The Rise of Hepatitis
By Carla Peeters | Brownstone Institute | May 23, 2022
The number of previously healthy children younger than 16 years of age with mysterious hepatitis cases have doubled in two weeks to 450 cases worldwide, including 11 deaths. Most cases have been reported in the UK (160) and the US (currently, 180). In Europe most cases are found in Italy (35) and Spain (22). Over 8-14% of the patients needed liver transplantation. These children will be on lifelong medication. Until now the real cause of a sudden spark in hepatitis is not clear.
Although 50-72% of the cases tested positive with a PCR test for Adenovirus, tissue and liver samples taken in the UK do not show any typical features that might be expected with a liver inflammation due to this virus.
In the UK, 18% of the reported cases tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus and three cases had tested positive 8 weeks prior to admission. The most plausible cause of hepatitis traces to a viral origin. Brodin and Aditi hypothesize a SARS-CoV-2 superantigen mediated immune activation in an Adenovirus-sensitized host.
At this point many of the children with hepatitis are too young to be eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. So far, no common environmental exposure has been found.
Jaundice is characteristic for all children with hepatitis, which could have many reasons including toxins and malnutrition. A search into the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the toxicology of nanoparticles, microplastics, disinfectants and hypercapnia/hypoxia, children have been extensively exposed to during the pandemic makes bio corona formation and accumulation of toxic substances a reasonable explanation for disruption of the liver homeostasis.
The capacity for excessive activation of liver inflammatory pathways has been described for these materials prior to the pandemic. Effects of the complex mixture of these materials and associated chemical pollutants presented have not yet been assessed. Understanding how these materials interact with its biological surroundings during long-term and frequent exposure is of utmost importance.
Pandemic Measures and Liver Toxicity
Early in the pandemic several researchers warned of the unsafe use of facemasks, tests, and disinfectants and their weakening effect on the immune system. Many institutions are starting research on harmful chemicals due to air pollution as they pose a known threat to public health and the economy, representing 10% of global GDP in health costs and 3.75 billion lost working days at the global level in 2060.
Unfortunately, almost no funded research has been started in the area of the safe, cost/benefit use of the mandates. Instead, during the pandemic large amounts of money were spent on less urgent research on non-pandemic related issues.
While Covid-19 was originally thought to be a respiratory infection, various research papers have indicated myocardial inflammation, hepatitis, or neurological experiences independent of severity of Covid-19 and sometimes without evidence of a viral infection. Other researchers found that cardiac damage was more related to clotting and microthrombi were frequent. Almost 25% of people hospitalized develop myocardial injury and many develop arrhythmias or thromboembolic disease.
Lockdowns, with many people experiencing an ongoing state of fear and anxiety and frequent exposure to nanoparticles, microplastics, high CO2 exposure and toxic substances impaired the innate immune system even more.
Furthermore, several studies have indicated a remarkable suppression of the innate immune system after injections with PEGylated lipid nanoparticle (LNP) modified mRNA vaccines. In vivo studies for cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of these vaccines, prior to their release under EUA and being mandated for many people and children, have been neglected.
Unfortunately, more than two years into the pandemic an alarming stage of mysterious rises in infectious and noncommunicable diseases and sudden non-Covid deaths have been reported, even neonatal deaths. The Observer reported one in three people in the UK are experiencing long-term illness.
The Liver Is an Immune Surveillance System
The liver is an important organ responsible for the storage, synthesis, metabolism and redistribution of carbohydrates, fats and vitamins and numerous essential proteins. It is the main detoxification center of the body. A most important organ for generating an effective innate immune response and covering a robust and long-lasting immunity, it works to keep virus, bacteria and excessive inflammations in check.
About 30% of the total blood passes through the liver every minute and is scanned by the mononuclear phagocytic system (MPS) in the liver. The microenvironment in the liver shapes and functions the antigen specific CD4+ T cell population with the capacity for longevity/self-renewal for more than a decade.
High amounts of CD8, Natural Killer T cells, dendritic cells and macrophages (Kupfer cells) in the liver play an important role in the protective innate immune system during injury and infection deciding for tolerance or excessive inflammation. Specific liver cells, hepatocytes, produce 80-90% of the circulating innate immunity proteins in the body including acute phase proteins, complement, bactericidal proteins and more.
