NYTimes | In late spring,
the 142 nursing homes operated by the Good Samaritan Society hit a
milestone that was unthinkable just four months earlier: Zero cases of
Covid-19 across the whole company, from 900 at the peak of the pandemic.
The relief was short-lived.
The
case count has ticked up again: It’s still below 100 among residents
and staff, the company said, but includes many breakthrough cases of
vaccinated residents testing positive. Then last week, two vaccinated
residents died with Covid at the Good Samaritan Society-Deuel County
nursing home in Clear Lake, South Dakota.
The
company said it had pinpointed the cause of the spread there and at
other of its facilities: The breakthroughs had happened in the same
homes where unvaccinated staff were testing positive, seemingly carrying
the virus into the home from the community.
“We
fought this virus, and we were winning with the vaccine,” said Randy
Bury, chief executive of the Good Samaritan Society, a nonprofit chain
that operates in 24 states.
Late last month,
the company became one of the largest long-term care chains in the
country to order mandatory vaccines for staff, highlighting turmoil
within an industry desperate to avoid a repeat of the devastation that
swept through this highly vulnerable population.
After
sharp drops in infections over the last several months, the number of
Covid cases among U.S. nursing-home residents and staff roughly tripled
from the week of July 4 to the week ending July 25, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency’s data show that cases of Covid among residents had risen to 1,312, the highest figure reported since early March.
About 133,000 nursing home residents died of Covid
over the course of the pandemic, although the death rate has plummeted
in recent months with more than 80 percent of residents now vaccinated.
Overall, Covid deaths among nursing home residents and staff members
accounted for nearly one-third of the nation’s pandemic fatalities.
Growing
calls for vaccine mandates among health care workers have gained
urgency but also met resistance in the nursing home industry, where some
homes say it will cost them staff members in an industry already
plagued with high turnover. Only about 60 percent of nursing home staff
members are vaccinated, and some states report an even lower rate, with
less than half inoculated, according to the most recent government data.
TAE | For some obscure reason we have accepted the idea that we can do no
risk stratification, that everyone is at equal risk, and therefore
everyone should undergo the same treatment. And then we find out that
this treatment doesn’t work, or only half, or only for a few months,
etc. But you can be sure insurance companies are still doing risk
stratification, also for Covid, it’s how they make a profit.
We find the vaccine is not a vaccine, but a therapeutic. An untested
one at that. While we could have focused on prevention, either for
everyone or just for the vulnerable, and early treatment for early
victims. As 80% of people were never at risk at all and 80% have already
been infected and survived.
There are plenty ways to do prevention and we have discarded them
all, in favor for a treatment that now turns against us. That is to say,
the vaccine makes the virus more, not less, dangerous. It’s not the
unvaccinated that are the pool the virus mutates in, it’s the
vaccinated.
And it’s not only the mutations. All Covid therapeutics used in the
west induce the vaccinees’ body to produce spike proteins, which are
toxic to the body. Initially, it was claimed that they would stay near
the site of injection, but we soon found that they spread through the
entire body, and assemble especially in the most vulnerable spots:
lungs, testes, placenta etc.
And that’s not all either: we now see suspicions that the spike
proteins remain active in the body, and continue to be produced inside
the body, for much longer than we were told they would be. An as yet
unpublished report will claim that they have been found five months
after injection, instead of mere days. The potential consequences would
be much more disastrous than the virus.
And wouldn’t you know, the moment we find out from the CDC itself
that the vaccines don’t work, that same CDC clamors for more
vaccinations, and all the usual suspects in the media and politics and
“expertise” chime in. Everyone vaccinated now or we’ll take your jobs
away, and all of your fun. Children, no matter how young, must be
jabbed, even pregnant women. This therapeutic we never really tested is
perfectly safe for your unborn child!
Without a jab, you’re a lethal danger to everyone who’s been vaccinated!
Well, actually, I am not, and thanks to the CDC now I can prove it.
“Vaccine
efficacy and vaccine effectiveness measure the proportionate reduction
in cases among vaccinated persons. Vaccine efficacy is used when a study
is carried out under ideal conditions, for example, during a clinical
trial. Vaccine effectiveness
is used when a study is carried out under typical field (that is, less
than perfectly controlled) conditions.” according to the CDC.
With our warped medical leaders, politicians, pharma-profiteers and
big media now feeding us “Delta Variant” swill as if we were caged
pigs, a few things may be of use to better frame our perspectives and
understandings on this, —the latest CDC etc. Narrative
Operation.
Israel is now reporting Vaccine Effectiveness for covid shots at 39%-40%.
Alroy-Preis stated fully half, or 50% of the current infections in Israel are among those fully vaccinated.
And she told Haaretz: “we see a drop in the vaccine effectiveness
against disease for those who have been vaccinated early on, and we see
it for both elderly people over the age of 60 but also for the younger.”
This means that the claimed ~40% VE is in fact going down as she speaks.
What will the actual VE end up being?
During a March 2021 interview with France 24, Alroy-Preis said 80
percent in that country eligible were already vaccinated against
Covid-19 — claiming: “You can get to a point in this pandemic where you
open sectors and the disease goes down.”
Her March claims, along with her credibility have gone up in smoke
as the Zionist Entity begins more draconian lockdowns etc. in a matter
of days.
And we also have more fantasy, masquerading as science from New England Journal of Medicine, dateline July 21, 2021.
This NEJM work on behalf of big pharma — and not on our behalf at
all — has been recently used to create the illusion that covax VE can
do what has never been, regarding influenza vax’.
“With the BNT162b2 vaccine, the effectiveness of two doses was
93.7%” NEJM says, and also states: “88.0% (95% CI, 85.3 to 90.1) among
those with the delta variant.”
This is hyped at top of this paper, in third paragraph under results.
Fourth paragraph: “This finding would support efforts to maximize
vaccine uptake with two doses among vulnerable populations. (Funded by
Public Health England.)”
Way down,
27th paragraph: “The numbers of cases and follow-up periods are
currently insufficient for the estimation of vaccine effectiveness
against severe disease, including hospitalization and death.”
“Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness (VE) is measured by calculating the
risk of disease among vaccinated and unvaccinated persons and
determining the percentage reduction in risk of disease among vaccinated
persons relative to unvaccinated persons.”
VE includes measuring against disease — whether mild, moderate, severe, and deadly.
