Opinion by Kip Hansen — 25 September 2020
A group calling itself “The Global Health Security Network (GHSN) Limited” was formed last June, in Australia. Sounds great, doesn’t it. Health, Security, it’s Global and it’s a Network!
Here’s their mission statement:
Mission
We encourage free thinking and support those that wish to make a meaningful impact to improve the health and well-being of all people globally. The GHSN community is an opportunity to engage with members, sharing their ideas through the Association and at GHSN events around the world.”
And the GHSN’s About page states that it “was created to provide a space where global health academics, scientists and policy-makers from across multiple sectors and around the world have a platform to share their thoughts, ideas, research and innovations with other professionals.”
As has become all too common in this topsy-turvy world of today, they have just issued their first Policy Report. Inventively titled “The COVID-19 Pandemic vs Post-Truth” [ available as a .pdf file here ] it recommends policies that are the complete opposite of their stated mission. It was written by “Dr. Jennifer S. Hunt, National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy ANU, for the Global Health Security Network, August 2020”.
Although the Policy Report was prepared at an Australian university, it is expressly about the United States:
“Though the United States is the focus of this report, the impact of COVID-19 conspiracy theories is potentially global. As far away as Melbourne, Australia, demonstrators defied lockdown orders, shouting “Death to Bill Gates!” – a key figure in US-based conspiratorial assertions. Public discussion of the pandemic must take into account the viral spread of conspiracy theories surrounding it and the longer-term impacts of the ‘post-truth’ age in which it thrives.”
There are several well-known “conspiracy theories” circulating about the Covid Pandemic. I put quotes around the term conspiracy theories in order to make it clear that this is a term being thrown about to denigrate any idea that is contrary to desired governmental or social narratives on any subject. Here are the “conspiracy theories” mentioned in the GHSN’s policy report:
So, let’s parse this table:
Origin:
The exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes Covid-19, is still subject to ongoing investigations by the Chinese government, the US intelligence community and other international bodies. Both listed “conspiracy theories” are currently generally considered, depending on the investigating group, as “possible” to “probable”. Neither of these is a “conspiracy theory”.
Severity:
Hoax: The idea that SARS-CoV-2 is a “hoax” would be a conspiracy theory if attached to a source – eg: “Covid-19 is a hoax perpetrated by the CIA”. The polls given in the Policy Report do not report any widespread support for this idea.
“Just the flu” and mortality exaggerated: These are oddly both probably nominally true. Corona viruses are not strictly influenzas, but they do produce influenza-like illnesses and the current numbers of actually sick people (as opposed to just “positive tests” from RT-PCR tests with extremely high sensitivity resulting in non-actionable “positive tests”) are in line with previous very bad flu seasons and far lower than historic catastrophic influenzas. Recent revelations have shown it to be categorically true that “Covid-19 deaths” have been exaggerated, at least in the United States, by mandate from the CDC and other health officials.
Institutions:
Unprepared: That the world’s health institutions were unprepared for a pandemic of this nature is so obviously true especially in the United States, that the listing of this idea as “misinformation” itself seems like an attempt to misinform. WHO and national health organizations were unprepared and opinions vary wildly as to the appropriateness of their various responses. Quoting the World Health Organization’s 2019 report:
“While disease has always been part of the human experience ….. the spectre of a global health emergency looms large. If it is true to say “what’s past is prologue”, then there is a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out nearly 5% of the world’s economy. A global pandemic on that scale would be catastrophic, creating widespread havoc, instability and insecurity. The world is not prepared. “
“to active part of Deep State or globalist WHO/UN plot” (sic): I don’t understand this statement but it seems to imply the idea that there is some theory that Health Institutions themselves are plotting as part of the “Deep State” or UN Globalism general conspiracies – to do what, I don’t know. I do think that there are groups that promulgate these “Deep State” and “One World Government” conspiracies and that they base their belief on exaggeration or wild spinning of existing real world problems. The idea that the UN should be established as a single world government is being openly promoted and tied to the Covid-19 pandemic: “After COVID, time to consider a UN parliament and a world federation” and “Coronavirus and the case for one-world government” . So, the idea of a push for one world government as a response to Covid-19 is not [edit – 1900 hrs ET — kh ] some entirely crazy conspiracy theory and there are reasons to speak out against this idea if one disagrees.
Lockdowns:
Unconstitutional: It is generally considered, in the United States, that it is legal and constitutional for public health officials to issue emergency rules and regulations to protect public health, particularly in response to epidemics. This includes quarantining persons who might be contagious with illness such as malaria and smallpox. The courts in the U.S. have generally upheld the various edicts, dictates and orders from Governors and Health Officials. This does not mean that everyone agrees that many of the sweeping closures of private business and restrictions on public activities are constitutional. This piece from the Cato Institute covers the topic pretty well. One of their points is a survey done in May 2020 that found that “Close to half (47 percent) of Republicans believe these lockdowns [undefined – so we don’t know exactly what the question was – kh ] are unconstitutional, while just about a quarter (26 percent) of Independents and 10 percent of Democrats say the same.” So, whether “lockdowns” are unconstitutional is a legal question, believed in May 2020 by about one third of American citizens, and cannot be considered a “conspiracy theory” – individually, it is a matter of personal opinion and for American society, it is a matter of legal decisions. Further, the question hinges on the sticky details – exactly what features of which lockdowns and where — which are everywhere different.
“to orchestrated attack (sic) on economy and Trump’s re-election”: Again, something strange about the statement itself. In the United States, it is traditional, and fully expected, that the party that is out of power hopes for bad economic news in the three months leading to a Presidential election. The devastation of American businesses caused by the response to the pandemic is being used by the out party (the Democrats) as a bludgeon against the Republicans, the in party. There is no doubt whatever that part of the ongoing political fight in the U.S. running up to the 2020 Presidential Election is based on the Democrats attempting to blame the Covid Pandemic personally on the sitting President, as if U.S. Presidents were “in charge” of viruses and their effects and could have made them go away if they had only tried harder.
Quoting The 2020 Democratic Party Platform:
“Democrats stand ready to take immediate, decisive action to pull the economy out of President Trump’s recession ….”
“Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the COVID-19 pandemic—his failure to lead—makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.“
While very few people believe that SARS-CoV-2 is a tool produced specifically for the task, it is simply a fact that the Democratic Party, in their official platform, is actively using the Covid-19 Pandemic as an attack on the sitting President of the United States. So, as there is an orchestrated attack on the Trump re-election effort using the Covid Pandemic, it is not quite right to claim that pointing this out is a conspiracy theory — as it is actually happening.
Masks:
“Ineffective”: It is perfectly clear that World and National health authorities, governors, county and town boards and even village councils are all-in for mask wearing – even more so as the pandemic fades, for reasons nobody but they know. The actual science regarding the efficacy of various medical and homemade facemasks for the prevention of the spread of viral diseases, including SARS-CoV-2, is much more nuanced.
Studies performed before the current pandemic tend to find that mask wearing for the general public is what the can be termed a “thumb-sucking exercise” – meaning doing something that makes a person doing it feel better without actually having any other discernible beneficial effect. A convenient list of such studies is available at the end of an opinion piece by Denis G. Rancourt, PhD here. [ I only mean to link the list of original studies, not the opinion piece itself – kh ].
Studies performed in an effort to support current mandates during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic find evidence that masks may, could or even, in some cases actually do, help prevent the spread of Covid-19 but only when used in rigorous adherence to hand-washing and social-distancing.
In short, the actual science on the wearing of simple ear-loop medical masks or home-made cloth facemasks is uncertain – ranging from life-saving to life-endangering.
For doctors or medical researchers to question the efficacy of face masks for the prevention or reduction of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not misinformation or a “conspiracy theory” – it is simply unsettled medical science.
“actively harmful to ‘God’s breathing system’”: In her struggle to find actual cases of Covid-19 conspiracy theories, Dr. Hunt managed to find a Tweeted YouTube of a single woman ranting about all sorts of crazy ideas about the Covid Pandemic. Now that’s some great investigative science reporting….
A 2015 study found that certain types of cloth face masks can actually be harmful, increasing infection rates. There are a series of responses to that study, all written in 2020, five years later, as others try to nullify or downgrade the findings here – this responses page includes an update comment from the original authors.
So, once more, the posited misinformation or “conspiracy theory” turns out to be differing medical opinion based on different studies. Current studies reek of “compliance bias”.
Last minute update – the U.S. C.D.C. had stirred things up a bit by updating and then retracting an update on transmission of Covid-19 via aerosol droplets.
Vaccination:
If one wants to talk of medical misinformation and conspiracy theories, one has to touch on the anti-vaccination movement. There are a lot of anti-vax activists and they are well-funded and have a huge negative impact on beneficial vaccination programs. They are responsible for outbreaks of measles and the deaths of some children in the United States from easily preventable diseases.
In the Covid Pandemic, the battle regarding vaccination seem to be being fought in alignment with two-party politics – and are more along the lines of accusing (in advance) the current administration of planning to rush through a vaccine for Covid-19 in an effort to influence the presidential election. Thus, some are saying they will refuse to receive any vaccine approved under the current Republican President – on the basis that it might be unsafe or inadequately tested. This idea is conjoined with the general anti-vax sentiments.
I have seen no evidence of claims that vaccination against Covid-19 is “unnecessary” – other than the general anti-vax idea that vaccination for anything is itself “unnecessary”.
There is, in fact, a burgeoning conspiracy theory regarding Bill Gates and his financial support for vaccine manufacturers attempting to come up with a Covid-19 vaccine. I will not link to them – as I consider them too ridiculous to credit in any way.
The anti-vax movement is engaged in widespread social harm.
