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Follow the Science? How COVID Authoritarians Get It Wrong


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Fauci Must Go

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/fauci-must-go/

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President Joe Biden should relieve Dr. Anthony Fauci of his duties at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as chief medical adviser to the White House, and as the public face of the American government’s response to Covid-19.

It is past time for public-health policy to shift to acknowledging that Covid-19 is an endemic disease and, for the most part, a risk for individuals to manage. Fauci stands in the way of executing that shift and communicating it to the public.

Fauci’s own behavior has undermined public trust in the response to the pandemic: by sitting for celebrity puff profiles and documentaries, by stifling public debate about the origins of Covid-19 and the proper response to it, by responding in lawyerly and evasive fashion to questions about NIH research dollars supporting work at the Wuhan lab. In his nasty spats with Senator Rand Paul and other officeholders, he hasn’t simply parried criticisms but tried to land political blows himself.

It has always been bizarre that the head of an obscure agency has soaked up so much media attention. Over the past two years, Fauci has done so many interviews with so many outlets — from Sunday shows to obscure podcasts — that one wonders how he had time for his day job. Nearly everyone in Washington enjoys being in front of a microphone, but even the most shameless media hogs might blush at Fauci’s interview schedule. It would be one thing if Fauci were merely delivering updates on the state of Covid. But he has gone way beyond that and delved into pure self-promotion. How did the appearance of Fauci on the cover of InStyle, sitting by the pool in sunglasses, declaring, “With all due modesty, I think I’m pretty effective,” advance public health?

Fauci has been subject to unfair attacks and deranged threats, and made the subject of hysterical “plandemic” conspiracy theories. He deserved none of these. He arguably played a valuable role in the early stages of the pandemic, when many Americans found him a comforting voice. He was an experienced doctor and public-health official who had served every president since Ronald Reagan, and he had passed through and learned from the political storms and medical uncertainties of the AIDS crisis. When President Trump was inconstant, was inattentive, or seemed to wish away the crisis, Fauci presented a sober, reassuring confidence in the power of scientific inquiry to help us navigate this crisis.

But that was a long time ago. By his own admission, Fauci misleads the public. When trying to explain why, before he adopted them for himself, he had disparaged the use of cloth masks, he explained that people in the public-health community were trying to preserve masks for front-line workers. “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” he said in March 2020. “When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask, and they keep touching their face.” He did not trust the public to restrain themselves. Score this as a lie and a slur. This was a public that was already making wrenching, unthinkable sacrifices — with Americans forgoing the funerals of loved ones, surrendering their jobs, and closing down their businesses — in an attempt to meet the ultimately unrealistic task public health had set for them of stopping the spread of Covid-19. They deserved candor.

In a December 2020 interview with the New York Times, Fauci acknowledged that he had been continuously shifting the goalposts on when he thought herd immunity to Covid-19 might be reached. Reporter Donald McNeil Jr. correctly characterized this change as being based “partly on [Fauci’s] gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.”

 

This pattern of intentional deceit is totally unbecoming for a public servant. Trying to shape or manipulate public opinion and behavior is not the job of public-health experts; their job is to clearly and candidly inform a self-governing people and their representatives. Trust works only if it goes two ways. A free, curious, and inquisitive people subjected to this behavior from their leaders will naturally recoil at other government claims about vaccines or therapeutics.

Fauci has peremptorily dismissed criticism of his work as criticism of science itself. The effect has been to bring science into disrepute. Fauci participated in and amplified the smoke-and-mirrors public-relations campaign launched by EcoHealth Alliance’s Dr. Peter Daszak to rule out the lab-leak theory of Covid-19 as a conspiracy theory. Subsequent email leaks and FOIA requests have shown Fauci acting more like the head of a cartel of scientific experts.

A post-pandemic investigation should determine whether the American and global-health response to the pandemic was stymied and slowed because of the prejudices and hobbyhorses of a handful of bureaucrats in Washington, including Dr. Fauci, who control the distribution of $32 billion annually. These dollars fund nearly all of the lifeblood of biomedical inquiry, money that pays even the salaries of low-level biology professors.

Fauci’s political dispositions shape his alarmism and discredited him with a large swath of the country that any viable public-health strategy has to be able to reach. He denounced people for attending college-football games in a region of the country where Covid was in seasonal decline. No outbreak materialized. He’s been under fire from Republican senators and House members and has handled it increasingly poorly — he was caught on a hot mic calling Senator Roger Marshall a “moron” during a Senate hearing last week.

Fauci’s claim that he himself “represents the science” and his admitted deceptions of the public are incompatible with each other and intolerably insolent to boot. Most important, they subvert and undermine American self-government. He must go.

Agreed.

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Unmask America

https://mises.org/wire/unmask-america

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Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings. 

This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covid.

We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of covid infections.

Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus 

—former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams in February 2020. 

The story changed from "masks don't work," to "masks may work," to "masks work and you must wear one." Now the narrative switches yet again: "cloth masks don't work, so you should wear a surgical or 'well-fitted' mask," or even wear two!

Note that even as covid evolves into a less dangerous omicron variant, we are supposed to increase the hysteria level by wearing masks intended for surgeons maintaining a sterile environment over open wounds. We are told this by the same political, medical, and media figures who have been "frequently wrong but never in doubt" about all things covid over the past two long years. And they spoke with just as much bogus certainty then as they do now.

Perversely, the Biden administration recently ordered 400 million surgical N95 masks for distribution across the country. Since N95 masks are considered disposable, and meant to be worn at most perhaps 40 hours, it is unclear what happens in a week or two when 330 million Americans run out of their "free" personal protective equipment.

The UK has sensibly ended its mask mandates, both in public places (offices and other workplaces, bars, restaurants, sporting events, theaters) and thankfully schools. One young university student broke down in tears at the news, lamenting the inhumanity of her experience over the past two years. As British Health secretary Savid Javid stated, "We must learn to live with covid in the same way we live with flu."

Amen.

The arguments against masks are straightforward.

  • Masks don't work. Or at least cloth masks don't.

Even the CDC now admits what Dr. Anthony Fauci told the world in February 2020: cloth masks don't work and there is no reason to wear one: 

"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you."

I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.

CNN's dubious medical expert Dr. Lena Wen, previously an uber-masker, now tells us cloth masks are "little more than facial decorations. And heroic skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya cites both a Danish study and a Bangladeshi study which found cloth masks show little efficacy in preventing covid. 

Are we seriously prepared to wear tight and uncomfortable surgical masks all day to evade omicron?

  • Masks are filthy.

Humans lungs and our respiratory system are designed to inhale nitrogen and oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is literally a waste product, removed from the blood via our lungs. Masks may not trap injurious levels of carbon dioxide against our nose and mouth, but they certainly get filthy very quickly unless changed constantly. They also encourage mouth breathing, which can cause "mask mouth" symptoms including acne, bad breath, tender gums, and lip irritation.

Why would we ever interfere with natural breathing unless we felt sick, displayed symptoms, and were worried about infecting others? And in that case, why not just stay home?

  • Masks are dehumanizing.

Humans communicate verbally and nonverbally, and masks impede both forms. Masks muffle and distort our words. Our facial expressions are important cues to everyone around us; without those cues communication and understanding suffer. Infants and toddlers may be most affected, as a lack of facial engagement with parents and loved ones impedes the human connections and attachments formed during childhood.

Perhaps most disturbing, however, are the symbolic effects when millions of Americans dutifully wear masks based on flimsy evidence provided by deeply unimpressive people. Facelessness--the lack of individual identity, personality, and looks-- is inherently dehumanizing and dystopian. Like prison or military uniforms, masks reduce our personal characteristics. Mask are muzzles, symbols of rote acquiescence to an ugly new normal nobody asked for or voted for.

