Dr. Anthony Fauci was once a true believer in natural immunity. (BECKER NEWS)
Covid-19
Gavin Newsom’s State-of-the-State Warped Covid Stats
As Armstrong and Getty said in this audio, this is a perfect example of how you get stats to lie for your position. Armstrong and Getty discuss the stats Governor Newsome decided to use in California’s “state of the state” speech.
In a letter to the editor to an article in the PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD, we see a response to this:
In a recent letter to the editor, reader Martin Green twisted COVID death statistics and mischaracterized Florida’s handling of the virus. In fact, Florida ranks 19th among all states in per capita death rate, and that is despite being the state with the highest percentage (20.1%) of its residents over the age of 65 — by far the most vulnerable group to the virus.
Yes, California has a 32% lower per capita death rate, but its population is skewed much younger, with only 14% of its people 65 years or older. So, the outcome of the two states is actually very similar, but Florida remained responsible and trusted in its citizens to make their own risk assessments while California imposed some of the most severe restrictions on its people.
Indeed, states like New Jersey, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that also imposed strict mandates and lockdowns had higher per capita death rates than did Florida.
I suggest Mr. Green and others who are so quick to criticize constitutionally grounded governors like Ron DeSantis to get their facts straight and reflect on just how much they want the government to run their lives.
I was going to use an AIER article as an excerpt, however, I am waiting for clarification of the elderly percentages in Florida from it’s author. I believe John Miller’s “letter to the editor” got closer to the real numbers. This graph I believe shows a better % than the AIER article….
…. that being said, the following article zeroes in better — here the NEW YORK POST also discusses the issue well:
When the final history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written it will likely conclude that most of the non-pharmaceutical public health measures taken to combat the disease — that is, mask mandates and lockdowns — were largely ineffective.
The unimportance of public mitigation measures can be illustrated by comparing outcomes in states that imposed strict mitigation measures versus states, such as Florida, that adopted a minimalist approach.
Florida, New York, California and Illinois are all large states with multiple urban areas. But while Florida has been the poster child for a hands-off approach by government, the latter three states imposed multiple intrusive measures over long periods of time.
Florida, for example, recommended but did not require face coverings. While several large counties imposed their own mandates, Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order barring governments and school districts from imposing them last May.
New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul lifted the state’s general mask order on Feb. 10, but masks are still required in schools, health care facilities and on public transit. California lifted its universal indoor mask mandate on Feb. 16, but the requirement remains in effect for the unvaccinated. Illinois announced it will lift its long-standing mask mandate, with the exception of schools, at the end of this month.
Any comparison of the four states must account for the different age distributions of their populations and especially the percent of the population that is 65 and older.
Far and away the most important factor in determining the severity of COVID-19 illness is age. There is an exponential relationship between age and COVID-19’s infection fatality rate. The estimated IFR is very low for children and younger adults (0.002% at age 10; 0.01% at age 25), increases to 0.4% by age 55, and then soars with advanced age (1.4% at age 65; 4.6% at age 75; and 15% at age 85).
Florida has the second-highest percentage of population 65 and older (21.3%) in the nation. In contrast, New York ranks 25th among the states in the percentage of population 65 and older (17.4%), Illinois is 35th (16.6%), and California is 45th (15.2%).
Remarkably, despite its elderly population and laissez-faire approach, Florida has only the 33rd highest age-adjusted COVID-19 death rate per 100,000 population (251) among the states. That puts it in the same ballpark as mandate heavy Illinois (ranked 32 with 255 deaths/100,000) and California (ranked 38; 234) and well below New York (ranked 7th highest; 334).
[….]
From early in the pandemic the media vilified Florida Governor DeSantis as irresponsible and dangerous. Some labeled him “DeathSantis.” But DeSantis’s approach proved to be right. The mitigation measures imposed in other, largely blue, states did little to improve health outcomes. And Florida was better able to preserve its economic health than most other states.
As COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to plummet around the country, hold-out public health officials and politicians should strongly consider mimicking the COVID policies of that “Florida Man.”
Dr. Joel Zinberg, MD, is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and director of public health and wellness at the Paragon Health Institute.
Stats are good, when used properly.
New Vaccine Studies Showing Critics Were Right
A Swedish study published on Friday demonstrated and confirmed that the mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid injections infiltrate cells and transcribes its message onto human DNA within 6 hours, altering our own DNA. The study was conducted in vitro, in other words outside the living body and in an artificial environment.
A previous study published in October 2021 from Sweden found the spike protein enters into our cells’ nuclei and impairs the mechanism our cells have to repair damaged DNA. We’ve included this study here as The Highwire made an easy-to-understand video explaining it, including graphics, and so it is a good starting point to help understand the significance of the latest study from Sweden. (DAILY EXPOSE)
A must read article at AMERICAN GREATNESS…. excerpts to follow:
COVID Vaccine Bombshells You Probably Missed
When a critical mass of American people realize what has
been done to them, there will need to be a reckoning.
In recent weeks, there have been several stunning revelations concerning the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines—and they are being all but ignored by a corporate media eager to change the subject.
The FDA on Tuesday released a large tranche of Pfizer clinical trials documents in response to a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. The documents show that the company knew people were at risk of experiencing more than 1,000 unique adverse side-effects to the mRNA injections.
Additionally, scientists last week revealed that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine can enter human liver cells and be converted into DNA—something the fact-checkers and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control assured the public could never happen. Scientists also recently discovered that a sequence of genetic material patented by Moderna in 2018 bears a suspicious similarity to the spike protein in Sars-Cov2.
And a new study published on March 2 found that the synthetic mRNA found in the vaccines does not degrade quickly as promised, but continues to produce spike proteins for nearly two weeks.
Amid these new discoveries, the medical establishment won’t stop pushing the genetic vaccines that have failed to stop the coronavirus.
The COVID pandemic now plays second fiddle to the Russia-Ukraine war in the media, but the virus continues to rage through highly vaccinated countries, afflicting the triple-vaxxed most of all.
“Hong Kong hospitals can’t keep up with the deaths amid an Omicron surge,” reads a recent New York Times headline. “Dead bodies are piling up on gurneys in hospital hallways as Hong Kong’s health system is overloaded by its biggest Covid-19 outbreak of the pandemic.”
