Menu Icon

Debt Rattle January 17 2022

Jan 172022
 
 January 17, 2022  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Man with a falcon on his wrist (possibly St. Bavo) 1661

 

• Editorial Calls For National Guard To Keep Unvaccinated In Their Homes (Fox)
• Democratic Voters Support Harsh Measures Against Unvaccinated (Rasmussen)
• Djokovic ‘Must Pay Huge Sum To Australia’ (RT)
• Australia Deports Novak Djokovic Citing His Threat to Social Cohesion (CTH)
• Civil Rights Groups’ Alarm At Government’s Djokovic Case (Age)
• Doctor Loses License, Must Have Psych Evaluation For Covid Falsehoods (MH)
• The Death Of Science (Exp.)
• After 28 Days on Ventilator, Family Loses Legal Battle to Try Ivermectin (ET)
• Will the Omicron Wave Carry Us Onto Endemic Beach By March? (Kory)
• Greek Seniors To Be Fined For Violating Vaccine Mandate (RT)
• Vaccine Mandate for Cross Border Trucking Now in Effect (CTH)
• Economics Ripe For A Post-pandemic Shake Up (Janda)

 

 

The madness genie is out of the bottle. And as these things go, it will be very hard to put it back in. It’s not as if the end of the pandemic will end the madness, too. Less than 1 year ago, even people like Biden ad Fauci said never a mandate. And now the Salt Lake City Tribune calls for the National Guard to lock the unvaccinated in their homes, and half of Democrats want a fine or prison time for questioning the efficacy of the vaccines. Australians are en masse cheering the destruction of their main tennis tournament. And destroyed it is. What’s the value of winning with the no. 1 out for political reasons?

The mental damage will be with us for a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

Covid school money

 

 

 

 

 

Rutte

 

 

No, nobody put anything funny in the drinking water. This is simply the media.

• Editorial Calls For National Guard To Keep Unvaccinated In Their Homes (Fox)

The Salt Lake City Tribune editorial board published an editorial on Saturday that called on the Utah governor to use the National Guard to prevent unvaccinated citizens from going anywhere. In an editorial titled, “Utah leaders have surrendered to COVID pandemic, the Editorial Board writes” the paper lays blame at elected officials for failing to mandate the vaccine for all citizens. The paper asserted that if Utah was a “civilized place,” Republican Gov. Spencer Cox would implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the state and have the National Guard enforce the mandate by not letting unvaccinated people go “anywhere.”

“Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere,” the editorial board wrote. While the editorial board placed blame at all levels of government, they were more critical of Republicans like Cox. “Government officials, mostly but not exclusively Republicans, were apparently determined not to be caught governing in the face of this challenge. Any move or recommendation to mask up or, when safe and effective vaccines became available, to make vaccination a requirement of admission to public places and society in general was shouted down as an unwarranted imposition on individual freedoms,” it wrote.

“Cox and so many others have not carried the courage of their convictions. Cox, state legislative leaders, our congressional delegation and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes have so proudly stood against the kind of vaccine mandates that civilized society has used for generations to effectively wipe out everything from polio to diphtheria to the measles.”

Read more …

48% of Democrats support prison time for individuals who “publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines”.

• Democratic Voters Support Harsh Measures Against Unvaccinated (Rasmussen)

A new Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 48% of voters favor President Joe Biden’s plan to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the employees of large companies and government agencies. That includes 33% who Strongly Favor the mandate. 48% are opposed to Biden’s vaccine mandate, including 40% who Strongly Oppose the mandate. Voters are similarly divided over the federal government’s top COVID-19 expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. 45% view Fauci favorably, including 28% who have a Very Favorable impression of him. 48% have an unfavorable impression of Fauci, including 34% who have a Very Unfavorable view of him.

The even split among voters is the result of deep partisan divisions. While 78% of Democratic voters support the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate plan, only 22% of Republicans and 41% of voters not affiliated with either major party support the vaccine mandate. And many Democrats would support even harsher measures, including fines for Americans who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine and criminal punishment for vaccine critics. “After two excruciatingly long years, likely voters are beginning to question the federal government’s handling of the pandemic,” said Chris Talgo, senior editor and research fellow at The Heartland Institute, which commissioned this poll. “First and foremost, likely voters are beginning to sour on Dr. Anthony Fauci, who seems to have lost credibility after countless flip-flops.”

Talgo continued: “Moreover, almost half of likely voters oppose President Biden’s vaccine mandates, which seem less about stopping the spread of COVID-19 and more about increasing the power of the federal government. When asked about several other potential strategies, such as fining those who refuse to get vaccinated, the consensus among likely voters is that the federal government should do less, not more.” [..] Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics. 45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters…

Read more …

“..a message of support displayed prominently on the Belgrade Tower in the Serbian capital on Sunday evening..”

• Djokovic ‘Must Pay Huge Sum To Australia’ (RT)

Novak Djokovic’s stare-down with Australian immigration officials looks set to hit the world number one financially, with a report claiming to reveal the vast costs he is said to have been ordered to pay the country’s government. The unanimous decision by Australian judges to rubber-stamp Djokovic’s deportation ahead of the first Grand Slam of 2022 came with certain caveats including a potential ban for Djokovic on entering Australia for three years. Djokovic is financially liable for “all the costs” associated with the case, which are expected to be around $500,000, according to Telegraf – a sum which would have likely fallen on the Australian taxpayer had the court reached a different conclusion on Sunday.


The world number one, who admitted afterwards that he was “extremely disappointed” with the outcome of the hearing which finally ruled out Djokovic’s drive for a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title win and a tenth Australian Open crown – accolades that would have set him apart from his peers as the most successful player of the modern era. While it remains unclear exactly when Djokovic will return to Serbia, his home nation has emphasized its support for Serbia’s most famous sporting export after his legal issues down under. The tennis icon, who has already received emphatic backing from the likes of Serbian president Aleksander Vucic and even Serbian royalty, will have a message of support displayed prominently on the Belgrade Tower in the Serbian capital on Sunday evening. “Nole, you are the pride of Serbia,” the message, which will be displayed between 8pm and 9pm local time, will read, before being replaced by the Serbian tricolor.

Read more …

“The concept of minority rights or individual sovereignty, restrictions on the mob’s ability to interfere in your life, is unfathomable to Australians.”

• Australia Deports Novak Djokovic Citing His Threat to Social Cohesion (CTH)

None of the statements by the government, and none of their legal arguments had anything to do with COVID-19, or any medical issue or threat represented by Mr. Djokovic. The government didn’t even attempt to make any such case in their court arguments. Instead, the government relied upon convincing the court that Djokovic’s physical presence represented a threat to “social cohesion“. To support the position of the government, Australian Chief Justice James Allsop stressed the court was ruling on the “lawfulness and legality” of the decision and not whether it was right or wrong to deport him. The government can arbitrarily decide who comes and goes into the country, therefore, if the government wants to ban Djokovic for whatever reason, they can. That was the determining legal factor, nothing else.

Now we get to the key distinction between Americans and Australians. This is the point where many Americans find it difficult to reconcile with the outlook of Australians. This is where the distinctions in democracy become very important to understand. Americans view any form of tyranny as bad. Americans, in the whole, view any effort to crush your freedom as a negative. Australians only view tyranny as bad if it is not applied equally. As long as everyone suffers the punishment of government equally, the pain is approved. In Australia, government oppression is only bad if it is applied unequally. If every Australian is forced to have their right hand removed to comply with government rules, then the removal of the hand is permitted. Everyone gets in line at the hand-chopper.

However, if someone jumps out of the line and tries to escape, because they don’t want their hand removed, all the other people in line will chase him down, bring him back and hold him down while the government hand-chopper does the removal. The American looks at this mindset with jaw agape and says, “F**k you, my hand isn’t getting removed, and neither should anyone else’s; and I will fight the government hand-chopper if it means stopping them, even if you are okay with your hand getting chopped.” Generally speaking, the line of Americans to get their hands chopped will look scornfully as the two-handed rebel departs, but they accept his decision. (Although this outlook is changing in America) When an American sees a person fighting Australian tyranny (Djokovic), our gut instinct is to support him (we would if his confrontation was inside America – his location is irrelevant).

We support the freedom fight, because we see the underlying reason for him fighting -his medical and health freedom- as having merit. [..] There’s also a weird part of this where we recognize that Australians are unwilling to contemplate or accept that non-Australians might have different inherent rights because, well, they are not Australians. The Australian system of government is based on a pure democracy. Extreme democracy. As soon as 50% plus one is achieved, the other 50% accept the rules of the majority, regardless how small that majority position might be. This is why everyone in Australia is required by law to vote. The concept of minority rights or individual sovereignty, restrictions on the mob’s ability to interfere in your life, is unfathomable to Australians. Once a law is passed by majority consent, they all agree to follow it. That is their social compact.

Read more …

“..The crowd went silent as the decision was announced and one woman began to cry.”

• Civil Rights Groups’ Alarm At Government’s Djokovic Case (Age)

The government’s barrister, Stephen Lloyd, SC, argued on Sunday that Djokovic’s views were “widely understood” and he had “become an icon for the anti-vaccination groups”. However, he said it was not only what Djokovic had stated in the past that had an impact, but also how people perceived him now and how that might encourage them to reject vaccination. Pauline Wright, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said it was reasonable for the government to suggest a famous person such as Djokovic who is unvaccinated may influence some people to refuse inoculation. But it was a “big leap” to argue his previous comments on vaccination were serious enough to deem his presence in Australia a public health risk.

“Do the comments in 2020 disentitle him from playing a tennis game in Australia in 2022?” she said. “Does that really pose such a threat to public health in a situation where we’ve got 95 per cent of the adult population vaccinated? “People are free to be sceptical of vaccination … As long as they can prove they are COVID-free, I don’t see why they should be excluded from public life.” Michael Stanton, a barrister and the president of Liberty Victoria, said it was “particularly unfair” to focus on how others might perceive Djokovic’s views, rather than the seriousness of what he has actually said. “It’s very different from [denying a visa] for someone who has expressly said something about inciting violence or encouraging unrest,” he said. “The reliance on how someone might be perceived sets an impossible standard for that person to meet.”

It was also ironic that the government’s attempt to remove Djokovic had given his views a week of international attention, he said. “They have magnified the anti-vax voice.” Mr Stanton and Ms Wright said the case highlighted the danger of the Immigration Minister’s power to make what they described as arbitrary decisions. Under powers described by a former Labor immigration minister as “god-like”, the minister can cancel someone’s visa if they believe the person may – rather than will – risk public health or good order. The debate came as fans of the 20-time grand slam winner protested outside Melbourne’s Federal Court buildings on Sunday. The crowd went silent as the decision was announced and one woman began to cry.

Read more …

Yes, ivermectin.

• Doctor Loses License, Must Have Psych Evaluation For Covid Falsehoods (MH)

A doctor with decades of experience can’t practice medicine after her license was temporarily suspended over complaints that she shared coronavirus misinformation, according to a Maine licensing board. The board has ordered her to undergo a neuropsychological evaluation, it said. Dr. Meryl J. Nass, who got a license to practice medicine in Maine in 1997, had her license “immediately” suspended for 30 days after a board investigation and review of complaints against her on Jan. 12, according to a suspension order from the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine. Nass, who’s an internist in Ellsworth, must “submit” to an evaluation by a “Board-selected psychologist” on Feb. 1, the board’s evaluation order issued Jan. 11 said.

“I have no comment about submitting to a neuropsych exam, except that the board ordered me to do so on shaky grounds,” Nass told McClatchy News, adding that she’s had her license for a total of 41 years. “The information received by the Board demonstrates that Dr. Nass is or may be unable to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety to her patients by reason of mental illness, alcohol intemperance, excessive use of drugs, narcotics, or as a result of a mental or physical condition interfering with the competent practice of medicine,” the evaluation order states. The complaints against Nass include how the board was told she engaged in “public dissemination of ‘misinformation’” about COVID-19 and vaccinations “via a video interview and on her website,” the board said about the October 26, 2021 complaint. It lists several comments Nass made that were subject to the board’s investigation.

Roughly 10 days later, the board got another complaint about Nass “spreading COVID and COVID vaccination misinformation on Twitter,” it said. Nass called “disinformation and misinformation” a “fuzzy concept” that the board hasn’t defined for her, she said. “There’s no law that says doctors can’t express their educated opinion on any subject.” Other grounds for her suspension include how Nass treated COVID-19 patients with Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, according to the board. The board noted that Ivermectin isn’t Food and Drug Administration “authorized or approved” as a treatment for COVID-19 in the suspension order. Ivermectin is used as a parasitic treatment for animals, according to the FDA.

“For humans, ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses to treat some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea,” the agency explains online. Additionally, it noted the FDA “revoked’ emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine since it “may not be effective” against COVID-19.

Read more …

“This has been a whitewash. This whole thing has killed science. Science is meant to look at evidence. It is truly unbelievable.”

• The Death Of Science (Exp.)

Professor Dalgleish co-authored a paper in summer 2020 after spotting “unique fingerprints” in Covid-19 samples that he believes prove they must have been manipulated in a laboratory. The work was rejected by a string of journals, before finally being published in a watered-down form. Prof Dalgleish, an oncologist who discovered how HIV entered and killed cells in 1984, then found himself “ostracised” and frightened. In February 2020, the Lancet had published a letter that “strongly condemned conspiracy theories” suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin. This highly influential letter – subsequently cited in thousands of scientific publications – was signed by 27 experts including Wellcome Trust head and former Sage member Sir Jeremy Farrar.

However, it has since emerged that two weeks before the letter was published, Sir Jeremy stated in private emails that some senior scientists believed a ‘likely explanation’ was that the virus was man-made. He had led a teleconference call on February 1 2020. The emails discuss the call and reveal one virologist was ‘80 percent sure this thing had come out of a lab’. Others shared the view. Sir Jeremy was uncertain, stating “this will remain grey unless there is access to the Wuhan lab”. But virologist Dr Ron Fouchier said: “Further debate about such accusations would . . . do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.” Professor Dalgleish, author of a new book on covid, The Origin of the Virus, warned the affair had profound implications for the scientific community.

He said his team had found amino acids on the spike with a positive charge, allowing the virus to cling to negative parts of the human body. But it was highly unusual to find so many positive charges in a row because they also repel each other, he said. “We realised when they released the sequence of the virus it broke the laws of physics for a natural virus meaning it was genetically modified. “At the time my position was supported by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 who now chairs the University of London board of trustees.” However, when they tried to publish their work they were turned down by numerous papers, including the Lancet. “My paper was rejected within five hours”, he said. “Normally it takes three weeks before it is even peer reviewed.”

Prof Dalgleish said: “It was a political decision for this to be suppressed.” Describing the impact after his paper was finally released, he said: “I was ostracised. I was fearful – really frightened at the way I was being treated. “I was told I was not an expert on coronavirus’ and should just shut up. People tried to push us away. We were told our theory had no rationale and it was a conspiracy theory. I am so angry about this. I have more virus papers cited than most virology experts and they tried to push me aside. “They did not even look at the science. It was obvious it was a gain of function escape from a lab and I say escape, but that is generous. We had this data in late February after the sequences were released. “This has been a whitewash. This whole thing has killed science. Science is meant to look at evidence. It is truly unbelievable.” Last year an expert who has studied the lab leak said the debate about coronavirus will be reduced to “insults on twitter” unless medical journals allow uncensored discussion.

Read more …

This is so immoral, where does one begin?

• After 28 Days on Ventilator, Family Loses Legal Battle to Try Ivermectin (ET)

A Florida family fighting to give their loved one on a ventilator alternative treatments for COVID-19 have lost another battle—this time in Florida’s First District Court of Appeal. The wife and son of Daniel Pisano first squared off against Mayo Clinic Florida at an emergency hearing on Dec. 30 in Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit. Before that, they’d been begging the hospital to allow them to try treating Pisano—who’s been on a ventilator now for 28 days—with the controversial drug ivermectin, along with a mix of other drugs and supplements, part of a protocol recommended by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). The family’s request for an emergency injunction to force the Mayo Clinic to allow treatments recommended by an outside doctor was denied by Judge Marianne Aho. They appealed the decision.