Neutrophils, the most abundant leukocytes in the blood, present in the liver perform important functions in inflammation and act as a functional bridge between the innate and adaptive immunity (B cells and T cells) activating antigen specific immune responses.
Homeostatic inflammation is a normal part of a healthy liver. In the complex microenvironment of the liver, the hepatic immune system tolerates harmless molecules while at the same time remaining alert to possible infectious agents, malignant cells or tissue damage. Inflammatory processes are required to rid itself of pathogens, cancer cells or toxic products of metabolic activity. The inflammatory processes are intimately linked to mechanisms that resolve inflammation and promote tissue regeneration.
Excessive and dysregulated inflammatory activity are key drivers of liver pathology, associated with systemic inflammation: chronic infection, autoimmunity and cancer. Mechanisms to resolve liver inflammation are essential to maintain local organ and systemic homeostasis. It is the balance between activation and tolerance that characterizes the liver as a frontline immunological organ. Disrupting this precious surveillance system increases the risk for severe disease and death.
Immune-Liver Disruptors
A possible role of the pandemic measures in excessive inflammation in the human body by immune-liver disruptors is realistic. Independently they may each cause problems of the liver. Serious drawbacks of the measures have become most visible in children, the obese and immunocompromised and the poor.
Nanoparticles (i.e. inhaled graphene oxide, titanium dioxide, Ag from facemasks or swabs) present in the body are cleared from the blood and will preferentially accumulate and sequester in the liver, up to 30-99% from those present in the blood and at much higher quantities as compared to other organs.
Studies in recent years have shown that nanomaterials can modulate and activate neutrophils and other immune cells. Nanomaterials may be considered as a particular case of danger signals that are able to trigger sterile inflammatory responses. Rapid accumulation of nanoparticles in the resident liver macrophages can change the expression of anti-inflammatory genes. Changes of genes related to detoxification and cell cycle have been observed.
Systematically administered nanoparticles may directly interact with circulating erythrocytes leading to erythrocyte aggregation and or hemolysis that is accompanied by hemoglobin release. Surface properties of the nanoparticles are known to play a critical role in nanoparticle-erythrocyte interaction. Most nanoparticles have been known to activate complements by either themselves or through serum proteins. Activation of complements and complement activation pathways could further promote tumor growth.
Nanoparticles develop a specific bio-corona comprising complex and dynamic layers of biomolecules that endow nanoparticles with a new immunological identity.
Studies on polystyrene microplastics (which can be present in facemasks and swabs) showed hepatotoxicity and dysregulation of the lipid metabolism, causing oxidative stress and inflammatory responses. This implicated a potential risk for liver steatosis, fibrosis and cancer and macrophage foam cell formation, a characteristic feature observed during atherosclerosis posing a serious threat to human health.
Another study demonstrated that fish exposed to a mixture of polyethylene with chemical pollutants bioaccumulate the chemical pollutants and suffer liver toxicity and pathology. Moreover 0.1 um microplastics could enter hepatocytes from circulation and result in liver damage even at a low concentration.
Microplastic exposure could induce DNA damage in both nucleus and mitochondria indicating a potential risk of hepatotoxicity and fibrosis. Microplastics are found in the human blood of 80 % of the people tested, in deep lung tissues and human feces.
Covid-19 mRNA vaccines use Acuitas’ PEG (Poly Ethylene Glycol) ylated lipid nanoparticles (LNP). The PEGylated lipids support prolonged circulation and shield the highly inflammatory and cytotoxic effects of the cationic lipids used. If insufficiently shielded by PEG they have been shown to mediate aggregation and interact with and damage the membranes of erythrocytes resulting in hemolysis. PEG content, surface density and conformation of the nanoparticle influence the binding of proteins to a bio corona and the uptake by immune cells.
Despite achieving high dense surface coatings of PEG, no NP formulation has been developed that can completely resist interaction with blood components. Of concern is that 22-25% of individuals who were never exposed to PEGylated therapeutics were found to have PEG antibodies, which is more than two decades ago. PEG coating can improve the penetration of biological barriers including reducing interactions with tissue extracellular matrix cellular barriers and biological fluids such as mucus leading to improved delivery.
