Debt Rattle August 15 2021
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Henri Matisse Luxury, calm and pleasure 1904 • Taliban Launches Offensive On Kabul (Sp.) • Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals (Crawford) • Co
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 15 2021]Children born and raised under pandemic restrictions have “significantly reduced verbal, motor, and cognitive skills”.
Poor children worst-hit.
Five-alarm fire, here, folks.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261846v1
I’m quite sure that brain cells on the left hemisphere believe in earnest they are on the right side of history…
(… it’s called brainy humour.)Have a good one.
I read the Denninger piece yesterday, and I was left with the impression that he was jumping to conclusions too soon, but the research that the Delta Variant is more conducive to ADE than the original Wuhan strain was certainly an interesting revelation that could conceivably support his conclusions. But for now, I am predisposed to think that the very earliest we would start seeing a signal indicating Covid-vaccine-induced ADE is October.
Honour roll of trusted bodies. Note that Reuters chair sits on the board of Pfizer so no problems there. Also they are trying to use this page as a door to lead people on a safety and trust ride but the further down you scroll the more the news is presenting the lack of efficacy in transmission etc.
Clown world“Essentially it wipes out your immune system” (= Great Reset ?)
Dr. David Bauer
Francis Crick InstituteAlso that Guardian piece may have some substance in it going forward regarding the kids but the entire study was conducted in Rhode Island. So… I dunno, suss.
Health services are Rhode Island’s largest industry.
Which is to say, which particular group have been the most preoccupied this last 18 months?..there isn’t an aware person who wouldn’t call a halt at this point.
The primary problem, which has grown to an apex of crisis, is a dis-ease of Perception.
The #AntiSpirit sleepwalking hoardes, trapped in self-centered trances, are declaring war on those that seek ANY path that diverges from the #AntiSpirit mass psychosis. Led by their scofflaw masters they spread lies, half-truths & FEAR as offensive weapons…
These are the times that try men’s souls; Most of us on TAE understand what THEY are trying to do, THEIR final solution ~ Whether or not THEY have the numbers enmasse remains to be seen, but remember it is quite easy to become disturbed, whereas many will be tempted to acquiesce to the ongoing reign of terror (as many have already done), but the solution is to chose LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
It will become more difficult, unpopular, & perhaps even dangerous to stand apart from the mania, but don’t surrender your soul ~ Stay spiritually centered, calm & help others along the way.
Here’s a spiritual teaching that may help some, along this journey…
Anthony De Mello : Wake up to life (How to pray, how to love, how to be real):
[audio src="https://archive.org/download/AnthonyDeMello_WakeUp/disk01.mp3" /]
Peace be with you…
Happy Nixon anniversary, America. How’s it feel at 50 years of addiction?
Out of focus nudes? That’s a tease.
My point yesterday was not that the Marine General thing was true or false, but these days, who would you trust to tell you? I heard RealClearNews said so, but I might misremember and wouldn’t take them as an authority. Remember DeSantis told Joe to ‘f– himself’ back when, which does appear to be true. They had the transcripts for Trump’s calls, and they still DIDN’T believe him. So who you you believe if as I say, the authorities aren’t worth it? Howard is a real, actual reporter who doesn’t fool with these things, however, this is a personal, comment, editorial piece, not a hard article. YMMV.
CV…I need more solid information. We’re running into a squishy mass of light research and allegation. Waiting on the states case/death rates, maybe, vs vaccination rates. Fertility rates should move slightly. I’ve done this before, and it was a long wait too, like months.
Deflationiasta: Yes, and JMG says, “The opposite of a bad idea is another bad idea.” The “Front line doctors”, that is, everyone, may be able to be hijacked by the bent research they’re handed by Pfizer and the CDC, but they’re not fools either, and they ARE trying to keep people alive. They see things. If true, the “bent” above them won’t be able to hold out terribly long. I propose this is why they’re in a rush, but remains to been proven.
We have a second problem: if we can’t trust anybody – as I seem to propose – society dissolves and we’re helpless in another way. I’m saying it’s “Devolving”, relocalizing, but that’s very disruptive. I would like to arrest, expose, and re-establish trust with leaders and experts, which is why I’m so hard on them, even to give the present structure time to transition, but that does not seem to be in the offing. It’s another way the attackers – whoever they may be – win, and we go back to living in caves. Let’s not do this.
Problem is, it takes honesty and duty, keeping your word, to NOT do this. Those are internal, essentially spiritual realities. No one presently has been trained for or values them, because not having those attributes is how we got here. And that’s how it takes pain, and a new generation, to get out.
Afghanistan. See? Small guns and willpower are no use at all. Clearly you need F-15s and nukes to beat the U.S. …Or use a blunt rock on unmotivated troops to steal that F-15 and beat the U.S. Australia may have to prove this in real time, but I hope not.
Vaccine, they’re getting more pushback than they expected or than they can take. Worse, the pushback is in the slow, terribly frustrating method of the courts, where there are too many, too recorded, and likely to lose, instead of the streets where they can fabricate trouble. If 1 in 100 people who don’t want it started a suit, even representing themselves, they’d bring the system to its knees in weeks.
