Note

I am going in for some rather pesky surgery later today so I don't think I will be putting up much until Sunday

Google censorship again

Must not speak favorably of Ivermectin, it seems. Below is the email they sent me:

Your post titled has been deleted

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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2023/03/did-ivermectin-ban-cost-lives-it.html .

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The post was from a fortnight ago and was simply reproduced in full from an article in The Spectator, Australia of 14 March, where it can still be read. It was authored by a medical group

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World Health Organization says healthy children and teens probably don't need a Covid vaccine

The World Health Organization has revised its Covid vaccine recommendations and suggested that healthy children and adolescents may not need a shot.

In guidance released Tuesday, the global health agency deemed healthy young people 'low priority' for Covid vaccination.

It said the public health impact of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents is 'much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children' like jabs for measles and polio.

The WHO urged countries to consider the fact young people are unlikely to get severely sick with Covid before recommending vaccination.

Meanwhile, the WHO is looking at adding obesity drugs to its 'essential' medicines list.

It said the Covid vaccines and boosters were safe for all ages, but the guidelines took into account other factors like cost-effectiveness.

These are defined as older adults and children with immunocompromising conditions, who are recommended to get a booster dose between six and 12 months after their last vaccine.

Dr Hanna Nohynek, Chair of the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), said: 'Countries should consider their specific context in deciding whether to continue vaccinating low risk groups, like healthy children and adolescents, while not compromising the routine vaccines that are so crucial for the health and well-being of this age group.'

Among the 4.4million Covid deaths in the world in the MPIDR COVerAGE database, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research's global database of Covid cases and deaths 0.4 percent (over 17,400) were in children under the age of 20.

In the US, 735 children under four have died from Covid. In the age groups five to 11 and 12-15, roughly 500 children died in each. Some 365 teenagers aged between 16 and 17 died from Covid.

Children have always had a demonstrably low risk of becoming seriously ill with or dying from Covid. Furthermore, while the vaccine reduces the risk of death and hospitalization, it does not prevent transmission.

Natural protection in the general population has also grown throughout the pandemic.

The WHO also called for urgent efforts to catch up on routine vaccinations missed during the pandemic and warned of a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases like measles.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in November that a record high of almost 40 million children missed their measles vaccine in 2021.

The vaccination coverage for measles — one of the most contagious human viruses yet totally preventable — has been consistently dropping since the start of the Covid pandemic.

Misinformation linked to Covid vaccines has also led to swathes of parents rejecting normal childhood shots, despite immunizations being the most effective way to protect children from measles.

Despite the global move away from vaccinating young people, the CDC last month officially added Covid shots to the list of routine immunizations for kids and adults.

It put a two or three-dose primary series of the Covid vaccine and a booster for people over the age of 19 on the schedule, and the same for children over six months.

Officials said the move would 'normalize' the vaccine and 'send a powerful message' that everyone over six should stay up to date with their Covid vaccines.

The CDC implemented the move after independent vaccine advisors proposed the changes.

It means the shot is in the same category as vaccines for diseases such as polio, measles and hepatitis B.

Children are significantly less likely to die from Covid than any other age group. Less than one percent of all deaths since the beginning of the pandemic have been in those under the age of 18.

Meanwhile, Covid has been the third leading cause of death in the wider population.

Early last year, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention warned that young males who had received the mRNA vaccines — either the Pfizer or Moderna shot were at an increased risk of suffering heart inflammation, known as myocarditis.

The agency warned that myocarditis was appearing more frequently in males 16 and older within seven days of receiving the shot.

In 2021, Finland, Denmark and Sweden paused use of the Moderna Covid vaccine in young people over fears the shots were not truly beneficial and were causing side effects including the condition.

This was despite a study which found that people who contract Covid are much more likely to develop heart inflammation that those who receive the vaccine.

In January 2022, Sweden decided not to recommend the Covid vaccine for children aged five to 11, arguing that the benefits did not outweigh the risks.

And in July 2022, the Danish Health Authority stopped recommending the Covid vaccine for those under the age of 18. It's vaccine program stated that since children and young people 'very rarely become seriously ill' from the Covid Omicron variant.

In an interim statement by the WHO from November 2021, it said there was a clear 'benefit of vaccinating all age groups'.

