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Publications

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions – Institute of Economic Affairs

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns, also referred to as ‘Covid restrictions’, ‘social distancing measures’ etc., on COVID-19 mortality based on available empirical evidence. We define lockdowns as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). We employ a systematic search and screening procedure in which 19,646 studies are identified that could potentially address the purpose of our study. After three levels of screening, 32 studies qualified. Of those, estimates from 22 studies could be converted to standardised measures for inclusion in the metaanalysis.

https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdict-on-covid-restrictions/

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News

The wind and solar power myth has finally been exposed – The Telegraph

Many governments in the Western world have committed to “net zero” emissions of carbon in the near future. The US and UK both say they will deliver by 2050. It’s widely believed that wind and solar power can achieve this. This belief has led the US and British governments, among others, to promote and heavily subsidise wind and solar.

These plans have a single, fatal flaw: they are reliant on the pipe-dream that there is some affordable way to store surplus electricity at scale.

In the real world a wind farm’s output often drops below 10 per cent of its rated “capacity” for days at a time. Solar power disappears completely every night and drops by 50 per cent or more during cloudy days. “Capacity” being a largely meaningless figure for a wind or solar plant, about 3000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity is needed to replace a 1000 MW conventional power station in terms of energy over time: and in fact, as we shall see, the conventional power station or something very like it will still be needed frequently once the wind and solar are online.

http://archive.today/2023.05.13-125957/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/10/wind-solar-renewables-pointless-waste/

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News

10 myths told by Covid experts — now debunked – New York Post

  1. Misinformation #1: Natural immunity offers little protection compared to vaccinated immunity
  2. Misinformation #2: Masks prevent Covid transmission
  3. Misinformation #3: School closures reduce Covid transmission
  4. Misinformation #5: Young people benefit from a vaccine booster
  5. Misinformation #6: Vaccine mandates increased vaccination rates
  6. Misinformation #7: Covid originating from the Wuhan Lab is a conspiracy theory
  7. Misinformation #8: It was important to get the 2nd vaccine dose 3 or 4 weeks after the 1st dose
  8. Misinformation #8: It was important to get the 2nd vaccine dose 3 or 4 weeks after the 1st dose
  9. Misinformation #9: Data on the bivalent vaccine is “crystal clear”
  10. Misinformation #10: One in five people get long Covid

https://archive.today/2023.03.03-171938/https://nypost.com/2023/02/27/10-myths-told-by-covid-experts-now-debunked/

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Opinion

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline – Seymour Hersh

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

https://archive.today/2023.02.08-140226/https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

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News

US bombed Nord Stream gas pipelines, claims investigative journalist Seymour Hersh – The Times

https://archive.today/2023.02.09-092239/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-bombed-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-claims-investigative-journalist-seymour-hersh-s730dnnfz

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Publications

Comparisons of all-cause mortality between European countries and regions: 28 December 2019 to week ending 1 July 2022 – Office for National Statistics

Norway, Sweden and Iceland had the lowest relative cumulative excess mortality.

  • Between the week ending 3 January 2020 (week 1 2020) and the week ending 1 July 2022 (week 26 2022), the UK’s relative cumulative excess mortality was 3.1% above the average of 2015 to 2019; this was over a third less than the cumulative excess mortality in the week ending 18 June 2021 (week 24 2021; the period of the previous article), at 5.8%.
  • The UK had the 16th highest relative cumulative excess mortality of the 33 countries analysed (UK, its constituent countries, and 28 European countries), and 15th highest of 28 countries when constituent countries are removed.
  • The majority of European countries analysed (25 of 33) experienced above average relative cumulative excess mortality for the whole period, with eight countries showing relative cumulative mortality below average.
  • Bulgaria had the highest relative cumulative excess mortality at 18.2% above average, followed by Poland (13.3% above average) and Romania (12.2% above average); Norway had the lowest with 4.1% below average, followed by Sweden (4.0% below average) and Iceland (3.9% below average).
  • The majority of European countries (22 of 33) had higher relative cumulative excess mortality in those aged 65 years and over compared with those aged under 65 years.
  • The UK had the fifth highest relative cumulative excess mortality rate in those aged under 65 years (8.3% above average); in those aged 65 years and over in the UK, the cumulative excess mortality rate was the 19th highest (2.2% above average).
  • Overall, 19 of the 33 European countries had a decrease in their relative cumulative excess mortality rates since the last release (week ending 18 June 2021), including the UK and constituent countries; the largest decrease was in Czechia (5.4 percentage points lower), whereas the largest increase was in Cyprus (5.4 percentage points higher).

