CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

[marsh]

CDC Now Treats Unvaccinated The Same As Un-Boosted

The CDC is moving goalposts again, changing the definition of 'fully vaccinated' to include a third shot.

thefederalist.com

CDC Now Treats Unvaccinated The Same As Un-Boosted, Just As DeSantis Predicted

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD
DECEMBER 31, 2021

IMAGE CREDITGAGE SKIDMORE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The CDC is moving goalposts again, changing the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ to include a third shot.

SHAWN FLEETWOOD

In its recently updated guidance on exposure to COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) treats double jabbed individuals that have not received a booster shot the same as unvaccinated ones.

“For people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose (or more than 2 months after the J&J vaccine) and not yet boosted, CDC now recommends quarantine for 5 days followed by strict mask use for an additional 5 days,” the updated guidance reads. “Alternatively, if a 5-day quarantine is not feasible, it is imperative that an exposed person wear a well-fitting mask at all times when around others for 10 days after exposure.

Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure.”

The move to change the definition of “fully vaccinated” by the federal health agency was predicted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month. During a press conference in Tallahassee, the Republican governor told attendees that “those individuals who have gone through a normal vaccination series for COVID …will be determined to be unvaccinated very soon.”

“They will do that – they are gonna tell you: ‘you’re unvaccinated and you have to get a booster,'” he said, adding that those who choose not to get a booster “could potentially face loss of employment or other types of penalties.”

The comments sparked outcry from legacy media fact-checkers, who were quick to label the governor’s prediction as false. Writing in The Independent, Andrew Feinberg penned an article titled “Fact Check: DeSantis falsely claims vaccinated citizens without boosters could be declared unvaccinated and lose their jobs,” in which he claims that DeSantis was “lying about the possibility that Covid-19 boosters will be used to force people out of their jobs.”

“Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky has repeatedly denied that the Biden administration plans to consider people who do not get boosters to be unvaccinated.” he wrote.

In addition to the recently updated guidelines, government health officials have also publicly indicated that such a change in definition would ultimately occur.

During a CNN interview earlier this month, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci foreshadowed that changing the definition of fully vaccinated to include booster shots is a matter of “when, not if.”

“I don’t see that changing tomorrow or next week, but certainly if you want to talk about what optimal protection is, I don’t think anybody would argue that optimal protection is going to be with a third shot,” he said. “For me, as a public health person, I just say get your third shot – forget about what the definition is. I just want to see people be optimally protected.”

 

[marsh]

REPORT: Nearly 80% of Omicron Cases are in Vaccinated People. - The National Pulse+

Nearly 80 percent of reported cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in Germany occurred in fully vaccinated individuals, according to a new report from the federal government. Note: This article has been updated following an error by the German federal government. Following publication, the...

thenationalpulse.com

by Natalie Winters
December 31, 2021


Over 95 percent of reported cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in Germany occurred in fully vaccinated individuals, according to a new report from the federal government.

The paper – published December 30th by the German agency the ‘Robert Koch Institute’ – included information on the vaccination status of 4,206 individuals who contracted the latest variant of the virus.

Four thousand and twenty people who reported contracting Omicron in the study – which equates to 95.6 percent of total cases – had received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Twenty-eight percent of the Omicron-positive group had also received a third dose or “booster” shot.

Just 186 people contracting Omicron were unvaccinated in the entire sample, showing that vaccinated individuals were over 21 times as likely to contract the COVID-19 variant.

On December 14th, The National Pulse declared the COVID-19 situation worldwide a “pandemic of the vaccinated”.

The Robert Koch Institute report also documented symptoms for nearly 7,000 individuals who tested positive for Omicron, and the majority of people experienced virtually no adverse effects:

“For 6,788 cases, information on the symptoms was provided, mostly no or mild symptoms were reported. 124 patients were hospitalized, four people died.”

The data – which appears to show that vaccines confer no advantage to preventing against contracting the Omicron variant – follows pharmaceutical companies reaching record high levels of lobbying efforts in America, both financially and in terms of hired personnel.

Amidst heavy censorship of those criticizing the side effects and adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine, The National Pulse has also revealed leading pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.’s conflicts of interest with social media platforms including Facebook and media outlets such as Reuters.

The report also follows many cities – including New York City and Washington, D.C. – rolling out vaccine mandates to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant.

The Biden White House has also pursued a federal vaccine mandate despite courts blocking the measure and had floated the possibility of requiring the jab for all domestic travelers on airplanes.

Scribd doc on website


Download this PDF

 

[marsh]

Dr. Robert Malone Bombshell: After Meeting With Biden, India's Modi Covered Up Uttar Pradesh's Miracle Covid Treatment - The Liberty Daily

If you love the news, check out The Liberty Daily's homepage. Just when you thought you’d heard all of the damning facts about Covid-19, vaccines, The Great Reset, and the Plandemic in general, Dr. Robert Malone goes on Joe Rogan’s show and drops an absolute bombshell of a statement. While...

thelibertydaily.com

Dr. Robert Malone Bombshell: After Meeting With Biden, India’s Modi Covered Up Uttar Pradesh’s Miracle Covid Treatment

By J.D. Rucker • Dec. 31, 2021

Just when you thought you’d heard all of the damning facts about Covid-19, vaccines, The Great Reset, and the Plandemic in general, Dr. Robert Malone goes on Joe Rogan’s show and drops an absolute bombshell of a statement.

While discussing the tremendous turnaround seen in India’s huge Uttar Pradesh province, Dr. Malone revealed some of what we already knew and something that we hadn’t heard before. The latter was an absolute bombshell.

“Uttar Pradesh, as you know, has crushed Covid,” Dr. Malone said.

“Ya, can you explain what they did to do that because it’s quite fascinating,” Rogan urged.

Dr. Malone hesitated a bit, trying to determine what he could say as fact and what must be noted as speculation. He opted to leave it a question mark about what precisely they’ve done, though he speculated later in the segment. His speculation has been mostly confirmed by other sources: They’re using Ivermectin. But it was in the interaction the Biden regime in general and Joe Biden in particular had with India’s government that is shocking.

First, he explained the series of events that turned the province from being on the verge of medical collapse to essentially beating the pandemic.

“The virus was just ripping through Uttar Pradesh,” Dr. Malone said. “It has almost the same population as the United States. It’s huge, okay, dense, urban, poor, all the characteristics of a stereotype of the Indian countryside. The virus was just ripping through there causing all kinds of death and disease.

“And the decision was made out of desperation in that province to deploy early treatments as packages widely throughout the province, and it included a number of agents. The composition has not been formally disclosed. It was done in coordination with WHO and whatever was in those packages was rumored to include Ivermectin.”

The obvious question would be to know why the composition of the early treatment package has not been formally disclosed. As the powers-that-be like to say, we’re supposed to be “in this together.” If their efforts were so effective, why did the Indian government withhold the life-saving information and why haven’t world governments, including the United States, demanded that they reveal their secret.

The answer is that the Biden regime and the globalists who are controlling it do not want the information to come out. Instead of doing what’s necessary to save lives, they’re doing everything they can to push their universal vaccine agenda.

And Joe Biden is directly involved, according to Dr. Malone.

“There was a specific visit of Biden to Modi and a decision was made in the Indian government not to disclose the contents of those packages that were being deployed in Uttar Pradesh, which they’re still there, and Uttar Pradesh is flatlined right now,” Dr. Malone said. “The rest of the world is yelling about Omicron and hospitalizations — well, South Africa isn’t — but Uttar Pradesh is still flatlined in terms of deaths.”

Wow. Here’s the video:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477028934252482562

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477028934252482562
2:03 min

No wonder they’re so desperate to censor Dr. Robert Malone. The things he’s revealing to Joe Rogan disintegrate The Great Reset’s most important project of universal vaccinations. Buckle up, folks. The truth is trickling out.

 

[marsh]

(China)

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

China Punishes People Trying To Escape Brutal Lockdown In Xi'an

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 09:30 PM

The city of Xi'an, the provincial capital with a larger population than NYC, has been locked down, Wuhan-style, for more than a week now, and it's residents are starting to get restless thanks to a shortage of available foodstuffs. But any citizens who hope to escape what's shaping up to be a brutal lockdown will find the authorities to be less than understanding.



According to Bloomberg, Beijing is punishing people who are trying to evade the latest COVID lockdown in Xi’an as a top official urged "forceful moves" be taken to curb the outbreak.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said local authorities need to adopt more "targeted and forceful" measures and improve quarantine controls, according to a report in the official Xinhua News Agency. China reported 166 local confirmed cases for that day, 161 of them in the city.



The situation in Xi’an is "severe and complex," Sun supposedly said during a visit. Sun, the only woman on the ruling Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo, also called on the government to step up tracing efforts (although the city has undergone at least 4 rounds of mass testing over the past week).

Local police have been deputized to track down anyone attempting to duck the tight controls in Xi'an. One man who tried to wade across the Wei River to get out of town was apprehended and given a warning, police said, while another who pedaled 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) on a shared bicycle to his hometown was fined and sent to quarantine.

A man who hiked 100 kilometers from the airport to a nearby county was also sent to quarantine by police before being given an unspecified punishment.

Roads in the city have been closed to traffic as the city faces a Wuhan-style lockdown. Even factories in the city have ceased operating: Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics both said that production at factories in the city has been affected by the latest lockdown. Micron said it would be able to meet most of its customer demands for product despite the lockdown, which began on Dec. 23.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

COVID Antiviral Pills Cause Life-Threatening Reactions When Used With Many Common Meds: FDA

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 07:00 PM
Authored by Tammy Hung via The Epoch Times,

Pfizer’s antiviral oral drug developed to treat COVID-19 can cause severe or life-threatening effects when used with common medications including some anti-coagulants, some anti-depressants, and some cholesterol-lowering statins, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (pdf).



FDA does not recommend Paxlovid for those with severe kidney or liver disease.

The FDA on Dec. 22 granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment pill as treatment for mild-to-moderate cases of COVID-19 in patients from 12 years of age.

Paxlovid was the first oral medication of its kind authorized by the FDA to treat COVID-19, with the aim of reducing the need for hospitalization before patients become too ill from the infection.

“This authorization provides a new tool to combat COVID-19 at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and promises to make antiviral treatment more accessible to patients who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19,” stated Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Paxlovid consists of a cocktail of two drugs, the first being nirmatrelvir, which stops the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating, while the second component acts to prolong the duration of nirmatrelvir.

The EUA came a month after the federal government announced it would purchase 10 million courses of the drug.

Earlier in November, the Biden administration had already purchased some 10 million courses of the drug in a more than $5 billion agreement.

“Pending EUA, U.S. will receive doses starting in 2021 and throughout 2022 as part of contract agreement with Pfizer,” Health and Human Services (HHS) stated in a statement.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Nov. 18 emphasized the importance of “getting vaccinated” even when Paxlovid becomes available.

“Getting vaccinated remains the most important action anyone can take to help protect themselves and others and end this pandemic, but for people who do get sick in the future and are at risk of severe outcomes, having pills they can take to keep them out of the hospital could be a lifesaver,” Becerra stated.

“This agreement would help ensure millions of doses of this drug would be available to the American people if it is authorized.”

Earlier in December, Pfizer announced that the pill is able to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus by 89 percent when taken shortly after initial symptoms.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Dec. 8 told CNBC that shipments of the pill have arrived in the United States, “so product will be available this month if it’s approved.”

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

COVID Testing Has Become Ridiculous & Even Counterproductive

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 05:15 PM
Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

The Omicron version of COVID is so mild that it’s indistinguishable from a cold. Many people are asymptomatic. We also know now that early COVID counts were almost certainly wrong because the dominant test used was unable to distinguish between COVID and the regular flu. Nevertheless, Joe Biden has invested almost $140 million dollars in a German company that will build a home-test plant in America...by 2024.