But it acknowledged: 'Although benefit-risk assessments clearly underpin the benefit of vaccinating all age groups, including children and adolescents, the direct health benefit of vaccinating children and adolescents is lower compared with vaccinating older adults due to the lower incidence of severe Covid and deaths in younger persons.'

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are considering switching the Covid vaccine rollout to a yearly schedule similar to the flu shot program.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11915563/World-Health-Organization-says-healthy-kids-teens-dont-need-Covid-vaccinations.html

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Elderly Australians to be given subsidized COVID antivirals

Around 160,000 extra Australians will be able to access subsidised COVID antiviral treatments from Saturday, as virus cases rise and the federal government launches a new ad campaign encouraging booster doses.

Australians in their 60s with one severe illness risk factor will join the eligibility list for Pfizer’s oral antiviral, Paxlovid, from this weekend, when a vaccination drive is also rolled out on television, social media and billboards.

Health Minister Mark Butler said aged care cases had risen by about 65 per cent, antiviral prescriptions had risen by about 40 per cent, and while there were fewer hospitalisations from COVID than in the peak of the summer wave, there had been a slow and small uptick over the last five weeks.

“All of which goes to reinforce the message that this is not over,” he said. “There will be future waves of COVID across the course of this year, and it is important to continue to reinforce those standard messages about remaining COVID-safe.”

Less than half of the eligible population (45.2 per cent) has had their fourth COVID dose going into winter although that figure is much higher – 75 per cent or more – for groups over 70-years-old.

Butler said the government’s campaign would emphasise new advice issued in January that shifted booster eligibility away from how many doses a person had, to how many months it had been since their last dose or infection.

All adult Australians who have not had a COVID-19 infection or vaccination in the last six months can get an extra booster, regardless of how many vaccine doses they have previously received.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said expanded eligibility for antiviral treatments – which prevent severe disease, hospitalisation and death – had been recommended by the independent pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee based on latest evidence and there was “plenty of supply”.

The cost for a course of treatment for people who are not eligible for the subsidy remains close to $1000 on the private market, he said.

“But I think the message to Australians is the people that really need it, they are now eligible for that highly subsidised PBS rate, and they’re the ones that should be making those plans [with their doctor] in case they are diagnosed with COVID in coming months.”

Kelly also released his review of the fourth Omicron wave, which ended in February. At 19 weeks it lasted longer than expected but was flatter in terms of case numbers and severe illness.

He said it was the first time that there had been a so-called “soup” of variants circling the community, rather than one dominant strain. “[That] actually [makes it] more difficult to predict what is going to happen in the next wave, or even the timing of the next wave,” he said.

“I think we’ve got a ripple at the moment. Whether that will turn into wave … it’s difficult to predict at this stage. But certainly, there has been an increase in numbers over the last few weeks.”

Kelly also said that hybrid immunity – meaning the combination of immunity from vaccines and prior infections – was making a difference, particularly in more vulnerable populations, with COVID death rates among First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, and disabled people now closer to resembling the general population.

“These are positive things,” Kelly said. “There is still a need to protect our most vulnerable people and that’s very clearly the policy that we’re doing now.”

He said the most at risk remained elderly people, particularly in aged care homes, as he strongly advised people over 65 to get a booster vaccine if they had not received one or been vaccinated in the past six months.

The government will also extend the disaster payment scheme for aged care workers, which had been due to expire at the end of March. It will continue paying $750 a week for workers who contract COVID but do not have leave entitlements.

Kelly said the department was giving personal protective equipment and rapid antigen tests to aged care facilities, and he would be writing to all providers on Friday to remind them of the key issues with COVID, the flu and other viruses approaching winter.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-is-not-over-vaccine-campaign-expanded-eligibility-for-covid-antivirals-as-cases-rise-20230330-p5cwr6.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Is China winning the Covid wars?

Has China won the Covid wars? In January, Vice-Premier Liu He proclaimed at Davos that China was ‘back to normal’. In February, its Politburo Standing Committee gloated that it had achieved a ‘decisive victory’ over Covid and all its policies had been ‘totally right’. Last week, it started issuing visas to foreigners and unlike the US, you don’t need a Covid vaccine to enter the country.

