That was brilliant. You hit all of my buttons. Jack in The Shining, Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And disease spewing Godzillacron had me looking for the theatrical release.
But the absolute best was the "deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi" look on Dr. Walensky's face. Her response, "Yeah a really important question..." and then subsequent dodging of that question was priceless. If she was playing poker her little pre-non-answer head shake would be called a tell and she'd now be broke and mortgaging her house.
What I would love to know is how the core of Covid true believers still don't see that they're being played constantly by con men/women who, quite frankly, aren't that good at it.
Oh yeah ya mentioned Fangoria too! Like I said brilliant.
This is true, but it works the other way around too: why not use existing metal band names for new variants? What could be more clickbaity than the Cannibal Corpse, Mayhem, or Slayer variants?
Since viruses mutate constantly, there's a lot of mileage to be gained from this, like with hurricanes, which should be given names like "Ahmed," "Jethro," and "Ivan."
Oh, how I miss the halcyon days of the sciencey-sounding "flatten the curve" mantra regurgitated hourly by a host of 3rd rate local elected officials. I enjoyed the lovely colored line graphs that adorned virtually every media outlet for weeks on end describing in banal detail how different slopes of flatness correlated with "saving lives" while spikey-ness = death. Not that any of the real-time graphs ever showed "flatness"; but a bunch of mostly lawyers, pundits and reporters thought they sounded smart talking about "curves" and "slopes."
What I missed the most was screaming things like "flatten this curve Bitch!" while pointing to my gonads at the only other two of my co-workers who were forced to still show-up at the government office I work at during the great lock-down last year. Oh the jocularity!
The public health community helped hype the message. They fudged on "science-based" Proposed interventions can't be science-based when most of the data is provisional. In the midst of a pandemic doing nothing while you wait for the all the data to come in is an option, a really bad one. Somebody decided that the American public couldn't deal with "interventions based on best, provisional data available" and "subject to change as more data becomes available." Most of us would surely crump into a heap if confronted with uncertainty. Better to project certainty and worry later when the lies come back to bite your ass.
This is a key point. Most pronouncements from the White House, CDC, FDA, ...., were based on very provisional data, not actual information. Data are the raw numbers, information is based on an analysis of those numbers to determine what they mean, if anything. Your phrases in quotes represent the proper way to issue statements for the public.
What if when this first came to light, the people who created it were also in positions of authority to spin the narrative. This is beyond, "never let a (crisis/tragedy/emergency/whatever go to waste." This is, someone like Frankenfauci has control of the message, because the responsible old guard media doesn't exist anymore. What is to become of us.
Point taken. It only applies if the goal is to implement effective public health policy that entails voluntary cooperation. Once creditability is lost it won't come back and then you'll need to rely on coercive tactics. Sound familiar?
That's why I'm especially appreciative of the charts with unlabeled X and Y axes they sometimes show. (though they will sometimes helpfully put numbers along them). They help me know if I should cower in place (line going up, left-to-right) or if Fauci and Biden have saved us (line going down, left-to-right).
No need to properly label a graph as long as you pick a good color scheme- the red hue under the curve does look ominous. A "case" is a positive test. In a condition where most cases are without or with minimal signs and symptoms, the rate of cases will be remarkably dependent on the rate of testing. Simple enough! The MSM has ignored this because: a. They're stupid? or b. it doesn't make good copy?
How about 183++ deaths in 4-5 minutes from a single suicide bomber?
A major MYSTERY --- 170++ dead Afghans and 13 US soldiers...
Just HOW a suicide bomber, in densely packed crowd, can kill 183 people?
PS: It turns out that US and UK SOLDIERS ended up killing many/most by recklessly firing into the crowd of civilians after the bomb went off and they started panicking. Absolutely unconscionable.
There will be a MAJOR effort by corporate media and Pentagon/arms industry to suppress this national shame
Questions With New Reports That US Forces Gunned Down Civilians After Kabul Blast - by Caitlin Johnstone - Caitlin’s Newsletter (substack.com)
The end Nov 2019 my neighbor's 94 year old mother entered hospice care in Boston. with inoperable cancer. She was suffering from dementia and had resided in a nursing home for 2 years. She passed away in early April 2020. When her death certificate arrived in July 2020, her cause of death was listed as Covid. No mention of cancer or old age.
It would take an army of interns and boatloads of money, but every death certificate issued the past two years along with corresponding recent medical records should be examined. Names could be replaced with numbers to protect privacy. We will never understand what.has transpired in this country, until we have numbers uninfluenced by politics or billing codes.
My husband’s best friend had been suffering from congestive heart failure for almost a year. It got to the point where he could hardly breathe. He went to the hospital and tested negative TWICE for Wuhan flu but when his heart finally gave out, guess what went on the death certificate? I’m sure you can figure it out. We live in an empire of lies.
Perhaps, M Snow, you should have said "we live in an empire of lies due to the greater amount of money medical facilities receive when they claim Covid as the cause of death."
Wave a fist full of additional cash at a hospital administrator, or any other profession and you'll be assured to create a bit of skullduggery.
Best wishes to you for the new year. I became a widower at too young an age, so I perhaps understand some of what you have faced during the past year.
I am not sure how facilities and counties benefit from having COVID on the death certificate (but would love to learn more), but the US government absolutely pays health providers a 20% bounty for Medicare patients with COVID diagnosis.
Of course, as well all know, America's health care industry comprises the most upright, honest and altruistic of profit-seeking companies that would never, ever game their claims to earn a penny of that bounty fraudulently.
I would include non-profit health care system in that group as well. They may not have shareholders, but they take care of themselves in the same way for profit systems do.
That article was written in May of 2020. With as fast as everything about Covid changes it may no longer reflect reality.
You also left out that the "bounty" is for caring for those patients not for their deaths. Of course they are cared for before they die so... Just pointing out how twisted all this reporting is.
Easily the moral equals of the fine folks who bring us the world's most advanced weaponry, admittedly with huge cost overruns, weapons so advanced that it took the Taliban nearly 20 years to defeat us.
Wonder when the first terrorist attack on US soil originating from Taliban controlled control Afghanistan, will strike The Homeland?
Well, that’s one kind of lie, but there are so many others. Biden said “No lockdowns, no mandates, he’d only shut down the virus.” Three lies in one sentence. Fauci at first told us masks were not needed. Later admitted he’d lied. Sorry to hear of the early loss of your wife. And best wishes for you in the new year as well.
When an elder goes into a hospital from a long term care facility, I found the attending do not bother to read the chart. The director of one hospital called me saying my mother didn't have an advanced directive - I told them to take a look ffs
Folks should indeed track down what Scott Ritter has to say on the Ukraine events. Much more frightening than anything about Covid. Like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLpPyuzxSf4
Absolutely agree. The Pentagon, CIA, and all their acronym minions started this shit. Like they've been doing for centuries. Put their proxies in power, start conflicts then shovel shit loads of money to "help". Which most of it gets kicked back. Rinse and Repeat.
A co-worker's family had to go to court to get 2 death certificates corrected. Thinking this type of thing really prevalent. CDC data says that 95% of deaths attributed to COVID, on average the patient had 4 comorbidities. COVID simply put them over the edge. So only 5% died strictly FROM COVID.
Epidemiologists have the ability to measure deaths over baseline. If anything the overall death count due to Covid has been underestimated worldwide. Unless you think there is another cause for the unexpected millions of deaths over baseline.
Damn, accidental post. ...- not just directly from Covid, but from the lockdowns, lost jobs, depression, opioids, and so on. The combination of fear and isolation is pretty deadly, too. There's no way to know just which deaths are which.
That's an increase of 760 thousand from 2018 to 2019, with the virus only active at the end of 2019 and only in a few places; and an increase of 840 thousand from 2019 to 2020, when the virus was active essentially all year.
This suggests that there was a minimal impact of the virus on total deaths worldwide, which have been going up since 2014 according to that site, as populations age.
You can look at the data for each country at the link.
All deaths during Orange Man Bad reign were due to incompetence. Higher deaths occurring during vaccines and booster age (under President Joe) are due to lazy unvaccinated deplorables. Politics 101.
