Will we ever learn?

We have to plant a flag of possibility, whittle away at this nonsense, and see if we can’t find our way back to living, loving and growing as a society again. Surely, we must “bother”. It is the essence of life and leadership – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

This whole sordid madcap period of centralised lies about pathogenic ‘phantom menaces’ seeking to convert a serious virus into a blood curdling, life annulling cataclysm, seems to epitomise the media infatuation for advocating that the masses submit to and follow their demands. 

In fact, the various power blocs and orchestrators behind this clearly economically motivated (at least in part) health debacle seem to share some favourite impulses: authoritarianism, an unearned sense of self-righteousness, and a reflex for sneeringly dismissing those who disagree with their ‘acceptable’ political and social ideology. 

These impulses have had a tremendously corrosive impact on the public’s wits when it comes to COVID-19, allowing ‘experts’ to ongoingly present ineffective and data-detached mitigation and intervention efforts. They have advocated outright misinformation and vociferously dismissed what have revealed themselves to be increasingly legitimate inquiries into the origins of the ‘pandemic’. Just the inexcusable ignorance relentlessly ladled by the political class on mass masking, despite the unequivocal failure of masks everywhere they’ve been mandated (more on this below) provides vivid testimony to this. 

Has anyone noticed how after drumbeats of doom were furiously beating relative to Sweden, there has been convenient mass amnesia regarding its very existence, as they proved the orthodoxy playbook to be utter poppycock and as their rates continued to plummet in comparison to other countries? Well, it’s not just Sweden, the same rigmarole and chicanery was unloaded on the favourite US domestic target, the no longer embattled state of Florida.

Floridian panic

For several months over the latter part of summer 2021, media outlets exulted in forecasting the ‘inevitable’ collapse of Florida’s hospitals, animatedly pointing to their record high ‘case’ numbers (positive tests). There was hyperbolic glee in general about catastrophe being in the air. 

A typical headline from AP blared, ‘Florida breaks record with more than 21,000 new COVID cases’ (31 July). This is followed by a litany of complaints suggesting a causal link: no mandatory mask mandates, no vaccine requirements, barring school districts from requiring students to wear masks. It was taken as an article of faith that you must do these things because ‘experts’ on the payroll have proclaimed that only this is what will stop the spread of COVID-19. 

However, schools reopened in mid-August almost all without masks in Florida. At that time the seven-day average of new cases (positive tests) in Florida was 1,138 per million. Checked again on 26 October it’s 80 per million. So, essentially a 93% drop in case rates since these largely “maskless” schools reopened. You could spend a futile hour looking for any positive headlines from AP or anyone else documenting the air being let out of this ludicrous narrative yet again. No new vaccine mandates were in force during this period either.

There are very sound reasons that experts as far afield as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Peter McCullough or Professor Harvey Risch could provide to explain why cases would fall without any mass intervention. But to have explored this would have had required the practice of actual journalism and the flexing of some curiosity in initiating real inquiry. Needless to say, this was not forthcoming.

The corruption of modelling

The last 19 to 20 months surely has shaken the confidence of anyone of right mind regarding models, starting from the horrific IHME model from the University of Washington (whose ‘modelling’ re Sri Lanka has been as fatuous as their blundering re the rest of the world). The wonderful commentator Phil Magness has chronicled dutifully how poorly calibrated and remarkably inaccurate the IHME predictions 

have been. 

In fact, top up with Imperial College London and the floundering prognostications of Fauci and you would need to dedicate an article just to this phenomenon. Not wishing to be outdone in the penchant for modelling inaccuracy, the Mayo Clinic dove in to forecast that Florida, courtesy of the Delta variant, would swell to more than 83,000 cases per day by 9 August. 

If you look at that headline, it is first bemusing that they’ve used the high end of their own modelling where their actual forecast showed a low end of 31,000 cases per day. On 9 August the date of the breathless headline, the seven-day average of new ‘cases’ (positive tests) in Florida was 20,557 which means they were only off by 75%. Go Mayo Clinic! The ‘experts’ nail it again! 

