Covid-19 News

You obviously don't grasp any details. The Pfizer phase III study in reality did not show any effect because they kicked out 200 sick people. Pfizer had illegal access to patient records.

If you would do the same study during a non pandemic phase, then the numbers for Pfizer could be more or less OK.

We now very well understand that the Pfizer vaccine so far did cause between 50..100'000 extra CoV-19 deaths. In Israel the number of CoV-19 cases did increase exponentially after starting the first vaccination phase. The same happened during the down turn (lock down!!), when they started vaccination of younger. A giant bump in cases.

Thanks for this - let us consider your points one by one.

(1) Context. Whatever the evidence from israel - that from the UK (which i know) is indisputable. At the point that we had vaccinated 20% of the most vulnerable we could track the hospital admissions and deaths - almost all from unvaccinated. and similar statistics now even with the delta variant.

(2) Phase III kicked out 300 sick people. We would need, as always in these things, to see the details. Why were those people kicked out? Did they correlate with those given the vaccination? How did that number compare with the total getting sick ovr the course of the trial? Perhaps you could link your sources so these details could be addressed.

(3) Israeli deaths increased exponentially at start of vaccination.

That is surely expected - with a 100% effective vaccine, COVID deaths do normally increase expeonentially with R > 1. Until a large number of people (> 50% of population) are vaccinated the protetcive effect (linear) is insigniifcant compared with the exponential infection increase. (There is another protective effect, R goes down as fraction vaccinated increases - but this also is small until a significant fraction of people have been vaccinated).

And for your memory: About half of UK got Astra Zeneca...

Relative efficacy of Astra Zeneca vs Pfizer (but only after one dose - so much lower than two-dose effectiveness)

https://www.jwatch.org/na53634…ch-and-oxford-astrazeneca

The phase 3 trials substantiating authorization of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are well known — but how effective are these vaccines in real life, especially when just a single dose is given (as has been advocated in the U.K.) to permit broader coverage with limited supplies? Investigators conducted a population-based study of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination in England between December 8, 2020, and February 19, 2021, when the B1.1.7 variant emerged. SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results in 156,930 adults aged ≥70 were linked with national vaccination and mortality registries and hospital admissions data.

When vaccination status was assessed in individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (44,590; 28%) compared with those testing negative (112,340; 72%), a protective effect was seen in Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 recipients 10–13 days after vaccination, reaching 61% effectiveness after 28 days. For those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine (ChAdOx1-S), protective effects emerged 14–20 days after vaccination, reaching 60% effectiveness after 28 days. Among individuals aged ≥80 who received BNT162b2, vaccine effectiveness was 70% 28 days after the first dose and 89% 14 days after the second dose. If infection developed despite vaccination ≥14 days previously, incidence of emergency hospital admission was 43% lower with BNT162b2 and 37% lower with ChAdOx1-S. For BNT162b2, mortality risk within 21 days was reduced by 53%.

For delta variant two doses are obviously needed, the data is not yet all in- but it looks as though pfizer beats astaZeneca:

https://www.nationalworld.com/…fficacy-explained-3268304

However, another recent study carried out by Public Health England (PHE) found that for the period from 5 April to 16 May the Pfizer vaccine was 88 per cent effective against symptomatic disease from the Delta variant two weeks after the second dose.

This was compared to 93 per cent effectiveness against the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant first found in Kent.

The same study also found that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 60 per cent effective against symptomatic disease from the Delta variant, compared to 66 per cent effectiveness against the Alpha variant.

Re credibility of sources. I have no reason to think PHE (Public health England) here in the UK is in the pocket of "big pharma" or interested in anything except reducing the load on the NHS. And accusing the UK scientists conducting these studies of some systemic corruption that would kill a significant part of the UK population is both far-fetched and also libellous?

Quote from Alan Smith

I have noticed something unexpected in the data. The successive viral waves (in the UK at least) look pretty much like normal bell curves. I must emphasise I am talking only about how they look on a graph- I have not attempted any statistical investigation.

The odd think about this (perhaps) is that if some intervention -like vaccines or lockdowns - made a huge difference, I would expect to see compression of the downside of the curve - in other words, going back down faster than it came up. But that's not apparent.

Any thoughts on that?

Alan - I can't see that. Ignoring effect on individuals the R numbers before and after peak have no clear relationship. thus one might be 2, the other 0.8, in which case rise is fater than fall or vice versa. But it is in any case a lot more complex than that.

