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More False Positives Than True Positives in the First Two Weeks of School Testing

By Michael Curzon • Lockdown Sceptics • April 29, 2021

A member of SAGE warned back in February that the return of unvaccinated children to the classroom would create a “significant risk of a resurgence” of Covid infections. This was not the case – only 0.06% of rapid Covid tests of students produced positive results in the week that schools reopened. But how many of these results were actually positive? Professor Jon Deeks, a biostatistician from the University of Birmingham, said in March: “We would expect far more false positives than true positives amongst those testing positive in schools.” New data from the Department of Health and Social Care has now confirmed that more false positive results were produced than true positives in the first two weeks of school testing.

Department of Health and Social Care

This data, as Professor Deeks points out, is a damning indictment of the use of rapid Covid testing in schools and has resulted in many children having to isolate at home unnecessarily – with their classmates often being sent home too. (At one stage, more than 200,000 schoolchildren were having to self-isolate, forcing them to miss out on much-needed catch-up work in classes.)

[The] proportion[s] false were 62% and 55% in these two weeks.

Of 2,304 positive tests, 1,353 were likely false, with one positive per 6,900 tests done.

The use of PCR tests to confirm or (in more cases) deny lateral flow test results is itself a strange choice, as Lockdown Sceptics’ Will Jones points out, and could mean that the true impact of rapid testing in schools is even worse than this data suggests.

It is interesting that they assume confirmation from a PCR test defines true and false positives, even though PCR tests are more sensitive than LFTs so are no less likely to give a positive from fragments or contamination. What if in some cases the PCR tests are just confirming the false positive of the lateral flow tests?

The British Medical Journal has been warning against the use of PCR tests for “case finding, mass screening, and disease surveillance” since last September (if not before):

PCR is not a test of infectiousness. Rather, the test detects trace amounts of viral genome sequence, which may be either live transmissible virus or irrelevant RNA fragments from previous infection. When people with symptoms or who have been recently exposed receive a positive PCR result they will probably be infectious. But a positive result in someone without symptoms or known recent exposure may be from live or dead virus, and so does not determine whether the person is infectious and able to transmit the virus to others.

Clearly, testing requirements for schools must now change. But the problem is not limited to the classroom. Professor Deeks says that false positive data should now be released for all forms of lateral flow testing.

April 30, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

India Situation: What does the Current Data Say?

Ivor Cummins | April 27, 2021

So then, what DOES the actual DATA say? Surely we should care, right?

*** NOTE THIS IS NON-CENSORABLE – NO medical advice or information here, NO conflicting with the WHO (remember they shared the Prof Ioannidis paper in their Oct 2020 bulletin).

Just the data and some scientific inferences – period. DOWNLOAD here and use with my permission (just click yes to cookies – no need to subscribe): https://we.tl/t-aRo1uhxv2c​

My Odysee link: https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f

April 30, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , | Leave a comment

An exclusive interview with Dr Mike Yeadon

By Oliver May | The Daily Expose | April 25, 2021

Dr Yeadon, a former vice-president and chief scientific officer of the Allergy and Respiratory department at Pfizer, who has also provided a simple explanation of why lockdowns could never have worked, went on to explain that there is “zero” chance of incessantly reported new variants escaping immunity.

The 60-year-old, convinced the UK reached herd immunity last May, is now looking to move to Florida, where he hopes to work alongside Governor Ron DeSantis. He has expressed his severe concern over vaccine passports, saying that not only do healthy people under 60 not need a Covid 19 vaccine, but that the introduction of certification could lead to a society whereby, without such a pass, you may not even be permitted to leave your house.

In a passionate exclusive interview with The Daily Expose, he also criticised former Conservative MP Edwina Currie for her “uninformed” scattergun comments on Good Morning Britain in which she said she would not want anyone unvaccinated anywhere near her.

Dr Yeadon said:

“I know enough about biotechnology to know that you can easily create, shall we say, pathogens, which don’t look like they’re related to what you’ve done. And what’s even more horrifying is you can separate them in time, so an injection which will later make you ill or kill you can be separated by design in time from that event. So you might die a year later of liver cancer or something and you wouldn’t connect that. And if you can imagine making a smorgasbord of different pathogens so not everybody is going to die of the same thing, you literally could do away with big slices of the population if you want. And we could all be running around like headless chickens. This is an attempt on global depopulation.

“I think vaccine passports are a gateway to numerous things and it is my belief that it will be a gateway to mass killing, in the billions. And the reason I say that is many of the key players, including Bill Gates and his father and Boris Johnson and his father, have all been maniacal – and possibly correct – about earth being overpopulated. Even if we said to people can you stop having children, the population would only start to fall in about 100 years. If you got birth rates down below replacement, it would still take a century given each new birth will probably live out 100 years.

“I accept the argument that, if we are on the verge of destroying the planet, the ecosystem and its non-renewables and biodiversity, if these things are true then, I’m not saying I endorse it, I can see the argument of ‘do you know what, the only possible way to save the earth is to get rid of 90 per cent of the people and then it will be a nice place to live’.

“I think a group of people over decades have said to each other, ‘this is an awful task that has fallen to us, which is to rescue the human species and its planet and there is no other way of doing it except for mass extermination. And it’s not something that anybody would want to do but we have to do it and it’s got to happen in this generation and these are the technological advances required’.

“There are some clever people who have taken it upon themselves to basically do God’s work and to do a violent readjustment of the population of the world to put it into a position where, once it sorts itself out from this utter bloody disaster, will be a place where 500million people maybe will be living on the planet and they can have comfortable sustainable lives with plenty of space, plenty of room for the animals. I will not support what they’re doing but that would provide a justification for those who are doing it.”

Dr Yeadon believes the proof lies in the correlation between deaths and the rollout of vaccines which have been rushed through via an Emergency Use Authorisation. He said:

“If you look at every regional health authority, they tick up on the same day, they peak at the same day and drop back in the same way and that’s because they’re sycned to vaccination. If it was the spreading of an epidemic, it could not possibly occur in Auchtermuchty on the same day as Aldershot. It can’t, it has to move.

“But the thing that moved was the vaccination squads. They started on December 8 everywhere in the NHS and then in the care homes, so that was the strong clue for me that what was correlating with the time and cause of deaths was not a geographical history and neither were the differences in timing, it was just the date of vaccination.

“Can it be stopped? I am not optimistic about the UK because as time has gone on there are fewer of me and most people have just put their heads down. I am fortunate in a number of ways, I have the breadth of a full career behind me and I love science and biology. There is nothing I can be fired from and I’m not doing it for money, so I can only be stopped if they arrest me or kill me.

“But I don’t fear for my life. It’s over anyway. This is not going to return to normal. It would be pointless. There is no way, with the amount of damage that has been done deliberately, would it then just be left. It would just be dumb. It would make no sense at all to have marched people up to the top of the hill and then say, ‘you can go back now’. And remember the drum beats for vaccine passports are very strong. And once that’s in then if they can transition an absolute majority that they already have who will be so delighted with their privileges, beeping their phones when they go in and out of shops, they are not going to pay any attention to someone like me who says, ‘excuse me what about the unvaccinated’?

“They will say, ‘well don’t you know, you’re the unclean people, you’re the ones brewing the variants, you’re going to kill us. Can you just go away or I might feel that I have to kill you’. I expect vaccine passport will come in and those who have already been vaccinated will whoop for joy, a large number of people yet to be vaccinated will rush to get vaccinated because they will see their horizons will be shrunk and they simply won’t realise they are being herded like cattle into a pen.

“I would fear next winter being an unvaccinated person in this country, there will be additional orchestrated events. They will need that in order to drive people to top-up vaccines. I’ve decided I’m not going to stop the fight, I’m going to leave the country. I’ll go wherever I have to because it’s not going to be safe for unvaccinated people indefinitely.”

Top-up vaccines is another thing that frightens Dr Yeadon, who highlighted the fact that these too will forego any further safety checks. He added that the driver for these will come in the form of new variants, which he says are barely any different from the original sequence.

“As soon as they started talking about it [new variants] I went to look at the source material and found that the variants most different from the Wuhan sequence are still 99.7 per cent identical. “And I can assure you that there is zero – not just implausible, but zero – chance something that would escape the immunity of someone who was immune from natural infection or vaccinated. It’s absolutely impossible, no matter what they tell you.

“We know for example that Sars 2003 is 20 per cent different – not 0.3, 180 times different – and the immune system has absolutely no trouble in recognising the two as brothers. I have empirical evidence, theoretical evidence and yet, countering that, we are being told by Sage, politicians, people around the world that you need these variant vaccines. We’ve closed our borders, we’re smashing our economy and depriving people of their liberty over the theoretical concern about variants, which is a lie. And now we are making variant vaccines. I became terrified when I knew they were actually making them and not just talking about it – and when all the large medicine regulators of the world put out a joint statement saying that, because vaccine variants are so similar to the parents from which they’re derived, we will not require the manufacturers to conduct any clinical safety studies.

“I have spoken to eight professors in the UK whose discipline includes immunology and they all agree with my analysis in terms of the technical side of it. Three months ago my fear levels went into the red and I begged them, ‘people like you have go to start writing letters to editors and getting pieces into the papers that this b******t about variants is fake because people are going to believe it’. Carl Heneghan [director of evidence based medicine at Oxford University] said that the world is in such a sort of panic at the moment, anything he could say would not have any breakthrough power at all.

“We’ve been trained to think that if anyone raises any question at all about vaccines, you automatically think ‘anti-vaxxer’. I’ve spent my entire professional career in the industry that produces these things. I would say I’m extremely pro innovative medicines. I don’t have an anti bloody anything in my body except I’m anti unsafe medicines. Why have we got vaccines that clearly are much more dangerous than other public health prophylactic vaccines, because they are if you just compare the number of people that have died within a month with the number of reported deaths after all other vaccines – it’s like 10 times worse.

“There have been 10 times more deaths from within a couple of months of any covid vaccination than in the entire year for all other vaccines combined. Most vaccines are very safe but there are rare idiosyncratic responses including fatal ones and I’m afraid that does happen. You might just drop dead tomorrow going out to your car. But as long as the numbers are very, very small it’s tolerable, because there is a benefit to it. But what we have here is that, even if the people being given the vaccines were at risk – and a lot of them are not – anyone 60 or younger who is in good physcial shape and does not have serious prior chronic conditions is not going to be killed by this virus, they’re just not. It’s unethical even to bloody offer it to them. There is no logic to the statement that we need to vaccinate everybody in order to stop this, it’s just nonsense.

“Now if Edwina Currie is vaccinated then she is fine. She might sincerely believe what she’s saying in which case she’s just uninformed and nuts. I’m sure lots of MPs have just been given the brief and they’re not very clever. I’ve personally spoken to about 60. Several get it reasonably well but some of them are just embarrassing.”

