The Highwire with Del Bigtree | August 5, 2021
French President, Emmanuel Macron, provoked a huge uprising on Bastille Day after announcing his new #Covid19 vaccine passport mandate. Founder of Children’s Health Defense Europe, Senta Duypudt, gives Del an insider’s view on how the people of France are standing up to their tyrannical government.
Watch as a new Dutch civil servant & politician, Gideon Van Meijeren, skillfully outs his Prime Minister regarding his connection to WEF’s Klaus Schwab, and his approval of the ‘Great Reset.’ Grab some popcorn and enjoy this gem!
By Matt Bettag, MD | August 6, 2021
When did the world become insane? What is the reason for it? Big Brother? Depopulation? Or people in love with control?
I don’t know and it’s driving me nuts. But I’ve decided I’m tired of complaining about it to my friends and family and I’m willing to put my name on the line. If the woke culture wants to ruin me for speaking the truth, I guess I might as well just get it over with now.
I have been a physician for 24 years, a practicing ENT for 19 years. I have never before seen the medical establishment just stop thinking. Insanity is the new rule, and common sense cannot even be discussed.
From the beginning, 15 days to “flatten the curve,” I was shocked. We had never done this before, but perhaps this virus was really bad, so I gave the government the benefit of the doubt.
Then came Fauci.
He initially said social distancing didn’t work, and masks were largely ineffective.
But by late March, he pronounced both masking and social distancing necessary. Weird… red flag.
What? So now I am alarmed.
I started researching the utility of masks. There were very good articles I found — one out of a respiratory center in Chicago, and another a good dental review. I bookmarked both of them. Less than a month later, the dental website was down, replaced by a text saying basically that their information is now irrelevant because of COVID. The Chicago article also had a disclaimer that previously wasn’t there saying people shouldn’t use their article politically. What? Don’t use a scientifically derived article to make a scientifically based decision on the utility of masks? What the hell is going on?
Next comes PCR testing. Let’s conveniently jack up the PCR Magnification cycles to 40+, resulting in a 90–97% false positive rate.
Then, let’s start testing all elective surgery, asymptomatic exposures, and hospitalized patients with this fake test to artificially increase the Covid numbers.
In addition we will reimburse hospitals greatly for any diagnosed COVID admissions and ICU visits.
Oxygen doesn’t work; go home until you get worse. Oh, and bring your family and friends with you; they’ll need testing.
Steroids were advised against early on, which made no sense, because they do decrease inflammation and in ENT have been used widely for viral illness.
Next we find a few weeks later the secret drug to treat COVID: steroids. What?
Hydroxychloroquine HCQ—suddenly not safe, even though it has been used for decades worldwide with a great safety profile, but not anymore. Mention it, and you are a lunatic.
The same went for all other proven therapeutics, such as ivermectin and vitamin D.
Vaccines? “I wouldn’t trust anything president Trump made.” That was Kamala Harris back in the fall.
Now if you don’t get vaccinated, you don’t care about other people, and you wanna watch people die.
Oh, and by the way, we should vaccinate everyone, including those who previously had COVID, pregnant women, and small children.
What about VAERS? That’s the open record report system that the CDC has made almost unnavigable. It’s slowly crept up and showed up to 12,000 deaths coincident with the vaccine. Then dropped to 6,000, only to come back up to 10,000 and now back to 12,000–Just a little glitch from our trustworthy government.
There are reports that the numbers could be ten times or more as high, and perhaps the CDC is misclassifying deaths to hide them. But let’s trust the government; they’ve been so good thus far.
Now the latest lie: “the delta variant, is surging because of the unvaccinated.”
Ignore the data from other countries that have very high vaccine rates but high spiking cases, and ignore the data from other countries that have low vaccine rates and almost no COVID.
As a matter fact, let’s not even look at Sweden, who essentially didn’t do lockdowns or masking, has a low vaccination rate, and has almost zero COVID.
I have never lived in the world like this, where open medical dialogue is completely suppressed and there is only one party line.
I thought the left was always talking about how we shouldn’t bully people, and we need to have “dialogue.” Well… let’s start.
The media and the government need to do their job and start opening dialogue to the other side. If we are crazy, it will come out.
If we are right, and the data show that to be the fact, then a large apology is warranted.
Big League Politics | July 31, 2021
Dr. Stella Immanuel, the pro-hydroxychloroquine doctor who was derided by the fake news media for attempting to save lives near the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, is striking back against CNN.
Immanuel has launched a $100 million lawsuit against CNN and host Anderson Cooper for what she believes were false and defamatory statements made against her character.
“In an effort to vilify, demonize and embarrass President [Donald] Trump, Cooper and CNN published a series of statements of fact about Dr. Immanuel that injured her reputation and exposed her to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, and financial injury,” the lawsuit stated. It was filed in federal court on July 27.