China ended its draconian zero-Covid policies in December. Yet, for all its totalitarian zeal, vaccination was never mandatory. China also never approved the use of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine even though it could have, instead relying on traditional vaccines made with an inactivated virus.

Naturally, Big Pharma’s gene vaccine shills predicted a Covid in China massacre with up to 1.5 million deaths. This is more than the 1.1 million Covid deaths in the US over the last three years in absolute terms although a fraction in per capita terms.

So how many people died of Covid in China? Covid figures are rubbery everywhere. China’s Covid wave peaked in early January and was over by early February, with China reporting this week that 120,576 people had died. Officials estimated that about 10 per cent of people died of Covid pneumonia and the rest died with Covid due to complications from underlying comorbidities. The average age at death was 80, with 90 per cent aged over 65 and 57 per cent aged 80 and over. This sounds very much like the cohort of sick and elderly people who died in Australia both before and after vaccination.

It was all very disappointing to Western devotees of mRNA vaccines. ‘Can a million people vanish from the planet without the world knowing?’, the Atlantic asked forlornly.

While data from China is always dubious, there is no doubt that China was determined not just to keep its Covid statistics as low as possible but also to keep Covid deaths low too, even if it meant welding people into their apartments. It was the 21st century equivalent of the Soviet Union getting an astronaut into space before the US or winning the most gold medals at the Olympics.

This was in stark contrast to former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and former UK health minister Matt Hancock whose policies dramatically increased elderly deaths.

The West also ridiculed or banned early treatment of Covid with ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, whereas the Chinese used chloroquine which was shown in 36 studies to improve outcomes by 62 per cent.

Conversely, China did not use remdesivir, a drug which all independent studies show increases the risk of death by 3 per cent. The US federal government, on the other hand, gives a 20 per cent bonus to hospitals that prescribe remdesivir to Medicare patients.

The Chinese Communist party treats its citizens like a prize herd of cattle. It doesn’t ask them what they think but it does care about their health. In contrast, the Green ideologues in the West see humanity as a pest, in plague proportions, to be culled. This is overlaid by Big Pharma’s view that a pandemic is a business opportunity, that you can never have too many jabs, and a patient cured is a customer lost.

Fear in China was used to cement Xi’s control of the country, in the West it was used to soften people up for experimental injections.

A clip of Dr Anthony Fauci, then the White House chief medical adviser, and the Mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, knocking on doors to drum up vaccination in a poor black neighbourhood in June 2021 illustrates the point. A young, healthy-looking black man angrily tells them, ‘Nine months is definitely not enough for nobody to be taking no vaccination that you-all came up with. When you start talking about paying people to get vaccinated, when you start talking about incentivising things to get people vaccinated, it’s something else going on with that,’ he adds. ‘Your campaign is about fear. It’s about inciting fear in people. You-all attack people with fear. That’s what this pandemic is – it’s fear, it’s fear, this pandemic. That’s all it is,’ he says as Fauci and Bowser beat an embarrassed retreat.

‘Vaccine hesitancy still runs deep’ in China, Reuters reported in December. And why not? Chinese vaccines haven’t stopped transmission and people told the reporter they feared the side effects such as heart attacks more than Covid. But the government shied away from heavy-handed mandates. Who would have imagined that Communist China would respect bodily autonomy more than Australia or the US?

With even the US saying that it will end its Covid vaccine requirement for foreign visitors in May, the spotlight is increasingly on vaccine injuries and deaths.

In Japan last week, politician Hirofumi Yanagase urged the government to admit the truth about vaccine injuries pointing out that deaths in Japan increased by 210,000 last year, the highest number since the second world war. Dr Masanori Fukushima, an expert in infectious diseases and professor emeritus at Kyoto University filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government last month for refusing to acknowledge the causal link between vaccines and deaths. More than 2,000 Japanese deaths have been reported after vaccination, yet the first vaccine-linked death was only admitted by the Japanese Ministry of Health on 10 March.

In the US, former Blackrock portfolio manager Edward Dowd will release a report next week about the dramatic increase in excess deaths, disabilities and injuries since the rollout of the vaccines. The latest data his team has analysed comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It reveals a dramatic increase in lost work time, an increase of 50 per cent compared with previous years which he thinks is due to vaccine injuries and the weakened immune systems of the vaccinated. His partner, leading insurance analyst Josh Stirling says the implications for insurance companies are dramatic as they face huge payouts for the injured and the dead.

