After a Canadian military veteran complained that the government still hadn’t installed a wheelchair ramp in her home five years after she had originally requested it, the government offered to euthanize her
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721
Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier said the department even offered to provide the equipment
By Murray Brewster
December 1, 2022
A paraplegic former member of the Canadian military shocked MPs on Thursday by testifying that the Department of Veterans Affairs offered her, in writing, the opportunity for a medically assisted death — and even offered to provide the equipment.
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed for Canada at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and the Invictus Games that same year, spoke before the House of Commons veterans committee and agreed to provide a copy of the letter.
“With respect to me, I have a letter in my file, because I had to face that as well,” said Gauthier, referring to the debate about veterans being offered the option of medical assistance in dying (MAID).
“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” said Gauthier who first injured her back in a training accident in 1989.
Testifying in French, she said she has been fighting for a home wheelchair ramp for five years and expressed her concerns about the assisted dying offer in a recent letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and that they [Veterans Affairs] offered me MAID and would supply equipment,” said Gauthier.
Gauthier did not say when the assisted death offer was made, whether it came from a case manager or a veterans services agent, or when she wrote to the prime minister.
On Friday, Prime minister Justin Trudeau called the report of what happened to Gauthier “absolutely unacceptable” and said the government took action the moment it heard of other cases.
“We are following up with investigations and we are changing protocols to ensure what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada, who are supposed to be there to support those people who stepped up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying.”
Veterans Minister Lawrence MacAulay revealed last week in testimony before the same committee that four — perhaps five — cases of Canadian military veterans being given the MAID option by a now-suspended veterans service agent have been referred to the RCMP.
MacAulay urged other veterans who may have had similar experiences to come forward.
Department officials told CBC News they couldn’t confirm whether the incident involving Gauthier represents a new case or was something the department was investigating already.
During his testimony last week, MacAulay walked the committee through four cases he said the department was certain of and that had been uncovered as part of a file review launched last summer.
The veterans service agent who allegedly provided the advice has been removed from her post while the department and the RCMP investigate.
“We remain confident that this is all related to one single employee, and it’s not a widespread or a systemic issue,” MacAulay told the committee last week.
Another veteran who testified Thursday, retired corporal Bruce Moncur, said that at a meeting two weeks ago, a deputy minister at the department tried to assure an advisory committee that includes veterans that what they were facing was an isolated incident.
“Five days later, we found out through the media that that was all lies,” said Moncur. “So we’re having, literally, an assistant deputy minister lying to veterans faces five days before the truth comes out. So, I said, it’s disheartening to say the least.”
‘I am in shock’
A spokesperson for MacAulay said late Thursday that the advisory committee was given the most recent information the department had at the time of the meeting.
New Democrat MP Rachel Blaney, a member of the committee, said she was shaken by what she heard on Thursday.
“I just want to extend my deepest apologies,” she told Gauthier. “I just, I am in shock. And I thank you for bringing this reality [to the committee].”
The question of what is going on at Veterans Affairs, and whether the Liberal government has a handle on the problem, was put before the prime minister during a media availability Thursday.
Trudeau tried reassurance, saying the employees in question no longer have contact with veterans. He also acknowledged that these cases fit within a larger debate over the expansion of medically-assisted dying in Canada to include those with mental illness.
That could become an option next spring.
“The issue of medical assistance in dying is a deeply personal, extraordinarily difficult choice that individuals and families need to make in the most thoughtful and best supported way possible,” Trudeau said.
“We understand that making sure we are respecting people’s rights and their choices, at the same time as we protect the most vulnerable, is a very important but challenging balance to establish.”
Op-Ed: Listen up, college students. You don’t ‘get’ a grade. You have to earn it
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-09/college-rating-professor-jones-petition-students
Op-Ed: Listen up, college students. You don’t ‘get’ a grade. You have to earn it
By Jillian Horton
October 9, 2022
Every fall, my mental timeline is flooded with memories of the teachers who changed my life. And last week — when I read about the controversial termination of Maitland Jones Jr., a distinguished New York University professor whose courses in organic chemistry were deemed too hard by students hoping to get into medicine — it took me back to the September I met my toughest teacher.
It was 1994, and I was a 19-year-old student in my third year at Western University in London, Ontario. I had signed up for a course in the department of English taught by one Donald S. Hair. My first clue that professor Hair would defy expectations? He was bald.
Standing at the lectern in a three-piece suit, he took roll, ever-so-properly referring to each of us as “Miss” or “Mister.” It was a distinct shift from the vaguely beatnik tone of many of our other professors, with whom students could sometimes be found drinking beer at one of the campus pubs.
A few weeks into the class, the professor administered our first test. I didn’t think I had anything to worry about — until he handed my exam back the following week with a 67 written on it in red ink.
Sixty-seven! I’d never received such a low mark. I was dependent on a scholarship, and any grade below 80 put my future in jeopardy. My seatmate’s murderous expression revealed her mark had been miserable too. We fumed silently: Professor Hair was an old weirdo! How dare he derail our GPAs? What was the old boy’s problem, anyway?
But the real problem was this: He was right. I knew it as soon as I’d cooled off and taken the time to digest his comments. My writing was sloppy, my understanding of key concepts superficial. Like many of my peers, I was used to earning top grades. Now, for the first time, a teacher had introduced an uncomfortable question. Were we actually “earning” them?
The next day, I went to his office. With burning cheeks, I told him I knew I’d butchered the exam. To my childish surprise, he wasn’t a “weirdo” in the least. He was funny, warm and uncommonly patient. He assured me if I worked hard, I’d achieve my potential in the course, and he’d be available to help me.
I went away, read and read some more. The more I read, the more interesting his classes became, and soon, his complex, spellbinding lectures were the highlight of my week. I worked my guts out in that course. The grade I earned in his class was the lowest I’d receive that year. But I had earned that grade. Nearly 30 years later, I’m still proud of that.
As an associate dean and teacher of medical students for the last 20 years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what usually makes a good doctor — and it isn’t organic chemistry. I disagree with the colleague of professor Jones who told the New York Times that he did not want anyone treating patients who did not “appreciate transformations at the molecular level.” The comment struck me as slightly less outdated than keeping a bag of leeches for emergency bloodletting. There is ample evidence other paths prepare students extremely well for a career in medicine.
That issue is a sideshow anyway, because the strong public reaction to this story is largely about something else: the commodification of education. For U.S. medical schools, the Assn. of American Medical Colleges oversees a rigorous and detailed accreditation process, which relies on the collection of mounds of data — including an exit survey that can heavily influence the school’s accreditation outcome. The survey begins by asking students to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with this statement: “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of my medical education.”
Is that the right way to ask someone to evaluate their education? It seems more appropriate for rating their Starbucks latte. My job is not to ensure my children — or my students — are always “satisfied.” That metric would worsen the quality of my parenting and my teaching; both require me to do unpopular things if I am to do my job well. “Satisfaction” is the language of consumer experience, and when it becomes a target metric, it alters something fundamental about the interaction between people.
I have felt that shift as an educator. I’ve witnessed, and championed, long-overdue changes in the learning environment, including a focus on the psychological safety of students. But I’ve seen disheartening changes too — namely the evolution of a relationship with students that sometimes feels transactional, as if the primary objective is no longer just about turning them into doctors but, rather, keeping them constantly satisfied, the teacher less preceptor than proprietor.
That shift is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Long after I’d moved on from Western University, I heard professor Hair had been nominated for an award for excellence in teaching. “Professors are often afraid to employ his high standards,” I eagerly wrote in a two-page letter of support. “Setting the bar higher may initially be uncomfortable, but it gives students … a sense of self-respect and pride which is stolen from us when we work in circumstances where such experiences do not exist.” He won that award. And he also earned it.
If my low grade in professor Hair’s class had been a barrier to me becoming a doctor, would I feel differently? I really don’t know. I suppose I thought he had a right to be tough as long as he was also trying to be fair. The irony? What I learned from him made me a better doctor. Not because I was satisfied.
Because I grew.
Jillian Horton is a writer and physician. She is the author of “We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing.”
New York University dumbs down its pre-med curriculum so students who are too dumb and/or lazy to pass organic chemistry can still become doctors
At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame?
Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him.
By Stephanie Saul
October 3, 2022
In the field of organic chemistry, Maitland Jones Jr. has a storied reputation. He taught the subject for decades, first at Princeton and then at New York University, and wrote an influential textbook. He received awards for his teaching, as well as recognition as one of N.Y.U.’s coolest professors.
But last spring, as the campus emerged from pandemic restrictions, 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him.
Students said the high-stakes course – notorious for ending many a dream of medical school – was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores.
The professor defended his standards. But just before the start of the fall semester, university deans terminated Dr. Jones’s contract.
The officials also had tried to placate the students by offering to review their grades and allowing them to withdraw from the class retroactively. The chemistry department’s chairman, Mark E. Tuckerman, said the unusual offer to withdraw was a “one-time exception granted to students by the dean of the college.”
Marc A. Walters, director of undergraduate studies in the chemistry department, summed up the situation in an email to Dr. Jones, before his firing.
He said the plan would “extend a gentle but firm hand to the students and those who pay the tuition bills,” an apparent reference to parents.
The university’s handling of the petition provoked equal and opposite reactions from both the chemistry faculty, who protested the decisions, and pro-Jones students, who sent glowing letters of endorsement.
“The deans are obviously going for some bottom line, and they want happy students who are saying great things about the university so more people apply and the U.S. News rankings keep going higher,” said Paramjit Arora, a chemistry professor who has worked closely with Dr. Jones.
In short, this one unhappy chemistry class could be a case study of the pressures on higher education as it tries to handle its Gen-Z student body. Should universities ease pressure on students, many of whom are still coping with the pandemic’s effects on their mental health and schooling? How should universities respond to the increasing number of complaints by students against professors? Do students have too much power over contract faculty members, who do not have the protections of tenure?
And how hard should organic chemistry be anyway?
Dr. Jones, 84, is known for changing the way the subject is taught. In addition to writing the 1,300-page textbook “Organic Chemistry,” now in its fifth edition, he pioneered a new method of instruction that relied less on rote memorization and more on problem solving.
After retiring from Princeton in 2007, he taught organic chemistry at N.Y.U. on a series of yearly contracts. About a decade ago, he said in an interview, he noticed a loss of focus among the students, even as more of them enrolled in his class, hoping to pursue medical careers.
“Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams.
The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”
After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.
To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.
That was not enough. In 2020, some 30 students out of 475 filed a petition asking for more help, said Dr. Arora, who taught that class with Dr. Jones. “They were really struggling,” he explained. “They didn’t have good internet coverage at home. All sorts of things.”
The professors assuaged the students in an online town-hall meeting, Dr. Arora said.
Many students were having other problems. Kent Kirshenbaum, another chemistry professor at N.Y.U., said he discovered cheating during online tests.
When he pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”
By spring 2022, the university was returning with fewer Covid restrictions, but the anxiety continued and students seemed disengaged.
“They weren’t coming to class, that’s for sure, because I can count the house,” Dr. Jones said in an interview. “They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.”
Students could choose between two sections, one focused on problem solving, the other on traditional lectures. Students in both sections shared problems on a GroupMe chat and began venting about the class. Those texts kick-started the petition, submitted in May.
“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.
The students criticized Dr. Jones’s decision to reduce the number of midterm exams from three to two, flattening their chances to compensate for low grades. They said that he had tried to conceal course averages, did not offer extra credit and removed Zoom access to his lectures, even though some students had Covid. And, they said, he had a “condescending and demanding” tone.
“We urge you to realize,” the petition said, “that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole.”
Dr. Jones said in an interview that he reduced the number of exams because the university scheduled the first test date after six classes, which was too soon.
On the accusation that he concealed course averages, Dr. Jones said that they were impossible to provide because 25 percent of the grade relied on lab scores and a final lab test, but that students were otherwise aware of their grades.
As for Zoom access, he said the technology in the lecture hall made it impossible to record his white board problems.
Zacharia Benslimane, a teaching assistant in the problem-solving section of the course, defended Dr. Jones in an email to university officials.
“I think this petition was written more out of unhappiness with exam scores than an actual feeling of being treated unfairly,” wrote Mr. Benslimane, now a Ph.D. student at Harvard. “I have noticed that many of the students who consistently complained about the class did not use the resources we afforded to them.”
Ryan Xue, who took the course, said he found Dr. Jones both likable and inspiring.
“This is a big lecture course, and it also has the reputation of being a weed-out class,” said Mr. Xue, who has transferred and is now a junior at Brown. “So there are people who will not get the best grades. Some of the comments might have been very heavily influenced by what grade students have gotten.”
Other students, though, seemed shellshocked from the experience. In interviews, several of them said that Dr. Jones was keen to help students who asked questions, but that he could also be sarcastic and downbeat about the class’s poor performance.
After the second midterm for which the average hovered around 30 percent, they said that many feared for their futures. One student was hyperventilating.
But students also described being surprised that Dr. Jones was fired, a measure the petition did not request and students did not think was possible.
The entire controversy seems to illustrate a sea change in teaching, from an era when professors set the bar and expected the class to meet it, to the current more supportive, student-centered approach.
Dr. Jones “learned to teach during a time when the goal was to teach at a very high and rigorous level,” Dr. Arora said. “We hope that students will see that putting them through that rigor is doing them good.”
James W. Canary, chairman of the department until about a year ago, said he admired Dr. Jones’s course content and pedagogy, but felt that his communication with students was skeletal and sometimes perceived as harsh.
“He hasn’t changed his style or methods in a good many years,” Dr. Canary said. “The students have changed, though, and they were asking for and expecting more support from the faculty when they’re struggling.”
N.Y.U. is evaluating so-called stumble courses — those in which a higher percentage of students get D’s and F’s, said John Beckman, a spokesman for the university.
“Organic chemistry has historically been one of those courses,” Mr. Beckman said. “Do these courses really need to be punitive in order to be rigorous?”
Dr. Kirshenbaum said he worried about any effort to reduce the course’s demands, noting that most students in organic chemistry want to become doctors.
“Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level,” he said, “I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients.”
In August, Dr. Jones received a short note from Gregory Gabadadze, dean for science, terminating his contract. Dr. Jones’s performance, he wrote, “did not rise to the standards we require from our teaching faculty.”
Dr. Gabadadze declined to be interviewed. But Mr. Beckman defended the decision, saying that Dr. Jones had been the target of multiple student complaints about his “dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and opacity about grading.”
Dr. Jones’s course evaluations, he added, “were by far the worst, not only among members of the chemistry department, but among all the university’s undergraduate science courses.”
Professors in the chemistry department have pushed back. In a letter to Dr. Gabadadze and other deans, they wrote that they worried about setting “a precedent, completely lacking in due process, that could undermine faculty freedoms and correspondingly enfeeble proven pedagogic practices.”
Nathaniel J. Traaseth, one of about 20 chemistry professors, mostly tenured, who signed the letter, said the university’s actions may deter rigorous instruction, especially given the growing tendency of students to file petitions.
“Now the faculty who are not tenured are looking at this case and thinking, ‘Wow, what if this happens to me and they don’t renew my contract?’” he said.
Dr. Jones agrees.
“I don’t want my job back,” he said, adding that he had planned to retire soon anyway. “I just want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
A person in New York has become paralyzed because their idiotic parents never got them vaccinated for polio
How polio came back to New York for the first time in decades, silently spread and left a patient paralyzed
By Spencer Kimball
October 4, 2022
An unvaccinated adult suffered paralysis in June from polio, the first case in New York since 1990.
Wastewater surveillance later found the virus had been spreading silently in the New York City area for months.
The origin of the virus is still under investigation, but samples in New York are genetically linked to polioviruses found in London and Jerusalem wastewater.
When a young adult in a New York City suburb visited an emergency department in June after experiencing weakness in their lower legs, the shocking diagnosis would lead local officials to declare a health emergency in New York and put authorities across the U.S. and around the world on a state of alert.
The individual, a resident of Rockland County, had suffered from a fever, a stiff neck, back and abdominal pain as well as constipation for five days. The patient was hospitalized and tested for enterovirus, a family of pathogens that in rare cases can cause weakness in the arms and legs.
New York state’s Wadsworth Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would subsequently confirm the worst: The young adult was suffering from paralysis after contracting polio, the first known U.S. case in nearly a decade and the first in New York since 1990.
The patient was unvaccinated.
“I was very surprised. I never thought I’d see a case of polio in the United States, certainly not in Rockland County,” said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the county health commissioner. The CDC considers a single case of paralytic polio a public health emergency in the U.S.
Polio is a devastating, incurable disease that once struck fear into parents’ hearts every summer when transmission peaked, threatening children with paralysis. But the virus has faded from U.S. public consciousness over the decades after a successful vaccination campaign crushed transmission in the 1960s.
In the late 1940s, more than 35,000 people were paralyzed from polio in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC. But the advent of an effective vaccine in 1955 dramatically reduced the spread of the disease to less than 100 cases annually by the 1960s.
The virus had been eliminated from the U.S. by 1979, though sporadic cases that originated abroad have been identified over the years.
How polio reemerged in New York this year remains the subject of investigation, but public health officials believe the virus originated overseas in a country that still uses the oral polio vaccine. American health officials stopped using the oral vaccine more than 20 years ago because it contains live virus that can — in rare circumstances — mutate to become virulent, but it is still common in other countries.
Genetic analysis of New York poliovirus samples indicates a weakened virus strain used in one of the oral vaccines mutated over time to cause the outbreak. Combined with low vaccination rates in some New York communities and greater international travel, this provided an opening for the virus to slip back into the U.S. this year and paralyze the Rockland patient.
“The underlying lesson is this is an infectious disease and it travels easily with population movements,” said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesperson for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the organization that represents the worldwide campaign to eliminate the virus.
Laura L. Morgan in the Wall St. Journal: ‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Job – States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Nursing Job
States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
By Laura L. Morgan
September 30, 2022
I was fired from my nursing job this year for refusing to take “implicit bias” training. After 39 years of providing equal care to all my patients without regard to their race, I objected to a mandatory course grounded in the idea that I’m racist because I’m white. I fear every healthcare professional will soon be forced to make the same awful decision I did: Falsely admit to being racist or abandon the medical field.
