Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

“I had grasped the significance of the silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others…. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well.”

~ Sherlock Holmes – The Adventures of Silver Blaze

Is it possible to make sense out of nonsense?

So much these days is an incoherent mess. It’s complete nonsense.

Page 1 excitedly beams about a glorious rebound in GDP. Yay economic growth!

Page 2 worryingly notes the near complete failure of Siberian arctic ice to reform during October and that hurricane Zeta (so many storms this year we’re now into the Greek alphabet!) has made punishing landfall.

Each is a narrative. Each has its own inner logic.

But they simply do not have any external coherence to each other. It’s nonsensical to be excited about rising economic growth while also concerned that each new unit of growth takes the planet further past a critical red line.

These narratives are incompatible. So which one should we pick?

Well, in the end, reality always has the final say. As Guy McPherson states: Nature bats last.

So better we choose to follow the narrative that hews closest to what reality actually is, vs what we desperately want it to be.

‘They’ Don’t Care About Us

While issues like climate change and economic growth may be difficult to fully grasp and unravel, direct threats to our lives &/or livelihoods are much more concrete and something we can react to and resist.

Such immediate and direct threats are now fully in play and, once again, they’re accompanied by narratives that are completely at odds with each other. I’m speaking of Covid and the ways in which our national and global managers are choosing to respond (or not).

It’s a truly incoherent mess about which both social media and the increasingly irrelevant media are working quite hard to misinform us.

The mainstream narrative about Covid-19, in the West, is this:

• It’s a quite deadly and novel disease
• There are no effective treatments
• Sadly, no double-blind placebo controlled trials exist to support some of the wild claims out there about various off-patent, cheap and widely available supplements and drugs
• Health authorities care about saving lives
• They care so much, in fact, that along with politicians they’ve decided to entirely shut down economies
• There’s a huge second wave rampaging across the US and Europe and there’s nothing we can do to limit it except shut down businesses and people’s ability to travel and gather
• You need to fear this virus and its associated disease
• All we can do is wait for a vaccine

The alternative narrative, one that I’ve uncovered after 9 months of almost daily research and reporting, is this:

• It’s not an especially dangerous disease and it’s certainly not novel
• There is a huge assortment of very effective, cheap and widely-available preventatives and treatments including (but not limited to)
  • Vitamin D
  • Ivermectin
  • Hydroxychloroquine
  • Zinc
  • Selenium
  • Famotidine (Pepcid)
  • Melatonin
• Use of a combination of these mostly OTC supplements could reasonably be expected to drop the severity of illness and the already low mortality rate by 90% or (probably) more
• Western health authorities have shown either zero interest in the results of studies mainly conducted in poorer nations on these combination therapies or…
• They have actively run studies designed to fail so that these cheap, effective therapies could be dismissed or…
• Set up proper studies but which started late, have immensely long study periods and most likely won’t be done before a vaccine is hastily rushed through development.

By the way – every single one of my assertions and claims is backed by links and supporting documentation from scientific and clinical trials and studies. I am not conjecturing here; I am recounting the summary of ten months’ worth of inquiry.

The conclusion I draw from my narrative (vs. theirs) is that we can no longer assume that the public health or saving lives has anything to do with explaining or understanding the actions of these health “managers” (I cannot bring myself to use the word authorities).

After we eliminate the impossible – which is that somehow these massive, well-funded bodies have missed month after month of accumulating evidence in support of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, NAC, zinc, selenium and doxycycline/azithromycin – what remains must be the truth.

As improbable as it seems, the only conclusion we’re left with is that the machinery of politics, money and corporate psychopathy is suppressing life saving treatments because these managers have other priorities besides public health and saving lives.

This is a terribly difficult conclusion, because it means suspending so much that we hold dear. Things like the notion that people are basically good. The idea that the government generally means well. The thought that somehow when the chips are down and a crisis is afoot, good will emerge and triumph over evil.

I’m sorry to say, the exact opposite of all of that has emerged as true.

Medical doctors in the UK NHS system purposely used toxic doses of hydroxychloroquine far too late in the disease cycle to be of any help simply to ‘make a point’ about hydroxychloroquine. They rather desperately wanted that drug to fail, so they made it fail.

After deliberately setting their trial up for failure, they concluded: “Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t help, and it even makes things worse.”

Note that in order to be able to make this claim, they had to be willing to cause harm — even to let people die. What kind of health official does that?

Not one who actually has compassion, a heart, or functioning level of sympathy. It’s an awful conclusion but it’s what remains after we eliminate the impossible.

Getting Past The Emotional Toll

Science has proven that cheap, safe and significantly protective compounds exist to limit both Covid-related death and disease severity.

Yet all of the main so-called health authorities in the major western countries are nearly completely ignoring, if not outright banning, these safe, cheap and effective compounds.

This is crazy-making for independent observers like me (and you) because the data is so clear. It’s irrefutable at this point. These medicines and treatments not only work, but work really, really well.

However most people will be unable to absorb the data, let alone move beyond it to wrestle with the implications. Why? Because such data is belief-shattering. Absorbing this information is not an intellectual process; it’s an emotional one.

I don’t know why human nature decided to invest so much in developing a tight wall around the belief systems that control our actions and thoughts. But it has.

I’m sure there was some powerful evolutionary advantage. One that’s now being hijacked daily by social media AI programs to nudge us in desired directions. One that’s being leveraged by shabby politicians, hucksters, fake gurus, and con men to steer advantage away from the populace and towards themselves.

The neural wiring of beliefs is what it is. We have to recognize that and move on.

