Otto Dix Ice drift 1940
“Isn’t it fascinating that the direction has always been towards more fear, and never towards calming things down?”
In South Africa “..the percentage of people who die from a COVID infection has dropped significantly since the arrival of Omicron…”
“Omicron may be, in fact, a better vaccine than anything cooked up by Pfizer, Moderna or even the Russians.”
A huge amount of material today. And a creeping feeling that we need to step up our game. We get held back all the time by the one-sided, one-dimensional “reporting” in the mainstream media, but it has become too dangerous not to counterbalance that.
When everyone starts inoculating kids, while the jabs are of no benefit to them, but a great risk, we have gone too far. And are very much responsible for them.
The real information is out there, and out here at TAE, but it’s prohibited from reaching people.
Louisiana nurse
Probably nothing ¯_(ツ)_/¯
RN of 17 years testifying at last Monday’s 12/6 Louisiana Health & Welfare hearing. pic.twitter.com/Fv8tl88mj2
— Ed ☯️Free Thinker & Oracle (@DowdEdward) December 13, 2021
Steve Kirsch bases his report on VAERS data: “As of Dec 14, 2021, there are 9,136 deaths reported into VAERS..”
However, OPENVAERS.com numbers for Dec 3: “19,886 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths”. (And 1,803,081 adverse events).
That means deaths could be twice what Kirsch says. Which accidentally would bring it to about 800,000, the exact number that is being reported for total US deaths from Covid. But that, we know, is bogus, it makes no difference between death FROM and death WITH Covid.
It’s time we sort this out.
• Latest VAERS Estimate: 388,000 Americans Killed By The Covid Vaccines (Kirsch)
Wayne [at VAERS Analysis did an under-reporting factor (URF)] computation using death data in CMS. This overcomes any objections about the validity of using anaphylaxis rates as a proxy for death rates. The VAERS URF he computed was 44.64. This seems reasonable to me. It’s really not far from the 41 I calculated. Also, Wayne subsequently looked at the numbers for 9 states. The average value was 40, not far from the 41 I calculated from anaphylaxis. I had one of my team members double check his numbers. No mistake. Now, let’s see what that means. As of Dec 14, 2021, there are 9,136 deaths reported into VAERS. If we subtract out more than twice the total number of deaths reported in any previous year (to be super conservative about estimating background deaths):
So our new best estimate of the number of “excess deaths” caused by the vaccine is 388,000. Because there isn’t a plausible mechanism of excess death other than the vaccine (certainly our “always vigilant” CDC has never suggested an alternate cause), the process of elimination leads us to conclude the obvious: that these excess deaths were, in fact, caused by the vaccine. This should really be a surprise to anyone paying attention to the clinical trials. For example, in the Pfizer trial, you were much more likely to die if you got the vaccine than if you got the placebo. They simply forgot to mention that in the abstract of the paper (and they were incapable of accurately counting the number of deaths in each group as well). In short, the vaccine is a killing machine.
There is nothing that points to this. Instead, omicron may well be the booster that ends Covid.
We cannot be sure yet, but that’s at least as likely as it becoming some mass killer.
• Covid Boosters May Be Needed Every 6 Months To Protect Against Omicron (G.)
A third booster Covid-19 vaccine dose will be essential to get high protection against symptoms from the Omicron variant and it appears likely the variant will become the dominant strain in Australia, virologists from the Kirby Institute say. The new data from the Kirby Institute comes as Covid-19 case numbers in New South Wales jumped again on Wednesday to 1,360, 25 of them are the Omicron variant. There are now 89 Omicron cases in NSW. The researchers also said Covid boosters may be required every six months to protect against the variant. Virologists from the Kirby Institute presented new data on Wednesday after growing the Omicron variant in a laboratory and testing how it responded to various samples, including from the fully vaccinated, from those who had recovered from the virus but were unvaccinated, and those who had recovered from the virus and also received two vaccine doses.
The data has now been sent to all chief health officers across Australia. An associate professor in the institute’s immunovirology and pathogenesis program at the University of NSW, Stuart Turville, said the laboratory obtained samples from the first two people identified with the Omicron variant in Australia. They had arrived into Sydney from Doha and were fully vaccinated. Despite their vaccination status, they were as infectious as unvaccinated people, Turville said. “We knew previously that Beta was the most [vaccine] evasive variant we have come across, in terms of potency at inhibiting infection,” he said. “Omicron was flatline … we saw zero protection with the antibodies from double-vaccinated donors … irrespective of the type of vaccine. We don’t need to talk about AstraZeneca or Pfizer, both of them are zero.”