There are valid things to be discussed in public forums about the current scheduled childhood vaccinations. Some vaccines could be improved and are subjects of continued medical research.
On a personal note, when my children were getting their vaccinations, I consulted with my father, a leading Los Angeles area pediatrician, and he steered us to two alternate vaccine formulations, which had to be special-ordered, which he felt had less negative side effects than those normally used by most pediatricians at that time – 30 40 years ago [edit – 0100 hrs 26/9/20 — kh ].
Most of the information spewed by anti-vax groups varies from questionable to outright false information. There is considerable conspiracy ideation in these groups.
“a tracking mechanism using 5G”: Now there’s an idea I had never heard. The cell phone technology “5G” has absolutely nothing to do with vaccination, obviously. But it is true that Apple and Google announced earlier this year:
“…a joint effort to bolster this public health service — a task known as contact tracing — by building software into smartphones that relies on Bluetooth technology to track users’ proximity to one another. Facebook is participating in a similar effort led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
Apple and Google installed the APIs (not actual apps) for Covid trackers on their branded cell phones (iPhone and Android phones) without first asking the consumer for permission. There are, of course, serious privacy trade-offs to Bluetooth-proximity-based tracking apps.
So, while there is absolutely no connection between 5G cell phone technology and Covid vaccination, there is smoke, as they say, in the idea of cell-phone based Covid Proximity Trackers. Currently, any app based on the Apple/Google APIs is entirely “opt-in” – the user has to download the app and agree to its functionalities.
My personal opinion? I would never ever allow an app to track me or my proximity to others via my cell phone and report it to any corporation or government. When the Apple/Google story broke, I carefully searched my phone of any such app, found the API, and ensured that it was not in use by any app. My general settings limit all data sharing as far as technically possible on today’s modern phones.
Where does this all lead?
So, as we see, the whole Policy Report from GHSN is based on the idea that all opinions that substantially differ from “official” governmental decrees or the policies supported and promulgated by WHO, national and local health authorities must be considered as “misinformation” – even if true – and speaking publicly about these differing medical/scientific opinions or facts should be labelled as “conspiracy theory” – whether there is any mention of a conspiracy or not. (There are, as I have said, some really nutty conspiracy theories out there – but they are so obviously nutty that they have almost no effect on the general public).
The GHSN tells us:
- That it welcomes professionals who seek to share their knowledge and research on global health security.
- Encourages free thinking
- Offers an opportunity to engage with members, sharing their ideas through the Association and at GHSN events around the world
- Provides a space where global health academics, scientists and policy-makers from across multiple sectors and around the world have a platform to share their thoughts, ideas, research and innovations with other professionals
Here are their recommendations on what should be done concerning health academics, doctors and policy-makers who are free-thinkers and openly share their thoughts, ideas, research and innovations with other professionals and the general public – keep in mind that when they say “conspiracy theories” they mean what I have shown above – any divergent opinion or research.
I translate each recommendation into its practical, real world application.
Recommendations
1. Government, in concert with researchers, should work with technology companies and social media platforms to establish programs that actively monitor, target and take down conspiracy theories and associated user accounts for repeat offenders.
Translation: Governments and “us” (right-thinking researchers) should work with the Big Tech Elites to remove all divergent, non-conforming, opinions and scientific research from the Internet and Social Media – and cancel those persons or groups who don’t get the hint that their kind of free-thinking will not be allowed.
2. Governments should adapt the law enforcement mechanisms used to fight child pornography and domestic extremism, and introduce accompanying legislation or statutes to combat conspiracy groups that disseminate extremist content.
Translation: Governments should criminalize the speaking (social media, internet, blogs, YouTubes) of opinions that “we right-thinkers” don’t agree with — along with any speech that is contrary to or disagrees with current public policy or which “we” decide to label as “extremist”.
3. Professional associations should update their codes of conduct to include formal review and disciplinary processes for individuals in positions of public trust (e.g. licensed physicians) who endanger public health through promulgation of conspiracy theories.
Translation: Doctors who don’t fall in line with current narratives and mandates, or who publish or speak publicly about scientific findings or research that fails to support current thought-mandates should be disciplined and/or be stripped of their licenses to practice.
4. Political parties could include in their election and policy platforms a commitment to professional code of conduct, with sanctions and removal of campaign support for candidates and members that fail to adhere to minimum standards around the dissemination of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Translation: Political parties should not support candidates who have and talk about ideas we don’t like – specifically Donald Trump (read the Policy Report).
5. Civil society organisations and professional associations should mobilise their membership networks to target corporate advertising in outlets that promote or facilitate the dissemination of conspiracy theories.
Translation: Media should be punished economically for allowing any opinions, facts, or research to reach the general public that fails to support current “approved” narratives on public health.
They are 36 years late – but the Thought Police have finally arrived on the field of medicine and public health:
We welcome all free-thinkers, as long as they think as we do.
We encourage sharing of opinions, as long as they align with our preferred narratives, and sharing of research but only if the findings support our policies.
Those who not only fail to agree with us but then have the audacity to speak out publicly are criminals, on the order of child pornographers, and should be hunted down and treated as such.
Commercial enterprises that give a platform to the free expression of opinions or the open sharing of medical research must be punished economically if those opinions or research findings do not support our viewpoints.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
Thank you for reading today. This essay is entirely my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Anthony Watts, our blog host or his associates who help operate this blog. I appreciate the opportunity to speak out freely here.
I will not engage in any discussion pro- or con- the anti-vax movement – I have already made my views clear in the main essay. Nor will I reply to anything related to Bill Gates and vaccines.
Note that the GHSN is not the only player in the fight against free speech in the medical arena.
It is my opinion that this threat to freedom and sanity is simply yet-another manifestation of Covid Madness – the world’s latest mass hysteria and social craze.
# # # # #
It’s from the same template as the AGW Denier Attack Plan, just different nouns interchanged.
https://live.climatehustle2.com/index/climate-hustle-2 REMINDER
TODAY: THE DEBUT OF THE GROUNDBREAKING NEW FILM “CLIMATE HUSTLE 2: RISE OF THE CLIMATE MONARCHY!”
Streaming live to all parts of the globe on September 24th at 8pm (in every local time zone internationally), you can be among the first to see this highly anticipated film that peels back the hype and exposes the dangers of global warming alarmism, UN deceptions, and the radical Green agenda.
Climate Hustle 2 was set to be released in nearly 800 theatres last Spring. But as you know, the lockdowns forced theaters to close and even now many remain unopen.
Thanks to online streaming, you can purchase a ticket today and view the opening event on September 24th right from the comfort of your own home, on your own TV, with family and friends!
Additionally, we are offering the broadcast of Climate Hustle Part 1 for instant viewing for those who missed it or need a refresher.
If you can’t make the LIVE event date, you can still watch with your viewing ticket because the replay of both Climate Hustle 1 & 2 broadcasts will remain viewable through September 27th.
“This includes quarantining those who may be contagious with diseases such as malaria and smallpox”. Excuse me? Malaria contagious?!?!? Only with the help of your bloodthirsty Anopheles mosquito. No one anywhere quarantines those with malaria, unless the use of mosquito nets constitutes quarantine.
Yep, IPCC copy. But why would we need something new if we already have an organisation (WHO) that does this job.
yeah medical group?
the Doc is so far away fom Medico its not funny
from her about page
[PhD of International Security (USyd);
Masters of International Security (USyd);
Bachelor of Political Science (UNC-Chapel Hill)]
It’s part of the same plan: the Big Green Economic Reseet
I commented a few years ago on the seemingly large number of prominent consensus climate alarmist scientists in Oz. The “Climate Blues”, a psychological depression wave that took down an unknown number of scientists under the stress of an 18yr Pause in warming was largely an Australian story.
This country has provided more than its share relative to population of zealous climate doom hype and punitive prescriptions for those not toeing the line, university anti-free speech persecutions, etc. This new initiative ‘GHSN’ from a university with an Orwellian faculty – National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy ANU, calling for erasure of dissent from authority globally is chilling.
Gee, Oz, you have to stand up and stop funding this stuff before it is too late to do so.
Have you heard the latest nonsense? Wearing a mask is a form of vaccination. They’re really trying to tie the two together. Massachusetts apparently just passed a law that state residents either have to be vaccinated by year’s end or wear a mask.
Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/face-masks-could-giving-people-covid-19-immunity-researchers/
unholy crap (which is what this story is):
“Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in one of the most respected medical journals in the world.
The commentary, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, advances the unproven but promising theory that universal face mask wearing might be helping to reduce the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic.
If this hypothesis is borne out, the academics argue, then universal mask-wearing could become a form of variolation (inoculation) that would generate immunity and “thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere” as the world awaits a vaccine.”
if all it takes is universal mask usage to reduce viral load and curb the virus, why even go after a vaccine when the answer is a $1 mask? what a “load” of crap. we have never been more lied to about anything.
“academics have suggested”
“unproven but promising”
“If this hypothesis is borne out”
and honourable mention to “The commentary”, which strongly implies this was not an actual study paper, but, well, commentary.
Wow. Ladies and Gentlemen, here we see the true power of the word ‘COULD’ in modern journalism.
Find some semi random words that sounds good together, throw the word ‘could’ in your headline as your future escape clause, and submit to your editor.
Let me put it this way. I have been drinking about a litre of tonic water (with flavouring) each day since March. At first I was doing so because we all still expected dead people on every street corners and the quinine may have been a help, then ironically, and now because I have found I actually like the taste.
So, since I started I have not died from Covid. So I could clearly link these two points together to make a hypothesis that as little as 100mg of quinine per day prevents Covid deaths. It would be unproven, but anything that prevents deaths would clearly also be promising.
