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Thursday, June 03, 2021

Links - 3rd June 2021 (1) (Covid-19)

Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News? - "We analyze the tone of COVID-19 related English-language news articles written since January 1, 2020. Ninety one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals. The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. U.S. major media readers strongly prefer negative stories about COVID-19, and negative stories in general. Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining. Among U.S. major media outlets, stories discussing President Donald Trump and hydroxychloroquine are more numerous than all stories combined that cover companies and individual researchers working on COVID-19 vaccines."
Of course, Trump being president had nothing to do with this. And criticising the media means you're a fascist

Politicians travelling during lockdowns show contempt for the rest of us - "While politicians tell us to let small businesses be wiped out, go without seeing our families, and say "Christmas is cancelled," they are driving to airports, standing in crowded lines, getting on airplanes, travelling to warm vacation spots, and enjoying their full taxpayer funded salaries at a time when the rest of us are locked down and restricted from enjoying freedom within our own countries.And none of them have resigned over this. They just apologize, and wait for it to blow over. What we are seeing now is something that goes beyond one political party. Politicians of all stripes are far too insulated from the pain caused by their policies, and have exempted themselves from the suffering of the rest of the population. They have the power to make the rules, while also possessing the power to insulate themselves from the consequences.This means our system is losing the idea of "public servants," and that is being replaced by entitled rulers, people who see themselves as a special, protected class that has the divine right to dictate to the rest of us."

When There Wasn’t Enough Hand Sanitizer, Distilleries Stepped Up. Now They’re Facing $14,060 FDA Fees. - "Thanks to media coverage, including here at Reason, of an unexpected and substantial fee imposed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on distillers who pivoted to produce much-needed hand sanitizer, the federal government has reversed course on what would have been a devastating blow to small businesses"

Australian gin distillery mixes up gin & hand sanitiser, customer falls ill

Coronavirus: heavy use of hand sanitisers could boost antimicrobial resistance - "Given that antimicrobial resistance already causes more than 700,000 deaths a year worldwide, it’s important we act with caution to prevent further impact."
So hygiene theatre is not just useless but counter productive

How a Covid-19 Vaccine Could End Up Helping the Virus Spread - Bloomberg - "A vaccine that protects against symptoms of Covid-19 could contribute to the spread of the disease if—and this is still just an if—the people who get vaccinated remain capable of carrying and transmitting the virus."
And this is before variants
Since covid hystericists can't abide by even 1 case of covid, we need to lock down forever

40 percent of Canadians suffering from mental health, addiction problems during pandemic: Poll - "nearly one third of Canadians report having gained weight during the pandemic, with women reporting higher rates of weight gain than men."

Opinion: The best available science supports allowing family and caregivers into hospitals, not restricting them - "at most, hospital visitors play a small role in disease transmission. For example, a study of more than 9,000 hospitalized patients in the United States found only one instance where a pre-symptomatic visitor with COVID-19 resulted in a patient becoming positive.In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence supporting the role of family and caregivers in providing the best possible medical care. They facilitate communication and decision-making, and act as patient advocates and substitute decision-makers when patients are no longer capable. Surgical patients exposed to visitor restrictions during the pandemic experienced delays in receiving medication, had greater difficulty getting out of bed, and were more likely to be discharged without their wishes being considered. The presence of family and caregivers decreases the rate of delirium, an acute state of confusion that can occur during hospitalization."

Police told not to download NHS Covid-19 app - "a source claimed the advice had been given because of "security reasons""

Another vindication of Sweden - "Sweden, which refused to enforce a full lockdown, is constantly confounding its critics. Gloomy predictions of tens of thousands of deaths and overwhelmed hospitals due to Covid failed to materialise. In recent weeks, Sweden has not experienced anything close to the rise in cases and hospitalisations that have befallen Britain, France and Spain. And now it’s clear the Swedish approach is also paying dividends economically. A new forecast from Danske Bank expects Sweden to experience a much shallower recession than the major European economies and the US. It projects a fall in Swedish GDP of 3.3 per cent this year, compared to 4.3 per cent for the US, 5.8 per cent for the UK and a massive 8.3 per cent for the Eurozone. It also predicts higher growth in the Swedish economy next year compared to other Scandinavian countries. This news makes difficult reading for the Sweden bashers, who argued that its less restrictive approach would prove just as economically damaging as full-on lockdown... Sweden has managed to safeguard civil liberties and protect its economy more effectively than others, all while keeping Covid at manageable levels"

Mortality in Norway and Sweden before and after the Covid-19 outbreak: a cohort study - "All-cause mortality remained unaltered in Norway. In Sweden, the observed increase in all-cause mortality during Covid-19 was partly due to a lower than expected mortality preceding the epidemic and the observed excess mortality, was followed by a lower than expected mortality after the first Covid-19 wave. This may suggest mortality displacement."

Sweden is flattening the curve, too - "When Sweden decided not to lockdown in March, we were told it would lead to nearly 100,000 deaths by 1 July. The actual total ended up being 5,490. Infections and deaths were falling from mid-April, pretty much at the same time as in most other European countries with strict lockdowns... Sweden experienced a higher death rate than its Scandinavian neighbours, people will say. True, but the trends in deaths tell us that the virus was already much more widespread in Sweden than in Norway and Denmark when those countries imposed their lockdowns on 12 and 13 March respectively. This suggests that they may not be useful countries to make comparisons with, despite their proximity.Arguably, a better example of a similar-sized country to Sweden – where coronavirus had also spread widely early on but which chose to lock down – is Scotland. Currently, Sweden has experienced a Covid-related death rate of 1,170 per million almost exactly the same as Scotland’s rate of 1,168... By December, death numbers were similar to those in April, leading to the Swedish government finally deciding to impose more restrictions. These include limits on opening hours of bars and restaurants, closing upper-secondary schools (for pupils aged 16 and above), and recommending (but not mandating) masks on public transport.The measures were still very modest in comparison with the restrictions and lockdowns imposed in most other European countries. Many were concerned that they would not be enough to stop the rise in infections. Indeed, governments across Europe assured their citizens that strict lockdowns were the only way to stop a surge in infections and to prevent health services being overwhelmed.Yet from the end of December, Sweden has experienced the same steady decline in cases as elsewhere... the surprising thing about the trends in Sweden is how similar they are to everywhere else, lockdown or no lockdown.This winter, cases across Europe have increased and then fallen at similar rates and similar times, irrespective of whether the country implemented strict lockdowns, like Scotland, England and France, or had lighter restrictions, like Sweden or Croatia.Over in the US, different states have tried different strategies and have reached similar results... perhaps one answer to why Sweden triggers so many is that it raises the possibility that had the UK relied more on guidelines and sensible safety measures, rather than enforced closures backed by criminal law, our hospitalisations and deaths would have peaked at a similar level, but without the terrible economic and social consequences of lockdowns. For some, that possibility is just too awful to contemplate."
The dangers of taking modelling results as "evidence"

WATCH: Oregon health official announces COVID-19 death toll dressed as clown

Christmas is not a crime - "such police behaviour would also be illegal. As human-rights barrister Adam Wagner has pointed out, police have no right to enter private homes without a warrant, regardless of what tier of Covid regulations an area is under. They cannot simply turn up, demand entry and start separating people. Police and crime commissioners must surely know this."

Prof Francois Balloux on Twitter - "I wonder what someone waking up from a one-year coma would make of this exchange ..."
"The connection between those demanding that schools open and the libertarian right is clear. They use schools as their battleground and children as their weapons. Figures like Balloux may vainly claim not to be their kin but their actions belie that. These are dangerous people."
"Ultimately it's the Great Barrington Declaration agenda, it has always been so. And their links to the US far right are well known. What a UCL professor is doing promoting this approach, now that's another question. One can only hope it's not deliberate"

Anti-lockdown activist, 46, is arrested over 'secret' hospital footage - "Gloucester Royal Hospital has hit back and insisted the wards are 'extremely busy' and accused her of 'intrusion' and upsetting patients filmed waiting in A&E. One doctor told MailOnline she had filmed a deserted outpatient area on a bank holiday Monday, hence why it was empty... 'Filming patients who are waiting in A&E without their consent is both intrusive and upsetting as maintaining patient confidentiality is key to our hospitals being a safe space for you to receive the care you need."

WATCH: DeBlasio dances with his wife in Times Square on New Year's Eve while everyone else is forbidden to enter.

Chicago Teachers Union leader pushes for schools to remain closed ... while sitting by a pool in Puerto Rico! - "Sarah Chambers is a special education teacher who sits on the Executive Board of the Chicago Teachers Union. She is also the Northside Area Vice President (Area A). Comrade Chambers is a revolutionary who has led four teacher strikes, and by PURE COINCIDENCE she doesn't currently want to go back to teaching school in-person because it could be unsafe and people will literally die of Covid. She does, however, still want a full paycheck. Wow, Sarah must be really concerned about Covid. It seems like the health and well-being of her wonderful students and committed staff are, like, top priority.By now it's probably clear that Ms. Chambers is taking Covid very seriously.So she's probably following all the Covid rules, right?No. She's not.SHE'S VACATIONING IN PUERTO RICO!"

The Teachers Union Has Become a Public Menace - "I am running out of patience with the public school teachers and their stubborn refusal to return to normal working hours and in-person teaching.Across the country, this attitude is hurting working mothers, as well as other union workers. It's damaging the public case of both public education and the need for a strong union in the workplace. Most importantly, it's causing significant damage to the well-being of children, particularly the underprivileged... if remote learning were an acceptable alternative, why would we invest in in-person public education at all? Given the failure of remote education to care for the intellectual, emotional, and physical health of children, teachers are actually disrupting the "key supply chain" that creates a well-rounded child thriving in society.Things are far worse for children with disabilities, children with abusive guardians, and those born poor. Children from poverty-stricken homes aren't just falling even further behind affluent ones in terms of education, though; 30 million children benefit from the National School Lunch Program which offers free or reduced meals to schoolchildren; two-thirds of them pay nothing at all, due to the circumstances of their families. Without in person teaching, those children are home without those crucial meals, at a time when many parents have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Four in 10 Black and Latino families are facing food insecurity, researchers found. The teachers unions resisting a return to school are disrupting the food supply chain that many lower-income children desperately rely on.Their recalcitrance is also furthering food insecurity in another way: While teachers can work online from the comfort of their homes, what about the parent of a remote-schooled child who has to stay at home and forego pay when absent from the workplace? The effect that the refusal to open schools has had on working parents is immeasurable, and it's a burden being borne disproportionately by working class people, people of color, and especially women. Recent data shows women leaving the workforce at four times the rate of men -- a number experts chalk up to the increased burden of having children home from school. Despite hungry children and out of work parents, teachers continue to cast themselves as the victims of the pandemic. Most recently, they have argued that demanding that they go back to in-person teaching would amount to "sacrificing" them to COVID, as one Georgia teacher put it, in hyperbolic language that is par for the course. The Federal Education Association went so far as to oppose full school opening until all children are vaccinated, something experts say won't happen until 2022.And that's the point: With the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus, the COVID spread is not going to end in the foreseeable future. If that is the standard for opening schools, it means pushing it off effectively indefinitely.It is a sad fact of post-pandemic life that we just cannot demand complete safety to resume out jobs. Millions of workers go to their workplaces which may be more unsafe than school buildings and live in multi-generational households with members from a high-risk population. This is an unfortunate part of life now, and that reality is not going to suddenly change. So why should the teachers union get a pass? When healthcare professionals, researchers, truckers, grocery store workers, and other essential workers went to their work in the early days of the pandemic, when so much was unknown, how can teachers refuse to go to work in the 2020-21 school season, when many of them are even getting the vaccine? There is now a trove of public health evidence that supports Dr. Fauci's recent statement, that "our default position should be to try to keep the schools open and get children who are not in school back in school as best as we possibly can." Why does the onus fall on other union workers to sacrifice at the altar of the wishlist of the teachers union?In addition to harming working parents and children, the teachers union intransigence does reputational harm to all unions. It's giving unions a bad name, making them look like incubators of pampered public menacing. And I say that as a proud member of a union!"
It's brilliant. Disrupt society and then blame others

Chicago Mayor blames Trump for distanced learning despite the teachers' unions refusing to return - "Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have been trying to come up with a plan to return to in-person learning but have been blocked by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)... Chicago Public Schools have been closed for in-person learning since March 17, 2020."

Shouldn’t teachers have to return to school after vaccination? - "How does a union have the right to vaccinate the teachers, but not return them to work? If the unions’ gripe is that teachers aren’t protected, but then they get the vaccine, doesn’t that make their argument moot? I want my teachers and my kids to be kept safe. But I also feel like the union is digging in their heels and refusing to relent—I just don’t understand what the issue is if teachers (and other school staff) get vaccinated."

2020 exposed the teachers unions for the frauds they are - "As time went on, however, the science became overwhelmingly clear that COVID-19 posed little risk to children and that schools were not a major source of transmission. It also became clear that distance learning has been a disaster both for students and for parents, especially those with limited resources.Over the course of the year, it has become glaringly obvious that unions insisting on long-term school closures were not concerned about their students’ health or teachers’ safety so much as they were interested in what they could gain from the shutdown.In Los Angeles, for example, one of the largest teachers unions in the state released a reopening proposal in July that was accompanied by a list of demands. These included — we kid you not — defunding the Los Angeles Police Department, implementing "Medicare for all," increasing taxes on the wealthy, and placing a moratorium on charter schools in the county. The purpose of this ultimatum was purely political, yet Los Angeles’s public schools remain closed to this day... Anyone who questions the teachers unions — health officials, other educators, even parents — is accused of recklessly endangering lives. The truth, however, is that the unions have behaved utterly selfishly while camouflaging their dishonorable conduct in the garb of social concern. The head of the country’s largest teachers union went so far as to say teachers are “being bullied into returning back to the classrooms.” The science, however, shows there is nothing unsafe about in-person education. Several studies have confirmed that infection rates among students and teachers remain extremely low, and health precautions that most schools have mandated make sure they stay that way. Teachers unions aren’t interested in the data. They’d rather spread deliberately exaggerated fears about the coronavirus so they can exercise power over local governments, encouraging teachers to walk out of the classroom if their schools reopen and threatening strikes if government officials buck their demands. Now, almost unbelievably, a teachers union in Chicago is suggesting widespread vaccination won’t be enough to convince teachers to return to the classroom. They just want to stay at home, sacrifice their students, and continue to collect their paychecks.  Unless city governments stand up to them, or unless good teachers decide to leave them en masse, these unions will continue to hold our schools hostage. Why? Because this is not about safety but about power.Even the Democratic Party, a longtime political ally of public sector unions, has begun to admit as much. California officials are griping publicly about how teachers unions have created a “state-sanctioned segregation” in the education system. And in New York City, government leaders finally turned on the teachers unions last month and decided to reopen the city’s schools slowly after hearing from thousands of angry parents. Unfortunately, these acts of political defiance remain few and far between. The majority of public school districts in metropolitan areas are still closed and will be for some time, preventing this country’s most vulnerable population from receiving the education to which it is entitled and obstructing millions of parents who cannot properly juggle jobs and stay-at-home children. This is due to teachers unions — organizations that should be education’s biggest advocate but instead fight against it."

