Risk Factors Associated With Post−COVID-19 Condition: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Vasiliki Tsampasian, et al.

Yikes! Big study in a major medical journal shows that vaccination gave you virtually no protection against long Covid: Tiny OR of 0.57

Abstract

Importance Post−COVID-19 condition (PCC) is a complex heterogeneous disorder that has affected the lives of millions of people globally. Identification of potential risk factors to better understand who is at risk of developing PCC is important because it would allow for early and appropriate clinical support.

Objective To evaluate the demographic characteristics and comorbidities that have been found to be associated with an increased risk of developing PCC.

Data sources Medline and Embase databases were systematically searched from inception to December 5, 2022.

Study Selection The meta-analysis included all published studies that investigated the risk factors and/or predictors of PCC in adult (≥18 years) patients.

Data Extraction and Synthesis Odds ratios (ORs) for each risk factor were pooled from the selected studies. For each potential risk factor, the random-effects model was used to compare the risk of developing PCC between individuals with and without the risk factor. Data analyses were performed from December 5, 2022, to February 10, 2023.

Main Outcomes and Measures The risk factors for PCC included patient age; sex; body mass index, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared; smoking status; comorbidities, including anxiety and/or depression, asthma, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, immunosuppression, and ischemic heart disease; previous hospitalization or ICU (intensive care unit) admission with COVID-19; and previous vaccination against COVID-19.

Results The initial search yielded 5334 records of which 255 articles underwent full-text evaluation, which identified 41 articles and a total of 860 783 patients that were included. The findings of the meta-analysis showed that female sex (OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.41-1.73), age (OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.11-1.33), high BMI (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.08-1.23), and smoking (OR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.07-1.13) were associated with an increased risk of developing PCC. In addition, the presence of comorbidities and previous hospitalization or ICU admission were found to be associated with high risk of PCC (OR, 2.48; 95% CI, 1.97-3.13 and OR, 2.37; 95% CI, 2.18-2.56, respectively). Patients who had been vaccinated against COVID-19 with 2 doses had a significantly lower risk of developing PCC compared with patients who were not vaccinated (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.43-0.76).

Conclusions and Relevance This systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that certain demographic characteristics (eg, age and sex), comorbidities, and severe COVID-19 were associated with an increased risk of PCC, whereas vaccination had a protective role against developing PCC sequelae. These findings may enable a better understanding of who may develop PCC and provide additional evidence for the benefits of vaccination.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2802877

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Does NIH’s RECOVER Trial Planning (long COVID) Deviate from Emerging Science?

While the community of long COVID patients were supportive of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) RECOVER (Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery) initiative with an aim of finding effective treatments for the condition, patient communities have been actively challenging the NIH on approach.

With a recent petition from an organization Long COVID Justice and multiple letters sent by Santa Monica, CA-based #MEAction USA, long COVID patient advocates are concerned about the extensive levels of exercise trials involved in the program, a problematic issue given emerging scientific evidence suggesting a large percentage of the long COVID cohort struggles with “post-exertional malaise” (PEM). Long COVID patient advocates are rightly concerned. Involving a worsening of symptoms from fatigue to difficulty regulating body temperature and cognitive dysfunction after even a light exercise session, the long COVID patient advocacy groups point out a significant delta between the reality of this common condition associated with long COVID and imminent NIH study protocols that introduce the potential for outright danger to the participants at least in some cases.

In reality, the critics are pointing out the possibly detached nature of clinical research planning at the NIH and academic medical center partners—a delta between the academic researchers’ assumptions and the real-world conditions, needs and demands on the ground.

What is the RECOVER initiative?

As TrialSite has chronicled, the RECOVER initiative was announced by the NIH in early 2021. The program was made possible by a Congressional injection of $1.15 billion for over four years to the NIH to support research into the prolonged health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection, announced the NIH’s director at the time.

The NIH organized a team of mostly academic-based researchers to identify the most pressing research questions plus areas of what they deemed greatest opportunity to address what the NIH identifies as an emerging public health propriety.

The research first started with the “NIH PASC Initiative” in a bid to learn more about how COVID-19 may lead to widespread and lasting symptoms in addition to developing ways to treat or even prevent such symptoms.

Out of the total funding from U.S. Congress, $172 million has been allocated to conduct clinical trials at Duke Clinical Research Institute. The NIH wasn’t forthright with the journal Nature as to how much of those funds would be used to fund exercise trials.

A real problem

Fast forward a couple of years, and the problems have only worsened. Recently, Rachel Fairbank addressed this matter in a recent entry in the journal Nature. Introducing that up to 23 million people in America alone struggle in one way or another with long COVID, TrialSite has chronicled that across multiple populations the rate appears to range from 10% to as high as 30% during different periods of the pandemic. According to one report associated with an analysis of long COVID workers’ compensation claims in the State of New York between January 1, 2022 and March 31, 2022, 18% of persons with long COVID have yet to return to work over a year after recovering from COVID-19.

What’s the issue?

