Indeed, that is the proper response to the After Action Review of the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

It is apparent from the very beginning of the report that the Subcommittee was the work of either a bunch of dunces or a bunch of complete information naifs who had done exactly zero research into what data was actually known at the time the COVID Pandemic Panic was being propagandized by the corporate media. The report’s introduction makes that clear:

No, COVID-19 was not “novel”. It was and is a coronavirus. That means that these supposed “brightest scientists and medical experts” were not “learning on the job”, they were pointedly—and some would say deliberately—ignoring what they had already learned.

Everything that unfolded during the Pandemic Panic—every single bloody thing—can be directly traced to this omission. All the “mistakes”, all the lunacy, all the economic damage, all the societal damage, and absolutely all of the deaths can be attributed to this singular and appallingly epic failure.

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We can dispense easily with the notion that COVID-19 was in some way “novel”, even the “experts” at the National Institute Of Allergies And Infectious Diseases acknowledge this:

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses in humans. However, three coronaviruses have caused more serious and fatal disease in people: SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which emerged in November 2002 and causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS); MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which emerged in 2012 and causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS); and SARS-CoV-2, which emerged in 2019 and causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Building on previous research on SARS and MERS, NIAID scientists and NIAID-supported researchers mobilized quickly to develop COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics. Researchers continue to conduct basic research to understand how coronaviruses infect cells and causes disease, and what interventions can detect, prevent and stop the spread of disease.

Recognize what folks say when they call something “novel”—they mean it’s new, it’s different, it has not been seen before. That is certainly the meaning we find when we consult Merriam-Webster:

1 a: new and not resembling something formerly known or used

b: not previously identified

2: original or striking especially in conception or style

If COVID-19 was “novel”, then there could be no “previous research” upon which to base either treatments or research or public health responses.

NIAID is asserting explicitly that SARS-CoV-2, and its associated disease COVID-19, is anything but “novel”. It’s a coronavirus, one of a family of viruses, several of which are known to cause infectious respiratory disease in humans.

Given that, then the question which is not asked by the Subcommittee—and should have been—is that why were these prior building blocks of research and data accumulation overlooked, ignored, or disregarded?

Certainly Jeffrey Tucker at the Brownstone Institute has his conclusion about the Pandemic Panic and the “response” which followed:

This was never really a public health response. That was only the cover story. This was a coup against science and against democracy, for purposes of industrial and political reset, not just in one nation but all nations at once. I get it: that is an ominous statement and hard to wrap one’s brain around the whole of it. In completely ignoring this point, the Select Subcommittee has missed the forest for the trees.

There is really no faulting that conclusion, although even Jeffrey Tucker fails to grasp the degree to which the information which was available to everyone was being cast aside.

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The absolute empirical unvarnished truth about the Pandemic Panic was that it was from the start a propaganda exercise in corporate media based on a profound ignorance—almost certainly a willful ignorance—of the data at hand.

I know this because I wrote about much of that data at the time.

Specifically:

• There was clear evidence in February 2020 that the data coming out of China was tainted.

• There was clear evidence that same month that COVID’s severity outside of China was nowhere near what was being reported inside of China.

• It was acknowledged in March 2020 even in the corporate media that the economic consequences of the lockdowns would be beyond ginormous.

• It was apparent as well that the “experts” completely disregarded the impacts of lockdown and the manufactured recession it created on mortality.

• By April 2020 it was apparent that the “official” COVID mortality stats were both tainted and being constantly “revised” (fudged).

• When the mask mandates were rolled out in April 2020, they went against a full DECADE of established peer-reviewed research into universal masking as a way to mitigate the spread of infectious respiratory disease (i.e., COVID).

• It was readily apparent as well that the mass testing imposed worldwide was completely ineffective at either tracking or helping contain the spread of the virus.

• Even before the mRNA inoculations were implemented, the CDC’s own mortality data showed that COVID was not the deadly disease it was made out to be.

As with all of my work, everything contained in these articles from 2020 used publicly available data that literally anyone could access. No special credentials were needed. All of this data is “open source”, as it were.

If I had it then, all the “brightest scientists and medical experts” had it as well. They had all of this data and presumably much, much, more, and yet we must still be saddled with this ludicrous lie that COVID-19 was somehow a “novel” phenomenon?

No.

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Like Jeffrey Tucker, I take a dim view of any government report that puts down government failures as being largely a lack of proper communication and coordination.

Everyone in the corporate world knows that when a committee reduces all problems to “communication and coordination” you are being fed a load of bull.

However, there is an aspect to the issue of communication and coordination that warrants some discussion: the imperative of being intentional and thorough with communication and coordination in any crisis event.

Having spent a quarter-century in information technology, my work as a Voice and Data Network Engineer put me in the center of a number of crises of various degrees of severity: server crashes, network outages, denial-of-service attacks, and even severe weather events such as the aftermath of major hurricanes. I have had to address not only coordinating a variety of resources to resolve the issues at hand, but I have also had to brief a number of different stakeholders in the affected organizations.

I speak from experience, therefore, when I say that in any crisis, it is imperative that one follows the data. It is imperative to stay abreast of what is happening and what has changed.

When it comes to grappling with the pandemic disease COVID-19, known colloquially as "coronavirus", our best weapon remains information. The more we know about the disease, what it can do, and where it is going, the better we can prepare, marshal resources, and develop action plans. Priority number one must always be "gather more data", and priority number two must always be "share all data."

Priority number three must always be "keep data current."

Most crises are dynamic. Information changes as events unfold. There is no assurance that what is known on one day will be known on the next. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. It is vital to adapt to changing data, revising our understanding of events as they unfold.

As my writings cited above demonstrate, following the data simply was never done. Quite the contrary, data was largely disregarded. This was glaringly apparent with the obsession over COVID testing, which completely ignored the influenza surveillance system that had been used for years to monitor seasonal influenza.

While keeping current on the available data—all of the available data—is an imperative in crisis communications, that this was not done during the Pandemic Panic is what precipitates all of the lunatic actions that followed. Had the “experts” in and out of government been paying attention to the data that was emerging from elsewhere in the world, it would have been apparent that lockdowns would not work. They failed in China and in Italy before they had a chance to fail here in the United States, which means that the “experts” here in the United States had the opportunity to know long before they tried the lunacy of lockdowns that it was not going to work.

There is no denial that the lockdowns were a failure. That question was laid to rest in 2022.

Remember, my work is done using publicly available information. If I have the data, everyone has the data. If I could see from that data that the lockdowns were a failure everyone could study that same data and reach that same conclusion.

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As the lockdowns were both not effective and not needed, there was never any need to take testing and approval shortcuts with the mRNA inoculations. The “emergency” under which Emergency Use Authorization was used to rush the shots into use didn’t actually exist.

More importantly, the publicly available information at the time made it absolutely clear that the “emergency” did not exist.

There was no need to ignore the many red flags and warning signs that emerged as soon as the mRNA inoculations were pushed into wide use.

Nor is there any doubt that ignoring those red flags caused people to suffer needlessly.

As many commentators have pointed out, “mistakes were not made”. We know that in at least some regards the government outright lied, as the CDC did when it came to their commitment to safety monitoring of the mRNA inoculations.

Certainly virtually everyone in government lied about the ability of the mRNA inoculations to actually halt the spread of the virus.

Yet whether someone was lying or guilty of simple oversight, the reality remains that the publicly available data proved both that there were many—far too many—red flags regarding the inoculations and that there was no need for such frenetic urgency as to circumvent the usual rounds of safety and other testing.

Governments everywhere bear considerable responsibility for ignoring the data. So, too, does corporate media. They created the Pandemic Panic Narrative which became the justification for all of the government excesses within the lunacy known as a “COVID-19 response”. Their “reporting” was pure propaganda, and demonstrably pure propaganda.

This is why I say often “Trust nothing. Verify everything.” If there is one lesson that must be learned from the COVID Pandemic Panic it is that we dare not rely much if at all on others to inform us about anything that is happening in the world.

Doing one’s own research and verifying data for one’s self is the only way to avoid being misled by others. Doing one’s own research is how lies are exposed. Doing one’s own research is the only way to truly be certain about anything. That has always been the case, and the COVID Pandemic Panic is but an extended and extremely brutal proof.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic took 500+ pages to conclude that the government’s response to the Pandemic Panic was a monumental disaster. That should have been an easy conclusion to reach. With the government’s complete disregard of the available data regarding COVID-19, there was never any way the government’s response was going to be anything but a disaster.

Failure was the only possible outcome.

What I hope people conclude from all of the many post-mortems about COVID-19 and the governmental responses to it is to always look past narratives—even one’s own preferred narratives—and look objectively at the objective data about anything. Always follow the data and disregard the narrative.

Trust nothing. Verify everything.

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Yes, I really am that much of a nerd.

Yet writing about monkeypox means I once again end up taking media to task for plain bad reporting. With disease outbreaks especially accurate information and clear communication is essential. Unsurprisingly, we aren’t getting that from the corporate media.

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The BBC gets first dishonorable mention here, for this lamentable headline regarding “the first” recent monkeypox case in Sweden.

One would be forgiven for reading that headline and thinking that monkeypox was spreading in Sweden.

Of course, if one reads the article, the second sentence makes it clear that is not the case:

Sweden's public health agency has recorded what it says is the first case of a more dangerous type of mpox outside the African continent.

The person became infected during a stay in an area of Africa where there is currently a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1, the agency said.

The news comes just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the outbreak of mpox in parts of Africa was now a public health emergency of international concern.

What happened in Sweden was that a person returned from a trip to Africa recently with a monkeypox infection in its incubation period.

This is unsurpising. In 2022 the incubation period for monkeypox was assessed at an average of between 8.51 and 9.1 days2. It takes on average a week and a half after infection for symptoms to appear.

Thus we have one person who traveled outside of Central Africa before showing symptoms. We do not have a fresh monkeypox outbreak erupting in Sweden.

Even worse, however, is that the BBC makes it seem as if monkeypox is not endemic in Sweden. Alas for poor Sweden, however, it is. We know that from the World Health Organization’s collected data on monkeybox.

As happened with countries around the world in 2022, the global STD outbreak of monkeypox came to Sweden, and has stayed in Sweden, with an ongoing background level of cases continuing to occur—proving that the disease has taken up residence in Sweden and is now endemic.

This is an important detail, because the 2022 global STD outbreak of monkeypox involved the much less lethal Clade 2 strains, while the current outbreak in central Africa involves the more lethal Clade 1 and Clade 1b strains.

There are two types of Clade 1 and the Swedish case has been identified as Clade 1b. Since mpox Clade 1b was first witnessed in Democratic Republic of Congo there have been confirmed cases in Burundi, Kenya and Rwanda, before the new case identified in Sweden.

While Clade 2 did cause a public health emergency in 2022, it was relatively mild and some 300 cases have already been identified in Sweden.

While the single Clade 1b case in Sweden does not mean Clade 1b is now endemic there, it does mean that Sweden needs to pay attention to which Clade is the cause of a particular case of monkeypox. Obviously, Clade 1b becoming endemic in Sweden would be a significant change in the public health landscape.

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More broadly, however, we should note with favor that the global corporate media is not, at least at present, spinning monkeypox into a new Pandemic Panic Hysteria. A Google News survey of world news stories as of this writing does not show any involving monkeypox. The same holds true for US stories: no monkeypox. Only when one zeroes in on Health stories does monkeypox command Google’s attention.

Corporate media is noting that European health officials are raising their threat assessment of monkeypox following, although Reuters is at present using measured and accurate language:

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on Friday raised its risk level for mpox, a day after global health officials confirmed the first infection with a new strain of the virus outside Africa, in Sweden.

The EU public health body's head said there will be more imported cases of the new mpox strain in Europe in the coming weeks, though the risk of sustained transmission remains low.

All of which makes Jordan Schachtel’s headline for his Substack “The Dossier” needlessly inflammatory.

The WHO is a lamentable organization which is grotesque in its politicization of disease and public health. They are even more lamentable given, as I noted the other day, their studied indifference to monkeypox in Central Africa, where it has been an ongoing issue since before the 2022 global STD outbreak.

While a Clade 1 or Clade 1b outbreak of monkeypox within the United States will undoubted trigger a cascade of corporate media pearl-clutching and would have an impact on the dynamics of the current election cycle, at present that has not happened.

Where corporate media is heading with the monkeypox story is they are once again promoting vaccines as the savior of all mankind. Forbes was quick to highlight how Bavarian Nordic, the maker of JYNNEOS™, the current FDA approved monkeypox vaccine, is seeing its stock move higher on the news—because obviously they have an opportunity to sell more shots.

“The Conversation” dutifully trundled out a virologist, Cheryl Walter, to remind us that Africa was struggling with monkeypox because there were not enough doses of vaccine.

There are few resources to fight this disease and the shortage of vaccines is a major problem. The Africa Centres for Disease Control estimates there are only 200,000 doses available to African countries compared with a demand of at least 10 million.

However, there’s still a lot that can be done.

What both Ms. Walter and the Forbes article fail to address is that JYNNEOS is problematic as a monkeypox vaccine. As an orthopox vaccine it is only slightly better than its predecessor ACAM20003. It also does not appear to be very long-lasting, as booster shots are recommended every two years where people are at risk for repeated exposure (such as in Africa).

JYNNEOS’ efficacy at preventing infection is significantly lower than one might expect. During the 2022 global STD outbreak its efficacy was assessed at around 66%4. With one out of every three JYNNEOS vaccinations likely to fail, and with re-vaccination needed every two years, Africa is almost certainly understating the number of doses needed for an effective vaccination campaign.

What Ms. Walter also overlooks is that the 2022 global STD outbreak was not contained in the US through vaccines, but through behavior adaptation5.

Unlike Infectious Respiratory Diseases such as COVID, monkeypox requires contact with either an infected person or personal items such as soiled bed linens.

Person-to-person transmission of mpox can occur through direct contact with infectious skin or other lesions such as in the mouth or on genitals; this includes contact which is

• face-to-face (talking or breathing)

• skin-to-skin (touching or vaginal/anal sex)

• mouth-to-mouth (kissing)

• mouth-to-skin contact (oral sex or kissing the skin)

• respiratory droplets or short-range aerosols from prolonged close contact

The virus then enters the body through broken skin, mucosal surfaces (e g oral, pharyngeal, ocular, genital, anorectal), or via the respiratory tract. Mpox can spread to other members of the household and to sex partners. People with multiple sexual partners are at higher risk.

Animal to human transmission of mpox occurs from infected animals to humans from bites or scratches, or during activities such as hunting, skinning, trapping, cooking, playing with carcasses, or eating animals. The extent of viral circulation in animal populations is not entirely known and further studies are underway.

People can contract mpox from contaminated objects such as clothing or linens, through sharps injuries in health care, or in community setting such as tattoo parlours.

This means that sanitation, hygiene, and isolation of infected individuals is effective against monkeypox—which the 2022 global STD outbreak demonstrated. Isolating an infected individual for the duration of the infection—typically 2-4 weeks6—will arrest the spread of the virus, with or without vaccination.

The DRC and other nations in Africa do not need additional doses of vaccine nearly as much as they need better sanitation and hygiene resources and expanded/improved facilities for properly isolating infected individuals so as to arrest viral spread. PPE and similar supplies would be far more immediately impactful in the DRC than vials of vaccine.

Downplaying this messaging in favor of vaccination, either for Africa or the rest of the world, is simply irresponsible journalism.

Monkeypox is not the “Election Variant”, but rather the latest “Big Pharma Advertising Variant”.

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Where corporate media is coming up far short of where it should be is, as I mentioned previously, failing to highlight that monkeypox is not a “new” outbreak in Africa. It’s not a “new” outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Clade 1/1b variants predominate. The WHO’s own data sets make this abundantly clear.

Monkeypox in the DRC has been a growing problem really since before the 2022 global STD outbreak. Corporate media really should be ashamed of itself as it failed to make that point clear during the 2022 global STD outbreak as well.

With only problematic vaccines available, and not nearly enough doses of those to make a difference, the mission of the Africa CDC and WHO should have been all along to focus on the behavior aspects of how the 2022 global STD outbreak was tamped down without vaccines. Without saying the degree to which they did or did not make efforts in that regard, the data makes plain that any such efforts have failed.

Perversely, corporate media has likely missed a golden opportunity to crank up a fresh pandemic panic outbreak for the United States. What has been largely overlooked and not turned into a sensational and hysteria-producing headline is the fact that the WHO data shows the US has had more monkeypox cases than the DRC until just recently.

A couple of key points here: These are absolute numbers of cases, which means they do not take into account the United States’ greater population (346 million in the US vs 109 million in the DRC). They also do not reflect that the US cases are all Clade 2—echoes from the 2022 global STD outbreak—while the DRC cases are predominantly Clades 1 and 1b.

We should be glad the media is not seizing on this to generate a monkeypox hysteria here in the United States, although USA Today and some other news outlets have noted the fact.

There were no reported cases of clade I mpox in the U.S. as of Thursday. Federal officials say the risk is low, and Daigle said the CDC is monitoring the European case. A few cases of the less severe strain of the virus are still reported each week in the U.S.

At present, corporate media seems content to follow the Federal position that monkeypox Clade 1b is a low risk to the United States proper.

Not that some public health officials are not trying to generate hysteria. Ashwin Vasan, New York City Health Commissioner, is calling for the United States to “act quickly” in the wake of the WHO and Africa CDC public health emergency declarations.

On Thursday, Ashwin Vasan, New York City Health Commissioner, urged the country to act quickly to halt the spread of clade I, noting that “uncertainties cannot delay preparation, and the moment to act is now.”

“As we learn time and again, we are connected, and we cannot stand by and hope that another country’s suffering will not reach us,” Vasan said in a statement. “Prevention means we must be as invested in each other as we are in ourselves. It is not only moral and ethical, but also strategic.”

Vasan naturally ended his pearl-clutching and virtue-signalling with a call for more vaccines for everyone (surprise!)—monkeypox is the latest “Big Pharma Advertising Variant” after all.

Lamentably, Vasan’s statement itself was the epitome of the non-serious non-scientific pontification that passes for responsible commentary by public health officials today. Particularly obnoxious is his choice of framing how the 2022 global STD outbreak was contained as “pathbreaking”.

For the second time in just over two years, the World Health Organization has declared mpox a global health emergency. This action was necessary, and as the Health Commissioner of New York City – which was the epicenter of the mpox outbreak in the United States – we have learned many lessons from the 2022 outbreak, and we are prepared. While the current risk to New Yorkers and Americans is low, we must not only plan ahead but act now. In 2022, New York City introduced a range of pathbreaking interventions that were adopted all over the country. But it was not easy. Outbreaks are difficult to control, and it is sometimes challenging to predict exactly who will be affected. These uncertainties cannot delay preparation, and the moment to act is now.

Of course, what those “pathbreaking interventions” actually entailed was—yep, you guessed it!—more ways to vaccinate people.

In partnership with community, New York City consistently rolled out first-in-the-nation interventions. For example, New York City introduced a vaccination strategy that was followed nationally. In June 2022, using limited vaccine doses allocated to the City from the federal government, New York became the first jurisdiction to launch “extended PEP” vaccination clinics around Pride week – which opened vaccination to New Yorkers at risk of having had a recent exposure, rather than limiting to people who were a known contact of someone diagnosed with mpox. This innovative vaccine strategy opened a path for expanded vaccination access across the city and country. In addition, in response to concerns from partners, New York City was the first jurisdiction to call for an official change to the name monkeypox – and then eventually moving to unilaterally adopt a name-change for the city even before the WHO’s decision to update the name to mpox.

In the aftermath of COVID, reflexively trying to vaccinate everyone and their pet against monkepox is hardly an innovation.

That the vaccination campaigns were late and ineffective makes the continued crowing about them all the more absurd. Vaccines did not contain the global STD outbreak. People taking a few more cold showers and curtailing their random sex hookups did.

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This has been something of a pet peeve of mine since the early days of the COVID Pandemic Panic Narrative. The early indicator that something was wrong with that narrative was that the data was not matching the media claims.

This should have been a major warning flag for private individuals as well as public health officials alike, because following the data and responding to that data should have been considered crisis management 101.

Unsurprisingly, we saw the same mistakes repeated during the 2022 global STD outbreak of monkeypox.

Public health officials are supposed to be effective at crisis communications—that’s an essential part of the job.

Corporate media types are supposed to be effective at communications, period. That is what journalism is meant to be all about: effectively communicating ideas and information to the wider audience.

Yet once again, crucial data is being ignored, data that significantly impacts how any media narrative might evolve:

• This is not a “new” outbreak, nor even one that began earlier this year, but is one that has been ongoing for over two years.

• This is not an outbreak which is global in scope. This is not a “global” crisis but an African one—and hopefully will remain that way.

• JYNNEOS is not an highly effective vaccine and is not available in quantities needed for a mass vaccination campaign.

• Non-pharmaceutical approaches to containing monkeypox were what brought the global STD outbreak to a halt in 2022. Vaccines came too late in the game to play a significant role. Minimizing exposure to infected bodily fluids is a mitigation which is immediately available to everyone without expensive vaccines or cumbersome logistics for medical supplies.

Monkeypox is not a new plague, and the world is not on the verge of a new pandemic. The world is not even seeing the need for an increased supply of JYNNEOS vaccine doses.

What the world is seeing is the extent to which indifferent and ineffective NGOs have failed to contain monkeypox (along with a number of other diseases) in Africa, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular. What the world is seeing is just how wasteful monies spent on these inept agences is.

What the world is seeing is the degree to which Africa (and the rest of the Third World) are routinely ignored and ill-treated by the very agencies created presumably to those countries.

Monkeypox is on the rise in the DRC now because the WHO and Africa CDC have failed to address it for at least the past two years. People are being sickened and a few are even dying because of the incompetence of the WHO and Africa CDC.

That’s what the data really shows, and that’s where the narrative should be focused.

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The reality is that monkeypox has never actually gone away. However, the reality is also that the disease is concentrated in Africa—where it has always been—and there is little indication of it spreadhing beyond that continent.

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It is a testament to the extent which “Science™” is no longer capable of serious critical thinking that at one time was a prerequisite for “good science” and good science reporting that ScienceAlert gave its write-up of the Monkeypox outbreak this headline.

Certainly their lead paragraphs give the situation in Africa a dire aspect.

Alarmed by the surge in mpox cases, the Africa Centres for Disease Control has taken the unprecedented step of declaring the outbreak sweeping through African countries a continental public health emergency.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is also meeting to decide whether to trigger its highest global alert level over the epidemic.

These moves come after a virulent strain of the disease spread rapidly to 16 countries and six new countries were affected in 10 days.

There have been 15,132 mpox confirmed cases in Africa since the beginning of 2024. Some of the countries affected are Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Uganda and Kenya.

Certainly, 15,000+ confirmed cases of monkeypox in Africa since the beginning of the year is cause for concern.

Still, we should not overlook a fundamental hypocrisy at play here: While it took 15,000+ cases in Africa to become a problem, in 2022 it only took just over 100 cases outside of Africa to scare everybody.

Beginning around 13 May 2022, cases of monkeypox infection have been reported to the WHO from countries outside the region in Africa where the disease is known to be endemic, and with no established travel links to that region. As of 21 May, all confirmed cases of monkeypox within this current outbreak have been identified as belonging to the less severe West African clade, which has a mortality rate of around 1% (the Central African clade has a mortality rate of 10%).

Side note: media reports which reference a 10% mortality rate are referencing the Central African clade, not the West African clade,which is the one currently in global circulation. This subtle factual error is the result of considerable media exaggeration of the severity of the outbreak.

As of this writing, there are 109 confirmed cases of monkeypox, 3 probable cases, and 92 suspected cases. As the outbreak is ongoing, these numbers will change substantially day by day.

Indeed, as Monkeypox Mania gripped the world during the summer of 2022, Africa was studiously and even deliberately ignored, as close study of the data revealed at the time.

Including suspected cases, there are 2,674 monkeypox cases within Africa and 11 “confirmed” deaths as of the most recent weekly bulletin (Bulletin 32, 1-7 August 2022). The confirmed attribute is relevant because up through WHO-Africa’s Weekly Bulletin on Outbreaks and Other Emergencies Number 30 (18-24 July 2022), suspected deaths were being reported as well, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had 65 suspected deaths as of that report period. Reporting after that only counted confirmed deaths.

Intriguingly, Weekly Bulletin 31, the first bulletin focusing on confirmed deaths (and thus dropping the DRC deaths to 0), came right after the WHO declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergnency of International Concern on July 23.

Including all suspected cases there are reports of nearly 3,000 cases of monkeypox in Africa, and over 100 deaths just in 2022.

At least 2,947 monkeypox cases have been reported in 11 African countries this year, including 104 deaths, but most of the cases reported are suspect ones because the African continent also lacks enough diagnostic resources for thorough testing, the Africa CDC director said.

It is worth noting that at least 81 people died from suspected monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during 2021, another 229 died in 2020, and 107 more died in 2019.