And this, published in NEJM!?!
Be that as it may, prior to March 2020, it was widely accepted:
that 40% VE was “OK” for the CDC — even as they for decades claimed they
wanted at least 90%.
When the drug pushers claimed with zero evidence in November, in
concordance with the Emergency Use Authorizations for Moderna and
Pfizer, they were claiming the impossible, at least, what has always
been impossible: any VE better than 50% for influenza
vaccination’.
It was ON PURPOSE the medical charlatans and vaccine fanatics in
charge of this criminal operation pretended not to know the obvious
about VE.
These false expectations of 90% and higher for covid shots — the
“experts” all knew all along this was myth, a fairy tale — their science
fiction posing as scientific knowledge. . . and the false expectations
they created obviously totally inappropriate:
and now they are stuck in their own contradictions. [But they got their
EUA, and got to pillage the lands far and wide with their experimental
poison, now appearing to be creating potential catastrophe. As we will
see below, this is exactly what the CDC is
now saying; however, they are not stating this obviousness in a rational
and coherent manner. Rather, in a way that in effect blames us for it.
But what else is new?]
The gaslighting continues.
This CDC graph shows last 11 years of VE: 43% average VE, for influenza.
And depending on the type of flu — it was completely worthless
during 2018/2019 flu season for those aged 9 – 49 years old: EV = 3%,
for H3N2, that season.
The 40% VE rate [and dropping] that Israel is now reporting would
have been considered normal — unacceptable, yes; normal, also yes.
Googling “Vaccine Effectiveness” and covid VE, you won’t find
anything, in US, on this essential matter — though our dear CDC Director
Rochelle Walensky is ‘weighing in’:
“The largest concern that I think we in public health and sciences
are worried about is that virus and potential mutations. . . the
potential to evade our vaccine in terms of how it protects us from
severe disease and death,” Walensky said last week.
“Right now, fortunately, we are not there. These vaccines operate
really well in protecting us from severe disease and death,” she said. “But the big concern is the next area that might emerge, just a few
mutations potentially away, could potentially evade our vaccines,” the
CDC director said.
In other words: VE = 0 . . . . Zero vaccine effectiveness.
This is
the kernel of the on-purpose-created mass confusion, of which Walensky
is directly complicit.
Vaccines unable to prevent disease spread are worthless.
As Dr. Meryl Nass, MD, put it: “This is called community spread,
and when you cannot identify where the virus was picked up, and you
refuse to treat contacts with effective post-exposure drugs, then Track
and Trace is simply an expensive, bad joke.”
And worse, the CDC director is trying to pretend she and her agency don’t know where the spread is originating!
“In an unvaccinated person, the virus does not encounter the same
evolutionary pressure to mutate into something stronger. So, if
SARS-CoV-2 does end up mutating into more lethal strains, then mass
vaccination is the most likely driver,” he said.
To sum up, what the science fiction likes of Walensky et al. are
trying to obscure is that the overall VE for covid shots may end up
being as bad as the 2018/2019 influenza season.
Overall VE is how the CDC has always reported VE; and they would
also break that down to subset by the different influenza strains and
clades as need be.
“Delta” is part of the “novel” corona subset. We’ll see what the data says — someday.
aier | Since the Covid pandemic broke out, Sweden has been fought over more
than any other part of Europe since Germany in the 30 Years War. In
refusing to use an iron fist to control a virus, lockdown advocates
claimed it was either committing murder or suicide; choose your favorite
metaphor. Relatively few such as me, in three separate articles,
claimed the Nordic country was sparing both the economy and something
called “liberty” with its light-handed approach. My favorite title
(editor chose it): “Media Enraged That More Swedes Aren’t Dying.”
Total Swedish Covid deaths at this writing: 14,651.
It’s not that Sweden did nothing – but very little. “From the onset
of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Public Health Agency . . . embarked on a
de-facto herd immunity approach, allowing community transmission to
occur relatively unchecked,” declared a scathing editorial in the leftwing medical journal TheLancet
last December. “No mandatory measures were taken to limit crowds on
public transport, in shopping malls, or in other crowded places,” it
said. “Coronavirus testing, contact tracing, source identification, and
reporting, as recommended by WHO, were limited and remain inadequate.”
High schools closed temporarily, but grade schools never.
“In our view,” snarled The Lancet, “there is still not
sufficient recognition in the national strategy of the importance of
pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission, aerosol transmission, and
use of face masks.”
Time to revisit Sweden as much of the world starts locking down and
masking again regardless of vaccination levels, blaming the Delta
variant. And those impudent Swedes are pretty much refusing to die of Covid at all.
We are
dealing with human beings – sometimes at the very worst moments of their
lives. – truth is the very foundation of what we do.
Without it, everything will come crashing down.
I have literally thousands of former students, interns, and residents on
forums that I keep up with often. They are some of the leaders of this
profession. They are located in every corner of this country. It is
through them that I have been able to keep a
pulse on what is going on medically in this country. And it is through
them that I realized early on in this pandemic that all was not as it
was being presented. Fear mongering, lying, panic and hysteria were
rapidly becoming the order of the day. Absolute
mistruths were being told to the American people. Numbers and figures
were being quoted completely out of context and historical perspective
to scare people to death. More importantly, critical issues about the
virus and the disease it causes were not being
discussed at all. For example, as was true then and is true now, the
overwhelming risk factors for bad outcomes are old age and poor health
habits such as obesity, inactivity, and immunocompromised status. That
was true at the beginning and is most certainly
true now. But to this day, and especially since the vaccine push
started, we hear ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this from our officials. And I
saw absolutely no one in the media lifting a finger to do a thing about
it; rather, they were happy participants in the
whole affair.
I am not now nor have ever been an investigative journalist. But I
am a foot soldier on the ground and I have been trained by the best to
make observations, to think of possible hypotheses to explain them, to
look for critical evidence to support or falsify
hypotheses, and to act accordingly. That is the very essence of the
scientific method. It was hammered into my brain as a young physician in
the AIDS wards, when we literally had no idea what we were doing for
years on end. We had to learn to let that method
flow through our veins in order to do the best we could do for patients
while our whole profession was trying to figure AIDS out. And that
experience was critical for me when this whole thing started. I could
see that my patients were getting a horribly warped
view of the whole situation, so I decided all those months ago to start
putting my observations on here as comments. I have then shared with
everyone hypotheses that a rational scientist/medical doctor would come
to, and how I was going about falsifying or
supporting them. Some of the thoughts have been critically wrong, and I
have endeavored always to make sure all know that. Many of them have
stood up over time. Everything I have done or said in these comments has
been in good faith. I view this group of commenters
as my very own.
