via Zerohedge

Amid increasing calls for suspension of the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, the situation in Norway has escalated significantly as the Scandi nation has now registered a total of 29 deaths among people over the age of 75 who’ve had their first COVID-19 vaccination shot.

As Bloomberg reports, this adds six to the number of known fatalities in Norway, and also lowers the age group thought to be affected from 80.

Until Friday, Pfizer/BioNTech was the only vaccine available in Norway, and “all deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said in a written response to Bloomberg on Saturday.

“There are 13 deaths that have been assessed, and we are aware of another 16 deaths that are currently being assessed,” the agency said.

All the reported deaths related to “elderly people with serious basic disorders,” it said.

“Most people have experienced the expected side effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.”

Norway’s experience has prompted the country to suggest that Covid-19 vaccines may be too risky for the very old and terminally ill… the exact group that ‘the science’ shows are actually at risk from this virus.

Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths in Norway, Pfizer said in an e-mailed statement. The agency found that “the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations,” Pfizer said.

However, it’s not just Norway as The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports that fifty-five people in the United States have died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports submitted to a federal system.

Deaths have occurred among people receiving both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, according to the reports.

In some cases, patients died within days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

One man, a 66-year-old senior home resident in Colorado, was sleepy and stayed in bed a day after getting Moderna’s vaccine. Early the next morning, on Christmas Day, the resident “was observed in bed lying still, pale, eyes half open and foam coming from mouth and unresponsive,” the VAERS report states. “He was not breathing and with no pulse.”

In another case, a 93-year-old South Dakota man was injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Jan. 4 around 11 a.m. About two hours later, he said he was tired and couldn’t continue with the physical therapy he was doing any longer. He was taken back to his room, where he said his legs felt heavy. Soon after, he stopped breathing. A nurse declared a do-not-resuscitate order.

In addition to the deaths, people have reported 96 life-threatening events following COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as 24 permanent disabilities, 225 hospitalizations, and 1,388 emergency room visits.

It’s not just the old and frail, in Israel, which proudly lays claim to the greatest vaccination effort in the world (largest percentage of the population inoculated),

As RT reports, at least 13 Israelis have experienced facial paralysis after being administered the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, a month after the US Food and Drug Administration reported similar issues but said they weren’t linked to the jab.

Israeli outlet Ynet reported, citing the Health Ministry, that officials believe the number of such cases could be higher.

“For at least 28 hours I walked around with it [facial paralysis],” one person who had the side effect told Ynet.

“I can’t say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was, but there was nothing beyond that.”

Ynet quoted Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center, who said she did not feel “comfortable” with administering the second dose to someone who had received the first jab and subsequently suffered from paralysis.

“No one knows if this is connected to the vaccine or not. That’s why I would refrain from giving a second dose to someone who suffered from paralysis after the first dose,” she told the outlet.

Finally, as we noted yesterday following the news of rising post-vaccination deaths in Noway, health experts from Wuhan, China, called on Norway and other countries to suspend the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people.

China’s Global Times reports Chinese experts said the death incident should be assessed cautiously to understand whether the death was caused by vaccines or other preexisting conditions of these individuals.

Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist from Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Friday that the death incident, if proven to be caused by the vaccines, showed that the effect of the Pfizer vaccine and other mRNA vaccines is not as good as expected, as the main purpose of mRNA vaccines is to heal patients.

…

A Beijing-based immunologist, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Friday that the world should suspend the use of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine represented by Pfizer, as this new technology has not proven safety in large-scale use or in preventing any infectious diseases.

Older people, especially those over 80, should not be recommended to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

All of which is a problem since it is the elderly who are at most risk (quite frankly at any real risk at all) and thus who need the protection the most.

The Chinese health experts instead say that the most elderly and frail should be recommended to take medicines to improve their immune system.

Of course, one cannot help but note the irony of scientists from the source of the plague that has killed millions around the world and destroyed lives/economies almost everywhere, is now calling for the cessation of the process to protect against the plague.

Pfizer Photo:VCG

Chinese health experts called on Norway and other countries to suspend the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, due to the vaccines’ safety uncertainties following the deaths of 23 elderly Norwegian people who received the vaccine.

The new mRNA vaccine was developed in haste and had never been used on a large scale for the prevention of infectious disease, and its safety had not been confirmed for large-scale use in humans, a Chinese immunologist said.

The death incidents in Norway also proved that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ efficacy was not as good as expected, experts said.

As of Thursday, Norway has reported 23 deaths in connection with vaccination.

“So far, 13 of these have been assessed. Common side effects may have contributed to a severe course in frail elderly people,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said on its website.

All the deaths have occurred in frail, elderly patients in nursing homes. All are over 80 years old and some of them over 90, Norwegian media NRK reported.

Two COVID-19 vaccines, Comirnaty, from BioNTec/Pfizer, and Moderna, are used in Norway. The vaccines have been developed on mRNA technology and have received temporary approval in the EU, according to the agency.

Norway launched a mass vaccination campaign at the end of December, with the very oldest citizens and residents of nursing homes being offered vaccination first, including those over the age of 85.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency admitted that the studies that form the basis for the temporary approval of the vaccine included very few people over the age of 85, and there is little known about how any side effects will affect these age brackets, but it said, “we assume that the side effects will largely be the same in the elderly as in those over 65 years of age.”

Chinese experts said the death incident should be assessed cautiously to understand whether the death was caused by vaccines or other preexisting conditions of these individuals.

Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist from Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Friday that the death incident, if proven to be caused by the vaccines, showed that the effect of the Pfizer vaccine and other mRNA vaccines is not as good as expected, as the main purpose of mRNA vaccines is to heal patients.

The mRNA vaccines teach human cells to make a protein to trigger an immune response; then, the immune response can protect people from getting infected if the real virus enters the body.

Meanwhile, toxic substances may be developed throughout the process of mRNA vaccinations; thus, the safety of vaccines cannot be fully ensured, Yang said.

But that’s not the case for inactivated vaccines in China, which have more mature technology, Yang said.

A Beijing-based immunologist, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Friday that the world should suspend the use of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine represented by Pfizer, as this new technology has not proven safety in large-scale use or in preventing any infectious diseases.

Older people, especially those over 80, should not be recommended to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

He said that people over 80 years old have a weaker immune system and are more prone to adverse effect; thus, they should be recommended to take medicines to improve their immune system, he said.

China has started vaccination for people aged between 18 and 59, as statistics on people aged 60 years and over and people aged 18 years and below were relatively small during clinical trials of the vaccines. Thus, we cannot fully identify the efficacy and side effects for these two groups, a Beijing-based health expert who requested to be anonymous, told the Global Times.

See also: 19% or 95%? US Expert Challenges Pfizer Vaccine’s Efficacy
Could the Pfizer vaccine’s real efficacy be as low as 19 percent, instead of 95 percent as it claims?

Questions raised by Peter Doshi, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, have triggered heated discussion on Chinese social media.[. . .]
Doshi on January 4 released an article on a blog platform under the UK pharmaceutical journal The BMJ, questioning Pfizer’s efficacy rate.

Pfizer revealed that it discovered 170 PCR confirmed COVID-19 cases during the phase III clinical trials and 3,410 suspected cases in total.

However, if taking these suspected cases all as confirmed ones, the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy would be dramatically reduced to 19 percent. Even after omitting cases occurring within seven days of vaccination, which should include the majority of symptoms due to short-term vaccine reactogenicity, the efficacy rate remains as low as 29 percent, Doshi said in the article.

Doshi also questioned the standards of how Pfizer excluded cases and the influence of the use of medication on the vaccine’s efficacy.

Authored by Brian Berletic via ActivistPost.com,

If official numbers are to be believed, the United States is one of the worst hit countries in terms of COVID-19 infections and deaths. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the time of writing, there are supposedly 19 million COVID-19 cases with an alleged 300,000+ deaths suggesting between a 1-2% chance of dying from COVID-19 if infected by it.

However, these numbers are problematic – even before questioning the validity of the statistics themselves leading to them.

For example, asymptomatic cases will likely go both untested and unreported, meaning many more people are actually being infected by COVID-19, exhibiting no symptoms, receiving no treatment, and most certainly not making it into the CDC’s “cases” statistics.

This means that your chances of being infected by COVID-19 and dying are actually much, much less than the often touted claim of 1-2%. Only those who exhibit severe enough symptoms to be tested and/or treated will make it into the statistics of “cases.”

In terms of framing any pandemic, an exaggeration of the lethality of the virus becomes a fundamental issue. If this information by itself is carelessly or dishonestly presented to the public without mention of the many more people likely being infected and exhibiting no symptoms at all, panic can, and clearly has been spread across society and the world, enabling extreme policies to glide through approval, beginning the process of disfigurement society now suffers today.

This was a fact highlighted by the work of Dr. John Ioannidis who, even at the onset of COVID-19, attempted to raise the alarm about needlessly stoking public hysteria, the folly of driving public health policy without proper data, and the catastrophic impact it would have – and is now clearly having – on society if this trend isn’t reversed.

A video interview conducted by Journeyman Pictures from April 2020 noted Dr. Ioannidis’ breakdown of data and the results of his own studies conducted to illustrate exactly this. His study included widespread serological (antibody) testing in Santa Clara County, California to see how many individuals may have been infected by COVID-19 but simply never exhibited symptoms, or symptoms serious enough to seek medical attention and be tested for COVID-19.

Dr. Ioannidis would note:

If you compare the numbers that we estimate to have been infected, which vary from 48,000-81,000, versus the number of documented cases that would correspond to the same time horizon around April 1st, when we had 956 cases documented in Santa Clara County, we realize that the number of infected people is somewhere between 50 and 85 times more compared to what we thought, compared to what had been documented. Immediately, that means that the infection fatality rate, the chance of dying, the probability of dying, if you are infected, diminishes by 50-85 fold, because the denominator in the calculation becomes 50-85 fold bigger. If you take these numbers into account, they suggest that the infection fatality rate for this new coronavirus is likely to be in the same ballpark as seasonal influenza.

Dr. Ioannidis also noted that there was a large gradient regarding death rates based on age and underlying medical conditions, with the risk of death for people under 65 with no underlying medical conditions being virtually negligible.

The need for wider testing to fully establish mature datasets – as Dr. Ioannidis and his team at Stanford illustrated – and efforts to communicate to the public the difference between the infection fatality ratio (IFR) and the case fatality ratio (CFR), have been neglected by Western governments and even more so by the Western corporate media. In some cases, efforts appear to be being made to deliberately obfuscate or confuse this crucial information in order to continue stoking panic and hysteria.

But in addition to this, there is the fact that governments – particularly in the West – have been caught using dubious or disorganized methods to tally COVID-19 deaths – meaning that both IFR and CFR numbers could be easily skewed.

For example, British state-funded media outlet, the BBC in an August 2020 article titled, “Coronavirus: England death count review reduces UK toll by 5,000,” would admit:

A review of how deaths from coronavirus are counted in England has reduced the UK death toll by more than 5,000, to 41,329, the government has announced.

The article also noted that:

The new methodology for counting deaths means the total number of people in the UK who have died from Covid-19 comes down from 46,706 to 41,329 – a reduction of 12%.

The article revealed that Public Health England had “included everyone who had tested positive [for COVID-19], even if they died months afterwards and their death may have had another cause.”

Similar statistical gymnastics are being performed in the US. Even The New York Times raised the issue fairly early on in article, “Is the Coronavirus Death Tally Inflated? Here’s Why Experts Say No,” clearly inferring that there may be a problem with the official methodology, and went on to explain throughout the article how it is impossible to ever know since accurate counts – or even accurate systems to use in counting – may not presently exist in the US.

In other words: the current systems are less than perfect and vulnerable to systemic distortions in the presentation of data. Again, this is a fundamental issue when public health policy is based on the perceived severity of the epidemic.

The Real Impact of COVID-19

Based on what were clearly misused and incomplete statistics, the US, the UK, and much of Western Europe have led the world in stoking unprecedented hysteria, enforcing travel restrictions and lockdowns, including the closing of businesses and schools, and grinding the economies of the world to a halt either directly or indirectly – in a manner similar to but with an impact much greater than the US-led global “War on Terror” starting in 2001.

Pressure from “international organizations” like the World Health Organization (WHO) using its UN-affiliated platform to declare a “global pandemic,” along with Western governments and the corporations that dominate foreign and domestic policy, has created a global crisis – not in terms of human health, but in terms of socioeconomics.

Businesses are closed – not because those who regularly run or patronize them are in hospital beds or dead – but by order of governments, and with official policy backing from organizations like the WHO.

The mainstream media has played a key role in this – not only repeating narratives provided by governments and healthcare institutions uncritically, but refusing to fulfill their role as watchdogs and investigators searching out impropriety.

It is a state of hysteria that is crippling small and medium-sized businesses (SME), but a boon to big-business.

Headlines from papers like the Wall Street Journal admit, “Big Tech Companies Reap Gains as Covid-19 Fuels Shift in Demand,” or as the Guardian reported, “Amazon third-quarter earnings soar as pandemic sales triple profits,” make it clear that some big-businesses are profiting from the hysteria.

Moreover, the Guardian report, “The mystery of which US businesses are profiting from the coronavirus bailout,” reveals how struggling big-businesses are being bailed out by government money – while the SME sector, the real pulse of any vibrant economy and society – is being left behind.

But there is one industry who stands out above all others to benefit, an industry notorious for its deeply rooted corruption, and an industry that has already been caught using its ties with international organizations like the WHO to declare pandemics, stoke hysteria, and profit handsomely from the resulting chaos.

It’s the West’s pharmaceutical industry.

At no time in human history has it been more powerful and influential than it is now. And at no other time in human history has it been so dangerous.

Big-Pharma: The Least Trustworthy Pandemic Partner

Western Big-Pharma’s profiteering and corruption under ordinary circumstances is already shocking. The current climate of public confusion, panic, and growing socioeconomic desperation only invites the industry’s impropriety to new levels.

Pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Moderna – having received billions of dollars directly or indirectly from taxpayers to develop COVID-19 vaccines – have long, documented histories of corruption, including bribing regulators, doctors, and governments.

They have also been caught falsifying safety and efficacy data. They have promoted the use of their products for patients in cases not approved of by regulators, including on children.

They have even been caught knowingly selling products they knew were dangerous or even deadly – withholding critical information from both regulators and the public.

Pfizer alone – as its COVID-19 vaccine began rolling out publicly – was under investigation this year, according to its own Security Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, for its Greenstone generics business over antitrust concerns, for manufacturing issues regarding Quillivant XR, regarding quality issues over the manufacturing of auto-injectors, over corruption inquiries regarding its Russian and Chinese operations, and in regards to lawsuits in Mexico over the manufacturing of Zantac and a cancer-causing chemical called N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) found in the product.

The investigation regarding Zantac finally prompted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – who had originally approved the drug – to request it be pulled from the market after finding it is indeed linked to an increased likelihood of causing cancer.

The Wall Street Journal in a 2020 article titled, “Pfizer Receives Inquiry From SEC Bribery Unit,” would note of Pfizer’s past scandals that:

Pfizer has had past run-ins with U.S. authorities over allegations of bribery among its operations abroad. The company in 2012 agreed to pay $60.2 million to settle investigations by the SEC and the Justice Department into alleged violations of the FCPA in several countries in Europe and Asia, including China and Russia.

The US Department of Justice in its own statement regarding part of the 2012 payout by Pfizer would note:

According to court documents, Pfizer H.C.P. made a broad range of improper payments to numerous government officials in Bulgaria, Croatia, Kazakhstan and Russia – including hospital administrators, members of regulatory and purchasing committees and other health care professionals – and sought to improperly influence government decisions in these countries regarding the approval and registration of Pfizer Inc. products, the award of pharmaceutical tenders and the level of sales of Pfizer Inc. products. According to court documents, Pfizer H.C.P. used numerous mechanisms to improperly influence government officials, including sham consulting contracts, an exclusive distributorship and improper travel and cash payments.

Such bribery might help explain why Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations are able to sell dangerous products like cancer-causing Zantac or – in the case of fellow COVID-19 vaccine producer Johnson and Johnson – cancer-causing baby powder – for years before mounting lawsuits and public outrage spur regulators to finally do their job properly.

In Johnson & Johnson’s case, a Reuters investigation would note (emphasis added):

Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its iconic product. But internal documents examined by Reuters show that the company’s powder was sometimes tainted with carcinogenic asbestos and that J&J kept that information from regulators and the public.

What this illustrates is a consistent pattern of corruption stretching across Pfizer’s (and Johnson & Johnson’s) manufacturing process to their business practices and spanning years. It is an entire industry that repeatedly engages in dangerous impropriety, is repeatedly investigated and fined, but allowed to not only continue conducting business – but is still entrusted with matters critical to public healthcare.

The implications it has for the process of developing, approving, producing, and distributing vaccines for COVID-19 should be obvious.

The 2009 H1N1 “Heist”

Despite the immense amount of publicly-known corruption engaged in by the Western pharmaceutical industry and the obviously troubling implications it has for the current COVID-19 vaccine rollout – it is only one dimension of a much wider problem.

There is also the Western pharmaceutical industry’s known history of creating public scares to attract massive government contracts and wield power and influence over public discourse regarding human healthcare issues.

The same large corporate media outlets today helping fuel public hysteria regarding COVID-19 and promoting big-pharma’s vaccine rollout had previously reported on past instances of big-pharma crying “pandemic,” using its influence over international organizations like the WHO, and securing massive government contracts worth billions of dollars for unnecessary and ineffective medication and vaccines.

Think back to 2009 and the H1N1 “Swine Flu” scare. Following the WHO’s dramatic declaration of a “global pandemic,” the headlines and articles from the mainstream Western media read almost identical to those being circulated today regarding COVID-19.

NPR in a 2009 article would claim:

Seven months into the flu pandemic of 2009, North America leads the world in cases, the WHO says.

Unlike elsewhere, the new H1N1 never exited stage left after its debut appearance in late April. In fact, it’s making more noise than ever. Mexico has experienced more cases of pandemic flu since September than it did over the first four months of the pandemic this spring.

The ratcheting up of hysteria continued both from the WHO and across the Western media, accompanied by drives to fund vaccine development and stockpile medication like Roche’s Tamiflu.

The UK Daily Mail in a 2009 article titled, “Tamiflu: What you MUST know as swine flu threatens to strike,” would claim:

The Government has announced that stocks of drugs – known as antivirals – to fight the imminent threat of a swine flu pandemic are being built up to cover more than 50million people – or 80 per cent of the country’s population.

But as hysteria faded, the truth emerged. Articles began to appear like this one from Reuters in 2014 titled, “Stockpiles of Roche Tamiflu drug are waste of money, review finds,” which noted:

Researchers who have fought for years to get full data on Roche’s flu medicine Tamiflu said on Thursday that governments who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose effectiveness is in doubt.

The article also pointed out:

Tamiflu sales hit almost $3 billion in 2009 – mostly due to its use in the H1N1 flu pandemic – but they have since declined.

There were also Roche’s financial ties to WHO experts who designated the appearance of H1N1 as a “pandemic,” helping pave the way for the public hysteria required to fuel Roche’s profits from selling what was essentially a useless drug to government stockpiles.

The BBC in their 2010 article, “WHO swine flu experts ‘linked’ with drug companies,” would report:

Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.

Roche was mentioned by name by the BBC (emphasis added):

The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

Despite these revelations post-H1N1 after 2009, the very same actors have taken the stage for a repeat performance in 2020 – with little to no alarm from the same media organizations who ignored the H1N1 “heist” in 2009 and reluctantly reported on it only long after the damage was done.

Big-Pharma’s Pandemic Industrial Complex

Over the past ten years – big pharma’s control over the WHO and its influence over both the media and Western governments has only grown.

Powerful organizations like the Wellcome Trust – which claims to be an “independent foundation” funded through an investment portfolio – counts several large pharmaceutical corporations – Novartis, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott Labs – on their list of “significant directly held public equity holdings.”

Its governance includes representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, various Western governments, academia, the media, and of course the WHO itself.

It is an institutionalization of the conflicting interests that have tolerated, accommodated, even helped expand the unwarranted power, wealth, influence, and corruption of big pharma.

And while Wellcome Trust claims to be “independent” of corporate and government ties, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – it has helped create another front organization called The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) – through which it accepts and disperses huge amounts of Western taxpayers’ money.

The work of CEPI directly impacts the business prospects of many of the corporations Wellcome Trust owns stocks in – with its investments paying off above average amid this most recent round of public hysteria and government spending on this latest declared pandemic.

International Publishers Limited in an article titled, “Wellcome Trust ‘prospers’ under COVID-19 fallout with 12.3% return,” would report:

Wellcome Trust’s portfolio has not just survived, but prospered, in the highly volatile environment following the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Eliza Manningham-Buller, the charity’s chair, introducing its annual report which unveiled a 12.3% return for the year to 30 September 2020, up on the 6.9% of the previous year.

The trust, which supports medical research worldwide, is the UK’s largest charity, with a £29.1bn (€31.9bn) portfolio at end-September 2020. Wellcome’s investments have returned an average 12.1% a year over the past decade.

It’s worth noting that back in March, both Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $125 million in “seed funding” to accelerate certain pharmaceutical products claiming to treat COVID-19, including Gilead Science’s antiviral Remdesivir. Despite failing repeatedly in clinical trials, and after the National Institute of Health (NIH) was exposed attempting to rewrite the rules in their attempt to salvage the drug’s reputation as a viable therapeutic for COVID-19 – Remdesivir was continually hyped in the media by Bill Gates and NIH Director Anthony Fauci, and is still defended by the WHO to this day.

It’s also important to note that as of 2020, the number one funder of the World Health Organization is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who supplied the WHO with approximately $531 million in its 2018-19 biennial budget, roughly 12% of WHO’s total budget.

Unlike the H1N1 scare and multiple scandals that emerged out from behind the smokescreen of public hysteria deliberately created around it, the COVID-19 crisis has been sustained for now nearly a year with enduring regiments being put in place to condition and control the public – and to control the flow of information through traditional channels as well as online and particularly across US-based social media platforms, and direct public funding into the coffers of the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.

At the same time, other major industries are either being spared the same regulations and restrictions strangling smaller businesses out of existence, or being bailed out by public funding.

It has gone from the “H1N1 Heist” of 2009 to what appears to be a “Pandemic Industrial Complex” taking shape today.

How far this goes in shaping – or more accurately – disfiguring society, is up to those people who can clearly see public and private sectors conspiring together and consisting of the least reliable partners for actually taking on a real pandemic and protecting the public from it – if that is truly what we are facing.

On one hand, even if we believe the statistics and claims being made on a daily basis by the mainstream media and government representatives, we can see for ourselves the corporations elected by the government to create the solutions claimed are needed to end the crisis, are guilty of serial abuses including the production and distribution of entirely unsafe products – products developed and “approved” of by government regulators under normal conditions that would go on to making people ill or even killing them.

But the COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out now aren’t even going through that process. They have instead been rushed through approval and unpredictable results and adverse effects are already emerging.

It hearkens back to another chapter involving a novel virus – 1976’s Swine Flu – where vaccines were rushed into production and resulted in mounting adverse effects, particularly paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome in over 400 individuals. And these were only the cases that were reported, as the true total of those who suffered varying degrees of complications will never be fully known.

In 1976, the vaccination program was abandoned and the government’s response deemed a failure of historic proportions. But apparently the lessons learned then, or in 2009, have been lost entirely today – and in some cases – deliberately buried by a complicit media.

If COVID-19 is the crisis we are told it is – why isn’t there a greater demand for more trustworthy and transparent partners to work with to face it? These would be partners capable of acknowledging past mistakes and explaining how their plan today differs from those in the past.

But, unfortunately, history has already taught us that pandemics can be declared – not because they actually exist and/or pose as grave a threat as government, media and corporate stakeholders claim – but because profits are to be made by big pharma, in connection with those in organizations like the WHO who have the unique power to declare pandemics, and perpetuate them regardless of the truth.

We watched for two decades as the West orchestrated an entirely false “War on Terror” around the globe, justifying actions as extreme as invasions, wars, and illegal occupations of other countries and the expenditure of trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Is it really that hard to imagine as possible, this formula being reworked atop the 2009 H1N1 scandals and pushed forward aggressively?

by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian

COVID 19 vaccine trials appear to have caused some confusion. Hopefully, this article might help clear things up a bit. People genuinely appear to believe that the COVID 19 vaccines have undergone clinical trials and have been proven to be both safe and effective. That belief is simply wrong.

The main point is this. If you decide to have Pfizer and BioNTech’s experimental mRNA-based BNT162b2 (BNT) vaccine, or any other claimed COVID 19 vaccine for that matter, you are a test subject in a drug trial.

The mRNA in the BNT vaccine was sequenced from the 3rd iteration of the original WUHAN published Genome SARS-CoV-2 (MN908947.3). However, the WHO protocols Pfizer used to produce the mRNA do not appear to identify any nucleotide sequences that are unique to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. When investigator Fran Leader questioned Pfizer they confirmed:

The DNA template does not come directly from an isolated virus from an infected person.

Nor are there any completed clinical trials for these vaccines. Trials are ongoing. If you are jabbed with one, you are the guinea pig. This may be fine with you but it’s not a leap of faith I or my loved ones wish to take. However, everyone is different.

On December the 8th the BBC reported a study in the Lancet and categorically stated:

The Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is safe and effective, giving good protection, researchers have confirmed

The BBC had no justification to make this claim. The study in the Lancetdid not confirm anything of the sort. The researchers wrote:

ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 has an acceptable safety profile and has been found to be efficacious against symptomatic COVID-19 in this interim analysis of ongoing clinical trials.

This was an interim analysis funded by, among others, CEPI and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The analysis was based upon trials which are years from completion and haven’t reported anything. The researchers also stated:

There were no peer-reviewed publications available on efficacy of any severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines…

There is no clear scientific evidence establishing either the safety or efficacy of proposed COVID 19 vaccines. The BBC and other MSM reports that this evidence exists are false.

We are going to focus on Pfizer and BioNTech’s BNT vaccine but all the manufacturers have essentially exploited the same trick. The regulators and governments have worked with the pharmaceutical corporations to conflate the limited data from the initial, or phase one, trials with the incomplete and ongoing data collection from the substantially larger phase two and three trials. The MSM have then falsely claimed the 1,2,3 phase trials are complete and insinuated that the untested data demonstrates vaccine efficacy and safety.

In reality, not only has the reporting of existing data been manipulated to show efficacy that isn’t evident in the raw data itself, the most important and meaningful phases of the trials have barely begun, let alone been completed.

Recently the UK Financial Times reported that the UK regulators (the MHRA) are due to approve Astrazeneca/Oxfords AZD1222 [ChAdOx1] COVID 19 Vaccine. The FT revealed an anonymous statement from the UK Department of health:

The medicines regulator is reviewing the final data from the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca phase 3 clinical trials to determine whether the vaccine meets their strict standards of quality, safety and effectiveness.

Thus giving the public the impression that the trials are complete and that the regulators have strict safety standards. The 1,2,3 phase trial for AZD1222 was registered with the U.S. Centre for Disease Control as clinical trial NCT04516746 [Archived 29th December 2020]. It is incomplete and the estimated end date is February 21st 2023. The CDC state:

No Study Results Posted

Astrazeneca are years away from reporting any “final data.” It is impossible for the UK Department of Health to review it, because it doesn’t exist.

NCT04516746 is one of four trials of AZD1222. Another Russian arm of the AZD1222 trial was suspended after a Suspected Unexpected Serious Adverse Reaction (SUSAR) event occurred. The SUSAR supposedly happened in the United Kingdom after a 37 year old women developed inflammation of the spinal chord. It appears the Russian Ministry of Health have yet to reinstate their arm of the Astrazeneca/Oxford trial while it has resumed in the UK and elsewhere.

Clinical Trial NCT04516746: [Archived 29.12.2020], [Contemporary Link]

WHAT VACCINE TRIALS?

On November 18th Pfizer and BioNTech announced they had concluded their phase three trial of BNT. They had demonstrated efficacy of 95% and U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) safety data milestone had been met.

The only part of this claim that was true was compliance with FDA emergency safety data milestones. They have not concluded their phase three trials. They haven’t even fully completed phase one.

Under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) so called “unapproved” drugs are allowed on the market in emergencies. Similarly, in the UK, authorisation under Regulation 174 of the Human Medicine Regulations 2012 (as amended) permits the same.

Having also been approved in the UK, this is why the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) state:

This medicinal product does not have a UK marketing authorisation

The fact that there are no completed clinical trials for the Pfizer and BioNTech BNT vaccine also explains why the FDA State:

Additional adverse reactions, some of which may be serious, may become apparent with more widespread use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.

The FDA also noted:

[There is]…currently insufficient data to make conclusions about the safety of the vaccine in sub-populations such as children less than 16 years of age, pregnant and lactating individuals, and immunocompromised individuals…..[the] risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown.

Yet the first people to receive this vaccine are the most vulnerable in society, many of whom are immunocompromised. The precautionary principle appears to have been abandoned. The notion that the purpose of the BNT vaccine roll out is to save life appears untenable.

The Pfizer announcement enabled politicians to pretend to cry on national television while others were really excited. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “fantastic news,” and the BBC said it was “good news” and “really encouraging.” Everyone was thoroughly impressed with the 95% effective claim.

However, this was based upon relative risk reduction. That is the declared percentage difference between the vaccinated group’s 8/18310 chance (0.044%) of developing COVID 19 against a 162/18319 (0.88%) chance of COVID 19 symptoms without the vaccine. As this larger group of 43,000 people have yet to be trialled, there is no basis for this claimed outcome. But it is what it is, and we can use these reported figures here.

It should be noted this only refers to an alleged reduction of COVID 19 symptoms among those who have the virus. The tested endpoints do not demonstrate that the vaccine will either reduce the spread of infection or save lives. It should also be noted that these figures suggest the threat from COVID 19 is vanishingly small.

Using Pfizer’s figures, the relative risk reduction is 100(1 – (0.044/0.88)). Which is 95%. Voila!

This sounds fantastic and is a much better marketing strategy than reporting the absolute risk reduction. The absolute risk of developing COVID 19 symptoms without the vaccine is supposedly 0.88% and with the vaccine 0.044%. In absolute terms, the effectiveness of the vaccine is (0.88-0.044)%.

A risk reduction of 0.84%. Oh! A barely perceptible “efficacy.”

By using the relative instead of absolute risk reduction, the mainstream media (MSM) were free to market the mRNA vaccine for Pfizer and BioNTech (and other interested parties) with impressive sounding claims. These weren’t remotely truthful, not only because they relied upon statistical manipulation but because no one had a clue about BNT’s safety or efficacy. To this day, there are no clinical trial results.

THE CLINICAL TRIALS THAT DON’T EXIST

An analysis of available positive RT-PCR tests and mortality results led the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine estimated a very tentative COVID 19 Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of around 1.4%. Based upon the figures reported to the FDA by Pfizer and BioNTech, this indicates a broad population based mortality risk from COVID 19 of 1.4(0.88/100) which is 0.012%.

Please bear this incredibly remote risk in mind as we discuss the early indication of the apparent threat to public health presented by the mRNA vaccine.

It is reasonable to work in terms of population risk because, while the chance of COVID 19 mortality seemingly increases with age, with the average age of death being 82 and a mortality distribution indistinguishable from standard mortality, the intention is to give the vaccine to everybody.

If we look at the “V-Safe Active Surveillance for COVID 19 Vaccines” reported by the U.S. (CDC), early indications of the recorded “Health Impact Events” (HIE) reveal a worrying level of adverse reactions from the mRNA vaccine. The CDC define an HIE as:

Unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional

On December the 18th 112,807 people were injected with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the U.S. Of these, 3,150 were subsequently unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional. This is an HIE rate of 2.8%.

This suggests that among the first 10 million people to receive the vaccine in the UK, around 280,000 may find themselves unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work and require medical care as a result. As it is the most vulnerable who are the first to receive this vaccine, given the tiny risk of mortality from the COVID 19 disease, it is by no means clear that this is a risk worth taking.

CDC Presentation: [Archived 19.12.2020],[Original]

Not that any of the other vaccines seem any better. So far the CDC have noted more than 5,000 HIE’s for all vaccine being trialled on the population. Clearly, the potential exists that the vaccines will contribute to more deaths than the disease they allegedly protects vulnerable people against.

The Pfizer/BioNTech trial was registered as NCT04368728 with the CDC. Having recently discussed what I am about to share with you with people who simply refused to believe the evidence of their own eyes, I think it is important to stress that this is the Phase 3 Clinical Trial which Pfizer claimed they had concluded in their press release. There isn’t another one. This is it.

The CDC state:

When available, study results information is included in the study record under the Study Results tab…….After study results information has been submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov, but before it is posted, the results tab in the study record is labeled “Results Submitted.

At the time of writing (21st December 2020) as can be seen by date of the , the Study Results tab reads “No Results Posted.” That is because there are no posted or submitted results from the Pfizer BioNTech trial of the BNT162b2 vaccine:

No Study Results Posted on ClinicalTrials.gov for this Study

Mainstream media reports, giving the impression that these vaccines have been found to be effective and safe are not evidence and they are not based on science. They are based on political policy and they report dangerous pseudo-scientific babble, masquerading as science journalism.

There will of course be mindless anti-rationalists who will call this dangerous antivaxxer nonsense. All the time insisting that it is perfectly safe to give a vaccine with a questionable safety profile, for which there are no completed clinical trials, to the most vulnerable people in our society.

I am running out of patience with these people.

VACCINE SAFETY?

The start date for NCT04368728 was April 29th and the estimated trial completion date is January 27th 2023. The estimated end date of the primary or phase one of a three phase trial is June 13th 2021.

According to the “Current Primary Outcome Measures,” the minimum time frame for Pfizer to assess serious adverse events (SAE’s) is “6 months after last dose.” This is the minimum term for assessing SAE’s in phase one of the trial.

Phase one is the only part of the NCT04368728 trial to have been completed and published. It was published on the 14th October, 5 months and two weeks after the start date. Most of that period was taken up with recruitment an allocation. The minimum term for assessing SAE’s has not been met during Phase One.

During Phase One, 195 participants were split into 13 groups of 15 people. In each group 12 received one of two potential mRNA vaccine candidates (either BNT162b1 or BNT162b2) and 3 a placebo.

39 people aged between 18-55 and another 39 people aged between 65-85 received the BNT vaccine, now approved for global distribution. The threat of COVID 19, though tiny overall, is statistically zero for those aged 18-55. Those with any measurable risk from COVID 19 were in the older age group.

Of the 39 older people who received 2 doses of BNT about half of them experienced “fatigue,”roughly 15% had “chills” and 3 of them had a fever. The common side effects of BNT included nausea, headache (a very common BNT induced nervous system disorder) arthralgia and myalgia (very common), fatigue, chills and fever (again very common.) Other than fatigue, no one in the placebo group suffered these problems.

Safety and Immunogenicity of Two RNA-Based Covid-19 Vaccine Candidates: Figure 3, ‘Participants 65 – 85 yr of age’ [Archived 29.10.2020], [Original]

The study states:

Pfizer was responsible for the trial design; for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and for the writing of the report.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that while Pfizer see the side effects of their vaccine as fatigue, chills and fever, the CDC refer to them as people who can’t work and need medical care.

The UK Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved the BNT vaccine, to be given to vulnerable British people, based upon a study of 39 older people. This study reported a pretty high adverse reaction rate. It was produced exclusively from the R&D of the vaccine manufacturer. The MHRA questioned nothing.

They “approved” BNT in the certain knowledge that there were no completed clinical trials for this vaccine. In their Public Assessment Report they state:

At the time of writing, the main clinical study is still on-going….It was concluded that BNT162b2 has been shown to be effective in the prevention of COVID-19. Furthermore, the side effects observed with use of this vaccine are considered to be similar to those seen with other vaccines. Therefore, the MHRA concluded that the benefits are greater than the risks.

This conclusion and approval not only lacks supporting evidence it is utterly at odds with what little is known about BNT. While Pfizer and BioNTech only completed trials of the vaccine on 39 relevant test subjects, the results, even from this practically inconsequential effort, suggest the risk from the vaccine is greater than the risk presented by COVID 19. By a considerable margin.

This undoubtedly explains why the MHRA ordered software from European suppliers to deal with the slew of vaccine adverse reaction they presumably anticipate. They stated:

The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs)….it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine.

From the way the manufacturers, politicians, regulators and the MSM have approached vaccine safety, it is clear that they collectively have a total disregard for the welfare of vulnerable people. We really must put aside this infantile notion that “the authorities” care about us or our loved ones. We mean nothing to them.

COVID 19 is only an appreciable risk for the most vulnerable in society. It is a risk to the infirm elderly and people with existing life threatening conditions.

If we look at the exclusion criteria for Phase One, these people were not in the cohort tested. Anyone with high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes or a high BMI were excluded from the alleged safety trial. But the vaccine is being given to the most vulnerable first.

Of the 39 older people at most risk in the phase one study, none of them had the serious comorbidities which the overwhelming majority of those who die “with” COVID 19 possess. The people actually at risk from COVID 19 nominally entered the BNT trials at phase 2 and 3. However, it appears every effort has been made to limit, if not completely remove, their number too. “Immunocompromised or individuals with known or suspected immunodeficiency,” were excluded.

Immunodeficiency is caused by a wide range of health conditions. Conditions such as undernutrition, polytrauma, stress after surgery, diabetes and cancer lead to immunodeficiency. The people with the comorbidities associated with so called COVID 19 deaths were practically ruled out from the BNT vaccine trials.

NCT04368728 was designed as a 1,2,3 trial with all phases running concurrently. With regards to assessing safety Pfizer described systemic events as:

Fever, fatigue, headache, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, new or worsened muscle pain, and new or worsened joint pain as self-reported on electronic diaries.

The first 360 subjects randomised into the phase 2 and 3 trials underwent monitoring for systemic events for less than a week, following each dose:

In the first 360 participants randomized into Phase 2/3, percentage of participants reporting systemic events [ Time Frame: For 7 days after dose 1 and dose 2 ]

The same cohort of 360 test subjects were also monitored for Serious Adverse Events (SAE’s) for up to 6 months in phase 2 and 3:

In the first 360 participants randomized into Phase 2/3, percentage of participants reporting serious adverse events [ Time Frame: From dose 1 through 6 months after the last dose]

Pfizer also intend to report the percentage of all test subjects who suffer SAE’s:

Percentage of participants in Phase 2/3 reporting adverse events [ Time Frame: From dose 1 through 6 month after the last dose ]

But there are no reported results from either phase 2 or 3. No one has the faintest idea what the health risks of BNT are, especially for those it is supposedly designed to protect, and no one in authority gives a damn. Phase 2/3 clinical trials are now a moot point anyway.

The regulatory agencies have already approved the vaccine and health services have started injecting people with BNT. They do so after the manufacturers failed to properly test its safety on a 39 people who were in the at risk group but did not have the comorbidity that leads to claimed COVID 19 deaths.

The degree to which people have been misled into believing that these vaccines are known to be either safe or effective is almost beyond imagination.

Sadly, we don’t need imagination. The evidence is clear.

by By Damian Wilson via RT

Statistics that show just 0.8 percent of Covid fatalities between April and December were made up of healthy people under 60 caused a major storm. But it’s quite right to use them to ask if universal lockdown is a good approach.

Post-Christmas Covid-19 cabin fever has gripped Britain and, sick of arguing with their families, our rarely-sought, often-found self-appointed ‘experts’ are asking why, in a world that revolves pretty-much around themselves, they must stick by the current tier system restrictions.

Everyone loves a good barney, particularly over the festive season, and when the teams are split into ‘Keep ’em in’ and ‘Let us out,’ everyone has an opinion.

Stamping their feet and shouting like infants denied the last mince pie, sofa scientists insist they be released from their tier-4 prisons right this instant, so they can get on with their lives, whatever grim endeavour that might entail. Elsewhere, the paranoid germophobes shriek in horror at the very suggestion that a winter sniffle be ignored, in case it escalates into the killer virus.

As long as you are not stuck in a house with the nothing-better-to-do-narcissists on either side of this debate, it is fun to see them tear lumps out of each other during this season of goodwill to all. The problem is that nothing really comes of it.

Statistics that show just 0.8 percent of Covid fatalities between April and December were made up of healthy people under 60 caused a major storm. But it’s quite right to use them to ask if universal lockdown is a good approach.

Post-Christmas Covid-19 cabin fever has gripped Britain and, sick of arguing with their families, our rarely-sought, often-found self-appointed ‘experts’ are asking why, in a world that revolves pretty-much around themselves, they must stick by the current tier system restrictions.

Everyone loves a good barney, particularly over the festive season, and when the teams are split into ‘Keep ’em in’ and ‘Let us out,’ everyone has an opinion.

Stamping their feet and shouting like infants denied the last mince pie, sofa scientists insist they be released from their tier-4 prisons right this instant, so they can get on with their lives, whatever grim endeavour that might entail. Elsewhere, the paranoid germophobes shriek in horror at the very suggestion that a winter sniffle be ignored, in case it escalates into the killer virus.

As long as you are not stuck in a house with the nothing-better-to-do-narcissists on either side of this debate, it is fun to see them tear lumps out of each other during this season of goodwill to all. The problem is that nothing really comes of it.

So far the reality is that, across the whole of the UK, 70,752 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19. Be clear, this is too many. But now, with roughly 10 months’ experience of this virus from nearly 2.3 million cases and having failed miserably on track-and-trace, on protecting care homes and in communicating clear messages, our offline leaders should be applying a bit more creative thought as to how this situation might look come the new year.

Because things are grim and show few signs of improvement.

A friend of mine offered two Christmas meals to neighbours via a local area app, presuming some lonely old Doris or Derek would take up her offer, being that sort of neighbourhood.

She was shocked to be inundated with takers who were largely young men, living on their own. And that is sad. Because while we can all imagine a solitary pensioner sitting by the window in a comfy chair as Christmas passes by, we never think of independent, confident, gregarious 20-somethings slowly losing their marbles, having suddenly found themselves isolated in Boris Johnson’s last-minute lockdown.

It would make a terribly off-colour episode of Friends. The one where Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross all go mad and top themselves.

Authored by Stacey Lennox via PJMedia.com,

Some of us have been questioning the COVID-19 death counts reported by the CDC through the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for some time.

Of course, CNN and the corporate media love the likely elevated counts to push their narrative. Lockdown Inc. loves them to justify their destruction of lives and livelihoods. A report from the Freedom Foundation, a Washington State think tank, explains why. The foundation’s original analysis of deaths in the state found the number may have been inflated by as much as 13%:

In May, a report released by the Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based free-market think tank, revealed the DOH was attributing to COVID-19 every death in which the deceased previously tested positive for the virus. However, it’s clear that catching the disease and dying of it are two very different matters.

Washington’s data was riddled with cases – as much as 13 percent of the total – in which the death certificate made no reference to COVID-19 as a cause of death. In several cases, even gunshot deaths were chalked up to the virus.

While the Department of Health did remove 200 deaths from the count, the Freedom Foundation did another analysis. Combining data sources from the Department of Health for nearly 2,000 deaths as of early September, the new analysis found that 170 death certificates did not mention COVID-19. Another 171 deaths had no causal connection to the virus. According to the Post Millennial, the group estimates Washington’s death counts could be inflated by as much as 20%.

New data from the CDC regarding the conditions contributing to deaths where COVID-19 is also involved clearly demonstrates deaths from the virus are overestimated nationwide. This is not surprising given the loose guidelines for attributing a death to COVID-19 and the financial incentives through public and private insurance to put COVID-19 on a patient’s chart.

First, as I have written several times, many COVID-19-positive people who were terminally ill died a few months before they otherwise would have. These “pull-forward deaths” often happen with influenza and pneumonia when a person is elderly or severely compromised. For example, the data shows 3,622 people over the age of 75 died of hypertensive renal disease with kidney failure. Kidney failure is a progressive and terminal condition, even with kidney dialysis. An additional 939 in the same age group died with lung cancer as well as COVID-19.

Second, the report demonstrates most younger patients were also suffering from a different severe illness if they died from COVID-19. On the same line for kidney failure, a total of 18 people under the age of 35 passed away with this condition and COVID-19. Ten people under the age of 35 died with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (ALL) in addition to the virus. The average five-year survival rate in this age group is between 68.1% and 85%, leaving the distinct possibility that these were the sickest ALL patients.

These are just a few examples of terminal conditions that could have been examples of a pull-forward death. Since there is nothing in the NCHS guidance to require symptoms or evidence of active COVID-19, it is impossible to tell whether or not these were pull-forward deaths. As Washington demonstrates, some of this error will come from state-level practices. New York, for example, backdated 3,700 “presumed COVID-19 deaths” early in the pandemic.

The above does not even include the broad class of ICD-9 Codes referred to as “Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning, and other adverse events.” This report contains 9,343 deaths associated with everything from drug overdoses to traumatic accidents and suicide. These deaths alone equal 3% of the current number of total deaths.

It is long past time for the CDC and NCHS to require some evidence of a severe illness from COVID-19 rather than simply a positive test. There are significant numbers of lab values and imaging changes that, taken together, can reasonably be assumed to paint a clinical course that includes active illness from COVID-19. The best test would be a viral culture. If the virus or viral debris in a patient’s system cannot replicate in a culture, it can’t be a cause of death.

A positive PCR test within 28 days, the current standard Washington is now using, is also unacceptable, especially with the number of asymptomatic cases. A virus that never makes you sick or only makes you mildly ill will not kill you or likely contribute to your death. Rather, you are likely one of the 30-60% of people with reactive immunity from other coronavirus exposure. Likewise, if someone already suffers from a terminal illness, unless the end-stage events include symptoms of severe COVID-19, it should not be counted among the causes of death.

A scroll through the spreadsheet and a bit of clinical knowledge supports the estimate of the Freedom Foundation as a minimum number. Americans deserve transparency and accuracy at this point. It is a dereliction of duty for the CDC and NCHS not to tailor their guidelines to the disease progression of a COVID-19 infection capable of contributing to a person’s death.

by Benjamin Fearnow Source: Newsweek

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said “no science” is able to corroborate mask mandates across the country, warning Americans that “submission” is the real aim of public health officials.

The Republican senator on Saturday reiterated remarks he made to Fox Business Thursday that “there’s no science to keeping schools closed, and there’s actually no good science to keeping restaurants closed, in fact there’s no good science that anything we’ve done has changed the trajectory” of the pandemic.

Speaking with Breitbart News at the Turning Point USA convention—a gathering of young conservatives—in West Palm Beach, Florida, Paul said minor health precautions as simple as washing one’s hands and keeping socially distant have made “no difference” in slowing the spread of coronavirus.

Paul, who practiced ophthalmology for 18 years before becoming a senator in 2010, ridiculed government mandates and just about any other public health measure taken since the start of the pandemic in March. Previous reports have noted that Paul’s medical certification is contested by some national ophthalmology board members.

He warned young Americans their high school graduation ceremonies and possibly their 10-year wedding anniversaries a decade from now will be banned by the government if “we’re not careful” to protect our individual freedoms today.

“Every one of the mandates—and you look in country after country, state after state — you look at when the mask mandates went in—the incidents went up exponentially after the mandates. Restaurants, nobody can eat in a restaurant, there’s no science behind any of that,” Paul told Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, who mocked masks as “face diapers.”

Regardless of Paul’s remarks, the federal government that employs him does not agree with his anti-mask sentiment. “Wearing a cloth face mask, practicing social distancing, and washing your hands are good practices that help protect us and our neighbors from COVID-19 as our economy reopens,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tells Americans in a statement issued this summer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also put out similar warnings to health-conscious citizens looking to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Paul embraced the Breitbart editor’s mockery of wearing masks, noting later in the interview, “It’s like wearing your underwear. You might as well cut your underwear up and wear your underwear as protection. It doesn’t work.”

“None of it really makes any sense, and there’s no epidemiological evidence. You know, it’s like, ‘Wash your hands, stand six feet apart,’” Paul continued.“There’s no evidence that that slowed down the [spread]. The trajectory of the virus hasn’t been altered at all by any of these things.”

Charles Hugh Smith Source: Of Two Minds

Sure they want them. Can it actually be done?

Authorities around the world have made it clear that they will do “whatever it takes” to vaccinate their citizenry with one of the first available vaccines. Authoritarian states may mandate universal vaccinations while less authoritarian states will favor a “carrot and stick” approach of offering benefits to the vaccinated and exclusions from employment, education, travel and most of everyday life for those who refuse to be vaccinated.

To identify the vaccinated and unvaccinated, many nations are planning to issue ID cards or “vaccine passports.” As an abstraction, this seems straightforward, but if we start digging into the actual operational requirements of this mass ID card issuance and distribution, a number of common-sense issues arise.

Vaccination cards will be issued to everyone getting Covid-19 vaccine, health officials say (CNN)

First and foremost, it’s unknown how long the immunity offered by the vaccines will last. It’s still early days, so there is conflicting evidence: some claim the vaccines will be longer-lasting than the natural immunity of those who caught the virus and recovered, while other evidence suggests the immunity might decay after six months. Despite claims that natural immunity is long-lasting, a non-trivial number of people who had Covid have been re-infected.

Nobody knows how long either natural or vaccine immunity will last because not enough time has elapsed to collect sufficient data.

Given these intrinsic unknowns, how long will the ID card be valid? It’s easy to imagine variations in individual responses such that the vaccines’ effectiveness decays more rapidly in 20% of the vaccinated. This variability would introduce tremendous unknowns that no ID card could reflect: is the holder of the card at Month 10 still immune or not?

If the duration of the vaccine’s effectiveness is variable, then an ID card could be misleading. In other words, being vaccinated with a variable-duration vaccine tells us nothing about the individual’s actual immunity down the road.

Given these unknowns, the vaccinated may need booster shots in the future, and the ID cards would have to be re-issued. The task of keeping track of hundreds of millions of vaccination records, identities and then issuing ID cards is a non-trivial task.

To thwart black-market fake-ID cards, the security measures will have to be equivalent to a driver’s license or passport. Have you applied recently for either of these forms of ID? The process is painfully slow. The systems in place to process state drivers’ licenses and U.S. passports are already strained, and which agency is prepared to verify the identity of 280 million adult citizens, confirm the validity of their vaccine and then issue ID cards–and then repeat this process in a year?

If the procedures for issuing vaccine ID cards are slapdash due to time constraints–for example, downloading a digital record from the vaccine distributor or a printed card–these will likely be vulnerable to being duplicated or spoofed. Fake vaccine distributors will pop up issuing bogus digital records, hackers might download and sell digital records from trusted sources, and so on.

Then there’s the extra burdens being placed on the staff of airlines, cruise lines, etc. to scan these documents and deal with rejected cards. Who will have the legal authority to deal with claims that a rejected card is actually valid? How many smaller establishments simply won’t have to staff to do more than glance at the card?

Do authorities have the means to issue hundreds of millions of absolutely secure vaccine ID cards and then monitor all the attempts to find loopholes and weaknesses in the process? If authorities think that strict penalties will limit this activity, they underestimate the difficulty in getting such penalties enforced by overloaded court systems.

In nations with strong traditions of civil liberties, there will be pushback against mandatory vaccinations with essentially untested vaccines and against national databases tying identity to vaccination cards–a situation ripe with potential for abuse.

Authorities don’t seem to grasp that many of those hesitating to get vaccinated are not anti-vaxxers; they simply see the vaccine approval process as deeply flawed for common-sense reasons: for example, there is simply not enough data on safety, duration and real-world efficacy.

Authorities are counting on the “carrot” of air travel, cruises and concerts to persuade skeptics to get vaccinated despite their concerns. What authorities don’t seem to realize is that a great many people value their health, privacy and agency far more than they crave air travel, cruises or concerts. They will gladly forego all these activities until more reliable data is collected, peer-reviewed and distributed for analysis.

The more draconian the measures designed to pressure people into getting the vaccines, the greater the reluctance of skeptics who see the draconian measures as additional evidence the vaccines are half-measures being forced on the populace as a means of imposing a false assurance that all is well and “normal” will return as soon as the skeptics cave in and get vaccinated.

There’s also the possibility that the virus could mutate in ways that moot the vaccines’ effectiveness. While this is widely considered unlikely, it’s not impossible, either. If a mutated virus arises that evades the vaccine, then what value will the vaccine ID card have?

An idea that’s simple as an abstraction–vaccine ID cards–turns out to be extremely difficult once real-world operational realities must be dealt with. The fact is the first vaccines have been rushed to approval with virtually none of the testing demanded of previous vaccines raises common-sense concerns which cannot be dissolved with force or carrots and sticks.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

Maybe you have some sense that something fishy is going on? Same. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

• Coronavirus lived on surfaces until it didn’t.
• Masks didn’t work until they did, then they did not.
• There is asymptomatic transmission, except there isn’t.
• Lockdowns work to control the virus except they do not.
• All these people are sick without symptoms until, whoops, PCR tests are wildly inaccurate because they were never intended to be diagnostic tools.
• Everyone is in danger of the virus except they aren’t.
• It spreads in schools except it doesn’t.

On it goes. Daily. It’s no wonder that so many people have stopped believing anything that “public health authorities” say. In combination with governors and other autocrats doing their bidding, they set out to take away freedom and human rights and expected us to thank them for saving our lives. At some point this year (for me it was March 12) life began feeling like a dystopian novel of your choice.

Well, now I have another piece of evidence to add to the mile-high pile of fishy mess. The World Health Organization, for reasons unknown, has suddenly changed its definition of a core conception of immunology: herd immunity. Its discovery was one of the major achievements of 20th century science, gradually emerging in the 1920s and then becoming ever more refined throughout the 20th century.

Herd immunity is a fascinating observation that you can trace to biological reality or statistical probability theory, whichever you prefer. (It is certainly not a “strategy” so ignore any media source that describes it that way.) Herd immunity speaks directly, and with explanatory power, to the empirical observation that respiratory viruses are either widespread and mostly mild (common cold) or very severe and short-lived (Ebola).

Why is this? The reason is that when a virus kills its host, it cannot migrate. The more aggressively it does this, the less it spreads. If the virus doesn’t kill its host, it can hop to others through all the usual means. When you get a virus and fight it off, your immune system encodes that information in a way that builds immunity to it. When it happens to enough people (and each case is different so we can’t put a clear number on it) the virus loses its pandemic quality and becomes endemic, which is to say predictable and manageable. Each new generation incorporates that information through more exposure.

This is what one would call Virology/Immunology 101. It’s what you read in every textbook. It’s been taught in 9th grade cell biology for probably 80 years. Observing the operations of this evolutionary phenomenon is pretty wonderful because it increases one’s respect for the way in which human biology has adapted to the presence of pathogens without absolutely freaking out.

And the discovery of this fascinating dynamic in cell biology is a major reason why public health became so smart in the 20th century. We kept calm. We managed viruses with medical professionals: doctor/patient relationships. We avoided the Medieval tendency to run around with hair on fire but rather used rationality and intelligence. Even the New York Times recognizes that natural immunity is powerful with Covid-19, which is not in the least bit surprising.

Until one day, this strange institution called the World Health Organization – once glorious because it was mainly responsible for the eradication of smallpox – has suddenly decided to delete everything I just wrote from cell biology basics. It has literally changed the science in a Soviet-like way. It has removed with the delete key any mention of natural immunities from its website. It has taken the additional step of actually mischaracterizing the structure and functioning of vaccines.

So that you will believe me, I will try to be as precise as possible. Here is the website from June 9, 2020. You can see it here on Archive.org. You have to move down the page and click on the question about herd immunity. You see the following.