Reports have surfaced in the past week that trials mean venues might be able to open to capacity audiences on June 21, in keeping with the Government’s roadmap – but only if people agree to Covid passports. Dr Yeadon believes that introducing such a system will create a two-tier society and one which can be tweaked at a moment’s notice depending on the Government’s wishes.

Dr Yeadon said:

“There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Westminster will save the people. They are the tools of our destruction. They will vote vaccine passports through, even those who know these are horrible things. They’ll be told it’s temporary and get their pat on the shoulder. But of course they won’t be temporary.

“For example, you might even be told as from next month it will be illegal to leave your house without a valid vaccine passport. That’s how easy it would be. We are following “the science”, capital T, capital S. I’m not saying they will do that but they can exclude non-vaccinated people from civil society wholly and that is what is happening in Israel. Once this system comes in I cannot see a way in which it can be undone. They might say initially you can’t enter a sports ground or a large shopping complex, but then in a couple of weeks they might say, ‘as of Tuesday all large supermarkets will use vaccine passports on the door’, so that’s them out. And eventually they can say, ‘as from Wednesday week, all cashless transactions must be preceded by demonstration of a vaccine pass’ – so you can’t even fill your car with petrol. It could happen.

“The idea would be for me to be in America, educating and essentially immunising populations and politicians against what is happening, so that when they’re told next time that you need to lock down your businesses and your state, they won’t. That’s the goal. My preferred one would be to go and work for either Governor DeSantis or his scientific advisory team.”

Dr Yeadon has criticised his peers for failing to speak out against the problems he sees with following only one line of enquiry. He explains that the UK’s official figures of 4,395,703 positive cases and 127,000 simply cannot be believed due to the countless levels of contamination in testing and the unprecedented change in how deaths are certified.

He said:

“I am disappointed that almost no one in the scientific community has said anything. What about recently retired professors, people who are not being paid by universities, why aren’t you saying something? Is it cowardice? Death certification has been radically changed in a way that has never been done anywhere for any disease. And we have never used PCR on an industrial scale and it is my opinion – confirmed by people who do this professionally – that it could never be done reliably. So whatever they tell you it’s a lie. You cannot run three quarters of a million PCR tests and not have cross contamination all over the place.

“Why were the doctors not complaining about the death certification? If you have a positive in this ropey test at any time 28 days up to your death then that is on your death certificate. It’s just not even logical. It’s like saying if you had biro on your finger at any point 28 days prior to your death, we’ll say you died of biro ink poisoning. It’s absurd. But they went along with it.”

And he has a message for those who no doubt once would have agreed that you cannot trust a politician but who know hang on their every word.

“If you spot an inconsistency, something you think, ‘that doesn’t sound right’, pursue it, because if you pursue it to a point where you think, ‘I’m not being told the truth’ – which you’re not – once you spot that, then the question would be, ‘if your Government has lied to you about one thing, don’t you think it’s quite likely it has lied to you about other things?’ I believe they are lying to you about everything.

“Let’s look at pubs; you can only take a drink outside and you can only pay for it outside. Hold on, have the supermarkets not been open continuously through this process? Sometimes it’s really busy and you might be in the shop an hour. Isn’t that an inconsistency? And why are we OK with that? I don’t believe that any outbreaks have ever been linked to a supermarket. And that is another odd one. That’s about the only place you meet. Surely all the outbreaks that aren’t linked to hospitals and care homes must be linked to common places of commerce and they are supermarkets and essential shops – there aren’t any others, none.”

And he uses supermarkets in his insight as to why lockdowns are pointless; in a nutshell, if you are full of virus, you feel very ill, so you would be at home, curled up on the sofa, in bed or in hospital. If not, you do not have enough virus in your body to be a threat of transmission. Indeed, a global study, cited by Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, to a court in Manitoba, found that asymptomatic transmission is close to zero in an outside setting, given it is about 0.7 per cent inside.

Dr Yeadon says:

“We will lock down again. They will want to do it as early as possible, so October.

“But the reason why lockdowns could never have worked is combined with one of the other lies, asymptomatic transmission. The reason it’s a lie is that, in order to be a good source of infection, you need to have lots of virus in your body. If you’ve only got a little bit, the chances that you would infect another person is very low, even if you were close to them – maybe even if you kissed them – you just don’t have that much virus in and around your body.

“But if you had a thousand times more virus, maybe you could put a droplet on a person and they might inhale it or whatever. But if you have lots of virus you must have symptoms. You cannot have a situation where your body is growing huge amounts of virus in the airwaves and producing no symptoms and this is because the virus will attack you, it’s damaging your tissues, every cell it multiplies in and then escapes from is destroyed. It’s not just a theory, it’s inevitable you will have symptoms. And furthermore you need symptoms like coughing in order to propel infected droplets out of your body. They don’t come out when you’re just passively breathing. If you have lots of virus and it’s attacking you and making you ill and your immune system is fighting it back, which is also making you feel ill, those symptoms are called ‘I don’t feel well’.

“So if you’re a good source of infection, you’re symptomatic, you don’t feel well, you probably feel very ill, possibly bad enough to be in your bed and we’re giving you chicken soup and cups of tea every few hours. And if you’re a bit older you might be in hospital. But what you’re not going to be doing is dashing up and down the aisles in Sainsbury’s. Or sitting in the pub. You’re ill. So that’s the whole point. In the general community, almost no one who met the conditions to be pretty sure of infection was out there. It’s just simply not possible. You need to be full of virus, you need to get the symptoms to get the stuff out of your body but you need to be completely unwell despite those two things.

“And those things do not overlap, you can’t have ‘feeling fine out and about, looking normal but full of virus’. And we are trained to notice if someone has a cold or they look ill. We have known this stuff for tens of thousands of years. You can spot someone who is a respiratory threat to you. It’s very uncommon for people with good sources of infection to be walking about in the community and, even if they were there, you would usually avoid them. And as a result hardly any transmission occurred in the general population. And as a result shutting down the general population made f**k all difference to transmission. And that is why lockdowns don’t work and they never did. They never worked anywhere because lockdown isn’t really lockdown, it just smashes the economy.”

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Coming COVID Commission Is a Gates-Led Cover-Up

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | April 27, 2021

Having gone as far as he can with the World Health Organization’s cover-up, Bill Gates takes another bite at the apple with his corporate-funded investigation into the origins of COVID-19 to cleverly cover up this massive conspiracy with an “official” investigation.

While the so-called COVID Commission Planning Group — set up to create and support an investigative commission like that for 9/11 — is advertised as a nonpartisan effort, you really couldn’t come up with a more dangerously biased set of participants.

In short, individuals and organizations with some of the most egregious conflicts of interest, and everything to gain by being in charge of analyzing and writing the history of this pandemic, are leading and supporting this effort. This is a classic fox guarding the henhouse scenario.

According to the Miller Center, the planning group will lay out the plans for nine separate task forces, each focused on one of the following topics, to lay “the foundation for a future commission to investigate”:1

  • The origins of SARS-CoV-2 and its prevention
  • Threat assessment, including the creation of an international network for detection and warning, “biological intelligence” and other data collection
  • National readiness and a review of the initial response
  • At-risk communities and how to address gaps in public health capacities, worker safety and the responsibilities of private businesses
  • State and local readiness, containment and mitigation, including when and how to use lockdowns, mandates and school closings
  • Health care challenges surrounding patient care, including those with long-hauler syndrome
  • Diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, including the regulatory environment that might benefit or stifle innovation and/or global supply chains
  • Telling the stories of COVID-19 victims, frontline workers and public health officials (i.e., propaganda generation)
  • Solving data issues

Philip Zelikow — Chief Investigator for the Cabal

The chosen leader of this new planning group is Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission2 and a member of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program Advisory Panel.3,4 While Gates may not be a physical member of this planning group, he’s certainly involved indirectly. Of that we can be virtually assured.

Zelikow, a former director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, is also a current strategy group member of the Aspen Institute,5 a technocratic hub that has groomed and mentored executives from around the world about the subtleties of globalization.

He also directed the Markle Foundation’s Task Force on National Security in the Information Age,6 the focus of which has been to make information relating to potential security threats discoverable and accessible to officials without breaking civil liberty laws.7 As reported by the University of Virginia:8

“The planning group hopes to prepare the way for a potential National COVID Commission set up to help America and the world learn from this pandemic and safeguard against future threats. ‘This is perhaps the greatest crisis suffered by America, if not the world, since 1945,’ said Zelikow … ‘It is vital to take stock, in a massive way, of what happened and why.

These sorts of civilizational challenges may become more common in the 21st century, and we need to learn from this crisis to strengthen our society … Scholars and journalists will do their jobs, but there is also a role for the kind of massive investigation and research effort that only a large-scale commission can provide.’”

Foundations Backing the COVID Commission

As reported by the Miller Center,9 the COVID Commission Planning Group includes more than two dozen virologists, public health personas and former government officials, and is backed by four charitable foundations — all of whom have histories revealing them to be part of the technocratic alliance that for years, in some cases decades, have been plotting and planning for the wealth redistribution and global power grab we’re now experiencing. These foundations include:

Schmidt Futures,10 founded by Eric Schmidt, former CEO and executive chairman of Google and Alphabet Inc., which owns the greatest artificial intelligence (AI) team in the world.11

The Skoll Foundation, founded by Jeff Skoll, a former eBay president, to “pursue his vision of a sustainable world” by catalyzing “transformational social change.”12 It acts as a support organization to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Skoll has funded pandemic preparedness and prevention since 2009 through the Skoll Global Threats Fund, and his movie production company Participant Media produced the movie “Contagion” and Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”13

Stand Together Foundation, which is part of the Koch Network, founded by Charles Koch. Its primary focus is criminal justice and poverty issues, and it teaches Koch’s “market based management” philosophy to community leaders.14

The Rockefeller Foundation, which in April 2020 released the white paper,15 “National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan,” laying out a strategic framework clearly intended to become part of a permanent surveillance and social control structure that severely limits personal liberty and freedom of choice. I wrote about this in “Rockefeller Foundation’s Plan to Track Americans.”

The tracking system it calls for is eerily similar to that already being used in China, where residents are required to enroll in a health condition registry. Once enrolled, they get a personal QR code, which they must then enter in order to gain access to grocery stores and other facilities.16 The plan also demands access to other medical data.

Operation Lockstep

The Rockefellers, like Gates, built an empire around health and medicine despite having no medical expertise whatsoever. Their influence is rooted in money, which is spent in self-serving ways. While Rockefeller and Gates are both known as philanthropists, their donations grow their wealth, as the money they spend on “charity” ultimately ends up benefiting their own investments and/or business interests.