After injection of Moderna LNP very low levels could be detected in the brain, potentially indicating that the mRNA LNP could cross the blood brain barrier and reach the Central Nervous System (CNS). Unfortunately, the potential inflammatory nature of these LNPs was not assessed.
In preclinical studies a strong induction of adaptive immune responses by CD4+ T-cell activation and protective humoral immune responses was found. The synthetic ionizable lipid is speculated to have approximately 20-30 days of half-life in humans. It has been shown that plasma protein absorption occurs very rapidly and that it affects hemolysis, thrombocyte activation, cellular uptake and endothelial cell death. The bio corona formation of the PEGylated nanoparticle may change over time.
The increasing number of side effects and reported high potency for eliciting antibody response may partially stem from the LNP’s highly inflammatory nature characterized by leukocyte infiltration and activation of different inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. Antigen-presenting cells presenting vaccine derived peptides/protein might cause tissue damage and exacerbate side effects, which have been linked to autoimmune diseases.
More severe and systemic side effects after the booster shot might be related to an amplification effect of the adaptive immune response induced by the vaccine resulting in high antibody responses. Neutrophils were found to preferentially internalize PEGylated particles in the presence of human plasma. Also, further studies of complement activation in relation to PEG nanoparticles merit rigorous evaluation for immune safe materials. Observational studies found a greater risk for complications following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. A study of the University of Lund has indicated by in vitro studies that the BNT162b2mRNA vaccine has a fast take-up into human liver cells. In 6 hours of exposure the RNA was reverse transcribed into DNA.
Sennef et al. describes the disruption of the innate immune system by the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines caused by an impaired interferon signaling, release of large amounts of exosomes containing Spike protein, potential disturbances in regulatory control of protein synthesis and cancer surveillance of and their potential direct link to liver disease (with over 2,000 reports in VAERS December 2021) and other inflammatory diseases. The presence of Spike protein has been detected in the blood and 60 days after mRNA vaccine injection in the lymph nodes.
A functional reprogramming of the innate immune responses after BNT 162b2 injection was also observed by Fohse et al. with a lower response of innate immune cells, while the fungi-induced cytokine responses were stronger. A study on Biovrix by Nguyen et al. demonstrated an impaired lipid metabolism and increased lipotoxicity by the Spike protein. Jiang et al observed that the Spike protein localizes in the nucleus and inhibits DNA damage repair by impeding key DNA repair protein recruitment to a damaged site. A mechanism by which the spike protein might impede the adaptive immunity explaining the potential side effects. Suraswaki et al. stated that the virus itself may dysregulate the innate cellular defenses using various structural and nonstructural proteins.
Taking Back Control of Our Bodies
The European Commission Statement from May 12, 2022, announces to shorten (from 300 to 100 days) the product to market cycle to develop safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics following the identification of new threats and work to make them widely available.
As discussed, the Covid-19 pandemic measures have shown to be far from safe. All materials are known to interact and bind proteins forming bio corona’s depleting the body of essentials for processes to function properly.
Subtle changes in materials and biological fluids of persons can significantly change the protein composition of the bio corona and can either lead to an excessive inflammation or resilient homeostasis. Especially in children who need more proteins, vitamins and minerals for mental, physical, and immune system development, the accumulation of toxic substances in the liver and formation of bio corona can be a serious threat to health.
At this stage, it is not known whether the mysterious rises in diseases are caused by a virus or an intoxication and/or depletion of essentials that result in impaired signaling routes. The Covid-19 routine diagnostic tests used for mass testing have major flaws which make it impossible to ensure the presence of an infectious virus as a single cause of symptoms.
An increasing number of doctors and researchers agree: the pandemic is over. All pandemic measures need to be halted immediately. The highest priority is lifting the mandates for children. Healthy children always had a very low risk for severe Covid-19 and are protected by a strong robust and long-lasting natural immunity. There is no added value to vaccinate any person with natural immunity. Moreover, the risk for side effects of the mRNA vaccine for children is high. mRNA Covid vaccine accumulates in the liver 30 minutes after it is injected.