The vaccine has two effects, it reduces mortality in those vaccinated, and it reduces R number. These combine in a complex and non-linear way. The reduction in mortality alone is linear over time (because vaccination is linear) but a large effect as the vulnerable all get double vaccinated. Worth remembering that with Delta the protective effect of one dose against infection is relatively small, whereas with Alpha it is larger, and the last 6 weeks have been the rise of delta. And with a perfect vaccine the reduction in R number would be as (1 - alpha) where alpha is fraction of population vaccinated except that the vulnerable get vaccinated first and they tend to be isolating better and contribute less to R number.

The overall curve in UK wave 3 is thus complicated by the rise of Delta - with much larger R number.

I thought wave 1 was suspect because of the plateau in case numbers - that was an artifact of lack of testing. There may be similar issues even now when surge testing increases apparent case numbers. the best indication we have is the ONS infection survey statistics - those do not depend on disease severity, likelihood people will go for testing, number of available tests. So they are the best we have - they are still quite noisy except when infection rates are high.

Wave 2 was complicated by the continual changes in lockdown regulations.

Finally one other thing is that overall statistics tend to be dominated by local hot-spots where local measures varying over time have an effect, and partial herd immunity can occur. It makes analysis complex.

The evidence that the vaccine is helping us a lot now even with delta, from hospitalisation statistics in delta hot-spots, is 100% copper-bottomed cannot be questioned by any normal observer. Other things are less certain!

Indias success in fighting Covid-19 seem to have a clear reason, and questions, why this is not recognized by "official" media, are arising..

https://trialsitenews.com/utta…s-in-those-medicine-kits/

Quote from THHuxleynew

(2) Phase III kicked out 300 sick people. We would need, as always in these things, to see the details. Why were those people kicked out?

100 from the control 300 from the vaccine group. Simply a criminal cover up act. Pfizer did know of the early CoV-19 due to immune suppression after vaccination. Pfizer had full access to doctors patient records. That's why you do such studies e.g. in Brazil where bribing is a s natural as drinking a beer.

Quote from THHuxleynew

That is surely expected - with a 100% effective vaccine, COVID deaths do normally increase expeonentially with R > 1. Until a large number of people (> 50% of population) are vaccinated the protetcive effect (linear) is insigniifcant compared with the exponential infection increase.

This is wrong again. In all countries with full lock down and no vaccination the numbers did decrease. You live in a fantasy world.

Quote from THHuxleynew

When vaccination status was assessed in individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (44,590; 28%) compared with those testing negative (112,340; 72%), a protective effect was seen in Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 recipients 10–13 days after vaccination, reaching 61% effectiveness after 28 days.

This method is incomplete as 75% show no symptoms at all. Further after one jab with BNT162b2 you have zero protection against the strongest mutations. Multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants escape neutralizationby vaccine-induced humoral immunity.pdfMay be you once read it before repeating Pfizer news/marketing info.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I have no reason to think PHE (Public health England) here in the UK is in the pocket of "big pharma" or interested in anything except reducing the load on the NHS.

Of course... Also CDC/FDA - USA takes only bribes to help the population...

Quote from THHuxleynew

I thought wave 1 was suspect because of the plateau in case numbers - that was an artifact of lack of testing.

This is true: We have no mean to know who manipulates who. In Switzerland the mafia cheated the number of infection with increasing the test numbers. Also at least 50% of the people tested positive have no CoV-19 and are not infected. Just by coincidence a lonely virus has been found in their nose.

We do PCR test because that way the lab can make 5x more money than with a much more significant blood test that cannot be manipulated.

Quote from Alan Smith

I'm not questioning vaccination, or social distancing.

We all here know that for people age >65 in general vaccines are a good solution with a justified added risk. We only warn from the Pfizer vaccine that is rubbish. Also woman have a 4x higher risk (all vaccines so far) for complications according the EU database.

If you are healthy and know your body then Ivermectin is the much better choice. Also because after a real CoV-19 infection you are protected for at least 10 years.

Quote from Alan Smith

I'm not questioning vaccination, or social distancing.Been double vaccinated, happy to get it. I am just puzzled by the stats showing no 'cliff-edge' falls due to external effects.

