France brings out a SARS-CoV variant of leprostigma by fiat. Now where did I put my clapper and bell?
You know that funny feeling when the head of State addresses the nation and declares that you and some of your fellow citizens shall be treated as outcasts and arbitrarily deprived of your rights?
Or perhaps you don’t.
I know I didn’t until Emmanuel “Jupiter” Macron, President of Le Pays des Droits de l’Homme the “nation of human rights”, as some French like to call this country, appeared in the idiot box and announced, right on the eve of Bastille Day, that:
Our choice is simple: to put the restrictions on the unvaccinated rather than on all.
Restrictions being Macron’s byword for segregation, to be implemented on people who have not been covaxxed into submission—whatever the reason we have, of which there are many, ranging from the borderline insane conspiracy theories to informed common sense and caution.
This will take the form, less than a month from now, of a supposedly sanitarian Apartheid—a ‘simple choice’ that Macron justified with dubious figures, rounded up with a few fallacies—banning us not only from the superfluous such as bars and restaurants but also from some of the essential such as shopping centers, as this Presidential diktat instantly puts out of bounds all of the large supermarkets where most of us get their foodstuffs and other household items and products, from light bulbs to soap.
Though judging by the rancid whiffs one often catches from passers-by in said French supermarkets1 the latter obviously doesn’t rank as essential for some.
In addition, a section of the population won’t even have the ‘simple choice’ of descending into second-class citizenry: come September and all healthcare workers will be coerced into taking the experimental serum. And I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t think that in time, Macron and his gang will extend that blatant abuse to the rest of us.
This latest Macron-aggression flies in the face of the little president’s own previous promises that the vaccine would not be imposed, as some tweetr peepl noted:
I said it, I say it again: the vaccine will not be compulsory—President Macron, Twitter lie of December 27th, 2020 @ 11:41
Then again, anybody naive enough to take a bank stooge turned politician at his word deserves all the disappointment they can get. Expecting two systemic liars rolled into one to speak the truth is just far out stupid, Dude.
Nuremberg is for Nazis?
Yet the flying in faces doesn’t stop there: while some people like to convince those pesky anticovaxxers that the Nuremberg Code, now a weapon of choice in the Internet commenting arsenal, is not a national law anywhere and was designed only to facilitate the proper assemblage of Nazis and gallows, that bit where it goes:
- The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
… Was upheld in recent times by at least two “high authorities” that the ugly bastards who sing “covax for me, covax for thee, covax for e.ve.ry.bo.dy” normally hold as supranational deities that must be obeyed.
Macron vs. UN: The world can await
There’s the UN in 2005, with the UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights that is not just for swinging any old Nazi quack, as Article 1.2 declares:
This Declaration is addressed to States. As appropriate and relevant, it also provides guidance to decisions or practices of individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private.
In other words everybody should mind (at least) Articles 3.2, 6.1, 9 and 11.
The individual before the herd:
3.2. The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.
My body my choice:
6.1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Stick your pass up your …
9. The privacy of the persons concerned and the confidentiality of their personal information should be respected. To the greatest extent possible, such information should not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected or consented to, consistent with international law, in particular international human rights law.
Citizen-lepers, unite:
11. No individual or group should be discriminated against or stigmatized on any grounds, in violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Short and to the point, but I know what you’re thinking: it’s from the UN, and between the Soviets and the Mullahs, we’ve known for a while that the UN is to be invoked only when one wants to give a veneer of respectability to the totalitarianism of the day, Islamic terror or the rape of little girls in Africa. Plus this is old shit, as any GenZ with a smartphone and a PhD in inclusive mathematics can attest, since 2005 is almost like 1945. Both end with a 5, see?
Thankfully, we’ve got something more up to date. And even more specific.
Macron vs. EU: Quarrels in Brussels
I’ll bet you my left kidney so you can make a killing on specialized Chinese markets that some people politicians parasites in Brussels took some time between the copious elevenses and their four hours lunch break to read the (admittedly short) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights before ordering the closest penpusher to concoct a version dedicated to COVID-19 vaccins and call it resolution 2361.
Adopted by the European Parliamentary Assembly on January 27 of 2021 (possibly after lunch), less than 6 months before Jupiter Macron’s simple choice, it states:
The Assembly thus urges member States and the European Union to: (…)
7.3.1 ensure that citizens are informed that the vaccination is not mandatory and that no one is under political, social or other pressure to be vaccinated if they do not wish to do so;
7.3.2 ensure that no one is discriminated against for not having been vaccinated, due to possible health risks or not wanting to be vaccinated;
There is no ambiguity and no wiggling room: Macron’s orders are in direct contradiction to the EU’s demands. No surprise here: in French domestic policy matters, coercion is always favored over mediation and persuasion—France always was and remains an authoritarian society at heart. The real question is: what will the EU do about it?
To add insult to injury, while we wait for the answer:
8. With reference to Resolution 2337 (2020) on democracies facing the Covid-19 pandemic, the Assembly reaffirms that parliaments, as cornerstone institutions of democracy, must continue to play their triple role of representation, legislation and oversight in pandemic circumstances. The Assembly thus calls on parliaments to exercise these powers, as appropriate, also in respect of the development, allocation and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
The French Parliament must be on an 18 months lunch break. Macron doesn’t bother to ask them much, and they’re nowhere to be seen—apart from a few isolated voices weakly protesting on the tweetr: the saner ones arguing that this is indeed a blatant attack on human rights, while the criminally stupid contend that it’s “impractical” because the delay given before the segregation comes into force is “too short”2 for people to get the injections.
What Macron is hoping to achieve with this is not clear and it seems that, just as it has from the start, his own arrogance is getting in the way of his discernment and better judgment.
I suppose that part of the announce was based on the expectation that this would scare a good portion of the public, and that worked to some extend, as a bit less than 2 million French rushed the online vaccination appointment site—most of those, no doubt, to ensure that they will not have to cancel their sacrosanct August vacations.
For the rest, I cannot fathom what Macron and his stooges expect. This will add little more than extra aggravation on those, like me, who already have their minds set on not getting the vaccine, and will likely push a large part of those on the fence into the no covax camp.
It may give other countries the excuse they need to follow in that way, as some in Italy, for instance, appear ready to open the mandatory covax rumba—what’s good for the Gaul is good for the Goombah I suppose—but this will certainly not help with the EU’s already dismal reputation: Macron going against it like that is enough to prove that this appalling institution is always in our way when we don’t want it, and never there when we could use it.