Immanuel said that she believes Cooper and CNN “effectively caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands whose lives would have been spared if they had been treated early with HCQ.”
Big League Politics has reported on the suppressed science showing that hydroxychloroquine can effectively treat COVID-19:
“A new study has demonstrated that treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine makes patients 84 percent less likely to be hospitalized.
The study is set to be published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents in December. It has determined that “low-dose hydroxychloroquine combined with zinc and azithromycin was an effective therapeutic approach against COVID-19.”
The doctors came to their conclusions after treating 141 coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine for five days. They compared them with a control group of 377 coronavirus patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine as a treatment. They found that “the odds of hospitalization of treated patients was 84% less than in the untreated patients.” Only one patient from the group treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 13 people died in the other group…
The elites are suppressing hydroxychloroquine because they want the public to feel helpless against the virus. They never intend to give the public their liberties back, hoping that the public will accept a “new normal” of globalism and technocracy.“
A victory for Immanuel in court would be a powerful rebuke to the propaganda machine set up to maximize profits for Big Pharma and demonize whistleblowers who actually want to help patients.
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | August 3, 2021
The editor-in-chief of Germany’s top newspaper Bild has apologized for the news outlet’s fear-driven coverage of COVID, specifically to children who were told “that they were going to murder their grandma.”
In a speech delivered to camera, Julian Reichelt said sorry for Bild’s coverage which was “like poison” and “made you feel like you were a mortal danger to society.”
Reichelt directed his main sentiment towards children who have been terrorized by fearmongering media coverage which has caused child depression and suicides to soar across the world.
“To the millions of children in this country for whom our society is responsible, I want to express here what neither our government nor our Chancellor dares to tell you. We ask you to forgive us,” he said.
“Forgive us for this policy which, for a year and a half, has made you victims of violence, neglect, isolation, and loneliness.”
“We persuaded our children that they were going to murder their grandma if they dared to be what they are, children. Or if they met their friends. None of this has been scientifically proven.”
“When a state steals the rights of a child, it must prove that by doing so it protects him against concrete and imminent danger. This proof has never been provided. It has been replaced by propaganda presenting the child as a vector of the pandemic.”
Reichelt noted how moderate voices who attempted to offer calmer perspectives on the pandemic “were never invited to the expert table” and urged viewers “don’t believe this lie,” when encountering alarmist proclamations from the government.
The journalist called on authorities to open schools and sports halls instead of polling stations, warning that those who imposed brutal lockdown measures, “will have on their conscience and will leave in the history books, a multitude of innocent souls.”
Bild has a daily circulation of 1.24 million copies and is the best-selling newspaper in Europe, adding even more weight to this story.
As we highlighted yesterday, Germans protesting against plans to impose domestic vaccine passports were brutalized by police during demonstrations that took place in Berlin.
The ugly scenes prompted the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer to put in a request for eyewitnesses ahead of a potential investigation.
Germans were protesting against plans to ban unvaccinated people from a plethora of different venues, including restaurants, cinemas and stadiums.
As we previously highlighted, Germany’s domestic spy agency is monitoring anti-lockdown protesters, claiming they are potentially involved in a plot to subvert the country.
BY SHARYL ATTKISSON | AUGUST 3, 2021
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) became one of the latest high-profile figures to get sick with Covid-19, even though he’s fully vaccinated. In a statement Monday, Graham said it feels like he has “the flu,” but is “certain” he would be worse if he hadn’t been vaccinated.
While it’s impossible to know whether that’s the case, public health officials are grappling with the reality of an increasing number of fully-vaccinated Americans coming down with Covid-19 infections, getting hospitalized, and even dying of Covid. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) insists vaccination is still the best course for every eligible American. But many are asking if they have better immunity after they’re infected with the virus and recover, than if they’re vaccinated.
Increasingly, the answer within the data appears to be ”yes.”
Why does CDC seem to be “ignoring” natural immunity?
In fact, some medical experts have said they’re confounded by public health officials’ failure to factor natural and virus-acquired immunity into the Covid equation. Public and media narratives often press the necessity of “vaccination for all,” chiding states where vaccination rates are lowest. And they use vaccination rates and Covid case counts as inverse indicators of how safe it is in a particular state: high vaccination rate = high safety; high case counts = low safety (they claim).
However, vaccination rates alone tell little about a population’s true immune-status. And where high Covid case counts occur, it ultimately means a larger segment of that community ends up better-protected, vaccines aside. That’s according to virologists who point out that fighting off Covid, even without developing any symptoms, leaves people with what’s thought to be more robust and longer-lasting immunity than the vaccines confer.