It is often said that doctors bury their mistakes. In this case, insurers, and ultimately all of us, will pay for them. Will the cost be higher in the West than in China? It’s hard to say. These days, life seems to be distressingly cheap everywhere.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/is-china-winning-the-covid-wars/

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Biden Administration Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit Over Pressuring Big Tech to Censor discussion of vaccines

President Joe Biden’s administration has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over how the president and other top officials pressured Big Tech to censor users.

Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his group Children’s Health Defense, and Louisiana resident Connie Sampognaro brought the suit in U.S. court in Louisiana against Biden and top officials like Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House assistant Rob Flaherty.

The pressure the officials and their agencies brought to bear against Twitter and other Big Tech companies to crack down on alleged mis- and disinformation, including targeting Kennedy personally, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, according to the new suit.

“It is well established that the government violates the Constitution if it uses coercive threats to induce private parties to censor protected speech or if it engages in collusive joint action with private parties to violate the First Amendment,” the suit states.

The legal action rests in part on evidence that has been uncovered by litigation in the same court brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri.

That lawsuit has produced documents from the government and Big Tech companies showing repeated efforts by U.S. officials to get the companies to take action against users.

The efforts paid off, with companies regularly telling officials they were working on restricting information. That included any content that purportedly discouraged vaccines even when the content was true, one Facebook employee told the White House. In some cases, though, the government itself provided misinformation that was cited to take action against users, the documents show.

The censorship efforts are “responsible even now for the online suppression of facts and opinions about the COVID vaccines that might lead people to become ‘hesitant’ about COVID vaccine mandates … depriving Americans of information and opinion on matters of the highest public importance,” the new suit states.

Kennedy was named as a top spreader of mis- and disinformation by an outside group, whose analysis was promoted by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki from the White House. Kennedy was later banned from multiple platforms, including Instagram. Kennedy provides news analyses to followers and relies on facts and opinions for the analyses, the suit states. The bans and censorship “prevented Kennedy from knowing the number and seriousness of first-hand accounts of vaccine injuries and reporting that information to his followers,” it says.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, ‘Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.’ It also violates the constitution,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The collaboration between the White House and health and intelligence agency bureaucrats to silence criticism of presidential policies is an assault on the most fundamental foundation stone of American Democracy.”

“If Government can censor its critics, there is no atrocity it cannot commit. The public has been deprived of truthful, life-and-death information over the last three years; this lawsuit aims to have government censorship end, as it must, because it is unlawful under our constitution,” added Mary Holland, president and general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, which says its aim is to “end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures, hold those responsible accountable and establish safeguards to prevent future harm.”

The suit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee who is also overseeing the other case. Doughty recently rejected the government attempt to dismiss that action.

The Census Bureau, State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the FBI declined to comment. Other defendants, including the White House and the Department of Justice, did not respond to requests for comments.

The administration has argued before that its pressure on Big Tech companies does not “plausibly amount to coercion,” even in cases where heightened rhetoric, like when Biden said that failing to take action was “killing people,” was used.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-pressuring-big-tech-to-censor-users_5152746.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Certain Covid vaccines might TREBLE risk of sudden cardiac death in women under 30, official data shows

Official statitics about Covid have very low credibility so the findings below should be taken with a lump of salt

Government analysts trawled through data from England's historic roll-out in order to re-check the safety profile of vaccines in under-30s.

No significant increase in deaths among the vaccinated was uncovered, debunking one of the biggest current conspiracy theories surrounding the lockdown-banishing scheme.

Although when the results were broken down further, experts found an elevated risk of cardiac-related deaths in women for one type of jab.

Data collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed women who got a non-mRNA jab were 3.5 times more likely to die of such ailments within 12 weeks of being vaccinated.

This was compared to after that time-frame, as opposed to the unvaccinated.

Looking at the figures this way allowed the ONS team to spot any noticeable link to vaccination.

Some deaths linked to vaccines might have been missed in official figures, hence the need to look at the data another way.

Non-mRNA jabs include ones made by AstraZeneca and Novavax, which were the only two available during the period the study covered.