Remdesivir was a trial drug for Ebola. Used more than 2 weeks it had a 54% mortality rate. Of course Gates (Fauci's decade-long business partner) is highly invested in it along with numerous vaccines being deployed.
The U.S. to my knowledge is the only nation using it still as a
CDC/NIH/NIAID protocol for Covid. (See our mortality rates vs the world.)
It is pretty easy to determine deaths over baseline to check the official Covid numbers. Some of these are due to people skipping elective surgeries, but so far the dear has over baseline numbers are a bit higher than the official numbers.
So true. Would make a good academic thesis - esp noting what tests were done or not done post mortem. My guess is that hospital specialists don’t want to handle these ppl and private Drs just put down a ballpark cause - as always
True enough - my thinking back when ppl researched for PhD’s without being compromised by ‘grants’ -of course Univ times have changed (understatement of the year)
If your neighbor's mother was shot with a gun and died, and the cause of death was listed as 'gunshot,' would you be similarly upset that cancer and old age weren't also listed as causes of death?
Just because a person is in poor health doesn't mean they can't be killed by Covid, or anything else, really...
Here in NYC the Karens and the Masktards were thrilled with the fear porn Omicron. Masks were back on, furtive eyes on people outside without a mask ... they're not angry that they might get sick, or you might get sick, they're angry that you won't OBEY like they do.
I'd like to also. But we need to go beyond joking about them and running away. We need to oppose these things, and if necessary, go down with the ship.
Otherwise, it just continues to get worse for us, not to mention our descendants, who will certainly be cursing us in the coming decades.
But haven't you heard? Gov. "DeathSantis" is killing us all here! LOL What a joke. And by joke I mean the fear-porn, not the actual virus and its implications.
I'm in NY area and think it's great people show concern for the community by taking the minor inconvrnience of masking until we figure out what this new thing is. That's in stark contrast to DeSantis-land where it's fuck y'all, I'll do what I want
But to address your monomania here: The very first days this was reported, the South African doctor who discovered it, not mention several other researchers and physicians (likely reported only through alt media), was pointing out it that was not very dangerous.
But if you want to know what happens to people who oppose The Party -- no matter what their credentials -- just look up Dr. Robert W. Malone.
Malone has caused untold deaths due to his fast and loose interpretation of the science. He's a frustrated academic, denied recognition for his legit discoveries, who finally gained recognition as an anti-vaxer, putting his ego ahead of public health . Colleagues call him "headstrong" "naive" "sensational" -- https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-malone-vaccine-inventor-vaccine-skeptic/619734/ Hope there's a special place in hell for this guy
Show some actual fucking concern and realize freedom is more important than safety - especially when that "safety" is cover for further government control.
I oppose seat belt laws. I wear one, but it solely impacts the individual; we shouldn't be rooting for government to mandate what it deems "smart" behavior, as it can easily and rapidly encroach on liberty and more ambiguous activities.
DUI laws I can see the case for, but I never thought it an apt comparison to mask or vax mandates. One has to draw a line somewhere about potentially dangerous personal activity that "could" impact the society at large, but the restraint placed on an already licensed activity being undertaken by a relatively objectively impaired individual strikes me as fundamentally different from forcing healthy individuals to adhere to specious, increasingly debunked ritualistic behavior or injecting dangerous, experimental drugs to perhaps lessen the mere exposure to another indivudal for whom their own appropriate levels of mitigation are available. The latter strike me as closer to a PKD pre-crime law than it does a fair and balanced invocation of the Social Contract.
Laws should be opposed in general. It's just an opinion with a gun. If a certain action is a positive one, then it's up to you to persuade someone to do it.
Of course I realize how difficult that is, since the vast majority of us are out of practice and prefer to rely on our whip hand, but to that I simply say: git gud.
I oppose seatbelt laws and DUI laws when bars can continue serving you while drunk and there are car companies offering seatbelts along with advertisement that seatbelts are "safer" in a crash and people still choose to die. Btw, did you know that the govt. had exceptions to safety standards if it was a "work" truck because, well, if you're a corporation, you get that exemption to expensive safety standards because, well, it's better for corporate fleet purchases, lowers prices for corps and never mind the safety thing.
Meanwhile, the feds prefer a drinking age of 21 so you can get your highway money on a state by state basis but you can join the Marine corps at 18 and kill people as long as they are foreigners. You govt at work.
We get it, you are comfortable being a sheep. People like you allowed the wars in the ME to start and last 20 years. People like you allowed the banks to be bailed out and now we're (about to be) screwed for it. People like you stand for nothing except their own sense of personal safety while thinking others are the selfish ones for exposing you to the reality of the falsehoods you embrace.
You are a coward, easily swayed by confirmation bias propaganda. You need the feeling of comfort your bias towards a benevolent government provides you. In your heart you know you are being lied to, but your head knows what accepting that reality will do to your psyche. You would be alone and lost. The Atlantic, cnn, msnbc all provide you and the many others like you a refuge, a steady diet of BS for you to suckle, lest you have to deal with the big bad scary real world.
"Showing of concern" is a crock and you know it, it is a sign of obedience and membership in the herd of sheep. You have been domesticated, pay your tax and obey.
I think this was a bit harsh, but you get a like for "People like you stand for nothing except their own sense of personal safety while thinking others are the selfish ones for exposing you to the reality of the falsehoods you embrace," which is pretty good.
We knew what this was a month ago from reports out of South Africa. Back in the last week of November Dr John Campbell suggested (with sensible caveats) Omicron could end the pandemic.
Now we know it probably will. Within 60 days.
Suicide watch is now in place for national media figures and amateur fear-mongers.
Dr. John Campbell who, it should be noted, was also on the "he's spreading disinformation" hit list via the narrative-producers' declaring he wasn't qualified to discuss the subject because he was "only" a distinguished professor in a school of nursing. Fortunately, since the only thing he does is interpret the science for the public, they couldn't find any way to shut him up.
According to Francis Collins in an e-mail to St Anthony Fauci, Dr Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, are all "fringe epidemiologists."
Then do it on your own. Nothing is wrong with that. The "stark contrast" is best illuminated by the fact that NY has the most cases and hospitalizations than anywhere except Kalifornia. Far exceeding Florida, where people still seem to understand what individual rights and responsibilities are.
Earlier this year Florida health authorities pivoted to early treatment rather than preventing the unpreventable, which is why their numbers have been so good. In most of the rest of the country it's heresy to discuss early treatment because that suggests there could be an alternative to vaCciNAtiOn.
Megyn Kelly did a podcast with David Zweig on his report in The Atlantic on the CDC's own mask study on children in AZ. Totally flawed and Wollensky ran with it.
That sounds a bit like a simplistic, one size fits all approach to masking. What kinds of masks? Big difference. What about children? There are other issues on this planet besides COVID, from which the young have little to fear. Read the mask studies, maybe start with the mega-studies and drill down from there. I have, and they're not very convincing, frankly. It's also ironic that COVID is a threat when you walk into a restaurant, but apparently ceases to be when you sit down to eat. Who knew?
100s of people packed into an airliner like sardines with everyone wearing masks. Then you literally take them all off to eat and breath all over each other.
Clearly, we need to mandate our meals via IV. Quick, call big pharma.
When I'm stuck on a long flight (e.g., mainland to Hawaii), I am in the habit of stuffing my carry on with various snacks, so I can practice ABE (Always Be Eating)
Given there are something between 6 and 9 million deaths attributed to air pollution EVERY YEAR, I can think of a better reason for wearing a mask than not spreading a virus.
That's true, but treating this insanity as merely from unintended consequence of technologies and random events isn't going to address the clearly *systematic* destruction of society over decades to benefit the few.
I have to say these boards have been a lot of fun. I just watched the MT clip on "The Hill" and he was excellent. He's so calm and straightforward. It's like he is standing by a cliff as the MSM reporters jump off and just shaking his head wistfully.
For what it's worth, COVID-related hospital admissions have downtrended from ~1600 to ~1100 from Dec 1 to Dec 29 in our metro area per our internal data.
Omicron certainly seems more transmissible but likely (I hope, anyway) this reflects evolutionary pressure on virus to select for strains that propagate efficiently. Killing your host does not facilitate efficient propagation. I am hopeful that this means COVID continue to abate in clinical severity and we finally can get a break from this come Spring/Summer.
