My newest book has Gretchen Whitmer on the front cover, and Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom on the back cover. The book is called, “The COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.”
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091DWWWL6
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091DPTGF3
Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil, and it has nothing to do with COVID-19
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
Please take a lot at all these things, and please note the date on each one.
All of these things, taken together in context, proves that keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with COVID-19.
Keeping the public schools closed is mean, cruel, inhumane, and evil.
May 28, 2020
Reopening schools in Denmark did not worsen outbreak, data shows
May 29, 2020
Denmark, Finland say they saw no increase in coronavirus after schools re-opened
July 13 , 2020
German study finds no evidence coronavirus spreads in schools
July 21 2020
No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist
September 18, 2020
Suicide among children during Covid-19 pandemic: An alarming social issue
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7500342/
January 8, 2021
Escalating suicide rates among school children during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown period: An alarming psychosocial issue
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0253717620982514
February 10, 2021
Child suicides are rising during lockdown
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-child-suicides-lockdown.html
March 1, 2021
Matt Meyer, the president of the Berkeley teachers union, says it’s too dangerous to open the public schools. But Meyer was just filmed taking his own daughter to a private school. I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under. Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
March 9, 2021
LA teachers warned to not share vacation pics as union seeks safe return to classrooms. UTLA members voted overwhelmingly to reject what the union called an ‘unsafe’ return to the classroom unless certain demands are met. I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under. Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
March 19, 2021
Doctors indicate startling rise in child suicide, psychiatric admissions during lockdown
March 22, 2021
The lockdown made it harder for victims of domestic violence to seek help
https://www.city-journal.org/lockdowns-and-domestic-violence
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:
Why isn’t everyone in Florida dead or in the hospital?
Why Isn’t Everyone in Florida Dead or in the Hospital?
By Wayne Allyn Root
March 21, 2021
I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.
I’m one of the few brave souls in the American media who warned and advised from day one (back in early March 2020) not to lock down the American people or the economy.
I argued the following:
— That lockdowns wouldn’t stop COVID-19, because you can’t stop a virus.
— That there was never a reason to lock down everyone. Anyone relatively young or healthy never had a reason to fear death from COVID. The survival rate has been reported at 99%, especially for anyone relatively healthy under the age of 65.
— That over time, lockdowns would cause more deaths from suicide, depression, loneliness, drug and alcohol addiction, joblessness, poverty and stress (from people being unsure how to feed their families) than from COVID.
— And, worst of all, that lockdowns would destroy the economy. If Grandma or Grandpa is sick and dying from COVID, how does it help them if their kids and grandkids lose their businesses, jobs or homes? It only makes things much worse. Grandma and Grandpa would not want their kids and grandkids to be jobless, hopeless or homeless. They want them to live life and prosper. That’s how you honor Grandpa and Grandma.
I warned that the only way to fight COVID and pay for COVID was to keep the economy open and healthy. And to keep Americans employed.
Don’t look now, but I was 100% right.
Florida is exhibit A. Everyone needs to know the Florida story.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis should be America’s Hero Governor. He stood strong in the face of massive pressure to close the state, close the economy, lock down the people and order mask mandates. He refused. He kept Florida open for business.
Now look at the amazing results. Florida’s economy is booming. People are happy. Quality of life is high. And very few are sick. It worked!
Even though Florida has been wide open (without masks) for almost a year now, even though the state has millions of retired senior citizens, it still has less deaths and hospitalizations right now than most of the know-it-all liberal states that are locked down and run by authoritarian Democratic governors. Florida’s numbers are better than those of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois.
All this and the people of Florida kept their businesses open, kept their jobs, kept their kids in school and kept living normal lives.
My friends own restaurants in Florida. Restaurants and bars are jammed. No one is wearing masks. They tell me that not only are the customers healthy; all their employees are healthy.
How is this possible? How can Florida be thriving and prospering and healthier while California and New York have been shut down the entire time, with businesses dead, jobs gone, schools closed and kids not leaning a thing?
The answer is simple. Democratic governors blew it. They made all the wrong decisions. No lockdowns were ever needed. Nor were they ever constitutional. No jobs should have been lost.
This was all a travesty, a tragedy, a farse. With lockdowns, people still get sick; you can’t stop a germ. But they do succeed at three things: destroying the economy, destroying quality of life and, ironically, making more people sick and die due to the stress, loneliness, depression and poverty the lockdowns produced.
Lockdowns prove the solution is often worse than the virus.
The only answer is freedom and individual choice. Let Americans choose whether to keep their businesses open, go to work or wear masks.
As usual, government was wrong. Government made things much worse. As usual, liberal Democratic ideas failed miserably. Lockdowns are perhaps the worst mistake in America’s history. Case closed.
CDC: “After you’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you should keep taking precautions in public places like wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others, and avoiding crowds”
Original: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated
How to Protect Yourself and Others
March 8, 2021
COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting you from getting sick. Based on what we know about COVID-19 vaccines, people who have been fully vaccinated can start to do some things that they had stopped doing because of the pandemic.
We’re still learning how vaccines will affect the spread of COVID-19. After you’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you should keep taking precautions in public places like wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces until we know more.
Ted Cruz proposes a $10,000 scholarship for students in districts where the public schools are still closed
https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1368188283264581636
This private school has been open all school year, and has had zero in-school transmissions of COVID-19. And its tuition is far less than what the public schools spend. The real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with COVID-19.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 1, 2021
According to this article, zero cases of COVID-19 have been contracted at this private Catholic school in Philadelphia, which has been open for the entire school year so far.
For students who are not part of the school’s affiliated church, tuition is $6,332 yer year. It’s even less for students who are part of the church.
By comparison, the budget for Philadelphia’s public schools is $14,812 per student per year.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=School_District_of_Philadelphia&oldid=1002556395
This debunks the claim that public schools don’t have enough money to deal with COVID-19.
Somehow, this private school, with far less money per student, was able to open up, and have zero in-school cases of transmission.
Whatever the reason is for keeping the public schools closed, it has nothing to do with COVID-19.
In-person classes. Old buildings. Almost no COVID. Are Philly Catholic schools a blueprint?
By Avi Wolfman-Arent
February 21, 2021
Francesca Russo hesitates to acknowledge any good news without crossing herself and knocking on wood.
When it comes to COVID, the principal at St. Pio Regional Catholic School in South Philadelphia likes to cover her bases — physical and spiritual.
