Aug 152021
 
 August 15, 2021  Posted by at 9:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Henri Matisse Luxury, calm and pleasure 1904

 

Taliban Launches Offensive On Kabul (Sp.)
Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals (Crawford)
Covid-19 Injections Dangerous For Mothers and Babies (Yeadon)
Class Action Lawsuit Says Vaccine Has Killed 45,000 People (Rumble)
Children Born During Pandemic Have Lower IQs (G.)
Well, ****…. (Denninger)
French Study Claims ADE Occurring In Delta Variant Infections (TMN)
Denmark Abolishes All Corona Measures (FFN)
New Covid Variants ‘Will Set Us Back A Year’, Experts Warn UK Government (O.)
Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory For Trips Abroad And Care Home Staff’ (DM)
The Teens Who’d Prefer To Catch Covid Than Have The Vaccine (DM)
I Wish To Take A Little Walk With You And Talk, Deliberately, About This (TLR)

 

 

233

 

 

China will recognize the Taliban. And then build a pipeline.

 

 

Crick

 

 

Killer T cells

 

 

“US intelligence agencies who said just 4 days ago that Kabul could fall in 90 days have revised the figure to 72 hours.”

Taliban Launches Offensive On Kabul (Sp.)

Biden short

The Taliban* has already taken control of all of Afghanistan’s border crossings, leaving the Kabul Airport as the only route out of the country. Taliban insurgents have launched an offensive on Kabul, having surrounded the Afghan capital, the country’s Interior Ministry announced on Sunday. According to the ministry, the terrorists are entering the capital from all sides. The Office of the President of Afghanistan has taken to Twitter to say that the country’s security and defence forces have the situation under control “in coordination with international partners”. The tweet added that gunfire was heard in several remote areas of Kabul. A source told Sputnik that the Taliban had already taken control of Kabul University and raised the group’s flag in one of the city’s districts.

The Associated Press has cited officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to release the information, as saying there hadn’t been any fighting yet. The insurgents are said to be in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh, and Paghman. Less than an hour ago, a member of the negotiating team of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Matin Bek, urged people not to panic and claimed that the Afghan capital was safe. Shortly before the Taliban entered Kabul, the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan, the last post still under the Afghan government’s control, fell to the terrorist group. Thus, the insurgents now control all of Afghanistan’s border crossings. The insurgents took control of the key eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, just hours after seizing the northern bastion of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The United States, meanwhile, is sending more troops to the encircled capital to help evacuate its civilians and diplomatic staff as the risk of a Taliban takeover of Kabul became more clear. Earlier this week, US intelligence assessed Kabul could be isolated within 30 days and fall to the Taliban within 90 days.

Read more …

It’s a neat little trick.

Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals (Crawford)

We get to section 2.3, and this is where things get really crazy. This is where signals (for assessing safety/danger of the vaccines) get defined. Subsection 2.3.1 begins (emphasis mine), “CDC will perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed. PRRs compare the proportion of a specific AE following a specific vaccine versus the proportion of the same AE following receipt of another vaccine (see equation below Table 4). A safety signal is defined as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest. ” Only a real dork would emphasize the word ‘and’, right? A logic dork, mind you, but we’ll get to that…

First, note that PRR is the proportional reporting ratio, and these PRR numbers are the outputs of a function defined by the CDC based on four variables (which they list in a table as capital letters, then apply in a function as lower-case letters, which always makes me a little uncomfortable as I rarely see such sloppy transition from definitions to application, and somehow they always seem to come from government documentation where I worry about ass covering and plausible deniability).

Look at the numerator of this formula. The variables a and b are specific to each vaccine. Now, consider what would happen if an extremely dangerous vaccine were introduced that resulted in 20 times as many AEs of all types as all the other vaccines to which it gets compared.

The PRR remains invariant in the scaling of adverse events!

This means that one vaccine that kills and cripples 20 or 50 or 1,000 times as much as a very safe vaccine will show the same PRR (mild adjustments for variables c and d notwithstanding), and no safety signal will be identified by the CDC. By design. In my circle of discussion, I’ve found out (to my dismay) that this definition of PRR has also been used for other vaccines. Just during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, important safety signals have come and gone without notice, such as the MedDRA term “death” showed up as a signal in dispersion analysis in February, but no longer does due to the rising quantity of so many other AEs, which forces structural mean-reversion of the PPR function (toward 1) by inflating the denominator. In other words, the number of an AE, a, is normalized to the total number of adverse events (not the number vaccinated, or doses), the ratio of which is then normalized again to the aggregated totals (fraction c over c + d) from other vaccines.

Read more …

“..there isn’t an aware person who wouldn’t call a halt at this point.”

Covid-19 Injections Dangerous For Mothers and Babies (Yeadon)

The covid-19 vaccines currently subject to emergency use authorisations all share a common and novel feature: they are gene-based products. Instead of containing a small amount of killed or live-attenuated pathogen, they instead comprise genetic code, instructions as it were to manufacture in our own cells a part of the pathogen. In some products, the genetic code is of DNA & use a weakened respiratory virus to ensure delivery to our cells, or of messenger RNA (the intermediate between the DNA of our genes and the protein product thereby manufactured). There is a further commonality: they cause the recipients cells to manufacture a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus called the spike protein. This is literally the spike projecting outwards from the spherical object that contains the virus itself.

As detailed elsewhere in this packet of information, coronavirus spike proteins are biologically active and they initiate the blood coagulation cascade among other properties. It is alleged that it is the induction of blood coagulation in various locations in the body which is responsible for a high proportion of the serious adverse events including deaths which are being reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the USA and in analogous databases elsewhere. The rate of fatal outcomes following covid-19 vaccination, usually from clotting or bleeding disorders, is extraordinary and exceeds that from any previous vaccine by a very large amount, which this reviewer estimates is of the order of 60-fold.

That this astonishingly high rate of adverse events after vaccination is a consequence of two factors: 1. The manufacturers were simply not required to study the way the product moves around the body after injection and 2. They were not required to study the functional effects of the genetic code within the product after administration. There are no products on the mass market which operate in this way. It is my expert opinion that this is the greatest failure of medicinal product regulation in relation to reproductive health since thalidomide and is very much greater in terms of societal impact. It is imperative that all these products be suspended until improved safety testing can determine whether there are any groups in whom the benefits outweigh the risks.

[..] It is essential to lay out the backdrop to the current position with clinical use of covid-19 vaccines, for one reason: we have NEVER, since thalidomide, exposed women of childbearing potential (WOCBP) and ESPECIALLY NEVER pregnant women to ANY novel, experimental pharmaceutical product without that product first having completed a full battery of reproductive toxicology tests. Even after this crucial step, pilot studies are always conducted in a small number of pregnant women to minimise risk to the developing fetus. Neither of these essential steps have been undertaken.

[..] This new data, which shows that women do raise antibodies to a component of their placenta after vaccination with the Pfizer/BioTech product, raises serious concerns for fetal safety. It is not safe to assume that this will not have adverse consequences on successful pregnancy. It is not safe to assume that the other vaccines will not have similar effects. Again, as with the distributional study, a presumption of risk, potentially severe, arises from these clinical observations, and there isn’t an aware person who wouldn’t call a halt at this point.

Read more …

“There are effective treatments. It’s unnecessary to test asymptomatic people because the CDC says that they don’t spread the virus.”

Class Action Lawsuit Says Vaccine Has Killed 45,000 People (Rumble)

Michael Green has filed a class action lawsuit at first representing 1,200 first responders against the Governor & Mayor’s vaccine mandates with thousands more expected to join. Michael Green says that the vaccine is killing people all around the country. There are effective treatments. It’s unnecessary to test asymptomatic people because the CDC says that they don’t spread the virus. Honolulu Fire Captain Kaimi Pelekai gives an emotional testimony about losing his job because he doesn’t want to put this experimental vaccine in his body that is killing people.

Read more …

Mean score drops from 100 to 78.

Children Born During Pandemic Have Lower IQs (G.)

Children born during the coronavirus pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor and overall cognitive performance compared with children born before, a US study suggests. The first few years of a child’s life are critical to their cognitive development. But with Covid-19 triggering the closure of businesses, nurseries, schools and playgrounds, life for infants changed considerably, with parents stressed and stretched as they tried to balance work and childcare. With limited stimulation at home and less interaction with the world outside, pandemic-era children appear to have scored shockingly low on tests designed to assess cognitive development, said lead study author Sean Deoni, associate professor of paediatrics (research) at Brown University.

In the decade preceding the pandemic, the mean IQ score on standardised tests for children aged between three months and three years of age hovered around 100, but for children born during the pandemic that number tumbled to 78, according to the analysis, which is yet to be peer-reviewed. “It’s not subtle by any stretch,” said Deoni. “You don’t typically see things like that, outside of major cognitive disorders.” The study included 672 children from the state of Rhode Island. Of these, 188 were born after July 2020 and 308 were born prior to January 2019, while 176 were born between January 2019 and March 2020. The children included in the study were born full-term, had no developmental disabilities and were mostly white.