That’s pretty darn accurate overall. Even the statement that the threshold is “not yet clear” is correct. There are cross immunities to Covid from other coronaviruses and there is T cell memory that contributes to natural immunity.

Some estimates are as low as 10%, which is a far cry from the modelled 70% estimate of virus immunity that is standard within the pharmaceutical realm. Real life is vastly more complicated than models, in economics or epidemiology. The WHO’s past statement is a solid, if “pop,” description.

However, in a screenshot dated November 13, 2020, we read the following note that somehow pretends as if human beings do not have immune systems at all but rather rely entirely on big pharma to inject things into our blood.

What this note at the World Health Organization has done is deleted what amounts to the entire million-year history of humankind in its delicate dance with pathogens. You could only gather from this that all of us are nothing but blank and unimprovable slates on which the pharmaceutical industry writes its signature.

In effect, this change at WHO ignores and even wipes out 100 years of medical advances in virology, immunology, and epidemiology. It is thoroughly unscientific – shilling for the vaccine industry in exactly the way the conspiracy theorists say that WHO has been doing since the beginning of this pandemic.

What’s even more strange is the claim that a vaccine protects people from a virus rather than exposing them to it. What’s amazing about this claim is that a vaccine works precisely by firing up the immune system through exposure. Why I had to type those words is truly beyond me. This has been known for centuries. There is simply no way for medical science completely to replace the human immune system. It can only game it via what used to be called inoculation.

Take from this what you will. It is a sign of the times. For nearly a full year, the media has been telling us that “science” requires that we comply with their dictates that run contrary to every tenet of liberalism, every expectation we’ve developed in the modern world that we can live freely and with the certainty of rights. Then “science” took over and our human rights were slammed. And now the “science” is actually deleting its own history, airbrushing over what it used to know and replacing it with something misleading at best and patently false at worst.

I cannot say why, exactly, the WHO did this. Given the events of the past nine or ten months, however, it is reasonable to assume that politics are at play. Since the beginning of the pandemic, those who have been pushing lockdowns and hysteria over the coronavirus have resisted the idea of natural herd immunity, instead insisting that we must live in lockdown until a vaccine is developed.

That is why the Great Barrington Declaration, written by three of the world’s preeminent epidemiologists and which advocated embracing the phenomenon of herd immunity as a way of protecting the vulnerable and minimizing harms to society, was met with such venom.

Now we see the WHO, too, succumbing to political pressure. This is the only rational explanation for changing the definition of herd immunity that has existed for the past century.

The science has not changed; only the politics have. And that is precisely why it is so dangerous and deadly to subject virus management to the forces of politics. Eventually the science too bends to the duplicitous character of the political industry.

When the existing textbooks that students use in college contradict the latest official pronouncements from the authorities during a crisis in which the ruling class is clearly attempting to seize permanent power, we’ve got a problem.

by Anna Wilde Mathews

More nursing homes around the country will start getting a Covid-19 vaccine Monday, but the impact of the massive effort will partly depend on winning over front-line workers like LaShundra Williams, who say they are skeptical of the shots.

Ms. Williams, 40 years old, is a certified nursing assistant at St. James Veterans Home in St. James, Mo., and she says she is unlikely to agree to get the shots, even though her son is currently ill with Covid-19. She recently watched a webcast by nursing-home doctors about the safety and benefits of the vaccines, hoping for reassurance, but came away unconvinced.

She is still worried that a vaccine might make her anemia worse, and she thinks the shots are being authorized for broad usage too quickly.

“It’s too new,” she said. “I’m just not comfortable.”

The federal long-term-care vaccination program, led by CVS Health Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., will begin its broad rollout in a dozen states this week, with hundreds of facilities slated for visits during the next few days. But surveys have signaled that many staffers are reluctant to get the shots, and some already have been declining them in the limited number of facilities where vaccinations have been administered.

At the nursing home at John Knox Village, in Pompano Beach, Fla., which became one of the first U.S. facilities to get the vaccine last Wednesday, about one-third of staffers participated, according to Mark Raynor, director of health-care services. “It comes down to fear of the unknown,” he said.

In Chester, W.Va., the Orchards at Foxcrest, which includes a nursing home, assisted-living center and independent units, had about 65% of eligible staffers agree to get the vaccine Thursday and Friday. Matt Murray, vice president of operations, said the company mounted an extensive information campaign. The community has faced a recent Covid-19 outbreak, including two deaths, he said, and executives hope more staffers will agree to get shots in a later visit.

After its outbreak is over, Mr. Murray said the community plans to start requiring employees who haven’t been vaccinated to wear N95 masks at all times, except while eating or drinking. Those who have received the two required shots will be allowed to use less-restrictive surgical masks, and only in patient areas. “The goal is really to encourage people to get vaccinated,”and also to protect residents and employees, he said.

Genesis Healthcare Inc. and ProMedica Senior Care, major nursing-home operators that had people vaccinated at initial facilities last week, both said they aimed for only about half of their staffers to get shots during the first visit, so their administration could be staggered. They were able to fill all available slots.

Despite efforts to bolster testing and protective equipment in nursing homes, cases and deaths have continued to surge inside the facilities, closely following increases in the virus’s spread outside their walls. In the week ended Dec. 6, there were 4,525 deaths in nursing homes, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That was a 56% increase from the 2,893 deaths in the week ended Nov. 15.

Researchers say staffers exposed to the virus in their communities are likely unknowingly conveying it to vulnerable nursing-home residents, highlighting the urgent need to vaccinate workers. “If you have enough of your staff that is immune, they will be less likely to introduce it into the building,” said Morgan Katz, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. Getting half of the staff vaccinated is an absolute minimum, and facilities should aim for everyone to get the shots, she said.

A survey of 1,676 U.S. adults released Dec. 15 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 71% would definitely or probably get a Covid-19 vaccine if it was found safe by scientists and offered free. Among the groups with the highest levels of vaccine hesitancy were Republicans, people aged 30 to 49, rural residents and Black adults. Also, 29% of those who said they worked in a health-care delivery setting said they would definitely not or probably not get vaccinated.

In a mid-November survey of nursing-home and assisted-living-facility staff in Indiana, by researchers at Indiana University, only 45% of 8,243 respondents said they would consider receiving a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it was available. Others said they would be willing to take it later. The survey, accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that 70% of those unwilling to get the vaccine were concerned about side effects.

“There’s just a great deal of mistrust,” said Lori Porter, chief executive of theNational Association of Health Care Assistants, an advocacy group, which found in its own survey that nearly 72% of certified nursing assistants didn’t want to receive the vaccine. “A lot of my CNAs, their responses have been, ‘No one cares about old people and no one cares about us and we don’t intend to be guinea pigs.’ ”

Nursing assistants are generally paid low wages to work in facilities that are often thinly staffed.

Zenobia Carden is a 35-year-old certified nursing assistant who worked in a nursing home earlier this year and is about to start a new job at a residence for people with developmental disabilities. She said she has seen firsthand the impact of the coronavirus, which killed several residents of the facility where she used to work. She debated what to do, but ultimately decided that getting the vaccine still felt too risky to her.

Ms. Carden, who lives in Bartlesville, Okla., worries about potential long-term side effects, as well as shorter-term ones like headaches, because she already suffers from migraines.

“I’m scared,” she said. “It takes years to come out with a vaccine, and for them to come out with it this quickly—I don’t trust it.”

Nursing-home owners are trying to convince workers that the shots are safe by holding webinars and other sessions to share information, having top executives get publicly vaccinated and highlighting employees who are choosing to get the shots early.

PruittHealth Inc., a Norcross, Ga., company with about 102 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, said each staffer who receives the vaccine will get a free breakfast at a Waffle House restaurant, and also be entered in a continuing raffle that will deliver prizes such as TVs. “We want to really create some excitement,” said Neil Pruitt, chief executive.

Lawyers have said that employers are generally legally allowed to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for workers, a stance reinforced last week in guidelines released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But nursing-home owners have said they don’t plan to require the vaccine. Many facilities are already facing staffing squeezes after months of pandemic challenges.

Source: The Wall Street Journal