Increased severity does not =mortality. Delta is more infectious agreed and symptoms seem a little more intense yet mortality at this moment is lower than alpha.
Japan just switched to delta. The mortality is going down dramatically.
Covid-19 News
- Alan Smith
- Closed
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May be you should read the paper again. Nothing scary in there...THH just posted the wrong data/conclusion.
I have grandkids, mis-c /long covid scares the hell out of me. That's why I gave each 2 tubes of ivermectin, a case of vitamin d vitamin d and zinc. They have decided to wait on vaccine but do have an early treatment available.
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Japan just switched to delta. The mortality is going down dramatically.
No idea why, but my blocking of W switched off. This may annoy people, because I feel compelled to reply to much of the non-rational comment.
in this case, as in so many, W is performing primary process thinking: confusing association with causation.
(1) True, infection rates in japan have just started to shoot up - because of delta.
(2) True, the mortality rate in japan has been falling dramatically because of a dramatic reduction in infection rate, and the roll-out of vaccination to those most at risk.
The delay between cases and deaths is around 3 weeks, so other things being equal we expect deaths to pick up soon. There is another phenomenon - which is that delta spread (at least in the UK) has been fastest amongst the young. these are the group least likely to die. So there will be an uptick in deaths - but it will be delayed by 3 weeks and also maybe lower than if it was a disease spreading equally through the whole population. In other wayes children catch stuff in school and then bring it back home, where it affects adults. Let us hope that vaccination has broken that link. Japan is currently at 32% one dose, 20% full. One dose is enough to reduce mortality by a large amount. Given that those most at risk get vaccinated first, so the first 30% of single and then double vaccinations have a disproportionate effect on mortality, the overall death rate should be reducing a lot just due to vaccination.
Looking at that graph it is surprising that deaths in the second infection peak appear a bit higher than for the first. you would expect lower because of
- better shielding
- start of vaccination
- improvements in care
But maybe there are specific issues. I don't know muhc about COVID in japan.
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Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.
Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetimePeople who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the…www.nature.comMany people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-191.
The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Antibodies — proteins that can recognize and help to inactivate viral particles — are a key immune defence. After a new infection, short-lived cells called plasmablasts are an early source of antibodies.
But these cells recede soon after a virus is cleared from the body, and other, longer-lasting cells make antibodies: memory B cells patrol the blood for reinfection, while bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) hide away in bones, trickling out antibodies for decades.
“A plasma cell is our life history, in terms of the pathogens we’ve been exposed to,” says Ali Ellebedy, a B-cell immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the study, published in Nature on 24 May.
Researchers presumed that SARS-CoV-2 infection would trigger the development of BMPCs — nearly all viral infections do — but there have been signs that severe COVID-19 might disrupt the cells’ formation2. Some early COVID-19 immunity studies also stoked worries, when they found that antibody levels plunged not long after recovery3.
Ellebedy’s team tracked antibody production in 77 people who had recovered from mostly mild cases of COVID-19. As expected, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies plummeted in the four months after infection. But this decline slowed, and up to 11 months after infection, the researchers could still detect antibodies that recognized the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
To identify the source of the antibodies, Ellebedy’s team collected memory B cells and bone marrow from a subset of participants. Seven months after developing symptoms, most of these participants still had memory B cells that recognized SARS-CoV-2. In 15 of the 18 bone-marrow samples, the scientists found ultra-low but detectable populations of BMPCs whose formation had been triggered by the individuals’ coronavirus infections 7–8 months before. Levels of these cells were stable in all five people who gave another bone-marrow sample several months later.
“This is a very important observation,” given claims of dwindling SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, says Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, whose team co-discovered the cells in the late 1990s. What’s not clear is what antibody levels will look like in the long term and whether they offer any protection, Ahmed adds. “We’re early in the game. We’re not looking at five years, ten years after infection.”
Ellebedy’s team has observed early signs that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine should trigger the production of the same cells4. But the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or by infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is, we will need a booster.”
