position is to lock down, prohibit and prevent. Ontario, for example, only re-authorized camping last Friday and recently extended its state of emergency until December. Premier Doug Ford, wrote Matthew Lau in the Financial Post, “has turned the presumption of liberty completely on its head. In Ontario there is now a presumption of government control.”

Even in Alberta, big-city mayors are suggesting they might defy the province’s mask mandate lifting. They are egged on by vocal medical experts who have formally demanded that masks remain in place until 70 percent of the population has had two vaccine doses. This may amount to something like “forever,” since vaccination curves in other countries to date have gone nearly flat at approximately 55-65 percent with even one dose. Alberta, it was reported last week, is having trouble achieving the last several percentage points leading to 70 percent with one dose.

In short, if some have their way, it could be masks for a long time. Should further new Covid-19 variants or new infectious diseases come along in the meantime, it might be masks forever.

If Canada is to enter a major political struggle over the possibility of long-term masking, then surely it is worth revisiting the basic question of whether masks actually work. And, even if masks are shown to be useful in slowing the transmission of Covid-19, the public has a right to understand whether habitual mask-wearing carries negative health effects, in order to weigh the costs against the benefits of such an intrusive long-term policy.

With those questions in mind, C2C Journal brings you this exclusive, carefully researched two-part analysis. In Part I, we review the recent history of mask requirements and discuss the initial evidence around widespread mask-wearing.

When it Began: The WHO Mask Guidance

On April 6, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued Interim Guidance on the use of facemasks against Covid-19. The organization advised only health professionals to wear medical masks or respirators and to avoid non-medical masks because the effectiveness of the latter, it stated, was not established.

Significantly for the wider population – or seemingly so – it also cautioned that “the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks.” Among these were potential self-contamination by frequent touching and re-wearing of single-use masks, breathing difficulties and a “false sense of security, leading to potentially less adherence to other preventive measures such as physical distancing and hand hygiene.”

The WHO’s April guidance was consistent with the statements of numerous public health officials worldwide. It was, for example, preceded by the official statement by Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam who suggested that “putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial, obviously if you’re not infected.”

The official advice should have been unsurprising, even though by this time millions of individuals were rushing to scour store shelves for any and all mask varieties, while others rigged up bizarre contraptions out of old diving helmets or even fish bowls, and a few were seen shuffling down aisles in full hazmat suits (real or home-fashioned). But the official advice was consistent with decades of established international guidance for the management of disease outbreaks, in which masks are recommended for those who are sick – to protect the healthy – but not ubiquitously (see, for example, the WHO’s guide of 2018, or Public Health England Principles of 2015, or the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada Primer on Population Health).

Physician Margaret Harris, a member of the WHO’s coronavirus response team, was quoted saying that “the mask is almost like a talisman,” making “people feel more secure and protected.” An official scientist appeared to say that mask-wearing was no longer about science, but about sorcery and emotion.

Regardless of how sound these recommendations are, they soon were thrown overboard as fears spread of “asymptomatic spreaders,” many doctors and scientists started asserting benefits to the public wearing almost any sort of mask, and governments and international organizations sought to reassure jittery populations they were taking “crucial steps” to “save lives” – which now included requiring people to wear masks in a variety of settings.

The WHO subsequently updated its mask guidance, with the most recent document issued on December 1, 2020. Citing a number of studies, this one advised the general public to wear either medical or three-layer fabric facemasks in indoor and outdoor settings where ventilation is inadequate and physical distancing is less than 1 metre. It asserted several pandemic control benefits to such practice, including reduced spread of viral respiratory droplets and reduced stigmatization towards mask-wearers (a transient phenomenon early in the pandemic). Further stated benefits included making people feel that “they can play a role in contributing to stopping spread of the virus,” encouraging proper hygiene and, finally, reducing transmission of other respiratory illnesses such as tuberculosis and influenza.

Caution to the wind: The WHO’s explicit list of negative effects from ubiquitous mask wearing was ignored by all.

The WHO’s list of disadvantages, however, had grown significantly and now also included potential headaches, facial skin problems, difficulties communicating, discomfort, improper mask disposal, poor compliance among young children and difficulties for people with developmental challenges, with chronic respiratory problems or those living in hot and humid conditions. Nor should this have been surprising either, for as we shall see it too was consistent with longstanding scientific understanding. None of these mask-associated risks, however, received a thorough airing in news and social media.

On the contrary, many governments imposed even more stringent and often duplicative requirements, like requiring masks and distancing even outdoors where ventilation was good, or masks and plexiglass barriers, or masks, face shields and distancing. Masks, meanwhile, took on novel roles as political statements or articles of faith employed by political leaders, organizations, public health figures and much of the population. People were even seen swimming with paper masks. Physician Margaret Harris, a member of the WHO’s coronavirus response team, was quoted in an NPR column saying that “the mask is almost like a talisman,” making “people feel more secure and protected.” An official scientist appeared to say that mask-wearing was no longer about science, but about sorcery and emotion.

Meanwhile, no one in the public sphere seemed willing to peruse the WHO’s December 2020 guideline in detail. Had they done so, they might have noticed two statements eerie in their juxtaposition. First, the WHO clearly recognized the serious limitations of the studies it cited about the efficacy of masking to reduce viral spread: “[The] studies differed in setting, data sources and statistical methods and have important limitations to consider notably the lack of information about actual exposure risk among individuals, adherence to mask wearing and the enforcement of other preventive measures.” Second, the WHO nonetheless insisted on universal mask usage: “Despite the limited evidence of protective efficacy of mask wearing in community settings, in addition to all other recommended preventive measures, the [guidelines development group] advised mask wearing.”

The WHO’s categorical recommendation, then, rested on admittedly shaky foundations. Over half a year has passed. One would expect there to be an ever-growing number of studies dedicated to Covid-19 and related issues, including masking. And so there has been.

Current Evidence on Mask Effectiveness

More than 300 scientific papers have been published specifically on masking during the pandemic. The best way to evaluate such a vast body of research without losing the forest for the trees is to focus primarily on literature reviews and systematic reviews (special types of scientific analysis that summarize up-to-date knowledge on a particular issue). This narrows the search to some 20 review studies (as of May 2021). Six of these provide support for universal mask wearing using epidemiological data (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6). Six others offer mechanical evidence by describing material and filtration properties of masks. Two reviews are inconclusive (this and this), while the rest are less relevant (comparing medical masks to N95 masks in a healthcare setting, for example, this).

The most recent and comprehensive review is by researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, published in April 2021. This interdisciplinary report outlines the “state-of-the-art understanding of mask usage against Covid-19” by covering the most important epidemiological data, face mask filtration mechanisms and mask recontamination and reuse.