However, he said it was likely those two travellers had a poor vaccine response and this did not mean two doses of the vaccines offered zero protection against any infection from Omicron. Data from South Africa released overnight suggested protection from infection was 33% for those who are double-dosed, similar to the Kirby data which predicts 37%.
Marty Makary: “T-Cell immunity is strong and effective against Omicron. This is the most significant (and overlooked) scientific paper of the entire Omicron saga. The fixation on antibody levels has diverted attention away from comprehensive immunity, including cellular.”
• Minimal Cross-over Between Mutations Associated With Omicron Variant (bioRxiv)
Abstract There is a growing concern that ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2 could lead to variants of concern (VOC) that are capable of avoiding some or all of the multi-faceted immune response generated by both prior infection or vaccination, with the recently described B.1.1.529 (Omicron) VOC being of particular interest. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from PCR-confirmed, recovered COVID-19 convalescent patients (n=30) infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the United States collected in April and May 2020 who possessed at least one or more of six different HLA haplotypes were selected for examination of their anti-SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T-cell responses using a multiplexed peptide-MHC tetramer staining approach.
This analysis examined if the previously identified viral epitopes targeted by CD8+ T-cells in these individuals (n=52 distinct epitopes) are mutated in the newly described Omicron VOC (n=50 mutations). Within this population, only one low-prevalence epitope from the Spike protein restricted to two HLA alleles and found in 2/30 (7%) individuals contained a single amino acid change associated with the Omicron VOC. These data suggest that virtually all individuals with existing anti-SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T-cell responses should recognize the Omicron VOC, and that SARS-CoV-2 has not evolved extensive T-cell escape mutations at this time.
Importance The newly identified Omicron variant of concern contains more mutations than any of the previous variants described to date. In addition, many of the mutations associated with the Omicron variant are found in areas that are likely bound by neutralizing antibodies, suggesting that the first line of immunological defense against COVID-19 may be compromised. However, both natural infection and vaccination develop T-cell based responses, in addition to antibodies. This study examined if the parts of the virus, or epitopes, targeted by the CD8+ T-cell response in thirty individuals who recovered from COVID-19 in 2020 were mutated in the Omicron variant. Only one of 52 epitopes identified in this population contained an amino acid that was mutated in Omicron. These data suggest that the T-cell immune response in previously infected, and most likely vaccinated individuals, should still be effective against Omicron.
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Marty Makary: "There will be unintended harm" from "blanket policy" of giving COVID boosters to young people. pic.twitter.com/NEzxpFuDKl
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) December 15, 2021
“.. the risk of death from vaccination in people over the age of 20 can be up to 40 times greater than for Covid-19..”
• Young People 40 Times More Likely To Die From Vaccines Than From COVID (GGI)
A major Japanese medical bulletin has warned that the risk of dying from the COVID-19 vaccine for people in their 20s maybe 40 times higher than the disease itself. It was found that the risk of death of the vaccine might even be as astronomically high as 40 times more for the young, This was claimed by a review in the latest issue of Med Check which is a bimonthly bulletin published by the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance (NOPJIP) as a member of the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB). Regarding the reported deaths of individuals between the ages of 20 and 29 within one or two weeks after receiving the vaccination, Med Check estimates the death rate for that age at 3.2 deaths per each million doses administered.
One of the deaths apparently caused by the vaccine included the death of a 27-year-old professional baseball player. The player, after eight days of getting the COVID vaccine, collapsed and later died post a month long hospital battle. The bulletin suggested that the death toll could potentially be higher, partly because the Japanese government only requires reports of suspected injuries within 28 days of the vaccination. As of October 15, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had received a total of 1,308 reports of deaths from COVID vaccination. According to Med Check, in Japan, the risk of a fatal reaction to the vaccine, despite having just three cases, is much higher than the risk of contracting the virus for young adults, who have a 0.6 to 0.8 per million chance of dying from the disease. As of June 2021, only 7 of the 11.8 million Japanese in their 20s had died from COVID-19, and by mid-August, 10 had died.