Deep investigations on quality, reproducibility and contaminations of the materials of personal protective equipment, facemasks, tests, disinfectants and vaccines, being used with their effects on the human body and the environmental ecosystem need to be prioritized and funded.
During the past two years, the immune system of many people has been harmed and even broken. We need programs to regenerate the liver and immune system so people can face with trust and confidence any possible wave of virus attacks.
Carla Peeters is founder and managing director of COBALA Good Care Feels Better. She obtained a PhD in Immunology from the Medical Faculty of Utrecht, studied Molecular Sciences at Wageningen University and Research, and followed a four-year course in Higher Nature Scientific Education with a specialization in medical laboratory diagnostics and research. She studied at various business schools including London Business School, INSEAD and Nyenrode Business School.
COVID-19 Pandemic Could Have Emerged Due to US Experiments on Viruses, Prof Says
Samizdat | May 21, 2022
Scientists have not been able to reach an agreement on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. While it is widely believed that the deadly virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan, others insist that COVID-19 was man-made, and the pandemic was the result of a laboratory leak.
US experiments on viruses that could jump from animals to people might have contributed to the emergence of coronavirus, Professor Jeffrey Sachs wrote in his article for PNAS journal.
He also called for an independent and transparent investigation into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. According to Sachs, more transparency from the Chinese authorities could have helped a lot during the early stages of the pandemic, but some US research also raises concerns.
“We argue here that there is much important information that can be gleaned from US-based research institutions, information not yet made available for independent, transparent, and scientific scrutiny,” he wrote in a joint statement with Professor Neil Harrison of Columbia University.
Among the US institutes that could use more transparency Sachs lists the EHA, the University of North Carolina (UNC), the University of California at Davis (UCD), the NIH, and USAID.
“A broad spectrum of coronavirus research work was done not only in Wuhan […] but also in the United States. The exact details of the fieldwork and laboratory work of the EHA-WIV-UNC partnership, and the engagement of other institutions in the United States and China, has not been disclosed for independent analysis,” the professors wrote, adding that “the precise nature of the experiments that were conducted, including the full array of viruses collected from the field and the subsequent sequencing and manipulation of those viruses, remains unknown.”
Sachs pointed out that the denials of being involved in COVID-related research alongside US institutions are “only as good as the limited data on which it is based”. According to the article, the US-Chinese collaborative research was connected to “the collection of a large number of so-far undocumented SARS-like viruses and was engaged in their manipulation within biological safety level (BSL)-2 and BSL-3 laboratory facilities.”
Such experiments raise concerns that an airborne virus might have infected a laboratory worker, along with other possible scenarios suggesting that COVID-19 was man-made.
Sachs emphasised the importance of further independent and transparent investigations into the origin of the pandemic, suggesting that one of the ways to investigate could be “a tightly focused science-based bipartisan Congressional inquiry.”
While the scientific opinions on the origins of COVID remain divided, Beijing suggested that the deadly virus could have also emerged from Fort Detrick, a clandestine bioresearch facility based in Maryland. Washington, in turn, accused China of fuelling the pandemic and concealing the data about the virus, with the allegations being particularly vocal during the presidential tenure of Donald Trump.
Why the World should be very concerned about New Zealand under the Jacinda government
By Guy Hatchard | Waikanae Watch | May 19, 2022
The New Zealand government relies upon a science body known as Te Punaha Matatini (Centre for Science in Society) whose work is funded directly by the office of the Prime Minister and cabinet.
Yesterday, Te Punaha Matatini published a 21-page document entitled “The Murmuration of Information Disorders” (see attached release from the Science Media Centre) designating those opposed to the government’s pandemic policies as violent right wing insurrectionists planning the weaponised storming of parliament and the execution of public servants, academics, journalists, politicians, and healthcare workers.
This is an utterly false characterisation worthy of the worst excesses of historical propaganda.
This 21-page document, represented to the public as a scientific paper, contains not a single discussion of the scientific concerns being raised in opposition to government pandemic policy.