Since epidemiological week 1 up to week 49 in 2021, 2 898 cases have been reported with 81 deaths (CFR 2.8%). Between epidemiological week 1 and week 53 of 2020, a total of 6 257 suspected cases including 229 deaths (CFR 3.7%) were reported in 133 health zones from 17 out of 26 provinces in the country. During the same period in 2019, 5 288 suspected cases and 107 deaths (CFR 2.0%) were reported in 132 health zones from 18 provinces. Overall, there was a regressive trend from epidemiological week 33 to 53 of 2020 (276 cases vs 76 cases)

However, despite having the most confirmed deaths from monkeypox in 2022, as well as hundreds of suspected deaths just in the DRC since 2019, Africa has at this time zero doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine, which is currently the only FDA-approved vaccine for monkeypox.

Not only was the much higher death toll in Africa being studiously ignored, the WHO even fudged the numbers to minimize the African outbreak.

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That history is essential context, because to hear the Director-General of the Africa CDC H.E Dr. Jean Kaseya tell it, as he did at the closing of his remarks announcing that monkeypox was now a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS), the virus was unexpected.

Mpox may have taken us by surprise, but it will not defeat us. Together, we will rise above this challenge. Together, we will protect our people, our future, and our continent.

Exactly how the Africa CDC can claim to be surprised by monkeypox in August when it was tracking the cases since at least the springtime is a mystery, especially as in March alone there were 181 monkeypox cases reported in all of Africa.

Pity the WHO neglected to notify Africa CDC of this data, otherwise Dr. Kaseya might have acted a bit sooner, given the emphasis he placed on swift and decisive action during his PHECS remarks.

We declare today this PHECS to mobilize our institutions, our collective will, and our resources to act—swiftly and decisively. It empowers us to forge new partnerships, to strengthen our health systems, to educate our communities, and to deliver life-saving interventions where they are needed most.

But declarations alone will not suffice. Words must be matched with deeds.
And today, I commit to you that Africa CDC will lead this fight with every resource at our disposal. Together with our partners, we will deploy experts, bolster our laboratories, and enhance in-country and cross-border surveillance systems. We will work with governments, international partners, and local communities to ensure that every African, from the bustling cities to the remotest villages, is protected.

The reality of monkeypox in Africa is that the cases have been steadily climbing all year, even as they have been dropping in other parts of the world.

Calling this outbreak “new”, as Vox does, significantly understates the actual disease situation in Africa.

In response to new and resurging mpox outbreaks in multiple African countries, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared mpox a continent-wide public health emergency Tuesday. Although many countries outside of Africa rapidly contained an mpox pandemic that began in 2022, large outbreaks continued unabated in west and central Africa. And now, a deadlier strain is spreading across borders in Africa.

Not only is monkeypox not “new” in Africa, the current outbreak does not qualify as “new”.

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The reality is that this outbreak has been building for quite some time—one could even argue this outbreak predates the global STD outbreak of 2022. The more virulent strain of monkeypox which has emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was found in patient samples taken late last year, and was reported in early May.

An analysis of patients hospitalized between October and January in Kamituga, eastern Congo, suggests recent genetic mutations in mpox are the result of its continued transmission in humans; it’s happening in a town where people have little contact with the wild animals thought to naturally carry the disease.

“We’re in a new phase of mpox,” said Dr. Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, the lead researcher of the study, who said it will soon be submitted to a journal for publication. Mbala-Kingebeni heads a lab at Congo’s National Institute of Biomedical Research, which studies the genetics of diseases.

It was in early May the DRC saw a significant uptick in monkeypox cases, according to the Africa CDC—the same Africa CDC which was taken by “surprise” by monkeypox just this week.

Among major news outlets, only CNN framed the outbreak factually, including identifying that the ongoing surge in cases is being driven by the more virulent clade 1b of the virus.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the ongoing mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency.

WHO convened its emergency mpox committee amid concerns that a deadlier strain of the virus, clade Ib, had reached four previously unaffected provinces in Africa. This strain had previously been contained to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Independent experts on the committee met virtually Wednesday to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the severity of the outbreak. After that consultation, he announced Wednesday that he had declared a public health emergency of international concern — the highest level of alarm under international health law.

Broadly, Monkeypox strains are organized into two “clades”, clade I and clade II. The strain that was behind the 2022 global STD outbreak of monkeypox was a clade II strain—which is by far the less lethal of the two clades.

Clade 1b is more lethal still. It emerged last September in the eastern DRC, before being sequenced and identified as a distinct sub-Clade in April. It should be noted that the researchers who identified the strain called for “swift action” at that time.

The researchers said sustained spread in the Kamituga region raises concerns because of its poor healthcare infrastructure, frequent population travel to Rwanda and Burundi, and the fact that a number of the sex workers in Kamituga are foreigners and frequently return to their home countries.

So far, no cases involving the new lineage have been reported outside of the DRC. The group warned, however, "Given the recent history of mpox outbreaks in DRC, we advocate for swift action by endemic countries and the international community to avert another global mpox outbreak."

From April to August for the WHO and Africa CDC to push the panic button on monkeypox apparently is what passes for “swift action”.

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Still, better late than never, right? The WHO and Africa CDC might have been tardy in sounding the alarm on monkeypox, but now that they have done so they can get vaccines out to everyone and stop the disease in its tracks….can’t they? After all, we’re not talking about faux mRNA inoculations, but actual “vaccines” that have been actually tested. So surely they work, don’t they?

About that….

It is true that JYNNEOS™ was approved for monkeypox vaccination in 2019.

As I noted during the 2022 outbreak, however, it had not been clinically tested against monkeypox.

The vaccine that is being urged on people, JYNNEOS™ is a live, non-replicating, vaccinia virus vaccine originally designed as a smallpox vaccine. While it is approved for vaccination against monkeypox, its efficacy as a monkeypox vaccine has never been rigorously tested or studied.

From the CDC Monkeypox vaccination web page (emphasis mine):

Because Monkeypox virus is closely related to the virus that causes smallpox, the smallpox vaccine can protect people from getting monkeypox. Past data from Africa suggests that the smallpox vaccine is at least 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. The effectiveness of JYNNEOS™ against monkeypox was concluded from a clinical study on the immunogenicity of JYNNEOS and efficacy data from animal studies.

Moreover, JYNNEOS™ is only marginally better than the ACAM2000 vaccine it was intended to replace1.

For the first and second questions, regarding recommendation for JYNNEOS as an alternative to ACAM2000 for primary vaccination, the systematic review identified three randomized controlled studies and 15 observational studies including a total of 5,775 subjects. After considering geometric mean titers and seroconversion data together, the Work Group had moderate (level 2) certainty that JYNNEOS provides a small increase in disease prevention compared with that provided by ACAM2000.^† The Work Group estimated with low (level 3) certainty that fewer serious adverse events occur following the JYNNEOS primary series compared with ACAM2000 primary vaccination, and that fewer events of myopericarditis occur after JYNNEOS primary series than after ACAM2000 primary vaccination. Based on the results from the GRADE assessment and EtR framework,^§ ACIP unanimously voted in favor of the JYNNEOS vaccine as an alternative to ACAM2000 for primary vaccination.

Additionally, the vaccine protection does not last long. In environments where monkeypox is endemic (i.e., Africa), the US CDC recommendataion in 2022 was for booster shots every two years.

In addition, persons who received the 2-dose JYNNEOS primary series and who are at ongoing risk^¶¶¶ for occupational exposure to more virulent orthopoxvirus e.g., Variola virus and Monkeypox virus), should receive a booster dose of JYNNEOS every 2 years after the primary JYNNEOS series

In practical terms, JYNNEOS™ was reviewed for efficacy during the 2022 outbreak and found to be only around 66% effective at preventing infection2.

Among 2193 case patients and 8319 control patients, 25 case patients and 335 control patients received two doses (full vaccination), among whom the estimated adjusted vaccine effectiveness was 66.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 47.4 to 78.1), and 146 case patients and 1000 control patients received one dose (partial vaccination), among whom the estimated adjusted vaccine effectiveness was 35.8% (95% CI, 22.1 to 47.1).

As it turned out, for the global STD variant of monkeypox, the 2022 outbreak ultimately was contained not by vaccination but by behavior modification3.

When we overlaid North American Rt estimates alongside the cumulative percentage of high-risk individuals in the USA with mpox vaccine-derived immunity (for description of the data and definitions, see STAR Methods, under data sources), we found that Rt began declining prior to initiation of vaccination in the US (Figure 6A). Vaccine-induced immunity was estimated via a 2-week lag since the date of vaccination. North American Rt estimates fell below one near mid-August 2022, when the cumulative percentage of high-risk individuals with vaccine-derived immunity was less than 8%. Under a susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model of infectious disease dynamics, vaccine-derived immunity impacts disease transmission by removing individuals from the susceptible population in a linear fashion. Before there was any mpox vaccine-derived immunity in the US, North American Rt peaked at 1.49

In other words, the potential for a mass vaccination campaign in Africa to contain the monkeypox outbreak even if the resources were marshalled is not great. The WHO and Africa CDC are most likely looking at non-pharmaceutical interventions to disrupt the spread of the disease—interventions that they have been putting off for as long as they have been ignoring the increasing spread of the disease in Africa.

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The real health crisis surrounding monkeypox in Africa is, sadly, the same one that Africa faced in 2022—a conspicuous lack of public health bureaucracies and officials giving as much a tinker’s damn about Africa.

In 2022, the global outbreak meant that Africa was at the back of the line for the JYNNEOS™ vaccine.

However, despite having the most confirmed deaths from monkeypox in 2022, as well as hundreds of suspected deaths just in the DRC since 2019, Africa has at this time zero doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine, which is currently the only FDA-approved vaccine for monkeypox.

Nor was this accidental. At every turn even the WHO worked to deprioritize Africa with respect to monkeypox response even as it was arguably having the most severe outbreak.

For its part, the WHO has been subtly but persistently working to “memory hole” the unconfirmed “suspected” monkeypox cases in Africa, thereby downplaying the extent of the outbreak in West and Central Africa. The most notable example of this is the decision by the WHO to discard the suspected African cases previously reported from the Disease Outbreak News Bulletin of June 17.

At every turn, a deliberate and demonstrable effort has been made to obscure the distinct African outbreak by subsuming it into the global outbreak, ignoring the multiple differences between the outbreaks to present them as one outbreak rather than two.

Arguably, the 2022 outbreak of monkeypox in Africa—which was demonstrably distinct from the global STD outbreak—has never ended. With varying degrees of intensity it has been ongoing since before the global STD outbreak.

However, unlike the global STD outbreak, the clade 1 and clade 1b strains giving rise to this latest public health emergency carry a significant mortality rate—historically as high as 11%4. As clade 1b has spread in eastern Congo, it has steadily succeeded in claiming lives.

Since January, Congo has reported more than 4,500 suspected mpox cases and nearly 300 deaths, numbers that have roughly tripled from the same period last year, according to the World Health Organization. Congo recently declared the outbreak across the country a health emergency.

The cases in eastern Congo are also significant as they confirm that clade 1 and 1b monkeypox can be transmitted through sexual contact.

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Is monkeypox a truly global health crisis?

Ultimately, no. The current outbreak is still within Africa, and while it is spreading it is not spreading globally. While the presence of spread via sexual contact means that cases could spread globally, the fact that the 2022 outbreak was curtailed largely by behaviorial changes among gay men indicates that similar measures would not only be effective again, but there would be less resistance to their implementation.

Monkeypox is an issue for Africa. Africans are getting infected with monkeypox and some Aftricans are dying as a result. Africans have been getting infected with monkeypox for quite some time, and a signficant number of Africans have been dying as a result.

Contrary to the pearl-clutching in ScienceAlert, monkeypox is not on the verge of “exploding” into a pandemic. Even though clade 1b has been shown to spread through sexual contact, it has not, at this time, found a sufficiently promiscuous patient population to infect that would allow it to be readily spread globally.

The sobering reality of monkeypox is that it only becomes a likely global health issue when it becomes largely sexually spread. Monkeypox spread worldwide in 2022 because public health officials refused to acknowledge that fact even as the data was showing unambiguously that it was spreading via sexual contact.

Moreover, while monkeypox can spread via sexual contact, we should not conflate it with historic STDs such as syphilis. Monkeypox infection is relatively short-lived, after which the patient typically enjoys lifetime immunity. Simple abstinence for a time among promiscuous communities of gay and bisexual men was sufficient to tamp down the global outbreak. There is no reason not to presume it would suffice again should monkeypox spread outside Africa.

Is monkeypox a health issue within Africa? Absolutely. It has been since before the 2022 outbreak. The attention that is being globally paid to monkeypox in Africa should have been paid in 2022. If monkeypox in Africa had been confronted then, the WHO would in all probability not be facing a large outbreak of clade 1b monkeypox today.

The real health crisis surrounding monkeypox in Africa is still one of bureaucratic indifference. Sadly, there no reason to believe that is going to change even now. For all the willingness of the public health bureaucrats to posture and pontificate, the one thing they are not willing to do is give a damn.

People in Africa are going to continue to die from monkeypox because of that.

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CDC released today updated recommendations for how people can protect themselves and their communities from respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. The new guidance brings a unified approach to addressing risks from a range of common respiratory viral illnesses, such as COVID-19, flu, and RSV, which can cause significant health impacts and strain on hospitals and health care workers. CDC is making updates to the recommendations now because the U.S. is seeing far fewer hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19 and because we have more tools than ever to combat flu, COVID, and RSV.

Four years after the Pandemic Panic upended pretty much the entire world, the CDC has finally acknowledged what was patently obvious from the moment the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first identified as a coronavirus: COVID-19 is another form of Influenza Like Illness—it is by definition “just the flu”. The reason all the mass testing was utterly ineffective at stopping the virus was because it is in every particular an influenza like illness.

By far the most significant aspect of the new unified guidelines is the ending of extended period of isolation for COVID patients.

When people get sick with a respiratory virus, the updated guidance recommends that they stay home and away from others. For people with COVID-19 and influenza, treatment is available and can lessen symptoms and lower the risk of severe illness. The recommendations suggest returning to normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, symptoms are improving overall, and if a fever was present, it has been gone without use of a fever-reducing medication.

In other words, if you’re sick, stay home, get some rest, and let your body fight it off—exactly the way parents have been treating their sick children for decades.

Four years of hysteria, panic, and propaganda, and the CDC has landed exactly where the Pandemic Panic all started—with COVID-19 being “just the flu”.

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Even corporate media has not been able to avoid the admission that COVID is now “just the flu”, although media outlets have, by and large, avoided that rather obvious phrasing.

That people who test positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus no longer need to isolate was the lede for most of the media coverage of the new guidelines.

From NBC News:

People who test positive for Covid no longer need to isolate for five days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

The CDC’s new guidance now matches public health advice for flu and other respiratory illnesses: Stay home when you’re sick, but return to school or work once you’re feeling better and you’ve been without a fever for 24 hours.

From the New York Times:

Americans with Covid or other respiratory infections need not isolate for five days before returning to work or school, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday, a striking sign of changing attitudes toward the coronavirus.

People with respiratory illnesses may resume daily activities if they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the aid of medications and if their symptoms are improving, agency officials said.

The Wall Street Journal acknowledged in its headline that COVID was “like the flu”.

The Wall Street Journal also conceded that COVID was “no longer an emergency.”

A case of Covid no longer means isolating for five days, according to the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday. It’s the latest sign of the virus’s normalization four years after it upended our lives.

You should now follow the same precautions with Covid as you take with the flu, according to new guidelines from the CDC. That means staying home until you’ve gone a day with no fever and improving symptoms. Take other precautions for the next five days, including wearing a mask and limiting close contact with others.

Those are the same steps the CDC recommends for other respiratory viruses.

“Covid-19 is still an important public health threat, but it is not the emergency that it once was,” said Dr. Brendan Jackson, who leads the respiratory virus response for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, on Friday. 

ABC News went so far as to concede—well down in their reporting—that the new guidelines were comparable to longstanding recommendations for all Influenza Like Illness:

The newer guidelines are in line with what the CDC has recommended for the flu "for decades," the agency said.

"The bottom line is that when people follow these actionable recommendations to avoid getting sick, and to protect themselves and others if they do get sick, it will help limit the spread of respiratory viruses, and that will mean fewer people who experience severe illness," Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a statement. "That includes taking enhanced precautions that can help protect people who are at higher risk for getting seriously ill."

CBS News reported that the CDC acknowledged that COVID was “no longer the emergency it once was”, and that it was ending special guidance for COVID in favor of the unified approach to Influenza Like Illness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday it would wind down much of its remaining guidance specifically targeted at COVID-19, including an official end to a pandemic-era plea for Americans to stay home for five days after testing positive.

The agency cited improvements in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths inflicted by the virus this past season for the change in its recommendations.

"COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses," the agency said Friday in a report justifying its decision.

Not only has the CDC “thrown in the towel” on COVID as a dire public health threat, but the corporate media has now completely abandoned and declared “finis” on the Pandemic Panic Narrative.

COVID is no longer the urgent public health threat of our time—not that it ever was.

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The CDC justified its new guidance by noting the declines in hospitalization. At least they are looking at their own data, and can see that hospitalizations now are less than they were this time last year.

But what the CDC is not acknowledging is how hospitalizations have not come even close to matching the initial peaks for roughly two years now.

The Omicron wave was truly the end of the COVID “pandemic” (assuming we should still call the infection waves a pandemic). The data made that plain by the end of 2022, when the “waves” that had occurred in this country peaked well below prior waves—and the 2023-2024 winter wave of COVID peaked well below the 2022 waves.

When we look at the death rates attributed to COVID, we see much the same thing: less death this year than last.

But when we look at the trend since the beginning of the “pandemic”, it is even more apparent with COVID deaths than with COVID hospitalizations that the “emergency” ended long ago.

COVID stopped being majorly lethal to anyone in the US by the spring of 2022. It took the CDC two years to admit what their own data has been showing unambiguously since then.

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What the CDC cannot avoid acknowledging is that COVID is not a public health emergency in the United States today. Their own rating systems and coverage maps make that abundantly clear.

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We should be glad that the CDC is admitting the obvious. This much is absolutely good news.

But we should also not forget that the CDC is only now acknowledging a truth that has been evident for years, since the start of the Pandemic Panic. Even the clinical research has shown that COVID has been less of a health threat than Respiratory Syncytial Virus and only somewhat more of a threat than influenza.

Throughout 2022, Omicron was demonstrably not the greatest infectious disease threat facing Swedish pediatric patients. Respiratory syncytial virus was, and by a wide margin.

Equally important was that Omicron was not that much greater a threat to pediatric patients than influenza.

Nor should we forget that the public health impact of COVID has been far less than the corporate media would have us believe.

Yet while an individual case of “the flu” may be mild or severe, the public health impact of cases of “the flu” are typically minimal. The CDC data sets demonstrate this in abundance.

On a nationwide basis, combined Emergency Department visits for COVID, Flu (Influenza) and RSV never exceeded 10% of all ED visits.

Even if we break it down by state, such as in California, we still do not see all respiratory virus activity accounting for more than 10% of ED visits.

But it is not merely since 2022 that COVID has failed to have major public health impact. Even in 2021, hospitals were not being overwhelmed by COVID patients.

And even during the initial 2020 waves of infection, COVID was never the killer that was claimed by the media.

Even in 2020, COVID was never putting people in hospitals to the extent that was claimed by the media.

While it is good news that the CDC is acknowledging the reality of COVID today, we should not forget that the CDC has been complicit along with the corporate media in denying that the reality of COVID today has, in large measure, been the reality of COVID all along.

COVID is not a public health emergency today, and yes, it is right for the CDC to acknowledge that.

What is wrong is for the CDC to still pretend that COVID ever was a public health emergency.

What is wrong is for the corporate media to still pretend that the Pandemic Panic—and all the lunacies and lockdowns that resulted—were ever justified. That was shown to be false over a year ago.

The “emergency” the CDC says no longer exists has never existed. The data has shown from the beginning that the “emergency” never existed. The Pandemic Panic Narrative was never anything but an easily debunked and disproven lie.

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Panic and fear are never a good response to disease, and are a poor basis for any public health policy. Propaganda is destructive in any circumstance, but in the realm of healthcare it is downright lethal.

The data on COVID since the beginning has shown us this.

Bureaucrats are horrible at healthcare, and politicians are positively dangerous when they decide to muck around in healthcare.

The data on COVID since the beginning has shown us this.

Be glad the CDC is conceding the obvious, that COVID is not now a public health crisis. But do not stop being outraged and infuriated that the CDC will not concede that COVID was never a public health crisis. Do not stop being angry at the lies that have been told, at the corruption that has been not just tolerated, but actively celebrated. Do not stop seeking not just answers but accountability.

The CDC is finally acknowledging the truth about COVID. They also need to acknowledge their role in trying to conceal that truth for the past four years.

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Documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a House committee and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the virus’s structure to a U.S. government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019. Chinese officials at that time were still publicly describing the disease outbreak in Wuhan, China, as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause” and had yet to close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, site of one of the initial Covid-19 outbreaks.

China only shared the virus’s sequence with the World Health Organization on Jan. 11, 2020, according to U.S. government timelines of the pandemic.

What makes the revelation of this earlier attempt to publish the genetic structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus noteworthy is that: 1) the upload was deleted, and 2) according to documents obtained by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, China has insisted that the sequence shared with the WHO on January 11 was the earliest available sequence data.

The sequence was submitted by Dr. Lili Ren, an accomplished virologist at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army. She is also a current subgrantee of non-profit EcoHealth Alliance on the same National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) grant as the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which has been debarred from receiving NIH grants for ten years for failing to provide laboratory records requested by NIH and for conducting research that “did lead or could lead to health issues or other unacceptable outcomes.” 

Dr. Ren’s submission was missing some of the technical (not scientific) information required for publication on GenBank. She was notified by NIH staff on December 31, 2019, that her submission would be deleted without the additional information. Dr. Ren’s sequence is not the first instance of Chinese researchers attempting to delete early SARS-CoV-2 sequences posted to GenBank, but it is the earliest known one. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has confirmed that Dr. Ren’s December 28, 2019, sequence was nearly identical to the sequence later made public by the China CDC on January 10, 2020, which at the time was the first known sequence. China has consistently stated that it published the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 as soon as it was available. 

This latest revelation of secrecy and duplicity on China’s part is yet another reminder of the degree to which China has sought to conceal what it knows of the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The newly unearthed information points to yet more evidence of the CCP's lack of transparency on the origins of COVID-19.

"This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called ‘facts’ or data provided by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information," said committee chair McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA), in a joint letter, the Epoch Times reports.

Yet there is another aspect of this revelation that deserves consideration: the provenance of that earlier aborted upload by China to GenBank highlights also that nothing has changed within the governmental “biosecurity state” that exists around the globe. All the same actors are in all the same places, they are all doing the same things, and they are all still playing God with viruses and with people’s health.

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Straight away, we are confronted with an awkward reality regarding the December 28 upload to GenBank: Dr. Lili Ren was a “subgrantee” of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak’s infamous non-profit that went to great lengths to funnel US taxpayer dollars to Chinese biolabs.

Ren is also notably a sub-grantee of the controversial nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.

The New York-based organization helped fund coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese lab that has long been scrutinized as the possible origin of COVID-19.

EcoHealth directed funds from grants it received from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to the Wuhan lab, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has now been barred from receiving US funding for the next 10 years over evidence the pandemic originated at the Chinese lab.

Equally curious—and suspicious—is the reason why the earlier GenBank upload was never made public.

National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) GenBank repository, which received the data from Ms. Ren, notified the Chinese virologist that the submission was “incomplete” and “lacked the necessary information required for publication,” the Department of Health and Human Services told the House committee in a letter.

Following a quality review process that screens for technical details, the GenBank asked for additional information from Ms. Ren, who works at the state-run Institute of Pathogen Biology, but never heard back, leading to the sequence’s removal from the database on Jan. 16, 2020. During this period, GenBank received a near-identical COVID-19 genetic sequence from a different submitter, which it published on Jan. 12, 2020, according to the letter that the Energy and Commerce Committee released on Jan. 17 this year.

Thus Ms. Ren attempted to submit the genetic sequence data, flubbed the submission process, and then “went dark” when NIH personnel attempted to contact her to get additional technical information not involving the actual sequence itself.

Did she simply go silent because she thought she had done all she needed to do? Was she told not to follow up with NIH? Did government watchers in Beijing block the communications so that she never saw them?

We do not know the reasons for her lack of communication with NIH after the upload. We do know that at least one Chinese researcher was in possession of the genetic structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at least two weeks before China officially acknowledged having sequenced a new coronavirus—which makes China’s insistence that it shared the data at the earliest opportunity factually false.

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Dr. Ren’s association with EcoHealth reminds us yet again of just how deeply that organization is woven into nearly every narrative on COVID-19, including corporate media’s Pandemic Panic Narrative—and how EcoHealth continues to feed at the taxpayer trough despite having facilitated gain-of-function research at various Chinese biolabs.