“We have not had many cases,” said Russo, who was a teacher at St. Pio’s for 19 years before becoming principal two years ago. “Thank goodness. Knock on some kind of wood. We did play it scary-mary safe.”
Each room at St. Pio’s has a window cracked and a door open. There’s a system for when students can use bathrooms between regular cleanings. And each desk has a three-panel barrier that students raise whenever they need to lower their masks.
Behind the barriers sit roughly 230 students, from pre-K through eighth grade, about the same number who occupied this building last year. They’ve been learning in a decades-old Catholic school five days a week since the school year began.
Five members of the school community have contracted COVID-19 since September, Russo says. One of them is among the school’s 15 all-virtual students. Three contracted the virus over winter break while school was closed. The fifth also contracted the virus outside of school.
So far, according to Russo, there’s been no in-school transmission.
“We love these kids,” said Russo. “We’d do anything to make sure they’re safe, protected, and happy.”
St. Pio’s is one of about 100 elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia that has been open for full-time, face-to-face education since the school year began. Together, the schools host about 35,000 educators and children in buildings every day, according to the archdiocese. Archdiocesan high schools, meanwhile, have been open on a hybrid schedule.
While public debate swirls over whether the School District of Philadelphia should reopen school buildings on a part-time basis for about 9,000 pre-K through second grade students, another elementary system in the same region has opened its doors to nearly four times as many students. Leaders say they’ve managed to do so safely.
Schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia share the same geography as the city’s public schools. And perhaps more than any other school system in the region, the parochial sector shares the public schools’ legacy of contraction, tight budgets, and, in some places, aging infrastructure.
Yet, according to officials, Catholic elementary and high schools in the five-county region have recorded just one suspected instance of in-school transmission during the pandemic. Using bedrock mitigation strategies, the parochial system believes it’s kept kids safer in schools than they would’ve been in the outside world. They’re determined to keep it that way.
“We’re gonna hold the course until June,” said Andrew McLaughlin, the archdiocese’s secretary of elementary education.
Matt Meyer, the president of the Berkeley teachers union, says it’s too dangerous to open the public schools. But Meyer was just filmed taking his own daughter to a private school. I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under. Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 1, 2021
As I’ve said many times before, I never trust anyone who isn’t willing to live under the same rules that they expect everyone else to live under.
Matt Meyer, the president of the Berkeley teachers union, says it’s too dangerous to open the public schools.
But Meyer was just filmed taking his own daughter to a private school.
Clearly, the real reason for keeping the public schools closed has nothing to do with safety.
This from the the San Francisco affiliate of PBS:
After Leading School Closures, Berkeley Teachers Union President Spotted Dropping Daughter Off at In-Person Preschool
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez
February 28, 2021
Parent groups are crying “hypocrisy” after a video surfaced showing the president of the Berkeley teachers union dropping off his 2-year-old daughter at an in-person preschool.
Matt Meyer, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, has fought for what he called the “gold standard” for the teachers he represents — saying Berkeley schools should only reopen to in-person learning when educators are vaccinated, among other criteria.
A tentative plan between the Berkeley Unified School District and Berkeley Federation of Teachers in mid-February would see preschoolers through second grade returning to class at the end of March and other grades staggering back to in-person learning through April, according to Berkeleyside.
But some Berkeley parents have claimed that the union is moving too slow and are pushing for earlier school reopenings. They have long argued — and the Center For Disease Control and Prevention has agreed — that schools are safe to reopen without vaccinations for all teachers.
Looking to prove a double-standard by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers union president, they followed Meyer and his 2-year-old daughter to her preschool, camera in hand. The footage they captured has ignited the ire of parents groups fighting teachers unions — and Meyer in particular.
“It’s completely opposite of what he’s pushing,” said Jonathan Zachreson, the founder of Reopen California Schools, which counts Berkeley parents among many of its members. “So why is that safe for him and those people who work there (at the preschool), but not for all of the kids in Berkeley Unified and the teachers? The answer is: It is safe.”
School Closures Have Failed America’s Children
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/opinion/covid-school-closures-children.html
School Closures Have Failed America’s Children
As many as three million children have gotten no education for nearly a year.
By Nicholas Kristof
February 24, 2021
Flags are flying at half-staff across the United States to commemorate the half-million American lives lost to the coronavirus.
But there’s another tragedy we haven’t adequately confronted: Millions of American schoolchildren will soon have missed a year of in-person instruction, and we may have inflicted permanent damage on some of them, and on our country.
The reluctance of many Republicans to wear masks and practice social distancing is one reason so many Americans are dead. But the educational losses are disproportionately the fault of Democratic governors and mayors who too often let schools stay closed even as bars opened.
The blunt fact is that it is Democrats — including those who run the West Coast, from California through Oregon to Washington State — who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history. The result: more dropouts, less literacy and numeracy, widening race gaps, and long-term harm to some of our most marginalized youth.
The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank this month estimated that educational disruptions during this pandemic may increase the number of high school dropouts over 10 years by 3.8 percent, while also reducing the number of college-educated workers in the labor force. This will shrink the incomes of Americans for 70 years, until the last of today’s students leave the work force, the bank said.
What that doesn’t capture is the human toll. Rich kids going to private schools glide on through life mostly unaffected, while low-income children often don’t even have internet to attend Zoom classes. I’m writing this in rural Oregon, where some homes have neither internet nor cellphone service.
I wrote recently about my old buddy Mike Stepp, who dropped out of high school, couldn’t get a good job, self-medicated with alcohol and meth, and recently died homeless. I fear that our educational failures during this pandemic will produce countless more tragedies like Mike’s.
Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit focused on underserved students, estimates that as many as three million children in the United States have missed all formal education, in-person or virtual, for almost a year.
“We have to acknowledge that there is a large percentage of kids that have ‘disappeared’ — students who have never logged in, or logged in and never fully engaged,” said Melissa Connelly, chief executive of OneGoal, a nonprofit that does outstanding work with low-income high school students.
As of Jan. 29, almost 10 percent fewer high school seniors had submitted FAFSA financial aid forms, a sign that some are losing the chance to attend college.
Closures also exacerbate racial inequity. According to McKinsey & Company, fifth graders in schools with mostly students of color mastered only 37 percent of the math that usually would be expected.
Yes, it’s hard to open schools during a pandemic. But private schools mostly managed to, and that’s true not only of rich boarding schools but also of strapped Catholic schools. As a nation, we fought to keep restaurants and malls open — but we didn’t make schools a similar priority, so needy children were left behind.
