Large Korean Study Finds Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Linked to Long COVID

Researchers from Kyung Hee University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea investigate any evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection is linked to short-and long-term neuropsychiatric symptoms.

The Korean-led team capitalized on the Korea nationwide cohort involving 10,027,506 (discovery) individuals plus the Japanese claims-based cohort involving 12,218, 680 (validation) to estimate the short-term (<30 days) and long-term (≥30 days) risks of neuropsychiatric outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with general population groups or external comparators (people with another respiratory infection).

This propensity score matching study led to the conclusion that in both the short and longer term, COVID-19 is elevated with risk of neuropsychiatric symptoms as compared to persons in Korea and Japan infected with another respiratory condition.

What symptoms and conditions emerge in this long COVID population as measured by propensity score matched outcomes in the 30-plus day cohort? Myriad neurological-based conditions:

Guillain-Barré syndrome
Cognitive deficit
Insomnia
Anxiety disorder
Encephalitis
Ischemic stroke
Mood disorder

Are there any mitigating factors, interventions reducing risk of these neuropsychiatric symptoms linked with long COVID?

According to the study which has its limitations and is not designed to prove causation factors ranging from mild severity of COVID-19, increased vaccination against COVID-19 and heterologous vaccination could be associated with lower long-term risk of adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes in the targeted populations.

The time attenuation effect was the strongest during the first six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, and this risk remained statistically significant for up to one year in Korea but beyond one year in Japan, according to the authors’ entry in the peer-reviewed journal nature human behavior.

Thanks to the validation cohort with Japanese data, the authors were able to replicate the findings. The authors point out that their “findings contribute to the growing evidence base on long COVID by considering ethnic diversity.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/large-korean-study-finds-neuropsychiatric-symptoms-linked-to-long-covid-9f7e13c4

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A top Republican is demanding the Pentagon explain why it tried to hide taxpayer dollars sent to China for risky virus research

A new Defense Department report shockingly revealed the agency lost track of millions of taxpayer dollars sent to the adversary of the US.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is now demanding Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explain what exactly happened, according to correspondence exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com.

Paul says he's 'deeply concerned' over the Pentagon report finding the department couldn't determine whether it sent money to China for pathogen research.

'It is unacceptable that DoD cannot account for the full extent of taxpayer funding it has spent on pandemic pathogen research at Chinese research laboratories,' Paul wrote to Austin.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has requested files from the Pentagon regarding their use of taxpayer dollars to fund pathogen research in China. Paul has been investigating the origins of COVID for years and was shocked over the Pentagon's neglect in tracking funding to foreign countries

The Republican requested Sec. Austin turn over files relating to the Pentagon's Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) that funded Chinese pathogen research, similar to the research done on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID pandemic.

The senator has been vigorously investigating the origins of COVID and former White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci for his role in the pandemic and its policies.

Now he is examining the Pentagon's role in using 'American taxpayer dollars for risky virus research in China and other foreign countries.'

'This lack of oversight represents a significant gap in our national security and undermines public trust in the DoD,' Paul said.

Previously, the senator disclosed to DailyMail.com how Fauci still receives a taxpayer-funded 24/7 US Marshal security detail despite not being a government employee.

'The only other person probably getting his level of security would be the president, vice president, maybe cabinet members, and a few members in leadership in the House and Senate,' Paul told DailyMail.com.

Paul has also been outspoken in accusing Fauci of obfuscating the origins of the virus.

The Republican has twice sent referrals to the Justice Department for Fauci's prosecution, telling DailyMail.com 'he committed a felony by lying to Congress saying he didn't fund gain and function research. He's still saying that.'

'It is annoying that he's still out there crowing how great he is, when really his philosophic opinion that gain-of-function research is worth the risk is something that I think history should remember, and I'm going to do every bit of making sure that history remembers that he was philosophically in favor of the research that I believe allowed millions of people to die from this lab leak,' Paul told DailyMail.com.

Last month, the Kentuckian grilled several eminent doctors during a Senate hearing on the origins of COVID and definition of gain-of-function research.

The hearing became heated as lawmakers and witnesses sparred over the good that could come from the research that enhances viruses to make them more effective.

And Paul said if Republicans gain control of the Senate in November and he gets committee power, his first action will be to subpoena those files.

'The most important information is the NIH deliberation over what is, what is not gain-of-function,' he told DailyMail.com. 'They won't give us the information.'

Those documents will truly reveal whether Fauci lied to Congress about whether he was overseeing the dangerous research method, which he previously denied doing before the Senate, Paul said.

Still, the reputation damage to US public health officials is done, he added.

'We have public health officials that appear to be more salesmen for Big Pharma, than they do objective scientists, and that still is a problem,' Paul told DailyMail.com.

'It's led to a great deal of distrust, much more distrust over what the government tells us, than ever before,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13593491/pentagon-hid-taxpayer-funding-chinese-labs-rand-paul.html

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Jury Awards $687,000 to BlueCross BlueShield Scientist Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Tanja Benton, who had worked at the firm for 16 years when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.

Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted fetal cell lines were involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and she couldn’t “in good conscience consume the vaccine, which would not only defile her body but also anger and dishonor God.”

BlueCross BlueShield said her position involved “regular external public-facing interactions” so she couldn’t keep it. While Ms. Benton said her position became fully remote in 2020, BlueCross BlueShield said it would have involved some in-person interaction with clients.

Ms. Benton was told to pursue other positions within the company and applied for two. But she was fired on Nov. 4, 2021, and was told five days later that, “Unfortunately, all positions require the vax now,” according to an email entered in the case.

Her lawsuit charged that BlueCross BlueShield violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says an employer may not “discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of that person’s religion. Employers can disregard religious exemption requests if they can prove accommodating them would create an undue hardship.

BlueCross BlueShield “cannot prove that allowing Plaintiff to continue her employment as a Bio Statistical Research Scientist without being vaccinated for COVID-19 constitutes an undue hardship,” the suit stated. The company “also cannot show that it made any good-faith efforts to accommodate plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

BlueCross BlueShield also was accused of violating the Tennessee Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination by employers at the state level.

“We’re disappointed by the decision,” Dalya Qualls White, chief communications officer for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, told The Epoch Times in an email. “We believe our vaccine requirement was the best decision for our employees and members, and we believe our accommodation to the requirement complied with the law. We appreciate our former employees’ service to our members and communities throughout their time with our company.”

A lawyer representing Ms. Benton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, presented with the case, cleared Ms. Benton to sue her former employer.

Company lawyers had argued the firm would be unduly burdened by providing Ms. Benton an indefinite exception despite her role as a “public-facing employee.” The lawyers said she couldn’t have continued to work remotely indefinitely.

The company also asserted that Ms. Benton didn’t hold a sincerely held religious belief and “denies that the COVID-19 vaccine was derived from aborted fetus cell lines, which is verifiably false,” according to the company’s filing.

Johnson & Johnson used cells derived from an aborted fetus in the design, production, and testing of its COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also utilized the cells in early testing. The companies have said the final products don’t contain aborted fetal cells.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/jury-awards-687000-to-bluecross-blueshield-scientist-fired-for-refusing-covid-19-vaccine-5678321

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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)

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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Pfizer About To Find Itself In Court Again

Pfizer Inc. previously admitted it behaved improperly in not reporting major clinical trial safety issues during the original COVID-19 “vaccine” trials because they claimed the US FDA were aware of what they were doing, therefore, it was OK. That is a very creative defence

But momentum is building to bring Pfizer, Moderna and “health experts” like Fauci to justice.

Grilling of Dr. Fauci goes on before US Senators and admissions of misinformation (read “lies”) are now flowing…..there was no science to support lockdowns, masking or social distancing.

The “experts” didn’t even bother to look at the science according to Dr. Scott Atlas who was part of the Trump Covid task force team.

We know better now and nobody should be so easily fooled again (think Bird Flu).

Now details are emerging of the specifics of the Kansas State lawsuit against Pfizer Inc. over the COVID-19 “vaccines”.

A Substack by Carl Heneghan of June 27th details the main alleged points which may be summarised as follows:

· Pfizer misled the public in relation to its claim of “safety and efficacy”

· Pfizer used confidentiality agreements to conceal critical data relating to the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine

· Pfizer used its confidentiality agreements with the US government and others to conceal, suppress, and omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, including the safety and efficacy of the vaccine

· Pfizer used an extended study timeline to conceal critical data – the study was repeatedly delayed

· Pfizer has not honoured its promise to release safety data

· Pfizer destroyed the vaccine control group

· In its press release announcing emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer did not disclose that it had excluded immunocompromised individuals from its COVID-19 vaccine trials

· Pfizer knew its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis and did not properly report these in a timely manner

· Pfizer’s February 18, 2021, press release also did not disclose other adverse effects on the reproductive systems of women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine

· Pfizer’s study on pregnant women failed and the results are secret

· Pfizer misrepresented and concealed material facts relating to the durability of protection provided by its COVID-19 vaccine

· Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission even though it knew it had never studied the effect of its vaccine on transmission

· Pfizer worked to censor speech on social media that questioned it’s claims.

