I don't know if this is a change in the reporting on deaths, but if so it is just catching up to what they said on day 1 of vaccine availability. The advice has been since the day the vaccines rolled out that you would be "fully vaccinated" 14 days after 2nd dose for the 2-dose vaccines or 14 days after the 1-dose vaccine. This aspect is not new whatsoever.
Except it completely ignores/does not report instances where deaths within 14 days of inoculation are tied to adverse reaction to the shot, or due to factors/incidents where covid is not the primary cause.
^^Adverse reactions aren't mentioned in the paper, because that's not what it's about. There are already mechanisms in place for reporting suspected adverse events, as you already know since you keep posting those numbers.
What's happening with the vaccine passport in the UK. I see articles that it is being scrapped, which is a great sign going forward for the rest of the Commonwealth nations. I also don't hear much talk about Astrazeneca booster shots either. I feel there is some niuance missing here though. That maybe they are just postponed for now?
Wouldn't be surprised if they were scrapped at this stage. The global protests against them are very forceful. We have the next big protests in Melbourne coming up on the 18th. The government is planning on literally shutting down all public transport into the city and setting up roadblocks.
Right, so the short answer is, a day or two after being more or less confirmed for England at the start of October (by the vaccines minister), we have today had the health secretary pretty unequivocally saying they're not going ahead, but may revisit if things get bad over the winter (they've previously used the language of 'reserving the right' - framing). Scotland, meanwhile, legislated in favour of them on Friday, I think. And Wales and Northern Ireland have no current plans, but I haven't really followed the debate there.
The long answer is that this is really fucking weird. These more than anything have been subject to the cycle of float-deny-float-deny-confirm more than any other piece of the jigsaw. Meanwhile, there's a dynamic of the Scottish government being held up by both the left and the 'left' as being and doing everything the UK government should be. And it's almost like the timing at UK level has been designed to leave the SNP (and their Green quislings) as the outriders; whether that's in their favour or not I can't really call. (I see no reason not to take on board Craig Murray's analysis of the SNP as having basically been co-opted as part of the UK establishment, though how active this is I don't know. But whether by accident, they've been a significant part in creating the dynamic for the 'left'/left of 'Boris, you unfeeling bastard, lock us down harder to show you care'.)
So, yeah, on the face of it good news, but I've long since stopped really allowing myself to be too affected by what they do. It's good news in that we have a slightly longer time to be in the eye of the storm, is kind of how I'm looking at it. I am a bit bemused by it, all the same. I'd love to think it's because of strong opposition, but I've seen very little of that - only a small group on the right of the Tory party, and nothing from civil society. Perhaps it's just more behavioural science, which seems to consist of (a) fucking with us to demoralise us, and (b) periodically build us up to knock us down. Could also just be further testing of the water, this time to see if there's a baying mob demanding that they be brought in. I can't help but feel it's linked to what's coming this winter. This country is very vaccinated, and with what we see happening in Israel...
On child vaccines, the experts are suddenly reluctant to follow ‘the science’ Jonthan Cook, 4 September 2021
In some of these blogs I have been trying to gently highlight what should be a very obvious fact: that “the science” we are being constantly told to follow is not quite as scientific as is being claimed.
That is inevitable in the context of a new virus about which much is still not known. And it is all the more so given that our main response to the pandemic – vaccination – while being a relatively effective tool against the worst disease outcomes is nonetheless an exceedingly blunt one. Vaccines are the epitome of the one-size-fits-all approach of modern medicine.
Into the void between our scientific knowledge and our fear of mortality has rushed politics. It is a refusal to admit that “the science” is necessarily compromised by political and commercial considerations that has led to an increasingly polarised – and unreasonable – confrontation between what have become two sides of the Covid divide. Doubt and curiosity have been squeezed out by the bogus certainties of each faction.
All of this has been underscored by the latest decision of the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation, the British government’s official advisory body on vaccinations. Unexpectedly, it has defied political pressure and demurred, for the time being at least, on extending the vaccination programme to children aged between 12 and 15.
The British government appears to be furious. Ministers who have been constantly demanding that we “follow the science” are reportedly ready to ignore the advice – or more likely, bully the JCVI into hastily changing its mind over the coming days.