EcoHealth Alliance, the controversial organization at the center of the Covid-19 pandemic, has continued to receive taxpayer money to study contagious animal-borne viruses in Asia and Africa. 

Records from the government's USA Spending database show EHA has been awarded at least eight grants totaling more than $32million from the Department of Defense since 2017 for projects involving experiments with coronaviruses, Ebola and MERS.

EHA, led by British zoologist Peter Daszak, is a New York-based organization that has funneled taxpayer dollars awarded from the National Institutes of Health to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducts risky gain-of-function research.

These types of experiments see scientists intentionally alter viruses to make them more infectious or deadly - and the WIV is the lab Covid is believed to have been created and leaked from, sparking a worldwide epidemic that is estimated to have directly or indirectly killed more than 22million people. 

Despite EHA's connection to the WIV and Covid, six of the government grants were initiated after the pandemic spread across the globe. 

EcoHealth is a disturbing reminder of the degree to which US taxpayers fund all manner of research in China—not all of it entirely ethical.

EcoHealth itself has an ethically checkered past particularly in relation to COVID and the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Documents unearthed via FOIA requests record EcoHealth’s efforts to secure government funding for a research “project”—project Defuse—to insert “spike proteins” into an existing SARS viral sequence.

A newly-uncovered trove of documents detailing plans to create a Covid-like virus in China months before the pandemic make the 'lab leak almost certain', experts say.

The records - obtained now by FOIA requests - lay out a plan to 'engineer spike proteins' to infect human cells that would then be 'inserted into SARS-Covid backbones' at the infamous Wuhan virology lab from December 2018.

Just a year later, in late 2019, the Covid-19 virus emerged with a uniquely adept ability to infect humans, going on to cause a global pandemic. 

The proposal was made by the now-notorious EcoHealth Alliance, a New York nonprofit that channels US government grants abroad to fund these types of experiments.

Ultimately, the application was denied by the US Department of Defense, but critics say the plans laid out in the proposal serve as a 'blueprint' for how to create Covid.

Readers will note that one of the architects of Project Defuse was Ralph Baric, another advocate of gain-of-function research who appears time and again in the narratives surrounding COVID and the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Even the apologists within the academic media have not been able to fully avoid the reality that Baric’s “reverse genetics” techniques and his ideas for grafting different spike proteins onto an existing SARS-like virus come uncomfortably close to the apparent evolution of the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus.

In 2013, the American virologist Ralph Baric approached Zhengli Shi at a meeting. Baric was a top expert in coronaviruses, with hundreds of papers to his credit, and Shi, along with her team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, had been discovering them by the fistful in bat caves. In one sample of bat guano, Shi had detected the genome of a new virus, called SHC014, that was one of the two closest relatives to the original SARS virus, but her team had not been able to culture it in the lab.

Baric had developed a way around that problem—a technique for “reverse genetics” in coronaviruses. Not only did it allow him to bring an actual virus to life from its genetic code, but he could mix and match parts of multiple viruses. He wanted to take the “spike” gene from SHC014 and move it into a genetic copy of the SARS virus he already had in his lab. The spike molecule is what lets a coronavirus open a cell and get inside it. The resulting chimera would demonstrate whether the spike of SHC014 would attach to human cells.

In other words, Ralph Baric specializes in playing God with viral pathogens.

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Did EcoHealth divert funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to move Baric’s Project Defuse idea forward? They claim they didn’t, but at the same time we are faced with numerous contacts between EcoHealth’s Peter Daszak and Shi Zhengli—the Wuhan Institute’s infamous “bat lady” for her research on bat coronaviruses—as well as Shi Zhengli and NIAID’s Anthony “The Science™” Fauci, contacts which defy easy explanation and raise questions about the research actually being done in Wuhan.

Scientists central to the “lab-leak” theory of COVID-19’s origins visited Anthony Fauci’s institute at the National Institutes of Health in 2017 to discuss their research months before the NIH resumed creating new viruses in the lab — a practice scientists have debated could cause a pandemic.

Wuhan Institute of Virology Scientist Shi Zhengli, known as “the bat woman of China” for her research on SARS-like coronaviruses in bat caves, presented her findings on novel coronaviruses to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases staffers in June 2017, according to a report by U.S. Right to Know.

EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. research organization that funded Shi’s lab, arranged the meeting, which the group’s president Peter Daszak dubbed a “double act” between him and Shi.

We are also faced with emails and other documents attesting to both Fauci’s and Daszak’s knowledge of “novel coronavirus” research taking place in Wuhan.

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the NIH and by FOIA, reveal that Fauci and his top aides were aware of the novel coronavirus research underway at the pandemic’s epicenter well before 2020.

Despite this, Fauci did not mention the 2017 meeting with Daszak in 2022 during a sworn deposition with the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana. The deposition was part of a lawsuit alleging that he and other White House officials leaned on social media companies to limit debate about COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic.

We should remember also that NIH-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—research which again involved EcoHealth Alliance—resulted in at least some gain-of-function research being performed, in flagrant violation of the research grant’s terms.

The experiment also raises questions about assertions from Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins that NIH-funded projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not involve gain-of-function research. In May, Fauci testified before Congress: “The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” The documents do not establish whether Fauci was directly aware of the work.

Scientists working under a 2014 NIH grant to the EcoHealth Alliance to study bat coronaviruses combined the genetic material from a “parent” coronavirus known as WIV1 with other viruses. They twice submitted summaries of their work that showed that, when in the lungs of genetically engineered mice, three altered bat coronaviruses at times reproduced far more quickly than the original virus on which they were based. The altered viruses were also somewhat more pathogenic, with one causing the mice to lose significant weight. The researchers reported, “These results demonstrate varying pathogenicity of SARSr-CoVs with different spike proteins in humanized mice.”

But the terms of the grant clearly stipulated that the funding could not be used for gain-of-function experiments. The grant conditions also required the researchers to immediately report potentially dangerous results and stop their experiments pending further NIH review. According to both the EcoHealth Alliance and NIH, the results were reported to the agency, but NIH determined that rules designed to restrict gain-of-function research did not apply.

At every turn, the reveals yield far more questions than answers.

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Yet we need to remember China’s potential role in the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the potential role of gain-of-function research as well, because China is still conducting gain-of-function research into coronaviruses.

The most damning aspect of this research is the explicit admission that the pathogen studied, GX_P2V(short_3UTR) was cultivated in a laboratory setting.

We previously reported that the early passaged GX_P2V isolate was actually a cell culture-adapted mutant, named GX_P2V(short_3UTR), which possesses a 104-nucleotide deletion at the 3’-UTR.

“Cell culture-adapted mutant”—these researchers in Beijing “grew” their very own SARS-CoV-2-related virus and then infected “humanized” mice with it.

They created a dangerous and lethal virus simply for the purpose of “studying” it, and without apparent regard for the risks of what could happen if that virus escapes the lab and in spread around the world. This research is the epitome of playing God with viruses.

Equally disturbing is the reality that EcoHealth Alliance is still hunting for bat coronaviruses on which to tinker.

Note that EcoHealth is still receiving US taxpayer dollars.

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This latest reveal about China’s duplicity on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is yet another reminder that, for far too many virologists around the world, playing God with viruses is merely the status quo. As we learned from Project Veritas’ expose on Pfizer, this not the “new normal”, but rather the “old normal”.

There are many notable quotes to glean from the video, but the telling one comes at the very beginning:

well one of the things we're exploring is, like, why don't we just mutate it ourselves so we could...we could create...preemptively develop new vaccines, right?

Where have we seen this before? For starters, it’s the premise of the Tom Cruise action thriller “Mission Impossible II”, where the villain, Sean Ambrose (played with scenery chewing glee by Dougray Scott), steals a manufactured pathogen, “Chimera”, along with the cure (“Bellerephon”), intending to make billions off the cure after unleashing the pathogen on the world.

Yes, Pfizer is imitating a Tom Cruise movie to make its next billions in profit. That alone should scare the bejesus out of everybody.

Yet we are also reminded of another uncomfortable truth: the secrecy and duplicity which are part and parcel of the modern “biosecurity state” and have been since the inception of government programs in “threat reduction” under the 1990s Nunn-Lugar legislation.

Ultimately, the distinction between what constitutes “bioweapons research” versus “threat reduction research” is a rather Clintonian parsing of the terms.

Regardless of the terms, the research activities involved target dangerous pathogens. Regardless of the terms, the research demands the storage of dangerous pathogens. Regardless of the terms, the research invites if not demands the strictest of scrutiny to ensure it remains within the parameters of the BWC.

Nor should we forget that, for players in the ongoing pandemic psychodrama like Fauci, lying and a casual disregard for both patient safety and human life is as natural as breathing.

Their mendacity and malevolence is so routine, so deeply ingrained, that its most frightening aspect is its banal ordinariness.

Welcome back to the “old normal” in “biosecurity” and “threat reduction”.

This latest reveal about China’s myriad lies and deceptions in early 2020, sadly, is a grim reminder that not only have none of the actors been called to account, but many are still actively doing the very things that likely gifted the world with SARS-CoV-2 and COVID, as well as the Pandemic Panic lunacies which followed.

This latest reveal about China reminds us that, in far too many respects, absolutely nothing has changed since 2020. We have learned nothing. We have done nothing.

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After destroying China’s economy with the insanity of “Zero COVID,” and allowing the novel SARS-CoV-2 pathogen to escape a Wuhan biolab (Wuhan Institute of Virology?), is Beijing still playing God with viruses?

Apparently, the answer is, disturbingly, “yes”.

In a study released in preprint at the beginning of January1, researchers at the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, reported their findings from playing around with a pangolin coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V(short_3UTR) can cause 100% mortality in human ACE2-transgenic mice, potentially attributable to late-stage brain infection. This underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans and provides a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses.

The most damning aspect of this research is the explicit admission that the pathogen studied, GX_P2V(short_3UTR) was cultivated in a laboratory setting.

We previously reported that the early passaged GX_P2V isolate was actually a cell culture-adapted mutant, named GX_P2V(short_3UTR), which possesses a 104-nucleotide deletion at the 3’-UTR.

“Cell culture-adapted mutant”—these researchers in Beijing “grew” their very own SARS-CoV-2-related virus and then infected “humanized” mice with it.

They created a dangerous and lethal virus simply for the purpose of “studying” it, and without apparent regard for the risks of what could happen if that virus escapes the lab and in spread around the world. This research is the epitome of playing God with viruses.

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This latest bit of viral research playing God with viruses began with a pair of pangolin coronaviruses, GD/2019 and GX/2017, which were actually identified prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019. Drs. Wei, et al, tinkered with the GX/2017 coronavirus through “serial passage”, a research technique often used in gain-of-function research2.

The long‐standing practice of serial passage is a form of gain‐of‐function research that forces zoonosis between species, and requires the same molecular adaptations necessary for a natural zoonotic jump to occur within a laboratory, leaving the same genetic signatures behind as a natural jump but occurring in a much shorter period of time.

These researchers had actually documented conducting serial passage on the GX/2017 virus in an earlier paper published in Emerging Microbes & Infections in December of 20223:

SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2r) from Guangdong and Guangxi pangolins have been implicated in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and future pandemics. We previously reported the culture of a SARS-CoV-2r GX_P2V from Guangxi pangolins. Here we report the GX_P2V isolate rapidly adapted to Vero cells by acquiring two genomic mutations: an alanine to valine substitution in the nucleoprotein and a 104-nucleotide deletion in the hypervariable region (HVR) of the 3′-terminus untranslated region (3′-UTR). We further report the characterization of the GX_P2V variant (renamed GX_P2V(short_3UTR)) in in vitro and in vivo infection models.

This time around, they decided to take that lab-cultured virus (which does not exist in nature) and infect “humanized” mice with it.

In this study, we cloned this mutant, considering the propensity of coronaviruses to undergo rapid adaptive mutation in cell culture, and assessed its pathogenicity in hACE2 mice. We found that the GX_P2V(short_3UTR) clone can infect hACE2 mice, with high viral loads detected in both lung and brain tissues. This infection resulted in 100% mortality in the hACE2 mice. We surmise that the cause of death may be linked to the occurrence of late brain infection.

Judging by that finding of “100% mortality”, this lab-grown virus is pretty damn lethal!

Additionally, this particular coronavirus produced a rather significant decrease in body weight among the infected mice.

We initially assessed whether GX_P2V C7 could cause disease in hACE2 mice by monitoring daily weight and clinical symptoms. A total of four 6 to 8-week-old hACE2 mice were intranasally infected with a dosage of 5×10⁵ plaque-forming units (pfu) of the virus. Four mice inoculated with inactivated virus and four mock-infected mice were used as controls. Surprisingly, all the mice that were infected with the live virus succumbed to the infection within 7-8 days post-inoculation, rendering a mortality rate of 100% (Figure 1B). The mice began to exhibit a decrease in body weight starting from day 5 post-infection, reaching a 10% decrease from the initial weight by day 6 (Figure 1C). By the seventh day following infection, the mice displayed symptoms such as piloerection, hunched posture, and sluggish movements, and their eyes turned white. The criteria for clinical scoring of the mice and the daily clinical scores post-infection with GX_P2V C7 are provided in the Supporting Information, Figure S1.

As their charts show, this is a pretty significant and rapid weight loss.

After about a week, the mice all died.

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What exactly was the point of this “research”? What knowledge is gained by crafting yet another lab-only strain of coronavirus and then infecting genetically modified mice with it? Neither the virus nor the lab subjects exist in the natural world, making this a wholly artificial and unrealistic examination of viral infection.

This disconnect from reality is probably one reason some virologists and genetics researchers have described this research as “madness”.

Conversely, the Global Virus Network, which bills itself on X/Twitter as “a worldwide, non-profit network of leading virologists strengthening the response, research, information-sharing, and training in viruses threatening humanity” took the publication of the Chinese research on GX_P2V as an opportunity to advocate for its “recommendations” on how viral research should be conducted and governed4.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, GVN supports the gain-of-function research methods used by the Chinese research team—but it opposes calling it “gain-of-function.”

In microbiology, there are many routine experimental manipulations that alter pathogen phenotypes but do not present heightened risk to humans. A revised oversight policy should acknowledge this by avoiding or building policy around ambiguous terminology, including “gain of function.” Risk should be evaluated based on the pathogen being studied at the outset of the work and iteratively reassessed as new experimental results indicate a change in risk.

It is not clear exactly what is “ambiguous” about the term “gain-of-function”. Such research examines viruses and pathogens by endowing them with new capabilities, such as the capacity to infect different species, increased virulence, increased mortality, et cetera. It very explicitly seeks to create more dangerous versions of existing pathogens as a means of “understanding” them.

The Chinese research team at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology apparently succeeded in this objective: they created a variant of a pangolin coronavirus that killed the entire group of lab mice used for testing.

What did they learn from their research? According to them, they learned that if their lab-created virus ever got out, it might be fairly lethal to humans.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.

They also learned that their research results differed from similar research done by those paragons of ethical viral research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including China’s “Bat Lady” Shi Zhengli—the same researcher whose work involving collecting bat coronaviruses has been implicated in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

The WIV team succeeded in infecting the humanized mice with the GX_P2V strain, but without the mortality5. The Wuhan team also used their research to rebuild support for the much-discredited argument for a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 via pangolins.

Pangolin SARSr-CoV-2 viruses are more distantly related to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13 and the cluster of BANAL viruses from bats in Laos. However, studies based on protein interaction and pseudovirus infection have shown that MpCoV-GX and -GD exhibit higher RBD binding affinity to human ACE2 and higher infectivity in SARS-CoV-2-permissive cell lines than RaTG13, which showed almost no infectivity in various cell lines (22, 36). Furthermore, the S proteins of the pangolin coronaviruses can use ACE2 receptors from a broader range of host species than can the S protein of RaTG13 (23, 36). These findings, along with the results in this study, suggest that despite their lower genetic similarity to SARS-CoV-2, the interspecies infection risk of pangolin coronaviruses cannot be underestimated.

However, as even the Wuhan study admits, pangolin coronaviruses are not nearly as related to SARS-CoV-2 as bat coronaviruses, which argues quite damningly against the pangolin as an intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2.

Was anything actually learned from this creating of a new virus and then killing off a number of lab mice with it? The preprint does not articulate any lessons of significance.

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This confirmation the Chinese are still playing God with viruses is also curiously timed, as this research was published at the same time “Disease X” is grabbing a few headlines, as public health “experts” are openly fretting about the mystery disease of the future which will kill millions of people when it finally does happen.

Global health experts are warning of a new pandemic, dubbed 'Disease X' by the World Health Organisation, that could be 20 times deadlier than Covid-19 and potentially claim 50 million lives. This looming threat could strike at any moment and is likely to have a far greater impact than Covid, which caught the world off guard in early 2020.

Is China preparing the next coronavirus to be released into the wild, having engineered it to be particularly virulent and even deadly? If the “experts” are to be believed about “Disease X”, that is a distinct possibility.

Kate Bingham, who led the UK's Vaccine Taskforce in 2020, has cautioned against complacency now that Covid-19 is seen as a "largely regarded as a routine illness". In a stark warning, she said: "Let me put it this way: the 191819 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I."

"Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist. Today, there are more viruses busily replicating and mutating than all the other life forms on our planet combined. Not all of them pose a threat to humans, of course - but plenty do." She revealed that at the moment, scientists know of 25 virus families, packed with thousands of individual terrible bugs that could become a worldwide sickness.

What is a certainty is that “Disease X” is a major topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum’s latest gathering at Davos.

World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday to discuss Disease X, a hypothetical virus 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.

While such a virus isn't known to currently exist, researchers, scientists and experts are hoping to proactively come up with a plan of action to combat such a virus and prepare the health system if it were to emerge as a pandemic — a possibility one expert told CBS News could happen sooner than we think.

"There are strains of viruses that have very high mortality rates that could develop the ability to transmit efficiently from human to human," said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Of course, it would be the height of cynicism to suggest that Chinese virologists might be considering helping the eventual discovery of “Disease X” by crafting it in one of their cutting edge virology labs!

Moreover, we should not forget that it was at this time last year that Project Veritas published its bombshell piece showing Pfizer exec Jordon Walker casually admitting that Big Pharma itself loves to play God with viruses.

Indeed, as the Project Veritas video proved, this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.

We should be appalled at Jordon Walker’s cavalier attitude regarding Pfizer’s efforts to tinker with and manipulate the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We should recognize that, no matter how they relabel and repackage the research, they are still playing God with viruses, and that is still a very BAD idea.

What we should not be is shocked or surprised. This is what passes for “research” in the modern scientific (pseudoscientific) community. This is not a “new normal”, but an “old normal”. What Pfizer is doing very much is the status quo.

Jordon Walker merely said that quiet part out loud. He merely confirmed that this is what Big Pharma does—and you can be sure they are doing it with more than just SARS-CoV-2. This is what university researchers do. This is what Big Government does.

This is not, of course, actual proof that the WHO or the various functionaries at Davos are at this very moment “planning” how to cause contain “Disease X”. The timing, however, is nothing if not alarmingly coincidental.

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It is also important to note that the Chinese “research” comes to light just as the Pandemic Panic Narrative once again shows that it is running out of steam with regards to its favorite topic, COVID-19.

COVID is not, contrary to what the media likes to imply, causing a major public health headache in most parts of the United States.

While COVID hospital admissions have been rising, they are still below 2023’s winter peak and well below 2022’s ginormous hospitalization peak.

At the same time, COVID deaths per the CDC have already peaked and are poised to decline.

Influenza-Like Illness as a whole has peaked, with even ER/ED visits due to influenza and RSV starting to trend down.

While corporate media has great fun spreading the alarmist rhetoric of the Pandemic Panic Narrative, the actual data regarding what the latest variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is actually doing is anticlimactic to the point of being uninteresting. Yes, JV.1 has displaced HV.1 as the most prevalent variant of the virus, but it is dominating within a greatly reduced number of infections and cases than was found with earlier variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The lack of significant case numbers, hospitalizations, and particularly deaths has simply bled the Pandemic Panic Narrative of any dramatic force. Even typically vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, are losing their fear of COVID, as evidenced by their declining interest in receiving the mRNA inoculations.

Like younger American adults, seniors haven’t been avoiding all recommended immunizations, just the ones for COVID. Their flu-shot rates have gone down a little in the past few years, but only by a handful of percentage points from a pandemic-driven, all-time high of 75 percent. This season, about 70 percent of people over 65 have received their flu vaccine, in line with average rates that haven’t changed that much for decades. In the meantime, seniors’ uptake of the latest COVID shots has fallen off by more than half since 2022, to just 38 percent. These diverging rates—steady for the flu, plummeting for COVID—are notably at odds with the attendant risks. Seniors seem to understand the value of inoculating themselves against the flu. So why do they forgo the same precaution against something so much worse?

The answer to that final question is the reality that COVID is not “so much worse”. The fear factor that drove not only much of COVID policy in 2020 and 2021 but public acceptance and tolerance of the authoritarian nature of that policy has waned significantly.

COVID has strutted and fretted its hour upon the stage, and soon will be heard no more.

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We should not be surprised, therefore, that the notional elites have begun talking about “Disease X”. Nor should we be surprised that the rhetoric is already acquiring that tinge of paranoia inherent in the assessment that such a dangerous pathogen is “already out there.”

A deadly pathogen like Disease X, which would likely be a respiratory virus, according to Adalja, could already be circulating in animal species and is just not able to be transmitted to humans yet.

"That could be bats like COVID-19, it could be in birds like bird flu, or it could be some other type of animal species, swine for example," he said. "It's really about that interface between humans and animals, where interactions are occurring, that these types of viruses get a foothold."

Both the public health “experts” rubbing elbows in Davos and the corporate media need a new viral boogeyman if the Pandemic Panic Narrative is to have any chance at a revival within the general public. We see this ongoing need for pathogenic phantoms in the evolution of the argot “biosecurity”6.

Originally, “biosecurity” was mainly used in defence regarding the control of biological weapons. This first definition of biosecurity still appears on some official documents and websites. As an example, the Belgian biosafety server defines biosecurity as “the prevention of misuse through loss, theft, diversion or intentional release of pathogens, toxins and any other biological materials” (https://www.biosafety.be/content/biosecurity, accessed on 15 December 2021). Nevertheless, in the 1980s ‘’biosecurity” started to be used regarding animal health and production systems; it was defined by the U.S. Association of State Departments of Agriculture as “the vital work of strategy, efforts and planning to protect human, animal and environmental health against biological threats”. The first citation of “biosecurity” in PubMed was recorded in 1987. Its general uptake increased slowly with an average of five publications including the term “biosecurity” per year in the 1990s, 127 from 2000 to 2010 and 680 from 2011 to 2020 (Figure 1) [9].

Even before the advent of Nunn-Lugar and “threat reduction”, governments were coming adopting a posture of actively searching for new virological and biological threats to the public health. Fast forward twenty-plus years, and there exists within this notion of “biosecurity” the inherently paranoid presumption that every pathogen is a serious risk to the public health and must be contained and kept as far away from people as possible.

Biosecurity includes all measures to prevent the introduction of pathogens (bio-exclusion) and reduce the spread of pathogens (bio-containment) [17]. As part of the One Health concept, biosecurity is particularly important as it includes the prevention of the spread to humans, animals, plants and the environment. It is therefore a holistic and integrated approach, which considers the interactions among different stakeholders and sectors, as presented in Figure 2. A stringent biosecurity level, therefore, minimises the impact of infectious diseases on public, animal and plant health, as well as the economy, the environment and society in general. The FAO and WHO definition of biosecurity, which includes these aspects, is therefore appropriate and should be considered by the other actors as a reference to emphasise the importance of biosecurity, not only for animal health but also for public and environmental health.

With the constant fear of the natural world as the cognitive backdrop for public health discussions surrounding viruses and other pathogens, the “Disease X” model is very much the natural outgrowth of that fear. “Disease X” is quite demonstrably the articulation and rationalizing of that fear.

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Yet it is this fear that not only apparently drives such ludicrous “research” as these latest Chinese gain-of-function experiments with pangolin coronaviruses, but also their widespread acceptance within virology worldwide. While there are voices who decry the sloppy science behind randomly subjecting a pathogen to serial passage and then arbitrarily infecting a group of genetically modified mice, there are a great many more voices who defend and even praise such efforts as a means to “understand” how pathogens come to invade human communities.

Lost in that rationalization is the uncomfortable reality that the public health measures and mitigations developed by such “biosecurity” experts have simply not worked.

The lockdowns over COVID were a proven failure even before they were attempted in the United States.

In China, the dedication to the extreme lockdown policies of Zero COVID not only failed to contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also contributed hugely to the economic collapse China is now experiencing.

Face mask mandates have from the start been politically motivated and epidemiologically ineffective.

Despite their repeated public health and scientific failures, virologists in and out of government insist on continuing to play God with viruses, creating new pathogens which do not exist in the natural world in the absurd belief that such "chimeric” pathogens will somehow inform researchers about the pathogens which do exist in the natural world.

