Doctors Speak: The Great Barrington Declaration

Posted on December 10, 2020 by marcia

A Sensible and Compassionate Anti-COVID Strategy

Jay Bhattacharya
Stanford University

Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, where he received both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in economics. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of the Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. A co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, his research has been published in economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals.

The following is adapted from a panel presentation on October 9, 2020, in Omaha, Nebraska, at a Hillsdale College Free Market Forum.

My goal today is, first, to present the facts about how deadly COVID-19 actually is; second, to present the facts about who is at risk from COVID; third, to present some facts about how deadly the widespread lockdowns have been; and fourth, to recommend a shift in public policy.

1. The COVID-19 Fatality Rate

In discussing the deadliness of COVID, we need to distinguish COVID cases from COVID infections. A lot of fear and confusion has resulted from failing to understand the difference.

We have heard much this year about the “case fatality rate” of COVID. In early March, the case fatality rate in the U.S. was roughly three percent—nearly three out of every hundred people who were identified as “cases” of COVID in early March died from it. Compare that to today, when the fatality rate of COVID is known to be less than one half of one percent.

In other words, when the World Health Organization said back in early March that three percent of people who get COVID die from it, they were wrong by at least one order of magnitude. The COVID fatality rate is much closer to 0.2 or 0.3 percent. The reason for the highly inaccurate early estimates is simple: in early March, we were not identifying most of the people who had been infected by COVID.

“Case fatality rate” is computed by dividing the number of deaths by the total number of confirmed cases. But to obtain an accurate COVID fatality rate, the number in the denominator should be the number of people who have been infected—the number of people who have actually had the disease—rather than the number of confirmed cases.

In March, only the small fraction of infected people who got sick and went to the hospital were identified as cases. But the majority of people who are infected by COVID have very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. These people weren’t identified in the early days, which resulted in a highly misleading fatality rate. And that is what drove public policy. Even worse, it continues to sow fear and panic, because the perception of too many people about COVID is frozen in the misleading data from March.

So how do we get an accurate fatality rate? To use a technical term, we test for seroprevalence—in other words, we test to find out how many people have evidence in their bloodstream of having had COVID.

This is easy with some viruses. Anyone who has had chickenpox, for instance, still has that virus living in them—it stays in the body forever. COVID, on the other hand, like other coronaviruses, doesn’t stay in the body. Someone who is infected with COVID and then clears it will be immune from it, but it won’t still be living in them.

What we need to test for, then, are antibodies or other evidence that someone has had COVID. And even antibodies fade over time, so testing for them still results in an underestimate of total infections.

Seroprevalence is what I worked on in the early days of the epidemic. In April, I ran a series of studies, using antibody tests, to see how many people in California’s Santa Clara County, where I live, had been infected. At the time, there were about 1,000 COVID cases that had been identified in the county, but our antibody tests found that 50,000 people had been infected—i.e., there were 50 times more infections than identified cases. This was enormously important, because it meant that the fatality rate was not three percent, but closer to 0.2 percent; not three in 100, but two in 1,000.

When it came out, this Santa Clara study was controversial. But science is like that, and the way science tests controversial studies is to see if they can be replicated. And indeed, there are now 82 similar seroprevalence studies from around the world, and the median result of these 82 studies is a fatality rate of about 0.2 percent—exactly what we found in Santa Clara County.

In some places, of course, the fatality rate was higher: in New York City it was more like 0.5 percent. In other places it was lower: the rate in Idaho was 0.13 percent. What this variation shows is that the fatality rate is not simply a function of how deadly a virus is. It is also a function of who gets infected and of the quality of the health care system. In the early days of the virus, our health care systems managed COVID poorly. Part of this was due to ignorance: we pursued very aggressive treatments, for instance, such as the use of ventilators, that in retrospect might have been counterproductive. And part of it was due to negligence: in some places, we needlessly allowed a lot of people in nursing homes to get infected.

But the bottom line is that the COVID fatality rate is in the neighborhood of 0.2 percent.

2. Who Is at Risk?

The single most important fact about the COVID pandemic—in terms of deciding how to respond to it on both an individual and a governmental basis—is that it is not equally dangerous for everybody. This became clear very early on, but for some reason our public health messaging failed to get this fact out to the public.

It still seems to be a common perception that COVID is equally dangerous to everybody, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a thousand-fold difference between the mortality rate in older people, 70 and up, and the mortality rate in children. In some sense, this is a great blessing. If it was a disease that killed children preferentially, I for one would react very differently. But the fact is that for young children, this disease is less dangerous than the seasonal flu. This year, in the United States, more children have died from the seasonal flu than from COVID by a factor of two or three.

Whereas COVID is not deadly for children, for older people it is much more deadly than the seasonal flu. If you look at studies worldwide, the COVID fatality rate for people 70 and up is about four percent—four in 100 among those 70 and older, as opposed to two in 1,000 in the overall population.