It’s no secret at this point that Omicron was O-versold. It’s so negligible that many people know they have it only because they’ve been tested. Even those who have symptoms feel only as if they’ve got a cold. They just identify as Omicron-sick. You only need to look at the hugely different trend lines between cases and deaths to understand that Omicron is a big nothing:



Indeed, Omicron may or may not be extremely contagious. That’s hard to know because the CDC, after announcing that 73% of all COVID cases in America were now Omicron, backtracked and now says that only 23% are, with the remainder being the Delta variant. But if these cases are the Delta variant, they must be pretty darn mild if they’re indistinguishable from Omicron and cases are dropping.

In any event, it’s entirely possible that COVID has been grossly overcounted from the beginning. That’s because it turns out that the PCR test was unable to distinguish between COVID and the flu. Democrats insisted that the flu vanished because of the masks and social distancing but it now appears the flu dropped off the radar because all cases were misclassified as COVID.

And of course, there’s the little problem that vaccinated people are the ones most likely to get Omicron. Thankfully, they’re not getting very sick but that fact utterly destroys the narrative about the unvaccinated keeping COVID alive in America.

Currently, the only thing that’s keeping COVID in the headlines is the mania for testing. I know a woman who posts on Facebook at least once a month about getting tested. It’s not clear that she’s ever been seriously symptomatic.

Instead, every sniffle or cough sends her rushing out to get a test. The tests are a hypochondriac’s dream.


Image: Home COVID test. Freepik license.

Using as his starting point the home COVID tests that D.C. is handing out Christopher Bedford explains why those tests are so stupid:

Staring at this kit Wednesday morning, sniffling, I thought, “Why would I do that?”

Seriously, why the hell would I do that? Do I live in Florida, where if seriously ill, I’ll be given access to monoclonal antibody treatments while family, friends, and neighbors go about their lives? Do I live in Georgia or Texas, where I’d receive the same? Or Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana?

Or do I live in a city where the numbers will be rushed to the press, schools will be shuttered, mask mandates will be extended, new restrictions on the eternally wicked “unvaccinated” will be rolled out, and if I have a bad case I’ll have to drive hours to find a pharmacy willing to fill a doctor’s prescription?

The tests do nothing but allow bureaucrats and the media to keep the panic going. It’s over.

But Biden understands the continued need for panic. That’s why he just signed a deal for $137 million with a German company to build a Wisconsin factory to produce more COVID test kids...by late 2024:

The Biden administration struck a $137 million deal to build a new factory in the U.S. to ramp up production of COVID-19 testing kits – but the new facility won't be completed until late 2024 at the earliest.

MilliporeSigma, a brand formed by Germany’s Merck KGaA, will build a new factory in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the Defense Department announced as the U.S. hit a high record of 489,267 COVID cases on Wednesday

While the contract gives the company three years to complete the facility, it is not immediately clear when it will ramp up to full production, which is expected to pump out 83.3 million tests per month.

This plan is not as stupid as it appears. Democrats have figured out that the descendants of those Americans who fought a revolution during a smallpox epidemic, who battled through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and both Gulf Wars; who survived journeys (voluntary or enslaved) across dangerous oceans; who lived through Depressions and recessions; who traveled thousands of miles in covered wagons; and who populated a dangerous wilderness can be controlled completely if they’re told they have a cold or the flu with a 1% mortality rate for people who are very old or have comorbidities.

Knowing that, if you wanted permanent political power, wouldn’t you also make sure that Americans are constantly told that they’re very, very sick?

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Is The Peak Of NYC's Omicron Wave Just Around The Corner?

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 03:40 PM

As we noted earlier, the US and worldwide tallies for the number of new COVID cases confirmed in a day are hitting fresh record highs as the year ends, giving some the impression that the global pandemic has barely been impacted by all the lockdowns, vaccines, boosters and other restrictions that have arisen over the past 2 years.



But as political leaders scramble to keep the media stocked with omicron-oriented FUD to report, it looks like we may have been correct a little over a week ago when we surmised that the peak of the outbreak in London may already be at hand.

In the US, there's been a lot of focus on New York City, where COVID cases and hospitalizations are climbing, though still below their levels from last year's winter wave.


Source: @ScottGottliebMD

Here's where things stand in New York: Thursday was another record-breaking day, with 74,207 newly reported COVID cases in NY State, with a stunning 43,985 in NYC alone. The positivity rate continues to increase; it's now 23.1%. Hospitalizations in NYC are also rising fast, now at 3,565, with 884 new admissions in past day alone.

Fortunately for New Yorkers, across the pond, Londoners are seeing what Dr. Scott Gottlieb believes might be a peak in the omicron wave (just in time since the NHS is already building field hospitals "just in case").

If the past is any guide, as Gottlieb points out in his tweet, NYC's peak in cases could arrive within 2 weeks now that London's peak appears to have finally arrived.




Source: @ScottGottliebMD

Going by hospitalizations that require mechanical ventilation and deaths, the peak in London is well below levels from last year.



Source: @ScottGottliebMD

Scientists have inferred that the UK is about two weeks ahead of New York when it comes to the seasonal COVID waves. So, if London is already past the week, how much longer will New Yorkers need to put up with behavior like this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1475638264920883201

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1475638264920883201
.45 min

At any rate, the governor's mansion has decided to extend mask and vaccine mandates through Feb. 1.

Put another way, maybe JPM's Marko Kolanovic will finally be proven correct in that the omicron wave is bullish for risk because it means the end of the pandemic phase of COVID.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

COVID-19 Explained In 10 Sentences

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 03:26 PM
Authored by C.J.Baker via AmericanThinker.com,

As we approach the end of annus horribilis 2 (also known as 2021 A.D.), it seems worthwhile to to look back and summarize the events that have brought us where we are in the COVID-19 saga.


Here, in ten sentences, is how we got here.

1. Since at least 2014, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), through Anthony Fauci's NIAID division, have sent millions of U.S. tax dollars to communist China to fund research involving the genetic alteration of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
2. Around October 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic began when a new coronavirus leaked out of the same Wuhan Institute of Virology and into the human population.
3. The Communist Chinese Party imposed a tight lockdown of its own population, while simultaneously allowing international travel to and from China, facilitating the virus's worldwide spread.
4. As the pandemic unfolded, public health officials and the media used grossly overestimated death rates and false promises of self-limited measures ("two weeks to flatten the curve") to promote unprecedented policies of prolonged, widespread quarantine of heathy populations, which continue to this day — two years later.
5. Simultaneously, in places such as New York State under former governor Andrew Cuomo, authorities knowingly put sick COVID-19 patients into close contact with highly vulnerable persons such as nursing home residents, resulting in tens of thousands of unnecessary and avoidable deaths.
6. Despite definitive evidence from the early stages of the pandemic that COVID-19 poses minimal risk of severe illness and statistically zero chance of death in children, and that children are not significant drivers of its spread, the Democrat party and the public teachers' unions — with the help of health officials and the mainstream media — have forced schools to close for in-school learning for multiple school years, and continue to push for renewed school closures in many areas of the country.
7. As cheap, existing, and safe medications and treatments were identified that showed effectiveness in treating COVID-19, a systematic, worldwide movement to suppress and discredit such treatments was instigated by Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, the mainstream media, Big Pharma, and social media corporations, to protect their financial interests in vaccines and other proprietary medicines they had in development, resulting in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
8. As COVID-19 vaccines became available in the U.S. through Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA, these extremely new treatments were heavily promoted by Fauci, Gates, the media, Big Pharma, and social media under knowingly false pretenses, including repeated false claims that the vaccines 1) would provide herd immunity, 2) were equal or even superior to natural immunity, 3) stopped contraction and transmission of the virus, and 4) were safe and effective for all ages.
9. Even as the COVID-19 vaccines have now been shown to 1) lose effectiveness in a matter of weeks; 2) be ineffective at stopping transmission and spread of the virus; and 3) be inferior to natural immunity, and even as more than 20,000 vaccine-related deaths have been reported in the CDC's own Vaccine Emergency Reporting System (VAERS) — with a similar level of reports in EudraVigilance (the E.U.'s reporting system), the likes of Fauci, President Joe Biden, current New York governor Kathy Hochul, and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio continue to press ever harder for repeated doses of these same vaccines, including among young children.
10. Although the current dominant strain of COVID-19 — the omicron variant — has been demonstrated to be more transmissible and much less deadly than prior strains, as well as dramatically mutated from the original strain after which the vaccines were modeled, Fauci, the Biden administration, the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media are now employing a policy of endless boosters with the increasingly obsolete yet lucrative vaccines, alongside the systematic scapegoating of unvaccinated persons, rather than employing the focused protection of the vulnerable and promotion of normal life and natural immunity among the healthy that has already been successfully implemented in numerous "free" states.

What conclusions can we draw from this series of events? Here are a few:

• First, the "health care industry" is largely a syndicate run by government bureaucrats like Tony Fauci and Francis Collins, Big Pharma, and ultra-rich investor-influencers like Bill Gates.
• Second, the mainstream media and major social media platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are diametrically opposed to freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas. In fact, their goal is the opposite: an Orwellian thought control of the population and the suppression of all dissenting voices.
• Third, the Democrat party is utterly corrupt and power-hungry, while the Republican Party is hopelessly gutless and ineffective.
• Lastly, the formula has been revealed for the permanent extinguishing of the civil liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights: declare an emergency, terrify the populace, control the message, stifle all dissent, and revoke the citizens' freedoms indefinitely, all while grabbing and consolidating political power. Coming soon: the climate "emergency."

Happy 2022!

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

US Sets New Weekly Record With More Than 2 Million Cases As New Year's Looms

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 01:49 PM

Update (1340ET): As New York's countdown to the New Year ramps up, the US has broken a weekly COVID case record.

The US has recorded 2.2M confirmed COVID cases over the past week, setting a grim record as the highest weekly tally yet, just as the new year is about to begin.
The previous record was set just last week, when the US confirmed 1.9M cases detween Dec. 22 to Dec. 29. Before that, the previous record totaled 1.75M cases from Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 at the start of 2021, when last year's winter wave was just peaking.

Meanwhile, the FDA is reportedly preparing to authorize boosters for 12 to 15 year olds as soon as next week.

And down in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has requested resources for federally-supported COVID testing locations, medical personnel, as well as additional federal allocations of monoclonal antibodies.

"Detecting COVID-19 and preventing COVID-related hospitalizations are critical to our fight against this virus," Abbott said in a press release Friday.

Texas has seen more than 104K confirmed COVID cases in the past week, with a 22.3% testing positivity rate, according to Johns Hopkins. The center also reports that the state has a vaccination rate of 58.45%, just shy of the 63% rate seen nationwide.

* * *
On the last day of the year, the COVID pandemic is ending 2021 with a bang: health authorities around the world have confirmed more than 1.2M new cases in the 24 hours to Thursday - a new record.

The US also booked a new record of its own, with 355.9K new cases, dragging the 7-day average to a new record high as well.



Data on hospitalizations and deaths shows hospitals in the US still have plenty of ICU beds available, although there are some areas where the outbreak is more intense. An uptick in vaccinations has put the US rate north of 63% in terms of those deemed "fully vaccinated" (a definition that may soon change). Deaths in the US have actually slowed in recent weeks.

While the number of canceled flights has declined, 1,125 flights were scrubbed Friday as rising coronavirus cases hobbled airline staffing. Winter storms threatened to further disrupt travel over New Year’s weekend. JetBlue scratched 175 flights, accounting for 17% of its schedule, by 1620ET on Thursday, according to FlightAware.com. Allegiant canceled 96 flights, or 19% of its service. United Airlines scrubbed 199 flights, representing 9% of its schedule.

Just weeks after the FDA approved the Pfizer pill Paxlovid, which can supposedly treat COVID in high-risk patients if taken within a few days of the onset of symptoms, Britain’s regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, has followed suit.

The decision comes just weeks after British regulators approved a similar medication produced by Merck.