At least some of the long COVID clinical trial protocols developed by the NIH as part of RECOVER involve extensive exercise as part of the study. Yet given the incidence of PEM, patient advocates have heightened concern that long COVID trial participants won’t be appropriately informed about possible risks, nor will the participants be properly screened for PEM nor will the monitoring be adequately directed to monitor patients for the harm that too much exercise can introduce.

Succinctly summarizing the issue, Lisa McCorkell, a co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative for long COVID, a Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy group calls the whole problem out:

“In a world where there’s hundreds of things to trial, why are we choosing this one thing that we know has the potential to cause harm to a substantial portion of patients?”

What’s RECOVER’s response?

According to the recent piece in Nature, Duke Clinical Research Institute serves as the RECOVER Clinical Trials Data Coordinating Center, sending a statement to Nature on behalf of the NIH declaring, “Trials being planned for RECOVER — which stands for Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery — have not yet launched and that the agency is working with patient representatives in shaping the exercise trial protocol.”

Interestingly, while the communication assured the journalist that the study investigators are in fact, meeting with the long COVID patient representatives to discuss the matters raised in the letters and petition, the NIH failed to make any such representatives available to the prominent publication for an interview in time for the published entry. The full protocols for RECOVER research studies haven’t been reviewed by an institutional review board meaning no research has commenced. Only after that point will the NIH share the protocol which is strange—this is a publicly funded research affair. Why the secrecy?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/does-nihs-recover-trial-planning-long-covid-deviate-from-emerging-science-d5340240

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W.H.O. Do You Trust?

By SCOTT W. ATLAS

Trust in public health has been shattered—half of America has lost faith in the scientific community altogether. Apparently blind to that loss of trust and the urgent need for transparency, our current government is doubling down on World Health Organization (WHO) decrees that directly circumvent public oversight.

The WHO has drafted a new global Pandemic Accord. Before seeing anything final in what will be legally binding, the U.S. ambassador to the WHO, Pamela Hamamoto, on February 27 imprudently promised “The United States is committed to the Pandemic Accord.”

This comes immediately after the exposure of yet another disgrace undermining trust in public health institutions. It turned out the February 2020 Lancet article calling the lab origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus a “conspiracy theory” was itself the true conspiracy, contrived behind closed doors contemporaneously with a March 2020 publication in Nature. If that coordinated media campaign was designed to conceal malfeasance by Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci—who, as leaders of America’s National Institutes of Health, reportedly sent American tax dollars to fund China’s dangerous gain-of-function research and circumvent Obama administration-introduced restrictions—we may be witnessing the deadliest cover-up scandal in history.

News media are also beginning to acknowledge facts that refute the original reasons behind lockdowns. Those facts shouldn’t be partisan. Both the Trump and Biden administrations rejected the science—D.A. Henderson’s classic 2006 review of pandemic data clearly demonstrated lockdowns were not effective, and were extremely harmful. Both administrations rejected the alternative—targeted protection—that had been recommended since March 2020. And the lockdowns failed to stop the death (see evidence presented by Christian Bjornskov, Eran Bendavid, Virat Agrawal, Jonas Herby, and Phil Kerpen).

Truth seems to be prevailing, but being proven right is not sufficient. We have a crisis of trust that threatens the credibility of all future health guidance.

Americans should be concerned that the latest WHO agreement-in-progress is not classified as a treaty. America’s treaties require congressional approval. That’s key to a representative government—the public gets input into how they are governed. But executive-signed “accords” circumvent the authority of the people. After all the public has endured in this pandemic at the hands of government, is there any doubt that health emergency powers must have full, public vetting?

Despite protestations to the contrary, all signers of the Pandemic Accord clearly relinquish critical autonomy to the WHO. Most ominous is that WHO defines “public health emergency” on its own terms—giving it full leeway to determine the fundamental justification for public restrictions. We already know there is ambiguity within the U.S. on that definition. When you’re going to invoke emergency measures, there must be clarity on the terms and time limits of the emergency. Why should any sovereign nation allow a third party to legally define and impose such a critical state?

WHO’s accord also explicitly claims oversight over intellectual property, including patent limits and drug prices. And far beyond the purview of a pandemic agreement, it imposes WHO’s preferred social policies, enforceable by law. For instance, the nebulous term “equity” appears 10 times in the accord, as it does in WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ January report on health emergencies. Isn’t that the responsibility of autonomous nations, rather than global organizations, to determine for themselves?

Just as the truth about COVID-19 is prevailing, are we going to simply ignore the WHO’s record? The WHO has had major successes in its 75-year history, including the eradication of smallpox, but a series of missteps in emergencies prior to COVID cannot be disregarded—its overreaction and lack of transparency in the 2009-10 H1N1 flu pandemic, its delayed response to the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa, and its flawed response to the Zika virus, for example.

What about the COVID-19 pandemic? Tedros began the pandemic by backing China’s early cover-up. On January 28, 2020, he said, “we appreciate the seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated”—despite China’s broadly reported efforts to block information access and punish those who disobeyed. Tedros further proclaimed, two days later, that “the speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome, and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive, and beyond words. So is China’s commitment to transparency.” He also backed China‘s false claim that COVID exhibited no human-to-human transmission. And, of course, he failed to strongly protest China’s consistent stonewalling a full lab inspection.