So, if I was to say, COMMENT on this on an established globally read science based website – say… WUWT, and throw in some casual words about ‘expert’ who has ‘nearly 30 years experience in his field’ (while casually omitting to mention what field and what I am an expert about) then would this suddenly become internationally newsworthy with the influence to affect local government policy?
Or would you accuse me of deliberately being a troll for personal amusement and tell me to get back to my engineering data pack?
(spoiler – correct answer it B)
Yes, that ‘gin’ flavouring is really nice, isn’t it? 🙂
Well, at least alcohol has a proven track record on killing off brain cells and microbes.
Try drinking 5 litres/quarts in 16 hours – what you’ll need to do for five days in a row to get your 400mg /day of quinine from tonic water. It’s good trainig and confidence building. Prepare to get up a few times during the night, though.
The tricky part is knowing when to start the five-day grind, I guess.
I’m keeping track of my blood oxygen level. If it starts slipping below 90% and keeps going, that’s probably a good sign to start guzzling.
Important thing is to keep up a steady pace, but not too fast. Your kidney may not be able to process a litre an hour, and just half of that will still get you loaded up in 10 hours.
So this is suggesting that the mask protects the person wearing the mask when we’ve been told now for months that masks protect others FROM the wearer. They’re contradicting themselves yet again.
Here you go: I have seasonal allergies (hay fever from ragweed, etc.), so the mask wearing has done me some good. It’s certainly NOT done me any harm and also cuts the exposure to dust particles when I’m housecleaning. So what’s the problem with wearing it?
They work for dust and pollen, but for viruses they’re worthless.
Because with a virus it does little good. Also if we did a double blind study I think is would end up less than worthless. It my cause more illness.
Well, then are you guys telling me that going to vote next month (October) as Plague Doctor isn’t going to work? Gee whiz, I was SO looking forward to that, too!
From JoNova’s blog:
“Good news: masks, means more asymptomatic infections and less severe ones
It appears people who wear masks are much less likely to get severe infections. This will make some heads spin.
“Not only do masks reduce the odds of getting infected, but if people do get infected while wearing a mask — the severity of Covid is so much milder. With masks on, the odds of getting an asymptomatic infection improve. Masks don’t stop all viral particles but they stop the large droplet clusters, and thus reduce the viral load. If asymptomatic people get some protection (and we still don’t know for sure) it could solve so much.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/good-news-more-masks-means-more-asymptomatic-infections-and-less-severe-ones/
She fell for the “Covid gave Nick Cordero a blood clot” lie, too.
Has anyone ever stopped to think that it may be the really tiny particles that cause worse infection because they can be inhaled deeper into the lower parts of the lungs where covid does most of its damage.
“Masks don’t stop all viral particles but they stop the large droplet clusters, and thus reduce the viral load.”
Well, I kinda figured that out myself last April. The viral load matters.
Is “anti-vax” an em-pathetic pejorative? It is in the same league as denier, phobias, and other em-pathetic labels and judgments. The real-world meaning is found in risk management, uncertainty, and alternative treatments. For example, polio in younger boys and girls produced less harm than in older boys and girls and adults. Or with SARS-CoV-2, there are effective treatments to control infection, reproduction, and disease progression. People should be informed, not expected to comply with the consensus as testimony of their faith.
I agree. The author of this piece suddenly reveals his prejudice when he used the term “spewed” wrt “anti vaxers.” The reality is vaccinations can be dangerous, causing adverse outcomes such as cytokine storm and antibody enhancement. That’s why they typically take 5 years to develop.
and his own relative doc advised AGAINST certain vaccines with less than great side effects whats that tell you re all vaccines are just dandy go give your kids 50 or so in 10 yrs or less?
Haven’t you noticed that most “conspiracies” magically appear whenever a big corportation’s profits are at risk (e.g. vaccines, Nasa in 1970s) or some goverment agency has made a complete cockup (911) or when government have something to hide (U2 spy planes).
Conspiracy theoriest are very good at tarnishing the reputation of genuine opposition. They are very good at distracting the press from a serious issue (such as the CIA being warned of a 911 type attack) and sending them on a wild goose chase.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/16/downward-virus-flux-in-earths-atmosphere-is-over-three-billion-viruses-per-square-meter-per-day/#comment-2996807
I did not know any of this information – even if it is half true, Bill Gates should withdraw from the vaccine business.
I am also appalled by his reported concept of a “global vaccination ID enterprise” that could be subject to enormous violations of civil liberties.
GATES’ GLOBALIST VACCINE AGENDA: A WIN-WIN FOR PHARMA AND MANDATORY VACCINATION
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/government-corruption/gates-globalist-vaccine-agenda-a-win-win-for-pharma-and-mandatory-vaccination/
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chairman, Children’s Health Defense
APRIL 09, 2020
Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.
Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.
Promising his share of $450 million of $1.2 billion to eradicate polio, Gates took control of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), which mandated up to 50 doses (Table 1) of polio vaccines through overlapping immunization programs to children before the age of five. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) epidemic that paralyzed 490,000 children beyond expected rates between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and asked Gates and his vaccine policies to leave India. NPAFP rates dropped precipitously.
The most frightening [polio] epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines are all linked to vaccines.
In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) reluctantly admitted that the global explosion in polio is predominantly vaccine strain. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines. In fact, by 2018, 70% of global polio cases were vaccine strain.
In 2009, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
South African newspapers complained, ‘We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.’
In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a phase 3 trial of GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects, including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions, to 1,048 of the 5,949 children.
During Gates’ 2002 MenAfriVac campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates’ operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Approximately 50 of the 500 children vaccinated developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.” Nelson Mandela’s former senior economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philanthropic practices as “ruthless and immoral.”
In 2010, when Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO, he said “We must make this the decade of vaccines.” A month later, Gates said in a TED Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population.” And, four years later, in 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a “tetanus” vaccine campaign. Independent labs found a sterility formula in every vaccine tested. After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade. Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Philippines.
A 2017 study (Morgenson et. al. 2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP vaccine is killing more African children than the diseases it prevents. DTP-vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of children who had not yet received the vaccine. WHO has refused to recall the lethal vaccine, which it forces upon tens of millions of African children annually.
[Global public health officials] say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.
Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of steering WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases: clean water, hygiene, nutrition, and economic development. The Gates Foundation spends only about $650 million of its $5 billion dollar budget on these areas. They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.
In addition to using his philanthropy to control WHO, UNICEF, GAVI, and PATH, Gates funds a private pharmaceutical company that manufactures vaccines and is donating $50 million to 12 pharmaceutical companies to speed up development of a coronavirus vaccine. In his recent media appearances, Gates appears confident that the Covid-19 crisis will now give him the opportunity to force his dictatorial vaccine programs on all American children – and adults.
Well said Allan. Gates is a megalomaniac. He never does anything unless it supports his other investments. It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul for him and he has been doing it for years.
I am afraid Kip shat in his nest when he went on about anti-vaxers and sounded just as bad as Mann and his cohorts. He has gone right down in my book. They haven’t manage a vaccine for any of the other major outbreaks so why should you expect a safe one in a fraction of the time.
If I remember correctly the average time to develop a vaccine is twenty years and the shortest time is seven years.
Can Kip dispute anything I said in the above post. No he will just do a Michael Mann.
Take a hit from a joint, vape, cigar, or cigarette, and then put on a mask and exhale to demonstrate how ineffective masks are at stopping viruses, which are smaller than smoke and water vapor particles.
The latest is that the viruses reside on the surface of water based spherical aerosol particles that are on the order of 1 micron in diameter. These can shrink and grow to some extent depending on humidity. Covalent forces can trap particles that are smaller than pores and some masks actually use electrostatic charge as a trapping mechanism.
Trapping efficiency is still not 100% and in some cases is very low, but there is at least some effectiveness to masks, and there certainly act to reduce the distance that droplets especially travel.
Perhaps assuming an aerosolized droplet transmission mode, but it is uncorrelated with observation of viral spread in hot, humid regions.
I’m not sure what you are referring to re: the observation of viral spread in hot, humid regions. My impression is that people being inside in general and perhaps even more so in an air conditioned environment enhances spread. In any case, at about 10 minutes in the following video, a table of observations is used to make the case that aerosol spread is dominant.
Of course the main rebuttal to this is that you should not be out in public if you are coughing.
Scissor says:
Trapping efficiency is still not 100% and in some cases is very low, but there is at least some effectiveness to masks, and there certainly act to reduce the distance that droplets especially travel.
That’s what I was going to say. I would guess single viruses are not common floating in the air.
I read an article about the electrostatic properties of masks trapping the virus, thus proving! that the “I built a fence to stop mosquitoes” meme is false. It also touched on complexity of weave, e.g. a mask with an interfacing layer where the grain runs in all directions would be more effective than one made of cloth with a simple standard weave. However, I also read an article about a study which proceeded to conclude that a polyester fleece gaiter (i.e. a fuzzy, knit-based neck scarf) was LESS effective than a simple two layer homemade cotton mask. A knit fabric has a more complex weave than your standard quilt cotton, fleece has a layer of tiny hairs (that’s what “pills” when you wash it), and anyone who’s ever done laundry knows how staticky polyester can be in comparison to cotton. So unless I’m conflating things, reading the articles wrong, or misunderstanding the science (entirely possible), these “studies” seem to contradict each other.
I have been a painter for years and found most masks to be next to useless. Interestingly enough a while ago I bought a LedLenser headlight and it came with a head stocking and that is what I now use when sanding plaster or spray painting.
I have seen several people in Brussels smoking cigarettes through a hole in their masks.