It's Seasonal, same drop in cases as seen same time last year. If you follow the waves of infection you will see a rise 3-4 weeks before each seasonal equinox and begins to drop 3-4weeks after the seasonal equinox. The pandemic has been following this pattern for the last 15 months. Cases are rising slightly in us and UK now and will plateau around July 1st and go back down and will begin to rise in late august, just like last year. It's almost a mirror to spring cases last year. Covid is seasonal!

Preliminary report on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Spike mutation T478K

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27062

Abstract

Several severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants have emerged, posing a renewed threat to coronavirus disease 2019 containment and to vaccine and drug efficacy. In this study, we analyzed more than 1,000,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences deposited up to April 27, 2021, on the GISAID public repository, and identified a novel T478K mutation located on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein. The mutation is structurally located in the region of interaction with human receptor ACE2 and was detected in 11,435 distinct cases. We show that T478K has appeared and risen in frequency since January 2021, predominantly in Mexico and the United States, but we could also detect it in several European countries.

Highlights

We analyzed 1,180,571 SARS-CoV-2 samples from the public repository GISAID (updated to April 27, 2021).

We detected a mutation in SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein amino acid 478, S:T478K, which has been growing in sequence in North America (especially Mexico) since January, 2021.

S:T478K is one of the characterizing mutations of lineage B.1.1.519, which is currently independent from B.1.1.7 and B.1.351.

S:T478K is affecting the Spike binding domain with human receptor ACE2, increasing the electrostatic potential on the interface.

Previous experiments show that S:T478K is a possible genetic route for SARS-CoV-2 to escape immune recognition.

DISCUSSION

In this short communication, we report the distribution of the Spike mutation S:T478K and its recent growth in prevalence in the SARS-CoV-2 population. While there is currently no report of association of this variant with clinical features, S:T478K's rapid growth may indicate an increased adaption of SARS-CoV-2 variants carrying it, particularly lineage B.1.1.519. The distribution of this mutation, which emerged from the B.1 lineage carrying S:D614G, but is independent of the S:N501Y mutation, is higher in North America,24 but we could detect it also in several European countries. T478K has been detected in other phylogenetically non-derived lineages from B.1.1.519, supporting the hypothesis that this mutation arose more than once in distinct events. Since the highest abundance of this mutation seems to be in Mexico and USA, this may allow to hypothesize a founder effect in which a chance founder event was followed by natural selection progression, since the frequency of the mutation has, slowly but steadily, increased in the first months of 2021.

The location of S:T478K in the interaction complex with human ACE2 may affect the affinity with human cells and therefore influence viral infectivity. An in silico molecular dynamics study on the protein structure of Spike has predicted that the T478K mutation, substituting a non-charged amino acid (Threonine) with a positive one (Lysine) may significantly alter the electrostatic surface of the protein (Figure 3), and therefore the interaction with ACE2, drugs, or antibodies,25 and that the effect can be increased if combined by other co-occurring Spike mutations (see Table 1). Another experiment showed that T478K and T478R mutants were enriched when SARS-CoV-2 viral cultures were tested against weak neutralizing antibodies,26 highlighting, at least in vitro, a possible genetic route the virus can follow to escape immune recognition. Everything considered, we believe that the continued genetical and clinical monitoring of S:T478K and other Spike mutations are of paramount importance to better understand COVID-19 and be able to better counteract its future developments.

Quote from Fm1

Everything considered, we believe that the continued genetical and clinical monitoring of S:T478K and other Spike mutations are of paramount importance to better understand COVID-19 and be able to better counteract its future developments.

That's why you need IVERMECTIN that stops replication --> new mutations. Vaccines won't help here.

Swiss infections go down with a weekly rate of 30-40% now. So bad news for people that want a vaccine pass. Nobody will need it within a few weeks....

Quote from Alan Smith

I'm not questioning vaccination, or social distancing.Been double vaccinated, happy to get it. I am just puzzled by the stats showing no 'cliff-edge' falls due to external effects.