This is the type of research being reported by the Chinese team from Beijing University of Chemical Technology. The preprint of their findings, as well as Shi Zhengli’s earlier research using the same serially passaged pangolin coronavirus variant, are outright gain-of-function research involving essentially “chimeric” viruses which have no real correlation to naturally occurring pangolin coronaviruses for the simple reason they are not naturally occurring.

As the 100% mortality result shows, this “research” involved creating a virus that potentially could be quite dangerous should it make its way out of the lab and into the wild, as the SARS-CoV-2 virus very likely did sometime in 2019. We should not forget that regardless of how SARS-CoV-2 emerged from the lab, and from which lab—regardless of whether SARS-CoV-2 is a designed bioweapon developed elsewhere and then introduced into Wuhan, China, as opposed to the results of a search for a coronavirus vaccine and a catastrophic failure of laboratory containment practices—the overwhelming circumstantial evidence says the virus emerged from a lab.

Instead of shying away from such demonstrably dangerous “research”, China at a minimum is expanding its gain-of-function research efforts. This preprint alone is proof of that.

China is working to produce what will become “Disease X” should it escape from the lab as SARS-CoV-2 did.

Whether that outcome is the point of the research or merely a risk attendant upon it is simply not relevant. Regardless of intent, China is playing God with viruses. Regardless of intent, China is creating viruses which already have the potential to be highly deadly to people. Regardless of intent, China is creating viruses of unknown infectiousness and virulence.

China is rolling the dice that these created pathogens will not prove highly infections to humans and will not escape from their biolabs into the wild and then around the world.

Given the history of SARS-CoV-2 and the destruction of the Pandemic Panic Narrative, it is already proven and indisputable that China is making a sucker’s bet.

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Once again we are seeing the professional medical community wander down the well-trodden road of science denialism over face mask mandates.

Local officials across the US are reinstating mask mandates in hospitals as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports an upward trend in Covid-19 hospitalisations.

Near the end of December, weekly hospital admission rates for Covid-19 hit their highest since January 2023, the CDC reported. Local officials in several states — including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey and New York — have now reinstated mask mandates in healthcare settings.

The reason for this latest round of anti-science foolishness? Yet another scary SARS-CoV-2 variant has emerged and is making the rounds.

Now, JN.1 accounts for 39-50 per cent of circulating variants in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on 22 December, and the proportion of JN.1 is increasing more rapidly than other variants. Local officials in several states are also reinstating mask mandates in healthcare settings after the CDC reported an upward trend in hospitalisations for Covid-19 at the end of December.

If one were to take the corporate media at face value, one might easily conclude that yet another “wave” of pandemic disease is upon us. However, if one takes the time to scrutinize the data even a little bit, one quickly realizes that fears over JN.1 are greatly overstated, and thus the concerns powering the reflexive return to mask mandates are largely nonexistent.

It is ironically appropriate that a public health policy for which there is no good evidence is being deployed to combat an “outbreak” of disease for which there also is no good evidence.

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We should acknowledge that, based on the CDC’s genomic surveillance data, the JN.1 variant is indeed the most prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variant circulating in the United States at the moment.

That one data point reported by corporate media is accurate.

However, the degree to which there is a “surge” of COVID cases in the country is considerably more problematic. COVID hospitalizations are increasing, but have been doing so at a steady rate for a number of weeks.

The rise in hospitalizations predates the advent of the JN.1 variant, and so it is physically impossible for this new variant to be the catalyst behind the rise in hospitalizations.

While hospitalizations are rising, COVID deaths are projected to enter a downward trend after holding steady for many weeks.

This echoes the reality that, for most of the United States, COVID hospitalizations are not a problem.

What should we make of the rise in COVID cases? Simply that it is cold and flu season. ‘Tis the season for COVID, Influenza, and RSV cases to rise, and that is exactly what they have been doing.

Note that Influenza cases are rising more rapidly than COVID-19 cases. If an infectious respiratory disease is currently cause for alarm, that disease is influenza, not COVID.

Based on how much more rapidly test positivity rates for influenza are rising relative to COVID, COVID is, if anything, close to or at a peak.

We should also note that RSV test positivity rose first, and peaked first—all without the corporate media raising a ruckus or hospitals reflexively resorting to amply discredited mask mandates.

We are in the middle of cold and flu season. It naturally follows that we are seeing cases of cold and flu (and COVID).

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If cases of cold and flu and COVID are rising, why shouldn’t hospitals impose mask mandates, as indeed hospitals in New York and California are currently doing?

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A mask mandate has resumed for all 11 of the city's public hospitals after an increase in coronavirus, flu and respiratory syncytial virus cases.

The mask requirement also applies for all health clinics and nursing homes run by NYC Health + Hospitals.

Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said Wednesday the requirement is for areas of the hospital where patients are being treated.

In California, the mask mandates are being described as “common sense” precautions.

"Over the past week in Los Angeles County, there have been notable, yet not unexpected, increases in COVID-19 reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths," the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement. "While recent increases are significant, they remain considerably below last winter's peak and common-sense protections are strongly recommended to help curb transmission and severe illness as the new year begins."

The threshold for the CDC's medium level is between 10 and 19.9 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 population over seven days. The CDC reported 10.5 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people in Los Angeles County for the week ending Dec. 23.

"Based on the Los Angeles County Health Officer Order posted on December 27, 2023, when the COVID-19 hospital admission level in Los Angeles County meets or exceeds the CDC's Medium Level, all healthcare personnel, regardless of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination status, in licensed health care facilities that provide inpatient care are required to mask while in contact with patients or working in patient-care areas," the department's statement said.

Surely a mask mandate is common sense—after all, the media has said repeatedly how face masks are proven conclusively to work very well against the spread of COVID. Even Scientific American waded into the mask mandate fray in December 2022, with two “experts” making that very claim.

But there is a straightforward way to cut down on the risk for ourselves and others. When it comes to individual decisions, masks are among the most low-cost and most effective steps that can be taken to broadly reduce transmission of a multitude of viruses.

As I discussed when that article first appeared, however, the problem with that assertion is that it is factually unsupported, logically fallacious, and simply wrong. Mask mandates are not common sense because they are not grounded on solid evidence.

The data on face masks has not changed since then. Even though mask mandates emerge in the news with some regularity, the fundamental scientific evidence regarding them remains the same, and remains an argument against their implementation.

Nor is this junk science fixation limited to Italy. Corporate media here in the United States continues to push the much disproven claim that face masks make a difference in COVID-19 spread, or of the spread of any infectious respiratory pathogen.

Even after the expiration of the US public health emergency declaration and with many Americans moving away from pandemic precautions, masks continue to offer some protection, reducing your risk of catching Covid-19 in a community setting like in a close doctor and patient interaction, according to the study, which reviewed the latest science on the protective quality of masks.

Because corporate media continues to push this arrant nonsense (and theories which have been repeatedly disproven can only be considered arrant nonsense and never anything else), we must yet again beat the dead horse of the number of studies that have shown literally for nearly two decades that universal masking does not affect the spread of infectious respiratory disease.

The answer to the question why should hospitals not reimpose mask mandates is the same as it has always been: there has never been any evidence showing they are impactful against the spread of infectious respiratory disease.

There was no good evidence supporting them when they first became prevalent in 2020.

In fact, mask mandates have been so lacking in supportive evidence that the “experts” have repeatedly contorted themselves to discredit the volume of evidence discrediting the mandates, even attempting to discredit the very concept of the Randomized Controlled Trial as the “gold standard” of clinical evidence.

Where this latest defense of the science denialism over face masks truly goes off the rails, however, is in Ms. MacIntyre’s assertion that Randomized Controlled Trials are not “necessarily” the best way to evaluate pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions against disease.

The Cochrane Review combined randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using meta-analysis. RCTs test an intervention in one group and compare it with a "control" group that doesn't receive the intervention or receives a different intervention. A meta-analysis pools the results of multiple studies.

This approach assumes (a) RCTs are the "best" evidence and (b) combining results from multiple RCTs will give you an average "effect size."

But RCTs are only the undisputed gold standard for certain kinds of questions. For other questions, a mix of study designs is better. And RCTs should be combined in a meta-analysis only if they are all addressing the same research question in the same way.

Yes, you read that right. RCTs are not really the “gold standard” in clinical research after all. Never mind that there are multiple papers within the clinical literature explicitly stating that RCTs indeed are said “gold standard”123.

The mask mandate is the fake science that simply will not go away. It is a bogus public health mitigation that rests entirely on a foundation of junk science and garbage scientific claims. The data has always shown that to be true.

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Nor has new data emerged that actually supports mask mandates. Quite the contrary, the latest research still argues against mask mandates. A December, 2023 systematic review1 of extant case studies found that mask mandates were in particular of little or no benefit to children.

Conclusions: Real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence. The current body of scientific data does not support masking children for protection against COVID-19.

Research2 also points to a couple of salient reasons why broad-based mask mandates are unlikely to be an effective public health mitigation against infectious respiratory disease: there is simply too much variance in mask materials and their mechanistic ability to filter out contaminants and pathogens.

Aerosol filtration mechanisms are divided into gravity sedimentation, inertial collision, interception, diffusion, and electrostatic interaction. The results for multiple mechanisms and a mechanism’s type of interaction are related to the aerosol particle size, airflow density, and material structure. However, in actual filtration mechanism processes, inertial collision, interception, and diffusion are important mechanisms for removing fiber aerosols, which is complex. Improving the efficiency of a filter is dependent on increasing the number of mask layers, reducing the fiber’s diameter, and reducing and changing the fiber’s structural density.

The influence of the aerosol size and type on filtration performance is not constant. Filtration efficiencies may increase with an increase in aerosol particles or decrease with a decrease in aerosol particles. However, generally speaking, for the same type of mask, the protection performance should improve with an increase in aerosol particles. The type of aerosol used is specific for a specific environment, and the aerosol used in a laboratory is engineered to not be harmful to people. The effect of gas flow rates on filtration efficiencies is very clear. The filtration efficiency decreases with an increase in the gas flow rate. The higher the filtration efficiency, the greater the pressure difference and increase in respiratory resistance. In addition, matching is a common problem observed in masks, and masks have improved matching performance with higher filtration efficiencies.

There is also an inverse relation between the filtration efficiency of various mask materials and the level of breathing comfort associated with their use.

The respiratory resistance of a cloth mask, surgical mask, N95 mask, P100 FFR mask, and PARR mask increased in the listed order and as the filtration efficiency increased. In general, an increase in filtration efficiency will also lead to reduced comfort. However, if the thermal comfort performance of masks is improved, the cost and price of masks will increase. Therefore, on the basis of balancing the protective function and economy, it is recommended that the public should wear surgical masks to prevent COVID-19 infection in low-risk and non-densely populated areas.

Note also that there is a cost correlation at play as well. The better the filtration efficiency of a mask, the more costly that mask is going to be. Thus at all levels of filtration efficiency, the economics of mass masking alone work against any such policy.

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The simple engineering reality of face masks is that how the individual face mask functions, and how well it does or does not filter out contaminants and pathogens, ultimately does not extrapolate to how well mass adoption of face masks will or will not work as a public health mitigation against infectious respiratory disease. All of the arguments in favor of face mask use to prevent COVID rely on these mechanistic qualities of the individual mask. This is simply not a logical or valid mode of argument, because the required extrapolation is not logically supportable.

We may be in a New Year, and there may be new SARS-CoV-2 variants out in the wild, but the old research data regarding the inefficacy of mass masking as a public health mitigation remains every bit as valid today as it did one year ago, and as it did in 2020.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is at this juncture part of the endemic Influenza Like Illness landscape. Sadly, equally endemic is the corporate media propaganda regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and no corporate media propaganda is more ludicrous, more false, more deceitful, than their constant propaganda that face mask mandates are at all effective against COVID.

Face mask mandates are junk science. Reject them as such.

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This multicenter study in Stockholm, Sweden, found that pediatric RSV resulted in more hospitalizations and more ICU admissions than pediatric Omicron. Additionally, the hospitalizations rates for Omicron vs influenza were not that different.

We included 2596 pediatric patients (896 [34.5%] with Omicron, 426 [16.4%] with influenza A/B, and 1274 [48.0%] with RSV). Of patients with RSV, 990 (77.7%) were younger than 2 years vs 648 (72.3%) with Omicron and 81 (19.0%) with influenza (Table 1). Hospitalization rates were 31.5% (n = 282) for Omicron, 27.7% (n = 118) for influenza, and 81.7% (n = 1041) for RSV (Table 2). For infants aged 0 to 1 year, odds ratios (ORs) for hospitalization were 11.29 (95% CI, 8.91-14.38) for RSV vs Omicron and 1.67 (95% CI, 1.03-2.68) for influenza vs Omicron. For children aged 2 to 4 years, ORs were 3.96 (95% CI, 2.25-7.01) and 0.31 (95% CI, 0.15-0.65), respectively. For youths aged 5 to 17 years, ORs were 5.22 (95% CI, 2.40-11.81) and 1.10 (95% CI, 0.69-1.77), respectively. ICU admission rates were 0.7% (n = 6) for Omicron, 0.9% (n = 4) for influenza, and 2.9% (n = 37) for RSV. Three patients died within 30 days: 2 (0.2%) with Omicron and 1 (0.1%) with RSV.

Throughout 2022, Omicron was demonstrably not the greatest infectious disease threat facing Swedish pediatric patients. Respiratory syncytial virus was, and by a wide margin.

Equally important was that Omicron was not that much greater a threat to pediatric patients than influenza.

This study, written up as a small “research letter” in JAMA Pediatrics, is clinical proof of something I have said repeatedly since the beginning of the COVID “pandemic”—COVID quite literally is “just the flu”.

How can this one study provide such conclusive evidence?

A primary reason is the time frame for the retrospective study. The researchers examined pediatric ED visits from August 1, 2021, through September 15, 2022. Thus this study covers the entire period during which the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged and the first pandemic “wave” associated with that variant.

Additionally, because the majority of hospitalizations were for patients below the age of 2, the use of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA inoculations are excluded as possible reasons for Omicron’s lesser threat potential. While the FDA granted EUA status to the Pfizer inoculation for children 5-11 on October 29,2021, it did not include children 0-5. Thus the predominance of cases for Omicron, RSV, and influenza among patients younger than age 5 excludes any potential beneficial effect from the inoculations.

We should also note that the research letter’s authors acknowledged that SARS-CoV-2 is but one of many infectious respiratory viruses, and that SARS-CoV-2, RSV, and various influenza strains all can lead to pneumonia, which is the leading infectious cause of pediatric mortality.

Pneumonia is the largest infectious cause of pediatric mortality, and respiratory viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza virus, and SARS-CoV-2, can be detected in more than 80% of community-acquired infections.

In layman’s terms, the authors are proceeding from an understanding of COVID as intrinsically being “just the flu”.

At this juncture, pretty much every active variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is some offshoot of Omicron. What this research team in Sweden has found is unambiguous evidence that not only are these active variants “just the flu”, they are not even the most serious form of “the flu” out there.

This latest bit of clinical evidence logically should slam the door shut on the Pandemic Panic Narrative. Not that corporate media will ever acknowledge their propaganda tactics in pushing the narrative, but we should never forget that the Pandemic Panic Narrative was always a triumph of propaganda over facts and evidence.

Nor should we ever forget that the corporate media reporting regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus has never matched the reality. It does not match it now, and it did not match it in early 2020 when the “pandemic” first began.

Always remember that the data defines the reality, not the narrative. When the data shifts, the narrative must either adapt to the new data or be discarded—that is how actual scientific inquiry operates.

Which is why I cannot say often enough that it is vital for people to do their own research, formulate their own thoughts, and reach their own conclusions, not just regarding SARS-CoV-2, but every issue imaginable. Do not trust what “experts” say—and do not trust what I say.

Trust nothing. Verify everything. That level of skepticism is what people properly should apprehend as “science”.

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Such is the dilemma that appears to be challenging corporate media now, as China is posting declining cases of pediatric pneumonia, suggesting the outbreak is already drawing to a close even before panic had a chance to set in and spread globally.

The number of cases at major medical facilities across the nation has fallen recently, Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the National Health Commission, said at a briefing in Beijing on Sunday.

Last month, China told the World Health Organization that the source of the outbreak of respiratory diseases among children was known pathogens. Reports about a surge in illness sparked concern that a novel virus may have been the cause.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Beijing Children’s Hospital had told the WHO that there’d been increases in outpatient visits and hospitalizations due to the spread of mycoplasma pneumoniae, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus and influenza.

Just like that, the corporate media’s efforts to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt over this latest outbreak of respiratory illness in the Middle Kingdom have been undone. With no runaway spread of infectious respiratory disease around the globe, with no claims of a novel pathogen or a “pneumonia of unknown etiology”, there has simply been nothing of substance to sustain even a brief resurgence of the Pandemic Panic Narrative begun nearly four years ago.

Yet we should not blithely dismiss these latest efforts to propagandize infectious respiratory disease by the media. Not only do they confirm that the worst impulses of deceit and dissembling persist in the media, they also threaten to obscure important details about the outbreak which could have real, albeit non-pandemic, implications globally.

It is no exaggeration to propose that the Pandemic Panic Narrative—and efforts to resurrect it by the corporate media—are very likely contributing to the emergence of new and dangerous “superbugs” which defy existing medical treatments.

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We must be clear about one thing: corporate media has been explicit and dangerously dishonest in its reporting over the China pneumonia outbreak. As late as the beginning of December, there were reports claiming the outbreak was the result of a “mystery virus”—even as China claimed the exact opposite, that this was an increase in the incidence of known pathogens, such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, and the bacterium mycoplasma pneumoniae.

On November 1, Chinese health officials held a press conference to discuss a rise in respiratory illnesses.

They believe that colder weather and relaxed COVID restrictions have led to an immunity gap, causing a surge in known pathogens.

However, a report from the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMed) noted that many sick children in China didn't have coughs or other symptoms, just high fevers. Some even developed lung nodules.

This has led experts to wonder if these clusters could be undiagnosed pneumonia caused by a new pathogen.

At the same time, there were reports hinting that the outbreak might be tied to yet another strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as Chinese officials were reportedly bringing back COVID-19 testing, mask mandates, and other minor elements of the disastrous Zero COVID protocols finally abandoned just over a year ago.

Chinese health officials have acknowledged the spike in pneumonia and other respiratory cases, blaming a cocktail of pathogens including mycoplasma pneumonia, respiratory syncytial virus, seasonal influenza and COVID-19.

Now, government documents are starting to warn about a new wave of coronavirus infections in particular, with the State Council ordering local authorities to resume testing and disease monitoring at ports and airports, in schools, care homes and other institutions.

It is important to remember that influenza, RSV, and even mycoplasma pneumoniae are known pathogens. For that matter, SARS-CoV-2 is at this juncture also a known pathogen, and can hardly be counted as “novel” at this late date.

As I have noted previously, corporate media has seized on the China outbreak at first in a curious effort to create a “Non-Pandemic Panic”, ironically seeking to generate fear from that which is well known, rather than something presumably unknown.

The data presented thus far is that in China, in Europe, and in the United States there are somewhat early upticks in infectious respiratory cases, but the case levels are not as of yet so high as to cause alarm. The data presented thus far is that the underlying pathogens are known infectious agents. The data presented thus far is that these “usual suspects” for cases of pneumonia are not even novel strains of these known infectious agents.

It goes without saying that, if disease is caused by known strains of known pathogens, framing an outbreak of that disease as a “pandemic” is notionally absurd. It likewise goes without saying that the corporate media efforts in this regard have been equally absurd.

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One aspect of the corporate media reporting which warrants further comment has been the subtle signs of skepticism and disbelief about what China is reporting about its own outbreak.

In addition to the very explicit statements in the corporate media that China might be incorrect and inaccurate over the causes of the surge in pneumonia cases, there have been none-too-subtle hints that even notoriously China-friendly entities such as the World Health Organization are not fully believing China’s reports and are not taking Chinese health officials at their word.

“We asked about comparisons prior to the pandemic. And the waves that they’re seeing now, the peak is not as high as what they saw in 2018-2019,” the World Health Organization’s acting director of its department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention Maria Van Kerkhove told STAT on Friday. “This is not an indication of a novel pathogen. This is expected. This is what most countries dealt with a year or two ago.”

WHO has called upon China to release more information about the outbreak. As yet, it’s unclear whether the communist-run nation has provided this information, as they did not provide much of the requested information during the COVID-19 pandemic either. Footage from the country has shown long lines outside hospitals as authorities call for the opening of more clinics.

To a degree, this is perhaps a bit of an “own goal” by China for responding to the outbreak in the same manner to which they responded to the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: with authoritarian policies and an especial suppression of personal liberties.

China is apparently headed back towards lockdowns in late November as hospitals fill with children suffering from a surge in acute respiratory viruses.

The Chinese National Health Commission claims the new surge is caused by a variety of illnesses, such as influenza, rhinovirus, mycoplasma pneumoniae, respiratory syncytial virus and adenovirus, according to the South China Morning Post. Officials are calling for a reinstatement of pandemic-era lockdown protocols to help curb the outbreak, even though these measures didn’t really do anything the first time around.

Regardless of the intention or the logic behind such efforts, that China saw fit to call for additional safety measures and risk assessments within schools is an unmistakable indication of heightened concern on Beijing’s part—and unavoidably suggests that more is involved in the pneumonia outbreak than routine pathogens.

China’s education ministry has urged schools to step up daily health checks and reporting as the country grapples with a wave of respiratory illness among children.

In a directive issued on Monday, it also said schools should conduct risk assessments with local health departments to help fight the problem.

When schools are drafted into playing pathogen police by the government, it’s hard not to infer a return to Zero COVID lunacy.

In the directive, the education ministry also told schools to make preparations for online classes for sick children and guide them in home learning.

It also said schools should “guide families in disease control” and “collaborate with relevant departments to promote vaccination”.

It is perhaps not entirely surprising that corporate media and their usual array of self-anointed “experts” began making dire pronouncements about the China outbreak.

The mystery wave of pneumonia spreading within China is a form of Covid, a top doctor has said, but is not a new virus and there is no need to panic just yet.

In recent weeks, hospitals in the country have been overwhelmed with sick children and there have been fears that the disease could spread outside China's border in a chilling reminder of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearby countries such as India are said to be preparing to tackle the disease which has already reached Europe, with Denmark and the Netherlands confirming an influx of cases.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it is monitoring the situation and has asked China to provide more details. Now Dr Gareth Nye, the Programme Lead for Medical Science and Chester Medical School, stressed the condition is not a new disease like Covid-19 - but could be another Covid virus.

Ironically, however, even as the experts were pontificating on the China outbreak being an emergence of a new COVID virus, their own rationales were cutting against that very argument:

"Now as we are seeing a combination of viruses and bacteria, this is more likely due to how our bodies are handling illness now following years of Covid restrictions.v We have already seen the impact with a rise in Strep A infections in children last winter and there has been similar rises in similar infections in the US following the removal of social distancing, so in essence, this rise was expected and not caused by new diseases which simply put, means we shouldn’t see a Covid 2.0."

However, he went on to state that the rise in bacterial disease pneumonia in children which is being "tracked closely" by the WHO can be explained by a very simple reason. He said: "The missing out of crucial 'infection spreading' of the normal winter bugs during the Covid-restricted years, particularly in children who had social interactions through school disrupted, explains this as your ability to fight infections comes from seeing diseases before.

Note the contradiction: China is supposedly seeing a new COVID virus but is not seeing a new disease—i.e., the China outbreak is not “COVID 2.0”.

That’s taking the doublespeak to an epic level—and that’s what the corporate media has been reporting for several weeks.

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Yet there is one aspect of the China outbreak—as well as the outbreaks in Europe and in Warren County, Ohio—that deserves attention, and may carry significant health implications for the future: the incidence of bacterial pneumonia caused by mycoplasma pneumoniae.

What is Mycoplasma pneumoniae?

Rather than a virus like the one behind flu, SARS, or COVID-19, Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a bacteria that can cause pneumonia by damaging the linings of the throat, lungs, or trachea.

It’s quite common and does need a host to spread. It was identified more than 100 years ago Trusted Sourceas a factor in lung disease in cattle, but not recognized as a cause of “atypical” pneumonia in humans until 1944, when scientists named it after the Greek term for “fungus-formed” (they originally thought it was a fungus).

“It’s one of those bugs that doesn’t have a lot in its package, so it does need mammals, cells to replicate,” Dr. Jimmy Johannes, a pulmonologist and critical care medicine specialist at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA, told Healthline. “It’s not like something that you find on dirt or in the ambient air, something like that, just hanging out.”

Significantly for the China outbreak, mycoplasma pneumoniae is regarded as causing “atypical” pneumonia—and affects primarily young people.

“It does have some unusual features,” Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, professor of Medicine, Infectious Disease and International Health at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, told Heathline.

“It usually affects otherwise healthy patients 5 to 20 years old and can be spread person to person so we see it in clusters or outbreaks. We especially suspect it in late summer and fall when we hear from a young patient with pneumonia that they had a slow gradual onset of cough illness even over weeks.”

