mRNA Neo-Vaccinoid Mandate Admittedly A Workaround Constitutional Objections

jonathanturley |   In the law, it is called an admission against interest or an out-of-court statement by a party that, when uttered, is against the party’s pecuniary, proprietary, or penal interests. In politics, it is called just dumb. White House chief of staff Ronald Klain offered a doozy this week when he admitted that the announced use of the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for a vaccine mandate was a mere “work around” of the constitutional limit imposed on the federal government. The problem is that the thing being “worked around” is the Constitution. Courts will now be asked to ignore the admission and uphold a self-admitted evasion of constitutional protections.

Notably, before inauguration, Klain publicly assured the public that Biden would that, on “his first day in office, I will issue a nationwide masking mandate, requiring that people wear masks where the federal authority extends and then urging governors and other local officials to impose mask mandates in their states.” That statement was then walked back due to the lack of legal authority to issue such a mandate.

Klain retweeted MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, who posted, “OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations.”

The “work around” was needed because, as some of us have previously during both the Trump and Biden Administration, the federal government does not have clear authority to impose public health mandates. Authority for such mandates has traditionally been recognized within state authority.

Make no mistake about it. This is a clever move to use the OSHA as the vehicle for the mandate to avoid the federalism issues of a direct mandate. President Joe Biden has been ping ponging on the issue for over a year in first suggesting that he could impose a national mandate and then admitting that he probably could not. Ironically, this move comes on the same day that Attorney General Merrick Garland denounced the “clever” use of the Texas abortion law to make it more difficult to challenge. Judging from the praise for Garland, it appears that such work arounds are noble when done for the right cause.

The question is whether this clever work around will in fact work. It might, but there are ample grounds from challenge. Under this interpretation OSHA could impose a federal mandate for any measure that impacts workers, including public health measures not directly linked to a given workplace or job. That may be more of a sticker shock for some on the federal bench, including some justices.

The move is unnecessary and therefore reckless. There are already challenges to the law which the Justice Department could join as amicus.  It would then not have to risk the creation of additional losses in court after the impressive litany of losses of the Biden Administration. This was another filing that followed a public call from the President. It is again politics driving litigation by the Justice Department. The media covered such pressure extensively during the Trump Administration and legal experts objected that the Trump White House was attacking the independence of the Justice Department and other agencies. There is little attention to his pattern that extends from immigration to debt relief to the eviction moratorium.

mRNA Neo-Vaccinoid Mandate Holds No Political Downside For Cornpop Or The DNC

NYTimes |  In December 2020, as the prospect of imminent mass vaccination against Covid-19 was finally becoming a reality, Mr. Biden leveled with the American people: He said he would not force anyone to get the jab. “No, I don’t think it should be mandatory,” he told reporters. “I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory.”

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, recently reiterated Mr. Biden’s position. “That’s not the role of the federal government,” she declared on July 23, referring to the idea of a government mandate. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the same thing a week later: “There will be no nationwide mandate.”

So much for that. On Thursday, Mr. Biden announced a far-reaching vaccine mandate that applies to most federal workers, hospitals, public schools and 80 million employees of private companies. Under the White House’s presumptuous plan, workplaces that employ more than 100 people must require their employees to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing — a burden so onerous that for many businesses, it will not be a choice at all.

The president’s plan is certainly well intentioned. The vaccines are the only tried-and-true strategy for defeating Covid; government officials should both encourage vaccination and make it easier to get vaccinated. Health officials must continue selling people on the vaccines by emphasizing the considerable upside: Vaccination decreases transmission of the virus and turns hospitalization and death into very unlikely outcomes. It provides such robust protection that 99 percent of coronavirus fatalities in the United States now occur in the unvaccinated population. Vaccination works, and it’s the right option for a vast majority of Americans.

But forcing vaccines on a minority contingent of unwilling people is a huge error that risks shredding the social fabric of a country already being pulled apart by political tribalism.

The president should not — and most likely does not — have the power to unilaterally compel millions of private-sector workers to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs: Mr. Biden is presiding over a vast expansion of federal authority, one that Democrats will certainly come to regret the next time a Republican takes power. Moreover, the mechanism of enforcement — a presidential decree smuggled into law by the Department of Labor and its Occupational Safety and Health Administration — is fundamentally undemocratic. Congress is supposed to make new laws, not an unaccountable bureaucratic agency.

While more than 70 percent of American adults have received a shot, a smaller but sizable group of people, for various reasons, are unvaccinated. Some members of this group have antibodies from a previous Covid case and are reasonably protected from future illness, according to recent data. There is little benefit to forcing vaccination on such people, and Mr. Biden’s decision to not exempt them is a significant misstep.

Unvaccinated individuals who were never infected by Covid would certainly benefit from vaccination. But the coercive approach has major downsides. The most anti-vaccine Americans — those who are adamantly refusing the jab because of a misguided belief that it’s dangerous — will probably not change their minds because the government is strong-arming employers. On the contrary, the federal mandate might actually be taken as confirmation of their paranoid suspicions that the vaccines have less to do with their health and more to do with social control.

As a practical matter, it’s undeniable that the federal mandate will engender a titanic backlash and create a spate of lawsuits. Vaccine holdouts have already taken legal action against employers requiring vaccination: Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia who had recovered from Covid and has antibodies, recently fought his institution’s mandate and prevailed. And Republican governors are certain to battle Mr. Biden over this policy. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a Republican, tweeted at the president, “See you in court.”

It’s true that courts have upheld vaccine mandates in certain circumstances: In a 1922 case, the Supreme Court famously ruled that a city ordinance could deny admission to students who failed to get the smallpox vaccine. But the assertion that a public official can completely sidestep the legislative process and enact a much farther-reaching vaccine mandate via administrative action should elicit skepticism from even those who vigorously support vaccination.

 

 

The Courts WILL UPHOLD Cornpop's Mandate And Minority Resistance WILL BE Crushed

LATimes |  As Biden said in introducing his program Thursday, COVID vaccination “is not about freedom or personal choice. it’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love.”

That said, there are still some questions and issues about the program that deserve answers. Here are some of the most important points.

The court

The Supreme Court has endorsed vaccination mandates for more than 105 years. The court first weighed in on mandates in 1905, with a 7-2 decision in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, upholding a fine imposed by the city of Cambridge, Mass., on a resident who refused to get inoculated against smallpox.

“Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for the majority.

