Rex Murphy: Canadians have been patient during the pandemic. That's not necessarily a good thing - "We were patient, too, with the obvious contradictions that governed aspects of lockdown. People could gather in superstores, but not in churches. My favourite came last summer when a friend observed you could go to a protest but not get a haircut. Even celebrated politicians showed up at protests at a time when they maintained it was not safe to go to Parliament. Now there is patience, and there is heroic patience. Heroic patience belongs to every worker, owner and some customers of small- and medium-sized businesses. I expect that in a more volatile country the ruination of so many privately built small enterprises, maintained over years of labour, would lead to something close to rebellion. Not here. This is Canada... Surely we should, at least by this point, be asking rather angrily — do you guys have ANY plan for when this ends, for it CANNOT continue. Do you have an end date? When is it? Do you actually know what you are doing? Or are we all, the whole Canadian nation, on some playground slide that has no terminal. Is it all drop until you stop? Do you think these daily prayer sessions — because that’s really all they are — where the PM or premier or health adviser comes out to read numbers no one is listening to anymore, stand for leadership? Do the people ill-managing the crisis, and for the most part spared from its injuries, spared the loss of income or business, actually understand the pain of those not so well situated? Do you leaders know what’s going on in your own country or your own province? At this stage I think the only point of this crisis seems to be to maintain the crisis. It certainly liberates governments. Yet it cannot continue. There is always a fulcrum point. Is the response worse than the stimulus, the cure than the disease? True north strong and free? Not lately it isn’t."
From March 2021. Luckily, the convoy finally came along.
Coronavirus doesn't care about politics - "“Whose fault is that?” the TV news presenter kept asking a floundering Tory MP yesterday morning. The UK death toll from coronavirus is high — by some measures higher than any other country in the world. “So: Whose. Fault. Is. That?” This, in a nutshell, is the difference between the political and the scientific ways of thinking. Over the past eight weeks, on Lockdown TV, I have interviewed scientists and experts who sometimes disagree sharply with each other, but there’s a humility in their answers that is entirely absent from politics. Generally speaking, they accept that there’s much that they don’t know; very few things in science are anyone’s “fault”; instead scientists use odd words like “stochasticity”, referring to the fundamentally unpredictable aspect of nature."
Too bad covid corrupted science
You’re not ‘fully vaccinated.’ You never will be. - The Washington Post - "The fact that vaccinated people are dying of covid-19 in the United States reflects no greater failure than that of everyone else to get their shots and drive the virus into obscurity."
When they admit the bait and switch
Weird how the writer is unaware of the science showing that the vaccines don't prevent transmission and claims that herd immunity is possible if everyone gets vaccinated
Meme - "Just get the shots and we'll go back to normal *Lucy and Charlie Brown with football*"
Fauci: 'There's no way' the coronavirus was made with U.S. research funds. Here's why - Los Angeles Times
In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan
Anyone who doesn't trust Science Man is a dangerous science denier
Rita Panahi on Twitter - "More insane police overreach in Melbourne. Guy put in handcuffs for being a few hundred metres from his home. Police say “he has no valid reason to be there” & “wasn’t wearing a face mask”. He says he was getting lunch & having a cigarette."