In their epidemiological evidence the researchers cite eight publications that report a positive association between mask wearing and a reduced risk of Covid-19 infection. These studies were conducted in China, Thailand, the U.S., Germany and Canada. The Canadian evidence notably encompassed both provincial data from Ontario and nationwide data analyzing the effect of mask wearing on Covid-19 case numbers over the course of eight months. “In the first few weeks after their introduction, mask mandates are associated with an average reduction of 25 to 31% in the weekly number of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases in Ontario,” the study concluded. It also speculated that had indoor masking been mandated by early July, there would have been 25-45 percent fewer weekly cases across the country than actually occurred.

The other studies were different in methodology and reported varying strengths of the association between mask wearing and risk reduction, ranging from 15 percent to 80 percent. The University of Hawaii team’s conclusion appears decisive: “All available epidemiologic evidence suggests that community-wide mask-wearing results in reduced rates of COVID-19 infections.”

Not All Science Is Created Equal: RCTs vs. Observational Studies

The take-home message from the above research appears unequivocal: masks work. The factual conclusion provides scientific support for the political decision to impose a public mask mandate. But for one fact: nearly all Covid-19-related epidemiological studies are either observational analyses (such as this or this), simulation studies (such as this), or a combination thereof (like the Canadian study described above). Almost none involved randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Why does that matter?

The distinction between study types is imperative for it speaks of the quality and not simply the quantity of the available scientific evidence. Setting aside simulation studies that are hypothetical and therefore of lesser empirical value, it is important to understand the differences between RCTs and observational studies (case-control and cohort studies are two types).

The RCT facilitates an objective comparison between various types of intervention, or between treatment and non-treatment. The RCT achieves this by using the process of randomization, assigning participants randomly either to experimental or control groups. The goal of such studies is to prevent manipulation of the results and to draw, as accurately as possible, a causal relationship between an intervention, or a behaviour, and the subsequent outcome.

The link of causality cannot be achieved in observational research, which involves analyzing data gathered in natural conditions without researchers’ intervention. Although observational studies are illuminating and useful in various scenarios, they are inevitably biased. The bias occurs because such studies do not allow for direct control over confounding variables that may have an impact on the study results. For example, for one to say that “A causes B” requires ensuring that the effects of all other important variables on B have been removed or cancelled through randomization.

Through the process of randomization, RCTs are able to establish a causal link between a treatment or behaviour and an outcome. Observational studies are limited to showing correlation, or association – and thereby can be misunderstood.

This is impossible in observational studies, always leaving a chance that the observed outcome B might have been caused by a variable, or variables, other than A. Thus, observational studies, even those employing advanced statistical analyses, cannot reach conclusions stronger than establishing temporal associations between one thing and another. But association, or correlation, does not demonstrate causation. (The Canadian study cited above, for example, notes that mask mandates are “associated” with a reduction in the rate of Covid-19 infection; it does not assert a causal relationship.)

The Odd Reluctance to Conduct RCTs in Regard to Public Health Matters

Which brings us back to the 300-odd mask-related studies conducted in the Covid-19 era. Many, indeed, found associations or correlations between widespread adoption of masks and a reduction in Covid-19 case counts, or a slowing of acceleration in case counts. In an observational study like this one, however, it is reasonable to ask whether the detected reduction in Covid-19 transmission was caused by mask wearing. Could it not have been due to other preventative health measures adopted around the same time, such as improved hand hygiene, limited social interaction, physical distancing in public settings or even individuals’ general health regimen? And what about the impact of other variables such as age or race on the risk of catching the virus? Finally, could there be other, as-yet overlooked confounders that affect virus spread? Randomization is required to negate the effects of the confounding variables, known or unknown.

Correlation does not show causation: Masks may be associated with a reduced rate of Covid-19 infection, as frequently documented in observational studies, but a host of other factors could also be at work.

Because of these known limitations of observational studies, the RCT is recognized as the gold standard of clinical research practice, a rigorous tool of cause-and-effect analysis. One of the world’s leading experts in medical standards and statistics, Dr. Janus Christian Jakobsen, who is frequently cited for her systematic reviews of meta analyses, authoritatively stated:

“Clinical experience or observational studies should never be used as the sole basis for assessment of intervention effects – randomized clinical trials are always needed…Observational studies should primarily be used for quality control after treatments are included in clinical practice.” (Emphasis added.)

It is thus clear that in health-related contexts, researchers should rely on RCTs whenever possible and use observational studies to gather supplementary evidence.

The most common arguments against RCTs are that they are expensive, time-consuming and impractical for population-wide interventions. There are also understandable ethical objections against exposing healthy control groups to contagious and potentially fatal infections, in this instance attempting to determine whether unmasked people are more likely to catch Covid-19. In fact, some have asserted, in reference to the WHO, that “we should not generally expect to be able to find controlled trials” in the context of population health measures.

Maximum strength of evidence, minimum degree of bias: Not for nothing is the randomized controlled trial considered the “gold standard” of clinical practice.
Maximum strength of evidence, minimum degree of bias: Not for nothing is the randomized controlled trial considered the “gold standard” of clinical practice. (Graphic by Masha Krylova/ C2C Journal)

Unethical and impractical? It is claimed that RCTs should not be used to study the effects of health measures on Covid-19 infection – yet numerous RCTs have examined influenza on a community-wide scale.

Still, it has been over a year since mask mandates were first imposed in many countries. Given the prodigious effort poured into seemingly anything to do with Covid-19, this should be ample time for researchers to gather resources and test mask effectiveness in a controlled experimental setting. Nor was it unheard-of prior to the pandemic to perform RCTs in healthcare and wider-population settings to evaluate the effect of mask wearing on the transmission of respiratory illnesses such as influenza (see this review of 2010) and influenza-like illness (also see this scoping review of 2020). These studies clearly overcame objections related to practicality and ethics. Why should Covid-19 be different?

The cited reviews present intriguing details: with respect to influenza, five out of six RCTs conducted in healthcare settings found no significant difference between mask-wearing and control groups. Even more important from the standpoint of the current pandemic, none of four RCTs performed in broader community settings found a significant difference between masking and remaining bare-faced. For influenza-like illnesses, the pooled data from five other RCTs as well showed a non-significant protective effect of mask wearing for avoiding either primary or secondary infection. These results appear substantial and would seem of some relevance to the current pandemic. But there is more.

End of Part I.

Coming next in Part II: Should you care whether masks are more like a sieve or a filter? Is there really no RCT-generated “gold standard” evidence regarding whether wearing masks reduces the spread of Covid-19? And is there any basis to concerns of ill effects from wearing masks?

Maria (Masha) V. Krylova is a Social Psychologist and writer based in Calgary, Alberta who has a particular interest in the role of psychological factors affecting the socio-political climate in Russia and Western countries.

June 27, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Doctor fired from University of Saskatchewan after posting online statement asking for “informed consent” on vaccines

By Christina Maas | Reclaim the Net | June 25, 2021

Dr. Francis Christian was fired from his position at the University of Saskatchewan and is being investigated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan for an online statement calling for informed consent when it comes to vaccines.

