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News

‘BIGGEST COVER-UP IN HISTORY’ I worked with the Wuhan lab – I tried to warn them & I KNOW Covid was a lab leak – The Sun

In his new book – The Truth About Wuhan – whistleblower Dr Huff claims the pandemic was the result of the US government’s funding of dangerous genetic engineering of coronaviruses in China.

The epidemiologist said China’s gain-of-function experiments – carried out with shoddy biosecurity – led to a lab leak at the US-funded Wuhan Institute of Virology.

http://archive.today/2022.12.04-023939/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20543847/wuhan-lab-warning-covid-lab-leak/

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Videos

Jeremie, Marine and Denis on our latest article – Mortality and vaccines in the USA – Denis Rancourt

Denis Rancourt, Marine Baudin and Jérémie Mercier discuss their paper, COVID-Period Mass Vaccination Campaign and Public Health Disaster in the USA.

https://denisrancourt.ca/videos.php?id=55&name=2022_08_16_1_in_english_jeremie_marine_and_denis_on_our_latest_article_mortality_and_vaccines_in_the_usa

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Publications

COVID-Period Mass Vaccination Campaign and Public Health Disaster in the USA From age/state-resolved all-cause mortality by time, age-resolved vaccine delivery by time, and socio-geo-economic data – Denis Rancourt, ResearchGate

All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting and epidemiologically characterizing events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge or collapse in deaths from any cause. Such data is not susceptible to reporting bias or to any bias in attributing causes of death. We compare USA all-cause mortality by time (month, week), by age group and by state to number of vaccinated individuals by time (week), by injection sequence, by age group and by state, using consolidated data up to week-5 of 2022 (week ending on February 5, 2022), in order to detect temporal associations, which would imply beneficial or deleterious effects from the vaccination campaign. We also quantify total excess all-cause mortality (relative to historic trends) for the entire covid period (WHO 11 March 2020 announcement of a pandemic through week-5 of 2022, corresponding to a total of 100 weeks), for the covid period prior to the bulk of vaccine delivery (first 50 weeks of the defined 100-week covid period), and for the covid period when the bulk of vaccine delivery is accomplished (last 50 weeks of the defined 100-week covid period); by age group and by state. We find that the COVID-19 vaccination campaign did not reduce all-cause mortality during the covid period. No deaths, within the resolution of all-cause mortality, can be said to have been averted due to vaccination in the USA. The mass vaccination campaign was not justified in terms of reducing excess all-cause mortality. The large excess mortality of the covid period, far above the historic trend, was maintained throughout the entire covid period irrespective of the unprecedented vaccination campaign, and is very strongly correlated (r = +0.86) to poverty, by state; in fact, proportional to poverty. It is also correlated to several other socioeconomic and health factors, by state, but not correlated to population fractions (65+, 75+, 85+ years) of elderly state residents.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362427136_COVID-Period_Mass_Vaccination_Campaign_and_Public_Health_Disaster_in_the_USA_From_agestate-resolved_all-cause_mortality_by_time_age-resolved_vaccine_delivery_by_time_and_socio-geo-economic_data

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Publications

Small-area assessment of temperature-related mortality risks in England and Wales: a case time series analysis – The Lancet

Epidemiological literature on the health risks associated with non-optimal temperature has mostly reported average estimates across large areas or specific population groups. However, the heterogeneous distribution of drivers of vulnerability can result in local differences in health risks associated with heat and cold. We aimed to analyse the association between ambient air temperature and all-cause mortality across England and Wales and characterise small scale patterns in temperature-related mortality risks and impacts.

See commentary from The Daily Sceptic: Eighty Times More Excess Deaths Associated With Cold Each Year than Heat

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00138-3/fulltext

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Publications

Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? – MDPI

Abstract
The present coronavirus crisis caused a major worldwide disruption which has not been experienced for decades. The lockdown-based crisis management was implemented by nearly all the countries, and studies confirming lockdown effectiveness can be found alongside the studies questioning it. In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historic experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth. Our aim was to learn lessons and analyze ways to improve the management of similar events in the future. The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic, nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past. The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.