Kip,
Thank you for posting about this Orwellian group! No wonder our Aussie friends are having such a tough time retaining their individual freedoms; something like GHSN puts the ‘b’ and the ‘s’ in doublespeak!
While I am not averse to vaccines where they have been shown to be safe and effective like the tetanus booster; I am reluctant to allow anyone to force a vaccine on me that seems unnecessary like one for the ChiCom-19 Virus would be!
There are too many treatments already available that seem quite effective against ChiCom-19; from the original HCQ/zinc/antibiotic regime to ivermectin and even industrial strength Vitamin D! Why would a vaccine be required if there are so many ways to knock this virus down cheaply and safely!
The same is true for masks! Why should anyone who is not elderly or suffering from a compromised immune system due to comorbidities wear a mask? The whole point of our immune system is to get exposed to different pathogens and develop a resistance to them. I don’t know if a vaccine is a help or a hindrance in that effort, but I do know the drug companies and their shills are trying to scare us into compliance!
As far as social distancing goes, it seems to have been indicated early on but these unending lockdowns and arbitrary rules only seem to be would be dictators living out their fantasies!
End the health emergency and the lockdowns, require voting in person and this will seem like a weird Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode in a few years time!
“Vitamin D”
Does anyone remember the early days when the focus was on ACE2 and how the virus attaching to ACE2 receptors disrupts RAS homeostasis towards the inflammatory axis? Well apparently, vitamin D regulates RAS. So conceivably, covid severity could boil down to a vitamin D deficiency, much like pellegra is caused by a vitamin B3 deficiency.
Vitamin D: a negative endocrine regulator of the renin–angiotensin system and blood pressure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960076004000494
The effects of vitamin D on the renin-angiotensin system
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999581/
Chapter 40 – Vitamin D and the Renin-Angiotensin System
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012381978910040X
icisil,
I value your comments very highly but do not always have the basic knowledge to understand the links you post! Could you provide a layman’s translation for those of us who suffer from this lack?
In a nutshell, RAS has inflammatory and anti-inflammatory axes based on the ACE and ACE2 enzymes, respectively, that reside on alveolar (lung air sac) cell membranes. The virus attaches to ACE2 and reputedly stops it’s anti-inflammatory activity, causing ACE inflammatory activity to go unchecked and lung inflammation to increase. The ACE2 axis opposes and counter-regulates the ACE axis; as inflammation caused by ACE increases, ACE2 will trigger secretion of non-inflammatory cytokines and stuff.
Vitamin D supposedly modulates renin production in the kidneys; renin is the initial building block of the ACE axis. There’s some kind of RAS feedback loop (that I don’t fully understand) that throttles back renin production when it’s not needed, maintaining system homeostasis; but covid reputedly breaks that loop causing renin production, and consequently inflammatory cytokines, to increase and spin out of control in a cytokine storm. So it’s hypothesized that vitamin D keeps that from happening by keeping renin production under control.
btw, I am a layman; total neophyte, but I’m not afraid to learn and I learn quickly.
icisil,
Thank you!
Having been raised a stupid hippie in the SF Bay Area, I find that my memory and knowledge from earlier schooling is a bit spotty at times. Strangely enough, those spots seem to be filled with some kind of smoke and/or weird chemicals! I love studying and learning about a wide variety of subjects but the road to wisdom and understanding seems to have a lot of potholes for me to negotiate! Must have been the former liberal administration!
So the Vit. D modulates the renin for the renin-angiotensin system, which in turn controls the production of the ACE and the ACE2 enzymes that, if in balance, prevent a cytokine storm from developing, damaging the lungs and other organs! This then would be why intubation was so harmful, in that it does not treat the underlying cause of the cytokine storm; allowing it to continue to damage other organs until they fail as well!
Much appreciated!
Yep, plus mechanical ventilation adds its own disease (the severity of which depends on skill of clinician(s) and protocol(s) used) by activating systemic inflammatory pathways (i.e., secretion of inflammatory cytokines) via mechanotransduction (biotrauma) and barotrauma.
Lungs respond to hospital ventilator as if it were an infection
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120718172835.htm
So what are you saying?
There has been discussion here for quite a while that vitamin D regulates/enhances immunity somehow and is an essential weapon in severe covid prevention, and lately, there has been talk about a study showing severe covid amelioration with the calcifediol/calcidiol forms of vitamin D, but I have not seen yet a connection between vitamin D and RAS, which is hypothesized to be the system that the virus initially disrupts causing illness, and is already compromised in people with the co-morbidities that are most prevalent in severe covid morbidity and death (i.e., hypertension, diabetes, obesity, etc.). So the connection is very interesting.
Thank you for your reply. I am a layman trying to follow discussions about the family of coronavirus, fatal attempts over the years to find vaccines, ACE, comorbidities, Lancet retracting a fake study, phony statistics, unreliable testing, conflicts of interest, blah, blah, blah. It’s difficult for me to remember it all, so thanks again for the short version.
I like to get my vitamin D in the natural way. Lazing by my pool for several hours every day 🙂
This is why the closure of public beaches, pools and playgrounds was so telling. Completely the opposite of anything that would help the public health, but everything to do with exercising socialist control over the population.
Yep, I noticed that. Insane.
A dermatologist told me the other day that he didn’t like my tan. I’m like, wtf? Then the conversation drifted to vitamin D supplementation, and the doctor’s opinion was that the RDA of 400 or 800 IU, whatever it is, is sufficient. But that dose was established to prevent rickets, nothing more. That’s the mentality we’re dealing with.
Doctors know very little about health, unfortunately.
I get little sunlight for skin cancer reasons, and was already taking 3000 IU vitamin D a day for decades. Upped that to 5000 IU a day in the Covid era. Useful to prevent infections of all kinds. Many people, especially people with darker skin, block the sunlight and don’t get as much Vitamin D from the sun. At least with pills you avoid the aging effects of the sun. People with blue eyes are at a much greater risk for skin cancer.
Explains why flu season hits during late fall and winter and not all year round.
Explains why so many elderly nursing home patients are vulnerable to infections. They live in a bubble and nearly ever go outside to see the sun. The perfect way to destroy your immune system.
Good point about Vitamin D Robert. Plus nursing home residents all have physical or mental problems .. and meals there leave a lot to be desired. Plus they can be finicky eaters of what they get.
My wife visited her Mother in a nursing home every day and got her outside whenever there was no heavy rain or snow. You could give my mother in law a vitamin pill, and we did, but ouldn’t force her to take it. I inherited bottles of mrdicine pills after she died, sime were the same medicines I take, but I actually swallow my pills. Lack of Vitamin D is one factor at the nursing homes, and they sure we’re hit hard by this pandemic.
Thank you Kip – a few points:
By now it is clear that Covid-19 is only significantly dangerous to the elderly and infirm. Thus the full-Gulag lockdown of the workforce and schoolchildren was NOT justified and the enormous damage to citizens and the economy was far worse than the disease. Willis and I independently called it correctly in 21March2020 based on available data.
Sweden was one of few countries that made the right call and now has probably achieved effective herd immunity. Most of the other governments on the planet blew their brains out (if they had any to begin with) and destroyed their economies and severely harmed their young people to protect a high-risk population that was unlikely to survive the year in any case. One thing about life – “nobody gets out alive” – get used to it!
The original justification for the lockdown was to prevent “a tsunami of cases that would overwhelm the medical system”, but that tsunami never happened, and was never even close to happening! One 600-bed hospital in Calgary was typical – it had a maximum of six Covid-19 cases and typically had only 2 or 3, but was effectively shut down for over 8 weeks! Then the goalposts were shifted and the full lockdown was extended, for reasons that still do not make sense to me. The lockdown has not saved lives. All the lockdown accomplished was to extend the life of the Covid-19 virus, delay herd immunity and even possibly allow the virus to survive into the next flu season. Attaboys all around!
Regarding the alleged “conspiracy”:
Like global warming fraud, the Covid-19 hysteria is hugely overblown, and that is blatantly obvious by now. So the question is WHY? It is irrational to believe that otherwise reasonable, intelligent people could be this incredibly stupid for this long, so what is their motive for promoting the hysteria? Are they really that stupid, or is there a covert reason for their deliberate dysfunction?
Regards, Allan
Yes Allan
Massively escalating “cases” here in Calgary and yet strangely almost no one in hospital, what a great pandemic.
Doesn’t really help that we have a PM focused on identity politics, as he really should self identify as “retard”.
I also laugh at the Woodward gotcha of Trump on Covid when last week our federal health minister Patty Hajdu admitted on CTV that they knew from Taiwanese sources in late December that this thing was transmitting human to human and would likely be bad but then they spent two months doing nothing except call out as racist anyone who suggested a Chinese link or that flights from China be banned, oh and sending all our medical PPE to China, imagine that.
But Trump is evil, who banned China flights early
Today is day 1804 in our experiment in clown based government
All true Pat.
Justin Trudeau, Dr Tam, and Health Minister Patty Hajdu all displayed utter incompetence in this matter. They were months later than Trump in shutting down travel from China, failed to properly quarantine those Chinese travelers, and displayed breathtaking stupidity. For example, they claimed racism was the reason others wanted to shut down travel from China, and they were not racist – false virtue signalling during an apparent epidemic. Yes, really! They were that stupid!
Clown-based government indeed!
Allan,
It seems clear now is that the only reason the lockdowns were extended was because the PTB found they had scared enough of the public that they could get away with it! Those that questioned the facts and the science were ridiculed and called conspiracy theorists; just like those that said that the Trump Administration was spied on and that Russian collusion was a hoax! We are seeing the end game of the globalist cabal as they try to finish taking down President Trump and the American people and republic that he has been rebuilding with his MAGA policies!
