1539 replies to this topic

[Hip]

There voluminous robust data that the virus was circulating around the world at least several months before the media-created panic in early 2020. No one noticed, because the IFR has always been very low. It is my contention that the panic created by governments and the media is what caused a jump in CFR in 2020.

 

The media created the COVID pandemic? You probably believe the Moon landing were fake too. 

 

 

 

The virus might well have been circulating in the West some months before the first major outbreak in the West which began in Italy. Some studies have indicated that.

 

However, remember that it takes a while for small isolated outbreaks to grow and gather momentum. So it would have gone unnoticed when the number of cases remained low. By once the momentum build up as a result of exponential growth, and more and more people got infected, it became very noticeable.

Edited by Hip, 13 January 2023 - 09:03 PM.

[Mind]

The media created the COVID pandemic? You probably believe the Moon landing were fake too. 

 

 

 

The virus might well have been circulating in the West some months before the first major outbreak in the West which began in Italy. Some studies have indicated that.

 

However, remember that it takes a while for small isolated outbreaks to grow and gather momentum. So it would have gone unnoticed when the number of cases remained low. By once the momentum build up as a result of exponential growth, and more and more people got infected, it became very noticeable.

 

The media-created COVID "panic". Read carefully (before launching into more ad hominem attacks). Remember that CNN personnel were caught on undercover camera admitting they were stoking irrational fear about COVID.

 

Even mainstream media outlets are now talking about the problem of COVID cases being wildly overcounted. It's a problem. It makes some observational studies about the effectiveness of vaccines rather suspect.

 

At least one former NHS director claims the medical establishment lied about COVID deaths to inflate the numbers.

 

Some people have forgotten about this article where a doctor says that people were preemptively put on ventilators (and unfortunately killed at a high rate) in order to limit contagion. They figured that if they sedated people, isolated them, and put them on ventilators, that they could limit the spread. Early in the pandemic, this led to more deaths than if patients had been given standard pneumonia treatment. I am not saying the doctors "wanted" to kill patients. They were operating in an environment of fear and uncertainty, driven by the media-created panic.

[Hip]

The media-created COVID "panic". 

 

Your statement regarding COVID circulating before the major outbreaks occurred in the West, along with your statements about the media's role in pandemic awareness, implies that there was nothing to worry about, because the virus was already here, and the worry was only caused by the media focus on the issue.

 

This is what you appear to be saying. This is completely wrong. 

 

The virus was most likely already circulating in the West before those major outbreaks, yes; but the pandemic was not caused by media focus. It was caused by the fact that viral outbreaks follow exponential growth. This means they start of slowly, with a few sporadic cases here and there; and then gradually build up momentum, getting larger and larger, until suddenly there are tens of thousands of new cases each day. At that point, the outbreak becomes impossible to ignore and impossible to miss. 

 

The media did not create the outbreak, nor the panic about the outbreak. It was the scale of the outbreak itself which created the panic in all sections of society, and rightly so.

 

 

 

I would argue that the media did the opposite in the early days: there was a disastrous lack of panic in the media. The media tended to discount the pandemic in the early days when the outbreaks first hit China, and discount the possibility that it might hit the West.

 

Even the scientific experts said this, and they got that wrong. And the media just reported what the experts said, that there was no need to worry.

 

I distinctly remember when there was the first massive outbreak in Wuhan, and the whole city of Wuhan was placed in lockdown, the scientific experts in the UK were saying there was very low risk to Britain, and this Chinese outbreak was nothing to worry about.

 

It was this lack of panic and lack of response in the early days that was a huge mistake, a mistake made by the Western scientific experts as well as the Western media.

 

Once the first Wuhan outbreak occurred, the experts and media should have been raising the alarm, so that we might start preparations early, like ramping up production of masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital use. Hospital PPE was in terrible short supply for the first 6 to 12 months of the pandemic, due to lack of preparation, and due to a lack of panic and lack of any sense of alarm. 

 

I hope we have learned a lesson from this, so that when the next pathogen jumps from animals into humans, and we get another Wuhan somewhere in the world, governments around the world will be more on the ball in terms of early response. 

Edited by Hip, 21 January 2023 - 12:26 AM.

[albedo]

From the conclusions:

 

"...Durably protective vaccines against non-systemic mucosal respiratory
viruses with high mortality rates have thus far eluded
vaccine development efforts...."