As COVID cases surge and hospitalizations start to overwhelm the NHS, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government races to build an armory of weapons against the resurgent pandemic.

BoJo used his New Year message to urge any British holdouts to go and get their booster shots, as growing pressure on the UK National Health Service threatens to undermine his strategy to get through the omicron wave.

As cases flare in Southeast Asia, Singapore is extending its testing regime for travelers arriving via its quarantine-free vaccinated travel lanes for another four weeks, according to the Ministry of Health. Hong Kong, meanwhile, will require visitors to some restaurants and recreational venues like cinemas and gyms to have at least one vaccine dose before the Lunar New Year.

South Korea said its newly strengthened social distancing rules will remain in place for at least two more weeks. The restrictions, which ban private gatherings of five or more people and close restaurants and coffee shops at 2100 local time were reinstated in mid-December as daily cases hit a record.

Back in North America, Quebec is bringing back its controversial overnight curfew beginning Friday at 2200 local time and continuing through 0500 the next day. Dining rooms at restaurants will also be closed but take-out and delivery will, as usual, be allowed to continue.

Finally, for all its efforts, the Australian government has failed to prevent a surge in COVID cases. New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, reported on Friday a record 21.2K new cases in the past 24 hours, a 73% increase compared with a day earlier, though hospitalization numbers rose more modestly.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

"Omicron Death!" - Pandemic Pandemonia Reaches New Heights...

FRIDAY, DEC 31, 2021 - 11:55 AM
Authored by Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea via TK News,

For a while now it’s been clear the primary objective of most pandemic coverage is to scare the socks off mass audiences. Good news, bad news, boring news, interesting news, news that’s more of a wash in the final analysis, news that’s a net plus overall: it’s all presented as terrifying, more signs of the Apocalypse.

There’s no better example than the stampede to advertise the “first death from Omicron” in the United States.

View: https://youtu.be/BI5E8z89c9U
4:23 min

Matt Orfalea does a hilarious job of stitching together an homage to the latest moral panic. So many great little details here, from the “Way Too Early” background to one reporter’s premature death report to the “aggressive Covid vice” imagery, the dramatic Biden-cough, and so much more.

It was the world’s loudest record-scratch when the WHO in the first week of December said the ominous “Omicron variant” of Covid-19 had been detected in 38 countries, but without any known deaths.

No deaths? How could that be? In the United States in late November, we’d already skipped past the stunned-curiosity phase and moved straight into active mass panic, with “fallout from the Omicron variant” causing the Dow to fall 652 points in a day when news of the mutant contagion arrived. Right away, we had a travel ban from southern Africa, an address urging calm from President Mumbles, and a declaration of a “Variant of Concern” from the CDC, as “scientists raced” to learn more about this “almost Frankensteinish” new strain of Covid-19.

The next month of Omicron coverage offered a fascinating window into our Covid-fixated future. For most of December, we were presented with an unbroken string of scare stories that in many cases actively buried the lede on the most important question: is this thing going to kill me? The Washington Post on December 14th, for instance, ran a story about how the “CDC warns” that a “punishing wave” could be coming as soon as January. The piece noted Omicron was “dramatically more transmissible” and “a more slippery foe when encountered by neutralizing antibodies,” but ignored the issue of lethality altogether, which would seem impossible to do by accident.

“How deadly is the Omicron variant? WHO releases death report,” wrote the Express U.K. earlier this week, with the following sub-headline:

OMICRON cases have increased more than tenfold since authorities identified the first UK infections in November, but scientists’ knowledge of the variant has increased in kind. The World Health Organization (WHO) released its first death report this weekend, outlining how dangerous it really is.

Reading that headline hits your fear center, making you anxious to know just exactly “how dangerous it really is.” What does that mean? Scrolling down, you first read that Omicron mutations “allow it to escape immunity provided by both vaccine doses,” that “it reduces two doses of Pfizer to 30 percent effectiveness, with AstraZeneca potentially down to zero,” and that while boosters can restore effectiveness to 75 percent, “many are at Omicron's mercy.” Not good!

Only far down the piece do you read that since the WHO’s “no deaths” report in early December, the disease has “spread rapidly, and one person in the UK has died with the new variant… Recent data suggests the disease Omicron causes is milder than its predecessors…”

The distinction between “dying with” and “dying from” is a sticking point in theory if you’re trying to accurately gauge the lethality of a thing, but journalists have mostly shrugged it off.

On December 20th, a man in Houston died “with” Omicron. The Harris County Public Health office issued a release citing an “Omicron Variant-Related” death, but Harris County judge Lisa Hidalgo, sporting a stylish tree-branch-pattern mask, wasted no time in announcing, “The Omicron variant of COVID-19 has arrived in full force.”

As shown in Matt’s video, Hidalgo raised the county’s County’s Covid-19 “threat level” status to “Level-2 Orange,” bringing us back to the halcyon days of the War on Terror, when the government each day assigned us a mathematical Expected Freakout Level (EFL) about things over which we had no control.

Within hours, national press outlets like CNN had reported the “first death attributed to the Omicron variant,” gushing, as Jeremy Diamond is shown doing in this video, that “Covid surges are surging!” Pundits wasted little time wagging their bony death-fingers in our direction: “First Omicron Death in U.S. Was Reinfection—A Warning to Those Who’ve Already Had COVID,” wrote Newsweek.

Shortly after, a Harris County Public Health official named Martha Marquez hedged, saying they could confirm the dead man was Omicron-positive, but the cause of death had not yet been determined.

The arrival of both the Delta and Omicron variants were reported in ways that recalled the classic “Africanized killer bees” media panics of yore. Stay in your homes and be vigilant about the highly aggressive African invader who just might move in next door: for a good long time, this was a staple of local TV, as noted in Bowling for Columbine:

View: https://youtu.be/_giYxaz46c0
1:09 min

Descriptions of Omicron as the scary scary thing coming from southern Africa have been near carbon-copies of those old bee stories. Kudos to the few outlets at home and in Europe that pointed out the hypocrisy of this coverage. If you’re really bent on using the deadly new “Africanized” variant to frighten people into getting vaccinated, shouldn’t you also be “racing” to pass patent waivers so countries like India and South Africa can make their own vaccines, thereby preventing the spread of mutations before they even have a chance to become headlines here?

If they’re determined to keep going in the scare direction, they should do a better job of it. Omicron is certainly an improvement over Delta, but they should dispense with the pretense and start giving true Fangoria names to coronavirus strains: the “Mutilator” Variant, the “Suffocating Agony” variant, the “Shaft-Sagger,” the “Face-Eater,” etc. Would you bet against something like that coming?

* That is not @Orf in the death suit.

 

[jward]

BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
2m

Emergency alert sent to phones across Quebec due to COVID curfew: "It is forbidden to be outside your home or property between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m."

 

[marsh]

Pfizer Vaccine EXPOSED! Less Than 1% Effective, Did More Harm Than Good, They Knew It and Tricked You - The New American

Pfizer used a math trick to make people believe their vaccine was 95% effective, but the truth is it was 0.8% effective. DISCLAIMER: Views and opinions expressed on The Ben Armstrong Show are solely those of the host and do not necessarily represent those of The New American. TNA is not...

thenewamerican.com

Pfizer Vaccine EXPOSED! Less than 1% effective, Did More Harm Than Good, They Knew It and Tricked You

by Ben Armstrong December 31, 2021

Pfizer used a math trick to make people believe their vaccine was 95% effective, but the truth is it was 0.8% effective.

Pfizer Vaccine EXPOSED! Less than 1% effective, Did More Harm Than Good 23:04 min

Rumble — Pfizer used a math trick to make people believe their vaccine was 95% effective, but the truth is it was 0.8% effective.

DISCLAIMER: Views and opinions expressed on The Ben Armstrong Show are solely those of the host and do not necessarily represent those of The New American. TNA is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of any information presented.

Clips Shown In Video:
Canadian Covid Care Alliance
The Pfizer Inoculations Do More Harm Than Good

 

[marsh]

Dr. Robert Malone on Joe Rogan's Show: Everyone Involved in mRNA VAXX-Tech Has Financial Conflicts of Interest - The Liberty Daily

If you love the news, check out The Liberty Daily's homepage. The people who are getting paid to determine the validity of Covid-19 vaccines are financially incentivized to research, analyze, and approve them. That’s the basic takeaway from the first of many revelations Dr. Robert Malone dropped...

thelibertydaily.com

Dr. Robert Malone on Joe Rogan’s Show: Everyone Involved in mRNA VAXX-Tech Has Financial Conflicts of Interest

By J.D. Rucker • Dec. 31, 2021

The people who are getting paid to determine the validity of Covid-19 vaccines are financially incentivized to research, analyze, and approve them. That’s the basic takeaway from the first of many revelations Dr. Robert Malone dropped during his interview with Joe Rogan.

We can expect a lot more. This two-minute clip is just the beginning. As Jack Posobiec from Human Events declared while retweeting the clip, “Here we go!!”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1476992015556620291

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1476992015556620291
2:19 min

Rogan pointed out that Dr. Malone is being censored by Big Tech despite being “one of the most qualified people in the world to talk about vaccines.”

Dr. Malone explained that he’s been contacted by multiple lawyers who want to file suit against platforms like Twitter who have censored his perspectives. He then revealed that other people like him who have a voice in the debate, many of whom participate in approving the experimental drugs themselves, are all getting paid.

“If it’s not okay for me to be part of the conversation even though I’m pointing out scientific facts that may be inconvenient, then who is? Who can be allowed?

Whether you’re in the camp that says I’m a liar and I didn’t invent this technology despite the patents — and there’s a whole cohort of that — no one can dispute that I played a major role in the creation of this tech, and virtually all other voices that have that background have conflicts of interest… financial conflicts of interest. I think I’m the only one who doesn’t. I’m not getting any money out of this.”

Big Tech tried to quash Dr. Robert Malone before the Joe Rogan interview. By doing so, hopefully, we will show them that they have enraged us enough to want to promote his insights even more aggressively.

 

[marsh]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozI1U6csH8c
37:34 min

TWiV 848: COVID-19 clinical update #95 with Dr. Daniel Griffin

Dec 31, 2021


Vincent Racaniello

In COVID-19 clinical update #95, Daniel Griffin discusses new CDC guidelines for isolation and quarantine, EUA for Molnupiravir, children and COVID, vaccine safety in 5-11 year olds, Omicron outbreaks in Nebraska and Denmark, Baylor's COVID vaccine, and COVID-OUT for ivermectin. Show notes at https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-848/

 

[Profit of Doom]

Read my lips…

Biden breaks world record for Covid infections.

citizenfreepress.com

Read my lips…
Posted by Kane on December 30, 2021 8:53 am

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1476395537670754308

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1476395537670754308
.07 min

View attachment 310457

Gee, we beat Uttar Pradesh. A third world state in a third world country with a vax rate 50/35%

 

[marsh]

CITIZEN FREE PRESS

The Greatest News Site On The Internet. Home of CFP Nation.

citizenfreepress.com

It was always about compliance…
Posted by Kane on January 1, 2022 3:44 pm

View: https://youtu.be/3vIuteloXAc
1:44 min

 

[marsh]

Thread by @Jonathan_Witt on Thread Reader App

@Jonathan_Witt: Here’s a thread of cliff notes for the @joerogan podcast with Dr Robert Malone. Would still recommend listening to the full episode but if you don’t have time right now this is how it went...…

threadreaderapp.com

Here’s a thread of cliff notes for the @joerogan podcast with Dr Robert Malone. Would still recommend listening to the full episode but if you don’t have time right now this is how it went down.

Malone talks about becoming a MD and his early career working at the Salk Institute, specifically on RNA. Mentions his mRNA patents and his evolution from academic medicine into medical product development (clinical trials, drug development).

Over the years he says he’s coordinated trials which have received billions in Government funding. Claims he has worked with and knows many people at the CDC, knew Anthony Fauci well, and has many friends in the US intelligence community. Now “a pariah”.