The vaccine immunity problem
Hard data counters widespread public misinformation that claimed “virtually all” patients hospitalized and dying of Covid-19 are unvaccinated. Pfizer and Moderna had claimed their vaccines were “100% effective” at preventing serious illness. Many in the media even popularized a propaganda phrase designed to push more people to get vaccinated: “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Not so, says CDC and other data.
Recent CDC data found that 74% of those who tested positive for Covid-19 in a Massachusetts analysis had been fully-vaccinated. Equally as troubling for those advocating vaccination-for-all: four out of five people hospitalized with Covid were fully-vaccinated. And CDC said “viral load” — indicating how able the human host is to spread Covid-19 — is about the same among the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Contrary to the infamous misinformation by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky last May, vaccinated people can— and are— spreading Covid. (CDC officials later corrected Walensky’s false claim.)
CDC’s newest findings on so-called “breakthrough” infections in vaccinated people are mirrored by other data releases.
Illinois health officials recently announced more than 160 fully-vaccinated people have died of Covid-19, and at least 644 been hospitalized; ten deaths and 51 hospitalizations counted in the prior week. Israel’s Health Ministry recently said effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has fallen to 40 percent. Last month, 100 vaccinated British sailors isolated on a ship at sea reportedly came down with Covid seven weeks into their deployment. In July, New Jersey reported 49 fully vaccinated residents had died of Covid; 27 in Louisiana; 80 in Massachusetts.
Nationally, as of July 12, CDC said it was aware of more than 4,400 people who got Covid-19 after being fully vaccinated and had to be hospitalized; and 1,063 fully vaccinated people who died of Covid. But health officials still argue that vaccinated people make up only a small fraction of the seriously ill. Critics counter that CDC’s recent Massachusetts data calls that into question.
The bright side of recovering from Covid-19
But there’s promising news to be found within natural and acquired immunity statistics, according to virologists. As of May 29, CDC estimated more than 120 million Americans— more than one in three— had already battled Covid. While an estimated six-tenths of one-percent died, the other 99.4% of those infected survived with a presumed immune status that appears to be superior to that which comes with vaccination.
If doctors could routinely test to confirm who has fought off and become immune to Covid-19, it would eliminate the practical need or rationale for those protected millions to get vaccinated. It would also allow them to avoid even the slight risk of serious vaccine side effects.
Unfortunately, virologists say no commonly-used test can detect with certainty whether a person is immune. A common misconception is that antibody tests can make that determination. But experts say immunity after infection or exposure often comes without a person producing or maintaining measurable antibodies.
Because of that reality, people who have had asymptomatic infections — infections where they suffered no symptoms — have no easy way to know that they’re immune. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that the millions who know they got Covid can be assured they’re unlikely to suffer reinfection, for at least as long of a time period that scientists have been able to measure. Possibly far beyond.
The immunity-after-Covid-infection studies
The following are some of the data and studies regarding immunity acquired after Covid infection.
This study followed 254 Covid-19 patients for up to 8 months and concluded they had “durable broad-based immune responses.” In fact, even very mild Covid-19 infection also protected the patients from an earlier version of “SARS” coronavirus that first emerged around 2003, and against Covid-19 variants. “Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients,” concludes the study scientists.
This study of airline passengers in Qatar found that both vaccination and prior infection were “imperfect” when it comes to preventing positive Covid-19 test results, but that the incidence of reinfection is similarly low in both groups.
Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals, June 1, 2021
This study followed 52,238 employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System in Ohio.
For previously-infected people, the cumulative incidence of re-infection “remained almost zero.” According to the study, “Not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a [Covid-19] infection over the duration of the study” and vaccination did not reduce the risk. “Individuals who have had [Covid-19] infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination,” concludes the study scientists.
SARS-CoV-2 specific memory B-cells from individuals with diverse disease severities recognize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, May 29, 2021
This study found strong immune signs in people who had previously been infected with Covid-19, including “those [who] experienced asymptomatic or mild disease.” The study concludes there is “reason for optimism” regarding the capacity of prior infection “to limit disease severity and transmission of variants of concern as they continue to arise and circulate.”
A population-based analysis of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity in the United States, May 24, 2021
This study of real world data extended the timeframe of available data indicating that patients have strong immune indicators for “almost a year post-natural infection of COVID-19.” The study concludes the immune response after natural infection “may persist for longer than previously thought, thereby providing evidence of sustainability that may influence post-pandemic planning.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, May 24, 2021
This study examined bone marrow of previously-infected patients and found that even mild infection with Covid-19 “induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.” The study indicates “People who have had mild illness develop antibody-producing cells that can last lifetime.”
People who have had mild illness develop antibody-producing cells that can last lifetime.
