Thursday, September 24, 2020


Has Sweden beaten coronavirus? Expert claims by refusing to shut the country down the Swedes now have ‘herd immunity’ and have avoided a second wave

Sweden has beaten coronavirus by refusing to shut the country down and achieving herd immunity, according to an expert.

The Scandinavian nation was the only country in Europe not to introduce strict lockdown measures at the start of the pandemic.

But scientists believe that this may have helped it avoid a second wave of Covid-19 as it continues to record its lowest number of cases since March – with just 28 infections per 100,000 people.

This figure is less than half of the UK’s own infection rate of 69 per 100,000 people.

Professor Kim Sneppen, an expert in the spread of coronavirus at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, said that Sweden might have beaten the pandemic.

He told Denmark’s Politiken newspaper: ‘There is some evidence that the Swedes have built up a degree of immunity to the virus which, along with what else they are doing to stop the spread, is enough to control the disease. ‘Perhaps, the epidemic is over there.’

He said that the virus may now have run out of steam. He added: ‘That is what they have said.

‘On the positive side, they may now be finished with the epidemic.’

Sweden was initially criticised at the start of the outbreak after recording a spike in its mortality rates which was five times that of Denmark and ten times that of Norway and Finland.

Number of deaths per 24 hours peaked in April at 115 with more than half in care homes. But its seven-day average for coronavirus-related deaths is now zero.

Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who has become the face of the no-lockdown strategy, said in a recent interview that voluntary hygiene measures had been ‘just as effective’ as complete shutdowns.

Sweden kept open schools for children under 16, banned gatherings of more than 50 people and told over-70s and vulnerable groups to self-isolate.

Shops, bars and restaurants stayed open throughout the pandemic and the wearing of masks has not been advised by the government.

‘The rapidly declining cases we see in Sweden right now is another indication that you can get the number of cases down quite a lot in a country without having a complete lockdown,’ he previously told Unherd.

Tegnell added that ‘deaths are not so closely connected to the amount of cases you have in a country’, saying the death rate was more closely linked to whether older people are being infected and how well the health system can cope. ‘Those things will influence mortality a lot more, I think, than the actual spread of the disease,’ he said.

Swedish economic activity has also started to pick up with the effects of the downturn looking less severe than previously feared. The economy had shrunk by nine per cent but this too was less than the 20 per cent dip seen in the UK.

It is thought that because many younger people have already had coronavirus in Sweden it now has less chance to spread through the population.

Recent studies suggested that an infection rate of 43 per cent may be enough to achieve herd immunity – a figure much lower than the 60 per cent previously cited.

SOURCE

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Lindsey Graham to Dems: We Have the Votes…And We’re Filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Seat Before the Election

Romney has now said he will not oppose a nomination

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pretty much told Democrats to shove it regarding their whining and tantrums over the Ruth Bader Ginsburg vacancy fight. The associate justice passed away last Friday at the age of 87. We have a seat to fill during what could be one of the most contentious elections in recent memory, maybe even more so than 2016. And then this atom bomb is dropped.

Despite what Democrats say, we’re filling the seat. I mean, we’re going to do that. We have a chance to have an ironclad conservative majority on the Court. You don’t pass that up because RBG wanted the next president to select her successor. That has no bearing on this process, and it can be ignored.

Democrats have threatened to impeach Trump over this. And they want to gut the legislative filibuster and pack the court, so now it’s definitely time to get this done. Trump won the 2016 election and the GOP expanded its Senate majority in the 2018 midterms. We have the right to do it. So, please, Democrats—shut up and get out of the way.

And Graham just delivered the kill shot to the Democrats’ hopes that this process could be stalled last night on Sean Hannity’s show. We have the votes. Yes, Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are “no” votes, but Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) is onboard and Mitt Romney is still AWOL. Even if we lose him, we’re still good. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is also onboard.