These alleged crimes have been well known for some time but now they will be tested in a court of law.

https://principia-scientific.com/pfizer-about-to-find-itself-in-court-again/

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Unvaccinated Police In Australia Fired Two Years After Covid Mandates Dropped

Two years after the Covid mandates ended, the West Australian Police Force has fired nearly 20 unvaccinated police officers and public servants for refusing to get the jabs.

A legal challenge against the mandates, brought by WA Police officer Ben Falconer and staff member Les Finlay, had previously secured an injunction preventing the force from firing unvaccinated staff until the matter had been settled in the courts.

However, a Supreme Court ruling that then-WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson’s Covid vaccination directive was “valid and lawful” brought an end to the injunction in April. WA Police announced the resumption of disciplinary action against 17 affected employees immediately after the hearing, with all 12 police officers and five staff having now been sacked.

Falconer was the last to be formally notified of his dismissal on Friday, for disobeying the Commissioner’s vaccination directive. Despite no prior history of disobedience, Falconer refused the jabs due to his concerns over the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccines and the way in which mandates violated the bodily integrity of officers and staff.

While Deputy Commissioner Allan Adams said that Falconer’s dismissal was “regretful”, Falconer maintains that refusing Covid vaccination is the “best decision I’ve ever made”. Falconer, a Senior Constable who served in the force for 15 years, says that the sacked police officers had over 150 years of policing experience combined.

The firings come amid staffing shortages and low morale, with WA Police turning to overseas recruitment to prop up its frontline forces.

In April this year it was reported that WA Police was well short of its target of recruiting 950 new frontline officers by mid-year, with only 450-500 having signed on.

Opposition leader Libby Mettam (Liberal) said that in the past four years, there has been a “mass exodus of police with nearly 1,000 officers resigning” from the roughly 7,000 strong force.

Police Commissioner Col Blanch admitted that the force saw a “significant” reduction in police numbers after the Covid pandemic, with 570 officers leaving the force in 2022, of which 473 were resignations and 97 retirements.

WA Police was asked to provide comment along with up-to-date recruitment, resignation and retirement figures, but did not respond prior to publication deadline.

The Labour Government has blamed market forces for WA Police’s struggles with retention and recruitment. However survey data collected by the WA Police Union in 2022 showed that 77% of staff exiting the force claim poor work culture and dissatisfaction with management as their reasons for quitting.

Another union survey of members conducted in 2022 found that morale in the force is at an “all-time-low”, with almost two thirds (64.6%) of respondents describing morale as “poor”. This is more than double 28.2% who said the same in the last poll in 2017. None of the 1,966 respondents described morale as “excellent”.

A majority of respondents complained that their workload had increased, and half or more complained of fatigue, management problems, unpaid overtime and rostering issues.

Nearly three quarters (71.4%) of respondents said they’d used the WA Police mental health services, with 36.6% of service users reporting their experience was “very negative” or “negative”.

Public sector census data obtained under Freedom of Information by the Liberal opposition showed that in 2023, less than half (47.1%) would recommend their agency as a workplace, compared to almost 70% for the public sector overall.

Some of this discontent appears to be driven by the force’s Covid response. In an unauthorised survey of WA Police staff initiated by former officer Jordan McDonald, who resigned over vaccine mandates, employees said they felt “bullied” into getting vaccinated and complained about resources being diverted away from traditional policing towards the state’s Covid response.

In 2022, WA Police began an international recruitment drive to fill vacant frontline positions, with the aim of recruiting 750 officers from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and New Zealand over a five-year period. WA Police has also been creative with its recruitment campaign at home, appealing to lonely hearts on hookup app Tinder.

The WA Police Union said it supports the overseas recruitment drive but characterised it as a “band-aid solution”.
“It’s only a matter of time before these new recruits obtain permanent residency and become familiar with the many cultural and organisational issues in WA Police,” the union said in a media statement.

The WA Police Union was approached by unvaccinated members for assistance with their industrial action resisting the mandates, but Falconer, who was a member, says the union’s response was “hostile”. The union also declined to provide information and comment for this article.

Unvaccinated WA Police staff had been on paid leave since the Covid vaccine mandate came into effect in December 2021 until their recent dismissals, an arrangement that Falconer has called “fiscally irresponsible”.

In an essay posted to social media platform X, Falconer said that the South Australian Police Force responded to the situation better. Unvaccinated SA Police officers were allowed to use accrued leave until the mandates dropped, after which they were allowed back to work “without ever being stood down and no disciplinary action taken whatsoever”, he said.

“I could have been back at work from June 2022 [when the mandates were dropped] and there were plenty of administrative tasks that could have been done with remote access to police systems if allowed to work from home,” said Falconer, who said he informed WA Police more than 30 times of his willingness to return to work.

Former police officer of 27 years Lance French, who was also fired this month for not complying with the Police Commissioner’s 2021 Covid vaccination directive, said that he too had informed WA Police numerous times that he wanted to return to work since the mandates were dropped.

Now that his two-and-a-half year legal fight has come to an end, Falconer said that he will take some time out to consider his next career move.

French expressed gratitude for the support of his wife, family and colleagues, opining on social media that while “the trajectory we are heading (as a society) is not good,” he was appreciative for “the legislative and judicial structures enabling our lawful challenge of Commissioner Dawson’s… draconian order to undergo a medical procedure”.

WA Police officers and staff are not the only Australian workers still experiencing repercussions from the Covid mandates, even after most of the public have well and truly moved on.

In January of this year, Queensland Health was criticised for continuing to discipline and fire healthcare workers for failing to comply with vaccination directives issued in late 2021.

More than 50 unvaccinated firefighters remain banned from returning to work in Victoria despite critical staffing shortages, and mandates remain in place for some nurses, midwives and doctors around the country.

The Australian state and territory governments’ coercive Covid vaccination mandates have come under fire recently with AstraZeneca’s admission that its vaccine can cause deadly blood clots, and with mounting vaccine injury claims.

https://principia-scientific.com/unvaccinated-police-in-australia-fired-two-years-after-covid-mandates-dropped/

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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)

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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CDC Recommends New COVID-19 Vaccines for Nearly All Americans

After all the controversies over the vaccines, this recommendation may not be very influential

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 27 recommended forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines for virtually all Americans.

“CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 this fall and winter whether or not they have ever previously been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine,” the agency said in a statement.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, acting on advice from their advisers, recently directed vaccine manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines with updated formulations.

Updated vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will target the KP.2 variant, while an updated shot from Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.

CDC advisers earlier Thursday unanimously advised the CDC to recommend the forthcoming vaccines to virtually all Americans, even though no clinical efficacy or safety data are available for them.

Data from animal testing suggest that the vaccines trigger higher levels of antibodies than the shots currently available, manufacturers said previously.

CDC advisers considered a risk-based recommendation that would only say certain groups receive one of the vaccines but ultimately opted for what is known as a universal recommendation.

Dr. Jamie Loehr, one of the members, said before the vote that the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating young people, who are generally at little risk from COVID-19, had him leaning towards a risk-based approach. He changed his mind, though, after listening to a presentation from a CDC researcher.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said that members should not “get too caught up in cost-effectiveness currently.” She said, “If we compare it to other vaccine-preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”

Each dose of a new shot could cost up to $130, according to estimates presented during the meeting.

Pooled effectiveness estimates from studies of the currently available vaccines, which target the XBB strain, and the last slate of shots, which were bivalent, found that effectiveness against hospitalization due to COVID-19 was below 50 percent, the original threshold laid out by regulators.

Researchers with the CDC and other institutions have also found the protection wanes over time, one reason U.S. officials have turned the COVID-19 vaccine model into a once-a-year update similar to the influenza vaccination program.

Many Americans took the original COVID-19 vaccines but most have opted against receiving the newer shots. As of May 11, just 14.4 percent of children and 22.5 percent of adults have received one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC surveys, which also found that many doctors have stopped recommending the shots because they’re focused on promoting other vaccines and worry recommending COVID-19 vaccination could increase hesitancy among patients to receiving the other vaccines.

Experts said in Thursday’s meeting that the message needs to be that people need another shot.