Beyond supporting China’s false narratives, WHO disregarded evidence for guidelines on mitigation, censored its own staff for acknowledging the limits of asymptomatic spread, and erratically changed fundamental definitions like “herd immunity” to influence behavior.

In his most alarming failure of all, Tedros backed China’s reckless lockdowns and massive human rights violations, stating “the Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak” as Beijing used pseudoscience to justify imprisoning its citizens. Tedros insisted that “WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak” until May 2022, more than two years too late. How would one explain that praise, given the director-general’s explicit warning in March 2020 that he had “never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled?” We must hope Tedros was incorrect when he said “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”

Allocating authority to the WHO requires being naïve about its financial backing. More than 80 percent of its $6.1 billion 2022-2023 budget comes via voluntary donations often earmarked for specific initiatives. For instance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone is responsible for over 88 percent of the philanthropic donations to the WHO—that may or may not be in the best interest of any nation’s citizens, especially considering the outsized legal authority of WHO agreements.

The WHO does not deserve public trust, yet Americans are about to be newly bound by its decrees. At what point are transparency and accountability to the people required of America’s leaders? Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have appropriately introduced a bill to reclassify the Pandemic Accord as a treaty. Now is the time to demand WHO reform and ensure stricter oversight, not to further relinquish authority to such an untrustworthy institution.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14465&omhide=true&trk=rm

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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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Have we militarised medicine?

Julie Sladden

‘In the absence of information, we make up stories.’ These words remind me we need truthful, unhindered, and accurate information to build understanding. The way to get information is to ask questions. And the way to get good information is to ask good questions.

Plenty of questions have been raised over the past three years, even with all the censorship. But things have taken off in recent weeks with ‘corker’ questions being asked in the US Government, the UK Parliament, and even our Australian Senate.

It’s made for some popcorn-worthy viewing.

Questions… Over the Covid era I’ve had plenty of them. Some answered, but most are not.

Questions like:

Why did our governments propagate so much fear during the pandemic?

Why wasn’t there any effort dedicated to exploring early treatment options?

Why were possible early treatment therapeutics banned from use in Australia despite widespread use overseas?

Why did AHPRA feel the need to tell medical professionals to effectively ‘fall in line’ with the vaccine rollout?

Why were healthy populations forced to vaccinate, or lose their jobs, access to education, or essential services?

Why does the provisional approval of the Covid so-called ‘vaccines’ continue despite data clearly showing alarming rates of significant adverse events? Rates that have seen previous vaccines suspended.

Why?!!!

Thankfully, I’m not the only one asking questions.

Renowned US cardiologist, Dr Peter McCullough, has been asking questions and has not stopped since the pandemic began. For the past three years McCullough, and doctors like him, have dedicated their lives to researching, treating and ultimately saving the lives of Covid patients around the globe.

I had the opportunity to ask Dr McCullough a few of my questions on his recent visit to Australia. He started with an interesting comparison between Australia and Texas.

‘Texas has 29 million people, Australia, 26 million people. Texas has great cities, like Australia has great cities. It’s the same virus, we’re largely the same people… Texas and Australia would be a fair comparison.

‘Our hospital made its own decisions about the closure of operating rooms and catheterisation laboratories and when to reopen them. Quickly, in Texas, many different doctors and clinics began to learn how to treat the illness. And that took a lot of anxiety away from people and they felt like there was a way in which the problem could be managed and avoid hospitalisation and death. That was really the critical feature.’

He added:

‘Texas was not perfect. We certainly had hospitalisations and deaths. But we had strong advocates. We had a senator, from the very beginning, who reached out to many of us – Senator Bob Hall. And he said: “I want to know what’s going on. I want to have town halls. I want the doctors to get on calls and tell me what’s going on in your ERs in your health systems. Are you learning how to treat it? Are there innovations?”’

In Australia, it was a different story. The ‘top-down’ flow of information involved very little consultation from coal-face doctors who were faced with managing the disease. As Australian doctors watched the pandemic unfold around the world, we had the advantage of learning from doctors abroad who were gaining extensive experience in early treatment. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Watching McCullough testify to the Texas Senate Committee in late 2020, his frustration at the lack of focus on treatments for patients with Covid was clear. Undeterred he, and others like him ,including Dr Pierre Kory who joined McCullough on his visit to Australia, have been instrumental in providing information to the world about how to treat the infection. Their protocols included drugs like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and repurposed drugs known for their pharmaceutical abilities to address various stages of the disease.

Meanwhile, Australia banned hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of Covid on March 2020. March! Ivermectin followed later in September 2021, curiously around the time many mandates came into effect as people were funnelled down the ‘vaccine or bust’ route.

Why?!!!

‘I have the same question,’ mused McCullough, who says hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are currently used as first-line treatment in two dozen countries around the world.

I asked McCullough what his thoughts were on the role of medical boards and medical regulation.

‘You’re referring to AHPRA,’ McCullough deduces. ‘The role of that body, in my view, is clinical competence. And then, being sure that the doctor or the professional is free of major behavioural issues, drug abuse, etc. That’s their role. That is the role. Prior to Covid, they had no special stake in any disease… The aberration was Covid. And we saw, both in the United States and Australia, these bodies take a particular interest in Covid. That they were going to determine what can be said and what couldn’t be said they weren’t going to determine what drugs could be used and not used. This is the first time in medicine that these bodies took on this very unusual aberrant behaviour.’