Conclusions
While our understanding of viral transmission mechanisms leads to the assumption that lockdowns may be an effective pandemic management tool, this assumption cannot be supported by the evidence-based analysis of the present COVID-19 pandemic, as well as of the 1918–1920 H1N1 influenza type-A pandemic (the Spanish Flu) and numerous less-severe pandemics in the past. The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: we estimate that, even if somewhat effective in preventing death caused by infection, lockdowns may claim 20 times more life than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown in the future.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9295/htm

Categories
News Opinion

The expert bias toward Covid catastrophe has been exposed – The Telegraph

The World Health Organization amplified false Chinese statements about COVID-19 initially, while it dragging its feet on declaring an international emergency. Pandemic experts here clung to flu epidemic plans too, ignoring observable COVID-19 successes in East Asia and so ruling out any similar possibility of test-and-trace containment in the UK from the off.

Most public health experts then pivoted to being extremely pro-lockdown, but stuck rigidly to this even as the context, and so the costs and benefits of restrictions, changed with the vaccines and omicron.

Epidemiologists proved especially stubborn. Their modelling usually ignored the role of voluntary behavioural change entirely, so erred on the side of assuming catastrophic public health outcomes absent government mandates and restrictions. Hence, Freedom Day was dubbed “criminal” by scientists, while the government’s scientific advisers called for more restrictions last Christmas. Both proved wrong in retrospect.  

http://archive.today/2022.02.15-191444/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/15/expert-bias-toward-covid-catastrophe-has-exposed/

Categories
Alternative Media Opinion

Who Do You Trust If You Can’t Trust the Science? — Mythbusting Whether Flu Was Rebranded as Covid

One of the checks and balances on rampant bad scientific research is to continuously assess how new ideas fit into the framework of the bigger picture. A new piece of information may seem perfectly reasonable and well-documented, but the domino effect of its implications gives you another way to test its validity. When multiple lines of seemingly rock-solid evidence contradict one another, that’s a good sign that something is wrong, even if you don’t yet know why. Whenever a thread seems out of place, it’s time to pull on that thread until you can figure out what exactly is going on.

…”Trusting the science” is not (and never has been) about trusting results or trusting experts. Trusting the scientists is what got us into this mess. For science to function properly, we must NOT trust the scientists. Instead, we must trust in the messy self-correcting process that allows truth to boil to the surface even if every participant in that process is flawed.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of the Experts” 
— 
Richard P. Feynman

Science is the relentless competition between measurable pieces of evidence, the ruthless gauntlet of debate, the willingness to question even the most “obvious” of assumptions, and the humbleness to test and retest any and all assumptions against hard evidence, most especially when those assumptions are our own. 

https://www.juliusruechel.com/2022/01/who-do-you-trust-if-you-cant-trust.html

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Videos

Herd Immunity – Professor Sunetra Gupta, Collateral Global

Professor Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University explains herd immunity, highlighting critical details about both the concept and its relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic that are often overlooked in public discussion.

The development of immunity through natural infection is a common feature of many pathogens, and we now know that COVID-19 does not have any tricks up its sleeve to prevent this from happening. If it did, it would have posed a serious problem for the development of a vaccine.

That being said, COVID-19 belongs to a family of viruses that do not typically confer lifelong immunity against infection. Most of us have never heard of the other four ‘seasonal’ coronaviruses that are currently circulating in our communities. And yet, surveys indicate that at least 3% of the population is infected by any one of these corona cousins during the winter months each year. These viruses can – and do – cause deaths in high-risk groups or require them to receive ICU care or ventilator support. Hence, it is not necessarily true that they are intrinsically milder than the novel COVID-19 virus. And like the COVID-19 virus, the other coronas are much less virulent in the healthy elderly and younger people than influenza.

One important reason why these corona cousins do not kill large numbers of people is that, even though we lose immunity and can be reinfected, there is always a sufficient proportion of immune people within the population to keep the risk of infection low for those who might die upon contracting it. Also, all of the coronaviruses in circulation — including COVID-19 — have some features in common, which means that getting one coronavirus will probably offer some protection against the others. This is becoming increasingly clear from work in many labs, including my lab in Oxford. It is against the background of acquired immunity to COVID-19 itself, as well as its close relations, that the new virus has to operate.

It is misleading to speak of “reaching” herd immunity. Herd immunity is a continuous variable that increases as people become immune and decreases as they lose immunity or die. There is a threshold of herd immunity at which the rate of new infections begins to decrease. We do not yet have a clear idea of what this threshold is for COVID-19 as the transmission landscape includes people who are susceptible to it, people who have built up immunity to it, and people who have immunity to other coronaviruses.