Over the weekend, the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, even suggested, in a potentially radical overhaul of traditional ideas of medical consent, that doctors – and presumably schools – might soon be allowed to persuade children as young as 12 to get vaccinated against their parents’ wishes.
And liberal media outlets like the Guardian, which have been so careful until now to avoid giving a platform to “dissident” scientists, are suddenly subjecting the great and the good of the vaccination establishment to harsh criticism from doctors who want children vaccinated as quickly as possible.
Watching this confected “row” unfold, one thing is clear: “the science” is getting another political pummelling.
Peek behind the curtain
There are a few revealing snippets buried in the media reports of the JCVI’s reasons for delaying child vaccinations – information that challenges other parts of the vaccination narrative that have been unassailable till now.
One concerns long Covid, fear of which has probably been the main factor driving parents to push for their children to be vaccinated – given that Covid poses little immediate threat of serious illness to the vast majority of children. Of long Covid in children, the JCVI argues, according to the Guardian, that “the impact of the symptoms may be no worse than those seen in children who have not actually had Covid”.
What to make of that? We know that over the past few decades a small but growing proportion of children have been suffering from long-term chronic fatigue syndromes – often following a viral infection. This may relate to more general immunity problems in children that, like other chronic disease, doctors have been largely baffled by – and may even be contributing to.
Is long Covid another fatigue syndrome, and one that many of these children would have suffered from if they had been infected with a different virus, like flu? Don’t hold your breath waiting for a debate on that question, let alone an answer, any time soon.
Then there is this. The Guardian reports that the JCVI was concerned about “the unknown longer-term consequences of a rare side-effect [myocarditis – heart inflammation] seen with mRNA vaccines such as the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna shots. … What makes the JCVI uneasy is that there is little long-term follow-up on vaccinated children.”
“Unknown longer-term consequences”? A lack of “follow-up” on vaccinated children? These sound more like the criticisms of the tin-foil hat-wearers than the cautious advice of vaccination experts.
Or is it just that we have been given a fleeting peek behind the curtain of official medical debate to see an uncertainty that has been actively concealed from us. “The science” is not quite as solid as the scientists or politicians would have us believe, it seems.
Piling on the pressure
What sensible view should we, the public, take when that “scientific” consensus suddenly solidifies – possibly as soon as next week – behind exactly what the politicians are demanding.
The government and parts of the media are clearly going to keep piling the pressure on the JCVI. The committee’s efforts to avoid being drawn into a highly charged and politicised debate about vaccinating children is written all over the caveats and get-out clauses in its decision on Friday.
The government’s stated aim in wanting to vaccinate children is to avoid “disruption” to children’s education, as though this is about the well-being of pupils. But we need to be honest: the disruptions were imposed on schools by politicians and educators not for the sake of children but for the sake of adults, frightened by our own vulnerability to Covid.
The JCVI has embarrassed the government by reminding us of this fact in relation to child vaccinations. Not only have we deprived children of a proper education over a year or more and opportunities to develop physically, mentally and emotionally through their school life, clubs, trips and sport, but now, suggests the JCVI, we want to inject them with a new drug whose long-term consequences are not fully understood or, it seems, being properly investigated.
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 6, 2021
All of this will be unmentionable again as soon as the JCVI can be arm-twisted into agreeing to the government’s demands. We will be told once again to blindly “follow the science”, to obey these political dictates as we were once required to obey the spiritual dictates of our clerics.
Censoring testimony
“Follow the science” is a mantra designed to shut down all critical thinking about how we respond to the pandemic – and to justify censorship of even well-qualified dissenting scientists by corporate media and their social media equivalents.
For example, YouTube has excised the testimony of medical experts to the US Congress who have been trying to bring attention to the potential benefits of ivermectin, a safe, long-out-of-patent medicine. Instead the corporate media is derisively describing it as a “horse drug” to forestall any discussion of its use as a cheap therapeutic alternative to endless, expensive vaccine booster shots.