From Sep 2021
Toronto restaurant refusing vaccine passport exemptions and some aren't happy - "An uptown Toronto institution and one of the city's most popular wing spots has taken a firm stance on the province's vaccine mandate by only allowing fully vaccinated patrons into their establishment. The move is drawing a mix of support and criticism. Bistro On Avenue... Throughout the pandemic, there has been a disturbing pattern of businesses who take a pro-science stance being targeted by peddlers of misinformation. Sadly, this is once again the case with Bistro"
From 2021
"Science" means that people who are medically unable to get a covid vaccine are second class citizens
Meme - Patricia Karvelas @PatsKar...: "Memories of the happiest day of my life #getvaxxed"
"Pretty sad life then if this is the best moment"
Meme - Greg @CasuallyGreg: "I have many regrets in my life. But none that compare to this. *Huge tattoo: 3/16/2021 J+J*"
What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage - "the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports. Georgia-Pacific, a leading toilet paper manufacturer based in Atlanta, estimates that the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all of its members are staying home around the clock... the toilet paper made for the commercial market is a fundamentally different product from the toilet paper you buy in the store. It comes in huge rolls, too big to fit on most home dispensers. The paper itself is thinner and more utilitarian. It comes individually wrapped and is shipped on huge pallets, rather than in brightly branded packs of six or 12. “Not only is it not the same product, but it often doesn’t come from the same mills,” added Jim Luke, a professor of economics at Lansing Community College, who once worked as head of planning for a wholesale paper distributor. “So for instance, Procter & Gamble [which owns Charmin] is huge in the retail consumer market. But it doesn’t play in the institutional market at all.”... In theory, some of the mills that make commercial toilet paper could try to redirect some of that supply to the consumer market. People desperate for toilet paper probably wouldn’t turn up their noses at it. But the industry can’t just flip a switch. Shifting to retail channels would require new relationships and contracts between suppliers, distributors, and stores; different formats for packaging and shipping; new trucking routes — all for a bulky product with lean profit margins. Because toilet paper is high volume but low value, the industry runs on extreme efficiency, with mills built to work at full capacity around the clock even in normal times. That works only because demand is typically so steady. If toilet paper manufacturers spend a bunch of money now to refocus on the retail channel, they’ll face the same problem in reverse once people head back to work again... While toilet paper is an extreme case, similar dynamics are likely to temporarily disrupt supplies of other goods, too — even if no one’s hoarding or panic-buying"
From Apr 2020
Patents are Not the Problem! - "Plastic bags are a bigger bottleneck than patents. The US embargo on vaccine supplies to India was precisely that the Biden administration used the DPA to prioritize things like bioreactor bags and filters to US suppliers and that meant that India’s Serum Institute was having trouble getting its production lines ready for Novavax. CureVac, another potential mRNA vaccine, is also finding it difficult to find supplies due to US restrictions (which means supplies are short everywhere)... Technology transfer has been difficult for AstraZeneca–which is one reason they have had production difficulties–and their vaccine uses relatively well understood technology. The mRNA technology is new and has never before been used to produce at scale. Pfizer and Moderna had to build factories and distribution systems from scratch. There are no mRNA factories idling on the sidelines. If there were, Moderna or Pfizer would be happy to license since they are producing in their own factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week (monopolies restrict supply, remember?). Why do you think China hasn’t yet produced an mRNA vaccine? Hint: it isn’t fear about violating IP. Moreover, even Moderna and Pfizer don’t yet fully understand their production technology, they are learning by doing every single day. Moderna has said that they won’t enforce their patents during the pandemic but no one has stepped up to produce because no one else can."