Unfortunately, we do not have a good way of telling how many people have been exposed to the new virus, nor how many people were resistant to begin with. We can test for antibodies but, as with other coronaviruses, COVID-19 antibody levels decline after recovery, and some people do not make them at all. Thus, antibody levels will not answer this question. More and more evidence is accumulating that other arms of immunity, like T cells, play an important role.

Indications of the herd immunity threshold having been reached in a given location are visible in the time signatures of epidemics where death and infection curves tend to either “bend” in the absence of intervention or to stay down when interventions are relaxed (in comparison with other locations where the opposite happened). Unfortunately, we do not know how far (or close) we are to that threshold in most parts of the world. This means that we need to make public health decisions based only on limited information and do so in a constantly changing environment.

Focused Protection was initially proposed as a solution for how we could proceed in the face of such uncertainty and it remains relevant now. It suggests that we exploit the fact that COVID-19 does not cause much harm to the large majority of the population and allow those individuals to resume their normal lives, while shielding those who are vulnerable to severe disease and death. We have good information about who falls into these groups and the availability of vaccines, which offer excellent protection for vulnerable populations and guard against hospitalisable illness, provide us with the ideal setting in which to implement such a plan.

Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and a member of Collateral Global’s Scientific Advisory Board.

By Professor Sunetra Gupta
28 May 2021

Backup mirrors:

Categories
Opinion

The Masked Ball of Cowardice – Michael P. Senger

“Lockdowns,” the mass quarantine of both sick and healthy people, have never before been used for disease mitigation in the modern Western world. Previously, the strategy had been systematically ruled out by the pandemic plans of the World Health Organization (WHO) and by health experts of every developed nation. So how did we get here?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/masked-ball-cowardice

Categories
Alternative Media Opinion Videos

Dr. Robert Malone Interview – Inventor Of mRNA Technology Censored For Speaking Out On Vaccine Risks – The Last American Vagabond

Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA technology used in the COVID-19 injections, discusses his concerns over their safety and how concerns are censored. 

  • “I have been written out of history.”
  • The chairman of the board of Reuters sits on the board of Pfizer.
  • The conflicts of interests are overt…it’s in your face…they have no shame.
  • The big thinkers in the government envy the Chinese model of government.
  • The political spectrum is irrelevant [on the topic of COVID and vaccines].
  • These discussions are forbidden talk so we won’t get to the truth.
  • Detailed discussion on the cytotoxic effects of spike proteins and safety of the new mRNA COVID vaccines at around 40mins.
  • Dr. Malone agrees with many of Dr. Mike Yeadon‘s comments, except Dr. Yeadon’s conclusion of a conspiracy.
  • The figure of 70% uptake of vaccines to reach herd immunity was made up. The data isn’t known. “Somebody is just pulling it out of the air.”
  • The vaccines don’t stop you from getting the virus or spreading it.
  • The early trials were designed to optimise success.
  • You cannot publish stuff outside of the approved memes and that means we can’t do science. People are dying because of this.
  • Other treatments have been suppressed to increase uptake of the vaccine.
  • The fear is bringing out social pathologies and is diminishing our ability to think.
  • We’ve had rampant groupthink in the government, in the WHO and across the world.
  • “I’ve never seen this level of co-ordinated crazy.”
  • “I’m concerned about what’s at the other side of the tunnel.”
  • The new COVID-19 vaccines are still experimental.
  • “Most of us who haven’t drunk the Koolaid” say the risk of COVID to children is remarkably low and the risk of vaccines is not nothing.
  • There is no logic in vaccinating children, adolescents and young adults. There are some risk and they’re not trivial.

Source links can be found at The Last American Vagabond.

Categories
Opinion

Why I spoke out against lockdowns – Professor Martin Kulldorff, Spiked

I had no choice but to speak out against lockdowns. As a public-health scientist with decades of experience working on infectious-disease outbreaks, I couldn’t stay silent. Not when basic principles of public health are thrown out of the window. Not when the working class is thrown under the bus. Not when lockdown opponents were thrown to the wolves. There was never a scientific consensus for lockdowns. That balloon had to be popped.