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Somone posted a video from http://www.follow-your-oath.com - I investigated the site a bit partly because of the strange way the spell COVID - as COV1D. This is I guess because they think their stuff, if noticed, will be taken down?
They have a page full of nice videos
killing peoplespreading misleading vaccine disinformation.Anyway it got me looking at who spreads disinformation and why:
The disinformation dozen
12 people who between them source 65% of vaccine misinformation (73% on facebook).
1. Joseph Mercola
2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
3. Ty and Charlene Bollinger
4. Sherri Tenpenny
5. Rizza Islam
6. Rashid Buttar
7. Erin Elizabeth
8. Sayer Ji
9. Kelly Brogan
10. Christiane Northrup
11. Ben Tapper
12. Kevin JenkinsThese figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.
Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what's been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation.
"It's almost like conspiracy theory Mad Libs. They just inserted the new claims," said John Gregory, deputy health editor at NewsGuard, which rates the credibility of news sites and has done its own tracking of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation "superspreaders."
The claims from the "Disinformation Dozen" range from "denying that COVID exists, claiming that false cures are in fact the way to solve COVID and not vaccination, decrying vaccines and decrying doctors as being in some way venal or motivated by other factors when they recommend vaccines," Ahmed said.
Many of the 12, he said, have been spreading scientifically disproven medical claims and conspiracies for years.
Which provokes the question: Why have social media platforms only recently begun cracking down on their falsehoods?
Here is a nice picture + info on Joseph Mercola - alternative medicine guru - who makes a very good living from mercola.com
Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack?www.chicagomag.comHe may not have the mainstream name recognition or rock-star appeal of, say, Mehmet Oz (though he has twice been a guest on The Dr. Oz Show). But Mercola’s influence is nonetheless considerable. Each month, nearly two million people click to see the osteopathic physician’s latest musings on the wonders of dietary supplements and minerals (“The 13 Amazing Health Benefits of Himalayan Crystal Salt”), the marvels of alternative therapies (“Learn How Homeopathy Cured a Boy of Autism”), and his take on medical research, from vaccines (“Your Flu Shot Contains a Dangerous Neurotoxin”) to vitamin D (“The Silver Bullet for Cancer?”).
Some of the articles on Mercola’s site, Barrett and others say, seem to be as much about selling the wide array of products offered there—from Melatonin Sleep Support Spray ($21.94 for three 0.85-ounce bottles) to Organic Sea Buckthorn Anti-Aging Serum ($22 for one ounce)—as about trying to inform. (Your tampon “may be a ticking time bomb,” he tells site visitors—but you can buy his “worry-free” organic cotton tampons for the discounted price of $7.99 for 16.) Steven Salzberg, a prominent biologist, professor, and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls Mercola “the 21st-century equivalent of a snake-oil salesman.”
Meanwhile, the Better Business Bureau has tagged Mercola.com with an F rating, its lowest, due in part to customer complaints that the company doesn’t honor its 100 percent money-back guarantee. That black mark isn’t exactly the kind of thing that tends to boost revenues. Hoovers, a division of Dun & Bradstreet, estimates that the privately held Mercola.com and Mercola LLC together brought in just under $7 million in 2010. (A Mercola spokesman didn’t dispute that figure.)
But those dollars don’t reflect the extent of Mercola’s influence. According to traffic-tracking firm Quantcast, Mercola.com draws about 1.9 million unique visitors per month, each of whom returns an average of nearly ten times a month. That remarkable “stickiness” puts the site’s total visits on a par with those to the National Institutes of Health’s website. (Mercola claims his is “the world’s No. 1 natural health website,” citing figures from Alexa.com.) Mercola’s 200,000-plus “likes” on Facebook are more than double the number for WebMD. And two of his eight books—2003’s The No-Grain Diet and 2006’s The Great Bird Flu Hoax—have landed on the New York Times bestseller list.
As he built his site, Mercola began filling it with articles he wrote, on subjects such as his conviction that vitamin D “positively influences” conditions from heart disease to diabetes to cancer. (Some studies do suggest that elevated levels of vitamin D may protect against certain cancers.) He shared his views about issues such as hospital-acquired infections and the overuse and improper use of antibiotics. He reiterated the importance of preventive care and said that spending more time with patients could help them heal. And he recommended eating unprocessed foods and getting plenty of exercise. These are all stances that few mainstream doctors would argue with.