World Health Organization (WHO) scientific brief, May 10, 2021
This scientific brief issued by WHO states that after natural infection with Covid-19, “available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months.”
Detection of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Humoral and Cellular Immunity in COVID-19 Convalescent Individuals, May 3, 2020
This study looked found humoral and cellular immunity in recovered Covid patients. “Production of S-RBD-specific antibodies were readily detected in recovered patients. Moreover, we observed virus-neutralization activities in these recovered patients,” wrote the study authors.
The adaptive immune system consists of three major lymphocyte types: B cells (antibody producing cells), CD4+ T cells (helper T cells), and CD8+ T cells (cytotoxic, or killer, T cells
Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel, April 24, 2021
This study from Israel found a slight advantage to natural infection over vaccination when it comes to preventing a reinfection and severe illness from Covid-19.
The study authors concluded, “Our results question the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals.”
A 1 to 1000 SARS-CoV-2 reinfection proportion in members of a large healthcare provider in Israel: a preliminary report, March 6, 2021
This study found a rare Covid-19 positive test “reinfection” rate of 1 per 1,000 recoveries.
Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19, Jan. 26, 2021
Research funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in Science early in the Covid-19 vaccine effort found the “immune systems of more than 95% of people who recovered from COVID-19 had durable memories of the virus up to eight months after infection,” and hoped the vaccines would produce similar immunity. (However, experts say they do not appear to be doing so.)
SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in a cohort of 43,000 antibody-positive individuals followed for up to 35 weeks, Jan. 15, 2021
This study found Covid-19 natural infection “appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection” for at least seven months. “Reinfection is “rare,” concludes the scientists.
Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to eight months after infection, Nov. 1, 2020
This study confirmed and examined “immune memory” in previously-infected Covid-19 patients.
Negligible impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD4+ and CD8+ T cell reactivity in COVID-19 exposed donors and vaccinees, Nov. 1, 2020
This study concluded “T cell” immune response in former Covid-19 patients likely continues to protect amid Covid-19 variants.
Orthogonal SARS-CoV-2 Serological Assays Enable Surveillance of Low-Prevalence Communities and Reveal Durable Humoral Immunity, Oct. 13, 2020
This study found that “neutralizing antibodies are stably produced for at least 5–7 months” after a patient is infected with Covid-19.
SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls, July 25, 2020
This study found that all patients who recently recovered from Covid-19 produced immunity-strong T cells that recognize multiple parts of Covid-19.
They also looked at blood samples from 23 people who’d survived a 2003 outbreak of a coronavirus: SARS (Cov-1). These people still had lasting memory T cells 17 years after the outbreak. Those memory T cells, acquired in response to SARS-CoV-1, also recognized parts of Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2).
Much of the study on the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has focused on the production of antibodies. But, in fact, immune cells known as memory T cells also play an important role in the ability of our immune systems to protect us against many viral infections, including—it now appears—COVID-19.
“Immune T Cells May Offer Lasting Protection Against COVID-19”
Read: scientific commentary by Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff.
By Rachel Marsden | RT | August 3, 2021
I went home to visit my mother. Canada tried to force me into a Covid detention facility threatening fines and police action as they don’t recognize my natural immunity. I had no choice but to immediately fly back to Europe.
At the time of writing, I’m at an altitude of exactly 11,277m, 5,230km away from Vancouver, Canada, and 3,159km from my stopover in Munich, Germany, en route back to Paris, France. Where I really should be is relaxing on the backyard patio or in the jacuzzi at my home near Vancouver with a cold drink on a hot summer day. Instead, I’m on a Lufthansa flight heading back to Paris – just a few hours after arriving across the ocean on a 10-hour flight – because my own country’s officials kicked me out. All because I committed the apparent violation of trying to re-enter my own country with proof of naturally acquired Covid-19 antibodies made by my own immune system post-recovery rather than those generated by the manmade Covid-19 vaccine about which much is still to be learned.
Daily life for a Covid-19 survivor with natural immunity from the disease is not for the faint of heart. As someone with a high level of laboratory tested antibodies whose levels have yet to drop even after several months post-illness, my doctor has advised against vaccination. Much is obviously still to be learned about the Covid jabs, still in stage 3 of clinical trials and considered experimental by health authorities – particularly with reports abounding of breakthrough cases of vaccinated people catching and spreading Covid.
To protect and preserve my acquired immunity by opting out of vaccination that risks interfering with it or causing a risk to my health, France now requires me to succumb to nasal swab antigen tests every 48 hours if I wish to continue accessing everyday venues like public transit, gyms, restaurants, some shopping malls, and bars. But it’s a price that I’m willing to pay for my health.
And now I’m paying another price for choosing to protect my own health. I’ve found myself threatened with internment by the Canadian government – something that not even terror suspects or illegal immigrants are subjected to without at least a hearing.