In the United Kingdom, only 394 vaccine-free persons died in weeks 5-8 of 2022, compared to the 3,527 who were vaccinated, according to the UK Health Security Agency. This means unvaccinated Brits only comprised 10 percent of all COVID deaths during those weeks.
In the face of failure, tyrannical medical policies continue to disrupt our lives, including the military mandate, the CMS mandate, the blocking of early treatments, and the appalling push to inject children with the ineffective experimental vaccines.
Here’s a partial list of potential vaccine injuries the medical establishment is subjecting us to, as chronicled in Pfizer’s clinical trial documents.
Via Children’s Health Defense:
The list includes acute kidney injury, acute flaccid myelitis, anti-sperm antibody positive, brain stem embolism, brain stem thrombosis, cardiac arrest, cardiac failure, cardiac ventricular thrombosis, cardiogenic shock, central nervous system vasculitis, death neonatal, deep vein thrombosis, encephalitis brain stem, encephalitis hemorrhagic, frontal lobe epilepsy, foaming at mouth, epileptic psychosis, facial paralysis, fetal distress syndrome, gastrointestinal amyloidosis, generalized tonic-clonic seizure, Hashimoto’s encephalopathy, hepatic vascular thrombosis, herpes zoster reactivation, immune-mediated hepatitis, interstitial lung disease, jugular vein embolism, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, liver injury, low birth weight, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, myocarditis, neonatal seizure, pancreatitis, pneumonia, stillbirth, tachycardia, temporal lobe epilepsy, testicular autoimmunity, thrombotic cerebral infarction, Type 1 diabetes mellitus, venous thrombosis neonatal, and vertebral artery thrombosis among 1,246 other medical conditions following vaccination.
It’s no wonder Pfizer wanted to hide the data for 75 years.
“This is a bombshell,” said Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president and general counsel Mary Holland. “At least now we know why the FDA and Pfizer wanted to keep this data under wraps for 75 years. These findings should put an immediate end to the Pfizer COVID vaccines. The potential for serious harm is very clear, and those injured by the vaccines are prohibited from suing Pfizer for damages.”
Another bombshell from Current Issues of Molecular Biology helps explain why the messenger RNA shots are so dangerous.
The Swedish study, released last week, found that the mRNA from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter human liver cells and can be converted into DNA, as reported by the Epoch Times.
The researchers found that when the mRNA vaccine enters the human liver cells, it triggers the cell’s DNA, which is inside the nucleus, to increase the production of the LINE-1 gene expression to make mRNA.
The mRNA then leaves the nucleus and enters the cell’s cytoplasm, where it translates into LINE-1 protein. A segment of the protein called the open reading frame-1, or ORF-1, then goes back into the nucleus, where it attaches to the vaccine’s mRNA and reverse transcribes into spike DNA.
Reverse transcription is when DNA is made from RNA, whereas the normal transcription process involves a portion of the DNA serving as a template to make an mRNA molecule inside the nucleus.
“In this study we present evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 is able to enter the human liver cell line Huh7 in vitro,” the researchers wrote. “BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA as fast as 6 [hours] after BNT162b2 exposure.”
BNT162b2 is another name for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine that is marketed under the brand name Comirnaty.
The entire process reportedly takes place quickly within six hours, so after only one shot of the Pfizer vaccine, DNA of affected cells can be permanently altered.
Mathematician Igor Chudov noted on his Substack that this is something that wasn’t supposed to happen: “For over a year, our trusted ‘health experts and fact checkers’ kept telling us the opposite.”……….
Leftists Apologize? (Saturday Night Live)
This SNL skit is the closest thing we’re ever getting to an apology, but they’ll never truly admit they were wrong all along.
I’m old enough to remember when he encouraged social media platforms to censor me in July.
Or when his Department of Homeland Security called me a terrorist threat three weeks ago.
I’m old enough to remember how the Democrats closed schools and businesses and tried to make me wear a mask and get vaccinated.
And then lied about all of it.
Now the walls are coming down and they’re begging us to forget what they’ve done. To reset.
Here’s my State of the Union, Joe:
- Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Big Government, Big Business, Big Problems
Since the start of the Covid crisis, the American economy has been turned on its head. Times are good for the big guys — Big Business and Big Government. But what about for the small business owner, the personification of the American dream? Carol Roth discusses Crony Corporatism/Capitalism and is the author of, “The War on Small Business: How the Government Used the Pandemic to Crush the Backbone of America“
UPDATED my “BAM! What Is Crony Capitalism“ with this Prager U video.
ACLU Fights Against Freedom of Choice
This craziness is via ACE OF SPADES…. had to share:
The ACLU — the American Civil Rights Union, supposedly — is challenging Youngkin’s optional masking order which… gives the right to choose masking, or choose not to mask, to Virginia citizens.
Or, as the Washington Post dysphemizes it (the opposite of euphemizes): “mandates choice.”
Imposes freedom!
The ACLU is now against the imposition of burdensome freedom and dangerous rights.
For those keeping track, the ACLU is now fighting on behalf of schools — government bodies — to take away the rights of citizen parents and citizen students.
Whistleblower: Hospitals “Coded” Covid for Profit
I have some real world examples here: Funny Covid-19 Numbers By Date (Why Many Are Skeptical)
COVID Cases Inflated for Profit: ‘The Guy Went in for Multiple Gunshot Wounds and he was Coded as COVID’
- Jeanne Stagg, a whistleblower who worked in Inpatient Utilization Management, approached Project Veritas after seeing cases coded as COVID-19 that she says should not have COVID-19 listed as the “primary diagnosis.”
- Stagg: “I’ve tried to raise awareness to my leadership and even with the Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Department, and it just kind of fell on deaf ears.”
- The Chief Medical Officer for United Healthcare of Louisiana (Medicaid) opined in a recorded phone conversation that the Medicaid rate for reimbursement of COVID-19 patients, which is faster and significantly higher, could be the motivation for the improper “primary diagnosis” codes.