That’s what protesting was SUPPOSED to be, and why it hasn’t worked since MLK stopped. You’re SUPPOSED to be arrested and jailed, because they quickly realize there are so, so many more of you than them, they have not a tiny chance of jailing or controlling you even if they started warehouse size detention centers right away. And also YOU realize jail is nothing when it’s nobody but your own friends there. So they back up. Because you are allowing them to preserve their illusion of control, but at a happier line. Today’s warriors whine if someone looks at them funny while beating cars in the street with a bat. Anyway, filing 100k court cases in the Military, then 1M in the civilian, would be a pretty good start. Somebody would get discovery and we could discuss this.
Denmark following Sweden and Iceland. I guess the U.S. doesn’t like the Scandinavian Health model anymore? They’re a bunch of primitives to be ignored now? Where’s Bernie?
“[UK] Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory”
That’s odd. The CDC Director just said since everyone is contagious, the passports are pointless. So CDC and American Health Care is now a bunch of superstitious fools to be ignored? I mean, yes, but are we admitting that? Official reality?
“The Teens Who’d Prefer to Catch Covid than Have the Vaccine (DM)“
Medicine has gotten so dumb, 16 year olds in their spare time are now smarter. That’s what I keep saying, if you let crimes and theft expand long enough, eventually they can’t be hidden, and they’ll come get you. If you’re committing crimes, keep it down, and try to maintain a sense of shame.
“Religious Holidays” are now signs of extremism and worthy of arrest? I mean that’s what they FEEL, but my guess is that billboard is still slightly mis-representing the DHS position.
True, and perhaps the two religions are now the religion of fear, and the religion of hope.
It’s a bit cute, but worth it to see a pathologist in lab coat and cowboy boots (well hey, he is in Texas) talk about what he’s seeing when doing autopsies of the vaccinated (17 minutes).
EYE ON THE NEWS
Do Masks Work?
A review of the evidence
Jeffrey H. Anderson
August 11, 2021
“Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS!” So tweeted then–surgeon general Jerome Adams on February 29, 2020, adding, “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.” Two days later, Adams said, “Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus.” Less than a week earlier, on February 25, public-health authorities in the United Kingdom had published guidance that masks were unnecessary even for those providing community or residential care: “During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff.” About a month later, on March 30, World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program executive director Mike Ryan said that “there is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.” He added, “In fact there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite” because of the possibility of not “wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly” and of “taking it off and all the other risks that are otherwise associated with that.”Surgical masks were designed to keep medical personnel from inadvertently infecting patients’ wounds, not to prevent the spread of viruses. Public-health officials’ advice in the early days of Covid-19 was consistent with that understanding. Then, on April 3, 2020, Adams announced that the CDC was changing its guidance and that the general public should hereafter wear masks whenever sufficient social distancing could not be maintained.
Fast-forward 15 months. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube for a week for saying, “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work.” Many cities across the country, following new CDC guidance handed down amid a spike in cases nationally caused by the Delta variant, are once again mandating indoor mask-wearing for everyone, regardless of inoculation status. The CDC further recommends that all schoolchildren and teachers, even those who have had Covid-19 or have been vaccinated, should wear masks.
The CDC asserts this even though its own statistics show that Covid-19 is not much of a threat to schoolchildren. Its numbers show that more people under the age of 18 died of influenza during the 2018–19 flu season—a season of “moderate severity” that lasted eight months—than have died of Covid-19 across more than 18 months. What’s more, the CDC says that out of every 1,738 Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, just one has involved someone under 18 years of age; and out of every 150 deaths of someone under 18 years of age, just one has been Covid-related. Yet the CDC declares that schoolchildren, who learn in part from communication conveyed through facial expressions, should nevertheless hide their faces—and so should their teachers.
How did mask guidance change so profoundly? Did the medical research on the effectiveness of masks change—and in a remarkably short period of time—or just the guidance on wearing them?
Since we are constantly told that the CDC and other public-health entities are basing their recommendations on science, it’s crucial to know what, specifically, has been found in various medical studies. Significant choices about how our republic should function cannot be made on the basis of science alone—they require judgment and the weighing of countless considerations—but they must be informed by knowledge of it.
In truth, the CDC’s, U.K.’s, and WHO’s earlier guidance was much more consistent with the best medical research on masks’ effectiveness in preventing the spread of viruses. That research suggests that Americans’ many months of mask-wearing has likely provided little to no health benefit and might even have been counterproductive in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
It’s striking how much the CDC, in marshalling evidence to justify its revised mask guidance, studiously avoids mentioning randomized controlled trials. RCTs are uniformly regarded as the gold standard in medical research, yet the CDC basically ignores them apart from disparaging certain ones that particularly contradict the agency’s position. In a “Science Brief” highlighting studies that “demonstrate that mask wearing reduces new infections” and serving as the main public justification for its mask guidance, the CDC provides a helpful matrix of 15 studies—none RCTs. The CDC instead focuses strictly on observational studies completed after Covid-19 began. In general, observational studies are not only of lower quality than RCTs but also are more likely to be politicized, as they can inject the researcher’s judgment more prominently into the inquiry and lend themselves, far more than RCTs, to finding what one wants to find.
