Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[Harvey]

Don't really know which thread is most relevant for this. James Corbett and Catherine Austin Fitts.



https://www.corbettreport.com/cashfriday/

[Belligerent Savant]

@JeffWellsRigInt

Stupid people haven't surprised me but the stupidity of smart people has shocked me.
12:22 PM · Jul 28, 2021

Replying to
@JeffWellsRigInt

That's what I'm saying, man. They are so self-assured in their being smart, that they are right by definition. If someone gets what's going on, it's them. It's obviously easy to play such folks.
But the absolute "Gleichschaltung" of academia is absolutely shocking.

https://twitter.com/JeffWellsRigInt/sta ... 08800?s=20

Gleichschaltung

Gleichschaltung, or in English, co-ordination, was in Nazi terminology the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied by Nazi Germany "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung

[Belligerent Savant]

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/14208 ... 70720?s=20

[Belligerent Savant]

Death counts remain FLAT:


Source: Bloomberg


https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power- ... 1623171303

The Power of Natural Immunity

By Marty Makary
June 8, 2021 12:55 pm ET
Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School.

The news about the U.S. Covid pandemic is even better than you’ve heard. Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.

...

Without accounting for natural immunity, we are far from Anthony Fauci’s stated target of 70% to 85% of the population becoming immune through full vaccination. But the effect of natural immunity is all around us. The plummeting case numbers in late April and May weren’t the result of vaccination alone, and they came amid a loosening of both restrictions and behavior.

...

Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a “robust” and “long-lived humoral immune response,” leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong. Because infection began months earlier than vaccination, we have more follow-up data on the duration of natural immunity than on vaccinated immunity.

...

Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic published a study this week of 1,359 people previously infected with Covid who were unvaccinated. None of the subjects subsequently became infected, leading the researchers to conclude that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”

...

Dr. Fauci said last Aug. 13 that when you have fewer than 10 cases per 100,000, “you should be able to open up safely and clearly.” The U.S. reached that point in mid-May. It’s time to stop the fear mongering and level with the public about the incredible capabilities of both modern medical research and the human body’s immune system.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Despite ‘Delta’ Alarmism, US COVID Deaths Are at Lowest Level Since March 2020, Harvard and Stanford Professors Explain

Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

Wednesday, July 28, 2021



If you judged the US’s current COVID-19 situation only by the headlines, you’d come away thinking that we’re spiraling back into pandemic disaster. Localities like Los Angeles County and St. Louis have reimposed mask mandates on their citizens, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just revised its “guidance” to say that, actually, fully vaccinated individuals should still wear masks in certain situations. Meanwhile, mainstream media coverage of the rise of the “Delta variant” is soaked in alarmism.

Yet at the same time that all this alarm is mounting, the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant.

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination.

“It is striking that COVID mortality is at such low levels despite the fact that we are seeing an increase in cases of late,” Stanford Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells FEE. “By immunizing the elderly and many other vulnerable people, we have provided them with excellent protection against severe disease in case they get infected. Also contributing is widespread natural immunity from recovered COVID patients. Though cases may rise, deaths will no longer follow in proportion. We have effectively defanged the disease with our successful vaccination rollout.”

So, there’s simply no reason to expect the long downward trend in deaths shown in the above graph to suddenly spike upwards. And we can’t make public policy based on worst-case scenarios.

That’s right: despite all the alarmism and clamor for renewed restrictions on our liberty, there’s not really been a resurgence in the state of the COVID-19 crisis itself.

“We should be declaring a great and resounding success,” Bhattacharya told FEE in conclusion. “The COVID emergency is over. We still need to take COVID seriously, and there are still vulnerable people here and abroad left to vaccinate. But we can start to treat it as one disease among many that afflict people rather than an all-consuming threat.”

Of course, proponents of big government and government officials themselves will be the last ones to acknowledge the reality that the most dangerous phase of this pandemic has long since come to an end in the US. Why? Because the rhetoric of “emergency” and “crisis” is the government’s favorite tool to use in expanding and maintaining its power over our lives.