(And by the way, before the “follow the science” crowd work themselves into a lather, I have no particular view on the usefulness of ivermectin, I simply want experts to be allowed to discuss it in public. Watch, for example, this farcical segment below from the Hill in which the presenters are forced, while discussing the media furore about podcast star Joe Rogan’s use of ivermectin to treat his Covid, to avoid actually naming the drug at the centre of the furore for fear of YouTube censorship.)
To want more open debate, not less, about where we head next, especially as western states have vaccinated significant majorities of their populations, is often being treated as the equivalent of “Covid denial”.
Where this new authoritarian climate leads is apparent in the shaming of anyone who tries to highlight that our responses to Covid are following a familiar big-business-friendly pattern: focus all attention on expensive, short-term, resource-hungry quick fixes (in this case, vaccines) and ignore important, long-term, sustainable solutions such as improving the population’s health and immunity to this pandemic and the ones likely to follow.
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 15, 2021
An obesity epidemic – obesity is a key factor in susceptibility to severe Covid, though you would hardly know it from the media coverage – is still not being tackled, even though the obesity epidemic, unlike Covid, has been growing as a public health threat for many decades. Why? Because the corporate food industry, and more especially the fast-food and sugar industries, and the corporate health industries are financially invested in it never being tackled.
There is no serious media debate about the role of health in tackling Covid because the corporate media are invested in exactly the same consumption model as the food and health corporations – not least, they heavily depend on corporate advertising.
Which is why the media hurried to amplify attacks on Jonathan Neman, head of the salad fast-food restaurant chain Sweetgreen, for supposedly “downplaying the importance of vaccines”, as soon as he pointed out the statistical fact that 78 per cent of people admitted to hospital for Covid are obese and overweight. He asked quite reasonably:
What if we made the food that is making us sick illegal? What if we taxed processed food and refined sugar to pay for the impact of the pandemic? What if we incentivized health?
Politicians, of course, have no interest in taking action against the corporate food industry both because they depend on campaign donations from those same corporations and because they want good press from the corporate media.
Studies on immunity
Another topic that has been made all but taboo is the issue of natural immunity. A series of recent studies suggest that those who have caught and recovered from Covid have a better response to the delta variant than those who have been vaccinated only.
Those who have recovered appear to be many times less likely to get reinfected, suggesting natural immunity confers stronger and longer-lasting protection against Covid than vaccines, including preventing hospitalisation and transmission to others.
That may have significant implications for our reliance on vaccines. For instance, vaccines may be playing a part in creating new, more aggressive variants, given that the vaccinated have been wrongly encouraged to see themselves as at less risk of catching Covid but are in fact more likely than those who have recovered to transmit the disease.
If that is the case, the current orthodoxy preferring vaccines has turned reality on its head.
Perhaps, not surprisingly, these studies have received almost no coverage. They conflict with every single message the politicians, media and “follow the science” crowd have been promulgating for months.
How much that narrative has been engineered can be seen in the role the World Health Organisation played early on, as the vaccines were being rolled out, in secretly trying to rewrite medical history. Uniquely in the case of Covid, they pretended that herd immunity could only be achieved through vaccination, as though natural immunity did not count.
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 2, 2021
Highlighting this new study does not mean that letting Covid rip through the population is the best strategy, or that vaccinations do not help prevent illness and the spread of Covid.
But it does undermine the simple-minded, and novel, insistence that vaccination is the only safe way to protect against a virus, or even the best.
It does undermine the case increasingly being promoted by politicians and the media that the unvaccinated should be treated as a threat to society and accorded second-class status (watch the video below).
It does undermine the demand for vaccine passports as a prerequisite for “normal life” being restored.
And it hints at an additional reason the JCVI may have been reluctant to rush into testing a new generation of vaccines on children for a disease that is rarely serious for them and to which they will have stronger immunity if they catch it rather than being vaccinated against it.
Glaring vacuum
What these studies and others suggest is that we need a more open, honest debate about the best way forward, a more inclusive debate rather than what we have at the moment: accusations, arrogance and contempt – from both sides.
The left should not be siding with media corporations to shut down debate, even Covid denial; they should be pushing for more persuasive arguments. And the left should not be cheering on the bullying or stigmatising of people who are hesitant about taking the vaccines, either for themselves or their children.