But he also took more controversial positions. On pharmaceuticals, for example: “There are a few drugs—very, very few—that I would recommend.” Among his reasons: Drugs treat symptoms rather than underlying causes, many are unproven, and they can cause immense harm.
“You have more than 100,000 people every year [in the United States] dying from taking legally prescribed drugs,” Mercola says, citing a 1994 study from the University of Toronto. “No people in a typical year are dying from vitamin supplements,” he continues, his voice rising. “And yet vitamins are vilified and drugs are identified as the hero. It doesn’t make sense.” (It’s not unknown for people to die from overusing supplements, which escape FDA review so long as they do not make health claims on the label.)
“There’s no doubt that people die after taking conventional medicine,” Salzberg says. “Those things happen and are bad and should be corrected, absolutely. But the solution is not to believe the claims of Dr. Mercola that because something is natural it’s better. He’s really just changing the topic on you.”
Joseph Ross, a cardiologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Yale University, agrees with Salzberg. “The issue is more complicated than Mercola is making it. Yes, there are problems with the [drug] industry, problems with the relationships between the industry and the profession, and problems with the medical literature due to industry distortions. However, many of the pharmaceuticals available to us today are both safe and effective and are improving the lives of patients. I do not advocate throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
But the stance that tends to drive Mercola’s critics most crazy is his support of the antivaccination movement. A search of Mercola.com reveals dozens of articles and videos railing against virtually all vaccines, particularly mandatory ones for children. Among the titles: “Do NOT Let Your Child Get Flu Vaccine—9 Reasons Why.”
Mercola says he recently donated $1 million to several alternative medicine groups, including the National Vaccine Information Center, which describes itself as a “vaccine watch dog.” Part of the money, according to the group’s website, was used to pay for an ad called “Vaccines: Know the Risk,” which was shown hourly on the CBS Jumbotron in Times Square for several weeks last spring.
Mercola says he is simply trying to ask hard questions about the potential harm caused by inoculations and voice his opposition to government-imposed mandates. “There are virtually no safety studies done [on vaccines],” Mercola says. “We don’t know what the effects of combining them are. We don’t know what the long-term complications are.” He says the government and media downplay very real risks and either underreport or ignore serious adverse reactions. Meanwhile, “we don’t have the option to say no [to getting the shots]. It’s just insane what’s happening, and more and more vaccines [are coming] down the line.”
It’s one thing, Mercola’s critics say, to push unproven dietary supplements. It’s another to advocate that parents shun something that has done so much good. “When I was training 50 years ago, I saw kids who were deaf from measles, demented,” Barrett says. “Vaccines save lives and they prevent disability.”
Among the tricks he learned was how to grab readers’ attention—the notion, for example, that “80 percent of the effectiveness of an article is based on the headline.” He also learned the power of provocation. “I would find articles that supported one position and [say] why I disagreed. I didn’t hold back, and people seemed to like that. I didn’t realize at the time that was a useful marketing principle.”
If there were any doubt about the importance of marketing to the operation, it was dispelled when I was given a quick tour of Mercola’s sprawling headquarters. The lobby of Dr. Mercola’s Natural Health Center looks like the kind of well-appointed suburban office where you’d expect vanity procedures such as face-lifts to be offered. As it turns out, only one short hallway is dedicated to patient services. “Marketing and customer service take up most of the rest,” a new-patient coordinator told me.
The medical pros on staff—a doctor, a nutritionist, and four therapists—offer treatments such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which Mercola describes as a “form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture.” Another option: thermography, the screening method with advertising claims that got Mercola into hot water with the FDA.
One key element of Mercola’s appeal—and the reason he is so confounding to some of his critics—is that plenty of the things he advocates are rooted in common sense and even good science. His site, for example, offers a thorough primer on proper hand washing to avoid spreading or catching the flu. As much as he pushes people to spend time in the sun, he also tells them to avoid getting a sunburn and even to cover up in a way that allows enough sun to get through while avoiding skin damage.