A particular favorite of the CDC’s, so much so that the agency put out a glowing press release on it and continues to give it pride of placement in its brief, is an observational (specifically, cohort) study focused on two Covid-positive hairstylists at a beauty salon in Missouri. The two stylists, who were masked, provided services for 139 people, who were mostly masked, for several days after developing Covid-19 symptoms. The 67 customers who subsequently chose to get tested for the coronavirus tested negative, and none of the 72 others reported symptoms.
This study has major limitations. For starters, any number of the 72 untested customers could have had Covid-19 but been asymptomatic, or else had symptoms that they chose not to report to the Greene County Health Department, the entity doing the asking. The apparent lack of spread of Covid-19 could have been a result of good ventilation, good hand hygiene, minimal coughing by the stylists, or the fact that stylists generally, as the researchers note, “cut hair while clients are facing away from them.” The researchers also observe that “viral shedding” of the coronavirus “is at its highest during the 2 to 3 days before symptom onset.” Yet no customers who saw the stylists when they were at their most contagious were tested for Covid-19 or asked about symptoms. Most importantly, this study does not have a control group. Nobody has any idea how many people, if any, would have been infected had no masks been worn in the salon. Late last year, at a gym in Virginia in which people apparently did not wear masks most of the time, a trainer tested positive for the coronavirus. As CNN reported, the gym contacted everyone whom the trainer had coached before getting sick—50 members in all—“but not one member developed symptoms.” Clearly, this doesn’t prove that not wearing masks prevents transmission.
Another CDC-highlighted study, by Rader et al., invited people across the country to answer a survey. The low (11 percent) response rate—including about twice as many women as men—indicated that the mix of respondents was hardly random. The study found that “a high percentage of self-reported face mask-wearing is associated with a higher probability of transmission control,” and “the highest percentage of reported mask wearers” are found, unsurprisingly, “along the coasts and southern border, and in large urban areas.” However, as the researchers note, “It is difficult to disentangle individuals’ engagement in mask-wearing from their adoption of other preventive hygiene practices, and mask-wearing might serve as a proxy for other risk avoidance behaviors not queried.” Moreover, achieving greater “transmission control” is not remotely the same thing as ensuring fewer deaths. For example, per capita, Utah is in the top ten in the nation in Covid-19 cases and the bottom ten in Covid-19 deaths, while Massachusetts is in the bottom half in cases and the top five in deaths.
An additional observational study, but one that the CDC does not reference in its brief, is a large, international Bayesian study by Leech, et al. It finds that mask-wearing by 100 percent of the population “corresponds to” a 24.6 percent reduction in transmission of the novel coronavirus. Mask mandates correspond to no decrease in transmission: “For mandates we see no reduction: 0.0 percent.” Like all observational studies, however, this study is ill-equipped to show causation, to separate out the effects of just one variable from among other, frequently related, ones.
Mask supporters often claim that we have no choice but to rely on observational studies instead of RCTs, because RCTs cannot tell us whether masks work or not. But what they really mean is that they don’t like what the RCTs show.
The randomized controlled trial dates, in a sense, to 1747, when Royal Navy surgeon James Lind divided seamen suffering from similar cases of scurvy into six pairs and tried different methods of treatment on each. Lind writes, “The consequence was, that the most sudden and visible good effects were perceived from the use of oranges and lemons.”
The RCT eventually became firmly established as the most reliable way to test medical interventions. The following passage, from Abdelhamid Attia, an M.D. and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Cairo University in Egypt, conveys its dominance:
The importance of RCTs for clinical practice can be illustrated by its impact on the shift of practice in hormone replacement therapy (HRT). For decades HRT was considered the standard care for all postmenopausal, symptomatic and asymptomatic women. Evidence for the effectiveness of HRT relied always on observational studies[,] mostly cohort studies. But a single RCT that was published in 2002 . . . has changed clinical practice all over the world from the liberal use of HRT to the conservative use in selected symptomatic cases and for the shortest period of time. In other words, one well conducted RCT has changed the practice that relied on tens, and probably hundreds, of observational studies for decades.
A randomized controlled trial divides participants into different groups on a randomized basis. At least one group receives an “intervention,” or treatment, that is generally tested against a control group not receiving the intervention. The twofold strength of an RCT is that it allows researchers to isolate one variable—to test whether a given intervention causes an intended effect—while at the same time making it very hard for researchers to produce their own preferred outcomes.
This is true at least so long as an RCT’s findings are based on “intention-to-treat” analysis, whereby all participants are kept in the treatment group to which they were originally assigned and none are excluded from the analysis, regardless of whether they actually received the intended treatment. Eric McCoy, an M.D. at the University of California, Irvine, explains that intention-to-treat analysis avoids bias and “preserves the benefits of randomization, which cannot be assumed when using other methods of analysis.”
Such other methods of analysis include subgroup, multivariable, and per-protocol analysis. Subgroup analysis is susceptible to “cherry-picking”—as researchers hunt for anything showing statistical significance—or to being swayed by random chance. In one famous example, aspirin was found to help prevent fatal heart attacks, but not in the subgroups where patients’ astrological signs were Gemini or Libra.