Was there any revision in any news outlet after ABC News had so proudly proclaimed the initial projection? Surely you jest. So, we have here a true cycle of stupidity where media reports ghastly numbers by ‘experts’ who continue to demonstrate their repetitive inaccuracy and with any next “surge”, the whole farce gets repeated again. 

Records and threats

Political activism under the guise of ‘public health’ and ‘journalism’ in the case of Florida was unusually blatant. The head of Florida’s largest hospital association warned of “the skyrocketing number of hospitalisations” that are “unlike anything the state has seen before.” Of course, Politico piled on, stating in their article that Governor DeSantis is denying the severity of the situation and refusing to authorise lockdowns or mandates. 

Essentially, therefore, DeSantis was being excoriated for his antipathy to repeatedly demonstrated ineffective restrictions as well as the pointless and actually inhumane masking of kindergarteners. This report by Politico was issued on 2 August, and—wait for it—hospitalisations are down 80% since then! It may be that, with a clear head and a measure of data sobriety, Governor DeSantis was looking more at tracking excess deaths rather than positive tests posing as cases and was consulting the timing of the summer wave of 2020 as a benchmark. Ah, the audacity of applying logic!

Panic mongering

The magazine Vanity Fair gave DeSantis the title of ‘Angel of Death’. When forced to face the disquieting collapse of Florida’s COVID metrics, tap dancing critics claimed that the numbers only increased initially due to a lack of intervention. This runs right into the real-world data of Sweden outperforming Germany for most of the last 16 months though Germany has had aggressive mask mandates and vaccine requirements, with few to no restrictions in Sweden. 

After DeSantis moved the state to Phase 3 in late 2020, Florida dramatically outperformed most of the eastern states and California which had draconian lockdowns, curfews and mask requirements. Though Florida had fairly widespread vaccination by summer 2021, as we see repeatedly, that does virtually nothing to prevent the numbers from rising. Past that, with open schools, a thriving and open economy and genuine respect for autonomy and civil liberty, Florida is actually an inspiring beacon. 

The mask sham continues

We could simply say the similarity of outcomes between jurisdictions that do or don’t enforce masking in the US, the outlier success of Sweden and Bulgaria, settle the matter. However, the impunity with which immunity to facts is asserted by the masking evangelists is so pervasive we have to go a little further. 

Two types of mask studies have abounded. The first are where they had people cough without cloth over their mouth, then with cloth over their mouth and came to the shocking conclusion that less is expelled when you cough though a mask. Since the C-19 particles were too microscopic to be detained by masks, this really was gibberish. This would be the equivalent of proving that wood floats when trying to prove a ship is seaworthy. 

Since data and statistics fail and studies of this ilk flail, the other denomination is a randomised control trial. After months of trying to prevent the publication of the Danish randomised control trial which added to a slew of other studies which WHO had relied upon up until 2019 stating that masks don’t work, when the Danish paper finally squeaked into print, months were spent desperately trying to poke holes in it. 

Boundless relief was heard throughout the echo chamber when the Bangladesh study finally appeared in early September. However, that study found such a nominal reduction in seroprevalence among the masked cohort (around 7%) that the effect fell between what is called the confidence interval. Even the study’s authors could not exclude the fact that the masks had zero impact. 

Keep in mind unknown numbers of researchers around the world have burned through millions of dollars of grant money trying to prove that masks work. There is a reason we have heard about none of those results. The debunking Danish researchers were rare in their persistence, finally finding a publication that would publish their findings.

If you keep running studies over and over with systematic bias, you will, for example, eventually “seemingly” get a successful telepathy study leaving aside the ratio of junked failed telepathy studies. The only way to assess the success or failure of Corona suppression measures is to look at real world results. 