But now, my friends, we have reached a critical juncture in this
entire situation. As has always been the case in human endeavor, when
you start down the road of lies, it will be no time before you have
painted yourself into a corner. And that is where
the medical establishment finds itself today. Along with the
elite/political establishment that prodded, aided, and abetted every
step of the way. This is all about to blow up in their face and they are
acutely aware of that. They have two choices, admit their
mistakes, ask for forgiveness and understanding, and begin the
rectification process OR double down.
It is very clear to me that the elite have decided to double down.
The FSMB proclamation is just but one part of doubling down. I will
bring your attention to a few other things this weekend that are
emblematic of the current elite thinking – The Brooks & Dionne sequence from PBS Newshour on Friday night –
We have two commenters – one ostensibly from the Right – and one from
the Left. Both have clearly
agreed that it is high time to get nasty on the deplorables refusing to
get vaccinated. There is not a comment made about all the facts that
have come to light this past week – as in all the breakthrough cases, as
in all the vaccinated positive patients being
just as likely to transmit as the unvaccinated. I am going to make an
argument right now – GIVEN WHAT WE KNOW RIGHT NOW ABOUT THESE VACCINES,
WHAT EXACT PURPOSE IS BEING SERVED IN A PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVE OF
FORCING THESE VACCINES ON EVERYONE? There is certainly
no longer evidence that it is any safer to be in a crowded grocery store
with vaccinated or unvaccinated patients. As for individual risk, I
have been on my knees for months literally begging all of my high risk
patients to get vaccinated. My contacts are telling
me that the overwhelming vast majority of the ill in the hospitals are
in these same high risk groups – OBESE DIABETIC and IMMUNOCOMPROMISED.
25 year old jocks are not in that high risk group. Outside of
vaccinating every single soul that is high risk, given
what we know now, what is the purpose of vaccinating every single human?
FSMB or anyone else – that is a scientific argument, based on
observations and facts – please I am all ears, tell me what is wrong
with that argument? Please present your own observations and facts.
Please look at the Bill Maher show on Friday when he had his
roundtable. I cannot find a video of this. He had the US Rep from the
Virgin Islands. And some guy who was the very essence of the elite PMC.
They got around to vaccine hesitancy among blacks
– and he blamed it on Tuskegee. The US Rep from the Virgin Islands was
like – NOT SO FAST. THAT WAS GENERATIONS AGO. THAT IS NOT REALLY ALL
THAT APPLICABLE HERE. THE PROBLEM IS THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY HAVE
NO FAITH IN THE GOVERNMENT TO DO THE RIGHT THING.
And I looked at my wife and said – PREACH IT SISTER. That is a woman who
is in touch with her constituents and knows what she is talking about. I
would add the following – the same exact thing is true of the majority
of the Bubbas out there that are being denigrated
all day by the press – THEY HAVE NO FAITH IN THE GOVERNMENT TO DO THE
RIGHT THING – WHY WOULD THEY???? It has been my contention all along
that Blacks and Working Class Whites have so much in common. Maybe the
upcoming turmoil will make them all realize that.
The best however was the PMC guy.
Mr. Maher and
I are obviously marinating in the same cultural stew. After going on
for a while about Bubbas and Blacks, Maher made the point that another
group of vaccine holdouts were the pristine body, man bun Bernie Bros.
THE PMC guy did not even acknowledge the comment. Maher said it again.
And again the PMC guy was literally dumbstruck. Never had entered his
mind. Maher, seeing it was hopeless moved on. THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN
MARINATING IN THEIR OWN NARRATIVE FOR SO LONG THEY
HAVE NOT A CLUE WHAT IS REALITY. It is clear they have all convinced
themselves that enforced vaccine mandates are such a great idea. Why,
there will be no consequences, everyone will just buckle under. THEY
HAVE NO IDEA WHAT FIRE THEY ARE PLAYING WITH. I have
been hearing from multiple contacts all over the country that the mass
resignations in health care are just beginning. It is not the RNs and
MDs. Nope it is the CNAs the front desk people, the housekeeping. They
are just walking off the job – going over to
the Piggly Wiggly or Kroger and getting more money and less bull shit
from the boss. It is happening among police, firemen, teachers and other
workers as well. WHAT KIND OF MORONS WOULD DO THESE MANDATES IN THIS
ECONOMY? THEY ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH. And
again, the reason for mass vaccination for public health has literally
fallen apart with the evidence coming out the past few days. WHAT
PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE FROM A PUBLIC HEALTH STANDPOINT TO VACCINATE THE
ENTIRE POPULATION WITH A NON-STERILIZING VACCINE?
Again, FSMB and any others, that is an argument based on
observation and evidence…. Please address the argument with your own
observations and evidence and let’s talk. I am all ears.
Thirdly – this little chestnut from Andrew Sullivan If
you read his substack entries from early this year, several times he
writes that very soon, as in
this summer right now, we will be living in the Roaring 20s again. COVID
will be over. All his elite friends were telling him that. Imagine his
surprise when the event in the town he was in for the summer popped the
lid off the narrative. Because of the incompetence
of our press, there is no real reporting about how many “bears” were
actually involved. I, however, have taken care of a lot of “bears” in my
life. Obesity, glucose intolerance/diabetes, and sedentary lifestyles
are very common in this group. As is fitting
with the truth of this whole pandemic, those are all critical risk
factors for bad COVID. What a perfect opportunity for the press or
medical establishment to hammer this point home with this group of folks
that have fallen ill. NOT A PEEP. Could that lifestyle
choice be a reason why so many of them, vaccinated or not, fell ill? How
many “bears” were actually involved in getting ill? And is so fitting
of the whole elite attitude, Mr. Sullivan’s impulse is to blame the
unvaccinated – and “let it rip”. He looks right
through the habits of his friends and blames the unvaccinated for
ruining his promised party summer. My favorite quote – “So the
obviously correct public policy is to let mounting sickness and rising
deaths concentrate the minds of the recalcitrant. Let
reality persuade the delusional and deranged. It has a pretty solid
record of doing just that.” Mr. Sullivan, do the delusional and
deranged include the over 700 of these people who were actually
vaccinated? Mr. Sullivan, are you listening to yourself?