Again, this huge difference between the danger of COVID to the young and the danger of COVID to the old is the most important fact about the virus. Yet it has not been sufficiently emphasized in public health messaging or taken into account by most policymakers.

3. Deadliness of the Lockdowns

The widespread lockdowns that have been adopted in response to COVID are unprecedented—lockdowns have never before been tried as a method of disease control. Nor were these lockdowns part of the original plan. The initial rationale for lockdowns was that slowing the spread of the disease would prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. It became clear before long that this was not a worry: in the U.S. and in most of the world, hospitals were never at risk of being overwhelmed. Yet the lockdowns were kept in place, and this is turning out to have deadly effects.

Those who dare to talk about the tremendous economic harms that have followed from the lockdowns are accused of heartlessness. Economic considerations are nothing compared to saving lives, they are told. So I’m not going to talk about the economic effects—I’m going to talk about the deadly effects on health, beginning with the fact that the U.N. has estimated that 130 million additional people will starve this year as a result of the economic damage resulting from the lockdowns.

In the last 20 years we’ve lifted one billion people worldwide out of poverty. This year we are reversing that progress to the extent—it bears repeating—that an estimated 130 million more people will starve.

Another result of the lockdowns is that people stopped bringing their children in for immunizations against diseases like diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and polio, because they had been led to fear COVID more than they feared these more deadly diseases. This wasn’t only true in the U.S. Eighty million children worldwide are now at risk of these diseases. We had made substantial progress in slowing them down, but now they are going to come back.

Large numbers of Americans, even though they had cancer and needed chemotherapy, didn’t come in for treatment because they were more afraid of COVID than cancer. Others have skipped recommended cancer screenings. We’re going to see a rise in cancer and cancer death rates as a consequence. Indeed, this is already starting to show up in the data. We’re also going to see a higher number of deaths from diabetes due to people missing their diabetic monitoring.

Mental health problems are in a way the most shocking thing. In June of this year, a CDC survey found that one in four young adults between 18 and 24 had seriously considered suicide. Human beings are not, after all, designed to live alone. We’re meant to be in company with one another. It is unsurprising that the lockdowns have had the psychological effects that they’ve had, especially among young adults and children, who have been denied much-needed socialization.

In effect, what we’ve been doing is requiring young people to bear the burden of controlling a disease from which they face little to no risk. This is entirely backward from the right approach.

4. Where to Go from Here

Last week I met with two other epidemiologists—Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University and Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University—in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The three of us come from very different disciplinary backgrounds and from very different parts of the political spectrum. Yet we had arrived at the same view—the view that the widespread lockdown policy has been a devastating public health mistake. In response, we wrote and issued the Great Barrington Declaration, which can be viewed—along with explanatory videos, answers to frequently asked questions, a list of co-signers, etc.—online at www.gbdeclaration.org.

The Declaration reads:

As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health—leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all—including the vulnerable—falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity—i.e., the point at which the rate of new infections is stable—and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sports, and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

***

I should say something in conclusion about the idea of herd immunity, which some people mischaracterize as a strategy of letting people die. First, herd immunity is not a strategy—it is a biological fact that applies to most infectious diseases. Even when we come up with a vaccine, we will be relying on herd immunity as an end-point for this epidemic. The vaccine will help, but herd immunity is what will bring it to an end. And second, our strategy is not to let people die, but to protect the vulnerable. We know the people who are vulnerable, and we know the people who are not vulnerable. To continue to act as if we do not know these things makes no sense.

My final point is about science. When scientists have spoken up against the lockdown policy, there has been enormous pushback: “You’re endangering lives.” Science cannot operate in an environment like that. I don’t know all the answers to COVID; no one does. Science ought to be able to clarify the answers. But science can’t do its job in an environment where anyone who challenges the status quo gets shut down or cancelled.

To date, the Great Barrington Declaration has been signed by over 43,000 medical and public health scientists and medical practitioners. The Declaration thus does not represent a fringe view within the scientific community. This is a central part of the scientific debate, and it belongs in the debate. Members of the general public can also sign the Declaration.

Together, I think we can get on the other side of this pandemic. But we have to fight back. We’re at a place where our civilization is at risk, where the bonds that unite us are at risk of being torn. We shouldn’t be afraid. We should respond to the COVID virus rationally: protect the vulnerable, treat the people who get infected compassionately, develop a vaccine. And while doing these things we should bring back the civilization that we had so that the cure does not end up being worse than the disease.

from: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/

Lots of C130’s, B17’s Heading Towards Nellis – Hmmm

Posted on December 6, 2020 by marcia

New Numbers, Faulty Tests

Posted on December 6, 2020 by marcia

Tested ‘Positive’ For COVID-19? Be Sure To Ask This Question

However, what exactly is a positive PCR test result? What does it mean? As Dr. Tommy Megremis summarized recently:

If you are generally aware, the PCR test is used to amplify small amount of genetic material so as to recognize patterns of DNA by “cycling.” (Also, for RNA virus, the RNA is converted to DNA in order to be detected, it’s just the way the test works) This is how we have been able to recognize the genomes in Egyptian mummies and Wooly Mammoths. It works because if you amplify and cycle enough times to “grow” legitimate DNA fragments, you get something with with a fair amount of specificity. What is becoming more and more apparent is that the PCR test was not designed as a diagnostic tool for infection, and really cannot function as one without having a huge amount of false positives, period.