In the opinion of David Gorski, a doctor who runs a site similar to Barrett’s (ScienceBasedMedicine.org), the problem is that Mercola either vastly exaggerates preliminary research or cherry-picks studies that bolster his point of view. Gorski believes that Mercola also ignores data that prove him wrong or pushes far beyond what is scientifically sound, using scare tactics to make his point. For example, his site includes an article by a California doctor titled “HIV Does Not Cause AIDS.” Mercola posted a comment at the end of the article: “Exposure to steroids and the chemicals in our environment, the drugs used to treat AIDS, stress, and poor nutrition are possibly the real causes.”
Gorski lists a litany of Mercola’s beliefs that he says fly in the face of good science. “It’s all there,” says Gorski. “He’s antivaccine. He has promoted [someone] who believes cancers are caused by fungus. He has promoted fear-mongering about shampoo. He digs up the hoary old myth that anti-perspirants containing aluminum cause breast cancer. Just this month he is pushing this nonsense that somehow recombinant bovine growth factor in milk causes breast cancer, something for which there’s no evidence.
“Basically, if it’s ‘natural,’ it’s good,” Gorski says. “If it’s pharmaceutical, it’s evil. If anything boils his approach down to a short sound bite, that’s probably as close as I can think of.”
When I asked Mercola why the criticism against him by mainstream physicians is so harsh—and why the FDA has been on his case—he laughed. “It’s a very simple answer,” he says. “There are enormous sums of money involved. There’s this huge collusion between government and industry. They leverage the federal regulatory agencies against us to make us look like we’re breaking the law.”
He pushes treatments and theories shunned by conventional medicine, he says, because “when you understand the truth [you have a duty] to communicate that as clearly and effectively as possible. I can see things that are just obvious and clear to me. I don’t need 30 more years of science to support it. Am I wrong sometimes? Sure. Everyone’s wrong [sometimes]. . . . People call me a snake-oil salesman, of course. They’re free to do that. I don’t think there’s a justification for it.”
As for his critics, Mercola views them as “pawns” of a system in which medical journals have become an almighty arbiter of the scientific process. “It’s how physicians and health care professionals validate their approach,” he says. “Just use the journals. [That’s fine] if you can maintain objectivity and you don’t corrupt it with conflict of interest. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. These journals get corrupted. Then everyone down the line steps in and says, ‘Oh, the journals say it, the experts say it, then who am I to say differently?’ And they all fall in step.”
Salzberg strongly disagrees. “What people like Mercola sometimes ignore is that real medicines really work. They really work because they undergo very strenuous testing. . . . Medical science is constantly critiquing itself. We’re always skeptical about our own results. The purveyors of supplements and ‘alternative medicine,’ including Mercola, are actually not doing that at all.”
In his coolly modern office—with its polished wood floors, caramel-colored leather furniture, and dramatic lighting—Mercola tells me he’s not long for this world. That is, he won’t be sticking around for the coming cold and sunless stretches of a Chicago winter. As is the case every year at this time, he will soon be off to more agreeable latitudes. “I typically go to warm climates such as South Florida, Mexico, Miami, the Caribbean,” he explains. “My girlfriend has a home in Florida, so we stay there sometimes.” He still works every day, he says. “I just work in shorts and T-shirts.”
Of course, he also enthusiastically chases rays. But without traditional sunscreens. Those are “loaded with toxic chemicals,” states a posting on his website. According to researchers, the post continues, “nearly half of the 500 most popular sunscreen products may actually increase the speed at which malignant cells develop and spread skin cancer.”
There is an alternative, a “major breakthrough in all natural sunscreen lotions,” the site says: Dr. Mercola’s Natural Sunscreen with Green Tea. It’s on sale for $15.97 for an eight-ounce bottle, just a mouse click away.
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Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-191.
The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Antibodies — proteins that can recognize and help to inactivate viral particles — are a key immune defence. After a new infection, short-lived cells called plasmablasts are an early source of antibodies.