In addition to the COVID-19 Action Plan document cited above — which doesn’t even try to hide its draconian overreach and intent to permanently alter life and society as we know it — the Rockefeller Foundation also published a 2010 report17 titled “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” in which they laid out their “Lockstep” scenario — a coordinated global response to a lethal pandemic.

While the name and origin of the virus differs, the scenario laid out in this document matches many of the details of our present. A deadly viral pandemic. A deadly effect on economies. International mobility coming to a screeching halt, debilitating industries, tourism and global supply chains. “Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers,” the document reads.

“In the absence of official containment protocols,” the virus spread like wildfire. In this narrative, the U.S. administration’s failure to place strict travel restrictions on its citizens proved to be a fatal flaw, as it allowed the virus to spread past its borders. China, on the other hand, fared particularly well due to its rapid imposition of universal quarantines of all citizens, which proved effective for curbing the spread of the virus.

Many other nations where leaders “flexed their authority” and imposed severe restrictions on their citizens — “from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries of communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets” — also fared well.

These and other reports spell out what the ultimate plan actually is. It’s to use bioterrorism to take control of the world’s resources, wealth and people. It’s to use coordinated pandemic response as a justification for wealth redistribution and the resetting of the global financial system.

What most fail to realize is that the wealth distribution they’re talking about is not distribution from the wealthy to the poor, even though that’s what they want you to believe. It’s to centralize wealth at the top and eliminate private property rights and private business ownership from the lower and middle classes. The “equitable” living standards they’re talking about is poverty for all but themselves. It’s really crucial to begin to grasp this reality now, before it’s too late.

Pieces of a Global Puzzle

The Rockefeller Foundation is also a founding sponsor of The Mojaloop Foundation, set up to “promote digital payments for people outside the financial system, with support from Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”18

Right there we have Google, the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, all in one little nonprofit with a heart set on giving poor people access to digital banking using their cellphones. This is probably the three most dangerous nonprofits on the planet, as they are likely the most powerful and committed to global tyranny.

All-digital banking using a centralized digital currency is a key component of the Great Reset, so this project has little to do with honest philanthropy and everything to do with making sure everyone can be swept into the digital net, which will include round-the-clock surveillance and tracking of physical location and biological data, a digital ID, along with your health data (including but not limited to vaccination status), banking and, ultimately, a social credit system.

All of the pieces needed for the Great Reset are already in place; it’s just a matter of seeing how all the separate pieces fit together. For example, Gavi, the vaccine alliance, set up with funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partnered with the ID2020 Alliance to launch a digital identity program called ID2020.19

Gates also funded the creation of EarthNow, a project involving 500 satellites equipped with machine learning technology to surveil the entire planet with real-time video.20 As one would expect, AI — a Google specialty — is also a key component of this global surveillance plot.

COVID-19 — A Launch Pad for the Great Reset

Another key player in the COVID Commission Planning Group is the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. As you may recall, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security co-hosted the pandemic preparedness simulation for a “novel coronavirus,” known as Event 201, in October 2019 along with the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum.

The event eerily predicted what would happen just 10 weeks later, when COVID-19 appeared. Gates and the World Economic Forum, in turn, are both partnered21 with the United Nations which, while keeping a relatively low profile, appears to be at the heart of the globalist takeover agenda.

The World Economic Forum, while a private organization, works as the social and economic branch of the U.N. and is a key driving force behind modern technocracy and the Great Reset agenda. Its founder and chairman, Klaus Schwab, publicly declared the need for a global “reset” to restore order in June 2020.22

Technocratic rule, which is what the Great Reset will bring about, hinges on the use of technology — in particular artificial intelligence, digital surveillance and Big Data collection (which is what 5G is for) — and the digitization of industry, banking and government, which in turn allows for the automation of social engineering and social rule (although that part is never expressly stated).

Beyond pandemic preparedness and response, the justification for the implementation of the Great Reset agenda in its totality will be climate change. The Great Reset, sometimes referred to as the “build back better” plan, specifically calls for all nations to implement “green” regulations and “sustainable development goals”23,24 as part of the post-COVID recovery effort.

But the end goal is far from what the typical person envisions when they hear these plans. The end goal is to turn us into serfs without rights to privacy, private ownership or anything else. In short, the pandemic is being used to destroy the local economies around the world, which will then allow the World Economic Forum to come in and “rescue” debt-ridden countries. The price for this salvation is your liberty.

The Great Reset

While the New World Order was long derided as a “conspiracy theory” that you’d have to be crazy to believe, the Great Reset, which is simply a rebranding of the same old NWO plan that has been in circulation for well over a decade, is now public fact.

Many world leaders have spoken about it in an official capacity, and in June 2020, Zia Khan, senior vice president of innovation at the Rockefeller Foundation penned the article25 “Rebuilding Toward the Great Reset: Crisis, COVID-19, and the Sustainable Development Goals,” reviewing the “social crisis” necessitating the world’s acceptance of a new world order.

The article was co-written with John McArthur, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, which is one of several technocratic think-tanks. Keeping in mind what I’ve just said about what the Great Reset is really all about, and the justifications used to implement the theft of wealth and freedom, read how they posit these changes as being in your best interest:

“Upheaval can yield new understanding and opportunity. Outdated or unjust norms can succumb to society’s pressing need for better approaches. For example, the need for massive and urgent government intervention has drawn fresh attention to social safety nets and the possibility of dramatic policy enhancements.

Tragic consequences of racial discrimination have catapulted awareness of systemic problems and triggered prospects for much-needed social reforms. Rapid environmental improvements linked to economic shutdown have rekindled consciousness of the profound interconnections between ecosystems, economies, and societies …

Rather than passively allowing norms to evolve through inertia or randomness, we can all pursue actions for Response and, soon enough, Recovery in a manner that improve the odds of a Reset toward better long-term outcomes.

Fortunately, we already have a strong starting point for what the world’s economic, social, and environmental outcomes should be. Five years ago, in 2015, all 193 UN member states agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a common set of priorities to be achieved in all countries by 2030.”

Another article titled “The Great Reset,” written by Jimmy Chang, CFA, for the Rockefeller Capital Management blog, reads, in part:26

“Regarding the post-pandemic reconstruction effort, progressives, led by the so-called Davos elites (of the World Economic Forum fame), are advocating an urgent ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism to ensure equality and sustainability. They also call for harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (i.e., Big Tech) to address health and social challenges.

Their vision for the future could be gleaned from a 2016 article penned by a young Danish politician with the title ‘Welcome to 2030. I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy, and Life Has Never Been Better.’ This title was so controversial that its posting on the World Economic Forum website was changed to a bland ‘Here’s how life could change in my city by the year 2030.’

The pace of the Great Reset will in part depend on the final outcome of the U.S. election as it will determine whether Trump’s ‘America First’ doctrine will be relegated to the dustbin of history. Still, some resets will be unavoidable since COVID-19 has exacerbated some longstanding issues such as the world’s debt dependency and the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.

There will be elevated levels of bankruptcy and debt restructuring. Governments may further increase their leverage to bail out the economy and placate electorates that demand more generous social contracts.

Riccardo Fraccaro, Italy’s Secretary of the Council of Ministers and a close aide of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, even floated a trial balloon on sovereign debt restructuring by suggesting that the European Central Bank consider ‘canceling sovereign bonds bought during the pandemic or perpetually extending their maturity.’

Businesses will also need to respond to lasting behavioral changes caused by the pandemic. In sum, there is no going back to the pre-COVID-19 world, and markets will need to adjust.”

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

The Great Reset is not some wild conspiracy theory but a publicly released agenda that is moving forward, whether we like it or not. I believe the only way to stop it is through our collective responses to the various pieces and parts of the plan that are being rolled out. They want you to believe that none of the things being introduced have anything to do with each other but, in fact, they are all pieces of the same puzzle.

The final image is the inside of a prison cell. It may not be a physical prison. It may be largely digital in nature. It may look like the four walls of your own home. But it’s a prison nonetheless.

I believe it would be a tragic mistake to trust Gates, Rockefeller, Google or any of the other players — including Zelikow — that are being brought before us as the saviors of the day. They’re all wolves in sheep’s clothing.

To learn more about the hidden power structure running this global reorganization toward authoritarian control, see “Bill Gates Wants to Realize Global Vision in His Lifetime,” “The Great Reset and Build Back Better,” “Technocracy and the Great Reset” and “Who Pressed the Great Reset Button?

Be Part of the Answer

The good news is, Americans now have a brand-new weapon in our fight for freedom. I recently interviewed Naomi Wolf about her new digital platform, Daily Clout, that will allow citizens to lobby bills to their legislators.

Many state legislators are not lawyers, and they don’t have lawyers at their beck and call. Daily Clout has hired an attorney who is busy drafting turnkey bills that protect us against the continued erosion of freedom and reestablish rights and liberties. Citizens can now send these model bills to their legislators, knowing that they’ve undergone legal review and are ready to be passed. You can also go even further than that. As explained by Wolf:

“You can tell us the bill you want. We can upload a campaign for that bill. We can hire our lawyer to draft a model bill and then you can pass it. What we’ve been doing is gathering names and zip codes, so that we can add real voters to this piece of model legislation in real states and send it to real state legislators and say, ‘Look, the supporters are all there. All you have to do is pass this.’

It’s a fantastic intervention in the political process, restoring real democracy. It’s why we founded Daily Clout, but it’s beautiful to see hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life rushing to give us support and resources, to become members and give us donations, which we appreciate, so that we can keep our lawyer busy creating these draft bills. It’s not just for this issue.

Once we get our rights and freedoms back, whatever [citizens] want, we can draft a bill for you, and you can [call on your legislators to] pass it.”

To get involved, go to dailyclout.io and sign up to become a paying member or free subscriber. You will then receive an email explaining how to use the Five Freedoms Campaign. Presently, there is a model “no vaccination passports” bill that you can send to your state legislator.

There’s a feature called BillCam, where you can see who your state legislator is by entering your zip code. Once you’re a subscriber or member, you’ll get regular updates about happenings around the U.S. and community events.

The Great Reset is at our doorstep, and your freedom, and that of future generations, hinges on you getting involved and fighting for it. The Daily Clout platform can be a major help in this regard, as using legislation to preserve and protect our rights and freedoms is far preferable to more violent alternatives or resigning ourselves to the fate prescribed by our globalist would-be “overlords.”

