Covid-19 response

[Amity Island]

The report asks a question (could the vaccine have a role in the excesses). It does not attribute them to the vaccine. Huge difference being missed by those keen to blame the vaccine for everything. It’s good the questions are being asked. Leaping to conclusions as a result of those questions is ignorance and unscientific.

It also lists other potential causes. And ignore the indirect damage, repeated, Covid infection has on the body causing deaths officially listed as other events eg heart disease as the start of the trail to death is too far removed to be easily identified.

I see a prominent “evidence based” campaigning dr is shouting the same thing in social media today making the same mistakes but leading his followers along with him.

As far as I understand it, the Government won't release the raw data to scientists to allow them to analyse it and as far as I understand it, the vaccination status of deceased is also not being published either.

Without both the data and vaccination status how can anyone reach any informed conclusion?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Without both the data and vaccination status how can anyone reach any informed conclusion?

We could at least look at countries like NZ, with a high vaccination and deaths lower than expected (so negative excess deaths). They also had very low infection rates (they mostly succeeded in staying isolated until they could be vaccinated).

 

[Amity Island]

We could at least look at countries like NZ, with a high vaccination and deaths lower than expected (so negative excess deaths). They also had very low infection rates (they mostly succeeded in staying isolated until they could be vaccinated).

We could at least know what our own data shows, but this is being made not available.

@Bruce Stephens did you ever reach a point in the pandemic where you thought this was all ridiculous? Like for example when Dr Hillary Jones talked on the tv about wearing a mask whilst swimming.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

@Bruce Stephens did you ever reach a point in the pandemic where you thought this was all ridiculous? Like for example when Dr Hillary Jones talked on the tv about wearing a mask whilst swimming.

Sure, some of it was just silly. And I think in some cases unnecessarily so. It was always clear enough that the idea that 2m was safe was just a rule of thumb and it should have been clear that wearing good quality masks would be helpful (but early on couldn't be recommended because some professions needed them more than the general public). I think for some reason our government (probably because they were selected for loyalty to Johnson rather than for talent) decided it wanted to micromanage behaviour, and likely it could have done things quite differently.

Continues to be silly: I'm pretty sure JCVI just miscalculated the risks to children from the virus, the result being they were left mostly unprotected. (I know their advice was overruled and children were offered vaccination, but by then it was too late, so many people (in the UK) believe that the vaccine and infection by the virus are of similar risk for children.)

Early on there was a plausible (I think) theory that having younger children catch the infection repeatedly would lead to it being milder for them as they got older: that this was likely what had happened for the other cold-producing coronaviruses. While I think it's plausible, I don't think there's much actual evidence for it, or whether it might take several generations (with perhaps quite a bit of death in the meantime). But we seem to have jumped on the idea and are acting as though it's true. Which is great news for the various anti-vaccination groups.

And we still have occasional advice that it's vital to wash our hands to protect against respiratory infections, which does no harm but improving air quality would be a whole lot more effective.

 

[Amity Island]

It was always clear enough that the idea that 2m was safe was just a rule of thumb.

Agree, but, this rule of thumb caused businesses to close because they didn't have the space to cater for it and people fought over and got into heated conversations as if it was based in science and would save their lives.

According to Fauci at the select sub-committee covid hearing this week, the 2m rule (6ft) just appeared, without scientific or evidence base. 2m was based on droplet spread (flu coughing & sneezing), but he conformed that covid is spread mainly by aerosol (in the air).

It got quite heated yesterday at the hearing when questioned about distancing, masks, science etc.

 

[Dragonheart]

Front page of Telegraph today.

Covid vaccines could be partly to blame for the rise in excess deaths since the pandemic, scientists have suggested.

Researchers from The Netherlands analysed data from 47 Western countries and discovered there had been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite the rollout of vaccines and containment measures.

They said the “unprecedented” figures “raised serious concerns” and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.

Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: “Although COVID-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the COVID-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.

"Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”

They added: “During the pandemic, it was emphasised by politicians and the media on a daily basis that every COVID-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same moral should apply.”

The study found that across Europe, the U.S. and Australia there had been more than one million excess deaths in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but also 1.2 million in 2021 and 800,000 and 2022 after measures were implemented.

Researchers said the figure included deaths from COVID-19, but also the “indirect effects of the health strategies to address the virus spread and infection”.

They warned that side effects linked to the Covid vaccine had included ischaemic stroke, acute coronary syndrome and brain haemorrhage, cardiovascular diseases, coagulation, haemorrhages, gastrointestinal events and blood clotting.

German researchers have pointed out that the onset of excess mortality in early 2021 in the country coincided with the rollout of vaccines, which the team said “warranted further investigation”.