Harlan saw no problem with constraining “liberty” in the name of public welfare: “In every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”

The Jacobson decision has been the linchpin of vaccine requirements coast to coast and at almost all levels of American society. As Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University Law School observed late last year, “All states require childhood vaccines as a condition of school entry.” Adult mandates may be rare, but “at least 16 states require influenza or hepatitis B vaccinations for postsecondary education.”

It’s true that Jacobson has sometimes been exploited to support noxious public policies — Oliver Wendell Holmes cited it as precedent, for instance, in Buck vs. Bell, the 1927 opinion in which he upheld Virginia’s forced sterilization law with the notorious comment, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

It’s also true that the court’s approach to questions of individual rights has evolved over the last century, generally in the direction of narrowing government’s ability to restrict them. But constitutional scholars tend to find that the pandemic is sufficiently dangerous to warrant the constraints Harlan endorsed.

“A law that authorizes mandatory vaccination during an epidemic of a lethal disease ... would undoubtedly be found constitutional,” Wendy Mariner of Boston University wrote in 2005. “However, the vaccine would have to be approved by the FDA as safe and effective, and the law would have to require exceptions for those who have contraindications to the vaccine.” Those conditions would appear to be met by the Biden program.

Federal powers

Biden is relying on the power of federal funding and federal workplace laws. The government’s power to set conditions on its funding are largely unquestioned.

In mentioning an earlier order he issued requiring vaccinations of all nursing home workers who treat Medicare and Medicaid patients, he stated, “I have that federal authority.” The administration’s position is that the same authority extends to firms holding federal contracts and employees of the federal government, as well as 300,000 workers in federally funded Head Start preschool programs.

 

 

 

FACTS AND SCIENCE BE DAMNED! REALITY IS WHAT I SAY IT IS!!!

IMDoc  |  With regard to The Atlantic article about vaccination –

There is a highlighted sentence directly under the title of the article ( I am not a journalist – I am sure this sentence in the layout has a name – do not know what it is, though).

Complete protection against infection has long been hailed as the holy grail of vaccination. It might simply be unachievable.

The very instant I read that sentence – as a medical doctor and a medical historian – I know instantly that this person has no idea what they are talking about – and has not bothered to do the most basic of research in the topic.

One word –

SMALLPOX

It has been achieved – it is not unachievable. But it took a STERILIZING vaccine. And ON TOP OF THE VACCINE, all kinds of other efforts which were completely different based on the part of the world. The top priority – Truth being told to the population at all times. A concerted effort with non-compromised leaders and spokespeople. And to have the entire health system on board in an organized manner. Also, not a small amount of PR was required then, because the vaccinations left permanent scars on the skin. The authorities got out ahead in front of this issue – and did not wait until it detonated when people started noticing it and sharing it with friends. Furthermore, smallpox vaccination rates were nowhere near 100% – but when you have a sterilizing vaccine, it does not need to be so. Political and health leaders did absolutely no kind of shaming or belittling. The messaging was almost all positive and congratulatory. It is also important to realize that this eradication occurred in an era of mass media but long before we had the Internet and especially social media. I do not think we can even begin to overestimate the absolutely horrific effect social media has had on our response this time. Most patients I see every day literally want to throw their hands in the air – they have completely given up.

There is ZERO wild smallpox on the face of this planet today. ZERO. The only place it is left intact is purportedly in the freezers of viral labs at the CDC and in Russia. I am not even certain about that.

Polio is a very similar story, but is not completely eradicated from the planet – just a sliver is left. And one could argue the same about measles, mumps, and others that have been made so uncommon that young doctors would not recognize the symptoms if seen in the ER.

Coronaviruses are a completely and totally unique virus family in almost every way conceivable. The pox viruses are much more amenable to vaccination efforts. But that in no way means that science will never find a way to eradicate a coronavirus aided by vaccinatinon.

But ERADICATION via vaccination would require a STERILIZING vaccine. And that is not where we are today. The sooner our health agencies and media begin to level with the people and not put out this kind of article the better we will all be. I was gravely concerned when the messaging earlier this year was so misleading that it was giving people the idea that the vaccines were causing eradication. The mainstream narrative today saying this was never the case just 4 months ago is totally deluding itself just like with so many other issues. “Why we never said that – everyone always knew it was never going to prevent you from getting it” – all over the news today – is belied by the statement on my vaccination consent form right in front of me – THIS VACCINATION WAS GIVEN AN EUA for PREVENTION of COVID-19. Right there on the form. It was a classic case of miscontruing concepts without actually lying that misled the vast majority of my patients. Big Pharma is very very good at that.

I am of the firm belief, that after the Biden performance last night, unless an intense leveling is done with the American people about appropriate expectations and soon – there will be enormous political consequences for his administration. More than half the country thinks that forced vaccination of these NON-STERILIZING vaccines is going to end this pandemic. That is not the case at all. And I can see a future of a lot of disappointment and anger.

There is precedent for where we are today – the FLU shots. Also non-sterilizing. But nobody discusses the flu vaccination in terms of eradication – because it is simply impossible with non-sterilizing vaccines. Level with the people. They clearly understand the flu shot. They clearly get it – the flu shot will not eradicate the virus from earth – it will however make you less likely to get really sick – WHEN YOU GET THE FLU. And we have learned to live with the flu with the tens/hundreds of thousands of casualties every year. Until something much better comes for COVID, it is going to be a similar story.

Until we begin to treat the citizens of the world as adults, and not kids – and quit bamboozling – we are never going to have buy in from every group as has happened in the past.

My two cents.

I would suggest – that making statements such as that sentence are really misleading to everyone but those who have been schooled in virology and vaccinology. Those words mean something completely different to me than my patients. The difference between an “infection” and a “transmissible infection” is debating angels on a pinhead for most people.

I get the feeling that they are realizing that the whole COVID vaccination story is getting shot through with holes – and they are pulling at straws.

I just had my front desk person read this article. A college graduate in English. She did not understand it the way it is being presented. Again – this is common BIG PHARMA dissembling.

It seems to me the argument here that most people get that the writer is trying to convey – is OH well – the COVID vaccine is not working out as well as we would hoped – but no big deal – neither did any other, when you really think about it and use arcane terms.

Nothing could be further from the truth –
When is the last time I saw a polio infection or a transmissable polio infection? NEVER
When is the last time I saw a smallpox infection or a transmissable smallpox infection? NEVER
I can go on with measles mumps, etc.

When is the last time I saw a COVID infection or a transmissable COVID infection – well I have seen 8 this AM – all in vaccinated patients.