Aberrant is one word for it.

We explored the other ‘aberrant’ behaviours of the pandemic response along with The Spectator Australia’s Alexandra Marshall and historian John Leake. Leake co-authored Courage to face Covid-19 with McCullough. Soon we arrived at one of my biggest ‘why’ questions: why had we been funnelled down a ‘vaccine or bust’ path?

One word: countermeasures.

Countermeasures are devices and strategies used to eliminate an attack by an enemy force.

I first heard this term back in December 2022 thanks to the work of Katherine Watt and Sasha Latypova, who researched the legislative framework that enabled the ‘warp speed’ response to the virus. A framework that had its foundations laid decades ago. Indeed, it’s the only explanation I’ve heard that helps make sense of the ‘aberrant’ behaviours we’ve witnessed over the past 3 years.

‘The military has biological threat programs. There’s one for smallpox, monkeypox, there’s one for anthrax,’ explains McCullough in a recent presentation. ‘The military came up with the idea of messenger RNA vaccines, not Pfizer or Moderna, and NOT operation warp speed.’

Turns out the military has been playing with mRNA vaccines for over a decade. And the combination of three legislative items – Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), Other Transaction Authority (OTA), and the PREP Act – enabled what many suspect could be the origins of the first worldwide military operation in medicine. The EUA gets rid of the FDA ‘safety and efficacy’ regulations under EUA so the FDA has no oversight; the OTA enables the Department of Defence to order undisclosed ‘military prototypes’ from pharma; and the PREP Act, which enables the plan to be rolled out.

‘A military program was announced by Health and Human Services … and the Department of Defence, who ushered us into this vaccine era,’ continues McCullough. ‘The military emergency use authorisation is a mechanism to get rapid new technology into the military. It’s not a mechanism for the public. Its first application broadly to the public was the Covid pandemic. That’s the reason why the FDA doesn’t seem like they have any ownership over this. They can’t seem to respond to it. Because it’s a military program. This has a military origin to it. And the program is executed like a military program. No one will be spared. There are no exceptions.’

Think about it. If a virus emerged (from a US-funded lab, no less) and was interpreted as an act of ‘bioterrorism,’ what would a response to that look like?

Would it look like a single-minded, fear-fuelled, authoritarian-style military operation to get every man, woman and child ‘countermeasured’?

It might just look like that.

I have more questions.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/have-we-militarised-medicine/

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COVID-19 Vaccine Developed in Spain Authorized by European Medicines Agency

Yet another COVID-19 vaccine was recently authorized in Europe. This time, a COVID-19 vaccine developed in Spain and plagued by delays has been recommended for authorization by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Bimervax (previously COVID-19 Vaccine HIPRA). It is now authorized in Europe as a booster in people aged 16 years and above who have been vaccinated with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Developed by HIPRA Human Health S.L.U., Bimervax contains a protein produced in the laboratory that consists of part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein from the Alpha and Beta virus variants.

The CHMP concluded that sufficiently robust data on the quality, safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine are now available to recommend its marketing authorization in the EU.

What’s the basis for the decision?

Bimervax is approved based on an immunobridging trial, which compared the immune response triggered by this new vaccine with that triggered by the authorized mRNA vaccine Comirnaty that targets the original (Wuhan) SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The study involved 765 adults who had previously completed primary vaccination with 2 doses of Comirnaty and who were subsequently given a booster dose of either Bimervax or Comirnaty. Although Bimervax triggered the production of lower levels of antibodies against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 than Comirnaty, it led to higher levels of antibodies against the Beta and Omicron variants and comparable levels against the Delta variant.

Supportive data were provided from an ongoing study that included 36 adolescents aged 16 to 17 years old, with immune response data available for 11 of them. The study found that Bimervax given as a booster produced an adequate immune response in these adolescents, with antibody production comparable to that seen in adults who received Bimervax.

The CHMP, therefore, concluded that a booster dose of Bimervax is expected to be at least as effective as Comirnaty at restoring protection against COVID-19 in people aged 16 years and older.

What about the safety profile?

The safety profile of Bimervax is comparable to that of other COVID-19 vaccines. The most common side effects seen with Bimervax were pain at the injection site, headache, tiredness and muscle pain. These were usually mild to moderate and cleared within a few of days after vaccination.

The safety and effectiveness of the vaccine will continue to be monitored as it is used across the EU, through the EU pharmacovigilance system and additional studies by the company and European authorities.

Final risk-benefit analyses

Based on the available evidence, the CHMP concluded that the benefits of Bimervax outweigh its risks and recommended granting a standard marketing authorization in the EU. See the product information for the vaccine product plus a package leaflet for members of the public and details of the vaccine’s authorization.

How Bimervax works

Bimervax works by preparing the body to defend itself against COVID-19. It contains part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein from the Alpha and Beta virus variants, which have been combined into a single protein in the laboratory. The spike protein is found on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and is used by the virus to enter the body’s cells. The vaccine also contains an ‘adjuvant’, a substance to help strengthen the immune responses to the vaccine.