My ordeal started in September 2021 when my employer, Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health, rolled out its annual training modules for clinical educators. The list included “Overcoming Unconscious Bias.” After viewing the interactive course, I contacted my supervisor and asked for a meeting with the chief nursing officer and the human resources director. The former sent a surrogate; the latter didn’t attend. After two meetings, it was clear that I wouldn’t be given an exemption. My supervisor told me, “I don’t want you to die on this cross.”
But I did. The idea of implicit bias is grounded in the belief that white people treat those who aren’t white worse than those who are. It’s part of the woke assumption that society, including healthcare, suffers from “systemic racism.” Accordingly, my own supposed implicit bias, which is a euphemism for ingrained racism, must be rooted out. Not only that, it must be replaced with preferential treatment for the nonwhite. I fail to see how real racial discrimination is justified by my nonexistent racism.
I knew it was coming, but I was still devastated when I was fired in February. I went from a six-figure job to zero income. The day I was fired I sold my car to make sure I’d have enough money to live on. When I tried to find a new healthcare job, no one would hire me. No doubt if they contacted my old employer, they were told why I was let go.
States are increasingly requiring implicit-bias training as a condition for obtaining medical and nursing licenses. As of July, the Kentucky Board of Nursing requires that all registered nurses take a continuing-education course on implicit bias. In July, as a journalistic exercise, I paid $5 and signed up for the recommended course, created by the Kentucky Nurses Association. Nurses are told that “implicit bias kills,” and that white privilege is a “covert” form of racism. The course walks nurses through their possible contributions to “modern-day lynchings in the workplace.”
In June, Michigan started requiring all professional-license holders to take two hours of implicit-bias training. That’s everyone from doctors and nurses to dentists and counselors. The training must be taken at every license renewal, which sends the message that racism is essentially permanent and incurable. Massachusetts also mandated implicit-bias training for doctors in June, connecting doctors’ supposed racism to lower-quality care for minority patients. Maryland will enact its rule for “all healthcare practitioners” on Oct. 1.
No state board of medicine or nursing provides sufficient evidence to support the claim that all white people are implicitly biased, and there’s plenty of scholarly research that shows that implicit-bias testing is flawed. Policy makers don’t seem to be considering the unintended consequences of these mandates. Accusing my peers and me of racism will contribute to soaring levels of burnout, causing many to leave the medical profession. Some, like me, will surely be forced out. Patients, especially minorities, will experience the most harm. Their caregivers are being told to admit to unconscious racism. Why would you see a physician who supposedly hates you and will hurt your health?
More state mandates are surely on the way, including in red states. Most state medical associations, which exert a powerful influence over policy, have bought in to the belief that their own members are racist. The Texas Nurses Association declares the existence of “racial biases in healthcare” and supports implicit-bias training for nurses. The national Federation of State Medical Boards urges state boards to take a bigger role in addressing the “systemic racism and structural inequities” that it says are “embedded” in American healthcare.
Before I was fired, I wrote the following to the leadership of Baylor Scott & White Health: “Treating patients, coworkers, family members, and my superiors in a fair and respectful manner is the practice I have subscribed to during my entire 39-year nursing career.” The same is true of most of the medical professionals I’ve worked with. No one – not me, my peers or our patients – will be better off if more states call us liars and racists.
Top female scientist canceled over 13-year-old ‘Michael Jackson’ Halloween costume
Top female scientist canceled over 13-year-old ‘Michael Jackson’ Halloween costume
By Jennifer Kabbany
March 7, 2022
‘UW Medicine is helping to ruin a woman who devoted her career to finding a cure for HIV’
Highly decorated virologist Julie Overbaugh has been forced out of a position of leadership at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and resigned her faculty affiliate position at the University of Washington School of Medicine due to accusations of racism and investigations involving her decision to wear a Michael Jackson costume to a Halloween party in 2009.
A picture of the 13-year-old incident, in which she is accused of wearing “blackface,” has prompted peers to accuse her of racism despite the fact that her research has focused on aiding Africans for the last three decades.
“Overbaugh has devoted her professional career to studying viral pathogens that cause HIV. But amid publishing papers, running her own research lab, and flying back and forth from Kenya, she has also pursued another professional passion: mentoring. Overbaugh is one of two recipients of this year’s Nature Award for Mentoring in Science, which is awarded to select scientists in one country or region each year,” a 2016 report in GeekWire reports.
Last year, Overbaugh was elected to National Academy of Sciences.
“I am really happy to see gender balance in this year’s elected members and hope this signals a future trend,” Overbaugh said at the time. “In my field, HIV, which is a very large field, there have only been a couple of women elected — hopefully, there will be more in the future.”
But Overbaugh’s accomplishments during an age in which female STEM recruitment and retainment is a social justice priority apparently could not outweigh the 2009 incident of emulating the King of Pop at a party that was reportedly themed after Jackson’s famous “Thriller” album.
Members of the Overbaugh lab apparently enjoy celebrating Halloween and have posted pictures of its themed parties every year. In past years they have dressed as emojis, bumble bees, fish — and even as “Binders of Babes” — a riff on Republican Mitt Romney’s gaffe while running for president.
The picture from the year 2009 is conspicuously missing from the webpage.
“The act depicted in the photo is racist, offensive and hurtful, and we offer our sincere apologies to anyone who has experienced pain or upset because of the act or this photo,” the cancer center announced in mid-February, adding Overbaugh was put on administrative leave and placed under investigation.
“Dr. Overbaugh has stepped down from her senior vice president role at Fred Hutch. She will continue working in her lab and will take a hiatus from her leadership duties in the Office of Education & Training. During this time, she will engage in an intensive education and reflection process.”
The Federalist reports:
Though the incident didn’t occur at UW Medicine, its CEO and equity officer also waded into the faux controversy. UW Medicine CEO Dr. Paul Ramsey and Chief Equity Officer Paula Houston notified UW Medicine staff in an email that Overbaugh was punished for engaging in the “racist, dehumanizing, and abhorrent act” of “blackface.” During a separate formal review process for UW faculty, the email confirmed, Overbaugh resigned from her UW affiliate faculty member appointment.
Overbaugh released a short statement to me. “I did not know the association of this with blackface at the time, in 2009, but understand the offense that is associated with this now,” she said. “I have apologized for this both publicly and privately and beyond that have no other comments.”
Ramsey and Houston claim that the UW Medicine community was “harmed” by the 13-year-old photo that most staff didn’t know existed until reading about it in the Feb. 25 email. “We acknowledge that our community has been harmed by this incident and the fact that 13 years elapsed before action was taken,” they wrote. “We are convening a series of affinity group meetings in the next few weeks to provide spaces for mutual support, reflection, and response.”
Neither Ramsey nor Houston explained how the photo “harmed” anyone. Indeed, beyond one confirmed complaint, it’s unclear if anyone even cared about the old photo.
The full memo from UW Medicine was republished by journalist Jesse Singal on his Twitter page. The memo notes that Overbaugh resigned her post at the university once administrators began their own probe into the incident.
Her faculty bio is no longer on the UW School of Medicine website, although its Department of Global Health has, as of Monday afternoon, yet to strip her from its webpage.
“A U. Washington doctor who has dedicated her career to fighting HIV in Africa, including research w/sex workers, is having her reputation and career incinerated because she dressed up as Michael Jackson, in blackface, once in 2009,” Singal noted.
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1497289911996760064
“Just to situate everyone, the event in question happened several years before the most recent instance of 30 Rock airing blackface-oriented comedy to tens of millions of people. What she did was a bad idea but at the time was obviously not seen as too risque even for network TV,” he added.
Writing for The Federalist, Jason Rantz points out that “UW Medicine is lashing out against Overbaugh to show its wokeness and earn social currency.”
“That UW Medicine is helping to ruin a woman who devoted her career to finding a cure for HIV is immaterial to its leaders. To progressive activists, highlighting one’s virtues is more important than curing a deadly disease.”
Woman gets $688.35 ER bill for spending 7 hours in the waiting room — without being treated
Woman gets $688.35 ER bill for spending 7 hours in the waiting room — without being treated
November 1, 2021
By Nicole Lyn Pesce
The woman says Emory Healthcare told her, ‘You get charged before you are seen. Not for being seen.’
A Georgia woman spent seven hours waiting for emergency room staff to check out her head injury, and left before receiving any treatment. But the real headache began when the hospital billed her almost $700 for the visit a few weeks later.
“I didn’t get my vitals taken, nobody called my name. I wasn’t seen at all,” Taylor Davis told a local Fox affiliate.
She said that she went to Emory Decatur Hospital ER in July for a head injury, and waited as long as she could stand it. “I sat there for seven hours. There’s no way I should be sitting in an emergency room … for seven hours,” she said. So she went home. And was charged $688.35 for the ordeal.
Davis said she called the hospital after receiving the surprise medical bill, because she was convinced it was a mistake. But she says that she was told, “it’s hospital protocol even if you’re just walking in and you’re not seen. When you type in your Social [Security number], that’s it. You’re going to get charged regardless,” she said.
Fox 5 in Atlanta saw a copy of her past due notice for $688.35, as well as an email that she received from an Emory Healthcare patient financial services employee that read, “You get charged before you are seen. Not for being seen.”
Representatives from Emory Healthcare were not immediately available for comment. But Emory Healthcare sent the following statement to Fox 5 in Atlanta: “Emory Healthcare takes all patient concerns seriously and appreciates this has been brought to our attention. Our teams are currently looking into this matter and will follow up directly with the individual.”
Davis said this would probably prevent her from seeking medical attention in the future. “I’m very reluctant to go to the hospital now. That’s kind of like the last resort now. Seeing that they’re able to bill you for random things, it doesn’t make me want to go. So that’s not good,” she said.
The story, which published online over Halloween weekend, was soon the top post on Reddit’s homepage on Monday afternoon, drawing roughly 6,000 comments from people sharing their own surprise medical bill stories.
Indeed, Davis is not alone here. One in five Americans who undergo elective surgery get hit with unexpected out-of-network medical bills, according to a 2020 study of almost 350,000 people. And those suffering sticker shock ended up owing $2,011 more than they were expecting, on average. And nearly one in five families who delivered babies in 2019 may have gotten at least one surprise bill for the delivery and/or newborn hospitalization, with an average bill of $744, another study estimates.
Earlier in the pandemic, men and women getting hit with surprise bills after getting treated for COVID-19 also made headlines. One survivor who spent six weeks in a Seattle ICU ran up a $1.1 million medical tab, although he was quite fortunate in that his insurance paid most of the bill. (If you’re curious, here’s how his $1,122,501.04 bill breaks down.)
But research shows that people making less than $35,000 a year have the most difficulty paying medical, dental or prescription drug bills.
Help could be on the way. Former President Donald Trump signed a federal rule requiring hospitals to publicly list the cost of many of their services in accessible, consumer-friendly language, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2021. This includes X-rays, outpatient visits, imaging and laboratory tests, or bundled services such as a colonoscopy.
And President Joe Biden’s consumer protections against surprise medical bills, which includes being protected from unexpected charges if an out-of-network clinician takes part in a surgery or procedure conducted at an in-network hospital, is on track to take effect on Jan. 1, 2022.
Video: Dr. Rand Paul vs lawyer Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, who does not have a degree in medicine or science, and is a complete idiot when it comes to the subject of natural immunity for people who have been infected with COVID-19
Rand Paul is a medical doctor.
Xavier Becerra is a lawyer who has no degree in medicine or science. Despite this, he is the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In this video, Dr. Paul explains why Becerra is a complete idiot when it comes to the subject of natural immunity for people who have been infected with COVID-19.
Dr. Paul also explains why Becerra is a totalitarian control freak who has no respect for individual freedom.
I think the COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving. Here are my many reasons for thinking such a thing. Updated for March 26, 2021.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
I think the COVIOD-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.
I’m going to start out by posting the CDC’s estimated survival rates, by age, for people who contract COVID-19:
BBC article on people who regretted getting sex change surgery
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6923912.stm
Are sex change operations justified?
By Innes Bowen
August 1, 2007
Many people who have been through sex change operations say it was the only solution to a distressing condition. But a leading feminist campaigner claims that sex reassignment surgery is based on unscientific ideas – and could be doing more harm than good.
“I should never have had sex change surgery,” Claudia MacLean, a transsexual woman told the audience at a recent debate organised by the BBC Radio 4 programme Hecklers and the Royal Society of Medicine in London.
“As a result of the surgery, I am incapable of sex and I have lived a life apart.”
Claudia was speaking out in support of Julie Bindel, a radical feminist and journalist, who was trying to persuade medics and trans people that sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.
Threatening concept
Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.
To them, the claim that someone can be “born into the wrong sex” is a deeply threatening concept.
Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned.
But if, as some in the transsexual lobby believes, the tendency to feel masculine or feminine is something innate then it follows that gender stereotypical behaviours could well be “natural” rather than as the result of social pressures and male oppression.
As a feminist, Julie Bindel therefore has a strong political motivation for her scepticism about sex change surgery.
But, her argument goes beyond ideology.
Having looked into the medical research on transsexualism, she claims there is a lack of science behind the diagnosis, no satisfactory research into the outcomes for patients and individual stories of post-operative regret.
Regret
Claudia says she was referred for surgery after a single 45 minute consultation.
“At no time did I say to that psychiatrist that I felt like a woman. In my opinion what happened to me was all about money.”
She is one of a small number of trans people who have publicly expressed their regrets about having had sex change surgery.
Another is Charles Kane who, as Sam Hashimi, was the subject of a BBC documentary One Life: Make me a Man Again, televised in 2004.
This showed Sam, a transsexual woman, undergoing surgery to become a man again.
She told the BBC that her desire to become a woman had developed following a nervous breakdown.
For her, these feelings were caused by a longing to retreat into a fantasy character rather than having a crisis of gender identity.
“When I was in the psychiatric hospital there was a man on one side of me who thought he was King George and another guy on the other side who thought he was Jesus Christ. I decided I was Sam.”
Others, like Miranda Ponsonby, blame post-operative discontent on society’s lack of willingness to accept transsexual people.
In her forthcoming autobiography, The Making of Miranda, she describes having a strong sense from a young age that she was a female trapped in a man’s body.
However, like Claudia, she says that, since her surgery, she has lived a life apart.
She claims that she is no happier now than she was before the operation.
Her advice to those contemplating sex change surgery is “Don’t do it.”
Stories of satisfaction
Against these stories of disappointment and regret, there are many more people who will testify publicly to their overwhelming satisfaction with sex change surgery.
But are most people who have sex change surgery satisfied or dissatisfied?
It comes as something of a surprise to learn that the medical profession does not yet know the answer to this question.
According to a review carried out by the School of Health and Related Research at Sheffield University, the poor quality of research in this area means that “little robust evidence exists” on the outcomes for patients who have sex change surgery.
Dr Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine and the head of the UK body looking into standards of care for sex change surgery patients, admits there have been difficulties.
“The problem is that we tend to lose touch with our patients after a relatively short period of time following surgery.”
Some local health authorities now refuse to fund sex change operations on the basis that there is a lack of evidence about the surgical efficacy and psychological benefits of surgery.
In the absence of more research studies, gender dysphoria specialist Dr Kevan Wylie says it is important to listen to his patients.
However, those contemplating surgery – and the health authorities which fund them – ought also to be able to get advice about the risks versus the potential benefits of such a major operation and, until further research is done, doctors are unable to give them such information.
Best-Selling Controversial Book on Transgender People Removed From Amazon 3 Years After Publication
Best-Selling Controversial Book on Transgender People Removed From Amazon 3 Years After Publication
By Katherine Fung
February 22, 2021
Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally was removed from Amazon’s cyber shelves Sunday, three years after the controversial best-seller was published on February 20, 2018.
Anderson told Newsweek that he discovered that his book had vanished from Amazon—as well as the company’s e-reader Kindle, podcast service Audible and used-book sellers—when someone looking to buy a copy informed the author. He said that neither he nor his publisher were notified by Amazon.
In 2018, the book hit No. 1 on two of Amazon’s best-seller list before it was even released, but sparked controversy for arguing that society’s growing acceptance of transgender people stems more from ideology than science.
“We need to respect the dignity of people who identify as transgender,” Anderson argued in the book, “but without encouraging children to undergo experimental transition treatments, and without trampling on the needs and interests of others.”
While the book was well-received by conservatives, LGBTQ activists have dismissed the book as anti-trans and “dangerous.”
“People who have actually read my book discovered that it was a thoughtful and accessible presentation of the state of the scientific, medical, philosophical and legal debates,” Anderson told Newsweek. “Yes, it advances an argument from a certain viewpoint. No, it didn’t get any facts wrong, and it didn’t engage in any name-calling.”
He argues that the book’s research is more important than ever before given the recent push for trans policies from the new Biden administration.
“Three years after publication, in the very same week that the House of Representatives is going to ram through a radical transgender bill amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Amazon erases my book opposing gender ideology from their cyber shelves,” Anderson wrote to Newsweek. “Make no mistake, both Big Government and Big Tech can undermine human dignity and liberty, human flourishing and the common good.”
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden undid a host of Trump-era policies and issued a sweeping executive order, protecting gay and transgender people from discrimination in schools, the workplace, health care among other facets of daily life.
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” Biden’s executive order stated. “Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access health care and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination.”
Days later, Biden also reversed former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Equality Act this week after Democratic Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island reintroduced the LGBTQ rights bill last week.
The Equality Act would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
While it passed the House in 2019 after eight GOP lawmakers broke party ranks in a historic vote, the bill was stalled in the then-Republican-controlled Senate. But sponsors of the bill are hopeful that it could pass now that the Senate is split 50–50.
Anderson said that although his book has been praised by a number of psychology experts “none of that matters. It’s not about how you say it, it’s not about how rigorously you argue it, it’s not about how charitably you present it. It’s about whether you dissent from a new orthodoxy.”
He said his publisher has since contacted Amazon to inquire about the grounds for removal but has not received a response.
Amazon also declined Newsweek’s request for comment, although a spokesperson referred to the company’s content guidelines, which removes books that include illegal or infringing content, offensive content, poor customer experience or public domain content.
“We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive,” Amazon’s guidelines read.
However, it remains unclear as to why Anderson’s book has been removed by the online retailer.