With Dr. Scott Atlas from the Hoover Institution now advising him on the ChiCom-19 Virus, Trump may finally be able to see through the BS that Fauxi and the CDC bureaucrats have been baffling him with to give their DemoKKKrat allies ammunition against him. Both Redfield, from CDC, and Fauxi may have perjured themselves in testimony before Congress; whether the DOJ pursues an investigation is problematic since most DemoKKKrats are immune from any prosecution in our current hyper-partisan climate!
All we can do is keep pointing out that “the Emperor has no clothes,” or “the Governor is killing Grandma,” as Killer Cuomo, Mad Queen Gretchen the Witless and Lawless Murphy from New Jersey have done so well! Incidentally, Stephen Crowder will be taking Louder With Crowder to Michigan, I believe next week, to be part of a protest against Gretchen the Witless for killing so many elderly with her unscientific and totalitarian policies!
“Sweden was one of few countries that made the right call and now has probably achieved effective herd immunity. ”
People seem to forget with supporting/insulting the Swedish is that – in context – part of the argument was they were not damaging their economy.
To simplify their mindset it pretty much seemed to be ‘well, we can’t stop it spreading… so… just don’t do anything stupid, wash your hands, and don’t come to work if you are sick’.
Now they were mocked for this, with the Anti-Swedish claiming they were going to have a massive death toll.
Then when that didn’t happen they all claimed that their death toll was bigger per capita than Demark, Norway and Finland (the country where I’d like to be…) and… well… yeah maybe. There is no ISO standard on Covid Death so dragging numbers off Worldometers is a bit like trying to determine shoe size based off tax returns, but yeah, MAYBE Sweden did have a worse per capita than their immediate neighbours.
(an observation here is that if Sweden had turned out to be histories biggest morgue then EVERYONE would be screaming ‘Told you so’. They are not because the statistics – as abstract as they may actually be – do not support that claim. Hence the best the anti-Swedish can come up with is discussions about Norway, Denmark and Finland (the country where I’d like to be) doing it better.)
BUT that is not the point – the point is the selected almost the opposite action path to most of the Western world, ended up with more or less the same shaped graphs and did so WITHOUT putting significant percentages of their citizens out of work.
That is the point. The absolute and relative numbers are suspect, but the shape of the distribution matches across jurisdictions. So, the question is what could have been done to reduce excess deaths (e.g. cross-contamination in nursing homes, poor hygienic habits) and reduce collateral damage on a forward-looking basis. Sweden seems to have found a sweet spot. It could only have improved its response by targeting individuals and contexts (e.g. medical facilities) at high risk with special precautions.
Agreed.
And they do not seem to be suffering a second wave, unlike lots of other European countries. All in all, it seems that the lockdowns were pretty much useless. I see the reason they were tried, but now they are just kept up to save face, and for political reasons.
One thing I find amazing is the constant blaming of Trump for 200k Fatalities. I mean, the USA is only #10 or 11 in Fatalities per million, so why do people think the USA is doing so badly? Would the Democrats have prevented all Fatalities or something?
Again, critical thinking skills are on the decline. I blame social media.
Second waves are where they have ramped up PCR testing and label positives as infections. The hospitalisation and mortality figures are refusing to play ball. UK has under 1% of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients.
I’m still waiting for an audit of 200 thousand (BTW k is really 1024) deaths. CDC reported 6% of deaths were covid only, The rest had comorbidities and thereby hangs the tale. Then there are also the fraudulent counts to weed out.
Sweden’s death toll from flu in 2019 (before the pandemic) was much lower than that of its Nordic neighbors, providing more “dry tinder” (frail, vulnerable people who’d otherwise have died in the prior year) for Covid-19 in 2020. Supporting this, Nordic neighbor countries that had had MORE severe 2019 flu seasons had lower impacts from Covid-19 in 2020.
Good comments in response to my post – my thanks to all of you!
One reason I was able to call Covid-19 correctly way back on 21March2020 was that Joe D’Aleo and I wrote a paper in 2015 on Excess Winter Mortality – we re-issued the paper when the excellent Lancet article by Gasparrini et al (2015) appeared, and included that material in our publication.
Excess Winter Deaths in the USA average about 100,000 per year, and that is just “Excess Deaths” in the four winter months December through March – so much for the warmists very-scary idea that “we’re all gonna die from global warming”.
Total Deaths in the USA average almost 3 million per year – get used to it. It may come as a shock to some people, but one observation about life is that “nobody gets out alive”.
Politicians argue for their pet policies by saying “if it just saves one life”… … not allowing for the costs of their policy – for example, the full-Gulag lockdown for Covid-19 will cost many more years-of-life-lost than it will save, because it trashed the lives of young people and those needing medical attention to vainly try to save those elderly and infirm who were already in the last months of their lives – a foolish losing trade-off.
Democrats blame Trump for the alleged 200,000 USA Covid-19 deaths (really less than 100,000) because they know that the average Dem voter is of below-average intelligence, and will believe their nonsense. News flash for Dems and other idiots: It wasn’t Trumps fault! Trump was ill-advised by Dr. Falsi and others on the lockdown.
Covid-19 was actually a relatively mild flu, in that children and the workforce typically had minor or no symptoms, and it was only significantly dangerous to the very elderly and infirm. All we needed to do was over-protect that high-risk population (which was very poorly done), and let everyone else carry on with school and jobs – the full-Gulag lockdown was a huge error – it was absolutely not necessary and was enormously counterproductive. Told you so six months ago!
COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER
by Joseph d’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
CLIMATE POLITICS EXPLAINED – THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT AND THE MACRAE-KENT COROLLARY
BACKGROUND – THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT
First, watch “the Best of Jaywalking” to understand the intellect of the GENERAL populace. 🙂
GLOBAL WARMING AND GREEN ENERGY MANIA EXPLAINED – MY POST OF 2018
wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/22/thirty-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up/#comment-2385444
The political left has many causes that are utterly foolish and destructive to society and the environment – global warming alarmism and green energy scams are prime examples.
Witness the energy idiocy of recent politicians in Western Europe, Britain, Canada, the USA, and Australia. These idiots have squandered tens of trillions of dollars of scarce global resources on costly, intermittent green energy schemes that are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, all to save us from imaginary catastrophic global warming – all in a (probably) cooling world.
Fully 85% of global primary energy is still generated from fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal. The remainder is largely generated from nuclear and hydro. Hardly any useful energy is generated from green sources, despite tens of trillions in wasted subsidies – enough money to buy too many corrupt politicians, civil servants and academics.
Anti-fossil fuels, anti-pipelines, anti-fracking, anti oilsands, pro-green energy, etc. etc. – these scams are all promoted by the same people, all deliberately harming our economies while wrapping themselves in the cloak of phony environmentalism.
These people are not pro-environment – many of their programs such as clear-cutting of tropical rainforests to grow biofuels, draining the Ogallala aquifer to grow corn for fuel ethanol, clear-cutting eastern US forests to provide wood pellets for British power plants, erecting huge wind power towers to slice up birds and bats, etc are ALL anti-environmental.
The popularity of global warming mania in the media and the general population is explained by the Dunning Kruger effect, as defined below.
THE DUNNING–KRUGER EFFECT – DEFINED
By Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the metacognitive inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence. On the other hand, people of high ability incorrectly assume that tasks that are easy for them are also easy for other people.
As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”
By George Carlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyifuNC0MT8
“Think of how stupid the average person is; and then realize half of them are stupider than that!”
In Layman’s Terms:
“Stupid people are too stupid to know they are stupid.”
NEW: THE MACRAE-KENT COROLLARY TO THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT
The Macrae-Kent Corollary to the Dunning-Kruger Effect states: “Intelligent people have no idea how stupid really stupid people actually are.”
Climate skeptics think we can explain the highly-credible scientific disproofs of the failed catastrophic human-made global warming hypothesis to global warming alarmists, but we might as well be talking to a brick wall. Upon careful observation, one realizes that these warmists have an endless-loop script running in their heads, and there is nothing of substance behind their eyes. My friend, the very talented Dr. Kent is always flummoxed by the incredible stupidity he sees around him, and I frequently have to explain to him that the average human is only of average intelligence, and half of them are stupider that! (h/t George Carlin).
Good people of the climate skeptic camp, you cannot persuade the average warmist that he is just plain wrong – you are relying upon science and logic, and the warmist does not speak your language.
As to your last paragraph, the hysterical and anti-scientific attack on the suggested HCQ treatment by Lancet, CDC, et al, is, to me, proof positive that a “covert reason” was involved in the early decisions of the US “medical experts”. Whether their actions were merely a bureaucratic “power grab” or were politically motivated (a la the FBI/DOJ Russia hoax) is uncertain, but something other than public benefit was directing their recommendations.
Your worship of Sweden is ridiculous Macrae.
Their hospitalization rate, death rate and economic decline in the first half of the year were nothing special. They had lock downs of high schools and colleges. Businesses remained open but people avoided those where social distancing was impossible — a lot of businesses — and that was reflected in their first half of 2020 GDP decline.
If you want to point out a COVID winner, how about Norway or Taiwan?
Richard Greene, your Covid-19 comments are innumerate and false – lacking in logic and common sense. Your comments are highly political and not scientific – your motives are suspect.
Watch this video by Ivor Cummins, also posted above – his Covid-19 conclusions of 8Sep2020 agree with my conclusions of ~21Mar2020, almost 6 months earlier. https://youtu.be/8UvFhIFzaac
When you develop the ability to correctly predict outcomes, then you can criticize those who did. You are not even close.
Macrea your character attacks and ridicule upon me are not refuting anything I wrote, and everyone knows it. That’s leftist style “debate” learned from Saul Alinsky.