Dr. Christian has been a surgeon for over 20 years. In 2018, he was appointed to the position of Director of Surgical Humanities Program and Director of Quality and Patient Safety at the University of Saskatchewan. He also co-founded the Surgical Humanities Program and is an editor of the Journal of The Surgical Humanities.

On June 23, Dr. Christian was suspended from all teaching responsibilities, and will no longer be an employee of the University of Saskatchewan from September 2021. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is also investigating him after receiving a complaint about a statement he released last week.

In a statement to over 200 doctors, released on June 17, Dr. Christian recommended informed consent when administering COVID-19 vaccines to children. The statement made it clear that he is pro-vaccine, does not represent any group, the University of Saskatchewan, or the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

“I speak to you directly as a physician, a surgeon, and a fellow human being,” Dr. Christian said in the statement before going on to recommend the principle of informed consent so that the patient is “fully aware of the risks of the medical intervention, the benefits of the intervention, and if any alternatives exist to the intervention.”

“This should apply particularly to a new vaccine that has never before been tried in humans… before the vaccine is rolled out to children, both children and parents must know the risks of m-RNA vaccines,” he added.

The surgeon noted that he was yet to hear of “a single vaccinated child or parent who has been adequately informed” about the risks of COVID vaccines in children.

His statement argued that m-RNA vaccines are experimental. Dr. Christian further argues that the vaccines do not qualify for “emergency use authorization” in kids because “Covid-19 does not pose a threat to our kids. The risk of them dying of Covid is less than 0.003% – this is even less than the risk of them dying of the flu. There is no emergency in children.”

Dr. Christian also noted the vaccines have caused “serious medical problems for kids” around the globe, such as “a real and significantly increased risk” of heart inflammation and myocarditis.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons sent him a letter stating that it has “received information that you are engaging in activities designed to discourage and prevent children and adolescents from receiving Covid-19 vaccination contrary to the recommendations and pandemic-response efforts of Saskatchewan and Canadian public health authorities.”

The Litigation Director of The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, the organization representing Dr. Chrisitian in the complaint made against him, expressed his concerns over medical professionals getting censored and punished for expressing views contradicting the government’s narrative.

“We are seeing a clear pattern of highly competent and skilled medical doctors in very esteemed positions being taken down and censored or even fired, for practicing proper science and medicine,” said Cameron.

“Censoring and punishing scientists and doctors for freely voicing their concerns is arrogant, oppressive and profoundly unscientific,” he added.

“Both the western world and the idea of scientific inquiry itself is built to a large extent on the principles of freedom of thought and speech. Medicine and patient safety can only regress when dogma and an elitist orthodoxy, such as that imposed by the Saskatchewan College of Medicine, punishes doctors for voicing concerns,” Cameron concluded.

June 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

There is no Covid third wave in Africa

Alarmist reporting is getting basic facts wrong

By Toby Green | Unherd | June 24, 2021

The last few days have seen an avalanche of reports that a third wave of Covid-19 is underway in Africa. Seasoned coronavirus watchers will not be surprised that the alarm was raised in Geneva. WHO Central issued alarming press releases on June 7th and 17th, with the Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, stating in the latter that “Africa is in the midst of a full-blown third wave”. So what’s happening?

Since the June 7th press release, there have been 1,651 new deaths reported from Covid-19 across the entire continent in 17 days, less than 100 per day. In a continent where 9 million people die annually (roughly 25,000 per day), reported Covid deaths in this “full-blown” third wave thus currently account for roughly 0.4% of daily mortality in Africa. Certainly, there are mortality increases from Covid reported in some countries such as Cape Verde and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but they are not anything like on the scale of what has happened elsewhere.

Moreover, the vast majority of these fatalities have occurred in temperate zones: South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia account for 105,000 of the 139,500 deaths reported from Covid-19 across the continent.

Many of the reports on this “third wave” point to the failure to count deaths accurately, and suggest that these figures mask the true problem. Reports from the BBC and the New York Times have pointed to a continent-wide lack of systemic mortality figures. But running at 0.4% of current mortality, and touching a small area of the continent as a whole, even if this was an underestimate by 1000%, Covid would still only be a minor concern to most Africans. In fact, a recent paper disputes these accusations of undercounting: the authors note that “while only 34.6% of countries [in Africa] have complete death registration data… all countries have a system in place, and there is no evidence that COVID-19 mortality data is less accurately reported in Africa than elsewhere”.

What certainly does go under-reported are cases. This is good news, as it indicates that much of the continent’s population has already developed antibodies to Covid-19 through mild infections. In a study from July to October 2020 of mineworkers tested in Ivory Coast, 25.1% had Covid antibodies; meanwhile, a February study in South Africa based on blood donors found antibody levels of 63% in Eastern Cape, 46% in Free State, and 52% in KwaZulu Natal, while a study from Cameroon just published found antibody levels of 32%. These figures far outstrip recorded cases, suggesting that many Africans already have protection from Covid.

However the WHO redefined herd immunity last year as only achievable through vaccination, so it may not want to publicise this. The Guardian last week added to the clamour, reporting on research that had not been peer-reviewed and which claimed that Covid infection did not provide immunity. Ironically, a series of studies published in Nature the week before had found that “the evidence thus far predicts that infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces long-term immunity in most individuals”.

The evidence from Africa is quite clear, in fact. Large sections of the population have now developed Covid antibodies, and death rates are low compared to other chronic illnesses. Herd immunity does not have to be achieved through vaccination, either in Africa or elsewhere. But none of these conclusions fit with the catastrophic decisions taken by global policy elites over the past year, so they won’t be coming to a television news channel near you any time soon.

Toby Green is the author of The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality (Hurst).

June 25, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Why Hasn’t the Government Published a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Lockdown?

By Noah Carl • Lockdown Sceptics • June 24, 2021 

When considering a policy as unprecedented and far-reaching as a nationwide lockdown, you’d assume the Government would carry out a cost-benefit analysis. After all, such analyses are routine in policy-making.

For example, the Treasury maintains a document called ‘The Green Book’, which gives detailed guidance on how to compute the costs and benefits of particular actions. It refers to concepts such as opportunity cost, discount factors and adjusting for inflation.

You might say there wasn’t much time to carry out a detailed cost-benefit analysis before the first lockdown last March. (Though the Government could have provided a few rough numbers for the public to scrutinise.) However, it’s now more than a year later, and there still hasn’t been any attempt to weigh the costs and benefits.

In a report for the Institute of Economic Affairs published last December, the economist Paul Ormerod argued that the Government’s refusal to crunch the numbers reflects a general overreliance on epidemiological expertise, at the expense of economic expertise.