Not your Obama’s Red Line
There is no doubt in my mind, as history shows, that any Old World government capable of introducing such a discriminative and segregationist policy will not stop there, and will always find justifications for worse. Today a simple choice, tomorrow a final solution?
This is, after all, France, where just a few decades ago politicians and their police went devoutly further than what the German occupation authorities expected from them.
This 9ème Ordonnance des autorités d’occupation au sujet des Juifs—listing all the public places and events forbidden to French Jews—now looks oddly familiar to 2021 French covax refuseniks: bars, clubs, concerts, restaurants… Why do I have the sickening feeling that as I write this a group of bureaucrats in Paris is dressing just such a list, simply removing obsolete entries and adding those that did not exists in 1942, such as shopping centers?
That this takes place in a nominally Western liberal democracy again makes it even more crucial to resist.
As far as I am concerned, and I’m quite sure I’m not alone, this is the red line. I will not submit and I am prepared to carry this all the way to the bitter end—my choice, Macron, is equally simple: I will not line up in your vaccination centers nor board whatever cattle carts the future may hold. Not without a fight.
Maybe, as some retort, Macron has indeed lost his mind. Maybe, in his trademark arrogance, he’s simply jumped the gun and his despicable mug will soon hit the cold wall of reality.
But maybe he has more devious plans, seeing that he is more detested every day.3
Maybe Macron is trying to pull a Metropolis:
Joh Fredersen will, dass die in der Tiefe sich durch Gewalttat ins Unrecht setzen, damit er das Recht zur Gewalt gegen sie bekommt…
Joh Fredersen wants to let those in the Depths use force and do wrong so that he can claim the right to use force against them…
Little Jupiter cannot be oblivious to the rising specter of French civil war. What if he was looking to start the unrest in order to crush it before it begins unexpectedly and uncontrollably, as these things tend to do? Is that too far-fetched? Even for a European government that just announced it is excluding a large segment of its population from the greater part of the food retail chain? I don’t know. You tell me.
Either way, I do not care anymore.
I have reached the point where I hope the shooting starts before something worse happens.
Cross-posted from the dissident frogman: The segregation of Citizen COVID
- Masked or not, my nose wishes I was kidding, let me tell you.
- And I wish I was kidding there as well. You cannot instil that level of stupidity into an elected official, there has to be a genetic engineering lab operating somewhere nearby.
- He was detested from the start. Approval ratings were always a complete fabrication, Macron never had more than 25%—and that’s only the percentage of the electorate that voted him in, with the help of massive abstention, not of the total population.
All these politicians, including the idiots running Los Angeles, seem not to understand that those who are not immune to the virus pose no risk to those who are immune. The vaccine works ! Why ignore that fact ? We all know. There is the well known ignorance of those who do not know any science or statistics. Then there is the temptation of authority, especially well observed in those who favor Socialism.
And those of us who have had the Commie Crud – we are also immune.
I am pretty certain now that the flu that my daughter and I fell to, late in 2019 was the Commie Crud. Matched most of the reported symptoms, hit like a pile-driver, knocked us both out for almost a week.
Neither of us has been especially scrupulous about handwashing, mask-wearing, social distancing in the last year and some … and yet, we have never been sick again. Make of that what you will.
But we will never go back to wearing the face-diaper again. Nor will we get the vaccine for the Commie Crud. If initial reports are accurate, getting the vaccine after having had the Crud is almost as dangerous.
The only appropriate comments are those that will get one banned….
We are allowed to quote famous writers of the past, no? Like Chesterton, say? “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”
I recall a famous story about a survey administered in the EC back in the mid-50s–schoolchildren were being asked questions about family wealth and finance. In most countries the serfs mostly went along, but in France–so the story goes–parents hit the roof when they heard about it and the questions were dropped: they knew very well that the government would use the info against them!
Gotta admire that sort of cynicism (or maybe I’m just a Francophile).
Cousin Eddie
@Sgt Mom – I talked with a couple of women who both think their husbands had it in 2019. They both went to the Dr, both said it was diagnosable, and both just recuperated after a bout.
As far as France segregating how will they distinguish the unvaccinated? Put a red “A” on their foreheads?
Here I have heard their is a burgeoning market for fake vaccination certificates.
Couldn’t delete or edit the above – of course, UNdiagnosable.
@Sgt Mom – I talked with a couple of women who both think their husbands had it in 2019. They both went to the Dr, both said it was undiagnosable, and both just recuperated after a bout.
As far as France segregating how will they distinguish the unvaccinated? Put a red “A” on their foreheads?
Here I have heard their is a burgeoning market for fake vaccination certificates.
When the authorities can assure me with 100% certainty that there won’t be long-term (years) unexpected side effects of these experimental vaccines, things like bizarre immune proteins accumulating in bizarre bodily places like brains, hearts and joints,
or cells mysteriously starting to reproduce in an uncontrolled fashion in other bodily organs and tissues, I’ll consider getting the shot.
… add nerves and nerve sheaths to my bargain above
Note the deafening silence from Republicans. I haven’t heard a single thing from any of them about the reimposion of restrictions, about the fascist speech suppression the admin is bragging about, etc. Utterly worthless, all of them.
Coulda had Le Pen.
The LA Times is now blaming Trump and Tucker Carlson for the low vaccine rate in LA. The “delta variant” is less morbid than the initial versions. It is more contagious but less sickening and the people who are resisting vaccination are those at low risk. There is no excuse for demanding children by vaccinated for Covid. Before this, those resisting children get vaccines for common childhood (and dangerous) diseases were all of the left. Now, this virus poses minimal risk to children and the left is demanding vaccination.
Brian…”Note the deafening silence from Republicans. I haven’t heard a single thing from any of them about the reimposion of restrictions, about the fascist speech suppression the admin is bragging about, etc.”
Overstated. Ted Cruz has been outspoken on this issue, and DeSantis actually got a law passed attempting to rein in the censorship. Even Kevin McCarthy has spoken out.
Monsieur Dissident Frogman: a Texas sized, Diable, OUÃ (Hell, YEAH).
And to Jupiter Micron, I flatulate in his general direction (All apologies, but I dunno how to translate this into French).