Those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds fared worse in the tests, the researchers found. The biggest reason behind the falling scores is likely the lack of stimulation and interaction at home, said Deoni. “Parents are stressed and frazzled … that interaction the child would normally get has decreased substantially.” Whether these lower cognitive scores will have a long-term impact is unclear. In the first few years of life, the foundations for cognition are laid, much like building a house – it’s easier to add rooms or flourishes when you’re building the foundation, Deoni said. “The ability to course-correct becomes smaller, the older that child gets.”

Read more …

“In mid-December, before the first person had full vaccinated immunity, cases were falling dramatically in the United States. Herd Immunity. For real. It was over. We had suffered, but, had we not been stupid, Covid was more-or-less finished with us.”

Well, ****…. (Denninger)

“Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection is a safety concern for vaccine strategies. In a recent publication, Li et al. (Cell 184 :1-17, 2021) have reported that infection-enhancing antibodies directed against the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein facilitate virus infection in vitro, but not in vivo. However, this study was performed with the original Wuhan/D614G strain. Since the Covid-19 pandemic is now dominated with Delta variants, we analyzed the interaction of facilitating antibodies with the NTD of these variants. Using molecular modelling approaches, we show that enhancing antibodies have a higher affinity for Delta variants than for Wuhan/D614G NTDs.

We show that enhancing antibodies reinforce the binding of the spike trimer to the host cell membrane by clamping the NTD to lipid raft microdomains. This stabilizing mechanism may facilitate the conformational change that induces the demasking of the receptor binding domain. As the NTD is also targeted by neutralizing antibodies, our data suggest that the balance between neutralizing and facilitating antibodies in vaccinated individuals is in favor of neutralization for the original Wuhan/D614G strain. However, in the case of the Delta variant, neutralizing antibodies have a decreased affinity for the spike protein, whereas facilitating antibodies display a strikingly increased affinity. Thus, ADE may be a concern for people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors).”

You stupid, stupid bastards….. Coronaviruses have a long history of doing this sort of thing and its one of the reasons we’ve never managed to have a vaccine developed for them before; it simply doesn’t work. But we were sure it wouldn’t happen this time. It had happened all the other times, but not this time. We were so sure we didn’t need to take the several years required to prove it. We’re smart! We have the new technology, never before deployed in man or beast, which we were absolutely certain would evade the risk that had always, in previous trials, derailed attempted vaccines. Oh, and there were also billions of dollars involved for the companies involved and many newly minted billionaires to be, including the NIH itself who holds some of the patents involved.

So here’s what happened. In mid-December, before the first person had full vaccinated immunity, cases were falling dramatically in the United States. Herd Immunity. For real. It was over. We had suffered, but, had we not been stupid, Covid was more-or-less finished with us. Yes, there were and would remain some of us who hadn’t gotten it, and the extremely rare person who could get it a second time, that would continue to get the virus. It was, however, over. But we were stupid. We jabbed a huge percentage of our population. And as has occurred every other time with coronavirus vaccine attempts the virus mutated around the protection and in fact used the vaccine antibodies to enhance infection. Delta is in fact promoted by those who were vaccinated. As with all other Covid variants most people get a mild or no real illness, but some people get hammered.

However, prior infection doesn’t help if you got jabbed since you took a drug that helps the virus attack you. We created a third wave by our own stupidity: Stupidity seen in nation after nation, but only in nations with high vaccine prevalence; Israel, the UK, Iceland and here in the United States. Don’t run the bull**** on me that this isn’t happening: Not only is the science now in on how its happening but Israel and Palestine, two nations literally next door to each with one having near 100% vaccination and the other about 10% could not be more-stark. Palestine is seeing a small uptick in infections while Israel is getting hammered. The “smartest men in the room” screwed not just a nation — bad enough — but an enormously-large part of the world. Including, quite possibly, you. There’s a reason we’ve never attempted to vaccinate against coronaviruses before. THIS IS THE REASON!

Read more …

Would new vaccines help? Only until the next one.

French Study Claims ADE Occurring In Delta Variant Infections (TMN)

A new study by French researchers from Aix-Marseille Université has alarmingly found that ADE or antibody dependent enhancement is indeed occurring in infections with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. The study findings were peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Infections. ADE or antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection is a safety concern for vaccine strategies. A misleading earlier study reported that infection-enhancing antibodies directed against the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein facilitate virus infection in vitro, but not in vivo. This study however was performed with the original Wuhan/D614G strain. Importantly since the COVID-19 pandemic is now dominated with Delta variants, the study team analyzed the interaction of facilitating antibodies with the NTD of these variants.

Utilizing molecular modeling approaches, the team showed that enhancing antibodies have a higher affinity for Delta variants than for Wuhan/D614G NTDs. The study team demonstrated that enhancing antibodies reinforce the binding of the spike trimer to the host cell membrane by clamping the NTD to lipid raft microdomains. This stabilizing mechanism may facilitate the conformational change that induces the de-masking of the receptor binding domain. As the NTD is also targeted by neutralizing antibodies, the study data suggest that the balance between neutralizing and facilitating antibodies in vaccinated individuals is in favor of neutralization for the original Wuhan/D614G strain. Alarmingly, in the case of the Delta variant, neutralizing antibodies have a decreased affinity for the spike protein, whereas facilitating antibodies display a strikingly increased affinity.

Hence antibody dependent enhancement or ADE may be a concern for people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors). Under these circumstances, second generation vaccines with spike protein formulations lacking structurally-conserved ADE-related epitopes should be considered. [..] It should be noted that all current Covid-19 vaccines (either mRNA or viral vectors) are based on the original Wuhan spike sequence. In as much as neutralizing antibodies overwhelm facilitating antibodies, ADE is not a concern. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants may tip the scales in favor of infection enhancement. The study’s structural and modeling data suggest that it might be indeed the case for Delta variants. The study team concludes and warns that ADE may occur in individuals receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors) and then exposed to a Delta variant.

Read more …

But The Science!

Denmark Abolishes All Corona Measures (FFN)

Danish parliament recently decided in Copenhagen that all Corona measures should be ended from October 1. There will therefore no longer be a mask requirement and the test regime will be abolished. The Danes will then no longer have to provide evidence of whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated, or whether they have tested positive or negative. All Corona measures are being lifted in view of the increasing incidence figures in Denmark, reported RT Deutsch. Since the beginning of July this value has risen from 31 to 107,2 (as of August 8). At the same time, the upper limits of this Corona indicator has increased significantly. At the same time, the incidence limits are increased significantly: In communities from 300 to 500 infected people within seven days, in the districts from 500 to 1000.

However, the prerequisite is that an increasing number of Covid-19 patients does not overload the health care system. Denmark’s SSI infectious diseases agency said it no longer relied on vaccination to achieve herd immunity in the country. Tyra Grove Krause, the SSI’s acting academic director, said a new wave of infections were expected after people return to work and school at the end of this summer, but it should not be cause for alarm. “It will be more reminiscent of the flu,” Krause said. Overall, the current vaccination rate is just under 58,4 percent of fully vaccinated people in Denmark. In Germany, this value is only slightly lower at 54,5 percent (as of August 8) but vaccine advocates have been persistent in their fear-mongering and pressure on the unvaccinated.

Tyrolean lawyer Dr. Renate Holzeisen, meanwhile strongly recommended that all employers refrain from vaccination pressure or compulsory vaccination, because most of them were “obviously not even aware of the far-reaching legal consequences associated with it”. The fact that the so-called Covid-19 vaccines, according to the official approval documents of the EMA and the European Commission were not developed and approved for the prevention of infection with the SARS-COV-2 virus, but solely to prevent a more severe course of the disease, were conditionally approved for this reason alone, Holzeisen underscored.

The official approval documents therefore show that these substances cannot interrupt the chain of infection because the people treated with them can become infected and thus be infectious. Practice also proves that people who are completely “vaccinated” become infected with the virus and even have the same viral load as “unvaccinated people” as the CDC, among others, has admitted. It is therefore clear that any Covid-19 “compulsory vaccination” actually lacks any justification. All pressure, including moral pressure (alleged act of solidarity with one’s neighbor) is therefore illegal in terms of criminal and liability law based on the official approval documents.

Read more …

But we knew they were coming?! Why didn’t you prepare?

New Covid Variants ‘Will Set Us Back A Year’, Experts Warn UK Government (O.)