BREAKING: Biden sides with Chicago Teachers Union to keep kids out of school
Ironic that liberals like to claim in other circumstances that if you refuse to do your job, you should be fired

Teachers unions are killing students with their selfish demands to keep schools closed - "Kids have virtually no life outside of school even in the best of times. Now, they go to school online. They do their homework online. They talk to their friends online. They are bullied online. And there is no respite from any of it. It's making them miserable, depressed, and suicidal. And to top it off, they are not major vectors of the disease. Neither is the age group that most teachers are in, under 55... Keeping schools closed is also destroying the educational system, and the educations of millions of American kids. Kids' grades are falling across the board. Numerous localities have reported on this, and many more school districts have simply forgone grades altogether. The actual logic here is that kids can't be classified as failing if they don't receive the failing grade. To save kids from failing, we just won't tell them they are failing. Turning report cards into lies doesn't help anything."

Opinion | The Problem With Coronavirus School Closures - The New York Times - "“I have taught at the same low-income school for the last 25 years, and, truly, I can attest that remote schooling is failing our children,” said LaShondra Taylor, an English teacher in Broward County, Fla.Some students don’t have a computer or don’t have Wi-Fi, Taylor said. Kids regularly miss classes because they have to babysit, or run errands, or earn money for their struggling families. “The amount of absences is mind-blowing”... I’ve been writing since May about the importance of keeping schools open, and initially the debate wasn’t so politicized. But after Trump, trying to project normalcy, blustered in July about schools needing to open, Republicans backed him and too many Democrats instinctively lined up on the other side. Joe Biden echoed their extreme caution, as did many Democratic mayors and governors.So Democrats helped preside over school closures that have devastated millions of families and damaged children’s futures. Cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., have closed schools while allowing restaurants to operate... Much of Europe pursued the opposite route, closing pubs and restaurants but doing everything possible to keep schools operating — and the evidence suggests that Europe has the smarter approach.In both Europe and the United States, schools have not been linked to substantial transmission, and teachers and family members have not been shown to be at extra risk (this is more clear of elementary schools than of high schools). Meanwhile, the evidence has mounted of the human cost of school closures. “Children learn best when physically present in the classroom,” notes the American Academy of Pediatrics. “But children get much more than academics at school. They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online.”One child in eight in America lives with a parent with an addiction — a reflection of America’s other pandemic. I’ve seen kids living in chaotic homes, and for them the school building is a refuge and a lifeline.America’s education system already transmits advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next... School closures magnify these inequities, as many private schools remain open and affluent parents are better able to help kids adjust to remote learning. At the same time, low-income children fall even further behind... Research from Argentina and Belgium on school strikes indicates that missing school inflicts long-term damage on students (boys seem particularly affected, with higher dropout rates and lower incomes as adults). McKinsey & Company has estimated that in this pandemic, school closures may lead to one million additional high school dropouts.Dropouts live shorter lives, so while the virus kills, so do school closures. One study this month estimated that closures of primary schools in the United States will cause many more years of life lost, because of increasing numbers of dropouts, than could be saved even if schools did spread the virus freely."
More proof that lockdowns kill more than covid. But since only covid deaths count to covid hystericists...

De Blasio defends withholding COVID funds from Catholic schools - "Mayor Bill de Blasio defended not paying for COVID-19 testing at the city’s Catholic schools on Tuesday."

Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen - The New York Times - "Since schools shut their doors in March, an early-warning system that monitors students’ mental health episodes has sent more than 3,100 alerts to district officials, raising alarms about suicidal thoughts, possible self-harm or cries for care. By December, 18 students had taken their own lives.The spate of student suicides in and around Las Vegas has pushed the Clark County district, the nation’s fifth largest, toward bringing students back as quickly as possible... Mental health advocacy groups warned that the student demographics at the most risk for mental health declines before the pandemic — such as Black children and L.G.B.T.Q. students — were among those most marginalized by the school closures."

CDC Makes The Case For Schools Reopening - "Data from K-12 schools that reopened for in-person instruction in the fall show little evidence that schools contributed meaningfully to the spread of COVID-19, according to a new article published Tuesday in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association. The overview from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authored by three of its scientists, represents the clearest view yet of the facts behind what has become a heated debate over when and how schools should reopen... Meanwhile, evidence mounts of the social, emotional and academic toll remote learning has taken on children, especially in already vulnerable, low-income communities."
Maybe schools should pretend that lessons are BLM protests

Randall Denley: Ontario can't explain why it's keeping schools closed and hurting kids - "Reopening schools has well-known benefits, but they are being trumped by fear of children getting sick. Recent experience would suggest otherwise. The anticipated tsunami of infections didn’t happen when the province’s schools reopened in September. Since that time, only one per cent of schools have closed because of outbreaks.The real problem came during Christmas holidays, when children interacted freely without the supervision that schools offer. At that time, the number of cases among those four to 11 years of age went up 117 per cent. Reopening schools does pose an unusual dilemma for the provincial government. Schools were closed after the Christmas break without the province explaining exactly what the sector-specific problem was. It’s difficult to argue that the threat level is acceptable now when no one has clearly explained what was unacceptable in the first place.The fundamental problem is that Ontario’s COVID-19 policy has become untethered from most facts and numbers. That started when the government shelved its colour-coded restrictions plan, which relied on discernible, factual triggers for action. They were over-ridden when the Ford government ordered a province-wide lockdown December 26 and followed that with a stay-at-home order January 14."

Randall Denley: Doug Ford's nonsensical Ontario-wide lockdown is his dumbest move yet - "There is a significant COVID problem in Toronto, the GTA and Windsor-Essex. That’s not going to be helped one bit by shutting down everyday life in Ottawa, Northern Ontario and other areas where COVID numbers are light. In his media conference, Ford tried to portray the lockdown as protecting the low-COVID areas from hordes of invading sick people. He specifically cited Ottawa, a city of one million people that has only 19 COVID cases in hospital, none in intensive care and just 378 active cases. Apparently, the city faces the hitherto unperceived threat of “droves” of Quebecers surging across the border to infect the populace. Either those droves are facing a long drive, or they will come from Gatineau, the neighbouring Quebec municipality, which has 28 COVID cases in hospital, zero in intensive care and a total of 404 active cases.Ford asserted that health officials are telling him that people from high-caseload areas are spreading the virus to other areas. Maybe so, but those health officials didn’t offer any proof of that in their own briefing and the numbers would suggest it’s not significant. Even if Ford’s fears for Ottawa are correct, there is a far simpler solution: close the bridges to Quebec. Quebecers closed their side earlier this year, so they could hardly complain.The Ottawa “reasoning” was just one example of a rich buffet of irrationality Ford had on offer. “Schools are not part of the problem,” the premier stated, but he’s closing them for weeks anyway. He repeatedly told Ontarians that they could be on the brink of a “catastrophic” situation. Why, just look at what’s happening to the William Osler Health System, which runs hospitals in Brampton and Etobicoke. Ford brought hospital CEO Dr. Naveed Mohammad to talk about how bad it was. So, get him some help; don’t shut down the entire province over it. Ford and his team asserted that the province’s surgical backlog is now such a problem that the lockdown is necessary to maintain surgical capacity. Ontario’s health care system sat on its hands all summer when COVID case numbers were low, failing to seize the opportunity to reduce the surgical backlog. It didn’t seem to bother the government back then.The question of hospital capacity is fundamental to justifying the lockdown, and yet the government boasts that it created 3,100 new hospital beds to help with the pandemic. Now, we’re told that the whole hospital system starts to melt down when 300 intensive care beds are dedicated to COVID patients. Something doesn’t add up. In their earlier briefing, Ford’s health experts spoke lovingly of the lockdown measures imposed in France and the Australian state of Victoria. Both involved curfews and severe restrictions on all personal movement. You can still walk a dog in France, but don’t go more than a kilometre from home. These types of restrictions border on mass house arrest, but Ontario’s experts like them because they do bring COVID numbers down. Quelle surprise!Those severe restrictions are effective in the same sense that amputation below the knee is a sure-fire cure for a sprained ankle. Nevertheless, provincial health experts are going to get their lockdown, and from what they said Monday, the longer the better. Four weeks would make them happy, six weeks ecstatic... In early November, his government laid out five levels of health-protecting restrictions and offered clear and valid thresholds for moving from one level to another. It wasn’t just another government document. It was a deal with people and businesses. These were the rules of the game. Now, the premier has discarded those rules and replaced them with anecdotes from the worst-hit hospitals and the advice of the most passionate lockdown enthusiasts.Ford could have imposed more severe restrictions in the most affected areas, creating the maximum benefit for the minimum harm while staying consistent with the approach he has taken for months, balancing health and economic concerns.Instead, he is telling people in areas where COVID numbers are low to lock down like Armageddon is at hand. Imposing stupid rules encourages people to ignore government rules, including the ones that are necessary. That would be a big problem."
Political incentives strike again!

Covid school closures could cost each pupil £40,000 over working life - "School closures could cost each British pupil up to £40,000 in lost earnings over the course of their lifetime... Robert Halfon, the Tory chairman of the Commons education select committee, warned on Sunday that restrictions on schools were "literally destroying life chances" for British children.He told The Telegraph: "The schools closure is the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding towards every pupil in terms of educational poverty, a mental health crisis, safeguarding and now damaging their economic chances on the ladder of opportunity."... The report highlights the difficulties and inequalities in accessing high-quality remote learning, citing a Dutch study which found that little educational progress was made by pupils learning remotely when schools shut for eight weeks last spring, with the negative effects 50 per cent worse for disadvantaged children."

The Biden administration’s muddled message on reopening schools - The Washington Post - "Teachers unions aren’t yet on board with the plan. That does make this touchy in advance of official guidance from Walensky and the CDC. Even if you don’t believe that the Biden administration is kowtowing to the unions, bringing them along through the process — given that teachers could ultimately decide whether they feel safe showing up in person — is a valid pursuit.But we also just came out of four years when the top health officials in the Trump administration were, by their own accounts, muzzled. Indeed, in the same interview Walensky gave Maddow on Wednesday night, she spoke to this extensively. Even if her message wasn’t quite ready for prime time or she might have gotten over her skis a little before the official guidance is provided, that’s probably something she should explain. Otherwise it looks like she said something that made the White House politically uncomfortable. The “personal capacity” explanation, in particular, is very difficult to swallow.It’s also worth noting that Maddow challenged Walensky on the unions’ stance, and Walensky seemed to double down... Given the apparent possibility that the CDC might soon be at odds with teachers unions on this important point, Psaki was asked Thursday about former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s statement that Biden should stand up to the unions.Again, a fair response would be: Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. But instead, Psaki said, “I think that’s a little bit unfair how you pose that question.” Except it’s a very distinct possibility and a fair question based on Walensky’s comments — not to mention what high-profile Democrats such as Newsom and Bloomberg have said about the looming tension. It’s hardly setting up a false choice, based on everything we know."
"Political interference" is only bad when Trump does it

Merkel 'pressured scientists to call for school closures' - "Angela Merkel has been accused of pressuring independent scientific advisers to call for school closures as part of the coronavirus lockdown."

Schools Aren't Super-Spreaders - The Atlantic - "In early August, the first kids in America went back to school during the pandemic. Many of these openings happened in areas where cases were high or growing: in Georgia, Indiana, Florida. Parents, teachers, and scientists feared what might happen next. The New York Times reported that, in parts of Georgia, a school of 1,000 kids could expect to see 20 or 30 people arrive with COVID-19 during week one. Many assumed that school infections would balloon and spread outward to the broader community, triggering new waves. On social media, people shared pictures of high schools with crowded hallways and no masking as if to say I told you so... We are starting to get an evidence-based picture of how school reopenings and remote learning are going (those photos of hallways don’t count), and the evidence is pointing in one direction. Schools do not, in fact, appear to be major spreaders of COVID-19... One might argue, again, that any risk is too great, and that schools must be completely safe before local governments move to reopen them. But this approach ignores the enormous costs to children from closed schools. The spring interruption of schooling already resulted in learning losses; Alec MacGillis’s haunting piece in The New Yorker and ProPublica highlights the plight of one child unable to attend school in one location, but it’s a marker for more. The children affected by school closures are disproportionately low-income students of color. Schools are already unequal; the unequal closures make them more so. Virtual school is available, but attendance levels are not up to par. Pediatricians have linked remote schooling to toxic stress... Democratic governors who love to flaunt their pro-science bona fides in comparison with the anti-science Trump administration don’t seem to be aware of this growing body of evidence. On Monday, for instance, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claimed that businesses were not “mass spreaders,” as opposed to schools, and subsequently announced that he would close schools in hot-spot areas."
"Science" is what you want to believe

North Korea issues shoot-to-kill orders to prevent virus: US

Coronavirus pandemic hurting efforts to curb child mortality: UN
Better that a 1 year old kid dies than a 85 year old who only has a few years left to live!

Gad Saad - Posts | Facebook - "The politics of hysteria:
1) Elect us so that we can redistribute trillions of dollars otherwise climate change will end the world.
2) Elect us so that we can keep you in COVID lockdown indefinitely (presuming that climate change does not kill us first).
Bruh, science."

SBS Transit driver denies entry to man wearing neck gaiter, halts bus service & is accused of racism - "He interpreted the driver's actions as being racially motivated, and repeatedly called attention to the fact that the driver did not speak English."This is the problem when you have China people working in Singapore""
When you're used to seeing racism everywhere...