The results in Norway, so far, are much better than in Sweden, yet you promote Sweden, and completely ignore neighboring Norway.
Seems like you have stated a strong, early opinion about Sweden and no data will change your mind. Only a closed mind will not change when more data are collected and studied.
RG: If you take the time to watch the video, Ivor Cummins adequately explains Sweden vs Norway and neighbors – see his “dry tinder” comments.
BTW, you attacked me – but don’t let the facts get in your way. Falsely playing the victim is a favorite tactic of the left – safe spaces and all that childish nonsense.
I repeat: Covid-19 was a relatively mild flu, only significantly dangerous to the very elderly and infirm. The full-Gulag lockdown was an enormous error (or scam?) that squandered trillions of dollars and harmed billions of low-income people. The lockdown trashed the lives of young people, those just getting started, to protect those who were typically in the last months of their lives. It also destroyed millions of small businesses worldwide and impoverished their owners. The lockdown also slowed herd immunity such that the Covid-19 virus will apparently survive into the next flu season. The lockdown cure was far worse than the disease – a total FAIL.
Repeating what I published six months ago:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/21/to-save-our-economy-roll-out-antibody-testing-alongside-the-active-virus-testing/#comment-2943724
21Mar2020
LET’S CONSIDER AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH:
Isolate people over sixty-five and those with poor immune systems and return to business-as-usual for people under sixty-five.
This will allow “herd immunity” to develop much sooner and older people will thus be more protected AND THE ECONOMY WON’T CRASH.
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/21/end-the-american-lockdown/comment-page-1/#comment-12253
22Mar2020
This full-lockdown scenario is especially hurting service sector businesses and their minimum-wage employees – young people are telling me they are “financially under the bus”. The young are being destroyed to protect us over-65’s. A far better solution is to get them back to work and let us oldies keep our distance, and get “herd immunity” established ASAP – in months not years. Then we will all be safe again.
MACRAE:
I did not attack YOU, Macrae, I challenged your data mining of Sweden when many other nations had less damage from COVID-19. The pandemic is still in progress and data still need analysis for accuracy, but Sweden is not the model for the world.
Your claim that Covid was a a “relatively mild flu” is a bizarre fact frert statement — I can’t believe you wrote it. The government actions in response to the pandemic alone made this pandemic far worse than any other pandemic since 1918.
Your claim that Covid was “only significantly dangerous to the very elderly and infirm” implies tbat you think the elderly don’t matter very much, and never mind what they have contributed to the world during their lives.
There was no “full gulag lockdown” as you claim — there were partial lockdowns, even in your beloved Sweden, with high school and college closures, where people voluntarily locked themselves “down” by avoiding businesses where social distancing was difficult or impossible.
Concerning herd immunity. There is no herd immunity and there will be no herd immunity in any nation. Your belief that partial lockdowns prevented herd immunity is nonsense. This disease may only kill one person in 1000 infected. But that is high compared with other seasonal flus. Too many Americans would die if herd immunity was our goal. I know, the deaths would mainly be the elderly, and your comments make it extremely clear the elderly don’t matter that much to you.
Your pipe dreams of herd immunity and claiming Covid was “a relatively mild flu” make it clear YOU are no flu expert — not even close.
Yes it is true the partial lockdowns have become worse than the disease. They were intended to prevent hospital overcrowding in the Spring, and they did. Extending them for many more months was an unjustified seizure of power by state governors. But even with no partial lockdowns, voluntary social distancing would have had a negative effect on the US economy, just as it did in Sweden.
This is the first time I have heard of lockdowns used for people who are healthy, very unlikely to suffer from Covid hospitalization or death, while the most vulnerable people in nursing homes were not well proteected, even in Sweden. All flu strains are most dangerous for the elderly. The main difference with Covid was that it spared children in the dawn of their lives.
Jeez. Much ado about not much more than a bad influenza season. Healthy people don’t stay home. Never have and never will until control-phreaks force them to. Sick people stay home or in hospital until recovered. The OHA (Oregon Health Authority) email daily reports with the number of new “cases” and C19 “deaths”. Invariably the reported age is in the 90’s and upper 80’s, both with comorbidities that include pneumonia, heart disease, diabetes, obesity etc. But the reports do not identify the comorbidity nor the remaining life expectancy without another disease to push grandma over the edge.
Very recently I read that the WHO guideline states only pneumonia should be counted. The US counts all of them including deaths due to motorcycle accidents and gunshot injuries, at least until the perps got caught. Thus the 200 thousand deaths shrink to 86 thousand when the WHO guidelines are followed. Last Year there were 61 thousand influenza deaths.
Herd immunity? What’s that? All the old people who were near the end left earlier. (No! I am not callous. I’m 72 and contemplating my own destiny). People with weak immune systems also died. They have been called “the low-hanging fruit”. Almost forgot the likes of mayor Di Blasio of New York City who order covid patients be moved in to nursing homes to kill off grandma, grandpa, the sick and maimed. Useless Eaters, don’t ‘cha know? But he was just following orders to depopulate the planet. Right Bill Gates, Prince Charles. (BTW Chuck when are you coming here to tell the police about your visits to Epstein’s Island?) But, I digress.
C19 deaths have been dwindling, so the media have switched to reporting cases to keep the hysteria going so the politicians and their handlers can keep us locked up and conditioned to meekly take the “Jab” from whatever vaccine peddler wins the race. Cases are up because testing is up. Duh. The tests themselves are highly unreliable, but someone is making a bundle off the taxpayer selling test kits.
By now people know they’re being played, that is except for the brain-dead, the brain-washed and the hermits in the Himalayas. No experts needed. Just common sense.
Richard Greene – for all you scolding, your points largely agree with mine. That is a very peculiar strategy – to scold me in first person accusatory tense, only to pepper me with points that generally support my own position.
Methinks thou doth protest too much RG – that thou lacketh sincerity.
MACRAE:
Attempting to get the last word in, because arguments must continue, says Internet Rule 1b, until the words Hit-ler or Na-zis are used … I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to agree with you on anything. Knowing that, I may have to reverse my comments just so we don’t agree on anything in the future. heh heh
The March through May danger months for COVID are long past. I wonder if the virus has mutated into a milder strain, based on five friends infected — March seemed much worse.
The seizure of power by science-free state governors was shocking, and we have lost more freedom in 2020 than in the prior decades. Not to mention the economic and health damage of partial lockdowns, still not discussed much because the stock market indexes are high, I suppose. Of course this is all Donald Trump’s fault, says Medical Perfesser Hidin’ Joe Biden, whose mind is slidin’.
Stop being a prat.
The higher deaths in Sweden relative to its immediate neighbors may have more to do with its societal (non) treatment policies for institutionalized elderly in care homes. An article appeared in the WSJ a while back detailing how nursing-home residents were rarely sent to the hospital if they became ill. They were often shunted immediately to “palliative care”, i.e. given morphine to make them care less about being unable to breathe, and allowed to die. One man brought a local TV crew to shame the home into treating his father, who recovered after relatively minimal treatment (no invasive ventilation).
It is instructive to search for and read the article, for those contemplating turning over all health care to the tender mercies of government.
All 200+ nations and 50 US states will have different Covid results when the pandemic is over, and the most vulnerable are dead.
Many of the differences will be random variations and some will be from policy or behavior differences.
I suspect the main difference will be from how many people flew to a nation from China in early 2020.
That’s why New York City and Italy were hit so hard. Lots of made in Italy clothing and accessories are made by Chinese people living in Italy who went home for the Chinese New Year and then flew back to Italy.
Then the virus spread from Italy to neighboring EU nations, and NYC. After that nursing home policies greatly affected death rates.
But only about 1 of 1000 people infected died, while about 600 of 1000 had typical or serious flu symptoms — the suffering without death is too often overlooked.
Two friends suffered a lot for two weeks and three weeks, resectively. Two othet friends only lost their sense of smell, and one of those was 70 years old. Another friend was very sick too, and tested positive for Covid, followed by two negative tests! Makes one wonder if the new cases number is anywhere close to accurate.
I wonder if there is a deadly strain of SARS2 and a milder strain of SARS2 ?
Oh Allan I am having a hard time coping with your common sense. :))
I am in NZ and when this first started I could understand the lockdown initially if the hospitals were going to be overwhelmed but when it was obvious they weren’t it appeared to me that Sweden had the right approach and that the world had gone insane.
It seems like she should wait until investigations and research are complete before declaring that several plausible hypotheses are not true.
I guess she’s going with the Wuhan wet market theory that a bat virus crossed to human infection via a pangolin; 2 million more people in the U.S. will die from CV-19; the WHO is a model of truth and competence; lockdowns don’t intrude on civil liberties; masks are effective, so much so that we need a vaccine.
And choco rations have increases from 20 to 25 grams.
Double Plus Good.
now Im waiting for her n her mob to be fawned over on ABC as experts
just thetypes to be promoted heavily by our most insane medi a source NOT to be trusted wih a dead cat let alone our lives/advice
The Russians done it. I was reading about that conspiracy theory somewhere since they think if the Russian vaccine works, then they made the vaccine in advance of manipulating the original virus that was relatively benign to begin with. The problem with that CP, is then why would the Chinese allow their own citizens to fly off to the 4 corners of the world from Wuhan, while shutting down domestic flights within China from Wuhan. Unless China and Russia are in cahoots on this. Or China just didn’t allow a good crisis go to waste. While Putin might domestically poison his own critics, (which is troubling) would he poison the whole world? Putin is a pragmatist and just don’t see him doing such a thing on an international stage. He has too much to lose, especially by his own citizens, with a probable majority solidly backing him.