Med Check found that the risk of dying from the vaccine was seven times higher in June and almost five times higher by August 11 compared to the risk of coronavirus infection. Over the course of several years, the risk of death from vaccination in people over the age of 20 can be up to 40 times greater than for Covid-19. Med Check also noted that there had been no COVID-19 deaths under the age of 20 in Japan until September 2021. “If children in this age group are vaccinated, it may cause death,” the bulletin warned. “Even if children and adolescents and people in their 20s are infected, it is naturally mild or asymptomatic because they have less SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2 than adults especially old people. It is ridiculous to consider vaccination for school children.”
According to a disturbing new study, social distancing, facemaks and other such COVID rules are responsible for causing a 23% decline in children’s cognitive abilities. The study also found a similar reduction in the development of children’s communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal.
They’ve been doing this for two years now. The consequences will be beyond devastating.
• The FDA Approves Boosters For Minors Without Doing Any Testing (TF)
Late last week, on December 9, the FDA approved the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, “authorizing the use of a single booster dose for administration to individuals 16 and 17 years of age.” The booster is to be given at least 6 months after vaccination. Before we get to the data the FDA cited in the booster for kids aged 16-17, let’s go through the facts: COVID-19 is not a threat to teenagers aged 16-17. On October 25, we warned that the FDA was about to approve an experimental COVID-19 vaccine for children. It seemed unnecessary to give the EUA Pfizer vaccine to minors, as CDC data showed that for children aged 5-11 years-old, there have been 1.8 million COVID-19 cases and only 138 deaths. Even the CDC concedes that “children are less likely to develop severe illness or die from COVID-19.”
The Pfizer vaccine is particularly dangerous for young men aged 16-17. As we observed back in October, teenage boys are especially at risk for heart problems – like myocarditis – after getting the Pfizer vaccine: “Boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose . . . The risk of heart problems in boys of that age was about nine times higher than in unvaccinated boys of the same age.” New York Times. The risk of myocarditis for boys 16 – 19 years old is higher after the Pfizer second dose. What happens after the third dose?? That’s a good question. One would rightly assume that the third dose might present more danger of heart problems than the second dose. But FDA doesn’t have the answer to this question. And why doesn’t it have the answer?
Because the FDA didn’t look. Because the FDA conducted ZERO tests in this age bracket before approving the latest Pfizer booster for this age bracket. Instead, the FDA relied on prior (old) booster data from a study of “200 participants, 18 through 55 years of age.” Choosing to ignore the long-term data for the efficacy of the Pfizer booster shot, the FDA instead reviewed the old data showing “the antibody response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus one month after a booster dose of the vaccine.” That’s it. That’s the rigorous studies that now meet FDA standards. Given the self-imposed and purposeful limitations the FDA has placed on its own own information, it has the audacity to conclude:
“The benefits of a single booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine or Comirnaty outweigh the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis in individuals 16 and 17 years of age to provide continued protection against COVID-19 and the associated serious consequences that can occur including hospitalization and death.”
Geert deserves much more scrutiny.
• Why is Covid-19 Vaccination of Children an Unforgivable Sin (VanDen Bossche)
This is an extract of Geert Vanden Bossche’s interview with Doctors for Life Philippines, where he talks about the importance of the natural immune system for children, and why mass vaccination in children is unforgivable.
“..the percentage of people who die from a COVID infection has dropped significantly since the arrival of Omicron…”
• South Africa’s Omicron Outbreak Already “Running Out of Steam” (SN)
Data coming out of South Africa indicates that the Omicron outbreak of COVID-19 is already “running out of steam,” and according to one expert, “the world has nothing to fear.” “Cases in the province of Gauteng – which had surging infections from November – appear to be levelling off, while seven-day infections in Tshwane, one of the early epicentres, are now “relatively flat,” states a report written by the Telegraph’s science editor. “Case growth is steeper than last week but still has slowed down versus November,” said Louis Rossouw, of the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group. Data also shows that the percentage of people who die from a COVID infection has dropped significantly since the arrival of Omicron.
“With the delta variant, around three per cent of infections – one in 33 – were resulting in death, but now that figure has slumped to 0.5 per cent – one in 200 – the lowest it has been throughout the pandemic in South Africa and 10 times lower than in September last year,” states the report. According to Peter Streicher, a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, death data has already caught up with infection data and there is no significant rise in deaths from Omicron. “Omicron is extremely mild. The rest of the world has nothing to fear,” said Streicher. As we highlighted earlier, the South African doctor who first discovered Omicron says “Britain is overreacting” by imposing more draconian restrictions and that the panic “is out of all proportion to the risks posed by this variant.”