“The evidence on remote learning suggests that despite the best efforts of teachers it doesn’t work for a large share of kids,” said Emily Oster, a Brown University economist who has studied the issue. “I think we’ve deprioritized children in a way that will do long-term damage.”
What are the risks of opening schools? We now have a great deal of data in the United States and abroad comparing areas that reopened schools versus those that kept them closed. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, “in-person learning in schools has not been associated with substantial community transmission.” The British Medical Journal this week put it this way in an editorial: “Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children.”
Most evidence aligns with a careful Tulane study that found that in most of the United States, school openings do not increase coronavirus hospitalizations. And teachers generally don’t seem at greater risk than people in other occupations. While it’s crucial to improve ventilation, increase testing and maintain adequate spacing, those steps aren’t always possible — and failure to meet every benchmark shouldn’t be an automatic bar to in-person schooling.
Teachers in some places are suggesting that in-school instruction shouldn’t resume even after they are vaccinated, not until students are vaccinated as well. That’s an abdication of responsibility to America’s children.
Many Democrats seemed to become more suspicious of in-person schooling last summer when President Donald Trump called for it. We shouldn’t let ourselves be driven by ideology rather than science, and that wasn’t universal: Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, a Democrat, worked hard to open schools, and kids there are better off because she did.
Maybe new variants of the virus will spread and require school closures — we should be relentlessly empirical — but that should be a last resort. Yes, there’s uncertainty. Sure, there are trade-offs. But serving kids in schools should be a higher priority than serving drinks in bars, and we should plan on summer school so lagging children can catch up.
For almost a year now, we as a country have failed millions of America’s most vulnerable children; we must right this wrong.
Nation Prepares To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve [satire]
Nation Prepares To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve
February 8, 2021
U.S.—The nation is preparing to celebrate what is expected to become a beloved annual holiday: Two Weeks To Slow The Spread Day, to be held in March every year.
“This time of year we like to come together to remember the historic day one year ago when we put on masks and locked ourselves down, trusting that the lockdown would be over in just two weeks,” said local man Paul Christof as he stared out his window longingly, his three masks securely in place. “This year, I’m going all out with a Zoom party with no more than five of my closest friends — I mean, closest, figuratively speaking, of course. We’ll be literally far apart, because I want to stay home and stay safe, and I don’t want grandma to die.”
Traditional festivities for the newly christened American holiday include remote Amazon gift exchanges, ordering DoorDash feasts for just yourself, and the customary binging of the Netflix. Historians believe the holiday will become a hit, and people will continue to wear masks and stay home throughout the year as the festive day is celebrated for hundreds of years to come.
A new study claims that the lockdown is destroying 10 times as many Quality Adjusted Life Years as it is saving
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/20201209_Rethinking_lockdowns_Joffe_COMMENTARY_FWeb.pdf
Yet we also need to consider the costs of lockdown. According to the Ca-nadian Medical Association President’s letter, “The strength of the economy should not come at the expense of Canadians’ lives” (Collins 2020). An opin-ion piece by the Scientific Advisory Group on COVID-19 lead in Alberta wrote that a “circuit-breaker” lockdown would “strike a balance between the need to save lives and to limit the impact on our economy” and “no one wants to sacrifice our elderly or kill the economy” (Saxinger 2020). Unfortunately, this frame of the trade-offs demonstrates a misunderstanding, a false dichotomy. We must consider the benefit and cost using a common metric. We are com-paring COVID-19 deaths vs. economic recession deaths, lives versus lives, as the economy is not simply about wealth, but about lives.
Government spending on health care, education, roads, sanitation, housing, nutrition, vaccines, safety, social security nets, clean energy, and other ser-vices determine the population well-being and life-expectancy. Government spending on all of these things, and not just on health care, have a strong historical long-run relation with life expectancy. If the public system is forced to spend less on our future, there are statistical lives lost; people will die in the years to come. Similarly, decisions about what resources to apply to main-tain public health from government services (e.g., treatment of cancer, heart disease, etc.) are based on research regarding how much health and life these expenditures can buy.
The lockdowns caused an economic recession in Canada and for much of the world. Canada’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Theresa Tam wrote that “the extensive slowdown in the Canadian economy [was] as a result of public health emergency measures” (Chief Public Health Officer of Canada 2020). The severity of mandated lockdowns was directly linked with the severity of the economic collapse; these were direct commands to halt work, restrict travel, restrict the number of people inside dwellings, close factory floors, stay at home, etc. A minimum cost calculation of the recession’s effect on reducing government spending on the determinants of population wellbe-ing and lifespan is this: (at least US$50 trillion GDP loss globally) X (around 40 percent of GDP from government expenditures) ÷ (less than US$80,000/QALY) is equal to or greater than 250 million QALY lost in the years to come. Already the cost-benefit balance comes out about 10 times against lockdowns (see Table 1).
Canadian YouTuber harvest hollow talks about the lockdown, and the movies that she’s recently seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX5f52BHH8w
Lockdown Addicts: New data from Sweden show it’s safe to keep schools open, but Joe Biden’s Covid-19 advisors seem more interested in shutting down
https://www.city-journal.org/bidens-covid-advisors-ignore-high-costs-of-lockdowns
Lockdown Addicts
New data from Sweden show it’s safe to keep schools open, but Joe Biden’s Covid-19 advisors seem more interested in shutting down.
By John Tierney
November 20, 2020
For the lockdown-weary, a brief window of hope opened after the presidential election. With Joe Biden victorious, Democratic politicians and their media allies lost their incentive to weaken Donald Trump’s economy and stoke Covid-19 panic among voters. And with Republicans well-positioned to retain the Senate, governors and mayors in blue states could no longer count on a windfall from a Democratic Congress to rescue them from the consequences of their lockdowns. Finally, cooler heads could prevail—right?
So much for that fantasy. Instead of reconsidering their policies, local officials are restricting more businesses and closing more schools, as New York City has just done. Journalists continue treating Covid deaths as the only ones that matter, while ignoring the mounting medical and social toll from lockdowns. Promising more restrictions, Biden has created an advisory board comprised of individuals who favor stricter lockdowns and foresee restrictions continuing until late next year, even if a Covid vaccine is quickly approved.
Biden and other leaders claim to be following “the science,” but that obviously doesn’t include the research showing the high costs and low benefits of lockdowns and school closures. Closing schools was a dubious move in the spring, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that it would likely do little to stem the pandemic (and noted that school closings in other countries had failed to make a discernible impact). Today it makes even less sense in light of the accumulated evidence.