Whatever happened to that Honk Kong/Chinese scientist that is hiding out in the USA, but appeared on Tucker Carlson a few weeks ago, claiming that COVID-19 was purposely created and released by the Chinese government and purposely released within Wuhan? (Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan) She was one of the first top level Chinese virologists to work on the virus when it was still mid/late December in Wuhan and Hong Kong labs. She escaped Hong Kong by early spring to the USA where she is in hiding. All her work has been disappeared from YouTube/Twitter et al.
Here is the interview from Tucker Carlson if you didn’t see it, although haven’t heard a peep about this since. I don’t know what to think. I suppose anything is possible, but it is troubling how China handled everything from the very beginning.
https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2020/09/15/866121-chinese-scientist-exposes-commie-covid-19-plot-tucker-carlson-s.html
Yes COVID is real
Yes the governments needed to take action.
But governments have used COVIDs “emergency” status to justify railroading policies and laws through without due process.
But my main complaint or gripe is that as the “emergency” unfolded the governments were not prepared to lose face and admit some of their laws and actions were wrong and needed to be abandoned.
I believe in vaccines, I’m vaccinated, both my kids have gotten the full slate of vaccines.
The issue I see is the haste in regards to covid
There has never been an effective corona virus vaccine and in my reading it’s seems many of the variants tested are causing some serious reactions.
My concern is that if governments rush out some covid vaccines because “emergency” and these prove to have debilitating effects, real and provable, this just strengthens the anti-vaccination movement
Agreed on all points
One month Gov Cuomo of New York is telling Pres Trump to stay out his state and that he is in charge, not Trump.
The next month Cuomo, and most of the other Democrats are declaring that if only Trump had done more, the COVID-19 epidemic could have been avoided and that nobody would have died from it.
Come to Melbourne, Victoria Australia, if you want to encounter the thought police who lo ck us down have curfews and we must think the way they want us to think, their way.
New legislation before the State parliament enables the government to appoint “un-elected special officers” to be able to detain anyone the suspect or are suspicious of, who may be spreading COVID-19 or could lead to its spread, regardless of whether they are carriers or not.
Victoria’s socialist government, together with the UN and China are complicate in trying to bring about a new world order, that will resemble the old USSR with the Gulags (China has them already for particular groups). Next there will be a World Council to govern our emissions and if a nation doesn’t comply, financial sanctions imposed, if we let this continue.
As the saying goes: “First they came for my neighbour, and I said nothing. Then they came for me. Who is going to speak out for me?’
“New legislation before the State parliament enables the government to appoint “un-elected special officers””
Sounds like the equivalent of the German Schutzstaffel in WWII !
Many ultra-leftists will be putting up their hand to join that little band of thugs !
And the Victorian police seem to be having a whale of a time, beating anyone up that they want, with impunity. The behaviour from those expected to protect us is utterly appalling, and the media are largely silent. It’s only the Daily Mail that even mentions it!
I recently had to call Victoria police for an emergency.
The two officers were outstanding in their actions and behaviour.
I think most officers will probably be embarrassed that they have to act as “mask police”.
FYI
Here in Melbourne we have a curfew. We must be home by 9:00pm ( just changed from 8:00pm)
The government has absolutely no scientific or medical reason why a curfew in needed.
Apparently you are also not allowed to travel more than 5 km from your home. (!)
Seems to me, that “The Global Health Security Network (GHSN) Limited” is, itself, a nest of conspirators.
Any group naming themselves that has TOTALITARIAN CONTROL agendas.
“National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy ANU”
Who funds that crap?
“There are, of course, serious privacy trade-offs to Bluetooth-proximity-based tracking apps. ”
5G and Bluetooth are not the same thing. One doesn’t require the other.
There is a difference between security and safety.
It is telling that they use the word security over safety.
Security is safeguarding safety or something else. Like you have security guards in a building to protect the safety of the inmates or the building itself.
So is the security for making the public safe or safeguarding another goal?
This may just be a language issue, or it may be a whole lot more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=73&v=BSmqxm8eMnk&feature=emb_logo
Follow the money
Funny Friday video and I guess mostly correct. Maybe not correct with the 20 billion people going to their graves in UK.
Looking forward to see what Sputnik-V vaccine are going to cost us westerners when the final trial is over (free for Russian citizens).
Australia. At the front in the race to stoopid!
I am waiting for the inevitable instruction to be placed on all road junctions and in any public place.
“Don’t think and thrive”
Good article.
As Orwell makes clear in his “1984 Doublespeak”, it’s all about language, if you can take control of the language you take control of the argument, you control the narrative, and you can manipulate public opinion.
I believe the term “conspiracy theorist” came originally from the CIA, unsurprisingly maybe, to discredit people who were getting too close to “a truth”, and it continues today that very often conspiracy theories are born from some kernel of truth, as pointed out in the article.
I don’t know what people think politics is if it’s not a tangled web of conspiracies. People conspire, companies conspire, countries conspire, it’s so funny that the word still holds a derogatory meaning but everybody does it.
The alternative to “conspiracy theorist” is either “complicity theorist” or “accidentalist”.
Complicity theorist: a person who accepts the political narrative of the day unquestionably; consumes mainstream media like it was 1980; and is prone to submissiveness, outbursts of irrational fear, and public shaming of free-thinkers.
Accidentalist: someone who believes, against all evidence, that everything that happens in the world is some sort of accident.
Kip, what you have found is another tentacle of the emergent world government referred to in ClimateHustle2.
Keep up the good work.
As many here no doubt suspect already, covid is not only being used as a cover for the Democrats to steal the US election and put their New World Order puppet in control of the US, but covid is also being used as a cover to end fossil fuel intensive activities like plane flights, travel, etc.
Covid, or the threat of whatever epidemic they stoke up next, will be used to keep the sheeple from revolting and keep us in a perpetual state of terror and “lockdown” … as if that lock up was NOT the intended outcome!
We’ve all seen how covid has been used to cut back massively on travel of all sorts, but the anti-capitalist Green New World Order, is much more than stopping a few flights. It is the END of consumerism. And consumerism is enabled by wealth, so it is also the END of wealth. These anti-capitalist greens literally want to destroy western society as it now is. The Big Green Economic Reset, is intended to end consumerism, by taking our economies back decades if not centuries to a suppose period of “Green Utopia” (we know is hell on earth). And the sheeple will not notice this reset, because it will all be blamed on covid (the US post election riots and Brexit)
And they couldn’t have planned it better could they! The right in the US, are now totally committed to fighting the election, which it is beginning to dawn on you that you cannot win – because it’s rigged
The only flies in the ointment of this plan, seem to be that covid was no where near as deadly as they had hoped (but the public have nether-the-less gone along), and that almost no countries managed to lock themselves up in perpetual fear of the virus (aka a police state) like Australia & New Zealand (yet the public have still been made compliant through enforcing meaningless activities like face muzzles).
But perhaps the virus did turn out to be little worse than flu, there may still be hope. But in the UK where we are entering what is clearly going to be a perpetual lockup, it is not looking good.
But at least we now know the rough timing of this reset: it will be after the Democrats take the US election (removing the last major global obstacle) and around the time of “brexit” (which will divert the right in the UK). The civil unrest in US & Brexit will distract the world as they press the reset button. Which also herald in draconian measures to end the free internet.
So have a merry Xmas and enjoy the New World Order
Big Tech and Amazon are huge winners out of this, so are things like Dominos Pizzas. Computer games are also flying as is exercise equipment. The US stock market has gained $10 trillion in capitalisation since its lows in March. Western governments have gone the full Stalin with a chaser of medico-fascism. I don’t know if it’s the end of the world, but something is going on. This phoney pandemic is a smokescreen.
The emergency powers seized upon by government have themselves become the greater emergency.
Central Paris 2020-09-23 13:00 CET: Stabbing, armed police in connection with fight for free speech.
Live on France24.
Sorry, not 23rd but today 25th. Suspect arrested after knife attack outside Charlie Hebdo’s former office in Paris
It goes back to 2015 and papers’ right to publish cartoons about religious fanatics.
“In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
A good read about the fundamental problem: Unmasking The Administrative State by John Marini
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/john-marini-unmasking-the-administrative-state-populism-progressivism/
This reminds me of something I saw a leftist say last year: “All speech should be free except for ‘hate speech'”. This person said this because someone wrote something “hateful” on a free-expression area on a college campus. I immediately thought “who defines what hate speech is?” Why, the same people who say “All speech should be free except for ‘hate speech'” of course!
The new leftist world: You can say whatever you want, as long as we, your enlightened betters, agree with it.
The world’s health organisations were not caught unprepared by this pandemic, they created it. The question is why?
Kip,
Thanks for this article. Crazy times bring out the crazy old strategies and their crazy advocates.
I had linked to Rancourt’s original article on Researchgate only to find recently that it had been “voluntarily removed”. That it shows up again here in original form suggests the removal was not “voluntary”. However, there are now several more lists of such studies, including about a dozen or so done since January 2020 again showing no significant benefit. My favorite in the list is one from a Japanese reseacher saying in effect that ill-fitting and poorly constructed cloth masks are not effective. Who knew?
One thing we should note is that such a finding does not say they have zero effectiveness, but that the results of the study can find no strong evidence — i.e. evidence inconsistent with being the result of chance.