“We have to keep saying that over and over and over again—you need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus,” Carol Hayes, who represents the American College of Nurse-Midwives as a liaison to the CDC panel, said during the session.

The CDC estimated that up to 116,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19 will be prevented over the next year with universal vaccine recommendations, assuming an initial 75 percent effectiveness against hospitalization.

The effectiveness was projected in certain scenarios to drop to 50 percent after three months, the CDC said.

The KP.2 strain is the dominant strain in the United States as of May 25, according to CDC data. The closely related KP.3 strain, and the JN.1 variant, are also causing a number of cases.

Modeling through June 22 projects the rise of a new strain called LB.1.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times recently that LB.1 “has the potential to infect some people more easily based on a single deletion in a spike protein“ but ”there is currently no evidence that LB.1 causes more severe disease.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/cdc-advisers-propose-recommending-new-covid-vaccines-to-nearly-all-americans-5676677

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Dr Nick Coatsworth makes major admission about Covid-19 pandemic

A top doctor who led Australia's response to Covid has admitted governments and health officials lost the trust and goodwill of the public over their handling of the virus.

Dr Nick Coatsworth, who was the deputy chief medical officer during the pandemic, said draconian measures to contain the virus dragged on too long and caused people to tune out.

In an interview with Body and Soul, Dr Coatsworth said Australians were on board with what was being done to promote 'public health' for the first year of containment measures.

'They were open to what we were doing,' he said.

'I think, honestly, if we'd taken the foot off the restrictions a little bit earlier in 2021, then we would've had a lot more people stick with us.

'We had an opportunity to really change the way that people think about health, but I think we lost that in 2021 - the consequence being people just mentally blocked out 2020 and 2021 entirely.'

Dr Coatsworth has previously stated 'group think' and exhaustion led to poor Covid responses in a 10-page submission to the special commission of inquiry being held into the pandemic.

He also made the stunning admission that imposing vaccine mandates was wrong, following a Queensland Supreme Court finding in February that forcing police and paramedics to take the jab or lose their jobs was 'unlawful'.

Although Dr Coatsworth said Australia had assembled a top team of medical experts to advise on managing the pandemic they lacked an ethical framework meaning the focus became too narrow.

'This allowed the creation of a "disease control at all costs" policy path dependence, which, whilst suited to the first wave, was poorly suited to the vaccine era,' he said.

Dr Coatsworth argued the restriction and testing policies adopted to constrain the first deadliest strain of Covid in 2020 lingered well past their relative benefit.

He also thought the differing approaches among states and between them and the Federal government confused the public and eroded human rights.

'I strongly encourage the inquiry to recommend amendment of the Biosecurity Act to ensure that all disease control powers are vested in the federal government during a national biosecurity emergency,' Dr Coatsworth wrote.

This means the federal government would be in control of state border closures during a pandemic.

Outside of 'biosecurity emergencies' states would retain their disease control powers.

Dr Coatsworth has previously taken particular aim at the Victorian government, under then Labor premier Dan Andrews, over its harsh Covid reactions while hosing down criticisms of Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the pandemic.

'Scott Morrison didn't issue fines to children for crimes against disease control, and Scott Morrison didn't shut down two towers full of refugee and migrant Australians,' Dr Coatsworth said.

'There were very real democratic rights that were trammelled in the course of this pandemic.'

Dr Coatsworth was referring to the July 2020 lockdown on Melbourne public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, which eventually led to the Victorian government offering a $5million settlement to those affected.

After the Covid inquiry was announced in September 2023, Dr Coatsworth took aim at Mr Andrews who 'thinks that the Covid inquiry should focus on vaccines, national medical stockpile and PPE'.

'It is a word that he would prefer never enter into the historical record on our (and his) pandemic response. But it will,' he said.

'None of those are related to the core question. Proportionality,' Dr Coatsworth added.

'It is a word that he would prefer never enter into the historical record on our (and his) pandemic response. But it will.'

In his latest interview Dr Coatsworth admitted the public profile he gained from the pandemic has led to media opportunities such as being a fill-in host for Channel Nine's Today program and making a new show, Do You Want to Live Forever?.

'The opportunity arose out of the pandemic [because] people knew my face,' he said about the new documentary series focusing on how to extend lifespans.

'I love what I do in the hospital, but it’s often too late.

'Once someone’s got a chronic disease, you can’t really make a difference. You make the biggest difference if you can stop them getting the chronic disease in the first place.

'So, I figured television was the best way to get that message out and communicate how to live a healthier life.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13578061/Dr-Nick-Coatsworth-makes-major-admission-Covid-19-pandemic.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)

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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Well, blow me down!

Google have deleted my post here of 24th. The post reported findings that had appeared in academic journals so it is suprising to see academic journals being censored

I know what the trigger word was that activated the Google search bots and it was a pity that the matter was not referred to a human reviewer before deleting the post -- as my post was actually quite critical of the journal report. A human reviewer at Google would probably have agreed with my post.

Anyway, no great harm done as the materials concerned can still be found on my two backup sites

http://jonjayray.com/jun24.html or

https://johnjayray.com/jun24.html

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Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Observational Study Finds Cannabis Use Associated with Heightened COVID-19 Mortality

As the deadly disease that came to be known as COVID-19 started spreading in late 2019, scientists rushed to answer a critical question: Who is most at risk? That answer became quickly more clear---ranging from age, smoking history, high body mass index (BMI) and the presence of other diseases such as diabetes — led people infected with the virus much more likely to become seriously ill and even die. But cannabis use remains an unconfirmed risk factor four years later until now. Evidence has emerged over time indicating both protective and harmful effects. In fact, this research team now links cannabis to higher risk of serious illness for those with COVID-19.

The Study

Published June 21 in JAMA Network Open, the study authors analyzed the health records of 72,501 people seen for COVID-19 at health centers in a major Midwestern health-care system during the first two years of the pandemic.

The study team analyzed deidentified electronic health records of people who were seen for COVID-19 at BJC HealthCare hospitals and clinics in Missouri and Illinois between Feb. 1, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2022. The records contained data on demographic characteristics such as sex, age and race; other medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease; use of substances including tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and vaping; and outcomes of the illness — specifically, hospitalization, intensive-care unit (ICU) admittance and survival.

The researchers discovered that individuals reporting any use of cannabis at least once in the year before developing COVID-19 were significantly more likely to need hospitalization and intensive care than were people with no such history. This elevated risk of severe illness was on par with that from smoking.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis science writer Tamara Schnieder recently covered this topic in the academic medical center’s News Hub.

“There’s this sense among the public that cannabis is safe to use, that it’s not as bad for your health as smoking or drinking, that it may even be good for you,” said senior author Li-Shiun Chen, MD, DSc, a professor of psychiatry. “I think that’s because there hasn’t been as much research on the health effects of cannabis as compared to tobacco or alcohol.

What we found is that cannabis use is not harmless in the context of COVID-19. People who reported yes to current cannabis use, at any frequency, were more likely to require hospitalization and intensive care than those who did not use cannabis.”

Cannabis use was different than tobacco smoking in one key outcome measure: survival. While smokers were significantly more likely to die of COVID-19 than nonsmokers — a finding that fits with numerous other studies — the same was not true of cannabis users, the study showed.

“The independent effect of cannabis is similar to the independent effect of tobacco regarding the risk of hospitalization and intensive care,” Chen said. “For the risk of death, tobacco risk is clear but more evidence is needed for cannabis.”

COVID-19 patients who reported that they had used cannabis in the previous year were 80% more likely to be hospitalized, and 27% more likely to be admitted to the ICU than patients who had not used cannabis, after considering tobacco smoking, vaccination, other health conditions, date of diagnosis, and demographic factors. For comparison, tobacco smokers with COVID-19 were 72% more likely to be hospitalized, and 22% more likely to require intensive care than were nonsmokers, after adjusting for other factors.

Contradicting Prior Data Points?

These results contradict some other research suggesting that cannabis may help the body fight off viral diseases such as COVID-19.

“Most of the evidence suggesting that cannabis is good for you comes from studies in cells or animals,” Chen said. “The advantage of our study is that it is in people and uses real-world health-care data collected across multiple sites over an extended time period. All the outcomes were verified: hospitalization, ICU stay, death. Using this data set, we were able to confirm the well-established effects of smoking, which suggests that the data are reliable.”

The study was not designed to answer the question of why cannabis use might make COVID-19 worse. One possibility is that inhaling marijuana smoke injures delicate lung tissue and makes it more vulnerable to infection, in much the same way that tobacco smoke causes lung damage that puts people at risk of pneumonia, the researchers said. That isn’t to say that taking edibles would be safer than smoking joints. It is also possible that cannabis, which is known to suppress the immune system, undermines the body’s ability to fight off viral infections no matter how it is consumed, the researchers noted.