On Jan. 14, Aho’s decision was upheld by Florida’s First District Court of Appeal. The three-judge panel deciding the case included Judge Thomas “Bo” Winokur, appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott in 2015; Judge M. Kemmerly Thomas, appointed in 2016 by Scott; and Judge Robert E. Long, Jr., appointed in 2020, by Gov. Ron DeSantis. “An opinion of this Court explaining its reasoning will follow,” the judges stated in the order they issued. “So we wait to see what that looks like, unless it takes too long,” said Jeff Childers, an attorney for the family. Seventy-year-old Daniel Pisano doesn’t have unlimited time, says Eduardo Balbona, M.D., an independent doctor in Jacksonville who’s been advising the family since they reached out to him while researching other treatments that could potentially help their loved one.

Balbona, who has been monitoring Pisano’s treatment at the Mayo Clinic through an online portal, testified on behalf of the Pisano family in the first hearing. The Mayo Clinic has argued that the treatment plan doesn’t fit with the hospital’s standard protocol for treating COVID-19 patients and they don’t know what the effects of following Balbona’s recommendations would be. The hospital has told the family that Pisano has a less-than-five percent chance of survival, and all that’s left to do is wait and see if he recovers on the ventilator.

Read more …

“..we should be “getting to the other side” of the wave by March!”

• Will the Omicron Wave Carry Us Onto Endemic Beach By March? (Kory)

Woke up last Sunday to a text forwarded to me by my wife. It was a series of notes taken by a good friend of hers which summarized the main points heard on a conference call with the International Head of Infectious Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital (i.e. “Haavaad”). This is what it looked like: I found it remarkable on a number of fronts given that this information; 1/ Comes out of the Top of the Ivory Tower of Ivory Towers (Harvard) 2/ Comes from the Director of International Infectious Disease.

Despite #1 and #2, the Director; 1/ Subtly questions the accuracy of publicly disseminated hospitalization data (a large number of us have long stopped placing high value on the disseminated aggregate U.S data as it is not only severely discordant with other countries’s data (U.K, Israel, S. Africa etc) but the underlying granular, “source” data is almost never supplied to the public. Plus, the U.S agencies history of data shenanigans in the pandemic is terrifying – i.e. remember when they made a rule to stop testing the vaccinated and to advise docs against checking antibodies on anyone prior to vaccinating them?

2/ Says that boosters will not be needed for Omicron. Wait, what? Scientific truth and logic is now coming out of a major academic institution in the U.S? No more of their long-standing, complicit (silent) support of an unending series of illogical policies around these novel vaccines? He openly says this while all the public health agencies and mass media continue to whip up fear of Omicron so as to try to increase vaccination rates? He even implicity brings up the reality that vaccines designed for older and fundamentally different variants have already shown either negligible or negative protection against Omicron. Whoa. He also didn’t bother (or forgot) to parrot the manipulative lie that vaccines are responsible for preventing hospitalization and death in Omicron? Who slipped this guy the Truth Serum?

3/ Offers a highly positive message in line with my growing and large network of COVID-expert colleagues in that the global data on Omicron strongly suggests it will infect such large swaths of society that things will get back to normal, based on the fact that natural immunity to (and displacement of) the more dangerous variants will result. And, we should be “getting to the other side” of the wave by March!

Read more …

Petty.

• Greek Seniors To Be Fined For Violating Vaccine Mandate (RT)

The Greek prime minister has made a final appeal to the country’s senior citizens to get inoculated before monthly punishments for violating the country’s vaccination mandate kick in next week. “Our fellow citizens who are over 60 and still unvaccinated – I encourage them today: take this step,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a visit to a health center in Megara, near Athens, on Saturday. “Protect your life and the lives of those you love, and understand that the vaccine is safe and saves lives.”


Citizens aged over 60 will be fined €50 ($57) from Monday and €100 ($114) each month from February unless they get vaccinated. All proceeds will go to the country’s health system, Greek media said. Those with Covid recovery certificates and proven medical exemptions will not be subject to the fines. People vaccinated abroad will be able to register their vaccination through a government website. The AMNA news agency cited government sources as saying that 90% of citizens aged over 60 have already been vaccinated or have booked an inoculation appointment.

Read more …

Do watch the video. And then maybe stock up.

• Vaccine Mandate for Cross Border Trucking Now in Effect (CTH)

The cross border vaccine mandate for truckers in/out of Canada is now in effect. The U.S. vaccine mandate takes effect on January 22nd.It will take a few days to see the consequences, but there will be consequences. Keep in mind, any impact is taking place in a supply chain system that is already tenuous and unstable at best. A small disruption that may have been minimally significant against a fully operational supply chain, is more likely to be a much bigger disruption in a supply chain that is already under a severe amount of demand side stress. Somewhere in the range of 16,000 to 38,000 daily loads are likely to be impacted.

When questioned about this, Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc says the trucking industry “has had adequate time to prepare for this.” Keep in mind, the mandate was announced 45 days ago (November 30th). According to the Canadian government, changing the structural rules for all the logistics and commerce in cross border shipping, 45 days is enough notice. […] The mandate throws a “major wrench” in the Canadian and North American supply chains, he added, with grocers, food producers, the auto parts industry and building materials among the sectors expected to be most affected. “I really hope that we’re not at the stage where you see food insecurity, where you’re actually going to grocery stores and there’s nothing on the shelf,” Winder said. “That could be the worst-case scenario.”

Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, told CTV News Channel on Saturday that there were as many 23,000 vacancies at the end of the third quarter of 2021, with his group’s own studies showing that roughly 20 per cent of Canadian truck drivers operating across the border are unvaccinated. […] “If we remove a fifth of that workforce, we’re going to see shortages on shelves and we’re going to see inflation of prices, because the cost to bring this stuff here is going to go up.”

Canadian truck driver

Read more …

“So when 30, 40 or 50 per cent of your staff are absent through COVID illness or isolation, there is no way to keep functioning as usual.”

• Economics Ripe For A Post-pandemic Shake Up (Janda)

Who do we miss most when they don’t turn up to work? If I couldn’t work from home and write this column, would it inconvenience you in the slightest? If your employer’s CEO was out of action for a fortnight, would it affect your work? Federal parliament hasn’t sat for a month and a half and won’t sit again until the second week of February. How many of us even noticed? On the other hand, if your garbage collection doesn’t turn up this week and your bin is overflowing, it’ll certainly catch your attention. When you turn up to the supermarket to buy fresh produce for dinner and the shelves are bare, it’s more than a minor annoyance. If your toddler can’t go to childcare, you’ll definitely notice.

As the Centre for Future Work’s Jim Stanford pointed out last week, COVID has shown again and again that the basis of a healthy economy is healthy humans. But it has also reminded those of us paying attention that our most essential workers also happen to be some of our lowest-paid, while our (arguably) less-essential workers are often paid far more. Of course, in a modern capitalist democracy, we need CEOs, politicians and, yes, even journalists. But their temporary absence doesn’t spark a crisis. But take the nurses, chefs and cleaners out of a nursing home and you’ll have a crisis very quickly, as some facilities are already seeing in the Omicron wave.

Yet the fruit and veggie pickers, abattoir workers, truck drivers, warehouse workers, nurses, childcare workers, garbage collectors, cleaners and many others whose daily work is directly essential for others’ wellbeing generally earn much less than the average — which is currently around AUS $90,000 per year for full-time workers. Does that not hint at something fundamentally wrong with a social science concerned with distribution? That many of the people whose work is most valued by others in society are among those least valued by that society in a monetary sense? There’s another hard lesson for economists and managers in the way COVID has exposed weaknesses in supply chains.

Those who run the economy, corporations and public services, perhaps above all, tend to strive for efficiency and productivity. In recent decades, firms, governments and even households have been operating on lean “just-in-time” models, where we keep stocks in hand as low as possible. That’s fine in normal times, but when your usual supply suddenly dries up — whether it’s computer chips, face masks or toilet paper — you very quickly find yourself in a tricky bind, with little time to adapt. The same is true for staffing. So many companies and public services have down-sized, or “right-sized” as it is now sometimes euphemistically termed, that losing just 10 per cent of their workforce is a crisis. So when 30, 40 or 50 per cent of your staff are absent through COVID illness or isolation, there is no way to keep functioning as usual.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Pollination – Must watch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1482908859454869507

 

 

Amsterdam

Groningen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1482853258897076227

 

 

Spain

Barcelona

Perth

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

How America Treats Its Doctors

Oct 202021
 
 October 20, 2021  Posted by at 12:19 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


George Bellows The Lone Tenement 1909

 

 

Our resident physician John Day in Texas comes with an update on his situation. It seems his clinic no longer seeks to fire him for refusing to be vaccinated, they now claim it’s for cause (it’s not). A doctor who has been free to decide medical treatments for and with his patients for many years, all of a sudden cannot decide that for his own body.

And of course it’s not just America, and it’s not just doctors, it’s also pilots and nurses and soldiers and police men and women, and vaccine mandates are being introduced in many countries. That will deprive many fields in our societies of their leaders, and leave them occupied by followers only.

People who think for themselves, and wish to decide for themselves (as is their right), are being put out by the curb, and by the thousands. The resulting changes in society will be devastating. Losing all those years of experience and wisdom and kindness and intelligence will make us all a lot poorer. And why? It’s obviously not about logic, and it’s not about health. John:

 

 

John Day MD: Precariously Supported,

  Yesterday was an odd day in several aspects. I had worked a long Friday at the clinic again, which did not go badly. I left nothing unfinished. We drove to the Yoakum homestead Friday night and got a good night of sleep.

  Somehow, I felt very heavy and slow on Saturday and Sunday, so I trudged through three to four hours of pushing the little Honda mower, and did work in the garden, but ploddingly. I planted garlic for the winter/spring season, and tended the garden.

  I continued to feel a weight of unease, and as we started the drive back to Austin, Sunday afternoon, I had a sense that I should really buy winter veggies to put in at the clinic garden, which I started in 2016, and tend for my coworkers. Putting things off until the end of the month, in my last two weeks of work there, seemed awkward.

  We picked up a lot of winter greens and salad starts in little pots on our way into Austin, some for our Austin kitchen garden, but most for the clinic garden. I did a last harvest of the blackeyed pea row, then cut down the vines, and took them to some chickens that a friend of Jenny’s raises.

  Yesterday (Monday) morning I worked in our kitchen garden again, preparing the beds for fall and winter, cleaning up the summer debris, and also planting an orange seedling in the bed in front of the house, where the February freeze had killed the one fruitful tree. 

  After eating, I went over to the clinic with an orange seedling, to replace the two that the February freeze had killed, and all of the winter salad and cooking-green seedlings to fill a couple of rows. I went through the entrance, put on a mask, and went through to the garden in the break area, with shovels and clippers, saying “hi” to a few people and smiling with my eyes. I went out through the garden gate, and brought in the orange tree, then the veggie starts.

  The orange tree needed to go in the large bed, which has a Mexican avocado seedling tree, and a banana plant that actually survived February. Mainly it has a lot of sweet potatoes. It’s a fairly large bed, and this has been a very good year for sweet potatoes. I filled the three gallon bucket that the tree was in with sweet potatoes, from just a few square feet that I cleared and dug up, before planting it, maybe one percent of that bed.

  While I was digging up the sweet potatoes and digging the hole to put the orange tree in, my flip phone rang. I figured it was Jenny. I brushed some of the dirt off my hands and answered it. It was the nice and very well-mannered youngish man, who is currently Director of Human Resources, telling me that my last day of work had been changed from the last Friday of October to the Friday just passed, which was different from what I had been told last week, when the reason for my firing was changed from vaccine-mandate non-compliance, to all of the wrongs I have committed in the period of time since that mandate was announced.

   It was a lousy spot for him to be put in, and he seemed uncomfortable having to put it into polite words. He had been trying to call me while I was working on our home garden, but I had not been carrying the phone. I told him that I was at the clinic garden, putting in some things for winter, and that he could talk to me in person. My presence in the garden was unanticipated, though I have worked on my day off frequently in the past couple of months. 

  We talked as I planted the orange tree and put the big sweet potatoes in the pot, handing it over to a couple of nurses taking their lunch. They had helped dig sweet potatoes last year, and I knew they wanted some. He politely explained that I was not to re-enter the building, and that my desk would be cleared out and boxed for me. The explanation was so polite that I sought clarification. I did negotiate that I could pick up a few notes at my desk with his presence and supervision, which we then did. My badge didn’t let me in this time. He had to use his. As we walked through the clinic to my desk, most people had their eyes down. A few coworkers looked me in the eyes, and I smiled with my eyes. I was comfortable in myself, and emanated that (I think). 

  We grabbed a few boxes and made short work of the packing-up. I got everything, and we carried the three boxes to my little twenty four year old Ford Ranger pickup truck together. We went back to the garden and break-area through the gate, He thought it best that I just leave without planting the vegetables, but I prevailed upon him to keep his agreement to let me clean out the rows and do the planting.

   He actually had a fair number of gardening questions, which I answered as I cleared the rows and planted for winter.  I worked expeditiously, taking about twenty to thirty minutes, as I explained the quality of the soil, and how building soil is one of the main objectives in successful gardening. If you don’t have enough garden to out produce what the squirrels, birds and other critters can eat, they will eat it all.  You need a big enough garden patch.

  We walked back to the truck with shovels and clippers, talking about what’s next. The clinic will still pay me for these last two weeks of October, but my patients who are scheduled will not get to see me for a last visit. I have been doing everything possible to avoid leaving loose ends, and to write thorough chart notes, so it will be easy for the next doctor. I have tried to make suggestions for which doctor or practitioner might best match the needs and personality of each patient. I passed my list to give to the Director of Adult Medicine, who has been working hard and well on this transition. It’s not a complete list…

  I am left to wonder why the clinic took surprise action to remove me from patient-care, while still paying my salary for two weeks. I suspect there was free-floating anxiety about what I might say or do. I had been informing people of the actual circumstances of my leaving, being fired for non-compliance with mandatory vaccination. The management has been consulting with attorneys the whole time, and somebody else is contesting her firing for non-compliance with that mandate, I am told. Governor Abbott did say that vaccine mandates are not tolerable in Texas, Monday of last week. I suspect that my being fired-for-cause, other than non-compliance with COVID vaccination might be more plausible when the date of my firing is moved forward from the prior date of my termination for non-compliance

  I do not intend to contest my firing through recourse to the law. The only law I am really, currently concerned with is the Law of Karma, and I am very concerned with that law. I am constantly aware of the implications of Karma as we wade further into this rip-tide of history.

Human Horticulturist

 

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Donate with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

The Vaccines Don’t Work

Aug 012021
 
 August 1, 2021  Posted by at 1:48 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  136 Responses »


Paul Klee Hammamet with Its Mosque 1914

 

 

On Thursday, an internal CDC slide deck was “leaked”. On Friday, an “official” document was presented. The first is more interesting, because it contains things that are ostensibly not meant for public consumption (how to present…). The second is made up of a lot of official looking terminology. What else? But both largely say the same thing: there is no difference between the infection rates of vaccinated and non-vaccinated people. Of course that is then dressed up again in calls to get vaccinated, they can’t help themselves…

In colorful language such as “the war has changed” and “Delta spreads as easily as chickenpox”, the CDC tries very hard to undermine -even deny- it own findings. The slide deck is here:

Improving Communications Around Vaccine Breakthrough And Vaccine Effectiveness

CNN commented:

“The document – a slide presentation – outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people..”

The New York Times said:

“The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated, an internal C.D.C. report said.”

Friday’s document refers to an event in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, where 3/4 of infections were in fully vaccinated people. It’s funny to see people react with: “that makes sense, most people are vaccinated now”, completely forgetting that the vaccines were supposed to prevent infections. And inadvertently admitting that there is indeed no difference in infection rates, ergo: the vaccines don’t work.

Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Associated with Large Public Gatherings — Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021

In July 2021, following multiple large public events in a Barnstable County, Massachusetts, town, 469 COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled to the town during July 3–17; 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients. Cycle threshold values were similar among specimens from patients who were fully vaccinated and those who were not.

Perhaps because of the big words used to dress up the story, or perhaps because people have become so conditioned to react to everything Covid with fear, the logical conclusion of these two documents is not drawn anywhere. Which is that notions such as vaccine mandates and vaccine passports should now be discarded. There is no reason for a “vaccine” to be applied if you get infected with it as easily as without.