But these cells recede soon after a virus is cleared from the body, and other, longer-lasting cells make antibodies: memory B cells patrol the blood for reinfection, while bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) hide away in bones, trickling out antibodies for decades.
“A plasma cell is our life history, in terms of the pathogens we’ve been exposed to,” says Ali Ellebedy, a B-cell immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the study, published in Nature on 24 May.
Researchers presumed that SARS-CoV-2 infection would trigger the development of BMPCs — nearly all viral infections do — but there have been signs that severe COVID-19 might disrupt the cells’ formation2. Some early COVID-19 immunity studies also stoked worries, when they found that antibody levels plunged not long after recovery3.
Ellebedy’s team tracked antibody production in 77 people who had recovered from mostly mild cases of COVID-19. As expected, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies plummeted in the four months after infection. But this decline slowed, and up to 11 months after infection, the researchers could still detect antibodies that recognized the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
To identify the source of the antibodies, Ellebedy’s team collected memory B cells and bone marrow from a subset of participants. Seven months after developing symptoms, most of these participants still had memory B cells that recognized SARS-CoV-2. In 15 of the 18 bone-marrow samples, the scientists found ultra-low but detectable populations of BMPCs whose formation had been triggered by the individuals’ coronavirus infections 7–8 months before. Levels of these cells were stable in all five people who gave another bone-marrow sample several months later.
“This is a very important observation,” given claims of dwindling SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, says Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, whose team co-discovered the cells in the late 1990s. What’s not clear is what antibody levels will look like in the long term and whether they offer any protection, Ahmed adds. “We’re early in the game. We’re not looking at five years, ten years after infection.”
Ellebedy’s team has observed early signs that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine should trigger the production of the same cells4. But the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or by infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is, we will need a booster.”
Well, we know that natural protection does not protect from variants because the variants emerged in countries re-infecting those who had once had COVID...
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Well, we know that natural protection does not protect from variants because the variants emerged in countries re-infecting those who had once had COVID...
I will just leave this here.
Natural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection?www.israelnationalnews.comNatural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection?
Nearly 40% of new COVID patients were vaccinated - compared to just 1% who had been infected previously.
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Well, we know that natural protection does not protect from variants because the variants emerged in countries re-infecting those who had once had COVID...
Yes in vaccinated too!
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The delay between cases and deaths is around 3 weeks,
More FUD by THH. The delay is 10..14 days given by hard statistics data. I linked it and explained it.
Well, we know that natural protection does not protect from variants because the variants emerged in countries re-infecting those who had once had COVID...
More FUD from THH. Papers/Studies confirm else. Vaccines sometimes totally fail for variants as the Cell paper did show.
Studies show that just the antibodies have a reduced match but this will not prevent the T-Cell to provide better matched ones...Re-infection are very very rare most among among false PCR positive.....
Nearly 40% of new COVID patients were vaccinated - compared to just 1% who had been infected previously.
May be the forum should ask who "pays" (= grand master order) for all the @THH FUD
he is flooding the forum with completely unrelated anti anti vaxx propaganda
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No idea why, but my blocking of W switched off. This may annoy people, because I feel compelled to reply to much of the non-rational comment.
in this case, as in so many, W is performing primary process thinking: confusing association with causation.
(1) True, infection rates in japan have just started to shoot up - because of delta.
(2) True, the mortality rate in japan has been falling dramatically because of a dramatic reduction in infection rate, and the roll-out of vaccination to those most at risk.
The delay between cases and deaths is around 3 weeks, so other things being equal we expect deaths to pick up soon. There is another phenomenon - which is that delta spread (at least in the UK) has been fastest amongst the young. these are the group least likely to die. So there will be an uptick in deaths - but it will be delayed by 3 weeks and also maybe lower than if it was a disease spreading equally through the whole population. In other wayes children catch stuff in school and then bring it back home, where it affects adults. Let us hope that vaccination has broken that link. Japan is currently at 32% one dose, 20% full. One dose is enough to reduce mortality by a large amount. Given that those most at risk get vaccinated first, so the first 30% of single and then double vaccinations have a disproportionate effect on mortality, the overall death rate should be reducing a lot just due to vaccination.