Some people will be much faster in their adjustment process than others. (Notably, the Peak Prosperity tribe is populated with many fast-adjusters, which is unsurprising given the topics we cover…tough topics tend to attract fast adjusters and repel the rest)

To move past the deeply troubling information laid out before us requires us to be willing to endure a bit of turbulence. It’s the only way.

For you to navigate these troubling times safely and successfully, you’ll need to see as clearly as possible the true nature of the game actually being played. To see what the rules really are – not what you’ve been told they are, or what you wish or hope they are.

The Manipulation Underway

The data above strongly supports the conclusion that our national health managers don’t actually care about public health generally or your health specifically.

If indeed true, then the beliefs preventing most people from accepting this likely include:

• Wanting to believe that people are good (a biggie for most people)
• Trust and faith in the medical system (really big)
• Faith in authority (ginormous)

There are many other operative belief systems I could also list. But this is sufficient to get the ball rolling.

Picking just one, how hard would it be for someone to let go of, say, trust in the medical system?

That would be pretty hard in most cases.

First not trusting the medical system might mean having to wonder if a loved one might have died unnecessarily while being treated. Or realizing that you’re now going to have to research the living daylights out of every medical decision before agreeing to it. Or worrying that your medications might be more harmful to you over the long haul than helpful (which is true in many more cases than most appreciate). It might mean having your personal heroes dinged by suspicion — perhaps even your father or mother who worked in the medical profession. It would definitely require a complete reorientation away from being able to trust anything you read in a newspaper, or see on TV, about new pharmaceutical “breakthroughs”.

Trust, which is safe and warm and comforting, then turns into skepticism; which is lonelier and insists upon active mental involvement.

But, as always, hard work comes with benefits — with a healthy level of skepticism and involvement, the families of those recruited into the deadly UK RECOVERY trial could have looked at the proposed doses of HCQ (2,400 mg on day one! Toxic!) and said, “Not now, not ever!” and maybe have saved the life of their loved one.

Look at that tangled mess of undesirables that comes with unpacking that one belief: regret, uncertainty, shame, doubt, fallen idols, and vastly more additional effort. Are all up for grabs when we decide to look carefully at the actions of our national health managers during Covid.

Which is why most people simply choose not to look. It’s too hard.

I get it. I have a lot of compassion for why people choose not to go down that path. It can get unpleasant in a hurry.

But, just like choosing to ignore a nagging chest pain, turning away in denial has its own consequences.

The Coming ‘Great Reset’

My coverage of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) and Covid-19 (the associated disease) has led me to uncover some things that have made me deeply uncomfortable about our global and national ‘managers’. Shameful things, really. Scary things in their implications for what we might reasonably expect (or not expect, more accurately) from the future.

Once we get past the shock of seeing just how patently corrupt they’ve been, we have to ask both What’s next? and What should I do?

After all, you live in a system whose managers either are too dumb to understand the Vitamin D data (very unlikely) or have decided that they’d rather not promote it to the general populace for some reason. It’s a ridiculously safe vitamin with almost zero downside and virtually unlimited upside.

Either they’re colossally dumb, or this is a calculated decision. They’re not dumb. So we have to ask: What’s the calculation being performed here? It’s not public safety. It’s not your personal health. So… What is it?

This is our line of questioning and observation. It’s like the short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in Silver Blaze that many of us informally know as “the case of the dog that didn’t bark”. As the story goes, because of a missing clue – a dog who remained silent as a murder was committed – this conclusion could be drawn: the dog was already familiar with the killer!

The silence around Vitamin D alone is extremely telling. It is the pharmacological dog that did not bark.

One true inference suggests others. Here, too, we can deduce from the near total silence around Vitamin D that the health managers would prefer not to talk about it. They don’t want people to know. That much is painfully clear.

Such lack of promotion (let alone appropriate study) of safe, effective treatments is a thread that, if tugged, can unravel the whole rug. The silence tells us everything we need to know.

Do they want people to suffer and die? I don’t know. My belief systems certainly hope not. Perhaps the death and suffering are merely collateral damage as they pursue a different goal — money, power, politics? Simply the depressing result of a contentious election year? More than that?

We’ve now reached the jumping off point where we may well find out just how far down the rabbit hole goes.

A massive grab for tighter control over the global populace is now being fast-tracked at the highest levels.Have you heard of the Great Reset yet?

If not, you soon will.

In Part 2: The Coming ‘Great Reset’ we lay out everything we know so far about the multinational proposal to transform nearly every aspect of global industry, commerce, trade, and social structure.

If you read on, be ready and willing to let go of cherished beliefs and to suspend what you know to be true. Because none of us has that in hand. It’s going to be a wild ride from here.

Something very big is afoot and I suspect that Covid-19 is merely an excuse providing cover for a much bigger power grab over the world’s wealth and peoples.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access).

by F. William Engdahl

Continue reading Will Next WTO Head Impose a Gates and Davos Agenda? →

by Neil Clarck

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Downing Street in London, Britain, October 22, 2020 © REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/Pool

The ‘liberal-left’ narrative that the UK Tory government wanted to pursue Covid-19 ‘herd immunity’ instead of a lockdown has been shattered by official filings which appears to show the opposite was the case.

The phrase ‘smoking gun’ is oft-overused, but it is surely appropriate in relation to the report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the UK government struck a deal worth £119m with an American advertising company, OMD Group, urging people to ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ a full three weeks before Boris Johnson ordered a lockdown.

Think about what this means. It’s safe to assume that if this big money deal was struck on 2nd March, the preparations began a lot earlier – in February, or more likely, even earlier than that. You don’t just set up an advertising campaign with a major US agency in a couple of hours.

What does this tell us? Well, basically everything we thought we knew about how Britain came to be locked down on 23rd March is probably false.