“Multivariable analysis,” writes Marlies Wakkee, an M.D. and Ph.D. at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, “only adjusts for measured confounding”—that which a researcher decides is worth examining. (Confounders are extra variables that affect the analysis; for example, eating ice cream may be found to correlate with sunburns, but heat is a confounding variable influencing both.) She adds, “This is a significant difference compared to randomized controlled trials, where the randomization process results in an equal distribution of all potential confounders, known and unknown.”
Per-protocol analysis departs from randomization by basically allowing participants to self-select into, or out of, an intervention group. McCoy writes, “Empirical evidence suggests that participants who adhere [to research protocols] tend to do better than those who do not adhere, regardless of assignment to active treatment or placebo.” In other words, per-protocol analysis is more likely to suggest that an intervention, even a fake one, worked. Of these three departures from intention-to-treat analysis, per-protocol analysis is perhaps the most extreme.
With these different methods of analysis in mind, it becomes easier to evaluate the 14 RCTs, conducted around the world, that have tested the effectiveness of masks in reducing the transmission of respiratory viruses. Of these 14, the two that have directly tested “source control”—the oft-repeated claim that wearing a mask benefits others—are a good place to start.
A 2016 study in Beijing by MacIntyre, et al. that claimed to find a possible benefit of masks did not prove very informative, as only one person in the control group—and one in the mask group—developed a laboratory-confirmed infection. Much more illuminating was a 2010 study in France by Canini, et al., which randomly placed sick people, or “index patients,” and their household contacts together into either a mask group or a no-mask control group. The authors “observed a good adherence to the intervention,” meaning that the index patients generally wore the furnished three-ply masks as intended. (No one else was asked to wear them.) Within a week, 15.8 percent of household contacts in the no-mask control group and 16.2 percent in the mask group developed an “influenza-like illness” (ILI). So, the two groups were essentially dead even, with the sliver of an advantage observed in the control group not being statistically significant. The authors write that the study “should be interpreted with caution since the lack of statistical power prevents us to draw formal conclusion regarding effectiveness of facemasks in the context of a seasonal epidemic.” However, they state unequivocally, “In various sensitivity analyses, we did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.”
With the two RCTs that directly tested source control providing essentially no support for the claim that wearing a mask benefits others, what about RCTs that test the combination of source control and wearer protection? By dividing participants into a hand-hygiene group, a hand-hygiene group that also wore masks, and a control group, three RCTs allow us to see whether the addition of masks (worn both by the sick person and others) provided any benefit over hand hygiene alone.
A 2010 study by Larson, et al. in New York found that those in the hand-hygiene group were less likely to develop any symptoms of an upper respiratory infection (42 percent experienced symptoms) than those in the mask-plus-hand-hygiene group (61 percent). This statistically significant finding suggests that wearing a mask actually undermines the benefits of hand hygiene.
A multivariable analysis of this same study found a significant difference in secondary attack rates (the rate of transmission to others) between the mask-plus-hands group and the control group. On this basis, the authors maintain that mask-wearing “should be encouraged during outbreak situations.” However, this multivariable analysis also found significantly lower rates in crowded homes—“i.e., more crowded households had less transmission”—which tested at a higher confidence level. Thus, to the extent that this multivariable analysis provided any support for masks, it provided at least as much support for crowding.
Two other studies found no statistically significant differences between their mask-plus-hands and hands-only groups. A 2011 study in Bangkok by Simmerman, et al. observed very similar results for both groups. A CDC-funded 2009 study in Hong Kong by Cowling, et al. observed that the hands-only group generally did better than the mask-plus-hands group, but not to a statistically significant degree. Subgroup analysis by Cowling, et al., limited to interventions started within 36 hours of the onset of symptoms, found that the mask-plus-hands group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in one measure, while the hands-only group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in two measures. Summarizing this study, Canini writes that “no additional benefit was observed when facemask [use] was added to hand hygiene by comparison with hand hygiene alone.”
So, if masks don’t improve on hand hygiene alone, what about masks versus nothing?
Various RCTs have studied this question, with evidence of masks’ effectiveness proving sparse at best. Aside from a 2009 study in Japan by Jacobs, et al.—which found that those in the mask group were significantly more likely to experience headaches and that “face mask use in health care workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit”—only two RCTs have produced statistically significant findings in intention-to-treat analysis, and one of those studies contradicted itself.
The previously mentioned 2011 study in Bangkok by Simmerman, et al. found that the secondary attack rate of ILI was twice as high in the mask-plus-hand-hygiene group (18 percent) as in the control group (9 percent), a statistically significant difference. (The ILI rate was 17 percent in the hand-hygiene-only group.) Finding essentially the same thing in multivariable analysis, the researchers wrote that, relative to the control group, the odds ratios for both the mask-plus-hands group and the hands-only group “were twofold in the opposite direction from the hypothesized protective effect.”
Subsequently, a small 2014 study—with 164 participants—by Barasheed, et al. of Australian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, staying in close quarters in tents, found that significantly fewer people in the mask group developed an ILI than in the control group (31 percent to 53 percent). Unlike the exact fever specifications utilized in other RCTs, however, this study accepted self-reporting of “subjective” fever in determining whether someone had an ILI. Lab tests revealed opposite results, with twice as many participants having developed respiratory viruses in the mask group as in the control group. These lab-test findings were not statistically significant; still, the lab tests’ greater reliability makes it far from clear that the masks in this study provided any genuine benefit.