https://archive.today/2023.01.04-122100/https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/comparisonsofallcausemortalitybetweeneuropeancountriesandregions/28december2019toweekending1july2022

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News

Mastering the art of persuasion during a pandemic – Nature

To help society mount a collective defence against pathogens, researchers say that leaders should enlist human-behaviour specialists to play a much bigger part in health policy. This has been the Achilles heel of governments during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Armand Balboni, an infectious-disease researcher and chief executive of pharmaceutical firm Appili Therapeutics in Halifax, Canada. “Social scientists, anthropologists and psychologists were not used nearly enough,” Balboni says.

http://archive.today/2022.11.15-082310/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03354-8

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Videos

Press conference – Ursula von der Leyen’s immediate resignation demanded by freedom-fighting MEPs – Cristian Terhes,Member of the European Parliament for Romania

Freedom loving MEPs demanded the immediate resignation of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who failed to disclose communication with the CEO of Pfizer. They also called for an ending of imposition of EU’s Digital Covid Certificate which is useless, unnecessary and discriminatory. One MEP also called for a compensation fund for the COVID vaccine injured and they all ended with a rising encouragement to the freedom loving truckers of Canada. (Press conference – Strasbourg, 16 February 2022)

– 00:32 – MEP Stasys JAKELIŪNAS (Greens, LT)
– 04:10 – MEP Ivan Vilibor SINČIĆ (NI, HR)
– 10:25 – MEP Virginie JORON (ID, FR)
– 12:24 – MEP Cristian TERHES (ECR, RO)
– 24:25 – Q&A – answer from MEP Stasys JAKELIŪNAS
– 29:08 – MEP Christine ANDERSON (ID, DE)
– 33:11 – Q&A – answer from MEP Cristian TERHES

Categories
News

EU investigates reports of menstrual disorders after mRNA COVID shots – Reuters

The European Medicines Agency’s safety committee said on Friday it was reviewing reports of heavy menstrual bleeding and absence of menstruation from women who had received COVID vaccines from Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech (22UAy.DE)and Moderna (MRNA.O).

The assessment was in view of reports of menstrual disorders after receiving either of the two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA technology, and it was not yet clear whether there was a causal link, the agency said.

http://archive.today/2022.02.11-153938/https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eu-investigates-reports-menstrual-disorders-after-mrna-covid-shots-2022-02-11/

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Publications

A LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON COVID-19 MORTALITY – Johns Hopkins University

This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis. They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

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News

Lockdowns, school closures and limiting gatherings only reduced COVID mortality by 0.2% at ‘enormous economic and social costs’, study finds – Daily Mail

The original coronavirus lockdowns had ‘little to no’ effect on pandemic death tolls in the US, UK and Europe, a controversial report suggests.

Economists who carried out a meta-analysis found draconian restrictions imposed in spring 2020 — including stay-at-home orders, compulsory masks and social distancing — only reduced Covid mortality by 0.2 per cent.

They warned that lockdowns caused ‘enormous economic and social costs’ and concluded they were ‘ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument’ going forward.

View archive of study.

http://archive.today/2022.02.02-165510/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10466995/New-study-says-lockdowns-reduced-COVID-mortality-2-percent.html

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News

Omicron wave driven by ‘young, healthy, vaccinated’ population – The Telegraph

The omicron epidemic is being driven by young, vaccinated people, according to mounting data from countries as diverse as the UK, Denmark and South Africa.

The new variant has now been detected in more than 60 countries, including 24 in Europe, with a similar pattern of infection and characteristics being reported across the globe.

…Data from Denmark – a world leader in genetic sequencing – shows that, of 3,437 omicron cases detected, just over 70 per cent have been among those younger than 40, according to the breakdown from the Statens Serum Institut published on Monday.