When I attempted to return home from Paris to Vancouver to visit my elderly mother for the first time in a year, I was treated worse than a criminal. I arrived at the airport with a negative PCR test, two positive Covid antibody tests from March and July proving that I still had significant Covid antibodies post-recovery, and a ‘covid immunity certificate’ written and signed by my French doctor to confirm this fact.
The Canadian border officer refused to accept the antibody laboratory test results as proof that I had recovered and was immune from Covid. He wanted a PCR test less than three months ago, after which everyone is expected to take the vaccine. (I didn’t even know that I had Covid until I took a serology antibody test weeks later.) Nor did the officer show any consideration for the negative PCR test taken hours at departure, or for the various other antigen tests – all negative – taken every 48 hours for the prior 10 days. Instead, he ordered me to sign up for a 3-day stay at a government internment facility (to then be followed by a mandatory and monitored 14-day home isolation).
I was then referred to a federal health officer who asked if I had signed up and paid (up to $2,000) for the 3-day government internment. I said no. She said that I had no choice except with respect to which government-contracted facility I’d like to be detained in at my own expense. I asked, “What if I just walk out?” She gestured to the RCMP officer behind her and said that leaving would result in a fine of nearly $6,000. I asked, “Then what if I just stay here in the airport and book a flight back to Paris and cancel my entire visit back home to Canada?” She replied that it would be fine. So, I booked a flight back on my phone at a cost of just over $1,500 – still cheaper than the government internment. She took down my return flight number, wrote me up a federal ‘health order’ that I had to sign, acknowledging that I was to leave Canada on that flight or face criminal penalties up to and including imprisonment. She helpfully added that I could still be fined for my ignorance, but they’d graciously let me off with a warning this time. What a benevolent budding authoritarian regime.
Let’s be clear: The Canadian government, by behaving in this manner, is routinely criminalizing those with Covid antibodies that are not derived from a manufactured experimental vaccine.
Just a few hours later, I am now on that flight back to Paris. My mother broke down in tears waiting for me on the other side of the arrivals hall as her daughter was expelled from her own country – something that Canada doesn’t even do with terror suspects without some kind of due process.
The next step for myself and others subjected to this discrimination should be a court challenge to the federal government’s actions. Government-ordered internment facilities for immune Covid survivors under threat of incarceration have no place in any democracy.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com
By Toby Young • The daily Sceptic • August 3, 2021
Guido Fawkes reminds us today that over 1,200 so-called experts signed ‘the Declaration’ – cooked up by the same people behind the John Snow Memorandum – warning of the terrible effect easing coronavirus restrictions on July 19th would have. The Declaration originally took the form of a letter in the Lancet, published on July 7th, in which 120 self-described ‘scientists’, many of them members of Independent SAGE, described ‘Freedom Day’ as “dangerous and premature”. They cited the SAGE modelling showing there would be 100,000 new Covid cases a day if the Government went ahead its plans and set out the dire consequences for Britain and the rest of the world. “We believe the Government is embarking on a dangerous and unethical experiment, and we call on it to pause plans to abandon mitigations on July 19th, 2021,” they wrote.
Two weeks on from ‘Freedom Day’, their predictions aren’t holding up terribly well.
According to Public Health England, the number of new daily cases fell to 21,691 today, another five-week low. So the 1,200 signatories of the Declaration exaggerated the number of daily cases that would follow ‘Freedom Day’ by 500%.
The Lancet letter also predicted that hospital admissions would soar as a result of Boris’s recklessness:
The link between cases and hospital admissions has not been broken, and rising case numbers will inevitably lead to increased hospital admissions, applying further pressure at a time when millions of people are waiting for medical procedures and routine care.
Perhaps they should have thought twice before inserting that word “inevitably” because the latest data shows hospital admissions falling. “Another 731 admissions were recorded by officials on July 30th, the latest date available – down 15% on the week before,” reports MailOnline.
And it wasn’t just these 1,200 ‘experts’ who were sounding the alarm. Let’s not forget that Keir Starmer also described Boris’s plan to ease restrictions as “reckless”.
And, of course, our old friend Neil Ferguson said on July 18th that it was “almost inevitable” that daily cases would climb to 100,000 a day if Boris went ahead with the unlocking the following day and added that “the real question” was whether they would reach 200,000 a day or more and warned of a “significant burden on the healthcare system”. Out by 1000% – which is actually pretty modest by Ferguson’s standards.