Dr. Rand Paul asks Dr. Rachel Levine whether she supports or opposes letting people under the age of 18 get transgender surgery and hormone treatment without their parents’ permission. Dr. Levine refuses to answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y4ZhQUre-4
Democrats used to be in favor of universal education and universal employment. But now with “cancel culture,” Democrats are against those things. And I’m guessing that it’s only a matter of time until Democrats start being against the universal health care that they currently claim to support.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 31, 2021
Until recently, Democrats were in favor of universal education and universal employment.
However, with the current movement known as “cancel culture,” Democrats are now against both of those things.
After a high school student named Mimi Groves was accepted to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a public university which was her #1 choice for college, the college later asked her not to attend, because one of her high school classmates named Jimmy Galligan sent the college a video of a private Snapchat conversation from three years earlier, where Groves had said to her friends, “I can drive [racial slur].”
The New York Times praised Galligan for sending the video to the college.
Public colleges used to be about universal education. That is clearly no longer the case.
A data analyst named David Shor was fired from his job at Civis Analytics because he tweeted a link to a study by a Princeton professor which said that peaceful protesting was more effective than violent rioting.
Democrats used to say they supported universal education and universal employment.
However, the two above examples prove that Democrats are now against universal education and universal employment.
Democrats also say they support universal health care.
But based on those two above examples, I’m guessing that it’s only a matter of time until Democrats start being against universal health care too.
I think the COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving. Here are my many reasons for thinking such a thing.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
September 24, 2020
I think the COVIOD-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.
I’m going to start out by posting the CDC’s estimated survival rates, by age, for people who contract COVID-19:
0 to 19: 99.997%
20 to 49: 99.98%
50 to 69: 99.5%
70+: 94.6%
For most age groups, the survival rate is quite high. In my opinion, this does not justify a lockdown of the general population.
Now let’s take a look at my many reasons for thinking that the lockdown is killing more people than it is saving:
The National Cancer Institute estimates that there could be 10,000 additional breast and colorectal deaths over the next decade as a result of missed screenings and delayed diagnoses
Source: https://www.wjhg.com/2020/09/08/cancer-screenings-down-nationwide-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Cancer surgeries and organ transplants are being put off for coronavirus
Higher rates of unemployment correlate very strongly with higher rates of suicide and drug overdoses
A report by the United Nations cites the predicted harm that will happen to tens of millions of children in low income countries as a result of the COVID-19 global wide shutdown.
Examples of this harm to children include increases in malnutrition, loss of education, increased rates of teen pregnancy, reduced access to health care, reduced rates of vaccination, increased rates of infectious disease, increased rates of water borne illness, and increased rates of death:
Source: https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/160420_Covid_Children_Policy_Brief.pdf
Anxiety from reactions to Covid-19 will destroy at least seven times more years of life than can be saved by lockdowns
Source: https://www.justfacts.com/news_covid-19_anxiety_lockdowns_life_destroyed_saved
Childhood vaccine rates for preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough have fallen during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising the possibility of an additional health crisis.
In New York City… the number of vaccine doses administered from March 23 to May 9 fell 63 percent compared with the same period last year.
In children older than 2 years, it fell 91 percent…
… Doctors offices have been closed…
… The numbers in New York match a national trend…
… from mid-March to mid-April, doctors in the federally funded Vaccines for Children program for the uninsured ordered about 2.5 million fewer doses of all routine non-influenza vaccines and 250,000 fewer doses of measles-containing vaccines compared to the same period in 2019…
Polio and measles could surge after disruption of vaccine programs. A new study of 129 countries found that the interruption of inoculation efforts could put 80 million babies at risk of getting deadly, preventable diseases.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/health/coronavirus-polio-measles-immunizations.html
Why most Covid-19 deaths won’t be from the virus
Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200528-why-most-covid-19-deaths-wont-be-from-the-virus
The global lockdown was put into place based on the bogus, false, and extremely inaccurate Imperial College model.
Sweden did not have a lockdown.
Experts, who cited the Imperial College model, predicted that Sweden would have 40,000 COVID-19 deaths by May 1.
The actual number was 2,769.
The same bogus Imperial College model was used to implement the lockdowns for the rest of the world.
Sources: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/sweden-suppressed-infection-rates-without-lockdown/
https://www.aier.org/article/imperial-college-model-applied-to-sweden-yields-preposterous-results/
Nobel Prize-winning scientist: “the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor”
This is a scientific paper called “Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic.”
Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf
Do lockdowns save many lives? In most places, the data say no.
U.S. medical testing, cancer screenings plunge during coronavirus outbreak – data firm analysis
Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/health/coronavirus-heart-stroke.html
How the COVID-19 lockdown will take its own toll on health
A study of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in New York showed that 66% of them were people who stayed home
End all restrictions, they were unnecessary, Hebrew University researchers say
A scientific paper states:
Background: The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has forced governments to implement strict social mitigation strategies to reduce the morbidity and mortality from acute infections. These strategies however carry a significant risk for mental health which can lead to increased short-term and long-term mortality and is currently not included in modelling the impact of the pandemic. Methods: We used years of life lost (YLL) as the main outcome measure as applied to Switzerland as an exemplar. We focused on suicide, depression, alcohol use disorder, childhood trauma due to domestic violence, changes in marital status and social isolation as these are known to increase YLL in the context of imposed restriction in social contact and freedom of movement. We stipulated a minimum duration of mitigation of 3 months based on current public health plans. Results: The study projects that the average person would suffer 0.205 YLL due to psychosocial consequence of COVID-19 mitigation measures. However, this loss would be entirely borne by 2.1% of the population, who will suffer an average 9.79 YLL. Conclusions: The results presented here are likely to underestimate the true impact of the mitigation strategies on YLL. However, they highlight the need for public health models to expand their scope in order to provide better estimates of the risks and benefits of mitigation.
Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20069716v3
In the U.S., the lockdown caused 1.4 million health care workers to be laid off:
Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously
Americans should carefully consider the potential costs of prolonged shutdowns lest they cause more deaths or harm to the vulnerable than they spare…
… minimizing the number of COVID-19 deaths today or a month from now or six months from now may or may not minimize the human costs of the pandemic when the full spectrum of human consequences is considered…
… the warnings of thoughtful shutdown skeptics warrant careful study…
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/take-shutdown-skeptics-seriously/611419/
Cyril H. Wecht, one of the country’s most well regarded doctors, made this excellent argument against the lockdown
Stanford University doctor: ‘You are mistaken’ if you think coronavirus lockdowns provide safety”
Source: https://www.theblaze.com/news/stanford-university-doctor-mistaken-coronavirus-lockdowns
Relapses are through the roof, overdoses are through the roof: How the pandemic is upping substance abuse
… They can’t go to a 12-step based meeting…
… People are self-medicating due to the quarantine. And they’re drinking more, and abusing more, and relapses are through the roof right now.
Neil Ferguson’s Imperial model “could go down in history as the most devastating software mistake of all time, in terms of economic costs and lives lost”
Rise in female genital mutilation in Somalia linked to coronavirus shutdown
Somali girls out of school and stuck at home have been subject to a “massive rise” in female genital mutilation…
“It’s a lifetime torture for girls. The pain continues … until the girl goes to the grave. It impacts her education, ambition … everything.”
… the UNFPA has warned that globally 2 million more girls could be cut over the next decade because of how the global pandemic has disrupted efforts to end the practice.
More than 500 doctors signed this letter, which is says, “In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident.”
Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed#fullscreen&from_embed
Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, head of the trauma department at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, said, “… we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks…”
Source: https://abc7news.com/suicide-covid-19-coronavirus-rates-during-pandemic-death-by/6201962/
Rampant unemployment, isolation and an uncertain future – could lead to 75,000 deaths from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-pandemic-75000/
In the U.S., the first nine weeks of the lockdown caused 38 million people to lose their jobs
The fatality rate of COVID-19 “would probably be 0.13 percent for people outside nursing homes”
A scientific study said, “Home outbreaks were the dominant category (254 of 318 outbreaks; 79.9%)”
Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf
New England Journal of Medicine: “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection”
Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
Knut Wittkowski, former head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science, said the lockdown “most likely made the situation worse”
Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/
Denmark, Finland say they saw no increase in coronavirus after schools re-opened
Kanchan Soni, who lived in India, died because the lockdown prevented her from getting dialysis
Chewing gum, wire-cutters, and superglue: the alarming rise of DIY Dentistry under coronavirus
A scientific paper on the lockdown states, “In high burden settings, HIV, TB and malaria related deaths over 5 years may be increased by up to 10%, 20% and 36%, respectively”
Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-05-01-COVID19-Report-19.pdf
Polio and measles could surge after disruption of vaccine programs. A new study of 129 countries found that the interruption of inoculation efforts could put 80 million babies at risk of getting deadly, preventable diseases.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/health/coronavirus-polio-measles-immunizations.html
World Health Organization: “If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19”
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-offer-conflicting-advice-masks-expert-tells-us/story?id=70958380
Reopening schools in Denmark did not worsen outbreak, data shows
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark-reopening-idUSKBN2341N7
One month later: top Israeli mathematician predicted COVID-19 peaks after 40 days with or without economic lockdowns – and he was right!
Dr. Kelly Fradin: “I’m a pediatrician and I think we should reopen schools, even with the risk of coronavirus outbreaks”
Source: https://www.insider.com/pediatrician-reopen-schools-even-if-it-leads-coronavirus-outbreaks-2020-6
This video shows Dr. Anthony Fauci removing his mask when he thought he was no longer being filmed
https://twitter.com/CHIZMAGA/status/1278029614070153217
Slowing the coronavirus is speeding the spread of other diseases. Many mass immunization efforts worldwide were halted this spring to prevent spread of the virus at crowded inoculation sites. The consequences have been alarming… cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted… Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh. A mutated strain of poliovirus has been reported in more than 30 countries. And measles is flaring around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/health/coronavirus-vaccines-measles.html
Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid
Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/norway-health-chief-lockdown-was-not-needed-to-tame-covid
Antibody tests point to lower death rate for the coronavirus than first thought
Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.
Coronavirus pandemic could push 122 million to brink of starvation: Oxfam
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/7155931/coronavirus-starvation-oxfam/
Dr. Dan Wohlgelernter said, “What we needed to do was not lock down all of society. Not shut down schools. Not shut down all businesses. You needed to protect the elderly. Particularly the elderly in the nursing homes. It’s a small segment of our population. We could have allowed the rest of the population to continue with their lives, take adequate precautions but not be completely shut down. The cost of the shut down in terms of the physical, emotional, and psychological health of people is enormous. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of people who have been shut-in. Who’ve lost their businesses. Who are facing depression. Who are facing issues of mental health because of the consequences. This should never happen again. If we ever face this situation again we need to learn the lessons from the mistakes and policies that were implemented.”
People are more likely to contract COVID-19 at home, study finds
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-more-likely-contract-covid-122611396.html
No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist. There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.
Coronavirus lockdown ‘made no difference to number of deaths’, study claims
Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/1190721/coronavirus-lockdown-no-difference/
Stop stealing our children’s youth in the name of their grandparents. Every person I know in his 70s says kids should go back to school. Behind ensuring Americans have food, ensuring our children are well educated is a very close second in societal priorities.
Citing educational risks, scientific panel urges that schools reopen
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/health/coronavirus-schools-reopening.html
Stanford doctor Scott Atlas says the science shows kids should go back to school
German study finds no evidence coronavirus spreads in schools
As of September 2020, Sweden, which never had a lockdown, or a mask mandate, had a lower total, cumulative per capita COVID-19 death rate than the U.S.
Sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20200907000001/https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://fortune.com/2020/07/29/no-point-in-wearing-mask-sweden-covid/
https://unherd.com/2020/07/swedens-anders-tegnell-judge-me-in-a-year/
Now this last one is just speculation, as I do not have proof. But I do think it is worth mentioning.
At least since March 2020, and perhaps even earlier, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, from New York, has been claiming to have successfully treated COVID-19 patients with a triple combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin.
Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment is different than other treatments (which have been debunked) because of these two things:
First, Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment involves a triple combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin.
And secondly, Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment must be given before the patient has become so sick that they need hospitalization.
Other treatments with hydroxychloroquine have been debunked. But those other treatments do not meet the two above criteria.
I don’t know if Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment actually works or not. But I have not seen it debunked.
On July 3, 2020, preprints.org reported the following on Dr. Zelenko’s alleged treatment:
COVID-19 Outpatients – Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study
Of 335 positively PCR-tested COVID-19 patients, 127 were treated with the triple therapy. 104 of 127 met the defined risk stratification criteria and were included in the analysis. In addition, 37 treated and eligible patients who were confirmed by IgG tests were included in the treatment group (total N=141). 208 of the 335 patients did not meet the risk stratification criteria and were not treated. After 4 days (median, IQR 3-6, available for N=66/141) of onset of symptoms, 141 patients (median age 58 years, IQR 40-60; 73% male) got a prescription for the triple therapy for 5 days. Independent public reference data from 377 confirmed COVID-19 patients of the same community were used as untreated control. 4 of 141 treated patients (2.8%) were hospitalized, which was significantly less (p<0.001) compared with 58 of 377 untreated patients (15.4%) (odds ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.5). Therefore, the odds of hospitalization of treated patients were 84% less than in the untreated group. One patient (0.7%) died in the treatment group versus 13 patients (3.5%) in the untreated group (odds ratio 0.2, 95% CI 0.03-1.5; p=0.16). There were no cardiac side effects. Conclusions: Risk stratification-based treatment of COVID-19 outpatients as early as possible after symptom onset with the used triple therapy, including the combination of zinc with low dose hydroxychloroquine, was associated with significantly less hospitalizations and 5 times less all-cause deaths.
Source: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202007.0025/v1
Risk of coronavirus spreading in schools is ‘extremely low’ study finds
This is good news for children and everyone who cares about them.
But it’s horrible news for the totalitarian control freaks who want to keep everything locked down for as long as possible.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/risk-coronavirus-spreading-schools-extremely-194143983.html
Risk of coronavirus spreading in schools is ‘extremely low’ study finds
By Hayley Dixon
The Telegraph
May 17, 2020
Coronavirus does not spread widely in schools, according to a major study which is being considered by Government advisers.
The research looked at 18 infected teachers and students in 15 schools, and found that despite them coming into contact with 863 people at the schools, only two were infected.
It is the only major study of transmission among children and teachers, and shows that the spread of the virus is “limited” in classrooms. Previous studies have suggested that younger children are likely to only contract a mild form of coronavirus and do not play a major role in the spread of the disease, but this is the first time the spread of Covid-19 has been directly studied in primary and secondary schools.
It comes as the government is locked in a battle with teaching unions over plans for primary school children in reception, years 1 and 6 in England to return from June 1. Union bosses have insisted classrooms will not be safe and have ordered their members not to “engage” with the plans, while some Labour councils have also said that they will refuse to reopen schools.
On Sunday, Michael Gove sought to reassure worried teachers and parents, insisting that the “clear scientific and clinical advice” was that it was safe for school to reopen providing social distancing is enforced
“Children only have one chance at education. Over the last decade we have made significant strides in closing the gap between the richest and poorest in our schools. This lockdown has put that at risk,” the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the Andrew Marr Show. “If progressive countries like Denmark can be teaching children and have them back in schools, then so should we. The whole point about being a teacher is you love your job. It is a mission, a vocation, to be able to excite young minds.”
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organisation’s Chief Scientist, also said on Sunday that “there have not been big outbreaks in schools” and the early results of studies are “very reassuring”. She said that “the risks to children are extremely low with this infection, and there have not been many cases described of children transmitting it to others, particularly within school settings”. Dr Swaminathan added that from what is currently known, it appears that “children are less capable of spreading it, even if they get the infection and certainly are at very low risk of getting ill from the disease”.
The latest study, which was carried out in Australia, is now being considered by government advisers as they consider how to get children back into classrooms safely.
Speaking to The Telegraph yesterday, a senior member of the Sage sub-committee on schools, known as the Children’s Task and Finish Working Group, confirmed that the Australian study had been looked at by the Government’s scientific advisers. The source described it as a “very useful and interesting piece of research”. The Telegraph also understands that Sage – the government’s scientific advisory group – is preparing to publish its own evidence in the coming days which will set out the thinking behind recommending that schools reopen gradually.
The study examined by the government advisers was conducted by Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. It was cited by the country’s officials when they announced that children should return to the classroom and found schools had a “very limited” role in transmission of the virus.
The scientists found that across 15 schools in New South Wales, ten secondary and five primary, 18 people – nine teachers and nine students – had confirmed coronavirus.
Of the 735 students and 128 staff who were in close contact with the virus carriers, only one secondary school pupil caught it from another student and one primary school pupil caught it from a teacher.
It is believed to be the only study to look at transmission in primary schools, as the swift and unprecedented closure of classrooms across the world has meant that there have been limited research opportunities. They authors said their findings “do suggest that spread of Covid-19 within NSW schools has been very limited” and transmission “appears considerably less than seen for other respiratory viruses, such as influenza”.
They concluded that the data “suggest that children are not the primary drivers of Covid-19 spread in schools or in the community. This is consistent with data from international studies showing low rates of disease in children and suggesting limited spread among children and from children to adults.”
While Australia has a hotter climate than Europe, which some scientists believe may play a part in lower levels of infection, the findings have been backed by early data from countries such as Denmark and Norway which shows that the re-opening of schools has not led to a spike in the disease.
Video: This nurse from Nevada went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She said they are dying due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder. When she told management, they didn’t care.
I watched this entire 24 minute video. The speaker is a nurse from Nevada named Nicole Sirotek, who went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She describes multiple examples of patients who died due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder. When she told management, they didn’t care.
I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not. I hope an independent investigation by outside parties will be conducted, including autopsies, to find out if she is telling the truth or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTOGZIgkR8
Here are 200 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
Note from Daniel Alman: I originally made this blog post on May 5, 2020. At the time, there were 34 things on the list. Since them, on multiple occasions, I have added other things to the list. The last time that I updated this list was on September 23, 2020.
Introduction
Please share the link to this list on Facebook, Twitter, email, message boards, etc. Thank you.
A lot of the people who support the COVID-19 lockdowns have said it’s because “lives are more important than money.”
But the lockdowns are actually killing far more people than they’re saving.
So instead of it being about “lives vs money,” it’s really about “fewer people dying vs more people dying.”