Some 75 per cent of these cases were in fully vaccinated individuals, the institute added, confirming that even the double jabbed can carry the virus.

http://archive.today/2021.12.16-182916/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/omicron-wave-driven-young-healthy-vaccinated-population/

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News

Six Cases of Capillary Leak Syndrome After Moderna COVID Vaccination Being Investigated – Newsweek

The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) is currently investigating six reported cases of capillary leak syndrome in people who were vaccinated with Spikevax, previously known as COVID-19 vaccine Moderna.

These six cases are out of over 61.6 million doses of the Moderna vaccine administered in the European Union and the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) and since it received authorization in January 2021. The EMA also pointed out that currently there is no evidence of a causal link between the Moderna vaccine and capillary leak syndrome.

http://archive.today/2021.11.13-174414/https://www.newsweek.com/six-cases-capillary-leak-syndrome-after-moderna-covid-vaccination-being-investigated-spikevax-1648632

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Videos

British Police Have Transformed Into a Tool for Enforcing the State’s Will – Peter Hitchens

This time on #SWYSI, Peter Hitchens discusses the British police’s historic transformation into a form unrecognisable from decades past. He agues that the British police were once unique in the world. They were an important conservative & very English institution which was set up in complete distinction from continental police forces. Parliament had seen European police forces become tools of oppression. They were armed & uniformed state police whose job was to enforce the will of the state — and it was not felt that such a body should exist in Britain. Consequently, the British police force that was set up was very different: unarmed, not given special powers, limited in their abilities. This is no longer the case.

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News

UK’s biggest source of greenhouse gas? This ‘eco’ power station! Drax in Yorkshire burns wood pellets that are treated as a ‘renewable’ fuel but emit more carbon dioxide than coal, research shows –

A supposedly ‘green’ power station subsidised with public money is Britain’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas, research shows.

Drax in Yorkshire burns wood pellets, which are treated as a ‘renewable’ fuel and the site has attracted more than £800million of taxpayer subsidies.

But analysis shows that the burning of wood for power – known as biomass – has been the cause of more carbon dioxide emissions than coal since 2019.

Drax burns millions of tonnes of wood to provide around 12 per cent of the UK’s total electric power, generating 15.6megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide emissions each year, which cause the planet to heat up by trapping heat around the Earth – the greenhouse effect.

The power station is also one of the top five emitters in Europe of toxic air pollution particles known as PM10.

Currently accounting rules allow Drax to be treated as ‘carbon neutral’.

http://archive.today/2021.10.09-102340/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10073987/UKs-biggest-source-greenhouse-gas-eco-power-station.html

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News

Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar – The Times

Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down.

http://archive.today/2021.09.19-081243/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b48247d6-17fa-11ec-8aba-5ab737a99668

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News

Health experts urge caution on giving Covid vaccines to UK children – The Guardian

Launching a programme of Covid-19 immunisations for children should be considered only in special circumstances, leading health experts have warned.

They say UK medical authorities, who are currently studying how vaccines for adolescents might be administered, should move with great care over the implementation of such a programme.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/29/health-experts-urge-caution-on-giving-covid-vaccines-to-uk-children

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Videos

Lockdown legacy facing future generations – Dr Rob Verkerk, Pandemic Podcast

Rob Verkerk, Founder, Executive and Scientific Director of the Alliance for Natural Health International, a scientist who has for 30 years been exploring positive ways to span the gulfs between science and the law, between academia and industry, and between governments and their people.

Backup mirror:

Mirrored on odysee.com

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Publications

Evidence of early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in France: findings from the population-based “CONSTANCES” cohort – European Journal of Epidemiology

Using serum samples routinely collected in 9144 adults from a French general population-based cohort, we identified 353 participants with a positive anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG test, among whom 13 were sampled between November 2019 and January 2020 and were confirmed by neutralizing antibodies testing. Investigations in 11 of these participants revealed experience of symptoms possibly related to a SARS-CoV-2 infection or situations at risk of potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure. This suggests early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00716-2

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Publications

COVID-19 in children and the role of school settings in transmission – first update – ECDC

The return to school of children around mid-August 2020 coincided with a general relaxation of other NPI measures in many countries and does not appear to have been a driving force in the upsurge in cases observed in many EU Member States from October 2020.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/children-and-school-settings-covid-19-transmission