Sunday, March 21, 2021



When it comes to vaccines, suddenly “from vs with” matters again

The media’s attitude to possible vaccine-related injuries highlights how INSANE the “Covid deaths” count always was

Kit Knightly

In the last few weeks the media has demonstrated one of the clearest, most concise displays of true-life doublethink I’ve ever seen. It truly is the perfect exemplar.

The dichotomy is in “covid deaths” vs “vaccine related injuries”.

As we all know by now, countries all around the world define “Covid deaths” as “people who die, of any cause, within 30 days of a positive test result” (the number of days changes by country, it’s usually between 28 and 60). This trend was started in Italy last spring, and spread all around the world.

Globally, with a few notable exceptions, a “covid death” is a death “from any cause” following a positive test.

And when they say “any cause”, they mean it. Up to, and including, shooting yourself in the head.

In one blackly hilarious case, a man “died of coronavirus” after being shot by the police, with his 7 gunshot wounds being listed as “complications”.

That’s how loosely defined “covid death” has become, it is more or less meaningless. However, Covid “vaccines”, and possible related injuries or deaths, are a very different matter.

The establishment is going out of its way to make sure everyone understands that anybody who gets ill, or dies, after being vaccinated, is absolutely NOT a “vaccine death”.

What’s hilarious is those same journalists and “experts” preaching against “Covid denial”, are now literally employing our own arguments against us in the name of defending the vaccines.

Check out this article from ABC a few weeks ago, quoting one doctor:

We have to be very careful about causality. There are going to be spurious relationships, especially as the vaccine is targeting elderly or those with chronic conditions. Just because these events happen in proximity to the vaccine does not mean the vaccine caused these events. Nursing home centers and hospices are of particular concern, because they are homes to incredibly frail populations, and you have to look at the background rate of these events within those populations.”

You see, it’s important not take deaths out of context. After all, many of the people who die after being vaccinated are old and frail and already seriously ill. We need to be “careful about causation”, just because event B happened after event A, does not mean A caused B to happen.

In other words: There is a difference between with and from.

Hmmm. Does that argument sound familiar to anyone else?

The article continues:

In fact, an average of 8,000 people die each day in the United States. Some of them may have just received a coronavirus vaccine.

Fascinating. Apparently 8000 people die each and every day in the United States – translating to roughly 3 million people per year – and falsely attributing natural human mortality to a potentially totally unconnected event might cause panic.

I really feel like I might have read a similar sentiment somewhere else, too. Don’t you?

The Reuters “fact check” on vaccine injury says exactly the same thing:

Reports of death following vaccination do not necessarily mean the vaccine caused the death,”

The sheer desperation of the PR in the press is apparent in all the headlines. Such as:

Pfizer Covid vaccine probably didn’t kill woman, 78, who died shortly after having it

Or:

Woman dies from brain haemorrhage in Japan days after vaccine, but link uncertain

Or:

Macomb County man, 90, dies after COVID-19 vaccine — but doctors say shots are safe

Essentially, if you die within two months of testing positive for Sars-Cov-2, you’re a “Covid death”, and if you die within two minutes of getting the vaccine, you’re a coincidence.

Now, that’s not to say the vaccine definitely did kill those unfortunate people, I don’t know the details of the cases. The point is the equivocation. The soft use of language which is totally at odds with the apocalyptic prose discussing “Covid deaths”.

No where is this contradiction more apparent than in the UK right now, following the AstraZeneca situation.

A quick recap, for those who haven’t heard: Recently, the Norwegian government suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, following it being linked to increased risk of blood clots. Several other countries soon followed suit.

This has prompted a UK-wide defence of the AstraZeneca jab. Including this piece from David Spiegelhalter, in the Guardian just today, in which he uses the same exact argument as the ABC article, almost word for word:

It’s human nature to spot patterns in data. But we should be careful about finding causal links where none may exist

After 12 months of ignoring the conversation on “with” vs “from”, suddenly all the vaccine pushers have rediscovered the difference. None of them seem in any way aware of their self-contradiction.

But this ludicrous double standard doesn’t just apply to death, but also the concept of acceptable risk.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain today, UK Dr Nighat Arif encouraged the continued use of the AstraZeneca shot, by explaining that technically there’s always small chance you’ll get a blood clot, but you can’t let that stop you doing what needs to be done:

As a GP I see clots a lot, unfortunately our background risk of getting a clot is about 1/1000 people. If you’re on a flight, your risk of clot increases. If women are on the contraceptive pill, their risk of clot increases. People going to hospital for surgery. However, we don’t stop doing any of those things.

The doctor is actually arguing that refusing to live your life based on a 0.1% risk of death is foolish, and that nobody should be expected to do that.

It is, literally, word for word a “Covid sceptic” argument, reproduced in the mainstream, without even the tiniest hint of irony or self-awareness. The very attitude they are taking towards “vaccine injury” is the same one they have condemned in “covid deniers” for over a year. By their hypocrisy they prove their own mendacity.

If they want to define a “Covid death” as dying within 60 days of a positive test, fine. But then anyone who dies within two months of getting vaccinated is a “vaccine death”. And they should have those two big red numbers counting up, right next to each other, on the front page of every news website in the world.

And if they don’t do that – which they obviously won’t – then you have a deliberately employed double standard, and that is a tacit admission of intentional deception.

It really is just that simple.

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China Declares a Vaccine War on the World

China will allow foreigners to enter the country, but it has directed embassies around the world to only issue a visa if the traveler has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine that was made in China.

“It’s very much at the sharp end of vaccine diplomacy,” Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong, told CNN. “(It’s) essentially saying if you want to visit us, you need to take our vaccine.”

There has been no Chinese-made vaccine approved for human use in America, nor is there likely to be one anytime soon. China has created 5 different vaccines but none have been approved by the WHO. This is probably due to the fact that the Chinese government refuses to release the results of Stage 3 trials — a crucial requirement for vaccine approval in the U.S. and other western countries.

China’s main entry in the vaccine race — Sinovac — has an announced effectiveness of 78 percent against COVID. But Brazil actually conducted a Stage 3 trial and found it only 50.38 percent effective — far less effective than any other vaccine on the market.

Where does that leave the U.S., the UK, and other nations that have not approved a Chinese vaccine for use?

CNN:

That means China can’t claim its preference for homegrown vaccines is due to them being superior to other vaccines. Instead, Thomas sees China’s new visa rules as a “power move,” which will pressure people to take one of China’s vaccines.

Sarah Chan, a reader in bioethics at the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine, says if someone’s livelihood depends on traveling to China for work, that could push them to take the vaccines, despite their lack of data. Scott Rosenstein, director of the global health programme at Eurasia Group, said it could also pressure countries to authorize the Chinese vaccines.

China has been extremely aggressive in its vaccine diplomacy, selling millions of doses of its vaccines to third-world countries. But last week, the Quad — a partnership between the U.S., India, Japan and Australia — decided to manufacture a billion doses of U.S. vaccines by the end of 2022 and distribute them in Asia. The visa move from China is seen as a counter to that plan.

China denies practicing “vaccine nationalism,” despite the fact that it’s exactly what the country is doing.

Despite China’s new visa rules placing an incentive on travelers to take the Chinese vaccines, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected the idea of “vaccine nationalism.”

“Regardless of where a vaccine is made, it is a good vaccine so long as it is safe and effective,” he said in a press conference Monday. “China stands ready to advance mutual recognition of vaccination with other countries.”

That raises the question of “immunity passports” and whose vaccine can be used to claim immunity. One option is to leave it in the hands of the WHO, which approves vaccines for emergency use in many countries. So far, the WHO has approved 4 vaccines — none of them Chinese. One can imagine asking an agency in China’s hip pocket to be fair in approving vaccines.

The second idea is even more ludicrous: allowing the 194 member states in the WHO to vote on which vaccines should be included in an immunity passport. It would be a glorious opportunity for China to flex its global muscle using subtle threats like the visa gambit.

The best option would be for individual nations to make their own immunity rules — or not make any at all. Better that than international travel being held hostage by China.

China has declared a vaccine war on the world — whether its vaccines work or not. If people are allowed a choice, my guess would be they’d forgo taking the Chinese shot for almost anyone else’s.

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Jobs going back overseas under Biden

It's not like we didn’t warn you, folks. Our loyal Townhall readers knew a Biden presidency would mean higher taxes, fewer jobs, and less economic opportunity. The nixing of the Keystone Pipeline and the border wall hurled thousands into the unemployment line. These were also union jobs. He said he was going to do this; don’t act shocked. With a proposed massive hike in the corporate tax rate, are we shocked that American businesses have begun to shop their jobs overseas? No. But apparently, a lot of folks seemed puzzled that this Democratic administration is screwing over American workers at every turn. Forget passing a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that does next to nothing to help struggling families—we have President Depends creating a job creation climate that’s so bad—companies don’t even want to risk it here. This is the exact opposite of what happened under Trump.

Biden’s bad agenda is now impacting auto workers, who just discovered that Ford plans to shift car production back to plants in Mexico (via WSJ):

The United Auto Workers union is taking aim at Ford Motor Co. over plans for a factory in Ohio, criticizing the car company for moving vehicle production intended for the facility to Mexico.

UAW Vice President Gerald Kariem in a letter to members Friday said the company told the union it was relocating manufacturing of a next-generation vehicle to Mexico without a clear explanation. Mr. Kariem said in making this move, Ford is failing to live up to a commitment it made to the factory during the last round of contract talks. A copy of the letter was provided to The Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

During labor negotiations in 2019, Ford pledged to spend $900 million on the factory, in part to retool for a new model that it would start building in 2023.

“We expect the company to honor its contractual commitments to this membership and when it fails to do so we will take action,” Mr. Kariem wrote in the letter of Ford.

Trump’s agenda allowed for tax cuts, fewer regulations, job creation, repatriation of overseas cash, American companies reinvesting here, and bonuses galore for workers. Biden has done any of that. He’s too weak.

At the same time, you get what you vote for fellas. I don’t know what else to say.

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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