And yet, when I bring this up, lockdown supporters either ignore it, or they accuse me of not caring about people’s lives, or they say, “better safe than sorry.”
Before I get to my main list, here are some general facts about the lockdowns:
The COVIID-19 lockdowns will end up killing far more people than they save, in the form of increased suicides, increased drug and alcohol overdoses, and canceled and postponed medical procedures. For young and middle aged people who have healthy immune systems, being and poor and unemployed is more dangerous than having COVID-19.
The lockdowns are totalitarian.
The lockdowns are based on bogus computer models.
The real fatality rate of COVID-19 is far, far lower than the bogus, overinflated rate that was used to justify the lockdowns.
The alleged purpose of the lockdowns was to flatten the curve, and prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed. But the hospitals were never even close to being overwhelmed. On the contrary, the U.S. health care system actually laid off more than a million health care workers during the lockdowns. And yet the lockdowns continue. This is proof that the lockdowns are a scam.
States with the toughest lockdowns forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This is mass murder.
Many politicians and other high ranking government officials violated their own lockdowns.
Lockdown supporters want to destroy other people’s jobs, but not their own.
Previous pandemics did not destroy the economy, because there were no lockdowns.
Fresh air, sunshine, and exercise are good for your immune system, and actually reduce your chance of dying from COVID-19.
The government is falsely overstating the number of COVID-19 deaths by including people whose deaths were not actually caused by COVID-19.
And now, on with my list:
Here are 200 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
1) Sweden did not have a lockdown. Experts predicted that it would have 40,000 COVID-19 deaths by May 1. The actual number was 2,769.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/sweden-suppressed-infection-rates-without-lockdown/
2) Nobel Prize-winning scientist: “the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor”
3) Keep parks open. The benefits of fresh air outweigh the risks of infection.
4) Dr. Deborah Birx admitted that the lockdown was based on a false, gross overstatement of the true fatality rate.
These are her exact words:
“I think we underestimated, very early on, the number of asymptomatic cases. And I think we’re really beginning to understand there are people that get infected — that those symptoms are so low-grade that they don’t even know that they’re infected”
https://www.theblaze.com/news/dr-birx-coronavirus-asymptomatic-cases
5) This is a scientific paper called “Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf
6) WHO lauds lockdown-ignoring Sweden as a ‘model’ for countries going forward
https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/
7) Do Lockdowns Save Many Lives? In Most Places, the Data Say No.
8) This is from a medical paper:
“The COVID-19 death risk in people <65 years old during the period of fatalities from the epidemic was equivalent to the death risk from driving between 9 miles per day (Germany) and 415 miles per day (New York City)”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1
Note from Daniel Alman: The above may be a good reason for a lockdown in the New York City metro area (which includes parts of New Jersey and Connecticut), but certainly not for the rest of the U.S. And certainly not for Germany.
9) A report by the United Nations cites the predicted harm that will happen to tens of millions of children in low income countries as a result of the COVID-19 global wide shutdown.
Examples of this harm to children include increases in malnutrition, loss of education, increased rates of teen pregnancy, reduced access to health care, reduced rates of vaccination, increased rates of infectious disease, increased rates of water borne illness, and increased rates of death:
https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/160420_Covid_Children_Policy_Brief.pdf
10) Here in Sweden we’re playing the long game, and listening to science not fear
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/sweden/articles/sweden-coronavirus-policy/
11) All across the country, huge numbers of hospitals have laid off huge numbers of health care workers. Here are some examples:
Coronavirus financial losses prompt Boston Medical Center to furlough 700 employees, 10% of hospital’s workforce
Kentucky hospital chain furloughs about 500 employees as coronavirus saps business
https://www.kentucky.com/news/coronavirus/article241565211.html
A mounting casualty crisis: Health care jobs
https://www.sungazette.com/news/top-news/2020/04/a-mounting-casualty-crisis-health-care-jobs/
Four West Virginia hospitals lay off hundreds because of coronavirus-related shrinking revenues
Thousands of US medical workers furloughed, laid off as routine patient visits drop during coronavirus pandemic
I Can’t Get My Hip Surgery Because Of Coronavirus Even Though Nobody Is In Our Hospital
MUSC Health lays off 900 due to COVID-19 financial strain
Oklahoma City hospital closed amid coronavirus spread
Even nation’s largest health systems laying off health care workers amid COVID pandemic
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-victim-americas-largest-health-systems/story?id=70317683
We’re destroying hospitals in the name of fighting the coronavirus
https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/were-destroying-hospitals-in-the-name-of-fighting-the-coronavirus/
Mayo Clinic to furlough or cut pay of 30,000 employees
https://www.foxnews.com/science/mayo-clinic-furlough-or-cut-pay-employees
Coronavirus testing company Quest Diagnostics furloughs workers
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-testing-company-quest-diagnostics-furloughs-workers/
12) U.S. medical testing, cancer screenings plunge during coronavirus outbreak – data firm analysis
13) New York Times: “Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/health/coronavirus-heart-stroke.html
14) As of April 22, 2020, New York and New Jersey, combined, accounted for more than half of U.S. COVID-19 deaths. Both of these states require nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19. In my opinion, this policy constitutes mass murder. Instead of shutting everything down, New York and New Jersey should stop committing mass murder.
As of the afternoon of April 22, 2020, the U.S. has had a total of 46,771 deaths from COVID-19.
20,167 were in New York.
5,063 were in New Jersey.
In other words, as of April 22, 2020, these two states, combined, accounted for more than half of all COVID-19 deaths in the entire country.
Here’s a link to my source, with a screenshot. The screenshot was taken on the afternoon of April 22, 2020:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Both of these states require nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.
NPR recently reported:
New York and New Jersey both have ordered nursing homes to admit patients regardless of their COVID-19 status.
In my opinion, this policy constitutes mass murder.
Nursing home patients are elderly. And they have major health conditions. No one is more vulnerable to dying from COVID-19 than people in nursing homes.
Ordering nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 is an extremely mean, dumb, stupid, irrational, irresponsible, and insane thing to do.
This policy has already killed a huge numbers of people.
And who knows how many more will die as a result.
Instead of shutting everything down, New York and New Jersey should stop committing mass murder.
15) Cancer surgeries and organ transplants are being put off for coronavirus
16) How the COVID-19 lockdown will take its own toll on health
17) Higher rates of unemployment correlate very strongly with higher rates of suicide and drug overdoses
18) This five minute video from Bill Maher is my #1 favorite argument against the lockdowns
https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1256425181960003585
I worry that the past two months of quarantine have given people the idea that the way for humans to win our million-year war with microbes is to avoid them completely, and I’m here to tell you: you can’t. pic.twitter.com/cMxefDdJ7S
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) May 2, 2020
19) Hypocrite New York Times writer Taylor Lorenz wants to shut down other people’s jobs, but not her own
This is a link to the internet archive of her tweet, and a screen capture of her tweet:
20) Here’s another hypocrite who wants to shut down other people’s jobs, but not her own
The woman in this article and video ratted out local businesses.
Then someone published her name on the internet.
Now the woman is worried that she might lose her own job:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYhvc_86HsI
21) Illinois Gov. Who Forced State Lockdown Busted Flying His Wife And Kids To Florida
22) Chicago Mayor Forced To Defend Getting A Haircut In Violation Of Her Own Stay-At-Home Order
23) Barack Obama Goes Golfing at Country Club the Day After Michelle Urged African Americans to Stay Home
24) Video: Wisconsin Deputies Threaten a Mother For Letting Her Daughter Play At a Neighbor’s Home During Shutdown
https://twitter.com/MediaRival/status/1255537595553112065
Caught On Video: A pair of Wisconsin police officers on a crazed power trip show up at a woman’s home because she “violated a state order” by allowing her daughter to play at a neighbor’s house pic.twitter.com/JTtogvoE1X
— Darrin McBreen (@MediaRival) April 29, 2020
25) Mississippi police issue $500 tickets to drive-in church service attendees
26) NYC Mayor Threatens to Shut Down Synagogues, Churches: But not Mosques
27) De Blasio Breaks Up Rabbi’s Funeral
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/nyregion/hasidic-funeral-coronavirus-de-blasio.html
28) The First Amendment protects freedom of religion
29) The First amendment protects freedom of assembly
30) Tucker Carlson: Totalitarianism doesn’t shock us any more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KACUbQjvrk
31) Shutting down the schools is reprehensible.
The harm that this will end up causing children will be very large, and very long lasting.
Not just academically, but also psychologically, socially, and professionally.
We are teaching children to be terrified of something that, in reality, is not even a statistical threat or risk to them.
COVID-19 death rate by age in the U.S.:
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-us-coronavirus-deaths-ages-65-older-cdc-report-2020-3
Perhaps for the time being, schools should only have teachers who are below a certain age – perhaps 50. Or maybe 60.
We should isolate people who are especially vulnerable.
And we should let children go to school, get infected, and build up herd immunity.
We shouldn’t let children near their grandparents until their infection has cleared, they have developed antibodies, and they are no longer contagious.
32) The 1968 flu killed approximately 100,000 people in the U.S. But we still kept the schools open. And the restaurants. And the movie theaters.
33) Should we keep everything closed until there are zero germs in the world? Good luck with that!
34) The entire justification for the lockdowns was a lie.
The alleged justification for the lockdowns was that we had to flatten the curve so the hospitals did not get overwhelmed.
The hospitals did not get overwhelmed.
On the contrary, all across the country, huge number of hospitals are laying off huge numbers of health care workers. (see #11 on this list for many examples.)
But the lockdowns are still going on.
Therefore, the entire justification for the lockdowns was a lie.
35) A study of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in New York showed that 66% of them were people who stayed home
36) Government scientist Neil Ferguson, who was responsible for creating the lockdown in the U.K., violated it when he invited his mistress to visit him
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/
37) The governors in more than 30 states banned elective medical procedures, even though there was plenty of excess health care capacity available to perform these elective procedures.
The word “elective” refers to any medical procedure that is scheduled in advance.
Examples of elective medical procedures that were postponed or canceled include cancer treatment, organ transplants, and hip surgery.
There was no need to ban elective procedures, because there was still plenty of excess health care capacity available. All across the country, huge numbers of hospitals laid off huge numbers of health care workers. See #11 on this list for many examples.
38) Some of the governors who banned elective medical procedures were hypocrites, because they gave an exemption to abortion.
I’m not using this blog post to argue for, or against, the legality of abortion.
Instead, what I am criticizing here is the hypocrisy of these governors.
For example, Politico reported:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was one of a handful of Democratic leaders to explicitly carve out an exception for “the full range of family planning services and procedures, including terminations of pregnancies” from his executive order that suspends elective surgeries.
As another example, the Lansing State Journal reported:
Reproductive health clinics in Michigan are still providing abortion services, citing an exemption for “pregnancy-related visits and procedures” in Gov. Whitmer’s executive order restricting non-essential medical services.
Likewise, the New Boston Post reported:
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has exempted elective abortions from the statewide ban on elective surgery during the coronavirus precautionary restrictions.
Furthermore, Virginia’s official government website reported:
Governor Ralph Northam and State Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver, MD, MA today directed all hospitals to stop performing elective surgeries or procedures…
The public health emergency order does not apply to… family planning services
Also, the Washington Free Beacon reported:
Pennsylvania Allows Planned Parenthood to Perform Abortions Despite Elective Surgery Ban
39) They’re using COVID-19 as an excuse to release convicted criminals, and to jail the innocent
This article is called
“So Far, More Than 300 Prisoners Released Due To COVID-19 Under Mass. High Court’s Ruling.”
Meanwhile, this other article is called
“Dallas salon owner jailed for defying virus shutdown order.”
40) As of May 6, 2020, only 7% of Pennsylvania’s hospital beds were being used to treat COVID-19 patients. However, the state continues with its lockdown anyway. This proves that the lockdown is a scam.
The alleged purpose of the lockdown was to flatten the curve, so that hospital resources would not be overwhelmed.
As of May 6, 2020, only 7% of Pennsylvania’s hospital beds were being used to treat COVID-19 patients.
Despite this, the Pennsylvania lockdown continues.
This proves that the lockdown is a scam.
http://www.repturzai.com/Display/SiteFiles/333/OtherDocuments/2020/LettertoMembersHealthDataMay6.pdf
41) End all restrictions, they were unnecessary, Hebrew University researchers say
https://www.timesofisrael.com/end-all-restrictions-they-were-unnecessary-hebrew-university-researchers-say/
42) Years of life lost due to the psychosocial consequences of COVID19 mitigation strategies based on Swiss data
A scientific paper states:
Background: The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has forced governments to implement strict social mitigation strategies to reduce the morbidity and mortality from acute infections. These strategies however carry a significant risk for mental health which can lead to increased short-term and long-term mortality and is currently not included in modelling the impact of the pandemic. Methods: We used years of life lost (YLL) as the main outcome measure as applied to Switzerland as an exemplar. We focused on suicide, depression, alcohol use disorder, childhood trauma due to domestic violence, changes in marital status and social isolation as these are known to increase YLL in the context of imposed restriction in social contact and freedom of movement. We stipulated a minimum duration of mitigation of 3 months based on current public health plans. Results: The study projects that the average person would suffer 0.205 YLL due to psychosocial consequence of COVID-19 mitigation measures. However, this loss would be entirely borne by 2.1% of the population, who will suffer an average 9.79 YLL. Conclusions: The results presented here are likely to underestimate the true impact of the mitigation strategies on YLL. However, they highlight the need for public health models to expand their scope in order to provide better estimates of the risks and benefits of mitigation.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20069716v3
43) Elon Musk said:
“Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259162367285317633
Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2020
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-tesla-immediately-173400044.html
44) Health care industry decimated by coronavirus, loses 1.4 million jobs
45) LA Mayor Garcetti encourages residents to report violators of stay-at-home order: ‘Snitches get rewards’
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/la-mayor-garcetti-residents-report-violators-stay-at-home-order
46) Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously
The Atlantic wrote:
Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously
Americans should carefully consider the potential costs of prolonged shutdowns lest they cause more deaths or harm to the vulnerable than they spare…
… minimizing the number of COVID-19 deaths today or a month from now or six months from now may or may not minimize the human costs of the pandemic when the full spectrum of human consequences is considered…
… the warnings of thoughtful shutdown skeptics warrant careful study…
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/take-shutdown-skeptics-seriously/611419/
47) Anxiety from reactions to Covid-19 will destroy at least seven times more years of life than can be saved by lockdowns
https://www.justfacts.com/news_covid-19_anxiety_lockdowns_life_destroyed_saved
Anxiety From Reactions to Covid-19 Will Destroy At Least Seven Times More Years of Life Than Can Be Saved by Lockdowns
By Andrew Glen, Ph.D. and James D. Agresti
Medical studies show that excessive stress and anxiety are among the most debilitating and deadly of all health hazards in the world. Beyond their obvious effects like suicide and substance abuse—these mental stressors are strongly related to and may trigger and inflame a host of ailments like high blood pressure, digestive disorders, heart conditions, infectious diseases, cancer, and pregnancy complications.
Based on a broad array of scientific data, Just Facts has computed that the anxiety created by reactions to Covid-19—such as stay-at-home orders, business shutdowns, media exaggerations, and legitimate concerns about the virus—will destroy at least seven times more years of human life than can possibly be saved by lockdowns to control the spread of the disease. This figure is a bare minimum, and the actual one is likely more than 90 times greater.
This study was reviewed by Joseph P. Damore, Jr., M.D., who concluded: “This research is engaging and thoroughly answers the question about the cure being worse than the disease.” Dr. Damore is a certified diplomate with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, an assistant attending psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy.
48) Politicians Lied About the Lockdowns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z76h6A2vnZ8
49) Video allegedly shows that once the cameras are off reporters remove their masks and don’t follow social distancing rules
https://twitter.com/Z_Eats_Bacon/status/1260091180190240768
Explain to me why the media takes their masks off when they think the cameras are off? Is it all for show? #fakenews #LamestreamMedia looks like the rules only apply to us peasants. #obamagate #qanon pic.twitter.com/rlET581ytJ
— Big Z 🇺🇸🇵🇱 (@Z_Eats_Bacon) May 12, 2020
50) Hypocrite Beaumont, Texas mayor Becky Ames thinks everyone except herself should be banned from going to nail salons
Becky Ames is the mayor of Beaumont, Texas.
She ordered all the nail salons in her city to lockdown.
However, she violated her own lockdown by allowing one specific nail salon to be open just so she herself could go there to get her nails done.
NBC News reported: (the bolding is mine)
The mayor of a southern Texas city apologized for violating her own stay-at-home order after a photo surfaced on social media of her at a nail salon.
The trip Tuesday by Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames to the closed salon has sparked an investigation by the district attorney.
In the image, the mayor is seen wearing a face mask as she’s seated at a table with her hands in a bowl of water. According to NBC affiliate KBMT in Beaumont, the photo was taken at The Nail Bar.
The NBC News article has a link to this picture of mayor Ames getting her nails done at the salon:
51) Small business used to define America’s economy. The pandemic could change that forever.
52) PA Health Secretary moved mother out of personal care home after ordering nursing homes to accept COVID patients
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/13/coronavirus-pennsylvania-rachel-levine-mother-nursing-home/
53) Boy Scouts banned from planting American flags on veterans’ graves for Memorial Day due to coronavirus
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boy-scouts-banned-memorial-day-coronavirus-veterans
54) Sheriff rejects call by Virginia governor to enforce lockdown, cites Constitution
55) Totalitarian Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered a barber named Karl Manke to stop cutting hair. Then she rejected his claim for unemployment compensation. In order to pay for food, he continued cutting hair. Then she suspended his license, without so much as even a hearing or due process. And she won’t let him grow his own food. Apparently, she wants him to starve to death.
Karl Manke is a barber in Michigan. He’s been running his own barbershop since 1961.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered barbershops to close. Her alleged reason was that we had to flatten the curve, so hospitals would not be overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
The curve has been flatted. The hospitals have not been overwhelmed.
Despite this, governor Whitmer will still not allow barbershops to open.
Manke applied for unemployment compensation, but was rejected.
In order to pay for food, Manke continues to operate his barbershop.
Governor Whitmer suspended Manke’s professional license and his license for his barbershop, without so much as even a hearing or due process.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is a totalitarian who wants to force Karl Manke to starve to death.