This is great news, but the real pandemic is fear & submission, and I don’t see that scourge abating anytime soon as the faceless tyrants busy themselves stoking hysterical fear to amass unbridled power over the credulous public.
As a physician there is also a very real pandemic in the hospital too and it makes my life shitty. In October our floor team's patient caps were doubled to accommodate the rising number of hospitalized COVID patients which mean every patient got approximately 50% of the time and probably even less of my mental energy than they would have otherwise. Our ICU rooms were double-booked (again) while the sickest lingered on mechanical ventilators for 30 days or more before either compassionate extubation or tracheostomy for weaning off a ventilator.
So in addition to having to do substantially more tracheostomies (not my favorite surgery), our "elective" cases were cancelled left and right as we didn't have beds open to admit them to post-operatively, not to mention the overwhelmingly higher risk of poor outcomes should they get sick perioperatively. I am still in training so rotate from service to service but our transplanters in particular do awfully when they get COVID after transplant. Really tragic given how impossibly valuable transplant organs are, and how normally transplant is a surgery defined by immediate, frankly miraculous improvement in the patient's overall health.
I'm pretty sick of the fear mongering too but the virus itself is what fucks up my day most noticeably. I don't read the news enough (no time, don't care) for the former to be a big factor in my life.
I am very sorry that you are faced with this. Wondering if you are aware that there are physicians on the front lines like Dr McCullough who are giving their patients early treatments that work. He says that with effective early treatments 85% of all the deaths could have been avoided. Thank you for all you do. The system would seem to be broken.......
There are several doctors doing early and/or preventative treatments following Dr McCullough’s approach, my neighbor being one of them, and most are reporting zero deaths and minimal hospitalizations. My wife is an attorney, so she’s constantly interacting w/ others and then coming home, so that would seemingly infect me. But the OTC vitamin regimen our neighbor doctor has us on, which includes nasal rinses every few days, has kept us infection free…….and, you may want to sit down for this one, we’re both unvaccinated!!
Thank you for this. I don't have time for watching news either, but I pay attention. What you say is at the heart of the matter. People are coming in sick enough to need ICU and exhausting staff and resources. So reading your comment is worth more than reading hundreds of opinions.
Which begs the question why people weren't told and continue not to be told how the virus affects the body and suggesting simple, inexpensive ways to mitigate those effects using natural anti-inflammatories like green tea and turmeric and boosting the immune system with sufficient sleep and decent meals.
We know there are people who will refuse to seek medical help in the early acute stage because they fear the cost. How many of those ended up in your hospital who might not be there had the goal not been to enhance the revenue of Pharma and their ancillary industries, and instead they'd been provided sensible advice for self-care from day one?
Bless you and all your coworkers. It's precisely the fact you're bearing the brunt of this debacle that makes me even more outraged. And yes, I'm someone in the alleged high-risk cohort who had the virus.
Pulm crit guy here, said much the same thing below regarding endemic Covid and what that will look like. We are in the beginning stages of another surge, stratospheric numbers of omicron will still lead to high case counts.
Its funny, I havent watched any news on TV in ages and only passingly see it when I go over to check on my aged mom who has it on for the better part of the day. 30-40 seconds is enough to see, "holy shit, this is nuts!" and by nuts, I mean the coverage of Covid (or anything for that matter). Having the luxury to choose long form print journalism as well as podcasts makes me feel like a bit of an alien in my own world.
Were there some study that could determine that with reliability, I am not sure I would even care about the answer as, for me anyways, the course of action is the same. Find journalists and opinion writers that are good and thoughtful and follow them. But as a small country, we have proportionately fewer good ones.
The elites hate the Russians. The Sputnik V (which you will never get) is as expensive, and effective as the J&J vaccine. Sputnik V is safer, (No; pericarditis, neurological symptoms, or micro-clots). Advocating Sputnik V shows true rebelliousness and a total distrust of our system. It will stop the COVID fear porn the (media, military, government, industrial complex) spouts out.
Don't forget Bidens scare statement "this will be the winter of illness and death for the unvaccinated....". Now if that's not vaccine propoganda I don't know what is
More cases among the vaccinated than unvaccinated in Ontario (of course, most Ontarians are vaccinated, so this is unsurprising if you recognize and understand the vaccines don't actually prevent the spread of the virus): https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/case-numbers-and-spread
Eight African countries were banned from entering the US, in keeping with the panic mode. Nobody bothered to notice that Nigeria has almost no covid at all. Most Nigerians are on antimalarials like Hydroxycloroquin or Ivermectin. These can be purchased in any drug store in Nigeria for about a dollar.
Technically, Fauci runs NIAID, a research agency, not the FDA, the agency that approves drugs. How much influence he has behind the scenes is unclear. Policy changed very little from Trump to Biden, so there is someone behind the curtain.
I have long thought the fact that so many Africans are already taking Rachel Maddow dewormer was an intriguing contributor to Africa's relatively low death rate, compared to western countries, but it will always be difficult to pin down. Probably more likely causes are:
o Most of the people in the west who have died from COVID would already be dead in most of Africa (aged or sick, kept alive by expensive western medicine);
o Younger populations overall;
o Thinner populations;
o HIV has ravaged Africa for the last 35 years and probably most of the survivors have strengthened immune systems (that's me just guessing). A quarter of the South African population is HIV positive and while their immune systems must therefore be compromised, they are kept alive by antiviral cocktails that might have some effect against COVID (guessing again).
One thing we do know: the rate of vaccination in most of Africa is very low compared to the industrialized west.
Exactly. Very early on last year it was reported in the science journals that a 15-minute exposure to sunlight killed the virus. I noticed how fast that one got buried.
As I noted, it was reported at the height of the "we're out of hand sanitizer" panic and was quickly quashed as sales of same continued racking up profits. Vitamin D as a preventative/palliative is a separate issue, although as you note they're sort-of related, since a 15-minute sunshine exposure also provides the daily requirement of D.
We have reached Jump the Shark stage with Covid. CDC, Fauci, WHO etc have flip flopped more in the last few days than a freshly caught mackerel on amphetamines. The Big Lie perpetrated in early 2020 was that there are no methods to treat early Covid outpatient cases. Now that the Pfizer and Merck pills are out and approved the admission that Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Glaxo's monoclonal antibodies (and many others) could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the US as they have in the millions worldwide. But we didn't "have good studies". Big Pharma scores hundreds of billions as our Big Pharma backed politicians line their pockets with Big Pharma lucre.
Don't forget our Medical Pharisees telling us that going to a football game will kill Granny but going to an "Equity" protest is acceptable risk behavior. Good times!
The video and Matt's column already had me spitting out coffee, then you come along with "have flip flopped more in the last few days than a freshly caught mackerel on amphetamines". A great laugh to end the year!
Matt, you will surely be pilloried by your journo colleagues for failing to mention that Omnicron is regularly crossing state lines. Millions of advertising dollars are at stake here, better get working on that update. Also, hope you and yours can have a happy New Year.
This opens up a whole new range of disease vectors that can be vegetated...I mean vaccinated against.
We could have dandruffarona & ingrowntoenailarona & hemorrhoidarona & cancerarona & limpjohnsonarona & the tag team of heartdiseasearona & vaxcausedheartdiseasearona, etc. etc., et-effing-cetera.
Maybe we could trot out even more Pharma CEOs and make believe they're medical experts instead of extremely self interested salesmen and then ask their opinion as if the phrase "conflict of interest" was never invented.
Personally, I'm hoping for the release of a 30 day self vaccination kit where exuberant paranoiacs can re-up their booster regimen on a daily basis thus making them the superdupersuperduper immune that will boost their immune systems to such undreamt of health heights that they will effectively be immortal.
Since Trudeau said that the unvaccinated are both racists & misogynists that pretty much narrows down the target of our approved hatred to white incels. Off to the camps with the little bastards. Can't get laid, don't deserve to live is what I've always said. And any pesky black folk who are vaccine hesitant are obviously just the black face of white incel mischief and should be banned from the reparation check handout & forced to listen to Blake Shelton until their ears bleed & they repent their errant unvaccinated ways.
By the way, if you ever need to explain your vaccine suspicions to any Branch Covidians in your area this video does a very good job of calmly explaining it all.