Rogan brings up the Twitter ban. Malone says he’s probably the only person with his background without a conflict of interest - says he earns no money from this (unlike others).

Malone also mentions his deplatforming from LinkedIn for pointing out that the head of Reuters is also on the board of Pfizer. According to Malone LinkedIn subsequently reinstated him and formally apologized for the ban.

He surmises why exactly he was banned from Twitter - COVID Care Alliance video re COVID vaccines and/or a post about the World Economic Forum and their media management. Not completely understood or known at this time which was the offending tweet.

Malone discusses getting COVID in February 2020 and describes his “lungs burning”. Says he took femotidine. Describes a trial he has helped design using femotidine and celecoxib to treat SARS-CoV-2. Further says FDA would not allow an ivermectin arm in the study despite data.

Rogan wants to know why there is obstruction of these drugs (hydroxychloroquine & ivermectin). Malone describes the involvement of Rick Bright and Janet Woodcock in preventing the use of these drugs in the treatment of COVID. He won’t speculate on the why but says they’re wrong.

Malone says it is bizarre that Merck would come out against ivermectin. He says billions of doses of both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have been safely administered as well as both being on the WHO’s essential drugs list.

Malone says he got the Chinese protocols in February 2020 and these included hydroxychloroquine. Says he gave this information to the US Government. Rogan mentions the apparent success of ivermectin and asks what happened in Uttar Pradesh; high use of ivermectin & low deaths.

Malone says he had ‘Long COVID’ and then also took the Moderna vaccine because at the time it was thought that it may help with this issue. Claims he had some adverse reactions to the vaccine but despite these was ultimately fine.

Discussion briefly turns to natural immunity. Rogan mentions studies showing better effect of natural immunity versus these vaccines. Malone agrees.

Malone discusses the Trusted News Initiative led by the BBC and their charge against misinformation/disinformation and the use of the term anti-vaxxer to suppress anything against approved sources (Fauci, Tedros).

Discussion turns to cancel culture in the medical field. Previous example with Fauci vs. Duesberg and now leaked emails between Fauci/Collins aiming to ridicule Great Barrington Declaration founders.

Malone talks about Israel with high Pfizer vaccine uptake (up to dose 4) and surrounding Palestinian territories with relatively low uptake without this discrepancy being reflected in death numbers. Says all cause mortality is the most reliable variable.

Malone says VAERS is unreliable but “it’s the best we got”. Says there are issues both ways - death post vaccine not necessarily vaccine caused, vaccine correlated. However we’ve had the system for decades so we can look at trends and use aggregate value with large sample size.

Rogan asks about the financial incentive related to COVID deaths in hospitals.

Malone admits he doesn’t know the exact numbers but says around $3000 given to hospitals if someone is diagnosed with COVID, further payments for ventilation and death due to COVID.

They discuss the possibility that someone with a gunshot wound or trauma who happens to test positive for COVID and then dies may be labeled as a COVID death.

Malone says the FDA has not done their job. Mentions data manipulation and the case of Maddie de Garay which was allegedly reported as gastric distress by Pfizer in their trial, when it is claimed she had a seizure and is now wheelchair bound.

Malone says their are all kinds of ways to craft clinical trials and study reports to hide the bad stuff and highlight the good stuff. Says what gets reported is often biased by expected outcomes and tricks of data. Financial incentives to make bad stuff go away.

Malone says Thompson-Reuters is the fact checker of choice of Twitter and they are in turn tied to Pfizer. This in part decides what is allowed to be discussed on Twitter.

They discuss the attacks on physicians. Highlight cases of Peter McCullough and Kirk Milhoan. Malone talks about the attack against him to have his license removed based on tweets and The Atlantic article written about him. Claims he “killed millions”.

Rogan brings them back to the statistics around vaccine related myocarditis.

Malone says data shows incidence of up to 1 in 2700 of myocarditis in boys post vaccination. Claims that this myocarditis is different but he says no data. Also other adverse effects e.g. dysmenorrhea.

Malone discusses concerns around fertility post vaccination because of what he says are lipids (lipid nano particles) with the potential to affect the ovaries. Also talks about the spike protein and it’s ability to cause blood clots regardless of whether from virus or vaccine.

Extensive discussion about effects on ACEII receptors and disruption of the blood brain barrier by the spike protein. Rogan asks if the spike from the vaccine is different to the spike from the virus. Malone says yes but we don’t know if the difference actually matters.

Malone says it’s the job of the drug companies to prove that their spike i.e. vaccine created spike is not toxic. Rogan asks why so many people take the vaccine and have no adverse effects at all. Malone explains it with a response curve due to phenotypic/genetic differences.

He goes on to mention evidence that people who are diabetic or have high blood sugar levels seem to be more greatly affected by these spike side effects.

This may be part of the explanation for many people being able to shrug off spike adverse effects, but not others.

Malone talks about T cells. Says we don’t really know for sure what these vaccines are doing to our T cells. Mentions cancer risks but cautions against lack of data. Also discusses some evidence for increased risk of illness post vaccination for a period of time.

Rogan asks about the vaccine efficacy window. Malone says it seems to be ever shrinking and goes on to mention that in some studies (cites Denmark study) there is a negative efficacy (higher risk of being infected) shown with increasing doses. Says this is specific to Omicron.

Malone says we’re administering a mismatched vaccine and driving the B and T memory cells towards a virus which no longer exists. Says his hypothesis for the poor viability of the vaccines on this basis is called “original antigenic sin”.

Malone talks about high pathogenicity and low pathogenicity H1N1 to describe in part the differences between other COVID variants and Omicron. Further discusses the very high R number (number of people infected by one person with a pathogen) of Omicron.

“Our government is out of control on this” says Malone. “They are lawless, they completely disregard bioethics” and “these mandates of an experimental vaccine are explicitly illegal, they are explicitly inconsistent with the Nuremberg Code”.

Rogan brings them back to Omicron. Malone talks about the alarmist models of Imperial College which he says the press just ran with. They talk about US hospital cases and the likely remaining predominance of Delta in those instances.

Malone says there is a perverse incentive to amplify the fear porn to maintain the state of emergency. Withholding of monoclonal antibodies and early treatment described as “inexplicable”. “Is it incompetence or is it malevolence?”.

Malone raises the lack of reporting on effectiveness of lockdown strategies as well as gain of function research and says “we’re in an environment in which truth and consequences are fungible”. Rogan says he feels compelled to have people on because of the censorship.

Malone says “Pfizer is one of the most criminal pharmaceutical organizations in the world based on their past history and fines”. He says it’s a cost benefit analysis in the pharmaceutical industry about misbehavior and that they are not grounded in ethical principles.

Rogan and Malone discuss the “mass formation psychosis” taking place globally. Quite a soft wind down to the end of the show but essentially a call for less tribalism, more openness to discussion, and an end to censorship.

A warning from both about the potential for an implementation of a social credit scoring system as an end point for all of this. Malone re-emphasizes the effect of what we’ve done to children including he says drops in IQ from masks and desocialization.

Rogan asks why the vaccine is dangerous to children. Malone says androgens have a role to play re effect in males. Also says that he’s not convinced that there is a discrepancy between kids and adults - cites potential reporting bias.

An interesting podcast if a bit meandering at times. Malone might be wrong about stuff or perhaps he’s right but he doesn’t come across as a nutjob or someone dangerous in any way. Still quite fascinating that Twitter banned him for hard to elucidate reasons.

 

[jward]

 

[marsh]

First Case of "FluRona" Detected in Almost-Fully Vaxxed Israel, Virus is Supposedly a Hybrid Flu-Coronavirus - Here We Go Again | The Gateway Pundit | by Julian Conradson

Here we go again.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

First Case of “FluRona” Detected in Almost-Fully Vaxxed Israel, Virus is Supposedly a Hybrid Flu-Coronavirus – Here We Go Again

By Julian Conradson
Published January 1, 2022 at 2:58pm

Here we go again.

Israel – which became the first country to begin administering a 4th dose of the experimental vaccine and is one of the most vaccinated areas in the entire world – has recorded the first case of what health officials are calling “Flurona” – a mixture of two diseases, influenza and coronavirus.

According to local reports, the hybrid infection was first identified in a young pregnant woman earlier this week at Rabin Medical Center in the Israeli city of Petach Tikva. According to the hospital, the new mother was not vaccinated against either virus, but she only experienced mild symptoms and w and was discharged from care on Thursday.

The director of the gynecology department of Beilinson Hospital at Rabin Medical Center, Dr. Arnon Vizhnitser, spoke with local outlet Hamodia about their discovery of ‘Flurona,’ noting the similarities between the two viruses.

“She was diagnosed with the flu and coronavirus as soon as she arrived. Both tests came back positive, even after we checked again.
The disease [Flurona] is the same disease: they’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract.”

Vizhnitser also noted that the patient treated at Rabin did not experience any unusually harsh symptoms. She was reportedly tested because she had come into the facility to give birth to her child.

The Israeli health ministry said it’s currently studying the case to determine whether the combination of the two infections can cause a “more serious illness.”

According to Dr. Vizhnitser, her case is the first of its kind in the world but doctors believe there could be more ‘Flurona’ infections in the country, especially since the flu has come storming back after “mysteriously” taking a year off.

Damn these viruses and their nefarious political agendas…

“We are seeing more and more pregnant women with the flu. It is definitely a great challenge dealing with a woman who comes in with a fever at childbirth.

This is especially when you do not know if it’s coronavirus or the flu, so you refer to them the same. Most of the illness is respiratory.”

Despite the fact that Israel’s population is one of the most vaccinated in the entire world, the spread of the omicron has caused another round of chaotic public health responses by the government that has seen officials green-light a fourth dose of the experimental vaccine even though they admittedly had absolutely no evidence of its effectiveness against the new strains of Covid.

Booster Hysteria: Israel Begins Rollout of 4TH Covid Jab Despite Health Officials Admitting They Have NO DATA About Its Effectiveness Against Mild Omicron | The Gateway Pundit | by Julian Conradson

Israel is set to become the first country to administer a fourth dose of the experimental Covid vaccine to individuals in certain at-risk groups, including the elderly (over 60 years old) and healthcare workers.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

As of the most recent data from the Israeli Health Ministry on Friday, 5,000 cases of Omicron have been recorded in the country, most of which have been compared to the common cold – none of the cases have been fatal.

Nevertheless, fearmongering is what public health is all about in 2021 2022. On Thursday, the head of the Israeli army’s coronavirus task force warned that the healthcare system would “collapse” as Omicron spread, according to Haaretz.

 

[marsh]

(Austria)

⁣⁣Austria is seeing the biggest protests in their history, and mainstream media look the other way 1:41 min
⁣⁣AUSTRIA IS SEEING THE BIGGEST PROTESTS IN THEIR HISTORY, AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA LOOK THE OTHER WAY

 

[marsh]

Omicron Offers An Off-Ramp From Our Failed Pandemic Policy | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Omicron Offers An Off-Ramp From Our Failed Pandemic Policy

SATURDAY, JAN 01, 2022 - 06:30 PM
Authored by Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

As the COVID-19 pandemic and the Western world’s unprecedented approach to it enters a new phase, with the Omicron variant becoming more prevalent, an opportunity presents itself to effect dramatic and much-needed changes to COVID policy.



When the global pandemic was in its early stages in early 2020, very little was known, and our leaders feared the worst. Some understood, knowing the Chinese communist party’s response to SARS1, that the regime would avoid culpability at all costs, indeed at just about ANY cost, with possibly devastating consequences. Others, facing dubious models touting millions of deaths being brandished about by supposedly eminent scientists, and with the “extreme safety” being demanded by some elements of Western societies, were likewise in a panic. Fear gripped Western societies in a way unseen in generations.