Governor Whitmer’s intent to force Manke to starve to death is so strong that she won’t even let him grow his own food. She has ordered big box stores to prevent customers from having access to certain sections of the store, including gardening supplies.
Hers are the exact words of Governor Whitmer’s order from her official government website. The bolding is mine: (Original, archive)
“For stores of more than 50,000 square feet… Close areas of the store – by cordoning them off, placing signs in aisles, posting prominent signs, removing goods from shelves, or other appropriate means—that are dedicated to the following classes of goods: Carpet or flooring. Furniture. Garden centers and plant nurseries. Paint.”
Only a totalitarian would be in favor of such a government policy.
56) Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/coronavirus-wisconsin-supreme-court.html
57) Cyril H. Wecht, one of the country’s most well regarded doctors, made an excellent argument against the lockdown
58) Remy: Surfin’ USA (Beach Boys Lockdown Parody)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-6s6cRGgA
59) Scott Adams: “Is every risk factor for #COVID19 a Vitamin D deficiency in disguise?”
Scott Adams wrote:
“Is every risk factor for #COVID19 a Vitamin D deficiency in disguise? Google it: old, overweight, black, diabetic, smog dwellers, nursing homes, prisons, shaded NYC streets, Chinese urban dwellers, covered body parts (Iran). All would have vitamin D issues.”
“Maybe we only think the heat and sunlight and humidity are what makes most viruses fade in summer. I believe science is not entirely sure why summer helps. All four variables seem promising, including Vitamin D. But the latter explains more observations.”
“Does the Vitamin D correlation work In reverse too? Who is doing unexpectedly well at keeping COVID19 at bay? Texas, Florida, other outdoorsy states. How about kids. Do your kids wear sunscreen every time they go in the backyard or street? Probably not.”
“Prisons are showing high infection rates but low deaths. Just learned that prison meals are engineered with vitamin D supplements. Makes sense.”
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1258559176512376832
Is every risk factor for #COVID19 a Vitamin D deficiency in disguise? Google it: old, overweight, black, diabetic, smog dwellers, nursing homes, prisons, shaded NYC streets, Chinese urban dwellers, covered body parts (Iran). All would have vitamin D issues.
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) May 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1258559177279987712
Maybe we only think the heat and sunlight and humidity are what makes most viruses fade in summer. I believe science is not entirely sure why summer helps. All four variables seem promising, including Vitamin D. But the latter explains more observations.
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) May 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1258559178102018048
Does the Vitamin D correlation work In reverse too? Who is doing unexpectedly well at keeping COVID19 at bay? Texas, Florida, other outdoorsy states. How about kids. Do your kids wear sunscreen every time they go in the backyard or street? Probably not.
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) May 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1258730616759046144
Update: Prisons are showing high infection rates but low deaths. Just learned that prison meals are engineered with vitamin D supplements. Makes sense.
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) May 8, 2020
60) This COVID-19 meme quote from Handmaid’s Tale is spot-on accurate. And the person is even wearing a mask over her mouth!
I found this meme at this link: https://i.redd.it/pdhed3wxszy41.png
61) ‘The curve has been flattened’: Michigan doctors sue Gov Whitmer over shutdown order
62) I created this meme
Click this link to see a bigger version: https://danfromsquirrelhill.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/woodstock-meme.jpg
63) Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health,
admitted that the government is falsely overstating the number of people who died from COVID-19.
She said:
“… if you died of clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljpHugKNcoI
64) New York and New Jersey both required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, Florida prohibited nursing homes from admitting such patients. The different results of these different policies are exactly what you would expect.
New York and New Jersey both required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Florida did the opposite. It prohibited patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 from being put in nursing homes.
The different results of these different policies are exactly what you would expect.
The Palm Beach Post reported the following rates of elder-care resident deaths per 100,000 people:
Florida: 3.5
New York: nearly 27
New Jersey: 51
65) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames Trump for the fact that New York and New Jersey forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. And she apparently doesn’t know that Florida’s sunshine is good for your immune system. And she apparently thinks Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets so many different things wrong in the video below.
New York and New Jersey both required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This caused the disease to spread, and infect, and kill, a huge number of people who lived in these nursing homes.
But instead of blaming these deaths on New York and New Jersey, Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames them on Trump.
Meanwhile, Florida banned nursing homes from admitting patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This saved a huge number of lives.
But instead of praising Florida’s actions, Ocasio-Cortez criticizes the state.
Ocasio-Cortez also apparently doesn’t understand that the sunshine at Florida’s beaches helps people’s bodies to generate vitamin D, and that this helps to protect them from COVID-19.
Also, Ocasio-Cortez apparently doesn’t seem to understand that just about every single mass outbreak of COVID-19 that has been documented, happened inside.
And Ocasio-Cortez apparently thinks that Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
But here are the real numbers. COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population, as of May 17, 2020. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
New York: 1,446
New Jersey: 1,155
Florida: 92
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1245651038977179653
Ocasio-Cortez blames only Trump and Republicans for the deaths of every American who dies from the coronavirus
Everything she says in this video is either misleading or an outright lie pic.twitter.com/csX7ybFaON
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 2, 2020
66) Risk of coronavirus spreading in schools is ‘extremely low’ study finds
https://www.yahoo.com/news/risk-coronavirus-spreading-schools-extremely-194143983.html
67) Stanford University doctor: ‘You are mistaken’ if you think coronavirus lockdowns provide safety
https://www.theblaze.com/news/stanford-university-doctor-mistaken-coronavirus-lockdowns
68) CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins caught removing face mask when she thought camera was off
https://twitter.com/realPowerTie/status/1261445611594723330
The mask is for show? pic.twitter.com/XnRLiEJ1L5
— Power Tie (@realPowerTie) May 15, 2020
69) Totalitarian Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf just forced my dental hygienist to cancel my 6 month teeth cleaning
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
May 18, 2020
I’m 49 years old. I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my entire life. I’ve been getting my teeth cleaned at the same dental practice ever since I was a little kid in the 1970s.
My 6 month teeth cleaning had been scheduled for tomorrow.
But they just called to tell me that it has been canceled, because they are “not allowed” to do teeth cleaning at this point in time.
70) Relapses are through the roof, overdoses are through the roof: How the pandemic is upping substance abuse
… They can’t go to a 12-step based meeting…
… People are self-medicating due to the quarantine. And they’re drinking more, and abusing more, and relapses are through the roof right now.
71) Neil Ferguson’s Imperial model “could go down in history as the most devastating software mistake of all time, in terms of economic costs and lives lost”
72) Childhood vaccine rates plummet amid coronavirus pandemic, risking new health crisis
Childhood vaccine rates for preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough have fallen during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising the possibility of an additional health crisis.
In New York City… the number of vaccine doses administered from March 23 to May 9 fell 63 percent compared with the same period last year.
In children older than 2 years, it fell 91 percent…
… Doctors offices have been closed…
… The numbers in New York match a national trend…
… from mid-March to mid-April, doctors in the federally funded Vaccines for Children program for the uninsured ordered about 2.5 million fewer doses of all routine non-influenza vaccines and 250,000 fewer doses of measles-containing vaccines compared to the same period in 2019…
73) Rise in female genital mutilation in Somalia linked to coronavirus shutdown
Somali girls out of school and stuck at home have been subject to a “massive rise” in female genital mutilation…
“It’s a lifetime torture for girls. The pain continues … until the girl goes to the grave. It impacts her education, ambition … everything.”
… the UNFPA has warned that globally 2 million more girls could be cut over the next decade because of how the global pandemic has disrupted efforts to end the practice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/19/coronavirus-update-us/
74) Who Are The REAL Fascists?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UQS9oUQ9I0
75) More than 500 doctors signed this letter:
https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed#fullscreen&from_embed
In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident.
During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red, yellow, or green. The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life threatening, and the green group has minor injuries.
The red group receives highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives.
Millions of Americans are already at triage level red. These include 150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.
Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300-600%, cigarettes sales have increased, rent has gone unpaid, family relationships have become frayed, and millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.
Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial uncertainty is closely linked to poor health.
A continued shutdown means hundreds of millions of Americans will downgrade a level. The following are real examples from our practices.
Patient E.S. is a mother with two children whose office job was reduced to part-time and whose husband was furloughed. The father is drinking more, the mother is depressed and not managing her diabetes well, and the children are barely doing any schoolwork.
Patient A.F. has chronic but previously stable health conditions. Her elective hip replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a pulmonary embolism in April.
Patient R.T. is an elderly nursing home patient, who had a small stroke in early March but was expected to make a nearly complete recovery. Since the shutdown, he has had no physical or speech therapy, and no visitors. He has lost weight, and is deteriorating rather than making progress.
Patient S.O. is a college freshman who cannot return to normal life, school, and friendships. He risks depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, trauma, and future financial uncertainty.
We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients. The downstream health effects of deteriorating a level are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.
It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown. Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.
The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.
Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise.
76) Ohio judge deems the state’s COVID-19 lockdown ‘Arbitrary, unreasonable, and oppressive’
77) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio does not understand math
According to the CDC, for children who contract COVID-19, the death rate is zero:
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-us-coronavirus-deaths-ages-65-older-cdc-report-2020-3
And here’s a recent news headline:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/risk-coronavirus-spreading-schools-extremely-194143983.html
Risk of coronavirus spreading in schools ‘extremely low’, study finds
Despite those two pieces of information, this is a recent tweet by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio:
https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1262509072051470340
Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people. We’re issuing a Cease and Desist Order and will make sure we keep our communities and our kids safe.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) May 18, 2020
The text of de Blasio’s tweet says: (the bolding is mine)
“Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people. We’re issuing a Cease and Desist Order and will make sure we keep our communities and our kids safe.”
Clearly, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio does not understand math.
78) Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, head of the trauma department at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, said, “… we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks…”
https://abc7news.com/suicide-covid-19-coronavirus-rates-during-pandemic-death-by/6201962/
79) “rampant unemployment, isolation and an uncertain future – could lead to 75,000 deaths from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-pandemic-75000/
80) More people died of suicide than coronavirus in Tennessee last week
81) In Washington state, people who were killed by gunshots were falsely counted as being killed by COVID-19
https://www.kxly.com/three-percent-of-washingtons-reported-covid-19-deaths-may-be-inaccurate/
82) Barber who defied Michigan coronavirus lockdown can continue, says court
83) De Blasio shredded for encouraging New Yorkers to rat out social distancing violators. “Urging citizens to film non-compliant individuals reminds me of one of the tactics utilized in the country where he spent his honeymoon, Cuba.”
84) Poll: Democrats much more likely than Republicans to snitch on neighbors for ‘lockdown’ violations
85) Downstate judge blasts Pritzker’s stay-at-home-order: ‘Americans don’t get ruled’
86) New Zealand health minister demoted after beach visit broke lockdown rules
87) Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick visited his parents during Covid-19 lockdown
88) Scotland’s chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood steps down after visiting second home twice despite advice to stay in
89) Pressure on Dominic Cummings (Boris Johnson’s key adviser) to quit over lockdown breach
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/22/dominic-cummings-durham-trip-coronavirus-lockdown
90) AP count: Over 4,500 virus patients sent to NY nursing homes
91) Dr. Anthony Fauci says staying closed for too long could cause ‘irreparable damage’
92) Indonesian researchers, Prabowo Raharusuna, MD, and colleagues, studied 780 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 380 died and 400 survived… Vitamin D as a Risk Factor: When adjusted for confounds — i.e., age, sex, and comorbidity — those with vitamin D insufficiency were still “approx. 7.63 times more likely to die,” and those with vitamin D deficiency were sill “approx. 10.12 times more likely to die,”
93) Minnesota nursing homes, already the site of 81% of COVID-19 deaths, continue taking in infected patients
94) In the U.S., the first nine weeks of the lockdown caused 38 million people to lose their jobs
95) While Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer forced barbershops to close for being “dangerous,” she allowed a gay swinger’s club with “glory holes” and anonymous, unprotected sex to remain open
Note from Daniel Alman: I’m a libertarian. I’m against the government shutting down either one of these things. I don’t care what consenting adults do in private. My objection is not to the sex club. Instead, my objection is to Whitmer’s hypocrisy.
96) Minnesota governor Tim Walz tried to give churches a longer lockdown than shopping malls, casinos, tattoo parlors, liquor stores, and salons
97) Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s husband sought boat launching during state of emergency. Boating had been banned during the state of emergency.
98) Why didn’t the 1958 and 1918 pandemics destroy the economy? Hint: it’s the lockdowns
https://mises.org/wire/why-didnt-1958-and-1918-pandemics-destroy-economy-hint-its-lockdowns
99) Virginia governor Ralph Northam wants to force everyone, except himself, to wear a mask
https://twitter.com/DRCUSALiberty/status/1264357580341686273
— David Carter (@DRCUSALiberty) May 24, 2020
100) LA County sheriff’s deputies arrested a paddle boarder for violating the state’s stay-at-home order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjyQm2KRnE
101) Mask hypocrisy at MSNBC
https://twitter.com/EddieZipperer/status/1265374806662397953
INSTANT CLASSIC FROM @MSNBC:
ANCHOR: “Are the people there just not worried about it? Are they not worried about their personal safety?”
REPORTER: “I haven’t met anybody who is… you can see here, nobody’s wearing them [masks].”
GUY ON STREET: “Including the Cameraman.” pic.twitter.com/h9HbbIqNVh
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) May 26, 2020
102) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio violates his own government’s recommendations and hits the gym in Brooklyn amid the coronavirus shutdown
https://www.businessinsider.com/nyc-mayor-bill-de-blasio-goes-ymca-announcing-closure-gyms-2020-3
103) New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham violated her own lockdown so she could buy jewelry
104) CNN interviews Alabama beachgoers not wearing masks, gets owned after photos surface of maskless reporter
https://twitter.com/SteveKrak/status/1265457232843624451
A @FourthWatch reader sent me these images of CNN’s @GaryTuchmanCNN filming this report from Alabama yesterday – wearing a mask while walking the beach and interviewing people – but removing his mask when the cameras were off.https://t.co/7bW6Wz3bGm pic.twitter.com/qikHrsOekZ
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) May 27, 2020
105) The fatality rate of COVID-19 “would probably be 0.13 percent for people outside nursing homes”
106) A scientific study said, “Home outbreaks were the dominant category (254 of 318 outbreaks; 79.9%)”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf
107) NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo admits that all the COVID-19 projections ‘were all wrong’
https://www.theblaze.com/news/cuomo-projections-wrong
108) Chicago pastor claims the mayor sent armed police in unmarked cars to bang on the church doors Sunday: It was ‘like the Soviet-styled KGB’
https://www.theblaze.com/news/chicago-pastor-mayor-armed-police
109) Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: Restrictions will stay In place “until we get a vaccine”
https://twitter.com/KyleHooten2/status/1264694781101432833
“Flatten the curve” has turned into keeping restrictions in place “until we get a vaccine,” per Minnesota Gov. Walz. pic.twitter.com/GQrat6fZok
— Kyle Hooten (@KyleHooten2) May 24, 2020
110) Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer “signed an order mandating that nursing homes and other long-term care facilities accept COVID-19 patients”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gretchen-whitmers-most-devastating-coronavirus-mistake
111) Minnesota nursing homes have 81% of COVID-19 deaths, still taking positive patients
https://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Data-shows-81-of–570708611.html
112) States with the toughest lockdowns forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This caused the U.S. death rate to be far, far higher than it otherwise would have been.
New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and California all forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19.
NPR reported:
New York and New Jersey both have ordered nursing homes to admit patients regardless of their COVID-19 status. California had a similar directive.
The Washington Examiner reported:
Whitmer signed an order mandating that nursing homes and other long-term care facilities accept COVID-19 patients
Valley News Live reported:
Many states, including New York, came under fire for a policy requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients…
Minnesota’s Department of Health did so…
The Daily Caller reported:
PA Health Secretary Moved Mother Out Of Personal Care Home After Ordering Nursing Homes To Accept COVID Patients
These are the very same states that had the toughest lockdowns.
If the real purpose of the lockdowns was to protect people from COVID-19, then why did the states with the toughest lockdowns force nursing homes to admit people who had tested positive for COVID-19?
113) Minnesota mayor gives masks to crowding rioters after warning in-person worship would be ‘public health disaster’
114) New England Journal of Medicine: “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
115) In Colorado, “a CBS4 Investigation revealed the state health department reclassified three deaths at a Centennial nursing home as COVID-19 deaths, despite the fact attending physicians ruled all three were not related to coronavirus”
116) In Michigan, someone who committed suicide was listed as having died from COVID-19
117) Dr. Deborah Birx: “if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZpgra3XbU
118) According to Elie Mystal, a writer for the Nation, people who protest against the lockdown “aren’t freedom fighters – they’re virus-spreading sociopaths,” while people who protest against the murder of George Floyd have “incredible strength”
Elie Mystal is a writer for The Nation.
According to Mystal, people who protest against the lockdown
“aren’t freedom fighters – they’re virus-spreading sociopaths”
while people who protest against the murder of George Floyd have
“incredible strength”
Make up your mind. Either the virus is too dangerous for people to be protesting in public, or it’s not. You can’t have it be safe for protesters that you agree with, but dangerous for protestors that you disagree with. Viruses don’t work that way. The virus doesn’t know or care why a person is protesting.
119) Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf violated his own lockdown to participate in a Black Lives Matter protest
120) The ACLU supported the lockdown for law abiding business owners, but opposed the lockdown for criminals who looted, vandalized, and burned those very same businesses
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/06/the-aclus-new-curfew-position-unmasks-their-hypocrisy/
121) Knut Wittkowski, former head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science, said the lockdown “most likely made the situation worse”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/
122) A Jewish children’s gathering turned into a George Floyd protest so New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio wouldn’t shut it down
This is one of the most absurd examples of the lockdown’s double standards.
A Jewish children’s gathering turned into a George Floyd protest so New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio wouldn’t shut it down.
Here’s a photograph of it. Note the sign on the left that says, “Justice for George Floyd.”
You can see a bigger version of the photograph at this link: https://danfromsquirrelhill.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/jewish-children-justice-for-george-floyd.jpg
The photograph is from this tweet:
https://twitter.com/JakeTurx/status/1268970681351405575
These clever Hasidic kids decided to turn their carnival into a “Justice for George Floyd” rally and now the NYPD cannot break it up.