“We just don’t know whether edibles are safer,” said first author Nicholas Griffith, MD, a medical resident at Washington University. Griffith was a medical student at Washington University when he led the study. “People were asked a yes-or-no question: ‘Have you used cannabis in the past year?’ That gave us enough information to establish that if you use cannabis, your health-care journey will be different, but we can’t know how much cannabis you have to use, or whether it makes a difference whether you smoke it or eat edibles. Those are questions we’d really like the answers to. I hope this study opens the door to more research on the health effects of cannabis.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/washington-university-school-of-medicine-in-st.-louis-observational-study-finds-cannabis-use-associated-with-heightened-covid-19-mortality-d07b3b97

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39 US States Are Seeing Rise in COVID-19 Cases, CDC Data Show

Recent data show that COVID-19 cases are on the rise in several dozen U.S. states, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there’s no sign that the variants driving that increase lead to more severe symptoms.

The latest data collected by the CDC show that 39 states and territories have seen a growth in COVID-19 infections, while the virus is “declining or likely declining in [zero] states.” Cases are either at a stable level or the status is unclear in remaining states, the CDC said.

More general data for the week ending on June 24 provided by the CDC show that cases have increased by 1.2 percent.
It comes as other CDC data show that a newly discovered COVID-19 variant, KP.3, is the most dominant strain, accounting for an estimated 22 percent to 46 percent of all cases.

Several CDC officials didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

“There is currently no evidence that KP.3 or LB.1 cause more severe disease” and the agency continues “to track SARS-CoV-2 variants and is working to better understand the potential impact on public health,” David Daigle, a spokesman for the agency, told CBS News on June 25. SARS-CoV-2 refers to the virus that causes COVID-19.

As compared with previous increases in COVID-19—which some media outlets have described as “surges”—deaths from the virus appear to be at an all-time low, according to a graph provided by the federal health agency. Virus-linked hospitalizations are also at what appears to be their lowest point since the pandemic started in March 2020, the data show.

“Most key COVID-19 indicators are showing low levels of activity nationally, therefore, the total number of infections this lineage may be causing is likely low,” a CDC spokesperson said in a statement earlier this month, while adding the variant will become the “most common lineage” around the United States.

Andy Pekosz, a molecular microbiology professor at Johns Hopkins University, said that the KP.3 variant also doesn’t appear to cause more severe symptoms, adding that antibodies provided through prior infection or vaccines have led to better outcomes in recent months.

“After exposure, it may take five or more days before you develop symptoms, though symptoms may appear sooner,” he said in a question and answer session published on the Johns Hopkins website earlier this month.

“You are contagious one to two days before you experience symptoms and a few days after symptoms subside. And as with previous variants, some people may have detectable live virus for up to a week after their symptoms begin, and some may experience rebound symptoms,” Mr. Pekosz said.

In May, the CDC announced that hospitals are no longer mandated to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, capacity, or other COVID-19 information. The old “data will be archived as of May 10, 2024, and available at United States COVID-19 Hospitalization Metrics by Jurisdiction, Timeseries,” according to a statement posted on the CDC website last month.

This month, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel suggested that vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer and Moderna target COVID-19 strains derived from JN.1, which include KP.2, KP.3, and LB.1.

“We’ve seen descendants of that moving along, that’s KP.2, KP.3 and LB.1,” the FDA’s Dr. Peter Marks told news outlets on June 21. “So these other new variants, these came up relatively quickly. I wouldn’t say they caught us by surprise, but because they happened relatively quickly, we had to react.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/cdc-data-show-39-us-states-are-seeing-a-rise-in-covid-19-cases-5675750

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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)

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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Early Treatment With Fluvoxamine May Reduce Severe COVID-19 Outcomes: Review

A surprising finding. An anti-depression drug is not an obvious choice to combat Covid. It is good that some doctors thought outside the box and were insightful enough to see a connection. The drug does actually seem to have saved lives

A side benefit seems to be that Fluvoxamine recipients were less depressed by their illness!

An antidepressant commonly used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may significantly reduce the risk of clinical deterioration in COVID-19 patients, according to new research published in Scientific Reports.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 14 clinical studies involving 7,153 patients found that early treatment with fluvoxamine, especially at doses of 200 milligrams or more, notably reduced COVID-19 clinical deterioration, mortality, and long-COVID complications.

The authors defined clinical deterioration as needing hospitalization after testing positive for COVID. About 7 percent of patients who took fluvoxamine needed hospitalization after testing positive for COVID-19, whereas about 19 percent of those who did not take fluvoxamine required hospitalization, the authors found.

Eight of the studies analyzed were placebo-controlled and used proper blinding methods. The STOP COVID trial was among the first to explore repurposing fluvoxamine for COVID-19. In this trial, 80 patients received 300 milligrams of fluvoxamine daily. None experienced clinical worsening of their symptoms, while six out of 72 patients in the placebo group did.

Another early trial, the TOGETHER trial, was significantly larger than the STOP COVID trial and involved 1,497 participants—741 of whom received 200 milligrams of fluvoxamine daily and 756 of whom received a placebo.

The study found that 11 percent of patients in the fluvoxamine group versus 16 percent of patients in the placebo group needed observation for COVID-19 in an emergency setting for more than six hours or were transferred to a tertiary hospital. Moreover, there were 17 deaths in the fluvoxamine group and 25 deaths in the placebo group.

Early Outpatient Treatment for COVID-19: The Evidence
In the STOP COVID 2 trial, initiated in late 2020, researchers found that a lower 100-milligram dose twice daily would also effectively reduce COVID-19 hospitalization.

Open-Label and Retrospective Studies Favor Fluvoxamine

In an early open-label study on fluvoxamine, researchers investigated the drug’s effects on intensive care unit (ICU) patients with COVID-19. They did not find that fluvoxamine reduced ICU time or time on ventilators but did find a statistically significant improvement in mortality in those treated with fluvoxamine.

Open-label studies are not blinded, meaning participants know they are receiving fluvoxamine, and no placebo drug is given to patients in the placebo group.

A larger clinical study from Honduras and smaller studies from Uganda and Greece showed similar results. In Greece, data indicated fluvoxamine was associated with reduced development of dyspnea (shortness of breath) and pneumonia in COVID-19 patients, as well as reduced mortality.

A 2021 study of 162 patients in Thailand analyzed multiple drugs alone and in combination with fluvoxamine. Researchers found that none of the patients taking fluvoxamine experienced deterioration requiring hospitalization by day nine compared to 67.5 percent of the patients who received standard care.

Fluvoxamine May Reduce Mortality

Since open-label studies may not provide complete data, the researchers also conducted a meta-analysis using only “gold standard” placebo-controlled double-blind studies.

The meta-analysis examined seven studies involving 5,080 patients. Just over 9 percent of the standard-care group and 6 percent of the fluvoxamine-treatment group experienced clinical deterioration.

The researchers also investigated the effect of fluvoxamine on COVID-19-related mortality in 12 studies involving 7,722 patients. Results showed that 4.8 percent in the standard-care group died, compared to about 1.6 percent in the fluvoxamine group. Among five studies that reported deaths in either group, fluvoxamine demonstrated greater benefits than the placebo or standard care.

How Fluvoxamine Works

Fluvoxamine is a generic selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat OCD and depression. It is also known to have anti-inflammatory properties and gained popularity during the pandemic for its potential to treat COVID-19, reduce mortality, and potentially mitigate long-COVID symptoms.

All SSRIs, including fluvoxamine, target the serotonin transporters localized throughout the body in the brain, lungs, and platelets. Preclinical and clinical data suggest that SSRIs can mediate inflammation. According to a 2021 paper in Frontiers in Pharmacology, SSRIs can positively affect numerous inflammatory processes that have a direct antiviral effect on severe COVID-19.

Dr. Syed Haider, a physician who has treated thousands of COVID-19 patients, told The Epoch Times he is one of the first physicians to begin widely prescribing fluvoxamine for COVID-19. He saw the benefits of using it early in the pandemic in severe cases that needed “everything we could throw at them,” he said.

“It was very early for me personally, and I had only thus far seen about 10 or 20 patients for acute COVID-19,” said Dr. Haider. One of his patients had been hospitalized.

“After I added fluvoxamine to the protocol, the next few hundred patients had no hospitalizations for COVID-19, though one young male was briefly admitted due to a severe psychological adverse reaction to fluvoxamine itself, though that quickly wore off,” he added.