Doctor Angelique Coetzee also suggested that lockdowns to stop the spread of the variant would harm the opportunity that Omicron provides to reach “herd immunity.” Authorities in the UK have also refused to reveal any further information behind what is believed to be the world’s first Omicron death. Professor Karol Sikora has accused the government of creating “unnecessary alarm,” while asserting the victim probably had co-morbidities and was elderly or died with Omicron and not from it.
“..vaccine-breakthrough and antibody-resistant mutations will increase transmission once most people are carrying antibodies through either vaccination or infection..”
• Spike-Only Vaccine a Colossal Blunder: Vaccine Escape Due to Vaccination (PR)
Now a new study has found the specific mutations by which the SARS-CoV-2 lineages have escaped the vaccine. The study, which is behind a paywall (US$40), reports that these mutations lead to less infectivity compared to the original SARS-CoV-2, but, according to the authors, “can disrupt existing antibodies that neutralize the virus”. That sounds like disease enhancement to me. “By tracking the evolutionary trajectories of vax-resistant mutations in more than 2.2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we reveal that the occurrence & frequency of vax-resistant mutations correlate strongly with the vaccination rates in Europe and America.”
Their analysis went well beyond mere correlation of the rise of the vaccine-resistant variants and vaccination rates. Specifically, these authors had previously predicted the precise amino acid location in the receptor binding domain (RBD) at which vaccine escape variation would likely emerge as a result of targeting the spike protein with vaccines. Now that we see those specific amino acid residue positions changing, and, importantly, changing in ways that alter infectivity, the evidence is strong that the rise in these mutations was caused by the vaccination program.
They wrote: “(I)n early 2020, we successfully predicted that residues 452 and 501 ‘have high changes to mutate into significantly more infectious COVID-19 strains’. In the same work, we hypothesized that ‘natural selection favors those mutations that enhance the viral transmission’ and provided the first evidence for infectivity-based natural selection. In other words, we revealed the mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 evolution and transmission based on very limited genome data in June 2020. Additionally, we predicted three categories of RBD mutations: (1) most likely (1149 mutations), (2) likely (1912 mutations), and (3) unlikely (625 mutations).19 To date, almost all of the RBD mutations we detected fall into our first category.3,20 Moreover, all of the top 100 most observed RBD mutations have a BFE change greater than the average BFE changes of -0.28 kcal/mol.”
The BFE measurement is a very strong predictor of infectivity to the ACE2 receptor in humans. What this means to the authors is that vaccine-breakthrough and antibody-resistant mutations will increase transmission once most people are carrying antibodies through either vaccination or infection. The authors call for use of this information in vaccine programs (!). That, of course, will lead to further selection pressure. What this means to me is that the infamous “new variants” Delta and Omicron variants have the mutations in the RBD [to] now make all existing spike-only vaccines obsolete.
Of course they will. Ryan McMaken at the Mises Institute presents this as a Democrat issue in the US, and it may be that to an extent, but in Europe, welfare states pur sang, left and right both use these tools to control people.
• They’ll Use the Welfare State to Get Compliance on Vaccine Mandates (Mises)
A Democratic state lawmaker in Illinois has introduced legislation requiring unvaccinated residents to pay out-of-pocket for healthcare services. It’s all part of an effort to come up with new and creative ways to punish people who refuse to get the covid jab. WBBM Radio in Chicago reports: “[Jonathan] Carroll’s legislation would amend the state’s insurance code so that “a person who is eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and chooses not to be vaccinated shall pay for health care expenses out-of-pocket if the person becomes hospitalized because of COVID-19 symptoms.” In other words, Carroll is trying to ensure that the unvaccinated will be denied health insurance for covid treatments, even in cases where private insurance is already bought and paid for.
Moreover, intervening in private insurance won’t even be necessary in many cases, since one-third of the population is already receiving government-funded healthcare. This policy is quite remarkable coming from a progressive like Carroll. After all, for decades, we’ve been hearing from the Left that “healthcare is a human right” and that it must be provided to anyone and everyone at taxpayer expense. Anything short of universal state subsidized healthcare, we’ve been told, is unacceptable. Yet, apparently, the mandatory vaccine advocates—found largely on the left, of course—are so obsessed with forcing mandatory vaccines on the entire population that they’re now looking for ways to deny people healthcare.