We just need 50 votes to get this done. Yes, losing three Republicans because they’re insufferable members of the squish squad who don’t see the prize in front of them are the usual suspects. The only person who gets a pass is Collins because Maine is a weird state—but Murkowski once again shows she’s a weak piece of trash and Romney really has no reason to oppose. If he does, well, then we should do everything we can to ensure his defeat when he’s due for re-election.

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Even If Masks Work In Theory, They Aren’t Working In Practice

Our family’s visit to a Virginia restaurant the other day wasn’t particularly unusual in the coronavirus era, although that state’s requirements are more stringent than most. The staff were all wearing masks and, in this case, plastic gloves as well. The iced tea bin was behind the counter where customers couldn’t touch it, and Virginia restaurants are apparently required to give customers a new plastic cup for every refill. (Somehow, the left went from banning plastic straws to probably tripling the amount of plastic waste generated by restaurants but hey, there could be a .000001% less chance of someone possibly catching the WORSTEST VIRUS EVER, so screw the environment, right?)

Anyway, I won’t name the restaurant, but it was one of those places where you walk in, place your order, get your drinks, pay, then sit down and wait for your food to come up at the counter, at which point they call your order number. Of course, you had to shout through the giant plexiglass screen, then bend your head just to hear the muffled voice of the cashier, who was asking questions and punching buttons with one ungloved finger on an otherwise gloved hand. From the stains as well as the home-cut finger opening (so he could push the buttons), it was obvious he hadn’t changed his gloves in quite some time, and certainly not for the two customers in line before us.

Even more disturbingly, as he spoke to us the cashier adjusted his obviously moist, stained mask with his gloved hand at least five times, at one point putting his thumb and forefinger across his entire mouth and moving the mask farther up the bridge of his nose. Thank God we were ‘spared’ any potential ‘droplets’ from his nose (because we all know how those nose droplets barrel through plexiglass), but it did come at the cost of spreading whatever nastiness was on his mask to pretty much everything else he touched.

We placed our order, paid with a credit card, then then watched the cashier grab our cups from the stack and proceed to put his gloved fingers inside (INSIDE, I kid you not) three of them at once as he made his way to the ice maker and tea bin to get our drinks (COVID restrictions in Virginia apparently do not allow us to get our own tea … you know, for ‘safety’).

Now the last thing I’m trying to do is bash hard-working restaurant employees. I’ve been one myself and I know how hard and thankless the work is. I won’t go into any more detail on the incident above, but suffice it to say I wouldn’t have dreamed of being rude to him. What I am trying to point out, however, is how supposedly well-meaning COVID restrictions – and even restaurants trying to ‘help’ by going above and beyond, as the gloves seemed to be – have turned our reality into a place where the ‘letter of the law’ (or mandate) is more important than common sense or actual results.

Indeed, if you had told me in 2019 that there would come a day when virtually the entire world would seriously believe there are absolutely no negatives to wearing a moist, bacteria-laden germ-collector on one’s face and breathing through it all day, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet, here we are, where even the esteemed head of the Center for Disease Control is telling people with a straight face that masks – yes masks – are MORE protective than a vaccine. At this point, face burqas have become more than simply a talisman to encourage the public to venture out and engage the economy – they have become a religious cult. Dare to question it in any way, and they’ll shut you down – or attempt to – and they typically won’t even bother to try to respond to any of the points you make.

Take last week, for example, when I attempted to post that amazing mask article by Daniel Horowitz I mentioned in last week’s post on my own humble personal Facebook page. (I typically don’t plug this page, but lately I’ve gotten in the habit of posting some great clips and COVID-related news items there, so you’re welcome to visit and follow it if you like.) After a few days, the “fact-checker” bot discovered and flagged the post as “partly false information.” Why, you ask? Because Big Tech has apparently deemed fit to decide that this is “settled science,” or something. “Masks work,” don’t you know, and that’s all there is to it. To ‘refute’ the post, Facebook oddly linked to an article written by healthfeedback.org in May responding to an entirely different anti-mask post. It goes through the usual ridiculous model-based “studies” to ‘prove’ that mask-wearing ‘works,’ but then it also notably says this:

“The post is correct in stating that improper handling of face masks or cloth coverings creates a risk for infection, as infectious droplets may potentially contaminate the external and internal surfaces. However, this is far from an insurmountable obstacle, as this risk can be minimized by exercising caution when removing the mask. The CDC has advised that individuals should wash their hands and avoid touching their eyes, nose and mouth after removing their mask, and that cloth masks should be regularly washed.”