From May 2021
Booster jabs for all ‘not a good use’ of taxpayer cash, says AstraZeneca boss - "Widespread annual Covid-19 booster jabs are "not a good use" of taxpayer cash, according to the chief executive of AstraZeneca. Pascal Soriot told The Telegraph that research suggests the vaccine gives healthy people protection against severe disease for a "long time", meaning most will not need a top-up jab to avoid severe complications from the virus... AstraZeneca has previously suggested that governments should wait for more data on how effective two doses were before offering a third dose to the general public. AstraZeneca is currently lobbying officials to spend more on Covid antibody treatments for immunocompromised people, such as those with blood cancers or transplant patients"
Clearly a dangerous anti-vaxxer who ignores "the science" and needs to be fired. I'm sure them producing the vaccine at cost has nothing to do with why they refuse to follow "the science", unlike Pfizer and Moderna who are making a lot of money
Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table to dissolve next month, expert group says : toronto
The comments are hilarious. There're still so many covid hystericists and covid cultists out there, with their conspiracy theories
The Science Table says it's going away, sadly, that's not quite true | Toronto Sun - "The Ontario Science Table gets everything wrong, including whether they are going away... Like their failed COVID projections, the Science Table is wrong on pronouncing their own demise. The Ford government says it’s not going away... there is no reason to keep this group around in any form. The Science Table was a self-appointed and self-important group that inserted itself into Ontario’s policy making early in the pandemic by putting forward modelling and projections on COVID. Despite being put on a pedestal by much of the media, the Science Table quickly proved themselves to be an organization that couldn’t get basic things right. Back in April, the Science Table issued a report predicting that hospitalizations would be between 2,500 under the best case scenario and 4,000 under the worst. Yet when that time came it was 1,676 people in Ontario hospitals testing positive for COVID-19 and just 703 of them were admitted due to COVID, the others were in hospital for other reasons and tested positive once admitted. That same report predicted that ICUs would be overrun by the start of May with between 375 and 600 admitted, instead we had 157 people testing positive in ICUs and only 102 of them were admitted for COVID. That wasn’t the only report that got it wrong, listing their projections they were right on would be a much shorter list. When the province began reopening on Jan. 31 after the last lockdown, the Science Table predicted disaster... The wise men and women at the Science Table stated clearly in 2021 that there was no evidence to back vaccine passports... As soon as vaccine passports were politically popular in certain circles, the Science Table changed their collectivist minds and pressured the government to implement a vaccine passport system. Their now former scientific director, Peter Juni, got himself in hot water when he told restaurant workers worried about losing their income again just before Christmas due to a lockdown he was advocating for to “stop moaning.” His later comments about a tidal wave of COVID didn’t come true but it did have the effect of scaring patrons from returning to restaurants and hurting long-struggling businesses. Most of the media in Ontario simply focused on the fear generating predictions but rarely how wrong they were"
Ba.5 is a "Variant for Boosted People" - "The BA4/5 sister variants currently dominate two countries: South Africa and Portugal. South Africa is barely vaccinated (only 35% had a vaccine, 5% had a booster), whereas Portugal is 95% vaccinated and 70% boosted. The situations in these countries could not be any more different: while Ba.4 and Ba.5 were mere blips on the radar in South Africa, these same variants are driving a deadly wave of Covid in highly-vaccinated Portugal, with deaths among the Portuguese nearing January peak and showing few signs of abating. South Africa and Portugal form a two-country controlled experiment: vaccinate one country and do not vaccinate another, and expose both to Covid Ba4/5. The difference in outcomes is telling. Let’s explore. South Africa and Portugal are on the opposite sides of the vaccination spectrum: South Africa is barely vaccinated, while in Portugal, reportedly, “there is no one left to vaccinate”... Back in 2021, Portuguese “health experts” and officials promised upcoming “herd immunity”, which Portugal would enjoy once the harshly enforced near-total vaccination would complete. The majority of Portuguese citizens “believed in science” and thought very highly of themselves for that. Most Portuguese “health experts” and officials dismissed ignorant, science-denying protesters, pictured below, who were objecting to forced vaccination... Mind you, Portugal has a decent Western medical system and South Africa is a poorer country. While Portugalians are older on average, about 20% of South Africans are infected with HIV. So even though these are not perfectly equal countries, these differences balance each other... Why are reinfections happening? Because boosted people are unable to acquire proper immunity upon infection. Thus, they are forced to endure endless Covid reinfections, that further damage their immune systems, inviting more illness... East Germans from the former DDR tend to mistrust their government, and thus refused vaccines. The results speak for themselves on a map."
Omicron symptoms UK: New stealth Covid variant can reinfect you every month - "Health experts across the globe are signalling alarm as they begin reporting that Omicron BA.5, the coronavirus strain that is currently outpacing other variants in infection and has become the dominant strain in the US and abroad, has the ability to reinfect people within weeks of contracting the virus... Professor Altmann explains how they followed individuals who were triple vaxxed and those who suffered breakthrough infections during earlier Omicron waves."
