Covid-19 « Aletho News

Covid Narratives ‘By the Numbers’

These numbers are estimates, but I think they make my point.

By Bill Rice, Jr. | February 13, 2023

As far as I am concerned, here are the Covid numbers that matter most.

N = 40,000 – Estimated number of mainstream “journalists” in America.

N = 0 – Estimated number of these journalists who have published a major story questioning any of the authorized Covid narratives.*

Note: For the purposes of this article, I’m not counting journalists who work for, say, Fox News or The Epoch Times as “mainstream journalists.” If I did, the above number would not be 0 … but it would still be minuscule.

*At the end of this article, I list 29 elements of the “authorized Covid narrative.”

N = 100,000 – Estimated number of credentialed “scientists” in America. (Note: About 2,000 per state).

N = 95,000 – Estimated number of credentialed scientists in America who support all the Covid narratives.

N = 5,000 – Estimated number of contrarian scientists who do not support all the Covid narratives.

N = 0 – Number of scientists who support the Covid narrative who have been banned by social media.

N = 2,500 – Estimated number of contrarian scientists who do not support the narrative who have been banned by different social media platforms (50 percent).

N = 1.074 million – Estimated number of active physicians in the U.S.

N = 5,000 – Estimated number of active physicians who have publicly disagreed with key parts of the authorized Covid narrative. (About 100 physicians in each state).

N = 99.995 percent – Approximate percentage of active U.S. physicians who have been unwilling to speak out against any of the authorized Covid narratives. (Approximately 0.046 percent have been willing to speak out publicly against the authorized narrative).

N = 600 – Approximate number of U.S. Senators and Congressmen who have served in Congress since the official pandemic began.

N = 5 – Approximate number of members of Congress who have publicly and consistently challenged key aspects of the authorized Covid narrative. (0.083 percent of Congress – less than 1 percent).

N = 0 – Number of Covid tribunals or Commissions authorized by U.S. government to date.

N = 60 percent – Approximate number of federal politicians who would have to support such tribunals to create them.

N = 500 – Approximate number of Substack authors who routinely challenge elements of the authorized Covid narrative.

N = 5 million – Approximate number of regular readers of “Covid contrarian” Substack sites.

N = 300 – Approximate number of “mainstream” press organizations in America (about 250 large newspapers and about 50 national sites).

N = 250 million – Approximate number of Americans who get Covid stories from “mainstream” news sources.

N = 2,040 – Estimated number of coroner or medical examiner officials/offices in the U.S. in 2018.

N = 0 – Estimated number of coroners or public medical examiners who have spoken out publicly about vaccine injuries or deaths.

N = 500 – Number of Fortune 500 companies.

N = 0 – Number of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies who publicly challenged elements of the authorized Covid narrative.

Expressed differently …

About 0-in-40,000 mainstream journalists and editors (not counting a few at Fox News or The Epoch Times) are willing to speak out against the official Covid narrative.

About 0-in-2,040 medical examiners/coroners are willing to speak out about possible vaccine deaths and injuries.

About 0-in-500 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies criticized elements of the official Covid narratives.

About 1-in-200 physicians have been willing to challenge the authorized Covid narratives.

About 1-in-120 elected members of Congress have been willing to challenge at least some elements of the authorized Covid narrative.

As a percentage …

Zero percent of “mainstream” journalists have challenged parts of the official Covid narrative.

Zero percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies challenged parts of the official Covid narrative.

Zero percent of coroners and medical examiners have raised any questions about an increase in all-cause deaths.

Fewer than 1 percent of the members of Congress have spoken out in a conspicuous and consistent manner.

Zero percent of Democratic politicians at the state or national level have spoken out against parts of the Covid narrative.

On the other hand …

Maybe 75 percent of “alternative media” or Substack journalists who write about Covid have challenged aspects of the authorized Covid narrative.

The Question …

Given the above estimates, what’s the probability something substantial or meaningful will be done to expose elements of the Covid narrative as false or even as “crimes against humanity?”

I would say the probability of this happening is very close to zero percent.

I would also argue that maybe 80 percent of Americans don’t care or want any of the possible Covid lies or frauds exposed as such.

However, I would argue that maybe 20 percent of Americans do care passionately about seeing “the truth” exposed, and would like to see the officials who are most guilty/responsible exposed and punished.

What all of the above tells me is …

What this thought exercise (or “by-the-numbers” presentation) shows is that Congress, elected officials, the mainstream press, corporate leaders and almost all physicians and scientists do not care at all about the views of approximately one-fifth of the country.

This also tells me that the only things that really matters are the views of the mainstream press and the politicians. Really, the only organizations that could hold substantive hearings or tribunals that would “have teeth” and make a difference (change narratives) are official elected office holders.

I’ve always assumed politicians DO or will respond to pressure from voters or the public … but the only pressure or media they pay attention to is the “mainstream” media reports … so the mainstream media does matter.

So far at least, the reporting and commentary of “the alternative” media – which is actually sane and still capable of critical thinking and is still willing to be skeptical of pronouncements of officials and experts … and which is growing in size – doesn’t matter.

Basically, a significant population cohort (20 percent, per my estimate) is being ignored by officials and the mainstream press, but is still fighting as hard as they can to bring attention to issues that the people and organizations “that matter” still don’t want to discuss or investigate.

In short, the dichotomy of views on “what’s important” – and what should change or be exposed regarding Covid topics – is nothing short of stunning.

“Our” side is definitely in the minority, but 20 percent of people is still a significant percentage of the population.

In a nutshell, the mainstream press, politicians, bureaucrats, corporate leaders, physicians, scientists, coroners, etc. hold views that are 180-degrees opposite the views of 20 percent of the country.

Re-stated: All the important people and organizations think nothing like myself and probably 99 percent of my readers … or the millions of readers who now visit Substack or “alternative media” sites every day.

All I can say is that all of this is… bizarre.

***

Defining the ‘Authorized Covid Narrative’ …

Above, I make many references to organizations or groups that supported all or most elements of the “authorized Covid narrative.” So what are the parts of the “authorized Covid narratives?”

Here’s a quick effort to define these elements. Most of these statements are still considered to be “settled science.” For what it’s worth, I would argue that every one of these ‘authorized” narratives is/was dead wrong.

N = 29 – Elements of the “authorized Covid narrative” (Partial list).

N = 0 – Groups or individuals cited above who challenged or disputed any of the following statements.

The Covid vaccines are “safe” – i.e. they don’t produce adverse reactions and/or have never led to any deaths. Anyone who died after a vaccine didn’t die from the vaccine.

The Covid vaccines are “effective” – they prevent infection and transmission.

Vaccines are superior to natural immunity at preventing infection and spread.

Alternative treatments like ivermectin or HCQ do not work and should not be allowed or prescribed by doctors. (C19 is not a “treatable” illness via existing medications).

Asymptomatic spread is a major cause of transmission. (People who don’t have symptoms are a major or important avenue of virus spread).

The virus can be spread from physical surfaces.

The virus can be easily spread outdoors.

Masks prevent the spread of the virus and prevent people from getting infected … and should thus be mandated.

C19 poses a serious mortality risk to everyone, including children and healthy people under the age of 60.

Testing of non-symptomatic people is an excellent way to prevent infections and spread and should either be mandatory or strongly encouraged by employers and officials.

Remdesivir saves lives and should be given to many people.

More than one million Americans have died “from” Covid.

There has NOT been an increase in “excess” mortality in America in the last two years. And if there has been, the cause of these deaths must be Covid – even after widespread administration of Covid vaccines, which are 95 percent effective at preventing severe cases and deaths.

There has been no increase in deaths of people 18 to 64.

There has been no increase in deaths from young people playing sports.

Lockdowns prevented cases and thus serious infections and deaths. Absent lockdowns, millions more people in the world would have died from Covid.

Closing schools saved countless lives. Ceasing routine medical procedures and diagnostic surgeries saved many lives. Cancelling church services saved many lives. Not allowing family members to visit their loved ones in the hospital or nursing home saved countless lives.