As Guido Fawkes says: “Guido can’t remember a time 1,200 so-called experts were proven so wrong in one fell swoop…”
Boris’s decision to go ahead with ‘Freedom Day’ is the first time I can think of in the past 16 months when he’s stuck to his guns in the face of wildly apocalyptic claims from various ‘experts’ about the consequences of “letting it rip” (their phrase for giving us our freedoms back). On every previous occasion, because he’s done exactly as these gloomsters have asked, they haven’t been proved wrong. Admittedly, locking down three times hasn’t stopped the U.K. from having one of the worst Covid death tolls in Europe, and Sweden’s excess deaths in 2020 were lower than ours in spite of not locking down. But the crystal ball gazers have always been able to argue that things would have been so much worse if we hadn’t locked down. Yet this time – finally – Boris ignored their doom-mongering and, as a result, they have been proved spectacularly – and humiliatingly – wrong.
Will this experience stiffen Boris’s backbone the next time he’s prevailed upon by the Government’s scientific advisers, sundry public health experts and the chin-wobblers in the Cabinet to lock down again, which really is inevitable? We can but hope.
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | August 3, 2021
Francis S. Collins, the director of the United States government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), went full-on authoritarian in his Sunday interview with Jake Tapper at CNN’s State of the Nation. Collins, in the interview, supported in short succession the imposing of several extreme violations of the freedom of people who have chosen not to take experimental coronavirus vaccines — some of which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of the term.
Use vaccine passports to prevent these individuals from attending public events and entering businesses, fire them from their jobs, and bar them from traveling, Collins championed.
Here is the portion of the interview from the show’s transcript in which Collins made the comments:
TAPPER: Some businesses are going a step further and beginning to require proof of vaccinations not just for employees, but even for customers in some cases.
Audience members for Broadway plays and musicals will need to be vaccinated. Some bars in San Francisco and D.C. are requiring proof of vaccinations.
Do you think, as a public health measure, it would be good for more businesses to require vaccine credentials in order to have vaccinated customers?
F. COLLINS: As a public health person who wants to see this pandemic end, yes.
I think anything we can do to encourage reluctant folks to get vaccinated because they will want to be part of these public events, that’s a good thing. I’m delighted to see employers like Disney and Walmart coming out and asking their staff now to be vaccinated. I’m glad to see the president has said all federal employees — I oversee NIH with 45,000 people — need to also get vaccinated, or, if they’re not, to get regular testing, which is inconvenient. All of those steps I think are in the right direction. But I think maybe that’s what it will take for some of those who have still been a little reluctant to say, OK, it’s time. The data will support that decision.
TAPPER: Yes.
F. COLLINS: They are making the right choice for their own safety, but, sometimes, it takes a nudge.
TAPPER: Should airlines require that all fliers who are eligible to be vaccinated be vaccinated before boarding their planes?
F. COLLINS: I think that’s up to the airlines.
I do think a case could be made for that. And that would be another incentive for some of those who are reluctant. And people wouldn’t be surprised, I think, to see that start to happen. So, if you’re thinking about international travel and you’re not yet vaccinated, it might be time to go ahead and get started.
Decades back, Americans would hear similar authoritarian comments expressed by politicians and bureaucrats in the Soviet Union, and Americans would shake their heads in disgust. That could never happen here, many Americans would assure themselves.
Now it is one of the top bureaucrats in America expressing the same sort of authoritarian agenda and detailing how it is being implemented with the help of compliant companies. And, like in the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, American big media is cheering on the move. Welcome to the USSA.
By Noah Carl • The Daily Sceptic • August 3, 2021
Philippe Lemoine is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell University, with a background in computer science. He’s also a blogger, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, and a lockdown sceptic. During the pandemic, he’s written several detailed articles about the efficacy of lockdowns. I interviewed him via email.
On December 4th, you published an article on your blog titled ‘Lockdowns, science and voodoo magic’, which criticised the well-known paper by Flaxman et al. That paper (which has been cited more than 1,300 times) concluded, “major non-pharmaceutical interventions—and lockdowns in particular—have had a large effect on reducing transmission”. Could you briefly summarise your criticisms?