For young students, the risk of dying from Covid is lower than the risk of dying from the flu, and researchers have repeatedly found that children do not easily transmit the virus to adults. The clearest evidence comes from Sweden, which did not close elementary schools or junior high schools during the spring Covid wave, and which did not reduce class sizes or encourage students and teachers to wear face masks.
Not a single child died, and there was little effect beyond the schools, as a team of Swedish economists reports after analyzing records of Covid infections and medical treatment for the entire Swedish population. The researchers, from the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, took advantage of a natural experiment in Sweden by comparing hundreds of thousands of parents at the junior high schools (for students aged 14 to 16), which remained open, against those at the senior high schools, which switched to online instruction for two months in the spring.
There was scant danger from the schools that remained open. The parents at those schools were 15 percent more likely to test positive for the virus than the parents whose children stayed home, but they were no more likely to be treated or hospitalized for Covid. The classroom teachers were twice as likely as the online teachers to test positive, but their infection rate was nonetheless lower than the rate among parents at either type of school. Just 0.2 percent of the classroom teachers were hospitalized for Covid, lower than the rate among parents. The Swedish researchers suggest additional protections for classroom teachers, like encouraging them to start wearing masks or allowing the older, more vulnerable ones to teach online. But after calculating that a closure of all the junior high schools would have reduced the Swedish national rate of Covid infection by a mere 1 percent, the economists conclude that closing schools is “not a particularly effective way” to stop the spread of the virus.
The chief effect of school closures is to hurt students. In St. Paul, Minnesota, where schools have been mostly closed since March, 40 percent of the students are failing this quarter—double the normal rate. In the Dallas public schools, which closed in March and reopened late this fall, recent tests revealed that half of the students have regressed in mathematics since last year, and that’s probably typical of the “learning loss” that will have long-lasting effects on students around the world. Economists at the World Bank estimate that the spring closures will ultimately reduce the affected students’ lifetime earnings by 5 percent—a loss totaling $10 trillion worldwide. Extrapolating from the well-established effects of education and income on life expectancy, another team of researchers calculates that the springtime school closures in the United States will shorten students’ lives by a cumulative total of more than five million years—more years of life than were lost to the pandemic in the spring.
But those considerations don’t carry much weight with teachers’ unions—and the politicians who depend on them for reelection. Governors and mayors kept many schools closed or only partially open at the start of the fall, and this month they’ve been ordering further shutdowns. Since New York City reopened its schools in September, there has been a minuscule rate of infection among students and staff members—just two cases per thousand. But Mayor Bill de Blasio is so in thrall to the teachers’ union that he closed schools this week even though the city’s positivity test rate is well below the threshold used for closing schools in the rest of the state.
The school closures are disproportionately harming African-American and Hispanic students, and other lockdown measures fall hardest on low-income workers who can’t do their jobs from home, as was repeatedly pointed out by Trump and the researchers he consulted, like Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution. Atlas, whose calculations show that the social costs of lockdowns exceed the benefits, calls them “a luxury of the rich.” But despite Biden’s professed concern for reducing inequality, he has not urged schools and businesses to remain open. While he says that he will not impose a national lockdown, his advisory board is dominated by public-health professionals eager to impose still more costly restrictions.
One board member, Ezekiel Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania, used to be renowned for his devotion to cost-benefit analysis. He was an architect of Obamacare, including its controversial board (denounced by critics as a “death panel”) empowered to contain medical costs by limiting expensive treatments. He has advocated allocating medical resources according to a “complete lives system” that “prioritizes younger people who have not yet lived a complete life.” In a 2014 essay, written when he was 57, Emanuel said that once he reached 75 he would refuse most medical treatments, even simple ones like antibiotics, because he did not want to endure the diminished quality of life that comes with old age.
But once Covid became a campaign issue this year, he quickly recalibrated. The median age of Americans dying of Covid is close to 80, but Ezekiel wants to protect them with what is surely the most expensive (and least proven) medical intervention in history. The lockdowns so far have cost trillions of dollars, but Ezekiel dismisses them as inadequate because they have lacked “staying power.” He has advocated an eight-week national lockdown and a national mandate to wear masks, and he doesn’t expect vaccines to make a difference anytime soon. If all goes well, he says, schools might reopen next fall.
Another member of the board, Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, warned in March that lockdowns and school closures could do more harm than good, but he soon joined the chorus of Democrats criticizing Trump for wanting to keep schools and businesses open. In July, he warned against reopening schools too hastily, and by August he was calling for a national lockdown “as comprehensive and strict as possible,” so that people would be allowed to leave home only for food shopping and visits to doctors and pharmacies.
Osterholm also singled out New York governor Andrew Cuomo for praise, calling the state “a model for the rest of the United States.” This seemed rather bizarre, given that the Covid mortality rate in New York is the nation’s second-highest (exceeded only by New Jersey’s), and that infections peaked before Cuomo ordered a lockdown in March. Cuomo also famously justified the lockdown by declaring, “If everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.” This just-one-life rationale has traditionally been considered a prime fallacy in making public policy, which is supposed to be based on rational consideration of the common good. Now it apparently constitutes “the science” guiding the next president.
Johns Hopkins University: “Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
November 26, 2020
Johns Hopkins University has just reported the following:
“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”
Although the people who conducted this study find the results “surprising,” I myself do not.
Anyway, this is proof that the panic and hysteria over COVID-19, as well as the lockdowns, closures, cancellations, restrictions, and other authoritarian actions on the part of political leaders, were all completely unjustified.
Which is exactly what I have been saying all along.
New York arrests 80 people for not wearing masks at their sex party
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nyc-sheriffs-broke-sex-party-173500731.html
NYC sheriffs broke up a sex party with 80 people, a room full of mattresses, and boxes of condoms
November 23, 2020
The New York City Sheriff’s Department broke up a sex party in Astoria, Queens on Sunday at 2 AM.
There were over 80 mask-less attendees at Caligula, a self-described swingers club, violating New York state COVID-19-regulations.
Two party organizers and an attendee were charged with multiple misdemeanors for breaking COVID-19 regulations and selling alcohol without a liquor license.
The party comes days after New York City Schools closed indefinitely due to rising COVID-19 rates.
New York Democratic Leaders Caught Maskless At Private Party Despite COVID Restrictions
https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/21/new-york-democrat-maskless-private-party-covid/
New York Democratic Leaders Caught Maskless At Private Party Despite COVID Restrictions
By Mary Margaret Olohan Social Issues Reporter
November 21, 2020
Elite New York Democrats attending a Brooklyn private party did not adhere to the state’s coronavirus restrictions, photographs show.