Although, no data on specific vaccine brand was included in the analysis. In the US, the Johnson and Johnson was one of the non-mRNA jabs used.

Writing in the journal Nature, the ONS team concluded that 11 cardiac deaths in young women may be attributable to non-mRNA jabs.

However, the study doesn't directly prove that any deaths were caused by any vaccine.

Fatalities could, for example, have been from an unrelated health condition or even a Covid infection itself given the virus is known to cause similar cardiac effects.

Researchers said young women given non-mRNA jabs in the period studied tended to be classified as clinically vulnerable, hence why they were prioritized for jabs.

This factor may have explained their increased risk of death, the team suggested.

No similar heightened risk was found in men. Academics did not offer a reason as to why, however, as that was beyond the scope of the analysis.

Nor did they uncover any proof that mRNA jabs, such as ones made by Pfizer and Moderna, carried such risk.

That disproves a conspiracy theory beloved by anti-vaxxers that the mRNA shots are responsible for a wave of 'sudden' deaths.

In fact, the study, which also examined the general risk of death after testing positive for Covid , found unvaccinated young people had significantly higher chance of dying than the jabbed from 'all causes'.

Researchers opted to look at the 12 week period post vaccination as this was the original time period set between vaccination doses.

The analysis was based on data from between December 8 2020, when Covid jabs were first rolled out, until May 25 last year.

It included people in England between the ages of 12 and 29, with researchers looking at this group specifically in response to some studies pointing to a risk of cardiac diseases in young people post-Covid vaccination.

While credited with saving the nation from an endless lockdown and thousands of lives, Covid vaccines, like any medical treatment, aren't risk free.

For example, mRNA vaccines can, in extremely rare cases, cause myocarditis. This inflammation of the heart is particularly a risk for young men and boys.

And the AstraZeneca jab was withdrawn for the under-40s in the UK in April 2021 after it was linked to a rare, but life-threatening, risk of developing blood clots.

Vahé Nafilyan, a senior statistician at the ONS, said overall the study showed mRNA vaccines, which have now been used for the majority of vaccinated young Brits, are generally safe.

'We find no evidence the risk of cardiac or all cause death is increased in the weeks following vaccination with mRNA vaccines,' he said.

However, he added they did find that young women given a non-mRNA Covid jab had a 3.52 times higher chance of cardiac death in the 12 weeks after.

While a 3.52 times increase in risk seems large, it should be noted that the actual number of deaths is estimated to be relatively small.

Office for National Statistics analysts estimate almost 1.7m Brits were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to March 13. This a jump of almost 14 per cent on the week before
Office for National Statistics analysts estimate almost 1.7m Brits were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to March 13. This a jump of almost 14 per cent on the week before

It equates to six cardiac deaths per 100,000 females vaccinated with at least a first dose of a non-mRNA vaccine.

But Mr Nafilyan said the context in which those jabs were given and to whom needed to be considered. 'Vaccination with the main non-mRNA vaccine used in the UK was stopped for young people following safety concerns in April 2021,' he said.

'And most of the young people who received it would have been prioritised due to clinical vulnerability or being healthcare workers.

'Therefore, these results cannot be generalised to the population as a whole.

'Whilst vaccination carries some risks, these need to be assessed in light of its benefits.'

The ONS analysis did not speculate why women seemed to be at greater risk of cardiac death following their first non-mRNA Covid jab compared to men.

While the data did record men had an estimated 1.18 increased risk of cardiac death following their first non-mRNA Covid jab, the ONS said the evidence wasn't strong enough to establish a link as these few deaths could just be down to chance.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11906431/Women-20s-given-AstraZenecas-Covid-jab-3-5-TIMES-likely-die-cardiac-arrest.html

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Covid coming apart at the seams

Panic saw 100 years of evidence-based pandemic response programs junked as superstition-driven diktat took over in the wish to be seen to be doing something. Britain’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said on 13 March 2020, ‘If you locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more, then you would suppress the virus. But when you do that and then release it, it all comes back again.’