Delusional and deranged? What a perfect encapsulation of these people
and how they think. He has pontificated so much in his life about all
the indignities that happened in the AIDS crisis. I guess “let it rip”
was actually the lesson he learned from that nightmare.
I learned some lessons too. You tend to do that when you sign 8-10 death
certificates every day of your intern year. All I can say is “I’ll do
me. Mr. Sullivan, you can do you.”
FMSB – or anyone else – please point out to me any misinformation in the above paragraph.
I want to finally explain a very important concept that is going to
become even more important the next few weeks. We clearly have a
non-sterilizing vaccine. There is now continued and mounting evidence
that the vaccine helps symptoms and keeps some people
from becoming extremely ill. (That is why I am strongly encouraging
everyone at risk in my practice to take it NOW). However, there is
evidence now, the Provincetown affair being the best example, that these
vaccines do nothing to stop transmission. The vaccinated
and unvaccinated alike can share the wealth and harbor viruses in their
bodies. Viruses do not just sit around. They replicate at literally a
logarithmic rate. They are not bacteria who reproduce at a 1-2-4-8 pace.
No indeed, they are replicating at a 1-1000-1000000-1000000000000
pace. Since mutations happen when replication occurs, when you have this
logarithmic rate of replication you have much higher levels of
mutation. You are much more likely to have viruses develop mutations
that will allow them to be more transmissible, more
toxic, and more vaccine evasive. And when you have a vaccine that does
not clear the virus from the vaccinated but instead allows it to be
replicated and spewed you have just logarithmically elevated your
chances of having real problems occur. That is where
we are with these vaccines folks. At least with the information we have
now. I did not just make this up out of my head. These are things I read
just this AM in textbooks of medicine. Latest editions. Textbooks are
there not for latest research – they are the
repositories of wisdom and knowledge acquired over generations. They are
the foundation. This is not new knowledge. This was known during the
polio pandemic. That is why there were 2 vaccines – one was
nonsterilizing(Salk) and the other sterilizing(Sabin).
Both were given to every patient because they understood the wisdom of
not having vaccine escape viruses in the wild. This entire concept has
been known for generations.
There are two big differences now –
First of all, polio viruses and their ability to mutate are like a dice roll. Coronaviruses are more like a Rubik’s Cube.
Secondly, Jonas Salk was loud and proud about donating the polio
vaccine to the world. He could have been minting gold. However, he hit
one out of the park for the ages. Pfizer, Moderna, and their executives
are indeed minting gold – how many new billionaires
have been created by these vaccines? And oh by the way – the third world
can just suck it – losers. And the elite wonder why “the delusional and
deranged” as Mr Sullivan puts it, have a trust issue.
FSMB – please point out any misinformation in the above paragraph.
Since the discussion about viruses is directly from Mandell’s Infectious
Disease – we may have problems if you believe that is misinformation.
Folks,
if you are high risk, obese, old, diabetic or immunocompromised –
please go and get vaccinated right now. We all need to monitor our risk
factors going forward – LOSE WEIGHT, GET YOUR BLOOD SUGAR DOWN,
EXERCISE, GET SUNLIGHT – GET VIT D EVERY DAY.
HUG YOUR KIDS AND YOUR SPOUSE. LAUGH ALL YOU CAN.
From what I have heard in multiple conference discussion this past
week or so is that exactly how non-sterilizing the vaccines are is now
critical. If it is really true that their sterilizing activity is equal
to unvaccinated status – then we have issues.
If it is just allowing 5% of the viral load of a non-vaccinated patient
that is a completely different story. The flu shots to some degree are
non-sterilizing each and every year, but my understanding is they are
nowhere close to parity.
When that article came out from the CDCs own MMWR this week that
the viral load in Provincetown was the exact same as the unvaccinated,
it sent chills down my spine. That is most definitely not a good
finding. They need to be looking at this aggressively
to confirm or not. Also, as I alluded to above – was there something
unusual about that cohort of patients? If it truly was a “bear”
convention – they are older, more obese and much more likely to be
diabetic. Did those pre-disposing conditions possibly factor
into the parity with viral loads? Furthermore, it is critical that
actual virologic counting be done on the samples. cT is very suggestive
but not expositive.
But the point that it is apparently so close in parity to
unvaccinated status is profoundly disturbing. This was completely
unexpected and concerning to every one I have talked to this week.
I am awaiting further data – assuming they will be forthcoming with it. It has the potential to be a very interesting week.
And per your quote above, “If infection with natural coronaviruses
doesn’t do it, I don’t think we should necessarily expect or have the
anticipation that we’ll be able to get there with the vaccine.”
I have been hearing those sentiments all this past week from many
people I know and respect. Basically – we are going to have to learn to
live with this virus. How are the American people going to take that?
I have multiple overarching concerns right now ——
1). There is absolute signal that this is a completely
non-sterilizing vaccine. If so, there is precedent but not certainty
that this could make this whole thing worse. In a normal world, I would
have expected a pause and reflect moment. Instead, we are
doubling down on vaccinating everyone. Is that a wise course?
2). There is all kinds of talk in the air about boosters right now.
I have not spoken to a single patient – not one – many of whom lined up
willingly in December – who are remotely interested in this at this
time. A direct quote from my old lady neighbor
from less than an hour ago – “I got vaccinated once – and I did that for
my country. I will never let this clown car brigade get near me with
another one. They cannot keep their lies straight.” And she is a loyal
Dem – Biden signs all over her yard last year.
All these people like Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity towing the line of
the official narrative never get near an actual citizen. I do so every
day all day – and I am telling you that is just not going to fly.
3). The idea of mandating vaccination in this unsure environment is
really a sign of the medical establishment not realizing the position
they are in. I just got off the phone with the nurse taking care of my
patients in the hospital. One of the CNAs told
the charge nurse she would not be back tomorrow. She quit. The stress is
already overwhelming and now this. My hospital has already had its
little mandate attempt – and it ended in disaster for the
administration. So they tried the humiliation and loss of privileges
approach – and people are quitting in the droves. I am sorry to say –
this could literally cripple some of our hospitals far better than a
crush of COVID patients. And at this juncture, unless more evidence
comes to the fore, universal enforced vaccination
does not make much sense medically.
bloomberg | The U.S. agency leading the fight against Covid-19 gave up a crucial
surveillance tool tracking the effectiveness of vaccines just as a
troublesome new variant of the virus was emerging.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped
comprehensively tracking what are known as vaccine breakthrough cases in
May, the consequences of that choice are only now beginning to show.