Places with masked mandates do not have any better results than places without them, and many of the places in the world with the highest surges have both assiduous mask mandates and mass vaccination. Were this not the case, mandates would not be required with any obvious mitigating effect for an actually lethal virus. People would adopt measures that work spontaneously. No one has to mandate wearing gloves and hats in winter. 

And data is overwhelming in other ways. A CDC study analysing 90,000 elementary students in Georgia schools from mid-November to mid-December found there was no statistically significant difference in schools that required masks compared to where they were optional. Another example, a rigorous analysis of the effects of C-19 mask mandates within Bexar County between June to August 2020 showed, and I quote, “There was no reduction in per population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed use… of COVID-19 patients attributable to the implementation of a mask wearing mandate.” Such studies abound.

The Bangladeshi paper, beyond the triviality of the claimed benefit, basked in using relative ratios. The so-called 7-10% difference was asserted from an actual rate change of 0.0026% even if accurate! Is this the basis on which we are muzzling the world, stifling oxygen flow and retarding the social and emotional development of children? 

In Aspen, Pitkin County fielded criticism for reinstating the indoor mask mandate after large-scale events like Jazz Aspen and the Snowmass Village Food and Wine Classic had finished up with no spikes or surges. Despite no issues, the county was pilloried for not having reinstated the silly virtue signalling mask mandate earlier. Like any third-rate theology, despite clearly inaccurate claims, you can browbeat people for not abiding by your delusions. 

Since said mandate, no impact. Pitkin is indistinguishable from its neighbours. If you compare Boulder County to Denver where there is no mask mandate, graphically and numerically, they are indistinguishable. And I promise not to mention Germany, 80% mask compliance compared to Sweden, 7% mask compliance, again. 

Ivermectin again!

The desperation to expunge any positive reports of Ivermectin is reaching a fever pitch. And so, this recent study from one of the early pioneers of early treatment, the inimitable Thomas Barody, attacked, vilified, unbowed, and producing lifesaving breakthroughs from his perch in Australia, with wisdom that has rippled out to other pioneers like Peter McCullough in the US, continues to pave the way.

Six hundred Australian residents with positive PCR and clearly symptomatic of C-19 were treated with Barody’s signature three-way therapy (Ivermectin Triple Therapy or ITT), a combination of Ivermectin at 24 mg a day, Doxycycline at 100 mg twice daily (bd), and Zinc at 50 mg per day, for 10 days. The period of treatment was June to September 2021. 7% were given additional vitamins and nutritional supplements. Despite all the fake reporting of “side effects” only 7% identified minor adverse effects, minor nausea, diarrhoea and heartburn. No patient came remotely close to stopping therapy.

There were no deaths. In an equivalent control group of 600, not treated with triple therapy, 70 were admitted to hospital (11.5%), with six deaths (1%). Chi-squared analysis of hospitalisation rate shows a significant decrease in the presence of Ivermectin triple therapy intervention. The control data was from contemporary infected subjects in Australia obtained from published COVID Tracking Data.

The subgroup of 126 in quarantine had more detailed documentation. They had an average age of 42 (range: 17-94). For the 10 COVID-related symptoms analysed, 98% had a total symptom score severity reduction by the end of the treatment period. Symptoms that were most persistent were loss of taste and smell, cough, and fatigue. Oximetry readings in 71 subjects were consistent with mild disease in most, though the range extended to the low 70s indicating severe disease in some individuals. At the completion of the 10 -day treatment program, all subjects had normal oximetry readings.

This well-documented study, en route to peer review, shows that in actual practice, in medical “real life”, this 10-day Ivermectin Triple Therapy, appears to be a highly safe, eminently effective and terrifyingly (to the pharma crowd) inexpensive early antiviral treatment for COVID-19. Further detail from the more than 30 doctors involved in treating this patient group, is being collated and threaded together for the formal peer-reviewed publication.