  • Risk is inevitable.

Risk is omnipresent, and heavily subjective (e.g., covid risk varies enormously with age and comorbidities). Nobody has a right to force interventions like masks onto others, just as nobody has a right to a hypothetical germ-free landscape. Exhalation is not aggression, short of purposefully attempting to sicken others. People wearing masks arguably shed slightly fewer covid virus particles than those not, but this does not justify banning the latter from public life. As always, the overwhelming burden of justification for any intervention—including mask mandates—must rest on those proposing it, not those opposing it. 

In sum, Americans are not children. Tradeoffs are part of every policy, whether government officials admit this or not. We know how to coexist with flu, just as we live with countless bacteria and viruses in our environment. We will similarly coexist with covid. The goal is not to eliminate germs, and zero covid is an absurdity. A healthy immune system, built up through diet, exercise, and sunlight will always be the best frontline defense against communicable disease. But diet, exercise, and sunlight cannot be outsourced to health officials or mandated by politicians.

Whatever slight benefits masks may provide are a matter for individuals to decide for themselves. People who feel sick with symptoms should stay home. We can all wash our hands frequently and thoroughly. Otherwise it is time for Americans to assert themselves against the dubious claims and non-existent legality of government covid measures. 

It is time to get back to normal life, and that starts with visible human faces.

Shocking to see the psuedo-police state called Great Britain actually doing the sensible, and human, thing here.

 

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Slowhand has a theory......

https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/eric-clapton-people-vaccinated-against-covid-under-hypnosis/

Eric Clapton claims people vaccinated against COVID-19 are under ‘hypnosis’

January 24, 2022 1:25pm 
Eric Clapton’s career “had almost gone anyway” until his campaign against conventional medicine took off.

The 76-year-old musician went on the Real Music Observer YouTube channel to discuss how his life has changed since reluctantly taking AstraZeneca’s therapy in 2021. Clapton has since become outspoken about his anti-vaccination stance.

He claimed that he’d been duped into getting the COVID-19 jab by subliminal messaging in pharmaceutical advertising — and urged others not to fall for it.

“Whatever the memo was, it hadn’t reached me,” he said, referring to the “mass formation hypnosis” conspiracy theory, which gained traction in 2021 as part of anti-vaccine propaganda. (In related circles it’s also been called “mass formation psychosis.”)

Credited to Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet, the theory essentially points to a sort of mind control that has taken over society, allowing for unscrupulous leaders to easily manipulate populations into, for example, accepting vaccines or wearing face masks.

“Then I started to realize there was really a memo, and a guy, Mattias Desmet [professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium], talked about it,” Clapton continued. “And it’s great. The theory of mass formation hypnosis. And I could see it then. Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.”

Clapton recalled “seeing little things on YouTube which were like subliminal advertising,” he said.Gareth 

The former Cream guitarist also talked about his efforts with fellow British songwriter Van Morrison to speak up on behalf of other artists against vaccine requirements.

“My career had almost gone anyway. At the point where I spoke out it had been almost 18 months since I’d kind of been forcibly retired,” he said, as pandemic restrictions shut down live events for months.

“I joined forces with Van and I got the tip Van was standing up to the measures and I thought, ‘why is nobody else doing this?’ . . . so I contacted him.”

He said that Morrison, 76, complained that he wasn’t “allowed” to freely object to vaccine requirements.

“I was mystified, I seemed to be the only person that found it exciting or even appropriate. I’m cut from a cloth where if you tell me I can’t do something, I really want to know why,” the “Cocaine” singer said.

“My family and friends got scared, and I think they were scared on my behalf,” he added.

Clapton also admitted that he’d given up on recent news media, which he described as “one-way traffic about following orders and obedience” — a decision that he said has helped him creatively and professionally.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer also joked about losing touch with friends and family over his political views: “My family and friends think I am a crackpot anyway.”

“Over the last year, there’s been a lot of disappearing — a lot of dust around, with people moving away quite quickly. It has, for me, refined the kind of friendship I have. And it’s dwindled down to the people that I obviously really need and love,” he said.

“Inside my family, that became quite pivotal,” he said, speaking of wife Melia McEnery and four daughters, Ruth, 37, Julie, 20, Ella, 19 and Sophie, 16. “I’ve got teenage girls, and an older girl who’s in her thirties — and they’ve all had to kind of give me leeway because I haven’t been able to convince any of them.”

Despite making headlines, others in the music community have alienated him, Clapton said. “I would try to reach out to fellow musicians and sometimes I just don’t hear from them,” he said. “My phone doesn’t ring very often. I don’t get that many texts and emails anymore.”

Meanwhile, Clapton has been known to throw his support behind other anti-vax activists, including donating more than $1,300 to a British rock group who were slapped with fines for breaching COVID-19 protocol during a show in 2021.

Aside from his work with the “Brown Eyed Girl” singer, Clapton also released the song “This Has Gotta Stop” last year, with a similar message: “I can’t take this BS any longer / It’s gone far enough / You want to claim my soul / you’ll have to come and break down this door.”

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Fauci spreading fear during the start of the AIDS awareness......

https://100percentfedup.com/unearthed-1983-video-shows-dr-fauci-pushing-theory-that-kids-can-get-aids-simply-by-being-in-close-contact-with-infected-individuals/

UNEARTHED 1983 VIDEO Shows Dr. Fauci Pushing Theory That Kids Can Get AIDS Simply By Being in “Close Contact” With Infected Individuals

By Patty McMurray | Jan 24, 2022

 

 

A stunning clip of Dr. Fauci explaining how AIDS may be transmitted to children through “close contact,” was shared in a tweet by Kennedy W. Roberts. She tweeted the video in response to a Twitter feud that was initiated by the husband of Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who was attempting to mock Dennis Praeger over comments he made on Newsmax:

“During the AIDS crisis, can you imagine if gay men and intravenous drug users…had they been pariahs the way the non-vaccinated are? But it would’ve been inconceivable”

Chasten Buttigieg responded:

AIDS patients died because people feared simply touching them would lead to infection. Families abandoned their own children to be buried in unmarked graves. Let us know where we can send the books Dennis, God forbid you read one.

Kennedy W. Roberts shared this video clip of Dr. Fauci spreading panic porn about the possiblity of children getting the deadly AIDS virus simply by being in “close contact” with infected adults.

 

Although the NCBI (National Center For Biotechnology Information) clearly states – COVID rarely kills children, even compared with influenza, against which many children are already vaccinated. Our data show that for mortality COVID-19 is similar to flu, or less severe, in children. Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, have been pushing to vaccinate our youth against the CCP virus that has a 0.4% death rate in children.

Watch Dr. Fauci pushing for the CCP virus jab on ABC This Week:

 

It’s not the first time Fauci used a deadly disease to push panic porn on parents of small children…

In 1983, Dr. Fauci caused panic in parents when he suggested in an ABC News interview, the possibility that kids can get AIDS simply by living in close contact with an adult who has tested positive for AIDS.

 

In the 1983 interview, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked about Dr. Aleksy’s work on AIDS, and how the disease can be spread throughout the community? Dr. Fauci explained how the disease has been “evolving” and that they learn a “little bit more” each week about how the disease can “go out of its original epidemiological constraints.”

Sounds familiar so far, right? 

“Early on, as you know, the disease was felt to be limited to the male homosexual community and IV drug users, and then we began to see that groups like Haitians, hemophiliacs and the implications of transmission via blood transfusions,” he explained.