David: I mean the events of the past few days, when the administration is gleefully bragging about working with Facebook to shut down any opposing voices. It’s literally man-the-barricades time, and the GOP is nowhere. Some tut-tutting in a few weeks isn’t what’s needed right now.
From the evidence available to the public, the vaccines available in America and most of those available in the EU have a vanishingly small number of serious reactions in comparison to the huge number of doses that have been given. If half of the population has taken the vaccine and 3,000 people die every day from all causes then you would expect that the number of vaccinated individuals that also died will increase by about 1,500 per DAY. Add in all the other factors that skew the vaccinated population towards those nearer to an appointment with the grim reaper than average and the statistics can be made to look dire indeed. In any large population there will be seemingly young healthy individuals that simply drop dead for some reason, now that the population of the vaccinated is in the hundreds of millions, there are some of these as well, to be trumpeted to the roof tops.
The “Authorities” have spent the last year, and more, cancelling whatever credibility they had with the large proportion of the population not inclined to take them at face value in normal times and probably shifted some others into that category as well. The “Authorities” have responded in their own time honored way by attempting to enforce their authority on those that dissent. Very predictably, one of their rationals is the supposed collective cost of non-compliance. Once again showing that anything the government pays for it will presume to dictate. Once government money enters the picture, your personal privacy and autonomy cease, you are no longer a citizen, only another client, with only those privileges the government deigns to bestow.
What all this has done is shift the question of vaccination from a personal, medical decision to a political statement. So now all that someone wishing to give Biden or Macron the middle finger has to do is nothing.
Because Facebook, etc., isn’t just acting this way because they’re run by lefty scum, it’s because the Democrats spent years threatening them openly, while the GOPe mumbled about the free market. So of course the companies have responded accordingly. It’s time for the GOP to make them fear consequences for their actions (yes I know this is hopeless with the current GOPe). If I’m in a room with two people, one of whom threatens to hit me and the other who wants to stay neutral, before long I’m going to do what the first guy wants. If they both threaten to hit me, my incentives change by quite a lot.
We are mostly vaccinated in BC. We are waiting for the delta variant to pick off the un-vaccinated at this point. ;)
You won’t get into Canada without one, should you want to.
“From the evidence available to the public, the vaccines available in America and most of those available in the EU have a vanishingly small number of serious reactions in comparison to the huge number of doses that have been given.”
It’s been clear from the beginning that the “vanishingly small number of serious reactions” would have made any other medication in history get rejected by every health agency on the planet. A 10-100x increase in even rare side effects is never accepted for population-wide treatments in any other instance. In absolute terms they appear to be safe (though there is no possible way to know anything about long-term effects), but we would never tolerate these side effects for people who aren’t at high risk otherwise. And yes, it makes me much much much less willing to get poked given that no one in power is willing to just admit that, and say they still think the benefits outweigh the risk. Instead they have to lie and say the risks are zero. Nope, sorry, I’m not an idiot, and don’t appreciate getting treated like one.
I got my first (Pfizer) jab the other day. As far as The Science, I could flip a coin; but I have told everyone who has urged me to get vaxxed that I have, now STFU about it.
My prediction (neither original nor particularly insightful) is that every few months will see a New Deadly Variant, requiring More Vaccinations, and More Population Controls. One consequence is that international travel will become even crappier than it is now, if it’s possible at all . . .
We have entered the dystopic world that we’ve been imagining since H.G. Wells’s day.
Cousin Eddie
The serious reactions to the vaccines have most been in the young who don’t need it. THis is all the more reason to end the insanity of requiring immunization nto thios disease that has only a mild effect on the young.
The terminally ignorant seem to be obsessed with the “delta variant” which is more contagious but less toxic than the orif=gin al strain. This, of course, is typical of most viral diseases. The Spanish Flu, which was most severe in the healthy young, took a different course as some mild cases appeared early but the lethal strain was later. One confounding element in the Spanish Flu was the role of empyema, which killed a lot of the fatal cases.
The 1918 Empyema Commission discovered the proper treatment of empyema and this might have saved the majority of lives lost.
Practical application.””The conclusions derived from the experimental work of the Empyema Commission had immediate practical applications. At this time, an epidemic of acute streptococcic empyema was raging inU.S. Army camps. The usual method of treating it was to resect a rib and establish open drainage of the involved pleural space as soon as the diagnosis was made. The case fatality rate averaged 30.2 percent and was as high as 90 percent in some series. The principal cause of death, the studies of the Commission showed, was open pneumothorax, created by surgical means during the period of acute pneumonia. Operation was being done on patients whose vital capacity was already seriously lowered by their pneumonic disease. It was still further lowered, sometimes to the lethal level, by the establishment of an open pneumothorax.
This led to the use of water seal to prevent lung collapse, which was the lethal event in many cases. It is also significant that measles was a major killer, as well.
I wish we could restore the preview function.
Here’s a simple question–it is accepted now that there is a very strong increase in myocarditis cases among young males after getting the mRNA vaccines. Like 10x, perhaps 100x depending on how complete you think reporting might be. It’s clearly real, not just statistical fluctuation. Is anyone even looking into what the cause of this is? I haven’t seen anything indicating they are. If not, why not?
“If not, why not?”
Politics. Admitting the existence of side effects admits that the vaccine might not be for everyone. Right now, Fauci is talking about extending the population being vaccinated to younger kids. Why? Politics. They are more likely to die from a dozen other things things than COVID-19, including maybe the vaccine.
I think this is criminal. But then, this sort of callous disregard for. Individual lives is the hallmark of totalitarian states, which is where the Democrats so badly want to go. French President Macron is apparently requiring that health care workers who have survived the illness be vaccinated in order to work, regardless of danger.
As of a few days ago, 49 per cent of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their second dose of vaccine. The US as a whole is at 48% fully vaccinated.
Well, I think it’s because the public health system is completely broken, but whether you think it’s “politics” or corruption, that’s the sort of thing that those on the “take the jab and shut up about it” side need to at least pretend to address. Another good question is who is monitoring the initial study participants to determine the longer term efficacy of the vaccines? (The answer is nobody, they blew up the study and gave the placebo group the vaccine as soon as they knew they would get their EUA).
I wish we could restore the preview function.
I do too but it was a security risk. Anyone who can suggest a better alternative is welcome to contact me.