At the time, the agency had identified only 10,262 cases
across the U.S. where a fully vaccinated person had tested positive for
Covid. Most people who got infected after vaccination showed few
symptoms, and appeared to be at low risk of infecting others.
But
in the months since, the number of vaccine breakthrough cases has
grown, as has the risk that they present. And while the CDC has stopped
tracking such cases, many states have not. Bloomberg gathered data from
35 states and identified 111,748 vaccine breakthrough cases through the
end of July, more than 10 times the CDC’s end-of-April tally.
With
more than 164 million Americans vaccinated, breakthrough cases are
expected. The number of them should rise as more people are vaccinated,
simply because there are more vaccinated people who could get infected.
While a similarly small proportion of vaccine breakthroughs was seen in
clinical trials of the shots, state health officials said it was
important to know how many are happening, how severe they are, and if
they’re getting more common.
The CDC said when it announced the change in May that
it would continue to collect data on breakthrough cases if the
infections resulted in hospitalization or death — a rare occurrence,
since vaccines provide significant protection. The decision to stop
tracking non-severe cases was made to “help maximize the quality of the
data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health
importance,” the agency says on its website.
But that decision to
follow not track mild or asymptomatic cases is now being questioned,
including by state officials dealing with the virus on the front lines.
At
the same time the CDC stopped tracking those cases, the delta variant
began to spread in the U.S. Small numbers of delta-variant cases were
identified in mid-April. The strain began to take over in some parts of
the country in June, then exploded nationally in July.
It now
makes up the vast majority of cases, in part because it is more
contagious than prior strains. New waves of Covid cases have caused a
surge in hospitalizations in the South among unvaccinated people, and
led the Biden administration and states to push for vaccine mandates.
“When
I saw CDC was going to stop tracking vaccinated people who get
infected, my heart sank,” said Charity Dean, who helped lead
California’s response to Covid as the state health department’s
assistant director. “We lost our shot at being able to characterize how
this variant is moving through the population and how new variants might
emerge.”
thehill | We are now entering the “coerced consent" stage. Unable to persuade
or purchase consent, many are arguing to make it difficult to be
gainfully employed or functionally active without proof of vaccination.
It is a type of de facto pandemic passport. After indicating the administration was considering a federal vaccine mandate, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenskysaid this week,
“I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of
the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.”
Unwilling
to face the legal or political challenges of mandating a vaccination
program, the Biden administration has actively encouraged companies to
bar unvaccinated people from planes, restaurants and other venues. The
danger is that using companies to censor opposing views and restrict
people can amount to a type of government-by-surrogate, a shadow state.
There
clearly are good reasons why many companies and schools demand
vaccinations to rejoin workplaces or classrooms. As expected, those
rules have been upheld, including a recent favorable ruling for Indiana University.
More concerning are those calls to use mandates to make life miserable for anyone who still has doubts. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her citizens that
they will have fewer “freedoms” until they consent. Some in the media
have echoed these calls, and some private organizations are following
the same strategy. The NFL, for example, has been openly making life “a living hell” for NFL players who prefer to be tested but not vaccinated.
For
the most part, the motivation behind government and private mandates
are hard to litigate. Courts tend to defer to measures ostensibly
protecting others from risk of illness; even in criminal cases, the
government has been allowed to conduct “pretextual traffic stops” if it can cite an objective basis.
There may be new legal challenges ahead, however. First, those with
religious or medical concerns can challenge mandated vaccination
programs. CNN’s Don Lemon this week called for barring unvaccinated people from offices and businesses,
insisting “It has nothing to do with liberty. You don’t have the
freedom and the liberty to put other people in jeopardy." In truth,
there are constitutional questions when you force people to take
medications or vaccinations that violate their religious beliefs or that
fail to satisfy a rational basis.
States also are moving to counter private mandates or to bar mandatory masking rules; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) just signed an
executive order allowing parents to ignore masking orders for their
children in the state’s public schools. That could force the hand of the
Biden administration on implementing federal mandates or executive
orders — a conflict that would raise core federalism issues.
The federal government is on shaky ground in mandating hood behavior or inactivity. In 2012 in NFIB v. Sebelius, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that “Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.”
alt-market | But why do they want 100% vaccination? Why are they so desperate for every single person in the world to get the mRNA jab?
After all, the average (IFR) death rate of covid is a mere 0.26%
of those infected (this is a stat that the media consistently and
deliberately refuses to mention to the public). This means that 99.7% of
the public is in NO danger from covid whether they are vaccinated or
not.
Do the vaccines ensure better odds? Well, according to recent statistics from Massachusetts,
not necessarily, as they report over 5100 infections and 80 deaths of
fully vaccinated patients. The media keeps telling us that only the
unvaccinated are dying, but this is a lie, like so many other lies they
have been peddling when it comes to covid. So, what’s the point of
taking an experimental vaccine if the death rate of the virus is so low
and the jab doesn’t necessarily protect you anyway?
There is no point. The science and the stats do not support it. The
vaccines can’t even be credited with the decline in infections and
deaths this year; the numbers plunged in January – Only 5% of the population
was vaccinated by February. The only explanation for this is that the
population hit herd immunity many months ago. Remember when governments
said that they needed 70% herd immunity or vaccination to stop the
lockdowns and mandates? The goalposts have been moves several times and
the government “science” changes monthly. Now they claim herd immunity
doesn’t matter and demand 100% vaccination.
We must ask the question again – Why the relentless government push
for total vaccine saturation? It’s not saving lives, and the mandates
remain regardless, so why?
I can only posit theories based on the evidence at hand, but I think
it’s clear to most of us that the vaccines are NOT about public health
nor are they about saving lives. They are obviously about something
else…
As numerous virology and vaccine experts
have warned over the past year, there is a great risk of harmful health
side effects when it comes to experimental mRNA technology. Even one of
the creators of mRNA vaccines
has suggested that there are dangers in rolling out these gene
manipulation cocktails without more testing. Of note are concerns about
longer term disorders such as autoimmune disorders and infertility.