When a person is given the vaccine, their immune system will identify the combined protein in the vaccine as foreign and produce natural defenses — antibodies and T cells — against it. If, later on, the vaccinated person comes into contact with SARS-CoV-2, the immune system will recognize the spike protein on the virus and be prepared to attack it. The antibodies and immune cells can protect against COVID-19 by working together to kill the virus, prevent its entry into the body’s cells and destroy infected cells.

A booster injection of Bimervax is given into the muscle, usually of the upper arm, at least 6 months after the last dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

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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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Australia recorded relatively more ‘excess deaths’ during the Covid-19 pandemic than Sweden

Australia recorded relatively more “excess deaths” during the Covid-19 pandemic than Sweden, which chose not to lock down its populations, new analysis from the OECD reveals.

As the world approaches the three-year anniversary of the start of lockdowns this week, top academics say data showing Sweden’s success in keeping mortality rates down brings years of civil liberty restrictions and billions of dollars in government spending in other nations into question.

New OECD analysis comparing excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 – the two worst years of the pandemic – for 36 developed nations reveals Australia had the fifth lowest increase in excess deaths, but came in behind Sweden, which attracted global scorn for resisting closing businesses, schools and ordering citizens to stay at home.

Including excess deaths – defined as those over and above what was expected – for 2022 as well puts Australia even further behind Sweden with an 8.2 per cent increase over the three-year period compared with Sweden’s 3.1 per cent.

Stefano Scarpetta, the director of employment, labour and social affairs at the OECD, said: “If you control for population growth (higher in Australia), Australia’s excess deaths rate over the three-year period as a whole was 2.1 per cent and in Sweden it was -0.6 per cent, that is no excess mortality. The reason why we use excess mortality (instead of Covid-19 deaths) is because in practice counting the number of deaths because of Covid is very difficult.”

Dr Scarpetta said there were variations in classification and testing across countries, and it was difficult to determine whether elderly victims had died with or from Covid-19.

The OECD report, Ready for the Next Crisis? Investing in Health Care Resilience, found half of all Covid-19 deaths occurred among people aged 80 across 22 OECD countries with comparable data, and one third occurred in nursing homes.

Mexico and Colombia, which did impose lockdowns, endured the greatest increases in excess deaths of about 50 per cent. Japan and Sweden, the only two OECD nations to resist them, prompting international condemnation at the time, had among the lowest increases, ranking 4th and 8th, respectively.

Two US public health experts who in 2020 recommended the Swedish approach – Stanford University’s Jay Bhattacharya and Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff – said they felt vindicated but ­despaired at the lack of appreciation of the findings and feared the same policies would be followed again.

“The thing to emphasise is that Sweden has had one of the lowest excess mortalities in all Europe during the pandemic no matter how you cut the data,” Professor Bhattacharya said. “If lockdowns were necessary to prevent death it should have had one of the worst. Sweden served as a control group for the world in ethical pandemic management and it was a rousing success.”

He said the success Australia had in having “little Covid on the island for a full year came at tremendously high cost: 270 days of lockdown in Melbourne, ­essential imprisonment of the population”.

The underlying health of a country’s population (including rates of obesity), vaccination levels against Covid-19, and the capacity and quality of the available health care system best explained the widely different rates of excess deaths across countries, the OECD found.

Former US president Donald Trump in April 2020 said Sweden was “suffering badly” from its decision to follow its pandemic plan, but the US, where lockdowns pushed the jobless rate above 15 per cent in 2020, ended up with five times as many excess deaths as Sweden and the sixth worst outcome, according to the OECD data.

“Extended quarantining of healthy populations, the closing of schools, and massive violation of civil rights: these were never part of any pandemic plan that I’m aware of for respiratory viruses,” Professor Bhattacharya said.

Epidemiologists at the UK’s Imperial College, whose dire forecasts early in the pandemic convinced the UK and US to impose lockdowns in March 2020, forecast Sweden would endure 96,000 Covid-19 deaths by July 2020 if it didn’t follow China and then Italy in imposing lockdowns. After three years, Sweden has experienced 23,777 deaths from or with Covid-19, compared with Australia’s 19,477, according to the World Health Organisation.

Sweden’s population is older than Australia’s, with a median age of 41, compared with Australia’s 38.

“The principle of public health is that you can’t just focus on one disease; you have to look at cancer, cardiovascular disease and mental health,” Professor Kulldorff said.

He said Australia’s lockdowns had caused “huge collateral damage in public health, even if you ignore the impact on the economy and government finances”.

According to the IMF, Australia’s gross public debt as a share of GDP surged from 47 per cent to 59 per cent between 2019 and 2022, mainly as a result of federal and state stimulus programs that accompanied lockdowns, while Sweden’s public debt declined from 39 per cent to 31 per cent.

The OECD report found the number of in-person doctor consultations fell by an average of 17 per cent across OECD countries in 2020, and more than one in five people reported having forgone a needed medical examination.