“Little Jupiter cannot be oblivious to the rising specter of French civil war. What if he was looking to start the unrest in order to crush it before it begins unexpectedly and uncontrollably, as these things tend to do? Is that too far-fetched?”
reminds me vividly of certain much-publicized event at the beginning of this year
Democrats and media, undercutting the vaccines….some history:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/why-do-some-mistrust-the-vaccines.php
Yes, the Dems and media were viciously and insanely partisan. But we must be careful not to show that sort of video and make it seem like current vaccine resistance is some sort of mirror image to that inanity.
My guess is that authorities figure that if they can get the unvaxxed population down to 20% or less, they can impose harsh restrictions on the rest of us, but they’re nowhere near that number yet, so they can’t move forward as they’d like to. Anything having to do with a vaxx “passport” needs to be resisted by any means necessary. I do very much fear that NY will make it mandatory for schools (not colleges, which have almost all already done so), I think they will do it the second the CDC gives the vaxxes approval, which shouldn’t happen in the next few months by any sane standard, but they’ve jettisoned all normal procedures so far so I don’t know what to expect..
Brian: “My guess is that authorities figure that if they can get the unvaxxed population down to 20% or less, they can impose harsh restrictions on the rest of us, but they’re nowhere near that number yet …”
Divide & Conquer! Standard practice for our Overlords.
Waiting for other shoes to drop — Need to renew your Driver’s License? First present proof of having been injected. Want to vote? Where’s your “I have surrendered” card? With a little persuasion to their Fellow Fascists in the financial world, the Political Class could arrange it so we might need proof of injection to renew a credit card, or to maintain a bank account.
My plan when the situation becomes impossible — sneak across the border to Mexico, and then walk back into the US claiming to be an illegal. That will make me exempt from needing to be vaccinated. Plus I get as many votes as I want. And I won’t need a Driver’s License. It will probably also get me an income for life, courtesy of the vaccinated taxpayers.
“My plan when the situation becomes impossible…”
I’m just going to say that I identify as black, so that my distrust of authority and refusal to get poked is completely understandable and worthy of sympathy and support rather than evidence of irredeemable racism.
Go here and read about the rhetoric the DOJ used in court today against the first poor slob to plead guilty for actions on Jan 6 and see if you think our current regime is legitimate or deserving of even the slightest respect:
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2
What is this “legitimacy” of which you speak? Supposedly, a government is legitimate if the overwhelming majority of the people accept its guiding principles and any written charter that they may have laying out those principles as the supreme secular law. In our country, said charter is the Constitution as lawfully amended. The Democrats and those further Left have contempt for it and ignore it. The GOPe works harder than at anything else to deliberately ignore the Democrats ignoring the Constitution.
As a lifelong student of political science and world history, I toss out this question for discussion if it should interest the Gentle Readers. What happens to a country, culture, and society if the overwhelming majority of the people for whatever reasons ignore and suppress those principles and charter?
Subotai Bahadur
Very much in the spirit of: I found this via Rand Simberg’s Blog
http://www.transterrestrial.com/
and I don’t begin to know enough to to know whether this is anything more than plausible hot air or real information.
https://jamesfetzer.org/2021/07/letter-to-physicians-four-new-scientific-discoveries-regarding-the-safety-and-efficacy-of-covid-19-vaccines/
I note that the most of the cites are from journals that even I’ve heard of. Getting the actual papers, unless you have privileges at a library with subscriptions, probably cost on the order of $100 each and then there would be the problem of figuring out whether the cites support the letter. Again, not something I would expect anyone to take my word on.
Someone on Facebook might try the experiment of posting the link to see how long it takes to be banned.
Science marches on.
I had forgotten that PLOS was one of those new fangled open journals. Oddly, the cite in the link is defective, I had to do a little digging to find the right paper for the third footnote, it’s quite short.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249499
I still have to balance the time it will take me to read it with the likelihood that I’ll know more when I finish. Your mileage may vary. I note that the study seems to be based on only four subjects.
And now for number 11.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248007
Again a defective citation, I’m seeing a pattern here.
#5 is a Nature paper that’s on line also and the cite is ok, so maybe I’m missing something.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24622-7
I thought that most cites usually include url’s, The standard citation that’s part of each article includes it and it’s common courtesy to use it.
Looking around, especially at “Doctors for COVID Ethics”, I’m sorry I brought it up. I can’t seem to find anyone outside of the usual quack and “health food” sites (but I repeat myself) that have heard of them or any existence outside of a twitter handle and a couple of other polemics. I thought the arguments had a familiar ring, lots of references that are hard to track down with lots of extrapolation and no actual data.
Subotai: “What happens to a country, culture, and society if the overwhelming majority of the people for whatever reasons ignore and suppress those principles and charter?”>/i>
It is always useful to look to history for guidance.
In the case of Rome, the Republic functionally came to an end and was replaced by the Empire — but the Senate still met, and judges still held courts. The substance of government changed, but the outer forms did not. Life for most Roman citizens continued to get worse.
In the case of the USSR, the people were becoming impoverished while the principles of Communism were honored only in the breach. Sclerotic government was unable to pay its way internationally and collapsed. The USSR fractured, and what would have been called warlords in Ancient China stepped up in different parts. After decades of chaos, life for Russians is much improved — life for Uzbeks, maybe not so much.
In China’s case, after the chaos of the Red Guards, the rulers adopted “communism with Chinese characteristics”, aka a capitalistic market economy with mercantilist trading — and after several decades, life for most Chinese people has much improved.
Perhaps the lesson of history is that when the Mandate of Heaven is withdrawn, change will definitely happen. The immediate impact of that change is probably negative for most people; the longer term impact could be bad or good, depending on other factors.
If we did not have the vaccines, the economy would be in shreds, and a lot more people would have died. And the only reason we *do* have the vaccines now is because of the strong push from Trump.
Israeli experience shows a 94% reduction in chances of getting Covid, one week after second Pfizer shot.
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/03/09/israeli-study-offers-first-real-world-glimpse-of-covid-19-vaccines-in-action/
Israel also found that between one in 3000 and one in 6000 men ages 16 to 24 who received the vaccine developed myrocarditis. But most cases were mild and resolved within a few weeks, which is typical for myocarditis.