Dr. Fauci remarked on the recent study by Dr. Alesky, “When you have a situation that we’re seeing here with this article by Alesky, in which children, household contacts, of either individuals with AIDS or at high risk for AIDS have indeed, at least a significant number of them, have what looks like a syndrome that’s identical to AIDS syndrome.”

That tells you that it’s quite possible that just intimate contact outside of the sexual contact, blood transmission route is a possible mechanism whereby this disease can be transmitted. If that’s the case, then indeed, the implications for the spread to even other groups besides infants and children, become something that needs to be reckoned with. So I think it’s going to have a major impact on our thinking about what the real confines of the syndrome will be,” he told the ABC News host.

When asked by the host to explain what he means by “other intimate contact?” Dr. Fauci explained that there have been examples of cases of AIDS in heterosexual women or other non-drug-using partners who are getting AIDS by being in close contact, but not necessarily intimate contact with infected individuals. “Now, indeed, if one can have contact that is intimate, but not necessarily sexual, then one’s talking about the possibility of spreading out of groups that you would feel if you stay away from sharing a needle with or having sexual contact that you are safe from the disease. This brings in the implications that there are other ways, just plain close contact,” he said, adding, “And given the long incubation period of this disease, we may be starting to see, as we’re seeing virtually as the months go by, other groups that can be involved. And seeing it in children is really quite disturbing,” Dr. Fauci said.

“Give me some examples” of “other close contacts,” the ABC News host asked.

 

“Well for example if the close contact of a child is a household contact, perhaps there will be a certain number of cases of individuals who are just living with and in close contact with someone with AIDS or at risk for AIDS who does not necessarily have to have intimate sexual contact or share a needle, but just the ordinary close contact one sees in normal interpersonal relationships.”

Fauci admits, that although his theory may be “far-fetched,” and although “there have been no cases recognized yet in which an individual who has had merely casual contact with an individual who had gotten AIDS from being in close contact,” he continues to push the theory, saying the incubation period is so long, they just don’t know, saying “the jury is still out.” He continued to explain how medical researchers and public health service officials are concerned with is that the confines of transmissibility will be “loosening up,” and “we can’t become complacent.”

Watch:

 

 

MSN explained how prior to receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts to curb the AIDS crisis in Africa, and acclaim for his public-facing role during the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci had been criticized for his approach to addressing the spread of HIV in the United States. His speculation about close contact being infectious, as well as his stubborn focus on producing a vaccine rather than therapeutics, were of particular frustration to activists and other scientists.

In 1983, Dr. Fauci caused panic in parents when he suggested in an ABC News interview, the possibility that kids can get AIDS simply by living in close contact with an adult who has tested positive for AIDS.

"That tells you that it’s quite possible that just intimate contact outside of the sexual contact, blood transmission route is a possible mechanism whereby this disease can be transmitted. If that’s the case, then indeed, the implications for the spread to even other groups besides infants and children, become something that needs to be reckoned with. So I think it’s going to have a major impact on our thinking about what the real confines of the syndrome will be,” he told the ABC News host.

When asked by the host to explain what he means by “other intimate contact?” Dr. Fauci explained that there have been examples of cases of AIDS in heterosexual women or other non-drug-using partners who are getting AIDS by being in close contact, but not necessarily intimate contact with infected individuals. “Now, indeed, if one can have contact that is intimate, but not necessarily sexual, then one’s talking about the possibility of spreading out of groups that you would feel if you stay away from sharing a needle with or having sexual contact that you are safe from the disease. This brings in the implications that there are other ways, just plain close contact,” he said, adding, “And given the long incubation period of this disease, we may be starting to see, as we’re seeing virtually as the months go by, other groups that can be involved. And seeing it in children is really quite disturbing,” Dr. Fauci said.

“Give me some examples” of “other close contacts,” the ABC News host asked.

 

“Well for example if the close contact of a child is a household contact, perhaps there will be a certain number of cases of individuals who are just living with and in close contact with someone with AIDS or at risk for AIDS who does not necessarily have to have intimate sexual contact or share a needle, but just the ordinary close contact one sees in normal interpersonal relationships.”

Fauci admits, that although his theory may be “far-fetched,” and although “there have been no cases recognized yet in which an individual who has had merely casual contact with an individual who had gotten AIDS from being in close contact,” he continues to push the theory, saying the incubation period is so long, they just don’t know, saying “the jury is still out.” He continued to explain how medical researchers and public health service officials are concerned with is that the confines of transmissibility will be “loosening up,” and “we can’t become complacent.”

Sounding familiar yet?

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Italy's Covid Despotism Just Got Worse

https://mises.org/wire/italys-covid-despotism-just-got-worse

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The news from Italy has started to sound like good incipits for a dystopian fantasy novel or like a déjà vu recalling the Soviet Union. A couple of weeks ago, a new decree of the Draghi government established yet more rules restricting the lives of people who have not been injected with the latest vaccine booster and who therefore cannot show the latest version of the Green Pass. These second-class citizens, who have already been stripped of their right to move, work, and participate in a great number of social activities, are now forbidden from entering post offices to withdraw their pension, and they are to be allowed access to supermarkets only to buy “goods of primary necessity.” In other words, the Italian government decides what kind of food and what other goods (if any) these people will be able to purchase. It is unclear how exactly the government intends to enforce this new decree: Will we see policemen putting their hands into shoppers’ bags? Will bread be considered a “primary” good while shaving foam and candies will be seized? There is no limit to the madness. And a recent note from the executive to clarify the situation only made things worse: the state now decrees that the unvaccinated can actually also buy nonprimary goods in the few shops they are allowed to enter. For the time being. In other words, Italy is now a society where your sphere of action goes only as far as the prime minister’s website explicitly and graciously allows. Heading out for a stroll at the park? You better check the latest blog post from Mario Draghi to see if he explicitly grants you this freedom!

How did it come to this?

Among Western countries, Italy has been one of those experiencing the most systematic denial of basic civil rights over the past two years. Coalition governments led first by Giuseppe Conte and then by Mario Draghi have empowered an unelected committee of “experts” called the Comitato Tecnico Scientifico, which has in turn empowered the governments by assigning a scientific aura to every decree, every action, and every word coming from the executive. This has resulted in an endless series of lockdown measures that for long periods have erased freedom of movement, the right to work, property rights over businesses and shops, freedom to assemble, freedom to worship, and even the distinction of jurisdictional spheres between church and political authority (with state bureaucrats closing churches and then handing out petty instructions on what rites could be carried out, how liturgies should be curtailed, and how many people if any could be present at masses and funerals). In the meantime, the legislative branch has been humbled, and government by urgent decrees from the executive has become the norm. The very constitutional structure of the country has been bent, and a new concept called “stato di emergenza” (state of emergency) has been invented out of thin air, even though it is nowhere to be found in Italy’s republican constitution.

If we were not living in the age of CNN, fake news, and outrageous subsidies handed out by politicians to newspapers and the media, one could legitimately wonder where the journalists were while all this was going on? In fact, journalists in Italy are among the main culprits of the current dystopian reality, since they have given platforms to “experts” who agreed with lockdowns and other measures that expanded government control over all aspects of life, while at the same time they ferociously mocked and ostracized doctors and scientists who dared to question the logic of outdoor mask mandates and curfews for restaurants. Anybody who dared to point out the disastrous consequences of a prolonged lockdown on mental health and on people suffering from other pathologies, or the link between the economy and public health, was accused of being a “covid denier.” This is a pattern that surely readers recognize, as they have seen it in the US and many other countries over the past two years. The fact that virtually every opinion labelled by the media as “conspiracy theory” has turned out to be true just three or four months later has done nothing to shake the arrogance of the corrupt mass media, who are entrenched in their monopoly over the news cycle, thanks to their access to state funding and political favors. And this is true in Italy as virtually everywhere else.