…Ultimately, lockdowns protected young low-risk professionals working from home – journalists, lawyers, scientists, and bankers – on the backs of children, the working class and the poor.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/04/why-i-spoke-out-against-lockdowns/

Categories
Opinion

The biggest threat now is politicians and scientists insisting eradicating disease trumps human freedom: PROFESSOR ROBERT DINGWALL says if we don’t resist the biosecurity state, we’ll be living with face masks – and fear – for years to come – Daily Mail

In a bad year for flu, we can lose 20,000-25,000 people. With a largely vaccinated population, there are likely to be about 30,000 Covid-related deaths over the next 12 months, an average of about 80 deaths every day. This is about half of one per cent of the deaths we would normally expect to happen in that period.

And not all of these will be additional deaths. In many cases, Covid will just substitute for another respiratory infection.

Dr Susan Hopkins, an epidemiologist consultant in infectious diseases and microbiology from Public Health England, has pointed to the possibility we will suffer a bad flu season in 2021/22 because the level of population immunity has been pushed down by Covid restrictions in 2020/21.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9433867/PROFESSOR-ROBERT-DINGWALL-says-resist-biosecurity-state.html

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News

Role of Sage to be reviewed over fears scientists hold too much power – The Telegraph

A future independent inquiry into the handling of coronavirus is expected to scrutinise Sage and consider whether such a monolithic body should hold so much power. Members of Sage have themselves expressed concern that the group holds too much sway over ministerial thinking and prevents alternative views being given equal weight. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/15/role-sage-reviewed-fears-scientists-hold-much-power/

Categories
Publications

Use and abuse of mathematical models: an illustration from the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom – University of Edinburgh (2006)

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a major threat, not only to countries whose economies rely on agricultural exports, but also to industrialised countries that maintain a healthy domestic livestock industry by eliminating major infectious diseases from their livestock populations. Traditional methods of controlling diseases such as FMD require the rapid detection and slaughter of infected animals, and any susceptible animals with which they may have been in contact, either directly or indirectly. During the 2001 epidemic of FMD in the United Kingdom (UK), this approach was supplemented by a culling policy driven by unvalidated predictive models. The epidemic and its control resulted in the death of approximately ten million animals, public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter, and political resolve to adopt alternative options, notably including vaccination, to control any future epidemics. The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism.

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/use-and-abuse-of-mathematical-models-an-illustration-from-the-2001-foot-and-mouth-disease-epidemic-in-the-united-kingdom(e368e2d3-1161-4e6e-97c8-5e33d44a9fb3).html

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Videos

Prof Jay Bhattacharya, Signatory of Gt Barrington Declaration: Why ‘Lockdown’ Will Kill Millions – Naomi Wolf, Daily Clout