- “Oh, yes. Yeah. I would think that there’s some motivation that it’s driving higher rates of reimbursement or quicker reimbursement, or something, because otherwise there’s no reason to put, you know, something like that as a leading diagnosis in an asymptom– basically asymptomatic patients,” said Dr. Morial, Chief Medical Officer for United Healthcare of Louisiana.
- The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has suspended utilization review which is the process of determining whether health care is medically necessary for a patient or an insured individual. The whistleblower says this could be a major contributing factor to spikes in COVID numbers, which then influence public health decisions.
[Baton Rouge, La. – Feb. 2, 2022] A source who works for United Healthcare of Louisiana’s Inpatient Utilization Management Department is blowing the whistle on COVID-19 cases possibly being inflated for financial incentive. The brazen instance of such potential abuse was a patient who had multiple gunshot wounds with his primary diagnosis listed as COVID-19.
United Healthcare of Louisiana is the states’ Medicaid arm, and as the whistleblower Jeanne Stagg points out in a conversation with the Chief Medical Officer of United Healthcare of Louisiana, Dr. Julie Morial, there are several financial incentives for hospitals to prefer to code patients as COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“Well maybe that’s… maybe that’s driving some of the motivation,” said Dr. Morial before stating that the Medicaid rate for reimbursement of COVID-19 patients is both higher and faster.
Project Veritas also published footage of a leadership call within United Healthcare of Louisiana wherein the whistleblower’s attempt to discuss the improper primary diagnoses she is seeing was dismissed.
A major element of this story is the fact that recent actions by public officials have allowed the problem to persist, and the whistleblower believes erroneous codes could be the cause of COVID-19 spikes which influence major public health decisions.
A health plan advisory, which announced that all utilization management for all medical hospitalizations [including but not limited to initial service authorization and concurrent reviews], must be suspended was the action taken — which is in question.
“Now, this is not specific to COVID-19. This is every single hospital admission. We’re not allowed to do medical necessity review. So, it gives the hospitals free reign to admit anything they want. Code it however they want,” says the whistleblower, Jeanne Stagg.
United Healthcare of Louisiana’s Dr. Morial was contacted for comment on this story and said, “When I see a patient, and if a patient is presenting other symptoms that aren’t suggestive of a COVID infection, even though they may test positive for COVID, that’s not my primary diagnosis.”
Dr. Makary on “The High Cost Of Ignoring Natural Immunity”
This was an excellent interview by Clay Travis and Buck Sexton of Marty Makary about his WALL STREET JOURNAL article
Here are some other articles worth noting:
- Youngkin Appoints Fox News Contributor Marty Makary as Head Of Virginia Medical Advisory Team (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
- 146 Research Studies Affirm Naturally Acquired Immunity to Covid-19: Documented, Linked, and Quoted (BROWNNSTONE)
- Natural Immunity Superior to Vaccine Immunity, CDC Study Finds (DAILY SCEPTIC)
- Hospitals Should Hire, Not Fire, Nurses with Natural Immunity (BROWNSTONE)
Here is the WALL STREET JOURNAL article reproduced in full:
The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid: Vaccines were wasted on those who didn’t need them, and people who posed no risk lost jobs.
Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear. By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those least likely to infect others. It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology.
For most of last year, many of us called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its data on reinfection rates, but the agency refused. Finally last week, the CDC released data from New York and California, which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing Covid infection compared with vaccination.
Yet the CDC spun the report to fit its narrative, bannering the conclusion “vaccination remains the safest strategy.” It based this conclusion on the finding that hybrid immunity—the combination of prior infection and vaccination—was associated with a slightly lower risk of testing positive for Covid. But those with hybrid immunity had a similar low rate of hospitalization (3 per 10,000) to those with natural immunity alone. In other words, vaccinating people who had already had Covid didn’t significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization.
Similarly, the National Institutes of Health repeatedly has dismissed natural immunity by arguing that its duration is unknown—then failing to conduct studies to answer the question. Because of the NIH’s inaction, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I conducted the study. We found that among 295 unvaccinated people who previously had Covid, antibodies were present in 99% of them up to nearly two years after infection. We also found that natural immunity developed from prior variants reduced the risk of infection with the Omicron variant. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the two-dose Moderna vaccine against infection (not severe disease) declines to 61% against Delta and 16% against Omicron at six months, according to a recent Kaiser Southern California study. In general, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines have been less effective than Moderna’s.
The CDC study and ours confirm what more than 100 other studies on natural immunity have found: The immune system works. The largest of these studies, from Israel, found that natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic illness.
None of this should surprise us. For years, studies have shown that infection with the other coronaviruses that cause severe illness, SARS and MERS, confers lasting immunity. In a study published in May 2020, Covid-recovered monkeys that were rechallenged with the virus didn’t get sick.
Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do. They used the wrong starting hypothesis, ignored contrary preliminary data, and dug in as more evidence emerged that called their position into question. Many, including Rochelle Walensky, now the CDC’s director, signed the John Snow memorandum in October 2020, which declared that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection.”
Many clinicians who talk to other physicians nationwide had have long observed that we don’t see reinfected patients end up on a ventilator or die from Covid, with rare exceptions who almost always have immune disorders. Meanwhile, public-health officials recklessly destroyed the careers of everyday Americans, rallying to fire pilots, truck drivers and others in the supply-chain workforce who didn’t get vaccinated. And in the early months of the vaccine rollout, when supplies were limited, we could have saved many more lives by giving priority to those who didn’t have recorded natural immunity.
The failure to recognize the data on natural immunity is hurting U.S. hospitals, especially in rural areas. MultiCare, a hospital system in Washington state, fired 55 staff members on Oct. 18 for being out of compliance with Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate—and that was in addition to an undisclosed number of staffers who quit ahead of the vaccination deadline. The loss of workers contributed to a full-blown staffing crisis.
It got so bad that the hospital summoned staff who were Covid-positive to return to work even if they were sick, according to an internal memo obtained by Jason Rantz of KTTH radio. The memo stated that “positive staff with mild to moderate illness” could work, so long as they wear appropriate personal protective equipment, don’t take breaks with others, and agree to stay home “if symptoms worsen.” Managers were recommended to assign Covid-positive staff to Covid-positive patients and vaccinated patients, but not immunosuppressed patients.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took the hospital mandate national by decreeing that all medical facilities under its jurisdiction require vaccination for employees, including those with natural immunity. The Supreme Court upheld the rule on Jan. 13, the same day it issued a stay against a similar mandate from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which OSHA formally withdrew Tuesday.