Ministers are being pressed to reveal what contingency plans are in place to deal with a future Covid variant that evades current vaccines, amid warnings from scientific advisers that such an outcome could set the battle against the pandemic back a year or more. Recent papers produced by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have suggested that the arrival of a variant that evades vaccines is a “realistic possibility”. Sage backed continued work on new vaccines that reduce infection and transmission more than current jabs, the creation of more vaccine-production facilities in the UK and lab-based studies to predict evolution of variants. With the arrival of a new variant seen as one of the main dangers that could intensify the crisis once again, prominent scientific figures stressed the risks.

Prof Graham Medley, a member of Sage and a leader of the government’s Covid modelling group, said it was “clearly something that the planners and scientists should take very seriously as it would put us back a long way”. “It is not that different to the planning that needs to be done between pandemics – a new variant that was able to overcome immunity significantly would be essentially a new virus,” he said. “The advantage would be that we know we can generate vaccines against this virus – and relatively quickly. The disadvantage is that we would be back to the same situation we were in a year ago, depending on how much impact current immunity had against a new variant. Hopefully, evolution is slow, so that new variants arise that are only marginally evasive rather than one big jump.”

Dr Marc Baguelin, from Imperial College’s Covid-19 response team and a member of the government’s SPI-M modelling group, said preventing the importation of variants of concern with “moderate to high immune-escape properties would be critical, as these could lead to future waves orders of magnitude larger than the ones experienced so far”. “It is unlikely that such a new virus evades entirely all immunity from past infection or vaccines,” he said. “Some immunity should remain at least for the most severe outcomes such as death or hospitalisation. We would most likely be able to update the current vaccines to include the emerging strain. “But doing so would take months and means that we might need to reimpose restrictions if there were a significant public health risk. The amount of restrictions would be a political decision and would need to be proportionate with how much this virus would evade current vaccines.”

Read more …

Not long ago all of it was voluntary. All of it.

Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory For Trips Abroad And Care Home Staff’ (DM)

Booster jabs are set to be compulsory for travel abroad and care home staff in plans under discussion by Ministers. A source close to the talks about Covid certification told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The assumption is that you will be required to have the most up-to-date health passport. ‘So if the advice is to have a booster six months after your second jab, then that is what you’ll need.’ At the moment, double-jabbed Brits can go to amber list countries without having to quarantine upon their return. Booster vaccines will be compulsory for care home workers once they are rolled out, a senior Government source said. This will add to the legal requirements for care home staff, who from October will have to be double-jabbed to work in the sector, subject to parliamentary approval.

Millions are set to be offered a third jab from September after Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced the roll-out to priority groups. A Minister told the Mail on Sunday the ‘logical’ move will be to make the booster shots a requirement for travel, adding that the most up-to-date Covid certification for travel will become as normal as the need to have a yellow fever jab to enter certain countries. Last night Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, said: ‘If I were the Government I would tread carefully on this. Booster jabs will take a while to get to the majority of the travelling public. ‘And there are issues around whether they are necessary – some scientists say that they may not be necessary.’

Meanwhile talks about what booster jabs will mean for domestic certification are still at an early stage within Government. One insider said that, as domestic passports have only been announced for nightclubs, discussions over whether boosters will one day be required for entry are still in ‘very early days’. The Government will make its decision on boosters following final advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which is reviewing the scientific evidence on the third jabs. The JCVI previously issued interim advice in June that Brits ‘should be prepared’ for another round of inoculations.

Read more …

The article doesn’t know whether to agree or not.

The Teens Who’d Prefer To Catch Covid Than Have The Vaccine (DM)

Trawling through Government Covid statistics might seem like a strange hobby for a 16-year-old. But when he isn’t practising on his guitar, or watching TikTok videos, that’s what Jacob Mellor can be found doing. And thanks to his keen interest in ‘the data’, he has come to a decision – one that could have a profound impact on his own health and that of those around him. Earlier this month, when it was announced that all 16- and 17-year-olds would be offered a Covid jab, Jacob promptly announced he would be opting out. All the evidence, he says, shows this virus is not a threat to him. And so he feels it would be better to catch Covid, and develop natural immunity, than to have a vaccine.

‘From the beginning we’ve been told that this virus didn’t affect kids,’ says Jacob, from Croydon in South London, who attends an independent school. ‘We even had assemblies about it at school, telling us why we shouldn’t worry because it’s just a cold for people my age. ‘So why should I take a vaccine to protect against something I won’t get ill from? Especially when I know there’s a risk involved with having it. The risk is small, I appreciate that, but it’s still there and I can’t get over that.’ Not only does Jacob have no qualms about catching Covid, he is almost looking forward to it. ‘It would be a good thing, in my eyes. I’d build a strong immunity and I wouldn’t have to worry about risks, like I would with the jab,’ he says.

‘Loads of my friends had Covid last year and the worst that happened was that they were stuck in bed for a couple of days. We all see Covid as something we’re not really bothered about. If I get it, it might suck for a few days, but I’ll be immune, so there’s a benefit to me.’ According to Jacob’s mother Sally, her eldest child – who is one of three, with siblings aged 14 and nine – is ‘an independent thinker’ and has been ‘brought up to appreciate the value of natural immunity’. Sally, a 51-year-old creative director for a major retailer, and husband Steve, 49, a recruitment director, haven’t been vaccinated either. ‘I believe in natural immunity, and I’m nervous about the lack of long-term data about the Covid vaccine,’ she adds.

‘We were a family that would be outside in the dirt and around animals, and I told the kids this would protect them from allergies and make sure they could fight off infections. ‘So Jacob has always asked questions when it came to vaccines, from a very young age – like why did he have to have a tetanus booster, for instance – although he did have all his childhood jabs.’ While more than 16,000 of Britain’s 1.5 million 16- and 17-year-olds took up the Government’s offer to get jabbed last weekend, thousands, like Jacob, are not as enthusiastic. The latest Office for National Statistics Covid survey suggests one in ten of them don’t plan to have the vaccine.

Read more …

“But *NOW* you are the problem. You are guilty. You are an extremist. You didn’t change at all. Something else changed. But notice how the spotlight on what changed is YOU, and not the origin of the change?”

I Wish To Take A Little Walk With You And Talk, Deliberately, About This (TLR)

Something shifted after the election of Barack H Obama in 2008. Something subtle that was quietly taking place in the background that surfaced just slow enough so that most people didn’t notice. But before getting to that, let’s first just look at the DHS announcement as presented in their words. Look at this small sentence and the worldview it expresses: ..”Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.”.. Notice the word “perceived”? The government imposed mandates, mask and vaccination requirements are only “perceived government restrictions.” In essence, the chains that bind your expressions of liberty and freedom are merely figments of your imagination.


The needle being forced into the arm of federal workers by the Federal Government is only the perception of a forced medical treatment. Your perception of what they are doing is the problem. You must therefore correct your wrong-thoughts to eliminate the wrong perception. Yes, Dear Leader appreciates your compliance. Your reluctance to change your perception is what identifies you as an extremist. Think about that for a moment with your friends and family. The label of Domestic Extremist is applied to the target who is reluctant to change their perception. The target is transparently innocent of any wrongdoing. They are doing, feeling, believing, and ultimately living, exactly the same as they always have…. but something now is different. You are transparently innocent, yet you are now guilty and labeled. This takes our conversation to an inflection point.

When Barack H Obama was elected/installed as the President of the United States, the people in/around him brought forward a new approach. While the U.S. media had always been biased, manipulative and dishonest, there was something more that changed after the installation of The One, the Lightbringer… and it was assisted by the rise of Big Tech and Social Media. The shift coincided with the merge between the intelligence apparatus and the new platforms of social media. The speed of the shift aligned with the speed of technology that was driving communication. Together the intelligence apparatus, the customary U.S. media and Big Tech began testing how far and how fast they could control the outlook of Americans. Historic leftists, progressives, used to justify their own behavior, and the behavior of their tribe through the media.

History is replete with leftist media excusing the behavior of the transparently guilty. The media would create narratives to justify extremism they aligned with. The transparently guilty were excused and defended. We became used to seeing this. However, when traditional media merged in ideology with social media, no longer was they trying to excuse or justify the transparently guilty of accountability; starting around 2011 & 2012 what the new-era attack started to do was falsely accuse the transparently innocent. Together with ideological institutions in government (Obama’s crew ie. DOJ etc.), the customary U.S. media and Big Tech began testing how far and fast they could control the outlook of Americans… to accuse the transparently innocent. The shift was directly proportional to the training, teaching and development of the crew that came with Obama. All classically trained Saul Alinsky followers.

The Harvard police officer (James Crowley), just doing his job…. that led to Henry Louis Gates outrage, that led to the big PR effort and the beer summit. “Never let a crisis go to waste”… All optically and narrative controlled. Then came George Zimmerman, then Darren Wilson, then The Baltimore Six,… all, again, transparently innocent – but the media framework was exactly the opposite. They were able to label the transparently innocent as ‘guilty’, just by controlling information. Skip through the years of numerous examples as the orchestration continued. The manipulative effort is driven by political intent. Take a transparently innocent person and manipulate a narrative to make them guilty Now, pause for a moment and go back to the current DHS announcement.