And, coupled with the Chinese regime’s extreme censorship of COVID-related data and workers, coupled with apocalyptic COVID propaganda spread by its mouthpieces and sycophants, it can be argued that the West largely threw out the tried-and-tested traditional pandemic playbook in favor of extreme top-down policies eerily similar to those the Chinese regime was celebrating. Most notably, we locked down our societies, in multiple ways, shuttering businesses and schools, with only “essential” work continuing—something we stuck with despite ample evidence pointing at the dubious nature of these policies. Basic principles of public health went out the window. Instead of fostering robust scientific debate, we censored and vilified contrarian scientists advocating for those principles, such as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

In our frantic quest to find solutions, we seemingly miraculously developed vaccines to stop the virus, but enamoured by and in our rush to deploy our new miracles, we neglected key safeguards, such as collecting proper safety data.

We vilified early clinicians and the therapeutic treatments they were finding success with, pushed vaccines as a panacea only to find that many didn’t want them. Then, we adopted all sorts of tyrannical policies to “encourage” adoption, even for healthy children who are at miniscule risk from the virus. We spent a year and a half breaking up society, chipping away at our most cherished basic rights, and hunkering down into tribal camps, creating a new “unclean” caste, the unvaccinated.

As early as mid-2020, Stanford public health expert Dr. Scott Atlas unambiguously documented using available data that the human cost (in terms of lives) of the lockdown policies was already greater than the human cost of the virus, and this has not changed. Millions missed critical cancer screenings and suicidal ideation in teens skyrocketed—just a tiny part of the cost. A number of studies are showing that adverse events from the new vaccines, notably myocarditis, are more serious and common than has been generally understood. Corporate media, who have largely been cheerleaders in promoting the various questionable policies, are now asking questions about whether, for example, “too many shots might actually harm the body’s ability to fight the coronavirus.” Trillions have been spent for stimulus, and inflation is spiking—people are starting to feel the pain in their pocketbooks, especially the middle and working classes.

The bottom line is, there will be hell to pay. And I can’t help but remember what Governor Ron DeSantis told me when I met him in Florida, trying to understand why he had adopted the unusual, though effective, policies that he had, which we documented in “Desantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns.” He told me: “They will never admit they were wrong.”

Given the magnitude of our failure as a society in dealing with COVID, and the cardinal rule that human beings (but especially politicians) will go to gargantuan lengths to avoid responsibility, I posit that Omicron provides an off-ramp that doesn’t require admission of guilt. We need to halt the highly objectionable COVID policies being employed today, while giving up, for now, the assigning of blame.

Omicron has changed the game. With the preliminary research in, the data appears to show several things:

• Omicron is more contagious than Delta and other variants
• COVID vaccines seem to do little to stop Omicron infection
• Remarkably, there is some evidence that Omicron is breaking through natural immunity from previous variants
• Omicron is much less severe than other variants, with many scientists comparing its symptoms to the common cold
• Omicron is unexpected—its high level of mutation leaves scientists asking questions

Whatever the past reality, the difference in risk from COVID infection between the vaccinated and unvaccinated now appears to be lower than it was with previous variants. Whatever the past reality, the unvaccinated are not more a danger to society than the vaccinated. As the infection goes endemic, many people will get the virus, irrespective of vaccination status or past inflection.

The obsession with asymptomatic testing for COVID can be left behind with heads held high, as can masks. Ignorance of the past power of natural immunity vs. the virus becomes a non-issue at present. And, unlike past variants, Omicron is indeed a bit of an enigma in terms of both its genetics and of how it functions.

In other words, a perfect opportunity to effect a dramatic shift in pandemic policy, for example to policies laid out in the Great Barrington Declaration and past pandemic public health standards. Vaccine mandates can be dropped in an instant, policy can indeed be “left to the states” as President Biden has suggested, and state leaders can also follow in kind.

It’s an opportunity for leaders to use the novel Omicron variant to save face, as an “off ramp” off the current authoritarian and unpopular policy track, enacting policies that will have them celebrated and also work well, helping us start to heal our society. The sooner, the better.

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Scientists Shed New Light On What Makes Omicron Spread

SATURDAY, JAN 01, 2022 - 04:45 PM

At this point, members of the public have probably heard the following mantra a hundred times: while omicron is more infectious than delta, it also produces a less severe infection. This has been repeated over and over since the variant was first introduced to the public by a group of South African scientists.

Well, just in case any doubters remain, the NYT reported the results of the latest round of studies on New Year's Day. The studies mostly focused on animals: In studies on mice and hamsters, omicron produced less damaging infections, often limited largely to the upper airway: the nose, throat and windpipe.


Most important: omicron appears to do less harm to the lungs, where previous variants would often cause scarring and lead to serious difficulty breathing for many patients. But the animal studies show that omicron typically stays in the windpipe and upper respiratory tract: it doesn't make its way down deep into the lungs like delta.

"It’s fair to say that the idea of a disease that manifests itself primarily in the upper respiratory system is emerging," said Roland Eils, a computational biologist at the Berlin Institute of Health, who has studied how coronaviruses infect the airway.

When omicron was first introduced back in November, the only thing scientists knew for certain was that it had more than 50 mutations, many involving the spike protein used by the virus to bind with human cells. But as scientists have discovered in the interim, there is more to a virus than its mutations.

"You can’t predict the behavior of virus from just the mutations," said Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge.

And after months of scientists' infecting cells in Petri dishes and spraying the virus into the noses of animals, scientists have learned a little more about omicron. Interestingly, some scientists found the virus behaved in interesting ways, with reactions in certain species of animals drawing attention:

Although the animals infected with Omicron on average experienced much milder symptoms, the scientists were particularly struck by the results in Syrian hamsters, a species known to get severely ill with all previous versions of the virus.

"This was surprising, since every other variant has robustly infected these hamsters," said Dr. Michael Diamond, a virologist at Washington University and a co-author of the study.

For now, scientists suspect that omicron's more mild demeanor might be a product of the human anatomy, moreso than the virus's genetic makeup.

The reason that Omicron is milder may be a matter of anatomy. Dr. Diamond and his colleagues found that the level of Omicron in the noses of the hamsters was the same as in animals infected with an earlier form of the coronavirus. But Omicron levels in the lungs were one-tenth or less of the level of other variants.

A similar finding came from researchers at the University of Hong Kong who studied bits of tissue taken from human airways during surgery. In 12 lung samples, the researchers found that Omicron grew more slowly than Delta and other variants did.

The researchers also infected tissue from the bronchi, the tubes in the upper chest that deliver air from the windpipe to the lungs. And inside of those bronchial cells, in the first two days after an infection, Omicron grew faster than Delta or the original coronavirus did.

Although others have found characteristics in human lung tissue that help to prevent the new variant from spreading in the lungs. Specifically, a protein called TMPRSS2 on the surface of the inside of the lungs. This protein doesn't take to omicron, impeding its spread in the critically important organ.

Many cells in the lung carry a protein called TMPRSS2 on their surface that can inadvertently help passing viruses gain entry to the cell. But Dr. Gupta’s team found that this protein doesn’t grab on to Omicron very well. As a result, Omicron does a worse job of infecting cells in this manner than Delta does. A team at the University of Glasgow independently came to the same conclusion.

Through an alternative route, coronaviruses can also slip into cells that don’t make TMPRSS2. Higher in the airway, cells tend not to carry the protein, which might explain the evidence that Omicron is found there more often than the lungs. Complicating matters, there are cells in the lungs that react to intruders by destroying all cells, not just infected ones.

Of course, more studies will need to be conducted before the scientific community can say anything for certain.

These findings will have to be followed up with further studies, such as experiments with monkeys or examination of the airways of people infected with Omicron.

If the results hold up to scrutiny, they might explain why people infected with Omicron seem less likely to be hospitalized than those with Delta.

Right now, this is all we can say for certain: COVID infections start in the nose, or possibly the mouth, before spreading down the throat. Mild infections don’t get much further than that...but when the virus takes hold in the lungs, it can then cause serious, lasting tissue damage.

 

[marsh]

(Canada)

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Trudeau Implies Black Canadians "Racist, Misogynistic" - Questions Whether Unvaxx'd Should Be "Tolerated"

SATURDAY, JAN 01, 2022 - 03:35 PM

Canadian Prime Minister had a good year, if only because he managed to cling to power during a surprisingly close national election. But having abandoned all concerns about convincing those who don't already agree with him on issues from COVID vaccinations to feminist ideology, the Canadian PM decided to attack the unvaccinated during an appearance on local TV.


The takeaway from his remarks: in contemporary Canada, anybody who dares question the wisdom of the mass vaccination policy should automatically be dismissed as a racist or a misogynist, even if they're voicing well-considered criticisms, like Dr. Robert Malone is doing.

Trudeau made the comments to a Quebecois television station, although he was careful to stipulate that the people of Quebec aren't the problem. Rather, Trudeau questioned whether good vaccinated Canadians should be forced to "tolerate" their unvaccinated brethren.

"We are going to end this pandemic by proceeding with the vaccination," said Trudeau in French.

"We all know people who are deciding whether or not they are willing to get vaccinated, and we will do our very best to try to convince them. However, there is still a part of the population (that) is fiercely against it."

"They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space."

"This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people? Over 80% of the population of Quebec have done their duty by getting the shot. They are obviously not the issue in this situation."

While Trudeau would like Canadians to assume that all anti-vaxxers are racist, the reality couldn't be further from the truth, because - just like in the US - black Canadians are generally more skeptical of vaccines.

One study from Innovative Research Group showed black Canadians reported vaccination rates that were 20 percentage points below the Canadian average.

Black Canadians also self-reported much lower rates of willingness and confidence pertaining to vaccines.



President Biden has made a similar mistake in the past, and some have credited this dichotomy with influencing the White House to finally dial back its hostile rhetoric toward the unvaccinated.

So, in reality, many of the "anti-vaxxers" Trudeau has condemned as racists are actually black themselves.

Then again, racial sensitivity has never been one of the boyish PM's strong suits.



In a sense, Trudeau is conjuring up boogeymen, since vaccination rates across Canada are already extremely high (well beyond the levels once considered the threshold for "herd immunity", before scientists decided to quietly scrap that concept when they realized the vaccines weren't as effective as they had hoped).

In Quebec, 84.5% of residents have received at least one shot, and a total of 14,900,242 jabs have been doled out since the start of the pandemic. Across Canada, 90% of people aged 12 and over have received at least one dose, while a total of 87% have received two jabs. In Alberta, it’s 90% of the people with one jab and 85% of people with two.

Trudeau's comments prompted People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier to lambast the PM, calling him a "fascist psychopath."

After all, if these people aren't to be tolerated, what should be done? Should they be arrested and held in "re-education camps" until they acquiesce and agree to accept the shot?

Watch the clip (in French) below:
Rumble video 1:15 min

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Omicron Is Creating An Unnecessary Media Hysteria Over Positive Case Numbers...Again

SATURDAY, JAN 01, 2022 - 03:00 PM
Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Back about a year ago – before the Delta variant, but long after we had a firm grasp on exactly how dangerous Covid was (or wasn’t, depending on your perspective) - I made the point that we had to stop blindly relying on, touting and hyping up individual positive Covid cases and blanket positive test numbers.

In short, I made the argument that we needed to loosen our grip from hanging on individual positive tests being reported one at a time by the news. The brain damage and hysteria being drummed up from reporting one positive case at a time far outweighed the actual damage Covid was doing, in my opinion.

If you remember correctly, back in 2020 and even in early 2021, any time a person of prominence, like an athlete, politician or celebrity tested positive, it was immediately an enormous headline that would cause the nation to collectively gasp.

This wasn’t rational during the first variant of Covid, it remained irrational during the Delta variant, and is on the verge of just crazy-making now that the Omicron variant is here.

The truth of the matter is that individual cases as news headlines only serve to create headlines and whip people up into a hysteria.

For example - and I’m not trying to be mean here - but who even is this person, and why is this a lede on People.com?