Tonight’s Justice for George Floyd Shabbat Services are sure to be interesting as well.
H/t @kippahunited pic.twitter.com/pN1JvII0wx
— Dr. Jake K. Turx, NhD (not an actual doctor) (@JakeTurx) June 5, 2020
Here’s an article about it:
123) Over 1,000 ‘health experts’ sign letter of support for Black Lives Matter mob but conservative protesters are racist and must stay at home due to COVID-19
124) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday that he still supported quarantine measures that limited attendance at houses of worship to 10, even as he supported mass protests in the city against police brutality
https://forward.com/fast-forward/447916/de-blasio-coronavirus-jewish-protest/
125) Michigan Supreme Court unanimously sides with 77-year-old barber over governor Gretchen Whitmer
126) Black pro-lifers arrested for praying at Planned Parenthood while hundreds of rioters go free
127) PA Health Secretary twists herself into a pretzel trying to justify limitless BLM protests while standing by COVID-19 restrictions for small businesses
https://twitter.com/David_LaTorre/status/1268280669014237186
This is why you have reporters at press conferences. Levine is asked about @GovernorTomWolf calling officials coward and then marching today in Harrisburg. Wait for the end. pic.twitter.com/6VkaYyMpwr
— Real_Dave_La_Torre 🍿 (@David_LaTorre) June 3, 2020
128) New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio broke up a Jewish funeral, but allowed a funeral for George Floyd
129) Michigan governor Gretchen ‘Lockdown’ Whitmer leads group of marchers chanting, ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’
130) Claire McCaskill was the State Auditor of Missouri, as well as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. She criticized people who went swimming, but defended Black Lives Matter protestors.
https://twitter.com/clairecmc/status/1264571117546725377
Embarrassing for my state. Hope none of them have parents fighting cancer, grandparents with diabetes, aunts and uncles with serious heart conditions. Because clearly they could care less. https://t.co/2e8XXur3iN
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) May 24, 2020
https://twitter.com/clairecmc/status/1268367586699415553
Oh come on. Missourians please. Why? Why? Other than to waste their time and your money groveling at the ankles of Donald Trump. Disgusting. Get mad. https://t.co/7aLIEBRzW2
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) June 4, 2020
131) U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said she supported extending the lockdown for three more months. Less than one month later, she participated in a Black Lives Matter protest.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1268262028205936641
Nancy Pelosi walking through the protests without needing the police to gas protesters pic.twitter.com/wKwb3RwEDf
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) June 3, 2020
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/13/nancy-pelosi-of-course-supports-los-angeles-lockdo/
132) Let this sink In: Churches are shuttered over COVID-19 fears, but violent anarchists are allowed to congregate with impunity
133) New York governor Andrew Cuomo criticized anti-lockdown protestors, but defended Black Lives Matter protestors who violated the lockdown
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/george-floyd-unrest-big-city-mayors-coronavirus-lockdowns
134) Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti threatened to turn off the water and electricity to businesses that violated the lockdown, but he defended Black Lives Matter protestors who violated the lockdown
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/george-floyd-unrest-big-city-mayors-coronavirus-lockdowns
135) Denmark, Finland say they saw no increase in coronavirus after schools re-opened
136) Kanchan Soni, who lived in India, died because the lockdown prevented her from getting dialysis
137) Chewing gum, wire-cutters, and superglue: the alarming rise of DIY Dentistry under coronavirus
138) A scientific paper on the lockdown states, “In high burden settings, HIV, TB and malaria related deaths over 5 years may be increased by up to 10%, 20% and 36%, respectively”
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-05-01-COVID19-Report-19.pdf
139) Polio and measles could surge after disruption of vaccine programs. A new study of 129 countries found that the interruption of inoculation efforts could put 80 million babies at risk of getting deadly, preventable diseases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/health/coronavirus-polio-measles-immunizations.html
140) Why most Covid-19 deaths won’t be from the virus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200528-why-most-covid-19-deaths-wont-be-from-the-virus
141) Two hairstylists who had coronavirus saw 140 clients. No new infections have been linked to the salon, officials say.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/missouri-hairstylists-coronavirus-clients-trnd/index.html
142) Democrats cheering ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests now say Trump rallies pose coronavirus risk
143) New Jersey governor Phil Murphy violated his own lockdown to participate in two Black Lives Matter protests
https://whyy.org/articles/gop-assemblyman-n-j-gov-murphy-broke-own-order-marching-in-protests/
144) Over half of Minnesota coronavirus death certificates list something else as primary cause of death
145) In the real world, George Floyd was killed by a police officer. But in the fantasy world of bogus COVID-19 statistics, he died from COVID-19.
In the real world, George Floyd was killed by a police officer.
This CNN article is titled, “George Floyd tested positive for coronavirus, but it had nothing to do with his death, autopsy shows.”
So although Floyd tested positive for COVID-19, it was not the cause of his death.
However, Dr. Deborah Birx had previously stated:
“if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZpgra3XbU
In the real world, George Floyd was killed by a police officer.
But in the fantasy world of bogus COVID-19 statistics, he died from COVID-19.
146) U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders praised Black Lives Matter protestors, but said Trump’s proposed GOP convention was dangerous
On June 5, 2020, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said the following of Black Lives Matter protestors:
“I’m very proud of the people standing up for justice and taking to the streets. When we study history we look at pivotal moments — the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II. People will look back on this time as one of those moments.”
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1268992801963982853
I’m very proud of the people standing up for justice and taking to the streets. When we study history we look at pivotal moments — the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II. People will look back on this time as one of those moments. pic.twitter.com/WzpH7i3fyD
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 5, 2020
However, on June 11, 2020, Sanders said the following of President Trump’s proposed GOP convention:
“Trump wants 15,000 delegates cheering him at his GOP convention in Florida. No social distancing. His rejection of medical advice endangers not only those there but those they come in contact with. Trump’s a threat to the health and well-being of the country. He must be defeated.”
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1271137203318595584
Trump wants 15,000 delegates cheering him at his GOP convention in Florida. No social distancing. His rejection of medical advice endangers not only those there but those they come in contact with. Trump’s a threat to the health and well-being of the country. He must be defeated.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 11, 2020
Make up your mind, Senator Sanders. Either the virus is too dangerous for people to be gathering in large groups, or it’s not. You can’t have it be safe for people that you agree with, but dangerous for people that you disagree with. Viruses don’t work that way. The virus doesn’t know or care why people are gathering together in large groups.
147) Feds classifying all coronavirus patient deaths as ‘COVID-19’ deaths, regardless of cause. The federal government is classifying the deaths of patients infected with the coronavirus as COVID-19 deaths, regardless of any underlying health issues that could have contributed to the loss of someone’s life.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/07/feds-classify-all-coronavirus-patient-deaths-as-covid-19-deaths/
148) World Health Organization: “If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-offer-conflicting-advice-masks-expert-tells-us/story?id=70958380
149) Reopening schools in Denmark did not worsen outbreak, data shows
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark-reopening-idUSKBN2341N7
150) One month later: top Israeli mathematician predicted COVID-19 peaks after 40 days with or without economic lockdowns – and he was right!
151) Baltimore fines church for holding services while thousands protest in the streets
152) Argentina pastor turns church into bar in protest at uneven coronavirus restrictions
153) More than 60 percent of both nursing home deaths and total COVID-19 deaths occurred in just seven blue states with about 20 percent of the U.S. population: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Michigan. The governors in each of these states ignored federal guidelines and pursued some version of the policy of admitting infectious patients to nursing homes as soon as they were clinically stable.
https://townhall.com/columnists/philkerpen/2020/06/24/covid19-the-nursing-home-disease-n2571160
154) MSNBC: Trump Fans ‘Super-Spreaders’ But BLM Protesters Show ‘Extraordinary Courage’
155) Water, power cut off and locks changed at Oxford gym that defied Massachusetts shutdown
156) James Woods: “Democrats were literally arresting Americans for opening their businesses, but now are silent as protesters burn them down. You were fined for worshipping in your church, but now cheered for marching in screaming crowds.”
https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1268201526448685056
Democrats were literally arresting Americans for opening their businesses, but now are silent as protesters burn them down. You were fined for worshipping in your church, but now cheered for marching in screaming crowds.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) June 3, 2020
157) Dr. Kelly Fradin: “I’m a pediatrician and I think we should reopen schools, even with the risk of coronavirus outbreaks”
https://www.insider.com/pediatrician-reopen-schools-even-if-it-leads-coronavirus-outbreaks-2020-6
158) Catholic priests, Orthodox Jews sue Cuomo, de Blasio over reopening plan: ‘Blatant double-standard’
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-cuomo-de-blasio-coronavirus-discrimination-lawsuit
159) Pennsylvania sues to stop car show over crowd size even after Governor Tom Wolf marched in Black Lives Matter protest two weeks earlier
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-shut-down-car-show-coronvirus
160) An Ohio BBQ restaurant named Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf its “employee of the month” after business skyrocketed. Breakwall BBQ sits along Lake Erie near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border in a town called Conneaut. The BBQ joint tells Erie News Now they’ve had hundreds of customers cross the border to eat at their restaurant as Erie County remains in the yellow phase of the state’s reopening process.
161) Citing protests, federal judge strikes down Cuomo and de Blasio lockdown orders for churches
A federal judge on Friday struck down orders issued by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio that limit the size of church services.
The ruling, a preliminary injunction delivered by District Judge Gary Sharpe, notes that by endorsing protests for racial justice while simultaneously discouraging large gatherings in churches, both Cuomo and de Blasio undermined their claim that their lockdown orders were “generally applicable.”
“The State argues, in overly-simplistic fashion, that the challenged laws only incidentally impose a burden on religious exercise, and they are neutral and generally applicable, and therefore, only rational basis need be shown, which is self-evident: preventing the spread of COVID-19,” Sharpe wrote. “The State was silent with respect to the mass race protests.”
Sharpe added that de Blasio’s comments with regard to churches, as well as his attitude toward New York Jewish communities, made it difficult for the mayor to make a “legitimate” claim that he is not biased against people of faith while favoring protests.
“Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules,” Sharpe wrote. “They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”
De Blasio, in early June, said that allowing protests and allowing religious services were “not the same question.”
The ruling came after Catholic churches and Orthodox synagogues in upstate New York filed a suit earlier this month alleging that Cuomo’s executive orders violated their First Amendment rights.
Following Sharpe’s order, New York officials are no longer allowed to impose limits on indoor, in-person religious gatherings.
162) This video shows Dr. Anthony Fauci removing his mask when he thought he was no longer being filmed
https://twitter.com/CHIZMAGA/status/1278029614070153217
Camera off, mask off. pic.twitter.com/WQYIEeiVK3
— CHIZ 🇺🇸 (@CHIZMAGA) June 30, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
163) DC mayor tells residents to stay home for 4th of July, promotes Black Lives Matter gatherings
164) De Blasio, Cuomo are making children bear the worst of the lockdowns
Videos circulating on social media recently show New York City Parks employees welding shut a playground in the heart of Hasidic Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We have seen footage of the New York Police Department and NYC Parks Police in Boro Park shepherding Hasidic children out of a park and locking it shut behind them.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands are allowed to protest in Brooklyn, while a maskless Mayor Bill de Blasio poses for photo-ops, ignoring the social-distancing guidelines his administration ruthlessly enforces against Jewish children and families.
The hypocrisy is stunning — and appalling.
Is it too much to ask for consistent leadership in the Big Apple? Is it too much to ask that our mayor enforce policies equally, across the board? Is it too much to ask that the mayor practice what he preaches or even set an example, instead of scurrying after the most popular position of the week, gung-ho about lockdowns two weeks ago — and gung-ho about mass protests today?
And why are our children becoming the victims of this whiplash-inducing virtue-signaling?
If it were only the mayor taking dumb stances, perhaps we could chalk it up to de Blasio being de Blasio. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn’t exactly the beacon of leadership that he projected at the outset of this crisis. On Friday, he took the confounding step of banning sleepaway camps in New York state this summer.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/16/de-blasio-cuomo-are-making-children-bear-worst-of-lockdowns/
165) Selective social-distancing rules are one of the great scams in American life. Massive crowds are wonderful and healthful, if they’re woke. Otherwise, they’re life-threatening… Their metric for reopening wasn’t the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines or any other public-health measure but the “wokeness” of the activity in question… Virtue-signaling is now an essential activity… To believe the leaders of Blue America, SARS-CoV-2 is the first virus in human history to have a social conscience – virulent enough in the ordinary course of events to justify the most restrictive social controls, but not such a big deal if it might get in the way of marches for social justice.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/coronavirus-selective-social-distancing-rules-scam/
166) Slowing the coronavirus is speeding the spread of other diseases. Many mass immunization efforts worldwide were halted this spring to prevent spread of the virus at crowded inoculation sites. The consequences have been alarming… cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted… Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh. A mutated strain of poliovirus has been reported in more than 30 countries. And measles is flaring around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/health/coronavirus-vaccines-measles.html
167) Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/norway-health-chief-lockdown-was-not-needed-to-tame-covid
168) NBC News “medical expert” Dr. Joseph Fair appeared on air nearly a dozen times to document his “struggle” with COVID-19. But later, he admitted that he never actually had COVID-19. From the very start, every single one of his COVID-19 tests was negative.
This is just too funny.
This is one of the biggest and best examples of the media bias that is being used to exaggerate the problem of COVID-19.
NBC News “medical expert” Dr. Joseph Fair appeared on air nearly a dozen times to document his “struggle” with COVID-19.
But later, he admitted that he never actually had COVID-19.
From the very start, every single one of his COVID-19 tests was negative.
Here’s a picture of Dr. Fair from one of his reports. I got this image from the following link, which also has a great article about how NBC pulled off their huge con:
Here are some of the videos of NBC’s con that aired on the network:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWRVXxTdgYs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjZbSHv6lws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of4RlbgUbEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyizJh3–5o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_tupmKGy0c
169) California’s Gavin Newsom orders wineries shut, keeps his own open
170) Antibody tests point to lower death rate for the coronavirus than first thought
Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.
The evidence comes from tests that detect antibodies to the coronavirus in a person’s blood rather than the virus itself.
The tests are finding large numbers of people in the U.S. who were infected but never became seriously ill. And when these mild infections are included in coronavirus statistics, the virus appears less dangerous.
“The current best estimates for the infection fatality risk are between 0.5% and 1%,” says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
That’s in contrast with death rates of 5% or more based on calculations that included only people who got sick enough to be diagnosed with tests that detect the presence of virus in a person’s body.
171) Churches, which account for 0.02% of COVID-19 cases, are a “major source” of infection, the New York Times says. The paper’s claim reflects the same arbitrary distinction between religious and secular activities that churches are challenging in court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/coronavirus-churches-outbreaks.html
172) NYC Black Lives Matter marches can continue despite large-event ban, de Blasio says
https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/nyc-allows-black-lives-matter-marches-despite-ban-on-large-events/
173) Coronavirus pandemic could push 122 million to brink of starvation: Oxfam
https://globalnews.ca/news/7155931/coronavirus-starvation-oxfam/
174) Dr. Dan Wohlgelernter said, “What we needed to do was not lock down all of society. Not shut down schools. Not shut down all businesses. You needed to protect the elderly. Particularly the elderly in the nursing homes. It’s a small segment of our population. We could have allowed the rest of the population to continue with their lives, take adequate precautions but not be completely shut down. The cost of the shut down in terms of the physical, emotional, and psychological health of people is enormous. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of people who have been shut-in. Who’ve lost their businesses. Who are facing depression. Who are facing issues of mental health because of the consequences. This should never happen again. If we ever face this situation again we need to learn the lessons from the mistakes and policies that were implemented.”
175) Are protests dangerous? What experts say may depend on who’s protesting what. Public health experts decried the anti-lockdown protests as dangerous gatherings in a pandemic. Health experts seem less comfortable doing so now that the marches are against racism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-coronavirus-protests-quarantine.html/
176) A Florida health official admitted that a man in his 20s who died in a motorcycle accident was listed as a coronavirus death, raising questions about the validity of the state’s COVID-19 fatality count
177) American Academy of Pediatrics: Get students back to school in the fall
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is pushing government officials and school administrators to allow students to return to class in the fall despite the coronavirus.
The AAP said in a Monday statement that the cost to children of keeping them separated from school and their classmates may be worse than the disease and lead to abuse, drug use, and even suicide.
178) Sky News’ Rowland Manthorpe: “… if I tested positive for COVID-19 today and then I got hit by a bus tomorrow, then COVID-19 would be listed as my cause of death”
179) “… you could have been tested positive in February, recovered, then hit by a bus in July and you’d be recorded as a covid death”
180) Columnist calls out Chris Cuomo’s wife for lack of social distancing, promoting shoes, magazine during Instagram yoga session
New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz blasted Cristina Cuomo, the wife of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, for doing yoga inside a high-end shoe store, arguing that people like the Cuomos enjoyed a separate set of rules during the coronavirus pandemic.
Markowicz pointed to an Instagram post in which Cristina Cuomo and her yoga instructor engaged in an hour-long session at a brand-new Jimmy Choo store. A gym owner had purportedly commented on the video and complained that neither Cristina Cuomo, nor her instructor, were social distancing or wearing masks.
“Cristina Cuomo is selling her products while working out indoors at the Hamptons @jimmychoo store with her trainer; No social distancing, no masks. Why is it the Cuomo family can make a living but I can’t open my gym to support my team and family?” the post read.
https://twitter.com/karol/status/1284306473636573184
Post from a gym owner. Every fawning media feature lets this family get away with this behavior. Rules don’t apply. pic.twitter.com/4yQJuBlcAj
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) July 18, 2020
https://www.foxnews.com/media/cristina-cuomo-yoga-coronavirus-jimmy-choo-instagram
181) People are more likely to contract COVID-19 at home, study finds
https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-more-likely-contract-covid-122611396.html
182) CDC study: Coronavirus infection numbers may be up to 24 times higher than reported
183) No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist. There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.