But we should have seen this coming. Until recently, the Left has also claimed it wants universal employment and a “chicken in every pot.” But since the Biden administration hatched the idea of tying employment to vaccines earlier this year, advocates of vaccine mandates now want to you be destitute and jobless if you refuse the jab. The same mandate pushers have also cleverly engineered their vaccine mandates to ensure that should you be fired for refusing the shot, you’ll be ineligible for unemployment insurance. Although the mandates are being forced on employers in many cases, state policymakers have concluded that termination for refusing the vaccine constitutes being fired “for cause.” This makes it possible to deny unemployment insurance to these dissenters.
“Please protect them, and do not ask them to make sacrifices with their health on your behalf. You know this is wrong. So do the right thing.”
• Between the Forceps and the Stone (Malone)
According to the latest CDC data, more than 60% of the total US population has been vaccinated, and about 45% of the entire population has already been infected by the virus, recovered, and developed natural immunity. The elderly are heavily vaccinated. The vaccines do not prevent you from becoming infected, replicating high levels of virus, and spreading infection to others. I will say it again- the elderly are highly vaccinated. The problem is that the vaccines are not doing what they are supposed to do- prevent infection and spread of the virus. This is even more the case with the Omicron variant. So what to do? Start jabbing children who, unless they have other major problems, shrug off COVID-19 disease like they do most other RNA respiratory viruses?
Or start allowing physicians to treat COVID-19 patients in the outpatient setting to prevent them from ever getting to the hospital setting where (almost exclusively in USA alone) they are immunosuppressed with high levels of Dexamethasone, placed into a coma-like state and hooked up to a ventilator, and treated with Remdesivir (which is clearly toxic and mimics many of the toxicities of the virus)? This is madness. And it reflects a profound arrogance on the part of the Pharma-Govie-World Health elite. They assert that they understand immunology, virology, and evolutionary biology so well that they can freely tinker with the lives of our children using an experimental technology and rushed vaccine product which is neither safe nor effective based on standards and bioethical consensus that have been developed and applied over decades.
They believe that they can inject novel unproven technology and improve the highly evolved human immune system that has developed over millennia to resist respiratory RNA virus pressure. Arrogance is the kindest term I can think of. None of us are immortal. Despite the objectives of the transhumanism agenda. Death cannot be avoided. We pass through this world, and hopefully leave it a bit better when we are gone. Our children are the only true legacy, the only real form of immortality. Please protect them, and do not ask them to make sacrifices with their health on your behalf. You know this is wrong. So do the right thing. And take this seriously. Think long and hard before taking an action that can never be undone.
“A ruling on Monday by an increasingly erratic Supreme Court that refused to block a New York State requirement that all health-care workers be vaccinated—even if they claim a religious exemption—will only add to the chaos.”
• Omicron Unleashes New Wave of Hysteria, With Rule by Decree in Force
Just over a year ago, president-elect Joe Biden promised a “very dark winter” ahead in the face of COVID-19, and told the nation he would “spare no effort to turn this pandemic around once we’re sworn in on Jan. 20. It’s time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric designed to demonize one another,” Biden said. “It’s time to end the politicization of basic, responsible public health steps like mask-wearing and social distancing.” Now here we are, 13 months later, in the runup to the shortest day of the year and the start of a third season of “pandemic” panic: how’s that working out for you, America?
After a year of nothing to show for a fruitless battle against a bug that can’t be defeated, Biden has rolled out another more-of-the-same “plan” involving more vaccination mandates on private companies (even though the federal courts are shooting such mandates down on a regular basis), jabbing healthy, crying children, demanding more booster shots of vaccines already proven not to work as initially advertised, and re-instituting travel bans at the drop of a letter of the Greek alphabet. Bonus points: recent tests indicate that Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are nearly useless against the latest new variant, Omicron. Speaking of which—thanks to an increasingly irresponsible media—Omicron has now terrified the civilized world, setting off cries for more lockdowns and general harum-scarum, even though the international “death toll” of this bug is so far a grand total of… one (maybe).