Some will still claim that they stop more severe sickness, but evidence of that is scarce at best, and it has nothing to do with the “societal functions” of not infecting others that the mandates and passports are designed for. If we know what’s good for us, it’s back to the drawing board.

There is of course no reason from an individual point of view to get vaccinated either: even if you believe that you might get less sick, you would still have to weigh that against the risks the vaccines come with. And they come in multiple large shapes and forms. There is a group now trying to prove that 500,000 people have died from the vaccines, up from 50,000, and the info from VAERS and other systems remains shaky. You would think every doctor and nurse would consider it a matter of honor to report adverse reactions as accurately as possible, but that’s not the impression we have so far.

Also, you can read everywhere that when numbers of infections (“cases”) are down in a country or region, it’s because of the vaccines. But how is that possible if infections are equally spread between vaccinated and unvaccinated? Where’s the logic? And what’s the logic of blaming the unvaccinated once you know they are no more contagious than the jabbed?

 

 

I think perhaps the biggest problem of all right now is that there is so much invested in official narratives. That is as logical as it is unfortunate. And I get it, all those politicians and experts are slowly and very reluctantly realizing that they bet on the wrong horse, and to turn a ship of state around is much harder than for me to change my life.

The alternative to admitting your failures is a very dark place, so maybe you should make sure you’re ahead of the crowd, ahead of your co-PMs and presidents and “experts”, admit your faults, profoundly apologize, and shift that steering wheel 180º if need be. You don’t want to find yourself in that dark place.

Now they want to put masks on the vaccinated. That must mean the vaccines don’t work, right? No, no, they swear, the vaccines are very very efficient. It’s just that you have a very rare breakthrough case now and then, because no vaccine is perfect. So for a few rare breakthrough cases you’re going to tell millions of Americans to mask up? And then you see that New York State alone has 11,000 of such very rare cases.

Pfizer wants to give everyone a booster shot this fall. I was thinking they must have made some improved version against Delta, but no, it’ll be a third shot of the same “vaccine”. But wait, we just found it doesn’t work against Delta. The Israelis give it a 39% efficacy, which is not even enough to get an emergency authorization. Get it off the market then.

Why would I get such a shot at this point in time? The only reason I can think of is that if I don’t, you’ll take my job away, and/or severely screw with my life, and rights, and freedoms, in other ways. But certainly not for protection, because the substance offers me none of that, not for me, not for others. And there’s something terribly wrong with that, with forcing me to make choices based on such warped notions.

The entire grand idea of getting everyone vaccinated is just like Zero covid: impossible and unnecessary grandstanding, obsessed by grand illusions of power over every single individual mind. In reality, it’s everyone’s own choice, and nobody else’s.

 

 

For some obscure reason we have accepted the idea that we can do no risk stratification, that everyone is at equal risk, and therefore everyone should undergo the same treatment. And then we find out that this treatment doesn’t work, or only half, or only for a few months, etc. But you can be sure insurance companies are still doing risk stratification, also for Covid, it’s how they make a profit.

We find the vaccine is not a vaccine, but a therapeutic. An untested one at that. While we could have focused on prevention, either for everyone or just for the vulnerable, and early treatment for early victims. As 80% of people were never at risk at all and 80% have already been infected and survived.

There are plenty ways to do prevention and we have discarded them all, in favor for a treatment that now turns against us. That is to say, the vaccine makes the virus more, not less, dangerous. It’s not the unvaccinated that are the pool the virus mutates in, it’s the vaccinated.

And it’s not only the mutations. All Covid therapeutics used in the west induce the vaccinees’ body to produce spike proteins, which are toxic to the body. Initially, it was claimed that they would stay near the site of injection, but we soon found that they spread through the entire body, and assemble especially in the most vulnerable spots: lungs, testes, placenta etc.

And that’s not all either: we now see suspicions that the spike proteins remain active in the body, and continue to be produced inside the body, for much longer than we were told they would be. An as yet unpublished report will claim that they have been found five months after injection, instead of mere days. The potential consequences would be much more disastrous than the virus.

 

 

And wouldn’t you know, the moment we find out from the CDC itself that the vaccines don’t work, that same CDC clamors for more vaccinations, and all the usual suspects in the media and politics and “expertise” chime in. Everyone vaccinated now or we’ll take your jobs away, and all of your fun. Children, no matter how young, must be jabbed, even pregnant women. This therapeutic we never really tested is perfectly safe for your unborn child!

Without a jab, you’re a lethal danger to everyone who’s been vaccinated!

Well, actually, I am not, and thanks to the CDC now I can prove it.

The other way around, though, I’m not so sure.

 

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Debt Rattle August 1 2021

Aug 012021
 
 August 1, 2021  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  51 Responses »


Ivan Aivazovsky Lac Maggiore 1892

 

• Two Weeks (Denninger)
• Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Individuals Have Similar Viral Loads (Medrxiv)
• US Reports Almost 200,000 New Covid Cases In Worst Spike Since January (F.)
• Why Are Globalists, Governments So Desperate For 100% Vaccination Rates? (AM)
• Twitter Suspends Berenson For Postsing Results Of Pfizer Clinical Test (Turley)
• Vaccine Mandates May Be Coming – But Will They Be Legal? (Turley)
• French Protests Grow Against Extended Health Pass Scheme (R.)
• Rare Earth Metals Have Become A Thorn In The Side Of The Green Agenda (RT)
• CDC Still Baffled People Are Paying Attention To Them (BBee)

 

 

 

 

Delta Variant: They have NO idea what COVID variant anyone has unless they take a sample, grow the virus in a suitable cell line, and go through the sequencing process to find out what amino acids mutations have happened. Are they doing that in every patient across the world?

 

 

Must see.

Don’t Get Jabbed : JRickey Productions Studio


 

 

Vaccine Truth
@VaccineTruth2 – We think over 500K may have died from the vaccines in the first 6 months of 2021. But there isn’t an excess death bump in the weekly CDC data. But there is a bump in mortician data. So someone isn’t telling the truth. Can anyone help us confirm the anecdote below?

 

 

 

 

Sounds about right. In Britain they already have no idea what to say about falling numbers.

Except for: it’s the vaccines!. But we know it’s not.

• Two Weeks (Denninger)

That’s about all their scheme has left, which is why the screaming and threats now. Note that I got jailed by Twatter for wishing that organizations mandating jabs go broke and starve when, in point of fact, they were advancing the very same thing toward their staff: Take a drug or be fired, go broke and starve. Why is this option for them about to expire? They’re about to get lynched and they know it. In another dispiriting setback for the nation’s efforts to stamp out the coronavirus, scientists who studied a big COVID-19 outbreak in Massachusetts concluded that vaccinated people who got so-called breakthrough infections carried about the same amount of the coronavirus as those who did not get the shots. The problem here is profound: The public was sold on these jabs as a solution; you will neither get seriously ill nor will you spread the virus to others if you get a “breakthrough”, therefore if you take the jab you get your life back.

[..] I was asked for evidence when my daughter started kindergarten that her “childhood” series was done, but never again. Not once. Now is it possible that the school had some “back door” access? Maybe. But never was I specifically asked to provide it beyond original enrollment for kindergarten. Never. It would have been stupid, however, for me not to have her get those shots. Why? Because there I can (and did) look at the data and it was trivially obvious that (1) the protection from them was durable, lasting decades if not life-long, (2) the disease(s) in question were in fact truly dangerous to healthy people and (3) the risk of a bad outcome from the jabs were trivially small. That makes the decision easy and you have to be somewhere off into crazyland to have a serious debate otherwise.

We can debate on the sequencing and timing, but not on a serious statistical level as to the rest. I argued before the first jab went into the first arm that none of this was true for this specific jab. There simply was no data to support the first point; three months is not enough time to determine durability and no amount of arm-waving can change that. The disease, by that time, was proved to be of trivial to statistically zero risk when it comes to healthy individuals, especially young healthy individuals, and there are effective and immediate treatments you can choose to use if infected (despite the screaming of many.) And third, the risk of adverse outcomes from the jabs was wildly higher, by several hundred times, that of other commonly used vaccines and this was with active interference in reporting the adverse effect rate.

Those who point to “flu shot mandates” in certain occupations are lying about their effectiveness too. We know that the morbidity and mortality profile from influenza has not been materially altered with the widespread use of flu vaccines. Yes, the CDC claims otherwise, but systemic review has repeatedly found confidence intervals that cross null. Cherry-picking results when statistical significance is not demonstrated with a strong “p” value is fraud. In other words the “mandates”, which in other than health-care workers are all “soft” and always have been (recommendations rather than actual mandates) all stand on the basis that statistically-speaking the flu shot has a vanishingly small risk of doing harm; therefore you can argue that since it’s almost never dangerous there’s no argument against it. That’s very different, however, than making an argument for it.

Finally, the history of attempting coronavirus vaccination is that it never works. We have tried before in both men and beast. We’ve never succeeded. Coronaviruses are notorious for both evading vaccination attempts and with their vaccine candidates being non-sterilizing, which in all viruses put evolutionary pressure on them and result in mutations that evade the protection. The problem with viruses in this regard is that their replication is exponential; while mutational evasion of protection for bacteria with antibiotics typically takes years or even decades to occur because bacteria replicate in a binary fashion, that is 1 becomes 2, which becomes 4 and so on with viruses 1 becomes 1,000 and if that one winds up in recombination due to cross-infection with something else at the same time then while the odds of a productive mutation are no higher than they are with any other the outcome when you get a productive mutation is much more-likely to result in escape and transmission because the replication factor is so large.

Read more …

Vaccines are useless.

• Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Individuals Have Similar Viral Loads (Medrxiv)

SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.617.2 (delta) is associated with higher viral loads [1] and increased transmissibility relative to other variants, as well as partial escape from polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies [2]. The emergence of the delta variant has been associated with increasing case counts and test-positivity rates, indicative of rapid community spread. Since early July 2021, SARS-CoV-2 cases in the United States have increased coincident with delta SARS-CoV-2 becoming the predominant lineage nationwide [3]. Understanding how and why the virus is spreading in settings where there is high vaccine coverage has important public health implications.

It is particularly important to assess whether vaccinated individuals who become infected can transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others. In Wisconsin, a large local contract laboratory provides SARS-CoV-2 testing for multiple local health departments, providing a single standard source of data using the same assay to measure virus burdens in test-positive cases. This includes providing high-volume testing in Dane County, a county with extremely high vaccine coverage. These PCR-based tests provide semi-quantitative information about the viral load, or amount of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, in respiratory specimens.

Here we use this viral load data to compare the amount of SARS-CoV-2 present in test-positive specimens from people who self-report their vaccine status and date of final immunization, during a period in which the delta variant became the predominant circulating variant in Wisconsin. We find no difference in viral loads when comparing unvaccinated individuals to those who have vaccine “breakthrough” infections. Furthermore, individuals with vaccine breakthrough infections frequently test positive with viral loads consistent with the ability to shed infectious viruses. Our results, while preliminary, suggest that if vaccinated individuals become infected with the delta variant, they may be sources of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to others.

Read more …

Worldometer reported fewer than 100,000 cases on the same day. And newsnodes.com has 59,000. Cui bono?

• US Reports Almost 200,000 New Covid Cases In Worst Spike Since January (F.)

There were 194,608 new Covid cases reported around the U.S. on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University, bringing the seven-day rolling average for new cases above 103,000, the highest it’s been since Feb. 7. More than 48,000 people are now hospitalized with Covid in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which remains well below the more than 130,000 who were hospitalized during January’s record peak. The seven-day rolling average for deaths is around 300, according to the New York Times, up from an average of 175 deaths a day earlier this month.

A number of counties and cities across the U.S. have reversed course after easing restrictions earlier in the pandemic, with several reinstating mask mandates, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control urged people in places with high transmission rates to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status, which could lead to more mask mandates. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that his administration will require all federal workers, contractors and members of the military to get vaccinated against coronavirus or submit to frequent testing — a precedent that could add to the momentum for vaccine mandates at private companies and the local government level.

The highly contagious delta variant is now responsible for nearly all Covid-19 cases in the U.S., leading to what public health officials have called a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But while the vast majority of those being hospitalized and dying from Covid-19 are unvaccinated, concerns are growing over how easily the fully vaccinated might unwittingly spread the virus. A CDC study released Friday found that 74% of cases in a recent outbreak of the delta variant in Massachusetts were among vaccinated people, and they had viral loads as high as unvaccinated people who were infected. The study was a factor in the CDC’s tightening of its masking guidelines.

Read more …

I’m not buying into the scary Great Reset thing. They may have the money, but they ain’t got the brains.

• Why Are Globalists, Governments So Desperate For 100% Vaccination Rates? (AM)

My concern is that Klaus Schwab’s reset agenda is impossible to enforce in a permanent way unless the human population is greatly reduced over a short period of time (a generation or two). Globalists are constantly talking about population control and reduction. Elites like Bill Gates are famous for it. Is it any wonder that they would devise a plan to institute it? What if, as many experts have suggested, the vaccine side effects create this condition of a diminishing population? What if they are meant to? We will not know for certain for a couple of years at least as autoimmune disorders and infertility take time to become visible in a population. The average timeline for actually diagnosing an autoimmune disorder is 4.5 years. Infertility can take six months to a year to diagnose.

If a large population of millions of people remain unvaccinated after the next couple of years, then they will represent a sizable and undeniable control group. A control group is a group of subjects that act as a pure sample untouched by a drug or vaccine experiment. If the vaccinated group becomes ill or dies from specific conditions and the control group does not have those same conditions, then that is a pretty good sign that your vaccine or drug is poison. The 50% of Americans and smaller percentages in other nations are a control group for the experimental vaccines. If something goes wrong with the vaccines, then we will be the proof. I suspect this is what the elites are really afraid of.

They have to force us to be vaccinated as well – ALL of us, so that there is no control group and thus no proof os what they have done. They could simply blame mass health disorders on covid itself, or some other false culprit. If the vaccines are a Trojan horse that causes widespread illness or infertility, and the globalists get caught because a control group exists, then it will mean outright rebellion along with ropes and lampposts for them. Their “Great Reset” will fall apart. To be sure, this might happen anyway. Vaccine passports are the line in the sand for most people. We are even seeing extensive protests and riots in places like Italy, France, UK and Australia over the draconian passport scheme. The US, though, is where the biggest fight will take place, in my opinion.

We have an armed population, millions upon millions of trained combat veterans and civilians, a military with around 70% conservatives and independents and a historical understanding of asymmetric warfare. As we have seen in places like Afghanistan, tanks, jets, missiles and drones are no guarantee of victory against a guerrilla force. Vaccine passports are not going to happen here. We simply won’t allow it.

Read more …

Some things take more than a purely legal view.

• Twitter Suspends Berenson For Postsing Results Of Pfizer Clinical Test (Turley)

Just yesterday, we discussed the censoring of a commentator by Twitter for merely expressing an opinion over the need for a “pause” on any federal mandates on Covid-19 as new research is studied. Now, a former New York Times science reporter, Alex Berenson, has been suspended for simply quoting the results from a clinical trial by Pfizer and raising questions over any vaccine mandate. In the meantime, the White House accused both the Washington Post and New York Times of irresponsible reporting on Covid, but surprisingly Twitter has not suspended those accounts. It is the license of the censor. Twitter is unwilling to let people read or discuss viewpoints that it disagrees with as a corporation. Many on the left, however, have embraced the concept of corporate speech and censorship.

It turns out that the problem with censorship for many was the failure to censor views that they opposed. With the “right” censors at work, the free speech concerns have been set aside. I have little ability to judge the science on such questions. However, I welcome the debate. Yet, rather than answer such critics and refute their arguments, many people focus on silencing anyone with dissenting viewpoints like Berenson. Berenson has been effectively confined to Substack by Big Tech due to his discussing dissenting views on the science surrounding Covid-19. His latest offense against Big Tech came when he posted the results published by Pfizer of its own clinical data. He claimed that the research showed little difference in morality between those in the trial with a vaccine and those given a placebo.

[..] Now all three posters (Berenson, The Post, and The Times) were citing studies and accused on not putting them into context. However, only Berenson was suspended. Obviously, none of these posters should be suspended and Twitter should not be enforcing one of the largest censorship programs in history. However, the silence of free speech supports, academics, and journalists to this hypocrisy is deafening. The rise of corporate censors has combined with a heavily pro-Biden media to create the fear of a de facto state media that controls information due to a shared ideology rather than state coercion. That concern has been magnified by demands from Democratic leaders for increased censorship, including censoring political speech, and now word that the Biden Administration has routinely been flagging material to be censored by Facebook.