Giuseppe Conte’s administration was followed by another government coalition led by Prime Minister Draghi, not thanks to free elections but through a move by the president of the republic, Sergio Mattarella. In a solemn speech on February 2021, the head of state explained to the country that it was inopportune to have an election in the midst of a pandemic—even though during the same period Romania and Portugal had elections and their rate of infection was not altered. Instead, Mattarella entrusted the government to Draghi, claiming that this would be a nonpartisan, “technical government” simply charged with the tasks of obtaining funds from the EU and overseeing the vaccination campaign. Obviously, the idea of a “technical,” neutral government is absurd, since every modern state expropriates, inflates, and moves wealth from some social groups to others.

I will not get into the many lies spewed by Draghi and his ministers about the effectiveness of the vaccines, nor into the series of grotesque restrictions progressively imposed on the unvaccinated. Suffice it to say that, once again, the media was complicit, as for months it covered any failure by the Draghi administration with wild accusations against the “no-vax.” Just like those accused of being “covid deniers” never denied the existence of covid, those who are now labelled as “no-vax” have in most cases nothing against vaccines per se. Many of them simply explain that whether to take the vaccine or not should be a decision freely made by each person, considering their age, clinical history, and other factors; and they correctly note the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity. But these are unimportant details for journalists, who at the year-end press conference put up a show worthy of a banana republic by greeting Draghi with cheers and a long applause rather than with probing questions. Interestingly, the change at the helm from Conte to Draghi has had the effect of showing the true colors of Italian liberals, who are in fact ill-disguised statists.

Even Amnesty International has expressed concern about the discrimination against unvaccinated people in Italy, while Italian liberals and leftists cheer Draghi on. The only coherent, courageous opposition to Draghi is coming from the fringes and from unlikely allies like Marxist professor Ugo Mattei and libertarian professor Carlo Lottieri (a friend of the Mises Institute). Mattei has tirelessly denounced the unconstitutional nature of the “state of emergency” as well as the cowardly blackmailing of workers forced to decide between taking the vaccine or losing their job. Lottieri has led the small movement of resistance among university professors fighting discrimination against unvaccinated students and explaining how the pandemic has been an excuse for modern states to take one step further in their control over the body and mind of each individual.

The measures to which Italian people have been subjected in these two long years of unchecked statism and shameless propaganda have not only been unjust: they have also been utterly useless in fighting the pandemic. Italy has seen exactly the same trajectories and timeframes in the different waves of the virus as those experienced by countries like Sweden or even the UK, where liberties and the economy have not been trampled—or at least have not been trampled to the same extent! The failure of streams of government decrees is not a surprise for those who, having read Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, know very well that human societies are complex and that we should be humble when devising solutions from the top. Central planning—whether for the economy or for healthcare—is destined to fail. On the other hand, central planning serves a political class and crony corporations ceaselessly attempting to micromanage our lives.

 

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‘Ridiculous’ Masking Rules for Student Athletes Must End, Coaches and Parents Say

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ridiculous-masking-rules-for-student-athletes-must-end-coaches-and-parents-say/

 

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The kids at Appoquinimink High know what it means when they see Mr. Killingsworth walking the school’s hallways in the fall: He’s on the lookout for new recruits for his wrestling team.

There’s no middle-school feeder system for the Delaware wrestling club, so Rich Killingsworth relies on recruiting newbies when they show up at the school as freshmen.

In particular, he looks for athletes from other sports who could learn a thing or two from a grueling wrestling season, and for tough kids who maybe haven’t had a lot of advantages in life. “I’m trying to get kids in a room that I know is going to benefit them,” Killingsworth said.

Over the years, Killingsworth has been successful in this regard. In 2019, he recruited 23 freshmen wrestlers. But in the years since, the pandemic has posed an obstacle to this objective.

Faced with a statewide mandate that required high-school athletes to wear masks at practice and in competition, along with a number of other pandemic-related restrictions, only one freshman tried out for the team in 2020. The size of his squad was cut almost in half, from about 50 wrestlers pre-pandemic to fewer than 30 in the midst of it. Killingsworth blames the masks.

“I’m out trying to recruit freshmen who have never been on the mat to get into my program, and those kids don’t want to wear a mask,” he said. “It’s hard enough anyway to get them on the mat. So, wearing a mask while they’re trying to learn the sport for them was a no-go.”

For two seasons now, Killingsworth — who in addition to being a wrestling coach is also a public-health consultant and former health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — has been petitioning state officials to grant a mask exception for wrestlers. He is part of a growing chorus of high-school coaches, athletes, parents, and health professionals who are saying enough is enough to the continued masking of student athletes. These advocates argue that the masks are unnecessary and impractical distractions, and that there’s little evidence to suggest that they actually slow the spread of Covid-19.

An even bigger concern, as Killingsworth found out, is that the masks can serve as a disincentive for kids to participate in high-school athletics at all; they can essentially close an on-ramp to a potentially lifelong appreciation for exercise, hard work, and healthy living.

Killingsworth noted that even before the pandemic, American kids were growing up in environments that promote sedentary behavior and engineer out physical activity. The pandemic exacerbated that, encouraging kids to stay home by themselves in front of screens. A CDC study from September showed the consequences: Children and teens packed on weight at an alarming rate during the pandemic. Keeping children home and inactive as a Covid-avoidance strategy resulted in more of them joining America’s already bulging population of overweight and sedentary kids, which only renders them more vulnerable to the virus.

“When we look at teenagers adopting lifelong behaviors, this is where they begin instilling those behaviors that are very difficult to change as they get older,” Killingsworth said. “Now we’ve only reinforced the concept of them sitting on their butt, not being involved.”

Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, a private-practice physician, epidemiologist, and associate researcher in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of California–Davis, said that masks for athletes create more problems than they’re worth.

 

“Because we don’t know what the worth is,” she said. “We have no studies that show us that they’re effective at preventing Covid transmission, and in fact we have studies that show us they are not effective. If they are (effective), the effect is so small that we can’t detect it.”

‘I Couldn’t Breathe. It Was Terrible.’

It’s unclear exactly how many states, cities, and school districts still require high-school athletes to wear masks while practicing and competing, but many still do, particularly in blue and northeastern states. Delaware, New York, and Connecticut are among the states that still require most high-school athletes to mask up while competing indoors.

 

 

The Illinois Department of Health’s Sports Safety Guidance requires masks for indoor-sports training and competition for “individuals aged 2 years and older who can medically tolerate a mask, regardless of vaccination status.” The California Department of Public Health requires masks for athletes who compete in indoor sports, “even during heavy exertion, as practicable.”

There is no statewide masking requirement in Maine, but most local districts have implemented their own mandates. As Maine moves into its winter playoffs, athletes will be required to wear masks while competing indoors, in accordance with recommendations from Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, per Michael Burnham, executive director of the Maine Principals’ Association.

 

For John Shea, one of Maine’s top high-school basketball players, masks have been a source of frustration for two years now. There was more acceptance last season, before vaccines were widely available, said Shea, who attends Edward Little High School in Auburn.

 

 

“This year, I think people are starting to get tired of it,” he said.

When they are worn correctly, over the nose and mouth, the masks make it harder to breathe, Shea said. But, he added, “no one wears them correctly,” as they easily slip down, and regularly get ripped off during games. He estimates that in a recent game he had to replace his mask at least four times because they fell off, got sweaty, or broke.

A photo of Shea’s drive to the basket as he scored his 1,000th career point last month shows that most of the players on the court had their masks below their noses. Shea said the masks are just for show at this point. “The masks aren’t doing much,” he said. “They’re kind of just an accessory.”