Categories
Opinion Videos

Dr. Mike Yeadon on The James Delingpole Channel

Interview highlights

  • COVID-19 is not a dread disease that will kill everyone.
  • The initially high case fatality rate of COVID-19 was because the medical community didn’t know how to treat it.
  • The fatality rate of flu is 0.1% (1 in every 1,000 who are infected end up dying).
  • Ventilators are the wrong option if you do not have an obstructed airway disease.
  • Prod. Ioannidis: The infection fatality ratio of COVID-19 is 0.15%. This is pretty much the same as the flu.
  • We should just ask people to be careful but otherwise go about your daily life.
  • These things pass every year. This is the first ‘social media pandemic.’
  • The normal practice for intensive care beds in the NHS is to run them almost full. This is because a lot of intensive care bed assignment is planned.
  • ICU use at the height of the pandemic was has very low because the NHS was run as light as possible to cope with a second wave.
  • Respiratory viruses don’t do waves.
  • This is not opinion but is basic understanding among experts in the field. It is supposrted by the highest quality science. Sir Patrick Vallance knows this.
  • COVID-19 follows the Gompertz Curve.
  • You have immunity after your body has fought off a respiratory virus. If that was not the case, you’d be dead. Immunity probably lasts decades based on evidence from other viruses.
  • Gompertz Curve is identical in all heavily infection regions.
  • Something awefull happened in the middle of the year: PCR swab test.
  • It is not true that if you test more people you’ll save more lives. A certain percentage of the test will come up positive even if there’s no virus in you.
  • False positive rate wasn’t released.
  • Kate Barker wrote in a government document on June 3rd, 2020, to SAGE: test has an unknown false positive rate; based on similar tests it may be between 1%-2%. This is a big deal.
  • Based on 1%: for every 1,000 people you test, 10 will come back positive, even if they don’t have the virus. If prevalence is only 0.1% as reported by ONS, only 1 in 1,000 will be genuine. This means 9 in 10–in other words 90%–are false.
  • Pillar 2 testing would have caused of the most of the positives to be false.
  • 1,700 people die normally every day in the UK. During the summer, only about 10 were dying per day of covid.
  • More testing, more false positives. We’ll never escape covid if we keep testing because most of the positives will be false. This is immunology 101. Sir Patrick Vallance would have known this.
  • Influenza is a high mutation-rate virus. Coronaviruses are relatively stable so once you’ve recovered, you are probably immune for decades.
  • COVID-19 kills 0.15%-0.2%, slightly more lethal than the average flu. Once it’s gone through the population, it won’t come back.
  • 99.94% survive COVID-19 and will be resistant for a long time.
  • COVID-19 is 80% similar to SARS-COV-1.
  • People who were exposed to SARS have T-cell immunity 17 years later. Evidence for COVID-19 all point in direction.
  • Our bodies have many lines of defense, including innate immunity and T-cells. Antibodies are in the last line of defense.
  • Study shows around 30% prior immunity to SARS-COV-2. It was due to exposure to common-cold coronaviruses.
  • The claim made by Sir Patrick Vallance that more than 90% are susceptible is a lie.
  • Mass testing of the well populating is the worst problem as it generates false positives, fear and control.
  • If you’re immune, you can’t be infected or infectious. Herd immunity is already in play in London.
  • If SAGE is correct, London should be ‘ablaze’ with deaths.
  • Current testing methods are not forensically sound.
  • Tests detect common cold and dead virus.
  • SARS-COV-2 has never really been a public health emergency.
  • We do not need the vaccine to return to normal. Most people are not in danger from COVID-19. More people are in danger from car crashes and we accept that risk.
  • Best case scenario is that the vaccine is 50% effective. Natural immunity might be better.
  • The most vulnerable often don’t respond well to vaccines and die anyway.
  • SAGE is giving lethally wrong advice.
  • The reason the pandemic is not over is because SAGE says it’s not.

Categories
Publications

Covid-19’s known unknowns – BMJ

When deciding whom to listen to in the covid-19 era, we should respect those who respect uncertainty, and listen in particular to those who acknowledge conflicting evidence on even their most strongly held views. Commentators who are utterly consistent, and see whatever new data or situation emerge through the lens of their pre-existing views—be it “Let it rip” or “Zero covid now”—would fail this test.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3979

Categories
News

Academic behind startling ‘circuit breaker’ study which found half-term lockdown could save up to 100,000 lives by New Year admit their death figures are wildly over-estimated and say they wish they’d never used them – Daily Mail

Professor Matt Keeling said he wished he ‘hadn’t put these numbers in the study’

Paper said about 107,000 Britons could die by January without a circuit breaker

Study’s findings already been used as ammunition by scientists and politicians

The academic behind a startling study which projected a two-week ‘circuit-breaker’ could save thousands of lives by New Year has today admitted his figures were wildly over-estimated.

Professor Keeling told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning: ‘I really, really wish I hadn’t put these numbers in the paper because they were there for illustration.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8838727/Academics-circuit-breaker-study-admit-death-figures-estimated.html

Categories
Opinion

Making an apocalypse out of a pandemic – Spiked

The great 20th-century pandemics, comparable in so many ways to their 21st-century heir, accounted for myriad private tragedies. Yet, unlike this novel coronavirus, their public, political significance was negligible. They were treated as public-health challenges, problems for clinicians, virologists and epidemiologists. And there were arguments at the time that more should have been done to mitigate their harm. But there was no sense of a world ending. No talk of a new normal. No attempt, that is, to reorganise the entirety of societal life around the threat they posed.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/09/18/making-an-apocalypse-out-of-a-pandemic/

Categories
News

Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment – The Financial Times

As coronavirus cases rise in pretty much all other European countries, leading to fears of a second wave including in the UK, they have been sinking all summer in Sweden. On a per capita basis, they are now 90 per cent below their peak in late June and under Norway’s and Denmark’s for the first time in five months. Tegnell had told me the first time we spoke in the spring that it would be in the autumn when it became more apparent how successful each country had been.

https://www.ft.com/content/5cc92d45-fbdb-43b7-9c66-26501693a371