Read more …

No, but there’ll always be a judge who says they are.

• Vaccine Mandates May Be Coming – But Will They Be Legal? (Turley)

There clearly are good reasons why many companies and schools demand vaccinations to rejoin workplaces or classrooms. As expected, those rules have been upheld, including a recent favorable ruling for Indiana University. More concerning are those calls to use mandates to make life miserable for anyone who still has doubts. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her citizens that they will have fewer “freedoms” until they consent. Some in the media have echoed these calls, and some private organizations are following the same strategy. The NFL, for example, has been openly making life “a living hell” for NFL players who prefer to be tested but not vaccinated.

For the most part, the motivation behind government and private mandates are hard to litigate. Courts tend to defer to measures ostensibly protecting others from risk of illness; even in criminal cases, the government has been allowed to conduct “pretextual traffic stops” if it can cite an objective basis. There may be new legal challenges ahead, however. First, those with religious or medical concerns can challenge mandated vaccination programs. CNN’s Don Lemon this week called for barring unvaccinated people from offices and businesses, insisting “It has nothing to do with liberty. You don’t have the freedom and the liberty to put other people in jeopardy.” In truth, there are constitutional questions when you force people to take medications or vaccinations that violate their religious beliefs or that fail to satisfy a rational basis.

States also are moving to counter private mandates or to bar mandatory masking rules; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) just signed an executive order allowing parents to ignore masking orders for their children in the state’s public schools. That could force the hand of the Biden administration on implementing federal mandates or executive orders — a conflict that would raise core federalism issues. The federal government is on shaky ground in mandating hood behavior or inactivity. In 2012 in NFIB v. Sebelius, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that “Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.”

Read more …

Hot August for Macron.

• French Protests Grow Against Extended Health Pass Scheme (R.)

Thousands of people have protested in Paris and other French cities over a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to many public venues, introduced by the government as it battles a fourth wave of infections. Protesters injured three police officers in Paris, a police spokesperson said. The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said on Twitter that 19 demonstrators were arrested, including 10 in Paris. It was the third weekend in a row that people opposed to President Emmanuel Macron’s new Covid-19 measures have taken to the streets. The number of demonstrators has grown steadily since the start of the protests, echoing the “yellow vest” movement that started in late 2018 against fuel taxes and the cost of living.


An interior ministry official said 204,090 had demonstrated across France, including 14,250 in Paris. This is about 40,000 more than last week. “We’re creating a segregated society and I think it is unbelievable to be doing this in the country of human rights,” said Anne, a teacher who was demonstrating in Paris. She declined to give her last name. “So I took to the streets; I have never protested before in my life,” she added. “I think our freedom is in danger.” Visitors going to museums, cinemas or swimming pools are already denied entry if they cannot produce the health pass showing they have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have had a recent negative test. Parliament approved a new law this week that will make vaccinations mandatory for health workers and extend the health pass requirement to bars, restaurants, trade shows, trains and hospitals.

Read more …

No, they’ll destroy the entire agenda. Green equals dumb these days.

• Rare Earth Metals Have Become A Thorn In The Side Of The Green Agenda (RT)

Many regions, including within the EU, do indeed have an abundance of these resources. However, they either lack the expertise in extraction and processing, or perhaps more wisely, lack the willingness to destroy and blacken their landscape and poison their citizens. And that brings us to the highly ironic price of the proposed ‘green initiative’ – that of extreme pollution and abject environmental disaster. There are many highly toxic derivatives that come from the extraction and processing of these metals. It is highly disruptive to ecosystems, while releasing hazardous acidic and radioactive by-products into the atmosphere and the water table.

Rare earth ore often contains radioactive thorium, but in order to process, the metal requires an even deadlier cocktail of toxins. Processing a single ton produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste. In Baotou, there is now the world’s largest mine tailings pond. It is a vast death-lake of poisonous, grey, slime, and for 20 years it has been leaking its toxic contents into the groundwater supply. In Bayan Obo, where the Baotou rare earths are processed, sheep grow abnormally (they grow extra rows of teeth, are unable to close their mouths and their wool is ugly). Crops wither and the drinking water has a horrid smell which blackens gums and teeth. Locals die from cancer at an inordinate rate. The mine itself is a massive, apocalyptic black crater – much larger than the lonely nearby apartment block – 1,000 metres deep and spanning 48 sq km. It is a landscape of smoky smelters and dark, lifeless, mud.

China has introduced new, stricter environmental regulatory policies as of late, and is showing signs of simply becoming sick of poisoning its own land and people in pursuit of these minerals. It has attempted to outsource its own production to corporate-colony-mines in Africa, where no doubt – if successful – invaluable rare wildlife already nearing extinction can look forward to poisoned water, radioactive waste, and smoke-stack horizons. Looking at the rare-earth metals situation brings up many tricky and politically unwelcome questions about our supposed low-carbon future. How will we handle waste water for that level of demand? Who exactly will be willing to poison themselves and their land, at the lowest prices going? How can a limited mineral resource be considered a sustainable solution? And how can it be considered environmental when it is one of the most polluting processes imaginable?

Read more …

“The CDC is a group of bureaucrats used to working a 9-to-5 job of complete pointlessnes..”

• CDC Still Baffled People Are Paying Attention To Them (BBee)

The CDC has once again changed course, recommending that people wear masks indoors, even those who have received the COVID-19 vaccination. Many people have reacted angrily to this decision—greatly confusing the CDC, which is used to being completely ignored. “This whole pandemic has been bizarre for us,” said CDC spokesman Dexter Park. “Normally, we put out recommendations like only cook a steak well-done and only fry eggs over-hard, and people don’t even pay enough attention to make fun of us, so people acting like what we say during the pandemic matters is really confusing.”


The CDC is a group of bureaucrats used to working a 9-to-5 job of complete pointlessness, making lists of recommendations that are fated to be crumpled up and thrown in a wastepaper basket. Thus, the pandemic turning them into experts whose opinions matter has caught them completely by surprise. “People keep saying our suggestions on masking are dumb and make no sense,” said CDC regulator Lyle Howell. “But that’s all of our suggestions on everything. We have to keep making recommendations, though, to justify our existence and get a budget. But no one listens to them—not even us. So can’t you all just go back to ignoring us and stop yelling at us? I’m just here until I get my pension.”

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
– Kierkegaard

 

 

 

 

Bill Maher

 

 

Children
https://twitter.com/i/status/1421239009334923275

Tucker children Kansas

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Debt Rattle July 31 2021

Jul 312021
 
 July 31, 2021  Posted by at 8:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  131 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Weeping woman 1883

 

• UK Gov’t Panel: Covid Mutation With 35% Death Rate ‘Realistic Possibility’ (RT)
• CDC Releases Study Showing 3/4 Delta Cases Are Among The Vaccinated (RT)
• White House Covid-19 Spokesman Yells At Media For Quoting CDC Documents (RT)
• Fauci *ADMITS* I Was Right In Spring of 2020 (Denninger)
• Had Covid? You’ll Probably Make Antibodies For A Lifetime (Nature)
• Recovered COVID-19 Patients Possess Robust Immunity To Virus (Fed.)
• DeSantis: No Mandates, No Lockdowns, No Restrictions, No School Closures (CTH)
• Nearly 1.6 Billion Disposable Masks Polluted Oceans In 2020 (JTN)
• Things Get Ripe (Kunstler)
• Thailand Bans Sharing Of News That ‘Causes Public Fear’ Amid Pandemic Criticism (G.)
• Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies (Turley)
• Get Ready for the ‘No-Buy’ List (David Sacks)
• Craig Murray’s Jailing The Latest Move To Kill Independent Journalism (Cook)
• Poke (Chuck)

 

 

Brian Tyson

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was either that or 350%. They decided to lowball it.

• UK Gov’t Panel: Covid Mutation With 35% Death Rate ‘Realistic Possibility’ (RT)

A British government science panel has claimed that a coronavirus variant could emerge with a 35% fatality rate – akin to that seen in the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) – noting that vaccine booster doses may be needed. A Friday report by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) looked at a series of hypothetical scenarios related to Covid-19 variants, finding it a “realistic possibility” that a mutation could appear with a case fatality rate comparable to SARS (10%) or MERS (35%), both of which belong to the coronavirus family.

While the body said that existing vaccines would remain effective against “serious disease” from such a variant short of “significant drift” or change in the virus’ spike proteins, it nonetheless added that “an increase in morbidity and mortality would be expected even in the face of vaccination,” as the jabs do not “fully prevent infection in most individuals.” The report suggested a number of ways to deal with a more deadly mutation, including “vaccine booster doses to maintain protection against severe disease,” as well as measures to limit the introduction of new variants from abroad. SAGE also considered the likelihood of a variant that “evades current vaccines,” saying that could occur in several different ways. The most likely cause would be a form of genetic variation known as “antigenic drift,” which happens when a virus mutates to a point when antibodies that prevented infection caused by previous strains no longer work.

The panel deemed that “almost certain” to happen to some degree. A “worst case” scenario described in the paper might happen when the immune system will no longer be able to produce antibodies for new emerging variants, either due to its past contact with the virus or as result of “previously experienced vaccines.” Such a doomsday scenario would make it “difficult to revaccinate” patients, however the researchers concluded that outcome is “less likely.” The same agency released a separate report on vaccines on Friday, which found that immunity is “highly likely” to diminish over time, suggesting “there will be vaccination campaigns against SARS-CoV-2 for many years to come.”

However, the report on variants also noted the coronavirus could follow an evolutionary path that sees it become more transmissible but less virulent, with SAGE drawing a comparison to “common colds.” It added that while this is “unlikely in the short term,” it could later become a “realistic possibility” as the virus fully adapts to its human hosts SAGE concluded that the UK should continue to “proactively support” a global vaccination drive, saying that could help to reduce the likelihood of “dangerous variants emerging in other parts of the world,” while also urging for increased investment in viral surveillance to keep tabs on new mutations.

Read more …

Not the internal document leaked on Thursday, but this one from Friday.

• CDC Releases Study Showing 3/4 Delta Cases Are Among The Vaccinated (RT)

The CDC has released a study backing up its decision to recommend indoor masking for both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. The study examined one outbreak and found three-quarters of people testing positive were vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its masking guidelines on Tuesday, urging all Americans in areas with high Covid-19 transmission to mask up when indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Mask mandates in companies, government departments, and certain local jurisdictions followed, as CDC Director Rochelle Walensky insisted the decision was made on the back of fresh scientific evidence. The CDC released that evidence on Friday. In a study of 469 cases of Covid-19 that broke out in the resort town of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, earlier this month, 74% occurred in “fully vaccinated persons.”

Four out of five patients hospitalized were fully vaccinated, and on average the inoculated had completed their two rounds of doses only 86 days before infection. The cases studied occurred in people vaccinated primarily with Pfizer and Moderna shots, with a smaller number having received Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose jab. No one vaccine was singled out as providing better or worse protection, and none appeared to prevent symptoms from developing. Some 79% of vaccinated patients were symptomatic, the study noted. Lab testing revealed that 90% of all the Cape Cod infections involved the Delta variant of the coronavirus. The report lends weight to the argument that the current crop of vaccines aren’t as effective against the Delta variant, although the CDC and WHO both insist that vaccination is effective against “severe disease and death” from the virus, to quote WHO technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove in a briefing earlier on Friday.

[..] The study appears to negate the argument by top health officials that unvaccinated Americans are responsible for the fourfold rise in Covid-19 cases in the US since June. “This is an issue predominantly among the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we’re out there, practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated,” White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Sunday, adding that the US is currently moving “in the wrong direction” with regard to stamping out Covid-19. Whether mask mandates will slow the spread of the Delta variant will be borne out with time. Beyond requiring masks and pressuring Americans to get vaccinated, the White House is running out of options.

Read more …

They can’t get their message straight.

Vaccine mandate? Useless.

• White House Covid-19 Spokesman Yells At Media For Quoting CDC Documents (RT)

Even as they quoted internal CDC documents backing the renewed mask mandates due to the rise in Delta variant Covid-19 cases, both the New York Times and the Washington Post got a tongue-lashing from the White House. “Vaccinated people do not transmit the virus at the same rate as unvaccinated people and if you fail to include that context you’re doing it wrong,” Ben Wakana, deputy director of strategic communications for the White House Covid-19 response team, tweeted at the New York Times on Friday – in all caps – unhappy about the paper’s coverage of the new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Wakana also had words for the Washington Post, which first published the CDC documents, calling their coverage “completely irresponsible” and countering it with CDC statements from three days prior.

The Twitter meltdown caught the attention of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who called it “super interesting” and suggested that “elite institutions” could find time “in between calling ordinary citizens stupid and selfish” to reflect on the “huge messaging failures, inconsistencies and lies that account for much distrust in official [Covid] messaging.” Wakana’s attempts to whip the corporate media into line follows Friday’s announcement by the CDC that claims 74% of people who recently got infected by the Delta variant of the coronavirus in a Cape Cod, Massachusetts resort were fully vaccinated. The Cape Cod study was “pivotal” in informing the decision to recommend indoor masking, said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. While the White House embraced the masking guidelines earlier this week, it has continued to insist on vaccinations as the way forward and argue that the rise in cases was predominantly a problem “among the unvaccinated.”

Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday that a national vaccine mandate is “not under consideration at this time,” and that the US is “not going to head towards a lockdown.” Jean-Pierre specifically cited CDC’s Walensky as an expert the White House defers to on virus matters. “We listen to the scientists, and they tell us that it’s the Delta variant,” she told reporters. “That’s what they’re telling us… These are scientists, they’re the experts.” Speaking with Fox News on Friday afternoon, Walensky said a federal vaccine mandate might be in the cards. “That’s something that I think the administration is looking into,” she said, only to backtrack later and “clarify” that there will be no such mandate.

Walensky kids

Read more …

“..it may last for years or even decades and may not be limited to Covid-19 either; any virus that can cross-react with the binding antibodies would be enhanced.”

• Fauci *ADMITS* I Was Right In Spring of 2020 (Denninger)

Let’s be clear: Fauci has now admitted, on live camera, that a person with a breakthrough infection is just as dangerous as someone who was never vaccinated and gets infected. This was expected by anyone who has ever studied anything about viral disease and the use of non-sterilizing immunizations when infections are active in a community. We have known this all the way back to Polio and is why we insisted on a sterilizing vaccine (OPV) following the inactivated injected vaccine (IPV) in the United States until 20 years after we were declared polio-free. In addition it is exactly what is expected if a non-sterilizing vaccine produces both binding and neutralizing antibodies and we know, scientifically, that all the existing jabs do exactly that. When levels wane you still have binding antibodies and when the neutralizing level falls below the threshold to protect you now have an enhancement of the disease rather than protection.

A person who was never infected and not vaccinated does not have the binding antibodies and thus, while at risk, doesn’t get the enhancement. Now we have real-world evidence that in fact the jabs produce risk as immunity wanes and that said risk may exceed, on a personal level, what someone has who never been infected or vaccinated is exposed to. As I pointed out the case rate had peaked and was headed down — hard — before the first jab went into the first arm. That which you do after something happens can’t be due to whatever it is you did. Not one group saw that collapse come after vaccination and no sub-group, even the very old, reached even 20% coverage before the case rate was in the ditch Obviously vaccines did not stop Covid in the winter and thus there’s no reason to believe they will materially impact whatever variation may come around — now or in the future.

Got JabbersRemorse yet folks? It appears you may need to continually take boosters to avoid this and accept the risk of blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, PAH and other adverse effects not just once or twice but every six months to a year if not more-often! Oh, and if you choose not to the duration of your increased risk is not known — it may last for years or even decades and may not be limited to Covid-19 either; any virus that can cross-react with the binding antibodies would be enhanced. What I said was the correct path forward in early 2020 and have maintained since is:

• Protect the most-vulnerable who cannot protect themselves. This means locking in all care-givers in institutional settings for the elderly and medically infirm. Yep, you work there, you do not interact with the public until and unless you can prove seroconversion. Period. If we have to pay more to get people to agree to this so be it. It is what it is.