However, more recent data regarding side-effects have not been made available to the public, with countries keeping their own individual databases of harms, which rely on self-reporting by the public and doctors, the experts warned.

Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths

Experts call for more research into side effects and possible links to mortality rates

www.telegraph.co.uk

Just come across this detailed and thorough rebuttal of both the paper itself and the subsequent reporting of it. Worth a read @Amity Island

Guest post: A terrible academic paper has fueled renewed anti-vax journalism - it must be retracted

A debunk and a plea for retraction from actuary Stuart McDonald

christinapagel.substack.com

 

[Amity Island]

Just come across this detailed and thorough rebuttal of both the paper itself and the subsequent reporting of it. Worth a read @Amity Island

Guest post: A terrible academic paper has fueled renewed anti-vax journalism - it must be retracted

A debunk and a plea for retraction from actuary Stuart McDonald

christinapagel.substack.com

Thanks for the post @HSSS.

Surely the release of the hard data would resolve the issue with some assurity, but it isn't being released to the public because the MHRA have classed this public information as "commercially sensitive" and only the vaccine manufacturers are allowed to see it.

There is a bit here from parliamentary speech by an m.p.

"One does not need any science training at all to be horrified by officials deliberately hiding key data in this scandal, which is exactly what is going on. The Office for National Statistics used to release weekly data on deaths per 100,000 in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations—it no longer does so, and no one will explain why. The public have a right to that data. There have been calls from serious experts, whose requests I have amplified repeatedly in this House, for what is called record-level data to be anonymised and disclosed for analysis. That would allow meaningful analysis of deaths after vaccination, and settle once and for all the issue of whether those experimental treatments are responsible for the increase in excess deaths".

"Far more extensive and detailed data has already been released to the pharma companies from publicly funded bodies. Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency, said that this anonymised, aggregate death by vaccination status data is “commercially sensitive” and should not be published. The public are being denied that data, which is unacceptable; yet again, data is hidden with impunity, just like in the Post Office scandal. Professor Harries has also endorsed a recent massive change to the calculation of the baseline population level used by the ONS to calculate excess deaths. It is now incredibly complex and opaque, and by sheer coincidence, it appears to show a massive excess of deaths in 2020 and 2021 and minimal excess deaths in 2023".

"Under the old calculation method, tried and tested for decades, the excess death rate in 2023 was an astonishing 5%—long after the pandemic was over, at a time when we would expect a deficit in deaths because so many people had sadly died in previous years. Some 20,000 premature deaths in 2023 alone are now being airbrushed away through the new normal baseline".

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-04-18/debates/9F01F787-D758-43D4-B8D1-4FA357EB3EED/Covid-19ResponseAndExcessDeaths

 

[Dragonheart]

The virus hasn’t disappeared. People still get sick, damaged and die from it. They still are suffering harm caused by earlier and repeated infections (and lockdown delayed diagnosis and treatment etc) and dying as an indirect result without Covid being mentioned on the death certificate. Drs and researchers are still uncovering the long term harms to health the virus has caused. It will be decades before it’s fully established let alone recognised.

Yes released data might reassure people like you that want to blame the vaccine for everything or convince people like me that the more obviously and likely explanation isn’t the full story. I too would like transparency. I’d like to know for sure if the vaccine harms were higher than to be expected from other vaccines (sad but true fact of all medications)

I also have huge scepticism about new calculation methods and they certainly cannot be directly compared to the old methods as they measure different things differently. Nor does anything from Harries carry weight for me by her name alone. If anything it makes me cyclical against whatever she says and dig deeper for details before forming opinions.

 

[Amity Island]

The virus hasn’t disappeared. People still get sick, damaged and die from it. They still are suffering harm caused by earlier and repeated infections (and lockdown delayed diagnosis and treatment etc) and dying as an indirect result without Covid being mentioned on the death certificate. Drs and researchers are still uncovering the long term harms to health the virus has caused. It will be decades before it’s fully established let alone recognised.

Yes released data might reassure people like you that want to blame the vaccine for everything or convince people like me that the more obviously and likely explanation isn’t the full story. I too would like transparency. I’d like to know for sure if the vaccine harms were higher than to be expected from other vaccines (sad but true fact of all medications)

I also have huge scepticism about new calculation methods and they certainly cannot be directly compared to the old methods as they measure different things differently. Nor does anything from Harries carry weight for me by her name alone. If anything it makes me cyclical against whatever she says and dig deeper for details before forming opinions.

I agree with most of your comments. There just seems to be little interest or commitment to finding out the reasons behind the excess deaths. Like you say, many will be as result of COVID, but I don't see how anyone from the establishment is going to come out and say this given the promised effectiveness and wide scale distribution of the vaccines.