What does this current DHS terrorism bulletin do? It exactly continues the process. Government is now expanding the targeting of the transparently innocent. You hold the same ideas, outlooks, worldviews, and expectations of Liberty and Freedom that you held yesterday, last week, last month and perhaps even long before 9-11-01… But *NOW* you are the problem. You are guilty. You are an extremist. You didn’t change at all. Something else changed. But notice how the spotlight on what changed is YOU, and not the origin of the change? You are the problem. Not those changing the structures of freedom or liberty… YOU are the guilty party. See how they did that? See the shift now?

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 15 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 120 total)
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  • #83882

    Henri Matisse Luxury, calm and pleasure 1904   • Taliban Launches Offensive On Kabul (Sp.) • Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals (Crawford) • Co
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 15 2021]

    #83883
    Germ
    Participant

    Children born and raised under pandemic restrictions have “significantly reduced verbal, motor, and cognitive skills”.

    Poor children worst-hit.

    Five-alarm fire, here, folks.

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261846v1

    #83884
    a kullervo
    Participant

    I’m quite sure that brain cells on the left hemisphere believe in earnest they are on the right side of history…
    (… it’s called brainy humour.)

    Have a good one.

    #83885
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I read the Denninger piece yesterday, and I was left with the impression that he was jumping to conclusions too soon, but the research that the Delta Variant is more conducive to ADE than the original Wuhan strain was certainly an interesting revelation that could conceivably support his conclusions. But for now, I am predisposed to think that the very earliest we would start seeing a signal indicating Covid-vaccine-induced ADE is October.

    #83886
    oxymoron
    Participant

    https://twitter.com/i/events/1362435731935748100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1426605703402242052%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theautomaticearth.com%2F2021%2F08%2Fdebt-rattle-august-15-2021%2F

    Honour roll of trusted bodies. Note that Reuters chair sits on the board of Pfizer so no problems there. Also they are trying to use this page as a door to lead people on a safety and trust ride but the further down you scroll the more the news is presenting the lack of efficacy in transmission etc.
    Clown world

    #83887
    a kullervo
    Participant

    Essentially it wipes out your immune system” (= Great Reset ?)

    Dr. David Bauer
    Francis Crick Institute

    #83888
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Also that Guardian piece may have some substance in it going forward regarding the kids but the entire study was conducted in Rhode Island. So… I dunno, suss.
    Health services are Rhode Island’s largest industry.
    Which is to say, which particular group have been the most preoccupied this last 18 months?

    #83889
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    ..there isn’t an aware person who wouldn’t call a halt at this point.

    The primary problem, which has grown to an apex of crisis, is a dis-ease of Perception.

    The #AntiSpirit sleepwalking hoardes, trapped in self-centered trances, are declaring war on those that seek ANY path that diverges from the #AntiSpirit mass psychosis. Led by their scofflaw masters they spread lies, half-truths & FEAR as offensive weapons…

    These are the times that try men’s souls; Most of us on TAE understand what THEY are trying to do, THEIR final solution ~ Whether or not THEY have the numbers enmasse remains to be seen, but remember it is quite easy to become disturbed, whereas many will be tempted to acquiesce to the ongoing reign of terror (as many have already done), but the solution is to chose LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

    It will become more difficult, unpopular, & perhaps even dangerous to stand apart from the mania, but don’t surrender your soul ~ Stay spiritually centered, calm & help others along the way.

    Here’s a spiritual teaching that may help some, along this journey…

    Anthony De Mello : Wake up to life (How to pray, how to love, how to be real):

    [audio src="https://archive.org/download/AnthonyDeMello_WakeUp/disk01.mp3" /]

    Peace be with you…

    #83890
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Happy Nixon anniversary, America. How’s it feel at 50 years of addiction?

    Out of focus nudes? That’s a tease.

    My point yesterday was not that the Marine General thing was true or false, but these days, who would you trust to tell you? I heard RealClearNews said so, but I might misremember and wouldn’t take them as an authority. Remember DeSantis told Joe to ‘f– himself’ back when, which does appear to be true. They had the transcripts for Trump’s calls, and they still DIDN’T believe him. So who you you believe if as I say, the authorities aren’t worth it? Howard is a real, actual reporter who doesn’t fool with these things, however, this is a personal, comment, editorial piece, not a hard article. YMMV.

    CV…I need more solid information. We’re running into a squishy mass of light research and allegation. Waiting on the states case/death rates, maybe, vs vaccination rates. Fertility rates should move slightly. I’ve done this before, and it was a long wait too, like months.

    Deflationiasta: Yes, and JMG says, “The opposite of a bad idea is another bad idea.” The “Front line doctors”, that is, everyone, may be able to be hijacked by the bent research they’re handed by Pfizer and the CDC, but they’re not fools either, and they ARE trying to keep people alive. They see things. If true, the “bent” above them won’t be able to hold out terribly long. I propose this is why they’re in a rush, but remains to been proven.

    We have a second problem: if we can’t trust anybody – as I seem to propose – society dissolves and we’re helpless in another way. I’m saying it’s “Devolving”, relocalizing, but that’s very disruptive. I would like to arrest, expose, and re-establish trust with leaders and experts, which is why I’m so hard on them, even to give the present structure time to transition, but that does not seem to be in the offing. It’s another way the attackers – whoever they may be – win, and we go back to living in caves. Let’s not do this.

    Problem is, it takes honesty and duty, keeping your word, to NOT do this. Those are internal, essentially spiritual realities. No one presently has been trained for or values them, because not having those attributes is how we got here. And that’s how it takes pain, and a new generation, to get out.

    Afghanistan. See? Small guns and willpower are no use at all. Clearly you need F-15s and nukes to beat the U.S. …Or use a blunt rock on unmotivated troops to steal that F-15 and beat the U.S. Australia may have to prove this in real time, but I hope not.

    Vaccine, they’re getting more pushback than they expected or than they can take. Worse, the pushback is in the slow, terribly frustrating method of the courts, where there are too many, too recorded, and likely to lose, instead of the streets where they can fabricate trouble. If 1 in 100 people who don’t want it started a suit, even representing themselves, they’d bring the system to its knees in weeks.

    That’s what protesting was SUPPOSED to be, and why it hasn’t worked since MLK stopped. You’re SUPPOSED to be arrested and jailed, because they quickly realize there are so, so many more of you than them, they have not a tiny chance of jailing or controlling you even if they started warehouse size detention centers right away. And also YOU realize jail is nothing when it’s nobody but your own friends there. So they back up. Because you are allowing them to preserve their illusion of control, but at a happier line. Today’s warriors whine if someone looks at them funny while beating cars in the street with a bat. Anyway, filing 100k court cases in the Military, then 1M in the civilian, would be a pretty good start. Somebody would get discovery and we could discuss this.

    Denmark following Sweden and Iceland. I guess the U.S. doesn’t like the Scandinavian Health model anymore? They’re a bunch of primitives to be ignored now? Where’s Bernie?

    [UK] Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory”

    That’s odd. The CDC Director just said since everyone is contagious, the passports are pointless. So CDC and American Health Care is now a bunch of superstitious fools to be ignored? I mean, yes, but are we admitting that? Official reality?

    “The Teens Who’d Prefer to Catch Covid than Have the Vaccine (DM)“

    Medicine has gotten so dumb, 16 year olds in their spare time are now smarter. That’s what I keep saying, if you let crimes and theft expand long enough, eventually they can’t be hidden, and they’ll come get you. If you’re committing crimes, keep it down, and try to maintain a sense of shame.

    “Religious Holidays” are now signs of extremism and worthy of arrest? I mean that’s what they FEEL, but my guess is that billboard is still slightly mis-representing the DHS position.

    True, and perhaps the two religions are now the religion of fear, and the religion of hope.

    #83891
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    It’s a bit cute, but worth it to see a pathologist in lab coat and cowboy boots (well hey, he is in Texas) talk about what he’s seeing when doing autopsies of the vaccinated (17 minutes).

    #83892
    Germ
    Participant

    EYE ON THE NEWS
    Do Masks Work?
    A review of the evidence
    Jeffrey H. Anderson
    August 11, 2021
    “Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS!” So tweeted then–surgeon general Jerome Adams on February 29, 2020, adding, “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.” Two days later, Adams said, “Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus.” Less than a week earlier, on February 25, public-health authorities in the United Kingdom had published guidance that masks were unnecessary even for those providing community or residential care: “During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff.” About a month later, on March 30, World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program executive director Mike Ryan said that “there is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.” He added, “In fact there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite” because of the possibility of not “wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly” and of “taking it off and all the other risks that are otherwise associated with that.”