Other RCTs found no statistically significant benefit from masks in intention-to-treat analysis. A 2008 pilot study by Cowling et al. in Hong Kong observed that secondary attack rates, using the CDC’s definition of ILI, were twice as high in the mask group (8 percent) as in the hand hygiene (4 percent) or control (4 percent) groups, but these observed differences were not statistically significant.
Other methods of analysis, deviating from intention-to-treat analysis, found the following.
A per-protocol analysis of a 2009 study in Sydney by MacIntyre, et al. found a significant effect when combining the surgical-mask group with a group wearing N95 hospital respirators. However, the authors write, a “causal link cannot be demonstrated because adherence was not randomized.”
In subgroup analysis of 2010 and 2012 studies in Michigan by Aiello, et al., limited to the final several weeks of the respective studies, each study’s mask-plus-hands group had significantly lower rates of ILI than its control group, while its mask-only group did not. In 2010, the results for the mask-only group also hinted at a slight benefit, reducing ILI by an observed (but not statistically significant) 8 percent to 10 percent. In 2012, the authors concluded, “Masks alone did not provide a benefit.” They nevertheless recommended the combination of mask use and hand hygiene, despite not having tested whether that combination works better than hand hygiene alone.
A multivariable analysis of a smallish (218 participants) 2012 study in Germany by Suess, et al. found that combining the mask group and mask-plus-hands group, while limiting analysis to interventions begun within 48 hours, produced a finding of significantly lower levels of lab-confirmed influenza (but not of ILI) in that combined group (but not in either group separately). The authors, from Berlin, recommended masking and hand hygiene, while opining, “Concerns about acceptability and tolerability of the interventions should not be a reason against their recommendation.”
The only RCT to test mask-wearing’s specific effectiveness against Covid-19 was a 2020 study by Bundgaard, et al. in Denmark. This large (4,862 participants) RCT divided people between a mask-wearing group (providing “high-quality” three-layer surgical masks) and a control group. It took place at a time (spring 2020) when Denmark was encouraging social distancing but not mask use, and 93 percent of those in the mask group wore the masks at least “predominately as recommended.” The study found that 1.8 percent of those in the mask group and 2.1 percent of those in the control group became infected with Covid-19 within a month, with this 0.3-point difference not being statistically significant.
This study—the first RCT on Covid-19 transmission—apparently had difficulty getting published. After the study’s eventual publication, Vinay Prasad, an M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, described it as “thoughtful,” “useful,” and “well done,” but noted (with criticism), “Some have turned to social media to ask why a trial that may diminish enthusiasm for masks and may be misinterpreted was published in a top medical journal.”
Meanwhile, the CDC website portrays the Danish RCT (with its 4,800 participants) as being far less relevant or important than the observational study of Missouri hairdressers with no control group, dismissing the former as “inconclusive” and “too small” while praising the latter, amazingly, as “showing that wearing a mask prevented the spread of infection”—when it showed nothing of the sort.
Each of the RCTs discussed so far, 13 in all, examined the effectiveness of surgical masks, finding little to no evidence of their effectiveness and some evidence that they might actually increase viral transmission. None of these 13 RCTs examined the effectiveness of cloth masks. “Cloth face coverings,” according to former CDC director Robert Redfield, “are one of the most powerful weapons we have.”
One RCT tested these masks that so many high-profile public-health officials have touted. This “first RCT of cloth masks,” in the trial’s own words (it is apparently still the only one), was a 2015 study by MacIntyre, et al. in Hanoi, Vietnam. A relatively large study, with over 1,100 participants, it tested cloth masks against surgical masks and did not feature a no-mask control group. The trial tested the protection of health-care workers, instructing them to wear a two-layer cloth mask at all times on every shift (“except in the toilet or during tea or lunch breaks”) across four weeks.
The study found that those in the cloth-mask group were 13 times more likely (2.28 percent to 0.17 percent) to develop an influenza-like illness than those in the surgical-mask group—a statistically significant difference. The trial also lab-tested penetration rates and found that while surgical masks were “poor” at preventing the penetration of particles—letting 44 percent through—cloth masks were “extremely poor,” letting 97 percent through. (N95 hospital respirators let 0.1 percent through.)
The authors write that wearing a cloth mask “may potentially increase the infection risk” for health-care workers. “The virus may survive on the surface of the facemasks,” they explain, while “a contaminated cloth mask may transfer pathogen from the mask to the bare hands of the wearer,” which could lead to hand hygiene being “compromised.” As for double-masking, the authors write, “Observations during SARS suggested double-masking . . . increased the risk of infection because of moisture, liquid diffusion and pathogen retention.” Absent further research, they conclude, “cloth masks should not be recommended.”
MacIntyre and several other authors of this study, perhaps under pressure from the CDC or other entities with similar agendas, released what the CDC calls a “follow up study,” in September 2020. This follow-up isn’t really a study at all, certainly not a new RCT, yet the CDC cites it favorably while disparaging the original study, which, the CDC asserts, “had a number of limitations.” This 2020 follow-up pretty much amounts to publishing the finding that when hospitals washed the cloth masks, health-care workers were only about half as likely to get infected as when they washed the cloth masks themselves. Still, the 2020 publication says, “We do not recommend cloth masks for health workers,” much as the 2015 one said.