Biden Got the Coronavirus Death Toll Wrong - "Joe Biden claimed "200,000 dead, 7 million infected [with the coronavirus] in the United States. We have 5 percent, 4 percent of the world population; 20 percent of the deaths."It is a theme that Biden has repeatedly raised. But it isn't true. It is better than his typical approach of not accounting for the population's size in the United States relative to other countries. But it ignores the unreliable COVID-19 data from other large countries, most notably China and Russia, which have underreported infections and deaths. More importantly, Biden's claim doesn't acknowledge that the U.S. counts coronavirus deaths differently from other countries. Indeed, we are counting deaths differently than we have for any other disease."The case definition is very simplistic," Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. "It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it's still listed as a COVID death."... Medical examiners from Colorado to Michigan use the same definition Ezike described. In Macomb and Oakland Counties in Michigan, where most of the deaths in that state occurred, medical examiners classify any death as a coronavirus death when the postmortem test is positive. Even people who died in suicides and automobile accidents meet that definition. Such expansive definitions are not the fault of rogue public health officials. The rules direct them to do this. "If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death," White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx noted multiple times. Beyond including people with the virus who clearly didn't die from it, the numbers are inflated by counting people who weren't even infected. New York has classified many cases as coronavirus deaths even when postmortem tests have been negative. The diagnosis can be based on symptoms, which are often similar to those of the seasonal flu. The Centers for Disease Control guidance acknowledges the uncertainty that doctors face when identifying causes of death. When coronavirus cases are "suspected," the agency counsels doctors that "it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate."... Nor can this be explained by false-negative results in the tests. For the five most commonly used tests, the least reliable test still scored a 96 percent accuracy rate in laboratory settings. Some doctors report feeling pressure from hospitals to list deaths as coronavirus deaths, even when they don't believe COVID-19 is the true cause, "to make it look a little bit worse than it is." They said they never faced such pressure in reporting deaths from the seasonal flu. There are financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to report deaths this way. The CARES Act adds a 20 percent premium for COVID-19 Medicare patients. Birx and others are also concerned that the CDC's "antiquated" accounting system is double counting cases and inflating mortality and case counts "by as much as 25 percent." When all these anomalies are added up, it becomes apparent that we simply don't have an accurate coronavirus death toll. But it seems clear that at least two-thirds of the reported fatalities are actually due to causes other than the coronavirus. Meanwhile, The Washington Post, New York Times and others claim that we are undercounting the true number of deaths. They reach that conclusion by pointing to the fact that the total number of deaths from all causes was about 30 percent greater than we would typically expect from March through early May. They then conclude that the excess is due to deaths not being accurately labeled as coronavirus fatalities.But these are not normal times. Many people with heart problems aren't going to the hospital for fear of the virus. Delaying cancer surgeries and other serious medical treatments for months has real impacts on life expectancies. The stress of the situation is almost certainly increasing suicides and other illnesses. This is not to minimize the direct threat coronavirus poses: Even if the true death toll is closer to 60,000 than 200,000, this pandemic is a big deal. But we need some perspective. During the 2017-18 flu season, 61,000 Americans died from the flu. The number of cases is also greatly exaggerated, with many states counting the number of positive tests rather than the number of individuals with the virus. In July, CovidTracking.com found that about half the states were reporting "tests in units of specimens (tests) rather than individuals (people tested)." This is a problem because, if someone is in the hospital for a couple of weeks, he or she might be tested daily.All these data problems make it very difficult to determine how the U.S. is doing relative to other countries or even relative to other diseases. But the media should at the very least demand that Biden put things in per capita rates. Joe Biden may get some political mileage from misrepresenting the coronavirus death numbers, but exaggerating the problem also causes harm. The lack of fact-checking on Biden's claims is disturbing. The false claims keep businesses shut down and people from going to hospitals when they need help. It increases suicides. Inflated numbers mislead people and cause them to make mistakes."
No wonder the US has the most covid deaths in the world
This means that the covid hystericist claim that covid deaths are measured the same way as AIDS deaths is wrong (since you
don't even need a positive test, even) and you really need to distinguish between deaths of covid and deaths with covid, at least in the US
Of course Timothy Allen, the governor of the College of American Pathologists and chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center is going to be dismissed as a far right conspiracy theorist and covid denier
One covid hystericst claimed that we can ignore what medical experts say if it's published in an op-ed. Presumably that only applies to medical experts who say that we're over-reacting to covid, since covid hystericists also dismiss peer-reviewed research that they don't like

Inflated COVID-19 death counts could cause vaccine trepidation - "For example, in Colorado, a county coroner is disputing the state’s official COVID-19 death count, after the state counted two victims of a murder-suicide as fatalities of COVID-19... Brock says this problem is a statewide issue. “I got replies back from 80 percent of the coroners in the state all stating the same thing. They’ve all had the same problems, and these are in small counties, so it’s easy for us to keep track of our numbers,” said Brock.Unsurprisingly, the problem of overestimating COVID-19 deaths is not limited to Colorado.According to a new report from the Freedom Foundation, the same thing is occurring in Washington state... If the government is misleading the public about the actual number of COVID deaths, public trust in government will wane, which is the last thing we need as the government tries to convince millions of Americans to voluntarily receive a government-approved vaccine."

Van Jones: Start screaming this to the black community
Telling people to take care of their health is victim blaming!

WHO inspector's denial of bats in Wuhan lab contradicted by facts - "Researchers have uncovered accounts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists and applications for patents for bat breeding that refute World Health Organization (WHO) inspector Peter Daszak's claims that the lab does not house live bats captured in the wild... In an archived article from ScienceNet.cn which has since been scrubbed from the internet, WIV scientist Zhang Huajun praised Shi for helping to feed the bats while the interns were out for the Lunar New Year holiday:"

WHO covered up COVID-19 outbreak at Geneva headquarters
How fitting

Covid in Europe: Death tolls soar and hospitals struggle as containment unravels
Damn Trump! The winter surge in Europe shows how awful in controlling covid he was!

Wilfred Reilly on Twitter - "There is no logical/mathematical argument that people should take an anti-viral vaccine that is 95+% effective - per Israeli data - against a virus that itself poses a 1/5,000 risk of death to healthy non-seniors...and then continue wearing 2-3 face masks and socially isolating.
(2) I keep saying this, because the underlying argument here is so dangerous for freedom: "If you have a 1/20 chance...of causing me a 1/5K risk...given (say) 1/100 odds you HAVE The Thing on Day X...stay inside!!!"This logic could be used to ban literally anything."

Police bust another Brampton house party with more than 200 people inside
Damn racism causing minorities to be more affected by covid!

Chinese state media claims 'all available evidence' suggests coronavirus came to country via imported frozen food - "The claim was also pushed by the Chinese tabloid Global Times, but it has been disputed by health experts worldwide, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said there is “no evidence” handling or consuming food transmits the disease... The social media platform Twitter has been criticized since China’s claim was reported for not warning users of possible “misinformation” in a similar fashion to how the company handles concerns of other coronavirus claims or voter fraud."

🤡 Cuomo calls cops who refuse to enforce Covid holiday restrictions "dictators" - "Cuomo's remarks were likely in reference to New York Fulton County Sheriff Richard C. Giardino and others who have publically stated that they will not be enforcing the Governor's holiday Covid restrictions. They say their jurisdiction does not extend to private residences and also express concerns over the constitutionality of the orders themselves."

Maskless NthoJ Gov. Murphy Confronted While Dining Out After Restricting Gatherings: 'You're Such a D**k' - "Frustrated residents confronted New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), as captured by a viral video posted Sunday, calling him a “dick” upon noticing him dining out with his maskless family — a public dinner that occurred after he opted to tighten coronavirus restrictions and urged people to keep their holiday gatherings “as small as possible.”"

HYPOCRITE: Denver mayor tells residents not to travel for holidays, then takes off to visit family - "Michael Hancock, the Democratic mayor of Denver, got on a flight to Houston on Wednesday to visit family, after telling his constituents to avoid travel."
Dr. Deborah Birx told Americans to stay home for the holidays then traveled to her vacation home with family
"if someone who is highly educated, and privy to all the information about this virus is not afraid, or fearful of putting their own family at risk, what does that tell you about the risk?"
Ditto for all the other politicians who break their own covid rules

Mayor calls for “zero tolerance” for Covid rule breakers, and then goes and breaks the rules hours later. - "Windsor, Canada Mayor Drew Dilkens joined several other mayors in calling for "zero tolerance" when it came to following Covid restrictions.Unfortunately, Windsor-Essex had gone into code yellow which reduced the maximum number of people who could dine together from 10 to 6. The mayor, however, had dinner with 8."

HYPOCRISY: LA Supervisor votes to ban outdoor dining then dines outdoors - "A Los Angeles County Supervisor, Sheila Kuehl, was caught dining at an outdoor restaurant on Monday night, just hours after voting to ban outdoor dining."

Another One! San Jose Mayor Ignored His Own Health Protocols to Visit Elderly Parents During Thanksgiving - "Thanks again to local investigative reporting we can add another California official, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, to the list of "Restrictions for thee and not for me" politicians that don't see the point in practicing what they preach... According to Chief of Staff Reed, the mayor and public officials are entitled to their own private lives and shouldn't be criticized for personal decisions. However, Reed and Mayor Liccardo don't seem to realize that all of their edicts, rules, messages, are all aimed at private citizens making personal decisions in THEIR OWN PRIVATE LIVES.But, normal citizens are not entitled to that luxury."

People started breaking Covid rules when they saw those with privilege ignore them - "During emergencies, humans are actually primed to act in the collective interest, as we saw from the sacrifices made by people in the spring of 2020 across the UK. It was only as lockdown was eased that compliance began to decrease. Partly, people felt the situation was safer. But other factors contributed too. For many, the new rules were simply too complex to understand. While during lockdown 90% of adults in the UK reported feeling they understood the rules, by August this figure was just 45% in England. Conflicting rules across UK nations, frequent changes to rules, and confusion about dates of announcement (as opposed to dates of implementation) exacerbated the situation. But the message from the government about adherence also changed after the revelations about the actions of Dominic Cummings, which were followed by a decrease in compliance...  Trust in the government to handle the pandemic took a sharp downward turn in England, from which it has not recovered since. Trust is crucial, as research has shown that it is one of the largest behavioural predictors of compliance during this pandemic: larger than mental health, belief in the health service or numerous other factors. As humans, we need to trust our authorities if we are to follow what they tell us to do.Other factors are important as predictors of compliance, too. Some of these have been demonstrated during previous pandemics: older adults and women are typically better at following rules to stop the spread of viruses. But others have emerged more specifically during Covid-19. The more privileged within society (wealthier and more educated) were more compliant during the first lockdown as their privilege supported their ability to follow the rules: more opportunities to work from home, spacious homes and gardens to lock down in, and a strong infrastructure, from good social support networks to scheduled food deliveries.But as the pandemic has continued, this same privilege has been associated with a higher propensity to bend the rules. Money has bought a way out of social restrictions, from providing second homes in the country to retreat to (taking new strains of the virus with them), to enabling holidays abroad to escape more stringent UK measures (along with late-night covert escapes when quarantines are brought in)"

Evidence of asymptomatic spread is insufficient to justify mass testing for Covid-19 - "Data from PCR testing – for which there is no proper determination of an end-to-end operational false positive rate – has almost exclusively dictated tier restrictions and lockdown policy in the UK.PCR’s fingerprints can in fact be found all over the entire global response to this pandemic. Testing with Lateral Flow, other antigen tests and bedside PCR tests are all finding far fewer cases than diagnosed by PCR testing. Even a low sensitivity for all these other tests could not account for the size of the discrepancy.Mass testing and accompanying harmful lockdown policies are justified on the assumption that asymptomatic transmission is a genuine risk. Given the harmful collateral effects of such policies, precautionary principle should result in a very high evidential bar for asymptomatic transmission being set. However, the only word which can be used to describe the quality of evidence for this is woeful. It is important to carefully distinguish purely asymptomatic (individuals who never develop any symptoms) from pre-symptomatic transmission (where individuals do eventually develop symptoms). To the extent that the latter phenomenon - which has in fact happened only very rarely - is deemed worthy of public health action, appropriate strategies to manage it (in the absence of significant asymptomatic transmission) would be entirely different and much less disruptive than those actually adopted. Many early studies which purported to demonstrate the phenomenon of asymptomatic transmission were from China, yet the fact that Chinese studies are only published following government approval must bring into question their reliability (1). Nevertheless, the high volume of these studies spawned significant salience of the issue within the medical community, and an assumption of the likelihood of asymptomatic transmission being an important contributory factor. There then followed a number of meta-analyses examining the issue of asymptomatic transmission which tended to aggregate and give equal weight to studies regardless of origin or quality. In this way, these meta-analyses, given undue credibility by their association with reputable universities, amplified minimal evidence of asymptomatic spread to an importance the data did not warrant.As reported in a manuscript submitted to this journal and also to medRvix on 16 Dec 2020 (the latter available for download shortly), we examined the papers most frequently cited in support of the existence of asymptomatic transmission. Even despite our criticisms of the sources of the data above, we did in fact find only 6 case reports of viral transmission by people who throughout remained asymptomatic, and this was to a total of 7 other individuals, however all of these were in studies with questionable methodology. Moreover in all these studies, confirmation of “cases” was made via PCR testing without regard to the possibility that any of the cases found might be false positives. The case numbers found, are, in any event extremely small and certainly not sufficient to conclusively determine that asymptomatic transmission is a major component of spread. It is also notable that, in what would seem to represent an abrupt volte face by the CCP, a further (presumably government-approved) study from China was recently published (2) which entirely contradicts the earlier conclusions regarding the phenomenon of asymptomatic transmission, which had been driven by Chinese data in particular, early in the pandemic. Some might conclude that that study lacks the credibility one might expect for a paper published in Nature; it is claimed, for example, that they PCR-tested 92% of Wuhan’s population (~10m individuals) over a 19-day period at the end of May, and found just 300 positive PCR tests, implying a FPR of no greater than 0.003%. Further, it is claimed that while 100% of the 300 PCR positive cases were asymptomatic, there were zero symptomatic PCR positive cases out of ~10m tested during a period only a few weeks after the epidemic had peaked in Wuhan. If this seems incredulous, then surely that has serious implications for the way in which earlier studies from China - data from which formed a significant part of the worldwide evidence base for asymptomatic transmission - should be regarded."

Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China - "All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases"
In other words, this suggets that asymptomatic cases are rare and asymptomatic transmission is even rarer
One covid hystericist kept claiming that the sample size was not 9 million, but repeatedly refused to say what he thought it was

Asymptomatic transmission of covid-19 - "Unusually in disease management, a positive test result is the sole criterion for a covid-19 case. Normally, a test is a support for clinical diagnosis, not a substitute. This lack of clinical oversight means we know very little about the proportions of people with positive results who are truly asymptomatic throughout the course of their infection and the proportions who are paucisymptomatic (subclinical), presymptomatic (go on to develop symptoms later), or post-infection (with viral RNA fragments still detectable from an earlier infection).Earlier estimates that 80% of infections are asymptomatic were too high and have since been revised down to between 17% and 20% of people with infections... It’s also unclear to what extent people with no symptoms transmit SARS-CoV-2. The only test for live virus is viral culture. PCR and lateral flow tests do not distinguish live virus. No test of infection or infectiousness is currently available for routine use. As things stand, a person who tests positive with any kind of test may or may not have an active infection with live virus, and may or may not be infectious. The relations between viral load, viral shedding, infection, infectiousness, and duration of infectiousness are not well understood. In a recent systematic review, no study was able to culture live virus from symptomatic participants after the ninth day of illness, despite persistently high viral loads in quantitative PCR diagnostic tests. However, cycle threshold (Ct) values from PCR tests are not direct measures of viral load and are subject to error. While viral load seems to be similar in people with and without symptoms, the presence of RNA does not necessarily represent transmissible live virus. The duration of viral RNA shedding (interval between first and last positive PCR result for any sample) is shorter in people who remain asymptomatic, so they are probably less infectious than people who develop symptoms... Coughing, which is a prominent symptom of covid-19, may result in far more viral particles being shed than talking and breathing, so people with symptomatic infections are more contagious, irrespective of close contact"

Covid-19’s known unknowns - "The more certain someone is about covid-19, the less you should trust them... we are thinking of the many rational people with scientific credentials making assertive public pronouncements on covid-19 who seem to suggest there can be no legitimate grounds for disagreeing with them. If you do, they might imply, it’s probably because you’re funded by dark forces or vested interests, you’re not evidence based, you’re morally blind to the harm you would do, you’re ideologically driven (but I’m objective), you think money matters more than lives, your ideas are a dangerous fantasy . . . . On they go, duelling certitudes in full view of a public desperate for simple answers and clarity—even when, unfortunately, these may not exist."

Sharp Reductions in COVID-19 Case Fatalities and Excess Deaths in Peru in Close Time Conjunction, State-By-State, with Ivermectin Treatments - "Its safety well established even at high doses, IVM is a compelling option for immediate, large scale national deployments as an interim measure and complement to pandemic control through vaccinations."

Cheap antiparasitic could cut chance of Covid-19 deaths by up to 75% | Financial Times - "The University of Liverpool’s Andrew Hill and others carried out a meta-analytical breakdown of 18 studies that found that ivermectin was associated with reduced inflammation and a faster elimination of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19... The only antiviral with some sort of approval globally to treat Covid-19 is Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir, which has shown some benefit in shortening hospital stays but no clear-cut effect on mortality or viral loads, a measure of how much virus circulates in a patient’s blood stream."
So much for those who claim hydroxychloroquine is only demonised because it can't make big pharma money

COVID-19: Montreal Heart Institute concludes colchicine is effective - "Colchicine, an oral tablet that’s inexpensive and easy to make, is already known and used for other diseases"

Study: 35 percent of excess deaths in pandemic's early months tied to causes other than COVID-19

Why Did Fauci Move the Herd Immunity Goal Posts? - "As a former National Institutes of Health fellow, I have a profound reverence for Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a towering figure in American medicine. Fauci's contribution to biomedicine cannot be questioned. At the same time, recent statements by Fauci raise a thorny and important question for scientists, doctors, and public health experts: Is it acceptable to distort the truth to get people to do what you want them to do?... 1) Fauci is, to some degree, basing his statements on what he thinks the public will accept, and to what degree his rhetoric might help vaccination efforts, and 2) this is the absolutely stunning part, he is admitting this openly to a reporter for the New York Times! This is not the first instance when Fauci made a public statement while considering, in part, what he believed people would do with the information. The first instance concerns masks and occurred during an interview on "60 Minutes" in March... I believe that in 2020, scientists and public health experts can only report the complete, unvarnished truth, as they believe it to be. We cannot and must not attempt to distort our ideas in an effort to generate responses we think might occur. I hold this position for four reasons.
1. The information gap no longer exists.
2. It is not an easy game to play.
3. Loss of trust is incalculable.
4. Distortion steals power from the people and gives it to scientists. In a prior column, I argued that "Follow the Science" is an incoherent message. That's because science can tell you what might happen in varying scenarios, but science cannot tell you what to value. Science is necessary for sound policy, but it is not sufficient. Humans beings voicing their concerns and priorities, in concert with scientific guidance, is required to shape policy, and policy fundamentally belongs in the realm of politics and in the public square."

Covid will be with us forever despite vaccine breakthrough, deputy chief medical officer warns - "Mask-wearing will persist indefinitely in Britain despite the roll-out of a Covid vaccine, the deputy chief medical officer has indicated.Professor Jonathan Van Tam warned on Wednesday evening that the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab in the UK did not herald the end of the virus, telling a Downing Street press conference: "I don't think we're going to eradicate coronavirus ever. I think it's going to be with humankind forever."... Boris Johnson appeared alarmed at Prof Van Tam's assertion that coronavirus suppression measures such as masks were here to stay, saying: "Yes, maybe – but you may want to get back to life pretty much as close as normal." The Prime Minister said that "eventually the vaccine will make a very significant difference to the way we live our lives".Setting out his intention to "clarify" his meaning, Prof Van Tam said: "I do not think the Government will continue to have to recommend social distancing masks and hand sanitiser forever and a day. "I hope we will get back to a much more normal world, but the point I was trying to make was do I think, possibly some of those personal habits for some people will persist longer, and perhaps become enduring for some people? Yes, I think that's possible."Mr Johnson compared such a scenario to the Far East, where voluntary mask-wearing is common, but said: "Who knows?""
"3 week lockdown to flatten the curve --> suppress the virus until there's a vaccine --> cover your face in public forever."

Lockdown forever - "A short-term sacrifice to blunt the pandemic has become an indefinite, draining burden... Meanwhile, the justification for all this remains highly contested.Debate still rages about whether the original hard lockdown was necessary. According to experts, infections were falling before lockdown came in, seemingly due to voluntary public action... not that long ago sending the police in to break up groups of seven or more would have seemed a heavy-handed measure to avoid something that might happen. Western societies once put a pretty high bar on when civil liberties should be suspended, but today the precautionary principle rules.The ongoing restrictions on our liberties are bad enough. The way they were brought in is arguably worse. Parliament has lobotomised itself, allowing more and more law to be made by government fiat.As Big Brother Watch’s Silkie Carlo points out, ‘lockdown has never been in place in England with full and explicit parliamentary approval’. More than 350 coronavirus laws have been brought in using ministerial power alone.Parliament has only been able to scrutinise public-health regulations weeks after they came into force. And even then any broader political challenge to these infringements has been completely lacking – even with a human-rights lawyer leading the opposition bench.Over the course of the pandemic restrictions have been announced and their legal force provided later, as if it is a minor formality. The police have time and again confused government guidelines with the letter of the law.For all the ‘liberal’ pearl-clutching this week over the government supposedly undermining the rule of law in its plan to amend an international treaty, many of those same voices have been silent about this unprecedented assault on the rule of law at home.And while parliament is enfeebled and government rules by diktat, we don’t even have the right to peacefully protest against all this. Two weeks ago, Piers Corbyn, brother of the former Labour leader, was fined $10,000 for organising an anti-lockdown rally in London. No one is suggesting this is all part of the government’s secret ambition to turn Britain into an authoritarian state. (Incidentally, it is amusing that Corbynistas, who routinely liken Boris Johnson to a fascist, literally demanded he put them under house arrest.)... if anyone is to blame for ‘killing grandma’, as Hancock delicately put it this week, it is whatever idiot thought it was a good idea to allow patients to be discharged into care homes without having first to test negative for Covid – a policy which likely caused many avoidable deaths."

False-positive COVID-19 results: hidden problems and costs - "false-positive COVID-19 swab test results might be increasingly likely in the current epidemiological climate in the UK, with substantial consequences at the personal, health system, and societal levels"

Investigation: Toronto Public Health stat for restaurants is wildly misleading - "Premier Doug Ford kept indoor dining going at bars, restaurants, and other food and drink establishments in the province as long as possible, despite mounting pressure from Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto Medical Officer of Health, and Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams... “Between September 20 and 26, there were 45 active community outbreaks. Of these outbreaks, about 18 (44%) were in restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. Socializing in bars and restaurants is contributing to significant exposures and outbreaks (e.g. Yonge Street Warehouse created 1,700 exposures, Regulars Bar created 600 exposures).”That 44 per cent stat has quickly nabbed headlines, blaming the industry as a whole. But upon closer investigation, there are a number of critical factors missing from this figure that didn’t make the news. In fact, it appears the data comes from cases found in only a few large bars/restaurants over the span of a week... This stat was for a one-week period, not a single month or months. Unfortunately, it was a period that included approximately 2,300 exposures from two venues alone, and 18 confirmed cases at five large bars/restaurants in total.That said, it is not anywhere close to the number of cases found in a single week in other establishments. The hospitality industry continues to get pummelled by TPH and the media for being unsafe, while other sectors are continually overlooked... The climbing cases of employees testing positive for COVID-19 at Ontario grocery stores, liquor stores, and pharmacies over the past days, weeks, and months does not receive the same censure as the handfuls of cases at local bars and restaurants."

Is The Guardian planning an attack on the Great Barrington scientists? - "it looks very much like a move to delegitimise the ideas of these eminent scientists by smearing them by association. As Professor Kulldorff told The Guardian, he had never heard of the ‘Richie Allen show’ before he was invited on, and as a public health expert, he thinks it’s his duty to talk to all audiences in any case, whatever their beliefs.I hadn’t heard of the show either (the website looks like lots of conspiracy theories), but is the fact that Kulldorff appeared on it really the big story? Surely the right thing for a newspaper to do is to engage in good faith with the arguments being presented, rather than to impugn integrity using Facebook shares as some sort of hard evidence.This sort of thing is happening more and more often. Professor John Ioannidis at Stanford was subject to an extraordinary smear campaign after his ‘Santa Clara County’ study into seroprevalence. Buzzfeed even went so far as to imply financial wrongdoing on the basis of a $5,000 contribution by someone in the airline industry. The idea that a world-renowned academic would throw away his career for a $5,000 donation is absurd, and Stanford’s own investigation concluded that there was no conflict of interest whatsoever. But the rumour remains — the mud has been thrown and his reputation has been successfully tarnished... Surely it would be better for powerful organisations like The Guardian to accept that these scientists are sincere and accomplished and are simply taking a different view as to how best to defend the greater good. The smear approach is a weak way to attempt to win any argument."
Conspiracy theories are only good when the left advances them

‘Lockdown is a terrible experiment’ - "Martin Kulldorff: The media suggests there is a scientific consensus in favour of lockdown, but that is not the case. I have two concerns. One is about the collateral damage lockdown causes to other aspects of public health. One of the basic principles of public health is that you do not just look at one disease – you have to look at health as a whole, including all kinds of diseases, over a long period. That is not what has been done with Covid-19. As a public-health scientist, it is stunning to see how focused people are on this one disease and on the short term. The collateral damage is very tragic: cardiovascular disease outcomes are worse, cancer screenings are down, and there are mental-health issues, for example. My second concern is that, even when we put broader public health to one side and focus just on Covid, the current approach does not make sense. We sought to flatten the curve in the spring so as not to overload hospitals, and that succeeded in almost every country. But trying to suppress the disease with contact tracing, testing and isolation, together with severe lockdowns, is not going to solve the problem. It will just push things into the future... Shifting the balance of infection toward young people will drastically reduce mortality. We cannot completely protect the elderly, but the longer we drag out the pandemic, the more difficult it is to do so. They are actually better protected if we don’t have a lockdown. Anyone can be infected. But we know that there is a difference in risk between age groups. And it’s not just a two-fold or five-fold or even 10-fold excess risk. It’s not even 100-fold. The difference in risk between the oldest and the youngest is more than 1,000-fold. That is huge.Covid-19 is our enemy, and we have to utilise its weaknesses. Covid is not a dangerous disease for young people. For children, it is much less dangerous than seasonal flu... Lockdown is a double whammy for the working class. In terms of Covid itself, we are protecting low-risk college students and professionals who can work from home, while working-class people still have to go to work. We are basically throwing the working class under the bus, protecting those of us who are more privileged. The working class is carrying the burden of generating the immunity that will eventually protect us all. The collateral damage of lockdown is also hurting the working class. Those of us who can work from home are less likely to lose our jobs. But if you work as a waiter in a restaurant, for example, it’s different. And of course, the working class has much less of a safety net. The more privileged are better able to take a financial hit. But the working class doesn’t have that luxury... there is no public-health purpose for the mass testing of college students or school children. It’s just damaging, and makes people afraid, meaning schools get closed... We have herd immunity for lots of other pathogens, some through vaccines, but most through natural infection. It is therefore far-fetched and ignorant to think it will not happen for Covid... It’s a unique experiment, and it’s a terrible experiment. I’m amazed – as are many of my colleagues – at the total focus on this disease. In a short time, we are throwing all the principles of public health out the window. Most countries in Europe had a pandemic-preparedness plan which did not recommend lockdowns, but instead proposed a risk-based strategy to protect those at high risk, which is actually the same as the focused protection we put forward in the Great Barrington Declaration. What we are proposing is, therefore, nothing revolutionary. Many people have been advocating for it throughout this pandemic, but they have not had much attention.
spiked: Do you think there is a danger that the current measures could become the established way of dealing with health crises?
Kulldorff: No, because it will be so clear down the road that what we did was a big mistake. What I am concerned about is that the trust in science and scientists, which has already taken a hit, will get even worse. This is worrying when thinking about future health crises. For example, some people in the United States don’t want to talk to the public-health department about contact tracing. They don’t want to divulge personal information because there is a huge lack of trust between public-health authorities and the public. That is a very bad thing, because contact tracing is critical for tackling some diseases."