Dr. Talbot added that the “atypical” aspect of this type of pneumonia is also seen internally, in how the disease interacts with a patient’s body. “If the clinician chooses to do a chest X-ray, the whole lung may be affected, rather than one part like other bacterial pneumonias, which is why the disease Mycoplasma causes is sometimes called atypical pneumonia,” she said.

That the infection is an “atypical pneumonia” has also been the basis for corporate media’s disgraceful misreporting of the infection as a “virus”.

An NHS doctor has revealed crucial information about a novel pneumonia-like virus that has surfaced in China, sharing eight symptoms reminiscent of coronavirus. This differs from earlier reports that mentioned fewer symptoms.

The virus has stirred chaos in China for weeks, triggering global concerns about a potential new pandemic. Surprisingly, it appears to be impacting children more than adults, according to The Daily Star.

Concerned neighbouring countries, like India, are on high alert, fearing the virus's spread, reminiscent of the 2019 coronavirus outbreak.

In Beijing, hospitals are witnessing increased activity, and the virus has already made its way to Europe.

This is a journalism 101 level of mistake. Viruses are not bacteria, nor are bacteria viruses1.

On a biological level, the main difference is that bacteria are free-living cells that can live inside or outside a body, while viruses are a non-living collection of molecules that need a host to survive.

While mycoplasma pneumoniae does require a host to propagate and spread, as a bacterium it does not invade individual cells and hijack their replication machinery.

More significantly, bacteria often respond to treatment with antibiotics, while viruses do not. Conversely, bacteria do not respond to antiviral medications, while viruses do (hence the term).

Differentiating between the two types of pathogens is crucial, because overuse of antibiotics can produce antibiotic resistance.

It is important to know the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection so doctors can treat the right illness, and antibiotics aren’t used unnecessarily, contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

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That bacterial infections are rising alongside other more comment infectious respiratory viruses such as influenza, RSV, and SARS-CoV-2 is hardly unusual. The pneumonia cases that arise from these viral infections are often associated with a secondary bacterial infection such as mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Severe cases of viral pneumonia often end up with an associated bacterial infection. This is particularly true with COVID-19, where up to 50% of the severely ill hospitalised patients have developed a bacterial infection. So, despite COVID-19 being caused by a virus, antibiotics are really important to treat the associated bacterial infections.

This correlation may actually provide both an explanation for the China pneumonia outbreak and a cautionary for the wider world regarding the involved pathogens: the pneumonia cases may be the result of an antibiotic-resistant strain of mycoplasma pneumoniae.

An outbreak of walking pneumonia, normally a mild infection, struck millions of children in the second half of 2023, creating COVID-19 flashbacks and raising fears about another novel pathogen. But doctors say another real danger is the rise of superbugs, crafted by drug resistance that’s been building for years and rendering life-saving antibiotics less effective.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections are commonly treated with the antibiotic azithromycin, but within the reports on the Chinese pneumonia cases has been the warning sign that azithromycin is becoming ineffective against these infections.

In China, treating children with mycoplasma pneumoniae infections can be difficult. Nearly 80% of cases are resistant to macrolides, a class of drug that includes Pfizer’s Zithromax, given to Qiao’s daughter, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open in 2022. The proportion of drug-resistant cases were less than 10% in Europe, America and Southeast Asia.

Yet azithromycin remains among the most used antibiotic in China and is the default treatment for mycoplasma pneumoniae. Alternatives carry side effects such as teeth discoloration and bone abnormalities for younger children, leaving doctors with few good options.

If 80% of mycoplasma pneumoniae cases in China are resistant to azithromycin, then China well and truly has a potential pneumonia “superbug” on its hands. While not itself a pandemic or even a novel pathogen, it is still a potential healthcare problem because of the frequency with which the bacteria occurs as an opportunistic secondary infection in otherwise routine cases of viral infectious respiratory disease.

When the news first emerged, there were fears a new pathogen could be behind the large numbers of ill children. However, tests have shown that common seasonal respiratory illnesses like bacterial infections, flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and colds were to blame.

The outbreak was named "white lung" because children suffering from the pneumonia had white patches on their lungs. Doctors explained the patches showed areas with denser lung tissue, which can occur when the body fights infections with bacteria like mycoplasma pneumoniae.

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While there is as of yet no reporting in Europe or the United States of a wider spread of antibiotic resistant strains of mycoplasma pneumoniae, if there is such a strain emerging in China it is only a matter of time before such strains emerge elsewhere. This is not because of any pandemic spread of disease as had been the fear with COVID, but because the risks and realities of antibiotic overuse leading to the emergence of antibiotic resistant superbugs is a global phenomenon. While it may be happening first in China, eventually use (and potential overuse) of azithromycin in Europe and the United States will produce the same phenomenon of antibiotic resistance.

We know this to be true because antibiotic resistance is a known global phenomenon across several types of bacterial infections2.

Bacteria are an ever-evolving foe, with the ability to build up resistance to antibiotic drugs, rendering them ineffectual.

These “wonder drugs” have been prescribed inappropriately too many times, helping bacteria develop resistance.

Exacerbating the situation is the lack of development of new antibiotics – in the past few decades most pharmaceutical companies have ended their programs.

Every year, more and more bacteria develop resistance to the available regimens of antibiotics, resulting in previously “harmless” bacterial infections becoming increasingly lethal.

This leaves us, less than a century since the first antibiotic came onto the market, facing a return to the pre-antibiotic era.

In 2019, the most recent year for which we have comprehensive statistics, nearly 5 million deaths worldwide were associated with drug-resistant bacterial infections.

With bacterial infections associated with some 50% of COVID cases in hospital, antibiotic resistance within those infections would be a dangerous development for any country’s healthcare establishment. Nor can any country escape this outcome—antibiotic resistance is the result of normal biological mechanisms which occur everywhere, irrespective of the qualities of a country’s healthcare infrastructure.

Perversely, the corporate media reporting is fanning the flames of Pandemic Panic with its reporting on pneumonia cases around the globe, while largely ignoring the environmental factor of antibiotic overuse that appears to be exacerbating pediatric pneumonia cases in China. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common denominator in both the pneumonia cases reported in Europe and in the United States, in addition to the China outbreak.

The Warren County Heath District said the main types of pathogens detected so far were streptococcus pneumonia, adenovirus, and mycoplasma pneumonia.

Meanwhile, cases seen in China include respiratory illnesses such as influenza, rhinoviruses and mycoplasma pneumonia. Cases of mycoplasma pneumonia are also spreading in Denmark, reaching epidemic levels and recoding 541 new cases by the end of last week, according to a Danish Ministry of Health research group.

While thus far there are no reports of widespread antibiotic resistance in Europe or the US, the reporting has made the ironic concession that the lunatic lockdowns from the COVID “pandemic” may have contributed to greater susceptibility to infectious respiratory pathogens, particularly among young people.

Restrictions on social interactions being further lifted post-pandemic may have also contributed to the spike in cases. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research at the University of Minnesota, told NBC that particularly rings true in China’s case.

“They really did have a total shutdown of all the infectious diseases. So I would have expected exactly what we’re seeing right now,” Mr Osterholm said. “We’re seeing increases in respiratory infections in general, but particularly it seems like mycoplasma ... It’s just because we’ve got a larger pool of people who are more susceptible.”

In other words, the lockdowns weakened people’s immune systems and made them more vulnerable to these pathogens—a further indictment of the lockdowns on top of last year’s research showing that they claimed as many as 20 times the life-years as they purported to “save” from COVID.

Yet China at least reacted to this pneumonia outbreak by bringing back some features of the lunatic lockdowns, and there have been calls in other countries (including the US) to do likewise. The lockdowns failed to stop or even slow the spread of COVID, they have done untold damage to people’s lives, livelihoods, and bodies, and yet the “experts” still want to push these lunacies on people. This comes despite the fact that even in 2020 the data was clear and categorical that lockdowns were an unmitigated failure of public health policy.

To this mounting mass of evidence against lockdowns we must now add the potential for new antibiotic resistant “superbugs”, ones which have already shown a tendency to tag along in even ordinary cases of viral infectious respiratory disease.

By continuing to push and promote efforts to resurrect the Pandemic Panic Narrative, corporate media is recklessly promoting public health policies which are not only proven failures against infectious respiratory disease, but are now being shown to promote both greater future incidence of infectious respiratory disease and greater susceptibility to secondary bacterial infections in those stricken with infectious respiratory disease. Adding insult to injury, such reckless propagandizing is by extension creating conditions for the emergence of even more antibiotic resistant superbugs.

We must not forget that the damage done by the Pandemic Panic Narrative was not limited to the toxicities of the mRNA inoculations. The lunatic lockdowns claimed lives as well, and are continuing to claim lives today. The lunatic lockdowns damaged people’s immune systems, with impacts which will reverberate long past today. Efforts by corporate media and “experts” alike to bring back elements of the lunatic lockdowns must absolutely be resisted and rejected completely. Our current and future health demands no less than this.

We can combat this latest risk of antibiotic resistance by educated and informed policy resistance. As I have encouraged many times in this Substack, get the facts—all the facts. Know the state of infectious respiratory disease in your community, and learn all the steps you can take on your own to bolster your own physical health and that of your friends and family. The data is out there, and the information is available.

Do your own research, formulate your own thoughts, and reach your own conclusions. Independent thinking is always your best mitigation against all manner of misfortune.

Trust nothing, especially the fulminations of “experts”. Verify everything.

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With a narrative that is eerily reminiscent of the early days of the Pandemic Panic Narrative, we are being fed a fresh diet of fear and alarm over diseases that everyone—including corporate media—say are routine and not at all new. Just to make sure there is the appropriate degree of paranoia, China is once again in the crosshairs.

News has broken that a respiratory virus is surging in China which is raising concerns that the world is about to be swept by another devastating pandemic.

Yet unlike the early days of the COVID-19 “pandemic”, at present no one is reporting the outbreak of infectious respiratory disease is the result of a novel pathogen. In fact, China is insisting that all cases are the result of ordinary known pathogens such as Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).

An investigation by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has since managed to allay some of the understandable panic by identifying the reported increase in infections and hospitalisations as attributable to several known pathogens.

The known pathogens include the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae , respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenoviruses and influenza. Only RSV, adenoviruses and influenza can give rise to viral pneumonia in severe cases.

"This is not an indication of a novel pathogen; this is expected," Maria Van Kherkhove, acting director of the WHO's department for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, told STAT News.

In other words, China is experiencing an uptick in infectious respiratory disease involving all the “usual suspects”, and this uptick has been anticipated at least by the WHO, but there are still fears of a fresh and “devastating” pandemic.

Ummm…..yeah. Sure. Right. Color me skeptical.

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Presumably, China is incrementally returning to its former “Zero COVID” lockdown posture, with various provinces instituting mask mandates and distancing protocols.

Amid a new mystery pneumonia outbreak, China has reintroduced masks and social distancing measures, reminiscent of the COVID-19 lockdown era. The focal point of the outbreak in Beijing’s northern region has witnessed a surge in pneumonia cases, particularly impacting pediatric hospitals, where the number of children with symptoms such as high fever, lung inflammation, and cold is overwhelming healthcare facilities.

However, such reporting stands in stark contrast to the narrative that has been put forward since the middle of November, which is that the pneumonia outbreak in China is not all that remarkable.

Hospitals in northern China appear to be “overwhelmed with sick children” as the country grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia, prompting the World Health Organization to ask Beijing for more data.

At the Beijing Children’s Hospital in the capital, long lines of people were waiting to register during a visit by NBC News on Thursday. Waiting rooms were crowded with parents and children, some of them on IV drips.

In a review of China’s data, the World Health Organization said that the increase in cases came earlier in the season, “but not unexpected given the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, as similarly experienced in other countries.”

According to the WHO, Chinese health authorities did not detect new or unusual pathogens, and the rise in respiratory illnesses has not resulted in patient loads that exceed hospital capacities.

This, of course, seemingly presents us with a contradiction: If hospitals are “overwhelmed with sick children” how is it that the rise in respiratory illnesses has not resulted in “patient loads that exceed hospital capacities.” The very use of the word “overwhelmed” itself implies that hospitals are experiencing patient loads in excess of capacity.

However, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has been emphatic in denying that there is any uncontained outbreak of disease.

“Recently we have seen some clusters of flu cases among children in certain parts of China. In fact, that is a very common phenomenon in many countries, and in China that has been put under effective control,” Wang told reporters at the United Nations in New York where he is chairing a U.N. Security Council session on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“China’s interactions with the international community will not be affected by any factors, and we welcome more visits from friends from across the world,” he said.

In spite of China’s denials, Taiwan is taking no chances, having issued a travel advisory for the very young and the elderly against travel to the mainland.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s health ministry on Thursday urged the elderly, very young and those with poor immunity to avoid travel to China due to the recent increase in respiratory illnesses there, a move some experts said was ineffective to manage public health risks.

Taiwan has been wary of disease outbreaks in its giant neighbor since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak that started in China and killed nearly 800 people globally in 2002-2003.

If we go by what is presented in the narrative itself, there is no public health concern here—so why the concern in the media?

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Even more perplexing is the bandwagon effect that has begun to emerge regarding pneumonia cases elsewhere in the world. With China being reported as grappling with a fresh outbreak of infectious respiratory disease a la COVID, the media is almost reflexively drawing parallels between that and other increases in pneumonia cases in Europe and elsewhere.

Several European countries have reported a sharp rise of cases of child pneumonia similar to those that have plagued mainland China.

Medics suspect mycoplasma pneumoniae, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to be behind the horror wave of pneumonia cases that has led to thousands of children being hospitalised in China.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae, influenza virus, and respiratory syncytial virus are not novel pathogens, and so far there has been no reporting indicating a novel strain of any of these pathogens is responsible—yet there is grave cause for alarm because with the onset of cold and flu season there is an increase in cases of….wait for it….colds and flu?

At the same time, the WHO is at least intimating that there is more going on in China than an uptick in normal pediatric illnesses.

The World Health Organization is "following up" with China about its ongoing wave of respiratory infections, said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO's Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, on Wednesday.

Again, if the pathogens are all routine and known infectious agents, where is the concern? What is the WHO wanting to know and why is the WHO not being more transparent about it?

This also begs the question of how media outlets are able to make a connection between pneumonia cases in Europe and those in China—which they are unquestionably doing.

A new mystery repository virus ripping through China appears to now be surging in Europe as cases among children were detected in the Netherlands.

Experts are rushing to figure out what the out-of-control form of pneumonia travelling through parts of Asia is, with hospitals in the capital 'overwhelmed with unwell youngsters. Now Dutch health experts fear the alarming illness, which can prove to be life-threatening, could be in their country.

If the China outbreak is a conjunction of outbreaks of known influenza, RSV, and other infectious respiratory pathogens, on what basis is the media drawing the connection between Europe and China?

More importantly, why is it that as recently as yesterday, corporate media is reporting no increases in cases of infectious respiratory disease in India and Taiwan. Also, with only two countries in Europe reporting an increase in such cases, what is the basis for characterizing these increases as “outbreaks”?

Is it merely an artifact of timing? The media actually admits this may be the case.

"It could be a local seasonal epidemic that just happens to be co-incident with the cases in China," Professor Ian Jones from Reading University told MailOnline. "Pneumonia can have many causes so I doubt this can be analysed properly until the underlying infection(s) is defined."

Are we to panic just to be “safe”? Irony abounds.

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Nor is the hysteria confined to Europe. Warren County, Ohio, is also reporting an increase in pneumonia cases.

A mystery outbreak of pneumonia has hit several parts of China, and now Ohio is the first American location to report an outbreak of the illness, with an ‘extremely high’ number of children being hospitalized.

The strain of pneumonia, now dubbed ‘white lung syndrome,’ has spawned 142 pediatric cases in Warren County since August.

Warren County Health Department told Daily Mail, that not only is the number of cases above average, but it also meets the Ohio Department of Health’s definition of an outbreak.

Yet even Warren County, Ohio, is reporting that the underlying pathogens are known and not novel.

Officials in Ohio tell Daily Mail that an investigation is ‘ongoing,’ but the illness does not look like a new disease, but rather several common infections hitting all at once.

According to the news outlet, so far, patients have tested positive for mycoplasma pneumonia, a bacterial lung infection that is mostly resistant to antibiotics, strep, and normally benign infection, adenovirus.

Despite this assurance of relative normalcy, the media is drawing an inference link between the Ohio cases and the reported outbreak in China.

A pneumonia outbreak similar to the one in China has now reached the US, where an "extremely high" number of cases have been reported.

Children are being hospitalized with pneumonia in Ohio, the first US state to report an outbreak like the one in China.

Health officials in Warren County, north of Cincinnati, said there have been 142 pediatric cases of the condition - dubbed "white lung syndrome" - since August.

However, we must make note here that the name “white lung syndrome” is media hyperbole based on how pneumonia presents in medical imaging scans.

While the exact cause of the outbreak remains unclear, the name ‘White Lung’ is thought to stem from the appearance of the affected lungs on medical imaging, akin to those seen in severe respiratory infections.

In other words, “white lung syndrome” is merely a “sexed up” description of routine pneumonia, which always shows up as a “white” lung on a chest X-Ray or medical scan1.

This is not to say that cases of pneumonia are not severe and potentially life-threatening infections; they frequently are exactly that. It is to say that these pneumonia cases are, judging from the reporting, not something outside the norm. The number of cases may be higher than the historical norm, and they may be coming earlier in cold and flu season than the historical norm, but beyond that there is little that qualifies as unusual or remarkable.

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We should note also that, as of this writing, Warren County, Ohio, is reporting “Low” for COVID hospitalizations.

Additionally, while Ohio has seen an increase in COVID mortality, that wave appears to have peaked and is already trending down.

COVID hospitalizations are, however, on the increase, albeit still very far below last winter’s peak.

Nationwide COVID hospitalizations are rising but are again well below last winter’s peak.

While the 2023-2024 flu season is decidedly underway, it is not egregiously out of step with prior years.

The uptick in respiratory illness visits is presenting as a judicious mixture of influenza, RSV, and COVID pathogens—i.e., “the usual suspects” for this time of year.

Going by the extant data, there is no abnormal increase in infectious respiratory disease in the United States.

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Going even by the media reporting, there is not much of an outbreak even in China—and yet the media is painting whatever is going on in China as a major outbreak. As one reader has rather succinctly observed:

Given the lack of alarming data thus far, it is difficult to challenge that assessment.

Yet it is because of this “psyop” potential that we have to take notice of these things. The Pandemic Panic Narrative took hold because the data was obscured and misrepresented by the corporate media and then by the public health “experts” both in and out of government. Much of my early analyses of the COVID “pandemic” revolved around exactly this obfuscation of crucial detail.

The foundational premise of this Substack is that facts, data, and evidence are the best weapons against propaganda. When we scrutinize the facts, when we interrogate the data, when we focus on what we objectively know and can positively prove, all the flaws and holes in propaganda narratives are immediately made plain.

There can be little doubt that the corporate media is once again attempting to resurrect the Pandemic Panic Narrative. Whether their motivation is purely mercenary or in service of a more malignant agenda I cannot say, but I do not need to say. It is enough to say that what is being reported thus far regarding disease outbreaks in China, in Europe, and in the United States are long on narrative and short on factual substance.

The data presented thus far is that in China, in Europe, and in the United States there are somewhat early upticks in infectious respiratory cases, but the case levels are not as of yet so high as to cause alarm. The data presented thus far is that the underlying pathogens are known infectious agents. The data presented thus far is that these “usual suspects” for cases of pneumonia are not even novel strains of these known infectious agents.

Corporate media appears to be attempting to spread an ironic “Non-Pandemic Panic.” Do not be fooled. Follow the data. Scrutinize the evidence. Know the facts. Form your own conclusions.

Trust nothing. Verify everything.

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With the changing weather comes the start of the flu and cold season, and healthcare experts say it's just getting started and are urging people to take precautions.

The Centers for Disease Control predictions for this flu, cold and COVID-19 season show a possibility for an increase in hospitalizations similar to what the country saw with the "Tripledemic" of all three illnesses last year.

That’s right, winter is fast approaching so more people are going to get the sniffles, the sneezes, the aches, and the fevers typical of cold and flu season. This, of course, is dangerous and people must take the jab “precautions” to ensure Big Pharma can pay maximum bonuses to the C-suite at year’s end, "precautions” being, of course, more ineffective, dangerous, and deadly mRNA inoculations.

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Equally predictable within the fear tactics are the random deviations from facts and this little thing called “the truth,” as Dr. Victor Test, a pulmonologist with Texas Tech Physicians, demonstrates:

The CDC has classified Texas as Level 2 for respiratory illness activity as of Oct. 19, which means COVID-19, RSV and flu are not running rampant.

However, Test encourages those in vulnerable demographics to get vaccinated before the illnesses become prevalent.

When it comes to COVID-19, Test said the new vaccines are different from the previous vaccines that were being administered early during the pandemic.

"Previous variations of the COVID-19 vaccinations were approved under emergency use application and even though there was extensive data on them, the current vaccination has had to go through the standard approval process," he said.

The current vaccination is an mRNA vaccine that teaches the body how to develop immunity to the virus, Test said. He said it has proven to be safe and effective against the newer strains.

These very nice-sounding assurances from the good doctor are, unfortunately, somewhere between exaggerated and simply false.

Taking the last bit first, whether the new but not improved COVID shot is “proven to be safe and effective,” the best that can be said of that is that such a claim is premature. The shot develops antibodies, but that is the extent of what Pfizer knows about the new formulation’s efficacy.

Pre-clinical data show that the updated COVID-19 vaccine generates improved neutralizing antibody responses against multiple circulating Omicron-related sublineages including XBB.1.5, BA.2.86 (Pirola), and EG.5.1 (Eris), which currently accounts for the largest portion of U.S. cases

“Pre-clinical” is a term of art within the FDA’s drug development process, whereby initial assessments of a candidate therapeutic’s toxicity is evaluated. Significantly, pre-clinical studies occur before the therapeutic is actually tested in people.

Before testing a drug in people, researchers must find out whether it has the potential to cause serious harm, also called toxicity. The two types of preclinical research are:

Are the new formluations “safe and effective”? Pre-clinical data does not let us reach that conclusion.

Moreover, Dr. Test was inaccuarate when he asserted that Pfizer’s mRNA inoculation had not gone through an EUA process, but rather through the more rigorous approval process. Pfizer’s own press release about the updated preparation indicates otherwise (emphasis mine).

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the supplemental Biologics License Application (COMIRNATY 2023-2024 Formulation) for individuals 12 years and older and granted emergency use authorization for individuals 6 months through 11 years of age for the companies’ Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted monovalent COVID-19 vaccine. This season’s vaccine is indicated as a single dose for most individuals 5 years of age and older. Children under the age of 5 may be eligible to receive ad

ditional doses of this season’s vaccine if they have not already completed a three-dose series with previous formulations of a COVID-19 vaccine.

For at least some potential recipients, the inoculation most assuredly is being administered under an EUA.

Moreover, the testing rigor itself is open to debate (again, emphasis mine).

The approval of this season’s COVID-19 vaccine is based on the full body of previous clinical, non-clinical, and real-world evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech. Further, the application included pre-clinical data showing this season’s vaccine substantially improved responses against multiple Omicron XBB-related sublineages, including XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, and XBB.2.3, compared to the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine. Additionally, pre-clinical data demonstrate that serum antibodies induced by Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted monovalent COVID-19 vaccine, when compared to the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine, effectively neutralize the recently emerged Omicron BA.2.86 (Pirola) and the globally dominant Omicron-related EG.5.1 (Eris) subvariant.

How much testing of the inoculation we cannot determine, but Pfizer’s own language indicates that the amount of actual testing on humans is at most minimal.

That is relevant because we know from the CDC’s own disclosures that safety monitoring of the mRNA inoculations was not done at all initially, and was done sloppily when compelled to undertake it.

That revelation came a year after it became apparent that the mRNA inoculations were far from the miracles they were initially touted to be, and were instead problematic bordering on toxic.

In light of the data and the revelations that have emerged since the inoculations were first released, it is remarkable—and disconcerting—that Pfizer has done only minimal testing for its latest rendition of the COVID inoculation. Rather, Pfizer is representing that it has rendered perfunctory testing, and the FDA has given that testing data a perfunctory review, after which the FDA agreed to allow the modified inoculation be administered.

Whether that makes the inoculation “safe and effective” or “toxic and deadly” is a choice I leave to you, the reader.

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Yet even beyond the significant question of how “safe and effective” the mRNA inoculations truly are is the question of how much efficacy is truly needed. Despite all the fear porn generated in support of the Pandemic Panic Narrative, the data has never supported the many claims of severity for COVID as a public health crisis made by the corporate media.

Bear in mind that even in the earliest days of the “pandemic”, it was apparent that there was a significant disparity between what was being projected about the disease and the cases that were being recorded.

Even as lockdowns were being instituted across the United States, it was apparent that the recorded mortality from COVID was not matching the hyperventilating media accounts.

The data has not improved the narrative since those early days of the “pandemic” at all. The data has not improved on mortality, the data has not improved in virulence, the data has not improved on how and where the virus is actually spread.