Enforce a glaring vacuum in the public discourse, as has happened with Covid, and two things are guaranteed: that politicians and corporations will exploit that vacuum to increase their power and profits; and a significant section of the public will attribute the worst, most cynical motives to those enforcing the vacuum.
The very act of gagging anyone – but most especially experts – from conducting certain kind of conversations is bound to increase political alienation, cynicism and social polarisation. It creates no kind of consensus or solidarity. It creates only division and bitterness. Which, putting my cynic’s hat on for a moment, may be the very reason why it seems to be our leaders’ preferred course of action.
Having now read this properly over the weekend, I'd just like to praise this article a little. It took me a while to work out what I liked about it, and I realised it's because it's journalism. Not polemic (much as I love a good polemic), and not opinion/speculation (ditto), but a journalist putting relevant facts together, weaving a narrative, and then largely leaving readers to reach their own conclusions. (I'm not new to Jonathan Cook - his interests overlap rather a lot with mine - but as far as I can tell this is the first time he's done the broad sweep of the current situation.) To put it another way, this is something I would readily share with friends who are to some degree open-minded, while still being on-board with the overall narrative - and I don't think there's a lot of material like that about (nor, alas, people to send it to).
I don't know if this is a change in the reporting on deaths, but if so it is just catching up to what they said on day 1 of vaccine availability. The advice has been since the day the vaccines rolled out that you would be "fully vaccinated" 14 days after 2nd dose for the 2-dose vaccines or 14 days after the 1-dose vaccine. This aspect is not new whatsoever.
No, it isn't. But any real attempt to quantify the cost and risk vs. benefit of new. experimental mRNA vaccines would have sought to compare the overall (and not just COVID-19 related) health outcomes of vaccinated (fully, partially or anything in between) populations to those of comparable unvaccinated populations. Yet absolutely no attempt has ever been made to even track these data, much less make these critically important comparisons. Why not?
DrEvil » 12 Sep 2021 11:34 wrote:Meanwhile in Denmark, where the vaccination rate is at about 80%, things are back to normal with all restrictions lifted as of two days ago* and covid no longer considered a threat to public health.
* Masks are still required in airports and on planes due to international rules.
I don't know if this is a change in the reporting on deaths, but if so it is just catching up to what they said on day 1 of vaccine availability. The advice has been since the day the vaccines rolled out that you would be "fully vaccinated" 14 days after 2nd dose for the 2-dose vaccines or 14 days after the 1-dose vaccine. This aspect is not new whatsoever.
Except it completely ignores/does not report instances where deaths within 14 days of inoculation are tied to adverse reaction to the shot, or due to factors/incidents where covid is not the primary cause.
Worse still, the often CDC counts any COVID-19 related deaths or hospitalizations over the entire period from the first vaccination until two weeks following the second vaccination as occurring among the "unvaccinated".
DrEvil » 12 Sep 2021 17:00 wrote:^^Adverse reactions aren't mentioned in the paper, because that's not what it's about. There are already mechanisms in place for reporting suspected adverse events, as you already know since you keep posting those numbers.
Where are the relevant data comparing the overall health outcomes of populations vaccinated (to any degree) to those of comparable totally unvaccinated populations? Please produce these links for us.
Starting next week, BC's unvaccinated will be disallowed from non-essential services. There are no exemptions, medical or otherwise. I gather this is supposed to end on January 31, but I wouldn't bet on it. This has cost me two shows, one at home, the other on the mainland, where I've made music with the same people for 20 years. Indeed, along with the frontman, I'm the longest-standing member of the band. I predicted this outcome when the show was booked in June. The issue was eventually raised some weeks later, but prior to the public health order announcement. I was told that others on the bill "would be uncomfortable with my presence." (Others sharing the stage, or others in my own band? I dared not ask.)