The event was a private birthday party for Carl Scissura, who is the head of the New York Building Congress, a trade organization, the New York Daily News reported Thursday. Other attendees included former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman Frank Seddio and Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the publication reported.
Photographs of the event showed that very few people wore masks, though the party attendees stood in close proximity to one another as they chatted. One photograph showed both Seddio and Lewis-Martin chatting maskless.
https://twitter.com/ShantRS/status/1329533344179249152
“This is a particularly trying time and there were shortcomings that I regret,” Scissura said in a statement, according to the New York Daily News, emphasizing that the party was not his idea. “I greatly appreciate the gesture of my friends to throw me a surprise party, but we all must follow strict protocols so we can get past this pandemic.”
Scissura also said that guests had their temperatures taken before they entered the party and that everyone was given a mask, the Daily News reported. (RELATED: Feinstein, Who Pushed For Nationwide Mask Mandate, Seen Maskless In Public)
Lewis-Martin said the party took place last Saturday — only a few days after Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued coronavirus restrictions mandating that private groups be no larger than 10 people.
“The limit will be implemented due to the recent prevalence of COVID spread resulting from small indoor gatherings,” the governor’s office said Nov. 11. “These gatherings have become a major cause of cluster activity across the state.”
Additional Democratic leaders have also recently violated their own COVID restrictions. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom was photographed dining maskless indoors at one of the world’s highest rated restaurants, despite his restrictive coronavirus guidelines for Californians.
Newsom has urged California residents to wear face masks “in between bites” at restaurants. He announced Monday that California is “pulling an emergency brake” and mandating the most restrictive tier of coronavirus restrictions for more than two dozen California counties.
Seddio told the Daily News: “I farted about four times, but fortunately it didn’t smell. That was a good thing that happened. My wife punched me twice ‘cause she heard me do it. That was the most exciting part of the night.”
He also said that only about 10 people attended the party, but after being told pictures showed over a dozen attendees, he sarcastically told the Daily News: “That’s a great angle … I can’t even imagine that.”
Lewis-Martin told the publication that she has “antibodies” since she “was already sick,” so she had “no concern about spreading or anything.” She also said that groups of people came and went in “shifts” and that the photographs may have been taken during a time when these shifts overlapped.
Cuomo’s office, Seddio, Lewis-Martin and Scissura did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Your Political Leaders Hate You And Think You’re Stupid
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/20/your-political-leaders-hate-you-and-think-youre-stupid/
Your Political Leaders Hate You And Think You’re Stupid
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
By John Daniel Davidson
November 20, 2020
One thing should be abundantly clear by now, after ten months of this pandemic: our political leaders hate us and they think we’re stupid. Nothing else can explain the blatant hypocrisy we’ve seen, mostly from Democrat governors and mayors who are eager to impose harsh lockdowns and strict rules for the public at large but then turn around and do whatever they please with their own families, friends, and cronies.
Examples abound, but this week brought a fresh spectacle of hypocrisy in the form of a nervous, patently disingenuous apology from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was caught dining at an opulent birthday dinner for a top California political operative at a fancy French restaurant in Napa earlier this month, in apparent violation of his own COVID-19 protocols.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. On Monday Newsom announced he was “pulling the emergency brake” on reopening his state amid a spike in COVID cases, dealing a crippling blow to shuttered businesses and out-of-work Californians who have been struggling for months under rolling lockdown orders.
Only after Newsom was widely criticized for his rank hypocrisy did he offer an attenuated mea culpa, explaining that upon his arrival he was surprised to find there were “just a few extra people” at the party, but quickly added it was an “outdoor restaurant” in Napa County, which has looser restrictions compared to other areas of the state. Blinking incessantly and smiling tightly, Newsom finally got around to saying, albeit in the passive voice, that “the spirit of what I’m preaching all the time was contradicted.” Indeed it was, governor.
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1328699662749077505
But then we come to find out this week that the dinner wasn’t outdoors at all. Pictures obtained by the Fox News affiliate in Los Angeles show Newsom and a bunch of others dining at the French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California. They are obviously not outside, not social distancing, and not wearing masks.
The woman who took the photos told the Fox affiliate that Newsom was with a “very large group of people shoulder to shoulder,” and that she was “surprised because it didn’t look like he was uncomfortable being there until the very end, until people were looking at him and staring at him as he was leaving the room.”
https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1328932610169561090
But it doesn’t end there! On Wednesday, Politico reported that two top officials with the California Medical Association were among the guests at Newsom’s fancy birthday dinner.
You might think the state’s top medical lobbyists would think twice about flagrantly disregarding COVID guidelines, or even feign an apology like Newsom, but no. A spokesman for the CMA told Politico that “the dinner was held in accordance with state and county guidelines,” which prohibit more than three households from gathering privately—but do allow restaurants to seat people from more than three households together. See?
Apparently this is a pretty common attitude among California politicians and their lobbyist buddies. With much of their state locked down by government fiat, last week a bunch of state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists flew off to Hawaii for a five-day conference and schmooze-fest at an upscale Maui resort. Legislators and their families mingled with representatives of businesses and trade groups that paid thousands of dollars for access to the lawmakers in what has become an annual lobbying tradition—even during a global pandemic!
Dan Howle, chairman and executive director of the Independent Voter Project, which hosts the conference, didn’t apologize. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Somebody has to be first to say, ‘OK, we’re going to do a group event safely.’” Yes, Dan, somebody does has to be the first, and why shouldn’t it be a handful of powerful politicians and corporate lobbyists instead of, you know, ordinary people trying to salvage their businesses and visit their loved ones?
Lockdowns For Thee, But Not For Me
On and on it goes. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who issued a citywide stay-at-home order last week, defended her recent appearance at a massive street rally celebrating Biden’s apparent victory, where a mask-less Lightfoot addressed the crowd through a bullhorn.
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1327279770573414402
When asked about the obvious double standard on MCNBC last week, Lightfoot was defensive, insisting that, “There are times when we do need to have relief and come together, and I felt like that was one of those times.” She added, as if it excuses her hypocrisy, “That crowd was gathered whether I was there or not.”
Seemingly everywhere you look you find people in positions of power ignoring pandemic restrictions and doing as they please. Often these are the same people who are most outspoken about the need for lockdowns.
Back in September, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was defiant after being caught on camera (mask-less, of course) at a shuttered San Francisco salon in violation of a citywide lockdown order, calling it a “setup” and refusing to apologize.