Bridget Shea, John’s mom, said referees enforce the mask requirements sporadically and inconsistently. She said she doesn’t hear a lot of grumbling about the masks anymore, they’ve seemingly just become part of Maine’s high-school sports environment.

“I think everybody pretty much thinks it’s ridiculous,” she said. “The kids aren’t really wearing them the way they’re supposed to. They’re down around their chin.”

Attempts by National Review to reach the Edward Little High athletic director on the phone and via email were unsuccessful.

John Shea basketball mask John Shea, a senior on Maine’s Edward Little High School basketball team, said masks have become an annoyance during games, but “no one wears them correctly.” (Ram MacDonough)

Michael Dowd, the wrestling coach at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., said masks fall off all the time in practice and during matches. He thinks wrestlers unconsciously pull them down to catch their breath, and he and his assistants regularly remind them to pull the masks back up. Some referees are bigger sticklers for mask etiquette than others. He said he’s seen wrestlers not finish their moves because they’re adjusting their mask instead.

One of Dowd’s wrestlers had a panic attack that he said he attributes to wearing a mask.

“I remember wrestling as a kid and just getting a feeling of claustrophobia if I was getting pinned. And for a kid who’s getting pinned and has a mask over their face, I have these freshmen coming to me in tears, like, ‘I couldn’t breathe. It was terrible,’” Dowd said. “You feel like you’re going to die out there anyway without a mask. And so throw a mask on, I can’t imagine.”

Dowd recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News calling for an end to arbitrary Covid rules and a return to normality for high-school wrestlers. Masking wrestlers, he said, is completely ineffective and provides “absolutely zero” protection. “This is different than going to the supermarket,” he said.

They’re not wearing N95s out there,” Dowd added. “I’ve been saying all along, just show me the science. If you show me the science that, believe it or not, it does help, then I’ll back away in a second and say ‘Okay.’ But to me, this is just like some bureaucrat trying to show that they’re doing something to make it safer.”

A Scientific Void

Masking proponents tend to fall back on recommendations from the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which still calls for masks for athletes in most indoor sports, and for unvaccinated athletes training or competing outdoors. The AAP does not recommend masks for water sports, like swimming and diving, or for gymnastics, tumbling, and wrestling, because they can become choking hazards and can block athletes’ vision.

As several Democratic governors begin to once again roll back indoor-mask mandates, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky continues to push back, telling Reuters this week that “now is not the moment” to drop universal masking in schools and other public places.

Proponents of masking athletes also have pointed to some studies that have found that for healthy people, wearing a mask doesn’t have a substantial impact on exercise performance. But those studies were based on controlled exercise environments, not unruly sporting events, and they didn’t look at the effectiveness of masking kids in sports as a Covid-mitigation strategy.

A study published in January that did look at Covid-19 spread among high-school athletes found a “lack of significant benefit demonstrated for face mask use.” The study, which involved more than 30,000 Wisconsin high-school athletes from more than 200 schools in the fall of 2020, found “no significant associations” between Covid incidence and face-mask use during play.

That study came on the heels of a groundbreaking CDC study in May that found no statistically significant benefit from requiring students to wear masks in the classroom.

Høeg, the private-practice physician, epidemiologist, and researcher, was involved in a study of Covid transmission within a Virginia youth-hockey program in November 2020. The hockey players didn’t wear masks while playing, in part because the masks fogged up the goggles of players who wore eye protection. “There was actually no transmission on the ice during our study period, even during a time of high community spread,” Høeg said.

Høeg noted that the World Health Organization warns against wearing masks during “vigorous physical activity” because they can reduce breathing capacity. She said she’s seen no strong evidence that wearing masks while participating in sports is an effective strategy for preventing coronavirus transmission.

“Kids only have a limited amount of time where they are exposed or able to get into certain sports. It can be totally life-changing for them in terms of opening up opportunities and creating lifelong habits of exercising,” said Høeg, who pointed out that political leaders and public-health officials responded to the pandemic by shutting down youth sports and closing doors to other opportunities for exercise in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

“Now we’re just prolonging the problem with requiring kids to wear masks,” she said. “Kids are not going to want to keep going back to a sport if they think it’s uncomfortable and they don’t like being there.”

Feeling Safe vs. Being Safe

Early in the pandemic, before the 2020–21 wrestling season, Killingsworth conducted his own study in conjunction with the National Wrestling Coaches Association to see if wrestlers who train and compete without facial coverings were more likely to contract Covid-19. The study involved 690 wrestlers in five states who regularly competed in tournaments where no facial coverings were required. Over three months in the summer of 2020, only seven of the wrestlers tested positive for the coronavirus, well under the national average for positivity at the time, according to a summary of the study.

Killingsworth said the study was evidence that masking high-school wrestlers is unnecessary. “This population in general has a very high resilience to viral positivity and spread anyway,” he said. The study was used as part of the “Return to Wrestling” guidelines proposed by Delaware coaches in November of 2020. The guidelines recommended allowing wrestlers to return to practice and competition without masking requirements. That didn’t happen.

Killingsworth tried again last fall to convince state athletic authorities to allow wrestlers in Delaware to practice and compete without masks, pointing out wording in Democratic governor John Carney’s emergency order that offers an exemption to masking during activities where they are “not feasible, such as swimming.”

In December, Killingsworth filed a legal complaint with the Delaware Department of Education. It was denied. In a letter, Christine Alois, Delaware’s acting secretary of education, wrote that high-school wrestlers wore masks in matches last year, so therefore “it is feasible for student-athletes to safely compete while wearing masks.”

Killingsworth called that line of reasoning “ridiculous.” Just because masks were required last year doesn’t mean they are “feasible” as an effective anti-Covid measure. The masks come down and fall off during training and competitions. They encourage wrestlers to touch their faces. They distract the athletes while they are competing. Athletes suck in the masks when they breathe. And teens – not generally known as their rule-following anyway – get creative, in some cases poking holes in their masks to let more air through, and wearing loose fitting masks that don’t seal their faces, Killingsworth said.

Another, more disgusting problem: The masks get dirty and keep bacteria and fungus on wrestlers’ faces. “I’ve had a higher incidence of facial skin infections this year, from mat herpes to impetigo to ring worm on the face than I have had Covid in the room,” Killingsworth said.

Killingsworth said it’s clear the masks don’t work as an effective anti-Covid intervention.

“It’s eye candy. It looks good, but logically it fails,” he said. “It’s kind of an age-old public-health tactic, which is the idea of keeping people feeling safe.”

Public-health experts, Killingsworth argued, shouldn’t use deception as an intervention tactic.

“We’re not serving the public well here,” he said. “If we’re going to allow them to play, allow them to play in the uniform as intended, versus a facial covering that does nothing to prevent the spread of Covid.”

 

Forcing basketball players to wear masks is bad enough, but wrestlers as well? Frankly that is inhumane.

 

 

Edited by Muda69
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2 hours ago, swordfish said:

And so it begins.......Having predicted the drawdown of mask requirements and all the other Covid Panic issues to start in March of 2022, seeing the start.....

273807417_343564977781826_7061485174851997441_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=1XwQBNCNqQ4AX9i4OOs&tn=pNnQpbD0Fb-4zMJ4&_nc_ht=scontent.find2-1.fna&oh=00_AT-OaO_NpaBYxjC5QeevcpetO9KErRowChhgBti81dGmqg&oe=620FE74F

yep.  simple.  because their complete, draconian, communist/power hungry ways is getting overthrown.