When it comes to COVID, the presence of viral particles picked up by the PCR technique does not and has not been quantitatively linked to an active “symptomatic” infection. It simply cannot be so, because infection threshold as a result of viral load is different for each patient. It turns out, if you “cycle” over around 25 times, the false positivity of COVID infection starts getting very high.

I and others have explained in blogs how people can be exposed to virus, and mount a simple innate immune response and never know any differently. When you test these people with very low viral loads, who are not sick, you can find the viral RNA code that is used to “diagnose” if you cycle enough times. The last I read, Labcorp cycles at least 40 times to detect viral genome fragments. The PCR test was never intended for diagnosis of infection but as a qualitative test for presence of parts of a virus genome. I know there has been some confusion circulating the net about what the inventor Kary Mullis had said about that. But we walk daily with people who have any number of parts of killer virus or bacterial genomes which one could pick up with a PCR test if one had the specific test for it. Would we claim that that individual was an infected patient? No!

So given all that, PeakProsperity’s Chris Martenson explains below, in great details, the answer to the most important question you should ask if you or a loved one gets a positive PCR test result.

“What’s the Cycle Threshold (CT) value for that test?”

Sounds wonky but it’s actually really important to understand. A low CT value means someone is loaded with virus. A high value, oppositely, means less of a viral load.

Beyond a certain level the load is insufficient to either infect someone else or be of any clinical or epidemiological relevance whatsoever.

The problem? Governments all over the country and world are basing their decisions on CT values that are very high. Too high.

* * *

Links:

WHO PCR 47 (!) Cycles

https://www.who.int/diagnostics_laboratory/eul_0489_185_00_path_covid19_ce_ivd_ifu_issue_2.0.pdf?ua=1

CT over 35 is non-infectious

https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/home/topics/covid19/ct-value-may-inform-when-patients-with-covid-19-can-be-safely-discharged/

Cycle Thresholds Too Damn High

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Corman Drosten retraction request

https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/

Bad Testing Video Sept 1

https://youtu.be/ZFNdsRHKUM4

UK PCR positive standards

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/guidance-and-sop-covid-19-virus-testing-in-nhs-laboratories-v1.pdf

Kansas CT cutoff of 42

https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1505/SARS-CoV-2-COVID-19-PCR-Ct-Cutoff-Values-PDF—10-5-20

from: https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/tested-positive-covid-19-be-sure-ask-question?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

The Experiment Begins, And The Lab Rats Are…

Posted on December 1, 2020 by marcia

Giorgio Agamben

June 2, 2020

What is most striking about the exceptional measures that have been set in motion in our country (and in many others too) is the inability to see them outside of the immediate context they apparently function in. Hardly anyone seems to have attempted—as any serious political analysis would require—to interpret these measures as symptoms and signs of a broader experiment, in which a new paradigm of governance over people and things is at play.

Already in a book published seven years ago (Tempêtes microbiennes, Gallimard 2013)—one that now merits an attentive rereading—Patrick Zylberman described a process by which medical security, previously relegated to the margins of political calculations, was becoming an essential element of national and international political strategies. This involved nothing less than the creation of a sort of “medical terror,” as an instrument of governance to deal with a “worst case scenario.” Even back in 2005, in line with this kind of “worst case” logic, the World Health Organization warned that “avian influenza would kill 2 to 150 million people,” pushing for political responses that nations were not yet prepared to accept at that time.

Zylberman described the political recommendations as having three basic characteristics: 1) measures were formulated based on possible risk in a hypothetical scenario, with data presented to promote behavior permitting management of an extreme situation; 2) “worst case” logic was adopted as a key element of political rationality; 3) a systematic organization of the entire body of citizens was required to reinforce adhesion to the institutions of government as much as possible. The intended result was a sort of super civic spirit, with imposed obligations presented as demonstrations of altruism. Under such control, citizens no longer have a right to health safety; instead, health is imposed on them as a legal obligation (biosecurity).

That which Zylberman described in 2013 has today come to pass quite exactly. It is evident that over and above any emergency connected with a certain virus that could in future make way for another, the design of a new paradigm of government is discernible; one far more effective than any other form of government that the political history of the west has known before.

Due to the progressive decline of ideologies and political convictions, the pretext of security had already succeeded in getting citizens to accept restrictions to their freedom that previously they were unwilling to embrace. Now, biosecurity has taken things further still, managing to portray the total cessation of every form of political activity and social relationship as the ultimate act of civic participation. We have witnessed the paradox of left-wing organizations, traditionally known for demanding and asserting rights and denouncing constitutional violations, unreservedly accepting restrictions to freedom decided by ministerial decrees, devoid of any legality. Even the pre-war fascist government would not have dreamed of imposing such restrictions.