Then last week, Pelosi was forced to cancel a dinner for incoming Democratic House members after a viral tweet showing tables being set up for the soiree understandably provoked outrage. “It’s very spaced,” she explained to an NBC News reporter.
The truth is, our elites have been doing this since the pandemic began. Who knows how many ordinary Americans were barred from attending the funerals and burials of their beloved dead these past months? Yet thousands were allowed to gather in July for memorials of Rep. John Lewis, in services that stretched from Alabama to Washington, D.C. Thousands were allowed to gather for George Floyd’s memorial service in June in Minneapolis.
We all saw the way the media treated Trump rallies like COVID super-spreader events yet condoned the hundreds of large-scale protests over the summer and fall in cities all across the country under the idiotic pretense that the protesters were “all wearing masks.” Same with the post-election celebrations that brought out thousands, dancing in the streets cheek-by-jowl and passing around champagne bottles.
https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1325153968687775744
Again, there is only one possible conclusion you can reach, based on months and months of appalling hypocrisy from the media and our ruling elite: they think lockdowns are for you, not them. They think pandemic rules are for you, not them. They think suffering hardships and doing as you’re told are for you, not them. Why? Because they hate you and think you’re stupid.
Nicholas Kristof: When Trump was right and many Democrats wrong – Children have suffered because many mayors and governors were too willing to close public schools
When Trump Was Right and Many Democrats Wrong
Children have suffered because many mayors and governors were too willing to close public schools.
By Nicholas Kristof
November 18, 2020
Some things are true even though President Trump says them.
Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children.
Yet America is shutting schools — New York City announced Wednesday that it was closing schools in the nation’s largest school district — even as it allows businesses like restaurants and bars to operate. What are our priorities?
“I have taught at the same low-income school for the last 25 years, and, truly, I can attest that remote schooling is failing our children,” said LaShondra Taylor, an English teacher in Broward County, Fla.
Some students don’t have a computer or don’t have WiFi, Taylor said. Kids regularly miss classes because they have to babysit, or run errands, or earn money for their struggling families.
“The amount of absences is mind-blowing,” she said.
Adeola Whitney, chief executive of Reading Partners, an outstanding early literacy program, referred to the traditional “summer slide” in which low-income students lose ground during the summer months and told me: “The ‘summer slide’ is now being dwarfed by ‘Covid slide’ projections.”
Granted, the United States has done such a poor job of controlling the virus that as the pandemic rages across the country it may be necessary to shut some schools. But that should be the last resort.
I’ve been writing since May about the importance of keeping schools open, and initially the debate wasn’t so politicized. But after Trump, trying to project normalcy, blustered in July about schools needing to open, Republicans backed him and too many Democrats instinctively lined up on the other side. Joe Biden echoed their extreme caution, as did many Democratic mayors and governors.
So Democrats helped preside over school closures that have devastated millions of families and damaged children’s futures. Cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., have closed schools while allowing restaurants to operate.
It’s true that Trump was simply trying to downplay the virus. If he wanted schools open, he should have fought the pandemic more seriously and invested federal money to help make school buildings safer against the virus’s spread.
Yet today, while we all want in-classroom instruction, the practical question is whether to operate schools that don’t have optimal ventilation and other protections. The United States has answered by shuttering many schools and turning to remote learning even as many businesses have stayed open or reopened. Much of Europe pursued the opposite route, closing pubs and restaurants but doing everything possible to keep schools operating — and the evidence suggests that Europe has the smarter approach.
In both Europe and the United States, schools have not been linked to substantial transmission, and teachers and family members have not been shown to be at extra risk (this is more clear of elementary schools than of high schools). Meanwhile, the evidence has mounted of the human cost of school closures.
“Children learn best when physically present in the classroom,” notes the American Academy of Pediatrics. “But children get much more than academics at school. They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online.”
One child in eight in America lives with a parent with an addiction — a reflection of America’s other pandemic. I’ve seen kids living in chaotic homes, and for them the school building is a refuge and a lifeline.
America’s education system already transmits advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next: Rich kids attend rich schools that propel them forward, and low-income children attend struggling schools that hold them back.
School closures magnify these inequities, as many private schools remain open and affluent parents are better able to help kids adjust to remote learning. At the same time, low-income children fall even further behind.
“Students are struggling,” Austin Beutner, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, where more than four-fifths of students live below the poverty line, told me. “And if you’re not becoming proficient in reading in first, second, third grade, you may face a lifetime of consequences.”
Research from Argentina and Belgium on school strikes indicates that missing school inflicts long-term damage on students (boys seem particularly affected, with higher dropout rates and lower incomes as adults). McKinsey & Company has estimated that in this pandemic, school closures may lead to one million additional high school dropouts.
Dropouts live shorter lives, so while the virus kills, so do school closures. One study this month estimated that closures of primary schools in the United States will cause many more years of life lost, because of increasing numbers of dropouts, than could be saved even if schools did spread the virus freely.
Across the country from Taylor’s classroom in Florida, Lauren Berg is an elementary school principal in McMinnville, Ore. Berg said some students flourish with distance learning, but three or four students in each class struggle to attend regularly.
The school tries everything: It gives out Chromebooks, hot spots, headphones, even personal timers with meeting times pre-scheduled with alarms. Teachers drop off food and school supplies, or sit in driveways to try to get pupils to log in to the system. “Even with all of this,” Berg said, “we are still missing some students.”
Let’s follow Europe: Close bars, and try harder to keep schools open.
California governor and medical officials violated their own lockdown
https://patch.com/california/napavalley/top-ca-medical-officials-attended-french-laundry-newsom
Top CA Medical Officials Dined At French Laundry With Newsom
CA Medical Association officials sat with Newsom and other guests at a controversial French Laundry birthday dinner amid COVID-19 surge.
By Kat Schuster
November 18, 2020
NAPA VALLEY, CA — Officials from the California Medical Association joined Gov. Gavin Newsom among other guests at a top California political operative’s birthday dinner this month, Politico reported.
The French Laundry dinner, attended by prominent medical and political figures in California, has drawn criticism from the public during a week when Californians were saddled with sweeping new restrictions amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
CEO Dustin Corcoran and top CMA lobbyist Janus Norman both sat among guests at the elite Napa Valley restaurant to celebrate Jason Kinney’s 50th birthday, a lobbyist and longtime adviser to the governor, Politico reported.