That’s what has happened here. Covid is now endemic. It will circulate throughout the world and keep returning with mutating variants. People who have been infected and/or vaccinated can contract and transmit it. We have little choice but to learn to live with it. What’s important is to make sure the right policy lessons are learnt so that never again, neither for a novel coronavirus nor for any other infections disease, do we go down the path of public policy insanity to lock up the whole country and give total power and control to sociopaths and psychopaths.

Fear was instrumentalised to terrify citizens. A 2021 Yale study concluded that public health messaging was effective in shaming and embarrassing people into getting vaccinated both to protect themselves and in the belief this would also expedite the date for the entire community to be released from all restrictions. Yet vaccines were tested for reducing the likelihood of infection leading to serious illness and death, not for protecting against infection and transmission. Robert Blumen notes: ‘Covid injections were a treatment, not a vaccine’. Manufacturers and health authorities ignored the more troublesome concepts of absolute risk reduction and numbers needed to vaccinate. Instead, they concentrated on weaponising the relative risk reduction of 95 per cent so that people were misled into believing it meant 95 per cent protection against infection, rather than a 95 per cent reduction in the risk of those infected to progress to severe disease.

There would never have been the widespread public backing for vaxports if people had not been misled into exaggerating the threat from Covid by several factorfold and mistaking relative for absolute risk reduction. This led them into the false belief that mass vaccination would end the pandemic and the unvaccinated were prolonging that day of release. The brainwashing was so effective that to this day many insist that Novak Djokovic has been protected from Covid by the high rate of vaccination.

The Covid policy house of cards has been tumbling down during the month I was in India. The explosive lockdown files in the UK have blown apart the official narrative and confirmed that we the sceptics were right in our dark suspicions of the motives, scientific basis and evidence behind government decisions. Yet, even we did not fully grasp just how venal, evil and utterly contemptuous of their citizens those in charge of our health, lives, livelihoods and children’s future were.

Many suspicions voiced by sceptics from early 2020 onwards and mocked as conspiracy theories have turned into plausible claims and even accepted facts The virus might have originated in the Wuhan laboratory after all. Dodgy Covid modelling dressed up outliers as reasonable case scenarios. Lockdowns failed to stop the spread and eradicate the virus. They increased non-Covid deaths and caused other grave harms.

School closures did not curb transmission but did cause long-term harm to children’s education, development and emotional wellbeing. Masks stopped neither infection nor transmission. Infection confers natural immunity. Covid vaccines do not stop infection, hospitalisation, death or transmission. The safety of vaccines using new technology had not been definitively established for the short- or long-term. Vaccine harms are real and substantial yet safety signals have been summarily dismissed and ignored. mRNA vaccines are not confined to the arm but spread rapidly to other parts, including reproductive organs, with worrying consequences for fertility and births.

The harm-benefit equation of vaccines is, like the disease burden itself, steeply age-differentiated. Healthy young people do not need initial or booster doses. Vaccination mandates don’t increase vaccine take-up but can fuel cross-vaccine hesitancy. Suppression of sceptical and dissenting voices lessen trust in public health officials, experts, institutions and scientists. Estimates of ‘long Covid’ were inflated (CDC estimate of 20 per cent of Covid infections against UK study’s estimate of three) by using generalised, non-specific symptoms like mild fatigue and weakness.

Health policy interventions involve policy trade-offs just like all other policy choices. Cost-benefit analysis is therefore an essential prerequisite, not an optional add-on.

Regulators seem to have become vaccine enablers, more committed to defend vaccines from criticism than protect people from harm. Germany’s Die Welt became the first major mainstream publication to report on the allegations of fraud in Pfizer’s clinical trials. Participants who suffered adverse events were unblinded and removed and the death of Pfizer subjects was covered up. The New York Times has taken the European Commission to court over President Ursula von der Leyen’s refusal to release her text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, in which she personally negotiated the purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.

On 15 February, Florida issued a health alert on mRNA Covid-19 vaccine safety. By now, the vast majority of Covid deaths in many countries are among the vaccinated and boosted. This proves conclusively the ineffectiveness of vaccines at the community level, demolishes the premise of vaccine mandates, but leaves open the possibility of net protective benefits for target groups like the elderly and people with serious underlying health issues.