The mainstream media and the globalists will argue that there is “no
evidence” that the mRNA vaccines will cause deadly side effects or
infertility. I would argue back that there is NO EVIDENCE that they are
safe. Most vaccines are tested over the course of 10-15 years
before they are released to the public for use. The covid vaccines were
unleashed on the public within months. Honestly, I have no intention of
acting as a guinea pig for an untested vaccine.
But what if the elites know exactly what the side effects will be?
What if the vaccines are a pivotal part of their “Great Reset?”
The infertility question in particular is drawing the most fire from
the establishment, and I would point out a particularly insidious
narrative being implanted in the media. Whenever people question the
chance of sterility caused by the vaccines, bureaucrats and media
talking heads go on the attack, and then say “There’s no evidence that
the vaccines cause infertility, but Covid-19 might cause it…
And there you have it. The stage is being set, in my view, for a mass
infertility event, and covid will be blamed in place of the
experimental vaccines. This is why the establishment needs a 100%
vaccination rate; unvaccinated people would stand as evidence of their
crime. Let me explain…
My concern is that Klaus Schwab’s reset agenda is impossible to
enforce in a permanent way unless the human population is greatly
reduced over a short period of time (a generation or two). Globalists
are constantly talking about population control and reduction. Elites
like Bill Gates are famous for it. Is it any wonder that they would devise a plan to institute it?
What if, as many experts have suggested, the vaccine side effects
create this condition of a diminishing population? What if they are
meant to? We will not know for certain for a couple of years at least as
autoimmune disorders and infertility take time to become visible in a
population. The average timeline for actually diagnosing an autoimmune
disorder is 4.5 years. Infertility can take six months to a year to diagnose.
If a large population of millions of people remain unvaccinated after
the next couple of years, then they will represent a sizable and
undeniable control group. A control group is a group of subjects that
act as a pure sample untouched by a drug or vaccine experiment. If the
vaccinated group becomes ill or dies from specific conditions and the
control group does not have those same conditions, then that is a pretty
good sign that your vaccine or drug is poison.
The 50% of Americans and smaller percentages in other nations are a
control group for the experimental vaccines. If something goes wrong
with the vaccines, then we will be the proof. I suspect this is what the
elites are really afraid of.
fsmb | The Federation of State Medical Boards’ Board of Directors released
the following statement in response to a dramatic increase in the
dissemination of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and disinformation by
physicians and other health care professionals on social media
platforms, online and in the media:
“Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation
or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical
boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.
Due to their specialized knowledge and training, licensed physicians
possess a high degree of public trust and therefore have a powerful
platform in society, whether they recognize it or not. They also have an
ethical and professional responsibility to practice medicine in the
best interests of their patients and must share information that is
factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment
of public health. Spreading inaccurate COVID-19 vaccine information
contradicts that responsibility, threatens to further erode public trust
in the medical profession and puts all patients at risk.”
For more information about how state medical boards and the FSMB are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit FSMB’s webpage dedicated to providing resources and information to states and the public about COVID-19.
About the Federation of State Medical Boards: The
Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) is a national non-profit
organization representing the medical boards within the United States
and its territories that license and discipline allopathic and
osteopathic physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care
professionals. The FSMB serves as the voice for state medical boards,
supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy
while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety,
quality health care and regulatory best practices. The FSMB serves the
public through Docinfo.org,
a free physician search tool which provides background information on
the more than 1 million doctors in the United States. To learn more
about the FSMB, visit www.fsmb.org. and follow the FSMB on Twitter (@theFSMB).
RE: Urgent preliminary report of Yellow Card data up to 26th May 2021
As the Director of the Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy Ltd and EbMC Squared CiC, I am writing to share with you this urgent preliminary report on the Yellow Card data up to 26th May 2021. Please note that EbMC Squared CiC is a Community Interest Company that conducts research mandated by the public and funded by public donations. We have no conflicts of interest and do not engage in industry-funded work.
The MHRA describes the purpose of its Yellow Card system as providing “an early warning that the safety of a medicine or a medical device may require further investigation. It is important for people to report problems experienced with medicines or medical devices as these are used to identify issues which might not have been previously known about.”1
Furthermore, the MHRA recognises that the conditions under which medicines are studied in clinical trials do not reflect how the medicines will be used in hospitals or clinical practice once they are rolled out. This means that some adverse drug reactions “may not be seen until a very large number of people have received the medicine.”
The Covid-19 vaccines were rolled out in the UK on the 8th of December 2020. As of the 6th May 2021 nearly 39 million people have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 24 million both doses. Sufficient data have now accumulated to get a good overview of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). I would, therefore, like to draw your attention to the high number of covid-19 vaccine-attributed deaths and ADRs that have been reported via the Yellow Card system between the 4th January 2021 and the 26th May 2021. In total, 1,253 deaths and 888,196 ADRs (256,224 individual reports) were reported during this period.
To facilitate a better clinical understanding of the nature of the adverse events occurring, primarily to inform doctors at the frontline, we have searched the Yellow Card reports using pathology-specific key words to group the data according to the following five broad, clinically relevant categories:
A. Bleeding, Clotting and Ischaemic ADRs B. Immune System ADRs C. ‘Pain’ ADRs D. Neurological ADRs E. ADRs involving loss of Sight, Hearing, Speech or Smell F. Pregnancy ADRs
After running each search, we entered the results into an Excel spreadsheet, excluding ADRs that were clearly irrelevant or appeared in duplicate. These spreadsheets will be used going forward to facilitate the weekly monitoring of Yellow Card data. We recognise that keywords may need expanding to capture category relevant ADRs that may have been missed in this preliminary ADR scope and analysis.
jonathanturley | Just yesterday, we discussed
the censoring of a commentator by Twitter for merely expressing an
opinion over the need for a “pause” on any federal mandates on Covid-19
as new research is studied. Now, a former New York Times science
reporter, Alex Berenson, has been suspended for simply citing the
results from a clinical trial by Pfizer and raising questions over any
vaccine mandate. In the meantime, the White House accused both the
Washington Post and New York Times of irresponsible reporting on Covid,
but surprisingly Twitter has not suspended those accounts. It is the
license of the censor. Twitter is unwilling to let people read or
discuss viewpoints that it disagrees with as a corporation. Many on the
left, however, have embraced the concept of corporate speech and censorship.
NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE. TWITTER PULLED THE MISLEADING TAG FROM LAST NIGHT’S POST ABOUT THE @PFIZER DEATH DATA.
It turns out that the problem with censorship for many was the failure
to censor views that they opposed. With the “right” censors at work, the
free speech concerns have been set aside.
Berenson has been effectively confined to Substack
by Big Tech due to his discussing dissenting views on the science
surrounding Covid-19. His latest offense against Big Tech came when he
posted the results published by Pfizer of its own clinical data. He
claimed that the research showed little difference in mortality between
those in the trial with a vaccine and those given a placebo.
The rise of corporate censors has combined with a heavily pro-Biden
media to create the fear of a de facto state media that controls
information due to a shared ideology rather than state coercion. That
concern has been magnified by demands from Democratic leaders for
increased censorship, including censoring political speech, and now word
that the Biden Administration has routinely been flagging material to
be censored by Facebook.
jonathanturley | I recently discussed
how the Biden Administration was actively encouraging corporations to
limit speech and impose vaccine mandates as a type of shadow state.
Rather than take such actions directly ( and face both legal and
political challenges), the Administration is relying on its close
alliance with Big Tech and other companies to carry out such tasks. That
surrogate relationship is particularly clear in the expanding
censorship program carried out by Twitter, Facebook and other companies.
Twitter’s action against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example
of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively
barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints.
Rubin was locked out under the common
“misinformation” claim by Twitter. However, his tweet was an opinion
based on demonstrably true facts. One can certainly disagree with the
conclusion but this is an example of core political speech being
curtailed by a company with a long history of biased censorship,
including the barring of discussions involving Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. With a new election looming, these companies appear to be ramping up their censorship efforts.
In his tweet, Rubin stated:
“They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines
which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are
getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us
for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in
a sane society.”
Even President Biden admitted yesterday
that he was wrong weeks ago when he assured people that if they took
the vaccine, they would not be at risk for the variants and could
dispense with their masks. There are breakthrough cases that have taken
many officials by surprise. It is also true that there is now talk of
likely booster shots.
Rubin takes those facts and adds his opinion that we should “take a
pause.” Twitter declared that to be a violation of its policy “on
spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to
COVID-19.”
thehill |Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech in 1902, “The Control of Corporations,”
which warned of the danger of corporate power over citizens’ lives.
Calling corporations “creatures of the state,” he said they must be
controlled by “the representatives of the public.” Roosevelt was a
Republican, but his distrust of corporations (and his later faith in big
government) would become a touchstone of Democratic politics for
generations, from the Great Depression to the Great Society.
Like
the reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, American politics now seems
suddenly to have flipped: Democratic leaders increasingly advocate for
corporate governance while Republicans voice populist themes. From
supporting the largest censorship programs in history to privately
mandated vaccine “passports,” liberals are looking to companies like
Apple or American Airlines to carry out social programs free from
constitutional and political limits imposed on the government.
This new model of governance was evident when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about a mandated vaccine passport system. She responded
that it is “not currently the role of the federal government" but noted
that the administration hopes to see such a mandate from
“private-sector entities, universities, institutions that are starting
to mandate, and that’s an innovative step that they will take and they
should take.”
This
use of corporations is born out of political and legal convenience.
Despite the rising call for mandatory vaccinations, the Biden
administration clearly is not willing to face the political costs of a
government mandate. As of July 11, 159,266,536 Americans were fully
vaccinated — 48 percent of the country’s population. When you consider
the extremely high rate of vaccination for those over 65 (an estimated 85 percent),
the percentage of adults under 65 is even smaller. That is a lot of
voters who would not take well to a government mandate before the 2022
election. Moreover, the Supreme Court upheld a mandatory state vaccine
in 1905, but any federal mandate could face constitutional challenges.
Private companies, however, have great leeway in dictating such conditions. So some, like CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen, have
called for coercive measures making it “hard for people to remain
unvaccinated.” That coercion would come from private companies which
would deny people access to travel, restaurants, movies, schools and
other aspects of modern life. Thus, as with Psaki’s statement, the Biden
White House is signaling private companies to implement such a national
passport system.
dailymail | Joe Biden on
Friday night told Americans to expect more COVID-19 restrictions but
the White House has said new lockdowns were unlikely
Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said on Friday afternoon that a federal vaccine mandate was being considered
On
Friday night, she tweeted: 'To clarify: There will be no nationwide
mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and
portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate'
.@BerkeleyJr To clarify: There will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) July 30, 2021
Her backtracking will add to concern about the disjointed and chaotic messaging regarding the pandemic
On
Thursday Biden said it was 'a question' whether a federal vaccine
mandate could be enforced; shortly after his COVID advisor went on CNN
and said it was 'not an authority that we're exploring at all'
Multiple
private sector employers, plus some state and federal agencies, have
started bringing in rules making vaccines mandatory, to avoid regular
testing
On Tuesday the CDC made a U-turn and recommended once again face masks
On May 18 the CDC had announced that face masks were no longer necessary
Biden
spoke on Friday after CDC published the data in which is claimed that
the Indian 'Delta' variant is significantly more of a threat
It claimed that fully vaccinated people are able to spread the virus
The
report looked at the case of Provincetown, in Cape Cod, where 469
COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents between
July 3 and July 17, including 346 fully vaccinated people
There
were no deaths among fully vaccinated people, and only four
hospitalizations - with two of those patients having pre-existing
conditions
WaPo | The delta variant of the coronavirus
appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads
as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health
document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”
The
document is an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
slide presentation, shared within the CDC and obtained by The Washington
Post. It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency
to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures,
including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.
The
document strikes an urgent note, revealing the agency knows it must
revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense
against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different
novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or
the common cold.
It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data
from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that
vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the
virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people
infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are
unvaccinated and infected with the variant.
“I
finished reading it significantly more concerned than when I began,”
Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University
of California at San Francisco, wrote in an email.
The
data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped
recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear
masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal
health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be
published in full on Friday. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky privately
briefed members of Congress on Thursday, drawing on much of the material
in the document.
One
of the slides states that there is a higher risk among older age groups
for hospitalization and death relative to younger people, regardless of
vaccination status. Another estimates that there are 35,000 symptomatic
infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.