Taking a panoramic view, this basically shows that untreated quarantined patients who test positive for COVID 19 have an 11% hospitalisation rate and a 1% death rate which can be prevented with Ivermectin triple therapy for 10 days and results in a less than 1% hospitalisation rate. The starting gate is hardly terrifying. Given how even that can be contained, we have to wonder at our self-destructively perpetuating what now, given what we know, and the options available, is a clear “shamdemic”.

By the by, none of these patients were vaccinated. However, this is a good thing – this group may be a good comparison group for the vaccinated patients who test positive – to compare the hospitalisation and death rate among the vaccinated who do not receive early treatment vs. those who do receive early triple therapy, as this evidence seems curiously missing at present. From what we know of the results of vaccination in other populations, the results would likely be damning.

Nonsense Tweet award

Jo Maugham composed this remarkable tweet: “Herd immunity wouldn’t have been our strategy if the virus had targeted Etonians and bankers rather than the working classes and poorer people.”

He is writing re the UK, where there was a brief rhetorical flirtation with the concept by the Prime Minister, before mass political capitulation to the C-19 orthodoxy took place. So, to call it a real “strategy” just on the facts, given 18 subsequent months of kowtowing to the scientific illiteracy of mainstream COVID response, requires a very loose attention to the facts.

In fact, as Noah Carl points out, “it is impressive how many fallacies Maugham managed to pack into 280 characters”. To unpack it further, “herd immunity” or “natural immunity” is how humanity has evolved with bacteria and viruses over millennia. It is not a “strategy” it is inevitable. Truly calling it a “strategy” is as the Great Barrington authors have tirelessly been seeking to point out, like saying a pilot landing a plane has a “gravity strategy”. As COVID, with animal reservoirs implicated, and continuing to evolve, will not be eliminated, only rendered endemic (even Australia and New Zealand have forsworn their lunatic “zero COVID” position), however achieved, “herd immunity” is where we are headed, unless we want a perpetual pandemic.

As for Etonians and bankers, “lockdown” is not some working class “strategy”, it wasn’t a strategy at all in terms of locking up the healthy, ever. It came from the panicked antics of a one-party Communist state. Ideology or agenda we might debate, but certainly there is no suggestion that this mass usurpation of private property and individual autonomy was some kind of “conservative” plot. Lockdown is a complete departure from all the established public health nostrums anywhere in the globe up until 2020, when “suddenly” a complete, evidence free, about face occurred.

Finally, the “virus” does not “target” based on a caste system. It “targets” the vulnerable, those who are old and immunocompromised. Our “lockdowns” anyway were largely the affluent bunkering down while the working class brought them things, to amuse, sedate and placate them.

Why bother?

To many, fed up of this never-ending melodrama, the questions are inescapable. Robert Wright catalogues them for us.

“Why bother getting a university education?” You may pay great sums, classes can be suspended, there may be no work as a result.

“Why bother with healthcare?” One silly “surge” and you cannot get an appointment, face-to-face doctor care, critical testing or treatment.

“Why stay with a job?” To justify jabbing and shutdown, you can have “no consequence shoplifting” as in the US for some sectors, unemployment insurance, other palliatives, until the ink on the monetary printing press runs dry.

“Why develop expertise?” If your views clash with the prevailing narrative, you can be “cancelled”, deplatformed, decried for conspiracy thinking when you “suspect” manic jabbing of five-year-olds may suggest a non-public health agenda (their health stats re COVID cannot be improved as they’re virtually at no risk now).

Why open a new business? One “novel” (even if not actually unusual) virus or climate scare later, the Government may shut it all down “for your own good.” And if running a small business, the subsidies will not reach you while you get slowly strangled to bankruptcy via insane regulations.

We are swimming in “Dismisinfoganda” as it’s being called. Social and traditional media are awash in it.

The reason to bother is that relieving us of our inextinguishable human impulse to express our gifts, to have it matter, to love, live, nurture and grow, is how nihilism wins. We have to plant a flag of possibility, whittle away at this nonsense, and see if we can’t find our way back to living, loving and growing as a society again. Surely, we must “bother”. It is the essence of life and leadership.