 

"...Past unsuccessful attempts to elicit solid protection against
mucosal respiratory viruses and to control the deadly outbreaks
and pandemics they cause have been a scientific and public
health failure that must be urgently addressed. We are excited
and invigorated that many investigators and collaborative
groups are rethinking, from the ground up, all of our past assumptions
and approaches to preventing important respiratory
viral diseases and working to find bold new paths forward..."

 

Morens DM, Taubenberger JK, Fauci AS. Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses. Cell Host & Microbe. 2023;31(1):146-157.

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC9832587/

 

 

[albedo]

It looks like vaccination and boosting continue to demonstrate protection against infections and mortality in all above 17 for many variants (see attachment) but OTOS the above paper from Fauci recognized problems ( "...scientific and public health failure...") and it looks like UK is reconsidering 2023 vaccination recommendations (at least in Campbell's view). Honest (non leading!) question: where is the catch? I am confused ...

 COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated.pdf   242.04KB   5 downloads

[Mind]

It looks like vaccination and boosting continue to demonstrate protection against infections and mortality in all above 17 for many variants (see attachment) but OTOS the above paper from Fauci recognized problems ( "...scientific and public health failure...") and it looks like UK is reconsidering 2023 vaccination recommendations (at least in Campbell's view). Honest (non leading!) question: where is the catch? I am confused ...

COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated.pdf

 

There are of course, limitations to this recent paper of which the authors mention 6.

 

One of the main problems is the time period for which someone is "vaccinated". For the original 2-dose COVID injections, a person was not counted as "vaccinated" until about a month after the first injection. You potentially have A LOT of people who got infected, sick, and died, who were counted as "unvaccinated" because they caught it before the magical one month later period. For the Delta and Omicron periods, it seems they reduced the magic time to just 2 weeks - from what I can tell from this paper.

 

In addition, it appears they did not test for prior infection.

 

Lastly, this is U.S. data. Considering all of the robustly chronicled incompetence, lying, and obfuscation from U.S. health bureaucracies, in addition to a medical industry literally being paid to inflate COVID cases, and an FDA literally promoting the injections, it is good to be cautious with conclusions from this data, IMO.

[albedo]

Thank you for your feedback Mind. They do indeed mention a limitation in direct comparison. Do i understand correctly your point refers to a change in the definition (4 > 2 weeks) in the URL quoted in their note, here:

 vaccination def.jpg   89.06KB   0 downloads

"..Vaccinated case with a primary series: SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected in a respiratory specimen collected ≥14 days after verifiably completing the primary series of an FDA-authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine..."

Edited by albedo, 15 February 2023 - 11:41 AM.

[Mind]

Thank you for your feedback Mind. They do indeed mention a limitation in direct comparison. Do i understand correctly your point refers to a change in the definition (4 > 2 weeks) in the URL quoted in their note, here:

vaccination def.jpg

"..Vaccinated case with a primary series: SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected in a respiratory specimen collected ≥14 days after verifiably completing the primary series of an FDA-authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine..."

 

Yes, I was referring to 14 days after completing the primary series. 1st dose, then wait 2 weeks, 2nd dose, then wait 2 weeks - so approximately a month when a person is (or was) considered "unvaccinated".

[albedo]

"Evidence before this study
The future potential burden of COVID-19 is determined by
levels and trends in population susceptibility to infection and
symptomatic disease. Susceptibility in turn is a function of
three main drivers, the coverage of vaccines and their
corresponding efficacy, and the level of protection afforded by
those who have previously been infected. Individual studies
have documented the effectiveness of past infection in
preventing re-infection and subsequent symptomatic disease
and severe disease (hospitalisation or death), including the
extent to which immunity wanes over time. Several systematic
reviews of these studies have been done, but none have
comprehensively assessed the level of protection by variant
and, more importantly, the extent to which immunity from
past infection will wane over time.

Added value of this study
This study provides a comprehensive review of studies that
have estimated the protection from past COVID-19 infection by
variant and time since infection. The result shows high levels of
protection against re-infection for ancestral, alpha, and delta
variants for all major outcomes. Our analysis found significantly
reduced protection against re-infection from the omicron BA.1
variant but that levels of protection against severe disease
remained high. Although protection from re-infection from all
variants wanes over time, our analysis of the available data
suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous
infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by
two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines
(Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech), as documented by
Nassereldine and colleagues, in our companion study. To our
knowledge, this is the first review to comprehensively assess
natural immunity protection against COVID-19 re-infection by
variant (primary infection and re-infection) and to evaluate
waning immunity with time since primary infection.