Just expect shrieking hysteria. For me the shrieking hysteria is the only reason why I've shared this video with others. Shrieking liberal hysteria is very entertaining. For others though, the sight of a typical 21st century liberal trying to reconcile his/her desire to kill you with their lifelong passive aggressive passivity is just too much to bear. I understand. Won't judge ya at all.
What irks the crap out of me is the constant barrage of propaganda comparing the virus vaccine to those for measles, mumps, smallpox et al. I even read a possibly heartfelt plea in The Lancet insisting vaccine mandates weren't really undermining our rights and using that comparison as justification. Comparing vaccines that provide long-term, even lifelong, immunity to something that needs to be reinforced every six months is the height of disinformation, if you ask me.
I look at it this way, if you have a pharmaceutical company that has, by its past actions, demonstrated that it only cares about its bottom line, you have to ask yourself at least one question. If they had the chance to market a vaccine that killed the virus in its tracks or market one that kept us addicted to their drug for the rest of our lives, which one would they run with?
I saw an "article" today that explained the fact that vaxxed folk are getting sick and being hospitalized because the vaccine wasn't designed to stop the virus, just to alleviate the symptoms. Duh! Really? But that wasn't what everyone from Rachel Maddow to Joe Biden said to sell this shitshow to us. It wasn't what their PSA's were saying either.
Anyone who did a little research could discover that fact but the "experts" weren't saying bupkis.
I saw another article that said that an Antarctic research base has been hit with Covid. Everyone fully vaxxed. Strict health protocols followed. Social distanced thousands of miles away from civilization and they still got Covid.
In Austria over the weekend they turned dogs loose on a crowd of anti-mandate protesters & waded into them with billy clubs. These are normal, law abiding citizens who just don't want a jab or they support others right to choose.
Remember that the Lancet also published the letter from the 27 doctors condemning anyone who dared mention Wuhan as a the virus source. We now know thanks to The Intercept's law suit that those scientists were organized by a man named Peter Daszak who headed EcoHealth Alliance, a US government funded research group that was outsourcing gain of function research to Wuhan. Daszk also maneuvered himself onto The WHO investigatory team looking into the source of Covid. He convinced them to not open the archives at the Wuhan Institute of Virology because there was nothing to see there. Uh huh.
The Lancet also published the Hydroxychloroquine study that was trashed by doctors and had to be pulled with no explanation by the illustrious journal.
Initially, there WAS some evidence hydroxycholoroquine might be a viable palliative for the virus, since it was in general use in countries where the death rate was lower. That the medication was immediately politicized was worse than that The Lancet published a report that simply said as much.
Likewise this overwhelming desire to blame the lab in Wuhan for the outbreak. The general consensus—you know, like that 99% of climatologists who agree on global warming—is that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally occurring novel version of SARS, and that its impact is mainly because it IS "novel" and the public has no natural immunity to it. Or didn't. There will be more as the permafrost thaws and the ice sheets melt. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Cynicism is definitely in order, but it should be focused on accepting the fact that those in power will go to any lengths and take advantage of every opportunity to maintain and expand their control. Too many people think that's an extreme viewpoint, but I personally, in my many years, haven't seen anything to contradict it.
The flailing managerial cast trying to prevent us unifying along class lines. We're discussing Omicron so that we don't discuss M4A, labor, climate change, etc.
These parasites are such a nefarious paralytic probably because they're scared of guillotines.
DEATH Death death death
OMG! Four people have now died from the deadly Omicron variant? We are doomed.
You spelled "with" wrong
I "with" you were correct.
Really?
Excellent work! I almost expected to hear some air horn. Carry the torch man!
Thanks. I considered the air horn but ultimately went cemetery bell.
*Metallica intensifies*
Excellent reply
Or bang a hammer on on a pot, Monte Python style.
That was brilliant. You hit all of my buttons. Jack in The Shining, Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And disease spewing Godzillacron had me looking for the theatrical release.
But the absolute best was the "deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi" look on Dr. Walensky's face. Her response, "Yeah a really important question..." and then subsequent dodging of that question was priceless. If she was playing poker her little pre-non-answer head shake would be called a tell and she'd now be broke and mortgaging her house.
What I would love to know is how the core of Covid true believers still don't see that they're being played constantly by con men/women who, quite frankly, aren't that good at it.
Oh yeah ya mentioned Fangoria too! Like I said brilliant.
DEATH MOST DEATHY!
Try saying it that way: more scarier. You’re welcome.
😹😹😹
THE SHAFT SAGGER !!! WUAHHAHAHAHA
Best comment - moar likes plz.
Death porn would end if people demanded taking SPUTNIK V vaccines. It is superior to our vaccines.
OMEGA DEATH is a great heavy metal band name!
This is true, but it works the other way around too: why not use existing metal band names for new variants? What could be more clickbaity than the Cannibal Corpse, Mayhem, or Slayer variants?
Since viruses mutate constantly, there's a lot of mileage to be gained from this, like with hurricanes, which should be given names like "Ahmed," "Jethro," and "Ivan."
Rage Against the Vaccine
(I stole that from someone else)
Featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci as The Omega Man
A newsgasm
We know there won't be a XI death, don't we...
Relax comrades, the first 22 months of 14 days to flatten the curve are the toughest.
Oh, how I miss the halcyon days of the sciencey-sounding "flatten the curve" mantra regurgitated hourly by a host of 3rd rate local elected officials. I enjoyed the lovely colored line graphs that adorned virtually every media outlet for weeks on end describing in banal detail how different slopes of flatness correlated with "saving lives" while spikey-ness = death. Not that any of the real-time graphs ever showed "flatness"; but a bunch of mostly lawyers, pundits and reporters thought they sounded smart talking about "curves" and "slopes."
What I missed the most was screaming things like "flatten this curve Bitch!" while pointing to my gonads at the only other two of my co-workers who were forced to still show-up at the government office I work at during the great lock-down last year. Oh the jocularity!
The public health community helped hype the message. They fudged on "science-based" Proposed interventions can't be science-based when most of the data is provisional. In the midst of a pandemic doing nothing while you wait for the all the data to come in is an option, a really bad one. Somebody decided that the American public couldn't deal with "interventions based on best, provisional data available" and "subject to change as more data becomes available." Most of us would surely crump into a heap if confronted with uncertainty. Better to project certainty and worry later when the lies come back to bite your ass.
This is a key point. Most pronouncements from the White House, CDC, FDA, ...., were based on very provisional data, not actual information. Data are the raw numbers, information is based on an analysis of those numbers to determine what they mean, if anything. Your phrases in quotes represent the proper way to issue statements for the public.
and their partners
What if when this first came to light, the people who created it were also in positions of authority to spin the narrative. This is beyond, "never let a (crisis/tragedy/emergency/whatever go to waste." This is, someone like Frankenfauci has control of the message, because the responsible old guard media doesn't exist anymore. What is to become of us.
Except, the lies never seem to bite anyone in the ass…
Point taken. It only applies if the goal is to implement effective public health policy that entails voluntary cooperation. Once creditability is lost it won't come back and then you'll need to rely on coercive tactics. Sound familiar?
That's why I'm especially appreciative of the charts with unlabeled X and Y axes they sometimes show. (though they will sometimes helpfully put numbers along them). They help me know if I should cower in place (line going up, left-to-right) or if Fauci and Biden have saved us (line going down, left-to-right).
No need to properly label a graph as long as you pick a good color scheme- the red hue under the curve does look ominous. A "case" is a positive test. In a condition where most cases are without or with minimal signs and symptoms, the rate of cases will be remarkably dependent on the rate of testing. Simple enough! The MSM has ignored this because: a. They're stupid? or b. it doesn't make good copy?
The local laundrymat still has its 'flatten the curve' posters out in the front window 2 years later. I cannot tell if is sincere or ironic.
Whadda hoot
Thank you Jrod for my morning chuckle, and reminding me that I have been wary of any Covid news I see on most media outlets.
How about 183++ deaths in 4-5 minutes from a single suicide bomber?
A major MYSTERY --- 170++ dead Afghans and 13 US soldiers...
Just HOW a suicide bomber, in densely packed crowd, can kill 183 people?