Closing non-essential businesses saved the economy by preventing countless Covid cases and deaths.

Lockdowns and business closings did not increase suicides, suicide attempts, drug overdoses, depression, alcohol abuse or domestic abuse …. or, if they did, dying from suicide or drug overdose is better than dying from Covid.

Trillions of dollars in Covid expenditures did not accelerate or cause inflation.

Censorship of “disinformation” has saved countless lives.

Cancelling sporting events, concerts, plays, family reunions and keeping people from traveling to see family saved countless lives.

The novel coronavirus did not begin to spread around the world until “latter January” 2020. There were zero cases of Covid in communities in America before January 2020.

Everyone who had Covid symptoms before mid-January 2020 had the flu or some other virus, but not Covid, because Covid was not spreading until February 2020.

Wide-spread use of ventilators were very important to saving lives. Officials saved countless lives by getting more ventilators in hospitals and doctors saved countless lives by making sure they put patients on ventilators.

Boosters save lives.

People who have been vaccinated or boosted get Covid far less often than people who do not.

If you have been vaccinated or boosted, your case of Covid will be less severe than people who have never received a shot.

February 13, 2023 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States | Leave a comment

The Silencing of the Inconvenient Truth About Face Masks

BY DR GARY SIDLEY | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 13, 2023

How might strong advocates of community masking – who happen to occupy positions within the hierarchy that provide opportunities to influence research activity – go about achieving their aims? I suggest it would include some combination of discouraging the undertaking of robust research about mask effectiveness and potential harms, impeding and delaying the publication of unfavourable findings, and undermining the value of rigorous empirical science. A look at the history of the Cochrane mask reviews seems to offer an illuminating case study of these insidious forces in action.

Cochrane reviews are widely recognised to provide the most authoritative and comprehensive evaluation of the scientific evidence regarding specific healthcare interventions, and their raison d’être is to inform the decision-making process. On January 30th 2023, the latest version of the Cochrane review of the effectiveness of physical interventions (including masks) in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses was published. In keeping with their earlier reviews, the overarching conclusion of the authors confirmed what we already knew: masks achieve no appreciable reduction in viral transmission. Arguably of more interest are the indications that powerful forces within the academic world were at work to obstruct the dissemination of this inconvenient truth.

In regard to the potential benefits of mask-wearing, the findings of the review were emphatic: after considering 12 research trials (ten in the community and two among hospital workers) the main takeaway message was that face coverings made “little or no difference to influenza-like or COVID-19-like illness transmission”. When only studies where respiratory infections had been confirmed in a laboratory were included in the analysis, the conclusion was even more stark: “Wearing masks had no effect on… influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes”. Furthermore, the type of mask used – the surgical variety or the higher-quality N95/P2 respirators – made no difference to the outcome.

It is plausible to assume that the conclusions of the Cochrane scholars did not make easy reading for the pro-mask establishment. The Covid era has been characterised by extraordinarily high levels of censorship of views that did not tally with the dominant public health narrative, and this silencing of alternative perspectives has often been evident within the academic and research spheres. A close inspection of the two most recent updates to the Cochrane review – their development and content – suggests that these malign forces of suppression may have been targeting this initiative in an effort to dilute the impact of its masks-are-ineffectual message. There are five observations consistent with this premise.

1. Scarcity of robust studies

It is intriguing that, three years after the start of the Covid event, there is a dearth of prospective randomised controlled trials (RCTs) – the type that provide the most robust kind of scientific evidence – to evaluate the efficacy of community masking as a means of reducing viral transmission. In the words of the Cochrane review authors, there was a “relative paucity” of such studies “given the importance of the question”. In a politicised environment, where Covid policy was often determined without recourse to empirical evidence, perhaps those in power did not want to fund research that would provide a definitive answer to the question of whether masks offered an effective viral barrier, particularly in light of the earlier discouraging results?

2. Unpublished research

In November 2020, the Danish mask study – the first RCT of mask efficacy specific to the SARS-CoV-2 virus – found that masks achieved no significant benefit for the wearer. Despite this ground-breaking conclusion, the research was initially rejected by at least three prestigious medical journals. This publication bias is also evident in the current Cochrane review where the authors, when discussing the range of RCTs included in the analysis, state that: “We identified four ongoing studies, of which one is finalised, but unreported, evaluating masks concurrent with the COVID‐19 pandemic” (my emphasis). Why would a finalised RCT, on such a pressing issue as mask effectiveness, not be published? The most likely answer, in this censorial environment, is that it came to the ‘wrong’ conclusion.

3. A disregard of the harms of masking

Very few of the studies included in the Cochrane review addressed the potential harms of wearing masks; harms were “rarely measured and poorly reported”. When one considers the wide range of credible negative consequences (physical, social and psychological) associated with mass masking in the community, this is a glaring omission. Once again, the most plausible reason for this inattention to harms in mask research in the last three years is political pressure – Government policy makers urgently sought evidence to support their premature decisions to impose mask mandates, to demonstrate their effectiveness as a viral barrier, and were disinclined to investigate the potential harms.

4. Publication delays

A blatant indication of top-down censorial influence on the ‘masks don’t work’ message is the way that publication of one of the Cochrane review updates was delayed. The previous 2020 version, incorporating updates up until January 2020, had passed peer review and was finalised by April of the same year. Extraordinarily, its publication was delayed until November 2020 due to “unexplained editorial decisions“. According to lead author, Dr. Tom Jefferson, this extra scrutiny was “a very unexpected event in Cochrane, especially during a period in which the topic of the review and the setting of policy was of global importance”.

It is unlikely to be coincidence that this window of delay corresponds to the period when the U.K. and other Governments, under intense pressure from pro-mask groups, U-turned and imposed mask mandates on their populations. In the midst of this policy flip-flop, it would have caused considerable political embarrassment to our public health leaders should the Cochrane group – the source of the most authoritative and comprehensive scientific evidence – have broadcast its conclusion that masks are ineffective as a viral barrier. In the words of Dr. Jefferson, by the time their report was published in November 2020, “the advisers had changed their minds about the evidence, and the policies had been set”.

The latest Cochrane review update includes studies up to October 2022. Its publication three months later suggest that this edition was not delayed, presumably because, at a time when most of society is unmasked, its conclusions are likely to evoke less discomfort for policy makers.

5. Editorial interference

An explicit example of the top-down interference with the Cochrane review process (referred to above) is an editorial that accompanied the 2020 edition. Including statements such as, “Waiting for strong evidence is a recipe for paralysis”, the content of this commentary appears totally at odds with the ethos of the Cochrane initiative. Indeed, this decisions-before-evidence assertion mirrors the proclamations of pro-mask zealot Professor Trish Greenhalgh, who has previously stated that the rigorous search for empirical evidence is the “enemy of good policy“.

In the words of Dr. Jefferson, the 2020 Cochrane editorial “seemed to undermine our work” and had the effect of “completely subverting the precautionary principle”. The lead author of the editorial was Dr. Soares-Weiser (Cochrane’s Chief Editor) who is “responsible for ensuring that the Cochrane Library meets its strategic goals of supporting health care decision-making by consistently publishing timely, high-priority, high-quality reviews”. Clearly, the 2020 Cochrane mask review failed her ‘timely’ criterion and her trivialisation of the value of empirical evidence is at odds with the ‘high-quality reviews’ aspiration.

Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS consultant clinical psychologist and a co-founder of the Smile Free campaign that opposes mask mandates.

February 13, 2023 Posted by aletho | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, Human rights | Leave a comment

Inside an Australian Quarantine Camp

By Bobbie Anne Flower Cox | Brownstone Institute | February 12, 2023

After I won my landmark “quarantine camp” lawsuit against Governor Hochul and her Department of Health a few months ago, people from around the globe started reaching out to me. Some wanted to simply send congratulations on a job well done, and thank me for giving them hope that this tyranny that somehow magically took hold contemporanously in countries around the world, could be defeated.