 

[Dragonheart]

I agree with most of your comments. There just seems to be little interest or commitment to finding out the reasons behind the excess deaths. Like you say, many will be as result of COVID, but I don't see how anyone from the establishment is going to come out and say this given the promised effectiveness and wide scale distribution of the vaccines.

The establishment wants to pretend it never happened and has no effect on the present or future.

 

[Amity Island]

A court ruling in the US this week on Mandates.

Judge Collins noted that the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment is “entirely consistent with this Nation’s history and constitutional traditions.”

"The majority, however, noted that HFDF had alleged in the lawsuit that the Covid jabs are not “traditional” vaccines because they do not prevent the spread of Covid-19 but only purport to mitigate Covid symptoms in the recipient. This, HFDF had alleged in its complaint, makes the Covid jab a medical treatment, not a vaccine."

"The court declined to give any deference to pronouncements by the CDC that the “Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective.” As the court asked rhetorically, “safe and effective” for what? The majority pointed to HFDF’s allegation that the CDC had changed the definition of “vaccine” in September 2021, striking the word “immunity” from that definition. The court also noted HFDF’s citations to CDC statements that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, and that natural immunity is superior to the vaccines."

A Court Victory over Vaccine Mandates ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF), California Educators for Medical Freedom, and individual plaintiffs have won their appeal in the Ninth Circuit on LAUSD’s Employee Covid Vaccination Mandate.

brownstone.org

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said:

The saga continues, with BMJ Public Health placing an expression of concern on the paper.

Expression of concern coming for paper some used to link COVID-19 vaccines to deaths

The journal BMJ Public Health is placing an expression of concern on a paper it said “gave rise to widespread misreporting and misunderstanding,” namely, “claims that it implies a direct causal lin…

retractionwatch.com

 

[Amity Island]

Some comments made in a recent interview with former CDC centre for disease control director.

"I thought that these vaccines should be prioritised for nursing homes, prioritised for assisted living, prioritised for the elderly, over 60, 65, and yet that’s not what happened,” Redfield said. “There was this, everyone had to get vaccinated.”

When asked why this strategy changed.

Cuomo wondered why the priorities changed, asking, “Was it because of Big Pharma?” Redfield agreed, saying “Yeah, I think there definitely was a huge influence by the pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer, Moderna, I think you did, you know, you pointed out that there was a big push.

Redfield also stated that in his own medical practice he prefers to use the protein-based vaccines, not mRNA, because we don’t make the body a “manufacturing plant” for the spike protein.

“The spike protein is immunotoxic. You get infected, it’s immunotoxic. But when you give the vaccine, we make the spike protein.”

“When I give you an mRNA vaccine… I don’t know how much spike protein you make because I give you mRNA and then your body goes and makes it… You may make it for a week… You may make it for a month.”

“I use the protein vaccine so I know exactly how much spike protein you get. Your body’s not becoming a [spike protein] manufacturing plant.”


You know I’ve always tried to be honest that I think there were some major mistakes in the vaccines, they should have never been mandated,” he said. “I also felt that people should have been more honest about the fact that there were side-effects to those vaccines and some people were actually harmed.”

“The other thing I thought is that there should be more honesty about the fact that the vaccines don’t protect against infection. I remember Biden saying this is an epidemic of the unvaccinated. When I was [Larry] Hogan’s Chief Public Health Advisor in Maryland after I left CDC, I was saying, ‘wait a minute, two-thirds of the people that I’m seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated.’”

While Redfield said they prevent serious illness and death for the elderly, he also said there was no justification for mandating them for young people.

“The rationale for mandating vaccines for healthy firefighters, police officers and the military and hospital workers, teachers… was emotional. We should have always honoured individual choice on those vaccines,” Redfield said.

He also defended natural immunity, saying it was ignored and people were fired. “The lockdowns, overreach,” he continued.

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Admits Lockdown Was "Government Overreach" and "Immunotoxic" Vaccines Were Pushed on Population by "Big Pharma" – The Daily Sceptic

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield has admitted to Chris Cuomo that lockdown was "Government overreach" and the "immunotoxic" vaccines were pushed on the population by "Big Pharma".

dailysceptic.org

 

[Amity Island]

Just out in the news.

Incidentally, the reasons given in the Kansas lawsuit - plus 4 other U.S states - include little that wasn't already known from the beginning, thus; that the spike protein is dangerous.

 

[Amity Island]

The surge in Covid cases across the country has prompted the nation’s health body to return to weekly updates on the spread of the virus.

The UKHSA has said it is monitoring these new strains. The Government's latest advice is that anyone who tests positive for Covid should stay home for five days, and avoid contact with those more vulnerable to serious illness if they were to catch Covid, such as the elderly or those with weakened immune systems.