Apparently people need to be forced to get monthly boosters for the rest of their lives
Forget all the calls for respect, academics hurl abuse at Dr. Moore | Toronto Sun - "Remember all the calls over the last few days to bring civility back to our public discourse? Remember the claims that the lack of civility, the coarseness of that public discourse was all due to angry conservatives? Well forget about it, we now have Canada’s left-wing academics and medical experts acting in ways they criticized just days ago. Apparently, those calls for treating each other with respect don’t apply when you disagree with Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer on COVID policy. The name calling and claims that Dr. Moore is going to kill people by changing public health guidelines is mind blowing. Emmett Macfarlane, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo, took to Twitter during Dr. Moore’s Wednesday news conference to claim Moore was “PRO VIRUS” and call him a piece of….well, excrement but in a less polite way. The poli-sci prof also says that Moore “has no business in public office or anywhere near public health.”... Jacob Shelley, a law professor, blasted Moore as negligent and responsible for coming deaths. “Dr. Moore is responsible for the preventable deaths & disease that follows from his negligence,” Shelley wrote. “He shouldn’t be a CMOH. Hell, he shouldn’t be a Dr. Shameful. Any public health org/body, scholar, advocate or dr that doesn’t call out this has likewise abandoned public health.” Now, I’m not going to say no one should question Dr. Moore’s decisions, I question doctors all the time, but I can tell you from experience that when I question a doctor about overly zealous COVID restrictions on Twitter, it’s called an attack on science. I’m quickly reminded, by people like Macfarlane, Shelley or their fellow travellers, that I’m not a medical doctor. Seems that attacking doctors or science is just fine if the doctor being attacked is relaxing rather than increasing COVID restrictions... Of course, there are plenty of medical experts who believe that Ontario is on the right path under Moore, their voices aren’t yelling and screaming on Twitter though. Nor are they amplified quite as often in the media as those wanting ever increasing restrictions even when the evidence doesn’t support more or ongoing restrictions"
Covid hystericists pretend that it's a bad thing when doctors and experts get "harassed" by "anti-vaxxers". Turns out they're just upset at their narrative being challenged, not harassment
How Deadly Is Covid? A Major Study Defies Conventional Wisdom - "COVID-19 is much less deadly in the non-elderly population than previously thought, a major new study of antibody prevalence surveys has concluded. The study was led by Dr. John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Stanford University, who famously sounded an early warning on March 17th, 2020 with a widely-read article in Stat News, presciently arguing that “we are making decisions without reliable data” and “with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.” In the new study, which is currently undergoing peer review, Prof. Ioannidis and colleagues found that across 31 national seroprevalence studies in the pre-vaccination era, the average (median) infection fatality rate of COVID-19 was estimated to be just 0.035% for people aged 0-59 years people and 0.095% for those aged 0-69 years... Why are countries seeing differing IFRs even for the same age groups? The authors suggest a number of explanations, including data artefacts (e.g. if the number of deaths or seroprevalence are not accurately measured), presence and severity of comorbidities (for example, obesity affects 42% of the US population, but the proportion of obese adults is only 2% in Vietnam, 4% in India and under 10% in most African countries, though it affects almost 40% of South African women), the presence of frail individuals in nursing homes and differences in management, health care, overall societal support and levels of drug problems."
So the IFR is not just under 1%, but under 0.1%
California Misinformation Legislation for COVID and CDC Doctors - "A California bill, AB 2098 (Low), appears to be moving towards passage in the next two weeks. The bill would make the spreading of misinformation, as defined, or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, by a physician and surgeon unprofessional conduct.
"Eppur si muove"
I find the bill's definition of "misinformation" to be particularly troubling: "“Misinformation” means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence by the licensee."