The swirling propaganda notwithstanding, not every vaccinated person who died was killed by the vaccine; not every vaccinated person who didn’t die from a Covid infection lives because of the vaccine; not all unvaccinated to survive an infection owe their lives to being unjabbed. All such claims should be rigorously scrutinised and discussed with the increasing flow of data and a growing body of studies. The imperative need is to investigate the phenomenon of vaccine injuries and excess deaths. The refusal of governments to do so is exasperating but perhaps also very telling: never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. The policy conclusions are to demand local clinical trials for new products and not rely on overseas results; end revenue dependence of regulators on the pharmaceutical industry; disclose financial links of regulators, doctors and researchers with Pharma; end legal indemnity for vaccine manufacturers; lift mandates in public settings; and prohibit companies from imposing them in most business settings, leaving it instead for people to make informed decisions in consultation with their doctors free from threats of sanctions.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/covid-coming-apart-at-the-seams/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Problem

I am ill and have been sleeping most of the day. So I have not put up much. Hopefully better tomorrow

US Appeals Court Blocks COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers

A federal appeals court has halted the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers nationwide.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled (pdf) in an en banc hearing on Thursday to keep a preliminary injunction on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place amid ongoing litigation over the matter.

En banc is a legal term that means a case is heard by the entire bench of a court, rather than just by a panel of judges selected from the bench.

The latest move by the full appeals court of 16 full-time judges reverses a previous ruling that was made by a smaller panel of judges from the same appeals court. That three-judge panel had ruled in April 2022 to uphold the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers.

Executive Order

President Joe Biden in September 2021 issued an executive order requiring federal workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, otherwise they would face disciplinary actions, which might include being fired. The order permitted exceptions for religious and medical reasons.

Feds for Medical Freedom, a group of about 6,000 federal workers, brought a lawsuit against the order, saying it likely exceeded the president’s authority.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee in January 2022 ordered the preliminary injunction on the vaccine mandate. At the time, the Biden administration said nearly 98 percent of covered employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The case moved to the 5th Circuit. The majority ruling by a three-judge panel in April 2022 overturned Brown’s decision and determined that the plaintiffs should have taken their complaints elsewhere. Specifically, Judge Carl Stewart, a Clinton appointee, wrote in the majority decision that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 “precludes district court adjudication of federal statutory and constitutional claims.”

Under the CSRA, federal workers facing adverse actions may appeal to an entity called the Merit Systems Protection Board, which decides whether the worker was properly disciplined. If the worker prevails, the board can order an agency to reinstate the worker or undertake other measures. Employees who disagree with the board can appeal to a federal appeals court.

At the time, Judge Rhesa Barksdale, a George H.W. Bush appointee, dissented from the majority and said that Biden’s vaccine executive order doesn’t constitute an alleged adverse action subject to the CSRA.

Exceeded His Authority

The full appeals court on Thursday found that the case falls outside the jurisdiction of the CSRA because the federal workers are challenging the vaccine mandate on the grounds that Biden exceeded his authority.

The majority of the court rejected arguments from the Biden administration that the president has the same authority as a CEO of a private corporation to mandate vaccinations for its employees.

“Plaintiffs’ complaint does not challenge any personnel action reviewable under the CSRA. Nor does it challenge any personnel action they could hypothetically incur in the future,” Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee, wrote in Thursday’s opinion (pdf) for a 10-member majority. “Rather, plaintiffs claim that the President’s vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act].”

Oldham and the majority said that federal law does not apply to “private, irreversible medical decisions made in consultation with private medical professionals outside the federal workplace.”

Judge Stephen Higginson, an Obama nominee, wrote the main dissenting opinion.

“For the wrong reasons, our court correctly concludes that we do have jurisdiction,” Higginson wrote. “But contrary to a dozen federal courts—and having left a government motion to stay the district court’s injunction pending for more than a year—our court still refuses to say why the President does not have the power to regulate workplace safety for his employees.”

Moving forward, Judge Oldham noted, “When the parties proceed to the merits in the district court, the plaintiffs will have to prove that whatever injunction they request is broad enough to protect against their proven injuries and no broader.

“And the Government will have another chance to show that any permanent injunction should be narrower than the preliminary one.