• Urge immediate intervention with suspected or believed effective drugs that are rationally safe at the first sign of infection. If you can buy or use something of statistically similar risk over the counter then you must be able to buy these over the counter on your demand to a pharmacist, with he or she checking for interactions with other drugs you may be taking and warning as appropriate, but with the choice being yours and nobody else’s. Period. The list of said drugs includes hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, budesonide, famotidine and a few others. Why? Because we had no reason to believe originally that natural infection was not sufficient to prevent, in nearly every case, re-infection with a serious or severe instance as that has always been true for every other respiratory pandemic virus and time has proved this up for Covid-19 as well. In short natural infection has now proved superior to vaccination (note that nobody is seriously claiming Delta and other “variants” evade natural immunity) and therefore in those who are at reasonably-low risk infection is preferred as the immunity it produces is at least equal and likely superior, with said infection mitigated as to severity as one chooses. MY ASS, MY CHOICE.

• For those at extremely high risk offer but not mandate whatever prophylactic(s) we can come up with. This includes the current jabs but certainly isn’t limited to them. For example there is some evidence that Ivermectin is effective as a prophylaxis. Vitamin D may be; there is a very strong association between Vitamin D deficiency and severe or fatal Covid infections but association is not proof of cause nor that correcting it would change outcomes. Nonetheless there is nearly zero risk to that path forward and, for Ivermectin, the data is that the serious adverse event risk is 1 in 600,000 people. That’s tiny and less than the risk from Tylenol, to name just one OTC drug in question. Again, the goal here is for infections to happen as they will but not result in serious outcomes as that is the path out of every pandemic through history and there is no evidence this one will be different.

• Those who are at statistically-zero risk of serious harm or death (e.g. healthy children) should be encouraged to live normally and expect to get the virus. Their natural immunity provides a “free of cost” firewall for everyone else. We are criminally insane to do anything that limits or otherwise attempts to prevent that.

Read more …

2 months old but very relevant. And then they insert doubts. Antibodies for life, but do get a booster.

• Had Covid? You’ll Probably Make Antibodies For A Lifetime (Nature)

Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-191. The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Antibodies — proteins that can recognize and help to inactivate viral particles — are a key immune defence. After a new infection, short-lived cells called plasmablasts are an early source of antibodies.

But these cells recede soon after a virus is cleared from the body, and other, longer-lasting cells make antibodies: memory B cells patrol the blood for reinfection, while bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) hide away in bones, trickling out antibodies for decades. “A plasma cell is our life history, in terms of the pathogens we’ve been exposed to,” says Ali Ellebedy, a B-cell immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the study, published in Nature on 24 May. Researchers presumed that SARS-CoV-2 infection would trigger the development of BMPCs — nearly all viral infections do — but there have been signs that severe COVID-19 might disrupt the cells’ formation2. Some early COVID-19 immunity studies also stoked worries, when they found that antibody levels plunged not long after recovery.

Ellebedy’s team tracked antibody production in 77 people who had recovered from mostly mild cases of COVID-19. As expected, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies plummeted in the four months after infection. But this decline slowed, and up to 11 months after infection, the researchers could still detect antibodies that recognized the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. To identify the source of the antibodies, Ellebedy’s team collected memory B cells and bone marrow from a subset of participants. Seven months after developing symptoms, most of these participants still had memory B cells that recognized SARS-CoV-2. In 15 of the 18 bone-marrow samples, the scientists found ultra-low but detectable populations of BMPCs whose formation had been triggered by the individuals’ coronavirus infections 7–8 months before. Levels of these cells were stable in all five people who gave another bone-marrow sample several months later.

“This is a very important observation,” given claims of dwindling SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, says Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, whose team co-discovered the cells in the late 1990s. What’s not clear is what antibody levels will look like in the long term and whether they offer any protection, Ahmed adds. “We’re early in the game. We’re not looking at five years, ten years after infection.” Ellebedy’s team has observed early signs that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine should trigger the production of the same cells4. But the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or by infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is, we will need a booster.”

Read more …

“..the human immune system produces a multitude of neutralizing antibodies, while also activating certain T and B cells to establish immune memory.”

• Recovered COVID-19 Patients Possess Robust Immunity To Virus (Fed.)

A newly released study conducted by Emory University suggests recovered COVID-19 patients possess long-term immunity to the respiratory virus months after infection. Published in Cell Reports Medicine, the comprehensive study analyzed 254 individuals with mostly mild to moderate symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection over an eight-month period and found that patients possessed “durable broad-based immune responses” to the virus after recovering from an infection. “The study serves as a framework to define and predict long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection,” said Emory Vaccine Center director Rafi Ahmed. “We also saw indications in this phase that natural immunity could continue to persist.” Ahmed served as a lead author on the study.

The study goes on to note that in response to an active infection in the body, the human immune system produces a multitude of neutralizing antibodies, while also activating certain T and B cells to establish immune memory. Ahmed denotes that these developments make a strong case for some form of lasting immunity to the virus. “We saw that antibody responses, especially IgG antibodies, were not only durable in the vast majority of patients but decayed at a slower rate than previously estimated, which suggests that patients are generating longer-lived plasma cells that can neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,” he said.

Moreover, the analysis also demonstrates that not only are recovered patients likely to possess lasting immunity to existing SARS-COV-2 variants, but that “SARS-CoV-2 infection also boosts antibody titers to SARS-CoV-1 and common betacoronaviruses.” “While pre-existing exposure and antibodies against HKU1 and OC43 betacoronaviruses are common in adults, pre-existing SARS-CoV-1 exposure is rare and antibody levels to SARS-CoV-1 spike protein were very low (essentially negative) in the pre-pandemic healthy controls,” the study says. “However, SARS-CoV-1 spike-reactive antibodies increased significantly after SARS-CoV-2 infection.” The report later goes on to conclude that taken together, the results of the study “suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.”

Read more …

Were the teachers elected?

• DeSantis: No Mandates, No Lockdowns, No Restrictions, No School Closures (CTH)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivered a statement about the future of Florida today while visiting Cape Coral on the Southwest coast. During his remarks, the governor highlighted his support for parent’s rights, taking the position that parents should be the ones making decisions for their children on masks, schools and vaccines, not government. Governor DeSantis promised Florida residents there will be no lockdowns, no mandates, no restrictions and no school closures. Additionally, the governor urged all local communities to follow common sense science and said he will soon issue an order allowing parents or guardians to choose whether their child wears a mask in schools.

“As of today, very few [school districts] are requiring it. Nevertheless, we have a lot of push from the CDC and others to make every single person, kids and staff have to wear masks all day,” DeSantis said during the event. “That would be a huge mistake.” The Florida Education Association (FEA), the largest teacher union in the state, said they will fight the Florida governor on all measures. The teachers union is considering not going back to work with in-person teaching, and has vowed not to give up control of the (k-12) children to the parents. “Governor DeSantis continues to think that Tallahassee knows best what all Floridians need,” FEA President Andrew Spar said in a statement. “We reject that kind of thinking” Spar continued.

“Instead, we ask Governor DeSantis to allow all Florida’s citizens to have a voice by empowering the elected leaders of cities, counties and school districts to make health and safety decisions locally based on their unique needs and circumstances,” Spar said. Emphasizing how the union feels they have more power in the blue and leftist urban area, and they have vowed to fight any conservative effort in the state to undermine the teachers financial interests and control over Florida students.

Read more …

So where’s the rest?

• Nearly 1.6 Billion Disposable Masks Polluted Oceans In 2020 (JTN)

Nearly 1.6 billion disposable face masks ended up in the earth’s oceans in 2020, out of the roughly 52 billion produced in response to the pandemic, according to a new study. While governments around the world continue to support mask mandates in public spaces, the impact of disposable masks is only just emerging. The report, by the Hong Kong-based marine conservation group OceansAsia, title “Masks on the Beach,” also estimated that roughly 5,500 tons of plastic pollution entered the ocean in 2020 from masks. The figure is equal to 7% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of plastic debris floating in the ocean that is twice the size of Texas.


While a cigarette butt or plastic bag takes 20 years or less to degrade in the ocean, according to Visual Capitalist, a plastic bottle, disposable diaper or a disposable mask takes nearly 450 years to fully break down. The majority of disposable masks – like N95 respirators and surgical masks – were produced in China factories, which were reportedly producing 450 million masks per day in April 2020.

Read more …

“..the toiling myrmidons of Big Pharma..”

• Things Get Ripe (Kunstler)

Anyway, the Covid-19 story is now utterly unraveling and the official actions around it look desperately idiotic. It’s back to mass mask-ups and maybe even lockdowns. But don’t get the idea that those mRNA vaccines turned out to have a short half-life — though it kind of looks like they did. In which case, why the panicky rush to get absolutely everybody vaxed up? And how’s that working? I’ll tell you how: only with last-ditch attempts at totalitarian intimidation… you will have no rights to earn a living, go out in public, buy anything, or even protest on the street about any of these insults to human dignity.


The world has never seen the launch of such a gigantic lead balloon. All week, the hysteria has been building and now the balloon is falling to earth as the CDC prepares to announce that the vaxes are a bust against the “Delta variant” and it’s back to the drawing board for all the toiling myrmidons of Big Pharma. Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi get some insider info on this, having appointed herself mask-sheriff of the US Capitol Building, threatening now to arrest non-masked members and their staffers. Indeed, even a few fully-vaxed-up congresspeople were moved to shout, “Hey wait a minute.”

Read more …

Thailand does what all western countries do: censor.

• Thailand Bans Sharing Of News That ‘Causes Public Fear’ Amid Pandemic Criticism (G.)

The Thai government has outlawed sharing news that “causes public fear”, even if such reports are true, as officials face mounting criticism over their handling of the pandemic. On Thursday, the government tightened an emergency decree imposed more than a year ago that initially targeted false news. The latest constrictions forbid people from distributing “information causing public fear”, or from sharing “distorted information causing misunderstanding which affects national stability”. The measures have been widely condemned by media groups and rights experts as an attempt to shut down negative news reports and silence debate. Sunai Phasuk, senior researcher on Thailand in Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, described it as a “serious blow” to press freedom in the country.


“I think the government realises it is now facing a credibility crisis because of this disastrous response to the Covid situation, but instead of trying to find better solutions, more efficient solutions, it chooses to gag anyone from speaking about its failures,” said Sunai. “This provision doesn’t care about accuracy or whether it is true or false.” Under the regulations, if false content is spread online, the country’s broadcasting regulator will contact internet service providers to identify the individual’s ISP address and block their internet access. Internet providers who fail to comply will be deemed to have breached the requirements of their operating licences, and action will be taken against them. Sunai said he feared the measures wold be used against online reporters and critics who use social media to share political news and commentaries that do not flatter the government.

Read more …

Rubin’s been reinstated, with Twitter apologizing for the “error”.

• Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies (Turley)

Twitter’s actions against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints. Rubin was locked out under the common “misinformation” claim by Twitter. However, his tweet was an opinion based on demonstrably true facts. One can certainly disagree with the conclusion but this is an example of core political speech being curtailed by a company with a long history of biased censorship, including the barring of discussions involving Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. With a new election looming, these companies appear to be ramping up their censorship efforts.

In his tweet, Rubin stated: “They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.” Even President Biden admitted yesterday that he was wrong weeks ago when he assured people that if they took the vaccine, they would not be at risk for the variants and could dispense with their masks. There are breakthrough cases that have taken many officials by surprise. It is also true that there is now talk of likely booster shots.

Rubin takes those facts and adds his opinion that we should “take a pause.” Twitter declared that to be a violation of its policy “on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.” As always, Twitter simply refuses to explain its censorship decision beyond these generalized, categorical statements. It is not clear if Twitter is calling these facts misinformation or objecting to Rubin’s opinion about a pause. It does not matter. Twitter does not like his viewpoint and does not want others to read it or discuss it. This is precisely what Democratic leaders pressed Twitter to do in past hearings. As previously discussed the hearing with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who followed up his apology for censoring the Hunter Biden story but pledging more censorship.

Read more …

Sacks is one of the co-creators of Paypal.

• Get Ready for the ‘No-Buy’ List (David Sacks)

I have no desire to defend genuinely hateful or extremist groups. Indeed, when I was COO at PayPal, we regularly worked with law enforcement to restrict illegal activity on our platform. But we are talking about something very different here: shutting down people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful, even if they are unpopular in Silicon Valley. As with the censorship of speech, financial deplatforming often begins as something that seems narrow and reasonable — who wouldn’t want to ban the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys? But once the power is granted, it metastasizes into widespread use. We have watched this unfold with online censorship. Many cheered the decision by the largest social media companies to kick President Trump and his most rabid supporters off their platforms after January 6.

They cheered even louder when Apple, Google, and Amazon deplatformed Parler, the one speech platform that didn’t ban Trump. In defense of these policies, we were told that these were private business decisions made by companies that had every right under both the First Amendment and Section 230 to police speech on their platforms. Then, a couple weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki casually announced that the Biden administration has been flagging and reporting posts on Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms for removal as Covid-19 “misinformation” (another term with a changing and ever-expanding definition). She even said that when one tech company removes a post, they all should do it, implying that the White House is centrally coordinating a blocklist across social media properties.

The suppression of speech by the government is blatantly unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Given that both Congress and the administration are threatening Big Tech companies with antitrust lawsuits and the repeal of Section 230’s liability protection, it’s disingenuous for Psaki and others to claim Big Tech is doing this policing entirely of their own accord. How could they object when the administration and Congress have hung the sword of Damocles over their heads? The harm is compounded when the loss of speech rights is followed by restrictions on the ability to participate in online economic activity. Within days of the Trump-Parler cancellations, most of the finance tech stack (Stripe, Square, PayPal, Shopify, GoFundMe, and even enterprise SaaS company Okta, which wasn’t used by anyone in the events of January 6) declared they were canceling the accounts of “individuals and organizations connected to the [Capitol] riot.”

Now PayPal has gone much further, creating the economic equivalent of the No-Fly List with the ADL’s assistance. If history is any guide, other fintech companies will soon follow suit. As we saw in the case of speech restrictions, the political monoculture that prevails among employees of these companies will create pressure for all of them to act as a bloc. When someone mistakenly lands on the No-Fly List, they can at least sue or petition the government for redress. But when your name lands on a No-Buy List created by a consortium of private fintech companies, to whom can you appeal?

Read more …

is anyone awake anymore in Britain?

• Craig Murray’s Jailing The Latest Move To Kill Independent Journalism (Cook)

Craig Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, the father of a newborn child, a man in very poor health and one who has no prior convictions, will have to hand himself over to the Scottish police on Sunday morning. He becomes the first person ever to be imprisoned on the obscure and vaguely defined charge of “jigsaw identification”. Murray is also the first person to be jailed in Britain for contempt of court in half a century – a period when such different legal and moral values prevailed that the British establishment had only just ended the prosecution of “homosexuals” and the jailing of women for having abortions.

Murray’s imprisonment for eight months by Lady Dorrian, Scotland’s second most senior judge, is of course based entirely on a keen reading of Scottish law rather than evidence of the Scottish and London political establishments seeking revenge on the former diplomat. And the UK supreme court’s refusal on Thursday to hear Murray’s appeal despite many glaring legal anomalies in the case, thereby paving his path to jail, is equally rooted in a strict application of the law, and not influenced in any way by political considerations. Murray’s jailing has nothing to do with the fact that he embarrassed the British state in the early 2000s by becoming that rarest of things: a whistleblowing diplomat. He exposed the British government’s collusion, along with the US, in Uzbekistan’s torture regime.

His jailing also has nothing to do with the fact that Murray has embarrassed the British state more recently by reporting the woeful and continuing legal abuses in a London courtroom as Washington seeks to extradite Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, and lock him away for life in a maximum security prison. The US wants to make an example of Assange for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and for publishing leaked diplomatic cables that pulled the mask off Washington’s ugly foreign policy. Murray’s jailing has nothing to do with the fact that the contempt proceedings against him allowed the Scottish court to deprive him of his passport so that he could not travel to Spain and testify in a related Assange case that is severely embarrassing Britain and the US.