As time went on, Dr. Haider said it became apparent that a minority of patients couldn’t tolerate the side effects of fluvoxamine and stopped taking it, while others were concerned about the potential impacts of taking a psychiatric drug.

Side effects of fluvoxamine include nausea, diarrhea, indigestion, and neurological symptoms such as asthenia (weakness), insomnia, anxiety, headache, and, rarely, suicidal ideation.

Fluvoxamine May Reduce Long-COVID Complications

All but one of the studies reviewed by researchers found that fluvoxamine may reduce long-COVID complications. In a placebo-controlled, double-blinded study investigating neuropsychiatric symptoms in mildly to moderately affected long-COVID patients, researchers found fewer neuropsychological symptoms in those who used the drug. Additionally, fluvoxamine-treated patients experienced less fatigue and depression.

In follow-up data of the STOP COVID 1 and 2 trials, researchers found that most trial patients reported that they had not fully recovered. Those who received fluvoxamine during the acute COVID-19 trial were about half as likely to report having recovered less than 60 percent. According to the authors, other reviewed studies suggested SSRIs may be beneficial for treating long COVID due to their anti-inflammatory properties.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/early-treatment-with-fluvoxamine-may-reduce-severe-covid-19-outcomes-review-5670073

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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)

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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Long COVID Clarity—Three-Year Study of VA Population in America

Those who were hospitalized with acute SARS-CoV-2 have a significantly higher risk for ongoing death and long COVID symptoms

Researchers affiliated with the VA St. Louis Health Care System as well as well-known physician-scientist Eric Topol at Scripps Research Institute using national health care databases designed a cohort of 135,161 US veterans who survived the first 30 days of COVID-19 and a control of 5,206,835 users of the VA healthcare system with no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

To ensure 3-year follow-up, these cohorts were enrolled between March and December 2020, an era that pre-dated the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and antivirals and when the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 virus predominated. These cohorts were followed longitudinally for 3 years to estimate the risks of death and incident of long COVID symptoms throughout the 3-year follow-up and cumulatively at 3 years in mutually exclusive groups according to care setting of the acute phase of the disease (in non-hospitalized and hospitalized).

The net summary of this important study, albeit one with limitations.

Those who were hospitalized with acute SARS-CoV-2 have a significantly higher risk for ongoing death and long COVID symptoms. While the vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 infections were mild to moderate and the authors here minimize the risk of death and significant long COVID symptoms in the non-hospitalized COVID-19 infection population, they acknowledge the vast population meaning there are many people struggling with issues, while deemed mild to moderate under long COVID symptom category, nonetheless see overall decline in quality of life. The authors acknowledge the need for more research and eventually therapeutic options.

An important point TrialSite emphasizes is that the vast majority of acute SARS-CoV-2 infections were mild to moderate meaning no hospitalization. While this study highlights the greater risks of persons in the VA system who were hospitalized, a great toll on individuals and society now impacts persons who could be considered a mild long COVID. Meaning they had a mild to moderate COVID-19 and continue to face long COVID symptoms, ones that adversely impact quality of life. Even the authors herein acknowledge this vast cohort.

They declare “Consequently, much of the burden of PASC in populations is attributed to mild infection. According to an analysis by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) collaborators, about 90% of people with PASC had mild COVID-19, suggesting that, although preventing severe disease is important, strategies to reduce the risk of post-acute and long-term health loss in people with mild COVID-19 are also needed.”

Findings

There were 114,864 participants (13,810 (12.0%) females and 101,054 (88.0%) males) in the non-hospitalized COVID-19 group and 20,297 participants in the hospitalized COVID-19 group (1,177 (5.8%) females and 19,120 (94.2%) males), plus 5,206,835 participants in the control group with no infection (503,509 (9.7%) females and 4,703,326 (90.3%) males).

The researchers ensured these patients all had follow up totaling 344,592, 60,891 and 15,620,505 person-years of follow-up in the non-hospitalized COVID-19, hospitalized COVID-19 and control groups, respectively. In total this all equaled 16,025,988 person-years of follow-up. The researchers investigated the demographic, health characteristics and standardized mean differences of the non-hospitalized COVID-19, hospitalized COVID-19 and control groups before and after inverse probability weighting for baseline covariates.

Examining the risks and burdens of death and a set of pre-specified PASC as well as sequelae aggregated by organ system and aggregated as an overall outcome of PASC by care setting during the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection (non-hospitalized (n = 114,864) and hospitalized (n = 20,297) groups) in the first, second and third year after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Among non-hospitalized study subjects, there was no longer an increased risk of death post the first year of infection, and the risk of long COVID declined over the three year duration, however still contributed 9.6 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.4–18.7) disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 1,000 persons in the third year.

Among hospitalized individuals, risk of death declined but remained significantly elevated in the third year post infection (incidence rate ratio: 1.29 (95% CI: 1.19–1.40)). Risk of incident PASC declined over the 3 years, but substantial residual risk remained in the third year, leading to 90.0 (95% CI: 55.2–124.8) DALYs per 1,000 persons.

With risks diminishing over time, a death mortality continues in addition to overall loss of good health by year three in that cohort that was hospitalized.

Breakdown

Is it the finding that the risk after 3 years among non-hospitalized persons goes down, and in fact the risk of mortality goes away?

Yes. The risk of death goes away after the first year of infection, plus the risk of long COVID symptoms also declines substantially by year 3.

What about hospitalized persons with COVID-19?

Their risk declines as well but remains significantly “elevated” on into the third year post infection (29% increased risk and excess burden of death of 8.16 per 1,000 persons).

So, does this mean that persons that were hospitalized have higher chances of long COVID incidence as well?

Yes. While the risks for post-acute sequelae went down over the years, nonetheless a material “residual risk remained in the third year, leading to 252.8 sequelae per 1,000 persons and 90.0 DALYs per 1,000 persons.”

How can the risks be summarized?

The totality of the study finds overall lower risks of symptoms over 3 years of follow-up, however, continued amplified risks of major adverse outcomes among hospitalized individuals.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/long-covid-claritythree-year-study-of-va-population-in-america-7ea6be60

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Supreme Court Turns Away COVID-19 Vaccine Appeals

This case was about compulsory vaccination but it failed on the purely legal ground that the petitioners "lacked standing"

U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 24 rejected appeals brought over COVID-19 vaccines by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate running for president.

The nation’s top court rejected an appeal seeking to overturn lower court rulings that found that CHD and its members lacked standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its emergency authorizations of COVID-19 vaccines for minors.

The justices also rebuffed another CHD appeal in a case that challenged the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on students at Rutgers University, a public college in New Jersey.

The Supreme Court did not comment on either denial. It included them in a lengthy list dealing with dozens of cases.
“Disappointing that the courts are closed to FDA fraud harming millions of Americans,” Robert Barnes, an attorney representing CHD in the FDA case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

He called for Congress to pass reforms.

Julio Gomez, an attorney representing CHD in the Rutgers case, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Supreme Court’s denials marked a sad day because clarity is needed on vaccines and the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a city’s law requiring vaccination against smallpox.

Mr. Gomez pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling that determined that Jacobson did not apply to a case filed against a vaccine mandate in California because plaintiffs had produced evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Lawyers for Rutgers and the government did not return requests for comment.

In the FDA case, CHD and parents in Texas and Florida argued that the regulatory agency cleared COVID-19 vaccines under emergency authorization despite COVID-19 posing less risk than influenza to children and without adequate clinical testing. The FDA also wrongly promoted the vaccines, the plaintiffs alleged.

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright tossed out the lawsuit in 2023, finding that CHD and the parents did not meet the requirements for standing, or the ability to sue over the actions, under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

While the parents said their children were at risk of being vaccinated by other people, they did not show that they faced imminent harm because of the FDA issuing emergency authorization for COVID-19 vaccines, the judge said. Imminent harm is one requirement for standing.

The judge also said CHD had not shown that its resources were drained in responding to the FDA’s conduct and that it was airing a “generalized grievance,” which is not allowed under Supreme Court precedent.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in January upheld the ruling.

“Plaintiffs contend that the injury-in-fact element is satisfied because a third party might vaccinate their children over their objections, and that such vaccine could allegedly injure them and their children,” the panel stated. “Be that as it may, we agree with the district court that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate an injury in fact because the alleged injury is neither concrete nor imminent.”

Mr. Barnes had urged the Supreme Court to look at the case.

“Can no one sue the FDA? Is that what Article III means?” he wrote in a filing

Government lawyers waived their right to file a brief to the court.

In the case against Rutgers, CHD and some of its members said the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional in part because the Constitution’s due process clause enables people to refuse medical treatment.