“And both sides will have to grapple with the White House’s announcement that the COVID emergency will finally end on May 11, 2023.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-appeals-court-blocks-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-for-federal-workers_5146661.html

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UK: The faltering Covid Inquiry – and how to get it back on track

The Covid Inquiry is in danger of losing public trust. Many bereaved feel they are being marginalised, hearings have been delayed, vital government documents have yet to be shared with key participants – and now it seems potential evidence is disappearing.

As a lawyer for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, one of 28 groups involved in the first module of the inquiry, I have seen first hand how legal proceedings are already falling by the wayside.

If the inquiry does not run as openly and robustly as it should, potentially undermining its final findings, there is a risk that justice will not be served for those who mishandled our country’s response to Covid-19.

Many of the families I am working with suffered heartbreaking losses throughout the pandemic. Mothers. Fathers. Siblings. Children. Covid has claimed many people. It is only just that the loved ones of the deceased are given the answers they deserve.

The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files have already offered a unique insight into how the government handled the earlier stages of the pandemic.

They demonstrate policy being formulated on the hoof, ministers tussling to boost their own image, messages that mocked teachers and quarantined holidaymakers, and deep concerns, which were “kept out of the news,” over the impact that Eat Out to Help Out was having on Covid infections.

But they also show reasoned discussion between advisers, experts and officials. Some ministers were sensible in their proposals and policy ideas. There was sound and considered advice from the government's leading scientists, too, whether it regarded vaccines, shielding or testing. Whether this advice was appropriately followed is another matter.

It is therefore vital that the inquiry goes even further than The Telegraph in getting to the bottom of the government’s decision-making during the pandemic, in demonstrating where and how the UK got it wrong, but also where and how it got it right.

We also need to know how experts were chosen – whose advice was listened to and whose was ignored? And how were final decisions made? Was the necessary protocol in place for developing and implementing big policy proposals?

If the inquiry fails to answer these questions, crucial lessons will not be learnt, leaving future generations at risk of making the same mistakes when confronted with the next pandemic.

Inquiry ‘off to a rocky start’

It is early days for Chair Baroness Heather Hallett and her team. With just minor adjustments here and there, she will be able to correct the course of the inquiry and bring it back on track, before any real damage is done to proceedings.

The solutions I offer are straightforward and supported by many other core participant lawyers who share my frustrations.

These include providing the bereaved with a voice. There is a legal obligation to promote effective engagement of the families and others most closely affected. The Inquiry should recognise that their involvement enhances, not undermines, the process. The bereaved are eager to cooperate.

Chair Hallett indicated at the start of the hearings that the bereaved would be “front and centre” of the inquiry but many feel that they are not welcome and are being paid lip service only.

They point to the decision to not allow pen portraits – a way of commemorating the dead – during hearings. Clearly, the inquiry cannot hear from every bereaved, but that does not mean they could not hear from some.

Giving one family a day the opportunity to speak in court, for no more than five minutes, would not take up an unreasonable amount of time and, more importantly, would bring a human element to an inquiry that is at risk of getting lost in its own bureaucracy.

There is also a need for greater openness. From my experience, the inquiry team is unnecessarily secretive about the different modules, their themes and dates, and who will be involved at each stage.

We would also ask for openness from other core participants – early position statements setting out what they did right and where they concede they went wrong would save months of hearing time and millions of pounds.

It makes sense that the inquiry liaises with us. We have valuable experience that could benefit and improve proceedings. As one example, we urge Chair Hallett to agree in principle to allow the direct questioning of witnesses, instead of having to submit written questions via the inquiry team.

Lastly, more funding is needed. My clients are fortunate to have been provided financial support to scour through and analyse the vast tranche of documents related to the UK’s pandemic pandemic.

But other groups, such as Solace Women’s Aid and the TUC, have not been so lucky. In reality, they need all the help they can get if they’re to meaningfully contribute to the inquiry.

For a whole host of reasons, the Inquiry has gotten off to a rocky start. Yet the Chair is highly experienced, competent and has already shown a willingness to listen to core participants’ requests, having agreed to commission an expert who will examine pre-Covid structural racism for Module 2.

As such, I remain hopeful that Chair Hallett intends to conduct a thorough, incisive and fearless inquiry. My clients want to help her do this and I am sure that many other core participants feel the same way. Please let us help.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/faltering-covid-inquiry-how-get-back-track/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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