The Spanish hearing has been presented with reams of evidence that the US illegally spied on Assange inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he sought political asylum to avoid extradition. Murray was due to testify that his own confidential conversations with Assange were filmed, as were Assange’s privileged meetings with his own lawyers. Such spying should have seen the case against Assange thrown out, had the judge in London actually been applying the law. Similarly, Murray’s jailing has nothing to do with his embarrassing the Scottish political and legal establishments by reporting, almost single-handedly, the defence case in the trial of Scotland’s former First Minister, Alex Salmond. Unreported by the corporate media, the evidence submitted by Salmond’s lawyers led a jury dominated by women to acquit him of a raft of sexual assault charges. It is Murray’s reporting of Salmond’s defence that has been the source of his current troubles.

And most assuredly, Murray’s jailing has precisely nothing to do with his argument – one that might explain why the jury was so unconvinced by the prosecution case – that Salmond was actually the victim of a high-level plot by senior politicians at Holyrood to discredit him and prevent his return to the forefront of Scottish politics. The intention, says Murray, was to deny Salmond the chance to take on London and make a serious case for independence, and thereby expose the SNP’s increasing lip service to that cause.

Read more …

Well done. Twitter thread.

• Poke (Chuck)

ME: CDC, should I get poke if I already had Covid?
CDC: “Yes, you should be poked regardless of whether you already had COVID-19. That’s because experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19.”
ME: Oh, so we don’t know how long natural immunity lasts. So, how long does poke-induced immunity last?
CDC: “There is still a lot we’re learning about pokes and CDC is constantly reviewing evidence and updating guidance. We don’t know how long protection lasts for those poked.”
ME: Okay, but wait a second. I thought you said the reason I need the poke was because we don’t know how long my natural immunity lasts, but you’re saying we ALSO don’t know how long poke immunity lasts either. So, how exactly is the poke immunity better than my natural immunity?
CDC: …

ME: Uh … alright. But, haven’t there been a bunch of studies suggesting that natural immunity could last for years or decades?
CDC: Yes.
NEWYORKTIMES: “Years, maybe decades, according to a new study.”
ME: Ah. So natural immunity might last longer than poke immunity?
CDC: Possibly.
ME: Okay. If I get the poke, does that mean I won’t get sick?
BRITAIN: Nope. We are entering a seasonal spike and half of our infections and hospital admissions are poked people.

ME: CDC, is this true? Are there people in the U.S. catching it after getting poked?
CDC: We stopped tracking breakthrough cases. We accept voluntary reports but aren’t out there looking for them.
ME: Does that mean that if someone comes in the hospital with Covid, you don’t track them because they’ve been poked? You only track the UN-poked Covid cases?
CDC: That’s right.
ME: Hmm. Well, if I can still get sick after I get the poke, how is it helping me?
CDC: We never said you wouldn’t get sick. We said it would reduce your chances of serious illness or death.

ME: Oh, sorry. Alright, exactly how much does it reduce my chances?
CDC: We don’t know “exactly.”
ME: Oh. Then what’s your best estimate for how much risk reduction there is?
CDC: We don’t know, okay? Next question.
ME: Um, if I’m healthy and don’t want the poke, is there any reason I should get it?
CDC: Yes, for the collective.

ME: How does the collective benefit from me getting poked?
CDC: Because you could spread the virus to someone else who might get sick and die.
ME: Can a poked person spread the virus to someone else?
CDC: Yes.
ME: So if I get poked, I could still spread the virus to someone else?
CDC: Yes.

ME: But I thought you just said, the REASON I should get poked was to prevent me spreading the virus? How does that make sense if I can still catch Covid and spread it after getting the poke?
CDC: Never mind that. Also, if you stay unpoked, there’s a chance the virus could possibly mutate into a strain that escapes the pokes protection, putting all poked people at risk.
ME: So the poke stops the virus from mutating?
CDC: No.
ME: So it can still mutate with the poke?
CDC: Yes.
ME: This seems confusing. If the poke doesn’t stop mutations, and it doesn’t stop infections, then how does me getting poked help prevent a more deadly strain from evolving to escape the poke?
CDC:

CDC: You aren’t listening, okay? The bottom line is: as long as you are unpoked, you pose a threat to poked people.
ME: But what KIND of threat??
CDC: The threat that they could get a serious case of Covid and possibly die.
ME: My brain hurts. Didn’t you JUST say that the poke doesn’t stop people from catching Covid, but prevents a serious case or dying? Now it seems like you’re saying poked people can still easily die from Covid even after they got the poke from an unpoked person! Which is it??

CDC: That’s it, we’re hanging up now.
ME: Wait! I just want to make sure I understand all this. So, even if I ALREADY had Covid, I should STILL get poked, because we don’t know how long natural immunity lasts, and we also don’t know how long poke immunity lasts….
…And I should get the poke to keep a poked person from catching Covid from me, but even if I get the poke, I can give it to the poked person anyways. And, the other poked person can still easily catch a serious case of Covid from me and die. Do I have all that right?

……
ME: Um, hello? Is anyone there?

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Robert Malone, 2 1/2 hours, the whole story.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Debt Rattle May 31 2021

May 312021
 
 May 31, 2021  Posted by at 8:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Edgar Degas Landscape with Path Leading to a Copse of Trees 1880-92

 

• Employees Sue Hospital over Vaccine Mandate (L&C)
• Vaccine Passports For Cross-Border Travel Take Off In Europe (RT)
• DHS Walks Back Claim US Taking “Close Look” At Vaccine Passports (ZH)
• Masks Achieve Nothing In Terms Of Spread (Guerra)
• The Basic Foolishness With The Path (Denninger)
• Travel Restrictions & Partial Lockdown Imposed In Guangzhou (RT)
• Over 200 Republicans Press Pelosi To Back COVID-19 Origin Probe (ZH)
• Denmark Helped NSA Spy On EU Leaders, Snowden Says Biden ‘Deeply Involved’ (RT)
• ‘Silicon Six’ Tech Giants Accused Of Inflating Tax Payments By $100bn (G.)
• Senate Preparing $10 Billion Bailout Fund For Jeff Bezos Space Firm (IC)
• Julian Assange’s Father and Brother Announce US Tour (CD)

 

 

 

 

Slowly redefining, eroding legal language.

From 2 days ago: “The updated guidelines say employers may offer incentives for employees to provide documentation showing they have been vaccinated since requesting this proof “is not a disability-related inquiry” or an “unlawful request” under federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Today: “..the coronavirus vaccines available in the U.S. are no longer considered “experimental” because they have “completed clinical trials and have been authorized for emergency use.”

• Employees Sue Hospital over Vaccine Mandate (L&C)

A group of 117 Houston-area hospital employees on Friday filed a civil lawsuit against an employer hospital’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. The lawsuit alleges that the mandate violates both the Nuremberg Code and U.S. statutes that allow Americans to refuse “unapproved” medical treatments. It also alleges violations of Texas labor and employment laws. That “people” are “trying to force you to put something into your body that you’re not comfortable with to keep your job is just insane,” lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges told Houston CBS affiliate KHOU. The defendants are The Methodist Hospital, the Methodist Hospital System, and Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital. The people in charge of those entities responded to the litigation by saying the plaintiffs are but a small minority of voices among 26,000 employees and that it is “legal for health care institutions to mandate vaccines.”

The sharply worded 56-page complaint argues that the COVID-19 vaccines currently on the market were authorized merely as “emergency” measures and, thus, are not fully “approved” vaccines. At the top of the document are words attributed to David Bernard, the CEO of Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hospital: “100% vaccination is more important than your individual freedom. Everyone [sic] of you is replaceable. If you don’t like what your [sic] doing you can leave and we will replace your spot.” Those alleged words did not sit well with the plaintiffs. “For the first time in the history of the United States, an employer is forcing an employee to participate in an experimental vaccine trial as a condition for continued employment,” the lawsuit argues.

The document continues by alleging that the defendant hospital “became the first major health care system in the country to force it [sic] employees to be injected with an experimental COVID-19 mRNA gene modification injection (‘experimental vaccine’) or be fired.” “Methodist Hospital is forcing its employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment,” the lawsuit’s opening paragraph also says. The Washington Post on May 14 reported that the coronavirus vaccines available in the U.S. are no longer considered “experimental” because they have “completed clinical trials and have been authorized for emergency use.” The same report quotes a bevy of experts who asserted that the current vaccines are safe while noting that millions of Americans have been vaccinated without serious harm.

Read more …

You can be the healthiest person in the world, but it makes no difference.

• Vaccine Passports For Cross-Border Travel Take Off In Europe (RT)

Greece and Denmark have become the first to launch Covid-19 vaccine passports for travel within the EU, as the bloc pushes for all member states to adopt the system and US officials say they’re considering the idea. The two countries rolled out the new passes on Friday in separate press conferences, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis calling them a “fast lane to facilitate travel” in Europe and help “restore freedom of movement.” While some EU states, including Denmark, had already implemented their own internal vaccine certificates, the new passports can be used for cross-border travel, in line with a March proposal by the European Commission.

The Greek and Danish passports are managed through a smartphone app that shows a user’s vaccination status and the last time they were tested for coronavirus. Both also use a scannable QR code to quickly relay the information, though paper versions will also be made available. The EU has pressed for all 27 of its member states to adopt a bloc-wide passport by July 1, agreeing to the plan in principle last week ahead of the summer tourism season. The push comes after the bloc called for an easing of the travel restrictions imposed at the height of the pandemic, recommending that members allow foreign visitors if they are fully vaccinated. While the European Parliament has yet to formally approve the passport scheme, several countries have already moved ahead.

In addition to Greece and Denmark, Ireland also announced plans on Friday to adopt an international Covid pass by July 19, while the UK’s National Health Service recently updated its digital passport app for cross-border travel. The passports will also be valid in non-EU nations Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, according to the European Commission. As the passes gain traction across Europe, US officials have said they are also eyeing the concept for foreign travel, with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Alejandro Mayorkas telling ABC on Friday that the Biden administration is “taking a very close look at that.” A DHS spokesperson later clarified, however, that there would be no “federal mandate” for any kind of vaccine pass, adding that the government would help Americans only to meet entry requirements in other countries.

Read more …

“The Biden administration has previously said multiple times that it will not require vaccine passports, or proof of vaccination, on the federal level. However, the administration is working with private companies to set guidelines for passport systems.”

• DHS Walks Back Claim US Taking “Close Look” At Vaccine Passports (ZH)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday walked back comments made by the agency’s chief, who suggested earlier in the day that the federal government was “taking a very close look” at the idea of requiring vaccine passports to enter or leave the United States. “Looking ahead to summer, Europe and other countries are going to open up. Could we see vaccine passports to travel internationally either into or out of the U.S.?” an ABC “Good Morning America” host asked Alejandro Mayorkas, head of the DHS. “We’re taking a very close look at that,” Mayorkas responded. But DHS said Mayorkas was only talking about how Americans will need to use such passports to enter other countries.

“We’ve always said we’re looking at how we can ensure Americans traveling abroad have a quick and easy way to enter other countries. That’s what the secretary was referring to; ensuring that all U.S. travelers will be able to easily meet any anticipated foreign country entry requirements,” an agency spokesperson told news outlets. “There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential,” the department also said. The White House had responded to Mayorkas’ statement by saying the same thing. Asked to explain his comments, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One:

“Again, the U.S. government recognizes that other countries have or may have foreign-entry requirements. We will be monitoring these and helping all U.S. travelers meet those, but we will not be—there will be no federal mandate requiring anyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.” The Biden administration has previously said multiple times that it will not require vaccine passports, or proof of vaccination, on the federal level. However, the administration is working with private companies to set guidelines for passport systems. A variety of groups have raised concerns about vaccine passports, arguing it would be an overreach of government authority to require vaccination proof. A number of states have banned requiring of passports, such as Georgia, and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) announced Friday they were introducing a bill that would ban them.

Read more …

Bit confusing?!

• Masks Achieve Nothing In Terms Of Spread (Guerra)

Latest analysis shows yet again – yet again – what we already knew from 40 years of published research. And also empirically from simply glancing over the past year’s real-world data. Masks don’t work! Our main finding is that mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states. 80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mandates induced greater mask compliance but did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima). We infer that mandates likely did not affect COVID-19 case growth [15], as growth rates were similar on all days between actual or modeled issuance dates and 6 March 2021. Higher mask use (rather than mandates per se) has been argued to decrease COVID-19 growth rates [11].

While compliance varies by location and time, IHME estimates are robust (derived from multiple sources [17]) and densely sampled (day-level precision). Higher mask use did not predict lower maximum growth rates, smaller surges, or less Fall-Winter growth among continental states. Mask-growth rate correlation was only evident at minima. This may be an artifact of faster growth at fewer normalized cases, as well as regional differences in case prevalence early in the pandemic. States in the high mask quintile grew at similar rates as states in the low mask quintile after maxima (when interstate total case differences were smaller than before minima). In addition, mask use did not predict normalized cases at minima, and low mask growth curves trailed those of high mask (particularly Northeast) states before minima.

Growth maxima and Fall-Winter surges did not differ between Northeast and other states. Northeast states exhibited the highest seroprevalence up to at least July 2020 [24] and constituted 80% of the top quintile of mask use, which may explain their comparatively lower Summer growth. Overall, mask use appears to be an intra-state lagging indicator of case growth. There is inferential but not demonstrable evidence that masks reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Animal models [25], small case studies [6], and growth curves for mandate-only states [16] suggest that mask efficacy increases with mask use [11]. However, we did not observe lower growth rates over a range of compliance at maximum Fall-Winter growth (45-83% between South Dakota and Massachusetts during maxima) [17] when growth rates were high.

Read more …

“..you must use very large amounts of the substance in order to get enough of it where you want it and the unwanted part can and does cause problems in other parts of the body.”

• The Basic Foolishness With The Path (Denninger)

Moderna, for example, is not a new company. They have repeatedly tried to get their mRNA technology to be taken up preferentially by parts of the body that have some disease or disorder and thus attempt to treat that. It has never worked, because while some preference can be expressed for the particular particles injected too much of it winds up in other places where it’s not wanted and causes problems. Let me repeat this for emphasis: Nobody has managed to come up with an injected, complex substance such as “nanoparticles” that are only taken up by the tissues desired and not by any of the others. This in turn means you must use very large amounts of the substance in order to get enough of it where you want it and the unwanted part can and does cause problems in other parts of the body.

This is why Moderna, despite ten years of trying, has never before had a successful therapy licensed anywhere. We were told that this sort of thing does not happen with these shots. But there was zero proof of this; in fact, quite to the contrary, there was ten years of evidence by this company’s trials itself that said it was the exact opposite; specificity simply could not be guaranteed and too much would spill over into other places. We now know it happens with the mRNA shots as well, both directly and indirectly. The second pillar of the development of these vaccines was the claim, which the CDC still makes by the way, that the spike protein alone is harmless. Thus, even if some of the material was taken up in the wrong place (not the muscle and the lymph system) it was ok because it wouldn’t hurt you.

Unfortunately we now know that’s false as the spike alone is not inert and harmless; the first indications of that in scientific papers came in September of 2020 and development was not halted until the risk could be characterized. The CDC is knowingly lying in their public statements; that the spike portion of the virus is “harmless” is simply not subject to reasonable scientific support at this point in time. Yes, inducing antibodies in the circulation is what you want to happen. Causing spike protein components and the intact spike protein to be found in the circulation, however, you definitely do not want to happen because we now know, on the body of evidence, that both S1 standing alone and the whole spike are pathogenic — that is, they cause disorders in the body.

Indeed the evidence is quite strong that when you get hammered by Covid the reason you get hammered is that the infection becomes systemic and the part of the virus that causes the systemic problem is the spike when it gets into the circulation and then is disseminated through the body’s systems. We now know that the spike protein alone is capable of producing abnormal clotting absent the rest of the virus — that is, the entire virus isn’t necessary to do it and it’s not the virus infecting cells and replicating in them that causes it; it is the spike alone that induces the body to inappropriately produce blood clots where they do not belong.

Read more …

We don’t see much virus news from China.

• Travel Restrictions & Partial Lockdown Imposed In Guangzhou (RT)

Border control and a partial lockdown have been imposed in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, after a cluster of the Indian variant of the coronavirus was discovered there. People leaving Guangzhou, a provincial capital of 15.3 million, must test negative for the coronavirus within 72 hours before the trip. Roughly 520 flights were canceled at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, one of the world’s busiest air travel hubs, as of 11:40am local time on Monday, CNA news agency reported, citing aviation data provider VariFlight.