Mask wearing in many hot localities (Harris County, Texas, or Dade County, Florida) was estimated at 80% or better by July 1. Yet the pandemic progressed in these places just as it did elsewhere. Any number of pandemic curves (Hawa’ii and the UK for instance) show no effect of mask mandates. Studies showing masks are effective when used in conjunction with social distance and hand washing are hopelessly confounded, as the effect of hand washing and distance proved effective at suppressing the pandemic, that is “flattening the curve” here in Wyoming by March 20 or at least that is what I would infer from a flat epidemic curve from before the time any health mandates were promulgated. Speaking of Wyoming, the hottest spot in our state right now is Laramie, but the real focus is the University Campus. One day recently, of the 114 active cases in the county 113 were connected with the University; and the campus has a mask mandate everywhere — outdoors, in vehicles, etc…
I suspect masks leads people into a sense of complacency where they violate the basic useful advice of staying well away from one another.
Kip, you were doing fine until the clearly biased ad hominem “anti-vaxxer” got thrown in.
You can be all for vaccines, but question the efficacy or safety of one (or more), and you get that label?
Unscientific, biased, and narrow minded. The science is never settled in climate, nor is it settled in medicine. Questioning is what this entire website is about. Right, Anthony??
DJ ==> I did not use the term “anti-vaxxer” — not once.
[DJ ==> I did not use the term “anti-vaxxer” — not once.]
That response is probably the most disappointing comment I have read on this thread.
In the article, Kip clearly states: “Most of the information spewed by anti-vax groups.”
So what are “ant-vax groups” other than “anti-vaxxers?”
Kip’s response reads to me something like being questioned on referring to “mice” and responding that he did not, since he actually said “one, or more than one, mouse.”
Frankly, that is not the kind of response I would have expected in honest debate.
This caught my eye: “actively harmful to ‘God’s breathing system’”…???
Umm, what? What kind of dismal swamp-dweller comes up with something like that? And who says God has lungs, in the first place? Throwing in a pseudo-religious connection to the rest of that twaddle is about as low as you can get.
That right there is nonsense, and frankly, when you’re so desperate to get attention and make people follow your idiocy that you come up with that kind of idiotic crap, you are promoting a religion, period. Religious fanatics hide their fanaticism in many ways, but this is about as low as you can get.
Readers: Thanks for all the comments today. I have been out-of-reach of the internet for the last 24 hours and unable to respond in a timely fashion — you have my apologies.
A promised, I am purposefully not responding to any comment regarding the antivax movement or the Bill Gates conspiracy issue.
I am still away from my home and ususal Internet access today — so just momentaroily checking in.
I will make a real attempt this evening to catch up.
Is that because you felt you had shat in your nest or are you just doing a Michael Mann?
Sorry but you have failed in my book.
It’s not that Wuhan flu was cooked up and released to damage the economy and interfere with Trump’s reelection. However, there is no question that the Democrat run states and Democrat leaning media have been the big advocates for lockdowns. There is also no question that Democrat officials and interest groups have been reluctant or obstructive on the question of reopening the economy and. Coming out of lockdown. In particular, the National Education Association (teachers union and one of the top campaign contributors in the country year after year) has been very opposed to reopening schools, which would be an instrumental part of getting people back to work. At the same time, these Democrat officials and organizations have been desperately trying to portray all of this as Trump’s fault, calling it the Trump virus and Trump recession.
I don’t understand the confusion over masks including Hansen who wrote the article. It is possible to spray infected water vapor 20 feet from a violent cough or sneeze. Hollering at police can also spray germs. Wearing a mask reduces the spray distance so can be useful if you are infected and you cough or sneeze in the direction of someone else. Its that simple.
Of course staying home if you are coughing or sneezing is better, but some Covid infections have no symptoms or mild symptoms so people have no idea they are infected. Two of five friends who tested positive for Covid only had a loss of smell. Could they have made other people more sick than they were? I don’t know.
I bought 10 cheap masks in March and only used five as of today – all for doctor visits. The last time was today — I hate masks because my glasses fog up and I envision my life ending when I walk into a pole or wall with fogged up eyeglasses!
The science behind masks is simple — they reduce spray distance. Use a mask once and throw it away or wash it. Don’t exercise with a mask on. If you are outdoors and no one is close by, you don’t need a mask. If it is humid, the spray from your cough will not go as far as it would indoors in dry air. In summsry, a mask doesn’t do much, but masks make nearby people a little safer than if you did not wear a mask.
The six foot social distancing, by the way, is not supported by any science. And I don’t know if you are perfectly safe at a six foot distance even if everyone wears a mask. Common sense says wearing a mask AND staying six feet away is better than ignoring those two cautions.
So masks might be useful sometimes, and uncomfortable all the time. Your mask does not protect YOU. Masks are not going to end a pandemic. … But taking at least 5000 IU of vitamin D a day is likely to help prevent infections of all kinds. Way more effective than masks.
From the article: “Quoting The 2020 Democratic Party Platform:
“Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the COVID-19 pandemic—his failure to lead—makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.“
President Trump shut down traffic from China on January 31, 2020, ten days after the Chicoms and the WHO finally admitted the Wuhan virus was transmittable from human to human.
Trump’s quick action saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
When Trump is attacked by the Left for the 200,000+ people who have died, Trump should say, “Without the actions I took, upwards of two million people could have died.
The 200,000+ people who died from Wuhan virus in the US died because of the actions of the Chicoms, not the actions of Trump.
Naturally, the low-life Democrats try to blame everything on Trump and never mention the Chicoms.
The Democrats are dispicable, dangerous people bent on the destruction of the U.S. as founded. They are trying to set up the November election for failure. Then they can go to court and try to finagle the presidency through them.
The sure cure for this scenario is an overwhelming vote for Trump, large enough to offset all the Democrat cheating. Reagan carried 49 States with his re-election. That’s about what it’s going to take this time because the Democrats are pulling every dirty trick they know to undermine the election.
If the Democrats win, we might as well have elected Chairman Xi. The end result will be the same: The loss of our personal freedoms to authoritarians.
The very same governors who back in April were telling Trump they were in charge of their states, not him, are now proclaiming that everything that happened is Trump’s fault.
Trump is attacked, and quite rightly, because he’s an amoral, ignorant, despicable sack of human filth. You’ve already lost many of your personal freedoms, mainly to a President that rules by Diktat, surrounded by a Politburo of bootlickers and Yes men, composed of his friends and family, he interferes with the judiciary, puts troops on the streets, subverts and interferes with an election, uses his office to enrich himself and his cohorts… you know what? This is sounding awfully like some sort of Communist dictatorship! How about that… you’ve gone so far to the Right that you’ve joined up with the extreme Left, at exactly the same place! Well done! And you didn’t even notice that you’ve become the thing you despise.
113 days… enjoy them while you can.
Adrian,
Only your choir will fathom this knee-jerk, emotional, surely and purely ad hominem tirade. You hate Trump. You should have just written “I hate Trump” and saved all of the time to discover no substance.
You are right. This heading for a collectivist dictatorship. I live in Oregon. Gov. Brown keeps extending her EO, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler told President Trump to keep the feds out because there are “mostly” peaceful communist-led BLM/Antifa riots, oops protests, here. But with the opposition Proud Boys coming to counter-protest, Wheeler is crying for help.
See, Adrian? Now you know I’m not fond of these people and WHY. I gave you facts. Get it?
Sorry Adrian but that rant was completely insane. You have totally lost the plot. I find it very sad when people can’t be objective. The biggest joke was saying how he enriches himself when he gives away all of his presidential income. What a tosser.
Sarah
I have seasonal allergies too but they affect my eyes the most and a mask did not help me. Tried them decades ago and my eyes still got irtitated. Today I saw people in a very wealthy Michigan town of Birmingham wearing masks while running and biking — that I dont get. It would seem dangerous to he running with a mask on.
Richard, the pollen from things like ragweed are what hit me. My eyes do occasionally water but it’s mostly pollen being inhaled. The mask does stop that for me.
Readers: I have been away from access to the Internet for the last 24 hours — thus, have failed to answer and reply to your comments as I usually do.
As the post is now buried pretty deep on the site — I will answer only those comments directly addressed to me — only those not involving the anti=vax movement or Bill Gates, as promised.
I am aware that several/many readers do not share my opinion regarding these two topics, but I have said what I have to say about them.
Sorry Kip I used to have a lot of respect for you but now you state you won’t answer Anti-vax or Bill Gates posts so that puts you in exactly the same position little Michael Mann is in. Prat.
Mike ==> This is an opinion piece. I am aware that there are a lot of very strong opinions on the anti-vaccination movement — I have stated mine and there is nothing to be gained, either for me or for the readers here — in carrying on about it in comments — this essay is not about that issue (or the Gates issue).
I invited readers like you to give your opinions if you wished to do so. I simply have no interest in arguing about it with determined advocates you disagree.
This essay is about the Global Health Security Network.
“Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure …”
“Make no mistake” is former President Obama’s favorite turn of phrase. We know who wrote this.
With Biden’s declining mental capacities, we know who will actually be running the show.
UK daily deaths and daily cases
https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1309798201554276353/photo/1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/woke-science-is-an-experiment-certain-to-fail-11600972161
The Heather MacDonald essay in the WSJ today focuses on the government mandates to equally represent minorities and women in NSF, NIH and CDC. “white privilege” and “critical race theory” are currently training regimens employed in the federal health bureaucracy. Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to make government more “equal” and perpetrate the notion of American bigotry and inequality. People who can claim multiple sources of their victimhood (intersectionality) are given extra preferential treatment.
The problem with this is that the measures of proficiency of blacks and women do not merit their hiring in numbers proportionate to their representation in society. Ultimately, these preferential hiring madates
exclude the most capable individuals and create a federal health bureaucracy incapable of handling such things as a pandemic response.
The thought police aren’t coming for us. They’re here.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-half-a-million-sharks-could-be-killed-for-vaccine-experts-warn-12083167
Sharks killed for vaccine