U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi ruled against the plaintiffs in 2022, finding that Rutgers mandated vaccination as part of a legitimate goal of protecting the school community from COVID-19 and that the students either brought claims that had become moot because they were granted religious exemptions to the mandate or failed to state a claim.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the decision in February.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/supreme-court-turns-away-covid-19-vaccine-appeals-5674328

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Government Misinformation On Australian Excess Mortality

Written by Dr Wilson Sy

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has deviated from international standards of calculating excess deaths during the pandemic (based on 2015-19 average) by using computer
models ‘adjusted’ for factors like population growth, resulting in significantly lower statistics

The ABS approach, questioned by the Australian Senate inquiry, effectively reduces excess deaths to merely COVID-19 fatalities.

Both the Australian Government and ABS have conflated scientific theory with statistical data. Unlike scientific research bodies, the ABS’s role is in national statistics collection and publication.

Despite this, the ABS has proposed a hypothesis that its model assumptions adequately explain Australian excess deaths as attributable solely to COVID-19. Hypothetical estimates have been published as data.

The disclosure of excess death data should initiate rigorous scientific inquiries into their underlying causes, rather than conclude them. By endorsing ABS’s interpretations, the Government will risk misleading the public into believing that Australian excess deaths require no further investigation.

I formally addressed these concerns in an individual submission to the Senate Committee on excess mortality, highlighting the Government’s inadequate scientific approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although my submission was censored, its content is reproduced below.

My main concern is the lack of scientific rigour in the Australian response to the COVID pandemic, in which misguided government policy has caused high excess mortality.

Flawed COVID Data

The health policy response to COVID in Australia has been marred by reliance on selective and biased research, leading to misinformation. Official COVID data, upon which much of this research is based, has been shown to be flawed and unreliable due to inadequate scientific rigor in data collection processes [1].

In the realm of formal logic, it’s well understood that a false premise can be used to validate any arbitrary conclusion. This concept, epitomized by Bertrand Russell’s famous quip which demonstrated that from the false statement “1=0,” one could deduce absurdities like he was the Pope.

This fallacy is commonly summarized as “garbage in, garbage out.” During the COVID crisis, Australian authorities have relied on flawed data to draw conclusions, resulting in numerous erroneous assertions.

A critical flaw in much of published research is the failure to cross-validate official COVID data against independent sources. Despite the availability of alternate datasets often aligning more closely with common sense and broader empirical observations, these were systematically disregarded. Such selective acceptance of evidence, without rigorous scrutiny or falsification, undermines the integrity of scientific inquiry.

Cherry-Picking Evidence

The practice of cherry-picking evidence by purported “experts” lacks scientific validity. In genuine scientific practice, the collective body of evidence, not the opinions of select individuals, guides conclusions. Without proper evaluation, the Australian government has dismissed contrary evidence of elevated excess deaths during the pandemic, which is antithetical to sound scientific methodology.

Through flawed research methodologies, the Australian government has misled both itself and the public, asserting that elevated excess deaths can be solely attributed to COVID-related fatalities. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has further exacerbated this issue by manipulating raw data through complex modelling, resulting in significantly diminished excess death statistics [2]. Such manipulations obscure the true extent of excess mortality and hinder meaningful investigations into its causes.

Comparisons with pre-pandemic all-cause mortality benchmark (2015-19 average) reveal a stark increase in excess deaths during and after the COVID outbreak, far exceeding benchmark figures. This high excess deaths suggest a systemic failure in accurately recording COVID-related deaths, which fall short of being able to account for Australian excess deaths.

Unreliable COVID Deaths

Contrary to official narratives, substantial evidence challenges the assertion that COVID alone is responsible for excess mortality. Instances such as the spike in deaths in England in April 2020, coinciding with the widespread misuse of Midazolam and opioids in elderly care, underscore the errors in attributing deaths to COVID [3]. Similarly, evidence from Australia suggests that a significant portion of reported COVID deaths may actually be misclassified cases of influenza and pneumonia [4].

While COVID may indeed contribute to excess mortality, the rush to attribute all excess deaths to the virus overlooks other potential causes, including systemic issues within healthcare systems and inappropriate medical interventions. The correlation between rising excess deaths and the rollout of mass vaccination campaigns warrants thorough investigation, particularly considering the possibility of adverse effects associated with vaccination.

A different approach is needed, not relying on flawed official COVID data, to address the issue of Australian excess deaths in the pandemic.

Granger Causality

Granger causality analysis, named after a 2003 Nobel Laureat, offers a methodological framework [5] for examining causal relationships between variables, such as COVID vaccination and excess mortality. By analysing independent time series data, it’s possible to establish temporal associations and assess the likelihood of causality. Granger causality hinges on the principle that a cause must precede its effect, and that the causal variable should consistently lead the outcome variable by a fixed period with high correlation.

Our Granger causality analysis reveals a significant relationship between Australian COVID vaccination and subsequent excess deaths, with a lag time of five months or 21 weeks and an accuracy rate of approximately 70 percent. In our initial study [4], we shifted the COVID vaccination data forward by five months or 21 weeks and observed a strong and consistent correlation with excess deaths, as depicted in Figure 1.

Notably, the vaccination data, extending until May 2023, which also provides an out-of-sample prediction of future excess deaths.

Conclusion

Due to flawed official COVID data, Australian governments and the public have been misled by research based on that unreliable data. The numbers of COVID deaths are inaccurate, probably exaggerated, but regardless, the numbers fall well short of being able to explain excess deaths.

Australian excess deaths may have several causes, but we have shown by Granger causality that COVID vaccination explains about 70 percent of Australian excess deaths. The issue extends beyond my individual submission.

The government’s practice of collecting data to support its policies raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest, particularly regarding accountability.

Australia requires a data integrity commission to rectify official data inaccuracies.

https://principia-scientific.com/government-misinformation-on-australian-excess-mortality/

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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)

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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Troubling nursing home statistics: Deaths RISE after vaccination

The statistics below seem very firm but we should be careful about generalizing the finding to people in general. Most peole do have SOME adverse reaction to a COVID jab but survive it. People that are already in a nursing home will however quite probably have compromised immune systems so might die from reactions that younger people would survive. So the findings below are compatible with saying that the vaccines are not GENERALLY harmful.

But it also follows that elderly people were actually the LAST people who should have got the vaccines. As it was, however, elderly people were in fact prioritized to get the vaccine on the assumption that they were most in need of protecton from the virus. So what actually happened was the opposite of what was intended: For the elderly, the cure was worse than the disease.


Steve Kirsch

The single most stunning data point that nobody can explain;
the single most stunning piece of official US government data is the US Nursing home data. I first wrote about this nearly a year ago. Since then, there have been no investigations. Nobody wants to talk about it. Here’s why…

I was tipped off by an insider that her nursing home, Apple Valley Village Health Care Center, located in Apple Valley, MN started rolling out the injections on December 28, 2020. The insider also told me that shortly thereafter staff members were called back from their Christmas vacations to deal with all the deaths.

Nobody at Apple Valley Village will talk to me. Does the Chaplain think she is helping to save lives by keeping her mouth shut? Apparently. None of them would return my phone calls.

Let’s see what the official US Medicare records that anyone can download here say about COVID cases and deaths before the shots rolled out.

I went on the query page on that site and downloaded the records for Apple Valley Village, highlighted the two key columns in red, and saved them in an Excel spreadsheet here so you can see for yourself. It took me about 60 seconds to do that.

For the 32 week period ending 12/27/20 (right before the shots started being rolled out), there were 27 COVID cases, and 0 COVID deaths. There was an average of 1 death per week (there were 32 deaths in the 32 weeks listed).

Now let’s look at what happened in just a 3 week period right after the shots were administered (rows 35 to 37 in the spreadsheet): 90 COVID cases resulting in 28 COVID deaths. In that 3 week period after the shots, AVV averaged 8 all-cause deaths per week, which is 8X higher than normal.

This is not a statistical anomaly. That is impossible if the vaccine isn’t killing people. You can’t keep injecting people with something that you know is killing people like this unless you give them informed consent.

I’ve filed a criminal complaint with the Apple Valley Police Department.

Which means that the people at AVV are criminally negligent for not stopping the shots. So I’ve reported this

The COVID death rate at AVV suggests we should have seen at most 1.5 deaths in the 90 COVID cases, but we observed 28. The chance of that happening by pure random chance is 6.6e-26. In short, we are 99.999999999999999999999999% confident this didn’t happen by chance.

And this didn’t happen because they changed the criteria for dying from COVID, because the weekly all-cause death rate jumped from 1 to 8 for three weeks straight after the rollout. That can happen by chance, but it is nearly impossible (probability 2.6e-14). So it’s unlikely Apple Valley Village just got “unlucky.”