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covid-19-veteran-removable-patch-506374_5000x.jpg.f45f86c91e1a65af340ffa6fa0415d6e.jpg

So on January 26, a fully vaccinated co-worker entered Mrs. SF's office coughing and hacking claiming she didn't have Covid since she was vaccinated.  (Never mind her grand kids were positive, and she had them staying at her place, she then later tested positive)  So started the SF run with Covid-19.  By the Weekend (3 days) the onset of symptoms began and both the SF's got tested and were positive.  SF's lifetime of travels all over the country and Canada had my immune system on point.  I was ill (about like the flu with more aches than usual) for about a day and a half.  Mrs. SF had the same but developed a persistent cough that lasted through the following week.  Our doctor prescribed a z-pack for her and recommended the Monoclonal Antibodies treatment.  Both the Elkhart and the Goshen hospitals receive a limited supply, so she was on the list, but not chosen.  Come Sunday morning, her oxygen level dipped below 90%, so on the doctor's orders, I took her to the ER.

Pneumonia was the diagnosis, and I was pissed.  She had waited over a week for the MA transfusion, but was not "bad enough" so now she is admitted to the hospital where she spent the next 5 days, was treated with Remdesivir and various other meds &  steroids (which thankfully she responded well to) just released on Friday. 

We are not "anti-vax", but she has had a chronic lung condition (sarcoidosis) for over 3 years and based on our doctor's recommendation she did not get vaccinated.  (neither did I, even though I have every intention to before I get back on the road to tend to my Canada business).  We plan to after the recommended 3-6 month span after having Covid.

I was surprised at the array of precautions or non-precautions and PPE each different nurse and doctor exercised, from total gowns and masks to nothing but a mask considering it was Covid based care.  It seemed like and the attending doctor confirmed we know it's a virus - and that's it.  "We are still learning as we go - kinda like the flu, only worse in some cases".  

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Mrs IO just finished her second go around with COVID. She is vax’d per her doctors orders, and had her first case late October. She got to go back to work from the second round 1/31. She has had a persistent cough since her first case. It has finally gotten better in the last week or so, but she’s still hitting the cough syrup occasionally. 
Sue was pretty fortunate in that she was never really sick with it. Her second bout she did say she had a headache for several days. Mrs IO had the antibody infusion the first time but it wa not offered the second time. I read in the mean time the “government” has suspended shipments of the antibody meds during a changeover to an updated version.  It was reported that the new meds were in fairly short supply initially and they were saving for the most at risk people. 
During Mrs IO’s latest case, both little IO’s along with one girlfriend all had it. None related as we hadn’t been around each other. Best of luck to your wife, you might look into “long haul COVID”. 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10537161/CDC-refusing-publish-data-collected-booster-effectiveness-aged-18-49.html

CDC is refusing to publish data it has collected on booster effectiveness for 33 MILLION Americans aged 18-49 over fears it might show the vaccines as ineffective: FDA expert tells CDC to 'tell the truth'

  • Two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published data about the effectiveness of boosters against COVID-19
  • The CDC failed to publish a tranche of their data, however - omitting the impact on those aged 18-49, who are least likely to benefit from boosters
  • The CDC are also being criticized for failing to publish their information about child hospitalization rates and comorbidities
  • A spokeswoman for the CDC said they were concerned that the data would be misinterpreted, pointing out that it was incomplete and not verified
  • Critics said that it was always better to publish the information rather than withhold, and allow scientists to analyze and explain what they could 

 

Why wouldn't the CDC release the data?  Perhaps the same reason the drug companies want the vaccine testing data confidential for 70 years.......

https://www.c-span.org/video/?465845-1/universal-flu-vaccine&playEvent

 

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On 2/22/2022 at 8:41 AM, swordfish said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10537161/CDC-refusing-publish-data-collected-booster-effectiveness-aged-18-49.html

CDC is refusing to publish data it has collected on booster effectiveness for 33 MILLION Americans aged 18-49 over fears it might show the vaccines as ineffective: FDA expert tells CDC to 'tell the truth'

  • Two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published data about the effectiveness of boosters against COVID-19
  • The CDC failed to publish a tranche of their data, however - omitting the impact on those aged 18-49, who are least likely to benefit from boosters
  • The CDC are also being criticized for failing to publish their information about child hospitalization rates and comorbidities
  • A spokeswoman for the CDC said they were concerned that the data would be misinterpreted, pointing out that it was incomplete and not verified
  • Critics said that it was always better to publish the information rather than withhold, and allow scientists to analyze and explain what they could 

 

Why wouldn't the CDC release the data?  Perhaps the same reason the drug companies want the vaccine testing data confidential for 70 years.......

https://www.c-span.org/video/?465845-1/universal-flu-vaccine&playEvent

 

Thank you.  Been saying it for almost 2 years.  IYKYK

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542309/Fresh-lab-leak-fears-study-finds-genetic-code-Covids-spike-protein-linked-Moderna-patent.html

More evidence Covid was tinkered with in a lab? Now scientists find virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began

  • Genetic match discovered in Covid's unique furin cleavage site on spike protein
  • Matched genetic sequence patented by Moderna for cancer research purposes
  • Researchers say one in 3trillion chance Covid developed the code naturally 

By CONNOR BOYD DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 12:48 EST, 23 February 2022 UPDATED: 03:55 EST, 24 February 2022

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein.

They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.   

The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally.  

The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab.

They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. 

But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'. 

SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid, carries all the information needed for it to spread in around 30,000 letters of genetic code, known as RNA. The virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna. Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome

SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid, carries all the information needed for it to spread in around 30,000 letters of genetic code, known as RNA. The virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna. Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome

54562479-0-image-a-42_1645638343665.jpg
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View gallery

In the latest study, published in Frontiers in Virology, researchers compared Covid's makeup to millions of sequenced proteins on an online database.

The virus is made up of 30,000 letters of genetic code that carry the information it needs to spread, known as nucleotides.

It is the only coronavirus of its type to carry 12 unique letters that allow its spike protein to be activated by a common enzyme called furin, allowing it to spread between human cells with ease. 

Analysis of the original Covid genome found the virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna, which has a total of 3,300 nucleotides.

The US-based pharmaceutical firm filed the patent in February 2016 as part of its cancer research division, records show.

The patented sequence is part of a gene called MSH3 that is known to affect how damaged cells repair themselves in the body. 

Scientists have highlighted this pathway as a potential target for new cancer treatments.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome. 

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.   

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation. 

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

'Sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it's the result of convergent evolution (when organisms evolve independently to have similar traits to adapt to their environment).

'It's a quirky observation but I wouldn't call it a smoking gun because it's too small.

He added: 'It doesn't get us any further with the debate about whether Covid was engineered.'  

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Reading University, questioned whether the find was as rare as the study claims.

He told MailOnline: 'There can only be a certain number of [genetic combinations within] furin cleavage sites.

'They function like a lock and key in the cell, and the two only fit together in a limited number of combinations. 

'So it's an interesting coincidence but this is surely entirely coincidental.' 

MailOnline has approached Moderna for comment. 

Circumstantial evidence has long raised questions about the origin of Covid and its link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The facility was known to be conducting experiments on bat coronavirus strains similar to the one responsible for the pandemic.

China insisted early and often that the virus did not leak from the lab, claiming that crossover to humans must have occurred at a 'wet market' in Wuhan that sold live animals.

Perhaps driven by animosity for then-US President Donald Trump, who embraced the lab leak theory early on, mainstream media and academics in the West heaped scorn on the possibility, calling it an unhinged conspiracy theory.

But leaked emails showed that top scientists advising the UK and US Governments expressed concerns about the official narrative privately. 

A study earlier this month found traces of Covid samples that contained genetical material from humans, hamsters and monkeys and may have predated the official pandemic timeline.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, an eminent British expert who publicly denounced the theory as a 'conspiracy', admitted in a private email in February 2020 that a 'likely explanation' was that the virus was man-made.