Climate and the spread of COVID-19

https://www.nature.com/article…2172&utm_content=deeplink

Abstract

Visual inspection of world maps shows that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is less prevalent in countries closer to the equator, where heat and humidity tend to be higher. Scientists disagree how to interpret this observation because the relationship between COVID-19 and climatic conditions may be confounded by many factors. We regress the logarithm of confirmed COVID-19 cases per million inhabitants in a country against the country’s distance from the equator, controlling for key confounding factors: air travel, vehicle concentration, urbanization, COVID-19 testing intensity, cell phone usage, income, old-age dependency ratio, and health expenditure. A one-degree increase in absolute latitude is associated with a 4.3% increase in cases per million inhabitants as of January 9, 2021 (p value < 0.001). Our results imply that a country, which is located 1000 km closer to the equator, could expect 33% fewer cases per million inhabitants. Since the change in Earth’s angle towards the sun between equinox and solstice is about 23.5°, one could expect a difference in cases per million inhabitants of 64% between two hypothetical countries whose climates differ to a similar extent as two adjacent seasons. According to our results, countries are expected to see a decline in new COVID-19 cases during summer and a resurgence during winter. However, our results do not imply that the disease will vanish during summer or will not affect countries close to the equator. Rather, the higher temperatures and more intense UV radiation in summer are likely to support public health measures to contain SARS-CoV-2.

Given the rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in winter 2020/2021 in the Northern Hemisphere, many inhabitants and policymakers in the corresponding countries hope for relieve when the weather gets warmer and more sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface in spring and summer. Indeed, many viral acute respiratory tract infections, such as influenza A and B, rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, metapneumovirus, and coronavirus, are climate dependent and share such seasonal patterns1. Some viruses may have better stability in low-temperature, low-humidity, and low-UV radiation environments2,3. In addition, people tend to gather more in indoor places in winter, which can facilitate the spread of diseases; and vitamin D levels in humans tend to decline in winter, which may weaken the immune response. Thus, an association between climate conditions and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 seems plausible.

However, in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, there is still scant evidence in support of this hypothesis4. On March 9, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that “from the evidence so far, the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in all areas, including areas with hot and humid weather”5. On April 7, 2020, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that “although experimental studies show a relationship between higher temperatures and humidity levels, and reduced survival of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory, there are many other factors besides environmental temperature, humidity, and survival of the virus outside of the host that influence and determine transmission rates among humans in the ‘real world’… with natural history studies, the conditions are relevant and reflect the real-world, but there is typically little control of environmental conditions and there are many confounding factors”4.

Between May and November 2020, the European Respiratory Society published several articles discussing the hypothesis that temperature and the spread of COVID-19 are inversely related. Using data from 224 cities in China, one article published in May found no such association6. In August 2020, another analysis using data from China implied a non-linear relationship to the extent that temperature and COVID-19 are not associated below 7 ℃ but that a weak negative association exists above that threshold7. Yet another study published in November found a significant negative association between temperature and the spread of COVID-19 using global data8. While, in general, the evidence is mixed and the debate is still ongoing, laboratory studies found that SARS-CoV-2 is highly susceptible to heat and UV-radiation9,10,11,12,13,14.

To add evidence from a different perspective, we use global data to examine the relationship between climatic conditions and the spread of COVID-19 controlling for several important confounding factors. To this end, we regress the prevalence of COVID-19 (logarithmically transformed) at the country level against the latitude of a country. Latitude captures every climate, because different latitudes on Earth receive different amounts of sunlight. The farther from the equator a country is located, the lower is the angle of the sun’s rays that reach it, the less UV radiation it receives, and the lower is its temperature. Furthermore, latitude also affects humidity, because water evaporation is temperature dependent15.

To control for key confounders at the country-level, our analysis includes (1) data on air travel16 (to capture a possible way of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 across countries but also the remoteness of a place, which might increase the need for air travel); (2) vehicle concentration17 and urbanization16 (to capture differences in the transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2 within a country18); (3) COVID-19 testing intensity19,20 (to control for the vigor of a country’s COVID-19 response and for COVID-19 detection bias in cross-country comparisons21,22); (4) cell phone usage16 (to control for the speed at which information on behavior change for COVID-19 prevention travels within a country18,23); and (5) health expenditure (to capture differences in countries' commitment to population health); old-age dependency ratio (to capture cross-country differences in age structure and family compositions, which can affect the spread of SARS-CoV-2), and income16 (to control for differences in economic development and in the availability of general resources to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-224,25,26).

Discussion

Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that heat and sunlight reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the prevalence of COVID-19, which was also suggested by most of the previous studies examining the same hypothesis with different data and approaches8,9,10,27,28. However, our results do not imply that the disease will vanish during summer. Rather, the higher temperatures and more intense UV radiation in summer are likely to support public health measures to contain SARS-CoV-229,30. WHO’s warning that the virus spreads in all climates must still be taken seriously. At the time of revising this manuscript in January 2021, many countries in the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, which could be explained by an easier spread of COVID-19 in winter.