Now let’s put aside the other arguments, many if not most of which I have covered in past posts, and just get real for a second with some gold old-fashioned common sense. Does anyone sincerely think that most of the public, who are non-medical professionals, handle masks correctly? Just take a look at the masks on most restaurant employees or even people you pass in the street. People are constantly touching them and they’re often visibly dirty, which suggests they aren’t being laundered daily or even regularly. Most people I know carry them around in their cars, in and out of their pockets, and leave them lying around wherever with little regard for the biohazards they are. Instead of potentially dangerous droplets falling to the ground where they’ve fallen for the entirety of human history, we’ve chosen to catch them in one ‘convenient’ place so they can then be distributed to surfaces humans touch on a regular basis.

In other words, even IF correctly used masking worked to stop the spread of coronavirus in theory – a goal I’m not even sure we should have in the first place (as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed) – the practice and subsequent real-world results are an entirely different thing. This could be why in place after place that has instituted mandatory masking, from California to Israel to Peru to Columbia to India to countless others, the virus continues to spread unabated and seemingly even faster than in non-masked places, only finishing when it runs its course at 15 to 25 percent seroprevalence.

Please consider staying informed with the latest and BEST COVID-19-related information by joining the over 2,100 people already following my brand-new COVID ‘Team Reality’ list. It’s a great first step in the long-haul fight against corona fascism!

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

Biden on radical idea of packing the Supreme Court: “I’m not going to answer that question” (The Daily Wire)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in state in U.S. Capitol on Friday — the first woman to hold that honor (The Daily Caller)

CNN’s Don Lemon suggests blowing up “entire system” (Fox News)

Second wounded Los Angeles deputy released from hospital after ambush attack (Fox News)

“State of emergency” declared by Louisville police ahead of Breonna Taylor decision (LEX 18)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposes new felony charges for violent protesters, harsh penalties for cities that defund police (The Daily Wire)

Federal judge orders Wisconsin absentee ballots postmarked by November 3 to be counted in 2020 election (Fox News)

Pennsylvania mail-in ballot ruling could cause 100,000 ballots to be rejected (Forbes)

Congressional Budget Office: Federal debt nears “unsustainable” levels (The Washington Times)

U.S. household net worth spikes, surpassing pre-pandemic peak (National Review)

Anyone notice that the Trump recovery is doing much better than expected? (Issues & Insights)

CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden agrees to forfeit more than $5 million from book proceeds to the U.S. government (Daily Mail)

New York City, Portland, and Seattle deemed by DOJ as “anarchist jurisdiction” (WABC)

Sweeping new sanctions hit Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs (The Washington Free Beacon)

Mike Pompeo threatens China with sanctions over Iran arms deals (Washington Examiner)

House Foreign Affairs Committee report says China tried to cover up scope of COVID-19, could have prevented pandemic (The Daily Wire)

Trump administration invests more than $100 million to fight human trafficking (Disrn)

Beta becomes 9th landfall storm of 2020 in a record-shattering season (NBC News)

Even with lockdowns, the woke Emmys post lowest ratings ever (The Daily Wire)

More than half of all Supreme Court justices were confirmed in 45 days or less (The Federalist)

California wants me to vote, even though I haven’t lived there for over eight years (The Daily Signal)

Policy: Too much centralization is turning everything into a political crisis (Mises Institute)

Policy: America needs a plan to bring key manufacturing home (Issues & Insights)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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