I made two main points against that paper. First, the model assumed that only non-pharmaceutical interventions affected transmission, so any observed reduction in transmission could only be ascribed by the model to non-pharmaceutical interventions. Since in fact transmission went down quickly everywhere during the first wave, the only question was how much of that reduction would the model attribute to each intervention. But the fact that non-pharmaceutical interventions were jointly responsible for the entire reduction in transmission was not something the model inferred from the data, it was assumed at the outset by the authors when they defined the model. A consequence of this fact is that, when they compute a counterfactual scenario in which there weren’t any non-pharmaceutical interventions to estimate how many lives were saved by lockdowns and other restrictions, the authors just assume that cases would have continued to rise until the herd immunity threshold was reached and would only start to go down then. Although the authors did not deem it necessary to reveal this small detail, this meant that, in their counterfactual, more than 95% of the population was already infected by May 3, which is preposterous. Even one year and a half after the beginning of the pandemic, there isn’t a single country where the proportion of the population that has been infected even comes close to such a figure, not even in countries where restrictions were extremely limited. So when the paper finds that non-pharmaceutical interventions in general and lockdowns in particular saved 3 million lives in Europe alone during the first wave, they only reach that conclusion by comparing the actual number of COVID-19 deaths to the number of deaths in a ridiculous scenario where essentially everyone had been infected. Yet this preposterous estimate was taken seriously by the entire scientific establishment and, as you noted, the paper became of the most cited studies on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second point I made is that, not only was this result based on totally unrealistic assumptions, but the authors failed to disclose a key result that completely undermined their conclusion. As I explained above, the model was bound to attribute the entire reduction in transmission that was observed in Europe during the first wave to non-pharmaceutical interventions, the only question was how much of it would be attributed to each intervention. Their headline result was that, apart from lockdowns, nothing else had any clear effect, which meant that lockdowns were responsible for the overwhelming majority of the 3 million lives that, according to this study, non-pharmaceutical had collectively saved. However, Sweden was included in the study and never locked down, yet only a tiny fraction of its population was infected during the first wave. How is that possible if only lockdowns have a substantial effect on transmission? I knew this made no sense, so I downloaded the code of the paper to reproduce their analysis on my computer and take a closer look at the results. Their model allowed the effect of the last intervention, which happened to be a lockdown everywhere except in Sweden, where it was a ban on public events, in each country to vary. What my analysis of their results showed is that, in order to fit the data, the model had to find that banning public events reduced transmission by ~72.2% in Sweden but only by ~1.6% elsewhere. In other words, according to the model, banning public events had somehow been 45 times more effective in Sweden than anywhere else. Now, unless you believe there are magical anti-pandemic faeries in Sweden that somehow made banning public events 45 times more effective than elsewhere, this obviously never happened. Rather, what this means is that the model was garbage, which in turn means that we have no reason to believe the paper’s headline result that lockdown had a huge effect on transmission. There is a lot more in my piece about that paper, which I methodically demolish, but those are the main points.
Then on March 4th, you published a report for the Centre for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology titled ‘The Case against Lockdowns’. This was followed by an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled ‘The Lockdowns Weren’t Worth It’. Could you briefly summarise the case against lockdowns, as you see it?
First, I think it’s impossible to estimate precisely the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions because too many factors contribute to transmission, and we lack the kind of background knowledge we’d need to be confident that the statistical techniques people use to estimate those effects are reliable, so people who claim to be able to do that are full of it. I just published another piece in which I take a very close look at a study which found that non-pharmaceutical interventions had a substantial effect on the number of cases and deaths in the US during the first wave. This study is far more sophisticated than Flaxman et al.’s paper and, in particular, the authors did not assume that only non-pharmaceutical interventions affect transmission, and tried to model the effect of voluntary behavioral changes. Nevertheless, as I show in my article, when you look at it closely and perform various sensitivity analysis, the conclusions no longer hold. So we have no way to estimate precisely the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions and we should be honest about this. However, whatever their precise effects, they can’t be huge because otherwise they would be much easier to detect. The contrast with the effect of vaccination is particularly striking in that respect. In the case of vaccination, the effect is so obvious that you can see it on a simple chart, whereas in the case of non-pharmaceutical interventions you have to squint and use very complicated statistical techniques that, although they impress people because they look scientific, we have no reason to think are reliable in this context. Now, if you do a cost-benefit analysis, even if the only costs of lockdowns you take into account is the immediate effect they have on people’s well-being and you make ridiculously optimistic assumptions about how much stringent restrictions reduce transmission, they don’t pass a cost-benefit test. In fact, not only do they fail to pass a cost-benefit test, but it’s not even close. The costs of lockdowns, by which I mean just their immediate effect on well-being, so far outweigh their benefits that one cannot reasonably doubt a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis would reach a different conclusion.
According to some people, claiming that lockdowns don’t have a large effect on the spread of COVID-19 is tantamount to “denying germ theory”. What do you say to those people?