But that hasn’t stopped the hysterical British prime minster, Boris Johnson, from instantly decreeing “Plan B,” which include work-from-home orders, face-mask mandates, and proof of vaccination in large public venues. An even more oppressive “Plan C” is just around the corner. That Johnson is in the middle of his own scandal involving himself and his aides flouting and mocking the very rules they’re imposing on ordinary Britons is entirely coincidental. [..] And Hong Kong has just decreed that all travelers from the United States—who must be fully vaccinated Hong Kong residents in the first place—must first spend seven days at a quarantine camp followed by two weeks in hotel quarantine. This all thanks to the dreaded Omicron, of which so far there are five, count ‘em five, cases in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, hospitals are laying off the sensible staffers—hailed as heroes just a few months ago—who refuse to take part in history’s largest unsupervised medical experiment, thus necessitating the presence of American soldiers from the National Guard in U.S. hospitals to take up the slack in four states, including Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and New York. The staffing shortages are, of course, a direct result of the mandates; further, in an echo of the supply chain problems currently plaguing American business, they are also slowing down the processing and discharge of patients from hospitals, thus contributing to the hospital-bed shortage. A ruling on Monday by an increasingly erratic Supreme Court that refused to block a New York State requirement that all health-care workers be vaccinated—even if they claim a religious exemption—will only add to the chaos.
“The pandemicists are truly dangerous, and they will grind human civilisation into the dust unless we find some way of putting all of them out of work..”
• The Pandemicists Must Be Stopped (eugyppius)
Just a few words on “Omicron is a Dress Rehearsal for the Next Pandemic”, a New York Times article by Emily Anthes, a science journalist with ties to the World Economic Forum. It’s subtitled “America’s response to the variant highlights both how much progress we have made over the past two years — and how much work remains,” and it’s every inch as awful as you’d imagine. In the piece, Anthes laments that the United States is “woefully unprepared for the challenges ahead, starting with the most fundamental of tasks: detecting the virus.” She quotes a microbiologist to complain that “We had a delay of one to two months before we were even able to identify the presence of [Omicron] … And by that time, it had already circulated widely between multiple states and from coast to coast.” She wastes many words on the necessity of “Testing, testing, testing”; here, apparently, America still needs vastly more capacity.
She and her many scientist informants also want more gene sequencing to detect variants sooner. She’s sure that all of this is absolutely necessary, even though she doesn’t know why: “Scientists are finding more Omicron cases every day, and the variant could soon overtake Delta. What comes next — what we should aim for, even — is less clear. Should we spend the winter trying to stop every infection? Protecting the highest risk people from severe disease and death? Ensuring that hospitals are not overrun? “One thing that we’ve lacked continuously through the pandemic is a goal,” said Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We still don’t have that. Certainly, we don’t have that for Omicron.”
No realistic public health goal underpins this diagnostic mania, of course. People who test positive for Corona are sent home to suffer in untreated silence by themselves. Endlessly testing, tracing, sequencing, panicking and closing is, however, a goal in itself for people like Emily Gurley and all the other pandemicists Anthes gleefully quotes, from Eric Topol to Trevor Bedford to Ezekiel J. Emanuel. All of them want the Corona Circus to play on, and after it ends they hope for a sequel sometime soon. Never before have they enjoyed such personal and professional prominence.
[..] The pandemicists are truly dangerous, and they will grind human civilisation into the dust unless we find some way of putting all of them out of work. They aren’t going to save anybody from the next pandemic; in the event it happens, they’ll just take advantage of the opportunity to expand their ranks still further and make all of our lives worse. And should novel viruses prove slow to materialise in the post-Corona era, they’ll get up to other tricks. Tricks like new and enhanced histrionics over every seasonal influenza outbreak. Tricks like the intentional release of more engineered viral pathogens to keep the grant funding flowing. Tricks like constant lunatic mass vaccination schemes against ever milder viruses. Still other tricks I haven’t considered. The pandemicists have to go.
“Isn’t it fascinating that the direction has always been towards more fear, and never towards calming things down?”
• I Chart in your General Direction (Rudolph Rigger)
1. The metastasization of modelling Most, if not all, of our governmental response to covid19 has been as a result of models. These models have been mostly of 2 kinds. (a) Technical and theoretical attempts to model what might occur. These have been almost universally incorrect – and sometimes incorrect by a couple of orders of magnitude. (b) A mental model of what might happen. “Omicron is more transmissible, therefore we need to do something in order to save ourselves from it” – a sort of pull some scenario out of your ass approach and use it to generate fear. Isn’t it fascinating that the direction has always been towards more fear, and never towards calming things down?