Sources and References

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Perspectives on the Pandemic – Investigative journalist Sam Husseini

Episode 7

Journeyman Pictures | May 12, 2020

Perspectives on the Pandemic / Episode 7: Investigative journalist Sam Husseini

Investigative journalist Sam Husseini has had a storied career asking world leaders questions they would prefer to dodge, on subjects ranging from missing weapons of mass destruction to very real nuclear stockpiles. Now he takes on the “elephant in the room”: the extreme dangers posed by bio-research facilities not just in China, but all over the world…

https://www.journeyman.tv/
https://www.thepressandthepublic.com/

Sam Husseini

https://husseini.posthaven.com/

Episode list

Episode 1: Dr. John Ioannidis
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VnaTtRQfJbb4/
Episode 2: Knut Wittkowski
https://www.bitchute.com/video/kLRYC73jlfin/
Episode 3: Dr. David L. Katz
https://www.bitchute.com/video/UJt1YSMecfZw/
Episode 4: Dr. John Ioannidis update
https://www.bitchute.com/video/gS3cLkoIw7pz/
Episode 5: Knut Wittkowski update
https://www.bitchute.com/video/dvMgvJAak9N1/
Episode 6: The Bakersfield doctors
https://www.bitchute.com/video/2nH3EF6c1ZSh/

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Facemask Wearing Runner Collapses After Winning 800 Metre Race

By Richie Allen | April 28, 2021

Track runner Maggie Williams, a student in Bend, Oregon, broke a school record in an 800 metre race last week. Williams won the race, but fainted as she crossed the line. She had run the race while wearing a facemask.

When she recovered enough to speak, the junior athlete said that she felt unable to breathe during the race. State guidelines mean competitors must wear a face covering during competition.

“In the past, this has never happened,” Williams said. “Then this race I was wearing a mask and it did happen, which I don’t think is a coincidence.”

Her coach Dave Turnbull agrees with her. He said:

“It was a different response than I’ve seen for kids that have collapsed to the track just because they were exhausted. She wasn’t sure where she was.”

Oregon’s health authority (OHA) released a statement yesterday. It said:

“The Oregon Health Authority regularly reviews COVID-19 guidance based on medical evidence and evolving science. We are revising the current guidance on the use of masks outdoors during competition. The guidance will allow people to take off face coverings when competing in non-contact sports outdoors and maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from others and the other virus protective protocols.

* The exception will not apply while training and conditioning for these sports or for competitions.
* The exception will not apply before and after competing.”

There is no evidence that facemasks protect the wearer or anyone they come into contact with. There is an abundance of evidence that facemasks are harmful.

Wearing one while running can kill you.

Don’t wear one, ever.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The Growing Plague of Mandatory Testing in UK Workplaces

Lockdown Sceptics – April 28, 2021

Lockdown Sceptics reader has written to tell us about mandatory testing that’s happening at his workplace.

Regarding the story on Durham University today and lateral flow tests, you’ll probably be aware that there’s a growing problem of mandatory testing in workplaces.

I work in an office in London and we were told this week that twice-weekly tests are mandatory to come into the office. We currently have about 10 people coming in out of a possible 200+.

To make it worse, we were originally told these tests were advisory, but now apparently they are mandatory – something to do with the firm’s “duty of care to those with hidden underlying health conditions”. The people being tested are the same people who’ve been vaccinated of course, which shows the senselessness of the whole thing. And arguably makes the testing permanent, given that having been vaccinated doesn’t absolve you of the need to get tested twice a week.

People who hadn’t taken the test this week were sent home halfway through the day, despite having reasonable objections, including having recently had the virus (and so having the antibodies that meant they could neither catch it nor pass it on), and others not being prepared to risk having to self-isolate, given individual circumstances that make that impossible. Of course, companies can do as they please – but this is all so self-defeating and driven by all the wrong instincts.

Those of us grateful to still have a job and income have to pick and choose our battles. But why is there not more of an outcry over mandatory testing? Will mandatory vaccinations be next? You could make a case for all this (I personally wouldn’t) in a care home, but not in a normal office. Many people will say it’s the price we have to pay for getting back to normal, but it’s a high price.

My own circumstances are even worse but probably not unique. I refuse to comply with any of this because my partner had a miscarriage a few months ago, caused, we believe, by having to carry something heavy in her workplace which colleagues wouldn’t help with “due to the social distancing rules”. This is the true hidden horrific cost of lockdown and the other measures. She was then made to suffer alone in hospital on multiple occasions (family not allowed in), and even the paramedics were reluctant to come to the house – for a critical emergency – without ascertaining her Covid status. The cruelty of lockdown and the restrictions is my biggest bugbear, quite aside from its efficacy.

If other readers have stories about mandatory testing in their workplace, do email them to us here (saying whether you’re happy for us to publish your name).

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

One year of Covid-19: Facts and analyses

By Manfred Horst – Achgut.com 06.04.2021

THE world has been in a continuous state of emergency for more than a year. Many of us are engaged in heated debate about its justification and objectives.

In the following article, I have compiled and analysed the essential medico-epidemiological data.

The facts are undisputed and indisputable. The analyses are open for discussion.

1. Clinical symptoms

Facts:

The symptoms caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus are similar to those caused by other pathogens of human respiratory infections, i.e. they are non-specific (see below).

The majority of people infected with the virus either develop no symptoms at all, or only mild ones from which they fully recover.

Severe and potentially fatal forms mainly affect older individuals with pre-existing conditions.

According to the World Health Organisation, www.who.int

the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are :

·         Fever

·         Dry cough

·         Fatigue

Other symptoms that are less common and may affect some patients include:

·         loss of taste or smell,

·         nasal congestion,

·         conjunctivitis (also known as red eyes),

·         sore throat,

·         headache,

·         muscle or joint pain,

·         different types of skin rash,

·         nausea or vomiting,

·         diarrhoea,

·         chills or dizziness.

Symptoms of severe Covid‐19 disease include:

·         shortness of breath,

·         loss of appetite,

·         confusion,

·         persistent pain or pressure in the chest,

·         high temperature (above 38 °c).

Analysis:

Human beings have had to deal with a large number of continuously mutating respiratory viruses since time immemorial; the best known and most common types include rhino-, adeno-, corona-, influenza and parainfluenza viruses. As toddlers with permanently runny noses, we develop a basic immunity which is often put to the test in adulthood, especially during the common cold season. It undergoes further ‘training’ when it is exposed to newly mutated forms of these viruses.

Severe disease progressions – generally viral pneumonias – have been described for virtually all known types of viruses; they mainly affect older people who have pre-existing health conditions and a weakened immune system. In such patients – especially when they are bedridden – pneumonia is also very common.

What, then, makes SARS-CoV-2 so peculiar?

It may well be that this virus causes severe forms of the disease considerably more frequently than its previously known counterparts. For most types of respiratory viruses, we have never tried specifically to determine this frequency; it is therefore difficult to examine this hypothesis. However, in terms of patient characteristics (especially age and pre-existing conditions), severe Covid-19 is no different from the severe disease progressions caused by other respiratory viruses; this would tend to suggest that it is yet another, unexceptional representative of that same category. For the one type where we do have reasonable numbers, the influenza virus, recent scientific analysis indicates that Covid-19 is certainly not dissimilar.

It may well be that severe Covid-19 is a specific, previously unknown clinical syndrome; this is claimed by some doctors and clinicians. Even they do not establish the diagnosis on clinical grounds (symptoms) only, as confirmation (or refutation) by laboratory testing is always carried out. Similar symptoms and X-ray or CT images had previously been described for other respiratory viruses too; in everyday clinical practice, however, the specific causative agent of a viral pneumonia had hardly ever been determined.

It may well be that some people suffer from the disease caused by this particular virus for extended periods, or are left with specific sequelae (‘Long Covid’). However, late effects have been described for other respiratory viruses as well, the influenza viruses in particular. Furthermore, many a former Covid-19 patient who does not feel fully recovered or who falls victim to some other disease will now conceivably be tempted to blame this on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It may also be possible that the mere knowledge of having had Covid-19 – or simply having tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 – can make some people feel unwell. Be that as it may, there is as yet no scientifically valid study which would demonstrate any specific long-term consequences of infection with this virus.

It may well be that this virus is particularly ‘contagious’, due to some particular biochemical and/or physiological properties. Here, too, we lack meaningful comparative data; respiratory infection chains are generally difficult to trace. Family members living in close quarters with sick individuals can remain asymptomatic and test-negative, however, and infections in an open-air environment are rare. Thus, we seem rather to be dealing with the typical infection dynamic of a common cold virus, and not with an epidemic which spreads like wildfire.

It may well be that this coronavirus has mutated so far away from the viruses already known to our immune system that we are, so to speak, entirely at its mercy. If this were true, however, the high occurrence of asymptomatic infections could simply not be explained. This proves that many people already have basic immunity (or cross-immunity with other coronaviruses), just as most of us have some basic immunity to most of those constantly mutating respiratory viruses.

It may well be, though, that the only truly distinctive characteristic of this virus is the fact that mankind is chasing it with specific tests, declaring everyone who tests positive as an ‘infected person’ or a ‘case’. It may well be that a number of disturbing images and media reports have sent most of us – including nursing staff, doctors and scientists, politicians and leaders – into an entirely irrational panic and hysteria. It may well be that we can theoretically repeat the same procedure every year (every winter – we are dealing with common cold viruses, after all), and with almost any freshly mutated rhinovirus, adenovirus, coronavirus, influenza or parainfluenza virus – if we care to trace one of them with specific testing.

2. Mortality

Facts:

The age distribution of ‘corona deaths’ (people who have died ‘of or with Covid-19’) is similar to that of the general population; in all European countries, the average age of death is 80 and over.

In 2020, some countries saw relative undermortality of up to 5 per cent, as compared to the mean of the previous five years, while others experienced a relative excess mortality of between 1 per cent and slightly over 10 per cent.

Analysis:

The fact that the age distribution of those who died ‘of and with’ corona closely follows that of all-cause mortality in the general population raises the hypothesis that this particular cohort (group of people) is part of that normal, inevitable population mortality.

We all have to die, and on average we die at our average age of death. No government in the world can prevent this from happening.

Most of us would like to avoid factors which can shorten our lives; we therefore need to try to find out what these factors are. That regular tobacco consumption falls into this category is something which we can now be certain of, for example. Wearing red socks seems a highly unlikely factor at first sight, but perhaps it’s something we should check, just to make sure. In order to determine whether wearing red socks is more dangerous than wearing socks of a different colour, we would have to look at the age distribution in the cohort of those who died while wearing red socks. If we find a difference from the general population – if, in particular, the average is lower than that of those who were wearing socks of a different colour – we would establish the hypothesis that it is better to avoid wearing red socks (a hypothesis which would certainly require further investigation). If – as we would expect – the age distribution were the same, and if we could repeat this result in numerous cohorts – in different countries, for example – we would conclude that wearing red socks has no influence on mortality, in other words that it is a so-called random variable.