And most people get that – and look sideways at articles like this trying to explain this away via word 

The Pfizer phase III trial is here:

Pay careful attention to the endpoints and definitions. The vaccines were never tested to prevent infection and transmission – only symptomatic illness and severe disease.

 

 

The UnVaccinated Didn't Cause This Surge Cornpop's Retarded Public Health Strategy Did....,

neuberger |  But all this public panic, anger and shaming of the unvaccinated by the vaccinated — what the Sun-Times calls “the pandemic of the unvaccinated”, for example — hides another fact. The Covid vaccines, as good as they are, were not designed to prevent infection in the first place, only symptoms.

Let that sink in. The current Covid vaccines were not designed to prevent infection. That's a major reason why "breakthrough infections" occur. In addition, because the vaccines do prevent severe symptoms and a vast majority of cases, the number of breakthrough infections must, by definition, be under-counted.

When the virus is circulating in a vaccinated population, variants that are more rapidly transmitting are selected for --- those are vaccine evading variants.

By vaccinating without shutting down transmission we are promoting vaccine evading variants.

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) September 9, 2021

This, from September 2020, was written by Dr. William Haseltine, formerly of the Harvard Medical School and a hero in the fight to genetically characterize AIDS (bio here and here):

Prevention of infection must be a critical endpoint. Any vaccine trial should include regularantien testing every three days to test contagiousness to pick up early signs of infection and PCR testing once a week to confirm infection by SARS-CoV-2 test the ability of the vaccines to stave off infection. Prevention of infection is not a criterion for success for any of these vaccines. In fact, their endpoints all require confirmed infections and all those they will include in the analysis for success, the only difference being the severity of symptoms between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Measuring differences amongst only those infected by SARS-CoV-2 underscores the implicit conclusion that the vaccines are not expected to prevent infection, only modify symptoms of those infected.

We all expect an effective vaccine to prevent serious illness if infected. Three of the vaccine protocols—Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca—do not require that their vaccine prevent serious disease[,] only that they prevent moderate symptoms which may be as mild as cough, or headache. [emphasis added]

It may well be true that these vaccines, to some degree, do protect against infection, but (to use a club brandished against those who recommend studying ivermectin) no clinical studies, to my knowledge, have established that, or have established the degree of that protection.

It's certainly true that the world wanted these vaccines on the market on the fastest schedule possible. And it's also true that they have saved a great many lives. Just look at the ratio of infections-to-deaths prior to the vaccine rollout, and the same ratio afterward (chart above).

But it is also true that it's not just the unvaccinated who are infecting the vaccinated, since both vaccinated and unvaccinated can be Covid carriers and spreaders.

Which means that, even if the world were 100% vaccinated with these vaccines, the vaccinated who host the virus would provide ample breeding ground for variants.

Isn't It Ironic How Quiet The Topic Of Natural Immunity Has Been Kept?

theorganicprepper  |  The most frustrating thing to me, the past year and a half, has been the constantly changing narrative and the dismissal of formerly well-understood scientific truths. Natural immunity is one of those concepts from freshman biology that many seem to completely disregard these days.

I think this is a natural effect of the “cult of expertise” we have in the United States. Seemingly, anyone with specific credentials is automatically deferred to, regardless of how competent they are… or more insidiously, where their financial interests lie.

I’ve gotten into some discussions with medical professionals about whether people who have recovered from the disease need to be vaccinated. These conversations would have been seen as utterly ridiculous three years ago. However, now, it seems, we all need to relearn freshman biology. So I’d like to review the concept of natural immunity to help organize my thoughts and maybe help others that feel like their heads are in a whirl.

I’ve got my old college biology textbook-Life: The Science of Biology, by Purves, Sadava, Orians, and Heller. I’ve got the sixth edition, published in 2001, so it’s about 20 years old. I also have a newer college biology textbook because I’m a big nerd. It’s Campbell Biology, by Reece, Urry, Cain, Wasserman, Minorsky, and Jackson, published in 2014. Both textbooks detail how our immune systems work, and both say pretty much the same thing.

Our bodies have two major ways of defending against disease.

Our innate defenses are things like our skin and mucus. We’re born with these, and they make it difficult for various pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and multicellular parasites to enter our bodies. Our bodies also have an immune system that recognizes and attacks any infectious agents that make it past our innate defenses.  

Our immune system is really sophisticated, and in healthy individuals, it works pretty well. Suppose some kind of pathogen makes it past the body’s innate defenses and begins infecting cells within the host. In that case, the host’s body will, in turn, start producing antibodies that will specifically attack the invading pathogen. The host body will continue producing antibodies until either the host dies or the invading cells die, and the patient’s body can return to normal.

The best part is, even after the active infection is over, the host’s body will retain the memory of the antibodies it produced during the infection. So if the formerly infected person reencounters the pathogen, the body will immediately have the antibodies to kill the pathogen. They rarely get sick gain, and if they do, it’s generally very mild.

Even the incredibly pro-vaccine Wall Street Journal had an article on this recently.

Usually, the WSJ leaves their articles up on the Opinion Page for about a week. However, within twenty-four hours, WSJ buried this article on natural immunity. Jeff had a great article about alternative media just the other day. This definitely feeds into his narrative about how much good info is getting buried right now.

Anyway, the WSJ article discusses mucosal immunity vs. internal immunity. The author (a neurologist) states that while vaccines stimulate internal immunity, they do nothing to address mucosal immunity. The viruses don’t penetrate the host’s organs, which is why most vaccinated people don’t get really sick. But, the viruses still live and reproduce in mucus-lined mouths and nasal passages. That is why vaccinated people with no symptoms are still spreading Covid like crazy. However, those of us that have recovered have both mucosal and internal immunity.

In case you needed further proof of the efficacy of natural immunity.

An Israeli study showed recently that vaccinated people were 13 times as likely to become infected and 27 times as likely to have symptomatic infections as people with natural immunity. 

Alex Berenson posted this information on Twitter on August 25, and the platform permanently banned him on August 28. However, medical professionals are starting to make noise about it, such as Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard epidemiologist. Hopefully, more people begin to listen.

 

Cornpop Declares War On 1/3rd Of Americans "We've Been Patient But Our Patience Is Wearing Thin"

Even if the world were 100% jabbed with these mRNA neo-vaccinoids, the jabbed - who host the virus - would provide ample breeding ground for variants.