Looking at that graph it is surprising that deaths in the second infection peak appear a bit higher than for the first. you would expect lower because of
- better shielding
- start of vaccination
- improvements in care
But maybe there are specific issues. I don't know muhc about COVID in japan.
Maybe a higher power turned W back on its a sign Thomas, you have been warned
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We live with the corona virus since more than 100 years now. Some parts of China for more than 1000 years. So your wish is just an intellectual brain fart.
That is nonsense. Many variations of the coronaviruses and influenza have been driving into extinction in humans. Most recently SARS and MERS. The 1918 influenza no longer exists. It may have mutated, or it may have gone extinct. We know it does not exist because it was deliberately re-assembled from fragments, and the complete genome is now known.
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That is nonsense. Many variations of the coronaviruses and influenza have been driving into extinction in humans. Most recently SARS and MERS. The 1918 influenza no longer exists. It may have mutated, or it may have gone extinct. We know it does not exist because it was deliberately re-assembled from fragments, and the complete genome is now known.
H1N1 still exits and still circulates or do you forget the 2010 Obama pandemic. In 1977 it was released accidently during a Russian vaccination trial. It's still out there but maybe in a more mutated state than original. And are you sure SARS and MERS are extinct or just in hiding?
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QUESTION EVERYTHING
https://trialsitenews.com/question-everything/
By Abir Ballan, MPH
“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge” – Thomas Berger
Asking questions is at the heart of science. Science is not an institution and not an authority. Science is never settled. It is forever evolving through conjecture and criticism. Questions form the basis of all scientific inquiry and scientific progress. Without challenging existing concepts – usually held by a majority – there is no new knowledge creation. Censoring dissenting voices eliminates the mechanism of error correction and pushes humanity back into the dark ages.
From the beginning lockdowns were a questionable public health tool, even described as ‘pro-contagion’ by Professor Ioannidis of Stanford University. As early as June 2020, papers showed that lockdowns and other NPIs had no effect on reducing deaths. We were all aware that lockdowns would have a terrible economic impact and a devastating human toll, especially in the developing world. We went along with this ‘cure’ because we were told it would save lives – it was necessary for 2 to 3 weeks to flatten the curve of infections and prevent healthcare system strain. Yet the goal posts kept shifting endlessly, moving towards a ZERO COVID world: a completely unrealistic and unachievable goal. Such an anti-science goal brings with it huge collateral damage: job losses, economic devastation, suicides, mental health crises and hurt to children and young people.
Is NOW the time to question absolutely everything?
The pandemic response was disproportionate. If infected, the average mortality with COVID is similar to the flu at 0.15%, globally. Why did the WHO, in March 2020, highlight the figure of 3.4% representing deaths among cases? Those cases included only high-risk individuals in hospitals with a far higher likelihood of mortality than the rest of the population. This figure did not take into account all infections that lead to mild disease or even no symptoms at all. It did not include individuals who are protected by past immunity. It certainly did not reflect that the elderly are several thousand times more likely to die with COVID than the young. Even Fauci predicted, in March 2020, “The consequences of COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza”. Why then are we treating COVID as if it were Ebola?
The common sense approach would have been to focus efforts and resources on protecting the high-risk group (people above 60, suffering from other health conditions), treating them early, and in turn reducing deaths. Telling people, “Don’t do anything until you are very sick and need to be hospitalised,” is deadly. There are cheap, generic, safe and effective treatments available, such as Ivermectin, that are saving lives. Why are treatments being ignored, suppressed and attacked? Why aren’t the media or public health officials informing the public about them?