This retrospective method is generally the first step which epidemiologists use in order to examine certain variables, such as living habits and conditions, pathogens and medical diagnoses, and to determine their potential impact on population mortality.

Now, it is of course true that having reached a certain age, one has a remaining life expectancy which is higher than at birth: in Germany, for example, you may expect to live 16 more years at the age of 70, 9 more at 80, 4 more at 90, and 2 more at 100. Life insurance companies base their premiums on this kind of calculation. In a number of recently published academic articles, this remaining life expectancy of the living has simply been transferred to those who had died ‘of and with corona’, the resulting claim being that these people had lost around 12 years of their lives. In other words, they would have lived, on average, to well over 90 years if they had not been struck down by the virus. This claim is not really plausible in itself. Moreover, following this line of reasoning, we could just as well demonstrate that red socks (or whichever random variable you care to choose) were life-threatening, and demand that the government mobilise all possible means in order to prevent people from wearing them.

On the basis of their age distribution and their multimorbidity (the virtually universal presence of other serious diseases), we can assume that the cohort of people who died with a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 is part of the normal and inevitable mortality of the general population and cannot significantly alter the total amount of that mortality.

The fact that a certain excess mortality is now being reported for some – though not all – countries for the year 2020 deserves closer analysis; it cannot unquestioningly be attributed to the coronavirus. A comparison with the average of previous years may already be misleading in countries with an increasing population and/or progressive ageing, such as the USA, since such factors inevitably lead to a continuous rise in the number of deaths.

For most countries, serious statistical analyses do not demonstrate a significant increase in the number of deaths for the year 2020. In any case, any factually demonstrated local excess mortality might just as well have been the result of general fear and panic among the population (for example by discouraging those with serious conditions from seeking timely medical advice) as well as of failures and disorganisation in the healthcare system and in the treatment of other diseases – at the very least, this hypothesis would have to be examined.

3.  Diagnosis – the ‘tests’

Facts:

The available PCR and antigen tests follow different and variable laboratory protocols. National or international standards do not exist.

The tests detect the presence of virus fragments. A positive test does not prove infection with reproducing viruses.

All laboratory tests have certain inherent error rates (sensitivity, specificity). These error rates, defined under ideal conditions, necessarily increase with improper and/or mass application.

For the first time in medical history, we are tracking a specific respiratory infection pathogen with mass testing in the general population.

Analysis:

Everything hinges on the tests. Given the non-specific clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, we might not have noticed much of a ‘pandemic’ without these laboratory diagnostics, even if we had continued to live our lives normally.

A multitude of viruses constantly scurry across the mucous membranes of our respiratory tract; most of the time our immune system deals with them invisibly, not allowing them to multiply any further. A temporary weakening of our immune defences (e.g. when we catch a ‘cold’) or a particularly high exposure (intake of a high viral load) may lead to an inflammatory body reaction which translates into a running nose, a cough, hoarseness, fever and/or a general feeling of being unwell. Which specific virus (or viruses – so-called co-infections, e.g. with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses at the same time, are not uncommon) is responsible for these symptoms had so far never been investigated in clinical practice, as any such knowledge would not have had any practical therapeutic consequences.

For more than a year now, we have been tracking the presence of fragments of one specific respiratory virus with mass laboratory testing, not only in sick people but also (and now primarily) in healthy individuals, declaring them to be ‘infected’ as soon as any one of these tests, following any one of many different lab protocols, detects or purports to detect any viral debris on their mucous membranes. Given the known seasonality of respiratory viruses, it is not surprising that we are seeing more ‘infected’ cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the cold season than in the summer; this would be no different for any other representative of these pathogens if we cared to test for them.

Perfectly healthy people are being quarantined because of their test results, under the assumption that they could infect and endanger others. Leaving aside the question of whether such an ‘asymptomatic infection’ with the virus really exists at all (though it should be noted here that all coercive government measures are based on this unproven assumption) the virus is now endemic anyway, that is to say it is constantly circulating – and mutating – in the population. This at least the mass testing has demonstrated for certain. Neither the isolation of clinically healthy people, nor any other government orders, can alter this fact.

Every hospitalisation, for whatever reason, is accompanied by one or (usually) several SARS-CoV-2 tests, and the patient is declared a ‘corona case’ as soon as the result is positive – sometimes even without such a positive test. After all, there are, in many countries, financial and other incentives for the admission and treatment of ‘corona patients’. Ultimately, all this quite naturally leads to a considerable number of ‘corona’ death certificates.

In severe cases of respiratory tract infections, the identification of a specific pathogen – using validated methods! – may sometimes be therapeutically relevant. Otherwise, the mass testing as it is currently being practised is medically pointless. It only creates fear and anxiety in the population, while necessarily leading to the neglect of other, more important concerns in the healthcare system.

4. Therapy

Facts:

The medical therapy of a symptomatic Covid-19 infection is in principle identical to that of any other viral respiratory disease; the specific efficacy of pharmaceuticals recommended by some experts (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, immunoglobulins) is controversial.

Severe forms of infection leading to respiratory failure may necessitate oxygen therapy, as with all pneumonias.

The decision of governments to counter this newly mutated coronavirus not only medically, but socially and politically, was originally based on the desire to grant hospitals and intensive care units a few weeks to prepare for the expected epidemic rush of patients – to ‘flatten the curve’.

As a point of reference for their preventive measures, policy-makers and their scientific advisers have over the past year used various and shifting parameters (R-number, positivity rate, mortality, hospital and intensive care bed occupancy, case incidence, etc.) as well as various and shifting levels of these parameters.

Analysis:

Medical therapy of a symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is precisely that – symptomatic. The pathogen cannot be eliminated pharmaceutically; antiviral therapies have – at least as yet – not been able to clearly prove efficacy. Ultimately, the human body has to come to grips with the virus by itself, and in the vast majority of cases it does. All we can do is to alleviate the signs of inflammation caused by this fight; this is as true of SARS-CoV-2 as it is of any other respiratory virus.

In the panic caused by the images and reports from Wuhan, we probably overshot the mark in treating severely ill and fragile people with intensive medical interventions such as artificial ventilation – regrettably violating one of the fundamental precepts of medicine, namely primum non nocere (first, do no harm).

Under the impact of the images and news from Wuhan (and subsequently from Bergamo), fuelled by a number of frightening epidemiological models, the political leaders of our societies opted for preventive measures to contain the spread of this particular respiratory virus to mitigate an expected onslaught on our hospitals.

For a whole year, our healthcare systems have largely been switched into transmission prevention mode. Everywhere, one encounters protective suits, Covid corridors, disinfectants, testing stations, quarantine rooms, etc. Yet in spite of the substantial additional administrative and organisational burden caused by all this, the overall charge on doctors, emergency rooms, hospitals and intensive care units has not significantly increased – in fact, the very opposite has been shown to be the case in a number of countries and regions.

One might, one should ask which parameters – and under what circumstances – are to be used to decide on the unconditional withdrawal of all these preventive, temporary emergency measures? The SARS CoV-2 virus and its mutated and constantly mutating descendants have been endemic for a while now. There will always be mutated respiratory viruses, new ones every year, posing variable levels of risks – risks however which in all likelihood will fundamentally remain controllable by medical means alone. Shall we accept this as a sufficient reason to declare a permanent state of societal emergency?

5.  Governmental, non-pharmaceutical measures

Facts:

The measures adopted by Western democracies to combat SARS-CoV-2 follow the initial example of the Chinese dictatorship – not their own pandemic plans or the original recommendations of the World Health Organisation.

To date, no government has presented a documented cost/benefit analysis of its measures, let alone been guided by such an analysis in its decision-making.

A clear, scientifically accepted proof of the effectiveness of any of the governmental measures does not exist.

It is indisputable that these measures cause human and economic harm.

Analysis:

Let us consider the panoply of coercive measures imposed on the population in the course of last year’s pandemic, such as house arrests, bans on work, contact, sports and movement, masking requirements, etc. If these were medicines that required marketing authorisation, they would have to prove therapeutic efficacy and safety, or at least acceptable side-effect profiles, in relation to proven benefits.

Since practically all these measures were applied, for the first time in world history, to the healthy general population, they have been and continue to be enforced politically, without prior proof of efficacy, based on the dogma that interpersonal contact and therefore the potential exchange of viruses should be avoided or reduced to a minimum.

It should by now be obvious to everybody that neither the evolution over time in individual countries, nor any comparison between countries where different measures had been applied, show any effect whatsoever of government intervention on the course of the epidemic, especially on the most important parameter, mortality. If, as claimed, hundreds of thousands more people were to fall victim to the virus in the absence of tough restrictions, we would have had to see this happen in Europe last summer, and we would have had to see this happen over the course of the whole year in Sweden, in Belarus, in South Korea, in Japan and in Florida, as well as in a number of other US states.

In fact, the very opposite seems to be true: Countries (and periods) with hard lockdowns have shown and continue to show the highest mortality rates. The virus spreads according to its own laws, according to a clear seasonal rhythm in the temperate European climate zones – it is a common cold virus which doesn’t care about government guidelines. Nor will Australia or New Zealand be able to cut themselves off from it – and from the rest of the world – in the long run. What would be the point anyway?

On the other hand, the enormous damage caused by the governments’ coercive measures is becoming increasingly clear, even if the majority of the Western population has yet to start feeling it personally.

World economic growth is being slowed down on a gigantic scale and put into reverse gear. Initially, it is mainly the poorer countries which suffer: here, misery and hunger are now on the rise again, after being in steady decline over recent years and decades. Part of the additional trillions of euros or dollars that the world could have generated last year without government restrictions could and would have been spent on saving millions of lives. The polarising debate about the dichotomy between saving lives or saving the economy is completely out of touch with reality: prosperity and economic activity are fundamental prerequisites for effective healthcare. The rich West could have used last year’s lost tax revenues to build numerous hospitals and hire additional nursing staff. In developing countries, our lockdowns and the ensuing diminished economic activity and trade lead to mass misery and starvation, especially among children.

Slowly but surely, investigations are getting under way to examine the direct and indirect consequences of government fear propaganda and media scaremongering, of forced house arrests, of social isolation and bans on work and sports, of curfews, school absences, anxiety-driven education, compulsory face coverings and other hygiene constraints. It seems highly unlikely that the side-effect profile of all these coercive measures will historically be deemed acceptable.

6. Vaccines

Facts:

The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were developed in record time, with many of the steps normally required by the regulatory authorities being omitted.

The pivotal clinical trials demonstrate a preventive efficacy against common cold symptoms with a positive SARS CoV-2 test and show a trend – albeit not a statistically significant one – towards a reduction in severe cases with a positive test for SARS CoV-2.