But many others wanted more than that. They wanted actual help. They wanted to know how they could fight back against the intense tyranny in their countries. So, I started doing interviews and presentations to groups based in the UK, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. I shared with them my legal theory behind my case, the separation of powers argument, and all about my courageous plaintiffs (Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Assemblyman [now Congressman] Mike Lawler, and a citizens’ group called Uniting NYS).

I told them about the other wonderful group of NYS Legislators that supported us with an Amicus Brief (Assemblymen Andy Goodell, Will Barclay and Joseph Giglio), and the battles that we fought and won along the way, as the Attorney General tried tactic after tactic to stall, derail and destroy our case. I shared all that I could with them in the hopes that it would assist them in their countries, as they pushed back against their government abuses.

At first I was taken aback by the response from those who reached out to me from abroad. It was hard for me to imagine that all those foreigners were watching our quarantine case so intently. Many told me they’d heard about it through “alternative media” sources, and had been quietly cheering me on and praying for a win. This made me realize that the utter helplessness brought on by the flagrant despotism of so many nations’ governments was eerily simultaneous – and equally frightening to all citizenry, no matter which country one called home.

Our quarantine camp lawsuit win against New York’s governor was almost akin to the proverbial shot heard around the world. Almost. Not quite. One big difference is that my lawsuit was (and still is today) heavily censored. Mainstream media barely covered it when we won, except for an article here and there in the New York Post and my interview on OAN Network. Epoch Times TV did a deep-dive interview with me on their wildly popular show, American Thought Leaders, but still yet, the Epoch Times is not legacy, mainstream media that continuously pours over the airwaves day in and day out.

Local and alternative media were covering it, but not mainstream media. I previously wrote an article about the censorship of my quarantine case which you can read here.

With my exposure to citizens from countries far and away, I was hearing tales of horrific happenings. Things that I simply could not believe governments would do their people, especially in countries that were supposedly “free”. And yet, here they were, telling me stories, sending me news articles or photos or actual video footage of atrocities I could not wrap my head around.

Some of the images are forever burned into my memory, no matter how hard I try to erase them. And at the end of each story that someone recanted, or each video that I watched, I thought to myself, “Thank God we won our quarantine camp lawsuit here in New York.”

I realized that we had not only stopped this complete totalitarianism from taking place in my home state, but we had likely stopped it from spreading across the nation to the point where quarantine camps would become the “new norm” as a way to (supposedly) stop the spread of a disease – or to punish someone the government didn’t like. (Remember, the languange in the reg we got struck down said the government did NOT have to prove you actually had a disease)! For more details on the reg and our lawsuit, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit

Through my connection with Brownstone Institute, I was introduced to a wonderful and brave Australian who had spent two weeks in a quarantine camp in northern Australia. Let’s refer to her as “Jane”. I share with you now her first hand account that she shared with me of what happened and what it was like, replete with photographs from inside the camp.

At the time Jane was in the camp, Dan Andrews was (and still is) the Premier in Australia. The country had very strict COVID19 policies, which Jane points out, were constantly changing. Literally, the government would change a policy whilst people were flying mid-air, and upon landing at their destination, they’d be arrested because they now suddenly were in violation of a new COVID policy just issued!

The rule at the time was that no Australian was allowed to leave their state, unless you had a “legitimate reason” to do so, and in order to actually leave, you had to first quarantine for 2 weeks. Not in your home. No, don’t be silly! You had to quarantine in a facility that was run by the government. Some people got to choose which facility, others did not. There was a large camp in the Northern Territory near Darwin, and then there were many quarantine hotels scattered throughout the country.

Reportedly, the quarantine hotels were a total nightmare where you were shut into a room for 2 weeks, no exiting your room, no going outdoors allowed, and some rooms didn’t even have windows! But living in Melbourne, a large city in southest Australia, was just as bad. The government would only let you out of your home for ONE HOUR/day, with a mask on, and you couldn’t stray more than 5 kilometers from your house. You not only couldn’t leave the city, you couldn’t leave the country!

Forget having anyone visit – no guests were allowed in your home. The government set up a hotline so that Australians could call and report any of their neighbors who were disobeying the COVID mandates. The police would often check on the citizens to see if they were complying. They’d phone you, and if you didn’t respond within 15 minutes, they’d come knock on your door! The camp where Jane was quarantined seemed almost like a holiday, comparatively speaking. Well, not really.

So how it worked was that, if you had family or friends or business in another state, you had to first go to a government facility to quarantine for 2 weeks. Again, only if you had what the government deemed to be a legitimate reason. Jane needed to leave Melbourne, so she packed up her bags, booked an absurdly expensive flight to the Northern Territory, and off she went to the quarantine camp in Darwin for 2 weeks. Did she go “voluntarily”, of her own free will? That’s a very fine line of semantics there folks. Yes, she herself booked her flight and packed her bags to go, but it was only because the government told her that was the only way she could leave Melbourne. I don’t consider that free will. I hope you share my view.

The quarantine camp:

The camp had rows of trailer-like buildings that housed the inmates – I mean the there-of-their-own-free-will Australians. Jane was put into a unit that had a bedroom and a bathroom. Each unit had a small front stoop, sort of like a porch (see photo below). You were allowed to sit outside and talk to a neighbor, through a face mask of course, if you could stand the sweltering heat. Police were constantly patroling the camp, walking past the trailers, ensuring everyone was complying with the “social distancing” requirements and the forced masking, etc.

You weren’t allowed to do anything other than sit on your front stoop, or walk “laps” through the camp… as long as you stayed the proper distance from others, wore your mask, and didn’t try to do anything else. There was a swimming pool, but you were only allowed a dip in the pool twice during your 2 week stint there, and that was only if you were going to do some laps… no games allowed!

The food was terrible. No alcohol allowed. Cell phones and internet were allowed, at least when Jane was there. She said one woman tried to escape, but she was caught and then put into solitary confinement.

Now, sit down for this next part. The government restricted you from leaving your town, your state, your country, forced you into quarantine hotels or a camp if you were able to convince them that you had a real reason to cross a state border, treated you like a criminal, and get this – YOU had to pay for it!! And it was not cheap. The price tag was $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family at the camp. The “hotels” apparently were more costly at $3,000 for the 2 weeks.

There were more details that Jane shared with me, but I cannot cover all here. At this point, I’m going to close out this story with a part of my conversation with Jane that really struck me. She could tell that I was flabbergasted by the things she was telling me. She could hear it in my voice, but also in the long pauses in between my questions after she would answer the litany of inquiries I was throwing at her.

My underlying astonishment was obvious… “How could your government do these things to its people?!”

Her response was immediate and direct, “We don’t have your Second Amendment. If we had, our government never would have treated us this way.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Lawsuit update:

As I mentioned above, we defeated New York’s quarantine camp regulation when we won our lawsuit last July against Governor Hochul and her DOH. The Attorney General filed a notice of appeal, and had 6 months to appeal the win. Elections were November 8th. Not surprisingly, no appeal was filed, until…

The first week of January, just days before their 6 month deadline was up, the Attorney General asked for an additional 2 months to appeal our victory over quarantine camps! Unfortunately, the Court granted the request, despite our objection.

For more information about the case, the timeline, or if you’d like to support our lawsuit against the Governor and her quarantine camp regulation, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit

Together, we win this!

Bobbie Anne is an attorney with 25 years experience in the private sector, who continues to practice law but also lectures in her field of expertise – government over-reach and improper regulation and assessments.

February 12, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Australia, Covid-19, Human rights, New York, United States | Leave a comment

Covid and the pandemic of moral injury

By Valerie Nelson | TCW Defending Freedom | February 12, 2023

The term ‘moral injury’ is a new one for me, as it probably is for most. It’s more commonly applied in a military context and only recently in health and social care, since 2020 to be precise. Indeed, the literature gently, knowingly or unknowingly, nudges us into believing that moral injury, reframed as occupational moral injury, isn’t a new concept but an inevitable consequence of working in an ethically challenging health and social care system.