It also seems obvious that so-called “social distancing” will remain a model for the politics that governments have in store for us, as they constantly remind us. It also seems clear (from the pronouncements of the spokespersons of “task forces” consisting of people with flagrant conflicts of interest with their purported roles) that wherever possible this distancing will be leveraged to replace direct human interactions—now so suspect due to the risk of contagion (political contagion, that is)—with digital technologies. As the Ministry of Education, University and Research has already recommended, university classes will be conducted online permanently from next year. Students will not recognize their peers by looking at their faces, which may well be covered by a sanitary mask. Identification will rely instead on digital technologies that process mandatorily relinquished biometric data. Furthermore, every kind of assembly, whether for political motives or simply for friendship, will continue to be prohibited.

The entire concept of human destiny is at stake and we face a future that is tinged with a sense of apocalypse, of the end of the world—an idea adopted from our old religions, now nearing their twilight. Just as politics was superseded by the economy, now the economy too will have to be integrated into the paradigm of biosecurity, for the purpose of enabling government. All other needs must be sacrificed. At this point it is legitimate to ask ourselves whether such a society can still be defined as human, or whether the loss of physical contact, of facial expressions, of friendships, of love can ever be worth an abstract and presumably spurious medical security.

from: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/06/02/biosecurity-and-politics/

So, Are You One of The Cult, The Covidian Cult?

Posted on November 29, 2020 by marcia

The Covidian Cult

One of the hallmarks of totalitarianism is mass conformity to a psychotic official narrative. Not a regular official narrative, like the “Cold War” or the “War on Terror” narratives. A totally delusional official narrative that has little or no connection to reality and that is contradicted by a preponderance of facts.

Nazism and Stalinism are the classic examples, but the phenomenon is better observed in cults and other sub-cultural societal groups. Numerous examples will spring to mind: the Manson family, Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, the Church of Scientology, Heavens Gate, etc., each with its own psychotic official narrative: Helter Skelter, Christian Communism, Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy, and so on.

Looking in from the dominant culture (or back through time in the case of the Nazis), the delusional nature of these official narratives is glaringly obvious to most rational people. What many people fail to understand is that to those who fall prey to them (whether individual cult members or entire totalitarian societies) such narratives do not register as psychotic. On the contrary, they feel entirely normal. Everything in their social “reality” reifies and reaffirms the narrative, and anything that challenges or contradicts it is perceived as an existential threat.

These narratives are invariably paranoid, portraying the cult as threatened or persecuted by an evil enemy or antagonistic force which only unquestioning conformity to the cult’s ideology can save its members from. It makes little difference whether this antagonist is mainstream culture, body thetans, counter-revolutionaries, Jews, or a virus. The point is not the identity of the enemy. The point is the atmosphere of paranoia and hysteria the official narrative generates, which keeps the cult members (or the society) compliant.

In addition to being paranoid, these narratives are often internally inconsistent, illogical, and … well, just completely ridiculous. This does not weaken them, as one might suspect. Actually, it increases their power, as it forces their adherents to attempt to reconcile their inconsistency and irrationality, and in many cases utter absurdity, in order to remain in good standing with the cult. Such reconciliation is of course impossible, and causes the cult members’ minds to short circuit and abandon any semblance of critical thinking, which is precisely what the cult leader wants.

Moreover, cult leaders will often radically change these narratives for no apparent reason, forcing their cult members to abruptly forswear (and often even denounce as “heresy”) the beliefs they had previously been forced to profess, and behave as if they had never believed them, which causes their minds to further short circuit, until they eventually give up even trying to think rationally, and just mindlessly parrot whatever nonsensical gibberish the cult leader fills their heads with.

Also, the cult leader’s nonsensical gibberish is not as nonsensical as it may seem at first. Most of us, upon encountering such gibberish, assume that the cult leader is trying to communicate, and that something is very wrong with his brain. The cult leader isn’t trying to communicate. He is trying to disorient and control the listener’s mind. Listen to Charlie Manson “rapping.” Not just to what he says, but how he says it. Note how he sprinkles bits of truth into his stream of free-associated nonsense, and his repetitive use of thought-terminating clichés, described by Robert J. Lifton as follows:

“The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.” — Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: : A Study of “Brainwashing” in China, 1961

If all this sounds familiar, good. Because the same techniques that most cult leaders use to control the minds of the members of their cults are used by totalitarian systems to control the minds of entire societies: Milieu Control, Loaded Language, Sacred Science, Demand for Purity, and other standard mind-control techniques. It can happen to pretty much any society, just as anyone can fall prey to a cult, given the right set of circumstances.

It is happening to most of our societies right now. An official narrative is being implemented. A totalitarian official narrative. A totally psychotic official narrative, no less delusional than that of the Nazis, or the Manson family, or any other cult.