It omits for example analyses of the government’s own official figures which show that the vaccinated are more vulnerable to infection, hospitalisation, and death than the unvaccinated, a fact that has been deliberately hidden from the public.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduced yesterday’s Te Punaha Matatini report with the words:
“One day it will be our job to try and understand how a group of people could succumb to such wild and dangerous mis- and disinformation. And while many of us have seen that disinformation and dismissed it as conspiracy theory, a small portion of our society have not only believed it, they have acted upon it in an extreme and violent way that cannot stand. We have a difficult journey in front of us to address the underlying cause.”
Since when do reasonable scientifically-based questions asked of the government in good faith constitute violent insurrection?
I am tempted to think that Ardern could just as well be talking about her own government. The Prime Minister and the social scientists(?) working at Te Punaha Matatini might do well to read the New York Times, (although they probably don’t do so because the official policy of the New Zealand government is to discourage any information that is not sanctioned and edited by themselves).
A NYT article on 10 May 2022 entitled “Emergent Hid Evidence of Covid Vaccine Problems at Plant” reports that
“Emergent BioSolutions, a longtime government contractor hired to produce hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, hid evidence of quality control problems from Food and Drug Administration inspectors in February 2021 — six weeks before it alerted federal officials that 15 million doses had been contaminated.”
A reasonable observer might conclude that early (and later) concerns being voiced about vaccine safety were justified, but the New Zealand government is far from reasonable.
A succession of scientific papers published in reputable journals during recent weeks (which we and many others have reported extensively and communicated directly to the government) have in fact fully justified concerns about safety and efficacy, but unbelievably our government is in denial and still moving ahead with propaganda advertising of their mRNA vaccination agenda for all ages and, as today’s Te Punaha Matatini report shows, labelling any opposition as a conspiracy with violent aims.
How Did the Transformation of the NZ Government Come About?
New Zealand has a small population of 5 million, but it has been used to trial new products in order to gauge what the public reaction and acceptance might be in bigger markets overseas. Never more so than during the pandemic. Take up of the Pfizer mRNA Covid vaccination has reached up to 95% of the eligible population.
This has been achieved through a transformation in the style of government, media control, science funding, intellectual standards, and international relations unprecedented in the western world, along with the coercion of draconian employment mandates and the pursuit of dissenters through compliant courts.
This has been engineered under the leadership of a person with a bachelor’s degree in communication who grew up in a strict rural Mormon household and cut her political teeth under the Blair administration in London. In keeping with her upbringing and education, Ardern is a leader who is sure she is right and is prepared to enforce her orthodoxy against all opposition and reason.
Her international perspective is one of unquestioning acceptance of the authority and right to rule of global institutions. Her top confidant and mentor Helen Clark, former NZ Labour Prime Minister, is closely associated with this outlook. Ardern recounts that she begins her day with a discussion with Clark over breakfast.
Like Ardern, Clark is renowned for her iron fist management style. She ruffled feathers at the United Nations Development Programme, which she led from 2009 to 2017, reportedly undermining human rights and supporting China’s Belt and Road initiative.
On 9 July 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed Clark as co-chair of a panel reviewing the WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response of governments to the outbreak. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) examined how the outbreak occurred and how future pandemics can be prevented.
Nothing says more about the overt global agenda of Ardern and Clark than this 11 May 2022 statement of the New Zealand government:
“The establishment of a pandemic treaty/instrument was a key recommendation of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and is one of New Zealand’s foremost global health priorities”
Like China, New Zealand’s fading international reputation for successful management of the pandemic was actually built on a single policy—control the borders, restrict entry, and impose lengthy quarantine.
The Current Situation in New Zealand is Deeply Concerning
Ardern controls the media and the science dialogue through a mixture of government funding and exclusion of dissent. The government has spent big on saturation advertising advising complete safety and efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, and continues to do so.
It has instituted funding of cultural groups, GPs, and commercial organisations who promote vaccination. The level of funding is so generous that it has distorted prior long standing economic and political relationships.
So far the government has spent on the order of $100 billion on the pandemic in addition to normal expenditure. To put this in stark perspective, that is equal to the total annual government budget prior to the pandemic—more than $20,000 for every man, woman, and child. This is borrowed money which will have to be repaid through increased taxation of an already struggling population.
We Have No Constitution in New Zealand, the Power of the Government Is Absolute.