    Surgical masks were designed to keep medical personnel from inadvertently infecting patients’ wounds, not to prevent the spread of viruses. Public-health officials’ advice in the early days of Covid-19 was consistent with that understanding. Then, on April 3, 2020, Adams announced that the CDC was changing its guidance and that the general public should hereafter wear masks whenever sufficient social distancing could not be maintained.

    Fast-forward 15 months. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube for a week for saying, “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work.” Many cities across the country, following new CDC guidance handed down amid a spike in cases nationally caused by the Delta variant, are once again mandating indoor mask-wearing for everyone, regardless of inoculation status. The CDC further recommends that all schoolchildren and teachers, even those who have had Covid-19 or have been vaccinated, should wear masks.

    The CDC asserts this even though its own statistics show that Covid-19 is not much of a threat to schoolchildren. Its numbers show that more people under the age of 18 died of influenza during the 2018–19 flu season—a season of “moderate severity” that lasted eight months—than have died of Covid-19 across more than 18 months. What’s more, the CDC says that out of every 1,738 Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, just one has involved someone under 18 years of age; and out of every 150 deaths of someone under 18 years of age, just one has been Covid-related. Yet the CDC declares that schoolchildren, who learn in part from communication conveyed through facial expressions, should nevertheless hide their faces—and so should their teachers.

    How did mask guidance change so profoundly? Did the medical research on the effectiveness of masks change—and in a remarkably short period of time—or just the guidance on wearing them?

    Since we are constantly told that the CDC and other public-health entities are basing their recommendations on science, it’s crucial to know what, specifically, has been found in various medical studies. Significant choices about how our republic should function cannot be made on the basis of science alone—they require judgment and the weighing of countless considerations—but they must be informed by knowledge of it.

    In truth, the CDC’s, U.K.’s, and WHO’s earlier guidance was much more consistent with the best medical research on masks’ effectiveness in preventing the spread of viruses. That research suggests that Americans’ many months of mask-wearing has likely provided little to no health benefit and might even have been counterproductive in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    It’s striking how much the CDC, in marshalling evidence to justify its revised mask guidance, studiously avoids mentioning randomized controlled trials. RCTs are uniformly regarded as the gold standard in medical research, yet the CDC basically ignores them apart from disparaging certain ones that particularly contradict the agency’s position. In a “Science Brief” highlighting studies that “demonstrate that mask wearing reduces new infections” and serving as the main public justification for its mask guidance, the CDC provides a helpful matrix of 15 studies—none RCTs. The CDC instead focuses strictly on observational studies completed after Covid-19 began. In general, observational studies are not only of lower quality than RCTs but also are more likely to be politicized, as they can inject the researcher’s judgment more prominently into the inquiry and lend themselves, far more than RCTs, to finding what one wants to find.

    A particular favorite of the CDC’s, so much so that the agency put out a glowing press release on it and continues to give it pride of placement in its brief, is an observational (specifically, cohort) study focused on two Covid-positive hairstylists at a beauty salon in Missouri. The two stylists, who were masked, provided services for 139 people, who were mostly masked, for several days after developing Covid-19 symptoms. The 67 customers who subsequently chose to get tested for the coronavirus tested negative, and none of the 72 others reported symptoms.

    This study has major limitations. For starters, any number of the 72 untested customers could have had Covid-19 but been asymptomatic, or else had symptoms that they chose not to report to the Greene County Health Department, the entity doing the asking. The apparent lack of spread of Covid-19 could have been a result of good ventilation, good hand hygiene, minimal coughing by the stylists, or the fact that stylists generally, as the researchers note, “cut hair while clients are facing away from them.” The researchers also observe that “viral shedding” of the coronavirus “is at its highest during the 2 to 3 days before symptom onset.” Yet no customers who saw the stylists when they were at their most contagious were tested for Covid-19 or asked about symptoms. Most importantly, this study does not have a control group. Nobody has any idea how many people, if any, would have been infected had no masks been worn in the salon. Late last year, at a gym in Virginia in which people apparently did not wear masks most of the time, a trainer tested positive for the coronavirus. As CNN reported, the gym contacted everyone whom the trainer had coached before getting sick—50 members in all—“but not one member developed symptoms.” Clearly, this doesn’t prove that not wearing masks prevents transmission.

    Another CDC-highlighted study, by Rader et al., invited people across the country to answer a survey. The low (11 percent) response rate—including about twice as many women as men—indicated that the mix of respondents was hardly random. The study found that “a high percentage of self-reported face mask-wearing is associated with a higher probability of transmission control,” and “the highest percentage of reported mask wearers” are found, unsurprisingly, “along the coasts and southern border, and in large urban areas.” However, as the researchers note, “It is difficult to disentangle individuals’ engagement in mask-wearing from their adoption of other preventive hygiene practices, and mask-wearing might serve as a proxy for other risk avoidance behaviors not queried.” Moreover, achieving greater “transmission control” is not remotely the same thing as ensuring fewer deaths. For example, per capita, Utah is in the top ten in the nation in Covid-19 cases and the bottom ten in Covid-19 deaths, while Massachusetts is in the bottom half in cases and the top five in deaths.

    An additional observational study, but one that the CDC does not reference in its brief, is a large, international Bayesian study by Leech, et al. It finds that mask-wearing by 100 percent of the population “corresponds to” a 24.6 percent reduction in transmission of the novel coronavirus. Mask mandates correspond to no decrease in transmission: “For mandates we see no reduction: 0.0 percent.” Like all observational studies, however, this study is ill-equipped to show causation, to separate out the effects of just one variable from among other, frequently related, ones.

    Mask supporters often claim that we have no choice but to rely on observational studies instead of RCTs, because RCTs cannot tell us whether masks work or not. But what they really mean is that they don’t like what the RCTs show.

    The randomized controlled trial dates, in a sense, to 1747, when Royal Navy surgeon James Lind divided seamen suffering from similar cases of scurvy into six pairs and tried different methods of treatment on each. Lind writes, “The consequence was, that the most sudden and visible good effects were perceived from the use of oranges and lemons.”

    The RCT eventually became firmly established as the most reliable way to test medical interventions. The following passage, from Abdelhamid Attia, an M.D. and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Cairo University in Egypt, conveys its dominance:

    The importance of RCTs for clinical practice can be illustrated by its impact on the shift of practice in hormone replacement therapy (HRT). For decades HRT was considered the standard care for all postmenopausal, symptomatic and asymptomatic women. Evidence for the effectiveness of HRT relied always on observational studies[,] mostly cohort studies. But a single RCT that was published in 2002 . . . has changed clinical practice all over the world from the liberal use of HRT to the conservative use in selected symptomatic cases and for the shortest period of time. In other words, one well conducted RCT has changed the practice that relied on tens, and probably hundreds, of observational studies for decades.

    A randomized controlled trial divides participants into different groups on a randomized basis. At least one group receives an “intervention,” or treatment, that is generally tested against a control group not receiving the intervention. The twofold strength of an RCT is that it allows researchers to isolate one variable—to test whether a given intervention causes an intended effect—while at the same time making it very hard for researchers to produce their own preferred outcomes.

    This is true at least so long as an RCT’s findings are based on “intention-to-treat” analysis, whereby all participants are kept in the treatment group to which they were originally assigned and none are excluded from the analysis, regardless of whether they actually received the intended treatment. Eric McCoy, an M.D. at the University of California, Irvine, explains that intention-to-treat analysis avoids bias and “preserves the benefits of randomization, which cannot be assumed when using other methods of analysis.”

    Such other methods of analysis include subgroup, multivariable, and per-protocol analysis. Subgroup analysis is susceptible to “cherry-picking”—as researchers hunt for anything showing statistical significance—or to being swayed by random chance. In one famous example, aspirin was found to help prevent fatal heart attacks, but not in the subgroups where patients’ astrological signs were Gemini or Libra.

    “Multivariable analysis,” writes Marlies Wakkee, an M.D. and Ph.D. at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, “only adjusts for measured confounding”—that which a researcher decides is worth examining. (Confounders are extra variables that affect the analysis; for example, eating ice cream may be found to correlate with sunburns, but heat is a confounding variable influencing both.) She adds, “This is a significant difference compared to randomized controlled trials, where the randomization process results in an equal distribution of all potential confounders, known and unknown.”

    Per-protocol analysis departs from randomization by basically allowing participants to self-select into, or out of, an intervention group. McCoy writes, “Empirical evidence suggests that participants who adhere [to research protocols] tend to do better than those who do not adhere, regardless of assignment to active treatment or placebo.” In other words, per-protocol analysis is more likely to suggest that an intervention, even a fake one, worked. Of these three departures from intention-to-treat analysis, per-protocol analysis is perhaps the most extreme.

    With these different methods of analysis in mind, it becomes easier to evaluate the 14 RCTs, conducted around the world, that have tested the effectiveness of masks in reducing the transmission of respiratory viruses. Of these 14, the two that have directly tested “source control”—the oft-repeated claim that wearing a mask benefits others—are a good place to start.