It's likely much worse than this. It has been claimed that widespread distribution of a non-sterilizing mRNA goo into a population with high levels of infection and transmission is likely to select for variants that escape the goo induced immune response.

If that’s right, it looks like a colossal blunder to have relied on “symptom reduction for wild type-caused disease” as the primary public health response to the pandemic.
 
If the neo-vaccinoids don’t impact infections or transmission, or barely do so, how will they select for jab evasion? Someone, jabbed or not, gets infected and passes it on – where’s the selection pressure? Masks and distancing, on the other hand, would be expected to select for more transmissible variants.
 
Don’t masks and distancing stop transmission? If the virus doesn’t transmit then it doesn’t seem it can mutate – it would just die out, wouldn’t it? As I understand it, masks and distancing don’t stop transmission, they make it harder – thus favoring virus strains that are more transmissible.
 
It seems as though you’re saying that we are trading a short term benefit by masking and social distancing for a long term consequence of enhanced virulence of the virus. Would you suggest that it might be better (in the long run) not to mask and distance?

My understanding is viruses only survive and replicate in a host cell so it would seem the best way to get rid of this is to deny it host cells by masks and distancing and in some cases lock downs. The jabs as they are now seem like they are more a way to lead some facsimile of normal but they don’t really address the issue that the virus is still here and replicating in both jabbed and unjabbed.

What this will mean over time – who knows? I personally don’t have a whole lot of confidence in the government which seems more made to protect an economy than to save lives.
 
I’ve seen this exact argument applied to the neo-vaccinoids as they are non-sterilizing. It seemed like a sound argument not to rush out these neo-vaccinoids as they may create vaccine resistant strains like we might be seeing with Mu. I’ve not seen this about masking and distancing before. Do you think we are seeing these more virulent strains are occurring because we’ve been masking and distancing and not because we’re using non-sterilizing neo-vaccinoids?

dailymail |  President Joe Biden on Thursday declared war on the 80 million Americans who have yet to get a COVD vaccine and asked them 'what more is there to wait for' as he announced mandates covering two thirds of all workers.

'This is not about freedom or personal choice. It's about protecting yourself and those around you, the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love. My job as president is to protect all Americans,' he said in remarks in the State Dining Room at the White House.

'We've been patient but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us. So please do the right thing,' he said.

The ACLU USED TO Denounce Coercive Mandates...,

Greenwald |  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) surprised even many of its harshest critics this week when it strongly defended coercive programs and other mandates from the state in the name of fighting COVID. “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” its Twitter account announced, adding that “vaccine requirements also safeguard those whose work involves regular exposure to the public."

If you were surprised to see the ACLU heralding the civil liberties imperatives of "vaccine mandates” and "vaccine requirements” — whereby the government coerces adults to inject medicine into their own bodies that they do not want — the New York Times op-ed which the group promoted, written by two of its senior lawyers, was even more extreme. The article begins with this rhetorical question: “Do vaccine mandates violate civil liberties?” Noting that "some who have refused vaccination claim as much,” the ACLU lawyers say: “we disagree.” The op-ed then examines various civil liberties objections to mandates and state coercion — little things like, you know, bodily autonomy and freedom to choose — and the ACLU officials then invoke one authoritarian cliche after the next (“these rights are not absolute") to sweep aside such civil liberties concerns:

[W]hen it comes to Covid-19, all considerations point in the same direction. . . . In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. . . . .

[Many claim that] vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity. That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute. They do not include the right to inflict harm on others. . . . While vaccine mandates are not always permissible, they rarely run afoul of civil liberties when they involve highly infectious and devastating diseases like Covid-19. . . .

While limited exceptions are necessary, most people can be required to be vaccinated. . . . . Where a vaccine is not medically contraindicated, however, avoiding a deadly threat to the public health typically outweighs personal autonomy and individual freedom.

The op-ed sounds like it was written by an NSA official justifying the need for mass surveillance (yes, fine, your privacy is important but it is not absolute; your privacy rights are outweighed by public safety; we are spying on you for your own good). And the op-ed appropriately ends with this perfect Orwellian flourish: “We care deeply about civil liberties and civil rights for all — which is precisely why we support vaccine mandates.”

What makes the ACLU's position so remarkable — besides the inherent shock of a civil liberties organization championing state mandates overriding individual choice — is that, very recently, the same group warned of the grave dangers of the very mindset it is now pushing. In 2008, the ACLU published a comprehensive report on pandemics which had one primary purpose: to denounce as dangerous and unnecessary attempts by the state to mandate, coerce, and control in the name of protecting the public from pandemics.

Corporations Would Never Allow A Healthy Foods Mandate Like They Have Mask And Vaccination Mandates

RT |  The CEO of a health food company has learned the hard way that reciting medical data and coming to logical conclusions, like favoring a health mandate to prevent obesity, will bring out the corporate beast in the woke mob.

‘If you wish to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,’ goes the famous saying. If that is true, then Americans are being ruled by a truly domineering tyrant, who can’t bear to hear advice that just might save the entire kingdom.  

Jonathan Neman, CEO of the upscale salad chain Sweetgreen, broke some uncomfortable truths to the millions of Americans who are bursting around the waistline: being obese in the age of Covid could lead to their even more untimely death. 

“78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people,” Neman stated in a LinkedIn post that went viral. “Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention to? Is there another way to think about how we tackle ‘healthcare’ by addressing the root cause?” 

“We have been quick to put in place Mask and Vaccine Mandates but zero conversation on HEALTH MANDATES,” continued the CEO, as he waded unknowingly into alligator-infested swamp water. “All the while we have printed unlimited money to soften the blow the shutdowns have caused to our country.” 

Despite prefacing his argument with as much virtue signaling padding as possible, emphasizing that he was not an anti-vaxxer and thought vaccines a grand idea, it didn’t matter to the woke pack. Neman had committed the unforgivable crime of stating facts at a deranged moment in American history when the infantile, self-consumed audience has no other desire than to be lulled asleep with a candy-coated simulacrum of reality. 

And it wasn’t as though the CEO was misrepresenting the truth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, described the grim reality facing overweight and obese Americans as thus: “As clinicians develop care plans for COVID-19 patients, they should consider the risk for severe outcomes in patients with higher BMIs [Body Mass Index], especially for those with severe obesity…[which is] a risk factor for both hospitalization and death.”

Phugg Data: Cornpop Say "You Fitna Be Black If You Don't Submit To The mRNA Jab!!!"

swprs  |  Israel is reporting the highest coronavirus infection rate in the world, showing that neither vaccine mandates nor “vaccine passports” are suitable means to limit or end the pandemic.