The CDC, the WHO and ‘experts’ have flip-flopped multiple times. In February 2020, Fauci said, “In all the history of respiratory-born viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person.” However, all the pandemic measures were based on the assumption that people who are healthy might be sick without knowing it. On June 8, 2020, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO stated that asymptomatic spread of SARS-CoV-2 is very rare. The next day she walked back her comment saying that studies, based on computer modeling not real-life data, show that asymptomatic spread is cause for concern. A systematic review and meta-analysis paper, published in 2020, falsified this assumption. Asymptomatic spread is simply not the main driver of disease. What should be of even less concern is transmission in the open air, likely to be below 0.1% of all transmissions. How can anyone catch the virus from just passing by healthy people on the streets? Unfortunately, the CDC overestimated outdoor spread, claiming that it represented 10% of transmissions. This exaggeration was used to justify futile outdoor mask mandates. They later admitted their error, too little, too late. Why are we still testing healthy people and locking populations indoors?
The CDC and the WHO confused the public with their social media recommendations about masks: ‘Masks don’t work in the community. Everyone should wear masks in the community. Everyone should wear two masks. Even if you are vaccinated you should still wear a mask and finally, if you are vaccinated you can do without a mask.’ Behind the scenes, the CDC published a policy review in May 2020 stating, “We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission”. The WHO also published an Interim guidance in June 2020 stating “At present, there is no direct evidence on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community” and Fauci’s leaked emails showed that he didn’t believe in the power of masks either. He said in February 2020 in his email to Sylvia Burwell, “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.” Why were masks mandated even when the data showed that they made no difference?
The WHO flip-flopped on the definition of herd immunity, which is the point at which an infectious disease stops being a cause for concern because most of the population is immune to it. They removed natural immunity from the definition and limited herd immunity to that reached via vaccination only. After this meddling caused an uproar, they went back again and included both forms of immunity as contributing to herd immunity. Furthermore, they changed their recommendations about the PCR test, first allowing very high cycle thresholds of 45 (which is the number of times the genetic material of the virus is multiplied until it is detected) and recommending that cases are diagnosed based on a positive PCR test, regardless of symptoms – previously unheard of in medicine. Patients are usually diagnosed with a disease if they are sick. Later the WHO rectified their stance, clarifying that the diagnosis of cases requires clinical symptoms and that high cycle thresholds lead to false positives. Why did the WHO make recommendations contrary to established medical practice for infectious diseases? The PCR test was not designed to diagnose infectiousness. It merely detects viral genetic material, dead or alive. Studies indicate that 25 cycles are enough to detect an infectious virus. How much have the false positive results affected the number of cases and in turn the number of deaths? How many deaths were wrongly attributed to COVID instead of other diseases?
Science doesn’t flip-flop like that. Politics does. Science has become politicized. We need to decouple science from politics. It is being manipulated to serve corporate and political agendas. Anyone criticizing ‘The Science’ is silenced harshly. People are smart and if given accurate information they can make the right decisions for themselves and their communities. Unfortunately, people are being misinformed and fear-mongered with non-stop death reports, apparently vanishing immunity and the threat of new variants. Fear is not good for us. It’s not good for our immunity, our health or our ability to think rationally. To calm the fear, we need to know that cases are meaningless, deaths are overestimated and immunity – whether natural or vaccine-induced – is long-lasting and can protect us from future variants. Variants are not unique to COVID. All respiratory viruses mutate. The variants are so minutely different from each other that our immune system will recognize them and protect us. It’s like your friend wearing a cap. Can you still recognize him? In the same way, your immune system also recognizes the variants. How much longer should we let those variants haunt us?
Did the COVID-19 response foster public health or public harm? Was the ‘cure’ worse than the disease?
NOW is the time for error correction. Start at the beginning and question everything: lockdowns, asymptomatic transmission, mask mandates, claims about short-lived immunity and dreadful variants. NOW is the time for a better solution.
“The important thing is to never stop questioning” – Albert Einstein
Mark your calendar for The Question Everything: Lockdowns Summit, on the 17th of July 2021, where pre-eminent experts from science, social sciences, law and industry will evaluate the response to COVID-19.