The
document outlines “communication challenges” fueled by cases in
vaccinated people, including concerns from local health departments
about whether coronavirus vaccines remain effective and a “public
convinced vaccines no longer work/booster doses needed.”
The
presentation highlights the daunting task the CDC faces. It must
continue to emphasize the proven efficacy of the vaccines at preventing
severe illness and death while acknowledging milder breakthrough infections
may not be so rare after all, and that vaccinated individuals are
transmitting the virus. The agency must move the goal posts of success
in full public view.
abcnews | A week after the crowds descended upon Provincetown, Massachusetts,
to celebrate the Fourth of July -- the holiday President Joe Biden hoped
would mark the nation's liberation from COVID-19 -- the manager of the
Cape Cod beach town said he was aware of "a handful of positive COVID cases among folks" who spent time there.
"We
are in touch with the Health Department and Outer Cape Health Services
and are closely monitoring the data," Alex Morse told reporters.
The announcement wasn't unusual with roughly half of the country still unvaccinated and flare-ups of the virus popping up in various states.
But within weeks, health officials seemed to be on to something much
bigger. The outbreak quickly grew to the hundreds and most of them appeared to be vaccinated.
As of Thursday, 882 people were tied to the Provincetown outbreak.
Among those living in Massachusetts, 74% of them were fully immunized,
yet officials said the vast majority were also reporting symptoms. Seven
people were reported hospitalized.
The initial findings of the
investigation led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in
conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed
to have huge implications.
Before Provincetown, health officials had been operating under the
assumption that it was extraordinarily rare for a vaccinated person to
become infected with the virus. And if they did, they probably wouldn't
end up passing it on to others, such as children too young to qualify
for the vaccine or people who were medically vulnerable.
The idea
that vaccines halt transmission of the virus was largely behind the
CDC's decision in May suggesting vaccinated people could safely go
without their masks indoors and in crowds, even if others were
unvaccinated.But
that assumption had been based on studies of earlier versions of the
virus. Delta was known for its "hyper-transmissibility," or as one
former White House adviser put it "COVID on steroids.
"What has
changed is the virus," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top
infectious disease expert and Biden's chief medical adviser.
When a
vaccinated person gets infected with delta -- called a "breakthrough
infection" -- "the level of virus in their nasopharynx is about 1,000
times higher than with the alpha variant," Fauci said in an interview
Wednesday with MSNBC.
All indications now are that the
Provincetown outbreak investigation is among the pieces of new evidence
behind the CDC's decision to ask Americans to once again put on their
masks indoors, even if they are vaccinated.
WaPo | Since
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first came out with its
misguided policy to lift masking requirements in May, I have been calling on it to reverse course. On Tuesday, it did, but the new guidance remains just as confusing and the communication just as muddled.
CDC
Director Rochelle Walensky explained in a press briefing that in light
of emerging data, the agency is recommending that vaccinated people wear
masks indoors again in areas of high covid-19 transmission. Walensky
cited unpublished research showing that vaccinated people who become
infected with the delta variant carry a similar amount of virus to those
who are unvaccinated and infected. This change in the science was the
impetus for the new guidance, because it suggests that vaccinated people
could be carriers and therefore capable of spreading the coronavirus to family members who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised.
That’s
certainly important information for many Americans to know. As the mom
of two children too young to be vaccinated, I have already been taking
precautions to reduce my risk of being an asymptomatic carrier and
unknowingly infecting my kids. I never stopped wearing a mask in grocery
stores, hotel lobbies and other indoor, crowded spaces where I don’t
know others’ vaccination status. My concern is that the unvaccinated could be a danger to me,
and even though I’m well-protected from becoming severely ill myself,
there’s still a chance I could contract the coronavirus and bring it
back to my vulnerable family members.
On
an individual level, the CDC guidance that people in my circumstance
mask up is correct. But does it make sense for local governments and
businesses to implement mask mandates because of the risk posed by or to
the vaccinated? That’s what the new guidance implies, even though it’s
contradicted by the CDC’s own data. During the same press briefing, Walensky said
the vaccinated are 20 times more protected than the unvaccinated from
becoming severely ill, and seven times more protected from having mild
symptoms. She made clear that the vast majority of transmission appears
to be from the unvaccinated and that “vaccinated individuals continue to
represent a very small amount of transmission occurring around the
country.”
That
leaves many people wondering what’s actually going on here. If the
vaccinated aren’t the problem, why are they being punished by having to
put on masks again? If most transmission is happening because of the unvaccinated, then why is the CDC saying that the guidance is evolving because the science changed about transmission risk of the vaccinated?
stltoday | St. Louis County’s acting
health director says the rumor is true: He gave someone the middle
finger on his way out of the council meeting on the mask mandate Tuesday
night.
But in a letter to
County Councilwoman Rita Heard Days sent Wednesday, Dr. Faisal Khan said
he did it after a string of racist provocations from Republican
politicians like Councilman Tim Fitch and a boisterously anti-mask
audience pushed him past his limit.
“I
have never been subjected to the racist, xenophobic and threatening
behavior that greeted me in the County Council meeting last night,” he
wrote, after noting he’s been in public health for 25 years.
Fitch
and others blamed for stoking racism and xenophobia dismissed Khan’s
allegations as baseless. Fitch also said Khan was trying to provide
political cover for County Executive Sam Page, who called for the mask
mandate.
“The entire letter is
another desperate attempt at deflection and diversion by Sam Page,”
Fitch said in an interview. “Dr. Khan knew he was in trouble for (giving
the middle finger) and this was an opportunity to put that on someone
else.”
Khan
appeared at the meeting as the council was considering a move to
terminate the mask mandate as unlawful and unnecessary, which it would
do despite the rising threat of the delta variant. During the debate,
dozens of people, some of whom held signs with anti-mask messages,
filled the council chambers to cheer on the action and jeer the
mandate’s defenders.
Khan
said the trouble began as soon as he took the podium with a
“dog-whistle” question from Fitch, looking to emphasize Khan’s foreign
background.
As he spoke, Khan
said he also endured harassment from Republican politicians Paul Berry
and Mark McCloskey, who sat close behind him in the audience.
Berry
was an unsuccessful candidate for county executive in 2020; McCloskey,
who is running for U.S. Senate, gained notoriety with his wife,
Patricia, for brandishing firearms at protesters last year. Both McCloskeys attended the council meeting.
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