No preventive effect against mortality (death) has been demonstrated, nor are there apparently any plans to do so.

Analysis:

Vaccination of the whole of humanity is being described by many of our experts and politicians as the only possible way for a return to normal life. The (conditional) approval of vaccines developed in less than a year was carried out under high political pressure. Given the lack of the normally required safety studies (for example, animal toxicology) and given the extremely brief period of clinical observation, we can only hope that these products will not cause too many serious side-effects. Even though it is never possible to rule those out entirely for any new drug, the development steps normally required by regulatory authorities are based on medico-historical experience and have a well-reasoned purpose.

The ‘emergency approval’ of a new medical intervention may perhaps sometimes be justified by its clearly proven efficacy and the severity of the disease to be treated. Neither one of these factors applies to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, however.

The highly publicised efficacy of the products approved to date is a statistically significant reduction in common cold symptoms with a positive test compared with placebo (or, in the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, oddly enough, also compared with a meningitis vaccination).

The fact that these vaccines succeed in clearly reducing the detectability of SARS-CoV-2 in individuals suffering from fever, cough or hoarseness is certainly an interesting biological result. From the patient’s point of view, this is irrelevant: he or she simply wants to have less fever, cough and hoarseness, no matter what is causing them. That is precisely what has not been shown in the clinical trials. The articles published in the world’s leading and, under normal circumstances, best medical journals (New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet) do not specify the absolute numbers of symptoms that occurred in the comparative groups. However, since most of these common cold symptoms are also listed as side-effects after vaccination, and occurred much more frequently in the respective vaccination groups than under placebo, as well as occurring much more frequently than the symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections chosen as the clinical endpoint, the conclusion surely has to be that people in the vaccination group became ill significantly more frequently than those in the placebo group.

None of the clinical trials was able to demonstrate a statistically significant effect on the occurrence of severe forms of respiratory disease, as they happened too rarely. In any case, the reasoning with respect to the clinical endpoint ‘with a positive test for SARS-CoV-2’ would apply again: patients do not care whether their shortness of breath, their hospitalisation or their death is associated with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test or not; they just do not want any of this.

In fact, a truly relevant proof of efficacy of all these vaccines could be provided only through rigorously conducted mortality studies (i.e. the comparison of the absolute death rate between the vaccination and the placebo groups), or, at the very least, through a so-called combined endpoint trial (for example, hospitalisation and/or death). If this is a deadly virus, if the situation is truly urgent, this is what we would have (had) to ask the pharmaceutical companies to carry out, and this is what we would have (had) to ask the regulatory authorities to demand from them.

This is not even planned, however – in all likelihood for very good reasons. In the clinical vaccine studies published to date, a total of well over 100,000 subjects were included, but to date not a single Covid-19 death has apparently been recorded; in the not yet published trial of the J&J vaccine, a few ‘Covid-related’ deaths (single digit number) seem to have occurred.

The disease is quite clearly not serious enough for well-designed clinical trials conclusively to demonstrate any effect on severe forms or death.

The vaccines have now largely been rolled out, and claims of efficacy abound, based on observational data. They seem in fact to be doing what they demonstrated in the randomised clinical trials – reducing the number of positively tested individuals (corona ‘cases’).

Their side-effect profiles are being established as we go along. Whether these vaccines will have any significant positive effect on population morbidity and above all mortality remains to be seen. It might be asking a little too much of them to prevent normal population mortality, but perhaps there will yield a welcome psychological result, allowing our societies to re-open (assuming that this is what governments and the governed people want).

7. Freedom and human rights

Fact:

As of now (April 2021), elementary freedoms and human rights are restricted or suspended for an unlimited period in almost all countries of the world.

Analysis:

Elected and non-elected representatives of the people are currently conducting a – in some cases openly declared – ‘war’ against a common cold virus, forcing their infantilised populations into a permanent state of emergency. How and with what kind of outcome this war is to be won remains fundamentally open, even if some protagonists are planning and propagating a new, totalitarian normality after a ‘great reset’.

The measures taken by governments to protect a certain ‘at-risk group’ (ostensibly, at least) are impacting enormously on other groups, indeed on the entire population. The modern constitutional state is, in principle, barred from taking such action; it must not actively harm innocent people in an attempt to protect others. Even if we were dealing with a truly severe epidemic, with the plague itself: fundamental human rights are not to be bent, even if democratic majorities were to agree to their suspension or abolition.

We are indeed engaged in a struggle – a struggle for freedom and for human dignity. Let us hope that the battle can still be won with facts and rational argument.

Translation of this article was done with permission by the Conservaive Woman website.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Influenza Vaccination Linked to Higher COVID Death Rates

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | April 26, 2021

A question that has lingered since the 2009 mass vaccination campaign against pandemic H1N1 swine flu is whether seasonal influenza vaccination might make pandemic infections worse or more prevalent.1

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Michael Murray, naturopath and author, confirmed what Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., told me in her second interview with me, namely that seasonal influenza vaccinations may have contributed to the dramatically elevated COVID-19 mortality seen in Italy. In a blog post, he pointed out that Italy had introduced a new, more potent type of flu vaccine, called VIQCC, in September 2019:2

“Most available influenza vaccines are produced in embryonated chicken eggs. VIQCC, however, is produced from cultured animal cells rather than eggs and has more of a ‘boost’ to the immune system as a result.

VIQCC also contains four types of viruses — 2 type A viruses (H1N1 and H3N2) and 2 type B viruses.3 It looks like this ‘super’ vaccine impacted the immune system in such a way to increase coronavirus infection through virus interference …”

Vaccines and Virus Interference

The kind of virus interference Murray was referring to had been shown to be at play during the 2009 pandemic swine flu. A 2010 review4,5 in PLOS Medicine, led by Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a Canadian influenza expert with the Centre for Disease Control in British Columbia, found the seasonal flu vaccine increased people’s risk of getting sick with pandemic H1N1 swine flu and resulted in more serious bouts of illness.

People who received the trivalent influenza vaccine during the 2008-2009 flu season were between 1.4 and 2.5 times more likely to get infected with pandemic H1N1 in the spring and summer of 2009 than those who did not get the seasonal flu vaccine.

To double-check the findings, Skowronski and other researchers conducted a follow-up study on ferrets. Their findings were presented at the 2012 Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. At the time, Skowronski commented on her team’s findings, telling MedPage Today:6

“There may be a direct vaccine effect in which the seasonal vaccine induced some cross-reactive antibodies that recognized pandemic H1N1 virus, but those antibodies were at low levels and were not effective at neutralizing the virus. Instead of killing the new virus it actually may facilitate its entry into the cells.”

In all, five observational studies conducted across several Canadian provinces found identical results. These findings also confirmed preliminary data from Canada and Hong Kong. As Australian infectious disease expert professor Peter Collignon told ABC News:7

“Some interesting data has become available which suggests that if you get immunized with the seasonal vaccine, you get less broad protection than if you get a natural infection …

We may be perversely setting ourselves up that if something really new and nasty comes along, that people who have been vaccinated may in fact be more susceptible compared to getting this natural infection.”

Flu Vaccination Raises Unspecified Coronavirus Infection

A study8,9 published in the January 10, 2020, issue of the journal Vaccine also found people were more likely to get some form of coronavirus infection if they had been vaccinated against influenza. As noted in this study, titled “Influenza Vaccination and Respiratory Virus Interference Among Department of Defense Personnel During the 2017-2018 Influenza Season:”

“Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as virus interference … This study aimed to investigate virus interference by comparing respiratory virus status among Department of Defense personnel based on their influenza vaccination status.”

While seasonal influenza vaccination did not raise the risk of all respiratory infections, it was in fact “significantly associated with unspecified coronavirus” (meaning it did not specifically mention SARS-CoV-2, which was still unknown at the time this study was conducted) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV10).

Remember, SARS-CoV-2 is one of seven different coronaviruses known to cause respiratory illness in humans.11 Four of them — 229E, NL63, OC43 and HKU1 — cause symptoms associated with the common cold.

OC43 and HKU112 are also known to cause bronchitis, acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia in all age groups.13 The other three human coronaviruses — which are capable of causing more serious respiratory illness — are SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.

Service members who had received a seasonal flu shot during the 2017-2018 flu season were 36% more likely to contract coronavirus infection and 51% more likely to contract hMPV infection than unvaccinated individuals.14,15

Influenza Vaccination Linked to Higher COVID Death Rates

October 1, 2020, professor Christian Wehenkel, an academic editor for PeerJ, published a data analysis16 in that same journal, in which he reports finding a “positive association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination rates in elderly people worldwide.”

In other words, areas with the highest vaccination rates among elderly people also had the highest COVID-19 death rates. To be fair, the publisher’s note points out that correlation does not necessary equal causation:

“What does that mean? By way of example, in some cities increased ice cream sales correlate with increased murder rates. But that doesn’t mean that if more ice creams are sold, then murder rates will increase. There is some other factor at play — the weather temperature.

Similarly, this article should not be taken to suggest that receiving the influenza vaccination results in an increased risk of death for an individual with COVID-19 as there may be many confounding factors at play (including, for example, socioeconomic factors).

That said, one of the reasons for the analysis was to double-check whether the data would support reports claiming that seasonal influenza vaccination was negatively correlated with COVID-19 mortality — including one that found regions in Italy with higher vaccination rates among elders had lower COVID-19 death rates.17 “A negative association was expected,” Wehenkel writes in PeerJ. But that’s not what he found:

“Contrary to expectations, the present worldwide analysis and European sub-analysis do not support the previously reported negative association between COVID-19 deaths (DPMI) [COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants] and IVR [influenza vaccination rate] in elderly people, observed in studies in Brazil and Italy,” the author noted.18

“To determine the association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination, available data sets from countries with more than 0.5 million inhabitants were analyzed (in total 39 countries).

To accurately estimate the influence of IVR on COVID-19 deaths and mitigate effects of confounding variables, a sophisticated ranking of the importance of different variables was performed, including as predictor variables IVR and some potentially important geographical and socioeconomic variables as well as variables related to non-pharmaceutical intervention.

The associations were measured by non-parametric Spearman rank correlation coefficients and random forest functions.

The results showed a positive association between COVID-19 deaths and IVR of people ≥65 years-old. There is a significant increase in COVID-19 deaths from eastern to western regions in the world. Further exploration is needed to explain these findings, and additional work on this line of research may lead to prevention of deaths associated with COVID-19.”

What Might Account for Vaccination-Mortality Link?

In the discussion section of the paper, Wehenkel points out that previous explanations for how flu vaccination might reduce COVID-19 deaths are not supported by the data he collected.