Of course, risks of side effects should be balanced with risks of death or other bad effects from the disease itself. Here’s some British data on mortality rates as a function of age…numbers are rates per 100,000 people:
5-9 .1
10-19
(continuing previous comment)
5-9 .1
10-19 .5
20-29 2.1
30-39 7.4
40-49 22.8
50-59 65.8
60-69 192
70-79 553
To put these numbers into perspective, the most dangerous job in the US is logging, with 97.6 annual deaths per 100,000. So, if you’re 50-59, your chance of dying from Covid (so far) has been about half your risk of working as a logger for a year (and a little more than working as a roofer, where the rate is 51.5) Also big differences by sex and (of course) by health condition.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-reported-sars-cov-2-deaths-in-england/covid-19-confirmed-deaths-in-england-report
David: “Israel also found that between one in 3000 and one in 6000 men ages 16 to 24 who received the vaccine developed myrocarditis. But most cases were mild and resolved within a few weeks, which is typical for myocarditis.”
That myocarditis rate for that age group is at least 10x the background rate, and since it is self-reported, and only the very strongest cases will do so, it’s quite possible it is 10x higher still. And it then leads to my question above–is anyone studying *why* the myocarditis is happening? What is the mechanism? Is it the spike protein that the vaccine boosts production of? Does that travel to the heart and cause inflammation? Does it cause systemic immune response or inflammation that manifests as myocarditis? Some other mechanism? You can say “most cases were mild and resolved within a few weeks”, but if you don’t know what the heck is going on, how can you possibly pretend that you know what the long-term implications are?
David F: “If we did not have the vaccines, the economy would be in shreds, and a lot more people would have died”
What? Like the Real Economy is not in shreds already thanks to the Lock Downs?
It seems that the overwhelming majority of the population of Planet Earth managed to survive through the period in which there were no vaccines. And as the UK data you quote demonstrate, the fearsome Covid-19 “pandemic” was mostly a risk to those who were already approaching the end of their natural life spans. (Other data shows the risk was also focused on those who already had significant health problems). If that seems cold, it is simply a recognition that every one of us is destined to die. No human lives forever!
Of course this virus has done harm — but the real long-term harm we are all going to have to live with is the economic & social harm done by the Political Class’s unnecessary over-reaction.
The economy is terrible. Employers can’t find anyone to work, inflation is real and growing (and neither the “stimulus” they passed a few months ago or the one they’re working on now have even begun to hit the system yet), and the government and media are lying like crazy about everything, although they’re starting to be unable to deny reality.
The vaccines have been available to everyone who wants them for months now. The most vulnerable have gotten them in quite high numbers. The public health crisis is over. Things need to be completely open and back to normal.
While it is true that there may be long-term effects of vaccines that haven’t yet shown up, this is true of every vaccine or drug ever created. And also true of every physical system ever created–such as airliners–in that sphere, many crashes have occurred due to some phenomenon that had not been envisaged when the design was created and approved.
It is also quite possible that the disease itself may have effects that show up many years later, even when cases were mild or even asymptotic. We can’t know everything, it’s all about the balancing of risks.
Based on what we know now, I don’t think kids or people under 25 should be getting a vaccine, unless special individual conditions apply. Probably there has been a lot of self-selection among vaccine recipients and a high % of the people who really need it have already gotten it, but there are others who could benefit who have been scared off. The hectoring, threatening, we-know-best attitude displayed by Biden et al has surely made a lot of people think, ”Thou protestest too much” and increased their reluctance level.
Biden’s current almost hysterical vaccine push is, I think, largely motivated by his desire to be able to quote large number–“look, my administration got XX million people vaccinated” rather than an actual desire to save lives, similar to a Soviet factory manager who wants to maximize his tonnage of output rather than to produce useful products.
“Biden’s current almost hysterical vaccine push is, I think, largely motivated by…”
Honestly, I think it’s mostly motivated by the fact that at the moment the Democrat Party is dominated by the policy preferences of highly educated white women, and a (somewhat related) contempt for other white groups. Hence the completely untrue claims that vaccine resistance is somehow a phenomenon of “Trumpers” instead of being extremely broad-based along a variety of lines (for example, something like a third of blacks and Hispanics are vaccinated).
“While it is true that there may be long-term effects of vaccines that haven’t yet shown up, this is true of every vaccine or drug ever created.”
No other vaccine or drug ever has been pushed to market with such a limited amount of testing. Not even close.
“We can’t know everything, it’s all about the balancing of risks.”
Yes, exactly, and different people are making different assessments about that balance, and that needs to be the end of it.
There was a LOT of anti-vaccine thinking before Covid ever came on the horizon, and an awful lot of it came from various ‘celebrities.’
I saw a study somewhere suggesting that anti-vaccine attitudes were not particularly on either the Left or the Right, but tended to be present in people with the ‘most extreme’ beliefs on *either* Left or Right side. (‘extreme’ as measured by some scale)
I bet the real correlation would be the inverse to trust or more probably confidence in the good faith of the government. This is bound to suffer when they (the government) have been caught in one blatant lie after another. Politicians used to know this and would go to elaborate lengths to avoid being caught in a lie. Now they can say black is white one day and white is green the next while most of the MSM will go along, so they don’t bother. Anybody that doesn’t agree is an ignorant racist.
“Anti-vaxx” always referred to the people who claimed that vaccines caused autism, as far as I ever saw. It wasn’t how we referred to people like say the Amish or other religious groups that don’t vaccinate, it was a disparaging term for Malibu hippy types who we were supposed to dismiss as cranks. Which I agree, they are cranks, but so what? We tolerated them, because this is America. Now it’s been redefined to mean people who don’t want to be forced to take this one particular shot, even if they’ve taken every other single other vaccine that is recommended and available, or even to mean people who oppose mandatory vaccination, even if they take them voluntarily.
I do trust the government much, much less than I did a few years ago, but that’s not why I have zero interest in getting poked right now. I find it amusing that the MSM has been hammering on the idiotic notion that if only Trump or other voices would push the vaccine harder, everyone would rush out to get it. Besides the fact that it totally misses who actually isn’t getting poked, it’s the same old story where they honestly do think that conservatives are moronic children who are “easily led”, etc.
There was a LOT of anti-vaccine thinking before Covid ever came on the horizon, and an awful lot of it came from various ‘celebrities.’
Robert Kennedy was involved heavily in this and his online sites are on the list to be censored. He is definitely a lefty. The autism thing has 9 lives even after “The Lancet” retracted that ridiculous paper and the author lost his medical license.