The dominant narrative is that Bojo, the hapless ‘clown’ and his Keystone Cops Cabinet were pushed into lockdown. Pushed by public opinion. Pushed by the ‘experts’. Pushed by the Premier League. Pushed by the ‘Left’. Pushed by Piers Morgan. Pushed by ‘Professor Doom’ Neil Ferguson and his ludicrous ‘modelling’.

But if they had already arranged a £119m lockdown advertising campaign, which referenced emergency economic measures in its communication strategy, it would mean the decision to lockdown had already been taken many weeks earlier. At the same time, the government was giving every impression that they weren’t going to lockdown.

Why did they do this? Well, put yourself in the shoes of Johnson and his top aide Dominic Cummings. If a Conservative government, and one which has already been denounced as by the liberal-left for being pro-Brexit, and anti-free movement, had said openly in February that they were planning to lock Britain down there would have been an outcry. The big question for the government was: how can we lock the country down, without stirring the liberal-left still further and provoking mass public opposition. What if the answer then was: pretend that we don’t want a lockdown? Then the binary, groupthink ‘culture warriors’ would be sure to press for one! They would end up calling for the government to do exactly what the government had planned to do all along! High-fives all round at Number 10.

Think back to March.

Reporting on the seemingly muddled UK response to the virus then made a lot of people think that the intention was to let the virus “pass through” the community. Was this intentional?

There’s grounds for believing it was.

A much publicised report in the Sunday Times said that Dom Cummings, a hated figure for hard-core Remainers, had argued against strict measures at a private meeting at the end of February. No 10 denied the claim, calling it a fabrication.

But the report made an impact. If ‘Deadly Dom’ wants herd immunity then surely we need to do the opposite and lockdown, was the Pavlovian response of many on the left.

Then there was the reporting, or rather misreporting of Premier Johnson’s “take it on the chin” television interview of 5th March. Johnson said that one of the theories (he didn’t mention herd immunity by name) of dealing with the virus was “that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.”

That was like a red rag to a bull to those who were already convinced the government’s ‘response’ was too laid-back. But it is interesting to note that the Prime Minister wasn’t advocating ‘taking it on the chin’ – simply saying it was one theory that had been put forward. He actually said a few seconds later: “I think it would be better if we take all the measures that we can now to stop the peak of the disease being as difficult for the NHS as it might be”.

Johnson was actually hinting about more restrictions to come, but all the liberal-left could hear was the opposite.

By getting his opponents to push for a lockdown, by making them believe he opposed one, Johnson guaranteed that when a lockdown was finally announced, there’d be a much wider acceptance of it. Throughout the year the pattern has continued. The great enablers of the government’s Covid authoritarianism have been those on the left, for instance Richard Burgon MP, whose line of attack has not been to oppose Tory restrictions but to say that the restrictions either don’t go far enough or were being eased too soon.

The very same people who had been calling Johnson an ‘extremist’, even a ‘fascist’ before March, have ended up being his witting (or unwitting) accomplices. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the government has played its opponents like a violin. Now here’s a thought.

Suppose that instead of being a ’clown’ and a ’buffoon’ Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was actually far smarter than anyone gives him credit for? We’ve all read mystery stories when the bar room idiot, who plays at being drunk, is actually the very sober criminal mastermind. Could the ‘clown’ actually be playing the clown in order to get the opposition to pressurise him to do the things he wants to do anyway?

And what about Dom Cummings? Love him or loathe him, he ain’t dumb. He’s a student of Russian history. He is said to quote Lenin. And if he admires Vladimir Ilyich, he could be an admirer of Felix Dzerzhinsky too. And how did ‘Iron Felix’ keep the show on the road after 1917? He set up the ‘Trust‘. The Bolshevik Counter Espionage operation which controlled, and misdirected, the anti-Bolshevik ‘White Russian’ opposition.

The opposition ended up calling for things that the government wanted them to call for. Rather like Labour going into the last election pledging for a ‘2nd referendum’ on Europe, or pushing for a lockdown in 2020. By supporting a lockdown, while giving the impression they opposed one, were Johnson and his government playing chess, when everyone else, who thought they were being so clever, was playing checkers?

The OMD deal is our strongest clue yet that the ‘reluctant lockdowners’ had it planned for quite some time.

Multiple COVID-19 vaccine trials are in the final stages around the world. But in one unlikely place, that being the collapsed state of Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro touted Sunday, in an appearance on state television, that his government scientists have developed a “highly effective antiviral” cure that kills the virus without any side effects. 

Maduro tweeted: “Tremendous News! We certify the DR10 molecule as a highly effective antiviral in the fight against Covid-19.”

He continued: “We have started the World Health Organization (WHO) certification process to offer this treatment to the world. I thank the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) team for this great contribution to humanity.”

At the IVIC, scientists have been working around the clock to develop a cure for the virus. Maduro said that the cure’s active ingredient is a derivative of ursolic acid from a plant and will not harm humans. 

Maduro said the cure would be transferred to the WHO for further evaluation and possible use worldwide. 

“The molecule will be mass-produced and delivered worldwide for the cure of Covid-19,” according to Maduro.

by Terri-Ann Williams

Data analysed by experts at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) has revealed that the average age of deaths from the coronavirus is 82.4 years.

Analysis by the Oxford experts at the CEBM was compiled from data provided by the Office for Nation Statistics (ONS).

It shows that the average age of people dying in England and Wales from Covid-19 is 82.4.

This is slightly higher than deaths caused by other illnesses, which has a median age of 81.5.

This comes as it was revealed that 1.5 million cancer procedures were cancelled during the pandemic.