As Russ Roberts, another economist, has observed, “Knowing a lot about the human body does not make you an expert in risk analysis, tradeoffs, or unintended consequences.” Note: this is not to imply that all or even most economists are opposed to lockdowns, but simply that key insights from that discipline have been overlooked during the course of the pandemic.

Several cost-benefit analyses of the UK lockdowns have been published by persons outside the Government, and each one has concluded that the costs almost certainly outweighed the benefits.

Since the NHS typically pays up to £30,000 to extend a patient’s life by one quality-adjusted life-year, a reasonable estimate of the benefits of lockdown can be obtained by multiplying the expected number of life-years saved by 30,000.

For example, if we assume (generously) that lockdowns saved 50,000 lives and prevented 500,000 people from getting long COVID, then the total benefits would be about £16.5 billion. This figure then has to be weighed against some measure of the costs (including effects on the economy, health, education and civil liberties). Given that the fall in GDP alone last year was over £220 billion, it seems very unlikely that lockdowns would pass a cost-benefit test.

The Government’s lack of interest in cost-benefit analysis was highlighted in a recent LinkedIn post by Daniel Fujiwara – an expert in policy evaluation. Fujiwara was apparently invited to “meet with senior Government officials to discuss the pros and cons of lockdown”. However, despite offering his advice and input pro-bono, he “never heard back from them”.

In the post, Fujiwara goes on to say, “Lockdowns should have stopped at the point where an additional day of #lockdown causes more damage to our society than it benefits us… My analysis of the impacts of lockdown last year suggests that we have gone well beyond this threshold.”

One can only assume that the Government’s failure to publish even basic estimates of the costs and benefits of lockdown is due to fear of what those estimates might show…

June 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

So Matt Hancock groped his assistant…. who cares?

By Catte Black | OffGuardian | June 25, 2021

Oh gosh, Matt Hancock is being outed as a sleazebag.

Who knew, right?

The Sun published pics purporting to be of him and his girlfriend kissing in an elevator and even the BBC thinks this is newsworthy.

So this is serious now. You can sign off on mass murder all you like, Matt, but when you start breaking social distancing rules by groping married ladies in elevators that’s a step too far.

His lies and hypocrisy are puke-inducing of course. Some people who actually thought the ruling elite really believed in their social distancing, triple masking, hand-sanitizing rules may well be deeply shocked. Many of the more clued in are cheering the humiliation fest. Fair enough I guess. It’s certainly gratifying to see some psychopathic creep suddenly shamed or called to account.

And it’s probably harmless. Isn’t it?

Or then again maybe not.

What actually are these periodic ‘outings’ we witness?

What does it actually mean when an establishment billionaire-owned media outlet somewhere on the permitted and phony spectrum of Left/Right ‘leaks’ some grainy footage, or a clumsily revealing email, that ends up shaming some erstwhile pillar of the prevailing narrative?

Is the system finally getting a conscience? Are things gonna be ok, now [insert hate figure here] is gone?

Of course not. No one seriously thinks that, do they?

The establishment is essentially amoral. A psychopathic hive mind entity without conscience or ethics. It doesn’t expose or reject one of its own unless it sees advantage to itself in doing so. When one of them is publicly humiliated and cast out it’s because he/she has failed in a power play, or been ousted in a palace coup, or is earmarked as a good sacrifice to appease the restless mob.

You see, to the 1%, the 99% are caged dogs. Our masters need to gauge the frustration and make sure it doesn’t spill over. Being thrown a ‘victim’ to rend every now and again is a nice way of venting tension while also giving us the impression the system self-regulates.

It keeps us distracted occupied and works off our aggression and represents NO THREAT to vested interests.

Even the supposed ‘victim’ will likely just ride out the storm or, if fired from his job, get a fat fee and ‘retire’ happily, only to be readmitted to the fold after a short exile.

Ok, maybe in very extreme cases, they’ll occasionally get ‘suicided’, though that’s usually reserved for genuine outsiders with an inconvenient conscience.

Whatever way it plays out, it’s a show. We are groundlings gawping at the painted actors on the stage. Our reaction is anticipated, manipulated, catered for and ultimately despised.

And anyhow we know, don’t we, that rending one of these Ringwraiths is missing the point. They are all replaceable servants of the Machine. Well paid, cosily ensconced – but ultimately expendable.

While we’re tearing the latest ‘victim’ with our teeth we’re forgetting all that and forgetting the real enemy.

And the real enemy is laughing at us.

I hope to see us become more sophisticated. Ignore these staged witch hunts, these hate sessions, these deliberately seeded water-cooler controversies about what Fauci knew or whether Hancock should go…yada y yada y  pues yada.

If we are falling for this every time we need to get to know our enemy and its tricks a lot better, or we don’t have much chance of winning in this latest and most important struggle.

June 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

THE DELTA VARIANT: A FALSE FLAG?

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | June 24, 2021

THE DELTA VARIANT: A FALSE FLAG?

CDC’S TITANIC MISTAKE

June 25, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Johnson’s govt taken to court by theatre bosses to force release of Covid-19 trial data

RT | June 24, 2021

A group of concert and theatre bosses led by Andrew Lloyd Webber has launched legal action against the British government in a bid to force it to publish data from a trial assessing the safety of indoor events during the pandemic.

The concert managers and theatre producers are demanding that the government provide data from its Events Research Programme – a trial assessing the safety of indoor events – so that they can plan to finally reopen their institutions.

In a statement on Thursday, they said the government had “refused to publish the results from the first phase of the Events Research Programme, despite saying that it would do so on numerous occasions.”

The statement adds that, in addition to not publishing the data from the trial, the government has not provided any form of insurance scheme to safeguard the industry against any further delays following 15 months of closures due to Covid curbs.

The entertainment bosses claim that, according to the government, the trial has been a huge success, which in turn has contributed to the increasing frustration within the entertainment sector concerning the industry’s continuing dormant state.

Pilot events under the programme, which the industry participated in, included the BRIT Awards at the O2 Arena, an outdoor festival event in Liverpool for 5,000 people, a snooker tournament at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, and the Download festival for 10,000 people last weekend.

The reopening of the theatre industry in England has been pushed back from its anticipated late June date until July 19, following the spread of the more infectious Delta variant.

Speaking later on Thursday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government had made £2 billion available via a major arts funding package. He added that the government understands “the necessary delay to step four is challenging for live events.”

The impresarios note in their statement that live entertainment and theatre generate £11.25 billion for the UK economy each year, supporting just under one million jobs.

June 24, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

The variant’s a scariant

By Kathy Gyngell | The Conservative Woman | June 23, 2021

If ever there was a man there when you needed him in time of Covid, it is the wonderful Ivor Cummins.

When we are all being driven mad by the spurious scaremongering ‘variant’ claptrap that the increasingly deranged Boris Johnson (you have to be mad or evil to write this mendacious nonsense) and his SAGE-backing band keep spouting, there, thank goodness, is Ivor – cool, calm and collected, cutting through the waffle to the facts.