184) Health professionals advocate for school reopening despite coronavirus pandemic
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/16/health-professionals-school-reopening-pandemic/
185) Dr. Vladimir Zelenko’s claimed treatment for COVID-19 with a triple combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin: Have conservatives fallen for a bogus conspiracy theory? Or, have liberals ignored a real world, successful treatment for COVID-19?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 7, 2020
At least since March, and perhaps even earlier, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko from New York has been claiming to have successfully treated COVID-19 patients with a triple combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin.
In March, Snopes rated Dr.Zelenko’s claim as “unproven.”
On May 8, medrxiv.org reported:
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin plus zinc vs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin alone: outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients
In univariate analyses, zinc sulfate increased the frequency of patients being discharged home, and decreased the need for ventilation, admission to the ICU, and mortality or transfer to hospice for patients who were never admitted to the ICU.
On May 12, Spectrum News channel 1 from New York reported:
Researchers at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine found patients given the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine along with zinc sulphate and the antibiotic azithromycin were 44 percent less likely to die from the coronavirus.
The study looked at the records of 932 COVID-19 patients treated at local hospitals with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
More than 400 of them were also given 100 milligrams of zinc daily.
Researchers said the patients given zinc were one and a half times more likely to recover, decreasing their need for intensive care.
And I think this next one is the most important one so far.
On July 3, preprints.org reported:
COVID-19 Outpatients – Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study
Of 335 positively PCR-tested COVID-19 patients, 127 were treated with the triple therapy. 104 of 127 met the defined risk stratification criteria and were included in the analysis. In addition, 37 treated and eligible patients who were confirmed by IgG tests were included in the treatment group (total N=141). 208 of the 335 patients did not meet the risk stratification criteria and were not treated. After 4 days (median, IQR 3-6, available for N=66/141) of onset of symptoms, 141 patients (median age 58 years, IQR 40-60; 73% male) got a prescription for the triple therapy for 5 days. Independent public reference data from 377 confirmed COVID-19 patients of the same community were used as untreated control. 4 of 141 treated patients (2.8%) were hospitalized, which was significantly less (p<0.001) compared with 58 of 377 untreated patients (15.4%) (odds ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.5). Therefore, the odds of hospitalization of treated patients were 84% less than in the untreated group. One patient (0.7%) died in the treatment group versus 13 patients (3.5%) in the untreated group (odds ratio 0.2, 95% CI 0.03-1.5; p=0.16). There were no cardiac side effects. Conclusions: Risk stratification-based treatment of COVID-19 outpatients as early as possible after symptom onset with the used triple therapy, including the combination of zinc with low dose hydroxychloroquine, was associated with significantly less hospitalizations and 5 times less all-cause deaths.
That one is the best news so far.
If this is really true, then imagine how many lives could have been saved if more people had paid attention to Dr. Zelenko back in March.
And imagine how much of the lockdown, unemployment, educational disruptions, and other stresses could have been avoided.
I have also noticed that, for some weird reason, there is a huge political divide over this. Back in March and April, every single source that I found that supported Dr. Zelenko was right wing.
So, either conservatives have fallen for a bogus conspiracy theory, or, liberals have ignored a real world, successful treatment for COVID-19.
So which is is?
Have conservatives fallen for a bogus conspiracy theory?
Or, have liberals ignored a real world, successful treatment for COVID-19?
186) D.C. mask mandate exempts lawmakers and government employees
187) Coronavirus lockdown ‘made no difference to number of deaths’, study claims
July 23, 2020
Countries across the world ordered its citizens to stay home and shut up shop in a bid to stop the virulent coronavirus spreading.
But now a study has sensationally claimed the drastic measures did not help reduce the global death toll which is currently more than 625,000.
Experts from the University of Toronto and the University of Texas compared mortality rates and cases in 50 different countries worst hit by the pandemic up until May 1.
They found while imposing lockdown did stop hospitals from being overwhelmed, this did not necessarily prevent high death tolls.
Instead, the researchers concluded, the number of Covid-19 related deaths depended on the health and age of each nation before the pandemic.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/1190721/coronavirus-lockdown-no-difference/
188) California’s ban on ‘in-home bible studies’ sparks lawsuit by Church
189) Stop stealing our children’s youth in the name of their grandparents. Every person I know in his 70s says kids should go back to school. Behind ensuring Americans have food, ensuring our children are well educated is a very close second in societal priorities.
By Steve Welch
July 17, 2020
For those who don’t get the outrage, let me try to put it in simple terms.
Yes, COVID-19 is dangerous, especially to our elderly population and those who are high-risk. Yes, there will be some young, healthy people who die from COVID, as is true with the 38,000 people who die from car accidents each year, or the 2,000 children who died last year from cancer.
As of June 17, 26 American children under the age of 15 have died from COVID. That is not a misprint: 26 children under the age of 15. By comparison, in the first six months of this year, an estimated 122 children under the age of 15 died from the flu, 536 children died in car accidents, and another 349 died in pool drownings. I don’t hear anyone saying we should stop putting kids in cars or letting them swim in pools.
We are stealing our children’s youth and ultimately will be stealing their adulthood, because they will lack the education and social skills to succeed, and we are saddling them with a greater and greater amount of debt as we destroy our economy. Disrupting schooling also forces parents to try to homeschool their children and work their job at the same time.
The effects will be more pronounced in poor communities that lack the technical infrastructure to allow children to access and be successful in distance learning. For the social justice warriors who have understandably been working for equal opportunity in society, this is the sword to die on.
Every person I know in his 70s—every single one—says kids should go back to school. I cannot imagine a single grandparent in this country who would not sacrifice isolating himself for the next six months so his grandchildren can have the joy of playing tag with their friends on the playground or dissecting a frog with their lab partners.
Yes, teachers are at greater risk than students. Doctors and nurses, many of whom are also high risk, continue to go to work every day treating actual COVID patients because that is their job. Individuals working in meat plants are keeping America fed, often under dangerous working circumstances.
Workers put themselves at risk by stocking the shelves at the supermarkets to ensure Americans survive. I cannot imagine teachers not willing to make the same sacrifices. Behind ensuring Americans have food, ensuring our children are well educated is a very close second in top priorities as a society.
You are an American, and you have the following choice every single day: if you are not comfortable with the progression of COVID, you should isolate yourself. Everyone else, put on your mask and practice good social distancing, but it is time to get back to work and life.
Teachers who are high risk can use Zoom to connect with students who will be in the school, and where possible with a young teaching assistant. Students who are high risk should attend schools that have been doing distance learning for a decade. I assure you, they are better at it than what I saw in public schools in the spring.
States should add resources to these online schools or potentially create a state-run online school. But it is time to stop stealing our children’s youth in the name of their grandparents.
Often in life, we need to choose the least bad choice. The absolute worst choice we can make as a society is to cheat our children of their youth and not properly educate them. This is not only selfish, but will damage our country for decades to come. Taiwan, Norway, and Sweden recognized this early and kept their schools open in the spring, and countries like Germany and Japan have already reopened their schools.
We are cheating our children of life by not allowing them to be kids. Besides school, we are cancelling their sports and clubs and theater classes. I am confident America’s senior and at-risk population—who should be isolated anyway!—are willing to stay isolated a little longer to ensure our kids have a childhood and are prepared for the future.
190) Citing educational risks, scientific panel urges that schools reopen
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/health/coronavirus-schools-reopening.html
191) Liberty University announced that it has sued The New York Times for defamation, accusing the newspaper of being factually incorrect in reporting regarding students on campus testing positive for COVID-19 in late March during the early stages of the pandemic.
192) Stanford doctor Scott Atlas says the science shows kids should go back to school
193) Philly mayor’s ban on large events ‘does not apply’ to protests or ‘demonstrations’
194) German study finds no evidence coronavirus spreads in schools
195) All this time, Nancy Pelosi has been illegally going to a hair salon. Also, Pelosi falsely said she had been “set up” by the salon owner. But in reality, it was Pelosi herself who had set up the appointments. And security video shows that Pelosi did not wear a mask.
https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1301314393376845824
San Francisco salon owner Erica Kious blasts Democrat Nancy Pelosi after Pelosi broke coronavirus lockdown rules, got caught, and now is blaming the salon and demand that they apologize to her. pic.twitter.com/XlTbFWwdlM
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/TVNewsHQ/status/1301314094402863105
Tucker Carlson on Pelosi saying she was ‘set up’ by hair salon: “Yet another self-centered rich lady blaming the help for her mistakes.” pic.twitter.com/Gy4Reji81M
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) September 3, 2020
196) After Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney banned indoor dining, he traveled to another city to dine indoors
https://twitter.com/6abc/status/1300261378679283712
Photo of Philadelphia mayor dining indoors in Maryland sparks criticismhttps://t.co/tqr08Kd0cU
— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) August 31, 2020
197) As of September 2020, Sweden, which never had a lockdown, or a mask mandate, had a lower total, cumulative per capita COVID-19 death rate than the U.S.
These are the total, cumulative death rates per million population for COVID-19 for the U.S. and Sweden, as of September 7, 2020:
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20200907000001/https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
U.S. 583
Sweden 577
Sweden never had a lockdown.
And Sweden never required people to wear masks.
In fact, Sweden never even recommended that people wear masks.
198) Federal judge rules Gov. Wolf’s shutdown orders were unconstitutional
Federal judge rules Gov. Wolf’s shutdown orders were unconstitutional
By Paula Reed Ward
September 14, 2020
A federal judge in Pittsburgh on Monday ruled that orders issued by Gov. Tom Wolf restricting the size of gatherings and closing nonessential businesses to protect against the spread of covid-19 were unconstitutional.
In a statement, Wolf said his office will seek an immediate stay to halt the order and file an appeal.
U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV wrote in his 66-page opinion that, even though the actions taken in the spring by Wolf and Health Secretary Rachel Levine were laudable, they violated the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly, and the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
199) CDC: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”
200) “The National Cancer Institute estimates that there could be 10,000 additional breast and colorectal deaths over the next decade as a result of missed screenings and delayed diagnoses”
https://www.wjhg.com/2020/09/08/cancer-screenings-down-nationwide-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Early Antibody Testing Indicates Far More COVID-19 Cases, Lower Mortality Rate
Early Antibody Testing Indicates Far More COVID-19 Cases, Lower Mortality Rate
Although there is a decrease in the number of deaths, the study indicates that there could be hundreds of thousands of people who could be infected without knowing it.
April 20, 2020
Although there is a decrease in the number of deaths, the study indicates that there could be hundreds of thousands of people who could be infected without knowing it.
Preliminary results from an antibody testing program indicates the number of COVID-19 infections in Los Angeles County far exceeds the number of confirmed cases, with potentially more than 400,000 residents having been infected at some point, USC researchers and county health officials announced Monday.
The good news from the antibody study, researchers said, is that the mortality rate from the illness is much lower than currently estimated. The bad news is that there are potentially hundreds of thousands of residents who are unknowingly infected with the illness and not showing any symptoms, but are still capable of spreading it to others.
The numbers prove that “we are very early in the epidemic,” said USC professor Neeraj Sood of the USC Price School for Public Policy.
County public health director Barbara Ferrer said the figures also show that with thousands of residents likely infected and capable to transmitting the virus, social-distancing requirements need to remain in place.
As of Monday, the number of COVID-19 cases confirmed by testing stood at 13,816 — a fraction of the maximum estimate of 442,000 cases indicated by the antibody study. Researchers are testing for antibodies in adults over time in an effort to determine the scope and spread of the coronavirus pandemic across the county. The testing began in early April with a representative sample of 863 residents.
A rapid antibody test was used for the study, which was conducted at six drive-through test sites. The researchers plan to test new groups of participants every few weeks to gauge the pandemic’s trajectory.
Based on the first round of testing, the research team estimated that roughly 4.1% of the county’s adult population has developed antibodies to the virus — an indication they are or were infected at some point. Adjusting for the statistical margin of error implies that approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county have had the infection.
That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county by the time of the study in early April. “We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” Sood, the lead investigator on the study, said. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.”
The results have important implications for public health efforts to control the local epidemic.
“These results indicate that many persons may have been unknowingly infected and at risk of transmitting the virus to others,” Ferrer said. “These findings underscore the importance of expanded polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing to diagnose those with infection so they can be isolated and quarantined, while also maintaining the broad social distancing interventions.”
The antibody test is helpful for identifying past infection, but a PCR test is required to diagnose current infection.
More than 600 people have died of the virus countywide. “Though the results indicate a lower risk of death among those with infection than was previously thought, the number of COVID-related deaths each day continues to mount, highlighting the need for continued vigorous prevention and control efforts,” said Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer at L.A.
County Department of Public Health, who co-led the study.
The study’s results have not yet been peer reviewed by other scientists. The test’s accuracy was assessed at a lab at Stanford University, using blood samples that were positive and negative for COVID-19.
The study was supported with funding from the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, USC Lusk Center, USC President’s Office, Jedel Foundation, LRW Group, Soap Box Sample, and several individual donors.
Way more people may have gotten coronavirus than we thought, small antibody study suggests
This is good news. A much higher infection rate means that the fatality rate is that much lower:
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html
Way more people may have gotten coronavirus than we thought, small antibody study suggests
Between 50 and 85 times as many people in Santa Clara County have coronavirus antibodies as have tested positive for the virus.
April 18, 2020
Way more people may have gotten coronavirus than we are detecting.
That’s the takeaway from a small study of coronavirus antibodies in more than 3,000 people in Santa Clara County, California. The results suggested that between 2.5% and 4.2% of people in the county have contracted COVID-19, which is 50 to 85 times greater than the number of cases being reported at the time. Not everyone is convinced the true prevalence is that high, however, with some saying the antibody test the researchers used was not reliable.
However, this type of antibody testing, or serologic study, should be rolled out more broadly, epidemiologists told Live Science.
“I think this is a great start to beginning a serologic survey in the U.S., and I agree that we should expand this testing as much as possible so that hopefully we can figure out what level of antibodies, if any, is necessary to maintain immunity,” said Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University in Philadelphia.
So what does this mean for how deadly the virus is, how widely it has spread, and when we can ease social distancing? The answers aren’t straightforward, epidemiologists told Live Science.
The results
First, the study: Stanford University researchers used Facebook ads to find volunteers to be tested for antibodies to the novel coronavirus, or proteins produced by a person’s immune system to fight off a specific virus that has invaded the body. Roughly 3,300 of those volunteers came to a drive-through testing site on April 3 and April 4. One in every 66 tested positive for antibodies to the novel coronavirus. White women and affluent people were overrepresented in the population, while Latinos and Asians were underrepresented compared with Santa Clara’s overall population.
A total of 50 tests came back positive. After adjusting for differences in zip code, race and sex between the sample population and Santa Clara as a whole, the researchers estimated that between 48,000 and 81,000 people in the 2-million-strong county had contracted coronavirus at some point. At the time, the health department was reporting about 1,000 positive cases.
The findings were posted Friday (April 17) to the preprint database medrXiv; they have not gone through peer review.
Less deadly than thought?
Using their data, the team estimated that the true “infection fatality rate” of coronavirus — or the number of infected people who die from the disease — is between 0.12% and 0.2%, or between 20% and two times more deadly than seasonal influenza (which kills about 0.1% of people it infects, on average). Other studies have estimated infection fatality rates between 0.5% and 0.9%, Nature news reported.
Some experts have questioned the results, saying that when few people in a population have the virus, even a few false positives on the test could create the impression that there are many more coronavirus cases than actually exist, according to Nature.
The test used in this study has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yet.
“They are constrained by the fact that the antibody tests they used were not very good, which they had to try and adjust for” who were infected, said George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
“The market’s been flooded with these tests.” Rutherford told Live Science. “But the FDA has relaxed its rules so there’s not the same degree of quality control.”
The crude rate of positives they found before making adjustments — about 1.5% — is probably about right, Rutherford said. However, using statistical adjustments to arrive at the range of 2.5% to 4.2%, and then to infer fatality rates, was likely a stretch, he added.
“The interpretation of the ratio of cases to death is an over-interpretation,” Rutherford told Live Science. ”
What’s more, because they didn’t take a random sample, the study is subject to what’s called selection bias, Rutherford said.
“They may have picked off a piece of the population that was more likely to be infected or less likely to be infected, we just don’t know,” Rutherford said. (An example of potential selection bias: if someone suspected they had been infected earlier, but couldn’t be tested when symptomatic, they might be more motivated to pursue antibody testing.)
Johnson, meanwhile, thinks the true prevalence in Santa Clara could be even higher.
“I think if they’d had an ethnically representative sample in this study as they’d hoped, they may have found an even higher proportion of people with antibodies, based on current reports that minorities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” Johnson told Live Science in an email. “This would mean that even the informative conclusions here are still a conservative estimate of the likely number of infected people in Santa Clara County and throughout the U.S.”
But on the other hand, the infection fatality rate in Santa Clara can’t be directly translated to other spots in the U.S., which face higher rates of obesity and other chronic conditions known to worsen the outcomes of COVID-19. So infection fatality rates in other American cities may be higher than the Santa Clara County estimate, Johnson said.
Ultimately, it’s just one sample in a single locale, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Schaffner suspects the 50 to 85 times higher prevalence “is on the high side” — meaning the true infection fatality rate could potentially be higher. But without doing antibody testing in several other places and populations, there is no way to know for sure, Schaffner told Live Science.
Mild disease and catastrophic impacts
If the numbers are in fact representative, though, how can this relatively low fatality rate be reconciled with the catastrophes that have unfolded around the world? How can a disease that’s only slightly more deadly than the flu have caused China to shut down its economy for two months, brought the country’s largest city to the brink of collapse, and kept 1.5 billion children out of school?
It turns out, that’s definitely possible, because before late last year, no one on Earth had been exposed to this virus, so everyone could catch it. By contrast, many people will be immune to viruses that have circulated before, and only a fraction of the population is susceptible to catching those. Even if the novel coronavirus virus is not that deadly, it could kill many more people than a known, but similarly deadly bug simply because it has the potential to infect a greater proportion of the population. That can easily overwhelm the health care system, Schaffner said.
The flip side of this data is that nowhere in the U.S. is likely to have most of its population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 at this point, Schaffner told Live Science. So the idea of us being close to “herd immunity” — when enough people have gotten the virus and are immune that the disease can no longer spread — is wishful thinking.
In Santa Clara, at least 95% of the population is still susceptible to the virus, Schaffner said. “So we can’t depend on any kind of herd immunity to slow down this virus yet.”