Other reviews of the evidence have been mixed but generally have come to similar conclusions. Certain masking advocates admit that the RCT evidence is “inconclusive” but cite other forms of evidence that have held up poorly. A study for Cochrane Reviews by Jefferson, et al. that examines 13 of the 14 RCTs discussed herein (all but the Denmark Covid-19 study) notes “uncertainty about the effects of face masks” and writes that “the pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza.” Meantime, a study by Perski, et al., which performed a Bayesian analysis on 11 of the 14 RCTs discussed herein, concluded that when it comes to “the benefits or harms of wearing face masks . . . the scientific evidence should be considered equivocal.” They write, “Available evidence from RCTs is equivocal as to whether or not wearing face masks in community settings results in a reduction in clinically- or laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections.”
In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive.
https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence?wallit_nosession=1
I’m using brave browser on a mac and notice a difference in comment count between signed in and not. Most of my browsing is done without signing in. I sign in to post something and there are always more comments immediately upon sign in. The following paper is co-authored by Megan K Selbert and William Rees
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm
From the introduction:We argue that while the GND narrative is highly seductive, it is little more than a disastrous shared illusion. Not only is the GND technically flawed, but it fails to recognize human ecological dysfunction as the overall driver of incipient global systemic collapse. By viewing climate change, rather than ecological overshoot—of which climate change is merely a symptom—as the central problem, the GND and its variants grasp in vain for techno-industrial solutions to problems caused by techno-industrial society. Such a self-referencing pursuit is doomed to fail. As Albert Einstein allegedly said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. We need an entirely new narrative for a successful energy transition. Only by abandoning the flawed paradigmatic source of our ecological dilemma can we formulate realistic pathways for averting social–ecological collapse.
For the resident Coincidence Theorists at TAE, you know who you are.
The Overlords just couldn’t be coordinated or conspiring about the Faux Covid Fairytale
It’s all just a COINCIDENCE!
Blow me over with a feather.
ThatDanishGuy twitter
@ThatDanishGuy3
Aug 10, 2021233 New COVID cases apparently…
IN:
NEW SOUTH WALES 233
ALBERT 233
SHARRARTON, AU 233
CROATIA 233
TRINIDAD &TOBAGO 233
IOWA 233
LITHUANIA 233
SYDNEY 233
INDONESIA 233
DELFI 233
MISSISSIPPI 233
OREGON 233
KENTUCKY 233
IDAHO 233
ARIZONA 233
SAN DIEGO 233
More conspiring?
Dr David Bauer
Francis Crick Institute2 doses of Phyza jab lowers neutralising antibodies 5-6 fold.
Essentially it wipes out your immune system making you dependent on booster shots in perpetuity.
Another Coincidence!
What are the chances!
Wow, another coincidence, completely unplanned, who could have known mRNA would have done this.
I’m sooo glad the Overlords are so stupid and would never ever ‘conspire’.
Consciousness Evolution Movement (CEM) @coevmo
‘What we’re seeing post vaccine is a drop in your killer T cells, your CD8 cells. And what do CD8 cells do? They keep all other viruses in check.’
This Tweet is misleading. Find out why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.
The ‘misleading’ alert is such a sweet touch of irony by the Overlords.
When Science is Silenced:
The Story of COVID Vaccines,
from the scientist behind the technologyFeaturing Robert Malone, MD, MS
Internationally recognized scientist and original inventor of mRNA- & DNA-Vaccination Technologieshttps://rumble.com/vl0zpf-dr.-robert-malone-the-liberty-forum-8-10-2021.html
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
–Charles Mackay
Well, at least I have the small comfort of knowing I was an “early adopter”. 🙂
“For the resident Coincidence Theorists at TAE …”
Guilty (raises hand). Though I do find this mass vaccination campaign and subsequent ignoring of blaring signals of the harm being done to be quite exceptional. Never have we continued administering a vaccination that has produced this level of short-term harm, much less without having any knowledge of mid- to long-term consequences.
This long comment on JMG’s Covid “open post” is worth reading. The best paragraph:
I pay scant attention to the daily scare tactics, the evolving fear mongering of a threadbare myth that somehow all of humanity will spared from death no matter how much we weigh or how old and frail we become if only every healthy person just bows down and accepts an experimental vaccines and continues to wear a face covering and keep away from everyone else, forever. The sheer absurdity of it is as clear as the morning sky to anyone with even a shred of reason left between their ears. The end result of this endless miasma of mal-information and Hegalian dialectic is lost freedom, lower standards of living, increasing isolation, rising anxiety and perpetual submission to the gods of the copybook headings.
TPTB coincidence-conspire camp vs TPTB coincidence/corrupt camp are both misnamed. I, for example, believe that powerful persons conspire. It’s what they do. The history is plainly available.