The control that Ardern’s government exercises over the courts, government agencies, parliament, media, independent regulators, and over the vast majority of the population is staggering and rigidly enforced. Dissenting medical professionals are excluded from practicing and in some cases prosecuted also. They are also mercilessly hounded and vilified by bought mainstream media.
In an atmosphere of strict government control, more worrying aspects of information control have emerged. In some cases noted by my scientific colleagues, policy and pronouncements that they have demonstrated are in conflict with published research have disappeared from the public record.
Even rare court rulings in favour of caution have been rapidly bypassed by simply passing new laws without debate. Court rulings about mandates have also been openly flouted, as happened when the military vaccine mandate was ruled illegal. With the support of the government, the military said the courts had no jurisdiction over its operation and went ahead anyway.
Ardern has introduced her policies in such a dedicated, persuasive, secretive, and complete way that almost the whole population of New Zealand has complied. They have accepted limitations on medical choice, judicial protections, human rights, press freedom, freedom of information, privacy, employment conditions and opportunities, standard of living, and social interaction.
Ardern’s successful efforts to persuade the population that government should be your only source of truth, have all but negated any of the longstanding mechanisms of government accountability. A majority of the population have all but concurred with Ardern that the unvaccinated may be safely blamed for every government failing and omission; and for all Covid case loads, hospitalisations, and deaths contrary to all evidence.
The opposition parties have apparently accepted that they will in future go about their business using the same Ardern doctrines and techniques. Accordingly they have failed to sound the alarm, investigate Covid science publishing deeply, or oppose draconian legislation. They have joined Ardern in labelling peaceful protest as unacceptable and illegal.
Ardern on the Global Stage
Ardern is about to deploy her international political capital to promote the globalisation of her policies and outlook. Her public persona can be deceptively mesmerising. You should be worried.
The world’s economy also has no constitution. So far Ardern appears to be happy to allow it to be controlled by global economic predators. Pfizer has been uncritically promoted by her, and the notion of WHO control over New Zealand’s sovereign rights is being welcomed with open arms. It fits with her strict hierarchical perspective.
Ardern may be viewed by naive foreign governments as a pandemic success story unfairly criticised in her own country. Stop for a moment and consider that she is about to lend her support to the promotion of a new world order on the global stage using her trademark persuasive techniques of propaganda, coercion, and control of information.
Governments worried about Covid misinformation should start with their own lies and distortions: Indiana AG
The Daily Sceptic | May 20, 2022
Governments concerned about Covid misinformation should start with their own lies and distortions, Indiana’s Attorney General has told the U.S. Government. In a submission to the U.S. Surgeon General, who had requested information on the impact of online health misinformation during the pandemic in the United States, Todd Rokita joined with leading scientists Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff to set out nine examples of disinformation propagated by the CDC and other health organisations that have “shattered the public’s trust in science and public health and will take decades to repair”. Read their full submission below.
May 2nd 2022
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General
Action: Request for Information (RFI)
Subject: Impact of Health Misinformation in the Digital Information Environment in the United States Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic
Response: COVID-19 Misinformation from Official Sources During the Pandemic
Submitting parties: Todd Rokita, Indiana Attorney General; Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine; and Dr. Kulldorff, Senior Research Fellow at the Brownstone Institute and former Professor at Harvard University School of Medicine.
The Office of the Surgeon General requested information on the prevalence of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of such misinformation on the U.S. public health system in order to be better prepared to respond to a future public health crisis.
We agree that misinformation has been a major problem during the pandemic. The spread of inaccurate scientific information has made it difficult for the public to make the right decisions to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from COVID-19 and the collateral public health damage arising from the pandemic countermeasures. As such, the disinformation has led to great harm in the lives and livelihoods of Americans. We submit the following examples of disinformation from the CDC and other health organisations that have shattered the public’s trust in science and public health and will take decades to repair.
#1 Overcounting COVID-19: The official CDC numbers for COVID-19 deaths and hospitalisations are inaccurate. The official tallies include many people who have died with rather than from COVID-19. CDC has not distinguished deaths where COVID-19 was the primary cause of death, where COVID-19 was a contributing cause of death, or where the death was entirely unrelated to COVID-19, but they incidentally tested positive.