David, here’s another link for you re; situation in Israel
https://www.wochenblick.at/israels-versagen-arzt-deckt-auf-80-der-schweren-corona-faelle-geimpft/
Hopefully, it will change your mind…
David F: “We can’t know everything, it’s all about the balancing of risks.”
Indeed! Take the analogy of investing — the standard advice to the investor in the face of uncertainty has always been: Diversify!
Maybe the people who participate in the giant medical experiment of a form of gene therapy for Covid-19 will be safe from the virus, or maybe the women will be rendered infertile and injectees will be extra-susceptible to future viruses as some animal research suggested. Maybe the people who don’t take the treatments will be ok, or maybe they will be among the unfortunate one in a thousand who die, or maybe they will be struck down years from now by an unpredicted side effect. What’s to be done? as Lenin was wont to say.
Diversity! If we had smart politicians and competent bureaucrats, they would deal with the uncertainty by encouraging some people to get the injections and other people to avoid them. In the People’s Soviet of California, they might have fixed it so that people with even-numbered birth dates would have to take the injection while people with odd-numbered birth dates would be prohibited from taking it.
But in a world of free choice, we may be seeing the Wisdom of Crowds. Some people want to be injected, some don’t. This is good! True Diversity!
Perhaps we could all learn to appreciate those who make the other choice. Karens and their male equivalents might commend those who avoid the injection for willingly taking the personal risk of perhaps suffering from Covid. People who choose not to participate in the experimental treatment might commend those who voluntarily take the injections with their un-assessable risk of future negative consequences. But because society did not put all of its eggs in one basket, society will survive whatever happens.
Tatyana…mein Deutsch ist nich sehr gut…but I don’t think those tables show what the authors think they show. If you have (for ages 50-59) 127 cases among the vaccinated and 18 among the unvaccinated, then to arrive at any conclusions about vaccine efficacy or lack of same, you’d need to know *the total number of people* in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated categories and then calculate the % cases among the people in each category.
Here’s one more thing that They never talk about–reports from the very beginning said that once you got infected, you were immune. At first it was basically just rumor, but as far as I know the number of people who have been infected twice is vanishingly small. Where is the data on that number now, though? All talk of “herd immunity” has morphed into nothing but vaccination numbers for the past six months or more, another Orwellian abomination. I’m not sure of the source of this plot, but it seems to say that it’s still true that once you’re infected once and recover, you’re completely in the clear, which of course would change the conversation completely if we lived in a sane world.
https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1417951501591449600
Sounds like the immunity from being infected is pretty solid; of course, we aren’t guaranteed as to how long it lasts, but that is true of the vaccine-produced immunity, as well.
It doesn’t help, though, for conservative commentators to talk about Natural Immunity; sounds like some kind of hippie granola thing. Can’t think of a better phrase right off, but shouldn’t be hard.
David F: “Can’t think of a better phrase right off …”
Unapproved Immunity?
CDC-Mocked Immunity?
Trumpian Immunity?
Free Immunity?
White Privilege Immunity?
or maybe “Effective Immunity”?
No, that shows that the hospitalized now have plenty of vaccinated but basically no previously infected and recovered. And it’s well documented that several months ago the WHO/CDC scrubbed their websites of any mention of previous infection contributing to herd immunity, to say only vaccinations count.
I don’t see why we need to make up a new term to describe what we’ve always known about how immune response works. Seems it’s up to Them to defend why we should jettison generations of acquired wisdom.
@David & Tatyana
I don’t see numbers on the percentage of the Israeli population currently vaccinated vs. unvaccinated in the article linked by Tatyana either. FWIW, though, the Jerusalem Post website reported yesterday that, of the 143 people in the country hospitalized with Covid, 58% were fully vaccinated. Statistics hin and statistics her as the Germans would say, but that certainly isn’t in harmony with the establishment narrative. Needless to say, these numbers aren’t being prominently featured in our official media. In what is probably a perfectly innocent coincidence, the JP website is currently inaccessible.
David et al, if you open the link in Chrome it will translate the article to English (thru an icon in the main URL window on top)
I’ll copy relevant quotes:
Israeli internist (Dr. Zioni) publishes statistics on Twitter
He says: “It seems the vaccination efficiency is approaching zero”
People who have been vaccinated seem to get seriously ill more often
More than twice as many hospitalizations for Israelis with gene injection
In particular, the severe corona courses seem to be more common among those who have been vaccinated. Dr. Zioni shares statistics on this.
It shows, as Zioni explains, “That’s the number of serious cases this month. The graph above shows the number of reports, the graph below shows the patients with severe courses. The fully vaccinated are green, those with a dose of Pfizer are orange, and the unvaccinated are red. The trend is very clear, especially among patients with severe disease. “
As to the risks of “vaccine” (which it isn’t) vs. risks of the disease itself – you equate make that comparison, because they are not in the same category. People who got infected by covid did not choose to do it/ they might have underlying conditions out of their control that contributed to them being susceptible/ we, after all, don’t know exactly why some people get infection, and others don’t. While those who got sick and died after getting poked withe the experimental substance a) were perfectly healthy before and b) believed the advertisement that the risk is minimal, side effects are negligibly rare, and the shot(s) will lower their chances of being sick with covid.
In other words, they are the victims of false advertisement by their own government, medical malpractice by their doctors who forced them to get the shots, and the pharmaceutical corps, who got indecently fat on the proceeds of this scam.
What sane insurance company would underwrite a policy under this conditions?
Quote again: the number of reported vaccine side effects is rocking. 438,440 cases of serious vaccine side effects were registered with the VAERS portal . Among other things, 9,048 deaths, 26,818 hospitalizations, 2,486 facial paralysis, 2,152 anaphylactic shocks, 985 miscarriages, 3,324 heart attacks and 7,463 disabilities have been made public since the vaccination began.
Where those victims and their families could turn to? The government doesn’t give any guarantees, the insurance doesn’t pay, the pharma just laughs into their faces.
“you can’t make that comparison”
[yes, the preview would be helpful. Oh well]
Well, let’s see, we can just look up the studies of how effective the vaccines are after 6 months in 70 year olds…oh, wait, no we can’t, because no one’s done such a study. Oops.
According to the following, 55% (now closer to 60%) of the Israeli population has been fully vaccinated, and 40 to 50 percent of new Covid cases occur in this group.
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/06/30/covid-19-israel-full-vaccinated.html
Another article in the Jerusalem Post seeks to interpret these numbers in the context of how many of these people had pre-existing medical conditions, etc.
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/06/30/covid-19-israel-full-vaccinated.html
Regardless of how one massages the numbers, it is certainly plausible that the vaccines are not as effective as originally claimed. Under the circumstances, Draconian measures to force people to be vaccinated seem ill advised to say the least.
In the end, the question of “What is to be done” boils down to a personal moral and value judgment. What takes priority – safety or liberty? I personally lean more towards liberty. I have opposed government imposed lockdowns, mandatory wearing of masks, etc., from the start. I can’t be positive about it, but I suspect that the course I have supported would have resulted in more deaths than the “safe” path we have all been forced to follow. I am willing to accept that consequence. Nations have often been willing to do the same in the name of liberty, as for example in the case of Britain in WWII cited in David’s post about the Battle of Britain. In this case we have made the opposite choice; to sacrifice a great deal of liberty in hopes of avoiding a much less dire threat than fascism.
While thee isn’t room to swing a dead cat without hitting one or more “scientists” in search of a camera crew in order to share his or her unique conjectures and guesses with the un-washed masses, there seems to be damn little actual science taking place. If masks make a difference, it’s long past time to present the evidence or pipe down.
At the outset, there was very little besides conjecture and guesses. The CDC had wasted the last umpteen years counting brown noses and pursuing the SJW agenda instead of actually studying how to control disease. Every new outbreak sees them starting again from square one with the “we think”, “we believe” and “out of an abundance of caution”, instead of “this shows” or especially, “this worked”.
So far all the mask evidence I’ve seen is negative, nothing to show that mask mandates had any effect. As I said, it’s time for anybody proposing one to put up or shut up.
The same goes for the vaccines. If they want the other half to get vaccinated, they need to provide something more than vague statements that are contradicted in the next breath. With about half the population vaccinated, it provides the perfect test. If the vaccines are 80-90% effective, the overwhelming majority of hospitalizations should be unvaccinated. Otherwise, they better start coming up with a good reason. Here, again, silence speaks volumes.
The government, public health apparatus and media have worked overtime for the past 18 months and have destroyed their credibility far more effectively than any outsider could have conceived. If they want to know why half the people are not lining up for a shot, they need merely to look in a mirror.
I don’t have time to hunt for a link right now, but I’ve seen data that the people who have *not* been vaccinated tend to be (a) younger, and (b) to live in rural areas. Risk for both of these factors is obviously greater than for their opposites: older and more urban people.
Although black people do tend to be less-vaccinated; probably a function of historical experience and the Biden/Harris undercutting of the vaccines during the campaign.
With odds 9:1, it shouldn’t take much to see the trend. Anybody that wanted the vaccine has been able to walk into a Wal Mart and get it for months. The question is really really simple: do vaccinated people make up a non-negligible proportion of the hospitalized? If they do, they are either all very unlucky to be on the wrong end of 9:1 or all the unvaccinated are unbelievably lucky that they aren’t dropping like flies.
Why should any vaccinated person care whether anyone else has or has not been vaccinated? The whole point of vaccination is to get personal protection — if the disease comes your way, your body is primed to fight it.
I still remember my first trip to Africa. I was running out of arm space for all the injections against various nasties. There was no question of my telling everyone in Africa to wear a mask and stand 6 feet apart and get vaccinated; it was my responsibility to take precautions for myself.
It would be nice if the Vaccinators would adopt the same approach with respect to their fellow citizens.
This seems to revert to the common sense reality that science is a slow moving beast and that we will know everything in something longer than ten years when it no longer matters to most. Looking at the vaccination/infection/side-effects from last week is about as useful as looking at the weather reports for tne same time and using it to judge the theory of man-made climate change. It will take years to collect relevant data. The vaccines sound like a “good” concept but were approved as an emergency measure for what was ecxpected to be a highly contageous and deadly disease. Over the last year, plus, it has become clear that the Corona-SARS-2 is not generally dangerous, except, maybe, so a small segment of the population. There are a variety of preventative measures and therapeutic agents, so that the potential hazards and effectiveness of vaccination must be reevaluated. No vaccine provides absolute protection and the results in Israel suggest that vaccination may not even be a particularly effective “good luck charm”. The pressure for vaccination starts to sound like political theater at best and an excuse to do do what would otherwise be intolerable (e.g. special identification, restrictions on access to public facilities or jobs, etc). It seems already clear that, for the young and other wise healthy, the risks of vaccination are greater than the risks of COVID-19. Shut-downs and masks do not seem to provide any general protection but do create hazards for the individual and damage to the economy.
So, in general, if you are listening to loud-mouth politicians and the media, instead of to a physician who knows your personal condition and history, you are a fool who deserves everything that comes your way. Don’t expect others to follow you into the fire. If you plan on trying to force me to accept the fools’ choice, better bring lots of help. The RNA technology does sound neat, YOU go test it, I’ll watch. The 737-MAX control system sounded neat also. May all the victims rest in peace, and all the gubbmint wheenies who approved it burn in Hell.
If the vaccine is 80-90% effective the signal should stand out like Everest over the Dismal Plane. With half the country vaccinated, especially if the population is weighted toward the most vulnerable, the number of vaccinated people in the hospital for COVID should approach zero with the overwhelming majority made up of the unvaccinated. This doesn’t take years, it should be easily seen in any simple nose count, this week, last week, next week. If not, come up with a persuasive explanation backed by verifiable evidence and I’ll listen. As I said, the absence of such simple, understandable information speaks volumes.
At the same time, it’s all but impossible to avoid the most hysterical sort of anti-vaccine rants and even more reasonable sounding guff like the “letter” I was dumb enough to point out above. With hundreds of millions of doses administered, even very rare deleterious effects number in the thousands and prove nothing more than that the vaccines are no better than others but no worse. Long term effects, by definition, won’t appear for years if ever, you pays your money and you takes your chance.
My personal opinion that’s worth every penny you’re paying, is that there is very small risk to taking the vaccine, though non-zero. What’s lacking is evidence that it’s more than a placebo. That evidence should very plane by now.
“even very rare deleterious effects number in the thousands and prove nothing more than that the vaccines are no better than others but no worse”
Sigh, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m sorry but this just flat out isn’t true. In absolute terms they are “safe”, but they undeniably cause side effects of all sorts that are much much worse than for any other vaccine. Even if you don’t believe any of the stories about actual deaths, even if you don’t believe that the myocarditis effect, which the CDC itself admits is 10x background for young males, have you ever heard of people getting the equivalent of the serious flu for several days after any other vaccine? And that is extremely common for this one. You can argue that the costs are much higher but it’s balanced by the fact that the risk is so much higher, but you just can’t accurately claim that they are “no worse” than other vaccines.
Some data on ‘breakthrough infections’ (people who had the vaccinations but got the disease anyhow) here:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
vaccines are no better than others but no worse.
Oh yes, co-vaccine is much worse.
Look at the percentage of side effects and deaths at VAERS: preceding 20 years the side effects and complications, including death, for all vaccines are recorded at 0.1% to 0.2%. 2020 is 0.48% and 6 months of 2021 is already at 0.4%
Tatyana: And no one reports to VAERS stuff like “I had a 104 degree fever and was in bed for three days.” The percentage of side effects like that, that would immediately get any other vaccine pulled, is something like 10-20% I believe. In the fall you could read stories about how important it was that the authorities prepare people for how sick they would get, and I guess they did a good job, because I’ve heard so many people say they or their family members got really, really sick for days, and then they say “that’s just the vaccine working” which is just mind-boggling to me.
re: “breakthrough cases”–how many “breakthrough” cases are there of measles? Of tetanus? Of any other disease that we do population-level vaccinations? Why do we pretend this is normal?
One more quick note, then I’ll stop dominating the conversation–be very careful when reading reports about the vaccinated/unvaccinated distribution of cases that they are reporting current numbers. I’ve seen a lot of such plots that go back to Dec/Jan (here’s an example: https://twitter.com/jcCre8/status/1418559097125982210), which makes them totally useless for asking what is actually going on now. The whole question we need to know is how the vaccine efficacy evolves over time, there’s been lots of conflicting reports about it, but I don’t know what the “science” shows, and don’t really know how to find who might be actually looking into it with an open mind.
the evidence is not reassuring according to berenson, who tracks this, of course the usual apparatchiks are still pushing the same message, both here and abroad
have you ever heard of people getting the equivalent of the serious flu for several days after any other vaccine?
Yes. It happened to me, twice, with the shingles vaccine. I’ve had several nurses tell me that that is quite common for that vaccine.
re: “breakthrough cases”–how many “breakthrough” cases are there of measles? Of tetanus? Of any other disease that we do population-level vaccinations?
We’re not in the middle of a worldwide tetanus or measles pandemic. We’ve had 35 million cases of Covid in the United States in the last year, compared to 400 or so cases of measles and 30 or so of tetanus in any given year.
…be very careful when reading reports about the vaccinated/unvaccinated distribution of cases that they are reporting current numbers.
Joplin, Missouri, in the middle of a delta variant outbreak that is worse than any other Covid outbreak it has seen to date, is seeing a 10:1 unvaccinated to vaccinated ratio in their hospitals. This compares to a 10:8 unvaccinated to vaccinated ratio in their general population (44.4% fully vaccinated).
Since June, 113 of Mercy Joplin’s 124 inpatients with COVID-19, or 91% of them, were unvaccinated, according to hospital spokesman Jordan Larimore.
So you’re eight times more likely to require hospitalization for the delta variant of Covid if you’re unvaccinated than if you’re vaccinated. I would expect the ratio to be even higher for the other variants than it is for the delta variant.
mkent:
Do we mandate everyone get the shingles vaccine, and does anyone talk like everyone should, or get banished from society?
Of course there’s no measles pandemic. So what? The question is why do we pretend like “breakthrough” cases are normal for vaccines. They’re not. Heck, the fact that no one gets measles proves it. More covid vaccinated people have now gotten covid than measles vaccinated people have gotten measles in all of history, as far as I can tell.
Do we mandate everyone get the shingles vaccine…
Shingles? No. Measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, and a host of others? Yes, for all practical purposes.
Of course there’s no measles pandemic. So what?
So you’re 1 million times more likely to come into contact with a person with Covid than you are with measles.
The question is why do we pretend like “breakthrough” cases are normal for vaccines.
Because they are. No vaccine is 100% effective, and breakthrough cases are normal. The Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective against the original Wuhan variant of SARS-CoV-2 but only 64% effective against the delta variant. The measles vaccine is 93% effective after a single dose and 97% effective after the second dose. The influenza vaccine is about 67% effective overall, but its effectiveness against any particular strain in any particular year can be quite a bit lower than that.
It’s probability. The reason there are so many breakthrough cases is because Covid is so widespread. That’s we it’s called a pandemic.
mkent: and your figures are from…? I guess CDC and Pfizet themselves, and dated about February, right?
Meanwhile, CDC deleted data of covid-vaccine deaths from their website
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/cdc-quietly-deletes-6000-covid-vaccine-deaths-cdc-website-total-one-day-caught-internet-sleuths-video/
mkent: No one here wants you, or anyone else, to do anything other than educate yourself and do what you think is best. I wish you good health and long life.
reliable data is very hard to come by, and the regime wants to make it even harder to still to arrive at any reasonable conclusion
mkent: “We’ve had 35 million cases of Covid in the United States in the last year ..”
To be more precise, we have had 35 million Positive results from tests in the last year. Scratch the surface and there are all sorts of almost unanswerable questions about the number of those tests which were False Positives or the number of tests which were repeats on the same person.
What is clear is that the Powers That Be surreptitiously changed the definition of “case”.
“Case” used to mean a person who had signs & symptoms (well defined terms) of an infection. Then a test narrowed down the range of possible causes of those signs & symptoms; diagnosis is difficult! While the published data has problems, we know that rather few of those 35 Million Positive tests involved people who required hospitalization, and even fewer who died.
The CovidScam has been a vast over-reaction. Apart from China’s booming industries, cui bono?
Brian: this is Homer’s reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm2W0sq9ddU
There is a lot of discussion about an association of severe disease and infection with low levels of Vitamin-D. Have your doc do the test, and if appropriate, prescribe a supplement. Note: OTC Vit-D supplements are VERY low dose. Sounds like “cheap insurance”.