For example, he cites research attributing the beneficial effect of flu vaccination to improved prevention of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 coinfections, and another that suggested the flu vaccine might improve SARS-CoV-2 clearance.

These arguments “cannot explain the positive, direct or indirect relationship between influenza vaccination rates and both COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants and case fatality ratio found in this study, which was confirmed by an unbiased ranking variable importance using Random Forest models,” Wehenkel says.19 (Random Forest refers to a preferred classification algorithm used in data science to model predictions.20) Instead, he offers the following hypotheses:21

“The influenza vaccine may increase influenza immunity at the expense of reduced immunity to SARS-CoV-2 by some unknown biological mechanism, as suggested by Cowling et al. (2012)22 for non-influenza respiratory virus.

Alternatively, weaker temporary, non-specific immunity after influenza viral infection could cause this positive association due to stimulation of the innate immune response during and for a short time after infection.23,24

People who had received the influenza vaccination would have been protected against influenza but not against other viral infections, due to reduced non-specific immunity in the following weeks,25 probably caused by virus interference.26,27,28

Although existing human vaccine adjuvants have a high level of safety, specific adjuvants in influenza vaccines should also be tested for adverse reactions, such as additionally increased inflammation indicators29 in COVID-19 patients with already strongly increased inflammation.”30

The Flu Vaccine Paradox

Since Wehenkel’s analysis focuses on the flu vaccine’s impact on COVID-19 mortality among the elderly, it can be useful to take a look at information presented at a World Health Organization workshop in 2012. On page 6 of the workshop presentation31 in question, the presenter discusses “a paradox from trends studies” showing that “influenza-related mortality increased in U.S. elderly while vaccine coverage rose from 15% to 65%.”

On page 7, he further notes that while a decline in mortality of 35% would be expected with that increase in vaccine uptake, assuming the vaccine is 60% to 70% effective, the mortality rate has risen instead, although not exactly in tandem with vaccination coverage.

On page 10, another paradox is noted. While observational studies claim the flu vaccine reduces winter mortality risk from any cause by 50% among the elderly, and vaccine coverage among the elderly rose from 15% to 65%, no mortality decline has been seen among the elderly during winter months.32,33

Seeing how the elderly are the most likely to die due to influenza, and the flu accounts for 5% to 10% of all winter deaths, a “50% mortality savings [is] just not possible,” the presenter states. He then goes on to highlight studies showing evidence of bias in studies that estimate influenza vaccine effectiveness in the elderly. When that bias is adjusted for, vaccine effectiveness among seniors is discouraging.

Interestingly, the document points out that immunologists have long known that vaccine effectiveness in the elderly would be low, thanks to senescent immune response, i.e., the natural decline in immune function that occurs with age. This is why influenza “remains a significant problem in elderly despite widespread influenza vaccination programs,” the presenter notes.

Report All COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

My belief is that current COVID-19 “vaccines,” which use mRNA gene therapy technology, are likely to do more harm than good in most people. There are many reports of elderly in nursing homes dying within hours or days of getting the vaccine. This is likely due to an overwhelming inflammatory response.

If you’re elderly and frail, or have a family member who is elderly and thinking of getting the vaccine, I would urge you to take a deeper dive into the available research, and to review the side effect statistics before making your decision.

Last but not least, if you or someone you love have received a COVID-19 vaccine and are experiencing side effects, be sure to report it:34

  1. If you live in the U.S., file a report on VAERS
  2. Report the injury on VaxxTracker.com, which is a nongovernmental adverse event tracker (you can file anonymously if you like)
  3. Report the injury on the CHD website

Sources and References

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

A Message To Everyone Reliant On Thier Family Doctor | Dr. Scott Jensen

Banned Youtube Videos | April 12, 2021

Dr Scott Jensen’s tweet :

“For the THIRD time in under a year someone has tried to take away the my medical license and use the board as a weapon, but they failed again. The sad part is we’ll never get to know who is behind these targeted attacks.

Pay attention, because they are coming after YOU!”

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Why Can’t the Government be More Transparent About the Data Guiding its Decisions?

By Professor Anthony A. Fryer | Lockdown Sceptics | April 27, 2021

When I look back over the last year or so of the pandemic, I can forgive the first couple of months. We were all finding our feet with a largely unknown entity. However, as a clinical scientist with over 30 years in NHS laboratories and as an academic researcher with over 200 peer-reviewed clinical research articles in scientific and medical journals (including over 130 involving use of the polymerase chain reaction [PCR]), I found my views increasingly divergent from those of the Government and its advisors. Those who know me will know that it takes a lot to get me annoyed, but I could not sit by and do nothing when I could see the immense damage being done to countless lives and businesses in the name of supposedly protecting us from SARS-CoV-2.

But let me say at the start; I am not one to deny the damage that COVID-19 can do. (And I deliberately use that term, rather than SARS-CoV-2. It’s the disease that causes the problems – most people manage the virus without much difficulty.) COVID-19 can be very nasty and my heart goes out to all those affected. But the way in which the Government handled the pandemic has, in my view, been shocking. It’s felt like it has focused blindly on the virus (and not very well at that either – just think about PPE in care homes for a start) and ignored the massive implications on every other level.

So I wrote. I wrote letters to the local paper, emailed the Chief Medical Officer, submitted evidence to a Parliamentary Inquiry, signed the Great Barrington Declaration, published scientific papers on the ineffectiveness of face coverings and on the non-Covid harms to people with diabetes, and wrote to my MP. Several times. I also joined UsforThem and the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART).

Back in October 2020, I wrote one of my letters to my MP, Fiona Bruce, raising a number of concerns about the Government’s handling of the pandemic, and requesting that she raise these concerns with the powers that be on my behalf. While the letter was written as a member of the public, I felt that my expertise and experience put me in a position to comment in a way that perhaps others couldn’t.

In the letter, I highlighted three main concerns:

1. Evidence. That measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 were introduced without evidence to support them.

2. Context. That such measures were generating more harms than those caused by the virus itself, and this was not being reflected in a balanced way in the press briefings, including in the figures presented, thereby creating an atmosphere of fear.

3. Testing. That the way in which testing data has been presented had been misleading to the public and media. This area was of particular concern to me, given my clinical and research experience in the field.

In respect of the above three areas, I requested the following of my MP:

1. Please could you lobby that scientific evidence underpinning decisions is provided with all future communications.

2. I would ask that you raise this with the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health as a matter of urgency to ensure that contextual information is co-presented at press briefings for comparison.

3. I would be grateful if you could impress upon the Secretary of State for Health, the Chief Medical Officers and the Chief Scientific Officer to present adjusted data in a more balanced way to reflect the major difference in rates of cases now with those in April.

… and…

I would request that you (i) ask the Secretary of State for Health to ensure that all positive tests are repeated before labelling an individual as positive, and (ii) that the estimated one third of deaths attributed to COVID-19 because of a SARS-CoV-2 positive test, but where the cause of death was not COVID-19, be removed from the figures.

On April 13th 2021, some six months later, the reply arrived, along with a letter from Lord Bethell (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care), dated April 7th.

The response, which you can read here, was both enlightening and disheartening, if not unexpected.

Here is my commentary on the response from Lord Bethell, passed on by my MP:

Evidence
Lord Bethell referred to the release of papers and minutes from SAGE, presumably to exemplify the evidence underpinning the decisions to implement mitigation measures. The complete lack of credibility of anything coming from SAGE notwithstanding, this is hardly an independent assessment of the evidence underpinning the Government’s decisions.

To me, anyone with any scientific nous could present a fairly long list of actions that the Government has taken without first presenting clear evidence to indicate their effectiveness and an evidence-based risk-assessment of potential non-Covid harms. The “Rule of Six”, the 10pm curfew, face coverings (anywhere, let alone in schools), lockdowns (in any of its many guises, including Tiers), etc, etc, etc. Where is the assessment of non-Covid physical and mental health harms, economic impact, or the effect on our children’s education and wellbeing? Or even evidence on reducing transmission of the virus itself, for that matter?

All we have seem to have seen is exaggerated figures predicting doomsday scenarios, mostly based on modelling rather than actual data, none of which have come to pass. These seem only aimed at scaring the public into following their non-evidence-based guidelines (an approach which, to me, could itself have a potentially significant negative mental health impact).

Context
In terms of presenting COVID-19 data in a wider context, Lord Bethell’s response seemed silent on this one. I am still waiting to hear a press conference which presents the non-Covid harms that we are hearing about all the time in the scientific literature, from the mental health sector, from education, from the business world and from thousands of individual stories.

We are instead presented with advertising campaigns which tell us to “act like you have it”. Not only is that completely illogical – if we all took that literally, society would stop. All of it. No hospitals, no supermarkets, no police, nothing. We’d all be at home self-isolating. But it verging on emotional blackmail. Please give the public some respect and allow them to make responsible decisions.

Testing
The third area covered three distinct points:

  1. Comparing like with like. A request to not compare figures in October with those in April when testing levels were at a much lower level.
  2. False positives. A request to define positive ‘cases’ accurately by correctly addressing the issue of false positives.
  3. ‘With’, not ‘from’. A request to exclude deaths where COVID-19 was not the cause of death from the figures for COVID-associated deaths.

a. Comparing like with like. On the first of these, it’s hard to identify whether Lord Bethell had anything to say on this. He didn’t address it directly. My point focused on the unbalanced way figures were presented back in October which, in my view, presented to the public another doomsday, worst-case scenario to frighten them into compliance with Government wishes. Models presenting huge potential death tolls, all of which were subsequently shown to be out by orders of magnitude.

b. False positives. On the second point, Lord Bethell’s response went into some detail, the content of which itself seemed to either miss the point, or indeed add fuel to my initial concern.

On the positive side, there were some admissions about the PCR test. For example, his response stated: “We are also aware that when PCR test detects viral material it does not indicate that the virus is intact and infectious.” So a positive test doesn’t equate to infectiousness, or even having the virus at all. That’s obvious. It’s just a pity this isn’t mentioned in any of the press briefings along with an evidence-based assessment of its impact on the figures. “Positive tests”, “infections” and “cases” are used interchangeably.

Regarding the PCR test cycle threshold (Ct), he also acknowledged that “…values obtained in this way are semi-quantitative, meaning they do not measure the precise quantity of the virus…” He focuses on the small number of samples with a cycle threshold of over 37. I would be interested in what proportion are above 27, as there is increasing evidence that test samples above this level are significantly less likely to be infectious (and have a much higher false positive risk). Indeed, some data published by the Oxford Group based on the UK’s COVID-19 Infection Survey illustrated that the vast majority of ‘positive’ PCR tests have a Ct value of >27 (Pritchard et al. Impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 cases in the community: a population-based study using the UK’s COVID-19 Infection Survey). So most of the positive tests contain low levels of virus (if any) and the risk of transmission is small.