PS: It turns out that US and UK SOLDIERS ended up killing many/most by recklessly firing into the crowd of civilians after the bomb went off and they started panicking. Absolutely unconscionable.
There will be a MAJOR effort by corporate media and Pentagon/arms industry to suppress this national shame
Questions With New Reports That US Forces Gunned Down Civilians After Kabul Blast - by Caitlin Johnstone - Caitlin’s Newsletter (substack.com)
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/questions-after-new-reports-that?
What does that have to do with this essay?
Since you apparently do need an explanation --- Compare panic about possibly one death to total silence on murder of 183+ people in few minutes?!
One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic?
In other words....nothing.
I love Caitlin Johnstone but this is a nonsequitor.
Who cares, another failed attempt to impose stupid US values. The pride flag was saved from the embassy, I wonder if they saved the American flag.
Now that was mint.
The end Nov 2019 my neighbor's 94 year old mother entered hospice care in Boston. with inoperable cancer. She was suffering from dementia and had resided in a nursing home for 2 years. She passed away in early April 2020. When her death certificate arrived in July 2020, her cause of death was listed as Covid. No mention of cancer or old age.
It would take an army of interns and boatloads of money, but every death certificate issued the past two years along with corresponding recent medical records should be examined. Names could be replaced with numbers to protect privacy. We will never understand what.has transpired in this country, until we have numbers uninfluenced by politics or billing codes.
My husband’s best friend had been suffering from congestive heart failure for almost a year. It got to the point where he could hardly breathe. He went to the hospital and tested negative TWICE for Wuhan flu but when his heart finally gave out, guess what went on the death certificate? I’m sure you can figure it out. We live in an empire of lies.
Perhaps, M Snow, you should have said "we live in an empire of lies due to the greater amount of money medical facilities receive when they claim Covid as the cause of death."
Wave a fist full of additional cash at a hospital administrator, or any other profession and you'll be assured to create a bit of skullduggery.
Best wishes to you for the new year. I became a widower at too young an age, so I perhaps understand some of what you have faced during the past year.
I am not sure how facilities and counties benefit from having COVID on the death certificate (but would love to learn more), but the US government absolutely pays health providers a 20% bounty for Medicare patients with COVID diagnosis.
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/20/coronavirus-covid-medicare-payments-hospitals/
Of course, as well all know, America's health care industry comprises the most upright, honest and altruistic of profit-seeking companies that would never, ever game their claims to earn a penny of that bounty fraudulently.
I would include non-profit health care system in that group as well. They may not have shareholders, but they take care of themselves in the same way for profit systems do.
That article was written in May of 2020. With as fast as everything about Covid changes it may no longer reflect reality.
You also left out that the "bounty" is for caring for those patients not for their deaths. Of course they are cared for before they die so... Just pointing out how twisted all this reporting is.
The corporatization of healthcare has been a disgusting disaster. So hard to work in the system. Government takeover will not improve things
Demand the Sputnik V vaccine because it is safer See how fast they shut up.
Easily the moral equals of the fine folks who bring us the world's most advanced weaponry, admittedly with huge cost overruns, weapons so advanced that it took the Taliban nearly 20 years to defeat us.
Wonder when the first terrorist attack on US soil originating from Taliban controlled control Afghanistan, will strike The Homeland?
Well, that’s one kind of lie, but there are so many others. Biden said “No lockdowns, no mandates, he’d only shut down the virus.” Three lies in one sentence. Fauci at first told us masks were not needed. Later admitted he’d lied. Sorry to hear of the early loss of your wife. And best wishes for you in the new year as well.
Remember 100 days of masking??
but but but Trump told 30,000 lies!!!!
I didn't have enough energy to document all the chaos we've gone through during the past two years, M. Thank you for your kind comment.
When an elder goes into a hospital from a long term care facility, I found the attending do not bother to read the chart. The director of one hospital called me saying my mother didn't have an advanced directive - I told them to take a look ffs
I can see this headline on MSNBC in the future: "185 people died of Covid today when the plane they were traveling on crashed into a mountain..."
If things pop off even more in Ukraine, everyone there will die from COVID.
Folks should indeed track down what Scott Ritter has to say on the Ukraine events. Much more frightening than anything about Covid. Like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLpPyuzxSf4
I saw a quote from Putin, "We have nowhere to retreat to."
It's not traditionally ended well for those doing the pushing.
Absolutely agree. The Pentagon, CIA, and all their acronym minions started this shit. Like they've been doing for centuries. Put their proxies in power, start conflicts then shovel shit loads of money to "help". Which most of it gets kicked back. Rinse and Repeat.
Now that's funny! Sadly so.
A co-worker's family had to go to court to get 2 death certificates corrected. Thinking this type of thing really prevalent. CDC data says that 95% of deaths attributed to COVID, on average the patient had 4 comorbidities. COVID simply put them over the edge. So only 5% died strictly FROM COVID.
A Linda in twitter laughed and said omg I suppose Drs don’t know what their patients died from. I said - that’s right they don’t Linda but you be you.
Nope. Just another pain in the ass form to fill out while being drowned in pain in the ass forms
Yep
Epidemiologists have the ability to measure deaths over baseline. If anything the overall death count due to Covid has been underestimated worldwide. Unless you think there is another cause for the unexpected millions of deaths over baseline.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates
The problem with excess deaths is that they include EVERYTHING
Damn, accidental post. ...- not just directly from Covid, but from the lockdowns, lost jobs, depression, opioids, and so on. The combination of fear and isolation is pretty deadly, too. There's no way to know just which deaths are which.
Yup. All cause mortality way up in sync with vax rollout. It's the 'coincidence' side effect of the 'vaccines' for sure.
According to this site: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-per-year there were a total of 57.63 million deaths over the entire world in 2018, 58.39 million in 2019, and 59.23 million in 2020.
That's an increase of 760 thousand from 2018 to 2019, with the virus only active at the end of 2019 and only in a few places; and an increase of 840 thousand from 2019 to 2020, when the virus was active essentially all year.
This suggests that there was a minimal impact of the virus on total deaths worldwide, which have been going up since 2014 according to that site, as populations age.
You can look at the data for each country at the link.
My implication is the vaxes are responsible for excess deaths and they didn't roll out until 2021. VAERS data shows in excess of 20K deaths and it's likely far higher due to under reporting. There are lots of other side effects that are reported here: https://maryannedemasi.com/publications/f/experts-weigh-in-after-suing-fda-for-access-to-pfizer-trial-data
Most countries have not reported total fatalities for 2020 yet.
Here is the same source, coming to very different conclusions.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
Abosolutely! Logic indicates that most COVID "deaths" are "with" not "from" and we have overcounted by hundreds of thousands in the US alone.
All deaths during Orange Man Bad reign were due to incompetence. Higher deaths occurring during vaccines and booster age (under President Joe) are due to lazy unvaccinated deplorables. Politics 101.
I'll just leave this year-old link right here: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/17/grand-county-coronavirus-deaths-covid/
Nice evidence
Even in death, they serve the empire.
My 94 year old mother passed from Remdesivir poisoning this past May.
Of course they called it....
Have read that Remdesivir can be toxic. In fact I'm quite sure these 'vaccines' have killed more people than they've saved. There's a reason that FDA is trying to block public scrutiny of Pfizer vax data until 2096. https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/the-fda-wants-to-hide-pre-licensure?r=dvex&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Remdesivir is a vaccine? I thought it was a medicine.
Remdesivir was a trial drug for Ebola. Used more than 2 weeks it had a 54% mortality rate. Of course Gates (Fauci's decade-long business partner) is highly invested in it along with numerous vaccines being deployed.
The U.S. to my knowledge is the only nation using it still as a
CDC/NIH/NIAID protocol for Covid. (See our mortality rates vs the world.)
My condolences on your loss. Always tough to lose a parent.
It is pretty easy to determine deaths over baseline to check the official Covid numbers. Some of these are due to people skipping elective surgeries, but so far the dear has over baseline numbers are a bit higher than the official numbers.
So true. Would make a good academic thesis - esp noting what tests were done or not done post mortem. My guess is that hospital specialists don’t want to handle these ppl and private Drs just put down a ballpark cause - as always
Good luck getting a grant for such research.