East Asians have Toronto’s lowest coronavirus infection rate. But other Asian groups are suffering badly | South China Morning Post - "White Torontonians, meanwhile, have an infection rate that is a more modest 25 per cent higher than East Asians’ – still much lower than the rate for the whole of this diverse city... the Toronto data echoes previous geographical data from British Columbia, where the rate of Covid-19 infection in Richmond – the most ethnically Chinese city in the world outside Asia – has been the lowest in the metro Vancouver region."
Damn racism and white supremacy, resulting in East Asians doing even better than whites!

An ancient viral epidemic involving host coronavirus interacting genes more than 20,000 years ago in East Asia - "The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the vulnerability of human populations to novel viral pressures, despite the vast array of epidemiological and biomedical tools now available. Notably, modern human genomes contain evolutionary information tracing back tens of thousands of years, which may help identify the viruses that have impacted our ancestors – pointing to which viruses have future pandemic potential. Here, we apply evolutionary analyses to human genomic datasets to recover selection events involving tens of human genes that interact with coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, that likely started more than 20,000 years ago. These adaptive events were limited to the population ancestral to East Asian populations. Multiple lines of functional evidence support an ancient viral selective pressure, and East Asia is the geographical origin of several modern coronavirus epidemics. An arms race with an ancient coronavirus, or with a different virus that happened to use similar interactions as coronaviruses with human hosts, may thus have taken place in ancestral East Asian populations. By learning more about our ancient viral foes, our study highlights the promise of evolutionary information to better predict the pandemics of the future. Importantly, adaptation to ancient viral epidemics in specific human populations does not necessarily imply any difference in genetic susceptibility between different human populations, and the current evidence points toward an overwhelming impact of socioeconomic factors in the case of COVID-19."
Naturally, they had to add in the PC conclusion

Covid-19 vaccines may give you antibodies that prevent you entering China | South China Morning Post
Covid hysteria means even vaccines won't let life return to normal
Perverse incentives!

Peru bet on cheap Chinese coronavirus antibody tests – it didn’t go well | South China Morning Post - "They knew molecular tests for Covid-19 were the best option to detect the virus – yet they didn’t have the labs, the supplies, or the technicians to make them work.But there was a cheaper alternative – antibody tests, mostly from China, that were flooding the market at a fraction of the price and could deliver a positive or negative result within minutes of a simple fingerstick.In March, President Martin Vizcarra took the airwaves to announce he had signed off on a massive purchase of 1.6 million tests – almost all of them for antibodies.Now, interviews with experts, public purchase orders, import records, government resolutions, patients, and Covid-19 health reports show that the country’s bet on rapid antibody tests went dangerously off course. Unlike almost every other nation, Peru is relying heavily on rapid antibody blood tests to diagnose active cases – a purpose for which they are not designed.The tests cannot detect early Covid-19 infections, making it hard to quickly identify and isolate the sick. Epidemiologists interviewed by Associated Press say their misuse is producing a sizeable number of false positives and negatives, helping fuel one of the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks. What’s more, a number of the antibody tests purchased for use in Peru have since been rejected by the United States after independent analysis found they did not meet standards for accurately detecting Covid-19."

Mongolia has few coronavirus cases – and some say it’s all thanks to Genghis Khan | South China Morning Post - "Many Mongolians attribute this low infection rate to several factors: clean air, and a steady diet of natural, free-range meat and milk.They also believe that generations of constant work, riding horses, herding sheep, as well as surviving dramatic temperature swings, from -60 to 45 degrees Celsius, have made them heartier and more resistant to disease. Perhaps most importantly, there is the legacy of Genghis Khan, which Mongolians believe has kept them safe.A historian, a shaman, a monk, and a medical doctor all referenced Genghis Khan while explaining why they believe Mongolia has been so successful in combating the coronavirus pandemic... She says that Mongolians live and eat simply, with blue skies and fresh meat and milk, and do not experience the stress and consumerism faced by people from other countries. Another factor is the Mongolian self-reliance, deriving from the nomadic lifestyle and the conquest of the Mongolian Empire... “When Western people have a problem, they have to solve it. Mongolians can just live with it. If they have meat, they eat meat. If they have nothing, they do without”... For monk Ukhaanzaya Dorjnamnan, every problem in the world is a different type of naga, a mystical serpent.In his estimation, coronavirus is a very powerful naga, but the nagas do not wish to hurt Mongolians, because they live closer to nature.He also believes the land itself has been blessed by the Great Khan. “Genghis Khan chose this land for us because it is a good land. And he promised that it would protect us,” he says... Inner Mongolia is part of mainland China, which at one point had the world’s highest number of infections. It has a population of about 25 million, and most residents there are ethnic Han Chinese.The Mongolian population in Inner Mongolia is about 1.5 times that of the independent Outer Mongolia.“None of the [coronavirus] victims were ethnic Mongolians,” he says. “They were all Han Chinese.”"

‘Corona divorce’ trends in Japan as couples in lockdown grow fed up with each other | South China Morning Post - "In the 1980s, the term “Narita divorce” took hold to describe newlywed couples returning to Tokyo’s Narita Airport after their honeymoon and deciding to go their separate ways because they realised they had nothing in common... It is not only women who are resorting to social media to get their emotions off their chests, with one male Twitter user suggesting that the best tactic is simply to say sorry.“During a quarrel, when it’s with my boss or my wife, I just apologise,” he wrote. “Even if I don’t even remember what I’m apologising for.”"

Watch: Biden Fundraiser Jane Fonda Says COVID-19 Is 'God's Gift to the Left' - ""It has ripped the band-aid off who [Trump] is and what he stands for and what is being done to average people and working people in this country.” The leftist actress, who is known for trashing America to our communist enemies during the Vietnam War, also said that COVID was a “gift” because it will let the radical left get its way with climate change policies they’ve long pursued in Washington... a report by the American Medical Association warned that COVID lockdowns have increased the use and abuse of opioids. The report found that up to 40 U.S. states have reported higher rates of drug overdoses."

Covid: Fake news causing ethnic minorities to reject vaccine, NHS official warns - "Some of the myths and false information circulating on social media and WhatsApp groups has been religiously targeted – including false claims the vaccines contain particular animal produce or alcohol."
Damn racism and white supremacy!

Political correctness is hurting the fight against anti-vaxxers - "I’m unsurprised, given the messages relatives have shown me about vaccines. Some suggest that the jabs contain beef and alcohol (as though Yorkshire grass-fed and Merlot would have been the first ingredients AstraZeneca reached for). Others argue that drinking hot water can somehow cure Covid.Many an anti-vax swami preys on the sentiment beloved of some South Asians that our mother’s spice cupboard can cure a range of ills, but take it to the same extreme as Islington organic food-eating anti-vaxxers, who “just don’t want anything unnatural” in their temple-cum-body.Other messages feature bog-standard conspiracy theories about vaccines altering human DNA – messages that would send many liberals raging if they were raised by a white person. But those same people are rendered speechless when it comes to anti-vax disinformation among South Asians because of political correctness.As with everything from caste discrimination to sexism, many are happy to drop their most fundamental principles when it comes to ethnic minorities, and treat them as a “special case”. They sigh phrases such as “language difficulties” and “cultural barriers” and turn their backs – as if BAME people were wackos on an unreachable isle, beyond salvation. Yet this is wrong – and to be honest, comes across as more racist. Many mosque leaders as well as other religious figures and Asian doctors are working round the clock to correct anti-vax sentiment in their communities. But no one else wants to wade into the debate – for fear of being dirtied by accusations of racism. The irony is that hesitancy around calling out anti-vax sentiment is not as generous-spirited as it seems; it will only harm already-at-risk South Asians living in tight-knit communities everywhere from Leicester to Hounslow, who will not escape Covid as soon as the rest of us if they are unwilling to have the vaccine.If this year of anxious calibration around R rates and logarithmic scales has taught us anything, it is that every person counts. A 0.1 difference in the R rate can make or break our response to Covid, sending the pandemic soaring rather than shrivelling away.We can’t let misguided sensitivities stop us from saving lives."

Why Dr. Fauci’s Vaccine Plea To African-Americans Is Racist - "In 2014, a Centers for Disease Control scientist admitted ten years after a vaccine study had concluded the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was safe, that among African-American boys receiving the vaccine had a higher incidence of autism among African-American boys who were vaccinated than among those who weren’t (see my comment at the end of this piece). That information was casually omitted from the study as America injected millions of Black boys with the vaccine. White scientists knew the vaccine was harmful to Black children, yet they sat on the information for over a decade, allowing Black parents to vaccinate their children as a part of school readiness efforts. The White scientists put Black lives in danger, and it’s barely discussed, buried on Harriet Tubman’s interweb with the rest of Black history... White America has done a lot of shit to us, and they’ve never paid a price for it. Everything White America has done to us, White America has benefited from directly or indirectly. Black people haven’t been appropriately accredited for their contributions to modern medicine. Our ancestors haven’t been appropriately compensated for being American medicine’s guinea pigs, nor has America ever apologized formally for all it’s done to us because it deemed us inferior... The reason we have a Covid problem, a distrust of the medical community problem, and a misinformation problem is because White people are RACIST — and that’s a fuckin’ problem. So until you fix that shit White people, nobody is believing anything you tell us is good for us. Think about it. You mean to tell Black people scientists can get into fucking labs and develop a vaccine to save our lives, but White people can’t get together and change their racist behavior to save Black lives? Are you really shittin me? So, get this straight, the Black friend defense is racist, and attempting to undermine our concerns is racist too. We know how to think for ourselves... Understand, we Black folks believe in science. We also believe in modern medicine, ancient, and homeopathic remedies and alternative even some forms of medicine... And please don’t spend your time arguing with Black people on social media about how safe vaccines are from your safe lily White perches, completely disregarding the historical contexts we give you in our counter arguments. It’s not only offensive, it’s disrespectful and racist. We have enough to deal with. A fucking vaccine is the least of some Black folks’ worries. Get some perspective and learn to be silent on racial matters you cannot understand. Work on your antiracism instead. Learn about what has happened to Black people. Read more about Black history written from Black perspectives. Educate yourselves, don’t make that our job! Black people have no power, and if the last few years haven’t shown readers that, nothing will. The only autonomy Black folks have is that over our bodies and our minds, and White people are attempting to take that away from us too... Every problem America has is because of racism and White Supremacy... Black can’t afford to believe in America. We can’t afford to take risks with our bodies. We cannot trust the untrustworthy. America has failed at every level of its society, and White people are to blame for those failures. Let us never forget."
Trying to save lives is "racist". Countering anti-vaxx misinformation is "racist" too. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face
If you keep telling people they are oppressed, they will believe it
The beauty of this is that when blacks continue to die of covid at greater rates than whites, grievance mongers can shout even more loudly about "racism", while pretending they're not to blame, then demand even more resources

BREAKING: Ford kicks out MPP who wrote letter asking premier to end lockdown - "Doug Ford has kicked out York-Centre MPP Roman Baber, after he wrote him a letter asking him to reconsider the lockdowns. This makes Baber the fifth MPP to be kicked out by Doug in the last two years.Baber wrote a letter to Premier Ford this morning titled "The Lockdown is deadlier than COVID". In his letter, he highlights the facts about COVID-19 and hospital occupancy. Baber then went on to describe the multiple consequences of lockdowns on people's health, the economy, and children. "The medicine is killing the patient. I write on behalf of my North York constituents and plead for the millions of lives and livelihoods ruined by Ontario's public health restrictions"
Any dissent against covid hysteria is unacceptable!