Implications of all the available evidence
Our findings confirm that past infection affords significantly
reduced protection against re-infection by the omicron BA.1
variant compared to previous variants, highlighting the high
immune escape features of this variant. Our finding that the
level of protection from past infection by variant and over time
is equivalent to that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines has
important implications for guidance regarding the timing of
vaccine doses, including boosters. This finding also has
important implications for the design of policies that restrict
access to travel or venues or require vaccination for workers.
It supports the idea that those with a documented infection
should be treated similarly to those who have been fully
vaccinated with high-quality vaccines. This was implemented,
for example, as part of the EU COVID certificate, but not in
countries such as the USA. The scarcity of data on protection
afforded by past infection from the omicron BA.1 variant and
its sublineages (BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5) highlights the
importance of continued assessment, particularly considering
that an estimated 46% of the global population was infected by
the omicron variant between Nov 15, 2021, and June 1, 2022." (red and bold mine)

 

Stein C, Nassereldine H, Sorensen RJD, et al. Past SARS-CoV-2 infection protection against re-infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet. 2023;0(0).

https://www.thelance...2465-5/fulltext

 

[albedo]

FYI ... I just learned there is a "Citizen Petition from Coalition Advocating for Adequately Labeled Medicines" to FDA for updating mRNA vaccine labeling:

 

https://www.regulati...023-P-0360-0001

 

The actions requested to FDA (by April 30, 2023) is (the complete text of the Petition is downloadable from the site):

 

"Petitioner requests that the FDA amend current labelingi of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines (for all authorized or approved indications and populations) in the following ways:
1. Add language clarifying that phase III trials were not designed to determine and failed to provide substantial evidence of vaccine efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or death.
2. Add language clarifying that the immunobridging surrogate endpoint used in multiple authorized indications has not been validated to predict clinical efficacy.

3. Add safety and efficacy results data from manufacturer randomized trials of current bivalent boosters that reported results after EUA was granted.
4. Add a clear statement that FDA authorized a new Pfizer vaccine formulation containing Tris buffer without requiring clinical studies to evaluate efficacy, safety or bioequivalence to the formulation containing phosphate buffer.
5. Add a clear statement disclosing that a Pfizer phase III randomized trial in pregnant women (NCT04754594) was completed as of July 2022 but there have been no results reported.
6. Add a clear statement that Pfizer vaccine efficacy wanes after 2 months following dose 2 according to the Pfizer phase III randomized trial.
7. The following adverse event types should be added to the Adverse Reactions section of labeling:
a. multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) in children;
b. pulmonary embolism;
c. sudden cardiac death;
d. neuropathic and autonomic disorders.
8. The following reproductive health and lactation related adverse event types should be added to the Adverse Reactions section of labeling:
a. decreased sperm concentration;
b. heavy menstrual bleeding;
c. detection of vaccine mRNA in breastmilk.
9. Add frequency data for clinical and subclinical myocarditis.
10. Labeling should present trial results on serious adverse events in tables with statistics, as is done for non-serious adverse events.

Petitioner also requests the FDA create a Medication Guide and communicate these labeling changes via a Dear Health Care Provider (DHCP) letter."

[Mind]

Alex Berenson shares data out of Australia showing the average age of death of COVID patients is 86 - for women it is 88. This is true for most countries  - the average age of death for COVID patients is over 80. 85 in Finland. 85 in Wales.

 

This has always been a disease mostly striking the oldest and most frail members of society.

 

It is very rare for younger healthy people to die of COVID. Many of those deaths were caused by people being sedated and put on ventilators in addition to being given Remdesivir.

 

In addition, COVID deaths were wildly over-counted in the U.S. Younger people who were murdered, committed suicide, experienced a fatal drug overdose, or were in car accidents were counted as COVID deaths. Many other people who had serious fatal disease issues (like cancer and heart disease) were also counted as COVID deaths.

[Mind]

The latest (pre-print) update indicates an IFR from COVID less than 0.1% (1 in 1,000) as a whole for people less than 70 years of age.

[Mind]

One aspect of the COVID panic that went under-reported is the effect on marginal populations.

 

Considering all of the fear-porn dished out by the US and UK governments/bureaucracies, one would have expected homeless populations would be decimated. They weren't. This study could go in the vaccine discussion, but it shows that homeless populations did not suffer greatly from COVID, in spite of the fact that they did not follow the pandemic policies.

 

I live in an area with a large Amish population. No masks, no isolation, no COVID injections, no lockdown. They are doing fine. They were not decimated by COVID as the US media and government projected would happen. Our health leadership was a total failure over the last 3 years.