Data from NHS England also revealed yesterday that urgent cancer referrals are down 15 per cent due to the coronavirus “effect” – while NHS waiting lists reached record highs.

The study by the CEBM revealed that around 30,000 people who contracted the coronavirus were already dying from another illness and that just six people per thousand who catch it are likely to die from it.

Cancer has an average of 450 deaths a day, while deaths caused by dementia average at 214 deaths each day.

Heart disease has 174 and suicide has 18.

Looking at the age of patients who are dying, the experts said that around 40 per cent of people who have died from the virus are over the age of 85.

It also found that a further 33 per cent are between 75 and 84.

Local lockdowns are in place across the UK and include all age groups.

It was revealed earlier this week that more restrictions could be enforced in parts of the North and the Midlands in order to curb cases and to ease the burden on the NHS.

Professor Karol Sikora, head of Buckingham University medical school and the medical director of Rutherford Health said we “can’t afford” to worry about the NHS being overwhelmed.

He told the Daily Mail: “Instead we need to get people back to work and get rid of these ridiculous, unenforceable rules.

“They are ineffective and counter-productive, and are causing unimaginable harm.”

Looking at the age of people dying from other conditions, and the data also highlighted that barely one per cent of people dying from dementia are under the age of 44.

The average age of people dying from other causes is 81.5 years.

This reinforces the “Great Barrington Declaration”, which has so far been signed by over 15,000 experts in the medical profession.

‘Stay away from the elderly’

The declaration calls for the end to local restrictions and instead a focus on protecting those who are most at risk.

It also states that younger people “should be immediately allowed to get back to normal life”.

The data shows that those who are most at risk from the virus are the elderly.

Source: The Sun

Lately, the world’s biggest threats have been microscopic in size.

From the global COVID-19 pandemic to wildfires ripping through the U.S. West Coast, it seems as though our lungs can’t catch a break, or more aptly, a breath.

But, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang asks, just how small are the particles we’re currently battling? And how does their size compare to other tiny molecules?

Specks Too Small to See

While the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is relatively small in size, it isn’t the smallest virus particle out there.

Both the Zika virus and the T4 Bacteriophage – responsible for E. coli – are just a fraction of the size, although they have not nearly claimed as many lives as COVID-19 to date.

Coronavirus particles are smaller than both red or white blood cells, however, a single blood cell is still virtually invisible to the naked eye. For scale, we’ve also added in a single human hair as a benchmark on the upper end of the size range.

On the other end of the spectrum, pollen, salt, and sand are significantly larger than viruses or bacteria. Because of their higher relative sizes, our body is usually able to block them out—a particle needs to be smaller than 10 microns before it can be inhaled into your respiratory tract.

Because of this, pollen or sand typically get trapped in the nose and throat before they enter our lungs. The smaller particles particles, however, are able to slip through more easily.

Smoky Skies: Air Pollution and Wildfires

While the virus causing COVID-19 is certainly the most topical particle right now, it’s not the only speck that poses a health risk. Air pollution is one of the leading causes of death worldwide—it’s actually deadlier than smoking, malaria, or AIDS.

One major source of air pollution is particulate matter, which can contain dust, dirt, soot, and smoke particles. Averaging around 2.5 microns, these particles can often enter human lungs.

At just a fraction of the size between 0.4-0.7 microns, wildfire smoke poses even more of a health hazard. Research has also linked wildfire exposures to not just respiratory issues, but also cardiovascular and neurological issues.

Here’s an animated map by Flowing Data, showing how things heated up in peak wildfire season between August-September 2020:

What’s the main takeaway from all this?

There are many different kinds of specks that are smaller than the eye can see, and it’s worth knowing how they can impact human health.

 

Dr. Elke De Klerk: We do not have a medical pandemic

by Philip Wegmann

It’s not just that the guy is mainly right, but that he has spirit and a fight uncommon in an egghead

Dr. Scott W. Atlas joined the president’s coronavirus task force in August, but after two months, he has yet to sit for a photo shoot or throw out a first pitch or inspire a single artisanal cocktail. No one has impersonated him on “Saturday Night Live” either, and there certainly isn’t any grassroots campaign to get him nominated as People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

Although he has a medical degree from the University of Chicago, Atlas is the other doctor, and he knows it. “I’m not here to make friends. Okay?” he tells RealClearPolitics in a rare interview. “I’m here to help the president save American lives. Period.”

Every other member of the commission would say the same. Combating the coronavirus is the whole point, and saving lives through disease mitigation and prevention remains their goal. But Atlas, a neuro-radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has different ideas about how to beat COVID-19. He says publicly that children do not frequently spread the virus. He questions the efficacy of mask mandates. He condemns lockdowns as not just ineffective but deeply destructive.

In short, Atlas is a walking/talking ambassador for Trump’s the-cure-can’t-be-worse-than-the-disease argument. Those views and his proximity to an impressionable president, critics argue, make Atlas a public health threat. Hence, his unpopularity in some circles.

“Everything he says is false,” Dr. Robert Redfield said during a recently overheard phone conversation. Asked who he meant, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to NBC News he was talking about Atlas. Later, during a CNN interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that most of his colleagues were “working together.” But the more visible and most adored member of the task force added, “I think you know who the outlier is.”

That outlier happens to have the ear of the president for now, and he does not appreciate the-less than-collegial criticism. “I think a lot of people honestly have other motivations,” Atlas responds, “whether they feel their own stature is threatened by someone who challenges their opinions with data, whether they are simply used to groupthink and not to informed people who have a critical thought process, or whether they are interested in maintaining their own media connections. That’s not me.”