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded,” as Nobel-Prize-winning economist Freidrich Hayek put it. “And once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”

Examples of this timeless truth abound throughout history up until present day: from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II to the now-permanent infringements on our civil liberties after 9/11 to the sweeping expansion of government control during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, whether politicians like it or not, the COVID-19 crisis is largely over. So don’t fall for cynical arguments from power-hungry individuals who want their “emergency” powers to become permanent.

https://fee.org/articles/despite-delta- ... s-explain/

[Wombaticus Rex]

The narrative going off its own rails right before the next lockdown is pretty ominous. The past two weeks have been insane to witness but they are nothing in the face of what August will bring.

All in all, Bidenadmin is turning out to be an even bigger clusterfuck than Trump was; and I definitely wonder what his cabinet is being briefed on these days.

It is remarkable how clean and clear the bifurcation is now between the corporate-NGO complex and the political system it manipulates -- Trump was proof that Washington, DC is Washington, DC no matter who gets into the Oval Office, but Biden is proof that the office of the Presidency is superfluous now. Any agenda items that his cabinet has are being executed entirely outside of elected offices.

This ends badly however it washes out. I cannot hope for anything because every path from this patch of earth is very bleak. Some of them are very bloody.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^^
sobering. frustrating. bizarre and surreal. And yet, here we are. The more cynical forecasts have been realized.

[Harvey]

"2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece" by Professor Mark Crispin Miller: https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/26/wat ... ndemic-17/

A global propaganda spectacle of unprecedented scale and sophistication...

I've said it before. Then, as now, it was intended as a question.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Thanks for sharing that here, Harvey -- caught that MCM clip earlier.

Worth watching this ~15min video clip of a bygone era, when actual journalism still existed on TV news. Note in particular the grilling of the CDC director. Would never happen now.

History rhymes. The key difference now is the pervasiveness of propaganda across all forms of media, not to mention the advent of the internet, mobile devices, and social media. The technology is far more sophisticated, and modulated.

@ApertaAria
·
This is fascinating on several levels. A 60min report on the 1976 Swine Flu shots. Mike Wallace. Back when there was actual investigative reporting on TV news. The variance between then and now in mainstream news can't be any more stark.

https://twitter.com/ApertaAria/status/1 ... 54662?s=20

MEANWHILE:

There may be buyer's remorse developing among the 'vaccinated'. If not now, then more likely in the weeks/months ahead:

"This may be the biggest news story of this entire pandemic that quietly got announced late on a Friday afternoon (today) to soften the blow. The jab passport scheme can now officially die. Employers/universities/politicians, take note: any argument that it’s to protect everyone in the office/classroom from each other is now moot. Constitutional attorneys, here it is on a silver (or surgical grade stainless steel) platter. Also, right about now the Houston Methodist Hospital staff fired for having justifiable concerns should be reinstated."

[stickdog99]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/cdc-stu ... nated.html

About three-fourths of people infected in a Massachusetts Covid-19 outbreak were fully vaccinated against the coronavirus with four of them ending up in the hospital, according to new data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new data, published in the U.S. agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also found that fully vaccinated people who get infected carry as much of the virus in their nose as unvaccinated people, and could spread it to other individuals.

What surprised us was the large amount of symptomatic disease, says Drexel’s Levasseur

“This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “The masking recommendation was updated to ensure the vaccinated public would not unknowingly transmit virus to others, including their unvaccinated or immunocompromised loved ones.”

On Tuesday, the CDC reversed course on its prior guidance and recommended fully vaccinated Americans who live in areas with high Covid infection rates resume wearing face masks indoors. The guidelines cover about two-thirds of the U.S. population, according to a CNBC analysis.

While the delta variant continues to hit unvaccinated people the hardest, some vaccinated people could be carrying higher levels of the virus than previously understood and are potentially transmitting it to others, Walensky told reporters on a call Tuesday. She added the variant behaves “uniquely differently from past strains of the virus.”

A CDC document that was reviewed by CNBC warned that the delta variant sweeping across the country is as contagious as chickenpox, has a longer transmission window than the original Covid strain and may make older people sicker, even if they’ve been fully vaccinated.