It’s kind of similar to thinking that we’re all in serious danger of being struck by meteorites and so we need to re-build everything underground, one mile down, in order to save ourselves from this event that might happen. (Of course, this might actually happen one day in the future if some humungous asteroid wings its way towards us – but I would like to think it would be based on some decent evidence, rather than just a generalized vague fear) The first one is a very recent chart used by The Telegraph to try to frighten us into thinking there might be 1 million cases of Omicron per day by Christmas in the UK (this is what the headline stated). I can’t even begin to describe how scientifically illiterate this asinine chart actually is.
If we follow the authors’ “logic” here, then just 20 days after this we’ll have over 256 million cases per day – so that everyone in the UK will have, on average, over 3 simultaneous infections with the same virus on that day. But how have the so-called experts fared? Here’s a chart showing how the expert predictions have described anything but reality
Alas, the “experts” can’t get it right either. I use models all the time in physics – they’re not necessarily a bad thing. They are great ways to get some insight, provided you check them against reality to see if they are a reasonable match. It’s very strange to me, as a physicist, to see these “experts” get it SO wrong, again and again and again. What the hell are they doing? Do they just keep sticking new numbers into the same old shit that didn’t work the first time? Don’t they ever stop to think there might be something wrong with their models and the assumptions used to build them?
Zero Hedge is mostly on the ball, but this is not. South Africa’s Discovery Health, one of the country’s biggest health insurers, may claim this, but the exact same thing would occur if Omicron is simply mild, which we know it is. Doesn’t involve any Pfizer.
• Pfizer Jab Prevents 70% Of Hospitalizations In South Africa (ZH)
South Africa’s Discovery Health, one of the country’s biggest health insurers, has just briefed the public on the results of its latest study, and it’s findings aren’t exactly a surprise. While the omicron variant, first discovered in South Africa, is efficient at surpassing protections afforded by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the Discovery data showed that Pfizer’s jab is actually 70% effective at reducing hospitalizations. That might help explain why the omicron variant has coincided with a surge in cases in South Africa, even while the number of hospitalizations and the number of deaths have declined. The protection is maintained across age groups and in the face of a range of chronic illnesses, said Ryan Noach, the CEO of Discovery Health, during a briefing Tuesday.
All told, a course of Pfizer jabs conveys protection of approximately 33% against infection by the omicron variant, according to Bloomberg. The Discovery study included about 78K COVID test results for omicron infections from Nov. 15 to Dec. 7 in South Africa, the epicenter of the current omicron wave. Clinical records, vaccination records and pathology test results were also examined. Prior to omicron, the Pfizer vaccine provided Discovery Health’s clients with 93% protection against hospitalization (although many have also raised questions about that number). So far, as cases continue to climb, hospitalizations are a fraction of what they were during South Africa’s delta wave; meanwhile, deaths haven’t budged much.
Both Discovery and Glenda Gray, the chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council, cautioned that the lack of severe cases and deaths could be a result of the high number of infections in South Africa. In some parts of the country, 80% of the population has already been infected. Discovery’s data also showed that omicron is causing less respiratory distress than delta. Symptoms of the new variant include a scratchy throat, congestion and lower back pain, and illnesses generally last three days or less.
“Omicron may be, in fact, a better vaccine than anything cooked up by Pfizer, Moderna or even the Russians.”
• Davos’ Last Stand Flops at the Box Office (Luongo)
So Davos’ Last Stand hit theatres a couple of weeks ago. Starring OmicronVID-9/11 as the latest unseen killer this was supposed to be the horror movie of a generation. Geopolitically, this is the worst opening for a movie since Ishtar. Sure the overnight preview box office was good. The Dow off 1100 on Opening Day. Gold thwapped. Bitcoin crushed. But then people started talking about the train wreck they’d seen. The response to OmicronVID-9/11’s performance has been nothing short of hilarious. The early reviews pointed to an overblown ‘whisper number’ on box office receipts. The hits just kept coming. The first scathing review came from no less than Goldman Sachs which screamed that they were not informed of the release of Omicron. They compared OmicronVID’s acting ability to the best on PornHub.
I’ve read a lot of Goldman notes over the years and they generally sound like someone desperately trying to convince you to take the opposite side of the trade from them…so they can fleece you. That one was different. It was one that made it clear that they had no idea during production that Omicron was so bad. Translation: Where the hell did this shit come from and why weren’t we allowed to front-run it? Two days later, JPM’s Marco Kolanovic went on CNBC BubbleVision with his review, to blow up the idea that we should remain glued to our screens over the latest release from the Maus Haus, scared for our lives. Kolanovic was the first of many to say the quiet part out loud; that OmicronVID was so unaffecting as a serial killer it may wind up doing the exact opposite, immunizing the world from the next sequel in the series.
