Jul 122021
 


Henri Matisse The goldfish 1912

 

No End In Sight For Sydney Lockdown As Delta Variant Outbreak Worsens (F.)
Covid Unlocking On 19 July Must Come With A Warning: Boris Johnson (G.)
Mask Wearing Will Be ‘Expected’ In UK After 19 July (G.)
40% Of Brits Want Mask Mandates Forever, Travel Ban For Unvaccinated (SN)
Lift All Mask Mandates (HART)
FBI Encourages Family Members To Rat Each Other Out For ‘Extremism’ (RT)
The Fed: The Captured Regulator That’s Wrecking The US Economy (Martens)
Private Equity And Public Ignorance (Buyniski)

 

 

We have reached the end of the usefuless of masks, lockdowns and vaccines. But it will take a long time before we acknowledge it. In the meantime, expect madness. You can’t lock down people for more than a very short time. You can’t make them wear masks for much longer than that. You can’t force them to get jabbed if those jabs don’t work, and instead prove very risky.

So our homework is: what are we going to do with masks, lockdowns and vaccines off the table? The answer is simple: vitamin D, ivermectin and HCQ. Prophylaxis and early treatment. But it will take a long time before we acknowledge that too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s fun when the police don’t stand up for the law
https://twitter.com/i/status/1414372211025010689
Anna de Buisseret: “Our expert psychologists evidence states that psychological warfare is being conducted on the population as a whole and on individuals. The expert analysis is that the impact of this is that not a single person is capable of giving informed consent as they have been brainwashed.”

 

 

 

 

Let’s see those white flags please.

No End In Sight For Sydney Lockdown As Delta Variant Outbreak Worsens (F.)

Sydney’s Delta-variant fueled Covid-19 outbreak has shown no signs of relenting as the city and surrounding areas reported yet another daily rise in new cases, a development which may force authorities to further extend the lockdown in the region which has been in place for two and a half weeks now. Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), reported a record 112 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Monday, most of them in and around its capital Sydney. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at least 34 of new cases had interactions with the community during their infectious period, while the movement of 18 other cases is still being investigated

Monday is the third straight day the state has reported a record high, which could force the local government to extend the current three-week-long lockdown which is scheduled to end on Friday. Berejiklian noted that the state would like to see the number of local infections drop close to zero before ending the lockdown. “A large part of it is dependent on all of us doing the right thing and being extra cautious,” Berejiklian said, adding this was “not the time to cut any corners.” Of the 63 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in the state, 25 are under the age of 55, and 14 are younger than 35, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Of the 18 people currently in intensive care units, one is in their 20s, one in their 30s, and one in their forties. Local authorities have previously warned that the largely unvaccinated young population remains vulnerable to the more infectious delta variant.

8.37%. That’s the total population of New South Wales that has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the Sydney Morning Herald’s tracker. This is largely in line with the overall vaccine rollout across Australia which is just under 9%. While close to a quarter of NSW’s population has received at least one vaccine dose, the effectiveness of a single dose against the delta variant is significantly lower. Fearing a Delta variant outbreak, nearly half of Australia’s population went into lockdown for around three days last month with major urban centers across the country tightening their pandemic restrictions due to fears of a delta variant-fueled outbreak. However, the brunt of the current outbreak has largely been restricted to Sydney and its surrounding regions. Australia had previously managed to almost completely clamp down on the local spread of Covid-19 by using a mix of contact tracing, movement curbs, and strict quarantine measures for incoming travelers. But the country’s sluggish vaccine rollout threatens to undo its previous pandemic success.

Read more …

Make it as confusing as you can, please.

Covid Unlocking On 19 July Must Come With A Warning: Boris Johnson (G.)

Boris Johnson has said caution is “absolutely vital” before the abandonment of virtually all formal Covid restrictions as ministers toughen their language amid expectations of soaring infection rates. The Guardian understands that ministers have been told to brace for at least one to two million new cases of coronavirus in the coming weeks, though the vaccination programme means far smaller proportions of those infected will be hospitalised and die than in previous waves. The move into the final stage of unlocking on 19 July, to be announced by the prime minister on Monday afternoon, has been billed as the moment for people to rely on their own judgment over coronavirus precautions, rather than official prescriptions.

And while Johnson will outline the end of virtually all statutory restrictions on everything from business capacity to distancing and mask use, people will still be urged to wear masks in crowded enclosed spaces, with similar vigilance expected over the swift return to workplaces. The move “must come with a warning”, said Johnson, who will host a Downing Street press conference at the same time as Sajid Javid, the health secretary, briefs MPs in the Commons. “Cases will rise as we unlock, so as we confirm our plans today, our message will be clear. Caution is absolutely vital, and we must all take responsibility so we don’t undo our progress, ensuring we continue to protect our NHS.”

There has been a marked shift in the tone taken by ministers on the subject of mask-wearing amid government jitters about the risks of the so-called “big bang” approach to unlocking. Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, stressed the need for the public to remain “cautious and careful”. He told Sky News: “The guidelines that we will set out tomorrow will demonstrate that, including guidelines that people are expected to wear masks in indoor enclosed spaces, and of course to remain vigilant.” His comments contrast with the tone taken a week earlier by Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, who said he would abandon mask use when the restrictions ended, adding: “I don’t particularly want to wear a mask.”

Adverse
https://twitter.com/i/status/1414368116931444739

Read more …

They’re just trying to confuse you, don’t pay them any attention.

Mask Wearing Will Be ‘Expected’ In UK After 19 July (G.)

Masks will still be “expected” in crowded places such as public transport when most remaining Covid restrictions are lifted later this month, a minister has said, in a marked toughening up of rhetoric amid concerns over soaring infection rates. Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, who in effect confirmed Boris Johnson would announce the reopening on Monday, said the government would provide very clear guidance on issues such as the wearing of masks, as England moves away from using laws to govern the response to Covid. “I think it’s important that we remain cautious and careful,” he told Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme. “The guidelines that we will set out tomorrow will demonstrate that, including guidelines that people are expected to wear masks in indoor enclosed spaces, and of course to remain vigilant.”

In another sign that the end of almost all lockdown rules on 19 July will be accompanied by robust messaging on the need for caution, a leading public health official said on Sunday that people should not rush back to offices if possible. “If you are able to do your business effectively from home then I think over the next four to six weeks we should try our best to do that,” said Dr Susan Hopkins, the incident director for Covid at Public Health England. Even once case rates started to fall, it would be better to see “a cautious return to the office”, Hopkins told Times Radio. The comments represent a change in tone from officials over the past week, with Johnson in particular having previously insisted there would be a move away from the government telling people what to do, towards people using their own judgment.

Zahawi said the move to the final stage of reopening from 19 July was responsible, despite predictions from the health secretary, Sajid Javid, that daily infection levels could top 100,000, a record for the pandemic, noting that almost 87% of adults in England had received a first vaccine dose, and that 65% had had two. The target was to double-vaccinate 66% of adults by 19 July, he said, in an earlier interview with BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show. “We will meet that target. So I am confident that we can proceed to step 4, but cautiously. “We will be setting out tomorrow guidelines on everything from mask wearing, the transition from mandating, or government by diktat, to taking personal responsibility, whether for our own actions or corporate responsibility.”

Read more …

Always a nation of sheep.

40% Of Brits Want Mask Mandates Forever, Travel Ban For Unvaccinated (SN)

A new poll finds that 40 per cent of Brits want mask mandates to remain in place forever, while almost half think unvaccinated people should be permanently banned from foreign travel. Yes, really. “New polling by Ipsos MORI for the Economist suggests that a high percentage of Brits believe a number of lockdown restrictions should stay in place “permanently”, including nighttime curfews (19%), travel quarantine (35%), and face masks (a whopping 40%!),” reports LockdownSceptics. “Well over 40% of Brits also believe that only those who have been vaccinated against Covid – and are able to prove it – should be allowed to travel abroad (again, “permanently”).” In other words, almost half of the population never want to unmuzzle and think those who haven’t taken the jab should remain under de facto lockdown forever.

That will be music to the ears of government adviser and lifetime Communist Party member Susan Michie, who when asked how long social distancing and mask mandates should remain in place, replied “forever.” More than one-fifth of Brits are also “very nervous” about the lifting of existing lockdown restrictions, which is due to take place on July 19th. The results of the poll once again underscore how behavioral psychologists have been so successful in terrifying the British public into absolute subservience. As we previously highlighted, scientists acting as government advisers acknowledged using “totalitarian” and “unethical” methods of instilling fear into the population as a means to scare them into complying with lockdown rules.


The comments were made by members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) the government’s chief scientific advisory group. Scientists admitted exaggerating the risk of COVID to the public and using “dystopian” methods of “mind control” to make people more fearful than they should have been. As the poll results prove, this has resulted in large numbers of the population developing a form of PTSD which has traumatized them out of thinking life can ever return to the pre-coronavirus normal.

Read more …

The only approach that makes sense at this point.

Lift All Mask Mandates (HART)

HART welcomes Boris Johnson’s announcement of his intention to lift the mask mandates on 19 July, and allow people to take personal responsibility for deciding whether to wear one rather than relying on the government diktat. Some SAGE scientists are already expressing concern about lifting this restriction, with psychologists on the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) being the most vocal, predictably so given that mask wearing comprises a key element of their ethically-dubious covert ‘nudges’ that harness fear and peer pressure to promote compliance with COVID-19 restrictions.

A major concern is that, even if the national mandates are removed, some local businesses will continue to insist that masks are worn on their premises. Persisting with a requirement for face coverings does not take account of the evidence that, in real-world settings, they are of little-to-no benefit in reducing viral transmission and are associated with a range of negative consequences. Nor — contrary to what Professor Whitty said — is it a ‘common courtesy’ to wear a mask because others may feel uncomfortable if they see a person without one. Many people, including the 1-in-5 of UK adults with hearing difficulties who may rely on lip reading, are at risk of social exclusion when around mask wearers. Furthermore, those who are aware of the profound social and psychological harms associated with masking the healthy in the community will also feel uneasy when around those with their faces covered.

It is encouraging to hear the Prime Minister say that we must now live alongside the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Continuously striving to minimise the danger posed by a virus, to the exclusion of the plethora of other risks we all manage as a routine part of a worthwhile life, is counterproductive. Indeed, the continuation of widespread mask wearing after 19 July will perpetuate the excessive fears many currently experience about returning to a normal life: ongoing mask usage is a ‘safety behaviour’ that may lead people to falsely conclude that their survival following social interaction was due to the mask rather than drawing the reassuring conclusion that it is now safe enough to return to normal activities.

HART has no objection to individuals using masks if they so choose, but turning them into a social superstition — and requiring others, such as hospitality staff to conform so as to give a false veneer of ‘safety’ — is wrong. An elderly resident in a care home, during a TV interview, recently said: ‘I want to live until I die’. In keeping with this expressed wisdom, HART believes we should all now be given the option to unmask, reclaim our humanity, and return to an enjoyable and worthwhile life.

Read more …

Divide and rule.

FBI Encourages Family Members To Rat Each Other Out For ‘Extremism’ (RT)

The FBI has asked Americans to examine their own family members for signs of “homegrown violent extremism,” and report them. The call for snitches comes as the FBI turns its surveillance powers on regular Americans. “Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence,” read a tweet from the FBI on Sunday. To help prevent “homegrown violent extremism,” the agency advises Americans to visit its website, “to learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the FBI.” The link provided by the FBI brings visitors to a 2019 document listing “mobilization indicators” that may suggest an individual is preparing to engage in terrorism – for example, “preparing and disseminating a martyrdom video,” “communicating directly with violent extremists online,” and “preparing to travel to fight with or support terrorist groups.”

The indicators and imagery used in the document suggest that its focus was on radical Islamic terrorism, but the FBI, along with the rest of the US security apparatus, has in recent months has turned its surveillance powers on white, conservative America. Since the pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill in January, FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified before Congress that the anti-government sentiment responsible for the affray has been “metastasizing” in the US for years, and that “the problem of domestic terrorism … is not going away anytime soon.” Former Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi was more explicit last month when he called for the arrest of high-level Republicans to “really tackle terrorism, this time domestically.”

President Joe Biden has linked the Capitol mob to “white supremacism,” which he called “the most lethal terrorist threat to our homeland today” during his first speech to Congress in April. Against this supposed “threat,” the Justice Department has asked for new powers of prosecution, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that right-wingers and conservatives, “inspired by foreign terrorist groups” and “emboldened by the breach of the US Capitol Building,” are “plotting attacks against government facilities” and “threatening violence against critical infrastructure.” In addition to their own powers, the DHS, FBI, and National Security Council also want to hire third-party ‘researchers’ to spy on Americans, recent reports have claimed.

Read more …

“..we have the three great asset classes moving into bubble territory simultaneously.”

The Fed: The Captured Regulator That’s Wrecking The US Economy (Martens)

Fed Chair Jerome Powell will take his seat before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday at noon and before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. for his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy. Some embarrassing questions may come up for Powell based on an investigative report on the Fed that’s airing earlier in the week. This Tuesday evening, the PBS investigative program, Frontline, will broadcast a documentary covering its year-long investigation of the Federal Reserve’s bailouts of Wall Street, from the financial crisis of 2008 to the present. According to the information about the program that Frontline has released, the documentary, titled “The Power of the Fed,” will include interviews with multiple people who believe that the Fed has been captured by Wall Street and is creating dangerous asset bubbles.

Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham will tell viewers this about the Fed’s policies: “They have the housing market, the stock market and the bond market all overpriced at the same time. And they will not be able to prevent, sooner or later, the asset prices coming back down. So we are playing with fire because we have the three great asset classes moving into bubble territory simultaneously.” Grantham characterizes what the Fed has created on Wall Street as a “giant bloodsucker,” that is “sucking more than twice the blood out of the rest of the economy.” Andrew Huszar, a former insider at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where the Federal Reserve has a serial habit of outsourcing its bailout programs for the mega banks on Wall Street (likely because it is literally owned by those same banks) will explain to viewers how he was “single-handedly responsible for directing the deployment of $1.25 trillion of Fed funds, and we did not see the knock-on benefits that we had hoped for the average American.”

Huszar is talking about the $1.25 trillion the Fed spent in buying up agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) following the 2008 financial crash on Wall Street. Despite the fact that the Fed saw no benefits accrue from that program to the average American, it doubled down on the same program during the pandemic, buying up $40 billion a month in agency MBS. The Fed’s current total of agency MBS on its balance sheet stands at $2.3 trillion as of last Wednesday. The custodian of the securities purchased in the Fed’s MBS program has been, from the outset, JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest owners of the New York Fed. The fact that the bank has received an unprecedented five felony counts from the Department of Justice since 2014 hasn’t changed the Fed’s mind about entrusting the bank with $2.3 trillion of its assets. (JPMorgan Chase admitted to all five felony counts.)

Read more …

“Other private equity funds have gotten their blood funnels into the hospital system – where the profits, driven by Covid-19, truly have no end.”

Private Equity And Public Ignorance (Buyniski)

As the US runs out of concrete resources to sell, bankers have had to get clever – whether this means repackaging assets already sold six times over or inventing new ways to cash in on items once considered intangible.
By the time Americans realized that the promised ‘trickle-down’ theory of neoliberal economics was in fact more of a speedy trickle-up, the government had all but destroyed the reputation of unions and the public sector that employed many of them, convincing the average American that these were corrupt and bad. Indeed, the whole public sector was supposed to be corrupt and bad, in the messaging of the Reagan era, but that corruption was somehow negated when offset by private corporations engaged in so-called public-private partnerships.

But far from attempting to reverse the financial bleed of money for social programs into private corporations, politicians have embraced the public-private partnership with a vengeance. This is unsurprising, given the generous handouts they receive from the non-profits who have cast themselves as the only truly righteous replacement for those government programs. This may sound like old news, but the extent to which those firms have morphed into horrifically powerful entities with trillions of dollars under management – including, most likely, your pension or the retirement savings of someone in your family – capable of setting international policy with a mere yearly memo, remains stubbornly unacknowledged by millions.

Perhaps for the sake of their sanity, they just can’t admit their retirement is in the hands of men who see nothing wrong with gambling away millions of Americans’ savings in precarious financial instruments just because they can. The kind of people who’d buy a boat with ill-gotten foreclosure gains, then spit in the face of those ex-homeowners by naming the boat ‘Su casa es mi casa’ [..] In the aftermath of the 2008 mortgage crisis, private equity firms realized they could package and sell anything they wanted – and it doesn’t seem they’ve stopped. Blackstone became notorious for slurping up foreclosed homes at below-market rates, then juicing rent and fees as they turned around to rent out those same properties, in some cases back to the same people. But Blackstone is far from the only private equity firm to participate in these loathsome schemes.

But fiendishly huge as their profits have been, the private equity bunch were still responsible for keeping the properties they rented in some degree of habitability – sometimes even for answering to angry retirement fund execs when the vultures gambled away their money. In order to further shore up profits, the firms have bought big into vertically integrated predation. Blackstone bought up an entire chain of self-storage units to complement its continuing acquisition of houses. The continued inflation of the already precariously bloated real estate bubble (and the mathematical certainty of time running out for the Covid-19 eviction moratorium) means people are going to have to throw their stuff somewhere when the financial feces hit the fan. Other private equity funds have gotten their blood funnels into the hospital system – where the profits, driven by Covid-19, truly have no end.

Read more …

 

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

 

 

 

 

D-dimer test

 

 

 

 

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

 

Jul 042021
 


George Grosz Apocalyptic landscape 1936

 

Unvaccinated People Are “Variant Factories,” Infectious Diseases Expert (CNN)
Belgian Experts Expect Fourth Wave At The End Of Summer Or Autumn (BT)
How To Prevent A Third Wave Of Covid-19 (NIE)
Shelter-in-Place Orders Didn’t Save Lives During The Pandemic – Study (WT)
Delta Variant Ravages Belgium Care Home: 55 Infected, 12 Dead (BT)
Two-Thirds Of Staff Unvaccinated At Sydney Aged Care Home (G.)
300 Italian Health Workers Challenge Covid-19 Vaccine Obligation (ST)
San Francisco To 37,000 City Employees: Get Vaccinated Or Get Out (USAT)
No EU or NATO Summit Raised Question Of Fate Of Assange – Russia (Tass)

 

 

 

 

FEMA: The Best Way To Prepare for Hurricanes Is By Getting The Covid Vaccine.

 

 

 

 

Craig Kelly

 

 

 

 

Dr. Chinda Brandolino

 

 

This makes no sense at all. The vaccinated are much more likely to make the virus mutate. CNN better keep its audience stupid, or every last one will leave.

Whitney Webb @_whitneywebb: Were ppl who don’t get the flu vaccine ever blamed for the variants and mutations that make that vaccine an annual affair? No. This comes right after Fauci said soon there will be “two Americas”, vaxxed and unvaxxed. This is a policy move for divide and conquer, not “science”

Unvaccinated People Are “Variant Factories,” Infectious Diseases Expert (CNN)

Unvaccinated people do more than merely risk their own health. They’re also a risk to everyone if they become infected with coronavirus, infectious disease specialists say. That’s because the only source of new coronavirus variants is the body of an infected person. “Unvaccinated people are potential variant factories,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN Friday. “The more unvaccinated people there are, the more opportunities for the virus to multiply,” Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said. “When it does, it mutates, and it could throw off a variant mutation that is even more serious down the road.”

All viruses mutate, and while the coronavirus is not particularly mutation-prone, it does change and evolve. Most of the changes mean nothing to the virus, and some can weaken it. But sometimes, a virus develops a random mutation that gives it an advantage — better transmissibility, for instance, or more efficient replication, or an ability to infect a great diversity of hosts. Viruses with an advantage will outcompete other viruses, and will eventually make up the majority of virus particles infecting someone. If that infected person passes the virus to someone else, they’ll be passing along the mutant version. If a mutant version is successful enough, it becomes a variant. But it has to replicate to do that. An unvaccinated person provides that opportunity.

“As mutations come up in viruses, the ones that persist are the ones that make it easier for the virus to spread in the population,” Andrew Pekosz, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CNN. “Every time the viruses changes, that gives the virus a different platform to add more mutations. Now we have viruses that spread more efficiently.” Viruses that don’t spread cannot mutate. Variants have arisen all over the world — the B.1.1.7 or Alpha variant was first seen in England. The B.1.351 or Beta variant was first spotted in South Africa. The Delta variant, also called B.1.617.2, was seen first in India. And the US has thrown up several of its own variants, including the B.1.427 or Epsilon lineage first seen in California and the B.1.526 or Eta variant first seen in New York.

Read more …

More dumb nonsense, from a virologist.

People who are not vaccinated will end up in hospital and possibly die.”

Belgian Experts Expect Fourth Wave At The End Of Summer Or Autumn (BT)

Belgium can expect a fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic in September, or perhaps before the end of August, experts are predicting, according to De Morgen. Yesterday, for the first time in months, the daily average of new cases of the virus rose. There will be no reporting of disease figures for the time being, health institute Sciensano said. However all epidemiological models are predicting that the bottom has been reached, and the upturn will be seen to be continuing when new figures are presented on Tuesday. September would be a logical time to expect a new wave, said virologist Steven Van Gucht. “People are back from vacation, schools are open again and the weather is getting worse. This will translate into a sharp increase in the number of infections, especially with the delta variant. People who are not vaccinated will end up in hospital and possibly die.”

Those who are vaccinated, on the other hand, need not worry too much. All four vaccines used in Belgium – AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – are effective against the variants known to date, according to the European Medicines Agency. “A degree of protection of more than 90 percent after two doses is very good,” said Van Gucht. “We cannot achieve those high percentages with the flu vaccine. The corona vaccines protect against serious illness, although mild or moderate symptoms after infection are still possible.” The trouble is, only 44.1% of adults, and 35.4% of the whole population, was fully vaccinated at the last count on Friday. And if people let all measures to protect against the disease drop, the models predict a fourth wave in mid-August.

It may not be as serious as last year thanks to the degree of vaccination, but it will be equally serious for some. The big worry at the moment is the delta variant, which is rampant in Portugal and to a lesser extent in Spain, which can expect large numbers of Belgian holidaymakers this summer. “For the whole of Spain, we count 110 infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of fourteen days. That is twice as many as in our country, which has an incidence of 45,” explained biostatistician Geert Molenberghs. “Portugal is doing even worse with 165. The number of infections is increasing very quickly. In greater Lisbon, this is already translating into increasing pressure on the hospital system.” “The Risk Assessment Group has put Portugal on a par with India, South Africa and Brazil,” said infectious diseases expert Erika Vlieghe.

Read more …

From India, so: ivermectin.

How To Prevent A Third Wave Of Covid-19 (NIE)

This is the first time in the history of a disease that its course is so anxiously charted and its possible surge predicted months in advance. Medical experts in India have forewarned of a third wave in the near future. Our government is pushing hard with vaccinations. But we have to ask the question: Even if vaccination is the best Covid terminator, is it the only one? All estimates confirm that it will take eight to ten months to vaccinate an adequate number of people in our country. During that time, those who are unprotected while waiting for the vaccine will be vulnerable to infection. As lockdowns are relaxed, the virus will spread. Given the likelihood and the dreaded implications of a third wave, we need to look at other possibilities of halting the virus.

People have the right to know: In 1979, two scientists Campbell and Omura discovered the drug Ivermectin, which was found to be effective against a number of parasitic infestations. The drug was produced by the pharmaceutical company Merck and in the last 40 years of its use, 3.7 billion tablets have been consumed worldwide. It figures in the WHO list of essential drugs. The two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery. Ivermectin is safer than commonly used medicines like Ibuprofen, paracetamol, penicillin and aspirin. In India, every medical practitioner is familiar with this drug that is also safe for children. However, parasitic infestations are the bane of economically backward countries in Africa and Asia. For the manufacturer, it is not a profit-making drug, so Merck did not renew its patent after the early years. Ivermectin is now being produced by several companies.

In 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, an Australian scientist experimenting with Ivermectin in vitro found that it killed the Covid-19 virus. He wrote about his findings and it was noted by a doctor working in a large government hospital in Bangladesh. He used Ivermectin on 60 patients and found that it cured most of them. Moreover, none of them developed any serious complications of the disease. As the news of this drug being effective in treating Covid spread, hundreds and then thousands of doctors began to use it all over the world. The results were extraordinary: When given in the early stage of viral replication (first five days) and along with other supportive vitamins, Ivermectin is far more effective than other more expensive drugs. In later stages of the disease also it works because of its anti-inflammatory properties that help avoid serious complications.

By August 2020, Ivermectin was being used in Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa, Israel, Spain, Italy, Slovakia and Japan, besides in the US, UK and many countries in Europe. In India, a doctor in Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh has treated over 4,000 patients; another in Kandivali, Mumbai, has treated 6,000 (most of them from corporate houses) and a professor of ENT working in Mangaluru has treated over 4,000 patients. There are many others who have treated patients in large numbers. Those of us who work in smaller towns and rural areas have experience with several hundreds.

Read more …

“People respond to the pandemic on their own. They’re invested in their own self-interest and self-preservation..”

Shelter-in-Place Orders Didn’t Save Lives During The Pandemic – Study (WT)

A little-noticed study says government orders to “shelter in place” during the COVID-19 fight did not save lives and spurred an uptick in excess deaths in some places, especially overseas. Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the University of Southern California studied excess mortality from all causes, the virus or otherwise, in 43 countries and the 50 U.S. states that imposed shelter-in-place, or “SIP,” policies. In short, the orders didn’t work. “We fail to find that SIP policies saved lives. To the contrary, we find a positive association between SIP policies and excess deaths. We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases,” the researchers said in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

The increase was statistically significant in other countries in the weeks following the imposition of shelter-in-place orders. In the U.S., excess deaths rose in the weeks following the order before subsiding 20 weeks later under the orders. The findings undercut blue states that relied on stay-at-home methods as the treatment of choice throughout the pandemic, while providing a measure of vindication for GOP leaders who said they were harmful and that constituents could protect themselves. Former President Donald Trump told Americans to stay home to slow the spread in March 2020 but criticized ongoing shutdowns as counterproductive overreach throughout 2020. Researchers counted all excess deaths to avoid a messy debate over what constituted a COVID-19 death.

They pointed to reported upticks in deaths of despair — including drug overdoses, homicides, and unintentional injuries in 2020 — and delays in diagnosing other health conditions as part of the reason the orders fell flat. “There’s little evidence these policies saved lives and there is some evidence they led to an increase in deaths of despair,” Neeraj Sood, a study author and USC professor, told The Washington Times. He said government moves often lagged behind choices that individuals made to mitigate their risk of catching COVID-19, blunting the anticipated impact of shelter-in-place orders. “People respond to the pandemic on their own. They’re invested in their own self-interest and self-preservation,” he said.

Read more …

“95% of the residents and 75% of staff were fully vaccinated..”

Delta Variant Ravages Belgium Care Home: 55 Infected, 12 Dead (BT)

An investigation is underway into how a care home in Nivelles in Walloon Brabant came to be infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus, while 95% of the residents and 75% of staff were fully vaccinated. According to the latest studies, the vaccines in use at present offer reliable protection against the Delta variant – the most virulent of the four variants so far uncovered. Yet the home suffered an infection of 55 of its 119 residents. Most suffered relatively mild symptoms – although symptoms among elderly and infirm people can quickly change from mild to something much worse. Nevertheless, 12 people died. According to figures from the health institute Sciensano, 34 people aged over 65 – not all of them in care homes – died in the week of 14 to 20 June in the entire country, down from 252 in the week of 4 to 11 April.


The investigation will now enquire into how the variant came to be present in the home, and why it had such a devastating effect. At the same time, it will look into the odd situation whereby, while residents were being felled by the Delta variant, staff were becoming infected with the Alpha variant, formerly known as the British or Kent variant. Did the presence of the Alpha variant somehow compromise the residents without producing symptoms, making them more vulnerable to the Delta variant? The investigation is being carried out by the national reference centre for Covid-19, and the familiar face of Emmanuel André of KULeuven, once the daily bringer of Covid news.

Read more …

“..the facility could not afford to have more people off sick from potential vaccine side-effects..”

Two-Thirds Of Staff Unvaccinated At Sydney Aged Care Home (G.)

Two-thirds of staff working at a Sydney aged care facility in the midst of a Covid outbreak are unvaccinated, SummitCare’s chief operating officer has confirmed, as New South Wales recorded a “pleasing” 16 local cases. Three aged care residents at the SummitCare Baulkham Hills facility in Sydney’s north-west tested positive on Saturday night, while two staff members were infected last week. The infected residents – a woman and man in their 80s and a man in his 90s – have since been moved to Westmead hospital as an infection control precaution. All three were fully vaccinated and none have become unwell or are displaying symptoms.

The facility has been placed into a 14-day lockdown. So far the other 149 residents have tested negative. Some 96% of residents were fully vaccinated. The outbreak has once again put the federal government’s sluggish vaccine rollout in the spotlight – especially for aged care staff who were meant to be prioritised. SummitCare’s chief operating office, Michelle Sloane, confirmed only one-third of the staff at the facility had received their vaccinations. “At this time, it is my understanding that about a third of our staff are vaccinated,” she said on Sunday. The federal opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said that fact was “another reminder of this government’s incompetence when its comes to the rolling out of the vaccine”.

While there are now plans to ramp up the vaccination of SummitCare staff on-site, Sloane said this would need to wait until the end of the current outbreak as a large number of the regular staff had been forced into isolation and the facility could not afford to have more people off sick from potential vaccine side-effects. “We have had to furlough at least 70% of our registered nurses it is my understanding … basically we have no staff left there. They are all surge workforce,” Sloane said.

Read more …

“This isn’t a battle by anti-vaxxers but a democratic battle..”

300 Italian Health Workers Challenge Covid-19 Vaccine Obligation (ST)

Three hundred healthcare workers in Italy have lodged a legal challenge against the requirement that they get vaccinated against coronavirus, according to media reports Saturday (July 3). The case, brought by professionals throughout northern Italy, will be heard on July 14. “This isn’t a battle by anti-vaxxers but a democratic battle,” constitutional lawyer Daniele Granara, who helped build up the case, was cited as saying in the Giornale di Brescia newspaper. “We force people to take a risk under threat of no longer being allowed to exercise their profession,” he added. Granara is also defending dozens of caregivers who have been suspended from work for refusing to be vaccinated.


Italy passed a law in April obliging anyone working in public or private social health positions, including in pharmacies and doctors’ offices, to get vaccinated against Covid-19 or be suspended without pay, unless their employer can reassign them to a less sensitive position. After the elderly and vulnerable, caregivers including teachers were the first to be vaccinated in Italy. A total of 52.7 million vaccine does have been administered throughout the country, and around 19.5 million Italians are now fully vaccinated, 36 per cent of the population over 12 years of age.

Read more …

“The San Francisco policy requires all staff to report their vaccination status to the city no later than July 29 as a condition of employment.”

San Francisco To 37,000 City Employees: Get Vaccinated Or Get Out (USAT)

In an announcement Wednesday evening, the city of San Francisco told its 37,000 employees they must either be vaccinated against COVID-19 within 10 weeks of the Food and Drug Administration giving final approval to a coronavirus vaccine, or lose their jobs. This would make San Francisco the first large U.S. city to require vaccination of all city employees. “It’s quite straightforward – it’s my job to protect the safety of our employees; I am exercising my duty under the San Francisco charter to do just that,” said Carol Isen, the human resources director for the city and county of San Francisco. The vaccination policy released by the city on Wednesday said “failure to comply with this policy may result in discipline up to and including termination of employment.”

Currently, all COVID-19 vaccines being used in the United States were approved by FDA under what’s known as an emergency use authorization, an expedited process. The emergency use is an authority that Congress gave to the FDA after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to allow countermeasures, treatments or vaccines to be available earlier than would be the case in a normal approval process. The full drug approval process takes longer. Some have used the fact that the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have all been issued under emergency use as a reason to doubt their safety. Pfizer and its German collaborator BioNTech submitted an application to the FDA for full approval of their COVID-19 vaccine on May 7. Moderna did so on June 1.

The San Francisco policy requires all staff to report their vaccination status to the city no later than July 29 as a condition of employment. To do so, they must upload a copy of their COVID-19 vaccination card or documentation of vaccination from their health care provider. Medical exemptions will be available for employees with medical conditions that affect their eligibility for a vaccine, but those conditions must be verified by a medical provider. A “sincerely held religious belief that prohibits them from receiving a vaccine” could also be grounds for an exemption, according to the city’s vaccination policy. Those requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. “The burden would be on the employee to establish a sincerely held religious belief,” Isen said.

Neil Oliver

Read more …

Just that of Navalny..

No EU or NATO Summit Raised Question Of Fate Of Assange – Russia (Tass)

Official spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, after one of the witnesses admitted the accusation of perjury in the case against the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange, drew attention to the fact that the leaders of the EU or NATO countries did not touch on the fate of the journalist at any of the summits. In an interview with Stundin, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a key witness in the US Department of Justice case against Julian Assange, admitted that he fabricated parts of his testimony. “And after all, not a single EU or NATO summit has even touched on the fate of Assange,” she wrote in her Telegram channel.


Zakharova recalled that the investigative journalist is now in a UK prison. “The term of his imprisonment, according to UK law, has long expired. But who cares about it in the West when there are so many interesting things east of liberalism,” she said. According to Zakharova, this story is a bad look for Western liberal values. In addition, the methods, she noted, are not entirely legal. “We are talking about outright pressure, blackmail, and judicial forgery. But for the American repressive power machine, the methods are justified by the goals,” she said.

Read more …

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

May 152021
 


Claude Monet Misty Morning on the Seine 1897

 

 

When the covid virustime started, we were told by everyone with a microphone to “follow the science”. But 16 months or so in, we’re not following the science, yet no-one calls us on it. What happened? Where did we lose the thread, where did we lose our heads, where did the science go?

Did we lose it because the vaccine makers got too greedy, or because politicians became too panicky, or because the media realized that scaring the living daylights out of people 24/7 is great for ratings? Or just because we ourselves lost track of what was really going on?

Injecting hundreds of millions of people with substances that have never been properly tested – for which long-established protocols have existed for a long time – is about as unscientific as it gets. Then when you realize there’s no evidence that they keep injectees from being infected or infecting others, but only makes them -hopefully- a little less sick, you might as well stop right there.

From a science point of view, you’re engaging in either a useless enterprise or a giant gamble with people’s health. Both utterly unscientific endeavors, any scientist can tell you that.

Then, when you hear, from the UK government, no less, that only 66% of people can ever be successfully vaccinated and may be protected with the present vaccines, which still leaves out those who don’t want these vaccines, what are you going to think and do?

Shouldn’t you perhaps focus on the fact that over 4 out of 5 people have an immune system that provides them with “adaptive cross-immunity”, meaning they are not at risk of dying or even serious disease? Why would you instead turn to experimental substances that risk putting those immune systems themselves at risk?

Which part of this is us following the science? Why haven’t we seen huge campaigns aimed at making us healthier, and boosting our immune systems? What part of that would be “not following the science”? It’s not as if we don’t know how to boost our immune systems, or for that matter how to make us overall healthier then we are today.

Moreover, the effect of lockdowns is highly debatable -even if such debates are stifled-, as is the effect of facemasks always and everywhere. And, obviously, that of untested “vaccines”. We have the science, mankind has been through epidemics through its entire history, and it’s not as if scientists have never learned anything from that history.

It’s just that we seem to be changing the meaning of the word “science” to mean an industry, and corporations, that produce novel chemicals, as well as societies that do things, lockdowns, masks, that have never been used in the way they have been the past year.

And that is very risky. If people like Geert VanDenBossche are only half right when they say mass-vaccination during a pandemic will only -and inevitably- speed up the ability of an endemic virus to mutate into forms that evade the vaccines, it’s woman and children first. Well, either that or old and overweight men.

I’ve written a lot on the topic over the past year and a half, obviously, and it doesn’t feel all that great to repeat talking points, but I keep finding it difficult to understand why our 21st century world calls for us to follow the science, only to turn its back on that science the very next moment.

And for simply asking that, I risk being vilified. Like some kind of heretic. But as someone said, I think it was Roger Hodkinson, we cannot afford to stifle dissenting voices in this situation, because the discussion they start might be the very step we need to find a way out. We can’t afford to not ask questions.

To just say get your jab and don’t say or ask a word appears to be the most reckless thing we can do. Even if the alleged “vaccines” would do better at protecting us than the present science has evidence for, that would still be only in -the richer- part of the world, while the virus can run rampage in the rest.

As we can still, though you won’t hear anything about this from your media -local or global- or your politicians, strengthen immune systems sufficiently to make the worst threat of Covid go away.

The virus may kill the some of weakest amongst us, the obese, those with co-morbidities, and the elderly, but many other things, like the flu, can -and do- do that too, yet we have never paralyzed our societies and social lives because of those things. While we have zero evidence that the present vaccines, or whatever you call them, will solve these issues.

It doesn’t look to me like we are following the science at all. We’re following something alright, but not that. If and when the vaccine makers themselves state they have no proof their chemicals protect against infection, yet everyone starts opening up their stores and theaters and what have you, but only to the “vaccinated”, I’m at a loss for words.

 

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

May 062021
 


Edgar Degas Two laundresses 1876

Senior NHS Board Member: Stop The Genocide Or Our Children Are Next (UKC)
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin (AJT)
Did People Or Nature Open Pandora’s Box At Wuhan? (Wade)
mRNA Vaccines Induce Broad CD4+ T Cell Responses
What A Convenient LIE (Denninger)
Crimes of Covid Vaccine Maker Pfizer Documented (M&A)
Stay-at-Home Lockdowns Made No Difference to Covid Deaths in US States (LDS)
US Backs Waiving Patent Protections For Covid Vaccines (CNBC)
Public Officials Turned Covid Celebrities Don’t Want Restrictions To End (RT)
This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship” (Whitney Webb)
CRISPR Madness: Welcome to the Age of Genetic Chaos (CP)
US, NATO Launch Massive Military Exercise Amid Complaints From Russia (JTN)

 

 

 

 

“If you refuse to co-operate in rolling this out, then we’ll remove you.”

Senior NHS Board Member: Stop The Genocide Or Our Children Are Next (UKC)

The transcript below is of a call made to Brian Gerrish on 18 April 2021. The voice of the caller has been changed to protect her identity. The senior NHS Board member warns that the government is now controlling the NHS, and it is the government that is actually dictating what the NHS should do during Covid emergency measures. She states that the result of the government’s enforced Covid and vaccination policies can be described as genocide. [..] Brian Gerrish: I’ve been contacted by an NHS professional who would like to speak to me about things happening in the NHS. So, without any ado, let’s go over to our caller today. Thank you very much for calling me. It’s really been wonderful that you’ve had the confidence to give us a call at the UK Column. I’m going to ask the key question: why have you called me today?

Whistleblower: [..] You know, I just really wanted to share my personal story on what’s happened since last March. [..] I guess when all the Coronavirus started, and when it came into the UK — mainframing kind of March last year — obviously the conversations really were predominantly about measures to stop infection, forecasting, you know, “this is what we’re anticipating will happen”, you know, “how do we manage the services”. Kind of all that was going on, and then as we went through the summer, there started to be a little bit of talk about the vaccine development and potential treatments and things like that. And then the treatments completely went, and the vaccine discussions ramped up, and in November it really started to be predominantly what we talked about.

And, I mean, you can’t call it a vaccine, because it doesn’t meet the definition, so I’m going to refer to it as an injection, but I’m just making sure that everyone’s on the same page with me. So, it became kind of clear to myself, and a few other colleagues that I know on other NHS Boards, in November that we were going to be asked to completely roll this out — and also that there really were some long-term safety issues, and stuff that we just didn’t know. And so it really took us by surprise, the scope and speed at which they were moving. And at the time, we had a lot of discussions, as a Board, as to our concerns around this — and remember that when the NHS is in emergency measures, which it is and has been, then the Government is able to tightly control what the NHS does, and is able to dictate a lot more what the NHS does than it would be able to if it wasn’t in emergency measures.

So, our Chief Executive had discussions about our concerns, and I can say other Boards had the same discussions, and in a nutshell, what we were told in December was, “If you refuse to co-operate in rolling this out, then we’ll remove you.” And it wasn’t said explicitly, and it wasn’t put in e-mails, but it was certainly very indicated that that was the case.

Read more …

American Journal of Therapeutics

Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin (AJT)

Since 2012, a growing number of cellular studies have demonstrated that ivermectin has antiviral properties against an increasing number of RNA viruses, including influenza, Zika, HIV, Dengue, and most importantly, SARS-CoV-2.9–17 Insights into the mechanisms of action by which ivermectin both interferes with the entrance and replication of SARS-CoV-2 within human cells are mounting. Caly et al18 first reported that ivermectin significantly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication in a cell culture model, observing the near absence of all viral material 48 hours after exposure to ivermectin. However, some questioned whether this observation is generalizable clinically given the inability to achieve similar tissue concentrations used in their experimental model using standard or even massive doses of ivermectin.19,20

It should be noted that the concentrations required for an effect in cell culture models bear little resemblance to human physiology given the absence of an active immune system working synergistically with a therapeutic agent, such as ivermectin. Furthermore, prolonged durations of exposure to a drug likely would require a fraction of the dosing in short-term cell model exposure. Furthermore, multiple coexisting or alternate mechanisms of action likely explain the clinical effects observed, such as the competitive binding of ivermectin with the host receptor-binding region of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, as proposed in 6 molecular modeling studies.21–26 In 4 of the studies, ivermectin was identified as having the highest or among the highest of binding affinities to spike protein S1 binding domains of SARS-CoV-2 among hundreds of molecules collectively examined, with ivermectin not being the particular focus of study in 4 of these studies.27

This is the same mechanism by which viral antibodies, in particular, those generated by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The high binding activity of ivermectin to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could limit binding to either the ACE-2 receptor or sialic acid receptors, respectively, either preventing cellular entry of the virus or preventing hemagglutination, a recently proposed pathologic mechanism in COVID-19.21,22,26–28 Ivermectin has also been shown to bind to or interfere with multiple essential structural and nonstructural proteins required by the virus to replicate.26,29 Finally, ivermectin also binds to the SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), thereby inhibiting viral replication.30

Read more …

Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists

“The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months..”

But after 15 months, we still have no idea about the origin of Sars 2.

Did People Or Nature Open Pandora’s Box At Wuhan? (Wade)

Natural emergence was the media’s preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization (WHO) commission to China. The commission’s composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who included the ubiquitous Daszak, kept asserting before, during, and after their visit that lab escape was extremely unlikely. But this was not quite the propaganda victory the Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory. This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment.

The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic began, and after a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year.

And as long as that remains the case, it’s logical to pay serious attention to the alternative conjecture, that SARS2 escaped from a lab. Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for manipulating a virus’s genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring how close a given animal virus might be to making the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people, virologists asserted.

Read more …

Question is: what else do they do?

mRNA Vaccines Induce Broad CD4+ T Cell Responses (JCI)

Recent studies have shown T cell cross-recognition of SARS-CoV-2 and common cold coronavirus spike proteins. However, the effect of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines on T cell responses to common cold coronaviruses remain unknown. In this study, we analyzed CD4+ T cell responses to spike peptides from SARS-CoV-2 and 3 common cold coronaviruses (HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, and HCoV-OC43) before and after study participants received Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273) mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine recipients made broad T cell responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and we identified 23 distinct targeted peptides in 9 participants including one peptide that was targeted by 6 individuals.


Only 4 out of these 23 targeted peptides would potentially be affected by mutations in the UK (B.1.1.7) and South African (B.1.351) variants and CD4+ T cells from vaccine recipients recognized the 2 variant spike proteins as effectively as the spike protein from the ancestral virus. Interestingly, we saw a 3-fold increase in the CD4+ T cell responses to HCoV-NL63 spike peptides post-vaccination. Our results suggest that T cell responses elicited or enhanced by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines may be able to control SARS-CoV-2 variants and lead to cross-protection from some endemic coronaviruses.

Read more …

“Let me give you a piece of advice: Shoving a gun in anyone’s face, which is what a mandate is, generates no confidence at all. It does, however, generate a whole bunch of other things, including revulsion, hatred or even justified retribution.”

What A Convenient LIE (Denninger)

Oh, look at this: Beyond safety, requiring mandatory vaccinations also allows us to set an example for those who are hesitant to get vaccinated. Leaders at all levels have championed the vaccine and are taking action to educate people who are reluctant to get vaccinated. By mandating vaccines, healthcare institutions will show the world that we trust the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and inspire others to follow. Riiiight. You inspire women to consent to sex by putting a gun in their face and demanding they take off their clothes? Let me give you a piece of advice: Shoving a gun in anyone’s face, which is what a mandate is, generates no confidence at all. It does, however, generate a whole bunch of other things, including revulsion, hatred or even justified retribution.

In addition you’re not immune from lawsuit, nor is your institution. Pfizer is, but you are not. Sucks to be you if and when one of your staff members is badly hurt or killed by taking the shots. Maybe it hasn’t and won’t happen but that liability is open-ended and permanent for both you personally and your institution. Further that liability is civil so no, it doesn’t have to be proved the shot was the cause — just more-likely than not in the opinion of the jury. It’s not like you don’t have a very nice building and institution there that looks like some awfully-deep pockets to go raid if someone dies or perhaps worse, is permanently disabled from taking said shot, right? And it’s not like social media isn’t awash in people who have had that happen already and are all over GoFundMe and elsewhere begging for money as they’ve been hit with half-million dollar medical bills and aren’t done — right?

If that’s a result of an entirely voluntary decision then it’s of course on them no matter how foolish but if it’s a result of a mandate well, who gets to pay for that Marc and how do you think that will end for you and your hospital when, not if, it winds up in court? Because it will end up in court and you will be named as Defendant, both personally and corporately. Perhaps your threat to fire anyone who won’t submit is an empty one. We’ll see. Maybe your legal department has explained all of this to you and you’re waving your arms around making noise, publishing OpEds because you know damn well that you’re so far out on the legal ledge 300′ up that your greatest fear is that someone is going to come along with a chainsaw.

Perhaps the gun you claim to be shoving in people’s faces, in other words, isn’t actually loaded and you know damn well it’s empty. Perhaps the real reason you published the OpEd is that the other medical center across town is not mandating anything, you asked and were told to go to Hell and you’re scared that the best talent will quit and go work there, eviscerating the quality of your services. Is that really what this is about; another illegal, 15 USC Chapter 1 monopolist trick to go along with all the other ones damn near every medical center in the US have gotten away with for the last 30 years?

Read more …

November 18, 2020, from law firm Matthews and Associates.

Crimes of Covid Vaccine Maker Pfizer Documented (M&A)

Here’s a brief glimpse of Pfizer’s track record for safety and ethics. This is a short list, by no means inclusive of the company’s entire rap sheet.

Pfizer received the biggest fine in U.S. history as part of a $2.3 Billion plea deal with federal prosecutors for mis-promoting medicines (Bextra, Celebrex) and paying kickbacks to compliant doctors. Pfizer pleaded guilty to mis-branding the painkiller Bextra by promoting the drug for uses for which it was not approved.

In the 1990s, Pfizer was involved in defective heart valves that lead to the deaths of more than 100 people. Pfizer had deliberately misled regulators about the hazards. The company agreed to pay $10.75 Million to settle justice department charges for misleading regulators.

Pfizer paid more than $60 Million to settle a lawsuit over Rezulin, a diabetes medication that caused patients to die from acute liver failure.

In the UK, Pfizer has been fined nearly €90 Million for overcharging the NHS, the National Health Service. Pfizxer charged the taxpayer an additional €48 Million per year for what should have cost €2 million per year.

Pfizer agreed to pay $430 Million in 2004 to settle criminal charges that it had bribed doctors to prescribe its epilepsy drug Neurontin for indications for which it was not approved.

In 2011, a jury found Pfizer committed racketeering fraud in its marketing of the drug Neurontin. Pfizer agreed to pay $142.1 Million to settle the charges.

Pfizer disclosed that it had paid nearly nearly 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals some $20 Million for speaking on Pfizer’s behalf.

In 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had reached a $45 Million settlement with Pfizer to resolve charges that its subsidiaries had bribed overseas doctors and other healthcare professionals to increase foreign sales.

Pfizer was sued in a U.S. federal court for using Nigerian children as human guinea pigs, without the childrens’ parents’ consent. Pfizer paid $75 Million to settle in Nigerian court for using an experimental antibiotic, Trovan, on the children. The company paid an additional undisclosed amount in the U.S. to settle charges here. Pfizer had violated international law, including the Nuremberg Convention established after WWII, due to Nazi experiments on unwilling prisoners.

Amid widespread criticism of gouging poor countries for drugs, Pfizer pledged to give $50 million for an AIDS drug to South Africa. Later, however, Pfizer failed to honor that promise.

Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is being rolled out with nothing but positive press from every mainstream media outlet in the country. Meanwhile, more than half of Americans surveyed have said they will not take a Covid vaccine. The plain fact is that many questions remain unanswered regarding this, or any other, Covid vaccine’s safety and efficacy.

Read more …

“We were not able to explain the variation of deaths per million in different regions in the world by social isolation..”

Stay-at-Home Lockdowns Made No Difference to Covid Deaths in US States (LDS)

A new study from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago has analysed the impact of stay-at-home orders on infections and deaths in U.S. states and found they made no difference. The peer-reviewed study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, found stay-at-home orders (also known as shelter-in-place orders or SIPs) were not associated with lower infections or deaths; furthermore, they were actually associated with a slight increase in infections and deaths, although this was not statistically significant.

[..] The authors observe that if stay-at-home orders aren’t affecting mobility, it’s difficult to see how they will affect anything else: “If SIP [shelter-in-place] orders did not have large effects on behaviour, it is hard to imagine how they could have had large effects on COVID-19 cases and deaths.” They add: “The health benefits of SIP orders were likely limited because many people were already social distancing before the introduction of SIP orders.” They suggest that voluntary mobility reduction and social distancing made a difference to outcomes, though do not commit to saying how much. Noting that nationwide there was around a 50% decrease in mobility between February and April 2020, they state: “The nationwide reaction to COVID-19 almost surely decreased the spread of the disease.”

However, their results, they say, “have nothing to say about the health and societal benefits of staying at home and reducing physical contact with others. The model-based studies which claim stay-at-home lockdown orders saved thousands of lives are therefore in error, they argue. “The previously presented evidence on the effectiveness of SIP orders appears to be misleading, and there is currently no compelling evidence to suggest that SIP policies saved a large number of lives or significantly mitigated the spread of COVID-19. However, this does not mean that voluntary social distancing – SIP practice as distinct from policy – was ineffective.”

The study was written and submitted prior to the appearance in Nature this March of the study by R.F. Savaris and colleagues which in effect looked at “SIP practice as distinct from policy”. It found that actually staying at home made little to no difference either: “We were not able to explain the variation of deaths per million in different regions in the world by social isolation, herein analysed as differences in staying at home, compared to baseline. In the restrictive and global comparisons, only 3% and 1.6% of the comparisons were significantly different, respectively.”

Read more …

Long overdue. But far from done.

US Backs Waiving Patent Protections For Covid Vaccines (CNBC)

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in a statement. “As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts — working with the private sector and all possible partners — to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines,” the statement added.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised the U.S. decision as a “monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19” that reflects the “moral leadership” of the White House in the fight to end the pandemic. Stocks of major pharmaceutical companies that have produced vaccines, including Moderna, BioNTech and Pfizer, dropped sharply after news of the potential waivers first broke. Pfizer ended its trading day flat, while Moderna lost 6.1%; Johnson & Johnson shed a modest 0.4%. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America expressed pointed opposition to the Biden administration’s support for waiving IP protections. The trade group’s members include vaccine makers such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

“In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety,” said Stephen J. Ubi, the group’s president and CEO. “This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. ”

Read more …

“..the Faucis and Ferrers of the world feasted well on buckets of media love for some 13+ months, and they’re not ready to go back to a diet of irrelevance.”

Public Officials Turned Covid Celebrities Don’t Want Restrictions To End (RT)

Narcissistic civil servants have turned into pseudo-celebrities thanks to the pandemic and they don’t want to go back to the shadows. Now the only way to stop their endless restrictions is by threatening their public standing. On April 21, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director, settled in before fawning SoCal reporters for the latest in her mind-numbing Möbius strip of press conferences. This grownup with a job she considers essential to her city’s survival proceeded to tell millions of restrictions-weary Angelenos about hungry bunny rabbits. In a failed effort to explain why fully vaccinated men and women who can no longer spread or suffer infection by the coronavirus should go on wearing masks for months to come, Ferrer wove a fable of a garden trying to fend off rabbits that want to eat carrots.

You can hear how proud Ferrer is of this few minutes of “Watership Downer.” She no doubt labored over her infectious fairy tale – this off-off Broadway brand of virus Vaudeville – for hours, confident she’d sway that handful of suckers still bothering to pay any attention. While news reports conveniently glossed over Ferrer’s furry voyage into drivel, I managed to find a recording of her hopping down the bunny trail. As she drones along, it’s clear she’s not educating the public. She’s performing. It’s juvenile, patronizing and ineffective. Still, you must wonder if Ferrer found it to be her finest hour. Ferrer feels comfortable enough to present a bad children’s book as public health data because she has soaked in the spa waters of media adoration and public attention for more than a year. All the while, panic over a serious, but manageable pandemic surged through the easily led, slow-to-question LA populous.

That same panic allowed this woman of some educational achievement to rise to fame from the dark and dusty halls of the public sector. In any normal era, she’s the kind of appointed official who would otherwise toil in anonymity. Fortunately for her, the “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2)” made her a star, albeit a dim one. The slog that was 2020 became a time to glow for the likes of infectious disease personality Dr. Anthony Fauci and for Ferrer, too. And now it’s now well past the hour to turn out the lights on her and her kindred. But sadly, the Faucis and Ferrers of the world feasted well on buckets of media love for some 13+ months, and they’re not ready to go back to a diet of irrelevance.

Read more …

For the longest time, Moderna could not get mRNA approved for anything. Still not for its Covid vaccine either. But they have big plans.

This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship” (Whitney Webb)

Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care–focused media for his call to create a “new biomedical research agency” modeled after the US military’s “high-risk, high-reward” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop “innovative” and “breakthrough” treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes, with a call to “end cancer as we know it.” Far from “ending cancer” in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge “national security” with “health security” in such as way as to use both physical and mental health “warning signs” to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur.

Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic “pre-crime” organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as “wrongthink.” The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden’s recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley–dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new “health DARPA.”

This new agency, set to be called ARPA-H or HARPA, would be housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and would raise the NIH budget to over $51 billion. Unlike other agencies at NIH, ARPA-H would differ in that the projects it funds would not be peer reviewed prior to approval; instead hand-picked program managers would make all funding decisions. Funding would also take the form of milestone-driven payments instead of the more traditional multiyear grants. ARPA-H will likely heavily fund and promote mRNA vaccines as one of the “breakthroughs” that will cure cancer. Some of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers that have produced some of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, stated just last month that “cancer is the next problem to tackle with mRNA tech” post-COVID.

BioNTech has been developing mRNA gene therapies for cancer for years and is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create mRNA-based treatments for tuberculosis and HIV. Other “innovative” technologies that will be a focus of this agency are less well known to the public and arguably more concerning.

Read more …

“..left the door open to future manipulation of humans.”

CRISPR Madness: Welcome to the Age of Genetic Chaos (CP)

The Nobel prize in chemistry awarded last year to the biochemists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for the genetic modification technique called CRISPR cemented the popular idea that a new era of precision manipulation of hereditary material had arrived. The award came on the heels of the unauthorized use of the technique by the scientist He Jiankui in 2018 in China in an effort to produce individuals (twin girls in this case) resistant to HIV, and a flurry of studies in early 2020 showing that accuracy in altering DNA in a test tube or bacteria in a culture dish, did not hold up when applied to animal embryos. Attempts to modify single genes in human embryos (not intended to be brought to full-term) in fact led to “large-scale, unintended DNA deletions and rearrangements in the areas surrounding the targeted sequence,” aka “genetic chaos.”


Dr. He was imprisoned, fined, and fired from his academic position in China for his actions, although it is still not clear to what extent the higher-ups at his institute were aware of them. At a small meeting that I attended in Berkeley in early 2017 where He spoke, he unambiguously stated that “these things are thought of differently in China than in the U.S.” The U.S. scientific establishment uniformly condemned He’s experiments, but when questioned, most scientists, including Doudna herself, and bioethicists (a profession dedicated, with a few exceptions, to getting the public used to what the scientists and bioentrepreneurs have in store for it), left the door open to future manipulation of humans.

Read more …

The Pantagon touting its transparency. Onion material.

US, NATO Launch Massive Military Exercise Amid Complaints From Russia (JTN)

Following complaints from Russia that it was being cast as a mock NATO enemy, the United States and allies on Tuesday launched a long-planned military exercise in Europe involving more than 28,000 troops from 26 nations training across the continent. The exercise, Defender-Europe 21, commenced following opening ceremonies in Albania, and comes in the wake of Russian troop movements along the border with Ukraine. Amid speculation last month that Russia aimed to invade or intimidate Ukraine, Moscow charged that the current NATO exercise was designed with a Russian enemy in mind. The U.S. and its allies routinely conduct exercises “with a clear anti-Russian orientation,” Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said in an April videoconference with other military leaders.

Noting that Defender Europe 21 is is the largest NATO exercise in 30 years, Shoygo couched the training as a threat to Russia. According to the Pentagon, Defender Europe is meant to build readiness within the NATO alliance. “It’s defensive in nature, focused on deterring aggression, while preparing our forces to respond to crisis and conduct large-scale combat operations if necessary,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said this week. In a remark aimed at Moscow’s long silence on why 100,000 Russian troops had been sent to the Ukraine border, Kirby highlighted the openness surrounding Defender Europe.

“We actually come to the podium and tell you about it,” Kirby told reporters on Monday. “I told you how many troops. I told you how many nations. I talked about specifics in terms of what they’re going to be exercising … and we’re not getting that out of Moscow, and we haven’t. So that’s a big difference right there.” The Pentagon began moving troops and equipment to Europe for the exercise in March, and in April moved prepositioned military stocks from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The training will focus on defending the western Balkans and Black Sea regions, and also will rehearse defense operations elsewhere in Europe and Ukraine, according to the Pentagon. Events will include live fire training, medical exercises, and mock evacuations.

Read more …

 

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

 

 

Armenia Assange

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

May 022021
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Triumph of Death c1562

 

People In England Urged To Be Patient; Hugging May Soon Be Allowed (G.)
12 Million Possible Adverse Events After Vaccination in UK, Europe, US (BOOM)
Its Your Fear, Nobody Elses (Denninger)
Pfizer Developing Pill To Treat Covid-19, May Hit Market By End Of 2021 (RT)
The Biggest Vaccine Deal in History: EU to Scoop 1.8 Billion Pfizer Shots (GR)
Obesity Increases Risk Of Severe Covid-19, Particularly In Young People (RT)
Ike’s 1950s America Beat The ‘Asian Flu’ With Science & Common Sense (NF)
Covid Lockdowns Cost Countless Jobs, Don’t Appear To Have Saved Lives (NYP)
Florida To Impose Hefty Fines On Tech Giants That Deplatform Politicians (RT)
Twitter Censors Accounts To Spoon-Feed The World Establishment Narratives (RT)
Victoria Nuland Is Now Highest-Ranking Member of US Foreign Service
US Interferes in Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and GMO Corn (CD)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything that’s wrong in the world today in one headline. If a government pretends it can “allow” hugging, or not, fire it.

People In England Urged To Be Patient; Hugging May Soon Be Allowed (G.)

People are being urged to remain patient before the next relaxation of Covid lockdown restrictions as there is still a possibility for coronavirus cases to “reignite”, amid reports that family and friends in England could be allowed to hug in just over a fortnight. The success of the vaccine rollout and sharp reduction in coronavirus cases and deaths has led ministers to support the move, according to the Times. If approved, this would mark the first time that people in England have been allowed to have physical contact outside of their household or bubble for more than a year. The government had said it would keep hugging under review as England approaches the third stage of the roadmap out of lockdown on 17 May. It has not yet made a formal announcement on the decision.


However, the former chief scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport warned that “the virus has not gone away” because many UK adults have still not had their first vaccine jab. “We are on the cusp of being able to move to the next step of relaxation; it’s absolutely right that vaccines have been spectacularly successful but not everybody is protected,” Walport, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We’ve got 35% of adults who are not vaccinated and 60% who have only had one dose and the truth is the virus has not gone away.” “The mistake that has been made repeatedly, really, is relaxing just slightly too early. What we need to do is get the numbers right down. It’s important that we don’t act as an incubator for variant cases that might be able to resist immunity.”

Read more …

Extrapolation.

12 Million Possible Adverse Events After Vaccination in UK, Europe, US (BOOM)

Total Adverse Events reported in the US now number 118,800

Total Adverse Events Reported in the UK now number 725,079

Total Adverse Events Reported in Europe now number 354,177

Total Adverse Events Reported in those three regions = 1,198,056

It is clear that the UK reported numbers of adverse events is far greater proportional to population than those reported in the US and in Europe. If we assume that the UK numbers are, in fact, more accurate as a representation of reported events on a population basis and then extrapolate from those UK rates, then we can guess at the total numbers that may be mis-reported in the US and in Europe. UK Population is 68 Million. Thus the Adverse Events per Million population there is 10,662. BOOM advises readers to sit down now to avoid shock. Such extrapolations reveal a (theoretically possible) Total Adverse Events number to date of almost 8 Million in Europe (where the population is estimated at 741 million) and 3.5 Million in the United States (population 332 million).

This generates a theoretically possible total of over 12 MILLION adverse events in the UK, Europe and the US combined to date. And this is after only 4 – 5 months of so-called “vaccination rollouts”. The Total Adverse Events worldwide may be greater than 20 MILLION already using the same theoretical methodology. Total Deaths worldwide may be of the order 20,000 already (or more). It is estimated that 90% of adverse events are not officially reported. Thus, those numbers may be TEN times higher in reality. The theoretical number of 200 million possible adverse events including deaths is staggering in such a short time frame. Approval for these pharmaceutical products by the US FDA is for emergency use only. The clinical trials conducted in late 2020 were conducted over just a few months.

Thus, they arguably have the status of an experimental vaccine with long term side effect rates unknown. The Nuremberg Code requires an individual’s informed consent before receiving experimental medical interventions. And that principle is in the 1964 Helsinki Declaration, which has been codified at Federal and State level in the USA. Australia has also ratified this declaration as have many other nations. The Declaration of Helsinki is an international document that influences how research is conducted in all countries. The Declaration of Helsinki was born from the history of abuses of human research subjects. Informed consent is one of the hallmarks of ethical research and ensures that individuals can make decisions that are in their best interests. Are people being adequately informed?

Read more …

Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine

“..what none of them care about is relative and absolute risk of both Covid-19 and the shots yet you have to be insane to accept a risk from a shot that is greater than the risk from the disease itself.”

Its Your Fear, Nobody Elses (Denninger)

We knew in March of last year that not everyone was susceptible to severe disease and death. We knew it because a cruise ship full of old, fat, morbid people, of which nearly every cruise ship is on a wildly over-represented basis didn’t have everyone on board drop like flies. Yes, some people got sick and a few died. But nowhere near everyone got sick, and even fewer died. Indeed, only about one in five got sick. We didn’t know why everyone wasn’t susceptible to clinical disease or worse but we knew this factually in March of 2020 yet Fauci, the CDC and indeed many other so-called “experts” intentionally lied and called this a “novel virus” to which everyone was at severe risk of serious disease and death. Nope.

Now we know why; 81% of the population of the planet has cross-immunity which is at least partially protective. None of these “advocates” and so-called “experts” care about how we got that immunity and in fact they deny it exists despite hard, scientific proof. It’s why every single one of us is alive and why we’ve all survived thus far both individually and as a species. Adaptive cross-immunity only comes from your immune system fighting off some infection. We all have done it since we were infants; indeed, the reason breast milk is a superior means of feeding a baby is that the mother passes to her infant a wildly-effective and supercharged bolster of antibodies, a “primer” if you will, in the first feedings which are called “colostrum.” It’s so important that we’ve documented over the years that children fed from the breast are wildly less-likely to get sick, including diseases that can be and sometimes are fatal to said children.

Do these “advocates and experts” propose that we jail, shun, bar from employment or even jail any woman who refuses to feed her child from the breast, or who fails to put in sufficient effort to do so if she finds it difficult or simply inconvenient? Or do we consider it a valid personal choice to reach for the Similac? These people point out that the shots claim to be 90% effective and it sucks if you’re in the 10%. Well, true enough. But what none of them care about is relative and absolute risk of both Covid-19 and the shots yet you have to be insane to accept a risk from a shot that is greater than the risk from the disease itself. That is, VAERS says there are 3,607 deaths associated with these vaccines over four months time, while the next-largest set is for the HIBV vaccine with 1,363.

But the HIB vaccine has been given routinely to children since 1987, a period of 34 years, meaning that said 1,363 associated deaths come to just 40 annually and it is the most-dangerous “next in line”; all others are less so! Note that HIB, prior to vaccination, was approximately three to five times as deadly as Covid-19 generally, killing between 3-6% of all who got it and virtually everyone who got it and died of it was a young child with decades of life ahead of them, not someone in a nursing home where the average life expectancy at admission is six months. Yes, it sucks if you die in a nursing home of Covid-19 but this does not change the fact that 53% of the time if you’re admitted to a nursing home you’re dead of something within the next six months. Dead is dead when you get down to it and we all die exactly once.

If my risk of death over six months time is 53% I’m not especially scared of a virus; yeah, it might get me but the odds are that something will cause my demise over the next 180 days one way or another. Put this up against the Covid shots which are carrying roughly 100 times the risk of associated death for a disease that, if you catch it, is much less likely to kill you in the general sense. Indeed, among healthy persons the risk of death is not 1/5th that of HIB which carries a risk of 1/25 (~4%) but rather approximately 1/50,000, including specifically among children under 18. That is among healthy people Covid-19 is two thousand times less likely to kill you than HIB is to kill a healthy baby.

Read more …

Stop the vaccines, there’s no need for them. Or wait: what’s in these pills? Is it ivermectin? With mRNA thrown in? We’ll never know, they’ll claim patent or something.

Pfizer Developing Pill To Treat Covid-19, May Hit Market By End Of 2021 (RT)

Pfizer announced this week that, if development of its pill to treat Covid-19 infection continues at the current pace, and if regulatory approval is quick, the medication could be on the market in the US by the end of 2021.
Pfizer launched an early trial in March of the oral antiviral which tackles Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, by limiting the availability of the enzyme protease which the virus needs to replicate. “If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that (it will be available) by the end of the year,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said. By limiting the coronavirus’ capacity to self-replicate, the drug would theoretically be able to stave off the worst effects of Covid-19, the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ which overwhelms the human body’s immune system and lands people in the intensive care unit.


With a severely weakened viral enemy, thanks to the Pfizer medication, the human immune system should be able to fight off the infection on its own. According to Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer and president of worldwide research, development, and medical, the new drug could be prescribed “at the first sign of infection, without requiring that patients are hospitalized or in critical care.” The only available antiviral drug authorized for treating Covid-19 at present is Remdesivir, but this must be administered via injection by a healthcare professional. Were Pfizer’s new oral medication to gain regulatory approval, it could be administered at a patient’s local pharmacy, thus freeing up medical resources and reducing hospital visits in the process. “You could get it at home, and that could be a game-changer,” Bourla added. The oral treatment may also be effective against emerging mutations and variants, though more testing is needed to definitively prove this.

Read more …

Von der Leyen screwed up bigly so she goes biglier.

The Biggest Vaccine Deal in History: EU to Scoop 1.8 Billion Pfizer Shots (GR)

On Thursday, the European Union is working to finalize a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer-BioNTech for what is called the biggest COVID 19 vaccine deal in the world. The New York Times reports that the deal, which has not been signed just yet, will provide the EU with 1.8 billion vaccines through 2023. This would be the largest vaccine deal in history and it may go a long way in relieving the bloc’s struggling vaccination campaign. Already Pfizer had agreed to provide 300 million doses that the pharmaceutical giant has already promised the EU in a previous agreement. Pfizer and BioNTech agreed to supply an additional 200 million doses of their vaccine in February as well. The process began through extensive personal diplomacy between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla.

According to the Times report, von der Leyen and Bourla exchanged countless texts and phone calls for a month before the deal was drafted. The two first came into serious contact in January 2020 before the pace of their interaction picked up in February. Bourla explained in an interview that such conversations with a high ranking government official were not at all uncommon for him Bourla said he and von der Leyen had “developed a deep trust, because we got into deep discussions.” Previously, the EU was reliant on the British drug company AstraZeneca for its supply of vaccines. However, the bloc initiated a lawsuit this week against the company for delays in delivery of the vaccine. AstraZeneca had at one time committed to deliver 120 million vaccine doses by the end of March but in actuality only delivered 29.7 million inoculations by that deadline.

The EU has almost 448 million residents — more than one hundred million more than the US population of 328 million. The relationship hit another snag when it was reported that the AstraZeneca vaccine may be linked to some recipients suffering from blood clots. After the use of the vaccine had been paused by the EU after reports of thrombosis and death in those receiving the vaccine, the drug regulator admitted that it found a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and a rare clotting disorder.

Read more …

Chronic inflammation.

Obesity Increases Risk Of Severe Covid-19, Particularly In Young People (RT)

People who are overweight are more likely to suffer from serious cases of coronavirus, with the associated risk especially prevalent among those younger than 40, according to a new study. Researchers from Oxford University used data from a database of nearly seven million English patients aged 20 years and older to examine whether there was a correlation between body mass index (BMI) and severe cases of the virus. They found that the likelihood of Covid-19 leading to hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death increased with weight. However, the risk was far greater for overweight patients between the ages of 20 and 39. On the other hand, high BMI did not appear to affect whether those aged 80 to 100 suffered from serious cases of the virus.

People with a BMI above 23 – the upper limit of the health range – are at risk of a more serious infection, while each one-point increase in BMI raises the chances of hospitalization by 5% and of ICU admission by 10%, the study concluded. The findings were published on Thursday in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, and represent one of the largest studies to date on how body weight affects Covid outcomes. The study’s lead author, Carmen Piernas, said that it’s possible that body fat may potentially cause a higher viral load for younger patients, but that more research was needed into the matter. Severe cases among the elderly are likely linked to weakened immune systems or pre-existing conditions, making weight a less noticeable factor.

Piernas and her colleagues noted that their observations could be used to guide public health initiatives aimed at curtailing serious cases of the disease. “Excess weight is a modifiable risk factor, and investment in the treatment of overweight and obesity and long-term preventive strategies could help reduce the severity of Covid-19 disease,” they wrote. Paul Aveyard, a co-author of the study, said that it was “highly plausible” that weight loss reduces the risk of serious coronavirus infection. The research adds to a growing list of scientific literature pointing to a correlation between weight and likelihood of severe Covid-19. A study published last year in Nature found that obesity significantly increased the risk of coronavirus-linked death. People with a BMI over 40 were at 92% higher risk of dying from the virus compared with people with a healthy BMI between 18.5-25.

Read more …

Adapted from Niall Ferguson’s new book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe,”

Ike’s 1950s America Beat The ‘Asian Flu’ With Science & Common Sense (NF)

The first cases of Asian flu in the U.S. occurred early in June 1957, among the crews of ships berthed at Newport, R.I. Cases also appeared among the 53,000 boys attending the Boy Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge, Penn. As Scout troops traveled around the country in July and August, they spread the flu. In July there was a massive outbreak in Tangipahoa Parish, La. By the end of the summer, cases had also appeared in California, Ohio, Kentucky and Utah. It was the start of the school year that made the Asian flu an epidemic. The Communicable Disease Center, as the CDC was then called, estimated that approximately 45 million people—about 25% of the population—became infected with the new virus in October and November 1957. Younger people experienced the highest infection rates, from school-age children up to adults age 35-40.

Adults over 65 accounted for 60% of influenza deaths, an abnormally low share. Why were young Americans disproportionately vulnerable to the Asian flu? Part of the explanation is that they had not been as exposed as older Americans to earlier strains of influenza. But the scale and incidence of any contagion are functions of both the properties of the pathogen itself and the structure of the social network that it attacks. The year 1957 was in many ways the dawn of the American teenager. The first baby boomers born after the end of World War II turned 13 the following year. Summer camps, school buses and unprecedented social mingling after school ensured that between September 1957 and March 1958 the proportion of teenagers infected with the virus rose from 5% to 75%.

The policy response of President Dwight Eisenhower could hardly have been more different from the response of 2020. Eisenhower did not declare a state of emergency. There were no state lockdowns and, despite the first wave of teenage illness, no school closures. Sick students simply stayed at home, as they usually did. Work continued more or less uninterrupted. With workplaces open, the Eisenhower administration saw no need to borrow to the hilt to fund transfers and loans to citizens and businesses. The president asked Congress for a mere $2.5 million ($23 million in today’s inflation-adjusted terms) to provide additional support to the Public Health Service. There was a recession that year, but it had little if anything to do with the pandemic. The Congressional Budget Office has described the Asian flu as an event that “might not be distinguishable from the normal variation in economic activity.”

President Eisenhower’s decision to keep the country open in 1957-58 was based on expert advice. When the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) concluded in August 1957 that “there is no practical advantage in the closing of schools or the curtailment of public gatherings as it relates to the spread of this disease,” Eisenhower listened. As a CDC official later recalled: “Measures were generally not taken to close schools, restrict travel, close borders or recommend wearing masks….ASTHO encouraged home care for uncomplicated influenza cases to reduce the hospital burden and recommended limitations on hospital admissions to the sickest patients….Most were advised simply to stay home, rest and drink plenty of water and fruit juices.”

Read more …

“By March 8, 2021, for example, New Jersey had recorded 2,656 deaths per 1 million residents, while New York had 2,500 per 1 million residents. South Dakota had 2,149 deaths per 1 million residents, but loose-rules Utah had just 617.”

Covid Lockdowns Cost Countless Jobs, Don’t Appear To Have Saved Lives (NYP)

We’ve locked down the economy instead of the virus. Jobs are recovering slower in New York and other states holding on to stringent COVID-19 restrictions than in states that fully reopened their economies, even though continued lockdown measures don’t appear to be saving lives, an ongoing study by WalletHub shows. Measures like limiting travel, keeping restaurants operating below capacity and leaving non-essential businesses closed have kept unemployment in New York State among the highest in the nation, while states with fewer restrictions are seeing jobs bounce back faster from the pandemic-induced recession, the study shows. Tragically, the data also suggests lockdowns didn’t do much to help save lives throughout the pandemic, while it’s clear that they sent millions to the unemployment line.

WalletHub started ranking states’ lockdowns in May 2020, using a formula that assigns a numerical value to mask mandates, large-gathering limits, school closings, “shelter in place” requirements and other measures put in place to try to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The rankings did not account for things like population density, the close quarters in urban households or use of public transportation, all of which play a role in virus transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, with the metro area besieged by the virus, WalletHub scored New Jersey’s lockdown measures the strictest in the country, followed closely by New York.

On the other end of the rankings, South Dakota, which imposed almost no restrictions, sat on top of the openness ranking, with Utah second. Over the course of the year, states imposed and eased a variety of restrictions in response to the level of virus cases and COVID-19 deaths. Where lockdowns were lifted, unemployment fell, but the restrictions didn’t seem to nudge death rates. By March 8, 2021, for example, New Jersey had recorded 2,656 deaths per 1 million residents, while New York had 2,500 per 1 million residents, according to the Covid Tracking Project. South Dakota had 2,149 deaths per 1 million residents, but loose-rules Utah had just 617.

Read more …

“[T]he Constitution does not have an asterisk that says only certain speech is free and protected..”

Florida To Impose Hefty Fines On Tech Giants That Deplatform Politicians (RT)

Florida is expected to become the first state to penalize social media companies for banning politicians from their platforms. Proponents have hailed the bill as a victory for free speech, while critics call it a political ploy. Under SB 7072, tech giants like Facebook and Twitter will be prohibited from “permanently” blacklisting a candidate running for political office. Fines of $250,000 per day will be issued for knowingly deplatforming a candidate for statewide office, while $25,000-per-day fines will be imposed for banning other office-seekers. The bill only applies to platforms with more than 100 million monthly users, and companies will still be allowed to sanction politicians with 14-day suspensions. Individual posts can also be removed if they violate the platform’s guidelines.


The bill passed both houses of Florida’s legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the coming days. DeSantis advocated for the new law as part of a pledge to take on the “Big Tech cartel.” In February, he called for measures to be taken against the “monopoly of communications platforms” that “monitor and control” Floridians. State lawmakers who backed the legislation echoed similar sentiments. Republican state Rep. John Snyder said the bill would make it clear to Silicon Valley that they are not the “absolute arbiters of truth.” “[T]he Constitution does not have an asterisk that says only certain speech is free and protected,” he said.

Read more …

“I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real.”

Twitter Censors Accounts To Spoon-Feed The World Establishment Narratives (RT)

It’s one thing to have policies against violence, abuse, and harassment. But in “protecting” users, Twitter is hell-bent on censoring voices that rock the boat, even when all they have tweeted is a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Last week, Simon Goddek, who has a PhD in biotechnology and researches system dynamics, tweeted a link to a scientific study titled, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?” Some time later, his account was frozen and he received a notice from Twitter that it would remain frozen until he deleted the offending tweet, and for the 12 hours following that. In his Telegram group, he wrote: “I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real.

“What’s especially concerning is that I didn’t make any personal comment on the paper’s content. I only said that regarding that paper, masks CAN lead to massive health damages. It’s the conclusion of a scientific piece of work that has been peer-reviewed by at least 2 experts in the field.” According to Twitter, Goddek violated their policy on, “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19.” The article in question wasn’t even as risqué as others and merely addressed undesirable side effects of mask wearing. How is that “misinformation”? [..] On April 17, Naomi Wolf tweeted she had been locked out of Twitter for the fourth time for sharing a Stanford study, “proving the lack of efficacy of masks.” That study was also peer-reviewed.

This isn’t merely a case of Twitter deciding that Goddek and Wolf were not in the position to be discussing the efficacy or dangers of masks. Twitter is censoring pretty much anything about Covid that doesn’t match the narrative promoted by the WHO, CDC, and other such bodies. Even a well-known epidemiologist has faced Twitter’s wrath. An article in the American Institute for Economic Research noted: “Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff and co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious -disease experts in the world has been censored by Twitter. His tweet on how not everyone needs a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was not taken down. He had a warning slapped on it and users have been prevented from liking or retweeting the post.”

Read more …

One scary girl.

Victoria Nuland Is Now Highest-Ranking Member of US Foreign Service

On Thursday the US Senate confirmed Victoria Nuland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, which has been described as the fourth most important position in the State Department. Though as the first three are filled by political appointees and the other by a career foreign service officer, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs is the highest-ranking member of the US Foreign Service. In an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April as part of her confirmation process, she reflected on her thirty-two years in the Foreign Service working for five presidents of both parties and nine secretaries of state. She retailed some of her “historic moments” in that career, among them “working on tough arms control problems and conflicts from Rwanda to Haiti to Bosnia and Kosovo.”

But what she expressed as her last-listed and perhaps proudest moment was, while she served as Deputy Chief of Mission at NATO, the military bloc for the first time activating its Article 5 collective defense clause, which contributed to the now twenty-year-old war in Afghanistan, a comprehensive naval interdiction mission in the Mediterranean Sea (Operation Active Endeavor) and European AWACS flights over the U.S. along with several other missions. A major part of her career has been spent at NATO headquarters: she was Deputy Permanent Representative (ambassador) to NATO from 2000-2003 and Permanent Representative from 2005-2008. In both positions she was instrumental in recruiting military forces from NATO allies and partners for the war in Afghanistan, with NATO military personnel also stationed in Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

At one point 130,000 of the 150,000 foreign troops in the country served under NATO command in the International Security Assistance Force: service members from 54 countries. Never before or since have troops from so many nations fought in a war, much less in one theater of war or one country. She also worked on promoting seven nations to NATO membership at the historic Istanbul, Turkey summit in 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. All are in Eastern Europe; all but Slovenia were members of the defunct Warsaw Pact; three – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – were Soviet republics. Bulgaria and Romania provided the U.S. and NATO with eight military bases in the following two years. NATO has flown fighter jets from air bases in Latvia and Lithuania for years, in the case of the second nation since 2004.

[..] Yesterday no doubt there was rejoicing and exultation in Kiev. There should have been weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Donbass and Crimea. And grave concern in Moscow. Nuland like her boss Joe Biden may have unfinished business in Ukraine.

Read more …

“It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits.”

US Interferes in Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and GMO Corn (CD)

A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to “respect Mexico’s sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies”—specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn. “Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree,” Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) noted earlier this year. “His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock.”

“Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” Wise added. “Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops.” The groups’ letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA). “We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico’s decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” Schafer said in a statement.

Read more …

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

Apr 252021
 


Keith Haring Retrospect 1989

 

 

In 1884, Dr. Edwin Abbott Abbott published a book named Flatland. He appears to have meant it mainly as a social critique, but it became more famous as a mathematical “treatise”, when Einstein proposed the existence of a fourth dimension. Of course since then, physics has moved on to ideas, e.g. string theory, that suggest many more dimensions. It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure I first came across Flatland in that context.

Recently I saw it mentioned somewhere and I connected it to my observation that the world appears to react to, and deal with, Covid in a one-dimensional setting -or two, if you will, since that is the main theme of Flatland-, but certainly not three. Abbott attempted to provide insight into what it means to explain a fourth dimension to a creature living in a 3-dimensional world, by taking one step back, and explaining a third dimension to one living in 2 dimensions.

First the basic ideas of the book, from Wikipedia:

Flatland (a Romance of Many Dimensions)

The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The first half of the story goes through the practicalities of existing in a two-dimensional universe as well as a history leading up to the year 1999 on the eve of the 3rd Millennium.

On New Year’s Eve, the Square dreams about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) inhabited by “lustrous points”. These points are unable to see the Square as anything other than a set of points on a line. Thus, the Square attempts to convince the realm’s monarch of a second dimension, but is unable to do so. In the end, the monarch of Lineland tries to kill A Square rather than tolerate his nonsense any further.

Following this vision, he is himself visited by a three-dimensional sphere. Similar to the “points” in Lineland, the Square is unable to see the sphere as anything other than a circle. The Sphere then levitates up and down through the Flatland, allowing Square to see the circle expand and contract.

[..] After the Square’s mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth and higher spatial dimensions, but the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace. The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland, whereof the point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any communication as a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism):

“You see,” said my Teacher, “how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understands them at all, he accepts them as his own – for he cannot conceive of any other except himself – and plumes himself upon the variety of Its Thought as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this god of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction.”

 

 

Although Flatland was not ignored when it was published, it did not obtain a great success. [..] The book was discovered again after Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity was published, which brought to prominence the concept of a fourth dimension. Flatland was mentioned in a “Letter to the Editor” by William Garnett entitled “Euclid, Newton and Einstein”, published in Nature on 12 February 1920. In this letter Abbott is depicted, in a sense, as a prophet due to his intuition of the importance of time to explain certain phenomena.

“Some thirty or more years ago a little jeu d’esprit was written by Dr. Edwin Abbott entitled Flatland. At the time of its publication it did not attract as much attention as it deserved… If there is motion of our three-dimensional space relative to the fourth dimension, all the changes we experience and assign to the flow of time will be due simply to this movement, the whole of the future as well as the past always existing in the fourth dimension.”

 

Just as we cannot afford to shut down dissenting voices -but we do-, we cannot afford to have only a limited response to Covid, but -again- we do. We should have, must have, a multi-pronged, multi-dimensional response to a crisis like this, but we do not. Instead, we revert back to one dimensional “answers”, because that’s all our “leaders” can cope with.

To make the rollout of the current vaccines possible in the first place, we had to do a lot of legal juggling. First, all other substances that might have worked, had to be discredited and discarded. That enabled an Emergency Authorization Use, for -almost- entirely untested substances. Today, proud voices claim 1 billion people globally have been vaccinated. But since the world population is 7.9 billion, that leaves 6.9 billion not vaccinated people. Do we see the problem?

The problem is the virus continues to exist, and mutate, in multiple dimensions. And there is zero chance of those remaining 6.9 billion being jabbed before, say, 2025. Zero. And no, it’s not about how bad the variants, mutations, are that we see so far, it’s always about the next mutations.

The vaccines don’t protect you from getting infected or infecting others. The best they can do is make you less sick. So we have 1 billion people jabbed, of which a significant number is prone to get infected regardless, which will push the virus to continue mutating, and especially into a form that hides from the vaccines. And then there are the 6.9 billion unvaccinated who can get infected with these new much more virulent strains.

Against which the vaccines offer even less protection than against the “original” virus. A recipe for a huge disaster. How huge? Take a look at India today.

 

India COVID Triple-Mutant May Be Much More Deadly, Resistant To Vaccines

Scientists found two triple-mutant varieties in patient samples in four states: Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh. Researchers in the country have dubbed it the “Bengal strain” and say it has the potential to be even more infectious than the double-mutant variant. This is because three COVID variants have merged to form a new, possibly deadlier variant. The Times of India spoke to Vinod Scaria, a researcher at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India, who said that the triple mutant was also an “immune escape variant” – a strain that helps the virus attach to human cells and hide from the immune system.


He added that it could have evolved from the double-mutant variant – which experts say is likely behind the recent surge of COVID in the country . Sreedhar Chinnaswamy, a researcher from the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics in India, told the Times of India that the variant also carried the E484K mutation, a characteristic found in both the South African and Brazilian variants. “In other words, you may not be safe from this variant even if you were previously infected by another strain, or even if you have been vaccinated,” said Chinnaswamy.

 

Let me stress again, it’s always about the next mutations, not these ones. But triple mutant, with immune escape, is pretty bad already. People are dying in the streets, in the parking lots of hospitals. And that’s just the beginning. If this graph from IHME (healthdata.org) is only half right, a full catastrophe is developing there. Yesterday there were some 350,000 new cases in one day, the graph predicts 4 times that many about 3 weeks from now.

 

 

Obviously, the US ban on exporting raw materials for vaccines is insane, as is Angela Merkel saying that “Of course, we have only allowed India to become such a large pharmaceutical producer in the first place, also from the European side, in the expectation that this should then also be complied with.” But that’s just the start of the insanity.

If we don’t get enormous amounts of oxygen, beds, PPE, vaccines, HCQ, ivermectin, doctors, nurses etc. etc. over there from our own countries right now, we will be able to see live on TV and the interwebs in mid-May how a completely preventable disaster, comparable only to the largest famines of the past century, will unfold. And India will not forget that; nor will the rest of Asia. And neither should we. India is merely yet another dimension that we elect not to see.

 

I published Dr. Geert VanDenBossche’s open letter about the risk of mass vaccinations on March 11. In it, he said:

[..] when the pressure exerted by the army’s (read: population’s) immune defense starts to threaten viral replication and transmission, the virus will take on another coat so that it can no longer be easily recognized and, therefore, attacked by the host immune system. The virus is now able to escape immunity (so-called: ‘immune escape’). However, the virus can only rely on this strategy provided it stlll has room enough to replicate.

Well, it is happening as we speak.

 

The day after, March 12, 2021, I wrote in Only:

• ONLY doctors are experts.

• We use ONLY vaccines to fight Covid, no prophylactics. No vitamin D, HCQ or ivermectin.

• We have ONLY Emergency Use Authorization vaccines.

• We can soon ONLY travel after having been inoculated with such vaccines.

• We can ONLY express officially approved opinions.

I could add: we can apparently ONLY exist in one dimension. That’s what made me think back of Flatland. But instead, we must move on to as many dimensions as we can. Because if we don’t, and we thereby limit our responses, we invite the endemic Sars-COV-2 virus to occupy those dimensions.

It is criminally insane to not try to boost everyone’s immune systems with something as simple as vitamin D, or to take HCQ and ivermection more serious, or dexamethasone, or any other repurposable drugs. We simply need to move in as many dimensions as we can, because the virus does, too.

Problem is, if ivermectin would be proven to be effective as a prophylactic or treatment, even it were just 50%, the Emergency Authorization Use for the mRNA vaccines would be in shaky legal territory.

 

It was hilarious to see Jeffrey Tucker at AIER yesterday repost this March 2020 article (but not so hilarious when you think about the consequences):

The 2006 Origins of the Lockdown Idea

But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history. Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact.

What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed. Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation.

That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly.

[..] In other words, it was a high-school science experiment that eventually became law of the land, and through a circuitous route propelled not by science but politics. The primary author of this paper was Robert J. Glass, a complex-systems analyst with Sandia National Laboratories. He had no medical training, much less an expertise in immunology or epidemiology.

But this is also oh-so typical of how the entire western world deals with this issue. Myopic, self-obsessed, profit-oriented, and lying through their teeth. The problem is not whether the present vaccines are somewhat effective or not, the problem is that we don’t know but run with them anyway. And leave a country like India to fend for itself, while complaining they don’t give us enough vaccines while their own people die in the streets.

There are many stories about side effects, blood clots in particular, which were predicted but ignored, for Chrissake. The problem is that in order to “live” in the one dimension of the present vaccines, we had to close ourselves off from all other dimensions. And that we cannot afford. This will not end well.

Lockdowns are not a one-dimensional thing either. They have a great effect on people’s mental – and physical- health, but nobody seems to care. Covid is the only dimension we recognize. And that’s also funny: Einstein suggested time -or space-time, more accurately- as a fourth dimension, but your Flatland politicians have no qualms about locking you down for an infinite amount of time, as if that is inconsequential.

We better inject some actual science into this whole discussion, or else. Then again, so far, there isn’t even a discussion at all. Dissenting voices are banned. Just one of many things we cannot afford. Science? It’s nothing to do with science. Just politics. Presently, people in the west are told that is they get “fully vaccinated”, they will be able to get back to “normal”. But that is a lie, or at least even Pfizer et al themselves give no guarantee that transmission will stop.

EU countries see similar numbers of infections, hospitalizations etc. today that they did 2-3-4 months ago. Then, the numbers were used to justify more restrictions. Now, the same numbers are used to justify “opening up”. Ergo, the politicians and their “science” advisors failed spectacularly, but their PR people phrase it as a success story. It would be funny if it weren’t so…

 

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

Apr 252021
 
 April 25, 2021  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Sophia Loren seated by the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis during filming for ‘Boy on a Dolphin’, 1957

 

To Friends in the US: Facilitate Global Vaccine Manufacturing (CarnegieIndia)
US Defends Restrictions On Export Of Covid-19 Vaccine Raw Materials (Hindu)
The 2006 Origins of the Lockdown Idea (AIER)
Covid-19 Indoors Infection Risk As Great At 60 Feet As At 6 Feet – MIT (CNBC)
Biden Recognizes Armenian Genocide (Pol.)
Putin Rewrites The Law Of The Geopolitical Jungle (Escobar)
Collective West Is Living In Grim Fantasy Land – Zakharova (RT)
Russian Embassy Trolls Baltic States Over Expulsion Of Diplomats (RT)
Ukraine Says Russian Troop Draw Down Is “Not Enough” (ZH)
Is America Led Today By Anti-Americans? (Buchanan)
Fmr Police Officer Blasts Dems For “Riding The Wave Of Dead Black People” (ZH)
Nassim Taleb Says Bitcoin Is An Open Ponzi Scheme And A Failed Currency (BI)

 

 

Biden’s proposal for top marginal income rate is 39.6%. Here’s what it was in the past:
Now: 37%
2017: 39.6%
1993-2000: 39.6%
1982-1986: 50%
1981: 69.3%
1971-1980: 70%
1954-1963: 91%

 

 

This is doing so much damage to the US. It will reverberate long and deep, and not just in India.

To Friends in the US: Facilitate Global Vaccine Manufacturing (CarnegieIndia)

The current public health crisis in India is devastating. On April 22, 2021, India recorded over 330,000 COVID-19 cases and 2,000 fatalities. It is unlikely that the second wave of the pandemic will level out anytime soon. The desperate need for oxygen, medical supplies, and hospital beds has overwhelmed public and private health facilities. Clearly, the state machinery will need to be mobilized in this war against the fast-spreading disease that appears to mutate in different ways and forms at a shattering speed. To arrest this crisis, there is an equally urgent need to accelerate India’s vaccine drive. India, as is well known, is one of the world’s largest producers of COVID-19 vaccines. “Made-in-India” vaccines have been delivered—by way of aid and under commercial contract—to ninety-five countries across the globe.

From Argentina to Bangladesh and El Salvador to Sierra Leone, India has distributed 66.2 million vaccines to date. However, India is currently facing an acute vaccine shortage at home. On April 19, the Indian government announced that Indians above the age of eighteen will be eligible to get their shots. Making sure that the tens of millions of Indians are able to access vaccines is the only way in which a country as geographically challenging as India will be able to turn the tables on this fast-moving disease. Yet, without the support of Joe Biden’s administration in Washington, this ambition—of delivering vaccines across India—is at risk of remaining just that, an ambition. In April 2020, then U.S. president Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA), a law that grants the U.S. president significant emergency authority to direct domestic industries.

As Trump made clear, the order was meant to “save lives by removing obstacles in the supply chain that threaten the rapid production of ventilators.” In February 2021, Biden announced a set of plans to hasten inoculations. In March 2021, Biden vowed that vaccines will be available for “every adult in America by the end of May.” On the first two working days of the Biden administration, on January 20 and 21, 2021, the president signed Executive Orders 13987 and 14001. The aim of these measures was to ensure “a sustainable public health supply chain.” In effect, this meant that manufacturers in the United States, and those registered in the United States but based in Europe and other parts of the world, needed to prioritize supplies for the domestic market within the United States.

Given the globally connected nature of supply chains, Biden’s vow has had other anticipated effects. It means that products like bags and filters, cell culture medias, single-use tubing assemblies, and other raw materials crucial for the production of vaccines in other parts of the world, and especially in India, may face imminent supply constraints. In practice, this has meant that the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world—the Serum Institute of India—is today hamstrung in its efforts to produce vaccines for both the Indian and global markets. It is crucial to keep in mind that without these ingredients, it is increasingly unlikely that the Serum Institute will be able to prioritize vaccine production under contract—through global vaccine alliances such as Gavi—for countries across the world.


IMHE – Estimated peak 14.1 million infections per day.

Read more …

And then the Biden admin is tonedeaf and colorblind enough to try and justify it.

US Defends Restrictions On Export Of Covid-19 Vaccine Raw Materials (Hindu)

Defending U.S.’ restrictions on the export of key raw materials for the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine that threatens to slow India’s vaccination drive, a senior State Department official has said the Biden administration’s first obligation is to take care of the requirements of the American people. When asked when the Biden administration would decide on India’s request to lift a ban on the export of vaccine raw materials, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said: “…the United States first and foremost is engaged in an ambitious and effective and, so far, successful effort to vaccinate the American people.” “That campaign is well underway, and we’re doing that for a couple of reasons. Number one, we have a special responsibility to the American people.

Number two, the American people, this country has been hit harder than any other country around the world – more than 550,000 deaths, tens of millions of infections in this country alone,” he said on Thursday. It is not only in the U.S. interest to see Americans vaccinated; but it is in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated, he said. “The point the Secretary (of State Antony Blinken) has made repeatedly is that as long as the virus is spreading anywhere, it is a threat to people everywhere. So as long as the virus is spreading uncontrolled in this country, it can mutate and it can travel beyond our borders. That, in turn, poses a threat well beyond the United States,” Mr. Price said in responses to questions.

As for the rest of the world, “We will, of course, always do as much as we can, consistent with our first obligation,” he said. India is currently facing a horrible surge in coronavirus infections. The country on Friday added a record over 3.32 lakh new coronavirus cases in a single day taking the country’s tally to 1,62,63,695, while active cases crossed the 24-lakh mark. The Biden administration recently conveyed to New Delhi that it understands India’s pharmaceutical requirements and promised to give the matter due consideration. It observed that the current difficulty in the export of critical raw materials needed to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines is mainly due to an Act that forces American companies to prioritise domestic consumption.

President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump had invoked the war-time Defence Production Act (DPA) that leaves U.S. companies with no option but to give priority to the production of COVID-19 vaccines and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for domestic production to combat the deadly pandemic in America, the worst-hit nation. The U.S. has ramped up the production of COVID-19 vaccines mostly by Pfizer and Moderna to meet the goal of vaccinating its entire population by July 4. The suppliers of its raw materials, which is in high demand globally and sought after by major Indian manufacturers, are being forced to provide it only for domestic manufacturers in the U.S. The Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest producer of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Read more …

From May 2020. We have a 14 year old girl’s high school “science” project to thank for the lockdowns.

The 2006 Origins of the Lockdown Idea (AIER)

How that idea — born out of a request by President George W. Bush to ensure the nation was better prepared for the next contagious disease outbreak — became the heart of the national playbook for responding to a pandemic is one of the untold stories of the coronavirus crisis. It required the key proponents — Dr. Mecher, a Department of Veterans Affairs physician, and Dr. Hatchett, an oncologist turned White House adviser — to overcome intense initial opposition. It brought their work together with that of a Defense Department team assigned to a similar task. And it had some unexpected detours, including a deep dive into the history of the 1918 Spanish flu and an important discovery kicked off by a high school research project pursued by the daughter of a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories.

The concept of social distancing is now intimately familiar to almost everyone. But as it first made its way through the federal bureaucracy in 2006 and 2007, it was viewed as impractical, unnecessary and politically infeasible. Notice that in the course of this planning, neither legal nor economic experts were brought in to consult and advise. Instead it fell to Mecher (formerly of Chicago and an intensive care doctor with no previous expertise in pandemics) and the oncologist Hatchett. But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history. Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact.

What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed. Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly.

[..] In other words, it was a high-school science experiment that eventually became law of the land, and through a circuitous route propelled not by science but politics. The primary author of this paper was Robert J. Glass, a complex-systems analyst with Sandia National Laboratories. He had no medical training, much less an expertise in immunology or epidemiology. That explains why Dr. D.A. Henderson, “who had been the leader of the international effort to eradicate smallpox,” completely rejected the whole scheme. Dr. Henderson was convinced that it made no sense to force schools to close or public gatherings to stop. Teenagers would escape their homes to hang out at the mall. School lunch programs would close, and impoverished children would not have enough to eat. Hospital staffs would have a hard time going to work if their children were at home.

The measures embraced by Drs. Mecher and Hatchett would “result in significant disruption of the social functioning of communities and result in possibly serious economic problems,” Dr. Henderson wrote in his own academic paper responding to their ideas. The answer, he insisted, was to tough it out: Let the pandemic spread, treat people who get sick and work quickly to develop a vaccine to prevent it from coming back.

Read more …

Wonder what the response to this will be from the “science” religion.

Covid-19 Indoors Infection Risk As Great At 60 Feet As At 6 Feet – MIT (CNBC)

The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors is as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world. MIT professors Martin Z. Bazant, who teaches chemical engineering and applied mathematics, and John W.M. Bush, who teaches applied mathematics, developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor setting that factors in a variety of issues that could affect transmission, including the amount of time spent inside, air filtration and circulation, immunization, variant strains, mask use, and even respiratory activity such as breathing, eating, speaking or singing.

Bazant and Bush question long-held Covid-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization in a peer-reviewed study published earlier this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America. “We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks,” Bazant said in an interview. “It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.” The important variable the CDC and the WHO have overlooked is the amount of time spent indoors, Bazant said.

The longer someone is inside with an infected person, the greater the chance of transmission, he said. Opening windows or installing new fans to keep the air moving could also be just as effective or more effective than spending large amounts of money on a new filtration system, he said. Bazant also says that guidelines enforcing indoor occupancy caps are flawed. He said 20 people gathered inside for 1 minute is probably fine, but not over the course of several hours, he said.

Read more …

Biden was in the Senate since 1972. Please point out where and when he spoke out about the Armenian genocide during that whole time.

Biden Recognizes Armenian Genocide (Pol.)

President Joe Biden on Saturday recognized the Armenian genocide, fulfilling a campaign promise and taking a step that his recent predecessors have avoided while in office. Biden’s designation, which coincided with Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, signals the president’s desire to prioritize human rights despite potential fallout in the U.S. relationship with Turkey. It comes 106 years after the beginning of the mass deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million people. “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide,” Biden said in a statement Saturday.

“Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history that brought so many of their ancestors to our shores. We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.” Over decades, lawmakers in Congress have been willing to recognize the genocide but sitting presidents historically have not. In a statement to mark the day of remembrance last year, Biden said he was “proud” of his role in the Senate to recognize the Armenian genocide and his endorsement of 2019 resolutions in both chambers of Congress that did the same.

The United States is now part of a group of 30 countries that have recognized the Armenian genocide, according to the Armenian National Institute. Although Turkey acknowledges the “tragic experience” of Armenians, it maintains the number of those who died between 1915 and 1923 is inflated and denies the characterization of the events as genocide. Turkey’s foreign ministry quickly denounced Biden’s statement Saturday, saying it doesn’t have “a scholarly or legal basis.” “The US President’s statement will not yield any results other than polarizing the nations and hindering peace and stability in our region,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Read more …

“Putin remarked how to “attack Russia” has become “a sport, a new sport, who makes the loudest statements.”

Putin Rewrites The Law Of The Geopolitical Jungle (Escobar)

First, the essentials. Russia’s policy “is to ensure peace and security for the well-being of our citizens and for the stable development of our country.” Yet if “someone does not want to…engage in dialogue, but chooses an egoistic and arrogant tone, Russia will always find a way to stand up for its position.” He singled out “the practice of politically motivated, illegal economic sanctions” to connect it to “something much more dangerous”, and actually rendered invisible in the Western narrative: “the recent attempt to organize a coup d’etat in Belarus and the assassination of that country’s president.” Putin made sure to stress, “all boundaries have been crossed”. The plot to kill Lukashenko was unveiled by Russian and Belarusian intel – which detained several actors backed, who else, US intel. The US State Department predictably denied any involvement.

Putin: “It is worth pointing to the confessions of the detained participants in the conspiracy that a blockade of Minsk was being prepared, including its city infrastructure and communications, the complete shutdown of the entire power grid of the Belarusian capital. This, incidentally means preparations for a massive cyber-attack.” And that leads to a very uncomfortable truth: “Apparently, it’s not for no reason that our Western colleagues have stubbornly rejected numerous proposals by the Russian side to establish an international dialogue in the field of information and cyber-security.” Putin remarked how to “attack Russia” has become “a sport, a new sport, who makes the loudest statements.” And then he went full Kipling:

“Russia is attacked here and there for no reason. And of course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis [jackals] are running around like Tabaqui ran around Shere Khan [the tiger] – everything is like in Kipling’s book – howling along and ready to serve their sovereign. Kipling was a great writer”. The – layered – metaphor is even more startling as it echoes the late 19th century geopolitical Great Game between the British and Russian empires, of which Kipling was a protagonist. Once again Putin had to stress that “we really don’t want to burn any bridges. But if someone perceives our good intentions as indifference or weakness and intends to burn those bridges completely or even blow them up, he should know that Russia’s response will be asymmetric, swift and harsh”.

So here’s the new law of the geopolitical jungle – backed by Mr. Iskander, Mr. Kalibr, Mr. Avangard, Mr. Peresvet, Mr. Khinzal, Mr. Sarmat, Mr. Zircon and other well-respected gentlemen, hypersonic and otherwise, later complimented on the record. Those who poke the Bear to the point of threatening “the fundamental interests of our security will regret what has been done, as they have regretted nothing for a very long time.”

Read more …

“And it turns out that leaders who call themselves leaders of the world aren’t really leaders. They are just chest-puffers.”

Collective West Is Living In Grim Fantasy Land – Zakharova (RT)

Western countries are living in a grim “fantasy land” they’ve created through years of anti-Russian propaganda, the outspoken Maria Zakharova told RT DE, with any initiative by Moscow – even on Covid-19 – becoming politicised. Such behavior on the West’s part is hardly surprising, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman explained to Thomas Fasbender in an exclusive interview, given the efforts that Western counties have put into painting Moscow as an “aggressor” over the years. The consistently cold relations between the West and Russia have been heightened by a series of major scandals recently, she outlined, despite these being based on imaginary grounds.

For instance, military drills in Russia’s southeast have prompted hysteria in multiple NATO countries and a fresh wave of doomsday predictions regarding an impending war between Russia and Ukraine – which, again, did not happen. “It seems to me that our Western partners have let their imaginations run wild. They seem to be seeing things when there’s nothing there, and not seeing the obvious. It’s an amazing thing, really, to be able to live in fantasy land,” she said. If you spend years communicating an idea to your own people and to the world at large, using mass media, issuing reports and making alarmist publications that depict Russia as a warmonger nation that’s about to strike – then, sure, even run-of-the-mill military drills would get people scared out of their senses.

The years-long Western campaign to paint Russia as an “aggressor” state has also affected the global response to the coronavirus pandemic, Zakharova believes. Instead of cooperating with Russia and buying its Covid-19 Sputnik V vaccine, the first in the world to be registered, too much effort has been put into trying to deny its very existence and otherwise tarnish its reputation. “There was a major campaign against our vaccine, against what we had to offer the world. We handled it. Unfortunately, many countries, including EU states, wasted time,” Zakharova said. “Many states received this vaccine, some on a trial basis. Many of them began to buy it right away. Unfortunately, the EU is punishing itself again, just as Prague did with our diplomats.”

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has “highlighted massive problems in the EU and the West as a whole,” as they had all the resources to lead the global fight against the disease, but failed to do so. “And it turns out that leaders who call themselves leaders of the world aren’t really leaders. They are just chest-puffers.” A similar lack of ability to act as an independent entity has been demonstrated during another ongoing scandal – the spy affair launched by Prague. The Czech Republic has accused Russian military intelligence of blowing up its ammunition depot back in 2014. While no solid proof of Russia’s alleged involvement has been presented, Prague launched a diplomatic broadside, opting to expel Russian diplomats.

Read more …

“There’s no definition of “smalldipenergy” in the dictionary, but it is most likely derived from “small diplomatic energy.”

Russian Embassy Trolls Baltic States Over Expulsion Of Diplomats (RT)

Russia’s embassy in Belarus has asked Twitter users to choose between two hashtags to describe the three Baltic nations expelling up to two Russian diplomats in “solidarity” with the Czechs. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania issued a joined statement on Friday, announcing that they will ask several Russian embassy staff to leave their countries in a display of solidarity with the Czech Republic. Riga and Tallinn said they’ll expel one diplomat each, while Vilnius declared two Russians personae non gratae. The move was met with a mocking response by the Russian embassy in Belarus – the country that borders Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. “#smalldipenergy or #smalldickenergy — the choice is yours,” the embassy wrote in a tweet, attaching an earlier Twitter post by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

In a post announcing the joint move by the Baltic nations, Landsbergis claimed that the Russian embassy staff were being expelled for “activities incompatible with their diplomatic status.” The phrase “smalldickenergy” is explained in the Urban Dictionary as “cockiness without skill. It is the sexual equivalent of writing a check of $10k to show off knowing you don’t have it in the bank account.” There’s no definition of “smalldipenergy” in the dictionary, but it is most likely derived from “small diplomatic energy.” The move, with which the Russian embassy in Belarus was left unimpressed, is a follow-up to a diplomatic row between Moscow and Prague. A week ago, the Czech Republic announced the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats over claims that Kremlin intelligence officers were involved in a local munitions depot blast back in 2014.

Read more …

You lost. Shut up.

Ukraine Says Russian Troop Draw Down Is “Not Enough” (ZH)

Not satisfied with Russia’s confirmed troop draw down from its southern region which has stoked tensions over the past few weeks, leaders in Kiev on Friday demanded that more must be done to de-escalate tensions and conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba “welcomed” the Kremlin’s ordering troops that had been engaged in major Crimean and Black Sea military exercises back to the regular bases, but said the violence in the east has continued. Kiev blames Russia for encouraging and supporting an uptick in hostilities with the pro-Russian separatists, which have sought to carve out independent enclaves going back to 2014 and 2015. “If Russia really pulls back from the border with Ukraine the enormous military force it has deployed there, this will already ease tensions.


“But we need to remember that this step would not put an end neither to the current escalation, nor to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in general,” Kuleba said. The top Ukrainian diplomat also says Moscow still owes “an explanation” for its largest troop build-up on the border since 2014. “Russia still owes an explanation to Ukraine… and international community of why it really needed to bring such numerous forces equipped with some offensive weapons at the border with Ukraine in such excessive number of troops,” he said. In a Thursday statement posted to Twitter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to confirm that the Russian draw down was indeed in progress. “The reduction of troops on our border proportionally reduces tension. Ukraine is always vigilant, yet welcomes any steps to decrease the military presence & deescalate the situation in Donbas,” he wrote.

Read more …

“Implication: Floyd died to redeem America of her original sin of racism.”

Is America Led Today By Anti-Americans? (Buchanan)

How can America unite again to do great things if we are led by people who believe America suffers from a great sickness of the soul, an original sin that dates back to her birth as a nation? Consider. After his long night of prayer for “the right verdict” to be pronounced — Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts — Joe Biden stepped before the White House cameras to tell us what it all meant. George Floyd’s death, said Biden, “was a murder in the full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism… that is a stain on our nation’s soul — the knee on the neck of justice for Black Americans.” Astonishing. Biden is saying that when Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes as the life drained out of him, the world, for once, was getting a good, close look at the diseased soul of America.

What Chauvin was doing to Floyd, said the president of the United States, is a reflection of the kind of justice America delivers to Black Americans. This is no aberration, Biden was saying. This is the routine reality. Biden was introduced by Kamala Harris, who said much the same: “America has a long history of systemic racism. Black Americans and Black men in particular have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human.” At Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield delivered what The Wall Street Journal called, “a recitation of America’s sins (that) could have come from China’s Global Times.” Said Thomas-Greenfield: “I have… seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles. … Racism is the problem of the racist. And it is the problem of the society that produces the racist.”

What our diplomat to the world is saying is that our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are interwoven with white supremacy and that America, to this day, continues to breed racists. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at a Congressional Black Caucus event after the verdict, turned her eyes heavenward in gratitude: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice….For being there to call out to your mom — how heartbreaking was that … And because of you … your name will always be synonymous with justice.” Implication: Floyd died to redeem America of her original sin of racism.

Read more …

“Yes, President Biden is an idiot in my personal opinion, and he’s just talkin’ because he’s a politician.”

Fmr Police Officer Blasts Dems For “Riding The Wave Of Dead Black People” (ZH)

Former Arizona police officer-turned conservative political commentator Brandon Tatum unloaded on President Biden and the press for politicizing the Derek Chauvin trial, and insists that so-called ‘systemic racism’ is simply manufactured by politicians and the media to earn votes and make money. “I think we’re living in the twilight zone,” Tatum said of the Chauvin trial. “This conviction, in my personal opinion, did nothing for our country. People are living a lie. I mean this is one police officer, one person in the community, they found him guilty, this was the swiftest justice I’ve ever seen in my life. The day after the film came out he was arrested. He was tried. 10 hours of deliberation, he was convicted. I’m not really sure why people are acting like this is monumental.

“Also, he did not get a fair trial in my personal opinion. There was a lot of obstruction that happened. They paid the family out $27 million before the jury could be selected. I mean, they’re going to have a case in appeal. I don’t know why people are celebrating and I don’t know why this is such a big focal point other than – people are making money off of the pain of people in our country.” The BBC host then asked Tatum if he was upset over this “landmark” case? “This is not a landmark case, this is a political agenda,” Tatum shot back. They’re pushing laws in our country. Policing in America is not inherently racist. We don’t live in a racist country. This was an interaction between a police officer that I thought did the wrong thing, and a black man who was on drugs high, resisting arrest, and ended up being killed by that police officer. That’s as simple as it can be.

The President of the United States got out and made a fool of himself trying to promote racism in a simple police encounter that the officer got convicted on. “So you reject President Biden’s comment about systemic racism and it being a stain on the whole nation?” the host replied. “Yes, President Biden is an idiot in my personal opinion, and he’s just talkin’ because he’s a politician. Systemic racism – I mean if you look at Joe Biden himself, he spoke at a Klu Klux Klan-member’s funeral and did the eulogy of Robert Byrd … We don’t have a problem with racism in our country, we have a problem with people not following the law. We also have a problem with politicians making up things so they can get re-elected. And that’s exactly what has been happening. That’s why you never see anything change. They’re lying to us.

Read more …

Making friends.

Nassim Taleb Says Bitcoin Is An Open Ponzi Scheme And A Failed Currency (BI)

The “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb doubled down on his view that bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme and a failed currency in a CNBC interview on Friday. “There’s no connection between inflation and bitcoin,” Taleb told CNBC, adding that everyone knows bitcoin is “a Ponzi.” Some analysts view the cryptocurrency, often referred to as digital gold, as a hedge against inflation, highlighting its similarities with the precious metal. “If you want to hedge against inflation, buy a piece of land,” Taleb said. “The best strategy for investors is to own things that produce yields in the future. In other words, you can fall back on real dollars coming out of the company.” He also said bitcoin had failed in its supposed role as a replacement for government-backed money, mainly because of its volatility.


The author said he’d been “fooled” into thinking it could be a viable alternative to fiat currency but realized that a currency not backed by a government is “just speculation” and a “game.” “I was told it was going to be a currency,” he said, but “you don’t replace the currency with something that’s so volatile that you can’t really commit to a transaction in it.” Bitcoin’s price has swung wildly recently. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization inched near $65,000 ahead of Coinbase’s listing on April 14. Less than 10 days later, bitcoin slid below the critical $50,000 level, extending losses for the seventh day in a row. The decline below $50,000 has bitcoin testing a new technical support level that could signal continued weakness, especially after its 50-day moving average failed to hold as support. The broader crypto market has come under pressure after reports said this week that US President Joe Biden would look to double the capital-gains tax rate for wealthy investors.

Read more …

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Apr 212021
 


Paul Gauguin The wave 1888

 

Genetic Vaccines: Are They the New Thalidomide? (Merritt)
WHO Emergency Committee Rejects Vaccination Demands For Entry Permits (RT)
Vaccine Passports Are Something Made Up By Conspiracy Theorists? (OP)
Damning Data Hands Up An Indictment (Denninger)
The Lockdown Paradigm Is Collapsing (AIER)
Devastating Lawsuit Over Disastrous Bayer’s Monsanto Acquisition (NC)
Relations Between Russia & US Are Being Slowly Dismantled (Lukyanov)
EU Walks Back Claim of 150,000 Russian Troops Near Ukraine Border (Antiwar)
Ukraine’s Zelensky Invites Putin To Meet In War-Torn East (ZH)
EU Reaches Major Climate Deal Ahead Of Biden Climate Summit (AP)

 

 

 

 

Life insurance and COVID. Insurers have had zero reaction to the “increased risks”. There must be a reason for that.

 

 

I don’t feel like talking about George Floyd, too many already do. But I do find it curious that the jury was not sequestered.

Tucker Candace
https://twitter.com/i/status/1384671880116899840

 

 

Excellent long overview of all things Covid by Lee D. Merritt MD.

“Legally, those who get the vaccine are unnamed participants in a Stage IV FDA trial. “

Genetic Vaccines: Are They the New Thalidomide? (Merritt)

Many Americans have heard the news account of Dr. Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old Florida physician who, after receiving his first dose of a Pfizer COVID vaccine on December 18 of last year, was hospitalized three days later. He had a total loss of his platelets — the little blood cells that stop bleeding. In spite of being treated by a team of physicians, he died two weeks later from a brain hemorrhage, and was reported to have had zero platelets. By February 10, 2021, 36 other similar cases were reported in the mainstream media. Pfizer, which along with its partner BioNTech made the vaccine the doctor received, said in a statement that it was aware of the death. Typically, they concluded, “We are actively investigating this case, but we don’t believe at this time that there is any direct connection to the vaccine.”

Pfizer made this “finding” despite several unusual circumstances of the case. First, low-platelet disorders, known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), most commonly affect children, and generally follow a viral illness. Only 10 percent of ITP cases occur in adults, who usually present with a slow onset form of the disorder, referred to as chronic ITP. The disorder usually starts by someone noticing easy bleeding, such as slow oozing from gums or the nose, or bruises showing up without trauma. Rarely do platelets drop below 20,000, and generally treatment either reverses the disease or prolongs life for years in spite of the problem. What happened to this physician and the others seems to be a new previously unseen problem related to vaccination — despite the manufacturers’ claims.

Increasingly, vaccine manufacturers and government officials are following the sarcastic maxim from Samuel Shem’s novel of medical residency entitled The House of God that “if you don’t take a temperature you can’t find a fever.” In other words, if we don’t critically look at the actual recorded patient damage, we won’t find our products to be defective. Now, major media are increasingly getting on board, condemning “vaccine hesitancy” and pushing everyone to get vaccinated for COVID, discounting any dangers. But in the practice of medicine, we are supposed to employ the “precautionary principle” — above all do no harm. Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 “vaccines” are experimental, employing a genetic technology never before used on humans.

Ironically, many people who wouldn’t purchase the first edition of a new car line are lining up to take an injection they know nothing about, that has never successfully passed animal trials, that could never meet the required “safety level” for a “drug,” and is unapproved for the prevention of COVID except as an emergency experiment. Legally, those who get the vaccine are unnamed participants in a Stage IV FDA trial. Moreover, a vaccine is supposed to prevent disease. By that definition, these agents are not even vaccines. They are more properly termed “experimental unapproved genetic agents.” By admission of the manufacturers themselves, both the Pfizer and Moderna products only lessen the symptoms of COVID; they don’t prevent transmission.

[..] In truth, neither recipients nor their doctors know what is in these “vaccines.” Only a few people at the top of the Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca research groups really understand them. These mRNA injections produce a potentially deadly pathogen — the spike protein — in your cells. The Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer product says that it contains “a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) encoding the viral spike glycoprotein (S) of SARS-CoV-2.” If your immune system is strong enough to withstand this onslaught and create some immunity, you may survive the first onslaught. But even if you don’t die in the short term, mRNA is an epigenetic controller of DNA. Though this foreign synthetic mRNA doesn’t actually become part of your DNA to make you a “GMO human,” as some people have been worrying about, it can control DNA in ways we have yet to completely understand.

Read more …

But nobody listens anymore.

WHO Emergency Committee Rejects Vaccination Demands For Entry Permits (RT)

The WHO Emergency Committee has strictly rejected the use of corona vaccination cards as a requirement for entry permits. According to the panel, there is still too little clarity as to whether and how the vaccination prevents the virus from being passed on. The committee reiterated its previously expressed position on Monday and again opposed the use of vaccination records as a condition for resuming international travel opportunities. He cited the fact that there is so far no clear evidence of the effects of the vaccination on the transmission of the coronavirus. At the same time, health experts described such requirements as unfair because of the uneven distribution of vaccines around the world. They would deepen existing rifts between people from different countries, it said from the panel.

Instead, countries were recommended to rely more on quarantine measures for international travelers and to present other “coordinated, time-limited, risk- and evidence-based approaches to health measures”. The statement by the independent emergency committee that advises the World Health Organization (WHO) on pandemic issues comes amid concerns over persistent inequality in the global distribution of coronavirus vaccines. The pandemic could hardly be overcome unless all countries had access to sufficient vaccines, drugs and tests. The committee therefore recommended that the “emergency of international scope” declared at the end of January 2020 be maintained until further notice. The WHO had previously criticized the growing gap between vaccine use in different countries as a “moral scandal” and “catastrophic moral failure”.

The organization called on world leaders to promote a fairer distribution of vaccines. Nevertheless, the WHO Emergency Committee praised the progress made by the international vaccine procurement initiative COVAX and called on its member countries to support it. The program, within the framework of which a total of two billion doses of the corona protective agent is to be distributed worldwide by the end of 2021, is primarily dependent on poorer countries for deliveries with vaccines. In addition, the committee recommended that the WHO test new vaccines for their safety and effectiveness more quickly and that the responsible authorities in the member countries be strengthened. Risk monitoring should be strengthened, especially with regard to new mutated virus variants, he added.

Read more …

Double faced?

“.. the World Health Organization, who recently opposed the creation of a vaccine passport, is now working to do just that.”

Vaccine Passports Are Something Made Up By Conspiracy Theorists? (OP)

In March, the European Commission opened a proposal to create a “Digital Green Certificate” to allow travel inside the EU during the “pandemic.” This Digital Green Certificate would serve as a documentation that a person has been vaccinated for COVID, received a negative test for COVID, or has recovered from it. It will include a QR Code to ensure the authenticity and security of the certificate and will be made free of charge in paper or digital form. The Digital Green Certificate will have three certificates included within it including: • Vaccination certificates, stating brand of the vaccine used, data and place of inoculation and number of doses administered. • Negative test certificates (either a NAAT/RT-PCR test or a rapid antigen test). Self-tests will be excluded for the time being. • Medical certificates for people who have recovered from COVID-19 in the last 180 days.

According to Euro News, “Where member states accept proof of vaccination to waive certain public health restrictions such as testing or quarantine, they would be required to accept, under the same conditions, vaccination certificates issued under the Digital Green Certificate system,” the Commission said in a statement. [..] The instrument will be valid in all EU countries and will be open for Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway as well as Switzerland. It will be issued to EU citizens and their family members, regardless of their nationality. Other countries are following suit in the Digital Vaccine Passport scheme. But while the EU debates what sort of technology to use and what parameters will be included, various European countries are taking matters into their own hands, choosing instead to create their own versions of a vaccine passport, all varying between each country.

For instance, Estonia is planning to launch its own pilot program at the end of April. France is doing the same. In addition, the World Health Organization, who recently opposed the creation of a vaccine passport, is now working to do just that. And they are all working with the usual suspects – Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM and a host of other corporations. What is more likely is that European countries will all implement different versions of the passport and, in the midst of chaos, the EU will have to step in and standardize the process. The WHO will likely lead the charge in implementing the process worldwide.

Read more …

“The CDC’s own data proves they lied.”

Damning Data Hands Up An Indictment (Denninger)

I still can’t find 500,000 excess deaths caused by Covid in 2020; they’re simply not there among the diseases the CDC reported out and since the base risk is 1/50,000 even across half the population being infected we could only account for 3,000 deaths. It is thus clear that if in fact Covid-19 has killed anywhere near the number of people claimed those other morbid conditions, all of which are serious diseases standing alone, have to account for the increase between them. Indeed the most-common, by far (40% of additional deaths by disease) were due to heart attacks and the next was diabetes at 13%. Between diabetes and heart attacks, both almost-exclusively due to lifestyle choices and thus your personal decisions, 53% of the excess 120,475 deaths are accounted for. If we add in strokes, which also are largely lifestyle-related then we’re at about 2/3rds.

Among those diseases that are allegedly “the biggest comorbid factors” I can find only 120,475 more deaths that Covid-19 may have contributed to and which included those diseases as a causal factor in total. Did Covid-19 cause all of those 120,000 additional deaths or were they caused by, in the case of diabetes, strokes and heart attacks for example, the additional 50lbs that a material percentage of people put on during the lockdowns (and over 20lbs on average!) from eating takeout trash full of fast carbs and being involuntarily cooped up in their homes? We do not know so this can only describe an upper boundary or caused mortality — not a lower one. This analysis doesn’t mean even more people didn’t die with Covid, but an alleged “Covid” death that wasn’t accompanied by one of the CDC’s specifically-called out diseases.

The CDC “selects” these specific categories and ICD codes, I remind you, because they’re particularly large percentages of the whole among diseases that kill people. When the CDC says that only a few thousand people died of Covid alone this data is rather interesting wouldn’t you say? After all being shot while Covid positive, or ODing, dying in a car wreck or wrapping your motorcycle around a telephone pole in no way implies you died of Covid, does it? To so-imply or state is to deliberately deceive the public and inculcate fear; it is a lie. Yet the media and government have in fact said it did because they have repeatedly claimed more than four times the number of people who the CDC links to specific diseases in fact died “of” Covid-19. The CDC’s own data proves they lied.


How fear distorts perception.

Read more …

“.. the presence or absence of lockdowns in the face of the virus seem completely uncorrelated with any disease trajectory.”

The Lockdown Paradigm Is Collapsing (AIER)

It’s taken much longer than it should have but at last it seems to be happening: the lockdown paradigm is collapsing. The signs are all around us. The one-time hero of the lockdown, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, is now deeply unpopular and most voters want him to resign. Meanwhile, polls have started to favor Florida governor and lockdown opponent Ron DeSantis for influence over the GOP in the future. This remarkable flip in fortunes is due to the dawning realization that the lockdowns were a disastrous policy. DeSantis and fellow anti-lockdown governor Kristi Noem are the first to state the truth bluntly. Their honesty has won them both credibility.

Meanwhile, in Congressional hearings, Representative James Jordan (R-OH) demanded that Dr. Fauci account for why closed Michigan has worse disease prevalence than neighboring Wisconsin which has long been entirely open. Fauci pretended he couldn’t hear the question, couldn’t see the chart, and then didn’t understand. Finally he just sat there silent after having uttered a few banalities about enforcement differentials. The lockdowners are now dealing with the huge problem of Texas. It has been fully open with no restrictions for 6 weeks. Cases and deaths fell dramatically in the same period. Fauci has no answer. Or compare closed California with open Florida: similar death rates. We have a full range of experiences in the US that allow comparisons between open and closed and disease outcomes. There is no relationship.

Or you could look to Taiwan, which had no stringencies governing its 23.5 million people. Deaths from Covid-19 thus far: 11. Sweden, which stayed open, performed better than most of Europe. The problem is that the presence or absence of lockdowns in the face of the virus seem completely uncorrelated with any disease trajectory. AIER has assembled 33 case studies from all over the world showing this to be true. Why should any of this matter? Because the “scientists” who recommended lockdowns had posited very precisely and pointedly that they had found the way to control the virus and minimized negative outcomes. We know for sure that the lockdowns imposed astonishing collateral damage. What we do not see is any relationship between lockdowns and disease outcomes.

Read more …

“It looks like Bayer will eventually declare bankruptcy.”

Devastating Lawsuit Over Disastrous Bayer’s Monsanto Acquisition (NC)

The Bayer purchase of Monsanto has been described as the worst deal of all time, beating even the train wreck of Time Warner’s AOL acquisition. As we wrote in August: “Yes, nearly every penny of the $66 billion that Bayer paid for Monsanto has gone poof. Yes, Bayer is the first time in German corporate history that a public company got a majority vote of no confidence from its shareholders. Yes, Bayer is at risk of bleeding out over seemingly endless Monsanto-related liability claims (Roundup has so taken the center stage that what would ordinarily be a big-deal litigation drain, Dicamba, is treated as an afterthought). Unlike any other company ever facing similar litigation, Bayer has neither taken Roundup off the market, nor reformulated it, nor put a cancer warning on it. It looks like Bayer will eventually declare bankruptcy.”

The original filing did a devastating job of describing why Bayer was so keen to do the horrific Monsanto, and on such terrible terms: the above-mentioned all cash offer, which it funded by borrowing boatloads of debt. Bayer was small enough in the world of ever-growing chemical and Pharma behemoths to make for a nice meal. Acquisitive Pfizer had just had a big deal scuppered for legal reasons, and Bayer’s management worried it might be the next target. It settled quickly on Monsanto despite or one might argue because of its terrible reputation; it served as a poisoned pill. The litany of horrors goes on. Bayer was unable to do proper due diligence by being too close a competitor. Monsanto had to sell a trophy asset for anti-trust reasons….yet Bayer didn’t demand a price adjustment.

The acquisition process dragged on long enough that the WHO had named glysophate a probable carcinogen, yet Bayer didn’t beat a retreat. Bayer believed the scientists who insisted that glysophate hadn’t been proven to cause cancer, when the WHO designation was more than enough to set off a tsunami of product liability lawsuits, many of which garnered eye-popping awards (among the ugly facts that came out was that Monsanto employees wore hazmat-type gear when working with glysophate yet made no warnings about the need to wear protective coverings to consumers).

Read more …

Maybe not all that slowly.

Relations Between Russia & US Are Being Slowly Dismantled (Lukyanov)

If the proposed summit between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin goes ahead, it will attract the attention of the world’s media and give both men a PR boost. But nothing will fundamentally change. Russian-American relations have gone through some interesting curves on the road recently, leaving many commentators at a loss. Stern warnings, a military showdown, reported plans to deploy the US Navy to the Black Sea (subsequently apparently cancelled), President Joe Biden calling his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and proposing a face-to-face summit, followed by a new round of sanctions that apparently could have been worse but would do for now.

Next came Biden’s executive order that focused on the growing Russia “threat,” and then another invitation to talk in an address that Washington viewed as a gesture of reconciliation. All of this, and in such a short time, does seem chaotic. However, we will get some clarity if we consider two factors. First, what we are witnessing right now is the final stage in the process of dismantling relations between Russia and the US as they have existed for several decades. Second, most international players’ actions are motivated by complex domestic issues. Reacting to the challenges facing them on the home front always takes precedence, while foreign policy is either a secondary matter, or, if they are dealing with a major power that wouldn’t remove itself from the arena, it becomes an instrument for solving internal problems.

Let’s begin with the first factor. Since the late 1940s, Moscow and Washington have been each other’s main conversation focus. The dialogue has been confrontational in nature but pivotal for the global political landscape. It once was at the center of everything, because the two powers engaged in it had equal military and political capabilities. During the Cold War years, the parties worked out an efficient, functional system of stabilizing and rationalizing the confrontation. In the 1990s, parity disappeared in many areas – except nuclear capabilities. But it wasn’t enough for maintaining the core elements of the former type of relations – neither in their essential aspects, nor in ritualistic ones.

Significant advances were made at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, such as mutual openness or political and humanitarian contacts, but they didn’t change the nature of the relations. The two countries stayed rivals, but now with drastically different levels of power and resources. And as disagreements grew, the openness started evolving into a disadvantage. We are not going to analyze here what went wrong or discuss the very possibility of things developing differently. Today, Russia and the USA do not see each other as key partners – even in confrontational engagement. Each country views the other as more of a nuisance, getting in the way of executing their strategy. During the previous Cold War years, there was some mutual respect between the Soviet Union and America, as each country recognized its opponent’s ideological and political legitimacy. It is gone now.

Read more …

Hey, who’s going to check?

EU Walks Back Claim of 150,000 Russian Troops Near Ukraine Border (Antiwar)

The European Union had to correct a claim made by its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, concerning Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. Borrell told reporters on Monday that there were “over 150,000” Russian troops near the border. The number was corrected in a transcript of his briefing on the EU’s website to “over 100,000.” Despite the change, it’s still unclear how the EU determined that there are over 100,000 Russian troops near the border. Russia has announced the deployment of additional forces near Ukraine in recent weeks, but nothing has indicated it sent over 100,000 troops to the region. Last week, a spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed there were 80,000 troops stationed along the border of Ukraine, with 40,000 of them in Crimea.


The fact that Russia has troops in Crimea is no surprise. Moscow had a military base in the peninsula even before Crimea joined the Russian Federation in 2014. An alarmist report from the Daily Mail published satellite images that it claims show a Russian military build-up at a base in Crimea. But the base is located in southern Crimea, nowhere near the conflict zone in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Demonstrating that the Daily Mail report lacks any credibility, it repeats Borrell’s original claim that 150,000 Russian troops have amassed as fact. When asked about Borrel’s comments, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the situation is “concerning” to the US. “What I can tell you is, in general, we have continued to see this build-up increase. And again, that is concerning to us,” He said. While Kirby didn’t offer any numbers, he claimed the Russian troop deployment is “certainly bigger” than the 2014 deployment Kirby said resulted in a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Read more …

What would Putin stand to gain?

Ukraine’s Zelensky Invites Putin To Meet In War-Torn East (ZH)

Following on the heels of last week’s Joe Biden invitation to Vladimir Putin for a bilateral summit proposed for the summer to tackle a range of still simmering contentious issues, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has issued a surprised invitation late Tuesday for Putin to meet him in the war-torn east of Ukraine. In making the announcement Zelensky told Putin that such a direct high states meeting where the two leaders can talk de-escalation is essential as there are a “million lives at stake” in any potential outbreak of major conflict, according to AFP: “Zelensky told the Russian leader that he was ready “to invite you to meet anywhere in the Ukrainian Donbass where the war is going on”, adding that “million of lives at stake” in the conflict between government forces and pro-Kremlin separatists in the east of the country.”


Days ago Zelensky traveled to an area near Mariupol in Donetsk where he “walked the front line with the troops” amid renewed fighting with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbass region. Zelensky’s direct invitation to Putin to meet over the crisis came the same day Russia’s Defense Ministry justified its troop build-up in the South, particularly in Crimea and near the border with Ukraine, by calling it a necessary “deterrent” to NATO’s “destabilization” of the region. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that “Nato’s attempts to destabilize situations in the Middle East and Transcaucasian region force Russia to take symmetric measures of strategic deterrence,” according to an Interfax citation by Bloomberg. Following Biden’s proposal to meet face-to-face with Putin we and others noted that it appeared Ukraine’s leadership had been effectively sidelined by the two rival superpowers.

Read more …

Stop paying attention to these “deals”. It’s PR only.

EU Reaches Major Climate Deal Ahead Of Biden Climate Summit (AP)

The European Union reached a tentative climate deal that is intended to make the 27-nation bloc climate-neutral by 2050, with member states and parliament agreeing on new carbon emissions targets on the eve of a virtual summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. “Our political commitment to becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 is now also a legal commitment. The climate law sets the EU on a green path for a generation,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said early Wednesday. Under the provisional deal reached after officials negotiated through the night, the EU will also commit itself to an intermediate target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.


“It was high time for the agreement, as Europe has to show where it stands in view of the positive developments in the USA and China,” said European Parliament member Peter Liese, the negotiator for the EPP Christian Democrat group. The 2030 target had been 40%, but under the pressure of increasing evidence of climate change and a more environmentally conscious electorate, it was pushed up, although the EU legislature had wanted a higher target of 60%. Lawmakers from The Greens specifically complained that too many accounting tricks had been used to reach the level of 55% and that in reality the reduction would equate to a 52.8% reduction of direct emissions. Its environmental expert, MEP Michael Bloss said EU member nations and parliament “have rushed through a weak climate law for the sake of a photo-op with President Joe Biden.”

Read more …

 

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

 

 

The football SuperLeague has self-imploded in 48 hours. Here’s why Europe’s biggest teams wanted the league: their debts. They made a deal with JPMorgan that would give them some $4 billion. And even that was just a deferred loan, payable over 23 years. To get out of debt today, get in a worse situation in the future. Hey, goverments do it too.

 

 

 

 

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

 

Feb 102021
 


Claude Monet Houses of Parliament (Sun Breaking through the Fog) 1904

 

Nation To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve (BBee)
Mindless Lockdowns Destroy Lives — And Our Constitution (NYP)
Doctors Link Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines to Life-Threatening Blood Disorder (CHD)
Biden Team Fears No COVID Herd Immunity Until Thanksgiving (DB)
Trump Hid His Calls With Putin. Now, Biden Has Access To Them. (Pol.)
With Biden in Charge, Media Forgets Kids in Cages (MPN)
Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign Lives On Under Biden’s Command (ZH)
Trump Plans A Reemergence And Some Retribution After Impeachment (Pol.)
Trump Reportedly Shocked, Enraged By Bruce Castor’s Performance (F.)
Births In China Plummeted 15% In 2020 (ZH)
Mark Cuban’s Mavericks Won’t Play National Anthem Anymore (NYP)
Biden Continues Push For Assange’s Extradition Ahead of US Appeal Deadline (RT)

 

 

“I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–poor young clerks who loitered in front of the windows until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like a good time to open with Babylon Bee.

Nation To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve (BBee)

The nation is preparing to celebrate what is expected to become a beloved annual holiday: Two Weeks To Slow The Spread Day, to be held in March every year. “This time of year we like to come together to remember the historic day one year ago when we put on masks and locked ourselves down, trusting that the lockdown would be over in just two weeks,” said local man Paul Christof as he stared out his window longingly, his three masks securely in place. “This year, I’m going all out with a Zoom party with no more than five of my closest friends — I mean, closest, figuratively speaking, of course. We’ll be literally far apart, because I want to stay home and stay safe, and I don’t want grandma to die.”


Traditional festivities for the newly christened American holiday include remote Amazon gift exchanges, ordering DoorDash feasts for just yourself, and the customary binging of the Netflix. Historians believe the holiday will become a hit, and people will continue to wear masks and stay home throughout the year as the festive day is celebrated for hundreds of years to come.

Read more …

“The Constitution, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote, “is not a suicide pact.”

Mindless Lockdowns Destroy Lives — And Our Constitution (NYP)

The US Supreme Court on Friday made clear to Team Biden and state governors that the fight against the pandemic doesn’t give them a blank check against individual liberties. In South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, the high court struck down a California emergency regulation that prohibited all indoor religious services. Six justices held that Gov. Gavin Newsom had violated the First Amendment by subjecting religious groups to a complete ban, even while groceries, public transit and retail shops remain open. Americans accepted a broad — but temporary — lockdown of society to slow the pandemic a year ago. Yet many still live under unprecedented restrictions: business and school closures, travel bans, curfews, quarantines, limits on groups and mask mandates.

Whatever the health benefits of these diktats (and many are questionable), they have been handed down with shocking disregard for the costs: strokes uncared for, cancers left undetected, psychological anguish (especially among young adults), skyrocketing domestic abuse and harm to children from lack of in-person schooling. Unemployment from lockdowns, meanwhile, will cause 890,000 additional US deaths over the next 15 years, according to a recent study. Lockdowns also inflict great harm upon liberty. Governments overrode the rights to meet, work, speak, worship or organize. Bureaucracies decided which businesses could open and which should die.

Our legal system understandably defers to the executive branch during an emergency, when swift action can save lives. The Constitution, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote, “is not a suicide pact.” Emergency policies may prove imperfect, but our legal and political systems accept more mistakes during emergencies or war, because the costs of inaction are far higher. Still, our system doesn’t permit permanent dictatorial powers in the face of contrary data. In California, for example, the governor can unilaterally exercise any and all authority vested in the state, such as to impose quarantines and curfews, ration goods and services and regulate or even prohibit any economic and social activity.

Read more …

mRNA and auto-immune.

Doctors Link Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines to Life-Threatening Blood Disorder (CHD)

For the second time in under a month, The New York Times has published an article about people who developed a rare autoimmune disease after receiving COVID vaccines. Monday’s article featured two women, both of whom were described as healthy before they received the Moderna vaccine. The women, ages 72 and 48, are now being treated for immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a condition that develops when the immune system attacks platelets (blood component essential for clotting) or the cells that create them, according to the Times. On Jan. 13, the Times reported on the death of Dr. Gregory Michael, a Florida doctor who died 15 days after getting the Pfizer vaccine. Michael, who was 56 and described as “perfectly healthy” by his wife, developed ITP three days after being vaccinated.

He died of a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 3. As The Defender reported on Jan. 13, Dr. Jerry L. Spivak, an expert on blood disorders at Johns Hopkins University, said it was a “medical certainty” the Pfizer vaccine led to Michael’s death. Spivak, who was interviewed for Monday’s article in the Times, reiterated the link between the vaccine and ITP. Another doctor, Dr. James Bussel, a hematologist and professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medicine who has written more than 300 scientific articles on the platelet disorder, also said he thinks there is a “possible” association between the vaccines and ITP. Bussel told the Times: “I’m assuming there’s something that made the people who developed thrombocytopenia susceptible, given what a tiny percentage of recipients they are. Having it happen after a vaccine is well-known and has been seen with many other vaccines. Why it happens, we don’t know.”

Bussel and a colleague, Dr. Eun-Ju Lee, have identified 15 cases of ITP in COVID vaccine recipients by searching the government’s database — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — or by consulting with other physicians treating patients, and have submitted an article about their findings to a medical journal, according to the Times. In a statement provided to the Times, Pfizer said it was aware of ITP cases in vaccine recipients and that the company is “collecting relevant information” to share with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine maker added, however that “at this time, we have not been able to establish a causal association with our vaccine.” Moderna also provided a statement, but didn’t address cases of ITP, only saying that it “continuously monitors the safety of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine using all sources of data” and routinely shares safety information with regulators.

Read more …

Blind.

Biden Team Fears No COVID Herd Immunity Until Thanksgiving (DB)

Top members of President Joe Biden’s COVID response team are warning internally that the U.S. may not reach herd immunity until Thanksgiving or even the start of winter—months later than originally calculated—according to two senior administration officials. In an interview with CBS News this week, Biden hinted at some of these concerns, saying it would be “very difficult” to reach herd immunity—a population-wide resistance to the virus—“much before the end of the summer” with the current daily rate of approximately 1.3 million vaccine doses. Other top officials working on the federal government’s COVID-19 response say the are uneasy about vaccine supply long term and the impact on herd immunity, and have begun to explore ways to expand U.S. manufacturing capacity, potentially through new partnerships with outside pharmaceutical firms.


Beyond supply issues, though, top health officials say they are increasingly worried about the United Kingdom and South African COVID-19 variants, the likelihood that more variants will emerge in the coming months, and the possibility that those variants will evade the vaccines. There is some evidence to suggest that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect against the B117 United Kingdom variant, though a recent study shows a new mutation could make the vaccines less effective. Data gathered by the Novavax and Johnson and Johnson clinical trials in South Africa suggest their vaccines are less effective against the variant spreading rapidly in the country. And South Africa recently said it was halting the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine because evidence from clinical trials suggested the vaccine did not work well against the variant.

Tucker: Big Tech attempting to censor COVID-19 vaccine dissent

Read more …

RussiaRussia is alive and kicking.

Trump Hid His Calls With Putin. Now, Biden Has Access To Them. (Pol.)

Few Trump-era mysteries are as intriguing as what the 45th president said to Vladimir Putin in at least a dozen rambling, off-the-cuff calls and meetings over four years. Understanding what was said between the two could help illuminate whether Trump ever revealed sensitive information or struck any deals with the Kremlin leader that could take the new administration by surprise. Now that President Joe Biden is in the White House, he can see for himself. “They don’t need our approval to see those [records],” a former Trump White House official said, referring to the new Biden national security team. “Biden owns all the call materials. There is only one president at a time.” The Biden White House did not comment on whether it had seen the content of the calls.

But so far, at least, the National Security Council has not registered any complaints with their ability to access relevant call records from the previous administration. “It is a national security priority to find out what Trump said to Putin” over his four years in office, said one former national security official who is close to the new president. “Some things, like what happened in some face-to-face meetings where no American translator or note-taker was present, may never be fully known. But I would be very surprised if the new national security team were not trying to access” the call records. Trump closely guarded his private conversations with foreign leaders while in office, going as far as to have some hidden in the NSC’s top-secret codeword system to limit staffers’ and even cabinet members’ access and prevent leaks.

Readouts of their calls would often come from the Kremlin first, or through Trump’s Twitter feed. But while the calls were not recorded, aides were typically still on the line and taking notes of what was said. The resulting loose transcripts are known as “memcons,” or memorandums of conversation. Trump went to particularly great lengths to keep his in-person conversations with the Russian leader private, from confiscating his interpreter’s notes to forgoing American translators and notetakers altogether in their meetings. That desire for secrecy has extended even past his time in office. One former Trump official argued last week that records of Trump’s conversations with Putin, which often lasted an hour or more, should not be made available to his successor. “There are certain things a president and his immediate staff should be able to hold privileged to do the work of government, without being subject to constant partisan gamesmanship,” said a second former Trump White House official.

Read more …

Just give it a new name and you’re squeaky clean.

With Biden in Charge, Media Forgets Kids in Cages (MPN)

The Biden administration is opening a new child prison along the United States-Mexico border. The center, located in Carrizo Springs, around 100 miles southwest of San Antonio, is being specifically built for unaccompanied migrant children attempting to cross the border and will hold around 700 people when finished, although plans noted it will be expanded if the government deems it necessary. But corporate media do not see it that way. While the Trump years were filled with stories about “kids in cages” and ICE “concentration camps” along the border, they have instead almost universally referred to the new project as an “overflow facility” to help migrant children, as the following headlines demonstrate:

“Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CNN, “Biden administration to open overflow facility for 700 migrant children,” New York Post, “Biden administration to house migrant teens at overflow facility in Texas closed under Trump,” USA Today, “Biden Admin. to Open Migrant Overflow Facility amid Increase in Unaccompanied Minor Apprehensions,” Yahoo! News, “Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CBS. “Overflow facility” is a distinctly pleasantly sounding term for such an establishment, suggesting links to positively-charged services like swimming pools or libraries. The phrase is a completely new way to refer to prisons; a news search for “overflow facility” pre-January 2021 brings up only stories about COVID overflow clinics or emergency sewage treatment works.

The phrase “concentration camp” to describe the structure was completely absent. Searching for “Biden concentration camp” into news databases is more likely to generate stories about the plight of Uyghurs in Western China rather than domestic affairs. Perhaps the worst offender, however, was Fox News, whose headline informed readers: “Biden administration to open overflow shelter for migrant children in Texas” — a framing that invites the audience to see the move as a humanitarian gesture, along the lines of rape crisis shelters. None of the children who will be sent there will go of their own free will and it is doubtful whether many will appreciate the “shelter” that the U.S. government will provide them.

[..] Over much of the past three years, corporate media have been comparing the detention centers on the border to concentration camps, if not directly labeling them as such (e.g. CNN, Esquire, Washington Post). Data from Google Trends shows that phrases like “ICE concentration camp” were barely used until 2018, the term exploding into public consciousness a year later, especially after prominent Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began using it. President Biden has promised to rein in many of the worst excesses of ICE policy, yet the organization’s role in society will not fundamentally change. Indeed, during the time he was vice-president (2009-2017), President Obama deported well over 2.5 million people through immigration orders, more than any other president in American history, earning him the moniker “Deporter-in-Chief” from critics.

Read more …

Iran, Russia, China. Axis of ….

Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign Lives On Under Biden’s Command (ZH)

Tehran is continuing to reinforce its positions and pursue its interests. This is prompted by the fact that US President Joe Biden’s vow to rejoin the Nuclear Deal turned out to be entirely hollow. Iran demanded that the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration be removed, otherwise rejoining the deal meant nothing. On February 8th, Biden confirmed that sanctions on Iran wouldn’t be lifted, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying that such a “big policy change” wasn’t planned. To show some “reduction in pressure”, the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was pulled out of the region, in a signal that an escalation with Iran isn’t planned. That happened as Tehran, Moscow and Beijing announced they would hold joint naval drills.


In response, US Central Command’s Gen Kenneth McKenzie said that Iran was the “Main Driver of Instability”, in his first public address since Biden became president. McKenzie repeated a usual a US accusation against Tehran, claiming that for more than forty years it “has funded and aggressively supported terrorism and terrorist organizations.” The “maximum pressure” campaign is simply “on hold”, but is not canceled. [..] US and allied interests are being pressured all around the Middle East, as the Biden administration refuses to turn its back on any of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies. The withdrawal of the USS Nimitz CSG is a likely a welcome sign, but the sanction regime remaining, surely, spoils the party.

Read more …

Politico keeps the threat of Trump alive.

Trump Plans A Reemergence And Some Retribution After Impeachment (Pol.)

Three weeks ago may have been the nadir of Donald Trump’s political influence. A meager crowd of supporters gathered to send him off to Florida, he’d lost access to Twitter and the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell, seemed fully prepared to ghost him out of the party. Now, heading into what could have been an historic bipartisan rebuke, the former president and his team are confident both of his acquittal and that he’ll come out of the trial with his influence over the Republican party all but cemented. Not even Trump’s closest allies can believe the turn in fortunes. “He’s Teflon, right. It’s been a month since the Capitol riot and I would say, for the most part, the GOP has coalesced back behind him,” said a former Trump campaign official.

The confidence from Trump allies heading into the former president’s second impeachment trial — this time over the deadly riots by Trump supporters on Capitol Hill — may seem premature, given the lingering political and legal hurdles he still must confront. But it provides a road map of sorts for how they view his path ahead. Already, Trump aides contend, the impeachment process has proved beneficial to the ex-president — exposing disloyalty within the party’s ranks and igniting grassroots backlash against Republicans who have attempted to nudge the GOP base away from Trump. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse spent last week fending off constituent criticisms and censures from state party officials after he compared Trumpism to “a civic cancer for the nation.” And Trump’s allies believe the ex-president’s impending impeachment trial will further illuminate who the turncoats are.

“It’s going to help expose more bad apples that he can primary if any senators vote to convict,” added the former campaign official. While ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Trump has remained in touch with political allies and advisers. But he has intentionally kept a low profile, something that will likely continue this week. A former aide suggested Trump try to demonstrate his indifference to it all by spending much of impeachment playing golf, “as a way of sort of saying, ‘Who cares?’” Aides expect that to change once the trial wraps up though, with Trump gradually reemerging in public and turning his attention toward seeking revenge against Republicans who, he believes, crossed him after he left office.

Read more …

A knack for picking lawyers.

Trump Reportedly Shocked, Enraged By Bruce Castor’s Performance (F.)

Count former President Donald Trump among the many critics of attorney Bruce Castor’s widely panned performance on the first day of his Senate impeachment trial, with Trump reportedly outraged at his lawyer’s apparent inability to form a coherent argument, according to multiple reports. During Castor’s muddled, 50-minute speech, NBC News and the New York Times quoted an anonymous Trump source who said it was a “deliberative strategy” aimed at “lowering the temperature” after the impeachment managers’ emotional argument. But Trump had been prepared for his current impeachment team to be far less persuasive than the group of high-powered lawyers who defended him during his first impeachment trial, according to ABC News.


Still, Trump was “stunned to hear some of the arguments,” particularly Castor’s praise for his adversaries, according to ABC and the Times, which reported that “some in Trump’s orbit were unsure why Castor seemed caught off guard by video clips that were expected for days.” Trump was “deeply unhappy” with Castor’s performance and was “borderline screaming over what was going on as he was talking to people about this,” CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins said. Even Trump allies who voted to affirm Castors’ argument that the trial is unconstitutional lashed out publicly at his performance. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) told reporters Castor “rambled on and on,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he was not “effective.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters, “I thought I knew where he was going, and I really didn’t know where he was going.”

Read more …

“The collapse of the newborn population is really here..”

Births In China Plummeted 15% In 2020 (ZH)

Preliminary numbers assessing China’s births in 2020 released by the country’s household registration system are setting off alarm bells for Beijing, suggesting a continued severe population decline, given the new numbers for last year show a whopping 15% decline in births from the year before. “Concerns over the outlook for China’s population have grown after the number of newborns recorded in the country’s household registration system declined 15 per cent during a coronavirus-hit 2020,” South China Morning Post observes of the new numbers. “Last year, a total 10.035 million of newborns were recorded in the household registration system, known as hukou in China, down from 11.79 million in 2019, according to figures released by the Ministry of Public Security on Monday.”

While the hukou system only reveals preliminary information on total births across the population, it’s official demographic stats for COVID-impacted 2020 is expected to come out soon via China’s National Bureau of Statistics based on a once in ten year national census it recently conducted. As SCMP underscores it’s predicted that when total official stats do come out, expectations are for a further decline after previously 2019 saw “the lowest level since 1961” and down from 2018 as well. China is the world’s most populous country with the number of people commonly estimated at just over 1.4 billion. When the current working-age population hits retirement, there are fears the decline in births trend will severely impact the world’s second largest economy.

This also given the latest official figures out of the National Bureau of Statistics show that some 18% of the population is already over 60, with this ageing demographic to grow to one-third of the entire population by 2050. The SCMP report cited one prominent research economics professor to say the writing is on the wall. “The collapse of the newborn population is really here,” he warned, writing that: “Although we cannot deduce the decline in the birth population in these regions as the annual decline in the country, we consider that idea of having two children is weak and the number of women of childbearing age has decreased, so we need not anticipate further that the birth population in 2020 will drop significantly compared with 2019. The collapse of the newborn population is really here,” said James Liang, a research professor of applied economics at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, in a blog post last week.

Read more …

And we all care?!

Mark Cuban’s Mavericks Won’t Play National Anthem Anymore (NYP)

Haven’t heard about any national anthem protests at Mavericks games? There’s a good reason for that: Dallas isn’t and won’t be playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” anymore. Mark Cuban told The Athletic it was his decision to eliminate the tradition of playing the anthem before games. The move went by unnoticed through the first 13 combined preseason and regular-season games at American Airlines Center because the Mavericks did not publicize it, either within the organization or through an announcement to media. Monday marked the first game in which the Mavericks allowed a limited number of fans into their arena.


Cuban has been vocal about his support of those who wish to kneel during the playing of the national anthem, the practice which former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began in 2016 and which became a lightning rod for partisan political debate. The outspoken Mavericks owner told ESPN last July of the potential for his team’s players to kneel during the anthem: “If they were taking a knee, and they were being respectful, I’d be proud of them” and that he hoped he would “join them.” He later tweeted, in response to what he called “The National Anthem Police,” that if critics of the nonviolent protest of systemic racism in the United States took issue then they could “complain to your boss and ask why they don’t play the National Anthem every day before you start work.”

Read more …

Depraved.

Biden Continues Push For Assange’s Extradition Ahead of US Appeal Deadline (RT)

The Joe Biden administration will continue to pursue extradition for Julian Assange, the Justice Department said, rebuffing calls from rights groups to reverse course ahead of an appeal deadline in the WikiLeaks co-founder’s case. DOJ spokesman Marc Raimondi said on Tuesday that Washington has not abandoned plans for Assange’s extradition from the UK, noting that Biden will still challenge a January ruling from a British judge barring extradition over concerns that Assange might take his own life in American custody. “We continue to seek his extradition,” Raimondi told Reuters, signaling that the new Biden administration will pick up where ex-president Donald Trump left off in seeking to charge the anti-secrecy activist for his publication of classified documents.


The statement from the DOJ comes mere days before a February 12 deadline for the US government to submit its “grounds for appeal” in Assange’s extradition case, in which American attorneys will argue against UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling against the move. Calls on Washington to abandon the Assange case picked up momentum in the waning days of the Trump presidency, with activists and journalists across the political spectrum demanding he pardon the WikiLeaks publisher before his term was up. While Trump ultimately refused to grant clemency, much of the same pressure has carried over to the Biden administration, illustrated most recently in a letter from some two dozen civil liberties organizations condemning the indictments against Assange as a “grave threat to press freedom.”

Read more …

 

 

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

 

 

5% of humans in the blue, 5% in the red.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in 2021. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Jan 172021
 


Salvador Dalí Cadaques 1923

 

Further Year Of Covid Curbs Needed – Irish Official (IT)
55 Americans Died Following COVID Vaccination, Norway Deaths Rise To 29 (ZH)
Second COVID Variant From Brazil ‘Likely’ Already In The UK (Sky)
UK Children’s Welfare Becoming A National Emergency (G.)
A Year Of Lockdowns Can’t Take The Shine Off Goldmans Sachs Profits (G.)
Trump Trial Pending, McConnell Calls It ‘Vote Of Conscience’ (AP)
Should Donald Trump Skip Out On The Senate Impeachment Trial? (Turley)
Biden Fills Out State Department Team With Obama Veterans (AP)
Silicon Valley Can No Longer Conceal Its Power (Ferguson)
Massive Inflation in Shipping Costs. And the Reasons (WS)
FBI, State Officials Aware Early Of Major Steele Mistake, Ignored It (JTN)
Democrats Still Serve Militarism And Corporatism – Glenn Greenwald (RT)

 

 

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
– Confucius

 

 

 

 

No efforts to prevent infection, other than lockdowns and masks. But an entire year of it. Based on the illusion that mass mRNA vaccination can achieve herd immunity.

The “science” has stood still for a year.

Further Year Of Covid Curbs Needed – Irish Official (IT)

Another year of restrictions related to Covid-19 would be necessary before the number of people vaccinated would be sufficient to protect the public in general from the disease, a top health official has said. Meanwhile, close to 6,500 HSE staff are currently out sick with Covid-19, the HSE chief Paul Reid has stated. Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer at the HSE, said in radio comments that social distancing and restrictions in some form were likely for the rest of 2021 at least, until enough of the population could be vaccinated to grant general or herd immunity. “The answer, and not everyone likes it but it’s the truth… is that the public in general won’t have protection from Covid-19 for at least a year… In the meantime, it’s more important than ever to abide by the public health guidance so that we can stop the spread of the virus,” he told Máirín Ní Ghadhra on Raidió na Gaeltachta.


“We’re in the middle of the main wave now… and we can see the damage that has been wrought. The vaccine is coming, and we’ll come out of this if we can stick to the public health guidelines until everyone has been vaccinated.” Meanwhile, HSE chief executive Paul Reid said the hospital system is “completely tightening up” and has “formally gone into surge capacity”. The national critical care surge group had been mobilised and close to 6,500 HSE staff are currently out sick with Covid-19, with about 4,000 of those having been working in hospitals, he said.

Read more …

Not from the Pfizer PR squad.

55 Americans Died Following COVID Vaccination, Norway Deaths Rise To 29 (ZH)

Amid increasing calls for suspension of the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, the situation in Norway has escalated significantly as the Scandi nation has now registered a total of 29 deaths among people over the age of 75 who’ve had their first COVID-19 vaccination shot. As Bloomberg reports, this adds six to the number of known fatalities in Norway, and also lowers the age group thought to be affected from 80. “Until Friday, Pfizer/BioNTech was the only vaccine available in Norway, and “all deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said in a written response to Bloomberg on Saturday. “There are 13 deaths that have been assessed, and we are aware of another 16 deaths that are currently being assessed,” the agency said. All the reported deaths related to “elderly people with serious basic disorders,” it said.

[..] Norway’s experience has prompted the country to suggest that Covid-19 vaccines may be too risky for the very old and terminally ill… the exact group that ‘the science’ shows are actually at risk from this virus. Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths in Norway, Pfizer said in an e-mailed statement. The agency found that “the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations,” Pfizer said. However, it’s not just Norway as The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports that fifty-five people in the United States have died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports submitted to a federal system. Deaths have occurred among people receiving both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, according to the reports. In some cases, patients died within days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

“One man, a 66-year-old senior home resident in Colorado, was sleepy and stayed in bed a day after getting Moderna’s vaccine. Early the next morning, on Christmas Day, the resident “was observed in bed lying still, pale, eyes half open and foam coming from mouth and unresponsive,” the VAERS report states. “He was not breathing and with no pulse.” In another case, a 93-year-old South Dakota man was injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Jan. 4 around 11 a.m. About two hours later, he said he was tired and couldn’t continue with the physical therapy he was doing any longer. He was taken back to his room, where he said his legs felt heavy. Soon after, he stopped breathing. A nurse declared a do-not-resuscitate order.

In addition to the deaths, people have reported 96 life-threatening events following COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as 24 permanent disabilities, 225 hospitalizations, and 1,388 emergency room visits. It’s not just the old and frail, in Israel, which proudly lays claim to the greatest vaccination effort in the world (largest percentage of the population inoculated), As RT reports, at least 13 Israelis have experienced facial paralysis after being administered the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, a month after the US Food and Drug Administration reported similar issues but said they weren’t linked to the jab. Israeli outlet Ynet reported, citing the Health Ministry, that officials believe the number of such cases could be higher.

“For at least 28 hours I walked around with it [facial paralysis],” one person who had the side effect told Ynet. “I can’t say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was, but there was nothing beyond that.” Ynet quoted Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center, who said she did not feel “comfortable” with administering the second dose to someone who had received the first jab and subsequently suffered from paralysis. “No one knows if this is connected to the vaccine or not. That’s why I would refrain from giving a second dose to someone who suffered from paralysis after the first dose,” she told the outlet.

Read more …

Ever more variants popping up.

Second COVID Variant From Brazil ‘Likely’ Already In The UK (Sky)

The second of two new coronavirus variants from Brazil is likely to already be in the UK despite the government imposing a travel ban, a leading epidemiologist has warned. Eight cases of the first variant, which has a small number of mutations, have been identified in the UK. The second, which has been detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus and in travellers arriving in Japan, has not been detected in the UK so far. There are concerns that this variant could be more transmissible and reinfect those who have recovered from COVID, although such possibilities remain unproven. Professor John Edmunds has said he would it “unusual” if the second variant was not present here.

Professor Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In terms of the South African one, we had imported cases already by the time we put in additional restrictions for South African travellers. “For the Brazilian one… I don’t think there is evidence that we’ve imported cases of the Manaus strain, as far as I’m aware at least, but it is likely that we probably have quite honestly. “We are one of the most connected countries in the world so I would find it unusual if we hadn’t imported some cases into the UK.” The government banned flights from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde on Thursday after the emergence of the new variants, having previously banned travel from South Africa because of a new coronavirus mutation.

In addition, all quarantine-free travel into the UK will be suspended on Monday in a bid to keep out other variants. The new policy means arrivals from every destination will need to self-isolate for 10 days, or receive a negative result from a coronavirus test taken at least five days after they enter the UK. Labour accused the government of “closing the door after the horse has bolted”, saying the announcement was too late to have stopped the arrival of “worrying” strains.

Read more …

Mental health.

UK Children’s Welfare Becoming A National Emergency (G.)

Boris Johnson is facing demands from doctors, senior politicians and charities for a wide-ranging commission to examine the pandemic’s “devastating effect” on children, amid growing concerns about its impact on their education, development and mental health. A major coalition of child health experts warns that many families are being “swept into poverty” by the pandemic, which is set to significantly add to the 4 million children living in deprivation before the Covid crisis. In a letter to the Observer, they also warn of a “yawning gap” in attainment between rich and poor due to school closures, while the number of children facing mental health issues and distress will rise “with every day that lockdown keeps them isolated and uncertain about their futures”.

“Children’s welfare has become a national emergency,” says the letter, whose signatories include the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the National Children’s Bureau and some of the country’s leading child health academics. “An independent commission, to inform a cross-government strategy to steer children and young people clear from the lingering effects of Covid-19, could avert this deepening crisis. At present we have piecemeal solutions and stop-gap measures. The next generation deserves better.” It warns that the challenges have been made harder by a decade of cuts to services families rely on. Some 1.5 million children under 18 will either need new or additional mental health support as a result of the pandemic.

A third of those are new cases, according to the Centre for Mental Health. Lee Hudson, a consultant paediatrician and chief of mental health at Great Ormond Street hospital, said: “We know from the data that children and young people’s mental health has been deteriorating in this pandemic. Clinicians are seeing the effects of that every day: for example, the numbers of children presenting with eating disorders have dramatically increased. For children living in poverty, the risks are even greater. We’ve never needed a long-term strategy for child mental health more.”

Read more …

Remember the $10 trillion stimulus in a $21 trillion economy.

A Year Of Lockdowns Can’t Take The Shine Off Goldmans Sachs Profits (G.)

What is $900m to a Wall Street giant like Goldman Sachs? Relatively little, when it counts the drop in profits for a year of record-setting market swings and economic turmoil, all sparked by a pandemic. The firm should regard itself as lucky to be poised for profits of about $7bn (£5bn) for the whole of 2020. That average analyst forecast, compiled by Refinitiv, is a mere 11% drop from the $7.9bn it made in 2019, a year when the phrase “Covid lockdown” had never been uttered. The projected decline is smaller than the $2.8bn it put aside to cover a potential jump in defaults within the first nine months of the year alone, a number estimates suggest could rise to $3.1bn for the 12 months to December.


Those provisions pale in comparison with those of European peers such as HSBC, which already put by $7.6bn to cover Covid-linked loan losses by the third quarter. The bank’s results will emerge unscathed from the $2.9bn settlement it reached in October with global regulators and the US Department of Justice, over its alleged role in the 1MDB corruption scandal. The announcement came just months after Goldman agreed to pay $3.9bn to the Malaysian government, amid claims it allegedly turned a blind eye while $4.5bn was looted from the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Goldman bosses, including chairman and chief executive David Solomon, will feel the pinch of a $31m cut to their combined 2020 pay over the scandal, but hefty provisions previously put aside for the 1MDB case will largely cover the settlements.

Read more …

The GOP is tempted to turn on Trump. Opportunism pur sang.

Trump Trial Pending, McConnell Calls It ‘Vote Of Conscience’ (AP)

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is likely to start after Joe Biden’s inauguration, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is telling senators their decision on whether to convict the outgoing president over the Capitol riot will be a “vote of conscience.” The timing for the trial, the first of a president no longer in office, has not yet been set. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear Friday that Democrats intend to move swiftly on Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID aid and economic recovery package to speed up vaccinations and send Americans relief. Biden is set to take the oath of office Wednesday. Pelosi called the recovery package a “matter of complete urgency.”

The uncertainty of the scheduling, despite the House’s swift impeachment of Trump just a week after the deadly Jan. 6 siege, reflects the fact that Democrats do not want the Senate trial to dominate the opening days of the Biden administration. With security forces on alert over the threat of more potential violence heading into the inauguration, the Senate is also moving quickly to prepare for confirming Biden’s nominee for national intelligence director, Avril Haines. A committee hearing is set for the day before the inauguration, signaling a confirmation vote could come swiftly once the new president is in office.

Many Democrats have pushed for an immediate impeachment trial to hold Trump accountable and prevent him from holding future office, and the proceedings could still begin by Inauguration Day. But others have urged a slower pace as the Senate considers Biden’s Cabinet nominees and the newly Democratic-led Congress considers priorities like the coronavirus plan. Biden’s incoming White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Friday the Senate can do both. “The Senate can do its constitutional duty while continuing to conduct the business of the people,” she said. Psaki noted that during Trump’s first impeachment trial last year, the Senate continued to hold hearings each day. “There is some precedent,” she said.

Read more …

“It was a reckless speech — but, in a court of law, it would constitute protected speech.”

Should Donald Trump Skip Out On The Senate Impeachment Trial? (Turley)

In a matter of days, this country will face an unprecedented Senate trial. The Senate not only will try a president for a second time but will do so after he has left office. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris assures us the Senate can politically “multitask” to deal with an impeachment, an incoming Biden administration and a pandemic. However, the threshold question is whether this is constitutionally one of those tasks — and for soon-to-be citizen Donald Trump, the best defense may be no defense at all. In fairness, people on both sides are struggling to deal with this novel impeachment. While I have stated that I do not wish to serve as the president’s counsel, I have spoken to members of Congress and the White House on the historical and constitutional backgrounds for a trial.

From a purely strategic perspective, I believe Trump may be wise to skip any trial. For a notorious counterpuncher, avoiding a fight might be the most difficult decision of all, particularly because he has obvious defenses. First, he was denied due process when the House held an unprecedented “snap impeachment” without a hearing or inquiry even though a trial likely would not occur immediately. Even a one-day hearing would have allowed evidence to be discussed as well as a formal request for a response. Second, the impeachment article is poorly crafted and poorly conceived, built around assertions that Trump’s Jan. 6 speech to supporters was an “incitement to insurrection.” His speech raised potentially impeachable grounds; I condemned it as he gave it and opposed his challenge of electoral votes from the outset.

But as I wrote previously, it would have been far better to censure him for it in a bipartisan, bicameral resolution. While impeachment can be based on noncriminal grounds, Trump’s speech alone did not amount to criminal incitement. Absent direct evidence of intent, a criminal charge would likely collapse in an actual trial or on appeal on First Amendment grounds. Trump expressly called for his supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” He told them to go to the Capitol “to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” to “fight like hell” to challenge the election, and to remind unsupportive Republicans that their actions would not be forgotten. It was a reckless speech — but, in a court of law, it would constitute protected speech.

Read more …

Globalism wins.

Biden Fills Out State Department Team With Obama Veterans (AP)

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday filled out his State Department team with a group of former career diplomats and veterans of the Obama administration, signaling his desire to return to a more traditional foreign policy after four years of uncertainty and unpredictability under President Donald Trump. Biden will nominate Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state and Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs — the second- and third-highest ranking posts, respectively. They were among the 11 officials announced to serve under the incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken. The team “embodies my core belief that America is strongest when it works with our allies,” Biden said in a statement. He said he was confident “they will use their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America’s global and moral leadership. America is back.”


Among the others are: —longtime Biden Senate aide Brian McKeon, to be deputy secretary of state for management. That deputy position has been vacant for some time and McKeon and Sherman are expected to share duties as the department’s No. 3 official. —former senior diplomats Bonnie Jenkins and Uzra Zeya, to be under secretary of state for arms control and undersecretary of state of democracy and human rights, respectively. —Derek Chollet, a familiar Democratic foreign policy hand, to be State Department counselor. —former U.N. official Salman Ahmed, who also served as head of strategic planning in the Obama National Security Council, as director of policy planning. —Suzy George, who was a senior aide to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, will be Blinken’s chief of staff. —Ned Price, a former Obama NSC staffer and career CIA official who resigned in protest in the early days of the Trump administration, will serve as the public face of the department, taking on the role of spokesman.

Read more …

I’m not a fan of Niall Ferguson at all, but the topic demands attention.

Silicon Valley Can No Longer Conceal Its Power (Ferguson)

‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,’ George Orwell famously observed. He was talking not about everyday life but about politics, where it is ‘quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously’. The examples he gave in his 1946 essay included the paradox that ‘for years before the war, nearly all enlightened people were in favour of standing up to Germany: the majority of them were also against having enough armaments to make such a stand effective’. Last week provided a near-perfect analogy. For years before the 2020 election, nearly all American conservatives were in favour of standing up to big tech: the majority of them were also against changing the laws and regulations enough to make such a stand effective.

The difference is that, unlike the German threat, which was geographically remote, the threat from Silicon Valley was literally in front of our noses, day and night: on our mobile phones, our tablets and our laptops. Writing in this magazine more than three years ago, I warned of a coming collision between Donald Trump and Silicon Valley. ‘Social media helped Donald Trump take the White House,’ I wrote. ‘Silicon Valley won’t let it happen again.’ The conclusion of my book The Square and the Tower was that the new online network platforms represented a new kind of power that posed a fundamental challenge to the traditional hierarchical power of the state. By the network platforms, I mean Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google and Apple, or FATGA for short — companies that have established a dominance over the public sphere not seen since the heyday of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church.

FATGA had humble enough origins in garages and dorm rooms. As recently as 2008, not one of them could be found among the world’s largest companies by market capitalisation. Today, they occupy first, third, fourth and fifth places in the market cap league table, just above their Chinese counterparts, Tencent and Alibaba. What happened was that the network platforms turned the originally decentralised worldwide web into an oligarchically organised and hierarchical public sphere from which they made money and to which they controlled access. That the original, superficially libertarian inclinations of these companies’ founders would rapidly crumble under political pressure from the left was also perfectly obvious, if one bothered to look a little beyond one’s proboscis.

Following the violent far-right rally at Charlottesville in August 2017, Matthew Prince, chief executive of the internet service provider Cloudflare, described how he had responded: ‘Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the internet.’ On the basis that ‘the people behind the [white supremacist magazine] Daily Stormer are assholes’, he denied their website access to the internet. ‘No one should have that power,’ he admitted. ‘We need to have a discussion around this with clear rules and clear frameworks. My whims and those of Jeff [Bezos] and Larry [Page] and … Mark [Zuckerberg] shouldn’t be what determines what should be online.’

How the news works

Read more …

No, sorry, that is not inflation.

Massive Inflation in Shipping Costs. And the Reasons (WS)

The dollar-amount spent by shippers, such as manufacturers or retailers, on shipping their goods jumped by 13% in December from a year earlier, driving the Cass Freight Index of Expenditures to a new record (red line). The amount spent on freight is a function of shipment volume and freight rates:

The Cass Freight Index covers shipments by all modes of transportation, but is heavily concentrated on shipments by truck, with truckload accounting for over half of the expenditures, followed by less-than-truckload (LTL), rail, parcel services, etc. It does not cover commodities. The freight rates embedded in the index jumped by 6.0% in December compared to a year earlier. “Based in part on spot trends, the acceleration in freight rates is likely to persist in the coming months,” Cass said in the report. Shipment volume surged 6.7% year-over-year, given the Pandemic shift in consumer spending to goods that need to be shipped, from services that are not shipped. But shipment volume in December (red line in the chart below) remained below the levels of 2018 (black) and 2017 (brown) at this time of the year:

Read more …

To understand why, look no further than who organized and paid for the Steele dossier.

FBI, State Officials Aware Early Of Major Steele Mistake, Ignored It (JTN)

Shortly before the FBI used his dossier to secure a surveillance warrant targeting the Trump campaign, Christopher Steele met with State Department officials and relayed information suggesting Moscow was running an operation out of the Russian consulate in Miami. There was just one problem with his intelligence: The Russians didn’t have a consulate in Florida’s largest city. The anecdote, captured in contemporaneous memos and newly released testimony, illustrates just how bad some of Steele’s intelligence reporting was and how widely that was known inside the FBI, even as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was being assured by the bureau that Steele was deemed credible and there was no derogatory information about his work.

Kenneth Laycock, the FBI’s current Executive Assistant Director, was a section chief for Eurasian intelligence in fall 2016 when Steele made a visit to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec at the State Department. During the October 2016 meeting, Steele admitted he was leaking to the news media while working as an FBI informant, a violation of his confidential human source agreement. (He later was terminated for it.) And he also relayed the anecdote about the Russian operation out of the Miami consulate, which officials immediately flagged as false, according to Kavalec’s own notes of the meeting. “It is important to note that there is no Russian Consulate in Miami,” Kavalec wrote.

Laycock said Kavalec relayed her concerns to the FBI and that others working on the now-discredited Russia collusion investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane were also aware of Steele’s mistake. “Do you recall — just trying to jog your memory here in case you do recall — Ms. Kavalec conveying information to you that Steele conveyed to her information about a Russian consulate being located in Miami and that was an inaccurate assessment on Steele’s part?” a Senate investigator asked Laycock in testimony taken last year but made public on Friday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I recall a conversation about a consulate in Miami independent of what she had mentioned regarding what Mr. Steele said to her,” Laycock answered.

He added: “It came up in some other discussion regarding if there was a consulate in Miami, which we both knew is not true because we know where all the consulates and embassies are around the country. That’s where I would handle normally in my purview as the section chief of the Eurasia program. So when it came up in a discussion, it was like, we don’t have a consulate in Miami.” He said FBI headquarters was aware of Steele’s mistaken claim outside of Kavalec’s report as well. “Yes, independent of the Mr. Steele piece in here, it came up through other discussions,” he testified.

Read more …

“The Democrats are very good at creating a brand that is radically different from their reality.”

Democrats Still Serve Militarism And Corporatism – Glenn Greenwald (RT)

Democrats are cheering for censorship as a means to root out “fascism,” even as they serve corporate interests that continue to exacerbate the social and economic issues that gave rise to Donald Trump, Glenn Greenwald told RT. The acclaimed American journalist issued a scathing critique of the American Left during a conversation with Chris Hedges, host of RT’s On Contact. The interview will air in full on Sunday. Pointing to Donald Trump’s indefinite Twitter suspension, Greenwald accused Democrats of appealing to Big Tech to police speech that could undermine their hold on power, using the pretext of fighting far-right extremism to quash dissent. “They’re on their knees pleading with billionaires and oligarchs and monopolists and Silicon Valley to censor in a way that they believe is politically advantageous.”

He added that the crackdown on free speech was particularly egregious because it was being carried out by a “tiny number of Silicon Valley oligarchs” who operate outside of the realm of democratic accountability. Greenwald argued that the profoundly illiberal cheerleading for corporate speech-policing should come as no surprise to anyone, noting that the Democratic Party is funded by and “believes in” corporate power, despite whatever claims it makes to the contrary. “The Democrats are very good at creating a brand that is radically different from their reality. But essentially the Democratic Party serves militarism, imperialism, and corporatism.”

There should also be no illusions about whether the incoming Biden administration will be able to mend the deep political divide in the country, the American journalist warned. He agreed with Hedges’ premise that Trump won the White House in 2016 by capitalizing on widespread frustration over Barack Obama, and his VP Joe Biden’s, ineffectual eight years in office.

Read more …

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in 2021. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.