A recent study appearing on JAMA Network Open has found that child care centers are not a likely transmission vector for the SARS-CoV-2 virus1.

These findings suggest that children in CCCs play a small role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission into their households and that current testing and exclusion recommendations for CCCs should be aligned with those for other respiratory viruses with similar morbidity and greater transmission to households.

Moreover, during the most recent COVID “wave” in the United States, hospitalizations peaked well below what had been recorded for any earlier wave.

Even at that, during the previous wave of COVID in the US, hospitalizations from influenza actually exceeded those from COVID.

In both waves, there was no concurrent increase in either influenza cases or Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), which effectively demolishes all notion of a “tripledemic” for respiratory viruses.

The reality has always been that there are seasonal outbreaks of respiratory viral infections, which are generally amalgamated under the rubric “Influenza Like Illnesses”—so called because they are almost symptomatically indistinguishable from each other. Quite literally, all viral respiratory infections are “the flu”.

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The determination of the corporate media to perpetuate the Pandemic Panic Narrative is in many ways a marvel to behold. Yet in all the ways that matter, the Narrative is an appalling example of corporate media propaganda. It is, as the news story cited at the outset demonstrates, a compendium of hyperbole, half-truths, and pure hoakum.

Not only must we acknowledge that there never was a COVID-19 “pandemic”—that the outbreak of COVID-19 was never as severe as represented—we must also acknowledge that the inoculations devised to “prevent” COVID-19 have not only been an abysmal failure at stopping the spread of COVID-19, they have been themselves a source of multiple adverse event conditions, multiple life-threatening pathologies, as well as life-ending ones.

The data has made this clear from the outset. Despite this, the corporate media has ignored the data and continually hammered home a narrative that we cannot survive COVID unless we all get injected with the mRNA inoculations. As we move through fall and into winter, the corporate media is once again promoting the propaganda lies of the Pandemic Panic Narrative, seeking to sow fear and paranoia wherever possible.

Do not be misled by malicious narratives. Do not follow narratives at all—not even the narratives I use here to tie data sets together into a cohesive whole. Rather, follow the data. The data and only the data can describe reality. The narrative never describes more than a propaganda fantasy tale.

Facts, evidence, and data remain the best weapons against propaganda. With the annual cold and flu season ramping up, knowing the facts, evidence, and data surrounding COVID-19 is the best way to inoculate oneself from the Pandemic Panic Narrative.

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If people take away one thing from my Substack, I sincerely hope it is this: Facts, evidence, and data are the best weapons against propaganda.

When people know the facts, the narratives become less scary.

When people know the facts about COVID-19, the narratives become infuriating and scandalous. When people know the facts, the shameless propagandizing by the corporate media becomes plain.

Well, folks, the Washington State Fair may be back but the Wildcat isn’t the only roller coaster we appear to be stuck on. After a blessedly low number of King County Covid-19 cases in the earlier half of this year, we’ve been trending back upwards over the last several months.

“Something’s definitely happening right now,” says Dr. John Lynch, medical director of infection prevention and control at Harborview Medical Center and a UW Medicine infectious diseases specialist. “You know, we’re all saying, ‘so and so has Covid’ and that’s a very informal, non-quantitative way to tell us we’re in a surge.”

“Surge”, of course, is in the eye of the propagandist. After all, it is the nature of infectious respiratory diseases that case counts will rise and fall, only to rise again and fall again. That is what they do.

Yes, more cases are being reported, and yes, more cases are ending up in hospital. But even Washington State is not seeing cases on par with cases even earlier this year, let alone a year ago.

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This is what Washington State’s “surge” looks like via the CDC’s data.

That is from the beginning of 2023. Yes, it does look like hospitalizations have risen substantially since July. However, this is how this same data looks in comparison to last year.

Last year there were three distinct “waves” of COVID hospitalizations, each of them larger than what has been reported thus far in Washington State.

As regards to COVID mortality, here is how the Washington “surge” looks with regards to COVID deaths beginning from January 1 of this year.

This is how this latest “surge” stacks up against last year’s mortality data.

The statistics show an increase, but it is a marginal increase relative to what the data showed took place last year.

Moreover, both mortality and hospitalization data shows that this latest uptick is the first COVID wave in Washington State this year. By this time last year the state was on its thirst COVID wave.

Nor are the hospitals in King County, Washington, at risk of patient overflow. As of September 3rd, no hospital is reporting at 100% of bed capacity.

There’s no mystery as to what is happening: it is cold, flu, and (now) COVID season. Just as it was last year.

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As it is in Washington State, so it is around the country. Yes, there has been an increase in cases and hospitalizations, but it is still a marginal increment relative to last year.

It’s worth noting that last winter there were more cold and flu cases in the US than there were COVID cases.

It’s also worth noting that, on a nationwide basis, COVID cases are starting to decline.

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As for the latest “variant” hysteria, this is the current genomic surveillance for HHS region 10, which includes Washington State.

What is missing from this breakdown of variants is this latest “Pirola” variant BA.2.86, which is presumably the next dangerous bug to watch.

The newest variant du jour is BA.2.86, aka Pirola. Public health experts believe it is more infectious than its predecessors. “The question is what does this mean for us in terms of our health,” Lynch says.

It’s still too early to know what BA.2.86 will mean for hospitalizations, severity of illnesses, and death rates. The variant was first detected in Denmark in July 2023 and, as of early September, has been found in 11 countries, including the United States.

Despite having popped up over a couple of months ago, it’s not even registering on the CDC’s variant radar.

Presumably, BA.2.86 is an up-and-coming variant.

Pirola has been found in 10 states, according to data from GISAID, a global database.

So far, it has been found in Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

The CDC noted in a statement released 23 August that the current hospitalisations in the country are not “likely” driven by BA.2.86, but added, “this assessment may change as additional data become available.”

Only….it isn’t.

When you actually interrogate the GISAID data, what you find is that Pirola quite possibly has already come and gone in the US. It was a blip on the virus radar and has since apparently disappeared. It seems to favor Europe to the United States.

In fact, one country where it does seem to be gaining a toehold is Denmark. It might also be advancing in South Africa, although the data is lagging. In just about every other country, Pirola is either fading or has faded away, or there are no recent updates available.

Outside of South Africa, no country has ever had more than 5% of its identified COVID cases be BA.2.86, but somehow this variant is something magically terrifying?

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While the media is fretting over COVID, we should take note that other respiratory viruses are also circulating. Washington State’s COVID hospitalizations may be rising, but so are ER/ED visits for flu-like symptoms.

They are up even more in Texas.

They are also up in Illinois.

After having had a significant spike late last year, the current flu season percentages of ER/ED visits for flu-like symptoms has become fairly mild, running even behind even the 2020-2021 season.

Ultimately, this is what should be the takeaway from all the corporate media obsession over COVID: the disease exists, but the disease is also pandemic. It is going to make an appearance most years. For most individuals COVID, like the other forms of the flu, will make you sick, might leave you feeling like you wish you had died, but you are likely to survive—just as you are likely to survive having a case of the flu.

How dangerous is COVID? As diseases go, “not very”. People can get sick from the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its many variants. Some people will even die—although in the most recent week of the CDC data only half the percentage of deaths attributable to COVID occurred in the US as occurred this time last year.

Is COVID “making a comeback”? Of sorts, but, as an endemic pathogen is has never really left. New variants are always emerging, just as we have new variant strains of the flu always emerging.

Take your health seriously. Take the flu seriously. Take COVID seriously. Just remember that taking any illness seriously means getting the facts—all the facts—about that illness and its current impact on your community.

Taking any illness seriously does not mean going along with the corporate media’s endless efforts to resurrect yet again their tired and overwrought Pandemic Panic Narrative. The Narrative is nothing but propaganda. Focus on the facts.

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Regardless of how we approach the labeling, this much will never change: Colds, influenza, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), as well as COVID are all diseases caused by infectious respiratory pathogens, and all fall under the CDC rubric of “Influenza Like Illness”.

Bear that in mind when reading the corporate media regurgitation of its Pandemic Panic Narrative, which would have you believe that COVID is still a major public health crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic feels like a thing of the past, but recent spikes in cases and the appearance of a brand new variant across four continents are reminders that the pandemic is far from over.

Do not be seduced by their intimations of grave public health threat from COVID.

It may feel like pandemic déjà vu: New Covid-19 variants are afoot, and hospitalizations are again on the rise. One called Eris became the most prevalent in July, followed by another dubbed Pirola, which has been detected in 10 countries including the US and UK as of Aug. 30. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization are closely monitoring the situation. For now, experts aren’t too concerned, though the UK is starting its fall Covid vaccination 2023 booster a month early due to the increased risk.

While individuals will always need to take precautions appropriate for their overall level of health and well-being, the data is quite clear: for the past year at the very least the impact of COVID on public health infrastructures has been minimal.

Like colds, flu, and RSV, COVID is, ultimately still “just the flu”. It’s still one type of Influenza Like Illness.

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First, let us be clear what we mean when we say “Influenza Like Illness”.

The CDC defines “Influenza Like Illness” as any illness which presents with a fever, cough, and/or sore throat.

ILI is defined as fever (temperature of 100 °F or greater) and cough and/or sore throat. It is used for flu surveillance worldwide.

If we look at the CDC’s list of symptoms for COVID, we see that COVID unequivocally fits that definition.

Influenza (Flu) itself of course fits this definition, based on the symptoms:

Flu Symptoms

Influenza (flu) can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. Flu symptoms usually come on suddenly. People who have flu often feel some or all of these symptoms:

• fever* or feeling feverish/chills

• cough

• sore throat

• runny or stuffy nose

• muscle or body aches

• headaches

• fatigue (tiredness)

• some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.

Even Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) fits this definition, based on the symptoms.

Symptoms

People infected with RSV usually show symptoms within 4 to 6 days after getting infected. Symptoms of RSV infection usually include

• Runny nose

• Decrease in appetite

• Coughing

• Sneezing

• Fever

• Wheezing

In a very real sense, they are all “just the flu”. This does not mean they are mild or that they are incapable of posing a serious threat to an individual’s health and well-being. All infectious respiratory pathogens have the potential to produce severe symptoms and severe illness. A case of “the flu” may be mild or severe, regardless of whether the underlying pathogen is SARS-COV-2, Influenza, RSV, or some other virus producing these symptoms.

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Yet while an individual case of “the flu” may be mild or severe, the public health impact of cases of “the flu” are typically minimal. The CDC data sets demonstrate this in abundance.

On a nationwide basis, combined Emergency Department visits for COVID, Flu (Influenza) and RSV never exceeded 10% of all ED visits.

Even if we break it down by state, such as in California, we still do not see all respiratory virus activity accounting for more than 10% of ED visits.

Illinois saw a higher combined percentage at 14% of all ED visits, but COVID visits did not exceed the national average of 4%. Flu visits were by far the major source of ED visits.

Pick any state, such as New York, and the trend holds: Flu accounts for more ED visits than COVID at their respective peaks.

This is true even in notionally politically conservative states such as Texas.

Respiratory viruses are completely apolitical. They don’t care about the host’s politics, only his or her vulnerability to infection.

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No matter how one views the data, the end result is the same—COVID and “the flu” present in largely the same way, and at approximately the same time.

When we view the CDC’s “FluView” chart on flu cases in California, we see a mid-November 2022 peak.

If we look at the CDC’s COVID data, we see that COVID hospitalizations peaked just a little bit later, in December, but that the cases for both COVID and the flu follow broadly similar trajectories.

If we look at New York, we again see the same broad patterns and trends.

COVID hospitalizations on a nationwide basis have been, for the past year, fairly low.

Even in New York, the hospitalizations per 100,000 people have not exceeded 17 in the past year.

As has been documented by the CDC throughout the “pandemic” and ever since, by far the major determinant of whether or not a case of COVID (or, for that matter, a case of influenza or RSV) is likely to become severe and result in hospitalization and/or death is the presence of comorbid conditions.

As of August 20, 2023, only 5% of COVID deaths presented with no comorbidities recorded.

Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving COVID-19. The number of deaths that mention one or more of the conditions indicated is shown for all deaths involving COVID-19 and by age groups. For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death. For data on deaths involving COVID-19 by time-period, jurisdiction, and other health conditions

With an average of 4 comorbid conditions involved in COVID deaths, it is no exaggeration to say that the sicker one is at the time of infection, the more likely it is COVID will become a serious illness. Age also plays a role, as elderly patients are far more vulnerable that young adults.

The same is broadly true of all respiratory illnesses.

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The SARS-CoV-2 virus is here to stay. Regardless of where it originated, the virus is now endemic worldwide. There will be seasonal outbreaks of COVID cases just as there are seasonal outbreaks of influenza and RSV. The data makes that abundantly clear as well.

Yet this also means that SARS-CoV-2 is not any great cause for alarm in and of itself. Certainly those who are immunocompromised or immunodeficient will need to take special care to avoid infection—but this is true for all infectious respiratory pathogens. Nor should anyone be blithe and careless about getting sick—even for a healthy person getting “the flu” has a fairly high suckage factor attached.

What SARS-CoV-2 is not is a reason to upend one’s life. What SARS-CoV-2 is not is the second coming of the Black Plague, or even the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, certainly not at the present time. The data does not lend itself to even a passing comparison between current iterations of SARS-CoV-2 and those prior true pandemic diseases.

Summer is slipping into fall. That means we are slipping into cold season. We are slipping into flu season. We are slipping into RSV season. We are slipping into COVID season. This we do every year right about this time.

Be smart about your health. Be protective of your health. Take reasonable and prudent precautions to avoid getting sick, not just from COVID, but from any disease.

But be realistic about such diseases. The CDC terms these illnesses “Influenza Like Illness” for a reason—they are largely indistinguishable from one another going by symptoms alone.

In a very real and substantive way, COVID is still, just as it has always been, “just the flu.”

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Mask mandates are quietly making a comeback, yet the state of the evidence on the utility of such “public health” measures fails to show any demonstrable benefit.

As documents in her Substack, mandates are back with a vengeance.

Wholistic

Mask and Vaccine Mandates: THEY'RE BACK!!!

Just when it seemed like we were getting back to some limited sense of normality, it’s time to ramp up the pandemic again…just in time for the U.S. presidential election? I hope I’m wrong but…If you thought 2020-2022 was bad, wait until 2024. All of a sudden news stories are popping up about new mask mandates, testing mandates, and vaccine mandates…

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3 years ago · 18 likes · 7 comments · Stephanie Brail

Just when it seemed like we were getting back to some limited sense of normality, it’s time to ramp up the pandemic again…just in time for the U.S. presidential election?

I hope I’m wrong but…If you thought 2020-2022 was bad, wait until 2024.

All of a sudden news stories are popping up about new mask mandates, testing mandates, and vaccine mandates.

It seems the urge to turn human society into a hellscape lifted bodily from the “Resident Evil” movie franchise simply will not die, lack of actual evidence in support of these “public health” controls be damned.

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Regarding the corporate media narrative, there is little to say that I have not already said many times before: There is panic over a “new variant”, a vague reference to “rising cases”, and the reflex urge to “mask up.”

To mask, or not to mask?

That is the question facing many doctors, public health officials and concerned citizens worldwide, as cases of COVID-19 once again tick upward.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Thursday that there’s a new, “highly mutated variant” of the coronavirus named BA.2.86 that’s spreading worldwide.

What gets buried deep in the propaganda, however, is the fact that these “large” increases in cases are relative (percentage) increases. The overall case and hospitalizations are still very low overall (emphasis mine).

The CDC's most recent data shows the number of hospitalizations are up by 30% statewide. The most recent report is raising some concerns for some doctors, including Dr. Jayne Morgan, the executive director of Health and Community Education at Piedmont Healthcare.

"This is what endemic means -- it doesn't go away," said Morgan. "We know now, with this heat wave, so many people have been driven indoors, when we're usually outdoors. We're also traveling a lot during the summer, so we're carrying the virus from one group to the next."

Overall, Morgan said, the number of Covid-related cases is still low.

In other words, media reporting on COVID cases is like the old joke about having a penny and finding another penny—yes, you’ve doubled your money but you still only have two cents. (Even my sarcasms are recycled….that’s how repetitive this nonsense has gotten!)

Are hospitalizations for COVID up in the US? Yes. But relative to prior infection cycles, they are still very low.

Overall current hospitalizations for COVID are also up—but by a lesser amount than the weekly count, which indicates a decided lack of severity.

Even more significant: COVID mortality is still declining.

People might be getting sick, but they are not, by and large, dying as a result.

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Yet because of these minor increases in cases and hospitalizations, the corporate media is trotting out its favorite Resident Evil Zombie, the mask mandate. Like those putrefying walking dead, the mask mandate still shows none of that most important sign of intelligent life—evidence.

What must be remembered—and reiterated and repeated, to counter this creeping zombie narrative—is that there has never been solid evidence for universal masking.

There was no evidence supporting face mask mandates when the mandates first appeared in April of 2020, in the very early days of the “pandemic”.

There was no evidence in July of 2022, when Los Angeles County ignored its own COVID data to genuflect to the CDC’s opinion on the need for face mask mandates.

There was no evidence to support universal masking when mask mandates made an appearance in the Corsa Rosa cycling race earlier this year.

So complete has been the lack of evidence in support of mask mandates that “The Science™” advocates felt compelled to demonize and attempt to undermine a Cochrane Review that confirmed the lack of evidence for universal masking.

Nor has 2023 produced conclusive studies to the contrary—although not for lack of trying by the Faucists.

A recent systematic review1 of the current literature on universal masking appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine could only identify a problematic and miniscule benefit to masking.

Updated evidence suggests that masks may be associated with a small reduction in risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in community settings. Surgical masks and N95 respirators may be associated with similar infection risk in routine patient care settings, but a beneficial effect of N95 respirators cannot be ruled out.

Tentative language such as “may be associated with” is a far cry from corporate media’s overly confident narrative that masks are highly effective, indicating that universal masking is at best a dubious public health strategy and at worst a public health nightmare.

It is worth noting that this review, which was an update of earlier reviews of the extant literature, unearthed only one new random controlled trial2, which found that N95 respirators were somewhat better than medical masks at preventing COVID.

Among health care workers who provided routine care to patients with COVID-19, the overall estimates rule out a doubling in hazard of RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 for medical masks when compared with HRs of RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 for N95 respirators. The subgroup results varied by country, and the overall estimates may not be applicable to individual countries because of treatment effect heterogeneity.

The authors’ lack of confidence in their own results is quite telling—and what it tells is that masks are even for healthcare workers a problematic level of personal protection and infection mitigation.

With even the new RCT presenting severe limitations as to its conclusions—the authors acknowledge their conclusions cannot be reliably extrapolated to healthcare workers in any one country—the end results are the same: there is simply no solid evidence that mask mandates have beneficial effect in mitigating COVID spread.

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The one scientific standard even above the Random Controlled Trial is reproducibility. In real science (as opposed to Faucist “the Science™”), a study has the most value if its results can be replicated by other independent researchers.

With now at least sixteen Random Controlled Trials failing to show any clear public health benefit to mask mandates and universal masking, it is simply not a true statement by the “experts” when they argue that universal masking has clear benefit.

It is not a true statement when corporate media reports that the thrust of the scientific evidence supports mask mandates. The scientific evidence simply does not support universal mask mandates as good public health policy.

There has never been good scientific support for universal mask mandates. Even where studies purport to show some benefit, confounding factors make drawing clearly policy conclusions from these studies an absolute impossibility. Where coercion is concerned, the scientific support needs to be clear and unambiguous, not hazy and uncertain.

That has been the case each and every time mask mandates have emerged, and it is the case now. Equally it is necessary to keep repeating this to push back against the corporate media propaganda and a resurrected Pandemic Panic Narrative. Above all else we must always remember to analyze, question, and scrutinize a matter for ourselves. We must never let the media, but corporate media especially, presume to think for us.

The return of the mask mandate is simply the triumph within the corporate media of narrative over facts and evidence. Mask mandates are a perverse and peculiar sort of intellectual laziness, whereby the notional “experts” do not bother to challenge their own assumptions and preconceptions. Rather than analyze, question, scrutinize—the behaviors which are the basis of all science—the “experts” in and out of the media merely genuflect to a preconcieved notional good.

It is not expertise to parrot a narrative, but idiocy.

Should people wear face masks when COVID (or any infectious respiratory pathogen) is on the rise? Ultimately, that has to be a question of personal comfort and personal choice. Those who gain a certain peace of mind from wearing a mask, or who are concerned about the risks of COVID as they are immuno-compromised, should feel at liberty to do so.

However, in no way shape or form should that freedom to wear a face mask become a legal coercion to do so. There is no basis in science, and thus no basis in ethics, for anyone to circumscribe the free choice of others on whether to wear or not wear a face mask. That was the state of the scientific evidence in 2020, and it is the state of the scientific evidence today.

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However, the jabs are still out there and the FDA is still lying about them, so we really do not have the luxury of ignoring them completely—if the Pandemic Panic Narrative tries to rise again like the undead zombies from Resident Evil, self preservation demands we be equipped with the facts and the data to politely (or impolitely) tell all the jab-happy Karens out there where to go.

Thus we come to an absolutely absurd bit of news: the FDA is telling the mRNA inoculation vendors how to prepare their next batch of poison inoculations.

The next round of COVID-19 vaccines will target one of the latest versions of the coronavirus, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

FDA’s decision came one day after an agency panel of outside advisers supported the recipe change. The agency told vaccine makers to provide protection against just one omicron strain, known as XBB.1.5.

Thank goodness we have the FDA keeping Pfizer and Moderna up to date on which strains of the (non-dangerous, non-deadly) Pandemic Panic inducing virus to use!

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Oh, wait…I promised you absurdity, didn’t I? Well, absurdity we shall have.

We start with this depiction of the strain selected as “one of the latest” variants.

Yes, XBB.1.5 is of recent origin, if you consider a variant that’s been around for six months to as “one of the latest.” As readers may recall, the (non-)dangers of XBB.1.5 was a topic here right after the New Year.

Certainly, to hear the corporate media tell the tale, XBB.1.5 is cause for alarm, as where it is dominant COVID hospitalizations have risen.

Or have they?

The CDC hospitalization data leaves plenty of room for doubt. Consider the case of New York—in particular, the population epicenter of New York City, Kings County.

Per the CDC, hospitalizations have indeed been rising of late, but since mid-December new hospital admissions have been declining in Kings County.

That was at the beginning of January. One only needs consider all the stories about the horrors of XBB.1.5 that corporate media did not run since then to grasp the degree to which this particular variant is not a threat of anything.

The absurdity of the FDA worrying about this particular strain is amplified even more when we recall that XBB.1.5 was the variant that some snarky researcher with way too much time on a Friday night dubbed “Kraken”.

The corporate media seriously hoped that they could gaslight the public into believing that XBB.1.5 was a terrifying new variant (hence my suggestion that it be called “Ingrid”, in honor of Ingrid Bergman’s star turn in the movie that gifted us the term “Gaslight”). Instead, XBB.1.5 was a bigger non-event than last winter’s cold and flu season.

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Another fun twist in the tale: the FDA is also backtracking on “bivalent” boosters.

For the 2023-2024 formulation of the COVID-19 vaccines for use in the U.S. beginning in the fall of 2023, the committee unanimously voted that the vaccine composition be updated to a monovalent COVID-19 vaccine with an XBB-lineage of the Omicron variant. Following discussion of the evidence, the committee expressed a preference for XBB.1.5.

During this meeting, the advisory committee was informed of the manufacturing timelines, they reviewed the available data on the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants, current vaccine effectiveness, human immunogenicity data of current vaccines against recently circulating virus variants, the antigenic characterization of circulating virus variants, animal immunogenicity data generated by new candidate vaccines expressing or containing updated spike components, and preliminary human immunogenicity data generated by one XBB.1.5 candidate vaccine.

This just two months after telling Pfizer and Moderna that the old monovalent jabs were no longer Emergency Use Authorized, and that only the bivalent booster was permissible to shoot into people’s arms.

Which means that the FDA will have to issue fresh EUAs for the new formulations. The bivalent EUAs won’t cover a monovalent formulation, and the old monovalent EUAs have been rescinded. Very soon we will get the first Emergency Use Authorization issued outside of a declared Public Health Emergency.

Xavier Becerra’s end run around the PHE declaration protocols is about to pay dividends to Pfizer stockholders.

All this for an inoculation which research has shown to be less effective than natural immunity from a mild case of COVID.

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Yet the story gets even more comical. XBB.1.5 has been the dominant variant in the US since sometime in February.

Yet if you look closely, you see that XBB.1.5 only accounts for 39.9% of Nowcast estimated cases in the US. Meanwhile, XBB.1.16, XBB.1.16.1, XBB.1.9.1 and XBB.1.9.2 collectively account for 47.5% of cases in the US.

Even at that, we’ve heard of XBB.1.16 before. XBB.1.16 is the “Arcturus” variant that began to be noticed two months ago.