    A 2016 study in Beijing by MacIntyre, et al. that claimed to find a possible benefit of masks did not prove very informative, as only one person in the control group—and one in the mask group—developed a laboratory-confirmed infection. Much more illuminating was a 2010 study in France by Canini, et al., which randomly placed sick people, or “index patients,” and their household contacts together into either a mask group or a no-mask control group. The authors “observed a good adherence to the intervention,” meaning that the index patients generally wore the furnished three-ply masks as intended. (No one else was asked to wear them.) Within a week, 15.8 percent of household contacts in the no-mask control group and 16.2 percent in the mask group developed an “influenza-like illness” (ILI). So, the two groups were essentially dead even, with the sliver of an advantage observed in the control group not being statistically significant. The authors write that the study “should be interpreted with caution since the lack of statistical power prevents us to draw formal conclusion regarding effectiveness of facemasks in the context of a seasonal epidemic.” However, they state unequivocally, “In various sensitivity analyses, we did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.”

    With the two RCTs that directly tested source control providing essentially no support for the claim that wearing a mask benefits others, what about RCTs that test the combination of source control and wearer protection? By dividing participants into a hand-hygiene group, a hand-hygiene group that also wore masks, and a control group, three RCTs allow us to see whether the addition of masks (worn both by the sick person and others) provided any benefit over hand hygiene alone.

    A 2010 study by Larson, et al. in New York found that those in the hand-hygiene group were less likely to develop any symptoms of an upper respiratory infection (42 percent experienced symptoms) than those in the mask-plus-hand-hygiene group (61 percent). This statistically significant finding suggests that wearing a mask actually undermines the benefits of hand hygiene.

    A multivariable analysis of this same study found a significant difference in secondary attack rates (the rate of transmission to others) between the mask-plus-hands group and the control group. On this basis, the authors maintain that mask-wearing “should be encouraged during outbreak situations.” However, this multivariable analysis also found significantly lower rates in crowded homes—“i.e., more crowded households had less transmission”—which tested at a higher confidence level. Thus, to the extent that this multivariable analysis provided any support for masks, it provided at least as much support for crowding.

    Two other studies found no statistically significant differences between their mask-plus-hands and hands-only groups. A 2011 study in Bangkok by Simmerman, et al. observed very similar results for both groups. A CDC-funded 2009 study in Hong Kong by Cowling, et al. observed that the hands-only group generally did better than the mask-plus-hands group, but not to a statistically significant degree. Subgroup analysis by Cowling, et al., limited to interventions started within 36 hours of the onset of symptoms, found that the mask-plus-hands group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in one measure, while the hands-only group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in two measures. Summarizing this study, Canini writes that “no additional benefit was observed when facemask [use] was added to hand hygiene by comparison with hand hygiene alone.”

    So, if masks don’t improve on hand hygiene alone, what about masks versus nothing?

    Various RCTs have studied this question, with evidence of masks’ effectiveness proving sparse at best. Aside from a 2009 study in Japan by Jacobs, et al.—which found that those in the mask group were significantly more likely to experience headaches and that “face mask use in health care workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit”—only two RCTs have produced statistically significant findings in intention-to-treat analysis, and one of those studies contradicted itself.

    The previously mentioned 2011 study in Bangkok by Simmerman, et al. found that the secondary attack rate of ILI was twice as high in the mask-plus-hand-hygiene group (18 percent) as in the control group (9 percent), a statistically significant difference. (The ILI rate was 17 percent in the hand-hygiene-only group.) Finding essentially the same thing in multivariable analysis, the researchers wrote that, relative to the control group, the odds ratios for both the mask-plus-hands group and the hands-only group “were twofold in the opposite direction from the hypothesized protective effect.”

    Subsequently, a small 2014 study—with 164 participants—by Barasheed, et al. of Australian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, staying in close quarters in tents, found that significantly fewer people in the mask group developed an ILI than in the control group (31 percent to 53 percent). Unlike the exact fever specifications utilized in other RCTs, however, this study accepted self-reporting of “subjective” fever in determining whether someone had an ILI. Lab tests revealed opposite results, with twice as many participants having developed respiratory viruses in the mask group as in the control group. These lab-test findings were not statistically significant; still, the lab tests’ greater reliability makes it far from clear that the masks in this study provided any genuine benefit.

    Other RCTs found no statistically significant benefit from masks in intention-to-treat analysis. A 2008 pilot study by Cowling et al. in Hong Kong observed that secondary attack rates, using the CDC’s definition of ILI, were twice as high in the mask group (8 percent) as in the hand hygiene (4 percent) or control (4 percent) groups, but these observed differences were not statistically significant.

    Other methods of analysis, deviating from intention-to-treat analysis, found the following.

    A per-protocol analysis of a 2009 study in Sydney by MacIntyre, et al. found a significant effect when combining the surgical-mask group with a group wearing N95 hospital respirators. However, the authors write, a “causal link cannot be demonstrated because adherence was not randomized.”

    In subgroup analysis of 2010 and 2012 studies in Michigan by Aiello, et al., limited to the final several weeks of the respective studies, each study’s mask-plus-hands group had significantly lower rates of ILI than its control group, while its mask-only group did not. In 2010, the results for the mask-only group also hinted at a slight benefit, reducing ILI by an observed (but not statistically significant) 8 percent to 10 percent. In 2012, the authors concluded, “Masks alone did not provide a benefit.” They nevertheless recommended the combination of mask use and hand hygiene, despite not having tested whether that combination works better than hand hygiene alone.

    A multivariable analysis of a smallish (218 participants) 2012 study in Germany by Suess, et al. found that combining the mask group and mask-plus-hands group, while limiting analysis to interventions begun within 48 hours, produced a finding of significantly lower levels of lab-confirmed influenza (but not of ILI) in that combined group (but not in either group separately). The authors, from Berlin, recommended masking and hand hygiene, while opining, “Concerns about acceptability and tolerability of the interventions should not be a reason against their recommendation.”

    The only RCT to test mask-wearing’s specific effectiveness against Covid-19 was a 2020 study by Bundgaard, et al. in Denmark. This large (4,862 participants) RCT divided people between a mask-wearing group (providing “high-quality” three-layer surgical masks) and a control group. It took place at a time (spring 2020) when Denmark was encouraging social distancing but not mask use, and 93 percent of those in the mask group wore the masks at least “predominately as recommended.” The study found that 1.8 percent of those in the mask group and 2.1 percent of those in the control group became infected with Covid-19 within a month, with this 0.3-point difference not being statistically significant.

    This study—the first RCT on Covid-19 transmission—apparently had difficulty getting published. After the study’s eventual publication, Vinay Prasad, an M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, described it as “thoughtful,” “useful,” and “well done,” but noted (with criticism), “Some have turned to social media to ask why a trial that may diminish enthusiasm for masks and may be misinterpreted was published in a top medical journal.”

    Meanwhile, the CDC website portrays the Danish RCT (with its 4,800 participants) as being far less relevant or important than the observational study of Missouri hairdressers with no control group, dismissing the former as “inconclusive” and “too small” while praising the latter, amazingly, as “showing that wearing a mask prevented the spread of infection”—when it showed nothing of the sort.

    Each of the RCTs discussed so far, 13 in all, examined the effectiveness of surgical masks, finding little to no evidence of their effectiveness and some evidence that they might actually increase viral transmission. None of these 13 RCTs examined the effectiveness of cloth masks. “Cloth face coverings,” according to former CDC director Robert Redfield, “are one of the most powerful weapons we have.”

    One RCT tested these masks that so many high-profile public-health officials have touted. This “first RCT of cloth masks,” in the trial’s own words (it is apparently still the only one), was a 2015 study by MacIntyre, et al. in Hanoi, Vietnam. A relatively large study, with over 1,100 participants, it tested cloth masks against surgical masks and did not feature a no-mask control group. The trial tested the protection of health-care workers, instructing them to wear a two-layer cloth mask at all times on every shift (“except in the toilet or during tea or lunch breaks”) across four weeks.

    The study found that those in the cloth-mask group were 13 times more likely (2.28 percent to 0.17 percent) to develop an influenza-like illness than those in the surgical-mask group—a statistically significant difference. The trial also lab-tested penetration rates and found that while surgical masks were “poor” at preventing the penetration of particles—letting 44 percent through—cloth masks were “extremely poor,” letting 97 percent through. (N95 hospital respirators let 0.1 percent through.)

    The authors write that wearing a cloth mask “may potentially increase the infection risk” for health-care workers. “The virus may survive on the surface of the facemasks,” they explain, while “a contaminated cloth mask may transfer pathogen from the mask to the bare hands of the wearer,” which could lead to hand hygiene being “compromised.” As for double-masking, the authors write, “Observations during SARS suggested double-masking . . . increased the risk of infection because of moisture, liquid diffusion and pathogen retention.” Absent further research, they conclude, “cloth masks should not be recommended.”