Japan, whose then prime minster, the late Shinzo Abe, was also criticised for resisting a European-style lockdown of the densely populated island nation, had the lowest level of reported population sadness in 2020 (11 per cent), according to the OECD report, while Mexico and Colombia reported the highest, each above 30 per cent.

This new OECD analysis reflected the findings of the UK statistical agency, which found Sweden had the second lowest excess death rate in Europe.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/australia-recorded-relatively-more-excess-deaths-during-the-covid19-pandemic-than-sweden/news-story/0fdf8df15b4ef00f3534e6ba9626e3b2

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Human rights advocates and bills of rights did nothing to stop goverment abuses during the pandemic

Former UK Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption argued from near the start of the Covid pandemic that what democratic governments were doing to their citizens in the way of lockdowns, mandates, closing businesses, restricting travel and visiting sick relatives, weaponising the police – the list goes on and on – constituted the greatest infringements on civil liberties in the West in the last 300 years. I mention that because from March 2020 I was on the record in this newspaper, in The Spectator Australia and in outlets around the world, arguing precisely the same thing. Now readers can agree or disagree. Likewise, readers might think the costs were worth it for the benefits (though I think not, not with the data out now, including Sweden having the OECD’s lowest cumulative excess deaths from the start of the pandemic to now while we in Australia are currently running at 15-17 per cent excess deaths).

But one thing that is beyond debate is that the self-styled human rights lobby said not a peep about this government heavy-handedness. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Not the usual lawyerly caste that finds rights-infringements everywhere, many of microscopic proportions. Nor any of the eight members of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) who made not a single condemnatory comment about Dan Andrews’ authoritarianism, about former Prime Minister Morrison’s preventing citizens from leaving their own country, about any of the myriad intrusions into our civil liberties over two years. And for what it’s worth all eight, the President and the seven Commissioners, were appointed by the Coalition – even the so-called Freedom Commissioner. All of them.

I start this article with that background because the AHRC has recently decided to wade yet again into the bill of rights debate in this country. (Did I mention that all eight were appointed by a political party that claims to be overtly against a bill of rights?) Actually, ask around and you learn that the seven Commissioners and President are not unanimous on this initiative. It is mostly being pushed by President Rosalind Coucher. It recycles all the tired and wrong-headed old arguments in favour of handing power via a bill of rights to unelected judges over our elected Parliamentarians; all of them churned out back when Labor was last in power under Rudd-Gillard-Rudd. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. Buy a bill of rights, statutory as well as constitutionalised, and all you are buying is the druthers and policy-preferences of the lawyerly caste from which the judges are chosen. This model even moots social and economic rights. The proposal is as bad as you’d expect under Rudd and Gillard, though possibly your expectations of what AHRC Commissioners appointed by a Liberal/Coalition government might desire would be different from this. (Remember Douglas Murray’s criticism of all anglosphere conservative political parties, that they are congenitally unable to appoint anyone who shares the views of their core voters to anything.)

But here is where it gets galling to the point of rank hypocrisy. In the position paper announcing this initiative and its launch at the law firm Gilbert and Tobin (where else I muse?) the Commission (or perhaps just the President of the AHRC) had the gall to suggest a bill of rights might have helped protect civil liberties during the pandemic. Are you kidding me? First off, look at all anglosphere countries with potent and even constitutionalised bills of rights – so Canada, America, and Britain (with a strong statutory model). There is not one single example anywhere of a bill of rights being used by the judges to lessen or eliminate any of the myriad governmental pandemic inroads on civil liberties. Not one example anywhere! To suggest that a bill of rights would have helped flies directly in the face of what is known in the philosophy of science as ‘the facts’. (There are a few examples in the US of state courts using old-fashioned administrative law principles to say that some executive actions taken during the pandemic were ultra vires or beyond the power of the conferring statute.) That line of attack has a chance because it leaves the elected Parliament with the option of passing a new, more delegatory statute. But in times of panic (especially when the judges are panicking at least as much as anyone else) it is folly to think a bill of rights will help. I repeatedly doled out that advice throughout the pandemic to those against lockdowns who thought a trip to court would be a magic bullet and help. It didn’t in any jurisdiction with a bill of rights.

So this suggestion by the AHRC is as audacious as it is wrong on the facts – ‘during the Covid pandemic, there was a lack of clarity about rights of Australians and how to balance them with public safety measures. A Human Rights Act would have helped navigate those challenges’. No, it would not have helped. What would have helped was an AHRC President who could summon up the courage to speak up about the many inroads on our civil liberties in the way Lord Sumption did in Britain. But instead of the slightest criticism of the police thuggery in Victoria, of the idiocy and heartlessness of many of the pandemic rules, of anything or anyone, we get this after-the-fact attempt at redemption. The problem is that a bill of rights would not have helped (again, see every democratic country on Earth) and meantime it brings it with a massive empowerment of the judiciary and of the lawyerly caste.

This is hypocrisy on steroids I’m afraid. And it’s combined with the tired old prescription of a bill of rights so beloved by the lawyerly left of the Labor Party.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/hypocrisy-on-steroids/ ?

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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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'Unacceptable incompetence': CDC made dozens of basic data errors on COVID, epidemiologists find

The CDC found itself hoist with its own petard by making 25 basic statistical and numerical errors related to COVID-19, particularly with regard to children, while purporting to expose COVID vaccine misinformation, according to an analysis led by University of California San Francisco epidemiologists.