Side note: if you haven’t already you absolutely must check out Stephanie Brail’s AI-generated images for “Arcturus”—they’re far more interesting than the actual virus.

Wholistic

The New Covid Variant is Named "Arcturus"?!

If you want evidence that some overpaid creative agency is actively coming up with COVID-19 branding campaigns, one only needs to look at the new name for the latest covid scariant, ARCTURUS: A new COVID variant dubbed Arcturus has caused a huge uptick in infections in India, with the World Health Organization (WHO) classifying it as a variant of interes…

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3 years ago · 32 likes · 10 comments · Stephanie Brail

To put it simply, the FDA has decided that the strain named after a mythical Greek sea monster is a greater worry than the strain named after a red giant star in the constellation Betelgeuse. This even thought Arcturus is gaining ground and will, if current trends hold true, by the end of next month displace Kraken as the dominant COVID strain. By the time Pfizer gets its mRNA inoculation updated, Kraken will be on the way out as a variant of concern.

Why the FDA is ignoring Arcturus despite the obvious reality that it is gaining ground on XBB.1.5 is a mystery. What is not a mystery is that a preparation of the mRNA inoculation is not likely to have much impact on COVID cases. XBB.1.16 (Arcturus), as XBB.1.16 is a parallel offshoot of SARS-CoV-2 from the original XBB variant.

Don’t forget, the FDA is committed to science-based medicine. They even say so in their mission statement:

FDA is responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medical products more effective, safer, and more affordable and by helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medical products and foods to maintain and improve their health.

Ignoring the data and current trends for an infectious respiratory pathogen is how “The Science™” is done these days, apparently!

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Of course, all of this worry and concern over COVID is taking place against a backdrop of declining COVID cases being diagnosed from ED visits.

Not to mention declining test positivity overall—people are getting less and less COVID even with Kraken swimming around and Arcturus rising like a blood red moon (yes, that sounds cheesy, but the alternative is to be serious…that ain’t happening!).

Even when people do get COVID, they are hospitalized less and less.

They’re going to the morgue even less frequently.

Whether Kraken, Arcturus, or some variant to be named later, COVID variants are simply not an healthcare concern in the US.

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The FDA is supposed to be looking at the data, weighing the evidence, and making its decisions accordingly—the way actual scientists do. Instead, they’re proving to be about as data dependent as the Federal Reserve (i.e., not at all). Instead of looking at how the SARS-CoV-2 virus is changing among the strains already in the wild, they’re constantly stuck two steps behind the virus.

Under the FDA directives, the new mRNA inoculations will be ready to go just after the strain they’re supposed to target, XBB.1.5, has already left the stage.

It’s just as well that the mRNA inoculations are useless, and that the latest variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus pose no real public health concern. If COVID was something other than “just the flu”, the level of competency being shown by the FDA, would be an healthcare threat all its own.

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The Pandemic Panic has come and gone. The Public Health Emergency has come and gone. Yet the red flags warning of the general toxicity of Pfizer’s mRNA inoculations against COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2i stay the same.

We are reminded of this because yet more Pfizer clinical and safety data—this time from early last year—has emerged, detailing the myriad adverse events arising from the administration of the mRNA inoculations.

Over 10,000 categories of nearly 1.6 million adverse events – many of them serious and debilitating – brought to you by Pfizer!

You might not have heard it in the news, but in recent months, Pfizer’s pharmacovigilance documents requested by the European Union’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, have been released. They show that Pfizer knew about a sickening level of injury early on.

Specifically, we now have Pfizer’s “Periodic Safety Update Report #3”, dated 18 August 2022 and covering the period from 19 December 2021 through 18 June 2022. This document first surfaced back in March on Austrian science blog TKP (archived here), which received the report from a reader who submitted the necessary FOIA request to gain access to the report from the EMA.

That 396-page document is accompanied by a 393-page Appendix detailing some ten thousand different types of adverse events arising from the jabs.

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As Jessica Rose details in “Unacceptable Jessica”, there’s no real new information here. The Appendix in particular is just more data detailing the dangers and toxicities of the Pfizer inoculation.

I decided that since it is redundant considering the VAERS and other pharmacovigilance databases, that I would compare and contrast a few select adverse event types to provide yet one more compelling piece of evidence that the COVID-19 shots are dangerous to human health and should be called off of every market - human and animal.

Which is not to say the information is not important. Quite the contrary, it is “hard data” documenting the very real dangers presented by Pfizer’s BNT162B2/Comirnaty mRNA inoculation against SARS-CoV-2 infection—which is an egregiously long-winded way to describe what the FDA and CDC want you to think is a vaccine, even though it isn’t.

This latest Pfizer data dump also reminds us the significant (“shocking”? “appalling”?) scope of the adverse events one risks by getting the jab.

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By its very existence, the safety report and its appendix document that Pfizer absolutely has been aware of the inoculation’s toxicities all along. With all the bureaucratic efficiency one expects from that bastion of the conjoined evils of Faucism, fascism, and mercantilism, Pfizer has been dutifully recording each and every painful encounter its clinical subjects have had with their concoction.

As Daniel Horowitz points out writing for the Conservative Review, the evidence against the jabs is unmistakable and unmistakably damning.

When reading what Pfizer knew early on juxtaposed to independent studies, it’s clear that nobody could have mistaken most of these AEs for mere incidental ailments. Here is a list of 3,129 case studies chronicling vaccine injury in every organ system observed in this Pfizer document.

Yet even this, appalling and damnable as it is, is merely restates what has been documented and established many times over—Pfizer’s own data substantiates each and every claim regarding adverse events documented in the VAERS database.

Appalling and damnable as this data is, it merely reiterates the equally appalling truth that the CDC blatantly lied about its own “safety” studies regarding the inoculations.

This latest Pfizer data dump does flesh out an important safety dimension: many of these dangers and adverse events are long-lasting, and even permanent debilitations.

The Pfizer data also shows that more than 60 percent of cases were classified as either “outcome unknown” or “not recovered,” indicating that a concerning number of the injuries were long term. Only 35 percent were listed as recovered or recovering.

There are a few other off-hand admissions as well, such as the US case fatality rate for COVID-19 being at 1.2% as of 27 March 2022.

Our World In Data puts that mortality in a visual context:

It’s worth noting that this case fatality rate was as of a year ago, and has been trending down2.

Despite the increase in reported cases during the BA.5 period, COVID-19–related deaths did not increase proportionally when compared to earlier phases of the pandemic. For example, during the Delta period, weekly COVID-19 cases peaked at 1,181,551 for the week of September 1, 2021, which was similar to the number of COVID-19 cases reported during the BA.5 peak. The Delta period COVID-19 case peak was followed by a peak in COVID-19–related deaths (14,557) the week of September 29, 2021 with an estimated ratio of ~12 deaths per 1,000 reported cases. During the BA.5 weekly case and death peaks, this ratio decreased to ~4 deaths per 1,000 reported cases. Furthermore, the degree of overestimation in the death-to-case ratio likely increased during the BA.5 period, as higher rates of self-testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection, with subsequent reduction in the proportion of COVID-19 cases reported to public health, coincided with this peak.

12 deaths per 1,000 cases is the same case fatality rate as Pfizer documents: 1.2%. 4 deaths per 1,000 cases is a 0.4% case fatality rate.

Pfizer’s safety report highlights another important aspect of COVID-19: as many as half of all cases are “asymptomatic” (which means people either aren’t getting sick or are getting only very mildly sick).

A disease that is barely noticeable as such is a curious candidate for the R&D efforts to develop a “vaccine” cum inoculation, yet here we are.

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Even those most of the data in the safety report and the appendix is a retread, restating mostly what is already known about both COVID and the inoculations, by far the most damning piece of data in both the report and the appendix is the date: 18 August 2022.

Pfizer has been sitting on this data since that time. The European Medicines Angency sat on this data until March of this year. But for an enterprising individual and a FOIA request, this data would still be kept from the public. That’s a problem—a big problem.

No one can possibly make an informed risk assessment about any medical product or treatment if they are denied information—and, for better or worse, the Pfizer data is undeniably information and undeniably highly relevant.

Without ready access to all available information, there can be no informed consent. “Informed consent”3 by definition presumes one has been given all the information necessary to decide whether or not to proceed with a particular treatment or procedure.

Informed consent is the process in which a health care provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. The patient must be competent to make a voluntary decision about whether to undergo the procedure or intervention.  Informed consent is both an ethical and legal obligation of medical practitioners in the US and originates from the patient's right to direct what happens to their body. Implicit in providing informed consent is an assessment of the patient's understanding, rendering an actual recommendation, and documentation of the process. The Joint Commission requires documentation of all the elements of informed consent "in a form, progress notes or elsewhere in the record." The following are the required elements for documentation of the informed consent discussion: (1) the nature of the procedure, (2) the risks and benefits and the procedure, (3) reasonable alternatives, (4) risks and benefits of alternatives, and (5) assessment of the patient's understanding of elements 1 through 4.

Pfizer has been withholding relevant data pertaining to safety as well as efficacy of its products—that is not compatible with the principle of informed consent.

This is not a small thing. Informed consent is an ethical obligation all health care providers owe their patients, as the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Lisbon On The Rights Of the Patient makes clear:

Moreover, Article 7 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights establishes that everyone is entitled to the equal protections of the law.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

When Pfizer withholds information, when it hides behind healthcare bureaucracies, when Pfizer does so without fear of accountablity or consequence, by definition it is violating the explicit rights of patients everywhere, and the fundamental rights of all human beings everywhere. There can be no equal protection under the law between Pfizer and any patient when Pfizer exploits bureaucracy to deny patients their absolute and fundamental rights.

All businesses have facts and details they would like to keep private. Such privacy is not necessarily for nefarious purpose. Still, any right to such privacy is voided when it is placed in service of the deliberate and intentional violation of both patient and human rights. This is exactly what Pfizer does when it conceals information regarding the safety, efficacy, and necessity of its products.

This is exactly what Pfizer did when it declared this safety information to be “proprietary and confidential”.

This is what the EMA facilitates and in which it is demonstrably complicit when it hides these reports behind FOIA requests.

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This is not information that should ever be considered either proprietary or confidential. Rather it is information that should received an high degree of public dissemination. This is information that every person receiving or thinking of receiving a COVID-19 mRNA inoculation needs and is unequivocally entitled to receive.

Both as patients within any country’s healthcare system as well as as human beings, people have an absolute right to any and all safety and efficacy information regarding the medicines and pharmaceutical products they take into their bodies. The concealment of safety and efficacy information—which by definition a “Periodic Safety Update Report” must be—is a blatant violation of patient rights as well as human right.

The most damning information found within this latest release of Pfizer safety data is not that the mRNA inoculations are toxic and dangerous, but the fresh confirmation that the EU healthcare bureaucracy, just as with the US healthcare bureaucracy, is even more toxic and even more dangerous.

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Steve Kirsch referenced the now missing study as a point of departure for arguing that the inoculations are responsible for over 25,000 cases of multiple sclerosis:

Steve Kirsch's newsletter

COVID vaccines have likely caused over 25,000 new cases of multiple sclerosis (MS)

Executive summary A paper abstract that appeared on the WHO website created quite a stir because it showed the biological mechanism for how COVID vaccines can induce multiple sclerosis. Note: the link takes you to a “fact check” proving the abstract was on the WHO website because the WHO removed it after people noticed it…

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3 years ago · 564 likes · 336 comments · Steve Kirsch

A paper abstract that appeared on the WHO website created quite a stir because it showed the biological mechanism for how COVID vaccines can induce multiple sclerosis.

Stephanie Brail highlights the study to call attention to Dr. John Campbell’s video and Substack article doing a deep dive into the topic.

Wholistic

WHO: Covid Vaccines can Cause Multiple Sclerosis!!??

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3 years ago · 11 likes · 8 comments · Stephanie Brail

Dr. John Campbell explains this much better than I can in his above video (Rumble link here), but the short version is this:

The spike protein shares some commonalities with the proteins in the myelin sheath that protects nerve fibers; mRNA covid vaccination can apparently, inadvertently teach the body’s immune system to attack the myelin sheath, causing MS. Doh!

Dr. Campbell provides a succinct overview of the study and the relevant adverse effects of mRNA inoculation:

John’s Substack

Covid vaccines and multiple sclerosis

Well, I must say I was a little surprised to find this article, indicating a likely causative correlation between Covid vaccinations and Multiple Sclerosis on an official World Health Organisation website. While this study is only dealing with a small number of cases, it could be considered to be inconsistent with the official narrative, one might even s…

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3 years ago · 104 likes · 35 comments · John Campbell

The problem is as well as interacting with the SARS coronavirus spike protein as they are supposed to, the T-helper cells also initiate an immune response to the myelin sheath within the central nervous system. If the myelin sheaths within the central nervous system are damaged this is referred to as demyelinating disease and of course the classic example of this pathology is multiple sclerosis.

However, this study as well as the additional studies referenced by Steve Kirsch also highlight yet again the extraordinary failure of both the CDC and the FDA to catch patently obvious safety signals and concerns about the mRNA inoculations.

These safety signals have been abundant from the very beginning. They have been published in peer-reviewed articles and studies even in 2021, shortly after the inoculations were in widespread use. They have been to the last completely ignored and disregarded by the very agencies whose job it is to pay attention to them.

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To appreciate just how badly the CDC and FDA dropped the ball, we must first understand that what the study describes—and what both Kirsch and Dr. Campbell illuminate—is what is known as an autoimmune disease1.

A healthy immune system defends the body against disease and infection. But if the immune system malfunctions, it mistakenly attacks healthy cells, tissues, and organs. Called autoimmune disease, these attacks can affect any part of the body, weakening bodily function and even turning life-threatening.

MS itself has long been known as an autoimmune disease2.

In MS, the immune system cells that normally protect us from viruses, bacteria, and unhealthy cells mistakenly attack myelin in the central nervous system (brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord). Myelin is a substance that makes up the protective sheath (myelin sheath) that coats nerve fibers (axons).

Autoimmune disorders are but one of the potential hazards of the mRNA inoculation, according to a new study3 published by the Multi-Disciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI).

COVID-19 vaccines have been found to make the virus ‘more severe’ after vaccination, as well as increasing the risks of autoimmune disease, myocarditis, and cancer-cell growth. The news comes from a recent peer-reviewed study published by the Multi-disciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI).

To be sure, autoimmune responses to vaccination are hardly a new phenomenon. Even the routine seasonal influenza shot has been associated with 212 cases of autoimmune diseases over the years, according to VAERS.

However, the COVID-19 inoculations are associated with more than ten times as many cases of autoimmune disease in VAERS just in the past two or so years.

The discrepancy becomes even greater when we apply a cutoff date of July 1, 2020, in order to get a true “apples to apples” comparison.

Influenza vaccine has been associated with 26 cases of autoimmune disease since July 1, 2020.

The COVID-19 inoculations, on the other hand, are associated with 2,841 cases of autoimmune disease since July 1, 2020.

In other words, over the same time frame, the COVID inoculations are associated with 109 times as many cases of autoimmune disease as influenza vaccines.

The CDC explicitly promised to pay attention to the safety signals emanating from VAERS. We already know that they lied about keeping that promise.

Now we see the damage done by their failure to keep that promise. Nearly 3,000 cases of autoimmune disease arguably caused by the COVID inoculations could have been prevented (in truth, it’s more like “at least” 3,000 cases, inasmuch as Steve Kirsch is almost certainly correct that the VAERS database underreports adverse events).

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But why should it have even come down to even this dramatic a safety signal? The medial literature is replete with examples of the COVID inoculations causing or catalyzing autoimmune responses.

• There is the April 13, 2021, case study of autoimmune hepatitis developing after COVID inoculation4.

  To our knowledge, this is the first reported episode of autoimmune hepatitis developing post-COVID-19 vaccination, raising concern regarding the possibility of vaccine-induced autoimmunity.

• There is the June 11, 2021, case study of a first manifestation of MS after COVID-19 inocuation (Pfizer/BioNTech)5.

  A 28-year-old woman developed the first clinical manifestation of relapsing MS after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2, Comirnaty©, BioNTech/Pfizer). Six days after the initially well-tolerated first immunization, she began to develop left abdominal neuropathic pain, sensory impairment below the T6 level, with hypoesthesia of right abdominal wall and genital regions, and left leg paresis.

• There is the June 17, 2021 case study of autoimmune hepatitis following COVID-19 inoculation6.

  Given the temporal sequence, results of biochemistry, immunological assays (Table S1) and typical histological changes on liver biopsy, diagnosis of DI-AIH due to the COVID19 vaccine is most plausible.

• There is the July 7, 2021, case study of autoimmune hepatitis after COVID-19 inoculation7.

  These findings raise the question as to whether COVID-19 mRNA vaccination can, through activation of the innate immune system and subsequent non-specific activation of autoreactive lymphocytes, lead to the development of autoimmune diseases including AIH or trigger a drug-induced liver injury with features of AIH.

• There is the September, 2021 study of autoimmune hepatitis after COVID-19 inoculation8.

  We report a well characterized case of acute severe autoimmune-like hepatitis in a 63-year old male without a history of autoimmune diseases, with symptom onset one week after the first dose of mRNA-1273 vaccine. The patient responded well to prednisone treatment over two weeks. As for other similar cases recently reported in the literature, a causal link with the vaccine cannot be proven, but it is suggested by the temporal relationship in absence of other potential triggers or risk factors for AIH, which preferentially affects young or middle-aged women.

• There is another September, 2021, case study of autoimmune hepatitis after COVID-19 inoculation9.

  These reactions are due to an immune intolerance to self-antigens combined with a failure of intrinsic homeostatic systems that prevent a promiscuous immune response to these antigens.

• There is the November 15, 2021, case study of undiagnosed MS after COVID-19 inoculation10.

  Vaccines are proposed to cause an increased immune response, which in turn triggers the self-antigens of the immune system; however, there is no definitive causative association between the two. This paper reports a rare case of MS triggered a few days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The time between vaccination and onset of symptoms favors this association, supported by the lab and imaging findings which confirmed the diagnosis. However, more data is needed regarding the association between COVID-19 vaccines and activation of MS or other autoimmune diseases.

• There is the December 9, 2021, case series documenting new diagnoses of MS following COVID-19 inoculations11.

  Acute neurological deficits in the setting of recent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine administration may represent new onset multiple sclerosis.

• There is the August 19, 2022, meta-study of MS relapse after COVID-19 inoculation12.

  Overall, the COVID-19 vaccination may trigger relapses in some MS patients

• There is the study published in the upcoming issue of Autoimmunity Reviews establishing links between COVID inoculations and autoimmune diseases13 (emphasis mine).

  It is important to emphasize that vaccines are generally safe and necessary for disease prevention. The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination significantly outweigh the theoretical risks, and we strongly encourage worldwide vaccination to build immune protection in the population. Nevertheless, it is our responsibility to remain vigilant and actively understand the serious adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines, critically evaluate vaccine safety, and increase public and healthcare worker awareness regarding vaccination. This will enable prompt identification, diagnosis, and treatment of these autoimmune diseases following vaccination through the recognition of their clinical and laboratory features.

These studies and case reports are all in addition to the research cited by Steve Kirsch, and in addition to the WHO-disclosed study which has given rise to these latest concerns over the dangers of the mRNA inoculations. These studies and case reports are far from being an exhaustive listing of the extant research connecting the mRNA inoculations to various autoimmune diseases.

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The peer-reviewed literature has accepted the possibility of the mRNA inoculations causing autoimmune disease since April of 2021—more than two years ago. Given the numbers for autoimmune diseases appearing in VAERS, exactly how many of these red flags are needed before the CDC, the FDA, or even Big Pharma acknowledge what is patently obvious from the extant data—that the mRNA inoculations are making the immune system do way more than is intended?

Much as I asked early last year, “how many red flags are enough?”

Given the mendacity, idiocy, and incompetence we have seen from the CDC and the FDA throughout the pandemic era, it has become all too obvious the answer is “no number of red flags is enough. All red flags will be ignored.”

That the mRNA inoculations have the potential to cause paralytic autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis is scary and disturbing all on its own. Yet equally if not more scary and disturbing is the reality that the research, the data, the evidence highlighting this particular risk of the inoculations have all been in front of the CDC and the FDA from the time the COVID inoculations were first released. The CDC and the FDA have ignored every last safety signal and disconcerting data point.

The CDC and the FDA have failed completely in their mission of protecting the public health. Indeed, they have gone so far as to become themselves a danger to the public health. The red flags that have been raised over the COVID inoculations are also an equally stark warning about the dangers to health and safety posed by these public health bureaucracies.

The true takeaway from this latest warning about the mRNA shots and multiple sclerosis is that these presumptive guardians of the public health are the one thing more toxic and deadly than the shots themselves.

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The WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the Committee regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He determines that COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

And one would be wrong. Face masks remain a grim tribute to the staying power of nonsense, even in the face of reality and research, as fans of the Giro d’Italia bicycle race recently found out.

Giro d'Italia followers coming into contact with riders will be required to wear masks in the wake of COVID-19 cases that hit the race and forced overall leader Remco Evenepoel to abandon the 'Corsa Rosa', race director Mauro Vegni said on Monday.

That’s right, even though COVID-19 has ceased to be a serious health issue anywhere in the world (including Italy), the merest hint of a case of COVID is enough for race officials to send fans scurrying to grab their face diapers once more.

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When I say that COVID is not a serious health issue in Italy, I mean exactly that.

New cases in Italy are at an all-time low and have been almost since the start of the year.

Confirmed deaths are also at an all-time low for the country.

COVID Hospital patients are similarly trending into nothingness.

COVID is simply not a burden on the public health in Italy at this time, and has not been so for months.

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Yet despite this fading away of cases and patients, Italians are still fearful over the virus, so much so that merely testing positive for the virus compelled the race leader, Remco Evenepoel, to withdraw—even though the race rules did not require that.

Teams are not required to test their riders for COVID-19 and even in the eventuality of a positive case, they are not obliged to pull the rider out of the race.

Why did Evenepoel pull out? Because reasons.

Similar logic extends to the reaction race officials have had towards fans of the race, who must once more mask up if they are going to come out to watch the various race stages. Despite the endless array of peer-reviewed studies which show beyond any doubt that universal masking does not impede the spread of infectious respiratory disease, Italians are still virtue-signaling their intent to “fight” the spread of COVID.

Nor is this junk science fixation limited to Italy. Corporate media here in the United States continues to push the much disproven claim that face masks make a difference in COVID-19 spread, or of the spread of any infectious respiratory pathogen.

Even after the expiration of the US public health emergency declaration and with many Americans moving away from pandemic precautions, masks continue to offer some protection, reducing your risk of catching Covid-19 in a community setting like in a close doctor and patient interaction, according to the study, which reviewed the latest science on the protective quality of masks.

Because corporate media continues to push this arrant nonsense (and theories which have been repeatedly disproven can only be considered arrant nonsense and never anything else), we must yet again beat the dead horse of the number of studies that have shown literally for nearly two decades that universal masking does not affect the spread of infectious respiratory disease.

This was the state of the scientific understanding about the impact of masks upon the public’s health when mask mandates were first trundled out in April of 2020.

There are at least four separate studies on the effect of healthy people wearing masks as well as hand hygiene around symptomatic individuals:

• There is the 2008 Hong Kong study of 198 households, which found "The laboratory-based or clinical secondary attack ratios did not significantly differ across the intervention arms." In other words, the masks made no difference.

• There is the 2009 Australian study of 286 individuals across 143 households which concluded that "...household use of face masks is associated with low adherence and is ineffective for controlling seasonal respiratory disease."

• There is the 2009 Hong Kong study of 259 households which found that among the mask-wearing groups "the differences compared with the control group were not significant."

• There is the 2012 German study of 84 households comparing mask-only (M) and mask-plus-hand-hygiene (MH) strategies which found "there was no statistically significant effect of the M and MH interventions on secondary infections."

One point must be emphasized: these studies evaluate wearing masks as a mitigation/containment strategy. These studies do not offer any insight or commentary on the efficacy of an individual mask at blocking individual virion particles from entering the nose and mouth.

We must recall yet again that even the much-maligned World Health Organization, acknowledged that universal masking was ineffective at inhibiting the spread of infectious respiratory pathogens, and that the corporate media dutifully reiterated this stance.

Even as late as March 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised against wearing masks. 

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly," WHO executive director of health emergencies Mike Ryan said Monday. 

The legacy media had been advocating the "no mask" position quite strongly even before March.

Even if there are cases next door, the answer is no, you do NOT need to get or wear any face masks—surgical masks, "N95 masks," respirator masks, or anything else—to protect yourself against the coronavirus. Not only do you not need them, you shouldn’t wear them, according to infection prevention specialist Eli Perencevich, MD, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa’s College of Medicine. 

"The average healthy person does not need to have a mask, and they shouldn’t be wearing masks," Dr. Perencevich said. "There’s no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them. They wear them incorrectly, and they can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their face more often."

The message was clear: masks were bad. Do not wear masks.

This was the understanding the “scientific establishment” had regarding face masks in early 2020, and this was the understanding that was communicated to people in general regarding face masks in early 2020.