Moral injury is understood as the damage done to an individual’s conscience or moral compass when they perpetrate, witness or fail to prevent acts that transgress their own moral beliefs, values or code of ethics. The term is thought to have originated after the Vietnam war when returning veterans and their carers struggled to make sense of high levels of anguish, anger and alienation that couldn’t be explained in terms of a mental health diagnosis such a post-traumatic stress disorder. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to understand why veterans were morally injured but the Moral Injury Project at Syracuse University in New York cites examples such as using deadly force in combat and inadvertently causing harm or death to civilians and colleagues, giving orders which result in the injury or death of colleagues, failing to provide medical aid to civilians or colleagues and failing to report incidents such as sexual assaults.

When lockdowns were implemented in 2020, the health and social care workforce faced insurmountable and intolerable challenges when it was deemed unsafe in many situations to have close contact with fellow human beings who were in need of assistance. In essence, a workforce who function on the need for human contact could endanger life by simply doing their job. Subsequently, care and support was withdrawn or compromised through almost non-existent face-to-face interactions or time limited, with minimal physical contact if they took place at all.

Moral injury therefore makes sense in the context of health and social care. Staff were forced to deny medical and compassionate care to the injured and dying, leave adults and children in risky situations which in some cases led to death and injury, isolate frail older people from the life-giving company of family and friends and ignore or dismiss situations that previously justified urgent attention; all done while hiding smiles and humanity behind useless and potentially dangerous masks.

Moral injury during the pandemic can surely be applied across most professions and indeed the population: the police officer investigating a peaceful family gathering, the funeral director separating distressed relatives, the religious leader closing the door of a place of worship or the teacher who forced children to wear masks for hours on end. There were also the children who isolated their parents and parents who isolated their children, neighbours and community groups who withdrew essential help and support, and friends and family who got angry or fell out with those they disagreed with. Emotions and tensions ran high, leading me to think that many of us are morally injured to some degree or another. Is it any wonder that so many are struggling with poor mental health?

The growing number of articles drawing attention to moral injury, the most significant in the BMJ in July 2020 and a reference point for further articles, all focus on reassuring staff that a conflict of morals and the potential for injury is a normal consequence of doing what was necessary to prevent illness and death from Covid-19. At no point are the logic and morality of the rules called into question, which is surprising because the Moral Injury Project makes reference to two other potential causes of moral injury that are not referred to in recent literature:

‘Following orders that were illegal, immoral, and/or against the Rules of Engagement or Geneva Convention’;

‘A change in belief about the necessity or justification for war, during or after one’s service’.

As the realisation slowly dawns on the world that the inhumane actions which staff were forced to take were in fact unnecessary and based on flawed concepts with no robust evidence base, are we facing a rising tide of the morally injured? All measures were applied in the absence of risk/benefit analysis, despite common knowledge that blanket approaches to managing risk are likely to cause more damage than the presenting problem. Yet the whole population was terrified into believing we were all at equal risk of severe illness or death from a lethal virus, to which we had no natural immunity and was quietly spread from those with no symptoms, especially children. Lockdowns, school closures, testing, mask wearing, social distancing, mass vaccination programmes and subsequent passports were said to be necessary but in reality were unjustified and immoral. Dismissing the question of the necessity and morality of these measures and normalising moral injury as a natural consequence of a warlike situation places accountability solely on those who enforced the polices and vindicates those who created them.

A morally injured workforce is evidence that the response to Covid-19 was morally wrong. None of us know how we would have behaved in the shoes of the workers who enforced immoral policies that contravened their conscience and moral compass. However, we can be sure of one thing: many of the injured will need support to come to terms with the realisation they have inadvertently played a part in injuring some of the very people they intended to protect.

February 12, 2023 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights | Leave a comment

NEW STUDY SHOWS MASKS DON’T WORK AGAINST ILLNESS, BUT WHAT DOES?

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | February 9, 2023

A definitive study from the Cochrane Collaboration has solidified the uselessness of masking to prevent COVID-19 and other illnesses. However, more studies now show both vitamin D and exercise as cheap, empowering and extremely effective strategies against COVID

February 11, 2023 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | Covid-19 | Leave a comment

Robbed? It wasn’t Covid that issued the shutdown edicts.

By James Bovard | Brownstone Institute | February 9, 2023

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Biden rewrote the history of the pandemic. Biden lamented, “Covid had shut down our businesses. Schools were closed. We were robbed of so much.” But it wasn’t Covid that issued the shutdown edicts.

We were robbed by politicians like Biden who disrupted lives in a futile effort to thwart a virus that infected hundreds of millions of Americans anyhow. There was never solid evidence to justify shutting businesses or schools but that did not deter politicians from promising to save humanity by destroying freedom.

After Pfizer and Moderna, Biden was perhaps the biggest Covid profiteer in America. In 2020, Biden ran one of the most fear-based presidential campaigns in modern history. Biden talked as if every American family had lost a member or two from this pestilence. He routinely exaggerated Covid death tolls by a hundred- or a thousand-fold, publicly asserting that millions of Americans had been killed by Covid-19. Biden was helped mightily by fear-mongering media coverage.

A Brookings Institute analysis noted, “Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to overestimate [Covid] harm. Forty-one percent of Democrats… answered that half or more of those infected by COVID-19 need to be hospitalized.” At that time, the rate of hospitalization was between 1 percent and 5 percent – so those Democratic voters overestimated the risk of hospitalization by up to 20-fold.

In the final debate between the presidential candidates in October 2020, Biden blamed Trump for every Covid fatality: “220,000 Americans dead…. Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States.” Biden promised, “I will take care of this. I will end this. I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country.” In a speech on the day before Election Day, he declared, “We’re going to beat this virus. We’re going to get it under control, I promise you.” Biden won the presidency as a result of only 43,000 votes in three swing states. The disruption and damage caused by lockdowns were invoked as proof of Trump’s negligence, rather than seen as evidence of an unprecedented political panic-mongering and repression.

After taking office, Biden issued a flurry of edicts, including mandating masks for anyone on federal property. In September 2021, he mandated that more than 100 million be injected with Covid vaccines, despite proliferating evidence that the vaccines were failing to prevent transmission or infections. In an October 2021 CNN Town Hall, Biden vilified vaccine skeptics as murderers who only wanted “the freedom to kill you” with Covid.

On Tuesday night, Biden announced, “Covid no longer controls our lives.” But Biden extended the official Covid emergency at least until May 11, entitling him to sweeping additional power. Biden still claims that Covid miraculously entitles him to “forgive” half a trillion dollars in federal student debt. And the Biden administration is fighting to perpetuate vaccine mandates on foreign visitors to America and to preserve the president’s prerogative to impose mask mandates.

The carnage from Covid crackdowns is still being tabulated. A 2022 Johns Hopkins University analysis of 24 studies on the impact of lockdowns in the United States and Europe found “no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality.” The pointless shutdowns did far more damage than Biden will ever admit:

A National Bureau of Economic Research analysis estimated that young Americans suffered “171,000 excess non-Covid deaths during 2020 and 2021… a historic, yet largely unacknowledged, health emergency.” Many of those fatalities were “collateral damage” from shutdowns and other Covid policies.
Millions of jobs were lost thanks to lockdowns, a major reason why life expectancy in the United States had its sharpest plunge since World War Two.
Forced isolation was a Grim Reaper. Deaths from drug overdoses set an all-time record of 108,000 in 2021 and alcohol-related deaths jumped 25% in the first year of the pandemic.
The Biden administration suppressed free speech on Twitter and other social media based on a single theme: “Be very afraid of Covid and do exactly what we say to stay safe,” as journalist David Zweig summarized in the TwitterFiles. Official fear-mongering helped boost the percentage of Americans reporting struggling with depression or anxiety by more than 300 percent.

If Biden can shift blame for disastrous Covid policies, politicians will be more likely to pointlessly lock down the nation in the future. Americans deserve to see all the federal records and all the state government records to expose the recklessness and deceit that permeated Covid policies. America will not recover from the pandemic until all the COVID lies and abuses by officialdom have been exposed.