Ford government silences opposing views on lockdowns - "Like too many other politicians, Premier Ford is aggressively hostile to serious public debate on the issue of whether lockdowns do more harm than good. Premier Ford wants to limit this debate to the secret deliberations of his Progressive Conservative caucus meetings, where neither the media nor the public can learn about the arguments for and against lockdowns.Of course, it's entirely legitimate for political party caucus meetings to be secret, to promote frank and honest debate amongst elected politicians of the same party. But lockdowns impact every citizen, and need to be debated openly in public. Public opinion is divided on the question of whether lockdowns do more harm than good. There is no good reason why Ontario's MPPs (and all politicians in all provinces, plus federal MPs) cannot express their views on lockdowns publicly, as well as within caucus meetings. Restricting  healthy debate keeps the public in the dark, promotes ideological tribalism, prevents elected officials from representing their constituent base, and deeply harms democracy. The less public debate there is on an issue, the more likely that name-calling and personal attacks will replace well-informed and intelligent argument... Mr. Baber puts forward the following specific examples of lockdown harms:
Cancer screenings at Princess Margaret are back to 60 percent with Oncologists fearing a "tsunami of cancer." (Premier Ford does not dispute or refute this point.)
Ontario's overdose rate is trending at 50 percent above normal and this increase alone, in opioid deaths, may exceed the number of Covid deaths outside of long-term care homes. (Premier Ford's response is that opioid deaths are up by 38 percent not 50 percent. As if a 38 percent increase is okay, but a 50 percent increase is not acceptable.)
According to the Canadian Medical Association, in September of 2020, 10 percent of adults reported "recent thoughts and feelings of suicide" which is four times the normal rate. Amongst Canadians aged 19-35, 20 percent reported recent thoughts and feelings of suicide. (Premier Ford neither refutes nor disputes this point.)
SickKids is calling the increase in eating disorders in young people an "unprecedented crisis." (Premier Ford does not dispute this.)Tens of thousands of businesses shut down. The unemployment rate is near double & 320,000 people have not regained work. We are faced with a catastrophic wave of bankruptcies and foreclosures. (Premier Ford does not deny this.)
The Government is criminalizing normal human behaviour and putting law-abiding Ontarians in legal jeopardy. Public Health can't change human behaviour. My heart breaks for the family of Damien Moses. (Premier Ford presents no counterargument.)
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott sent a four-page "fact sheet" to media in response to Mr. Baber's arguments. However, this PDF document does not appear anywhere online for the public to access or review. Not posting the government's response online is a clever political tactic, since lockdown-supporting media refer frequently to the government's "fact sheet" in their narrative, while members of the public are unable to see how this document  utterly and completely fails to refute Mr. Baber's case. To support the government and lockdowns, media are also withholding this document from the public. Therefore the Justice Centre has posted it.Mr. Baber further states that "Covid is real, but the fear of Covid is exaggerated." He points to well-known facts that are fully supported by the government's own data and statistics. Roughly 80 percent of Covid deaths occur in long-term care (LTC), where people are (on average) in their last year of life. The virus poses no threat to children at all, and it has a negligible impact on the population's life expectancy. Mr. Baber states: "We should focus on & fix LTC!" There is no disagreement from Mr. Ford.Next, Mr. Baber refers to Ontario Government data on Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Occupancy, pointing out that it was at 81 percent in December of 2020 and 81 percent on January 4, 2021.  This is lower than the 87 percent (2017), 91 percent (2018) and 84 percent (2019) of daily-average ICU Occupancy in the preceding three years.Premier Ford's "fact sheet" tries to refute Mr. Baber's claim by saying that occupancy is at 90 percent, not 81 percent. Even then, 90 percent is still lower than the occupancy rate in Covid-free 2018. Ontario's hospitals (on average) are not full, with occupancy ranging from 50 percent to 110 percent, according to the government's "fact sheet." More significantly, the Ontario Government pretends that overcrowded hospitals are a new phenomenon caused by Covid, when in fact "hallway medicine" has been the norm at many Canadian hospitals for many years. Mr. Baber states that "The Lockdown is having catastrophic effects on Ontario's children...We are scaring children even though they are 100 percent safe... The crisis is in long-term care homes, not schools... Premier, we should stop scaring children. This generation of kids will grow up with an anxiety disorder and will be afraid of normal life. Kids need to be kids again, back in school with their friends. They should not believe that coming close to another child may result in someone's death. It's false and unwarranted."Premier Ford's "fact sheet" provides no response to this, and Premier Ford does not deny that children are being harmed by lockdowns.The two hardest-hitting points in the Ontario government's "fact sheet" are that Ontario has 228 hospitals (not 492 as stated in Mr. Baber's letter), and that Mr. Baber incorrectly spelled the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as Princess "Margret" rather than "Margaret.""

Former Ontario top doc sides with MPP Roman Baber on lockdowns - "A former provincial top doctor has sent a letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford siding with Roman Baber, the MPP who broke rank with his own government to call for an end to lockdowns.“MPP Baber made five key points (in his open letter) and I believe he was correct on all five items,” writes Dr. Richard Schabas, who served as Ontario’s chief medical officer of health from 1987 to 1997. He notes that Baber “deserves great credit” for opening up the discussion on lockdowns. “Lockdown was never part of our planned pandemic response nor is it supported by strong science,” adds Schabas, who notes he helped train current top doc David Williams. “Two recent studies on the effectiveness of lockdown show that it has, at most, a small COVID mortality benefit compared to more moderate measures. Both studies warned about the excessive cost of lockdowns.” Schabas also served as chief of staff at York Central Hospital during the 2003 SARS crisis."
Only pro-lockdown experts should be listened to!

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Health expert on Ford's science table who spoke against school reopening received money from teachers union - "Those who were wondering why Ontario was the only jurisdiction in the country where schools were not opened for in-person learning might have an answer.This week, the Toronto Sun reported that one of the people on Doug Ford's science table, who argued strongly for keeping schools closed, had received money from one of Ontario's largest teachers union. David Fisman, a professor of epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, received money from the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. They are in favour of keeping schools closed, a position Fisman advocated... On top of the poor academic performances, 83 percent of teens have said that their mental health has decreased, and 20 percent of students have dealt with high stress levels due to the closures and their inability to engage in any kind of normal lifestyle. One-in-four young persons has contemplated suicide, and prescriptions for antidepressant medication increased by 34 percent in that age group.None of that seems to matter to Ontario Teacher's Unions. Their big talk about "caring about students" during the 2019 teacher strikes was a bunch of lies. What is ironic, is that teachers cited a government plan to increase e-learning in high schools as one of their reasons why they were striking, but now they're giving money to health "experts" that advocate for universal e-learning from kindergarten to Grade 12. From my personal experience, it's obvious teachers and their unions like to use high school students as their political pawns, something that we saw twice during the 2018-2019 school year when mass amounts of students walked out in protest of issues which they barely knew or cared about. They were spurred on under their teachers' influence. What is also unfortunate is that many student trustees—grade 11 and 12 students elected to represent students on their board—don't seem too concerned about school closures. Nothing about reopening schools can be found Ontario Student Trustees Association's (OSTA) website. It seems that they are more concerned about microaggressions, and feminine products in school bathrooms—which are inaccessible during closures anyway—than a severely harmful and ideological government policy that is causing an academic and mental health crisis... You don't have to be a health expert to look at the data and conclude that there is no merit for closing schools. COVID-19 only impacted 0.3 percent of Ontario students, and most of those students caught COVID-19 in their communities, not in schools. A study showed that 87 percent of the students that came to school with COVID-19 after contracting it in the community did not transmit it to anyone. Meaning only 0.00039 percent of Ontario students transmitted COVID-19 to their peers or teachers. That doesn't matter to OSTA and their allies in the teachers union. These are the same unions that pay health experts who advocate for  school closures despite their remarkable harms and lack of scientific basis. These are the same unions that held long strikes in the fall of 2019, which impacted special needs students, like my brother, the most. I hope that parents and students will finally understand that unions are not here to advocate for the needs of those they educate but for their own desires. Teachers unions are here to ensure that teachers make the highest possible salary while doing the least possible amount of work. As long as student leaders keep on backing them, then the majority of students will continue to be held back from educational prosperity."

ABC tweets message suggesting Americans must endure several months of lockdown without source - "ABC issued a tweet late on Sunday night that read "Americans will likely need to wait several months until enough of society has been vaccinated for life to return to normal." There was no indication as to what the source of this information was or who made this prediction... Most of those who commented on the ABC tweet didn't even notice that there was no source for this claim and simply accepted it at face value, arguing amongst themselves as to the relative merit of the statement—many appeared to agree—without having the benefit of any actual information.ABC and other mainstream media outlets have a narrative they're trying to peddle, one that has the same shifting goalposts for success and normalcy as Dr. Anthony Fauci, who admitted that he was making a "guesstimate" when he offered calculations on what herd immunity would look like."

Switzerland to hold referendum on COVID lockdowns - "Switzerland is one of the few European nations to not implement strict measures to try to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, but, according to the Swiss government, they are in the process of changing that.However, in response, people circulated a petition, which has now garnered over 86,000 signatures, much more than the 50,000 required for submission within 100 days of circulation. Submitting this petition meant that, under Swiss law, a referendum at the national level will now be necessary. Switzerland's democratic model is unique in being the most direct democracy currently in existence. The country regularly holds referendums multiple times per year, and citizens vote directly on important issues which could be virtually anything. The results of all Swiss referendums are binding and have the full force of law. However, in this case the vote, which is technically a vote to repeal the 2020 COVID-19 Act currently in effect, will not be held until at least June due to scheduling and logistics requirements."
Elites hate referenda because they check their power

Pressure builds on Swiss government over Covid lockdown - "Added to the mix are two petitions calling for a lifting of restrictions, which were unveiled on Monday. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party says the petitions, entitled “Enough, Mr Berset” and “Canteens for Workers”, have been signed by some 244,000 and 50,000 people respectively.The first petition calls for the immediate opening of restaurants, bars, shops and leisure facilities; the second for people to have the same access to canteens that is enjoyed by politicians in the parliament building in Bern."

Hollywood celebrities exempt from California lockdown orders - "Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a statewide curfew for California to combat spiking coronavirus numbers on Thursday, but he left an exemption for Hollywood... Newsom’s office said that the order would not apply to workers in the entertainment industry, saying those workers were deemed "essential."... This comes as Newsom continues to try and spin a media storm of criticism over his decision to attend a birthday celebration for political operative Jason Kinney at the French Laundry, one of the best restaurants in the country, located in Napa County. The party was attended by members of the California Medical Association, and was in direct violation of Newsom's COVID restrictions. Attendees, including Newsom, did not wear masks or socially distance. According to a waitress the doors to the party room were closed because the noise "disturbed other guests.""

WATCH: Bill Gates suggests lockdown measures could continue into 2022

A hardware store by any other name? Judge rejects retailer's challenge of Ontario lockdown rules - "One small-business advocate says retailers in Ontario are “red-faced mad” at their government over COVID-19 lockdown rules that favour big-box stores over independent operators.A recent court ruling is not likely to calm them down. In a decision that underscores the economic complexities of pandemic restrictions, a judge said a chain of appliance retailers did not qualify as hardware stores and so were not exempt from the province’s ban on in-person shopping.That is despite the fact that renovation warehouse outlets like Home Depot and Lowe’s are exempt — and still able to sell the same refrigerators and ovens to shoppers in person... the case underscores the apparent inequity of the rules ushered in by Premier Doug Ford’s government, which allow Walmart to sell computer games and ugly-Christmas sweaters to in-person shoppers because it also happens to offer groceries, thus making it essential.Hudson’s Bay Co. has filed its own challenge in court, alleging the rules are “incoherent and devoid of logic.”Ontario is the only province to have such lopsided regulations, says Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)... “It is grossly unfair, potentially leading to worse COVID outcomes, and is only happening in Ontario,” he said Wednesday. “The unfairness of this rule has turned business owners from being sad and desperate to feeling incredibly angry at their government.”What’s more, the increased traffic to retailers allowed to stay fully open is likely to fuel more spread of COVID-19, Kelly said, noting that the number of cases in Ontario has refused to shrink throughout the latest lockdown.“I think this has been a giant misread,” he said. “It’s not causing people to stay home, it has just caused people to shift where they buy things.”... the company’s showrooms are “100 per cent” safer than the big-box retailers, with fewer touch points, no “cash and carry” shopping and smaller numbers of customers... Appliances would seem to be an essential product, anyway, and are treated as such by some provinces, said Kelly. It’s not like someone is going to hang their clothes outside to dry in January when their dryer breaks down"

Ontario barbershop reopens despite provincial lockdown using loophole - "Chrome Artistic Barber in St. Catharines is cutting hair again after they said they revamped their salon to become a production and film studio.Owner Alicia Hirter set up cameras, lights and microphones in her shop and said people who come in for haircuts are now auditioning for a part in a future TV show or podcast... She said that clients are not required to wear masks while receiving their haircut because the government rules say performers are exempt."

Manipulative broadcasters' intrusive reports from hospitals are simply feeding despair - "The people who are watching, sometimes obsessively, are the isolated, the lonely, and the already-frightened who are being driven further into the depths of terror and despair. In fact, I have spoken to a great many decent, rational, rule-following people who have switched off the television news coverage altogether because they find it too demoralising or voyeuristic."

Study Shows How Likely You Are to Catch Coronavirus at the Gym - "There's been a lot of talk about whether gyms should stay open or be forced to close while the world is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. But a new study has suggested that gyms throughout Europe pose an extremely low risk of infection and should be kept open for the health and wellbeing of their communities."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "NBC tried to fact check the future and got it wrong. They claimed in May that it would take a miracle for a vaccine to be ready in less than a year. Six months later two vaccine candidates have passed testing and have been submitted to the FDA for emergency approval, which is expected to come before the end of November.Far too often ‘fact checks’ are more about opinion than fact...
“President Donald Trump has suggested multiple times that a coronavirus vaccine could come within months, an accelerated timeline that prominent health experts and veteran vaccine developers say is unlikely absent a miracle.”... “Dr. Walter Orenstein, a professor at Emory University and the associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center, said a vaccine in less than a year would be “miracle.”...“In the best of circumstances, we should have a vaccine — or let's say vaccines — between 12 and 18 months," he said. "Whether those circumstances will be the best or not, we don’t know.""
So much for "fact checking"

NYC bar declares itself autonomous zone, "will not back down" as Cuomo and company try to make it close - "Mac's Pub declared itself an "autonomous zone" (similar to CHAZ, but way more clean-cut, and actually quite pleasant to visit)."

🇺🇸Liberty Girl For Freedom on Twitter - "Unbelievable! What the hell are they thinking? I guess killing thousands in nursing homes wins you an Emmy now? OMG! New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Has Been Selected To Receive An Emmy Award In Recognition Of His “Leadership” During The COVID-19 Pandemic"
Emmys are for acting, after all

Cuomo: We Had High Number of Nursing Home Deaths Because Feds Didn't Tell Us Virus Was Coming from Europe

‘He Has Delivered for New York’: Cuomo Praises Trump’s Coronavirus Response - "He also, surprisingly, noted the president has even had a kind word for his brother Chris Cuomo - the CNN anchor who has himself been battling COVID-19. Stern asked the governor if he thought Trump was secretly pleased to see his brother get sick - and the governor firmly denied it."
Of course, people with TDS didn't get the memo

Orthodox Jews Sue Cuomo And de Blasio Over 'Blatant Double-Standard' - "3 Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, Elchanan Perr, Daniel Schonborn, and Mayer Mayerfeld, along with 2 catholic priests filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of New York, following the widespread riots and looting in the wake of the death of George Floyd. They are being represented by the Thomas More Society.“Why is a large worship gathering deemed more dangerous than a mass protest, full of shouting, arm-waving people in close proximity to one another?” Christopher Ferrara, Thomas More Society special counsel, said... Mayor de Blasio was singled out in the lawsuit for his own personal hypocrisy, when he ignored his own social distancing and 10-person limit guidelines when he attended the George Floyd memorial event in Cadman Plaza without wearing a mask. This was especially ironic when just a few days later, jewish children were kicked out of a Williamsburg park for violating these very same guidelines.In April, de Blasio personally issued strong warnings to the jewish community, threatening them with arrests and prosecution, for “illegal” mass religious gatherings after the NYPD dispersed the funeral of Rabbi Chaim Mertz in Williamsburg.“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed,” de Blasio wrote in a tweet. “I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”... New York has recently allowed theaters to open their doors to accommodate George Floyd protestors for rest, wi-fi use, bathrooms, and water and snacks, even instructing police to remain off premises. This despite the fact that theaters are supposed to remain closed until phase 4 of Cuomo’s plan. Yet, neither de Blasio nor Cuomo have stepped in to stop that."

Cuomo says it's 'bad news' that Pfizer coronavirus vaccine progress came during Trump administration - "“What on earth is Governor Cuomo talking about? This is great news and everyone - Republicans and Democrats and apolitical folks - should all be jointly thrilled about the possibility of an effective vaccine,” Sasse said. “After this nasty virus has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and put millions out of work, it is beyond disgusting that Governor Cuomo would use a glimmer of hope for another worn-out ‘Trump is bad’ talking point. When we get a vaccine, we’re going to need all hands on deck distributing it as fast as possible - shamelessly politicizing this is dangerous and stupid.”"

Cuomo spokesman mocks Fox News meteorologist who lost both in-laws in NY nursing homes during pandemic - "A spokesman for Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo mocked FOX News meteorologist Janice Dean for criticizing the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in the state"

WATCH: People died, 'but who cares?' quips Cuomo when questioned about nursing home deaths - ""People died. By the way, the same people are dying today. 96 percent of the people who die are older people with comorbidities, which happens to be the population that lives in nursing homes. It's continuing today"... Cuomo has consistently and repeatedly denied that his policies had any negative impact on nursing home deaths in the state."
Strange. I thought it was only "covid deniers" who point out that older people with comorbidities are overwhelmingly the ones who die due to covid. No wonder he won an Emmy

Cuomo Attacks a Fellow Democrat Over Nursing Home Criticism - The New York Times - "Gov. Andrew Cuomo lashed out at Assemblyman Ron Kim, both publicly and in a private phone call, as a war intensified over the state’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic... when a top aide to Mr. Cuomo recently admitted that his administration had withheld nursing home data from state lawmakers, Mr. Kim, whose Queens district was hit hard by the coronavirus, said it appeared the governor was “trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence.”Hours after Mr. Kim made that comment to The New York Post last Thursday, he said he got an irate late-night call from the governor. Mr. Cuomo began with a question — “Are you an honorable man?” — and then proceeded to yell for 10 minutes, Mr. Kim recalled, threatening to publicly tarnish the assemblyman and urging him to issue a new statement clarifying his remarks. Mr. Cuomo made good on his threat on Wednesday afternoon.In a remarkable retort, the governor used his press briefing to lob allegations of impropriety at the assemblyman... Mr. Cuomo was angered and combative about a letter published by The New York Post that was signed by several Assembly members, including Mr. Kim. The letter, citing the governor’s delays in releasing a complete tally of deaths of nursing home residents, including those that happened after a resident was transferred to a hospital, accused Mr. Cuomo of attempting to circumvent a federal probe and “intentional obstruction of justice.”"

U.S. attorney, FBI investigating Cuomo's handling of nursing home deaths - "The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI have begun a preliminary investigation into the way New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration handled data about Covid-19 nursing home deaths... Current and former law enforcement officials say investigators are in the very early stages of their probe and the possible investigative avenues could include false statements, any scheme to defraud the federal government of funds or any misuse of federal funds... Democratic and Republican lawmakers in New York are now reported to be reconsidering their decision to grant Cuomo emergency powers to contend with the Covid-19 crisis."

Cuomo fails to address nursing home cover-up admission - "An unapologetic Gov. Cuomo doubled down on a litany of past excuses Monday as he blamed “politics” for the spiraling scandal that’s engulfed his administration since The Post revealed his top aide admitted they hid from elected officials and the public the true number of nursing-home residents killed by COVID-19... “We were too focused on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment…It created confusion, cynicism and pain for the families of loved ones.”Left unsaid was that Cuomo had enough spare time to publish a self-serving memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” which made the Times “Best Sellers” list with the help of the self-proclaimed “Cuomosexuals” who turned his daily briefings into must-see TV, also garnering him a special Emmy Award...   State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D-The Bronx) — who’s among those pushing to strip Cuomo’s emergency powers — also ripped Cuomo’s remarks.  “No, @NYGovCuomo , you did not tell the *entire* Senate or Assembly that there was a DOJ investigation, as the reason why you didn’t share the nursing home numbers. I found out about a DOJ investigation with the rest of NY’ers in the @nypost story Thursday night,” she tweeted."

Covid UK: Facts about the risks, the death rate, and NHS capacity - "How accurate were the Government’s grim predictions? The short answer is: not very. In a July report commissioned by Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, scientists estimated that there could be 119,000 deaths if a second spike coincided with a peak of winter flu. Yesterday, that figure stood at 54,286 – less than half that. In fact, the second peak seems to have passed – over the past week there has been an average of 22,287 new infections a day, down from 24,430 the week before. In mid-September, Sir Patrick made the terrifying claim that the UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October unless more draconian restrictions were introduced. Yet we have never got near that figure.
What about its prophecies on deaths?
Ditto. Its warnings simply don’t bear any relation to reality. During the ‘Halloween horror show’ press conference used by Sir Patrick and Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty to scare the Government into implementing a second lockdown, one of their slides suggested that daily Covid-19 deaths could reach 4,000 a day by December. With ten days to go, we’re still at less than 15 per cent of that figure. In fact, as the graph above shows, the current death rate is significantly below almost every modelled winter scenario.
Are hospitals close to full capacity?
The answer is ‘no’ – contrary to what the Government experts would have you think after they last month published a chart that gave the impression that hospitals were close to overflowing, when at least half didn’t have a single Covid-19 patient... Remarkably, as the graph shows, the number of NHS England beds currently occupied is lower than last year’s average... roughly only 31 per cent of ICU beds – not including those which have been recently converted from normal beds – are currently occupied by patients with Covid.In fact, on November 8, the number of occupied critical beds was actually lower than five-year average for 2015-19.Even at the height of the first wave in the spring, the percentage of mechanical ventilation beds in existing NHS hospitals that were used never exceeded 62 per cent, according to a study by University College London... Those who die with pre-existing conditions tend to be suffering from serious, debilitating diseases. Some 27 per cent of them had diabetes, while 18 per cent had dementia – both of which render a person extremely vulnerable to any viral infection... The number of Covid-19 deaths is significantly lower than the peak in April... Despite what the fear-mongers would have you think, deaths are not far above average for this time of year... According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures – for October 2020 – in spite of all the Covid-19 deaths, the average death rate in the over-75s was significantly lower this year than it was last October – 6,901.7 per 100,000 people, compared with 7141.7 for last year."
How come hysterical covid predictions keep getting believed though they are always wrong? Then again the same is true for environmental hysteria. "This time, it's different" doesn't just apply to financial crises

Coronavirus: why are Western countries like the US and Britain still not learning from Asia’s success? | South China Morning Post - "Although many Western countries belatedly adopted measures embraced in Asia, such as mask-wearing and mass testing, authorities have been slow or reluctant to embrace other strategies such as invasive technological solutions that have bolstered contact tracing and quarantine efforts in South Korea and Taiwan.. Collignon, the infectious diseases expert at ANU, said Australia and New Zealand’s experiences, while largely positive, nevertheless showed the limitations of the lockdown model. Not only would the harshest restrictions not be sustainable over time, he said, some measures –such as curbs on activities outdoors, where the risk of transmission is relatively low – did not “even make biological sense”.“What is actually fairly obvious to me is that the success within Australia and New Zealand is not proportionate to the lockdown intensity"... Vayena, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology professor, warned that countries would continue to bounce in and out of lockdowns where their governments had failed to institute more sustainable and systematic alternatives over the past year.“Right now even if you look at Europe as a whole, there is no plan,” she said. “There’s no strategy. Lockdowns are not a strategy. Small lockdowns every two or three months is not a strategy – it’s not a sustainable strategy, it’s a catastrophic strategy.”"
It depends on what you think is a worthwhile tradeoff. The West also "doesn't want" to learn the "lessons" of China's fight against Uigher terrorism
The tragedy is that there is political will to lockdown but not to live life relatively normally

Did I mention Vermont is going full Soviet, asking kids to rat out their parents when they return from Thanksgiving break? Because they are.

Nation Prepares To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve | The Babylon Bee

Public Health Lessons Learned From Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation | Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness - "In testimony before US Congress on March 11, 2020, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee were informed that estimated mortality for the novel coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza. Additional evidence, however, suggests the validity of this estimation could benefit from vetting for biases and miscalculations. The main objective of this article is to critically appraise the coronavirus mortality estimation presented to Congress. Informational texts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are compared with coronavirus mortality calculations in Congressional testimony. Results of this critical appraisal reveal information bias and selection bias in coronavirus mortality overestimation, most likely caused by misclassifying an influenza infection fatality rate as a case fatality rate. Public health lessons learned for future infectious disease pandemics include: safeguarding against research biases that may underestimate or overestimate an associated risk of disease and mortality; reassessing the ethics of fear-based public health campaigns; and providing full public disclosure of adverse effects from severe mitigation measures to contain viral transmission."

Denmark under pressure to drop plans to work with Israel on vaccines - "Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, is under pressure to drop plans to work with Israel on vaccines, as political allies demanded that surplus doses be shared with Palestinians instead."
So much for a pandemic requiring non-political global cooperation

Labour Candidate: If Covid Vaccine Isn't Vegan It Breaches My Human Rights - "leftie Labour candidate Thomas Pilkington fretting over whether the Coronavirus vaccine will be “totally vegan?”"

We are living under Covid Sharia - "Sex between members of different households was banned altogether during the earlier lockdown, until government guidance was liberalised last week to allow ‘established couples’ to have sex. Still, grand mufti Matt Hancock confirmed on Sky News this week that casual sex between consenting adults from different households is still illegal. We even have a form of Covid modesty dress, as we are all obliged to cover our faces in certain public spaces or face hefty fines."

Walmart Thanks Government For Completely Obliterating Their Small Business Competition | The Babylon Bee - "Sources indicate most powerful corporations are advocating at least one more year of lockdowns to make sure small business competition stays dead. "We have to make sure those uppity business owners never threaten us again," said Bezos while sitting in a massive chair and stroking a white cat."

SNOBELEN: When the facts don't align with public health's preconceived notions | Toronto Sun - "Think back to early January when the public health authorities unveiled the latest scary COVID modelling. Every one of those models featured a hockey stick graph taking COVID cases from historic highs to the viral stratosphere.In Ontario the medium level of infection by mid-February was targeted at 20,000 cases a day... The COVID models proved to be accurate. They just had the hockey stick going in the wrong direction... Well, by gosh, obviously, the lockdowns worked. The public health dogs had repelled the virus elephants. But darned if there aren’t a few skeptics who don’t believe that the forced closures of (some) businesses, schools and recreation areas (think Ontario ski hills) caused the reduction in infections.Some stubborn facts fuel those skeptics. The crash in the rate of infections happened just about everywhere, even in jurisdictions that didn’t close businesses and schools.And the rate of decline was about the same, regardless of the intensity of public health initiatives... Based on the last 11 months Tam, de Villa and their fellow travellers would be well-advised to get out of the modelling business. It’s not going so well.And Canadians would probably be wise to take anything public health folks say with a large grain of salt. Two grains when it comes to vaccination projections."

The Models Were Wildly Wrong about Reopening Too - "The follow-up ICL paper from May attempted to model the effects of reopening in 5 US states: New York, Massachusetts, California, Washington, and Florida. In all five cases, the Imperial College team predicted an aggressive rebound of COVID-19 fatalities under even the most modest relaxation of stay-at-home policies and practices... the model depicted a catastrophic rebound of COVID-19 fatalities... More than 8 weeks have passed since the publication of the ICL team’s warnings against reopening, meaning we can now see how their model performed.As with other examples of ICL COVID modeling, their attempt to predict the effects of a US reopening can only be described as an embarrassing scientific failure... As with other predictions from the ICL team, the May paper likely faltered due to a fundamental error in its underlying code. These flawed ICL models begin with an unproven assumption, namely that lockdowns are effective at combating the coronavirus. The models are therefore automatically calibrated to produce a sharp spike in deaths after the removal of lockdowns or any move toward reopening.As we’re now seeing in actual data however, that assumption is grossly exaggerated. As a result, the predictive ability of Imperial College’s COVID epidemiology modeling amounts to little more than an exercise in statistical astrology."

Neil Ferguson's Coronavirus Imperial College Model -- ‘Professor Lockdown’ Resigns in Disgrace - "Johan Giesecke, the former chief scientist for the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has called Ferguson’s model “the most influential scientific paper” in memory. He also says it was, sadly, “one of the most wrong.”... Jay Schnitzer, an expert in vascular biology and a former scientific direct of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego, tells me: “I’m normally reluctant to say this about a scientist, but he dances on the edge of being a publicity-seeking charlatan.”Indeed, Ferguson’s Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate. To cite just one example, it saw Sweden paying a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1, and 100,000 by June. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago. As Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator, notes: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.”Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Disaster.”Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Charlotte Reid, a farmer’s neighbor, recalls: “I remember that appalling time. Sheep were left starving in fields near us. Then came the open air slaughter. The poor animals were panic stricken. It was one of the worst things I’ve witnessed. And all based on a model — if’s but’s and maybe’s.”In 2002, Ferguson predicted that, by 2080, up to 150,000 people could die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009... Last March, Ferguson admitted that his Imperial College model of the COVID-19 disease was based on undocumented, 13-year-old computer code that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus. Ferguson declined to release his original code so other scientists could check his results. He only released a heavily revised set of code last week, after a six-week delay.So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?"

SAGE models overestimation of deaths - The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine - "The slides leaked to the BBC on estimated COVID-19 deaths, and presented at the government press conference on the 31st October, were based on different models from at least three weeks ago.This allows us to check the projections for November the 1st.The PHE/Cambridge model on this date has an estimated projection of 1,000 deaths, yet deaths are averaging just over 200 deaths for this date on the government’s staging website."