So I expect, as with Stickdog's experiences, that compliance will be very high. But it's hard to really know. Media and social media present a distorted view, overwhelmingly that people are clamouring for these measures. Within my friend group, some absconded months ago, so I'm pretty clear on what they think, lol. Others don't want to talk about any of this, it's a dirty topic. Those who do -- with exceptions that I can count on one hand -- are indifferent to the dangers of vaccine passports and digital IDs, seem only faintly uncomfortable with escalating government abuse, and fail to see the larger picture of coordinated attack on *western democracy*, such as it is, national sovereignty, or even bodily autonomy. I cherish them all, especially the few who are willing to engage, but in the end we resign to being baffled by one another. I also must battle my own insurgent sense of disgust and disappointment, or the inclination to turn evangelical after the second beer.
Sorry that I haven't really answered your question, drstranglove. I think I just needed to unload. The dogs have heard all this a zillion times.
Attacking people's social needs is probably the most effective tool for self compliance, and unfortunately it is out of ones control. (Beyond need for security, which hasn't worked on people like you)
I've been very careful to be respectful of friends and family around covid related discussion. I know what they've been reading and watching, and I know it's attempting to condition them to look for 'red flags' in me. I would suggest the New York Times Daily podcast for keeping a finger on the mainstream pulse of views, if you can stomach the queef who hosts it. I almost can't.
Any discussion related to vaccination can't be won against a vaccinated person you care to retain a relationship with. You can only hope to make them feel insecure about a decision they have already made.
I think a problem many people face is a captain Ahab-like determination to 'wake people up' so to speak, what you've described as an evangelical urge you know better than to indulge. The media information authorities are so powerful. And the power of this propaganda is underestimated mostly by those who try to fight against it.
People simply don't have time to research things themselves. I think the one common thing most posters here have, active ones at least, is more free time than the average person, for whatever reason.
The greatest skill I've learnt is to obfuscate my beliefs through careful normalisation of them. For instance, I believe in an international conspiracy' dating back to the Jacobins of the French revolution that still persists in spirit today. And that this conspiracy in terms of ideological foundation dates back to ancient Greece and the cult of Pythagoras. And that the symbol of this conspiracy is the pyramid with the eye at the top.
Yet I don't tell people this. I say there are information authorities, like the media, that control reality. And people go 'yeah no shit'. And so they don't think I'm crazy. But really, I secretly am crazy, as far as they would be concerned. Best to stay vague.
Thank you for the very human reply. It is what we lack these days. Maybe you'll start a new band, instead of losing your old one.
Harvey » Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:27 am wrote:Occams razor: flu deaths are now attributed to Covid 19 while anti-covid measures have driven down the remaining portion of expected flu deaths by inhibiting transmission.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
This time, in a nutshell: All unvaccinated people who’re susceptible to C-19 disease (because of re-exposure shortly after primary infection due to high infectious pressure, or if otherwise immune suppressed, or if immunosenescent) and all vaccinees contribute to the ongoing explosive expansion of more infectious and increasingly anti-spike-Ab-resistant immune escape variants. However, ALL of the unvaccinated but not vaccinated (= still predominantly asymptomatically infected) contribute to herd immunity, either by virtue of naturally acquired immunity (i.e., those who were susceptible and recovered from C-19 disease) or by preventing or abrogating infection by ANY Sars-CoV-2 variant (i.e., all the unvaccinated who’re not susceptible to C-19 disease for lack of immune suppression of their multispecific innate immune effectors). We, therefore, have to rely on the unvaccinated to prevent dominant, highly infectious variants from rapidly evolving towards full resistance to the vaccines.We need, therefore, more unvaccinated people to protect the vaccinees. Hence, it’s imperative that we make love (=> baby boom to replenish reservoir of unvaccinated!) and no war (=> STOP mass vaccination). When presenting with first signs & symptoms, ALL MUST have free access to immune-strengthening supplements (mostly sufficient for the young & previously healthy) and early multidrug treatment (mostly required for the vulnerable & elderly). We're in this TOGETHER and, once again, I am BEGGING the WHO to give me a chance to explain all of the above.
No more political covering - just the facts! Counties and states across the country are lowering their death counts from COVID-19. We need a REAL assessment of why Tim Walz shutdown our state here.
If we don't have anything to hide for some of the most catastrophic economic and educational decisions in our state's history, then we shouldn't be afraid of a death count audit.