Delta, now in at least 132 countries and already the dominant form of the disease in the United States, is more transmissible than the common cold, the 1918 Spanish flu, smallpox, Ebola, MERS and SARS, according to the document. Only measles appears to spread faster than the variant.

The data published Friday was based on 469 cases of Covid associated with multiple summer events and large public gatherings held in July in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, which encompasses Cape Cod and is just outside Martha’s Vineyard. The events were held in Provincetown, according to NBC News. Approximately three-quarters, or 74%, of the cases occurred in fully vaccinated people who had completed a two-dose course of the mRNA vaccines or received a single shot of Johnson & Johnson’s.

Overall, 274 vaccinated patients with a breakthrough infection were symptomatic, according to the CDC. The most common side effects were cough, headache, sore throat, muscle pain and fever. Among five Covid patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated, according to the agency. No deaths were reported.

Then a ton of unsupported blather about how amazingly awesome these vaccines are!

[drstrangelove]

That Massachusetts study indicates a possibility for ADE.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Yes. While nothing can be said with certainty at this time, the amount of positive cases in a heavily-vaccinated area will likely -- eventually -- bear out that ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement), also known as vaccine enhanced disease (VED), was the primary cause.

Not "delta".

Delta is the smokescreen.

Wouldn't surprise me if the UN-'vaccinated' are far less at risk of notable symptoms than those that took the shots.

This is what occurs when mass experimentation is conducted on a wide swath of humans using experimental technology with minimal trial duration.
The hubris and stupidity of our zeitgeist.

Or as malcolm x would say, the 'chickens coming home to roost'.

Seems many should have listened to Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche. Even if his claims turn out to be exaggerated, if 50% of it is correct, it will be a wild ride this Fall/Winter.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid ... en-bossche

[drstrangelove]

ADE was also the issue they had during trials on, I can't remember, but either mRNA vaccines or coronavirus vaccines in general up, that is, until the miraculous breakthrough of march 2020.

Also if you read the primary literature from the FDA, EMA, or any national approval agency that gave emergency approval, ADE is listed as an unknown risk.

It's funny, because the drug agencies have been rather open in their risk assessments of the vaccine. If you read their reports they do not use words like effective or safe, but rather phrases like "given X, it is reasonable to believe Y may be effective". It's the health administrators that interpret these reports which are the issue, and the media on top of them.

In fact, the FDA has been the most valuable source of information I've been using to justify vaccine hesitancy in the fight against the propaganda machine on online platforms like reddit and twitter.

All our concerns are right there in the primary literature, it's just nobody reads it. They listen to the health admins who read it and misinterpret it.

This is what happened with the institutionalization of religion. You got authoritative interpretations of the bible, during a time in which literacy meant most people couldn't read it. So the nature of it got corrupted. These days since people can read, the prophets of 'the science' use corrupt mathematics.

But you don't need to understand equations to see what is fed into them. Beware the pythagorean rationalists. Their information authorities try to control reality. Their symbol is the tetractys triangle, which is plato's republic in the perfect form of a triangle, atop of which is the information authority, an all-seeing eye casting light on the areas of reality it wants you to see, leaving the rest in complete darkness.

If you think I'm loopy, go look up the symbol the Jacobins used, who were behind the French revolution, or the Republican movement. A republic was never intended to be a democracy. Their motto was even, literally: 'activite purete surveillance', which in english translates to 'purity surveillance activity'. they fucking knew that to control reality you collect the most amounts of information on it, and then as an authority tell people what is and isn't real. This is what a national intelligence agency is. What a corporate media conglomerate is. What a foreign policy institute is. All information authorities 'informing' governing authorities of what to do.

If you want to control decisions, you provide information which draws only one rational and logical conclusion. Then you leave it to others to arrive at what you want them to themselves using 'their own' logic and reason. Funnily enough, thinking that they arrived at these conclusion themselves.

Anyway, don't mean to digress. Carry on.

[alwyn]

quoting Dr. Strangelove:

These days since people can read, the prophets of 'the science' use corrupt mathematics.


fucking golden

[The Bernician]

ADE was also the issue they had during trials on, I can't remember, but either mRNA vaccines or coronavirus vaccines in general up, that is, until the miraculous breakthrough of march 2020.