The preprint, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, documented 20 errors that "exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 situation" and three that "simultaneously exaggerated and downplayed" severity, while one each was neutral or exaggerated vaccine risks.

More than half were from 2022, but nearly as many were made in the first two months of 2023 as in all of 2021, they found. Several errors were related to the agency's COVID data tracker, which failed to align with its National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and the CDC corrected at least in part 13 of the 16 errors brought to its attention.

The paper emphasizes how widely CDC errors can spread even if they are later corrected, with YouTube and Spotify linking its website on videos and podcasts that discuss COVID and the wide deference to CDC guidance in schools, businesses and healthcare facilities.

"The errors are damning," coauthor Vinay Prasad, a former National Institutes of Health fellow, said on Twitter. "Basic counts of dead kids, causes of childhood death. Unacceptable incompetence."

UCSF's Alyson Haslam, a former CDC fellow who works in Prasad's lab, made the final call on CDC errors that Prasad, Tracy Beth Hoeg and independent Georgia COVID analyst Kelley Krohnert collectively agreed "were indisputable and incorrect, as a matter of fact, and not preference or opinion."

The trio conducted "real time" review of news sources, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings and materials, the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and the Twitter accounts of the CDC and its director, as well as reports sent to them by others, going back to 2021.

The errors were heavily weighted toward exaggerating COVID's risk to children. Fifteen of the 16 pertaining to children's data "enhanced the perceived risk" of the virus and more than half the total errors involved mortality statistics, with the CDC data tracker "consistently" reporting higher deaths for children and adolescents than did NCHS.

Perhaps the most consequential error was the CDC's repeated promotion of a preprint that deemed COVID a "top 5" cause of death in children, which the agency only corrected in one place months later.

That paper compared 26 months of COVID deaths, where the virus was "one of several contributing causes to deaths," to 12 months of deaths from other causes that were "identified as the single underlying cause of death ... which by design exaggerates" the COVID risk to kids, the paper says.

Not only was the claim made in ACIP and FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meetings, but also at a White House briefing by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and by ACIP's chair in a subsequent meeting "after the errors were identified." Only ACIP's page on "vaccination evidence for young children" includes the correction.

The agency was plain sloppy in other errors, the authors allege. It listed pediatric deaths as 4% of COVID deaths when it meant to write 0.04% and gave a lower estimated rate of pediatric infections than symptomatic illness, with some errors remaining live for seven months.

"These errors have been made repeatedly and were likely to have affected discussion of pandemic policies," particularly the CDC's guidance calling for "school closures, mask mandates, and strong recommendations for vaccinations and multiple boosters even among children who have recovered from the virus," the authors conclude.

The CDC did not respond to queries for its response to the paper.

The FDA's evidence for full approval of Pfizer's COVID antiviral Paxlovid, shared with its advisory committee on antimicrobial drugs, also came under scrutiny.

The advisers voted in mid-March to approve the two-drug treatment for high-risk adults while warning that many patients could have harmful drug interactions, CNBC reported. The agency will make the final decision in May. (Pfizer long ago acknowledged Paxlovid is not useful against household transmission.)

While the FDA's briefing packet emphasized the infrequency of Paxlovid "rebound" infections — which hit the president, his COVID adviser, first lady and both FDA and CDC commissioners, all up to date on COVID jabs — its cited evidence only applies to a sliver of potential Paxlovid patients.

The Pfizer studies gave five-day treatments to unvaccinated high-risk patients (EPIC-HR) and vaccinated high-risk or unvaccinated low-risk patients before and after the Omicron variant wave (EPIC-SR). Only EPIC-HR found "any meaningful difference" compared to a placebo, a 5.6% absolute reduction and 86% relative reduction.

The FDA emphasized the "symptom rebound" rates were similar between Paxlovid and placebo arms across both studies, around 10-16%. This shows that for a "subset" of infections, regardless of Paxlovid, "virologic and/or symptomatic rebound may occur as part of the natural progression and resolution of COVID-19 disease."

A different graph on "viral RNA rebound," however, found notably higher rates in the Paxlovid arm in EPIC-HR and EPIC-SR's Omicron period.

In a lengthy review of the FDA evidence, University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher David Boulware said it actually shows Paxlovid is "likely near zero benefit" for under-60s with a "normal immune system" and vaccine- or infection-induced immunity.

Before the Paxlovid vote, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases scientist Margery Smelkinson questioned its emergency use authorization starting at age 12 in spite of dramatically different COVID risk by age. She noted Pfizer ended EPIC-SR early after finding no "statistically significant evidence of benefit."

A member of the Norfolk Group of scientists, physicians and policy experts that recently published a "blueprint" for a potential COVID truth commission, Smelkinson pointed to the Paxlovid section of their report, which emphasizes the lack of rigorous data on who actually benefits from the treatment.

Prasad also questioned the quality of evidence for Paxlovid, including a Lancet Infectious Diseases observational study that found "the curves already split" between treatment and placebo groups at "Day 0," which he said indicates immortal time bias.

"Non randomized evidence will forever be plagued by differences in people who get pax and those who do not (likely being rich, health literate and well connected gets you more pax!)," he wrote in his newsletter in February.

The FDA declined to comment on the criticism of its proffered evidence. "We can’t comment on pending applications," press officer Chanapa Tantibanchachai wrote in an email.

https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/unacceptable-incompetence-cdc-made-dozens-basic-data-errors-covid

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Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Whistleblower Case Dismissed by Judge

The legal case brought by a whistleblower from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trial has been dismissed by a judge.

Brook Jackson, who worked for Pfizer contractor Ventavia Research Group, did not prove violations of the False Claims Act, U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale ruled.

Jackson sued Ventavia, Pfizer, and another organization involved in the vaccine trial in 2021, alleging that trial violations she uncovered meant the government was defrauded when it paid for doses of Pfizer’s vaccine.

Internal records showed Ventavia officials acknowledging patients were unblinded, adverse events were not recorded, and vaccine doses were kept unlocked in “disorganized” rooms.

Under the False Claims Act, the government or a party suing on the government’s behalf—Jackson in this case—can recover money for false claims made by parties to secure payment for the government. Parties are liable if they knowingly present a false claim for payment or intentionally use a false record or statement material to make a false claim.

While Jackson presented evidence that violations occurred, the government’s prototype agreement with Pfizer only conditioned payment on delivery of a vaccine that had been authorized or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Truncale ruled. The payment section states, “the Government will have no right to withhold payment in respect of any delivered doses, unless the FDA has withdrawn approval or authorization of the vaccine.” The FDA, which Jackson alerted to the violations, has not withdrawn approval or authorization.

“In sum, Ms. Jackson has failed to plead that the Government conditioned payment on Defendants’ certification of compliance with regulatory provisions or clinical trial protocol,” Truncale said in the new ruling.

While Jackson argued that the false record portion of the False Claims Act (FCA) was violated because of the trial violations, the defendants said that false records and statements alone did not create liability without a false claim seeking payment from the government.

“The upshot is that there is no liability under the FCA for making or using a false record or statement where the claimant is entitled to the payment,” Truncale said. “Pfizer was entitled to its claims for payment. Therefore, Ms. Jackson has not stated a claim for false record liability.”

The judge quoted a different ruling, which found that the False Claims Act was enacted by Congress “to vindicate fraud on the federal government, not second guess decisions made by those empowered through the democratic process to shape public policy.”

“When the government, at appropriate levels, repeatedly concludes that it has not been defrauded, it is not forgiving a found fraud—rather, it is concluding that there was no fraud at all,” the ruling stated.

Attorneys for Pfizer offered that argument during a recent hearing in the case.

“So if the FDA gets it wrong, they just get it wrong, and we live with it?” Truncale asked. “Exactly,” said Pfizer attorney Carlton Wessel.

“The Government has been aware of Ms. Jackson’s allegations for several years, has granted Emergency Authorization multiple times, and to this day continues to authorize and provide Pfizer’s vaccine at no cost,” the judge said in the new ruling.

He acknowledged the evidence Jackson offered but said her complaint did not “identify any safety risk that was hidden from the FDA in the data from the Ventavia sites, any symptomatic participants who Ventavia did not properly test for COVID-19 infection, or any COVID-19 infections in vaccinated participants that Ventavia falsely reported to have occurred in the placebo group.”

Retaliation Claim

Jackson was hired in September 2020. She reported problems with the trial to Ventavia management shortly after starting at the company. Dissatisfied with the response, she went to the FDA on Sept. 25, 2020. Ventavia fired Jackson that same day.

The False Claims Act protects whistleblowers from harassment, retaliation, and threats. The person must be engaged in protected activity, defined in a previous ruling as “motivated by a concern regarding fraud against the government.” Additionally, the employer must know the person was engaged in protected activity, and the punitive action or actions must be because of the activity.

Jackson’s activity does not meet the standard because she has not alleged she was concerned about potential fraud against the government, Truncale claimed.

“Rather, she alleges that she complained about participant safety and regulatory, protocol, and HIPAA violations,” he said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. “But that is not protected activity under the FCA’s retaliation provision—internal complaints about patient safety, or protocol and regulatory violations, are not the same thing as complaining about defrauding the Government.”

Even if Jackson was engaged in protected activity, the judge said that she did not show that Ventavia knew she was involved in such activity.

He dismissed the False Claims Act claims with prejudice, which means they cannot be brought again. The retaliation claim was dismissed without prejudice.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-trial-whistleblower-case-dismissed-by-judge_5165422.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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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

As you may know, our community guidelines
(https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow – and don't allow – on Blogger. Your post titled ‘’ was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at

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

Why was your blog post deleted? Your content has violated our misleading content policy. Please follow the community guidelines link in this email to learn more.

If you wish to request a review of the post, click the following link:

https://www.blogger.com/go/appeal-post?blogId=4138458&postId=4262109814836396914 .

This will trigger a review of the post.

We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make sure that they are in line with our standards, as additional violations could result in termination of your blog. For more information, please review the following resources:

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Yours sincerely,

The Blogger Team

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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