A case study in model failure? COVID-19 daily deaths and ICU bed utilisation predictions in New York state - "Forecasting models have been influential in shaping decision-making in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is concern that their predictions may have been misleading. Here, we dissect the predictions made by four models for the daily COVID-19 death counts between March 25 and June 5 in New York state, as well as the predictions of ICU bed utilisation made by the influential IHME model. We evaluated the accuracy of the point estimates and the accuracy of the uncertainty estimates of the model predictions. First, we compared the “ground truth” data sources on daily deaths against which these models were trained. Three different data sources were used by these models, and these had substantial differences in recorded daily death counts. Two additional data sources that we examined also provided different death counts per day. For accuracy of prediction, all models fared very poorly. Only 10.2% of the predictions fell within 10% of their training ground truth, irrespective of distance into the future. For accurate assessment of uncertainty, only one model matched relatively well the nominal 95% coverage, but that model did not start predictions until April 16, thus had no impact on early, major decisions. For ICU bed utilisation, the IHME model was highly inaccurate; the point estimates only started to match ground truth after the pandemic wave had started to wane. We conclude that trustworthy models require trustworthy input data to be trained upon. Moreover, models need to be subjected to prespecified real time performance tests, before their results are provided to policy makers and public health officials."
When I present Covid hystericists with peer reviewed research, they have contempt for it, which suggests that "following the science" really means pretending it confirms your biases

Validity and usefulness of COVID-19 models - "Mathematical models have become central to the public and policy debate about the recent COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, they provide guidance to policy-makers about the development of the epidemic and healthcare demand overtime; on the other hand, they are heavily criticized for their lack of credibility. This commentary reflects on three such models from a validity and usefulness perspective. Specifically, it discusses the complexity, validation, and communication of models informing the government decisions in the UK, US and Austria, and concludes that, although these models are useful in many ways, they currently lack a thorough validation and a clear communication of their uncertainties. Therefore, prediction claims of these models should be taken cautiously, and their merits on scenario analysis should be the basis for decision-making. The lessons that can be learned from the COVID models in terms of the communication of uncertainties and assumptions can guide the use of quantitative models in other policy-making areas."

The turning point and end of an expanding epidemic cannot be precisely forecast - "Susceptible–infected–removed (SIR) models and their extensions are widely used to describe the dynamics of infection spreading. Certain generic features of epidemics are well-illustrated by these models, which can be remarkably good at reproducing empirical data through suitably chosen parameters. However, this does not assure a good job anticipating the forthcoming stages of the process. To illustrate this point, we accurately describe the propagation of COVID-19 in Spain using one such model and show that predictions for its subsequent evolution are disparate, even contradictory. The future of ongoing epidemics is so sensitive to parameter values that predictions are only meaningful within a narrow time window and in probabilistic terms, much as what we are used to in weather forecasts."

Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed - "Epidemic forecasting has a dubious track-record, and its failures became more prominent with COVID-19. Poor data input, wrong modeling assumptions, high sensitivity of estimates, lack of incorporation of epidemiological features, poor past evidence on effects of available interventions, lack of transparency, errors, lack of determinacy, consideration of only one or a few dimensions of the problem at hand, lack of expertise in crucial disciplines, groupthink and bandwagon effects, and selective reporting are some of the causes of these failures. Nevertheless, epidemic forecasting is unlikely to be abandoned. Some (but not all) of these problems can be fixed. Careful modeling of predictive distributions rather than focusing on point estimates, considering multiple dimensions of impact, and continuously reappraising models based on their validated performance may help. If extreme values are considered, extremes should be considered for the consequences of multiple dimensions of impact so as to continuously calibrate predictive insights and decision-making. When major decisions (e.g. draconian lockdowns) are based on forecasts, the harms (in terms of health, economy, and society at large) and the asymmetry of risks need to be approached in a holistic fashion, considering the totality of the evidence."

WARMINGTON: Man in forced detention in a Canada COVID hotel - "You will have to forgive Steve Duesing for not believing there are no COVID-19 internment centres in Canada.“I’m in one”... we looked at him through the window of his room where he could see Tim Hortons, Harvey’s, Subway and Swiss Chalet.“But I was told I can’t order in food”... The worst part is before he left from visiting a friend in North Carolina, he got a COVID-19 test as required by new rules.“It cost me $130,” he said. “I tested negative.”... It definitely has a detention centre feel to it. There is a barrier preventing anybody from coming and going and a security detail checks every vehicle entering the property... he worries about the eight other people taken off his American Airlines flight, and dozens of others, inside this hotel. ”Some cried and said they would lose their jobs or didn’t have babysitters”"
Ironically, those who bitch about "concentration camps" for illegal immigrant are fine with this

Opinion: Trudeau's quarantine hotels hurt those who need our help the most - "During a crisis, flailing governments need a scapegoat. And vacation travellers at Caribbean all-inclusives make a convenient political target for politicians looking to justify draconian measures like hastily announced $2,000 per person quarantine hotel stays.This approach works because there is little public sympathy for people who jetted off to tropical locales while the rest of us freeze at home.. I have heard from surgery patients who have travelled to the U.S. at great expense to obtain treatment that is unavailable in Canada, either because it is so specialized or because it has been delayed in Canada. I have heard from the parents of children with severe anaphylaxis who require regular specialized treatment, which is only available at a cutting-edge hospital in California.It is unlikely that a government quarantine facility will adequately meet the needs of individuals recovering from surgery or chemotherapy, or that it can accommodate highly specialized diets. These individuals must be permitted to quarantine at home. But because the government announced the blanket policy without announcing the exclusions, thousands of Canadians are left in a bind. How do you decide what to do when obtaining potentially life-saving therapy for your child requires exposing that child to a potentially life-ending government quarantine facility? Aside from individuals who travel for their own medical treatment, many other Canadians travel to care for others. For example, I have heard from those who have travelled for funerals of family members, or to care for ailing loved ones. These include individuals in cross border relationships. I heard from a woman who experienced a miscarriage alone in her home while her American fiancé was in the United States. The cost of him coming to comfort her is now an additional $2,000. Cross border relationships are not uncommon, but now come with an enormous and punitive price-tag... It is irresponsible for the government to release this quarantine policy without clarifying the details, especially when the policy has a dramatic impact on our most fundamental freedoms. Canadians have a Charter protected right to enter, remain in, and leave Canada. We have a right to liberty, to move about freely without obstruction. And we have a right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. We also have a right to equal benefit and protection of the law.The new federal quarantine policy violates all these fundamental rights. Whether these limits to our rights can be justified will depend on the exact details of the order. But while we await those details, remember that while it may feel good to extract some petty vengeance on sun-seekers, the real impact of this policy is hardest on those who can bear it the least."

Chris Selley: The blinding incoherence of Ottawa's hotel-quarantine theatre is becoming obvious - "Article contentCanada’s new mandatory hotel quarantine system landed over the weekend like a wet, mildewy towel. You have to book by phone. No one answers. There are multiple reports of Canadian citizens being put on hold for three hours, then cut off seemingly automatically... Officials have blamed the call backlog on people calling too far in advance of travel. Would you wait until the recommended 48 hours before your flight? The online advice implies you need “proof of having reserved and pre-paid for (hotel) accommodation” even to get on the plane. In fact, help is available for those disembarking without reservations... That might be useful information to put on the internet. But then, so would a reservation system. All the participating hotels already have one of those.For now, this all-too-predictable shambles isn’t a problem for the government. On social media, many are revelling in the misery and stress it’s causing, calling it travellers’ just deserts  — never mind if it’s an expat coming home to take a job, or a grieving family returning from a funeral, and not some fully vaccinated cartoon-villain snowbird. Former Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips and Canada’s other gallivanting politicos created a full-on moral panic overnight, and the feds, hitherto scornful of anyone who suggested international travel was worth worrying about, were happy to provide some red meat. The populist glee will wear off, though, and the blinding incoherence of this policy will eventually dawn on people. There is evidence right here at home that may illustrate the problem.Since November, travellers arriving at Calgary’s airport on international flights, or overland  into Alberta from Montana, could take a test upon arrival, and another a week later, and upon receipt of two negative results avoid the 14-days quarantine that has otherwise been demanded of “non-essential” humans entering the country for nearly a year. That “pilot project” was unceremoniously cancelled Sunday night... Do we really need to treat arrivals from famously COVID-free countries like New Zealand (0.7 new daily cases per million population, on a two-week average), or Taiwan (0.03 cases), the same as those disembarking flights from Israel (384), the United Arab Emirates (296) or the United States (202)?... even a 14-day mandatory hotel quarantine, in the Canadian context, would be like plugging the overflow drain in the bathtub but not the main one. There are hardly any barriers to speak of against new variants of the virus entering the United States, and not many more against them crossing the border into Canada. During the week ending February 14, 110,088 “essential” commercial truck drivers crossed into Canada, along with 62,392 other “highway travellers” — none of whom are subject to mandatory hotel quarantine, whether or not they are deemed “essential.” The number of international arrivals by air that week was 39,393... the problems Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is trying to solve aren’t medical ones. Mandatory hotel quarantine exists solely because it suddenly became a political necessity, and a welcome distraction."

CRENSHAW: To Understand Illogical Lockdowns, We Must Understand The Left’s Thinking - "Lockdowns are back. To many of us, it would appear as if the entire human race has learned absolutely nothing in the past 8 months. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the cost of lockdowns far outweighs the limited benefits, many policymakers lack the backbone or creativity to come up with any alternative. Internet memes have shrewdly asked: If a lockdown worked the first time, why are we doing it again? If a lockdown didn't work the first time, why are we doing it again? One of the most striking observations of the pandemic is that our society's reactions have fallen almost completely along partisan lines. Conservatives tend to be anti-lockdown and anti-government mandates, while liberals take the opposite view. Conservatives seek to contextualize COVID-19 data on deaths and infections with additional considerations, such as age, risk factors, and proportionality (i.e. total numbers versus cases per 100,000). Liberals obsess over total deaths and case counts, but nothing else. The initial explanation for such stark differences was a familiar one whatever Trump favors, the left opposes. While this is often true, it doesn't offer a full explanation. Over the past 8 months, I have seen for myself who is truly frightened and who is not, and who is asking the government for more action and who is not. I have seen how the demeanor of New Yorkers and New Englanders differs to that of my fellow Texans. In Washington, D.C., I regularly see people wear masks while walking alone in a park. In Texas, I almost never observe this, probably because there is no scientific basis for it. I presume the well-educated population of D.C. also knows there is no scientific basis for wearing a mask outdoors with no-one around you (only to take it off when you're finally seated at your favorite restaurant), and yet they do it anyway. Why? The why is the more interesting question. Why do liberals favor lockdowns, aided by sensationalist headlines? Why are many genuinely more fearful of the virus? Opportunistic anti-Trump partisanship simply cannot explain many of the real and non-political reactions I have witnessed. This is more than just a childish symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is indicative of deeper cultural and psychological differences between the left and the right. At the heart of the disparity regarding our attitudes to the COVID-19 response is the subject of risk assessment. The perception of risk differs widely between liberals and conservatives, as well as the decisions made when confronting risky situations. Research shows that Democrats and Republicans differ in the neural mechanisms activated during risk-taking exercises, specifically in the amygdala region. This demonstrates measurable physiological differences when confronted with risk. But what about the actual choices we make? To assess risk tolerance, a better indication might be the careers that liberals and conservatives choose. Conservatives overwhelmingly fill the ranks of physically riskier jobs such as the military, law enforcement, and loggers.This is all a lengthy way of explaining this simple observation: conservatives appear to be less risk averse to physical threats, and therefore far less likely to favor more extreme actions to mitigate that risk. This leads us to the next major cultural division, which is the extent to which government should involve itself in societal problem solving.The essential disposition of the liberal mind is a belief that almost anything can be solved by government. Conservatives reject this as unmitigated hubris resulting in unrealistic goals and excessive costs. The liberal favors action, even at a high cost, and even better if that action is collective in nature. Rhetorically, everything becomes the moral equivalent of war the war on poverty, the war on inequality, the war on COVID-19 because only in war do we plan and execute with feverish collectivism. This preference for collective action means that the need for proper cost-benefit analysis is cast aside. Rational questions about the effectiveness of lockdowns, or whether their benefit exceeds their cost, are ignored and even considered offensive. "If it saves one life!" is the battle cry of the left, because their language is the language of (assumed) morality and compassion, not proper risk analysis or rational decision-making.And this surfaces yet another major difference between conservatives and liberals: our moral preferences. Performing hundreds of thousands of surveys across different countries, social psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt consistently found that liberals overemphasize "caring" and "fairness" above other moral considerations. Conservatives, on the other hand, favor all moral categories more equally, placing emphasis not just on compassion, but on fair processes, moral authority and tradition, liberty, and loyalty. Conservatives are more morally balanced, while liberals measure the worth of an action by its corresponding measurement of signaled compassion. So, it is no surprise that liberals routinely denigrate contextualized COVID-19 data such as accounting for age and co-morbidities when assessing fatalities as "downplaying the virus" or "covering for Trump's failures." After all, rational discussions become impossible with someone who views you as morally inferior.Psychological dispositions matter. Cultural differences matter. They lead to vastly different policy outcomes. If we are to successfully persuade someone of our view, it behooves us to understand these differences and attempt to frame the debate accordingly. Only then can we answer the profound question of the internet memer we discussed earlier."

Liberate Wales! - "Wales entered its two-and-a-half-week ‘firebreak lockdown’ on Friday. Under its new rules, more restrictive than anywhere else in Europe right now, people must remain at home. All restaurants, bars, cafés, gyms, places of worship and most shops are closed. Travel into and out of Wales is banned. People can exercise once a day, but only in a limited area close to home. The only exception is for key workers to get to their place of employment. Most controversially, in a move apparently designed to ‘save’ independent retailers and to stop people congregating for a quick coronavirus-spreading gossip in the tampon aisle, supermarkets were ordered not to sell non-essential items. Pictures of shelves stocked full of clothes, books, toys, children’s crayons and paints, bedding and other household items, all sealed off with polythene and closed with barriers, have been widely circulated. This move is unlikely to save one independent shop but is guaranteed to boost Amazon’s coffers... With such a low prevalence of infection in much of Wales, the firebreak lockdown seems unnecessary as well as cruel. Businesses will go under, people will lose their jobs, mental and physical health will suffer. And for what? The first Welsh lockdown clearly didn’t work, despite lasting longer than in England, and a third winter lockdown is already being discussed."

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