Most people cannot see that it is happening, for the simple reason that it is happening to them. They are literally unable to recognize it. The human mind is extremely resilient and inventive when it is pushed past its limits. Ask anyone who has struggled with psychosis or has taken too much LSD. We do not recognize when we are going insane. When reality falls apart completely, the mind will create a delusional narrative, which appears just as “real” as our normal reality, because even a delusion is better than the stark raving terror of utter chaos.

This is what totalitarians and cult leaders count on, and exploit to implant their narratives in our minds, and why actual initiation rituals (as opposed to purely symbolic rituals) begin by attacking the subject’s mind with terror, pain, physical exhaustion, psychedelic drugs, or some other means of obliterating the subject’s perception of reality. Once that is achieved, and the subject’s mind starts desperately trying to construct a new narrative to make sense out of the cognitive chaos and psychological trauma it is undergoing, it is relatively easy to “guide” that process and implant whatever narrative you want, assuming you have done your homework.

And this is why so many people — people who are able to easily recognize totalitarianism in cults and foreign countries — cannot perceive the totalitarianism that is taking shape now, right in front of their faces (or, rather, right inside their minds). Nor can they perceive the delusional nature of the official “Covid-19” narrative, no more than those in Nazi Germany were able to perceive how completely delusional their official “master race” narrative was. Such people are neither ignorant nor stupid. They have been successfully initiated into a cult, which is essentially what totalitarianism is, albeit on a societal scale.

Their initiation into the Covidian Cult began in January, when the medical authorities and corporate media turned on The Fear with projections of hundreds of millions of deaths and fake photos of people dropping dead in the streets. The psychological conditioning has continued for months. The global masses have been subjected to a constant stream of propaganda, manufactured hysteria, wild speculation, conflicting directives, exaggerations, lies, and tawdry theatrical effects. Lockdowns. Emergency field hospitals and morgues. The singing-dancing NHS staff. Death trucks. Overflowing ICUs. Dead Covid babies. Manipulated statistics. Goon squads. Masks. And all the rest of it.

Eight months later, here we are. The Head of the Health Emergencies Program at the WHO has basically confirmed an IFR of 0.14%, approximately the same as the seasonal flu. And here are the latest survival rate estimates from the Center for Disease Control:

Age 0-19 … 99.997%
Age 20-49 … 99.98%
Age 50-69 … 99.5%
Age 70+ … 94.6%

The “science” argument is officially over. An increasing number of doctors and medical experts are breaking ranks and explaining how the current mass hysteria over “cases” (which now includes perfectly healthy people) is essentially meaningless propaganda, for example, in this segment on ARD, one of the big mainstream German TV channels.

And then there is the existence of Sweden, and other countries which are not playing ball with the official Covid-19 narrative, which makes a mockery of the ongoing hysteria.

I’m not going to go on debunking the narrative. The point is, the facts are all available. Not from “conspiracy theorist” websites. From mainstream outlets and medical experts. From the Center for Fucking Disease Control.

Which does not matter in the least, not to the members of the Covidian Cult. Facts do not matter to totalitarians and cult members. What matters is loyalty to the cult or the party.

Which means we have a serious problem, those of us to whom facts still matter, and who have been trying to use them to convince the Covidian cultists that they are wrong about the virus … for going on eight months at this point.

While it is crucial to continue reporting the facts and sharing them with as many people as possible — which is becoming increasingly difficult due to the censorship of alternative and social media — it is important to accept what we are up against. What we are up against is not a misunderstanding or a rational argument over scientific facts. It is a fanatical ideological movement. A global totalitarian movement … the first of its kind in human history.

It isn’t national totalitarianism, because we’re living in a global capitalist empire, which isn’t ruled by nation-states, but rather, by supranational entities and the global capitalist system itself. And thus, the cult/culture paradigm has been inverted. Instead of the cult existing as an island within the dominant culture, the cult has become the dominant culture, and those of us who have not joined the cult have become the isolated islands within it.

I wish I could be more optimistic, and maybe offer some sort of plan of action, but the only historical parallel I can think of is how Christianity “converted” the pagan world … which doesn’t really bode so well for us. While you’re sitting at home during the “second wave” lockdowns, you might want to brush up on that history.

CJ Hopkins
October 13, 2020
Photo (original): Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, or Volume I and II of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

from: https://consentfactory.org/2020/10/13/the-covidian-cult/

MAC’S is Doing for the People

Posted on November 29, 2020 by marcia

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

By Tyler Durden

In what is a hilarious bit of irony for Democrat politicians in New York, a pub that had its liquor license yanked due to Covid rules has now declared itself an “Autonomous Zone” and is continuing to do business.

The bar, called Mac’s Public House in Staten Island, said publicly:

We refuse to abide by any rules and regulations put forth by the Mayor of NYC and Governor of NY State.

They also painted “AUTONOMOUS ZONE” on the sidewalk outside the bar and put signs in the windows claiming, “As of November 20, 2020, we hereby declare this establishment an AUTONOMOUS ZONE”.