Something caused a lot of people to die from COVID right after the shot rollout.

If it wasn’t the shots, what was it? Nothing else can explain both the rise in COVID death rate (from 0% to 30%) as well as the 8X increase in all-cause mortality.

There is no possible explanation other than the deaths were caused by the “safe and effective” COVID vaccine.

This is why Apple Valley Village staff will never comment.

This is why the FDA and CDC won’t comment. This is why the New York Times will never cover this story. There is no place to hide on this data.

I’m not claiming this is happening everywhere. I’m only saying that the vaccine was supposed to significantly REDUCE all-cause mortality from COVID. If that were the case, this anecdote is statistically impossible. And yet it happened.

In science, if you can’t explain a data point, you don’t just write it off. You have to explain it or at least publicly admit that your hypothesis could be wrong until you can explain it.

And this wasn’t cherry picked either. In the entire time I’ve been a “misinformation spreader,” I’ve only gotten one insider call from someone in a nursing home who would reveal the date that the vaccine was rolled out in her facility. One.

And even if I scoured all 15,000 nursing homes for a case like this, it still can’t happen because the probabilities are too small.

So I had two independent ways at looking at this data: the tip from the insider and the data reported to the government. Both aligned.

Does this deserve investigation? Of course! But there will be no investigations. Ever.

Because that’s the way science works nowadays. It’s all about ignoring all credible evidence that doesn’t support the narrative. And that should be troubling for everyone.

Apple Valley isn’t talking, even when a MN State Representative calls! Shane Mekeland, House District 27A Minnesota, reached out to Apple Valley Village to ask them if they were investigating the excess deaths.

They said, “No comment” and immediately hung up the phone.

Why did they do that? It looks like they have something to hide.

Aggregate CFR data from all 15,000 nursing homes

Some people erroneously claim that anecdotes are meaningless. This is false because anecdotes are easy to 100% verify and a single anecdote, if statistically significant, can reveal serious flaws in a hypothesis that should cause further investigation as to whether the hypothesis is consistent with the data.

But I’m fine looking at all the US Nursing home data.

I spend a ton of time doing that. You can look at my GitHub repo for all the work I did (including the R code I wrote and all the results.

I summarized it all in my Substack article: The US nursing home data is devastating for the narrative: FINAL GRAPHS.

It shows that over 50% of nursing home residents were fully vaccinated by 2/7/2021. But as you can see, the case fatality rate (CFR) from COVID actually spiked up after 50% of the shots were delivered and then dropped down as we’d expect as the people with the weakest immune systems succumb to the virus early on leaving people with more robust immune systems. And look at the dramatic instant drop in CFR when Omicron rolled out. This is what should have happened after the vaccine rollout if it worked: it should never have spiked up like it did; it should have gone from the .17 baseline and dropped monotonically half of that amount; there shouldn’t have been any spike after the vaccine rollout if the variant didn’t change (which it didn’t).

The IFR in this chart is mislabelled; it should technically be CFR because we don’t know if there was 100% testing of everyone in the nursing homes.

The JAMA paper clearly shows no hospitalization benefit for the COVID or flu vaccines in the VA elderly

One of my personal favorite papers was a Research Letter published in JAMA on April 6, 2023 described in my Substack article entitled VA study published in JAMA shows that COVID *and* Flu shots don't reduce your risk of hospitalization.

The study looked at the official US government VA data.

Hidden in this Table was a gem that none of the authors noticed: extremely strong evidence that neither COVID nor flu vaccines reduced hospitalization. It showed the vaccination breakdown in both cohorts (hospitalized for flu vs. COVID) was nearly identical (in both raw and adjusted numbers).

Truly revolutionary. A paper in JAMA unintentionally demonstrating that the COVID and flu vaccines DO NOT work!

These are large numbers. If the vaccine worked, there would have been a significant difference between the two groups. But there wasn’t.

The Z-score for influenza group is over 24, and for the COVID shots it is over 47 (assuming a 50% reduction is expected). Which means the results are highly statistically significant (a Z-score of 1.96 is generally considered statistically significant).

I contacted the senior author of the research letter, Ziyad Al-Aly, who is a highly published epidemiologist with an h-index of 82 who works for the VA.

I asked him how, if the vaccines worked, you could get a result like this where it clearly shows the net hospitalization benefit is near ZERO for both vaccines.

He couldn’t explain it either.

I suggested to him that he write a follow up Letter to JAMA to point out this truly game-changing observation in his paper, but he said he didn’t have time.

But I thought this was pretty darn important. So I collaborated with Mark Mead and Paul Marik and we wrote a Letter to the Editor to JAMA to point out this stunning result.

JAMA rejected it as not important enough for their journal. Wow. You show that the COVID and flu vaccines are a complete scam and that isn’t good enough to make it into JAMA?!?!?

We have the rejection letter, but it is marked confidential at the request of Gregory Curfman, MD, Executive Editor, JAMA.

It’s been accepted by another journal and will be available soon.

Lack of a compelling positive anecdote in the US

I’m not aware of reading or hearing about any nursing home facility (which largely have stable populations so we can look at their statistics over time) which noticed a significant drop in CFR, and lower all-cause mortality after the shot rollout.

And apparently, the success examples are so rare that if you asked 5,000 people, they aren’t aware of one either.

If the vaccine worked as promised, nearly every single facility of the 15,000 US facilities would be a huge success story where the COVID CFR went down by at least a factor of 2 after the shots were given to most of the patients in that facility.

But apparently, after over 5,000 views now, nobody knows of one. How is THAT possible? Ask 5,000 people and nobody can cite a success case? Is it that rare?

If you look at the stats for nearly 15,000 nursing homes (which I did in the “ALL” analysis in the github code), you find that there are nearly 3 nursing homes where the CFR went up (i.e., worse) after the demarcation date (vax rollout) for every one that got better. This is simply impossible if the vaccine worked as advertised.

There is no possible way that anyone in their right mind could call that a success.

This is a huge failure since if we did nothing, the CFR naturally goes down over time. This strongly suggests that the vaccine made things worse.

And for those who think the tests are random
The CFR drops over time, exactly as expected. And when Omicron hit, the CFR nearly instantly ticked downward, exactly as expected.

So where is the evidence that the trends are random?

Summary

If the COVID shots worked, I wouldn’t be able to find any data points like this. Not in anecdotes, and also not in large databases like the VA and Medicare.

If the COVID shots worked, they’d be able to explain these data points. Instead, they ignore them and ghost me when I ask for explanations.

Nobody has ever explained how the all-cause mortality dropped from 1 death a week to 8 deaths a week over a 3 week period right after the shots at Apple Valley. They won’t answer any calls. Nor will they be held accountable by lawmakers in their state.

And we aren’t hearing a single success anecdote from any of the over 15,000 US Nursing homes how COVID mortality dropped like a rock after the shot rollout.

Come on. 15,000 nursing homes and they can’t find A SINGLE success anecdote that anyone knows about??? Are you kidding me????

So we have strong evidence that the shots didn’t protect people and we also have a lack of success anecdotes. And the numbers are damning with 3 nursing homes getting worse after the shots for every one that got better. That’s not a success. That’s a huge failure.

We were conned into believing these shots worked.

Over 21 million people are paying the price for this fraud and they are still perpetuating it.

The stories of harm caused by these shots are extremely sad and it is very troubling that our government is looking the other way when these people are trying to get the help they deserve.

https://stophumansacrifice.substack.com/p/murder-by-vaccine-steve-kirsch-with

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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)

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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More Evidence Covid ‘Vaccines’ Cause Aggressive Cancers

Google may well take this post down. Their AI seems to be programmed to block any claims that the vaccines can be harmful. Rather childish

Written by Phillip Altman

I keep saying it, but it worth repeating……everything, I mean everything, we have been told about the so-called COVID-19 “vaccines” has been a lie

Among some of the most important lies was the lie about the lack of potential genotoxicity and cancer.

Our “health experts” continue to deny the genotoxicity risk and cancer risk despite any safety testing to support this claim.

The manufacturers even said when the injections were released that there was no data on genotoxicity and cancer potential – they said it in black and white in the officially approved Product Information.

Dr. Maryanne Demasi has now published a pertinent Substack in relation to dangerous DNA contamination contained in the shots. Apparently, Pfizer’s dirty shots have been cleaned up a little but Moderna’s shots had far less DNA contamination and they even patented the process to remove the DNA.

Part of the Moderna’s patent admits contaminating DNA is a cancer risk.