There are three reasons for this problem. (i) The counting of COVID-19 cases and deaths is unlike the way that public health counts the incidence and mortality caused by other diseases; physicians have been advised to fill out death certificates to privilege COVID-19 as a proximal cause, even when the medical facts suggest otherwise. (ii) The population-wide testing to identify asymptomatic individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is unprecedented in human history. (iii) Although it would have been easy, CDC has not conducted random national surveys of medical charts to determine what proportion of reported COVID-19 deaths were truly due to COVID-19. Ex-post audits of death certificates and medical records in Santa Clara County and Alameda County, California, for instance, found that in around 25% of death certificates in which COVID-19 was labelled as the primary cause of death, other causes of death were more likely. The peer-reviewed literature confirms that COVID-19 is overcounted in other developed countries. Ex post audits of death certificates should be conducted to establish an accurate death count from COVID-19.
#2 Questioning Natural Immunity: There has been consistent questioning and denying of natural immunity after COVID-19 recovery. Using seriously flawed studies, CDC falsely claimed that natural immunity is worse than vaccine acquired immunity. In October 2020, the CDC director published a “memorandum” in the Lancet, questioning natural immunity. Most critically, by mandating vaccination for people who have recovered from COVID-19, the Government, corporations, and universities de facto deny natural immunity.
For scientists, this has been the most surprising disinformation. We have known about natural immunity since the Athenian Plague in 430 BC; other coronaviruses generate natural immunity; and throughout the pandemic, we knew that the COVID-19 recovered have good natural immunity if and when they get exposed the next time. That is, six months after the start of the pandemic, we had epidemiological evidence that natural immunity lasts at least six months; a year into the pandemic, we knew that natural immunity lasted at least one year, and so on.
#3 COVID-19 Vaccines Prevent Transmission: The CDC director and other health officials falsely claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine prevents the transmission of COVID-19 to others. This was also the rationale for vaccine mandates and passports – to prevent the spread of the virus to others. At the time, we did not know, and it turned out to be wrong. When the COVID-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use, the manufacturers presented randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that showed that the vaccines reduced symptomatic disease. The trials were not designed to determine whether they could also limit transmission or prevent death, even though they could have been designed to do so. As it turned out, vaccinated individuals spread the disease to others. While it was unfortunate that the RCTs were not designed to answer the disease transmission question, it is irresponsible for public health officials to claim that they did when the RCTs did not even attempt to answer that question.
#4 School Closures Were Effective and Costless: In the United States, most schools were closed for in-person teaching for some time, and many schools were closed for over a year. This decision was based on false claims that it would protect children, teachers and the community at large. Already in the early summer of 2020, we knew this was false. Sweden was the only major Western country to keep schools open throughout spring 2020 without masks, social distancing, or testing. Among these 1.8 million children ages one to 15, there were zero COVID-19 deaths, only a few hospitalisations, and teachers did not have a higher COVID-19 risk than the average of other professions.
Moreover, while older people living with a working-age adult had a higher COVID-19 risk, there was no evidence that also living with a child increased that risk further. In a July 2020 New England Journal of Medicine article evaluating school closures, they did not mention the Swedish data and evidence, which is like evaluating a new drug without including data from the placebo comparison group. Despite clear evidence on the safety of keeping schools open, misinformation led to many schools being closed for over one year.
#5 Everyone is equally at risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 infection: Though public health messaging has blunted this fact, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in the risk of hospitalisation and death for the old relative to the young. Though the risk of death is high for the old and some other vulnerable populations with severe chronic illness, the risk posed to children from COVID-19 infection is on par with the risk posed by a bad influenza season. Surveys indicate, however, that both old and young overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 infection. This misperception about risk is harmful because it leads to demand for policies – such as school closures and lockdowns – that were themselves harmful.