James Bovard, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is author and lecturer whose commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government. He is a USA Today columnist and is a frequent contributor to The Hill. He is the author of ten books.

February 9, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Former Twitter Execs Squirm As They’re Told They Could Be Arrested For Election Interference

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

By Steve Watson | Summit News | February 9, 2023

Former Twitter executives looked at times uncomfortable, but betrayed their staunch anti-free speech biases during a House Oversight Committee heading on Wednesday.

The hearing was called to investigate the role government played, specifically the FBI, with regards to censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop report by the New York Post.

Former Twitter Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, Former Deputy General Counsel James Baker, and Former Global Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth were grilled by Representatives, with Congressman Clay Higgins telling them they could be arrested for interfering with the 2020 presidential election.

“The bottom line is that the FBI had the Biden Crime Family laptop for a year. They knew it was leaking. They knew it would hurt the Biden family. So the FBI used its relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence from being revealed about Joe Biden one month before the 2020 election,” Higgins asserted.

“You, ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election! Knowingly and willingly!” he continued, adding “That’s the bad news! It’s gonna get worse! Because this is the investigation part! Later comes the arrest part, your attorneys are familiar with that.”

“I’d like to spend five hours with these ladies and gentlemen doing depositions surely yet to come,” the Congressman added.

Elsewhere during the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace blasted the former executives for also, as highlighted by the Elon Musk’s release of The Twitter Files, working to suppress information regarding COVID.

“I along with many Americans have long term effects from COVID. Not only was I a long-hauler, but I have effects from the vaccine,” Mae declared.

She continued, “It wasn’t the first shot but it was the second shot. I have now developed asthma that has never gone away since I had the second shot. I have tremors in my left hand. And I have the occasional heart pains that no doctor can explain. And I’ve had a battery of tests.”

“I find it extremely alarming Twitter’s suppression spread into medical fields,” Mace told the former execs.

“You’re not a doctor, right?” Mace directly asked Gadde, adding “What makes you think you or anyone else at Twitter have the medical expertise to censor actual, accurate CDC data?”

Gadded pathetically claimed she was not familiar with these particular situations.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re not,” Mace shot back.

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told them they “got played by the FBI” over the Hunter Biden laptop, forcing Roth to admit that the New York Post report didn’t violate any Twitter policies in his opinion, but was censored anyway.

“This to me is the real takeaway,” Jordan said, going on to state “51 former intelligence officials, five days after you guys take down the Hunter Biden story and block the New York Post’s account, five days later, 51 former intel officials send a letter and they say, ‘the Hunter Biden story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’ The information operation was run on you guys, and then by extension then run on the American people. And that’s the concern.”

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert asked the former Twitter executives “Who the hell do you think you are?” for shadow banning people they disagree with on the platform.

Boebert also asked the execs if they had shadow banned her own account.

“I can reach out to Elon and to his staff, and I can see what’s happened ,and I can sit here today and hold you all in account,” Boebert concluded, adding “I am angry for the millions of Americans who were silenced because of your decisions, because of your actions, because of your collusion with the federal government. They can’t reach out to Elon. They can’t sit here today and hold you in account.”

The chair of the Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky highlighted Tweets made by Roth in the past calling Republicans ‘Nazis’.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told Roth “You permanently banned my Twitter account but you allowed child porn all over Twitter.”

The former execs mostly either claimed ignorance and denied any wrong doing.

James Baker said he can’t recall speaking with the FBI while working at Twitter, and denied that he acted unlawfully.

Meanwhile, Roth attempted to argue that censorship on Twitter under his watch helped to create more freedom of speech.

Roth also admitted that he finds it “regrettable” that the conservative account LibsOfTikTok is still allowed to be active on Twitter… More videos

February 9, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, FBI, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Varicella-Zoster Reactivation after COVID-19 Illness versus SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination

Larger Ongoing Threat is COVID-19 Vaccination

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | February 6, 2023

Many papers in the medical literature seem to pit a consequence such as myocarditis or stroke as either occurring as a consequence of COVID-19 illness compared with COVID-19 vaccination. Because the denominator is so large for acutely ill hospitalized patients with COVID-19 especially during the first two years of the pandemic allowing ICD code capture of comorbidities, authors erroneously conclude the illness is “more dangerous” or a “bigger risk factor.” These arguments are daft in my opinion since COVID-19 respiratory illness is treatable and a recent paper from Klaassen et al has estimated 94% are already recovered from COVID-19—so it is water under the bridge. Not true for COVID-19 vaccines which are still mandated by some ill-advised schools, employers, and agencies. One way of looking for what is a more pressing and continued problem is to survey the medical literature.

Martinez-Reviejo et al completed a literature review of varicella-zoster reactivation (shingles) and compared cases arising after vaccination and those with the respiratory infection. There were more manuscripts and cases after vaccination. However, the manifestations of varicella-zoster were more severe in those with acute COVID-19 illness which was also high in disease severity.

Martinez-Reviejo R, Tejada S, Adebanjo GAR, Chello C, Machado MC, Parisella FR, Campins M, Tammaro A, Rello J. Varicella-Zoster virus reactivation following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccination or infection: New insights. Eur J Intern Med. 2022 Oct;104:73-79. doi: 10.1016/j.ejim.2022.07.022. Epub 2022 Aug 1. PMID: 35931613; PMCID: PMC9340059.

I found it curious the authors did not disclose the shingles vaccine status in the tables. The bottom line is that shingles can occur with severe COVID-19 and it is treatable. Acute COVID-19, however is amenable to early therapeutics so severe cases can be avoided and most of us have recovered SARS-CoV-2 infection. COVID-19 vaccination continues to be an ongoing threat for varicella-zoster reactivation syndromes, some of which are very serious including ocular damage and long-lasting painful cutaneous syndromes.

Klaassen F, Chitwood MH, Cohen T, Pitzer VE, Russi M, Swartwood NA, Salomon JA, Menzies NA. Changes in population immunity against infection and severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants in the United States between December 2021 and November 2022. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2022 Nov 23:2022.11.19.22282525. doi: 10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525. PMID: 36451882; PMCID: PMC9709792.

Martinez-Reviejo R, Tejada S, Adebanjo GAR, Chello C, Machado MC, Parisella FR, Campins M, Tammaro A, Rello J. Varicella-Zoster virus reactivation following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccination or infection: New insights. Eur J Intern Med. 2022 Oct;104:73-79. doi: 10.1016/j.ejim.2022.07.022. Epub 2022 Aug 1. PMID: 35931613; PMCID: PMC9340059.

February 8, 2023 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine | Leave a comment

Questions for a Congressional Inquiry

By Steve Templeton | Brownstone Institute | February 7, 2023

Other than a few dead-end doom addicts on social media, most people agree that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. SARS-CoV-2 has entered a stage of endemicity, similar to that of common cold coronaviruses, where there will be sporadic, seasonal outbreaks of cold and flu-like illness as immunity wanes in recovered and vaccinated individuals.

The pandemic was a worldwide disaster, claiming the lives of millions of people. It wasn’t a war against an enemy, as the virus didn’t surrender or sign any peace agreements. SARS-CoV-2 was contained by population immunity, just as similar pandemic viruses have been in the past.

The origin of the virus is still in dispute. Some virologists have tried to shut down any debate while pushing a zoonotic origin as the only possibility. However, a lab leak is no longer a wild theory, it’s a plausible explanation based on evidence from a variety of independent sources.

Yet there was another parallel disaster that was certainly man-made, and that was the US pandemic response. Panicked health officials and politicians failed to implement measures that would protect those most vulnerable to severe COVID-19, including elderly in assisted living facilities, which comprised one-third of all COVID deaths. Instead, leaders insisted on harmful and unfocused measures such as shutdowns, school closures, and universal masking, with little evidence of their benefit.

Attention to other medical issues, such as cancer screenings and diagnosis and treatment of other diseases, as well as childhood vaccinations, all disappeared in a wave of COVID monomania. The consequences of this ill-advised singular focus will be with us for many years. It is of paramount importance that the mistakes that led to this man-made disaster are not repeated.