Author BIO:
Abir Ballan, MPH- has a background in public health, psychology, and education. She’s been a passionate advocate for the inclusion of students with learning difficulties in schools. She has also published 27 children’s books in Arabic. [She is particularly concerned for the wellbeing of the young, the elderly and people in the developing world in the midst of the disproportionate COVID-19 response. (can be shortened).] Abir is a member of the Executive Committee at PANDA (Pandemics- Data & analytics).
And we here on the forum have been on top of all these controvercies in real time. We were asking those questions as they arose. Unfortunately, we can ask all we want, but the health care institutions will not, unfortunately, be held accountable for their failures during the pandemic, and as the article points out...there were many. Without owning up to their mistakes, or being forced to, they will never make the adjustments needed to do better next time.
This crisis has shown me our health institutions cater to, and are heavily influenced foremost by politics, money, grants, and fear of reprisal (blacklisting) should they not fall in line behind the official narrative, and after that comes the science.
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And we here on the forum have been on top of all these controvercies in real time. We were asking those questions as they arose. Unfortunately, we can ask all we want, but the health care institutions will not, unfortunately, be held accountable for their failures during the pandemic, and as the article points out...there were many. Without owning up to their mistakes, or being forced to, they will never make the adjustments needed to do better next time.
This crisis has shown me our health institutions cater to, and are heavily influenced foremost by politics, money, grants, and fear of reprisal (blacklisting) should they not fall in line behind the official narrative, and after that comes the science.
Yes and when we ask those questions we are labeled naive, ignorant, anti Vaxer and death cult members. Some science!
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I will just leave this here.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762
Natural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection?
Nearly 40% of new COVID patients were vaccinated - compared to just 1% who had been infected previously.
Curbina - that is interesting, but not at all conclusive. I am sure you know why the 40% vs 1% figure (40X) is a newspaper headline. Even then, using the correct less dramatic figure of 6X (which you understand, and is given in the article) this does not prove anything because the group of vaccinated Israelis are a very selected population - selected for those at most risk of COVID and therefore much more likely to end up in hospital even after vaccination - which is only 93% or so effective against hospitalisation.
For example young people (not vaccinated) are highly unlikely to go to hospital even if they have no prior infection!
As always - the newspaper sensationalises. Here we can understand the figures, as I'm sure you do. Therefore not sure why you think posting a sensational and misleading headline is enough said? A poor reflection on the site if you really believe that!
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Yes and when we ask those questions we are labeled naive, ignorant, anti Vaxer and death cult members. Some science!
It is not people asking genuine questions. It is people without evidence (or with evidence that is not evidence like that notional 40X Israeli figure - if you don't understand why it says nothing about the relative risk of a given person being hospitalised with COVID after either natural infection or vaccination I will say more - let me know) casting doubt on the integrity of health professionals.
In that case they are either naively believing anti-vax propaganda without understanding it, or they are deliberately trying to mislead, or they have a fixed idea that experts are evil which over-rides all else.
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I seem to have lost both my blocked posters list and the the block option, is this another AZ side effect?
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It is not people asking genuine questions. It is people without evidence (or with evidence that is not evidence like that notional 40X Israeli figure - if you don't understand why it says nothing about the relative risk of a given person being hospitalised with COVID after either natural infection or vaccination I will say more - let me know) casting doubt on the integrity of health professionals.
In that case they are either naively believing anti-vax propaganda without understanding it, or they are deliberately trying to mislead, or they have a fixed idea that experts are evil which over-rides all else.
And your delta delta delta, without evidence isn't sensational headlining here. I post the science and all you ever do is ask for more. Never satisfied, vitamin D, recent posts of successfull hydroxychloriquine trials and yet you continue with Delta and vaccine. You lost creadability a while back with one little phrase. (But not with Covid) when referring to ivermectin safety studies. Can you produce those same studies for the vaccine regarding Covid?
No you can't.
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I seem to have lost both my blocked posters list and the the block option, is this another AZ side effect?
Yes, another vaccine side effect.
Seriously, there was some software glitch today, but Barty patched it up 2 hours ago. Must have defaulted everything, because login was affected also. I notice also we staffers now make "Official Posts" when we post. Not sure what that is about, but it does make me feel more important.