Authorities earlier announced stay-at-home orders for residents of several streets in the city’s Liwan District, where the first infected patient was discovered on May 21, and restricted travel on the subway and buses. Large gatherings were banned across Guangzhou, while indoor venues were told to operate at limited capacity and targeted mass-testing programs were launched. Chen Bin, the deputy chief of the provincial health commission, was cited by Xinhua as confirming on Sunday that all locally transmitted cases found in Guangzhou since May 21 were linked to the B.1.617 coronavirus strain, also known as the Indian variant.

Read more …

200 is a lot.

• Over 200 Republicans Press Pelosi To Back COVID-19 Origin Probe (ZH)

More than 200 House Republicans are putting pressure on their Democrat counterparts to get down to the COVID-19 origins and hold the Chinese regime accountable for the pandemic coverup. “We request that you instruct the appropriate Democrat committee chairs to immediately join Republican calls to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its role in causing the global COVID-19 pandemic,” stated a May 28 letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The effort was led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif), Minority Whip Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference and joined by 209 House Republicans.

The lawmakers said Pelosi had “falsely claimed” that “questions about the CCP’s liability” were a “diversion” – likely referring to Pelosi’s remarks from last May describing then-President Donald Trump’s blame on China as an “interesting diversion.” “There is mounting evidence the pandemic started in a Chinese lab, and the CCP covered it up. If that is the case, the CCP is responsible for the deaths of almost 600,000 Americans and millions more worldwide,” they stated in the letter. “[E]very American family that lost someone deserves answers about the origin of this terrible virus,” they continued, adding that “House Democrats’ ongoing refusal to allocate investigative resources to get those answers is an affront to them.” “China can’t get away with this. Americans deserve answers,” Scalise wrote in a May 28 tweet.

The lawmakers cited a growing pile of evidence that the virus may have escaped from a Wuhan lab, an idea that many media outlets and scientists had initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory. A State Department fact sheet, released during the final days of the Trump administration, suggested researchers with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), located in the vicinity of the seafood market initially thought to be the outbreak’s origin, fell ill with COVID-19 like symptoms in autumn 2019. Recently, an undisclosed intelligence report also surfaced saying three WIV staff were sick enough to seek hospital care that November.

Read more …

What is Merkel going to do about Denmark? Her anger over having her phone spied on sure went away fast.

• Denmark Helped NSA Spy On EU Leaders, Snowden Says Biden ‘Deeply Involved’ (RT)

The US National Intelligence Agency received support from Denmark in spying on European politicians, according to a new joint media report, something President Joe Biden is well-informed to answer for, says Edward Snowden. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank Walter-Steinmeier are among those who were spied on by the NSA with the cooperation and help of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE), according to the European media investigation. The US spying on not only its own citizens, but also leaders in foreign countries is an accusation that came to light in 2013, mostly thanks to documents leaked by former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower – though he remains a fugitive in the US – Edward Snowden. Snowden’s leaks specifically revealed Merkel’s private cell phone had been monitored by US authorities.

The new revelations come as a result of multiple European news outlets – including Danish state broadcaster DR, German NDR, Swedish SVT, Norwegian NRK and French Le Monde among others – obtaining access to internal reports and information from Danish Secret Service sources. According to the investigation, politicians in Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, France and even Danish finance industries were also targeted by the NSA with the help of Danish spies. The Danish government has reportedly known about the cooperation for years and forced FE leadership to step down in 2020 after discovering the full extent of the relationship following an internal investigation. They did not, however, report the findings to any European Union allies.

The spying was primarily done through hijacking Danish electronic communications systems as the country has landing stations for subsea internet cables between numerous countries, such as Germany and Sweden. By using politicians’ and officials’ phone numbers, authorities were able to pull texts and phone calls, while those being spied on were none the wiser. Snowden, who made his revelations about the NSA while Biden was vice president, says the current president is “well-prepared” to answer the accusations and that there should be a requirement of “full disclosure” from both Denmark and the US. “Biden is well-prepared to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply involved in this scandal the first time around,” he tweeted. “There should be an explicit requirement for full public disclosure not only from Denmark, but their senior partner as well.”

Read more …

“Overall, they paid $219bn in income tax over the past decade, 3.6% of their total revenue of more than $6tn.”

• ‘Silicon Six’ Tech Giants Accused Of Inflating Tax Payments By $100bn (G.)

The giant US tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of inflating their stated tax payments by almost $100bn (£70bn) over the past decade. As Chancellor Rishi Sunak called on world leaders to back a new tech tax ahead of next week’s G7 summit in the UK, a report by the campaign group Fair Tax Foundation singled out Amazon, Facebook, Google’s owner, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft. It said they paid $96bn less in tax between 2011 and 2020 than the notional taxation figures they cite in their annual financial reports. . The six firms named handed over $149bn less to global tax authorities than would be expected if they had the paid headline rates where they operated, Fair Tax Foundation said.

Overall, they paid $219bn in income tax over the past decade, 3.6% of their total revenue of more than $6tn. Income tax is paid on profits, but the researchers said the Silicon Six companies deliberately shift income to low-tax jurisdictions to pay less tax. Based on companies’ regulatory filings, the report found that Amazon, the internet retailing and cloud services provider run by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, collected $1.6tn of revenue, reported $60.5bn of profit and paid $5.9bn in income taxes this decade. Amazon would have been expected to pay $10.7bn in taxes on those profits based on international tax rates, the report said. The tax paid as a percentage of profit was just 9.8% over the period 2011-20, the lowest of the so-called “Silicon Six”.

An Amazon spokesperson disputed the calculations as “extremely misleading”. “Amazon is primarily a retailer where profit margins are low, so comparisons to technology companies with operating profit margins of closer to 50% is not rational,” the company said. “Governments write the tax laws and Amazon is doing the very thing they encourage companies to do – paying all taxes due while also investing many billions in creating jobs and infrastructure. Coupled with low margins, this investment will naturally result in a lower cash tax rate.”

Read more …

Don’t pay taxes, get bailed out instead.

• Senate Preparing $10 Billion Bailout Fund For Jeff Bezos Space Firm (IC)

Now that Jeff Bezos’s space flight company Blue Origin has lost a multibillion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Congress is prepping the ground for Bezos to win a contract anyway, ordering NASA to make not one but two awards. The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that’s being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA — money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that’s headquartered in Cantwell’s home state.


Cantwell’s amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America,” Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday. The Bezos space company had been competing against SpaceX for a contract to put astronauts on the moon, the first such trips since 1972, but lost the bidding process with a price tag twice that of SpaceX. NASA announced the award to the Elon Musk-owned company last month.

Read more …

“My brother Julian Assange has effectively been a prisoner for over a decade because he published evidence of war crimes..”

• Julian Assange’s Father and Brother Announce US Tour (CD)

The father and brother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are planning a nationwide tour of the United States next month to advocate for the release of the detained journalist and for the Biden administration to drop its extradition effort—and to highlight the broader implications that his prosecution has for global press freedom. John and Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s father and brother, will kick off the #HomeRun4Julian tour in Miami on June 6, then travel to over a dozen U.S. cities for the rest of the month, wrapping up in Washington, D.C. in July. Some events will be live-streamed, and the pair plans to meet with activists, journalists, and policymakers along the away. “My brother Julian Assange has effectively been a prisoner for over a decade because he published evidence of war crimes,” said Gabriel Shipton in a statement Thursday. “The U.S. government wants to make an example out of him to deter journalists and whistleblowers.”

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Debt Rattle May 8 2021

May 082021
 
 May 8, 2021  Posted by at 8:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  96 Responses »


Charles Sprague Pearce Lamentations over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt 1877

 

• Halt Vaccine Passports! It’s Illegal, Medical Apartheid (Dr Mike Yeadon)
• Full Approval Of A Vaccine Could Make Mandates More Likely (F.)
• Catastrophic Side Effects Of Pfizer Vaccine To Every System In Human Body (GGI)
• EMA ‘Assessing Reports’ Of AstraZeneca Jab Link To Rare Immune Disorder (RT)
• Claim That SARS-CoV-2 Genes Can Integrate With Human DNA (SMag)
• Michael Lewis’ ‘The Premonition’ Is A Sweeping Indictment Of The CDC (NPR)
• Children Are Far More Likely To Die From Diarrhea Than Covid-19 (Black)
• As Virus Cases Explode, Why Has The Mekong Region Success Story Ended? (SEAG)
• Vaccine Waiver Pledge Tests Biden-World’s Pharma Ties (DP)
• The Truth Is Surely Baseless (Kunstler)
• Why Stocks Soared While America Struggled (Vox)
• U.S. Added 266,000 Jobs Last Month vs 1 Million Expected (F.)

 

 

 

 

Crystal clear.

• Halt Vaccine Passports! It’s Illegal, Medical Apartheid (Dr Mike Yeadon)

It is very important that people understand what is happening here. The intention is to introduce vaccine passports everywhere. But this is a disguise. It’s a world’s first digital common-format, globally-interoperable ID system with an editable health flag (vaccinated Y or N). It makes no one safer. If you’re vaccinated, you’re protected & are not made safer by knowing others immune status. As in Israel, you will be compelled to present a valid VaxPass in order to access defined facilities or access services. No VaxPass, you’re denied. This system only needs 50%+ of the adult population to start up because of its huge, coercive power on the unvaccinated. It’s illegal, medical apartheid. If they succeed, it won’t help you to refuse. They’ll move on, leaving that minority behind.

A VaxPass System like this will give to those controlling the database & it’s algorithms TOTALITARIAN TYRANNY over us all. The ONLY way to stop this biosecurity nightmare is to NOT GET VACCINATED FOR NON-MEDICAL REASONS!!! I fear that, if our adversaries gain this absolute control, they will use it to harm the population. There’s no limit to the evil which will flow from this strategic goal. DO NOT ALLOW THIS SYSTEM TO START UP, because it’s unstoppable afterwards. One example: your VaxPass pings, instructing you to attend for your 3rd or 4th or 5th booster or variant vaccine. If you don’t, your VaxPass will expire & you’ll become an out-person, unable to access your own life. How much choice do you have? It’s none. You are controlled. Forever. PLEASE share this widely, on every platform you use.

Thank you,
Dr Mike Yeadon

Read more …

Yeadon: “The ONLY way to stop this biosecurity nightmare is to NOT GET VACCINATED FOR NON-MEDICAL REASONS!!!”

• Full Approval Of A Vaccine Could Make Mandates More Likely (F.)

Pfizer and BioNTech began the process of applying for full FDA approval of their Covid-19 vaccine Friday, an expected move that could force the issue of whether vaccine mandates—proposed for schools, colleges and even some workplaces—will be a legal way to combat the virus. The Pfizer vaccine has been used in the U.S. under an emergency use authorization since December, a designation that requires companies to continue clinical trials and work towards full approval. Full approval would mean the vaccine can stay on the market once the pandemic emergency is over, important if we are to remain vigilant against circulating pockets of coronavirus and counter novel variants.

A full license adds a new dimension to the debate over whether organizations, schools and universities are allowed to require vaccination, with many opponents arguing that people cannot be required to get a vaccine licensed under an emergency use authorization. Legally speaking, there hasn’t really been a test as to whether a temporarily authorized vaccine can be mandated, Carmel Shachar, executive director of Harvard’s Petrie-Flom Center, told Forbes, though a fully licensed vaccine would certainly “be less controversial to mandate.” While any mandate would have to take account of legally protected medical and religious exemptions, Shachar said any further accommodations—such as an opposition to vaccination—would be decided by the organization implementing it and relevant local laws.

Shachar added that it “would not be that much of a stretch” to add a Covid-19 vaccine to the “long list” of vaccines children need to get in order to attend school or daycare. [..] A fully approved vaccine could have a significant impact on persistent vaccine hesitancy in the U.S.. Polls commonly record people waiting to see if the vaccines are safe as a reason for refusing a shot, something Field said often stems from a “misconception out there about the nature of an” emergency authorization. Many believe the designation means they are still “experimental,” Field said, despite ample evidence demonstrating safety and efficacy. Hesitancy appears to be particularly strong in parents, many of whom have doubts over vaccinating their children. However, experts say vaccinating children will be vital to protect them and keep the community safer.

Read more …

“..during January-February 2021, at the peak of the Israeli mass vaccination campaign, there was a 22% increase in overall mortality in Israel compared with the previous year.” “In fact, January-February 2021 have been the deadliest months in the last decade..”

• Catastrophic Side Effects Of Pfizer Vaccine To Every System In Human Body (GGI)

The Israeli People Committee (IPC), a civilian body made of leading Israeli health experts, has published its April report into the Pfizer vaccine’s side effects indicating damage to almost every system in the human body. If the findings by IPC are genuine, then Pfizer vaccine is linked to more deaths in Israel than AstraZeneca’s in the whole of Europe. The findings are catastrophic on every possible level. This is a detailed report that highlights the most devastating findings. The verdict of the Israeli People Committee is that “there has never been a vaccine that has harmed as many people.” The report is long and detailed. “We received 288 death reports in proximity to vaccination (90% up to 10 days after the vaccination), 64% of those were men.”

Yet the report states, “according to data provided by the Ministry of Health, only 45 deaths in Israel were vaccine related.” If these are the genuine numbers, then Israel has failed to report on its experimental results genuinely. We have been hearing a lot about the rare side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine and more than 300 cases of blood clots found in Europe. German scientists have found the exact 2 step process how the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine causes blood clots in recipients. They describe a series of events that has to happen in the body before the vaccines create these large clots. If the findings by IPC are genuine, then Pfizer vaccine is linked to more deaths in Israel than AstraZeneca’s in the whole of Europe.

Meanwhile, the US CDC and FDA have lifted their recommended pause on use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine with a condition that it will now include a safety label warning that its vaccine comes with blood clot risks. “According to Central Bureau of Statistics data during January-February 2021, at the peak of the Israeli mass vaccination campaign, there was a 22% increase in overall mortality in Israel compared with the previous year.” “In fact, January-February 2021 have been the deadliest months in the last decade, with the highest overall mortality rates compared to corresponding months in the last 10 years.” The IPC finds that “amongst the 20-29 age group the increase in overall mortality has been most dramatic. In this age group, we detect an increase of 32% in overall mortality in comparison with previous year.”

“Statistical analysis of information from the Central Bureau of Statistics, combined with information from the Ministry of Health, leads to the conclusion that the mortality rate amongst the vaccinated is estimated at about 1: 5000 (1: 13000 at ages 20-49, 1: 6000 at ages 50-69, 1: 1600 at ages 70+).” “According to this estimate, it is possible to estimate the number of deaths in Israel in proximity of the vaccine, as of today, at about 1000-1100 people.”

Read more …

These are the things that usually come out in tests.

• EMA ‘Assessing Reports’ Of AstraZeneca Jab Link To Rare Immune Disorder (RT)

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating reports of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, as the pharmaceutical company remains embroiled in controversy over the jab’s link to blood clotting. In a meeting this week, the European Medicines Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) revealed that it was “assessing reports” of the rare immune system disorder being found in people following vaccination. “As part of the review of the regular pandemic summary safety reports for Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, the PRAC is analysing data provided by the marketing authorization holder on cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) reported following vaccination”, the PRAC declared.

“GBS was identified during the marketing authorization process as a possible adverse event requiring specific safety monitoring activities”, the committee continued, adding that it has requested “further detailed data” on the cases and will release new information as it becomes available. According to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), Guillain-Barre syndrome is a “very rare and serious condition that affects the nerves”, and can create feelings of numbness, weakness, and pain in those who have it. Though the NHS advises that Guillain-Barre syndrome is a treatable condition and that “most people will eventually make a full recovery”, it can also be life-threatening and leave those who have had it with “long-term problems”

Following hundreds of cases of blood clotting – and dozens of deaths – AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine has already been restricted in many countries to older people only. In the UK, those under the age of 40 are set to be offered an alternative vaccine provided this causes no “delays” in the vaccination program, however the European Medicines Agency maintains that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh the risk for much of the population.

Read more …

Not yet fully convincing.