Our analysis has several limitations. First, while our results are consistent with the hypothesis that higher temperatures and more intense UV radiation reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, the precise mechanisms for such an effect remain unclear and may indeed comprise not only biological but also behavioral factors. For example, people might gather less in crowded indoor places if temperatures are higher – a behavior reducing transmission. Thus, future research should aim at uncovering how the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is affected by changes in (1) climatic factors such as heat and humidity, (2) geographic factors such as altitude and sunlight intensity, (3) factors related to human behavior such as social interactions and pollution due to local economic activity at a more disaggregated level, and (4) the different potential of the human immune system to cope with diseases in summer as opposed to winter. Second, even though we included all countries worldwide for which data for this analysis were available, our final data set included only 117 out of the world’s countries, mainly for reasons of data availability and for some countries not yet having surpassed the 100 COVID-19 case threshold. Third, while we strived to control for differential testing intensity using a recently compiled and frequently updated data set19,20, the data on testing intensity could suffer from reporting biases and incomplete coverage of testing approaches. To the extent that testing intensity is a function of a country’s income, our analysis controlling for income (Table 1, Model 4) should reduce such a bias. The fact that column (4) in Table 1 contains a parameter estimate of latitude that is only slightly lower than the one in column (3) and still highly significant is reassuring in this regard. Furthermore, factors such as health infrastructure, socioeconomic background, and the availability of adequate health supplies may also affect the spread of COVID-19. However, these differences can be at least partially captured by controlling – as we have done – for vehicle concentration, urbanization, cell phone usage, income, the old-age dependency ratio, health expenditure, and testing intensity. Fourth, we cannot, as of yet, assess whether mutated versions of SARS-CoV-2, such as the ones that emerged in South Africa or in the UK in fall 2020, will display similar seasonal patterns of infection. Finally, the distance to the equator has the same climatic effects going north and south only when we are either around equinox or when one full year in the pandemic has passed (such that the seasonal variations average out globally because both hemispheres have passed through all four seasons during the pandemic). Thus, the date of our data set (which we updated during the final revision of this manuscript in January 2021) is comparatively well-suited for our analysis, because at this point in time the COVID-19 pandemic had been spreading for approximately 1 year31,32. Moreover, the effect sizes we estimate stayed rather stable over time. In earlier analyses of the data in March and April 202033, which is close to equinox, we also found a significant positive association between latitude and the number of cases. Since then, the semi-elasticity estimates increased slightly, which could be due to better data quality and larger numbers of observations in our updated data sets.

In sum, we show that an increase in absolute latitude by 1° is associated with a 4.3% increase in COVID-19 cases per million inhabitants. Increasing temperatures and longer sunlight exposure during summer may boost the impact of public health policies and actions to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Conversely, the threat of epidemic resurgence may increase during winter. However, our results do not indicate that the disease will vanish in summer, nor that countries located close to the equator will contain the disease without effective public health measures.

Alan Smith, a couple more studies pointing towards seasonality of Covid. Vaccines have had a small impact but with new variants cases will rise in the fall along the same lines as last. You are seeing a slight rise right now just like last year and in 3-4 weeks cases will decline and rise in late August. You can take that to the bank!

Temperature and population density influence SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the absence of nonpharmaceutical interventions

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/25/e2019284118

The oscillation-outbreaks characteristic of the COVID-19 pandemic

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/a….1093/nsr/nwab100/6294917

Quote from Curbina

I read it as a whole, and I agree he died from the virus, but if you put it all together, the post Mortem says he got good antigen titers from “The jab”, yet they did not protect him at all from getting Covid from an hospital roommate

I think that means it is an extreme "breakthrough" case. There have only been few fatal breakthrough cases. Most are mild. I suppose this was severe because the patient was old. Elderly people often have weak immune systems. So, for example, they need a stronger dose of influenza vaccine.

Chinese Lab-Leak Investigators Demand Inquiry into Role Science Journals Played During Pandemic

https://www.voanews.com/covid-…ce-journals-played-during

Scientists who have been challenging the theory that the coronavirus emerged naturally and couldn’t have leaked from a Chinese lab are calling for an inquiry into the role played during the pandemic by leading Western science and medical journals, including Nature and The Lancet.

They say the editors of the influential journals rebuffed dozens of critical articles which raised at least the possibility of the coronavirus being engineered and that it might have subsequently leaked from a lab in Chinese city of Wuhan.