The group was larger than three households, which is prohibited in the state’s coronavirus safety guidelines. And the presence of top medical officials has the potential to further criticism from Californians, who have called the gathering hypocritical.
A spokesperson from the CMA, Anthony York told Politico in a statement that “the dinner was held in accordance with state and county guidelines.”
But the photos reveal that the soiree was held in a garage-like structure with walls on three sides and a roof, Politico reported. However, attendees have insisted that it was held outdoor.
The governor apologized Monday, admitting that his behavior contradicted safety guidelines that he has been promoting for months.
“I want to apologize to you because I need to preach and practice, not just preach and not practice…” Newsom said. “…We’re all human. We all fall short sometimes.”
California’s Bay Area may require telecommuting, even after the pandemic wanes
California’s Bay Area may require telecommuting, even after the pandemic wanes
A proposal would have employees at large companies working remotely three days a week, even after the pandemic, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
By David Ingram
September 23, 2020
SAN FRANCISCO — Many office workers are doing their jobs from home because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the trend has given some authorities in California an idea: Make it mandatory.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional government agency in the San Francisco Bay Area, voted Wednesday to move forward with a proposal to require people at large, office-based companies to work from home three days a week as a way to slash greenhouse gas emissions from car commutes.
It’s a radical suggestion that likely would have been a non-starter before Covid-19 shuttered many offices in March, but now that corporate employees have gotten a taste of not commuting, transportation planners think the idea has wider appeal.
“There is an opportunity to do things that could not have been done in the past,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a member of the transportation commission who supports the proposal. She said she felt “very strongly” that a telecommuting mandate ought to be a part of the region’s future.
The proposal was wrapped into a much bigger 36-page package of policies about what the Bay Area should look like in the year 2050, and what steps the area could take to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The commission voted to approve the overall plan 11-1, with some absences.
Although the proposal is in its early stages, it appears to be the most extreme example yet of pandemic life seeming to become permanent.
Some of the nation’s largest companies are headquartered in the Bay Area, including not only tech giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel and Netflix, but Chevron, Levi Strauss and Wells Fargo.
Some corporations, such as Facebook, have embraced remote work as a longterm strategy. But many, including Apple, have built flashy and car-centric campuses in anticipation of having employees generally on-site in non-pandemic times.
The idea of a mandate was a surprise to residents, many of whom first learned of the idea this week from social media and then flooded an online meeting of the transportation agency Wednesday to try, unsuccessfully, to talk commissioners out of the idea.
“We do not want to continue this as a lifestyle,” Steven Buss, a Google software engineer who lives in San Francisco, told the commission.
“We are all sacrificing now to reduce the spread of the virus, but no one is enjoying working from home,” he said. “It’s probably fine if you own a big house out in the suburbs and you’re nearing retirement, but for young workers like me who live in crowded conditions, working from home is terrible.”
Many callers pointed out that the situation exacerbates inequality because only some types of work can be done from home. Others worried about the ripple effects on lunch spots, transit agencies and other businesses and organizations that rely on revenue from office workers.
Still other residents said that if car emissions are the problem, the commission should focus on cars, not all commutes.
“Yes, yes, yes, we want to reduce greenhouse gases, but why aren’t you considering transit? Walking? Biking?” said one caller, Stacey Randecker.
Dustin Moskovitz, a cofounder of Facebook who usually keeps a low public profile, mocked the idea as an indictment of the Bay Area’s general failure to plan for growth.
“We tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas,” Moskovitz, now CEO of software company Asana, tweeted Tuesday.
The mandate would apply to “large, office-based employers” and require them to have at least 60 percent of their employees telecommute on any given workday. They could meet the requirement through flexible schedules, compressed work weeks or other alternatives.
Though a broader project planning for 2050 has been in the works for months, the work-from-home mandate was a late addition and came before commissioners only two weeks ago, said Nick Josefowitz, a member of the commission who expressed concern about it.
Josefowitz tried Wednesday to amend the mandate to allow for walking to work or taking transit, but opponents said any delay to the plan could cause the commission to miss a key funding deadline or fall short of targets for reducing emissions.
“If we start amending this plan at this late hour, do you have any rabbits in your hat that’s going to get us to the finish line?” asked Jim Spering, a commission member from Solano County, north of the bay. Commission staff said they had no such rabbit, meaning another way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much.
A member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s planning staff, Dave Vautin, said the idea seemed to be popular in surveys, with about three-quarters of Bay Area residents supporting the concept.
“We were really being responsive to the public feedback,” he said.
Therese McMillan, the commission’s executive director, said there would be time to flesh out the details and account for green types of commutes like walking. The plan will come back before the commission again before the end of the year, and then there would be an implementation period — which may overlap with the pandemic anyway.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, a member of the commission, said he wants to see significant changes, in part because of the disproportionate impact on low-income residents.
“We’re going to find that the impacts — socially and psychologically — of this isolation will be with us for a generation, and working from home is certainly not the ideal solution,” he said.
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
Another reason the lockdown is a scam: “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”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
September 23, 2020
Here’s another one that I’ll be adding the next time I update my list. You can read my current list at Here are 199 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
wjhg.com recently reported: (the bolding is mine)
Cancer screenings down nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic
September 8, 2020
Call it just another symptom of the COVID-19 pandemic: Cancer screenings have gone down nationwide.
According to the Prevent Cancer Foundation, 35 percent of Americans had a cancer screening scheduled during the pandemic and missed it. Similarly, a survey this summer by the medical technology company Hologic found more than a quarter of women plan to either skip or delay their annual screenings this year. That includes mammograms, which can help catch breast cancer early when its easier to treat.
As a result, 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, and health experts are raising concerns.
“There can be no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing delayed diagnosis and suboptimal care for people with cancer,” wrote Norman “Ned” Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, in an editorial published earlier this year in the journal Science.
“Cancers being missed now will still come to light eventually, but at a later stage,” Sharpless wrote, “and with worse prognoses.”
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.
“It’s a complete and total victory for the counties, the businesses and the representatives,” said attorney Thomas W. King III, who represented the plaintiffs in the case. “You can’t order the entire population of Pennsylvania to stay at home.”
President Trump, in a tweet celebrating the ruling, said: “Congratulations Pennsylvania. Now we await the decision on the Rigged Ballot Scam, which is so bad for our Country!” He went on to retweet more than 20 references to the story.
Lyndsay Kensinger, a spokeswoman for the governor, said they are disappointed in the decision.