True enough - my thinking back when ppl researched for PhD’s without being compromised by ‘grants’ -of course Univ times have changed (understatement of the year)
There's nothing suspect about this.
If your neighbor's mother was shot with a gun and died, and the cause of death was listed as 'gunshot,' would you be similarly upset that cancer and old age weren't also listed as causes of death?
Just because a person is in poor health doesn't mean they can't be killed by Covid, or anything else, really...
They thik they won't be found out, they are wrong.
Here in NYC the Karens and the Masktards were thrilled with the fear porn Omicron. Masks were back on, furtive eyes on people outside without a mask ... they're not angry that they might get sick, or you might get sick, they're angry that you won't OBEY like they do.
#2yearstoflattenthecurve
I'm in NYC, and you're right, it's insane.
With every passing day, I become more grateful that I decided to move to Florida!
I'd like to also. But we need to go beyond joking about them and running away. We need to oppose these things, and if necessary, go down with the ship.
Otherwise, it just continues to get worse for us, not to mention our descendants, who will certainly be cursing us in the coming decades.
I think "voting" with your feet sends the message.
Push back. Every way and every chance you get. Pushback
But haven't you heard? Gov. "DeathSantis" is killing us all here! LOL What a joke. And by joke I mean the fear-porn, not the actual virus and its implications.
Maybe DeSantis is hiking the Appalachian Trail?
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/587601-where-is-ron-desantis-now-florida-mayor-slams
That source is not very reliable. Just look at the bias in the other articles listed at the link. Actually Governor DeSantis has been quite active. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2021/12/31/no-liberals-gov-desantis-is-not-currently-on-vacation-n2601249
I'm in NY area and think it's great people show concern for the community by taking the minor inconvrnience of masking until we figure out what this new thing is. That's in stark contrast to DeSantis-land where it's fuck y'all, I'll do what I want
We already know what this "new thing" is. IF you've been paying attention to how COVID has been mismanaged for the past two years, that is.
But to address your monomania here: The very first days this was reported, the South African doctor who discovered it, not mention several other researchers and physicians (likely reported only through alt media), was pointing out it that was not very dangerous.
But if you want to know what happens to people who oppose The Party -- no matter what their credentials -- just look up Dr. Robert W. Malone.
Malone has caused untold deaths due to his fast and loose interpretation of the science. He's a frustrated academic, denied recognition for his legit discoveries, who finally gained recognition as an anti-vaxer, putting his ego ahead of public health . Colleagues call him "headstrong" "naive" "sensational" -- https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-malone-vaccine-inventor-vaccine-skeptic/619734/ Hope there's a special place in hell for this guy
Show some actual fucking concern and realize freedom is more important than safety - especially when that "safety" is cover for further government control.
Do you oppose seatbelt laws and DUI laws as well? Outdoor masking is useless, but indoor masking has some limited utility.
If you are vaxxed, as I suppose you are, why are you worried about perhaps catching a mild flu or cold? Masks are, at best, a religious talisman.
I oppose seat belt laws. I wear one, but it solely impacts the individual; we shouldn't be rooting for government to mandate what it deems "smart" behavior, as it can easily and rapidly encroach on liberty and more ambiguous activities.
DUI laws I can see the case for, but I never thought it an apt comparison to mask or vax mandates. One has to draw a line somewhere about potentially dangerous personal activity that "could" impact the society at large, but the restraint placed on an already licensed activity being undertaken by a relatively objectively impaired individual strikes me as fundamentally different from forcing healthy individuals to adhere to specious, increasingly debunked ritualistic behavior or injecting dangerous, experimental drugs to perhaps lessen the mere exposure to another indivudal for whom their own appropriate levels of mitigation are available. The latter strike me as closer to a PKD pre-crime law than it does a fair and balanced invocation of the Social Contract.
Thought about this more.
Laws should be opposed in general. It's just an opinion with a gun. If a certain action is a positive one, then it's up to you to persuade someone to do it.
Of course I realize how difficult that is, since the vast majority of us are out of practice and prefer to rely on our whip hand, but to that I simply say: git gud.
Nope. It really doesn’t.
I oppose seatbelt laws and DUI laws when bars can continue serving you while drunk and there are car companies offering seatbelts along with advertisement that seatbelts are "safer" in a crash and people still choose to die. Btw, did you know that the govt. had exceptions to safety standards if it was a "work" truck because, well, if you're a corporation, you get that exemption to expensive safety standards because, well, it's better for corporate fleet purchases, lowers prices for corps and never mind the safety thing.
Meanwhile, the feds prefer a drinking age of 21 so you can get your highway money on a state by state basis but you can join the Marine corps at 18 and kill people as long as they are foreigners. You govt at work.
I oppose automobiles in general. Sooooo…
The "minor" inconvenience is 1) hygiene theater and 2) psychologically and socially detrimental.
Fast forward twenty years… these children will be in therapy with their innate fears.
And that's no joke.....they really will.
We get it, you are comfortable being a sheep. People like you allowed the wars in the ME to start and last 20 years. People like you allowed the banks to be bailed out and now we're (about to be) screwed for it. People like you stand for nothing except their own sense of personal safety while thinking others are the selfish ones for exposing you to the reality of the falsehoods you embrace.
You are a coward, easily swayed by confirmation bias propaganda. You need the feeling of comfort your bias towards a benevolent government provides you. In your heart you know you are being lied to, but your head knows what accepting that reality will do to your psyche. You would be alone and lost. The Atlantic, cnn, msnbc all provide you and the many others like you a refuge, a steady diet of BS for you to suckle, lest you have to deal with the big bad scary real world.
"Showing of concern" is a crock and you know it, it is a sign of obedience and membership in the herd of sheep. You have been domesticated, pay your tax and obey.
I think this was a bit harsh, but you get a like for "People like you stand for nothing except their own sense of personal safety while thinking others are the selfish ones for exposing you to the reality of the falsehoods you embrace," which is pretty good.
Except that that makes no figgin sense. That "herd of sheep" is called society and we all live there. Guy should go live in a cave.
We knew what this was a month ago from reports out of South Africa. Back in the last week of November Dr John Campbell suggested (with sensible caveats) Omicron could end the pandemic.
Now we know it probably will. Within 60 days.
Suicide watch is now in place for national media figures and amateur fear-mongers.
Dr. John Campbell who, it should be noted, was also on the "he's spreading disinformation" hit list via the narrative-producers' declaring he wasn't qualified to discuss the subject because he was "only" a distinguished professor in a school of nursing. Fortunately, since the only thing he does is interpret the science for the public, they couldn't find any way to shut him up.
According to Francis Collins in an e-mail to St Anthony Fauci, Dr Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, are all "fringe epidemiologists."
Then do it on your own. Nothing is wrong with that. The "stark contrast" is best illuminated by the fact that NY has the most cases and hospitalizations than anywhere except Kalifornia. Far exceeding Florida, where people still seem to understand what individual rights and responsibilities are.
Earlier this year Florida health authorities pivoted to early treatment rather than preventing the unpreventable, which is why their numbers have been so good. In most of the rest of the country it's heresy to discuss early treatment because that suggests there could be an alternative to vaCciNAtiOn.
And now the FL surgeon general is saying they can't get the monoclonal antibody supplies, saying the Feds are withholding. I mean why would you want to help your potential 2024 opponent?https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/florida-battles-federal-government-again-over-monoclonal-antibody-supplies
Florida has far more hospitalizations, cases and deaths per capita than California. Are you taking about total cases?
We have nearly two years of mask data and it all shows they do nothing at all.
You’re wrong! I feel so good about myself shaming people who don’t wear them..and I sleep better at night knowing how right I am! 😉😉😉
Megyn Kelly did a podcast with David Zweig on his report in The Atlantic on the CDC's own mask study on children in AZ. Totally flawed and Wollensky ran with it.
That sounds a bit like a simplistic, one size fits all approach to masking. What kinds of masks? Big difference. What about children? There are other issues on this planet besides COVID, from which the young have little to fear. Read the mask studies, maybe start with the mega-studies and drill down from there. I have, and they're not very convincing, frankly. It's also ironic that COVID is a threat when you walk into a restaurant, but apparently ceases to be when you sit down to eat. Who knew?