Another thing Atlas is not: an epidemiologist or an expert in the study of infectious diseases. He finds that fact, whispered by critics and oft-repeated in the press, both annoying and “absurd.”

Lockdowns were the early prescription in the spring when comparatively little was known about the virus. At the recommendation of the task force in March, the White House and the president issued aggressive guidance to combat COVID: “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” Stay home, Trump encouraged the country, and avoid groups of more than 10 people.

“If everyone makes this change, or these critical changes, and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus,” the president said in the White House briefing room. Two weeks later, he announced that 15 days of social distancing had to become 45 days. “The better you do,” Trump promised a second time, “the faster this whole nightmare will end.” It didn’t.

And that approach is what Atlas thinks is absurd. He believes that the recommended lockdowns constitute “one of the biggest failures of the faces of public health in this country.” The experts, he believes, adopted “a unidimensional view of the pandemic” and focused on “stopping COVID cases at all costs,” a decision that “recklessly disregarded the harms the prolonged lockdowns have on society and average Americans.”

Sustained lockdowns, he believes, harm those already sick with other illnesses by discouraging treatment, harm the poor by keeping them from the workplace, and harm the mental development of children by shutting down the schools. “The lockdown,” he has concluded, “is a luxury of the rich.”

A better strategy, says the populist doctor who has the ear of the populist president, would be to focus on protecting those most at-risk for the illness — the elderly and those with weakened immune systems — while the rest of society takes precautions but proceeds with their lives as researchers race to develop a vaccine.

As an illustration, Atlas points to colleges and universities. Although infections have spiked on some campuses, significant numbers of hospitalization and deaths among students have not followed. Young people are simply less susceptible to the virus’s worst impact. “I’m not minimizing anything,” Atlas says in reference to the handful of students hospitalized and the need to protect teachers, “but what I’m saying is that it is irrational to start seeking out cases in low-risk populations for people who are generally in low-risk environments. It is the exact opposite of logic and common sense.”

And while Atlas isn’t an epidemiologist, as his critics emphasize, he relies on the work of infectious disease experts the world over. He cites Sunetra Gupta, a professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University who maintains that remaining in lockdown is “extremely dangerous from the point of view of the vulnerability of the entire population to new pathogens.” And he points to Katherine Yih, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who argues that a broad public-health approach is needed “to minimize the number of cases of severe disease and death over the long run.”

Maybe Trump doesn’t read medical journals (he once suggested injecting disinfectants into the human body to fight the disease). But the president, Atlas insists, does listen to scientists: “We are learning, we are listening, and that is why we have a state-of-the-art understanding about the science that is consistent with the exact policy of the president,” he says, referring to Trump’s stated preference to implement strict protections for the vulnerable and a return to business for the rest of the society.

Atlas is getting good at making this argument. He’s made it on Fox News, and then after the president invited him to join the task force, he made it inside the administration. But then Trump got sick.

If the federal government, with all of its resources, can’t keep the president safe from the virus, how can the country be expected to protect the most vulnerable? That was the question RCP planned to put to Atlas the Friday that the COVID-positive president was admitted to Walter Reed medical center. But the interview was scuttled, and rescheduled for two days after Trump was discharged.

The first question put to him then: Doesn’t Trump’s own diagnosis upend Trump’s prescription of reopening society?

His response: “Not at all. If anything, the First Patient has solidified his pandemic thesis.

“The president’s case illustrates some very important things. Number One: The virus is not eliminated by mitigation; the virus is not eliminated by a lockdown.” All the handwashing and social distancing and mask wearing in his own inner circle were not enough to keep the president safe. Again, he adds, how it possible to protect the most vulnerable who aren’t nearly as insulated as the leader of the free world? Atlas points to the president a second time, noting the “very secure special environment in the White House,” where an audience with the president requires a negative COVID-test.

“But the virus is still there,” he concedes, and “none of these systems are infallible.” A second point the public should learn from the president’s case, according to Atlas: “This is not March or April. We’ve learned a tremendous amount about the virus — who is at risk, who is not; who to protect and who is at very low risk.”

Trump has now added his professed clean bill of health to his election platform, even though some of the drugs that apparently helped his recovery are unavailable to the public. Democrats, meanwhile, argue the opposite. The whole episode, in their view, illustrates a recklesssness that finally caught up with a president who mocks masks and flaunts CDC guidelines to host packed rallies amid a pandemic.

Isn’t Trump being careless? And isn’t he downplaying the virus by claiming a miraculous recovery? “He has a tremendous, I would say, respect for the seriousness of the disease,” Atlas responded, “but that does not mean that a leader can be afraid or can hide in the basement.”

Asked about the wisdom of holding a packed ceremony in the Rose Garden, where few attendees wore masks and which Fauci later described as a “super-spreader” event, Atlas insisted that Trump “wears a mask when he needs to and when he cannot socially distance.” Behavior that critics condemn as careless, Atlas calls the actions of someone who “knows that his job is essential.” And what Trump is saying with words and his subsequent return to the crowded campaign trail, he adds, “is to not be paralyzed by fear.”

Meanwhile, with less than three weeks to go until Election Day, Trump is a very active candidate. Cleared by his physicians, the president is campaigning at a frenzied pace, with stops planned in Pennsylvania and Iowa and North Carolina. If he feels any fatigue, he doesn’t show it. Trump told a Florida crowd on Monday night that he felt “so powerful,” claimed he was “immune,” and offered “to kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women, and everybody. I’ll just give you a big, fat kiss.” He ended the night by dancing off stage to the “YMCA.”