Also if you read the primary literature from the FDA, EMA, or any national approval agency that gave emergency approval, ADE is listed as an unknown risk.

It's funny, because the drug agencies have been rather open in their risk assessments of the vaccine. If you read their reports they do not use words like effective or safe, but rather phrases like "given X, it is reasonable to believe Y may be effective". It's the health administrators that interpret these reports which are the issue, and the media on top of them.

In fact, the FDA has been the most valuable source of information I've been using to justify vaccine hesitancy in the fight against the propaganda machine on online platforms like reddit and twitter.

All our concerns are right there in the primary literature, it's just nobody reads it. They listen to the health admins who read it and misinterpret it.

This is what happened with the institutionalization of religion. You got authoritative interpretations of the bible, during a time in which literacy meant most people couldn't read it. So the nature of it got corrupted. These days since people can read, the prophets of 'the science' use corrupt mathematics.

But you don't need to understand equations to see what is fed into them. Beware the pythagorean rationalists. Their information authorities try to control reality. Their symbol is the tetractys triangle, which is plato's republic in the perfect form of a triangle, atop of which is the information authority, an all-seeing eye casting light on the areas of reality it wants you to see, leaving the rest in complete darkness.

If you think I'm loopy, go look up the symbol the Jacobins used, who were behind the French revolution, or the Republican movement. A republic was never intended to be a democracy. Their motto was even, literally: 'activite purete surveillance', which in english translates to 'purity surveillance activity'. they fucking knew that to control reality you collect the most amounts of information on it, and then as an authority tell people what is and isn't real. This is what a national intelligence agency is. What a corporate media conglomerate is. What a foreign policy institute is. All information authorities 'informing' governing authorities of what to do.

If you want to control decisions, you provide information which draws only one rational and logical conclusion. Then you leave it to others to arrive at what you want them to themselves using 'their own' logic and reason. Funnily enough, thinking that they arrived at these conclusion themselves.

Anyway, don't mean to digress. Carry on.

I think this is brilliant. I've really been playing around with this idea myself. For me, it's had a long gestation. I've been in and out of stronger and weaker dealings with the discipline of economics, and it's utterly clear that modelling and maths have been used to create distance between 'economists' as a profession and everyone else. (Of course, turning disciplines into professions through exclusionary language is pretty commonplace, but I single out economics as it is used particularly to separate the public from political discourse.) A friend whose identity is tied up with being super-rational and logical, among a pretty emotional attack on me for my corona unorthodoxy, dismissed concerns about vaccines by saying that modelling was sophisticated enough these days as to render long-term trials essentially moot. I thought this a terrible argument at the time (modelling is simply the detailed expression of a hypothesis, not 'science' or indeed 'evidence'; although this is a sleight of hand that has been leant on very heavily by official scientists here in the UK at least), but it did get me thinking further along these lines. And of late, that exact analogy - with church being conducted in Latin, etc. - has occurred to me. (In these times especially, it's incredibly reassuring to me to see other minds making the same connections.)

I think it can be stretched further, too. Thinking again of how I will have a subsequent conversation with this friend if the opportunity occurs, I believe that his has ceased to be a rational position, but rather a faith-based one. It's not a new point, of course - to say that 'science' has been replaced by 'The Science' - but I think the religion analogy illuminates it. If science is no longer something that can be done (or even directly read about) by the masses, then it is analogous to religion-as-experience that was a serious competitor in the early days of Christianity being overcome by religion-as-doctrine. My analogy was with 'technocracy' more broadly than 'science' (I didn't see the threat of a scientific dictatorship coming, but it and the economist-technocrats are presumably two cheeks of the same arse, so to speak: economic technocracy needs something to suppress democratic instincts on the ground, as the raw reality of our economic position chips further and further away at the varnish that has been applied to it in various ways over the past four decades), though I think the same logic largely applies. That this faith in the essential goodness of our elites endures regardless of evidence to the contrary is a continuing mystery to me, but perhaps the performance of reason/science/logic is enough at this stage in the process of de-democratisation.