The pub had its liquor license revoked by the state and was slapped with thousands of dollars in fines after defying New York’s latest move to “orange zone status” (whatever that means) thanks to the very huge brain of “Emmy nominated” Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Co-owner Danny Presti told The Post:

At this point, we’re OK with it, because we’re not paying it. [The Sheriff’s Department] is issuing us $1,000 fines, so they keep coming back. We’re still here. We’re not letting them in.

Co-owner Keith McAlarney said in a recent YouTube video:

We’re not backing down. You think you scared me by . . . saying I don’t have a license now to serve liquor now? Well guess what? That liquor license is on the wall. If that liquor license is gonna come off the wall, it’s gonna be done by Cuomo. You wanna come down here and pull that license off the wall?

He continued:

De Bozo – you want to come down here and pull the license off the wall? Feel free to end up comin’ down, and we’ll end up having a conversation before you even think about stepping foot on my property. I will not back down.

On Saturday, the bar was operating without a license, offering booze for free to a small group of customers. The move is try and exploit a loophole in Cuomo’s bill by not actually charging customers.

One customer said: “He’s alright, he’s doing the right thing.”

Another customer – who didn’t pay for his drink and left a $100 tip on a glass of water – said: “I totally support what he is doing. I don’t support the tyrannical nonsense they have in place.”

Here is a video update on the bar from the weekend:

Source: Zero Hedge

from: https://www.activistpost.com/2020/11/nyc-pub-declares-itself-autonomous-zone-after-government-tries-to-shut-it-down.html

Time To Know the Facts and Act

Posted on November 19, 2020 by marcia

Fauci Wants You Scared, Anxious, and Compliant– It’s Scientific!

By Ginger Ross Breggin and Peter R. Breggin M.D.
November 06, 2020

For more than 70 years a branch of public health science has been studying fear. But not to help humans cope. Seventy years of study have gone into how to scare people into compliance or submission in obeying public health officials and politicians. As it turns out, fear is a powerful motivator and can drive humans to be more easily manipulated into doing things they would ordinarily resist doing.

Few citizens realize that the government and public health scientists have put time, money and much effort into studying how to scare people into doing what the experts want us to do. The study of fear as a tool to manipulate individuals or populations is called “Fear Appeal.” It is a robust field of study within psychology and public health and has been widely used to intimidate us since the beginning of the pandemic.

Remember when a large group of public health experts, surrounding the President of the United States, announced that there was a new deadly disease loose in the US threatening us with the loss of 2.2 million lives if we did not take drastic measures. I remember the stone in the pit of my stomach, the abject fear that figure and that threat stirred. Two weeks to bend the curve morphed into six weeks, and six weeks has extended seemingly forever.

Now increasing numbers of people are feeling angry at being frightened by the pandemic and COVID-19. We have become aware of the constant release of new bits of bad news or predictions about the disease, and many of us have begun to push back against what some have labeled “panic porn.”[i] [ii] Other citizens, especially those with emotional vulnerabilities or who live in lockdown isolation, have suffered from months of the fear-inducing messages leading to depression, anxiety, panic attacks and hopelessness.

No one has been talking openly about this “scientific” form of scare tactics called “fear appeal.” Who knew that scaring us is actually science! Now we see this science being applied daily, especially by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the media face of the science that is used to justify the harshest shutdown measures.

A recent attempt by Dr. Fauci at fear-based influence occurred when he urged Americans to cancel their family Thanksgiving gatherings. [iii][iv] He said “When you have people coming from out of town, gathering together in an indoor setting … it is unfortunate because that’s such a sacred part of American tradition, the family gathering around Thanksgiving, but that is a risk.”

More recently Fauci and the Washington Post used “fear appeal” to sway the election by making dire warnings about a Trump victory. With the presidential election day only 48 hours away on November 2, 2020, Fauci’s warnings about COVID-19 and President Trump’s handling of it became increasingly dire. The Washington Post offered this threatening headline:[v] ‘“A whole lot of hurt”: Fauci warns of covid-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response.’

The article went on to repeat and explain the ominous headline:

“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

More than 70 years of scientific research has gone into this field of fear appeal. [vi] As review authors Witte and Allen explain:

… evaluation of a fear appeal initiates two appraisals of the message, which result in one of three outcomes. First, individuals appraise the threat of an issue from a message. The more individuals believe they are susceptible to a serious threat, the more motivated they are to begin the second appraisal, which is an evaluation of the efficacy of the recommended response. If the threat is perceived as irrelevant or insignificant (i.e., low perceived threat), then there is no motivation to process the message further, and people simply ignore the fear appeal. In contrast, when a threat is portrayed as and believed to be serious and relevant (e.g., “I’m susceptible to contracting a terrible disease”), individuals become scared. Their fear motivates them to take some sort of action—any action—that will reduce their fear. Perceived efficacy (composed of self-efficacy and response efficacy) determines whether people will become motivated to control the danger of the threat or control their fear about the threat. When people believe they are able to perform an effective recommended response against the threat (i.e., high perceived self-efficacy and response efficacy), they are motivated to control the danger and consciously think about ways to remove or lessen the threat. Typically, they think carefully about the recommended responses advocated in the persuasive message and adopt those as a means to control the danger. Alternatively, when people doubt whether the recommended response works (i.e., low perceived response efficacy) and/or whether they are able to do the recommended response (i.e., low perceived self-efficacy), they are motivated to control their fear (because they believe it’s futile to control the danger) and focus on eliminating their fear through denial (e.g., “I’m not at risk for getting skin cancer, it won’t happen to me”), defensive avoidance (e.g., “This is just too scary, I’m simply not going to think about it”), or reactance (e.g., “They’re just trying to manipulate me, I’m going to ignore them”).