Aside from the dancing president, Atlas is one of the most unpopular men in Washington. It probably doesn’t help that his bedside manor isn’t the warmest or that he is quick to criticize those who helmed the initial response to the virus and “instilled fear into the American public.”

“There’s been obsession after obsession after obsession in this pandemic about testing-testing-testing about cases-cases-cases about masks-masks-masks. That’s not the issue,” Atlas argued. “His policy is completely appropriate, and it is 100% backed by the science.”

What’s especially not scientific? According to Atlas, the obsession with masks and the congressional testimony of his task force colleague: “The CDC has many fine scientists, I am sure of that, but when the head of the CDC held up a mask and said a mask is better than a vaccine, that is absurd. That is not science. That is contrary to all rational thought.”

Mask mandates and those who propose them, he says, “are completely contrary to rational thought.” There is a time and place for the mask, namely when you can’t social distance. But Atlas is clearly frustrated by their universal use: “Why in the world would you wear a mask if you’re riding your bicycle all alone outside? Why in the world would you wear a mask if you’re in your own car driving? Why in the world would you wear a mask if you’re in the desert all alone?”

That the vaccine is forthcoming is significant reason “for optimism.” Atlas says a successful vaccine could be approved as early as this month. If deemed effective by the FDA, doses would go first to “priority groups and people at high risk no later than January.” He plans to eventually take it himself, and hopes the hypodermic needle will be the knife in the heart of the virus.

Some wonder whether politics plays an undue role in the Operation Warp Speed effort. Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has even questioned its effectiveness, saying that “if Donald Trump tells us what we should take it, I’m not going to take it.”

Unprompted, Atlas dismisses as a conspiracy theory any suggestion that the president, not the doctors, are driving development. He calls any assertion to the contrary “heinous,” an outright “sin.” He won’t attack any politician by name because “it’s not my job.” All the same and in no uncertain terms, the doctor condemns “anyone who is in a position of leadership who instills doubt and fear into the process of the vaccine.” They are guilty, he says, of “doing more harm than I could ever imagined a public figure would do.”

Whenever a vaccine becomes available, Atlas says getting it won’t be mandatory. Meanwhile, masks remain readily available. Should the president set a better example by wearing one more regularly? “He believes in freedom,” Atlas responds, “and he believes in individual responsibility, but he is doing his job to do the right recommendations.”

Medical historians will judge if Trump did enough to combat the pandemic. His critics have already concluded that he has not, and it is part of the reason Joe Biden holds a double-digit lead against him. But even if the president doesn’t win a second term, Atlas may enjoy some eventual vindication.

“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro, one of six special envoys to the WHO on COVID-19, said in an Oct. 9 interview. Lockdowns, he added, only “buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted. But by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

The statement followed a proclamation written by three epidemiologists and infectious-disease experts, Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Dr. Gupta of Oxford and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford. Called “the Great Barrington Declaration,” it warns that letting lockdowns linger until a vaccine is developed “will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”

Days after his RCP interview, Atlas wrote to this reporter: “I hope you explicitly point out that my advisement and writings since March have now been publicly stated in that document by some of the world’s top infectious disease scientists and epidemiologists, and they are aligned with the President’s policies.”

To date, 9,366 medical and public health scientists have signed the letter along with another 24,484 medical practitioners.

Source: Real Clear Politics

“In 2017, Nabarro and Tedros competed for the WHO Director-General role. …Tedros’s candidacy was mired in several scandals”

By Stacey Rudin

Last week, in a major departure from months of pro-lockdown messaging, Britain’s envoy to the WHO Dr. David Nabarro called for world leaders to stop locking down their countries and economies as a “primary method” of controlling COVID19. “I want to say it again: we in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. Nabarro told The Spectator.

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” Dr. Nabarro’s position aligns with the Great Barrington Declaration, of which he spoke favorably, in which 30,000 scientists and public health experts have joined in advocating an immediate return to normal life for those at low risk. Nabarro and the thousands of signees of the Declaration opine that this approach will minimize overall mortality and lessen the disproportionate burden of lockdowns on the working class and underprivileged.

The day after Nabarro made his remarks, WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus flatly contradicted him, declaring that lifting lockdowns would be a recipe for “unnecessary infections, suffering and death.” Tedros claims that herd immunity can only be “safely” achieved through vaccination, a conclusion premised upon the frightening assumption that the development of a safe and effective vaccine is guaranteed, and the dubious premise that natural infections can be held back “as long as it takes” to prepare and distribute the vaccine. However, according to Tedros, there is no other way: “allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It’s not an option.”

It’s difficult to reconcile this stance with the data from states and nations which did not lock down for COVID19. For example, Swedish all-cause mortality is on average for 2020 — incredibly, the nation had higher per-capita mortality just five years ago, in a year in which there was no pandemic. This undeniable, easily-verifiable fact is shocking in light of the decimation of world economies on the premise of “stopping” a “highly deadly” pathogen. Far from “unethical,” allowing the virus to “run free” produced a much better result than tight lockdowns such as those imposed in Argentina and Peru — yet Tedros is ignoring this. The question is: why?

The China-Paved Path to WHO Director-General

In 2017, Nabarro and Tedros competed for the WHO Director-General role. For the first time, the position was filled by a direct vote of the member-states, and not by the WHO executive board. Tedros’s candidacy was mired in several scandals. Ethiopians and concerned global citizens pleaded with the countries voting in the election to reject Tedros because he was a representative of a repressive political regime who had helped to build and maintain a surveillance state with a total lack of government transparency. Critics pointed out that Tedros was “comfortable with the secrecy of autocratic states”— a characteristic that could wreak havoc on the world if he assumed a position of power within the WHO.