The problem with this definition is that it treats current scientific consensus as unchallengeable truth. On June 22, 1633, Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei was condemned for advocating a heliocentric theory of the solar system, a theory that was contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest, and yet the earth still moves. Similarly, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution contradicted centuries of scientific consensus with respect to the origin of species. An unintended consequence of this bill will be to stifle the scientific process. Yet unsparing skepticism is fundamental to the scientific enterprise. Scientific knowledge is based on a continuing process of questioning, observation and experimentation. Recently, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was quoted as saying that the C.D.C. was "responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes, from testing to data to communications" with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although I doubt that AB 2098 was directed at C.D.C. physicians, the bill's definition of "misinformation" certainly creates that possibility."
Phil Kerpen on Twitter - "Feynman: “I can also define science another way. Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says ‘science teaches such and such’, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience teaches it” (The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, p.187).
What's most interesting about the California law is that it's not enough for misinformation to be false -- it must also be contrary to consensus. So the anti-schoolers, child-maskers, long COVID grifters, etc. are protected."
Obesity is contagious – Harvard Gazette
Vaxholes claim that covid is contagious, so that justifies forcing people to be vaccinated. Time to put the whole world on a compulsory diet and exerise regime
The race between vaccination and evolution of COVID-19 variants - "The only way to reduce the risk of variants is to cut transmission of SARS-CoV-2 wherever the virus is found"
Vaxholes have some tortured logic about forcing people to be vaccinated being justified because it reduces variants (a fraction of a fraction of a chance of preventing someone else's death justifies violating bodily autonomy here - but somehow not for abortion, where the end of a life is certain). So much for that, since the vaccines don't reduce transmission
How Seinfeld (Hilariously) Exposed the Creepy Authoritarianism of Aggressive Do-Gooders - "Like a good Samaritan, Kramer shows up to walk to support the cause: AIDS awareness. Things take a turn, however, when he declines to wear an AIDS ribbon... The peer pressure Kramer receives is funny because it’s strange but also relatable. You don’t have to be a hard-nosed libertarian immersed in Rothbard and Mises to see there is a human tendency to fanatically push conformity, even in matters of symbolism (perhaps especially so)... The scene is a great example of mob mentality. Kramer, who is walking in support of AIDS awareness, is browbeaten by his peers despite his support of the cause. The ribbon bullies don’t care Kramer is walking in support of the same cause they are; all they can see is he’s not wearing the ribbon. The scene ends with the ribbon-wearing walkers beating Kramer up in an alley... Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that the pandemic has unleashed a level of anger and hostility against those who choose to follow his or her own conscience instead of the decrees of the collective... Interestingly, not wearing a mask is not an actual sin. We saw celebrities and politicians galore flout this supposedly necessary medical precaution, with nary a peep from the mask police who insist children must wear them in schools. And we routinely see our leaders remove them when they believe the cameras have stopped... Choosing to not get vaccinated carries an even greater risk of social stigma and shame. Kramer received a beating for not wearing the AIDS ribbon, but many have suggested the unvaccinated deserve much worse. TV host Jimmy Kimmel recently said unvaccinated patients should not be treated if they fall ill, while a Florida doctor recently came right out and said she won’t treat unvaccinated patients, as did a physician in Alabama... The pandemic may have fueled our tribal instincts that seek to browbeat those who stray into conformity, but it’s important to understand it existed beforehand and infects people of all parties, ideologies, and persuasions. (Conservatives who doubt this need only look back at the fury presidential candidate Barack Obama caused when he stopped wearing an American flag pin.) Extremism can take many forms, but it’s important to understand that Seinfeld’s ribbon enforcers and the COVID bullies share a common trait. Both groups are absolutely convinced that what they are doing is good. The problem is, good intentions mean very little. The 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history, largely because many humans sought to create a better world by instituting an economic system they believed would solve human problems: socialism."