• Claim That SARS-CoV-2 Genes Can Integrate With Human DNA (SMag)

A team of prominent scientists has doubled down on its controversial hypothesis that genetic bits of the pandemic coronavirus can integrate into our chromosomes and stick around long after the infection is over. If they are right—skeptics have argued that their results are likely lab artifacts—the insertions could explain the rare finding that people can recover from COVID-19 but then test positive for SARS-CoV-2 again months later. Stem cell biologist Rudolf Jaenisch and gene regulation specialist Richard Young of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the work, triggered a Twitter storm in December 2020, when their team first presented the idea in a preprint on bioRxiv. The researchers emphasized that viral integration did not mean people who recovered from COVID-19 remain infectious.

But critics charged them with stoking unfounded fears that COVID-19 vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) might somehow alter human DNA. The critics also presented a brace of scientific criticisms, some of which the team addresses in a paper released online today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “We now have unambiguous evidence that coronavirus sequences can integrate into the genome,” Jaenisch says. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has genes composed of RNA, and Jaenisch, Young, and co-authors contend that on rare occasions an enzyme in human cells may copy the viral sequences into DNA and slip them into our chromosomes. The enzyme, reverse transcriptase, is encoded by LINE-1 elements, sequences that litter 17% of the human genome and represent artifacts of ancient infections by retroviruses.

In their original preprint, the researchers presented test tube evidence that when human cells spiked with extra LINE-1 elements were infected with the coronavirus, DNA versions of SARS-CoV-2’s sequences nestled into the cells’ chromosomes. Many researchers who specialize in LINE-1 elements and other “retrotransposons” thought the data were too thin to support the claim. “If I would have had this data, I would have not submitted to any publication at that point,” says Cornell University’s Cedric Feschotte, who studies endogenous retrovirus chunks in the human genome. He and others also said they expected higher quality work coming from scientists of the caliber of Jaenisch and Young. In two subsequent studies, both posted on bioRxiv, critics presented evidence that the supposed chimeras of human and viral DNA traces are routinely created by the very technique the group used to scan for them in chromosomes.

Read more …

“In January and February of 2020, hundreds of Americans in Wuhan, China, were flown back to the U.S. Considering how many people had died of COVID-19 in China at that point, it would have made sense to test those Americans who were coming back.”

• Michael Lewis’ ‘The Premonition’ Is A Sweeping Indictment Of The CDC (NPR)

“No one should have to be as brave as Charity Dean was as a local public health officer. To do her job, she had to be brave in a way that brought tears to my eyes,” Lewis tell NPR. “And when I first met her, I realized I had a character because all over her house were like these Post-it notes reminding her to be brave, like … ‘courage is a muscle memory’ or ‘the tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut.’ She had all these kind of inspirational things. And when you get into the story of what Charity Dean … had to do on the ground, your hair stands up on the back of your neck.” Lewis writes about how Dean tried and tried to get the state officials around her to look at the data and act to make sure the virus didn’t spread. She put it all on the line, her reputation, her job.

And across the country, there was another group of doctors led by Carter Mescher trying to do the same thing at the federal level. “It was incredible to me that there was this kind of secret group of seven doctors — they called themselves the Wolverines — who were positioned in interesting places in and around the federal government, who had been together for the better part of 15 years and who had come together whenever there was a threat of a disease outbreak to help organize the country’s response,” Lewis says. But by 2020, the Trump administration had disbanded the pandemic response unit and these doctors were forced to go rogue. A mutual acquaintance put Charity Dean in touch with Carter Mescher.

“And Charity picked up all of Carter Mescher’s analysis. And she said it was like pouring water on a dying plant, that it was the first person she met who was thinking about this threat the way she was thinking about it,” Lewis says. “And so she’s very soon on the private calls. … Think of her as an actual battlefield commander. She’s in the war, in the trenches, as if she’s figured out in the course of her career in public health that there are no generals or the generals don’t understand how the, how the battle’s fought. And she’s going to have to kind of organize the strategy on the field.” In January and February of 2020, hundreds of Americans in Wuhan, China, were flown back to the U.S. Considering how many people had died of COVID-19 in China at that point, it would have made sense to test those Americans who were coming back.

But according to Lewis and his sources, then-CDC Director Robert Redfield refused to test them, saying it would amount to doing research on imprisoned persons. “Redfield is a particularly egregious example, but he’s an expression of a much bigger problem. And if you just say, ‘oh, it’s the Trump administration’ or ‘oh, it’s Robert Redfield,’ you’re missing the bigger picture,” Lewis says. “And the bigger picture is we as a society have allowed institutions like the CDC to become very politicized. And this is a larger pattern in the U.S. government. More and more jobs being politicized, more and more people in these jobs being on shorter, tighter leashes. More the kind of person who ends up in the job being someone who is politically pleasing to whoever happens to be in the White House. And so … the conditions for Robert Redfield being in that job were created long ago.”

Read more …

“..precisely 54 children in the Land of the Free have died from COVID (according to CDC data through April 28). Given that there have been roughly 4 million confirmed COVID cases among children, this implies a survival rate of 99.999%”

• Children Are Far More Likely To Die From Diarrhea Than Covid-19 (Black)

In the winter of 1837, Charles Dickens published the first two chapters of what would become one of his most popular works– the story of an orphan called Oliver Twist. If you’ve never read it, the book is one of Dickens’ most damning condemnations of the poverty, crime, and child labor that dominated 19th century Britain. It was personal for Dickens; as a boy, he was forced to work long hours in a shoe polish factory for pitiful wages after his father had been hauled off to debtors’ prison. And Oliver Twist was so shocking it began a global conversation about child labor and contributed to the worldwide Children’s Rights Movement. By the early 20th century, children were starting to be viewed as more than just cheap, easily exploitable workers. Instead, western nations began to prioritize children’s well-being.

It’s been that way for generations. Then along came COVID-1984… and all the dictatorial public health measures that have accompanied it. Entire economies were locked down, borders closed, business shuttered, and basic human interactions forbidden. These restrictions have been especially damaging for children. Even to this day, more than a YEAR later, schools are still closed in many parts of the world. Millions of children simply stopped learning at the age when their minds develop more rapidly than at any other time in life. Sheepish bureaucrats hid behind Zoom classes as an adequate substitute for real learning and human interaction, though hardly a thought was given to the cost versus benefit. It’s hard to fault anyone for the decisions they made back in March or April of 2020. There was no data. And plenty of people took the most conservative approach.

But by summer 2020, there were mountains of data to support an informed decision. Consider, for example, precisely 54 children in the Land of the Free have died from COVID (according to CDC data through April 28). Given that there have been roughly 4 million confirmed COVID cases among children, this implies a survival rate of 99.999%. For kids, even the Chicken Pox is more fatal, not to mention a variety of other common illnesses ranging from the flu to strep throat. Yet the world never closed schools due to the chicken pox. Curiously, his grace, Lord Protector Anthony Fauci, noted back in 2009 during the Swine Flu epidemic that “we have already 76 children dying from the 2009 H1N1 virus, and it’s only the beginning of October.”

Yet his eminence did not demand schools close. And the CDC specifically recommended NOT closing schools. (Fauci also stated then, “you can’t isolate yourself from the rest of the world for the whole flu season. . .”) Point is, public health bureaucrats and school officials clearly didn’t conduct a basic cost/benefit analysis before closing the schools. They didn’t consider how many kids would fall behind. Or the mental health consequences of social isolation, like the higher rates of self-harm and skyrocketing calls to suicide hotlines. The only thing that mattered was a disease with a 99.999% survivability rate. Not their learning, their future, or their mental health.

Read more …

“..cases have jumped from 516 as of February 20 to 17,621 as of May 7..”

• As Virus Cases Explode, Why Has The Mekong Region Success Story Ended? (SEAG)

Cambodia is not alone in its rapid decline since February. While the unfolding public health disaster in India dominates global headlines, a slower burning crisis is emerging across Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong Subregion, with Thailand and Laos also witnessing a spike in cases in recent weeks and months. Once heralded as unique case studies in successfully containing the virus, seemingly immune to its most severe health effects, these three nations are now brewing outbreaks fuelled by potent strains, porous borders and public holidays. With the virus spreading on its doorstep, Vietnamese officials are anxiously preparing for what seems an inevitable arrival of cases. Though infection rates remain low in Vietnam, it now joins its neighbours in the scramble to halt the spread of Covid-19 before it’s beyond control in a region collectively home to nearly 200 million people.

Dr Jessica Manning, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told the Globe that B.1.1.7 has exposed many previously held myths surrounding the Mekong region’s supposed resilience to the virus. “We thought that there was this mystery to the Mekong, that maybe Southeast Asia was faring better than the rest of the world because of preexisting immunity,” said Manning, who has studied infectious diseases in Cambodia since 2017, pivoting in January last year to track Covid-19 in the Kingdom. “But with the new variants that have exploded, it’s just so much drastically worse that we no longer harbour those thoughts of Cambodians or Thais or Vietnamese having some shield related to pre-existing immunity. B.1.1.7 has just blasted through all of that.”

It’s within recent memory that Cambodia still boasted some of the best Covid-19 public health statistics globally. As of late January, the Kingdom recorded the fourth lowest cases per capita worldwide, and was also the largest country population-wise to report no fatalities of those with more than 20 cases. At that point, simple public health measures proved effective in containing the virus. “With the wild type [early] virus, Cambodia seemed to do ok with these really bread and butter public health measures, like quarantine, lockdown, schools closed, good contact tracing,” Manning said. But since that ill fated night, cases have jumped from 516 as of February 20 to 17,621 as of May 7. The B.1.1.7 variant, now Cambodia’s dominant strain, according to Kinzer and Manning, has spread with ruthless efficiency. Deaths have also begun to mount with 114 as of publishing – dispelling yet another myth around Cambodia’s resilient, youthful population.

Read more …

“Her statement also preemptively warned that the “negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved” — a process that could provide drugmakers an opening to try to limit a final waiver.”

• Vaccine Waiver Pledge Tests Biden-World’s Pharma Ties (DP)

Several of President Joe Biden’s most powerful appointees and advisers have had business relationships with pharmaceutical giants lobbying the administration on COVID-19 and intellectual property issues, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Poster. Those ties — and Biden’s longtime alliance with pharmaceutical industry interests — could prove particularly relevant as drug companies now try to defang any new waiver of patent rules that might reduce their profits and facilitate the wider distribution of vaccines to COVID-afflicted countries. Last summer, Biden broke with his own legislative record and pledged to support relaxing those intellectual property rules to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, saying it “is the only humane thing in the world to do.”

With the pandemic creating a full-fledged humanitarian crisis in India this spring, Biden’s administration on Wednesday issued a statement reiterating that general promise. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” said United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai in a press release. “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.” The declaration was widely hailed by public interest groups, who feared the administration would follow past precedent and oppose any emergency action on patents.

However, Tai’s statement was narrow: It only mentioned COVID vaccines and avoided endorsing an existing, broad waiver proposed by India and South Africa which would cover “diagnostic kits, vaccines, medicines, personal protective equipment and ventilators.” Her statement also preemptively warned that the “negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved” — a process that could provide drugmakers an opening to try to limit a final waiver.

Read more …

Still Trump?!

• The Truth Is Surely Baseless (Kunstler)

Among other things, the horror show of corruption in Ukraine, starring (but not limited to) Joe and Hunter Biden in their ceaseless quest for grift, but also featuring many of the origins of the RussiaGate hoax and its spin-offs, plus the involvement of State Department personnel such as Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and deputy George Kent, double-plus the shady activities of George Soros and his Atlantic Council in seditious activity working hand-in-hand with the CIA’s “whistleblower” (Eric Ciaramella) to damage Mr. Trump — who was impeached for simply inquiring about what was going on in Ukraine.

Mr. Giuliani had to conduct his own investigation into all that for the obvious reason that the usual US agencies who would ordinarily investigate official misconduct were actually perpetrating it: the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and State Department. And who, at the DOJ now, might be behind the current effort to neutralize Mr. Giuliani? Try Lisa Monaco, the new Deputy Attorney General, formerly one of Barack Obama’s chief White House fixers — i.e., an attorney detailed to shutting down investigations and covering the tracks left by questionable operations — and a protégé of former CIA Director John Brennan. Is the weak and pliable AG Merrick Garland fronting for her running the DOJ now? Joe Biden is going to need a whole lot of fixin’. And, is Lisa Monaco actually still reporting to Barack Obama? He can also probably use a fix or two. Who knows what’s coming down pike? Just maybe a loaded semi driven by the nearly forgotten John Durham?

MSNBC might have made an unforced error on Wednesday scripting 10 o’clock troll Lawrence O’Donnell to diss former AG William Barr — some jive about Mr. Barr trying to mess with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts back in 2018 to nail Mr. Trump on an obstruction of justice rap. Is this the time to piss-off Mr. Barr? You have to wonder. Is it possible that the FBI concealed its possession of the Hunter Biden laptop from Mr. Barr during those 2019 days of impeachment, when Mr. Trump was attempting to mount a defense for making a phone call to Ukraine? Who might be responsible for hiding that, if it were so? By the way, it was Mr. Barr who, just before resigning in late 2020, made John Durham a Special Counsel, whose work — whatever that might be, maybe nothing at all, maybe something consequential, nobody knows — can’t be blocked by Merrick Garland (or Lisa Monaco).

Read more …

“29% of Americans have been jobless for over 1 year. And the s&p 500 is +29% during that time. Perfect.”

• Why Stocks Soared While America Struggled (Vox)

The market was temporarily shaken in March 2020, as stocks plunged for about a month at the outset of the Covid-19 outbreak, but then something strange happened. Even as hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, millions of people were laid off and businesses shuttered, protests against police violence erupted across the nation in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and the outgoing president refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election — supposedly the market’s nightmare scenario — for weeks, the stock market soared. After the jobs report from April 2021 revealed a much shakier labor recovery might be on the horizon, major indexes hit new highs.


The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, between corporate CEOs and the working class, has perhaps never felt so stark. How can it be that food banks are overwhelmed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits an all-time high? For a year that’s been so bad, it’s been hard not to wonder how the stock market could be so good.

To the extent that there can ever be an explanation for what’s going on with the stock market, there are some straightforward financial answers here. The Federal Reserve took extraordinary measures to support financial markets and reassure investors it wouldn’t let major corporations fall apart. Congress did its part as well, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy across multiple relief bills. Turns out giving people money is good for markets, too. Tech stocks, which make up a significant portion of the S&P 500, soared. And with bond yields so low, investors didn’t really have a more lucrative place to put their money. To put it plainly, the stock market is not representative of the whole economy, much less American society. And what it is representative of did fine.

Read more …

One hell of a miss.

• U.S. Added 266,000 Jobs Last Month vs 1 Million Expected (F.)

The United States added 266,000 jobs in April, according to data released by the Labor Department Friday—much worse than the 1 million job gains economists expected and far fewer than the 916,000 jobs added in March, indicating that the long-tepid labor market recovery is slowing down again even as stocks and corporate earnings rip higher. The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.1% in April, as compared to 6% in March; the metric hit a record high of 14.7% in April 2020. There are now 9.8 million unemployed people in the United States, higher than 9.7 million in March and much higher than the prepandemic level of 4 million in February 2020, the government said. Overall, the U.S. economy has added back roughly 14 million of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of pandemic uncertainty in March and April of last year.

At 3.5 million, the number of permanent job losers is still about three times prepandemic levels, and the labor force participation rate in April was little changed at 61.7%, compared to 63.4% in February 2020. According to the Labor Department, 9.4 million people reported that they were unable to work last month because their employer closed or lost business as a result of the pandemic—still a sizable portion of the labor market but down from 11.4 million in March, thanks to businesses reopening. April’s report also continued to show stark differences in unemployment by race, with minority groups such as Black Americans and Hispanics facing above-average unemployment rates of 9.7% and 7.9%, respectively.

“Obviously, the jobs report is a large disappointment . . . however, the economy is still on a recovery footing,” says Vital Knowledge Media Founder Adam Crisafulli. “Notable job gains in leisure and hospitality, other services, and local government education were partially offset by losses in temporary help services and in couriers and messengers.” The losses in temporary help services, Crisafulli says, suggest companies “may be gearing up for more permanent hires.” 16.2 million. That’s how many people are still receiving some form of government unemployment benefit—shockingly high compared to historical levels, according to weekly data released Thursday. It’s also higher than the number of unemployed Americans due to the startling number of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force because they’re no longer looking for work.

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

Steven Donziger must be supported.

 

 

Assange Internet

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.