“The actions taken by the administration were mirrored by governors across the country and saved, and continue to save, lives in the absence of federal action,” she said. “This decision is especially worrying as Pennsylvania and the rest of the country are likely to face a challenging time with the possible resurgence of covid-19 and the flu in the fall and winter.”
She noted Monday’s order does not apply to the mandatory mask order or the mandatory work-from-home order previously implemented and still in effect.
The plaintiffs in the case included seven businesses and their owners, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, state Reps. Daryl Metcalfe, Marci Mustello and Tim Bonner, as well as Butler, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties. The businesses included three hair salons, an appliance store, a farm and two drive-in theaters.
The complaint was filed May 7, arguing that the governor’s orders — limiting the size of gatherings, the stay-at-home order and the closure of non-life-sustaining businesses — were unconstitutional.
After reviewing the record, Stickman said he “believes that defendants undertook their actions in a well-intentioned effort to protect Pennsylvanians from the virus. However, good intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge.”
Stickman, who was appointed to the bench in 2019, said “even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions — while expedient in the face of an emergency situation — may persist long after immediate danger has passed.”
King said the judge’s decision finding gathering limits to be unconstitutional now applies to everyone in Pennsylvania.
He said the finding that the stay-at-home order was unconstitutional means it can never be repeated.
As for the closure of nonessential businesses, King believes that will open the door to business owners filing lawsuits against the state seeking relief, or compensation, for their losses during the closure.
“Our goal in bringing this action was that our county commissioners in Butler believed these orders were unconstitutional and unconstitutionally affected residents of their county.”
Thus far, in Pennsylvania, 7,869 people have died from the virus, with 145,063 testing positive. Nationally, there have been nearly 200,000 deaths.
Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at Saint Vincent College, said Stickman’s opinion is not precedent-setting for the other federal courts, but does carry persuasive value and likely will be cited in other jurisdictions where these issues are being argued.
“You could argue to another federal judge this federal judge’s decision is sound and reasonable,” said Antkowiak, who had Stickman as a student at Duquesne University Law School. “It is not a nationwide prohibition.” Stickman graduated from law school in 2005.
Antkowiak called it an unusual decision for a federal judge to make, given that the issue revolves around state regulatory authority.
In testimony for the case, King said, there was no medical evidence presented relative to the spread of covid-19, and Levine did not testify and instead sent a representative to do so.
King said he posed the question — once the stay-at-home order was lifted in early June — what establishments in Allegheny County were responsible for the increased spread of the virus, and no one could answer.
“You can’t just shut down American society,” King said.
In his opinion, Stickman agreed.
“There is no question that this country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort,” Stickman wrote. “But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment.”
Stickman wrote that the Constitution “sets certain lines that may not be crossed, even in an emergency.”
“The fact is that the lockdowns imposed across the United States in early 2020 in response to the covid-19 pandemic are unprecedented in the history of our commonwealth and our country,” Stickman wrote. “They have never been used in response to any other disease in our history. They were not recommendations made by the CDC.”
Stickman wrote that the defendants never had a set definition for what constituted a “life-sustaining” business, and instead the definition remained in flux.
Stickman wrote that there also was no precedent for the closure of nonessential businesses.
“Never before has the government taken a direct action which shuttered so many businesses and sidelined so many employees and rendered their ability to operate, and to work, solely dependent on government discretion,” he said.
Stickman wrote that the right of citizens to support themselves in their chosen occupation “is deeply rooted in our nation’s legal and cultural history.”
“A total shutdown of a business with no end-date and the specter of additional, future shutdowns can cause critical damage to a business’s ability to survive, to an employee’s ability to support him/herself, and adds a government-induced cloud of uncertainty to the usual unpredictability of nature and life.”
In federal court in Philadelphia, a group of business owners filed a similar lawsuit against the state, also in May.
On Aug. 31, U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick allowed a claim on equal protection — why some businesses were permitted to remain open while others were not — to continue. But he also ruled that the plaintiffs’ due process claim could not stand.
In a 10-page opinion, Surrick wrote that the right to operate a business is not actionable in a substantive due process claim.
“The business closure orders imposed temporary restraints on businesses. They did not deprive any individuals of their right to pursue a particular line of work,” Surrick wrote. “Moreover, even if there were a deprivation of one’s right to work, any deprivation was temporary, and the case law strongly suggests that substantive due process only extends to situations in which there is some degree of permanence to the loss of liberty or property.”
The complaint in that case did not include a First Amendment claim relative to mass gatherings.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security who practices in Pittsburgh, said, traditionally, public health interventions are supposed to be the least restrictive and most targeted as possible, based on evidence.
“Some of the blanket orders issued early on were not necessarily targeted,” he said. “They have to be really limited in scope and tied to data that is understandable by everybody.”
The state should have defined the time frame that restrictions would be put in place, explained the metrics that would be used to reevaluate and explained what would trigger reevaluation, Adalja said.
For example, he said, if the shutdown order was temporary so the state could scale up testing and the hiring of contact tracers, while fortifying local health departments and ensuring hospitals were well-prepared, that would have been one thing.
“In Pennsylvania, none of that really happened,” he said. “It was difficult for us to understand what was driving certain restrictions.”
Adalja cited New York state as an example of using data to drive decisions. There, metrics such as ICU capacity and the number of contact tracers in place were used to decide when things would reopen.
It wasn’t a mystery, he said.
Now, with the court’s decision declaring Wolf’s orders to be unconstitutional, Adalja said, even restrictions that were justified in the beginning — like those prohibiting mass gatherings — could be swept up.
“A mass gathering can easily overwhelm contact tracing at the county or state level,” Adalja said.
There is data that shows how the virus can spread in those settings.
“I am worried if you have mass gatherings — and people pack Heinz Field — you will get chains of transmission,” he said. “Mass gatherings are one thing that can spiral things out of control.”
Although Monday’s orders apply to state-level action, Adalja said municipalities and counties still have the ability to intervene for public health reasons — which means they can implement their own restrictions on crowd sizes for gatherings.
Adalja said, in the future, county health departments can no longer be ignored — that they must be fortified with infectious disease doctors, contract tracers, infrastructure and funding.
“Stay-at-home orders were because of a failure to address those things,” he said. “We need to really think about this as we move forward for this pandemic and the next pandemic.”
More proof that the lockdown is a scam: Sweden, which never had a lockdown, or a mask mandate, now has a lower total, cumulative per capita COVID-19 death rate than the U.S.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
September 13, 2020
Here’s another one that I’ll be adding the next time I update my list. You can read my current list at Here are 196 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
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.
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