“The managers of these journals may have wanted to appease the Chinese Communist Party, as China is where an increasing proportion of their revenue comes from, and China has made it clear that those journals it supports must agree to adhere to its policy agendas,” Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor of medicine at Australia’s Flinders University, told VOA.

“So many papers questioning the origins were quickly rejected by the journal editors at Nature and Lancet, etc. without even being sent for review. This early rejection was therefore presumably largely not on scientific grounds but on political or other grounds determined at a high level within those journals,” he says.

The editors of The Lancet and Nature reject the complaints, saying scientific merit determines the submissions they pick to publish and not politics.

The central focus of the investigation is on the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as suspicions mount that the novel bat-derived virus roiling the world, and which has led to at least four million deaths, may have leaked from its lab, a claim Beijing has furiously denied.

Biden’s order came after U.S. intelligence discovered more details about three researchers at the Wuhan lab who fell ill in November 2019, several weeks before the first identified case of the outbreak — and more than a month before China informed WHO of “cases of pneumonia” of an “unknown cause” had been detected.  The researchers were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but also with common respiratory illnesses, according to the intelligence report first publicly disclosed by The Wall Street Journal.

Britain’s intelligence agencies — along with other Western European security services — are assisting the new American-led probe, according to officials on both sides of the Atlantic.

China’s authorities have denied there was any leak from the Wuhan lab, which conducts research on viruses and receives some funding from the U.S. government. Last year, Chinese propagandists blamed the coronavirus outbreak on an American Army sports delegation, which visited Wuhan just before the outbreak, and have also touted several other theories, which have been subsequently discredited by prominent virologists and epidemiologists.

Scientists skeptical from the start of the natural-spillover theory, including Petrovsky, Ebright and a so-called Paris Group of scientists, which drafted two open letters on the origins of coronavirus, say an inquiry into the role of major science journals is in order. Much of the focus has been on The Lancet and Nature but other leading journals have come under criticism, including Science, an academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“This pandemic has exposed just how vulnerable our scientific institutions including our academies, universities and scientific journals are to politicization and covert influence,” says Petrovsky. “At the same time as exerting undue influence over Western journals, China is launching hundreds of its own journals over which it will have direct control and are offering easy routes to publication and incentives for scientists to publish in them,” he adds.

“An inquiry by Congress into this might be a good first step although this is also a much broader international issue, that should ultimately involve an international effort to fix these problems,” he told VOA.

Petrovsky says he and others faced tremendous hurdles in getting published papers casting doubt on the natural-spillover theory. He says if a rare paper was initially accepted for consideration, it fell at the second stage when it was sent to reviewers to consider its merits and would then be rejected. “Almost all the scientific community, from which reviewers are selected, had been indoctrinated by the misleading and heavily manipulative early Lancet and Nature Medicine commentaries that suggested any questioning of the origins should be seen as an attack by conspiracy theorists from the extreme right,” he says.

Magdalena Skipper, the British geneticist and the first woman to edit Nature in its 150-year history, says editorial decision-making is kept strictly separate from the wider commercial interests of Springer Nature, the German-British academic publisher that owns Nature.

“We have always been and continue to be scrupulous in keeping any business commercial interests Springer Nature may have, in China or anywhere else, totally separate from our editorial processes,” she said. Nature and its sister titles have sought to reflect “the science of the pandemic, as new evidence has come to light,” Skipper adds.

Springer Nature has offices spread across the world and publishes around 3,000 journals, including Nature and Scientific American. Four years ago following a Financial Times report, the company acknowledged it had been blocking access in China to hundreds of academic articles touching on subjects seen as sensitive by the Chinese Communist government. The company said less than one percent of its content available online in global markets had been impacted.

Springer Nature has dozens of cooperation and sponsorship agreements with Chinese educational and government institutions. So, too, does the owner of The Lancet, Elsevier, a Netherlands-based publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content.

The Lancet also told VOA that neither politics nor commerce play any part in shaping editorial policies. In a statement it said: “The Lancet is an editorially independent journal. Scientific discussion and debate are an important part of the scientific process, and the Lancet journals welcome responses from readers and the wider scientific community to content published in the journals. The Lancet journals set extremely high standards and papers are selected for publication based on the strength of the science and the credibility of the scientific argument.”

Interesting comment from a Pfizer employee

"Worked for Pfizer for 33 years (Pathology)... Retired last year.