    MacIntyre and several other authors of this study, perhaps under pressure from the CDC or other entities with similar agendas, released what the CDC calls a “follow up study,” in September 2020. This follow-up isn’t really a study at all, certainly not a new RCT, yet the CDC cites it favorably while disparaging the original study, which, the CDC asserts, “had a number of limitations.” This 2020 follow-up pretty much amounts to publishing the finding that when hospitals washed the cloth masks, health-care workers were only about half as likely to get infected as when they washed the cloth masks themselves. Still, the 2020 publication says, “We do not recommend cloth masks for health workers,” much as the 2015 one said.

    Other reviews of the evidence have been mixed but generally have come to similar conclusions. Certain masking advocates admit that the RCT evidence is “inconclusive” but cite other forms of evidence that have held up poorly. A study for Cochrane Reviews by Jefferson, et al. that examines 13 of the 14 RCTs discussed herein (all but the Denmark Covid-19 study) notes “uncertainty about the effects of face masks” and writes that “the pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza.” Meantime, a study by Perski, et al., which performed a Bayesian analysis on 11 of the 14 RCTs discussed herein, concluded that when it comes to “the benefits or harms of wearing face masks . . . the scientific evidence should be considered equivocal.” They write, “Available evidence from RCTs is equivocal as to whether or not wearing face masks in community settings results in a reduction in clinically- or laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections.”

    In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive.

    https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence?wallit_nosession=1

    #83893
    Red
    Participant

    I’m using brave browser on a mac and notice a difference in comment count between signed in and not. Most of my browsing is done without signing in. I sign in to post something and there are always more comments immediately upon sign in. The following paper is co-authored by Megan K Selbert and William Rees

    https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm
    From the introduction:

    We argue that while the GND narrative is highly seductive, it is little more than a disastrous shared illusion. Not only is the GND technically flawed, but it fails to recognize human ecological dysfunction as the overall driver of incipient global systemic collapse. By viewing climate change, rather than ecological overshoot—of which climate change is merely a symptom—as the central problem, the GND and its variants grasp in vain for techno-industrial solutions to problems caused by techno-industrial society. Such a self-referencing pursuit is doomed to fail. As Albert Einstein allegedly said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. We need an entirely new narrative for a successful energy transition. Only by abandoning the flawed paradigmatic source of our ecological dilemma can we formulate realistic pathways for averting social–ecological collapse.

    #83894
    Oroboros
    Participant

    For the resident Coincidence Theorists at TAE, you know who you are.

    The Overlords just couldn’t be coordinated or conspiring about the Faux Covid Fairytale

    It’s all just a COINCIDENCE!

    Blow me over with a feather.

    ThatDanishGuy twitter
    @ThatDanishGuy3
    Aug 10, 2021

    233 New COVID cases apparently…

    IN:

    NEW SOUTH WALES 233

    ALBERT 233

    SHARRARTON, AU 233

    CROATIA 233

    TRINIDAD &TOBAGO 233

    IOWA 233

    LITHUANIA 233

    SYDNEY 233

    INDONESIA 233

    DELFI 233

    MISSISSIPPI 233

    OREGON 233

    KENTUCKY 233

    IDAHO 233

    ARIZONA 233

    SAN DIEGO 233

    #83895
    Germ
    Participant

    Apologies for the long post. It wouldn’t let me go back and edit!

    #83896
    Oroboros
    Participant

    More conspiring?

    Dr David Bauer
    Francis Crick Institute

    2 doses of Phyza jab lowers neutralising antibodies 5-6 fold.

    Essentially it wipes out your immune system making you dependent on booster shots in perpetuity.

    Another Coincidence!

    What are the chances!

    #83897
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Wow, another coincidence, completely unplanned, who could have known mRNA would have done this.

    I’m sooo glad the Overlords are so stupid and would never ever ‘conspire’.

    Consciousness Evolution Movement (CEM) @coevmo

    ‘What we’re seeing post vaccine is a drop in your killer T cells, your CD8 cells. And what do CD8 cells do? They keep all other viruses in check.’

    This Tweet is misleading. Find out why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.

    The ‘misleading’ alert is such a sweet touch of irony by the Overlords.

    #83898
    Germ
    Participant

    When Science is Silenced:
    The Story of COVID Vaccines,
    from the scientist behind the technology

    Featuring Robert Malone, MD, MS
    Internationally recognized scientist and original inventor of mRNA- & DNA-Vaccination Technologies

    https://rumble.com/vl0zpf-dr.-robert-malone-the-liberty-forum-8-10-2021.html

    #83899
    those darned kids
    Participant

    i did a search for other numbers besides “233”, and other numbers give similar results.

    #83900
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.

    –Charles Mackay

    Well, at least I have the small comfort of knowing I was an “early adopter”. 🙂

    #83901
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    “For the resident Coincidence Theorists at TAE …”

    Guilty (raises hand). Though I do find this mass vaccination campaign and subsequent ignoring of blaring signals of the harm being done to be quite exceptional. Never have we continued administering a vaccination that has produced this level of short-term harm, much less without having any knowledge of mid- to long-term consequences.

    #83902
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    This long comment on JMG’s Covid “open post” is worth reading. The best paragraph:

    I pay scant attention to the daily scare tactics, the evolving fear mongering of a threadbare myth that somehow all of humanity will spared from death no matter how much we weigh or how old and frail we become if only every healthy person just bows down and accepts an experimental vaccines and continues to wear a face covering and keep away from everyone else, forever. The sheer absurdity of it is as clear as the morning sky to anyone with even a shred of reason left between their ears. The end result of this endless miasma of mal-information and Hegalian dialectic is lost freedom, lower standards of living, increasing isolation, rising anxiety and perpetual submission to the gods of the copybook headings.

    #83903
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    TPTB coincidence-conspire camp vs TPTB coincidence/corrupt camp are both misnamed. I, for example, believe that powerful persons conspire. It’s what they do. The history is plainly available.

    I think that the main difference between the two polar opinions is that one camp places great faith in TPTB’s ability to conspire successfully, and the other sees the conspiring as being as much reactionary WTF-do-we-do-now? desperation as much as My/our brilliant plan is working as planned.

    fwiw, the only global conspiracy camp that puts the puzzle pieces together for me in a way that holds form is the more-Xtian-than-not camp that sees some Evil One, el Diablo, working deeply behind the scenes (some even believe under the skin, be it lizard suits or fatuus innoculii) to prevent humanity from realizing its benevolent potential by tricking it into eating — and shitting — its nest into uninhabitable devastation.

    Brain Damaged Children

    Restatement for clarity: I think that TPTB are plenty “evil” enough to do much conspiratorial evil. Kind of a heavy-breathing Big Boy Club circle jerk with or without actual infant/child/virgin sacrifice. (Incidentally, when folks like the ancient Semites offered live infants to Moloch’s red-hot hooved hands

    famine

    it probably at least interfaced with another phenomenon of the time: when famine occurred, more physically frail little ones died than the rest of the populace except old and frail. They tended to be eaten. A form of sacrifice that sustained the family for awhile. In hard times, infants are dead weight.

    Incidentally, my no longer existent 1947 Encyclopaedia Britannica told me that “tophet and hinnom” referred to blowing loud trumpets and baning drums to obscure the screaming of the infant. (Probably didn’t scream long at all: air that hot will knock a person out faster than a Cosby pickup line, snortable or not.)

    Topheth and Hinnom

    Infant sacrifice was still practiced in England not too many centuries ago, btw.

    %^&

    “233 New COVID cases apparently… IN” ad infinitum:

    Ask yourself, with coordinated nonsense that obvious and meaningless, who needs devious bullshit specifically suited for the situation? It’s been known online for about a decade — that I know of — that the local news affiliates are useless except for weather and emergency alerts, and share the same stupid stories in one vast dumbed-down global TV village. I see it serving one purpose at this point: as a media ‘stimulus trigger’ to inspire internet etc. traffic that Al Goreithm and friends can study to see who’s catching on to the fact that a media owned by a few wealthy competing allies can’t be trusted etc.

    btw, the 233 doesn’t show on the danish guy’s twitter feed, although the story is all over the net.

    Me, I think some flunky fucked up. I only see deficits not advantages for TPTB from such a global whie-washing. People will notice.

    #83904

    A Message From France

    Here in France it has gone to the extreme with the “Health” Pass. Last week on the 21st ALL restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and any leisure activities like sporting events, theaters, cinemas, museums, were closed to anyone without “the pass” and all staff at these places are mandated to get the jab to keep their job. It is now a 6 Month prison sentence if you are caught inside any of these places without the pass (the man who slapped the president in the face got only 3 months prison time).