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Nor has the actual science shifted or provided any new evidence to rebut this prior understanding.

While my early readings in 2020 had uncovered four peer-reviewed studies detailing how universal masking is ineffective against infectious respiratory disease, by last summer, that number had grown to at least fourteen—and fifteen if one includes a correct view of the data developed in the (in)famous Bangladeshi study.

In August of last year, statistician Jeffrey H. Anderson dug a little deeper and found a total of 14 Random Controlled Trials which failed to produce reliable evidence of any benefit from universal mask mandates as a public health strategy.

Even the large Bangladeshi study which the CDC claimed showed positive impact fails to deliver on that claim when one looks closely at the data—which is what Denis Rancourt, researcher with the Ontario Civil Liberties Union in Canada did, and found the study “fatally flawed.”

The cluster-randomized trial study of Abaluck et al. (2021) is fatally flawed, and therefore of no value for informing public health policy, for two main reasons:

1. The antibody detection was performed using a single commercial FDA emergency-use-authorized (EUA) serology test that is not suitable for the intended application to SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh (not calibrated or validated for populations in Bangladesh; undetermined cross-reactivity against broad-array IgM antibodies, malaria, influenza, etc.).

2. The participants (individual level, family level, village level) in the control and treatment arms were systematically handled in palpably different ways that are linked to factors established to be strongly associated to infection and severity with viral respiratory diseases, in particular, and to individual health in general.

Once one looks at the entire data set, as statistician William Briggs also did, the demonstrated efficacy of face masks in that study was 0.0026%.

Which means there are at least fifteen Random Controlled Trials which show “limited to no impact” for universal masking strategies.

Face mask mandates do not work against infectious respiratory disease.

The overwhelming position established by scientific data and research is clear and unambiguous: universal masking has no impact on the spread of infectious respiratory disease.

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Yet despite this wealth of scientific data developed in peer-reviewed research, despite the existence of fifteen Random Controlled Trials—the “gold standard” of medical research—Faucist pseudoscientists continue to press a narrative that ignores this data, and even dares to falsely claim that it does not exist (emphasis mine)1.

Masking in the community has been a controversial mitigation strategy during the pandemic, in part because of the dearth of high-quality evidence documenting efficacy and in part because mask wearing has become politicized. Most published studies addressing mask efficacy have methodological flaws, and adherence to mask wearing has been suboptimal in virtually all. Demonstrating that masks work is difficult when they are not worn consistently. Although gold-standard evidence is not available, we argue that, despite the lack of clinical efficacy trials (as with the widely accepted practice of hand hygiene), masking in interactions between patients and health care personnel should continue to receive serious consideration as a patient safety measure.

Keep in mind that medical research has long identified the Random Controlled Trial as the “gold standard” in research2.

Randomized controlled trials (RCT) are prospective studies that measure the effectiveness of a new intervention or treatment. Although no study is likely on its own to prove causality, randomization reduces bias and provides a rigorous tool to examine cause-effect relationships between an intervention and outcome. This is because the act of randomization balances participant characteristics (both observed and unobserved) between the groups allowing attribution of any differences in outcome to the study intervention. This is not possible with any other study design.

Drs. Palmore and Henderson are apparently unaware of the fourteen exemplars of the “gold standard” available on this topic, sweeping away all such research with an unsupported statement dismissing the research as having “methodological flaws”, without ever stating what those flaws are.

Even worse, however, is the awkward reality that some the research they do cite actually contradicts their own thesis. The Klompas case study3 from 2021 documents three instances where face masks and PPE failed to prevent transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

We describe 3 instances of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission despite medical masks and eye protection, including transmission despite the source person being masked, transmission despite the exposed person being masked, and transmission despite both parties being masked. Whole genome sequencing confirmed perfect homology between source and exposed persons’ viruses in all cases.

Research which challenges the efficacy of universal masking is an odd citation to use in defence of universal masking.

The final damnation to Drs. Palmore and Henderson, however, comes from the fact that their entire paper is at its core a straw man argument. Both of the main studies they cite to support their advocacy for masking focus on the mechanistic qualities of face masks.

The first study, from 2020, examines apparent modalities of virus shedding4. THis study also challenges their thesis, by acknowledging that surgical masks are inadequate to block aerosols.

Our findings indicate that surgical masks can efficaciously reduce the emission of influenza virus particles into the environment in respiratory droplets, but not in aerosols.

This is an important admission, as the next study they cite acknowledges that the SARS-CoV-2 virus does propagate via aerosols5.

SARS-CoV-2 is evolving toward more efficient aerosol generation and loose-fitting masks provide significant but only modest source control. Therefore, until vaccination rates are very high, continued layered controls and tight-fitting masks and respirators will be necessary.

The stated conclusions of their own cited studies argue against the face masks they advocate having any significant impact on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus, or of any infectious respiratory pathogen.

What these studies do establish, albeit unintentionally, is the importance of citing evidence and data relevant to the question at hand. No one has ever disputed the capacity of a face mask to inhibit the propagation of large respiratory droplets—that is the clear mechanistic function of a face mask. However, blocking droplets is not the same as preventing the spread of COVID, and as their own data establishes, face masks are not an effective impediment to the spread of COVID.

Whether the failure is due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ capacity to aerosolize, the difficulties in maintaining compliance with masking protocols over extended periods of time, or for some other aspect of infection and contamination not explored by these studies, the final analysis is that masks are ineffective against the spread of infectious respiratory disease. Their capacity to block large respiratory droplets, while true, is irrelevant.

Despite the very best efforts of the Faucists to argue otherwise, the extant data and evidence do not support universal masking as an impactful public health strategy. Even within the clinical setting, the extant data and evidence shows masking to be problematic at best, and far from an effective means of preventing the spread of COVID.

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One point especially deserves emphasis here: opinions are not facts, and even expert opinions are at best a weak form of evidence, and arguably are not evidence at all.

Ironically, this statement is not my opinion, but is a position established by research and published in the scientific literature. A 2017 meta-analysis of clinical practice guidelines6 concluded that expert opinion ranked at the bottom of the pyramid of scientific evidence, and should be accorded only low validity if that.

Several depictions of the evidence pyramid consider EO as a level of evidence and place it at the bottom of the pyramid as a unique category, or combined with preclinical studies and case reports, implying low validity.

That meta-analysis does conclude that expert opinion, to the extent that it summarizes a compendium of evidence, may stand as a form of indirect evidence, and thus is more than just mere opinion. Outside of that aspect, however, expert opinion is still just opinion, and still just as minimally useful as evidence.

Despite the very best efforts of the Faucists to establish otherwise, opinion and authority are not evidence, and are never going to be evidence. Scientific scrutiny—actual scientific inquiry, not the pseudoscientific and ideologically driven narratives of “The Science™”—will always be driven by facts, data, and evidence.

It does not matter what this researcher or that researcher holds as a belief about anything, not about COVID, not about viruses, not about face masks, not about the nature of reality in general. It does not matter what I believe, or what you believe. Belief, when it comes to the appraisal of knowledge, is irrelevant. What matters are the facts, the data, and the evidence. All that matters is the facts, the data, and the evidence.

Now that health authoritarians world wide have decided to call time on the COVID non-pandemic, perhaps some of the lingering hysteria will die down surrounding the virus, and people will once again choose to follow the data, and not the frequently ill-informed “experts” and health authoritarians.

On face masks, the data is clear. On face masks, the research is in, and the evidence has spoken. Face masks are an ineffective public health strategy on preventing infectious respiratory disease.

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Wholistic

Dying Slowly: Mike O'Mara Fighting ALS-Type Disease From Moderna Shot

An important thing to remember when I share the following story is that many people with nerve damage have hidden nerve damage. They will look “normal” on the outside despite the fire burning inside them. This means that they suffer a lot of disbelief and outright gaslighting, not just from friends and family members, but doctors and even the very neurol…

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3 years ago · 42 likes · 50 comments · Stephanie Brail

For some victims of neurological disease, the nerve damage becomes progressive and degenerative, at which point it may become visible. But at that point, the damage is done and it’s very difficult if not almost impossible to heal from.

Meet Mike O’Mara, a musician and teacher who was injured by the Moderna mRNA covid vaccine. Here he is playing the piano. Don’t let his outward appearance fool you; he’s suffering greatly and fears he is dying:

I encourage you to read her articles on the man’s plight—she gives it far better treatment than I could, and it is worth the read.

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While I do not know for certain that Mike’s suffering is caused by the mRNA inoculations, neither do I know that it is not. Conclusive diagnosis of such requires greater information than is available in a public Substack. However, as Stephanie points out, it is quite conceivable and perhaps even probable that his health issues are traceable to the mRNA inoculations.

We have to consider the possibility that the inoculations are truly that dangerous.

Why must we consider that possibility? We must because we have had so many warnings of so many adverse health consequences, all the while seeing mountains of data showing how useless the inoculations have been at mitigating the spread of COVID.

The warnings have always been there, and no one may deny the fact of those warnings.

There can be no denying that even Pfizer’s and Moderna’s own clinical trial data showed the inoculations were in fact of questionable efficacy and utility, simply because barely 1% of their trial subjects caught COVID, even if in the placebo (control) arm of the study.

In relative terms, the Pfizer vaccine reduced the probability of infection from 0.88% to 0.04%

While the reduction from a 0.88% probability of infection to a 0.04% probability is indeed a dramatic reduction, relatively speaking, one is reminded of the old joke about having a penny and acquiring another penny: yes, you have doubled your money but you still only have two cents.

Far from the inoculations being the magic bullet they were claimed to be when first introduced, the reality of the data was always that they were extremely problematic as a COVID preventative.

Even if we declined to reach this conclusion from the original Pfizer and Moderna data, the initial track record of the inoculations themselves clearly showed that the shots were not at all working as intended.

COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine mandates, and vaccine passports have been presented consistently in the mainstream media as an essential element of returning to a pre-pandemic “normal.” However, when we scrutinize ten or eleven months’ worth of COVID-19 data on case counts as well as vaccination rate across multiple countries, we immediately see that, not only has there not been a return to a status quo ante, but that there is no plausible reason to presume these measures can ever provide that return.

Even two years ago, there were red flags warning us about the inoculations.

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So much as been written about the red flags which abound within the VAERS data accumulated for the inoculations, that it scarce warrants rehashing that data here. Yet even with this we do well to note that Pfizer yet again provided substantive validation of that data, confirming that there were indeed safet concerns surrounding the mRNA inoculations.

Yet the Pfizer documents show that the healthcare establishment has been guilty of a fair bit of dissemblage in touting the COVID vaccines as “safe”. The risks of the vaccines are real, and are considerably more likely than those promoting the vaccines have been willing to admit. For certain patient groups the vaccines are quite likely the greater risk over COVID.

These red flags were available to everyone, including all the “experts” at the CDC and the FDA, from late 2021 onward. These red flags were available, and these red flags were ignored.

At the same time we were seeing these red flags about the dangers of the mRNA inoculations, we were being presented with red flags about the utility of the inoculations, and by the end of 2021 it was clear that the inoculations had been greatly oversold.

Another fascinating statement in the study is the acknowledgement that healthier individuals have better outcomes from vaccination.

Although risk for a breakthrough infection increased with greater number of comorbidities, this risk was associated with and notably attenuated by immune dysfunction status.

While such a correlation is on its face unsurprising, we should remember that the healthy patient population is already at the lowest risk from COVID-19. Vaccines which are effective only for healthy individuals are of questionable practical utility, given that less healthy individuals are the ones at greatest risk and in need of the most protection.

We were being presented with the red flags that the inoculations were not only failing to prevent the spread of COVID, but their utilization patterns compared with the spread of the disease suggested that the inoculations may even have had a role to play in causing COVID infections.

To this list of troubling indicators we can add the most troubling of all—a Bayesian analysis of worldwide case numbers which indicates the mass vaccination campaigns have actually increased both COVID-19 cases and deaths. If this analysis is even only somewhat accurate, the vaccines have made the pandemic far worse than it otherwise might have been.

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By last summer, as the inoculations’ failures became too widespread to ignore the CDC managed to gaslight everyone on yet more red flags—the confirmed linkages between the inoculations and perimyocarditis. Rather than acknowledge what the data clearly indicated, Rochelle Walensky, the soon-to-be-former head of the CDC, lied to everyone.

In response to a FOIA request by The Epoch Times, the CDC had this to say:

The “The National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases performed a search of our records that failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request,” Roger Andoh, a CDC records officer, told The Epoch Times. The center is part of the CDC.

No abstractions or reports were available because “an association between myocarditis and mRNA COVID-19 vaccination was not known at that time,” Andoh added.

This is absolutely false. From the CDC's own COVID inoculation web page:

In April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna). Data from multiple studies show a rare risk for myocarditis and/or pericarditis following receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

If reports were received by the CDC as early as April of 2021, it is inconceivable there would be no internal discussion or debate over the significance of these reports. That discussion and debate would be an intrinsic part of the process to establish or reject a causal link between the inoculations and cases of myocarditis.

Whenever a public health official lies about an important therapeutic being promoted in furtherance of the public health, that is absolutely a red flag, not to be ignored.

Yet that red flag was soon followed up with another red flag, this one indicating the mRNA inoculations may very well have accelerated Michel Goldman’s lymphomas.

We do not even need to speculate if the mRNA inoculation causes Goldman’s cancer. Roxanne Khamsi leads with the intimation that it did.

The brothers knew this might be just an eerie coincidence. But they couldn’t shake the feeling that Michel had experienced what would be a very rare yet life-threatening side effect of COVID vaccination.

An inoculation which can trigger life-threatening cancer gets a huge red flag—one that was also ignored.

Yes, there is a pattern here, and not a good one.

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The disturbing revelation the inoculations were likely responsible for Michel Goldman’s lymphoma was not the last red flag, as soon after that came out came more data showing the inoculations disrupted and altered the menstrual cycles in over half of women who received the shots.

Yet that is not the only example of a damning Faucist silence surrounding the mRNA inoculations. After a year of complaints from women that the mRNA inoculations were disrupting their monthly cycles comes a large international study that confirms what women have known all along: the mRNA shots mess with their menstrual cycles.

Some months after that disquieting revelation, Dr. Ryan Cole went on “Ask Doctor Drew” to draw attention to the seeming presence of free-floating spike proteins far beyond the injection site and far longer than should have been the case.

The short version of Dr. Cole’s presentations: the spike proteins produced in the body as the result of the mRNA inoculations are either causing or exacerbating various cancers within the body.

Amazingly, the constantly increasing number of head flags surrounding the inoculations was still ignored.

Moreover, in the avalanche of warning signs, safety signals, and red flags, we occasionally discovered adverse events that had been overlooked—the inoculations continued to become even more dangerous.

Modern Discontent

Overlooked Adverse Reactions: Gastrointestinal Symptoms

Modern Discontent is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I know I promised viral parkinsonism as my next topic, but g…

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3 years ago · 23 likes · 12 comments · Modern Discontent

More studies would be needed to validate this association, but it’s worth considering whether GI issues may provide a sign of what’s going on in the body.

Modern Discontent

Overlooked Adverse Reactions: Hypertension Part I

Modern Discontent is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Following along with the theme of overlooked adverse reactio…

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3 years ago · 18 likes · 8 comments · Modern Discontent

As hypertension goes unrecognized in a majority of individuals, and given its role as a silent killer, one may wonder whether the sudden deaths and the serious complications post-vaccination may be related in some ways to the hypertensive “spike effect” from the vaccines.

Yet the red flags did not stop. Next came the analysis showing that COVID inoculation rates were positively correlated with increasing levels of worker disability.

Specifically, we are confronted by the analytical work performed by the Humanity Projects Team sponsored by data research firm Phinance Technologies which asserts a strong correlation (and potentially a causal connection), between the mRNA inoculations and levels of disability within the US labor force.

The absolute piece d’resistance has been the disclosure that the CDC provably was lying to the American public about safety signals the CDC was supposed to have been tracking but did so only belatedly.

This was not the first proven lie by the CDC, merely the worst.

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Ultimately, we do not need to confirm the inoculations as the source of Mike O’Mara’s pain and suffering. We have more than enough unambiguous red flags surrounding the inoculations to demand an accounting of why they have not yet been pulled. We have more than enough unimpeachable data to demand an accounting of why the FDA did not revoke the inoculations’ Emergency Use Authorization months ago, even years ago.

For the sake of all those demonstrably injured by the mRNA inoculations, we deserve that accounting.

For the sake of all those potentially injured by the mRNA inoculations, we deserve that accounting.

We must have that accounting for the simple and yet appalling reason that, for both proven and potential victims such as Mike O’Mara, had the FDA acted and pulled the inoculations when the data first justified it, considerable harm could have been avoided.

Mike O’Mara’s suffering may not be attributable to the inoculations—but we cannot say that with confidence. We can say with confidence that we have had ample evidence that there were problems with the shots since their introduction in 2021.

We can say with confidence that red flag after red flag has been repeatedly ignored.

We can say with confidence that at least some people have been grievously harmed not just by the inoculations but by the FDA’s indifference. Mike O’Mara may very well be among their number.

We can say with confidence that anyone who defends the inoculations as being either safe or effective is either ignorant of the data or simply lying through their teeth.

Nothing more needs be said than this. The COVID shots are proven threats to human health and well being. They absolutely should not be left on the market, and it is a callous and most depraved indifference to human suffering that they are.

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The first way is Stephanie Brail’s view in her “Wholistic” Substack, which has great fun with the absolute absurdity of naming a virus after a red giant star in the Big Dipper constellation.

Wholistic

The New Covid Variant is Named "Arcturus"?!

If you want evidence that some overpaid creative agency is actively coming up with COVID-19 branding campaigns, one only needs to look at the new name for the latest covid scariant, ARCTURUS: A new COVID variant dubbed Arcturus has caused a huge uptick in infections in India, with the World Health Organization (WHO) classifying it as a variant of interes…

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3 years ago · 29 likes · 11 comments · Stephanie Brail

Her AI-generated artwork is spot-on perfect. This is what COVID has become—theater of the absurd.

Then there’s the corporate media approach. Suffice it to say, corporate media is much less fun to read. Once again, we get yet another installment of Pandemic Panic Narrative. Seriously, if COVID were a soap opera we would have to call it “As The Stomach Churns”.

And yet once again we have to spend time addressing their nonsense, because—wouldn’t you know it—they’re serious. Just look at the graphic adorning the “what you need to know” article from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Global Center For Health Security (no fascistic overtones in that name at all, is there?).

No subliminal messaging there at all! Besides, “Arcturus” is “surging” in India.

Fortune A new COVID variant the World Health Organization has its eye on seems to be causing a new symptom in children rarely caused by other Omicron spawn. XBB.1.16, dubbed “Arcturus” by variant trackers, is fueling a new surge of cases in India, at a time when reported cases are down in much of the rest of the world. The country’s health ministry is holding mock drills to ensure that hospitals are prepared for rising COVID cases, the BBC reported Monday, noting that some states have again made mask-wearing in public mandatory.

Still, we must approach this with all due seriousness, because this Arcturus variant is going around infecting children.

But XBB.1.16 may not be just another run-of-the-mill Omicron. Dr. Vipin Vashishtha—a pediatrician in India and former head of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Immunization—tweeted Thursday that pediatric cases of COVID are on the increase for the first time in six months, and that “an infantile phenotype seems emerging.”

The symptoms he’s now seeing among children:

• High fever

• Cough

• “Itchy” conjunctivitis—or pink eye—without pus, but with “sticky eyes”

Yes, children are now vulnerable to infectious respiratory disease. Why, that’s never happened before!

Ugh…..

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Oh, but wait…there’s a bit more just a few paragraphs further down (emphasis mine).

COVID cases in kids under 12 in India are increasing, The Times of India reported Monday. While they’re generally mild, doctors are warning “parents of children with obesity, asthma, and [those] suffering from other immunocompromised conditions not to ignore the symptoms,” and to seek care if necessary, the publication noted.

Experts told The Times they were also seeing a rise in hospitalizations of children due to adenovirus, which has symptoms similar to COVID and can also result in conjunctivitis. Adenovirus and COVID are impossible to distinguish from each other without testing.

There are “lots of anecdotals of pediatric conjunctivitis in India” right now, Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., and a top COVID variant tracker, tells Fortune.

So if your child gets pinkeye, it might be “Arcturus” or it might be adenovirus. No way to tell just by the pinkeye alone. But if its “Arcturus” then that’s really scary!

This really should not be a surprise, as even WebMD includes both COVID-19 and adenovirus infections on a list of “Conditions With Flu-Like Symptoms”.

Also, while adenovirus is known for causing pinkeye, the Mayo Clinic includes “eye pain” on its list of symptoms for the flu.

Symptoms

At first, the flu may seem like a common cold with a runny nose, sneezing and sore throat. But colds usually develop slowly, whereas the flu tends to come on suddenly. And although a cold can be a bother, you usually feel much worse with the flu.

Common signs and symptoms of the flu include:

• Fever

• Aching muscles

• Chills and sweats

• Headache

• Dry, persistent cough

• Shortness of breath

• Tiredness and weakness

• Runny or stuffy nose

• Sore throat

• Eye pain

• Vomiting and diarrhea, but this is more common in children than adults

Apparently, this “new symptom” isn’t quite so new (something mothers with young children have known for generations—kids get pinkeye).

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But “Arcturus” is a COVID variant and therefore scary and deadly, right? After all, just look at the uptick in COVID cases in India.

Here’s that same graphic—updated through as of this writing—only adjusted for population size.

That’s right, “Arcturus” is “surging” in India and producing a whopping 6-7 cases per million people per day, across the whole of India.

This is how this “surge” compares to India’s previous COVID waves.

How will India survive?

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But we should also be concerned here in the US as well, because “Arcturus” is already here and already spreading.

XBB.1.16, referred to as “arcturus,” was responsible for 9.6% of new infections this week, according to CDC estimates. That’s up from nearly 6% of cases the week before and about 3% two weeks prior.

Given the strain’s growth in the U.S., it is possible that it could overtake XBB.1.5 in the near future as the dominant strain in the country.

The variant is also increasing globally as coronavirus cases in India surge. The World Health Organization this week upgraded arcturus to a “variant of interest” and expects to publish an initial risk assessment of the strain in the coming days.

However, what the corporate media conveniently neglects to mention is that, per the CDC, cases of COVID in the US are declining.

Test positivity rates are declining.

New hospital admissions are declining.

Even the death rate is…wait for it…declining.

I’m sensing a pattern here….

Moreover, hospital capacity in the US is not being stressed by COVID—not even a little bit. US hospitals overall are below 80% of capacity for all patients, and less than 2% of those patients are COVID-19 patients.

Whatever else this “Arcturus” variant is, a public health crisis it is not.

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While this latest variant may become the most prevalant SARS-CoV-2 “Omicron” strain in circulation, but, insofar as the US is concerned, that still means becoming the dominant strain of a virus who’s circulation is very much on the decline. “Arcturus” is spreading to fewer people, infecting fewer people, and sending fewer people to the hospital.

Yet the corporate media still frets and clutches its collective pearls about how “transmissible” the “Arcturus” variant is.

While it does have a higher transmissibility rate than previous strains, the variant "Arcturus," also known as omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, stands out for bringing along a new COVID symptom - conjunctivitis, known as red or pink eye, which is often combined with itchiness.

In the UK, there have been five deaths attributed to the variant, a fact so disturbing the Manchester Evening News felt obliged to mention the fact twice in as many paragraphs.

Five deaths have been recorded among more than 100 sequenced cases of the new Omricon subvariant XBB.1.16, also known as Arcturus, in England, according to the latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The new variant has been linked to a surge in cases in India, where ministers have reintroduced face mask rules in an attempt to quell the spread.

The latest technical briefing on Covid variants states that 105 sequenced cases of XBB.1.16 have been identified in England, with cases located in every region apart from the north east. Among these cases, there were five deaths, the UKHSA said.

100 cases all across the UK, and five deaths. Clearly a major disease outbreak is underway.

If you sense any sarcasm while reading this, it’s only because there’s plenty of it here. Sarcasm because that’s the level of seriousness the Pandemic Panic deserves. Sarcasm because that’s all the corporate media deserves for such abysmally propagandistic “news”.

The simple reality is that the “Arcturus” variant, like all the other SARS-CoV-2 variants, it ultimately just one more in a pantheon of infectious respiratory pathogens which invade human cells to produce Influenza-Like Illness. It is, quite literally, “the flu”.

Yet this not-very-deadly, not-very-dangerous variant of the “Omicron” strain of SARS-CoV-2, is nevertheless cause for yet another effort by the corporate media to resurrect their cognitively deficient Pandemic Panic Narrative. This not-very-deadly, not-very-dangerous “Omicron” variant is nevertheless yet another opportunity for the corporate media to hype the toxic and deadly mRNA inoculations.

Despite the corporate media’s endless hyping of all things COVID, the empirical reality of the “Arcturus” variant is that is remains not very deadly and not very dangerous. Like so many variants which have emerged before, this one really is “just the flu.”

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