The governments of European countries have begun to conduct public inquiries into their COVID responses, including Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. It is past time for the United States to join this list, and critical given the worldwide influence of the CDC, FDA, and NIH/NIAID.

Members of the US Congress are conducting such an inquiry, and their efforts require the help of physicians, scientists and public health policy experts to identify key policy decisions and provide a rationale for investigating those policies and the officials and government agencies that devised and implemented them, with the ultimate goal of meaningful reform.

With help from Brownstone Institute, the Norfolk Group was organized in May, 2022, with the goal of providing a blueprint containing key questions for a congressional inquiry into the public health aspects of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group consists of eight scientists, physicians and policy experts, and seven of us met in person in Norfolk, Connecticut over Memorial Day weekend. All eight members continued to meet virtually over the summer, fall, and winter as the document was written and continuously revised.

Because the group was comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds, without oversight from any public or private institutions (including Brownstone), we chose to name ourselves The Norfolk Group, and publish our document independently on the website www.NorfolkGroup.org.

The eight members of the Norfolk Group are:

Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD; epidemiologist, health economist, and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine; founding fellow of the Academy of Science and Freedom.

Leslie Bienen, MFA, DVM; veterinarian, zoonotic disease researcher, and faculty member at Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University School of Public Health (through December 31st 2022). She left in January 2023 to work in healthcare policy.

Ram Duriseti, MD, PhD; emergency room physician and computational engineer for medical decision making; associate professor at Stanford School of Medicine.

Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD; physician and PhD epidemiologist in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California-San Francisco, clinical researcher in healthcare policy and practicing Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation physician.

Martin Kulldorff, PhD, FDhc; epidemiologist and biostatistician; professor of medicine at Harvard University (on leave); founding fellow of the Academy of Science and Freedom.

Marty Makary, MD, MPH; surgeon and healthcare policy scientist; professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Margery Smelkinson, PhD; infectious disease scientist and microscopist whose research predominantly focuses on host/pathogen interactions.

Steven Templeton, PhD; immunologist; associate professor at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The document provides questions and supporting information regarding ten areas of the US pandemic response, including:

Protecting High Risk Americans
Infection Acquired Immunity
School Closures
Collateral Lockdown Harms
Public Health Data and Risk Communication
Epidemiologic Modeling
Therapeutics and Clinical Interventions
Vaccines
Testing and Contact Tracing
Masks

In preparing this document, we did not conduct any interviews or unearth any previously unseen documents. All the information contained in the document was and is publicly available, and we have provided links to each source throughout.

We have detailed evidence that was available at each time point during the pandemic, and have documented instances where the US health agencies, officials, and politicians ignored or suppressed discussion of that evidence. We ask questions that attempt to discover why key individuals failed to consider all aspects of public health instead of engaging in a damaging singular focus on community-wide suppression of an age-stratified and comorbidity-amplified infectious disease. Why was the uncertainty of evidence supporting the effectiveness of mitigation measures not acknowledged? How was pressure from pharmaceutical companies, teachers’ unions, and other special interests related to the abandonment of evidence-based policies? These questions broadly apply to all of the ten areas covered in our document, and together with specific questions and supporting data, resulted in eighty pages. This was no small effort, and I’m proud to have been a part of it.

Our document focuses solely on the public health-related aspects of the US pandemic response. Although the origin of SARS-CoV-2 may be in dispute, our document does not ask questions related to this active area of investigation. Separate committees have been and will be organized to address that issue. We have also avoided the topics of economic mismanagement and the role of media in creating or exacerbating pandemic response crises. A media-focused document was released in July, 2022, and an economics-related document was released in December.

Critics will no doubt reflexively label our document as a partisan effort funded with a secret pile of Koch money. Other than the initial efforts of Brownstone Institute to bring us together, there was no outside influence. Our website is self-funded. Understandably, many of our questions and supporting evidence could and likely will be used for partisan purposes, as one party will lead any COVID-19 response commission while the other may be reluctant to cooperate. It is our hope that despite this messy and partisan process, the truth will emerge, individuals will be held accountable, and an opportunity will emerge for serious reform of dysfunctional government agencies.

An inquiry into the US COVID-19 pandemic response cannot be avoided, and we are trailing other countries in efforts to identify mistakes, demand accountability, and propose solutions. It might be an ugly process, but it is a necessary one. We hope our document will move US leaders and policymakers toward the goal of ensuring that the mistakes of our pandemic response are never repeated.

Reposted from the author’s Substack

QUESTIONS-FOR-A-COVID-19-COMMISSION-by-the-Norfolk-Group Download

Steve Templeton is a Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine – Terre Haute. His research focuses on the immune response to the human opportunistic pathogens. He is currently writing a book on infectious diseases and pandemics.

February 7, 2023 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States | Leave a comment

Elon Musk accused State Dept. agency of being “worst offender” in government censorship

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | February 7, 2023

Twitter owner Elon Musk accused the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) of being the “worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation.”

Musk’s comments came after the latest release of the Twitter Files which focused on GEC’s attempts to get Twitter to censor accounts and content.

“The GEC flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA,’” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote. “State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned [such as] the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode ‘led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.’ ZH had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin.”

According to its website, the GEC’s role is to direct and coordinate the US government’s efforts to combat foreign state and non-state misinformation and propaganda.

Then-head of trust and safety Yoel Roth pushed back against GEC’s analysis based on data from Homeland Security that showed “nearly 250,000” Chinese accounts that were spreading propaganda about COVID-19.

February 7, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | CIA, Covid-19, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Vitamin D Cuts COVID-19 Risk of Death in Half, New Study Finds. So Why Isn’t it Recommended?

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Vitamin D cuts the risk of death from COVID-19 by 51% and the risk of ICU admission by 72%, a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials has found. The new study, published in Pharmaceuticals, is titled “Protective Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on COVID-19-Related Intensive Care Hospitalisation and Mortality: Definitive Evidence from Meta-Analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis”. Here’s the abstract, summarising the study’s method and results.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic represents one of the world’s most important challenges for global public healthcare. Various studies have found an association between severe vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19-related outcomes. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in immune function and inflammation. Recent data have suggested a protective role of vitamin D in COVID-19-related health outcomes. The purpose of this meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis (TSA) was to better explain the strength of the association between the protective role of vitamin D supplementation and the risk of mortality and admission to intensive care units (ICUs) in patients with COVID-19.

Methods: We searched four databases on September 20th 2022. Two reviewers screened the randomised clinical trials (RCTs) and assessed the risk of bias, independently and in duplicate. The pre-specified outcomes of interest were mortality and ICU admission.

Results: We identified 78 bibliographic citations. After the reviewers’ screening, only five RCTs were found to be suitable for our analysis. We performed meta-analyses and then TSAs. Vitamin D administration results in a decreased risk of death and ICU admission (standardised mean difference (95% CI): 0.49 (0.34–0.72) and 0.28 (0.20–0.39), respectively). The TSA of the protective role of vitamin D and ICU admission showed that, since the pooling of the studies reached a definite sample size, the positive association is conclusive. The TSA of the protective role of vitamin D in mortality risk showed that the z-curve was inside the alpha boundaries, indicating that the positive results need further studies.

Discussion: The results of the meta-analyses and respective TSAs suggest a definitive association between the protective role of vitamin D and ICU hospitalisation.

Despite these highly positive results, the latest official guidelines from NICE still state that vitamin D is not recommended for the prevention of COVID-19. (NICE also doesn’t recommend the use of ivermectin or budesonide.) Yet remdesivir is recommended despite the WHO finding little or no effect. Will NICE now update its guidelines? I wouldn’t count on it.

Dr. John Campbell discusses the new study in a recent video, arguing the evidence on vitamin D is now conclusive and wondering why adequate vitamin D supplementation is not being officially promoted in the U.K. The fact that the MHRA is 86% industry-funded may have something to do with it, he suggests.