UKHSA says 'stay home' as professor warns many of us will catch Covid again

There are fears of a new summer wave as more people are admitted to hospital

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

The UKHSA has said it is monitoring these new strains. The Government's latest advice is that anyone who tests positive for Covid should stay home for five days, and avoid contact with those more vulnerable to serious illness if they were to catch Covid, such as the elderly or those with weakened immune systems.

It’ll be interesting to see how effective it is to just ask those who are ill and who have symptoms to stay at home.

I wonder if people will?

Or if the majority a) won’t even check their symptoms as the tests aren’t free any more, and b) will decide they really want to see that concert / meet those friends for a meal / go to that party / have to work that shift to make ends meet / or any of the other reasons why people didn’t follow the “stay at home if you are ill” request first time around

 

[Amity Island]

It’ll be interesting to see how effective it is to just ask those who are ill and who have symptoms to stay at home.

I wonder if people will?

Or if the majority a) won’t even check their symptoms as the tests aren’t free any more, and b) will decide they really want to see that concert / meet those friends for a meal / go to that party / have to work that shift to make ends meet / or any of the other reasons why people didn’t follow the “stay at home if you are ill” request first time around

Yes, this is the early approach I would have favoured, to stay at home if ill (which for serious diseases is often how nature works). The more severe the symptoms of an infectious disease the less ability it has to spread, because people are too sick to leave their beds.

Unfortunately, I think it's too far spread now to do anything about it. We missed a golden opportunity with the "vaccines" which didn't deal with the virus at source - where it enters through mucosal pathway, which they knew at the time. This has allowed the virus to spread and mutate, instead of knocking it out, like we do with our traditional vaccines.

This time they are asking those to stay at home if they get a "positive test", not symptoms of disease. They are not asking those who are sick to stay at home! Again, misinforming people that a positive test means COVID disease.

If you haven't had any symptoms, then you haven't had COVID disease.

 

[Dragonheart]

This time they are asking those to stay at home if they get a "positive test", not symptoms of disease. They are not asking those who are sick to stay at home! Again, misinforming people that a positive test means COVID disease.

If you haven't had any symptoms, then you haven't had COVID disease.

Actually the nhs talks about symptoms and what to do not positive tests. So the misinformation is yours here. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/covid-19-symptoms-and-what-to-do/


And yet again, a positive test means you have the virus within you and therefore the ability to spread it to others whether you have “disease” ie symptoms or not. You are still playing semantics about the use of the word disease rather than looking at the reasoning and purpose behind the advice to stay home (to reduce infecting others)

 

[Dragonheart]

We’ve prided ourselves as a society on dragging ourselves “bravely” into work and school with colds and flu when we felt ill and dramatically declared we feel “on deaths door” but are doing “our duty” to be present . In fact schools punish parent with fines if they think they aren’t sick enough to be kept home making forced attendance whilst less seriously sick legally enforceable.

The only real effect of this ”presenteeism” - a distracted sick person present no matter what - is to act as Typhoid Mary and take the entire office/class down with them. Far more disruptive, costly and unhealthy than if the single infected person stayed away. Staying home with illness, that doesn’t confine you to bed in a physical way, has rarely happened in my rather long memory and it isn’t happening with Covid (defined by test or symptoms) thanks largely to the “it’s just a cold” messaging. It being like a cold might be the experience of many, so long as we look only at the mildest cases and ignore its deadly potential in others and the still largely unrecognised long term effects on multiple organs and systems even after relatively mild infections that doesn’t happen with colds!



Hardly anyone will bother testing at all nowadays anyway regardless of symptoms, illness or “disease”.

Of the tiny minority that do test they will usually only do one test and assume the result is correct. But a negative test doesn’t rule out the possibility your illness is Covid either. They are not that accurate, never were with studies showing as low as 50% even when first introduced for the variants they were designed for, and have become less so with the multiple shifts of variant. Last time I had Covid it was 5 tests, with quite noticeable symptoms, before one showed positive. How many people will do that? Almost none I assume. I was convinced due to symptoms and circumstances and decided to put the tests to the test. They failed. I’ve read a lot of anecdotal reports this year of people experiencing the same false negatives with the rapid tests.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

And yet again, a positive test means you have the virus within you and therefore the ability to spread it to others whether you have “disease” ie symptoms or not.

And the tests are no longer free (for most people), and false negatives have been common (meaning you need to get several negatives to be reasonably confident), and people just aren't going to do that.

Has to be based on symptoms, and as a country we haven't been used to isolating when we have symptoms. Without a major campaign (and advice to employers and schools) the advice is useless. Indeed, schoolchildren are required to go to school with symptoms which include those of COVID-19. (And whooping cough. 8 infant deaths so far this year, I think?)