#6 There was no reasonable policy alternative to lockdowns: Even from the beginning of the pandemic, the sharp age-gradient in the risk of severe disease on COVID-19 infection has provided an alternative to the lockdown-focused policies that many U.S. states adopted – focused protection of the aged and otherwise vulnerable. In October 2020, along with Prof. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, we wrote the Great Barrington Declaration – a public petition that proposed heightened measures to protect the vulnerable and a return to near-normal life for the less vulnerable (including the opening of schools). Tens of thousands of doctors and scientists signed the Declaration in opposition to lockdowns. In the Declaration itself and in supporting documents, we offered many concrete policy suggestions for better protecting the vulnerable, including reduced staff rotations in nursing homes, free home delivery of groceries and other essentials offered to older people living in the community, paid sabbatical leave or alternative work arrangements for older workers, and many other policy options. We also invited the public health community to join in thinking creatively about other ideas to protect the vulnerable. As subsequent research has confirmed, it was clear even at the time that lockdowns could not protect the vulnerable (nearly 80% of COVID-19 deaths have occurred among the elderly in the U.S.). Meanwhile, countries like Sweden, which did not implement lockdowns, have had near-zero overall excess death over the last two years of the pandemic. Lockdowns are an aberration– a sharp deviation from traditional public health management of respiratory epidemics – and a catastrophic failure of public health policy.
#7 Mask mandates are effective in reducing the spread of viral infectious diseases: Contrary to assertions by some public health officials, mask mandates have not been effective in protecting most populations against COVID-19 risk. The SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads by aerosolisation. Unlike larger viral droplets, which are pulled by gravity to the ground shortly after emission, aerosols are tiny particles that can persist in the air for extended periods. Aerosols escape through gaps of poorly fitted masks, greatly reducing their ability to stop disease spread. Cloth masks, in particular, cannot stop aerosols, and even well-fitted N95 masks have diminished capacity to stop viral transmission when they become moist from breathing. It is thus unsurprising that the highest quality evidence available – randomised trials – conducted both before and during the pandemic find that masks are ineffective at stopping the spread of respiratory viruses in most settings when worn by untrained people.
#8 Mass testing of asymptomatic individuals and contact tracing of positive cases is effective in reducing disease spread: Mass testing of asymptomatic individuals with contact tracing and quarantining of people who test positive has failed to substantively slow the progress of the epidemic and has imposed great costs on people who were quarantined even though they posed no risk of infecting others. Three facts are crucial to understanding why this policy has failed. First, even close contacts of someone who tests positive for the SARS-Cov-2 virus are unlikely to pass the disease on. In a large meta-analysis of household contacts of asymptomatic positive cases, only 3% of people living in the same home got sick. Second, the PCR test that has been used to identify asymptomatic infections often returns a positive result for people who have dead viral fragments, are not infectious, and pose no risk of infecting others. And third, the contact tracing system becomes overwhelmed whenever cases start to rise, leading to long delays in contacting new cases. At precisely the moment when contact tracing might be needed, it cannot do its job. At the same time, quarantining people is costly – for workers without adequate sick leave, absenteeism due to contact tracing means pay cuts, lost opportunities and perhaps even an inability to feed families. For children, it means more skipped lessons and missed opportunities for academic and social growth at school, with long-run negative consequences for their future prospects. In the U.K., an official government review determined that its 37 billion pound investment in contact tracing was a waste of resources. The same is undoubtedly true in the United States.
#9 The eradication of COVID-19 is a feasible goal: Throughout the pandemic, from “two weeks to flatten the curve” and onwards, the suppression of the spread of COVID-19 has been an explicit policy goal. Implicitly, public health leaders have made the suppression of COVID-19 spread to near-zero levels the endpoint of the pandemic. However, SARS-CoV-2 has none of the characteristics of a disease that can be eradicated. First, we have no technology to reduce the spread of the disease or meaningfully alter disease dynamics. Lockdowns and social restrictions fail because only people who can afford to work from home without losing their job can comply over long periods. While we have vaccines that can help prevent hospitalisation or death resulting from COVID-19 infection, the vaccines wane in efficacy against COVID-19 infection and cannot stop transmission. Second, there are many animal hosts for SARS-CoV-2 and evidence of transmission between mammals and humans. One USDA study in late 2021 found that nearly 80% of white-tailed deer in the U.S. had evidence of COVID-19 antibodies. Dogs, cats, bats, mink and many other mammals can get COVID-19. So even if the disease were eradicated among humans, zoonotic transmission would guarantee that it would come back. Finally, eradication takes a global commitment from every country – an impossible goal since COVID-19 eradication is far from the most pressing public health problem for many developing countries.