Nobody is denying that transmission occurs during physical interactions, but it doesn’t follow that lockdowns have a large effect on transmission, so people who make this argument simply haven’t thought things through. In theory, lockdowns could even increase transmission, so this argument is very confused. For instance, it could be that, although lockdowns decrease between-household contacts, the effect on transmission at the aggregate level is more than compensated by the increase in within-household contacts they produce. To be clear, I don’t believe this is the case, I’m just saying that it’s a theoretical possibility that obtains in some models, even though nobody denies the germ theory of diseases. There are many possible explanations for why lockdowns don’t result in the very large reduction in transmission that one might have expected. For instance, we don’t expect lockdowns to be equally effective at reducing all types of contacts and, as I just noted, they even increase the frequency of some types of contacts, such as within-household contacts. So it could be that the types of contacts that lockdowns manage to reduce a lot don’t contribute a lot to transmission, while the types of contacts they aren’t very useful for preventing contribute a lot to it. Another important point is that, even in the absence of a lockdown, people change their behavior in response to the pandemic. So it could be that the types of contacts that contribute the most to transmission are the same types of contacts that people tend to reduce voluntarily even in the absence of a lockdown. Anyway, whatever the explanation, it’s pretty clear that lockdowns don’t have a very large effect. It would be very surprising if such a fact were inconsistent with the germ theory of diseases, but fortunately it isn’t. It’s just that people who make this argument are confused. The effectiveness of lockdowns and restrictions in general is an empirical question that cannot be solved by theorizing from the armchair.
Much of your writing about lockdowns has dealt with the deficiencies of epidemiological models. Why have most models done so poorly at predicting the epidemic’s trajectory?
This is a difficult question and I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m very confident that part of the story is that most of those models don’t take into account the kind of voluntary changes of behavior I was just talking about. If your model is based on the assumption that people’s behavior only changes in response to government interventions, it should be no surprise that it performs terribly. But I don’t think it’s the whole story and I increasingly suspect that the fact that models don’t adequately model population structure is another factor. Most epidemiological models that have been used to make projections assume that, withing large age groups, people mix homogeneously. But this is totally unrealistic since, for instance, a 55-year-old is not equally likely to run into any other person in the 50 to 59 age group. Rather, a particular 55-year-old is very likely to have contacts with some people in that age group (such as friends and family), but very unlikely to meet many other people in that age group and has essentially no chance of running into the vast majority of people in that age group. Anyway, nobody really knows why those models perform so terribly at larger scales, but in order to investigate the problem epidemiologists would first have to acknowledge it. Unfortunately, they mostly ignore it and act as if their models had not proven incapable of explaining the data, except in the sense that you can always “explain” any data if you are willing to make enough purely ad hoc hypotheses, so they don’t even get started.
As far as I’m aware, no Western government has published a cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns. Why were these far-reaching policies implemented with so little regard for costs?
As I noted above, any serious cost-benefit analysis would immediately show that lockdowns are not worth it. Yet as you say no Western government has published any to justify their policy. This is particularly surprising when you know that, in most Western governments, the use of cost-benefit analyses is largely institutionalized and the authorities are often required to make one before they can embark on projects as banal as building a bridge. Yet they apparently didn’t feel the need to publish a cost-benefit analysis to justify what are effectively the largest attacks on individual freedoms in the West since the end of World War 2. One interpretation is they realize that, as I noted above, no cost-benefit analysis would ever vindicate lockdowns. But this wouldn’t explain why they are pursuing lockdowns and I don’t believe in that explanation for a second anyway. In a way, if that were really the explanation, I would almost find that reassuring because it would at least imply a level of competence and understanding which I think is entirely lacking from our political leaders. Rather, I think their decisions are the result of a combination of cluelessness not just on their part but also on the part of their advisors and a variety of bad incentives that conspire to create absurd policies, such as the desire not to leave themselves open to the accusation of not having done anything to curb the epidemic. This desire must be strong as they are constantly under pressure from the largely pro-lockdown media to enact more restrictions. In order to answer this unremitting call to “do something”, they do something, even if that’s completely absurd, as long as they have something to show to the people who constantly ask them to “do something”. The idea of measuring the costs of their decisions against their supposed benefits often doesn’t even enter their heads because their decision-process is not governed by rational considerations, but rather by this ungodly combination of emotion, illusion of control, bad incentives and even worse advice.
You’re a Frenchman. Given what we know now, what should Emmanuel Macron have done in March of 2020?
With the benefit of hindsight, I think he should have just told people to try to limit their contacts to reduce the amount of stress on hospitals, but leave them free to make their own choices and focus his efforts on preparing government services to respond as best as possible. I think there are lots of reasons to blame Macron and French officials for their conduct at the beginning of the pandemic, especially for their lack of preparation and their carelessness in the weeks leading up to the explosion of cases in the country, but if we put aside the lies they told repeatedly during that period and since then, they at least had the excuse that we didn’t know much about the virus and how different policies would affect spread. I was in favor of the first lockdown and, while I now think that I was wrong and that I should have predicted lockdowns would become entrenched after we had used them once, it was a genuinely difficult decision because we didn’t know much. But after the first wave there was no longer any excuse and Macron should be judged harshly for keeping us more or less locked down for months after the first wave, even though it was already very clear by that point that restrictions did not make a very large difference to transmission, yet had a very negative impact on the population’s well-being.
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