The then-UK Government adviser said at the time he was '70:30 or 60:40' in favour of an accidental release versus natural origin.

In the email, sent to American health chiefs Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins, Sir Jeremy said it was possible Covid had been evolved from a Sars-like virus in the lab.

He went on that this seemingly benign process may have 'accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans'.

But the British scientist was shut down by his counterparts in the US who warned further debate about the origins of the virus could damage 'international harmony'. 

So - a unique gene PATENTED by Moderna in 2016 is found in Covid-19 and turns out it is the link between animals and humans ....... AND a "1 in 3 trillion" chance this gene was natural is now characterized as a "quirky coincidence" by the scientists .......

Nevermind - Ukraine!!!......Bad Putin......

A convenient coincidental distraction to the stories of Hillary Clinton funding the Russian hoax, Hunter Biden in court, Ghislaine Maxwell......

In 2016, Bill Gates Foundation gave a 20 million dollar grant to Moderna toward developing MRNA based treatments. That same year, Moderna filed a patent for a DNA sequence. Scientists just discovered that part of that sequence is in Covid-19 virus.

 

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On 2/25/2022 at 12:58 PM, swordfish said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542309/Fresh-lab-leak-fears-study-finds-genetic-code-Covids-spike-protein-linked-Moderna-patent.html

More evidence Covid was tinkered with in a lab? Now scientists find virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began

  • Genetic match discovered in Covid's unique furin cleavage site on spike protein
  • Matched genetic sequence patented by Moderna for cancer research purposes
  • Researchers say one in 3trillion chance Covid developed the code naturally 

By CONNOR BOYD DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 12:48 EST, 23 February 2022 UPDATED: 03:55 EST, 24 February 2022

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein.

They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.   

The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally.  

The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab.

They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. 

But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'. 

SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid, carries all the information needed for it to spread in around 30,000 letters of genetic code, known as RNA. The virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna. Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome

SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid, carries all the information needed for it to spread in around 30,000 letters of genetic code, known as RNA. The virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna. Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome

54562479-0-image-a-42_1645638343665.jpg
+3
View gallery

In the latest study, published in Frontiers in Virology, researchers compared Covid's makeup to millions of sequenced proteins on an online database.

The virus is made up of 30,000 letters of genetic code that carry the information it needs to spread, known as nucleotides.

It is the only coronavirus of its type to carry 12 unique letters that allow its spike protein to be activated by a common enzyme called furin, allowing it to spread between human cells with ease. 

Analysis of the original Covid genome found the virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna, which has a total of 3,300 nucleotides.

The US-based pharmaceutical firm filed the patent in February 2016 as part of its cancer research division, records show.

The patented sequence is part of a gene called MSH3 that is known to affect how damaged cells repair themselves in the body. 

Scientists have highlighted this pathway as a potential target for new cancer treatments.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome. 

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.   

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation. 

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

'Sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it's the result of convergent evolution (when organisms evolve independently to have similar traits to adapt to their environment).

'It's a quirky observation but I wouldn't call it a smoking gun because it's too small.

He added: 'It doesn't get us any further with the debate about whether Covid was engineered.'  

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Reading University, questioned whether the find was as rare as the study claims.

He told MailOnline: 'There can only be a certain number of [genetic combinations within] furin cleavage sites.

'They function like a lock and key in the cell, and the two only fit together in a limited number of combinations. 

'So it's an interesting coincidence but this is surely entirely coincidental.' 

MailOnline has approached Moderna for comment. 

Circumstantial evidence has long raised questions about the origin of Covid and its link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The facility was known to be conducting experiments on bat coronavirus strains similar to the one responsible for the pandemic.

China insisted early and often that the virus did not leak from the lab, claiming that crossover to humans must have occurred at a 'wet market' in Wuhan that sold live animals.

Perhaps driven by animosity for then-US President Donald Trump, who embraced the lab leak theory early on, mainstream media and academics in the West heaped scorn on the possibility, calling it an unhinged conspiracy theory.

But leaked emails showed that top scientists advising the UK and US Governments expressed concerns about the official narrative privately. 

A study earlier this month found traces of Covid samples that contained genetical material from humans, hamsters and monkeys and may have predated the official pandemic timeline.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, an eminent British expert who publicly denounced the theory as a 'conspiracy', admitted in a private email in February 2020 that a 'likely explanation' was that the virus was man-made.

The then-UK Government adviser said at the time he was '70:30 or 60:40' in favour of an accidental release versus natural origin.

In the email, sent to American health chiefs Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins, Sir Jeremy said it was possible Covid had been evolved from a Sars-like virus in the lab.

He went on that this seemingly benign process may have 'accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans'.

But the British scientist was shut down by his counterparts in the US who warned further debate about the origins of the virus could damage 'international harmony'. 

So - a unique gene PATENTED by Moderna in 2016 is found in Covid-19 and turns out it is the link between animals and humans ....... AND a "1 in 3 trillion" chance this gene was natural is now characterized as a "quirky coincidence" by the scientists .......

Nevermind - Ukraine!!!......Bad Putin......

A convenient coincidental distraction to the stories of Hillary Clinton funding the Russian hoax, Hunter Biden in court, Ghislaine Maxwell......

In 2016, Bill Gates Foundation gave a 20 million dollar grant to Moderna toward developing MRNA based treatments. That same year, Moderna filed a patent for a DNA sequence. Scientists just discovered that part of that sequence is in Covid-19 virus.

 

Shhhh.  Facts hurt some people's heads.  Don't you know?  Candace Owens is a "white supremacist"?  Can't make that stuff up.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/28/democrat-charlie-crist-suddenly-decides-time-move-past-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR28nrKx0WH1e-iowCQ_kIyTAixd3Eq9ExQCEG0WuYFVU3QP4zOZhhLiyxM

Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who is vying to challenge Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in this year’s gubernatorial race in the Sunshine State, has suddenly decided that it is time to “move past” the Chinese coronavirus, over one year after DeSantis has already done so.

“It’s time to responsibly move past COVID,” the Democrat and former Florida governor said, noting that omicron is “fading” and vaccines are “plentiful.”

With that, Crist said, “we should be able to turn the page on this crisis for good. We may never eliminate COVID, but like the flu, we can live with it without a major disruption to our lives.”

“We got here because while some of our leaders played partisan politics, others got to work — and together, we all did our part. We need to keep promoting vaccines and boosters to the millions of Floridians who still haven’t gotten the shot,” he continued, overtly ignoring the work DeSantis has done in the state over the past two years, prioritizing liberty and promoting economic freedom while blue states continued to enforce mass masking and promote vaccine mandates.

“But there’s still a lot of work to do to strengthen our economy and our state. We have to help our children make up for the learning loss,” he said, failing to mention that DeSantis was among the first to reopen schools while adamantly fighting against forced masking of children in those settings.

“We have to fix the supply chain issues. We have to help workers get off the sidelines, by getting them reliable child care and sick leave,” he continued, again refusing to acknowledge that DeSantis led Florida in helping alleviate the supply chain crisis in the country by increasing the capacity of Florida’s ports.

Ignoring all of these facts, Crist inexplicably concluded that DeSantis “isn’t up to the job,” calling him a “disaster” and complaining that the Republican governor opposed Biden’s America Rescue Plan, which drastically worsened inflation.

“Instead of championing life-saving vaccines, he catered to anti-vaccine and anti-mask conspiracy theorists,” Crist claimed, touting the false narrative  — a favorite of the leftists, who routinely ignore that DeSantis prioritized vaccines for the most vulnerable but made it clear that he would respect the personal freedom of Floridians, recognizing their right to make the choice if they want the jab nor not. His lie is stunningly similar to the false narrative promoted by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who in January attacked the governor for prioritizing personal freedom throughout the pandemic.