100s of people packed into an airliner like sardines with everyone wearing masks. Then you literally take them all off to eat and breath all over each other.
Clearly, we need to mandate our meals via IV. Quick, call big pharma.
When I'm stuck on a long flight (e.g., mainland to Hawaii), I am in the habit of stuffing my carry on with various snacks, so I can practice ABE (Always Be Eating)
Right. And Breatharians (I'm from California - they really DO exist here) aren't happy either.
Given there are something between 6 and 9 million deaths attributed to air pollution EVERY YEAR, I can think of a better reason for wearing a mask than not spreading a virus.
Crazy. Just crazy. First they don’t work. Wear whatever you’d like but, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!
WEAR THE MASK!!!
KNOW YOUR PLACE!!!!
Did Desantis,actually say that? Or, was that what your ideology heard?
Tell that to an asthmatic. And then check the Florida stats.
Can confirm, it's not a great time.
Masktard. I'm going to steal that, although my wife scolds me when I call Utah drivers U-Tards (we live in Wydaho, so get a lot of them).
24 hour new networks have done more damage to mankind than Covid will ever do.
That's true, but treating this insanity as merely from unintended consequence of technologies and random events isn't going to address the clearly *systematic* destruction of society over decades to benefit the few.
Brilliant! You’re not wrong!
I always meant to tell you I like your name. Happy New Year.
Thank you for that. And Happy New Year & Namaste to all who gather here, particularly our fearless scribe, the Magnificent Dr. Taibbi!
I have to say these boards have been a lot of fun. I just watched the MT clip on "The Hill" and he was excellent. He's so calm and straightforward. It's like he is standing by a cliff as the MSM reporters jump off and just shaking his head wistfully.
For what it's worth, COVID-related hospital admissions have downtrended from ~1600 to ~1100 from Dec 1 to Dec 29 in our metro area per our internal data.
Omicron certainly seems more transmissible but likely (I hope, anyway) this reflects evolutionary pressure on virus to select for strains that propagate efficiently. Killing your host does not facilitate efficient propagation. I am hopeful that this means COVID continue to abate in clinical severity and we finally can get a break from this come Spring/Summer.
This is great news, but the real pandemic is fear & submission, and I don’t see that scourge abating anytime soon as the faceless tyrants busy themselves stoking hysterical fear to amass unbridled power over the credulous public.
As a physician there is also a very real pandemic in the hospital too and it makes my life shitty. In October our floor team's patient caps were doubled to accommodate the rising number of hospitalized COVID patients which mean every patient got approximately 50% of the time and probably even less of my mental energy than they would have otherwise. Our ICU rooms were double-booked (again) while the sickest lingered on mechanical ventilators for 30 days or more before either compassionate extubation or tracheostomy for weaning off a ventilator.
So in addition to having to do substantially more tracheostomies (not my favorite surgery), our "elective" cases were cancelled left and right as we didn't have beds open to admit them to post-operatively, not to mention the overwhelmingly higher risk of poor outcomes should they get sick perioperatively. I am still in training so rotate from service to service but our transplanters in particular do awfully when they get COVID after transplant. Really tragic given how impossibly valuable transplant organs are, and how normally transplant is a surgery defined by immediate, frankly miraculous improvement in the patient's overall health.
I'm pretty sick of the fear mongering too but the virus itself is what fucks up my day most noticeably. I don't read the news enough (no time, don't care) for the former to be a big factor in my life.
I am very sorry that you are faced with this. Wondering if you are aware that there are physicians on the front lines like Dr McCullough who are giving their patients early treatments that work. He says that with effective early treatments 85% of all the deaths could have been avoided. Thank you for all you do. The system would seem to be broken.......
There are several doctors doing early and/or preventative treatments following Dr McCullough’s approach, my neighbor being one of them, and most are reporting zero deaths and minimal hospitalizations. My wife is an attorney, so she’s constantly interacting w/ others and then coming home, so that would seemingly infect me. But the OTC vitamin regimen our neighbor doctor has us on, which includes nasal rinses every few days, has kept us infection free…….and, you may want to sit down for this one, we’re both unvaccinated!!
Thank you for this. I don't have time for watching news either, but I pay attention. What you say is at the heart of the matter. People are coming in sick enough to need ICU and exhausting staff and resources. So reading your comment is worth more than reading hundreds of opinions.
The real problem at this point is staffing. So many people out at the same time. The “rules” need to change more, and more quickly
Thank you for an on-the-ground description. Thank you also for continuing to show up for work despite it all.
Which begs the question why people weren't told and continue not to be told how the virus affects the body and suggesting simple, inexpensive ways to mitigate those effects using natural anti-inflammatories like green tea and turmeric and boosting the immune system with sufficient sleep and decent meals.
We know there are people who will refuse to seek medical help in the early acute stage because they fear the cost. How many of those ended up in your hospital who might not be there had the goal not been to enhance the revenue of Pharma and their ancillary industries, and instead they'd been provided sensible advice for self-care from day one?
Bless you and all your coworkers. It's precisely the fact you're bearing the brunt of this debacle that makes me even more outraged. And yes, I'm someone in the alleged high-risk cohort who had the virus.
You heretic. How dare you mention natural remedies and early intervention. For shame.
Pulm crit guy here, said much the same thing below regarding endemic Covid and what that will look like. We are in the beginning stages of another surge, stratospheric numbers of omicron will still lead to high case counts.
FYI as gen surg housestaff - love the hell out of you guys
I really believe the break will happen much sooner than that . . . if the nitwits in government and the media allow it to.
Turn off all tv news.
And all radio news.
Agreed. Especially npr
Its funny, I havent watched any news on TV in ages and only passingly see it when I go over to check on my aged mom who has it on for the better part of the day. 30-40 seconds is enough to see, "holy shit, this is nuts!" and by nuts, I mean the coverage of Covid (or anything for that matter). Having the luxury to choose long form print journalism as well as podcasts makes me feel like a bit of an alien in my own world.
Canada is worse than the states
Even the least likely province is deferring rule to unelected health authorities. I think that’s what the population wants though..
Quebec?
Alberta
Were there some study that could determine that with reliability, I am not sure I would even care about the answer as, for me anyways, the course of action is the same. Find journalists and opinion writers that are good and thoughtful and follow them. But as a small country, we have proportionately fewer good ones.
I say we are worse because The Canadian spirit is docile compared to our wild and crazy American cousins.
In Canada start a movement to take Sputnik V vaccines. It would stop the fear porn.
The Russian vaccine, why?
The elites hate the Russians. The Sputnik V (which you will never get) is as expensive, and effective as the J&J vaccine. Sputnik V is safer, (No; pericarditis, neurological symptoms, or micro-clots). Advocating Sputnik V shows true rebelliousness and a total distrust of our system. It will stop the COVID fear porn the (media, military, government, industrial complex) spouts out.
Don't forget Bidens scare statement "this will be the winter of illness and death for the unvaccinated....". Now if that's not vaccine propoganda I don't know what is
Except that 96% of Omicorn cases in Germany are fully vaccinated: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roehn/status/1476575806969335812
More cases among the vaccinated than unvaccinated in Ontario (of course, most Ontarians are vaccinated, so this is unsurprising if you recognize and understand the vaccines don't actually prevent the spread of the virus): https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/case-numbers-and-spread
89.7% of people infected with #Omicron in Denmark are either "fully vaccinated" or had their first booster: https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/statusrapport/rapport-omikronvarianten-31122021-ct18
Eight African countries were banned from entering the US, in keeping with the panic mode. Nobody bothered to notice that Nigeria has almost no covid at all. Most Nigerians are on antimalarials like Hydroxycloroquin or Ivermectin. These can be purchased in any drug store in Nigeria for about a dollar.
Yes, the same drugs that Fauci refused to approve because they don't make the pharma companies any $
Technically, Fauci runs NIAID, a research agency, not the FDA, the agency that approves drugs. How much influence he has behind the scenes is unclear. Policy changed very little from Trump to Biden, so there is someone behind the curtain.