Tedros also received criticism for his role in covering up cholera epidemics while he was Ethiopia’s Health Minister from 2005 until 2012. Tedros summarily dismissed the complaint, raised by one of Nabarro’s advisers, likening it to James B. Comey’s reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just days before the 2016 presidential election. He also attributed racial and elitist motives to his accuser, claiming “Dr. Nabarro’s backers have a ‘typical colonial mind-set aimed at winning at any cost and discrediting a candidate from a developing country.’” [Big words for a creature of Bill Gates.]

However, the undisputed facts depict a Health Minister who is doing one of two things: grossly neglecting cholera testing, or intentionally prioritizing his nation’s economy over protecting people from cholera. Tedros claimed that outbreaks of what he called “acute watery diarrhea” in 2006, 2009, and 2011 were not cholera, although he could not produce a test ruling out the deadly pathogen, and neighboring Somalia and Kenya disclosed cholera as the cause of their own simultaneous outbreaks.

Tedros claimed that testing in his country was “too difficult,” but this was belied by the fact that outside experts were able to test and find the cholera bacteria in stool samples. Testing for cholera bacteria is simple and takes less than two days. It is hard to fathom why outside experts and other countries would be able to test while the Ethiopian government could not.

Cholera can kill a person in as little as five hours. News of cholera outbreaks can have a quick and devastating impact on a country’s economy, so African nations sometimes fail to declare cholera emergencies even when they know for a fact that they have one. During the 2006 outbreak, for example, Ethiopia “did not share the results of lab tests since [the outbreak started]” because “it can mean some serious economic losses,especially in terms of international trade and tourism,” said Kebba O. Jaiteh, emergency officer in Ethiopia with the WHO.

During earlier outbreaks of cholera in Ethiopia (or “acute watery diarrhea,” depending on who you believe), The Guardian and The Washington Post investigated and reported that Ethiopian officials “were pressuring aid agencies to avoid using the word ‘cholera’ and not to report the number of people affected.” Research by Human Rights Watch found that the Ethiopian government “was pressuring its health workers to avoid any mention of cholera, which could damage the country’s image and deter tourists.” Despite this accumulation of evidence, Tedros stood by his denial, preventing aid from being delivered to Ethiopians: the UN cannot act without permission and a declaration of an outbreak.

Vaccines are also unavailable when a country fails to declare a cholera outbreak, so Tedros refused his countrymen this option even when their neighbors in Somalia and Kenya received it. This seems to have escaped the notice of Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, who praised Tedros’s “commitment” to human health and vaccination: “Tedros’s commitment to immunization is clear . . . His work with Gavi as Ethiopia’s health minister helped boost the proportion of children reached by vaccines from less than half to more than two-thirds.” Other defenders of Tedros included former CDC director Tom Frieden, who was appointed by Barack Obama to head the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Frieden praised Tedros as “an excellent choice to lead the WHO,” and today vocally agrees with Tedros on lockdowns, masks, and social distancing.

Tedros’s strongest and most important backer throughout these controversies was not an individual, but a government: China. As an opinion writer in the Indian press described it, “China propped Tedros.” American apathy in the public health arena had allowed China to “colonize” global health:

“One reason that Tedros has gotten away with so much brazen cronyism is that America pays little to no attention to global public health, save pouring in money as a sugar daddy . . . China started a scheme for global health colonisation and won because America didn’t think it was important enough. The Chinese leveraged their investments across Africa to force the African Union to back Tedros, [and] also got Pakistan to withdraw its candidate who was opposing him,sources say . . . India’s diplomatic credentials helped in covering up Tedros’ shady past and the fact his main backer was a Communist dictatorship.”

“I’ve Got Your Back, and You’ve Got Mine”: Tedros Backs the Chinese COVID19 “Supression” Strategy

Fast-forward to the COVID19 epidemic. In early 2020, Tedros went to great lengths to congratulate China on its response to the “novel coronavirus.” On January 30, the WHO issued a statement effusively praising China’s response, highlighting the Chinese government’s “commitment to transparency” and efforts to “investigate” and “contain” the outbreak. The statement declares that China’s novel “lockdown” strategy — wherein dictator Xi Jinping welded people inside their apartments in the name of “disease control” — are “good not only for that country but also for the rest of the world.” Tedros followed this up with a tweet: “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.” During this time period, hundreds of thousands of social media posts later traced to China praised the lockdown, and criticized and ridiculed world leaders who failed to follow suit.

The WHO’s resounding praise of China continued into February 2020, when it convened a “Global Research and Innovation Forum” on the novel coronavirus to study “the origin of the virus, natural history, transmission, diagnosis, infection prevention and control,” among other things. On February 24, the group’s Joint Mission held a press conference to report on its findings, during which it declared, “there is no question that China’s bold approach to the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of what was a rapidly-escalating and continues to be deadly epidemic.” The stated basis for this unequivocal declaration on the effectiveness of lockdowns was as follows:

“And there’s a couple of other graphics . . . here’s the outbreak that happened in the whole country on the bottom. Here’s what the outbreak looked like outside of Hubei. Here are the areas of Hubei outside of Wuhan. And then the last one is Wuhan. And you can see this is a much flatter curve than the others. And that’s what happens when you have an aggressive action that changes the shape that you would expect from an infectious disease outbreak.

This is extremely important for China, but it’s extremely important for the rest of the world, where this virus you’ve seen in the last few days is taking advantage to explode in certain settings. And it wasn’t easy because what I didn’t mention on this slide is every one of these lines represent a huge decision by policy makers and politicians in this country and leaders to actually change the shape with big measures such as, you know, the suspension of travel, the stay-at-home advisories, and other incredibly difficult measures; to make decisions about, but also to get a population to follow. And that’s why, again, the role of the individual here in China is so important as well.”