Connecticut has suspended its vaccine mandate for state employees, and Starbucks is rehiring employees fired for being unvaccinated. Other states and businesses should follow their lead. Politicians and public-health officials owe an apology to Americans who lost their jobs on the false premises that only unvaccinated people could spread the virus and only vaccination could prevent its spread. Soldiers who have been dishonorably discharged should be restored their rank. Teachers, first responders, and others who have been denied their livelihood should be reinstated. Everyone is essential.
Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care and How to Fix It.”
Here is the other article I opted to reproduce in full in case it disappears behind a pay-wall, via the BALTIMORE SUN
University Of Maryland’s ‘Heavy-Handed’ Booster Mandate Not Warranted By Science | Guest Commentary
When historians look back at the COVID-19 pandemic, one of many confounding details will be the enthusiasm with which colleges and universities imposed ever-expanding draconian measures on their low-risk student body. Hundreds of U.S. colleges required all faculty, staff, and students to be vaccinated upon Emergency Use Authorization of COVID vaccines. Yet students remain masked indoors (and sometimes out), subject to random asymptomatic testing and limited in their social life.
When weighing policy options with regards to the pandemic, it seems that universities have abandoned rigorous evidence appraisal in favor of memetic signaling to political peers, regardless of how the illness itself manifests among its highly vaccinated student body.
Onto this backdrop, the omicron variant appeared in early winter. The extreme contagiousness of this new variant makes uncertain whether any measure will truly “stop the spread.” One reaction to the highly contagious variant (even among the vaccinated) might have been to focus less on extreme measures to tamp down cases, and instead focus on empowering students to take action to avoid severe outcomes based on their individual risk factors and risk tolerance.
Given lower risk of severe outcomes compared to prior variants, particularly among vaccinated young people, the situation on campus could take the shape of a bad respiratory virus season. The way forward could be as simple as: if you’re sick, get tested and stay home. If you’re well, go about your business. If you’re high risk or otherwise worried, discuss a booster or other means of protecting yourself with your health care provider, and consider wearing a properly fitted N95 mask. By messaging confidence in vaccines, a college may weather the surge with outcomes indistinguishable from schools that took more restrictive measures, without the collateral damage to community cohesion, trust in public health or institutional credibility.
But this evenhanded approach bumps up against unfashionable values concerned with civil liberties. And it doesn’t relieve the anxieties of adults who are persuaded less by the efficacy of interventions than by the moral imperative of imposing any restriction deemed virtuous by the chattering class. In fact, on Jan. 7, our state’s flagship academic institution announced that all students, faculty and staff were required to receive a COVID booster shot by Jan. 24. This measure goes beyond the University System of Maryland’s mandate by including off campus students and employees.
After nearly two years of restrictions intended to reduce the toll of this intractable disease, many may dismiss this mandate as one more inevitable imperative. But we — society and institutions of higher learning, in particular — must look critically at the necessity of such a heavy-handed intervention, and carefully evaluate the evidence supporting it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still consider an individual who has received the primary vaccine series to be fully vaccinated. Yet the university employed a new turn of phrase, requiring a booster to be “up-to-date,” indicating the initial vaccines are somehow deficient. Yet abundant evidence indicates that the primary vaccine series continues to prevent severe illness and death — an outcome worth celebrating.
Boosters are available to all, including those who are high risk or otherwise eager to take any measure to avoid infection. Emerging evidence indicates that reduction in infection due to boosters is uncertain and likely short-lived. As the efficacy of boosters in preventing infection is not clear, many are satisfied with their reduced risk of severe disease without additional shots.
Many experts reject the idea that boosting young and healthy individuals is an appropriate strategy at this stage of the pandemic. In September, the FDA’s external vaccine review panel voted 16 to 2 against blanket approval of boosters. The FDA decided internally to ignore these recommendations and approve boosters for all. Amid this process, two senior members of the vaccine review committee resigned. Both contributed to a Lancet opinion piece arguing against universal boosting. Among other points, they argue that unnecessary boosting impedes global vaccine equity, and may broadly reduce vaccine acceptance.
The available vaccines are based on the original strain of SARS-CoV-2. Many members of the campus community recently recovered from COVID, and now have immunity to the currently circulating strains. They will gain no benefit from a booster, meaning the risk, however minuscule, of an adverse event outweighs the benefit. It is widely accepted that myocarditis is an adverse event related to mRNA vaccines administered to young men. While these events are rare and typically mild, some are severe, and even mild cases may require limiting activity for an extended period. One may argue that this risk is justified before the initial vaccine series based on the risk of severe outcomes from COVID infection. However, vaccinated young men required to get yet another dose are being subjected to this risk with no evidence of benefit, particularly if they are recovered from COVID.
Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a vaccine developer, recently went on record to say that the benefit of boosting is not worth the risk to the average, healthy young adult male. He advised his own 20-something son against getting a booster.
Students want and deserve a normal, in-person spring semester. However, the university’s will to reassure students, parents, and faculty that the university is taking measures to reduce the burden of the disease on campus must not overpower the will to appraise whether the chosen intervention is effective, necessary, and without harm. The booster mandate does not meet these criteria.
I made the choice to be vaccinated as soon as I was eligible. I strongly encourage all adults to be vaccinated, and to discuss boosters with their physician. I am unlikely to suffer ill effects from a booster, and I may achieve some minor benefit in a temporary delay of infection. I am concerned, however, that the University is engaged in a dishonest exchange with its community by issuing a heavy-handed mandate whose necessity is not sufficiently supported by science. As an alum and a current faculty member, I wish to uphold the credibility of the university by insisting the booster mandate be suspended.
Chrissa Carlson (chrissacarlson@gmail.com) is a senior faculty specialist at the University of Maryland Extension.
Sharyl Attkisson: “Anti-Vaxxer” a Very Effective Propaganda Tool
“Definitions now are being rewritten and changed in real-time to fit…whatever the establishment wants people to think,” says five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson. The term “anti-vaxxine” is now used to describe anybody who is opposed to vaccine mandates. In this episode, we discuss how propagandists have taken control of the information landscape.