While the media loves singling famous people out or touting the absolute number of positive tests in a given location, it often fails to report any context.

For example, reports about positive tests often do not include how many of the positive tests resulted in hospitalizations, how many of the positive tests even had symptoms and nuances like how many of the positive tests could be attributable to false positives.

Why is this context extremely important when reporting about the Omicron variant?

1. Studies are showing that Omicron is far less likely to land people in the hospital, with a trio of studies out of Scotland showing that Omicron was associated with a 2/3rd’s lower risk of hospitalization than the Delta variant. Loosely speaking, the Delta variant has been found to increase chances of hospitalization by up to 2x from the original disease. Using this loose math, this would mean that Omicron is about 30% less likely than the original variant to land you in the hospital.
2. A new meta analysis of asymptomatic cases published in JAMA this month continues to show that about 45% of all combined cases between the U.S. and Europe are asymptomatic. This number drops to 40.5% when you include the entire geographical pool of Covid tests. This suggests that almost half of all “positive” cases may not be negatively affecting someone’s quality of life.
3. PCR testing is notoriously sensitive. Someone close to me who follows CDC protocol, is vaxxed, boosted and routinely double masks said to me this week: “All these positive tests out of nowhere. It’s almost like it isn’t real.”
   While I’m not saying it “isn’t real”, what I am suggesting is that scratching below the surface about how PCR testing works might be a good idea before becoming hysterical about numbers the media presents.
   For example, CDC Director Rachel Walensky said this month that PCR tests may come back positive up to 12 weeks after someone has Covid.
   Back in 2020, health experts were saying PCR testing would pick up on "barely any traces" of the virus and that up to 90% of people who tested positive may not be carrying enough of the virus to infect someone else.
   "PCR’s greater accuracy detects viral load far below this level, and thus incorrectly identifies many individuals as infectious when they are not," an Arizona State University writeup on testing accuracy from October 2020 added.
4. False positives are still a thing. As demonstrated on national television this year when Ana Navarro had to be ushered off the set of The View, prevalence of false positives can range from 0% to 16%, or even higher, depending on which sources and studies you cite for your information. These estimates are statistically significant enough to warrant redundancy in all testing. When a second test isn’t issued for a “positive” result, the confidence in the reliability of the test diminishes ever so slightly. Combined with the above three points, it’s worth noting for context when reading Omicron positive testing headlines.

Here’s a great example of the media at work from this summer, wherein CNN reports about an Olympic athlete who tested positive for Covid-19. CNN’s original source, a Tweet from an official Olympic body, offers slightly more context than CNN’s lede. No further information, such as whether or not the athlete even had symptoms or whether or not they were retested again that day to account for potential false positives, was given.


And hey - I’m not suggesting that you should ignore case number trends in your specific jurisdiction and that you don’t take precautions. All I’m suggesting is there is a lot more behind the positive Covid test case numbers than people take the time to see.

That, I believe, is because the media is satisfied using these numbers in the most sensational way possible and the public is largely uninformed and scared. The media I can place blame on for knowing better; the public, which largely consists of good hearted people just trying to do the right thing, I have more sympathy for.

So let’s look at what’s happening this New Year’s Eve. People are being told to stay home and not enjoy themselves because a new variant of Covid is “sweeping the globe”. Case numbers are being reported in record sums, with terms like “unprecedented”, “unlike anything we’ve ever seen” and “shattered records” being thrown around:



Holy ****! Surely this is caused for severe alarm, right? Forget your vaccines that we once promised in a smug tone of voice would protect you from ever getting the virus again, Covid is back with a vengeance, mother****ers!

But seriously, let’s just calm down. We already know Omicron is more transmissible than other variants by an order of magnitude, so let’s stop acting surprised. We also know that millions upon millions of Americans have already prompted their immune systems with vaccines and booster shots, so let’s stop acting worried that the virus is once again “surprising” us.

All month I’ve been watching athletes and coaches from various sports testing “positive” - resulting in sports games being canceled and hundreds of millions of dollars in associated revenue being put at risk.

In addition to the economic loss “positive” tests immediately create, many of players and coaches who have been reporting to practice and feeling fine are claiming that testing protocols are taking a mental toll on them.

Take, for example, French tennis player Benoit Paire:

French tennis player Benoit Paire has tested positive for COVID-19 just weeks before the Australian Open gets underway on Jan. 17, 2022.

“Hey my name is Benoit Paire, and for the 250th time I tested positive for Covid!!” he said on Twitter. “Honestly I can’t deal with this Covid s*** anymore.”

“How am I doing? Because of Covid, I got a runny nose but because of all these quarantines spent in a hotel room halfway across the world, I don’t feel good mentally,” he continued.
…
Paire, who is vaccinated, added that he is “100 percent for the vaccine,” but urged people to “just live as before Covid, otherwise, I don’t see the point.”

Do you know the old expression: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Maybe we should be asking: “If 350 million people report ‘positive’ tests but no one cares anymore, do we really need such stringent Covid protocols?”

I know that sounds crass, but how many of the players and coaches do you think would be simply going about their business but for some super-sensitive PCR test turning up trace amounts of the virus? How many players don’t care at this point? How many of the tens of thousands of fans that wind up in the stadium cheering along these teams care at this point?

The counter intuitive nature of our Covid testing is on full display in the world of sports. If we are to test in this fashion going forward, no team in any sport may ever field a starting lineup again.

I mean, honestly - imagine testing everybody for trace amounts of the cold virus before every sporting event in every major sporting league. Nothing would ever get done and the leagues would fold due to inefficiency and loss of interest from fans.

If you take the same fallacy and apply it to everyday life and everywhere that requires Covid testing, including places of business who mandate it, one really starts to get a look at the giant wrench that can be thrown back (George Gammon voice) into the gears of both the economy and people’s everyday lives.

Omicron cases are surging. We know. It’s a cause for concern. People will take precautions that they deem necessary for themselves and for others. However, inciting hysteria based on total number of cases at this point, given the new variant’s properties and what we know about testing, might be the most counterintuitive and irrational decision in responding to the virus yet.

And that’s saying something, because there’s been a lot of them.

--
Enjoy this free preview of paid content? Zerohedge readers always get a discount to subscribe to my blog. Readerscan get 22.20% off FOR LIFE as subscribers by using this New Year’s link to help usher in 2022: Get 22% off forever

More QTR:

1. When The Global Monetary Reset Happens, Don't You Dare Forget Why
2. 22 Stocks I'm Watching For 2022
3. Can "Bond Vigilantes" Ever Return To Set The Fed Straight?

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Ben Shapiro Eviscerates COVID Cult And 'Authoritarian Lockdown Nonsense' That's Destroyed 'Millions Of Lives'

SATURDAY, JAN 01, 2022 - 02:25 PM

Now that the tide has officially turned thanks to Omicron - the hyper-transmissible, vaccine-mocking Covid strain that features flu-like symptoms and virtually no death, public health officials and their legacy media lapdogs have some explaining to do.

In a Friday Twitter thread, Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro shines an industrial grade spotlight in the faces of the hypocritical left over their seemingly-overnight pivot on Covid truths - which until now were verboten and could get one banned, demonetized, or canceled by woke mobs.


Without further ado:



Continued via Threadreaderapp (emphasis ours):

1. Cloth masks are ineffective against omicron (Leanna Wen, CNN);
2. The vaccinated can spread and get covid;
3. The death rate is comparable to the flu (Chris Hayes);
4. Many people are entering hospitals with covid, not from covid (Fauci);
5. Natural immunity is a reason omicron hasn't been as virulent (Fauci);
6. We have to take into account societal needs, not just spread prevention (CDC);
7. The asymptomatic should not be tested (NFL);
8. We should focus on hospitalizations and deaths, not case rate (Biden);
9. Children are not at risk and schools should remain open;
10. Covid is predominantly an illness affecting the immunocompromised and elderly and we should not shut down society.

Those of us in reality have been saying all this for months and most of it since May 2020. But your political priors were more important than the data. You had to have your demonization narrative.

So welcome to reality. And f*** all y'all for pretending you didn't know this so you could have fun crapping on Trump and DeSantis and all your red state relatives.

And btw, AOC and all you Leftist covid fanatics -- those whose virtue signaling authoritarian lockdown nonsense that has resulted in millions of lives destroyed -- stay in your states and leave mine alone.

We chose data and freedom. You chose alarmism and unearned moral superiority. Stay in NY, NJ, CA, and the rest -- and enjoy the actual paranoid nanny state you created among your friends who reward you for telling them they will kill their kids and grandma if they don't panic.

Oh yes, and Happy New Year to all.

 

[marsh]

Insurance CEO says deaths up 40% among working age people, and it's not just COVID

“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business," OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison says.

justthenews.com

Insurance CEO says deaths up 40% among working age people, and it's not just COVID
“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business," OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison says.

By The Center Square Staff
By Margaret Menge
Updated: January 1, 2022 - 11:22pm

The head of OneAmerica insurance said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

OneAmerica is a $100 billion insurance company that has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1877. The company has approximately 2,400 employees and sells life insurance, including group life insurance to employers in the state.

Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

“And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”

Davison was one of several business leaders who spoke during the virtual news conference on Dec. 30 that was organized by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said.

“What the data is showing to us is that the deaths that are being reported as COVID deaths greatly understate the actual death losses among working-age people from the pandemic. It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers.”

He said at the same time, the company is seeing an “uptick” in disability claims, saying at first it was short-term disability claims, and now the increase is in long-term disability claims.

“For OneAmerica, we expect the costs of this are going to be well over $100 million, and this is our smallest business. So it’s having a huge impact on that,” he said.

He said the costs will be passed on to employers purchasing group life insurance policies, who will have to pay higher premiums.

The CDC weekly death counts, which reflect the information on death certificates and so have a lag of up to eight weeks or longer, show that for the week ending Nov. 6, there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319.

These deaths were for people of all ages, however, while the information referenced by Davison was for working-age people who are employees of businesses with group life insurance policies.

At the same news conference where Davison spoke, Brian Tabor, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said that hospitals across the state are being flooded with patients “with many different conditions,” saying “unfortunately, the average Hoosiers’ health has declined during the pandemic.”

In a follow-up call, he said he did not have a breakdown showing why so many people in the state are being hospitalized – for what conditions or ailments. But he said the extraordinarily high death rate quoted by Davison matched what hospitals in the state are seeing.

"What it confirmed for me is it bore out what we're seeing on the front end,..." he said.

The number of hospitalizations in the state is now higher than before the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced a year ago, and in fact is higher than it’s been in the past five years, Dr. Lindsay Weaver, Indiana’s chief medical officer, said at a news conference with Gov. Eric Holcomb on Wednesday.

Just 8.9% of ICU beds are available at hospitals in the state, a low for the year, and lower than at any time during the pandemic. But the majority of ICU beds are not taken up by COVID-19 patients – just 37% are, while 54% of the ICU beds are being occupied by people with other illnesses or conditions.

The state's online dashboard shows that the moving average of daily deaths from COVID-19 is less than half of what it was a year ago. At the pandemic's peak a year ago, 125 people died on one day – on Dec. 29, 2020. In the last three months, the highest number of deaths in one day was 58, on Dec. 13.

 

[marsh]

Dr. Robert Malone's First In-Person Interview Since Appearing On Joe Rogan 1:13:39 min

Kristi Leigh

Dr. Robert Malone's First In-Person Interview Since Appearing On Joe Rogan

 

[marsh]

Surprise (Not!) - Booster's Don't Work Either - Granite Grok

The COVID Jab therapy has fulfilled the maxim, doing the same thing over and over and expecting something to change..,” is the definition of stupid. And we have a control group to prove it. At the beginning of December, no Omicron infections were recorded there [The Faroe Islands]. That...

granitegrok.com

Surprise (Not!) – Booster’s Don’t Work Either

BY STEVE MACDONALD / 1 JANUARY 2022

The COVID Jab therapy has fulfilled the maxim, doing the same thing over and over and expecting something to change..,” is the definition of stupid. And we have a control group to prove it.