“Governor DeSantis turned our schools into yet another political battleground, picking fights with school boards and teachers who are just trying to keep our kids safe. His presidential ambitions have resulted in school closures and disruptions all across our beautiful state,” Crist continued, essentially complaining about DeSantis championing parental rights and asserting that they should make decisions about their children’s education and health — not a faceless bureaucrat.

“I’m running so you’ll be in charge again, so you will have a governor who will work for the people… to rebuild this economy… to rebuild our schools… and to unite us again. It’s time to put political division behind us, and unify our state around our shared values,” Crist added:

 

 

 

 

Crist’s sudden shift in tone, calling to move past the coronavirus, coincides with other blue state leaders making similar calls, likely due to consistent polling showing souring opinions on the left’s handling of the pandemic.

Adding to this theory is the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), days before President Biden’s State of the Union address, also experienced a sudden change of heart, concluding that indoor masking should not be required in most parts of the country. What is more, the U.S. House of Representatives suddenly opted to drop its mask requirement, which has been in place for months, prior to Biden’s SOTU address.

DeSantis, who consistently crushes Crist in the polls, recently warned Americans about the left’s sudden “epiphany” regarding restrictions and mandates.

“So when you start to see them kind of reevaluate or say all this, just understand this. The science didn’t change. The medical science didn’t change. The political science changed. They feel the heat,” he said:

 

“They know that voters have been tired of perpetual lockdown policies. They know that they have basically offered no off ramp and they know that they’re fixing to be whooped at the polls, so that’s causing the epiphany,” DeSantis added.

DeSantis, who consistently crushes Crist in the polls, recently warned Americans about the left’s sudden “epiphany” regarding restrictions and mandates.

“So when you start to see them kind of reevaluate or say all this, just understand this. The science didn’t change. The medical science didn’t change. The political science changed. They feel the heat,” he said

Very True......

March 1, 2022 - So as we are entering year # 3 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve" (Which is also an election year) SF's previous (and long-running) prediction that March 1, 2022 would mark the end of Covid as we know and fear it today is reality.  The previous 2 weeks of news cycles have documented the decrease in case numbers, the various blue states  that are dropping restrictions, AND we have a war popping up in Europe.  Border restrictions are becoming less and SF hasn't seen Dr. Fauci around the news channels anywhere in the last 7 days.  All setting the stage for POTUS this evening to talk about Covid in the past tense.

We are now learning to live with Covid.  It has been reduced a butt-kicking flu bug, so we can just forget the past 2 years and get on with our lives today.......

Something that gained traction by a few Governors who aided in the expansion of the deaths early on.....

image.thumb.png.8d9b3799bc740eb22906e5a89c2f0728.png

Don't forget some of the stories of the past 2 years of the Hype and Horror......NY's former Governor demanding 30,000 respirators and using less than 400,

opening the convention center to create a hospital that was barely used,  https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/amid-ongoing-covid-19-pandemic-governor-cuomo-announces-statewide-public-private-hospital-plan

Convincing the President (Trump) to send the ship Comfort to NY, where only a few patients (20) were actually treated https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort.html

Creating an environment of fear to the point of some Governors actually using executive orders in place of legislatures to change voting laws prior to a presidential election that somehow (even during an overblown pandemic and crisis) was able to garner the most votes in the history of this country.  (go figure)

So as we enter year 3 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve" we can all breath easier that Covid is now gonna be over.  Or as the former President Trump once said and was immediately blasted for it ‘One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear’........

Well the "miracle" is finally here......

SF just thought it would be good to remind everyone about the past 2 years as they bleed into history.  My bout with Covid lasted a day and a half, Mrs. SF however is still feeling the effects of the pneumonia that put her in the hospital for a week, but is back to feeling almost normal.  But the miracle has arrived as evidenced by the SOTU tonight where masks will not be required anymore.   Yay!!!

 

 

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https://www.newsweek.com/us-biological-weapons-ukraine-labs-germ-warfare-1685956

As part of its latest attempts to justify its invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials are once again pushing a false narrative that the Eastern European country is developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S.

On March 6, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed it had obtained evidence Ukraine and the U.S. had collaborated to develop biological weapons.

The claim was made by Major General Igor Konashenkov and widely reported in Russian media. Konashenkov alleged that pathogens for deadly diseases such as the plague, anthrax and cholera were being created to be used for biological warfare in Ukrainian laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

 

Has anyone seen the Great and Powerful Dr. Fauci?  Guessing he would be a great guy to ask about this.......Everyone trusts him right?  Wait, did he get suicided yet?  Maybe that's where he disappeared to.....

 

 

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17 hours ago, swordfish said:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-biological-weapons-ukraine-labs-germ-warfare-1685956

As part of its latest attempts to justify its invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials are once again pushing a false narrative that the Eastern European country is developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S.

On March 6, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed it had obtained evidence Ukraine and the U.S. had collaborated to develop biological weapons.

The claim was made by Major General Igor Konashenkov and widely reported in Russian media. Konashenkov alleged that pathogens for deadly diseases such as the plague, anthrax and cholera were being created to be used for biological warfare in Ukrainian laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

 

Has anyone seen the Great and Powerful Dr. Fauci?  Guessing he would be a great guy to ask about this.......Everyone trusts him right?  Wait, did he get suicided yet?  Maybe that's where he disappeared to.....

 

 

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

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https://100percentfedup.com/happy-st-patricks-day-from-irelands-fully-vaccinated-and-boosted-prime-minister-who-just-tested-positive-for-covid-while-on-visit-to-u-s-got-test-results-while-sitting-maskless-next-to-nancy-p/

Vaxxed PM Michael Martin Infected with Covid

Despite urging his own citizens to get the booster shot in order to combat COVID-19 surges in Ireland, the Irish PM has himself contracted the disease. The Irish government has claimed under new regulations that Boosted individuals will not need to restrict movements. However, the Taoiseach himself sat maskless and knowingly exposed to COVID next to Speaker Pelosi last night. This exposure does not seem to worry Pelosi, whose spokesperson assures us that she will “test regularly and follow CDC guidelines.”

Michael-Martin-Nancy-Pelosi.jpg Martin and Pelosi at the Gala

Perhaps showing some faultiness in the tests, the Taoiseach was tested right before entering the United States and came back negative, however a member of his delegation testing positive triggered another test for Martin which came back positive as well.

Martin, much like the Democrats, has waged a crusade against the unvaccinated in Ireland, consistent only in moving goal posts to keep those double–but not triple–vaxxed removed from normal society. This is also just days after Obama, who also pushes booster jabs, tested positive for COVID-19.

A reasonable person would deduce that in both of these cases, either the person pushing for boosters is not getting them–making them a massive hypocrite–or, that the boosters do not work. In either case, if there’s one benefit in this for Martin, it’s that he didn’t have to suffer through breakfast with Kamala Harris.

FTA :  A reasonable person would deduce that in both of these cases, either the person pushing for boosters is not getting them–making them a massive hypocrite–or, that the boosters do not work.         OR - AND STAY WITH ME HERE!!  OR - This proves that ANYONE and I mean ANYONE (vaxed & boosted 5 times or not) can carry this F*@^!&@ virus.  Thats who SF and Mrs. SF caught it from - a Co-worker of Mrs. SF who was vaxed and boosted, but was with her grandkids over the weekend and she (the idiot) knew they were Covid positive.  She thought because she was vaxed, she couldn't catch it, so wasn't worried about it, just thought she had a cold.

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