In other words, there have now been 70 years worth of study and analysis about

How to frighten us into compliance by making us feel it personally as a risk to ourselves and loved ones
How to suggest actions we can take to alleviate the fear
How to tweak both the inducements of fear and the actions recommended to maximize the response to fear in favor of public health authoritarianism.

Feeling like a little white lab rat yet? There’s more.

In the new millennium fear appeal evolved from a primary focus on behavior relating to communicable diseases, to addressing chronic conditions that are often blamed on lifestyle choices.[vii] Who can forget those abhorrent stop smoking advertisements on television that featured very sick, very elderly people who were dying of cancers or other diseases caused by decades of smoking. The ads featured fear prominently and promised you could avoid that fate of illness, disfigurement, and death if you stopped smoking.

Using fear appeal is fraught with ethical issues and controversy. There are those professionals who feel that the attack on the mental well-being of those receiving the fear message is not justified by any positive outcome or change in behavior. And then, there are those scientists who feel that the ends justify the means, especially if society as a whole is better off because the fear campaign results in changes in behavior that lessen the threat. For example, the fearmonger scientists believe if we are told that millions could die in this pandemic in the U.S., but if we wash our hands for at least 20 seconds every chance we get we can lessen deaths, then it will be worth it if the death rate goes down.

The scientists and public health experts who use fear appeal are proving to be the same individuals who favor a top-down tightly controlled, authoritarian approach to managing a population. No encouragement of can-do Americanism. No appeal to our goodness. No inspiration to face the future with optimism and bravery. These doctors just want to terrify us.

Public health officials love fear-based messages as evidenced by the extensive use of fear in the current pandemic. From the first days where we were told over 2.2 million people would die in the U.S. and hospitals would be overrun and would collapse.[viii] We were told we needed to stay home for 2 weeks to protect hospitals from being overwhelmed and after the two weeks another month was added to the “stay home” period. After that, governors began locking down and issuing emergency orders in some states to “prevent spikes.”

Early on, those spike statistics were numbers of hospitalizations, and numbers of deaths. Then there was a little-discussed shift away from counting hospitalizations and deaths. Now the CDC counts the number of “cases” of COVID-19 meaning anyone who has tested positive even though only a tiny percentage of those testing positive will actually become seriously ill.

There is great news out there amid the tragedy: Numbers of deaths from COVID-19 have plummeted, even as numbers of cases have risen according to official statistics. That means increasing numbers of Americans are surviving the disease. Meanwhile we keep being told to be frightened and go into another shutdown because of the rise in “cases” that aren’t even sick.

Part of leadership is to help the involved members of the affected group stay strong and determined even in the face of dreadful fear and loss. Captains of ships, heads of state, and corporate leaders understand this. Consider when President Trump tries to help us feel reassured. The science experts who are fear mongers ridicule the President and dismiss him as dishonest when he is trying to offer hope and optimism in the face of this tragedy. He is like the captain of a ship in a squall, reassuring passengers that the storm will soon be over, even as the waves are breaking across the deck and tossing the ship about on the high seas.

Use of fear appeal by our government officials and pandemic experts has become rampant. Many of us sense we are being actively manipulated. During this present pandemic we have been left with having to figure out what information we are being given to scare us into conformity and what information we have been given simply because it is scary but true.

Dr. Fauci has become suspect in his pronouncements for several reasons:

First, Fauci has specific drugs that he favors for his croney corporations. He has been in his position as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director for the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for 38 years. He has influenced the distribution of billions of dollars for specific treatments, especially Remdesivir,[ix] as well as for the development of vaccines to protect against COVID-19. Remdesivir was a bust and Fauci has already discouraged expectations for the vaccines.

Second, Fauci has shown his political hand in his latest paper, “Emerging Pandemic diseases: How We Got to COVID-19” in which he promotes his radical progressive vision by calling for a world where there is no human crowding and where we humans change our habits and thousands of years of social evolution.

Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues. In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases. Chief among them are reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places as well as minimizing environmental perturbations such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming. Equally important are ending global poverty, improving sanitation and hygiene, and reducing unsafe exposure to animals, so that humans and potential human pathogens have limited opportunities for contact.[x]

Another blog would be required to thoroughly examine the far-reaching consequences of so many changes in human nature and nurture.