At the beginning of December, no Omicron infections were recorded there [The Faroe Islands]. That changed when 33 caregivers got together for a private meeting. All of them had been boosted.

“In the following days, many of the participants developed clear Covid symptoms,” reported Report24. Despite having had the triple vaccination, the participants fell ill: “In the end, there was a total of 21 infected people. That corresponds to an infection rate of 63,6 percent.”

All had had a negative Covid test 36 hours before the meeting.

Sixty-plus percent jabbed jibes with what they’ve been trying to hide from us in the real world, as well as the likelihood of catching, carrying, and spreading the virus even after getting a booster.

Oh, and Omicron is, as we’ve reported since it broke, a weakened version not more serious.

None of the people affected had to be treated in the hospital, because all of them – as is typical for Omicron – only showed mild symptoms.

Unless, of course, you got ADE from your vaccine, which can make healthy people who had nothing to fear from COVID more likely to have a more severe and dangerous case.

To review.

• Omicron is a weak cousin of the Rona.
• The vaccines don’t work.
• The boosters (SSDD) don’t work either.

“This once again impressively confirmed that the continuous series of booster vaccinations currently hailed as the “best protection against Omicron” in Germany do not actually have any noticeable effect, Report24 pointed out.

Similar results were also presented in a recently published study that included the case of the Faroe Islands. The authors concluded that current Corona vaccines do not work against this variant. “A striking feature of this variant is the large number of spike mutations that pose a threat to the efficacy of current Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) vaccines and antibody therapies. This concern is amplified by the findings from our study.”

Stop jabbing people.

 

[marsh]

New Bombshell Study Reveals HOW Covid “Vaccines” Are Killing People

We know what the problems are with the Covid vaccines, namely that they're neither safe nor effective. Some have good theories

noqreport.com

New Bombshell Study Reveals HOW Covid “Vaccines” Are Killing People

VAERS data shows the Covid "vaccines" kill people. Now, a new study makes a compelling case about how it happens.
by JD Rucker
January 1, 2022




We know what the problems are with the Covid vaccines, namely that they’re neither safe nor effective. Some have good theories about why they’re being pushed so hard for The Great Reset. But there have been a scant few studies that dive into how the jabs kill people. Now, we have a new study (PDF) that is shedding light on the issue.

In layman’s terms, the study claims the jabs confuse the immune system into attacking not just the coronavirus (which it doesn’t handle very well) but also the organs and cells of the host body itself. This is why we see athletes collapsing on the field with no preexisting health conditions shortly after they get injected. It’s why there have been millions of adverse reactions worldwide. It also explains why there have been so few autopsies performed on bodies of those who apparently died from the vaccines.

According to The New American:

A paper entitled “On COVID vaccines: why they cannot work, and irrefutable evidence of their causative role in deaths after vaccination” was published by Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D. and Arne Burkhardt, M.D., both Germany-based and widely published scientists in their fields. The findings were presented during an interdisciplinary symposium on COVID shots’ safety and efficacy on December 10, and if they received the attention and regard they deserve from health authorities, the vaccination campaign would be arguably stopped today.

As shown in the study, 14 of the 15 vaccinated patients who died had autoimmune damage in different organs, i.e., the patients’ immune systems were attacking their own organs.

The doctors noted that prior to death, only four of the 15 patients had been treated in the ICU for more than two days, while most of the patients were never hospitalized and either died at home, on the street, at work, in the car, or in home-care facilities. That fact implies that therapeutic intervention was “unlikely to have significantly influenced the post-mortem findings,” per the paper.

Coroners did not link the deaths to COVID vaccinations, and in most cases, “[ar]rhythmogenic heart failure” was postulated as the cause of death. Why would one’s immune system go wild and attack something it is designed to protect?

We’ll get to the science momentarily, but let’s piece this together with some other facts we already know and ask some serious questions. Is this why Big Pharma has been so reticent about their testing and clinical results, pushing revelations to decades out? Are doctors and scientists being silenced by the powers-that-be through bribery, bullying, and blackmail? Who knows about these effects in Washington DC? Does Anthony Fauci have anything to say about this study?

Here’s an excerpt:

A fundamental mistake underlying the development of the COVID-19 vaccines was to neglect the functional distinction between the two major categories of antibodies which the body produces in order to protect itself from pathogenic microbes.

The first category (secretory IgA) is produced by immune cells (lymphocytes) which are located directly underneath the mucous membranes that line the respiratory and intestinal tract. The antibodies produced by these lymphocytes are secreted through and to the surface of the mucous membranes.

These antibodies are thus on site to meet air-borne viruses, and they may be able to prevent viral binding and infection of the cells. The second category of antibodies (IgG and circulating IgA) occur in the bloodstream. These antibodies protect the internal organs of the body from infectious agents that try to spread via the bloodstream.

Vaccines that are injected into the muscle – i.e., the interior of the body – will only induce IgG and circulating IgA, not secretory IgA. Such antibodies cannot and will not effectively protect the mucous membranes from infection by SARS-CoV-2.

Thus, the currently observed “breakthrough infections” among vaccinated individuals merely confirm the fundamental design flaws of the vaccines.

Measurements of antibodies in the blood can never yield any information on the true status of immunity against infection of the respiratory tract. The inability of vaccine-induced antibodies to prevent coronavirus infections has been reported in recent scientific publications.

The vaccines can trigger self-destruction
A natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) will in most individuals remain localized to the respiratory tract. In contrast, the vaccines cause cells deep inside our body to express the viral spike protein, which they were never meant to do by nature. Any cell which expresses this foreign antigen will come under attack by the immune system, which will involve both IgG antibodies and cytotoxic Tlymphocytes. This may occur in any organ. We are seeing now that the heart is affected in many young people, leading to myocarditis or even sudden cardiac arrest and death. How and why such tragedies might causally be linked to vaccination has remained a matter of conjecture because scientific evidence has been lacking. This situation has now been rectified.

Conspiracy theorists have offered a wide range of explanations about why the vaccines are being pushed so hard and what the end goal is. This study seems to back one of the most popular theories about the jabs being part of a depopulation agenda that will be required for The Great Reset to be fully realized. If they can eliminate people over time through the jabs and disguise it all as something else, they can inch closer to their goals.

But it may be worse than that. Some have speculated that the jabs will be fully “activated” at a later date. There are theories about 5G being a method of triggering adverse reactions in a wider range of people. Others have suggested the ongoing regimen of booster shots and pills that are currently being pushed adamantly by many of the world’s governments will lead to massive depopulation.

Once someone is jabbed, they can’t get unjabbed. Considering the injections offer no protection against the spread of the disease and appear to only offer some protection as a treatment to mitigate some of the symptoms, it does not behoove most people to get injected. If this and other studies are accurate, then those who haven’t been jabbed should continue resisting the incessant pressure.

As for those who have been jabbed, it may make sense to cease the booster regimen immediately.

That is NOT a doctor’s opinion as I am not a trained medical professional. That is a layman’s interpretation of the evidence we have available to us today. Please do not treat that as medical advice. I’m only offering what I believe to be true based on what I’ve learned about the disease and the jabs.

With that said, I am confident about my personal decision to remain resolute against getting jabbed or allowing members of my family to do so. Yes, there has been tremendous pressure to not only get jabbed but also to stop talking about the vaccines in a negative way. But the truth is the truth and my pursuit of it compels me to continue to share what I know as well as how I feel.

Here is the conclusion from the study:

Histopathologic analysis show clear evidence of vaccine-induced autoimmune-like pathology in multiple organs. That myriad adverse events deriving from such auto-attack processes must be expected to very frequently occur in all individuals, particularly following booster injections, is self-evident.

Beyond any doubt, injection of gene-based COVID-19 vaccines places lives under threat of illness and death. We note that both mRNA and vector-based vaccines are represented among these cases, as are all four major manufacturers.

 

[marsh]

Governor Makes Bold Move to End Covid State of Emergency and Lift Other Restrictions, Media and the Left Outraged

Finally.

thefederalistpapers.org

Governor Makes Bold Move to End Covid State of Emergency and Lift Other Restrictions, Media and the Left Outraged

By Steve Straub
Published January 1, 2022 at 5:38am

The Republican governor of Missouri just made a bold move that will be cheered by residents and is sure to lead to media hysterics and enrage leftists across the nation.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson has decided to let the covid state of emergency that has been in place in Missouri since March of 2020 expire on New Years Eve saying “we all now know how to best fight and prevent serious illness from this virus.”

Via Fox News:

“Thanks to the effectiveness of the vaccine, widespread efforts to mitigate the virus, and our committed health care professionals, past needs to continue the state of emergency are no longer present,” Parson said.

The Missouri governor explained that over the past 22 months the administration has worked to mitigate COVID-19 and return to “normalcy.”

Stop the censors, sign up to get today's top stories delivered right to your inbox
“In Missouri, we never had mandates or forced lockdowns,” Parson explained.

“The main focus of our state of emergency was to provide regulatory flexibility to support and assist Missourians, health care facilities, and businesses and coordinate a COVID-19 response that saved lives and livelihoods.”

“The State stands ready to provide assistance and response, but there is no longer a need for a state of emergency,” he said.

The governor’s office also explained that at one time nearly “600 statutory and regulatory waivers” were approved across Missouri state government.” This number has been reduced by 80% and remaining waivers will end on Friday.

Accordingly, Missouri National Guard will no longer be activated for COVID-related issues.

This is fantastic news and every governor in the country should follow suit.

At the very least every Republican governor in the country should follow and lift every covid restriction still in place in their respective states as soon as the law allows.

As you might expect many leftist media types and others have already gone of the deep end with their response to the Missouri governor’s bold move to end the state of emergency and all covid restrictions in his state:

Lets hope that hospitalizations and deaths do not rise in Missouri and that Governor Mike Parson is able to hold strong against the coming pushback from the media and the left.

Florida Governor Rick DeSantis stood strong against the covid mob and his state is stronger because of his leadership. Lets hope Parson has the same level of steel in his spine as DeSantis.

I guess we will all find out soon enough.

 

[jward]

sobering. still.


https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/898153945721339904/O****PfR_bigger.jpg
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
46m

NOW - People mauled by police dogs, beaten with batons at unauthorized protest against Covid restrictions in #Amsterdam.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477633528858824706

View: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1477633528858824706?s=20

 

[jward]

Insider Paper
@TheInsiderPaper
4m

JUST IN Twitter has suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account
UPDATE: Rep. Greene's account has permanently been suspended for posting repeated Covid misinformation, the company said in a statement.

 

[TammyinWI]

Bosnia become first country in Europe without COVID pass
Lawyer Mirnes Ajanović defeats government legislation to take freedom from Bosnian citizens by imposing Covid Pass.

Steve Blizard 8 hr ago 3

Skiers wait in a lift queue on Mount Kopaonik, Serbia, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. As most of Europe reintroduces measures to help curb the spread of the omicron variant, Bosnia, to the delight of its winter tourism industry, still maintains a relatively laissez-fair approach to the soaring COVID-19 infection numbers across the continent. (AP Photo/Marjan Vucetic)
Bosnian Lawyer Mirnes Ajanović defeated Bosnian Federal government.

Government didn’t put COVID pass in action. Bosnian Lawyer Mirnes Ajanović defeated government intention to take freedom from Bosnian citizens by imposing Covid Pass.

With his law skills and constitutional knowledge and with official papers from Pfizer he managed to defeat government and prevent it to impose Covid PASS.

Bosnia become first country in Europe without COVID pass.

Corona infection in Bosnia is going down and there will be no forced Covid- passports for Bosnian Citizens.