[pamojja]

..it shows that homeless populations did not suffer greatly from COVID, in spite of the fact that they did not follow the pandemic policies.

 

As I - working in a homeless-shelter - was reporting all along:

 

We had N95 mask mandates in shops and public transport for 2 years. At our working-place in councelling settings or meetings, N95 mask had to be worne at all timee. None under the nose, since all with with the understanding of academically trained. Almost all of our coworkers of about 30 got covid at least twice. Almost all had sicknessleave after each vaccination.

 

Our clients, about 10 as much and apt to wear the mask unter the nose when forced to wear, none got covid. Nether did I and only 1 coworker not vaccinated.

 

Sure, only a n=330, but a pritty pitch black swan.

 

 

[albedo]

I understand twitter has reintegrated Geert (not yet, a bit expected, LinkedIn ...). Let's see if his recent book will be reviewed by peers, criticized, analyzed, endorsed, rejected... Unfortunately I expect nothing. I will try to read but it is low on my list. I post here in case you came across reviews and opinions by experts. I tried during pandemics to understand and see really a debate about his thesis w/o much success, my naivety ...!

https://www.voicefor...escape-pandemic

[albedo]

Completely new to me the potential role of metformin, known to this community, on reducing the risk of long covid, in this post by Eric Topol:

 

 Topol Metformin Long Covid.jpg   91.73KB   0 downloads

 

https://open.substac...tm_medium=email

Edited by albedo, 23 March 2023 - 04:38 PM.

[Mind]

Once again it is important to point out that the average age of death from COVID in almost every country in the world was 80 or older. ONS data shows that fully 20% of COVID deaths in the UK were in people over 90.

 

The government/media propaganda efforts to make it seem that every person was going to die from COVID was successful, but it was propaganda none-the-less.

 

It is interesting to look at raw death rates over time. In Sweden the COVID era was a minor event. Of course, raw data is not "nuanced". In today's world we have better nutrition and health care available than in prior decades.

Edited by Mind, 24 March 2023 - 06:13 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Once again it is important to point out that the average age of death from COVID in almost every country in the world was 80 or older. ONS data shows that fully 20% of COVID deaths in the UK were in people over 90.

 

 

To put that in perspective, in England (not the UK but the percentages will be similar) about 0.9% of the population is 90 or over.

 

https://www.statista...d-by-age-group/

 

https://www.ons.gov....timates/mid2021

 

So 1% of the population is generating 20% of the covid deaths. Which isn't terribly surprising. If you are 90 or over the average "time till death" has got to be quite short even if you don't get covid. Months? A year to two? You are after all several standard deviations beyond the mean.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 24 March 2023 - 03:16 PM.

[albedo]

A nasal spray protects against coronavirus infection – Effective also against recent immune-evasive variants

 

https://www.helsinki...vasive-variants

 

[albedo]

I understand twitter has reintegrated Geert (not yet, a bit expected, LinkedIn ...). Let's see if his recent book will be reviewed by peers, criticized, analyzed, endorsed, rejected... Unfortunately I expect nothing. I will try to read but it is low on my list. I post here in case you came across reviews and opinions by experts. I tried during pandemics to understand and see really a debate about his thesis w/o much success, my naivety ...!

https://www.voicefor...escape-pandemic

 

Not so recent but has the merit of at least containing a rare rebuttal of Geert's theory:

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC8982595/
 

[joesixpack]

HI all, browse this link to get an idea on the information we have been getting on this "pandemic".

 

https://pierrekory.s..._medium=reader2

[joesixpack]

Here is another link to more information.

 

https://amidwesternd...tm_medium=email

Make of it what you will, I have some issues.

[albedo]

Interesting study. Covid-19 has definitively changed in its extreme consequences and converged to Influenza. There are also lot of limitations in the study (as er authors, see paper). I would particularly add this study is on hospitalized patients:

 

"...However, the difference in mortality rates between COVID-19 and influenza appears to have decreased since early in the pandemic; death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study.^1,2 The decline in death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 may be due to changes in SARS-CoV-2 variants, increased immunity levels (from vaccination and prior infection), and improved clinical care.^{5 ..."}

 

Xie Y, Choi T, Al-Aly Z. Risk of death in patients hospitalized for covid-19 vs seasonal influenza in fall-winter 2022-2023. JAMA. Published online April 6, 2023.

https://jamanetwork....article/2803749
 

[Mind]

 

Interesting study. Covid-19 has definitively changed in its extreme consequences and converged to Influenza. There are also lot of limitations in the study (as er authors, see paper). I would particularly add this study is on hospitalized patients:

 

"...However, the difference in mortality rates between COVID-19 and influenza appears to have decreased since early in the pandemic; death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 were 17% to 21% in 2020 vs 6% in this study, while death rates for those hospitalized for influenza were 3.8% in 2020 vs 3.7% in this study.^1,2 The decline in death rates among people hospitalized for COVID-19 may be due to changes in SARS-CoV-2 variants, increased immunity levels (from vaccination and prior infection), and improved clinical care.^{5 ..."}

 

Xie Y, Choi T, Al-Aly Z. Risk of death in patients hospitalized for covid-19 vs seasonal influenza in fall-winter 2022-2023. JAMA. Published online April 6, 2023.

https://jamanetwork....article/2803749
 

 

 

Thanks for the paper. This type of conclusion needs to be heavily scrutinized for bad data.

 

Recall that COVID deaths were WILDLY overcounted in 2020-2021.

 

In addition, it is likely many deaths occurred due to improper hospital protocols. Ventilators killed a lot of people that would have survived with proper pneumonia treatment.

 

In addition, many COVID patients were given remdesivir which likely accounted for a a significant number of "COVID" deaths in the US/UK.

 

In addition, the flu likely was causing portion of the deaths - not COVID. Flu cases were likely being miscategorized as COVID.

[Mind]

Just a reminder that there were a lot of countries, besides Sweden and most of Africa, that rejected the fear/panic driven COVID pandemic policies pushed by incompetent/malevolent governments of the UK/US, and they ended up just fine. 

 

Remember how Belarus rejected the COVID panic. As as far as COVID mortality goes, they ended up better than most of the industrialized world.

 

Public "health" leaders in the US/UK assured us that any country that did not follow the extreme panic-driven policies to contain COVID were certainly going to crash and burn. It didn't happen. They were wrong. They continue to be wrong to this day.

[Mind]

The beginning of this thread was an inquiry about how bad SARS-CoV2 would be. A true pandemic? Overblown, like so many others?

 

The evidence would now suggest it was overblown. A lot of data and research has been posted in this discussion which points to COVID being similar to a bad flu season.

 

Essentially, it was a bad flu which was turned into something worse by incompetent bungling public "health" bureaucracies.

 

Not only were COVID deaths wildly overcounted, the "treatments" were deadly as well. Recent research indicates a large portion of deaths were not caused by a cytokine storm, but by secondary pneumonia infections caused by ventilators and non-standard (harmful) care. In addition, recall that many elderly COVID patients were routinely put on (toxic) Remdesivir and sedatives - which likely caused more deaths than otherwise would have occurred.

[Mind]

Early in the COVID panic (in this discussion), I documented how the only people who were dying in the US were very old and had multiple co-morbidities. I followed as long as I could, the first few hundred deaths. This never changed. In fact, in Israel, not a single healthy person under 50 has died of COVID.

 

The number of cases and deaths is also highly suspect due to the high false positivity rate of the PCR test.

[albedo]

Several here followed the IFR during the pandemics.

After 3 years Matt Healy (Computational Biologist at Enveda Biosciences) made on LinkedIn this estimation:

"My attempt to estimate how the Infection Fatality Rate for SARS-COV2 has changed throughout this pandemic. Image gives URL and two QR Codes for a document where you can find full details on how I calculated this curve and lots of other data."

 Screenshot 2023-07-20 225744.jpg   153.95KB   0 downloads

 

https://www.linkedin...=member_android

 

[Hip]

Early in the COVID panic (in this discussion), I documented how the only people who were dying in the US were very old and had multiple co-morbidities. I followed as long as I could, the first few hundred deaths. This never changed. In fact, in Israel, not a single healthy person under 50 has died of COVID.

 

But the 65 million people globally who have had their lives destroyed by developing the incredibly debilitating illness long COVID include lots of young and (previously) healthy people, including children, teenagers, young adults in their 20s.

 

Long COVID strikes the young as well as adults, and strikes people who are brimming with health.  

 

In fact, those aged 35 to 49 are twice as likely to develop long COVID compared to those over 70.

 

See the long COVID age distribution. 

Edited by Hip, 22 July 2023 - 01:33 AM.

[Hip]

Not only were COVID deaths wildly overcounted, the "treatments" were deadly as well. 

 

You keep posting this falsehood, but the excess death data shows that COVID deaths were substantially undercounted:

 

eCOVID-19 Deaths in the US Continue to Be Undercounted, Research Shows, Despite Claims of ‘Overcounts’