I think that the main difference between the two polar opinions is that one camp places great faith in TPTB’s ability to conspire successfully, and the other sees the conspiring as being as much reactionary WTF-do-we-do-now? desperation as much as My/our brilliant plan is working as planned.
fwiw, the only global conspiracy camp that puts the puzzle pieces together for me in a way that holds form is the more-Xtian-than-not camp that sees some Evil One, el Diablo, working deeply behind the scenes (some even believe under the skin, be it lizard suits or fatuus innoculii) to prevent humanity from realizing its benevolent potential by tricking it into eating — and shitting — its nest into uninhabitable devastation.
Restatement for clarity: I think that TPTB are plenty “evil” enough to do much conspiratorial evil. Kind of a heavy-breathing Big Boy Club circle jerk with or without actual infant/child/virgin sacrifice. (Incidentally, when folks like the ancient Semites offered live infants to Moloch’s red-hot hooved hands
it probably at least interfaced with another phenomenon of the time: when famine occurred, more physically frail little ones died than the rest of the populace except old and frail. They tended to be eaten. A form of sacrifice that sustained the family for awhile. In hard times, infants are dead weight.
Incidentally, my no longer existent 1947 Encyclopaedia Britannica told me that “tophet and hinnom” referred to blowing loud trumpets and baning drums to obscure the screaming of the infant. (Probably didn’t scream long at all: air that hot will knock a person out faster than a Cosby pickup line, snortable or not.)
Infant sacrifice was still practiced in England not too many centuries ago, btw.
%^&
“233 New COVID cases apparently… IN” ad infinitum:
Ask yourself, with coordinated nonsense that obvious and meaningless, who needs devious bullshit specifically suited for the situation? It’s been known online for about a decade — that I know of — that the local news affiliates are useless except for weather and emergency alerts, and share the same stupid stories in one vast dumbed-down global TV village. I see it serving one purpose at this point: as a media ‘stimulus trigger’ to inspire internet etc. traffic that Al Goreithm and friends can study to see who’s catching on to the fact that a media owned by a few wealthy competing allies can’t be trusted etc.
btw, the 233 doesn’t show on the danish guy’s twitter feed, although the story is all over the net.
Me, I think some flunky fucked up. I only see deficits not advantages for TPTB from such a global whie-washing. People will notice.
Here in France it has gone to the extreme with the “Health” Pass. Last week on the 21st ALL restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and any leisure activities like sporting events, theaters, cinemas, museums, were closed to anyone without “the pass” and all staff at these places are mandated to get the jab to keep their job. It is now a 6 Month prison sentence if you are caught inside any of these places without the pass (the man who slapped the president in the face got only 3 months prison time).
Business owners will get a fine of 45,000 euros and 1 year prison sentence if they do not comply with the use of “the pass” and force all their employees to get the jab. (If you know France, you can commit murder and have less of a sentence) So the result? All the low paid employees quit, they can make more on welfare here (for now). We can still technically “get take out food” but I just tried last night and every restaurant in our town (that is dine in with take out) has closed their doors due to the lack of staff.
As of last week ALL doctors, nurses and health industry workers have been mandated to get the jab or lose their license, practice, job, business etc. (ALL health care here is Govt paid positions and there are no private health care Doctors or Hospitals etc.) Since the Health care system is state run and funded, it has been run into the ground. All the good doctors left France 5 Years ago, all the hospitals look like they are 3rd world hospitals since there is no money to repair them, half of the equipment doesn’t work and not every hospital is stocked with supplies needed for daily needs (masks, gels, disposable gowns etc).
For 5 years Nurses have been understaffed and doing double the work because the Health care system is nearly bankrupt…. So add to this the mandatory jab. So the result? Well they took to the streets by the millions and now all the hospitals just lost another 50% of staff capacity.
Hey, I found a possible use for a media that becomes too compliant and therefore forgets that most people today are plugged into a global info network called The Net:
Xtian numerologists will easily find a way to turn “233” into a formula for The Number of the Beast. For example: 2×3=6–3 times=666. Stuff like that. That could be very useful for Al Goreithm and the Intelligence of Artifeces.
Does anyone else here feel that Sept 15th is likely to be pivotal?
• Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory For Trips Abroad And Care Home Staff’ (DM)
That headline should have this as the first paragraph
“…After taking the vaccine…essentially it wipes out your immune system making you dependent on booster shots in perpetuity….”
A reporting marriage made in Heaven.
Not by conspiring mind you, but by Serendipity, the fancy term for coincidence.
re France: they have a rep for leading the way into bloody revolution. Sort of a Euromerican canary in a coal mine.
“So add to this the mandatory jab. So the result? Well they took to the streets by the millions and now all the hospitals just lost another 50% of staff capacity.”
After all, empoyers are hungry for employees. So you take a reduced pay for 6 months.
What we are finding out is that TPTB are essentially fangless in Euromerica. (China, imo, is not far behind but that’s another story, while conversely, Russia has a nice new set of sharp choppers both at home and abroad.) TPTB impose strict controls that prove how little control they have. The emperor is not only nekkid but… have you seen his teeny-weinie?
them durn kinders r right about the #/case symmetry:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=covid+cases+166&atb=v284-2__&ia=web
I submit that there are similarities between numerological/statistical media conspiracy concepts and the infamous “Bible codes” fad of 20 years or so ago.
I like tdk’s approach to info. He sneaks up on it from behind.
Raul posted the “vaccine accumulates in the ovaries article”. Is it really possible that no one here is aware that this has been soundly debunked for months? But yet, it keeps being recycled as if the numerous refutations don’t even exist.
I recommend reading this methodical strip down of this “accumulates in the ovaries” bullshit. It provides links, history, and background information on all the player responsible for spreading this misinformation. It also, most importantly, delves into the actual study cited by Mike Yeadon and provides a fairly good look at how actual data can be twisted into a narrative to further an agenda:
“COVID-19 vaccines are going to sterilize our womenfolk,” Take 2
The Judiciary Racket, populated by brown-nosers, cowards, second rate legal acumen, sociopathic penis envy and the worship of mammon will never deal with the Faux Covid Fairytale.
Look at Julian Assange
That’s ‘The Law’ at work.
If he can’t see the light of day, neither will the Monster’s Ball of perps like Fauci and Daszak ever see the Gibbet they so richly deserve.
There is no enforcement of international law except contract law. That includes the Nuremberg Code. It’s a joke of WWII postwar lip service guilt. Experimenting with pregnant women is de rigueur again after a historically brief pause.
The class action lawsuit saying 45,000 died from post vaccine effects, don’t hold your breath.
They will drag it out for decades just like the tobacco industry did.
Look how many people died from cancer sticks, and the industry laughed all the way to the bank.
Thank you for Smoking, chumps.
This is from last year regarding the 3 digit covid cases “phenomenon”. When it was written, covid was only raging for 3-4 months. Now we have a whole years worth of data. Is this really that shocking?
Lessons from Afghanistan
Train and equip 300,000 soldiers, (mercenaries), to protect the Overlords only to have them surrender/not fight, leave their equipment, and even join the attacker to eject the foreigner/ the Overlords.The Two Narrative and Falsifiability
When the US attacked Iraq I knew people who were sure Saddam had WMDs. Today none of those people believe it; They all believe they were lied to. At some point the evidence surpassed the threshold of proof they required to change their minds.
For both sides of the Covid narrative: what would it require to change your mind? Let’s take for example the Ivermectin question. One could say “If tomorrow Pierre Kory came out and said the whole thing was a ruse, that Soros had paid him millions to make up data and he had bribed people all over the planet to play along and had the bank statements to prove it I would then believe Ivermectin is not useful against Covid.” This is a pretty high bar but given the evidence maybe this is what it has come to.
So anyway, what are your falsifiability criterion? Some questions to ask yourself:
1) If you believe the vaccines are the best hope for beating Covid and that adverse effects are worth the cost, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
2) If you believe vaccines are too dangerous and will likely have long term catastrophic adverse effects, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
3) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are the best hope for beating Covid, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
4) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are at best unproven and at worst will cost many lives, what evidence would it take to change your mind?In other news
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/haiti-earthquake-saturday-magnitude-7-2-tsunami/1000130Earthquake-saturday-magnitude-7-2-tsunami-Tropical Storm Grace
There will not be enough Humanitarian aid.
It will need to be divided among many needed regions
Call the Clintons for helpMore Lessons from Afghanistan
Locals, (translators, cooks, garbage collectors, etc), sympathizers to the overlords are abandoned to local justice,
( a repeat of Vietnam)@TAE Summary,
2) If you believe vaccines are too dangerous and will likely have long term catastrophic adverse effects, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
5+ years of rigorous studies carried out by entities that are not receiving revenue from the vaccines that show the vaccines produce no long-term harmful effects as compared with a control group. As part of this, full autopsies performed on every person who dies with 3 days of receiving a vaccine and autopsies performed on a percentage of people who die within “X” days of receiving a vaccine. A data system that captures what practicing physicians are seeing that could be associated with vaccines to determine whether these “less severe” issues are showing up above expected background levels of those issues. That would be a start.
3) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are the best hope for beating Covid, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
Evidence that the use of these protocols are actually *costing lives*. And … as opposed to what? Doing nothing but take ibuprofen until sick enough to be hospitalized?
An article on aerosols and Covid
A few key points:- Social distancing doesn’t work because aerosols diffuse
- Surgical masks cut down on aerosols by 50% with a link to the paper that shows this
- Ventilation is key but has been overlooked
- Two take aways: We need better research facilities to analyze what works and what doesn’t and better public spaces with better ventilation
As per the mask info, if correct I still have to wonder if they make any difference. If 50% gets out then without good ventilation it seems like they don’t really matter but I’m not sure about this.
David Gorski of the Science-Based Medicine article has major confirmation bias. Just a minor skim reveals a virtual canon of non sequitirs and red herrings. If this is what passes for debunking, than it is apt: increasingly bad science “debunked” by increasingly bad science. WTF ‘science’ is these days.
P.S. Any time the term ‘anti-vaxxing’ is used , it is de facto ad hominem distraction.
I am not an “anti-vaxxer” (although I think it’s obvious that vaccinology has gotten away with murder many times). I got a flu shot during the early covid hysteria. DIdn’t think twice about it.
But this phony mRna vakzine is, well, phony. Why deflationista pursues the tangent he/she pursues, is beyond me and rapidly growing too boring to consider. Every one has their crusade it seems, but in this one, I can’t even make out the windmills for all the tilting.
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