February 6, 2023 Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, UK | Leave a comment

Returning to COVID19

By Dr. Malcolm Kendrick | January 31, 2023

With the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, my thoughts were dragged back to Covid once more. Jacinda, as Prime Minster of New Zealand was the ultimate lockdown enforcer. She was feted round the world for her iron will, but I was not a fan, to put it mildly. Whenever I heard her speak, it brought to mind one of my most favourite quotes:

‘Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’ C.S. Lewis

At one point she actually said the following:

“We will continue to be your single source of truth” “Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.’

If I ruled the world, anyone who said, that, or anything remotely like that, would be taken as far as possible from any position of power, never to be allowed anywhere near it again. Ever.

Yet, there are still many who believe her to have been a great and caring leader. She certainly hugged a lot of people with that well rehearsed pained/caring expression on her face.

Enough of that particular woman. But it got me thinking about lockdowns again and the whole worldwide madness of Covid. This was a time of such blundering idiocy that I find increasingly difficult to believe it ever happened. A bad dream.

‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling…’ Cue, everyone running about in panic. People, allegedly, dropping dead on the streets. Mortuaries, allegedly, overflowing. Freezer lorries, allegedly, stacked with dead bodies. Bring out your dead!

I worked with doctors who strode around the wards in positive pressure protective gear. There were GPs who simply refused to visit elderly residents in nursing homes. On my patch this was all GPs and all nursing homes. Meanwhile I happily visited away with a mask stuck to the top of my head.

During the Covid pandemic I travelled far past angry, to reach a point of utter weariness. Instead of becoming outraged by the latest rubbish that was being pronounced, I very nearly washed my hands of it. However, after learning of Jacinda’s resignation I roused myself to have another look at what actually did happen. Or to be more specific, what was the impact of Covid on overall mortality. The only outcome that really matters.

Rid your mind of the numbers claimed to have died of Covid. The, never to be clarified distinction between those who died ‘of’ or ‘with’ Covid. Or those who read an article on Covid and then, overwhelmed with fear, stepped out in front of a bus. Thus, becoming a Covid related… associated, something, anything to do with Covid, death.

Over time the Covid figures became so ridiculous and unreliable as to become meaningless. I should know, I wrote some of the death certificates myself. Let me think… ‘She died of COVID, she died of COVID not. Eeny, meeny, miney mo…’

I am not saying that Covid did not kill a large number of people. But the fact that deaths from influenza disappeared completely for two years tells me all I need to know. ‘Roll up, roll up, Ladies and Gentlemen, to see the amazing lady influenza disappear before your very eyes.’ An astonishing trick, all the way from La La Land. ‘You expect me to believe that? Ho, ho, ho, very funny…. Oh, sorry, you actually do.’

Anyway, to clear my internal database of horribly unreliable figures, I went back to look at my favourite graphs on EuroMOMO. This website looks at overall mortality, and only overall mortality. Their data comes from countries who do know how to record deaths, honestly. Unlike some others, who shall be nameless … China.

However, the main reason to focus on EuroMOMO is that overall mortality is something you cannot fake. About the only thing you can do to manipulate the figures is hold back data for a month or two – which has been done, but not to any great degree. So, without further ado, let us move onto EuroMOMO. Below is a recent graph. I have deliberately removed most of the information you need to know what it is showing. I wanted people to avoid jumping to conclusions … that they might then find it difficult row back from.

I found myself examining this graph idly and thought. Imagine if you had no idea what you were looking at here. What would you think? It’s a squiggly line, yes. Very good, gold star. What else?

To give you a bit more detail. This is a graph of overall mortality, across a large number of European countries. All of those who provide data to the EuroMOMO database anyway. Norway, the ultimate European lockdown champion, has mysteriously disappeared from the database. Maybe they shall return …. I have begun to see everything as a conspiracy nowadays.

The graph itself begins in January 2017 and finishes in January 2023. As you can see (if not terribly clearly) there are two wavy dotted lines. These lines rise up in the winter, and then fall back down in the summer. Something seen every year. This is because, every year, more people die in the winter than in the summer.

Everyone thinks they know the reason for this winter summer effect, but I am not so sure they do. But that is an enormously complicated topic for another time.

The lower, dotted lines represent the ‘average’ mortality you would expect to see [with upper and lower ‘normal’ limits] year on year. Above those wavy dotted lines sits a solid spikey line. This represents the actual number of deaths that occurred. Not just from Covid, but from everything.

This does raise an immediate question. If we keep seeing more deaths than we would expect in the winter, year on year, then the ‘average’ number of deaths should rise? Thus, the wavy dotted lines ought to be going up and up, in the winter. But they don’t.

I am not entirely sure why this is not the case. But it is a statistical question of such mind-boggling complexity that I am, frankly, unable to answer it. I have looked into it, but I was scared off by the sheer scale and difficulty of the mathematics involved. Too many equations for my poor wee brain.

Anyway, this graph starts in the winter of 2017 and ends about now. The vertical lines are drawn at midnight on Dec 31^st each year. Which means that we have almost exactly six years of data. Excellent data, not manipulated in any way. I say this because, whilst the diagnosis of ‘Covid death’ may be disputed, the diagnosis of death cannot.

What stands out? Well, there was a very sharp peak of deaths in early 2020. This, as you have probably worked out, was when Covid first hit. I find it fascinating that it was so transient. It came, it went… gone. For a bit anyway.

Was the precipitous fall due to strict lockdowns? Some will doubtless argue this. However, we all locked down again in autumn 2020 and the death rate went up, and stayed up, for about six months. Until, that is, January came along, and it all settled down again. Which follows pretty much the pattern of 2017, 2108 and 2019. And the pattern of all pandemics. They come, and they go. Some a little earlier, some a little later.

What else do you see – now that we are all pretty much fully vaccinated? I think another thing that stands out is the sudden and sharp rise in mortality in November 2022. Which is virtually identical to the spike in 2020. Strange?

However, to my mind, the thing that shouts most loudly about this graph is that the years of Covid pandemic panic really do not look that much different from the previous three years. Half close your eyes, and there is almost nothing to see. The Covid peaks were a little higher, and a little longer – maybe.

If you knew nothing about the Covid pandemic I don’t think you would exclaim. ‘My God, look at these vast waves of death in 2020, 2021. What amazing, never seen before thing, happened here?’ Yes, first spike of early 2020 was certainly sharp, and unusual, but it was short. And very little different to the spike at the end of 2022. As for the rest?

Now, I would like to turn your attention to Germany. The most populous country in Europe. Here it is even more clear that the years of the Covid pandemic are not remotely unusual. If I had removed the calendar years off this graph, you would be hard pressed to spot the Covid pandemic. In truth, you would be more than hard pressed. You couldn’t.

The 2018 influenza spike was equally dramatic to Covid peak of 2021, if not more so. [You may have noticed that there was no peak in 2020] In addition, at the end of 2022, we have the highest peak of all. Future historians might well look at this graph and ask. ‘Tell me, why did the world go mad in 2020, and remain mad through 2021? Why did everyone lockdown in March 2020, and then do nothing whatsoever in December 2022?’

It almost goes without saying that, had we locked down again in November 2022, it would have been claimed that lockdown saved us all. Look at how quickly it came, then went. Well, they could have claimed it. But we didn’t lock down again, did we? In direct contrast to Germany. What of the people living in Luxembourg?

Luxembourg is surrounded by Belgium France and Germany. People move freely from one to the other, always have done, and still do. The ‘deadly’ Covid pandemic raged all around them. Here, absolutely nothing happened. Mind you, they also seem to have been unaffected by influenza.

Whilst the Germans were dying in large numbers in 2018, the Luxembourgians carried on serenely, not an extra death to be seen. Why? Discuss. [It seems that most/all countries unaffected by Covid, were also unaffected by earlier flu epidemics].

I know some of you may be thinking that Germany is much bigger than Luxembourg so … so what? If you are going to see an effect on mortality, you are more likely to see it happen, more dramatically, and rapidly, in a country with fewer people.