In his latest online update, the biochemical engineer tells us that the Indian Variant (if you have caught up with the latest terminology) is in fact the Delta Variant that’s been around for a while. It was just re-badged, and it has had zero impact on hospitalisations.

And where else does Ivor go but to Government data to demonstrate this. It actually makes you laugh (though it’s no laughing matter) to see that the hospitalisation graph runs in exactly the opposite direction to the ‘cases’ graph. While the so-called variants climb, the hospitalisations decline. You couldn’t make it up. Look for yourselves here.

So, no, Messrs Johnson and Hancock et al, there is no real-world impact of these variants (variant in fact) at all.

Ivor leaves it pretty much there, except for a reprimand to the sensationalising, scaremongering Press.  And his conclusion is that what we are being subjected to is a political scariant, not a deadly variant.

Which is pretty much the verdict of TCW’s recent investigation into the Government’s manufactured ‘case-demic,’ based on the flawed and faulty (Test and Trace) Lateral Flow Test scandal. 

Keep up the good work, Ivor.

June 24, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Report: Vaccinated Are Nearly 6 Times More Likely to Die From COVID Variant

By Dr, Joseph Mercola | June 17, 2021

A briefing from Public Health England (PHE) shows that as a hospital patient, you are six times more likely to die of the COVID Delta variant if you are fully vaccinated, than if you are not vaccinated at all.

The information shows up in Table 6 of the 77-page document, which the attendance to emergency care and deaths by vaccination status and confirmed Delta cases from February 1, 2021, to June 7, 2021.

Of 33,206 Delta variant cases admitted to the hospital, 19,573 were not vaccinated. Of those, 23 (or 0.1175%) died.

But, of the 13,633 patients who were vaccinated with either one or two doses, 19 (or 0.1393%) died, which is an 18.6% higher death rate than for the unvaccinated patients. Seven of the 5,393 patients who were partially vaccine with one dose died, or 0.1297%.

Of the 1,785 patients who had both vaccine doses 14 days or more before admission, 12 (or 0.6722%) died. This death rate is 5.72 times higher than that for unvaccinated patients. Put another way, if all 33,206 patients had been fully vaccinated, there would have been 223 deaths.

SOURCE: Public Health England June 11, 2021

June 23, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The anti-Covid pill Big Pharma doesn’t want you to have

By John Hollaway | The Conservative Woman | June 22, 2021

From Wikipedia: ‘During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation was widely spread claiming that ivermectin was beneficial for treating and preventing COVID-19. Such claims are not backed by good evidence.’

WHEN encountering an inexplicable anomaly in human behaviour, common rules of thumb can often give an insight. Oddly, though, these differ from country to country. For Americans it is ‘follow the money’. For Italians it is ‘cui bono?’ – who benefits? The nearest French rule is perhaps ‘cherchez la femme’.

Sometimes none of these help. Sometimes a perverse piece of human nature cannot be explained in terms of money, perquisites or feminine influence. The ivermectin mystery is one such.

Ivermectin is a generic prescription drug, discovered in 1975, developed by Merck and released in 1981. It is used to treat many types of parasite infestations in humans and animals. The researchers who created it were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. It is on the World Health Organisation’s List of Essential Medicines and is approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) as an antiparasitic agent.

It can have very rare serious side effects. By 2020 four billion doses had been administered and 16 deaths are believed to have occurred as a consequence, or one in 250million doses. Although the figures are not directly comparable, the annual increased risk of death for a middle-aged man taking a standard (325 mg) aspirin every day to prevent heart disease and stroke is about one in ten thousand. This is about as risky as driving a car. 

Ivermectin is therefore a very safe drug. However, the drug oversight establishment does not think so.

On March 22 this year the European Medicines Agency issued this statement: 

‘EMA has reviewed the latest evidence on the use of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and concluded that the available data do not support its use for COVID-19 outside well-designed clinical trials.

‘In the EU, ivermectin tablets are approved for treating some parasitic worm infestations while ivermectin skin preparations are approved for treating skin conditions such as rosacea. Ivermectin is also authorised for veterinary use for a wide range of animal species for internal and external parasites.

‘Ivermectin medicines are not authorised for use in COVID-19 in the EU, and EMA has not received any application for such use.’

On May 3 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued this warning under the heading ‘Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19’:

‘There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. Ivermectin is often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals. The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and beenhospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.

‘FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses).

‘The FDA has not reviewed data to support use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients to treat or to prevent COVID-19; however, some initial research is underway. Taking a drug for an unapproved use can be very dangerous. This is true of ivermectin, too.’

The lack of official support for trials of the efficacy of ivermectin has meant that the typical number of subjects being tested (the ‘cohort’) is fairly small, usually about a hundred. To overcome this a meta-analysis can be undertaken, when the results of many trials are combined and assessed to determine if a trend can be seen. This has been done, most notably by @CovidAnalysis. A paper most recently updated yesterday surveyed 60 properly conducted studies, most with double-blind testing against placebos, with neither the participants nor the researcher knowing who had been given the drug until the trial was over. This report is a preprint, so it has not been peer-reviewed, but the results are conclusive: 93 per cent of the studies show a positive outcome from the administration of ivermectin, with deaths reduced by over 80 per cent.

So why have what might be called ‘Drug Central’ refused to acknowledge this mammoth body of evidence arising from without their bailiwicks? Perhaps because of human nature again. Here they are obeying another rule of thumb commonly seen when institutions encounter new external factors – ‘not invented here’. Perhaps this business school aphorism is also appropriate: ‘Hell hath no fury like a head-office scorned’.

In any event the virucidal properties of ivermectin and its safety have now been established beyond doubt, and we can expect it to be valuable in this role from henceforth. But unfortunately not, perhaps, against Covid-19.

June 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

How COVID lockdowns failed to protect the vulnerable but fattened up the laptop privileged ‘café latte’ class

By Paul Elias Alexander, PhD | Trial Site News | June 21, 2021

The thesis is that lockdowns did not protect the vulnerable, but rather harmed the vulnerable and shifted the morbidity and mortality burden to the underprivileged. Devastatingly so! We instead locked down the ‘well’ and healthy in society, which is unscientific and nonsensical, while at the same time failing to properly protect the actual group that lockdowns were proposed to protect, the vulnerable and elderly. We actually did the opposite. We shifted the burden to the poor and caused catastrophic consequences for them. They were in the worst economic situation to afford the lockdowns and estimates are that it will be decades for them to recover from what we did. Wealth disparities placed those who were more vulnerable economically in a very difficult position in terms of sheltering from the pandemic. It was devastating for them for they could not shelter. It left them exposed! COVID-19 has emerged as a boon for the rich ‘laptop’ class and a disaster for the poor. The actions of our governments hurt the poor in societies terribly, and many could not hold on and committed suicide. Deaths of despair skyrocketed. Poor children, especially in richer western nations such as the US and Canada, self-harmed and ended their lives, not due to the pandemic virus, but due to the lockdowns and school closures. This is the legacy for our governments and their inept COVID advisors. Full of arrogance, hubris, and self-righteousness, in spite of their catastrophic failures. Their actions were detrimental and costed lives.

How did we get here? The reality is everything about the response to this pandemic, by the governments, bureaucrats, technocrats, their medical advisors, and the television medical experts have been catastrophically wrong! Even medical doctors have become politicized and biased in their reactions and how they have managed this. Doctors (not all) but a vast majority just decided that they would not treat COVID-positive high-risk patients and took a hands-off ‘therapeutic nihilism’ approach, while the high-risk infected worsened and declined. While empiricism traditionally underpins clinical practice and doctors even take eclectic approaches, with COVID, the approach was ‘do nothing’ until the patient cannot breathe anymore and requires oxygen. This while we had effective and cheap anti-virals and corticosteroids and anti-clotting drugs like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, colchicine, favipiravir, budesonide, dexamethasone, methylprednisolone, high-dose aspirin, heparin etc. as part of sequenced, multi-drug early treatment ‘cocktail’ protocols devised by pioneers such as McCullough, Risch, Zelenko, Smith, Fareed, Kory, Oskoui, Urso, Ladapo, Lawrie etc.

They, these specious and inept Task Forces and medical advisors to these unreasoned government leaders have been flat wrong on all and have failed and costed tens of thousands if not millions of lives! These advisors and governments lied about equal risk to all of becoming ill if infected, and this damaged the response. They lied about asymptomatic spread and recurrent infection, for our detailed examinations have shown these to be very rare if at all. They lied that the RT-PCR test was a valid test and to be used. They set cycle count thresholds (Ct) for PCR positive of 40 and above knowing that 20 to 24 was the threshold for viable, culturable infectious virus. They knew that Ct of 30 and above was denoting viral dust and fragments and non-infectious, non-pathogenic virus. They also misled the public that COVID recovered persons are to be vaccinated, and that children are to be vaccinated. They know the risk to children is so very negligible (even less than the seasonal flu) and that the vaccine has potential harms for children, yet they, combined with the CDC and Fauci, continue to provoke fear into parents to vaccinate their children. They have lied on everything COVID and all of these duplicitous statements and policies carry deep consequences. Nothing they have ever said turned out to be accurate and they have done this with reckless abandonment.

Our focus is on the devastating burden shifted to the poor in our society by the lockdowns and we begin by arguing vehemently that any epidemic or pandemic steps to mitigate severe outcomes cannot only focus on the harms from the pathogen, but must also focus on the harms from the policy steps such as lockdowns and school closures. Why? Because lockdowns (also known as non-pharmaceutical interventions) have crushing effects and function to exacerbate inequalities. Women and children and especially the poorer among them, have fared worst of all due to the effects of lockdowns! Look at the devastation visited upon women in our societies. She has lost most! We have learned a terrible lesson now that these specious, unsound, restrictive lockdown and school closure policies carry costs that may well be life-long, and especially on the backs of the poorer among us, who are least able to afford. We have argued with governments since spring 2020 against these draconian and unscientific policies, and that the approach must be nuanced and finessed, tailored and ‘focused’ with an age-targeted, risk-based approach. We had learned very early on that COVID-19 was amenable to risk stratification, and age (and obesity) were the principal risk factors, along with diabetes, renal disease, cardiovascular disease etc. We pleaded for an age-risk stratified approach to the pandemic response yet were dismissed and sidelined.

We argued about strongly protecting the vulnerable first (e.g. elderly and especially those with underlying medical conditions) as they were the key target group for the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, and allow the rest of the low-risk ‘well’ healthy population to live reasonably normal lives, taking sensible common-sense precautions. We knew that simple hand-washing and isolation of the ill/symptomatic persons was the key step. No isolation of asymptomatic persons, no testing of asymptomatic persons. Contact tracing after the pathogen had breached the borders and had spread was useless. These harmed people and populations and did not help in any manner. We knew this, we told the illogical and irrational, often hysterical and inept Task Forces and COVID advisors and governments this, but they did not listen.

Early data was showing us that people over 75 to 80 years old were over 10,000 times more likely to die of COVID-19 if infected than someone under 10 years old. Thus, why would we have a blanket carte blanche lockdown when there is so much risk differential? We could look at the situation in the rest of the low-risk ‘open’ population and monitor, and only if we saw infections and hospitalization increase markedly then we would move to impose restrictions etc. on them. As needed. No mass testing of asymptomatic persons and no quarantine of asymptomatic persons.

We knew that once the high-risk and elderly were properly protected, that we could reduce hospitalization and death. We also knew that if we used early drug treatment in these groups, that we would dramatically cut hospitalizations by 85% and save thousands of lives. But these maladroit and inept, unscientific Task Forces and television experts did not listen. We did not think that we were any smarter than the Task Force and lunatic television medical experts, by any means, but we knew that they were seemingly averse to the science and that we were literally studying the data and basing our decisions on balancing the benefits versus the harms to any decision. They had to be averse to the data for how else could you explain the often idiotic and nonsensical tripe they would spew 24/7 to the public? Consider Dr. Anthony Fauci as an example, for near 16 months now, we cannot think of or locate one statement that he has made publicly that made any sense whatsoever, and could be backed up by any data or science. None! Not one. We continue to look and ask if anyone can locate such, if they can bring it to our attention urgently for us to correct this record.

We felt strongly that if we indeed secured the high-risk elderly and vulnerable, then lockdowns would not have to be applied across the board. We were always confident in this, the question really being would those in decision-making positions understand this. Would they, the bureaucrats and technocrats and their illogical advisors be able to understand that the key is to drive a risk differential between the high and low-risk in a population whereby the low-risk of severe illness be allowed harmlessly and naturally to live lives normally and if exposed, become infected and to clear the virus with full, broad, and robust resulting natural immunity?

In other words, we do not impede the low risk of severe outcome of becoming infected and we leave them largely unrestricted with common sense safety precautions. We knew they would have no symptoms or very minimal and recover quite well. The evidence was clear in this. We heighten their risk of transmission (we increase the probability of infection among the younger and low-risk persons, low-risk adults etc.), so to speak. And that at the same time, we secure the high-risk of illness persons so that infection risk is reduced for them. We mitigate the chance of infection in the high-risk of illness. We create a risk differential of contracting the virus that is skewed towards the young and healthy. And we do this harmlessly and naturally. We do this so that the low-risk who become infected can become immune, and they can then help protect the high-risk vulnerable persons in a society.

Would they, these lockdown lunatic advisors understand that you do not lock down the well and healthy so that you effectively cause the low-risk of severe illness to have low risk of becoming infected and that this only works to delay moving toward population immunity? That this is the worst step you can take? That you also put selection pressure on the virus when you lockdown, that drives mutations? Akin to the mutations driven by vaccinating during a pandemic, this itself being a terrible step.  That with lockdowns, the pathogen does not go away and waits for the restrictions to be loosened and infections will always go up once restrictions are loosened. That this also denies them, the low-risk persons, the opportunity to clear the virus and become naturally immune? That this mistake actually harms the elderly who are then not protected by the population immunity that was not gained by the low-risk? We use the low-risk in the population to protect the high-risk as the full strategy, or in combination with a properly developed and safety tested vaccine. Everything these lockdown lunatics in charge did, was wrong! Did they not think these things through?

The stark reality is that our lockdowns badly harmed the elderly for it left them confined in their nursing homes and extended the window of exposure to the virus for them. And they were subject to repeated exposure from staff who brought pathogen into the confined settings and drove the hospitalizations and deaths. Lockdowns worked to kill the elderly! Lockdowns thus reduced the movement of the younger low-risk persons to the same level of movement and mobility as the elderly higher-risk persons (basically none) and thus equalized the chance of infection between the low-risk and high-risk (young and old). This was devastating.

While we knew this and spoke of this repeatedly to inform the policy makers, they, the media, and the inept television medical experts attacked us and smeared us. Pilloried us. They, the governments and their utterly bogus scientific advisors ‘knew best’. They were so inept and academically sloppy, and refused to do the work and abreast themselves of the science and to think this through. They were lazy and either did not understand the science, did not read it, did not ‘get’ it, or were blinded to it by their cognitive dissonance of any information that did not align with their politicized views. This led to catastrophic decisions that continue even today. Again, just look at Ontario in mid-June 2021, it is as if it were February 2020.

Now look at what they have done to the globe by their hubris and arrogance and ineptness. Look around you. We were always right for we took the time and thought this through and understood the catastrophic mess the lockdowns would cause. We knew that a finessed, nuanced ‘targeted’ approach was needed here. We studied the policy implications and considered the harms from the lockdown policies. In the end, still to this day, they have failed to properly protect the elderly while damaging the well in the society with crushing lockdowns and closures. Thousands of Americans, including children, died due to suicides and deaths of despair, needlessly. The effects will be felt in some models for the rest of the 21st century. In no country, no setting, is there any evidence that lockdowns, school closures, shelter-in-place, social distancing, mass asymptomatic testing, and mask mandates worked. None! Zero! This is why the father of epidemiology and eradicator of small-pox, Dr. Donald Henderson, argued in 2006 against these devastating measures even for more lethal pathogens, for he knew of the disastrous outcomes. He did not advocate for them for he knew of the devastating consequences.

What have we found out about the illogical and unscientific societal restrictions since March 2020? This is not ‘new’ data or evidence as the CDC would tend to say, for this data began emerging soon after the catastrophic lockdowns and school closures began in spring of 2020. We learnt about the catastrophic harms (consequences) and failures of lockdowns (AIER lockdowns) and principally that they do not work and are ineffective and detrimental to societies rich or poor, whereby lockdowns decimates a society as it drives desperation especially among the disenfranchised and marginalized. We learnt that school closures (AIER school closures) was and remains a catastrophic failure whereby keeping children out of the school system harms them. Many children get their only meal in the school, get their eyes and hearing tested, and the school acts as a safety valve for possible physical and/or sexual abuse. These are normally noticed from the school initially. Many children killed themselves in the west due to the school closures, and the US Task Force led by Fauci et al. wears this. Moreover, we learnt about the catastrophic harms of mask use especially for children. In addition, we learnt of the ineffectiveness of masks (blue surgical as well as cloth face-masks) (AIER masks) as well as the failure of mask mandates (especially for children who are damaged socially, emotionally, and health-wise due to the masking).

We learnt that everything that the US Task Force and other medical advisors called for and implemented (especially the British and Canadian Task Forces), was destructive and caused devastating consequences to economies and lives. Just look at the insanity Canadians are living now, 16 months in, especially in the province of Ontario. Look at the economic destruction, lost businesses, jobs, and lives. What a catastrophic mess and every single step the provincial government takes is nonsensical and unscientific and completely irrational. None have worked. Who comprises the Ontario government’s Task Force? They should have all been fired 12 months ago and all their salaries recouped. What an inept, highly incompetent, senseless bunch, a clown car out of control! Hundreds of thousands of people died not due to COVID, but as a result of the damaging restriction policies by these absurd and reckless medical experts who should all have been fired after one month of their lunacy!

Acquired immunity due to exposure, some cross-reactivity cross-protection to other coronaviruses (common cold), as well as innate resistance to begin with was the pattern we were observing. How come we saw and knew this but these Task Forces could not? We were seeing that the vast majority of persons were at no risk for serious illness or death and only a small sliver of the population, was at risk. An approximate 99.98% risk of survival. In fact, the specific high-risk group e.g. elderly persons with underlying medical conditions, was more focused on by SARS-CoV-2 than for influenza since influenza cuts a wide swath including devastating to children. We knew COVID was clearly devastating for high-risk vulnerable people. But we knew quickly how to manage COVID and that the virus was treatable with existing cheap, safe, and effective therapeutics, when applied early in the disease sequelae. Yes, early outpatient treatment with existing repurposed therapeutics would have played a major role in closing off this pandemic much earlier. Yet, what did we do? We shut our societies down and moved massively toward vaccinating the nation(s). We refused to consider the potent role of natural immunity and COVID recovered immunity, as well as cross-protection immunity. It went counter to all of what we knew and were seeing.

Perhaps Dr. John Lee wrote it best by stating, “The moral debate is not lives vs money. It is lives vs lives. It will take months, perhaps years, if ever, before we can assess the wider implications of what we are doing. The damage to children’s education, the excess suicides, the increase in mental health problems, the taking away of resources from other health problems that we were dealing with effectively. Those who need medical help now but won’t seek it, or might not be offered it. And what about the effects on food production and global commerce, that will have unquantifiable consequences for people of all ages, perhaps especially in developing economies”?

Lockdowns did not protect the vulnerable and defenseless among us, no, it actually harmed and devastated the vulnerable people, for lockdowns work to expose vulnerable people. These lockdowns, these school closures, these mask mandates, these shelter-in-place edits and polices were all Fauci’s and Birx’s policies. These were their policies that the President implemented and the gross error he made was listening to these inept illogical so-called ‘experts’ and not firing them on day one! How could he be so misled? Their lockdown polices costed lives! What a clown car of disaster visited upon the United States for near 16 months now and it continues under the new administration. Even worse!

Gupta and Kulldorff write, “a key feature of COVID-19 is that there is more than a thousand-fold difference in the risk of death between the oldest and the youngest”. We agree fully and this is a core theme of this offering, in that the crushing burden of the forced societal lockdowns that time has shown us were very harmful, is shifted from the richer and middle class to the poor. For example, in Toronto, one can see graphically the shift in burden to the poorer in the society where the incidence rates were the same at the beginning of the pandemic, but after the March 23 lockdowns, detected infections/cases declined in affluent neighborhoods while they skyrocketed in less affluent, poorer areas. A similar effect was subsequently observed for mortality.

In a similar light, Chang published an informative paper in journal Nature that examined mobility network models of COVID-19 to explain inequities and inform reopening. They found that higher infection rates (and subsequent deaths) among disadvantaged racial and socioeconomic groups could be predicted “solely as the result of differences in mobility: we find that disadvantaged groups have not been able to reduce their mobility as sharply, and that the points of interest that they visit are more crowded and are therefore associated with higher risk”.

In both affluent first world nations and even lesser developed nations, the more wealthy in these societies have basically not been impacted by the lockdowns as did poorer persons, the underprivileged class. Their concerns were not pressing, they did not need worry about the children when the schools were closed, or the need for proper lap-tops and internet access and tutors etc. They had home offices they could remodel and make their accommodations more comfortable, as the poorer had to go out to ‘in-person’, often high-risk employment. Why? Because they were the ‘essential workers’ and had the front-facing, high-contact, high-risk jobs. Poorer persons suffered two pandemics, one due to the virus, and the other which operated in insidious ways, was due to the impact of the societal lockdowns. And their children fared worst of all!

The persons who made the decisions to lockdown and close schools had the type of jobs that could allow for remote working and this could continue forever if they could have it. The bureaucrats, technocrats, and COVID medical advisors were always far removed from the crushing impact of their policies. They did not ‘feel’ the lockdowns and for some, it was like an extended vacation where Amazon and UBER became staple names in their households. It’s actually fun and relaxation for many. You could walk your dogs at your own pace, and tend to your garden, fix up the house, do your chores, relax, shop online etc. Even vacate. The poor had no such avenues and were ravaged by the lockdowns and incurred losses that by some estimates, will never be recovered and to think that lockdowns worked to protect vulnerable persons is indeed a fallacy and terrible misconception. It is actually cruel and misguided and something very perverse really has happened here when you do take time to think about it.

So now, given we spent the last 15 to 16 months shielding the wealthier from the ravages of the lockdowns, we even have them, the more financially able, rumbling about why should we even lift the lockdowns. Why? Because they are now settled into a flow of things that does not cause them any substantial challenges. Just some re-arranging. The questions they pose are quite different to the dire ones by the poorer in societies. Do we do it now? How about we wait? Yeah, let’s wait, we do not need to rush this re-opening. Do we move to re-open schools? To this ‘lap-top’ class, the lockdowns are a mere small inconvenience and why lift them? Heck, keep it going if you have to. Remote schooling or in-person? Either way my child has no risk so, what’s the bother, what’s all this fuss, any format will do. Just tell us. No problem, we got pods and tutors etc. We do not need to re-open, what’s the rush?

We are so outraged about what was done to whole societies by these lunatic medical experts and Task Force advisors. We say ‘never again’ must we allow these absurd and reckless technocrats and bureaucrats with their failed medical COVID Task Force advisors do this to us! Never again! These unscientific ever preening Task Force advisors and medical experts, with their tripe! Their daily drivel. Their absurd drivel 24/7 that is never backed up with any science or when there is any ‘so called’ science, it is utter junk pseudoscience. Case in point, CDC. Not one proper cost-effectiveness analysis has been done by anyone regarding these lockdowns and restrictive policies. You would think this was would have been a basic step to inform decision-making and even calibrate it enroute. It was as if the decision-makers did not want to know the truth. Akin to how no proper mask or social distancing studies were ever done given what the findings would have shown.

Fire all the governments at the next polls for what they have done here! Fire these inept bureaucrats. All of them. The truth is that we delude ourselves, we lie to ourselves when we live in a fantasy that the forced societal lockdowns, school closures, and associated COVID-19 pandemic mandates and edicts work to protect the weak and vulnerable. It never did. It never worked to protect the vulnerable elderly and we failed to protect them. That is the biggest running joke among these Task Force morons, they lied to us telling us para ‘we are doing this to protect the vulnerable and elderly’.

What a load of nonsense and garbage and the tragedy is that people like Fauci by his emerging e-mails showed that he and they always knew the actual science. While we felt that they could not be that inept, we were right. They were actually corrupt and duplicitous too. They knew what they were doing was inaccurate and deceitful and said one thing behind the scenes and another on the podium (see Fauci’s trove of e-mails), lying to the people who only sought truth.

These corrupt inept advisors and government leaders shelved all of the important evidence they already had to guide them (e.g. see WHO’s non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza ISBN 978-92-4-151683-9). Something other than science was at play, and while at it, the poor suffered irreparably! The burden was shifted to them near entirely and they, near entirely, are left to pick up the pieces of the disaster visited upon them by all these so called ‘good people’ wanting to ‘do good’ by them.

June 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Hancock: “Very Significant Flu Vaccine Drive This Winter!”

By Richie Allen | June 22, 2021

Yesterday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that flu will come out of retirement this Winter. This morning the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that plans are afoot for a “significant flu vaccination drive this Winter, to protect the NHS.”

Speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, Hancock said:

“We are worried about flu this winter because people’s natural immunity will be lower because we haven’t had any serious flu for 18 months now. We had a difficult winter in 2019, we didn’t have flu at all really this last winter because of the restrictions that were in place for Covid. So, it is something we are worried about.

We are are going to have a very significant flu vaccination drive this autumn – potentially at the same time you might get your Covid booster jab and your flu jab at the same time, we are testing whether that can be done.

We do need to make sure we protect the NHS this coming winter. We have got time to do the preparation for that now, though, and make sure we are as vaccinated as possible, because that is the way to keep people safe.”

Hancock may well go down as the greatest liar in all history. I wonder what do they have on him? Of course flu never disappeared. That’s a double whopper with cheese and bacon. Flu was simply rebranded Covid-19. That’s not to say that I am claiming that Covid-19 doesn’t exist. I’ve never said that. How could I know?

But flu doesn’t just disappear because of social distancing. A cough or a sneeze travels 25 feet remember. Masks are useless. Flu thrives when people stay inside for prolonged periods, in poorly ventilated homes. Those are facts. Flu never went away. People with flu were told that they had covid-19 after submitting themselves for a redundant PCR test.

Winter is going to be fun then. The pressure to take a flu jab and a covid booster will be immense. Will those who submit to the jabs have more freedom over the Winter months? Probably.

While appearing on SKY News this morning, Hancock repeated that vaccines are the only way back to freedom and the only way to protect the NHS. This morning, just as every other morning, the car park next to the vaccination centre in Salford is full.

I run past it every day. Each time I do, my heart sinks.

June 22, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

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