Extrapolating data from one locale to another is always statistically dicey, but even in New York City — where reported deaths from COVID-19 already exceed 0.1% of the city’s population — some other numbers suggest that about 15% of the population has been infected. That’s well below what’s needed to naturally slow the spread of coronavirus, Johnson said.
That said, the numbers do suggest caution before mandating social distancing too far out into the future based on epidemiological models, especially without taking into account practical factors, such as the societal costs of social distancing, Schaffner said. (Some health experts have suggested some form of social distancing may linger into 2022, unless a vaccine becomes available sooner.)
“Social distancing, into the fall and winter, I think is reasonable, and then let’s see,” Schaffner said.
United Nations on COVID-19 shutdown: “…mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good… An estimated 42-66 million children could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis this year… could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020”
On April 15, 2020, the United Nations published this 17 page report, which is titled: Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on children.
The report cites the predicted harm that will happen to children in low income countries as a result of the COVID-19 global wide shutdown. Examples of this harm to children include increases in malnutrition, loss of education, increased rates of teen pregnancy, reduced access to health care, reduced rates of vaccination, increased rates of infectious disease, increased rates of water borne illness, and increased rates of death.
The report goes on to explain that some of these negative consequences could have very severe, permanent effects on children.
Page 2 refers to: (all of the bolding in this blog post is mine)
...mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good…
and goes on to say:
…An estimated 42-66 million children could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis this year…
The transition from page 2 to page 3 states:
Economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year. And this alarming figure does not even take into account services disrupted due to the cri-sis – it only reflects the current relationship between economies and mortality, so is likely an under-estimate of the impact. Rising malnutririon is expected as 368.5 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition must now look to other sources. The risks to child mental health and well being are also considerable. Refugee and internally displaced children as well as those living in detention and situations of active conflict are especially vulnerable.
Page 4 states:
As health services become overwhelmed in car-ing for large numbers of infected patients requir-ing treatment, children and pregnant women are less able to access standard care. Children of frontline workers have also had to adapt to alternative childcare arrangements. Children living in areas of armed conflict, who already struggle extensively to access health services may be further excluded from attention and access to the severely stretched health systems. Physical distancing and lockdown measures, restrictions of movement and border closures, and surveillance strategies are all affecting chil-dren in myriad ways. Face-to-face child services – schooling, nutrition programmes, maternal and newborn care, immunization services, sexual and reproductive health services, HIV treatment, alternative care facilities, community-based child protection programmes, and case management for children requiring supplementary personal-ized care, including those living with disabilities, and abuse victims – have often been partially or completely suspended.
Page 4 ends with this:
While children are not the face of this pandemic, its broader impacts on children risk being catastrophic and amongst the most lasting consequences for societies as a whole.
Page 6 states:
The physical distancing and lockdown measures needed to save lives and supress the transmis-sion of the virus have resulted in a significant reduction of economic activity across all major economies and the resultant global recession…
… At a household level, the collapse in income threatens the livelihoods of millions of house-holds with children around the world. Inputting the forecasts from the IMF optimistic scenario into an IFPRI poverty model4 indicates an increase in extreme poverty (PPP$1.90 a day) this year of 84 to 132 million people, approx-imately half of whom are children, compared to a pre-pandemic counterfactual scenario.
Page 7 states:
The worldwide closure of schools has no his-torical precedent…
… The potential losses that may accrue in learn-ing for today’s young generation, and for the development of their human capital, are hard to fathom…
Page 8 states:
Those losses will be greatest for children who, triggered by the pandemic, drop out of school altogether. That possibility becomes greater the longer schools are closed and the deeper the economic contraction wrought by the pan-demic. Experience with HIV in Kenya shows that those children who lose a parent face reduced odds of returning to school. In situations of continuing conflict, children no longer in school may be incentivized to join armed forces or groups, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence.
Page 9 states:
Reduced household income will force poor families to cut back on essential health and food expenditures. Drawing again on the forecast for global eco-nomic growth from the IMF and the historical relationship between GDP growth and infant mortality in the developing world15 , hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths could occur in 2020 compared to a pre-pandemic counterfactual scenario. This would effectively reverse the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year.
These estimates focus only on the effects of this year’s global recession on child health and do not account for the multiple ways in which health services are being directly disrupted by the pandemic. This includes reduced access to essential reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health interventions, such as ante-natal care, skilled attendance at birth, and treatment for pneumonia. It also includes the suspension of all polio vaccination campaigns worldwide, setting back the decades-long effort to eliminate the wild virus from its last two ves-tiges, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to tackle recent outbreaks of the vaccine-derived virus in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific. In addition, measles immunization campaigns have been suspended in at least 23 countries that had cumulatively targeted more than 78 million children up to the age of 9. Meanwhile, chil-dren and adolescents with chronic illnesses, including those living with HIV, are at risk of reduced access to medicines and care.
Child nutrition is a vital concern. 368.5 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition must now look to other sources. That challenge is made greater by the economic shock facing households, which will negatively affect the diets of children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. Additionally, hastily implemented lockdown measures risk disrupting food supply chains and local food markets…
Should schools remain closed and cause girls to drop out, we should also anticipate an increase in teenage pregnancy in the year ahead. A recent meta-analysis of the prevalence and determinants of adolescent pregnancy in Africa found that adolescent girls out of school are more than two times more likely to start childbearing than those who are in school.
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) ser-vices are also at risk of disruption by lockdown measures, posing further threats to children’s health through water-borne diseases. Over 700 children under five die every day from diarrheal diseases related to inadequate WASH services, and this number could rise sharply if existing services collapse….
Page 12 states:
The ultimate impact of the crisis on chil-dren hinges on how much time it will take for the pandemic to end. A longer struggle to contain the virus not only prolongs the pain caused by the pandemic, but raises the pros-pect that the pandemic’s impact will have lingering or persistent effects on children.
For instance, the longer economies are on shutdown, the less likely they are to “snap back”. At the household level, struggling families will increasingly see breadwinners lose their jobs or be forced to sell productive assets in order to survive, with long-running consequences for child poverty. The same holds true for other impacts of the pandemic. The longer schools remain closed, the less likely children are to catch up on learning and essential life skills that support a healthy tran-sition to adulthood. The longer immunization campaigns are suspended, the greater and more costly will be the struggle to eliminate polio and to manage measles outbreaks.
For children caught at the apex of this crisis, there is a genuine prospect that its effects will permanently alter their lives. Children facing acute deprivation in nutrition, protection or stimulation, or periods of prolonged exposure to toxic stress, during the critical window of early childhood development are likely to develop lifelong challenges as their neurological devel-opment is impaired. Children who drop out of school will face not only a higher risk of child marriage, child labour, and teenage pregnancies, but will see their lifetime earnings potential pre-cipitously fall. Children who experience family breakdowns during this period of heightened stress risk losing the sense of support and secu-rity on which children’s wellbeing depends.
Page 13 cites multiple, real world examples of the harm that happened to children as the result of the shutdowns during the Ebola epidemic. This includes substantial increases in the problems of childhood nutrition, lack of health care, lack of vaccinations, and lack of education.
Regarding the effects on vaccination during the Ebola epidemic, the report states:
The proportion of Liberian children under 1 who were fully immunized fell from 73 percent before the epidemic, to 36 percent during the epidemic, and recovered only partially to 53 percent by the end of 2015. Measles cases in Liberian children under 5 rose, likely due to the lapse in vaccination programs. The mean number of monthly cases of measles rose from 12 before the epidemic to 60 immediately afterwards.
I never would have guessed that the measures to deal with a new infectious disease would include reducing the vaccination rates for other, older infectious diseases.
In developing countries all over the world, the shutdown due to COVID-19 is causing huge harm, in multiple different ways, to a very large number of children. Some of these things will have permanent effects on these children for the rest of their lives.
Joanna Le Pluart: Here in Sweden we’re playing the long game, and listening to science not fear
I agree with this writer:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/sweden/articles/sweden-coronavirus-policy/
Here in Sweden we’re playing the long game, and listening to science not fear
By Joanna Le Pluart
April 19, 2020
For the first (and probably last) time in living memory, the whole world seems to care about the domestic policy of my plucky little home country. Sweden’s approach to dealing with coronavirus has been hailed by some, but the majority of commentators seem to think we’re conducting some kind of heartless and dangerous experiment. Even Donald Trump has attacked us.
For those that aren’t aware, while the rest of the world has been shutting down schools, shops and restaurants, banning non-essential travel, and sending the police to shout at those who dare to dawdle in their local park, Sweden remains largely open for business.
Our schools are full of students, and I can still visit restaurants in Malmo, where I’ve lived for more than 20 years. I’m working from home, but many offices remain open. I can have friends over for lunch. Should I want to, I could drive to the countryside for a weekend away.
Ministers here have been forced to defend the policy, and the armchair experts on social media track our daily deaths with disturbing relish, but I’m proud of my country’s stand. And, while some people I know would like to see stricter measures enforced, most of my friends here support it too.
For starters, while we’re still “open for business”, it’s certainly not a case of “business as usual”. Everyone who can is advised to work from home, and the government has issued social distancing and hygiene guidelines. We’ve been urged to avoid large gatherings and crowded public transport, and to maintain a safe distance when socialising. However, these remain “guidelines”. Rather than imposing authoritarian rules and stripping people of their freedoms, we are relying on people’s collective common sense.
And it appears to be working. While the high streets are open, they are much quieter than usual, and the majority are following the social distancing recommendations. For most Swedes, this isn’t much of an imposition. We are generally a self-reliant (some would say anti-social) bunch. In fact, many are rejoicing as they no longer have to make up an excuse to avoid going for a beer.
The architect of our policy (the hero or villain, depending on your point of view) is state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, and if the government trusts his advice – and that of the Folkhälsomyndigheten (Public Health Authority) – then that’s good enough for us. Here in Sweden, we trust our authorities. Corruption is rare, and our public agencies are politically independent. Why would the Public Health Agency give advice that is not in the best interests of people and society? They have no other agenda. Also, they’re disarmingly honest. Tegnell recently admitted: “We’re trying this strategy out. We don’t know if it will work or not. If it doesn’t, we’ll revisit it.” Indeed, no country knows which policy is best, or how exactly things will pan out, so why pretend otherwise?
It is also interesting to note that Sweden is one of the world’s least religious countries, with around 90 per cent being atheist or agnostic. Many here think it’s actually dangerous to believe in things for which there is no concrete evidence. This is reinforced by an education system that encourages independent enquiry and evidence-based reasoning. We see that there is no hard evidence that draconian lockdowns stop the spread, so we keep shops open. We see that there is no evidence of widespread transmission in outdoor environments, so socialising in parks is still permitted. Furthermore, coronavirus conspiracies haven’t had any traction over here – our 5G towers are still intact.
People say we are putting the economy ahead of saving lives, but the economy is lives. A stronger economy means better healthcare for everyone for years to come. Generally, Swedes like to play the long game and right now we’re thinking about the state of play two, five or even 10 years from now. It’s not just about beating the virus, it’s about coming out of the crisis healthy. It’s easy to tally up deaths from the disease, but what about the impact a lockdown will have in terms of unemployment, homelessness, mental illness, and suicides? One could even draw parallels with Sweden’s neutrality during the Second World War, which paved the way for the country to become an economic and social powerhouse in the post-war years.
Perhaps our most controversial policy has been to keep schools open. But shutting schools would mean key workers, including doctors and nurses, would have to stay at home (or else kids would need to be sent to their grandparents, a high-risk group). Also, Swedes are considering the negative long-term consequences on our kids if they miss a half year of school. Since they are unlikely to contract the virus, isn’t it better that they should carry on studying?
Not everyone in Sweden supports our coronavirus policy. Marie-Claude Dubois, an architect in Malmo, told me: “So far 1,300 people have died here, is this a price worth paying for children to go to school and for life to continue more or less as normal? How many more are we willing to sacrifice?”
But the opinions of teacher Sofie Lejdström are more typical. “Locking people up could have catastrophic consequences for people’s mental health, and we’ve seen already that quarantines do not stop people dying,” she said.
“I believe this policy will slow the spread of the virus and keep the hospitals from filling up all at once. But I don’t believe we can stop the virus. Controlled spreading to create herd immunity doesn’t sound bad to me. It sounds like the best option given there is no vaccine. I don’t believe that acting out of fear and spreading fear will ever lead to anything positive.”
Nearly a third of 200 blood samples taken in Chelsea show exposure to coronavirus
This is a good thing. The infection rate is way higher than what had been thought, so the fatality rate is that much lower than what had been thought:
Nearly a third of 200 blood samples taken in Chelsea show exposure to coronavirus
Mass. General researcher says the results point to a ‘raging epidemic,’ but may also indicate the city is further along the disease curve than some other municipalities
April 17, 2020
Nearly one third of 200 Chelsea residents who gave a drop of blood to researchers on the street this week tested positive for antibodies linked to COVID-19, a startling indication of how widespread infections have been in the densely populated city.
Sixty-four residents who had a finger pricked in Bellingham Square on Tuesday and Wednesday had antibodies that the immune system makes to fight off the coronavirus, according to Massachusetts General Hospital physicians who ran the pilot study.
The 200 participants generally appeared healthy, but about half told the doctors they had had at least one symptom of COVID-19 in the past four weeks.
Public health experts already knew Chelsea had the state’s highest rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases and that the actual rate was probably higher. At least 39 residents have died from the virus, and 712 had tested positive as of Tuesday, a rate of about 1,900 cases per 100,000 residents, or almost 2 percent.
But the Mass. General researchers ― who excluded anyone who had tested positive for the virus in the standard nasal swab test ― found that 32 percent of participants have had COVID-19, and many didn’t know it.
“I think it’s both good news and bad news,” said Dr. John Iafrate, vice chairman of MGH’s pathology department and the study’s principal investigator. “The bad news is that there’s a raging epidemic in Chelsea, and many people walking on the street don’t know that they’re carrying the virus and that they may be exposing uninfected individuals in their families.”
“On the good-news side, it suggests that Chelsea has made its way through a good part of the epidemic,” he said. “They’re probably further along than other towns.”
Scientists suspect that people who recover from COVID-19 may be at least temporarily immune from catching it again. Several biotechs and academic laboratories, in fact, are seeking blood donations from people who have recovered, in the hopes that their antibodies can help create a treatment or vaccine.
Chelsea’s city manager, Thomas Ambrosino, said he learned the results of the pilot study Thursday in a conference call with the researchers. He was dismayed, but not shocked.
“We’ve long thought that the reported numbers are vastly under-counting what the actual infection is,” said Ambrosino, who has called his city the epicenter of the crisis in Massachusetts. “Those reported numbers are based on positive COVID-19 tests, and we’re all aware that a very, very small percentage of people in Chelsea and everywhere are getting COVID-19 tests.”
“Still,” he added, “it’s kind of sobering that 30 percent of a random group of 200 people that are showing no symptoms are, in fact, infected. It’s all the more reason for everyone to be practicing physical distancing.”
Indeed, one of the doctors who tested volunteers in Bellingham Square said it’s possible that some of the people who had the antibodies are still contagious.
“Just because you have the antibodies doesn’t mean you’ve cleared the virus,” said Dr. Vivek Naranbhai, a clinical fellow in hematology and oncology.
Researchers said the test results, which had yet to be shared with state officials late Friday, couldn’t necessarily be extrapolated for the city’s roughly 40,000 residents. Still, the findings provided a valuable snapshot of a community that medical experts say is especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
Chelsea covers only about two square miles, across the Mystic River from Boston. For generations, it has attracted new immigrants, and about 65 percent of its residents are Latino. Many live in three-decker houses, Ambrosino said, where it’s hard for people to isolate themselves. Many work in the hospitality industry and health-related fields, where exposure to the virus is greater. And a lot of them must go to work during the pandemic.
To get Chelsea residents to participate in the study ― which included a questionnaire that was available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese — investigators allowed them to remain anonymous. But that meant none of the participants received the results of the blood tests.
The doctors used a diagnostic device made by BioMedomics, of Morrisville, N.C., to analyze drops of blood. It resembled an over-the-counter pregnancy test and generated results on the street in about 10 minutes. Although the test hasn’t won the approval of the Food and Drug Administration, Iafrate, the principal investigator, said Mass. General determined it’s reliable.
Within days, the physicians said, they hope to set up a medical tent outside the Mass. General Chelsea Healthcare Center to perform more antibodies tests with the device. The site will be located near a tent set up weeks ago to run standard PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, tests for people with active coronavirus symptoms. The latter uses nasal swabs to detect whether the virus is present at the time; the antibodies blood test reveals whether someone was infected in the past.
In addition to the new testing site, the researchers want to expand the study to other Massachusetts cities and towns. For all of those studies, Mass. General doctors plan to obtain the identities of participants so physicians can provide the results. But first the researchers need to come up with guidelines for what participants should do if they test positive for antibodies.
Dr. Dean Xerras, medical director of the Mass. General Chelsea Healthcare Center and a co-investigator in the study, said it illustrates why it’s essential for Chelsea and other communities to perform more tests, regardless of whether they detect antibodies or the virus itself.
“Knowing how many people are infected is critical,” said Xerras, a longtime member of the city’s board of health. “We need to get them isolated. We need to get masks delivered to the city. We need to launch more safe isolation sites. We need to be able to identify cases and then give people the things they need to prevent perpetuation of the spread.”
Chelsea and Revere officials, with help from the state Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, secured almost 150 rooms at a Quality Inn in Revere this week for residents who are recovering from COVID-19 and unable to isolate themselves at home, according to Ambrosino. So far, only a handful of those rooms are occupied.
Governor Charlie Baker on Thursday staunchly defended the state’s handling of the escalating outbreak in Chelsea, including asserting, without offering details, that city leaders have turned down help from his administration.
The governor’s claim surprised officials in Chelsea who told the Globe this week that the state, and even health care providers, should have recognized the virus’s rapid spread through the city sooner.
Denmark is opening its schools for children age 11 and younger. Whatever happens – good or bad – this should be a lesson for the rest of the world.
Denmark is opening its schools for children age 11 and younger.
The BBC just reported:
Coronavirus: Denmark lets young children return to school
Children up to the age of 11 are returning to nurseries and schools across Denmark
Whatever happens – good or bad – this should be a lesson for the rest of the world.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 