Mirnes Ajanović succeeded in applying the BiH Constitution, laws and criminal charges, concrete evidence that vaccinated people transmit the virus as well as unvaccinated ones, and that it is absurd to introduce a code certificate – to force the FBiH government to withdraw the decree. and for the cantons to give up the introduction of totalitarianism and discrimination against citizens.

The entity in Bosnia, the Republika Srpska, has never announced the introduction of Covid certificates, so that the whole of BiH remains a free territory.

Mirnes Ajanović’s months-long struggle for the rule of law without divisions and restrictions has led to BiH being the first and only country in Europe to be freed from Covid’s confirmation, and this man’s struggle should be a guide to other lawyers, academics and free thinkers around the world that freedom can be accomplished.

More from BIH News article 7 Dec 2021, here

Bosnian ski resorts benefit from lax anti-virus measures
As most European nations impose new restrictions to curb the omicron variant, Bosnia is taking a relatively laissez-faire approach to soaring COVID-19 infections in the region

Continued here:

Bosnia become first country in Europe without COVID pass

Lawyer Mirnes Ajanović defeats government legislation to take freedom from Bosnian citizens by imposing Covid Pass.

steveblizard.substack.com

 

[marsh]

CITIZEN FREE PRESS

The Greatest News Site On The Internet. Home of CFP Nation.

citizenfreepress.com

If you live in New York, watch this…
Posted by Kane on January 2, 2022 3:23 am

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1476335344865841152

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1476335344865841152
1:41 min
There is still time to leave.

Important summary of Covid bills introduced in New York State assembly.

 

[marsh]

(Scotland)

CITIZEN FREE PRESS

The Greatest News Site On The Internet. Home of CFP Nation.

citizenfreepress.com

The anger is real…
Posted by Kane on January 2, 2022 2:22 am

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477550450920538113

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477550450920538113
.14 min
The limit has been reached — Scottish soccer edition.

 

[marsh]

Flightmare hits peak with over 2,400 cancellations on New Year's Day

The total number of cancelled flights since Christmas Eve now totals more than 14,000 - leaving thousands of Americans stranded over the holiday season.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Sunday, Jan 2nd 2022

Check your status! 1,700 flights ALREADY canceled for Sunday after almost 2,700 were canned on Saturday sparking chaos at airports across the nation: Bad weather and staff shortages caused by Omicron are blamed as FAA warns of impending travel turmoil

• The holiday travel nightmare reached a peak of 2,700 US flight cancellations on Saturday and 6,000 delays
• More than 1,700 flights have already been cancelled for Sunday
• Airlines are citing inclement weather and the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as the reasons for their cancellations and delays
• In an effort to combat the travel disruptions, United has offered to pay pilots triple their usual wages for picking up open flights through mid-January
• Southwest and others have also raised premium pay for some workers
• Despite these efforts, holiday travelers remain frustrated as more than 12,000 domestic flights have been canceled since Dec. 24

(See Flightmare hits peak with over 2,400 cancellations on New Year's Day for rest of article)

 

[marsh]

(Netherlands)

CITIZEN FREE PRESS

The Greatest News Site On The Internet. Home of CFP Nation.

citizenfreepress.com

Police dog mauls Freedom Fighter in Amsterdam…
Posted by Kane on January 2, 2022 6:20 pm

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477633528858824706

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477633528858824706
.21 min

Several videos from Freedom Protest today in the Netherlands.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477622424434839555

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477622424434839555
.15 min

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477624723949469708

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477624723949469708
.09 min

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477616084522045443

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477616084522045443
.07 min

 

[bev]

I don’t know if this was already posted, but John Campbell has now reached 2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel! I think this is awesome for him. Although I don’t agree with all of his personal opinions, his information is well-sourced and presented in a non-partisan way. And his dedication is unmatched. Here’s a link to a video today.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYLbJ0H8zdc&t=6s

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

CNN Story Perfectly Captures The Mass Covid Neuroticism Of 2021

SUNDAY, JAN 02, 2022 - 07:15 PM
The below CNN story appropriately ran on December 31st, marking the end of a tumultuous 2021 dubbed by many headlines to be "the year of the coronavirus vaccine". It was also a year of general Covid lunacy as people's faith in the public "science and health experts" began to wane, but also as true believers in the dogma of "trust the science" refused to allow an inkling of doubt, even as highly vaxxed populations saw numbers of cases soar.

"Chicago woman quarantined in airplane bathroom for 3 hours after testing positive for Covid-19 mid-flight" - the CNN headline reads. She locked herself in the bathroom while en route from Chicago to Reykjavik, Iceland (she planned to go on to visit family in Switzerland) - after panicking upon discovering that a sore throat was the onset of coronavirus. CNN seems to actually hail her as some kind of hero of public conscientiousness. The start of the story perfectly encapsulates the kind of neurosis and failed precautions and anxiety-inducing "health rituals" which have taken hold over vast segments of the population. The woman took no less than seven Covid tests just before the flight:

Before the flight, Fotieo told CNN she took two PCR tests and about five rapid tests, all of which came back negative. But about an hour and a half into the flight, Fotieo started to feel a sore throat.

"The wheels started turning in my brain and I thought, 'OK, I'm going to just go take a test.' It was going to make me feel better," Fotieo told CNN. "Immediately, it came back positive."

And here's the kicker: the woman who gave herself seven Covid tests but learned on the 8th that she had the virus was fully vaccinated and had received the booster.

But CNN still reminds the reader that it's the "unvaccinated population" that we have to worry about here:

Fotieo, who is fully vaccinated and has received the booster, is an early childhood teacher in Chicago. She tests consistently since she works with an unvaccinated population.

When she got her results in the airplane bathroom, over the Atlantic Ocean, she said she started to panic.

"The first flight attendant I ran into was Rocky. I was hysterical, I was crying," Fotieo said. "I was nervous for my family who I just had dinner with. I was nervous for the other people on the plane. I was nervous for myself."

Upon leaving the bathroom and the airplane when the flight touched down in Iceland, she was administered two more Covid tests, which both came back positive. So within a short span, that makes ten total Covid tests.

And let's not forget the at least three vaccine doses she said she had which were supposed to "prevent" getting Covid-19 in the first place (preventing infection is the longstanding definition of what a vaccine is supposed to do, the recent CDC change to the literal definition notwithstanding).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1476712393128349696

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1476712393128349696
.15 min

Her ten-day quarantine in a Red Cross hotel in Reykjavik appears to have gone smooth, with no mention of serious or severe symptoms.

After all this, she told CNN, "Honestly it has been an easy experience." It appears that for now her "faith" in the just "trust the science" narrative remains unshaken.

But for the rest of us, the saga is a perfectly absurd demonstration of all that's been "learned" from the Covid lunacy of 2021.

* * *
Meanwhile, such stores are leading a handful of mainstream pundits to begin to ask...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1477091670424526852

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1477091670424526852
1:41 min

 

[marsh]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Malone: Do Not Take Part In The Lie

SUNDAY, JAN 02, 2022 - 01:50 PM
Authored by Dr. Robert W. Malone,

So, it has been a busy week. As I prepare for getting on a plane to head back to Virginia from Austin, Texas, I am taking a moment to try to breathe and to write down some thoughts.



Yesterday, I had to take an antibody test in order to get into the studio in Austin.

The good news is that my natural immunity from my last round of COVID is robust - with IgA and even IgM Antibodies present.

This brings me again to one of my biggest issues with the public policy response.

Natural immunity equals or trumps immunity from the genetic vaccines, because the natural immune response is broad (against the all 29 proteins of the SAVS-CoV-2 virus) and appears to hold up better against Omicron. This sustained and robust natural immunity also applies to children. We all know it.

Why won’t our government and the main stream media admit it?

Why is it that the CDC website that lists 146 million people having already had COVID-19 in the USA has not been updated since October 2, 2021? A quick, back of the napkin calculation projects at least another 20-30 million have had COVID since then. Bringing the number of people who have had COVID to around 170 million. Well over half the people in the USA.

So, now comes a more transmissible but weaker version of the virus. We should all be celebrating! Over half of us have natural immunity. Over half of us are vaccinated. Unless we are elderly or have significant other co-morbidities, we will be fine. For many, if not most, will seem like another cold, if we notice it at all. Even the unvaccinated or COVID-19 naive person should be just find, if they don’t have significant co-morbidities.

Of course, one isn’t actually allowed to suggest these ideas on many social media platforms. One can’t be at all critical of the government pandemic response or the fearporn - such talk will get you banned, censored and branded with a scarlet letter “AV” (the dreaded “Anti-Vaxxer” label). I am not an anti-vaxxer, but I will wear this label with pride - speaking truth to power always has consequences.



So, yes back to my thoughts on Omicron – please keep taking that vitamin D3 and get your levels tested, if you haven’t already. Use a formulation that combines the D3 with Vitamins A and K. Please keep up with the zinc, vitamin C and magnesium. Work on weight control, glycemic control and please exercise!

All are important.

But also celebrate! If you have had COVID– Omicron is going to be a milder version. In fact, you may not even know that you were infected.
Focus on the Research

Characteristics and Outcomes of Hospitalized Patients in South Africa During the COVID-19 Omicron Wave Compared With Previous Waves. JAMA. Published online December 30, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24868

More good news from South Africa! A new paper just out with data from hospitalized patients. The study compared hospitalized patients from Omicron (“wave 4”) compared to earlier waves.

Remember, this is hospitalized patients- so a group of people probably more like the hospitalized cohorts found in the USA. Not the general population of South Africans.

Highlights:

• The number of patients treated in the hospitals during the same early period of each wave differed (2351 in wave 4 vs maximum 6342 in wave 3).
  This implies fewer hospitalizations, as we know that Omicron is highly transmissible.
• 68% to 69% of patients presenting to the emergency department with a positive COVID-19 result were admitted to the hospital in the first 3 waves vs 41.3% in wave 4.
  Showing that Omicron is resulting in fewer hospitalizations.
• Patients hospitalized during wave 4 were younger (median age, 36 years vs maximum 59 years in wave 3; P < .001) with a higher proportion of females.
  This is interesting and will need to be explored in more depth. Is this due to natural immunity of the elderly or that Omicron is a milder disease for the elderly than previous variants? Another hypothesis is that Omicron is not infecting deep lung tissue, so the elderly are having more mild disease compared to other waves. Few elderly might mean fewer overall hospitalizations but with a young median age.
• Significantly fewer patients with co-morbidities were admitted in wave 4, and the proportion presenting with an acute respiratory condition was lower (31.6% in wave 4 vs maximum 91.2% in wave 3, P < .001).
  Again, this is good news all around!
• Of 971 patients admitted in wave 4, 24.2% were vaccinated, 66.4% were unvaccinated, and vaccination status was unknown for 9.4%.
  How this relates to the population of vaccinated and unvaccinated is a little difficult, because the SA vaccine program has significantly increased the proportion vaccinated this fall.
• The proportion of patients requiring oxygen therapy significantly decreased ( 17.6% in wave 4 vs 74% in wave 3, P < .001), as did the percentage receiving mechanical ventilation.
  Again, very good news!
• Admission to intensive care was 18.5% in wave 4 vs 29.9% in wave 3 (P < .001).
  More mild disease, even in the severe cases!
• The median length of stay (between 7 and 8 days in previous waves) decreased to 3 days in wave 4.
  Another super indicator of mild disease!
• The death rate was between 19.7% in wave 1 and 29.1% in wave 3 and decreased to 2.7% in wave 4.
  This also, should make us all very happy!

Again – remember this data is for HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS ONLY!
So, don’t let the fear-porn get to you – Omicron is coming to a town, village, city, restaurant, or grocery store near you. But for the vast majority of us, we will be fine. We have tools to fight this more mild variant, and there are life-saving treatments. Just work to stay or get as healthy as you can, eat your vitamins, eat real food and go get some exercise!

I will end with a quote from F. A. Hayek, (1974 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences )

“'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded -- and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency persists."

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Substack @rwmalonemd
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Truth to power.