MINISTRY of TRUTH
TECHNO FROG details the CDC’s emails discussing changing the term “vaccination”
The CDC caused an uproar in early September 2021, after it changed its definitions of “vaccination” and “vaccine.” For years, the CDC had set definitions for vaccination/vaccine that discussed immunity. This all changed on September 1, 2021.
The prior CDC Definitions of Vaccine and Vaccination (August 26, 2021):
Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but can also be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.
Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.
The CDC Definitions of Vaccine and Vaccination since September 1, 2021:
Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. Vaccines are usually administered through needle injections, but some can be administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.
Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.
People noticed. Representative Thomas Massie was among the first to discuss the change, noting the definition went from “immunity” to “protection”.
[….]
CDC emails we obtained via the Freedom of Information Act reveal CDC worries with how the performance of the COVID-19 vaccines didn’t match the CDC’s own definition of “vaccine”/“vaccination”. The CDC’s Ministry of Truth went hard at work in the face of legitimate public questions on this issue…..
Another note on the Merriam Webster (Ditionary) change to “Vaccine” is elucidated by DECEPTION, SELF-DECEPTION, & DEFACTUALIZATION — who has an excellent subtitle to the site: “Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.” Funny and sad at the same time.
Paraphrasing George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ to illustrate a simple concept my mother drummed into my head from as far back as I can remember, ‘Words mean things.’
In his other memorable offering, ‘1984,’ Orwell used a construct called “Newspeak” as a means for his dystopian government to control thought. It did so by limiting the number of words available with which to articulate thought. I suppose elimination of words was to the author a simpler method to use in fiction when compared to that which has been employed in fact by those who seek to control our thoughts and our acceptance of their agendas.
The current pathway to achieving Orwell’s objective in what we like to think of as ‘the real world’ is to keep the words but change their meaning. There can be no more glaring example than Merriam Webster’s treatment of the word ‘vaccine.’ One day the word referred to a substance administered to an individual in order to convey immunity and to stop the spread of a disease. Overnight it was expanded to include Gene Therapy.
Consider the difference this small addition makes. The pushback against ‘vaccine’ is growing in scope and strength, fueled primarily by the revelation that it is not a vaccine but in fact is gene therapy. Now, with the stroke of a pen, it is also a vaccine. For the propagandists this neutralizes all argument based on whether or not the government is being truthful in its vaccine regulations, mandates and other pronouncements. Now that gene therapy is a vaccine it is no longer a lie. Advantage Orwell.
Consider VAERS, that trove of information on the negative aspects of vaccines. This is a useful compilation of information but also illustrates our government’s approach to the entire subject. When reports are helpful to the official narrative they are akin to gospel but when they provide data that runs counter to the narrative they are false information. My reaction to the government’s self-serving position on VAERS is like that of Enid Strict, SNL’s Church lady, “Well, isn’t that special?”….
FOX NEWS covers the change in “Anti-Vaxxer” in the Merriam Webster dictionary as well, saying,
Merriam-Webster’s online definition of “anti-vaxxer” is spreading on social media this month amid outrage over vaccine mandates. The definition of the term was first added to the online dictionary in 2018 and was updated in late September.
“Redefine words all you want Merriam Webster, but WORDS STILL HAVE MEANING. By this definition, you aren’t pro-vaccine unless you believe the government should force everyone to get a medical procedure?” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, tweeted Wednesday morning.
Fox News examined Merriam-Webster’s current definition of “anti-vaxxer” compared to its definition from 2018, and found it omitted the word “laws” in favor of “regulations.” The definition still states, however, that an “anti-vaxxer” includes people who oppose such rules on vaccinations or the vaccines, themselves.
“Definition of anti-vaxxer: a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination,” Merriam-Webster’s website currently states, noting that it was updated on Sept. 29, 2021.
The definition of “anti-vaxxer” was previously defined, according to an archived definition from 2018 examined by Fox News, as: “A person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination.”
Editor at large of Merriam-Webster.com, Peter Sokolowski, told PoltiFact in May – after outrage first cropped up over the definition – that the word was first added in 2018.
At the time, Sokolowski said the definition remained unchanged from 2018.
Merriam-Webster did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment on why the definition was updated on Sept. 29.
Fox News also examined the definition of “anti-vaxxer” in the New Oxford American dictionary and found it does not include language on mandates, laws or regulations.
“A person who is opposed to vaccination, typically a parent who does not wish to vaccinate their child,” the New Oxford American dictionary states.
After the definition was criticized over the summer, critics have taken to Twitter to lambaste the definition again following its update last month.
[….]
And of course the CDC changes what is required to be considered “vaccinated” regarding Covid Shots — RIGHT SCOOP:
What do you call it when they create an endless set of steps you have to take to remain a part of society? Because that is what is happening. Think about what we’re being told.
We’re told to stay inside and do nothing until there’s a vaccine and then when we get it we can finally start returning to normal life. Except after the vaccines, they say it’s not enough, keep wearing masks and staying six feet apart and also a bunch of industries and private businesses will have to remain out of work.
That’s not good enough for them, though. So, every day someone on cable news, often CNN’s “Dr.” Wen but often just commentators or even reporters and anchors, goes on air and says how we aren’t harsh enough to unvaxxed, they have to be punished more, they have to be driven from society further. That’s still happening every day.
Except vaccination isn’t vaccination, is it? You have to get a booster too. The covid regime forever……
Intubation Covid-19 Patients Too Early (An Alex Berenson Excerpt)
This is an excerpt from Alex Berenson’s book, “Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives.” I hadn’t planned on it, but I wanted to get on the record a response to MIKE B., who said this in a conversation in December: “And they never ever early used them [respirators]. Ever”… AFTER saying the Wayback Machine and the Tweet by Meredith Case, an internal medicine resident at Columbia, New York, Presbyterian Hospital, was a Russian plant and merely a right wing lie.
[This will make more sense as you read the below discussion and the excerpt ]
FACEBOOK CONVO
Here is my Original post (OP):
[Additions by me]
I did not realize that the reasons for ventilators was not to benefit the patients early on in the pandemic, but was a way to protect the staff. In NYC hospital 90% were moved almost immediately to ventilators….