    Business owners will get a fine of 45,000 euros and 1 year prison sentence if they do not comply with the use of “the pass” and force all their employees to get the jab. (If you know France, you can commit murder and have less of a sentence) So the result? All the low paid employees quit, they can make more on welfare here (for now). We can still technically “get take out food” but I just tried last night and every restaurant in our town (that is dine in with take out) has closed their doors due to the lack of staff.

    As of last week ALL doctors, nurses and health industry workers have been mandated to get the jab or lose their license, practice, job, business etc. (ALL health care here is Govt paid positions and there are no private health care Doctors or Hospitals etc.) Since the Health care system is state run and funded, it has been run into the ground. All the good doctors left France 5 Years ago, all the hospitals look like they are 3rd world hospitals since there is no money to repair them, half of the equipment doesn’t work and not every hospital is stocked with supplies needed for daily needs (masks, gels, disposable gowns etc).

    For 5 years Nurses have been understaffed and doing double the work because the Health care system is nearly bankrupt…. So add to this the mandatory jab. So the result? Well they took to the streets by the millions and now all the hospitals just lost another 50% of staff capacity.

    #83905
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Hey, I found a possible use for a media that becomes too compliant and therefore forgets that most people today are plugged into a global info network called The Net:

    Xtian numerologists will easily find a way to turn “233” into a formula for The Number of the Beast. For example: 2×3=6–3 times=666. Stuff like that. That could be very useful for Al Goreithm and the Intelligence of Artifeces.

    Does anyone else here feel that Sept 15th is likely to be pivotal?

    #83906
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Booster Shots Will ‘Be Obligatory For Trips Abroad And Care Home Staff’ (DM)

    That headline should have this as the first paragraph

    “…After taking the vaccine…essentially it wipes out your immune system making you dependent on booster shots in perpetuity….”

    A reporting marriage made in Heaven.

    Not by conspiring mind you, but by Serendipity, the fancy term for coincidence.

    #83907
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    re France: they have a rep for leading the way into bloody revolution. Sort of a Euromerican canary in a coal mine.

    “So add to this the mandatory jab. So the result? Well they took to the streets by the millions and now all the hospitals just lost another 50% of staff capacity.”

    After all, empoyers are hungry for employees. So you take a reduced pay for 6 months.

    What we are finding out is that TPTB are essentially fangless in Euromerica. (China, imo, is not far behind but that’s another story, while conversely, Russia has a nice new set of sharp choppers both at home and abroad.) TPTB impose strict controls that prove how little control they have. The emperor is not only nekkid but… have you seen his teeny-weinie?

    ch

    #83908
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    them durn kinders r right about the #/case symmetry:

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=covid+cases+166&atb=v284-2__&ia=web

    #83909
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    I submit that there are similarities between numerological/statistical media conspiracy concepts and the infamous “Bible codes” fad of 20 years or so ago.

    # 49…49…49…49…

    One Number to Bind Them All

    I like tdk’s approach to info. He sneaks up on it from behind.

    #83910
    deflationista
    Participant

    Raul posted the “vaccine accumulates in the ovaries article”. Is it really possible that no one here is aware that this has been soundly debunked for months? But yet, it keeps being recycled as if the numerous refutations don’t even exist.

    I recommend reading this methodical strip down of this “accumulates in the ovaries” bullshit. It provides links, history, and background information on all the player responsible for spreading this misinformation. It also, most importantly, delves into the actual study cited by Mike Yeadon and provides a fairly good look at how actual data can be twisted into a narrative to further an agenda:

    “COVID-19 vaccines are going to sterilize our womenfolk,” Take 2

    #83911
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Judiciary Racket, populated by brown-nosers, cowards, second rate legal acumen, sociopathic penis envy and the worship of mammon will never deal with the Faux Covid Fairytale.

    Look at Julian Assange

    That’s ‘The Law’ at work.

    If he can’t see the light of day, neither will the Monster’s Ball of perps like Fauci and Daszak ever see the Gibbet they so richly deserve.

    There is no enforcement of international law except contract law. That includes the Nuremberg Code. It’s a joke of WWII postwar lip service guilt. Experimenting with pregnant women is de rigueur again after a historically brief pause.

    The class action lawsuit saying 45,000 died from post vaccine effects, don’t hold your breath.

    They will drag it out for decades just like the tobacco industry did.

    Look how many people died from cancer sticks, and the industry laughed all the way to the bank.

    Thank you for Smoking, chumps.

    #83914
    zerosum
    Participant

    Nobody twist actual data into a narrative to further an agenda:

    #83915
    deflationista
    Participant

    This is from last year regarding the 3 digit covid cases “phenomenon”. When it was written, covid was only raging for 3-4 months. Now we have a whole years worth of data. Is this really that shocking?

    https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-corona-and-the-great-three-digit-conspiracy-11593132679505.html

    #83916
    zerosum
    Participant

    Lessons from Afghanistan
    Train and equip 300,000 soldiers, (mercenaries), to protect the Overlords only to have them surrender/not fight, leave their equipment, and even join the attacker to eject the foreigner/ the Overlords.

    #83917
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    The Two Narrative and Falsifiability

    When the US attacked Iraq I knew people who were sure Saddam had WMDs. Today none of those people believe it; They all believe they were lied to. At some point the evidence surpassed the threshold of proof they required to change their minds.

    For both sides of the Covid narrative: what would it require to change your mind? Let’s take for example the Ivermectin question. One could say “If tomorrow Pierre Kory came out and said the whole thing was a ruse, that Soros had paid him millions to make up data and he had bribed people all over the planet to play along and had the bank statements to prove it I would then believe Ivermectin is not useful against Covid.” This is a pretty high bar but given the evidence maybe this is what it has come to.

    So anyway, what are your falsifiability criterion? Some questions to ask yourself:

    1) If you believe the vaccines are the best hope for beating Covid and that adverse effects are worth the cost, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
    2) If you believe vaccines are too dangerous and will likely have long term catastrophic adverse effects, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
    3) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are the best hope for beating Covid, what evidence would it take to change your mind?
    4) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are at best unproven and at worst will cost many lives, what evidence would it take to change your mind?

    #83918
    zerosum
    Participant

    In other news
    https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/haiti-earthquake-saturday-magnitude-7-2-tsunami/1000130

    Earthquake-saturday-magnitude-7-2-tsunami-Tropical Storm Grace

    There will not be enough Humanitarian aid.
    It will need to be divided among many needed regions
    Call the Clintons for help

    #83919
    zerosum
    Participant

    More Lessons from Afghanistan
    Locals, (translators, cooks, garbage collectors, etc), sympathizers to the overlords are abandoned to local justice,
    ( a repeat of Vietnam)

    #83920
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @TAE Summary,

    2) If you believe vaccines are too dangerous and will likely have long term catastrophic adverse effects, what evidence would it take to change your mind?

    5+ years of rigorous studies carried out by entities that are not receiving revenue from the vaccines that show the vaccines produce no long-term harmful effects as compared with a control group. As part of this, full autopsies performed on every person who dies with 3 days of receiving a vaccine and autopsies performed on a percentage of people who die within “X” days of receiving a vaccine. A data system that captures what practicing physicians are seeing that could be associated with vaccines to determine whether these “less severe” issues are showing up above expected background levels of those issues. That would be a start.

    #83921
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    3) If you believe the FLCCC protocols are the best hope for beating Covid, what evidence would it take to change your mind?

    Evidence that the use of these protocols are actually *costing lives*. And … as opposed to what? Doing nothing but take ibuprofen until sick enough to be hospitalized?

    #83922
    DarkMatter
    Participant

    An article on aerosols and Covid
    A few key points:

    • Social distancing doesn’t work because aerosols diffuse
    • Surgical masks cut down on aerosols by 50% with a link to the paper that shows this
    • Ventilation is key but has been overlooked
    • Two take aways: We need better research facilities to analyze what works and what doesn’t and better public spaces with better ventilation

    As per the mask info, if correct I still have to wonder if they make any difference. If 50% gets out then without good ventilation it seems like they don’t really matter but I’m not sure about this.

    #83923
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    David Gorski of the Science-Based Medicine article has major confirmation bias. Just a minor skim reveals a virtual canon of non sequitirs and red herrings. If this is what passes for debunking, than it is apt: increasingly bad science “debunked” by increasingly bad science. WTF ‘science’ is these days.

    P.S. Any time the term ‘anti-vaxxing’ is used , it is de facto ad hominem distraction.

    I am not an “anti-vaxxer” (although I think it’s obvious that vaccinology has gotten away with murder many times). I got a flu shot during the early covid hysteria. DIdn’t think twice about it.

    But this phony mRna vakzine is, well, phony. Why deflationista pursues the tangent he/she pursues, is beyond me and rapidly growing too boring to consider. Every one has their crusade it seems, but in this one, I can’t even make out the windmills for all the tilting.

    red

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