Adults spend every day of their lives constantly factoring risks versus benefits in the decisions we make. Should we drive the mile to the store or walk? Should we eat that burger or have some dinner that is less high-fat? And we spend a great deal of time teaching our children how to evaluate risk and reward.

But the facts of the pandemic have continued to be muddied and manipulated so badly that the truth cannot be teased out. We are all being manipulated with misinformation.

My mother is a plucky, healthy and intelligent woman of 94 years of age who lives with us. She watches the news and keeps up with the current events. But when I asked, based on her impressions from watching the news, what she thought her chances were of dying were if she caught COVID-19, she believed she had a 75% chance of dying if she caught COVID-19.

In fact, at worst my mother’s actual chance of dying from COVID-19 is somewhere between 5.6% [xi]and 10%[xii] for anyone over 80 years old. Bear in mind that the statistics for all persons over 80 years old, include patients dying of a terminal illness, in full time nursing home care with chronic incapacitating illnesses such as congestive heart failure or COPD, or otherwise impaired and incapacitated. My mother’s chances of survival are much better.

We should be suspicious of anyone–expert, scientist, doctor or government official–who is trying to frighten us into doing anything more that hurts us, our culture and society, our religious practices, our education and the education of our children, and our friends, neighbors and citizens in our states and in our nation.

We are Americans. No task is too big or too overwhelming. It is time to heal ourselves, heal our communities and states and heal America.

There is a great deal of room for optimism.

Let’s make America well again!

from: https://breggin.com/fauci-wants-you-scared-anxious-and-compliant-its-scientific/

The People are Speaking

Posted on November 19, 2020 by marcia

Anti-Lockdown Protests All Across Europe.

policeIncreasingly draconian lockdown measures, economic destitution, and sweeping police powers are evaporating public trust and eroding public patience.

As the alleged “second wave” of the Coronavirus “pandemic” is reported to be sweeping across Europe in recent weeks, many governments have enthusiastically embraced their totalitarian side and granted themselves sweeping new “emergency powers” alongside new lockdown measures.

The public has been markedly less co-operative this time around. Rebelling against the seemingly arbitrary limitations which are not supported by either science or common sense. Protests have taken place all across the continent.

GERMANY

Thousands of people gathered in Berlin over the last few days, protesting the Merkel government passing a new lockdown law. Police turned water cannons on the crowds, and nearly 200 people were arrested.

The mainstream reported “hundreds” of protesters, but as pictures plainly show it was more like tens of thousands:

SPAIN

After the Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez declared a sixth-month state of emergency in late October, there were days of protests across the country.

Barcelona, already a hot-bed of anti-government feeling due to the brutal repression of the Catalan Independence referendum, saw violent confrontations between riot police and protestors

FRANCE

Emmanuel Macron’s brand new “comprehensive security law”, known by protesters as the “gag law”, would further militarise French police whilst making it a crime to capture or distribute the image of police officer. It has met fervent resistance in the shape of angry marches through cities across the country.

Macron’s government has a history of attacking civil liberties, and in response to his “reforms” the country has seen large-scale protests by the Gilets Jaunes for over a year.

ITALY

The anti-lockdown protests in Italy reached a fever pitch in late October, and were probably the most extensive on the continent. Marches occurred in dozens of cities across the country, including Rome, Naples, Genoa and Bologna.

The mainstream media went out fo their way to undercut and smear the protests. CNN and Reuters reported only “hundreds” of protesters. Does this photo have “hundreds” of people in it?

Politico went so far as to actually blame the protests on the Mafia.

SLOVAKIA

Bratislava was home to a huge march of protesters on November 17th, marking the national holiday known as Fight for Freedom Day. These marches were illegal under the Slovakian emergency law, notionally designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

DENMARK

The Danish parliament was subject to 9 days of protests right outside its doors, in opposition to the proposed “vaccination law”, which would allow the police to “physically coerce vaccination through detainment”.

After nine days of protests, it was reported on social media that the Danish gov’t had dropped the law. However, I could find no official confirmation of that, or reports in the media.

In fact, the media have barely covered the proposed law, and literally not mentioned the protests in Copenhagen at all. A search for “Covid protests Denmark” on google, turns up almost no results relating to that topic.

The reason to cover the Danish protest less than the others is that they apparently worked. and the last thing the establishment wants people to see is that civil disobedience can change anything.

It’s good to see the general public’s fraying sense of patience with a Covid narrative that has never made any sense, and a “pandemic response” which is likely to do far more damage than it ever could prevent.

Though civil unrest is undeniably a good and powerful thing, this is also a time to be wary. If the establishment feel they are losing control of the situation or the narrative, they are likely to double down or try something desperate.

from: https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/19/anti-lockdown-protests-all-across-europe/

Let’s See A Movie…

Posted on November 18, 2020 by marcia

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/charlottefilmsoc/480074262

Check Out This Trailer: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/charlottefilmsoc/480074262

From the Charlotte Film Society, a documentary called “Coded Bias”.

Pretty scary…