….“to avoid aersolizing procedures [such as nebulizing masks] to protect staff.” Unfortunately, the overly aggressive use of ventilators backfired. Intubation should be a last-resort procedure. Ventilated patients are at high risk for bacterial lung infections. Most must be sedated with powerful opioids because ventilation is uncomfortable and painful. ….. [later in the fight, it was found that keeping patients sleeping on their sides and stomachs helped fight infection as blood flow to those portions of the lungs helped. Intubation forced patients on their backs.] ….. Worse, many early Covid patients received high-pressure ventilation. The goal was to keep their lungs inflated, but the high pressure appears to have destroyed the lungs of some patients…..
(Adaption from pages 66 and 67 of Pandemia)
THESE ARE THE THREE PICS POSTED ON MY FB (2 mobile phone screen shots and one pic):
Here is the rest of the conversation after the OP in PC Screen Shots… it all leads up to the reason behind the larger excerpt:
The part I want to highlight specifically is this:
- And they never ever early used them. Ever — MIKE B.
Ever!
EXCERPT
Without a silver bullet that could defeat the virus, physicians were reduced to offering “supportive care.” In essence, they managed patients’ symptoms, trying to keep them alive until their bodies could defeat the virus on their own.
Ventilators—machines that breathed for patients who could not—quickly became a crucial tool in the fight. Physicians in China used ventilators aggressively. By early March, physicians in Italy had followed suit.
As a letter to a journal published by the Society of Critical Care _Medicine would later explain, “Experts from China, Europe, and the United States supported a strategy of intubating patients early under the premise that early intubation allowed for more controlled circumstances and would provide superior lung protection.22
The heavy use of ventilators, which were in limited supply, was one crucial reason that Neil Ferguson and other modelers became so concerned that coronavirus patients might overrun hospitals. Even the best-equipped hospitals do not keep huge numbers of ventilators in reserve. And using ventilators properly requires highly trained pulmonologists, nurses, and respiratory specialists.
But the early use of ventilators wasn’t meant to help only the patients.
Medical staff weren’t immune from the panic sweeping the world. Doctors didn’t know exactly how transmissible the virus might be, or how dangerous. Even if the virus’s risks were concentrated among the elderly, it had sickened and killed some people treating it. On March 18, an Italian physician died only days after warning that Italy was short on protective gear.23
The specter of health system collapse also loomed, if too many physicians and nurses were sickened or died—or became too afraid to work. In a grim piece titled “We’re Failing Doctors” in The Atlantic (more to come on The Atlantic, which would soon take a unique position in the American coronavirus media ecosystem), an emergency room physician warned,
No one is so fearless or stupid as to discount all risks. Physicians fled epidemics in ancient Greece, the black death in Europe, and the great influenza pandemic of 1918….
At some point, the system could break, and we will all be gone.24
Medical staff knew that ventilators could help protect them. Intubated patients no longer coughed. They also did not need to be treated with nebulizing masks that put even more virus-filled droplets in the air. And in addition to doing the patients’ breathing for them, ventilators could deliver doses of aerosolized steroids and other drugs.
A March 27, 2020, statement from the Food and Drug Administration offered a revealing look into the agency’s priorities: “FDA takes action to help increase U.S. supply of ventilators and respirators for protection of health care workers, patients.”25
Two days earlier, a young physician in New York had explained exactly what the FDA meant, writing that her hospital was intubating patients quickly “to avoid aerosolizing procedures to protect staff.”26 (She would later delete the tweet.)
Unfortunately, the overly aggressive use of ventilators backfired. Intubation should be a last-resort procedure. Ventilated patients are at high risk for bacterial lung infections. Most must be sedated with powerful opioids because ventilation is uncomfortable and painful. But those drugs carry their own dangers. And because sedated patients cannot move, they are at risk of developing bedsores.
Worse, many early Covid patients received high-pressure ventilation. The goal was to keep their lungs inflated, but the high pressure appears to have destroyed the lungs of some patients.
As early as April 8, only weeks after American hospitals began to see large numbers of Covid patients, Stat News reported:
Some critical care physicians are questioning the widespread use of the breathing machines for Covid-19 patients, saying that large numbers of patients could instead be treated with less intensive respiratory support….
The question is whether ICU physicians are moving patients to mechanical ventilators too quickly.27
Two weeks later, on April 22, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a stunning report from Northwell Health, a major hospital system in the New York City area.
Only 38 out of 1,151 patients who had been put on ventilators during the first Covid wave had been discharged, while 282 had died. The rest remained in the hospital, their prognosis grim. In other words, for ventilated patients for whom an outcome was available, almost 90 percent had died.28 For patients under 65 years old, ventilation appeared to be especially likely to lead to bad outcomes.
The Northwell study sped the end of overly aggressive ventilation tactics, which were already going out of favor. But we may never know how many people—especially in New York City in March and April.
Alex Berenson, Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2021), 65-68, 394.
FOOTNOTES
(I STYLIZE THEM FOR EASIER ACCESS THAN THE BOOK)
22. Atul Matta et al., “Timing of Intubation and Its Implications on Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients with Coronavirus 2019 Infection,” Critical Care Explorations 2, no. 10 (October 2020), Timing of Intubation and Its Implications on Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection
23. Isaac Sher, “Italian Doctor Who Warned of. Medical Supply Shortages to Fight Coronavirus Has Now Died from the Disease,” Business Insider, March 20, 2020, Italian doctor who warned of medical supply shortages to fight coronavirus has now died from the disease
24. Thomas Kirsch, “What Happens If Health-Care Workers Stop Showing Up?” The Atlantic, March 24, 2020, What Happens If Health-Care Workers Stop Showing Up?
25. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Takes Action to Help Increase U.S. Supply of Ventilators and Respirators for Protection of Health Care Workers, Patients,” U.S. Food & Drug Administration, March 27, 2020, Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA takes action to help increase U.S. supply of ventilators and respirators for protection of health care workers, patients
26.Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson), “1/ Almost 90% of NYC patients put on ventilators…,” Twitter, April 23, 2020, 4:16 p.m., including a screenshot of Meredith (@thisismeredith), “One problem is the sheer number….,” Twitter, March 25, 2020, 7:50 a.m. My tweet and part of the screenshot are available at the, WAYBACK MACHINE. The complete screenshot is in my possession.