Ditto for wokeness
Opinion | We Did Not Suffer Equally - The New York Times
Yet the same people calling this racist and sexist pushed for endless lockdowns. Convenient
Food offered for citizens in quarantine in different countries : HongKong - "People in Japan did not only receive food - if you look closer, it's actually a care package that includes facial tissue, food wrap, body wipes, medication and masks. Very thoughtful (also very Japanese indeed!) Meanwhile ppl in HK got food that looks like vomit. 🤮"
No, the Tuskegee Study Is Not the Top Reason Some Black Americans Question the COVID-19 Vaccine - "As more surveys come out showing that Black Americans are more hesitant than white Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine, more journalists, politicians and health officials — from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Dr. Anthony Fauci — are invoking the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to explain why. “It's ‘Oh, Tuskegee, Tuskegee, Tuskegee,’ and it's mentioned every single time,” says Karen Lincoln, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California. “We make these assumptions that it's Tuskegee. We don't ask people.” When she asks the Black seniors she works with in Los Angeles about the vaccine, Tuskegee rarely comes up. People in the community are more interested in talking about contemporary racism and barriers to health care, she says, while it seems to be mainly academics and officials who are preoccupied with the history of Tuskegee... Those who don’t want the vaccine have very modern reasons for not wanting it. They tell Toler it’s because of religious beliefs, safety concerns or distrust for the former U.S. president and his relationship to science. Only a handful mention Tuskegee, she says, and when they do, they’re fuzzy on the details of what happened during the 40-year study... the history is a distraction; it’s not relevant to what’s happening now. “It's almost the opposite of Tuskegee,” she says. “Because they were being denied treatment. And this is like, we're pushing people forward: Go and get this vaccine. We want everybody to be protected from COVID.” The “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” was a government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded study that began in 1932. Some people believe that researchers injected the men with syphilis, but that’s not true. Rather, they recruited 399 Black men from Alabama who already had the disease, though the government doctors never told them they had it... many scientists assumed that Black people would never want to participate in clinical research again. Over the next three decades, various books, articles and films repeated this assumption until it became gospel... Several researchers began to question this assumption at a 1994 bioethics conference, where almost all the speakers seemed to accept it as a given. The doubters asked, what kind of scientific evidence is there to support the notion that Black people would refuse to participate in research because of Tuskegee? When those researchers did a comprehensive search of the existing literature, they found nothing... While Black people were twice as “wary” of participating in research, as compared to white people, they were equally willing to actually participate. And, there was no association between knowledge of Tuskegee and willingness to participate... These results did not go over well within academic and government research circles, Warren says, as they “indicted and contradicted” the common belief that low minority enrollment in research was the result of Tuskegee"
Of course, since it's liberals who keep obsessing about Tuskegee, they can be blamed for increasing vaccine hesitancy
Eva Vlaardingerbroek on Twitter - "🇳🇱 The Dutch government wants to bring back ‘the digital covid pass’ for bars, restaurants and the entertainment industry. This time they’re using the lie that “these sectors asked for it themselves as a last resort to prevent being locked down again”. Here we go again."
Holden on Twitter - ""Fauci was only an advisor and had no power" is some retconning. Maybe he had no de jure authority, but few people dared to pushback on his recommendations. Any governor who did was told they were killing children by the majority of the press.
By this logic Tucker Carlson has no authority either, so he can never be faulted for the consequences of his words."
ZUBY: on Twitter - "The demonisation of 'the unvaccinated' last year truly unveiled the darkest sides of human nature. I know people want to 'just move on' (for obvious reasons) but many of us will never forget just how nasty, vicious, and unreasonable people became.
And everybody ended up getting the rona anyway... As predicted. I still dont think I've seen nor heard a single person apologise for their demonisation, discrimination, and loss of human decency. They're just carrying on like all is cool and always was.
Some really interesting (and disturbing) personal stories shared in the replies to this. Hundreds of millions of relationships damaged over this. Billions really. It sucks and was completely avoidable but the psyop was powerful. Relationships that survived will be stronger now."
Reply: "The saddest part is that there are plenty of people still demonizing the unvaccinated."