No non human primate studies were done before the experimental gene therapy was approved for people.

This is UNHEARD of in the pharma world.

The full video

.. Kirsch

"If everybody in the world took ivermectin for a month .. we could end the pandemic"

I can remember writing the phrase "plasmid holocaust" in 1977 in a Tripos exam..

Robert Malone... mRNA vaccine developer

tm ~43 min and following

Deficiencies in the Pfizer vaccine new drug applications...to Japan and Canada

... data tables ..animal model...using the wrong technique (luciferase .. not the spike protein)

a lot of the injected material (transvection complexes)does stay at the injection site but some migrates throughout body

with concentration in the ovaries...

the migration of the spike protein throughout(systemically) the body is a concern...

...dysmenorrhea symptoms may not have been reported as vaccine related..

Moderna also shows spike migration too...

The spike protein is active in the body... it is not just an antigen..

ACE2 receptor has many functions we don't fully understand...

the spike protein-ACE2 combination may trigger an auto immune response...

don't get invested in just one hypothesis..entertain many. hypotheses

.and then design experiments to eliminate amap until you get down to a core..of likely hypotheses..

tm ~1.16

cardiomyopathy...in adolescents..FDA biostatistician confirms....Israeli..data confirms

subjective risk-benefit ratio? smallpox v Covid... adults v adolescents

"In conclusion, I hope that you will join me; stop to take a moment and consider for yourself what is going on. The logic seems clear to me.

1) An unlicensed medical product deployed under emergency use authorization (EUA) remains an experimental product under clinical research development.

2) EUA authorized by national authorities basically grants a short-term right to administer the research product to human subjects without written informed consent.

3) The Geneva Convention, the Helsinki declaration,

and the entire structure which supports ethical human subjects research requires that research subjects be fully informed of risks and must consent to participation without coercion. Has that bright line been crossed?

If so, what actions are to be taken? I look forward to learning from your thoughts and conclusions."

https://sw-ke.facebook.com/162…/videos/4394588040576070/

Good news on pfizer vaccine: 96% protective against hospitalisation from delta. AstraZeneca only 92% - but 92% means a reduction in risk of more than 10X. I'd take that any day.

https://www.gov.uk/government/…sation-from-delta-variant

Anyone who things this PHE study, using real-world UK data, is somehow corrupt, is severely deranged.

The preprint is a hassle to access (free sign-up - but you need to do it and for me at least it did not seem to want to accept google).

So here is the meat:

On vaccine (specifically mRNA vaccine) risks.

Sure, anything we put into our bodies is a risk. mRNA is new technology but transient. The result (spike proteins) are an unknown risk but worth pointing out that from even asymptomatic COVID infection you get a whole dose of them anyway.

What gets me about these portents of doom is that they seem to be applied to vaccines - and not to the rest of medicine - or even the rest of life.

More useful - if you want to worry - worry about the harm done to our bodies eating junk food (it seems that emulsifiers do nasty things to gut bacteria - amongst other effects). Which activity provides no protection against getting COVID.

And, on the question of what long-term monitoring for possible side effects is there in the COVID vaccine testing:

9. How long will clinical trial participants be followed? How do we know that bad side effects can’t happen long after vaccination, if the vaccine’s only been studied for less than a year?

Pfizer and BioNTech will track participants in our Phase 3 clinical trial for two years following their second dose, in order to document the long-term effectiveness and safety of the vaccine.⁶

Our trial is closely monitored by Pfizer and an outside, independent group of experts called a Data Monitoring Committee, or DMC. Trial investigators also monitor participants’ health, and participants in the trial attend regular planned follow-up visits as part of the trial. The safety of patients is and always will be our number one priority.

THH

Disclaimer: I'm 2 dose Pfizer vaccinated - probably now mind-controlled by Gates, and loving it.

Theresa Lawrie/Andrew Bryant metanalysis of ivermectin data..

peer review has finshed

published tomorrow or soon after

"

Given the evidence of efficacy, safety, low cost and current death rates,

ivermectin may potentially have an impact on health and economic outcomes of the
pandemic across many countries.

Ivermectin is not a new and experimental drug with safety concerns.

It is a WHO ‘Essential Medicine’ used in several different indications.

Health professionals should consider its use against Covid-19 in both treatment and prophylaxis."

https://assets.researchsquare.…a9a-b877-6d6cc8f79d54.pdf