27. Sharon Begley, “With Ventilators Running Out, Doctors Say the Machines Are Overused for Covid-19,” Stat News, April 8, 2020, With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19
28.Safiya Richardson et al., “Presenting Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes among 5700 Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City Area,” Journal of the American Medical Association 323, no. 20 (April 2020): 2052-59, Presenting Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes Among 5700 Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in the New York City Area.
Justice Sotomayor Falls For Media Manipulation
These people (lefty judges on the Supreme Court) are just as clueless as the dopey Democrat behind the Starbucks expresso machine.
SOTMAYOR SAYS 100,000 CHILDREN IN HOSPITAL
PJ-MEDIA notes that this this “false claim can be easily fact-checked thanks to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.” Continuin they continue to say:
…which says that the current number of confirmed pediatric hospitalizations with COVID in the United States is 3,342.
Those are hospitalizations with COVID, not from COVID.
How exactly did Sotomayor get it so wrong? How can a Supreme Court justice so irresponsibly spread misinformation? Further, why should the hospitalization rate matter at all? The issue before the court is not the severity of the disease; it’s the constitutionality of Biden’s mandates.
THE CDC FACT CHECKED STATS
EVEN CNN
Even CNN forced to fact check Justice Sotomayor’s astonishingly false Covid lie…!!
RIGHT SCOOP adds to the data coming in showing that the Lefty SCOTUS members are either lying or horribly misinformed — maybe by CNN? MSNBC?
Sotomayor and Breyer lied through their teeth today about Covid. The media, when they aren’t ignoring this or saying the justices were RIGHT are claiming it was simply error or misspeak. But none of that is true, it was deliberate lying, like we see every day from their fellow activist liberal Democrats across the government and media, to include Fauci, Biden, and the rest.
And new hospital data from New York only shows how BAD of liars they are.
New York has its first official breakdown of what share of people are hospitalized for COVID vs. how many are hospitalized with incidental COVID. In NYC it’s 49% for COVID, everyone else just happened to test positive. pic.twitter.com/fNUmMK2DM9
— Alyssa Katz (@alykatzz) January 7, 2022
That’s right. So much for the “overwhelming hospitals” line of bull. If ICUs are full it’s because of procedure, not people coming in due to covid. And that means it’s not a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” too, by the way.
She’s right. This was treated as a conspiracy theory for TWO YEARS and now we know it to be FACT.
And same in Florida last month.
But we have kids in trunks and Biden still pushing for mandates.
Seb Gorka on Newsmax
Sotomayor: The Stupidest Person to EVER serve on the Supreme Court.
Coercion Made the Pandemic Worse (WSJ + AIER)
I wanted to make sure this WALL STREET JOURNAL article was saved in my feed (Hat-tip to Todd A):
Freedom is the central component of the best problem-solving system ever devised.
By David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “anti-vaxxer” as “a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination.” Where does that leave us? We both strongly favor vaccination against Covid-19; one of us (Mr. Hooper) has spent years working and consulting for vaccine manufacturers. But we strongly oppose government vaccine mandates. If you’re crazy about Hondas but don’t think the government should force everyone to buy a Honda, are you “anti-Honda”?
The people at Merriam-Webster are blurring the distinction between choice and coercion, and that’s not merely semantics. If we accept that the difference between choice and coercion is insignificant, we will be led easily to advocate policies that require a large amount of coercion. Coercive solutions deprive us of freedom and the responsibility that goes with it. Freedom is intrinsically valuable; it is also the central component of the best problem-solving system ever devised.
Free choice relies on persuasion. It recognizes that you are an important participant with key information, problem-solving abilities and rights. Any solution that is adopted, therefore, must be designed to help you and others. Coercion is used when persuasion has failed or is teetering in that direction—or when you are raw material for someone else’s grand plans, however ill-conceived.
Authoritarian governmental approaches hamper problem-solving abilities. They typically involve one-size-fits-all solutions like travel bans and mask mandates. Once governments adopt coercive policies, power-hungry bureaucrats often spout an official party line and suppress dissent, no matter the evidence, and impose further sanctions to punish those who don’t fall in line. Once coercion is set in motion, it’s hard to backtrack.
Consider Australia, until recently a relatively free country. Its Northern Territory has a Covid quarantine camp in Howard Springs where law-abiding citizens can be forcibly sent if they have been exposed to a SARS-CoV-2-positive person or have traveled internationally or between states, even without evidence of exposure. A 26-year-old Australian citizen, Hayley Hodgson, was detained at the camp after she was exposed to someone later found to be positive. Despite three negative tests and no positive ones, she was held in a small enclosed area for 14 days and fed once a day. Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says quarantine can end after seven days with negative tests. Why didn’t the government let her quarantine at home? And why doesn’t it exempt or treat differently people who can prove prior vaccination or natural infection?
Although U.S. authorities haven’t gone nearly that far, early in the pandemic the Food and Drug Administration used its coercive power to discourage the development of diagnostic tests for Covid-19. The FDA required private labs wanting to develop tests to submit special paperwork to get approval that it had never required for other diagnostic tests. That, in combination with the CDC’s claims that it had enough testing capacity, meant that testing necessitated the use of a CDC test later determined to be so defective that it found the coronavirus in laboratory-grade water.
With voluntary approaches, we get the benefit of millions of people around the world actively trying to solve problems and make our lives better. We get high-quality vaccines from BioNTech/ Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, instead of the suspect vaccines from the governments of Cuba and Russia. We get good diagnostic tests from Thermo Fisher Scientific instead of the defective CDC one. We get promising therapeutics such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s molnupiravir.
With authoritarian approaches, we get solutions that meet the requirements of those in power, regardless of how we benefit. Consider this hypothetical example:
Policy A ends with 1,000 Covid-19 cases, 5,000 people who have completely lost their liberty for two weeks, 1,000 lost jobs, and 300 missed key family events, such as the funeral of a loved one.