That if anything, Omicron may be, in fact, a better vaccine than anything cooked up by Pfizer, Moderna or even the Russians. It was, as reviews go, as devastating as anything written about that horrific Hoffman/Beatty fiasco from 40 years ago. I know, I read them all. They were a hoot. These were the first shots across the bow at Davos’ Last Stand. And were clear signals to the markets that Wall St. was completely done with this COVID-19 nonsense and are in a political position to make that stick in the U.S. Congress. The result has been the fastest week-to-week drop off in box office I’ve seen of a Davos narrative ever.
“..a wave of criticism from German media outlets, which quickly branded his words “conspiracy theories.”
• Vatican Court Judge: Gates & Soros Use Covid To Impose ‘Total Control’ (RT)
A German cardinal has sparked controversy by claiming that the coronavirus pandemic has been used by the likes of George Soros and Bill Gates to create a global “surveillance state.” The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked “chaos” and “turmoil” stemming not only from the “lacking knowledge” about the transmissibility and danger of the virus itself, but from the will of the super-rich to “snatch an opportunity to bring people in line,” Gerhard Ludwig Mueller said in an interview with Austria’s St. Boniface Institute last week. He is a high-ranking judge at the Vatican court. The world’s financial elites are now using the pandemic and the measures governments take to fight the spread of the virus to subject people to “total control” and establish a global “surveillance state,” he added.
The St. Boniface published a video showing a small part of the interview and the cardinal has since confirmed to the German dpa news agency that the footage is genuine. “People, who sit on the throne of their wealth,” see an “opportunity to push through their agenda,” the cardinal said, naming Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, billionaire George Soros and the head of the Davos Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, among those behind the alleged global control scheme. The cardinal then accused the global financial elites of an attempt to bring forth “a new man” created “in their own image and likeness,” adding that he would not wish such a fate on himself. “That has nothing to do with democracy,” the former Regensburg bishop, who once headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said.
The cardinal’s statements, which only recently surfaced in the media, sparked a wave of criticism from German media outlets, which quickly branded his words “conspiracy theories.” Some experts invited by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and other media said his words can be interpreted as a comparison between the actions of the modern government and those of the Nazis, whose crimes are thus “played down.” They also said that a mere mention of Soros in such a context can be seen as anti-Semitic.
Christmas in Athens will be terrible for restaurants. The unvaxxed 50% or so of the people can’t enter, and their friends and families won’t leave them alone. So people will celebrate at home. Rapid tested people can sit outside restaurants, but really, grandma outside in late December?
• UK Restaurants And Pubs Fear 40% Cut In Christmas Takings (G.)
Pubs and restaurants predict that Christmas cancellations made following the introduction of measures to limit the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in England will cut their festive takings by 40%. While hospitality venues have not yet been forced to reimpose measures such as social distancing or mandatory mask-wearing, industry leaders said tougher restrictions had already caused irreparable damage to trade, especially in city centres. Trade body UK Hospitality has forecast that takings will be down by as much as 40% for December, usually the most lucrative month for venues by far, after hard data from last week revealed early signs that customers were staying away.
Data from the trade body for Monday to Sunday of last week showed a 13% drop in trade and a 15% increase in cancellations, compared with pre-pandemic levels. In central London, which is particularly affected by office workers following government guidance to stay at home, takings were down 40%, while there was a 25% surge in Christmas bookings being cancelled. The figures cover a week that followed the identification of the Omicron variant and included the announcement of tougher Covid-19 restrictions, known as “plan B”. With the evaporation of consumer confidence thought to have accelerated since then, bosses called for more assistance from the government to help them survive the effects of a second successive nightmare Christmas.
“The damage has been done,” said Phil Urban, the chief executive of Mitchells & Butlers, which owns 1,700 pubs and restaurants, including the O’Neill’s and Harvester chains. He said customers had begun calling off events last week after the government announced measures including guidance to work from home if possible. “We immediately saw cancellations. Anybody who was at all nervous, or any company that was planning a do was likely to cancel,” Urban said. “We saw the impact on Friday and Saturday but we’ll really start to see the damage this week, particularly in city centres where historically we’d have lots of corporate events. That’s gone now and there’s nothing anyone can do to put it back.”
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