But even taking Lord Bethell’s Ct cut-off, his comments on test specificity are particularly revealing. He acknowledges that, “Like any diagnostic test, there is a possibility of a false negative or false positive result”, but goes on to say, “but this is very small”. He states that: “Independent, confirmatory testing of positive samples indicates a test specificity that exceeds 99.3%, meaning the false positive rate is less than 1%.”

My HART colleague Dr Claire Craig did some sums on this. At a false positive rate of 0.7%, there would have been 8,700 false positives and 6,200 true positives for the week beginning April 12th on PCR. In other words, 58% of the positives would have been false. If we include the Lateral Flow Tests, then 70% of the cases would have been false positive that week.

My real question is, why are the ‘case’ figures not revised downwards accordingly, or at least the impact of false positives explained at the briefings?

c. “With”, not “from”. On the third point, Lord Bethell made some valid points, though their interpretation was a little off kilter.  My concern related to the definition of the figures used to define Covid-associated deaths in official figures. In my mind there were three ways these could be derived; (i) those where the cause of death was primarily COVID-19 (“from” Covid), (ii) those where the person had a SARS-CoV-2, or even COVID-19, but where this was not the cause of death (“with” Covid), and (iii) those who had a false positive test for SARS-CoV-2 (i.e., did not actually have the virus or COVID-19 when they died).

My view was that these latter two would over-estimate the figures for Covid-associated deaths and should be excluded (though I acknowledge that separating the first two from each other can sometimes be difficult in clinical practice). Lord Bethell rightly pointed out three other possible scenarios that could theoretically cause an under-estimate of the figures. Firstly, those who “had COVID-19 but had not been tested”, secondly, those who had “tested positive only via a non-NHS or PHE laboratory” so their positive result was not recorded on their death certificate, and thirdly, those who “had tested negative and subsequently caught the virus and died”. He also acknowledged that it is possible that my options (ii) and (iii) above are plausible scenarios: “It is true that people who have tested positive for COVID 19 could, in a few cases, have died from something else.” (His phrasing is interesting here – I wonder if he realises that PCR is not a test for the disease, COVID-19, but for the virus, SARS-CoV-2?) It is saddening that he feels the need to qualify the option that overestimates death with the phrase “in a few cases”, but not his three scenarios that might lead to under-counting, despite the likelihood that these have much less impact on the figures.

Have we moved on since October?
My feeling is that we have moved on in some areas. Now we have the vast majority of susceptible individuals vaccinated (one of the few success stories), a huge number of people who are resistant or immune, herd immunity, and a whole range of effective treatments (and that’s excluding the two magic pills we are promised by autumn). This should mean that we are completely back to normal – no masks, no distancing, no sanitisers – and focusing on how we can help those in other countries to get to the same place, and recovering from the damage caused by the mitigation measures.

But sadly we still don’t get anything high profile (e.g. in Government briefings) on my areas of concern. Nothing on the evidence underpinning the Government’s decisions, nothing on non-Covid harms, nothing on the impact of false positives on “cases” and Covid-associated deaths. And still, millions of people in the UK suffer needlessly. An apology would be nice.

In the first paragraph of his response, Lord Bethell states that “we are committed to open sharing of the scientific advice that guides our response to COVID-19 where possible”. I am yet to be convinced.

Dr Anthony Fryer is Professor of Clinical Biochemistry at the Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine at Keele University and member of HART and is writing in a personal capacity.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

“The UK Currently Operates a System of Informed Consent for Vaccinations.” Currently, Minister?

By Will Jones • Lockdown Sceptics • April 27,2021

Dr Helen Westwood, a GP whose previous letters and comments have appeared on Lockdown Sceptics, wrote to her MP Sir Graham Brady in March with some concerns about the vaccines and the potential for coercion. She has now received a reply from Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi that is far from reassuring.

Here’s what she wrote.

Dear Sir Graham,

Firstly I wish to thank you again for your ongoing hard work in arguing for a more proportionate response to dealing with COVID-19.  The concerns I wish to raise with you today relate to the vaccination program and the proposition of vaccination certificates.

As you know I am a GP. I am horrified by the talk of ‘No Jab, No Job’ policies and vaccination certificates.

The GMC are very clear that “all patients have the right to be involved in decisions about their treatment and care” and that “doctors must be satisfied that they have a patient’s consent… before providing treatment or care”. They also state “doctors must… share relevant information about the benefits and harms of proposed options and reasonable alternatives, including the option to take no action”.

Following interim analysis of the ongoing clinical trials, emergency use authorisation has been granted by the MHRA for both the Pfizer BioNTech and the AstraZeneca vaccines. They are as yet unlicensed. The clinical trials are due to continue until 2023. I find it alarming that much attention is paid to the headline figures of relative risk reduction (RRR) with no mention of the absolute risk reduction (ARR). The RRR of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is 95.1% (CI 90.0%-97.6%, p=0.016). Dig a little deeper into the data and you learn that the ARR is only 0.7% (CI 0.59%-0.83%, p<0.001) and the number needed to vaccinate in order to prevent one infection is 142 (CI 122-170).

The WHO published a bulletin written by John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, in October 2020. He quotes an infection fatality rate (IFR) for Covid of 0.00-0.57% and in those under the age of 70 it stands at 0.05%.

Given the minimal risk healthy people under the age of 70 face, and the very small absolute risk reductions noted in the clinical trials, I have to ask why are we so desperate to vaccinate the whole population? For healthy, working age people Covid poses less of a risk than seasonal flu. It has never been proposed that we vaccinate the entire adult population against flu; we target the populations most at risk.

The speed at which these vaccines have been developed is truly remarkable. However, I have grave concerns that they are being rolled out on such a scale and at such pace. I am not sure whether you are familiar with the work of Joel Smalley MBA (a member of HART) but he has done some very interesting analysis of mortality data. Whilst correlation (between vaccination administration and rises in mortality) absolutely does not mean causation, the striking patterns he has highlighted suggest to me that now is the time to pause and reflect on the data we have so far. We know from the clinical trials that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine causes a drop in lymphocytes around seven days post administration; theoretically at least this could pose a risk of intercurrent infection, especially in frail patients.

Both vaccines in current use in England employ novel technology, namely mRNA (Pfizer BioNTech) and Adenovirus vector (AZ). Human challenge studies have only recently begun. We do not currently know anything about the medium and long term safety of these vaccines. There are concerns about Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) reactions whereby vaccinated individuals may develop more severe disease upon exposure to the wild virus. Theoretical concerns have also been raised about potential cross reactivity with Syncytin-1 which could have effects on placental development and therefore fertility. Until these areas have been studied we cannot advise patients fully. This has significant implications for the informed consent process.

There seems to be some enthusiasm for “vaccination passports” among the population, whether for domestic use or international travel. These have been compared to Yellow Fever certificates that are required for individuals travelling to certain destinations. In reality there is no comparison. The mortality rate for Yellow Fever is in the region of 30%, transmission of Yellow Fever is confined to a relatively small number of countries and there are long term safety data available regarding the licensed vaccine.

Uptake of the Covid vaccine has been notably lower amongst certain ethnic minorities. The reasons for this are as yet unclear, but any policy requiring proof of vaccination has the potential to lead to indirect discrimination.

Professor Chris Whitty has said that doctors and care workers have a “professional responsibility” to get vaccinated. Given that reduction of transmission is not an outcome that is being measured in the clinical trials that are still ongoing, I do not agree with him. Article 6 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights states: “Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.”

On November 4th 2020 Theresa May MP made a speech in the House of Commons. She was referring to the closure of places of worship when she said, “My concern is that the Government today making it illegal to conduct an act of public worship, for the best of intentions, sets a precedent that could be misused by a Government in future with the worst of intentions, and that has unintended consequences.” I fear the same could be said for the introduction of vaccination passports.

Personally I have declined this vaccine because of the concerns outlined above. I hope this decision does not mean I am unable to work, visit a restaurant or travel.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Helen Westwood

Here is Nadhim Zahawi’s response, passed on to Dr Westood by Sir Graham Brady.

This is how Dr Westwood replied this week.

Dear Sir Graham,

Thank you for sending me the letter you received from Nadhim Zahawi MP, Minister for Business and Industry & Minister for COVID Vaccine Deployment in response to the representations you made to him on my behalf. I have attached his letter and my original email.

I must say I find his responses entirely unsatisfactory. He has failed to address any of my concerns. I know he is an intelligent man, so I can only assume that he has been deliberately disingenuous rather than not understanding the questions posed.

I am already aware of the processes involved in the development and testing of new drugs. I understand that Phases 2 and 3 are usually run sequentially but, given the urgency of this situation, a pragmatic decision was taken to run them in parallel. For elderly patients at increased risk from COVID-19 infection I can understand this approach. However, when the program is being rolled out to younger, healthy individuals whose risk-benefit ratio is entirely different, an alternative approach is required. It is imperative that individuals are not exposed to a greater risk of harm undergoing a medical intervention than the risk of not doing anything. Primum non nocere. Since my original email, significant concerns have been raised in a number of European countries about the risk of rare cerebral venous sinus thromboses associated with thrombocytopenia. Young, fit, healthy people who were at negligible risk of COVID-19 have tragically died.

Mr Zahawi has elected not to make any comment on the concerns I raised regarding rises in mortality in the immediate post-vaccination period. This is a pattern that has been repeated in multiple locations, currently most notably in India. I would like to know what research is being done by the UK Government to investigate this.

I note that Mr Zahawi referred to the fact that the UK “currently operates a system of informed consent for vaccinations”. I have two concerns regarding this statement. Firstly, how is the consent fully informed if we do not know the answers to the questions I have raised? I know from first hand experience that individuals attending for Covid vaccinations are not routinely being informed that the clinical trials are ongoing until 2023. Nor is the potential issue of antibody dependent enhancement being discussed. The advice for vaccinating pregnant women changes virtually day by day. Secondly, why does he need to use the word “currently”? Are there plans for mandatory vaccination in future? Already there are discussions about making vaccination compulsory for care home workers. In September 2019 the Guardian reported that Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock was seriously considering making vaccinations compulsory for state school pupils. I defy anyone not to find this proposal chilling.

With regard to black, Asian and minority ethnic populations, again Mr Zahawi seems to have entirely missed my point. I was not arguing for the prioritisation of these groups; I was pointing out that uptake in these groups has been lower and therefore any certification system has the potential to lead to indirect discrimination.

I agree with Mr Zahawi that an effective vaccine is an excellent way to protect those that need protection, but it also needs to be safe. Given his failure to address the concerns I raised I can only assume he does not have answers to my questions.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Helen Westwood

April 27, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment