The truth about Australia's Covid lockdowns is FINALLY exposed: Damning report slams school closures and politically-driven decisions - 'it was WRONG'
An independent review into Australia's Covid response has slammed politically driven health orders and the excessive use of lockdowns - finding they ultimately failed to protect the nation's most vulnerable people,.
The 97-page review, led by former secretary to the prime minister's office Peter Shergold, urged federal and state governments to learn from their mistakes and overhaul their processes in order to restore trust.
The report, funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, John and Myriam Wylie Foundation and Andrew Forrest's Minderoo Foundation, found the country's school closures were also a failure.
'It was wrong to close entire school systems, particularly once new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments,' the review said.
'For children and parents [particularly women], we failed to get the balance right between protecting health and imposing long-term costs on education, mental health, the economy and workforce outcomes.
'Rules were too often formulated and enforced in ways that lacked fairness and compassion. Such overreach undermined public trust and confidence in the institutions that are vital to effective crisis response.'
The review carried out over a six month period involved more than 350 confidential submissions and consultations from health experts, economists, public servants, business and community groups.
It consisted of more than 160 submissions, 3,000 hours of research and policy and data analysis.
The review concluded various lockdowns and shutting of borders should have been used as a 'last resort'.
'Too many of Australia's lockdowns and border closures were the result of policy failures in quarantine, contact tracing, testing, disease surveillance and communicating effectively the need for preventive measures like mask wearing and social distancing,' the review stated.
'Lockdowns, especially when targeted at a particular location, brought a deep sense of inequity among those who were most restricted. Lockdowns, overall, created a universal feeling that the pandemic was being policed rather than managed.
'As with lockdowns, border closures – particularly between states and territories – should be used sparingly and only in extreme situations. They should be applied with greater empathy and flexibility.'
The review noted despite the pandemic affecting everyone, 'its burden was not shared equally'.
DAMNING QUOTES FROM COVID REPORT
'It was wrong to close entire school systems, particularly once new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments.'
'Rules were too often formulated and enforced in ways that lacked fairness and compassion. Such overreach undermined public trust and confidence in the institutions that are vital to effective crisis response.'
'Lockdowns, especially when targeted at a particular location, brought a deep sense of inequity among those who were most restricted. Lockdowns, overall, created a universal feeling that the pandemic was being policed rather than managed.
It stated that the failure to plan adequately for the 'differing impact of Covid' meant the disease 'spread faster and more widely'.
The review also noted while Australia had early success in limiting infection rates and deaths, in comparison to other countries, this success 'started to falter in 2021'.
'Cases and deaths have risen even further during 2022, dramatically reversing our early competitive advantage,' the review notes.
'As of September 30, 2022, Australia has recorded 378,617 cases per million people in 2022. 'The latest available official data shows that by May 2022 excess deaths in Australia had spiked to almost 359 per million people in 2022.'
The document also said the 'absence of transparency' in the expert health advice 'helped mask political calculations'.
'Political calculation was never far from the surface of COVID-19 decisions,' the review stated.
'It is neither realistic nor desirable to remove politics from decision-making in an accountable democracy. 'But the absence of transparency in the expert advice going to leaders helped mask political calculations.
'It was difficult to gauge the trade-offs that were being considered between health and economic outcomes. It made it easier for leaders to be selective in the 'expert advice' they followed.'
The paper went on to explain the damning effect overreach had on the confidence of Australian citizens.
'Such overreach undermined public trust and confidence in the institutions that are vital to effective crisis response,' it read.
'Many Australians came to feel that they were being protected by being policed. These actions could have been avoided if we had built fairness into our planning decisions and introduced compassion into their implementation.'
The review recommended six measures to be implemented in order to avoid the same mistakes being repeated in another health crisis.
These included; establishing an independent, data-driven Australian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, clearly defining national cabinet roles and responsibilities in a crisis, publicly releasing modelling used in government decision-making, regular pandemic scenario testing and the sharing and linking of data between jurisdictions.
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Ivermectin Key for Early COVID-19 Treatment: Dr. Paul Marik
Ivermectin is a key drug for early COVID-19 treatment, Dr. Paul Marik says.
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, has shown efficacy against COVID-19 in some studies as a prophylactic and treatment.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which Marik helped start, features ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in its early treatment protocol.
“Ivermectin is a remarkable drug,” Marik told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” during a recent conference.
“It’s antiviral, so it works against a whole host of RNA viruses. This is indisputable. It is anti-inflammatory. We know that there are multiple studies showing that ivermectin is a very powerful anti-inflammatory drug. We know that what it does is it stimulates a process called autophagy, which is very important in the process of healing. And it’s one of the main mechanisms that we use to help patients get rid of spike protein. And ivermectin, believe it or not, stimulates autophagy. The other thing it does, which is important, is it changes [and] improves the microbiome,” Marik added.
Ivermectin is used off-label to treat COVID-19 in the United States. It is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat conditions caused by parasites.
The FDA says ivermectin should not be used to treat COVID-19, pointing to studies that have found little or no benefit for the drug against the disease. Other research has found ivermectin can be effective as a preventative and a therapy, including one from FLCCC doctors that found the drug lowered mortality rates.
Off-Label
Health care providers can prescribe drugs “off-label.” That means a drug is used for a purpose other than that for which it is authorized or approved.
“From the FDA perspective, once the FDA approves a drug, healthcare providers generally may prescribe the drug for an unapproved use when they judge that it is medically appropriate for their patient,” the FDA says on its website.
But a number of medical boards and other health bodies intervened during the pandemic, restricting or banning prescriptions for drugs used off-label for COVID-19, such as ivermectin.
Marik said he thinks many people misunderstand off-label, and aren’t aware that many hospitals use off-label drugs every single day.
“It’s common practice. And in fact, the FDA promotes—the FDA themselves, if you go to their website—promotes the use of off-label drugs. And what they say is that doctors are fully entitled to use FDA-approved off-label drugs at their own discretion at the discretion of the physician,” Marik said.
“But suddenly, with COVID, the rules changed. You couldn’t use an off-label drug. And you have to ask why. And obviously, they don’t want people to use off-label drugs, they want you to use, firstly, the expensive drugs and it obviously would compete with the mandate for the vaccine, because if there were cheap, effective drugs that could treat COVID, why would you want to be vaccinated with an experimental vaccine whose safety has never been established?”
Early treatment using off-label drugs, he added, was a “valid alternative for people who wanted a choice.”
Marik is one of the doctors who sued the FDA in June for allegedly violating the law by interfering with doctors who sought to treat patients with ivermectin. The case is still ongoing.
Marik and colleagues founded FLCCC after seeing U.S. authorities fail to provide or recommend COVID-19 treatments early in the pandemic.
Even after months into the pandemic, no treatments were advised for patients, even those admitted to hospitals. Remdesivir was authorized for hospitalized patients on May 1, 2020.
Further, when hospitalized patients’ conditions worsened, they were placed on ventilators. Many of the patients who ended up on ventilators died.
“It just goes against the basic foundation of medicine, that you would have a disease, which had a high fatality rate and you wouldn’t try something—something—just to treat these patients,” Marik said.
The doctors figured out that COVID-19 attacks the lungs, causing fatal lung failure, inflammation, and clotting.
They turned to known anti-inflammatories like methylprednisolone, a type of corticosteroid that also helps with the lung issues. Heparin, used to prevent blood clots, was also part of the inpatient protocol, which became known as MATH+.
“At that time, we were heavily criticized, for firstly, using corticosteroids and then Heparin,” Marik recounted. “People said, ‘You can’t do it, it’s a viral disease, you’re gonna kill people.’ They were outraged. But we saw it worked. We were at the bedside. There’s nothing like being a doctor at the bedside, seeing what happens. And then, of course, six months later, the RECOVERY trial came around and showed, believe it or not, corticosteroids save lives. So unfortunately, in that study, they use the wrong steroid and the wrong dose. But steroids are so potent that it actually was was able to reduce mortality. So we were vindicated.”
At the time, Marik was chair of the Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and helping treat patients at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
The protocol helped save lives, Marik said.
The group later developed a list of drugs effective for early, outpatient treatment for people who contracted COVID-19. The main goal was to prevent hospitalizations.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel says multiple trials indicate corticosteroids help people hospitalized with COVID-19. The panel also recommends against using ivermectin against COVID-19 except in clinical trials.
Other Drugs
Under “first line agents,” FLCCC lists hydroxychloroquine with ivermectin. Hydroxychloroquine is approved as an antimalarial, but it and a similar drug, chloroquine, are not recommended by U.S. authorities for treating COVID-19. Similar to ivermectin, some studies have shown efficacy while others have not, with debates raging regarding proper dosing and timing. And similar to ivermectin, the drug is cheap because generic versions are widely available.
Aspirin, another anti-coagulant, is also advised with vitamin D3 and melatonin. Zinc, vitamin C, and antiviral mouthwash are among the other aspects of the first phase.
The NIH panel does not advise for or against vitamins C, D, or zinc due to what it describes as insufficient evidence.
If symptoms persist for five or more days, FLCCC recommends a second set of treatments. They include sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody; fluvoxamine, an anti-depressant; and spironolactone, typically used to treat high blood pressure.
The panel has no guidance on spironolactone. It previously recommended sotrovimab but does not any longer because it says the monoclonal does not perform well against newer Omicron subvariants. The panel also says there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against fluvoxamine. The FDA rejected a request from a doctor to authorize fluvoxamine for COVID-19.
Marik believes the emphasis always should have been on repurposed drugs, which have repeatedly been downplayed or ignored by U.S. authorities.
“If you kind of think about a pandemic, what you want to control it are repurposed drugs, because by their very nature these are cheap, inexpensive, easy to manufacture. And since this is a global issue, it then is very easy to distribute these drugs around the entire world and control the pandemic, which was the obvious answer, is the use of cheap, repurposed, effective, safe drugs,” he said. “Hydroxychloroquine is safe, if you use it in the right dose, which is really important.
And ivermectin is exceedingly safe, you could use 10 times the recommended dose and it’s safe. And vitamin D, vitamin C, nigella sativa, there’s a whole host of medications—melatonin—that are highly effective as a repurposed drug for controlling this disease. But it went against the narrative.”
Marik used the example of chloroquine, which was effective against SARS-CoV-1, and touted by the NIH as one of a number of drugs effective against MERS. But once COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2, came around, “that didn’t apply anymore,” Marik said. “And clearly there were severe conflicts of interest. It was inconvenient. It was inconvenient for them.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ivermectin-key-for-early-covid-19-treatment-dr-paul-marik_4804865.html
****************************************************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)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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