Israel has been a global pioneer in covid mass vaccinations as well as in introducing the highly controversial “vaccine passport” (Green Pass). Nevertheless, since late August 2021, Israel has been reporting the highest coronavirus infection rate in the entire world (see chart above).

The Israeli case clearly shows that neither covid vaccine mandates nor “vaccine passports” are suitable means to limit or end the pandemic. This is because covid vaccines are unable to reduce coronavirus infections and transmission, and they lose much of their effectiveness even against severe disease within a few months, a medical fact already known from influenza vaccines.

It should be noted that even in Israel, covid vaccines continue to provide some protection against hospitalization and severe disease (about 50%). Nevertheless, double-vaccinated Israeli citizens will again be counted as ‘unvaccinated’ and will require a third dose. It may well be, however, that “booster shots” have in fact increased recent coronavirus infections (“post-vaccination spike”).

On the positive side, Israeli data confirms that natural immunity, acquired through previous infection, is much stronger and long-lasting – providing a protection up to 27 times higher than vaccination – thus opening up a realistic perspective to end the pandemic. Depending on the country, between 5% and 75% of the population have already acquired natural immunity.

In addition, Israel was the first country to confirm the rather troubling safety profile of covid vaccines, reporting a “murky wave of heart attacks” and an increase in all-cause mortality – even in young people – already back in March and April 2021. By now, serious and fatal cardiovascular and neurological covid vaccine adverse events have been well documented (see updated overview). Globally, covid vaccines may already have killed or severely injured more than 100,000 people.  Fist tap Dale.

Sassy Staff Sgt. With A Tight Little Haircut Will Make A Fruitful Handmaid....,

nakedcapitalism |  Hatred of The Other was supposed to a hallmark of the uneducated, provincial, and intolerant. Yet we now see bloody, vicious fantasies about what should happen to Them for being wrong-thinking and wrong-acting being not just voiced freely, but even applauded.

The immediate manifestation is open hatred for the unvaxxed. The Othering of them takes the form of depicting them as white Trump voting Bubbas, when vaccination rates happen to be relatively low also among blacks, Hispanics, and curiously, PhDs. In a belated admission that the media stereotyping of the unvaxxed is too narrow, minority vaccine-shunners are being rebranded as “vaccine deliberate.”¹

One of the new big ways to despise The Bad (Presumed White) unvaxxed is to depict them as unworthy of receiving medical care for Covid because it’s supposedly their fault that they are in this fix. Yet no one bats an eye at treating smokers for cancer and COPD, or STD victims who presumably couldn’t be bothered to use a condom, or the overweight for heart attacks and diabetes or drunks who smash themselves up with their cars, or attempted suicides. If we’re going to go strong form “only the deserving get treated,” we could probably shrink the size of the medical industry by two-thirds.

And this sentiment is getting a following. Our IM Doc practices in one of the bluest counties in the US. A recent report:

During lunch in the doctor’s lounge word came that an unvaccinated patient had died at the tertiary center he was sent last night. 3 MDs sat at the table next to me and out loud something like this – “WELL THAT DUMB ASS HAD IT COMING”. I sat for a moment and no one else said a word. I could not believe it. I finally had to say something – “My Chairman [a superstar of academic medicine and renown medical ethicist] would have fired my ass on the spot for even thinking something like that about an AIDS patient. That is completely unprofessional and inappropriate to say that out loud.” THAT IS YOUR OPINION, THESE DUMB BUTTS HAVE IT COMING – was the reply.

They are getting meaner and more brazen by the day – as the whole vaccine narrative continues to become unhinged more every day.

I am feeling that I am getting the idea what it was like to watch normal happy German citizens turn into the SS.

Admittedly I wasn’t there, but particularly coming from a clutch of doctors, this line of talk sounds a bit too much like Lebensunwertes Leben for my comfort.

The other justification for punishing the yahoos is that they pose a contagion threat.

The fury of self-designated members of the elite towards people they don’t know or know only as stereotypes comes off as a parent or authority who is enraged that they are being defied. It’s not as if many or any are angry that hospital workers are being driven to the breaking point, for instance, It’s because their sense of how things should work is being defiled.

And that goes back to 2016. A big chunk of the folks who think they are in charge by virtue being deserving had their collective Great Chain of Being upended when Trump won. Trump then compounded his sin by having a revolving collection of incompetents and loud-mouths in his Administration. What was remarkable is that rather than coolly plotting their comeback, the out group spent four years whining at the loudest warble imaginable and focusing tremendous energy on the supposed Trump show-stopper, Russiagate, that delivered a big fat squib.

If push comes to shove, the professional-managerial class cannot rely on the support of the police. Look at how New York City’s finest openly dissed De Blasio. The military are not supposed to operate domestically and would likely use that prohibition to stand aside. The professional-managerial class does not control the ports, trucking, or rail operations. The crop-growing areas of California are under conservative control. Etc.

So the members of the professional-managerial class are correct to be insecure about their authority and claims of legitimacy. But going authoritarian when they lack adequate control of supply lines and enforcement mechanisms is an exceedingly risky wager.

 

America Is In Full Collapse Now And Nowhere Near As Resiliant As The USSR Was

permaculturenews |  The next circle of denial revolves around what must inevitably come to pass if the Goddess of Technology were to fail us: a series of wars over ever more scarce resources. Paul Roberts, who is very well informed on the subject of peak oil, has this to say: "what desperate states have always done when resources turn scarce… [is] fight for them." [ MotherJones.com, 11/12 2004] Let us not argue that this has never happened, but did it ever amount to anything more than a futile gesture of desperation? Wars take resources, and, when resources are already scarce, fighting wars over resources becomes a lethal exercise in futility. Those with more resources would be expected to win. I am not arguing that wars over resources will not occur. I am suggesting that they will be futile, and that victory in these conflicts will be barely distinguishable from defeat. I would also like to suggest that these conflicts would be self-limiting: modern warfare uses up prodigious amounts of energy, and if the conflicts are over oil and gas installations, then they will get blown up, as has happened repeatedly in Iraq. This will result in less energy being available and, consequently, less warfare.

Take, for example, the last two US involvements in Iraq. In each case, as a result of US actions, Iraqi oil production decreased. It now appears that the whole strategy is a failure. Supporting Saddam, then fighting Saddam, then imposing sanctions on Saddam, then finally overthrowing him, has left Iraqi oil fields so badly damaged that the "ultimate recoverable" estimate for Iraqi oil is now down to 10-12% of what was once thought to be underground (according to the New York Times).