The Joint Mission’s conclusion that China’s actions “worked” is a perfect depiction of the classic logical fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc: Latin for “it happened after, so it was caused by.” While it is indeed possible that a “more flat” curve in Wuhan could be attributed to government mandates, there are equal or greater possibilities: one, that testing protocols differed; two, that China simply witnessed the natural course of this “novel” pathogen. The latter is particularly likely since there was no baseline with which to compare the proffered epicurves.

It should be obvious that the mere issuance of government mandates does not automatically mean they were effective — this is particularly true here, since the global scientific community had previously considered and rejected large-scale quarantines as a method for controlling epidemics. Respiratory viruses never spread evenly throughout countries, provinces, or states, so it was nothing short of reckless to conclude that the noted variance in spread — which again, could be nothing but a recording error due to testing aberrations — was due to anything but natural factors. It was criminal to summarily conclude on this evidence that the Chinese government’s draconian actions led to a “favorable outcome,” and then use that patentily illogical conclusion to sell lockdowns to the rest of the world. But that’s just what the WHO did.

“China didn’t approach this new virus with an old strategy for one disease or another disease. It developed its own approach to a new disease and extraordinarily has turned around this disease with strategies most of the world didn’t think would work . . . What China has demonstrated is, you have to do this. If you do it, you can save lives and prevent thousands of cases of what is a very difficult disease.”

The Joint Mission repeated this assertion — “lockdowns work, they can and do save lives” — in various ways throughout its press conference, recalling to mind the words of a famous propagandist named Joseph Goebbels: “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Research shows that this illusion of truth effect “works just as strongly for known as for unknown items, suggesting that prior knowledge won’t prevent repetition from swaying our judgements of plausibility.” Our parents never heard of lockdown, and understood and accepted that humans sadly cannot “stop” a highly contagious infectious disease like the flu — even with a vaccine — yet suddenly most of the planet was behaving as if this were not only a reasonable mission, but something for which it was rational and desirable to sacrifice social lives, relationships, smiles, businesses, and educations in service of.

At the helm of the WHO, Tedros undoubtedly played a key role in the creation of this perception. Thanks to the many individual worldwide lockdown experiments, we now know that he was dead wrong: no lockdown was ever needed to “flatten the curve” — in fact, lockdowns spiked the curve. No-lockdown Sweden’s epicurve was much flatter than many areas with tight lockdowns, including New York City, Italy, and Spain. While this may be adequately explained by Hanlon’s Razor, it is very interesting that the Joint Mission took great pains to protect China’s trade and travel interests despite advocating simultaneous lockdowns for other nations:

“And this brings us to what I think is one of the most important recommendations we would make in respect to getting China fully back on its feet after this crisis. The world needs the experience and materials of China to be successful in battling this coronavirus disease. China has the most experience in the world with this disease, and it’s the only country to have turned around serious large-scale outbreaks. But if countries create barriers between themselves and China in terms of travel or trade, it is only going to compromise everyone’s ability to get this done.

And those kinds of measures need to be anything that goes beyond what’s been recommended by the IHR committee, has got to be reassessed, because the risk from China is dropping, and what China has to add to the global response is rapidly rising.”

The human rights community did not share this enthusiasm for China, its draconian lockdown, or its offer to “help” other nations contend with the virus. On February 2, The Guardian published an opinion piece by a human rights advocate outlining the lockdown’s serious human rights violations and opining that the WHO broke its own commitment to “human rights and health” by praising China. The WHO’s commitment reads in part:

“Human rights are universal and inalienable. They apply equally, to all people, everywhere, without distinction. Human Rights standards — to food, health, education, to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment — are also interrelated. The improvement of one right facilitates advancement of the others. Likewise, the deprivation of one right adversely affects the others”

To protect these “universal and inalienable” human rights during a public health emergency, international law requires that restrictions on human rights be based on legality, necessity, proportionality and grounded in evidence. Similarly, the Siracusa Principles — in which the United Nations outlines an overarching international covenant on civil and political rights — state that restrictions on rights and freedoms in the name of public health must be strictly necessary and the least intrusive available to reach their objective:

“In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.”

“Lockdown” goes far beyond these basic human rights boundaries. They are proven now to only damage societies — they even worsen COVID19 outcomes. When The Economist analyzed all recorded epidemics since 1960, it concluded that “democracies experience lower mortality rates for epidemic diseases than their non-democratic counterparts.” This finding holds true at all levels of income.

Tedros aligned himself not with democracies and their fundamental principles but with an autocratic dictatorship, the same dictatorship that helped him assume power within the WHO. Together, using logical fallacies and pseudo-science, they betrayed international law governing human rights, the WHO’s own stated principles, and committed crimes against humanity on a massive scale. Should we continue to listen to Tedros, or should we turn to Dr. Nabarro, another qualified expert who — like the thousands who signed the Great Barrington Declaration — urges a return to democratic norms as necessary to minimize human suffering?

“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer. Just look at what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year.” — Dr. David Nabarro

It is no longer possible to ignore Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s long history with suppressive autocratic regimes, including China. Whatever the motivation behind his advocacy for continued lockdowns, the data invalidates his position unequivocally. Lockdowns do not save lives — lockdowns kill. The reign of tyranny must end, immediately and forever, with a full restoration of the rights and privileges of each individual citizen to choose what level of risk he or she will accept as a law-abiding member of a functioning, democratic society.

WHO, what, where, and why? We don’t yet have all of the answers, but we do know that the WHO director-general is on the wrong side of the lockdown debate.

Source: AIER