Policy B ends with 1,020 Covid-19 cases, 4,000 who have lost some of their liberty for one week, 1,000 who have completely lost their liberty for two weeks, 300 lost jobs, and 100 missed family events.
The government may prefer Policy A because it is focused on one aspect of the problem. You might prefer Policy B because many aspects of life matter to you—not only coronavirus cases—and B is much better on the other dimensions. But your preferences don’t count.
With coercive solutions, you’ll often deal with an official who will absolve himself of responsibility by pinning the rule on those giving the orders. With voluntary solutions, if it doesn’t make sense, we usually don’t do it. And therein lies one of the greatest protections we have to ensure that the solution isn’t worse than the problem.
The supposed trump card of those who favor coercion is externalities: One person’s behavior can put another at risk. But that’s only half the story. The other half is that we choose how much risk we accept. If some customers at a store exhibit risky behavior, then we can vaccinate, wear masks, keep our distance, shop at quieter times, or avoid the store.
Economists understand how one person can impose a cost on another. But it takes two to tango, and it’s generally more efficient if the person who can change his behavior with the lower cost changes how he behaves. In other words, to perform a proper evaluation of policies to deal with externalities, we must consider the responses available to both parties. Many people, including economists, ignore this insight.
By what principle do we throw out the playbook of the more successful country, ours, and adopt one from less successful, more authoritarian countries? The authoritarian playbook has serious built-in weaknesses, while solutions based on free choice have obvious and not-so-obvious strengths. Freedom is beneficial in good times; it’s even more crucial in challenging times.
Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was senior health economist with President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Hooper is author of “Should the FDA Reject Itself?” and president of Objective Insights, whose clients include pharmaceutical companies.
AIER Bonus
It is not yet clear whether history will remember the 2020s more for an outbreak of a deadly virus, or for an outbreak of mass psychosis. No doubt, both were at play, the former because the virus was novel and deadly, the latter because we had no idea how much so. In March of 2020, the World Health Organization estimated Covid’s case fatality rate to be over 3 percent. Some outlets reported case fatality rates above 10 percent. By comparison, the case fatality rate for the common flu is a mere fraction of a percent.
But the early information ranged from sketchy to biased. In the early days, the number of Covid tests was limited, so physicians only tested those who were sick enough to show up at hospitals. This skewed the early data toward showing Covid as being deadlier than it actually was. With no randomized testing, the actual lethality was impossible to know.
This bias interacted with the media and politicians’ incentives to create a perfect storm of incentives. The media had an incentive to repeat the worst fatality projections and to play down the bias behind the projections because bad news attracts viewers, and viewers attract advertising dollars. Heavy media coverage of the worst Covid projections alarmed voters, and that forced politicians to respond. But the politicians’ incentives were skewed toward a heavy-handed response.
[….]
By late 2020, it became clear that early case fatality rates were overstated, but it was too late for politicians to change course. A feedback loop had ensued wherein the media sold advertising by spotlighting the Covid danger. This made people fearful, and the people pushed politicians to act. Politicians acted and then hid the potential error of unnecessary lockdowns by emphasizing the danger of Covid. This gave the media more material to spotlight and more advertising to sell. Social media then jumped into the fray by anointing itself the arbiter of what was and wasn’t “misinformation.” But social media was as motivated as the mainstream media to attract eyeballs and sell advertising, and so anything that contradicted the official line on Covid was deemed “misinformation.”
The result was mass psychosis in which people’s behaviors toward the real threat of Covid became inconsistent with their behaviors toward other real threats.
[….]
As with all things, lockdowns do not come without tradeoffs. Some people died of cancer, kidney disease, and other non-Covid causes because they were afraid to go to hospitals out of fear of contracting Covid. In Canada, cancer screening was suspended so that hospital resources could be devoted to Covid care. Early estimates show up to a 10 percent increase in cancer deaths as a consequence. In the US in the early days of Covid, there was a 30 percent decline in the number of people seeking initial treatment for kidney disease.
At the start of the pandemic, calls to suicide hotlines spiked across the country, as did instances of domestic violence. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the total number of deaths in the US was 450,000 larger than it should have been in 2020. That 360,000 of those were directly due to Covid means that the remaining 90,000 were due to Covid only indirectly or due to the lockdowns themselves.
In addition to the lockdowns costing lives, we expended unprecedented resources maintaining them. These came initially in the form of unemployment and business closures, and later in the form of supply chain problems and inflation and higher taxes to pay for massive stimulus spending. In late 2020, economists estimated that, provided it ended by the fall of 2021, the pandemic will cost the United States around $16 trillion over the next decade. That’s around $40 million for every life saved.
But how many more lives might we have saved had we done something different with those resources? Around 660,000 people die each year of heart disease in the US. The National Institutes of Health spends around $5 billion each year researching cures for cardiovascular diseases. Americans spend another $330 billion each year for hospitalization, home health care, medication, and lost productivity associated with cardiovascular diseases.
Suppose that, over the next decade, it turns out that the 2020-21 lockdown saved a total of 1.1 million US lives (including people who may have contracted Covid in 2020-21 but died over the subsequent decade from lingering complications). This is three times the 370,000 the lockdown appears to have saved in 2020 alone. We will have spent $16 trillion in direct costs and lost productivity to save those 1.1 million people. But, over the same decade, 6.6 million people will have died of cardiovascular diseases. To save them, we will have spent $3.3 trillion. We are dedicating one-fifth the resources to fighting a disease that kills six times the number of people. That makes no sense.
Of course, Covid and cardiovascular diseases are very different in that heart disease isn’t contagious. And yet, that criticism cuts both ways: because heart disease isn’t contagious, we can’t develop a herd immunity, and so heart disease will remain with us for generations whereas Covid will not.
[….]
As Omicron looms, and as surely as Pi, Rho, and Sigma will follow, voters should meet their fears with reason, view the media with a skeptical eye, and demand that politicians discuss tradeoffs openly and honestly.
Antony Davies is the Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, and associate professor of economics at Duquesne University. He has authored Principles of Microeconomics (Cognella), Understanding Statistics (Cato Institute), and Cooperation and Coercion (ISI Books). He has written hundreds of op-eds appearing in, among others, the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New York Post, Washington Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, US News, and the Houston Chronicle.