I should explain that the figures on the left axis, on the German and Luxembourg graphs (unlike the first one), do not represent total deaths, they are the ‘Z score’. That is, the deviation from the mean.

The upper dotted line represents a Z score of five. That means, five standard deviations above the mean. It has been decreed that if you hit more than five standard deviations above the mean, for any length of time, this is a signal that ‘something bad’ is happening. The alarm starts goes off, and epidemiologists run around bumping into each other. ‘The sky is falling… etc.’

If you use the Z score it makes no difference how large the population is. It has been specifically designed to make it possible to compare changes in overall mortality, in populations of very different sizes. I feel the need here to make it clear that Luxembourg is not that small. It has more than twice the population of Iceland, for example.

Enough of the maths already.

So, deep breath, and trying to bring all these random thoughts together. What does EuroMOMO tell us? It tells us that Covid was a bit worse than a bad flu season, with 2018 being a good reference point. [There have been far worse flu epidemics than 2018, and I am not talking about 1918/19].

What EuroMOMO makes most clear, at least to me, is that Covid was not, repeat not, a pandemic of unique power, and destructiveness. It could have never remotely justified the drastic actions that were taken to combat it.

Belatedly, this is becoming recognised, as has the damage associated with lockdowns. Here is the abstract of an article from 2022. A bit dry, but worth a read. ‘Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics?’

‘The present coronavirus crisis caused a major worldwide disruption which has not been experienced for decades. The lockdown-based crisis management was implemented by nearly all the countries, and studies confirming lockdown effectiveness can be found alongside the studies questioning it.

In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historic experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth. Our aim was to learn lessons and analyze ways to improve the management of similar events in the future.

The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic, nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past.

The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.’ ¹

In the face of such evidence, the argument for lockdown seems to be transforming into a somewhat pathetic whinge. ‘We didn’t know. It’s all very well people saying we shouldn’t have locked down now. We didn’t hear you saying it at the time. We were just following The Science, don’t blame us. Better safe than sorry. Don’t blame us … I think you’re being very nasty to us.’

This, of course, is nonsense. There were plenty of scientists arguing against lockdown at the time. However, they were all ruthlessly censored, attacked, and silenced. Experts such as Prof. John Ioannidis, Prof. Karol Sikora, Prof. Sunetra Gupta, Prof. Carl Heneghan. These last two UK professors argued very strenuously against lockdowns. They were ignored, then vilified. Here from an article written in January 2021:

‘… Sunetra Gupta. She’s been getting flak from the mob for months but it reached a crescendo yesterday when she was on the Today programme. Why is the BBC giving space to a nutter, people asked? She isn’t a nutter, of course. She’s an infectious disease epidemiologist at Oxford University. But she bristles against the COVID consensus and that makes her a bad person, virtually a witch, in the eyes of the zealous protectors of COVID orthodoxy. Professor Gupta has written about the barrage of abuse she receives via email. ‘Evil’, they call her.’

‘… her chief crime, judging from the hysterical commentary about her, is that she is critical of harsh lockdowns. She is a founder of the Great Barrington Declaration, which proposes that instead of locking down the whole of society we should shield the elderly and the vulnerable while allowing other people to carry on pretty much as normal. It is this perfectly legitimate discussion of a social and political question — the question of lockdown — that has earned Gupta the most ire.’ ²

I would like to point out that I was arguing against lockdown, right from the very beginning. Yes, I do enjoy saying, ‘I told you so’ from time to time. It is one of the few satisfactions I get in life nowadays. Here is a section from a blog I wrote in March 2020. Once again, right from the start:

‘… However, there is also a health downside associated with our current approach. Many people are also going to suffer and die, because of the actions we are currently taking. On the BBC, a man with cancer was being interviewed. Due to the shutdown, his operation is being put back by several months – at least. Others with cancer will not be getting treatment. The level of worry and anxiety will be massive.

Hip replacements are also being postponed and other, hugely beneficial interventions are not being done. Those with heart disease and diabetes will not be treated. Elderly people, with no support, may simply die of starvation in their own homes. Jobs will be lost, companies are going bust, suicides will go up. Psychosocial stress will be immense.

In my role, working in Out of Hours, we are being asked to watch out for abuse in the home. Because we know that children will now be more at risk, trapped in their houses. Also, partners will suffer greater physical abuse, stuck in the home, unable to get out. Not much fun.

Which means that we are certainly not looking at a zero-sum game here, where every case of COVID prevented, or treated, is one less death. There is a health cost.

There is also the impact of economic damage, which can be immense. I studied what happened in Russia, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the economic and social chaos that ensued. There was a massive spike in premature deaths.

In men, life expectancy fell by almost seven years, over a two to three-year period. A seven-year loss of life expectancy in seventy million men, is forty-nine million QALYs worth. It is certainly a far greater health disaster than COVID can possibly create…’ ³

And lo, the damage is coming to pass. Maybe not so many people dying of starvation as I predicted, at least not in the West. In poorer countries, however …

Another terrible thing that happened during lockdown was the vilification of anyone who dared question the official narrative. Yet almost everything they predicted has come true. Have the likes of Professor Gupta been forgiven and welcomed back into the fold? Have a wild guess on that one.

What of those who deliberately whipped up the panic and led the dreadful behavioural psychology teams. They quite deliberately frothed the population into a state of terror. What of those, whose ridiculous models kicked the whole damned thing off? The Professor Neil Fergusons of this land? Yes, you.

These people are all still comfortably ensconced, advising away. Their positions fully secure. In the UK they were mostly given knighthoods, damehoods, and other shiny gongs to impress their friends with. This, I find hard to swallow.

More worrying is that there will never be an honest review on the pandemic. Why, because so many people in positions of power would be seriously threatened by it. Which means that any such review will end up as a completely bland whitewash. ‘In general the actions taken were reasonable, and in a situation where so much was unknown, it was better to try and protect the public … blah, blah.’ Case closed.

The reality is that these lockdowns were a complete disaster. A complete disaster. The fact that we will never have a proper debate about them, means that we will learn nothing from what happened. This, in turn, means that another disaster is on the way. Those who should be listened to will be attacked, silenced and censored, again.

Those who got it all horribly wrong last time will be handed even greater powers … next time. The reason why lockdowns did not work, they will argue, is because they were not strict enough, or long enough. We need proper lockdowns next time. You have been warned. Cast your eyes over China.

I will leave you with the conclusion of the paper ‘Are lockdowns effective in managing pandemics?’

Neither previous pandemics nor COVID19 provide clear evidence that lockdowns help to prevent death in pandemic
Lockdowns are associated with a considerable human cost. Even if somewhat effective in preventing COVID19 death, they probably cause far more extensive (an order of magnitude or more) loss of life
A thorough risk-benefit analysis must be performed before imposing any lockdown in future.

Which can probably be summed in in the words: Primum non nocere. First, do no harm.

The central guiding principle of medicine that was hurled out of the window in March 2020 by people who seem not to exhibit a scrap of humility, or humanity. Nor apology.

1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368251/

2: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-censorious-war-on-lockdown-sceptics/

3: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/03/29/a-health-economic-perspective-on-covid-19/

February 5, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, European Union, Human rights | Leave a comment

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By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | April 20, 2026

In 2025, Alex Karp, the CEO of government and military tech contractor Palantir, published The New York Times best-seller, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. The Wall Street Journal praised the book as a cri de coeur, a passionate appeal “that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies,” while Wired praised the book as a “readable polemic that skewers Silicon Valley for insufficient patriotism.”

On April 18, 2026, Palantir posted twenty-two points to social media summarizing the book. In addition to taking Silicon Valley to task for insufficient patriotism, advocating a role for AI in forever war, and denouncing the “psychologization of modern politics,” the Palantir post on X declares: “National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.”

National conscription, a form of involuntary servitude, and the wars it portends, is good for business, especially for corporations within the orbit of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the national security state. Palantir fits comfortably within this amalgamation. … continue

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