I have long thought the fact that so many Africans are already taking Rachel Maddow dewormer was an intriguing contributor to Africa's relatively low death rate, compared to western countries, but it will always be difficult to pin down. Probably more likely causes are:
o Most of the people in the west who have died from COVID would already be dead in most of Africa (aged or sick, kept alive by expensive western medicine);
o Younger populations overall;
o Thinner populations;
o HIV has ravaged Africa for the last 35 years and probably most of the survivors have strengthened immune systems (that's me just guessing). A quarter of the South African population is HIV positive and while their immune systems must therefore be compromised, they are kept alive by antiviral cocktails that might have some effect against COVID (guessing again).
One thing we do know: the rate of vaccination in most of Africa is very low compared to the industrialized west.
Young and thin.
And, they live their lives outside for the most part.
Exactly. Very early on last year it was reported in the science journals that a 15-minute exposure to sunlight killed the virus. I noticed how fast that one got buried.
Glad we were forced inside for months. Brilliant.
How can I Zoom outside?
Tell them you need a potty break?
Because Trump quoted that study…. And then the CDC a comes out and says Vitamin D3 supplements help to boost your immune system…… 🤦♀️
Via Vit. D production? Or outside the body, via UV? There is very little transmission outdoors, between breezes and hostile conditions.
As I noted, it was reported at the height of the "we're out of hand sanitizer" panic and was quickly quashed as sales of same continued racking up profits. Vitamin D as a preventative/palliative is a separate issue, although as you note they're sort-of related, since a 15-minute sunshine exposure also provides the daily requirement of D.
That was a dumb idea but fun to think what would have happened if Trump did it!!
We have reached Jump the Shark stage with Covid. CDC, Fauci, WHO etc have flip flopped more in the last few days than a freshly caught mackerel on amphetamines. The Big Lie perpetrated in early 2020 was that there are no methods to treat early Covid outpatient cases. Now that the Pfizer and Merck pills are out and approved the admission that Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and Glaxo's monoclonal antibodies (and many others) could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the US as they have in the millions worldwide. But we didn't "have good studies". Big Pharma scores hundreds of billions as our Big Pharma backed politicians line their pockets with Big Pharma lucre.
Don't forget our Medical Pharisees telling us that going to a football game will kill Granny but going to an "Equity" protest is acceptable risk behavior. Good times!
The fact the state approved of equity marches meant it wasn't afraid of them, which kind of defeats the purpose of a march, no?
The video and Matt's column already had me spitting out coffee, then you come along with "have flip flopped more in the last few days than a freshly caught mackerel on amphetamines". A great laugh to end the year!
Spectre. They should call the next one Spectre.
Matt, you will surely be pilloried by your journo colleagues for failing to mention that Omnicron is regularly crossing state lines. Millions of advertising dollars are at stake here, better get working on that update. Also, hope you and yours can have a happy New Year.
Did Omicron cross state lines with a gun?
To INFECT peaceful black protesters willy nilly!!
I read in the Independent Omicron infected three black guys
Incredible. Just started infecting them for no reason. Maybe Brandon will save us.
No, but it had a few minors.
According to the MSM, no - so, yes? Who can say.
Omnicron is White Viral Supremacy. In the face of Vaccine Fragility, we need moar Critical Mask Theory and Booster Allies.
Israel has its 1st documented case of flurona. A combo of flu & the 'Rona."
https://hamodia.com/2021/12/30/israel-reports-first-case-of-flurona/
This opens up a whole new range of disease vectors that can be vegetated...I mean vaccinated against.
We could have dandruffarona & ingrowntoenailarona & hemorrhoidarona & cancerarona & limpjohnsonarona & the tag team of heartdiseasearona & vaxcausedheartdiseasearona, etc. etc., et-effing-cetera.
Maybe we could trot out even more Pharma CEOs and make believe they're medical experts instead of extremely self interested salesmen and then ask their opinion as if the phrase "conflict of interest" was never invented.
Personally, I'm hoping for the release of a 30 day self vaccination kit where exuberant paranoiacs can re-up their booster regimen on a daily basis thus making them the superdupersuperduper immune that will boost their immune systems to such undreamt of health heights that they will effectively be immortal.
Since Trudeau said that the unvaccinated are both racists & misogynists that pretty much narrows down the target of our approved hatred to white incels. Off to the camps with the little bastards. Can't get laid, don't deserve to live is what I've always said. And any pesky black folk who are vaccine hesitant are obviously just the black face of white incel mischief and should be banned from the reparation check handout & forced to listen to Blake Shelton until their ears bleed & they repent their errant unvaccinated ways.
By the way, if you ever need to explain your vaccine suspicions to any Branch Covidians in your area this video does a very good job of calmly explaining it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ZY3VWYKzQ
Just expect shrieking hysteria. For me the shrieking hysteria is the only reason why I've shared this video with others. Shrieking liberal hysteria is very entertaining. For others though, the sight of a typical 21st century liberal trying to reconcile his/her desire to kill you with their lifelong passive aggressive passivity is just too much to bear. I understand. Won't judge ya at all.
What irks the crap out of me is the constant barrage of propaganda comparing the virus vaccine to those for measles, mumps, smallpox et al. I even read a possibly heartfelt plea in The Lancet insisting vaccine mandates weren't really undermining our rights and using that comparison as justification. Comparing vaccines that provide long-term, even lifelong, immunity to something that needs to be reinforced every six months is the height of disinformation, if you ask me.
I look at it this way, if you have a pharmaceutical company that has, by its past actions, demonstrated that it only cares about its bottom line, you have to ask yourself at least one question. If they had the chance to market a vaccine that killed the virus in its tracks or market one that kept us addicted to their drug for the rest of our lives, which one would they run with?
I saw an "article" today that explained the fact that vaxxed folk are getting sick and being hospitalized because the vaccine wasn't designed to stop the virus, just to alleviate the symptoms. Duh! Really? But that wasn't what everyone from Rachel Maddow to Joe Biden said to sell this shitshow to us. It wasn't what their PSA's were saying either.
Anyone who did a little research could discover that fact but the "experts" weren't saying bupkis.
I saw another article that said that an Antarctic research base has been hit with Covid. Everyone fully vaxxed. Strict health protocols followed. Social distanced thousands of miles away from civilization and they still got Covid.
In Austria over the weekend they turned dogs loose on a crowd of anti-mandate protesters & waded into them with billy clubs. These are normal, law abiding citizens who just don't want a jab or they support others right to choose.
Remember that the Lancet also published the letter from the 27 doctors condemning anyone who dared mention Wuhan as a the virus source. We now know thanks to The Intercept's law suit that those scientists were organized by a man named Peter Daszak who headed EcoHealth Alliance, a US government funded research group that was outsourcing gain of function research to Wuhan. Daszk also maneuvered himself onto The WHO investigatory team looking into the source of Covid. He convinced them to not open the archives at the Wuhan Institute of Virology because there was nothing to see there. Uh huh.
The Lancet also published the Hydroxychloroquine study that was trashed by doctors and had to be pulled with no explanation by the illustrious journal.
Initially, there WAS some evidence hydroxycholoroquine might be a viable palliative for the virus, since it was in general use in countries where the death rate was lower. That the medication was immediately politicized was worse than that The Lancet published a report that simply said as much.
Likewise this overwhelming desire to blame the lab in Wuhan for the outbreak. The general consensus—you know, like that 99% of climatologists who agree on global warming—is that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally occurring novel version of SARS, and that its impact is mainly because it IS "novel" and the public has no natural immunity to it. Or didn't. There will be more as the permafrost thaws and the ice sheets melt. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Cynicism is definitely in order, but it should be focused on accepting the fact that those in power will go to any lengths and take advantage of every opportunity to maintain and expand their control. Too many people think that's an extreme viewpoint, but I personally, in my many years, haven't seen anything to contradict it.
And Australia is still building Covid camps for a virus that has pretty much stopped killing people🙈
That's because they have a "zero tolerance" approach to preserving public health. Or to something, anyway.
Hey, never know what they might need those camps for in the future!
"Never let a good crisis go to waste"
The flailing managerial cast trying to prevent us unifying along class lines. We're discussing Omicron so that we don't discuss M4A, labor, climate change, etc.
These parasites are such a nefarious paralytic probably because they're scared of guillotines.
* caste or cast?
With autocorrect, who even knows anymore? Webster's rule << ducking autocorrect
Caste
Precisely.