Some people are even suggesting a war over resources with a nuclear endgame. On this point, I am optimistic. As Robert McNamara once thought, nuclear weapons are too difficult to use. And although he has done a great deal of work to make them easier to use, with the introduction of small, tactical, battlefield nukes and the like, and despite recently renewed interest in nuclear "bunker busters," they still make a bit of a mess, and are hard to work into any sort of a sensible strategy that would reliably lead to an increased supply of energy. Noting that conventional weapons have not been effective in this area, it is unclear why nuclear weapons would produce better results.

But these are all details; the point I really want to make is that proposing resource wars, even as a worst-case scenario, is still a form of denial. The implicit assumption is this: if all else fails, we will go to war; we will win; the oil will flow again, and we will be back to business as usual in no time. Again, I would suggest against waiting around for the success of a global police action to redirect the lion’s share of the dwindling world oil supplies toward the United States.

Outside this last circle of denial lies a vast wilderness called the Collapse of Western Civilization, roamed by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or so some people will have you believe. Here we find not denial but escapism: a hankering for a grand finale, a heroic final chapter. Civilizations do collapse – this is one of the best-known facts about them – but as anyone who has read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire will tell you, the process can take many centuries.

What tends to collapse rather suddenly is the economy. Economies, too, are known to collapse, and do so with far greater regularity than civilizations. An economy does not collapse into a black hole from which no light can escape. Instead, something else happens: society begins to spontaneously reconfigure itself, establish new relationships, and evolve new rules, in order to find a point of equilibrium at a lower rate of resource expenditure.

Note that the exercise carries a high human cost: without an economy, many people suddenly find themselves as helpless as newborn babes. Many of them die, sooner than they would otherwise: some would call this a "die-off." There is a part of the population that is most vulnerable: the young, the old, and the infirm; the foolish and the suicidal. There is also another part of the population that can survive indefinitely on insects and tree bark. Most people fall somewhere in between.

Economic collapse gives rise to new, smaller and poorer economies. That pattern has been repeated many times, so we can reason inductively about similarities and differences between a collapse that has already occurred and one that is about to occur. Unlike astrophysicists, who can confidently predict whether a given star will collapse into a neutron star or a black hole based on measurements and calculations, we have to work with general observations and anecdotal evidence. However, I hope that my thought experiment will allow me to guess correctly at the general shape of the new economy, and arrive at survival strategies that may be of use to individuals and small communities.

You Do Know Most Everything In America Is Delivered By Diesel Trucks...,

In talks with my homie who just wrapped up a ten year stint with YRC, he tells me that most all the Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) Level Sensors are made in Malaysia, and the factory is shut down there, and this is a part which needs to be replaced about every year or so, and an ungodly amount of big rigs are down for lack of this part. The same sensor is used on buses and RV’s, which are also down for the count. 

Read some of the stories from RV’ers in the second link, to give you an idea of all of the sudden ‘you ain’t going nowhere’ sagas.  He also mentioned there are hardly any new big rigs for sale, similar to the new car shortage. Another friend went to a Honda dealer just across State Line and related that they had a mere 13 new cars for sale.

trucknews |  Fleet maintenance teams are struggling to source many of the truck parts they need as suppliers face shortages of commodities from microchips to rubber.

“It’s really starting to dribble down into common parts,” said Darry Stuart of DWS Fleet Management, during an online Fleet Talk presentation for the spring meeting of the American Trucking Association’s Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC).

The emerging rubber shortage alone could affect the availability and pricing of everything from tires to O-rings, added TMC executive director Robert Braswell.

Several reports have identified challenges including China’s recent stockpiling of natural rubber, as well as flooding and disease that are affecting rubber trees themselves.

But the shortages are not limited to parts alone. While South Shore Transportation maintenance director Kevin Tomlinson admits it’s difficult to source wood for trailer floors, he is facing lengthy waits for new trailers themselves.

“It’s a perfect storm of build and parts,” Tomlinson said, referring to the surging market demand that has aligned with the material shortages.

Industry analysts at FTR recently reported that U.S. trailer manufacturers are almost booked solid for the remainder of 2021 and have yet to open 2022 order boards because they’re uncertain about material and component costs.

rvtravel |  Most current USA-produced diesel engines are equipped with federal government-required devices that reduce nitrogen oxide tailpipe emissions.

So what does that have to do with anything?

A major way these emissions are controlled is by injecting DEF into exhaust gases. The DEF helps convert nitrogen oxide, an air pollutant, into nitrogen and oxygen. Both of these elements are found in the air we breathe and, in themselves, are harmless. A monitoring system ensures this process goes as planned.

How does the DEF monitor work? 

To ensure the DEF in a vehicle system is effective, a monitoring system checks, among other things, its quality, quantity, and temperature. The complete monitoring system is made up of various parts and is commonly called a “DEF head.” If this system determines the DEF isn’t up to standard (or has run out), the DEF head sends a signal to the engine computer warning of the trouble.

The engine control computer, on receiving this signal, turns on a dash warning light. At this point, a sort of “clock” begins a countdown. For many users, after 100 miles or so the engine is “de-rated,” or slowed down to as low as five miles per hour. It’s a sure inducement to get the rig to a repair shop.

So why is de-rating a problem?

If your motorhome or truck is de-rated, you get nowhere fast. If your de-rate happens while traveling down a high-speed roadway, the chances of a rear-end collision from a faster rig are increased. Enter the human toll, not just from a real traffic accident, but the mental stress of worrying about it.

Why not just get the problem fixed and keep on going?

Like so many modern products, DEF heads contain silicon chip microprocessors. These are the culprits that are causing the problem – they’re failing. The chips are very specific in design, and require the appropriate replacements. But just as the auto industry is shutting down production lines due to the worldwide shortage of microchips, DEF head manufacturers are likewise plagued. Many RVers are being told replacement DEF heads could be months away. Meanwhile, their RVs sit immobile and useless. The human toll here is real.

If there aren’t microchips to fix the problem, can’t something else be done?

A temporary “fix” exists. While the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) requires the DEF monitoring system, it recognizes some “essential” services can’t be stopped. For example, emergency vehicles simply can’t be de-rated, lest those rigs be put out of service. An allowance has been made to keep the DEF monitoring systems in place. They warn of bad DEF, but don’t de-rate the engines. If the EPA were to allow reprogramming of engine control computers in RVs in this same way, RVers could get on down the road.

Across The Board Mainstream Media Just Lied About Ivermectin In Oklahoma

Admitting some really safe, and inexpensive treatments like Invermectin have great value would diminish fear and slam the brakes on expensive treatments. I do not know this hypothesis to be true, but if there ever is a strong perception that the most influential members of the American medical community plus much of the media has decided that allowing Americans to suffer and die because otherwise it just opens a can of worms regarding activities in 2020, well, what will be found? Under such a hypothesis, “leaders” may be shocked that it is September 2021 and they still can’t move out of the trenches they dug even while all kinds of countries concern themselves with treating the sick effectively.

reason |  KFOR, an Oklahoma news channel, reported last week that rural hospitals throughout the state were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by victims of a very specific poisoning: overdoses of ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug promoted by vaccine skeptics as a possible treatment for COVID-19.

The story went viral, and was seized upon by the mainstream media. But its central claim is substantially untrue.

The meat of the story is a series of quotes from an Oklahoma doctor, Jason McElyea, who appears to attribute overcrowding at local hospitals to a deluge of ivermectin overdoses.

"The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated," McElyea told KFOR's Katelyn Ogle.

The story ran under the headline: "Patients overdosing on ivermectin backing up rural Oklahoma hospitals, ambulances." It was quickly picked up by national news outlets, such as Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and the New York Daily News. Numerous high-profile media figures, including MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, tweeted about ivermectin overdoses straining Oklahoma hospitals—the implication being that the right-wing embrace of a crank COVID-19 cure was dangerous not only for the people who consumed it but for the stability of the entire medical system.

It was a story that appeared to confirm many of the mainstream media's biases about the recklessness of the rubes. But it's extremely misleading. There is, in fact, little reason to believe a purported strain on Oklahoma hospitals is caused by ivermectin overdoses; one hospital served by the doctor quoted in the KFOR article released a statement saying it has not treated any ivermectin overdoses, nor has it been forced to turn away patients.

This is yet another example of the mainstream media lazily circulating a narrative that flatters the worldview of the liberal audience, without bothering to check on any of the details. Additional reporting was sorely needed here, and has now completely undermined the central point of the story.

 

The "Scientific Consensus" Is About To Rapidly Solidify Behind The "Political Mandates"

jonathan-cook  |  In some of these blogs I have been trying to gently highlight what should be a very obvious fact: that “the science” we are being constantly told to follow is not quite as scientific as is being claimed.

That is inevitable in the context of a new virus about which much is still not known. And it is all the more so given that our main response to the pandemic – vaccination – while being a relatively effective tool against the worst disease outcomes is nonetheless an exceedingly blunt one. Vaccines are the epitome of the one-size-fits-all approach of modern medicine.

Into the void between our scientific knowledge and our fear of mortality has rushed politics. It is a refusal to admit that “the science” is necessarily compromised by political and commercial considerations that has led to an increasingly polarised – and unreasonable – confrontation between what have become two sides of the Covid divide. Doubt and curiosity have been squeezed out by the bogus certainties of each faction.

All of this has been underscored by the latest decision of the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation, the British government’s official advisory body on vaccinations. Unexpectedly, it has defied political pressure and demurred, for the time being at least, on extending the vaccination programme to children aged between 12 and 15.

The British government appears to be furious. Ministers who have been constantly demanding that we “follow the science” are reportedly ready to ignore the advice – or more likely, bully the JCVI into hastily changing its mind over the coming days.

Over the weekend, the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, even suggested, in a potentially radical overhaul of traditional ideas of medical consent, that doctors – and presumably schools – might soon be allowed to persuade children as young as 12 to get vaccinated against their parents’ wishes.

And liberal media outlets like the Guardian, which have been so careful until now to avoid giving a platform to “dissident” scientists, are suddenly subjecting the great and the good of the vaccination establishment to harsh criticism from doctors who want children vaccinated as quickly as possible.

Watching this confected “row” unfold, one thing is clear: “the science” is getting another political pummelling.

 

lil'Fauci And Francis Collins Both Lied About Funding Wuhan Gain Of Function Research

Now, thanks to materials (here and here) released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Intercept against the National Institutes of Health (which were unredacted enough to toss Fauci under the bus), we now know that Fauci-funded EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit headed by Peter Daszak, was absolutely engaged in gain-of-function research to make chimeric SARS-based coronaviruses, which they confirmed could infect human cells.

Ebright summarized The Intercept's reporting in a Monday night Twitter thread:

theintercept |  "The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the NIAID, as well as project updates relating to the EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic." 

 

The materials show that the 2014 and 2019 NIH grants to EcoHealth with subcontracts to WIV funded gain-of-function research as defined in federal policies in effect in 2014-2017 and potential pandemic pathogen enhancement as defined in federal policies in effect in 2017-present. 

 

(This had been evident previously from published research papers that credited the 2014 grant and from the publicly available summary of the 2019 grant. But this now can be stated definitively from progress reports of the 2014 grant and the full proposal of the 2017 grant.) 

 

The materials confirm the grants supported the construction--in Wuhan--of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses that combined a spike gene from one coronavirus with genetic information from another coronavirus, and confirmed the resulting viruses could infect human cells. 

 

The materials reveal that the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses also could infect mice engineered to display human receptors on cells ("humanized mice"). 

 

The materials further reveal for the first time that one of the resulting novel, laboratory-generated SARS-related coronaviruses--one not been previously disclosed publicly--was more pathogenic to humanized mice than the starting virus from which it was constructed... 

 

...and thus not only was reasonably anticipated to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity, but, indeed, was *demonstrated* to exhibit enhanced pathogenicity.

 

The materials further reveal that the the grants also supported the construction--in Wuhan--of novel chimeric MERS-related coronaviruses that combined spike genes from one MERS-related coronavirus with genetic information from another MERS-related coronavirus. 

 

The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement at WIV are untruthful.

MSDNC Kwestioning The Sincerity Of The Neo-Vaccinoid Deliberate

nbcnews |  Backlash to the latest push for religious exemptions could backfire, however.

Doug Opel, a bioethics and pediatrics professor at the University of Washington who has written about the challenges of religious exemptions and vaccination mandates, pointed out that arguing against and not allowing religious exemptions might do more harm than good.

Though there are certainly people who will attempt to falsely secure an exemption, he said he believed that only a small minority of the American population would likely try to obtain one. It might be better to allow religious exemptions to reduce the perception of coercion and allow the vaccination mandates to stand with fewer challenges, he said.

“A policy reason to have exemptions is to allow the very few people who want to opt out to opt out and then allow the mandate itself to stand and be acceptable and sustainable over time,” he said. “Even if a minority opt out, the vast majority will get vaccinated, and the mandate will have served its purpose of reducing transmission and disease.”

70% Would Quit Rather Than Submit To The mRNA Neo-Vaccinoid

theweek  |  About 70 percent of unvaccinated Americans who are not self-employed said they would likely quit their job if their employer mandated COVID-19 vaccines and did not grant religious or medical exemptions, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found.

Those numbers don't suggest vaccine mandates would lead to a massive exodus from the workplace since a healthy majority of employees who are working at places that have yet to implement a mandate have already received their shots. But among the 30 percent or so who haven't, there is significant opposition. Only 16 percent from that group would comply with a mandate, while 35 percent said they would seek an exemption and 42 percent would leave. If there's no exemption, then 72 percent of those surveyed said they would quit.

Wash Post/ABC poll shows 67% of workers who aren't self-employed would respond to a workplace vaccine requirement by quitting or asking for an exemption and quitting if it's denied. pic.twitter.com/Ad49dgFpP6

— Jon Steingart (@jonsteingart) September 5, 2021

The Post/ABC poll was conducted by telephone between Aug. 20-Sept. 1 among 1,066 adults in the U.S. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points. Read more at The Washington Post.

Gingerly Blacksplaining Why Black And Brown Americans Are "Neo-Vaccinoid Deliberate"

abcnews  |  Much has been made about people of color being hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Numbers have shown that Black and Latino vaccination rates are lagging behind those of white people in America.

About 40% of Black people and 45% of Latinos have been at least partially vaccinated as of Aug. 16, compared to 50% of white people, according to the latest data by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And as of Aug. 16, 72% of people eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine were at least partially vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, researchers only have race or ethnicity data of 58% of the vaccinated population, of which 58% is white, 10% Black and 17% Hispanic.

There have been myriad efforts to explain the racial and ethnic vaccine rate disparity. Misinformation online has been blamed. Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many were exposed to a slew of misleading health information, including hoaxes about the COVID-19 vaccines, some specifically targeted at Blacks and Latinos. Other experts identify structural barriers to vaccines, including health literacy, vaccine safety concerns, and physical access as contributing factors. Distrust of the medical system and government was also cited as an underlying source of vaccine disparity.

Misinformation plays a small role in vaccine deliberation in people of color, study finds

Recent research by First Draft, a nonprofit focused on combating misinformation, found misinformation to only play a small role in vaccine deliberation among Black and Latino communities, but it also concluded that the role of misinformation should not be understated as it may be effective on people who exhibit higher levels of mistrust in institutions.

 

This Has Happened Previously Before Settling Down To Become A Common Cold...,

I have been doing a great deal of research about a past pandemic which I have never spent much time investigating – the Great Russian Flu of the 1890s. This has always been thought to be an actual influenza – but recent genetic and virologic studies are showing us that this was very likely the introduction of Coronavirus OC43 to the world.

Many physicians at the time were chronicling that the symptoms of this “flu” were different than any other influenza had ever been. Even Sir William Osler, in written statements in his textbooks of Internal Medicine, was of the notion that the symptoms exhibited by patients during that pandemic of the 1890s were really not like the normal flu. His books were written in the decades immediately leading up to the “real” influenza pandemic of 1918. And the one symptom that over and over described by numerous physicians that were writing at the time, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was depression. This just does not happen to any degree in true INFLUENZA and many remarked on the difference.

It must be noted that the word “depression” is a rather modern word and a modern construct. This construct is from our very reductionist, form-filling out, check the boxes modern medicine. “Depression” today is a drop bucket of multiple different diagnoses of the past. FYI, there are many things like this in medicine, not just depression.

Conan Doyle and Osler would have used more prominently the diagnosis “melancholia” to describe what we commonly use as “depression” today. But interestingly enough, contemporaneous medical writers of the 1890s often used a completely different word with a completely different diagnostic meaning to describe what they were seeing in patients of that pandemic. That word is ACEDIA. I have seen it used repeatedly in my research of the pandemic of the 1890s.

The difference is completely lost on us today – but it is actually a very important distinction. ACEDIA is an old medieval concept which is very difficult to describe. Basically it means a depression of the soul. A SPIRITUAL depression. While melancholia was more of a behavioral depression. Mainly having to do with living with consequences of behavior or reaction to events in a patient’s life.

Interestingly, when I am really talking to these POST COVID patients today – it is indeed more consistent with the spiritual and soul exhaustion of ACEDIA – and not behavioral or reactive like most depressions are. I have occasionally seen this ACEDIA type of depression before, but it is now just one patient after the other. I am also seeing ACEDIA like depression repeatedly in patients who have never had COVID. It is a sign of the times. In the days of Osler and Conan Doyle, they had no way to test patients for the presence of the virus and just assumed everyone had been infected by the miasma. I think today I am seeing this in POST COVID patients and non-infected as well.

The writers of that era in the 1890s were unequivocal in what they were seeing in their coronavirus pandemic – an epidemic of ACEDIA in those who had had the illness. I find it profoundly fascinating that the exact same type of thing is happening in our coronavirus patients and our COVID world today.

If indeed it was OC43 the infection rate is now 100%.

It sweeps over the earth and we all get it every other year or so.

That is what the concept of endemic status is.

Endemicity isn’t necessarily a good thing. Many endemic infections still kill millions yearly malaria and AIDS being the ones that come to my mind instantly. There are many others.

We should obviously try as hard as we can to limit casualities. But at some point, we as humans will need to come to grips with the fact that these pandemic introductions are one of the costs of the privilege of living here. It is part of life.

There is possibly nothing we can do about it. We have repeatedly tried in both human and animal outbreaks and have never been successful even once. I have my doubts we will succeed this time. It will however eventually calm down and behave like its cousins like OC43.

Unlike the mantra of modern neoliberalism, we as humans are not in charge.

When you read contemporaneous writing from politicians and medical people both in the 1890s and 1918 flu you instantly realize that they were doing their best to make citizens understand this simple concept. The hubris approach of modern times that we are in charge would have been unthinkable then. We will see how it all plays out. I have my opinion that they were much more wise during those earlier pandemics.