Now, cancers around the world have been on the increase since the Covid injection rollouts but our government refuse to admit this might have been caused by the injections themselves. Our government refuses to seriously investigate.

Shame on them all.

The Covid-19 “vaccines” were never tested for cancer potential when released but our health experts (who have been showered with Australian Honours ) claimed they were “safe”.

How did the experts know these injections were safe if the tests to prove them safe were never conducted?

Previous Victorian Premiere Daniel Andrews, who many say was directly responsible for some of the world’s worst pandemic policies including the longest lockdowns, loss of personal freedoms, loss of life, thrashing of the State economy, destruction of businesses, demonising of those choosing not to be jabbed and police brutality…..has now received Australia’s highest civilian honour, Companion of Australia, in part for his role in the pandemic.

This tells you everything you need to know about the King’s Birthday Honours List and those responsible for this nauseating tribute. There will be no apology…there will be no accountability…there will be no transparency…there will be no compensation… and, worst of all, history is bound to repeat itself.

The way the game will be played from here is that it will be up to damaged individuals or families of the dead to prove beyond reasonable doubt that their cancers were caused or exacerbated by the Covid injections – an almost impossible legal task which will be steadfastly refuted by the manufacturers and government.

While cancer deaths soar around the globe, our government will try and run out the clock, taking decades to reveal the truth while senior bureaucrats receive huge pensions, grab lucrative board positions and eventually die without remorse without facing justice.

https://principia-scientific.com/more-evidence-covid-vaccines-cause-agressive-cancers/

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Closing schools for a year was a mistake admits Antony Fauci

Anthony Fauci, the former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has admitted that it was a mistake to close schools for more than a year during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Fauci, who was a top adviser to two presidential administrations during crisis, made the admission during an interview with CBS TV, in a dramatic U-turn over the draconian policy that forced millions of children into remote learning.

During the interview, aired to publicise his new memoir: On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Dr Fauci argued the initial decision to close classrooms was correct.

“Keeping it for a year was not a good idea,” he said.

“So, that was a mistake in retrospect?” host Tony Dokoupil asked. “We will not repeat it?”

“Absolutely, yeah,” Dr Fauci responded.

Dr Fauci, 83, has previously stood by the recommendation that forced children out of classrooms and into learning from home, and has even claimed there should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions” in the early stages of the pandemic.

In the northern summer of 2020, when some US schools were considering reopening, Dr Fauci advised against the move, warning there might be some areas were the level of the virus was so high it “would not be prudent” to allow children back into school. Asked on PBS that same month whether “many months of virtual learning” would be the norm, he answered, “In some places, that may be the case,” The New York Post reports.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says Anthony Fauci had “made up” social distancing rules which became the norm in the US during the COVID pandemic. Dr Anthony Fauci has admitted there were no clinical trials to back up the recommended six feet social distancing guidelines during More
In January 2021, a CDC study showed “little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission’’ but schools remained closed until later that year.

However Dr Fauci refused to admit that the school closures had been an error, telling the ABC in 2022:. “I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake.’”

In his interview with CBS Dr Fauci said schools should have been shut down “immediately” then reopened “as quickly and safely as you can.”

However he refused to admit that children’s education had suffered due to remote learning.

“One clear area seems to be the school closures, which did enormous harm to kids on multiple levels and didn’t seem to save lives,” Doukoupil said. “And I wonder, can we say today that that is a mistake?”

“No,” Dr Fauci replied.

The New York Post reports that according to US Department of Education statistics released in September 2022, reading scores among nine-year-olds plummeted over the course of the pandemic to their lowest point in 30 years, while maths scores fell for the first time ever in a half-century of tracking.

In testimony at a Congressional hearing this year, Dr Fauci conceded the “six feet apart” rule, the intellectual underpinning of lockdowns, wasn’t based on science or even logic. “It just sort of appeared,” he said.

“Just an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished.

“It was felt that transmission was primarily through droplets, not aerosols, which is incorrect because we know now aerosol does play a role,” he said, pointing out that Covid-19 floats in the air, making a mockery of masks, and social distancing.

In a separate interview today (AEST) on MSNBC, Dr Fauci blamed “misinformation related to ideology” for deaths during Covid.

Defending his record and that of other public-health officials, who were accused of “flip-flopping” during the pandemic on issues such as the need to wear face masks and socially distance, he said: “What we needed to do better was to let people understand that we were dealing with a moving target.

“Science is self-correcting.”

As experts learned more about the virus, they were able to change their advice and recommendations, he noted.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/closing-schools-for-a-year-was-a-mistake-admits-antony-fauci/news-story/39a542c70f7f4786d7c6b2f373e1aecf

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Scotland: An embarrassed silence

Politicians’ pandemic decisions changed – sometimes ruined – our lives, so why aren’t they part of the debate?

I’m not one for conspiracy theories. A surfeit of human incompetence leaves me believing cock-up theories far better explain the calamities that confront us. Even when conspiracies do exist they too are subject to cock-ups, such as the Prime Minister conspiring to catch his opponents on the hop by calling an earlier than expected election, only to be drenched in the rain as he announced it.

I say all of this for I believe there is today a conspiracy of sorts taking place before us in plain sight. We are halfway through a general election and yet the political parties have not sought to discuss their or their opponent’s record, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is a conspiracy of silence, an omertà between combatants that has not even required them to speak to each other to agree the code. Why should such a potential mass-scale existential event – the likes of which Hollywood horror movies are made about – not be a core issue?

Could it be that it suits them all, government and opposition alike, to not talk about their almost universally poor conduct during that time?

The government’s reaction to the pandemic resulted in us being under 24-7 supervision, often house bound, it caused early deaths, wrecked businesses, denied education, delayed healthcare, cost jobs, savings and ruined lives.

The Covid-19 pandemic was not that long ago. The last UK lockdown ended only three years ago in July 2021 – Scotland’s lasted longer. Yet while we hear our politicians talk about today’s consequences of the decisions taken then, such as the cost-of-living crisis, the enormous NHS waiting lists, the cancer treatment backlog, the education gaps, the rising mental health symptoms, they do not want to talk about the root cause of the challenges we face now.

Why is no-one asking questions about why our politicians closed the schools when other countries managed to keep them open – and still managed comparatively better outcomes?

Why is there not a demand to know why Nightingale hospitals were built at great expense only never to be used for their purpose of mass triage and treatment centres?

Where is the outrage at the way care home residents were treated or how “Do Not Resuscitate” protocols were put in place across many healthcare settings?

How could our governments adopt a conscious programme of Project Fear to scare us into obedience – to snitch on our neighbours for walking their dogs, to wear masks despite there being no evidence of benefits, to adopt entirely arbitrary social distancing so we could not see our dying loved ones or easily attend their funerals?

Well, I have not forgotten those times and I’m absolutely certain our politicians have not either.

The reality is that as the various public inquiries have held their evidence sessions, so we have become aware of how badly our politicians behaved, either in conducting their decision making, or in callously turning dreadful situations to their own advantage. They know we see this too.

Is it not strange Rishi Sunak only mentions his generous furlough scheme, but not his agreement to the massive pumping of money into the economy through quantitative easing that contributed to our inflation and subsequent higher taxes? Is it not stranger Keir Starmer does not seek to press Sunak on these weaknesses, or does he fear being shown to have wanted to do more that would have made the after-effects even worse?

Sunak dare not talk about Boris Johnson receiving a police fine for accepting a birthday cake he did not ask for, nor eat – because he too was fined for being in the room at the same time. But why does Starmer not raise the episode? Is it because of dubiety around his beer and pizza in Labour campaign offices?

Is it not odd the SNP campaign does not make more of Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s chief mammy at the time? Or does the SNP leadership now recognise her deletion of texts, her bouncing of the UK into mask wearing, her doing things differently in Scotland just for the sake of it, and her grandstanding at daily information sessions in advance of the Holyrood elections might bring back the sort of memories that will cost votes?

The international and domestic evidence has been gathering for months now. The lockdowns made no significant difference to the spread of Covid-19, but have cost our economies, our personal finances – even if it’s just the taxes we now face – our health and our kids’ education irreparable damage. Those like Sunak who introduced them and those like Starmer who clamoured for them to be sooner, harder and longer dare not talk about it.

Likewise those Labour politicians in Wales and SNP politicians in Scotland who made their lockdowns even more extensive dare not talk about it. Ironically it was Boris Johnson who fought to end the last lockdown early and Starmer who said we dare not.

Today our politicians want to talk about their offers of shiny things and free stuff – but cannot face the reckoning for the way they behaved.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/the-covid-conspiracy-of-silence-nobody-is-talking-about-brian-monteith-4667726

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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)

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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